In Dreams… part 2

Extracts from the Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson

In this I stressed the point with my compatriots, explaining that I did not see as to why we were putting our lives on the line just to help some selfish little brat. This conniving female has after all arranged the murder of at least a dozen other people. Secondly, I noted that we would be attempting to steal these eggs from the Father of the Shantak birds and while I had not observed the earlier encounter with the Shantak in the school gym I assumed that Shantaks were extremely large. Plus the usual case being that the father is usually considerably larger I assumed that we would most likely be dealing with a creature of considerable size armed only with swords.

The others managed to a sway my fears regarding the Shantak bird while we travelled. However I did note that they, like me, wanted to give Mr Springfield an opportunity to choose his own future, where possible. We also were able to ascertain as to where the Father of the Shantak Birds resides, in Inquanok. The location is named the Palace of the Veiled King.

St John brings along the green flag given to him by Miss Carleton, the one with a symbol of the Hornéd God emblazoned upon it, but when we arrive at the ship it soon becomes clear that this is not a welcome symbol. In fact Captain Monteverdi refuses to allow it to even be unfurled as the mere sight would likely cause a mutiny among his men. To be honest I am also of the opinion that this flag is not a good thing.

The trip to Inquanok is estimated to take approximately eight days and for at least a portion of this time we would be travelling through waters known to be frequented by pirates. This is borne out two days into the journey when there is a cry from St John in the crow’s nest that a figure can be seen marooned a rocky outcropping. The crew set about rescuing the poor individual and soon he is safely aboard.

Once aboard we are able to ascertain as to how he had been marooned. He explains that he is a trainee sage from the City of Zakarion and undergoing a pilgrimage with his master when their ship was set upon by pirates. Some of the crew were slain but most, including his master, were taken as hostages to the Corsair King who resides in the nearby Halberd Isles. Being as he was just a mere journeyman sage, lacking of the gift of prophecy, the pirates abandoned him with naught but stale bread and water. According to him this had all occurred within the last two days. He was, of course, very happy to see us as in my estimation his supplies would not have sustained him another day. The young seer informed us that he was named Ezekiel Corathan but he did not tell us his master’s name. Upon discovering that we were dreamers he pressed upon us to be allowed to accompany us on our quest as it would make an excellent saga. I thought at the time that this appeared just a little bit to convenient yet the others were willing to allow Corathon to accompany us so, despite my misgivings, he joined our merry band. Fortunately it appears that my initial opinion on this occasion was incorrect thankfully.

Corathon is able to inform us of what to expect when we arrive at Inquanok. The city is ruled by the Veiled King who resides in the Palace of the Veiled King and if you wish to see the King you are required to seek an audience via the Veiled Priesthood.

Inquanok itself is said to have breathtaking architecture (which comes as no surprise for excluding the City of the Moon Beasts and Dylath-Leen all the cities we have seen thus far have had spectacular architecture). Corathon also informed us that Inquanok’s claim to fame is the fact that it is the birthplace of the Father of the Shantak Birds. Again, this was just confirming our own information. Unfortunately when he could have helped us he was unable to assist us by giving us any data regarding the eggs themselves except that they are extremely valuable.

The following day we observed a ship approaching from our starboard side and Captain Monteverdi expressed concern as we were at the closest point to the Halberd Islands. Yet it is reported that the ship is flying the colours of Rinar, which I recall as being Captain Yanis’ homeport; maybe they just wanted to talk? However the flag is merely a ruse to get close for as it approaches the flag is changed to that of the Jolly Roger. Upon seeing this Captain Monteverdi attempts to make a run for it but it soon becomes clear that the other vessel is not only larger but is also faster through the water. Because it looks as if the pirates would overhaul us Captain Monteverdi chose to make a fight of it by breaking out weapons. However the pirates who were at that time astern of us chose to show us another string to their bow, as there was a puff of smoke followed by a loud bang, thus revealing that they carried cannons. Fortunately, they missed but it did have the effect of sapping the fight from Monteverdi’s crew.

