Tales of Ashes: Crown of Dreams

"You called for me, Mr. Balbinus?" Hearsay was confused, still holding the onyx summons emblazoned with flickering gold ink, which told her to meet the infamous King of Ashes in the hotel lobby.
Sitting, no, perched on his favorite chaise was He Of Many Stories, the Endless Cycle himself. "Yes dear, and I thank you for coming. You see, I'd like to restart my periodic lectures on freehold and Lost history right here and I wasnt you in charge of organizing it. It may sound bland, but I know it will entertain as much as it educates."
Following a fluid flick of his worn fingers, Hearsay hastily sat down in the nearest seat, a plush armchair, and pulled it closer to her senior Courtier. "I don't understand sir; why me?"
"Because the storybooks say once upon a time another you and another me did the same."
Hearsay knew her answer: No. She would stand her ground. She was a young woman with too much on her plate already, and she couldn't see the merit in indulging the Dragon of Cresthaven like this. She looked straight into his eyes, her face flush with defiance but her poise carefully postured to show respect. Then she found her will weakened; the golden orbs stared back at her, the twisted smile accompanying their gaze cutting her to the core.
"Yes sir. I'll make the arrangements," she replied. He had already known her answer. On the Throne or off of it, he was King.
The crowd was larger than he had foreseen. Hearsay was as thorough as she was loyal to the Autumn Throne, and this behest was her first chance to impress her Founder. She had exceeded expectations. Seats from all over the hotel had been obsessively arranged to face the legendary couch, a simple wooden lecturn between them. He hadn't known what to wear.
His modern wear? A suit of some strain? Perhaps he should dress as the Fleabag he was emulating, his old robes and head-sack? The bone armor of the Ashen Dragon? Certainly no one would expect that. It'd grab their attention.
No, he told himself. Don't overthink it.
Garbed in the royal attire of the Victorian horror he used to be and still is, the King of Ashes silently cast his impossibly long shadow over the crowd.
"Here. Right here, I'm going to tell you a story. It is not one laden with hidden messages or subversive propaganda. It is what it is, and what it is, is truth."
My first story for all of you is about a man most of you fear. But you fear a man you do not know. Here, right here, I rectify that.
His name was Silent Dreams, or at least it was the only thing known to call him. We needed a Winter King, and his courtiers forcibly pushed him into the position. He was simple, the few words ever escaping his mouth always kind and tinged with a frail form of wisdom so rarely found in this world or any other. He didn't want the Crown of Winter, and apparently it didn't want him either. When he reluctantly took the Throne, nothing happened. Now, you'd think the Court of Silence would have been ecstatic about a coronation without extravagant mantles and conjured fireworks, but for a fledgling freehold desperate to jumpstart the Seasons for their protection from the Gentry, it was more than worrying for all of us, Winter included.
Now, for the sake of modesty I won't say who found that tea-stained scroll containing the Legend of the Crown of the Winter Witch, the mystical tale of the Winter Court lost in a blood-stained icicle storm on its coronation day, the eternal Sorrow of the witch-to-be-king infusing itself into her unused silver crown as her body was mutilated by magics far out of her control. It isn't important who brought the scroll to Dreams. It only matters what he did with it.
Some of his Courtiers had heard bits and pieces themselves, that the Crown was more than a symbol of Winter, Winter was a part of it. So devoted was the Winter Witch to her Court and for so long, it was believed the Crown could make anyone a Winter King to be reckoned with. It was what we needed, or at least that's what we quickly convinced ourselves.
The Founders and the Winter Court prepared to ride for the Crown when a cold silence stopped us in our tracks. With a single hand held up before us, Dreams brought the mob to a stand-still. His mouth did not move; he didn't utter a sound, but his stern eyes spoke volumes. We turned back. He traveled on... alone.
First to the Emerald City. Some of you have probably met the merchant there named Bargain; just know he hasn't changed a bit over the years. Cresthaven's Architect, Dreams traded unused blueprints for the Crown's location. Those blueprints would become the city's walls, their thoroughfares, and their fortifications which would last a century, attracting bridgemasons to the city to see Dreams' plans to fruition and build an office amid the city's limits.
A map was given in exchange, a roughly-forged dirk of stone dangling from the twine wrapped around the map's center.
It was an eighteen day journey straight through the Thorns when Dreams arrived at his destination: The Lost Freehold of Timeless Paradise, whose home was a beautiful Hedgespun manse in deep briar, which was abandoned soon after the Witch's disaesterous coronation. The absence of the other Courts balancing it out saw the Winter-infused Crown spin out of control, forming a crag of glacial ice, skewering and elevating the freehold high above the Thorns, earning the name it now is only known by, The Mountain of Sorrow.
It was at the Mountain's foot he met its guardian, a member of the Lost who had vowed to ward off foolhardy Hedge Hunters challenging the peak. Rumors persist the guardian is really the spirit of the Witch herself, although I cannot personally speak to the claim.
