“Hester, I think these visions have been false. I fear we are being led into a trap.”
It had been a long day at the palace. Life there seemed to consist entirely of interminable stretches of social visits. Or formal liaisons. Often both at the same time. Being guests in Lorea’s care, we were spared the most sensitive of the realm’s business, but we were expected to join in the eating, sitting, and entertainment.
Today’s visitors included Mayor Plina of one of the outlying towns, Chethe of the Windvalley Riders, and a band of dry goods merchants who had recently brought a fabulous shipment of textiles and clothes from weavers overseas to the north. We took our meals with them, sat over tea with them, toured the grounds with them, and sat for music with them (a hearty, if unrefined, performance by Lorea’s young brother). In return, they—along with Nico and the household—bore witness to a formal reception for Hester, Gena, and myself. There, Lorea commended us for our service to her Word and our steadfast commitment to such an uncertain and dangerous quest against nefarious forces. She presented us with gifts, even: clothes fit for travel (and especially for the saddle) for the three of us, an indigo tabard charged with Ae’s sigil for Hester, a beautifully bound and illuminated copy of the Word for Gena, and above all, a fine, thick tome for myself, every last page blank.1
It seemed—and still seems—ill-mannered to complain about a full day of honor and leisure with fine company. But it was exhausting, and by the time I finally had a moment with Hester apart from Lorea, the sun had set and my eyes were bleary. When I was finally able to put my theory to him, it was in the privacy of his room.
He gave me an odd look. That reaction was better than I had feared, but not what I had hoped.
“I am disappointed. I thought your faith sturdy,” he replied, after a brief silence.
“It’s not about my faith, it’s about… how this has all happened.”
“Are we not charged to study her Word closely, and with zeal?”
“Well, yes, and that’s why…” I began, making my fatal mistake.
“There is no doubt in my heart of this vision or of Ae’s Word ringing in my ears.”
“None? No chance that there is an interloper impersonating…”
“None.”
I gaped helplessly.
“The road to Ilianath… I suppose it is far,” he said, looking at a map unfurled on his small desk. He had offered to dismiss of me so swiftly, so matter-of-factly. It hurts to recall even now.
“No, I’m coming with you,” I said, electing for “I” instead of “we” to avoid implying I had already had this conversation with Gena.
He looked back at me.
“Well,” I said, “The Doctrina Tempestas is missing, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he replied, smiling.
“Consider it an expression of my faith.”
He said, “I suppose I shall.”
A few minutes later I returned to my room and sat on the bed. I waited, looking around the little room, and I listened. It was very, very quiet. The bustle of the household and staff had long faded, and the night just outside my window was mysterious, dark, and still. Even the normally windy uplands held their breath in anticipation of our journey. No footsteps nor conversation echoed through the hall outside.
It was just what I was hoping to hear.
I retrieved my notes from the drawer, crept up to the window, and took a few mental measurements of the night sky. I checked my notes and then the sky again.
And then I took my notes and my empty tome and I left my room. I made for the wine cellar.
I had marked it earlier, when Lorea had sent Venali down there just a few hours prior, a duty I had assumed would be beneath him as a soldier but he had accepted sportingly. He had turned the corner, and the clomping of his greaves told me that he had soon turned a corner after that, opened a door, and descended a long set of stairs into the heart of the mountain. Climbing down those stairs myself, I pitied the fortress’s builders. It would’ve been long, backbreaking work to hew this into the granite mountain. And all that for a wine cellar?
No, I thought with a tiny surge of excitement. They wouldn’t have done all that just for a wine cellar. I was on the right track.
At the bottom, I found another door, and I pushed on it with great gingerly caution. The door rewarded my tender care with a cringe-inducing creak. To appease the door, I opened it only as far as I needed to, before sliding it swiftly (with another painful complaint) shut.
It was pitch black in here, which I hadn’t, strictly speaking, considered before closing the door. No matter: I called upon my arcane light. A whisper of the correct incantation produced the tiny point of light on my fingertip, and the casks and frames and their long, stark shadows sprang into my sight. I can’t tell you how long I took to find what I was looking for in there, nor could I have said, right then, what it was I was looking for. But after long minutes (hours, maybe?) of feeling about the cellar, under and around casks, behind discarded furniture and in dusty corners…
The door swung open behind me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed that it didn’t creak so atrociously that time. I felt a bit betrayed.
“Howe?” Gena inquired of the dark room.
I trudged out from behind a rack of bottles, carrying my little point of magical light with me. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Good,” she said. “You’re not very sneaky.”
“Apparently not. I’m not after the wine, if that’s what you’re…”
“I can already see that, you doofus. You came to find the Halls, didn’t you?”
“… Yes. How did you know?”
“It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the last three days. I knew you would have a fascination, too. I can’t sleep; I heard you coming down here, and I knew right away.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint…”
“Oh, don’t worry. I knew you wouldn’t find them down here.”
I was, simultaneously, a bit intrigued and a bit embarrassed. “A step ahead of me, are you?” I said, a bit more hotly than I intended.
