DREAMSCAPE
EPISODE #3
The voice continued, “No further may ye go without thine guardian. It would be too dangerous for thee. Coimirceoir has agreed to lead thee to the other side of the vale.” The savage stood and turned to face out of the cave. He lifted his arm, the one formerly holding the spear that pierced my chest, and made a sweeping wave that took in the dismal scene. Although the view was mostly hidden by the falling rain, I got the sense of what that grand gesture encompassed.
“The vale.” The voice pronounced.
The savage echoed the voice in the gib…uh, language of his fathers. He turned back and grinned humorlessly at me. He flashed a series of hand signs that magically transformed to words in my head. “Pack your shit and let’s get going.”
I was startled and I guess it showed, because the savage threw back his head and laughed, long and loud. Then he moved his hands two more times. “Move it!”
I just looked at him.
Two more hand signs, “MOVE IT!! And he picked up the deadly spear and stepped out into the rain. I hurried to put my pack on and picked up my rifle and followed.
The rain parted around me as I followed the savage. Even though the ground was soggy and slick, our footing was solid. I wondered at the mystery. I didn’t know it then, but, there would be far greater mysteries to come. The first was a large black raven that appeared above us. I could hear the wind whistling through his wing feathers, louder when he flapped, softly as he glided between wing beats. The rain moved around it as well, the raven cawed twice. Then he croaked, it sounded like my buddy gargling whiskey at the bar on Friday nights. The raven then spoke to me, “You better keep up or Coimirceoir will stick you with his spear again.”
I looked up in surprise, my hand involuntarily went to the bright red scar on my chest. It throbbed. The raven laughed with that gargling croak that ravens use to taunt humans. My feet picked up the pace, I didn’t want that spear to touch me again.
We walked, the rain fell, the gloom got darker and darker. Coimirceoir seemed more alert than he had been. Out of the misty rain, Wiley appeared and took up a guard position on our right side. He glanced at me and then beyond. I followed his gaze. Another coyote appeared out of the half light. Wiley nodded as he took up a similar guard position on our left.
I looked back at Wiley and commented, “Hey, I thought you were gone. What’s up?”
Wiley looked at Coimircoeoir, then replied, “He called me,” and indicating the other coyote, “and my brother, Intoit. We’re going with you across the vale, just in case.”
“Intoit,” I looked his way, he looked back with a toothy canine grin. “Just in case of what?” I asked.
“Just in case of varmints” Wiley quipped back.
I patted the slung rifle on my back, “I’ve got this.”
Wiley shook his furry head and gave a sigh, “Won’t work here. I thought you understood.”
The raven laughed his raven laugh again.
Wiley barked, “Shut up you smartass bird. Who asked you anyway?”
Intoit just yipped.
Coimirceoir turned and scowled at all of them. He hardly broke stride as he shook the spear at them and then with his free hand, put his pointer finger to is lips in the universal sign to be quiet.
I heard, “SHUT UP!” in my head. I nodded in agreement and trudged on.
Every 30 minutes or so, the rain would lessen, then renew it’s force. But it didn’t seem to matter; the rain didn’t touch any of us. It didn’t affect the ground that we walked on either. It wasn’t muddy or slick, it didn’t squish or stick to my shoes or the others feet. How could that be I wondered.
“All things are possible in thine own dreamscape. All things are possible here, as I have said before.” The voice in my head answered my query. I nodded my head, “I know, I know. I should have remembered.” I was talking to the voice in my head. “Is that a sign I am going insane?” There was no answer to that question forthcoming. From the voice anyway. The savage turned back and nodded, then grinned widely. Wiley and Intoit gave me the superior canine smile and the raven gargled long and loud.
I shook my head in confusion and trudged on.
We walked up and down the numberless ravines and small canyons that had been hidden from my viewpoint at the cave. Though the vale seemed to be flat, it was riven by these ravines that would have looked like well-wrinkled skin, if seen from the right perspective.
“You do know that this creation is pretty old, right?” Wiley turned to look at me to ask this question. His coyote face taking on an expectant expression. “Well…right?” he went on.
“You said ‘creation’; didn’t you mean ‘this accident of existence that has evolved from some quirky non-existent beginning’?” I replied to Wiley.
The superior canine smile returned to Wiley’s face. “RRRRIIIIIGGHHHTT! He said this sarcastically. The raven gargled long and loud.
“Then you really meant ‘creation’?” I was trying to keep up with Coimirceoir and reason out this new fact about the dreamscape at the same time. Intoit suddenly growled and raced by Coimirceoir to the top of the ridge in front of us. When he reached the apex, he stopped and flattened himself into the tall grass. The savage stopped at once, he raised his hand like a traffic cop, and his ‘voice’ echoed back, “STOP!”
Wiley joined Intoit in the tall grass and the raven croaked in alarm and flapped frantically away to disappear into a thicket of evergreens. I followed Coimirceoir’s example and squatted so that my profile wouldn’t show above the waving grass on the ridgeline.
Wiley crept backward out of the grass and slinked down to us. He jerked his head back towards the ridgeline, “Raiders.” He said. “A bunch of them, too.”
Coimirceoir hissed in his language, his hands moving, interpreting for me, “Follow me, crawl on your belly, go slow and whatever you do…keep your head down until I tell you to look.”
I nodded quickly. The savage crawled up the slope to the ridgline. He moved like a serpent, a snake in the grass, barely moving the individual blades to mark his passage. I am afraid to say that I wasn’t so competent. But when I reached the top and slid into place alongside Coimirceoir, he signaled to me to look across to a column of cavalry about a quarter mile away. They were trotting in a line, two by two, side by side, from right to left across our planned route.
At first, I thought that it was odd that they were in medieval armor. Their horses were large; they had to be to carry that weight. The armor was a rusty brown, not shiny like the movies. They sort of blended in. All of the riders carried their lances upright, but a few of them had pennants waving gaily from the tips. Like I said, I thought this was odd. But then I realized that wasn’t the oddest thing. At the head of the double column, a mid-nineteenth century cavalry soldier rode an athletic bay stallion. The horse’s mane flew wildly as the horse tossed his head up and down, bobbing in a rhythm that only he knew. The soldier rode ramrod straight in the saddle, the fringe strings of his yellowish leather jacket tossing like the horse’s mane. His slouch hat covered longish yellow hair. The soldier never looked left nor right, but he guided his mount through the mounds of tall grass with ease.
I cursed under my breath, “My Hell, what is going on? Is that George Custer leading a column of knights?”
“Man, you are so whacked.” Wiley commented in my ear.
Coimirceor pointed his right index finger at the side of his head and described a circle; he crossed his eyes as well. “Yep, you’re whacked.” The interpretation of the savage’s sign echoed in my head at the same time.
“This has got to end!” I said this and made to stand and wave to the column. Coimirceor hissed angrily and grabbed the collar of my jacket and pulled me back down before the distant knights noticed me.
The big voice in my head was also angry, “Has thee lost thy mind? Thou cannot mess with the time/space continuum here. The consequences would be monumental!”
