Everyone called him Helmut the Brave, but I was to call him Master Helmut, and so I did. I knew I was his younger brother, and that my name was Gustav. I knew of my own identity, but everyone else knew me only as Helmut's page.

Though I do not know who my natural parents were, everyone, including me, assumes they were peasants. I was left in a handbasket in front of the castle of the man I came to call Father one night, so many years ago. Taking me in, he made me part of his family. I am thankful for that, but throughout my childhood I wondered if it would have been better to die as a baby in the freezing night.

Though I was taken in and raised as the son of a king, I was treated as the inferior of Helmut and his brothers and sisters, even those younger than I. While they were out becoming adults in the day, I was left to tend the animals. At night, while all slept, I cleaned the castle and all the dirty dishes in it. In my free time, I found it amusing to sit in different parts of the castle and paint pictures on slabs of stone I had found. I became quite good after a while. I also found my way one day to the library of the castle's wise teacher, Helmut's great-uncle Arn. Arn treated me no better than the others, but he did allow me to read his books, and taught me how to do that. Once again, my mind became focused on learning only one task, and I became an avid and accomplished reader. Arn's library was very small, but full of knowledge.

I had only one friend in my younger years, a slave who had been named Samuel. He was treated equally cruelly, though I believe in retrospect that he was given the cane more than I. Samuel did not know how to speak, but he played games very well and we kept each other entertained through quite a few years of dreary work. Around the time that I was of the age of ten years, Samuel died and I devoted my life to my training as a page, which had begun two years earlier. I was never expected to be more in my life than a page and servant to Helmut, but no one expected Helmut to become Helmut the Brave, hero of many kingdoms.

After my training was complete, two years after Samuel's death, Helmut left the castle to be a knight. He was sent off with a horse, some money, a bag of food, his armor and arms, and his page.

I was not ready to face the unknown lands to the south and east; the farthest I had ever gone from the castle could not have been more than ten miles, when I carried supplies for a hunting party. I was summoned to the king, who told me that it was Helmut's time to leave, and that I was of course to leave with him, and do the dull tasks fit only for a page. I ran to the stone-covered basement of the castle and hid in a corner, amongst a stack of barrels. Eventually I was found, and sent along my way, with a light beating from Helmut for trying to abandon him. It was the first of many, and in this manner I left the only home I had ever known.

After Helmut and I left the castle, we traveled south and became the first in our family to cross the great river in that direction. We traveled still further south, but very slowly, as Helmut randomly decided his direction. To him, the life of a wandering knight meant that he could go anywhere with his page in tow, and would be called upon when needed. Soon, we came to a kingdom where he received his call. The king had fallen ill from a spell cast on him by a witch living somewhere in the kingdom. He would have been more at peace with this illness if not for the fact that he had no heir; he needed to get better so that he could produce a son. No one truly knew where the witch lived, but many provided their guesses as Helmut and I made our search. After three fruitless days of searching, we were given the aid of a mage by the king. After that, we found the hag's dwelling quite quickly.

She lived under the ground, inside a hill. We found the hill and looked around it for an entrance, but we had no such luck until I tripped in the tall grass. I cleared some away to reveal a small oaken trapdoor laid in the ground. Located just at the foot of a towering pine tree almost at the top of the hill, it was hidden under the grass and in dark shade. Although the door looked very old, bleached and worn by the rain, the brass handle in it center was shiny and undented. Helmut, of course, chose that he should go bravely first, followed by the mage, and lastly by me. He lifted the handle and pulled up on the door, revealing a hole in the ground that looked like a well. Searching into darkness, Helmut came upon a rope ladder hanging inside the shaft on his side. He dropped down into it and lowered himself rung by rung. The mage followed him down, and then I lowered myself onto the ladder, clutching it with one hand and the trapdoor with the other. As soon as I shut that door, as lightly as I could for fear of alerting the witch, the three of us were plunged into darkness, the only light coming from far below us. I would have had less trouble getting down the ladder if I didn't have to wait for the aged mage below me, but the three of us soon reached the lit terminus of the ladder.

We congregated there and Helmut gave me a violent kick in the shin for closing the door so loudly. Bathed from one side by bright orange candlelight and covered in darkness on the other, my eyes were dazzled at the sight of this glowing cavern under a hill. There were assorted piles of junk around the room, but most glittered with gold. I saw about ten enormous stone columns that stretched into the shadows above until they were obscured. Helmut, stepping as quietly as one could with a sword dangling against iron armor, entered completely into the light and searched around for the witch. As he clanked across the room, he saw her sleeping on a pile of straw in one corner of the underground hall. Between the two were about four open chests, full of glittering treasure, a large oak table with scrolls and books laying haphazardly around it, and multitudinous tall candle holders. Unfortunately, Helmut only got to see the witch asleep for a few moments; she quickly jumped off her bed and stared at him with murderous eyes. He yelled, drew his sword, and charged toward her, but she was swifter than he expected. She ran out of sight to the left of my view, obscured by shadows, piles of wood, and the few vast columns that must have supported the entire hill. She soon reappeared, closer to the mage and me, and so I ran toward my brother while he ran toward the witch. She soon turned his pursuit into a game, dodging away as quickly as he spotted her, returning later in another place and starting again.

