Chapter 6
Sakiko reached the walls of Margouth, the major city in lands and at the same time its capital, in which the Golden Palace, the symbol of the whole continent's rulers was built. The road leading to gates meandered between hills covered by forests and green meadows. Life went on around the nearby houses, women were bringing water from a well and men were leading cattle and geese out to grazing areas. Carts from distant places headed for the city, all filled up with goods which were supposed to be sold there on the biggest marketplace. The girl wasn't going to enter inside the walls, since she guessed that graveyard, sole purpose of her travel, was placed away from the central part of the city. As it turned out soon, her instinct was true. Matthew, the adviser to the Master of Dreams, returned from reconnaissance and glided around her head. When Sakiko stretched her hand out, the bird sat down on her wrist.
"Have you found our graveyard, Matthew?" The girl asked.
"Yes, it's behind this hill. It adjoins to the walls of the city. It's enclosed too, but there's no problem with getting inside, because there is no locked gate."
"Good work. We're going there."
"And don't you want to rest? There are many interesting things in this city. Look at these palace towering over everything..." The raven suggested.
"No, Matthew. The rest counts on us and we cannot disappoint them."
"I know, I know... but when all is finished we should look around there."
"If this all ends, I hope I finally will be able to come back to my own world." The girl replied.
When she went to the other side of the hills, she noticed the graveyard concealed behind breaking down walls engulfed with milk-white fog. She unmounted the horse and having established the telepathic bond with it, she asked the animal to stay in the place chosen by her. She wanted to walk the rest of the route on feet. The black raven flew over tombs sticking out of the fog, the majority of which had the stone sculpture with strange, oval shape, exactly the same as the ones staying alone in all lands of the continent nearby more or less busy roads. The girl disappeared behind the stone fence, simultaneously taking the scepter out, the same one which she had found in basements of the tower belonging to the mage Zibo in the past. She hoped that the object would get in touch with her once again and give her some hint, a sign to find a place in which she should have seek the grave of its owner. In spite of her extraordinary sharpened senses, she didn't guess that she had been observed from a distance. Two people, the bearded man and his companion with black hair and violet eyes stood on the nearby hill. They were in a long distance from the young female vampire, but their eyes were pointed at her, as they could see every her movement in some strange, preternatural way.
"She already reached here. We almost didn't make it." The girl said.
"We did it. It could not happen differently. How could you doubt my wings which carry you between the worlds?"
"I never doubted you. But unexpected events are happening to us from the beginning of our expedition."
"You must focus now. When this woman finds the place prepared by us and our homunculus rises from his artificial grave, you must say by his mouth the words of the prophecy which you heard the first time in our golden globe. You cannot make a mistake with any of Endless' attributes or with any of the worlds. Otherwise, they will get lost again and will go to the world uninteresting to us. Remember that their path must be exactly the same as the way of the Awakening to the Garden of Destiny. If the path forks even for one moment, we won't make it on time."
"Do not worry. These words come to me each night and they're in my head always when my thoughts aren't busy with something else."
At the same time, Sakiko strode amongst funeral stones sticking out from the ground on both sides of the graveyard avenue filled in with leaves fallen from tall trees growing here and there in the necropolis. Grotesque gargoyles guarding the peace of some graves looked at the girl with their unseeing look which filled everyone with a fear. The female vampire wielded the scepter in the hand hoping that she would be able to experience some new vision, but the object was silent all the time. At some point Sakiko noticed the tomb standing close by, different than the rest of graves, built from a bright stone, not decorated so richly as other sarcophagi in the neighborhood. The scepter seemed to increase its temperature, as if it wanted to communicate some important information this way. When the girl turned towards the tomb, it became even warmer. The bird observing his companion from the branch of one of the largest trees in surroundings, rose up into the air and soon placed itself on her shoulder.
"What happened? You aren't moving at least two minutes."
"It's here Matthew." Sakiko replied.
"How do you know? I noticed nothing."
"When I passed nearby this tomb, the scepter started reacting. It woke up from its sleep. It became warm and its surface deforms rhythmically as if it's breathing." The female vampire put the magic object to the ear and then showed it to her companion.
