by Maya Daniels
I trek up with brisk steps. The sooner I get close to them, the sooner all of this will be over. Well, I hope it’ll be fast, anyway. It takes me no time at all to close in on them and I slow my pace. It would’ve been difficult to do it in the dark if it weren’t for the huge moon lighting my way while walking up, which I’m grateful for I lift my face for a second, close my eyes, and let her energy flow through me.
“Speed up, love, no time to mingle here,” Inanna’s voice echoes in my head.
I march forward, keeping an eye on the last cloaked figure so I don’t get too close, when I remember her words from earlier. A chill runs up my spine at the thought. “You said earlier that Tomorith already knows you’re here. Doesn’t that mean they’ll be expecting us?” I ask and then I shake my head at myself. “It’s not like they won’t expect me anyway. When they captured Faith, we were loud enough. I’d be surprised if the entire realm didn’t hear us, so I guess it doesn’t matter,” I finish gloomily.
“I’m hoping he’s still as arrogant as ever and thinks I left the moment I merged with you. He likes to fool himself into thinking he is as strong as the gods because we can’t be bothered with him and his realm, so we let him be,” she says, irritated. “Well … we couldn’t be bothered with him, I should say, but now he has my full attention. Something is not right here. It crawls under my skin and I need to know what that is. I will not let that poor excuse of life force interfere with the plans I’ve set in motion. I’ll flay the skin he has left on his bones,” she spits, and there’s so much venom in her voice I shiver.
Is the anger I can’t keep at bay affecting her? My heart speeds up like it wants to escape my body, making me faint. My thoughts from earlier flitter to the surface, freaking me out. I’m as big of a monster as the cloaked figures walking in front of me because of those angry thoughts. If it’s having an effect on Inanna … well, what can’t a goddess do with so much anger?
I think I’m starting to hyperventilate. Please, oh sweet Goddess, don’t let it affect her.
And now I want to laugh at my stupidity. I’m praying to her to not let the blackness of my heart poison her. Yup, still rings true. For an intelligent woman, I can be pretty stupid at times.
Her energy zaps me out of my mind just in time to realize I’m close enough to touch the cloaked monster I am following, so I stop short and take a few steps back. Huh! It’s nice to have a warning signal before you do something stupid.
“I’m not your subject, Alexia, so don’t even consider committing this stupidity again, summoning me like I’m your puppet. I’ll flay your skin as fast as Tomorith’s for that,” she growls, and there is no mistaking the warning in her tone.
Keeping my mouth—or thoughts, I should say—shut, I stop at a bend on the path and lean my back on the rocks to make sure if anyone turns around they won’t see me. The whole time I’ve been following them, my heart has been heavy from looking at the barren mountain with not even one little weed on it. Nothing. Just dry, lifeless soil and rocks. I don’t even sense it. It’s dead.
Usually, everything vibrates with life, it’s in constant movement that I can feel. The life force connects to mine and if I pay close attention to it, it’s almost like a physical binding.
Not here. Not on this mountain. It’s like walking through a void.
While moving, it doesn’t seem this bad, but now that I’m standing still, the deadness of it is seeping in, reaching its tendrils inside me, gripping and squeezing as if it wants to extinguish the life from my soul. It’s crippling, making it impossible to even draw a breath. I need to keep my mind occupied before I start freaking out. I know Inanna will not allow that. Right? I hope I’m right.
Craning my head, I realize I’m almost at the top of the mountain and there are rocks jutting out where my back is pressed to the dead surface. Turning around slowly so I don’t slip off the narrow path, I press my belly on it and reach up to grab the closest rock to me to use as a foothold. I’ll climb on the side and see what’s going on. Inanna is so quiet, leaving me to myself, I start wondering if she decided to simply leave and let me screw myself up.
“You’re still there, Mother, right?” I send my thoughts to her, and even I can hear the worry in them.
“Yes, love, do not worry. I will not leave you alone. Even when you get me angry, I still don’t want you harmed. What mother would?” she says gently, and I hear sadness in her words.
“Mine would,” I mumble, thinking about my birth mother, though I can’t dwell on it right now.
