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Lost Stories of The Spiral: Shadows of a Dream
Written by Avery
Lost Stories of The Spiral: Halloween Edition 1st Place Winner
It wasn’t that Kane Dragonblood believed in Pekrons, or rather Aegon’s understanding of them, but after learning much from Aegon Statz, about pekuliarities and how to detect them he had begun to realize something that even Aegon could never have dreamed of; but then, the poor scientist was not trained in Shadow Magic as Kane was. That secret was that Aegon was, in truth, detecting traces of Shadow Magic. When Kane made that realization, he suddenly gained a new interest in how to detect pekuliarities, and thankfully Aegon shared with him his methods.
Kane had a purpose, however, different than Aegon’s scientific studies. After Khrysalis, Kane had felt the stirrings of hunger within him, a yearning to learn more of Shadow Magic. Headmaster Merle Ambrose had warned him upon returning from Khrysalis of the dangers of Shadow Magic and how he, as a young and powerful wizard, needed to be wary lest the dangerous lures of that dark magic twist his very soul as it had Morganthe’s.
Kane would originally heed his old Headmaster’s warning, but he realized that, in the end, it had been his newfound knowledge of Shadow Magic which had made it possible for him to defeat Morganthe. And then there was Old Cob, a creature with amazing control over Shadow Magic –what was he up to? Where had he disappeared to?
Kane was greatly intrigued by the old immortal creature. It had lived since the beginning, battling Grandmother Raven, and its power was unimaginable. But, where Bartleby the World Tree and Grandmother Raven rooted their magic in the light, Old Cob seemed to be a source of Shadow Magic… perhaps he was even the source. So, who else better to learn more of the dark magic than Old Cob himself. Problem was, where did he go after Khyrsalis?
And that is how Aegon’s studies had brought Kane here, to the lonely, forbidding, and frozen mountain peaks of the Himoolayas. A monk from the monastery of Shangri-Baa had arrived via airship at Wizard City, half alive and near frozen, crying for the aid of the wizards who once helped them against the dark evil of Hamakala. The airship had suffered damage from being caught in one of the fierce blizzards common to the mountains, and the monk and his crew had barely survived.
“On a nest of skulls, in a web of pain, I sat in the Spider’s Web. What was once wrapped in darkness, will be again. What is, will be destroyed. Now is the final night.”
The monk had recited this dire divination before collapsing. It was a variation of Hamakala’s curse, which Kane knew too well. He had always wondered if there some elemental connection between Aegon’s pekuliarities, or rather what caused them, and the dark spirit of Hamakala. That suspicion was made stronger after hearing the monk’s words. Headmaster Ambrose had summoned Kane immediately to travel to the Himoolayas and get to the bottom of this situation – obviously, he too felt a cold shiver of fear at hearing Hamakala’s curse changed to include language so similar to Old Cob’s new prophecy.
And now, Kane stood upon an icy promontory high up on a mountain in the Himoolayas. An icy wind howled over the rocks and peaks and whipped at his robes while icy crystals caught in the wind stung his face like tiny needles. He held in his hand a very peculiar device created by Aegon to detect pekuliarities, and the device was acting as if crazed – that could only mean that it had led him to a location of powerful Pekron readings.
If Kane’s theory was correct, then somewhere on this mountain was a powerful source of Shadow magic, and perhaps an answer to what now distressed the monks of Shangri-Baa. The device’s madness intensified until tiny sparks flew from its casing and the handle grew hot in Kane’s hand. Then it suddenly went dead. Whatever it had been registering – pekuliariaties or Shadow Magic, take your pick – had been so intense it overloaded the device. Kane tossed it away; he was going to have rely on his own senses. He had recently discovered that he could sense Shadow Magic, like the electrical tingle in the air before an oncoming storm. He certainly felt that now as he closed his eyes, calmed himself, and reached out with his spiritual senses. Yes, he could feel the Shadow Magic on this mountain. It was powerful, and he could follow it like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Kane Dragonblood continued on. He climbed over boulders, up cliff faces, over ice bridges that spanned impossibly deep gorges, all the while the cold continued to work past the magical ward for warmth to numb his face, hands and feet, and all the while the fierce wind howled at him and threatened to tear him away from the mountainside like a leaf. As he clung tenaciously to a rock face, catching his breath, he thought he heard voices on the wind. He focused, yes, he did hear voices on the wind. Wait, no, the voices were in the wind. The light was failing, darkness was setting in, he squinted as he looked into the howling wind and he could just barely see spirits dancing in the wild snowflakes. But their dance was not one of joy, it was one of anguish and sorrow.
