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The Mages & The Scepter of Zegwar: Ch 1 - The Dreaming |
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Left, down the tunnel, left again and few paces later a right, down the stone steps, walk for a while, climb through a small hole and make another left. It went on farther still. It held no end.
Cair Lagensi shot up in his bed out of breath. He was used to it by now though as he had dreamed the same dream on and off for as long as he can remember. It was a maze that much he knew, one which only had an escape when he managed to rise from it and awaken. He felt certain of one thing about the dream and that was only of the small fact that wherever this maze was it was in a cave or underground. Other than night he knew very little about it as he never took the any path in the maze more than once. It changed every night that he had the dream, even if there were only small differences.
“Cair?” asked a voice from somewhere in the darkness of his bedroom. Cair’s pounding heart began to calm down immediately at the sound of the familiar gruffness of his brother’s half-unconscious words.
“Yeah?” asked Cair.
“Shut up and go back to bed before I hurt you,” said his brother, Zeltar, with a groan as he turned around in his bed. Cair followed suit but he did not fall back asleep for a while as he mentally retraced his most recent passage in his dream. But eventually slumber overtook him once more and this time he dreamt of nothing. He never had the dream more than once a night. When Zeltar woke up the next morning the first thing he noticed was that Cair was gone. With a sigh he got up out of bed and went looking for him. After a short search he found Cair in the town square, leaning against the old oak tree and throwing pebbles into the well.
Looking at them together or even apart it was extremely obvious that they were in fact not brothers or even remotely related. Cair had light brown hair that was just long enough that it was able to loop around his small ears. He was fairly tan and had a simple but handsome face complete with brown eyes and a nice smile. A lot about his appearance was average, he was of average height and weight and there was nothing truly unique about his build. He blended in perfectly in a crowd really. And above all he was a human being.
His brother Zeltar on the other hand was a trikt. That meant he was a very humanoid magical creature. Trikts were very human in appearance except for a little coloring difference so much so that for the most part they could mistaken for human at first glance. He was a little taller than Cair and his skin had a vaguely blue tone about it. His eyes were a very bright, intensely pure blue and he had hair that was in long dreads that ran down to his should blades composed of endlessly different shades of blue strands. So other than the fact that he was blue he looked perfectly human.
Despite the fact that trikts were magical creatures they didn’t have magical abilities, not anymore. Long ago during the Magical Wars they had mixed their blood with humans, as had many creatures, in order to gain the ability to become mages, something that only humans could do. It had been many thousands of years since any trikt had supernatural powers with the exception of trikt mages. Now they were basically nothing more than blue people. Even more so now that there were no mages.
“What’s wrong?” asked Zeltar as Cair launched another pebble into the well with a sufficient plop noise.
“Nothing,” said Cair. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he had run out of stones and didn’t feel like bending down to pick up any more. But he didn’t look at his brother but instead started at his feet with fake fascination. While they were technically not related they never even thought about it that way. They’d grown up together as brothers and that was how they saw it. They just didn’t have a typical family.
Zeltar had been abandoned by his clan for some reason or another. Trikt Clans really didn’t have to have a reason to get rid of children; it was something in their nature. Cair’s parents had found him and decided to raise him with their own son. And then when they were ten years old they had suffered a tragedy as their mother was murdered by Calis’s forces. So it was just Cair, Zeltar and their father Juono, who was one of their town’s councilmen.
They lived in a small village called Leri. It was one of the safest cities to live in. They survived fairly well on Calis’s rule by simply obeying him. They never disobeyed and as a group they’d decided to keep their heads down and just endure until somehow it got better. They were fairly large and many people thought that the council was evil as they were part of the same government as Calis was but agreeing to have the council was one of the things that had kept them alive. The council members, Juono especially, were fairly honorable.
“It’s the dream again isn’t it?”
“Of course it’s the dream. Everything’s about the dream isn’t it?” He raised his voice slightly as he said this.
“Cair, relax.”
“I’m just so sick of having the dream over and over again. I just wish I knew what it meant. Maybe then it would go away.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“Of course it does. I’ve had that dream my whole life and within the last couple of months it’s become a nightly thing. And it’s so real it’s like I’m not getting any rest at all. It has to mean something.”