I raise my body, and maybe it’s the merge with her that gives me more strength, but I gracefully climb the rocks, flinging myself from one to the other like a seasoned rock climber.
Well, to me it’s graceful. I might be like a jumping mountain goat to others, though. I have no way to know.
As I reach the top, I elevate my upper body with both hands just enough so that I can peek over the cliff at what’s on top. Wow! My breath hitches in my throat and I stare frozen, holding myself up with a white-knuckled grip on the dead rocks. A black gothic castle sits at the top with an eerie glow surrounding it. Four towers jut up, each on different sides, all of them curling up like crooked fingers reaching for the moon. It’s hard to focus on it, and I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone or if it’s because my body and soul are trembling so much that I start doubting my sanity for thinking I can do this on my own. I think … no! I know that I will never be the same again if I set foot inside that monstrosity. There is some deep-seated knowledge in my very essence that comes to life at the sight of it and it overrides my thoughts, feelings, and every part of me.
My shaking intensifies, and I wish I can let go of the rocks and plummet down the dead mountain now to my death, because if I walk in there, I’ll wish many times over that I was dead. I know it better than I know my own name. All I have to do is let go. I want to do it. I try to pry my fingers open so it’s done.
“Snap out of it right now, Alexia!”
Inanna’s voice screams so loud in my head, I almost let go of the damn rocks I’m holding. She jars me out of my doomed thoughts like she slapped me, making suck in a breath. What the fuck was that! That’s not me; I don’t want to die. Well, not until I save my sisters, anyways. After that, I don’t care. It must be that damned castle.
“Does it have an illusion cast on it to make everyone want to kill themselves if they come near it?” I ask her.
“No,” she says glumly.
“No? That’s it? You need to elaborate on that one, Mother, because I will be of no use to you if I get to the temple doors just to perform hara-kiri or something in front of it,” I spit angrily. In my anger, I can picture myself getting so close to saving them only to end up disemboweling myself with a sword at the temple doors.
“Stop this nonsense, love. It’s the energy of their magick. That’s how it affects those that still have their light intact.”
“So, what do I do? Will you take over when I reach it?”
“You are stronger than you give yourself credit for, love. Why do you still doubt yourself?” she asks tenderly.
“Oh, I don’t know, Mother. Maybe because I almost killed myself two seconds ago, and I would have if you hadn’t snapped me out of it.”
“You didn’t expect it, yet you are still here, are you not?” Her husky laughter pisses me off. It’s all games to her.
“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be,” I tell her pointedly.
“Not true, but let us be done with this here and now. We will have time to discuss it later.”
She has a point and I know I’m stalling, but I’m a little scared.,. I don’t know if I’ll survive this effort to save my sisters. I’m of no use to anyone if I die.
Taking a deep breath, I pull myself all the way up, put my knee on the ground and lift myself to the top of the cliff. By now, my arms are numb and tremble with exhaustion from holding onto the rocks. Warm blood trickles down my palms where the rock has cut into my fingers, so
mething I don’t even notice until now. As I stand up, my arms fall limply next to my body and I sprint on my toes towards the temple as fast as I can while I wiggle them to return some sensation.
The cloaked monsters—or wizards, if you may—don’t pay attention to me at all. I’m sure they would’ve seen me by now, but I have a feeling whatever it was that made me want to die looking at the monstrosity of a temple in front of me is like a beacon to them. I can almost see them drooling like a dog staring at a juicy steak. Plastering my back to the walls of the temple, I tremble when dark energy prods at my skin like a slimy leech trying to find a perfect spot so it can suck the life out of me. I need to get in and out as fast as I can. Hopefully with my soul still intact. No problem. Right?
Peeking around the corner, I see the last cloaked monster walk towards the doors, so I start creep towards it. As I get closer, I see cloaks hanging next to the door and go straight for them to snatch one. Perfect! Unless they take the cloaks off inside like we did at my initiation, I’m good. Go in, grab a lantern, get out! Easy peasy! I almost want to chuckle menacingly. Dumbass wizards. All that dark magick has made them cocky. It works for me.
