The Snake and The Owl

“Here it be spoken through the London Fog. I be here, standing amongst the death of a thousand worlds, and cleared rubble, keeping a log. I call forth to a thousand more. A champion must exist. A Sum aligned to 200 years past or future. Where is he that standeth mightily allured, facing the Golden and Silver Gates of Time and Space?”

Sophia spoke as though rehearsed several times over. She demanded an audience of her own, that no simple man of her time could give her. She had never dealt too deeply into the occult. Nor would she have admitted to such. A dream of a flying serpent pushed her here.

She was wealthy and thoroughly soothed. Her family imported Sugar. Sweetness was her bloodline.

A yearning for the Dark was not charming for a 19th Century woman, nay others to understand the need for Dark Wisdom.

None could tell in their dread, but her world was the living dead. Yet, in all simplicity, her world was founded amongst a great cataclysm some years past. Her family had ties to prove such ideas, but no memories. They laughed at the idea of being foundlings of an ancient world. They only but could believe their own myths and what turned to legends.

This was not an acceptable answer to Sophia. Her mind was sharpened to notice the shiny strings holding up her city’s limbs.

“How the city dances about”, she remembered. How could she forget?

Her birth right was to behold it.

A mostly painted wall lay just behind her, on the long balcony of her family’s castle. She allowed the paints to show her a scene. To most it would show a dark highway, to a place and time not known. To her, it ritualized in her mind.

As she began to paint more, another magical verse inspired the core,

“Cut, the blood flows. Stand still on the circled stones the bones know. Make it run. Make it pour. Only through death will Them abhor”

Her eyes glinted by tiny collisions of water and light in the fog. She could only but squint at the dark scene playing out in front her.

Silhouettes mired the ghostly background of concrete and trees, where she sat in silence.

“That’s where it should be”, she muttered assuredly.

Her hand placed on the upper right area of the art work.

“There should be an Owl placed. To help our traveler find his ungodly route. A wisdom in the dark”

The Owl flew. No, It lay perched atop a gas lamp in the middle of the forest, as she began to add in more scenery to an already bleak canvas. The ways of her time was all she knew to add, although restless.

The magic was simple, but harkened to a time when all things were eternally electrified into thought.

“Remember yourself, ye who flies wingless”

A portal was emerging. A connection through mind. She was feeling the colors breaking forth.

She dreamed of a snake.

She called for the snake.

* * * * * *

The Snake flew. No, he cruised his way past any ancient casts or ethereal barriers. It wasn’t quite the first time. The first time was much easier. It rushed to him before he could change course, then.

Nerves were shot. What was nervousness anymore? He reminded himself it must be done, like the last before. Anger and desire became a memory – a long calm river heading towards a chaotic gathered energy.

Not for the loud rumble of his 69’ Dodge Charger would there be any to notice the black blur on the winding black roads that led to the rundown, oddly-shaped, perfectly normal and suspicious old barn.

It was more than an old barn. It was a front for a spiritual king, and a descendant of a long line of hidden things. A Demon King awaited. It knew the price of being a controller of the Air. Some would eventually come to steal it, fair.

There would be no spectators this time, Snake brewed. Only a question or two.

So he thought.

He was a ghost these days. The old barn was too.

The Snake, stopped abruptly. An Owl appeared through the tops of the trees. Almost drawn in he thought.

“Ye friend or foe?”

Snake laughed.

An Owl can surely watch.

The illustrious otherworldly sigils stolen, and hundreds of principalities conjured forth and properly battled, prepared him. The power of saving oneself through thought was just the beginning. It was more than manifestation of power. Fruits of the divine with added ledger, constantly bled darker. It had to be more. A darkness kept seeping in beneath the good intentioned ore. “It’s always Them”. He said to himself, gripping the wheel before stepping out of the car to stare at the blanket of white luminaries through the thick fog and blackness surrounding the barn. He needed one more sigil to the collection. One more to raise attention. All is the same path ahead.

There wasn’t much to offer the price for initiation into an ancient brotherhood, but the mad-horse dragging him along. Nor was his anger good enough, forged deep in the past. The only scrape was his longing for an audience. An audience with an old kind - Another proud Demon King with knowledge of Them. A principality with only wisdom to hem.

Outside of the running car, Snake slowly walked to the front of the barn. He knew he was being watched. You could taste the deafening quiet. A thick atmosphere came upon. An all knowing spirit emerged from an opening in the top of the main barn door.

“I just need information!” Snake yelled.

The dense air returned, “We…are…all just In Formation”.

“True”, Snake replied. “Where does the head and the tail converge?” He added. “Where are the ones who hide their hands?”

“Cut, the blood flows. Stand still on the circled stones the bones know. Make it run. Make it pour. Only through death will Them abhor”, the old demon uttered.

“Glad you said that”, Snake smiled.

Snake was holding something, hidden behind his back. An ancient device. A sound gun. It found Snake, before the journey took mind. He never knew the full extent what it could do until that moment.

The Demon King was impressed. And, spoke again:

“I am Creator-Destroyer. Builder-Berserker. The knowledge is mine. The mantle steadfast. The secret fire forever remains. The…”

And, before the Demon King could finish, Snake pointed the sound gun directly at the old barn's center door. The force of the sound gun swept the old barn away like a vicious storm. The Demon King was no more.

A mantle fell low. Snake knew what it meant. He devoured another principality. He accepted the cloth, but not as to take the form, but to start a war. The War of the Veil.

“The secret fire runs wild to the sky”, Snake spoke through clinched teeth. “Master-Usurper, is I”

Written by: Sam Vela