Chapter 51 What Dreams May Come
Usual Disclaimers: Most of the characters in this story are owned by a whole lot of other people and not me, other than a bear and paladin-lovin' ranger and an occasional NPC. Also, some of the dialog is paraphrased from MotB. Reviews, concrit, suggestions, and advice always appreciated.
Rashemen:
Dee smiled sweetly at the pale man standing next to the coffin, sweating despite the coolness of the afternoon sun. "Your master keeps his coffin locked from the inside you say? I bet Kaji here could find a way to open it." The homoculus, always up for a challenge, squeaked his agreement and eagerly flew down to examine the mechanism, which proved no obstacle for his long, slender fingers. Dee watched him work for a few heartbeats until she heard the click that indicated the mechanism was open. The man's arrogant smirk vanished and mouth fell open as well. Without another word and in one fluid motion Dee kicked open the coffin lid and plunged her long sword into the unsuspecting vampire's chest while Cillian was keeping a wary eye on the creature's thrall. Her companions looked on in shock at her sudden act of violence, as did the thrall. The snarl in her voice reflected her utter disgust. "Filthy blood-suckers."
"Y...you murdered him!," he sputtered. The thrall overcame his shock, drew his sword, and tried too late to come to his master's defense, but Okku and Cillian's claws and teeth made short work of him.
She grimly pondered his outburst for a heartbeat as she watched the sun's rays work on the corpse. "No, someone else did that long ago. I just finished it. Gann, some fire, if you please." Okku dragged the thrall's body to join his master in the coffin, then Dee stepped back as the shaman called down a pillar of flame to strike the coffin, immolating the remains. They had to wait for sundown anyway for the portal to the shadow realm to reveal itself, so after the ashes cooled, Kaelyn said a prayer over the remains and sprinkled them with holy water, and then scattered the ashes to the four winds to ensure the creature would not regenerate itself eventually. And now there was one less supplicant ahead of them waiting for an audience with the Sleeping Coven.
Dee looked at the sun to judge the time. "Let's get some rest." As a chilly breeze blew across the beach, Dee wrinkled her nose as the stench of rotting corpses floating in the lake reached her. At least the scent no longer made her gag. Apparently the sea monster lurking in the distance wasn't able or willing to eat all of the dead, and they all shared an unspoken thought that these must be the corpses of unsuccessful supplicants or unsuccessful looters looking for Imaskari treasure in the ancient city.
Gann and Kaji carefully picked through the packs of two bodies that were close enough to shore to reach and found typical adventurer's supplies, including bottles of the strongest healing potions. Gann set those aside to divide amongst his companions. Safiya raised her hood and snuggled into her cloak and pulled out her spell book while Kaelyn took the time to pray to Ilmater for their leader that she would yet see the light and join her crusade to bring down the Wall of the Faithless. Okku and Cillian stood watch over Dee as she curled up in her cloak on the ground, pulling one edge over her face to block out the autumn light. She still wouldn't speak of what happened before they left Mulsantir, as if refusing to talk about it somehow negated it, and Safiya in particular was worried that her stoic front was only a flimsy bandage covering a festering sore that was bound to burst open, and probably at the worst possible time.
Dee had been settling in despite herself. She and Safiya visited Azim and Mavish for tea at their stall in the market regularly, whether they had something to buy or sell or not. Determined to beat this curse, she focused on buying Midwinter gifts for her friends back home. Witnessing the couple going through their regular routine of friendly bickering while they arranged their merchandise in their shop, or sharing casual touches and whispered endearments they thought she didn't notice made her miss Casavir all the more, and wish he could be here with them. Watching them was like putting her heart in a vice, but at the same time oddly comforting. They were becoming friends, and the friendship included Safiya, who told Dee in confidence that she thought their eldest daughter was a likely candidate for admission to her mother's academy, once it was safe enough to return there.
