“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible."

-- T.E. Lawrence

    There is a certain point that you realize there is no returning to the way you were before. A crossroads where the life you knew and the life ahead of you turn sharply in the opposite directions. That day when everything spins madly out of control. For Wander, that day of crossroads occurred a long, long time ago, like the distant whisper of a mother’s lullaby that a hundred-year-old man tries to recall on his deathbed. He would rather forget the day completely and for the most part had managed to, to some extent at least. Nevertheless, like the boogeyman under the bed, the days of our fate that change us, whether for better or for worse, are the ones whose fingerprints leave lasting impressions.

    The persistence of memory, Wander called it. The marrow of life for dream-dwellers, like the rhyskha and Witches like himself.

    It is also such persistence of memory that left Wander to stand just outside of a grey, shabby town in the middle of an even more grey and dreary landscape; the earth did not roll softly but instead jagged up its face with stones and rocks in many areas, making it difficult and wearisome for the unaccustomed traveler. In this part of the country, cloudy and foggy skies dominated the forecast, nevertheless bearing the fruits of rain but often is unforgiving in zephyrs of icy wind and the deep snow drifts of the winter season.

    Wander shoved a long, pale hand down into the pocket of his coat, grasping through the abyss until his fingers brushed and then wrapped themselves around a long pipe. With his other hand the tall man searched through another pocket and located a sachet of tobacco. He took his time in packing his pipe, glancing over now and again at the grey landscape and the sad, little town nestled in-between two ridges of stone. The landscape appeared like an old battleground, an arena where warring clans of gods would battle to the death. Those gods probably scarred themselves more than the landscape, thought Wander, and he took a deep inhale from his pipe.

    Was there a time when gods roamed these lands and waters and lived like how people and creatures do now? Were there lords and warriors, farmers and weavers? Were there Witches? Did the gods worship an even higher power with priests and priestesses, temples and offerings? The thought of gods and mythology often occupied and weighed down Wander’s mind, and often he satiated his curiosity with the rare luxury of a book now and then. He continued to scan the vista and at the same time, deep inside, he searched his own subconscious’ archives for such myths of war that were described to may have happened here.

    Inhale. Pause. Exhale.

    Nothing.

    A small tap gently landed on Wander’s wide-brimmed hat, and its lone sound and disturbance made the Witch look up into the pale sky. Another tap. A small droplet of water landing on his cheek, pausing for a moment on the ridge of his cheekbone before rolling down towards his chin.

    “Looks like rain,” he remarked quietly, more to himself to break up the silence. With the introduction of rain Wander realized that he no longer had a reason to meander on the outskirts. No more hesitation, there is a job to do.

    Still not quite finished with his pipe, Wander placed his free hand back into his pocket and carefully made the trek down to a little town called Pathos.

    Wander managed to step completely through the doorway of the local tavern (the only one in town of course) before turning to see the downpour. He did not feel completely flustered by the dramatic weather, but felt glad to make it indoors. Wander may be a Witch, but he is very much a simple man who enjoys the simple comforts of traveling in decent weather, though he would walk through whatever nature prepared for him to walk through. He carefully took off his wide-brimmed hat and patted the loose droplets off, and likewise did the same with his heavier coat. When he looked up to survey the tavern scene, he noticed the awkward silence and stare of the local people towards him. They must not get many travelers, Wander noted to himself as he carefully and quietly maneuvered his way around the tables and occupants, heading towards the bar where he could speak with the establishment’s owner.

    “Do you manage this tavern?” Wander asked quietly, resting his eyes upon a middle-aged woman who cleaned a glass very, very slowly, her own gaze never leaving the Witch’s.

    “Perhaps I do,” she replied sternly. “What’s it to you?”

    “I am here to see a man who posted for the aid of a Witch’s help.”

    Upon the mention of Wander’s occupation did the tavern owner become apprehensive. She carefully set the glass down and then rested her hands heavily on the bar top, leaning slightly closer to the stranger. Her hazel eyes burned brightly but with a harsh edge, matching very well with the bright orange locks of her hair. “We don’t hear much about Witches. Many of us never heard of one before in our lives, and those who do taste bitter tastes in their mouths. Witches don’t have a good reputation around here, not after what happened to Edward McAllister fifteen years back.”

    “What is it that happened then?” Wander asked curiously.

    The woman turned her head just slightly, but her stare never wavered. “The man had himself a rhyskha problem, and grew ill real quick. We posted for a Witch and a Witch came, perhaps too late or the Witch was more incompetent than we wished to believe. Fifteen people died and many got injured after Edward lost his mind and his body when the rhyskha morphed him.”

    Wander’s eyes furrowed. “Do you remember the Witch’s name?”

    “Rhys, that was his name. May the gods damn his soul, and if they have, may them damn him a hundred times over again.” The tavern woman spat the ground beside her.

    “Rhys, hm. I cannot say that the name has a familiar ring or a memory.”

    “I feel sorry for any person who feels any positive bone for him.”

    “Do you know who posted for a Witch?”

    The woman sighed and placed her hands on her hips. “It’s possible that the new frontier family about three miles from here posted for a Witch. They don’t come into town very often; in fact we found it odd that they haven’t shown up the last three times we held market. The oldest of theirs, Marx, looked mighty odd the last time anyone around here got a look at him. It’s possible he’s the one with the rhyskha problem.”

    Wander donned his coat and nodded his head just slightly at the tavern woman. “Thank you ma’am. Could you point to me the general direction of their farm?”

    “For a price,” the woman said as she held out her hand.

    It’s only fair, Wander thought as he fished for a few coins out of his pocket and placed them into her waiting hand. His icy white eyes looked back at her. His gaze sent a shiver down her spine that the tavern woman never felt before in her life.

