54.

  We walked through the darkness. The Pigeon King led the way, which was slightly disturbing as he seemed to know my mind better than I did. But I trusted the sure flap of his wings as he lazily hovered in front of me.

  "Keep your eyes focused on me, mageling," the Pigeon King said. "Do not look left and right and do not try to figure out what is in the darkness. Just follow me."

  I nodded, even though curiosity was itching at the nape of my neck to see what those monoliths in the darkness were, to uncover what lurked in my mind. But even that thought seemed so abstract it caused a sense of anxiety to rise in my chest. Did I really want to know what was in there? And what would I do if I didn't like what I saw? I scratched my palm absentmindedly, the wound feeling like it had healed and scarred over, and now the new skin was new and itchy.

  "What are we looking for?" I asked.

  "I'll know it when I see it," the Pigeon King replied. "For now, we must simply continue on in a straight line, and very carefully.”

  "What would happen to you if I got lost in my mind?" I asked.

  "That is not a consequence I wish to think about," the Pigeon King replied. "But what a horrible fate it would be to be trapped in the mind of a teenager for the rest of eternity."

  I swore I saw the Pigeon King visibly shudder.

  "If this is my mind," I said to him. "Why can't I just, you know, imagine a car for us or a motorcycle?”

  "This is your subconscious, boy," the Pigeon King replied. "You have as much control in here as I do. What your brain has chosen to store, what memories it clings to, which shape your every action, thoughts, and feelings, you have no control over. The human mind is something that even immortals struggle to comprehend and understand.”

  "Right," I said. "Did you know that the human brain is the only thing to ever name itself?”

  "What?" the Pigeon King said.

  "Oh, nothing," I said. I wanted to sound intelligent. I don't think it worked, so I stayed quiet and plodded along behind the Pigeon King.

  "How did you get into my mind?" I asked him, suddenly realizing that I had too easily accepted such an extraordinary feat.

  "Drinking the potion and sitting in the circle together was one part of it," the Pigeon King said. "While you were drowsing, my pigeons created a circle of power around our barrier.”

  "They did?" I said. "When?”

  "While you were drowsing," the Pigeon King repeated.

  "But that was only a few seconds," I protested.

  The Pigeon King looked back over his shoulder at me and gave another one of his small, obnoxious chuckles.

  "That was 20 minutes or thereabouts," he said.

  "It was?"

  "Yes. In fact, you even started to drool a little bit. It was rather disgusting.”

  "Oh."

  "It's a spell," the Pigeon King said offhandedly. "It allows two beings to… oh, how should I put this in a way you would understand? Connect their brains together, I suppose. Our consciousnesses are linked, and when your consciousness slipped into your own mind, mine followed.”

  "So your consciousness is in my consciousness?" I asked, sounding totally unsure of what was going on.

  "Essentially," the Pigeon King replied. "Although you are your consciousness right now.”

  "I am?" I said.

  "Yes, or at least a representation or manifestation of your consciousness," the Pigeon King said.

  "Wait, I thought we were in my consciousness," I replied.

  "Somewhat," the Pigeon King said, sounding suddenly uncertain himself. "We are in the space that houses your being, your personality, your memories, your knowledge, your understanding. Everything that you have ever been is here. The thing you are right now is the manifestation of all of that.”

  "So I'm still me?”

  "Yes," the Pigeon King replied. "And I am me. But we are not our physical selves; we are manifestations, as you can tell by this particularly chubby form you've given me," the Pigeon King said, looking down at his round body.

  "So I gave your consciousness a form?" I asked.

  "A form to present to you, yes," the Pigeon King replied.

  "I could have at least given myself abs or something then," I said, looking down at my skinny, scarless torso.

  "This is how you know yourself to be. If you knew yourself to be muscular, you would have them," the Pigeon King said.

  "Great, so I'm a skinny twerp even in my own imagination.”

  "Well, at least no one can ever accuse you of being dishonest mageling," the Pigeon King replied flippantly.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  "Thanks," I muttered. "What about this Somnix then? He's not a thing in my consciousness, is he?”

  "No," the Pigeon King replied. "Somnix is a malignant spirit that never passed on. He is thousands of years old and has remained tied tenuously to the mortal realm by preying on mortals, invading their nightmares, and feasting on their terror. He has sustained himself through the centuries, but he is little more than a… well, I suppose you'd call him a ghost.”

  "He's a ghost," I said.

  "I prefer 'malignant spirit' as it is more accurate," the Pigeon King said. "I don't know if Somnix was ever a mortal, but he subsists on your kind. It's why his kingdom can be accessed through the mortal mind, because most doors work both ways.”

  "So he can get into my mind," I said.

  "Of course," the Pigeon King said. "In fact, perhaps somewhere in your life, a nightmare you had was as a result of Somnix. Or perhaps not. There are so many of you mortals, he could take his pick."

  "So how did he steal your feather then? Does he have access to your mind?"

  The Pigeon King harrumphed.

  "Boy, my mind is a thousand castles within a hundred layers of barbed wire and trenches. No half-alive spirit could invade it!"

  "So how did he get your feather then?" I asked, needling him deliberately.

  "Through one of my followers," the Pigeon King snapped. "Unfortunately, the minds of the average London pigeon are about as complex as a straight line. He possessed the body and stole the feather. It was a particularly low-effort and very unskilled attack that I wasn't expecting. He would not get away with it twice. But ever since he's had the feather, he's been able to torture my pigeons. He's been able to harangue them and harass them whether they are asleep or not. This is why I must get the feather back. It's far too powerful an object for such a malignant creature to do as he wills with."

