Alanya's eyelids fluttered as she struggled to wake. The spelled sleep that her friend had thrown on her was heavy, and it longed to pull her back down into its embrace. She ignored it and hauled herself upright out of the bed. Stumbling towards her bathing room she poured some water into a basin and splashed her face. The cold water helped her feel more alert while she grabbed some clothes and hurriedly got dressed. All the time she was muttering to herself dire threats against Korry. She couldn't decide whether to turn him into a toad or just beat the living stuffing out of him. The more she thought about it the more the latter option seemed more personal and terribly more satisfying.
Giving herself a quick look in the mirror at least assured her she looked marginally human despite how she felt. "As human as one of the mage born can be, I suppose." She said quietly to herself while headed towards the library. The bright sunshine coming through the tower windows splashed over the steps did nothing to improve her mood, and the first year students playing some sort of raucous game in the courtyard did not help matters tremendously either. Some tea grabbed from the kitchen on the way began to sooth nerves shattered from the latest interrupted night. She began to think that she might simply let Korry get away with his rather highhanded act a long as he had some good information for her.
The door to the library creaked open as she pushed inwards. The faint musty smell of the books calmed her as it always did and she relaxed in spite of herself. Dust motes danced in the sunlight spilling in from the windows. Where the sunlight did not reach into the depths of the stacks, well-placed mage lights glowed cool in the stillness. From Korry's office she could hear the faint scratching of a pen and the turn of a page. She leaned against the doorframe and knocked, gratified to startle her friend into jumping and very nearly upsetting his inkwell.
Korry glared at her, but there was no heat behind it. "You did that on purpose," he said accusingly. She just raised an eyebrow. Korry had enough grace to look abashed. "Right. That would be the pot calling the kettle black." He sighed, taking off a pair of reading glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Have you found anything? I assume you went diving into some of your more rare tomes to see about these odd dreams of mine." Alanya sat down with a sigh, ensconcing herself in a much battered, overstuffed chair in the corner. Korry laid down his quill and paced around the desk to claim the sister to the chair, another abused item that looked like it could collapse even under Korry's lean weight.
"Your dreams started about a month ago, yes?" Alanya nodded an affirmative response. "Well, as to the how you might be having these dreams, check you astronomical calendar. One month ago today was Lammas night. The walls between the various realms of spirit are thinner there then almost any other time."
"All right…that answers the how, but there still is where are they coming from and why. I'm not as concerned with the how." She answered.
He fixed her a scolding look. "The how can answer the who and the why," he chided her lightly. Alanya rolled her eyes at him but said nothing, motioning for him to continue. Korry sighed at her impatience, shaking his head. "I'll never make a research mage out of you," he lamented in his quiet voice.
"You aren't the one that is getting woken up every night."
He grimaced. "True. I don't mind the occasional late night and such, but every night for a month might be pushing it," Korry conceded. "I have a theory, but without evidence supporting it, we don't know how accurate it may be. Have you ever read Talus's Chronicles?"
"Aren't those the journals of a mage from a millennia ago?" She replied after thinking for a moment. "He theorized the existence of other worlds, beyond simply realms for the spirit to visit."
"Let's assume his assumption of other realms is correct. Keep that in the back of your mind. As to premonitory dreams: in the world we live in, there is the collective unconscious, created by the memories of all who have lived, and some theorize, by all who will live in the future as well. It's that whole odd thing about space and time being fluid and simultaneous existence at multiple places in time. That's for the more scientific to debate more fully. That short form of what I think is happening is this: Let us assume you are receiving premonitory dreams. If so, I think you might be tapping into the akashic record of the world of which you dream about. Or someone else is tapping you into it."
Alanya sat back in her chair and thought about what was being said. "Let's go with that assumption. But why?" She tapped her fingers on her knee as she pondered the possibilities.
Her friend sighed and looked away. "There you have me. I can't figure out why. How do the dreams end? Do they always follow the same pattern?"
"Yes," she said faintly. "And the anguish I feel gets worse every time. I think the main message I've gotten is that this is not supposed to happen." Chills swept over her and she shivered. The sense of wrongness from the dream contrasted greatly with the apparent pleasantness of the day outside and simply made the whole thing feel unreal. "Still, if this isn't supposed to happen on that world, what can I, a resident of this world do about it?! I'm a mage for goodness sake! Not a divine being!"
"Perhaps do what you might normally do, travel to this warrior, find them and prevent their death in that battle." He shrugged.
