Although we pursued directly, I had no doubt the fey man was opening distance on us, since I was probably the slowest among us. I don’t like the sensation of being slow, but the braided chainmail I wore was bulky, and my pace was metered by it. If it came to argument, I’d say Karac was slower than I, but I brought myself a step closer to him in order to have him not feel that he was holding us up.
Again, the march went on without a visible passage of time, and we could have marched for a week or an hour and I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you the difference.
Eventually we came to a point where the track led us to a strange occurrence – a fence. A genuine fence, posts every so often and bars, three high. It extended to the left well into the dark, and to the right it vanished into mist just at the edge of vision. Inside it, a yard of white ground and farm animals – a donkey, several chickens, some sheep, a cow, all simply standing about. Ground-fog complemented the mists around the forest, drifting lazily across the floor of the yard. A large barn to one side stood silent and lightless in the tree-shrouded twilight, and a farmhouse with circular glassed windows to the other. The glass was a mix of colors, mostly aged brown, but some was blue and a very few panes were green.
We drew up at the fence, looking around at each other.
“What are we stopping for?” Karac growled. Apparently looking up above one’s feet is irritating for a dwarf. I can only guess what the halfwise would be feeling.
I rested my hands on the fence and looked over to him. “In the land of nightmares, ruled by Shan Duresh, who is like unto a god here, a person who can make a pastoral farm here – and keep it so well – would seem to me to be of some significance. Either as one who can demand peace of the lord of this land and get it, or someone who is so entrenched in that lord’s good graces as to be a danger if angered.”
“Or one who escapes notice through guile or insignificance.” Zenith interjected.
I shrugged. “I’ll exchange fifteen minutes of talk or consideration to avoid the former. Our quarry tracks through this yard directly, and I can see no end to this fence. I think it would be wise to ask the occupant for permission to cross his or her land – trespass in the fey is a very serious offense, and can cause us a great deal of harm if the owner of this place takes aggressive offense.”
“The animals. They aren’t breathing.” Dex was leaning on the fence down the line, squinting at the livestock.
Sure enough, the animals were standing there, occasionally twitching or moving their heads, but their breath wasn’t visible. Looking closer, their sides didn’t move in the manner a live thing’s would, either.
“I think this adds a few points to the score of the ‘powerful or in favor’ side, don’t you?” I looked over to Zenith as I said this. He nodded reasonably.
“Well, then, get your ass over there and ask for permission. All this waiting is making my cod-plate itch.”
I hopped the fence and walked to the front door, then looking back at the others, knocked three times.
My footsteps crunched uncomfortably beneath me as I walked. I glanced down, and did not relate back to the rest of them what I saw. The yard, the white base upon which I was walking, was bone. Tiny chunks amid dust ground coarsely, it made a peculiar grating, grinding noise when trod upon.
They stood silent at the fence, watching me.
The door clunked loudly a few times, and cracked open half a hand. Behind it, a lovely Eladrin woman’s face peered out. “What do you want?” Her voice was clear, if a little breathy.
“Madam, my companions and I,” I motioned back to the others. Bingo waved. “We track a man, a servant of the court of Taer Lian Doresh, through these lands to question him, and his trail leads through your land. I would ask your permission to cross your lands in order to continue our pursuit.”
“You’ll not catch a servant of Shan’s before he reaches his court, Shadrim. But you have my permission. Now go.” The door slammed shut, and the locks in it ratcheted shut.
I turned and walked back, relaying the information to them.
“That’s all you got?” Sered said. “Nothing else?”
“What else should I have got?”
“Did it occur to you that being so powerful as you suppose, she might know the way? We might not need this trail, if we have decent directions.”
I banged my head against the fence once, and a second time for good measure. “You know, I try not to be a moron most of the time.”
He didn’t smile. “You are Shadrim, you’re not to be blamed, it comes naturally.”
You know, someday I might just be forced to give him that new lifetime.
I walked back up to the door, but before I knocked I unslung my pack and dredged out a bottle of wine, a good red we’d bottled at the distillery a few weeks before we’d departed. From the look of it, it would travel well. The others began crossing the fence as I did.
