Fan Fiction ❯ 'facets' ❯ Studies in the Sidereal ( Chapter 2 )

Studies in the Sidereal

I.

The spicy afterburn chased the ginger sweetness down his throat. Solvan downed the liquor gratefully.

"The brew is incontestably superior," Crano commented, equally taken with his own drink.

"It's better after a hard day's work," Solvan replied acidly.

Though he'd woken drenched in chill sweat, short of breath and with an odd lingering throbbing in the region of his heart, whatever fantastic visions he'd had quickly became washed-out impressions and snatches, bleached to shades of grey with the birth of another merciless day in the east. After dressing, he'd emerged from the palatial confines of the carriage to find the proud old city of Tharsis at his feet, and a cheerful and spry Crano pointing at his mountain of magical kitsch. And another horse-drawn cart.

"Your efforts will be well compensated," Crano said wearily, "how often must I reiterate myself for you?"

Solvan leaned back in his ornately carved chair. He had to at least give Crano credit for taste, he thought, taking in the tavern. Windows with new glass, the kind you could still see through, an immaculate floor, forgiving yellow light from candles in wall sconces, tantalizing exotic drinks. And once again, several attractive young waitresses. One caught Solvan's stare, eyed him back, gave him a suggestive smile. He found himself smiling back.

Crano naturally noted the exchange. "Our work is not yet done," he reminded Solvan wryly.

Solvan gave him a disgusted look. "How did you get me to work for you again? My gratitude for getting me a job back then isn't going to last forever, you know."

"And your gratitude for finding you, in the aftermath, 'back then?' " Crano asked, eyebrow raised.

The bitter taste of guilt accompanied his drink as he swallowed. "...Of course," he said, sobered. He paused. "Sorry," he ventured. "I try to put all that behind me nowadays, so sometimes I forget. Just how much I owe you."

"There's hardly justification for feeling imprisoned by a sense of debt to me," Crano told him in a quieter voice. "My request for your assistance...is only a request. Not an obligation." Those vivid green eyes met his, and Solvan saw he meant it.

...But.

"I've come this far, I suppose," Solvan remarked with a shrug. "But you could answer a few of my questions, at least."

At that, Crano's amused smile returned. "I will make no promises," he advised.

"Where are we going?" Solvan asked.

"We board a ferry vessel to cross the Anice Channel," Crano replied, affecting to be bored, studying his fingernails.

"And then?" Solvan pressed.

Crano looked at him, infuriatingly amused.

"Fine," Solvan told him, exasperated. "But then, how about your miraculous sudden ageing? I don't understand it. I knew-"

"-You knew me for half a decade," Crano interrupted irritably, "For all of which I appeared as a boy of twelve years or less, yes; you've asked this already, Solvan. My answer is the same: as I've told you all along, my unnaturally extended childhood was only temporary. Soon after you left, the backlash struck me, and in the space of a few months I aged what, six, seven years? That is all there is to be said."

"Crano, I'm not a total dumbass. You know why you were stunted-" Crano frowned; "-and you won't tell me. All I want to know is if someone did it to you."

"For concern for your own safety, I surmise," Crano said coldly.

"Well, yes," Solvan said defensively. "No offense, but if you have enemies that strong, it's bullshit to expect me to do anything to help you against them. Don't get me wrong, I'd stick up for you in a fight-"

"-Yes; I seem to recall that was how we met, in fact," Crano said dryly.

"-Yeah, that was something; but my point is, against a magician, I'm useless. And against one powerful enough to put a spell on you that you can't remove...

Crano took his turn to sit quietly for a moment. Then he raised his head, staring at Solvan curiously, and remarked: "Your tendency to spontaneously and mysteriously elevate your intelligence has always surprised me. You are half correct." Crano's expression turned impassive, closed, potently disturbing in its lack of emotion. His eyes were empty jade. "Yes, my unique handicap was inflicted by fellow magi. However, not by one alone, but rather a conclave; and furthermore, I was not their target, but merely caught in the conflict by coincidence and misfortune, you might say. But I can assure you that there is no possibility that you will ever encounter them."

Solvan, for some reason, was not greatly comforted by Crano's tone.

"And that is all I care to elaborate on, for today." Crano glanced out the windows. "The day is passing while we enjoy unearned relaxation. Time once more to earn your wages, Solvan."

