Adventures in Nemesisland Ch. 13

The high priest's laugh echoed above the muffled cries of the figures trapped in the mirror. "Fooled by illusion again, slave, when will you learn. Now will you make the right choice or will you give up and submit to me or, even worse, will you face the wrath of your own mistress when you return empty handed or with an illusion created by us?"

I stood still, my head spinning with the taunts of the priest and the cries of the girls. I tried to remain calm. I grasped the piece of amethyst that was in my pocket to help clarify my thoughts. KIm had kept hold of one of the pieces of crystal. The devotees of the new religion were cunning and skillful but even they could not reproduce the powers of the crystal. I stood quietly in the centre of the chamber and held out the crystal in the palm of my hand, closed my eyes and entrusted to my own instincts. I opened my eyes again. There, amidst the swirling images calling out to be released, there was one, with her arm stretched, the other part of the crystal in her hand. The power of the two crystals was working to bring them together. You were pushing gently against the glasss which began to yield and bend until you were able to pass your hand through. I grasped it and pulled you out of the mirror.

"Quickly, we must get out of this place," I urged. We raced to the end of the passage. Our pursuers followed us and entered into the far end of the chamber. We needed something to buy us some time. We would not be able to outrun the Knghts Templar guards. I had to think of something to delay them. I took my crystal and threw it hard against the mirrored roof of the chamber and caught it again as it fell down. I waited and stared at the mirrored walls in hopeful anticipation. A crack opened up on the mirrored ceiling. It spread slowly and little by little ran down the length of the corridor and then down the sides of the chamber. And then the glass shattered into thousands of tiny shards that poured down like a deadly rain over the guards that had crossed the threshold of the mirrored chamber in pursuit. I shouted to you, "Run, run now, as fast as you can."

I didn't wait to watch the explosions of shattered glass as the mirrored chamber imploded in on itself. In the distance as we dashed through the corridors of the crypt I could hear the shattering of glass and the shouts of panic from the guards. I recognised one passage from my earlier exploration of the crypt. At the end I could see the winding staircase I had descended earlier that would lead us up into the chapel. From the inside we simply pushed open the stone door and burst out of the next door into the chapel. A few tourists turned around to see what the commotion was about but quickly went back to their tour of the church.

We emerged onto the steps at the entrance of the temple. The August sun still shone on the site but the atmosphere of the place was altogether different; the idyllic vision I had encountered earlier had been supplanted by a feeling of menace. Sitting on the steps was a woman, as if she had been expecting us and was waiting for us. She stood up, turned to me and started to speak. "It seems that you are in need of some assistance Nano" she said. "How do I know that I can trust you?" I asked. "What choice do you have? You will need to get the girl away before the guardians of temple catch up with you and she is recaptured and all your efforts would have been in vain." I considered carefully and then turned to the woman and said, "Yes, I accept your offer of aid."

At those words the body of the woman gradually started to change shape. I had never before witnessed anything like this miraculous transformation. Her arms changed into wings, her legs into sharp talons, her nose into a curved beak, all before my very eyes. Soon, the metamorphisis was complete and standing next to me was a magnificent giant golden eagle. She turned her beaked head towards me. "I am Goddess Cihuacoatl, the winged eagle goddess of the Aztecs. My aid has been sought to assist the young novice's return to the realm of the goddessses. Quickly, put her on my back."

I helped you onto the back of the eagle and then she spread her giant wings and launched herself into the air. As she swooped up, with you clinging to her feathered back, she circled the chapel three times and then sped off into the distance. Soon she was a mere speck in the distant blue sky as she sped away."

"I don't understand," Kim said, "so I was rescued. I did escape. What happened after that?"

"Ah, but there's a twist to the tale. I did have another encounter with the priest and the Knights Templar guards and did eventually escape the chapel, but that's another story. I returned to Nemesisland believing my mission had been an unqualified success. It's true that I had successfully removed the threat from the unborn child and for that the goddesses were pleased. But Goddess Nemesis was angry with me. She said that again I had been fooled by a trick. The eagle was not truly one of the goddesses but another illusion created by the Kinights Templar.

"And this is the nub of my tale, Kim. Now that the child you were carrying had been destroyed you had been desecrated in their eyes and were of no use to them. The eagle carried you back to the other world. Knowing that you had been Goddess Nemesis's chosen novice they placed you in a brothel in Manchester to spite her and eradicated all memory of your recent past. That Kim is how you came to be working in the parlour. You can see the part I have played in it. On two occasions it was my failings that let you fall into the hands of those who would harm you. Now I have completed my tale you can see why I was so struck with fear and remorse when I first recognised you in Nemesisland."

There was a silence as Kim absorbed the subtleties of the tale and the enormity of its impact on her and Nano reflected on the choices he had made that influenced Kim's fate. It was Kim that broke the silence.

"I don't know what to think. If that's the end of the tale then I think I'm more confused than before. The idea that I'm was some kind of chosen novice for something seems so weird and then there's the shape-shifting creatures. It's a magical story but surely none of it can be true?"

"Do you not believe that such things are possible?"

They both looked up. Silently their mistress had slipped back into the grey chamber.