I set the bottle on the doorstep, knocked again, and stepped back a bit. Again, the door clunked and clattered, and opened a hands-breadth this time. The same woman looked out, a frown on her face. “What now?”
“Ma’am, I apologize for the intrusion. Please accept this gift for my bothering you at this hour. I wonder if I might ask you if you can provide me directions to Shan Daresh’s enclave?”
A cloaked hand reached out and took up the bottle. She looked it over and set it down somewhere near the door. Looked back at me. “Such information is not given freely, and I have no intention of bartering upon my own doorstep. You may enter, alone, if you wish to. They must wait outside.” She nodded at the rest to emphasize her point.
I looked back at the team slowly making their way across the fence. Karac was looking down at his feet, and hopped a short way into the air, then hopped again, arms held high. He was saying something urgently to the others.
Probably noticed the nature of the ground under his feet.
Dex was watching me, and Sered, so I motioned to myself and made a talk-talk gesture with my hand and pointed inside. Sered nodded. Probably agreeing with Dex on something completely unrelated, or responding to his saying “That Shadrim is going to get us all killed.”
I turned back to the door. “As you wish, ma’am.”
The door opened a little wider, and I slipped inside.
The smell of a great stew greeted me, the air inside smokey and full of different odors. The woman closed the door behind me. “Sit, please. Would you like to eat?”
I looked around the room. “Madam, I do not wish to impose, and I have little time to appreciate your hospitality. As a guest I would not wish to cause you any difficulty.”
She paused at my use of the word ‘guest.’ “You are no more imposition than the last to cross my yard, Azrael.” She walked over toward the far side of the room.
The room itself was lined with many shelves, each with a horde of glass containers – jars, bottles, large and small. Each sealed, and in each a liquid of various colors in which floated shapes I could not make out. At the far end of the room was a cauldron, large and black, under which burned a fire of peat and pine. The resin smoke made my eyes sting a bit, though the smell of the stew in the cauldron was really stirring my stomach with hunger.
Beyond the cauldron I could see an alcove to the right that must turn into stairs. I kept seeing flickers of shade in the corners of my eyes, as well, as though something were there, but when I turned or glanced, nothing revealed itself.
The woman herself was bent over almost double, her spine showing lumpy and crooked through the thin shawl she wore. She walked with a wooden cane, and her hair was tied back in a dyed kerchief. A smell accompanied her, not bad, but – different. Like the scent of a rocky beach in winter, all salt and stone.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, ma’am. You have obviously divined my name, but I have nothing to call you.” I knew her for what she must be, a witch or hag of some kind. I remained guarded. My invocation of guest, and her failure to oppose it, was enough to warrant a certain level of security here. Harming a guest is a major crime in the lands of the fey, and I was hoping Shan Duresh would retain at least that semblance of law here.
She thought for a moment, while she used her free hand to stir the stew in the cauldron with a wooden ladle that had been set on a counter behind the cauldron. Her back still to me, she spoke in a voice that carried, in spite of its breathless nature. “Oh yes, I have divined much about you, Azrael of Bael Turath. And your companions. I read much in my cooking, it reveals a great deal about the surrounds of my farm. Would you like to see what is here?” She glanced back at me over her shoulder. I still think back to that beautiful face on occasion, its discordant presence on her broken shoulders.
I stepped forward to answer. “You offer me a vision freely?” I asked.
“I do, but first you must sleep.” As she said this, the handle of her cane protruded under her arm, and a spray of grey powder rose into my face.
I coughed and staggered back, and vision quickly faded from my memory.
- * *
I awoke to find myself sitting on the floor halfway between the door and the cauldron, leaning against the wall. My hands were bound before me. From the look of it, she saw almost immediately that I was conscious.
“Do not struggle, Azrael of the Shadrim. No harm will come to you. I learn much from just having you sit in my home and sleep.” She was standing by the cauldron, holding a half-full jar in her free hand. “Yes, already I collect a few snippets of dream from you.”
