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[Sylvan Sherwood]

---

The hours until dawn ticked by slowly in a way that almost seemed to mock the actual passage of time.

Sylvan sat in silence, barely moving her body though her mind raced. The dirty feelings she woke with gave way to chilly yet somehow burning anger. As the moments turned to minutes, and the minutes to hours, that anger turned into a barely contained fury. Arahim's dream played over and over in her thoughts, and every time she would allow herself a glance toward him or their child the surges of hostility became more acute. More than once Sylvan reminded herself to not react in a rash manner. If ever there was a time for her to be composed and calculating, this was probably it.

Part of her wanted to wake Arahim and demand to know who these people in his dream were, where they could be found, so she could gleefully hunt them like rabid animals and cut them down. Instinctively, though, she knew that he would be unable to answer. Perhaps it was repressed memory or some form of magic or hypnosis, but regardless of the cause, it would not serve her as a means to an end. More subtle ideas began to form as her mind worked at a near feverish pitch, though somehow maintaining focus and clarity all the while.

Suddenly a memory crashed over her, causing her to sit bolt upright and break a cold sweat. It was the voice of that hooded, Drow-like figure she had met so long ago atop the mountain in Umbra. You cannot deny who you are, that voice reminded her. So clear was the memory that it was almost as if it was spoken aloud in this very wagon. Though she was frightened, a sardonic smiled made its way to her lips. Sylvan nodded to herself, her ideas more fully formed. An almost unnerving resolve was born within her.

Knowing her time was short, Sylvan slipped from the bed and dressed hastily before stealing into the still of the night. She stole away from the encampment and made her way to the dark city.

Were anybody to ask her, she would have been unable to say whether her silent plea was more of a prayer or an attempt to communicate.

"Kaelthir, I must speak with you. Please, let me find you."

[Sylvan Sherwood]

---

Sylvan did find Kaelthir, and indeed the two spoke at length. In fact, the journey of the conversation between the two took unexpected turns and bends and ultimately arrived at a destination Sylvan felt she could live with. When she left Umbra, it seemed to her that if she proceeded carefully this situation could be wrapped up with all the best possible outcomes. With a lot of logic and a little luck, everybody would be happy. Everybody.

The day to day life she and her family led went on as expected. The parents fawned over their child, whose development was a blessing that changed daily. How fast he learned and grew. Arahim did his thing; he went to Protectorate meetings, he went out to hunt the beasts of the land and banked his riches, he drank his ale with his friends. After coming back from meeting Kaelthir, Sylvan found herself watching Arahim and his habits much more closely than she ever had; she knew that somewhere in those habits lay at least part of the answer to the puzzle she faced.

Life was rich for the family. Conversation was never lacking between herself and her mate, her friend, her lover. Arahim. What they shared was good. Still they had not made a decision as to where they would spend the encroaching winter and that too was a frequent topic of their long, late night campfire talks. When he brought up the subject of being wed, Sylvan was thrilled, but danced around the topic as well as she could; she knew the risks she was taking, and it seemed unfair to rush into marriage when it was possible that her plans would destroy it. She could only hope the payout was worth the gamble.

Eventually an evening came that Arahim came back to her, merrily intoxicated after an evening out. Opening her arms to him, she greeted him with kisses and words not typical of her. She murmured little perverse promises in his ear, and led him to their bed. The candles around their wagon created a lovely glow within the vardo, the incense heady and intoxicating. Baby Christopher was conveniently off with one of his aunts, to whom Sylvan had indicated a strong need for some time to themselves. How accommodating were his people. Conversation blended with frolic and love, and Sylvan occasionally urged Arahim to take several drinks of a gypsy concoction whose name she couldn't remember, no less pronounce. She hoped that whatever the maman enhanced the alcohol with would not be harmful.

In short, Sylvan did everything possible to ensure that Arahim would fall into a blissful and solid sleep.

A sleep that could not be broken by her trespass.

As the night crept toward morning, Arahim's intoxication and exhaustion eventually took him down hard. He lay tangled in the blanket and even occasionally smiled in his sleep. Wide awake with her heart thudding in her chest, Sylvan began her work.

