ETTING   OME   O   LFANDRA

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Aarnia's Tale part 4 - Waking Up To A Dream conclusion

Aarnia starts to run towards the forest that seems to be about ten miles away from him, expecting to reach it in half an hour if he can keep the pace. After running for ten minutes he starts to suspect that something is, again, not how it should be. After he has run about 15 minutes, and should have reached the half-way point from the center of the field to the forest, he is sure that something is awry.

*That forest isn't getting any closer!* he thinks to himself. *Either I'm not moving - which can't be - that forest is moving away from me.*

He checks the forest behind him, which is exactly as far from him as the forest in front of him. The same thing in all other directions.

"This is just impossible!" Aarnia yells. "Stop moving away from me, dammit!" He wonders if the trees are actually moving, and if they are, if they understand what he's saying. Stranger things have been known to be true, but somehow his gut tells him this is not the case here. He walks for a few moments, watching first the grass moving beneath him, and then the trees ... not moving in front of him. It's as if anything further away than a few meters wasn't part of the same scenery.

*It's like the grass and the trees exist independently from each other.* suddenly he feel another thougt forming in his subconscious: *Perhaps the grass and the trees don't grow on the same earth. Perhaps there is no ground, only the grass and the forest. But what does that mean?*

Aarnia sits down again and lets his body reassume the wingless humanoid form. He digs his claws into the dirt and begins to dig, not really thinking of what he does. After digging for some time, he sees that the earth the grass grows on is completely normal and seems to go on quite deep. He tries different soul scans and thought penetration methods to feel through the upper layers of the ground, until he finds solid rock. It feels completely normal.

*What is this? Some sort of virtual reality designed to drive me crazy? Have I been abducted by a race of demigods that want to test how far my sanity can stretch?*

"WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME, GODDAMNIT!" Aarnia yells up to the blue, starry sky. There is no answer. He stares at the stars, that stare back at him, gleaming cold as ice, sharp as diamonds.

"What twisted imagination could possibly create a hell that is at the same time frustrating and intriguing" Aarnia whispers to himself, "as tormenting as it is beautiful?" Then, completely unexpectedly, he recieves an answer:

"Yours, Aarnia."

Hearing the voice of someone else behind his back, Aarnia literally jumps up in the air, suddenly turning to face the speaker, arms risen ready for defending himself with bare claws and teeth if necessay. His heart pounds like crazy as his eyes finally set upon the speaker.

"My, you are almost like a scared kitten." Speaks the creature standing in front of him. It's body is covered with downy feathers, the color of dry savannah hay, from its head to the base of its tail. It's head is like that of a dragon, but hornless, its limbs are like those of a running gryphon, its body like a lion's and its tail like a giant snake. Black and blue spots, like those of a leopard or a jaguar cover its back but are absent elsewhere in its body. It stands as tall as a horse, but its body is more massive and its arching neck longer.

Aarnia knows what, and who, this being is.

"Ekroquyan," the name leaves Aarnia's lips, though he is not aware of actually saying it himself. "You exist."

"Of course." The being says without putting any emotion to his statement. "It has been written that in the multiverse exist 'everything that is and could be, and all that isn't, but should be.'"

"I know." Aarnia says, hardly able to speak at all. "Me... I wrote that."

"Yes." The dragon being, Ekroquyan, replies.

"Should I... I mean Ekhroquyan is just a degenerate form of the... I mean the name... it," Aarnia stutters. "Eak-ur-kweian, 'the Shaper/Maker of Dreams'. That Is your original name, isn't it?"

"It is no more original, or accurate, than Ekroquyan or Eri-Uzul or Urumashu. Or Hypnos, Somnus or even Morfeus. I am the lord of the dream-realm, and that other names people give me is irrelevant." Ekroquyan paused for a moment and then continued. "You will use the name which is appropriate."

Aarnia realized that he knew exactly what Ekroquyan's statement meant, and which was the right name. But he was still puzzled.

"If you are Ekroquyan, the shaper and guardian of dreaming, then this is Ekhros, the Realm of Dreams, right?"

"A realm of dreams," Ekroquyan replied.

"What do you mean?"

