In the sunlit courtyard the old souls sung, the young souls laughed and the children played. One of the children squinted at the sky above the palace and tugged urgently at his mother’s cloak. ‘Mama!’ he cried. The mother leant over the boy and answered: ‘What is it, son?’ and he said ‘Mama, why is the sun so bright today?’ She replied: ‘Why, it is always bright my son.’ But he was insistent: ‘But mama. The sun is going bigger!’
‘What?’ she glanced upwards.
The woman suddenly screamed and flung her son to the ground, covering him with her cloak and shielding her face from the light above. Others also saw it and ran about gasping and screaming. Soon all the souls were milling about in panic, as the sky became a glaring brilliance of light. Helok and Krak were dismayed and could not look into the light, which descended out of the sky and was among them, shining in an oblong of weird cool white light. The light dimmed and out of it stepped three figures, one of them holding a staff and surveying the crowd with steely green eyes. Mirrortac waved the staff over the courtyard and over all of those assembled.
‘Stand all of you in the Light of your True Selves and see with your own eyes, listen with your own ears.’ he said.
A chorus of moans and wailing issued from out of the mouths of the souls as they peered around them, seeing the cold grey stone of the Castle of Hopocus and the wretched pale forms of the Supreme Sorceress, Helok, and the Sorcerer of the Mist, Krak. There was no food nor wine nor table to set them upon; there were no silver spires or gem-encrusted pool. There were only two sorcerers and a throng of dejected souls wearing their rags of eternal despondency. Helok and Krak snarled at the erfin and prepared to use their sorcery upon him but Mirrortac glared at them, addressing them with a booming voice.
‘Sorcerers of Hopocus! Cease your plottery. Why do you call the darkness upon yourselves? If you should cast a spell upon me it shall be your own selves for which the spell is sown as for each spell you cast upon another, you will be casting three times the spell upon your selves. But should you cast a spell upon the one who holds the Staff of Thaum, then all of the spell will be returned unto you with ten the number of the spell added. And wretched though you may be, I have no wish that harm come upon you.’
Krak crawled to Helok’s side and slobbered into her cloak like a child. Helok shouted out to the erfin, raging with anger and frustration. ‘Go from me, thee Warrior of Light. Leaveth Helok in her pain and take thee thy soul people. I hate thee and all thy curse-ed spirits of the Light. Tell thy master that we hath nowt completed our fight. Helok wisheth nowt to be absorbed into any one-ness. She shalt take the victory and gather the foolish again. In the darkness, Helok and her people shalt be free. Darkness ist safe, darkness ist free!’
Roderick and Beth stood by in silence as Mirrortac waved his staff and, in a flash, took them and all of the souls to the edge of Hopocus and to Vulcan’s Moat where the lake of fire guarded Hopocus from the higher dimensions. The flames of the lake leapt up in yellow and red tongues and many of the souls grew afraid. The bravest among them shouted out to Mirrortac: ‘Who are you? Magician or devil? Why have you taken us to Hades?’ and Mirrortac answered them.
‘I am Mirrortac. Truth is the moulding stone of thought and mind is but the womb of your own reality. Do not fear the heat nor the flames for it is upon your fears that the fire is fed.’
An angry old man came forward and thrust a trembling finger toward the lake. ‘You! Whatever you are. You say the fire is nothing but our fears; that we have conjured it up out of our own minds. Tell us then how to stop fearing when beasts jump out at us and turn us into beasts ourselves. Tell us to stop fearing when those we see as angels are but devils in disguise. Tell us how to stop fearing when we stumble about for an eternity without minds, when terrible things happen to the sky and the earth and we discover that our pain will not end because we have been damned with immortality; that we will not die from the pain because we are already dead. Teach us beast who talks how to trust in what you say and end our fear. Or give us death, final death.’
The crowd muttered among themselves. Voices rose up in support of the angry old man. Mirrortac looked into their pain-lined faces and pitied them their anguish and despair, their utter hopelessness and distrust. Until now, Roderick and Beth had kept their silence but it was Beth who now spoke.
‘Yea people. T’is thy blindness that hath brought thee to the Underworld of Hopocus. Thy bodies art but dust although thy eyes still perceive thee as sheathed in the former vessel thou possessed whence in the physical. The three of us hath being brought here in our bodies but these vessels shalt nowt remain for much longer. Those of thee who art ready shalt be free to follow the green one - his vessel hath leave to enter through the gateway of the first heaven. He holds the Staff that ist the key. But whence the key ist handed back to the keykeeper, he shalt be asked to passeth out of the Plain of Wisdom and maketh his way to the level of matter. As for me, Bethany, and the wizard, Roderick, we hath nowt leave to enter by the higher gateway and shalt remain here to care for those who decide to remain behind. We shalt bringeth to thee the word of the Holy One, the Anointed. Choose now for the gateway shalt remain open but for a short while.’
Mirrortac met Bethany’s eyes with a touch of sadness within his own. ‘I shall miss you both, and you, daughter of the angels. It should be a princess of Nerthule and nought an erfin warrior who leads these people out of Hopocus,’ he said.
