Before He Was A Raven
Ch1: The Board is Set
Cape Town, South Africa, 1785 A.D.
The man stood in the shadow of the massive pillar at the end of the patio. All around him the air glowed with fireflies. It was one of those lazy, summer nights when the air was thick and hazy and begged you to close your eyes and slip into the realm of sleep. Across the way, Maryanne lay across the couch and listened to the soft susurrus of the sea a hundred yards away and gave into the night's promise of slumber. For a moment she thought she saw a man standing in the shadow of the pillar at the end of the patio. Someone from her dreams. But it must have been her imagination. And then she was asleep. She did not dream.
The Realm of Despair
Despair watched through the back of the mirror. The man looked guilty, but not at her or at himself but at the relfection of the boy standing in the lush and ornate room, pointing at him. He had been caught. The child was already in mid-gasp to raise the alarm. Only Despair had paused this moment. It was so rare that she was able to experience the rush of someone suddenly and violently engulfed in despair. Usually it was a slow, torturous process of her hook twisting in their hearts. But this was an instantaneous explosion of anguish. She giggled, almost euphoric. And then she grimaced. And walked down the line of mirrors to the hall.
"My sister I am in my gallery." She grasped the multicolored swirl, "And I am holding your sigil. Will you come?"
There was an unpleasant explosion of fish and butterflies and Delirium stood by her sister, her hair waving like sargasso seaweed tinted bright pink and green, her mismatched eyes blinking up to her older sister as a smile lit her face, "Despair! Did you see! Did you see! I made him for you!"
Despair plunged the hooked ring into her temple as she spoke, "Delirium. Why did you do this? This man. Why did you drive him mad?"
"Oh, he wasn't a very nice man and he kicked his doggy but not just that I was walking here and I was thinking––" But her rambled were cut short as she looked through the mirror. "You know, he does look very sad now."
"You drove him insane and then brought his sanity back at the end." Despair looked at the man still frozen in the glass.
"Because I realized if I have him then he's mine and I don't like having yucky ones like him so I thought who likes yucky ones and then I thought, Oh! Despair likes yucky ones so I gave him to you instead. I even had him go to a mirror and everything! Do you like it!" Delirium was already dancing around making cat headed flowers bloom.
"Yes, thank you. You can go now." Despair said as she let her hand slide down, the jagged ring cutting a line down her cheek. "Thank you for my present."
Delirium twirled one last time and looked in the glass, "But now he won't have a tutor anymore. The boy won't. The boy will be sad. I know! I'll fetch him another one! Despair, where can I find tutors? Do you know where they grow?"
"No, maybe Dream does. You should ask him." Despair said pushing Dilirium through her gallery.
"But he's kinda scary." She whimpered.
"Maybe he won't be this time." Despair lied, trying to get Delirium out of her gallery as fast as possible. "You'll never know unless you ask him."
Jamestown, Virginia, 1721 A.D.
Jan woke up from his dreamless sleep. He sprang, covers forgotten, and ran along the road that led form his home towards the sea. There the distant roaring thunder echoed as it thrashed between the teeth of the rocks and the maws of the sea caves at the base of the cliffs. He looked up and smelled the salt air and felt the warm winds play with his hair. And he knew, as only those children raised on sea cliffs can know, that a storm was coming. A big one.
The Town of the Green Reaches, Faerie, Year of the Twisting Sparrowking (approx. 1705 A.D.)
Mote did not like it when her mistress and her master fought. The last time they had done this it had almost torn right through the veil and plummeted all of faerie into the abyssmal plains. And even now, Auberon and Titania's wrath was causing dryads to grow from ponds and centaurs to be born without human or horse parts. Not to mention the weather had gotten lousy too.
"Hey, sis, I thought I'd find you here." The small imp hopped up and buried his face against her side, nuzzling her like a cat, completely uninvited.
"Mustardseed. What are you doing here. Lord Auberon is displeased with Lady Titania. You serve him and I her, it would not do well for either of us to be seen with each other at this time." She tried her best to disentangle herself from her brother's embrace.
The young imp seemed to think about this before he gave a loud sharp sustained giggle of a laugh, "What do you think?! Shall they turn me into a toad!"And he transformed into each subsequent creature as he said it. "Or a slime or a mold. Or perhaps a sad clown. Or maybe a fool for my folly, what think you sister."
She turned away and tried not to smile at the faces he pulled. "I think you need not be turned to a fool if you carry your own face."
He stood up and took a form like Lord Auberon, "Dear sister, you slight me with your words?"
She smacked the back of his head and he transformed back, "You must be a dolt! What would Lord Auberon say if he saw you!"
"Oh, you know how our Lord is when he's in one of his moods. He sits and mopes and then he rushed and roars but never does he do anything unless Robin Goodfellow is there to stoke his wrath. And he left Faerie, remember." He picked at his toenails as he spoke.
"I know." She sighed as she looked up at the aquemarine sky, "I think I may leave for a time as well."
"What, without our Lord or Lady's consent?!" Musterseed was shocked beyond words. "No! You mustn't! If they catch you––!"
"I know, but they are too preoccupied by each other to keep a guard on the gates. I shall slip out tonight I think." Mote whispered as the sky changed to hues of orange and lilac. "I guess, that's now."
"And I thought there was only one fool in the family and that fool I. But I shall go with you to the gates, but not beyond. Lady Titania may not be watching you but Lord Auberon will surely note my absence." And Musterseed followed her on the path that led to the massive stone markers and the gates to the other realms beyond.
The Goodship Townsman anchored in the Strait of Cook, New Zealand, 1732
"A good eve'n Master Hobb." She said as she strolled along the deck.
