"I'm sorry I don't understand," Jomel said. "Just what is happening here?"
They were only able to wake three of the elders with the woman's help. Once they were awake, however, she lay back down and went to sleep. No one else seemed willing to wake and the children wouldn't even stir. The three elders, suddenly overcome with thirst, staggered from the shelter but were too weak to draw water for themselves, turning to their visitors for help.
"We're dreaming. We're all dreaming," gasped the first elder pushed away the water bucket Arnion had held for him as he drank. He looked like he had once been a large, heavy-set man, his flesh now hung loosely from his thin body.
"But what about the stone? What does it do?" Jomel asked.
"It speaks to us while we dream."
Karux involuntarily touched the stone pendant hanging from his neck and looked back into the structure's shadows. "What does it tell you?"
An old bald man, who seemed to lack every other tooth smiled. "It shows us the future!"
"What kind of future does it show you?" Karux asked cautiously.
The third elder, whose hair and beard stuck out in all directions in sparse long white tufts, gazed up at them in wide-eyed wonder. "It's wonderful!"
"Is your whole korion in there?" Jomel asked.
"Yes," said the first man. "I should go back."
"Wait," Jomel dropped a hand on his shoulder, nearly pushing him to the ground. "Who tends your fields and your animals while you dream?"
The saggy man brushed off Jomel's hand irritably. "We take turns gathering food, but we've discovered we don't need as much food as we once thought we did. That is one of the things the stone has freed us from."
"What else has it freed you from?" Odo asked.
"Fear, worry, anxiety... the stone gives us peace and hope."
"Hope for what?" Karux muttered.
"The future!" The bald man smiled again showing his pale gums.
"I have a stone that shows me the future as well," Karux said touching his pendent.
All three men stared at his stone in amazement.
"Then you know!" the saggy man said.
"Know what?"
"The joy that awaits us all," the sparse-haired elder said.
"That's not the future I've seen. I saw monsters and blood and death."
The men frowned at him. "I don't think I'd like those dreams very much." The bald man made a sour face.
"These weren't dreams. These were true visions of the future. Some of them have already come to pass."
The saggy man put a sympathetic hand on Karux's shoulder. "You should throw that stone away and dream with us. Our dreams not only show us the future, they make the future." He gave Karux a slow nod and a knowing look.
"I'd like to see this stone," Karux said.
"Come."
The three men rose and shuffled unsteadily toward the shelter. Karux, Jomel, Arnion and Odo followed. Inside, the three elders pointed proudly to a sawed-off column of a tree trunk on which the dark rock sat. Up close, it looked vaguely like a melted face.
Karux forced himself to relax and allowed his awareness to shift into the world of schemas. Immediately a storm of patterns appeared before him spiraling inward into a black maelstrom. Each of the streaming patterns was anchored in the head of a sleeper. Sitting at the center of the maelstrom, in the same lumpy shape of the stone, was an infinite black void from which Karux sensed a familiar evil presence as if some vast alien intelligence peered out at him through a hole in reality itself. Then he heard the laughter.
Lurching backwards, Karux blinked himself back to the world of light and shadows. "We've got to get out of here! That thing is evil. It should be destroyed."
"What?" the saggy elder yelped.
"That stone is a tool of the N'kroi! It is destroying these people."
Jomel stepped toward the stone then hesitated as all the sleepers eyes opened at once. They sat up, rubbing their eyes and stretched.
"I had a bad dream," one of them said.
"Yeah, some evil people came and tried to take us from our home," another one added.
The sleeper's eyes focused on Karux and his companions with a strange intensity.
"And they were in it!" one of the sleepers said, frowning.
Their faces began to harden with anger.
Karux backed up, bumping into Arnion. The four stepped back out of the shelter as the whole village rose up.
Once out in the sunlight the villagers looked around, blinking, as if forgetting what they had gotten up to do, and began stumbling off toward their homes.
"Listen, we came to help you," Arnion said, catching the white-haired elder by the arm. "We came to show you how to grow more crops in a shorter amount of time."
"That's nice, but we're just fine." The old man patted Arnion's hand and wandering off.
"Don't bother," Karux said. "They are completely under the stone's control. Even if they weren't, I don't think they'd be willing to help us fight. They've all decided on a simpler, easier and more peaceful future."
"Yes." Odo turned and spat in disgust. "I guess death is pretty easy."
-=====|==
"I don't suppose you could have used your arts to destroy that stone?" Jomel suggested as they trudged down the narrow track between empty fields that were slowly turning into grasslands.
