Dreams of Darkness Rising

by Kitson, Ross M.

  Jem shushed her, indicating the nearby Sir Unhert.

  Emelia nodded and became silent. A wave of fatigue washed over her. The return of the magical sensation within her was oddly draining and the emotional plummet at the relief of seeing Hunor again made her realise how much she had been relying on adrenaline that night.

  She slipped gradually into a deep sleep; at first a refreshing nothingness then a sporadic awareness of thought as she began to dream.

  Emelia was in the Keep in Coonor walking down a long corridor. At the far end was the stained glass window, a blaze of distant colour, like the end of a rainbow.

  She became aware of her feet becoming heavy. She noticed with horror that a stony hue was spreading from the walls and the floor onto her bare feet and from there trickling up her legs. She realised that soon she would become part of the building itself.

  By the gods, this is like the dream of the beach and my father, she thought.

  As she became more like the rock so the tapestries and statuettes that lined the walls of the passage began to come to life. A bust of Lord Ebon-Farr turned and snarled at her; she stifled a cry

  Emelia backed against a large painting whose colours had begun glowing with an intense light. The grey colour had spread like a mould over her abdomen and was now on her chest. She knew that soon she would be a statue, frozen in death for all time. She turned with great difficulty to look at the painting.

  It was a large painting titled “Death in Erturia.” So an Eerian painting of the Artorian Empire: how bizarre, thought Emelia. Its shimmering oil figures were in some sort of throne room, strewn with rubble and a noble looking figure was sat impassively on the throne with a crumpled corpse at his feet.

  Emelia could feel the warmth radiating from the canvas. The heat was blissful, trickling through her body. The stone melted away from her as her ragged dress began to change. She noticed that her clothes had become liquid, running down her muscular body. The painting loomed and then instantly she was within it.

  The throne room was huge and the artist had painted it in broad strokes giving it a blurred quality when one moved around it. Rows of carved marble columns soared to the vaulted ceiling. Statues of heroes were shattered like dolls on the black marble floor. Overturned braziers smouldered thick smoke into the chamber’s air

  Emelia was knelt next to the corpse. She was dressed in a silk gown, a solid gold brooch on her breast and a platinum and jade tiara in her hair. Scattered around her were the torn bodies of a dozen elite guards, their features indistinct as if painted as an afterthought.

  The dead body before her was richly adorned and a shimmer of holiness surrounded his glittering crown.

  The figure on the throne was painted with as much detail as the fallen man. His garb was black satin interrupted by hints of silver. He radiated an aura of power from his shaded face. His eyes were oddly familiar, his lips tinted scarlet as if stained with blood. Yet despite the ghoulish appearance he was oddly charismatic and Emelia felt her pulse race as he addressed her.

  “Princess, attend me. Leave your father now for he is beyond hearing your tears. I desire some light relief in this cascade of death,” he said.

  Emelia looked up tearfully and replied.

  “My father, your Emperor, was a great man and your evil has robbed many lands of his wisdom and beneficence.”

  The pale man laughed. “Forgive me, Princess. I was under the impression that the soldiers of the Empire have slaughtered more in their time than the Plague of Dust. At least so I am told. I’ve been—shall we say—indisposed.”

  “May Egos and Tindor themselves convey your black soul to the Pale, you monster!”

  “They’d be far back in the queue, jewel of Artoria. My soul has been bartered for like a merchant’s carpet between Onor, Sirgos, Ingor and Nekra.”

  “Say not the names of evil in this palace, devil. What manner of Pale spawn are you to invoke those demons so glibly?”

  The dark robed man paused and then rose. His black robes flowed like oil as he strode towards Emelia. His face was deathly pale yet his eyes a vibrant blue.

  “What manner of monster am I? I am the Darkmaster. I am a sorcerer. I am the past, the present and the future. I have risen once more as prophesised and great will be the sorrow of this mortal Empire. I am Vildor.”

  Emelia jolted at the name. This was the same mage as in her last dream but he was no longer a half-ogre. Why was he here in the Artorian Empire in this dream when he had lived two thousand years before?

