Chapter 2: The Dream

Book 1: Naedira

I DO WANT TO APOLOGIZE for how long I made you all wait before posting this second chapter. I was determined to be two chapters ahead of any chapter that I posted here, and getting to that point has taken me much longer than I expected. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a bit ahead during this school break, so it won’t be quite as long a wait for the next few chapters.

AS BEFORE FEEDBACK on this Chapter is requested! I’m interested in any thoughts any of you might have, but specifically I’d like answers to these two questions:

First, are the details of what is happening clear enough? Is there enough detail to allow you to understand the basics of what is happening, and enough hints at what you don’t understand to pique your interest? Which leads to the second question: would reading this make you want to keep reading the next chapter of the book?

And, since it’s been so long, you may want to go back and re-read what has come before. Use these links if you wish; I’ve added navigation links to the other two posts in this section so you can more easily navigate back here when you are done.

Prologue

Chapter 1: Naming Day

The rest of my Naming Day is rather a blur in my memory. There was a rush of hugs and congratulations from my friends, especially those who had not yet been Named, and general well-wishes from many other villagers. Then, we returned home to begin a feast of celebration that lasted well into the night, continuing even after I succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed in my bed.

Amidst the blur, I remember that my friend Baifin was almost continually beside me during the celebration, though at the time, she was still Third Daughter, and would be for several more months. I recall that she clung to me, breathlessly, as if somehow being close to my new Name might bring her closer to her own, if only by a little. She was joyous almost to the point of mania, laughing and dancing in her enthusiasm for me, and I drank in her vigor like sweet wine. I had yet to learn how quickly joy and laughter can turn to fear and cursing.

And I remember that Tel was there. Apprenticed to one of the carpenters in Leitborm, he was two years my elder, and I had always secretly found him dashingly handsome, with his stern features and a chin so strong it might have been hewn from granite standing guard over deep, dark eyes and even darker hair. Before today, he had barely given me a first glance, much less a second. For a very short time, he and his father had discussed with mine the possibility of apprenticing him to Father, but in the end, they had both decided that woodworking was a much nobler craft to learn than the leatherworking that Father practiced. I always suspected that the Eldest had an invisible hand in that change of heart, but of course I never could be sure.

On my Naming Day, however, Tel seemed to discover me for the first time. It was no surprise that he attended the celebration; almost all the village was there, crammed into our small house or gathered in the clean-swept yard out front. But in my memory, he made a point of coming to me and greeting me by Name. “I wish you joy of this day, Naedira,” he said solemnly, looking down into my face with an intensity I had never before encountered.

I was flustered and hardly knew what to say, though it didn’t matter, as Baifin burst in with a hearty, “It is a joyous day, we thank you!” which seemed to satisfy him. He turned away, and I watched with equal parts wonder and horror as he strode directly up to Mother, bowed formally to her and spoke a few words before moving away, out of my sight. Could it be, I thought in awe, that now I am Named, Tel would consider asking my mother for a Promise of my hand? It was preposterous to even imagine, and I shook my head to clear it of idle fancies. It was only much later that I learned the truth of his feelings for me, much to my sorrow when the time came.

There are, however, two other details from that day remain absolutely clear to me.

The first is my parents. Throughout that long day of celebration, I often found one or the other of them staring strangely at me, especially when they thought I was engaged with something else and would not notice them. They gazed at me as if seeing me for the first time, or as if I had suddenly changed into something new, something that they neither expected nor fully understood. It unsettled me, especially when coupled with how strangely the ceremony had gone, how different it had been from what they told me it would be. Eventually curiosity got the better of me; I had to know why.

Mother, of course, brushed off my concerns, as she often did when I came plying her with questions that she either had no time or no patience to answer. When I tried to ask her what was wrong, she suddenly and quickly grasped my shoulders, folding me into a fierce embrace, clinging to me as if she feared to release her hold on me. When at last she let go, she simply tussled my hair, as she had so often done during my childhood, and answered my question with, “You have done well, Naedira. So well. We are so very proud of you! Now go, enjoy the celebration. This is your day!”

Without another word, and before I could even breathe much less speak, she turned back to whatever she had been about when I approached and vanished into the crowd.

I tried a different approach with Father, though it yielded scarcely better results. He stood next to the hearth in our small common room, looking out over the chaos of the crowd that had gathered to celebrate with us. But he stood apart, aloof from all that he saw, somehow separate from the world around him. He often stood thus when in a crowd, and I have never understood exactly how, or why, that was so. But it suited me on this day, and I came to him, certain that I could speak to him privately, even in the midst of this throng of people.

He smiled as I approached and lightly brushed my cheek, one of the many signs of affection that he had for me. I returned his smile, then looked down, doing my best to feign guilt. I suppose I succeeded, for he put a finger under my chin and pulled my face back up to his, saying quickly, “What is wrong, my dear Naedira? What could be wrong on this day of celebration?”

