Gate: A Fountain
Merlin and the Inner Child tumbled through the gate in reality and landed in a stone fountain, merrily spraying water into the air. The wizard checked the pocket watch given to him by Time and the centipede’s arms, for the most part, remained pointed in every direction but up.
“We still have some time,” he said, helping the Child climb over the lip of the fountain. Beyond the ornate entryway, a sultan’s palace spread across the perpetually-reddened horizon. “How beautiful this place must be at true sunset,” Merlin mused.
The Inner Child scuffed the crushed rock of the pathway with her feet. “Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a tiger by his toe,” she whispered to herself.
“Have you ever been here?” he asked, taking the Child’s hand and beginning the long walk towards the domed entrance of the home of the tiger god, Khan. The walkway was lined with flower beds filled with exotic blossoms and chirping crickets, seemingly confused by the light’s suspended animation in the sky.
The Child pulled away from Merlin to pick up an errant stick which she then swung wildly in circles. “We have to practice our swordfighting,” she said earnestly.
“Whatever for,” the wizard replied, stepping away to avoid being struck.
“Venus should have practiced more,” the Inner Child said. “Then maybe she wouldn’t be so hurt.” The stick continued to move erratically back and forth through the air.
Merlin stopped in his tracks. “Hurt?”
“When I grow up, I will be a great warrior,” she continued. “No one will hit me or hurt me or make me afraid, ever.”
“You have seen something,” Merlin said. “Tell me, Child.”
The Child ignored the wizard’s question and continued fighting monsters only she could see. Eventually, Merlin lost his patience. “Can you imagine,” he grumbled. “Reduced to a glorified babysitter.” He took the Child’s hand and marched towards Khan’s palace once more. The Inner Child fought back, pulling her hand out of his grasp.
“I don’t want to go in there,” she said and pointed to a path that forked around the palace to the right. “I want to go that way.”
“Fine,” Merlin said in exasperation. He paused for a moment to gather his concentration and then split himself in two, a perfect copy of the wizard stepping to the left and the other to the right. “Take the child wherever whimsey leads her,” he ordered himself. “I will find Khan and see what his complaints are today.”
“Do not tell him what we’re here for,” the other Merlin advised. “Or we’ll end up satisfying his every whim and never get the feather.”
“Do you think me a fool? I know how to deal with the tiger god,” Merlin retorted and turned back towards the palace. The other Merlin and the Inner Child, skipping playfully next to him, took the opposite bend in the road.
The Merlin who chose to go into the den of the tiger walked briskly, looking only straight ahead, and missing the nearly imperceptible movements in the flower beds next to him. A blossom bent slightly as if in a passing breeze. A single blade of grass twitched and then was still. Something invisible stalked the wizard as he marched purposefully onwards.
“I will never understand these eastern gods,” he muttered under his breath. “All this space for half a dozen people. It’s a waste; that’s what it is. Imagine what I could do with a dwelling this size.”
“Live the same pointless existence you do now,” a deep voice answered.
Merlin startled but composed himself before he turned to the god who paced mere steps behind him. “Great Khan,” he said, bowing deeply from the waist. “It has been a long time.”
“I do not like you nor welcome your incursion into my seat of power,” the enormous tiger said. “Tell me why you are here so you can leave me in peace.” He sat on his haunches, his striped tail flicking irritably back and forth.
“There is no love lost between us,’ Merlin admitted. “But you are powerful, Khan, and a force to be reckoned with in this world and many others. I come as a supplicant before you, begging nothing but a moment of your time and your peerless wisdom.”
“A moment you may have,” Khan growled. “Nothing more.”
“Then I will not mince words with you. Helios has fallen from the sky and his chariot lies in pieces on the plain. Time has wrapped the god in his coils so we have a small respite before the end of all things.” As Merlin continued, Khan’s eyes widened slightly, but then narrowed to dangerous slits. “We need to know how to turn stone back into flesh, how to return the sun to the sky, and where to find a chariot capable of the task. There is also a small matter about a bird feather though, to my mind, the other issues are far more pressing.”
