Chapter 5

Dreaming about how you are going to die in the next five minutes puts a whole new twist in the subject of "sixth sense".

Lyndon's eyes flew open, senses on high alert. Sure enough, towering over him stood a dark figure with a dagger that gleamed in the dying light of the campfire, just like in the dream. And just like in the dream, Lyndon's first instinct was to swipe with his legs in a wide arch, sending the attacker to the ground. The gruff man's stream of curses was cut short when his head came smacking down with a sickening crunch. Lyndon, battling with the intense feeling of déja-vu, grabbed the weapon out of his hand then vaulted over large rock, one arm clutching Quiet to his chest, the other dragging his backpack along. As he rolled over the top of the cliff and down to its other side, he heard some kind of projectile (either a knife or a bolt) clinging against the stone. He was also dimly aware of the fact (as well as remembering from the dream) that the horse was cut down by the bandits.

A moment of pause was the reward of his quick reflexes, and Lyndon spent it pressing flat against the cold rock, heaving, one hand flying to cover the small mouth of the angel who just now woke up completely, wings flaring up and wide in alarm. The scoundrel tucked his newly acquired dagger in his belt and his free hand wandered to one of his pockets, where he held the pouch of blinding powder in it. He heard shouting from beyond the stone.

- Joan, you idiot! He was asleep! How the fuck can you not kill a sleeping bastard?!

If his dream was correct… Yes! Lyndon threw some of the pouch's contents to his left, just as a face appeared there, with a sword raised to strike. The man cried out and clawed at his eyes as the powder burnt them. Lyndon lunged forward and embedded the dagger into between the neck and the shoulder, making hot blood gush out from there. The attacker collapsed without so much as a whimper and died on the spot.

Now… came the part where Lyndon would die, at least in the dream. The scoundrel whipped around in the opposite direction and sure enough, there stood another bandit with a raised crossbow, ready to fire. Lyndon launched himself just as the bolt went flying. In his dream, the arrow had flown straight into his forehead, killing him instantly. As he moved forward, he realized he wasn't fast enough, and the projectile would indeed kill him that way.

That's when Quiet screamed and the world blew up around them in red.

oooOOOooo

He didn't know what was going, he was dragged around like a ragdoll, unable to even tell where the sky and the ground were. Panic and adrenaline raced through his body, his wings flared up, ready to lift his body off of the ground and out of danger. But he was pressed close against the now heaving chest in which the "thump thump" sounds grew faster and more erratic. A hand covered his mouth, which was a good thing because he wanted to scream from fear. He held onto the large palm to steady himself, wide red eyes staring forward into the darkness. He heard shouting, voices full of anger, and a part of him realized they were in grave danger.

Leendonn threw something to the left and a huumann cried out, covering his eyes and dropping his sword. Leendonn jumped there and stabbed him in the neck. Quiet stared at the erupting blood, a few droplets smacked him in the face. At this point, every sense he had was flaring with danger basically. He wanted to bolt, to run, to get the hell away from there, because there were more attackers, always more and he had to keep moving or they would grab him, cut his wings off and slay him like a pig.

For a brief second, Quiet found himself in a place that was grey and dead and full of destruction. He saw claws, fangs, crude armor and weaponry, all coming for him, he heard deep and powerful snarls and roars of pain and anger.

His senses suddenly cleared up as if someone pulled a curtain from his eyes. He felt everything around them in the real world. Leendonn's blood racing across his body. The small tremors spreading in the ground as his boots pounded on it. The blood of the two downed attackers and the horss, soaking into the grass. The last sputters of the dying campfire, its heat escaping into the cold night air. The river lazily drifting by, not caring about the fight happening on its bank. The stars sparkling above them. The air whistling around the arrow that flew straight at them.

Quiet zeroed in on the incoming bolt and he knew it would kill Leendonn if it hit.

This was not right! This was not to be! He demanded the world to change!

Thus, the world obeyed him.

oooOOOooo

Lyndon smacked into the stone, his lower lip tearing up. He stumbled back, completely dazed but still alive, the feeling of déja-vu finally leaving him. Grabbing his painfully throbbing head, Lyndon whimpered and tried to just catch up with everything that happened in the last five minutes.