I decided that I needed to help and so went to one of the chests and found a solid pewter plate. Hiding in wait for the witch in the shadows behind one of the columns, I gripped the plate with sweaty hands. She soon passed by me, and I threw the plate at her head. My aim dead on, she dropped to the ground, but was soon back up and upon me. She chased me back into the light, grabbed one of the tall candle holders, and hurled it toward my head, candles blazing and dripping in the front. They landed on their mark and burned my hair, but I soon put it out by covering my head with the treasures in one of the chests. Grabbing yet another solid plate, I ran after and outmaneuvered her, having her soon close by. I let the plate fly; it contacted her skull, and she was dead in an instant. This whole time that I was pursued by and pursuing the witch, Helmut sat near the mage and laughed. When he heard her scream, though, he came running. He pushed me to the side, raised his great sword, and sliced her head straight off. We made our way back to the ladder, Helmut carrying the gory head, and went straight into town. It was now dusk as Helmut showed everyone "his" accomplishment. The king invited him to have a great feast, but the mage and I were left outside.

The mage, not yet having spoken a word since he was brought to us, whispered in an old voice to follow him into his room in the castle. He lived in a small, secluded part of the castle with a withered tree hanging over its roof. Shuffling around in near darkness, he soon came upon what he wanted, and handed it to me. "I saw how it was your work that saved the king," he said. "Take this as protection in later battles." I could barely make it out in the dusty shadows, but I held in my hand a helmet. He bid me farewell and I left the castle, examining the helmet as soon as I was out. I could tell it was old from its simple design, but it was very highly polished. As it was now one of my few worldly possessions, I determined to take good care of it. I found a patch of grass in the town square and fell asleep.

Helmut came out of the castle just after dawn, still madly drunk from the previous night's celebration. He came over to me, muttered something, gave me a sharp kick in the side, and pulled me roughly up off the ground. We left the kingdom, traveling east, and quickly came upon more troubled nations. Almost every time a battle was to be fought, I was an integral part of Helmut's success, but I was never recognized, never appreciated. Helmut came to adopt a regular schedule on which to beat me, and I dropped into a long period of quiet depression. I fasted for many days, but I eventually decided that I needed to change my situation.

There came a day when Helmut faced the demon king Lothar at his castle. Certainly the wrong day to confront a demon, the sun hung high in a cloudless sky. Helmut came upon him in his dining room, where he sat alone at the end of a long table. Lothar's dark bulk seemed no different sitting down than when he spotted Helmut and jumped out of his chair. Soon the two were fighting around the room, Helmut faced against a dark being twice his height. I stayed behind after Lothar and Helmut left the room and grabbed the large knife with which the monster had been eating.

Battling up the stairs to the flat roof of his castle, Lothar's giant claws clanked against Helmut's long sword. I followed them out onto the roof, where Lothar gained the upper hand by dodging around the spires and towers that jutted from below. He again and again pounced upon Helmut from the sides of towers, landing in a great noise and cloud of dust. Luckily for Helmut, he eventually caught on to the fiend's tactics. As Helmut walked past one of the spires, Lothar leapt off it, but met a sword coming down. Impaled through the stomach, he fell to the ground, where Helmut prepared to finish him off.

My plans were being followed perfectly, so I snuck up behind my weary adopted brother. Just as he killed Lothar, I stabbed him in the back with the knife. He spun around quickly with sword in hand just to see me turn and run from him. Tiles on the roof broke away beneath my pounding footsteps as the raging man, who was known by all as a hero, pursued me, the only one with knowledge of his true character. As one slate shingle broke off, I slipped and flew headlong to the very edge of the roof. I stared dizzily down toward the ravaged, muddy ground four stories below. Helmut, always slightly slower than me for his armor, was only a bit behind. He heaved his sword from his side with fiery eyes, raised it over his head, and let out a yell of rage. Just as he was about to plunge the sword into me, I took off my helmet and reflected the bright sun straight into his eyes, just as I had planned. Given the chance as he briefly lifted his arm to the glare, I kicked out my legs, tripping him, and grabbed his enormous blade. This time, he was on the ground below me, and I the one now clutching the sword. I spared only a moment before I let it fall, looking quickly into Helmut's unforgiving eyes for the last time he was alive. The sword dropped its point straight through his heart, and my suffering was over.