"Listen to beating of its internal heart."
"It's terrifying." Matthew replied.
"It's beautiful. The object revived at the moment when it approached the grave of its dead owner. Is it not a bond lasting outside the time and space?"
"For me it's bizarre and horrifying. How a scepter can breathe? I should be accustomed to all strangeness after years in the land of my boss, but they sometimes know no bounds. It's too much for me."
"Wait. We still don't know what will happen, when we enter this tomb."
"I'm not going to find out. I can guess what will happen and I don't intend to see it. Do you understand? You're going inside alone. And I... I will be guarding surroundings. I will be watching if somebody suspected is approaching. You must have some bodyguard, right?"
"Ok. Stay here if you're afraid. I'm going in." The girl said and moved in the direction of the opened gate to the inside of the crypt. The door slammed shut a moment after she was inside and the scepter started vibrating, heating up much faster than before and it also started to shine with a strange glitter. Interior lightened up with its gleam revealed walls covered with layers of dust and webs. The catafalque with a stone coffin standing on the central place appeared in the front of the girl's eyes. The lid opened with an unpleasant grinding sound and a cloud of ashes got out of its inside. Dusts carried by a magic wind went up and swirled around the girl like a tornado. The heat of the magic object was unbearable, even for the person with the increased physical strength. Sakiko threw it straight into the middle of the cloud forming before her. In the same moment, a hand formed from the dust and immediately caught the magic object. The scepter glowed with a brightness from which the girl had to shield her eyes and cloud of ashes assumed shape of the human figure. The object gave the stored energy to human remains, causing that they became more and more material with every passing second. Bones, soft tissues, internal organs and muscles, skin and at the end white robes formed in front of female vampire's eyes. The scepter fulfilled its role, its duty to which it had been created. It sacrificed its unnatural life to give its former owner and the creator the second chance for terrestrial existence. It became black and cold and after a moment changed into a cloud of dust, exactly the same as the one from which the man was resurrected. A man in bright robes, with long, white beard and a bald pate stood before the girl. His blue eyes were looking at her with a curiosity. Female vampire was shocked by this extraordinary phenomenon of dead man rising from the grave.
"Who are you? Why did you get me back?" The old man asked.
"I... I found something that belonged to you in the tower of mage Zibo." The girl replied with trembling voice. The event surprised her very much, but she decided to behave as if she knew very well what had happened around her.
"Ah yes... now the memory is coming back to me..." The grey haired man said.
"I remember the day I created the dish protecting the copy of my awareness so it can resurrects my body when the right time comes... you know what, I didn't suppose that it would work!" He continued.
"Why am I still sitting here? Too long, I lay on the cold stone!" He said looking at catacombs located behind him. He moved in the direction of the exit, ignoring the girl.
"Hey! Wait!" Sakiko shouted stopping the wizard.
"What do you want from me? Sitting in these stinking basement made me bored!" The upset bearded man replied.
"I revived you a moment ago! Can you at least hear me out?"
"My scepter, which I designed for the occasion of my death from hands of one of my terrible enemies, revived me. You only brought it here! Looking at you I'm guessing that you won't desert me if I don't hear you out, so well... say what you have to say and be conceited from here as soon as possible!"
"I... I brought the scepter to you, because I need help... I don't come from this world... I got here by an accident... along with other travelers similar to me..."
"It starts become interesting. But I don't know what my role is in all of this."
"I don't understand what is happening here myself, I can only tell you what happened to me since I met with the witch..."
"Yeah nice... now women started to deal with magic!"
"Can you not interrupt me? When I met with the witch and I entered the basement of her house, my life was turned upside down. I met somebody who claimed to be the Master of Dreams, one of the Endless family... the reality is in danger, because being called the Awakening wants to destroy it and to build it anew in its own design. Morpheus, me and other people similar to me, we set off in order to fight with this being, but her spells caused that, we were sent to some unknown land instead to the heart of the Dreaming, deprived of possibility of the escape."
"The things you're talking about don't have any sense to me. But I rose from the cloud of dusts a moment ago, what can have any meaning in this world?" The old man waved the hand like chasing some flies away and moved with the intention to exit from the crypt.
