|
|
|
|
<To Celia's Looking Glass Main
"Alice had her looking-glass didn't she?" asked Celia, the strange white-clad girl, with a voice as distant as the far-off tolling of a great bell. Her clothes consisted of a frilled white dress that seemed to be decades old, and stained buckled shoes. Her long brown hair had an unearthly paleness to it and it was tied back by a large creamy white frilled bow. But by far her eyes were the most disturbing thing about her. They seemed to be white with brown blotches as if her eyes were eternally clouding over in her last moments before death. Her room was sparsely decorated with Victorian style wooden furniture and a simple beauty seat with a large ornate looking-glass with a carved frame to resemble roses with large thorns in eternal blossom. The room had an aged scent to it as if everything was partially decaying, and mold was just about to start sprouting to the extent that it would engulf the tiny room and even the girl herself.
"Well I have one as well," she continued, "but mine will not confound logic nor make animals speak. My looking-glass serves a much higher purpose, for when you pass through it's gate you will journey into the darkness of your soul. For it is only within the darkness, that you can find the light."
The boy stood resolutely before her, and uttered only two words, "Show me."
The boy stepped purposefully towards the looking-glass by the girl's eerie voice stopped him in his tracks. Though he was by far taller and larger than her, her words seemed to form invisible chains about his limbs, rendering him immobile.
"You shall not looking into this glass free of charge, my brave-hearted boy," said Celia putting an uncharacteristic emphasis on the phrase 'brave-hearted', which broke her monotone for only a moment.
The boy examined her face carefully before answering, but he cound not detect anything in the stone-wrought features of the strange girl who held the passageway to each person's Hell. "What do you want of me? I have nothing to give you."
"Ah, but you you overlook the possibility of harnessing something intangible. You think I am trying to confuse you, but it is quite simple, my hero, I want some of your courage. When you journey though the looking-glass you can find an object that represents your valor and I want it. You will be unable to pass back into this world unless you have the Valor with you. Do you agree to these terms?"
"Yes," said the boy without hesitation.
"The game is set, the pieces ordered, and the rules known only to the Devil himself. The only thing left is for you to choose," said Celia softly.
"What must I choose?" asked the boy.
"Light or dark, my hero. Black or White. On which side of the line will you walk? The Devil begs your company, but to return you must walk the path of light. Unflinchingly, and without fear or hesitation," said Celia. Her words burned themselves like red hot irons into the boys memory.
"When you return, she continued, "you shall know what must be done. For when you change yourself, you will change others as they respond to you, and then they themselves will be changed. This can change men into demons and demons into angels, depending on what choice you make, so choose wisely, boy."
The boy simply nodded in answer. And then he plunged through the looking-glass.
He was never quite sure how exactly it happened. He felt a suddent emptiness in his chest and stomach, and he felt as though his entire body was being compressed into a box. He felt like he was suffocating. Gasping desperately for air he flung out his arms straight from his sides as if trying to support himself on the walls of the invisible cube that was slowly crushing him to death. And as soon as it had begun, it stopped. The boy realized that he could not determine whether he had spent half a second or many years in the crushing space. It all seemed like one eternal static moment.
The boy looked around him. The sky seemed to show that it was near dusk. The amber-colored sky had streaks of gold in it, but not too far off, the boy could see dark stormclouds approaching like great machines of war carrying destruction and flame in their airborne bellies. He was on an open hilly plain iwth a few patches of snow and all the grass was obviously near death. He stood on a small rock path facing east. A cutting wind blew across the plain, causing the boy to shiver involuntarily.
He took a step forward, but was instantly driven down to one knee because of the huge weight that seemed to be bearing down on him. He felt once again as though he would be crushed, but soon the feeling passed. He straightened his back, and took another step only to be driven down once aagain, this time on both knees. The boy breathed heavily. His head was swimming and then dead grass on the plains seemed to shimmer as if viewed from afar through intense heat even though the air was dead and cold.
The boy staggered upward, steadying himself before preparing to move on. Suddenly he was stopped by a strange white haired old man dressed in a brown habit and walking with a cane. The man had called out unintelligebly to him from nearly one hundred feet behind the boy. Thinking it unwise to continue to attempt to move, the boy waited for the old man to catch up to him. It did not take the old man long. He gave a knowing chuckle when he saw how the boy had firmly platend his feet, as if to indicate to whatever force had pushed him down that he did not intend on moving.
