He stood by the table’s edge, with the large black cube held firmly in his grasp, one palm up, one palm down. The reflection of the seven candles in the otherwise dark room glittered in his eyes as he focused on the top of the cube.
Softly he uttered the words he had recited dozens of times before. With hands removed, the cube remained where it had been, suspended in midair. Gently he placed his fingers on the top edge furthest from his chest. While uttering another soft incantation, he moved his fingers around the edge, stopping when they met in front of his chest. Carefully, with the tips of his fingers he pried the top off, creating a box instead of the cube. Suddenly a new light was added to the darkness of the room.
The new radiance emanating from the top of the box was an intense mixture of colors. Gold, silver, bronze, copper rays shone forth creating eerie shadows in the ceiling. His face was now visible, illuminated from below, deepening the hollows of his cheeks and eyes creating a demonic appearance. The full lips moved again as he gave voice to the third incantation.
Reaching into the box, he withdrew a golden circlet, finely etched with ancient sigils. The circlet of gold was slowly placed upon his head. With a quick clap of his hands, the top most candle was extinguished. Suddenly he stood rigidly, as if his body had been stuck by a large electrical shock. A few moments later, with an audible gasp, he started to breathe again.
His left hand reached into the box, extracting another gold circlet, and he slid this circlet over his right hand to his wrist. His right hand repeated the same procedure, until a gold circlet sat on his left wrist. Another sharp clap of his hands and the remaining two gold candles were extinguished. He was ready for the jolt of electricity this time, and without hesitation continued with the rite.
The next circlet was made from pure silver, but the rays of light did not come from the band. The light was emitted through the painstakingly etched sigils on the surface. A third clap, a third incantation and two silver candles extinguished themselves into twisting tendrils of smoke.
Twice more he reached into the box to remove silver circlets. These were placed on his ankles, and with great care he uttered the forth incantation and brought his hands together. All the candles were snuffed out; but the room was far from dark. Brilliant gold and silver rays shone from the circlets about his body.
Carefully, he placed the top back on the box, and with a single word the box was a cube again. With a gentle push, the cube descended to the floor between his feet. He took a deep breath before reciting the last incantation. Slowly, with great care in his diction and the words.
The bands began to contract, creating a warmth and pressure of a comfortable fit.
Seconds later the comfortable pressure became unbearable. A sharp gasp of pain escaped his lips before he could control his voice. The pressure continued to increase and he thought his skull would pop open, like a watermelon with too many constricting rubber bands about its center. In a flash all light had vanished leaving a stygian darkness. With the light gone, so went the painful constrictions, leaving only a vivid memory.
He stood motionless for a few minutes in the darkness and tried to calm his quivering muscles. Slowly his arm rose in the darkness as he reached across the room. An upward flick of his finger, and the light above the dining room table pushed back the darkness. Bathing the room in the soft reassuring glow of electricity. Wonder filled his mind as he looked from one bare wrist to the other. His left hand reached for his right upper arm and felt only the smoothness of his skin. The silver bands were also gone.
With quick strides, he crossed the living room to stand before the full length mirror on his bedroom door. His eyes confirmed what he already knew. What he had expected from the first. He was naked. There was no trace of the gold or silver placed on his body just a few short minutes before. As usual, a small smile of satisfaction appeared on his face.
It never failed to amaze him when an incantation worked perfectly, even after nine years. The small discomfort he felt as the rite proceeded, would have been like a pin prick compared to the pains that would have derived from even the smallest error.
Four days of agony was the reminder of the single mispronounced word, when he had first started the practice of higher magic. That memory of a rite gone wrong would never fade, and for excellent reason. Perfection was required each and every time.
For a long time he studied himself in the mirror. The reflection was still Evan Cooper, but unadulterated?
Standing six feet exactly, thinner but not to the point of emaciation. Muscles sinewy and very well defined without a day in the gym. The dark brown hair, as always, looking like he needs a trim. Piercing brown eyes capable of holding someone's attention for as long as Evan desired.
The bands were not there, but yet they were, now deep inside his inner being.
“Incredible,” he whispered. His eyes moved to the reflection of the clock beside his bed.
“In forty-three minutes I’ll see them again.”
