Book 6, Chapter 5: I was dreaming
I knew it was a dream and I hated it for being so. For I knew that prophecy ruled the realm of dreams, and I did not want visions nor portents, nor misleading future histories thrust upon me. Yet here I was among them.
The sky flashed. Darkness. Rain poured down. A flash again and thunder boomed out, men were shouting over the storm, square regiments of armored phalanx dropping their long pikes into position, facing each other, cavalry roaring in from the sides, peltasts loosing their stones, skirmishers banging swords on bucklers. The battle starting, pikes clashed against tower shields as the lines and lines of phalanx smashed into each other. Arrows soared into the night behind their ranks, clattering down on helmets and chainmail and some through flesh and pain. A regiment of calvary broke off across the valley below, heading this way.
I reached up and took hold of the bars of my cage, pulled against them screaming into the torrent, pushed with everything I had, the metal solid and stoic, changing not at all.
Rows and rows of horsemen charged from our side of the hill to meet the small breakaway group. I reached through the bars willing and willing my power to work and vaporize those who stood against my men and only rain fell against my hand, into my face, soaking my clothes.
Morry. Shouting. Pointing with his lance at me, urging his horse on. His scar was red, the water running along it, following it down his face from eye to chin, and I knew that was wrong for that was long gone as he had grown younger. My big man, my protector, leading the charge. His lance took the first horseman up into the darkness, the dead man’s horse racing on. Drawing his sword, he cut through tens of men, yelling and swinging, nothing and no one could stop his violent rage and in time only he was left of his men, fighting his way to my cage.
He slaughtered them as they came, blood running down his armor, down the hill, mixing with the muddy torrent. “Princess!” he said, rending the bars apart, “I take you to your father!”
“No!” I shouted against the storm, “Never!”
And I was in a precarious temple to the gods, built on the side of a cliff, existing for them, to take from them. Why I’d come to this world, where I’d relearned my divinity, standing in front of that mirror that beckoned me so. Where I had lost my big man and changed him. The labyrinth lay beyond its silver surface, but oh, so did paradise and happiness, eternal safety, knowledge – and power! My power, mine for the retaking!
A cute girl in the mirror. Young, smooth olive skin, narrow waist. Light purple eyes, wide, with a hint of a smile in them, a little, slightly sloped nose between, and full, pouty pink lips underneath. Hair the color of the darkest coffee, with light blue highlights at the tips.
I reached up to touch myself in the mirror and stopped, hand in the air, in horror of what lay behind, beyond, ahead, over my left shoulder.
A tree so great it dwarfed the tallest towers and rivaled lofty mountains. So thick at its base, it could house thousands and thousands were it a castle. Its roots deep and deeper still, mining the depths for minerals and life.
Yggdrasil.
Lightning flashed in front of it, the tree voicelessly beckoning, calling me over, wanting my sacrifice, promising wisdom, power in return.
“No! No, I won’t,” I shook my head. “Not that, not that path.”
The mirror shattered, its pieces glittering and frozen, hanging heavy in the air. A darkness passed in front of my broken image and Yggdrasil was shrinking, the distance between us growing, and I reached out for the great tree desperate to keep it near, to retain that future I so hated and hoped to never follow, for if it left my grasp, it was gone forever.
Yet the darkness passed, and the room grew cold. A library, I was standing in a library without a ceiling, snowflakes falling in, piling up above the spines of book after book, and on the shelves’ edges, the statues here and there placed to break the monotony, on the inside of windowsills, and on my hair.
I left this place, leaving footprints in the fluffy snow, took in one last crisp, cool breath, and flung open the door and rolled over onto my pillow.
Damn.
A goddamn dream. I hated them. I should have drunk more last night all the way to blackness.
Father, I love you for all you are and despise you for killing my mother. Leave me be old man! Leave my adopted world alone!
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