Luthiel's Song: Dreams of the Ringed Vale

by Robert Marston Fannéy

  With each gulp, her thirst grew. Too soon, the cup was empty and, with a sigh of regret, she placed it on the ground. But before her hands left the first cup, another was held in front of her. She was amazed at the ferocity with which her hands latched onto it. Her mouth was greedy and she gulped it down.

  The tingling sensation grew until it felt as though a hundred small fires were dancing beneath her skin. Her heartbeat strengthened and she could hear her pulse like drumbeats in her ears. If her senses were dull a moment earlier, she felt at the very peak of alertness now. Indeed, a sense of clarity fell upon her. Immediately, she felt embarrassed at the loud slurping noises she was making while drinking.

  Though she was still very thirsty, she paused. What was she drinking anyway? She looked down into the cup and saw that it contained a substance that looked like blood caught on fire. Golden flames licked over a deep red substance that swirled and boiled within its container. She felt disgust and held the cup away from her.

  “It’s blood!” she cried out.

  “Yes, and it’s saving your life,” Ahmberen said.

  She nodded and slowly brought the cup back to her mouth.

  As she put her lips to it, she noticed a reek rising from the blood like the burning of subtle incense. The odor was not unpleasant. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that it was water, or some exotic wine. When the blood touched her lips, she felt another onrush of overwhelming thirst. Before she realized it, the cup was empty. She put it down. Immediately, a third was placed in her hands.

  She stared up in amazement.

  “This is the last,” said Ecthellien.

  She nodded and picked it up. She was ready for the thirst this time. Nonetheless, its intensity surprised her. Her lips locked onto the cup and all she could do was gulp blood as fast as she could swallow. The sensation that was first a tingling and then a flame stopped. An instant later, she felt a jolt like lightning. Her whole body convulsed. Involuntarily she stood up.

  She dropped the cup. It rolled on the ground leaving a thin rill of blood where it passed.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  With each heartbeat she saw through new eyes, heard through new ears. She saw herself, she saw Melkion, she saw Othalas, she saw each of the Vyrl in turn. She reeled, suddenly overwhelmed with vertigo.

  She’s going to fall. The thoughts were not her own.

  She felt two sets of arms shoot out before she felt them catch her.

  What’s happening to me? She thought.

  It is the gift of our blood. The gift of the bond. She realized that the words were coming from Elshael but her lips didn’t move.

  “I can hear you. In my head. How?” she whispered.

  The blood we gave you, the blood that saved your life causes it. This is called the gift of the bond. Ahmberen thought.

  Luthiel closed her eyes and shook her head trying not to see from so many different points of view. Trying not to feel as the Vyrl did. But she couldn’t help it. She felt the power of their bodies, perceived the insights of their minds, felt the madness of hunger like a shadow in the back of her head. Even now, she could feel them wanting more blood; feel herself hungering for blood in sympathy.

  And they’ve just fed upon me. I wonder how terrible that hunger must become after a year, she thought.

  Or three thousand years, Ecthellien thought in reply. This hunger is a weak and pitiful shadow compared to what we will feel by the end of this year. But still it will be bearable. Indeed, we could last for many years before the madness began to truly set in.

  But what happened on the water? The frenzy? Luthiel shuddered to remember it. The Vyrl shuddered in empathy. She realized now, they were feeling the fear and pain that she felt. She could also feel their corresponding guilt and remorse.

  A shadow on the night, Ahmberen thought.

  There was a fell mist, Elshael thought.

  It came upon us like a dark enchantment. It drove us mad with hunger. We are fortunate that Ahmberen broke the spell. Otherwise, things would be worse, Ecthellien thought.

  As the thoughts entered her mind she felt the remembered pang of hunger that the Vyrl experienced. Even the memory was severe enough to make her bend over double. She should be angry. They’d almost killed her. But it seemed impossible for her to rage at them now. Slowly, the hunger faded.

  How can you stand it? she thought.

  Fight with all of your heart and mind. Sometimes even that is not enough, Elshael thought.

