Yuletide: Night Four
Smoke snaked about the room from the incense on the
fireplace mantle. Its presence wrapped around
the audience as they gathered for the final entertainment of another winter
night. It lulled them down from the
excitement of the phoenix’s dance earlier in the evening and hung from the air
as if curtains shrouded the atmosphere.
The kitsune sniffed where the smoke lay low along a bookshelf and
promptly sneezed trying to unstick a dust bunny from his nose. Looking down upon the black dragon he saw a
mirror had been placed on the mantle between the incense burners. In the mirror he saw the smoke that wound
through the room, but only the smoke against a silvery backdrop as if there was
nothing else to reflect at all, no people, no chairs, no books, no big, black,
scaly dragon, just smoke. The dragon
lifted his head and for a moment, black scales glinted in the smoke as if
reflected by a thousand mirrors, the kitsune blinked and the mirror was reflecting
naught but smoke once more. The dragon
spoke. “The ice basilisk took to seeking
out the more obscure Planes, determined to make the best of his situation by creating
comprehensive documentation of some of the more eclectic regions of the
universe. He visited the Planes of Purple
Polka-dots, Rice and Steam, Lost Socks, Forgotten Forts,” his audience
snickered and his voice softened, “and the Planes of Shadows Between Stars, Drafts,
Moonlight and Starsong and so many more.
It was after years of traveling, a month here, a month there, sleepless
weeks when it all got to be too much until he snapped and moved on, that he stumbled
onto a Plane he hadn’t intended to visit.
He was fleeing a forest fire in one of the realms when he stumbled into
a pond, but not before he saw his reflection in glaring perfection, and then
fell through the pond and into, the Plane of Smoke and Mirrors.”
The Plane of Smoke and Mirrors
Tricks and traps and illusions
Bogglement and delusions
Twisted by the endless reflections and vapors
In the Plane of Smoke and Mirrors.
Magicians have sought it
Time after time
Creating grand rituals
On stage or behind,
Some of them made it
Into the Plane
Some of them found greatness
But more went insane,
There is magic and moonlight
Whose reflection never pales
There are secrets to tricks
That create death for those that fail.
Reflections are endless
Extending into infinity
Mirrors grow at angles
Bizarre products of silvered trees,
Catching part of the world
Casting it to another
A labyrinth to trace
Madness is its mother.
Smoke clouds the mind
Smoke clouds the vision
Curtains that fill the air
Creator of melding and division,
Mirrors are the ground
Mirrors are the sky
Fragmented or whole
They grow and they die,
They catch you
Not just your image
Your power and your soul
Your anguish and your rage,
They surround you with yourself
To infinity they cast you
Broken and shattered
Heartlessly whole too,
There is nowhere to escape
There is nowhere to hide
Not from your own self
As the smoke twists your mind.
The Ice Basilisk appeared here
Crouched on a circular mirror
His white scales faced him
Ice, his first love and worst fear,
Almost through the ubiquitous smoke
His vision twisted seeing strange
Shimmering wings not here not there
With every blink they changed,
He closed his eyes but not for long
The smoke irked and teased
It would not let him blind himself
His tears stolen by the breeze,
He saw himself
Himself alone
The Ice Basilisk
As he was known,
Reflected in his wintery scales
Statues appeared cold and white
Every soul he had frozen
In his tormented days and nights,
With a tormented scream
He looked his reflection in the eye
In his broken, frozen, heart
He willed himself to die,
With a thunderous clap
As if an ice sheet cracked
A white beam bounced between basilisk and mirror
And the basilisk’s vision blacked.
The black dragon paused and replaced the incense, blowing
gently to light the new sticks. His
audience stared at him enraptured and when he turned back his nostrils seemed
to glow red echoing the two gently burning embers behind him. In the mirror there was a flash of scales,
some in the audience saw white, and some saw black as if the former had been
clouded with soot.
The basilisk awoke
In a plane of smoke and ice
The mirrors were clear
There was no sign of life,
There was frost, oh there was frost
Hoar frost and surface frost
Winding around frames and across the landscape
Searching as if it was lost,
There was ice coating the mirrors
Thick and clear
And there were statues in the distance
And an Ice Basilisk’s fear,
The Plane as far as the mirrors could convey
Was caught in winter, frozen
Every creature with sight was still
Every traveler and native person,
The power of his curse
Was undiluted by reflections
It had rebounded through the whole world
Catastrophic perfection.
For a moment the room was still as if the calamity of the
Plane of Smoke and Mirrors had left the mirror.
The dragon closed his eyes for a long moment and when he opened them
their light had dimmed. “So it was that
the Ice Basilisk realized the extent of his destructive potential. It might not have occurred in any other
Plane, it might not have been possible, but in a single moment of despair and
self destruction he had frozen a world.
Yet his power left him untouched.
An irony that left him bitter for a very long time. Rumors had been growing around him since he
was first cursed and now they gained weight.
No one knew the origin of his destructive power, few even knew it was a
curse. He became reviled across Planes
and Realms as the Ice Basilisk and whilst a few tried to capture or kill or,
rarely, cure him they either ended up as ice or lost him when he changed Planes. So, he continued his travels alone walking
claw in claw with despair.” The black
dragon settled back down and his audience stirred uneasily. He nodded to an elf and she stood striding to
the window. She threw it open and the
winter wind rushed in scouring the room and biting noses and ears. The smoke swirled obscuring the room and then
fled. The elf closed the window and
those gathered looked around in the smoke free room their minds clear
again. The incense was dark and before
the fireplace the stone gleamed queerly in the flickering firelight. The black dragon was gone. The kitsune scrunched up his face trying to
sniff out the dragon but all he could smell was the bite of winter. As he turned to leave out of the corner of his
eye he saw a glint of scales in the mirror that leaned ever so casually on the
mantle above the fire.
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