TOTF Volume 1: Fiorain PROLOGUE

    He was dying.

    Something cold gripped his neck. Relentless, hungry pressure pressed against the place where his blood pulsed. Water coursed around him, black and thick. Then he had sight—darkness, black shot with livid bursts of swirling purple and green and orange—then sound! Savage roaring, muffled words. He was heaved upwards, flung through the surface of water hard as glass. All was salt and fire and screaming, so loud and shrill in his ears that he could taste metal in his mouth. As he gasped for air, he dragged in seawater—he was under again, he was pulled down, down, away from the lurid light and the crashing of waves and the terrified shrieking—down, to some crushing and forgotten depth in a sea of dying souls.

    An object rushed at him from the corner of his sight, striking the side of his head with blinding force. The black world of roaring water turned upside-down. Before his eyes a thousand stars burst to life. His stomach rolled.

    “By the Five, Dram, shut it!” the voice came, clear and crisp, unaffected by water, and with it the idea that he ought to know the speaker. It was no use. His throat was on fire, his lungs were searing with agony, he had run out of air—

    Whap. A second object flattened against his head, well and truly shocking—but this time, it caused nothing like the pain. Chest heaving, he threw himself to the side. Something still had hold of him! Legs hopelessly tangled, he tumbled from his bed to meet the floor with a jarring impact of shoulder and ribs against cold stone.

    Dram groaned, dragging in draughts of cool, dry air, and did not rise.

    “Middle of the damned night,” the voice accosted him from somewhere on the other side of the room. Dram delved deep for the answer. Emory. It was Emory’s voice, lower than his own, nasal and harsh, quick to speak. Quick to curse, too, though he’d be disciplined if the Maentors ever heard.

    Blankets rustled somewhere beyond. “Whassit,” drawled a second voice, sodden with sleep and laced with displeasure. Caden. “You take my pillow…?”

    “Dram’s making a fuss,” Emory seethed in response. “Woke me up, whimpering like a little girl.”

    The room was still pitching from side to side, but Dram gritted his teeth and attempted to push himself up, trying to shake the blankets from his legs. “Dream,” he muttered, as if that would help anything.

    It didn’t.

    “Keep your fucking dreams to yourself,” Emory hissed threateningly. Emory was smaller than Dram, but had never seen fit to let that affect his words. “We’re not your audience.”

    “Gimme my pillow, Em’ry,” Caden grumbled, yawning. “Or… Dram. Pillow!”

    “Here.” Dram’s hand found the pillow that had followed him onto the floor, and lobbed it in Caden’s general direction. Lit only by a faint gleam of moonlight, everything in the room was indistinct. The pillow fell short.

    “Dammit,” Caden said.

    “Give me mine, too,” Emory’s voice hailed from the darkness. Dram gave a cursory glance around himself, remembered that he had failed to snuff out the candle on his bed-table before falling asleep, and wondered where it had gone. It must have fallen, and somehow not set anything afire...he managed to find Emory’s pillow a few feet farther toward the door, and tossed that to its keeper with slightly better aim.

    “Don’t wake me up again,” Emory snarled, punching his pillow into place, and then flopped back down with a huff.

    Silence. And in the silence, a distant roar.

    It trickled back to him like the sound of raindrops shattering through pine needles, of tiny stones rumbling down a spring stream bed on the first day of snow-melt, of broken glass being swept up, closer and closer to his ears. Touching a hand to his throbbing temple, he found it wet. Damn, he thought. Unlike Emory, he didn’t dare say it aloud. Hadn’t it only been a pillow? How could he be bleeding? Warning pain shot down his spine. It was becoming hard to breathe again, as if his chest was shrinking.

    He needed air, or he was going to be sick.

    There was just enough time to lurch blindly for the doorway, find it, and slip out into the hall before the world spun away and the sea crashed in. This time, his head bobbed just above the surface, and his sight beheld a terrifying vision that consumed his senses, pushing away all grasp of the corridors of the Larnach, of the room he had just escaped:

    A city, crumbling to dust! Above, the sky exploded with brilliant white fire and stone-cracking thunder. Below, the sea swallowed the sounds of screaming, and instead sang the sound of stones breaking away from high cliffs, plunging like falling gods into the raging water. He reached out in desperation, kicked against the mighty current for the shore, but the city was fading, torn away, obscured by the heaving, rolling mountains of water…

    The vision withdrew, violent and bereaving, and took with it all his strength.

    Gasping raggedly, Dram clutched at the cold stones beneath him, fingertips digging into the cracks between the flags, unaware when he had fallen. Not a nightmare. Couldn’t be. His soul was ice. In his veins, only seawater, filling him up and streaming from his eyes like hot sparks of steel.

    He lay in the cold emptiness of the corridor, and heard his heart beating in his ears, growing louder and louder until it was a low throbbing hum all around him, like the very blood of the realms flowed through the walls.

