Chapter 11: The Catharsis Ritual

“The spell circle is ready,” Solon announced.
The group had decamped to a clearing somewhere out of sight of the townspeople (although there was much attention and shock when Solon had emerged from his spire) so that they could prepare the large and complex spell circle. Solon had traced it on the ground in chalk around Marc, who had to stand in the middle while it was drawn around him so as not to mess up the design.
“I had to modify it myself,” said Solon, “usually spell circles take the energy of the caster, but since nobody here except you can spare the psychic energy to do it, Marc, I've made it so that the target is also the source of the energy.”
“Wait a second,” Marc interrupted, “you have opposable wings?”
Solon glanced at the chalk that he had somehow curled his feathers around. “Well,” he said, “it would be awfully difficult to maintain a library if I couldn't pick things up, now, wouldn't it?”
Marc shook his head. “So what do I have to do?”
“Simply crouch, put your hand on the ground and give a mental indication to start. I recommend thinking this phrase, very clearly: 'Begin the Catharsis Ritual.'”
Marc nodded and looked off to the group. He couldn't see them very clearly, off in the distance, but their concern was evident. “Don't worry!” he shouted. “I'll be okay!” But when he turned his back to them, he didn't feel so sure.
“Marc,” said Solon, “something just occurred to me.”
“What's that?”
“Well, the humans in your world have lost their ability to dream. They may not have figured it out yet, but they will realize it soon. You're going to be plunging into a web of memories here. It's not unlike dreaming... if you don't succeed at restoring the Nexus, this Catharsis Ritual might be the last dream that any human ever has.”
Marc bitterly smiled. “Or the last nightmare.”
Solon chuckled. “Maybe that's how it will end up for you. I wish you luck, Marc. Wait until I'm out before you start.” And he took off for the others, out of the range of the spell circle.
Okay, Marc thought to himself, moment of truth, now or never. He took a deep breath and crouched down, put his hand on the ground and thought to himself: Begin the Catharsis Ritual.
Suddenly he felt nothing, and collapsed onto the ground as he slipped away.

“Marc!” Icelus shouted, moving forward.
“Don't enter the circle!” said Solon. “This is what's supposed to happen. Now we must wait.”
Lya wrung her hands. “How long will it take?”
“Several hours,” said Solon. “The spell unravels all your memories and straightens them out, and that takes time.”
“What should we do until then?” Remont asked.
“I would like to return to the town and let them know what we're doing,” said Solon. “I'd like to come clean about who you all are.”
“Are you sure they'll be okay with it?” asked Lya nervously.
“I think they will,” said Solon. “They are willing to take help where it comes, from all places. I think you would know that very well yourself, Lya.”
Remont and Osette eyed her suspiciously after he said this. Lya shifted uncomfortably. “Well, er, could we go to Cizruviel and tell them before they come? So we know it's safe for them?”
“I suppose,” said Solon, “but really, Lya, what's happened to your trust of your own people?”
“I just think it'd be a very good, safe idea,” she replied in a tone that made it very clear to Solon that she wanted to talk to him alone.
The old owl sensed this and nodded. “Very well. Remont, Osette, Icelus, you stay here. Please come get me if anything happens to Marc.”
Lya and Solon set off for the town, about a half a mile off, and Lya waited until they were well out of earshot before she spoke up. “Solon, I need to ask you a question.”
“You've made that clear, my dear.”
“Well...” she fumbled, “I haven't told Remont and Osette about my mission.”
“It seems so,” he said, “nor can I blame you.”
“The three of us... I like what we have together. Especially myself and Osette. I don't want anything to endanger that. I still want her to love me.”
“She does love you,” said Solon. “Very much so. You may not have noticed the way she wanted to duck behind you when she first saw me – the giant old talking owl – or how many times she turned to you and wanted to ask you a question but stopped. Osette wants to trust you again. And if she wants to, eventually she will.”
Lya continued fidgeting with her hands. They always felt so empty without Osette's to fill them. “Do you think I should tell them everything?”
“I think you should,” he replied. “I know what it's like to be dishonest to someone you're in love with. In my case, I never told her.”
“Who was it?”
“Oh, just an old, old friend I dropped out of contact with. She turned up on my doorstep earlier.”
Lya did a double take. “Wait – Icelus?!”
Solon chuckled. “We're both old fogies now, though. And she's busy. It wouldn't do.” They continued to walk in silence for a bit. “I know she'll restore the Nexus,” he said, “I just know it. Nobody's more determined than that woman.”