Part of me wanted to crawl to my feet, flee as far and as fast as I could. That part was deep in the back of my mind, sheltered and cradled by the part that was not alarmed by this situation, that simply wondered what would be next.
“So, Azrael of Bael Turath, recently member of Fellbane, you are fortunate that I have eaten already tonight. What brings you to seek the domain of Shan Daresh?”
“We seek to free a soul in his keeping, the Feyan Eire – a friend of mine is burdened by an enchanted message begging freedom from bondage to him.”
“You will tell your friends outside that tonight they are to sleep in the barn, you are spending the night here.”
“Of course.” I stood up and walked toward the door.
“On second thought, you are all to join me for dinner tonight. Tell them that now.”
“As you wish.” I walked to the door and opened it, keeping my hands hidden.
I saw the rest scattered about the yard, investigating various things. They all stood up to look my way when I stuck my head out the door. Karac was holding a sheep in his arms, standing next to the fence. He seemed about to carry it off into the shadows. He looked at me, then down to the sheep, then back to me. A frown crossed his face for a moment. “It’s not what it looks like.”
I felt it better not to comment on this. Instead I looked out at the rest of them, my gaze sweeping the yard. “We are invited to dinner here, and we’re to spend the night in the barn.” I closed the door, but left it unlatched as I walked back to the woman.
“Now, Shadrim, attend closely. Watch the flames beneath the pot, not what is in it.”
I watched, as the flames formed the shape of a crown beneath the huge kettle. The scent of the stew became almost intoxicating, and for a moment I heard the march of a booted army…and then, in a flash, the almost-vision passed, and I realized where I was. A short burst of fear washed cold over me, before I flushed it away. No sense in worrying, I was already in deep. The shadows in my vision returned once again, but never became more than a distracting side-view.
“You saw something, didn’t you?” She whispered.
“I did.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“A crown, and I heard an army marching.”
“Yes, I saw that as a possibility here. Your dreams are troubled, Shadrim.”
“My dreams are my concern. You are welcome to share them, but they remain mine.”
“It is your dream that keeps you alive, you know?”
“Hmm?”
“I can see you have regained your senses – but know this, Shadrim: had you been of little interest to me, you might have ended up in this pot with the man you pursue.” She stirred sharply, to emphasize her point.
She looked at me, her lovely eyes almost broke my heart, in spite of her obvious nature. “You may call me Tatiyana.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I think.” I wasn’t sure what the nature of this introduction meant, but one can never be too certain with the Fey.
The others arrived. Karac opened the door, Sered behind him, the others mish-mash entering with wariness behind them. As the door creaked open, I raised my hands to wave briefly, and to make the bindings obvious.
“Why have you bound him?” Karac was the first to speak.
“To keep him from trying to kill me. Not that he would have succeeded.” She replied without batting an eye.
Sered looked around, and unlike myself, looked up. “What are those?” He asked, pointing upwards. I looked, setting aside my feeling the fool, and saw a number of crafted nets of spiderweb, bone, and other materials hanging from the ceiling. Each hung from a small hide strap, with feathers suspended in the webbing or hanging from threads attached to the constructs.
“They are not your concern.” Tatiyana said in a sharp, but soft, bark.
Zenith looked around at the walls, and I heard him mutter to the others, “We should leave. Now.”
Karac answered him with the same tone, “But we only just got here.”
Bingo walked over to me, and cut my bonds.
Sered was looking at the jars on the walls. “What are all these?”
Zenith answered before Tatiyana could. “Dreams. All dreams, stolen from people.”
The strange crone cut him short. “Not stolen. Taken, yes, but not stolen. Dreams flow freely through this land, and I take what I will from among them. Think you to be the only dreamer here, Zenith? I know all of you, I dreamed of your arrival here.”
Sered looked over to her. “So you knew we were coming? You expected us?”
“Ohh, yes. Each and every one of you. The son of Cincti-Pur, the jeweled city,” she pointed her cane at Dex, “To the scion of Hammerfast, to the Gith walker-in-dreams, to the deep-memoried one, this would-be princeling here,” she smacked me ungently across the gut with her stick, “even the troubled halfwise, you have all passed through my home in dream already.”
