Chương 28: Chapter 27 - Cyrus Unleashed

Cyrus couldn't see through Song's eyes. Or hear through Song's ears. He couldn't taste what Song ate or feel the wind in Song's hair. It was more a vague sense of what was happening in the world around him. So, Cyrus got a front row seat when Crane jerked out of meditation and launched into panicked trumpetting squawks, knocking Song to the ground and standing on the boy's chest while chastising him with great fanfare. [You had an Inner Demon and didn't tell this great master?!] The crane accused, the sound of his voice coming from the edge of the mindscape. Inside the mindscape the crane had looked much like any crane, but outside it once again had that odd flickering aura, like its outline couldn't quite decide on what dimension it inhabited. At least the black horror tentacles were gone now. Song, to his credit, defended Cyrus without hesitation. [He's not an Inner Demon, Master Crane! He's a Canadian.]"Aw, thanks kid," Cyrus leaned against the mirror.

The further back he walked from the space connecting him to Song, the less he could sense Song at all… and the more the endless emptiness pressed in on him. He never strayed too far from the mirror. Outside, Crane eyed Song dubiously, [What's a Canadian?] Song froze, trying to think of an answer. Finally, he settled on, [His name is Cyrus… and I owe him a life debt, Master.] [Oh?] [It's true! He rescued me from a grasswolf!]"I told you, that was all you, bro." Cyrus whispered. Not that they could hear him.

"Come ooooon. He's an innocent kid, show some mercy." Crane must've believed Song, since he hopped off the boy's chest and let him stand back up. [Then I would speak with this Canadian of yours.] Cyrus let out a sigh of relief and quickly did what he could to make himself presentable. He considered his bunged up knuckles – they were already healed, and tried to clean up his hair. A few minutes later, both Song and Master Crane stood within the mindscape, clinically examining Cyrus and the mirror.

"Sorry I don't have anything to serve you," Cyrus said, gesturing around the empty Void.

"I haven't been able to get groceries in a while."

"Fascinating…" Crane said, stalking around the mirror.

"You really aren't an Inner Demon."

"That's what I've been saying!" Cyrus cried with relief.

"Finally someone who gets it! This bird's all right, Song!"

"Really, Master?" Song asked, sounding hopeful.

"Awk. I've met an Inner Demon in my time." Crane ruffled his feathers.

"It was not pleasant. Its qi was… wrong, somehow. Impure and tainted. But what I feel from this mirror is the thickest, purest Void qi I've ever felt." Cyrus pursed his lips.

"From me? Or the mirror?" Crane flapped his wings, not deigning to say anything more.

"Do you think he could be a True Immortal, Master? Or maybe a regressed or reincarnated soul like in the stories?" Song jumped in, excited. Crane waved a wing dismissively.

"Those are just stories. Only by ascending to Heaven can a mortal avoid being wiped clean in death. And this thing does NOT feel like a True Immortal."

"Oookay, that's not foreboding at all." Cyrus said, then decided to ask the really important questions.

"Just checking, you're not going to kill us are you?"

"My disciple, no. But you?" Crane considered Cyrus for far, far too long, before he replied, "You don't seem harmful, from what I can tell. And my disciple says you've helped him, so I'll give you a chance." Cyrus wiped his arm across his forehead.

"Phew–""But," Crane leaned forward until his beak was nearly touching the mirror.

"If you harm a single hair on my disciple's head, I'll rip you from this mirror, devour your tongue and feed you to a pit of squirming gu larvae. The muted screams as they strip the living flesh from your bones will be the music by which I'll write your epitaph."

"Ew," Cyrus grimaced.

"No need to go that far!" Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Can you release him from the mirror, Master?" Song asked, fascinated. Crane ruffled his feathers in answer.

"What have you comprehended about this space, chick?"

"Not much… I don't come in that often," Song admitted. Cyrus shook his head vigorously.

"I'm so lonely. Please take pity on this poor Cyrus… did I say that right?" Crane poked Song in the chest with a claw for emphasis.

"You must obtain enlightenment about this space, the mirror, and your past experiences. Without a proper Name, you won't be able to use any techniques of the Dark Dreamer. Cyrus butted in, "Can you explain the Dark Dreamer thing? Uh…" he noticed Song's glare, and finished politely.

"Please, Master?" Crane explained while he walked the edges of the space.

"The Dark Dreamer is represented by the trigram of Dui – the Placid Lake, and is associated with the monsoon season. It's the Moon and the Stars, and is both without direction and yet also the center of all existence. It's through the Dark Dreamer's dreaming that all other elements are able to coexist, for without the Void to separate them, they would be in eternal conflict. It is the Wuji to the outer elemental chaos's Taiji. The Dreamer surrounds us, fills us, and carries our images and voices to each other.

I know three of its Names, and am but a small step from discovering its Truth." Crane turned a serious eye on the two young men.