    “Northeast.”

    “Thank you.”

    With that last bit of exchange Wander donned his hat, nodded at the woman one last time, and without heeding anyone else in the tavern, he left out in the rain again. He didn’t pay any mind towards the weather as his mind was more occupied with the story of the McAllister tragedy and the Witch called Rhys.

    How could any Witch let a rhyskha problem escalate to such a degree as losing the host to the dream parasite? especially to the point of the host losing complete form and changing to match the parasite? Wander knew from his own past experience that allowing a rhyskha to reach such a level is a call to death, let alone a mark of shame upon a Witch. A Witch cannot call themself a Witch if they fail to extract and eliminate a parasite from a host, especially if they cannot do it in a dream. How could Rhys fail to kill it in a dream and allow it to escape into the outside world? It didn’t make sense to him at all. He reached a hand to his temple and rubbed his head with hard fingers. Scenarios ran through his head, one by one, and in each one Wander assessed just how could each one go wrong. In the end though, he still couldn’t see, couldn’t understand, and he still didn’t find a resolution when he found himself about fifty yards out from what he presumed to be the farm of the Marx boy’s family.

    When he arrived at the threshold of the house he forced his mind to clear from the thought of the past incident. Whenever he began a new job, Wander found it best-- no, he found it important to begin with an empty and clear mind that is solely focused to the task before him. It is not about Wander or Rhys or Edward McAllister, but about Marx and his rhyskha infestation and Wander’s job to cure the boy.

    With a sharp rap of Wander’s knuckles he knocked on the hardwood door. The Witch’s mind buzzed with the thoughts and the scenarios still, and many times he forced himself to sweep them away, yes, just sweep them away like with a broom. Push them into a pile, into a closet, and close the door. Do not let them out. Let them be, let them away, just until this is over and Marx is cared for. Think of the rain. Focus on the rain. But do not let them out.

    Before Wander could knock upon the door a second time, a small child, a young female, opened the door and stared wide-eyed at the Witch. “Who are you?” she asked almost in a accusatory manner. “If you are here to bully my papa or hurt Marx, you better leave before you know what’s coming to ya.”

    “Rosalynne! Away from the door!” A distant voice boomed from within.

    The child named Rosalynne skittered away from the door and disappeared in the darkness inside. Not a candle burned within Wander’s line of sight, and the only light that offered help to him was what flooded in through the front door. Nevertheless, for a Witch like Wander, such little light is good enough for him. In the thick darkness Wander saw a small room, with a barren table pushed against the far wall just two paces away from a doorway which led to a hall going deeper into the house. Not much else occupied the room besides the table, save for a broken chair in another corner, overturned with a broken leg. Wander almost felt a curiosity to enter and explore, but he remembered his manners and checked himself accordingly.

    A few minutes passed and no one came to the door since Rosalynne was ordered away, and Wander began to become irked. He knocked on the open door once again, and this time called into the house. “Is this the residence of the sick boy Marx? You placed a notice asking for the aid of a Witch to cure his rhyskha infestation. The sooner you let me in to assess him the sooner I can act and perhaps--”

    “You will save him, Witch, because your race is a proud race.” A man approached the door slowly, but walked tall and straight. Deep lines cut into his face, and exhaustion left his eyes empty. “Besides the basics of living, your kind takes pride in your reputation to heal and poison. Most especially, your kind loves being the only ones capable to take on rhyskha.”

    “Skills in medicine and the apothecary is capable of being obtained and mastered by anyone. Witches did not ask to be capable of combating dream parasites,” Wander replied defensively.

    “Perhaps not, nevertheless pride is in your nature. It may do you some good to humble yourself.”

    “Perhaps, but I will look towards humbling myself after I have taken care of your son’s parasite.”

    “Hold on,” the man stepped towards the threshold. His whole figure almost completely filled the entryway. “I have not agreed to enlist your skills and your work for aiding my son.”

    “What will it take to convince you that I am the Witch you need to help you? Do you not want him well again? Do you want the parasite to eat him and absorb him completely from the inside out?” Wander’s voice grew low and steely.

    The old man looked over Wander, from the tip of the Witch’s pointed leather boots to the long dark strands of hair that draped over his shoulders and down his back. He hesitated to note the cool pallor of the stranger’s skin, the edge to his nails, which so resembled claws, and the small little ornaments woven into a few locks of hair. There was one place the man had a difficult time convincing himself to look into, and that place was Wander’s eyes, which gleamed back with a great sense of urgency and power that the old man almost shrugged away into the darkness of his house.

    Finally, after a few minutes, the old man spoke again, this time in a voice much lower and huskier than before. “You really think that you can cure my son?”

    “The longer you leave me here the worse the fate he might meet.”

    “And you swear upon your honor as a Witch that if you do not cure him you no longer are a Witch and must commit raspe?”

    “Upon my honor I will do what I can, and should I fail I will commit raspe.”

    The old man stepped off to the side of the door and swung one arm in a sweeping gesture.

    “Then come in, Witch. You have much work ahead of you.”

“Dreaming men are haunted men.”

    -Stephen Vincent Benet

    Wander opened the door and allowed Marx outside of the room, where he was greeted by open arms. The boy was swept off of his feet and into tight embraces filled with cries of laughter and tears of joy. Wander leaned against the doorframe and watched the family share its affections between its members. After a few moments Rhzack turned to the Witch.

    “I owe you an apology, for you did save my son when I doubted you. I am also in your debt, for I am poor and I do not know how I can ever repay you for the great amount of trouble you must have gone through to save him.”

