The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©

Chapter Fourteen: Curses and Demons

Sparrow opened his heavy eyes to find himself on a cot against a canvas wall, similar to a tent. However, looking around, he realized the structure was much more permanent than a tent. The wall rose ten feet into the air, slanted into a darkened A-framed ceiling, and there was a skeletal wooden frame of thick posts as wide as his wrist supporting the structure. There was also a density to the walls, as if the canvas was not the first layer of defense from the elements but rather a lining for something dense and sturdy.

Sparrow tried to sit up but could not raise his head off the cot. He felt like his muscles had developed a will of their own, as if they were on strike, refusing to obey the simplest of commands. He could turn his head to the side to look around the room with some effort.

The structure was about the size of his room back in Dule Van. Part of the wall on one end of the room had a hole in the canvas with an oven-sized opening holding a small fire burning. The fire appeared to be enclosed in a hardened mud structure like a fireplace with a chimney on the outside of a house, and there was a shelf built into the mud a few inches above the fire for cooking. On the floor by the fire was a large ceramic bowl as tall as his waist if he had been standing and a small metal container that could be either a bowl or a wide-rimmed pot for cooking.

The floor was made of slats of wood laid side by side, and a round, checkered red and black rug was in the center of the room. The skeletal wooden support structure was a complete frame, even running along the floor where the excess canvas was rolled onto the wooden beam along the base of the wall to pull it taught. Against the opposite wall of his cot was a bedroll with a large fur blanket and pillow on the ground.

Next to the makeshift bed was a dresser with various objects on it. A comb was next to a small round tilting mirror with a stand. There was some sort of ornamented box with tiny drawers, much like a woman’s jewelry box he had seen at the emporium in Dule Van. Next to the mirror was a dagger with a black handle and a single red stone in its pommel and a simple leather sheath that appeared to be homemade.

The only other object on the dresser was a picture of two people, but he was too far away to see who it was. He could only see it was most likely a couple since one person was tall with short hair, and the other person was shorter with long hair.

Sparrow craned his head back with some effort to see the last wall in the room where a door should have been located, but all he could see was a smooth piece of canvas. He looked around the room one last time to confirm that there were no doors to be found. He considered the possibility that the doorway was hidden somehow with a spell but felt too exhausted even to try to find dai schen to take a look.

As Sparrow returned to staring at the ceiling, he wondered about his situation. He knew he had traveled very far without meaning to in an impossibly short time. He also knew that even if he could figure out how he ran so fast, he had no idea where he was, which direction Jareth was from his current unknown location, or how to prevent running right past him as the world blurred by. Additionally, he had no idea who had brought him to this doorless enclosure or what they wanted from him in the first place.

All at once, there was a noise from somewhere above him. It sounded like something heavy was being shifted on top of the roof. The noise continued until a stream of sunlight broke into the room through some sort of door or opening that appeared in the ceiling. A rope ladder was tossed into the room, followed by a single rope attached to a large sack, slowly lowered into the room until it came to rest on the ground. Lastly, a woman began descending into what Sparrow now knew was an underground enclosure.

The woman’s back faced him as she unhurriedly descended the rope ladder. She was not wearing any shoes or socks and had a simple, long-sleeved green dress pinned up to her bare knees with a strap. The strap had been sewn to the inside of her dress for that specific purpose, to free up her legs for chores like climbing ladders. It was hard to tell with her back facing him, but Sparrow thought she was wearing a black hood or covering on her head, but he couldn’t determine what it was for.

The woman reached the bottom of the rope and untied the large sack on the ground from the single rope hanging from the ceiling. Then with a great effort, she picked up the bag and waddled with it over to the large pot against the wall. Sparrow heard water pouring into the basin and realized she had been collecting drinking or cooking water.

She lifted a ladle hanging on the pot’s side and scooped some water into the small bowl. She sat on the ground with the bowl, grabbed a wet cloth from the bowl, and proceeded to wipe small amounts of dirt off her feet. Once done with this task, she undid the strap holding her dress up and placed the bowl on the shelf in the fireplace, presumably so the water would evaporate, and she did not have to climb a ladder with a bowl full of dirty water.

The woman walked back to the rope hanging from the opening in the ceiling and pulled down on it hard. With a loud noise, whatever opening was above the rope ladder was slammed shut.

Wiping her hands as if she had accomplished a great chore, she turned around, and for the briefest of moments, their eyes locked, and then several things happened at once. The most intense look of horror suddenly appeared on her face, and an audible gasp escaped from her lips which sounded like the beginnings of a shriek. Her entire body also shifted and melted like a mirage, reforming itself into a new body and face. Just before the new image became clear enough to see; the woman turned around while covering her face with her hands.