    Peace of Eadrom, sustain me. He was too weary to say it aloud, as he ought. Dizziness like he’d never known made the floor spin, and though he knew he didn’t need to cling to the stones beneath him, he couldn’t let go.

    Wisdom of Firaene, enlighten me. Dram had never seen the great city before. He’d never seen the sea, before, either, but now he knew its taste and its feel and its terrifying dark depth. How? Even in wakefulness, it had persisted. It could not be a dream, unless some strange madness had found him in the night—no. It was not a dream. It couldn’t be.

    Life of Achraen, uphold me. Letting his hand relax against the floor, he focused on the singular joy of breathing, of air devoid of seawater, of solid stone beneath him. He hoped whatever had seized him was well and truly over. If fate was kind, it would never return again.

    Tomorrow, perhaps, he would tell one of the Maentors…but who? None would believe him.

    Curse of Dorcha…leave me…

    He was forgetting the last realm. For a moment he tried in vain to remember. He had been awake well past sundown…when he tried to summon the fifth realm’s name, dozens more rose to the surface—the holy places of the first age, the sacred mounds of Dyllreach, the fourteen singing stones. After a moment, he exhaled, and gave up. His forgetfulness would be forgiven. He was too weary to remember. 

    The blood-beat in the walls grew heavy and slow. He wandered off into the gray.

   Voices drifted through the chilly hallway, distant and softer than cobwebs. Dram stiffly turned his head toward the sound of them and saw a narrow band of faint light striping the high part of the wall, coming from the door that led to the second landing of the teaching room.

    Laying his head down again for a few long, dizzy moments, he willed strength to his limbs, then took a deep breath and steeled himself to rise. It was difficult, and he had to brace himself against the dusty old tapestry of Durwyn the Red, but after a few moments he felt he could trust his legs to carry him again.

    “Dram?”

    The whisper, in a child’s voice, came so suddenly that Dram almost toppled over again as he turned. In the meager light, he could barely make out the boy’s silhouette. “Mil,” he whispered shakily. “Didn’t hear you.”

    “Sorry,” Mil mumbled, his voice tired, eyes black in the darkness, glinting up at him. “Taking a walk. Grady’s snoring again and I can’t sleep.” A pause. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

    “Just… taking a walk, too” he offered.

    Mil watched him for a moment longer, skeptical, then shrugged. “If you’re wondering who’s talking in the schoolroom, it’s the Maentors.”

    “How do you know that?”

    “I looked,” Mil whispered back, his expression cloaked. “I’m going back to sleep.”

    With that, the boy turned and padded softly away. Dram watched him go, then shifted his attention toward the schoolroom door, tempted. The Maentors were never awake this late. Never. Not all three of them. They won’t see me, he assured himself. I’ll only listen for a moment.

    Muscles aching, stomach still queasy, he crept toward the light. After a few steps he could hear the snap and pop of flame devouring wood and the murmuring of hushed voices beyond.

    The first voice he identified was that of Eallair, the Aird-Maentor, master and keeper of the Larnach and all who dwelt within its walls.  He was speaking now, his tone low and his words still too quiet to distinguish. As Dram dropped to his hands and knees just outside the door, he heard someone else speak up—Maentor Haget, a man of late middle age, with graying brown hair and gentle eyes. Haget was often the last to speak in any sort of discussion, which meant the Maentors must have been talking for some length of time already.

    Eallair murmured again as Dram inched his way forward through the half-open door, aware that every breath was perilous, almost smiling despite himself at the rush of danger. Slowly, so slowly that his arms strained, he lowered himself to his stomach and wormed his way to the edge of the loft, until he could peer between the slender posts of the railing. None of the room’s occupants would think to glance up in his direction. Hopefully.

    The three figures stood with their backs to him, facing the generous stone hearth.  Though clothed in identical long gray robes, a tall staff in each of their right hands, silhouetted all by the flickering light of a small fire, Dram had no trouble telling one from the other. Haget, there, on the left. On the far right, Maentor Oran, old and bent, venerable head haloed in frayed white hair. Oran was the oldest man Dram had ever met, a man born in what seemed another time all together, his mind full with a thousand memories and a thousand more fables and legends. The three of them were the most respected and knowledgeable souls in the Larnach, indeed, of all the Arduin… as least as far as he knew.

    They had, for the moment, fallen silent.

    The lesson room was as it ever had been—narrow bookcases framed either side of the hearth, crammed with ancient tomes and dusty scrolls, and tables were strewn about the middle of the chamber, their familiar surfaces worn smooth with time and scattered with forgotten pens and scraps of stained parchment. But now—now—starkly illuminated with light and shadow, hushed in secrecy, everything looked far different. The Aird-Maentor stood between the other two, the blackest silhouetted before the fire, his stance proud.

