The Jarl's Son, Chapter 17-2
The Twin Pendants, Part 2
Before we begin, if you’ve been enjoying my work and would like to further support my fiction, essays, and book reviews, the following are the best ways to do so:
Purchase my book, In the Giant’s Shadow. You can find it on Amazon in hardcover ($19.49), paperback ($11.99), and digital ($3.99) formats. This is the method I most recommend as it gets you something tangible in return for your financial support.
You can subscribe to Tales of Calamity and Triumph for either $5 per month or $50 per year. Doing so automatically unlocks digital versions of any and all of my current and future published fiction.
Restacking and sharing work of mine which resonates with you is the easiest (and arguably most effective) way to help.
As always, please don’t feel pressured to do any of these things. Your readership is more than enough for me. Thank you kindly for giving my words your time.
Looking to start from the beginning? Read Chapter 1-1 here.
Marten’s brow furrowed. Moving to Renald’s side, he picked the pendant back up off the ground. He closed his fingers around it, let its heft linger in the palm of his hand as he ran his fingertips over its rune etched surface. Such a small trinket, yet weighty in its meaning. A last reminder of his mother, a woman he ultimately never knew. She believed it held power, the ability to protect her, and sought to one day pass that protection onto him, her son. Now he bore it into a dream, only to be told by a denizen of this strange and shifting realm that his mother’s gift was rife with the same scent as the nightmare that harried his lover. What was he to feel about this?
What was he to do?
The latter question was easily answered. He needed to return to the nightmare of the razed village to see what effect his mother’s pendant had there, if any. Making the journey would be a challenge, though. Traversing dreams wasn’t so simple as just picking a path and following it. Renald made that clear the moment Marten told him of his plan, but that didn’t mean the journey couldn’t be made. A difficult path may lay before them, but difficult wasn’t the same as impassable.
How they would make the journey had yet to be decided, and Renald puzzled on precisely that. “As I currently see it, we’ve a trio of options to choose from,” he said. “The safest of them would be to wait until the next time you naturally dream and let me guide you there, though that may take some time.”
“Too much time. I know what the Foe-Breaker planned to put that girl through, and the gods only know what they’ve done to Gaiur by now.” Marten’s gaze was downcast, his eyes vacant, but only for a moment before hardening like steel. “We act immediately, whatever the risks.”
Renald grinned at that, and replied with a curt nod of his vulpine head. “Then it’s a good thing I’m inclined to agree with you!” he stated. “So two choices, then. Again, beginning with the safer, I could try to blaze a trail to the nightmare from here. We’d have to hop between dreams to pick our way and that would come with its own set of unique dangers, but as that pendant of yours carries the place’s unpleasant scent, I should be able to find a path.”
It seemed a decent enough plan, though Marten wondered at the aforementioned ‘set of unique dangers’ that would await them. He was sure one of them must involve the dream spaces attempting to expel or destroy him like Gaiur’s nightmare had. A risky prospect, but well worth it if they could find their way tonight. Marten was tempted to select this option here and now, but he held off, asking Renald what his final idea was.
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, we break in,” Renald said.
Once again, Marten found himself taken aback. “We break in?” he repeated in a slow cadence.
“That’s right!” Renald chirped. “We punch a hole right through the borders of this dream, and into the borders of Gaiur’s nightmare raid.”
“How?” Marten asked warily.
“Why, with your lucid dreaming, of course!”
Marten felt incredulous as he looked down on that glowing, gray furred fox. Renald had said that as if it were the most obvious of all things, but Marten hadn’t even known he had this ability before tonight. Would he truly be capable of this feat? Shaping the glade with his descriptions was a simple enough feat, but recreating the inside of the Foe-Breaker’s tent from memory and will alone had drained him. He still felt weak from that; his limbs tired, his mind lightly fogged. Doubtless punching through the barriers that existed between dreams would require considerably more effort.
“Is such a thing truly possible?” he asked.
“Hypothetically speaking, yes,” Renald answered. “I’ve never attempted it myself, but it’s not dissimilar from how spellweavers of eld used to traverse between dreams.”
“Old magic,” Marten murmured.
