Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 5.18

I welcome the embrace of the World Between Worlds.

"The tree was his prison. You imprisoned your lover."

I study the old woman before me, hunched into her own sorrow. She mumbles into the void, eyes like dull marbles.

Rikamu.

The last goddess.

I used to fear her. I still do. She took what wasn't hers. Yet she made the ultimate sacrifice for us, betraying the person she loved the most and dooming herself to an eternity alone.

"Rikamu serves the Light. She always serves the Light." She glances at me then, and I feel for the first time how old she truly must be.

"I wish I didn't have to ask, Rikamu, but I still don't understand how Amitabh escaped. Did the seal fade over time?"

Rikamu shakes her head. "The power of Light is strong. Amitabh slept. Amitabh slept and Rikamu was alone. Until..the next You came."

"The Dark Witch."

"Yes, the angry one, the one who burned. Burned so much, yes, but could not burn a prison of Light. She tried, she tried. The tree burned but it was not destroyed. But Amitabh woke. He slept no more."

Ah. So it really was my fault.

"He hungered for release. He called to those souls that were like his own. The others couldn't hear him."

"Souls like...his own?"

"Souls that hunger. That yearn. There is a connection. Rikamu could not break it. The Light is strong, but the Dark endures."

In a way, it made sense. Ruby hungered for answers. Lima was a curious child who yearned for that which made life, life. And me...I'd heard the bells too. I'd heard Amitabh calling me.

"Rikamu...what do I hunger for?"

Rikamu fixes a hard gaze on me. "For yourself," she answers finally. "For what is buried deep inside. The shadow hungers for the shadow."

I frown as understanding dawns. I won't fall prey to that hunger. The First Witch's anger is hers and hers alone.

"So the snake sickness..."

"No, no. Not a sickness." Rikamu sighs. "A possession. Amitabh may enter the body of one who hungers as he does."

So Ruby was never sick. The scales, the fever...all symptoms of Amitabh's possession. But then...

"Rikamu, why did Lima die? Addy's sister. Queen Irine's daughter."

"The child, the child. The joyful one. Oh he should not have tried to enter her, no. He should not have tried to possess the child. She was too small. His energy overpowered her body. He should not have tried."

Frogs.

The deity stalking the shadows of Zilitron is the one who killed Addy's little sister.

Amitabh.

He is the snake sickness.

"Rikamu, can you bring Amitabh back? Can you lock him up in the tree again?"

"Rikamu cannot leave the forest. She must stay until the Light One calls her back."

I clench my fists. Do I have to fight a deity now?

"If I bring him back, can you seal him in the tree?"

Rikamu thinks for a moment. "Will you bring him back, shadow?"

The question sits uncomfortably in my gut. If I bring him back, and Rikamu seals him back in the tree, he'll wait for the next victim. It seems he has a very small pool of potential host bodies, with only a few people hearing his call since the Dark Ages, but eventually someone will hear those bells. Eventually Amitabh will escape again.

I have another way. Oddly enough, I'm not scared this time. I'm going to put Amitabh away for good. We will never have another Lima. We will never have another Ruby.

"Thank you, Rikamu," I say, as we return to the Forbidden Place.

Rikamu, the last goddess, gives me a small smile.

I ready myself to loosen my particles again. "I will fix this, Rikamu," I say. A breeze tousles my hair, eerily cold. "And Rikamu?"

Rikamu turns to me. Her eyes smoulder with the memory of a happier time.

"I'm sorry."