The dreams came first.
Dark dreams. Bleak. Half-remembered visions of sorrow and shade best left forgotten. Somewhere there is the distant squeal of metal on stone, of a door opening, of something heavy being wheeled slowly into a lightless room.
From far away, it seems, there is the smell of harsh chemicals and coppery blood. The icy caress of bare metal. No, those are the senses of someone else, some dim ghost whispers.
How can the void have a voice? How can darkness pour out a vision? But still that cold, lonely horror that grips me is, perhaps, a nightmare of sorts. I don't remember the last time I dreamed, but I suppose this is something like it.
A flicker of purple light, an obelisk with countless names etched into its obsidian surface.
Another flicker, and a hundred skulls resting on shelves turn to face me. Human skulls, animal skulls, the skulls of demons and angels alike, all behind a curtain of mist that blurs my vision. They stare at me a moment. Curious, mocking, and accusing.
Fire. Pain. Agony. The love of a mourning woman. So much PAIN. Enough pain to slay a city, to break a world into endless weeping.
Love.
So soft. A shy girl, once, but with a fire in her breast. She abandoned something to come with me, sacrificed everything to see me smile. And a tender caress may have repaid her a thousand times, in her eyes. I tore her from an old, soft life and planted her in this rough and dangerous wandering, but she willingly follows. She was my burden.
But did I love her?
Wait....
This isn't real!
This isn't REAL!
A hundred accusing fingers, a thousand. TEN thousand! The dream spirals out of control, the visions slipping into a black miasma that binds it all in a valley of tears. Demons, shadows, and slaughter. So much blood. Rivers of blood. Enough to wash the Styx crimson.
I feel my skin peeling, my flesh writhing as scars paint themselves to me. I do the only thing I could do:
I scream.
But even nightmares have their small mercies, perhaps. The panic and terror melts away into a flash of blue, a tinkling of soft bells. And a woman, a familiar woman, giving me a glance with crystal blue eyes. Her silver hair and azure tresses ripple in an unfelt wind.
Her eyes close, and she turns away from me quietly, those soft chimes fading in the distance as the world grows dark again. Her back is turned to me as she vanishes from sight. That single glance, so full of sorrow, so live with anger, is the only thing she gives me. Cold as the winter storms and smooth as frosted glass. The only thing she is willing to give.
And it all slips away.
And I rest.
"She's right, chief," Morte bobbed in front of me, "The Clerk's Ward is a safe place... it's made for all the berks born with silver spoons and gilded knickers. They run the show in Sigil for the most part. Law's pretty strict, but that means they guard the richest fun."
And rare, wild fun it was.
Skewered meat in one hand and a penny ale in the other, we explored the Ward, enjoying the street music, heckling the poets, trying to tip over a performance artist or two. Such mischief wasn't unknown in Sigil, indeed, it was almost expected since our antics had earned us a scolding from a Harmonium officer or two. They growled at us with the poise and preparation that had to have come from dealing with hooligans a dozen times before.
I almost burst into laughter at as Morte hovered right behind a Harmonium officer, accenting the castigation with flicks of the tongue and wild rolls of his eyes.
By the end of the day Annah was hiding a smirk, and even Dak'kon seemed less morose.
"Can we, chief? Oh please can we?" Morte pleaded.
'The Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts,' the sign said.
I gave him a flat look, "Did you even read the entire sign?"
"Do I have to?"
"Point taken."
It was with a vague nimbic sense of falling that I floated to the shore, the singing of the fish in my ears. It is the sound of water and motion and the tug of the tides like a million little soft strings. There were twenty of them each. It is soothing.
I dig at the beach with my hands, neither land nor sea but someplace in between. There should be a door here, beneath the moist sand as it trickles between my fingers. He said there would be one. There is a door beneath every beach.
The sky is gray with unkempt clouds and the wind is cool against my brindleskin. Waves wash their languors against the beach and wet my boots. I do not like it when my boots are wet.
Blue dress blown on the winds. Silken gown like waves and hair pale as the clouds. Skin ivory white and on the beach she dwell, cold hands that reach heaven from hell.
I can feel her coming.
I am afraid.
Wind blowing blue gown. Pearl white woman, dead pale like fishbelly skin.
She is coming.
I unlock the door and descend, the song of the fish behind me.
Annah's tail cracked against the ground, "Nay. I'm not followin' some clueless addle-cove anymore! Ye've got the mark o' doom on ye, yeh do! And yer not draggin' me to the depths wit ye."
"Pharod said you'd help me! We still need to find that alley-"
"Pharod can pike it for all I care. Mebbe this'll pay off another sod ta take yeh. It's not worth goin' another two steps wit-"
I grabbed her shoulder. Her skin was milk-white, and soft under my rough grip. But there was steel under that beauty, like a rose forged from metal by a skilled artisan. And quick as a whip she turned, with a sound of metal sliding against leather. There was a sharp stabbing pain in my gut, and looking down I stared dumbly at a punch-dagger buried right in my solar plexus.
I looked up at Annah, whose eyes had grown wide with shock, as if she'd just surprised herself with her own instincts. The only words that could come to mind were, "Nice form..." but the blood that bubbled to my lips drowned them in a gurgle. Oh, sweet pavement, here I come again.
THUD.