The moment she turned around, all of the shimmering and twisting of her body instantly stopped, and she appeared just as she had before when she did not know he was awake. He thought he heard gasping and possibly crying from the woman, but after a few moments, she straightened her back and made fists with her hands as if to reassert herself.

She then began to fiddle with something at her neckline for a moment before slowly turning around to face him again.

Sparrow braced himself, not knowing what was going on or what manner of creature he had been captured by, but when the woman turned back around, there was no shimmering or shifting of her appearance. Her face was completely covered by a veil of some kind which was attached to the hood she was wearing. The veil was all solid black and made of a thick material covering her entire face except her eyes. Over her eyes, there was a mesh material just sheer enough for the woman to see through without anyone else seeing her face.

Her dress had string laces tied up the front to her neckline so that her entire body, except for her hands and bare feet, was encased in cloth. Although he could not see her face, Sparrow felt she was about to scold him based on her posture.

“That was very stupid indeed for someone traveling in the company of the great Elder Jareth…”

The last part of her sentence was meant to be sarcasm and not praise, which caused Sparrow to be more confused about who this woman was.

“… especially considering your unique abilities … Mies Seibas,” she said softly.

Sparrow instantly recognized the pet name “my sweet,” which he had heard in his dream the night before the flowers appeared near camp. However, this was not the same voice as the voice in his dream. In his dream, the voice felt familiar, as if whoever had said those words had known him longer than time and deeper than he had known himself. Her voice was nothing like the voice in his dream.

The woman was standing to the side of the fire embedded in the wall, which caused her shadow to be cast on the wall to her right. As Sparrow looked at her shadow, he was reminded of the shadowy shape in his dream, standing in front of one of the newly formed trees, ponytail and all. Coupling the familiarity of her shadow with her knowledge of the exact pet name he had been called in his dream was enough to confirm that this woman had been spying on his dreams.

As Sparrow made this realization, he became angry, very angry, which was an emotion he had not yet experienced in his fragmented memory. He was tired of feeling like the puppet on someone else’s strings and of unknown parties spying on him and appearing in his dreams. With these thoughts running through his head, Sparrow decided he had had enough.

Even in his anger achieving dai schen was a simple matter, and once he achieved it, he immediately willed his body to regain its strength. He felt his muscles strengthen and grow, trying to obey his command, but something held them back. There was a resistance to his will, almost as if something was pushing against him. He strained, pushed, and willed harder and slowly felt the resistance weaken.

The woman appeared unconcerned as she watched his muscles triple in size and his body push and thrash against invisible restraints, but she was covered from head to toe in cloth, so it was hard to distinguish any emotions from her.

Eventually, Sparrow was able to sit up, and he continued to push the barrier away from his body. He paused for a moment panting and catching his breath while he held whatever it was pushing against him at bay. Then with renewed determination, he pushed again, adding a phrase in that ancient glutaral language he had used and heard in his dreams.

“Verkiereh mis dach Thadous,” he said with strength, not yelling but commanding all the same.

He knew its meaning as the words escaped his mouth “loose me, Minion of Death,” which seemed more like a title than a state of being.

He heard a low moaning emanating from the bonds holding him at bay as if they were a living creature moaning in pain. At the same time, the woman darted forward until she was standing over Sparrow.

“Please stop! You’re hurting him!” She yelled with her hands in a pleading position in front of her.

Sparrow ignored her and continued to push against his restraints while saying again, “Verkiereh mis dach Thadous.”

The moaning changed to a scream as Sparrow pushed the restraint far enough away from him that he could stand. As soon as the screaming began, the woman had dropped to her knees.

“Stop! I’ll call him off! Just please don’t hurt him!” She shouted as she buried her face in her hands. Although he could not see her face, it was obvious that she was crying.

Sparrow stared down at the woman at his feet and felt a sudden sense of shame. He also felt that this shame was ridiculous as she had basically kidnapped and restrained him. Even still, the view of her kneeling on the floor sobbing into her hands while pleading with him to stop was enough to make him back down.

He relaxed slightly, allowing the restraints to push him back to a sitting position. His muscles shrunk to their normal size, and the restraint immediately slammed him down onto the cot with such force his head spun from the sudden movement. When the world stopped spinning, he saw the woman standing over his head with the dagger from the dresser in both hands. With the red pommel down, she brought the dagger down full force on the crown of his head.

*****

Sparrow woke up a few minutes later with a severe headache. He wasn’t sure how he knew it had only been a few minutes, but somehow, he knew it had not been long. He pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead as he groaned in pain.

Then he realized his hand was not restricted to his side, and he bolted upright. The quick movement caused a wave of dizziness, and he sat there holding his head until it started to ebb away. As the pound of the pulsing blood in his head started to fade, he was made aware of the sound of crying in the room.

