The Ballad Of A Semi-Benevolent Dragon
Chapter 63: The World Dreams

Hikari dreamed and dreamed deeply.

And when next she opened her eyes, it was not the whimsy and haze of the Dreaming Lands that greeted her, nor the mist and shadow of the Deep Dreaming. Instead, it was a vast and terrible darkness. It yawned endlessly beneath her, deep and all-encompassing, an abyss that swallowed all hope and thought and reason. It was the darkness that lingered in every person's heart, the shadow that crawled across the panes when nights grew long and cold and lonely. It was every frightened whisper of a child staring out the window only to see eyes staring back.

For all her power, for all the long years of her life and the bitter wisdom that she'd won, she might well have gone mad if not for the appearance of familiar scales of vivid purple. The darkness nearest to her gave way to violet, amethyst, lilac, and indigo. Yet not even Dreamsong's presence could push it far. Instead, the abyss waited, a wolf lurking in the shadows beyond the flickering light of the campfire.

"What is this place?" Hikari whispered. "How…how have I never seen it before?"

"I will answer your question," Dreamsong rumbled. "But not yet. We are waiting for someone. He should be here any moment now."

Hikari slumped onto her knees atop Dreamsong's snout. She knew she should look outward into the great darkness because it was dangerous, and only a fool looked away from danger. Yet her instincts warned her otherwise. There were things that were not supposed to be seen, things that were not supposed to be considered or dwelt upon. The darkness was one of those things, and there was a weight to it that was far more than physical.

At last, Hikari sensed it. If the Dreaming Lands were an ocean, then she and Dreamsong ventured across it upon ships with sails. They had no need to fight the currents and the winds. Instead, they drew strength from them. The newcomer was different. Their presence in the Dreaming Lands was akin to a ship driven by countless pairs of oars – swift, yes, but laboured, fighting the Dreaming Lands every step of the way. The space beside them bent and twisted, and a great titan of red and blue emerged.

It was Doomwing.

The nova dragon's golden gaze swept over them in a moment and then turned to the darkness that seemed to stretch limitlessly above and below them. There was no fear in his eyes, only wariness, a caution born of hard-won experience and bloody battle. He bared his teeth, and flame kindled in his jaws, and she felt his power press down on the space around them. Yet the shadows clung stubbornly to them, and the echoing silence was broken only by the steady beating of his wings and the susurrant flicker of the embers of dream-fire that drifted idly from Dreamsong's scales.

"What is this place?" Doomwing rumbled. "And why did you call me here?" His eyes narrowed ever so slightly at Hikari. "And is it safe for her to be here?"

"You both needed to see what I have to show you. As for what this place is, it is a place beyond the depths of the Deep Dreaming."

"I did not know there was such a place," Hikari murmured. "The Deep Dreaming troubles me, but this place… it terrifies me. I should not be here. None of us should be."

"I did not tell you of this place for a reason." Dreamsong's scales shifted, amethyst giving way to a burgundy that was more red than purple, more blood than dream. "It was this place that drove your mother mad."

"What?" Hikari hissed. She looked about frantically. "Then I need to leave." Beside them, Doomwing's magic stirred, spells of protection and defence crackling into existence. They were targeted not at him, but at her, ready to protect her from any threat that might emerge from the abyss.

"Enough," Dreamsong said, quietly but firmly. Her words carried weight here, greater weight than they could ever have in the physical world. Here, at least, not even Doomwing was truly her match. Dreamsong's magic flared, a tidal wave of power wielded with all the precision of a craftsman's chisel. "Simply being here will not change you the way it changed your mother. No. What changed her lies below us."

Hikari allowed herself to relax ever so slightly, yet Doomwing did not cease his sorcery. Protective magic settled upon her, and she added her own to it. She would take no chances. She would not – could not – fail as her mother had. "Please," she said. "Speak plainly. What is this place?"

"The Deep Dreaming is born of the collective unconscious that is fed by the dreams of all living things in our world. This place is older than that. It was here before the Deep Dreaming, and it would remain even if you killed every single living thing in our world. It is the First Dream."

