Quest for the Chaos

[Zadown]

The Dreamer shivered. Even the familiarity of his surroundings could not banish the feeling of being ... shattered, of being torn to pieces that were now hastily and haphazardly sewn together. He glanced at his hands, as if there was a possibility they too were shattered, as if they might've been cracked and broken like some old clay jug, like his spirit had been... instead the hands were scarred but whole. Intact, like his core was, now.

 

 

I hope this was the lesser evil. A few more scars would've been better than this one, a scar inside me...

 

He looked around. The Astral Harbour was mostly as he had left it, a jutting stone pier connecting the Pen Keep to the Lost Paths, runes shimmering in the stark darkness of nothing, portals hanging everywhere, windows to dozens and dozens of world. A few of the windows had winked out, a rune or two was missing.. ..somebody has stolen some things from me .. I'll have to find the thieves and deal with them, when I have time.. ..but the defenses around the stronghold were intact, the perfect shapes of the warding magic still powerful, still deadly.

 

The planewalker drew a deep, unnecessary breath and sunk back into meditation, struggling to keep the inner balance between chaos and law in control. And trying to catch an old plan.

 

Now, I figured out long ago how to do this .. the knowledge should still be there, deep inside me; before the shattering, before the awakening and the battle. Time to dive.

[Zadown]

His deep, dark blue eyes opened. A nearly invisible smile appeared on his scarred face.

 

Ah.

 

Standing up quickly from his meditative position, he started to walk briskly along the stone pier. His long legs sped him quickly forward despite his robes, and he showed no signs of slowing down when he approached the end of the pier, shaped like a sharp spike pointing to the depths of the Void. When he stepped off the pier and on the begining of the Lost Paths, his smile widened and he started running, robes fluttering around his thin pale body, and he vanished into the darkness between worlds in the blink of an eye. This, more than any stronghold was his home. He was free.

 

Soon, far too soon for his own taste, he was floating before a pearly white sphere. The run, however short, had restored much of his spirits and the Godslayer stood straight, looking younger than he had done when he had left the Pen Keep. The Dreamer looked around and let his sixth senses, magic detection spells and weak psionic powers scan the nearby Void. Nothing. He alone shone in the night, his power unchallenged here, on his side of the border. Satisfied, he turned his attention to the crystal barrier in front of him as he contemplated what lay on the other side. A whispered word almost brought Pain, his ghostly no-dachi, to his hand, but he stopped midway through, then shrugged to himself, shook the red hues out of his eyes.

 

Can’t cut the knowledge out of them. Not here.

 

The planewalker proceeded to strenghten his defenses, examined the multi-dimensional shapes of the enchantments, sigils and wards that were his true clothes, protection as cruicial as furs and wool were against winter’s chill for mortals. Déjá vu painted a sickeningly similiar picture inside his head: a younger planewalker, not called The Dreamer, going through the same checks before entering the domain of a god of dreams. An insolent, cocky smile he’d had, he remembered. A lost thing, that smile.

 

Let’s hope I’ve learned something. Or that my powers have grown to surpass my stupidity. No choises in either case...

 

With a resigned sigh he let himself sink through the border between the Void and a plane of dreams.

[Zadown]

Chaos.

 

The Dreamer smiled and swam through the insane storm of colors, smells and feelings with the ease of one marked for Chaos himself. The moment lasted only for a blink of an eye, and some part of his mind laughed. It was a welcoming “Hi!” to him, even though it had probably meant to be the first line of defence, the kingdom of dreams defending itself with the shards of countless daydreams and nightmares. He emerged from the planar border, floating slowly downwards and landed softly on a rich green grass. Mist hung all around him, dull grey curtain softening everything, obscuring the view behind him as a obvious end of this world. In front of him stood a gate, an imposing and massive construct of metal, stone and wood, and the Dreamer suddenly felt very naked without his blade. His eyes were the color of the faded yellow of rotting fallen leaves.

 

Obviously he knows I’m here. Or his kingdom always presents those who enter with the Gate... it’s been a long time since I last visited.

 

With a tiny shrug, he walked to the gate and knocked. The twin doors swung inward making the mist swirl around. Behind them was a road leading to the depths of the mist, a lone sign-post pointing forward: ‘ tHe dReAmINg’ scratched or burned to it with bold letters. On the sign-post sat a crow staring at the planewalker with intelligent eyes.

 

"We 'eard you might be comin'. I hope fer yer's sake ya arn't 'ere to kill me boss, eh? Crroaak!"

