Gate: A Wolf’s Howl
“This time,” Companion said. “I want you to treat the vision you perceive in Hades’ coffin like a game.”
“Oh, I love games,” I said, the Inner Child bubbling to the surface of my mind. “I just don’t like this one.” I felt the energy and exhilaration of my childlike shadow begin to recede again into the corners of my mind.
“Wait, hold onto that feeling,” Companion said, taking my hand. “Tell me what you love about games.”
“I love the time spent with close friends,” I said. “I love building a common experience and language through overcoming obstacles and completing tasks. I love the feeling of having a community of like-minded individuals who care about each others’ well-being both in and out of the game setting.”
“That’s something I loved about growing up among the friends of the great warrior king,” Companion said. “Our knowledge about reality and each other’s strengths and weaknesses grew naturally through our friendships and the love we had for our peer group. Your shadow is connecting to the Devourer through this mysterious link, the spoken and unspoken love that one has for one’s family and life companions. This is a tool we will utilize to evolve your shadow and banish others. Whom do you love, Heidi?”
“I have my own best friend who makes the sun rise in my world every day,” I said. “Well, metaphorically speaking that is. He and I are close in a way that I do not understand but I can feel through my heart. Then, of course, there’s my daughter.”
A stillness came over Companion and I felt the weight of his regard upon me. “You have a child?” he said. “A daughter?”
“Yes, though she is grown now,” I said. “Having my daughter and raising her has been the greatest challenge of my life thus far. I know in my heart that I would not still be in the waking worlds without her in my life. I would have given up on existence or lost myself to the shadows; she gives me hope.”
“This is very good,” Companion said. “Our goals in this endeavor are more compatible than I knew, for the lord of my heart had a daughter too whom I prioritized above all else. Let us take this knowledge and use it. Remember, Heidi, who you’re facing this great shadow for. You do it for your own heart’s companion and your daughter. You do it to make the world a brighter place for those who follow you through the paths of existence.”
“That’s right,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You and I will bring light to the darkness and hope to dark places.”
“Indeed,” Companion said, helping me into the coffin once more. “For love and family, Heidi. Focus this time on running the vision like a game, a war game against the shadows to carry the torch of Prometheus into the future for those you love. I’ll be right there with you in case anything happens.”
“For love and family,” I said, releasing Companion’s hand. Then, I shut my eyes and fell into a trance.
I entered the vision gate and, on a platform high above the jungle of the mind, the gem on the crown encircling Heidi’s head went dark. Badger, in his human form, wrapped his arms more tightly about her sleeping form. The moths in the High Priestess’ hair shivered in alarm. The Priestess placed a hand to Heidi’s unconscious head and closed her eyes for a moment in meditation. When she opened her eyes once more, she looked troubled.
The Inner Child hummed to herself as she started a new drawing in the corner of the platform, tossing her most recently finished work of art over her shoulder.
The Priestess picked the paper up. On it, in childish scribbles, was a strange mixture of bright colors and oblong shapes. “Child,” she said. “What have you made?”
“A peacock’s tail,” the Child replied. “Can’t you see the feathers?”
“I’ve seen no peacocks in this world,” the Priestess said. “Have you?”
The Child paused in her efforts and stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth in thought. “I have seen peacocks at the zoo,” she said. “They walk around the paths like people, sometimes, and they’re very pretty. But my mom didn’t let me get close to it because she was afraid it’d bite.”
“Your mother is very wise,” the Priestess said, putting a hand upon the Child’s shoulder. “Other than the waking worlds, where else do you think a peacock may be found?”
“Bet the tiger has one,” the Child said. Then, she shrugged off the Priestess’ hand and turned all of her concentration to her new work.
“The tiger god…” the Priestess mused, as Merlin stepped onto the platform above the jungle of the mind from another reality.
The howl of a wolf drifted through the air. “It’s the Devourer,” Badger snarled, unwrapping himself from around Heidi’s as-yet unconscious form. “It will have to go through me to get to Heidi. Those wolves don’t know who they’re dealing with this time.”