When they were in Mulsantir and Dee wasn't at the The Veil Theater where they stayed, or at the Temple of the Three or the Temple of Kelemvor for prayers, she was at the Ice Troll Lodge. She finally had won the right to be accepted as a junior member, though that gave her no more status than the beardless boys. It took her four tries, but she finally beat the giant Forovan at arm wrestling after Yulia's whispered suggestion of challenging him to use his left hand. Dee didn't bother telling him she was ambidextrous. It took her only two times to pass Yulia's ice bath challenge, though it took her hours to get the feeling back in her feet afterwards. Lena's test, facing a bare-knuckle gauntlet of four of the lodge's members, was easier because her companions were allowed to cast beneficial spells to help her beforehand, while for Yulia's challenge she had to remove her enchanted jewelry and stand in the ice bath in her small clothes while Yulia dispelled any enchantments that had been cast on her.
But she fit in there and was making friends. The berserkers were not as superstitious or judgmental as most Rashemi, in her opinion. There were no rangers among their current members, and they looked forward to her leading a hunting party once she was free of the curse. No one there batted an eye at Cillian or Okku, her other constant companions. Two of the other members were smiths, something she had precious little time to pursue since arriving in Mulsantir, but they spent an evening sharing stories of the forge with her. Their leader Jurak remarked one night after slapping her heartily on the back that it was a pity that she was already married and also that she was cursed or she would make a fine wife for one of their brothers, even if he did still think her hair was too pale, "Like a ghost's." He ended with the refrain she heard often, "And you're too skinny. Come, eat something!" as Yulia grunted in agreement and thrust a bowl of stew, heavy with venison, beets, potatoes and cream and a slab of the hearty dark local bread into her hands.
They even accepted Safiya, and she accepted their good-natured teasing about being a puny Thayan. Dee was settling in, though with shame it occurred to her one night while she and Safiya were trading shots of vodka with Lena that getting back to Casavir was no longer constantly on her mind. Though she constantly bought gifts for him, she had steeled herself to accept the possibility that he was already standing beside the gate of the Grey City waiting for her, and she had accepted that she would soon join him. She had resigned herself to spending the rest of what remained of her life in Rashemen. She still had her dreams of him to comfort herself, though Gann voiced his concern more than once that she was spending too much time dreaming.
The inexorable Hunger drained her over time, though she found that by forcing herself to resist it that instead of the terrifying hulking ogreish brute it had been when she was first cursed, it had been reduced to an annoyance akin to the telthor badger outside the lodge that growled at her whenever she entered. The Hunger had greatly diminished, yet it was not gone, and it was still killing her, albeit much more slowly. However, they had sent so many trapped spirits in Shadow Mulsantir on to the afterlife that it grew increasingly hard to suppress the hunger there, for she needed the spirits to serve as a catalyst for the dead god's power. The solution, which had been revealed to her when she first put the spirits of the scribes to rest in Myrkul's temple, was simple; she let it feed off her own spirit.
She was terrified to try it at first, but the pain was becoming unbearable. If not for her ring, which slowly healed the damage the Hunger caused, she would have already been dead. But it had worked, and she had done it again since then. It satiated the Hunger completely, but it left her feeling dazed and clumsy for a while afterwards, as if she had to sacrifice a fragment of the knowledge and skill she had gained over her life. But that was preferable to letting the Hunger win.
Thus it was two days before they set out in the witches' barge for the Sunken City that she was once again feeling so drained that she was afraid to go to sleep for fear that she might not awaken (and was adamant that Myrkul would not win that way). Unable to find so much as a telthor squirrel outside of the city, she let it feed off herself again. The results were better this time. The Hunger satiated, it replenished her own spirit energy, and she almost felt like herself again, though she knew it wouldn't last for long. Another benefit was that now the Hunger seemed a small thing, no more than an annoying insect buzzing around her.
But to her dismay she found during a sparring session that she couldn't remember at first an overhand/crossing sword maneuver that she had done many times, and one of the beardless boys she was sparring with beat her. And later she couldn't remember the name of the youngest Lannon daughter back in West Harbor, who Yulia reminded her of. It was frustrating, yet the Hunger was sated for now, and she thought that a fair enough trade, until she awoke early the next morning with a fierce cramping pain that made her double over when she got out of bed and tried to stand. And as she looked down and saw how much blood was soaking her nightshirt, she went into a faint.