"Ye cannot go on with that great big thing about your neck," said the man.
Looking at the old man curiously, the boy slowly shifted his gaze to the large trinket which had somehow been hung about his neck between his passing though Celia's looking-glass and the current moment. It was a fairly simple ornamental piece, but rather ugly in a strange way. It was an elliptical metal frame with a blue rock crystal of some sort held in the middle by four crosspieces that were ridged and somehwat curved. The old man's comment seemed to make sense. The strange object seemed to be the obvious thing that was weighing him down.
The boy was about to remove the necklace when he hesitated. Why was he on this path anyway? He hadn't even thought about his desired destination. He cast a glance around him, looking for something to lead him to the answer to this question. The question that he had been told only Celia's looking-glass could answer. As he looked about, he noticed a distant trail of smoke grasping at the sky as if trying to pierce the atmosphere's impenetrable barrier and reach up past the stars into the heavens themselves. The boy realized it must be some sort of city to have smoke visible at such a distance. It was north of his current position, off the rocky path on which he stood. He began to turn northward and prepared to take a step.
The old man's eyes went wide. "Oh now listen here boyo, I wouldna' be doin' that..." he breathed quietly.
Ignoring the old man, the boy lifted his foot up and set it down a full step in front of him. He took another step, the sound of the crunching grass quickly followed by the man's urgent warning.
"If ye stray from the proper path, you'll ne'er get where you want to, boyo. You'll never accomplish anythin'."
"I do not walk your path," answered the boy.
The old man nodded, but not particularly in affirmation. "I'll tell ye, the farther along ye get, the more terrible the cost to yerself. Take off the trinket, boyo. Walk my path, and it wil be o'er quickly."
"I did not come to buckle under the weight of your darkness."
The old man laughed again, but this time it was full of malice. "Ye will soon learn about this darkness. But yore first lesson is that this darkness is your own, boyo. May'ap you'll join me for a walk down the path later. Ye can always return to it."
And with that the strange old man kept walking into the distance of the east.
The boy contined walking north towards the rising smoke. The wind blew against him, each gust fighting to get around him and continue on it's natural path, hating the obstruction of this boy in the path of it's natural flow. The boy wrapped his arms around himself, attempting to gather the warmth of his body up into his chest, but to no avail. Though the wind wasn't blowing that hard, it was cold and cut right through him. Each wave of wind threatened to freeze his bones and make them so brittle that the following gust would shatter his ribs and skull and arms and legs. Shivering and bowing his head against the wind, the boy drudged onwards until what seemed like many hours had passed and he felt as though he had been buffeted past human endurance.
At this point, his foot came in contact with cement instead of the dead crunchy grass that had populated the field. He raised his head and looked at the dark city rearing up ahead of him like some fearsome collosal beast from the underworld. The buildings were tall with black windows, and they seemed to lean down over him as if waiting for him to break some taboo to allow themselves to collapse in on him. The streets looked deserted and the only light seemed to come from the pale streetlights that were mounted on strangely crooked poles. The city reeked of nauseus fumes which were carried by the sewer openings in the sides of the trash littered streets. There was no wind in the city. Not a single gust touched anything on the cement. The entire place seemed entirely unpopulated, though it's ominous air of foreboding seemed to have a character of it's own, shaping the city into not just a collection of structures, but rather like a demon city of a child's nightmare.
The boy looked down the street he was facing trying to determine if it seemed more likely to lead to his destination than any of the other seemingly arbitrarily placed avenues. Deciding that nothing seemed any more promising than anything else, the boy began slowly walking down the street he had first come to. He kept looking about him, trying to to sense where his destination would be, but he could not discern any feeling that would tell him where to go next. He wandered through the city and soon became confused by the strange layout of the dark streets. He turned corners at random and tried to make it to some landmark, or even to find a denizen of the evil city if only to be reassured that he wasn't utterly and completely alone.