  But why would such an enchantment come upon you? she thought.

  What I wonder is who? Who could do such a thing and are they hiding somewhere just beyond the lakeshore? Elshael thought.

  I saw something there, Luthiel thought. It was like a shadow in the mists. It came when we first swam out.

  The memory of it flashed through her mind and she knew the Vyrl shared it.

  “Othalas!” Ecthellien called. “Search the far lakeshore. Be careful. Something very dangerous could be hiding there.”

  “Othalas, stay here,” Melkion said. “I’ll go. If something is there then it will be less likely to see me.”

  Melkion sprang into the air and soon disappeared into the night. She sat down on the log. Cradling her head, she tried to sort through all the things she was sensing. Closing her eyes made it worse—she kept seeing things through one or all of the Vyrl’s eyes—so she kept them open.

  Her senses remained at knife-edge clarity. The depthless sky slid by in tiny ticks. It was deep—a well in which stars were mere raindrops—and her stomach spun. She marveled. The greatest depth of all was above and she’d never realized. She imagined falling up into the endless dark and shuddered. The night was a hungry pit filled with lights. It reminded her of the Vyrl’s eyes and she shuddered to think that she was seeing through those eyes even now.

  After a short time, Melkion returned gliding to a graceful landing on an out-thrust branch above her.

  “There’s nothing,” he said. “If something was there it is gone now.”

  The Vyrl’s thoughts were revealing. They worried about Gorothoth. They worried about creatures from the depths of night that they last saw more than six thousand years ago. One by one, they dismissed these worries and left them in some dark corner of their minds.

  At least it is gone now, whatever it was, Elshael thought.

  What if this happens again next year? We have to find out before then. We came too close to losing Luthiel this time to risk it again, Ahmberen thought.

  The world is becoming a very dangerous place, Ecthellien thought. That shadow reminded me of enchantments I haven’t seen since the days of the great betrayal.

  Nor I, Ahmberen and Elshael both thought in concert.

  As she listened to the Vyrl’s troubled thoughts, Luthiel heard words that she didn’t understand, felt sensations that she had difficulty comprehending. But she was able to pierce a bit of the mystery surrounding the Vyrl and their past.

  The Vyrl’s fear was deep, feral, unreasoning. It troubled Luthiel that creatures as great as Vyrl could know such fear. But what disturbed her most were the brief flashes. Images of death and burning, the feelings of hunger, torment, isolation and the shrinking of minds by madness and depravity. She realized then that the Vyrl were victims of a devastating and ongoing spiritual torture. It was this process that had turned them into monsters. It was a process she had interrupted and she could feel their gratitude for her, their protectiveness and even adoration. Yet, in the hunger that had afflicted them that night, they sensed something akin to the spiritual weapon that had left them wrecked and broken creatures compared to the angels they once were in the great long ago.

  Under her blankets, Luthiel shivered as her wounds began to throb. She sighed wondering—Must I always suffer harm of some kind or another?

  “Could we please go back?” she asked before the Vyrl could respond to her thoughts. The normal sound of her voice reassured her somewhat. It was a sound she l
iked. The rich emotions and shades of meaning in the mental landscape made her head spin. When combined with the intensity of the Vyrl’s fear, it was just too much for her.

  “I don’t think we’ll solve this mystery tonight,” she whispered. “But I feel very hurt and I’m afraid my wounds need tending to.”

  She again felt the swell of sympathy and admiration coming from the Vyrl.

  “How could we be so careless?” Elshael said, as she moved to help Luthiel stand. “Come here. There’s a boat.”

  The rest of the Vyrl joined in, guiding her to the boat. She was amazed at how weak she still was. The blood the Vyrl had fed her had brought her back from the borders of death, but her body ached with pain and exhaustion.

  Once in the boat, a grendilo with a long pole brought her swiftly back to Ottomnos. Othalas swam alongside and Melkion and Elshael sat in the boat with her. Ecthellien and Ahmberen took a second boat but stopped short on the lakeshore. As she entered the Gates of Ottomnos they began picking through the woods, searching for any signs they could find. They were joined by werewolves and some of the Vale’s chimera creatures.