Solvan downed the last of his drink resignedly, and as they passed the waitress he'd noticed earlier, he gave her a regretful look. Her shrug was indifferent, that of one who has been rejected far too often to maintain the effort of feigning to care for the loss of a stranger.

II.

The streets of Tharsis. A stately old metropolis, her grand avenues of time-ground pumice sullied, besieged on all sides by stark, nondescript streets gouged from the baroque manses of yesteryear by the vicious synthesis of poverty and population growth. Hard times for the holy city.

The horse was an old nag. For the third time, Solvan had to actually scramble forward to mount her and wrestle with the reins, yanking harder on the bit than he would have liked, until, ears flat in resentment, she finally turned to the correct alley. Solvan's face burned at the mixed curiosity and contempt he read on the faces of the other drivers, doing little to assuage his temper. He clambered back to his seat. Crano's soft laughter rang in his ears, a sound familiar enough to pierce even the din of the busy streets.

The dark, rain-stained stonework of the buildings grew rougher, rounded edges marking the pointed arches of windows and portals. The crowds thinned. The oldest, most sacred district was slowly surrounding them, the cathedrals to Filenen from the long past centuries of faith all around, neglected. Solvan stared in wonder to see the ancient liveoaks perched in their courtyard in each building, spilling through stone walls as roots sought further loam, defining the architecture of each uniquely. The branches, the limbs, flew out of their heavy torsos like wings, twisting horizontally and meandering through the air to encounter their fellows across the streets, nestle together, choke out the sun in their arboreal might. And each branch supported withered, brown vines, thousands of shriveled, unopened buds. Flicker orchids, their fiery blossoms extinguished in the passing of their goddess.

Peering through the dilapidated thresholds to the squandered grandeur of each of the temples, it was hard for Solvan to accept that in such secular times no one would seek to occupy them. But then, even in Filen the stories were told of the shades lingering in these dead cathedrals, revenants of iron-willed ascetics that whispered strange prayers in the depths of the night, roots that shifted, ensnared those that disturbed their hallowed presence.

Even the insatiable machine of development couldn't touch this lost acropolis. Their symbolic power still lived in the thoughts of the people of Tharsis, and each and every stone chamber carried its obscure purpose, each intended for one specific form of worship, whether cavernous or constricting. And no stone could be stripped without incurring the fury of the Knighthood, vestigial though it might be, while the skeletal priesthood could be counted on to chant their dour curses on the heads of the demolitionists. They, and the city, quietly awaited the dawn when the orchids lit up once more.

Eventually the timeless atmosphere of the temples surrendered to the raucous noise of the harbor. The stench of gutted fish soon inspired regret for their arrival in both Solvan and Crano. The salt-ridden air, the steep descent as the city plunged to the ocean, throngs of sailors high on the solid ground under their feet. Fighting through with his reluctant animal did not prove the highlight of Solvan's day.

"Where the hell is our ship docked?" Solvan yelled at Crano, competing with the clamor. Crano shrugged indifferently, studying another of his grimoires. "We currently lack a berth," he said. "My generous employers left that honor to us. But doubtless a ferry leaves daily. Perhaps you should interrogate a likely passerby?"

Solvan gritted his teeth. Picking an elderly seaman, he asked about passage. Sure enough, there was a vessel, and docked fortuitously nearby. "The Misbegot," the man said, adding, " I'd wait a day though, if t'were me; t'lives up t'it's name."

"Well? Are we going to listen?" Solvan queried, turning to Crano.

"Of course not," Crano replied, still distracted. "Haste is crucial. I'm certain we shall find our captain merely has a lively sense of humor."

Solvan shook his head.

The vessel proved to be of a fair size, capable of holding several travelers as well as crew, and manned by a genial giant. It was, however, green with algae and years without the touch of a scrub. Crano finally raised his scholarly head out of his musty tome, took in what lay before him, and wrinkled his nose.

"It's the cheapest berth you'll find," the captain added.

Solvan and Crano looked at each other.

III.

"Dearest Filenen," Solvan heard Crano moan. His face was a study in despair.

On the deck below, the sailors let out a caustic stream of abuse at one another in the fluid language of the Hydan, clustering around the devastation of another of Crano's esoteric magical implements, formerly comprised of a thin spherical arrangement of glass and concentric metal wires. Its demise was spectacular.

