by Sean Golden
“Yes, and last night I was able to control the dream. I saw you and your men sleeping in the forest through the eyes of an owl.”
Dedrik directed a penetrating gaze at Lirak for a long moment.
“I believe you’re telling the truth,” he said. “This is remarkable. I haven’t heard of a spirit-dreamer able to do that in a long time.”
“Your prophecy said that the great leader would be in control of his dreams.”
“Yes, it did,” Dedrik said. “It also said the great leader could make his dreams become real.”
Lirak stroked his chin with his fingers. “I don’t know about that, but the things I saw in my dream last night were true,” he paused. “There is another thing I want to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?” Dedrik asked.
Lirak pulled out a large sack from the corner of the tent and motioned Dedrik to come over. “Chutan, our surviving elder, says this can be made into a powerful weapon, but does not know how. I think this is like the material that makes the blades the invaders and the Hanorians wear. Perhaps they would know how to make a blade from this.”
Dedrik pulled out a long thin shard of the red material from the sack.
“Chutan is right; this can be used to make a very strong alloy of metal that will be stronger than most blades. We call them ‘swords’ by the way. This is considered to be a very rare and valuable substance in the free countries.” Dedrik hefted the sack. “This sack would make you a very wealthy man in Hanoria.”
Lirak looked at him. “If you know this, why do you leave the firestones in the valley?”
“I don’t need wealth, Lirak,” Dedrik said. “I have all I need and more. And I usually don’t like the making of such powerful weapons. Usually.”
“Why are you in Hanoria then?” Lirak asked.
“I get around,” Dedrik said with wry smile. “I spend a lot of time in Hanoria particularly. The King and I are old friends and he sometimes seeks my advice.”
“The King?” Lirak said. He paused for a moment and furrowed his brows for a moment. “You must know a lot more about this invasion than we do. What do you know?”
“As much as anybody, which isn’t that much. They come from across the sea where they are part of the Groln Empire. Their ruler is a mystery, and is either an immortal being of some sort, or is part of a dynasty that takes the same name. Either way their society is ancient and evil. Several times in the past they have tried to invade the Free Lands and have been beaten each time, but at great cost. They have powerful warlocks in their armies, as you’ve seen. Their lands are home to monstrous creatures. The ‘Dragon Sea’ is named for the dragons of the Groln Empire. Once, long ago, the Free Lands attempted to invade the Groln Empire. It was a crushing defeat. The Groln sent dragons and other great beasts against the Free Armies and they were utterly destroyed, with only a few ragged boats returning from the attempt.”
“Is this the ‘Testing Time’ you talked about?”
“You have a lot to learn,” Dedrik said, “if you survive long enough.”
“We have survived for many moon cycles,” Lirak said. “We lose few men, they lose many. In the forest we are fast and strong, they are slow and weak.”
“I guess you’ll have to learn the hard way,” Dedrik sighed. “As usual, I’ve done my job as a messenger. I wish you would come back with me now though.”
“What can we do to help you?” Lirak asked. “It seems the invaders press hard at the wall.”
“Yes they do. They’ve breached it in several places, and we’ve beaten them back each time and filled the breaches with dirt. Ironically the dirt seems to withstand the warlock’s fire better than the stone does. But it is easier to scale and the battles have been fierce. We’ve lost many good men and our strength is waning. The Southern nations have promised to send more soldiers, but they are late, or not coming at all. What you are doing is all you can do, and is much more than any of us, or they, expected. As long as you keep it up they won’t be able to turn their full force against us. We have a few nasty surprises for them, but our hopes are slight. The Groln are still coming, and they press us on the east and south as well. Already we have lost smaller countries. Gerontinus fears that the Groln emperor will now be able to bring his great beasts across the sea on barges, and then we will be overwhelmed.”
“You paint a bleak picture,” Lirak said. “The Groln have been beaten before, they can be beaten again.”
“I hope you’re right, but things are grim right now,” Dedrik said.
The two sat quietly for a while. Dedrik toyed with the red shard and puffed on his pipe. Outside they heard the sounds of the camp preparing for the evening.