We were clearly outmatched but as it turned out we still had an ace up our sleeve, for we then set about convincing Captain Monteverdi to allow us to fly the green flag. While he was not happy, he reluctantly agreed when we convinced him that this our last resort. St John produced the flag from under his shirt and with the aid of some of the crew we were able to run it up the mast. I noted that the pirate ship was virtually alongside by the time we had the flag deployed and it was easy to judge the reaction from the other vessel. The mere sight of the flag seemed to give the pirates pause as they seemed nervous about approaching any further. In fact it came abundantly clear that they wanted nothing to do with our ship while it flew that green flag. So without a drop of blood being spilt they turned and moved away, much to celebrations of our crew. All the same, we quickly retrieved the flag and hid it away. Captain Monteverdi then made it quite clear to us then that, while he was thankful for his vessel and crew being saved, he could not in all conscience offer us a return journey and it is noted that both Monteverdi and his crew on the whole gave us a fairly wide berth for the remainder of the journey.

Fortunately the rest of the journey appears to slip by very quickly. I do note, however, that on a number of occasions Corathon is observed examining the skies, yet he does not reveal his purpose in this. Hopefully this is not significant. Finally we are able to see the glorious bulbous minarets and piercing spires of Inquanok, all perfectly carved in shining black onyx tastefully inlaid by gold. Already we could see the Palace of the Veiled King together with the sixteen angled tower of the Temple of the Elder Gods.

As we dock, DC Douglas asks us to find lodgings while he claims to have an errand. Being new, we choose to ask a local where he would recommend and we are advised to go to the Schooner and Star. DC Douglas returns just after we have settled in. (We later discover that DC Douglas had left so he could pay homage to Bast at the temple - all to their own, I guess).

It is noticed that, as we walk to the inn, I am attracting quite a lot of attention, due to my appearance, so we decide it would probably be for the best if I cloaked myself. This in mind, we purchase a hooded cloak and heavy veil so as I can conceal myself. After this we decide that we had better try to get an audience with the Veiled King so we can discover how to acquire the eggs. As we are travelling to the Palace, however, I note that while Corathon’s appearance has not altered in anyway, his aura has changed somewhat and he now appears more self-confident. I also note that DC Douglas has somehow attracted a cat, which is dogging our steps.

The cat appears to be mid-brown shorthaired Abyssinian. DC Douglas seems convinced that this is a guide sent by Bast to show us the way and thus he begins to follow the cat. I am not convinced but he seems sincere so I go along. Anyway the cat, after many twists and turns, finally leads us through an arch of black onyx and into the beautiful Garden of the Monarch’s Pleasure; a plethora of wondrous plants animals and scents. It is a wonder, yet we cannot dawdle as we must see the veiled priests. Yet during our awestruck moment our cat guide seizes the opportunity to vanish into the crowd. Wondering where to proceed from here we observe a queue snaking alongside the far wall and leading through a door at the far end of the garden. Assuming that this is the queue to see the priests, we join the end.

Like most bureaucratically driven societies the queue is hideously slow. Finally, after a number of hours, it is our turn and we step inside a room that contains a large desk with a corpulent man sitting behind it. The man is wearing a large flat hat (like those worn by a cardinal only black) with a heavy veil concealing his features. He is also dressed in a satin-like robe also of black decorated with gold filigree. He signals us to approach and DC Douglas asks about the Shantak eggs. The man informs us that the Shantak Bird lays eggs on a regular basis and inquires what kind of eggs we are interested in, as it appears there are many distinct kinds dependant on colour and size. He informs us that the first type are black or golden and it appears these are solely the property of the Veiled King; the second type are similar in size to the first type but are in a variety of colours, these are sold and attract enormous sums (very much akin to Faberge eggs). The final type are said to be much larger and of pastel hues, mainly green and blue, these are the property of the Elder Gods (maybe the Hornéd God already has the eggs here and this is just a pickup) yet as to which Elder God they belong appears a mystery.

