Divine by Mistake (8 page)

She was an amazing-looking animal. She reminded me of one of the Royal Lipizzaner stallions I had seen several years ago when their tour stopped in Tulsa. She was a nice-size mare, probably almost fifteen hands high. From a distance her coat appeared to be all one glistening silver color, but as she got closer to me I could see that her muzzle was dark, like black velvet, and her silver coat faded to darkness around her expressive eyes and her well-shaped hocks. I had never seen a horse like her before, and I smiled at my dream imagination. She continued her contented grazing and I gave her a last look as I floated back up into the night. Maybe I would return before my dream was over and we could go for a lovely ride in the sky.

The puffy clouds seemed to have cleared for good, and from my aerial view I could turn my floating body slowly in a circle and see for miles in all directions. The elaborate temple buildings were surrounded by a huge marble wall. The land outside the temple proper was sweet and rolling, reminding me of the Umbria region of Italy. (I took ten high-school kids on an “educational” trip to Italy a couple of years ago. They did just fine chaperoning me.) The gentle hills looked to be covered with grapevines. Which figures because, of course, my dream would have to touch on wine somehow. Hopefully, a floating waiter who looked like Pierce Brosnan would soon appear to serve me my favorite Merlot.

But I guess I’d had enough wine for one night, because Pierce didn’t show. Yet.

Exploring my newest DreamLand seemed like a fun idea, so I kept floating and gawking. In the distance, probably to the north of the temple (don’t quote me on that, though; I am directionally impaired) I could make out what appeared to be a large mountain range. While I was beginning to float toward the mountains, I noticed, again, the breeze which, again, struck me as an odd addition to my DreamLand because it had a scent. The breeze was coming from the west and I turned my head into its softness. I took a deep breath and recognized the smell of…hmm…I think salt in the air. An ocean? My shifting of attention also changed the direction of my airborne body, and I felt myself float into the wind. By squinting my eyes I could barely make out some flickering lights and, maybe, the reflection of the moon on water. Smiling in anticipation of the dream possibilities, I decided to head in that direction—and was shocked by how quickly my dream self responded.

The land passing quickly beneath me was populated with sleepy little villages that were scattered between vineyard-covered rolling hills. A shimmering river connected them and I noticed several small, flat boats moored at each village site. The scent of salt was stronger, and I could make out a large body of water in the quickly decreasing distance directly in my flight path. Its shoreline looked imposing—rugged and green, which suddenly reminded me of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher. (I took students to Ireland one summer. We called it the Educational Pub Tour.) The shoreline stretched on in the distance as far as I could see in the moonlit night, and as the dark liquid horizon met the night sky, I could see silhouetted the western edge of the mountain range I’d noticed earlier.

My body was still racing forward and I could see that I was headed toward some type of large structure situated solidly near the edge of one of the most dramatic-looking cliffs. (Kind of like Edinburgh Castle—yes, I took a group of high-school students to Scotland, too. I didn’t cause them too much trouble…no matter what they say.) Drifting closer, I felt myself slowing down and I took a good look at what I could now see much more clearly.

It was a wonderful, enormous old castle, and I was floating directly above the entrance that faced away from the sea. Unlike most of the castles I’ve toured in Europe, this one looked like it was in perfect condition, complete with four massive towers over which flew flags decorated with a rearing silver mare. Huh. Looked just like the cool horse back at the temple.

The rear side of the castle was situated near the edge of the nasty-looking cliff; the inhabitants must love the amazing view. The front of the castle, above which I was floating, looked out on a tree-covered plateau, which gradually dipped down to a valley where a neat-looking village nestled. A well-worn road ran from the village through the forested plateau up to the castle, giving evidence of a congenial relationship between castle and town. The typical walled ramparts surrounded the castle itself and were joined at an enormous gated entrance, but rather than looking menacing and cold, the castle was well lighted and its entrance was open and welcoming. A castle used as a military fortress would be closed and guarded. The lovely forest of old trees would be shorn so that an advancing enemy couldn’t sneak up. My dream castle obviously wasn’t war friendly, and it was probably “guarded” by (who else?) Pierce Brosnan! It was more than likely that he was waiting inside for me to quit my floating tour so that he could rub edible pink coconut oil all over my body. Then lick it slowly off. Yummy…Which is why it was odd that my body was still floating over the castle. Okay, I was definitely ready to stop flying now and get to the more “personal” part of my dream.

Anticipatory smile.

Nothing.

Still floating.

Okay, I was ready to stop flying now!

