“I'm sure they'll send the hunting parties farther out too.”
They made short work of their meal in silence. Gordy took off with the bowls to wash them. When he returned Vyto was untying his boots. Sweat was pouring off of him in waves.
“Let me help you with that, buddy,” Gordy offered. He sat down at Vyto's feet and untied and loosened the boot laces. “You really aren't looking so good. Do you feel okay?” Vyto's face had paled considerably.
“Never better. Thanks for helping me out.”
“No problem.” He began to take the boot off, but stopped when he heard a shrill bark.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” said a voice.
They looked up to find an old man with a red fox at his side.
“Hey, I saw your pet earlier—he was following me,” Vyto said.
“He is no one's pet,” answered the old man. “And he was not the only one following you.”
A man with white hair kneeled on Vyto's other side. “He is in a fever, Zander.” Despite his white hair, this man looked young—perhaps in his mid to late twenties.
“A blind man can see that,” said Zander, stooping down to look at Vyto's eyes. “Poor fellow. You should be glad your friend asked us for help.”
Vyto whipped his head back to Gordy, who flinched. Anger roiled up in him until he saw the tears of shame in the eyes of his friend.
“I'm sorry. I couldn't let this go on. You're in too much discomfort. Please, don't be angry.”
He breathed in deeply as a wave of dizziness blurred his vision. “I am not angry,” he said heavily. “I just don't want to be pampered, is all. There's other people who need more care than I do.”
Gordy shook his head. “No, there isn't. You took care of them all. Now let us do the same for you.”
“Your Majesty, I'll need some hot water and clean rags,” said Zander.
Vyto looked around them, bewildered. “I thought I was the one with the fever.” There was no royalty around that he could see!
But then the fox shivered, transforming instantly into a young man with eyes that matched those of the white haired guy. The fox-man wore rumpled Royal Robes.
“Your Highness!” he exclaimed, knowing now who it was that squatted before him. “Forgive me; I did not know!”
“I am sure he can forgive you, seeing as how you've done nothing wrong.” The gentle voice belonged to a woman whose face was hidden by her robe...a robe which matched the King's. She was flanked by Top Knot man and the other gentleman that had been watching him as well.
“My Queen?” Vyto said, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
The woman peeled back the purple robe to reveal a face framed by beautiful red curls. She smiled down at him. “So, you are my Dreamer?”
“Yes, my Queen, I am.”
“And why have you hidden yourself from me?”
Vyto closed his eyes, suddenly nauseated again. “Because I do not like what I can do.”
She knelt beside him, taking Keelan's place as he and the others went to fetch the water. “Sometimes I feel the same way, my friend. With my magic, I can do many great things. Unfortunately people expect the best of me, even at the same times I do my worst. Everyone that is born with a special talent must learn to master that talent before it masters them.” She rubbed his brow. “Do you feel ill?” When he nodded, she whispered strange words into his ear.
He opened his eyes. “What did you do?”
“I made some of the dizziness go away. You need a clear head.”
“Can you take away the pain in my feet?”
“No, I'm afraid my magic needs more practice with curing pain.”
Her King returned a few minutes later with several buckets of steaming water. Zander instructed them to soak Vyto's feet in the water while he still wore his boots. The boots, he said, would be thrown away anyway because of the risk of the infection returning. Vyto was dismayed, saying that they were the only boots he had, and that he couldn't very well walk bare-foot to Lordale. King Keelan offered one of his own pairs, sending the other man (Vyto thought he was called Sir Grant) off to get them.
Vyto soaked his feet—boots, socks, and all—in the hot water, not bothering to protest when they slowly began to cut away the boots. For the first time in his life he did not feel uncomfortable around a group of people who knew that he could Dream...and he had Gordy to thank for it. He looked at his friend and smiled. “I appreciate what you've tried to do for me.”
Gordy blushed, then nodded.
After a while the Queen removed his feet from the water and placed them on a clean towel. She let Zander and Lord Cambry take over as she watched quietly. Cambry placed some herbs under Zander's nose, telling him the purpose of the plant was to cure and prevent infections. The old man had a different plant with the same use (both claimed to have used their plants to help heal the King). They ended up crumpling both plants into one of the buckets of clean water as the white-haired brother of the King carefully cut away Vyto's socks. The Queen took a clean cloth and went to wet it in the bucket. She frowned at the water for a moment, then smiled and put the cloth in. She wrung it out and pressed it to his forehead.
“How long have you been Dreaming?” she asked him quietly. She politely ignored all of the inquisitive stares of the surrounding soldiers, acting as if he were the only one in her attendance.
“Ever since I can remember,” he said, his body feeling better by the minute. “My parents had different ideas for my ‘talent’, and so I kept it to myself and told them I had stopped having the dreams.”
