Chapter 100
‘Tell me about yuorself,’ says Pierre. The two of them are going up a gentle slope, walking away from the Blood, the Land of the Banished and the Frontier, as fast as dreams allow. ‘You saved my life. Why?’
‘To find myself.’
‘Has it worked?’
‘Partly. It is not quick, this eoming back from the depths of ages gone by. Much of me is still out of my reach. In a way, it is like being young again: aware that there is wisdom and power surrounding you, but unable to see it. The difference is that the knowledge is not out there, but in here.’ He puts both thumbs to his chest.
They now walk on fields, but Pierre is going toward a road. He doesn’t know where it is, but, in dreams, mere details such as location do not interfere with direction. Pierre seeks a road, therefore a road materializes under his feet.
Two riders come in the opposite direction. Pierre pulls Fregósbor out of their way, but he didn’t have to. The horses stop before they reach them.
‘I know these two,’ says Pierre. ‘They are Thaila and the Eslarian.’
Thaila shades her eyes with her hand and Pierre looks at what she is seeing.
‘What is it?’ asks the Eslarian.
‘An army,’ she says.
‘It must be Henrique,’ he says. ‘Olivier has managed to yank the king out of the Emerald.’
At that moment something happens that could only be part of a dream, but it happens in reality, in front of Thaila and the Eslarian. A skinny man appears in the middle of the road, kicking his legs as though trying to put on trousers that are too tight. He is naked. It is possible to see his ribs through his skin, and his lungs shrivel when he sees himself naked in front of other people.
‘Well, there, hello,’ he smiles. ‘Forgive me, I can’t control this thing.’
‘Leonard,’ says Thaila.
‘Ah, Thaila, long time no see.’
‘When did you leave Debur? What are you doing here?’
‘I don’t really know where here is, but I now live in Chambert and, uh, I had na accident.’ He scratches his nose, feeling ridiculous. Not because he was naked in the middle of the road, but because he, the Accident, had na accident. Then he notices the army. ‘Where are we?’ he asks. ‘Is that Fulbert?’
‘It’s Henrique,’ says Thaila. ‘We are a week’s ride from Chambert.’
‘I will warn Neville,’Leonard says and disappears.
‘What about us?’ Thaila asks.
‘We go back,’ says the Eslarian. ‘We wanted the warriors from Debur, didn’t we? Well, there they are.’
Pierre and Fregósbor let the dust settle and went back to the road.
‘Is this the first time you left the Frontier?’ Fregósbor asks.
‘I know Franária very well. I am one of the Frontier Messengers and we walk many paths. We follow the example of the Messengers of Sátiron, though we are no diplomats or sorcerers, only observers. I have travelled much less than Menior and Fulion because I always returned to the dragon. There were two situations in which I felt at home: alone on the trail, or with the dragon. Any other place, in the company of any other person, even Menior and Fulion, I felt that I was different, even wrong, like a snow flake in the summer. I didn’t know how to be like the other raindrops.
‘Now that you know what you mean to the dragon, do you only feel at home while on a journey? Here, on this road.’
Pierre stops. He can see Chambert, the sand coloured walls against the vibrant spring blue sky.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I feel fine in Chambert. There are other people who make me feel normal.’
‘Who?’ asks the mage.
‘Vivianne. She doesn’t see the differences between the people. I don’t know if it is lack of sight or wisdom, but if I tell her that I have been to the Land of the Banished, that I come from the Frontier, that everything I know I learned from a dragon and that I have ridden on the back of a wolf of Sátiron, she will ask me to pass her the salt.’
Fregósbor’s beard shakes with laughter. Pierre laughs with him.
‘Thank you,’ says the mage. ‘I had forgotten what it is like to laugh.’
‘I wonder where Vivianne is now.’
The moment he thinks of her, the road narrows down into a sinuous trail inside a closed forest. Two people are on the trail, pulling their horses by the reins, stumbling on roots that spread over the ground as densely as the wrinkles on Fregósbor’s face. Menior goes first, Vivianne follows. Pierre can see the tiredness on her heavy lids. Her hair is braided and there are leaves on it. She wears brown trousers and a moss green vest.
‘They are going to Deran,’ says Pierre. ‘To Lune.’
‘Vivianne went to gather allies for the fight against Fulbert and Henrique, says Fregósbor. ‘She was the onw who found us.’
‘Us?’ asks Pierre. ‘You were not alone?’
The forest changes shape, the leaves turn into dark stars, climbing walls, framing a white marble pannel representing a grey wolf resting in the shade of a golden tree.
Fregósbor is surprised. Pierre had not been to the garden of shadows, he didn’t even know that the pannel was the door to the hidden tower, or even that there was a hidden tower. Yet his dream brings him automatically here and the grey wolf greets him silently.
Pierre once again runs his fingers over the scar on his neck, then he crosses the pannel with Fregósbor. On the other side, a child with slanted eyes awaits them.
‘Do you live here too?’ asks Pierre.
‘Not anymore. I am leaving,’ says Yukari.
‘I wish you would stay,’ says Fregósbor.
‘I know, but I don’t belong in this story. I must leave before it takes hold of me. I am here to say farewell.’
Fregósbor crushes Yukari in a hug full of beard.
‘Will I see you again?’ asks the mage.
Yukari holds Fregósbor’s face in both her hands. That frail, smooth, writhed skin that reminded of ancient papyrus. Yukari turns to Pierre.
‘I leave you in good hands.’ The way she says it, facing one, holding the other, makes them wonder who she leaves in whose hands.
She walks past the pannel, to the South, to the Frontier. And beyong. A meeting with a mystery makes Pierre think of another mystery he met in Franária.
‘Where is Líran?’ Pierre searches, but Líran is beyond the limits of his dream. He tries to follow her track, but all he finds is a grey prince standing alone in front of a red locomotive.
‘I must wake up,’ says Pierre.
Fregósbor watches how easily Pierre manouvers in dreams of reality. The youg man has talent in dealing with dreams, but so far he has been enveloped in Fregósbor’s magic and has done nothing special. Not until he dove into Frederico’s nightmare.