When I sleep my neurons play odd games XXIV...
This is long and was absurdly detailed.
It all started as a larp game in Japan where I was playing Ash in her Exalted form. But then the dream changed and just got weirder and weirder...
I was at home with my father and Katie. My sister and I knew that a dragon was rising and that everything was going to hell and it needed to be killed. My father didn’t believe a word of it and refused to send a text to my mother (an act that would complete a protection spell Katie and I had been working on and so keep us safe).
I went and got an antique silver chased hand mirror which would show up anything invisible in its reflection. My father insisted there was nothing wrong and that we stop messing about and have supper. We do so, whilst various weird and invisible things flit about the house and Katie and I exchange looks of ‘ohhhh shit’. Finally we knock over some glasses hexing one of the invisi-demons and our father leaves in a snit. Katie goes after him and I start to clear the table.
Just outside the French doors, the water in the swimming pool (apparently we had one) starts to turn bruise coloured and swirl and twist into a tornado. The water rises up and becomes the head of a huge dragon, looming towards the house. I start to hex it as it comes closer - the words are hard to say, sticking in my throat and I croak and whisper what I wish to shout. But it seems to be enough - the dragon head has shrunk and twisted; now it is a dire wolf; now even that is shriveling into something lesser.
By the time the French doors have blown open and it is in front of me, it is half my height, a shriveled thing, writhing and flailing under the stream of curses I’m still spitting at it. I imagine a shadow blade in my hand and stab it in the heart, draw its essence into the blade and then expel it into a tube of paper with runes and bindings and death on the inside.
There is a ‘whomff’ and the top of the paper and my hand catch fire. Rather surprised I take my hand away; the fire goes out. I'm left with the impression I've won the battle but not stopped the wars. My sister reappears and tells me I ought to go and meet up with friends of mine in London as that’s not going to be the end of it...
On the train to London I dream that some unknown presence is mocking me, crooning that I will never win because I do not know the dagger within my name. It knows, of course, and has the ability to use it because it is unclaimed. It writes the word ‘RAVEN’ in the air in shadow and plucks up the A, holding it like a punch-dagger. The tip is so sharp it scores through anything, even beings of magic. Somehow within this dream I get hold of the dagger, and I awake clasping a tiny inky shadowy ‘A’ blade, hooked over the first two fingers of my right hand.
As I walk through the station to where my friends are waiting, a thousand crows seem to be in the passageways and they take flight at my approach. Beneath the cawing and the wings I hear someone screeching that the crows have robbed them, that their goods are scattered and stolen. Someone is hunched and wailing up ahead: what looks like wooden buttons or nuts have been strewn around them, rolled from a tattered bag they were carrying.
I stop to help them gather up the objects; just as my hand is about to close on the first someone shouts, ‘No - it’s a demon egg!’.
I withdraw my hand sharply - the little nut-like thing shoots out a scorpion tail and tries to sting me. I swipe at it with the A-dagger and it calcifies in death. All the scattered things are now sprouting insect legs, snail bodies or scrabbly claws, all intent on poisoning me. I whirl about, dragging the little dagger over them all, cutting stones and scoring brickwork as I do so.
The person who warned me continues to help, shouting ‘Behind you - the Cassifiel!’ or ‘By your foot - an Eindess Root!’ and naming each of the little horrors as I end them. When the last is dead I turn to thank him and to complain that I should have known crows would have a good reason to attack something. I open my mouth, but...
‘The Servant is getting away!’ He shoves me forward - ‘Your friends are outside - go!’
I hurry outside, panicked that the demon-thing might have more horrors in its bag of tricks. I scan the car park: I see my friends chatting beside a large limousine-type vehicle. One of them waves at me... I cannot see the Servant.
At last - a glint catches my eye - and I have a second to focus on the barrel of an old 1860s pistol, engraved with sigils and runes. There is a bang, although I’m not sure whether it’s just in my head or not, and a force strikes me in the stomach. I’m punched backwards, collapsing against a pillar of the portico. I don’t feel pain, but I feel weakness spreading out from my core, robbing me of speech and motion.