“It’ll be fine, Cair, it always goes away eventually.”
“But I don’t think it’s going to leave this time. It’s never been this bad before. And I’m so sick of being the freak with the weird dreams.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting the sun’s warmth wash over him. It was probably the greatest feeling as the heat spread through his veins.
“Nobody thinks you’re a freak,” said Zeltar and Cair opened one eye to look at him skeptically, “Well not everyone thinks that you’re a freak.”
“But most people around here do,” said Cair as he glared at two passerbys. He wasn’t sure why they weren’t bothering him or even looked at him. That meant that they took no notice of his anger towards them.
“Be more teenage angst Cair, really.” Cair then turned his glare on his brother before walking away from the town square. Perhaps Zeltar was right; maybe he was just being moody. He was after all in his late teens and most kids in his age acted so moody it was enough that he wanted to hurt them. He’d never been apart of it in his early teens, maybe he was just late to the movement. Either way he simply felt like no one understood. It was hard to describe the dreams and every time he tried all he came up with was that he walked through a cave. It might not seem like a big idea to most people but it was to him. How could something that kept him up almost every night not be important? He walked around Leri all day and didn’t have anything to eat. It didn’t help his fatigue which had building ever since the dreams had become incessant. So he fell asleep early as he had the night before.
Right, left, right again after a few steps and then another right walk through a small hole that led him up and make another left.
Then he woke up again and he paused for a while to collect his breath. After he calmed down he listened intently in silence for a few, long seconds until he was sure that he hadn’t disturbed his brother. Holding back a sigh in his throat he turned over to try to get some actual sleep. However this was not what happened, it was in fact from it.
Right and another right before he walked up a flight of poorly constructed stone steps and then he walked down a long, straight pathway. As he got half way down it the earth around him began to shake. He paused. This had never happened before. Every time since he was a kid all he ever did was walk along the stone paths. The ceiling started to crumble and he was so shocked that he didn’t move even as it began to tumble down upon him. He felt something collide with him in the back propelling him out of dangers way. He was so relieved that he didn’t even realized that he shouldn’t have felt it as he was dreaming.
After the rock around him settled down whatever had pushed him away got off him. So he sat up and saw a girl. She was kneeling next to him looking expectant. It was dark in the tunnel so he couldn’t really make her out to clearly. She had long dark hair and pale flesh that was pulled about her face. It seemed rather thin and tired looking and her eyes were wide and sharp and didn’t look away from him. She had a small nose and perfectly sized lips. She was quite lovely to look at and once he did part of him didn’t want to stop. The fear that had seized him a moment ago when the cave had collapsed was gone as they at each other.
“Uh,” said Cair, his voice echoing. It was very strange to him as he realized he’d never actually spoken in any of the cave dreams before.
“He’s coming for you,” said the girl.
“Who is?” asked Cair as he stood up.
“You must flee. You’re not strong enough to fight him yet.”
“Fight him? What?”
“Head to the north. You can find allies there.”
“What?”
“You have to keep your powers a secret or he will kill you. Flee to the north.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend.” Her body began to fade away from him, slowly becoming translucent before vanishing all together.
“Wait! I don’t understand.”
“This is not a dream,” said the girl though it was now nothing more than a phantom voice, “This is the dreaming.” For a second he was left alone in the caved-in tunnel before he woke up.
He shot up in his bed, covered in sweat. The cool wind sailing through the open window above him, freezing his perspiration to his flesh. He could barely breathe. That was not like any other dream he’d ever had before and that girl. He put a hand to his head to push his hair out of his eyes and whip away his sweat as he tried to think about what this dream meant. But he suddenly lost what was left of his ability to think when he saw his wrist. On it was a glowing red mark in the shape of a tongue of flame. It delved deep into his eyes as he tried to rub it off but nothing happened. As he pressed his thumb against it, it began to burn and shoot searing pain up his arm and through his body that caused him to pass out back into bed.
 Zegwarian310 · Sat Feb 02, 2008 @ 04:25pm · 2 Comments |
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