“I can take these to the armories and have them made into weapons for you,” Dedrik said, indicating the red shards. “What would you like me to make out of them?”
Lirak looked at Dedrik and felt certain that he could trust him. He chuckled to himself, thinking that the shards were worthless to him as they were. “Take them and use your own judgment. I have no need of ‘swords’. Patrik likes them though, but he feels the ‘Groln’ swords are bulky and talks about wanting a more graceful blade.”
Dedrik nodded, and with his broad hands and thick shoulders, he easily hefted the bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“Be careful with the spirit dreams,” he said over his shoulder as he left. “There are dangers in the dreams beyond your imagination.”
“I’ll do the best I can” Lirak said, following Dedrik out of the tent. As they stood outside, they exchanged a traditional Dwon handclasp and Dedrik went over and joined his Hanorian group.
Sleeping Dragon
The defeater of death will speak the dreamspeak and walk the dreampaths of the gods. There he will find treachery, deceit and danger. But in the end, there he will also find the most painful truths.
– The Prophecies
Mayrie joined Lirak in front of the tent.
“Maybe we should listen to him,” she said, as Dedrik moved away.
“I do listen to him. And there is wisdom in his words, but there are things that remain to be done out here before we hide behind the walls of Hanoria,” Lirak said.
The two entered the tent and soon Lirak and Mayrie were in each other’s arms.
“Lirak, what will become of us?” Mayrie said, her lips moving against the hairs beside Lirak’s ears.
Lirak felt her body pressed against his, and the familiar yearning burned through him. He reluctantly pulled back and looked into Mayrie’s eyes. “Us?” he smiled. “Do you mean ‘us’ as in you and me? Or as in the people of Luh-Yi? Perhaps all of the Dwon? Or all of the Free Countries?”
Mayrie smiled and nibbled at his earlobe. “All of us,” she said, her voice husky with emotion. “But right now, mostly you and me.”
Lirak’s blood rushed in his ears as he felt the hotness of Mayrie’s body against his. He could feel her trembling. “You know what you mean to me,” he said. “Once, long ago it seems, it was me pushing you away. Now you are not willing to marry.”
They stood together, each drawing strength from the other’s warmth, but each feeling a yearning that grew, and yet seemed farther distant, with each day.
Lirak’s lips found Mayrie’s and he lost himself in the warm tenderness of those full lips. His mind floated back to the day so long ago, yet so recent, when they first kissed. He remembered the passionate promise of that kiss, and his own desire became more urgent. With a soft moan Mayrie returned the urgency and they slowly knelt and then lay together on the soft fur pelt. For several moments they lost themselves in the warm passion of their lost youth. Mayrie’s breathing became short and her embrace more insistent and yet at the same time, Lirak felt her to be more vulnerable and lost.
Then she suddenly pulled away.
“Lirak, I…”
“Mayrie, it’s me, Lirak. The boy who has loved you from the first time I saw you.”
“I… know.” Mayrie drew back and sat
up hugging her knees to her chest.
“I would never hurt you,” Lirak said, sitting up and reaching toward her.
Mayrie’s hair glowed in the dim light of the tent’s small fire. Tears welled up and spilled out of her green-flecked eyes and across the dimple on her cheek.
“I… I can’t,” she choked.
“What can I do?” Lirak asked, his burning desire held in check by his concern for this strange, strong woman who was also somehow a deeply scarred and injured child.
“I don’t know,” Mayrie sobbed as she bowed her head.
Lirak sat behind her and stroked her arms, kneading the knotted muscles in her shoulders and back.
“I know what you want Lirak.” Mayrie’s voice broke as she forced the words out. “I know you can’t believe me when I say that I want it too. I’ve always wanted it! I think I wanted it before you ever did!” Her shoulders shook as she sobbed. “But I just can’t. Not now. Not yet.”
Lirak pulled her gently against his chest, wrapping his arms around her drawn up knees. “You’ll heal. One day the scars will be gone.”