"The First Dream?" Hikari's brows furrowed. She had seen that term only a handful of times, hidden away in the oldest and most esoteric of her people's books of lore, the sort that straddled the border between ancient memory and misremembered myth. Yet not once had the term ever been explained. It was a mystery to her, a phrase used almost as a prayer on the few occasions she'd seen it.

"The First Dream is not fed by the dreams of those who dwell in our world. It is nourished by the dreams of the world itself." Dreamsong paused, and her words seemed to echo endlessly through the unbroken night around them. "Magic is born of the soul. And yet… magic fills our world. It flows through the earth, the sea, and the sky. How could that be possible if our world was not, in some sense, alive? And if it lives, then it can dream, even if those dreams are almost always transient and inchoate."

A flicker of something that was not quite recognition bloomed in Doomwing's eyes. "I had wondered about that…"

"But what does the world dream of?" Hikari asked. "And what kind of dream could give rise to… this?" She gestured vaguely at the darkness around them. "This seems more a nightmare than a dream."

"The world seldom dreams of the present. It has little reason to. The present is the domain of the creatures who dwell upon the world. Instead, it dreams of the past… and the future. And it is to discuss the past and the future that I have called both of you here." Dreamsong gestured. "What lays beneath us is born of memory. It is the past. What looms above us is born of dream. It is the future, or at least, what might await in the future."

"I cannot see anything above us," Doomwing growled. "And my eyes are keen."

"Your eyes see much, old friend. But this is a place wrought of dream and memory. You dream too little and remember too much." Dreamsong raised one claw. "Let me show you what lurks above us."

Dream-fire blazed, and in the incomprehensible gloom above them bloomed two suns. No, Hikari realised. Not suns. Crowns. Both were majestic, yet one held a terrible majesty that hurt to look upon whilst the other held a splendid majesty that caught the eye and held it. The former was a twisted thing of corrupted metal, and the fire that blazed around it held madness and despair. Something in Hikari's soul quivered, and she turned away. Unbidden, tears began to flow down her cheeks. Beneath the terror the crown inspired, beneath the horror and anguish it cast down like baleful light, there was a sorrow even deeper than the shadows around them. But the other crown. If she wept again, it was only because it was so beautiful, like every dream of glory and hope she'd ever had made real. It was a crown of divine metal and living wood, a crown to bind the tides and outshine the stars, a crown that brought peace to the dead and clarity where once madness had reigned. And the fires that burned around it were bluer than the sky and redder than blood.

Beside them, Doomwing had gone completely still. He raised one claw as if to catch the crowns in it, only to lower it. The crowns were high above them, beyond even his reach, but she did not miss the longing that filled his gaze, nor did she miss how the flames of the second crown danced like old lovers upon his scales.

"Those crowns…" Doomwing paused, uncertain for the first time that Hikari could remember. "I feel as if I should know them."

"You will," Dreamsong said softly. "You will know the truth of them before the end."

Doomwing shook himself, the longing and wonder bound by logic and Ages-old weariness. "Prophesy. I like it little, but I am not fool enough to dismiss it." He turned his gaze away from the crowns, and their twin lights faded. Yet even so, their weight remained, a weight heavier than every mountain in the world, part promise, part threat, and part duty. "The future shifts like sand, and those who try to grasp it too tightly will find it slipping through their claws like sand. Speak no more of it. I am Doomwing. My fate is my own, not bound to the whims of any other, not even the world itself. What then of the past? For surely, that is the other matter of which you wished to speak."

Dreamsong chuckled. "You speak truly. To chase the future is to be caught by it instead. Live as you have and let the future unfold as it may. As for the past…" She pointed below them. "Behold."

Once again dream-fire bloomed in the dark, and the abyss below them was revealed.

Hikari gasped.

Below them was an endless ocean, one that stretched beyond the horizon. They were high, high, high above it, yet she could see the mighty waves raging across its surface. How vast must those waves be to seem so large from so high up. No storm she had ever seen or heard of could have driven the sea into such a frenzy, and not even the great waves that had sought to drown the world at the end of the Third Age could have been so high.