  “Well, Vildor, you will rue the day you crawled from under your rock and murdered my father. My two brothers will avenge their father and me if need be.”

  “Your brothers, Princess Coreline? Which brother would that be? The older one who staged this coup and is currently below us with his troop of rebels? Or your younger brother, the one who shudders with fear behind the gathering mages on the steps of this palace?”

  “Those are lies, Prince of Evil,” Emelia said, her voice trill. “Lies to turn me against my kin. The Empire’s sorcerers will slay you and your vile servants; even the Codex allows them such action.”

  “Indeed it does, Princess. My, you are more than just a clothes horse! My own mages are not bound by such sensibilities, only the four schools of fools. Ah, my day was so less complicated than all this. Humans did not wield magic and everyone knew where they were. Now we have humans spraying fire storms, Galvorians raising magical towers of stone, Subaquans and humans squabbling over salvage. I hear, whilst I was dormant, that human magicians managed to annihilate two countries! All credit to you, the ogres never dreamt of death on such a scale. What a race!”

  Emelia, or rather Princess Coreline, looked with hatred at Vildor.

  “You speak as if you were not human, sir. It is your race as it is mine.”

  Vildor’s smile chilled her to her marrow.

  “Oh, but I am so much more than that now. Come my friends we shall prepare for this magical battle and perhaps a little instruction for the princess on our nature.”

  From the fringes of the throne room they came, dark shapes with snow white faces and red lips. The artist had painted them far in the background and horrifically as they neared Emelia their faces remained near featureless blobs of white.

  “Xirik, my freshest disciple. Please demonstrate for the princess,” said Vildor.

  The blank faced figure retrieved a long sword from one of the dead guards and turning it around thrust it through his chest. Emelia screamed as the sword emerged from his back and he gasped, a mixture of pain and ecstasy, before standing very much alive before her.

  “What are you? What in Egos’s name are you?”

  “We have many names,” Vildor said, prowling around Emelia. “Certainly we are dark wizards, sorcerers who bring our magics from the black opals that have seared into our chests. Yet amongst that cohort we are the truest masters of evil. We have forsaken our eternal souls to taste the sweet nectar of immortality. We are the undead, feeding off the warmth and life that was once ours to hold. We are called by some the vampyr lords, by some the ghasts.”

  “You can not be! That is but a tale told by wet nurses to frighten their children,” Emelia said, sobbing.

  “And frightened you should be, Princess,” Vildor said. He stroked her cheek. A tingle of excitement ran down her.

  Xirik approached the pair. “Word has arrived, my lord, from the usurper Prince Corillion. He claims the assembled mages have access to a prism.”

  “Then this should be a battle to be proud of my protégée. For whereas their prism has but four colours, ours has five.”

  From his robes Vildor brought forth a triangular prism, about the size of a large orange. It throbbed with magical energy, its blue, red, green and yellow crystal casting tiny lights around his hand. On the base Emelia could see a triangular fifth side of black crystal and the darkness was so deep that her eyes hurt to look at it.

  Vildor paused as she looked at the crystal and someth
ing in his manner changed. His blue eyes met Emelia’s as if he was seeing her in a different light.

  “You have seen this crystal before, haven’t you?” he asked.

  Emelia felt a surge of panic and a strong need to escape. The painting around her felt claustrophobic and stifling. Her legs refused to move as Vildor came closer.

  “We have to stop meeting this way. How are you in my dreams and my memories?” he said. He was very close now; his pale skin seemed almost translucent.

  “Tell me where you have seen this crystal, my dear. I need to know.” His voice was like silk in her ear, in her head, in her mind.

  The surrounds began to melt away, the colours flowing together then separating in some arcane whirlpool. The throne room was gone and instead the ground beneath her was a green hill, the back drop mighty purple mountains. The painting was becoming Thetoria as Emelia looked on helplessly.

  Out of nowhere a small figure appeared. About four foot tall its face was identical to Emelia’s, down to the glittering eyes. Its hair was wild and rippled like water and its immature body was covered in green fish scales.