[Sylvan Sherwood]

---

Indecision threatened to overwhelm Sylvan as she watched the occasionally smiling Arahim in his unfettered sleep. It was apparent he was deeply under, the medicaţie băutură alcoolică working quite well indeed. There was not a single sign of any distress, physical or mental.

For all her years denying her magic, this was likely the first time she ever cursed her lack of practicing unwilling telepathy. Until now, it almost always felt invasive and rude, even when it happened accidentally--which much of her magic always had in times past.

There were surges of guilt, timed perfectly to coincide with the sound of her pulse in her ears; using what she now saw as questionable methods to obtain her wishes, Sylvan felt even dirtier than she had only a few moments before. It felt downright sleazy. Yet she forced herself to continue, fearing all the while that Arahim would awake screaming, or with his nose bleeding, or worse.

I must do this. I do it out of love first, and vengeance second. I can do this thing, she told herself as she breathed deeply and cleared her mind, steadied her trembling hands.

With as much calm as she could muster, Sylvan bent and kissed his cool, line-free brow.

"Love you," she whispered.

As she lay her hands gently on either side of his head, Sylvan envisioned exactly what information she was seeking. A vague electric shock sensation took her by surprise, yet she kept her hands still and in place.

Show me exactly what I seek, nothing more, nothing less, she commanded in silence . . . and waited to see what was to come.

[Arahim]

---

Under an azure sky whose hue and subtle tints simply exist nowhere in the waking world, walks a young man with himself.

One shadow, and featureless. Out of step with his twin,

Right foot (left foot) right foot (left foot)

And a moment ahead.

The other, lagging in the present, content with what is, a painting.

His hair, his face, his eyes, his gait and mannerisms exist both here, and out in the the world in a perfect unison to the point of predictability.

On either side of this curious pair, in ordered rows arrayed, lines and lines of marble statues frozen. Their clean alabaster veneer catches the eye, however brief, of them both, and gives call to pause.

Here a man holds a spear to the sky with anguish etched upon his face. There a lone woman stands stark naked and unafraid. Her palms turned upwards and empty. Beyond that, children, geometric shapes, beasts, empty pedestals. Symmetrical stone pavers dividing the rows.

Beyond and beyond and beyond.

Just past this silent cavaclade, stretching beyond the limits of eye or mind, wild and overgrown, verdant and alive, lies a forest. Ivy and bramble creep from it's life giving depths. Shadows slink unbidden, here and there, touching the white, white columns and sculptures when it can.

Inviting paths open at chaotic intervals, delving deep within the heart of the woodlands that touch the very edges of this existence, swaying and secretive.

Now and again, just past him, the shadow stops a moment, and picks up some item.

(edge of the forest. wound about the base of a statue. hidden in the grass. lost. lost in plain sight.)

Jauntily, he proffers the item.

"See!?"

The young man, alive here and alive out there, smiles, or nods, or steps forward.

The shadow places it back where he found it.

He frowns or shakes his head, red-brown hair whips, he throws the offending item from them both.

Into the forest.

Deep.

Sometimes, (slyly) not so very deep as to be found again.

All around them, leaves, and voices whisper. Caught on a breeze that knows no surcease. Until...

The air goes quiet and heavy. A moment like deep inhalation pulls everything forward and still.

Horribly still.

An audible sigh booms across stone, leaf, and Them.

So quiet.

So like thunder.

So clear and concise.

"Love you."

[Sylvan Sherwood]

---

Show me exactly what I seek, nothing more, nothing less . . .

Her eyes slid closed as she gave the mental command to her born and bred abilities which still seemed mostly alien to her. So few people there were, with whom she could share these aspects of herself. People either did not understand, or were fearful, or sometimes simply not trustworthy. Delving into the mind of another or letting another in was an incredibly intimate and dangerous thing to do. And, sometimes, a very intrusive thing, maybe even catastrophic.

Pressing her cool, steady fingers against Arahim's head, Sylvan continued to envision the demand she made in her query.

I must see them, exactly. Give this to me. I must know them as he did.