Yet even the waves paled into insignificance before the titan roots that spanned the surface of the ocean like the bars of some gargantuan cage – a prison not for krakens or leviathans, but for gods and those that felled them. Heart thudding in her chest like thunder, her gaze followed the roots back to their source, to a trunk so wide it defied description –

"Mother Tree." Doomwing roared, and a shockwave of power crackled outward. For a split-second, the darkness was driven back. Hikari covered her eyes and turned away, but not before she glimpsed something unfathomably vast silhouetted in the light of ancient runes and supreme sorcery – a tree, a tree larger than any mountain, a tree whose roots dug to the very heart of the world, whose branches pierced the clouds and birthed storms and rain. "What is this?" Doomwing boomed. His eyes were wild as he rounded on Dreamsong, and the air trembled with wrath and grief. "What madness is this? This is beyond the shadow that lingers in the Deep Dreaming. This… this is…"

"This is the memory of Mother Tree that the world never forgot, the dream that was born when her seedling was planted in the earth, the dream that remained even after we turned her to ash and ruin, the dream that the gods began but which the world never relinquished. For as long as the world lasts, this memory will too. And you know as well as I that memories have power, Doomwing."

"You should have told me of this sooner!" Doomwing's gaze burned, yet despite the fury in it, he seemed younger, not the primordial dragon he had become but the young dragon he must have been once, a dragon forced to strike down the closest thing he'd had to a parent after his own parents had passed. "I had a right to know!"

Dreamsong remained unshaken in the face of his anger. "I would have told you sooner if it had happened sooner." She took a deep, deep breath, and the weight of her many regrets settled upon her shoulders like a mountain range. "I do not come here often. It is not safe, even for me. The only ones who can stay here for long are the island whales, for it was dreams that made them what they are, and it is to dreams that they shall return. This ocean is where they go when they slumber, and when they pass, it is not to death but to the dreams of other worlds, no longer flesh and blood but dreams in truth, and dreams connect all worlds if you are willing to go deep enough."

Doomwing's wrath cooled ever so slightly. "I had heard strange whispers of their conduct, but they are so unusual that I was not sure what to think. They seldom speak, and when they do, it is always in riddles, as though they see past, present, and future at the same time and cannot easily tell which is which."

"Normally, the great ocean beneath us is calm, eerily so. Yet, when the twin crowns first appeared in this place, their light whipped the ocean into frenzy. At least, that is what the island whales told me." Dreamsong tensed. "In the past, now and then, things would emerge from the depths, but they would always sink back into the endless deep. The world dreams of many things, and it never forgets, but each dream seldom lasts long before the next takes over. Yet, as unsettling as this change may be, perhaps it is for the best."

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"How?" Doomwing asked bluntly. "How could this be considered for the best?"

Dreamsong gestured vaguely at the darkness. "If you fly as far and as fast as you can for as long as you can, you will find seven places where the ocean is deepest. They are the seven most important memories of the world, the seven moments that have decided its fate. The birth of the Seven Gods. The Broken God. Mother Tree. The Lord of the Tides. The Mad Vampire. The Exiled Star. The Twisted Fox. If you were to make a compass to explore this place, those would be the cardinal directions." Her voice grew hard. "You have already seen the echoes of them that linger in the Deep Dreaming. More than echoes remain here, and we are fortunate that they never surface for long before being drowned once more in the endless memories of the world."

"The spear Kagami struck me with," Doomwing murmured. "It was from here, wasn't it? She dredged it from the depths."

"It should not have been possible. Everything I know says that it should be impossible to take anything from this place. I can only speculate. She must have dived into the waters to claim her prize. But to do that, to immerse herself in the memories of the world without the strength of a world…"

"It does not excuse her actions," Doomwing said. "Although it may explain them."

"As of late, the island whales had sensed something changing, as though the world itself was awakening, and in doing so, giving greater strength and substance to what lurks in the ocean of its ancient memories. If one of the Catastrophes was to somehow break free of this place and return…"

Doomwing growled, low and deep and terrible. "Then we would kill it like we did before."

"That was when Mother Tree's roots began to spread," Dreamsong said. "I saw it myself, these past few days. They do more than span the surface. They delve down into the deeps and bind what lingers there. In life, she may not have been a match for all of them, but here, it is the strength of her memory that matters, and her daughters have never forgotten, nor have we, and that makes her mighty."

Doomwing nodded slowly, and then his attention was drawn to the surface of the sea. There, below them, was someone else. "Who is that?"

