IABD 39: Death, Dream and Shadow

Matthias froze, his every instinct screaming.

Beggahasta’s eyes hardened like ice. 

The mage sat silently, her grey gaze drinking in every detail of the young greatfolk; it felt like nothing could escape her.

He hoped that she was just trying to trick him: maybe she knew nothing.

Maybe she knew very little and was just trying to bait him to get more information.

He would try not to give any away.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“What a strange question to ask,” Beggahasta added, trying to cover for him. “Is this some sort of mage joke?”

Polla continued to watch him closely, eyes searching. Eerie silence filled the carriage. Then—for the first time—the mage smiled. It was a gentle one, though it did not reach her eyes.

Those grey orbs remained sharp.

“I’m far more observant than my son.” Polla leaned forward in her chair, picking up a decanter on the table. “Strawberry wine?” she offered.

Both Stonebreakers shook their heads.

“Fair enough. Come,” she commanded.

A goblet flew from a cupboard and went to her. She poured a glassful of the red liquid, put the decanter on the table, then sat back, swirling the wine in the glass.

 “I know that something has happened to your shadow and—judging by what Altaizar told me in his letter—I am more than willing to bet that it happened when you went over that cliff. That’s when it all started, wasn't it? He mentioned that you recovered far too quickly from what should have killed you—even with the poultices he infused his power into.”

Polla took a sip from the goblet.

‘What if she’s angling for more information? Maybe she guessed something about my shadow…or maybe in his letter Altaizar told her about suspicions he had. Suspicions he didn’t tell me,’ Matthias said to himself. ‘What should I do?’

His eyes met his mother’s.

She gave him a subtle, calm nod, reaffirming that she had his back.

He turned back to the mage, who was still watching him quietly.

Was she planning to do something if he said the wrong thing?

All Polla would need was a single command with The Gift to turn the air to fire or make his clothes constrict, squeezing his throat…Beggahasta wielded The Gift too. And even if she didn’t; she was as swift and deadly as a cave lion.

Before the mage finished a single word, she would have a dagger buried in her throat, or her head twisted backward. He wouldn’t take any attack lying down either.

Between himself and one of the strongest warriors in the kingdom, he felt better.

Matthias was glad he’d brought her for support.

“Calm yourself,” Polla said, her voice dropping low. It had a gentle, almost grandmotherly quality. “I can tell that you’re thinking about how violence might go between us. I think your caution is warranted, but I am not interested in hurting you. I do commend you, however, for being smart and not speaking your secrets so easily. …would it help if I were to tell you that I think I might know something about your gift?”

Matthias’ curiosity piqued, but he still did not want to give too much away. “I don’t know about any gift, but you can tell me whatever you want. I cultivate deities even Altaizar knows nothing about, is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yes, do you know anything about these mysterious deities that have attached themselves to my son?” Beggahasta leaned forward.

Polla paused. “From what he described, I can’t guess at their identities yet, nor why you have two Towers, but I will do my research. Let’s bring things back to your shadow, though…I am going to guess that it changes shape somehow?”

Any words he was about to say died before reaching Matthias’ lips.

‘How did she know that?’

“If it does,” Polla continued. “Then I might know what has happened to you. First, shadow has an interesting role in magic. It is largely interchangeable with darkness, and both are light’s opposite: where light is not found, shadow is. In the same way, where waking awareness is not, there is sleep and dreams. Finally, where life is not, there is death. Life, light and the waking world are kin to each other, just as shadow, sleep and death are kin. Sleep is the cousin of death, while shadow links them both.”

Matthias’ heart was beating faster.

His belly felt like ice.

Shadow. Sleep…or dreams.

And death.

All were kin. Something about her words gnawed at him down to the very soul: he knew they were true just as he knew daylight would always come in the morning, but he had no idea how he knew.

“What are you saying?” Beggahasta tensed.