“You speak in riddles, old man, and some of what you say is true, but I see there is much you hold back.” The tiger took a deep breath, his nostrils twitching in the wind. “I smell…” Then, he tilted his head at the wizard and bared his fangs. “A child. THE child. The Inner Child walks the paths of my domain.” A growl began building deep in his chest. “The Dreamer is not welcome here and neither are her pets.” He snarled. “That includes you.”
“You would choose your pride and solitary nature over everything in existence,” Merlin retorted. “The Light Congress is no one’s pet or tool. We are warriors of the light, bearers of knowledge and defenders of the inner worlds. Lest you forget, great Khan, though you are mighty, you remain largely untested by the shadow. And there are trials coming. Not just from within our ranks, but from somewhere darker and more sinister.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I tell you, tiger god, the Devourer has awakened.”
“The Nameless Fear? The Shadow of Many Faces?” Khan smirked. “Go tell the Inner Child. Perhaps she will believe you for I do not.”
Merlin looked weary. “I will prove it to you,” he said.
“You cannot,” Khan turned to walk away. “I will not waste another moment with you and your ridiculous games and stories.”
“Heidi once pulled a badger’s claw from your paw,” Merlin said. “In the name of that kindness, you will give me a chance to prove it to you. If you do not, I will spread the story among the Fae of air, land, and sea, and whoever will listen, that the tiger god does not value succor, or deserve it.”
Khan stilled and glared over his shoulder. “One chance,” he spat. “I curse the day I encountered the spirit named Heidi but I will not deny what happened in that shadowed valley.”
Merlin sighed in relief. “I only need one,” he replied.
Back in a hidden room of The Night King’s castle, Dionysus was thirsty but the only drink in the room was Addiction’s vile concoction. He searched through the ivy vines multiple times, but his ever-full wine cup had vanished.
“Oh well, a little thirst must be borne for the moment. Now, on to greener pastures,” he said. Giving Addiction’s corpse a mocking salute, Dionysus slipped out of the arched doorway of the hall and found himself entering the same room again. There was Addiction, still satisfyingly dead. The long table seemed to invite Dionysus to sit, but one look at the blood-filled cup sent the god through the doorway again. And yet again, he entered the same place. Countless times, the god of wine left the room and returned.
Dionysus cursed and, taking a deep breath, he picked up the cup. “Better than dying of thirst in this god forsaken place,” he muttered and took a swallow of the foul brew.
Addiction inhaled, and sat up. “I knew you couldn’t resist for long,” he said, tearing the clinging vines from his limbs.
“To hell with you,” Dionysus ground his teeth and dashed the contents of the cup in Addiction’s face. The demon, his mouth stretched wide in an obscene smile, laughed and sprang towards the god. They began to wrestle silently, first one then the other taking ascendancy, only to end up underneath his opponent’s body again.
In that timeless place, it was impossible to tell how long the struggle continued. The vines grew thicker about the two until, to someone observing from the outside, they were an unseen creature moving through a hedge, a whisper of wind through the branches of a tree, a glimpse of shadow dismissed as a trick of the mind and nothing more.
In the Night King’s throne room, Odin tore his eyes away from the approaching shadow army. “My friend,” he said to Oberon. “It is time to speak of forgotten things. For only the gods and goddesses of Valhalla may possibly save this realm or fall with it.”
Oberon shook his head slowly. “Heidi has seen so few of your brethren in these worlds,” he said, apologetically. “Perhaps they have faded beyond recall.”
Odin continued as if he hadn’t spoken: “Throughout the millennia of my existence, I have taken many forms.” With a flash of light, Odin changed to toga-clad Zeus and back again. “I am the patriarch of many pantheons. I have had countless adventures.” He clasped Oberon’s shoulder in a brotherly embrace. “And so have you.” He gazed earnestly into the elf’s face. “Can’t you remember what I once called you long ago in another world?”
