Ramiro

He was born to a family of meagre means, and but a moon-cycle thence was left at the doorstep of a butcher’s shop, where laboured a sorcerer of obscure repute. There, in that sanguine place of flesh and entrails, the babe Ramiro was reared—not as a son, but as a humble apprentice, schooled in minor magicks and menial labours. Yet there was one chamber into which he was forbidden ever to tread: the shadowed sanctum known only as the Dark Room, where the most sacred and perilous enchantments were wrought.

The year was numbered minus three-hundred, and Alexander the Great had already succumbed to death’s embrace. The sorcerer, Toño by name and most aged by count—one hundred and three winters—set forth to the monarch’s funeral. There, amidst the obsequies and murmuring masses, he made acquaintance with one Wendy, a curious maiden of but nine years, a budding actress who possessed the uncanny faculty of transmogrifying her own flesh, often appearing as a grown woman of twenty.

Thus did Toño encounter her in her adult guise. Frail of sight and breath, trembling with the fevers of memory’s decay, the centenarian found comfort in her seeming maturity. As the funeral descended into murmurs of boredom, he summoned her before the crowd to aid him in a most perilous trick—an evanescence via portal, leading unto the forbidden Dark Room, concealed in the ancient realm of Tegucigalpa.

The spell succeeded, yet the cost was dear. Drained of his life-essence, Toño perished upon the spot, whilst Wendy remained trapped beyond the veil, within that cursed sanctum.

Ramiro, returning from his butcherly duties, perceived the muffled sobs of a child emanating from the forbidden chamber. Calling for his master and receiving no reply, he feared a spell had misfired, trapping the old man within a child’s form. He unlatched the door. The girl fled—barefoot and shrieking—into a world most arcane.

She beheld pyramids etched with sacrificial lore, and was soon seized by a soldier of the emperor’s dread regime. Brought before a royal court of cannibals, Wendy transformed into the emperor’s wife—usurping the true consort by guile. A contest of identities ensued, yet Wendy, more beguiling in form and aspect, prevailed. The true empress was thus offered to the gods upon an altar.

The emperor, now enthralled, clasped Wendy’s hand and led her to the nuptial chamber. Yet as he began to lay claim to her, her voice betrayed her youth. Disgusted, enraged, and humiliated by the deception, the emperor roared.

“Then suffer the consequence!” Wendy retorted—and reverting to her childly guise, bit the imperial organ with fangs of fury and fled.

Fate was kind, for she collided with Ramiro in her escape. Pursued by soldiers, they vanished into the forest’s embrace, and after many days arrived at a distant coast, where rebel tribes dwelt beyond the reach of the cannibal kings.

Years passed. Ramiro was at last reunited with his long-lost progenitors, who, in the innocence of ignorance, adopted Wendy as their own. Joy returned. They bathed together in the sea, a semblance of peace restored.

But peace is a fleeting wraith. One dusky eve, ships bearing the guano sigil arrived—mercenary tribes loyal to the bloodthirsty emperor. The village was sacked, its dwellers taken, its crafts looted. Ramiro and Wendy were seized. His parents resisted and were captured as well.

The emperor’s eye fell upon Ramiro’s mother and ordered her extraction. In a heartbeat, Wendy transfigured herself into the matron and, pressing Ramiro to her breast, whispered with borrowed voice:

“Fret not, my child—that woman with the monster is Wendy.”

It was a lie. Ramiro’s father suspected as much, yet kept the ruse, for to shatter his son’s heart anew was an agony he could not bear.

As the villagers met their demise, Ramiro and the false mother escaped within the chaos, disguised amid the bloodied throng. They returned to the sorcerer’s ancient hovel. There, in the ritual of bathing, they shed the filth of death—though the stench of corpses had long since ceased to offend Ramiro’s senses. Wendy, trembling still, wore the mother-role with heavy heart.

Together they ventured into the Dark Room and discovered the talisman: a necklace woven from chicken bones, pigeon feathers, and shell fragments, inscribed with runes upon tanned human skin, bound in a tome of hardened leather, adorned with teeth and bone, crowned by a dark cornea that shimmered with the semblance of life.

As Wendy reached for it, the spirit of Toño surged forth and entered Ramiro.

“I am no longer of this world. Take my power. The truth shall be unveiled.”

And thus, Ramiro knew: Wendy was not the sorcerer. She had merely survived him.

“Forgive me,” Wendy murmured. “I knew your mother meant more to you.”

Ramiro embraced her and, placing a kiss upon her trembling lips, spoke:

“My parents forsook me to the butcher’s block. It was Toño who preserved my life. You are more than mother or lover—you are proof the spell remains incomplete. Thus, I must return you to your place.”

But Wendy, eyes bright with a different dream, replied:

“What if we went somewhere quieter—together?”

Bathed in ancient magicks, they became enshrouded in a cloud of light and mist. When it cleared, they found themselves in the year 2025, upon the sun-drenched shores of Ibiza, amidst a masquerade ball, where past and present danced hand in hand beneath the stars.