"Morpheus, the Master of Dreams who seeks somebody who knows a way of leaving this world sent me here. He told me that if I search long enough, some sign will show me the way to somebody who knows the way. The scepter in the tower of the magus gave me the sign and brought me to you, exactly as the King of Dreams foretold.
"How was he called? Can you repeat for me?" The grey haired grandpa came closer to the girl listening closely to her words.
"Morpheus, the Master of Dreams, one of the Endless Family. He named himself with these words..."
In the same moment, the eyes of the old man shone with blue light and his hands started shivering. A gleaming tablet appeared on his head. The wizard caught hands of the girl forcing her to move closer to him. Sakiko tried to use her increased strength to free herself. In a vain, because the hug of the grey haired man was as powerful as the steel vice.
"Somebody or something wants to give you a message girl! Somebody or something has a message for the one which brought all of you together! Look into my eyes and listen to the message!" The female vampire did as ordered. She had no choice, because the magus didn't let her move even by a distance one millimeter. The strong voice of the man sounded in her head and at the same time unusual visions flowed into her brain.
"Take this card and hand it over to the one who found you. But remember not to tell him where you got it from. He cannot find the truth or the Awakening will learn where you are and then send you to some completely different reality again, perhaps much more terrible than the one in which you are now. Remember, take this card and hand it over to Morpheus!"
Sakiko closed her eyes, but in spite of it she could see the blue light of the card stuck to the head of the elderly man. Brilliance was stronger than eyelids of the girl, it got directly to her brain pouring it with visions of worlds and times about which the girl didn't dream in the most fantastic dreams which she occasionally had since the time of her transformation. She could see cities in the flames of the war, hundreds of people going along destroyed routes with the entire belongings of their life, looking with a fear at huge flying machines, heralding the fire falling off the sky. She looked at the land plunged in snowstorms, the frozen castle being the only protection from the frost and the enormous cathedral, ascending up to the sky, so large that it could hold the city in its interior, resounding with the singing of hooded men. She had before her very eyes a scenes with large metropolis, full of the artificial neon lights, skyscrapers and tens of metal robots flying around like swarms of mosquitoes around the lamp post on the dark night as well as the fleet of snow-white interplanetary ships, bigger than cities, afloat on the low orbit of some strange planet. She was a bystander of the odd film portraying forests full of huge trees, deserts inhabited by monsters bigger than mountains, psychedelic colorful places with meadows overgrown by bizarrely looking mushrooms and flawlessly clean corridors lighted by ghastly wan lightings from balls levitating above the floor.
"What was this?" The terrified girl shouted. She threw the old man away from herself going towards the exit.
"How am I supposed to know? I was dead a moment ago!" The old man screamed opening wide the door to the crypt. He quickly ran out outside and after a moment he disappeared behind one of breaking down gravestones.
"Don't ask about anything more and come back to your team! Give Lord Dream what you got from me and don't try to walk after me! Did you understand?" He screamed disappearing in the fog still settling above the graveyard. When Sakiko resulted from the tomb, the raven immediately join her. The bird could see the escaping man in white robes and found him to be very interesting.
"Who's this?" The girl asked.
"The one whom we looked for. The scepter revived him and it turned out that he had an important news to Morpheus. It's strange isn't it?"
"Yes... strange and bizarre. But don't be upset by it so much. Living in the company of my boss a little longer, you will start to understand the logic of dreams. What did this old geezer tell you?"
"I must give something to Morpheus. The card which I got from the old man."
"What is on this card?"
"I don't have a clue. The old man told me that I must hand it over to Morpheus if I want to get out of this place. The fact that he seemed to be even more disorientated and surprised by this than me is the most interesting. It really stars to become strange and more and more horrifying to me."
"Who knows, perhaps Morpheus, some time ago, put the card which you are talking about in the dream of this man to help him just in case... something like this happened to him? Perhaps all that's happened so far is his intricately woven plan of defeating the Awakening?"
"Perhaps it's exactly like this and I really would like you to be right. At the moment, we don't have an alternative option of getting out and therefore we must risk. Let us not waste time and let us come back to the rest."