Deadly silence settled in, helping him focus.

They—they had been attacked, right. Too late did Lyndon realize that they were probably far too close to Kurast, one of the most notorious cesspools of villainy in all of Sanctuary. This band of three rouges had been probably either heading or coming from there, when they spotted the light of the campfire along the road. Lyndon had truly believed that literally no one ever went this way, but apparently he had been dead wrong. Somehow, he had managed to dream about the events happening right up until the point of the flying arrow, at which everything just… fell apart. Just like the world around him.

Did he die?

He cracked one eye open. Nope, he was still in the camp, staring at the… rock?

Lyndon blinked.

The rock… the rock somehow twisted into a new and impossible shape that kind of resembled an attacking octopus or something, with one offshoot reaching out before Lyndon. The scoundrel had smacked into that tongue-like formation and he quickly realized it was in the way of the flying arrow too, that now lied on the ground broken. Around Lyndon the ground changed drastically. As if he was suddenly standing on the back of a giant hedgehog, spikes of earth stood rigidly, pointing at the sky in a tilted way. Only problem was: their peeks were no longer ground, but morphed into perfect pikes, blades and lances of steel. Some of these maimed the guy and his crossbow, standing not too far from them.

- What the actual—? – Lyndon hiccupped, unable to express his bewilderment in words.

This…

What just happened?!

A small whimper coming from Quiet slightly shook Lyndon out of his stupor and he lifted the angel up to eye level, checking for injuries. Thankfully it seemed Quiet had escaped the whole chaos without a scratch, only a few droplets of blood was on his clothes and face. Lyndon quickly wiped those off.

- Alright… it's alright. Everything's fine – he mumbled softly, trying to sound reassuring, even though he too had no idea what was going on.

Quiet whimpered again and reached out to Lyndon's chin. Oh right, his torn up lip. The scoundrel wiped the small stream of blood running on his chin with the back of his hand.

- It's nothing to worry about. Just a small wound on my mouth, see? No big deal – he smiled awkwardly, shaking off the stinging pain coming from his lip.

He stopped and took a deep breath as he cuddled the shaking Quiet back to his chest. Okay. Alright. They were still alive. That's good. He leaned closer to one of the spikes, and could actually see the lumps of dust, earth and stone slowly, steadily changing into actual steel and taking up the shape of a lance at the peek. The material itself went against every law of nature ever and simply decided to change properties.

Lyndon glanced down at the fearful Quiet.

- Did you do this? – he asked, but Quiet just blinked up to him.

Lyndon repeated the question and touched one of the spikes. The angel just shrugged helplessly after a pause.

Temporarily giving up on finding the answer to that, the scoundrel took the backpack that miraculously survived the mayhem, and waded out from among the spikes, back to the campfire and the slain horse. Was it really possible that the angel did all of this? Lyndon knew that certain angels could possess incredible magical powers: the Angiris Council had proven that well, and even Tyrael had managed to accidentally wake up thousands of zombies across the countryside when he had fallen. But they were the leaders of the High Heavens, they were supposed to be strong. This little angel could not be a member of them. What about the lower ranks? Did they have magical powers? Not to mention, magical powers that somehow twisted materials into completely different ones? Sure, idiotic alchemists have tried to make gold out of everything in the past, Lyndon knew the stories well, but he also knew that their experiments prove fruitless. It was simply not possible to do such a thing.

Up until now, apparently.

- Oh man, we really need to get to Tyrael – Lyndon shook his head, trying to refocus on the present and the problem it held.

Their horse was dead. Gea Kul lied god knows how far away still. They were close to Kurast, the city probably was just on the other side of the river, which meant they had to get moving now. Lyndon grimaced at the carcass of the horse. As much as he hated riding, he would have been very happy right about now to climb back up onto its back. With a defeated sigh, he searched the pockets of the saddle to make sure he had everything on him.

Finished with that, he took off the backpack and offered it to Quiet.

- Climb in – he gestured at the sack. – We need to walk a lot today.