he came out of a place of darkness & wow his parents looked young had they ever been that young before? they were so happy
& then there was a succession of endless days of being swaddled & cared for & gawked over & and endless nights of staying awake screaming & when his parents came in those times he could see their fatigue and their impatience like he never had before, as no infant ever really did
& neither did toddlers really, he was present for many conversations about money and living conditions and arguments & he even vaguely remembered the general tone of the air in some of them but never the specific words they had used, words they never expected their little boy marc to ever understand, how weird; looking back with perfectly clarity on one's childhood truly was bizarre, it was a film reel of something marc was technically present for but that he was never really supposed to understand, not even in retrospect & yet here it was laid out before him
but here was the first time he saw scary monster in the night, there was reid marshall handing his parents a complimentary copy of his new children's book because they were friends of his, the sad kind man with the desperate eyes & the falling-apart life & now marc was glancing at it, looking at the illustrations because he was too young to be able to read but oh god how those illustrations invoked something primal & unsettling in him, how they touched a nerve that only years later would be ripped open
& there it was, perhaps the defining moment of his childhood, the moment where he first laid eyes on icelus, how she reminded him so much of those eerie illustrations and how her very appearance had just made his heart come to a full stop.
& then there were the frequent nightmares. they didn't even match up with when he was or wasn't at his grandmother's house. it was just random, every few weeks he'd have a terrible nightmare of icelus – she wasn't icelus then, though, she was just the dog statue – tricking him in some form & eating him. & none of his family members took his fear very seriously, because of course none of them shared it. marc could never explain why he found the dog statue so terrifying. now, looking back with perfect clarity, he knew it was at least partially because of scary monster in the night. the book may have faded from his memory and become lost to the mists of the subconscious, but it was merely the spark that had created the conditions necessary for him to be frightened by dog statues, it was not the fear itself. he couldn't explain that to anyone, though, because who could? & so his family mostly tended to find his fear either funny or annoying – marc remembered the time his father had snuck the dog statue behind him while he wasn't looking & then laughed it off. his grandmother mary at least was kind enough to make sure the dog statue was covered & that marc wouldn't have to stare at its cold eyes. this was enough to hold him over until he could grow up a bit. It was only when he grew up that he could try to explain the fear, even if it never really went away.
Perhaps accurate memories were the enemy of fear, though. Watching these threads of memory become untangled and sorted, Marc was struck by the fact that he was clearly in a different mental place now. He could briefly dip back & relive the anxiety of being in the same house as the dog statue, but it was a shallow & surface visit to the past, as if he was taking someone else's feelings into himself & not experiencing emotions that extended from where he was right now.
There was Icelus, asking for his help. They were going to Oniron, visiting Agremonth, & she was sending him back. & then she had reappeared, and gotten him to come back. In all of these cases he felt that familiar sense of dread, the sense of “if I turn my back she might attack me,” but now it just seemed so silly and trivial. How could he think that? After all, here were all his memories, laid out nice and neat for him to instantly pluck out and see, a simple series of cause-and-effect chains that led invariably led to who he was today. And only now did he see that the fear was silly. It was human. He didn't need it.
He saw himself as he was: the culmination of twenty years of experiences – but not the end. It was time to get up. He had work to do and he had the power to do it. And most importantly, he had a friend to help.

“So while they may not be nightmares,” said Solon to the crowd, “I can assure you that they mean you no harm. Their only goal is to restore the Nexus. I know it is not normal for this community to accept outsiders, but these are not normal circumstances. I only ask that you extend to them your hospitality, for the brief period that they need it. I believe they can help us,” he finished. “They are our best hope.”
The crowd of humanoids, giant insects, sentient clouds, mannequins, and other nightmares had heard Solon out, and now a murmur spread across them. Lya worriedly looked among the crowd, wondering if any of them were going to turn hostile or violent.
They didn't. They all seemed concerned – the citizens of Cizruviel didn't have a good history with outsiders – but they remained calm. Finally a voice called out, “I trust Solon!”
Others followed. Soon most, if not all, of the crowd was shouting out support for Solon, and these new strangers. “We trust Solon! We trust Solon!” some chanted.
In response, Solon bowed his head and pronounced with a surprisingly resonant and booming voice, “Friends! Thank you so much. I assure you, we will do all we can to defeat the man who destroyed the Nexus, and to restore a peace and stability to Oniron. Thank you.”
Another voice shouted out, “What are their names?!”
Solon looked to Lya. “Make fake names,” she whispered. “Please.”
“You must tell Remont and Lya,” he said. “Sooner rather than later.” He turned to the crowd and announced: “Their names are Icelus – she is not a human, but not a nightmare either. She is an old god, like myself. I have known her for millennia. The other two are humans – Remont and Osette Bairdsley.”
