Ancient Illusions

by Joanne Pence

  “I don’t understand,” Michael said.

  Hearn chuckled. “It baffles me, too. You see, I once had a friend who was a sorcerer as well as a descendant of Nakamura Taishi. I believe you’ve heard of him.”

  “I have,” Michael said.

  “But I doubt you know that centuries ago, Taishi led an armed revolt against a daimyo family, hoping to overthrow him. He failed, and he and his samurai were all killed.”

  “He led a rebellion?” Michael was trying to fit that in with what he’d heard from Seiji.

  “And lost,” Lafcadio said. “So, I wrote my stories and then, using my friend’s alchemy, I built a world where all of my characters could live. In it, Taishi won his battle, and the Nakamura clan prevailed. I called my land Kamigawa, which means River of the Gods, and it was to be a wonderful place. I thought it would be a happy place where I was not mocked or scorned or abandoned, and where I, my stories, and my family could live forever. But alchemy is a black art, and I forgot about that. Or ignored it. The Taishi I created was a demon, and the land, demonic. From the outside, it looked idyllic. But inside, it’s decayed and fetid. My good wife was horrified by what I had done. She burned my story about Kamigawa before it was ever published, hoping that would destroy the land I created. It didn’t.”

  “You couldn’t find a way to destroy it?” Michael could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

  “No,” Hearn confessed. “But I was cautious. Fearing unsuspecting men might become trapped in it, I sent my papers to the other side of the world, to my cousin, Victor Rempart. I was quite sure he would never bother to read them. I didn’t want anyone to use my work as a gateway.”

  “But someone did,” Michael said with a sigh as he contemplated the way he had read the papers. That simple act must have brought him—and then Rachel—to Kamigawa. As he remembered the day he first discovered Hearn’s writings in the library, a detail came back to him, something he had all but forgotten. “I wonder if something didn’t purposely lead me to your work. Kwaidan fell from its shelf. I picked it up and began to read.”

  Hearn looked at Michael with sadness. “I have watched that house with interest from time to time over the years, perhaps because you are relatives, and certainly because you are alchemists. Your returning home has turned the wheels of your destiny. Consider how your connection to your mother has been reawakened ever stronger, how your discovery of me in your family history has opened new directions, and how you now better understand your father’s terrible ambitions. All these agents of your fate have brought you here now. Each has played a part, largely unbeknownst to each other, and imperfectly understood.”

  Michael shook his head. None of this made sense to him.

  “It’s the cost, Michael, of forbidden knowledge. Your own mother may have had a hand in bringing you here. She knew the evil that infested your home, and that you might be the one to break the spell it exerts.”

  “Your words are nonsense,” Michael said. “You know she’s dead.”

  “So? Aren’t I as well? Really, cousin, you know better than that. The dead are always with us.”

  Michael sighed as he acknowledged the truth of Hearn’s words. “I’ve always felt there are ghosts in that house.”

  “And there are, as well as demons. Your mother, unfortunately, had no way of knowing about Taishi,” Hearn continued. “But as soon as you began to read my stories, Taishi sensed you and learned about you and the pearl. He had to be the one who put everything in place to draw you to Kamigawa, to my creation.

  “When you read my stories, it opened a gateway between the world I created and the one in which you live. You—and those close to you—have the ability to pass from your world to this one.” As he spoke, Hearn’s eyes widened, and the whites took on a reddish glow. “You have the ability, I believe, to become one of the greatest alchemists of all time, possibly the greatest. But use the power wisely. We don’t truly understand it or fully control it. We hope, but our best intentions can and do create evil.”

  “That won’t happen.” Michael’s voice was firm. “I’ve seen the destruction alchemy has caused, the lives lost because of it. I want nothing to do with it.”

  Hearn shook his head. “I fear it’s too late for that. You possess what may be the most powerful philosopher’s stone of all time. And they know it.”

  “They?”