He looked around to find he was still inside the underground enclosure on the cot. Nothing had changed except the dagger was lying on the floor next to the cot as if it had been dropped in a hurry, and the woman was sitting on the makeshift bed on the opposite wall holding a crying creature of some kind.

The creature appeared stocky, although that perspective could be due to the fluffy white fur covering its body. Even with it being cradled in the woman’s arms while it cried, it was obvious that standing, the creature would only be the size of a small child. The woman stared at Sparrow as she stroked the creature’s neck and made shushing noises to comfort it.

Sparrow placed his feet on the ground, bent and picked up the dagger, then stayed seated as he rotated the sheathed knife in his hand and considered what to do next. It was obvious that whatever magical bonds restraining him had been removed, and somehow this creature had been involved in those restraints. Then there was the woman staring at him on the ground. She was unpredictable at best but could have easily killed him instead of hitting him on the head and releasing his bonds. She either was not afraid of him due to some unknown element, which he doubted based on her resorting to hitting him on the head, or she truly did not fear him for some unknown reason.

Regardless, the thought of physically harming anyone with a blade made Sparrow shudder slightly. He stood and approached the dresser next to the makeshift bed on the ground with the dagger held handle-out in his hand. As he came to stand in front of the dresser, his shadow was cast from the fireplace over the pair on the ground, and the creature let out a very cat-like hiss in his direction.

“Biggs No likey! No likey stupid dragon words,” the creature said, followed by a second hiss.

The second time it hissed at Sparrow, it turned its face toward him. Although its body was white, its face was lined with short, reddish-brown fur, and it had two large black glossy eyes above a very human-like mouth. There were no nostrils that Sparrow could see, although they could have been buried in the fur somehow. The creature’s teeth were bared as it hissed at him, but they were all blunt and flat, indicating a plant-based diet.

Sparrow ignored the hiss and placed the dagger on the dresser where he had seen it before, then returned to sit on the cot against the other wall. He and the woman stared at each other in silence as she stroked the creature’s neck in her arms. Its crying had subsided to a soft whimper now and then.

“My name is Sparro-“ he started to say before she cut him off.

“I know your name and what you are, although it is obvious that Jareth has kept you in the dark about that. Typical of the man,” she said with obvious disdain.

Sparrow sat there in silence for a moment, staring at the woman as he ignored her comment. He felt like she was trying to bait him into changing the subject, to talk about Jareth, and he wouldn’t let it work.

“And your name is?” Sparrow asked calmly.

“My name is Grey Mcshemmon, if you must know,” she said angrily.

“Thank you, Grey,” Sparrow said calmly, and he was going to say something else, but she cut him off again.

“Thank you for what? Giving you my name? I should have slit your throat for hurting Biggs that way!” she practically shouted at him.

“Can we please have a conversation like normal people so I can figure things out?” He shouted at the woman in frustration while standing up from the cot.

Sparrow had no intention of hurting the woman, and she most likely knew that as well, but Biggs, on the other hand, was not privileged to that understanding. In the blink of an eye, he jumped from Grey’s lap and began to blur as he expanded. His body seemed to dissolve, and in its place was an opaque, orange barrier cutting the room in half, separating Sparrow and Grey.

Sparrow’s mouth dropped open as he realized it was Biggs himself that was holding him on the cot before, not just a spell of some kind. He sat back down on the cot as his mind whirled, trying to figure out what exactly this creature was.

After a moment of silence, Biggs’ head appeared in the corner of the room, floating on the orange barrier as if it had no real body. Sparrow could see an expression of disapproval on its face as the head rotated slightly in the air. It was impossible not to find the scene humorous, and Sparrow found himself smiling at the floating head despite himself. 

“Biggs, I promise I will not hurt Grey. I just want to talk to her,” Sparrow said to the floating head.

“Biggs no trust stupid dragon. You hurt Biggs,” the head said while spinning in circles near the fireplace.

“I didn’t know you were holding me on the cot. I thought it was a spell, not a … person.” Sparrow said with sincerity, although he did have to catch himself from saying ‘creature’ rather than ‘person.’

“Dragon thinks Biggs a person? A person like Grey?” Biggs asked with excitement

Sparrow had no idea the significance of calling Biggs a person, but if it would pacify it enough to let him have a real conversation with Grey, he was willing to go along with it.

“Yes Biggs, I think you are a person, just like Grey,” Sparrow said while ignoring the warning signs Grey was making with her hands behind the floating head, which had moved to hover at the center of the room at Sparrow’s eye level.

The barrier instantly disappeared, and Biggs reappeared on the floor of the room, facing Grey and down on one knee. He was also wearing clothing now, a complete outfit with a large poncho-style tunic hanging from his shoulders. With a flourish of his hand, a narrow, pointed hat appeared with a large white feather sticking out of a felt strap along the brim. He placed the hat over his heart while a short rapier sword appeared at his hip.

