Chapter 15: This World is But Shadows

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They come from the east, from the old homelands, but they did not come following the herds, nor did they come, as Tor's tribe had, following a vision of their sprit talker. They come in small numbers; Tor knew this tribe, they competed for hunting grounds, they traded between each other, they fought and they mated. Tor's own sister had joined them, paired to their chief. Tor notices that his sister is no longer among them, that her mate no longer leads them.

"Great winged lizards, larger than the mammoths, larger than anything that walks the land, filled the skies,"Ardax, their Spirit Talker tells him, "Their breath was fire, and everywhere they went, nothing was left but ash. They'd swoop down on us like birds of prey, snatch us up like fish caught in an hawk's talons. We are all that's left of our people."

"Dragons," Uvie says, "They left here near the last moon's turning."

"Dragons," Ardax repeats, trying the new word on his tongue, and not liking the feel of it, "Then this place is no safer than our burnt homelands."

"We see dragons flying above from time to time," Tor says, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "But only once in great number, and that was when they flew away. They don't hunt us here, or burn our huts." He thinks back to the days when they first arrived here, following Aven's vision; they'd lost two hunters, disappeared and still no trace of them found. "There are dangers enough here," he muses.

"The dragons here will leave us be as long as we don't disturb them," Uvie says, "The spirits here protect us."

"The spirits here?" Ardax asks, "Tell me about them."

Uvie crosses her arms and looks defiantly into the face of the older Spirit Talker. "They will speak to you if they find you worthy," she says, "It is not for me to speak for them." She holds herself steady, hoping Ardax cannot see her apprehension. She has taken the title of Spirit Talker, and as far as her tribe is concerned she fills that role well enough, assisting their births, binding their wounds, tending their illnesses. They don't know that she failed her test and has no spirit guide, that she's become bonded instead to an entirely different sort of spirit, one that walks this world in the form of a man, who has given her a magic unlike any other wielded by any Spirit Talker in the history of mankind. Not even Tor can see the difference, can tell that her magic is nothing like her mother's, but Ardax is a true Spirit Talker, and she will not be able to hide the truth from him so easily.

Tor looks on as the two Sprit Talkers face off, feeling the tension between them. The newcomers have lost their chief and most of their people, and will of course be welcome to join his own tribe. But to have two Spirit Talkers, it would be like having two chiefs. If they disagree, it will split the tribe. As their chief, Tor cannot allow this happen. But what is he to do?

This spot by the water, far away enough from her tribe to ensure she will not be disturbed, but close enough that she could hear them call if they had need of her, is Uvie's favorite place to in search of Auberon. She settles herself beneath a tall birch, resting her back against its slender, smooth trunk. She no longer has to sleep to enter his world of his dreams, nor does she require the aid of the saoma paste her mother had taught her to make, which opens the gates of the spirit world, she merely has to close her eyes, allow this world to fade and let her spirit free to wander.

Ardax sensed it immediately, something different about the young Spirit Talker, something not right. So he followed her when she set from the village that evening, to watch.

It's always different, yet always familiar, these dream worlds of Auberon's creation.

The trees, the flowers, the sky above and the earth below all shadows of the world she walks in, the world she thinks of as real. Sometimes, new things appear, formed from Auberon's imagination. Like this creature of bone, posed on a pedestal, looking strangely alive for something that is clearly dead.

"I did not dream of that," Auberon says, appearing behind her, "You are thinking of dragons?"

"Yes," she says, and tells him about the newcomers to her tribe, how they had fled the invading dragons that left this place at the last turning of the moon.

"They are much larger than that," Auberon observes, looking at the relatively small skeleton her imagination had produced.

"Are they?" she breathes in wonder, "I've never seen one up close."

"It's for the best that you never get any closer to a dragon, my little love," he says gently, wrapping his arms around her, "They guard their secrets well, and will not suffer any invasion of their privacy."

"Have you ever come close to one?" Uvie asks, "Do you know their secrets?"

