Chapter VI - Dark Dreams

Or what there is of it now.

Chapter VI
Dark Dreams

- Thus, after a thousand years of imprisonment, I have been freed to bring terror and destruction upon the world again, like my nephew and his father Sphaloron did in the last age. Yea, Maara Shinnora, I shall gladly serve thee as my brother did unto Shezaia Vinasroi. -
- Then it is done, high demon of Darkness and Deceit. Let the world tremble before the Third allegiance of Hell and Earth, of Maara Shinnora and the L'zothgwaur Mordaures! Let the Wizards of Carenath beware, and the simple people of Atharellia quake in their homes at night The whole world of Kerran shall belong finally to the Alliance of the Dark... –

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A sudden, panting gasp tore through the little darkened room, as its occupant, Rin Merral, woke with a start, and rose in his bed in a sudden jerking movement. What was this dream? He had never dreamt anything spectacular in his life, except for that one day when he had dreamt of being a tree. And that had been while he was unconscious after he had hit his head on the axe handle while going out to the forest with his dad. And that hadn’t been very spectacular either, just weird – trees led a very boring life, he had found, and he had been ill-disposed toward them since that dream. Especially because halfway into the dream, he had suddenly turned back into a human, and had to run from the infuriated trees. Never trust a tree, that was his motto now. Fitting for a future lumberjack, was it not?
And now this. For a whole month, Rin had dreamt nothing else. Just this huge black stone on a clear dark night, on a small hill under the three moons, the yellow one of sleep, the silver of healing, and the red moon of blood. And then this dark robed woman, and her piercing keen. Of late, the dreams had become worse, showing him dark visions of monsters and carnage. And then this voice! It sounded like nothing which Rin had ever heard. Not a human voice, that was certain. Rasping, husky, almost whispering roughly, and this yearning, gurgling note in it, as if the speaker was hungering for something. Rin had no wish to know what it was the voice hungered for, or who it might belong to.
Rin had attempted to put it out of his mind, for fear of being regarded suspiciously by his neighbors. He and his father lived in a tiny, backwater village in the rural countryside of Northern Atharellia, far from the Kingdom's capital, Thara. The people here were simple minded, suspicious of magic and highly developed technology – as, for instance, three-field crop rotation, horse collars and plowshares pulled by oxen rather than sweating humans – and extremely superstitious. The last thing Rin wanted was to be a 'weird' character, like the old herb wife up at the stream, near the edge of the forest, who reputedly could converse with the spirits of the trees!
Yet the dreams had been continuing to bother Rin no matter how hard he tried to forget. He dared not tell anyone of them, but still his behavior became rather strange, or at least that was what the other townspeople noticed. Rin would be jerky, twitchy, and nervous to the point of paranoia. In the morning, his face would be pale, and his eyes reddened as if from lack of sleep. Rin would be inattentive, only reacting to a question after it had been repeated for the third time, and he would be yawning all day long.
The other villagers kept claiming that he was spending far too much time with his books – Rin was, apart from two or three men in the village, and the old herb woman, the only one who had learned to read. Not even the mayor was literate. Rin's father, one of the literate people in the village, had insisted that Rin learn the Ryllian letters that were standardly used throughout the Kingdom; one of the many remaining legacies from the old sages of the elves of yore or so it was said. Rin did not spend an abnormally huge time with reading, not any more than did his dad, who was a lumberjack and out working in the forest on most days from the first rays of dawn till sunset with the other woodcutters. Rin was a strong kid like all the others in his town, barely grown to the age of seventeen cycles, and spent most of his time playing outside or helping his father with the timber; yet in comparison to the other villagers, he was a bookworm of course.
Some of the villagers rumored that he was ill, some disease of the condition, for Rin could not stand for more than half an hour without sitting down, because he was so exhausted.

The dreams were definitely taking their toll on him.