Pulling the cloak around my shoulders and the hood over my head makes me gag. It smells disgusting. Like rotten fish sitting in the sun for days. I want to throw it off me and scrub my skin until the first layer comes off. I just need to keep it on me for a few minutes, I tell myself as I breathe through my mouth so I don’t retching and blow my cover. I can do this. I’m close to getting what I need and taking my sisters home with me. I’ll wear the damn thing for a month if I have to. It’s a small price to pay to get them back.
Squaring my shoulders, I start walking towards the doors.
Chapter 8
Have you ever imagined walking onto the set of a badly-made vampire movie? Well, this is worse! As I step through the doors of the temple, I realize that as bad as it looked from the outside -Dracula fanboy has nothing on them-, it looks even worse on the inside. Black shiny rock covers the walls and ground of the hallway that runs into the depths of the temple. Squinting to better see ahead, it seems like it’s leading into a black hole that has a gravitational pull on your energy. It’s yanking on a string attached to my gut, like I’m a fish on a hook. Torches line the sides of the walls with that creepy green fluorescent flame, and like a million ants are crawling on my skin, it spreads the sensation through my body. I have to move or I’ll go insane just from the pinpricks alone.
So, putting one foot in front of the other, I start walking. To my doom? Maybe, but it doesn’t stop me. Halfway towards the entrance to what I assume is the center of the temple, I see cave-like entrances in the shiny rock walls, but luckily no one is there. Well, I hope no one is there, but I can’t be sure. It’s darker than black inside, so I keep going, trying not to think too much.
Just breathe, I repeat in my head.
“Yes, love, just breathe. I’ve got you.” Inanna’s gentle voice should’ve put me more at ease but strangely, I can detect sadness and something I can’t name. It rattles my nerves and I get a bad feeling about this whole thing.
As if that’s not bad enough, the air tastes evil in this place. What can be worse than this dread at the center of my heart and soul? I don’t have time to think about that. In and out! That’s my focus. As I get to the gaping black hole, I sense its pull, and like submerging through an oil lake, I walk to the other side of it. It isn’t easy. No, it’s harder than anything I’ve done, but with a determined push I get through finally, stopping and assessing my surroundings.
The same black shining rock covers the walls and ground of a huge round room that is the center of the temple. Everything else looks barren. In the middle of the floor there is a red circle that I would’ve thought was paint if it weren’t for the four poor souls kneeling naked around it, staring at the ceiling with glazed, unseeing eyes, their wrists slashed open and blood running in rivulets, creating the circle and sigil in it before which they are positioned. The sigil moves like a snake biting its own tail, creating a never-ending line that resembles a dragon. It’s disturbing to look at. They’re enthralled, judging by the serene and reverent expression on their faces, while their lifeblood is leaving their bodies. My heart shrivels in my chest with pain and sorrow for them.
“Please, Mother, bless their souls. Don’t let them suffer,” I beg Inanna silently with my mind.
It takes everything in me to stand still where I am and not make a sound. I feel my body trembling with the force of everything I am, pushing me to go and save them—or end their misery. Anything but standing here motionless like a statue. One wrong move or sound and I’ll screw everything up. My sisters can be the next ones kneeling here. That makes me snap out of it, but it also brings another thought. Am I saying their lives matter more than the lives of these people? Who made me the judge of who deserves to be saved? Do they have someone looking for them, maybe even trying to save them this very moment?
Faith’s words come back, stabbing me in the heart. “I was too late.” Did she see her loved one bleed to death at this same place?
Emotions overwhelm me and I almost bend from the weight of them when I hear my grandmother’s words spoken like she is standing next to me. “We cannot save them all, my child, no matter how much we want to do it. But we can make sure their lives are not lost in vain.”
Her words bring me back to the present. I don’t move but it still doesn’t make me feel better. I need to grab that lantern and get out of here before I do something stupid, like try to kill everything that moves in this place.
The heat in my heart rises, my palms vibrating and warming. I take slow, even breaths. The last thing I need is to burst into flames here with Inanna merged inside me. I’ll eviscerate this whole realm to nothingness.
