The Wolf and the Phoenix

[Sam]

Talon walked the dream.

 

Less and less often he dared the shimmering paths of Te’aran’rhiod; seldom for recreation. His mistress turned her mind to more important matters than her wayward ‘child’, but he was ever wary of her traps. He could not escape a second time. Then, too, there were the wolf children and their bizarre affinity with the world of dreams. They presented many problems.

 

The world around him rippled like cloth and he floated upon an icy stretch of road. He knew this place. He could still feel the cold wind chilling his blood. This was first road he had tread after escaping the home of his abusive father. At times he wondered if his father had survived the bungled attempt to burn his house down about his ears but to this day remained too afraid to confront his origin. It was here that he had been offered his first kindness.

 

Again the fabric of reality shifted like a curtain in response to the breeze of his thoughts and he sat beneath the canopy of a small tent enfolded him with warmth. A girl sat opposite, fine and strong, her features blurred by time weariness. She offered him shelter and food; he accepted. When he recovered enough he fled that place ad that girl without a word of gratitude or thanks. Of all his sins, this one burnt the brightest.

 

The scene faded, replaced by an approaching fist, which Talon attempted to block instinctively. He failed. He always did, every time he looked back upon this scene. Little more than a boy at the time his opponent was a giant figure. Likely no larger than Talon was himself now, but forever immortalised as a monster. A terrible defeat, but one richly deserved. The moment that last punch was thrown and his broken body lay upon the mat he learnt caution.

 

Now he stood in a large antechamber, hands moving nervously. He remembered this place, her manor. Dressed in dark hues of purple and black to accent his sickly appearance he dined with his mistress. Soon to view for the first time the cruelty and violent temper that tainted her porcelain beauty. He blinked this memory away. It was not one he wished to remember.

 

In time he was to escape, employed by The Rogues of Cairhein, fresh from his assassin’s training, as well as those other arts in which he was schooled, the young Talon found work and opportunity. More than that, he found a parental figure that was not abusive as his others had been. And then he had died at the hands of Aiel filth, his murder going unpunished. His betrayal, Talon saw to it personally, did not.

 

He used the confusion of the aftermath to hunt them, those members of the guild professing loyalty to the late Aventari, those who disbanded his life’s work and sought no retribution, all except Rakel. To have evaded him so long . . . she deserved her life. Not even Jester had escaped his wrath in the end. Jester who more than anyone should have sought the blood of his brother’s slayer but did not.

 

Jester: Aran. His name; his memory brought a wash of emotions too interwoven and terrible to examine. He deserved more than one death and if Talon had not already dealt with his treason he would gladly have killed him all over again. Talon considered replaying that memory in his head to sooth his anger but dismissed the idea.

 

. . . Tel’aran’rhiod rippled . . .

 

[Wayfarer]

. . . Tel’aran’rhiod rippled . . .

 

Ring.

 

Standing within the middle of the circle, many figures stood around him as their blades danced in the midday sun.  Spears and swords, finding flesh again and again yet the figures did not die.  They did not cry out, they did not yell battle cries and they did not fall down as they were struck.  The blades sank in and out of flesh with sickening thunks, blood spilling from the wounds that slowly pieced themselves together as the blood pooled into the circle and at Aran's feet.  All of them faceless yet familiar, all of them murderers and warriors, all of them the same.

 

Bowing his head, Aran frowned in concentration as he felt himself reaching within and outward.  He wanted it to stop, he wanted it to end, he wanted them to be gone.  His woolen shirt and breeches of white whipping in the wind which came, the ground was scoured of the blood and the horde of combatants swept away out of sight and mind until there was only earth and horizon.  The sun set, bringing darkness to Aran's world.  It wasn't right, it needed to be light, the dark was incorrect.

 

The sun appeared once more, and in the sky there were clouds.  Looking up at them, a sensation traveled down Aran's back near the nape of his neck and he ascended.  His arms hanging freely at his sides, he quickly breached the clouds only to find a brilliance beyond.  A simple symbol hung in the sky, the light shaped in the manner of his family's crest that stood there before him.  Approaching it slowly, drifting through the sky, its incandescence would have been painful in a different place but here it was clarity in all its glory.

 

Hesitating as he lifted his hand, it was momentary and he reached out unto the light.  At his touch it disappeared, yet it did not for it was still present if beyond his senses.  Drifting back, he let himself ride the skies as a bird, the wind caressing his cheek as he knew nothing but the wonder of the freedom in the sky.  He had been here many times before he knew, the sky was where he was at peace and in peace he would dwell.

 

A Talon in the sky. 

