Hounded

‘The night of my Immortality Ritual, just over six thousand years ago, this particular dream started. It came only in times of great tension or turmoil, so wasn’t nightly or even regular. It stopped around fifteen hundred years back, and began again the day after I returned from the Plane, and thereafter every time I closed my eyes.’
Torrullin sighed and leaned back. His eyes were calm as he related the actual images to Krikian. ‘I am running across a dry dead plain, totally flat, hard stones I trip over as I run. I am holding something very precious, I must not drop or lose it or I shall be lost, and not only I, but also everyone I care about. As I run I have flashbacks of a time I was held caged like an animal, taunted with the sharpness of spears, spat on, ridiculed, starved near to death, big men with no faces climbing into the cage wielding viciously spiked maces, my bones crushing, knitting together painfully…I think I am cripple for the initial flight across the plain. They taunt in the common tongue- pig, murderer, whoreson, human waste, devil…and many other insults. I look up and I see a hill, or a mountain, maybe a heap of bones, it’s the only different thing and I must go to it. There are horsemen behind me, I do not see them, but I feel them and they are getting closer and they want the bundle I carry, they will kill for it. And then I am on the path on the hill and I have to get to the top, I must sacrifice the precious bundle to save myself- it is my redemption. I am climbing old, worn steps of stone winding up the hillside and carrying something, something light and alive. I look down to check what I hold is still safe and warm. A tiny pink face peeks at me through the gap in the swaddling and little black eyes blink. An innocent babe, by all gods. I concentrate on placing my feet properly on the smooth steps, slick and dangerous in encroaching mist. As I climb, mist arises and soon it will envelope all, block out sight and sound. White blindness, wet on my skin, in my lungs. I hurry up cautiously, mindful of my cargo. I have to reach a stone temple perching precariously on the summit of this lone hill before my pursuers discern my purpose, and I thank the Goddess for sending the mist to obscure my trail through the ever-present dust below. It’s a tribute, a sacrifice I carry and to live beyond the day I am dreaming of, it has to die. I look down again, but now the white swirls are so dense the little face is indistinct and I am glad I can no longer see her; what I have to do is hard enough. I am weary of running from this, always looking over my shoulder, wondering when they will find me and snare me for the beast they think me, cage me anew until they have enough sport. I stand poised on the final step, lost in a world of choking white and the shortest side step will plummet us to sharp rocks far below. The rocks, the hill, the only landmarks in a featureless dust plain that literally has no beginning and no end. Before me is the slight shadow of a shrouded temple and I step forward and the baby squirms. I hear them coming for me, but don’t actually see them, and I know it is not just the babe- they hunt me. I have overcome and they don’t like that. The fog thickens; a saviour, a haven, the coolness a blessing, and I begin to hope- my life, my very soul dependent on my success. One misstep and all will be lost…but she is beautiful, so tiny, and so perfect, my heart breaks, my resolve crumbles and I cannot do it. My salvation lies before me and I cannot do it. I stand within the doorway of the temple and I clutch the warm bundle and I cannot move…and behind me the unseen men with their war clubs clamber up the hillside, cursing, in a hurry…and I force myself to wake up.’