No one really knows when humanity made its first mirror.
Before glass and silver backing, there was only water. People leaned over still surfaces and saw themselves staring back. Like Narcissus in the old Greek myth, they discovered their own reflection and, with it, the unsettling idea of self.
In many early cultures, that reflection wasn't just an image. It was something deeper. A fragment of the soul. Looking too long was considered dangerous.
So when actual mirrors appeared, it wasn't a stretch to think they held power.
And in a way, they did.
Mirrors became one of humanity's earliest tools for peering into other realms. The images they showed weren't always truthful, but they resonated with what they reflected—people, places, reality itself.
Which led to a persistent idea.
That somewhere, just beyond the surface—
There was another world.
—
When it came time for Salomon to begin practicing more advanced spells, the Ancient One chose a safer environment.
The Mirror Dimension.
And the easiest way to reach it was with a sling ring.
To Salomon, sling rings were basically a shortcut.
The Ancient One had carved spellwork into them, letting even relatively inexperienced sorcerers open portals—something that would normally require far more skill. Distance and scale weren't determined by mastery alone, but by raw magical strength.
It was efficient.
Practical.
And maybe just a little lazy.
Not that anyone complained. The mobility it gave Kamar-Taj was unmatched. Even the Sorcerer Supreme used one when it suited her.
Today's lesson was held in the Mirror Dimension for two reasons.
First, anything they did here wouldn't damage the real world.
Second—
There were things the other sorcerers weren't meant to see.
—
"Salomon," the Ancient One said, standing before him in her black ritual robes, "your stigmata mark you as one who seeks knowledge. They grant you access to truths others never reach."
Her gaze didn't soften.
"But knowledge alone isn't enough. This universe is filled with things you haven't even begun to understand."
Salomon glanced down at his hands.
He wore matching black robes, layered with a red outer garment made from sacred cloth. It draped down to his calves, fastened by seven silver chains across his chest.
After the previous one had burned away, the Ancient One had crafted a new one for him. This version carried protective enchantments.
Even now, she didn't trust him to fully control his stigmata.
Unchecked, it would keep refining his life force without limit.
The recent healing had left him leaner. Sharper. His hair was shorter, his features more defined.
There was something colder about him now.
"Danger," he repeated quietly.
"Yes."
She nodded once.
"For example—Dormammu."
The name settled into the air like a weight.
"He watches this world constantly. Waiting for the chance to draw it into the Dark Dimension. Only a few senior sorcerers at Kamar-Taj even know his name."
Her eyes locked onto his.
"But they haven't experienced what you're about to."
Salomon frowned slightly.
"What am I learning?"
"Balance."
—
Her hand rose.
Two fingers pressed lightly against his forehead.
The spell activated instantly.
Astral projection.
It was Salomon's first time experiencing it. His spirit separated cleanly from his body, identical in form but lighter, untethered.
Before he could adjust—
She pushed.
Hard.
The world dropped away.
—
He was falling.
No—
He was being pulled.
Dragged through a tunnel of shifting color and distorted light. Space twisted around him, bending and stretching in impossible ways. Stars, shapes, entire realities flashed past in a blur.
It was too fast.
Too much.
His senses couldn't keep up. Even without a physical body, nausea twisted through him.
He felt small.
Insignificant.
Like a grain of dust being carried through a storm.
Dimensions passed in rapid succession, each one brushing against him for less than a second.
Then—
Darkness.
—
He broke through something like a veil.
And everything stopped.
No motion.
No light.
Just… silence.
A dead, endless void stretched out before him.
Fragments of shattered planets drifted through the darkness, warped and twisted. Their surfaces bulged with grotesque growths, like tumors made of stone and flesh.
Everything was covered in a thick, black substance.
It crawled.
It pulsed.
It spread.
Color flickered across it in sickly patterns, too bright and too wrong to look at for long.
Salomon tried to focus.
Tried to understand.
But the moment he saw something—
It slipped away.
Nothing stayed in his mind.
The more he looked, the less he could remember.
And then came the whispers.
Low.
Constant.
Endless.
They filled his ears, his thoughts, his entire being. A flood of sound that carried meaning just out of reach.
It didn't matter if he listened.
It didn't matter if he tried to block it out.
It was already inside him.
Time lost meaning.
There was no before.
No after.
Just existence.
And the whispers.
—
Then—
Something moved.
Salomon froze.
A shape formed in the darkness.
Massive.
Unfathomably large.
A face.
If it could even be called that.
It was made of the same black substance, shifting and reforming endlessly. One of its eyes alone was the size of a planet.
It saw him.
And it reacted.
The roar that followed wasn't sound.
It was force.
It tore through him, shaking his spirit to its core. The surrounding planets cracked and split under the pressure.
Salomon clutched his head, but it didn't matter.
You couldn't block something like that.
It bypassed the senses entirely.
Straight into the soul.
Words were buried inside the noise.
Curses.
Rage.
Something ancient and furious.
He couldn't understand any of it.
Then the thing moved.
A hand emerged from the darkness.
Vast.
Impossible.
It came down toward him with unstoppable force, carrying debris, energy, fragments of broken worlds in its wake.
Salomon looked up.
And all he could see—
Was shadow.
The kind that swallowed everything.
The kind that left no escape.
—
He snapped back.
—
The Mirror Dimension.
Kamar-Taj.
The ground beneath him was solid again.
The Ancient One sat across from him, calm as ever.
Salomon was on the floor, legs folded, body trembling.
His face was pale.
Sweat clung to his skin.
His head throbbed. The whispers hadn't fully faded. The dizziness lingered, twisting his sense of balance.
He swallowed hard.
Right now, he wanted two things.
To throw up.
And then sleep for a week.
"That was…" His voice came out rough. "What was that?"
"Dormammu," the Ancient One said evenly. "Ruler of the Dark Dimension."
She studied him.
"You've seen him now."
Salomon forced himself to nod.
—
This was deliberate.
The Ancient One taught differently depending on the student.
Someone like Stephen Strange would be given distance. A glimpse. Just enough to recognize the danger and avoid it.
Salomon—
Didn't get that luxury.
She threw him straight into it.
Because she expected more.
Salomon carried knowledge within him. Even without Kamar-Taj, he would have found his way to power eventually.
Which meant—
He could bear more.
So she gave him more.
There were always two sides to a system like theirs.
The part the world saw.
And the part it didn't.
One kept the image clean.
The other handled everything that couldn't be shown.
If someone had to stand in the dark—
It would be him.
Salomon didn't know everything behind that decision.
But even if he did—
He wouldn't resent it.
He wasn't special.
Not in the way stories liked to pretend.
No destiny bending around him. No world waiting to hand him everything.
He knew himself too well for that.
Lazy.
Practical.
More likely to lie down than stand if given the choice.
The Ancient One hadn't raised him out of pure charity.
There was purpose behind it.
He understood that.
Accepted it.
And honestly—
If he was going to explore the deeper layers of magic anyway, better to do it with someone who knew what they were doing.
So he nodded again.
Slowly.
He was interested.
Even after that.
—
The Ancient One lowered her gaze, lifting her tea.
For a brief moment, something unreadable crossed her expression.
Regret, maybe.
She knew exactly how dangerous that place was.
And she had pushed him into it anyway.
"Control," she said quietly. "And restraint."
She took a sip.
"That's your first lesson."