The Witch's Spell
When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears.
When you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears.
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have,
All of me.
My Immortal by Evanescence
Inside the Sleeping House, Arthur, Cobb and Saito sat at a massive dinning room table. Circe was at it's head. Arthur noticed the tick layers of dust covering half of the impressive antiques. The boy had brought them drinks and food. None of which the men touched. There was something evil about this strange woman. Her abilities in the dream world were like nothing they had dealt with before. It was as if she existed only in a dream. That she had come into the waking world to inhabit the sleeping house. Arthur could not imagine her existing in the world outside of this place.
A single lamp illuminated the darkness of her elegant (if neglected) dinning room. Circe's own appetite was ravenous. She drank red wine with stake. It's preparation so rare, blood flowed freely out of it. It gave the Witch an animal like quality the men were afraid of. When she had finished eating. Her normal self was replenished. The color in her face came back. Her eyes were bright again.
"Tell me about Hecate." She purred softly. She had leaned back in her opulent high back chair. The sheer purple fabric did nothing to conceal her well shaped breasts or dark nipples. The Witch seemed uncaring about how much of her body was revealed.
"Over a year ago," Cobb started "She and I met. My old chemist... Yuseff... had gone off on his own. She admitted the she had worked for COBAL. A company were not on good terms with."
"I'm sure." The Witch laughed. "Please go on."
"She was brilliant. She had been working on a compound to stop a dreamer from falling into Limbo." Cobb said. Circe's eyebrows raised.
"How impressive." She said sounding not at all impressed.
"It worked. We tested it. Several times on ourselves and our friends. A fellow Extraction Team. I trusted her, brought her into our Team. She was with us for over a year. We never suspected... anything."
"Tell me," The Witch asked. She abandoned her seat and walked casually around the room. "This magic compound that arrests your fall into Limbo, did it stop working?" The Men looked up at her. She smiled. "I had created such a compound. Eventually, the mind became immune to it's effects. The mind's way of protecting itself." She laughed "That woman never created anything. She only knows how to take."
"She stole the compound form you?" Arthur asked as Circe walked around the table to him. Her long fingers graced the exposed part of his neck. The sensation of her flesh on his rippled though his body causing a sudden excitement that terrified him.
"Of course." She said with a smile.
"Who dose Hecate work for now?" Arthur asked desperately.
"She has been employed in the New World*. By a shy price, who has become a man since his father's death." Circe said in a poetic tone.
"Who dose she work for?" Arthur barked raising to his feet. He had grown tired of this game.
"Robert Fischer." Cobb said suddenly. The Extractor had been lost in thought over the Witch's confounding words. "He hired Hecate to take our people?"
"The Price only desires answers." Circe said with an easy smile "He will get those answers but he will not find peace. Hecate will use your people for her own needs. She will brake them. Like she has broken so many others. You don't have much time."
"Where are they being held?" Arthur asked feeling all the air leave his lungs.
"In the Prince's great palace, and where else?" Circe told them. Cobb and Saito stood up. The time had come to leave this place.
"There is still one more thing." came the Witch's voice. Her power made them halt their retreat. "There is the matter of my payment." Circe said. "A trivial concern." The boy, whom everyone had forgotten about shot them with the tranquilizer again. Arthur felt himself fall heavily to the ground.
The Witch was standing over him. A menacing smile on her face.
Arthur found himself back home. Not the home in New York, Japan or Saint Cloud. He was aboard the ship "The Minotaur" Ariadne was with him. They were in the little bed they shared on that ship. She was sleeping. Her face peaceful. He fell into this world so easy. It felt so real and all his senses told him it was his Lady next to him. She was so beautiful there. He could not resist kissing her awake. She opened her big brown eyes and smiled at him.
"Good morning." She said sweetly. "Last night was... interesting." He chuckled and felt embarrassed.
"I have to apologize." he said "My behavior was totally unacceptable. Most ungentlemanly." He admitted but smiled down at her.
He was leaning over her. His Lady was on her back, safe in his arms. She tried to conceal her smile behind her hands. He pulled her hand away to kiss her.
