Dreamtime

by Slawomir Rapala

Table of Contents
Part 1 appears
in this issue.

part 2 of 4

The Shia fixed his eyes on a pale figure suspended in the air high above the altar. It was a man, one could not make a mistake about that, for he was stripped of all clothes. His body was spread-eagled and stiff, suspended in the air by the temple’s dark magicks. The man’s eyes were wide open but expressionless. They silently mirrored the shapes of the dragons painted on the temple ceilings above him.

The Chi followed his master’s gaze and gasped. “We cannot wake him,” he said.

“We need an assassin to kill the Hsu,” Shia-Smohc paid no heed to his servant’s remark. “I am told this human possesses certain abilities. In his former life he was a great many things: a soldier and warrior, an adventurer and plunderer, a thief and an assassin.”

“But what of the Sorcerer?” Chi-Iss’ld asked quietly. “We gave him our word. The human will remain in dreamtime until such day that he dies. He will live out his life in the dreamlands of Yitia.”

“I don’t care for the Sorcerer!” Shia-Smohc thundered, suddenly angered. “We owe nothing to him! He’s nothing more than a mere human himself!”

“He’s of the Serpent Order, master,” the small Chi shrank once more under the weight of the Shia’s words.

“He’s no serpent!” the priest hissed in reply. His eyes lit up with an intense blue flame, a flame that knew no warmth, only the icy currents of the Shia’s blood.

“We need our temple to be strong,” Shia-Smohc continued after a moment of silence during which the echo of his last sentence faded away, hungrily swallowed by the sacred walls. “We cannot use its magicks to support the dreams of a human. It is far too draining, even you know that, Chi-Iss’ld. We will need all the magick if Hsu-Ssin is appointed Pan. I don’t care for human business, it is not ours. The future of Yitia is at stake. If he does not die, Hsu-Ssin will destroy our Kingdome and our sacred temple. He is an enemy of Sonya.”

“But what guarantee will we have that the human succeeds?”

The Shia did not respond and started for the altar instead, his gaze fixed on the pale figure above him. As he stepped closer, the dreamer descended slowly from beneath the high temple ceilings. The priest halted a step away from the altar at the same time as the naked body of the human touched it. The man lay motionless, lost deep in the dreamlands of Yitia. The Shia placed one of his long, smooth hands on the man’s forehead and peered into his eyes. His hand moved across the human’s face tenderly.

“We will prepare the temple’s magicks in the event that the human fails,” the priest said after a moment. “If the Hsu is made Pan we will unleash all of our power against him and destroy him.”

The Chi shivered once more and looked at his master with horror. “And everything else with him...” his voice trembled.

Shia-Smohc looked back at him. “For Yitia’s sake then, let’s hope that the human succeeds, no?”

He turned his back to the stunned acolyte and looked at the man lying before him, dreaming his life peacefully.

“See how calm he is,” the Shia reflected. “It seems almost a shame to tear him away from his dreams.”

“We don’t know where he is in the dreamlands, master. He has been dreaming for seven years.”

“You’re right. He could be in the middle of a sea battle, climbing the mountains of the North, or making love to the beautiful women of the Tha-ka’s harem,” Shia-Smohc laughed. “ Isn’t dreamtime beautiful?”

“Yes, master, it is a powerful spell.”

“Yes, a great power it is. And a great drain on our temple and myself,” the priest caressed the man’s face. “We will undue it tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow the Hsu will speak to the crowds. The human will be there and he will kill him when the night falls.”

He looked into the human’s eyes once more. They were glossed over with an infinitely blue sea of memories that he had dreamt. “Or die trying...”

The acolyte slowly crept closer to his master. He looked into the face of the sleeping man with bewilderment. “I wonder where is he now?”

* * *

The wind howled its vicious song again and the half-opened entrance to the tent fluttered in the sudden gust. The man who sat by the dying fire inside the frail shelter shuddered as a rush of cold air passed over him. He pulled on the thick hides that covered his body and adjusted them so as to be wrapped wholly. The Lyonese winter was at its full and a blizzard raged outside, enveloping the world in darkness and snow. At this altitude even during spring months one could easily perish amidst savage storms that visited the snow-capped peaks of the Dreary Mountains. Few travelled the treacherous and uninviting paths of this jagged mountain range that separated Lyons from the Viking Realm Arynos, fearing the harsh weather as much as the savage Lyonese highlanders, whose high-walled cholchoz were rumoured to be sited here.

No one who crossed the gates of their homesteads was ever seen alive, as this brutal breed disliked strangers and killed them unscrupulously. The screams of the tortured echoed off the solemn mountains and carried far down the rugged slopes and into the lush valleys at the foothills. Men gripped their swords upon hearing the distant and horrible cries, while women scuttled back and took shelter within the safety of the dwellings, with frightened children clinging to their skirts.

The man in the tent was not afraid. He gripped the hilt of his sword and the soothing touch of the onyx-bound handle calmed him, and strengthened his resolve. Neither the highlanders, nor the raging blizzards would force him to turn around now, when he was this close to the hated Sorcerer. For days he had tracked him through the unspoiled Lyonese wilderness, barely stopping for drink and food, and only when it was absolutely necessary. He would not stop now. Not after he had travelled through the deserts of Bandikoy and the Dark Steppes of Argaron, not after he made way through the maze of Yitian marshlands, not after he crossed the hostile Tha-kian grounds and the vast waters of the Azmattic Ocean. The Sorcerer was his.