"I had hoped to see her," Dreamsong replied. "The island whales spoke of her, but when I tried to find her, she always eluded me. Perhaps it was not me she was waiting for."

They descended, and the ocean's surface grew calm as several titanic shapes appeared. They were whales, Hikari realised, the island whales she had often heard of but never actually seen, the great behemoths whose bodies slumbered while their spirits explored the oceans of dream and memory.

It was a unicorn, and she strode boldly across the sea, her horn shining proudly upon her head, the darkness giving way before her in a way it had not even for Doomwing or Dreamsong. She was ethereal, her beauty a haunting reminder of a world and future that had died with the gods of the First Age.

"You are the Mother of Unicorns," Doomwing said. "The first and oldest of your kind." To Hikari's surprise, he inclined his head, not in obeisance but in respect. "You are older than the oldest dragon, and the first friend of Mother Tree, one of the few who remembers the long ago days of her youth before her branches spanned the sky and her roots reached the heart of the world."

The unicorn stared back at them. There was an ageless quality to her gaze, at once the same and different from the gulf of Ages that lurked in Doomwing's eyes. "I am." She paused, and a hint of whimsey entered her voice. "Or perhaps I was, once."

"You perished," Doomwing said. "At the hands of the Broken God. Mother Tree mourned you."

"I was always more dream than flesh and blood," the unicorn said. "Not like the dragons of old. I was the dream the gods had, their dream of sheltered woods and hidden vales, of unbroken canopies, and bubbling brooks. I was the sense of wonder in their hearts, the longing for a home they could not even remember but had never stopped searching for." She chuckled softly. "Perhaps that is why my offspring are so proud and haughty, so judgemental. They can feel the weight of the dream that birthed me, but they have forgotten that dreams are not supposed to judge. They simply are."

"Are you like Mother Tree?" Doomwing asked. "Are you… another figment of this place? Another memory given form?"

"In a manner of speaking. The world stirs. The futures it has seen draw close, and the time to choose approaches. I have returned because some measure of the dream that birthed me has returned as well. It is the same for Mother Tree."

"Speak plainly. What is happening here?" Doomwing growled.

"I cannot. For what is happening here is beyond even my comprehension. But there is one thing I can tell you, one thing that I have been able to glean. Look to the horizon, to where the light of the future falls upon the shadows of the past. We stand on the edge of oblivion… or at the beginning of a golden age."

Doomwing stared at the unicorn, and though they did not exchange another word, the silence between them spoke volumes. "Another Catastrophe."

The unicorn nodded. "For what else could stir the world in such manner? But this… this one will be different. One way or another, it shall be the last."

Doomwing's eyes widened. "How can you be sure?"

"I am not, but the world is. I have sought the bottom of the ocean, and I have sought the summit of the sky. You know very well that no water can hinder me, nor can the clouds bar my passage. The next will be the last, for either the world will be broken by it or a power will rise that no Catastrophe can challenge. Those are the futures the world has foreseen."

"Can you tell us of the coming threat?" Doomwing asked, ever practical. "Forewarned is forearmed."

"No. I cannot. Only darkness lurks in the dreams of the world, and it either consumes all things or is banished. But I am not alone here. You have already seen the changes wrought to Mother Tree, but the others, the memories of them have stirred too, and you know better than I the threat they might pose if left unchecked."

"The gods perhaps might lend us their aid, for we are their children, and they loved us enough to die on our behalf." Dreamsong sighed. "But they were slain by the Broken God, and their fall was such that even the world's memories of them are fragmented. As for the others, greed, hubris, and madness. Those were their sins. Only Mother Tree was different. Perhaps… perhaps that is why the fragment of her that remains has chosen to cage the others."

"We slew her," Doomwing said. "She should hate us."

"You were closest to her when she fell. Did she curse you as she died? You, the dragon she favoured like a son." The Mother of Unicorn's voice was soft, yet it cut more deeply than any knife. "I have seen the others. Even now, they curse the world and those that slew them. They curse you, Doomwing. But did Mother Tree curse you as she fell, wounded to her death by dragon fire and slain in truth by sorcery?"

"No," Doomwing said at last, voice soft, soft, soft and Ages younger. "She did not. Even at the end. I think… I think even then she was more sad than angry."