"Yes you were." She giggled. "If I knew all I had to do to get you to behave that way was to wear a sun dress..." she started but lost her courage. Her face flushed hot.
"Tell me." he said. She seemed shy.
"I guess, I should have bought it a long time ago." She admitted.
"That dress got you into trouble last night." He teased, kissing her. She smiled sweetly.
"Well, am I forgiven?" She asked innocently. The question stirred him.
He felt a jolt go though him as his arousal for her awakened the rest of his body. They were both naked in their little bed. No energy left from their heavy lovemaking the night before to put clothes back on. He could feel the heat off her body as he kissed her. Her back arching against him. Making her breasts meet his bare chest. The contact of flesh on flesh, reminded him of something. The same way the Witch's fingers had felt on his neck. It felt nothing at all like Ariadne's soft and delicate skin. This skin cast a feeling foreign to him.
Memories came flooding back to him. The Architect, in a Moroccan market being chased by COBAL's men. Making love on this boat all day long. An assassin in his New York apartment. A wedding with snow falling. Ariadne, swollen with their child. Seeing his precious wife near death. Ariadne smiling at him, holding their perfect baby. Alexander's face that night he first held him. He had a son. Ariadne was his wife. How could he have forgotten? This world was not real.
Arthur jumped away from the shade of the Architect. He was breathing hard as she morphed into the form of the witch.
"You can hardly blame me for trying." Circe said sitting up. The covers fell away from her chest revealing her bare breasts to her would be lover. "You are just far to tempting. I have not seen a man such as you since the days of the great heroes*." She admitted coyly.
"I told you no." Arthur said. A feeling of being violated shook him into a sober reality. Circe sighed.
"As you wish." She told him "In case you can not save your Lady, you are welcome back to me any time." She leaned over to him. Her body molding to the bed. "I could show you ecstasy that mortal woman of yours is to terrified to attempt. Pleasures, your afraid to give her."
"No." Arthur said shaking his head. This woman was not real, she no longer exuded sexual desire for him. His needs feel only to Ariadne. He had to get her back.
He awoke to a dirty room in the sleeping house. Daylight had invaded the rooms. The sunlight had bleached out the wallpaper, and fabric on the furniture. The furniture was moldy. Eaten away by rats. This place no longer resembled the fine home from their dinner with Circe. It was mere shell. Arthur jumped to his feet. The floors creaked and groaned under his weight. Down broken and missing steps, the Point Man found Cobb and Saito. They were sleeping on the torn and dilapidated couch.
"Hey." Arthur said shaking them awake. The two men jumped back into consciousness.
"What..." Cobb asked. "What happened?"
"She took us into the dream again." Arthur told them. He had a feeling Circe did not bother with Cobb and Saito this time. They looked around the sleeping house. Empty and eerie, even in the day light.
"Where is she?" Saito asked.
"She's long gone." Arthur told him "I'm betting that we have been asleep since we got here. The dinner, everything was a dream."
"A dread with in a dream." Saito said raising his eyebrows. "Impressive, but not original." Arthur nodded.
"She was..." Cobb was searching for the words.
"Probably a 400 lbs man getting his jollies off us." Arthur said. He knew placing this idea in their heads would force the Extractor and Businessman to let go of the Witch. To see her as nothing more then an illusion.
"So what now?" Saito asked
"We check out all of Fischer's holdings." Arthur told them. "Look for property big enough, and privet enough to hold our people." The men left the sleeping house and it's ghostly inhabitants. They stepped back into the crowded market. Into the real world.
* The New World, a historic reference to the Americas
* The Great Heroes: Achilles, Hercules, Theseus and Odysseus
One of the things I really loved about Inception, is Cobb being in love with his wife. I think it's really a wonderful thing to love you spouse physically and mentally. These are easy things to do in the beginning, but grow harder as time goes on.
I think Nolan and his wife Emma based Cobb and Mal's love on their own. Cobb and Mal seemed to be lovers first, husband and wife second. Its a beautiful thing.
I promise this will not be the last time we see Circe. She is like a bad penny.
