by Adrian Cole
“Gods of the Ether, we will be engulfed!” stammered Abal, but the dark man shook his head.
“No. We will rise over its rim and float down slowly. We are far too small to be hurt by any collision. Follow!” He seated himself, drew on the tendril-reins, and rose upward. The others followed, Shebundra astride a bladder creature, Abal and Urgollo on a third. She did not mind that the good Farmer tended her son, for he gave the boy more strength than she could.
Out into the Ether and up away from the colossal, though now dwarfed Snapwing, they drifted, straight toward the incalculable mass of the rogue Island. Some of its features had now sharpened as the green haze of distance faded. Innumerable thick roots and curling tubes of vegetation twisted and convoluted in a massive wall on the underside of Dreamwarp, an incredibly entangled labyrinth of rampant vegetation, slick with moisture. Huge patches of greenery and trailing vinery spread across the middle tiers as they rose ever upward. The top of the Island was still lost high above like a thundercloud. Up and up the bladders whirled, made giddy by the oncoming shape. Slowly they soared way up to a point in the Ether where they could at last see over the crest of the huge Island; below them now stretched a wildly exotic jungle landscape, rich in verdure, clustered with titanic trees and dazzling with vivid colours.
Abal looked back once, and far away he saw the great Snapwing winging out into the fathomless green Ether, now no bigger to his eyes than a small bird. Urgollo was pointing down at the luscious tropical terrain, his sense of wonder washing away the terrors of earlier. It was indeed a sight to make the heart flutter, thought Abal. Already the magic begins. The dark man led them down, and it seemed that their slow, spiralling descent took an infinity to encompass, for they had been so high above Dreamwarp. Its terrain spread away on all sides, and the first of the colossal trees reached up like avid fingers to claim them. Yet the bladder creatures were perfect mounts, for they wriggled obediently, unerringly between these vast arboreal columns. Down, ever down they drifted, into the silent canyons of the forest, seeking out a safe place to land, if there were such a place on this notorious Island.
They found at last a small clearing, in the centre of which there was an inviting pool, its surface profuse with huge lilies and radiant yellow blooms. On the knotted grass beside this water the four people alighted: at once the bladder creatures attached themselves to the terrain, feeding.
“The vegetation has run riot over the whole Island!” exclaimed Abal, looking around in astonishment at the fantastically entwined plants, trees and leaves that crowded in almost eagerly around the clearing. “Even the rampant jungle Isles exercise more control than this. This Island will choke itself!”
“It is strange,” said Shebundra. “The silence. Nothing stirs. No birds, insects, creatures in the underbrush. It is not as it was.”
“Well,” said Abal, “the Island is rogue. All life flees a rogue.”
“Either that, or it is dead,” she replied.
“No,” said the dark man. “There is life here.”
“Aye, the Island lives,” began Abal, but Urgollo let out a piercing shriek and pointed to the bladder creatures. Their insides had swollen with what they had ingested and now they burned a livid crimson colour. Presently they were so bloated that each of them ruptured, bursting horribly and emitting a dreadful, charnel stench. The four travellers drew back from the miasma as one.
“Poisoner!” gasped Abal. “The Island is a Poisoner!”
“No,” said the dark man, shaking his head emphatically. “It is far more evil.”
Abal now felt decidedly rash in having come here, and for the moment even a glance at the beautiful Shebundra could not alleviate his mounting uneasiness.
“Come,” said the dark man, leading them on through a maze of paths that looked more random than deliberate. Old animal tracks, thought Abal, leading down to the pool. Through the grimly silent grave they went.
“Where are you leading us?” Abal asked the dark man.
“To the heart of the Island. There we will learn the truth about it.”
Abal would have objected, but Shebundra placed her arm on his with a smile. “We must,” she said. Abal returned her smile, though his mouth was set and he held Urgollo’s hand tightly.
Their walk seemed interminable, but at length they came to another clearing, though this appeared to be unnatural, as though originally cut back by men. Abal could see wooden columns and strange carvings. “So there were men here,” he exclaimed. “This must be the remnant of a village or temple.”
