Proluge and Chapte one

Oddly loud foot steps brought Cornell to the edge of consciousness, the dank smell of molding rock assaulting his senses.

"Do you know who any of them are? Or more importantly who their leader is?" a voice asked, soft with arrogance.

"Yes sire, there are two others but they might not survive the night," another replied, cautious steps stopping so close, but the echo wandered.

"From dress alone we think this one to be a leader of sorts," the cautious voice continued, "He's also the one which bore the sheathed sword."

Alarm filled him as he reached for the absent blade, a dark curse escaping his lips as chains chinked.A haggard breath turned into a spasm as a coughing fit took over, breath becoming a struggle.

"Do you think he'll recover?" the first voice asked boredly, a ringed hand tapping iron bars with a ping as Cornell tasted the iron warmth of blood.

"It would be better if we could keep him somewhere drier, and warmer," the second voice answered, "the desert is a warm dry place, it could well save him."

"Then I'll have him moved," the first said, the soft steps wandering away followed by the other.

----



Warmth, seeped though him. A gift from the grit below as a wind blew over his still form, trying to bury the not quite dead. He was one more of the dead and almost dead, the odd moan could be heard, or was it just the wind, the constant wind was mourning. His eyes watered when opened, the lingering poison stinging more then sand. Clenching his eyes closed he heard so much more, animal like cries he knew were calls of his people, triumphant clarions. They were retreating, they had to. He tried to move, but he could not save to clutch his blade.


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Proluge
Footsteps woke him from the sand, heavy and plentiful.

"Just get him to drink it," it was one of the voices from before, the nervous one.

"What is it?" Cornell asked, gaining unsteady feet with a great effort.

"A sedative, your being moved," was the answer.

The greased hinges of the door opened, allowing the clunking steps of the guards into the cell.

Try not to be too brutal, he's still in a fragile state," he spoke with a heavy sigh.

One of the guards laughed, a laugh turned into a hack as Cornell's hand struck his throat with stunning force.

"Sorry doctor, he's a fighter," spoke a rough voice of a guard, before brutality smashing Cornell's lean frame against the iron bars. His breath left in a pained gasp, only to return in a barking cough worsened by the guard's heavy hand on his chest.

"Just make him drink it," the doctor said, sighing softly.

"Fine, fine." A Cold metal gripped forced Cornell's jaw open, shoving the metal topped vial between exposed teeth. Gagging as his head was torqued back, the foul tasting contents found an unwilling path down his throat. Sinking to the ground as with the steadying grips release, his stomach roiling as the ground swayed him to a sickened sleep.


Chapter one into the mind

The prospect of the mind meld he was about to perform had Zephane in a slight state of trepidation. The mind was a curious thing, and what he would find in this nomad leader's dreams he could not be sure. The fractured fearful delusions of a tortured prisoner were a simple matter to sort through, or the carefully manipulated dreams of the nobles he had done on Alten's behalf were simple. They didn't resist, the prisoners were to terrified and nobles were never aware of what he did. He was certain this tight lipped desert dweller would have quite a different dream scape.

The doctor Kisen looked up, giving the magus a foul look as he entered the holding cell. Zephane simply returned it.

"Are things as I require doctor?" he asked with contempt.

"He won't wake for a few hours, even with his resistance to the sedative's effect," Kisen answered his expression only turning fouler.

"You really shouldn't hate what I do so much doctor. After all my success saves you having to heal the tortured," Zephane said, moving closer to the bound prisoner, even unconscious as he was his expression seemed pained.

"You're no different from then Altean's pet inquisitor," Kisen said.

"Then you are a lap dog. I simply choose to enjoy the benefits doctor," Zephane said, taking a seat across from the drugged nomad. "And doctor?"

"What?" Kisen asked.

"If you do have to wake me again, do not do so by upturning my chair again" Zaphane said before leaning forward slightly as he softly muttered mantras.