    The very air crackled with Dram’s excitement.

    “Would it not be better,” Haget broke the silence, so softly that Dram almost missed the words, “To approach things with caution, rather than dismissal? There is no harm in considering this…” he made a small gesture with his left hand.

    “Considering it…what?” Eallair inquired crisply.

    “A warning?” Haget offered. Eallair was displeased. Old Oran was holding onto his staff as if it was keeping him upright. Maybe it was. “I mean no disrespect,” Haget amended after a moment, responding to some expression Dram could not see, “but is there any harm in caution?”

    “Perhaps not,” The Aird-Maentor said in a patient tone. “I am a proponent of caution, as you well know. But what would you have us do, precisely?”

    Haget swallowed. “I think we must question why this has happened, and what it may signify for our realm…and why our eyes, in particular, have been given such a vision.” His voice was almost persuasive now, almost firm. “Until we have done so, we will not have fulfilled our calling in this matter.”

    At once the room turned colder. Dram was suddenly very aware of the sound of his own breathing, the worn wood beneath his palms… and a distant ringing sound in his ears. Had they seen…had they dreamed the city as well?

    Eallair’s next words were clear as if they had been shouted. “Brother Haget…we have spoken of how disparate and vague the natures of these… dreams. None of us saw the same, here we have agreed.” He sighed, a very short sigh that conveyed a depth of long-suffering. “And yet from these discordant and fragmented pieces, you think you discern a definite whole?  You feel certain we are shown a real event—and you also know it to be one which has already occurred?”

    A pause. Then, very quietly, Haget replied with a question. “Can you be sure that they have not, Aird Maentor?”

    Oran shifted his small weight, twisting his gnarled hands upon his staff. “They were not… dreams, brother Eallair. They…they were…” he hesitated, his flyaway tufts of white hair fairly trembling in the firelight. “They were aislings.”

    A heaviness settled into the air of the chamber at the hushed words. For a full minute, no one spoke. Dram’s breath turned to stone in his chest. He stared at the back of Eallair’s head, wishing for the gift of knowing what answer waited in that mind. The Aird-Maentor was a brilliant man, well versed in all the ancient ways of the Arduin, the liturgies, the laws, and the arts. Aislings were not a thing that Eallair spoke of often. Dram had learned first of them when studying the works of the old prophets… but almost the only teaching Eallair would impart upon the subject had been to assure his machlen that the gift of seeing, and the ability to interpret visions, was a gift long lost, a bygone art best left in the dust of the past. Still, the Aird Maentor would know far more concerning visions of heavy significance and wonder than he. Surely...surely he would know, if these dreams had been beyond the realm of the natural, if something unheard of for centuries had happened here tonight.

    When Eallair did speak, it was with a tone of flat disapproval. “Aislings.”

    Oran swayed slightly, leaning away from Eallair. He and Haget exchanged a furtive glance.

    Haget spoke up. “It is… the nature of the vision, brother. It is the clarity, the urgency… the weight upon the mind, which inclines one to think…” he trailed off, uncertain.

    “So it is written,” Oran rasped, quiet passion in his tremulous voice. “So the Arduin have ever believed. You recall, of course, The Day of Crimson Rain was predicted and seen in such a manner by many.”

    “Four centuries ago,” Eallair answered. “Four.  Centuries, Brother Oran.”

    “Yes, yes,” Oran continued in soft excitement, brushing this obstacle aside with a flutter of his fingers. “As well as the day of the shadow sun, and the birth of Arion Silverbrow. Many of our number received aislings, even those untrained in prophetic arts.”

    “And the rending of the realms at the dawn of this age,” Haget agreed quietly, humbly. “And many more, which I am sure you remember better than Oran or I, brother.”

    “Stories and histories cannot prove what the present event portends,” Eallair said judiciously. “Or indeed, if it portends anything. It behooves us to use sound judgment based on what is known, not only on anecdotal myth and legend.”

    “I have never stood within that city’s walls,” Haget said then. “Yet I would know it, now. Surely that… is significant.”

    “Ah.” Eallair pronounced this syllable very succinctly. He paused a moment, and the air somehow grew more brittle. “And you, Brother Oran? You are absolutely certain that the city you dreamed of was Vaelore?”

    “I am,” nodded old Oran, voice utterly solemn. “There is no question. I spent many years of my life there.”

    Vaelore. The high city, greatest of the entire realm, home to all things glorious and beautiful. Once, upon the pages of an ancient manuscript, Dram had seen a faded painting of tall gilded gates with huge white wings outspread, and swirling script beside it. It was written that the city was built of white stone, whiter than snow, rising up from the sea like a mountain of splendor—

    In his mind, the memory of white walls crumbling into hungry waves flashed before him. Vaelore. He shivered, still cold. If Vaelore had fallen, how many countless had died…?