Sylvan hadn't anticipated how difficult it would be to keep her thoughts straight and true, or how hard it would be to keep her anger at bay and as far away from Arahim's sleeping mind as she possibly could.

Worry crossed her soul, taunted her with what could come to be if she were not cautious. Unexpected anguish coursed through Sylvan's veins, and silently she commanded herself, her mind, her abilities.

Show me them. Nothing else!

For just a flash, she saw something else, something she had not expected or commanded.

It wasn't those she sought to see. It seemed to be Arahim, and . . . Arahim?

Sylvan's breath caught in her throat, yet she made no move to pull her hands (or her mind) away. She paused, not quite sure what to expect, and just a moment later made a stronger and more urgent demand.

Show them to me!

[Arahim]

---

The suddeness with which the world returned to normal was brutally jarring. Wavering lines of disjointed disarray twisted sky, stone, and tree in a diligent effort to reknit what was.

Two halves, reflection and reflection, stood and stared. Unnatural silence oppressed everything around them for uncountable, cascading minutes.

A raw, alien newness brushed it's fingertips across the whole of this eerie still-life, titanic in its scope and strangely precise. It's sense of pervading Everywhere dwarfing that which truly belonged here, and pushing it aside at will.

Impossibly invasive, and implacable.

Light.

Burning white light which cast no shadows here, nor destroyed any, burst forth from nothing. Blazing with a steady, preternatural intensity, the formless brilliance took a form slowly. Blindingly, so as to offer the barest glimmer of what was, before thrusting itself upon the shadow twin with a vehemence that bordered on violence. Suffusing itself completely within.

Swatting frenetically at himself, the dark phantom stumbled and fell. Pulled and throttled like a child's toy. Helpless. His all too real (what passed in this here) brother stilled and silenced.

When he regained his (it's) footing, he held a dim shine which outlined him against his surroundings. About his head, a crown of white fire.

Briefly regarding the red haired young man, content with his compliance, willing or no, the fire crowned shadow turned and set off for the forestline. A rhythm and cadence in it's walk that was never there before.

It spared no last glance behind.

Moments walking here. Stopping. Listening. Walking on again quickly...and then thoughts and song shot through him. Echoes of echoes. Brief and insubstantial, but wholly recognizable to this vessel who shared what he knew with who now drove him on.

A path where there was nothing before.

A path ornamented with long years of refuse left to feed sallow and crooked weeds.

Gruesome trifles cast away.

Entangling thorns, wild like serpents. Poisonous and deceptive.

Loose mounds of dark, stinking soil. Bearing not epitaph, nor stone.

Shallow graves. Hastily dug, hopefully forgotten.

A ghostly choir of lament soaring above the moribund iconography. Terrible in it's lonely purity.

He/It...She stands a moment unsure.

This way lies gilded sorrow hid.

This way lies rot in a room of silvered air.

This way lies Lady Grinning Skulls.

[Arahim]

---

Revulsion had given away to dim recognition, and bloomed into confusion.

She stood with her back to him. A grim panorama before her.

Hesitant.

Lunging forward jerkily, meaning to close the fearful distance, this world of his own making pushed angrily against him.

The air hardened and slowed him to a crawl, mired in thoughts (not his own) placed upon him.

staytherestaytherestaythere

Without preamble, without sign or warning, a tiny voice at his side spoke calmly with a concern impossible to hide or disguise as anything else.

The words came haltingly, as though new. Heavy accent on the 'Ts'.

A small, warm hand slipped easily into his.

"Stay. Sit. Right. Here."

[Sylvan Sherwood]

---

"Stay. Sit. Right. Here."

Her eyes squeezed more tightly closed at this unexpected intrusion to her telepathic search.

As if from a great distance, yet clear as a bell, she heard a soft child's voice pierce the veil of her thoughts. How very English that little voice sounded.

"Mother, do not do this thing. Not to daddy."

Christopher!

Suddenly, Sylvan remembered the odd way he had been staring at her when she had taken him to spend the evening with the aunt, who was really some sort of cousin. It was impossible to separate the multiple, crossed bloodlines of Arahim's people.

