Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

and began dreaming. And she found herself…

  …before the hollow tree in Darda Glain that served as a home for her and Farrix. Sighing with memories of past days, Jinnarin called her bow and arrows to her. Then she formed a bridge to Aylis’s dream, and stepped onto…

  …the afterdeck of the Eroean, where Aylis stood with Aravan, the Elf laughing freely while the seeress spun the wheel to heel the ship over in the wind. Aylis looked down at the Pysk and sighed, then turned and kissed Aravan. “I must go, love,” she said.

  The air divided and Pysk and seeress together walked into the fissure, and out into…

  …the shadowed marge of a sunlit garden.

  The air was gentle, cool, a breeze softly blowing. A crystalline stream burbled nearby, running among the verdant growth, and grassy pathways wended through a riot of colors, blossoms of all hues nodding in the zephyr as humming bees coursed among clusters of flowers and over rill mosses and around stands of delicate grasses. Ornamental trees were scattered here and there, the garden itself set within the expanse of a broad forest glen, and the songs of unseen birds occasionally echoed from afar. A noontime Sun stood directly overhead in a clear blue sky and shown down into the glade, and in garden center grew a tall hedge, a green rectangular wall, some hundred feet from corner to corner, four hundred feet ‘round all.

  “Oh my,” murmured Aylis, “how lovely.”

  “Yes,” agreed Jinnarin, looking about, “but where’s Farrix?”

  They stood in the shade of a great oak tree on the edge of an ancient forest. Aylis slowly turned in a complete circle, her gaze sweeping across the garden and then in among the huge-girthed boles down within green dappled shadows stirring in the gentle breeze. But when she had turned full ‘round, once again her eye rested upon the central hedge within the glade. “There,” she said and pointed. “There within the square bounded by the hedge, there I would think to find him.”

  They followed one of the grassy pathways wending toward the hedgerow, the rill burbling alongside. They passed among the nodding flowers and sighing grasses and softly rustling trees as the breeze gently urged them onward, ruffling their unbound hair. Up across a tiny arched bridge they trod, and Aylis leaned over the railing to see golden fish swimming above a white sandy bottom and among fronds of green watercress wafting in the purling current, the auric fish darting under the water plants, fleeing from her shadow cast straight down.

  At last Pysk and seeress came to the hedge, but when they walked all way ‘round, no entry did they find. Aylis smiled and took Jinnarin’s hand, and up and over they flew…to find…a garden within the garden, this one much the same…except in the very center, on a crystal block lay—

  “Farrix!” Jinnarin shrieked, and flew down to land at his side.

  He was asleep.

  “Wake up, my love! Wake up!” she called, shaking him by the shoulder—to no avail.

  Jinnarin laid her ear on his breast, and after a long while, “A heartbeat,” she said, and waited, and finally called out, “Another.”

  Her eyes brimming with tears, Jinnarin glanced up at the Lady Mage. “Oh, Brightwing, it is the same. He is in an enchanted sleep here as well.”

  Sadness filled Aylis’s eyes and she looked at Farrix, then startled, looked again, her eyes widening. “Sparrow, he dreams!”

  Jinnarin jerked her head up from Farrix’s breast and stared at Farrix’s eyes as they whipped back and forth beneath their closed lids.

  Confusion filled Jinnarin’s face. “A dream within a dream?”

  “Yes, Sparrow, that’s what it must be. We must hurry and enter this dream as well.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “I don’t know, but we must try. And quickly, for if he wakes, we’ll be trapped.”

  “Even if he doesn’t wake, but merely stops dreaming, we’ll be trapped. Perhaps this is the snare that Durlok set, and no matter how many dreams we enter, we’ll always find him asleep. Oh, let’s hurry.”

  Jinnarin formed another bridge, the air rippling apart. They stepped into the fissure and found…

  …themselves in a crystal castle overlooking a pale green sea where a black ship with lightning-stroked masts plunged across the storm-tossed waves.

  And dread filled their very beings, hammering at their hearts, rending their guts, riving their very souls. The room began to shift, to change, to become rough, unworked crystal. And with terror mauling them, Jinnarin and Aylis whipped about to see a writhing mass of blackness boiling toward them, great claws forming on massive arms and lunging out to rend and tear as hideous yellow eyes gloated in insane triumph.

