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Ily's Dream

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"Ed Stack is a very talented writer." Robert J. Sawyer Nebula Award-winning author of CALCULATING GOD

Ily's tortured lungs gasped for air as she slumped awkwardly against the tree, her sword catching in the dirt while her legs trembled with fatigue. Settled uncomfortably between her thighs was the pouch containing the orb which she absent-mindedly slid over onto her hip, fingers tingling from the touch.

The little thief was tired: tired of running, tired of being afraid, tired of being alone, tired of being used. Soon the sun would rise, but there would be no warmth in it for her, no joy in a new day. For Ily this dawn promised to be her last, and she did not revel in its impending arrival.

Shaking her weary head, she wondered if maybe it would be best to just give up. After all, it was not as if she stood a chance anyway, so why struggle against the inevitable? Then, teeth clenched, face lifted high, she answered her own question, screaming into the wind, "Because I am damned if I will let it end this way!"

How had she gotten here? "A fate worse than death". It was a cliche, but it was what he had promised, and in her heart she knew that it, like so many cliches, held truth. Yesterday, standing by the cavern's entrance, she had been afraid, afraid of what might happen to her in that forbidding place, but more so of what would happen if she did not enter, and succeed. Now, dragging herself to her feet, she forced her exhausted limbs into action, her mind drifting back over the events of the last two days.

Ily was small, slim, and alone, as always. Even just standing there, slowly flexing her supple limbs, she had the grace of a dancer, or a hawk. Her ankle-length brown cloak was thrown back over her shoulders, revealing darker brown studded-leather armor, with a short sword on her left hip and a dagger on her right. Her knee-high leather boots were earth colored. A small belt pouch and waterskin were also visible, although daggers in her right boot and left sleeve were not. Nor was the long sword on her back, hidden under the cloak with the hilt nestled against the nape of her neck, covered by her hair. Also hidden were her scars.

Grey was the color of her eyes, not the clear blue of a child nor the cold blue of a warrior, not the innocent brown of a fawn nor the terrifying yellow of a jungle cat at night. She was all these things, and none. Her eyes were like her, neutral. With dirty-blond hair hanging to her shoulders and cafe-au-lait skin she was neither black nor white, good nor evil.

It has been said that steel is hardened in the fire, and that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Ily was hard, having been near-dead more than once, but it was a hardness without sharp edges. Never knowing family, never belonging, never loving or being loved, never having a home, never feeling safe, hers had been a hard and lonely, but not long, life. Thieving she had learned as a child in order to survive, and in surviving she had gotten good at it. Other skills, like the few bits of magic she could wield, she had gotten from others, but nothing was free and no-one gave anything away. If you wanted something you had to earn it, or take it.

Ily shook her head and settled the pack she wore on her back with a practiced shrug of her shoulders. A lifetime of aimless wandering, searching, had brought her here. Was this where it would end?

It had seemed so easy to her, stumbling across the house in the forest just two days before. Built of stone, three stories high, it had nestled in a clearing just off the small path she had decided would be wiser for her than the main road right now.

The house, with its many windows, some even made of glass, had looked wealthy. Reasoning to herself that wizards live in towers, the building had seemed like the chalet of some rich merchant, and because there were no guards or dogs she had been careless in her approach and entry. Being hungry had not helped.

Once she got inside she was sure she had been right. Gold candlesticks, a table set for twelve in fine china and exquisitely crafted silver, carpets worth a nobleman's ransom and so much more greeted her eyes when she slipped through the dining room window. Other rooms were equally rich.

Everywhere she saw the symbol of a lion rampant. It was carved in high-relief, woven into tapestries, and painted on walls. She could not believe her luck and made a mental note to sacrifice something to whichever diety had blessed her in this way, if she could figure out who deserved the credit. Maybe this lion, which seemed like a god.

He saw her first. Quickly, the fingers of his right hand wove a simple pattern in the air while he spoke a single word, and she suddenly found herself unable to move. Only her eyes roamed the room. Rows of books, large and small, ancient and not, lined three walls of the chamber. Shelves of various vials, beakers, bowls and boxes, along with some terrible things she did not want to see, flanked a huge fireplace set in the wall across from the door through which she had entered. The long table at which he sat, like the other two tables in the room, was laden with similar items, while a large tapestry ran from floor to ceiling in the middle of the wall on her left. Even on this warm spring day the room was chill, despite the roaring fire.