Merlin looked surprised. “That moth delivered my message faster than I expected,” he said. “And no, dear Badger, the pack is not the Devourer. If my research is correct, it is the primary guardian against it, a tracking device of sorts.”
The High Priestess frowned. “The Devourer is a myth.” She moved to stand behind the Child and placed her hand on the artist’s shoulder again. “A story to scare children.”
“I assure you, it’s very real,” Merlin said. “If only I had my library…”
Badger growled, pacing the platform. “I watched Heidi vanquish the Devourer once in the Gardens of the Mind,” he said. Back and forth he moved, squinting into the beckoning twilight, seeking the wolves who came ever closer through the trees. “Through her eyes, it looked like a shadow filled with spiders.”
Merlin lifted a finger in warning. “That’s what it looked like then. It can take any shape it desires.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “They say it crawls out of the void of chaos and changes various aspects of our world with its mere presence — the archetypes of the ruling powers themselves if it wants to do so. You, me…” He looked at his maimed hand. “Any of us. All of us.”
The High Priestess covered the Child’s ears with her hands. “Myths and legends,” she said indignantly. “Shadows do not shape the light.”
“Unless the dreamer allows it,” Merlin said. “And, as of this moment, I believe the Devourer lies there.” He pointed at the unconscious form on the bed.
The Badger quit his pacing. “Heidi is not the Devourer,” he said. “I’m insulted on her behalf at the very suggestion of such a thing.”
“I think she drew its attention to her through her explorations in the inner and waking worlds,” Merlin said. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “What was her state when you found her after her long absence?”
“She was already wounded,” Badger said. “Bleeding and whispering about giants in the sky.”
“And then what happened?” queried the wizard.
“She fell into an enchanted sleep from which she has not awakened,” Badger said. He looked at Heidi and back at the wizard. “What else do we know about this Devourer?”
“Not much,” Merlin admitted. “It is said to be an aspect of Death itself.” He sighed and stroked his beard. “Those in its grip feel nothing at all, a numbness of the spirit. If not assimilated and processed, the afflicted will turn on those he or she loves most, blaming those closest to her for her pain.”
He looked at everyone on the platform. “We must awaken our dreamer. The Devourer could use Heidi’s connections to the Light Congress to consume the inner worlds.” Merlin’s face became grim. “It has already begun in the Fields of Helios. If it wasn’t for Time’s assistance in slowing the demise of the titan of the sun, all would have been lost long ago.”
“If only Lickspittle was here,” Badger said. “I’ve never been able to enter her dreams. Where is that lizard?”
The wolves howled on the wind, coming closer with each passing moment.
The High Priestess’ hair stood on end as all her moths took flight at once. “I have no telepathic contact with the pack,” she said suddenly. “Didn’t you send a piece of me to fetch them?”
At that moment, an arrow cut through the air and embedded itself over Badger’s heart. He clutched his chest in shock and pain, the wound a mirror to the one on Heidi, and fell unconscious on the bed beside her.
Another arrow appeared a hairsbreadth from the Inner Child’s perpetually-coloring hand. She gave a high-pitched scream of terror and dove for her guardian, the Priestess.
The High Priestess responded so quickly that she became a blur of movement upon the platform. “Take the Inner Child to the tiger god’s palace,” she ordered Merlin, shoving the girl into his arms. “Find the peacock’s tail. I don’t know why this is important but it must be to have appeared in the Child’s art.”
Merlin pulled a progenitor spark from his chest, swiftly opening a doorway to another reality. The Child cried out in fear, reaching for Badger on the bed. “Not my friend too,” she wept as the wizard carried her across the threshold.
“Keep her safe, Merlin,” the High Priestess called after them. “If anything happens to the Child, you will answer to me.” The Priestess opened her mouth and a multi-headed dragon emerged from her throat, miniscule at first, but soon dwarfing the largest trees in the jungle in its size. The moths flew from her hair, becoming the eyes of the dragon.