As he tried to picture in his mind where he had come from and where he was going he felt a sharp pain in his head. Reeling, he held his temples with the palms of his hands as if trying to squeeze the pain out of his head. Gaining control of himself, he visualized for a moment, the correct path out. He saw it in his mind as if from a bird's perspective looking down on the city. He saw where he was and how to reach the other side as a kind of lit up sequence of streets as if each one was on fire with the truth of it's direction. But then it was gone.
A dull throb had replaced the stabbing pain in the boy's head. Breathing heavily he tried to recall the streets that needed to be taken, but try as he would, he could not remember them. He was startled back into reality by the appearance of a black-cloaked man who's hood cast a shadow over his entire face. Though there was no wind in the city, his cloack always seemed to be slightly moving as if affected by the breath of invisible demons surrounding the man, their mouths open and gaping, and their breaths escaping in gasps.
Speaking slowly and deliberately, the cloaked man addressed the boy in a voice that did not betray age, but wisdom. It was the voice of knowledge gained through pain. It was the voice of a man forever scarred and burnt by a baptism by fire. The voice had great depth to it as well, as it sounded to be many times magnified in a cavernous subterranean space. "You cannot walk that path that you saw."
"I will leave your city," answered the boy.
"That path is not open to you. And it never will be. You see, in your stubborness you held onto your necklace, but your struggle was for nought because it has already been shattered."
The boy felt the chain of the necklace slep around his neck like an invisible hand had undone the clasp. Before he could catch it, the necklace had fallen to the hard and cracked the metallic elipse and one of the four crosspieces that held the blue crystal in place.
The boy was mesmerized by the cloaked man's voice as he continued speaking, finding himself only able to gaze down at the pitiful broken trinket that lay at his feet.
"It was broken before you came here. You are similarly, broken. You know yourself better than I. Can you not see it? To find your way in darkness you must have light. But you have none. This darkness in this world and this city is your own and you have no light to guide you. Return to the world whence you came, you will find nothing here except your demon's."
The boy felt the bitter sting of truth in the man's words. Even as the man said it, he realized that the necklace had been his light and now it was extinguished. But gazing down at it, the boy still saw a glimmer emanating from the crystal. Picking up the broken necklace, the boy was surprised to find the light shine brighter until he was sure that he could continue his journey if only it would grow slightly stronger. He looked up at the cloaked man.
"My light had not gone out yet," he said defiantly.
The cloaked man breathed a word the boy could not hear and the flung a black gloved hand out toward the necklace the boy was clutching in his hand and the light went out, snuffed by the darkness of the man. "You see how easily it goes out? You're light is not strong enough for this place, and you will surely fail. There may be one who could walk this path, but it is assuredly not you. Your light cannot stand against this darkness."
The boy narrowed his eyes and stared down the cloaked man. He gripped the now darkened necklace so hard his arm started to tremble. The boy knew the cloaked man spoke the truth about the necessity of light to find his way, but he could not believe that he was simply too weak to continue.
"How do I rekindle the ligh in the necklace?" asked the boy.
"The pure light is gone. You cannot have it back. The 'Truth' has evaded you, now go home, or this shall become your eternal place of residence."
"Even after it broke, some of the light remained, how can I fill it back up?" persisted the boy.
The cloaked man considered him for a moment. "It is a worthless endeavor. A fraction of the light you once had is all you could recover. It is not enough to face this world."
"How do I get it back?"
"If the necklace were to be transmuted into another object. One that contained part of you within it. Then it could again be a vessel. If it were to be reforged with a vow."
"What vow?" asked the boy slowly.
"A vow of determination," answered the man, "a vow of never resting. No respite, no pillow to lay your head on, no comfort, no recognition for your actions, nothing. None of this will you continue to hunger for. If you have it, you will be prepared to live without it. To live only with the comfort of your choice. A vow to do right no matter what the cost. And if you ever falter in your determination, your light will diminsh. Do you understand this thing you so desperately wish to promise?"
"I do," answered the boy resolutely.
"Then it is done," murmured the man. As soon as he said this, the necklace in the boy's hand lengthened and broadened until it became the shape of a warrior's sword. The hilt felt comfortable in his hand and it seemed perfectly balanced for how strong he was. Dangling from the pommel was the cracked necklace, now shining with just enough light to navigate by.