 

Banking away, the sight was forgotten as quickly as it was recognised.

[Sam]

Talon stopped himself from falling. He was floating in the air, staring down upon another person, who drifted through the air as an ocean. Jester. He could not place this moment in time, the world of dreams offered almost incomparably accurate recollection; unlimited access to one’s own past, but this was not any memory of his. The Jester lived.

 

Jester, alive: how was this possible? The revelation stunned him, and for a moment Jester was allowed to float free within his own dream. When the frightening surge of anger reasserted itself, Talon awoke from his stupour, the air around him boiling. Those months, believing Aventari to be avenged, now mocked him. His fate, so it seemed, was to leave his past unresolved. Not this time.

 

Jester flew, Talon did not; more followed in pursuit with his mind and the projection of his body followed. This was Jester’s dream and he would have little control here. Not enough to quash Jester’s life force with overwhelming pressure. He could pull Jester into a dream of his making but he was not without power here and Jeter was not a walker. There should be no great difficulty here.

 

He would need to find himself an appropriate weapon, and a blade of some sword would do nicely. Jester’s dream resisted his intrusion but he overcame it easily enough. A knife was in his hand. It may have been there for one moment or a lifetime. This was unimportant. It was there now; it would be enough.

 

Another sensation of pressure, the resistance of Jester’s dream, and Talon was looking down upon him once more. Instinctive dream reactions could be painful, he had learnt, and so he remained high enough that his presence went unnoticed. Judging the time opportune he descended, with every intention of tumbling Jester from the skies and into the barren ground of his mind.

[Wayfarer]

One moment he was looking down, the next moment he was looking up, not an unusual occurence in the moment where he could look anywhere and be anywhere.  What was different was the tight feeling around the middle of his back, the feeling that he needed to turn.  From the higher clouds, a single figure plummeted towards him, a Talon that had a dagger in hand and an intent that felt thoroughly foreign.  A thing that was not, a mistake that needed to be corrected.

 

There was little concern for the dagger that menaced him, even as it neared, its fate was sealed as the Talon slashed and the blade sank into a melting pot that had interdicted itself between the blade and himself, destroying it utterly.  The confused look on the Talon's face was something he compounded as the air between them spewed forth a veritable cornucopia of fruit salad that swept the Talon away in a great arc across the sky.  

 

Forgotten as quickly as it happened, he was there and then he was not.

 

Shimmer.

 

Laying against a tree of water, he ran a hand along a guitar made of obsidian with no strings.  The sounds that echoed across the plain of wooden floorboards was distorted, yet a stilted melody emerged nevertheless as he bathed in the azure light that came from an unknown source.  Pieces of reality eddying and swirling around him, not entirely formed, he strummed as he watched an ant the size of a horse demolish a house, dancing on its ruins.  The ant destroyed the human's home as his had been in turn, without care.

 

Without reason.

 

No reason.

 

Unreason.

[Sam]

Spending life in disciplined pursuits of assassination and murder, removing many of those unimportant emotions like apathy to do so, and being tortured by those parental figures idolized in younger years, leaves no one unmarked. Talon was so marked. Badly. Given this unique perspective on life in general he was not sure how to take being assaulted by what appeared to be a lot of watery fruit.

 

A normal man may take the occasion to laugh at the humour, but Talon was not normal, and it was not usual that he be so thwarted by an untrained mind he was attempting to kill. If it was, his life’s end would have come a lot sooner. Various questions were running through his mind, the chief of which being how, the first-lieutenant being, “Fruit-salad?”

 

Talon’s opportunity was not yet over. There was going to be no change to the outcome of this dream, whether Aran used some unknown means to rebuff him, or not.  Asking questions first and acting later was a wiser way of going about business, but Talon knew that Aran was no dream walker and thus had the good sense to be confident.

 

His vision dimmed and he stood in . . . on a wooden floor: a wooden floor that stretched out to the limits of his vision in every direction, and no doubt beyond. He took a step and the floorboard echoed his footstep. That wouldn’t do, too much noise made him nervous. The scene surrounding him blurred and he travelled with his mind.

 

Aran was leaning against a tree made of water and playing some instrument Talon could not recognize. A professional assassin like himself, who used the dream, remained ever cautious not to believe in any of the things he witnessed in the dreams of another. That was the quickest way to die. Jester was beneath a curtain of azure light, which mudded his outline. Talon saw enough.

 

Talon fought the pressure of Jester’s dream and in his hands was a crossbow. This shot would not miss. He aimed, and fired.