She didn't remember much of what happened after that. Cillian, alerted through their bond, was at her side at once and quickly awakened Safiya, who shared Lienna's bed with her. Safiya clapped her hands, the command to operate the permanent magelights Lienna had installed in her rooms. She recoiled in horror at the blood and began to cast a defensive spell, but seeing they weren't under attack she jumped out of bed and went in search of Kaelyn. But she remembered on the way to her room that Kaelyn was back in Shadow Mulsantir alone trying to find a way through the Betrayer's Gate. Safiya awakened the shaman as well as Magda, but Gann decided that other than casting a healing spell, this was beyond his expertise and asked her to go to the witches for help.
Safiya pulled on a simple robe over her nightdress and left him and Magda with Dee and set out with Okku. But she didn't trust that she would find help from the witches, one of whom still sneeringly referred to her as the Thayan whenever she had to go to the temple with Dee. The hour was very early, nearly dawn, as Safiya instead told Okku they were going to the lodge to awaken the healer Yulia, who threw on her clothing and was ready to go with her a few minutes later. On the way back to the theater she met Mavish, setting out for her customary early morning walk with her eldest daughter to greet the sunrise before starting their day's work. She listened to Safiya with alarm and accompanied them back to the theater.
After a brief examination, Yulia sadly informed them that there was nothing to be done, but she thought the worst was over and she didn't seem to be in danger of bleeding to death, thanks to the healing from Gann's spell and Dee's ring. Gann thoughtlessly asked how it could be she hadn't known of her condition, which caused Dee to utter something between a sob and a strangled cry and earned him a punch in the arm from Yulia along with a terse lecture on the peculiar physiology of the female warrior.
Dee asked defensively, "But how? I never missed takin' Sand's disgusting potion." Yulia suggested that she might have taken some other potion or herbal remedy that neutralized it. Mavish patted her hand and tried to offer what cold comfort she could to Dee with assurances that this happens to many women, adding that she had lost two herself and reminding her that she was young. But with no end in sight for the curse and her husband most likely dead, her words of comfort sounded hollow even to herself.
Mavish and Yulia whispered together outside of the room as they left later that morning that this might even be a blessing because now she wouldn't have to worry about the effect Myrkul's curse might have on an innocent child. Mavish's daughter paused and asked them in wide-eyed fear whether such a child might have even become possessed by some remnant of the dead god before it was born. And who would know until the evil manifested itself? They made nervous gestures to ward off evil as they walked down the stairs.
Safiya, Okku, and Gann took turns sitting with her through the day while Cillian paced the room irritably, frustrated that he couldn't attack the thing that attacked his bonded. Dee faced the wall to end any discussion and slept deeply and dreamlessly, aided by a poppy tincture that Yulia had left. Kaelyn returned later intending to accompany them to the Sunken City and suggested that they wait a few days. But they all knew Dee didn't have the luxury of days to recover. Already the hard-won energy was waning.
Dee muttered, "No. We will go. The journey takes days, and I can get plenty of rest on the barge. I'll be fine by the time we get to the Sunken City. Don't worry about me." None of them believed her, and they worried about her anyway, but they couldn't break through the shell she built around herself. She changed the subject whenever any of them tried to draw her out as they traveled across the length of the lake and spent most of her waking time either in prayer or sitting between Okku and his "little brother" Cillian silently gazing into the distance.
Luckily they found when they arrived at the ruins that there was an abundance of telthor beasts along the lake shore, though she didn't need to deal with the Hunger just yet. Evening came, and Okku alerted the others when he spotted the first traces of the shimmering portal. Dee muttered wryly that some god was watching out for her finally as they persuaded one after another of the supplicants ahead of them to leave, only having to fight a group of Uthraki beasts, which they did gladly. Okku chased off a group of telethors, who fled before their lord's wrath. The rest of the supplicants were tired of waiting anyway and complained that the Coven hadn't been admitting anyone for tendays. It was easy to persuade them to leave without too much deceit or coercion on their parts. Dee warned an Ilithid with a straight face that they had passed a squad of Githyanki on their way there. The creature had to believe her; the description he could read of his enemies in her mind was simply too accurate to do otherwise.