--

A desire for thirst quenching water made its self intensely known as a thieving blew stealing moisture from his very flesh as he stood squinting beneath the hostile sun. No other dream he'd been in, it was far too real.

"That's because they were weak and untrained," a mocking voice came from behind. Zephane was eye turned, to be eye to eye with the narrow eyed gaze of lion sized desert lynx lounging on a sand whittled rock.

"Obviously you don't recognize me like this," the cat said, jumping lithely from it's perch landing in a more familiar form dressed in beast hide armour with the coveted blade across his back.

"Perhaps you excepted me to be trussed up like a fowl ready to spill my every secret?" Cornell asked the still shocked Zephane.

"That would have made things simpler," Zephane answered, earning a dark chuckle from Cornell.

"Even if I had any inclination to tell you anything, the knowledge would gain you nothing," Cornell said, his voice clear of his sickly rasp.

"And why are you so certain of that?" Zephane asked.

"Because the blade your master so desires has a history. A history that no one in this waste land of decadence could possibly understand!" Cornell told him, his acerbic tone and rising fury matched by stinging sands and raging wind.

"Stop!" Zephane said firmly, his conscious will and spoken words silencing the threatening storm, leaving the dead silence and bright light.

"You know just enough to be a pest," Cornell told him darkly, releasing an irritated breath.

"What do you mean?" Zephane asked, daring to step closer.

"You really are ignorant of you own power aren't you?" Cornell asked, "Of the sort of danger you pose, to yourself, to the minds you invade, to what you're playing with, what your meddling could attract, has attracted. All for your petulant boy king."

"Then why don't you tell me?" Zephane asked.

"Why would I?" Cornell asked, "You are my enemy, a trespasser of my mind, an ally to the destroyer of my home," he answered, with a turn he left becoming a colored mirage against the endless gold sand and azure blue sky. Zaphane with resignation followed.

The sheer distance of dunes they walked across was enough to cause Zephane despair, the invasive grist's campaign of his clothing was enough to drive a man mad. But he did not stop following the wandering nomad across his sandscape dream. Curiosity and a desperate need drove him onward.

Cornell stopped his endless wandering, the howling wind became a gentle sigh, the harsh blazing sun had faded to a smiling silver sliver amidst the guiding maze of constellations. Day had turned to night with out so much as an acknowledgement of dusk.

The instantaneous change was distraction enough as a great, weighty force knocked him to the granular ground. From the narrow and angular face of a desert lynx stared those piercing yellow flecked eyes.

"Do you know what happens if you die here?" it asked, sharp claws pricking through to vulnerable skin.

"Not exactly" Zephane answered, struggling for breath, his mind racing.

"The same thing that happens everywhere else," he answered, sounding disturbingly pleased as claws drew cloth staining blood.

"Stop playing games" Zephane said, with a sudden calm knocking the massive cat away with ease.

"This will get you no where." Cornell's feline expression one of grim pleasure, "Your in my mind, my dream, you are nothing here."

"But you can't make me leave can you? If you could you would have wouldn't you?" Zephane asked, as he stood. "Just give me enough information to appease Alten and I'll leave."

"No," Cornell answered flatly, "there will be no trade. I will tell you nothing. Not of my people, not of my homeland, and certainly not of my blade." Before Zephane's very eyes Cornell's form changed as he spoke. He stood tall, wearing the beast hide armour of his people the stolen blade across his back.

"You will leave trespasser, or you will perish," Cornell said, "perhaps you will suffocate, drowning in a sea of sand." his smile malevolent.

"You will not be rid of me so easily," Zephane said, stepping back from the sinking maw. "I am not so weak as to fall for such petty traps." Brown eyes narrowing as the sinking stream followed him, "Be reasonable," he demanded, willing the sand solid.

"Reasonable! What do you and your kind know of reasonable? You take what it is not yours, and leave ruin. What was reasonable about the waste land you have made of my home, or the hundreds you've slaughtered?" Cornell said, the sandstorm matching his vehemence.