    “’Twas an aisling.” Oran spoke that last word with even greater reverence than he had the first time, and took a shaking breath. “Indeed, it was, if ever an aisling has been.” Eallair’s silence seemed to be making him nervous. “What else are we to make of this…?”

    “I agree with Oran,” Haget stated bravely.

    “Indeed?” Eallair turned his head toward the others, and Dram caught the hint of a frown on his silhouetted features. “You know this beyond a doubt?”

    Old Oran bobbed his head. Haget nodded as well.

    “Perhaps…” Eallair’s voice was very low, musing. “Perhaps you are right,” he said at last. “Perhaps I am wrong. Yet…”

    After a few long, tense seconds, Haget inquired quietly, “Yet what, brother?”

    The Aird Maentor was looking at the fire, a small smile touching his lips. “I fear I cannot myself claim any such assurance that my dream was, indeed, such a vision. It was very clear as dreams go, yes. But not unarguably an aisling. And I, you see, have experienced aislings…before.”

    Oran gasped aloud. Haget’s face creased into an expression of suppressed surprise. “You–have you?”

    Dram similarly felt his breath catch in his chest. This…was this true? Of course it was; if any one of them had the training and ability to prophesy, the Aird Maentor would be the one.

    Slowly, Eallair turned to look at the other two Maentors. The enigmatic smile was still upon his lips, his eyes narrowed. He gave one slight nod. “Yes.”

    Oran’s fingers fluttered upon his staff in agitation. “I am sorry, Aird Maentor…but we had not imagined this to be true.”

    “No, Eallair said calmly. “And why would you? I have never spoken of it. Yet I assure you I know something of what they are…and what they are not. They have visited me before, as they did others I knew well. And I find it very…odd, to think that if this was of dire importance, the aisling would come to both of you, and far less clearly to me. So much less as to not seem one at all.” He lifted his shoulders slightly, his smile fading. “Yet perhaps, it is the way of it.”

    “Ah.” Oran shifted uncomfortably.

    Eallair looked back toward the fire. “In my experience, visions given for a specific purpose are not this difficult to comprehend, nor this vague. Else how would anyone be expected to act on them?” He paused. “If, upon reflection, either of you are able to recall anything else of significance…any detail from your dreams of something that might amount to a sort of directive, or purpose…please inform me at once.” Eallair turned to look at the both of them.

    Haget became very still. Dram sensed before the man spoke that all argument had been extinguished, flame buried in sand. “I do not intend to suggest that I am myself more attuned to such things than yourself,” he murmured, so quietly that the voice scarcely carried to the second landing. “I was not declaring expertise in the slightest. I am but a student still, in truth. As such—” Dram frowned, knowing what was coming next. “As such, I defer to your knowledge, Aird-Maentor.”

    “As Brother Haget has said,” whispered old Oran, “you would know better than we, Aird-Maentor.”

    A grave nod signaled that Eallair had heard him. “You have both done more than your duty in bringing this matter to me. For that, and for your honest counsels, I thank you. Now, brothers, I think we ought… return to... Dawn…is still hours off…”

    The words were getting quieter, muffled. Dram blinked as the room blurred, as the flickering light stretched into glimmering lines, and rain began to rap angrily at the single high window near the arch of the ceiling. The three below seemed not to notice. That was odd. In fact, they didn’t even look up when a peal of thunder shook the air above their heads…

    When the air changed, and the smell of old books was washed away by the sharp scent of saltwater, and the fire was plunged into sudden blackness, Dram sucked in a chest full of air, and choked on it.

    It was happening again.

    Not here, not now!

    He tried to rise from the landing, ears straining for sounds from below. They must not find him listening. If they did…

    The ground tipped, and he fell from blackness to blackness, and the swell of dark seawater extinguished all light and sound. Thoughts that were not his own flashed through his mind. His arms reached out, straining for nothing, hands searching for air, for…for—

    The child! Where, where—

    A tiny arm brushed against his open hand. Dram felt his own fingers close upon it. Above them, faraway splashes warned that the ship was sinking, broken apart by the waves.

    The surface!

    He kicked, struggling against the heavy pull of the water, knowing that he had to save it, save this child from the raging sea. Above them, lightning devoured the sky. For a moment he could see the dark silhouettes of people and wreckage alike drifting as if in a dream, frozen in a moment that would last a thousand years.

    It was the end!

    His face broke the surface of the water. The rain stung. In the air sang the screams of a hundred dying souls.

    Somehow he was dragging himself and the child up on to the sand, out of the hungry, swelling waves.  His legs burned. His lungs screamed in agony. But they had to get out, away from the water. Choking, gasping, the child clung to his neck, until at last they were beyond reach of all but the ocean’s fingertips. He collapsed on the strand, still holding the little form trembling in his arms.