“Will they?” Mayrie asked bitterly. “Can they?” You don’t know the dreams I have Lirak. The shame. Oh you are so strong! The Ghost in the Forest! The great mountain cat spirit! The Savior!” she laughed bitterly. “You can’t know the feeling of being totally helpless, utterly at the mercy of evil, praying to die rather than live with what …” She trailed off. “You can’t know what it’s like.”
Lirak said nothing for a moment. He thought back to his spirit dreams and the sense of helplessness and despair that threatened to overwhelm him.
“I may know more than you realize Mayrie. Not the same, but I’ve seen my own weakness and know my own limits.” His voice took on a detached tone and Mayrie stopped sobbing as her attention focused on this sudden shift in Lirak’s tone. “I’ve seen evil too. Evil so black that it can swallow the world. I tried to reach it, to examine it. To confront it!” Lirak seemed like the Lirak of Luh-Yi, the perplexing boy who Mayrie was drawn to because of his vulnerability and otherness.
“I know it’s not the same Mayrie, but I almost lost myself in that sea of blackness.” He paused, and stroked her hair. “You heard Chutan, but I don’t think you understand what he meant. I didn’t. The danger he talked about is real. These spirit dreams are not dreams I think. They are some sort of view into a different reality, but a reality just as real and dangerous as our own,” he paused, and Mayrie sat up straighter and pulled his arms more tightly around her.
“What was it like?” she asked.
“There is an evil out there that knows no limit to its hunger.” Lirak paused for a moment, remembering his attempt to reach the source of that evil, and his fall into that darkness. “It pulls you to it and wants to suck you dry. I fell. I couldn’t face it. I almost lost myself forever.” He stroked her shoulders softly. “But you know what pulled me back and brought me home?”
Mayrie turned her head halfway around so she could just see Lirak’s silhouette against the small fire. “Me?”
“You. Only you. Always you,” Lirak said simply.
Mayrie’s tears stopped. For a long while each sat there, entwined in an awkward, yet perfect embrace, each unwilling to break a silence that they felt spoke more than any words they had ever shared.
Finally Mayrie stirred.
“You know what’s really funny?” she asked.
Lirak slowly seemed to return from some place far away.
“mmm…. What?”
“Everyone thinks we’re in here going at it like rutting deer.”
“Mayrie!” Lirak was genuinely shocked.
“No, they do! I hear them talk. They really do. They call me your ‘lover’.”
“Well, you are. Aren’t you?” Lirak asked.
“You know what I mean,” Mayrie said. “They all think that. Even Jerok. Especially Jerok. And instead we’re in here unable to even get beyond a kiss.” She kissed Lirak’s hand.
“And you know, I so dearly wish they were right,” she said, and then gently disengaged herself from Lirak.
“Good night Lirak. I do love you more than anything in the world. I hope you believe me.”
And with that she kissed him lightly and lay down beside him, and was soon breathing deeply and rhythmically. Lirak sat for a long time stroking her hair before he too lay down and embraced her as she slept.
Lirak lay on the bedding thinking back on Mayrie’s words. His mind drifted, he seemed to ease in and out of sleep so easily that he wasn’t sure if he was awake or asleep. Somehow he was aware of both the waking and the spirit world at the same time. Mayrie’s presence was an anchor for his spirit, the awareness of her arm across his chest and her breasts against his side, and one leg draped over his own legs never left him. He felt his left hand stroking her hair in a rhythmic fashion.
But at the same time he felt his mind floating free. He found himself in the gray void again, but this time he knew that he could find his way back to Mayrie at any time, so he felt no fear. Floating in the void for a timeless period, he still enjoyed a bond with Mayrie that felt like a warm blanket. His mind went back to Dedrik’s words from earlier in the evening. And as he thought about them an image formed before him. The image was of a great stone box, encircled by a black serpentine form with great wings. The serpent raised its head and great blasts of flame roared forth, bursting holes in the sides of the box. The holes in the box repaired themselves, but the patches were not as strong as the box. The winged serpent writhed around the box, squeezing it from all sides. “Dragon.” Lirak thought the word. As he watched the dragon snapped at a small gnat that flew around its head. The gnat didn’t go away. The dragon’s frustration with the gnat grew until it finally pulled away from the box and swung its great tail, thrashed its great wings and breathed its deadly fire at the gnat. The next instant the gnat was gone, and the dragon returned to the box, no longer snapping at the gnat.