“Grey my dear-ling, Dragon said I am a person, so at last we can be married! Biggs said loudly.

“Biggs, I think Sparrow doesn’t understand,” she said kindly to him as she knelt in front of him.

“Dragon cannot tell words that are not truth. I said as muchly, yes I didly,” Biggs retorted as if he was educating a child.

“Lots of untrue things can be said when one is ignorant of all the facts, my dear. You cannot ask me to marry you,” Grey said with kindness, touching his cheek with her fingertips.

“Who’s asking? I made a declarative statement based on empirical observations of a controlling factor,” Biggs said with a sudden intellect that belied the goofy exterior and childlike behaviors he had yet displayed.

“Stop quoting my books to disarm me, you ninny!” Grey said with a laugh while scooping the creature into her arms as they both laughed like a mother playing with her child. As soon as he was in her arms, his clothing and the sword disappeared. Sparrow seemed to have been forgotten entirely in the exchange. He allowed them to continue playing momentarily before clearing his throat softly to gain their attention.

“Grey, I need to know what is going on. I am unsure if I was kidnapped or rescued by you. I have no idea where I am, and I need to find Jareth as soon as possible. It would also help to know how you know Jareth and why you seem put off when mentioning his name.”

“Well, that is quite a mouthful, dearie, and I will have to declare that I am surprised at your list of questions,” she said with some satisfaction. “Pleasantly surprised, to say the least,” she added with some sense of praise that was lost on Sparrow.

Thinking he had gained his goal, Sparrow relaxed on the cot, waiting for her to answer his questions, but Grey’s anger seemed to flare back up.

“Now tell me why I must answer any of your questions, boy? I take you unconscious into my home when Biggs says there’s a jackal nearby, and you injure him as a thank you and feed into his delusion of being a human,” she said with passion.

Sparrow’s eyes were torn away from Grey as he noticed Biggs making faces at him from behind the woman’s leg. His eyes were jerked back to Grey when she stepped towards him to gain his attention.

“Why would you believe a thing I have to say after hitting you like that anyway?” she asked earnestly.

“Because of the picture on your dresser,” Sparrow said softly.

Sparrow could see the picture up close when he placed the dagger on the dresser. The image was full of life and color, as if a piece of time had been captured on paper. It was magical of course, most likely enchanted from a real memory as a gift judging by the ornate frame with silver flowers in the corners. In the picture was a young Jareth standing next to a beautiful red-haired woman with long wavy hair. They were holding hands and laughing at some private joke.

“I do not know your history with Jareth or your current association with him, but between that picture and you willingly releasing me from my bonds … I trust you,” Sparrow said firmly.

There was a very long pause in which she did not say anything as she stared at him. Even Biggs could feel the seriousness of the moment as he stood looking subdued behind Grey. After some time, Grey returned and sat on the makeshift bed on the floor.

 “Very well. I will answer your questions, but only because you did not ask me about my veil, or Biggs, or anything you saw when my face was not covered … which I appreciate more than you know,” she said the last part as a whisper.

“Thank you, Grey,” Sparrow said respectfully.

Sparrow had realized by now that this woman was a little unstable and had a temper. She most likely had very little interaction with others, so she was unpredictable at best. Because of this, Sparrow opted to remain silent and let the veiled woman process and respond to his list of questions as she saw fit.

Biggs took a seat on Grey’s lap, facing Sparrow. Grey absentmindedly wrapped her arms around him as she let out a long sigh.

“Alright, we might as well get this over with. There are simple answers to your questions, but I feel those answers will just create more questions for you to pester me with. Which in turn will set me off, so I might as well give you the long version of events and save us. Well … me, some unnecessary shouting,” she said.

There was a quickness to the way she spoke, as if this much talking all at once made her uncomfortable. There were also a lot of random tangents and unimportant facts thrown into the dialogue as the story progressed, as if she had dwelt on small moments in her past until they became hyper-important, and she had to emphasize those moments.

“Jareth and I met when we were in school together in Bree. He likes to let everyone assume he and his farce of a brother were always taught in a great school like Dule Van or the Arcane Academy in Jersal. Yes, they eventually were transferred to Dule Van, but for Jareth’s first three years, they were in an ordinary arcane school designed for all the unexceptionals.

“I was sent to Bree because I can dream walk. Dream walking is rare, and the dream walker has always had some arcane ability, that is until I came along. I was sent to be trained in Bree because it was the closest school to my small town, but all levels of spells eluded me. I had the rarest gift of the arcane but could not light a candle to save my life, at least not without Biggs, but I don’t want to talk about Biggs right now.”

Biggs appeared oblivious that he had even been brought up and almost comatose as Grey spoke. Sparrow shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands out to indicate he didn’t want to talk about Biggs either. Grey visibly relaxed the tension she was holding over the subject, almost as if in her mind, Sparrow had asked about Biggs, and she was now off the hook from the question.

