The jackal-headed chimera’s growl drew Baba’s line of sight to the dream catcher.
Oil bled from the pupil of the dreaming eye as if it was crying black tears.
“Another chimera?” Baba stepped closer and peered up at the crying eye. She dove her hand into the dripping oil, coating her fingers. She placed her stained fingers to her lips and licked them clean. “No... Something else...”
A golden eye opened where the woven dream catcher’s eye was, consuming it. Hundreds of crows rushed out, escaping in a swarm of black smoke. The crows darted between Baba and her two chimera slaves. They swatted helplessly as the crows drove them to the ground. The flock rose to the sky and blanketed the moon in complete darkness before scattering into the night.
Baba picked herself off the ground and patted the dust from her dream cloak. “Was that an actual soul? No, something much darker... a hungry ghost. In all my years, this is the first time I have ever seen one before, but its presence is unmistakable.”
“My wings...” Sharon said, rising from the cage floor, her body weak and her mind still fuzzy. Her memories came flooding back to her all at once. The first images were those of her mother, Grace. Then more images came to her in flashing bursts: her high school, the basement and the mirror, the temple and snowy forest, the cabin and the ruins. More faces came to her as well: Morrie, Michelle, Joy, the man with the skull mask, and the Crow Boy. Slowly, she put the pieces and faces back together and reformed a narrative free of fuzzy, muddled dreams. She was back in Tuat. Her memories of the dream world all a lie, illusions, fabrications, yet… “Why do I still have wings?” She clutched her new feathered accessories before flexing them out. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m out of the Dreamtime.”
“Don’t worry, child,” said Baba, walking over to Sharon. “You’ll forget yourself soon enough. Those who drink from the waters that flow from the Tree of Life and travel into the Dreamtime are reborn as chimeras. Though most would’ve lost their humanity by now,” she mused. “You must have a guardian angel. Somewhere up there.” She peered at the night sky. “Or, in your case, a hungry ghost.”
“A hungry ghost?” she asked.
“Your crow friends, or friend,” replied Baba. “Though its form was legion, that does not necessarily mean there was more than one.”
“So, he’s a... What the hell is a hungry ghost?”
“Curious, you’ve been traveling with such a creature and you don’t even know a thing about it?”
“Tell me,” Sharon pleaded. “Please.”
“Very well. They are soulless beings trapped between the realms of the living and the dead. Cursed. Never satisfied. Never at peace. Always hungry. Always thirsty. Always alone. Always suffering—one way or the other. Ghosts driven by chaotic minds and forever trapped in dreams.”
“How do you know so much?”
Baba laughed boastfully. “Give me some credit, child. I am a god, after all. There is little in this world or the next I don’t know about.”
“You’re a god too? You mean like Khaba?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Sharon sized her up. At an unimpressive four-messily-feet-tall Baba was nothing compared with the towering eight-foot-tall lizard king. “You don’t look like a god to me. Khaba was—”
“—frightening, yes,” Baba said, finishing Sharon’s sentence for her. “But he is not the original god of rock and sand. Khaba is a product of reincarnation.”
“Reincarnation? You mean like the story of the wolf and the unicorn?”
“I see you are well-versed in that myth,” said Baba. “Yes, like in the story, souls often return to this plane of existence. Searching for their true purpose. But my soul has never left. Would you like to know why?” She raised her chin and smirked as she jabbed her thumb against her chest. “Because I am the original.”
“Original...”
“Yes, everything else you see here came from another planet. You humans, the pigs, and even the plant creatures migrated here using the mirrors. But me? I was here long before the Mirror Guardians came. Long before the mountains and rivers formed. Long before we ‘gods’ gained our title. And I will be here long after you humans wither and die.” Baba bared her teeth and flickered her black tongue.
Sharon scooted to the opposite end of the cage. Her heart raced as she folded her wings inward, shielding herself from Baba. “What the hell are you?”