The hagspawn guards watched them silently as they worked the crowd and greeted them with bemused expressions when they arrived at the door. One leaned over to the others and paid him a few coins, apparently having won a bet. They let them inside as a reward for clearing away the crowd of annoying supplicants. But the winner of the bet leaned down and confided as they walked through the door, "Do not think this guarantees the Slumbering Coven will see you. Speak to The Mistress inside; the Coven speaks through her, and it is she who will bring you to them if they agree."
As they walked from room to room past more hagspawn guards, some of whom were merely ugly while others were painfully hideous, Dee was struck by how unique Gann truly was. What was it about him that made him different from the rest of his kind? She blushed as he caught her studying him. Gann leaned close and said, "I have dreamed of this city many times. It is somewhat disturbing to meet the reality. Yet I feel I will find answers here to my questions, the least of which is why I am so devastatingly handsome compared to my brethren. I know you are wondering this as well. You don't have to deny it." Dee snorted, Safiya rolled her eyes and Okku resisted the urge to bite him. Kaelyn merely prayed for him that he would learn humility.
They met no resistance from any of the many guards they passed until they entered another room and faced an elderly woman standing across from them before the next door barring their way. She was flanked by more hagspawn guards. Dee couldn't tell whether she was a hag or not, but she didn't look friendly. She used her best courtier's voice and bowed low before her. "You must be The Mistress? I am Dee Farlong, and I would respectfully request an audience with the Slumbering Coven."
The woman tried to look impassive, but there was something—fear, disgust, loathing—in her eyes, and it was echoed in her voice. "Stop! You will go no further. They know who and what you are and the danger you bring here. The Coven saw that you would come in their collective dream, and that is why they have barred everyone from entrance. They will not see you!"
Dee tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. "Please, if you know what I am, you know how short my time is. I must speak with the Coven and learn what they told two women, Lienna and Nefris. One was a Red Wizard, and the other her twin but dressed all in white. They came here months ago. Whatever they were told led them to bring me to Rashemen. Lienna was to help free me from this curse, but she and Nefris were both murdered before she could tell me their plan. Please, I must speak with the Coven." Now she did sound desperate as she pleaded, but she no longer cared.
Gann stepped up beside her and scowled darkly at the woman. "I will not leave until I speak with the hags as well. They have the answers I seek regarding my mother and why I was cast out alone into the wild."
The woman regarded Gann with a look of utter disdain for a moment then smirked at him, her words dripping with venom. "Oh, don't worry. I think you will have your questions about your mother answered soon enough, terrible hagspawn." Without another word she made a few gestures and the floor fell out from under them as Safiya shouted a warning too late.
They tumbled down a flight of stairs and hit the floor in a room lit by torchlight. The overpowering stench of rotting flesh and fetid water wafted through the dimly lit room. Okku got to his feet first, followed by the others. Dee patted Cillian to comfort him. "Yes, I know it smells bad, love." They looked around in the murk. There was a door at the top of the stairs they had fallen down, but it was now magically sealed, and neither Safiya nor Gann and Kaelyn in turn were able to dispel it. Safiya activated the light spell on the crystal atop her staff and cast mage light on Kaelyn's and Gann's helms; Dee removed the cover that shielded the enchanted coin fastened to her leather helm that Sand and Grobnar had created. Now they could see more than a few feet.
There was nothing to do but try to find some way out of this place, so they set out down the first corridor that wasn't blocked by water or rubble. Footsteps coming down a passageway told them they weren't alone in their prison. As they traveled down the winding corridors, they encountered the first of several desperate groups of fellow captives. They learned this place was called The Skein, and that this was where those who threatened or displeased the Coven in some way were sent. Apparently no one had found a way out. Some of those they encountered were clearly adventurers; others were hagspawn who had caused the Coven's displeasure and earned banishment there. Some were sympathetic and even helpful; others noted the fine armor, weapons, and other gear Dee and her companions carried and attacked to try to get it for themselves, but only succeeding in joining the corpses that littered the structure.