Alanya paled. "Korry, the process involved in that…I've read the Talus's chronicles as well, and I just don't think that's possible. The activation energy that that would take…its nigh impossible. Expending that much energy can kill a mage, you know this! At least I can't recall it ever being done. Or having heard of it. Gating from a time and place in this world is advanced enough. Besides, you have to know where to place the gate terminus exactly, or you could end up in the middle of a wall, suspended a mile high up in mid air or at the bottoms of the ocean's depths!"
"I know, I know. I may be only a midlevel mage, but I do know my theory." He looked off in the distance momentarily before narrowing his eyes. "Wait, Halbadan Keep's mage, Aldan Cardanos has also studied the subject of travel by various magical means. I know he keeps some books on it. We need to see the results of his study before deciding a course of action."
Alanya fixed him with a glare. "You best not be doing this to me out a desire for more rare books you rat! Or I really will turn you into a toad! I still owe you for sleep spelling me last night." She retorted.
Korry held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm sorry, dear one, but you really did look like you needed it." He reached over and held her hand. "You are the best friend a man could ever have, and I do worry about you as a consequence."
"I know," she said quietly, squeezing his hand back. She sighed and leaned her head back on the chair. "I just am feeling impatient for answers is all." She released his hand and stood. "I can travel to Halbadan's late this morning, did you want to go as well," she smiled wickedly. "Last I recall, you were rather, hmm…friendly with Aldan on your last visit for a book there."
Korry gave a soft cough and blushed. "Ahem, yes, well, he and I are well suited. Catch me before you go and I'll consider it." If possible he turned a deeper shade of red and muttered an oath as Alanya giggled at her friend. "Don't you have things to do?!" He bustled about, picking up stray papers.
"I'll be back in a bit friend, I've got to get travel things together, its only possible to gate to within about a day's walk from the keep, the ley line energy fields are a little too wild for that sort of thing." She gave him one last smile and slipped out the door.
A few hours later Alanya had assembled a spare change of clothes and a heavy cloak, as Haldaban's Keep was a far to the north, where weather was still unpredictable in the springtime. Some of the sense of panic from her dreams was ebbing now that she at least had a plan. As long as she had some idea of what she might do next, it made the present much more easy to deal with, at least in her mind. She quickly plaited her hair into a long shimmering braid and tied it off with a tie that ended with little silver bells that chimed with every step. Examining her reflection in the mirror critically, she decided she was satisfied.
Gone was the frazzled, stressed mage from before and in her place stood Adept Alanya Mystewalker. She fairly hummed with an aura of power. Hauling up her pack on her back, she headed back to the library to determine if her friend was heading with her. This time she made a bit of noise coming in the library, so as not to startle.
"Are we going?" she inquired as she strode back into Korry's office. He looked up from a stack of papers and put down his pen.
"It's a nice thought, but I'm suddenly buried under a few things that need done." He handed her a slip of paper. "These are the books Aldan has that should be pertinent to our questions." Then her handed her a sealed envelope. "And this is for Aldan personally."
Alanya grinned and held the letter up to the light. " This could be interesting…" she trailed off, pretending to study the letter's contents through the envelope, laughing at Korry's squawk of indignancy. "Oh stuff it…you know I wouldn't peek on something important." She gave him another smile and reshouldered her pack. "I'll drop you a line when I get there, let you know I've got the books, like always."
"Right then," he replied as he stood. "Safe journey, see you back here soon."
"I will, and you will." She replied, heading out the door. Alanya paused and debated heading to the stables to secure a mount versus just walking from the gate terminus to the destination keep. "Horse will be so much faster," she said to herself as she walked quickly in that direction, hoping not to get waylaid with an assignment on the way. She reached the stables without incident and was soon saddling up her favorite mount, a middle-aged gelding with a placid disposition and intelligent enough that should she be incapacitated, he would guard over her.
She whistled as she led the horse towards a stone arch typically used as a gate entry point. It was like this every time she headed out, she thought. She loved having a reason for traveling, more particularly when she could gate. There was a challenge in using the more complicated spells that she rarely used in her work tracking. Pulling an amulet from around her neck, she grasped it in her left hand and drained it of power, channeling that power into tripping the magical lock on the gateway open.
The stones glowed and power crackled in the air, lacing it with the odor of ozone as Alanya began the process of bending time and space to create her gate. The image through the archway blurred and shifted into a view of a hilly, rocky countryside, windswept and treeless. She grasped Tam's reins, horse and rider stepping into the gate with long practiced ease.
A moment in time, hanging endless in the void between the worlds. You could scream and it would never be heard in the power flows. That is how it was when transversing a gate. Thus, when power wrenched at her gate destination, Alanya had only half a heartbeat to realize something was dangerously wrong. The step that started with in her home keep ended when she reflexively stepped through the terminus and collapsed into an unconscious heap.
In a strange, strange forest. Far from her planned destination.