“The Realm in Dream is one of the kin you talked about…as is shadow…” Matthias whispered. “Then the third–”

“—is death. Tell me, do you remember feeling the impact when you fell from the cliff?” she asked. “Do you remember hitting the ground?”

He thought about that carefully.

Nothing came to him. He remembered the shadow-tendril forming as he plunged toward the ground…but he’d assumed it had broken his fall.

Yet, he couldn’t remember hitting the ground. That part of his fall was blank.

Slowly, Matthias shook his head.

His belly grew colder.

“What are you saying?” Beggahasta asked again.

Polla’s eyes turned gentle, as though she was about to break the sort of news that turned a wife into a widow.

Her voice was soft when she spoke again:

“Matthias, I believe you died when you went off that cliff.”

Mother and son gasped.

And then—

“Have you lost your mind, Polla?” Beggahasta demanded. 

Matthias bolted upright, stepping back from the table. 

He reeled. “No. No, that’s madness. I’m alive. I am no undead monstrosity. My heart beats. I breathe. I have a soul.”

He knew what she’d said couldn’t be.

So why was he so uncomfortable?

“Some undead cling to their souls still, but you are correct: you are no undead,” Polla continued. “Remember, though: I said that you died, not that you remained dead.”

“Still, that’s impossible,” Matthias said, remembering his teachings. “Once the ferrymen of Amon Koth come for you, they load you into their boats and take you to his castle in the netherworld, you are judged and sent to your final Haven in the after-world, where you are rewarded, depending on which of the Ascended deities you pleased most,” he repeated the old tale that he’d learned well as a boy. “There is no coming back. There is no cheating the boatman. There is no escaping judgement.”

“Some stories say different,” Polla replied. “I know a tale of a thief who stole his own life back from the God of Death. I know a story of a knight who was so loyal to her king that she fought her way back from the netherworld to defend his kingdom in its time of need.”

“Tales of whimsy,” Matthias countered. “I’ve heard fanciful stories too, from my mother at bedtime as a boy. But they aren’t true.”

Beggahasta was silent.

Matthias continued. “One of them was about how a giant of old grew large enough to swallow the sun. He lorded over the world of darkness until a powerful mage awakened and slayed him, throwing his body to the stars. Tales like that! They’re nothing more than entertainment for children younger than Dagma.”

“Oh?” Polla raised a silver eyebrow. “And you, a boy of fourteen, are so sure of the possible and impossible that you can tell a Mistress of the Sanctum of Magi what is true and what is not? Perhaps I should retire and let you teach Ellian and the other acolytes who study there, instead of me. I’m sure the mage guard would be far more comfortable with you around than with me.”

“Look, I know it sounds arrogant and stubborn,” Matthias said. “But I find it hard to believe I died. It just doesn’t make sense. People don’t come back from the dead outside of stories, right mother?”

Beggahasta was still quiet.

“Mother?” he asked, slowly turning to her.

Her eyes appeared distant, as though focused on a near-forgotten memory. “Death…is not a simple thing,” she said. “When I was young, a friend fell into the nearby pond and sank like a stone. It was awful. Everyone was screaming, but no adults were around to help. So, I pulled him from the water as quickly as I could, but by the time we got him to shore he was still, he wasn’t breathing and had no heartbeat. We thought he was gone, but another friend pounded on his chest and tried to breathe life back into him until…he coughed, sputtered water like a fountain and began breathing again. He recovered and he lived.”

“So he wasn’t dead, then,” Matthias reasoned. “He must have been unconscious, mother.”

“With no heartbeat and no breath, what else could we call him but dead?” Beggahasta asked. “He was gone for under a minute, but he was gone, though he came back to life.”

Polla nodded. “The priests of Amon Koth in Sugatal have an expression: death is a door that closes quickly but does not always lock as quickly.”

“That makes sense,” Beggahasta said. “Then there are older stories I’ve heard. Some of our ancestors encountered beings old enough to have lived during the Age of Wonder, like the archfae and the earthborne. Some of them claimed that resurrection was possible during the Age of Wonder, others claim it wasn’t. Then there are the elves: their souls go into ancestral pools beneath their mountains, they do not go to Amon Koth. Death is different for them.”