"What I know is that they are dangerous and brutal," Auberon answers. It's not even close to the whole truth, but it's all she needs to know, for her own safety. The dragons finally chose to make alliance with the fae rather than go to war to protect their privacy, but they insisted on keeping themselves secret from the mortal newcomers to their lands, coming up with a whole new set of laws for themselves to keep their true natures from becoming known to those who should see them as great lizards flying too far above them to be seen up close. "If you ever see one alight on the ground, run as far away from it as you can go. Never try to follow one, for it will kill anyone it sees. Tell this to your people; dragons are to be avoided."

Uvie turns in his embrace, letting her lips meet his. Her sojourns into his world are always so beautiful, how she wishes they were real...

"You have a very limited notion of what is real," Auberon says, feeling her wish though she did not speak it aloud, "This world is ours, Uvie, we created it, together. How is it less real than the world you were born in, the world inhabited by so many others and controlled by none?"

"This world is but shadows," Uvie answers, "Different every time I visit it. When I open my eyes, the real world is the same as when I left it."

"Constancy is what makes it real for you?" Auberon asks, trying to understand, "We could make a dream that never changes, if that is what you like..."

"It would still not be real," she says sadly.

"My skills are improving," Uvie says as she pulls herself out of his arms, giving up on trying to explain the simple nature of reality, something all her kind know instinctively, "Let me show you."

She still uses her hands, forming a ball of light to dance above her fingers. But she's finally come to understand that it's not necessary, that the magic comes from her mind alone, and she uses the gestures only for show, she told him. Her people are more confident in her abilities when she accompanies her magic with chants and movement.

Once she formed her magical energy into a ball, she sends it to hover above the pedestal placed at the foot of the statue, no longer tossing it like a stone, instead guiding its path with her thoughts alone.

Then, her hands at her side, without gesturing at all, Uvie splits the ball into a twin of itself to appear and hover over the second pedestal.

"Very good," Auberon says.

"It's not of much use," Uvie answers with a pout, "Pretty lights impress my people, but it is nothing but show."

"Do not underestimate the power of illusion," Auberon says, "Your kind seem to be more susceptible to it than any other. Your belief that your world is constant and unchanging is all that stops you from creating your world afresh every time you open your eyes. And that constancy, too, is only illusion."

"Reality is not an illusion," Uvie insists.

Auberon smiles, "Maybe not to you. And maybe it's your belief that makes the world real..." For moment, Auberon gets lost in thought, until her touch brings him back. "What of this?" he gestures at the statue with her accompanying pedestals emblazoned with the image of an eye, "It doesn't exist in your reality, you say you've never seen it's like. Yet here she is, in every dream we create, you bring her with you. Is it not real, then? Something so important, so much a part of you that you cannot leave it behind?'

Uvie thinks hard on his question, as she often puzzles over it during her waking hours, but no answers comes. How can she know if it's real, or what it means, when she doesn't know what it is or where it came from?

Tania Summerdream does not create worlds of dream in the way of Auberon Nightshroud, nor even in the way of these mortals, who create their own worlds every night when they sleep, but though they are not her creations, all worlds open to her and there is no dream she cannot enter. Even Auberon's dream worlds are hers to explore; that is how she first found him, living in his own illusions, and that is how she brought him out to the world of daylight. She does not often follow him into his dreams, nor has she begrudged him his dalliances with others of their kind, like the season he spent drifting in Ico's waters, for they are always fleeting and of little consequence, and he always returns to her bower like she is his true home. 

But this mortal girl has a hold on him that Tania cannot understand, she's become a part of him, co-creator of his dreams. The longer the girl holds his heart, the more Auberon becomes entangled in her, and it has to be stopped. But how? Tania wonders. If she harms the girl, Auberon will never forgive her.

"You!" Uvie gasps, opening her eyes to find Ardax sitting before her, watching.

"It's not safe to sleep by yourself, out in the open where any creature could come upon you," he says.

"I wasn't sleeping," Uvie retorts.

"Yes, I saw that. But you didn't take the saoma paste...tell me, how do you move between worlds without it?"

His question was not a challenge, he was simply seeking information, one Spirit Talker to another, but Uvie chooses to respond to him as though it was, because she must hide the truth from him, that the worlds she travels are not the realms of the spirits he knows.

"My spirit has taught me many things," she says, folding her arms over her chest, "Secret things I may not share. Not even with you, Ardax."