At this announcement the crowd gasped and chattered excitedly. One more voice rose up from the crowd – Lya recognized it. It was Auten. “Lya!” he shouted, “you said you'd failed, you couldn't get the Bairdsleys to help us!”
Now the town turned to her, and she almost seized up. Things were coming out so much differently than she had wanted them to – and so much faster. She worked herself up and said to the crowd: “I did not succeed in my mission. Remont and Osette were led here on other business. I haven't secured their financial assistance to help the town.” Even saying it out loud felt dirty. Financial assistance. As if Remont and Osette were nothing but investors, worth only as much as their money. But that had been her mission, and that was how she had looked at it... at least at first. If only she had never met Osette. This wouldn't have gotten so complicated.
The townspeople talked among themselves, but nobody shouted. “This is a situation with some nuance,” said Solon to Lya. “It doesn't lend itself well to shouting. But I think they want to believe the best of you.”
“I hope they do.”
Solon turned to address the crowd once more. “Thank you for your hospitality and kindness! If there are no objections, Lya will go and fetch them. They may be exhausted from their long voyage; I would ask that you not harass them. Their plan is to act during the Adjoining Festival, so they only have afew hours to rest.”
He turned to Lya. “Wait until Marc is done with the Ritual, and then bring them back here.”
Lya nodded. “Okay... but Solon, I wish you hadn't told the town. There's no hiding my past from them now.”
“I know,” he said, and his voice had a twinge of genuine regret, “but it's for the best. Trust me. Only honesty and understanding can wash away deceit and resentment. Good luck.”
So she left Solon and the citizens of her town to make the trip back to where the rest of the group was waiting. Every step she made took her closer to Osette and Remont again. Every step made the black hand of dread close tighter around her heart.
Before she knew it, she was there. Osette, Remont and Icelus were looking at her.
“Are we okay?” asked Remont.
She nodded. “I mean, we probably can't stay long anyway, but the nightmares in Cizruviel are on our side. Once Marc finishes his Ritual and wakes up, we can go there and rest at least for a little while.”
“Good,” he said. He looked absolutely exhausted.
Deep breath. “Listen,” she said, sitting down with the rest of them, “I've been lying too long. It's time I told you... everything. Both of you... and Icelus, too. No offense,” Lya quickly added.
Icelus shrugged. “I'm interested, but it's not my issue. I'm more worried about Marc,” she indicated his body, still on the ground and seemingly asleep, “I won't cut into your story.”
Lya sighed. “Okay,” she turned to Osette and Remont. “I was sent by the elders of Cizruviel to find someone to help our community. You saw over there – we live in tents and huts, not proper buildings. We're not a town.”
“Why us?” asked Remont.
“Well... I was sent specifically to find you, Remont.”
“What?” they both said in unison. Remont sputtered, “why were they after me? Did they want -”
“They wanted your money,” Lya said simply. “You were the newly-made heir of one of the biggest fortunes in the land. They sent me to ask for your support.”
“Then why not just ask me?”
Lya sighed. “Because we were – and we still are – mistrustful of humans. The elders didn't think a rich man would help a stranger or a strange town he had never seen.”
Remont crossed his arms, resenting the accusation but knowing she was almost certainly right. It showed on his face. “Go on.”
Lya chuckled. “I think they had the measure of you. At the time, at least. But they sent me to befriend you and convince you that communities like Cizruviel were worth saving. And, if...” Lya gulped hard. This was the truly awkward part. “...if I had to seduce you to do it, then they told me to.”
Remont's eyes widened, but Osette shot up. “You were going to try to seduce
Remont?! My brother?!”
Lya stood up to meet her, flustered. “I never – it was a backup plan. It was a worst-case scenario. And I didn't know you when we decided on it.” Desperate, she took Osette's hands in hers. “Osette, I never... had any real intentions on Remont. From the moment I met you, I knew you were special. And then after months of being with you I knew you were the one. Please...” tears started welling up in her eyes, “please believe me.”
Osette's mouth hung half-open, and she let her hands drop from Lya's grasp. “You were going to seduce Remont, and... and, and, and take our money.”
Lya was openly now. “I'm sorry,” she said, her voice quavering. She looked to Remont. His face was pained – understanding and sorrowful, but pained.
“Were-were you t-t-trying to break us up, then?” Osette was stuttering like mad now.
“What do you mean?”
“All the- all the- all the chores and stuff. You l-leaving me alone. Why?”
Lya winced. “Osette, I was – I was so worried... the Nexus was gone... I would've been so weak soon.” She did a sharp intake of breath and tried to steady herself. “I've always taken care of you, but... if the Nexus never comes back, I'll just get weaker and weaker. And you... I don't know if you could have taken care of me...”
