Blossomstide 1924
The mist was heavy on the hillside above Silverton. They had made camp after a hard day’s flight over the Silver Mountains and Sir Robert stood watch with a look of intense boredom on his face. Ekra-Hurr loitered at the fringes of Emelia’s vision, like an itch that could not be scratched.
Jem was regaling the pair with some dull details on the centuries old feuding between Goldoria and Thetoria. Despite her weariness, Emelia was nervous about sleeping as she feared a recurrence of the dark dreams.
“Although the nation was born through an alliance of tribes against the threat of the goblins, the ogres and their half-ogre mage leader, it was always going to lead to descendants that would evolve differing philosophies. I mean the split from Goldoria was sixteen centuries ago, but the two countries have found an excuse to squabble ever since, like brothers arguing over a favourite toy. I suppose during the time of the Empires, when the silver and gold in the mountains was not strictly theirs to fight over they…”
Emelia jolted at Jem’s words. “Jem, hang on. Sorry to interrupt.”
Jem looked quizzically at Emelia.
“You mentioned a war with a half… ogre? Was that in Thetoria?”
“Yes. A half-ogre mage called Vildor raised an army of ogres and goblins that threatened the seven tribes. The tribes united under King Gilibrion, who became the first High King of what was then called Trimena. That was back in the Era of Legends.”
“He was a mage? But I thought humans did not have magic until... well, the Era of Magic, centuries after that?”
“Again that’s true. Ogres however are one of the races with intrinsic magical auras. Their magi have been wielding Dark-magic for centuries, well before human mages began to practice mysticism, whether elemental or dark. Why the curiosity about Dark-magic?”
“It’s because she’s a witch!” Ekra-Hurr called over.
Emelia scowled and lowered her voice. “It’s all a bit strange, Jem. Dreams, I’m not really sure. To be fair I have met a Dark-mage twice now.”
Both Jem and Hunor sat up at this.
“What do you mean you met a Dark-mage? When?” Hunor asked, looking at Jem with concern.
“The night that we got captured by the knights. I sort of bumped into one in a graveyard. I was all right though. I’d seen him before, years ago in Coonor, just before I met you two.”
Jem’s face was concerned. “That’s why you looked so dishevelled when you caught up with me going into the inn. Why in Mortis’s name did you not mention this to us?”
“Well to be fair, Jem, we were being battered around the tavern then hauled hundreds of miles away on the back of griffons. You were sulking and Hunor was busy not coming up with any way to get us out of this. Cap it all with the slightly worrying prospect of returning to servitude in shackles, hopefully still with my head, and you might appreciate why a tale of shadow slinging creeps might have slipped my mind.”
Jem began to splutter a retort when Sir Robert approached. The mist had condensed to form tiny beads of moisture on his plate armour.
“Enough jabber about black magic you three; you’ll bring a curse down on us. Thief,” he asked, gesturing at Hunor, “your sword intrigues me. Why is a Thetorian cutpurse carrying around a Shorvorian blade? I understood they were only wielded by the Hârdan.”
Hunor looked at the knight and Emelia noted a drawn look in his face, as if the memory was pained.
“I suppose you could say it was inherited, in a way. It’s Shorvorian steel and magnate alloy, folded a thousand times and tempered in the ancient forges of the lonely isle. An old friend and mentor bequeathed it to me. He was the one who taught me to fight.”
Sir Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Magnate... god-silver... then it would be enchanted. So you say this Shorvorian taught you his fighting style also?”
Ekra-Hurr had wandered down the grassy slope and was stood by Hunor. He sneered and interrupted Hunor’s reply.
“Clearly he left out the part about winning during his lessons. Listen not to his prattle, Sir Robert; he probably stole it from the grave of some Shorvorian warrior. No honour amongst thieves.”
Emelia and Jem winced at the jibe, knowing Hunor’s sensitivity about his deceased mentor.
