Gate: A Blue Obsidian Dragon Statue
I stepped through the vision gate and found myself in the roiling waves of an ocean beneath a stormy sky. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled while the waves tossed me to and fro. Then, one of the surges gained momentum and with the power of the ocean behind me, I was thrown forcefully from the sea onto a sandy beach.
As the wave receded, it left numerous black rocks behind, leaving the beach littered with lumps like coal. For no particular reason, I picked up a large one and put it in my pocket.
Beyond the beach, a tropical island stood serenely beneath the dark sky. I saw a huge bonfire through the trees and headed towards it. Small creatures danced and chanted around this fire, throwing some of the black rocks into it and feeding the flames.
The light revealed the creatures to be anthropomorphized pigs, dressed in leaves and vines. Their skin was traced with intricate patterns and symbols made with crushed black powder from the rocks on the beach. Some had tusks that pierced their cheeks and wound up through their pointed ears, while others sported tropical flowers in their bristly hair.
The song the spirits were singing wasn’t in a language that I understood and as I neared the fire Lickspittle came running from the darkness, up my leg, and wound himself around my shoulders and neck.
“Hello, my friend,” I said, giving his green head a pat. “Where are we today?”
“The Gargantuas are singing a healing…” he began to say, when I stepped on a branch and suddenly all chanting ceased. The pigs, none of whom reached higher than my waist, grabbed their spears and we found ourselves facing a veritable forest of weapons.
“Tan tu macha ontua?” said one.
“Eecha rontu tan?” barked another.
“Lickspittle, what are they saying?” I asked.
“Tan macha eecha rontu,” said my snake in response. “Ontua, Heidi, unwa.”
The tribe gazed at me intently and, instinctively, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the stone from the beach. The pigs gave a collective gasp and raised their spears again. In a sign of good faith, I threw my stone into the fire as they had but instead of feeding the flames it exploded in a fireball that went straight up into the night sky like a pillar of fire that stretched from the earth to the heavens. With squeals of terror, the Gargantuas threw down their spears and vanished into the island forest.
“That could have gone better,” Lickspittle observed. “They asked if the ocean god sent you in answer to their prayers and demanded a sign of his power. I had just told them that you came from beneath the waves and your name when you unleashed hell on their ceremonial fire.” He looked at the empty clearing. “Maybe you should have used a smaller rock?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I was just trying to fit in and speak their ritual language. How embarrassing, I don’t like being the center of attention.”
“Maybe you should practice,” Lickspittle suggested encouragingly as he rewrapped himself around my neck.
Casting my eyes upon the abandoned bonfire once more, my sight was drawn to a small hut made of fern leaves that stood slightly beyond the firelight. Lickspittle ran ahead of me and drew aside the leaf covering the opening.
I entered a dark, airless space within which a young Gargantua lay upon a reed mat. She tossed and turned in a feverish dream. Suddenly, from the darkest corner of the hut, there was a scream and an elderly female warrior flung herself at me, waving another spear. I fended her off with my hands, taking a few deep cuts on my palms and forearms while Lickspittle called out in her language.
“Eecha unro oota rontu!” my friend cried and the elder backed away, panting slightly from her exertions. I raised my bleeding palms and when the cuts healed themselves before her eyes she threw herself to the ground at my feet.
“Intua jo rontu. Eecha ah inedu,” she said. I looked at Lickspittle while he replied in her native tongue. They chatted for a time.
“I really wish I knew their language,” I thought to myself. “Maybe I could be of more assistance if I did.” I studied the walls of the hut while I waited for Lickspittle’s diplomatic overtures to be completed. Delicate paintings of ochre covered the hut from floor to ceiling. Though I could not interpret the art, the repeating patterns reminded me of smoke and the movement of the waves upon the shore.
“I told her you were the one who walked in visions. She begs for your forgiveness for her attack, goddess of the waves,” said Lickspittle after some time had passed. “And pleads with you to heal her granddaughter, the reason for the beach-side calling her tribe was performing as well as her spirited defense of this hut.”
“What’s wrong with her granddaughter?” I asked. “Also, please communicate that I am a messenger of a greater power not goddess.” After hearing my translated words, the grandmother spoke to Lickspittle again.
“Her visionary granddaughter walks in a dark place and will not awaken,” Lickspittle said. “It has been weeks, she says.”