  Luthiel was rushed to her room. They built a fire for her and stripped off her blankets to tend to her hurts. Rendillo boiled water on the fire and made her cup after cup of hot tea and honey. She gulped it down, letting the warmth seep into her bones. Melkion, Othalas and Elshael stayed with her all night. It was in the early morning when she finally fell asleep. Even then, her dreams were troubled by the sights, thoughts and sensations of the Vyrl. Later on, she had a dream of Vaelros. He was among grendilo and bark-skinned giants. They were on the move and mists swirled about them. But he was happy since, for the first time in many long years, he was free. Still he kept moving, driven by some unreasoning fear of the six who pursued him. She sensed, in her dream, that his fear of them was enhanced by having been one of them. It was their state he feared—a state of perpetual torment on the border between life and death. For within him, there was a deep hurt that may never fully heal—a wound left by the curse that nearly killed him. Even in her dreams, she marveled at the likeness of his thoughts to those of the Vyrl.

  A Brief Rest

  When Luthiel awoke, her entire body felt stiff and battered. For a long time, she just lay in her bed, staring up at the charred glass ceiling. Melkion fluttered into view, then landed on the bed beside her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  “It hurts to move,” she replied.

  “Well, you have certainly earned your rest. I think it would be wise for you to stay in bed for a while.”

  Luthiel swallowed. The wounds on her neck—old and new—made it hurt.

  “I’m afraid you’re right. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I’d be able to stand.”

  “You lost quite a lot of blood last night. We’re lucky to still have you with us. Wait here while I have Rendillo bring you some breakfast.”

  “Thank you Melkion,” she said.

  But before Rendillo arrived, she’d fallen asleep again. Outside, rain began to fall and she slept through the morning and into the afternoon as the pitter-patter whispered over Ottomnos.

  She awoke again to the smell of steaming tea and of lunch.

  Melkion was insistent.

  “You need to eat!” he said. “If you don’t, you won’t get your strength back.” He flapped his wings in exasperation.

  “Melkion,” she said. The words came out soft and her throat hurt but she still chided him. “You’re acting like a mother willow-jay brooding over chicks!” She laughed but not too much, because it hurt.

  Melkion swished his tail in exasperation.

  “You! You need a little brooding over! Now sit up and eat your lunch!” A thin wisp of smoke rose from his nostrils and swirled into a ring around his head before drifting out the slit window.

  Laughing softly, she sat up and ate her food. When she finished, drowsiness settled over her again and she was soon drifting off to sleep.

  Now and again, the Vyrl’s thoughts would enter her dreams. But they were distant and difficult to understand. She could sense their fear, though, and during these times, she would wake up staring at the ceiling for long periods until the whispers in her mind faded.

  At other times, she was disturbed by nightmares. At first, the dreams were about drowning in Miruvoir, too weak to swim from loss of blood. In her dreams the Vyrl didn’t stop drinking her blood. They were overcome by hunger and the dark enchantment in the mists. But as time wore on, her nightmares changed. Widdershae hunted in the Vale of Mists. Sometimes it was her they hunted, sometimes it was Vaelros. Worse, Dimlock seeped out of the Cave of Painted Shadows at night. They hid in the dark places—the depths of the wood where even the noonday sun was enfeebled by the dense canopy and the mists and in the deep crevasses from which the mists seeped. There they waited, ready to leap upon the unwary and strangle them. Still worse, six half-dead wolfriders prowled through the Vale, their cold eyes flashing in the smoky mists. In one dream the six confronted her again.

  “Where are the Vyrl? Where is Othalas? What will you do now that you are all alone?” Evaldris hissed.

  In the dream, the six drew their swords in unison, the wolves they rode upon unhinged their breathless jaws, and they slowly advanced upon her.

  During dreams like these, she awoke with a start.

  “Luthiel, are you alright?” Melkion would ask.