"Here we have a problem. Don't you remember that they were caught by these people in black? We must think how to get them out of the cell."
"Therefore we must come back quickly. We will think about how to free them in a travel."
"Well." The raven replied rising high above the head of the girl. Sakiko put the strange card to the pocket, looked around and moved in the direction of the exit gate from the graveyard.
The mysterious couple observed the entire event from the nearby hill. The man with a long hair looked straight ahead with eyesight deprived of any emotions and his black-haired companion sat on the grass. She was pale and breathed with difficulty, she did something what exhausted her very much a moment ago. The man standing beside her seemed not to bother about her medical condition, he was rather interested with the result which her action brought.
"Can you get up?" He asked.
"Give me a moment. Our homunculus rose from remains of somebody really powerful. I didn't know it would be so hard for me to control it and to give visions of our Golden Globe to that girl. I was almost struck by the reversal of the magic vector... I defended myself in the last moment."
"So he tried to take over your body?" He asked long-haired.
"Yes... already in the first moment of his resurrection."
"How it could be? after all you only animate bodies and their ghosts still stay in the spirit world."
"It was like this until now. This time something happened, which I could not predict."
"Unimportant. We managed to give her visions and this is the only thing that matters. Everything is going according to our original plan." The bearded man smiled. He extended a hand to the girl, helping her to get up from a wet grass.
"Yes, let us go, because she can notice us." The black-haired one announced.
"Hold on a bit!" Someone's voice sounded suddenly. As it turned out, the bearded old man revived in the crypt climbed to the hill with lively step, simultaneously waving both hands. The wind blew his white beard and remains of grey hair.
"You won't run away from me!" He screamed pointing finger at the couple of travelers.
"How did he guess? " The girl asked the friend, but she didn't expect to hear any logical reply.
"Am I supposed to take care of him?" The blonde man was ready to fight.
"No. Perhaps something will become clear when we talk with him."
The grandfather was opposite two secret wanderers. He looked at violet eyes of the girl and at the bearded man the moment later.
"You must you answer my question! Why did you restore my bodily form?" He screamed threatening the couple with his bony finger.
Drales and two envoys from the Golden Palace as well as a few guards from the tower stood opposite the cell in which the considerable part of the Master of Sleeping Hosts' team was locked. Drales was talking how he unmasked them, caught them pillaging Zibo's tower red-handed and then defeated them and put them in dungeons of his stronghold. Men listened to him with declining interest simultaneously looking at people sitting on the other side of the bars. Members of the team behaved according to the advice of Morpheus, they didn't answer verbal insults of the long-haired man trying to retain the total calmness. Alan worried what had happened with his ring, because he realized that it was harder and harder to control it from a distance for him. The Heart of the Star living in his magic object answered calls of the Drales' mind, trying to break the control of the original Green Lantern. The object could soon become a tool of inconceivable damage. The other person, who was not dealing with emotions accumulating in her, was Narea. The girl felt worse since Drales took the bag with her crystals from her. She spent two nights without healing meditation and started sensing effects of the lack of the therapy significant for her. She disregarded words of the friend trying to encourage her and her eyes tracked one of guards holding her valuable property all the time. The man from the capital of the land had a lot of questions, but actually only one outweighed.
"Did you get some corroborating evidence that persons kept by you really were dealing with the forbidden magic? Something more than imaginations of the peasant from the village?"
" I told how they were caught a moment ago."
"It still means nothing." The other stranger from the capital city announced.
"Perhaps they were just idiots seeking the wealth where they should not? Many like them came and go through Chambers of the Truth of our palace. We don't have time to take care of somebody like them."
Drales smiled and asked the man keeping him company to gave him the bag with Narea's crystals. Seeing it, the girl clenched fists.
"Certainly I wouldn't bother you, honored envoys of the Golden Palace, if I didn't have proofs of guilt of these people. Please look at what they had with themselves..."
Long-haired man took one of jewels out of a bag. Both men looked at it with a huge interest and one of them simultaneously looked at the signet ring on one of his fingers.
"Indeed... there is some strange energy in this crystal..." He said moving his sight all over the surface of his ring.
"Don't hurt them! They're important family memento!" The black-haired girl shouted, although her companions tried to calm her. Immediately she gained attention of all present.