    “Your bill is not as great as you believe it to be, truly. There is no need to apologize for I understand the apprehension you must have. You live in a place where travellers hardly ever set their feet in, it is only natural for you to be cautious of my person. I admit that not even I appear to be the most trustworthy person nor do I possess the warmest of personalities. However, I am happy to say that I am truly glad that I managed to exorcise the parasite and that he will no longer be in danger of infestation.”

    Wander offered a hand to the old man, and Rhzack gladly took it firmly. “Please stay with us for our morning meal. We would be delighted to have you at our table. The wife insists upon it.”

    With a somewhat hesitant nod the Witch agreed to sit down at a meal with the farming family, although he preferred the more solitary life. As he moved to sit down at the table he struggled to remember the last time he broke bread with any everyday persons and found it near impossible to discover a recent memory. It appalled him somewhat to believe that he has avoided people as often as he did; he only arrived in a town where he knew there was a rhyskha infestation, eliminated the parasite, and then moved on. He felt awkward in the presence of these happy people, who laughed and smiled as if Marx’s sickness never happened and Wander somehow is a part of the family. A distant relative perhaps, visiting from a distant part of the continent. Wander shook the thoughts away as he dipped his spoon into the porridge, poking the thick, white substance just a bit before gathering some in his spoon.

    “So Wander, can you share with us how your whole, erm, exorcism worked?” Rhzack asked in an attempt to get some conversation going.

    The Witch shrugged. “It is up to Marx to discuss such things. Some people do not like to share their dreams because sometimes the dream parasites get their teeth into their most personal and vulnerable memories and use them as nightmares.”

    Marx swallowed a bite of oatmeal and then spoke up. “I don’t mind if they know. Father, pretty much what I remember is that I got stuck in this giant flesh thing, I don’t know how to describe it other that it was as big as one of the haystacks at the Wal’sh farm and it was just made up of body parts and flesh. It oozed and it stank. It was something awful. It was dark and eerie and I didn’t know how long I was stuck with the creature for the longest time.” The boy scratched his shaggy, brown hair. “I just remember that at some point in time Wander came through the darkness and he tore that monster apart and broke me away from it. Then I woke up.”

    Marx’s mother sat still, her hand, still holding the spoon, hovered over her breakfast, which she had not touched during the whole of Marx’s dream recall. She looked pale and more than likely sick to her stomach. Rhzack stared at his son as well, appalled at the story and the horror his son had underwent. That seems to be the usual reaction for Wander’s patients, the shock and dismay and the struggle to comprehend the kind of horror the survivor underwent. Even though Wander journeys into the dreams and destroys the parasites he also could only comprehend just what exactly his patients go through, the sheer amount of pain and psychological horror they must have carried while connected to the parasite. How did it feel to have your memories, your Self, slowly eaten away and substituted by nightmare and horror? Many times Wander felt the temptation of being infested, but he would at once snap himself out of such a notion. A Witch cannot allow themselves to be infested, one of the ethical rules they follow as a clan.

    “Your son will be just fine,” Wander reassured them, “I have a potion that I would like for him to drink for the next few nights to help him sleep better and recover psychologically from the rhyskha’s occupation. It will heal any lasting damage that the parasite may have left on him. In a few days time he will be completely himself again. Please do not fret.”

    It took some time for Marx’s mother and father to settle themselves down and regain the stomach to finish their breakfast. Wander managed to finish the small portion in a relatively good time, and it weighed heavily in his stomach as he brewed and prepared the potion for the boy. He discussed his travels off and on with the family until the potion was finished; by this time the morning faded away into noontime, and the sky looked heavy with rain once again. The Witch donned his satchel and his coat, and explained thoroughly one last time how the boy was to take the medicine and how often. Rhzack and his wife repeatedly consoled Wander and reassured him that they would follow the instruction.

    “Thank you again for your help, Witch,” Rhzack said as he gave Wander one last heavy shake of his hand.

    “It has been a pleasure. Please do recover well, boy. I do not know if I ever will pass through Pathos again; but if I should ever do, I will make it my honest attempt to come by and check up on you.”

    The boy moved quickly around his father and embraced Wander tightly around the man’s waist. “Thank you, Wander. I don’t know how I can say thank you enough.”

    “As much as you have said is enough.”

    “Father,” the boy turned towards Rhzack, “can Wander have one of the pups? As a payment? I really want him to.”

    The old man looked surprised to hear his son’s request, but the old wrinkles in the old man’s skin softened as much as the look of adoration in his eyes. “Yes Marx, if the Witch would like one, he is welcome to have one.”

    Wander, too, looked surprised by the boy’s offer. “A dog?”

    “Yes,” Marx nodded, “our dog had puppies not too long ago. They are a few months old and can leave her. I want you to have one. They are beautiful and fast, like ghosts. Please do take one.”

    Wander held his breath and thought deeply. How was he supposed to take on the responsibility of caring for another creature while journeying? However, the thought of disappointing the boy over-weighed the thought of maintaining care for the dog, and the Witch ultimately decided to follow through with the boy’s request. “As you wish.”

    Marx led Wander to the barn outside where the puppies were kept. In the Witch’s eyes the puppies were tall and quite slender for their age, but the boy reassured them that they were very healthy. The man felt torn over which one to choose until finally he saw a male with piercing blue eyes, and settled upon that pup.

    “What are you going to name him?” Marx asked.

    “Agathe. That feels very appropriate for him.”

    “I like that name.” Marx sighed deeply. “I suppose this is goodbye.”

    “I am afraid so.”

    “I wish could have gotten to know you more. You seem like a good person, Wander.”

    “I can only hope to be.”

    “I am sure you are, I am real positive of it. Please be safe, and the gods carry you lightly on your feet. I hope you do come back again.”