 

[Wayfarer]

A feeling of pressure on his chest, a tightness around the throat, a feeling of tightness at the back of his head.  Looking up to find a Talon and his needle slicing through the air to him, his fingers almost tore at the non existant strings as an angry chord rung from the guitar in his lap.  A ripple of air and the bolt snapped in twain as it connected with the anomaly that quickly dissipated.

 

Getting to his feet as the guitar faded from existance, he spread his arms wide and threw his head back.  The tree erupting behind him, the water's ascension was marked by a roar that was joined by many other new geysers erupting from the floor.  Above them, a sea of water quickly pooled, congealed, spreading downwards at an incredibly fast rate as the sky was took its fill.

 

The Talon was gone by the time the water fell to where he was.  The floor still underneath him, he waited until it had reached his feet and encapsulated him completely before he strode slowly to the nearest geyser.  It was as if floating, he was weightless as the water defied gravity.  Kneeling down next to hole that he found, he reached for the rim of it and pulled himself through.

 

Emerging from a pool and onto the hard ice, he marvelled at the vast cavern he stood within.  Thousands upon thousands of icicles hung from the great dome above that was pierced at its apex by a single shaft of light.  Looking down from that sight to what lay before him, a single female figure of ice stood where nothing had been before.  Wearing a simple robe, her hands were outstretched as if they reached out to another.  Stepping forward, he placed his hands in hers only for her to smile and transform into something else entirely.

 

Looking down to her hands, they began to fade away as blue and silver butterflies flew from her.  Within a moment, she was gone and the great cloud of insects dispersed throughout the cavern, emitting a soft glow that better illuminated the surrounds and revealed great figures trapped in the ice, giants of man and beast whose source lay in both fact and fiction.

 

A desk.

 

Sitting down at its accompanying seat, a deck of cards waited for him.  Drawing a card, he frowned and threw it aside, and another, and another.  Everytime it was not the card that he was after, but he would find it eventually.

[Sam]

Self-preservation ignited and Talon was forced to retreat from the scene. This was not going according to his plan. Jester should be dead, twice over. Patience served him well until now and it would serve him well again. One more attempt and then more drastic action was going to be sought. Something was wrong here; he just wasn’t sure what . . . yet.  Unusual scenes occurred in the subconscious dream, but not so much consistency. May Jester have sought instruction? Talon was not sure his ‘brother’ even knew of his gift.

 

Like a rushing waterfall the curtain of reality slid down around him and again he stood before Jester, this time in a cave of ice. Jester did have some interesting dreams. It looked as though he were searching for a particular card within a deck, discarding the others . . . untidy, to say the least.

 

Where are you, brother; how did you escape me? The dream gave no clues as to Jester’s material whereabouts, a minor setback only. With time and effort his awareness could flood the Westlands until he found the dream’s source, if such an action became necessity. Believing Jester dead he had never before tried such a thing, though he used it to try and espy Rakel for some time, with no success. Clever, clever, Rakel.

 

As already mentioned the flaw to attempting to murder someone in their own dream is that you are attempting to manipulate the reality while within the subconscious mind of another. Small things are allowable, weapons, armour; flight. Full scale assaults were not worth attempting, the repercussions often disastrous. For complete control a dream walker must pull an enemy into their own dream, or, if not powerful enough to manage this, at least engage them in Tel’aran’rhiod itself.

 

With that in mind, Talon again wrestled with the dream, attempting to impose his own will. At first nothing happened. Talon began to sweat, and his head flushed with pain. Slowly, one by one, the statues surrounding the table beside which Jester stood began to crack; the shadows within breathing with life . . .

 

 

[Wayfarer]

Once again the nagging feeling of pressure on his chest, focusing on it he pushed it away even as the statues about him began to come to life.  Steam rising from them as they thawed, they began to stir as they became aware of themselves, and of him.  But it didn't matter because the next card he turned up was exactly the one that he was after, the Ace of Spades.

 

Tossing the rest of the deck away, he licked the back of the card and stuck it on his forehead.  Bowing his head even as a darkness began to emanate from him, he paid little attention to what was around him as it was swallowed by the same darkness.  A void that consumed all that the eye could see, a single flame was to be found as the sole item of interest.  A small flame no more than a campfire but without any visible fuel, it simply existed.

 

Approaching it, each step echoing off the unseen surface that he walked upon, he stopped but a foot away before taking the card from his forehead and tossing the Ace of Spades into the fire before him.  The moment the card touched the flame, it was consumed as the fire rose high until it reached an unseen vaulted ceiling, spreading across it and wreathing it in flame as it spread outwards from there.