“Okay, good. So, Jareth and the Farce’s enhanced abilities were eventually realized, so the school paid for them to be sent to Dule Van, but because I could not cast spells, it was deemed safe to keep me in Bree. Jareth gave me that picture and frame as a parting gift the day he left. The next time I saw him, he was in an arranged marriage to some watery tart!” she shouted angrily.

Sparrow was surprised to see that her hands gripped great handfuls of Biggs’ fur in her anger, yet the creature appeared undisturbed. The only change was his mirror-like black eyes appeared to glint red in their centers.

Grey released Biggs’ fur and seemed to compose herself again.

“I will admit it had been several years since we had spoken, and we had made no promises to each other when we parted in our youth, so he was not to blame. It doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it,” she said passionately.

“Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked, and this is taking too long! I can recognize people by their dreams the same way you can recognize someone by their voice, and because Jareth and I had been close in the past, his dreams are always close to me when I dream walk. I always know when it’s his dream.”

“Now, do not judge me! I have never once entered Jareth’s dreams. That is a path that there is no turning back from, but I can observe some of the strong ones from a distance without his knowledge. In the last half year or so, those strong dreams have become about you. That is how I knew about you. Although I was expecting a boy, not a man,” she said.

Sparrow did not know what she meant by him being a man and not a boy. He had nothing familiar with which to compare his size or height, and there was no mirror in the hidden underground room. He had more important things to worry about than her assumptions of his appearance.

“Wait, so Jareth dreamed about me enough that you learned of my existence? What did he dream about?” Sparrow asked.

There was a long silence from Grey, and for a moment, Sparrow thought he had made a mistake by asking, but to his surprise, he heard her start to chuckle from behind her veil.

“A fair question to be sure, but first, you have to understand two things. The first is that people dream all of the time. And I mean all the time, but they rarely remember that they dream. The second is that your actions influence your dreams. If your single goal for months is to plan the kidnapping of a specific person, and you honed that plan every day, you will dream almost daily about that person, those plans, and every good and bad scenario that could happen. Even if you do not remember your dreams.

“So yes, he dreamt often about you. Sometimes the boy, sometimes the beast, sometimes dead, sometimes alive. I saw those dreams and wondered who this … dragon-boy was which occupied his dreams as of late, so I sought you out.”

“Is that when I saw you in my dream? The one with all of the trees?” Sparrow asked, forgetting who he was speaking with.

“I told you I never enter another person’s dreams!” Grey shouted at him angrily as she pointed a finger at him.

Biggs smiled at Sparrow as Grey shouted at him as if the creature knew some great secret. Grey was still talking, though, thankfully no longer shouting, so Sparrow ignored Biggs.

“Your dreams are not isolated to your own mind! Not like us pretty little human dreams are. For anyone else, I could have walked right up to their dream and peered in without disturbing a thing, but your dreams seem to … expand, or something like that, as you dream. I do not know how else to describe it because I have never seen or heard of anything like it.”

“All I know is I was standing outside your dream, and then your dream was all around me, and I was stuck there. I thought I would be forever stuck in your dream, but when you woke up, I woke up,” she said as if she had not been yelling moments before.

Then there was a long pause where Grey seemed to stare past Sparrow into the wall behind him. With the veil on her face, it was difficult to know for sure, but she seemed reminiscent of something. Or she was about to yell at him again. It was impossible to know for sure. Then all at once, she spoke again as if she was in a trance, almost too softly for Sparrow to hear.

“The earth was molded in rolling hills with a canopy of trees at the break of autumn. The colored leaves were waves in a sea, alive and dancing in the wind, crackling together like the sound of a rainstorm. Hilltop meadows dot the forest with homes at the peak of each hill, every window lit, all promising a warm hearth and warm company. A road wound from home to home, covered by a canopy of branches that protected travelers from harm. The closest home had a circle of logs around a burning fire pit. It was all so peaceful … so inviting … I would have been happy being trapped, trapped in your dream … forever.”

Biggs suddenly hissed loudly and jumped up from Grey’s lap. The sudden action broke whatever moment Grey had been reliving. She shook her head a few times as if she had just woken up and tried to shake the sleep from her brain.

“Biggs no like stupid dream,” Biggs shouted as he kicked at the rope ladder hanging from the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, Biggs, I didn’t mean to,” Grey said as she stood from the bed and knelt at his side, putting her left arm around him. “I can relive dreams occasionally if I am thinking about them hard enough, and it has always made Biggs uncomfortable for some reason,” Grey explained over her shoulder to Sparrow.

There was a tone to her voice indicating the subject was not open to debate, so Sparrow just acknowledged the information with an understanding nod.

“Biggs, how about you go play in the meadow while we finish talking,” Grey said to the creature.