“I will try to find her granddaughter, though I do not know the way,” I said and Lickspittle wound himself around my shoulders once more. “May the Creator of All and Divine Mother look upon us with favor this day.”
I placed my hands on either side of the sleeping pig’s face and brought my forehead to hers. Then, I was falling through darkness into the child’s dream.
When I could perceive my surroundings again, I stood on a nightmare version of the Gargantua’s island where the storm was the same but the seas were filled with circling sharks and the island was slowly sinking into the ocean. Lickspittle threw himself from around my neck and transformed into the dragon shape of Dream. He roared a challenge to the storm-tossed skies.
I climbed aboard his shining blue neck. “Take me to the center of the trouble,” I yelled into his ear. “I bet our missing dream walker is there.” Dream screeched once more and sped off across the waves, dodging the creatures reaching up from the deep, who were trying to impede our passage.
A wall of darkness rose in front of us, marking something’s territory, and we flew headlong into it. Then, I was tumbling from Dream’s neck and stood in the darkness alone.
I took a step forward and, where my feet touched the stone floor, runes made of white light raced upon the ground. I did not recognize their form. Bats flew in this place, passing so close to my head their wings brushed me.
“Took you long enough,” said a familiar voice in the darkness.
“Night King,” I said. “We meet again. I can’t say I’m pleased to see you.” The vampire king of dreams slunk out of the shadows, barely perceptible through the greater darkness by the faint light of the runes.
“I haunted that child for ages waiting for you to show up,” he said. “There is a matter of some import I must discuss with you.” A bright light emerged from the Night King’s hands as he unrolled a glowing scroll from somewhere within his robes. “You made an agreement with me which you have not honored.”
“I know of no agreement,” I replied. “And to haunt the dreams of a child is barbaric, certainly not the act of a lord or king.”
“Ignorance of a contract is not an excuse and I shall exercise my power as I please,” the Night King replied, his ghastly face revealed in the document’s gleam. “You signed away your power over your dreams for the ability to vision walk. See your signature here?” I looked at the Night King’s paper and saw a child’s scrawl.
“When was this?” I asked, tracing the writing with a fingertip.
“You were five years old and fast asleep,” said the Night King. “But an agreement is an agreement.”
“Give it to me, if you please,” I said. “I wish to examine the fine print.” The vampire handed over his document and I slowly and deliberately ripped it in half. “These powers were not yours to give or withhold for my abilities are from the Creator of All, not you, Night King. As such, this contract has ended.”
The Night King gave a scream of rage, stretching his mouth so his sharp fangs showed. He threw himself at me, then a roar sounded and Dream flew over my shoulder. The dragon opened his mighty jaw and shut it, consuming the vampire in one bite. I heard a high pitched shriek coming from Dream’s gullet but it slowly faded.
“He’s very angry and will claw his way out if he can,” explained my dragon, who was suddenly drooping with tiredness.
“Do you think you can contain him?” I asked. “I do not like the way he treats others and maybe he needs a little time to consider the consequences of his actions.”
“Perhaps if I sleep,” said Dream and collapsed in a senseless heap just as the sun rose over the edge of the horizon. When its light touched the dragon, Dream turned to blue stone and all was silent in the dreamscape of the child of Gargantua.
In the sun’s new light, the doorway to an enormous maze made out of black rock appeared. A small golem made out of the same material emerged from the ground and bowed to me with a jaunty flourish. “Will you guide me while Dream sleeps? There is someone here who needs our help and she’s been missing for a very long time,” I said and the stone spirit nodded affirmatively.
The golem took my hand and led me to the maze entrance where he waved excitedly at the ground upon which lay a golden thread. “I read a story once about a hero who followed a thread through a maze,” I said and the golem practically danced in excitement. “Let’s do the same, shall we?”
I picked up the thread and wound it around my fist, following it deeper into the maze. As my guide and I passed the black walls, they lit up with more glowing mysterious runes and these runes followed me as I went through the maze, awakening a power I did not understand.
Finally, the golem and I reached the center of the maze where a young pig stood with her back to us in an open space within the black stone. “Looking for me?” she asked and turned with a strange smile on her face. Something was wrong with the Gargantua’s eyes, they were slitted like a cat’s and bright red. Though her form was a pig, her shadow revealed a monster made of tentacles, claws, and reaching darkness.
“Who are you?” I asked as the little golem put himself between me and the creature.
