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Author's Note: This story (or at least three chapters of it) was written two years ago, when a dream of mine scared the wits out of me. Enjoy.
Part One of the Mul’Tou Tales: A Ghost Story
Chapter One
In my world, it was the unseen forces that ruled
Perhaps I should rephrase that. There are many unseen forces, after all…the air, gravity, push, pull and whatnot. Yet the energies that I am talking about were not as natural as the others. These were called the Mul’tou; what others would term as specters.
Back in the old wars, called Age of Death by some, thousands were massacred; the reason, lost in the murky depths of history. In any event, it was a few years after that an unscrupulous scientist by the name of Dr. Wiebe decided to break the unwritten laws of existence. Necromancy, back then, was confined to talking to the spirits of the deceased bound to their corpses, and an occasional powerful necromancer successfully raising a zombie or two-which, with all their limitations, weren’t worth the bother.
Axel Wiebe changed all that. He began to experiment, combining his work in electronic biosynthesis with collected samples of ectoplasmic residue. The results were disastrous. Unknowingly-or perhaps aware of the danger, for he was a cruel monster of a man- he unleashed a host of reprehensible fiends upon the world, sickly-white creatures which neither felt the bite of the sword nor the huge blow of the recently invented musket. They were, in every sense, invincible.
Luckily, we humans were not defenseless for long. One does not mess with Mother Nature’s Chosen. Soon enough, Binders were born, with the power to combat Mul’tou hand to hand. As more and more of these births frequented, the unholy multitude was driven back. The world was safe, at large anyway. The few Mul’tou that surfaced were innocuous, their only real power to scare.
At fifteen, I was blissfully unaware of all that unwritten, arcane history. I was preoccupied by the primary concern of adolescent life-namely, getting through high school in one piece. But as in most stories, one day—one dream— forever changed me.
I dreamed in bits and snatches of color, the sounds and the sensations blending together to form a murky picture. I knew it was a dream, knew it even as my waking mind was submerged in slumber. Yet the things I saw were so vivid, seemed so true.
A calendar on the wall...a number nine, encircled in red...voices chanting a birthday song...my sister’s face suffused with a lavender glow...two hands clasped together, a large browned one and her pale one...
A shrieking, decaying laugh...Then in the vaults of my mind I screamed in voiceless horror as my world tinted in a red haze. I sensed death all around me. The laugh increased its ugly sound, grew louder and louder and LOUDER—
I woke up. My nightshirt was plastered clammily to my skin, and my face was wet. In the bed, I tried to calm myself down. There was no such luck; my assurances and my logic wouldn’t work. All I could see was my sister’s cold face; all I could hear was that LAUGHTER. I checked the clock-it was 3 a.m. I remained motionless until dawn came.
There was no way it could have been just a dream. My dreams were always disconnected. They were always absurd. This...this was a vision. Somewhere inside me I realized that my boring life as I knew it changed, and I started panicking. Maybe for the better but most likely for the worse, I had become part of a struggle that I didn’t—couldn’t—understand.
There was a knock at the door. I pushed my growing hysteria down. There was time to deal with that later.
“Come in,” I said. My voice was shaky.
Maritess our maid entered. She started bustling around the room, picking up scattered papers and clucking at me like a mother hen while she did so. “Miss Lisa! Up. It is Monday, you go to school now. Ay, it’s almost seven o’ clock. Hurry! You will be late!”
I never thought I would be so glad to be woken up for school. I felt strength pour into my fear-paralyzed limbs. “Good morning, Tessa,” I hugged her. Then I sipped into the bathroom and performed my daily morning routine.
When I went down, no one else was up yet. As I made myself a simple breakfast of cereal and milk, my eyes roamed over the kitchen. Nearly seven, she said...right; it was barely ten minutes past six on the wall clock. I took comfort in the familiar wooden cabinets, and the cute little golf magnets on the fridge. Then I caught sight of the wall, and froze.
It was a Monday, all right, another horrible school day. Two days later would be my Cari’s birthday, the ninth. There on the calendar was the red circle.
I think I would have screamed in pure, unadulterated hysteria if my sister didn’t come in. Since she did, I merely gaped in horror at the calendar. Cari, with the condescending superiority of all her ten-nearly-eleven years, snickered.