Their voices seemed to intensify – “Turn back, turn back, turn back…” they wailed. “Death waits for you, waits for us all…” they cried and moaned.
Kane shook his head, turning away. He had seen spirits before, even fought them, but the sorrow and fear in their disembodied voices was almost tangible. Their words almost shattered his own courage, fear spiked in his heart and for a few seconds, he clung to the rock against the driving wind and the spirits’ icy touch of death. Right then he wanted nothing more than to go back; and, if he could not go back, then let go and fall into the abyss. Death would come as a comfort compared to the horror of waited for him. He knew this. How, he could not rightly tell, but he could only guess that the spirits madly whirling about had planted the thought into his head.
“Jump… let go… it is so easy… join us, and you will be safe until the Spiral falls into darkness…”
How could the spirits fear death a second time? What power did the Shadow hold over even death itself? Kane wondered. He pushed these thoughts aside and forced himself to take another hand hold, another foothold, and crawl up the cliff to the ledge above. There, he collapsed into the snow, breathing hard from both physical exertion and the supreme effort of willpower needed to not let go and join the dead.
After he had recovered, he saw the opening maw of a cave almost hidden in the rock face. He could easily reach it now. He once again reached out to sense the Shadow Magic. Yes, it was incredibly strong here, more so than before. That cave might lead him to an answer.
Kane entered the cave – with the stalactites and stalagmites, it resembled the mouth of a great beast. And the smell of the cave only added to that impression, as if he was going down the throat and into the stomach filled with decay and rot. He had brought with him, strapped to his backpack, the Staff of Malador, a very powerful magical staff for a Myth Wizard. He removed it from the straps, held it in his left hand, and sent forth illumination from its stylized dragon head.
He continued deeper into the cave and its stench. Soon there was natural light and a breeze. The cave snaked deeper into the mountain and the light grew until Kane darkened his staff and continued without the need for his own light. The cave finally opened into a vast chamber. Where the light originated he could not tell save perhaps crags in the ceiling of the chamber which let in the last of the day’s poor light. There were plants on the chamber floor, or, there had been, as they were all rotted and decayed. And then Kane spotted it – the Temple of Discord.
Fool! Kane cursed himself. He had allowed himself to become lost or turned about in the wilds of the mountains. He had been on the opposite side of the mountain from Shangri-Baa itself, and had stumbled down another cave that led to the Temple of Discord. It was just as well, he soothed himself; where else would there be such trouble that might include Hamakala than this place? Kane climbed down to the cavern floor, then up the steps of the Temple. The Temple’s guardian Oni Spirit was not present. Kane sent a fiery blast of Myth magic from his staff into the temple’s doors and they exploded open. The guardian hoof ninjas were nowhere to be seen either. The temple appeared to be abandoned, but Kane’s gut told him to not assume.
Having no other choice, Kane made his way to the temple’s final chamber where the statue of Hamakala still stood. Just as Kane began to wonder if he was on a wild goose chase he felt a cold, gut-churning sensation. As pain stabbed at him and he doubled over, a dark veil of black energy swirled before him, and suddenly there stood Old Cob.
The sensation passed, and Kane was able to stand erect again. Old Cob said nothing, made no move. He simply stood a short distance from Kane, his glowing eyes staring at Kane as he seemed to take the measure of the young wizard before him. Finally, he spoke, his dark, gravelly voice grating in Kane’s ears, “Foolish child. Come to learn of the Shadow; consumed by it you will be. Already touched by it, to join it, you have been.”
