In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound

48 - Davnian - When Peace and Joy Fail

"Mama! Mama!" a little girl's voice cried from deep within the darkness of a black expanse. Looking up, head aching and mouth dripping blood and bile, Davnian spied a light in the distance. A small talvuo girl cried into the void, nothing but her voice answering her bleating. With a heavy heart, he rose from the ground, his body laminated by will as he strolled toward the child. As she called out again and again, his limbs protested. His whole body hurt, and it felt as if boiling acid were bubbling underneath his skin. "Zaisure! Mama, where are you?"

As he walked, Davnian felt another beside him, its massive form shaking the firmament. Turning his eyes, he saw the fleeting shadow of the colossus. A haze of distortion clung to its elevated head as thousands of coal-like embers danced upon its gigantic silhouette.

"To think I'm back here with you." Davnian's voice carried in the endless black while the other marched in lockstep beside him. "Is this what death feels like, black one?"

"I've never known death, young one," the thing said, its gravel-laden voice churning from the darkness. "If this is death, then it's far kinder than the life we've just lived, if not melancholic."

"Kindness?" Davnian asked, sarcasm gripping his words as his penchant for dark humor overcame his weary thoughts. "Perhaps, though if death is kind, life must be evil incarnate."

"Perhaps it is," the other said, shambling its massive weight.

In the distance the girl turned toward them, still calling out. Pumping her small, boney arms, she ran toward them. Within the void, her little steps carried at the speed of will, his hearing picking them up as if they were next to him.

"Is any of this real in any context, old one? Am I tricking myself again?"

"Again?"

"I can't remember it out there, but here . . ." Flickers of the hellscape of his nightmares danced in the distance. Bubbles of another reality inflated and popped out of existence near the horizon of the infinite. "I remember your words though still not the place."

"If this is a hell of your own making, at least it's a pleasant one," the other whispered as the glow of the running girl crossed the expanse in no time.

"Mama? Do you know where my mama is?" she asked, her brilliant green eyes looking first up into his and then, in a blink, directly toward him. It was if she had grown to his size, or he had shrunk to hers.

"We'll find Mama soon," Davnian replied in a voice that was both Rais's and his at the same time. "I promise!"

"You won't leave me in the dark, will you?" Looking at her was like looking into a mirror. His every move was captured and emulated by the little girl as he shook his head. As he responded, the little girl's mouth moved along with him, saying the words. "Never. I'll never leave you alone, Rais. Never ever!"

"OK!" the two of them replied to each other, girlish laughter breaking from their breasts as they stood opposite each other.

"But for now, you should sleep," a voice unlike the girl's said from a distance.

As Rais and Davnian looked up, a blackened claw extended from the void opposite the mighty colossus of his thoughts. Touching the girl upon the brow, Davnian's head spun as he watched her fall upon the ground into a deep slumber. Once more, his head reeled from pain. Images of Rais in the waking world collapsed upon his psyche as he watched her spirit sleep. Then, from the impenetrable darkness, a man stepped into view.

The figure was tall and brooding. Dirty blond hair clung to his head like a tangled mop, his white skin touched by shadow. Blackened leather, the charred hide of some great beast, hung across his shoulders and protected his legs. Beneath the armor was blood-red padding and flitting patches of coal-colored chain guarding his joints. At his side hung a simple sword as his black claw gripped his hip. Looking up, Davnian stared into the cold blue eyes of none other than himself wearing a grimace carved like stone into his facial features.

"Did you think just waking would solve everything?" His voice carried to his ears as his double bent down, caressing the sleeping girl's forearm. "Did you think just forgetting the horrors would ease the pain?"

"I don't understand."

"There's no more time for peace, Davnian. No more time for joy," his other self said, gesturing to the little girl. Looking down, Rais slept curled in one direction, her corpse splayed beside her. "And there's no more time for failure."

"Be kind," the earth-shaker whispered.

"We've tried kindness before, have we not?" Davnian found himself speaking in tandem with the other, his scowl becoming sadistic while Davnian's childlike features mirrored them. Other shadows emerged, each wearing the same cold blue eyes. Countless shapes and versions faded into view as they stared at his small frame. "We've tried pacifism countless times before. We've tried friendship. We've tried love. But there is only one tried-and-true way to fix this, and you know exactly what I mean, Davnian."

Pointing with his outstretched demon hand, Davnian followed the line to his own claw. At once, he was transformed, shedding the frame of the girl and donning his flesh and bones. His left hand twitched beneath him, the black hull of a monster's claw.

"I should have." Davnian remembered the sickness and the rage that gripped him when he first saw Nerin and his mistress. There was anger, followed by bloodlust.

"Yes, but there's still time," the other him said, laughing with manic glee. The eyes of his doppelganger dimmed, becoming nothing more than deep pools of black. The other onlookers' orbs blackened in unison.

"It is not yet strong enough," they said in unison, "but you cannot hesitate. You cannot hold back."

[There is another path, Davnian,] the colossus growled within his mind.

"If you fail or run, then everyone you've met will suffer a fate worse than death, Davnian." With a monstrous grin, the leader of the shadows pointed to the girl. He and Davnian turned to the shadow beast. "After all, death can be a kindness," he said in a mocking tone. "What they will do to these villagers, Neris, Elis . . . death would have been heaven by comparison, as you know, old one."

Davnian was overcome with the pain and hopelessness that Rais felt in her final moments. He could not bear that kind of pain again or the weight of a dozen such voices, much less hundreds.

"Do not fret any longer, Davnian," his clone whispered into his ear, his mouth curving into a manic smile. "Save the formalities for when you awake. Sleep now, and bind yourself in anger. Lose yourself in madness."

Davnian's dreamscape eyes glazed over as he found his reflection's claw upon his brow. The colors around him inverted as he swooned. Losing his grip on the dreamland, light engulfed his mind and ego.

The warmth of Rais'smemories enveloped him while his hatred for her loss overflowed.