"There are as many realms of dream as there are dreamers. And yet it is always the same. Each night I am born again with this land a million million million times, and more. And yet I am the one that neither begins nor ends."

"You speak in riddles." Aarnia said, unsure of if he had correctly understood the words of the Dreamlord.

"Sometimes that is the only way of putting the truth into words."

"Well, how about the truth about me getting here?"

Ekroquyan closed his eyes (the first time it had done that in all the time since its appearance, Aarnia noted) And suddenly the scenery melted away and was replaced by a forest. Then the dragon of dreams opened his eyes again.

"As you know, it is my duty and privilege to guard the realm of the dreaming," Ekroquyan started. "I stand at the edge of dreaming and waking, making sure that beings of the waking world don't enter the dreaming, and that the beings born in dreams don't find their way into the waking. It is a task I have fulfilled since the first dream, and which I shall carry on till the last wake."

"Had you attempted to cross the boudaries of the dreaming, I would have turned you back with ease, but instead you seem to have appeared in the middle of the dreaming, forcefully forging your own private dream within it. A waking dream. This has not happened many times before, and from past experience I have learned, that such things don't happen through coincidence - they all have their own significance both to the dreamer and the dreaming. And having entered your dream, I now know what you seek, and where you must go. And I also know what I must do."

Aarnias was still in a state of puzzlement. "How can you learn these things from my dream?"

"As I said, I and this world is reborn in each dream, from the mind of each dreamer. In essence I, and this world, are possibilities of existance, fractal patterns of potential sentience, awaiting to be turned into reality by the minds, the souls of dreamers in everywhere in the multiverse. Whitout them this world does not exist, and
without this world, they can not dream..."

"Okay, I think I got the point. But what is it then what I seek, as you put it, except for a way out of course? Or is what I seek the escape from this place?"

Ekroquyan shook his head. "A way out, perhaps, but not escape. I know how you tried to leave, tried and failed. You must have noticed already, that this place is not a universe like the ones you can travel with your abilities. It exists between, and beyond the multiverse, holding it together, like the other boundary worlds. The realm of dream can only visited by the uncorporeal minds and souls of the beings that dwell in the inner worlds, and they may only enter here in a state of dream. Therefore, if you were to leave this realm, you would have to be asleep to leave this place, and your body would be left here. As you would have no body to return to, you would merely become a lost soul between places."

"So I'm stuck in here forever, is that what you mean?"

"No. There are ways for you to leave this world, and leave you must.  Bound to your body and the sensory data it feeds you, you are unable to dream freely. Your continued existance in corporeal form is destabilizing the whole fabric of dreaming."

"Hey, I don't want to stay here any longer that I have to! If there's a way to get me out of here, I'll be ready to try it this very moment."

"Very well." Ekroquyan remained silent for a moment but then continued. "Before we continue, I want you to understand a few things: Though my powers in my realm are virtually limitless, I only use them to do my duty for the good of the dreaming. I do not harm anyone unless it is necessary, and never unless a greater good can be achieved through doing harm than through doing nothing."

*Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like what this is heading for* Aarnias thought to himself. If Ekroquyan could read these thoughts, it didn't reveal it in any way but continued:

"Know, too, that though Though my powers in dreaming is unequalled and godlike, it doesn't extend beyond the borders of this realm. Therefore I can not just send you wherever you want to go, because that would require me to manipulate worlds beyond mine. There are, however, border worlds like the dreaming, that allow their inhabitants to pass through to the inner worlds of the multiverse."

"What I do, and what is to be done, must be done. I have many times enjoyed and admired the dreams you've weaved to my realm. I have no negative feelings towards you. But I have a responsibility that comes with my place and my power, and that is inescapable - just as your fate. Goodbye, Aarnia."

Aarnia was about to protest when he felt a hit in his back followed by a push and a sharp pain moving through him, towards his heart, and onwards. He looked down to see an inch of blood-covered steel protruding from his chest. Just before he lost all controll of his limbs Aarnia turned around to see who had done this, who had murdered him. As he fell on the ground when his whole body went limp, he gained a glimpse of himself looking down on him with a sad look on his face.

Then everything was drowned in darkness and silence.