The pupils of his eyes momentarily dilated as memories of the last nine months flooded back into his consciousness. That was when the nightmares had begun. Walking down a deserted street, buildings burnt out leaving empty blackened shells. The glass gone from the windows created the illusion of blank eye sockets. Torn and twisted bodies were strewn throughout the gutters and edge of the road. The stench of decaying human flesh causing him the raise his hand to his nose. Rats scurried from body to body. Maggots making the dead dance in an unholy movement. Vacant eyes stared up at him silently begging for help when help was beyond giving.
Turning the corner, he saw the little girl, no more than six, dirty and ragged, huddled on the stoop of a blackened burnt out building, something in her lap. Evan first thought it was a ball until he noticed the hair. She was cradling a human head. Taking notice of Evan, the little girl raises the head by the hair yelling
“Mommy was bad.”
She quickly abandoned her stoop and ran down the alley with a maniacal laugh echoing off the walls. The sound led Evan through the alley and down several streets.
He came to an abrupt stop, almost falling forward. An altar of bones and blood had been created atop a mound of bodies a good twelve feet tall. The little girl stood beside a woman who balanced herself on the bodies next to the obscenity of the altar. The woman, raising her arms, held a long knife in one hand, and a newborn baby by its feet in the other.
The light of madness glittered in her eyes as she looked down to Evan in the gloomy twilight. Moving as if in slow motion, the knife was placed to the infant's throat. One small movement severed the head from the body. The head skittered and rolled down the hill of bodies to come to a rest at Evan’s feet. She screamed at Evan,
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“I make this sacrifice to the Dark Lord, because you failed to stop him. This is your fault Evan Cooper.”
How did she know his name? Then she moved the knife to the center of the cradle of her hips. Plunging inward she dragged the knife upwards, eviscerating herself. Folds of intestines spilled out as she continued to yell.
Evan turned and ran. He slipped and fell into a pile of rotting corpses. He was now covered in the gore, as he ran through the streets screaming.
Running to the point of near exhaustion, he stopped and looked at the end of the street. In this world of destitution, at the end of the street was a gate fashioned from gold and silver.
He walked closer.
The closer he moved the more he heard the chanting of his name from beyond the gate. He knew this gate. It was the Seventh Star Gate.
With all the speed his tired body possessed, he ran towards the Gate, but it never seemed to come closer. There was definitely a voice urging him to cross over to the Gate.
For three nights Evan ran towards the Gate without reaching it.
Waking the morning of the fourth day, Evan knew what he had to do. He had to reach the Gate to find out who was calling and why?
It was that or go insane from despair caused by the dreams. Somehow, he understood his world was about to be invaded by an unspeakable evil beyond imagination.
He understood that the dream represented his future and possibly the future of his world and mankind. He had to visit the Seventh Star Gate, the highest Gate, for his answers.
The ancient book told the story of the eight Gates, seven Star Gates, the Gates of Knowledge. And the other, the Dark Gate, that none could pass beyond and return. The book had been written in the archaic form of Aramaic, which Evan knew from his studies. This was the highest magic that he had ever attempted to date.
Twice he read the book in its entirety, before deciding that he would try the First Star Gate.
Successfully, he had passed through the first four Gates. With each passing, he had gained knowledge of the universe and his arts as a magician.
He had even gone to the edge of the Dark Gate to question the dark specter guarding the portal.
He knew that to skip over the fifth and sixth Gates without gaining their knowledge and powers could be a fatal mistake. But he had to find out who was calling him and why?
He desperately needed the answer to the questions, was this his future and could that future be altered? Every time he thought of being the savior of his world, the ludicrousness of the idea made him laugh, but the need for answers impelled him forward.
Exactly as the book instructed, the circlets were laboriously crafted from pure gold and silver. Inscribing the ancient sigils about the circumference had been interrupted six times when one minor mistake after another forced Evan to stop and melt the circlets down.
Seven times to achieve absolute perfection; if he was to have any hope of succeeding. Briefly he considered the ardent task of going through the fifth and sixth Gates, but each day the feeling of dread increased.
He knew that to craft the talisman required, visit, absorb the lessons taught and powers granted would take two, possibly three years. That would be too long of a delay. But not gaining the knowledge and power of the preceding Gate could prove disastrous in itself.
He ignored his own personal safety about the amount of energy needed to jump from the fourth to seventh Gate.