“Yes,” nodded Shebundra. “This is where my clan built their village. The wooden images, the strange engravings—they were all set here to ward off the evil dreams that haunted us. Do not look too closely into the undergrowth, for you will find many bones. Unless Dreamwarp has already drawn them into itself. How did you know they were here?” she asked the dark man, but he was silent.
Abal scowled at the thick tangles of brush and gnarled wood, whose secrets he would rather not know. “Why have you come back?” he whispered, but it was the girl’s turn to be silent.
“I’m hungry,” said Urgollo.
“Make sure he only eats what we have brought,” said the dark man to Abal, and the Farmer unslung the food sack he had diligently packed on the Snapwing, for the Bladdermen had been able to afford generosity in spite of their misgivings.
They ate quietly, watching the brooding, motionless jungle.
“You seem to understand all this,” Abal told the dark man. “Now that we are here, what are we to do? Do you expect the Island to speak?”
“It has brought me here for a reason,” was the blunt reply, and the Farmer could see he would learn no more for the moment. Instead he began talking quietly to the girl and her son, trying to cheer them in spite of the dreary foreboding that had drifted over them. It was more silent than the Island of Graves.
Time passed lazily, and it was inevitable that they should all drift into a sea of sleep, for the Island would not be thwarted in its purpose now.
He was accustomed to the wells of dizzy darkness that whirled within him, an inner universe of night, spangled with dreams that substituted for stars. The Dark Gods who had set him upon his erratic path often taunted him with such dreams, hinting at his fate, teasing him with keys to doors on enlightenment, knowledge of his past, his crime. But now, asleep on the Island, he guessed that the dreams here were from Dreamwarp itself, its gift or its curse.
He saw himself again in the huge hall of Windwrack, surrounded by the vile minions of Rammazurk, heard again their gibbering and shrieking, and on the floor at his feet, a spider-like creature scuttled out of the shadows, a hand, his hand. It pointed at the repugnant monarch, who cried out like a mortally wounded beast.
In another vision he saw again the tunnels of the Spydron’s lair, watching a contest between two huge monsters, two spiders of immense proportions. One spider had only five legs, but it triumphed, tearing its opponent apart. Looking down, he saw again that he had no right hand.
Lastly he saw himself before seven sorcerers attired in grey, their faces round, featureless, without character. He was pleading with them for something, but each one shook his head and laughed. Looking down, he saw that his right hand was gone, stolen by the seven.
Laughter chased away his visions like a howling wind
Voidal, came a voice over the sound, you cannot die, nor can you kill.
His dreams reminded him that he had only one true companion, and its name was Death.
She slept in peace for a time, no pit of dark night to immerse her, only a golden glow, deep and limitless as the Ether. It soothed, warm, radiant. The Island was kind to her, as it had been once before.
She dreamed of that last visit, when she had stretched out on the then soft sward of the glade, watching the brilliant plumage of the birds overhead, hearing their trilling and warbling. The smell of floral perfume. Peace—Dreamwarp was a paradise and the clan would prosper and flourish.
&n
bsp; She dreamed again of the golden man who had come like a wraith to sit with her in past dreams, stroking her hair, whispering enticements and irresistible murmurings, promises of love, devotion, ecstasy. In those heady dreams, which were like perfect wine, she had lain with the beautiful golden man and he had made gentle, soothing love to her, a cooling stream of tenderness.
She dreamed now of his face, his memory, but he did not come to her again. I am closer than you know, a voice whispered in her dreams, and she was happy.
Abal the Farmer and Urgollo had nodded into sleep close to one another and the child was now sleeping with his head on the Farmer’s gently heaving chest. Both faces were serene in sleep, for they were without dreams. Dreamwarp had permitted them rest.
A cry awoke Abal and he turned to see Shebundra sitting upright, her eyes wide as though something had startled her.
“Are you well?” he asked her anxiously.