Nothing. What in the hell was up with this? DreamLand was
my
fabrication. It obeyed me. I remember when I first realized not everyone had the ability to control their dreams. I was in third grade and a friend of mine was looking pale and upset one Monday morning. At recess I asked her what was wrong and she said an amazing thing—she said she’d had a horrible nightmare the night before. I told her she should have just told the dream to change, and she looked at me as if I was crazy (or scary), and told me that that was impossible. Dreams did what they wanted to do. Until then it hadn’t occurred to me that everyone couldn’t control his or her dreams. If my dreams ever began to get uncomfortable or frightening, I just told them to change. And they accommodated my request. In thirty-five years I have never had a dream that wouldn’t obey me. My girlfriends think it’s way cool, my boyfriends think I’m making it up. So my dreams have always been mine to control.

Until tonight.

Hovering over the castle, my feeling of confusion was compounded by my rising frustration level. I wouldn’t really classify this as a “bad” dream; it was more like an annoying dream. And I really wanted it to stop—

Then everything changed. Fear enveloped me. It was like nothing I had ever known. More terrifying to me than my car wreck. More horrible than my snake phobia. It was the raw fear that comes with the certainty of being in the presence of evil. Living evil, like the kind that inspires pedophiles or rapists or terrorists.

Trying not to panic, I took deep breaths and reminded myself that this was only a dream…only a dream…only a dream. But the feeling persisted. Gazing beneath me, I studied the castle for some hint that could explain my terror. The castle looked sleepy and innocent. In a room built on the wall near the open front gates, I could see two men dressed in uniforms who might be guards or night watchmen. They were sitting at a wooden table playing what appeared to be some kind of dice game. No evil there; slacking employees, perhaps, but nothing overtly villainous. Various other rooms in the castle were still lighted, and once in a while I could glimpse figures moving in front of windows. No one seemed to be committing any murders, no raping or pillaging was going on. At the side of the castle that overlooked the ocean I could see a man standing on an observation ledge, but he wasn’t cutting up any babies or raping any grandmas; he was just looking. No evil there, either.

But it was here. I could feel it. I could almost touch and smell it. It was like after you drive your car over an animal that has been lying dead in the road for a very long time. The stench seems to cling to your car’s wheels and to your throat even after you’ve left it miles behind.

My body turned gently as I continued my search, and I found myself looking out over the forest—

That was it. No question about it, the evil was there, coming from the forest. It emanated from the northern edge, the part that eventually met the distant mountains. It was so strong that I found it difficult to keep my eyes focused on that area; my vision kept shifting, like I was trying to concentrate on one of those 3-D pictures but couldn’t quite get the hidden image right.

It was as my gaze slid over the trees, not quite focused, that I saw it. A ripple in the darkness of the night-shadowed trees. Blinking, I focused above the tree line and, again, the forest rippled. It was like ink seeping down a naked page—crawling shadows, oily and thick. A mass of something was moving through the trees, singular in intention and demeanor. The forward line of it was swift and silent.

I gasped in realization. Its destination was obvious—it was converging on the sleeping castle.

There was nothing I could do to help. I tried to scream at the dice-playing guards, and my ghostly voice was carried away by the wind. My body still wouldn’t descend, and, for a moment, I felt shamefully thankful as I realized that the thought of being in the castle as the darkness drew closer and closer terrified me. And I couldn’t wake up. Glancing back to the edge of the northern tree line, I was horrified by how quickly the darkness had advanced. And as they got closer, the evil radiating from them felt thicker. How could anyone in the castle sleep or play cards or hang out? How could they not feel it, too?

And suddenly it wasn’t a dream to me anymore. Here and now the unfolding horror had become my reality.

As if responding to my thoughts, my floating body moved closer to the dark line. I was afraid, but curious and committed to understanding what was happening. I watched the front of the line break out of the trees. I drifted closer.

At first I thought they were tall men wearing dark, flapping cloaks. They appeared to be running with amazingly long strides, and then leaping, like a long jumper at a track meet, only not landing on two feet and falling, but landing on still-running legs. This odd manner of movement ate up the land beneath them and gave them the appearance of gliding more than of running.

Like instead of being living beings they were really specters or shades of the dead.

As they got closer, my attention was riveted on their long, loose cloaks. I watched them move against the wind currents caused by the gliding run, until in horror I realized that the movement was voluntary. More and more of them poured out of the forest, and I understood what the cloaks really were—wings, enormous dark wings that spread and trapped the wind, aiding the leaping run and enabling the glide.

A shiver of revulsion shuddered through my floating body. There must have been hundreds of them. They were like huge predatory humanoid bats, or gigantic humanoid roaches. I began to be able to make out individuals and their features. It was only their wings that were dark, and because they were so large and outstretched, they lent the line the appearance of being dark. In truth, under the wings, their bodies were so white they almost seemed translucent. They were naked except for loincloths, and their thin torsos looked skeletal. Their hair was light colored, ranging from blond to silver and white. Their arms and legs were abnormally long, like what would result if a human was mated with a spider. But they were most definitely humanoid. They had the faces of men—cruel, determined men.