    Exhaustion such as he’d never known swept over him. In the next jagged flash of light, he saw his hand, upon the child’s golden head… it was not his own hand.  He scarcely cared.  They were safe, the child was safe, and that was all that mattered.

    Beside him, the child cried.

    ______________________

    Dram woke up in his own bed. Sunlight striped along the ceiling above him. Slept too long. Caden and Emory were gone.

    Slowly, he attempted to gather his thoughts. Everything he had seen could have been a strange conjoining of dreams, the terrible visions only fragments of a nightmare—except there was a linen bandage on his head, just over the place on his left temple that burned with dull, insistent pain...

    And Oran sat beside his bed, watching him with kind eyes.

    “You’re awake,” the old man said.

    Dram sat up, every sense alert, searching. His head pounded a warning, which he ignored. This was important. “What happened? Was I—did you—”

    “You took a turn,” Oran explained, smiling serenely, his voice calm. “Feverish.” He put a cool, papery hand on Dram’s forehead, trembling gently, and nodded in approval. “You’re doing much better. Seem to have thumped your head.”

    “Eallair,” Dram managed. There was so much to say. “Where is Eallair? I–I must speak to him.”

    “The Aird Maentor is teaching the machlen today,” Oran said. “He is concerned for your well being. How is your head?”

    “I’m fine. I wasn’t sick. I have to—I have to tell him—”

    “I will tell him you are recovering.” The old man gripped his staff with both gnarled hands, and began stiffly to rise.

    “No, no I’ll go.” Dram swung his legs over the edge of the bed, dragging the blanket along with him.

    “You’ll stay here, for a while yet,” Oran told him, quietly amused as he thunked down his staff and leaned on it, blocking Dram’s way. “There is no hurry. If you feel well enough, you may join in the studies after the midday meal.”

    Dram watched the old man for a moment. Did he know? How much had he seen?

    Oran knew what he was thinking. “Ah, yes.  There is a heavy question on your mind, machlen. I know you wish to tell the Aird Maentor first, but—” he smiled. “I have ears as well, and Brother Eallair cannot hear you at this moment. I could stay a bit longer before walking down those long, long steps…?” He pulled a reluctant grimace, inviting the young man to notice how very old he was.

    “Stay,” Dram said, exhaling. “Please stay.” There was no harm in telling him. Oran liked to listen to his musings. This tale, though, would be different than all the rest. As the old man creakily re-seated himself, Dram dragged his scratchy wool blanket around his own shoulders, and shifted back to sit cross-legged in the center of his bed. The air was chilly this time of morning in late summer, even with a fire in the narrow hearth.

    “So.” Oran folded his hands on his stomach. “I presume you’re waiting to be asked why you were eavesdropping. Might get that done with?”

    Dram swallowed. “Well—yes. That would be…best, I suppose.” Eavesdropping, and the punishment for it, was minuscule in importance when compared to the dreams. His breaking of the rules would be forgotten. “I heard voices, it was the middle of the night. I wanted to see who it was.”

    “Of course.” Oran nodded, blue eyes sparkling. “That’s done then. Now the better question: why were you awake?”

    Dram grinned. “I saw something”. It was easy to talk to the old man…but it was important that Oran truly believed him this time. “In the night.”

    Oran raised a frayed eyebrow. “A nightmare?”

    “No.” Dram shook his head. “A vision. Of a city. Something…terrible, was happening to it. The walls were crumbling, stones cracking, and people were… they were…” he took a steadying breath, his smile fading. “dying.”

    The amiable expression on Maentor Oran’s face dissolved into instant surprise, confusion. “You are certain you saw this?”

    “Yes. I did.”

    “Mmm.” Oran took a deep breath, thinking. “Perhaps,” he offered gently, “you were eavesdropping for longer than I thought?”

    Of course he’d think that. Dram frowned, frustrated.  “No. No, I didn’t know that you and the other Maentors had any dreams, not until after.”

    “But… you heard Haget and I, recounting our own dreams?”

    Dram shook his head, gesturing emphatically with his left hand. “I did not. Only that you and the other Maentors had had them.”

    “Hmm.” Oran smiled vaguely, lifting a gnarled finger to press it against his thin lips. “How… odd.”

    Dram sighed in exasperation. “You think I’m lying?”

    “Oh, no.  No, I wouldn’t say that.” Reaching over, the old man patted Dram’s shoulder in reassurance. “I am only…thinking.”

    “Thinking,” Dram repeated. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “it wasn’t only the city I saw. I saw more, too. When I was in the schoolroom.” They must have moved me to my bed, he thought. They must have seen me there.

    “We saw you… fall,” Oran said delicately, bobbing his head. “It was fortunate you did not topple down the stairs.”

    “I had another vision,” Dram stated. “I did. Right there. I wasn’t asleep. That’s why I fell.”

    A keen light came into the old man’s eyes. “Did you?”