“Well, I shall never use your talent for anything other than you wish, my friend. And I must say that I am pleased you decided to share your dreams with us when you did…else a whole lot more of people would have been lost. This is the least we can do to repay you.” She dipped the cloth into the bucket again, this time applying the wet fabric to his blistered, bleeding feet. She began to apply a little bit of pressure to his skin, trying to cleanse his feet as best as she could. But when she looked at the skin she had just wiped over, shock rippled through her. “It seems as though you’re better already,” she said.
King Keelan, Gordy, Frero, Lord Cambry, and Quentin edged closer to see.
Vyto’s eyes widened, and then teared up. “Thank you. By the gods, it’s a miracle! May Chin and all her kin place their blessings upon you!”
She continued cleaning him, and as she wiped his sores, they disappeared into the cloth, leaving behind pink, baby smooth skin in its wake.
Later on, as the Queen and her entourage were returning to their campsite, Frero pulled Silvia aside.
“How did you do that spell?” he asked fervently. “I wasn’t aware that you could cure people!”
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “I had help.”
The old man was silent a few moments, thinking it out. “From Aldoa, do you think?”
Silvia smiled and nodded. “I saw her image in one of the buckets of water right before I started working on his feet. She’s the one who healed him, not me. I’m glad she did it, too. I don’t see how that poor man was even able to stand on those feet.”
Frero nodded. “I know. I’ve never seen such wretched-looking appendages. It’s too bad the Goddess herself can’t go with us to war. Think of the lives she’d save.”
She shook her head. “Her home is on that mountain, with her Healing Spring. She would never leave that place, and I cannot blame her. It’s almost like a sanctuary. She’s been there for who knows how long, and I don’t think that will ever change.”
Frero frowned at this as they walked on, wishing her words were not true.
In her dream she was in a thick forest filtered with strong moonlight. She couldn’t have said where she was, though it reminded her of the eerie wood she had dreamt of—what?—one or two months ago? In that dream she had been stalked by a beast out of her worst nightmares. Keelan had come to her for the first time that night, entering her dream and slaying the beast ju
st in the nick of time. But she wasn’t the same person anymore; she was stronger, and more confident. She would not let this dream scare her. She closed her eyes and felt the forest around her. If there was anything hostile here, she couldn’t sense it. But there was something there…
Her eyes popped open and she scanned the trees around her. Something very big moved on her left, and she caught a glimpse of a shining hazel eye watching her before it disappeared. A noise to her right now warned her of another presence, though she didn’t see anything in the darkness. Again, she felt no ominous vibes from either presence, and so accepted them almost as part of the forest.
She began to move, weaving her way around thick trunks and twisting branches. She hadn’t a clue as to where she was going; she only wanted to explore this strange wood full of secrets. As she ambled forward slowly she heard both creatures following her, matching her pace. She didn’t feel at all threatened, and so she didn’t mind the hidden company (although the larger one sometimes snorted loudly or made sounds like trees breaking, making her jump). At times she thought she heard a man humming. His tune was smooth as a lullaby, soothing her nerves. Several times she began to walk towards the voice, but it always stopped, only to start again somewhere else.
Eventually she came to a decrepit looking bridge over a dry creek bed. Sparkling spots in the dry soil captured her attention and she walked down to have a better look. She slipped and stumbled to the creek bed, cutting the side of one bare foot as she went. At the bottom she picked up one of the beautiful sparkles and peered at it closely. It looked like a grain of sand, but shone like a diamond in the sun.
Just then she heard the large creature crashing through the underbrush, hell-bent on the bridge. From the other side of the bridge ran the dark figure of a tall man. As she watched in shocked silence from below, a dragon the size of a large house burst forth from the trees, not hesitating when it saw the man running towards it. The weight of the beast should have collapsed the structure instantly, but it held fast. The man, so much smaller than the beast, still ran at full speed. In the center of the bridge he issued a primal scream, the dragon roared thunderously, and they collided in a brilliant blast of light.
Silvia shielded her eyes with her empty hand. When the flash receded, she saw a man on his hands and knees atop the bridge, shaking. He eased himself to his feet, a silhouette against a starry sky. His eyes opened, shining a beautiful hazel gaze in her direction. Her breath caught in her throat as he disappeared.
She looked down at her other hand, disheartened to find that the sparkly grain of sand had lost all its brilliance. “How bizarre,” she murmured.
“How can something so beautiful and so wondrous be bizarre?” said a small voice.
Silvia turned to find a small boy at her side. “I don’t understand why it stopped shining,” she said.
The boy shook his head and smiled sweetly. Several sparkles shone in his blonde hair. “It stopped shining because it came true.”
“What came true? Was it a wish?”
“Not exactly. It was a dream. His dream came true.”
Silvia was perplexed. “Whose dream?”
The boy lifted his arm to point at the bridge. “His.”
“His dream was to play scaredy-cat with a dragon?” she asked.
