Dreams are a real struggle for me.
I am told and tend to believe that some dreams come from God and are meant to steer us toward important things to do or thoughts to think. Personally, I have allowed a handful of dreams to direct some pretty vital aspects of my life and I have not yet gotten to the point where I regret doing that. My years of effort on this story are something of a response to dreams of my childhood, as an example. I find a touch of solace from the knowledge that, at least on smaller matters, following these sleep-time premonitions have worked out in my favor, so much so that my tendency is to attribute many of them to God and exercise faith that I won't go far wrong by working this way in the long term. The evidence of this rests now in the hands of you kindly readers.
On the other hand, night terrors of being swallowed by tentacled monsters of the deep or, less graphically, having my home violated by burglars have blissfully not come to pass so far in my existence as they have in my dreams. Now, I am not foolish enough to venture out to sea without a spear-gun or leave my house totally open to the malicious passer-by, so I hope you will forgive my taking a precaution or two beyond what might be considered healthy on the chance of avoiding some gruesome end that I may have foreseen in my sleep. Needless-to-say, I choose not to put great stock in every dream that comes down the pike from either God or the odd bit of undigested beef.
"Firsthome really isn't all that interesting," Mulls tried to drop this like a matter-of-fact as part of the discussion after Enis and Tessreen's visit. "I don't see how Enis' dream can happen. Ladies and Matrons have no interest in anything like God or the Christ. They just want to profit from the economy and run things. Some divinity would just complicate their smooth flow."
Daavor looked at Mulls, torn between his own enthusiasm at a welcome diversion and his reflexive loyalty to the Lady of the hut. "Hmm. I just remember that I fished most days there just like I do here." He shook his head. "At least on Firsthome, Daavor the servant got a few more days off, a lot more than this 'free' man that has to make things work by himself."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Daavor managed a sigh and rubbed the old wound on his head. "I wouldn't mind returning to my former prospects." He stared off into space, imaging the possibilities, then sighed. "I recall who brought us to 'freedom'. Is my Lady enjoying her choice?" The man shrugged, resigning himself yet again to his current fate. "So, Enis and Mullicynda will teach the Alaed about Kiyami and God and the Christ and that is what gets new people to protect the pass above Waykeep? Is that the will of her Ladyship, tended by her loyal man-servant?" The man let out another sigh of resignation. "Maybe I will tag along until I find a more promising situation."
She fumed at what she saw as Daavor's 'pity' eruption. "We are of the Alaed." Her voice had an icy twinge. "We can be part of bringing our people closer to God." Although Mulls had distanced herself from the Convocation years ago, she still considered some people from her school-days to be missed friends. Daavor could never really remember having any such friends himself, but slaves rarely form such attachments except perhaps to a kindly Lady.
It is an old complaint with the couple that breaks the surface of unspoken grievances. Daavor never really chose this life and Mulls more often these days regrets her impromptu escape to a lonely and laborious beach. This "mission" opportunity might provide each one a needed respite from undesired lives.
The event that finally sells the strained couple on a return to Firsthome is a portentous vision that Daavor dreams a few night later.
On the topic of dreams, I must offer a bit of a disclaimer: I tend to let them affect me far more than I probably should. In truth, the writing of this story is a sort of quelling of many dreams I have had, where some pretty interesting things seem to happen to me incidental to the publication of this story. Of course, it may just be a load of just wishful thinking on my part, that a modicum of fame and fortune will come of this, that I will be on some sort of lecture circuit and some desperate little college will invite me to a commencement address and offer me a personally coveted honorary degree of some sort that I have been unwilling to actually earn in the more traditional way. It could be that wishful thinking or it might be the incessant pricking of a God that, for private reasons of his own, simply won't let the matter of writing this story drop. Most likely, it is a bit of both things and even if I get passed over for the title "doctor of letters", I can at least say that I finally finished writing a story that has frankly been haunting me and my dreams since I was a teenager.
In as much as I cannot say what the ultimate result will be for my writing dreams, I also have only my own opinion on why Daavor has his own dream during a sleep following the rather commonplace "spat" that we just witnessed between the chaffing couple in their squalid hut. Perhaps it was just the psychic vomiting up of a man's psyche, too weary of a mundane life of fishing. I will go so far as to reveal that the events he dreams this night will all come to pass in the future and that such dreams speak to me of a God that is setting needed events in motion. Personally, I find it interesting that it is to Daavor, a self-serving and small-minded man, that the visions come, but I leave the things I don't understand of God's private reasons well enough alone.
Daavor's dream is a stream of vignettes, as far as I can describe it, much like watching the "teaser trailer" for an upcoming movie. Although the scenes do come from the actual feature, it typically doesn't reveal too much about what happens for fear of "ruining" the plot, but just whets the appetite enough to pay an admission and sit through the whole movie. On one level, that is what God seems to be doing here, 'teasing' the couple's appetite about going to Firsthome. On a seemingly higher level, Daavor is seeing a bit of a script of which he and his Lady will become a part and that will be played out soon enough. Of course, he is only getting the more enticing bits of the future and other parts that will be far less appealing are being kept from him for now, like any good movie trailer strives to do. I certainly do not put it past God to draw anyone into circumstances that one doesn't really fully know what they are getting into, but that seems to be a vital component of the attribute that we often refer to as "faith".
Of interest to Mullicynda is a revelation of happenings around her school chum Coryn and her hazy and nasty rise into the Matriarchy. She is concerned for her old friend and what shreds of 'soul' she may retain.
There are familiar faces in the dream, not just of Mullicynda, Enis, and Tessreen, but of Ladies and matrons and consorts that Daavor had known from his life before escaping the Convocation. Most notably, Daavor boggles at a sight of his estranged son Weslyn among the familiar sights of Manatoa, the Alaed capital city. That scene would fade and another would come on, this time of Enis fighting another man in some sort of arena with a collection of weapons. This gave way to a scene of a group of people to fight in a strange "war" alongside Enis and finally, one baby is born of a high Lady that will embrace the ways of Kiyami and bring all the Alaed back to their God, just as it had been in the days of Alaedeus and Cassandra.
There was far more to this dream than this, but like that movie trailer, what I share at this point is sufficient for my need, which is to entice you gracious readers to soldier on in the story. As this dream comes from God, one can rest assured that these things will come in due course, often in unexpected and none-to-straight-forward ways, so I hope readers will not feel justified in skipping ahead in the story, trusting to the fact that one already knows the salient points. The best movies keep their precious gems for those diligent enough to pay the required admission and for my purposes here, I have chosen not to reveal my treasures quite yet.