ALL IN A DREAM

Brand was climbing a long spiral stair, stone steps with iron handrails, winding upward on the inside wall of a round tower. Someplace he’d never been before. Looking downward and upward, all that he could see was stairs corkscrewing into darkness.

He blinked and suddenly it seemed he was a little further up the stairs. He blinked again and he was a bit further along. He leaned forward and his feet left the steps as he glided upward, the iron railing sliding under his hand, cold under his skin like a stream of icy water.

He knew this was dreaming; he’d glided like this in dreams before, floating along just above the ground, as if his dreams weren’t powerful enough or his desire strong enough to actually fly high in the sky. It always seemed wrong to him. “If I can fly a handbreadth over the ground, why can’t I fly a little bit higher and a little bit higher?”

At last he reached the end of the stairs, and halted, feet back on the stones again, on a a small landing at the top of the tower stairs. Across the landing was a single door, closed.

<blink> He was standing in front of the door, nose almost touching the heavy wood. His hand tried the latch but it was bolted from inside.

<blink> He was standing on the door’s other side. The room was spare and dim, lit by moonlight from one of two windows that had only curtains to hold off the outer air. It was cold. The room was dominated by a large wood-framed bed and on it laid an old man, breathing slowly, perhaps in sleep or perhaps in pursuit of sleep that escaped him.

Don’t blink! Somehow it felt to him as though this was where he had been headed, urged on by he knew not what. Besides, he thought, there was nowhere else to go, save out the windows and the long fall he knew must be there, and his dreams didn’t include flying. So, he decided, this must be the setting for the rest of the dream, and he waited for it.

Sounds came from outside of one window, the darkened one leeward of the moonlight. Rustlings. Scrabbling. The image of giant rats leapt to mind and he wanted to run.

“No.” Who said that?

Voices next came from outside the window. A boomy baritone and a feminine voice were speaking a strange language, yet in the weird logic of dreaming he understood what they said.

The baritone spoke first. “Why did I let you cajole me into this?”

“You’re my brother, who else would come?”

“You know I think this is perverted.”

“And you know I cannot help myself. He and I are bound together by fate and magic and it’s mostly my doing. I know that.”

“Quiet, don’t berate yourself. I meant no blame.”

“I know and I would not have changed anything even had you hated me for what has transpired. You know what it has led to. How we live now instead of waiting on extinction. Why do you not also adopt a village?”

“Too many swords and spears have I felt at their hands. I cannot yet forget enough to take them under a wing or be beholden to them for anything.”

“I’m sorry for you for that. The world is changing faster than it ever has and the far-seeing ones prophesy even faster changes further on. If you can even imagine such. Already humans are bewildered by how much their world is unlike that of their fathers. We must change with it, too.”

“Do what you must. I shall remain on watch here. You know how that… shape… repels me.”

Brand wondered how these people had got onto the balcony. Had he been following the path of one or both up the steps earlier? No, somehow it seemed certain to him within his dream-state that they had arrived directly on the balcony from the sky. His musing was distracted when another fainter rustling came from out on the window balcony.

Something moved Brand’s viewpoint backward into a shadowy corner, as if sliding him along without moving a foot, like a chess piece, and not of his own will. The window curtain parted and a figure entered the room. The figure was dark, robed with a hood so that it appeared like a blackened ghost. It approached the bed and leaned over the man there. Brand could now only see its back and the man not at all.

An old voice croaked out, “You came.”

The feminine voice from the balcony said, “You knew I would. You are in pain?”

“It hurts but I had to wait…”

“For me.”

“Yes. I wanted to see you once more and… there’s something I want to confess… You made me promise once to never write my poetry for you… yet I did. It’s beneath the pillow. Though it makes me liar in your eyes I wish you to see it at last.”

There were indistinct movements and pale white hands unfolded something before the hood. A moment passed. The figure bent over the man. “Do you see it?”

“Yes… yes, bless you. I’m sorry I’m so needful.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m strong and you are weak. What can I do?”

“I shall not see morning. I know it.”

A pale hand moved and rested on his chest. “I feel it, also.”

“I fear sleep. It is not how I wanted to go out.”

“How would you?”

“With you near, as you are now. With your tear fallen onto my face. Can you… have you the power... to release me?”

“…..I can.”

“Now, if you will, with your face before me.”

The pale hands pushed back the hood but Brand looking upon the figure’s back could not see what was revealed. The hand moved from the man’s chest to lie on his head. “Do you hurt still?”

“No. It’s gone. You’re beautiful, do you know….”

“Fly away, my knight. You are free.”

The figure straightened and regarded the bed for a long time. Brand felt himself grow restless. Then the figure turned and looked directly at him in his corner.

“Ember!!” Brand suddenly was sitting upright in his bed. Ember stood by it. “I’m here.”

“What was that?!”

“Your great-grandfather, when he left me. I wanted you to see.” She walked to his doorway and turned before leaving. “One day you will leave me, too, Brand. He and I wasted so much time, left things unsaid. Let us not do likewise.” She closed the door softly.