Chapter 3
Sarion Greybow
Contrary to logical belief, our ‘messages’ didn’t usually come in our dreams. They could strike anywhere and any time. It seemed to me the whole reason we were kept here was we’d be a danger to ourselves and others if we weren’t locked up. Just like prisoners – except we hardly did anything wrong ourselves.
When a message accompanied a dream, however, it tended to be exceptionally vivid, not unlike what they called ‘lucid dreams’.
Tonight was one such occasion.
I opened my eyes in the dream world to find myself standing in front of a… something.
It looked like a temple at first sight. Even the layout of the place resembled a traditional Japanese Shinto shrine, with the exception of the design of the arc and the decorations mounted on it. There was a ‘yard’ and a long, straight stairway leading directly to the upper floor. There were torches and candles strategically placed along the stairway so as to create a real sense of solemness. There was also the sweet smell of incense – similar to, yet not entirely the same as that I saw the family of the staff burn on certain occasions.
On the other hand, there were arrays of weapon racks scattered in a semi-circle on the yard stocked with nothing but bows and arrows. The bows were ornately carved with wavy patterns and shapes from one end of the stave to the other and strung with striped yellow and deep crimson bowstrings. The arrows, too, were placed in golden quivers with trees and the sun and the moon and the stars emblazoned on them. Part of me wanted to pick one up, but then I remembered what happened the last time I tried interacting with the environment in a dream. The consequence was not something I would soon forget.
I looked at the stairway. It was built not of stone but a kind or organic, woody material that wasn’t quite like wood. It looked far whiter and – as I ran a finger over the surface – smoother than run-of-the-mill furniture.
Then I heard a voice from the top floor. No, less a real voice and more like an airy whisper, yet it echoed within my ears. It was so clear, so vivid… and yet I understood not a word. I had never heard that language before, and found my tongue twisting if I tried mimicking the sound pattern the voice made. Yet I was sure – there was no rational reason behind it but for a gut feeling – I was being called.
It was times like those that my preference for rational thoughts were thrown out of the window. Driven by curiosity, I began ascending the stairway.
It did not take me very long to regret my decision. The first dozen steps up the stairway was nothing out of the ordinary. But then everything began to warp and contort. Faint silhouettes appeared, gathering in tight ‘balls’ that circled around me. At first sight they were vaguely human-shaped, with arms and eyes and noses; but no mouths. The further I ascended the more they mingled and coalesced with each other. By the time I was nearing the top, all I could see was gleaming balls of cloud-like limbs and heads and torsos.
Their look was one thing, the sound that they make another. Imagine a suffocating baby trying to cry its last. Then imagine a top-notch violinist performing before a world-class audience. Then imagine both paying at the same time as a harrowing wind blew across the face. I wished I could describe it in a more succinct manner.
I bit my lips. “They aren’t real,” I thought to myself repeatedly. It was much harder to disbelieve whatever I was seeing now than it normally was. Something felt almost wrong about ignoring the illusion – felt like I was holding a purse full of money walking by a blind lame beggar in rags and pretending she did not exist. I couldn’t pinpoint as to how. It made no sense whatsoever from a rational perspective.
Whatever they were, the amalgamations of ghastly limbs and heads seemed harmless to me. As I stretched my hand at the nearest of them, the entire ball would shirk away, only to come back to where it was the moment my arm pulled back. They were watching me, for what I could not tell.
I put my left foot on the last step. The upper temple appeared before my eyes, cloaked in a curtain of mist. I could vaguely make out an alien architecture that looked like a small brick-and-mortar tower fused with an oak tree so that the left half of the tower was replaced by the tree, and the tree’s right by the tower. As I approached, I could make out a kind of waxy, sappy adhesive paste having apparently been used to weld the two together.
More balls of limbs and torsos were waiting for me at the top, where they were truly numerous. They floated atop the tree, circled around the tower’s base, hovering above the mossy brick floor, passing through solid surfaces and generally going about life – if there indeed had been life in this place. They mostly ignored me as I walked past save for those who were already ‘attending’ me. Those who acknowledged my presence might or might not have made a vague attempt to communicate. All I could see was their… bodies flailing towards the thick steel door at the base of the tower.
I walked towards the door, spurred partly by curiosity and partly because it was the most logical thing to do. I hesitated at the doorstep when the large dark-grey slab swung open without my input. I was willing the moment I set foot behind, the door would slam shut and I’d be trapped there.
In the end, my curiosity won the game. I inched my shaking feet towards the doorway, took several deep breaths, then tiptoed across, nervous at the prospect of waking up things I was not meant to disturb.
I held my breath as the heavy door creaked behind me.
To my relief (and partial bewilderment) the door moved no further. I clutched my chest and gasped for air – the false alarm certainly didn’t cut my heart any slack.
