The Reverie by Peter Fehervari

Author:Peter Fehervari
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-24T09:39:14+00:00

Dreams Like Dust in the Wind

‘Am I outside?’ the traveller demanded again, sitting up.

‘Calm yourself, friend,’ the white-haired medicae leaning over his bed urged, trying to restrain him. ‘You are still very weak.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Yes,’ the woman beside the medicae answered. ‘Yes, you are outside.’

The traveller fell back onto his pillow, sighing as the answer sank in. Yes, she’d said. But could it really be true? Was this magnificent, improbably warm room real or just another chimera? There had been so many false awakenings. So very many…

‘You are perfectly safe,’ the woman assured him. Like her companion, she was in her autumn years, though time hadn’t eroded her fine features. Her face was drawn and there were dark rings under her eyes, emphasising her pallor, but he could tell she’d been beautiful once. When he’d first awoken she had been frightened – terrified even – though he couldn’t understand why. Perhaps he’d imagined that too. It was so difficult to tell any more.

‘Do you remember your name?’ the woman prompted gently.

‘Tarsem… Olba.’ Olba? It was the first name that sprang to mind – the one Euryale had gifted him. It felt more significant than his given one.

‘We are glad to make your acquaintance, Seigneur Olba,’ the old man said, patting his shoulder. ‘I am Qanzo and this good lady here is Marisol.’

‘Where…?’ Tarsem coughed as his throat dried up, leaving the question hanging.

‘Kanvolis, the Shining City.’ Qanzo beamed, passing him a tumbler of water. ‘You are under the protection of the Angels Resplendent, my friend.’

I crossed the valley, Tarsem thought blearily as he drank. The water had a citrus tang that sparkled on his tongue, too sharp to be an illusion. And beyond wonderful!

‘Slowly, my friend,’ Qanzo cautioned as Tarsem gulped the liquid.

I did it… the traveller thought, fearfully at first, as though believing it might dispel this beautiful place, then with growing conviction. I crossed it. Conquered it! I told you I wasn’t too old, Euryale.

‘Satori,’ he asked. ‘Where’s Satori?’

‘I am sorry,’ the medicae replied. ‘You were brought to me alone.’

‘By who?’

‘I…’ Qanzo frowned.

‘It was Satori,’ Tarsem said, nodding to himself. ‘We were travelling together… when…’ He fell silent as something else occurred to him. ‘What year is this?’

Qanzo hesitated, but Marisol answered, clearly sensing the question’s importance. ‘By Imperial standard measures the year is M40.386.’

Tarsem stared at her.

M40.386? No, that couldn’t be right. He had lost all sense of time in the Reverie, but it couldn’t have stolen more than a year. Could it…?

Of course it could, he admitted. And has.

‘Seigneur?’ Qanzo asked from somewhere too far away to matter. ‘Are you unwell?’

Tarsem closed his eyes as a soul-deep weariness swept over him. It felt like he was falling, not through space, but time – plummeting back into the void that almost swallowed him in the tainted watchtower. The tumbler slipped from his grip, spilling water across his chest, but he barely felt it.

I’m a ghost.

Something was pressed into his hand. His aquila. He didn’t know whether it was

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