The lazy susurration of insects rose and fell around them, their normality seeming out of place next to the frightening strangeness behind them. Though the day had grown warm as the sun climbed in the clear summer sky, Karux shivered at the reminder, feeling as if he were emerging from under a dark cloud. "If it had only been a normal stone, I'm sure I could have taken it apart, but that thing...." An image of that dark and hungry maelstrom leaped into his mind. He remembered feeling a supernatural pull towards the black Void at its heart. It reminded him of the time he and Theris had leaped into a rain-swollen creek and been swept away. The strength-sapping pull of the current on his arms and legs, the desperate race to shore before his own weakness dragged him down; the maelstrom had evoked all these things. "...It was too strong. I have never felt such power."
After an hour of sweaty walking, Odo pointed at a collection of buildings at the top of a low rise. "That is Korion-Crusomosc."
"What is that smell?" Arnion asked.
Jomel made a disgusted face. "It smells like sour milk."
"I think that's what it is." Odo stepped to one side of the narrow trail. A thin trickle of white liquid ran down the middle of the path pushing along clotted white lumps that looked like curds.
"This cannot be what it looks like," Jomel said.
Karux glanced up the hill, following the trickle of liquid.
"That must be hundreds of jukes of milk!" Odo measured the liquid with a merchant's eye. "Someone has had a most unfortunate accident."
"Shall we see if we can help?" Arnion suggested.
Approaching the village, Karux saw a large crowd gathered in the common area laughing and talking. They seemed to be celebrating though Karux couldn't think of any festivals occurring that time of year. A young woman glanced up and smiled at them.
"Hello and welcome to our korion, travelers. Are you thirsty?" Would you drink?" She handed her drinking bowl to Odo, then catching the eye of someone inside the crowd, flashing four fingers and beckoned for more. The villagers, blithely engrossed in their conversations, passed the clay bowls from hand to hand until the friendly young woman and the young man standing next to her distributed the bowls.
"Hi," the young man said as he handed out the drinks. "My name is Methus. This is Haydonae. Who are you and where are you from?"
"I'm Jomel and these are Karux, Arnion and Odo. Odo here is a merchant from N'shia-Potoma the rest of us are lately from Har-Tor–though we were from Pelavale before that. I suppose you've heard what happened there?"
Haydonae shook her head happily.
"The whole valley was overrun by angorym. All the koria were destroyed."
"Oh? Truly? Wow!" Methus looked surprised but not very concerned.
"What?" a slightly older man standing next to Methus turned upon hearing Methus' exclamation.
"They're from the north," Methus shouted, trying to be heard over the noise. "Their koria were all destroyed!"
"Really? Who'd have thought that would happen?" He turned away to talk to the person tapping him on his shoulder.
"Actually, I did," Karux said, though no one heard him but Haydonae.
"You really thought it would happen?" Haydonae asked.
Karux sniffed at his cup. The liquid inside smelled milky and faintly sweet. "I had a vision of the future from the Most High."
"You saw the future? What did you see? Good things, I hope."
"Famine and death. That's why we came, to warn you so you could help us stop it."
"Oh!" She burst into a wide grin. "You should talk to the elders."
"Yes," Jomel interrupted. "Where are they?"
"They're by the stone."
"Stone?" A shiver ran up Karux's spine.
"It saved us! It fell from the sky during the long night. We didn't even start the New Year's fire. It's right over here. Come see!" Haydonae grabbed Karux's hand and dove into the crowd. Jomel, Arnion and Odo swam along behind.
"There it is!" Haydonae flung an arm out at a great golden lump resting on a short column of rocks.
It looked like a huge lumpy potato lying on one side. It rested on four large protrusions giving it the vague likeness of a quadruped. The milk streamed from a series of smaller lumps on its underside, falling into a tilted bowl which directed the flow into an overflowing barrel. The milk trickled over the sides of the barrel and flowed down the hill.
Arnion stared at the stone. "Is that really gold?"
"Yes. We sold our animals and bought the gold to cover it."
"Sold all your animals?" Odo asked.
"We didn't need them anymore," Haydonae smiled. "The stone meets all our needs."
"But why cover it in gold?" Jomel asked.
Haydonae looked at it and shrugged. "We thought it would make it happy. We were so grateful; we just wanted to do something."
"Where are your elders?" Jomel asked.
"Over there," Haydonae pointed at a group of old men sitting on benches in the shade of a large tree quietly sipping from clay jugs and watching the group gathered around the stone.
Jomel tossed his untouched cup to the ground and walked over. "Hello."
"Greetings, stranger. Welcome to our korion." The elder who spoke had a pronounced nose that would have enhanced a stronger face. Unfortunately for this man, it only emphasized his small close-set eyes giving him a vague unintelligent expression.