"I beg your pardon, do I know you?" He looked at the woman dressed in a long gown of deep blue.
"Aye, but not as well as I know you." Her smile was cattish and playful as she spoke, "The moon is beautiful this night, is it not."
"That it is. Reminds me of the moons of my childhood. But you would not believe the tale if I told you." He stroked his red beard as he thought about all he had seen in his hundreds of years.
"Oh, look who imagines himself old." And she laughed a mocking laugh that said she could see exactly how old Robert Gatling really was. "When the Earth was still warm and the skies still burned, back in the early days of creation, I was there, in one manifestation or another. I teamed with life. I churned with creation and with the sparks of desire."
"I see." Hobb said as he looked out over the sea and then back at her eyes, "And then who may you be, madam?"
Her floating blue and turquoise eyes danced and sparkled like moonlight on the waves. And that was all answer he needed. He looked back out towards the sea as he chose his words.
"I've gone a lot of places. Met a lot of different people who believed a lot of different things. But there has always been a few common threads. Stories that were already old the first time they were told." Hobb looked out towards the towering mountains on the mainland, their tops glowing ashen in the moonlight. "Why are you here, O Lady?"
"Because, Robert Gadling, there is a storm coming." She spoke the words with a fear that made Hobb's stomach turn, "And it is something that will shake the very foundations of our world. Great things will be unmade and powers will be overthrown and if it is not regulated. It may be the end of our world."
Hobb looked out over the inky depths of the strait, the romantic moonlight suddenly lost upon him. "And why tell me this?"
"Because, Hobb, you are connected to someone who can change all of this. The King of Dreams." She spoke the words with awe and reverence. "You speak with him regularly."
"Well, as regular as every 100 years can be." Hobb scoffed. "You've chosen the wrong man. The last time we met, we barely spoke at all. He may not even come the next time. And besides, I need to see to my new cargo."
"You mean the slaves don't you." She looked at him deeply, "I have felt their fetters and their chains and their moments of anguish and fear before their deaths. It has been a long time since I have been offered such sacrifice in abundance. But as strong as it has made me, do not think I can stand against this storm. I will be powerless to resist it. We need the King of Dreams, we need Morpheus!"
"Well, I'm sorry, but even if I wanted to talk to him, I have no way of reaching him." Hobb said and turned to add, "But since you're he––"
He spoke to an empty deck. There was no woman. There was nothing but him and the ship and the moon and the sea that stirred and rippled almost in anger as the waves slapped against the side of the boards.
"Yeah, you never were very reliable, were you?" He whispered to the nothing as he went below to his cabin for the good's night's sleep that would avoid him.
The Dreaming
"All I'm sayin' is that he should lighten up, you know!" Marvyn the pumkin scarecrow dream was lighting the end of a thick cigar as he spoke, "I mean, let me tell ya, if there's anything gonna scare away the dames it's gonna be that face of his. I mean, the least he could do is try cockin' a smile e'ry once an a while."
"I-I-I'm su-su-sure that th-the Lord Mor-Morpheus has his reasons, M-M-Marvyn." Abel looked around as he said the words, "And b-b-besides. You should-should-shouldn't speak like that. W-what if he-he hears you?!"
The two figures were at the edge of the nightmare place keeping an eye on the man that stood in the darkness, the emptiness seeming to reflect of his sunglasses as he remained motionlessly staring back at them.
"Oi! Sunshine, you gonna stand out there all day or you ready to say yer sorry!" Marvyn yelled to the man in the sunglasses.
"M-M-Marvyn, don't! Th-th-that is the C-C-Corinthian!" Abel was washed with paranoia and guilt as if he had said the words himself.
"And that's another thing. How come his high and mighty highness gotta go around and leave nightmares like that goon walkin' around. I mean, yeah, use 'em once and then retire 'em but don't keep 'em walking and talkin' and stuff like that. It just unsettles the mountains and I had a nice long job gettin' those up there." Marvyn continued his tirade without seeing the dark form materialize behind him, "I mean, that's what I call inconsiderate. Here I am, tryin' ta do my job, and he's lordyship's gotta go around tearing all my hard work down. Why if he was here right now I'd tell him exactly where he could shove the Corinthian! Right up his lilly white––"
"Marvyn!" Abel squeeked as the Dream King spoke.
"Yes, please, Marvyn. I'd be most delighted to hear of where you'd think I ought to place the Corinthian." His eyes sparkled light stars in the middle of the obsidian sky. A dangerous sparkle.
"Oh, er, where'er you wanna, Boss." Marvyn's cigar dropped. "I mean, you are the boss so, ya know, just foolin' around with Abel here. You know how I can be."
"Yes, Marvyn. I do." The Dream Lord's eyes were still not friendly. "Abel. I have need of you."
"M-m-me?! I d-d-didn't... I w-w-would n-n-never... p-p-please m-m-milord. H-h-have mercy!" Abel half stammered and half wailed as he pleaded on the ground.
"It is not a punishment. I simply need you to spend a little time in the waking world." Morpheus was unreadable as he stared into the distant dreaming. "Go to the soft places off the skerries of Woltemade. They will let you cross into a small town in Hesse in 1723. There is a boy who will need a new tutor."
"A n-n-new tutor, m-m-milord?" Abel stammered confused.
"Yes. Go and await my instruction. Do not fear. There will be others there I have already assigned to your protection." And with that Morpheus was gone in a twirl of midnight.
"Well, I guess I showed 'im, ay Abel." Marvyn said lighting his cigar again.
"Oh, and Marvyn," Morpheus was behind them again, "Please move those mountains. They are going to be blocking the view of the new ocean you will be putting in tonight."