He knew. Somehow, he . . . knew. Knows.

Her mind's eye caught sight of her son, his hand in that of his father's. Christopher stared at her as if he could see her clearly, his deep green eyes cold and hostile.

With a shuddering moan, Sylvan yanked her hands from the sides of Arahim's head. On rubbery feeling legs, she stumbled out of the vardo and down the humble, worn wooden steps. The cold night air assaulted her bare flesh as she bent, hands on her knees as she retched.

Invasive and racing thoughts muddled her head. The nausea refused to go away or give the physical relief of actually vomiting. Despite the frigid air, a slick sheen of sweat formed on her brow, her chest, her back. Sobs of anger and frustration and regret occasionally intermingled with hitching reflexive gags as she recalled so many things at once. The pain of remembrance came bubbling up from its deeply buried place in her soul and demanded its moment of reckoning.

As Sylvan sank to her knees, she whispered a plea into the night, her body barely registering the insult of frozen earth against her skin.

"Help me."

[Arahim]

---

Flecks of gold and silver

Dust falls through the air

A light wind makes whispers of a song sung distant

Black earth holds the morning's dew greedily

Fallen leaves frost the world's surface

Sharp white shavings of stone

Hidden within an army of green blades of late Autumn grass

Browning as seasons die

Even in here

Waist high in sharp ivory

Stark against a grey sky

A carved eye atop a pedestal

Placed purposeful askew

Out of line with the rows of silent statues

A thought not his own left out in the open

[Sylvan Sherwood]

---

It could have been five minutes, or it could have been an hour, that Sylvan knelt outside of the vardo. Her entire body protested the insult of the cold into which she thrust herself.

The shock of what happened was barely beginning to fade; in fact, in some ways it was expanding.

Finding Christopher's presence in Arahim's dream-world was the last thing she had considered as a possibility. Sylvan had been so busy calculating the obvious threats: being discovered, causing pain or harm to Arahim, making some blunder or other that she'd been warned against by Zachary. She wished that the presence of their son was a coincidence, that Arahim simply dreamed of him.

But Sylvan knew better. Christopher, it seemed, was there waiting. Angry. Lurking. Defiant and willful. Determined to stop what she had intended to do, and successfully so.

It was frightening, to know beyond all doubt that Christopher possessed traits that marked her natural family's bloodlines. Sylvan spent most of her pregnancy praying and hoping that he would be born 'normal'--without creepy and invasive and dangerous abilities such as her own. More terrifying yet, that he had discovered and embraced the use of telepathic magic at such a young age. He was so young, just barely beginning to grasp crayons and making crudely drawn pictures on paper.

Yes, she thought, this changes everything, doesn't it?

On legs that still shook, Sylvan got up and returned to the vardo. Quietly, she dressed and extinguished the lingering candles. With a heavy heart, she checked Arahim and saw that he seemed fine, unaffected by the paranormal activity to which he had just been host. When she whispered his name, his only response was a faint, incoherent mumble.

Once again, Sylvan stepped out into the dead of night. Fearful to use any sort of magic quite yet, she collected her horse from the pen and mounted up. Riding hard, she soon arrived at the camp of the cousin . . . aunt . . . whoever . . . who was minding Christopher for the night.

Relief at finding people about and busy turned to horrified dismay as she realized that she could hear Christopher's cries and screams.

"Thank the gods you're here", called one of the cousins. "We haven't been able to calm him down!"

The words the young child screamed seemed only to chill Sylvan's bones. It was apparent that everybody else thought that Christopher had suffered nothing more than a nightmare.

"No hurt daddy! No hurt daddy! Bad! Bad!"

Sylvan took a deep breath and went into the wagon from which the cries were originating. The child fell silent the moment he saw his mother.

After a tense moment in which Sylvan could have sworn the child was smirking at her, he raised his arms to her so he would be picked up. To those present, it seemed Christopher was taking comfort in his mother's arms. Sylvan's belly turned molten when the words came into her mind that only she heard.

"That was bad, mommy. Don't do that. Ever. Again. I won't let you."

Christopher nuzzled his mother's neck.