Baba let out a cruel, maddening cackle. “Why don’t you guess?” She signaled to her chimera slaves with a crack of the whip and the caravan took off down the dirt trail.
Sharon shook the iron bars like the caged animal she now was, powerless as the caravan entered the deep dark woods.
***
The Cloaked Man awoke from his meditation, violently gasping for air. The world around him was dark and empty.
The darkness melted away and the flames of a dozen surrounding red wax candles and torches bled through. They brought forth a demonic glow, corrupting the temple room into a devil’s séance.
The Cloaked Man calmed himself, taking in long deep breaths to soothe his hyperventilation. He unfolded his legs and lurched to his feet.
“I miscalculated with the crow. I never expected...” He stopped, gazing down at his hands to discover they were trembling. He quieted them by clenching them into fists. The pain from Sharon’s dream-shattering scream still lingered. Dream or not—the mind made it real. “To think he hid his true intentions even from me. A most troublesome hungry ghost. I’ll have to find another way to reach her.”
He rose to his feet. His reflection distorted on a large glass ball in the center of the room, a giant snow globe of sorts. A red painted circle surrounded the glass structure. A circle of protection painted in blood. Meant to ward off evil. Or contain it. He stepped forward and placed his hand against the glass. Ice crystals formed on the other side of the globe, spreading from his fingers like black dye filling the translucent veins of a beating heart. He wiped the frost from the glass in a single stroke.
The globe’s blurry insides became visible. A woman draped in an old weathered and ragged wedding dress sat sobbing inside over a patch of virgin white snow. Her face was hidden behind a veil and buried in her hands.
“Any ideas, my Undead Bride?” the Cloaked Man asked, peering at her with red glowing eyes.
She gave no response. Only continued weeping as the snow sprinkled down upon her, blanketing her frail form. The snowstorm inside intensified. The blizzard outside the temple followed suit. Both matching her sorrow and grief.
“I suppose it makes no difference how I reach her. All that matters is that she accepts her fate. For she is the vessel that will carry on the flame. My legacy. My hate.” He stepped to the window and observed the snowstorm raging outside. “Finally, the pieces have all been gathered. Now I just have to set them in motion. As the spread of the ice continues to accelerate, it’s only a matter of time before the rats no longer have a hole to cower in. Then, my Undead Bride, there shall be a reckoning.”
***
Baba’s lantern pierced the darkness, illuminating the twisting path ahead. Her two oxen drove their heads low to the mud and dirt, tasting the stale fog and reclaiming the trail to home’s scent. They slavishly pulled the caravan onward. Baba’s whip their sole motivation. Home was near and she could taste it. The thought of dinner made her mouth salivate and her stomach rumble with anticipation. Tonight, she would feast on magic. Tonight, she would become an eater of dreams once more.
The scent of the wind changed, and Baba’s face contorted in response. Her gaze shifted to the trees. Ahead of her, the crow perched on a branch above the path. The crow peered down at her with eyes of black glass, mirroring her dark distorted image as she passed.
“Have you come to haunt me, little one?” asked Baba. “I wonder what has chained you to this place. To that girl. What is so important about her that you would forsake the higher planes of the afterlife and even reincarnation?”
&nb
sp; The crow gave no answer, provoking Baba in his silence.
“You’re nothing but a bad omen.” Baba spat. “Neither living nor dead. A curse... A blithe upon all that you touch.”
Still, the crow gave no response to her insults. His silence more than she could bear.
She exposed her teeth and blackened gums. “Your folly was your eagerness to get her out of the Dreamtime. You took the quickest route out and, in doing so, you fell for my bait. Like a brainless fish swimming upstream with the currents, pushing onward on pure instinct alone.” She lowered her jaw, letting her mouth gape open as if she was a basking crocodile. “She’s mine now.”
The crow taunted her with his frozen glare.
Baba, like a stalking cat, returned the stare. Then—after a brief moment—her eyelids widened, rising as the revelation hit her.
“You’re stalling,” she hissed, pulling back on the oxen reigns.
