Ariadne and the Flaming Torch : The Quest

Book 1 : The Quest

Chapter 6
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Shattered. I knew what the word meant. I understood its implication in ordinary day-to-day life. But how a soul could be shattered was beyond me. It was an impossible task; to shatter a soul. And yet here my uncle Soman was, telling me that my soul was shattered into six parts - which again seems impossible to me. There is simply no way that a soul can be shattered - it simply isn’t logical.

‘When has logic been of any use in our lives?’, the little voice in the back of my mind, which is to say my subconscious mind, said.

Touché.

‘But since when has logic not been of any use in our lives. We thrive on logic, we need it! Every single day we try to put some logic, a bit of reality in our lives. Even now, after thirteen fucking years of being chased by Furies, Minotaur, Hydras and God only knows what else, we’re still searching for a shred of reality. We still don’t believe this is happening and that we’re going to be waking up any time.’ my conscious mind retorted.

I found it interesting - this debate because both parties were correct; the concept of the conscious and subconscious mind still astounds me. Yet I know it is true and that is exactly why I find the term “Empty your mind” completely and utterly ridiculous. You can never completely empty your mind, there is always a small voice shouting at you, commanding you to shut the hell up and think about nothing. That voice is always there even when we’re engaged in another - especially physical - activity. For example, when you’re singing, there’s always a voice telling you in which pitch you should sing. Therefore, the subconscious mind is always present. So, we simply cannot empty our minds.

Simple! Logical! The complete opposite of my bloody life! There was never any logic in my life but there was, if that makes any sense. The fact that myths existed was illogical, but the fact that that was my life and I had to live it by the rules of the myths was logical. Well, it makes sense in my head, even though now it sounds like a bunch of garbled mess.

But the shattering of a soul was completely defying the laws of logic that I was so strictly following. It was impossible, unimaginable, incomprehensible...But then why did I believe it?

I actually believed what Soman had told me; that my soul was shattered and that too into six pieces.
But the fact puzzling to me was why I believed it! Sure, my uncle Soman was, for reasons unknown to me, was the best informed out of all of us about the myths and actually believed us - Solis and I - that we were seeing myths and that they were chasing and trying to kill us. Not only did he take us in at our time of need, but he also trained us in the deadly arts. He taught us about each myth’s weakness - for example to kill a minotaur, you have to rip its horns from it’s head and to kill a faerie just rip one of their wings and they’re dead - and trained us in martial and mental arts. He made us capable enough to catch a fly with our bare hands with our eyes closed and he made us memorize each chapter about each myth he could find.

So now, if looked at from a different perspective, it was only natural for me to believe him for he was one of the only three people whom I trusted unconditionally and irrevocably, the others being Solis and Repeat. I know; I have trust issues.

But the “how?” in the equation still bothered me, and so to save me from any more mental turmoil and brain damage, I asked the obvious question, “How?”

Soman stared at me for some seconds before he shook his head and muttered, “Just like you mother. Don’t even know the meaning of tact.”

“Well, girlie, that’s the real question isn’t it? Well, for you it is. For me, not so much cause I already know - “
“Stop beating around the bush and answer the goddamn question already!” Solis interrupted, annoyed.

Stupid idiot! Didn’t he know that Soman always “beat around the bush” when he didn’t know how to phrase something. Honestly, you’d think that after living with the man for seven years, you’d able to tell the difference in his mood patterns. But no, not my dumb headed and egotistical brother! Sometimes I really wonder if he’s adopted; mom noticed every single detail - I inherited that from her - and dad was slightly unobservant but not that much. He’d notice whenever I was down and he’d always buy me some ice-cream. But Solis, on the other hand, is like a tube-light. It takes him time to “glow”.

He’s my brother and yet he doesn’t know my favorite ice-cream flavor! Honestly, sometimes I wonder where all those genes went to. I even asked momma about it sometimes, and I’d tell her that I wouldn’t mind if Solis was adopted but she’d just laugh and shake her head. How that woman could put up with this idiot for so long is beyond me. How I could put up with this idiot for so long was beyond me.