The wind subsided and silence followed. The man raised his head with a quiet scowl, distrustful of any unnatural changes that took place around him. He knew the powers of his villain, and he knew that the Sorcerer grew in strength over the years he spent pursuing him. Who knew what magicks he commanded now? Life-long service in the army and the life of a sword-for-hire which stretched across most of the Southern and Northern Kingdoms, taught the man to be trustful of his instincts and suspicious of things others paid little heed too. A little gust of wind or lack thereof could signify danger and could be the only forewarning before a calamity struck.

Presently, he gripped his sword tightly and allowed the hides to slide down his shoulders despite the freezing air that governed in the tent since the fire died. He was dressed in a light armour that covered his chest; protective metal plates were firmly attached to his shoulders and arms. A thick wool shirt beneath the metal was his only guard against the immense cold.

The man slowly rose to his feet and listened attentively, peering out of his tent and into the dark world outside. The wind had stopped, the snow no longer fell, and all was quiet. The world had halted, but not for long. A sudden thunder rolled over the mountains and then the sky opened and a gaping hole appeared in its fabric. The man cowered back in bewilderment, transfixed with fear and could only watch as a black substance spilled from the crack and crept towards him, covering everything in its path.

The sky thundered once more, then again and again, until the roaring sound steadied into a rhythmic and continuous drumbeat that filled the man’s entire world and claimed his sanity. He screamed and turned to flee, but the strong cloth that the tent was fashioned from imprisoned him. He cut through it with his blade and stumbled outside, falling to his knees in the deep snow. Around him, the world was crumbling. The earth moved beneath his feet, rocked by the savage force of underground quakes. More cracks appeared in the thundering sky and thick blackness seeped into it, slowly dripping down the canvass, devouring it with a darkness so superb and so absolute that nothing could withstand it.

The man stumbled blindly forward, screaming at the top of his lungs, giving voice to his crazed mind as the mountains around him continued to quiver and shake, as the earth swayed beneath him like the sea, as the blackness claimed everything in its path and slowly edged toward him. The thunderous beat filled his head and he raised his hands to his ears to block it, still screaming, still voicing his madness. He closed his eyes to the crumbling world and dropped to his knees, overpowered by the hypnotic rhythm of the drum. He felt the blackness reach him and claim his body, seeping into every pore and every cavity, reaching finally his head, his mind, his mind, his mind...

The drum continued as the man opened his eyes to the blackness around him, still screaming, still mad and crazed with a mystical fear. But the darkness soon receded and dragons appeared before him, looming over his head and glaring at him with pale-blue eyes the light of which was so intense so as to pierce him through and through and penetrate into his soul. He rested his head against the cold stone beneath him and stared back at the archaic creatures, mythic beasts of divine origin, paralysed with fear.

Not only fear, though, for fatigue claimed his exhausted body as well and he was weak. The rhythmic beat continued, but it was less thunderous now and sounded almost like the beat of a drum. Continuous and hypnotic, it grasped his screaming mind like a vice and lay claim to it. The man could not move, nor could he say anything. A cold hand clasped over his open mouth and finally silenced his screams.

“Be silent, traveller,” a hissing voice reached his ears and penetrated the madness. “You are safe.”

He lay naked on a strange construction, the likes of which he had never seen. Lyons was gone, as were her Dreary Mountains with the constant winter blizzards and the threat of a highlander ambush. Gone was the world which he knew.

“Where am I?” he asked in low, broken voice. He was weak, his body wasted and he had not the strength to stand. But his eyes scoured the limited field of vision relentlessly and a feverish light burnt deep in them. A strange creature lowered his face to his, obscuring for the moment the awful dragon-shapes painted on the high ceilings. The room thus far flooded with an intense blue light dimmed as the pale and monstrous face of the stranger loomed over him.

“Among friends?” the man added hopefully.

“You are in Yitia,” the strange beast hissed into his ear. Its forked tongue moved rapidly between the thin lips.

“Impossible,” the man replied, staring blankly into the slant eyes of his captor. “I left Yitia years ago.”

The creature’s eyes drifted away for a moment. A silence followed, interrupted only by the drum beat that still echoed against the tall walls of the cavity in which they were.

“You did,” the beast said finally. “You left years ago in pursuit of the Sorcerer whom you have tracked here through the marshes that protect us.”

“Yes.”

“But you are back now,” the creature lowered its face to the man’s and almost touched his cheek with its long tongue as it spoke. The man shivered against the beast’s cold breath.

“How?” his voice was weak and he could not shake the invisible binds that kept him locked to the strange stone. He wished to rise, for the stone seemed alive beneath him. A crawling sensation overwhelmed him as the structure warmed to the touch of his skin. He felt embraced by it, as if he was a part of it. It was a comfortable feeling, but everything in his mind screamed for him to leave, to rise and to run, run, run! A sense of treachery pervaded his thoughts and he felt black venom seep into his veins through the cracks in the stone.

“It’s Sonya,” the creature whispered into his ear. Its cold hand caressed his naked body, sending disturbingly pleasant shivers down to the small of his back. “With her aid I brought you back across the ocean and the deserts. She speaks to you now. Can you hear her?”

“I hear nothing.”

“Her voice is now in your veins, human. You need not hear it.”

“Who are you?”

The creature straightened its back, exposing again the dragon-filled ceilings flooded with the blue light. It drew the hood back from its head, revealing a face so awful and twisted that the man turned away in haste.

“A serpent,” the man whispered. “Then it is true. This is Yitia.”

A wave of anger flooded his heart and he turned back to his captor with a cry that penetrated the binds that held his mind and body: “Why?!” the walls echoed the man’s powerful voice and it thundered throughout the temple. “He was within my reach!”

The serpent watched him with indifference. “You would not have caught him, human.”

To be continued...