Chapter 78: A Different Dream
A booming, impassioned voice shattered the darkness of my sleep, a preacher's cry in a godless church. "Brothers and sisters! Pious brethren! Our time has come!" Who in God's name is that? I thought, my mind still thick with groggy confusion. Shouting in the middle of the night? Have they no decency? But it wasn't just one voice. A low murmur, the sound of many people whispering at once, rose to meet it, a constant, irritating hum that made sleep impossible. With a frustrated sigh, I forced my heavy eyelids open, ready to see what kind of mad party was taking place.
The moment my eyes opened, I knew something was wrong. I was no longer in our filthy sewer hovel. I was somewhere else entirely. A vast, shadowy grotto, lit only by the sputtering, greasy light of a few braziers that cast long, dancing, monstrous shadows. And in those shifting shadows, they gathered. Figures shrouded head to toe in black robes covered in bizarre, golden symbols that seemed to writhe in the firelight. Hulking brutes, impossibly tall, their forms warped and twisted. Things maimed and broken, missing arms or legs, yet standing with an unnatural stillness. And some… some of them had horns, dark and sharp against the gloom. I couldn't make out their faces, their features lost to the gloom and my own damnable night blindness, but the scene was one of pure, unadulterated nightmare. It was a conclave of monsters, a secret meeting of some dark, unholy order.
Am I dreaming again? My mind was still a muddle, but I remembered translating the grimoire, remembered the bone-deep exhaustion that had claimed me. This was not the brick-lined sewer hovel I had fallen asleep in. It had to be a dream. But… where was Jared? Wasn't he holding me?
The figures began to speak, their voices a chaotic, guttural jumble. Some seemed to be greeting each other, others were arguing, their words spoken in a dozen different languages I didn't recognize. Amidst the cacophony, a single line of perfect, clipped English cut through the noise. It was a shock to hear it here, in this impossible place. My own English was rusty, and the speaker's accent was strange, but I understood the words.
"The gastronomic tour was a rousing success," the voice drawled. "…the elf breast was particularly tender this season." Elf breast? Were they gourmands, these monsters? Or was it some strange, dark slang? The casual, culinary nature of the comment made my stomach turn.
Just then, an argument broke out between two of the figures. One of them began to shout, his voice loud and rapid, and the others fell silent, turning to watch. Another figure replied in the same tongue. I didn't understand the words, but I recognized the language, or at least its sound, from the operas of my old world. It was a beautiful, melodious tongue, lilting and musical, with long, drawn-out consonants and a sharp, clipped ending to each phrase. It had to be Italian, or perhaps some older, Latinate language. They argued, their voices rising, and then others joined in, each speaking their own strange, alien tongue. One of them even sounded like the lowing of a bull. It was a true babel of monsters.
Then, a voice, deep and resonant as a funeral bell, echoed through the cavern, though it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Silence!”
It was not a request. It was a command, backed by a palpable wave of pure, terrifying power, an aura of ancient bloodlust and cold, cosmic dread that made the very air grow heavy and still. The word was spoken in a language I had never heard, a tongue of pure authority, yet I understood it perfectly. It was a command hammered directly into my soul. The arguing figures, the chattering monsters, they all fell silent at once, their heads turning as one to face the source of the voice, a deeper darkness at the far end of the cavern.
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