"That one always was hell to move," Solvan remarked, somewhat cheerfully.

A laborer yelped as his emphatic gesticulations led him to step on the blade of a shard. The argument concluded as swiftly as it had erupted, with a bark of laughter from the female deckhand and a sympathetic-sounding tone from the other man. The injured muttered something resentfully under his breath, and the three paused to stare darkly at Crano, watching with Solvan above from the elevated deck at the stern.

Even though a mutiny might have been preferable at that point to the dubious pleasure of the Misbegot's comforts, Solvan knew Crano would, naturally, refuse to contemplate abandoning the plan now that he'd paid for their passage. "What are they saying?" Solvan asked the captain.

"The lads and the lass are a mite upset at Mage Crano's luggage. Think it's unsafe," Gerard answered indifferently. The captain had dropped all pretenses at subservience with the acquisition of the payment.

Crano bristled. "Perhaps if you could procure staff that was not so painfully incompetent-"

"DeMarko, what the fuck is going on?" A harsh female voice demanded from the cabin doors below.

Crano sighed. "Your `friend' is slightly uncouth for my tastes," he said to Solvan in undertones.

Solvan laughed. "Nothing, Minasa, they've just gone and broken another of Crano's toys."

A woman emerged from the corridor. She was garbed in the rough, loose tunic and pants worn by the Knighthood in times unsuited to the favored full-plate armor. Her face, while not beautiful, was certainly attractive, the aristocratic influences in her Aneman nose and strong jaw contrasting with her wild array of chestnut curls to add to the sense of a patch. She regarded the scene in front of her levelly. Noting the sullen looks on the crew, she shifted her stance subtly, so as to draw emphasis to the presence of the wicked axe strapped to her back. "Ask them if there's a problem with the passenger's baggage," Minasa told Gerard.

Apparently amused by the turn of events, Gerard translated her question into the liquid language of their sea nation. The crew, rather than answering, resignedly resumed their duties.

"My sincerest gratitude. I fear my patience had grown so stretched as to provoke me to rather unenlightened decisions," Crano confessed, aplomb recovered.

"Sure," she told him, looking a little uncomfortable. "Just try to keep the noise down a bit, if you can; I'm in the middle of the midday prayers. Sorry to dash off, but I'll catch up with you later, Solvan." With a regretful wave, she disappeared back into the bowels of the ship.

"That's ok," Solvan called after her, scratching his head as he felt Crano's attention shift to him. He was amused now. "Quite the windfall, encountering a `friend' on a berth chosen at random. I could almost believe the ludicrous proposition that she had pursued you from the distant gates of Filen."

"Well of course she did. It's my famous charisma," Solvan replied, grinning.

"As you say," Crano said with a shrug of disbelief. "Some women lack any characteristic remotely related to taste."

When Solvan didn't respond to his banter, he glanced back at the deckhands. "I believe I'll retire to our quarters. Our gracious servants seem to have been cured of their fascinating ineptitude with the manifestation of an axe. Note, if you would, the interesting logic that leads them to fear a crude farm implement more than a magical revenant of the apocalyptic past.

"Their religion doesn't believe in that past," Solvan reminded him.

"Nonetheless, a tragic state of affairs, to see the irrefutable evidence of it dismissed for a disorganized, contradictory set of vague doctrines." Crano shook his head sorrowfully for the uneducated masses, and descended the grimy ladder to the cabins.

Solvan's thoughts were still on the madness of the day. Gerard had proven to be a capable, experienced officer. He had operated the route for the majority of his life, and had charts for each shoal that impudently extended its head far enough to be a danger to the Misbegot. He made paltry profits for his work; only the most impoverished (or cheapest) of travelers would brave the filthy decks of the old ship (Gerard had a definite distaste for the chore of cleaning). But he operated the route even so, apparently motivated only by pleasure, which, all in all, was perhaps the best indication of his skill.

But upon entering the squalid confines of the cabin he and Crano were to share, they had discovered that it was wide enough for only a single bed. One look from Crano was enough to inform Solvan that it wasn't worth asking who would occupy the mattress, and that asking if they could share was equally pointless.