              Biggs turned his face to Sparrow, and his eyes shone red at their center. Sparrow met his eyes calmly with a small smile, intending to reassure the creature that Grey was safe, but Biggs kept staring at him with blank red eyes.

After a moment, Sparrow heard two voices speaking at the same time.

Grey was speaking to Biggs saying “He’s not going to hurt me, love. Go play. I’ll call you if I need help.”

In the back of his mind, though, Sparrow heard the voice of Biggs, yet lacking all forms of silliness and any speech limitations.

“Take care, broken Dragon. I protect what is mine.”

Sparrow met the creature’s gaze, this time with much more awareness and respect, and gave him a curt nod.

“I promise I will not harm her, go and … play,” Sparrow said to Biggs.

Stating a promise seemed to instantly satisfy the creature. He did a backflip into Grey’s arms, kissed her cheek, and disappeared.

Except he wasn’t really gone, at least not completely. Sparrow was unsure if it was a spell or some clever trick to make him think Biggs had really left, but something magical was still present in the room with them. The best way he could describe it was a thread attached like an anchor to the room, or perhaps something in the room. He did not feel threatened by it, so he left it alone and turned back to address Grey, who was sitting on the makeshift bed again.

“May I ask how you found me?” Sparrow asked.

Sparrow was afraid that asking more questions was going to make her angry again, but instead, her voice was warm and inviting.

“Of course. Over a year ago, Biggs said he felt the presence of a jackal in the meadow. That’s where we are, by the way. That rope ladder would put you out close to the center of the meadow. So, we needed to find out what the Jackal wanted and if it was alone. It turns out it was a brute, like all the stories said, so Biggs had to take care of it. He made it clear the meadow was off limits, but I guess we didn’t make much of an impression considering another one came back a few days ago,” She said.

Sparrow considered for a moment how she had casually stated that Biggs had defeated a Jackal, then realized the thought was more believable than he cared to admit. There was certainly something odd about Biggs, but he had no idea what it was or how to find out more about him. Maybe Jareth could shed some light on the creature when Sparrow saw him next.

“The second one left before we could find it, then a few days later, Biggs said he felt something strong suddenly appear near the meadow’s southern edge. We assumed it was the jackel again, but when we approached the location, it turned out to be you. It was obvious that you were not a Jackal and were in rough shape, so we brought you inside to rest,” she said.

“Why did you bind me?” Sparrow asked as neutrally as he could.

He was sure the question would set off her temper, but she surprised him again with a calm, helpful response.

“Well, Biggs said you were not human and called you ‘dragon,’ so I didn’t know what to expect when you woke up. It seems silly looking back, but I was just being careful,” she said.

Answering some of his questions made Sparrow feel a little more secure with his situation. He still had no idea where Jareth was or how to reach him, but at least he was no longer lost. He also knew he was close to the destination he and Jareth wanted to go to in the first place.

“Grey, I need to contact Jareth somehow to let him know I’m alright and to have him meet me here. Is there any way that Biggs could help me do that?” Sparrow asked.

“I’m afraid not. I genuinely believe that Biggs cannot help you, but more importantly, he would not help you even if he could. It just does not work that way,” she replied.

“What do you mean by that? What does not work in what way?” Sparrow asked with some confusion.

Just then, Biggs arrived in the room, standing on the dresser. He somersaulted off the dresser onto the floor and then turned to Grey.

“The dragon boy boy did did bring some dumby dumb warlocks to play play!” he said joyfully.

With the appearance of Biggs, her temper and discontentment seemed to return with a vengeance. She jumped to her feet and angrily growled at Sparrow before grabbing the dagger from the dresser. She then ignored him and walked towards the rope ladder.

“Jareth said we might ask the warlocks for help in reaching the Garden. They may not be a threat,” Sparrow said quickly, trying to get the information out before she climbed the ladder.

She whirled on him with the knife in her hand, pointing it straight at him.

“You’ve been asleep for three days, boy! Jareth has dreamt every single night about fighting warlocks! They are not your friends. Besides, I made it abundantly clear to that last bunch of warlocks that if I ever saw them again, I would kill them for what they did to me,” she said, seething with hatred and anger.

Sparrow had no idea what her history with warlocks was but was indebted to her for aiding him. He confidently said, “I will help you fight them.”

“Stay here, boy,” she said with a growl as she bent over and began tying her skirt up to climb the rope ladder.

“Stop calling me ‘boy’! You probably saved my life, and they are only here because of me. I’m helping you fight them,” Sparrow said firmly.

She stopped tying her skirt up and straightened to look at him. She studied him for a moment before speaking.

Sparrow could hear Biggs whispering, “Yes … yes, a fine idea. Test him,” as if he was speaking to someone who wasn’t in the room. Grey gave no inclination that she could hear him as she stared at Sparrow.