Oberon stepped away from Odin, reaching for Titania. “I prefer this form,” he said. “I want this life and this story and this love.” His eyes began to fill with the moon’s reflection once more. “There were so many limits to the role I filled as a Norse god. So much sorrow, so much pain.” He made a negating gesture. “Too much! I tell you I won’t remember. I shut my mind to you. I shut my ears to you. I shut my eyes to you.” Slowly descending to the floor, as if kneeling in penitence, Oberon’s body began to dissolve until only his head remained on the flagstones. “Don’t make me remember! If you do, I will curse you for this, you and all of your blood.”
“Mimir,” Odin said. “You will remember and you must. Only your wisdom can guide me through what comes next. Please, be more than the well water of this world. You are so much more.”
An echoing voice came from the elf’s disembodied head’s eyes where the full moon shone so brightly it cast eerie globes of light onto Odin’s face. “Your doom approaches on the wind, Wanderer,” the newly reborn Mimir said. “You thought to avoid your inevitable fate by relinquishing your great hall to another god of the inner worlds.” The head moaned in a disturbing parody of a laugh. “Much good may it have done you.”
Titania screamed and dove for Mimir, one moment a bleeding elf queen, the next a dark haired woman with a robe made of shadows and mist streaming from her eyes in the place of tears. “And you have awakened Heiðr’s aspect from my dear Titania,” Mimir continued. “Dangerous ploy with her associations to the realm of Dream and nearby Chaos. She can be used as a bridge by our enemies to infiltrate our minds and hearts with shadows.”
“If we are to survive,” Odin replied. “Then I will need all of you to remember who you are in your infinite complexity, and unique mix of light and shadow. Later I will beg forgiveness for any pain in the transformations. If we survive, that is.”
Mars, still holding Venus, already appeared as the Norse god of war, Tyr. He cradled Venus’ head on a giant cat that materialized next to the wounded goddess. “Freyja may take on another aspect as Death comes for her,” he warned. “And we require Thor to mount a true defense against the darkness.”
Odin sighed and gestured towards the mirror that held Dionysus’ reflection. “I always thought the Thunderer drank too much,” he said. “He must conquer his personal demons before he will be of any use to us.”
Tyr looked troubled. “I pray he is not delayed over long,” said the god of war.
In the realm of the tiger god, Merlin and the Inner Child came to the end of the path where a lake filled with crystal clear waters sat serenely in the twilight. An occasional breeze whispered across its surface, sending small ripples across it which ended as soon as the wind ceased.
“With water so clear, you would think we could see the bottom,” Merlin observed. But the depths of the lake were cloudy, concealing its true nature from the wizard’s sight..
The Inner Child picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. “Stone in water, water in stone, mother and child, goddess enthroned,” she whispered and threw another.
The wizard gazed at the child, a glint in his eyes. “Want to play a game?” he asked.
The Child jumped as if disturbed from a daydream. “Games? I love games,” she said.
“This is a guessing game,” Merlin said. “Want to know the rules?”
The Child half-shrugged.
“There are no rules,” he finished. “We only have to guess the answer to one question. Are you ready?” The Inner Child began to dance around the wizard in excited circles.
“Where does a cat conceal a feather?” he asked. The child’s dance ceased and she furrowed her brow in apparent thought.
“In his belly?” she said and Merlin shook his head.
“Good guess, but I think we need to try again,” he said.
The Child gazed at her feet and then up into the sky. “In the sun?”
The wizard smiled. “Another fine guess,” he said. “But alas, no.” He reached into his robes and brought out a single crayon and a piece of paper. “Let’s make the next guess in picture form.”
The Child grabbed the crayon and brought it down in wide strokes on the paper. As she focused on the page, Merlin noticed movement on the surface of the lake. He saw a woman’s hand rising from the water, then cascading dark hair like seaweed followed. As her eyes emerged, the spirit’s upward motion ceased and she glared at the wizard and Child, the rest of her face concealed beneath the water.
He pulled his attention from the lake’s denizen as the Child proudly presented her creation to him. It was a drawing of a stick figure emerging from a single flat line on the page. In the figure’s hands, it bore something similar to a spiked club, a child’s depiction of a large feather.