  “From the moment you began to read my stories, Taishi and his minions worked to draw you here, to this land peopled with my thoughts, the world of my creations. Surely, you don’t rush off to every place in the world you read about, do you? Of course not. You knew this was special even if you didn’t know why. And so did the demons. They want you here. They’ve done everything they could to make you happy here.”

  Michael looked at Ceinwen. Strangely, she still slept. Was she a part of this demonic plot?

  “Who are the demons you speak of?” he asked.

  “Taishi’s samurai. They fought and died for him, and their payment was to watch the leader that they loved turn into a demon and torture this town and the people in it. He possessed Lady Nakamura’s son because the boy was weak and gentle, two attributes Taishi hates.”

  “But now he’s with Rachel—he’s no longer evil,” Michael said.

  “No, no, no. For Rachel and Seiji to overcome the evil within them both and be together, they couldn’t remain in my world, or in yours. Where they’ve gone isn’t for us to know. A better place, I think. They are dead, but perhaps not lost. It’s Seiji, a healthy Seiji, who is with her. Not Taishi. The demon is here, and he is evil.

  “His own samurai know that. That’s why they want the pearl. They want to use it to trap Taishi and free them from his power. They’re coming here now. Coming for the pearl. You must take it and run.”

  “Aren’t we on the same side?” Michael asked. “We both want to rid the world of Taishi.”

  “You must understand, Michael. They are demons and will do horrible things. They will gladly kill you and your companion to get the pearl. I’m warning you. You must leave, now. Hurry.”

  “Wait. What about my father?”

  Hearn became crest-fallen. “Your father is the most dangerous of them all.”

  And as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished.

  Michael knelt by Ceinwen and shook her. “Wake up. We’ve got to leave.”

  Startled, she looked around and quickly rose. She stood, but then froze, staring past him in horror. Michael spun around to see a group of eight samurai marching toward them.

  The demons quickly surrounded Ceinwen and Michael, blocking their escape.

  “Give us the pearl," a samurai demon roared as the others slid long, curved swords from their shafts and then raised them high over their heads, two hands gripping their hilts, ready to attack. "In this land, you are in our power, and you cannot fight us.”

  “Stop!” Michael said, holding a hand outward as if to stop them. They stood still watching him. He slowly took the lead box from his jacket pocket and unfastened the clasp, but didn’t open it. The pearl remained encased in the rare earth. He could feel the samurai demons lean toward to it. “The pearl draws you forward,” Michael said in a hushed voice. “You have no power to resist it, but it already has demons trapped in it; demons who have persecuted many more people than you. The ones in the pearl are pure evil. You don’t want to face them.”

  “You will give us the pearl,” the samurai demanded, “or watch your loved ones die.”

  With that, a fire sprang up out of nowhere, close to Ceinwen. She and Michael tried to move away from it, but it followed.

  “Give us the pearl!” The samurai demons chanted the words at different times, at different speeds, creating a babel of sound.

  “The demons trapped inside the pearl find pleasure by watching other’s pain. Yours as well as mine,” Michael warned.

  “They cannot hurt us.”

  “You think not? Do you scorn them because they’re trapped like rats?” The box in hi
s hands quivered slightly at these words.

  “They’re nothing!” the samurai bellowed. “We are all powerful!”

  Michael could feel the lead box vibrating hard now—a vibration of pure, demonic rage. He opened it and removed the bronze vessel. “It’s in here,” he whispered.

  The samurai demons’ desire to grab the pearl emanated as a wave and pulsated through him. He knew they would soon attack.

  Ceinwen watched him, her eyes wide as she grabbed hold of his jacket with both hands.

  “Take the pearl,” Michael shouted as he opened the lid. “If you can!”

  Immediately, a black cloud-filled ribbon of pure fury streamed from the box. It whirled free for a moment, upward through the trees, and Michael feared the demons from the pearl would escape. But then they turned and swooped downward over the samurai. They stretched out as if they were a long rope and began to wrap themselves around the samurai.

