Chapter 5

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A civilization, an entire world was annihilated. People were slaughtered, whole towns obliterated by sweeping bolts of light energy. Not from laser fire, but an unnatural thing that gobbled up the ground and everything in its path. Everywhere people were running, their faces reflecting some unspeakable terror. Dynan understood what that was when he looked up and saw what they ran from.

It was a wraith. It was winged and from it the beams of light blasted the ground. Dynan felt like he’d seen it before, this thing of darkness, in a place of death mirroring the destruction he saw littered all around him. Only here, the sky was blue and the sun was shining.

As Dynan stood, the wraith became aware of him. Fear struck his heart. Black eyes focused. The creature prepared to spring forward, wings arcing upward, head lowering, but abruptly, a man came, stepping in front of it. In his hand, a well of light bloomed and he held it up, driving the thing away. Dynan never saw his face. He was taller, broader across the shoulders, and wore his black hair down past his collar. There was a sense of immense age, though he seemed a young man in his prime. Dynan knew he was far older.

He felt an immediate kinship to this man. He thought for a second to stay and thank his rescuer, but he was told to go. All conveyed by gesture, urgently motioning him away. There were more of the creatures coming and something worse that Dynan didn’t want to see. He reached back for the man, to draw him away, but saw instead a man transforming into a dragon; a very large beast whose blue scales glittered in the light and it rose to meet the coming hordes. A voice whispered in his mind that he should go now.

Dynan turned, stumbling to get away and found himself, even as he looked back over his shoulder, skidding across a frozen river. Off in the far distance and closer at hand behind him, there were trees covered in snow along a winding shoreline. A group of men stood nearby. It looked like they were cutting ice into blocks and drawing the squares onto a wide sled. All Dynan could hear was the sound of his breath.

A man shuffled toward the group, smiling as he came. Dynan could see his face. He was a young man, also with dark, nearly black hair, similar to the transforming man, though Dynan knew immediately they weren’t the same. He was closer in age, maybe a few years older. He moved by; close enough to touch, though Dynan was ignored as if he were invisible. Suddenly, when the man stood only a few paces away, the ice cracked beneath him and he fell through into the water.

The shock of cold rose in his face. Dynan didn’t hesitate, dropping down on the ice and reaching for him. Their hands met. Awareness came into the other’s eyes and he stared.

“I’ve got you.” Dynan held on, pulling him out, and for a moment, he thought he might be able to save this stranger. Water spilled over the break, freezing his hand to the ice.

He felt the tug of something, like he was holding onto a fishing line that took a hit. Abruptly, he was yanked forward, almost into the water. He stopped himself only by jamming his foot against a jagged edge of ice. He hauled back, trying to get the man back above the surface, grabbing hold of the fabric of his jacket. His lips were starting to turn blue and he was shaking from the cold.

Dynan strained against an invisible counter force, fighting to keep from being dragged in. The man slipped further, up to his neck. He went under and came back up, gasping this time from pain. There was stark terror mirrored in his eyes, along with realization. The grip he had loosened.

Dynan slipped forward, desperately trying to hold on. “No, wait. Don’t. Wait!”

The hand that held his let go.

He let go so that Dynan wouldn’t be dragged under with him. The next instant he was gone, pulled away by the current, or something else, and he disappeared, even as Dynan reached into the frigid water after him. He never said a single word.

An agonized scream cut across the frozen river. Dynan turned in time to see one of the men from the ice-cutting group running as best he could, scrambling across the ice. He looked exactly like the drowning man, his twin brother, Dynan realized. He watched while fear mounted to terror as awareness came in. His brother was dying. He couldn’t get to him, unable to do anything to save him.

Drowned. It felt like Dynan was drowning with him. Ice-cold water filled his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He’d nearly drowned before, once when he was three, so he knew what it felt like. Black filled his vision in spots and expanding splotches. Some self-protective mechanism rescued him just before the darkness came in. It felt like someone reached inside, pulling him out of himself. It was not an entirely painless sensation.