“She has it,” the Child pointed at the apparition as she slid beneath the lake’s surface once more.
“Nimue,” Merlin whispered in dread. His hands shook as he gave the drawing back. “You win our game,” he said to the Child.
“I win!” The Inner Child danced again happily as the wizard found his attention drawn irresistibly to the lake and the spirit concealed in its heart.
He did not notice the small gray mouse making her way around the lake nor hear her when she squeaked, “Do you want to see something new?” to the Child.
“Yes, Mouse,” the Child replied. “I love adventures.” The two wandered off together as the wizard continued to contemplate his past and his seemingly unshakeable connection to Nimue of the deep waters.
In Khan’s palace, the great tiger led the other Merlin to a large open room with myriad drapes in rainbow colors falling from the walls and ceiling. A stylized serpent swallowing its tail was depicted as a circle made of gold inlaid on the marble floor. The wizard walked to the center of the space and placed a single candle at his feet. He gestured and the fabric covered the arches and windows to the outside, making the false dusk into total darkness.
The tiger sat on his haunches outside of the circle. “I will laugh when this fails,” he said.
“Keep out of the circle,” Merlin snapped. “And never reveal to anyone what you are about to observe here. I found this incantation in a library hidden deep within a forgotten world. I swore to its guardians that I would never use it except in the direst emergency.” He grimaced. “Perhaps it would have been better for all of us if I hadn’t opened that particular portal.”
Carefully, he lit the candle and a hush filled the room. He held his maimed hand over the flame for a moment only, removing it after a single pass over the fire. His shadow stood in stark relief on the far wall, looking far larger than it should, given the source of the light.
“I would give anything to have my hand restored,” he enunciated carefully. Then, Merlin pulled a single progenitor spark from his chest and cast it into the candle flame where it shone brightly and began to fade. Before it disappeared, he whispered, “Shadow of destruction, shadow of night, shadow of fear, shadow of light, come to me. I would bargain with the mouthpiece of the Devourer.” In the total silence following his words, he could hear the minute sounds of the slight shifting of Khan’s whiskers. The wizard waited for a moment, then a moment more. As the tiger god drew in a breath to proclaim the experiment a failure, a voice came from the candle flame.
“Anything, Merlin?” said the flickering flame.
Merlin’s shadow on the wall changed to the form of a woman with a chain dangling from her neck.
“Anything,” he affirmed. “Though I doubt it is within your power to grant such a request.”
The shadow slid along the wall and then closer to the candle, thickening and taking on solid form as it moved. Khan began to growl, the hair lifting on the back of his neck. “You stand in the Lair of the Tiger,” he said. “And you are unwelcome here.”
Shadow tilted her head and a ghostly grin lit her features. “It would have been more impolite to ignore such a proper invitation,” she parried. The candle extinguished itself and twin flames lit in the being’s eyes. “The Devourer has more than enough power to return your hand to you, wizard. But what could you possibly offer to repay her for the trouble?” Shadow slid closer, first one leg, then the other climbing the base of Merlin’s robe. She circled, her body moving along the wizard’s clothing and stopped when her mouth rested behind his ear, her flaming eyes glaring impossibly from the back of his neck.
Her next whisper was for Merlin’s ears alone. “You will bring the Inner Child to the Queen of Blood,” she said. Her shadowy hands moved down Merlin’s arm and when she separated herself from him, his hand was complete once more and fully functional. “Until you do,” she said. “We will take the Khan as collateral.”
“The Child is not mine to give,” Merlin said. “Either is the tiger god.”
“You said anything,” Shadow chided. With a flick of her wrist, the end of her neck chain encircled Khan’s torso. Where it touched his fur, the tiger changed from a being of flesh and blood to one of shadows. “You have three days,” she said and vanished, taking the chained god with her.
Merlin collapsed on the floor of the room, his quaking limbs no longer supporting his body. “That could have gone better,” he said. “I suppose Khan now knows I spoke the truth. Though that’s little consolation and too late.” He pulled out the timepiece from the centipede. More than half of the clock’s hands now pointed up. “Time has always been my friend,” the wizard said. “Yet now I feel like he’s rushing ahead while I fall behind.”
