The Three Dreams

Part One

Maron Eastrider had three fears. Three dreams. Three nightmares.

Turning his own power, his Gift, on himself had been an easy decision. But the power to enter and manipulate dreams, combined with always unexpected phenomena of turning one's Gift against oneself... that combination had proved to be more than Maron could have ever begun to imagine.

I always did want to see my dreams more clearly, Maron mused to himself as he slowly traversed what seemed to be his own dreamscape. A strange iridescence seemed to coat the otherwise bland landscape. Flat, purplish dirt stretched out in every direction, blending into the seemingly perpetual dusky sky.

Maron felt as though he'd been walking for days on end, each moment an eternity with nothing to signify time's passing. On and on and on. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He wondered if he would die eventually, or if, in true dream-like fashion, the rules were different here. Would he starve? Would his legs eventually give out? Maron doubted either would come to pass. And so he kept walking. And walking. And walking.

A speck appeared in the distance, off to Maron's right side. Thus far he had kept trudging forward in a generally straight direction. With nothing to obstruct his course there had seemed no reason to change things up. Running his right hand through his shoulder-length black curls and heaving a sigh heavenward, Maron gave the speck in the distance a bored stare. He changed course and made his way toward it.

The speck was quite a ways off, the object growing larger at an achingly slow degree. Maron found his mind drifting back to that evening. Or had it been the evening before? Possibly even years before? He hated the timeless quality of a dream.

Whenever it had been, Maron found himself hoping beyond all measure that he had made the right decision that evening. The weapons had to be hidden. The kingdom was too unstable, too unbalanced, to allow that sort of power. If the bracers had fallen into the wrong hands... a chill ran down Maron's spine. He didn't even trust himself with that sort of power, and he was quite sure he was on the good side of things.

With a start Maron realize the speck had grown much, much larger during his musings. No, it was no longer a speck. Maron felt nothing but utter dread as his eyes locked on the purple-painted wooden door that stood a small distance in front of him. His feet felt as though the ground had swallowed them up as his fear held him in place.

Well, that explains all the purple. As Maron finally pulled himself forward, one agonizing step at a time, he began to grasp what had really happened when he turned his power, his Gift, on himself in an effort to hide the bracers. For as he drew close enough to distinguish the slightly chipped paint around the handle, Maron knew what he would find next.

He looked down at the unremarkable bracers he held tightly in his left hand. No, he had been right not to put them on, to take the power for himself. His gift, amplified? He couldn't imagine the havoc he could have unleashed had corruption enslaved him. Maron tightened his fist around the bracers, reaching his other hand out toward the doorknob.

As his fingers rested around the glass knob, Maron realized with a start that there was a difference in this door. The glass seemed to glow with the same iridescence as everything else around him, but magnified a hundredfold. That same chill snaked its way down his spine again as he turned the knob and pulled the door open. Through the other side he could see the same barren landscape that surrounded him, though he didn't let his eyes fool him.

Steadying himself, a glimmer of what was in store for him beyond that threshold creeping into his mind, Maron Eastrider stepped through the doorway. And as he did, he looked on the other side of the door, knowing what he would find. That didn't lessen the terror he felt as he beheld one one scratched into the wood. A childlike scrawl had gouged the purple paint away. That one word burned into his eyes and echoed through him as everything went dark.

MARON