The enormous corridor was built by contorted swamp reeds, soft under Arn’s bare feet, and the roof of tree branches obscured the sky from view. There were three things in the corridor with Arn—his spear, a stream of liquid water than ran along the wall, and a water scale, a reptile that clod along beside him.
Where am I? Arn wondered. Is this the dreamworld?
He had always had vivid dreams, ever since he was a young boy, barely old enough to speak. The reeds that composed the walls parted and he glimpsed a young boy waving a stick around him like a spear. Training. The boy’s father watched skeptically and offered the boy pointers, while the boy’s mother had already given up hope for the youngster.
A voice echoed through the hazy hall and disturbed the view. The reeds closed and Arn continued walking. In his dreams he sometimes spoke with the animals he saw, but they did not like him. Arn was a hunter; he killed animals. No one liked Arn in his dreams, but one man tolerated him.
The voice echoed once more, but it wasn’t a man’s voice. It was a woman’s. “Will he…?” the voice asked. Its presence was so diluted, like drips of blood in the Deep. And Arn was deep. He was drowning down there. He could barely hear the reply: “… way of knowing…”
“He might.”
Arn was tired of listening to the tainted voices.
He touched the wall in one spot, though he’d never been here before. The reeds parted for him. Arn walked through, his vision passing through a shadow and then into the sun. He was standing on a beach, surrounded by other, faceless hunters. Down on the shore was a dock, and at the end of the dock was a raft.
The man who tolerated Arn waited there. It was an amalgamation of men, in truth. Part of the dreamworld, nothing more. This man looked a little like Stone Spear, with a bold jawline and a bolder beard, but he had the silver hair of the tribe leader before this Stone Spear. He had Arn’s father’s nose, and, recently, Taran’s lean shoulders.
“You’ve been here a while,” he said to Arn. “Days, I think.”
Arn climbed onto the raft. He had never been on a raft before, though he had taught himself to swim as a young man, after a scare of falling into a deep bog. “I tried climbing, like you said. But it didn’t leave anywhere.”
“It will in time.” The man sat down and the boat shifted uneasily on the waves. The figment of Arn’s respect waved his hand toward a wooden pole. “Keep your strength up.”
Arn nodded and sat down, looking out to sea. He picked up the pole and pushed the raft away from the dock. The water scale that had walked beside him earlier was swimming in the salt water, but Arn soon brought them out of sight. He contemplating heading out into the ocean, but he wasn’t ready for that either yet.
In his dreams, it was Razaad he drifted in circles around.