Wrapped in his grave-digger's tunic, a weathered rope holding his ragged leggings to his waist, Dreams was hardly suited to the peak's constant blizzards, and the guardian saw his shivering. His footwraps were already snow-soaked.
"Another dead man comes to challenge my peak and, oh, you already have the corpse's gait." Had the guardian known of eye-rolling's invention, the pale banshee would've used it then. Sarcasm, however, is older than Time itself.
Dreams closed his eyes and forced himself to stop shivering. When he opened them he looked right throught the guardian and her spiteful jibes. There were others, many others, already climbing the sheer cliffsides. Further up the mountain was a jagged, winding path formed of old pathways leading to and from the freehold. He paid the guardian no mind, and she felt his conviction.
As he began to sloth through the waist-deep snow, she called out to him.
"Wait! You seem... different from the usual fare. At least with you a Winter mantle will join the dead along the peak. Let's see you make the Court proud by dying higher up than the others!" 
She pulled a brown scarf off a rotted corpse below her, blade still piercing its back, and wrapped the thick fabric around Dreams' neck. She sighed, "Most think the Mountain is the dangerous part, when it is the vile creatures who come to claim its riches they should be worried about. Only one can claim the Crown, and they all know this. Only one can survive the climb, of this they ensure."
He gave her a long nod before pressing on.
The first obstacle was the cliff-face, covered in the shadow of the mountain above, which hung off one side of the summit at an angle, teetering and creaking just enough to put the image of it falling onto climbers below into each challenger's mind.
Dreams drew the knife from Bargain, sinking it into the ice wall. It did its job effortlessly; the ice did not even hint at cracking around it. As he pulled himself up and used the knife to climb higher, he realized the deal he had recieved. Cracks and splinters littered the wall above him, and he could hear the awful sound of shattering ice from the picks of the two climbers above him, but his blade was consistent; everywhere he stabbed the dagger the ice did not falter.
One hundred, two hundred, eight hundred yards higher Dreams had made his way, cautiously avoiding areas of the wall where heavy use had left the footholds fragile. The two above him kept their pace, and so he had made no progress at gaining ground on them. As Dreams paid close mind to the cracks and loose ice he noticed something was amiss: the marks from the ice-picks up here came at an odd angle: sideways instead of straight-on like one would expect. His eyes widened as he put the pieces together. Letting one hand go of the cliffside to hang limply from his dirk, using his free hand to catch the arrow aimed for his head with an inch to spare. The other climbers were not so lucky.
One was solidly pinned to his place by his neck, leg, and arm, while the other fell as an arrow loosed the ice he clung to from the mountain, pelting Dreams' face with hail stones as it fell, Dreams forced to listen to his fellow's quickly fading screams before the ground abruptly stifled them on impact.
Dreams' eyes narrowed as he regained his handhold; the archer stood a mere sixty feet away from him. The Anubian Jackal walked the cliff-face as if on solid ground, the power of his Contracts granting him the ability to defy gravity and conceal his presence.
Now, I don't know when Silent Dreams cultivated his distaste for jackals, although whether it was before or after this fated meeting matters little, although I personally chose to believe it all began because of his path as gravedigger and their iconic role of tomb raider. Regardless, he never let it affect him, even when a different jackal changeling joined the freehold in 1886. He was nothing but cordial then, but here I am getting side-tracked.
The Anubian Jackal, or at least this one, the title being modestly common, was a thief and marauder. He'd made a career out of camping along the mountain's side, killing and robbing any unwitting climbers to reach his sights. He didn't care about the Crown hidden at the peak; he was set to retire rich and fat without having to go an inch higher than he already was, should he be left undisturbed in his dark work. Drawing another arrow, all signs showed Dreams becoming just his latest victim. Swatting away the second arrow, Dreams planted his feet firmly and held his blade tightly, running sideways along the sheer wall, dragging the knife through the ice to keep himself from falling. The dirk cut the ice as smoothly as air, Dreams dodging arrows as best he could. But the Anubian Jackal was no amateur, piercing Dreams' free arm with an arrow clean through the bone. Dreams grimaced, leaving the arrow where it landed as he cut across the wall above the Jackal's perch. Dreams' long slice mixed with the already brittle cracks, loosing the entire area from the mountain. As the Jackal fell, the massive iceberg his Contracts kept him bound to crushed him on impact, his bloody remains sending a crimson glow through the ice boulder's intricate fractals. Dreams panted as he hung from his blade and what was left of the cliff-face before redoubling his efforts.
