23 Seek

A figure sat, soles touching, hands folded. It was an unnatural position. Light poured down from the hole in the top of his hut and increased the contrast on his lean figure. His limbs still held power but his once dark fur was now pale white and blue dappling. He was the eldest, the first dreamer, and the leader who led his kin to become free. His bones ached. His lungs stung with the drug.

Heat rippled through the air in front of him. It smelled of decay but his people knew that the smell meant warmth and life. To him, life at times, must reek of death. Now, this foul stench forced its way through the netting of fibers holding the dried spiricoso. Prismatic resins sweated from it and dripped into the fibers. Beads sat then darkened the netting as they soaked in. White wisps rose from it as the oils were heated out. Hands deftly shifting through forms the Dreamer continued his meditation.

He let his mind wander through the steam. At first, it was just an amplification of his vision. Sight divided and sight overlay sight. One mind watched the steam rising from the deliriant. Another followed a drop. It fell down missing the net. It fell forever and looped back to the beginning falling again.

Drops fell as rain and sleet. They pelted his mind and dragged it into the past. Hands cut deftly at the flesh of an elderly domi. They stripped off flesh for composting and pulled out bones for dust. His mind shifted forward. He climbed up a sturdy stalk it was smooth and firm but he had a good grip on the leaves. The plant swayed and bent as he made his way higher. Again he felt something watching him but he could not turn away in his trance.

Dreamer struggled back at that recollection trying to see more. His vision split again. This time he watched himself as he began his awakening. He felt his feet walk through the cold snow towards a kesit he knew would soon fall. The first dreamer reached into his memories head and wrenched. Surprise filled his mind in this vantage and it stopped.

His sight no longer overlay itself. He was again sitting back in front of his vent. It was strange he no longer felt his vision. He made to get up but couldn't. He struggled but even straining was beyond him. He sat before the vent and the sacred herb. Eyes he had looked through now looked through him.

Dreamer's will gnashed against the intrusive glee. What was this excitement? It was not his. His rebellious biting was scruffed and jerked to a recent memory he had gleaned from Yagbur's eyes. Limbs were dismembered, entrails removed. He felt it all, he saw it all. The first dreamer watched as he saw himself and Yagbur looking and discussing the scene. He felt amusement grab him and pulled him again.

Carapaces scraped over carapace. Whines buzzes and chirps rattled his mind, revolting. His mind was not a soft female and would not be taken. He struggled, he failed. Why is the dream herb showing him these things?

No longer being a weak-willed domi he sought to wrest control from his vision. More amusement filtered through to his thoughts. These were clear concise and lacked the separation we were a part of them. These were not his thoughts. New visions emerged boiling out from his eyes. Shells cracked, dauver cannibalized one another. He saw decay spread and the dauver take flight. Plague continued spreading until sentinels came and destroyed everything. This was hope for survival but all he felt was a patronizing hilarity.

Still bound to whatever was interfering with this accursed trip, the vision changed again. This time it was of leaps of baru-rog. His sight panned and blurred towards the party he had sent to the chasm. The same will tugged his hands through the party and swept towards the leap. Fury his own rose through him as the baru-rogs caught scent and drove after his party.

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Control returned but he still felt the observation. This was not a force he could overcome. Whatever it was, he determined, was best left be. He sought after his scattered kesit. Sanshall had taken Yagbur and led them towards their ultimate destination. Ilsebek escaped and rendered no aid. Even his Shaman made a poor accounting of himself.

The first dreamer saw Ilsebek sleeping and reached his hand into the kesit's dream. Finally, at the task, he set out he began shouting at kesit lazing in the tree.

* * *

Breath was frost. Ilsebek had done what he could to trap the heat in the tree, but the tangled sphere of branches had more holes than could be covered with his meager resources. His body was not shivering he would live from this. Sleep did not come easy with the cold. It did not come easy for him because it did not come at all for the forest around him. Thoughts wandered through his mind. They tamped down any hopes of planning with their many worried steps.

It had been but a quarter turn since he had engaged in the fight at high sun. This whole excursion had been death. The dauver must die for the kin to remain strong. This was known. They were soft food things and grew teeth and swam the great waters. This was also known. What end did this journey have? Ilsebek had gone on raids and seen the destruction wrought by the otherwise peaceful sentinels. He had seen Kin speared and gored for being in the open. He had seen more of the treacherous fauna than was taught in the rites. Sustainability would not have been granted if not for the numerous litters from the structure the first female had set.

Ilsebek knew the rites but he also saw the pieces in play as he tried to coax his mind to sleep. Females may be soft. The builders may be cowards. To know these is to be wise, but without the soft and the cowards there would be no Falle. There would be no stronghold for the Kin to stand within. They were over a thousand strong but this was no great number. The dauver must die. This again is taught. They will be enslaved or devoured outright. All it would take is for the great storm to recede and the dauver would move north. These things made sense in that the only conclusion he could draw that they would die by attrition or that they would be trampled as he had seen so many times before.

Musings stopped.

"Crush weak thoughts under heel eater." Words were the crashing of a sinkhole. They were rumbles of intimidation laden with vertigo and continued, "You have been foolish and wandered while your kin died."

Ilsebek's mind brought itself away from the sensations. Then he spoke.

"We were weak and did not see the signs, First Dreamer" Despite his efforts words came through muddled and distant. He barely felt his fingers touch one another in the salute.

Words that were rumbles were now strobing coruscation "Where are your kin?"

Memories shuddered into silence. Fangs fell and blood founted; he turned. Sanshall was gone with the sound. He should be too.

"Half your size and half your weight, they are softer kindred. Do you know where your charge is?"

It was silent. Sanshall was gone with the sound. His mind wandered without his steps. A conclusion had been drawn.

"The wayminder and soft one have wandered. Go. Wait for Shamen Valcha at the chasm."

Red and ochre bark was dewed with slowly dripping beads of acid. Nails of his right hand had dug deep into the already raw fingertips of his left. An image of a trail had been whittled behind his eyes. The strong trample the weak under heel. Ilsebek had been placed there. Others had as well. Would he be the soft bedding his people wasted away on?

Sleep would not come. His musings and the intrusion had led shadows of dawn. His thoughts would wander and the world ahead would assemble itself as it would.