As I walked past a fallen tree, I caught sight of a tiny orange frog that was sitting on it. I tried to pet it but the woman quickly noticed. Within a split second, her hand was holding my wrist just as my fingers were inches away from touching the little amphibian.
“I wouldn’t touch it if I were you,” she said as our eyes met. Her pupils appeared brown at first but as I looked closer, I saw they were actually dark crimson.
I gently pulled my hand back to my body. “Why not?”
She turned around and started walking again. “You wouldn’t like what comes next.”
I looked down at the little frog just sitting there. A part of me was intensely curious and deeply tempted to just go ahead and touch it anyway. But she was so far ahead that if I stayed for a moment longer I might lose sight of her as she walked along the mist-filled edges of the mire. So I quickly turned and ran in order to catch up with her. She seemed quite calm about the whole thing. It was almost as if she knew what everything was about. On the other hand I was feeling the exact opposite.
“So you’re not going to tell me what would have happened had I touched that frog then?” I said as I walked just behind her.
She shook her head without even looking back. “It’s better that I don’t. Suffice to say it would have been something that you wouldn’t have liked at all.”
I turned my head as I kept on moving. The frog was already out of sight. “Alright, I don’t know if I should even be trusting you like this. I mean, I don’t even know your name.”
“You could have asked me,” she said tersely.
“What?”
“I said you never asked me my name.”
I rolled my eyes. Whoever her parents were obviously didn’t teach her any manners. “Fine, what’s your name then?”
She turned and started walking along a path surrounded by gnarly-looking trees. “It’s Erin.”
“Okay then,” I said. “Nice to meet you, Erin. Can I ask you where we’re going now?”
Erin pointed at something just ahead of us. “Right there.”
My eyebrows merged as I increased my pace and looked where she was pointing. Up ahead of us was a clearing. It seemed that the trees in this particular part of the swamp were older and had grown so tall that they blotted out the illumination of the sky above. The whole place was covered in shadow but I could see what looked like the entrance of a stone structure at the far side. It looked like an old temple ruin, but the stone walls seemed to glow with an unnatural greenish fire that emanated from the rocks themselves. A man-sized opening that seemed to lead to a mist-shrouded underground passageway was situated in the center of the place. A strange sense of dread crept over me and I began to shudder.
Erin walked over and stopped, standing less than a few feet from the entrance.
I walked up beside her. “You’re not going in there, are you?”
She shook her head. “I’m not. But you are.”
I turned my head and looked at her as if she was mad. “Are you joking? I’m not bloody going in there!”
“I have already been in there,” she said calmly. “It will only take one person at a time. I tried to get Lester and the others to go in as well but they all thought I was mental.”
I was beginning to think I chose the wrong person to side with. “Bloody right you are! It looks like a house of horrors. I’ve seen this in so many shows; it’s always the stupid one who goes into these places and gets killed in some horrible way. No bloody way am I going in there.”
She placed a hand on my trembling shoulder. “You must go in there. If you are to solve the riddle of the Fomorians, then you must take this path. It is the only way.”
I knocked her arm away and just stared at her. “What do you mean, riddle of the Fomorians? Look, I’ve only just met you and now all of a sudden you want me to trust you and you want me to go in there? I don’t even know what you’re on about. Why do you know so much about these Fomorians? What’s your angle in all this?”
Erin’s calm demeanor didn’t change. “My dad taught me to fight Fomorians. I’ve traveled to many other worlds to find their old temples. This is one of them. If you want to know how to fight them effectively, then you must learn as much as you can about them. If you learn of their history, how they fight and why they do such things then you will be able to find a weakness.”
“Well since you’ve already been inside this particular ruin, why don’t you just tell me what’s in there,” I said.
“I cannot,” she said. “For my experience will be different than yours. You have to go inside to see it for yourself. Only then shall you understand.”
I rolled my eyes. “So you think I’m just going to be so stupid as to fall for that? What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re somewhat intelligent, courageous and a little headstrong.”
I grinned. “Why thank you!”
She held her hand up. “And I also think you’re naive, annoying and downright senseless at times.”
“Hey! That wasn’t very nice!”
“You asked what I thought of you and I answered.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “You totally lack tact, you know that?”
“I wasn’t raised to be nice and all that,” she said. “The moment I learned to talk and listen, my father always told me never to let my guard down. For the Fomorians would return, and the end of the world would come about.”
I scratched the back of my head. “Wait a minute, are you telling me that your dad predicted that the Fomorians would come back and conquer England?”
“He had been telling me about it for years but he never bothered to tell anyone else,” Erin said. “He knew nobody would believe him.”
I pointed at the trail we had come from. “What about that bit back there? In that settlement just a while ago. You were, like, locked up in a cage, and then all of a sudden you met me and then you broke out as if you weren’t even locked up at all.”
“I made them think that they captured me,” Erin said. “I could have broken out at any time.”