"Then be sensible," Zephane said, "Outside of this dream you helpless. Your weak health is the only thing keeping you from Alten's crueller attentions." The flurry of sand stopped short of his rocky territory.

"And what if I do tell you what your boy emperor istaka wants to know? Will that gain me my freedom? Or heal my homeland from your poison? Or bring back the dead?" Cornell asked with ire as he stepped closer.

"Your freedom perhaps," Zephane offered with traitorous uncertainty.

"You offer what you cannot even guarantee," Cornell said, a single hallow laugh escaping him. "Any promise you make me here can be nulled by your princeling. Your words are meaningless. Now leave."

"I will not," Zephane answered resolutely, "You and your bluster do not frighten me."

"Only the foolish and the ignorant do not know fear," Cornell said, and the world fell, into nothing.

Nothing but a quietly wailing wind. It was a black blank of nothing, not the dark of a deep cellar, or of a moonless, starless night, it was the black of a complete emptiness. "Cornell!" Zephane yelled, his voice dieing on the wind. "What did you do?" No answer beyond the ever present sighing of the wind. "I know you can hear me dammit!"

"I can hear you, I can hear the nervous beat of your heart, and the fear full pant of your breath," Cornell voice came from behind, "your words are brave but simple darkness makes you a lost child."

Zephane turned, there was still nothing. The ground beneath his feet was textureless, stable it was simply space that didn't want him to fall. "Your enjoying this aren't you?" Only a change in the wind's pitch answered. "Enough," he muttered darkly, "enough of these games, you dress like a warrior yet you hide like a coward!"

"He is hesitant to kill here in the dreamscape, a reason which will not remain for long. I really do advise you leave," the soft voice of a barely seen newcomer, a slender silhouette against an emerald tree.

"Vaylin, you shouldn't be here," Cornell said, finally appearing in a harsh yellow light.

"I know," his voice smooth, but faint "Selenia was worried, as am I. there is another dream eater."

"This ones been wandering about unshielded, " Cornell said, gesturing to Zephane.

"Don't face it alone, even if it means running," Vaylin said.

"I'm not an idiot cousin, we can make a proper event of it," Cornell said, his tone turning friendly.

"Just stay alive for a few weeks and we can," Vaylin said, voice and presence fading to nothing again.

"I really am looking forward to it," Cornell said, expression turning dour

"Where did he come from?" Zephane asked, gaping at the empty space, "And what is a dream eater?"

"Neither concern you," Cornell said, "This has gone on long enough, you will leave now." He drew his leather sheathed blade, the mesmerizing light from the long sword showing it's dark skinned wielder in an unearthly light. "Or you will die."

"I'm not leaving until I have what I came for desert dweller," Zephane answered, "and I will be more then a pest." The shimmering blade came forward in a clean arch, only to be lodged in one of so many imagination born trees he'd brought forth.

"You are as unoriginal as you are skilled," Cornell taunted, the shimmering blade felling it to rejoin the blankness again. Backing up, away from the nomad he tripped, panicing he brought forth another change. The ground turned splashed in a salty wave as he hit it, trees and underbrush falling as melting as the wave spread.

"N fast enough," Cornell said, standing only ankle deep on the sandy shore Zephane was beached on, his blade coming with irrefutable determination.

He woke with a gasp to a horrible smell.

"Your bleeding," Kisen said flatly, tucking the foul waking salt away. "Rather badly, from a sword wound, how unusual," The doctor remarked, already beginning his work on his wincing patient.

"Just get it to stop bleeding," Zephane snapped. He had reason to worry, Alten would want him to try again, and he didn't no if he would survive another trip.

"Alten's not going to be pleased is he?" the doctor asked, sounding almost amused.


Authors notes:This is old, the novel this is for has been revised, and this isn't really at all part of it anymore. A scene like this does happen but it's all completetly diffrent now. I may or may not be putting scenes on here at some point in time but it will be a long while as I'm not doing any real editeing until I'm done the rough draft.