"Really?" The one of envoys spoke.
"You can see venerable men... this witch is worrying about her trinkets!"
The man with the ring took one of crystal from hands of the long-haired guard and came closer to the bars behind which members of the team were locked.
"Come here." He said pointing at Narea. The girl didn't react. Mint caught her hand in order to bolster up her courage.
"I told you to come up to me." The man had ordered once again. Black-haired girl got up very slowly, and then approached the bars. The grey haired man showed her black crystal. Eyes of the girl glistened and her hand unintentionally headed towards the longed-for object. The envoy from the Golden Palace immediately moved the jewel back so that Narea could not touch it.
"What's this? What is it used for?" He asked.
"I said that it was family memento very important for me. I cannot lose it." The girl answered with trembling voice. She touched grating of the cell.
"Really? Why is my ring indicating the magical potential hidden in them? What their role is?"
"I have no clue what you're talking about! It's a family memento!" Narea said very loudly looking at the elderly man with a great hate.
"Can I do something like that with it?" The man dropped the crystal to the floor. Drales companions watched with a faint smile and members of the team observed what was happening with the immense anxiety, being afraid of the reaction of their friend.
"Leave it alone! Give me back this crystal!" Narea shouted at the envoy. She reached behind bars, grabbing the robes of the man.
"Give me this crystal back!" She said louder than before, pulling the man to herself. Fury which filled her body gave her extraordinary power. One of guards dressed in black, seeing danger that threatened the guest of the tower, ran up to grating, freed the old man from hands of the young witch and pushed her with all his might, knocking her over to the hard floor. Mint and Alan Scott came to their friend who was trying to get up after the hard landing.
"Are you injured, o revered sage?" Drales asked looking at the man cleaning his robes.
"I can see that the magic clouded her mind. She is too dangerous to be here. We will have to take her to Margouth as fast as possible. Please prepare prisoners for the transport. I'm going to rest to the guestroom." The grey man ordered.
"That's right!" Drales replied.
"Did they have some more magic objects?" The other envoy from the capital city asked. Drales laughed up.
"No, only this one bag full of the abomination." He answered. Alan Scott listened the conversation with an immense anxiety. He realized that the long-haired guard would want to use his ring for his own purpose and it could lead only to the tragedy.
Jessica and Matts was sitting in the closed room on one of the top floors of the tower, the one which they had found earlier, before the arrival of the ornithopter with envoys of the Golden Palace. They wore black the costume and helmets. They knew that the real guard of the tower could barge into the room at any time. Rann's silence, as well as Sakiko and bird's servant of the Master of Dreams absence, caused that they had been afraid what could happen to them in the immediate future. The window from the chamber was opened slightly and sounds of airscrews hitting air and a hiss of the burner heating gas inside the bowl of the balloon came from it. Jessica looked outside, very cautiously so that nobody could notice her.
"Guards appeared outside again. Probably they will be gearing up for the departure." She communicated information to her companion.
"So quickly?" Matts was surprised.
"Perhaps they acknowledged that our friends were too dangerous to hold them in such a place. Maybe they have undergrounds and chambers of tortures specially prepared for such an occasion in the place from where they come." The girl said coming back to the room.
"Or perhaps they acknowledged that they were ordinary peasants searching forbidden places for baubles." The boy suggested.
"If indeed it was like this I wouldn't have a vision about this guy with a long hair and Alan's ring."
"Perhaps this guy cheated these bizarre clerics from the flying machine and took the ring for himself? Perhaps he will want to use it and then something terrible will happen, because this object cannot be worn by somebody else than Alan?"
"I don't know... irrespective of true meaning of my vision, we should not let him get Alan's ring."
"What can we do? We two against large group of armed people."
"Perhaps we will find something what will help us here?"
"In the library? Probably we will read them to the death! Wait..." The girl heard some noise coming from behind the shutter. When she looked outside it turned out that her premonitions for the bad course of events turned out to be true. A large group of armed guards under the lead of Drales, two honorable guests from the Golden Palace and prisoners chained up. Morpheus were coming out of the tower, Alan Scott, Mint and Narea as well as Corinthian obediently headed towards the flying machine.
