Chapter 22-Vivid Veracity
Once again, Irgen found
himself in the same cold dark, and bleak castle, except this time he knew he
was dreaming, and yet the dream was so vivid, so alive. It felt like it was actually happening, like
it was real. Once again he felt his hair
stand on end as he looked at the dark figure before him. He felt not only like he was frozen in place,
but also as if his very body was stiffening.
Like he himself was freezing.
He watched horrified as
the wiry man before him slowly raised a grim and deformed hand. It reached for the dark helm on his head. As he lowered the sinister helm, it seemed
that it regained a shimmer to it. Now
Irgen could see how far the helm extended above the actual head. It had eight distinct points protruding from
the large helm, with three in front and back and two on the sides.
Irgen took in the details
of the helm for a few moments and finally mustered all the courage he possessed
and lifted his gaze to look at the now uncovered face of the man before
him. Long, greasy black hair descended
from the terrifying face. A pale white,
yet extraordinarily dark face stared at Irgen sizing him up. A long hooked nose jutted out of the already
demented face. The two small slits for
eyes coincided with his small ears which could barely be seen through the thick
mat of hair which covered the back of his head.
As he looked at him, a slow, icy hiss whipped out of the man’s mouth
biting into Irgen’s very flesh.
“Why have you come?” Irgen was silent. He was not just frozen by fear now, but by
indecision. He did not know why he was there;
let alone how he came to be there. He
stood silent, waiting, hoping the question was meant for someone else, but then
he felt words come of their own accord out of his mouth.
“You know why I am here,
I have come to find-Him.” His voice
sounded harsh and yet its firmness brought warmth to his body, releasing him
from the icy chains which held him bound.
The man looked at Irgen for a moment before nodding and turning towards
the door. The icy voice came back.
“You’ll wait here, won’t you? I’ll bring Him back.” The door swung shut, and footsteps resounded
on the stairs outside again as the man descended the steps towards the great
host outside. When he left, Irgen
surveyed himself, and found that he was arrayed in bright, shimmering red
armor. A mighty and bright, naked sword
lay at his side. Irgen thought with
slight trepidation that it must be dangerous there without a sheath, but the
thought was driven from his mind as he looked at his now gargantuan body.
He clenched one of his
mighty hands and felt the raw strength run through it. He thought he must be abnormally strong to
not have noticed the armor before this moment.
But as his hands clenched he felt the metal armor on his palm. He was astonished to feel that the armor he
was wearing seemed to flow like water around his body. It was not stiff and inflexible as he had
imagined the armor to be, but instead was agile and seemed to flow with his
very movements, and more than that it was light as a feather. It seemed as though he was not wearing it at
all, but that it was part of him.
Awe overcame him as he
knew that this was his own body, and yet it was not his. He lifted his other hand in front of him to
admire his muscular form, and found in his hand a beautiful red staff. It too was light and yet harder than
steel. A large white stone shone in the
pommel of the staff. Irgen grinned as his
courage grew, and a firm resolve developed in his body; he was ready and
waiting for whoever would come into the room with the other creepy man.
Suddenly he heard a pair
of footsteps on the staircase outside.
He leaned on his staff confidently as the footsteps halted before the
door. The door swung open to reveal the
same wiry man as before. He stepped
inside and said, “Here he is, is he much different?” The man cackled horrendously as he stepped
aside revealing a familiar man to Irgen.
Irgen’s jaw dropped with shock in realization of who it was. The man’s black armor shined and shimmered in
the light emitted from the window.
“You wished to speak with
me?” The familiar voice seemed to cut
Irgen to the core. He stared in
disbelief at the man.
“No!” he thought to
himself, “NO! It cannot be… NO!!!”
“Irgen wake up.” Irgen’s eyes flew open and found the pale
blue sky smiling invitingly down upon him.
He sat up and found that he was still on the cobblestone pathway, right
where he had collapsed. He looked around
and found Helen, Alex and a whole throng of people crowded around him. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him.
“About time you woke
up.” He flipped around quickly and found
himself staring directly at the grinning face of his brother, Idus. His face seemed to have lost some of its
former strength and glory. His cheeks
were not quite sunken into his bony skull, but Idus appeared to have lost something
in his brief period of unconsciousness.
His face was not as full as it once was.
To Irgen it appeared as though it hurt his brother to smile, but just
the same, he was overjoyed to have Idus back.
“I should say the same
for you.” He said promptly as he too
flashed a smile. His brother offered him
his hand and pulled him up. The crowd of
people around him were all beaming at him with the same picturesque smile, but
perhaps the most remarkable to Irgen, were those of his mother, his brother,
and… Helen.
They turned around and
began walking toward the castle. As they
neared the entrance the horrifying dream flashed back into Irgen’s mind, with
all of its vivid veracity. It was then
that Irgen determined that if he ever revealed the dream to anyone, he would
conceal the petrifying identity of the other man in the dream, referring to him
just as he had in the dream, as Him, and Him alone.
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