To further complicate matters, Solvan had encountered Minasa on the gangplank. Her expression upon seeing him had been comically startled; he felt his own must have matched hers. This marked the third time he'd run into her. She was a scout of the Knighthood, surveying the more remote villages of the vast grasslands. Though they disagreed on several ethical issues, and her faith to a dead deity was somewhat repugnant to Solvan, she surprisingly shared his affection for a good drink after a hard day's toil under the merciless sun. And their pleasant intoxication had led them, the second time, to end up in an unanticipated and intimate situation. Which, as it turned out, neither had regretted.

The crew had finally finished loading the Misbegot, and Gerard was striding amongst them, supervising the imminent departure. Feeling out of place, Solvan followed Crano to their cabin.

Even Crano had not been able to discover a means to find a desk on the ship, or install it within the cramped space of the room. Instead, he sat cross-legged in the middle of his bed, the same antiquated spellbook open in his lap, its formidable girth and size extending beyond his thin legs.

"What's in that? You've been studying it all day." Solvan asked. "Find some new and exciting way to hurt me?"

"Alas, no," Crano answered, looking up, slightly irate. "In fact, if you had any knowledge of magic texts at all, it would have been obvious to you that this is not even a grimoire."

"What is it then?"

Crano's look became reserved.

Solvan tried not to feel exasperated. "It's got to do with your task, then. Why won't you tell me what you're going to do?"

"You wouldn't understand me even if I undertook to explain, Solvan. It doesn't concern you; forget about it." Crano had returned to his reading. Solvan decided even the deck was better than an uncommunicative Crano.

He climbed to the aft of the ferry to watch the sailors untying the ropes and tugging at the tattered sails. Turning around to look out to sea, Solvan watched the sun setting on the sea. The mercurial folds of the waves muted the dying light, soothing it. Instead of feeling sick and disorientated by the sun, Solvan was liberated. The seas of grey waves were not so different from the seas of rippling grass, after all, and their isolation was hardly unfamiliar. As the Misbegot lumbered out of the harbor and his homeland dwindled from his view, no sense of loss struck him. He was returned to his wandering, and that, after all, had been his original wish. He let the wind, his fondest companion, sweep across him, eyes closed, in fatigue and in contentment. He felt whole.

Footsteps on the worn wooden treads snapped him from his reverie.

"DeMarko?" She was shielding her eyes against the sun.

He turned to see her. The sun behind him inflamed his hair. "Minasa. I'm surprised you don't have a sunset vigil or something."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't have a midday prayer either; your friend just creeps me out. Sorry."

"He does that to everyone at first. He always talks that way, though he didn't use to dress so badly."

"It's not that, actually...though that does look idiotic...it's something about his eyes. They're-" Minasa paused. "I don't know, he just gives me bad vibes." she finished, shrugging.

"He's a little shady too," Solvan admitted, "but he's basically ok. You just have to get used to him, really."

She shrugged. Then she chuckled. "I've been meaning to ask you: what the fuck is a prairie vagrant doing on a Roth-bound ferry?" Her almond eyes danced.

Solvan smiled. "I'd like to know what a sister of the phoenix is doing outside the holy land."

"Yeah, guess I'm being obnoxious. As usual."

"I'm pretty used to that," Solvan agreed.

Minasa laughed again. "And you're as full of excitement as ever. So damn passive."

She crossed the deck, joined him at the prow. An unruly gust caught her untamed strands of hair and flung them into her face. Irritably, she flicked them away with a callused hand. "What's it been, a few months? Seems like a week ago. And now I run into you on a ship out of country. A small one. Bit suspicious, actually," she commented, eyebrow raised.

"You don't seem all that upset."

"Maybe I'm not," Minasa conceded. "But I am pretty curious about what could drive a self-confessed deadbeat to leave his home turf."

"I went back to Filen."

"What? I thought you hated Filen?"

"It's not the most pleasant of places to visit, obviously," he said quietly. "But, I don't know. I'm not sure why I went back; I still hate it."

"Right," she said skeptically. "And there you met an old friend become seedy type?"

"He always was a little seedy, actually." Solvan smiled at the memory of a younger Crano. "I met him by saving him from a pair of thugs beating the shit out of him. He was grateful...for a while. And after, he gave me a job when I really needed one...and did me a few other good turns. When I found him again he'd changed a bit...but I owe him a lot. So when he asked me to help him out, for whatever reason, I had to agree."

She looked out to sea. "So you're here with him?"