“I’ll tell you what; it takes awhile to cross this meadow, so we have some time to spare. Let’s find out if I’m going to be fighting with a dragon or with a boy,” she said with a sense of foreboding as if she already knew what would happen.

Grey turned around so that her back was facing Sparrow, then reached up, removed the hood from her head, and threw it on the cot, veil and all. Biggs made a strange gasp, sounding as if he did not believe she would do what he whispered for her to do, but was pleasantly surprised that she was. He turned into the opaque orange film of a magical barrier and divided the room again, separating Sparrow and Grey, but this time there was no floating head to distract Sparrow from the moment.

Then Grey turned around.

Sparrow instantly noticed several things at once. She had dark, red, silky hair pulled into a single, long ponytail at the back of her head, most likely to accommodate the hood that she had been wearing. She had piercing blue eyes and light freckles on her cheeks. She was quite beautiful and looked as young as she did in the picture on the dresser, even though that picture was decades old.

Sparrow instantly put her age out of his mind as her face began to blur, followed by her entire body. Everything began to change and shift until Grey was completely gone, and in her place was a taller, blurry person. Although the body of the blur did not move, the blur itself seemed to rock back and forth between the two images as if each was fighting for dominance of the body in front of it.

Eventually, the images solidified enough that Sparrow could recognize them completely. One of them was Jareth, standing in front of him as real as life, except devoid of life. His eyes were white and cloudy, and most of his hair and face were matted with fresh blood trickling out of a wound in his temple. The blood trickled over his blood-soaked clothing and onto the ground, where it began seeping between the cracks in the floorboards.

Then the image blurred and instead of Jareth standing in front of him, there was an image of himself. He looked like a man, not a boy, but it was clearly himself he was looking at. There was an eye patch over his left eye, and his right eye was an orange slit exactly like the eye of Ultaris, the beast he had cast out. In his left hand was a dagger half covered in what he knew was Jareth’s blood. The part of the dagger without any blood showed a white blade with a streak of black running along each side of the blade. The handle was made of wood and emblazoned with the symbol of a black dragon and a single rune meaning “Death.”

The images blurred back and forth one more time before stopping on the image of Sparrow as Ultaris. Ultaris pointed his finger at Sparrow and spoke in Sparrow’s voice.

“I am your destiny. There is no escaping it.”

Sparrow felt his breath catch as his throat tightened and his mind whirled.

“Was this all some trap to lure me here?” he said out loud.

Ultaris blurred, and Jareth was standing in front of him. He locked his dead eyes onto Sparrow’s and raised one bloody arm to point, blood dripping on the floor in front of him.

“I thought I was your friend. I treated you like a son. I helped you. You killed me. You killed my wife. You killed our child … you killed everyone.”

              “I did not. I couldn’t! please, believe me!” Sparrow shouted at his dead friend.

              Jareth blurred, and Ultaris stood before him again, his arm raised like Jareth’s had been. He took a step towards Sparrow.

“You have no choice! We are one!”

Sparrow took a step away from the image of himself as Ultaris.

“I am not you! I will never be you!

The image blurred, and Jareth took a step towards him.

“You burned the world. You burned all time. You burned all love. There is nothing left to remind you of her. There is no Life.”

Sparrow took another step back as Ultaris came back into focus, stepping towards Sparrow as if the orange barrier between them did not exist. His hand was still raised, but the dagger was in it now with the handle towards Sparrow in an invitation to use it.

“Can you stop yourself? Can you stop fate? Will you stop … me?”

Sparrow entered dai schen involuntarily as he took another step back, pressing his back against the canvas-covered wall of the room. He glanced behind him at the wall for a moment, and when he turned back around, Jareth’s dead eyes were inches from his face. He could smell the blood on him and feel the cold of his body.

“I’m so sorry, Jareth!” Sparrow sobbed as he put his hands up, wanting to reach for him and afraid to touch him simultaneously.

Sparrow saw his hands and realized they were covered in blood, and the black dagger was in his right hand. Sparrow looked up and found that Jareth had been replaced by his own face again, and he was grinning from ear to ear, seeping evil and death from his very existence.

As Sparrow stared into his own twisted face, he knew he had to stop himself. He had to do something, anything, to stop himself from becoming the monster in front of him. He looked down at the knife, then looked up again to meet the Dragon’s eye, to look one last time at his future before he ended it by driving the blade into his chest.

That was when he saw something that made him pause. Behind Ultaris’ eye, there was a faint yellow glow. It was not behind his eyes but something behind his actual body.

Sparrow leaned his head to the side of Ultaris’ to look past him when he heard him shout, “The world will burn!” to gain his attention.

Sparrow looked again at the dagger in his hand, then back into the cloudy dead eyes of Jareth, but the glow was still there in the distance.

