Chapter 3

The sun came up slowly, creeping over the edge of the mountains and slowly burning away the fog that clung to the ground near the Isle of Dreams. Arakel stood on the bank of the wide river that encircled the Isle, his eyes looking at the once stately buildings still wreathed in mist. Of the four bridges that once spanned the river, each built of heavy stone blocks sheathed in marble, one remained but its marble sheathing was cracked and in places broken off, exposing the stone blocks underneath. The heavy bronze stands that once held hanging oil lamps here either missing or broken at random heights along the bridge as he walked along it, returning to the Isle.

The Isle of Dreams had been a gem of a city, supported by the nearby gem deposits in the mountains. The buildings had been tall and graceful, sheathed in the purest marble with broad avenues that all lead to the Temple of Dreams at the very center of the Isle. The avenues had been lined with ancient oak trees that kept them shaded with their broad limbs as the tall, fair haired people walked beneath them, clad in robes and loincloths, the women unashamedly bare-breasted in the green-tinged sunlight.

Now, however, that city was a shattered dream. The invasion of the Ryu-Sincar had turned most of the once beautiful buildings into crumbling ruin. Most of the ancient trees had been hewed down and left to rot in the streets. Even the tightly fit paving stones of the avenues had been pried up or smashed in the invasion. As Arakel strode down the avenue, moving cautiously over the uneven ground, he saw little to no signs of animal activity, which somewhat surprised him. Two thousand years of wreckage and ruin, he had expected to see animal, or at least their signs, somewhere in the city.

He turned off the main avenue, and walked down a street that, while not nearly as broad as the central avenues, was still spacious enough that a pair of wagons could once have passed unhindered. The buildings down this street were only slightly less ruined than the others. He moved a bit slower now as he stepped through a ruined doorframe into one of the houses. Inside, the great winged stairwell was clogged with rubble, and the small fountain built into the curve between the two stairs no longer worked. Arakel stepped into the empty, rubble-choked fountain and brushed away the cobwebs and dust from the back curved wall to reveal the sigil of House Ve’Tria, one of the longest lines of priests on the Isle.

House Ve’Tria had been his house, his family and this ruined and rubble-choked building had once been, for thirteen years, his home.

Arakel’s fingers traced the intricate knot of his family crest, moving almost nostalgically. He’d only visited a few times in the two thousand years since the Isle had fallen, and every time it hurt somewhat to see his family home in ruins. The first time he’d been here, only ten years after the Isle had been destroyed, he’d felt so much pain and agony coming from the ruins, each house screaming out to him and his inborn ability to hear and speak with dead. His footsteps had carried him here to his home, and he had fled not long after, the screams of his own mother and sisters screaming out at him of their repeated rapes and beatings at the hands of the Ryu-Sincar.

Now though, the dead were silent, the faint energy binding them to the Isle having dissipated long ago. His hand fell off the stone wall and he left the ruined building, where he was surprised to see that the sun had reached noon already. He retraced his steps down the street until he reached the central avenue. Once there, he picked his way through the rubble towards the still-standing marble dome of the Temple.

As he drew closer, he was struck again by the thought that it was odd that after two thousand years of neglect that it still stood, the dome rising above the ruined buildings and the trees to stand guard over the once beautiful Isle of Dreams. The dome flowed down into four large halls, each one facing one of the central avenues, and even these had withstood time and weather. The great doors that lead into the halls had been smashed down with battering rams when Ryu-Sincar attacked the Isle and his people had fled into the Temple. For the first time since he was thirteen, Arakel stepped over the threshold and into the Temple that had once been the center of his world.

Broken chains dangled from the walls, the metal bowls that one held the oil and cast pools of golden light across the walls and floor long gone. His footsteps echoed back from the marble walls and roof, sounding forlorn and lonely. His memories of the place filled it with light, laughter, conversation and the smell of soft lavender incense. Now, it was dark, silent, smelling of stagnant water and rot. The Temple was still warm and humid, as it always had been

He stepped into the central room, his eyes automatically seeking out the great well in the middle of the room. This room looked to have been desecrated worse than the entire city combined, as a ring of steel spikes lined the well, each one with a skeleton crumpled at the base. More skeletons lay around the room, some half submerged in the stagnant pools that had once served as hot tubs, others lay on the floor or against the edge of the walls, rusted iron collars around their necks, the chains on the collars crudely hammered into the wall.

Arakel walked forward, and stood at the very edge of the well. There was a thin layer of stagnant water down at the bottom, but there was something else. He peered down, trying to see what lay in the shadows at the bottom of the well. Finally, frustrated that he couldn’t make it out, he walked a few paces over and, after a quick check to be sure that the stone grooves hadn’t been destroyed, he climbed down to the bottom of the well, only to draw back in shock.

Lying on its side was a dead Nek-Tem. Its tentacles were stretched out along the curve on the well, and for the first time in his life he saw its actual body. It had four sturdy legs and a small, roundish body, with no eyes or visible mouth. Arakel slowly walked towards it, one hand held out towards the only God he had ever known, and he could feel its spirit still lingering, which meant it was less than a week dead. He knelt in the stagnant water, and laid one hand on the head of his dead God. “Had I but known any of you were still here, I would have returned sooner to take you away that we might one day resurrect the Isle, and return both our peoples. Rest in peace my friend, rest in peace.”

Arakel stood, and looked around the bottom of the well again. Just behind the Nek-Tem was a small hollow, roughly carved as though the Nek-Tem itself had used its tentacles to smash the marble into a small nook. He carefully stepped over the tentacles of the Nek-Tem, and knelt again in the water. His eyes widened as he saw an egg, dark in colour and covered with thick ribs to protect it, tucked in the rough hollow. He slipped the leather satchel off his shoulder, and opened it up. Then, with hands that shook from excitement and nervousness he picked up the egg, feeling again the rough pebbled texture of the egg, and tucked it carefully into the satchel, which then went back over his shoulder. He stood, and looked again at the Nek-Tem, wonder in his mind and thanks in his heart.