“I—seem to be. Why, yes. I was dreaming,” she breathed.
“Dreamwarp may not be so hostile as we imagined, for you are intact, and my own sleep was refreshing, untroubled. And, see, the youth is more at peace than he has been since first I saw him.”
Urgollo opened a mischievous eye and with a laugh, Abal tousled his hair.
“But where is the stranger?” said Shebundra, looking around uncomfortably. The dark man was not to be seen, but presently some tall growths strained apart and he stepped into the clearing.
“Did you sleep well?” said Abal. “We are better for rest, in spite of our earlier fears.”
The other looked sad, even bemused. He glanced briefly at his gloved right hand, quickly lowering it. “The Island knows me. It presented me with evil memories that had been better left in darkness. But I sense it understands me more than I do myself. I may learn something from it.”
“Ah—the Island is not without reason then? Not so mad?”
“I don’t think so. But what did you dream of?”
Both Urgollo and Abal confirmed that they had had no dreams, and Shebundra said she had dreamed of her past on the Island, though she said nothing of her golden dream-lover.
The dark man nodded. “You are part of this.”
She looked afraid. “What must I do?”
“You must all wait. I have been searching. I have found a place that leads down into the vitals of the Island.”
Abal was horrified. “Down? You consider going underground? Do you not fear the pitch darkness? I know of few men who leave the glow of the Ether willingly.”
“If I am to learn our fate, I must go below.”
“Then I am glad you are willing to go alone,” said Abal.
“I will return.”
“And if not—”
“I will return,” he repeated, turning away to the jungle.
Abal would have hailed him again, but Urgollo was tugging at his sleeve.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
The Voidal thrust his way through the overgrown paths and the encroaching limbs of wood and foliage, making for the place he had found earlier. In another small clearing he had discovered a large hole, a vent in the earth, a dark well that led down into the dank, loamy darkness. The trees here towered, almost blotting out the gentle greens of the Ether, and though the thick leaves and verdure were resplendent with gorgeous colours, it was cold. But the Voidal moved on, pausing briefly at the hole where lichen and green mould hung over its lip in a frozen cascade.
Around him there gathered the first signs of life other than plants he had discovered on Dreamwarp—they were lightworms, tiny creatures that floated like phosphorescent insects on the air; they formed a tiny cloud around his head, leading him into the hole, lighting faintly the way as though sent by the Island. The hole inclined steeply, exuding a rank stench, but the Voidal ignored it, resolute in his purpose. Below him, in the subterranean bowels of the Island, his fate awaited him—there would be no avoiding it.
He took little stock of the thick roots and interwoven tendrils that bound together the walls of the hole, and though there was a suggestive retraction of the roots from the aura of light, he paid no heed: he knew the Island had not brought him to its depths simply to kill him. Not here.
Far, far down, the hole widened, its incline flattened out to become a fathomless gulf, so dark that even the glow of the lightworms made no impression upon its immensity. The Voidal walked slowly inward. He had not gone far when he came to the lip of a vertical shaft or pit that dropped vertiginously away to infinity, possibly into another dimension. The lightworms hovered clear, obedient to some force, and by their faint glow the Voidal saw the edges of this vast pit disappearing in curves on both sides of him. The shaft was like an artery to the heart of Dreamwarp, which must be enormous indeed to house such an abyss.
“You have come!” said a voice, as though the invisible walls of the huge cavern echoed back the words of an unseen mouth. “Look down into the pit, Voidal, for it is I who have summoned you, I who have invoked your name.”
The dark man edged to the very lip and looked directly down—into madness! For there below him, fifty feet down, was a gigantic face, its extreme proportions twisted and screwed malignly as if enduring terrible agonies. Darkness bathed it and it was like a floating, disembodied vision, a huge bubble. Its eyes blazed with unearthly fire, focusing upon the minute figure that looked down upon its inestimable pain.
“Are you yet another vision conjured up by the Island? Another dream?” shouted the Voidal.
But the huge mouth gaped, answering as though real. “Look upon my face! Study it! Do you not know me?”