“I totally could!” screamed Osette.
Lya sobbed. This was a lie. She knew it, and Osette probably knew it too.
“I love you,” Lya softly whispered.
Osette's face didn't change. “I... I...”
Whatever she was about to say, it was abruptly cut off by a whining noise that sounded like the universe letting out a bit of steam. The group looked over to the source – it was Marc.
He was standing up now, in the middle of the circle, looking slightly dazed.
“Marc!” Icelus shouted and ran to him. “Are you okay?”
“Woozy,” he said, “but fine.” His eyes met Icelus's, and he chuckled a bit.
“What is it?”
He kneeled close to her. “The fear. It's gone. I just looked at you and... you were Icelus. That's it!”
“You... don't even remember all the nightmares you had?”
“That's the thing, I totally can! I can go back to all my memories and they're all perfect and accurate, and they're all just... available. It's like I could flip back the pages of a book and it's right there. I can relive those nightmares!” He paused briefly. “I just did! When I was a child, I had a dream we ran through Agremonth and I teleported! That dream must be why I can teleport sometimes in Oniron.”
“Marc,” she said, “you were in Agremonth in a dream?”
“Yes.”
“Can you remember if you saw the Nexus?”
“I did,” he said without hesitation. “The Shieldwork wasn't there, for some reason. I had a clear view of the Nexus. It was at the end of the room, that throne-thing was in the way, but the room behind the threshold extended out and out forever. I saw the Nexus.”
“Marc,” said Icelus, “that's wonderful! If we can get to the Adjoining Festival... we might actually do this.” She seemed delighted and overwhelmed at the prospect.
Marc gave her a broad smile, and saw the other three out of the corner of his eye. They seemed... out of it. “What's with them?” he whispered to Icelus.
“Oh. Er... Lya just confessed everything about her past. It was very awkward.”
“What?!” Marc threw his hands up. “I keep missing all the good stuff!”

Piper was in his office with Canis when he felt a mental link being severed.
“Agh!” He rose from his desk and staggered.
“What is it?” Canis approached him, looking for some sort of wound.
“It's... the shadow dogs,” said Piper. “They've all disappeared. I just felt it.”
“What?! How is that possible?”
“I don't know... the only way that could happen is if...” Piper pinched his forehead, mind racing. “If everyone who had nightmares of the shadow dogs stopped being afraid of them, then they would disappear.”
“But... they were so strong before.”
“I know,” said Piper. “But... the book they were from, in the human world, was a failure. The writer killed himself. There can't have been that many people who actually read it and were afraid of it. One or two, at the most.”
“Then why were they so strong?”
“It could be...” Piper said, “...it could be because they were in Oniron. Their power, it fluctuated, remember? Whoever's psychic energy was keeping the shadow dogs alive, they were flitting back and forth.”
“And now they're just... not afraid?”
“I suppose so.”
“How is that possible?!” Canis began to pace angrily. “Humans can't let go of fear, they never can, not completely.”
“I don't know, Canis.”
“Well, that doesn't help!” he growled. “If Icelus and her group are any kind of smart and they make their move at the Adjoining Festival, we have no way to stop them aside from the city guards.”
Piper looked back at his desk at the roster for the festival's security detail. It was still meager. “That won't keep them for long. One of them – I don't know who – absorbed the power of a crystal. Another – possibly the same one – is a nightmare who can perform spells.”
“What?!”
“I know, Canis.” Piper sighed, and cast a glance at the strongbox he had in his office. If only he could find out how to use what was in it...
“That fool of a nightmare,” Canis rumbled. “Working against everything we've tried to do to help people like us.”
“Is she, really?” Piper asked. “What reason could she have to restore the Nexus?”
“Cruelty!” Canis spat out the word. “I tell you, Piper, that nightmare is cruel and cowardly, or else brainwashed by that old fool of a deity, Icelus. Trying to keep her power alive, she is. Keep the old dynasty running. Things are better now than they ever have been for nightmares, and they're about to ruin it all if we don't so something.”
“What can we do?” asked Piper. “We don't have much in the way of force anymore.”
Canis turned to him. “I know people. People who we can cut a deal with.” He chuckled. “Don't you worry, Piper... you will have your security. The Festival will go on as planned. And we will crush Icelus. Trust me.”
Piper smirked. “You know I do. We should meet these people soon, though. The Festival starts in the morning. We have maybe half a day.”
“Not a problem,” said Canis. “Let's go.”
They swept out of the room quickly, headed to their mysterious destination. They couldn't let Icelus bring their glorious new world tumbling down around their ears. They would need to have a force worth reckoning with to meet her.


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