“Don’t mind the rude assed moron, Soman. Please continue.” I asked.

“Of course Ari,”, he said and I scowled. I hated that nickname. Actually I hated any sort of nickname. My parents named me Ariadne, not Ari and definitely not “Adne”. Use my name and if you can’t pronounce it, it’s none of my problem.

Soman chuckled, “Still hate that nickname, eh? Okay, I’ll stop antagonizing you. The reason for your soul shattering...actually the better term would be scattering. The reason for your soul scattering is that...well...how do I explain? You said you encountered a Soul Reaper and that too of the Shadow Lurker variety, am I correct?” He paused, waiting for my answer.

I nodded, yes.

“Well, then as you already know the Shadow Lurkers are blind and so they cannot look into your windows, that is to say, your eyes and extract your soul from there and then manipulate it into choosing Hell over Heaven.” He paused again, waiting for me to say something.

I waived my hand, motioning for him to continue.

“Well, since they’re blind, they can’t extract your soul from your eyes but they need to extract your soul or else they wouldn’t be Soul Reapers. So, they use their swords. The sword is covered with water from the River Styx and so has the power of sucking your soul from you. The sword in itself is not actually a sword, it’s actually a vessel, a goblet - if you will - that stores your soul. When the supposed goblet is filled, the Shadow Lurker goes back to Hades and deposits the souls; I suppose you could call it that. So since the Lurker slammed her sword into you, she was able to acquire you soul, but not all of it! The acquiring of the soul is an act against the laws of nature and therefore it takes time. Time which it didn’t have due to Solis’s interference! If he wasn’t there to stop the Lurker, then you would probably be added to Hade’s collection of souls. You should thank him for that.”

Solis’s chest swelled with pride and he looked at me and said in an indignant voice, “Yeah, you should thank me.”

Why that little bitch! How dare he! “You don’t want Soman to know about the Halloween incident, do you?”, I sneered at him. His face visibly paled and he gulped loudly.
I smirked.

“What happened on Halloween?”, Soman asked us, lost.
“Need to know.”, I told him, smirking at Solis.
Soman looked at us quizzically for a few seconds before shaking his head and continuing his explanation, “Well, since your brother decided to interfere, your soul didn’t get completely sucked out but a lot of it did. And the fact that Solis broke the sword during his battle with the Lurker, caused the parts of your soul which were trapped inside to scatter. All the other souls that were stored inside the sword either went back to their bodies or moved on. Now, since your soul wasn’t completely drained it had no real essence and so it scattered to different places and different worlds - the locations depend up on their preferences. If one part of the soul prefers fire, it will go somewhere hot. It might even end up in hell!”

I was dumbfounded. All of this was hard to grasp but I’ll get the full details then sort through this onslaught of information.
“The dream?”, I asked.

“Ah, glad you mentioned it. As I said your soul was not completely drained but it was drained by a lot. The soul consists of seven parts : essence, love, fear, pride, hatred, lust and greed. Now different aspects of your life represent these parts. For example, your fire may represent your hatred. But let’s get back to the point at hand. You had lost six of the seven parts of your soul and therefore rendered yourself into a state of indefinite coma. While you were in that coma that one part of your soul - essence - was looking for another part and came across fear. Then essence seduced, for lack of a better word, fear into your body so that you could become conscious again. You need at least two parts two remain conscious and one part to remain unconscious for some time. If you hadn’t managed to coax that part of your soul into your body, you would have been lost to us.”

A heavy silence hung in the air as the reality of the situation sunk in. My soul was scattered and without it I wouldn’t be whole. So, I needed to find those parts. I already got one, so that leaves five. Five parts to retrieve.
“But what about fear’s behavior?”, I asked.
“Well, fear was exactly that, scared. It was the part of you that was scared. It was scared of the myths and your life and the pain of your mother’s...”, his words faltered. “...your mother’s loss, so it just chose to forget all of that and created a whole new scenario where she hated your mother so she wouldn’t have to face the pain and banished the myths altogether. Well, that’s what I think happened.”