“You look like an idiot, ate,” she sneered, making ‘ate’ sound more like a curse word than a gesture of respect. I was shaken out of my stupor, and I sent to her an equally vicious reply. Ah; it felt a little better to expend my negative energy noisily arguing with the brat. It retrospect, though, I probably shouldn’t have unloaded all my edginess onto her.
How I wished to be an only child. In fact, from time to time I still do.
My other sister Tina arrived just in time to stop us from reaching for our knives (metaphorically speaking). In a tone deep with disgust, she told us to shut up and finish eating.
We ate, brushed our teeth, and climbed into a car for a silent, hostile ride to school. As soon as we were past the gates, we went off to our classrooms without a word. Whatever; trivial spats always occurred in our family. By dismissal, it would be forgotten. Still, I was in a fairly bad mood when I climbed the staircase.
“Oy. Lisa! Did you hear the latest news?” My friend Erin ran up to me. I shook my head; because of that whole sister fiasco I was unable to read the newspaper. She leaned towards me excitedly.
“It says in The Source that Julius D is missing! The last anyone ever saw of him was three days ago. His mother said that last Friday he left the Forsythe residence; was going home to that house in your village—”
“Pardon me,” I interrupted, “but who is this Julius D, anyway? And, why all the fuss about him?
“You mean to tell me YOU DON’T KNOW JULIUS D? When he’s YOUR NEIGHBOR?”
“A little louder please,” I muttered, seeing everyone looking at me. Thank you, Erin.
“Heh. Sorry, Lisa,” she said, calming down somewhat. As calm as Erin could have gotten anyway, bouncy hyperactive anime-chick doppelganger that she was. Still, she had a point. I should have been paying more attention to my neighbors, considering my parents were members of the village committees. I stood there, very contrite, listening while she prattled on.
Apparently, this Julius guy was a famous basketball player. It figured why I was so clueless; team sports are emphatically not my forte. The man was not only renowned because of his ‘mega offense play’, but also his looks. He was very much the prettyboy.
Piffle. Then my other friend, Bree, joined the conversation with news of Dante Alvaro splitting up with his two-year girlfriend. Sigh. Dante Alvaro; tall, and darkly handsome thanks to his Moorish blood. Decadent dark chocolate-like eyes. Straight, very aquiline nose. He was the Sultan prince straight out of the desert tales. He hadn’t married yet; I knew he was still waiting for his One True Love. I dreamed of the day when we would see each other, and at a glance, and fall madly in love.
Forgive me. I was fifteen! My hormones ran amok at that stage; I plead temporary madness--isn't that, after all, another word for adolescence?. Granted, my hormones still do run amok, but at least I’ve shaken off most ofthe influence of cheesy romance novels.
For the rest of the school day I occupied myself with thinking of the megastar. I imagined his hair, his eyes, his low baritone voice, and back again to his hair and eyes. I’m pretty sure I made my friends rather sick. Then again, hearing about Junno Takizawa and Alexander Rittman all the time, I counted myself even.
The teacher called my wandering attention, demanding to know which hoity-toity despot ordered the massacre of this whatchamacallit tribe. I managed to stutter out an answer (thank you, Hummingbird Illustrated History Book; I would have never survived without your pretty pictures). Satisfied, she started talking about the Age of Death, which waslargely a mystery to us.
Fool that I was, I didn’t listen to her lecture—if I did, I might have had inkling, some knowledge of what was to happen. But my mind started drifting again, and my senses turned inward.
Where was I? I was in someone else’s home, crouching inside a cabinet. The air all around me was rife with my fear-and I enjoyed it. I realized that I was not myself, that I was watching my figure from above, waiting for the moment to pounce. My eyes and the eyes that I was looking out of met-
The scene faded, and I was staring at the green trees outside once more.
Finally, school ended. I was dismissed an hour earlier than my sisters, so I bummed around with my friends inside the mall. While Erin and Bree were arguing over a pile of books (Who was better, Banana Yashino or Thomas Brooks?), I wandered around the bookstore’s corridors. Aimless browsing was always fun.
Then a hardbound novel caught my eye; on the cover was a picture of a dignified-looking gentleman. He was handsome, for someone my parent’s age, but there was something in his eyes that made me feel like running. The same helpless terror I felt in my dream. I picked it from the shelf and read the cover.