When his vision cleared, he wasn’t on a frozen river.

A woman stood before him, a graceful swan who Dynan thought he should know but didn’t. He couldn’t quite see her face, though in his mind he tried to. She had hair the color of honey. She wore a pale blue lace shawl over a plain blouse and skirt. Dynan wanted to see her and suddenly felt it was important that he find out who she was. The same man who drowned, held her hand while he slipped a ring on her finger.

Dynan could see the pattern finely etched into the gold, instantly magnified. It reminded him of the Telaerin seal, only this was a sphere in the center of a diamond, instead of a diamond within a diamond. Both were surrounded by eight points of spiraling silver bands, dotted at each summit by sparkling sapphires.

These two were in love with each other and just wed, it seemed. Dynan smiled at that for a moment, until he remembered that the man would die.

He heard a sound behind him then and turned. It was Dain; reaching for him, calling in a voice that was distant and distorted. Dynan didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to relinquish this dream until he saw the girl.

Then everything shifted. He stood inside the door of a nicely appointed bedroom, only it wasn’t her husband who held her, but himself. Dynan blinked a few times, watching while she was pulled toward the bed, an ornate, carved four-poster. The rest of the room was shrouded in shadows. He was taking her out of a cream colored gown of pearls and lace. He wore formal clothes that were being removed as well.

Dynan still couldn’t see her face. He was too busy kissing her. He was older by years and he noticed the oddity of the length of his hair. It was down to his shoulders. He wanted to get inside this other version of himself just then, but he remained rooted by the door.

Dain appeared beside him and everything shifted, a jump forward in time of only moments. Clothes lay strewn across the floor. Dynan was propped up against the headboard in bed and she was in his lap.

Dain’s mouth fell open when he saw what was happening. “Nice dream. Nice girl. Who is she?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.”

Dain frowned a little at that while Dynan went back to watching. It was more than a little disconcerting to see himself older. There was something in his eyes that spoke of grief and a shiver climbed up Dynan’s spine. Then he was being stared at by himself, just before his eyes shifted to where Dain stood.

“Something’s happened,” Dain said quietly.

She noticed his inattention, but got it back with a kiss. She asked him something and he answered. Abruptly, she straightened and stopped moving. Dynan watched while he put his hands to either side of her face and kept her from looking to the door. Another chill swept through him. He knew. His other self knew that he and Dain were there and he’d stopped her from looking on purpose.

“Dynan,” Dain looked up from a paper that rested on a table by the doorway, pulling on his arm to get his attention. “We need to go back.”

“I want to see who she is.”

Dain nodded but then shook his head. “It’ll have to wait. You have to wake up.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

She was holding him now, arms wrapped around him tightly. Whatever discussion had taken place was over and it seemed to Dynan that she meant to distract him from watching the door. She was kissing him, moving against him again, and that worked well enough.

“Dynan, look at me. There’s something wrong here. You have to let go of this. You have to. Come back with me now.”

Dain didn’t wait for him to agree and took him by the shoulders. When he did, they shifted again.

A dark mountain crag surrounded them, black rock towering overhead. They stood inside a ring of pillars, a black slab of rock at its center – an altar. There were symbols carved into its sides.

“What is this?” Dain looked all around them. Here, they could move, but neither of them wanted to. There was a sense of complete dread that edged into terror the longer they remained.

“We’ve been here before.” His voice was hardly a whisper so great was the weight of fear. In a flash he saw Dain lying on the altar, bleeding.

“You ... you need to wake up.” Dain was shaking, his teeth clenched together.

“I already tried. I can’t. I don’t think it’s a dream, Dain.”

“It has to be. Try again.”

The stone beneath them vibrated and a pounding noise approached. Dain stared up at the mountain that surrounded them. They couldn’t see the thing that neared, but whatever was coming suddenly started moving much faster. Its growing proximity made standing nearly impossible.

Dain pulled him away from the circuit of stones. “Maybe you could dream up a pair of swords, or no, make that a laser rifle, anything, and you’ll want to do that now.” He stopped breathing for a moment as he looked back and his voice came out strangled. “What is that?”