***
Sharon peered through the rising mist at a white lion asleep in the cage behind her. The beast slept dreaming peaceful dreams. Its chest expanded and contracted in soothing rhythms. A goat’s head protruded from its back and its tail was a snake. Ahead of her, a fawn creature with the head and legs of a goat and the chest and arms of a human slept next to a harpy with huge wings and talons. What the hell are these poor creatures? Were they once human like me? Did they once have names and families?
The caravan halted in an abrupt jerk, knocking Sharon to the floor. She rose to her knees and raised her head. There she spotted the Crow Boy standing in front of her.
He peered at her through the iron bars, his jet-black hair catching in the wind. The moonlight reflected off his naked white skin, setting him ablaze with a heavenly glow.
She gasped. “It’s you...”
He placed his index finger over his lips, signaling her to be quiet.
She nodded.
He slid out a black dagger from his mouth. The blade stretched from his lips like a serpent’s tongue. Before she could protest—he slit his own wrists.
She drew back, her heart sinking into her stomach.
Black blood poured in two steady streams. The Crow Boy’s face was expressionless, greeting the pain with indifference. His gaze fell to the blood pooling in the mud.
She mirrored him. What the hell are you trying to tell me? Her mouth widened as the pool of blood took the shape of a horse. No. It has a horn. A unicorn. But why?
“Girl,” Baba shouted as she hobbled over to Sharon’s cage, moving as fast as her old bones would permit. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” asked Sharon.
“Don’t play dumb with me, girl. Your winged devil. What are you two planning?”
“You’re crazy,” Sharon scoffed. “Where are you taking me? Why am I being caged like some animal?”
Baba ignored her, turning her attention to the pool of black-soaked mud. She ruffled her brow as she tried to decipher any information from the ink blot. But no matter which way she looked at it, no image came to her. She kicked the mud in frustration and erased the image of the unicorn. “Wretched little devil.”
“What are you going to do to me?” Sharon yelled, taking hold of the iron bars and rattling them with all her might.
“What all monsters do—child—devour and consume.” Baba glided her tongue over her sharp teeth, licking them spotless.
Sharon went pale. “You’re going to eat me?”
“More specifically the magic within you, girl.”
“I think I’m narrowing it down,” said Sharon. “Which god you might be.”
“Oh?”
“Since I’ve already met the lizard and the unicorn.”
Baba’s eyes lit up.
“You have to be one of the last three: the shark, the wolf, or the dragon.”
Baba’s expression dropped like a stone. “You’ve met the unicorn?”
“Well, seen her anyways.”
“Where?” Baba grabbed hold of the bars of the cage. “Tell me.”
Sharon grinned at her. So that was the crow’s plan. She had her. “Now, why should I do that?”
Baba drew back, releasing the bars from her wrinkled old grip. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“I know you are,” said Baba. “There’s no way you could have seen one. The last unicorn died long ago. Their species wiped out. You humans saw to that. Hunting them to extinction.”
“So what? Maybe one has been reincarnated. There seems to be a lot of that going on around here.”
“No. Even if a human host was chosen as the soul’s reincarnate. Transformation into the spiritual body would be impossible. The unicorn is not like the lizard—Khaba’s spiritual body. A mere reptile.”
Sharon raised an eyebrow. “They’re really that special?” She had to keep Baba talking and buy some time while she mined her for as much information as possible. Luckily for her, Baba had the ego of a know-it-all ten times her size.
“Of course, the blood of the unicorn is the purest form of magic. A trait inherited over thousands of years and countless generations.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You see, the unicorn is the only species to evolve a symbiotic relationship with the Tree of Life. Only they can drink its water. In other words, one unicorn is worth a thousand of you meager chimeras.”
“If that’s the case, then can you really afford to be wrong?”
Baba regained her composure. “I suppose not. But if you are telling the truth, then I’ll find out sooner than later.” She gave Sharon a wicked grin before snuffing out her lantern with a puff of her rancid breath.
***
A candle ignited.