With effort, I avert my eyes from the scene in front of me so I can see what they are staring at. Suffice it to say, I wish I hadn’t.
There is no ceiling in this temple, but I’m not sure if that’s true or that the dragon-snake coiled there is hiding it. Its red eyes are turned my way, the slit-vertical pupils expanding and retracting as it focuses on me. Its black body is in constant movement like it reacts to the blood sigil on the ground. I freeze. Does it know I don’t belong here? Can it see me? Does it know who I am? Will it strike and end my misery right here, right now, so close to getting what I need? In my frozen state I wonder how it’s possible that my heart is not in my throat just from the sight of it.
“I’m shielding you, love. Avert your eyes. She doesn’t know you are here.”
I hear Inanna’s voice, and just like in the old days, I obey, though I’m frozen in shock. I need to get the hell out of here. Well, that’s what I want, but my body is still standing in the same spot. I flick my gaze around to occupy my mind and keep from having a meltdown. Half of the cloaked monsters are standing on one side of the blood sigil. The other half have their cloaks writhing open around them, defying gravity with a mind of their own, the same way they did when they were chasing us through the field. They stand in a circle along the walls, holding their lanterns.
Slowly, like a wooden doll, I drag my feet towards the cloaked ones. They have no lanterns, so I’m guessing I’ll blend in better there. As I reach them, I finally have a better view of the altar sitting opposite of the entrance. Spiked columns stretch up towards the top with what looks like skulls of all sorts of creatures on them. I pray silently that they’re chiseled out of the rock and not actual the skulls of living beings. Black oily liquid slides over them towards the flat surface of the rock altar. On top of it, a single silver apple sits, so out of place that it makes me want to go and push it off. I clench my hands and grit my teeth, my nails biting into my flesh so I stay still in my spot. The shock of seeing the disturbing scene and the damn snake lookalike dragon makes me oblivious to what else I’m feeling—or not feeling as is the case.
Now standing here, I notice it, and the dread from earlier comes back with a vengeance. I
feel nothing. I’m an empath, I always feel something. At times, I can’t feel myself because of everything and everyone else. But this is like I’m dead.
I guess this is what departing from your skin suit is like before you transition to your next journey. Emptiness. Void.
The sound from behind the altar makes me snap out of my own head thankfully, or I would’ve started freaking out for the hundredth time in less than a day. I turn towards the sound in time to see a red-cloaked figure with a hood pulled low over the head so you can’t see who or what it is exit the spiked columns like walking out through the wall. I wonder if it’s a ghost or this whole creepy setup is playing mind games with me.
I shake my head slightly and follow the movement of what I’m guessing is the high priest or wizard. Maybe it’s Tomorith. I wonder if I can kill the fucker if it really is him. It’d save us all some trouble. If Lucifer could hear me now, he’d be proud. I almost laugh at the thought.
The red cloak moves in front of the altar, turns his back to all of us (me, the monsters, the dragon snake, and the poor souls kneeling in the center, in case you forgot). Raising arms towards the ceiling, I hear the chanting begin at the same time as the cloaked monsters around me start swaying, like they are attached by a string to the voice coming out from the red cloak. The voice sounds so familiar that I forget to breathe because I’m trying to place it. It’s like I know what I’m hearing but my mind blocks me from registering it. I jerkily move my body so I don’t draw attention to myself while my thoughts race three-hundred miles an hour. I know this voice! Why can’t I place it??
Dumbfounded I listen to the chanting.
“Mighty wind, fall quiet inside me,
You are crushed by my power and settled to these astral chains,
Do not raise your eyes to mine for I am greater,
I will you, do my bidding without question.”
The voice echoes around me, although the words are softly spoken. With each word, more dread pools in the pit of my stomach, threatening to destroy my essence, though I still don’t understand why. Why is the voice so familiar and why can’t I remember whose it is? It feels a lot like denial. My body shakes like it’s going into shock, and I can do nothing to calm myself. I stop moving and stare, listening to the voice invoking.