The angel silently complied, sticking his head out of the bag to see. Lyndon hoisted him back up on his back then began his long and hopefully uneventful tracking towards Gea Kul, wiping off the remaining blood from his newly acquired weapon, still trying to figure out just what the heck has happened back there.

oooOOOooo

Their luck finally turned in the morning. Lyndon ran into a farmer who was headed to Gea Kul on his cart full of hay, pulled by a packbeast. At first the old man was understandably vary of the scoundrel (the closeness of Kurast made everyone jumpy around here), but eventually allowed him on his vehicle when he showed his empty hands then offered quite a few gold for the ride.

The old man wasn't exactly the talking type, which was fine by Lyndon. He carefully warned Quiet to stay hidden inside the bag, then leaned back on the stack of hay and spent the time deep in thought. He came to the conclusion that it really was the angel that created all those weird phenomenon back at the camp. He had to wonder if it had been involuntary or voluntary, and what else Quiet could do.

Perhaps he had been kept in that weird mirror hall specifically because he had such dangerous powers? Could be, although Lyndon couldn't really see how a bunch of mirrors were supposed to stop magic like this.

But that still didn't explain the literal premonition he had had in his sleep just before the attack. Everything happened exactly, down to a tee, as he had seen in the dream. It even ended at the arrow, with everything falling apart. Lyndon originally believed it meant he would die from the bolt, but apparently, only the world blew up and changed shape around him. Or… he was really supposed to die there, but Quiet's sudden power changed the outcome? Lyndon tried to think without muttering to himself, which was pretty hard. The last thing he wanted was scaring the old farmer even more.

The Archangel of Fate, Itherael had said during the Battle of the Silver City, that he could decipher the destiny of nearly everything from that weird glowing scroll of his. Everything… except for the Nephalem. It was also made clear that, while the fate of all things seemed predetermined, there was a chance that something came along and changed it drastically. The Prophecy of the End Days was a great example of this: it should have told of the end of the world, but when Johanna stepped up, it became obsolete pretty fast.

So, Nephalem were free of Fate… But they still had their own future, because Myriam could always see it pretty clearly. Lyndon quickly shook his head and let that thought go, after all, he wasn't a Nephalem, only a human.

Still, where did that premonition come from? Why was it so precise? Lyndon had never had this bef—

Oh.

Alright, he hadn't been completely honest there. He did have similar experiences before, now that he thought about it. Many a times had it happened to him that he suddenly had the distinct feeling that something (usually a pretty bad thing) was going to happen, and he always got out of there before it could go down. He had escaped guards trying to catch him during stealing, traps laid by members of the Thieves Guild, and quite a few lethal blows from monsters of all kinds during his travels with Johanna. He had even used to be able tell Edlin when exactly he should strike with his squad on the Thieves Guild back in Kingsport, as if he had known the exact time table of the heists. And even though these instances had been more like feelings than actual visions or dreams, they were still pretty goddamn accurate.

There was a… weirdly large number of examples Lyndon could recall.

So what? Was he a mystic like Myriam? No, that could not have been it. Myriam always predicted the future of others. Lyndon only ever saw his own. Still… he couldn't deny the fact that he did see or at least feel his own fate, now that he had given enough thought to it.

This was… disturbing.

Lyndon felt his blood freeze, yet at the same time sweat trickling down on the back of his neck. What was he?! The idea of being able to see the future, even if only his own, scared him beyond belief.

He should have been ecstatic about the news. As a child (just like everyone else basically), he often dreamt about having incredible powers and swooping in to amaze everyone. He had joked about hoping to have "some Nephalem blood in himself", when he and Johanna were discovering the shifting Ruins of Corvus. But those were just those: daydreams and jokes.

And yet… and yet, this discovery disturbed him to his very core, as if he had just realized he had a third arm hidden somewhere inside his body. He was different. He apparently held a power that would have freaked out others, or alienated them, or… or…

And there it came crushing down. The guilt.

Why didn't he use this apparent ability to save his brother from being imprisoned? His and Edlin's life had been inseparably intertwined. Surely, if Lyndon had paid just a bit more attention to his sixth sense, he probably could have predicted and maybe even stopped his brother from showing up too early to the scene, and… and none of this would have happened. Not the prison, not the transfer to Westmarch, not Rea.