An area of impenetrable black moved toward them from the far side of the shelf, billowing larger as it came. The ground beneath their feet shook. They were backed up as far as they could go, right to the face of a sheer wall, gripped by unreasoning terror. Dain started looking for a way to climb. Dynan turned with him, almost too afraid to move, but more afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

It was too late though. The thing was there, breathing fear into them, paralyzing, blinding terror. Dynan couldn’t move. His vision swirled away to darkness. He could still feel that Dain was there, but that sense too, the sensation of touch, swiftly eroded away.

Dynan couldn’t hear very well either, there was so much noise filling his mind, a low moan of a thousand voices, of entreaty, of desire. One voice broke through the cacophony, panting at him, grunting in a strange, perverted ecstasy, before being swallowed by the surrounding clamor. Another broke through, whispering to him, telling him to open his eyes and look.

He felt Dain move, responding to that command and shoved against him, forcing him back around. “Don’t look. Don’t look at it, Dain.”

“I will have you.”

A blast of heat seared the air from his lungs and the discordant moan rose.

“Don’t look at it.”

“You belong to me. You are part of me. Come, now.”

The compunction to turn to it, to do what it wanted, was overwhelming.

“Take my hand.”

“You will stay here forever. At last.”

“You need to take my hand right now.” A voice that wasn’t whispering or insidious reached through the din.

Dynan breathed again. At the same time, he realized Dain was gone and panic followed.

“He’s safe, Your Highness,” he was told quickly.

The use of his title surprised him, distinguishing this voice from the multitude of others now trying to recapture his attention.

“Dynan, look at me. Don’t look behind you. Look at me.”

Dynan opened his eyes and thought he knew who was standing in front of him with his back to the rising cliff, black hair, grey eyes, and an immediate sense of relief reached out to shield him from fear. He was holding out his hand.

“We need to leave.”

Dynan agreed, but at the same time he wanted to stay. He wanted to look. He wanted to know what it was. He wanted to understand what he feared.

“I can’t hold the thing off forever, all right?”

Dynan recognized the truth. Whatever it was, existed too close behind him and about to reach out. He could feel it, sense the malignant will behind it, his own will crumbling away. He took the hand before him instead.

He was immediately pulled forward. An arm went around him, drawing him close. Another hand went to his head, taking him by the face to keep him, at the last moment, from turning around to see what was behind him.

“Don’t.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll know it one day. You’ll face it one day. You’ll stand before it when everyone else around you has fallen to fear and madness. Today you run from it, because running is all that you can do.”

“You keep saving me.” Dynan knew it to be true. He knew this man. He was completely familiar to him. Dynan knew he owed this man his life. He just didn’t know his name.

He smiled at that. “It’s a living.” He looked around Dynan, not at him as if there was something there, making Dynan look up and around himself too.

“What?”

“You have no idea.”

Dynan knew that he had no idea, which was why he’d asked in the first place. His rescuer smiled at his impatience, but didn’t answer either. There was something else in his eyes too, a sense of desire that was too similar to what Dynan had just left behind. It frightened him a little and the fact that this man knew exactly what he was thinking. He was breathing faster than normal. His eyes rolled closed in apparent pleasure, or maybe from some internal struggle. It was hard to tell. Suddenly, Dynan wanted to get away from him.

Almost the moment he thought it; he was abruptly let go, pushed away almost and he felt like he was falling and floating at the same time.

“You really have no idea,” he was told again. He felt two fingers touch his head.

Dynan opened his eyes to a darkened room. He couldn’t place where he was for a moment, even when he recognized his room at the Beren Mansion. His eyes teared up from pain that coursed through his head. He pushed both palms into his eyes and wanted to scream.

