Appendix • Fractured Dreams

"*You don't often dream. But sometimes, from the fractured subconscious depths of your unique mind, something akin to dreams emerges. A strange mixture of memory and imagination, tempered by two minds, separate but whole.*"
 ― The Storyteller

## Transcript

### The Dead Tree

*You're drifting brother, drifting.*

A memory of skin. A memory of heat. A memory of pain.

*Stay awake.*

You step into a courtyard. Granite stone walls surround it on all sides. There are no entrances. No exits. No paths in or out of this place, but in the strange manner of dreams you have entered it nonetheless.

*All we have left.*

Your vision glitches. Smoke without fire without smoke. Ozone on the air. A garden without insects or birds or rocks. Flowers opening and closing. And then the courtyard returns.

In the centre, a twisted dead tree trunk protrudes out of blackened earth amidst a tangle of exposed roots, covered in crude knots and a gnarled mass of jagged dead branches. The rough, callous bark is black as obsidian, scattered with sunken grooves that darken parts of it to even more sinister shades. The base of it is splintered, as though its own structure and size had betrayed it, and broken the tree from the roots.

Nothing grows on this tree, no sign of leaves or lichen or moss. But on its vast nest of branches sit and flutter and fly thousands of spectral, golden crows, calling in an eerie, echoing cacophony.

*Too soon. Too soon.*

One crow drifts down to the base of the tree on wings without feathers, pecking at the obsidian earth, and affixes one eye firmly on you. In its depths, you feel loss. It caws.

*I'm sorry, brother.*

All the crows cry in unison and take to the air in a hurricane of noise that dives all at once at you. And the dream collapses in a storm of talons and gold and rubble and fire and dust and grass and flowers. A thousand voices speak at once.

*Who took him from you? How far will you go?*

And you wake.

### The Golden Crow

*You're drifting brother, drifting.*

You come to the same courtyard. Granite stone walls on each side. No paths in or out.

Your vision glitches and distorts. You see smoke. You see fire. You see ozone and a garden without insects or birds or rocks. Flowers opening and closing. And then the courtyard returns.

In the centre remains that same, twisted, blackened, tree trunk. Its mass of exposed roots, its gnarled and knotted bark, its split base, and thousands of spectral golden crows atop its branches, calling in an echoing symphony. Glimpses of voices twist amidst the cacophony.

*Staystaystay...awake...*

*He's not ready.*

And again, a singular crow drifts down from the tree, settling a few paces from you, pecking at the obsidian earth. It caws.

You reach out to it. Your hand glitches between metal and flesh and metal again.

*He's not ready. No! NO!*

"I am!" you shout at the sky, "I was always ready! I'm here. Please! Reach out to me."

The crow hops a pace closer, and in its gaze you feel once more that eminent sense of loss, the feeling of something both taken from you and given willingly.

*I'm sorry, brother.*

All the crows cry in unison and take to the air in a hurricane of noise that dives all at once at you. And the dream collapses in a storm of talons and gold and rubble and fire and dust and grass and flowers.

You leap towards the crow, and for a split second touch its wings.

And you wake.

### The Closed Door

*You're drifting brother, drifting.*

From the fractured deeper parts of your memory, a new dream forms. A memory, or a semblance of one, half-forgotten and half-remembered. Your two consciousnesses are drawn apart, until briefly only Nicolaos remains.

When the dream coalesces, this time, there is no courtyard. Instead, the flickering vision of your dream forms into a familiar place, from another life. A bed in one corner, forming and dissolving from smoke and mist, fragments of clothes strewn across it. A mirror on the wall. Painted walls. Birdsong. The distant sound of crows. A dream of a dream made tangible.

And a door. A single closed door. From beyond it, whispers, voices, muttering, calling you through the haze of dreams.

In this familiar bedroom, you walk, hesitantly through the haze of sleep, to the mirror. In its reflection, for the first time in a long time, you see only yourself. Clean-shaven skin. Tussled dark hair. Brilliant gold-green eyes.

You stand there for a few moments, unable to tear your gaze away, until at last the whispers from beyond the door grow too difficult to ignore any further. But before you leave, you head to the barely-tangible bed, and bring with you your old pillow. The faintest scent of it fills your nostrils, only half-remembered.

Then you reach for the door. Some of the whispers become more tangible.

*The calculations must be perfect. Perfect.*

*It doesn't make any sense.*

*No gods. No gods. No guidance. Only me.*

The door swings open. Before you, a corridor stretches away, and at its end the base of a spiral staircase formed of half-solid mist. You reach behind you to close the door, giving one long look into the bedroom before it dissolves into fragments of smoke.

And holding the pillow with you still, you walk forward. From above, a scream. Agonising. Drawn out, painful. And a sorrowful voice familiar and forgotten but found and forgotten again. Clearer now. More than anything else.

*Nico. Listen to me. I know it hurts. You have to stay awake. This will work. We'll be eternal, together. Trust me. Trust me. Stay awake.*

You try to block out the screams, the pained cries, and march forwards towards the staircase. In front of you mist coils down the steps, and the noises above grow muffled and dull, fading in and out of thought and time. You hesitate, then take the first step.

Your vision glitches. A garden without a sky. Flowers opening and closing and opening again. Then the spiral staircase in its place.

Another scream.

*WHY WHY*

*I've seen what awaits us baby brother. I can change the pattern. I can fix it. You need to trust me. Stay awake.*

You climb, and the spiral staircase stretches away, and with every step the sounds grows closer yet more far, reaching reaching for memories just beyond your reach. And the faster you rush up these steps, the more distant the voices seem to become. Except for the sobbing, the pleading, the crying voice of a man betrayed.