He had found another ancient manuscript. One that told of a possible method. It was dangerous, but now his only option.
Dressing quickly in a flannel shirt and old faded jeans, he moved quickly through the apartment gathering the things he would need and stuffed them into a small duffle bag, for the passage to the Seventh Gate.
As he passed the dining room table, he saw the meticulously drawn pentagram and accompanying sigils. Quickly taking the sleeve of his shirt he ran his arm across the table top, obliterating the chalk and sending the candles to the floor. With a quickly murmured incantation, and a wave of his right hand, he left the apartment. Brisk strides took him to the back of the building and into the adjacent vacant lot.
He stopped at the edge of the parking lot to look back at the darkened bedroom window. Closing his eyes he reached out with his mind to feel that she was awake. Awake but troubled.
‘Rest easy. All will work out in the end,’ he told her in his mind. He felt the presence in his mind relax. The thought of thirst was the last thing he left her with before opening his eyes. She would be ready for the journey now also.
The vacant lot behind the apartment building ran for three miles into the foothills of the Catalinas. Ten yards from the edge of the asphalt parking lot, Evan kicked away several beer cans and larger stones. He sat with crossed legs. Wand in hand, he stretched to draw the detailed pentagram and the appropriate runes along the outside in the dirt.
He started the invocation requesting the powers of Anu, Enlil, and Enki. He placed a small copper brazier in the center of the diagram. With a wave of his hand, fire sprang to life in the center. Dropping the pieces of incense into the flame, he made the offerings to the appropriate gods as the color of the flames changed.
Withdrawing four miniature braziers from the bag, each in turn was placed in the palm of his right hand. Using the power of his mind, the braziers floated to their position on the cardinal compass points outside the pentagram. Concentrating his will, the next incantation was said and fire sprang to life in the smaller braziers one by one as the four watchtowers were invoked.
Next a sword was removed from the bag and held high above his head. The incantation was said clearly and loudly as the sword was deftly plunged into the ground up to the hilt. A sudden gust of wind blew across the vacant lot from west to east.
Its presence was felt before its form was seen. A huge black muscular dog walked up to the side of the pentagram being careful not to touch any of the lines in the dirt. It sat on its haunches and regarded Evan with a slight tilt of its flat head.
“Only one may approach this altar and my body during my passage with impunity. A woman from my race,” and Evan projected the woman’s image into the dog’s mind.
“All others who would come to defile this altar shall feel the total wrath of your power. I command you to protect this body and spirit until which time I bid you to depart.”
Standing, the dog barked once, deep and resonant. It moved off beyond the light of the furthest brazier, but Evan could still see the red glint from the animal's eyes as it continued to watch. During his passage and until his spirit returned to his body, the Watcher would make certain that nothing happened to this corporeal vessel he called his body.
Fishing out seven stones from the bottom of the duffle, Evan stood gracefully, and began to circle the central brazier. Each revolution completed, Evan said an incantation and rhythmically dropped a stone into the central brazier, again changing the hue of the flames. The wind picked up in its intensity as each stone fell from his head.
Thick dark clouds began to accumulate overhead, blotting out the moon, as thunder and lighting began. The seventh stone was dropped into the brazier, and Evan returned to his cross legged position. Lighting flashed in the distance, followed by the boom of thunder only moments later.
Evan could feel the raw energy gathering about him in the shape of the storm. Natural energy that could be diverted, giving himself the needed impetus that would carry him to the Seventh Star Gate.
Casting yet another incantation, the storm intensified. Wind tugged at his shirt, wanting to rip it from his body. Rain beat down on his body, quickly soaking his clothes and getting absorbed by the dry earth. The ionic feel building in the air as lightning continued to discharge all around him and thunder filled the night with cacophonous booming.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, Evan raised his sitting figure into the air, four feet above the ground. Yelling so he could be heard over the howling wind and crashing thunder, he performed the incantation to the Seventh Star Gate and demanded entrance.
In dazzling streaks of brilliant burning electricity, lightning flashed down from the heavens. Triple bolts converged to strike his chest just above his heart. A cry of agony was wrenched from his throat as an instant later twin bolts again crashed down striking his body on both sides of his neck. With a final agonizing scream, he fell heavily to the ground, silent and unmoving.