  “Bridge out!” shrieked Aylis.

  Through a hole dove Jinnarin, landing and rolling in the sunlit garden, her bow lost to her grasp. Aylis, too, leapt into the sunshine, both Pysk and seeress slamming the bridges shut. But the air before them rippled, and roiling blackness came through—not a single writhing mass, but five, ten, twelve, more!

  “Again!” shrilled Jinnarin. “Bridge ou—!” But before she could complete her thought, terror whelmed into her mind, filling it entirely. She could not think. She could not see. She could not hear. She could only scream.

  But Aylis’s mind had not been seized, and she managed to reach out an arm toward one of the writhing masses and hiss past lips taut with dread, “Fulmen!” and a bolt of lightning flashed from her outstretched hand and through the boiling black.

  Of a sudden, Jinnarin could see and hear and think. But Aylis was frozen in place and screaming, unable to do aught else.

  And blackness boiled toward her, ebony talons raised.

  Nearly paralyzed with terror, Jinnarin managed to reach out a hand and clutch her bow. Panic hammering at her, her breath nought but hoarse gasps, with fear-frozen fingers still she succeeded in nocking an arrow. She raised the bow in her trembling dread, the shaft rattling against the wood of the grip. “Adon,” she groaned through fear-clenched jaws, and aimed and loosed, the bolt shrinking to a tiny Pysk-arrow that flew straight through one of the writhing blots of darkness and beyond, to no effect.

  Even though she despaired, again she strung an arrow. “Demon spawn!” she shrilled, dread whelming at her. “Die!” and she loosed at another of the roiling shadows. But again the wee shaft flew into the seething blackness and out the other side, and still the writhing mass moved with the others through the sunlit flowers and toward Aylis.

  Of a sudden Jinnarin shrieked, “Demons!” And she strung another arrow, this time choosing her target carefully. But once again the diminutive shaft flew without effect through the churning darkness. And now the writhing, boiling black had reached Aylis, clustering about the dread-whelmed seeress, who could neither think nor see nor hear nor do aught but scream in unremitting terror.

  Massive black claws were raised to rend her, insane gaze flashing in mad triumph, a gaping red maw leering—

  —but in that moment a tiny arrow flashed into a particular yellow eye—

  —and all the creatures vanished but one!

  —and that one—“RRRAAAAWWWW!—bellowed in agony and clawed at its amorphous face, its fang-filled crimson maw stretched wide in anguish—

  —and another tiny arrow flashed into the shapeless creature’s mouth, slamming into tissue—

  —and deadly poison burst into the demon’s brain—

  —flaring, flashing throughout—

  —and the creature fell dead, slain by an etheric poison on a spectral arrow from the phantom bow of a Pysk.

  CHAPTER 31

  The Dreamer

  Spring, 1E9575

  [The Present]

  The hideous dread vanished, and Aylis slumped to the ground. Jinnarin sprang to her side and called out, “Brightwing!” The seeress had not fainted, though, and she looked at Jinnarin. “I—wha—? The fiend! — Where?”

  “Dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “I killed it. It was a demon, and I killed it.”

  “How?”

  Jinnarin raised
her bow. Aylis nodded. “I tried lightning, one of my father’s spells, to no effect.”

  “You missed the real one.”

  “Real one?”

  “Yes. All but one were illusions.”

  “How did you—?”

  Jinnarin smiled. “Jatu told me about demons. I shot at the one with no shadow.”

  Aylis turned to stare at the demon, and lo! even as she and Jinnarin looked on, an oily darkness rose up from the ebony form, the wind swirling it up and away and shredding it. In moments the demon had vanished.

  “This was Durlok’s trap,” gritted Aylis. “This was the evil spirit that slew White Owl. Sparrow, by your bow, he is avenged.”

  Jinnarin looked at where the demon had lain and nodded. And suddenly she began to laugh wildly, from relief, from the snapping of tension.

  Aylis looked at her in amazement, and then she, too, began laughing.

  Soon both were howling, and pointing at one another. Covering her mouth, trying to get control of herself, Jinnarin turned away from Aylis and looked in garden center where lay Farrix’s sleeping form.

  Abruptly she was sober. “Farrix! Brightwing, we’ve got to waken Farrix! And swiftly, for he will soon stop dreaming.”