 

The creature’s voice was harsh and loud and the crow hopped first left, then right when it spoke. It’s glinting dark eyes never moved from the planewalker.

 

“I do not consider your master to be a god, little one, so he is safe from me. In any case I’m just passing through ... your lord does allow visitors, does he not?”

 

The yellow ignited in the planewalker’s eyes, turned into brilliant sparks and then vanished in the darkening grey. Soon his eyes were almost as black as the crow’s.

 

“There be visitors an’ visitors.”

 

The crow flapped it’s wings, tilted it’s head left and right.

 

“But naw, pass on; harm nothin’, bring nothin’, take nothin’. See an’ learn, so the rules go. An’ don’t you glare on me, sirrah; them rules’ arn’t mine.”

 

With a last loud “Crrooaaak!” it jumped to flight and flew away and was swallowed by mist. The Dreamer stood and watched the spot it had vanished at.

 

Your master might be safe from me, but if I ever catch you on the Lost Paths, little one...

[Zadown]

Time passed. Of course it meant little to the ageless and immortal planewalker, but still, it was currency and now time's golden sand flowed through his slack and unresisting fingers like a flooding river.

 

He had walked deeper to the plane after he had met the crow, yes ... and there had been the usual difficulties, traps and tricks, things that thought they could stop him. A story, perhaps. It all seemed without consequence now - memories faded and burnt away by the brilliant light of ... what he was studying.

 

The Dreamer sat on a round stone, a few of them clustered near each other, a tree giving shelter from sun (if there'd been a sun here), soft green grass as background. Just the kind of place you would like to sit, if you'd be dead or thinking or trying to look wise. Around the spot, somewhere, were the vague borders of the glade. And in front of him shone the Runestaff - also known as the Sangraal and the Holy Grail.

 

It was of course not the genuine one. This was the place of dreams, visions and nightmares, not a vault. Everything was here in some form or the other, the essence masked by the thousand faces of personal perception, and so nothing seen here was of any value. A book found in here might be the dream of somebody who had never read it - gibberish, or even worse, nearly correctly but fatally flawed text. Memories interlaced with symbols, symbols distorted by different cultural backgrounds, cultures mixed together by the timelessness of the realm. Only a deluded fool could try to make any sense out of it. Or somebody truly touched by Chaos.

 

So, time passed ... and the Dreamer dreamt of the Grail.

[Zadown]

And there I will leave him, mesmerized by the myriad dancing patterns that tell stories of the Grail. He is close, always so tantalizingly close ... and then a new question, new uncertainity rises from the spiralling chaos of symbols, and a new one, and a new one... because this is the Vault, and the Grail is a real one. But all guardians are not big beasts with huge yellow teeth. Against angels and demons he had his deep fury to survive, impossible to repress - against dreams and visions he was weak, and he was proud, too mighty to back down from a challenge like this. So, sometimes even the immortal fail; fail, or die, or are forgotten.

 

Perhaps his name was an omen, or perhaps he will rise some day and look around with a knowing smile and a pair of dark deep blue eyes, having finally deciphered the undecipherable secret of the Runestaff.

 

Who knows?

 

The End

[Zadown]

Epilogue

 

Air rippled in the realm of dreams, marked the passing of something that did not belong there. Nobody saw it, but they sensed it, and stayed away from it's path. Even the Crow, the Herald of Dreams only circled far above it and did not go close.

 

It marked and marred the landscape where it walked, staining it with a touch of corrupted holiness, a stain that was like a rash on the pure neutrality of this place. Dreams faded out and dreamers woke up with a shock, half-remembering some terrible nightmare, soaked in sweat. Air rippled ... the outlines of wings, of a sword, of a tall humanoid form with a single disfiguring horn on it's head. Finally, after a long walk through the realm of dreams, it reached it's destination - the vault of the Grail.

 

Sparing not a single glance to the mesmerizing display in the middle of the glade, the unseen form tilted it's head downwards to study a bedraggled form sitting on a round stone. Sarnael smiled and flickered into existence, drawing forth his great powers in one immense surge, hoping to suprise the planewalker. His white-black wings scretched out, his sword of white ice and black fire was drawn up ... and still the form of the Dreamer did not stir, did not try anything desperate to save himself from total destruction in the hands of his old arch-nemesis.

 

The sword hung suspended in mid-air for a passing moment. Then it scythed downwards with the force of centuries of hatred, cleaving through the still inert body of the planewalker.

 

The empty shell of the Dreamer shattered like a thin glass vase.