And a short Bobby Burns poem flashed through my mind:

I was unable to look away from them as they spread to the unguarded castle doors beneath me like a virulent strain of a terrorist’s plague, and then they were there. They poured into the castle, silent and deadly. The dice players didn’t notice. No new doors closed or windows opened. Silence. Silence. Silence.

But I could feel them. Somehow, I could feel what they were bringing. I couldn’t see what was happening inside the many rooms below me, but I could sense the terror and pain rustling through the castle like a silent cancer spreading throughout a diseased body.

Frantically, I searched for some way to warn them. Some way I could help them. And my errant body began floating in a different direction. This time it was taking me toward the solitary man still standing on the observatory ledge. Getting closer, his shadowed shape took on familiar lines.

Oh, my God. My breath rushed out of me in one word.

“Dad!”

He turned at the sound of my voice, and as he glanced around, presumably looking for me, I saw him clearly in the moonlight. It was my father. Damn the mirror-image crap; damn the alternative-world garbage. This man was my dad.

In his mid-fifties his football player’s body was still powerful. One of my cousins once told me that as a child he thought my father was the strongest man he had ever known—and now that he’s an adult he’s sure of it. And he’s probably right. Not that Dad’s a huge guy, he’s not. Probably only five foot ten, graduating from a small country high school he was told he wasn’t big enough to play football at a major university like the University of Illinois. But they didn’t figure on his tenacity. Like a mean little bulldog, he was just too damn tough to be benched. After a successful college-football career, he passed his strengths on to the players he coached, was recruited by the biggest high school in Oklahoma and become the coach who took his team to the state championship seven years in a row. And won all seven times.

I have always been a Daddy’s Girl. I grew up trusting in his strength. As a child I knew that there was no dragon he wouldn’t slay for me, no demon he couldn’t banish.

I saw all of this reflected in the man below me.

“Dad!”

His head shot up at the sound of my disembodied voice, but his brow was wrinkled with confusion. How well could he really hear me?

“Rhiannon? Are you here, daughter?”

Perhaps he could only hear the echo of my soul. Summoning all of my concentration into one word like a prayer, I cried.

“Danger!” The word ended on my sob.

“Yes, lass, I sensed danger in the night!”

His brow suddenly cleared and he began striding purposefully off the ledge. Leaping to the wooden catwalk that ran the length of the inside wall of the castle, he broke into a run. My hovering body was right behind him as he rushed toward the watchtower, booming in a voice very like Dad’s except it was thick with an almost Scottish-sounding brogue.

“Get yerselves armed and awake the castle! Epona has warned me of danger! Hurry, lads, I feel a crawling in me skin that says we donna have much time.” Through the window I observed the shock on the faces of the guards as they followed the man who looked so much like my dad into action. Arming themselves, they rushed down into the bowels of the tower, and I could hear them waking other men. The night was now filled with the sounds of shouting men and clanging weapons.

And screams, which originated from the interior rooms of the castle.

Led by my dad, half dressed in hastily tied kilts, men scrambled to arm themselves as they rushed out of the towered barracks toward the heart of the castle, only to find the enemy already there. Helplessly, I watched as the creatures leaked out of the inner castle to meet the guards. The blood of their early victims had dimmed the white of their skin. They were not creatures of nightmare—they were
the
nightmare. I could not make out any weapons in their hands, yet as the guards began battling them, their swords and shields did little good against the man-creatures’ bared teeth and claws. The sheer number and ferocity of them overwhelmed the castle guards. Many of the man-creatures had time to stop and feed at the necks and warm entrails of still-living men, as others stepped around them to resume the slaughter. The ripping and tearing of flesh is a sound like no other, and as I watched I felt my soul begin to shake.

I had lost sight of Dad, and I tried to get my body to float closer to the battle. It wouldn’t obey me. And then there was no need—I saw him. Man-creatures surrounded him. Blood poured from open wounds that had been torn in his arms and chest, but his huge sword was still swinging in an arch around him. At his feet were two headless things, victims of his strength. The man-creatures circled him, being careful to stay out of the reach of his blade.

“Come to me, ye bloody cowards!”

His voice reached me, and I recognized the challenge it carried. I had only heard it once before. It was at football practice. Dad had benched the star linebacker because he’d been caught shoplifting at a local store. The smart-ass kid was telling Dad his behavior off the field didn’t matter, that he should still play because he was the best they had. Dad took him (and his ego) to the middle of the field, and while the team looked on as witness he said to the kid, “You can play tomorrow night if you can knock me off my feet.” The kid was almost six inches taller than Dad, more than thirty years younger, and outweighed him by at least forty pounds, but he couldn’t knock my father off his feet, and he damn sure didn’t play in another game that season.

I heard the echo of that challenge in the man’s voice below me. His stance was the same, and his strength was the same. Again he was in the right, but this time I knew that wouldn’t matter. He had caught the attention of more of them. One by one the ring grew until at least twenty man-creatures, their wings taut, surrounded my father, their bloody mouths snarling in expectation.