  Aylis, too, sobered. “Yes! You are right. We must find him quickly.”

  “Back into the dream within the dream?”

  Aylis nodded, even then forming the bridge between.

  Once again they stepped through the rippling air and into the crystal castle. Now there was no fear, no dread, within. In haste they searched the chamber, and in an alcove they discovered Farrix asleep upon a crystal altar.

  “Oh no, not again!” cried Jinnarin, kneeling beside him. “He’s under a casting here, too!” But at the sound of her voice, Farrix stirred.

  “He moved, Sparrow! He is not enspelled in this dream!”

  Jinnarin gently shook him by the shoulder. “Farrix. Farrix. Wake up, my love.”

  Slowly Farrix stretched, yawning, and opened his eyes—

  —And in that moment the crystal castle shifted, the floor became rough-adzed crystal, and whole crystals jutted out from the walls. It was Durlok’s temple to Gyphon—

  “Hullo, love,” said Farrix, starting to raise up, but unable to move because Jinnarin flung herself atop him, weeping in joy.

  “Here, here, what’s the matter? Why this crying?”

  Jinnarin tried to tell him, but her words were incoherent, a sobbing babble.

  “It’s a strange tale, Farrix,” said Aylis, as he looked up at the sound of her voice and saw her for the first time. “But know this: you are somehow involved with Durlok—”

  “Durlok!” spat Farrix, sitting upright even though Jinnarin yet embraced him. “I had forgotten!” He looked about the crystal chamber then grasped her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “How did you get here? —Oh never mind, the only thing of importance now is that we’ve got to get out of here, love! You are not safe!”

  Taking her by the hand, Farrix struggled against Jinnarin’s resistance, trying to leap with her from the crystal block, but Jinnarin held him back, crying, “No, no, Farrix!” He turned to her, and with her eyes red and running, her nose adrip, Jinnarin shook her head. “You need not fear Durlok, at least not at the moment. You see, this is a dream you are having, and you’ve just got to wake up! Break the spell.”

  Farrix gaped. “Dream? Dream! What are you talking about, and who is this?” He jabbed a finger at Aylis.

  Jinnarin clenched her fists in frustration. “Oh, Farrix, it doesn’t matter. You see, you’ve got to wake up before you stop dreaming.”

  Again Farrix’s jaw dropped open. “Wake up before I stop dreaming? But—but if this is a dream, if I wake up I will stop dreaming. This makes no sense.” He looked at Aylis, turning his hands up in an unspoken appeal to sanity, adding, “And I still want to know who you are.”

  “She’s a Lady Mage, Farrix. Alamar’s daughter.”

  Aylis nodded. “We are in your dream to break an”—Aylis sighed—“an ‘enchantment’ placed upon you by Durlok. It is important that you waken before this dream ends.”

  Farrix took a deep breath and then explosively blew it out through puffed cheeks and shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m dreaming.” He looked about and pinched himself—“Ow!”—wincing. “It is so real!”

  Jinnarin stomped her foot. “Is this real?” she barked, then floated up off the crystal block.

  “Adon!” hissed Farrix, leaping to his feet. “It is a dream!”

  “See? I told you!” proclaimed Jinnarin, settling back to the altar.

  “What do I have to do?” asked Farrix.

  Suddenly Jinnarin realized that she didn’t know what Farrix had to do to awaken himself. She looked at Aylis.

  “Tell me,” the seeress asked him, “have you ever wished to awaken at a certain time, say at dawn, or when the Moon rises, or at mid of night, and been able to do so?”

  Slowly Farrix nodded.

  “Then here is what you must do. Convince yourself that at the moment we leave, that is the very moment you must awaken.”

  “When you leave?”

  “Yes. That is the signal to yourself.”

  Farrix looked about the crystal chamber. “Where are you going? Into the tunnels? Into the Troll hole? Back to the grotto? Where?”

  Aylis shook her head. “None of those places, Farrix. Instead we go to a garden. To the garden of dreams.”

  “That’s where you are,” added Jinnarin. “Asleep.”

  Farrix’s eyes widened in confusion. “Asleep?”

  “Yes, love. Dreaming this dream.”

  “Oh,” he said in a small, still voice. “I sleep in a garden dreaming this dream, and when I awake, all will be set to rights.”

