The Cave Part 8

The light from the staff guided my steps back out of the cave, the blue flickering flame a cool but cheering light. I realized something that had seemed apparent to me in the darkness before, but now showed up quite clearly. Passing now the third time through this tunnel, I could see clear stairs. They were well worn, even rounded at the edges in the center, speaking to a long history. Others had come this way. Many others, or just the same few back and forth for many years.

This observation seemed unimportant in itself, except that it told me there was a deep story at the heart of all of this. I was not having strange dreams, I was actually here. Strange to say, a part of me still thought perhaps this was all a delusion and my real body might be sick somewhere in an infirmary, or some other place with a terrible fever. Yet something so mundane as well worn stairs hit me with the truth of practical necessity. In dreams we often see fantastic things, but the mind seldom dwells on the common place or reasonable.

Emerging back into the night, I wondered if I had any control over the light of the flickering blue flame in the staff. Silently I thought of lowering its intensity, and to my childish delight, I saw the flickering burn low to just a candle's breath. I really could command it with ease, and somehow that little victory of control in my own life was vastly encouraging. It would be many hours still until Tharkin arose for his morning chores, so I would have to wait to relate to him all that had occurred, but that did not bother me too much. Bed was calling me as well in spite of the excitement in my heart.

The eagle had not stirred in all this time, and I felt myself lowering into my own bed again without seeming to have disturbed anyone. There was the very weird situation of wondering where to put the staff. Whether I should keep it next to me on the floor, or standing in a corner of the room. I figured I should be respectful to the previous owner and it, so I stood it up against the wall across from me. I observed to my delight that I could lift and lower the flames all the way to extinguish without even holding it. So this was the world of magic or enchantment! I don't believe in my past life I had ever considered the fact that I might be given something like this, let alone learn to operate it. Doubtless what I still had to understand was immense, but it was a start.

I fell asleep then with half lidded eyes watching the smallest of blue flames, a cheerful lamp in the night. Then there was dancing of fire, followed by clouds of smoke. Somewhere in the back of my traveling mind, I thought of the house burning, but then I saw that was not what was happening. Swimming through gray clouds a picture was starting to emerge, and this body of mine was walking into it. Night and stars shown through an open archway of sandy brown stone, all the darker in color with only torches alight in brackets to make the shadows dance. I could see this place, which looked over low flat lands, must have been very high up. A tower maybe, I told myself. This led to more questions as I could see a figure in a dark purple mantle, standing to the side of one pillar looking out into the plains.

Walking forward still, I grew closer to this place, or at least the images began to grow in clarity. Things at first appeared far off, but now I could feel the stone under my own feet and the figure which had been starring outwards suddenly turned. I saw that it was a woman, grave in expression, tall and beautiful with dark black hair flowing down her shoulders. Her raiment was different from what I had seen before, light and loose fitting, suggesting a much hotter environment. Perhaps that was a desert or high plain that stretched out below this tower?

"And who are you?" asked the woman in a deep rich tone, her two piercingly blue eyes holding mine with a strength I could not fight. They vaguely reminded me of those of Tharkin's, but these were not laughing or amused as his often were. These were intense and uncompromising. Here was someone who had killed before, and commanded great hosts of men and women. Something in my gut told me this.

"Why do I dream of you? I do not recognize your face. Are you a demon sent to read my thoughts even in the quiet of the darkest night?"

"I do not know you either," I finally answered, my tongue had felt stuck to the roof of my mouth. She was so beautiful, in a deadly fell way, that I was afraid in my heart even though I was at least a head higher than she, and there were no weapons in her hand.

"That answers no question, and we are equally ignorant it seems," she snapped. "What is your name specter? Where do you come from?"

"My new name is Cair," I replied, thinking that in a dream you may as well comply with people and images you don't know. "Cairandawyn, if you prefer the whole thing."

"That is not a name for a man that I ever heard," she said sternly, looking me over carefully. "You are a mage, a wizard perhaps? You hold a scepter of great power. Am I not right in thinking you enter my dreams to slay me if you can? Who sent you, my sister?"

Now I realized I was carrying my staff in this new place, its blue flame flickering with intensity. No great wonder she asked if I was a mage. I didn't recall getting up from my bed to retrieve it, and somehow I thought maybe the staff was the link between our shared consciousness. That would certainly explain the novelty.

"No one sent me," I replied, as she swiftly whipped two long curved daggers from beneath her mantle. What if this was not a dream at all? "Please don't kill me!"

"Survival goes to the strong and the swift," she replied, moving with the same speed of her words to my side, long curved blade of her steel at my neck in a heartbeat. "So tell me, and speak no lies assassin. Why hold you the scepter of Aquinian, my father's long dead friend and councilor? He who was slain by my sister that calls herself the Queen of Fires."