There was unease in his tone. Even after all he’d seen and done these past few weeks, the idea of toying with such powerful forces unsettled him. The days of wizards and mystics had largely passed, and if the stories were to be believed, most met with grim fates. And yet, there was no doubt this marked the swiftest path to his goal.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked. “What will happen to me if something goes wrong?”
Renald sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t know the particulars. All I can say for certain is should we try this and fail, the effects will likely be devastating.”
Marten considered the possibilities. Killed and made to wander as a restless spirit. Trapped in the eternal nothingness that exists between dreams. Reduced to a state of nonexistence, where his soul itself was destroyed. These were merely the possibilities he’d gleaned from the danger he faced when Gaiur’s nightmare rejected him. He couldn’t even guess what other horrid fates may await him should this go wrong. Was the risk truly worth it?
Presently, the image of the kidnapped girl came to his mind. Naked and cold, her pale flesh covered in a lattice of welts and cuts. She’d been lucky. Marten managed to find her before those vile fiends could force themselves on her.
Gaiur, though? As far as Marten knew, she’d been taken by the Red Bear himself. She’d resist him, of course. She was resilient and determined, with great strength of will. She would not buckle easily under whatever tortures they did upon her, Marten believed that with the whole of his heart. She would endure, but not forever. Eventually, the Red Bear and his horde would break her, if they hadn’t already.
She was worth the risk.
“We’ll break into the nightmare,” Marten stated. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Renald explained the process to Marten, and Marten did his very best to follow the instructions he was given. Together they moved to the escarpment that encircled his recreation of the glade. Unlike in reality, here the sheer face of rock and soil had a fluid quality to it, as if viewed through flowing water. This was where the border of his dream was thinnest, as sussed out by Renald’s acute senses.
Once there, Marten placed his mother’s pendant up against the border. There it hung, suspended in the air. Unmoving. Willed into keeping its place by Marten. It would be his focus, his target, and his map, all at once. The key that would unlock his way, if he could just turn it.
He focused his gaze, trained it on the moonstone in the pendant’s center. Its ribbons of blue glinted and shimmered despite the pendant’s stillness as it hung. He pictured that glimmer growing, ribbons expanding into the barrier’s fluid surface.
Ribbons became lines. Lines became cracks, and these spread. Soon the barrier was as broken glass. A mirror, shattered; its surface a spider web of splinters, chunks, and cracks. Out and out they stretched until they neared the size of a man. Then they slowed, sudden and forceful. Immense pressure pushed in on Marten’s mind. At first, he merely winced. Then he grimaced, groaning through grit teeth as that pressure became a vice in his mind. The dream pushed against him. He needed to push back.
Reaching out with trembling hands, he clasped the amulet tight. Sweat dripped down his brow. His entire body quaked, straining under the effort of imposing his will against the dream that sought to repel him. The barrier splintered. Small shards of it fell away as the amulet started to turn.
Marten made it a finger’s width before his body started to burn. There were no flames, but he felt fire scorch his skin from the inside. He hissed through his teeth, fought through the searing pain. Damn the pain! It would never be enough to stop him. What he did, he did for Gaiur’s sake.
Ribbons of silvery light coiled around his forearms. They were Renald’s, projected from his tail the same as the one he used to spirit Marten away from the nightmare upon its rejection of him. This time they didn’t seek to bind him, but to aid in his efforts. The dream noticed this, and reacted in kind. Renald yelped out in pain, his entire body tensing.
“Endure!” Marten barked, as much to himself as to Renald. “It will give way!”
Again Renald yelped. “I cannot hold, Marten,” he growled.
“You must!”
“I cannot!” Renald howled, his silvery ribbons vanishing as quickly as they appeared. “It’s as if my very masters sought to rend me asunder. It must be you, Marten. You must pour every ounce of your will into this task. Only then will our path be open to us!”
Will. That resource Marten carried in abundance. He would break this barrier. He would return to Gaiur’s nightmare, unravel the secret of his mother’s amulet. He would find his way to her.
“Hear me, Luthmor, o Lord of Sea and Skies,” Marten hissed. The burning agony engulfed the whole of him now, and he could feel his strength fading. “I will not drink in your grand hall this day. My spirit is for her, and my will shall see me through!”