"Then you have your answer, or part of it. The rest, only she could give, but she was not as I was – as I am – and I doubt the memory of her that remains could give you the answers you seek."

Doomwing's shoulders sagged, and then he straightened. The fire that had burnt mightily within him since the day of his birth had banked slightly but now it roared again, fuelled by that fierce, unyielding will of his.

"She would be proud, I think," the unicorn. "I pity I did not know you better in life." Her gaze turned distant, and her form shimmered like mist on the breeze. "The world turns in its sleep, and I grow weary. Perhaps we will speak again. Perhaps not." She turned, as if to go, only to pause, head cocked as if listening to a song only she could hear. "Tell me, Doomwing. Do you think the gods we know made this world, that they called it up from the nothingness that preceded it?"

Doomwing was silent. He chose his next words carefully. "They shaped it. As a sculptor carves a statue out of marble, so too did they shape this world to their liking."

The unicorn chuckled. "You avoid the answer, but that too is an answer. I do not think they made it, not truly. Instead, they merely shaped it. For if they could call a world like this from nothing, if they could bring it into being, how then could they fall before the Broken God. You saw him. You saw what he could do. Could that foul creature have stood against powers that wrought a world from nothing? No. But he could slay those that shaped such a world. Who then, Doomwing, brought this world into being?"

"I do not know." Doomwing shook his head. "Does it even matter?"

"Of course, it does. The Broken God was part of something, something far worse than you or I could imagine, something infinitely more powerful. The Exiled Star was the same, or so I think after having glimpsed what remains of him in this place. Our gods, too, I think, were but pieces of a greater whole."

"If such a greater whole existed, it no longer endures. Otherwise, why have we been left to fight these battles alone?" Doomwing asked. There was no bitterness in his voice. Whatever bitterness he'd felt had passed long ago, Hikari thought, burnt out like the flames of all the dragons who'd gone to fight in the First Age.

"You are not wrong. But consider this. The Exiled Star and Broken God are both examples of evil beyond our reckoning. And yet we are still here. You must have felt it when you faced the Exiled Star. He is still out there, and just the tiniest fragment of his being wrought terrible havoc. But if he is out there, then why do the stars still shine? Why is our world not aflame with his judgement? Why are we still here at all? If incomprehensible evil exists, then why has it not already destroyed us?"

Doomwing was silent.

The unicorn smiled gently. "You know why. Because there is incomprehensible good out there as well. I am but a shadow of a memory, but I too have glimpsed it, as I know you have. The great silver eye that lights the astral plane. If there is evil, then there must also be good, else evil would already have triumphed." The unicorn motioned, and Doomwing lowered his head. Gently, as if she were blessing a child, she leaned forward until the tip of her horn touched his snout. "We are not alone, Doomwing. None of us. Never forget that."

And then she was gone, the scent of ancient woods and secret valleys lingering in her wake. She was gone, and yet the gentle glow of her horn remained, warmer than the spring sun, born of a dream but more real than anything Hikari had ever seen.

"What will you do now?" Doomwing asked Dreamsong. He closed his eyes, and his expression relaxed. He was a young dragon again, young, foolish, and free of the weight of Ages. Then his eyes opened again, and he was Doomwing once more, old beyond words and mighty beyond reckoning.

"I will continue to watch over this place. When I cannot, I shall send my followers to do so in my stead, but I must be careful. Even they will not be able to linger long, and the island whales have mostly retreated to their dreams. Whatever they wanted to say to me, they have already said. If anything else changes, I will inform you."

"Do so." Doomwing nodded firmly. "This… worries me." His jaw clenched. "If the unicorn speaks truly, then we have one last Catastrophe to defeat. So be it. We have defeated the others. We shall simply have to defeat this one too." He paused. "But for now, do not share this information with the others except for Fractal Reign. Her sight may aid us in determining the truth of this matter. If the unicorn's words prove to be false, it could do more harm than good."

Dreamsong stared into the distance toward Mother Tree and then to the twin crowns overhead. "Hope is a dangerous thing. To have hope is to gain new life but to lose it can be worse than death." She paused. "Mother Tree once said that to me."

"That makes it beautiful also." Doomwing smiled faintly. "Mother Tree said that too."