Solvan smiled. "Yeah, but I have a bit of a problem, actually. They only gave us one bed, and there's no way I'm getting it."

She turned back to him. Dusk had ended, leaving her lit by starlight alone. Her smile became ethereal. "I suppose there could be a way of solving that," she said.

IV.

As she pulled his sleeve off in the shadows of her room, she heard him draw a breath. Even in the thin light, she could see the scarring. "Does it...bother you?" he asked quietly.

She studied his arm. It was a ruin of raw tissue, skin frozen forever in peeling, flesh swirled and streamed in what could be mistaken for an intentional design. "It didn't last time, did it?" she found herself telling him.

"But it must have been quite the fire."

V.

"You must run," a child told him.

And so he ran, feet bare to sharp leaves and unforgiving tree roots of the dense forest around him. Strange lights danced in glen to his left; a garden of crumbled statues claimed by vines flashed by his right. A drum's deep tone resonated from behind, a challenge and dark promise, and he felt the acid rush of adrenaline and urgency. He knew the lands he ran through were not mortal.

Panting, he clambered up a hill

and found himself falling into nothingness. His screams were inaudible to him over the din of the raging winds rushing past. He knew there was no ground below him to meet.

Then, abruptly, jarringly, he was not falling, but lying against cold stone. He looked up. The man with the searing hand faced him, his face as unreadable as before. He tensed, felt cold sweat trickle down his back, instinctive fear taking hold of him. But the man made no move, only studied him.

"I wanted to...apologize for my animosity upon our last encounter," the man said finally, tone light. "I do not intend you any true harm."

"You fucking killed me!" He said, incredulity overcoming his fear. "You killed me and you don't want to hurt me?" He laughed hysterically.

"You present a frustrating dilemma to me, and I fear I unfairly blamed you for it. I did not actually harm you, though I could have."

He gasped for breath between the panicked laughter. He couldn't look at the man, but he couldn't look away either, fixed by his distant eyes. "What the fuck are you doing here anyway? I sure as hell didn't call you this time."

"No," the man agreed, "I called upon you." A terrible and bitter little smile crossed his gaunt face. "I need what you're concealing from me. I've been looking for it for a long time."

"What?!" he shouted, nearly crying with panic.

"Your identity," the man replied easily. "Who are you? Do you really think that the person you are right now is the person you are when you wake?"

The man's quiet voice disarmed him. The man was calming him purposefully, but he was grateful for the relief. "Why does it really matter?" he asked the man, finally.

"When you tell me what I would like to learn," the man said, impatience on his face, "Perhaps I will do the same. If I don't force down that miserable defense first."

"What defense?" He asked, but found he was calling after a ghost. The man had left.

VI.

"Defense? What are you talking about?" the voice was tired.

"What?" he asked groggily.

The boat's ponderous lurch swiftly reminded Solvan of where he was. He blinked at the tranquil morning light flooding the nearest cabin. He grew conscious of a human warmth against him.

"You were saying something in your sleep," Minasa replied, eyes on the ceiling, smiling sleepily.

Solvan shifted to get up and find Crano.

"No, don't leave yet, I'm too comfortable," Minasa protested.

"Glad to be a good pillow," Solvan said tartly.

Minasa grinned. "Hey, you're a very cute pillow."

Solvan rolled his eyes. "This time you don't even have alcohol to blame your taste on."

"Oh, so my taste is weird?" Minasa challenged him, roused at the chance of thrashing Solvan in an argument.

"Well, you did join the Knighthood," Solvan pointed out.

The look on her face told him that hadn't gone over well. "What?"

"Never mind," he said, cursing himself.

"No, what did you mean?" Minasa asked, sitting up on her elbows, frowning at him.

"Well, come on, the Knights are pretty much a joke nowadays," Solvan said. "They're lapdogs for the Anemans."

"I don't believe this," Minasa sighed. "Do you know what Filen would be like without the Knights? At least we give people a chance at justice when we try them; Filenen knows, the nobles would love to see more Feuns slaughtered."

"Bullshit," Solvan said, growing incensed himself. "One village I went to, there was a dispute between the landowner and a tenant; there hadn't been enough of a harvest to cover the rent for the land. The Knights came in and fined the family most of their possessions."

"What are we supposed to do? It's better than killing the people, at least they live on."

