Over the Sunken Realm - Part 7

You have met with the Druegans in their secret hideout, but a Drake has come. Now you must find the Dreamer before it is too late!

You leave Zvakar and the other Druegans behind and go to meet the Dreamer.

Heart pounding in your chest, you throw yourself down the corridor before you. As stygian darkness engulfs you, your only guide is the voice of the Elder, echoing eerily into your mind: this way, Elmorlèm! Follow! Quick!

READ PART 6 HERE:

But all the old Druegan’s encouragements do not make your legs any lighter: every step you take away from the people behind you feels like torture. Even as their screams of terror and war cries grow silent – the entrance of the corridor must have been sealed as you walked in – you can hear Bazkior’s rolling accent shouting orders, and Zvakar’s rocky voice blurting out curses above the fray. You shake your head: probably a trick your ears are playing on you. But then again, how could you be sure?

Of all the times you have fled from some unguessed danger, this moment is the hardest. Over little more than a day, you have been confronted with dreadful dangers and spine-tingling creatures; something you would never have even imagined, in the numbingly quiet doldrums Down Below!

And even more incredible yet, other beings have stood by your side, and risked life and limb to save you. The very same people you are now leaving behind to face an even greater danger.

Your fingers grasp the handle of your drapnor – a weapon you have already used to save Zvakar from the Kobolds. Your heart, your very blood screams at you to get back there, and fight, or die, by their side. Long-dormant impulses freshly awakened course through your veins, drowning out even your survival instinct. Whether it is honor or bravery or simply foolishness, you cannot say.

They will live. The Drake has not come to kill them.

The voice of the Elder echoes again inside your head, breaking through the confusion of your own thoughts. Though not reassured, you press on. The corridor is darker than ever now; you claw instinctively at the darkness in front of you, and you can feel it peel away like cobwebs under your sweeping fingers. The sound of your feet on the bare rock vanishes, as if cushioned by the deepening shadows. You have a harder time breathing. Taking one long breath, and although your lungs fill up with damp, stuffy air, you find that you cannot hear your own respiration.

Noises vanish around you. Cold sweat beads your forehead: you can’t even tell whether or not your hands are touching rocks, or mere shadows. You might as well be upside down, or back under water. In a fit of madness, you rush onwards, knocking your head, arms, shoulders and knees on unseen rocks; you can barely feel it as you run. Run, run, the Elder’s thoughts say, it is not far.

The rock walls are closing in on you now, and the further in you go, the less you can move; you go in on the side, and keep your arms outstretched above your head. Sharp stones scrape against your chest, back and shoulders as you crawl sideways into the passage. Your breathing is laborious, and almost shattered by panic.

Another voice rings out, shaking you to your core. You cannot make out any words, but you can tell it is a human voice, though deeper than any human voice you have ever heard. And, as you quickly find out, it’s a woman’s voice. A blinding blue light sparks up from beyond the passage, edging out the thin way through which you must pass. Stones press on your chest as you worm your way through, blood pumping into your temples, hands shaking with terror.

Finally the rock walls give way, and you fall sideways on a polished floor. After the panicked exertion of the shadowy passage, it feels almost soft to the touch. But a second later, you rise again, staring at the strange being before you.

In a flash, almost instinctively, you understand this is the Dreamer.

Her short, stocky body is hidden under wraps of grayish rags; only her hands stick out, with long, greenish, stone-like fingers open in a greeting pose. Strands of silver-white hair sprout down her round head like wild weeds drooping down from the rock they grew in. But nothing in her strange appearance is anything close to the wonder and terror of her eyes.

They shine like beacons of white, blue and green, illuminating the entire room. Yet they are not fixed upon you: she seems to be looking at something above your head. You turn your head to see what it may be, but can only make out the sheen rocky surface above the cave entrance. You start to wonder how deep under the sea level you may be, when the rocky face suddenly comes to live, her mouth opens, and utters two words:

WELCOME, GRIZMALDA.

Some sounds are so deep and powerful they feel like they make your body reverberate; when she speaks, her words ring out through your bones and send your entire body quivering. It is as if the mountain itself had a voice: words knot and creak like roots delving into the depths of the world, carving out their path through earth and stone with relentless, staggeringly-ancient patience from the very beginning of existence. You fall on your knees, and try to recompose yourself, but the Dreamer speaks again:

I CAN SEE YOU BEFORE YOU ARE BORN. I CAN SEE YOU AFTER YOU ARE DEAD. BUT TODAY I AM BLIND. COME NEAR, GRIZMALDA, AND LEARN WHAT YOU HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.