I’ll never forget how he stood there. He didn’t panic. He was calm and sure. As one being, they began to converge. I saw his sword flash and heard it slice through the first and second and third, until it could no longer keep up. Then their fangs and teeth reached him. He fought with his fists, which were slick with his own blood. Even as he dropped to his knees, he didn’t cry out.

And he didn’t quit.

But I could take no more. My soul felt like it was shattering with his body and I shrieked my agony to the night—

And I was wrenched abruptly awake.

“No! Dad, no!” My body was shaking and my cheeks were wet with tears.

Alanna and ClanFintan burst through different doors into my room at almost the same instant.

“My Lady! Oh, my Lady, what has happened?”

Alanna rushed to me. Not caring that she wasn’t really Suzanna, I wrapped my arms around her and wept into her embrace.

“It was horrible.” Around sobs my broken words came out. “They killed my father. There was nothing I could do but watch.”

Alanna was making wordless, soothing noises as she stroked my back.

“Is there danger? Shall I summon the guards?” ClanFintan’s voice was a warrior’s, and I had a sudden feeling that he would be courageous in battle, and like my dream premonition of evil, I knew this, too, was true.

“No.” My sobs had begun to quiet to whimpers, but the tears still flowed freely down my face. “It happened in my dream, not here.”

Abruptly I felt Alanna still. She gently moved my body back from hers far enough so that she could look into my eyes.

“You must tell us what you saw, my Lady.” Her voice was calm, but I could hear the fear in her words.

“It was a dream.”

Over her shoulder I saw ClanFintan move restlessly, his eyes dark with some emotion I could not identify.

“What did Epona reveal to you, Rhiannon?” His voice beckoned to me, and I closed my eyes tightly, feeling confused.

“It was no dream.”
Alanna’s whisper was for my ears alone, and it sent more shivers of shock through my already abused body.

Oh, God, what had happened?

Forcing myself to square my shoulders and still my body’s quaking, my eyes lifted to meet ClanFintan’s steady gaze.

“I need a moment to get myself together, please. Then I’ll tell you everything I saw in my dream.”

The compassion that flashed through his eyes gave me a glimpse of his kindness. Little wonder he was spiritual leader of his people.

“Of course, my Lady. Have your servant send for me when you are ready.”

Not caring about the consequences, I said, “She is not my servant. She is my best friend.” I could feel Alanna’s shocked intake of breath.

“My mistake, Lady Rhiannon. Have your
friend
send for me.” His smile looked sincere and unexpectedly it comforted me.

As the door clicked softly shut my shaking resumed.

“My Lady, I am not your friend. I cannot be your friend.” Alanna’s voice sounded frightened.

“No, Alanna. What you are not is Rhiannon’s friend. You were her slave, her servant. I am not her.” I wiped my eyes and smiled my thanks to her as she handed me a cloth so I could blow my nose. “I realize you are not Suzanna, but I can’t help but see her in you—and she is my best friend. I hope that you will humor me and maybe eventually you will come to feel that friendship for me, too. And, Alanna, I really need a friend right now.” And I promptly started to cry. Again.

“What you say is true, my Lady, you certainly are not Rhiannon.” Her eyes filled with sympathetic tears as she brushed the hair back from my face and gave me a sweet, impromptu hug. “And your voice seems to be recovered.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” My smile felt awkward and strained, as if my face had forgotten how.

“Shall I get you something soothing to drink so that you do not cause it to relapse?”

“How about some hot tea? I want to stay away from wine for now.”

Alanna clapped her hands twice and a sleepy nymph appeared to fetch and carry for me. (Oh, jeesh, is that another of my slaves?) Despair felt easy to slip into and I was disgusted when my tears began anew.

“Alanna, help me understand what has happened.” Wiping my eyes again, I gained control over my hovering depression. “You said that what I saw was real? How can that be?”

“You experienced the Magic Sleep. It is one of the gifts you have that makes you High Priestess and Beloved of Epona. Even as a small child you were able to send your sleeping soul away from your body and observe events, and sometimes even communicate with people. You were not able to do this in your old world?”

“No, not exactly, but my dreams have always been mine to control, which is unusual in my world. I visited made-up places and had fun things happen to me.” And now that innocence was gone. DreamLand would never again be a place of pure happiness. Not after tonight. I shivered again.

“That must have been how your gift manifested itself in a world devoid of Epona.” After what I had observed tonight it was hard for me to understand why Alanna’s voice sounded sad.

“But why tonight? I definitely didn’t ‘send’ my soul anywhere. Remember, Alanna, I am not Rhiannon. Why would it happen without me even understanding what is going on?” My eyes filled with more tears. “It was horrible. Why was I forced to watch it?”