[center][i]Beware the place truth mingles with shadows, no land is as dangerous as a dream.[/i] - Arakkai Proverb[/center] [center][img]http://txt-dynamic.cdn.1001fonts.net/txt/dHRmLjcyLjkyMTEwMS5RMlZ5ZVhNLC4w/sad-kropotkin-laugh.regular.png[/img][/center] Her third night in the desert, Cerys dreamed. The priestess was again chained to the boulder before Mirror Lake, her hands red-black with blood and ichor, her nose filled with the sickly, too-sweet smell of the mixture. It flooded down her bare neck and naked body, pouring from the markings she'd made on her skin in impossible quantities, flowing into the lake and filling the mountain basin until it lapped at her toes, squelching up between them before climbing her bare calves, her pale thighs. She surely must drown in her own shadow-tainted blood, fastened as she was to the boulder behind her. When the Wanderer appeared, he did not merely dim the day but brought with him an inky blackness the likes of which no mere night had ever inflicted upon Azoth. He hovered before the Priestess, already waist deep in red, and paused, undulating in place, the strange tendrils that made up his form twisting, reaching, convulsing. Suddenly, the Red God charged. He did not envelope Cerys as she remembered his doing, so many nights before in this very clearing, but instead poured into her, inky blackness flooding into her eyes, her mouth, the red-black handprint on her chest. She was choking, writhing as her lungs spasmed, then there was nothing. Nothing but the dark. Her terror mounting, Cerys existed now formless in the black, unable to even sense time passing. Was this what it was like to be taken by the shadows? Conscious and yet unable to act? A collective, rather than the individual. But no, she could see again, only now she looked through the eyes of a body that was too tall, too masculine to be her own, that weilded hands larger and stronger than she remembered.... [hr] "Daigon," said a gruff voice. The Coward opened his eyes, waking to a hot, noisy desert night. He sat up from his bedroll, tucked into a corner where Zar Vorgul's northern wall adjoined a defensive tower. A lifetime spent outside and at war meant he could pretty much sleep anywhere. Around him, soldiers bustled in flickering torchlight, busily preparing for the coming battle. Wall-mounted ballistae were being oiled and strung. Blades sparked and sang as they were sharpened. Porters rolled buckets of arrows and bolts to their places along ramparts hung with the Star-and-Moon banners of the Drathan Union. "What is it?" he asked in his shaking voice as he stood. Har Dok, the hulking commander of the Beast Kings, loomed over him. "See for yourself," said the aelg, gesturing north. Daigon looked out over the night-shadowed desert. The moon was high, its silver light illuminating the skyward tendrils of an enormous dust-cloud that blotted out the horizon. The heavy tread of the Shashul's approaching army could be heard faintly on the still night air. "Sunrise," said Daigon, "They'll be here by sunrise." "I reckon so," said Har Dok. [hr] Cerys realized she was seeing through a stranger's eyes. [i]Daigon[/i], the aelg had said. What city was this, and what army? [i]Zar Vorgul.[/i]The name came unbidden, at once familiar and unfamiliar. She found she knew a great deal about this place she had never seen: a Drathan stronghold, too far East, in danger from... Sifting, she hunted for a name for the approaching force and found it easily: [i]Salished[/i]. The Rainlanders she knew, and she found she could not dispute Daigon's estimation of the fanatical warriors: capable, implacable, deluded. Information about the man whose mind she occupied was less easy to come by. Who was this Daigon, and why had she been drawn into his thoughts? Cerys moved about his mind, searching for answers. The desert, the city, the armies, the hulking aelg- all disappeared as she dove into the dark waters of Daigon's memories. Images swirled around- swirled through- her untethered consciousness. [i]A desperate flight through snow-blanketed hills, the cries of dying men still loud in Daigon's ears as he urges his steed away from the carnage.[/i] Miles away, Cerys's lip curled in distaste beneath eyes that roved in their closed lids. [i]Coward.[/i] [i]Freezing waves exploding over the prow of a longship, cutting through churning grey seas. Daigon is sitting at the stern, looking backwards at a shoreline receding from view.[/i] Never in her life had Cerys imagined so much water. It reminded her forcibly of the desert, each breaking wave a cresting dune. And the ship! She would not soon forget the vessel. It crested another wave and plunged down into... [i]...flickering fires dot the slope of a massive dune, marking out the sprawling form of a mercenary camp in the desert. Daigon stands at the crest, looking out upon the force with satisfaction.[/i] Cerys knew that picture well, in its meaning, if not its detail. Here was another leader. [i]The glimpse of a figure clad in white, face hidden by a gilded mask, as powerful as a god and as unpredictable. The Archmagister. 'Do it' cooes the wizard. Within Daigon blooms a desperate hunger, and with a last exertion of will, he crushes the dregs of resistance in a captive spirit. The daemon screams as it is consumed.[/i] Recoiling in horror, the Priestess tried to arrest her breakneck travel through the memories of this foreign mind. Surely that hadn't been one of the Pantheon? One of the Red Gods? Instead of digging in thoughts, Cerys now found herself falling through them, unable to find purchase. [b][i]Who are you?[/i][/b] echoed a quiet, shivering voice, both annoyed and amused, [b][i]a little mountain-witch, sneaking in the shadows between thoughts...Cerys, Cerys is your name. Well, I-[/i][/b] In her panic at discovery, Cerys took hold of the next image, clinging to it like the edge of a cliff, a sea of thoughts beneath. [i]He is barefoot in the wet grass, watching the sun rise over mountains wreathed in fog. The growing light paints the sky first pink then red then gold, and the cold air smells of pine and woodsmoke. He knows if he turns he'll see his home behind him, his city, perched atop its hill in the center of a broad, green valley, the pale stone towers of Fanghall standing proudly above the thatched homes and cottages clustered in its protective shadow. Aiva is there, probably just waking up. He smiles at the thought and turns to head back to her.[/i] A wave of anger, regret, and wrenching pain washed through the stranger's mind, mingling with the empathy Cerys felt welling up from her own consciousness. And then he was standing above her precarious handhold, black hair falling wildly in to pale eyes alight with fury. In a single motion, Daigon seized the priestess by the arm and cast her into the tempest below. [b][i]You are lucky I have greater gods than yours to contend with,[/i][/b] echoes the shaking voice, dripping with rage, [b][i]out of my head, Dream-Thief.[/i][/b] [hr] Cerys woke suddenly, slick with sweat and panting, her hair sticking damply to her forehead, the furs of her simple bedding twined haphazardly about her thighs. In a jerking motion, she flung off the fabric, tearing at her clinging garments until at last her skin was bare to the cool, desert air. She examined herself desperately in the shined bowl of a simple sheild, but the polished surface showed only her own body, pale and unchanged but for the quickly fading mark of a man's hand on one arm. [hider=*] Collab with [@Nieszka] [/hider]