Then I looked up.
I found myself standing in a huge hall that looked far larger than the tower could have logically accommodate. “The size of a football stadium” was possibly an exaggeration; yet it could not have been smaller than three tennis courts put side-by side. The ceiling was removed far above me, propped up by two rows of columns far more elaborately carved than would be appropriate in such a place. No light shone upon the hall save for a glimmering flicker from the floor originating from what looked like luminescent fungi creeping up on fine ceramic tiling.
Again I held my breath. Obviously someone of great wealth and taste used to live here. Used to.
As I walked further into the hall, my eyes caught a glimpse of a throne at the opposite end that only confirmed my belief. Veiled in mist and fog, the throne nonetheless managed to conjure that feeling of awe from whoever would behold it. One would need to pile three Yuki’s one on top of the other to reach its highest point, for starters. Everyone in my dorm could sit one next to each other on that throne and still leaving room for more. The lion and tiger engravings on the sides managed to be minimalistic and majestic at the same time: proof that when an artist had got a large enough rock to work with it didn’t need a lot of talent to make a frightening relief.
I approached the throne. Something – aside from curiosity, which by now had all but taken over my rational thoughts – was drawing me to it in such a way I could not resist. Literally: My feet kept moving even though I was sure I had tried to stop. It was not before I was within several yards of the throne could I halt my steps.
I swallowed nervously. There was something wrong about the throne, and it was not just the size. I should have backed away, but I didn’t. What a mistake it was.
“This is…”
My dream – in and of itself a ‘message’ – was broadcasting another at me. A message within a message.
Images. Flashing. Rapidly. Before. My. Eyes.
Broken skull. Demon face. Severed arm. Broken blade. Shattered shield. Walls collapsed. Houses burnt. Deformed body. Cancer cells. Toothy jaw. Rotting bull. They flashed. They shuffled. They danced before my eyes. They repeated themselves in no particular order.
Then came a scream from nowhere echoing directly into my ears. Carefully measured so that it would not break my ear drums, but just barely.
Chills ran all over my body. My heart went on overdrive. My knees felt weak. My hands fell limp. My eyes watered. I had never been so frightened before. I could maintain just enough self control to back as far away from the throne as I could.
Jumping away from the throne, I almost tripped and fell. If not for the pillar within an arm’s reach to clutch to, I might as well have.
And then I heard another string of laughter.
“Greetings and salutations.”
“KYAAAA!”
This time I fell for real, sprawling on the ground. It wasn’t even a belligerent or creepy sort of laughter, to think of it: more like something you would hear from a friendly neighborhood old man who passed his time reading newspaper and playing shogi. It didn’t matter: My mind was so strained then, even a cat’s mew would have melted it down.
I was not sure what happened then. My mind was so inundated and my senses so dulled, I might as well have fallen into a coma for the next half a minute.
When I came round, I was standing before the throne, again at the uncomfortable distance I found myself in moments before. Unlike the last time, no scary subliminal message bombarded my brain this once.
The throne was also occupied now, but I did not notice that until several seconds had passed.
It was the first time I’d seen a man in my dreams who was relatively human. Not demons in the shape of men. Not humanoid creatures who would sprout fangs and claws and scary appendages where they did not belong. Not toothy jaws and scaly faces bursting from the chest and limbs of demure-looking little children. Not fleshy giants who ate people for breakfast, lunch and dinner as… as that particular manga that scared me so much yet I couldn’t rip my eyes from.
The first thing about him that caught my attention was his clothing. His garment and my uniform might as well have been cut from the same bolt of cloth. The color scheme was the same: grey for primary color, dark blue and yellow lining. Obviously his was not a sailor uniform with plaid skirt and square collar, but some sort of long trimmed ceremonial robe reaching his feet.
“My apologies. As you can see my humble abode is not what it used to be.”
His voice drew my attention to his face. Everything I was going to say, every question I was going to ask… faded away. There were some people, as I’d read, who presented themselves in such a manner lesser people would have no choice but keep their mouths shut. The man before me was such a person. Square jaw, sharp brow, high nose, pronounced cheekbones, tanned complexion, beard and mustache untrimmed but far from shaggy… his face might as well have been twice as large as mine. His body was proportionately large, too: his arms were thick and his bare hands could easily break every bone in my body if he so wished. On his head he wore a large gold crown encrusted with grey gemstones, while his hands were clad in a pair of equally luxurious gemmed iron gauntlets.
Except that was probably far from his thought. There he was, sitting on his throne, presenting to me a kind and compassionate face: a smile on his lips and his eyes never avoiding mine.
I didn’t understand why, but his presence calmed me. My brain immediately resumed working. No matter how I looked at the man before me, the whole business was hardly normal. I didn’t – I could even say I was not supposed to – meet or speak with anyone during a message… because messages weren’t supposed to exist.
