The Turquoise Lantern of Thendrickel Voare

In a distant corner of the world—where cartographers' hands trembled and ink spilled in terror of what lay outside—there loomed a doorless lighthouse.

Its azure glow was a color that did not owe duty to sun or sea, but to half-remembered dreams upon waking.

The town along the coast was aware of it, but would never speak its name aloud. Children were warned away, and inquisitive visitors who asked too many questions were politely guided to the edges of town and told to travel elsewhere.

But rumors spread like roots cracking stone.

They said the lighthouse was empty. Or haunted. Or alive.

But the most interesting tale of a man who had once appeared unexpectedly, with charts he would not look at, and a name so awkward that it hung suspended in the air like incantation.

Thendrickel Voare.

He said it to me in words, like it was as normal as John or Thomas. No one had questioned him—neither from courtesy, nor because the name, having been uttered, looked like it had always existed, folded into the wrinkles of the universe.

Thendrickel was neither young, nor yet old. He wore the look of one who had gazed too long into distant distances, and hands that resembled questions with no answers.

He said he had dreamed of the lantern.

He told it that it blinked at him from the edge of a map he never drew, a beat in nothing—a turquoise throb, firm and soft.

So he went.

He walked through salt-blanched valleys and starlit plains, stepped over lands where shadows murmured his name in his ear. Birds followed him for a day, then vanished. Mountains swung open in silence.

When he reached the cliff, he did not stop.

The lighthouse lacked a door. It never had one. But Thendrickel Voare placed one hand against the stone, and the wall let him in.

Inside, the stairs ascended impossibly. No echo. No dust. Only a spiral ascending, as if into thought itself.

At the top, the lantern.

Turquoise, yes—but something greater. A light that recognized him. A warmth that demanded nothing and gave all.

It was not a lighthouse for ships.

It was for seekers.

For the lost ones who had sought so far and so long that even the stars were no longer able to lead them home. The lantern beat for them—not warning, but inviting.

A welcome.

And on the side of the lantern: a chair.

Thendrickel Voare sat.

He did not have to know. He was only where he was always bound to be.

Now, when the clouds gather and the ocean hushes as though listening, the blue lantern still soft-lit above the cliffs. 

If you keep quiet—and if your heart has wandered too far away—you can hear it call your name in the wind.

And if you stay very quiet, you may hear a lighthouse without a door.

And a person waiting inside, who will recognize exactly who you are.  Can you see the Turquoise Lantern, gleaming now through the fog?