NOVEL NEXT Chapter 5: Fitful Dreams
22nd of Inandyl - 4th Isharil (cont)
Back in his room for the evening, Calas dipped in and out of consciousness while reading "Empires of Eld". He growled at himself each time he startled awake and read the same passage over and over again. Frustrated with himself after the umpteenth time, Calas finally gave into the demands for sleep; setting down the volume on his desk and turned in for the night.
***
He was at the pier in Horora with his Uncle Julien. His uncle's long dark braid spilled over his shoulder as he leaned on the railing of the ship they were on. He was telling Calas not to sweat the small stuff, that if he would just relax and go with the flow, he would do just fine. His uncle straightened and patted a 15-year-old Calas on the back with a tattooed hand before he turned back toward the bay and the Thieves Coast beyond.
Calas looked out in the same direction, the sea breeze whipped at the loose strands of his own, similarly dark hair as he watched the deep blue waves roll in the light of the sun. He stared as something about the image shifted, but he couldn't tell what. Calas turned back to his uncle to ask, but Julien was gone.
Unnerved, Calas shifted his focus to search for any of his family on the ship, but the ship was gone. Wild-eyed and struggling to calm his breath, Calas looked back at the anomaly, but the sea was gone.
The light faded quickly, as if snuffed out like a candle in the stiff breeze. Then, even the breeze was replaced by stagnant air that held an acrid stink of fear tinged with an all too familiar metallic flavor. Calas' breath still struggled to slow as he found himself in the dark and run-down sections of Horora.
Blood pooled at his feet in the dim light of the cramped, dingy room that he found himself in. Calas could smell the familiar metallic tinge in the air over the haze of smoke, sweat, and fear. He stared at it until the jolt of a hand on his back shifted his attention to the fresh corpse of a strange man ahead of him. Their throat had been opened in a large gash as if painted in red across it, the source of the blood that now seeped around his shoes.
Uncle Kondo's voice reverberated in his ear as he put an arm around Calas' shoulder, but his eyes remained on the corpse. Calas didn't dare react now that his father's general had a hold on him. Kondo's voice was muffled, but Calas understood as one does in dreams. His uncle was telling him that sometimes it's impossible to carry out orders without a bit of blood, but too much was bad for business.
The light flickered from movement ahead of Calas and Kondo beside him. A cry of pain shifted Calas' attention again. This time to a strange woman who crashed onto the floor next to the corpse after being struck by Uncle Petrus. Mad Dog Petrus was grumbling about some offense the woman had made as he strode into the room. His arms up to his elbows were stained with blood and covered the tattoos there.
Calas' eye twitched subtly, but Kondo didn't seem to notice as he went on about how it was their job to teach Calas about when, where, and how much blood was necessary to ensure future profits. For the family.
He looked down at his own hands and found them sticky with warm blood. Calas clenched his jaw at the tightening of his stomach and his nostrils flared to breathe in deeply. It only made the metallic scent stronger and he closed his eyes, trying to will himself away. It was a dream. It had to be. He wasn't that scared boy anymore.
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He felt a shudder. The scent of blood and smoke and fear faded. It was replaced with roses and jasmine. Something shifted and there was light on his face and music in his ears.
Opening his eyes, he was in a ball room. He was at Court, in the Great Hall and he knew by the feel of the mask on his face, that he was playing Uriell again. A wisp of blond hair and black feathers passed him by and on instinct he followed. He knew them. That quick beauty that darted through the silhouetted, masked figures with playful grace.
He intercepted her in a playful game and stopped her on the dance floor, earlier than last time, before she could run from him. This time, too, the Lady Crow already knew how to dance as he had already taught her how. They danced together as if they had been practicing for years, but it wasn't long before she took him by the hand and led him away for only two steps.
She led him into the night air. A star-filled sky greeted them while Little Pandia hung overhead and bathed them in her warm golden light as they sat on the roof of the gazebo. This time, too, he kissed her under the blanket of night as the heavens watched with interest while they drifted above the two of them. Calas didn't care, though, let them watch. This moment was for him. He only wished he could share it with her, the Lady Crow. The real Lady Crow. Whoever she was.
When he pulled his lips from hers, the taste of jasmine and honey on his tongue, he reached for her mask. As his fingers brushed the edge of it, the mask shimmered and exploded in a poof of black feathers. A crow emerged from the black plumes and flew off into the Eldwood.
The Eldwood erupted with the cacophonous cries of beasts and the calls of birds. He shifted, suddenly and involuntarily, into a giant hawk that soared over the Eldwood in pursuit. The trees drifted by in a dirty green blur, when his keen vision zeroed in on the small crow flying below.
He admired her new form; the sleek, black wingspan and perceptive beady, blue eyes. As soon as he thought it, the crow noticed him above and dove away into the trees of the Eldwood. A surge of feral instinct took over. Despite his mental protests, his large wings adjusted into a dive position and he plummeted toward her. He gained speed as he lost altitude and closed the distance between them, his talons outstretched. The crow dove too, into the canopy of the Eldwood.
Calas was relieved to find only broken twigs in his clutches as he pulled up just short of the treetops. Large as he was, there was no way to break the canopy at speed without damage. He would have to slow his pursuit and likely would lose her. Calas breathed a little easier as he spotted the crow through the canopy, who seemed safely inaccessible from his sharp talons.
Would that he could just stay there, above the canopy looking in as he was, but something inside him rippled and broke loose. Suddenly, his body felt like something foreign as his bones started to creak and move into a new shape. Everything condensed within him and he found himself in the body of a horned owl. The feral instinct came alive again, burning like a wildfire raging uncontrolled as he dove into the trees, talons outstretched once more toward the fleeing crow.
Calas tried to cry out in warning, but his distress only came out as a wordless screech. The sound reverberated in his ears, in his very bones. His talons betrayed him and clamped shut on the crow.
Calas sat up in bed, panting and drenched in sweat in the faint blush of morning. It was a dream, he thought in reassurance, nothing but a dream. Calas swallowed uneasily, not truly heeding his own affirmation as he balled his hands into fists. It stopped them from the tremor he felt at his very core.
He rubbed his face with both hands and felt a weight settle in his chest. It was tight and had nothing to do with Orendell as the mark on his ribs still lay dormant. Even as he got out of bed though, he couldn't shake off the lingering foreboding that the visions had brought.
Calas knew that whatever happened today, this feeling would follow him through it.