Chapter Two – Dream of Stones
Chapter Two – Dream of Stones
The dream fell on Owailion like light rain, soft and refreshing. He had not thought, given how overwhelming the day had been to that point, that he would also have a dream so tremendously life-altering as well. It started with him back on the top of the mountain, on the ledge but Mohan was not there. Instead, a great storm cloud loomed overhead and Owailion looked up into it with wonder, expecting an explanation.
“
No,
” a voice announced from the cloud. “
I have a task for you and a blessing. Owailion, you have come to the Land to help and you will be rewarded. You will not be alone for eternity. If you fulfill the instructions I give to you, the door will be opened for immeasurable blessings. First, you must learn all you can from the dragons, for they will sleep soon. You may ask for their help but the work must be yours. I have also prepared other Wise Ones that will walk the Land with you. Have faith that your path will be clear and when it is not, it will be straight.
”
Owailion didn't know what to say to the voice in the cloud, though he assumed this was why he had come to the Land. And he was on the path, even if he could not remember the start of his journey. He said the only thing he could say. “What must I do?”
Another vision imposed itself into Owailion's mind. In it, he held a little bronze bowl as he stood along a luxurious river valley, at the bank of peaceful green water. In his vision, Owailion knelt at the river's edge and filled the vessel. Then he looked inside, hoping to see the future as if it were a crystal ball. The reflection in the water shifted from displaying the sky. Instead, he saw mountains from afar and within the mountain's ring, he saw a deep forest below it. The reflected image swooped as swift as a dragon, plunging down into the trees and until it alighted on the forest floor.
Owailion held the bowl rock-solid in excitement. He was about to witness something magical. The scene passed through the base of the trees, hundreds of them, lined with ferns and then toward a strange clearing. A light dusting of pine needles and ferns lined it but no trees interrupted. Instead, he saw eight standing stones like sentinels within. The reflection was too small for him to study the stones closely but in reality, they could easily be twice the height of a man, all set out in a perfect ring. And most intriguing of all, they boasted writing. He strained to make out the markings in the reflection but they were too small.
In frustration, Owailion was about to dump out the bowl's water when a tremendous wind passed through the forest within the reflection and obscured his view of the stones. When the branches parted again, the runestones had disappeared.
“No!” Owailion shouted, disturbing the image and sloshing water over his hands.
“
The stones have been stolen,
” announced the voice within the cloud. “
This is part of your Seeking. You will build palaces, create Talismans, teach the other Wise Ones. And you will Seek for the thief of the Stones. These are your tasks, Owailion, King of Creating.
”
Owailion woke with a start, frantic, hoping the dream would be forgotten, but it lingered on. He sat up in the forest next to a pile of fish rotting, with the dragon missing and remembered every word. He shook with frustration and wonder, trying not to feel overwhelmed.
Then above him, Mohan appeared instantly swooping over the trees, obviously called because of Owailion's alarm. “
What is it?
”
Owailion looked up through the fir branches above to his mentor and “I just had a very….very clear dream. Do you understand dreams if you do not sleep?”
“
Yes, I have heard of them, but something has alarmed you.
”
Owailion took a calming breath. He needed to understand that this dream, although profound, was not going to be resolved in an instant. He had much to learn first. “I won't be eating fish any time soon. How do I get rid of your…offerings? They smell.”
“
I agree, they stink. Just wish them back into the earth and they will return.
”
Owailion chuckled, but also experimented with the wish to make the offending smell go away and they did. He retained the strawberries and ate a handful for breakfast as he thought through things.
“
So, you have spoken with God in this dream,
” Mohan observed, probably hearing Owailion's thoughts about the dream. “
What has He asked you to do?
”
Was that God then? Owailion didn't feel any restriction on sharing his dream with the dragon, and certainly, he needed help with performing these duties he had been given.
“I have several tasks. First, I am to prepare for the others by building homes for each of the Wise Ones and crafting talismans for them; something they can hold that will help them in their own magic. Then I have to find some rune stones.”
“
Find them? I do not know what a rune stones is.
”
He looked up at Mohan. “They are the standing stones, set up for a purpose of some kind. I called them rune stones because of the writing.”
“
Writing?
”
Owailion sighed with the effort to explain the alien concept to his mentor. He wasn't patient, he realized with surprise and decided to ignore the implied explanation. “The scratches on the stones. They say things.”
“
?
” Mohan's mind voice never actually said formal words but his curiosity rippled through the mental link. “
I have not heard them say things.
”
Rather than try and fail to teach a dragon how to read, Owailion tried a different tactic to address the missing stones. “Do you know this place?” he asked and then, with little more than his instincts, Owailion pressed the memory of the rune stones under the trees into the dragon's memory.
“
Yes, it is Zema,
” Mohan replied. “
You call this place rune stones?
”
“Yes, in the dream I had a bowl, a magical bowl. I filled it with water and I saw something in it. I saw those stones I showed you. Zema. And then I saw the stones disappear.”
“
Disappear!
” Mohan asked, sounding alarmed. “
Show me.
”
Owailion obediently complied, pressing more of the bowl's vision into the dragon's mind the way he had been shown the demon panther.