“But what were you waiting for? Why didn’t you break out of there sooner?”
She pointed at me. “You.”
I admit she had me confused for a minute there. “Me? How did you know I was even coming over?”
“My dad had predicted that a young lad was destined to be the defender of England,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile again. “Well that’s very flattering, I must say.”
She narrowed her eyes. “So imagine my utter disappointment when I saw you coming along.”
My smile turned into a grimace. “Oy! You have a habit of winding me up like this!”
“I sensed there was something different about you,” Erin said. “I have this sensitivity to spiritual energy. I’m guessing it was a gift that was passed on by my mother. When you came into the compound, I could immediately feel that you had been to other worlds before. The power seems to flow through you. So far you have been unable to comprehend or control it, but it is there. This is the reason why I have brought you to this place.”
“Excuse me for being a little bit wary of your intentions,” I said. “But I met someone in London who called himself a wizard. He was an old geezer who carried a magical black mirror with him and he used it to murder an awful lot of people, including my best mate. He also told me he predicted that the Fomorians would return. In the end I found out that he was in league with them, and my sister and I barely escaped with our lives. So forgive me if I am a bit skeptical after listening to what you’re telling me right now.”
“You have every right to be skeptical,” she said. “And I have every right to tell you that you’re wrong.”
“Alright then,” I said. “Prove it. Show me some proof that there is no danger in this ruin that you want me to go into. The only way you can do that is to accompany me.”
She shook her head. “It won’t let me in. The energies inside this place will only allow one
person in at a time.”
“Alright, tell me this then,” I said. “Will I be in any danger if I go in there alone, without any weapon whatsoever with which to defend myself?”
“If you were to go in there with a weapon then it would be far more dangerous for you,” Erin said.
“What do you mean by that?”
She placed a finger on my chest. “Once you’re in there, the danger comes not from what’s around you, but from what’s within.”
I snorted. “What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Now go, it awaits you.”
She was right. I could feel something drawing me into the structure. I knew that I would go into the place eventually, but I was trying to delay it as long as I could by peppering her with questions. In the end, the urge to go into the depths of the ruin was too much to resist.
I sighed as I walked right up to the dark entrance. I looked back at Erin just before I stepped inside. “Can you tell me what’s really in here?”
Her one-word answer was clear and succinct. “Fear.”
Since the walls all around me were glowing, there really was no need for a torch. But then again, I really didn’t have anything in my possession other than the clothes I was wearing, so it didn’t matter much. It was like going down a neon-lit corridor; I could see the lines and angles along the passageway as I moved deeper into the structure. The stone floor was partially covered by a strange white mist so I wasn’t sure what I was stepping on, but it did seem like solid rock so far. I wasn’t sure how much distance I had covered but it was evident that the walls were twisting and turning. As I looked back and checked if I could still see the entranceway, all I could see was just another smoke-filled corridor.
My continual movement was eventually rewarded as I entered into a high-ceilinged square room. In the middle of the place was a slightly raised stone platform surrounded by several standing stones. As I got closer I noticed that the obelisks were about my height and had rounded tops. When I looked at the stones closely there were wavelike spiral patterns that had evidently been chiseled on their surface. The stage in the middle was nothing more than a rectangular stone slab that had been horizontally placed onto the floor. I crouched down and saw the same patterns had been chiseled along the sides of the platform, just like the designs of the standing stones.
A loud noise startled me and I stood up and looked around nervously. The sound seemed to be coming from the structure itself, the noise akin to stones grinding upon each other. As I twisted my head round, I realized that a gigantic stone slab had sealed the passageway that I had just come out of. Whatever was in this place had just sprung its trap. Even though I was certain that I didn’t touch anything, something I did must have triggered that ancient slab to seal the door.
My breaths became rapid and labored as I realized that I was now trapped. Thoughts of doom flooded into my brain. Would I eventually die a slow death while trapped in this place? Did Erin just set me up to die in here? She mentioned that the only danger to me was something that came from within—did she mean that there was something in this room that could be a threat to me? My shoulders began to shake from the sheer terror of it all.
There was a familiar voice to the left of me. “The room feels your very presence, lad. It reacts to your feelings and amplifies it.”
I turned and quickly took several steps back as soon as I saw who it was. Amicus Tarr stood just a few steps away from me. The old wizard was still wearing the same robes as I remembered from the last time I had seen him. He stroked his goatee while adjusting his thick, rounded glasses. I raised my hands defensively as I continued to back away before I noticed that he wasn’t carrying anything. That was when I remembered that he no longer had the black mirror when its power was reflected back at him.
Amicus smiled. There was something strange about him. His body seemed to flicker a bit every time the mist on the floor passed over the lower part of his robe. “It is so nice to see you again, Steve.”
As I continued to backpedal, my foot stumbled upon something on the floor and I fell backwards. After landing on my bum I used both hands to pull myself up before going into a crouching stance, ready to leap to the side if he tried anything. My eyes bulged. “A-Amicus, b-but how? I-I thought you were dead?”
