Voyage of the Fox Rider (26 page)

Sleep without sleeping?
Momentarily Aylis was nonplused, but then she asked, [“Do you mean—?”] suddenly Aylis realized that there was no word in Ontah’s tongue which meant meditation…in particular, deep meditation…

…And so began Aylis’s instruction in dreamwalking.

In the early afternoon of the next day, a Dwarven warder called out, “Someone comes!”

Bokar and Jatu stood and peered toward the pine tree forest. In the near distance toward them came Alamar, tottering and disheveled and panting. “Something is wrong,” gritted Bokar, hefting his double-bitted axe and setting out at a trot toward the eld Mage, Jatu jogging at his side. Even before they reached Alamar he waved them back, wheezing out in an irritated voice, “No need to come and get me. I can make it on my own. I’ll not have anyone carrying me, even though it has been an ordeal.”

By this time, Bokar and Jatu had reached his side. “Is there danger?” demanded Bokar, axe at the ready, his gaze sweeping the wood for sign of threat.

“Danger?” gasped Alamar, whirling about, facing the forest. “Where?”

“I don’t know where,” snarled Bokar, “you are the one running.”

“Running? Me?”

“You mean you are not fleeing?”

“Of course not, you bloody fool.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Well there was nothing for me to do!” Alamar peevishly snapped, yet puffing and blowing. “Aylis and Aravan have everything well in hand. The Pysks are all right. Ontah knows what he is doing. The savages are no threat. And besides, it was bloody uncomfortable out there in the woods.”

Bokar seemed unwilling to concede that nothing was amiss. “Are you certain?”

Alamar threw up his hands and stomped off toward the encampment, muttering, “It’s not enough that I have to walk miles and miles out to that lodge and back, and it was uphill both ways, but now my very judgement is being questioned, and…”

Bokar and Jatu turned and followed the Mage, the Dwarf scowling, the black Man laughing.

That night, Ontah and Aylis sat at the lodge fire, aromatic wood shavings filling the air with fragrance. They faced Jinnarin, who lay nearby on a soft blanket, the Pysk trying to sleep, failing. Neither Aylis nor Ontah spoke, the silence broken only by the slight crackling of the fire. At the doorway, Aravan sat with his back against the outer wall, the Elf resting his mind in gentle memories. Neither Tarquin nor Falain were present, having escorted Alamar back to the cliffs where he would return to the
Eroean
.

An hour passed and then another, and the wind in the pines strengthened, the soughing
shssh
drowning out all other sounds. Aylis regarded Jinnarin, watching as her breathing slowed and her hands fell lax—she was asleep at last.

Aylis slipped into a state of light meditation, noting that Ontah did likewise.

A time passed. And there came a soft word from Ontah. Beneath their lids, Jinnarin’s eyes began to whip from side to side.

Now Aylis slipped into deep meditation, and using
the now-ingrained of taught her by White Owl, Aylis began to dream. She stood in her father’s cottage in Vadaria, looking about in wonderment, for here she had not been since childhood. And as she stared at her dwelling of yore, a young Man with black hair and brown eyes and coppery skin stepped through the wall toward her. “Brightwing,” he said, reaching out his hand, tugging her into the cave.

They walked toward the light at the distant end. When they emerged, they were alongside a still mere.

“See and remember,” whispered White Owl.

Aylis peered about. They were in a forest. Oak trees. Willows. It was summer. Reeds stood in the lakelet near the shore. The water was faintly undulant. She could hear a stream purling softly. Across the way a fox and rider stopped.

“Remember,” whispered White Owl again.

The fox bounded away. The rider—Jinnarin? yes, Jinnarin—knelt and plucked a flower. She stepped to the edge of the mere and knelt on a broad stone, fixing the flower in her hair and using the water as a mirror. From above came laughter, and out from a tree a Pysk dived into the pool. Jinnarin screamed.

“Remember.”

That must be Farrix
. Aylis watched as the black-haired Pysk popped up from underwater and climbed out. He wore no clothes. Suddenly, Jinnarin’s clothing disappeared. Farrix kissed her. They lay down in the moss.

Aylis turned to the Man, her heart thudding. “White Owl, we must not—”

“Brightwing, see the trees.”

Aylis looked. They were beginning to lose form.

“Brightwing, we must leave now.”

They stepped into the tunnel, White Owl striding swiftly. Aylis looked behind. The opening disappeared, the tunnel walls began to collapse, rushing toward her from the far end.