‘What happened to her?’
‘She’s shot.’
‘But there’s no blood - how can...’
‘Believe me, the bullet’s in there.’
My friends bundle me into the car and drive to their headquarters - which I might as well call The Folly. (And if that means nothing to you then just imagine the Wallace Collection and Soames House colliding, along with some high-tech security.)
I’m carried to the med-bay, tied down and cut open so the bullet can be removed. For some quasi-magical reason I have to be conscious during this, so am given injections of morphine, amphetamines and adrenaline. It’s not fun. At last the bullet is removed and I hear someone say I’m allowed more morphine. ‘Relief’ is not an adequate word to describe my feelings on the matter.
Dawn comes, and with it the rising of a Second and Greater Dragon.
Forces attack the Folly, shaking the building and tearing through defenses both magical and physical. I realize that the reason the First Dragon attacked my house was because I was the one most likely to wield the A-Dagger - the only thing capable of killing the Greater Dragons and stopping the chaos.
I fall out of bed, limp and drag myself to the elevators so I might reach the lower courtyard where the main fight seems to be happening.
‘Raven? Raven! What are you doing up?’ Tobias scolds.
‘Need... need to get downstairs.’
He gives me a displeased and calculating look before nodding, pressing the lift buttons and stepping a little closer to me so he might grab me if I fall. ‘You’ve no defenses,’ he complains, ‘and you’re ragged as it is.’
‘Got a blade,’ I retort.
‘Didn’t exactly help when you were shot, did it?’
I sway and look irritated.
‘Did no one tell you how to make a shield?’
‘Tried before... didn’t work. Always better with knives.’
Tobias sighs, exasperated and a little amused. ‘The word. The word ‘shield’ doesn’t work. You need an older word.’
I scowl, and unbidden, words from Chauser appeared in my head. ‘As broad as a buckler-’
‘Or a targe!’ he joins in with me.
A small round shield shimmers into existence on my left arm, made of shadow and the word ‘Targe’. He nods, seeming pleased, but at the same time a furrow in his brow says he doubts it will do much against one of the Greater Dragons.
I try not to slump with the effort it cost me but soon give up and fold into a corner.
We reach the lower courtyard. London has vanished - or perhaps we are in a pocket realm - for the courtyard leads to cliffs and a beach.
My friends are there (and many others I don’t know but who belong to the Folly). They are armed with spears and are all futilely attempting to prod a huge Golden Dragon back into the sea.
Alex sees us and scowls at me, staggering and whimpering as I am.
A look passes between him and Tobias. He hands me a blade like a large arrowhead, hewn from flint or obsidian.
‘You’ll need this,’ he says flatly.
I take it and walk forward, through the ranks of spear-men towards the city-large snarling mass of Dragon.
The Dragon plays with me, swiping at those next to me as I pass, just to see me flinch. I don’t though, and that’s not bravery that’s just exhaustion - the wound inside me claws with every step - I have no strength to pay heed to the Dragon’s threats.
There is a voice inside my head - it is the same voice I heard crooning in my dream about power of the dagger in my name.
‘I see you found it then,’ the Voice says, half arrogant, half pleased.
‘Because you showed me,’ I admit, annoyed that I have this weapon only by his leave and wishing I could claim it fully for my own.
‘Too slow, too distracted,’ the Voice sighs.
‘You wanted me to have it.’ It’s a statement, but I cannot keep the confusion from my voice.
A huff that could be laughter or derision. ‘You little things. You never stop to wonder whether this is what WE want. Forces are in motion. One token falls and hits the next - and so on and so on. You watch in horror, but you never ask whether all the tokens WISH to fall.’
That Voice belongs to the Second Dragon, of course. And I feel stupid - again - wondering how I can be the one to hold sacred blades if I'm always lost and running to catch up...
