Blood of the Fold

"What did you mean about her not being insane 'in the conventional sense'?"

"I don't think Sister Simona is having deranged dreams and imagining things; I think something real happened and that's what made her the way we see her. The books allude to instances where this 'blade master' of sorts slipped, and left the subject unable to separate their dreams from reality, as if their mind can't fully wake from the nightmares, or slip from the world around them when they sleep."

"That sounds like insanity to me, not being able to distinguish what's real from what's not."

Warren turned his palm up. A flame ignited just above the flesh.”What is reality? I imagined there was a flame, and my 'dream' became reality. My wakeful intellect governs what I do."

She pulled on a brown curl as she thought out loud. "Just as the veil separates the world of the living from the world of the dead, there is a barrier in our minds that separates reality from the imagination, from dreams. Through discipline and our force of will we control what is reality for us."

She looked up suddenly. "Dear Creator, that barrier in our minds is what keeps us from using our Han when we sleep. If there were no barrier, then the person would have no intellectual control of their Han while they sleep."

Warren nodded. "We have control of our Han. When we imagine, it can become real. But the conscious imagination is overlaid with the limitations of the intellect." He leaned toward her, his blue eyes intense. "The sleeping imagination has virtually none of these limitations. A dream walker can bend reality. Those with the gift can bring it to be."

"Weapon indeed," she whispered.

She took Warren's arm and started down the hall. As frightening as the unknown was, it was a comfort to have at least one friend to help. Her head swirled with a confusion of doubts and questions. She was the Prelate now, it was up to her to find some answers before trouble visited the palace.

"Who died," Warren asked at last.

"The Prelate and Nathan," Verna said absently, because that was where her thoughts were.

"No, they had the funeral rite. I mean besides them."

Verna came back from her mind travels. "Besides the Prelate and Nathan? No one. No one has died in quite a while."

The lamplight danced in his blue eyes. "Then why did the palace hire the services of gravediggers?"

CHAPTER 19

Richard swung his leg over his Horse's flanks, landed on the trampled snow of the stable yard, and tossed the reins to a waiting soldier as the company of two hundred soldiers galloped in behind him. He patted his footsore horse's neck while a tired Ulic and Egan dismounted right behind. The still, cold, late-day air steamed with drifting clouds of breath of man and horse alike. The silent men were frustrated and discouraged; Richard was angry.

He pulled off a thickly padded glove and scratched the four days growth of beard as he yawned. He was tired, dirty, and hungry, but mostly he was angry. The trackers he had taken with him were good men, General Reibisch had told him, and Richard had no cause to dispute the general's word, but as good as they were, they were not good enough. Richard was a keen tracker, too, and several times he had found telltales the others had missed, but two days of fierce blizzard made the job impossible and in the end they had failed.

It shouldn't have been necessary in the first place, but he had let himself be duped. His first minor challenge as a leader, and he had botched it. He should never have trusted the man. Why was he always thinking people would see the side of reason and do the right thing? Why did he always think that people had good in them and, if allowed the chance, it would come to the surface?

As they slogged through the snow toward the palace, its white walls and spires mellowing to a dusky gray in the evening twilight, he asked Ulic and Egan to go find General Reibisch and to inquire about any other disasters that might have transpired while he was gone. The Keep watched him from the gloom in the shadows of the mountains, the snow a dark, moody, steel blue shawl drawn around its granite shoulders.

Richard found Mistress Sanderholt busy with her covey of workers in the din of the kitchen and asked if would be possible for her to find him and his two big guards something to eat, a chunk of dry bread, some leftover soup, anything. She saw that he was in no mood for conversation and offered a silent squeeze of his arm as she told him to put his feet up while she saw to it. He headed for a quiet study not far from the kitchens to sit for a rest while he waited for the others to return.

Coming around the corner to the study doorway, Berdine stepped in front of him. She was wearing her red leather. "And just where have you been?" she asked in an icy Mord-Sith tone.

"Chasing phantoms in the mountains. Didn't Cara and Raina tell you where I was going?"