Chorus of Dreams I

Dream Recounted by a Seeker at DeVee:

|In a dream, I saw a vision of night. Ordered on the earth and about it and above it were the currents of fortune and wonder and endeavor that, in unison, sing the world, and the word of that song is Life. And the better good hearts love freely, compete bravely and cooperate generously, the purer the song becomes. The song will never be the same in any two instants from first to last, but where a spring breeze for a moment blew the troubles from a person’s mind, or when strangers caroled gladly around a fire, and when the souls of men and women and children looked outward into the stars at night, the song became not audible but real and solid. Coin found in the wash that can be spent free of worry. Laughter and the smell of soup and baked bread. The feeling of a gentle tug on the rope that binds one heart to another.

The song was good, and night fell when humanity saw itself in the waters of its dreams and faltered. From the mirror rose a million faces. As they looked, many became afraid of what filled the world they had made, or else felt something sicken deep within their hearts, for not in every moment are we always good, or true, and rarely can we see the world as it presents itself to us clearly. That first long night, three kings in three chariots scattered the millions, and gathered in nets as many as they could ensnare.

I heard a voice call out cheerfully to the riders: “I see you there, reaping trophies of gold and glory in the fields of the dead. Come to me, and I will make you reapers of men!” And they roared, and rode into the oncoming shadow, where deep inside lay midnight.

I felt a black flood in my heart, my blood turned to ink, or tar, or stone, but as I sickened I saw a winter star high outside the calamity. It said to me, ‘Go, for as the last gate was closed to you, this gate lies open.’ The road passed into the dark, and I followed.

A tower of burning ghost-light rose from the choking carpet of ash and black flowers there that seemed to go on forever. There I saw the riders on the chariots, and they were joyful. A tall man in a dark coat stood in their midst.

But from beyond them, inside the haze of cloud and smoke and wire, I heard another voice, dire and awful and absolute, and at its word they cringed for a moment, even the tall man. The voice spoke to them.

‘I am that which has called you through the night, the night you have made, to this place deep in shadow, and you shall have audience with me.’

I was unseen yet, and thought only to hide. In truth I felt so small I was unsure that they would see me if they looked straight upon me. I was in the presence of gods. The winter star fell unregarded to the floor, and where it rested I laid and looked on.

To the first chariot and its rider, the voice said ‘You who commands armies, you have gathered men and women to war and turned them from their brothers and sisters to bring war to every corner of the earth so that you might have a hand in the shape of this hour, and you spare not even the littlest children the edge of your sword. You who are bathed in blood, what would one such as you ask of me?’

The first rider considered but a moment, and said, “War! Give me war, and make the hearts of people warlike, and make them desire war, even as war destroys and consumes them.”

And the voice said ’You will have it.’

The voice spoke again, and said to the second warrior, ‘You whose word carries long. You have stirred the heavens into murk and void to have a hand in fashioning this hour. You, who has corrupted the realms where the sleeping find their dreams; what gift would one such as you ask of me?’

And the second rider said ‘Give me the fog, that I may come close to every soul on earth, and whisper to them in voices they believe to be their own.”

And the voice said, ‘You will have it.’

And to the third rider it said ‘You, who have found the keys to the first deep vaults. You have learned much of treasure, and the keeping of treasure, and the ways treasure may remain and only ever grow in majesty. You have harvested wealth and the favor of the wealthy as a farmer of saffron, with a crop of peerless value, to have a hand in fashioning this hour. What would one such as you ask of me?’

The third rider sat for a long while, and said at last “Give me a scroll, and make it the scroll of what men and women desire, and fashion it of gold and nothing more.”

And the voice said ‘You will have it.’

In a storm of cheers and howling, the riders brandished their endowments and rode in flames of ruin into the night to make the purview of night eternal.

I felt an unutterably patient eye turn to me. The night was silent. The dark was eternal. The silence was absolute. Then all of a sudden, like thunder out of clear skies, the voice spoke:

‘You who was carried here by a cold star, I will ask you the same question. After the wishes of those princes of men, what would you ask of me?’

I stared into the timeless tree of light, in darkness growing, until I thought I had passed out of and back into myself a thousand times in a thousand lives as a thousand mirrored souls. I felt hollow. But I felt whole, and I said, “Give me the aberrant light of this awful beacon seething here, terrible. Give me the radiance of this before me, woeful light in the sleep of the dark. Give me a measure by which to confound the Three. Give me a falling star, the midnight star, and a token of midnight, and I will make of them a star of hope. For what is night’s deepest hour if a flame burns there to outshine the sun, as here this tree grows to the very same purpose?”

What the voice said I can not recall.|

Let the reader consider; the dreams of Seekers are often mistold, miscommunicated, or held close and obscured by long sleeplessness and infirmities of the mind. Study has been undertaken by the Scholasti of Artis and Bredge, in the east, to bring clarity to records such as the account above, and are ongoing.