Prologue

The man paced the length of the dim room. “The war is coming.”

“Yes,” another man said worriedly, “We must gather our fighters-“

“But, that won’t be enough, Ducal! We need more than that!” The man said banging his fist on the table. “We will be outnumbered by five-thousand!”

“I am aware of that, Biliat,” Ducal said in a low gruff voice. “But what else are we to do?”

Biliat stopped his pacing. “I don’t know.”

It was quiet for a while before Ducal spoke up, “We could summon The Mirror Minds.”

“No.” Biliat said immediately. “That would be too risky. The Mirror Mind could turn on us and destroy our whole planet. Or even worse, they could wipe out the whole universe without trying. You know they travel through their sleep…or should I say dreams? They live two lives: One, on their home planet, and two, during their dreams on here. They live their normal life awake, but when they fall asleep,” Biliat wagged his finger, “When they fall asleep their dream takes them here where their dream becomes real life. It is no longer just a nightmare, it's real. What they dream is fake on their planet, but once they live their dream here…it is very much real. They might conjure up some hideous beast and not even try… ”

“Those are mere myths. And we don’t have any more time for those, young man. I shall send for the Summoning to happen tonight.”

Biliat’s face turned red, the same shade as his hair, “Fine. But if this ends in disaster… you’re the one to blame.”

And with that, he turned away from Ducal and strode out the room.

Ducal narrowed his eyes and tugged at his beard. “It is the only way.”

---

The nine elders gathered around the pit in the dark. Ducal, who stood among them in a dark brown cloak, bent down. He cupped his hands and blew into them. His wrinkled palms started to glow and emanate a soft blue light. He tilted his hands toward the bottom of the pit. The light seemed to slide off his hands and float its way towards the bottom. Ducal stood back up as the light hit the bottom of the waist deep pit and spread until the whole thing was glowing too.

One by one, the other elders did the same until the pit was a swirling mass of colored lights. Each elder took one step back, except for Ducal who remained standing at the edge. He began murmuring inaudible words, a low humming filled the air and the wind swirled around the pit. Ducal raised his hands and the light flew up like a tree growing into the star speckled sky. He put his hands down and looked directly into the pillar of light. He reached into it and started whispering the words that so many had chanted at the Summoning, “We summon you, Mirror Mind… Your new life has opened. You will learn to use it. You will learn to control it. You are chosen for this. You are the only one. And you will save us all…”

And with that, he yanked his hand out. The pillar of light dropped back into the pit, causing the ground to shake. Ducal looked high up into the sky, and sighed in relief at the sight of a growing speck, hurtling down.