Hunor leapt to his feet smashing his head into the mage’s jaw. Ekra-Hurr staggered back, blood pouring from his torn lip as Hunor’s hands were suddenly free from his bonds. Sir Robert reached for his sword, which was propped against the rock. The thief shoved the knight with all his strength.
Sir Robert overbalanced on the slope and with a cry tumbled back down the hill. Hunor whirled and kicked the Air-mage in the stomach. Ekra-Hurr folded and Hunor followed the kick with a swift knee to the face and two punches to the side of the head.
Emelia watched in astonishment as Hunor grabbed the satchel off the Air Mage and, with a wink, ran off into the mist. The three other knights came crashing onto the scene. Ekra-Hurr was spluttering shattered teeth and blood onto the ground. Sir Robert’s shouts could be heard somewhere in the mists.
“In Torik’s name, I am surrounded by fools,” Lady Orla said. “Unhert, guard these two. If they as much as move then run them through. Minrik, get Robert and then pursue the thief. I shall attend to the mage.”
“He’ll be swift on foot, Captain,” Minrik said.
“Then you’d better get to it.”
Sir Minrik ran into the mists, his armour clanking. Twenty foot down the slope he found Robert trying to get to his feet. His sword lay on the grass beside him. Minrik heaved him to his feet and the pair descended the hill.
Ahead of them, Hunor slipped and slid down the hillside. He was running blind but then so were his pursuers. The mage’s bag was slung over his shoulder and he had procured a small dagger from its depths. The incline was initially steep and treacherous in the gloom, but before long it evened out.
The base of the hill ran into a rough landscape of grass, boulders and bushes. His breath burned molten hot in his chest as he crashed through the foliage. His entire attention focused on the contours of the uneven land beneath his feet.
Such was his focus that he almost toppled headfirst down a ditch that appeared as if by magic from the grey air. About twenty feet away a stream ran across mossy stones. On the near side the blue moon had lit the mist sufficiently for Hunor to make out a path and at the edge of awareness he could hear sounds of revelry. His mind raced as he scrambled up the side of the ditch.
The thief paused on the road then glanced at the stream.
“Hunor, my lad, truly you are the Prince of Rogues,” he said.
He ran to the edge of the stream and rummaged in the bag.
Two minutes later his task was done and he resumed his escape. In the distance he could hear the curses of the knights. Perhaps Sir Minrik would fall afoul of some ditch or divot or indeed a little present from the sheep that wandered the lands around here. He gauged their distance as about three hundred yards behind him. He began to run along the road, his feet darting between the fresh furrows of wagon wheels.
The mist was disorientating and his progress along the road was slow. All he could see was the road before and the road behind. It had gained a dreamlike quality, the sort of dream where you ran and ran yet never achieved the end of the trail. Jem’s voice seemed to echo in his mind: the life of a vagabond, limping from one job to another, no purpose, no reason for being. Was this road some surreal trick of his mind? Was this a portent of how his life was, running to never arrive?
The dull glow of fires through the mist turned the monochrome world a golden hue. Hunor could hear laughter and the melodic voices of singers. Lyres and drums delivered a new comforting dimension of sound and Hunor slowed his pace.
He had entered a large camp that sat on either side of the road. The occupants were a bizarre collection of characters that trod the fine line between amusing and sinister. They milled around like an ant colony, each busy in their own small part of the carnival. Hunor smiled and nodded as he adjusted his walk from the scuttle of an escaping man to the swagger of a traveller.
A rotund lady approached him. She had a beard so large that Hunor feared he would be lost within it. With her strode a midget, his body a colourful collection of tattoos. They gave him the appearance of an animated painting.
“You lost, love? I haven’t seen you in the troupe before. Sure I would have, with those puppy dog eyes,” she said.
Hunor smiled his most charming grin.
“I’ve run away from me mum to join the circus, darling. How’s about you show me the ropes?”
She giggled, flattered, but the tattooed dwarf looked at him with a strange glint in his eye. “Did you just say I was small?”