Lirak then saw that the dragon had a cord tied to its neck. The cord led off into the darkness. Lirak followed it, allowing the dragon image to fade behind him. Soon he saw that the cord led to a great walled city. More dragons flew around the city. Great beasts rocked the ground with their mighty strides. Everywhere there were humans dressed in rags, or in the uniforms of the invaders. Lirak tried to follow the cord into the city, but his awareness was brought up short at the city wall, as if he had struck the wall itself. Puzzled he tried again. This time the wall was clearly blocking his way, and in the distance two dragons suddenly turned and began flying directly toward him. He heard their ear-piercing shrieks as they accelerated toward him. He frantically retreated, the dragons coming at him
Ah, you are here. Lirak heard the faint whispering voice of evil again. He ignored the voice and redoubled his efforts to flee.
A dry chuckle swept across his mind like windblown snake skins scraping across burning sands.
You have learned much on your own, yet you still know nothing.
“I know you are evil!” Lirak shouted the words into the dark, but they rattled like faint pebbles falling into a festering hole.
Do you now? the voice seemed to be closer. You may think differently someday young lifeling, if you survive long enough.
“What do you want with me?” the words seemed to be ripped from Lirak’s mind against his will.
I want what we all want, lifeling. To stop the inevitability of death. To ensure a future for our kind, and meaning for our efforts.
“I don’t understand,” Lirak cried. “How can death want to stop death?”
You do not yet understand anything lifeling. I am the enemy of death. I am all the hope there is to defeat death. You and I fight the same fight, seek the same victory and dream the same dream. We are not so different, you and I.
“No, that’s not true!” Lirak shouted. “I can feel the evil in you. I can smell it. Taste it. Hear it. I will always fight you!”
Then we both shall lose, the voice fade
d into nothingness like a dry summer dust devil that whirls itself apart.
Dedrik had told him that the dreams could be dangerous. Lirak frantically retraced the cord as the dragons gained on him. Then suddenly he remembered the warmth of Mayrie’s body against his, and he followed that feeling instead of the cord, accelerating rapidly until the dragons were lost in the gray gloom. As he awoke, he thought he heard a dry, cold voice laughing in the distance.
Lirak felt his consciousness firmly back in his body, the warmth of Mayrie’s body against his own. He went back in his mind over their talk the night before, expecting to feel frustration, but finding none. Mayrie snuggled against him in her sleep. He looked down at her sleeping form, seeing the roundness of her hips and curve of her legs through the thin buckskin coverlet. Her red hair spread out under her head, and her face and neck lay gracefully against his shoulder. He reluctantly disentangled himself from Mayrie’s arms and legs and dressed in the dark. The sun had not yet risen, but something in his mind was urging him to go outside. Thorn raised his head in the dark, yawned and lay back down as if to say “I’m not interested in a stroll right now.”
Lirak stepped outside into a brisk, chill wind. The ground was covered in a fine white powder of frost. He dressed in his over shirt to provide some protection from the chill. He put on his belt, quiver and bow and in the dim light of the waning moon’s last rays, he slipped into the forest.
Lirak loved the forest at night. The darkness under the trees was almost impenetrable. He had long ago learned to use the vision at the corners of his eyes to see in the dark, taking advantage of even the faint luminescence of fungi in odd places. Where the moon’s light pierced the gloom Lirak’s eyes had adjusted well enough to see. But between those spots he moved mostly by feel and memory. He moved south, slipping through the darkness like a spirit. He knew that one camp guard should be posted here and wanted to see if he could slip past him unnoticed. Soon he smelled the unmistakable scent of human sweat and knew he was close. Working his way around he found the guard sitting on a large rock in a small clearing. He carefully made his way around and was soon past the guard and into the open forest.