    Without another word, Wander put his wide-brimmed hat on his head and clicked his tongue at Agathe, who responded well as the dog loped off through the moor, the Witch trailing casually behind, puffing away at his pipe.

    The journey away from Pathos and the grey moor took a few days walk. The pup, Agathe, loped happily within Wander’s sight, often moving a few feet away from him and barking happily before running back and padding alongside him. The gift of the dog as a traveling companion became a new joy for the Witch, for he found himself feeling more and more grateful for the unexpected gift as the miles drew the pair on. Slowly and steadily, though, Wander and Agathe managed to make their way into a wild wood. The thick green boughs of the trees intermingled and mixed closely together, hardly allowing much sunlight to filter through. The forest floor smelled damp with rotting branches and leaves along with the fresh fragrance of rain that poured during the storm the night before.

    “Don’t wander too far from me now,” the Witch told Agathe casually, watching the pup move away from him again. The animal’s long and slender legs carried the young creature quickly over the earth as its long neck bent down to sniff at the different trees, leaves, twigs, and anything else it could nose up from beneath the damp brush. It sniffed for a little while longer before looking back up at Wander with a lopsided grin, yipping a couple times with a happy tone.

    Not only had it been a long time since Wander interacted with other beings but with animals and pets as well. He could not recall within his archives of memory ever having a pet or knowing a person who did, save for a much older man who was highly respected in Wander’s Witch clan. It was a very old bird, very dull and muted in color. Most of the breast feathers were plucked off a long, long time ago, according to the old man, probably due to some stress or anxiety he believed. The bird kept to itself and only made a point to stare at those who passed by the old man’s tent. There was one afternoon, an afternoon not much different than any other in which Wander passed by that highly respected, old man’s home and the bird was perched and tethered to a small redwood sapling outside. The bird turned its beady eyes onto Wander and caught the boy in its stare. “Ma’hohre, ma’hohre,” the bird squacked at him. Wander knew that the bird said something to him, for he knew that no bird would regularly make that noise. After the bird chanted the word a couple more times to Wander, the boy ran back to his father who he told about what happened with the old man’s bird.

    “There is no such word in our language,” Wander’s father told him. “The bird is old, just like the old man is. Don’t let him startle or unsettle you. That bird does not remember the ways of nature anymore, just as the old man no longer can work the natural magic of the clan.”

    Wander continued to trek through the forest with a misty mind, remembering with a certain kind of fondness how he toiled in trying to forget what the old bird said. Ma’hohre, ma’hohre. The Witch knew deep down in his gut, somewhere in one of the many dark niches of his subconscious that the word has a meaning and a very significant one at that. Though in all of the lands his feet have taken him too and the languages he had heard, none of them ever heard the word ma’hohre before. At the rate Wander has been traveling thus far, he highly doubted that he will ever learn the meaning behind the old bird’s ominous word.

    “You can just stop right there,” a rough voice, very feminine in tone, commanded the Witch. Wander felt a sharp object gently press against the nape of his neck.

    Raising both of his hands slowly up, Wander moved slowly around and turned his snow-white gaze upon his almost-assailant. The person was, upon first impression, very much not human; her facial features appeared to be cut to sharp points, from her nose to her eyes and the overall shape of her head while the hue of her skin had the faintest hue of blue tinted in its pores. Her body was adorned in light armor and dressed in a fashion that is unlike those of the moorland and the forest dwellers; the light padding and the indigo colors of the cloth suggested somewhere southwest and by the ocean to Wander. The woman-creature had a bow taunt and loaded with an arrow ready to be shot at the Witch, should he do anything to startle her or convince her to wound him.

    “What is it that I can do for you?” Wander asked her casually. “Might I have your name?”

    “No, you will not have my name, and what you can do for me is give me all of the money and valuables on your person.”

    “I am afraid I have nothing valuable or worthwhile on my person for you to take.”

    “Hardly. I’ve been watching you for a while. I have noticed that you are wearing a satchel under that great large coat of yours, and the ornaments in your hair are quite exotic and would sell for a fair price in the coastal markets. I am sure those little bits of metal in your face could make for a couple of arrowheads, or melted down for a meal.” The highwayman stepped closer. “So, once again, give me all of the valuables on your person or I will kill you.”

    The Witch stared deeply into her eyes, tilting his head just slightly as he observed the mixing of the metallic teal of her irises with the bright copper tint that outlined the color of her eyes. Very, very unusual, and very un-human. “You are a special one, aren’t you?” Wander smiled softly.

    Startled, the creature loosened her stance for just a moment before regaining her concentration, let alone her temper. “So what if I am? It’s not like you are any closer to being normal than I am.”

    “True, true, you are right about that. How about this: tell me where you come from, and I will tell you where I come from and give you something from my person. Deal?”

    The woman-creature hesitated for a moment before loosening her grip on the bow and arrow once again, lowering the weapon down. “Fine. My mother was a dragon and my father was a human.”

    “Oh! A dragon! You are quite the--”

    Before Wander could finish dark figures emerged from behind nearby trees, seizing the dragon-woman and dragging her down to her knees. The Witch felt a sharp increase in alarm for those brief moments until he noticed a similar trait in the dwellers’ eyes: snow-white irises. They are Witches just like him.

    “Good thing we came when we did,” one of the Witches, an older woman, told Wander, “or else you could have been in some serious trouble.”

    The dragon-woman struggled against the bonds that the Witches placed upon her wrists and her arms, growling loudly and baring her unusually sharp teeth. “I will rip you all apart,” she threatened, but for all of her words the Witches beside her tightened their grip upon her.

    “You can most certainly try,” the woman laughed and turned her attention back to Wander. “It’s nice to see a new face from a different clan.”