Hunor looked at him in confusion. The bearded lady shook her head in warning.
“Sorry, it’s my accent,” Hunor said. “My family are from further south in Thetoria originally. I beg your pardon for any mistake, sir.”
“Because I could kill you. One punch. Take you down. You’d be so dead they’d use you to ford the stream with.”
“No doubt, my friend, no doubt. I’ve been travelling a few days now; perhaps I could trouble you for a quick bite or a sip of ale?”
The pair led Hunor into the camp. Faces swirled around him in the smog, most indifferent to his presence. Two huge men walked past dressed in lion skins, the taint of goblin evident in their faces. A small man with no arms and legs was carried past, singing with drunken delight, his companion a black skinned Incandian.
“Fire-eater?” Hunor asked the dwarf.
“Good guess. No, he’s an acrobat. The fire-eater is that scar ridden Artorian over by the wagon. Say… did you call me a stunty?”
Hunor sighed and began to apologise when he suddenly noticed a figure in the shadows of a caravan observing him. The thief paused and tried to get a better view of the hooded figure but all he could make out was a bald head and a pale scar running up the left cheek of his face.
A skinny man with a dozen earrings shoved a flagon of ale into his hands. Hunor raised the drink and began to slurp the murky ale with relish. His eyes darted over the crowds. The throng of bodies would give excellent cover and there were a hundred nooks and crannies to hide in. His escape was complete.
Hunor coughed as smoke began to blow in his face. A wind whipped up the fires. Cries of astonishment rang out as the mass of carnival folk scattered in the gale. A griffon descended into the middle of the camp. Hunor slipped from the crowd with a curse and ran towards the wagons at the edge of the camp.
Lady Orla’s voice echoed, speaking in crisp Imperial.
“Circus folk, I seek a fugitive whom I am in the process of transferring under the name of the Eerian high council. He is a Thetorian thief—black garbed, six foot tall and with a ponytail.”
“Fly back out, knight,” the bearded lady said. “We owe you no favours, nor your stuck up kin. I’d welcome any fugitive from you with every hair in my beard!”
Orla waited for the jeers to die down before replying.
“Naturally I would not presume for such cooperation to be unrewarded. I have a bag of Eerian silver for the one who assists my request.”
Hunor had made it to the steps of a red caravan, his head ducked low. He began tugging on its lock.
“Come on, come on. Just a set of clothes in my size and a secluded road to Silverton. That’s all I ask.”
It was then he realised that a pulsing blue glow had arisen around him.
The hairs on Hunor’s neck rose and he quickly turned; Ekra-Hurr walked through the parting crowd towards him.
Ekra-Hurr yelled out, his words muffled by the swelling around his jaw. “Lady Orla, I have him.”
Hunor grinned with a bravery he did not feel and closed his hand around the dagger in the bag.
“You have found me, but you don’t have me.”
“On the contrary, I most assuredly do,” Ekra-Hurr said and clapped his hands together three times. A pulse of magical energy ripped the air with a deafening thunderclap.
Hunor flew back against the steps, his ears dulled by the noise. His chest ached from the impact and he struggled to get his breath. He felt a sudden wave of vertigo as he stood.
Ekra-Hurr was in front of him and Hunor lunged, the dagger in his hand. The Air-mage seemed to be laughing, though Hunor could not hear it. His attack slashed empty air. Then he felt a firm grasp on his shoulder and a sudden stench of ozone filled the air.
Crackling electricity wormed in rivulets of pure agony into Hunor and his body jerked and thrashed uncontrollably. Through the shroud of pain that surrounded him, Hunor could only see Ekra-Hurr’s insane face.
The thief crumpled like a broken marionette to the muddy ground as Ekra-Hurr was pulled back by Lady Orla.
“That’s enough. You’re killing him.”
As unconsciousness flowed over him he could see her stern face above him, with perhaps a flicker of concern on it.