“Each of you has a place here, in spite of thinking you found me randomly. Have a seat, we shall talk a while, then you will sleep in my barn tonight. It will be safe to sleep there.”
Dex wondered aloud, “Safe? What safety can be had here?”
“This is the land of dreams, dark-skin. You haven’t slept since you arrived, have you? Do you remember how long you have been traveling?”
None of us could answer. I had wondered as much myself.
“This realm plays havoc with travelers. You must force yourself to rest and eat, or you will forget and simply walk until you die, not even noticing that you need to eat.” She went back to stirring the pot. She pointed with her stick at a cabinet on the left. “Halfwise, fetch bowls and spoons from in there. Gith, set the table.”
The two did as she ordered.
“Yes, you are new here, and once you reach the Spire, you will be faced with a place where your dreams and your reality mix. Both can kill you here.” She ladled out helpings of stew for each of us. The steaming stuff smelled fantastic, even though I knew some of the man we had been chasing was in it. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.
“Sleep is not safe, either, for things can get into your dreams that want you – and they can hurt you far more than your dreams alone can. I will supply you with a potion that will grant you an undisturbed rest before you leave here.” We all took positions around the table. She turned to us from the cauldron. “Don’t wait for me, I already ate earlier. Otherwise little Azrael here would be in the pot, and you all in my larder.”
“Why are you being so generous to us?” Sered was – justifiably, I think – suspicious of the entire situation.
“Because you all have a chance. Not a good one, but a chance. If I thought you were bound for failure, I’d have put you down and saved you for my next meal.”
“A chance to do what?” He pressed a little more conversationally, less rigid.
“A chance to cause her pain, my sister. Santiriana, she is Shan Duresh’s Paranymph. His ambassador to the Courts, negotiator with the Devils, and thief of my birthright!” She spat on the floor as she said this last.
“Your birthright?”
“Yes, the juddermaul, my mother’s juddermaul! It whispers its secrets to her when they should be mine!” She stamped her foot twice.
“You wish us to kill her, retrieve this juddermaul?” I asked quietly.
“I will speak no more of it!” She whipped back to the cauldron, her necklaces clattering loudly against its iron side. The bright gold rings on her fingers glittered in the light of the fire. “My vengeance will be mine, no others. But you have a chance to touch the vision of the Taer Dian Loreash…yes, and to bring it…” she cleared her throat.
I looked over at Bingo, then at Karac. Their questioning stares met no suitable answer from me. All I could do was shrug.
The hag was obviously out of her mind.
I looked down at the stew before me. There was no recognizable piece of the man we’d been chasing in it. I wondered for a moment, then decided to just assume he was hung up somewhere upstairs, or that she’d eaten him already. I just didn’t want to think about what might or might not be in this bowl. It smelled so good, and my stomach felt so empty, I couldn’t resist it any longer. I ate.
It tasted as good as it smelled, thick and hot, plenty of meat, little fat, and just enough vegetables to satisfy. Before I was half done, the others had each begun on their own. Zenith alone pushed his forward into the center of the table. Karac observed this, and wordlessly pointed to Zenith’s untouched meal. Zenith shook his head and held up a hand.
Karac shrugged and grabbed his bowl, and gulped down the rest of both his and Zenith’s.
As we were finishing the meal, Tatiyana reached up above her to pull down one of the netted constructs. “This is a dream-catcher. When you get to the spire, and you are seeking the safety of the market, use this. It will shield you from Shan Duresh’s vision for a short while, hopefully long enough to reach safety.”
She handed it to Zenith, who looked at it skeptically before wrapping it gently into the folds of a leather cover he drew from his pack. She then turned back to a cabinet next to the one from which Bingo had pulled our bowls, and rummaged around in it for a bit.