    “What clan is this? Which woods are these? You wouldn’t happen to be--”

    “We are the Cicada Clan, yes, in the Blackwood Forest. I assume you were hoping to meet with us?”

    “Yes, there’s something that we need to urgently discuss.” Wander’s mind instantly recalled the incidents of Marx’s dream. “Something very, very important that can pose a danger to all of us.”

    The woman looked at Wander for a little while, reading the urgency in his eyes. She then finally nodded her head to the small band of four that were with her and they started heading back into the woods. “Come, we will discuss the matter with the rest of the clan.”

    The Witch nodded once and whistled to Agathe, who emerged from a larger pile of brush not too far off from the skirmish between the Cicada Clan, the dragon-woman, and Wander. The pup still looked happy with his lopsided grin as he lopped on past Wander and trotted along on the heels of the Witch-woman in front of him.

    Just as Wander had difficulty at the breakfast table recalling the last time he sat down and had a more or less decent meal with a decent group of humans he had a difficult time remembering the last time he visited or stepped foot into a Witch-clan territory. Now that I think about it, Wander thought as his feet mindlessly carried him behind the sad, dark-clothed procession, I don’t remember much at all. Again he went, deep down into the cellar of his mental archives, opening drawers and rummaging through desks and bookshelves for records and journals of old times since...since when? The anxiety and the agony began to rise in him again when all he could scrounge up are old pieces of information regarding medicine work and exorcism, his knowledge, although much more extensive than the average Witch, severely lacking in personal memory. A limp hand rose to scratch his head nervously, pointed, black-painted nails digging into his skin little by little and in short time drawing blood.

    “Something the matter, Witch?” The dragon-woman asked, her voice tainted with scorn. She focused her unblinking, metallic-teal eyes upon him as she stomped forth.

    Wander grunted under his breath and met the stare. “No, not really.”

    “You sure? You’re bleeding.” She nodded her head in a gesture towards the wounds his absent-minded, anxious tick produced.

    “I am fine. The blood is nothing.”

    The dragon-woman scoffed at him and turned her gaze towards the trees around them. “Fine. Suit yourself then.”

    The audacity of this dragon-woman surprised Wander greatly, for bad memory or not, he knew he never met a person like her who believed in herself so much as to speak as boldly and with as much strength as she does. Perhaps it is in her blood as a dragon, Wander mused to himself, wondering if dragons were as prideful as Witches are reputed to be. It is extremely rare for a person to come across a dragon, let alone a halfing. In many parts of the continent most people believed dragons to be dead, the last of ancient tribes to have fallen to the will of the Dust of Death. Wander never really knew for sure whether or not the dragons were completely extinct, but he never thought it was beyond the realm of possibility to find a halfling either. Of course, all of it was proven with the rather rude and startling introduction of the dragon-woman beside him.

    “What is your name?” Wander asked casually, turning his attention towards the woods around them as well.

    “Why should I tell you your name?” The dragon-woman’s snarky attitude returned in full force, and, to the surprise of Wander, he found the sour attitude quite pleasing.

    “I don’t see where the harm is in acquainting oneself with another. We have no interest in harming or killing you; if anything, you will probably be left alone with a slap on your wrist. Witches have no interest in killing highwaymen unless the other does them harm.”

    “I don’t care what your code of ethics are, Witch.”

    “Look, how about I tell you my name, and you tell me yours? I will also throw in a promise as a bonus gift. I promise not to harm you, and I will make sure that this clan of Witches will not hurt you either.”

    The dragon-woman looked at Wander suspiciously, and the Witch looked back to meet her stare. He could see the thoughts roaming through her mind, the various situations playing out, the good ones, the bad ones, the neutral ones. She played them all out, finding out the odds, where she would come out the winner with the biggest boon, and decide which ones are the ones she loses it all. A slight smile lifted Wander’s lips, but only for a moment, for when the dragon-woman turned her attention away from her mind and back upon him, it disappeared quickly.

    “Melisandre,” the dragon-woman muttered, “my name is Melisandre.”

    “It is a pleasure to meet you, Melisandre. My name is Wander.”

    The dragon-woman’s scorn disappeared from her face for a moment, obviously caught off guard, but from what? How? “Wander?” The word rolled off her tongue, it tasted bitter, cold, and lonely. “That’s a unique name.”

    The Witch nodded his head once and looked up ahead of them, and could see in the near-distance a lone, grey spiral dancing upward into the sky. A campfire, he quickly deduced. They must be close to the camp.

    “We are almost home,” the Witch-woman called back to Wander, turning her head to look at him. “As soon as we get there and get this thief locked up we will call the clan elders together to discuss the urgent news that you say you have.”

    When the Witch-woman turned to look at Wander, he sharply snapped his gaze away from Melisandre, as if shame would come upon him if the woman were to see him talking casually with the highwayman who accosted him. Melisandre noticed this sudden change in him, and found herself slightly hurt by his actions. They wouldn’t understand, she thought to herself, and she turned her beautiful eyes down to the ground, where not even the earth could appreciate their incredible hues.

---

    Wander fidgeted his fingers quietly as he kept his gaze down low. Quiet, solemn voices murmured throughout the small tent, for about twelve Witches other than Wander occupied the space. Some seemed anxious to hear what he would say, musing amongst themselves by what sense of urgency Wander may have been needing to seek them out; others conversed a little more loudly, discussing the various everyday issues and activities that the Cicada clan engaged in, such as weaving, hunting, scavenging, and what sort of wares will the next merchant group take with them to the larger city of Siethe about thirty miles west. Wander pondered on how it would be to occupy his mind with such simple matters and worries, but every time his mind attempted to conjure a hypothetical situation the memory of Marx-Eha tore through his fantasy, screaming “Ohoro! Ohoro! Ohoro!” over and over and over again.