  "I wonder what pigeons have nightmares about," I said.

  "Oh dear boy, such nightmares that would make you shiver," the Pigeon King said.

  Then he began detailing some very disturbing images of foxes, speeding cars, and statues that came to life when pooed on. But I was only half paying attention to him now, as there were other sounds in the darkness. The whispers. They were here lurking somewhere deep in the mountains of my subconscious. They were clearer than ever. I could almost make out a few words. What were they saying? If only I could…

  “Mageling!” The Pigeon King’s voice was a harsh bark that snapped me to attention.

  I turned and realised I had wandered a good distance from his side. I blinked in surprise.

  “What are you doing?

  “I… ummm I thought I heard something…” I stammered, looking around myself in the darkness, feeling a creeping sense of dread in my chest.

  “Quickly mageling, to my side,” The Pigeon King said, his voice low as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “Keep looking at me and walk.”

  What was going on? Why was he so afraid?

  Then I saw a glimmer in the corner of my eye and instinctively I turned my head to look.

  “Mageling, no!”

  It was too late, I saw what the Pigeon King hadn’t wanted me to. It was a thousand mirrors. No… a thousand, thousand mirrors, stretching into the vast chasms of my mind. Yet they weren’t quite mirrors. They reflected the inky blackness of my subconscious, but there were also… pictures in their reflections. I stared, slack jawed, at them. It seemed like every moment of my existence was depicted in front of my eyes. Fragments of memories hung suspended in midair like shattered picture frames, each one flickering with ghostly light.

  I saw my Grandad’s hand resting on my shoulder, his voice warm but just out of reach, like a song I couldn’t quite remember.

  Another fragment held a flicker of my parents, arguing in the corner of a dim, smoky room before they faded into shadows.

  “Mageling!” the Pigeon King cried again, but it was too late, I had become lost in a trance.

  Everything was there. Faces I had forgotten, places I had barely seen, events that had shaped and broken me into the person I was now. The shattered mirrors were the ones that I wanted to look most closely at. Morbid horror spilled through my guts to the very tips of my fingers and toes. In one of the cracked mirrors I saw him. I barely recognised the face at first, but with gut wrenching fear, I realised who it was: my dad. I never thought about him. When I had nightmares of my childhood, his face was always a blur of darkness. It was more his fists that I remembered. But there he was. His face twisted and contorted. His wonky teeth were yellow and jutted at sharp angles. His lips were dry and cracked, his skin sallow, and his cheeks hollow. His eyes. The same eyes as mine, stared back at me. They were deranged. His pockmarked flesh showed how deep his addiction was before he died. I didn’t want to look. But I couldn’t stop. Terror chewed through me, stripped me of everything other than the quivering little boy I’d been. He was angry. Why? What had I done… Then the mirror shattered. The fragments whirled and reformed and then I saw his fists. And I heard the all too familiar sound they made when they hit flesh.

  I wanted to vomit. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But I just stood there, helpless and useless as always.

  The mirrors whirled again, and I saw my own reflection in a long black mirror. I stood, transfixed, staring at myself. It was an older me. More gaunt and harangued. There was something in the reflection’s eyes that drew me, some coldness I didn’t know existed in myself. I took a slow step forward when suddenly my reflection smiled at me with sharp teeth and hollow eyes. It stepped towards me and reached for me. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw my own shadow reach out of the floor and grab me by my wrist, cold fingers biting into my skin.

  I cried out, snapping from my trance as a shape burst free from one of the memory fragments. It was a dark, smoky figure, tall and skeletal, with arms that twisted like thorny branches. The shadow lunged. I yanked my arm free just in time, but it left an icy burn on my skin.

  "Look out!" I heard the Pigeon King’s desperate squawk as another specter burst from a cracking memory shard, this one wrapped in smoke and whispering accusations in my own voice.

  "They left because of you."

  "You weren't enough."

  “You ruined their lives!”

  “They hated you!”

  “Fucking useless!”

  “Worthless!”

  It was everywhere at once. I swung my fist blindly, but the blow passed through smoke. The Pigeon King screeched, launching himself at one of the shadows. His feathers flared bright with golden fire, and the creature hissed and twisted away. I stumbled away from the smoke and the accusations as I saw more shadows lurch from the mirrors.

  The Pigeon King twisted his body and I saw his little talons etching quick shapes in the air, leaving a trail of golden light behind them. I recognised the pattern, it was the Chain Rune of Awareness. The shadows poured forth from the mirrors and descended upon the diminutive pigeon, howling and screeching.

  "Bind." The Pigeon King intoned, his voice echoing around the darkness.

  The Rune snapped into place. The specters convulsed, their forms caught in the tightening lines of magic, writhing as if strung up in a web. The shadows screamed a chorus of my own failures, before shattering into shards of darkness that scattered like ash. I staggered backward, breathing hard, as the Pigeon King ruffled his feathers.

  “What were those,” I gasped as the wall of mirrors fading into nothingness.

  “Only shades of a broken mind,” the Pigeon King replied quietly.

  I swallowed. Shades of my broken mind. Memories I wished I had forgotten but that apparently still haunted my subconscious.

  “Move mageling,” the Pigeon King commanded. “And do not leave my side! You do not wish to face the darkness of your own mind.”

  For once we agreed on something.

  They never loved you… the words haunted me as we turned and continued our journey. It’s your fault…