***
The mist was sucking the warmth from Emelia. She had positioned herself as close to Jem as she felt able given that he was generally an individual whom struggled with personal contact of this nature.
Emelia broke the silence. Her head rested on Jem’s non-burned shoulder.
“Why choose now to escape, Jem? Will he get far?”
“Hunor’s good, Emelia, there’s no doubt of that,” Jem said. “It’s a good night for natural cover and Silverton is close. It will be in the midst of the Spring Festival so if he gets that far they’ll never catch him.”
Unhert seemed to stir at this. His normally cheerful demeanour was suppressed, almost as if the escape had been a personal insult to him.
“Let us hope that he makes good his escape, Wild-mage. I bear him no malice but if he is caught by Sir Minrik or, worse, the Air-mage whom he battered so effectively, then I fear we shall be taking only two of you back to Coonor.”
“But Lady Orla…” Emelia said.
“Is the captain of this mission and has taken a chance in coming to Thetoria. If this goes well she will no doubt receive accolade. If it does not, then... well, her reputation may suffer and her honour…”
“Honour?” Emelia said. “For goodness sake, you’re talking about them killing Hunor. What sort of justice is it you Eerians follow?”
Unhert’s pale cheeks flushed like poppies in the snow.
“Our justice is the oldest in the lands of Nurolia, young lady. It became the model for the Artorian Empire in its day and hence the lands you see around you. Dare I say even slaves and servants get a chance to speak at trial, although with your current performance I would advise prudence.”
Emelia felt the anger rising within her. Her annoyance was augmented by the fact she liked Unhert. He was noble, kind and respectable: the very model of a knight. In truth she was furious at Hunor for escaping. If she were here alone, would he come back and rescue her?
Your fantasies about this knight are childish, Emelia, Emebaka mocked. It is his job to take you back to the so-called Eerian justice. It is the justice of the rich, meted out for their own interests. You are a housemaid who has mocked them with your escape; at best you will be breaking rocks chained to murderers and thieves.
I care not, Emelia retorted, though my friends are thieves they have shown me more life in these few years than ever I would have had if I had remained in the Keep.
Your friends, Emebaka griped, your friends? One friend has fled and you doubt as to whether he’ll return to aid you. As for the other he is so wrapped up in his neat orderly world of legend and lore that he wouldn’t see your obvious desires for him even if you paraded naked before him.
Enough! Emelia roared at Emebaka. How dare you! Jem is a good soul and my master and tutor. I respect him and his grace and his knowledge. Your twisted mind has warped what I have thought. I am not in love with him.
But Emebaka had gone silent in the face of Emelia’s temper. The rage bubbled like a cauldron within her.
Five feet to Emelia’s side a small rock rolled away and bounced down the hillside. Sir Unhert heard the noise and stood with his sword ready, surveying the mist.
Inside Emelia a tingle was arising. It was as if thousands of strands were being woven by an invisible spider in the air and connected to her. With a surge of excitement she realised the Pure Water must be wearing off.
But her hands were still tied and this precluded any coordinated magic use. Yet it occurred to her that perhaps she may still try wield it in an uncontrolled fashion, much in the way she had those years ago in Coonor. Emotion was the key; that had been Emebaka’s strategy all along.
She thought at first of the Keep. She thought of Uthor and she thought of Sandila lying dead on the cobbles. She thought of Lord Ebon-Farr and how he would smugly hand out her just punishment. She thought of Sir Minrik and his vile attitude and she thought of the Air-mage torturing Jem. She imagined her shame at returning to Coonor then considered why should she be ashamed? She’d been sold by her own parents to a nation that deluded itself into thinking its policy of servitude was some form of charity. Spite flowed like lava through her veins and she could feel magic beginning to throb around her in the Web.
Sir Unhert was stood, sensing energy flowing in the mist. The forces built within her like a pressure cooker. Then, abruptly, into her mind’s eye sprang the blue-skinned face of the half-ogre mage from her dreams. Once again she could feel his velvety skin and his hot passionate breath.