  The samurai yelled in support of each other and slashed at the demonic attack with their swords. The demons from the pearl continued to wrap themselves around the samurai.

  They spun round and round, knocking into and uprooting trees, stirring up the campfire into a wall of flame, and hovering over Michael and Ceinwen. Michael realized he had guessed correctly. The demons’ anger at the way they’d been insulted made them want to punish their detractors more than escape, but with rare earth elements so near they didn’t have the fullness of their strength. If they did, they would have made quick work of these samurai.

  Finally, they began to squeeze the samurai as if they were a boa constrictor killing its prey. Michael waited until the samurai had been crushed into something about the size of a baseball, and then he took a handful of rare earth elements from inside the lead container and dumped it on them.

  The samurai screamed and slowly shattered into ever smaller fragments and then into nothingness.

  Michael then lifted the pearl out of its bronze container.

  Ceinwen saw it for the first time. It was pinkish red with a bright luster creating a halo of light around it. She was unable to take her eyes from it. It was beautiful, hypnotic, and enticing.

  With his arm outstretched and the pearl in the palm of his hand, Michael walked away from her. He spoke in a strong, firm voice. “The power of the earth’s rare elements have weakened you as well as the samurai. You will return to the pearl. And you will protect and obey me. Only me.”

  Michael felt the pull of their demonic power fighting against his command. He felt his hold slipping.

  “I am the keeper of the pearl. You will serve me and heed my commands,” he ordered. “Enter the pearl. Do it. Now!”

  A rainbow of colors shot out from the stone, and with it a loud, terrible wail filled the air. Ceinwen covered her ears, bending over in pain. The stone seemed to grow larger.

  Furious, the demons rushed at Michael, wanting to attack, but could do no more than to swirl around him and form a gray-black churning mist, paler and less powerful than the mist that had surrounded the samurai.

  Ceinwen backed away, then ran to the thickest tree she could find and hid behind it. She couldn’t believe anything she was seeing and felt as if her mind might snap.

  Michael held his hand higher, even as the mist buffeted him and tried to squeeze the life from him just as it had squeezed the samurai.

  “Enter the pearl!” His voice boomed and, as if from some innate part of his soul, some collective unconscious memory, ancient words that were unknown to him spilled from his lips, weakening the demons.

  Peculiar lumps appeared under the skin of his hands, arms, and face, distorting his body, as if something had been drawn under his skin and was fighting to break free.

  Ever so slowly, the mist vanished. The contortions under Michael’s skin shrank, and the pearl returned to its original size.

  He fell to the ground, his eyes shut.

  Ceinwen continued to hide behind the trees. She was scared. Her mind couldn’t process what she had witnessed. What kind of man was he? If he even was a man. What had the pearl done to him when he called upon its powers?

  She didn’t know what to do, which way to turn.

  Of all the strange things she had once written about, of all the witnesses she had mocked and dismissed as being crazy when they tried to convince her of unexplained phenomena they had seen, this was the worst ever—and real.

  Michael lay on the ground, hurt, possibly dying. She had held him in her arms, had loved him, had let her body, her being, be filled by him, and now…

  Somehow she forced herself to step toward him, slowly at first, but then she ran. She cared about him, more than she was ready to admit. She couldn’t let him die.

  “Wake up!” she cried, touching his face, shaking his shoulders. “Please. Michael, come back to me! They’ve gone now. We’ve got to get away!”

  She couldn’t rouse him.

  She saw that he continued to clutch the pearl in his hand, and that the bronze vessel lay on the ground. She wasn’t sure what to do. When she looked at the pearl, she felt its pull, a feeling so strong it scared her. Despite Michael’s warnings about the power of the pearl, she hadn’t been prepared for the pure, visceral desire it caused her. She not only wanted it, she craved it. Michael had said it was evil, and she understood, now, what he meant.