With an exclamation, she stood up – or at least, as high as her twisted back would allow – and came back to the table with three vials. “This is the potion I spoke of. There should be enough here for each of you to get two decent chances to sleep, but beyond that you are not safe. Use these wisely.” She offered the vials to Sered, who took them gingerly from her.
She immediately grasped his wrists together, holding his hands in a grip that I could see caused him some pain.
“And remember this,” she looked at all of us in turn. “Take this message to my whore of a sister – I’ll get her. And I’ll get back my mother’s gift. She will not be happy on that day, or any day after.” He nodded cautiously.
“We will tell her,” he said.
“Good. Now, all of you. I have one final offer for you. As you have guessed by now, I am a practitioner of more than simply reading dreams.” As she said this, she drew a small wooden box from beneath her robes, and from it she extracted a set of thin ivory plaques, engraved and embossed with strange designs. “I will offer to one of you an opportunity to take a single card from my deck of Fortune. It could result in good for you, or bad, I can’t say which. But it will be fortune.”
“What do you mean, good or bad?” Karac asked her.
“This deck possesses a strange magic, it bends fate around it. I have seen great things befall those who draw, and terrible things. Also slight ones. I cannot say what will come from it. I think even it does not know, but the presence of chance pleases it.” She stroked a finger across the top of the deck.
Sered and Zenith both backed away from the stack of cards. Sered nodded at it, “I have heard of this thing. I have no intention of touching those cards.”
Karac and Bingo both looked at it, Karac somewhat eagerly, Bingo with contemplation. I had a strange feeling, a hunch pulling me to it. Dex shook his head and leaned away.
“I’d like to draw,” I said. Karac nodded, and Bingo said “Me too. How do we decide?”
Karac looked around, and pulled an empty bottle from the shelf behind him. He set it on the table. “We spin. Whoever it points to, draws. If it’s not certain, we just spin again.”
I shrugged. “Seems fair.”
Karac offered the bottle to Dex, who took it, centered it on the table, and gave it a hard spin. As the bottle clicked and wobbled around on the table, I wondered what I had put myself in for. What was in there? I felt somehow certain that something good would come of this, but I’ve felt that before and been disappointed. It sounded like disappointment would be the least of the worries of the recipient of a card if this turned out bad.
The bottle was slowing, circumscribing a perfect circle as it twisted on its axis. It passed us each, and came around one more time…we could all see it would not complete another revolution. Bingo watched as it crossed over him, and looked almost sad as it rotated by. Karac also watched, white-knuckled, as the tip of the bottle swung past him.
It came to rest pointed directly at me. For some reason, I didn’t feel very good about this. I frowned. “What now?”
“You can always back out,” Bingo volunteered.
I thought it over, shook my head. “Something says I have to do this.”
Tatiyana took up the stack of plaques, and quickly shuffled them, spreading them out on the table and mixing them thoroughly before deftly re-stacking them and laying the deck down before me.
“Cut?” She asked.
I thought about it. “May someone else cut for me?”
She nodded. I looked over to Dex. “Would you, please?” He shrugged, reached over, and took a set of cards from the top, laying them down next to the stack. Tatiyana then took up the rest and placed them on top of Dex’s chosen ones.
“Now, you draw. One card only, Azrael of Bael Turath.” She grinned happily as she recited my name. I felt like she was writing me off into history.
I reached forward and took up a card, and turned it over. The picture was of three women, one holding a thread, one a pair of scissors, and one sitting at a spindle. Runes around the edge of the card molded themselves into something I could read:
The Fates.
I recognized then that this was a boon, of sorts. I could retake one event, one moment, and divert my fate down a possibly different path. Only one, but it could be one that might one day save me.
“It has told you what this means?” Tatiyana asked me. I nodded.
She swept up the cards and returned them to their wooden box, which then vanished back into her robes. “Now, all of you, out. Go to the barn, and drink a measure of the potion before you sleep. Go.” The door to the yard opened quickly, and we filed out together.
“When you wake in the morning, move along. We have nothing further to discuss, you and I. When you reach his city, stay out of sight until you reach Nights Refuge, the marketplace. You should be safe there, for a time. Do not be caught out by patrols in the city, you’ll be fair sport for them to dissect if you are.” She walked to the door as we made our exit, and closed it behind us. I heard the locks click shut with finality.