Rising from his padded chair, he stood in front of her in a black robe shot with scarlet lines which seemed to pulse in the light as if they were the veins carrying his very life-blood. Emblazoned on his chest was the now familiar symbol of the lion rampant. Although the wizard did not look old, Ily sensed that he was older than mortal man should ever be. Bald, with the flesh on his face drawn tight over the bones, he studied her with skeletal eyes which she felt looking deep into her soul, leaving her with a naked, raped feeling, one she was all too familiar with. No secret of her life remained untouched.

"Ily." Her name sounded foul when he spoke it, running it across his tongue like wine, and she felt violated. "Eelee," he continued. "A pretty name for a pretty girl." The smile returned. "I am glad you have come. It is a convenient time. Normally you would be dead already."

He casually flicked a piece of lint off of his robe, and the look he gave Ily told her she mattered no more to him than that. Still smiling, he said, "Perhaps I will let you live, if you will perform a small favor for me?"

Without waiting for a reply he moved over to the fireplace. Standing in front of the flames and speaking in a language she did not know, he drew a square box, about eight inches a side, out of the very stone itself. Staring into her eyes, he brought the box to her. Made of bone, carved with arcane runes, it radiated power. When he opened it she saw a swirling mist which seemed alive, trapped in a crystal orb which just fit into its receptacle. She felt awe, but no fear, at the sight.

"The favor is simple," he whispered with a smirk which suggested it might not be a simple as he said, but that she did not have much choice, so it did not really matter if it were simple or not. "I will send you to an island. There you will enter a cavern. Carry this orb down into the heart of the place until you reach a pool of water. Place the orb in the water. It will float." As he spoke he took a vial from the mantelpiece, removing a small wand from the box at the same time. Under his gaze the wand turned into a full-sized mace, the symbol of the lion rampant engraved on its head.

"Smash the orb with this mace, then fill this vial with some of the water. Bring the water back to me, and I will not only set you free, I will give you more jewels than you could ever steal in your entire pathetic life." The mace became a wand again, which he put it back into the box beside the orb, along with the vial.

Once again that terrible smile crossed his face, as he strolled over next to the large tapestry. "If you fail I will not come looking for you, but I will not let you go. I will send this!"

Wrenching the tapestry aside he revealed a large cage built into the wall. Instantly, savagely, its occupant hurled itself at the bars in a desperate but futile attempt to reach its tormentor. "Not a very friendly pet, is he?" cackled the wizard. Gesturing with both hands he drove the thing screaming back from the front of the cage. Then Ily could see it clearly, a grotesque parody of a man, upright but hunched over, long arms which reached almost to the ground ending in dagger-like claws. When she looked at it she saw that its face was hideous, with one deformed eye and huge fangs from which a vile drool fell to the floor. Its manhood hung bloated and ugly between its legs, and she dreaded what it would do to her if it had a chance. Evil radiated from it, and she felt a terror greater than she had ever known, greater than she had ever imagined.

Chuckling coldly to himself, the wizard spoke to her, "It is not a pet, of course. It is not even from this world. I brought it here because I learned its name and now it must serve me, one time. That time will be soon if you fail me. It will hunt you, find you, and drag you back to its world, alive, if I tell it to."

He paused, running his gaze over Ily's slim form in a manner which chilled her heart. "And I will tell it to. It hates me for bringing it here, and when I command it to find you, fulfilling that command will be the only way it can free itself to return to the hell that it calls home. You will pay for the hate it bears me. `A fate worse than death', no?"

With that he gave her the box and brought her over to one of the smaller tables where he unrolled a small, obviously ancient, map, which he proceeded to explain. "This is the island, and here is the cavern at the southern end. There should be no problem finding it. If you get lost go back to the south, but if you do you had better hurry back to the cavern because you have only one full day to return to me. Tomorrow at dawn you will start, and if you are not back by the next sunrise I will send our mutual friend after you, something neither of us wants to happen, no?"

Without replying she looked at the map. It was of an oval island some thirty miles long and twenty wide, with the cavern clearly shown at the southern end. An etched skull denoted the entrance, along with other representations of evil, but these symbols seemed odd to her, not quite right. It was as if they did not belong on the map. Perhaps they had been added by someone other than the original cartographer, or perhaps whatever was inside the cavern was of a more recent vintage than the rest of the markings.

She saw that forests covered most of the island, except at the northern end. A road connected the cavern with a town there. In the center of the town was a temple of some sort. Other markings had once been in and around the town, but these had been scraped off, which made her wonder what there was that he did not want her to know, or that he wanted forgotten. Of course, maybe he had not made the changes, but she doubted that.

