ELDRITCH NIGHT (Rough Draft)

Chapter 27: One of Many

I was weightless, suspended in a void of blackness that was fractured by pillars of swirling silver light. The light would split and revolve like threads in a loom, until finally separating into finer and finer strands. Ultimately, each ended in bright points like stars swimming in a galaxy submerged in moonlit water.

The light refracted like thick, grainy smoke. It clung to me, flowed around me like I had my own gravitational force. It entered my lungs with each breath only to be released moments later.

I extended my arms to touch it, but the light was immaterial. It clouded my vision giving everything a fuzzy haze.

Far beneath me, half hidden in light and fog, was a lush island of trees, grass, and rivers that would end in waterfalls – pouring boundless mist into the void. At the center of this island sat an elaborate marble palace adorned with gold and topped by ivory towers domed in brass and silver.

It was beautiful, and something about it struck me as familiar. I had seen it before, perhaps in a dream, a scene from a fantasy long since forgotten but not yet gone from my mind. It pulled at my attention, and it took me a few moments to reorient myself and to take in my more immediate surroundings.

Four granite pillars stood around me, curving inward to join at the top and create a circular roof with a wide oval opening in its center. Carved leaves and vines adorned the pillars and wrapped around them until blooming into intricate stone flowers that wreathed the open dome ceiling.

Opposite me sat a chair atop a long red rug that was set on nothing but the void. It was made of a rich, dark wood with a high, arched back. It was padded with a quilted cushion made of deep crimson leather. Sitting in that chair was a man shrouded in shadows. Only his eyes were visible, a deep blue almost glowing with reflected light.

"Hello, Gus." The voice was deep and inviting. Its familiarity was comforting and immediately put me at ease.

"Dad?" I asked. "How are you here? Where am I?"

I stood unspeaking for a moment, but my confusion quickly slipped away as the man spoke once more.

"Oh, Gus," he said. "Haven't we had this dance before?"

He quietly stood and quietly crossed half the distance between us, revealing a face similar to my own. "This is a universe upon itself, made up of thought and whim. A brittle chrysalis for what may come. It is your mind, a portion of it. Or should I call it ours?" The creature's laugh had none of the warmth and humor of my father but was instead thin and wheezy.

"And yet," it said. "This place is more. So much it sings to be. A dreamscape, a place connected to the multitude. Layers of light and dark, each speck a weary eye closed in quiet wonder. The dreamers stir and when they wake what better place to be? The wake do not see what lies with me."

I stood there for a moment as the creature walked back to its chair. As it sat it beckoned with one hand.

"Please, sit," it said. A duplicate of the chair the creature sat in appeared next to me.

"You're my companion, the Fisher?" I said ignoring the offer of a chair. "Why have you brought me here?"

"Brought? No, sheltered you. You swim through darkness, bait caught and tangled on the line. You must cast free, take back the sky else..."

"Else what..." I said, for it had paused and I grew impatient.

"Else you don't," it said with an exaggerated shrug. "And drown, bait lost to bigger fish. And I, swallowed back not to die, lost in thought and forgotten to memory."

I sat watching. The Fisher had a strange way of speaking, but it was clear it meant I was in danger. "What does all this mean?" I asked. "I'm tired of puzzles and vague prophecy."