“I’m lost and all alone,” said the thing that was masquerading as a child. “Have you come to take me home?” She took a tentative step towards me. “Where is the Night King?” she asked, looking around and past my shoulder.
“The Night King was consumed by Dream and fell into the sleep of nothingness,” I said.
“The Night King is gone?” the creature said and started to laugh, at first high like a young girl but then increasing in depth until her voice rumbled like the earth itself was shaking. The thing’s true form burst from the shape she had assumed and threw herself towards me.
“I am Nightmare,” the monster declared. “Foolish dreamer, the Night King was the only power that stood between me and you.” The maze walls itself were connected to the creature and I found myself in a writhing, reaching world with darkness and shadows ahead and behind me.
I felt a tug on my hand and looked down to find the stone golem, desperately pulling me in another direction. I let him take me, narrowly escaping Nightmare’s reaching claw which was tipped with razor sharp edges.
We ran desperately through the maze until we reached a final wall covered in brightly shining runes and the golem ran up the side of it, using his hands to trace a doorway in the rock. This new doorway opened on its own, the golem pushed me through it, and threw himself towards the creature that was coming quickly behind us. I fell through the door and it closed with a snap but not before I watched my golem fall into the mouth of Nightmare.
“No!” I cried and threw open the door but found a different world on the other side. I shut the door and opened it again to see another place. Again and again, I tried to return to Nightmare’s realm to help my friend but the doorway would not show the way. I shut it finally in frustration and sat with my back against it.
“Is anyone there?” came Nightmare’s voice and I quickly stood, prepared to defend myself. I held up my hands in warning as a young pig walked towards me out of the shadows. “Grandmother, is that you?” she asked.
“My name is Heidi and I have walked through shadow and nightmare to find you,” I said. “Are you the lost Gargantua?”
“That is my tribe,” she said. “But I am not lost. Only moments ago, a wandering hermit came to the island and gave me this.” She held up her clawed hand and within her palm sat the Dice of Dreams, shifting and shining with their own inner brilliance. “I rolled them once and found myself here.”
“Would you be willing to roll them for me again?” I asked and directed the child to throw them at the stone door. She did and I threw the door open wide and found myself looking into the hellish jaws of Nightmare.
“Release my friend,” I commanded.
“Let me free, Heidi. I could teach you so much,” murmured Nightmare. “I am a tool not a beast. I show you what you do not want so you know what you do.”
“Which nightmare are you?” I asked. “I would know who’s shadow creation I’m talking to.”
“I am Forgotten Fears,” the monster said, creeping ever closer. “I will navigate your dreams so you do not have to. While Dream sleeps with the Night King in his stomach, I will rule this place in his stead.”
Suddenly, a doorway was drawn in Nightmare’s side and my friend, the golem, walked out of it and into my open arms. A black ooze followed him and exploded from the doorway in the monster’s side, draining Nightmare like pus released from a wound, and its bulk shrank. The creature screamed and wailed, dissolving until it was nothing but a puddle and a dark stain on the stone.
“Good thing you brought the Mercy golem with you,” said the Gargantua, clasping my hand in her small one. “Could you help me go home now? Grandmother said if I ever got lost in the dream world to listen very carefully and she would sing me back home but I haven’t heard a thing. And I have been listening, I really have.”
“Yes, I have come to bring you home,” I said. “Have no fear on that account. What is your name?”
“I don’t have a name until I find my markings,” said the pig, displaying her unmarked skin for my examination.
“What is your grandmother’s name?” I asked. “She is a fierce warrior and very protective of you, I know from experience.” I rubbed my hands together, the memory of spear cuts on my palms flashing through my mind.
“Bright Imaginings is my grandma. When she was my age, she predicted my arrival through dreams of such light and power that the whole tribe shared in her vision,” the child replied and, at the power of her grandmother’s name, the Gargantua tribe’s healing chant began faintly from far above our heads, floating down through the depths like echoes through deep water. The child began to dance in circles, chanting along.
The music entered the child’s spirit through the dance and her eyes were glowing like two moons in her face when she turned to me again. “We sing on this side of the dream and they sing on theirs. Mercy will bridge the gap between, if the gods allow it,” she said in her grandmother’s voice and a wave of energy ran through my spirit, warning me without words that the dream was about to end. My small stone golem was growing larger as the ritual continued and when he was of an appropriate size he lifted us in his arms, high into the air.