The primal dragon self of the Priestess named Goodness moved silently beneath the jungle canopy, seeking the archer who dared to threaten Badger and the Inner Child. She met with the large gray leader of the wolf pack after a few moments. “What manner of creature do you hunt?” she asked. “No shadows will hide it from me. No worlds will shelter the monster nor time conceal it from my vengeance. No one attacks the Inner Child under my protection.”
The alpha wolf’s great golden eyes reflected the light of the gossamer dragon. “It smells like Diana,” he said. “But moves like a shadow. Mar’s sister has never presented herself into my experience this way before.”
“Then, it is something else,” Goodness said. “A new shadow, perhaps. No matter, we will find her, Wolf, and then you and your brethren will consume this encroachment of the void as you have all others.”
“Let it be as you have spoken,” the pack leader said. “And my name is Freke.”
Back on the platform, The High Priestess looked strangely fragile without the moths buoying up her hair. She gently arranged Badger next to Heidi, placing his limbs in such a way it appeared he was sleeping rather than wounded. With one quick motion, she removed the arrow from his heart and covered the injury with a bandage.
“Love conquers all things,” she whispered into the twilight. “Please Venus, have mercy upon us in this time of fear.” The gathering shadows gave no reply.
In my disembodied state, I felt my consciousness being pulled towards the gem in the center of Heidi’s crown. I fell into it and when I opened my eyes, I was in my body once more in the cave where Shadow and I had birthed a new darkness. But now, I was all alone and shook as a fever wracked my body.
“Animus,” I said, reaching into the darkness around me. “I don’t feel well.” All was silent in the cave and shadows moved across my vision.
“Animus, are you there?” I asked. “Companion, where are you?” My stomach heaved in illness and spiders made of shadow poured out of my mouth into my open hands. “Is anyone there?” I called, vomiting spiders again and again.
A gray light emanated from the skittering mass of insects that began to spread throughout the cave. “I am here, Heidi,” they whispered. “I’m listening to you. Tell me, how does the game end?”
“I don’t know,” I said, burning with heat one moment and shivering the next. “I have never played this game before.”
“You do know,” came the whisper. “Only you know.”
“Where has everyone gone?” I said, brushing the spiders off my body with a shudder. “Why is it so dark? Where is Badger? Where is Dream?”
“I’ll tell you where your friends are,” the voice said. “They are living their own lives. I’ll help them if you tell me what they want. I’ll give what they desire to them so that they will return to your side and you’ll no longer be alone.”
“You’ll help them?” I asked hopefully. “I’ve tried to help them, all of them, but I don’t know that I’ve ever made any difference to anyone I’ve ever known. I so wish them well in their struggles. I wonder if they remember me.”
“No one remembers you,” the voice said. “No one but I. So tell me, Heidi, what does Odin seek endlessly throughout all the worlds?”
“The seat of his power — Valhalla,” I replied, my teeth chattering in the cold. “The god Odin wants to go home but, for some reason, he is having trouble getting there. I wish for him to find what he seeks and peace of heart.”
There was a sigh in the darkness and the voice whispered again: “What does Dionysus fear most?”
“The end of the party,” I said. “Dionysus lost his love long ago when the world was young and he distracts himself from this loss with wine, women and song. But it does not fill the ache in his heart. I wish for Dionysus to have his heart returned to his keeping.” The shadow spiders began to weave small glowing webs in the cave. The miniscule amount of blinking light they gave off was like a strobe in the darkness and I found myself mesmerized by the sight.
“Who controls the wolf pack?” The voice came from the webs, the cave walls, the spiders themselves. When I didn’t answer, the voice became hard and demanding. “Who controls the wolf pack, Heidi?”
“I used to lead the pack myself but, when my time among them had passed, I gave the wolves to Odin,” I said. “He named them, organized them and directed them from that day to this. I loved running with the pack; they were my family in the time before. I wish I could feel that sense of belonging and safety that I had among them again. Please, whoever you are, tell the wolves I miss them and love them still.” The spiders gathered themselves into a blanket of living darkness and came towards me. For a time, I knew and saw nothing else.
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 