    “I was in the water.” He hadn’t been asked what the vision was, but it was important to tell it. “No, I was under. I must have been because I was… I was looking for…”

    “You were feverish,” Oran told him, not unkindly. He sat forward in his chair, leaning once more on his staff. “Burning hot. A fever-dream, perhaps?”

    Dram shook his head. “No. And the child—it was in the water, too. I felt this overwhelming…need to find it—to find him…” his words came quietly, pleading. A half-smile on his lips, Oran seemed content. Enjoying the tale? Dram frowned. “It was not a dream, Maentor. It was not. I have dreamed enough to know the difference.”

    Oran’s pale blue eyes seemed to look right through him, but Dram had nothing to be ashamed of. The truth must be understood. He met the old man’s gaze unflinchingly, until at long last, the old man gave a short nod, and smiled again. Dram thought he looked relieved.

    “You are right in thinking you ought to tell the Aird Maentor. Very right. Very, very right. Let us go down to him together.”

    “Now?”

    “Now,” Oran affirmed with a sigh, pulling himself to his feet, hand tight on his worn old staff.

    Dram all but jumped up, fighting a wave of vertigo, and plucked his gray wool robes from where they were thrown on the floor near the foot of the bed. “But he’s teaching,” he said as he pulled the robes on over his head. “Won’t he be displeased if we interrupt him?”

    “No…” Oran chuckled. “There are some things that are more important than the histories of Palrick Brown-Hands. Old tales can wait, do you not agree? Now come, machlen. Help an old man down the stairs.”

    ______

    The Aird-Maentor was very young when he was given the highest place among all the Arduin for his wisdom and ability. He was still young now, younger than the other maentors, though a good portion of his dark hair had been given to gray. How long Eallair had been in that place, Dram had never asked…but it must have been a long time, for no one ever spoke of any Aird-Maentor before him… not even Oran, who was surely several decades older. 

    The children were not especially fond of the Aird Maentor. This was, in Dram’s estimation, primarily because he often seemed cold, hard, his stores of knowledge and wisdom so staggering and extensive that he seemed to have forgotten what it was like to be young and know very little.

    But patience brought out more than disapproval in the man, if one tried hard enough. Dram had earned his place.  For his part, Dram looked up to him as the closest thing to a father he’d ever had. Kind words from their teacher were rare, words of frank approval even rarer…but when Dram learned swiftly, and performed well, and gave the man respect he deserved, there were glances, and nods, and looks of acceptance, acknowledgment. Caden and Emory were jealous of this. They received scathing rebuke and endless reprimand on their worst days, apathy or tolerance on their best. But they were lazy. Unlike himself, they felt no inborn investment in their studies, no yearning after the ancient, deep-rooted beliefs of the Arduin. They saw no wonder in the liturgy, no perfection in the law, the way he did. They could not tease him about his intelligence, so they found other things to mock. They called him copperhead under their breath. They insulted his words, his looks, his tall frame. But they envied his mind. Eallair was a hard man to please, and thus far Dram was the only one of the machlen who had succeeded in doing so. Could he be faulted for wearing that knowledge like a badge of honor?  With that, the teasing was easily borne.

    He didn’t know what the recounting of his visions would make Eallair think or say today. Aislings were remarkably rare even in ancient times, and came only to those who were sage and wise and well-learned. He was fairly certain they did not often come to the students of the order… the uninitiated, still without staff or fiorain.

    Like him.

    Dram paused in his steps as Oran went into the teaching room, quietly interrupting whatever was being said within. Eallair’s indistinct words lapsed into silence.

    But he’ll listen to me, Dram thought. It’s different, if I’ve seen it too…

    Within a minute all five of the younger children came through the doors, each one of them except Mil smiling up at him as they passed. Mil only looked tired and sullen, brown eyes downcast. Dwyn, the youngest and last of them, paused for a moment looking as if he wanted to ask a great host of questions, but reconsidered and followed the others after giving Dram a parting grin. Caden and Emory, the other two older boys, left last, each carrying a few books under their arms, giving him looks of annoyance and dislike as they shrugged past.

    “Come in, Dram,” Oran beckoned from the doorway. Dram took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

    Near the fire Eallair stood, leaning over a table, perusing the open volumes there. He did not look up as they entered.

    “Here, here he is,” Oran was saying, laying a hand on Dram’s shoulder to usher him forward as quickly as his old frame would allow. “I would tell you myself, but ‘tis a greater wonder if he—”

    “Brother Oran, you may go. I will speak to him alone.” Eallair’s voice was calm. For a moment, Dram’s heart beat hard, but he willed it to calm. This interruption would be forgiven.

    “As you like, brother,” Oran said, retaining his good-natured tone despite the taller man’s coldness. “I will go tend to the other machlen.”

    Eallair didn’t reply. After a moment, Oran released Dram’s shoulder and shuffled to the doorway and through, closing it softly behind him.

