The Cave Part 9

"Would you believe me if I told you it was given to me?" I asked, the blades of her daggers feeling very real at my throat.

"No," she replied, so close to me now that I could feel her breath as she spoke the word sharply. The two blue eyes never left mine, and somewhere in the back of my thoughts, I wondered if you can die from being killed in a dream.

"My lady, I can only assure you that I am speaking the truth," said I, trying to resolve myself to whatever happened next. "I have nothing else but my word."

"That is not enough for me," she hissed, but suddenly removed her blades and backed away. "Yet what can I do to you? This is a dream. We stand on the brink of the final battle, and my mind wanders into hitherto unknown regions. Perhaps you are Aquinian when he was young? Possibly my imagination conjures you so that I might hope to ask for wisdom? Alas, but I dream away the remainder of my time from sheer weariness that no phantom can rouse me from. I await the dawn."

"Ask for wisdom?" I managed to stammer, relief flooding over me as she stepped away and turned her back on me. "For what may I ask?"

"That!" she cried, pointing out into the darkness beyond the tower. "The host of my sister. This city ever lies under her threat, and dominion will be hers unless valor defeats strength."

I gingerly moved forward to stand near where she was, looking out of the tower down towards what appeared to be a great city. The same sandy brown stone had built a monolith of structures below us, inhabited by numerous people. One could guess tens of thousands, and the lights and shadows caused by torch or lamp in the night, suggested more activity than a sleeping urban sprawl should warrant. Yet it was not the city that so captured my gaze, but beyond its walls, the vast beyond with many a campfire.

"The armies of the Queen of Fires," said the woman in the dark purple mantle. "On all sides as you can see. Choking, grasping, forcing the very air from our lungs. Then the fire will fall from the skies when we are weakest. This is the way of my brutal sister."

"Fire from the skies?" I asked, looking above into the night sky, but only clear star light with a waning moon shone down. "What fire?"

"Be not a fool," she sneered, fixing me with that stare. "They be not everywhere at once, but their coming is as that of the sun, all consuming fire that cannot be quenched. You know of the weapons we once had to defend ourselves, but your mistress has undermined us time and again. Now all we do is wait for the coming of her dragons."

"Wait, who are you then?" I asked, remembering the vision in the smoke I beheld while Tharkin had considered my questions about the voice in the cave. "Are you the other queen then from long ago? Is that what I am dreaming about?"

"Why is this so unusual?" she asked after a long pause, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Why do you ask so many questions in my own restless slumber? Long ago? As if I have been? What projections of my mind have been drawn here?"

Facing me now, the woman quietly walked around me, her gaze no longer so suspicious but openly appraising. Her movements were graceful, the dark purple attire flowing like water about her form. Something in my locked up memories trickled out, and I recalled fine silk and fabrics I had stolen. Perhaps that was part of the vision, part of the food for my imagination now. When she finally came to stand before me again, she reached up to touch my face. Dark hair outlined her own, and there was a calm stillness between us.

"Who are you? Why do we share this dream?" Her voice faded on the last two words, and so did the vision of her loveliness. I slipped back into darkness. Moments later, the sunlight through my window was cascading over my chest, and the burning sensation in my heart was tossed off as only the kiss of morning, yet I knew it had been more.

********

"The Staff of Aquinian," said Tharkin thoughtfully, handling the object with care and doubtless many internal conversations with himself. I watched him carefully for any hint of what those might be, but only expected the usual shut gate of his mouth, letting only a few words out on anything that he wished to keep close.

"I was told by the voice in the cave to request access to your secret library," said I, after a moments pause. "Why have you never mentioned it before?"

"Knowledge is power, Cair," he replied, using my new name for the first time and handing me back the staff after another moment's consideration. "As is that rod you now have in your keeping. In truth, I have never allowed access to my painfully gathered works to anyone before, and still may not now."

"If you fear I might steal from you, I hope you will reconsider that I have given that path up. Not only by instruction from the voice in the cave, but by personal choice. All my past life seems to have been spent somewhere else I may not wish to go back to."

"Calm yourself on that boy," laughed the older man, actual humor sparkling in his eyes. "Nothing truly happens in this sanctuary without my knowledge, and I bow to another power within the mountain. You shall have access to the library, but may I ask what languages you speak and read?"

I had told Tharkin everything that had transpired the night before, including the dream that had so disturbed my mind for hours after waking. He had not seemed surprised in the least, and after breakfast asked to see the staff. Somehow I assumed that I would be given some kind of special understanding when it came to reading the books of this apparent lore master. It had not even occurred to me that I might not know half of the languages these works were written in. My face must have said as much.

"I see," mused the older man. "Only familiar with the common and Sylivian trade speech? You can read I would hope."

"A little," I admitted sheepishly. "Only what a street boy picks up."

"I believe you will find that to be enough. Your education is about to begin."