“Horwendell, Apprentice Wizard,” Gena chuckled. “You wizardly types forget that intelligence can be found outside your fancy hats.”
“I don’t mean to belittle or underestimate you,” I huffed. “I’m all ears.”
“You came down here, I suppose, because you found the other way down low—the ground floor of the Hall of the League, I think you said. And the living quarters of this castle are all quite high up. And anyway, down low is a natural place to go looking for roots, but… that’s… erroneous. Not the right way to think of it. This isn’t a physical alignment of cosmoses we’re talking about.”
“So there’s no rhyme or reason to the ways? That would be disheartening.”
“No physical reason. Which leaves…”
“Ment…no, you mean…”
“Divine.”
“Hmm.”
“The Halls. ‘A place where thought and will flow freely’. Spirits willed into being by the Lightbringer. A place of serenity and solitude. What else could it be but her own refuge?”
“And so, you suppose, its connection to this realm is contingent to her will.”
“Right.”
“Are you sure…” I began, calculating. “Are you sure? Forgive me, but… the good apostles are famous for seeing the Lightbringer’s will in everything. It’s your job.”
“You would count on us to correctly identify the Lightbringer’s will in the places it is, indeed, present in, no? And besides…”
“I know, I know. I went looking for it in a wine cellar.”
Gena laughed. “I wasn’t going to say that, but it’s nice that you admitted it. No, I was just going to remind you of your own opinion of me. My relationship to the college.”
“I… initially I had wondered if you were less fervent than your colleagues, but then settled on… less insular.”
“The word you used at the time was cynical.”
“You have a good memory,” I said, reddening. “And… look, I’m sorry. I think I have been unfair to you. In more ways than one.”
“Forgiven.”
“I owe it to you to lean on your judgement, then. I want to return to the Halls.” I drew to a verbal halt, and I thought. “Is that even wise?”
“Oh, you needn’t my permission, you silly apprentice. I want to return to the Halls, too. There is nothing I would prefer to do. And there’s no gatekeeper that I saw.”
“Unless those… ways… could deny entry. Or the Lightbringer herself could.”
“True, though if they could have denied Theodric I am supposing they would have.”
“So the question is, then, where might we find entry.”
“Right. And the answer will require careful study.”
“I suppose it was too much to hope for that we might simply find it in the courtyard, instead.”
“Unlikely that there are any entrances around here. I have… theories. But I need time to work on them. If you want, we can discuss tomorrow. It’s late.”
“Right,” I said, suddenly remembering that Gena and I were alone in a dark wine cellar in the middle of the night. “Would rather not need to explain this to anyone who came down here for a bottle, I guess.”
“Agreed. Have a good night, Howe.”
My hand brushed the band of her bodice and traveled down her side, relishing in her warm, smooth, firm skin as it went. It passed over the silken skirt and came to rest on her mid-thigh, and I felt a new surge of desire drawing me closer to her body and her face…
… Whose face, again?
The past raced to catch up to me. I winced to recall the stinging wave of hot pressure I had felt just before touching this woman. The heat was still there, under my hands, just between her lips and mine. It was as if she had emerged from the very forge of passion, and I had been standing there as she had done so.
I could feel the desperate longing in my mouth and down through my heart, stomach, and between my legs. But my mind, racing in from somewhere behind me, caught up as I began to lean in.
“Who are you?” I whispered, my voice wavering.
“A friend,” she purred. I could feel her breath on my cheek.
“Nobody…” I grit my teeth against the crushing disappointment I was delivering myself. “… Nobody I know talks to me like that. Who are you?”
“Ah,” she said, with a lilting, sly laugh. She was apart from me now, sitting, and she crossed her legs and reclined onto her palms. She was of indeterminate age, though likely a young adult based on her physical condition, which was nothing short of complete perfection. Her skin was an unblemished and untarnished bronze cast over a fine dancer’s figure. She wore a clasped top that revealed most of her midriff, an exotic layered and banded skirt whose colors (including no trivial amount of gold thread) suggested flames like those I had felt. Her long, shoulder-length dark hair flowed freely beneath a winged golden circlet. Her eyes smoldered within dark makeup, and the confident smirk seemed natural on her lips.
“You do not know me, it is true. But I am a friend. Lady Iltara.”
“Horwendell of Ilianath,” I recited. “Where…”
Were we… was this Lorea’s sitting room? Intimacy, luxury… how did we get here?
“… Oh. I’m dreaming.”
“It’s rather more enjoyable if you don’t notice. Dreams can be so sweet.”
“Forgive me if I’m on alert for an evil wizard sending false messages. In dreams.”
Lady Iltara smiled.
“Oh,” I said. “Evil wizard. Pleased to meet you; I’m an apprentice wizard.”
“Well, they’re not necessarily evil, right? Thieving, yes, but we don’t know…” she said, mimicking my cadence. She tilted her head playfully, as if to bounce this volley my way.
There was a lot that had just happened there, so I stood there sort of dumbly.
“I do have the spellbook,” she said. “I stole it, if you must put it that way. But what do you suppose I shall be doing with it?”