    “Alright, alright everyone, let’s settle on down and get this going.” The Witch-woman gestured for the elders to sit down, and in begrudging compliance they all did so. When silence descended upon them the woman went on. “Now, I know that it is unusual for us to have another clan’s Witch among us, but, erm, I’m sorry, your name?”

    Wander half-stood up from his chair and bowed his head to the elders assembled there. “Wander. My name is Wander.”

    “And what clan do you hail from, Wander?”

    “Vulture,” Wander nearly choked out, “My family clan is Vulture.”

    Quiet murmurs were exchanged between the elders, along with unsure, even cold stares. The woman again urged for the council to settle down, and again with the same stubbornness they acquiesced. “Welcome, Wander. As I was saying, Wander has come to us because he carries urgent news--”

    “I have made an important discovery that make come as a shock and perhaps demands our urgent attention,” Wander interjected, rising completely to his feet. “I have just arrived from the outskirts of Pathos, where I performed an exorcism on a young boy who was infested with a rhyskha. In the dream I met the parasite, who developed much faster than the boy’s condition let on. It was almost completely fused with his subconscious. The parasite spoke of an ohoro, a leader and king of the rhyskha. Although the dream-parasite developed as much as it did, it strangely did not feed off of the boy for itself, but somehow instead  had the ability to transmit the energy to the so-called ohoro. What we knew in our collective knowledge of the rhyskha is that although they are aware that there are more than one of them and that even though they address themselves not as a single self so much as they do as a collective, they never act as a collective. They do not have-- no, rather, never had-- a need or a presence to have a structure or order among them, a sense for a ruling class or some kind of leader. Until now anyway, they never had these notions.

    “Fellow Witches, listen to me-- if what Marx-Eha, I mean the rhyskha, said is true, that there is an ohoro, and that there is a new breed of rhyskha who barely feed for themselves, just enough to survive, and transmit the rest of the energy to this king, we may be in grave danger, as well as the rest of the living tribes, may they be dragon, Witch, human, beast, whoever. We need to collect ourselves, unite the clans, and begin to figure out how to take down this king. If there are more rhyskha like the one I encountered only a few days ago out in the world, feeding off of dreams and subconsciouses, I am afraid that both the dreaming and the waking worlds are in grave danger.”

    The council of Witches sat in their seats in pure silence. Many of them looked at Wander with terror in their eyes while others were skeptical of the news that the young Witch hailing from Vulture clan possessed. The sight of so many unconvinced Witches planted a seed of regret within Wander that sprouted into a worse kind of anxiety than he felt earlier. A cold sweat settled on his upper back and the veins in his temples pulsed heavily, the sound of his own quickened heartbeat drumming along in his ears. He wished that someone, other than himself, would break the silence, pull the stares away, shatter the ice that seized his chest.

    That mercy came in the form of a much older elder, a man Wander guessed to be the eldest of them all. The man’s bushy eyebrows, heavy with the weight of age, drooped down just slightly on his saggy skin, creating a heavier brow-line and thus casting a dark visor of shadow upon his eyes. His long, wrinkled fingers gripped his walking stick, tensing and untensing slowly, as if he were running the information through his mind over and over, detecting what may be truth and what could possibly sound like lies. Although his mind continued to turn over Wander’s testament, a harsh, gruff voice thundered out from his throat, “Boy, your story worries me for in my years and experiences, as well as the stories passed down from the elders before me never once have we heard of the rhyskha doing as what you are suggesting. What you are suggesting to us is that these parasites are becoming much more evolved, advanced, and are doing so in such a way as they could move from the dreaming world into the waking world. You are suggesting that they are, collectively and consciously, creating a rule, a king, a greater monster than the rest of them. I believe we all remember from stories or know from personal experiences exactly how difficult it is to dispatch such creatures when they reach the waking world. If what you are suggesting is true, if the rhyskha are indeed sending their feasts to a single parasite or a small handful, then the rhyskha are creating a colossus, or some kind of titan among them. Such a monster is beyond my imagination, and the destruction that it can havoc could very well demolish us all.”

    “How do we even know he speaks the truth?” Another Witch, who is much younger in age than the sage but still above Wander in years, stood up at his place at the table. A long, pink scar stretched from his hairline, over his right eye, and on past his nose and lips and the length of this throat right to the center of his clavicles.

    “Why would a Witch, the blood of our blood, come here and lie to us? What does Wander have to gain from lying?” The old man turned his attention to the younger Witch.

    “He is of Vulture Clan; he is not blood of our blood.” The second Witch shot a harsh glare towards Wander, whose spine shivered from the negative energy cast towards him.

    “Vulture, Dragonfly, Cicada-- these are only names. What is true is that we are all Witches, we are all kin. You may dislike Wander as much as you may please, but just because this young man hails from a different clan does not make him a liar or beyond the basic love, care, and respect that is shared between any and all Witches, Tarvos.”

    Tarvos turned his stare to the old man and spat onto the ground. “Do you even remember what the Vulture Clan did? How it betrayed all of us?”    

    The old man’s weary eyes, cloudy with years of memories and sights, glanced downward. He refused to answer Tarvos’s questions, which hung heavy in the air. Even Wander stood dumbfounded, unaware of what sort of betrayal the elder was alluding to.

    “Do you know?” Tarvos glanced towards Wander, his anger unwavering.

    Wander simply shook his head, although inside his mind he was panicking in the corridors. What is Tarvos talking about? What is it he is alluding to? Since when did any clan betray the others? Why the Vulture Clan? Why me?