But here he was, trying to talk to me. It looked obvious I was not going to proceed with this dream without talking to him.
“I…” I cleared my voice. “I would be glad to know, uh… who am I having the pleasure to speak to this day?”
Polite. Always begin things politely. My father said my mother was like that in her days and it had served her well. I had no way to find out now, but so far that approach had served me well enough. Most of the times.
It worked, in the sense that the man looked pleased.
“Ah, right. Where are my manners?” He said, standing up from his seat. He towered over me: From top to toe he might as well have been twice as tall as myself.
“The name is Sarion Greybow,” he said with a bow. “I used to be an extraordinarily important figure in a land far, far away. Now all I have,” he thumbed at himself – his garment and jewelries, “is but some crumbs of the perks I used to enjoy.”
“… My pleasure, sir,” I answered with an even deeper bow.
Then I kept silent. I tried to tear my eyes off his gaze, but couldn’t. I couldn’t decide whether he was trying to kill me or not – I was no stranger to being brutally murdered in a dream and it never got easier.
“No need to be too formal,” he said. “Your parents and I go a long way back.”
I widened my eyes at him.
“Were they?” I asked, trying my very best (with limited success) to sound as disinterested as I could. Telling myself I needed not and should not involve myself with this… person. Whoever or whatever he was.
“It is a long story you might not be interested in hearing in full,” he said. “I do, however, come with an offer that might.”
My self-defense mechanism kicked in: Anyone and everyone who uttered the word ‘offer’ should be treated with as much suspicion as a scary man with tattoos all over carrying a butcher knife walking into a kindergarten. I tried not to show it, but the way he eyed me suggested he knew exactly how I was feeling.
“You don’t look terribly convinced,” he said.
“No, sir,” I said. “I am just… confused. That is all.”
It was his turn to widen his eyes. Which was good. I needed the initiative in this conversation.
“Confused?” he said.
“I… I don’t usually get spoken to in my dreams, sir,” I said. “All those I’ve had have been… messages. Vague. Surreal. Occasionally scary. But no one has ever spoken to me before.”
“But of course,” he said. “Perhaps a little chat is in order.”
He sat back down on his throne, crossing his legs, his hands planted on the lion-headed armrests.
“I suppose I could offer some explanations,” he said, “so as to demonstrate my goodwill. Ask away.”
The precious initiative I thought I had gained was lost again. It was… unexpected, to say the least, People in a position of power in my life rarely let me ask questions. What was he, that he would let me do just about the thing everyone in the Institute so dreaded?
He wasn’t real. That had to be the reason.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Anything,” he nodded.
Which meant, I thought as I twiddled my thumb, I could actually get away with asking anything. Perhaps my initiative was not entirely lost.
“It’s a nice… chair, sir,” I began, pointing at his throne. “Where did you get it?”
Contrary to my expectation, he did not seem flustered at all.
“Depends on how much you are willing to believe me,” he said. “The unabridged truth is, it was carved from a living mountain by Elasailas – High Elven – master craftsmen who wished to pay me tribute and respect, upon my coronation as Emperor. That was five hundred years ago last Thursday by your calendar.”
Ha-ha. Very funny. I would have laughed out loud, but then I managed to stop myself. That would be most impolite and therefore unwise, not to mention probably extremely dangerous.
“I… see,” I said. I was not very successful feigning awe, however. He saw right through it
“And I see you don’t believe me,” he said. “Not entirely surprising. But then…”
He steepled his fingers as he looked at me.
“You did have a bit of an unpleasant experience next to it, didn’t you?” he said. “A hallucination, perhaps – a frightening one, even. Am I correct?”
Momentarily I did not know what to say. He was right – I didn’t think I would ever forget that last message I got just now. However, I was being too readable then. It was no rocket science deducing I was frightened.
“Flashing objects, dead people, deformed animals, shattered household items…” he continued. “Followed by terrible screams. Am I correct?”
My first thought was ‘he was reading my mind’. A hellishly creepy notion, to be sure. Either way, I couldn’t help blurting out a question.
“H-how did you know, sir?” I asked; and I was probably looking far more awkward and flustered than I should have been.
“Because this is my throne and I know how it works. The spirit world has not been kind to it,” he answered. “Think of the Living Mountain as a giant sponge, but for souls and spirits rather than water. It is alive, too, and as any living thing it has self-defense mechanism. If I am not sitting here to control it, it would execute that mechanism by broadcasting the most frightening images and sounds the souls trapped in the stone’s fabrics had seen, at anyone and everyone getting close to it. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I was not sure if I completely understood the explanation. Either way, his explanation succeeded in but one thing – making me even more uncomfortable.
“But… but this is a dream, isn’t it?” I said quickly, dropping even my polite manner of speech. “Surely… surely all of this is just an illusion, is it?”