“Well… we don’t know.”
She sat up and raised her hands, half there you have it and half a gesture of innocent appeasement.
“But you’ve been watching us. You have been withholding your identity and intentions and spying on ours.”
“There’s nothing so wrong with that, is there?”
“You might admit it’s suspicious, at least.”
“Granted. But I have responsibilities, Lady I am. The young warrior is on an expedition to find me. I should think it quite reasonable to learn what I can about him before provoking an encounter.”
“Sure,” I said, thinking ever more clearly with each moment that passed, finding my feet better with every mental step. “The false visions. Those were yours, too. And this seductress business,” I started, feeling hot under the collar for more reasons than one. “That’s pretty reprehensible even on its own, means to an end or not.”
“Oh, my friend.” She leaned forward a bit. “It was an introduction. I believe, truly, that we should have what we want in dreams. We can, here, in ways impossible outside them.”
“I didn’t want that.”
“You did. Very much so,” she said, gliding a fingertip down my chest. I was becoming aware of the way the physical distance between us wasn’t tethered to any physical reality. It seemed to come and go freely and imperceptibly. One moment she would be sitting politely across this room, and the next we would be nearly embracing, the heat of her body playing in the very air between us. But I was determined not to let the gap close any further.
Did I want that? Didn’t I not want it? Could it have been both? I deflected, my stubborn instincts warning me not to argue on difficult territory. “Do not give my companions the same introductions.”
She sighed, heaving her chest in a highly distracting way. “I haven’t; I won’t. Just you, wizard.”
I thought for a moment, sitting back in my dream-chair and crossing my legs. “Apprentice wizard.”
“Yes, yes. The point is, it seems you have studied lucid dreaming, as most of your kind do. That means we may converse. So I thought to… reveal myself to you.”
“Um! So let’s, um, converse, I suppose. ‘Your kind’, you say. You are not, I suppose, a court wizard.”
“No.”
“So…?”
“I am a Lady.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Well, it’s true,” she said with a shrug. “I rule a demesne in the Valley of the Sun. But more than that, my domain is here, in hot passion and lovely dreams. In both places my will is done.”
“Somnimancy? Oneiromancy? Whatever the term might be for it, what an interesting field.”
“Field! Ha,” she giggled. “I do prefer domain.”
“Who trained you?”
She shook her head. “No training.”
“You were born with it?”
She shook her head again, this time with a smirk. “Nor that. A lady’s secret, I’m afraid.”
“Fine,” I said. “What do you want with the Great Work, then?”
“I want to know. I want to drink of the secrets within. Wouldn’t you?”
“You have me there. I would.” I could tell, deep in the back of my mind, something was wrong. What was it? “But it’s stolen. It was carefully guarded for a good reason.”
“And what reason might that be?” she asked.
“Danger, I suppose.”
“And you don’t study dangerous things yourself?”
“Of course. I see where you’re going with this. But shouldn’t we ask nicely, instead? Perhaps borrow the work?”
“Have you asked anything of the Lightbringer? No answers are forthcoming. You shall ask, ‘what is so dangerous within?’ and she shall say, ‘I shall not speak of it, for even that is dangerous to know.’”
“Maybe I shall. Why, we even spoke with the Librariar…” my stomach knotted. That’s what was wrong. The mortal peril.
Lady Iltara waited, watching. Her sly, welcoming smile did not waver. But I came to sense, at the edges of the warmth of her beauty, a corona of menacing heat.
“Your goons killed Theodric,” I said.
She tilted her head conversationally. “Your warrior friend would have. Your sister’s order would have.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“Perhaps not. You have little responsibility to this matter. The knight, the apostles, myself… we have our many responsibilities. Surely you can see that,” she protested.
I stood with a jerk. “And you’ll see me dead without a second thought.”
“Come now.” She rose too. “You’re all worked up. Not thinking clearly in the heat of the moment. Shall we relax?” She reached out to take my hand. “Please,” she said.
But this was my dream. Her concern was sharp and fake, her hand an instrument of violence. Her heat pressed in, threatening to suffocate. I had to get away.
But I had studied lucid dreaming, hadn’t I? Many a wayward wizard finds themselves in a distressing dream and can’t bear to continue the inquiry. One of the skills we practice is maintaining the presence of mind to realize that. And there’s a simple, reliable escape hatch: just cast a spell. Just about any spell will do. Most are too carefully constructed for a dreamscape—too many right angles and hard edges in a world where space and meaning are ephemeral, sheer. One of those sharp corners is bound to puncture the veil.
So I did. I blurted out the first incantation and summoned the first meaning that came to mind: a simple spell, almost a toy really, that causes water to splash and leap as if a handful of pebbles have been thrown into it. Water, I suppose, was my remedy for the deadly heat2.
And so I woke, shout-muttering to myself. My last memories of the dream were of scorching heat and a captivating peck of lips on my left cheek.
All was quiet in my guest room in Castle Anteianum.
I scrambled with my numb, graceless limbs to find my pen and paper.