    Tarvos appeared to be displeased by Wander’s shake of his head. “Hmph, not even our guest knows. Well, I will refresh the memory of everyone at this table, especially you, Brea, old man High.” He moved from his place at the table and began to slowly pace around the room in a steady circle. “If we recalled about forty-five years ago, there was an incident, the McAllister incident as the humans called it. One of our very own kind, a Witch by the name of Rhys, of the clan Vulture, took upon the case of the McAllister boy, whose family put out an order for a Witch. Their little boy of four years came down with a serious rhyskha infestation, for the parasite grew at a phenomenal rate despite the short life the boy had lived thus far. Rhys, and the rest of us for that matter, believe it to be a simple and easy exorcism, one to be performed in just a few hours. It turned out that the dream parasite was a lot more than what Rhys could handle, and so called in for the aid of other Witches. The other clans sent out their best, and all gathered together at the McAllister farm where they could aid in the fight to save the child’s memories, body, mind, and life. In the end the other Witches perished, the boy deformed and slaughtered, the farm on fire, and Rhys missing. Since then no clan trusted the Vulture Clan, and will always not trust them.”

    Wander stood staring at Tarvos, his mouth agape and his emotions aghast at the audacity of the Witch to share such a story. Vulture Clan or no, Rhys failure to contain a rhyskha does not signal a banner of shame and disgrace upon the whole clan, that much all Witches agreed upon-- at least, until the McAllister tragedy. Wander wiped his face clean of emotion and narrowed his eyes at the man who felt the most hate.

    “We all remember the tragedy Tarvos, and none of us will be forgetting that day anytime soon, or for the rest of our lives for that matter,” the old man named Brea mumbled after a few moments of silence. “Nevertheless you are the youngest of the elders, and because you are younger your words do not hold as much weight as the rest of the council. As you know, you entered the council under the notion that until you come of age, you will be heard but not necessarily followed. Thank you for your input all the same. You may regain your seat and remain there until we call upon you again.”

    Tarvos lost all color in his face as his eyes grew the iciest Witch eyes could ever become, and upon command he slowly paced back around the room and quietly took his seat without protest. When he leaned back against the chair did the High one continue on.

    “Wander, my boy, do not let your spirits down from Tarvos’s harsh words. I and the other elders--” the other old men situated around the table nodded their heads in a solemn fashion, “-- we have pondered deeply about what you have told us, and we feel it in our best interests, not for just the Cicada Clan but hopefully the entirety of the Witch tribe, to begin communications between all of the clans. We must prepare, and, if necessary, mobilize the clans for war against the rhyskha if necessary. You will be the messenger between the tribes. You will carry the story you have told us here, and you will follow the ravens to the other clans and rehearse your testament to them. I believe that the key to taking down this rhyskha ohoro can be found within each of the clan elders, the High Ones, including myself, for we possess the most knowledge of any Witch. It will be our duty to share such knowledge with you, and it is your task and purpose to figure out what to do with our information. You will decide what pieces will aid our cause and which will set us back. You will command our forces should combat be necessary. After every clan has been formally informed, you will organize and lead us, under the guidance of the High Council of course.”

    The old man Brea chuckled under his gruffy breath for a moment before regaining his serious tone. “Wander of the Vulture Clan, do you accept the purpose we have laid out for you?”

    The young Witch appeared to be appalled with such a gift of responsibility and weight. In that moment of time Wander felt the entire tribe of Witches place the weight of the world upon his shoulders as they kneel down before them, awaiting his word, his command, his reassurance that the world will survive the terrible threat. Wander felt himself drowning within; for since when did a wanderer, a lone Witch without a home nor a destination ever become leadership material for a small tribe of beings, let alone be the sole force against what could possibly be the worst catastrophe since the origins of the world? Wander paced the halls of his mind, his stress boiling through his blood. How could they ever think this is a good idea? What choice do I have anyway? If I deny them, Tarvos wins, my clan is in disgrace, as much as Brea would like to believe otherwise. I am the only one who has enough knowledge to really stand a slim chance against this ohoro... dear gods.

    With a slight nod, Wander bowed his head. “I will take the purpose that which you have placed before me.” I do not know what I am getting myself into...

    Pleased, the old man’s eyes lit up brightly, despite the hazy grey that dimmed them so long ago. “Good! Good! I knew the moment I heard your voice that you are the Witch we can depend on. Although most of us here do not share in Tarvos’s views, there are many Witches out there who do, and perhaps they feel negatively about the Vulture Clan even more strongly than he does. Perhaps, with this mission, you can restore the reputation of your clan as well. Remember that restoring grace is not your focus, and should not be first and foremost. Remember the danger that the world is in, and not just the Witches. I know you have your head on level enough to remember such things. However, the evening council has gone on long enough and I can sense that all of us are weary. Let us break council. Wander will be our guest of honor, and he will have his own quarters. He has full priviledges as any other council member. Respect him highly, for in his hands and mind lies the powers to your salvation.”

    All rose from the table, bowed their heads, and quietly dispersed from the tent. Tarvos shoved up against Wander, grasping his arm tightly and digging his nails into the young Witch’s flesh. “Watch yourself, Vulture,” the Witch growled. Before Wander could reply he let go and disappeared out into the night.

    “Wander, come here for a moment. Tomorrow you will meet me for breakfast, and during our meal I will share my knowledge with you. You can start out as early as tomorrow afternoon if you’d like, heading south, towards the Dragonfly.”

    “Yes, elder, I would very much like that,” Wander mumbled in reply.

    The old man smiled and squeezed Wander’s shoulder before hobbling out of the tent, leaving the Witch to stand there numbly, frozen in fear deep within himself and the weight of the world mounted heavily on his shoulders.