Baba’s voice echoed off the cave walls. “Out from the darkness of the dragon’s belly, the light spewed forth and so the unicorn escaped.”
Hideous twisted gourds lined the shelves, potions that reeked of foul magic and ancient sinful auras. Trinkets, jewels, animal bones, and artifacts hung from the walls. Cave drawings depicting ancient figures of mythical stories decorated every inch of rock.
“Thus, the animals, at last, could see.”
Sharon gazed up at all the painted animals on the ceiling as the chimera slaves dragged her cage to the center of the cave. Candlelight devoured the shadows—giving them form. Many of the animals she did not recognize, ancient beasts long since faded into the sea of time.
“But they still had no world to inhabit.”
At the center of the cave floor, a circle of stones formed a large ring. Directly above, a cave painting of a sun. Circling the sun, three animals: a lizard, a shark, and a wolf.
“So, the mighty lizard stomped his feet and the mountains rose and the desert spread. The cunning shark opened his gills and the rivers flowed and the ocean poured out. The noble wolf howled and the clouds gathered and the sky thundered in.”
Outside the cave, lightning struck. Thunder trailed a few seconds after. The cave filled with blinding light and rattled with a thunderous boom. Dark storm clouds gathered in the sky overhead.
“And so, the world came to be. My world of Tuat.” Baba scooped up various gourds and jars of powders. “A beautiful story you humans ruined.” She fussed over her collection, mixing several concoctions and powders into a bowl. She ground some dried bugs and sprinkled them in. “Always migrating. Spreading endlessly outward like a wretched disease. Causing death and extinction where ever your feet land. Stealing my precious unicorns. Does your avarice know no bounds?”
The two chimera slaves dragged in the last of the animal cages, stacking them around the stone ring. Hatred flashed in the imprisoned chimeras’ faces. Their eyes always focused on Baba, plotting her death in silent piercing glares.
“With the death of the last unicorn, the great dragons followed, ushering the new age of man and an end to the old ways and the old gods.” Baba finished her brew and poured the glowing red liquid into a large gourd. She corked it and gave it one final shake before heading over to the stone ring. �
�Even the children of the forest are slowly withering away as your numbers increase.” She signaled to her chimera slaves and they marched off toward one of the cages. “And the pigs act more and more like men with every passing day. Soon I won’t be able to tell them apart.”
The chimera slaves unhooked the latch and opened the cage door. They yanked out a half-man, half-goat creature. A satyr. The poor satyr struggled but the two chimera slaves overpowered him, restraining his hands and legs with their muscular arms. He protested with a goat’s shriek in vain.
“Quickly—get him to the circle,” said Baba, popping the cork.
“What are you going to do to him?” Sharon pressed her weight against the bars. “Let him go, you witch!”
Baba grabbed the satyr by the throat and squeezed hard. Her nails dug into flesh. Trickles of blood rained down her fingers.
The satyr gasped, opening its mouth on reflex.
Baba poured the liquid potion down its throat and stepped back.
The two chimera slaves followed suit, dropping the satyr to its knees.
“Shut up and watch,” snapped Baba. “It’ll be your turn next.”
The satyr arched its body violently, contorting its spine and clenching its stomach. Blue light stretched out into its veins. The skin illuminated as the poison seeped through.
Sharon stared back at the horrid spectacle with wide eyes and a frantic heart. “The ritual...”
“My own variation,” said Baba. “There are differences from the Mirror Guardian’s version. For instance, mine requires no spilled blood—normally used to awaken the soul’s power. But the aims are the same. Releasing the soul’s magic and flooding the bloodstream. And, eventually, the entire body with delicious magic.”
Blue light overtook the satyr’s body.
“Now if our poor soul here was still human he’d be taking a trip to the Dreamtime right about now. But most of his flesh—his human vessel—has already been overtaken. And his conscious mind and memories are already trapped in the Dreamtime.”
The Crow Behind the Mirror_Book One of the Mirror Wars Page 18