Her concentration broke and the pent up anger dissipated. Sir Unhert looked at Emelia sensing the break in the magical tension and realised that she was its source. In a flash he had moved before her and placed the tip of his sword on her neck.
“Don’t force me into doing this, Emelia,” he said.
An impulse to push forward onto the sword came into her mind. What would it feel like, staring into his eyes as her lifeblood poured down her neck? How long would the pain last? It would be far shorter than a lifetime in Iyrit Crag.
“Emelia, do as he says. Please,” Jem said. “This isn’t the way.”
Her stubborn streak fading, Emelia slowly bowed her head in submission. Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt empty and drained.
The cry of a griffon overhead roused her as Lady Orla circled in the air. The mist swirled and turned an emerald green. It gradually coalesced into the bruised figure of Ekra-Hurr.
“Don’t fear, little witch and warlock, your thief friend lives despite my wishes,” he said. “Be grateful for Lady Orla’s intervention.”
With a crushing sensation of defeat Emelia watched Ekra-Hurr remove the bottle of Pure Water from his satchel. She wanted to scream and sob. Her magic was to leave her again.
She accepted the drops of the water on her tongue, the blade still at her throat. It tasted somehow different, somehow plain. Careful not to let her surprise show she watched as Jem took his dose, Unhert’s sword now at his neck. To Jem’s credit his astonishment passed like a shadow over his face, obvious only to those who knew the nuances of the prim mage.
The Pure Water had been switched.
***
Hunor had been dumped unceremoniously on the grass where Jem and Emelia sat.
“How is he?” Emelia asked.
“Alive. The mage did not hesitate to torture him. From what he says Hunor may well owe Lady Orla a favour.”
“I can’t see her needing to collect that in a hurry. The mage is insane. Why is he here with the knights? What’s he really after?”
“I’ve wondered the same thing. In my experience that degree of malice only comes with greed or revenge. I hope it’s the former.”
“Me also, but I’m not so certain. By Torik, I can hardly think I’m that tired. Can you feel...?”
Jem shushed her, indicating the nearby Sir Unhert.
Emelia nodded and became silent. A wave of fatigue washed over her. The return of the magical sensation within her was oddly draining and the emotional plummet at the relief of seeing Hunor again made her realise how much she had been relying on adrenaline that night.
She slipped gradually into a deep sleep; at first a refreshing nothingness then a sporadic awareness of thought as she began to dream.
Emelia was in the Keep in Coonor walking down a long corridor. At the far end was the stained glass window, a blaze of distant colour, like the end of a rainbow.
She became aware of her feet becoming heavy. She noticed with horror that a stony hue was spreading from the walls and the floor onto her bare feet and from there trickling up her legs. She realised that soon she would become part of the building itself.
By the gods, this is like the dream of the beach and my father, she thought.
As she became more like the rock so the tapestries and statuettes that lined the walls of the passage began to come to life. A bust of Lord Ebon-Farr turned and snarled at her; she stifled a cry.
Emelia backed against a large painting whose colours had begun glowing with an intense light. The grey colour had spread like a mould over her abdomen and was now on her chest. She knew that soon she would be a statue, frozen in death for all time. She turned with great difficulty to look at the painting.
It was a large painting titled “Death in Erturia.” So an Eerian painting of the Artorian Empire: how bizarre, thought Emelia. Its shimmering oil figures were in some sort of throne room, strewn with rubble and a noble looking figure was sat impassively on the throne with a crumpled corpse at his feet.
Emelia could feel the warmth radiating from the canvas. The heat was blissful, trickling through her body. The stone melted away from her as her ragged dress began to change. She noticed that her clothes had become liquid, running down her muscular body. The painting loomed and then instantly she was within it.