She must have slept, for the dawn found her huddled cold and shivering in a small boat. The craft was being rowed by a cloaked figure, its back to her. Thick fog hung behind them, blocking her view of where they had come from. Just before her loomed the island. Knowing there was no reason to speak with the oarsman she simply rested quietly until the small craft bumped ashore and she was able to step out and walk towards the cavern which waited just above the beach. Looking back, she saw the boat head back into the fog, to return the following morning.

Judging by the carvings on its door and frame, this was a place of great evil. The lion rampant dominated the portal, while all around it acts of unspeakable depravity abounded with creatures she did not recognize wreaking massive destruction on towns and cities while terrified people fled for their lives or cowered in desperation before the attacks of trolls, orcs, ogres, dragons, gargoyles, and other servants of evil. Into this place she must go, and so she was afraid.

To help allay her fear, and delay the inevitable, Ily took the box from her pouch and opened it. There was the orb, mist swirling and dancing, as if it were alive. When she picked it up and felt it tingling in her hand she knew for sure that it was indeed a living thing. She also knew that she would never be able to do what she had been sent here to do. There was something about this orb, something definitely animate, but also something very good, pure, clean and right, which touched a part of her long forgotten and presumed lost. Destroying this orb would be wrong, more wrong than anything she had ever done, and she had done many things. Somehow she knew all this, the orb told it to her, and she found herself in a position she had thought she would never be in again: the position of maybe doing something right.

But that only meant her doom and a simple delaying of the destruction of the orb. The wizard would send his servant and it would take her back to him. With the orb his again he would consign her to the hell he had arranged and someone else would do that which she would not. Nothing she knew of in this world could stop his demon, of that she was certain. All her experience told her, screamed at her, that there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no way to fight, no way to win.

Desperate, she thought about the map of the island. If she did not know where to run she would run to a place she did not know; the town with the temple. Since she was not going to do as she had been bid, she would die, but Ily was not the type to wait for death or to die before her time. She would live as long as she could, then sell her life as dearly as possible. This she swore on the orb, not knowing why she was doing it, only that it felt right.

And so she had run. Late that night she had found herself slumped against the tree, wondering why she was here, and where she could go. What had been a road on the map was long overgrown and barely perceptible, but she had followed it because she could think of no alternative. A river flowed beside it from the south.

Her run took all day and most of the night before she reached the ruined walls of the town she had been seeking. As the sun rose over the crumbling remains of an imposing gate she moved into the rubble of the first buildings.

Dropping her pack, she began to run along what must have been the processional way. Toppled pillars lined this thirty-five foot wide street. The collapsed buildings beside it seemed more impressive than those further out, while at the end she could see a hill or pyramid of some sort. Hoping it was the temple mound, she headed for it. If the temple were for a diety of good perhaps some power might aid her.

Behind her she heard a crashing of stone, and when she looked back she saw that the demon was there. It had smashed what was left of the gate and was tearing her pack to shreds in a bloodlust. She paused to create an illusionary cave bear which she left raised on its hind legs to slow her pursuer. Without waiting to see what happened, she turned, sprinting for the temple until she heard demonic laughter and looking back saw the demon dispel her illusion with one swat of its claw.

Frightened, she pulled a wand out of her belt and aimed it at the demon, knowing it was the last charge in the wand but that it did not matter. A bolt of lightening shot forth, passing right through the demon, and although she saw stones shatter behind her adversary it came forward unscathed, not even breaking stride in what was now a slow and deliberate advance.

Racing to the top of the ninety-foot mound she paused. Here was what remained of the temple, a curved, sixty-foot wide, twenty-foot high wall topped by a cracked dome some fifteen-feet higher still. An open door beckoned her from ten feet away. Glancing back once more, she saw the demon at the foot of the mound, grinning as it came. She readied and threw the daggers from her boot and sleeve in a smooth motion resulting from long hours of training, watching them hurtle directly at her target. The demon just batted them away.

Dashing into the temple, she drew her short sword and dagger from her belt before looking around. Cone shaped, the temple was one hundred and ten feet from this door to its apex, with pews along each side which gave her little choice in movement except straight down the center aisle towards a statue she could see glittering in the morning light filtering through the cracks in the dome. There was no other decoration in the place, just bare stone. Somehow the lack of decoration did not seem poor to her, but rather emphasized the elegance of the chamber and the statue of its long forgotten god, or goddess.

Incongruously, Ily remembered a story or poem she had once heard about a traveller in a desert who found only the enormous feet of a broken-down statue. Still barely legible on the base of the statue was the boast of this faceless king to his great power and everlasting fame. That king had feared death and being forgotten, had fought both, and had lost.