It was difficult to know if they weren't walking in circles. Dee's direction sense failed her here, and Okku was at a loss too. Kaelyn finally suggested they find a way to mark the way they had gone, and Safiya grinned and produced a few pieces of chalk from her magic bag where she kept many of her spell components. They also encountered a variety of elementals who also seemed to have been driven mad by their confinement, though Safiya was at a loss to explain how they got there in the first place. They nearly always attacked and left behind a strange glowing residue when they were destroyed. Safiya collected some of the residue in empty flasks to take it to study later, and they used some to mark where they had been when they ran out of chalk.
Many of the captives had clearly lost their minds as a result of their hopeless confinement. As they traveled, retracing their steps at times because the passage they were in became flooded or blocked by rubble, their one constant companion was the eerie disembodied voice of a woman coming from somewhere in the structure. She was clearly insane as well. She sang loudly to herself, cackled madly, and shrieked abruptly in the middle of her mad song. The verses of eating the flesh of her lover, which she found "too salty" was disturbing enough. What was even more unnerving was her periods of silence. They were all on edge. With the way sounds echoed off the marble walls and water, locating her was difficult. The woman would grow quiet for long minutes, perhaps hours, before resuming her mad song or uttering another piercing shriek. Even Okku jumped whenever she did, and he grumbled that he would like to take her throat in his teeth.
Dee paused as the woman began singing again as if hearing her for the first time and murmured, "That poor woman." She suddenly was overcome by tears; it was as if a dam had burst, releasing all the grief built up over the previous days. Gann frowned, thinking that this was the worst possible time for their leader to lose her nerve. Cillian nuzzled her and Safiya put her arms around her and drew her head to her shoulder and let her cry as the others stood guard anxiously, expecting an imminent attack. After a few minutes she composed herself and said in a barely audible whisper, "Listen to her song. The poor woman, she knows what it's like to lose her love and her child. I need to help her or set her free from her misery."
A few helpful people they encountered had found a fairly defensible place to hole up, safe enough except when they had to go out and scavenge for supplies or food. Dee didn't want to think about what they were forced to eat to survive. They warned them to watch out for the madwoman, or rather mad hag, who they said was called, "Gulk'aush." The hag had apparently committed some grievous crime against her sisters of the Coven years ago and been banished there as punishment. They were warned that she kept to her lair in the center of the structure except for when she wanted to feed. One of them hissed as he looked around with almost palpable fear, "We think when she grows quiet is when she goes to hunt, and just sayin' her name is enough to summon her."
One of the men told them a mage who had been trapped there rambled on about his theory that what he called 'scary devices' controlled the flow of water into the city. Safiya tapped her chin in thought and interrupted him. "Scary devices? That makes no sense. He didn't by chance say Imaskari devices?"
The man thought about it for a moment before nodding his head in the affirmative. "Aye, 'Imaskari devices' was what he said. He thought if he could get 'em workin' the water would drain and we might be able to find a hidden way out. But he left tendays ago and hasn't been back. Either he found a way out, or..." They all knew what the "or" was as the air was pierced by the mad hag's scream.
Safiya was the only one who didn't jump at the scream, as she was that deep in thought. "I have a theory about the elementals wandering through the halls. I believe they power the devices somehow. We should examine one of the devices more closely as soon as we've rested."
After a too-brief rest, they left, to the dismay of some of their hosts and the obvious relief of others, who quickly barred the door after them. They had passed two of the devices on their way there and were given directions to a third. The Thayan mage tested her theory, explaining she had read a treatise on Imaskari blood magic when a student. All they needed, she surmised, was a willing elemental and a fresh corpse to provide the blood, which fortunately were abundant enough. Safiya collected a vial of blood from a corpse to everyone's disgust, though Okku pointed out that the victim certainly didn't need it anymore. She mixed it with some of the glowing powder that littered the floor, which Gann had jokingly called, "elemental guano."
Dee stretched up and inserted the now brightly glowing globe into the device as Safiya inserted the control lever and gave it a cautious pull. Everyone else stayed safely back. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the device rumbled to life as gears and pulleys that hadn't worked in ages clanged and creaked and groaned. Minutes later, an air elemental floated serenely into the room as if summoned by the device and took its place in the center. It shuddered, and with a rusty clang a pump began working. Was it their imaginations, or could they already see the water receding? They allowed themselves a brief celebratory hug then retraced their steps, and within a little more than an hour had managed to reactivate the rest of the devices, which left them hopeful for the first time since they arrived since now the water was clearly receding.