The throne room was huge and the artist had painted it in broad strokes giving it a blurred quality when one moved around it. Rows of carved marble columns soared to the vaulted ceiling. Statues of heroes were shattered like dolls on the black marble floor. Overturned braziers smouldered thick smoke into the chamber’s air
The corpse lay on the floor next to where Emelia knelt. Emelia was dressed in a silk gown, a solid gold brooch on her breast and a platinum and jade tiara in her hair. Scattered around her were the torn bodies of a dozen elite guards, their features indistinct as if painted as an afterthought.
The dead body before her was richly adorned and a shimmer of holiness surrounded his glittering crown.
The figure on the throne was painted with as much detail as the fallen man. His garb was black satin interrupted by hints of silver. He radiated an aura of power from his shaded face. His eyes were oddly familiar, his lips tinted scarlet as if stained with blood. Yet despite the ghoulish appearance he was oddly charismatic and Emelia felt her pulse race as he addressed her.
“Princess, attend me. Leave your father now for he is beyond hearing your tears. I desire some light relief in this cascade of death,” he said.
Emelia looked up tearfully and replied.
“My father, your Emperor, was a great man and your evil has robbed many lands of his wisdom and beneficence.”
The pale man laughed. “Forgive me, Princess. I was under the impression that the soldiers of the Empire have slaughtered more in their time than the Plague of Dust. At least so I am told. I’ve been—shall we say—indisposed.”
“May Egos and Tindor themselves convey your black soul to the Pale, you monster!”
“They’d be far back in the queue, jewel of Artoria. My soul has been bartered for like a merchant’s carpet between Onor, Sirgos, Ingor and Nekra.”
“Say not the names of evil in this palace, devil. What manner of Pale-spawn are you to invoke those demons so glibly?”
The dark robed man paused and then rose. His black robes flowed like oil as he strode towards Emelia. His face was deathly pale yet his eyes a vibrant blue.
“What manner of monster am I? I am the Darkmaster. I am a sorcerer. I am the past, the present and the future. I have risen once more as prophesised and great will be the sorrow of this mortal Empire. I am Vildor.”
Emelia jolted at the name. This was the same mage as in her last dream but he was no longer a half-ogre. Why was he here in the Artorian Empire in this dream when he had lived two thousand years before?
“Well, Vildor, you will rue the day you crawled from under your rock and murdered my father. My two brothers will avenge their father and me if need be.”
“Your brothers, Princess Coreline? Which brother would that be? The older one who staged this coup and is currently below us with his troop of rebels? Or your younger brother, the one who shudders with fear behind the gathering mages on the steps of this palace?”
“Those are lies, Prince of Evil,” Emelia said, her voice trill. “Lies to turn me against my kin. The Empire’s sorcerers will slay you and your vile servants; even the Codex allows them such action.”
“Indeed it does, Princess. My, you are more than just a clothes horse! My own mages are not bound by such sensibilities, only the four schools of fools. Ah, my day was so less complicated than all this. Humans did not wield magic and everyone knew where they were. Now we have humans spraying fire storms, Galvorians raising magical towers of stone, Subaquans and humans squabbling over salvage. I hear, whilst I was dormant, that human magicians managed to annihilate two countries! All credit to you, the ogres never dreamt of death on such a scale. What a race!”
Emelia, or rather Princess Coreline, looked with hatred at Vildor.
“You speak as if you were not human, sir. It is your race as it is mine.”
Vildor’s smile chilled her to her marrow.
“Oh, but I am so much more than that now. Come, my friends, we shall prepare for this magical battle and perhaps a little instruction for the princess on our nature.”
From the fringes of the throne room they came, dark shapes with snow white faces and red lips. The artist had painted them far in the background and horrifically as they neared Emelia their faces remained near featureless blobs of white.
“Xirik, my freshest disciple. Please demonstrate for the princess,” said Vildor.
The blank faced figure retrieved a long sword from one of the dead guards and turning it around thrust it through his chest. Emelia screamed as the sword emerged from his back and he gasped, a mixture of pain and ecstasy, before standing very much alive before her.
“What are you? What in Egos’s name are you?”