  “Emelia, you stupid girl. Wake up. Now!” it shrieked. The voice had been within her head for so many years: it was Emebaka.

  Vildor turned with anger in his face and lashed out at the impish creature. Emebaka ducked and then punched him square in the gut. He spluttered in pain, the prism flying from his grasp.

  The world around her exploded in a cloud of paint and suddenly she was awake.

  She was lying on the cool grass, her head inches from Hunor. Jem slept soundly at her other side.

  Hunor was looking at her as the sweat ran down her forehead. “Another bad dream, love?” he asked.

  Emelia nodded slowly. “They’re really disturbing me at the moment, Hunor. I’d been having this one about being lost in a city of purple stone for months but now...well now they’re...dark.”

  “If you ask Jem he’d probably analyse every part of it. Me—I don’t think the content matters at all.”

  “So you don’t think dreams matter?”

  “It’s not that, no. It’s more the details are irrelevant—if they’re some message sent by the gods then who are we to understand them? I reckon it’s how they make you feel that is important.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well that’s kind of my point. How does the dream make you feel—in your guts, in your heart, as you come around?”

  “It...well, it made me feel scared, but excited and...curious too.”

  “So there’s the message, the meaning. Sometimes you’ve got to go with your instincts, Emelia, go with how you feel. Forget the rational voice and...just act.”

  Emelia screwed her face up. “You alright, boss man?”

  Hunor smiled his charming grin, “Apart from my insides feeling like the private spittoon of some syphilitic whore monger, yes. You knew I was coming back for you didn’t you, love?”

  “Yes…of course. We stick together don’t we?”

  “Sure we do. Get some rest, Emelia. Today was only the dress rehearsal. Tomorrow the plan comes together,” Hunor said in a whisper.

  Emelia lay her head back down, although not to sleep. She had an uneasy sense that escaping from the knights wasn’t going to be their only problem.

  Chapter 8 Darkness rising

  Blossomstide 1924

  The tribesman skidded on the marble floor as he rounded the corner at speed. He charged down the narrow gap between the vast bookshelves of the Great Library. In his hand he clutched a glittering silver dagger.

  His breath seared in his chest as he slowed towards the end of the gap. Sweat coated his broad tattooed chest. Why had the sorcerer given him the weapon?

  The shadows behind him coalesced into a slender shape. The ripple of the air disturbed the tribesman and he span, dagger flashing. The pale figure side-stepped the attack; his hand swung up into the tribesman’s jaw. The blow sent the tribesman spinning back into the bookshelf.

  “Come on, savage, make me work for my food at least,” the pale man said.

  The tribesman hissed and stabbed again. The pale man evaded the dagger and grabbed the tribesman’s arm. The sound of bone ripping through skin echoed down the narrow gap. The tribesman screamed, blood pouring from the wound. He jabbed the dagger again wildly and the blade plunged through the pale man’s hand.

  The moment was frozen, black blood trickling from the white palm. The pale man’s laughter was shrill. He twisted his hand around, pulled the dagger from the tribesman’s grip, and then slashed it across his throat.

  Blood sprayed in a fan and the pale man stood in the shower of crimson droplets, his tongue protruded. The tribesman slumped back, sporadic twitches running through his dying body.

  The pale man knelt and dragged his fingers through the growing pool of blood. He grasped the dagger and slid it from his palm with a shudder.

  “Master, you are wounded,” a voice said from behind him.

  “A deserved wound, Xirik. I am still slow.”

  “Why did you give the barbarian the silver dagger?”

  “To feel, Xirik. To sense. Four hundred years I was trapped beneath the palace, a spirit locked to a scorched collection of bones. No feeling, no sensations—simply an awareness.”

  Xirik stepped over the corpse of the tribesman and walked out into the centre of the library. The pale man strolled with him, regarding his bleeding palm with fascination.

  “And do you know what I did during that time?”

  “I...I am uncertain.”