They cautiously crept around puddles down a flight of newly-exposed stairs, slick with muck, and Dee announced to everyone's surprise that she wanted to go find the hag's lair. "You want to confront her in her lair?" Safiya was beginning to doubt Dee's sanity.
Dee sighed softly, reading her thoughts in her expression. "Yeah, I know it's crazy, Saffy. But think about it. There's a reason she's where she is when she has the run of the place. Mayhap besides being a prisoner, she's guarding the way out?"
Safiya nodded and Gann added, "That is indeed logical, but be ready for a tough fight. A hag is a formidable opponent, and probably more so if she has lost her reason."
"Tough fight. That was an understatement." Dee knelt beside the hag with her long sword at her throat, who was near death after possessing Safiya and using her against her companions until they finally knocked her out. The creature only lived because she had surrendered, begging them to stop. Kaelyn tended to Safiya and then their other wounded. Okku and Cillian practically sat on the hag, and Gann trained an arrow on the creature's heart.
The creature blinked up at them as she was overwhelmed by sudden clarity and then stared in wide-eyed amazement at Gann. Her voice was hoarse and raspy after her latest fit of screaming. "Could it be? My Gannayev? Yes! So handsome you are, the very image of your father." She reached a bony, clawed hand towards him. "My wounds have caused the cloud of insanity to be lifted, but it will not last. But you've come back. My beautiful son, you've finally come back to me. I've dreamed of this day for so long, my dear Gannayev..." Dee looked up at him. His mouth was set in an angry frown, but she could see the conflict in his eyes as he looked down at the creature that claimed to be his mother.
However, he kept an arrow trained on her. "Dear? Yet you abandoned me to my fate."
Okku moved aside to let the creature stand and Dee withdrew her sword, though none of them let their guard down. She replied bitterly, "I abandoned you? That implies I had a choice in the matter, and I did not. Do not waste what precious time we have together with bitter accusations."
Dee put a hand on Gann's shoulder. "Mayhap you should hear her out. Her words ring true."
He scowled at her then relented with a sigh and turned his attention back to his mother. "Very well. I will hear you, but trust that I will pierce your heart at the first sign of treachery."
Dee stepped back as the creature hobbled painfully over to Gann, looking into his eyes with a gentleness that belied her fiendish appearance. Hags were shapeshifters, capable of luring mates through a combination of charm and glamor spells, which made the hag appear to be the woman or man of their dreams, Gann had said. Dee and her companions had discussed what they knew of hags, which mostly consisted of what Gann knew of them, on the way across the lake, so they would have an idea of what they were going up against. Kaelyn and Safiya were of the opinion they were evil creatures, but Gann, Dee and Okku countered that many insects also devoured their mates, and some birds and reptiles as well. To them this wasn't evil, just efficient, though arguably ruthless.
The hag's story was a tragic one, and saddest of all was when she explained to them how she had tried to deny her nature. She told Gann how she had lured a prized lover who was the envy of her sisters, a very handsome half-elf, but had been ensnared herself when she had fallen in love with her prize. She spoke of his kindness and his gentle voice. She couldn't bear to kill him when the time came and had told her sisters when they demanded an explanation that she was toying with him to prolong the sweetness of the kill. They had accepted her story. But she loved him, so she set him free. She had tried to deceive her sisters by showing them another corpse. She thought she had succeeded in her deception until she gave birth to her beautiful child, which to her sisters was an abomination.
"There was no hiding my crime from my sisters when they saw my son. They imprisoned me immediately, hunted your father down, and brought him back here to my prison when they found him. Then they held me down and forced me to devour him alive, and they held you and forced you to watch. But he forgave me even as they tore him with their claws and forced his flesh down my throat. Such was his gentle nature. He smiled at me and at you as he died..." She collapsed in sobs as she was forced to relive it. Gann said nothing, but conflicting emotions played across his face. She tried to caress his cheek, but he pulled away as if from fire. "They cast you out into the wilds, but I asked the spirits of the land to care for you, and when I could overcome the madness I've sent you dreams to lead you back here, my son."