Suddenly, the clock in Merlin’s hand began to chime. Once, twice, thrice, a silver bell sounded and the portion of the floor contained within the golden serpent circle of Khan’s inner sanctum began to sink. Down and down the floor continued into the earth, revealing a staircase set into the bedrock of the palace. “Curious,” the wizard said, peering down the steps and deep into the ground. “I wonder what Khan was concealing here. If I’m going to explore the tiger god’s domain, best to do it while he’s held by the Shadow. He’d never let me pass otherwise.”
Cautiously, the wizard began to take the steps, entering a cavern beneath Khan’s palace. Bright torches lined the walls at regular intervals so that Merlin could easily see through the gathering darkness. About halfway down, according to the wizard’s rough estimation, the sound of a violin began to drift up from the earth below, the music beckoning Merlin onwards through some magic of its own. He followed the sound, traversing the final part of the staircase downwards as if in a dream, and exited the stairs to discover a well-appointed chamber hewn into the living rock.
A spirit in the form of a young man in a tiger’s mask stood in the center of this space, playing haunting music on a violin made of gleaming red wood. Merlin cleared his throat so as not to surprise the spirit and the musician put down his bow and turned towards the wizard.
“You are not my father,” said the being in the tiger mask. “You cannot fool me with your magic nor glamour for I have been well trained in the art of both. Who are you?”
“I am the Wizard of the Wood and you may call me, ‘Merlin’,” the wizard said. “I am here on behalf of the Light Congress to beg a feather and further favors from the Khan so that Helios may be returned to the sky and all wrongs can be set right before the Devourer destroys all. It is exceedingly odd for me to meet someone new. Who are you, prince?”
The spirit removed his mask to reveal a being with skin made of starlight, a thick mop of dark hair and glowing green eyes. “I am the son of the dancer called Mouse,” the musician said. “She told me my father is the great Khan but he will not accept me as his own until I can better embody his nature. He has denied my association with him and hidden me here until that time. My mother named me, ‘Champion’, for she said that I am to be her strong arm in all creation. ”
“I am honored to make your acquaintance, Champion,” the wizard said. “When Khan spoke of embodying his nature, whatever did he mean?”
“I shall show you,” Champion said and his form began to change. In a flash of brilliant light, the prince changed from a man into a lion with fur the color of the darkest part of the void. “I am not supposed to be a lion, according to my father,” the prince said. “I was destined to be a tiger and the next in line to Khan’s throne. He has given me a mask so that I may practice being a tiger but, thus far, I remain a lion.”
“I am sorry to hear of your difficulties,” Merlin said. “Is it not lonely, dwelling alone in this place, while trying to change your essential nature?”
“Not at all,” said Champion. “Though my father gave me a mask, my mother gave me a mirror and, with it, I can see whatever in the myriad worlds I desire and learn the secrets of the Inner Worlds. I am adept at the music of the spheres and call myself a magician, sometimes, and a dreamer, others.”
“May I see this mirror?” Merlin said. “For I am very sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your father has been captured by the shadow and I need to know where he has been taken. It is a matter of life and death.”
Champion laughed derisively. “I do not believe you, so-called Wizard of the Woods,” the prince said. “My father may not be bound nor captured. He is the great Khan of the East, the tiger god of the sky and stars, and sits upon the lost Peacock Throne of the Emperors. Where is your proof?”
Merlin gave a deep sigh and pulled a progenitor spark from his heart. “I do not have time to relate the entire tale,” he said. “But I shall now speak to you, Champion, of one named Heidi and the adventures of the warriors of light called The Light Congress. Their successes and struggles against their shadows shall prove the truth of my words.” The wizard threw the spark into the air where it turned into a bubble of light. Within the bubble, The Light Congress’ various journeys into the Inner Worlds began to play like light and shadow upon a cave wall.
The prince’s green eyes grew wide as the tale unfolded before him, narrated by one who had been there almost from the beginning.
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 