  Something told her she needed to get it out of his hand and back into the vessel … and that she didn’t dare look at it any more closely.

  She picked up the open bronze vessel, held it in one hand, and then shut her eyes tight. Using her sense of touch, with the other hand she took the pearl from him. But as soon as she touched it, her fingers burned, as if the pearl were a ball of fire. She pressed her lips tight against the pain, not daring to cry out, not daring to drop it, but as quickly as she could, she placed it inside the bronze, and then twisted the bronze legs as she had watched Michael do to shut it.

  Only then could she breathe again. When she looked at her fingertips, she expected to see burnt skin and blisters. But despite the pain that had raged through her body, she saw no marks. She cradled her painful hand in her arms and couldn’t suppress a groan.

  Yet, despite everything, if only briefly, she had been the master of the pearl … and she had loved the sense of power it gave her.

  “Ceinwen,” Michael murmured, blinking as he opened his eyes. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  He was weak and she shifted so that he could lay his head on her lap as she stroked his brow. “I just learned the truth of the old saw that if you play with fire, you’ll get burned. I think I’ve been getting too close to the flame.”

  He stared at her, trying to understand. Then he looked down at his hands, and then searched the ground. “The pearl! Where—”

  He tried to get up but she stopped him. “It’s in the bronze,” she said. “And they’re gone. You did it Michael. I’m not sure how, but you did.”

  He looked around. The samurai were gone, and there was no sign of the fight that had just taken place.

  They heard the chirping of crickets. “It’s going to be all right,” he whispered and shut his eyes again.

  Exhausted and spent, she helped him lay back down, then curled up beside him and held him close until the light of dawn seeped into the forest, bringing a new day.

  Chapter 51

  Michael and Ceinwen returned to the area where they had left Rachel and Seiji’s bodies, but they were no longer there. They walked all around, but could find no sign of them.

  As they searched for a tree with one of their blue ties, they stared in shock as a member of the park service strolled by. He was one of many employees tasked with showing visitors out of the forest if they got lost, and to be constantly on the lookout for potential suicides.

  They shouted and ran to him. He didn’t speak English, but it was obvious from the way he looked at them that they had the appearance of those who had been in the forest too long. He gave them water and energy bars, then indicated that they needed
to follow him. They gladly did in the silence.

  They walked for nearly two hours before he pointed to a rope with a “No Entry” sign—the same rope they had climbed over when they first arrived at the forest. And then he left them to go in search of others needing help in the forest of shadows and sorrow.

  Once they had stepped over the rope, they knew they were back at the path that would lead them out of the forest to the land of the living. A sense of relief and even a strange sense of joy at having survived filled them as they rushed to the exit, past the sign warning people not to kill themselves, and even past the shoes waiting for owners who would never return. Finally, as they reached their car in the parking lot, they held each other for long minutes, glad to be alive, and happy to be together.

  They drove back in the direction from which they’d come, back toward Kamigawa. But when they arrived there, they found no Kamigawa.

  “How can this be?” Ceinwen said.

  “Somehow, we’re free of it,” Michael said.

  “What now?” Ceinwen asked.

  “I can take out the pearl and try to find it, or we can leave it where it is, if anywhere. Do we really want to bring back that world? It was ultimately a place where evil had power.”

  “We have no reason to go back there. But what do we tell Rachel’s parents?” Ceinwen murmured. “We can’t say she went off to Shangri-La.”

  “Maybe we tell them just a bit of the truth—that she found someone she loves, and she’s happy, and the two of them went away to be together, just themselves, but we don’t know where. Maybe someday she’ll return from the other world to them. I doubt it, but who knows.”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Ceinwen murmured.

  “Thank you, Princess Hamlet.” Michael smiled.

  Just outside Izumo, they found an attractive seaside resort and checked in. This time, they only booked one room. When Ceinwen went into the shower, Michael joined her. Not until sometime later did they wander out to the private veranda overlooking the Sea of Japan.