A noise in the doorway brought her back to her current problem, and she whirled to face her own demon. It entered as she backed away and she saw it raise itself to its full height. Her illusion had been wasted for even a real cave bear would have been helpless against this eighteen-foot monster, but she refused to die without a fight and launched herself at it, trusting to her skill and agility to offer some hope of success.

Spinning away, drawing her long-sword in a practiced motion, she ran for the statue of what she could now see was a goddess, hoping against hope for an exit of some sort behind it. After only a few steps she saw there was none.

Taking her sword in two hands she looked at the goddess, a beautiful work of life-size crystal standing on a ten-foot wide, five-foot high plinth set in the apex of the temple. She saw that it had the face of an angel, or a mother. It stood with two hands reaching out, palms turned in as if offering comfort or accepting the embrace of a loved child, which only emphasized Ily's aloneness.

With a sigh she turned to die. When the demon was in reach, and her back touched the plinth, Ily drove the sword at its chest with all her might, feeling it sink deep into the creature's body. The cold of the thing's heart filled the metal of the sword, and she dropped it, having felt an emptiness which chilled her to her core.

While the demon laughed once more, she pulled herself up onto the plinth, rolling over against the goddess and rising to one knee. For no reason she understood she pulled the box from her pouch and took the orb in her hand for one last time. She stared at it, wondering. It was because of this orb that she was about to die and she still did not know why.

Crouched at the foot of the statue, its out-stretched hands a mockery of protection, she knew that she had failed, and that she was doomed to an eternity of unimaginable suffering, as with sickening slowness the demon advanced upon her, sure of its victory and relishing the feeling. Desperate, she drew back her arm to hurl the orb into the very face of her tormentor, only to feel it smash against the breast of the goddess. Shards of shattered crystal fell to the floor around her. Blood flowed from cuts in her hand and mingled with the contents of the orb, which now covered the front of the statue.

Ily's jaw dropped and her eyes widened in disbelief as the mixture seemed to soak into the crystalline bodice of the goddess, and what had been a clear sculpture clouded and filled in. Howls of anger and fear from the demon brought Ily back to reality, and she turned to meet her fate, beaten and resigned. But even as she watched, the demon screamed and vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

Stunned by this, she did not look behind her until she heard the words in her ears. Where a statue had stood there was now a real goddess, asking in a voice of music and light, "Who is it that calls me back from eternal exile and despair?"

Unable to answer, Ily fell to her knees. When she looked up again she saw the goddess clearly for the first time and she knew she had nothing to fear from such a loving face so she stood and clasped the out-stretched hands, which closed around her own.

"I am Shumba," said the vision, "and I thank you for my heart." She paused as Ily's blank expression remained unchanged. "I see that my name means nothing to you, but I am not surprised. It has been many of your lifetimes since I have been here."

Shumba looked up through the broken ceiling, watching the clouds, then back to Ily. "I birthed a world, nurtured it, then loved a mortal man. You have met him. He learned much of magic from me and was to rule at my side forever, for I promised him everlasting life. But, as is too often the way with man, it was not enough. First he broke my heart. Then, using arts I did not know he was master of, he stole it, banishing me to the abyss between this world and others, doomed for all eternity to watch my world and be unable to return, incomplete as I was."

Gazing into Shumba's face Ily saw all too clearly the suffering the goddess had endured. This Shumba understood, and she continued her story, "Clever and learned though he became, he was unable to achieve immortality. Prolonging his life through foul and arcane means, he searched for the secret, until he found it at last. You were his tool, to do that which he could not. The pool at the heart of the island is pure, and no evil being can enter the cavern which gives access to it. That pool is the wellspring of all that is good, and that is why he had the entrance sealed and covered with symbols of evil. To scare good away, not to keep evil in. Had you broken my heart in the pool, he would have won. Drinking the water would have made him a demi-god, and my essence would have been too diluted to ever be returned to my body and soul, preventing my return forever."

Shumba looked into Ily's eyes, smiling sadly. Then the goddess brushed one smooth hand across the woman's brow. "You have had a hard time, and a hard life. Rest here, stay as long as you like. The forest will feed you, the river will refresh you. I go to end an old affair, and then perhaps I will see if my name can be restored, my faith rebuilt."

Ily watched Shumba fade into mist and flow upward through the cracks in the roof. When the goddess was gone Ily stood, took off her armor, then brushed the dust and dirt from her tunic. Weaponless, armorless, without any magic at her disposal, she was totally helpless by all the standards of her life, but she felt safe. Looking around at the remains of the temple, she knew that rebuilding it would take a lifetime, she knew that she would do it, and she knew one more thing.