Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (86 page)

A flash of movement in the corner of her eye made her head turn. It took a few moments to see it again, but then she found its source. Trailing behind the Archon’s party crept a woman. She kept her head low, behind a wall. Where the wall ended she darted behind a tree. That she was following the Archon was obvious. That she did not wish to be observed doing so was equally clear.

“Who is that?” she wondered aloud.

When the woman’s progress brought her closer, Raven saw that her hair was black.
Is that me?
she thought.
How can that be?

But when the woman turned her head, Raven saw that her eyes were chocolate-brown, not blue like her own. Her clothing was as strange as her manner, cut to a fashion that she had not seen anywhere in the Empire. When she moved again, Raven started. On the woman’s chest was a prominent emblem. A dark circle, with tiny triangles of the same colour around its edge. A black sun.

“What is this?” Raven demanded, turning to Cole. “What is going on?” He merely shrugged in reply. Whatever they were watching, it was the first time he had seen it as well.

Suddenly there was a commotion from the direction of the road. A group of villagers was shouting at the woman. They hurled stones and insults at her with equal fervour. “We don’t want your kind around here,” cried one. “A bad omen,” screeched another. “Gerrout of ‘ere, crow, afore we snap your wings.”

Raven tried to go to her aid, but Cole held her back. “This isn’t happening now,” he reminded her. “It’s a memory, a dream. We mustn’t interfere.”

“Why are they doing this?” she cried.

There was a loud shout that drowned out their own, and another figure emerged from the direction of the village. Raven watched as a tall man, his powerful shoulders bulging out from the top of the thick leather smith’s apron he wore, strode into the fray. He stooped to pick up a stout stick from the ground, and starting laying about him, thwacking the villagers’ backs and legs, roaring at them angrily. After a few moments they fled, racing past him back to their homes.

As she watched, the tall man tossed the stick over a wall, then went to the woman. She had been injured by the stones, and lay panting on the ground, moaning but barely conscious. The tall man bent to pick her up, and then started back towards the village himself, carrying her in his arms.

“I’d like to go now,” Raven said, her voice quiet. She felt as though her heart would break.

“Yes,” Cole agreed. “It’s time.”

He put his arms around her then, and she hugged him back. “I’m sorry if that was painful,” he said. “I didn’t know exactly what we would find here, but I hope it was helpful.”

“It was.”

“It’s time for us to say goodbye,” Cole told her, when they pulled apart. “You can’t come back with me to that... last place. You need to journey onwards.”

She was confused. “Where?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. At a click of his fingers, a hole yawned open in the air beside him. “All I know is this will take you to where you need to be.”

“How did you do that?”

“I’m... not sure,” he said. He seemed at a loss. “The truth is that I still don’t know exactly what I’m capable of in this place.”

Trying to ignore the ominous sound of that, Raven stepped through the portal.

Her feet touched sand.
Not again
, she thought. She turned around to look for Cole and admonish him, when she realised that she had indeed ended up somewhere very different.

The sand was hot and warmed the soles of her feet. The sun was high in the sky, just as it had been in her father’s dream, but here it was an unforgiving disc of fire. Already she could feel the skin beneath her thick, dark clothing become slick with sweat.

In front of her stretched endless, golden dunes, unbroken by any building or landmark. “Oh Cole,” she muttered, “what place have you brought me to now?”

At her feet was a large shadow, and she turned to look at what caused it. Rising up from the sand was an enormous statue; the figure of a man, raising a sun above his head.

Raven stared at it for a long time, uncertain how to react. And then she started to laugh. Her laughter echoed across the sands, rising up into the deep blue sky. The statue continued to smile at her, as if joining in with her merriment.

When her laughter dried up, she fell down onto the sand. She sat there for some time, staring at the figure, as the sun crawled across the sky towards the horizon.

“Well, what do I do now?” she asked the statue that somehow, inexplicably and impossibly, bore Cole’s face.

The statue kept its own counsel.

Coming in 2017:

SHADOWS OF THE

DREAMSPIRE

Book two of

The Raven’s Tale