We stepped out into the yard, the gloaming twilight and mist throwing a chill into us as we milled around in the yard. As soon as the door closed behind us, I sat down on the steps.
“That was…unexpected.” I looked up at the others, scratching the skin around the base of my right horn with the tip of my tail.
“What exactly just happened there?” Dex asked to anyone.
I shrugged. “I was sure she was going to try to eat me there. How did that turn around that way?”
Zenith looked at the bundle in his hands. “I think…no, never mind, I don’t know what to think.”
I think Karac was looking at the sheep again. “Well, do you believe what she said about time in here?” Apparently he wasn’t thinking about sheep, at least.
Sered shrugged impassively. “I suppose so. She seems to think our travel will benefit her in some way.” He looked at the vials in Karac’s hand. “We’ve already seen that time here in the Feywild can pass differently, so it’s certainly probable that it will be passing differently now.”
I tried to see the stars through the mist, and had no luck. “Faster or slower this time, I wonder. Being in a dream realm here, I would guess we’re compressing this into a simple sleep if it’s at all different from what we went through on the last trip we took here.”
Karac looked down at the vials. “I would think that she’s probably speaking the truth about dreaming being dangerous here, too.” He looked over at Sered with a frown. “Given how we were made to fight and duck away from each other at the shore, we’re closer to the source of his power, so it could be worse here.”
Sered ignored the jibe.
Bingo yawned a bit, and stretched. “Well, we either sleep here in the barn, or we walk on. I vote sleep here, because I’m tired and if she was going to kill us she’d have poisoned us with the food.”
Zenith looked at him. “A bit more astute than I was expecting from you.”
“Yeah, well, I know more than just shooting, you know? After all, I’ve had plenty of time to talk with this ghost-woman I have to deal with.” He tapped the spot on his chest where the strange sigil had settled in.
Zenith nodded. “I meant no offense, I suspect my attempts at humor here are a little…foreign.”
Bingo just looked at him, then walked to the door of the barn and started struggling to open it. He was strong enough, but he just wasn’t tall enough. Sered walked over and helped him unbar the door, then swung it wide.
“Well?” His pale blue skin looked grey-white in the eternal twilight of this place. For the life of me, he looked like a ghost standing there.
I pulled a cigar out of my pocket and lit it up off a tiny flame from my thumb. “Guess it’s bed time. I’ll watch first.”
We actually did sleep that ‘night’ – each of us taking a sip from the vials before settling in. We each got about six hours’ of time to rest. My own sleep was dreamless and swift, though I can’t speak for the others. I felt well-rested when I woke, and my belly had stopped its tight grip on my ribs…I hadn’t even realized I had been uncomfortably hungry until I’d filled up in Tatiyana’s home. Even my skin felt…fuller, as though I’d been stretched and allowed to relax. The barn had fresh hay in it, which made for a reasonably soft place to sleep – though I have no idea where Tatiyana might have harvested hay from in this forest – and we forced ourselves to eat some dried trail rations when we woke.
We congregated outside the barn. The yard looked no different. This, more than anything else so far, depressed me. A changeless twilight feels more unnatural after a night’s sleep than many things I’ve seen in my life. I can’t imagine how the peoples of the far north deal with it, when their year takes them into that period where the sun fails to rise or set for months at a time. I suppose it must be a nation of lunatics.
“Which way?” Karac was looking around. He yawned loudly.
“All roads lead to the Taer Dian Loresh, I suppose it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Bingo chirped from behind the trees where he was taking care of his morning business.
Karac hefted his axe up over his shoulder. “Suppose not. Pick a direction, and let’s go.”
Bingo looked around, then finally pointed up the path between the house and the barn. “That seems uphill to me, and anything like this trip can’t be as easy as walking downhill.”