He laughed as he raised both his hands. “There are infinite worlds out there, and this is but one of them. It seems that you didn’t take the lessons I taught you to heart, Steve.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him but I started to calm down since he didn’t seem to be threatening so far. “Are you saying you weren’t killed at all? Did the mirror of Tezcatlipoca just send you somewhere else?”
Amicus shrugged. “Who’s to say? Perhaps I may still be alive, or perhaps I am but a memory that has been embedded in your mind and has taken a life of its own. Now that the gates between the endless worlds have been opened, there can only be more questions than answers.”
“So you may not really be Amicus then,” I said as I stood fully upright. Whatever the danger was in this place, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be coming from him. “Perhaps I’m just projecting all this from my mind, is that it?”
“You may be right. Or you may be wrong,” he said. “Nothing is certain. I may even be projecting my simulacrum across time and space just to speak with you right now. But what matters is that I am of no threat to you. You took my mirror away from me, after all.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “Your own mirror swallowed you up after you tried to kill me and my sister. You killed Ray and he was my best mate. I can never forgive you for it. Wherever you are, I hope they are punishing you for all the crimes you have done.”
There was a flash of anger as he hissed, “Your friend came to me, just like all the others! So did you, your sister and her boyfriend! You trespassed on my property! I am not to blame for your misfortunes.”
“We were looking for shelter! We needed help! What’s wrong with asking for a little hospitality? I’m quite sure my own family would have tried their best to help you if you had asked for it. So many people came to you because you were proven right, and instead of helping them, you murdered them!”
Amicus looked away. “I did what I had to do in order to survive! Up until that time nobody cared for me and it was only then that they decided to believe that I mattered. I learned a long time ago that the only thing you can depend on is yourself, nobody else matters! If I had to sacrifice the whole of London in order to stay alive I would have. I was very kind to you, I even had you pegged as my apprentice, but you betrayed me.”
I crossed my arms and shook my head. He was lucky I didn’t have a weapon on me. “You’re pathetic. I can’t believe anyone would be willing to kill so many just to save himself. You could have saved the others, instead you thought of no one but yourself and in the end you lost. What you couldn’t understand was that it was my friendship with my best mate that made me win over you. It wasn’t all about magic or power, it was about respect between Ray and me.”
Amicus roared with rage and he momentarily startled me; I took another step back, almost touching the stone wall behind me. He balled his fists in frustration, shouting unintelligible curses while swaying back and forth. Suddenly his whole body began to fluctuate and parts of him started to blink in and out of existence. His face seemed to fold in on itself and the rest of him followed suit. Within moments he was gone and all I could see was the platform and the stones that surrounded it.
“That was bloody brilliant, Steve,” a voice from the center of the room said.
I quickly noticed someone standing on top of the platform. Like me, he was wearing a pullover but the hood was concealing his face. As I moved in for a closer look he stood up and faced me. He was about my height, and when he took the hood off and revealed his face I knew who it was. My mind told me not to believe it but my heart was pleading otherwise.
“Ray!” I said as I ran up to the front of the platform
. I wanted to reach out and hug him, but a part of me kept saying that it all might not be true so I stood just a few feet away. It was so good to see him again. Tears had started to form under my eyelids.
Raymond Lin smiled at me as he adjusted his thick black glasses. “Hello, Steve. It’s good to see you again.”
I was breathing heavily, my hopes rising up. “Please tell me it’s really you, Ray. I’ve missed you for so long, mate.”
He tilted his head upwards and laughed. “You’re funny, Steve, you make it sound as if we’re gay!”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean, you knobhead. You’re my best mate and we fought wizards and monsters and even outsmarted the faeries. I didn’t want you to leave but you said you had to. Please tell me that you’re back for good because I need your help badly, mate.”
“Sorry, Steve, but I can’t make any promises,” he said. “All I can tell you is that you are creating this image of me. The energies in this temple sort of amplify your thoughts and what you’re seeing right now is a jumble of your memories.”
I sighed. My knees were shaking from the disappointment and I nearly sat down. “So that’s it then. My best mate is really dead and all I’m seeing is a memory of him. You wouldn’t believe how gutted I am, Ray.”
“You don’t have to be so gloomy, Steve,” he said. “A part of me still lives inside of you. Your memories keep a little bit of my existence alive and that’s what matters. In that sense I’m always with you.”
I shook my head. “Yes, I know that. But it seems so fake and all. What I mean is you’re not really independent when it comes to your thoughts, it’s all what I think of you.”
He pointed at my shoes. “Well, considering that you’re wearing girl’s trainers, I bloody well hope you don’t think of me as a gay infatuation or something.”
I angrily gave him two fingers. “Piss off! If you’re a part of my memory then you know how I got these things, so shut it already!”
The Fomorians Page 5