"The next day," Solvan continued, "The noble family's guards rode up to the house and ran the entire family through. The Knights sat there and watched."

"Do you really think they could have done anything about it? There are only a thousand some Knights left, Solvan; the Aneman army is hundreds of thousands strong. Any sign of rebellion from us and they'd be across the sea in a day. The plains would be ash in a week. We can't do anything about the atrocities except mediate. We're all that's left protecting the Feun race!"

Cooling somewhat, Solvan said "Maybe, but I guess I just don't think it's enough. We need more."

Minasa didn't say anything, just sat up and tugged her slip on.

"I'm sorry I brought it up, I didn't mean to offend you. I didn't know you cared it," Solvan said.

She pulled her robe on and gave him a disappointed look. "The rituals are useless, Solvan, but I think we make a difference," she said in measured tones. "It's not much, but if you know a better way, let me know." She stood up in her shoes and opened the door.

"Wait," he called futilely, as the door closed.

He sighed, then sat still, an odd sensation at the back of his mind. A look of confusion crossed his face.

"Why do I get the feeling I've seen this somewhere already today?"

Minasa's disgusted expression came back to him, and he forgot the feeling. He sighed again.

"I'm such a fuck-up."

VII.

Pulling on his own clothes, Solvan left the cabin and felt the familiar ache of hunger. He sought out the mess, passing a sullen Hydan deckswab, and pushed open the swing door. Crano looked up from his text and gave him an amused smile. Solvan was somewhat relieved to see Minasa was nowhere in sight. Grabbing the Misbegot's excuse for a meal, he sat down opposite the mage.

"I was distressed to find my floor empty when I awoke," Crano said, sipping an herbal concoction. Only Crano could find an obscure foreign drink aboard a ship like the Misbegot. "I feared you'd fallen to your death in the briny depths."

"You don't seem very upset to me," Solvan said sourly. "You didn't think I could just have found someone a bit more charitable to sleep with?"

Crano gave him a protracted stare. He coughed.

Solvan glared.

"...I found it...unlikely," Crano admitted.

"It's nice to know you've got such confidence in me," Solvan replied dourly.

"Judging by your funereal countenance and acerbic tongue, I would surmise that your encounter didn't fare well," Crano remarked.

"I fucked up," Solvan agreed morosely.

"You slept with Minasa, of course. Were you actually surprised?"

"What do you mean?"

"...Solvan, my dear friend, I wouldn't be so self-effacing, for that reason at least, if I found myself in your position. I believe that woman has issues of her own." He sipped his fragrant mixture again.

"You don't like her?" Solvan asked, mildly surprised.

Crano made a noncommittal gesture.

Solvan chuckled. "She didn't like you either."

Crano managed to look affronted as he set his mug down, though the pout of his lip seemed more childish. Then he smiled smugly. "It only confirms my prior analysis: she has no taste."

Solvan laughed at Crano's formidable hubris, as always.

Appeased, Crano lifted his mug and drank of it deeply. He set it down loudly and fixed Solvan with a solemn look. "Tomorrow we arrive at Roth. An arduous leg to our journey approaches, so I suggest you strive for a good night's rest this eve."

"On a hard floor?" Solvan complained.

Crano laughed. "If the berth is not to your liking, use your famous charms." He rose, hefting his gargantuan tome and cup, and strode out the door.

"Crano, wait!" Solvan said, exasperated. For the second time, he was struck with déjà vu. Just like that morning, he thought. But something else too, something nagging at the back of his mind. Must have been from a dream.

...A dream...

VIII.

The floor spun beneath his feet. The strange imagery of his fevered visions manifested before him, filth and old wood flickering madly with ancestral forest, broken tower, jade hail. "What…" he asked stupidly. A shock of genuine pain struck him as a slipstream of faces flashed behind his eyes, a sensation like that of a rope burn ripping through the back of his head. He thought he groaned. He thought he might be falling. He thought, across a vista of bare earth and fierce thunder, he saw a skeletal figure taking slow, calculating strides towards him.

"Demarko? You alright?"

His vision snapped back to normal with the quick, cold shock of an injection. Minasa's face, angry but half concerned, coalesced in front of him. She leaned back.

"You were flailing on the floor and clutching at your throat like you couldn't breathe. I'm assuming this isn't an everyday situation for you."

