Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

burdensome to become the waking—or in this case, dreaming—tool of Weltyr, and those who experienced such things did well to be afraid.

Then there were dreams that were not messages from gods, but instead transmissions from something else.

A red organ throbbed like a palpating heart in the shadows of a flooded chamber. In the way of dreams I knew without having to be informed that this chamber stood in a distant land and was very, very old…but not half so old as its contents. Red tissues kept the mass of unidentified muscle clinging to the stone walls, and I knew the texture of these stringy, vein-filled nettings in the same manner that one knows their hand is made of flesh.

You are being lied to, Eradicator.

The hivemind of the spirit-thieves throbbed a message through my brain, the knowledge of its words flying in as though they were my own thoughts.

Your history, your Church—all of it is full of lies.

A bubble expelled from an orifice in the shapeless red hivemind, rising with a few companions to the surface of the dark chamber.

I could tell you the truth now…but it would disturb you too much.

The floor above the hivemind rattled with the footsteps of its approaching keeper.

Instead, I simply encourage you: pay attention. Pay close attention. Ask questions. Learn to look around yourself. You know your problem with your god, don’t you, Eradicator?

A trap door opened over the fiend and a square of light shone in.

He only has one eye.

“Supper’s on,” said an old man whose voice sounded very much like my own, or, at least, as it would be once Time had stuck a hand down it.

I snapped awake and safe, in reality, myself. Surrounded by splendid women, and changed from the man I was before this sojourn into the Nightlands to do the will of Weltyr—but, all the same, myself.

Why should the dream have greatly disturbed me? Because it was so clear, for one. Yes, it was possible that it really was just some dream. That it might have referred to both my battle with Al-listux and the portal through which he leapt, which contained a man I could only describe as a far older version of myself.

But the sharp, deliberate nature of the information was what gave me pause. Dreams have a certain appearance in the memory—hazy and drained. But this vision was as crisp and clear as any other recalled event in which I had participated while waking.

Was this transmission because of Al-listux, I wondered on our long journey to the surface? Thanks to the intervention of Valeria’s guard, the spirit-thief did not long have its tentacles in me. At the time I saw a pulsing flash of that awful hivemind, but I then thought no more on the matter because I had been preoccupied by escaping El’ryh and hunting Valeria’s would-be assassin. This second time, however, I recognized it straightaway—and sensed that, even with so little exposure to the direct control of the spirit-thief, the hivemind of those hateful squid-headed beings now had some insight into my consciousness.

In the time it took us to emerge from the Nightlands, I managed to tell myself all number of things—that I was being paranoid, absurd. That I was ascribing to a far simpler dream the will and intercession of an interloper when I had no real evidence that such things were possible. What did I know of magic, though? I had met many magic-users of many different kinds, but only those whose spells were related to prayer made any real sense to me. I had no head for arts described in grimoires, and in fact I confess I then maintained a certain suspicion of such crafts. Even Valeria’s prayers to Roserpine were, strictly speaking, heathen magic that was engaged without the permission of the Church…but, as previously mentioned, I have never taken offense to the veneration of lesser gods. Their worship did not empower them; certainly not enough to mitigate Weltyr’s glory.

Similarly, there was a part of me that did not wish to ascribe any power at all to the despised enemy of sentient life on Urde, the hateful spirit-thieves. It were as though, in admitting to myself that brief contact with Al-listux had done something to me without leaving behavioral evidence behind, I would be the bearer of some black mark. Some unlucky and uncomfortable brand many more times more painful than the one upon the back of my shoulder, now healed and scarred over in record time thanks to the potion the ladies gave to revive me for a second time.

We arrived at the surface after two blooms and two darks, and in that time precious little was discussed for fear of drawing monsters to us. We had no wish to test the limits of the lantern’s kindly ward; and, as we journeyed farther from El’ryh, that became an increasing possibility.

“There are all sorts of hideous things through here,” our guide deigned to tell us, his hushed voice all the lower for the obvious fear he had of this subject. “You’d think things would be more dangerous the deeper you went, but in my experience it’s the other way ‘round. Closer to the surface is where you find creatures of the types that prey on lowly adventurers without the expertise to make it too far down.”

“When I was coming down here by myself this time,” said Branwen, arms folded while she walked as part of the column formation I tailed, “I saw a thing or two that was very strange…one awful thing, a creature that was just a mass of flesh dotted with gibbering mouths. Like something from a nightmare.”

I arched my brow. “And the other thing?”

“Oh,” she said, “only these funny little creatures like gnomes, or so I thought…but I happened to see them from nearby while I was in hiding to let them pass without trouble. They looked like little dragon-men!”

“The gimlets,” said our guide with the most genuine levity he’d shown in our whole journey. I suppose