Dreameater, Part One

A wet cough brought my attention back to the hospital bed and away from the nightmare gallery of creatures that lurked just outside the pool of light with slavering jaws and rictus grins. Naomi lay there, pale against the turned down sheets. Even the mass of freckles on her face seemed to fade into that deathly pallor.

I could feel the eyes of the waiting creatures on me as I bent to check Naomi's aura with the Witchsight. They bored into me, desperate with hunger, but holding back. I could feel their wariness, as if they were afraid of who or what I was. They were afraid of the power I had and the magic I could wield.

My eyes glowed with a blue light as I brought up the Witchsight. Naomi's aura was weak and sickly, pulsing a noxious green threaded with black veins. The spirit poison coursed through her and I knew there was nothing the doctors could do for her. Naomi's parents had been called, but I knew they lived hours away and couldn't get here before she was gone.

"Isaac," a deep, grating voice said from the shadows outside of the pool of white light, "there is still hope."

Out of the shadows came a cloaked and hooded figure that loomed over me. His voice was the basso rumble that seemed to shake my bones. He was cloaked in roiling black shadows that flowed off him like a stygian mist. Sickly amber eyes burned with hunger from within the cowl and their light seemed to glint off rows of crooked teeth.

I cried, "You've got to help me save her!"

The hooded form shook its head. "It must be done alone, boy. Embrace your Power and accept your true nature!"

"Please!" I pleaded, voice cracking as it became a whisper, "help me…"

A deafening crack of thunder boomed from the darkness, setting the creatures lurking outside the pool of light to gibbering. In a quick motion, the figure stepped forward and a skeletal hand shot out to grasp the front of my shirt in a grip like iron. Its eyes flared with a terrible hunger.

"You are of the ancient blood!" the figure's voice boomed in a rolling growl that shook the world, "Rise up and seize your birthright! Only then may you save her."

"I don't know how!" I screamed my voice barely audible over the ululating chorus of the waiting nightmares.

"But you do," the cloaked man sneered, "You can feel the knowledge waiting in your blood. Speak the words and scour the venom from her. Spellbind her."

I could only nod numbly and bend over the stricken Naomi. I tried to think, but nothing came. I gathered my magic reflexively and thought of what I needed, willing it to come into being. The magic pulsed in my mind to the beat of my heart and grew to a crescendo that drowned out the world to all but the magic singing in my ears.

Words flowed from my throat like a river. Words I had never spoken or heard before spilled from my lips as if I were reciting from rote memory. I whispered the words, but the incantation seemed to reverberate all around, filling the space with words of Power.

I placed my hands over the Naomi's heart and concentrated my magic there. Motes of azure light streamed towards my palms and my chest burned with the familiar feeling of spellwork. My blood pounded through my veins and shone with a blue light where they came close to the skin. My voice rebounded like thunder in the darkness, crashing down in tumultuous waves as the spell reached its climax.

The light beneath my hands grew and became painful to look at directly, but I could not take my eyes off the intricate spellwork that lay beneath them. The magic coursed out of me and into the girl, consuming the poison in a torrent of Power. Naomi's back arched like a bow and she groaned with pain, but she was too far unconscious to move much more.

The smell of ozone hung heavy in the air as the spell drew to a close. The light faded from my hands and the echoes died and silence reigned. I lifted my hands from Naomi's heart and could see a pentacle seal, circular and scribed with minute script, fading into her skin. Soon, there was no sign of the seal and her flesh was once again pale and smooth.

My legs felt weak as I stood there in silence, but my mind sang with the aftershock of channeling that much magic. Nothing seemed different about her, but I thought I could see a bit of color returning to her freckled cheeks. I willed open my Witchsight and felt the extra effort it took.

A nimbus of blue light scintillated around her and pushed back the sickly glow of the venom that had ravaged her spirit. My magic surged through her veins and strengthened her.

I felt elated and alive. I had used my magic to protect Naomi and save her life. Triumph flowed through me, almost making me forget how exhausted I felt.

"Exult in your power, heir of Merlin!" the figure's voice boomed, breaking the silence, "You have bound another soul to your own, entwining your worlds forevermore."

Another gibbering howl erupted from the creatures waiting in the darkness, madder than before. Hungrier. I turned to face them, confidence bolstering me and giving me strength, but their eyes were not on me. Their baleful gaze was riveted on the hospital bed and the unconscious Naomi.
"No…" I whispered, unable to move with sudden realization.

The creatures clawed at the boundary the pool of light provided, pushing it inward. Shrinking it. The light was pushed inward until the shadowed figure was barely a silhouette in the shadows outside the wavering circle, golden eyes still smoldering.

"Your Power is great, Emrys," the cowled man said, his voice clear even over the eager wails, "You draw others to you, good and evil. They will do anything to gain a piece of that Power."

The shadowed man's eyes winked out and the silhouette was lost in the darkness as the circle of white light was pushed inward toward the hospital bed.

"Please no…" I could barely speak with the terrible knowledge of what was about to happen.

Panic dropped in my stomach like cold lead and a freezing sweat broke on my face. I tried to gather my Power again, but I could not focus my mind. Again and again I tried, each time the magic was just out of reach. I could not hold back the creatures in the dark.

The pool of light dimmed and shrank. I could see the glint of the chitinous plates and matted fur as they pressed closer against the boundary between light and dark, merciless and intent on the bed. I cursed and screamed, betrayed by my own magic.

I looked down at the girl that I had saved and condemned at the same time. Her eyes were fluttering open, a bright blue where deep brown had been before.

"I-Isaac?" Naomi croaked.

I looked down and couldn't bear to meet her eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said.

I bent close to her to protect her from the claws I was sure would come. The white light flickered once and then went out, darkness descending on me like a shroud. I heard the ecstatic cry of the pack of beasts rend the air and felt clawed hands grab me. I was sure I was going to die, but they merely shoved me to back from the bed and the girl, ignoring me. A press of bodies rushed past me in the blackness, scrabbling and fighting.

My heart lurched and sudden anger filled me, giving me strength and focus. Raising my hands over my head, I reached for my magic, using the sudden rage as catalyst.

"No!" I screamed.

Power flowed and I could only think of one thing… fire. My magic coalesced and roared into life as a disk of brilliant blue spellfire that whirled overhead. Harsh blue light cut the darkness and threw back the shadow. I was prepared to face a horde of slavering monsters drawn from nightmares and burn them to ash with the power of my magic.

But I was alone.

The blue light revealed only an empty hospital bed, sheets torn by scrabbling claws. I was alone. My spellfire guttered and died, azure embers floating lazily, still burning on residual magic in the air. The anger drained out of me, replaced with agonizing guilt.

"I'm sorry."