    The silence after he left was deep, pensive. At last, Eallair straightened, turned his night blue eyes toward the boy standing in the middle of the room, and sighed deeply. “What, precisely, were you doing last night, machlen?” he asked in a tone of deep disapproval, unblinking.

    Dram took a deep breath as his heart threatened to leap up into his throat. As swiftly as possible, he told Eallair the same thing he’d told Oran about his eavesdropping, apologizing briefly. The Aird Maentor, however, apparently found it far more serious a trespass than Oran had. For a full minute, he said nothing. He was not an extraordinarily tall man, and Dram had over the summer almost caught up to him in height…yet the disparity of less than an inch might have, at this moment, been the difference of a foot.

    “You listened to our counsel, did you not. From beginning,” he shifted his right hand ever so slightly upon his staff, adjusting his grip deliberately, “…to end.”

    “Not the beginning,” Dram said quickly, as if this admission somehow absolved some of his guilt. “You were already talking, when I came in. Nearly done, I think.”

    “What, then, did you hear?”

    “Just the end. But—I wouldn’t have listened to much, only—”

    Eallair’s severe left brow was arching dangerously, visible even in shadow, and Dram heard the slightest intake of breath. It warned him that excuses would not be well received. He halted his words for perhaps two seconds before he pressed on through what was now dangerous air. “I am sorry Aird Maentor, but—it was what you were speaking of, that held me listening. You all had visions. I had one too.  It woke me.”

    He had hoped that the news would be received with interest, scrutiny, an understandable amount of skepticism, a shred of wonder, even…but the look that flashed over the Aird Maentor’s face was none of those things.

    Eallair blinked. Dram saw it. It was more than a blink—it was a flinch.

    “What…?” he demanded, in quiet, sharp disbelief.

    “I saw a great city falling, the earth and sky and sea all around it,” Dram said hurriedly, the words spilling out like an overturned bucket. “And people drowning, and perishing in the waves, and under stones, and violet lightning flashing all over the sky. I didn’t just see it, I felt it.  I was there.”

    The Aird Maentor opened his lips and tried to speak, but Dram pressed on breathlessly, unable to stop, consumed by the desperation of one faced with utter ruin. “The clouds were glowing green, and purple, and they were angry. People were running, afraid. They could not escape. And then, in the schoolroom, I was—I was in the water—”

    A short, sharp movement of Eallair’s left hand. “Enough.”

    “I was under the water, a ship, it--it was splitting to pieces in the storm, and I was trying to—”

    “Dram.” The Aird Maentor’s voice was quiet, calm even, but heavy with such authority that Dram couldn’t find his next words. There was absolute silence, in the room, in the air, in the space between himself and the older man, his teacher.

    He had said too much.

    At first he clung to the hope that what he had seen would be considered as…what? A miracle? Some latent sign of prodigy, like the other things he could do that the other machlen couldn’t? Had he truly expected Eallair to believe him, when the older, wiser, far more learned men, the Maentors, had not succeeded…?

    “It was a nightmare.” Eallair’s voice was cool, and dry, empty as an abandoned cellar. “You did not see it. You dreamed it.”

    “I—” Dram’s mouth was dry.  He swallowed, fighting the urge to drop his eyes and bite his thumbnail. “It…it wasn’t a dream. I saw it…when I was awake…” Unspoken warning crossed his mind. He had already lost.

    “You had a fever, surely Brother Oran told you? It was a dream, even if you were wandering the halls.”

    Dram tried to think, to remember if he had felt ill…he had, but that was because of the vision, not because of any fever… “But I was there, Maentor. I could taste the seawater and the dust and…I have never before this night seen the sea with my own eyes—”

    “Which qualifies you to know that it was, in fact, the sea.” Eallair’s words were tinged now with exasperation.

    “I don’t think it– I just know it was the sea. I could—I could taste it—salty and there was sand in it—”

    “Do you hear yourself, Dram?” Eallair asked, very quietly. “Are you listening to your own words?”

    But there had been a child. “I’ve thought it over to myself already. It wasn’t like any dream I’ve ever had. I don’t—I don’t think it was a dream. I know it wasn’t a dream.” It was open defiance, what he was doing now. But he couldn’t stop. “And—and you said you have had true aislings before. If you’ve had them, why do you teach they aren’t happening anymore?”  It sounded like an accusation, he realized even as he spoke the words.  “Why haven’t you told us that—that they can still—”

    The man’s face was a mask, in which his dark blue eyes gleamed like fierce gems. Too far. “Maentor, I—I should not have listened, once I knew it was you and the other Maentors speaking. I should not have listened.”