“What are you doing here?” Kane said, summoning his courage and swallowing against a dry throat.
“Waiting for you,” Old Cob growled, somehow sounding pleased.
“Me? Why?”
“Hamakala would make a useful servant, but a body he needs. Yours will do nicely.”
Kane felt a sudden, terrible dread. But before he could speak, Old Cob laughed. It sounded like an avalanche which came to a splashing end in a river of lava. “Yes,” he began as he confirmed Kane’s very thoughts. “That monk was under my dark influence. A puppet sent to draw out the best and most promising student of Ambrose’s, a perfect vessel for my new servant. My lure has worked well, bringing you, tasty morsel, into my web. But, as you know, all of the Spiral is in my web. It is quite fitting that you should have been the one sent, as you defeated my children, the Rat, the Scorpion, the Bat. I bore them of my dreams while I slept in Raven’s prison, and you defeated them. So very fitting that you now replace them.”
Kane instinctively backed away. Doubt ate at him; was he ready to face Old Cob? He did not think so. He would be foolish to believe it, and yet he might very well have no other choice.
He was spared a moment longer as Old Cob seemed to fall into memory; perhaps that was the consequence of being so ancient with so many memories in one’s mind.
His voice was like a glacier grinding down mountains, gravel washing down a riverbed to fill the sea, rust eating iron to dust… it was a voice ancient and horrible. “I dreamed a dream of lies. As night is to day, chaos to order, so are lies to truth. Without the solidity of truth, no one can stand. Lies are weakness, a disease to destroy the strength of a person’s soul and all that they cherish. And the lies I dreamed took form and became a creature who knows corruption, who spreads disease, who knows how to gnaw away at a thing until it is destroyed. My dream of lies became the Rat.”
“You are already familiar with lies, wizard Kane Dragonblood. Your headmaster warned you of Shadow Magic. You told him you would be cautious. You told yourself that you only wanted to know more so that you could better fight it. All lies. You hunger, you yearn, for the power of Shadow Magic, like Morganthe before you. Despite your words, here you stand having searched me out while I rest here in the temple of my new servant. Look at where your lies have led you.”
Kane suddenly could not move. The image of a fly caught in a spider’s web flashed across his mind. Old Cob’s power was holding his body in place, preventing him from conjuring magic to protect himself. Old Cob continued while Kane vainly struggled to free himself from the invisible magical bonds that locked him into place.
“I dreamed a dream of hatred. It is a poison, invisible and yet so real which destroys better than any acid or disease, and always exquisitely slow. Hatred can only be held in the heart, the one place where Love is held. As there is no room for light in the darkness, nor darkness in the day, there can be only room for one or the other in the heart. Even a seed of Hatred is enough to drive out Love and work its perfect destruction, first of the one who carries it, then all others who would have held Love for the carrier. And the Hatred I dreamed of took form and became a creature of poison, one which only knows only how to strike out at others and spread poison. My dream took form as a Scorpion.”
“You know Hatred; yes, I can see it in your heart now. I know my web, young wizard, and every point on it, and every insect that crawls in it. I can see your beginning and end. You are alone, the consequence of Hatred in your life. Your love, your friends, your classmates, all have been sacrificed because of the Hatred in your heart, placed there by your struggles against your enemies. They left their scars and you, rather than healing, thought those scars made you stronger.”
Kane wanted to scream against Old Cob’s accusations. He wanted to deny it all. But there was pain in his heart, and the pain bore truth, and the truth would not let him make a sound. He knew that Old Cob’s words, meant to inflict hurt and rob him of his strength, were indeed true.
“I dreamed a dream of fear. Of things unknown in the darkness of ignorance, avoiding the light of understanding, avoiding exposure to acceptance. And the fear I dreamed took form into the Bat, a creature of the night, a creature who is at one with the darkness and navigates it like no other.”