"Damn it!" Jessica clenched her fists.
"What are we doing?"
"I don't know... we cannot let them take them! We have no clue where they can move them! We must act now."
"And your clairvoyance? Isn't it useful now?" Matts was irritated. Prospect of getting stuck in the world, which he didn't believe in, horrified him.
"My visions are unpredictable! I already told you about it! And be quiet, or they will find us and we will be locked too!"
"Jessica. We can't quarrel now." Matts calmed down going back into the vicinity of the shutter.
"Well. We cannot do anything, let us not be caught. Well... Rann is not with us so maybe he is close to the team and he's planning to do something to free them. He defeated three guards earlier in the forest..."
"He killed them." Matts corrected the girl.
"He defeated them. I don't care what he did with them now. I don't intend to agonize over it."
"Look." The boy stopped the conversation in order to show the friend what happened beneath the tower. Two guards dressed in black carried some box on the deck of the flying machine. When prisoners were inside the ornithopter, dignitaries from the capital city also entered the machine. Guards didn't leave the deck of the airship, they were going to flown as the additional protection of the prisoners. The machine got off the ground and raised higher and higher. After a moment, it gained the height appropriate for the voyage and her airscrews provided the right force pushing her monotonously towards Margouth.
"We lost them." The boy sitting on the floor announced.
"Perhaps one of guards flying with prisoners is Rann in disguise? It has always turned out to be the case in movies." The girl added smiling.
"Let us walk away. We must get out of the tower not arousing any suspicions. We must come off until all guards are excited with sending prisoners away." Matts got up going in the direction of the door. Jessica was skeptical.
"And what then? What will we do after leaving the tower?"
"We'll look for Sakiko. Now we know that she wasn't caught, so she must be somewhere there. If soldiers killed her, they certainly would showed her body to these grandfathers in cassocks. Nothing like this happened and this means that Sakiko had to escape them. And most importantly Matthew is with her. If we stay in an open spaces, he should find us without a problem."
"Ok. It's the only thing we can do now."
Jessica and Matts they left the library and followed the stone corridor towards stairs to the lower levels of the building. At some point they came across one of guards. The man directed his sword at them.
"Stop!" He shouted.
"What's the problem? We've just started the patrol! We cannot be late or the commander will skin us." Matts replied very nervously.
"You're lying. Nobody of guards present in the tower goes beyond walls without the weapons. You don't have even daggers. And apart from that there's no women in the tower!" The soldier announced looking at Jessica.
"Your silhouette. The way you're taking steps and keeping your weight in the balance... it isn't a manner of walking of the man." The man continued.
"You're lucky, that others don't have such an eyesight as I." He announced taking his helmet off. The man turned out to be Rann Shaner. Jessica and Matts felt relieved, convinced that they were not in any danger and at the same time they became sad. If Rann stood before them, he could not be simultaneously aboard the flying ship carrying their friends into the unknown place.
"Didn't you fly with them?"
"No. Drales, their boss didn't choose me as protection for prisoners. But I know where they were taken. I was there, when they talked."
"Where?"
"They're going to the place called the Golden Palace. It's probably located in the capital city or some other important city of these lands. Now we must learn how to get there. We have other problem. It regards Drales..."
"Did he take Alan's ring and didn't give it back to these guys?" The girl interjected stopping the statement of the man.
"You already know..." Rann was surprised.
"I had a vision of the future in which he used the ring against us."
"Ah yes... that's not important! We must get out from here and think how to find the ring. There's too few of us to confront Drales' people. And only I'm able to fight them." The man said smiling maliciously.
"Not only you. Sakiko is free too. We must find her." Matts replied.
"Yes... she's able to fight better than you're able to imagine." Rann announced mysteriously putting the helmet on.
"We're going." He ordered clearly implying that the time for talks had ended.
When Sakiko Hayasu came back from Margouth, the Sun started hiding behind the horizon and the night was closing in. The girl stopped on the hill covered with grass from which there was an uncanny view of hills dragging on and on, embroiled by dark leaf-shaped forests here and there. The bird circulated above her head observing everything around. At some point, the young female vampire felt that her horse had been alarmed, as if it sensed the appearance of something unusual and not fitting to the evening landscape. Matthew landed on the girl's shoulder.