AXEL WIEBE: THE MAN, THE MUL’TOU
By A. de Guerra
“Who is this Axel Wiebe?” I wondered aloud. People don’t normally get answered when they ask questions to themselves—when you hear two or three voices back, you’re in trouble— so I jumped a bit when someone spoke behind me.
“Tyrannical despot. A minor prince of the Zauber Empire, descended from war. Known to the world at large as Lord Godfrey Poldi, the Race Killer. A bit of a lady-killer too, if you ask me.”
Descended from war? What kind of statement is that? I whirled around-turned- to face a very handsome guy, casually leaning against the bookshelf. I wasn't a fashion expert, myself, but even I could tell that those were very nice, expensively tailored duds. Suddenly I was aware of my tablecloth uniform and sloppy ponytail. However, I was too annoyed by his superior tone to care...much.
“Also, he was the creator of the Mul’tou--not a fact known to a lot of people. Hey, listen; that book’s a little too old for you. Why don’t you read something more to your speed?” He gestured towards a display of Shopalooza paperbacks, pink and baby blue, with swirls for titles. ALRIGHT; Mom told me not to talk to strangers, but really, this guy was asking for it. I was prepared to give a full-on lecture. Before I could do so,my friends called me back, and I had to cut short my tirade.
“‘Tyrannical despot’ is redundant. Ass.” And with that, I exited the store.
Bree and I had to go back to school, so we left the mall. Cari and Tina were NOT happy for having waited. But our car ride back home was a lot louder than the one in the morning.
I told Tina about all that had happened to me when we arrived in our house. She said nothing, just stared thoughtfully into space. I asked her for her opinion; by her reply (“Huh?”) I realized that she was staring thoughtfully into her math homework...Which was what I was supposed to do, as well.
I was so absorbed in my studying--cramming would’ve been a better word, since the exams were starting the week after--that I was startled when they called me down for dinner. I closed my textbooks with some relief and joined my family.
At the dinner table, there are normally two or three conversations going on; that night was no exemption. I half-listened to my sisters prattling on about the P.A.L.S. episode they watched and half-heard my parents lecturing about college courses to my brother.
In two years that would be me, I thought, observing Connor squirm. Just then he was reprieved by a phone call for my father. People always called my dad for advice in legal matters, so I didn’t pay much attention.
“He did? When? I see...yes that would’ve been just right...damn that Axel Wiebe...”
Dad said it so softly that I wasn’t sure if I heard it. I kept coming across that name -surely this was no coincidence. I waited till dinner was over, and then followed my dad into his study. It was only after he got himself settled in front of the computer that I spoke.
“Daddy, who is Axel Wiebe?” Subtle, Lisa. Dad jerked in the chair. So jumpiness ran in the family.
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop, you know.” He tried to keep his tone light, but his nervous tapping said otherwise. His body was so tense and his eyes so strained. Oh, Daddy...What was going on?
Then, even to my surprise, I sat down and spilled my guts to my father. I told him about the dream, the vision, and the book. When I was done, Dad leaned back into his chair, furrowing his eyebrows. I waited for his response but he just sat there, silent.
“Dad—”
“Are you sure you saw your sister?” he asked. The intensity in his voice surprised me, so all I could do was nod. “Go get Cari.”
I stumbled out of the office.
I came back dragging my protesting sister. My father then rose to his feet and grasped her face. I guess Cari could also sense the strange tenseness of Dad, because she stopped her grumblings. He peered into her eyes and murmured words so low that I couldn’t hear them, much less understand. I shivered; was it just my imagination, or did a tingle pass through the room? It wasn’t just me, I knew- something gave me the impression that the entire room shivered.
“It’s confirmed, then,” Dad exhaled sharply. “So it’s been determined. Cari, would you call everyone else? This is important.”
Cari nodded and left. He looked at me. The odd expression did not leave his face. “And now, what do I do about you?”
What I would have said in response to this odd statement is anyone’s guess, since Cari returned quickly with the rest of our family. I noticed then that everyone possessed that same expression. The tingle that passed through the room seemed to be contained within them.
Did I miss something?
tbc...