*Please...please let me die.*

You try to hold the dream together, but it is dissolving too fast now, and you take one more step before the staircase dissolves beneath you.

Reality distorts.

In its place, granite grey stone. Hard and unyielding underfoot. And you stand again before a blackened tree. A gnarled trunk. Obsidian roots. But its branches now lie empty. Golden crows in their hundreds of thousands spiral above, like a hurricane, growing in strength, amidst a sky that is burning with colour, an aurora so brilliant it hurts the eyes.

But one crow. Just one, remains. It taps its beak against the stone. Once twice thrice. Then stops, and looks at you.

Through the cacophony of screeching crows, you hear it clearly, a single voice calling to you.

*Set me free.*

### The Man in the Mirror

*You're drifting brother, drifting.*

Entire worlds pass by in flashes. Birdsong. Painted Walls. A door swinging open and turning to mist. Then a corridor. A corridor of that same mist through which whispers perforate like rocks through water, churning the edges of reality.

*Listen to me Nico. Listen... Stay awake. Stay...stay...Trust me. Stay awake.*

A scream makes everything real. Agonising. Drawn out. Painful. Walls solidify. Colour bleeds into view. You stand at the bottom of a spiral staircase, mist coiling down the steps. And you hear sobbing. Pleading. Whimpering.

*Let me die. Please gods let me die.*

"What did you do to me, brother?" you shout, "I'm here! I've come to you. I'm in Domar. Right where you were! Whatever you did...I followed the thread. Come to me. Face me. Please."

Your voice pushes the mist, like a ripple, echoing up the staircase, where the sobbing continues. You rush up the stairs. You take the first step, then the next. The corridor fades away beneath you as you climb. But the steps remain. The further you go, the louder grows the pleading, the same words, over and over.

*Let me die. Let me die.*

The first voice, the one that brought you here, that's haunted you since the moment you woke in a broken tower, becomes clear again.

*This is what we wanted, Nico. A way for us to stay together. We'll be eternal. Together. Like I promised.*

The other voice screams, guttural and agonising. You smell smoke. You smell fire and flame. You hear shouts from far below. Voices raised in righteous fury. And you know time is running out. So you climb, faster and faster.

The stairway turns and turns and turns and you hear footsteps rushing behind you. Roars of anger. Shouted commands. Ponderous incantation rising to crescendo. But you stay ahead of them. You fly up the winding steps, faster than your feet have ever carried you, the air around you growing choked with smoke, the heat building at your heels. And all the while the voice above pleads and begs.

*Let me die. Please let me die.*

The first voice snaps.

*No! All these years escaping the end. All I've done. I will not give you to it freely. Not now. Not ever. We are the Thresce brothers. Death can have us when it earns us. So stay awake damn you. STAY AWAKE.*

And you burst through a door at the end of the staircase. Too fast to stop yourself, too slow to react. Wood splinters into mist. Smoke billows past you into a large circular room, a sigil engraved boldly into the floor of a snake wrapping around the stem of a rose, books and glass vials strewn across stone flooring, where blood, bright and crimson, is soaking into the pages, spreading over the paving.

A limp figure chained to a wall, hung up by hooks straining under the weight of a body made entirely of metal. And in front of it, another. A human man, naked, floating only inches off the ground and paralyzed in place by spectral chains. Body convulsing. Mouth open in a wordless scream. Green eyes wide with pain. Brown hair, plastered to skin by sweat and blood. And the skin peeled away from the back of his skull and the top of his spine, the bone cut open by a vicious array of spectral scalpels, the brain throbbing within, where uncountable needle-like skewers of teal magic have pierced it, drawing threads of silver like a syringe draws blood, tearing away the soul of the man with green eyes.

The man in the mirror. You. Nicolaos Julius Varus Thresce.

And between you and you a blur of mist in the vaguest form of a man whips around, a hand of mist rising towards you and shouts, in a thunderous voice.

*ARDEBIT IN CINERE!*

Flame swallows the room. Glass shatters. Books char. Rock burns. And you are thrown backwards with a wrench through solid rock, rubble and smoke cascading around you and disintegrating into mist and ozone and nothingness until you land on granite stone with a sickening crunch. Unyielding and hard beneath your back. And your screams half-witnessed half-remembered seem to fade and distort into the sound of a hundred thousand golden crows screeching overhead. A storm of them. A whirlwind circling in a sunless sky.

Rough hands that are talons that are hands grab you, pulling you roughly by the chest, spectral and gold, tangible and flesh, and you fall forward past the granite courtyard, past the storm of crows, towards the heart of the cracked obsidian tree at the centre, where a scythe of ghostly steel tears open reality into a void through which you plummet.

Reality stretches and tears. Golden crows become golden stars become golden streaks flying past at the speed of light, and you fall and fall and fall until all you can see is an endless cascade of narrow golden strands rushing past you, and two piercing emerald eyes burning in their midst, reality glitching around them.

*The stars gather to bleed the sun. Our fates are not our own but theirs. We can no longer aspire to our own deliverance. We break as promises shatter against time. Our folly has bound us to the calamity we sought with open arms.*

*Blood against blood. Brother against brother. Eternity and End.*

*The pattern reaches its close. But death has not earned me yet. In ruin, there is possibility. In chaos, opportunity.*

*Cut the roots of the world tree. Break open the tides of cataclysm. Strike, brother, strike.*

*The world be damned.*

*Set. Me. Free.*