DreamcatchersCartoon

Siho moves to the countryside with her ailing mother. On their first night she meets two fairies, Parang and Hayang, keepers of memory. They say they are hunting Belamut, who is tearing through both the human world and theirs, and that her mother’s illness is his doing. They offer a bargain. If Siho helps them chase Belamut, they will heal her mother. Siho accepts and crosses into the fairies’ realm. They enter through Mirganda, a gateway village that looks like the human world but is home to spiritual beings. The villagers use dream crystals that rise from the lakebed as their source of energy. Lately the lake has turned red, and the village spirits tremble, fearing divine anger. Siho’s party investigates. A child spirit named Aruda tells them about the incident that stained the lake. They dive below and find the lake’s guardian lying in a self-imposed sleep. From the guardian they learn Belamut passed through at the time of the disaster. With the guardian’s help they restore Mirganda’s blue light. Their next stop is the Village of Forgetting, where residents lose their memories in loops. The village keeps a great chest to store memories that must never be lost, but someone stole it, and now even the road to the next town has been forgotten. Siho and the fairies track down the thief and uncover the truth. When Belamut came through, the villagers—terrified of being erased—revealed the way to the next town. Ashamed, they sealed that memory away themselves. Siho’s group recovers the chest, the villagers own their mistake, and they move forward. They arrive in Hebra, a village whose light has gone out. Following Belamut’s trail into a cavern, they find a divine ember still alive. To rekindle it, they must carry it to a blacksmith’s forge in the Canyon of Shadow, so they set out with a guide. The canyon is crawling with threats. At a critical moment a blacksmith named Molti rescues them. He explains that Belamut has hollowed out all the blacksmiths, turning them into soulless husks, and that Belamut took the only weapon capable of killing the First Administrator Sadar, the God’s Ring. Together they reach the forge, but the guide—already brainwashed by Belamut—embraces the last ember and vanishes with it. Despair sets in until Molti sacrifices himself, igniting his own soul as a new ember. Carrying Molti’s flame back to Hebra, they relight the village. Then they press on toward the Administrator’s Domain to confront Belamut. At the temple threshold they pass the Library of Time, where all knowledge is kept. The librarian, Marda, greets them with delight; no one but the primordial administrator Sadar has ever come this far. There they gain an ancient memory of Sadar and Belamut. The record reveals that Sadar and Belamut are two names for a single being. If Belamut uses the God’s Ring to sever their link and become the only one, the cycle of space and time will collapse and all order will dissolve into nothing. Parang and Siho head for Sadar’s chamber to stop it. When they arrive, Belamut, Sadar, and Siho’s mother are together. The hidden truth is laid bare. Belamut was once an ancient being who designed the world’s cycle with Sadar. Sadar sought to rule the cycle and exiled Belamut to the human world he had made. Belamut wandered the human realm seeking a way back. When he realized Sadar had birthed an avatar in the human world, he tracked it—only to learn the avatar, Yeon-hwa, had conceived a child. Siho inherited that blood and became a vessel capable of holding a god. All of Sadar’s avatars are destined to be absorbed back into Sadar; knowing this, Yeon-hwa came with Belamut to persuade Sadar so Siho would not be sacrificed. But Sadar chooses the path of dissolution and begins to unmake space and time. Belamut, Yeon-hwa, and Parang sacrifice themselves to stop Sadar for Siho’s sake. White light blooms. After a long while Siho opens her eyes. Her mother is gone.