So, we walked. And walked. The now-familiar sense of time passing settled in almost like an old coat. This time, though, we had some slight breaks in the routine. Occasionally, great winged creatures, all feathers and tail, would fly over the trees, forcing us to take cover. I didn’t think they’d really see us through the ground-fog and mists, but better safe than sorry.
At one point we actually found ourselves tracked by a pony-sized lizard, all scales and teeth, with eyes that oozed a blue glowing mist. It didn’t take long to deal with it, though it provided us quite a fright when we realized it had six legs – a basilisk. Sered almost froze solid from meeting its gaze when we were dealing with it, but it died fairly quickly and he recovered before the mystical curse could run its course. During the fight, we did notice several of the winged things overhead, maybe two or three. I was pretty certain I caught sight of a rider on one of them.
Scouts. No doubt reporting our presence – more appropriately, I should say progress, since I was certain he was aware of our being here – to the lord of the land.
I could detail all the minor happenstances along the way – such as when Karac noticed while he was peeing on a tree that the moss on these trees grew on different sides – but I don’t want to burden you with meaningless events. Suffice it to say it was a surreal journey, which came to a merciful end after a period of time I can’t honestly gauge for you.
But end it did, as we crested a rise to look down into a huge caldera or crater. The great city was several miles across, circled by an enormous wall similar to the one that bordered this land and a moat deeper than seemed possible to dig.
The wall was of black stone, and we could see six towers spaced equally around the edges, alternated with six enormous trees, which glinted like metal from the far distance. A huge bridge of stone cobbles faced us, directly pointing to our position. Huge griffons flew around several of the towers – each of which had a rider, we could see now.
Zenith squatted while looking down, idly playing with a pine needle in his teeth. “This is Shan Duresh’s city, and his prison. It was here that Dal Quar threw his city down after tearing it from your world, and cursed him to live forever as a dream. Those towers, all around – they appear as great bone stacks to me. What do you see?”
I spoke up first. “I see twisted spires of my homeland, as though someone had taken the various houses and melted them like candles left too long near a fire.”
Bingo said, “Crystal spikes, driven into the city like daggers.”
Sered next. “Gravestones. Enormously tall gravestones, inscribed with uncountable names.”
Zenith nodded. “You will each see something different there, but the halfwise has the closest of it. Dal Quar’s curse on Shan Duresh bound his city here with those towers – each one is a spike, like as which you’d use to secure a vampire while you take its head, they hold the city here, and the city’s walls are the boundaries beyond which Shan Duresh may not pass physically.”
Karac looked over at him. “Anything else you ain’t tellin’ us that you’d like to unburden yourself of before I throw you into that moat?”
“I did not mean to keep secrets, these facts have no bearing on our purpose here, after all.”
Bingo tossed a small stone downhill towards the city. “Why not just break the towers? Couldn’t he free himself and his people that way?”
“His curse is not solely his city and its walls. His life is dependent on the towers. Each one is bound to a different chagram of his soul – were he to destroy the towers, he would destroy himself in the process. He would literally be ripping his soul apart to escape his prison. As I am sure he has tried in the past, to find the boundaries of his prison.”
Sered nodded. “Trapped forever, slain to leave. Not a pleasant curse. What of the trees?”
“Each of the fey queens – mother, daughter, and matron, from both Summer and Winter – maintain a tree to see that Dal Quar’s curse remains fairly enforced. Dal Quar is bound as strongly as is Shan Duresh, though obviously he remains free. His curse upon Shan Duresh was approved by the royalty, as rightful punishment for the wrong done upon him. They watch to see that the terms are kept as they were set at the beginning.”
“What did he do? It seems…extreme. I can’t imagine anything someone would do to me that I’d want them and their entire city locked away like this.” Bingo scratched his left foot while he asked this.
“I cannot say. It is likely known only to Shan Duresh and Dal Quar now, though it’s been so long even they may have given up remembering. The fey decide for themselves what is appropriate and what isn’t, and it is not likely to make sense to us.”
Sered looked down at the city. “I hate bridges. Is there any other way in?”
“No. The path to the city always leads to its bridge.”