“You made us all watch while you ate Jonathan alive. He was the first to die at your hands, you monster,” Jareth said while extra blood poured down his face for added effect.

Sparrow had realized by now that the glow he was seeing was Grey and that she was still standing across the room from him. When he had achieved dai schen, he could see spells, and her entire body was glowing like a powerful spell was at work. He probably couldn’t see it before because he could not see her face, which would make this a curse.

With this realization, Sparrow understood that this curse was trying to make him kill himself, and based on Biggs’ feeling of the need to protect Grey, the curse could also cause people to lash out in anger, maybe even attack the image instead, which would put Grey in danger.

 He was currently staring into the eyes of Ultaris, who was still standing inches from his face.

Sparrow smiled at the man and said, “Go away.”

With a shocked expression, Ultaris took two steps backward and blurred hard, becoming a blurry image for several seconds before solidifying into Jareth again. He looked prepared to say something, but Sparrow was tired of seeing his friend in that state and being accused of causing it.

“Entierne mis oun menar Tegenart,” Sparrow said with finality, which meant, “Remove yourself from my presence.”

Jareth’s face contorted with rage before blurring away into nothingness.

With the image gone, Sparrow could see Biggs standing beside Grey, the orange barrier gone. Grey had buried her face in her hands the moment Sparrow raised the knife to end his life. She was sobbing into her hands, wracking sobs of someone tormented by a curse that caused others to kill simply from seeing her face.

Sparrow looked down and found that he was still clutching the dagger, but it had changed. The blade was black now with a white stripe on either side, the dragon symbol was also white, and the rune read “freedom” instead of “Death.”

Sparrow placed the dagger on the dresser, walked up to the crying Grey, and put his hands on her arms. Her head snapped up, her tear-soaked face met his, and a smile of joyful relief erupted on her face. She wiped a tear from Sparrow’s cheek and wrapped her arms around him in the first human contact she had had in years. Between the sorrow Sparrow had just experienced, and the joy Grey had found with Sparrow surviving her curse, neither one gave any indication of letting go for some time, but Biggs had to ruin the moment with a song.

“Warlocks stinky, warlocks dinky, warlocks need another binky. Gonna hurts them, gonna kills them, gonna find some rocks to fills them,” he sang loudly.

“Of course, the warlocks! Thank you for reminding me, Biggs,” Grey said as she released Sparrow from their hug and wiped the tears away from her face. “Sparrow, I will tell you about this curse later, but know that you are immune to it now and it only works on men. Warlocks usually only travel in small groups, so we should be fine if we work together. You and Biggs first need to focus on any female warlocks, then, if any males survive my curse, we can clean them up together.”

“You go up first and open the hatch, then I’ll follow since I have a dress on,” she said casually, as if this was the most obvious statement in the world to make.

Sparrow had never considered that until she mentioned it, and his face was blushing slightly as he turned from her to grab the dagger off of the dresser. He tore off part of his sleeve and wrapped it around the blade as a makeshift sheath, then tucked the dagger into his belt. Then he climbed the rope ladder into the darkened A-shaped open attic.

When he reached the top, he found that the rope was attached to two large looped pieces of metal fastened to the sturdy main support beam at the center of the roof. Above this was a handle on the roof that would have been used to pull the door closed. Sparrow pushed against the roof where the handle was, not putting much effort into it, but nothing happened. He pushed harder this time, and again nothing happened. Sparrow moved up until his feet were on the top wrong, put his entire back against the roof, and pushed with his legs until the hatch finally opened.

Sparrow crawled out of the roof of the enclosure to find he was indeed in the center of a very large meadow. To the north was the foot of a mountain, and to the south, east, and west was an old forest with large leafy trees. Sparrow looked down to see that the enclosure’s roof was completely covered in dirt, grass, and flowers to blend in with the meadow. The door had wooden planks on top of it designed like a planter’s box to hold the dirt, which explained why it was so heavy.

Nearby were wooden planks on the ground as wide and tall as Sparrow, with a small hinged door in its center. Sparrow recognized this as a water well, which is probably where Grey had retrieved the water she brought down the ladder. There was also a short, green pipe sticking about a foot out of the ground with traces of light smoke coming out of it, which must have been the chimney for the small fire in the room below.

Grey followed Sparrow out of the enclosure and shut the door behind her. Biggs then floated up through the trapdoor slowly, ghostly in appearance and making noises like wind blowing through an old house.

“Biggs, take us to them, please. I would rather not fight over our home, just in case one of them likes earthquakes,” Grey said as if speaking from experience.

Biggs’ only response was to start walking east while singing his song about killing warlocks, making up more morbid verses as he walked. Sparrow and Grey followed, Grey still clutching the dagger in her hand and Sparrow mentally going over all of the spells he had seen Jareth use to fight and defend himself since they started this journey together.