"My name is Jomel. My friends and I have come from Har-Tor. We were sent to warn you of a coming blight and to help you prepare your crops." Jomel trailed off as the elder with the nose smiled at him.
"That's nice," the elder waved his jug at the crowd gathered around the stone. "But I don't think we have any concerns on that account."
"No," Jomel agreed. "But that stone won't be able to protect you from the coming attack."
"What attack?"
"The Most High has sent more than one kind of stone. Young Karux here has a stone that shows him visions of the future." He turned to Karux. "Tell them what you've seen."
Karux took a deep breath. "I have seen beasts rise up from the ground with the shapes of men. I have seen them racing between the mountains and the sea, crossing and re-crossing all the land between the two rivers. Wherever they go, only death and ashes remain behind."
The elders sitting under the tree seemed to wake up a little bit, put down their jugs and glanced nervously at each other. "What do you want from us?" the elder with the nose asked.
"We have been gathering men who are willing to learn to fight these beasts and have been training them in the use of the three spears. If you would be protected from the coming threat, give us the men you need trained for your protection."
The elder with the nose shrugged. "You may certainly take any who are willing to leave with you, but you'll have to ask them first."
Karux watched Jomel frown down at them and wondered how the elders could remain so unconcerned. They didn't look skeptical. They just accepted everything said without question, like children, without examining the implications of those ideas.
Jomel took a bench and dragged it over to the crowd. He stood on it and called out to the crowd. "Hear me people of Korion-Crusomosc. Hear me!"
Conversations slowly trailed off as Jomel struggled to get their attention. "You face a grave danger! The angorym have already destroyed the northern vale and will soon come here. If you would live, you must prepare to defend yourselves!"
Jomel paused and Karux expected someone to call out "What must we do?" Instead, a brief moment of silence followed before a low buzz of disinterested conversation started.
"Come with us and we will train you in how to save your families and loved ones!"
Those gathered around the stone continued to ignore him, their conversations drowning him out.
"Are these people witless?" Odo asked.
"No," one of the other elders replied. "They just don't see a need to respond right now."
"Do they not believe us?" Karux asked the short broad elder who looked rather like a toad. He had large heavily lidded eyes and a wide mouth with thin lips.
"They don't disbelieve you."
"But what will they do when the angorym come? Die?"
"Will and when aren't now. Will and when may never come."
"So that's it, then? They'd rather just gamble their lives on maybes because they can't be bothered to do anything about it?"
The elder shrugged.
"I assure you, I've seen what is coming. You will either fight or you will die. You can't just choose not to decide. If you don't let us help you, you have chosen death."
The elders picked up their jugs and sipped them in response.
Jomel jumped down from the bench and walked back to the tree. "These people are useless."
"It is pretty maddening," Karux agreed.
"Are we done here?" Jomel asked the other three.
Arnion stared back at the stone, a cup of milk still held forgotten in his hand. "What about the stone?"
"What about it?" Jomel asked.
"It might be a great help to us at Har-Tor. We might not need to run around working out all these deals with farmers and sending Karux out to...do whatever it is he does with their crops."
The elder with the big nose frowned and slowly put his jug down. "Are you talking about taking our stone?"
"It would be best if you all came with us," Jomel said. "The stone would be helpful to us and we could protect you at Har-Tor."
The elder shook his head. "That would mean walking quite a ways. I don't think anyone would agree."
Jomel turned to Karux. "What do you think?"
Karux looked back at the strange gold-covered stone and its flowing milk. He thought he had heard a voiceless whispering at the back of his head since they first arrived though he couldn't hear any words. The feeling was more of an uncomfortable itch inside his skull than a sound. "I've got a bad feeling about that stone."
"Why?" Arnion demanded.
"You don't think it's connected to...them...do you?" Jomel asked.
"The n'kroi? It's very possible."
Arnion looked at his cup of milk suspiciously, and dropped it to the ground.
"I haven't looked at it directly because I didn't want to attract their attention, but I have the same bad feeling I had about Korion-Doulon." Karux remembered the dark maelstrom of schemas and shuddered. There was no telling what effect this stone might be having on the villagers and he didn't really want to find out.
"Very well, let's go." Jomel started to leave.
Arnion cast a lingering glance back toward the villagers as he followed Jomel, a distressed expression on his face. "But what about the people? We can't just leave them to die, can we?"
"We tried," Jomel flung a dismissive wave over his shoulder. "We can't save them if they don't want to be saved, and we have other koria to visit."
"May I make a request?" Odo asked.
"Certainly. What is it?"
"Well, I couldn't help but notice that things seem to get stranger the further south we go. Maybe we should start heading west."
Jomel nodded. "Maybe you're right.