Dorotea awakens. Remembering the peril her Sisters were in, Zion is the last place she wants to be. She is in a great city, reminds her of the Ancient Empires of Assyria or Babylon. She walks among puddles with floating bodies. Burning palm trees sway in a wind storm. A great hurricane has torn this place into rubble. In the distance several Tornados surrounding the city rise thousands of feet in black spires of violence.
In the wind, hail and pieces of ice hit her. This must be Bhagdad or Damascus. She sees mighty Ziggurats and Hanging Gardens. In the sky she sees lightning striking around the tallest structures, two Humanoid figures fall from the sky with the lightning. She knows instinctively this is Mithras and the corpse of Mercury, now housing the soul of the Demonic Wizard Solomon the Sorcerer.
Dorotea darts between buildings. Monstrous Soldiers with faces like Orcs and Bats stalk the streets. She finds Ruins of a Temple and hides among shattered statues of a Great Demon Goddess with a wagging tongue and necklace of Severed Heads. Exploring the rooms she sees hideous murals of profane sex acts and funerary rites. She feels her skin cringe on the back of her neck as she hears crying. Dorotea sees the Little Girl from the Circus who ran off to tell on her. She realizes this must be the dead Daughter of the Gypsy.
Dorotea comes to her and puts her hand on her shoulder. The Little Girl is bathed in white light, her skin taking a subtle bluish tint, her eyes have lost their color, now bleached white from death. The Little Girl is startled and asks, “What are you doing here?” Dorotea thinks about that and replies, “It seems like every time i get hurt or knocked unconscious in the real world, I end up here and only go back when I am killed in this world. Im not sure how it works…” The Little Girl starts crying again, “I don’t want to die again, it hurt so bad…” Dorotea feels sympathy for the shade of the Little Girl, but also sick to her stomach looking at so much death.
She asks the Little Girl what her name is. The Little Girl says, “Orinthia Zarathustra, but sometimes people call me Ozzy or Ozma.” Dorotea asks, “Why do they call you Ozma?” The Little Girl replies, “Because my Mother’s real name is Esma.”
Dorotea asks, “What happened to you? How did you come to be in this scary place?” The Little Girl says, I was playing with the children of the Dwarfs, who they dress in costumes to act out great battles. The Three Middle Eastern Sages of the Carnival, The Magi came and told me my father, Mr Barstowe wants to see me in the tunnels beneath the Bigtop. It was a trick, when I got to the main chamber there was Dead Girls there and they held me down while the The Sages stabbed me. My father was there and smiled while they killed me, they meant to enslave my Spirit. Last thing I remember is the Dead Girls drinking my blood and as my spirit left my body, I saw bloody horrible monsters come out of the tunnels to carry me down in the dark to eat me.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Dorotea shudders. What a horrible and sad way to die. She wouldn’t wish that on any one, except maybe Barstowe and his cult of evil blood drinkers. Dorotea hugs her and they decide to help each other get back to the real world. Dorothea says, “Your father is Barstowe?” The Little Girl nods her head and Dorotea says, “How awful, I couldn’t imagine being around such an evil person every day.”
The little girl Ozma replies, “He wasn’t always named Barstowe. It’s just a mask the Ancient Enemy wears. The body of Barstowe was once a Surgeon during the enlightenment era, a resurrectionist. The Spirit is something unimaginable. A burning streak of light wrapped in a maelstrom of shadow. His flesh is a British Lord, was a financier of the Confederacy for the Crown, a grandmaster of Secret Rites. There is a statue of him in London and Skull and Bones at Yale, a society he founded to serve his ancient master. The one we think of as God is actually the Devil. This was discovered by an ancient King of Israel, who became the spiritual parasite King Sorsos. He is an orchestrator of evil foreign powers who want to control our perception of reality with magic, child butchers and pedophiles of unlimited wealth. Feudal Bankers, Royal Predators and Vampiric Lords who are puppets of nameless Secret Societies to woo our Ruling Class and Robber Barons to betray us from the inside, tampering with our feelings, our ideals, planting hateful thoughts and making us fooled into believing we are wrong for suspecting them. Wars and Assassinations are rituals to pool spiritual energy into warping the essence of things we see and remember differently. Curators of lies, grifters and schemers who see humanity as cattle to feed dark desires. Passing laws to help the Hidden Hand steer the worlds events. He has been murdering girls for centuries, he is the reason they never caught Jack The Ripper or why they seem to always hang a fool for the vulgar conspiracies that shape history.” Dorotea is shocked by the wisdom of such a little girl, almost as if she is influenced by some greater intelligence of the spirit world.
Elsewhere, high in the Temple at the top of the pyramid, Mithras and Mercury: The Black Knight arrive to hold counsel with Aries. Aries sits on a throne pedestal, unmoving, unblinking in a state of dreamless sleep, eyes open but dormant. He is so ancient his skin has become like stone. A storm god of the primordial time before time, when glaciers and lands long since under the sea were world powers.
He was born of night in the Epoch of Gemini. A time so distant that it is the fertile ground of the next stage of reality to be born from it in a great circular dance of Epochs. The Aquarian Epoch will swallow up the Age of Pisces bringing either a great spiritual awakening. A dawn of an age of abundance and enlightenment, or it will be a rising of darkness and atrocity to end life in all worlds touched by the eternal night that comes after the final war.
Aries looks at Mithras and Mercury with contempt. Mithras looks on with wily eyes, not disciplined enough to control his outward emotions. Always trying to corner an advantage or for any sign of weakness. The most contemptible personality type. His cult was born around a “Great Hunt” where a young man slays a great bull of the Age of Taurus, but he was a minor player even in his own age. A despicable little wheeler and dealer with no loyalty and no wisdom despite his reputation as all knowing and powerful.
Mithras is just another calculating sailor on the sea of betrayal, ready to jump ship when its most advantageous. Aries lets a rare smile cross his goatish face, thinking “He will be the First to Die.” Kneeling Mithras says, “Great Lord Aries ‘Lord of the High Places.’ How can we be of Service?”