He could have helped Edlin. Dear god, he could have saved Edlin…

Lyndon hid his face into his hands in shame. Only he could be such an ignorant, tunnel-visioned, idiotic, thick-skulled fool to—

- Everything's alright? – came the gruff voice of the farmer, tearing the string of thoughts apart.

- Wha—what? – Lyndon snapped his head up, rubbing his eyes furiously to hide the treacherous tears trying to escape.

- You look like you are ready to deck yourself in the face for something – the old man pointed out simply. – Everything's alright?

-… No. No, by the gods, it isn't – Lyndon choked, suddenly losing the ability to just shut the hell up. – I could have saved someone… I have just realized, I—

The old man petted him on the shoulder with a loud sigh.

- "Should have been"-s are nice, kid – he mumbled. – But they ain't worth a thing. It's not like you can go back and change it. All you can do is learn from it and move forward.

Youshould know, Lyndon thought venomously, but finally managed to clamp his mouth shut.

- I don't wanna tell you your business, kid – the farmer went on. – But that's the sad truth. We ain't got no other direction to go, but forward. I've learnt that in as well. Not an easy lesson, but we've gotta face it sooner or later.

Shut the fuck up! Lyndon wanted to scream. You don't know jackshit about what is going on with me!

The old man snorted under his wide straw hat:

- Send me however many deadly glares you want, kid. You'll soon learn, trust me. Besides – here, he gestured forward, beyond the wide back of the packbeast –, we are nearing Gea Kul. You only have to put up with this old fool for a short while.

Lyndon turned away with an angry snarl, eyes defiantly kept on the horizon to their right. A part of him knew his resentment at the old man, who only wanted to help him in some way, simply came from his sudden and quite strong self-hate. Unfortunately, this knowledge didn't mean he could act more reasonably.

He really was a total failure, wasn't he?

oooOOOooo

Quiet stayed inside the backpack, next to Leendonn's pouch of monee and that large rectangular thing that had an ugly monster head on its front for some reason. It gave him the creeps whenever he looked at it, and got the distinct feeling that he had seen it somewhere before.

Many times, even.

Still, not even that horrible face could keep him from drifting in and out of his dreams. He was exhausted, his last demand from the world left him drained both physically and mentally. His mind was still reeling from just how close Leendonn actually got to dying.

He decided adamantly that will not come to pass, ever.

Time passed weirdly inside the bag, made even more confusing by his constant dozing off. Quiet suspected a lot of time had passed since last night. His senses that had been incredibly sharp during the attack, toned down back to normal again. This made him sad, mostly because that feeling had been quite exhilarating in a way, and he wished he could stay in that state for longer.

Most of his dozes were uneventful at least, although Quiet sometimes saw fractions of pictures he couldn't place. He saw a mountain, a place of light and gold, a seemingly endless meadow (quite like the one they were passing through now), some strange frozen flames, ugly monsters and fellow angels looking up to him like he was their leader, a sword that had a blue light in the center of it, then a spear that seemed to be blazing, a troubled angel in greyish green robes hunched over a glowing piece of paper, a rough-looking man locking eyes with him…

Leendonn's voice dragged him out of this growing madness, and Quiet was grateful for that.

He and the old man operating this strange device, that was currently taking them to a place, were talking. Once again, Quiet had no idea what the words actually meant, but the sheer emotions grabbed his attention. The old man sounded sad and jaded, but Leendonn sounded straight up devastated. His quivering voice was on the brink of breaking from all the pent-up tension. Quiet promptly considered climbing out of the bag and ambushing the old man from behind, for daring to hurt Leendonn somehow, but he quickly thought against it. Leendonn fought well, he probably would have attacked the other huumann himself already, had he been in danger.

The old man said something and Leendonn snarled angrily. They were probably having an argument then.

Quiet remembered having a lot of arguments with… uhm… whom? An angel? No, wait… at least five angels, yes. Or… was it only three? Two of the five (the guy with the greyish green robes and a girl in copper armor) never really bothered him about… about what?

Quiet wanted to scream in frustration at his incomplete memory. He was such a goddamn failure, not being able to remember anything! That was it, he angrily thought to himself. He would not rest he knew what the hell was going on exactly!


Wow, really nobody's having a good day in this one. Guess it's a typical Diablo-setup then, huh? XD