“Do not look back!” White Owl commanded, his voice sharp.

Aylis’s head snapped ‘round, but she knew that at the speed of the approaching cave-in, only moments remained until they would be buried.

“Do not believe it!” commanded White Owl. “Control the dream and it will not fall.”

Her heart hammering, Aylis envisioned the walls solid, adamant, unable to give way. The crashing behind her stopped.

They stepped forth from the tunnel and into a smoke-filled lodge. A tiny fire burned in a ring of stones. An old Man and a young seeress knelt in meditation, a Pysk asleep before them.

“Remember,” said White Owl. “And awaken.”

Aylis said the other deep-rooted of White Owl had drummed into her…

…and she opened her eyes.

Aylis was ecstatic. She had dreamwalked. She turned to Ontah, and he smiled at her, saying,
“N’klat sh’manu, Aylia.”

“What?”

“N’klat sh’manu. Chu doto a bala.”

“Converte,”
evoked Aylis. Then she turned to Ontah. [“You must forgive me, White Owl, it seems that I lost my ability to speak your tongue when I dreamwalked.”]

Ontah made a gesture of understanding. [“I said, it was well-done, Brightwing, this first dreamwalk of yours. Not everyone of can do as well even after many Moons of training.”]

Aylis bobbed her head, proud and slightly embarrassed at one and the same time.

[“As to losing your gift of speaking the tongue, perhaps that is because when dreamwalking all tongues are the same.”]

[“The same?”]

Ontah nodded. [“Do you remember the language we spoke in the dream?”]

Aylis’s eyes were lost in reflection. [“Yes. It was…we spoke in…”] She looked at Ontah in puzzlement, then fell silent.

[“All tongues. All the same.”]

Aylis and Ontah sat without speaking a moment. Without awakening, Jinnarin turned on her side. Finally Ontah asked, [“Do you remember, Brightwing, all that happened?”]

[“Yes.”]

[“Then tell me.”]

[“In my dream, I was in my father’s cottage. You came—or rather a younger version of you came—and you made a tunnel into Jinnarin’s dream. She was dreaming about how she and Farrix met, and then it became a dream of intimacy. We left then, because her dream was dissolving. The tunnel began to cave in, but you had me stop the collapse by taking control of the dream. Then we came here and wakened.”]

Ontah smiled. [“Good. Now tell me the details.”]

Thrice more that night they entered Jinnarin’s dreams, each time Ontah allowing Aylis more and more control of the feat. Now that she knew what to look for, in each of the dreams Aylis was first to notice the signs of dissolution, warning White Owl that it was time to disengage.

In none of the dreams did Jinnarin experience her nightmare.

For much of the next day, Aylis and Ontah slept, resting from their essays of the night. Aravan and Rux went hunting, the Elf bringing down three rabbits with his bow. In mid afternoon, the smell of rabbit stew was redolent on the air. As Jinnarin and Aravan took a meal, Tarquin and Falain came riding in, the Pysks reporting that Alamar had been safely delivered, although it appeared that the Mage had immediately started an argument with a Dwarf and the black Man, Jatu.

After Tarquin and Falain had gone, Aylis and Ontah awakened, and as they ate they spoke to Jinnarin and Aravan of what they had seen in their dreamwalks, the Pysk remembering nought but a fragment of her visions, and that of the last dream only.

[“Tonight, Brightwing, you shall speak with Sparrow’s dream spirit.”]

[“Sparrow?”]

Ontah pointed to Jinnarin. [“Sparrow.”]

Aylis smiled. “He names you Sparrow, Jinnarin, and tonight in your dreams I am to speak with you.”

“Sparrow?” Jinnarin giggled. “Somehow it seems fitting. Do you have a name, Aylis?”

“He calls me Brightwing. In the Common Tongue, his
name, Ontah, means White Owl. You need not commit the names to memory, Jinnarin, for now that you have been told, in your dream you will simply know…it is the way of dreams.”

“Well, I may not need to memorize each of our names beforehand, Aylis, but oh, I do hope I remember the dreams after I waken.”

They stood on a high bluff overlooking a deep vale, Aylis’s arm about Jinnarin, the seeress surprised to find that she and the Pysk were of a like size. At their side knelt Ontah, the Man gazing out over the forest far below.

The seeress turned to the Pysk. “Sparrow, tell me where we are.”