  “It’s nothing, just dreams,” she would reply.

  Despite the intermittent nightmares and the rare intrusion of Vyrl-thoughts, she rested, letting Melkion and Rendillo nurse her back to health. She continued to doze for the rest of the day, eating when food was brought to her, then falling asleep again. The rain fell throughout the day, into the night and through the next morning. She’d fallen again into napping when a calm, familiar, voice stirred her.

  “Luthiel Valkire! My, my! Who would have ever thought it?”

  Luthiel’s eyes fluttered open at the sound. Standing over her, robed in grey-green and wearing a wide-brimmed brown hat was a wet and travel-stained Mithorden.

  “Mithorden!” she cried in surprise, and then immediately regretted her exuberance as pain shot through her throat.

  His eyes sparkled and he laughed.

  “You’ve come far since we last met. If I recall correctly, you were quite hopeless. Though somewhat battered, I’d say that now you are certainly better off than hopeless!”

  The sorcerer chuckled as he sat down on the bed next to her. “Now, let me have a look at you.”

  He inspected the wounds on her arms, her neck, her head and glanced at the older scars.

  “Well, it seems you’ve had a very rough time of it. I see the Vyrl still haven’t learned how to treat a lady,” he said while turning her arm to inspect the bite marks. He brushed the circlet on her forehead. “At least they give you gifts that suit you.”

  She watched him in wonder. There was a comfort in his presence that reminded her of home. His steady, perfectly sane eyes held in them a light that seemed to brighten even the charred glass walls.

  “Mithorden, what made you come here?”

  “Why you, of course,” he said. “If you remember, I promised I would help you as best as I could. Well now that my business, and a very nasty business it was, in Ithilden is finished, I’ve come to lend what aid I can. From the look of you, it seems I’ve arrived just in time.”

  Luthiel remembered the spell that hid her from the Widdershae.

  “You’ve already helped me, Mithorden. Were it not for you, I’d be stuck in some spider’s larder, or worse.” She shuddered when she spoke of the spiders. They had haunted her dreams ever since her encounter at the river. But they weren’t alone. The Dimlock of the Cave of Painted Shadows and the half-alive, half-dead wolfriders of Ashiroth had all visited her in nightmares lately.

  “Hush! Don’t speak of such things!” He laid a hand upon her head. “I know it has been very difficult for you and there will, indeed, c
ome a time when we must again speak of them. Sooner rather than later, most likely! No matter how much we wish it, they won’t go away! But do not burden your mind with the thought of them. Now is the time for rest and healing.”

  With that, he sat down in her chair and pulled out a bag which he placed before her.

  “It’s Yewstaff fruit. Eat it all! I’m not going to leave this room until every last piece is gone.”

  “What if I want you to stay?” she asked.

  “Then eat slowly.” He laughed. “But eat them all the same. They will help you get well.”

  And with that he launched immediately into a droll tale about Mad Mazriel the Mazecrafter who built every variety of maze both cunning and dangerous. This particular tale started with Mazriel outsmarting himself by crafting a maze, that even he, the master could not escape. He built it working from the outside in. When he found himself in the center, he realized he was lost. Then proceeded a perilous but often comical adventure as he attempted to escape from his twisted creation.

  Luthiel ate the Yewstaff fruit as she listened. Now and again, she broke into fits of laughter. When the tale was finished, so was the fruit. Afternoon had blended into evening and evening into night. Rain still whispered as it fell over the fortress.

  “Now, wasn’t that fun?” he said. “I haven’t had the opportunity to tell old Mazriel’s tale for some time now.”

  “It’s a fine tale,” she said. “Do you know any more stories about Mazriel?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you please tell them?”

  “Ohoh!” Mithorden exclaimed. “Not tonight! Time to sleep and let the fruit do its magic. But I promise you, if you like, I will tell you another tale tomorrow come morning!”

  Luthiel nodded. She was still exhausted from her ordeal even though she’d slept for the better part of two days.

  “Will you stay here with me?”