Well, it’s better than nothing.

“How do I, you know, retrieve those parts of my soul?”

“Alas, the answer to that is unknown to me. However, I have a theory. You’ve always wanted to be a psychiatrist and so the part of your soul that loved that notion the most moved to a psychiatric hospital, right? I think the souls will come to you or they will tell you what to do. So, you don’t technically have to worry about that stuff. Just do it before the full moon because that is when the souls in this world make the journey to the Otherworld and whole or not, the parts of your soul stuck in this world, shall also go.”

I nodded.

“But the full moon is just around the corner. Two weeks. That’s all I have!. And I had fought with the Lurker at least seventeen days ago! Are you sure my...soul, or at least the parts of it that are stuck here haven’t, you know...moved on yet?”, I asked.

“Well, I’m pretty sure they haven’t. I think that, on some level, the parts of your soul that you lost, know that you’re looking for them. You said fear waited for at least three days, right?”

I nodded at his inquiring look.

“Well, why would she do that if she had no purpose here? She must’ve known that you were coming for her. I think that’s why you were moving in and out of consciousness. She, that part of you, well... let’s just call her Ari number one, okay? Well, you said that Ari number one kept having blanks in her memory, right? Well, she must have seen you at all those times or maybe felt your presence. And she, being the character of fear, was scared of you and was scared of coming back to this world where all the myths and your mother’s corpse...Sorry”, he apologized when I flinched at the word ‘corpse’. “Anyway...fear was scared of you and of your life and so she blocked every encounter of you out of her mind. Even then, she had an attitude! Well, seeing as she’s a part of you, I really shouldn’t be surprised.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. What was that supposed to mean? Was I really that short-tempered. Well, honestly, I think Solis is more bad-tempered than me. So that’s slightly offending.

“Anyways, back to the subject at hand, you kept moving in and out of consciousness because the part of your soul that was inside you at that time, knew that fear was near by and that you needed her to be slightly less broken. So, you kept going back to the hospital where fear kept waiting for you. And you also said that, in the end, she knew who you were and came back to you. So I really think that all the other Aris are going to be waiting for you, as well. So don’t worry about that. All you have to worry about is getting them back in time because once they go to the Otherworld it’s going to be almost impossible for you to get them back. So, for your own safety, I would suggest looking for them every time you go to sleep because that is when you are most vulnerable and open to the Otherworld.”, he finished.

Okay, that’s a lot of information to process. My head was still whirring at the concept of a shattered, or in my case, scattered soul. Wait, well then what’s the difference between and scattered soul? Aren’t they essentially the same thing? It definitely seems like it.

“You’re confused about something.”, Soman observed.
“Yeah, I’m just wondering: what’s the difference between a shattered soul and a scattered soul? Aren’t they essentially the same thing?”

“Not exactly. A scattered soul is something...well, it’s an extremely rare phenomenon. I think you are the...maybe...second person to have their soul scattered and that too by the hands of a Shadow Lurker. The first one was Sihunhhio Ohbuuf, lamiae who was cursed by the Goddess Nyx. The Lamiae had fed upon her Chosen and so...well...let’s just say it didn’t end well for him. Anyways, a soul is scattered when...how do I explain this? You know how an amoeba reproduces, right? It splits itself into two and then each part goes along their own merry way. Well, that is what happens when a soul scatters; it is split into parts forcefully - it never splits on its own - and then those parts scatter to different dimensions or worlds or...anywhere, really.