He reached the old thoroughfare peacefully enough. As he hoisted himself onto the flat ground and ripped the arrow out from his upper arm, he took a moment to look behind him. Several new climbers had already started their journey below, although the gaping crevice he had left behind when dealing with the Jackal was substantially slowing them down. Brushing the diamond dust from his pants as he stepped onto the stone-paved pathway, an ankle-height street-railing surrounding the weather-beaten road. A flock of vultures circled him from above as he marched. As the path winded and inclined the flock grew larger, Dreams paying them no mind. He was halfway up the road when the birds stopped, flapping their wings to hover in concentric circles in the sky as a golden hawk dove through their center, cracking pavement as it hit the ground in front of him. A blinding flash released from the bird as the hawk took the form of a man in purple vestments suited for a king. Golden thread lined his regalia; Paris' King of Spring had arrived, flying straight to the peak. Smirking, he spoke thusly:
"Where do you think you're going, serf? The Crown will be a fitting trophy to show off at my next coronation to remind the fading Winter who is really in charge! What possible use could a wretched corpse like you have for such an artifact?"
Dreams grit his teeth while slicking the ice from his blade, what meager Winter mantle he had flurrying across his exposed face and arms. His opponent desired the Crown, but he needed it.
"Fool. I'll show you how I deal with lowlifes getting in the way of what I want!" Drawing a saber and conjuring two shining doppelgangers of himself made from dreamstuff, the King was set to fight, but in all his flashy posturing he had lost track of Dreams. His eyes darted back and forth as his constructs dissipated beside him silently. He felt himself lay down, though he did not command his body to do so. As his life faded, he blinked and Dreams was there, holding the knife deep in his neck and guiding him to the ground. He had been killed so quietly he hadn't realised he'd perished over a minute before. Dreams closed the dead man's eyes and walked through the mansion's front door as the flock of birds screeched and scattered to the winds.
Bargain's map depicted the crown to be in the mansion's grand theatre. As Dreams followed the corridors, he had difficultly finding his way, as many hallways had collapsed or filled in with solid ice. As he came around the final corner he lost his footing, sliding down the slanted building's icy floor, his legs breaking the door open at the end of the hall in front of him. Here the Witch's body stood frozen against the stage's back wall, her legs dangling a good ten feet off the ground. She still wore her Crown.
As he walked the center aisle, the sold-out audience sat still as death, each mouth agape with blood splatter frozen to their chests. The smell of decay was masked by a chilled mountain breeze creeping in through a hole in the roof, allowing the dread-filled Hedge Moon outside a front row seat to the events about to transpire.
Dreams took the side staircase up to the stage, the seven short steps weighing more on him than the entire climb behind him. He clutched his wounded arm which loosely now held his blade, still thick with blood. He ignored the Crown and the Witch; they would have to wait until this final obstacle was cleared.
Dreams stopped in his tracks as the man responsible for the gloomy audience came onstage from the darkness beyond it: a grizzled man covered in frost, wearing steel-plated leather armor worn from decades of use. His skin was cracked and mangled from the cold and as he gave a deep exhale a thick icy mist poured from his mouth and hung there, obscuring it.
Dreams sighed, this defender of the Crown was a veteran assassin in Winter's service. The Sorrow in the room was palpable: Dreams, for he felt all the deaths in this room beckoning him to fail and join them, and the assassin, who mourned everyone he struck down to prevent the Crown from falling into unworthy hands. Dreams mused the man must have been in the Witch's retinue personally, although the men never exchanged words.
A single tear dripped from the Witch's lifeless eyes. Before it hit the ground the deed was done. The two men of silence lived up to their own reputations, not even I can tell you the specifics of how it all went down, but as the Witch's tear splattered on the stage's old wooden foundation, Dreams stood above his fallen foe wielding his knife and his opponent's hatchet.
Dreams did not hesitate. He climbed the curtain and swung over to the Witch's body. As he reached for the Crown her lifeless corpse creaked with rigor mortis as she grabbed him and held him close. It was not the Witch herself who did this; she had passed on long ago. The Crown had done this, as the Crown did speak to him through her decayed and frozen mouth.
"Silent Dreams, you came here to find a Crown for your Winter Court. Have you found it?"
With that he pryed the tarnished silver crown from the Witch's skull, tying it to his belt for safe-keeping. Now claimed by Dreams the Crown no longer sustained the Mountain, which quickly began to melt away, dropping the old freehold roughly towards the ground as the mountain split apart. Ten-story tall fragments of icy cliffs waited below, splintering what was left of the building on impact, but Dreams emerged from the wreckage without ceremony. The guardian at the foot of the mountain smiled at him as he marched past. He didn't even give her a thought. He was headed home.
There we were, all huddled together in the Courtroom for warmth in late December, trying to decide what the plan of action would be if he didn't return, when the doors flung open with no one behind them. It was then we looked up to see Dreams already onstage, flinging the Crown to our feet with Sorrow and spite. Glowing lines of ice darted across the whole of his body, forming vectors and fractals on his skin. He had found his Crown, and it wasn't the Witch's.
Category:Fiction