He needed to call for help, regardless that it was still the middle of the night. While he didn’t want to deal with the ensuing clamor, waking the whole place up, dragging people out of bed that would surely be reported back to his father, this kind of agony wasn’t normal. He remembered waking up like this once before – a year ago. Before he could utter a single word loudly enough to be heard, he felt himself drawn away. He thought to reach for Dain, but couldn’t.

The darkness held an unyielding grip.

Dynan looked over his shoulder. Six wraiths arrowed toward him through the dimming sky. When he turned to run, he fell on the ice and then went through it, drowning, each previous vision repeating in quick, wrenching succession.

He saw her then, the same woman with hair the color of spun gold, pulling him into bed. This time, Dain wasn’t there. This time, he’d stay until she turned. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to see her face. He watched all the way through, while his other, older self made love to the most incredibly beautiful woman he’d ever set eyes on. It all happened in quiet passion, with none of the rigor he’d come to know from Dain. The level of intensity here surpassed even the most energetic of Dain’s various experiences.

Their eyes met, Dynan and his adult self, who seemed a complete stranger to him. Across the chasm of time, he heard himself say, this is who you’re waiting for. The doppelganger closed his eyes then, covering a spasm of pain, or maybe it was sorrow Dynan saw in his own eyes. The glance shifted then, toward a table by the door.

There was a piece of paper there that Dynan recognized as coming from one of Dain’s journals. He could read the first words and his heart froze.

“I better be dead if you’re reading this.”

Dynan looked up to his other self for an explanation for what that meant, but the room shifted away, melding into a dimly lit foyer. The space was large enough to belong in a small mansion, but he was on a ship.

The woman stood, wearing the same gown of cream and pearls that he was going to take her out of later. She was silhouetted against a large window wall with the stars moving by while she looked out. He was overcome by desire again, to stay with her and never leave, not even to go into the next room. She moved to turn around.

He felt it start, the sensation of something reaching inside him that would rip him away from this place and from this woman he felt he was meant to spend the rest of his life with. He tried to fight it, willing himself to stay, thinking only of the girl before him.

A black, gaping chasm opened, wrenching him away and he recognized immediately where he was. For a moment he wondered if there was any correlation to finding the girl of his dreams and then ending up in a pit of death afterward. Or in this case, on the edge of one.

He stood atop a mountain crag looking down into the long, dark jagged hole. Relief that he wasn’t at the bottom of it flooded through him, but fear flowed in waves from beneath him. Meaning to get away from it, he turned. A terrific wind rose the moment he moved, clawing at his clothes, spewing bits of dirt and debris into his face. A powerful gust knocked him to the rocky ground, something unseen pushing him. Instinct forced him to his feet, but again the wind or something else threw him down. A black cloud rose above him. Lightning struck the ground only a few paces away, sending an electrical charge through him and freezing him to the rocks.

Something grabbed him by the leg, pulling on him sharply. Sudden agony radiated through him and he was yanked toward the edge of the cliff. Scrapping over the rocks, screaming, he dug his fingers into the ground, but couldn’t find anything that would hold. The edge drew near. His legs went over. He slid over a jagged rock and grabbed it. Immediately, it felt as though he would be torn in half. The thing pulling at him sapped his strength.

His hands slipped. He clawed for another rock to hold onto, crying out in pain and fear as he went completely over the ledge. He found a slender grip of rock and he dangled with nothing to find purchase on. He looked down into the darkness, panic settling in as tendrils of writhing black rose toward him. One already held him. Another was approaching rapidly.

“Take my hand.”

Dynan whirled around, slipping again as he looked up. He knew the man who stood over him holding down his hand. Still didn’t know his name and Dynan watched him as he gazed into the darkness. He didn’t seem afraid at all, staring in curiosity at the things that rose toward them. But then he turned his attention to Dynan again, dropping to his knees to reach closer.

Dynan was afraid to let go his grip on the rock, afraid he’d fall if he did.

“I can’t get any closer,” he was told. “You have to reach. Dynan, hurry!”

The black tendril of death was almost there. The other one that already held him pulled harder. Dynan felt his fingers slipping as pain shot from his leg up through his arm. He let go with one hand, stretching upward at the same time as the other hand failed, fingernails pealing back.