His childish laughter rang through the quiet night like tiny bells. “No, silly. He became one with the dragon. He embraced it and took it into himself. Now they are as one… just like you and your dragon.”
She felt a stirring inside, and knew her dragon was listening in. “How do you know of my dragon?”
“I have seen it in your dreams before,” said the child. More shining sparkles were in his hair now, a few of them falling gently onto his tiny shoulders. “Very few embrace everything that is given to them. The ones that do are more…’whole’ than everyone else. You accepted your magic and have worked hard to master it, though you still have a way to go. The man on the bridge has fully taken the dragon into himself and has therefore made his dream a reality. He can never be separated from his dragon.”
“What does the dragon represent? Is it his fears?” she asked.
“It is a dragon, nothing more and nothing less. He is like you.”
Silvia’s eyes grew wide. “There are others like me?”
He shook his head, the glimmering specks of ‘dream sand’ falling all over his clothes. Where they were coming from she did not know, but there appeared to be more and more of them. “I can explain no more.”
She leaned forward and touched one of the sparkles, and it seemed to stick to her finger. She lifted it to her eyes. A slight mist began to form around the shiny crystal, forming colors, then images, until she could clearly see a young woman rubbing her large tummy. She had one arm hooked with a nice-looking man and they were taking a stroll in a meadow of golden flowers. They were both smiling and laughing, no doubt commenting on their future parenthood. The scene was so moving that tears stung her eyes.
“Your magic is stronger than I thought,” said the boy in awe. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “Can you see me?”
Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean? You’re right here; of course I can see you.”
“No, I mean can you see me?”
She stared, bewildered, at the boy and his shimmering hair…then at the air surrounding him. The air flickered as she began to notice the faint outline of someone much taller. In moments, the boy began to fade away and a man started to appear in his stead. His flowing robes were of a glittering gray and green material. Sandals ensconced his feet and his silver hair was threaded throughout with sparkling crystals of the dream sand. He smiled warmly.
“Congratulations, my dear. You’re the first mortal to see my true face in over four hundred years.”
She suddenly knew who stood before her. “My Lord Firayis?”
He bowed deeply. “At your service, Queen Silvia of Lystia.”
She dropped into a deep curtsy, bowing her head in respect to the God of Dreams. “And I am at yours.”
“It would seem as though I am not the first god you have met recently.”
“I have met the Goddess Aldoa, and have been blessed by her healing touch,” Silvia replied.
“Ah, but she is not the only one you have encountered.”
Silvia laughed. “I believe I would have remembered if I had happened upon another god.”
Firayis shook his head. “Sometimes you mortals can be so blind. Do you not recall the man who came to you in the early morning hours at the Healing Spring?”
Her jaw dropped open. “That was a god?”
“None other than Lord Geldin himself.”
“I did not know,” she said softly. She was blushing in shame. “I shall have to make a prayer of apology for my brazen attitude with him.”
Firayis waved his hand, laughing. “That will not be necessary, my dear. I can guarantee you are not the first person he has angered, nor will you be the last. He came to you to give you advice—advice that you must heed. When a god or goddess feels the need to speak with you and bestow their intimate knowledge upon your ears, it is wise to open yourself and listen to their words. We have lived long, and know so much more than mortals. Geldin merely wished to help. Remember his words, milady.”
“I shall remember,” she said humbly. “My Lord, have you been helping us through Vyto?”
He nodded. “Sometimes we cannot help directly, and must go through other channels. Listen to his dreams, Silvia. I am a very busy god, and do not always have time to pay such personal visits. Through his dreams I can guide you.”
She noticed he was beginning to fade away. “Wait! Do I have any dreams here, Lord Firayis?”
“Many, my dear. You have so many here.”
“Will they come true?” she asked.
His last words came as an echoing whisper as he completely vanished. “Only if you make them…only if you make them.”
Chapter Seventeen: Approaching N
illias
She awoke with a start, and the first thing she noticed was that her dragon’s senses were on high alert. Her sense of smell, to be exact…something was near that she could just barely scent. The second thing she noticed was the uncanny feeling of being watched. Seeing as how she had foregone putting up her tent (she had wished to fall asleep under the starts that night) it shouldn’t have been a big deal, right? After all, anyone could be looking at her. She sat up slowly, not wishing to disturb Maura, who had trained herself to be a light sleeper during the past nineteen years. Maura and Hans slept on her left, both snoring softly in their sleep. Her King, whose face was stern and concerned even while dreaming, was lying on her right side. Quentin slept beside him, face turned towards his little sibling. Behind her lay Frero and Zander, tucked into thick blankets despite the warm summer night. At her feet sat Lord Cambry, watching her intently with his legs folded tailor-style in front of him. Not taking his eyes off of her, he reached down, picked up a water sack, and handed it to her. She wasn’t all that certain she cared to drink anything given to her by this strange man, but she took a big drink anyway. She nearly choked as strong rum slid smoothly down her throat.
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