Is it the imperial authority in the old woman’s voice? Are you simply too tired to do anything else? At any rate, you scramble up to her, failing to stand up as your knees keep shaking.

PUT YOUR HANDS IN MINE, AND SEE.

With an instant of hesitation, you lay your right hand into her own.

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Thunder rumbles over your head. Whether you open or shut your eyes, the darkness around you remains impenetrable. You try to move, but your body does not respond: you can feel it floating about in the dark, as if under water, but you cannot feel anything – not even the need to breathe.

How long you have remained here, suspended in the inscrutable aether, your mind wide awake in a cold, dead-like body, you could never tell. Time does not pass here. You may have been there for the length of a millisecond or since the beginning of time. You are only aware of one thing: you are waiting – for what, you cannot say – and may have been waiting for all eternity.

“You have been here before, haven’t you?”

And instantly, out of the darkness, the Dreamer appears. But this time, she appears to be a completely different being: her face is young and rosy, her golden tresses stream down upon her shoulders, and her eyes, though they are still blue and lidless, are no longer shining like blinding beacons in the night. Instead, they make you think of faraway stars, looking benevolently on humans; or warm lamps to light your way home. She smiles, but even her smile seems distant, like she is talking to you from an unfathomable distance. And her voice, inhuman only an instant ago, now has all the gentle and friendly intonations you could wish for:

“I have seen you wander here. You have been here forever, and yet only for a brief instant. It is strange, and yet not; for in this aether-realm, we are not bound to time. In the Inner-Realm, they call me Dreamer: for I dream of what was and what will be. Here, I am only Ilaïva.”

For a fraction of an instant that lasts a thousand lifetimes, you see the darkness around you come alive. Everywhere around you, you see pools of light slimming down to mighty rivers that divide themselves into a million looping threads, which meet, pass by, twist around or crash into each other with incredible swiftness and power. The threads cross each other in an endless loop, like lightning bolts in a ball of yarn; . And at the heart of this joyful and terrible chaos, reigning supreme over it or merely witnessing its glory, Ilaïva laughs.

“I know more about you than you can guess: once you will ask, and once I will answer.”

Her eyes grow wide, and the streams of light passing by her flow into one, turning into a flickering wave of lightning which, rising far above you, stands still for an instant, and falls upon you. Light explodes in your eyes, and all goes dark.

But the darkness is alive, and in it visions are given to you:

Tall statues, carved out of the blueish mountainside, glare down with serpentine eyes at the greenish sands at their feet. On their knees are great weapons, and upon their heads eagle-like coiffes. Beasts swim past them, and seaweed crowns their worn-out heads. You pass through them, and through the mountainside; thousands of columns, higher than anything you have ever seen, stretch out towards the horizon. At the foot of each, lies a bubble of glass. You pass into one of them, one in a million: in it are thousands more bubbles, but smaller, agglomerated together in neat rows. Thin, specter-like creatures with solemn all-black eyes glide in between them, sometimes stopping before one for an instant. You move closely behind the Creature with repulsion, and look at the bubble he just stopped in front of: it is made of glass, or some other solid transparent material.

And in it, naked, hairless and asleep, you see yourself.

Reality crumbles around you, and you are drawn up at a fantastic speed. You pass through the mountain, and right out of the ocean, until the sun appears, blazing above you in a clear blue sky. The water below you is so clear you can see the black mountain you rose out of. Instantly, just as you looked down, you are drawn back towards it! You rush at breakneck speed until, instead of splattering over the rocks, you pass through it; orange-lit corridors pass before your eyes as you go deeper and deeper. Creeping insect-like creatures you have already met before appear once more before you: you look around, and see hundreds and hundreds of sagging abdomens, clicking legs and snapping jaws. And as you are drawn onward, rushing through them at a horrifying speed, you find yourself standing before a mound: the only piece of rock that the Creatures will not walk on. And as you stare into it, you begin to see through even the black stone, which turns to crystal glass:

And in it, lying down, dressed in armor from another age, clutching the handle of a blazing, naked sword, you see yourself.

The Voice of Ilaïva rings out once more: “choose now, Elmorlèm. These are the two paths that lay before you: one in the Sunken Realm, which you call Down Below; and the other in the Mountain, where lies the sword of Garral. Which of these paths will you take?”

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