"This thing you hold is your Vow," said the cloaked man, "but your journey is not nearly complete. Indeed, it has only just begun. For with this Vow you have made, you must now confront your demons, and destroy them, for they assuredly wish to destroy you. You are marked now, by the white cloack you wear. You will suffer much, with no comfort, because that is the choice you made."
The boy noticed that a white cloack with black patterns had appeared on him. He reached up slowly and pulled the hood to cover his face. He noticed also, a sheath attached to the belt of his cloack for his sword. Slowly putting away the blade the boy looked up at the man and could now see that his cloak did indeed move by the breath of demons. Wrapped about the man's arms were two black snakes with what appeared to be shards of glass embedded in their backs like fins. The boy's hand instinctively went to the hilt of his sword.
"You shall not fight me here," said the man, "but later, we may do battle if your Vow proves strong enough for you to reach me. But I doubt it. You are a fool and your life will be spent in vain and no one shall even know your name when they roll your lifeless body into a river."
"You're wrong," said the boy, "because some day people will see what I have done that is right. And maybe it will even be enough to forgive me for what I have done wrong. But I will not die for nothing, because even if I fail, others will see the right in what I tried to do."
"You put much faith in those who hate and ignore you."
The boy shrugged. "I forgive them that they might forgive me."
The man laughed loudly, and the snakes writhed and hissed. "Only a child could concieve of something so foolish, and it only makes your death more meaningless." And the man disappeared in a swirling of his black cloak.
The boy looked around himself carefully, trying to gauge if, when, and where an attack was likely to come from. Slowly drawing his sword he held it lightly at his side, prepared to weild it two handed at a moment's notice if an enemy appeared. But the enemy did not show itself. Walking slowly, the boy proceeded down the apparently deserted street, examining each window for signs of hostile forces. Straining his eyes and ears, he started noticing brief phantasms in the corners of his vision, and could swear he could almost hear light clicking footsteps, though whenever he stopped walking to look more thouroughly or listen more carefully, he always seemed to have imagined it. He gripped his sword hilt more tightly.
The boy closed his eyes, willing his invisible pursuers to attempt tosneak up on him. He once again heard the ambiguous sound of what seemed like footsteps, but kept his eyes shut tight until the footsteps started increasing in speed and decreasing in distance. Soon the creature was moving at a steady lope and almost upon the boy. Clearly coming from directly behind him. At the last possible moment the boy swung around, weilding his sword in a great arc, hoping to cleave the creature in two. As he swung the sword he felt something strike it and then repel it strongly, opening his eyes, he saw the demon.
It was small, wiry, and black with large yellow eyes and no apparent texture to it's skin. No light seemed to reflect off the black surface making it seem slightly two-dimensional perverse cardboard cut out. It had sharp black claws and no discernable mouth, and was about half as tall as the boy. He realized even as he spun around to face his attacker that the demon had quickly lept up, planted it's feet on the flat of the blade of the sword and then launched itself powerfully upwards, high into the air above him. The demon landed catlike on it's arms and legs and slowly raised itself until it was standing straight. The boy eyed it carefully, holding his sword in both hands, pointing it level at the small black monster standing before him.
The demon started approaching the boy cautiously, twitching it's head as if trying to sniff the boy out. It's limbs moved strangely, with too much jerk in even simple motions, and an eeire amount of stiffness in it's joints. Watching it move felt like watching a film of someone walking with a number of the frames cut out. It started to walk a swerving path towards the boy and he could only imagine that it was trying to gauge the best side to attack him from.
As suddenly as it had leapt off the boy's blade, the creature launched itself at the boy, it's powerful hind legs sending it rocketing towards him with it's dark claws outstretched. The boy took a quick step backwards and swung down with his sword, whihc cut through the demon cleanly.
It hung in midair if only for a split-second,
suspended in two halves. Then it rapidly started disintegrating from
the inside out, and tiny bits of the impossibly dark flesh started
tearing themselves off and floating quickly upwards before they too,
disintegrated. Last to dissappear were the demon's eys. The large
yellow orbs seemed to reflect the boy's face perfectly for the last
moment before the burst into a cold blue flame and turned to ash, which
fell at the boy's feet.
To Celia's Looking Glass chapter 2>
bravenet.com