"And it's beyond anything you can imagine. That's why we call it Great." Cyrus felt a flash of deja vu. Dancers pirouetting upon moons of copper, Music, and a great tossing, turning, Thing. But the memory was gone the moment he tried to catch hold of it, as ephemeral as the starlight streaming overhead.

"I can also see why you failed to understand the Name." Crane said, coming back alongside them.

"It's shared between the two of you; I can see faint lines of qi connecting you. Each of you has a part of the Name. You must find it together." Song and Cyrus looked at each other, perplexed.

"I don't know anything." Cyrus said, shrugging. Obviously. But Song kept his mouth shut, asking Crane instead, "Can you say anything more, Master?" Crane shook his head.

"No. Though I suspect it's related to this mirror, and that black sky. For me to say anything more would intrude upon your dao. No, you must learn the Name yourself. When you have, come back out and I will teach you the first technique." With that, he vanished from the mindscape. Cyrus was the first to speak.

"Alright, let's get to guessing names for this Dark Dreamer. I'm gonna go with… Freddy Kreuger! The Nightmare of Elm Street! Bloody Mary!"

"Not like that," Song chastised.

"The name of the Verdant Mother I learned from Father was more descriptive. It would be something like, The One Who Sleeps in the Night." They both looked around the mindscape, but nothing happened.

"I got you. Oookay, I'm feeling… something about darkness, and dreams, and stars…" Cyrus began shouting names rapid-fire.

"How about – When I Wish Upon a Star! No? The Nightmare that Hides Under My Bed! The Big Blind Idiot God! Oogie Boogie that Bumps in the Night!"

"Those are ridiculous," Song laughed, shaking his head.

"The Dark Dreamer wouldn't have such a childish Name."

"Oh, do you have any better ideas then Mr. Smarty Pants? Not all of us are fluent in 'flowery cultivator speak'." Song drew himself up proudly.

"Allow this Song to demonstrate.

'The Black Lotus that Blooms in the Heavens!" Nothing.

"The One True Star that Sits High in the Night Sky!" Nothing. Song reddened, muttering.

"Something like that…" They tossed names back and forth for half-an-hour. From the serious, to the mundane, to the desperately cobbled together. But in the end they were no closer to a Name than before.

"I think we're going about this the wrong way," Cyrus eventually groused.

"Didn't your master say something about reaching enlightenment through 'past experiences'? Let's start there."

"For once, you speak wisdom," Song grumbled, agreeing.

"And Father said that guessing Names like this could be dangerous."

"Soooo…. What do you remember?" Cyrus asked, passing the initiative.

"I'm gonna admit, I don't remember much. And what I do… makes my head hurt."

"I don't like to recall it either," Song shivered.

"It was dark, and terrible. What I do remember is the Void, and an infinite mirror."

"I'm a bit fuzzy on the mirror." Cyrus thumbed his chin.

"What I really remember was the stars, the Dance, and the Spheres."

"Spheres?"

"It's hard to describe. Do you know what a planet looks like? From a distance, I mean." Song frowned.

"We're on the planet. Unless I joined Daltekili upon the moon, how would I know what it looks like from far away?"

"Daltekili?" Cyrus asked, arrested. Song held up two fingers, like rabbit ears.

"The Divine Beast of the Center. A great blob of strange celestial oils that takes the rough shape of a white rabbit with too many eyes. It lives on the moon."

"Yuck," Cyrus gagged.

"Well if you could stand on the moon, the planet would look like a beautiful shining green and blue marble. Assuming you have oceans, you have oceans, right?"

"If you could stand on the moon…" Song shook his head to clear it; talking with Cyrus made his brain ache.

"The Spheres were marbles?"

"Yeah, but really really big, and not just green or blue, but many different colours. There were… a lot of them. Not too many to count, but I can't recall how many. They were surrounded by the infinite universe, all hanging on a dark tapestry." Song felt something shift in that instant.

"Say that again!"

"What? Really really big?"

"No! That dark thing!"

"The dark tapestry? It's a way of describing space. It was popular in books and fiction in my world."

"Yes! That's it!" Song pointed a finger, his surety growing.

"The Dark Tapestry! The Void! And the mirror…." It came to them at the same time, rising unbidden from their unconscious minds as though it'd always been there, just out of reach.

"The Infinite Mirror – " Song whispered." – of the Dark Tapestry." Cyrus finished. There it was. They could both feel it, taking shape within Song's mindscape. It was familiar, and yet alien to them. It was something they'd both experienced, and yet would never truly understand. It arrived with a clash of discordant tones, and the space within Song's mindscape trembled. And the tall silver mirror shattered.

The shards of it rose like scintillating comets, up into the sky where they fixed into place as if they were always meant to be there. The empty black space was soon filled with countless sparkling stars, though the seven of the constellation remained the brightest. And a blinking Cyrus was dropped unceremoniously at Song's feet. They stared at each other in shock. Cyrus spoke first.

"Uh, hi?" Song didn't know whether to laugh or cry.