    “No,” agreed Eallair. “No, you should not have.” He stared for a moment, unblinking, then turned deliberately toward the fire. “Indeed, Dram, there was a time, not so long past, when you would have harbored too great a respect for your Maentors to eavesdrop upon a private council,” his tone was one of soft regret, “or to speak to me as you did just a moment ago.” He glanced back at the young man, and his eyes glinted with stern disappointment in the firelight. “Not so long past.”

    Dram felt the pain of these words as keenly as a knife pressing through his ribs. “I am not intending to be disrespectful.”

    The Aird Maentor was silent, measuring his response. “It seems to me,” he said at last, half turning and regarding Dram with heavy scrutiny, “That your judgment has been less than sound ever since Aron and Trent left the Larnach, turning their backs upon all the wealth of knowledge and learning that had been lavished upon them…”

    Dram looked away, but he could hear the deep frown in Eallair next words. “Since their departure, there has been a marked change in you, Dram. It is as if you no longer know your place, and have lost all sense of reverence for those whose lives are devoted to your good.  As if you have ceased to feel any gratitude at all for the advantages you are receiving here.”

    It was hard to breathe. “I’m not like them.” Dram managed to raise his eyes once more to his Maentor’s face, fierce hesitation in his gaze. “I’m thankful, for everything given here. I am not casting such things aside…as they did.”

    They were his friends, and they left him there. He would not have done that.

    “Dram,” Eallair turned fully toward him, and his staff struck the ground in subtle punctuation. “Listen to me. From your first days with the Arduin I have watched you closely, noted the zeal and aptitude which you evidence in all your studies. I have marked your progress with ever increasing assurance that you have the highest potential, and I have harbored great hopes that you will rise to fulfill that potential.” He inhaled, and breathed out heavily. “But you will only achieve this if you persevere, if you conduct yourself with wisdom, prudence, maturity, and respect for those in authority over you.”

    He shifted his staff to his left hand, took a step forward, and reaching out he laid his strong right hand upon Dram’s bony shoulder. “We all have high expectations of you,” he intoned solemnly. “It would be a sad fate, if you were to fall short.”

    Dram’s face paled to a resolute shade of gray. He could scarcely feel his heart beating, so soundly was he caught between shame and pride at once. This was not the first time he’d heard words to this effect. The Aird Maentor of the Larnach saw his potential. Not that there were ever moments of regard that stood independently of subtle criticism…Until now, he had seen these words as gifts, ways to improve himself. In this moment they were only a reminder that he stood on the brink of failure. A step away from ruin.

    Ever since Aron and Trent left…the two machlen who had spoken to him as a friend, who had teased him but never, ever taunted, never mocked…Things had been different since they’d disappeared, yes. But that wasn’t his fault. People were forced to change, when they were left on their own.

    “I will not fail you,” Dram heard himself say to his Maentor. The words came of their own will, independent of his thought or desire.

    Eallair’s hand still gripped his shoulder with a tensile strength that belied his years, and he searched Dram’s gaze the way Oran had, but with less understanding. At last, with an air of grim resolution, he said, “I trust that you will not, Machlen.”

    He released Dram’s shoulder, and stepped slightly back.

    Taking a deep breath as though his Maentor’s hold had momentarily robbed him of the ability, Dram bowed his head. The old stone floor was lit just faintly by the firelight, though the shadow of the taller man fell over him. “May I go,” he murmured, feeling empty. “I fear I…still feel sick.”

    “Of course.” Eallair shifted his staff back to his right hand. “Rest for a little while longer, if you must. The afternoon lessons will resume in an hour. I should like to see you there, if you are able.”

    Just like that, it was over. Oran’s words of new histories and days of wonder were dry, cast onto the floor like old parchment. Dram bowed shortly and turned.

    “And Dram,” Eallair began.

    He hadn’t even taken a step yet. Stopping, Dram stared at the gray stone wall before looking back toward the firelight. Eallair was not facing him, but the dying fire.

    “As regards this matter of the dreams,” he said, toneless. “It is best to leave it be. Do not trouble yourself further.”

    The words held a warning. There was only one possible reply.

    “I understand, Maentor. I will not…trouble myself.”

    Eallair gave a slight motion of his left hand. He was dismissed.

    With every step Dram took toward the doors and through, he wondered whether the man by the fire knew his thoughts, knew his resolve, knew his lie. He found the steps to the upper floor and walked up with bare feet, the sunlight streaming bright gold through the narrow windows on his left. Outside, the sky was the bright shade of northern blue, living and pure.

    Histories would begin this day. One man’s word could not change that, even if he were Aird Maentor of the Arduin. Something enormous had happened. Something glorious had fallen to ruin. The sunlight was the same, and the sky, and if he were to walk out into the woods beyond these walls they would be the same there, too. But somewhere, something tremendous had been irrevocably altered, and the air was different. The earth was different. He had to find out why.

    The Aird-Maentor’s orders followed him, an urgent whisper in the back of his mind. He understood what the man wanted him to do. But he would not obey.

    He would not forget.