Hoping against hope, we then mention to the priest that we are on a mission and that we had been sent to acquire four Shantak eggs for the Hornéd God. Upon hearing this he gets to his feet and offers to escort us to another room. Once in the other room he signals and four more figures enter bearing trays of food and drink, seemingly minor priests judging by their robes for while they match the initial priest in colour and style the gold is more muted and on closer inspection proves itself to be brass. The initial priest then asks us to make ourselves comfortable before excusing himself. Shortly afterwards another figure enters the room and on this occasion we note that this fellow has more gold on him than the five previous priests put together.

This High Priest informs us that he is required to ask us three questions to confirm our identities. As it turns out the questions are in the form of a rhyme which begins ‘Open unto me the way…’ This is the same rhyme that was on the piece of paper that started this whole grisly episode. Remembering the words seems to please him but we note that, as we finish, the light dims and someone wheels a trolley into he room containing four beautiful pale blue eggs each approximately a foot high. The High Priest tells us that this is what we seek and that they need to be delivered to a man in Salvação.

We inform the High Priest that we do not have transport and request that he holds the eggs for us until we can do so. He agrees to not only do this but also to ensure that the eggs await us at the exit nearest the port.

With the eggs safely secured we head to the docks and begin our search for a captain for our journey to Salvação. We have searched for only a short time before we are directed to a schooner called ‘Äusserengötterdämmerung’ (Twilight of the Outer Gods) skippered by captain Helmut, who appears at first glance to be something of a braggart, yet his boasts regarding his ship prove to be justified. He reports that we should hurry up, as he will set sail as soon as he has loaded his cargo on board.

Thus we swiftly make our way back to the inn. However, on the way several members of our party report that we appear to be followed by a figure in a hooded cloak. Gloriana chooses to stop and challenge the figure about this, who it turns out is gaunt male. As she challenges him he suddenly appears extremely apprehensive, in fact it gets very worrying for a moment as the man draws a heavily bladed sword. Gloriana then draws her own sword, after which a short skirmish ensues. Gloriana is obviously the superior sword wielder but what he lacks in skill the man makes up for in strength. In the end the man fall with wounds to the thigh and shoulder, while Gloriana is left with a chip in her blade.

As the man falls bleeding I note that no one steps forward to help him, so I do so myself (in hope of discovering why he was following us). On a cursory glance, I note that the man’s clothing appears to have seen better days. He also appears to have fainted so I set about fixing his injuries. Yet as I work the man regains consciousness and reaches out to grab hold of me and drag me towards him. He then proceeds to kiss me through my veil. His strength is considerably more than my own and I cannot see as to how I am going to extract myself from his grip until my knight in shining armour, Alex Douglas, turns up and extracts me from his grasp. Alex holds him until I can finish my ministrations and, once I am safely out of his reach, releases him. We then observe the man limping away with a wide smile on his face. Obviously he is quite mad; either that or I have acquired a stalker in the Dreamlands.

Anyway, that to one side, we collect the eggs from the priests and I am somewhat surprised to find that they are still in the same trolley they used to show them to us at the temple. Obviously they need to be stored in such a way as to be accessible to fresh air. As we arrive at Helmut’s ship, however, we note that they appear to be using a wooden crane-like contraption to load what appear to be coffins aboard the ship. We are informed that these contain onyx but we do not press the matter.

Helmut spots us and comes over to meet us as we approach and asks if he can see our cargo and, seeing as asks so politely, we agree. Carefully he lifts the corner of the tarpaulin and peers inside. As he straightens it is clear he is impressed as he states how much of an honour it is to transport two nobles, their retinues and four Shantak eggs. In fact he is so impressed that he offers his own cabin for our use, stating that he would sleep with the crew. The offer is initially extended to Gloriana and Alex but Alex graciously offers his place to me (this man is really starting to impress me for he is a true gentleman). The eggs in the meantime will be stored on deck and we will take it in shifts to guard them. Gloriana and Corathon are one shift, St John would be with Barbara and I would be with Alex.

As we embark, I note that it is not only Helmut that has pride in this vessel but also the entire crew appear to have a very positive attitude. We soon find out why for Helmut’s vessel appears to be preternaturally swift. I notice no wind while on deck; the sails always seem full, almost as if the ship controls its own wind. (Is Helmut a dreamer, I wonder?) One thing is for sure, this is not a natural phenomenon. Helmut informs us that the omens are good and that we should be in Salvação in three days, which I find remarkable as it took us eight days on Captain Monteverdi’s vessel to go less far. Initially I do not think it possible but in the end his statement proves truthful.

Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself as there is an incident as we travel. It was during mine and Alex’s watch that I could have sworn that I heard whispering. At first I thought it the crew but I was wrong. Alex claimed he heard nothing; maybe I had just dropped off for a moment, yet I could still hear the voices. I then tried to move around a little to ascertain the source and oddly the voices appeared to be originating from under the tarpaulin. I moved closer and opened the covering slightly and as I got closer the volume of the whispers increased yet I was still unable to discern exact words.

Fortunately I have my medical kit and thus have the perfect tool in my listening horn. Yet even with the listening horn it takes me a moment to ascertain what I am hearing. It appears to be a male voice talking about an unstable economical situation in South America. I then move to the second egg where I hear a woman’s voice talking about algebra and calculus; curiouser and curiouser! Then as I move to the third egg the fog clears from my mind for I recognise the male voice as Mr Sinclair and he appears to be teaching the history of politics as I clearly hear the names Wilberforce and Pitt. With this information I am able to identify the other two voices as Mrs Du Bois (Economics) and Mrs Abernathy (Mathematics) and if my logic is to be followed the final egg should be teaching French (Mr De La Salle) and this proves true. This therefore indicates to me that if you are killed in the waking world by a Shantak then your soul will be imprisoned within one of these eggs. When I inform the others of my finding they seem to reinforce my belief.

Other than the episode with the eggs the trip is uneventful and on the fourth morning we come within sight of Salvação. I note straight away that Salvação, while coloured red and gold, is lacking in the spectacular architecture of many of the cities we had so far encountered. The curved lines are much less prevalent and most buildings appear rather blocky. However the red of the buildings complements the river is built upon for the Sangue River is of a dark red hue akin to blood.

The others also draw my attention to something as we approach. It appears the roads entering Salvação are peppered with crosses and some of them appear to be occupied! Obviously we want to keep our noses clean while we are here. However, as we are at our journey’s end, Helmut docks and lets us off before informing us that he needs to leave to take care of his own business. This said we thank him and wish him gods speed on his travels as we wave him off.

Now we just have to wait for our contact to arrive so we settle in to an inn to wait. Alex excuses himself from the group at this time as he says that he wishes to check out the local temple, obviously wishing once again to give thanks to Bast for our safe arrival. (OK his religious views are a little archaic but he is cute all the same.) Upon Alex’s return, however, he reports that the temple appears not to have a shrine to Bast yet he did see a shrine to the Hornéd God. This said we go back to our vigil.

Then we all notice a single figure approaching the town. Slowly the figure appears at first sight to be male seemingly in his mid to late thirties and walking with the aid of a staff borne in his left hand. The figure has long slightly straggly hair and a beard and is dressed in a long robe that has clearly seen better days. I also note that the right hand appears to be pressed to his side just above his hip bone and there is also clearly a dark brown stain on the robes below this point.

At this stage Corathon attempts to look at the figure using Geoffrey Baxter’s binoculars (for Alex had informed him during our travels together of their mystical power) yet he fails to get them to work. As I note that he does not cut his finger. In fact when we show him the burr that usually causes the wound required to operate the glasses he merely states that it looks like bad workmanship and returns the glasses. Alex then pricks his finger and tries to use the glasses but once again they prove to be uncooperative.

Finally the weary figure from the road arrives in town and I am able to study him closer with special emphasis on the hands and feet and, behold, the signs I expect to see are revealed to me! Upon noting this I get to my feet and take a bowl from our table which I fill from the fountain and step up to the man. I then kneel before him and offer him the bowl with the request that he take it and refresh himself. The man turns and examines me before stating that it not my job to do this, making me feel a little deflated. He approaches our table and I follow at a discrete distance. The man then indicates that I should hand him the bowl which I do. He empties the bowl onto the ground and offers it St John, who it appears is the one whose job it is.