“We have many names,” Vildor said, prowling around Emelia. “Certainly we are dark wizards, sorcerers who bring our magic from the black opals that have seared into our chests. Yet amongst that cohort we are the truest masters of evil. We have forsaken our eternal souls to taste the sweet nectar of immortality. We are the undead, feeding off the warmth and life that was once ours to hold. We are called by some the vampyr lords, by some the ghasts.”
“You cannot be! That is but a tale told by wet nurses to frighten their children,” Emelia said, sobbing.
“And frightened you should be, Princess,” Vildor said. He stroked her cheek. A tingle of excitement ran down her.
Xirik approached the pair. “Word has arrived, my lord, from the usurper Prince Corillion. He claims the assembled mages have access to a prism.”
“Then this should be a battle to be proud of my protégée. For whereas their prism has but four colours, ours has five.”
From his robes Vildor brought forth a triangular prism, about the size of a large orange. It throbbed with magical energy, its blue, red, green and yellow crystal casting tiny lights around his hand. On the base Emelia could see a triangular fifth side of black crystal and the darkness was so deep that her eyes hurt to look at it.
Vildor paused as she looked at the crystal and something in his manner changed. His blue eyes met Emelia’s as if he was seeing her in a different light.
“You have seen this crystal before, haven’t you?” he asked.
Emelia felt a surge of panic and a strong need to escape. The painting around her felt claustrophobic and stifling. Her legs refused to move as Vildor came closer.
“We have to stop meeting this way. How are you in my dreams and my memories?” he said. He was very close now; his pale skin seemed almost translucent.
“Tell me where you have seen this crystal, my dear. I need to know.” His voice was like silk in her ear, in her head, in her mind.
The surrounds began to melt away, the colours flowing together then separating in some arcane whirlpool. The throne room was gone and instead the ground beneath her was a green hill, the back drop mighty purple mountains. The painting was becoming Thetoria as Emelia looked on helplessly.
Out of nowhere a small figure appeared. About four foot tall its face was identical to Emelia’s, down to the glittering eyes. Its hair was wild and rippled like water and its immature body was covered in green fish scales.
“Emelia, you stupid girl. Wake up. Now!” it shrieked. The voice had been within her head for so many years: it was Emebaka.
Vildor turned with anger in his face and lashed out at the impish creature. Emebaka ducked and then punched him square in the gut. He spluttered in pain, the prism flying from his grasp.
The world around her exploded in a cloud of paint and suddenly she was awake.
She was lying on the cool grass, her head inches from Hunor. Jem slept soundly at her other side.
Hunor was looking at her as the sweat ran down her forehead. “Another bad dream, love?” he asked.
Emelia nodded slowly. “They’re really disturbing me at the moment, Hunor. I’d been having this one about being lost in a city of purple stone for months but now... well now they’re... dark.”
“If you ask Jem he’d probably analyse every part of it. Me—I don’t think the content matters at all.”
“So you don’t think dreams matter?”
“It’s not that, no. It’s more the details are irrelevant—if they’re some message sent by the gods then who are we to understand them? I reckon it’s how they make you feel that is important.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well that’s kind of my point. How does the dream make you feel—in your guts, in your heart, as you come around?”
“It... well, it made me feel scared, but excited and... curious too.”
“So there’s the message, the meaning. Sometimes you’ve got to go with your instincts, Emelia, go with how you feel. Forget the rational voice and... just act.”
Emelia screwed her face up. “You all right, boss man?”
Hunor smiled his charming grin, “Apart from my insides feeling like the private spittoon of some syphilitic whore monger, yes. You knew I was coming back for you didn’t you, love?”
“Yes… of course. We stick together don’t we?”
“Sure we do. Get some rest, Emelia. Today was only the dress rehearsal. Tomorrow the plan comes together,” Hunor said in a whisper.
Emelia lay her head back down, although not to sleep. She had an uneasy sense that escaping from the knights wasn’t going to be their only problem.
(c) Ross M Kitson 2012