  “Not quite—” began Jinnarin, but Aylis interrupted.

  “We will explain what comes next when you awaken from this dream.”

  Again Farrix took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m getting confused, but I’ll do my best to waken when you go from here.” He looked at them, then frowned. “But I say, look here: I don’t know how I go about setting my mind to wake at a certain time or event. I just do it.”

  Aylis grimly smiled. “Wish or want is what drives it—strong enough desire or need.”

  “Oh.”

  Jinnarin stepped to his side. “Farrix, I really need you. You must do this thing, else I fear we are all in dire straits, and Durlok will do something utterly evil, something we need to stop before he kills any more.”

  Farrix gritted his teeth. “Damn Durlok! He is a monster and needs stopping.”

  Aylis caught his gaze with hers. “Then, Farrix, you must awaken.”

  He nodded sharply. “Let us do it, then.”

  “Though I am not certain, I believe that it would be easier if you would lie back down,” advised Aylis.

  Farrix reclined on the crystal block.

  Jinnarin leaned over and kissed him and then stepped back. “Brightwing…”

  Farrix turned his head toward them and watched as the air rippled, a cleft forming, a portion of a sunlit garden could be seen through the fissure. His eyes widened as they stepped through, the breach closing behind them.

  Jinnarin climbed upon the crystal slab where Farrix lay sleeping in the heart of the verdant glen, Aylis at hand. The Sun yet stood at the zenith, having moved not at all. And the two of them peered at the dreamer’s eyes, twitching back and forth. Of a sudden the movement stopped. “Oh,” wailed Jinnarin. “We were too late. He has stopped drea—”

  —Farrix opened his eyes.

  “Ha!” exulted Jinnarin. “You did it!” And she kissed him soundly.

  Farrix sat up and looked about. “So, what I was dreaming wasn’t a dream after all. Or, no, wait—it was a dream, but not an ordinary one. Instead, it was a—a true dream? Does that make sense?”

  “Oh yes, love!” said Jinnarin, kissing him again.

  Farrix started to get up,
saying, “Well, let’s get out of here and stop Dur—”

  “No, no, Farrix. Wait,” called Jinnarin, pushing him back down. “This is but another dream.”

  “Another dream?” He looked about, once again pinching himself—“Ow!”

  Jinnarin floated upward. “See?”

  Farrix groaned. Then sighed. Then muttered, “Damn Durlok! Is this like one of those puzzles—links and rings and boxes within boxes?”

  Jinnarin grinned. “No, love, this is the last one. When you awaken from this one, you will really and truly be awake.”

  Aylis leaned over. “Are you ready to try again?”

  Farrix rolled his eyes, but nodded.

  “It may be a bit harder this time, Farrix, for as Sparrow—Jinnarin—has said, this is the last one.”

  “I am ready,” he said, lying back down on the crystal slab. “Let us get on with it.”

  Again, Jinnarin kissed him. “I will be waiting, my love.”

  And once more Farrix watched as the air rippled and a fissure formed and Jinnarin and Aylis passed through, the cleft closing behind.

  Jinnarin and Aylis stepped into the crystal chamber, where bedlam reigned, with shouting Dwarven warriors hacking and chopping at some huge creature lying on the rough-adzed floor halfway up to the wall. Between the creature and the crystal altar stood Aravan and Jatu, weapons in hand, warding a motionless seeress and unmoving female and male Pysks—Aylis and Jinnarin and Farrix. And striding down from the door to the laboratory came Alamar, a strange, dark fire playing about the eld Mage’s hands, while up on the crystal block stood Rux, his teeth bared, the fox between his mistress and the mělée above. Swiftly the dreamwalkers rushed to their forms and plunged within and spoke the of , opening their eyes to the riot in the room.

  Aylis sprang to her feet, Jinnarin as well. The Pysk nocked one of her tiny arrows and leapt to Rux’s back as Aylis stepped to Alamar’s side, the elder taking a stance by the altar. “Father, what is it?”

  “A Gargon, Daughter, a Gargon!”

  Aylis’s heart jumped into her throat. A Gargon! Dreaded fearcaster. A huge, hideous creature, grey and stonelike, but walking upright on two legs, a malevolent monster of the nether world, a demon, said some, able to paralyze its victims with fear.