He murmured, "You cared for me and watched me in your dreams..." Suddenly it all made sense to him, and he didn't try to stop the tears rolling down his cheeks, or move away when she touched his cheek again. But he wasn't alone. Even gruff Okku was moved by the hag's story. Gann relented and gave his mother the embrace they had both longed for.
She pulled away at last and looked at him regretfully. "And now I must send you away myself, my beloved son, for your own good. The voices have returned, and I will not be able to hold the madness at bay for much longer. But take this gift before you go. It is all I have to offer you." She reached into a pocket of her ragged dress and held something out to him in her hand. It appeared to be a red gem, but close observation revealed an eye suspended in the center. "Take my hag's eye. I won't have need of it's power any longer. You can use it when you become powerful enough to enter the Slumbering Coven's collective dream and destroy them. Go quickly now, the way out is up those stairs."
But Gann didn't think they needed to wait for him to become more powerful. He told them he thought he could enter the Coven's dream now, if he had the help of someone he had trained in dream walking. And once he forced them to awaken, their companions would be waiting to fight. The others stood guard over them while Dee helped Gann enter the dream world. Sitting cross-legged on the floor under the eerie hags floating in the air, they held hands, the hag's eye clasped in both their hands. A number of the unlucky supplicants were lying dead on the floor below the hags. A few others who yet lived appeared comatose. "Worse than filthy bloodsuckers," Dee muttered. "They're feeding off the spirits as surely as any spirit-eater." Gann grunted and gave her hand a firm squeeze that said, "focus."
Dee and Gann fought their way through Akachi's dream, now hers, and then freed two of the Coven's victims from their dreams. The third time they entered the shimmering dream portal they emerged in a vast empty gray plane. It was oddly quiet except for wails and shrieks carried on the air. Even their footfalls made no sound. "The Fugue Plane," Dee whispered in awe. In the distance they could see a towering wall, but even from the distance even with her short-sightedness she could make out writhing forms seemingly embedded in it. "And surely that's the Wall of the Faithless." She ignored Gann's snort of disbelief.
Something caught her eye among the writhing mass of imprisoned souls, and she gasped and peered in that direction, and then pointed and muttered, "There!"
Gann stared with the long sight of an archer but could make out nothing but writhing shapes. "What is it you see?"
Dee reached down to calm herself by touching Cillian's head, but he was not there with them. Without a word, she jogged off in the direction of the Wall, then broke into a full run, feeling in her heart the terrible knowledge that awaited her there. Gann shook his head then followed her. She drew up sharp and murmured, "Bish" and reached for one figure among many as Gann caught up with her.
"This is someone from your past?" Gann watched as she reached out to touch what appeared to be a man embedded in the wall, whose body was nearly covered with the same fetid gray slimy mold that covered the rest. Gann could make out scarring, and the man's left eye was ruined and bulging. His body was broken, with some of his limbs twisted at odd angles.
The form that appeared to be Bishop turned his good eye towards Dee as she touched his cheek and tried to brush away the mold. "Gods, Bish...Last I saw you, you told Black Garius to kiss your ass and ran for an exit long before we destroyed the King of Shadows. You had plenty of time to get out. What happened?"
He snorted derisively and replied bitterly, "Not fast enough to get past the roof falling down on my head. I see you made it out though." He wasn't about to admit he went back for Karnwyr. He frowned as if trying to remember something and muttered, "His holiness..." There was something in the back of his mind nagging at him, but his anger and bitterness at seeing her trumped whatever it was. Wench always had to get in the last word, even here. His fate was proof of that. He stared at Gann, who had knelt to examine him, as if noticing him for the first time. "Have you thrown his holiness over for this one already? It figures. Fickle swamp wench, never one to let the dust gather between your legs."