Shaking in the residue of the onslaught, Solvan managed to nod numbly. "A...waking...dream..." he said.

"What?"

"...I'm hallucinating. Or I was," he amended.

"What, did you take some madrote?" Minasa asked.

"No, no drugs. I think I need rest."

Wordlessly, Minasa helped him up and followed his directions back to his cabin. She set him down on the bed. "I'll find your friend," she said before leaving.

He didn't dare sleep, gripped by a fear he couldn't explain, so he lay there and shivered.

IX.

Time passed in strange leaps and lulls for Solvan; glancing at the window, he found the sun could skip across the grey wastes of the sky in seconds, or stay in a fixed position for eternal seconds. Finally it passed from view, swallowed by the sea before Solvan realized it had begun to set. It grew dark, and he found the room full of shadows stretching towards him. Still struck by that sourceless terror, he drew back suddenly, body erupting into sharp pain from the hours of perfect stillness, and watched. No movement alerted him. His muscles began to relax.

"I can almost see you," a man's voice said in his left ear.

He fled the growing darkness.

The ship was empty. No passengers were to be found, or even surly crew; no footsteps echoed to him. He suspected he was still hallucinating, and didn't know whether the idea was comforting or chilling. The ships' halls were tighter than he recalled, and their wear seemed more akin to true ruin to his eyes. The passage shrank around him, and the air grew thick. He staggered through it, stumbling with the ship's sway grown irregular and impossibly severe. He needed air, the wood closing in around him like a cheap coffin, not continuing as he recalled but following some new convoluted path. He thrashed through. The portal appeared from nowhere, and he, gaspless, recklessly threw himself up it and onto the deck.

The night sky expanded above him, beginning somewhere between the ragged sails. The firmament had never seemed so colossal to him, so eternal. It seemed to grow as he watched it, though it was infinite every second he stared at it. He looked away. The sea was flat, despite the cool wind freezing his eyelids. He was not alone.

Crano sat before him, one knee raised, an elbow resting on it, his chin resting on his hand. His gaze was directed upwards.

"Crano," Solvan said, fighting still for breath.

"Hello, Solvan," Crano answered, not looking at him. His voice came out strangely slow.

"There's something wrong with me," Solvan somehow found the air to say.

Crano's fingers slowly curled off his face, his head beginning to infinitesimally turn. In a flash he was looking deep into Solvan's eyes. Solvan felt time eluding him still, a petulant, sadistic child.

"If you will permit me to touch your mind, I will help you," Crano said calmly, his tone detached. The wind that did not touch the oceans touched him, fluttered in his hair, whipped his headband's ties.

Solvan's stomach shrank at the idea, but Crano did not wait for a reply. He rose fluidly, and walked towards Solvan purposefully. Solvan felt there was another person walking towards him behind his back, and that somehow the two were engaged in a race. With each step Crano took, the world resolved itself by a nearly imperceptible degree, the sky rushing back to it's natural dome, time becoming more linear; but each time Solvan felt the presence of the other draw nearer, his perceptions flew from him again. The strange battle waged for hours; they were not really on a ship at all, but on some barren plane, three dark nexuses on empty seas.

Abruptly, Crano's hand came to rest on his shoulder. The unreal world fell away, and Solvan saw Crano had never even risen to walk to him. He sank to his knees as nausea overtook him with the return of his sense.

"You won't dream anymore," Crano said to him. "There is a cancer in your dreams, and I have suppressed it by denying it entrance."

"You can do that?" Solvan asked, remembering the terror...it had evoked, its dark power.

"Don't think on it," Crano told him sharply. "Join me. Sit."

He sat with Crano and directed his sight to the stars. Their cold luminescence seemed more haunting and fey at sea than on the familiar plains. "Magnificent," he said finally.

"Hollow. Flat." Crano replied.

"What?" Solvan said in confusion, looking at Crano's rapt eyes.

"A mockery of light, feebleness made impressive through density rather than innate beauty. The stars are dead, only phantoms, so distant and lost as to not exist."

"Then why do you watch them?"

Crano didn't answer. Solvan stood, tired and truly needing sleep, and walked back to the ladder. He cast one last glance back as he descended. The fragile stars wheeled around Crano in their alien dance, constellations almost visible as though spidersilk had been woven between the pinpricks.

X.

He did not dream.