Rin put the questions, doubts and fears from his mind as he had to do so often of late, and got up reluctantly, yawning and rubbing his sore eyes. Time for his morning chores; his father would still be sleeping from the heavy work of the last day. Rin's mother had died from a fever sickness in the cold winter six years past. Putting a ragged gown of cotton over his back, and slipping his feet into his leather sandals, he made his way to the kitchen of their little house.
After he had fetched a small wooden bucket, Rin walked to the clear stream that ran past their house at a distance of less than a hundred meters. Rin broke into a jog, then a run to exercise his tired limbs still clumsy and heavy with sleep.
None of the other villagers seemed to have risen yet; Rin met no one on his trip to the river, and he was pretty sure by the height of the sun that no one had been here before him today. Yet something seemed wrong to him. Rin's watchfulness and attention span had suffered from the nightmares that the last month had brought him with frightening regularity each night, but his paranoia and gut feelings had not. Rin felt when he was being watched. And currently, he was feeling it. It was almost like the gaze hit him straight in the back and bored into his body, for he turned around to the left. Nothing. The feeling had stopped. Rin turned to the stream again, broke into a run, and immediately felt the gaze on him again. This time, without stopping, he turned his head slightly sideways, gazing out of the corner of his eye.

There! A movement caught his eye. A tall, but stooped man in white clothing was running away through the bushes and trees, no more than, say, two hundred peds from where Rin was running.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Old man! What are you running away for! Why were you watching me?" but he got no answer. It was pointless to try to pursue the old one, he might be stooped, but he sure was lithe and could run quick, and besides, he had a head start of several hundred meters. Hopeless. A moment later, the man was gone, vanished between the trees. What a strange occurrence. Surely it was no one of the village; Rin knew everyone here by name, besides, none of the old villagers of Herrath would even think of sneaking upon him and then running when he saw them. Rin shrugged his shoulders, and continued on his jog to the river.

Running to the stream and back to the house for several times, Rin had soon filled the little tub in the kitchen with water, and he was now dripping with sweat. Taking a handful of water, he wiped his face with icy coldness. Only now did he feel he was really coming awake. It would soon be time to wake his father. But that would have to wait until after the breakfast was fixed. As so often, Rin wished that his mother was still alive, or that he at least had some siblings to share the chores. Invariably, the tasks around the household fell to him, since his father was either out working at the forest felling trees, or snoring at home, or out in the pub. The village, pub, the Rusty Hatchet, was more of a meeting place for the villagers than a drinking establishment. Occasionally, perhaps once or twice a year, a bard would come into town and perform in the Hatchet, and the whole town would gather into the little inn, cramming themselves into the tiny commons room of the establishment – the village was inhabited by about forty people. When a bard was visiting Herrath, all the men, the women and even the little children would come to the inn to listen to the wondrous tales of the history of Atharellia, legends full of magic and wonder, songs from all over the world or even just a few news from the capital, which lay so far away. For the villagers far from any other civilization, the bards were an entertainment, education, and news-bearers at once.
And there was one man who came to the little village with such a regular precision that clocks could be set with reference to his arrival. Not, strictly speaking, a bard, but an entertainer, tumbler and sage all the same, he would visit in the afternoon of the Winter Solstice, and stay in the village for a week, before leaving again. When Gregor, endearingly called Old Greg by the villagers of Herrath, the whole town would come together in the tiny inn every evening for seven days, and would be treated to stories, marvelous acrobatics, juggling, and a few news and tidbits from all over Atharellia, where – as the Herrath people had found out by now – interesting things happened almost every month, if not even every week! What a sight every single other place in this busy land must be, bustling with heroes and monsters. All the time, knights would fight dragons before breakfast, kings were crowned and dethroned, powerful wizards fought with each other for the supreme sovereignty of the astral planes, and other more exciting things happened, such as the curious love affair between the eighty-year old shoemaker and the blacksmith's daughter in the village ten miles upstream.
Old Gregor might be anything but truthful, and a lot of disreputable things might be said about him if one was in the mood and did not like him, but his fireworks were indisputably fabulous, and his stories were as fascinating as fairytales.
And tonight, he would come once again! This had been repeated in the mind of every child and quite a few adults all through the last week and even longer. According to the calendar and the sun, Gregor would be bound to arrive sometime during the day. Rin was determined to be the first to meet him no matter what. And that was why he had got up this early to complete his morning chores, even though he was still very exhausted from the dream-filled sleep he had had tonight.
By now, Rin had filled the tub of water that he and his father would use during the day for cooking and washing. He had only to wake his dad now. But what was that?
Rin stared out into the hilly countryside, looking at the narrow paved road that had been constructed by the royal builders, connecting all the tiny villages to the capital. The sound carried well here, and he was sure he had heard hoof steps. Hoof steps, the light groaning creak of a wagon's wheels, and... singing ?
It was a deep, throaty voice, an old voice, and Rin immediately recognized it. Seemingly, Old Greg was just as early as he today! Rin remembered the song, he had heard it from Gregor last year. It was Greg's favorite song, and when he was traveling in his small wooden cart, he would sing it without ending.