His rescuer lurched after him, grabbing his wrist. For a perilous moment, Dynan thought they would both fall. He dangled for a moment by one arm, swinging back and forth, shaking from exertion. He would have fallen, but the moment the man took hold of him, the tendril thing let go.

He was drawn up and over the cliff’s edge in increments, pulled to safety. Dynan rolled to his knees and then up to his feet, feeling like he wanted to run. He swayed unsteadily when he got up and the man scrambled to grab him, holding him up.

Except he didn’t let go when the wave of dizziness passed, or when Dynan tried to move back a step. It was there again, the same sense he’d felt before, of ravenous desire. The man stopped Dynan from moving away, his hand tightening on his arm. He wore a strange sort of nearly maniacal smile as he breathed in, his eyes rolling closed. A wave of fear flooded through Dynan and he struggled as he weakened, to the point where it was hard to even stand. This man was the reason.

“What are you afraid of? I’ve done nothing but help you.”

Dynan shrank away from the angry glare in his eyes. “Let go of me.”

A hand slammed into his chest, clenching a fist-full of shirt and jerked Dynan around hard, making him face the dark pit he’d only just escaped. They were still right at the edge. “I could let you go ... right back where I found you. Is that what you want? You should be more grateful. Have you ever even bothered to thank me for saving your life over and over again?”

As he spoke in Dynan’s ear, a growing discord of voices rose on the wind, the constant babble of thousands, whispering in entreaty. Dark shadows coalesced, swirling together into a horned head. The jabber of voices surged. One broke through the cacophony, then another and another, until they were speaking as one.

“Take him.”

Dynan suddenly couldn’t stand. Energy drained away from him. His knees gave out, but the man held him up and he was watching the darkness in fascination. He took a step toward it, but Dynan’s struggles against him drew his attention. He looked from the monster above, eyes widening in shock, suddenly concerned, as if whatever anger he’d felt before had left him. He adjusted the grip he had, hoisting Dynan up and tightening his arms around him to keep him standing. The black thing was almost on top of them.

A wide, green span of rolling hills opened around them. A crystal clear sky of blue rose overhead. A gentle wind rustled over the ground. The fragrance of blooming flowers filled the air. It was jarring how different this place felt to the one they’d just left.

Dynan was set down on the ground with fear choking his throat, still trying to get away from the thing that had been right there, and away from the man with him, who now seemed just a normal man. Dynan wanted to get away and could hardly move.

He became aware as he pulled himself across the ground, using handfuls of thick grass for purchase, that he was being watched, not pursued. Nothing tried to take him. He looked back and saw his savior standing, not following him, holding his hands to his head. He stared up into the sky.

Dynan didn’t especially care that he wasn’t being chased. He still wanted to get as far away as he could. He rolled back over, wishing he could stand and started crawling again.

He heard footsteps. Maybe the man was coming to take him back to that place and watch while he was killed. He couldn’t get away from him, rolling over in time to see the man reaching down to him.

“Listen to me. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t mean to.”

Dynan shook his head, not believing him and shied away from him. On his elbows, he scrabbled backward. He felt a little stronger and scrambled up to his feet. He meant to run, though he didn’t have any idea where he could run to, since as far as the eye could see it was nothing but rolling hills. He didn’t know where he was, or how he’d gotten here.

He made it three steps before he felt a hand on his shoulder. What little strength he’d regained vanished, as if life itself was draining away from him.

He was turned around and the man before him seemed to struggle with some decision. He was angry one second, his grey eyes flashing at Dynan and then not the next, or angry with himself and some inner voice talked him out of it. All the while, Dynan stood frozen, held in place and getting weaker and weaker. The man abruptly let him go, almost pushing him away, but then yanked him right back.

Dynan felt him inside his mind then, burning away coherent thought and it hurt. It was a worse kind of pain than anything he’d ever felt. It was an intolerable, encompassing pain that he couldn’t escape. He started screaming.