 

This wasn't so much of concern for him as he gently reached into the flame and cupped away a part of it, a flame circled his four fingers that were outstretched.  Studying it for a moment, he stepped into the great fire and emerged on the other side, aflame yet simply warmed by the fire's touch.  Columns began to arise from the darkness, indistinguishable yet distinguishable, he leaped from one to the other with wild abandon, lighting each one as he landed within before jumping to the next.

[Sam]

Talon’s head pounded, keeping time with his pulse. Beat after excruciating beat.  Jester’s dream had moved away from him and he was bathed in darkness, faint orange lights far in the distance. He should have given up He should give up. But to Talon, the consummate assassin, being thwarted by his brother twice was an impossible meal to swallow.

 

He could do it. He would do it.

 

Denying the internal pressures of attempting to manipulate the dream, thereby the mind, of another person could not be ignored or dispelled like a blow. It came from inside and was more real in Tel’aran’rhiod than most anything else. When he woke he was in for an hour’s solid retching and a migraine. No matter, he possessed herbs to alleviate those symptoms.

 

His awareness drifted closer, disembodied. There was no sense in revealing himself once more until he understood what he saw. Not that the subconscious mind of Jester could not reveal him at any moment, nor even, was unaware of his being here; hopefully the dormant mind would not defend itself if he took no aggressive steps towards it.

 

Jester was . . . on fire. Leaping through large columns, igniting them, and then jumping through the next. It was an endless series. Talon saw no point in attempting to harm him with any ‘physical’ weapon; perhaps the answer lay in the dream itself, and the manipulation of it.

 

Talon focused all of his willpower on a column, three away from Aran’s current position and bent it to his will. The pressure in his head was intense and he almost cried out from the pain. He could do this. He could. The pressure relented and the third column collapsed upon itself just as Aran entered. Talon could 'feel' the reverberation from where he was. Surely this time Aran would die. . . .

 

 

[Wayfarer]

The resonance cascade that tore the column asunder was the harbinger of unforeseen consequences.

 

What would have been accomplished in but a moment was reduced to an infintesimal snail's pace as time and motion yielded to the unconscious mind.  Shards of the dark column sitting in the air, a single androgynous flame surrounded by a myriad of black blades, threatening to bear down and rend the one into the many.

 

And from within the pyrotechnic man, a single pair of green eyes were alight with a different fire altogether.

 

Then he wasn't there.

 

Then there was light.

 

A shadow.

 

Standing over the solitary Talon amidst the timeless sea of white, his featureless form hovering there without moving as he studied  what was before him.  Whatever was on the Talon's face, it did not matter to him as it was time for him to be left alone to his own devices.  He wanted solitude, and he would have it and it was time for the one before him to leave.

 

His shadowy form shed, he shone forth with a brilliance that would have made the sun pale in comparison.  His glory banishing the wraith within a moment, the light quickly dulled to reveal him as himself.  Alone with nothing but white for company, that was something that had to be remedied, he needed to be elsewhere.  A memory tugged at him, causing him to cock his head to one side as he focused.

 

Shimmer.

 

The scene shifted again to a battlefield upon which great giants fought, a pair of them armed with spears of fire who slew those around them before they turned on one another, decimating the land before them. Hills shook and were torn asunder, the land gouged by the flames of their weapon and leaving nothing but ash and sorrow.

 

Frowning as he pointed to them, they disintegrated and became one with the wasteland they had wrought.  Two great powers locked in a struggle that had destroyed everything they had fought for to begin with, leaving nothing but the ruins to those who would survive.  There had to be another way.

 

Shimmer.

[Sam]

Blinded by the light, with his head near to bursting he was driven from the dream. His mind dwelt in darkness for a time, swept along by the currents of pain, unaware of his location. He wanted revenge. Violent, torturous even. He would tear Jester from whatever slumbering dream he dreamt and put his life to an agonising . . . he couldn’t find him.

 

The pain was too great. If, in the world of dreams a man could be said to possess eyes, then his eyes wavered. His vision flickered, the small candle flame. One moment there, fluttering back and forth like a moth; the next, snuffed and leaving but a soft plume of smoke.

 

Talon clung to that plume of smoke, the mere tendrils of questing dream awareness that remained to him. He was slipping back to the corporeal form. The edges of his physical body, the confines were becoming tighter and stronger. Jester would live . . . for now. But Talon would recover, and no mere quashing of life would sate him now. He would come for Jester.

 

With a lurch, Talon’s eyes popped open and he twisted to one side, retching. His eyes burning, his head throbbing and his head aching, he lay very still for some time. In the silence he nurtured dark fantasies. He would come for Jester again, yes. And this time, in the flesh.