“
This is not good,
” Mohan declared as the vision faded. “
I have been to Zema several times and always found the stones there. We must go investigate. The forest is very wet there and the trees grow very thick there but nothing will grow in that clearing except those stones that have been here since before the memories of dragons. We must see if this dream has shown the truth. If they have disappeared…
” The dragon let the worried threat hang in the air.
Owailion came out from under the edge of the trees to look up at Mohan. “How? I know you can fly, but I don't have wings and I need to see this too.”
Mohan rumbled in thought for a moment. “
I must take you. You will ride on my back and I will fly…ishulin…to go there. It is a magic transmission. I will teach you. Concentrate on my back, how it would be to stand there; the mountain in the west, looking out over this forest to the east. You will be very high. Think of that and then wish to be there.
”
Owailion swallowed a hot pit of terror at this prospect. What happened if he didn't imagine something correctly? Was this a little like the feeling he must have felt before he came to the Land, agreeing to have his memory erased in order to come here? It must be part of his personality, to take these wild, reckless leaps into the unknown. He felt that pit burn in his stomach and imagined it burned away his fear. It cleared his mind and left him to concentrate. He closed his eyes, imagined the height seven hundred feet above him, with Mohan's spikes running down, as tall as the trees of the forest. Then Owailion leaped.
And stumbled. The gold at his feet was slick as ice, and Owailion sat down before he fell, and reached out to grasp the nearest spine. “I made it!” he shouted in sheer wonder, and he latched on more tightly as Mohan tilted his head, rolling his head, trying to somehow see the tiny human now perched precariously on his forehead.
“
You have good talons,
” the dragon rumbled. “
Do you have a secure seat there?
”
“I will, once I tie myself down.” Owailion put words into action and conjured himself a length of rope, threw it around the tree-trunk sized spike he held and then lashed himself to Mohan's forehead. Then he felt safe enough to look around. From that perch, he saw the caved in side of the volcano and when the dragon turned to the north, the vast frozen plains beyond it. At this height, he could not see beyond the volcano, but as Mohan began clambering back up the slope Owailion had come down the day before, Owailion saw the ocean beyond the mountain.
Once he had reached an altitude where his wings would not foul in the trees at the base, Mohan spread his vast golden wings out to the side and without warning, launched himself into the summer sky. His human passenger shouted at the thrill. Mohan wheeled high above the crater at the top of the volcano and then turned east toward a long chain of mountains as if he would fly directly into the morning sun.
“
Ready?
” was all the warning he gave. Then in one downstroke the scene changed. Abruptly the sun was behind them, the forest had changed below and the long chain of mountains had grown close, looming so abruptly that Mohan had to bank hard to the right to avoid the sheer cliffs.
“
That is ishulin, a magic transfer. Once you know where you must go, it is simple. You have to envision it carefully or you will go to a place that does not exist,
” Mohan advised and then turned his head so they could spiral over the thick pine forest below them.
“
This is Zema, short for Imzemalainskalibaz. It means the Place Where Demons Smell. It is a place of suspicion.
”
Without more explanation than that, Mohan began spiraling down toward the trees in his flight path, into the shadows where the twilight fell quickly. Mohan could find nowhere else to land but into the tight forest, using magic to clear a landing for himself. Owailion untied himself and then slid down Mohan's arm. Underneath the canopy of trees, the dark swallowed the sun. Owailion had to conjure himself a torch to walk the few yards to the clearing of stones.
“There are no animals here,” Owailion stated the observation, knowing it for a truth, as well as a curiosity. The profound silence gave the place an eerie atmosphere.
“
Yes,
” Mohan replied, still able to see all that Owailion experienced even though he could not follow all the way to the clearing without trampling more trees. “
They don't like the smell any more than we dragons do.
”
“Smell?” but even as he said it, Owailion realized he detected a strange scent, cloying, burning his nostrils. He could not remember smelling anything like it. The odor set his magical instincts on edge. He held his torch high, struggling to see in the semi-dark, with the trees throwing alarming shadows, like walls across his path. Then unexpectedly the trees gave way to bare earth in a ring a hundred yards across.
“
They are gone, just as you saw in the bowl,
” Mohan snarled. “
Something has taken them.
”
“Taken what?” replied Owailion. “Mohan, what were they?”
Rather than explain, the dragon helpfully crafted a memory image that he passed on to the human. Owailion was treated to a much more visible and spectacular display of the standing stones he had observed in the bowl. They were dark granite, unpolished and aligned in a ring. Owailion could see the carefully written lines although the images Mohan provided did not concentrate on the script so he again lost the chance to read it. Dragons would not have thought of the markings as more than scratches an animal might inflict, but Owailion strained to see them. He so wanted to read the words to see if they might be written in his old language from before his coming to the Land.
“What do they say?” Owailion couldn't help but ask.
“
We dragons do not understand these scratchings. I was going to ask you what they say. We never looked closely. We only know that they were here before we came and that the demons leave their stench here.
” Mohan moaned in grief. “
This is not good. Someone or something has come and taken the standing stones without our knowledge. That means they have broken the Seal. We must call a conclave.
”
Disappointed and suddenly fearful that sorcerers lurked all around him, Owailion used
ishulin
to return to Mohan's back where he tied himself back securely to his spot, above the forest tops once again as the dragon tried to reassure him as well as himself.
“
You might as well come also. Perhaps someone has seen this ring of stones more closely than I and can remember the markings… writings for you. We must find this thief.
”