I am very close to the Dragon now, nearly nose to nose - my vision is filled with a field of golden scales topped by reptilian eyes and surrounded by the dry hot huffs of his breath.
‘You have two of the blades. But there is a third...’
His voice has fallen into that irritating croon again - I stab him once with the flint blade and once with the A-Dagger. I am right up against his neck - a flick of his claws would sever me in two...
I see it then, some sort of pattern of three Dragons, each greater than the last, and three blades, each harder to hold than the last. The Third Dragon would mean the end of the world. And the Third Blade would mean the end of me.
The Dragon eyes me speculatively as if catching the trails of my thoughts. ‘Where is the Third Blade?’ he muses. ‘It must be close at hand...’
I’m suddenly furious - so exhausted, hurt and confused that it all translates into anger. ‘Do you want to die?!’
One eyeball rolls down to pin me and a twist of his lips gives me sight of his teeth - each fang taller than trees. ‘Oblige me. You have the third blade. I suffer and would have an end to it. You suffer and would have your world live. Seems an easy bargain to me.’
I look about me, at the blades in each hand and at the targe on my arm. ‘This? The last thing I have is this. It's only a shield.’
‘Even defense may be vicious if given due cause.’
I try to will the shield to become a blade, to have a sharp rim, to change shape - anything. It will not. I think on his words and decide. ‘I have a wound. Use a claw to slice the bandages... and then to open it.’
The Dragon does - the agony of it makes me scream, and in that scream the targe acquires a blade that punches out from its lower rim. I convulse and in doing so ram the third blade into the dragon’s neck.
There is a sigh, and the single claw that had been in my wound retracts and curls under like the velvet paw of a happy cat. I fall backwards onto the sand, feeling the world shiver as all things change, as the Second Dragon is ended and the portal closed against the Third. My eyes are closed, and the last thing I hear is the Second Dragon’s voice saying to me, ‘The hurt is not so bad, ‘tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door...’
I think of Shakespeare, of Mercutio and what happened to him.
‘Your friends are here,’ the Dragon chides, as if that is proof I shall live after all.
And then I woke up.
It all started as a larp game in Japan where I was playing Ash in her Exalted form. But then the dream changed and just got weirder and weirder...
I was at home with my father and Katie. My sister and I knew that a dragon was rising and that everything was going to hell and it needed to be killed. My father didn’t believe a word of it and refused to send a text to my mother (an act that would complete a protection spell Katie and I had been working on and so keep us safe).
I went and got an antique silver chased hand mirror which would show up anything invisible in its reflection. My father insisted there was nothing wrong and that we stop messing about and have supper. We do so, whilst various weird and invisible things flit about the house and Katie and I exchange looks of ‘ohhhh shit’. Finally we knock over some glasses hexing one of the invisi-demons and our father leaves in a snit. Katie goes after him and I start to clear the table.
Just outside the French doors, the water in the swimming pool (apparently we had one) starts to turn bruise coloured and swirl and twist into a tornado. The water rises up and becomes the head of a huge dragon, looming towards the house. I start to hex it as it comes closer - the words are hard to say, sticking in my throat and I croak and whisper what I wish to shout. But it seems to be enough - the dragon head has shrunk and twisted; now it is a dire wolf; now even that is shriveling into something lesser.
By the time the French doors have blown open and it is in front of me, it is half my height, a shriveled thing, writhing and flailing under the stream of curses I’m still spitting at it. I imagine a shadow blade in my hand and stab it in the heart, draw its essence into the blade and then expel it into a tube of paper with runes and bindings and death on the inside.
There is a ‘whomff’ and the top of the paper and my hand catch fire. Rather surprised I take my hand away; the fire goes out. I'm left with the impression I've won the battle but not stopped the wars. My sister reappears and tells me I ought to go and meet up with friends of mine in London as that’s not going to be the end of it...