“There are things you cannot see but know are there, young Kane Dragonblood,” Old Cob accused. Old Cob had stepped closer to Kane, his glowing purple eyes malevolent and seemingly soulless. While Kane could read nothing human, nothing familiar in those eyes, he could feel them boring into his soul and he could feel the oily taint they left behind. If he could, he would vomit from the feeling of it in his mind and heart. He was being slowly laid bare, stripped of his mental and emotional armor, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. One of Old Cob’s spidery appendages reached out and brushed against his cheek. Under his dark cowl, Kane could just make out Old Cob’s large, spidery mandibles.
“You know that the Shadow has many servants. You have bravely fought against so many of them. But the Shadow is something you cannot find, cannot touch, and yet you can sense it. That is how you came here, feeling the intangible Shadow, as elusive as mercury, as fog, as the wind and yet you can do nothing against it. You feel helpless. You cannot fully understand your enemy and that makes you fear. But, you do not like to feel afraid or helpless so you work to change that fear into hatred, to motivate yourself into battle, to never give up; you lie to yourself, saying that if you only knew more about it, you could overcome it.”
Hamakala’s statue began to glow, the dark spirit of Hamakala began to awaken. “Death is but a door, time but a window, I am returned. You shall be my vessel by the Shadow’s granting, and I shall sit upon my throne of skulls once again!”
Kane struggled, but Old Cob’s magic still held him in place. All of his training, all of his adventures and journeys and magic which he had learned over the years were useless to him against Old Cob. How could he have been so naïve to believe that he could seek out Old Cob and come away unharmed? He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry out for mercy. But, he could do nothing. His staff clattered uselessly like a stick to the floor, falling from his lifeless hand.
Hamakala’s statue glowed bright, and then a phantom, sickly green in color emerged and moved toward Kane. Unnatural lightning arced out and stabbed into him causing a horrific pain unlike anything he had felt before. His whole body and every nerve ending was a live electrical wire and all Kane knew was pain.
“You have known Lies. You have known Hatred. You have known Fear. Young wizard, you have dispelled my dreams, and the creatures borne of them. But since you know my dreams so well, it is fitting that you should take their place. And you will not be the last. As the lost souls who tried to warn you away know, as so many puppets on the end of my strings, you shall be just like them. Your body shall house Hamakala, and your soul shall feed him until it is consumed. You shall know such great suffering within the prison of your own body that you will wish for the sweet release of Death.”
Tears rolled down Kane’s cheeks as he convulsed in the painful lightning of Hamakala. The pain was so intense, and very soon he was going to suffer a fate worse than death. And then a thought, cutting through the pain, occurred. Old Cob, in order to not interfere with Hamakala’s possessing his body, had withdrawn his own magic from controlling Kane. If it were not for the electricity coursing through his body, he would once again have control. Perhaps he could save himself.
While less than heroic, and less than a noble fight, Kane had set a marker stone at the beginning of his journey so that he could quickly port back rather than hike the long, cold distances. Porting was a very simple act for a wizard, one which he might be able to do in his current state. Kane had no other choice to save himself. Old Cob’s magic was too great; Hamakala had him in his clutches, and even if he defeated the dark spirit, would Old Cob just let him go? No, he doubted that.
Hamakala’s green spiritual form drew close for the final seconds before entering Kane’s body. Kane was now moments away from a terrible end. Old Cob stood close by, malevolently watching. Kane gasped, and snapped his fingers, focusing on the marker stone and its magic. In a brilliant flash, Kane was pulled away, instantly traveling many miles to where he had begun his trek at first light. He collapsed into the snow, not caring how cold it was, too physically weak to even lift himself. Smoke rose up from his body, and he shivered, but not from the cold.
Having no body to enter, Hamakala fled back into his statue with an angry howl. Old Cob chuckled in amusement: he had not expected that; he had not expected such a simple twist which would save that tasty morsel from his web. But, it did not matter, for soon he would see that particular wizard again, he was certain of it. After all, he had had a dream, and in that dream, the Rat, the Scorpion, and the Bat, rose from defeat and consumed all.
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