After St John gets the water and the man refreshes himself, we inquire as to his name and he replies that his name is Yusa Bin Yusuf. He then asks if we have the items, which we confirm. Yet despite all this the others still choose to administer a test before handing the eggs over, which once again involves that accursed rhyme. He answers exactly, we hand over the eggs and he in turn gives us a glass sphere of swirling pastel blue. Our business complete, Bin Yusuf takes the trolley and leaves the town.

Well I think this explains why we were assigned this duty for it appears that Mr Springfield’s spirit did not pass into the hands of the Hornéd God as we had suspected but was in fact saved by Bin Yusuf and the Hornéd God has had, in an attempt to keep his vicious little priestess happy, to offer four spirits he did own to gain the spirit of young Mr Springfield.

It appears that now we have Mr Springfield’s spirit within this fragile glass sphere we have a decision to make: do we return this to Dylath-Leen or do we release the spirit of Mr Springfield here and let him make his own decision?

If this sphere does indeed contain the spirit of Mr Springfield, my belief is that we should break open the sphere and release the spirit of Mr Springfield here and now and then let him make his own decision. Gloriana and Barbara, on the other hand, are both convinced that we should return the sphere to Dylath-Leen as they feel that that is the only way we can complete our quest.

However with a concentrated effort on my part, combined in some way with what at least Barbara knew about Miss Carleton’s track record and her involvement in the incidents at Penrith (which were entirely instigated by her own selfish ideals), I am able to change their point of view over to my way of thinking. Alex’s (Bless him) concerns were different, however, and were based more upon which spirit the sphere actually contained - whether it was even Mr Springfield at all - so he took a slightly different kind of persuading, yet I think I finally won him over when I convinced him that whoever this sphere contained they should be given a choice as to their own fate. With the extended debate over I finally felt that the correct decision had been made and we retired to our room in the inn to crack open the sphere.

The crack as the sphere breaks is louder than I would have expected and the room swiftly fills with smoke yet as it clears we can clearly see a naked male figure. I remove my cloak and drape it over him. Not surprisingly Mr Springfield is somewhat upset and distressed, screaming something about Miss Carleton coming at him with a knife with an evil grin on her face. Alex tries to calm him by stating that he is police officer but is unable to break through. however I am able to administer him a sleeping draft. So as not to distress him further I agree to stay with him while the others set out to purchase him some proper clothing.

When he comes too again I find that he is still a little distressed but I inform him that I am a doctor. I then carefully sit down on the bed next to him and take his hands in mine while carefully avoiding looking at the increasing bulge under the bed sheets. Unfortunately I now find myself in a rather uncomfortable position, for while all doctors are trained to be able to break bad news about death to relatives and friends, to inform the person themselves that they are dead is something new. Anyway, I try not to be blunt and unfortunately he feels reluctant to accept the truth. My only hope is that he can adapt. I note as the rest of the team arrive with his new clothes that his eye is drawn to Gloriana’s sword and oddly we feel it would be therapeutic if we could get him his own sword and get Gloriana to train him. This in mind we make our way to the weapon smiths where we buy a broadsword and also two practice weapons which seems to really settle him down.

Now we have another dilemma; what to do with him? Now it was crystal clear from the moment we first spoke with him that there was no way at all we were going to return him to that conniving priestess. As far as I could see that leaves us with two options and they are take him to Celephais or Etruria so he could be with people he knew. In the end we plump for Celephais. We swiftly find a vessel and within a few days we are back in Celephais where once again we are able to gain an audience with King Kuranes. We inform him of how the other portions of our quest have played out.

While there we are also pleased to see that Miss MacDougall has adjusted to court life perfectly and hopefully a romance can develop between Miss MacDougall and Mr Springfield, especially once I am out of the picture, as I do notice him eyeing me up on a number of occasions (well I suppose I had seen him naked). Fortunately once again the King is pleased to accept our young charge into his court. We thank the King and then inform him that we must now take our leave to the waking world. I hug and kiss both Miss MacDougall and Mr Springfield before I leave and wish them well and then we awaken back in Alex’s living room to find all this has occurred in a single night!