"It is coming again." He said.
"What?"
"Look at the sky, in the direction of that village and the tower of the mage. Something is coming, something that we came across earlier during the journey to the graveyard."
Sakiko raised her head noticing the ornithopter gliding slowly on the overcast sky. The majestic machine moved flushing all birds out from nearby trees. The female vampire closed her eyes.
"It's probably some air transport trail here. We should not bother with this." She announced.
"Yes. Better let us hurry up."
"Wait..." The girl spoke unexpectedly.
"What's going on? Is something coming again?"
"No. But my hand... I feel the warmth again. As if the scepter tried to tell me something again."
"Come on! I know that this scepter worked miracles and made a remarkable impression on you, but you should not let your imagination rule over you so often! The scepter disappeared and some pal who helped us with nothing appeared at its place."
"He helped us... he gave me something that I must give to Morpheus. But now... be quiet..." Sakiko hushed the bird up, implying for him clearly to leave her alone and flew to glide between evening clouds. She felt the warmth in the hand and her mind fell into the state of semi-dream. She could see places and events which the old man showed her earlier, but this time they were distant, as quiet as the movie in color of sepia registered on the very old celluloid film.
The girl could see scenes in which the certain objects were a central part: a yellowed page from the book lying on the stone table watched attentively by men in dark hooded habits and the candles whose flames reflected in their old eyes, the black-haired woman sitting alone in the large chamber and the Egyptian symbol of life, Ankh cross, hanging freely from her hand, the sword sticking in rock on the sky lightened up by myriads of colorful stars, dark, gloomy mirror inside the stone chamber overgrown by dust, young girl standing amongst golden fields and cereal crops tousled by the wind, strange colorful fractal patterns, seeming to be a life form, watched by a group of men, who weren't able to understand. In Sakiko's mind, the new data imagined by the Golden Globe was encrypted.
In the same time, Astaroth looked at his living prison built from trees of the forest cathedral, the gift of nature. Tarot Cards lay on the table made from a stump. The demon looked at them fleetingly, knowing that his old friend gave him the possibility of the minimal contact with the reality. The old witch whom he called Juan gave him the opportunity for the contact with something different than leaves of walls holding him prisoner, keeping him alive for centuries. The pale hand of the black-haired man moved along the table with magic objects and his mind tried to communicate with other beings similar to him, hiding in different nooks of the inconceivably endless Omniverse. There was some party in the big room ornamented with candelabra, vases painted into colorful patterns and portraits looking from walls. Men dressed in suits and faces hidden behind Venetian masks and naked women groveling at their feet, tied with chains to them, filled the ballroom. The party began and every consecutive hour could bring only bigger debauchery and corruption. In the corner of the room, a fat man in the suit was sitting. His face was sweaty and fat flies with golden abdomens walked on his skin. Somewhere else, the men dressed in old habits carried the cage through the corridor plunged into darkness and gloomy songs were heard around. There was a strange being was trapped inside the cage, man-goat, two selves in the state of the continuous fight against each other, each of them wanting to dominate, but none was strong enough to destroy one's opponent. In other scene, some strange figure waited for something on the hill enveloped by the heavy, white fog. The man dressed in the red armor, mounting dark horse looked at forests under him. The eye looking from under his helmet seemed to turn to all possible directions, as the eye of a large chameleon. Astaroth's mind was receiving another visions, but the demon stopped them. He didn't want to know more. He felt satisfaction, that the ones who humiliated and imprisoned him will come across a lot of adversity on their journey.
Drales was sitting in his study looking at Green Lantern's ring on his centre finger. The man started to think, whether he did the right thing hiding the object confiscated from Alan Scott from Envoys of the Golden Palace. The impossibility of using the artifact in such an extraordinary way as the village idiot Fiflet described caused that he had doubted the truth of the magic inside the ring. He decided to relax and think about something pleasant, something that could turn his attention away from all problems. In the same moment a column of the green fire from the ring and immediately took the form of the naked harlot from some tavern in Margouth.