I swallowed hard, as if nervously, then began, “I disobeyed you, Father. You told me what I was to do, and I spoke a different Name.”

He glanced quickly about, making certain that no one was noting our words, then dropped his voice slightly to respond, “Tch, tch, none of that. It is the way of things, sometimes. The Bowl is…,” he paused, as if searching for the right word. “It is unpredictable, that is all.”

“So Names do come from the Bowl then?” I pressed. “At least sometimes?”

He paused again, then leaned in a bit closer, lowering his voice even further. “It is not something to be spoken of. Tradition forbids it.” He patted my shoulder affectionately as he continued, “But Names are a complicated thing, and sometimes it is important for a person to get the right name. The Bowl is our way of making certain that always happens.”

This made no sense, and did not really answer my question, so I tried a different tact. “What was in the Bowl? I am sure it was not water, as you said it would be!”

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head quickly. “Oh no, dear Naedira. We told you to believe that it was water.” I grimaced at his seeming equivocation, which brought a fond smile to his face. “If you had known what to expect, it might have been harder for you to actually drink. Believing that it is water helps people to do what they must, when the time comes.”

It made sense, in a way, but I still felt that Father was holding something back from me. He apparently saw on my face that his answers had not contented me, because he quickly leaned down, putting his face only inches from mine, and rested his hands on my shoulders. Speaking in just slightly more than a whisper, he said, “Remember what we told you, Naedira. Tradition forbids you to speak of any of these things, with anyone. It would not do for some Unnamed to hear details about the ceremony before they are ready. And each family has their own slight variation on the Ritual, so sharing details with another Named would only sow confusion and possibly discord.” He gazed intently into my eyes and continued, “It is very important that you uphold this tradition, Naedira. You understand, don’t you?”

For the first time that I could remember, it seemed that Father was not going to answer my questions. Always before, he had borne my almost limitless curiosity with patience and forbearance. And, most importantly, with answers! True, at times his answer had, of necessity, been simply, “You are too young to fully understand the answer to your questions,” but always before there had been some kind of answer. It was something of a shock to me to realize that this time, there would be no true answer. I believe, in that moment, the last vestige of my childhood dropped away from my life, and I stood overlooking a new, slightly alien and possibly unfriendly landscape. I did not like what I saw.

But I still knew what was required. I reached up, crossing my arms to squeeze his hands as they rested on my shoulders and replied, “Of course, Father. I understand. I will uphold the tradition, as you ask.”

The look of relief that briefly transformed his face was much too vast for my simple declaration to have engendered, and it troubled me. The fact that he quickly shifted that look into simple happiness, as befitted the father of a newly Named daughter, troubled me even further. But there were no more answers to be had, and after hugging him, I drifted away, back into the crowd to find Baifin and to lose myself in the celebration.

Then there was the Dream.

As the day crept into evening, I was gripped by a strangely deep weariness, as if I had spent the day toiling in our backyard garden or searching the nearby woods for the herbs so often required in Mother’s cookpot, rather than simply feasting and celebrating with our friends. So it was with some relief that I saw Baifin’s family begin taking their leave from my parents. Baifin gripped me in one last hug before fiercely breathing, “I am so happy for you, dear Naedira!” She emphasized my new Name, as she had been doing all day, as if fixing it firmly in her mind, lest it escape when she turned her back. “I hope you can be so happy for me when my Naming Day comes!”

I hugged her back with a heartfelt, “Of course I will!” Then she was gone, and I was free to escape as well. The revelry would continue, I knew, for many more hours, with or without my presence; the folk of Leitborm took advantage of any excuse for a festival! So, after hugging Father and Mother in turn, I slipped away to my small bedchamber in the back of the house and fell unceremoniously into my bed. In moments, I was fast asleep.

How long I slept before the Dream came, I can not say. But I found myself standing on, or floating in the midst of an unimaginably vast, endless Darkness, a void so complete that it snuffed out even the memory of light. The Darkness was palpable, clinging around my limbs, brushing against my breast, pressing all around me until I began to dread having to breathe, for fear that Darkness would rush in with my breath and fill me, crushing me from the inside out.

I immediately had the sense that I was not alone in that Darkness, though there was nothing I could see or hear that might have suggested so. At least not at first. But somehow I seemed to know that there were Others there, or perhaps one vast Other, pressing against me along with the Darkness, probing and testing me. It was a hideous feeling, an indescribable violation, and for a long, timeless moment I teetered on the brink of loosing myself to the force of that Darkness, of that Other who sought to take me from myself.

I spun around and suddenly saw a light. It was a pinprick, the merest hint of a light, like the dimmest star in the farthest reaches of a cold winter’s night, barely a speck against the unimaginable Darkness. But it was a speck, a break in the Dark, and without thought I desperately reached out toward it, thinking it could save me and draw me out of this hideous tomb.