Traveling along the road
A lonely path it is
The wind and sun for company
And yet I'm filled with bliss!

I make my luck in wandering
And let fortune point my way
And where I find a friendly place
Perhaps a while I'll stay.

Repeating the chorus a last time, the voice ended its singing, and the creaking sound seemed to grow louder by comparison. And there it was! The small rickety cart rose over the last hill of the hills, turned a little corner, and appeared before Rin.
Rin was delighted. It had been a full year since last he had seen Greg. In his memory, Gregor had seemed much younger, and far sillier. As his cart approached now, Rin could see that Gregor looked older, far older. Lines of care were etched on a drawn face that looked with a grave expression. This was not the merry bard and juggler that Rin was used to. Gregor looked every inch of a wise sage, a wizard. His robes must once have been red, but they were a darkened, faded crimson color now, which was almost indistinguishable from gray. Had Gregor ever been carrying a staff before? He must have, he had always been somewhat frail. But Rin could not remember this particular staff; solid, hardened, black oak it was, with a ruby set in the top. It was shining with a warm light.
Pushing that out of his mind, he ran towards the cart, shouting all the while.
Gregor seemed only now to notice the dark haired youth that was running towards him. The cloud that had encompassed his face cleared up as if hit by a warm Spring wind – and in late Autumn, too! – and a relieved smile appeared in place of the worried frown from before.
He broke off his singing as he had finished the chorus a last time, and shouted a greeting to Rin, who was still running.
“Gregor! Old Greg! Oh, it’s so good to see you again.”
"Ho! You've grown since I've last visited here, I see.”
There was an understatement if ever there was one: The last time Gregor had visited, Rin had been a whole turn younger, and his seventeenth cycle had made him sprout like a sapling in good earth. He must be one and a half spans taller now, if not more.
“So, tell me.” Gregor said. “What brings you out here this early? I never knew you for one to rise before the sun,” he chuckled.
“Well, for one thing, because I wanted to meet you here!” Rin was relieved he could say this, because another reason had been the particular nightmare he had had this morning. He didn’t want anyone to know this, not even Greg.
“And for the other?” Curses.
“Hah, as if I needed another reason,” Rin made a feeble attempt at evading, but Gregor would not be put off. He wasn’t a jester and a bard for nothing: Never try to joust words with a bard, you will be tripped in your own tongue.
“Rin, you don’t look too well.” There was little sense in arguing about that – Rin’s eyes were still burning even after he had washed them at the stream, and he knew they must be reddened. His skin was a little strained, and he knew he was looking pale and haggard because he had not eaten a lot in the recent weeks. Gregor spoke again. “Have you been having bad dreams recently?” Rin swore inwardly. The man must me a Thaliomancer, one of the mind-magi of old.
“What sense is there in even telling you, if you can just read it in my head?” He jested. “Yes, I’ve had...” he did not know how to put this. “funny dreams. Curious dreams, I mean.”
“Dreams that have scared you?”
Rin could not speak. He merely nodded. “About a witch, and a dark night, and a dreadful voice, and...” he was rambling.
Gregor was not fazed by that however. He appeared to know much more than he let on.
“This voice... what did it say? Did it speak of the future, or the past?”
“They both spoke a great lot of the future, I know that much. Something about darkness, and power, and terror. But...”
Gregor had been almost relieved, but grew a little disquieted now. “Yes?”
“He said ‘it is done’. He said that several times.”
Gregor’s face clouded like a summer day that is interrupted by a storm.
“It is done...” his face grew grim. The calculations of the stargazers have not been wrong, and it was indeed the last day that the night of the ravager passed over the Shadowpike. “It is done...” It cannot be averted now, but if we act quickly we might nip it in the bud.
“Come with me now,” he suddenly spoke. “We shouldn’t keep your people waiting, now should we?” The way he said ‘your people’ sounded strange, somewhat. But Rin was sure he had only meant the people of Herrath, and had not accidentally inferred that Rin was the lost heir to any throne nearby.

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