We went up and through a hole in the sky from which the sounds of chanting emerged. Mercy threw us with his mighty power and we fell out of the child’s dream through the rip in reality and onto a reed mat of the Gargantua tribe.
The child on the mat gasped as if surfacing from the ocean when she awakened from the nightmare and her grandmother clasped her to her chest in relief. The young pig’s skin was now decorated with the swirling runes of the black stone maze. They covered every visible inch of her body in the runes from her dream.
“Sweet child,” crooned Bright Imaginings. “You went into darkness and came forth again, stronger and grown. We will call you, Bright Dreams.” After her pronouncement, the grandmother turned to me. “Where is your lizard, goddess from the waves?”
“Dream took me to the threshold of the nightmare and Mercy brought me home,” I said. “I am a visitor from another world and no god. How is it that I can understand you now?”
“The language of dreams is universal,” said Bright Imaginings. “You are more than you imagine yourself to be but, goddess or no, we shall offer numerous songs and dances to the skies for the deliverance of my favored granddaughter. Thank you, spirit of water. May many blessings descend upon you and your kin.”
Bright Dreams opened her hand and showed her grandmother the Dice of Dreams she had brought with us from her nightmare. “Put those away!” Bright Imaginings said in terror and shoved them into a sack. “Those are far too powerful for you. Where did you get them, child?”
“The wandering hermit said to tell the one who would seek me that the Night King desired the power of the dice and would not cease pursuing him. The only way to keep them safe was to give them to an innocent soul.” Bright Dreams rubbed her eyes and yawned, exhaustion setting in after her long trial. “He said the one who came to this place next would know what to do.”
“Was this hermit followed by ravens and the howl of wolves?” I asked and the child nodded. “If Odin thought this arrangement was for the best then it is decided,” I declared. “The tribe Gargantua shall be the bearers of the Dice of Dreams and responsible for rolling them when required in the Inner Worlds.”
“The Night King, a corrupted guardian, is no more for the moment and the nightmare he was hiding is vanquished,” I continued. “I need new dreams and new guardians. Would you do this service for me?”
“And bear the endless nightmares that will swarm us from the ocean depths?” Bright Imaginings frowned. “You ask a great deal of the Tribe of Gargantua.” I took the grandmother’s hand in entreaty.
“This agreement will benefit you as much as it does me,” I said. “Your forms will change and the Gargantua will evolve in spirit as well as gain knowledge of forgotten things. This I promise you.”
“Please Grandma,” said Bright Dreams. “We can do this. I know we can. We already fight the shadows from the deep waters. Now, we will have a new and powerful tool to help us continue the struggle.”
Finally, Bright Imaginings nodded her head in consent. “Goddess from the waves, it will be done as you desire,” she said. A doorway formed in the side of the hut and I found myself falling through it, not even given the chance to say goodbye to my new friends.
When my fall ended, I found myself in a dark modern building in a new space but it was totally empty. I walked the halls looking for someone, anyone to understand what was required now but only discovered one empty room after another. Then, I heard the sound of the Dice of Dreams rolling.
The building’s form wavered and changed from a man-made structure to a cave made of stone. In the center of this cave, the Night King sat in a meditative pose and I realized I was seeing inside the prison created by my dragon Dream. As this realization washed over me, the Night King’s eyes opened and he gazed directly at me.
“The Gargantua shall pay dearly for your repeated incursions into my domain,” he said so softly that at first I felt as if I was only imagining him speaking. “Did you think you were the only one with allies in the Inner Worlds? You have sentenced that tribe to a war they can not win against shadows that have not been seen since ancient times.”
“Self defense is a legitimate cause for strife,” I said. “Enjoy my Dream while you may, Night King. Your domination of the nighttime hours is through.”
The King of Dreams flashed his fangs at me. “You have no idea what you have put into motion through your defiance of me,” he said. “I will relish this time alone to create new nightmares to haunt your dreams and goad you down the paths that I desire you to travel. I shall own you, night and daytime hours both, this is I promise.”
“This cave is all of me you will ever see,” I said, snapping my fingers in the Night King’s direction. “And that is what I think of your threats and promises. The Light Congress isn’t afraid of you or your shadow allies.”
“Foolish Light Congress,” the Night King said, closing his eyes in dismissal. “The angels will weep for you before I’m through with you.”
I opened my mouth to reply but a wave of dark energy came from the Night King’s spirit, blowing me out of the prison cave made by Dream and back into the empty building.
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 