“Then let’s make it quick. I don’t want to get caught by those griffons while we cross. Do you know how to reach Night’s Refuge, since you’re being so forthcoming now?”
Zenith was unwrapping the dream-catcher as Sered asked this. “Yes, I think so, but the streets and buildings of this city change constantly. I know generally where to find it, but the exact streets I cannot say.”
I shook my head sadly. I didn’t say so out loud, but I felt sure we were screwed. “Might as well hurry then. As the lady said, we don’t want to get caught in the open while we’re on the way.”
We all prepared ourselves for the dash, some few hundred yards down the hill to the bridge. As we readied ourselves, I looked up and down the line. “Ready?” I crouched.
Everyone nodded, and Karac let out a short bark: “Go!”
We dashed, full speed, down the hill – probably looking like nothing other than errant schoolchildren aiming for a swimming hole as we did. I was a little surprised at how fast the short ones got their stubby little legs to move, as they kept up with the rest of us very well. Sered was obviously holding back, his long legs would have carried him at twice a dwarf’s rate if he really let fly.
We reached the end of the bridge, and began across. Risking a glance over the side, I saw seawater, full of amorphous shapes which I was certain were sharks and merfolk.
Sered chanted out over his pumping feet, “Ware the sides, I can’t see a bottom to this chasm.” Karac gave a quick look and belted back. “What are you talking about, Sered? I can plainly see it’s a moat full of magma. And hurry, the level is rising!”
Zenith spoke evenly over his jog. “Everyone will see a different thing – this is the Moat of Fear, the thing you fear most will fill it. But be certain, whatever it might be will be quite real if you fall, so keep away from the sides.”
Bingo didn’t even look down. He just glared up. “Hurry, one of those flyers is coming our way!”
The bridge seemed – appropriately for a nightmare – to stretch out ahead of us and keep getting longer, prolonging our crossing with every step. In only a few moments, though, we were across and darting among ruined buildings and broken roads. Not a soul wandered the streets, it was entirely empty as far as I could tell.
We passed by winding tunnels, savagely overgrown parks and gardens, and fields of mausoleums, their gravestones mocking us with their restful repose as we jogged by. The smell of the city was that of wet stone, chilly like strange ice. Small pockets of mold and decay gave off vapors of strange odors.
The empty windows of the buildings we passed seemed to leer suggestively as we ran by, it made me nervous. The patrolling flyers occasionally crossed overhead and a ways off, but we had to make fast runs past the more open zones. I was uncomfortable with the almost-open nature of the terrain against flying targets, but there was little choice in the matter. It was dodge, or be caught.
As we passed the open spaces, occasionally the view would change – a flash of vision, as if looking through a window, at times vaguely as through a fog. I felt strangely light on my feet as they occurred, as if a careless trip might send me careening into one of the visions.
We passed a graveyard, and when I looked over, I saw in the center of it a clearing, where a misty image of a floating cradle, painted white, hovered in the center. It was surrounded by six tall, thin creatures with abnormally stretched features and limbs…they were not touching it, but they were very attentive to the cradle. I could see no occupant within it.
When we passed it, we crossed into another street, apparently formerly a shop district. The buildings on the ground level had wide openings where glass may have once sat. More likely they had had wooden shutters, or perhaps metals of some form. The street opened at the end into a wide courtyard, with a great many small trees. As we edged around it, I realized those trees appeared to be man-shaped forms, as though each one were a transformed person. In the center of the clearing, I caught view of a man kneeling there. Blood ran from his eyes, and he clutched at his face crying out “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” His voice was lost in echoes, watery shapes in its sounds.
I recognized him – it was Eben Vane, the sorcerer who had on occasion ventured with Fellbane. He’d been in Al’Veydra when we left. I wondered if perhaps I was seeing through some portal back to our Real world.
Dex managed to sprain his ankle as we crossed the clearing, looking at the vision with us. He cried out, and I heard another cry – almost as if in answer – away in the distance. One of the patrols no doubt heard us.
Sered got under Dex’s shoulder and helped him struggle into the shelter of overhanging ruins nearby.