On the train to London I dream that some unknown presence is mocking me, crooning that I will never win because I do not know the dagger within my name. It knows, of course, and has the ability to use it because it is unclaimed. It writes the word ‘RAVEN’ in the air in shadow and plucks up the A, holding it like a punch-dagger. The tip is so sharp it scores through anything, even beings of magic. Somehow within this dream I get hold of the dagger, and I awake clasping a tiny inky shadowy ‘A’ blade, hooked over the first two fingers of my right hand.
As I walk through the station to where my friends are waiting, a thousand crows seem to be in the passageways and they take flight at my approach. Beneath the cawing and the wings I hear someone screeching that the crows have robbed them, that their goods are scattered and stolen. Someone is hunched and wailing up ahead: what looks like wooden buttons or nuts have been strewn around them, rolled from a tattered bag they were carrying.
I stop to help them gather up the objects; just as my hand is about to close on the first someone shouts, ‘No - it’s a demon egg!’.
I withdraw my hand sharply - the little nut-like thing shoots out a scorpion tail and tries to sting me. I swipe at it with the A-dagger and it calcifies in death. All the scattered things are now sprouting insect legs, snail bodies or scrabbly claws, all intent on poisoning me. I whirl about, dragging the little dagger over them all, cutting stones and scoring brickwork as I do so.
The person who warned me continues to help, shouting ‘Behind you - the Cassifiel!’ or ‘By your foot - an Eindess Root!’ and naming each of the little horrors as I end them. When the last is dead I turn to thank him and to complain that I should have known crows would have a good reason to attack something. I open my mouth, but...
‘The Servant is getting away!’ He shoves me forward - ‘Your friends are outside - go!’
I hurry outside, panicked that the demon-thing might have more horrors in its bag of tricks. I scan the car park: I see my friends chatting beside a large limousine-type vehicle. One of them waves at me... I cannot see the Servant.
At last - a glint catches my eye - and I have a second to focus on the barrel of an old 1860s pistol, engraved with sigils and runes. There is a bang, although I’m not sure whether it’s just in my head or not, and a force strikes me in the stomach. I’m punched backwards, collapsing against a pillar of the portico. I don’t feel pain, but I feel weakness spreading out from my core, robbing me of speech and motion.
‘What happened to her?’
‘She’s shot.’
‘But there’s no blood - how can...’
‘Believe me, the bullet’s in there.’
My friends bundle me into the car and drive to their headquarters - which I might as well call The Folly. (And if that means nothing to you then just imagine the Wallace Collection and Soames House colliding, along with some high-tech security.)
I’m carried to the med-bay, tied down and cut open so the bullet can be removed. For some quasi-magical reason I have to be conscious during this, so am given injections of morphine, amphetamines and adrenaline. It’s not fun. At last the bullet is removed and I hear someone say I’m allowed more morphine. ‘Relief’ is not an adequate word to describe my feelings on the matter.
Dawn comes, and with it the rising of a Second and Greater Dragon.
Forces attack the Folly, shaking the building and tearing through defenses both magical and physical. I realize that the reason the First Dragon attacked my house was because I was the one most likely to wield the A-Dagger - the only thing capable of killing the Greater Dragons and stopping the chaos.
I fall out of bed, limp and drag myself to the elevators so I might reach the lower courtyard where the main fight seems to be happening.
‘Raven? Raven! What are you doing up?’ Tobias scolds.
‘Need... need to get downstairs.’
He gives me a displeased and calculating look before nodding, pressing the lift buttons and stepping a little closer to me so he might grab me if I fall. ‘You’ve no defenses,’ he complains, ‘and you’re ragged as it is.’
‘Got a blade,’ I retort.
‘Didn’t exactly help when you were shot, did it?’
I sway and look irritated.
‘Did no one tell you how to make a shield?’
‘Tried before... didn’t work. Always better with knives.’
Tobias sighs, exasperated and a little amused. ‘The word. The word ‘shield’ doesn’t work. You need an older word.’
I scowl, and unbidden, words from Chauser appeared in my head. ‘As broad as a buckler-’
‘Or a targe!’ he joins in with me.