“Or is it?” he said with a grin. “I know what you are, daughter of Ryotaro Aizawa, and what purpose you are supposed to serve. With that knowledge I can assure you to your eyes some ‘illusions’ are more real than you would like to think.”
I could not remember any time my self-control failed as hard as it did this time.
“My purpose?” I asked back. “I… have a purpose? Tell me! What is it?”
“The time’s not right,” he answered, flailing his right arm. “This ‘Institute’ of yours has planned for you a future that may or may not be to your taste, that is all I can say at this point in time.”
“Are you with them… sir?” I asked, trying to regain my composure.
“Yes, and no,” he said. “In some aspects, our interests overlap. In some others, they don’t.”
Then suddenly he stood up. So abrupt was his move, I was backing away from him before I even realized what I was doing. When I did realize, it dawned to me how much I was overreacting: All that he did was just standing up over his throne.
Somehow he didn’t mind me. Somehow.
“Yuki Aizawa, the Institute has designs for you that you cannot influence or impact on in any way except for… shall I say childish and impotent disobedience?” he said, his voice loud and clear. “Surely you wouldn’t want this to happen, would you?”
“N-no, of course not,” I said.
Almost at once I felt like punching myself in the face. It was established that I could not lie, but I was blurting out too much truth for my rational self to be comfortable with.
“If I told you it does not have to be like this, would you believe me?” the man continued. “If I told you there is a way you can make your own future, would you believe me? If I told you all of this can be painlessly avoided, would you believe me?”
“No.”
The words left my lips as naturally as a baby’s first cry for her mother.
“No I would not.”
Sarion Greybow looked surprised, but not mad. Instead, he looked mildly amused.
“Why not?”
At once I felt something gripping my mind, like hypnosis. I didn’t know what was happening, except that I could not hide or lie this time. My lips moved and uttered words I was thinking but was never willing to share.
“Because… changes,” I said. “I hate them. I hate waking up one day finding myself on a strange bed. I hate not being without people I’ve grown close throughout my life. I hate having to go to bed and wake up at an hour I was not comfortable with. I… I just don’t like changes. Any kind of changes.”
I felt chilled to the bones. What was I even saying?
“I see,” Sarion Greybow said. “And I sympathize.”
He sat back down on his chair.
“I could force you to do what I want you to – and it would be far more beneficial to you than what the Institute has in store for you,” he said. “But that would make me no better than them.”
He took a deep breath, then locked eyes with me again.
“So I’ll do something else.”
He produced from the folds of his robe a little purple card. He leaned towards me and handed it to me.
“Here, have this.”
The card felt warm to my touch, as if it was just recently ripped from an electric heater. I looked at it to find a few rows of words in a language I was not familiar with. Strangely, even though I could not read the language, I was sure what it was saying. It made no sense whatsoever, but I found myself reading the words out loud.
“‘This is to certify that Aizawa Yuki, the holder of this card, is entitled to one single trip through the Passage of the Divine’.” I looked at the man’s face, narrowing my eyes. “What is it supposed to mean?”
“Your ticket to freedom,” Sarion Greybow said. “It allows you to leave this world you aren’t so fond of. Go to another place. Another time. Another dimension. Forget about everything you have undergone in this wretched place, and build everything anew. Just hold the ticket and call my name four times, and the wings of freedom shall take you away to somewhere new.”
I found my entire body shivering.
“But… but I didn’t say I want to leave the Institute!”
“You didn’t,” Sarion said. “And I am not making you. This ticket is yours, and you can do whatever you want with it. Use it. Throw it away. Trade it off for something you like – such as those children’s picture books you are so fond of. Keep it in a secure place nobody would ever find it. It’s up to you. Your choice. Your life. Your chance to become something greater than what you presently are.”
I clutched the ticket in my hands for a long, long while.
“Why are you doing this to… I mean, for me?” I finally asked. “What have I ever done to… I mean, for you?”
“That is for you to find out,” Sarion simply said. “Of course, if you choose not to go… what I am and what I want you to do is no longer relevant. In which case all I can do is bid you good luck.”
As Sarion finished his speech, I felt something strange in the air. The fabrics of the realizty before my eyes were breaking out: everything before my eyes was strating to distort and break apart. Slowly the bits and pieces of that broken reality were sucked into a spiralling vortex in the background as if being flushed down a gigantic twister. Even the man before me and his magnificent throne dissipated too.
Before long, the only things I could hear was the last words he had for me.
“I believe you will make the right choice, Yuki Aizawa.”
And then I woke up, drenched in sweat.
Outside, the sky was dark still.
Everyone was still in deep slumber.
My left hand was holding a shiny purple card warm to the touch that had not been there when I fell asleep.
***
Coward's Garden 