The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Episodes 1-3 of 7)

THE TEMPLE - JUNARI

SLOE-BLACK EYES opened to crow-black night. Lips parted as lungs panted, and the back of a slender hand wiped a sweat-slicked brow.

Junari, the Prophet, the First Dreamer, the Mother Shepherd, sat up in the darkness of her small tent, pulled the threadbare blanket from her shoulders, and breathed deeply, hoping to calm the pounding in her chest.

The dream always left her in this state — mouth dry, heart hammering, gasping for air, soaked with sweat. She tugged at the front of her white linen shift, the damp fabric clinging to her chest. She tied her hair back with a leather thong. Rising to her knees, she drew back the flap of the tent and crawled out into the cool night air, the pale light of the sister moons infusing the thin clouds above with a milky luminescence.

Junari wiggled her toes in the dew-slicked grass beneath her feet in silent delight. Beside her tent stood a man and a woman, keeping watch, standing guard over the Prophet and her dreams, long, thin blades hanging from their belts. She nodded to them, and they returned the gesture. They were accustomed to her nocturnal wanderings. Jupterus and Kantula. The first two who volunteered to protect her. Insisted, really. She did not fear her followers, but the dreams preceded her arrival across the land, and those who did not dream of the new goddess often grew angry at the appearance of her pilgrims.

Junari walked away from the tent, the guards following several paces behind her. She strolled between row after row of sleeping men and women and children. Faithful dreamers who had left their homes and towns and lives to become pilgrims in search of a new faith in a new god, trailing after a prophet they trusted implicitly. Trusted because she appeared to them in their dreams each night. The same dreams that showed them walking across the land, sailing over the Zha Ocean, and rebuilding a forgotten temple crumbling to dust in the the Forbidden Realm.

The rows of sleeping pilgrims radiated out in a spiral from her tent at the center. They did this each night in imitation of the many spiral images in the dreams. She had not asked for the tent, but her closest adviser, Raedalus, insisted upon it. He had explained that while she did not want to view herself as any more special than the men and women flocking to follow her, those men and women desired to see her as separate and removed. Approachable, human, but more important than themselves. They placed their hopes and fears and faith in her. She could not sleep among them as family. She needed to be present, but apart. A leader to be followed, not a confidant to be questioned.

This defined the problem — the real reason she woke each night in a sweat. No one questioned her. Not the pilgrims. Not Raedalus. Not even old Taksati, her aged but indefatigable servant for the past twenty years. Taksati, who had always challenged her in private, probing her decisions through the deceptive form of simple queries, offering advice based on the experience of decades of service in the temple. Not even Taksati inquired about Junari's choices as she led the pilgrims toward a future glimpsed nightly in their collective dreams.

In the absence of others to question her, Junari questioned herself — doubts gripping her mind to whisper uncertainties in her ears. How did she know her actions were those intended by her new god? How could she be certain her proclamations bore the approval of this mysterious deity? How could she be the vessel for this glorious goddess working wonders in the world? How could she, who had lost her faith entirely, who had spent years pantomiming the beliefs of her younger days, imitating the import of the rites and rituals of a Pashist priest — how could she be the one chosen by the Goddess to lead her people?

But the Goddess had selected her. When the dream first came to her, she ignored it, assuming it to be a fantasy of her desires for fulfillment. Then it came again. Night after night. So many nights that she began to wonder if she had gone mad — if her loss of faith in the Pashist pantheon of gods and goddesses had pushed her into a mind-fever of delusion. Then Taksati had confided in her. She, too, saw visions of a new goddess as she dreamt. And in those dreams, Junari led a procession of pilgrims to an ancient temple in the Forbidden Realm.