Dream

You’re gonna sleep some­time, when you do you will have this dream.

You’re back home sleep­ing on a pile of pil­lows and camel hair blan­ket­s. A cool breeze blows through your tent and the desert night beck­on­s. You sneak out and gaze in awe at the star-­filled sky. So bright and de­tailed. Wa­ter(blue ob­ject that moves in sky) is high over head and Flame(red ob­ject that moves in sky) has just risen from be­hind the moun­tain­s. The air is fresh and tingly. There will be a storm and rain the mor­row. You glimpse a pair of eyes glow­ing with starlight in the dark­ness, a fox? [H­m­m­m­m­m, you’ve had this dream be­fore, when you were a young boy, but this is not that dream, here you are a man.] Again chas­ing af­ter the fox fall­ing in­to ditch­es and scratch­ing your legs on scrub. Nev­er quite catch­ing him. He has led you far from camp be­fore you re­al­ize you are lost. Tired you find a wa­ter plant to quench your thirst, and a slimy root that spread on your legs numbs the pain of your wound­s. You al­so spot the sa­cred Ab­bas flow­er which blooms on­ly at night and which the el­ders eat to com­mune with na­ture and our an­ces­tors. You re­al­ly should­n’t, but does­n’t ev­ery­one say that you are the most prom­mis­ing Thukir Druid in a gen­er­a­tion? Mo­ments af­ter chew­ing and swal­low­ing the del­i­cate flow­ers you suf­fer gut wrench­ing pains and pas­sout.

You awake to a hi-pitched chirp­ing sound. A gi­ant desert bat as white as death is perched on a near­by cac­tus. As it chirps you can “see” the echos bounce back. Cir­cled all around you are ev­ery sort of crea­ture, li­on, fox, camel, dog, grif­fon, ea­gle, and on. Hun­dreds of them. All look­ing at you. Not sure why but you climb on­to the back of the bat which im­mea­di­ate­ly takes to the air, white, lu­mi­nous, heat­less flames stream­ing from its wings and body. To­geth­er you soar high in­to the moun­tains where you see the light of a small fire. Div­ing clos­er you see that six men are seat­ed around the fire. The bat dives steep­er and steep­er di­rect­ly at the fire. Grab­bing its coarse hair tight and de­spite your best ef­fort are forced to bur­ry your head rather than watch your life end in flames. In­stead of firey death are thrown from the bat and tum­ble gen­tly on­to the rocky ground. Feel­ing the fire at your back you slow­ly open your eyes to meet the gen­tle gaze of Ab­dul-Bari el­dest of the El­der­s. Your fa­ther sits to his right, try­ing to look stern, but fail­ing and beam­ing with pride in­stead. Ar­ranged around the fire are the oth­er four el­der­s. Some with looks quite apart from pride.

Mean El­der, “This is an out­rage, he is too young, he must leave.” Nice El­der, “Have you not seen his ar­rival?” Fa­ther, “He has found his way here, he has a right to stay.” Mean El­der, “No, he’s been led here. His mind, can’t…” Ab­dul-Bar­i, “Do you ques­tion the Great Spir­it­s? Have you wis­dom be­yond theirs?” Mean El­der, “But…

[No, that hap­pened last time, this time is dif­fer­en­t. Ab­dul-Bari passed on be­fore you went on walk about, Ab­dul-S­abur is the el­dest now and he ad­dress­es you.]

Ab­dul-S­abur, “Qazir, you left us to re­turn a man, and a man you have be­come. But, we fear that you will not re­turn or rather there will be noth­ing to re­turn to. So, in­stead we have come to you.” The Mean El­der sneer­s.

“The Thukir el­ders have long had the abil­i­ty to shape the world, to cre­ate that which did not pre­vioius­ly ex­ist. It is how the oa­sis sur­vive and how new ones are “found” when and where need­ed. It is al­so the source of Thukir’s du­ty to pro­tect and hon­or the world. Like a fa­ther, we are re­spon­si­ble for the well-be­ing of our cre­ation­s. This pow­er is how our gift has found its way to you. I hope you find it suit­able. We will send the oth­er pieces of the Hero’s Rain­ment as we are able. Make good use of them, they are like­ly the on­ly aide the Thukir can of­fer­.”

“The K’jore al­so know the se­crets of this pow­er and have much greater skill with it as well. They cre­ate pow­er­ful weapons and vast armies with it. But, ul­ti­mate­ly their goal is non-ex­is­tance. Not de­struc­tion for even de­struc­tion leaves pieces of the de­stroyed be­hind. The K’jore de­sire the elim­i­na­tion of re­al­i­ty. And are achiev­ing it. We have seen, deep with­in their ter­ri­to­ry lands long since con­quored and taint­ed are no more. The world ends and noth­ing but chaos and mad­ness lies be­yond.”

“After lenght­ly journies and de­lib­er­tion with the Great Spir­its The El­ders have con­clud­ed the K’jore will ul­ti­mate­ly succed. We can on­ly see a short ways in­to our fu­ture and be­lieve that is be­cause the Dune Seas and all of Babrem will soon be over­run and taint­ed. The peo­ples of the known world and even be­yond have stirred to ac­tion but the forces ar­rayed against them are too great, too pow­er­ful. They will slow end’s ar­rival not stop it.”

“S­low­ing the end so that you have time to com­plete the jour­ney you have found your­self on. A jour­ney we fail to com­pre­hend and one that even the Great Spir­its are at a loss to ex­plain. We feel that your jour­ney’s des­ti­na­tion is not sav­ing Dirt, which is be­yond sav­ing. What­ev­er it may be, re­birth, sav­ing oth­er­s, or even sim­ple re­venge on the K’jore it and your par­ty are the last great pur­pose worth sup­port­ing.”

“One last thing, we are sup­pose to,” (the el­dest looks un­com­fort­ably around to the oth­er el­der­s) “sup­pose to give you this mes­sage ‘The K’jore Demons come from out­side. They are foriegn to this sys­tem and must be purged.’ We have no ex­pla­na­tion for what this means al­though we do know the K’jore Demons orig­i­nate from around Flame which is a sis­ter to our sun.”

[fad­ing back to last time, when you were young.]

Ab­dul-Bar­i, “And Qazir, chew but do not swal­low the Ab­bas flow­er.” You next re­mem­ber awak­ing on a pile of pil­lows and camel hair blan­kets in your fam­i­lies ten­t. The fol­low­ing weeks of pain, vom­mit­ing and di­ahrea drove Ab­dul-Bar­i’s les­son home. “Try, but not blind­ly.”