  “I dreamt, Xirik. I dreamt. And my dreaming became my all. When your entire existence is dreaming, reality becomes defined by your mind alone. And, now I have returned, reality seems somewhat mediocre, somewhat bland.”

  “Did you perceive the passage of time, master? Did you sense the days above you?”

  “Time has no meaning without reference. No, I did not. Was each of my dreams a heartbeat or a lifetime? I can not tell you. But that in itself was nothing new—time does not pass normally before my eyes even now. We stand—the ghasts—unaging in this world of decay.”

  “And if our plan is true, then all shall join us. All shall bow to Vildor.”

  Vildor and Xirik halted before a large table, covered in maps and tomes. Vildor tossed down the silver dagger onto the table with a clatter.

  “Have you located the totems—the plague masks?” Vildor asked.

  “They were where you said they would be. Fascinating objects—they reek of demonkind. But surely we do not need to invoke demons in our plan. The drain on your power...”

  “May prove necessary.”

  “But, master, we have five other ghasts, a score of Dark-mages and an army of black knights at our disposal. The ogres of the Gyrt-Herr caste are also to join our plan.”

  “We require the totems because there is a flaw in your plan.”

  Xirik froze and gawped. Vildor could see a flicker of anger in Xirik’s gaze. That was good.

  “A flaw? I assure you...after two centuries of planning...what is the weakness?”

  “In time. First tell me again of the Fall of the Empire.”

  Xirik gestured and two gold goblets materialised from the air. He passed one to Vildor who sipped the thick red contents. His free hand drifted to the opal in his sternum. Its surface was like ice.

  “The Emperor’s two sons fought for dominance of the Artorian Empire upon his death. He had foolishly continued the division of the Empire’s territories into an east and west domain. The western Praetor was quite insane, and ambitious. He excavated the remnants of the prism that we had wielded during the coup two hundred years before.”

  “Aah, now this is important. Was it the exact same prism?”

  “Not exactly. It had lost the black face—the one we had used at the end of the coup.”

  Vildor nodded, tapping the rim of the goblet on his teeth.

  “You did well to survive that conflagration, Xirik. It was misjudg
ed on my part—the demon I invoked was not easily bent to my will. No matter. So the prism that the Praetor of the West used was four sided, as I presume was the one that the Praetor of the East brought?”

  “I was not here. It was the time that I gave the Gift to Garin, in Keresh. But the magical explosion was felt throughout the Empire. The sky turned the colour of a rainbow and the world trembled. I assumed the prisms destroyed.”

  “That may be an erroneous presumption. The legacy of the Cabal has a tendency to survive all manner of threats. And, in the wake of the Fall of the Empire, Artoria split into two countries?”

  “Yes, master. North Artoria is an easy target—the king is an old fool and his court decadent and self-indulgent. South Artoria is the greater challenge. The queen is a formidable woman—but you are aware of the plans there.”

  “I am, and am content with them. Tell me, who do we have in Thetoria?”

  “Thetoria? Several Dark-mages but none of the Gifted. Can I ask...?”

  “It is one of the benefits of dreaming, Xirik. The most curious insights come to you. Now if there is nothing more...?”

  “If I may, master? There is one more matter I thought would interest you. We have captured a druid near the Ebony Tower. I have had the knights bring him here.”

  Vildor drained his goblet and nodded. The shadows drifted from the corners of the room towards him.

  “Let us go see what the child of Nolir has to say then, shall we?”

  The pair melted into the shadows.

  ***

  The bowl of spirits had turned a deep red with the blood soaked cloth. The fumes swirled around the dark room, mixing with the stench of rotted flesh.

  Utrok had piled the four corpses by the window to vent the odours. Despite their near mummified states there were still some viscera with enough moisture to putrefy. The stink had not yet entranced the flies of Bulia to enter the room; even the insects had enough sense to avoid the air of evil that surrounded Utrok.

  The pain from the severed arm was indescribable. He still felt the limb, still perceived the fingers and the hand. He continued to experience searing agony in the end of the arm but with no way to alleviate it. Each sliver of red-hot pain he grasped and hid away to return in kind to the little whore who had done this to him.