Flames licked his skin, a rainbow of burning colors bursting from the flesh of his forearms. The sleeves of his tunic blackened, flaked away, reduced to ash. From fingers to elbows, his skin split, and his hands smoked and charred. Embers and sparks of many colors spewed from these eruptions of his flesh, and Marten screamed.
Yet he would not release his hold on the pendant. Even as the flames crept up his sleeves, even as they coursed through his skin to burst out from muscles that bulged with his effort, he refused to stop. Nothing, not pain of death nor the searing of his soul, would convince Marten to release his hold.
The pendant gave, twisting another finger’s width.
Still Marten struggled.
It moved again, grinding against the splintering barrier in which it sat.
He would not relent.
Then, with one last, mighty push, the pendant tore free, and the barrier shattered.
Its breaking was as a stone smashing through the surface of a frozen lake. As Marten ripped the pendant free, the outer edges of the barrier’s web of splinters were flung outwards with a rush of force that felt less like wind than it did the push of something behind that broken veil. Meanwhile the shards in the center, ground to splinters by the turning of the pendant, were pulled inward by that same force, swirling in the same direction that Marten twisted them.
A gaping void opened in the dream. Black and seemingly empty, the sucking force that swallowed the inner barrier expanded. First it swallowed shards that burst out, then it tugged at Marten and Renald.
The flames from Marten’s arms were snuffed, swallowed up by that pitch black void. Then its tug became a pull, and Marten started to slip towards it. He fell backwards, dug the heels of his boots and palms into the ground in resistance. Still it pulled him. Then he tried to scramble back, but he was too weak to fight against the void. Curse it all, had his struggle been for nothing?
It was at that moment that Marten took notice of Renald. His countenance was calm, his posture relaxed as he sat down and waited for the void to claim him. The fox then turned to face him, and he smiled. “Well done, Marten,” he said. “You’ve opened the way. Now we need only let the pendant light our path.”
The pendant was still clutched in his flame blackened fingers. Looking upon it, he found himself once more drawn to the moonstone in its center. How he understood Renald’s meaning, he couldn’t rightly explain. It was a feeling, an instinct, speaking to him from somewhere deep inside that told him what to do.
Holding the pendant out, Marten turned its moonstone eye onto the sucking void. The stone glowed, first white, then blue, then with the orange and red of fire. The void reflected the fiery glow back at them, illuminating the whirling forms of the seven vortices once hidden within its blackness. Those vortices began to rotate, spinning hither and thither as they danced about one another in violent display. The faster they danced, the brighter the glow became, both within the void and the pendant’s moonstone eye. Only when it threatened to grow blinding did it finally change.
Recognizable forms took shape within the vortex. The angled roofs of burning buildings. The sway of roaring flames. Horses and men, silhouetted against the fire. Burning arrows arcing through the air. The shimmer of blood staining soil, spilled in savage massacre. In the center of this horrid scene lay the pregnant woman, her body covered in those bloody, ancient runes.
Another stood silhouetted above her. Not the Red Bear or one of his reavers, but a figure which Marten recognized, despite being only half formed. Rising to his feet, Marten clenched the pendant tight, his gaze never leaving the silhouetted figure. Never leaving the hair that cascaded wildly down to slightly broad shoulders. Never leaving the slender but strong arms, nor the curve of a trim waist leading to wide hips. Never leaving the russet eyes, only just reflected in the light of the fire.
“Gaiur!” Marten called as he stepped through the shattered threshold between dreams.
And the figure looked upon him.
Thank you for reading.
The Jarl’s Son sees Gaiur the Valdunite return to embark on a new adventure and acts as the follow-up to my dark fantasy mystery tale, In the Giant’s Shadow. The previous story isn’t required reading to understand and enjoy this tale, but doing so will enhance the experience.
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
My first novella, In the Giant’s Shadow, is available for purchase! Lured to the sleepy farming community of Jötungatt by a mysterious white raven, Gaiur the Valdunite soon finds herself caught in a strange conspiracy of ritual murder and very real nightmares.
Purchase it in hardback, paperback, or digital on Amazon now:
