The Dream Map, Ch 3, Conditions

Aertis did not know that Kylion had already begun training a few months earlier.  Jaielle had taken Kylion in secret to see Orin.  Orin referred to himself as the Village prophet, but most of the Villagers called him, "Orin the Crackpot." He was a thin pale man who stood nearly seven feet high. His appearance was dusty, like many of the peasants in Sendozor, with the exception his hair. Orin cut it himself, jaggedly, with the same dagger he used to hunt all his own food. His hair was bright silver filled with unnatural luster. He was selectively nomadic-moving constantly, but never far. People always whispered about Orin, and tried to devise ways to get him into the Asylum. Most of them never caught more than a glimpse of him. Orin was an expert at allusiveness, drawing only those he wanted near him.

For all the people of Sendozor could tell he had no history. Some of the older peasants said they had heard Orin claim years ago that he had been raised by Pychar and Krytia, and naturally  paid homage to them. But he soon learned how thin the villagers faith in the god and goddess had become, and he had been relieved to encounter Jaielle and Kylion. He knew the god and goddess wanted him to instruct Kylion on fulfilling his part of their mission.

Kylion was just two years old when the first encounter happened. Jaielle had taken her son  into the forest to gather berries, and Kylion had wandered off straight into Orin's camp. Jaielle had been terrified, until she saw how completely comfortable her son was around the man. Orin told Jaielle on that day that Kylion had great power in his mind, and would grow to pass on a legacy that would transform the Village.

"So, you are a prophet," Jaielle gasped.

"Of course," Orin replied. "But I am severely misunderstood-as it should be. Conformity is dangerous, as is perceived sanity. There is always a plan out there in the shadows of ordinary, written in maps before our blinded eyes. The boy has taught you to see with your heart. The god and goddess have blessed you with your difficulties. "

"You could tell the future, then. I have always known that Kylion is chosen. I can not see for what."

"The details are locked in a secret box. We are all prophets if we choose-but it is only the shadows and wind of the future. Any further knowledge is toxic."

Jaielle shook her head in frustration. "You talk in jumbles, old man. Do you know my son's purpose or not?"

Orin paced a bit and sat on a large rock. Kylion cuddled in his lap. Orin caressed the mark on Kylion's ankle. "Follow the map to the answers you need. You will be cared for by your own dreams."

At that, peace came over Jaielle like warmth out of nowhere. Kylion laughed before a fear came over him. His ankle was sore and he jumped out of Orin's lap. Kylion turned and stared at Orin with a look beyond Jaielle's understanding.

"What have you done?" Jaielle accused.

"We must all learn to manage our own power," Orin said calmly. The boy nodded and ran back to his mother. "You will visit again?" Orin was addressing Kylion, and Jaielle answered "yes," her son's voice overtaking her own judgment. She knew it was futile to compete with whatever mission the Pychar and Krytia had given her son, and all she could hope was that they would reveal to her what role she needed to play.

*******

Kylion lay on the cot next to his father- he was now the only one awake in the cottage. He listened to the bustle outside: the vagrant peasants, the stray animals, the chirping insects, the wind.... One by one, each fell silent as Kylion focused on their sound. His mother was right indeed. He was chosen. However, he had power growing within him that not even Jaielle could understand. As Kylion surrendered the last bits of life in Sendozor to their own subconscious, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
******
It was cool that night, and for a while Kylion struggled to keep his share of the blanket.  He could feel the mark on his ankle get warm as it sometimes did. As the pigment of Kylion's mark inched over his ankle, his power to control the unconscious minds of those around him grew as well. Kylion found if he concentrated, he could move that warmth until it engulfed him, and he would not need the blanket at all. On this particular night, he found that the warmth came quickly and he was soon dreaming himself.

Kylion dreamt of his mother, lying on a dirt floor in a burlap gown with her hands and feet bound. Her bloodshot eyes stared at white walls in every direction. Kylion knew he would be able to change his mother's fate, eventually. He could not plant new dreams in others' minds, just maneuver what was already there. One day, he promised to his mother in his mind, he would manipulate the dreams of the warden. He would weave her into his dreams, encourage him to look on her with favor.

But Kylion did not yet know who the warden was, and so he could not direct his dreams. All he saw was the vision in his mother's mind bound in her own awful reality. Kylion began to direct.

Jaielle stared at the white wall with such rage that a piece of it melted away, and Kylion ran through and undid the ropes around her hands and feet.

"I knew you would come!" Jaielle exclaimed.

"It isn't real, Mother," Kylion confessed. "When you wake, you will still be here, and I will be back with Father."

Jaielle sighed. "I don't care," she said. "Let's go play!"

The two of them leapt through the place in the wall where Kylion had entered and into their shared memory where the two of them had been laying quietly in a forest clearing. They'd watched insects that day, as they scavenged for food to bring their families, and as they so bravely presented it, before going back for more.  Kylion and Jaielle grew tired and  huddled together, watching a mother sparrow fly back and forth from the nest with her new infant birds to the wide world where she had to gather food.

