paper. Clouds rushed in as she walked away and a moaning wind began to blow
dust-devils around her. She hurried towards the doorway where Dubro waited for
his gift.
The steel cracked before she had travelled half the distance, and the anvil
crumbled completely as she transferred it to him. Rain began to fall, washing
away Dubro’s face to reveal Lythande’s cruel, mocking smile. The magician struck
her with the card marked with the Face of Chaos. And she died, only to find
herself captive within her body which was being carried by unseen hands to a
vast pit. The dissonant music of priestly chants and cymbals surrounded her.
Within the dream, Illyra opened her dead eyes to see a large block of stone
descending into the pit over her.
‘I’m already dead!’ She screamed, struggling to free her arms and legs from
invisible bindings. ‘I can’t be sacrificed – I’m already dead!’ –
Her arms came free. She nailed wildly. The walls of the pit were glassy and
without hand-holds. The lowered stone touched her head. She shrieked as the life
left her body for a second time. Her body released her spirit, and she rose up
through the stone, waking as she did.
‘It was a dream,’ Illyra said before Dubro could ask.
The solution was safe in her mind now. The dream would not return. But it was
like a reading with the cards. In order to understand what the dream-spirit had
given her, she would have to meditate upon it.
‘You said something of death and sacrifice,’ Dubro said, un-mollified by her
suddenly calmed face.
‘It was a dream.’