The Voidal had been confused by the staggering proportions, but now he saw the face more clearly. “Yes—I know you,” he nodded, dazed. “Yet I cannot recall you.”
“It is part of the curse that is laid upon you,” agreed the voice.
“You know of my burden?”
“Yes, for I am Dreamwarp. It was I who sent the dreams to you as you slept.”
“You are Dreamwarp?”
“Yes. Though when last our paths crossed I was another and not in this guise. Once, if you could but recall it, I served faithfully the same Dark Gods that so torment you. In my infinite folly I sought to become one with them. For my impudence and my vanity they cast me out into this remote Universe, making me a prisoner of myself, for Dreamwarp is my body now, its shape, its terrain, its life all bound to the laws of this accursed dimension. I languish here, only my thoughts capable of drifting outward in the form of dreams that I fashion. My old powers are sterile! For a while it has pleased me to send mad those who have chanced upon me and in my fury and frustration I have wrought much havoc in this Universe. But I weary of it and dream always of freedom.”
The Voidal nodded again. “I know your face, but not your name. I cannot remember—”
“It is not given to you to recall much. Perhaps I can refresh your memory. I know certain things about you.”
“I know that much from the nightmares you sent.”
“The Dark Gods are punishing you. They make you do their work, work that is too unsavoury for them.”
The Voidal leaned as close to the chasm as he dared. “Tell me of my sins. What was their nature?”
But the huge head shook. “I cannot reveal that. Already I have angered the Dark Gods anew. But if you will aid me, I will tell you of yourself and give you the power to recall all that you learn.”
“Restore my memory?” gasped the Voidal.
“Partially, Voidal. I can only give you a fragment of what you seek to know.”
“And your price? How can I help you?”
“It is a small thing.”
“Name it! I will decide upon its weight.”
Again the face contorted in ill-disguised pain. “Then hear me. There once came to my shores a clan, which sought to colonise and settle in peace. I chastised them with madness, but while they lingered I dreamed a plan, a slender, cautious plan that might somehow free me from this hated bondage. Among
the clan was a girl, a young, beautiful creature that any young man with good red blood in his veins would have desired. I chose her to be the mother of my offspring.”
Confusion shaped the Voidal’s face, but he waited.
“She left Dreamwarp with the last of the survivors, and she did so bearing in her womb my elemental seed. She dreamed of a golden man who loved her and seeded her, and the dream was pleasing to her.”
“And now she has returned,” said the Voidal. “With the child.”
“Yes! He has grown. Not yet a man, but I cannot wait any longer. They are above us now.”
The Voidal saw a look of longing cross the tortured face.
“I want the child,” breathed the huge being.
“Is that all you wish of me?” said the Voidal suspiciously.
“Oh no, man of darkness! Not all. First bring me the child. Already it possesses a part of me, a raw elemental force that slumbers within it. Bring it to me and I will pour myself into it and possess it utterly! I will quit this monstrous Island body and secrete myself, my essence, within the body of my child. The mother can tend to me, knowing nothing of my true self. And the man will be her new husband, for already I have sewn both their minds with a dream of communion. When this is done, I charge you with taking us, father, mother and child, out of this Universe of Islands, for you alone have the power to traverse the many dimensions.”
The mouth closed and a deep silence fell. The Voidal dwelt long upon the words. “Your demands seem strange, yet not unkind. Will the child or its parents be harmed? What will you do once I have led you elsewhere?”
“I will quit the child and flee before the Dark Gods are aware of what has occurred. I have no desire to be their victim again! I will cause no harm to the three. Their lives will be their own. They will know happiness together.”
“In another dimension? It will disturb them.”
“Man is an adaptable creature! They will survive. Think on my offer! I can give you knowledge that you could not obtain elsewhere! Think hard, Voidal.”
For another long moment the man in black stood like a carved image of stone, thinking long on what he had been told. At length he broke his reverie and spoke. “So be it. I will bring you the child. You have my bond.”