"She has to leave them," Jaielle told Kylion. "She has to fly away, and hope that her children will not be attacked by some forest fiend while she is away. But I am lucky. I can keep my child by my side."

Kylion, like his mother, had forgotten that they had walked into a dream. The dream was based on a real memory, but the memory was based on a lie. The fact that Jaielle did not mean for it to be a lie did not matter. All that mattered was that she was gone. In that moment it made no difference whether she had flown away or was dragged. She was his mother, and she should have somehow know it would happen.

His mind drifted to the day he met Orin, and of the counseling, he had given him on the potency of his power. He must manage it effectively, Orin warned, or great pain would come. Discretion and honor are more powerful than any talent given by Pychar and Krytia. Conceit and revenge are destructive, potentially more destructive than the god and goddess.

Jaielle felt the substance of her little boy melt until he no longer felt solid in her arms.

"Kylion, where are you going?" she asked desperately. "Please, don't leave yet."

Kylion would have like to stay in that place with his mother, in that peaceful moment, but he knew all to well what was true. He found himself in his father's dream, and in Cora's. They were all responsible for the fear and uncertainty before him.

"I am lucky," he heard his mother's voice repeat. "I can keep my child safe." Over and over he heard those words shouting at him, like a reverse echo-- one that grew louder each time, instead of softer.

"Liar!" he shouted, and he melted away into his father's dream.

Aertis dreamed in hope, for he and his son had built little memory. They were practicing targets in the forest, when Aertis leaned up against a tree. The branches transformed into ropes and held him tight against the trunk. Aertis' bow dropped from his hand. Kylion moved to retrieve it, and some of the sharper arrows from his father's pouch.

"That's it, Son!" Aertis cried. "Use the arrows! Cut me loose!"

But Kylion thought only of the way his father had sent his mother to the Asylum, away from him. He made no attempt at rescue, but instead drew back his father's bow with perfect aim and form despite it's being much too large for him.

A great wind suddenly emerged that Kylion had not orchestrated, and out of two voices whispered, a perfect chorus in his ear. 

 "Conceit and revenge bring only destruction. Your father's turn has come. Release him, Kylion. Your path is not for you to choose. You must manage your gifts effectively or great pain will come."

"No!" Kylion screamed into the air. He was duplicated, appearing still in Aertis's dream but also Jaielle's. His legs grew numb and he tumbled to his knees, and like a siren he screeched in pain.


Kylion awoke thrashing and screaming.. He kicked his father off the cot onto the floor, and looked at him with a blank emotionless stare.

"Cora!" Aertis shouted, and Cora rose and rushed into the room, relieved to have been rescued from her own dreams. Kylion rolled back and forth across the cot gripping tightly to his ankle, mumbling apologies to Orin under his breath.

"Has he sprained his ankle?" Cora asked. "Did you roll on top his leg somehow? The cot is awful small for the both of you...."

"This is not my doing!" Aertis barked, and Cora slid herself toward the door.

"I'm sorry, Milord," she said. "Shall I fetch Laiya?"

Aertis showed no sympathy for Cora's fear. "For what?" he bellowed. "The boy is not in labor! There's something wrong with his leg! Can't you see that?"

"I have seen Laiya assist in healing many ailments, Milord. Her talents are not exclusive to childbirth...."

"No!" Aertis shouted again, this time in a voice not his own -- a voice he himself seemed surprised to hear find its way into the air. He reached down and unwrapped Kylion's grip from his ankle. No one could deny the mark now - for it burned as bright as lightning, a golden map of Sendozor, and it was causing Kylion great pain.

"Orin!" Aertis commanded. "Go, now, Cora! You must fetch Orin and bring him here!"

"I don't know where to look, Milord," Cora stammered. Kylion screeched in pain again.

"Run," Aertis said, "He will feel the desperation. He will follow."

Again, the voice out of Aertis's mouth did not belong to Aertis, but Cora obeyed nonetheless. She darted out of the cottage and into the forest, and amazingly, Cora found that the more she ran, the less she feared. He vision tunneled, yet everyone and everything stayed out of her way, until she did at last run straight into Orin, and tumbled to the forest floor.


Cora attempted to tell Orin what had happened, that Aertis, or someone, had instructed that she find him and bring him back to assist with Kylion but found she could do nothing but weep.

Orin held out his hand and helped Cora to her feet. "It's all right, little dove," Orin told her. "Your spirit speaks clearly."

Orin let go of Cora's hand and began racing through the forest toward the village, weaving in and out of trees like tall twine. Cora ran as well, but stayed behind him - first just a few yards, which turned to a half mile by the time Orin reached the cottage. A man his age should not be able to move so fast, Cora thought. However, Cora knew better than to be surprised any longer. From the moment Kylion was born, nothing that involved him was as it should be. Kylion's mere existence had skewed the world, and Cora was not certain it was for the good.