‘My work ist here, Mirrortac,’ she assured him. ‘Thine ist in the joining of all worlds and the bringing of a fresh vision. For thy eyes art free of the trappings of human conditioning and thought. An outsider to a new place shalt see with fresh eyes and shalt nowt suffer the ways of the people who liveth there.’ Bethany moved up to him and embraced and kissed him. ‘Goeth with God’s blessings, Mirrortac. And my Love.’
Roderick embraced the erfin also. ‘Ye art but an unlikely one, t’is sure,’ he laughed. ‘I hope that thee shalt remember thy friends, the olde wizard and Bethany. Our wishes art with thee always, Mirrortac.’
‘I will never forget you.’ Mirrortac’s face was wet with tears. ‘My heart will be with you also. Perhaps we shall meet again after the Great Changing.’
‘Yea, nowt doubt we shalt,’ Roderick said, wiping tears from his own eyes. ‘I have been mistaken. There ist much greater things than magic.’
Mirrortac turned and faced the flames, lifting his staff. ‘Gatekeeper of the Plain of Wisdom!’ he commanded. ‘Hear the voice Mirrortac, Princeling of Faugs. Grant me and all those who choose to follow, entry to the first heaven.’
The crowd watched in silence as the sky above the moat formed into a blue mist that was filled with a glowing light. The mist divided and out of it extended a silver arch that moved toward them, spanning over the flames and super-heated steam rising out of the lake. The silver arch formed into a bridge, connecting Hopocus to the gateway beyond the blue mist. Many of the souls looked upon the bridge with a renewed sense of hope while many others still could not see the bridge. The angry old man approached Mirrortac and wept.
‘I see the bridge, green one! You have brought a lamp into an old fool’s darkness. Please forgive me for my anger and distrust,’ he pleaded, crouching down at the erfin’s feet.
Mirrortac placed a large hand around the old man’s shoulder and comforted him. ‘I am glad in my heart for you, Nerthule man,’ he said. Then he turned and addressed the crowd. ‘Come all you with your heavy hearts and walk upon the silver over-way of hope. The gatekeeper cannot wait!’
The souls began to mount the bridge, filing in a long row as they marched upwards across the leaping fire and safely beyond into the mist. There were 7,000 souls who chose to leave Hopocus and 4,000 who remained behind. Mirrortac and the wizard and Bethany embraced once more then the erfin climbed up the bridge. The bridge receded with him as he made his way to the mist where he vanished with the souls before him.
As he entered the mist, the outline of a gateway appeared in front
of him. The gateway was not made of any substance but was composed of blue and silver light in the form of an archway. Beyond it, Mirrortac saw the souls being led away by beings robed in luminous blue gowns and whose features radiated a misty golden aura.
Mirrortac stepped across the threshold of the gateway and, glancing back over his shoulder, saw that the gateway had instantly dissolved, leaving him standing in the midst of an endless plain of shallow bogs and twilight. All the souls and their robed guides had scattered and were nowhere to be seen. He was alone with nowhere to go. Was there no guide for him? he wondered. He shook his staff and commanded a guide to come to him. He scanned every horizon but could see no robed beings coming for him.
‘Must you tease me with trickery?’ he muttered to the air.
‘What trickery?’ replied some thought within him.
‘This trickery of leaving me stand here alone,’ he said, absently answering the stray thought.
‘You are not alone,’ flashed another thought.
‘What?’ he spluttered, surprised at the division of his own thought. ‘Is that Merftac? You sound different.’
‘You are not alone,’ came the words again. ‘You have never been alone. You simply refuse to see me. Now forget about Mirrortac and be your Self.’
‘My Self?’ he asked himself.
The separate thoughts flowed again. ‘Yes. Mirrortac is only a part of your Self. Now, stop looking without and cast your sight within. Clear all of your erfin thoughts and be with your in-sight. Remember the greater dreaming. You can do this.’
‘Ah!’ Mirrortac’s eyes widened.
He sat down upon the soggy earth and hummed himself to sleep. As he descended into his dreaming place and beyond into the greater dreaming, he found himself hovering over the plain with his sleeping body still upon the earth. It was then that he saw him, a white furred erfin who radiated with a golden light. He smiled warmly at Mirrortac and spread his hands out in a flourish.
‘There we are. That was not difficult now was it? Your body shall be safe here. You shall be needing it yet. I have much instruction to give you before you must go back to the lower levels,’ he said. Then bowing he said: ‘I am Phantac your guardian. We are but parts of the thread that is already woven into the one fabric. Come, there is much to discuss!’
Mirrortac looked upon the face of Phantac and smiled. ‘Yea. There is much to discuss,’ he said.
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About the author:
Paul Vander Loos is a poet, journalist and author living in Mackay on the central coast of Queensland, Australia. If you have enjoyed this book, please tell your friends. You may also like to read the author’s second book in this series, Three Stones of Destiny, which is also available at Amazon Kindle.
The Wizard's Sword (Nine Worlds of Mirrortac Book 1) Page 37