A small round shield shimmers into existence on my left arm, made of shadow and the word ‘Targe’. He nods, seeming pleased, but at the same time a furrow in his brow says he doubts it will do much against one of the Greater Dragons.
I try not to slump with the effort it cost me but soon give up and fold into a corner.
We reach the lower courtyard. London has vanished - or perhaps we are in a pocket realm - for the courtyard leads to cliffs and a beach.
My friends are there (and many others I don’t know but who belong to the Folly). They are armed with spears and are all futilely attempting to prod a huge Golden Dragon back into the sea.
Alex sees us and scowls at me, staggering and whimpering as I am.
A look passes between him and Tobias. He hands me a blade like a large arrowhead, hewn from flint or obsidian.
‘You’ll need this,’ he says flatly.
I take it and walk forward, through the ranks of spear-men towards the city-large snarling mass of Dragon.
The Dragon plays with me, swiping at those next to me as I pass, just to see me flinch. I don’t though, and that’s not bravery that’s just exhaustion - the wound inside me claws with every step - I have no strength to pay heed to the Dragon’s threats.
There is a voice inside my head - it is the same voice I heard crooning in my dream about power of the dagger in my name.
‘I see you found it then,’ the Voice says, half arrogant, half pleased.
‘Because you showed me,’ I admit, annoyed that I have this weapon only by his leave and wishing I could claim it fully for my own.
‘Too slow, too distracted,’ the Voice sighs.
‘You wanted me to have it.’ It’s a statement, but I cannot keep the confusion from my voice.
A huff that could be laughter or derision. ‘You little things. You never stop to wonder whether this is what WE want. Forces are in motion. One token falls and hits the next - and so on and so on. You watch in horror, but you never ask whether all the tokens WISH to fall.’
That Voice belongs to the Second Dragon, of course. And I feel stupid - again - wondering how I can be the one to hold sacred blades if I'm always lost and running to catch up...
I am very close to the Dragon now, nearly nose to nose - my vision is filled with a field of golden scales topped by reptilian eyes and surrounded by the dry hot huffs of his breath.
‘You have two of the blades. But there is a third...’
His voice has fallen into that irritating croon again - I stab him once with the flint blade and once with the A-Dagger. I am right up against his neck - a flick of his claws would sever me in two...
I see it then, some sort of pattern of three Dragons, each greater than the last, and three blades, each harder to hold than the last. The Third Dragon would mean the end of the world. And the Third Blade would mean the end of me.
The Dragon eyes me speculatively as if catching the trails of my thoughts. ‘Where is the Third Blade?’ he muses. ‘It must be close at hand...’
I’m suddenly furious - so exhausted, hurt and confused that it all translates into anger. ‘Do you want to die?!’
One eyeball rolls down to pin me and a twist of his lips gives me sight of his teeth - each fang taller than trees. ‘Oblige me. You have the third blade. I suffer and would have an end to it. You suffer and would have your world live. Seems an easy bargain to me.’
I look about me, at the blades in each hand and at the targe on my arm. ‘This? The last thing I have is this. It's only a shield.’
‘Even defense may be vicious if given due cause.’
I try to will the shield to become a blade, to have a sharp rim, to change shape - anything. It will not. I think on his words and decide. ‘I have a wound. Use a claw to slice the bandages... and then to open it.’
The Dragon does - the agony of it makes me scream, and in that scream the targe acquires a blade that punches out from its lower rim. I convulse and in doing so ram the third blade into the dragon’s neck.
There is a sigh, and the single claw that had been in my wound retracts and curls under like the velvet paw of a happy cat. I fall backwards onto the sand, feeling the world shiver as all things change, as the Second Dragon is ended and the portal closed against the Third. My eyes are closed, and the last thing I hear is the Second Dragon’s voice saying to me, ‘The hurt is not so bad, ‘tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door...’
I think of Shakespeare, of Mercutio and what happened to him.
‘Your friends are here,’ the Dragon chides, as if that is proof I shall live after all.
And then I woke up.