She ignored the bitter taunts. "Gann is a good friend. Bish, I warned you about this. But there must be a way to get you out." She tried to pull away the moss covering him, but the deceptively soft surface gave way to sharp barbs that dug into his skin to pull him back and seemed to want to pull her in as well.
Bishop growled, "Stop! You're making it worse. Just leave me alone. I deserve to be here...I'm not even fighting it, unlike most of these other fools." They all looked around as the shrieking grew louder. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. "I saw you here in the Wall." He looked distant as if he was hearing something in the cacophony of shrieks then muttered, "The others, do you hear them? They know you're here."
Dee tried to make some sense out of the noise, but it was useless. "What do you mean you saw me there? I'm right here. Why would these others care who I was?"
He stared at her again and repeated, "I saw you here, in the wall...but no, it wasn't you. You're just a mask." He stared at her again then nodded as if confirming his belief. Something behind them caught his attention. "Get ready. The death god knows you're here."
Dee and Gann turned to see a pit fiend and a horned devil across the plain advancing towards them. Gann said softly, "This is a dream, but if we die here, we won't be able to return to our bodies."
Dee was grimly determined as she drew her swords. "Let's make this fast then."
They stood before the shining portal that would lead them back to their bodies in the ruined city. Dee put the mask fragment Bishop gave her in her magic bag and turned to give him a final look. It was harder to make him out now. As he had warned, it seemed that he was surrendering to the power of the Wall. Her parting words to him was a promise that she would find a way to get him out, but he didn't reply. She put a hand on Gann's shoulder. "I have one more stop before we go to face the Coven, but I need your help."
Gann frowned. "We must take care that we have the strength to face the hags when we return, but very well. What did you have in mind?"
"I need to travel to Cas and pray that he's asleep when we get there. I need to get a message to him before he awakens. Do you think we can travel that far with the power of the hag eye?" She bit her lip and gave Bishop's direction a final glance.
Gann shrugged. "We already have traveled that far on the barge, but I assume you want to do more than simply explore his dream. We may need help getting deep enough into the dream state."
They awakened briefly back in the Slumbering Coven's chamber. Safiya was standing beside them. "About time, I was beginning to get worried." Okku and Kaelyn watched the Slumbering Coven as they each stood guard before a door that led into the chamber. Cillian bounded up to Dee and nuzzled her. Dee murmured, "We're almost finished," and reached into her magic bag until she found her secret stash of Black Lotus extract.
She handed it to Gann, who tsked at her but showed her how to pour out a scant few drops, no more than enough to coat the nail of her little finger. "Any more than that and we might not be able to fight when we return."
She nodded and carefully poured the thick sticky liquid on her nail and stuck it in her mouth, grimacing at its bitter taste as she licked it off. Gann did the same then took her hands and used the hag eye to travel into the dream realm. He let her take the lead since she knew the way, and they passed by the threads of many dreams until she spotted one that resonated with her. "There it is." It was an ordinary dream as far as dreams go. They found him leaving the temple of Tyr in Neverwinter walking with Dee towards the shops. A sudden summer shower caused them to take shelter under an awning of a shop, and he pulled her into a kiss. It felt strange, watching his dream image of her and seeing how he saw her. She was fit and healthy, and her hair shone, and she was more beautiful than she knew she had ever been.
Gann noted the difference and explained, "He sees you through eyes of love."
She sighed and crossed the street and stood in their way, coming out of the rain like an apparition. Casavir frowned, looking quickly from his dream version of Dee to her reality, thin and wasted, all lean muscle and sinew, with sunken cheeks and deep circles under her eyes. She was oddly pale despite her tan. And he knew in his heart this was his love. His dream version faded away at once as he reached for her. Gann joined them but stayed just out of sight. Casavir was about to speak, but she put a finger to his lips and stopped him. "I don't have long, my love. You must listen, and you must remember when you wake up. Bish is dead?" She didn't need to wait for his response to what she knew in her heart was true, though it had only been a dream. "You must go to his grave with a priest who can resurrect him. Please, you must do it today as soon as you wake up! Trust me on this, my love."
Gann hissed, "We tarry here too long!" She gave Casavir a final kiss and let the spirit shaman take her hand and lead her away, though she watched Casavir until they were out of sight.