Now a shattered soul is what happens when one person goes through an extreme amount of pain. Like when someone close to you has passed way. It’s the natural defense mechanism of the soul. A part of it...leaves, I suppose, to the spirit world; the leaving of the soul somewhat relieves the pain but not enough that you don’t feel anything. It happened to you, to me and to Solis when your mother died. It’s still happening to your father. Your mother was his everything and when she died, a part of him died, literally. In other words, his soul is shattered. The part of the soul that leaves for the Spirit World - temporarily - always comes back after one has gotten over the loss, or at least accepted it. Your father has done neither and so his soul is shattered.”

“And don’t even think about it!”, he warned when I tensed. Maybe, I could get Dad’s soul as well as mine. “You cannot retrieve his soul. Only someone who possesses Shamanistic powers and isn’t related to him can retrieve his soul. And since you are neither, you simply cannot get his soul back. Besides, its too late for your father. It was too late for him thirteen years ago and it’s too late for him now; I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”

I was disappointed; uncle loved Daddy like a brother and would do anything for him and that’s why I knew that if he said that there wasn’t anything we could do for Daddy, then he was telling the truth and had done his best trying the opposite.

But I wanted my Daddy back, damn it! Even now, it pained me to look at him in this state; momma was his one true love and after her death, it was like he had died too. He hadn’t spoken one word for two months, he hadn’t comforted us, it was like he wasn‘t even there! Everyday, every time I looked into his eyes, I could see nothing but a dead soul. And it frustrated me; it tore me apart, damn it! I knew I was the reason momma died and every time I looked at Daddy I was reminded of that fact.

The guilt, the hurt, the loneliness - it was all thrown at me whenever I looked into his practically lifeless eyes. And I wanted to change that but now I couldn’t. That wish is just another thing to be added to the things I couldn’t do and couldn’t have.
“A shattered soul cannot be repaired without a Shaman who isn’t related to the...victim, I suppose you could call it that. So please Ari, you’ve already got enough on your plate, don’t try to do an impossible task as well. The only way to revive your father is to bring back your mother because, let me tell you, I tried. I brought in Shamans and High Shamans from all the dimensions I could find, but your father wouldn’t open up to them. The only thing that can still save him is your mother and we all know how impossible it is for her to be alive again. So, please for your momma’s sake, don’t rush into an impossible battle.”

Goddamn it! I hated it when he used the momma card. He knew I was sensitive about it but the asshole always had to bring it up - I know he’s doing it for my own good, but sometimes I just want to smack him for it! That’s it, I’m out of here. I have a shitload of information to process and I cannot process it here while I’m still pissed. I just want to go home; my real home, the one near the forest, not the one close to the industrial jungle called New York City.

“Solis, I want to go home.”

He turned to look at me and he must have seen the desperation in my eyes because, for once, Solis actually listened to me. He nodded and softly took my hand in his and pulled me up. The others got up off their chairs and I walked towards uncle, going in for a hug.

He took me in his arms and patted my head, “You’re a good kid, Ari. Never forget that and please, don’t go after your father’s soul. Focus on yourself for once.”
I nodded and hugged him tighter; he smelled like mom - a mixture of cinnamon and vanilla with a hint of chili. I’d decided I wouldn’t go after dad’s soul as soon as he mentioned mom because I knew there was no way to bring back the dead. So I just sighed and let the matter drop.

“Uncle, how exactly do you know all of this stuff?” I’d been asking him this same question for the past seven years and I always got the same answer.
Soman smirked and said “Need to know, kid! Need to know.”
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The faerie named Repeat watched her friend as she exchanged farewells with her uncle and she bristled at the thought of him. She had never like him much - she knew he was hiding something. A big something! Not to mention the fact that every time Ariadne asked him of his knowledge of myths, he would always give the same vague and mysterious, “Need to know”, as a reply. There was something going on with him. But she just couldn’t figure out what!

But she knew she would - for her friend’s sake. She just got some vibes from him. She knew she couldn’t trust him and she wouldn’t, not even if her life depended on it. She would find out what was wrong with him, even if it was the last thing she would ever do...