Fire Angels

Chapter 8 Part 3 Voices in the cellar

Dion must come to some compromise with a man she doesn't trust and also deal with the voices in her head that keep calling her. Thank you for reading.

The voices kept calling all night, but I must have fallen asleep eventually, because I found myself running in terrified slow motion through a forest of cold stone pillars that always seemed to be in front of me. I knew the stone woman and her hungry statues somewhere in the dark shadows.

Then as I ran, I heard a voice from behind the pillars.

"Little mage, little mage," called Andre seductively from out of the darkness. "Come here. I will save you. I will not let them get you."

I knew he was just around the corner. My heart lightened with the thought that I would see him again. I felt myself turning towards him.

"No!" I cried and found myself awake with Shad sitting up nearby.

Even if I'd been mistaken in thinking that the dreams of the stone woman came from him, Andre was certainly in this one. Had it come from him or was my over filled mind simply playing games with my fears?

"My head is still full of Tasha's memories," I lied to the anxious Shad.

"That will not be pretty. Shall I light a candle?"

I told him not to. I did not want to seem like a coward, though it was pitch black in the cellar and I would have liked a light. I lay awake the rest of the night trying not to hear rustlings in the darkness and worrying about the significance of that dream.

In the world of dreams the barriers between our plane and the plane of demons seem to be thinner. Andre/Bedazzer had used them to get to me in the past. Did Runes of Hiding hide you from Demons? I wished I could put up the proper Runes here, but to actually make a rune needed magic. I wondered... But it was hard to wonder anything coherent with the voices crying Dion, Dion in my head at regular intervals. I was just thankful that there were no shiny surfaces here in the cellar, so that even if Andre could find where I was, he would not be able to get through to me. At least not during the day.

After an eternity, birdsong in the forest above signaled the beginning of the day and Shad got up and lit a lamp.

I had given Tomas a painkiller for his shoulder and it had a sedative effect. Since he was still asleep, I did not bother getting up. I was warm in my blankets. The voices ceased for a time and I lay dozing. It seemed I had just dropped off to sleep when the voices started again. Exasperated I sat up and looked at Shad. He was intent on something.

"What are you doing?"

He jumped and dropped something and an uncomfortable look came across his face.

"You're awake."

His guilty face worried me.

"What are you doing?" I got up and went over to him.

He was blushing.

"Ah!" he said haltingly. "I was just fooling about."

A kind of leather cloth lay beside him. It had a series of little pouches on it containing tools. I remembered he was a woodcarver.

"Are these your tools?"

"Aye. I was just trying them out." He was resting his hand on a couple of pieces of wood so that I couldn't see them. I began to feel alarmed.

"What were you doing?" I said, seizing the wood. For a moment we grappled and then he let go.

"In truth Enna Dion, I'm embarrassed to let you see them. I have not carved anything for three years."