Then I recoiled in shock. How I knew, I can not say, but somehow, in that moment I knew with a dread certainty that the light was a violation, a wrong so great that even the Darkness around me could not cover it. In an instant I shrank down, trying to make myself as small as possible, thankful now for the Darkness surrounding me and hopeful that it could shield me from whatever lay in that hideous light.

The Voice, when it spoke, seemed to come from everywhere, all around me all at once. It filled the void, seemed to embody the Darkness as it pulsed around me. It rang with power, with confidence and an almost arrogant authority, filling the void and making all the world tremble before it. Somehow, instinctively I knew; the Voice came from that sickening light.

It seemed surprised at first, saying, “There is someone there. Someone new.” I sensed a vibration in the Darkness, as if someone or something was probing, searching. I shivered in fear and crouched even smaller. If that Voice should discover me, I did not know what might happen. But I knew, with every fiber of my heart, that It must not be allowed to find me!

“Who are you? Why can I not see you?” it asked after a moment, doubt and the barest hint of anger clouding its tone.

The strange vibration came again, rippling throughout the void, making the Darkness around me tremble as if it was a vast harp string plucked by a monstrous harper., I crouched even tighter, even smaller, gripping my knees and crushing them against my chest, and suddenly the ripple passed over me like a suffocating wave.

Then the Voice returned, smugly, satisfied. “So far away!” it said, modulating into what seemed a grandfatherly tone, soothing and comforting in its familiarity. “Why do you try to hide from me? It is the great purpose of my life to search for such as you.” It paused for the barest moment, then continued, “You have nothing to fear from me, my dear little girl.”

I flinched at those self-satisfied words as if they were the ends of a whip. It saw me! Somehow it knew! It would come and take me and I would be lost!

In the unshakable logic of a dream, I knew this to be the truth and I willed myself to be invisible, to be hidden from this unseen and impossible menace.

Suddenly the ripples passed through the Darkness again, this time a bit above and beside me, and I imagined I heard the Voice grunt in frustration. Perhaps it had merely guessed, shrewdly imagining that only a girl would have hidden. I lifted my head and dared to hope that this impossible evil might not be omnipotent and unstoppable after all.

Its next words ground that hope to dust. “You will come to me, in time, little one. You always do. I can be patient. You will come.”

My heart seemed to freeze in my chest and I would have cried out but a moment before the sound escaped my lungs, my eyes shot open and I found myself on my own bed, in the comforting darkness of my own room, covered in sweat and shaking like a whip tree in high winds.

It took a long time to find calm again, and longer still before sleep came again that night, if indeed it ever did.

This was the first time that the Dream came for me. I use that word because that is how it always seemed when it came: that it had sought me out and finally arrived, settling on me like snow covering the landscape and blotting out hope.

It came for me many times in the months and years following my Naming Day, always the same but somehow always different. The Darkness was always there, and the sickly light that pulsed with all that is wrong and evil in the world. But that light began to grow closer and the Voice ever stronger, ever clearer, especially after I left Leitborm. Each time I fell into the Dream, I would find the light somehow closer, inching toward me with an inevitability that made my blood run cold. At times I tried to flee from it, but the Darkness seemed to hold me in place, and any movement in the void caused those ripples to rush toward me, flowing over me in vile waves. And each time they struck me, that Voice saw me a little bit more clearly. He always spoke casually to me, giving me calming assurances that all would be well, that I had nothing to fear from him. And in the midst of these pacifying speeches, he would casually mention my lovely long blonde hair or comment that my homespun dress looked like those young maidens were wont to wear in the north-lying Alesbor Plains (which is where Leitborm lies), or some other detail about my appearance. Always casually mentioned, simply a passing comment, but the pointed message could not have been more clear: I see you, and one day I will have you! Every time I found myself again in that Darkness, my first thought was always, “This will be the day. This time, He will truly find me and I will be lost!”

I think now, after all I have seen, I know more clearly who that Voice must have been, but in those days, I was blind, and my ignorance worked with my imagination to breed my greatest fears.

My only hope lay in the fact that, if I stayed very still and concentrated on being small, being invisible, most of the time those ripples passed me by without a touch. It was only when I strove against the Darkness, trying in my own strength to fight or giving in to my fear and seeking to run; in those times, that Voice pounced on me like a cat on its prey. I learned many lessons in patience while cowering fearfully inside that Dream.

But I knew none of this on that first night. On that night, I knew simply that there was something, Someone, out there who was vastly powerful and terribly evil, and that they had noticed me and wanted to take me. It was a nameless fear that sought me for some unspeakable doom, and I lost many nights fearing to close my eyes, lest I fall again into that Dream and be found by that Presence. Strange that I never doubted for a moment that the Dream was somehow real.

But I see by your expressions that you know this Dream as well as I do, so I will leave off for now and continue with my tale.

Go on to Chapter 3: Revelations and Flight