“Yes, which some say is the source of their immortality…and their growing madness,” Polla’s tone was dark. “But bringing us back to the point: at the very least, I believe death has touched you.”

“Why are you so sure about that?” he asked.

“Because you had an experience that should have killed you and yet you draw breath, and of the beings in the world that have power over shadow: most have something to do with death. Fae that deal with the winter courts and the death of seasons? Well, they often have power over shadow. The ferrymen that serve Amon Koth? They often sail their boats through shadow and dream. The Nosferatu that crave blood to prolong their states of undeath, wraiths formed of the congealed spirit-stuff of the fallen, and ghosts? Often have power over shadow. Shadow demons tend to drain life and cause death. The shadowrought are created through death. Even the netherworld itself, where the god of death makes his home, links with our dreams and is filled with shadows and the magic of darkness. Death and shadow and dream. It all plays together, Matthias. And it all seems to play with you.”

Matthias felt his arguments evaporating as he remembered a fact about his shadow: as he killed the gnoles and the demonic-beast tiger, hadn’t some ethereal substance floated from their shadows and entered his?

Shadow and death, playing together.

And then there was the Second Tower.

The only Divine Breath that would attach to his soul had created two Towers, with one giving him power over his dreams.

Shadow, death and dream, playing together.

And it all seemed to play within him.

Everything fell into place, like the pieces of a puzzle.

It made sense.

Matthias Stonebreaker had—

“...died,” he whispered. “For a short time, I was dead.”

He didn’t know exactly what to make of that. But he did know he was shocked, though he felt no fear, whether terror, or simply dread. He felt no euphoric feeling at having ‘beaten death’ either.

Instead, he only felt calm.

Cool.

Almost serene.

He confronted the idea of having been touched by death and accepted that it was a fact. It was not something to be feared or changed. Not something to scream to the heavens about.

It just was.

So, he accepted it as such. 

And felt comfortable.

A twinge ran through him.

He suddenly found himself floating before his soul, its light blazing brighter, its darkness deepening. He was drawn into it, passing into the spiritual place where his Towers waited.

He arrived in the green field to find their power stones glowing.

Shifting.

Beneath the Towers, the ground transformed: sections of the grass and soil changed to hardened stone. Under the first Tower, the rock darkened as though blackened by fire, radiating an aura of intense, oppressive power. The rock beneath the second was lighter in hue, with a surface glistening with the thinnest layer of frost, radiating an aura of quiet, boundless strength.  

The rock beneath the Towers matched the stones they were built of, and formed the beginnings of their—

“...foundation,” Matthias murmured. “Part of the Foundation Layer just formed! What in all the names of the gods just happened?”

He flew out from his spiritual place, his senses returning to his physical body…to find his mother’s arms wrapped around him.

“Matthias?” she asked. “Matthias, are you alright?”

“Yes,” he said, looking around, utterly bewildered.

“You became so pale, then you stopped moving, you weren’t responding!” she cried.

“Don’t worry, mother. I’m fine, I’m more than fine!”

He felt more solid. More grounded. More whole.

“And so it worked,” Polla’s voice was light.

Matthias and Beggahasta moved apart, eyes turning to the mage.

Polla’s smile was broad, the first one Matthias had seen on her that reached her eyes. “It worked,” she repeated, her voice bright and full of life.

“What worked, what are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Am I correct in guessing that part of your Foundation Layer just formed?” she asked.

“How did you know that?”

“Because, you just had your first enlightenment, my child,” she said with certainty.

###

Author's Note

Welcome to bonus chapter one of two for this weekend! Listen it warms my heart to see y'all commenting as you enjoy yourselves.

Here we found out a little more of the relations and creatures of this world, slowly peeling away the layers.

I created some of this cosmology almost a decade ago for D&D and it's WILD to see some of it published here.

Cya tomorrow!