The Princess and the Pirates by John Maddox Roberts

Author:John Maddox Roberts [Roberts, John Maddox]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780312337230
Google: vAjif-tXnaoC
Amazon: 0312337248
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2005-05-11T18:30:00+00:00

THAT NIGHT A DREAM CAME TO ME. MOST people make far too much of dreams, attaching vast import to the most banal reflections of everyday cares, woes, and ambitions. I do not believe that the gods often put themselves to the trouble of sending prophetic visions to individuals, and it is usually a mark of vanity to believe oneself the frequent recipient of such divine messages. When the gods wish to communicate with us, they speak to the entire community; and they do so through the medium of thunder and lightning, the flights of birds, and signs put in the heavens. We have officials and priests whose task it is to interpret such omens.

Personally, I have never believed that the entrails of sacrificial animals have anything to do with it. That is mere Etruscan superstition.

Nevertheless, upon very special occasions, I experience a dream vision so remarkable that I think it must be sent by some divine agency, although perhaps not by a true Olympian. My vanity is not that great. Each of us, man or woman, is born with an attendant genius. These spirits watch over us and inspire us throughout life. It may be that they are in contact with other, equally supernatural beings and are able, at times of great import in our lives, to pass on messages from a world invisible to us.

However, it is the custom of the immortals to speak in signs, riddles, and conundrums when communicating with mortals; and so it was this time. For what it is worth, this was my dream.

I opened my eyes as from a deep sleep and discovered myself to be surrounded by clouds. In an instant I broke free of the clouds and saw below me a mass of brown and green surrounded by a deep blue-green. At first I could make no sense of what I was seeing. Then it came to me that I was gazing upon a great island lying in the sea. This, I understood, must be how the world looks to a soaring eagle. In the manner of dreams the great height at which I hovered did not alarm me, nor did it occur to me to wonder how I could be flying in the first place. Dreams take place in another world in which there is no past leading to the events we experience there.

I flew down toward the island (somehow I knew how to do this) and began to see details that had been invisible from higher up: ships upon the sea looking like children’s toys, jewel-like towns with white walls and red roofs, and cattle no larger than ants grazing the hillsides.

I began to circle the island and, as I did, saw a disturbance in the wine dark sea perhaps a legionary mile offshore (distances are hard to judge when one is flying). There arose a great boiling and foaming, as if a volcano were erupting far below. The foam rose into a tower and began to take human shape. Soon there stood, larger than the greatest colossus, the form of a beautiful woman.

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