“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.”

--Tupac Shakur

    Wander strode quickly down the hall of the house and managed to locate the boy before the old man had a moment to direct the Witch. Hovering at the doorway, Wander looked down upon the boy called Marx by family and townspeople; he was in poor state. Although the boy’s back was turned towards Wander, the Witch could see the layers of sweat upon the child’s forehead, the extremely pale color of the face and the patchwork of veins below the skin, the rather lanky build of his body due to malnourishment, and the rather tight pull of the boy’s body into a fetal position. The sight of such a child in agony is one that Wander has seen before in his travels, but nevertheless his heart sank at the sight. Any being in agony, may it be from nightmare parasites or a serious case of lung sickness, made the Witch feel something other than the coldness of his heart, for a Witch must never feel too attached to their patients and employers. They are there to perform the work, collect the pay, and move onto the next person in need. Although Wander lived by this Witches’ Code line by line, he could never control himself completely. There will always be brief seconds of compassion flaring in the cold snow-white irises of his eyes.

    “How bad is it?” the old man asked with a quiet voice.

    “He isn’t off of the deep end, but he isn’t in the greatest shape either.” The Witch turned his attention from the son to the father. “How long can you recall Marx being sick? I have heard from the tavern-woman in the town that he has been this way for maybe three weeks or so.”

    “About that long,” the old man said, then hesitated for a moment, pausing to think about it for a moment, “yes, three weeks sounds about right.”

    “Mmm,” Wander looked back at the boy, “It’s quite impressive that the boy is only in the stage that he is in right now for being sick for three weeks. Many people who are afflicted by the rhyskha would show signs of mutation or at least fall into a comatose state by week three. Yet here is your son, still fighting and sweating. He must have strong blood from his parents.”

    “His strength comes from his mother.”

    “I am sure some comes from you too. Nevertheless, we cannot let him alone much longer. It is time for me to intervene and exterminate his parasite.”

    Wander moved around the edge of the bed and knelt down beside the boy, placing a cool, white hand upon the child’s head. “Are you familiar with how a Witch works?” Wander asked.

    The old man shook his head. “I cannot say I do for all that I do know about Witches.”

    “We work in solitude with the one who is ailing. We are not to be disturbed at all, and so I ask you and the rest of your family to wait in the other parts of the house. When I come out of this room is when you can address me. It is difficult to determine how long you may have to wait for each case is different; for some, and usually the freshest of cases, it takes at the shortest a half hour. For the worst, perhaps a couple days. Although your son is in better shape than some others, I cannot give you an idea of when I will finish. So, once again I will ask you to please keep you and your family out of this room until I walk out of it. Do not bother with food or water. We Witches have our ways of surviving.”

    “Just what exactly will you be doing with my son?”

    “It is no secret as to what a rhyskha does. You know as well as I and anyone else that these things are known as dream parasites, unusual creatures in the sense that they do not have a ‘real existence’ like you or I do, and yet they still exist and are very real in their own way. Because they do not exist in the tangible world from the onset of infestation Witches must enter the dreams of the victims, and it is in the dreamscape of the victim that we must encounter the rhyskha in its very real form and exterminate it, whether it is as simple as squashing a bug or undergoing an internal quest to slay a monster. Just like it is not possible for me to say when I will be done administering my cure it is impossible for me to know what kind of rhyskha I will be meeting in Marx’s dreams. It is apparent though that the longer the infestation the more complicated the parasite and the extraction will be.”

    The old man stood numbly at the threshold still, staring down at his son with eyes overbrimming with tears of worry and stress. “Do what you need to do, Witch. I will take care of my family.”

    Wander stood up and approached the man, placing his long, pale hand on the man’s shoulder. “I know you will. Before you leave me and Marx alone, I believe I never got your name.”

    “It’s Rhzack,” the old man barely choked out.

    “Rhzack, what a strong name. Go and care for your family Rhzack. Rest, tend to the chores. Your son will be safe within my care.”

    With a little bit of encouragement the old man turned and stepped back into the hall. Before the Witch closed the door completely, the old man turned and asked quickly of the stranger’s name.

    “My name is Wander.”

And with a soft smile, Wander closed the door with a gentle click.

After Wander carefully closed the door he set the lock to allow himself extra relief. He knew that it would take Rhzack hardly any effort to take down the door, but that was fine. The Witch knew that the old man trusts him. That is good enough. Turning slowly, the snow-colored eyes rested their gaze upon the boy, who continued to shiver in his feverish fits.

“Poor, poor boy,” Wander murmured as he took a seat n a rundown chair beside the bed. Wander is not a heavy man, but nevertheless the chair creaked a little from under him. He shrugged off his coat and had it drape over the back of the chair while he took his hat and hung it by his shoulder. He placed his satchel on the ground and stared at the boy. “You’re not even a man yet, are you Marx? You haven’t reached the threshold of manhood. You look to be eleven. Almost-- but not quite. Perhaps your youthfulness is your saving grace and is what is keeping you alive right now.” He flipped over the leather flap and hovered his hands over the glass vials, clicking his tongue. “Which one, which one? How long will it take to exorcise that little demon of yours, nestled so nicely deep, deep, deep down in the bottom of your soul’s depths, like the crab, like the starfish, waiting hungrily and eagerly for the little stream of memories to come floating on down. How deep is the penetration little one, youthful one, almost-adult, almost-soulless one?”

Wander settled on a bottle of golden serum and also pulled out a bottle filled with a black powder. Carefully he uncorked the powder-bottle, and with a soft, deep hum he began to draw symbols and lines upon the by and himself. The hum from the Witch’s chest rolled like distant thunder in the prairie-land before the onset of a powerful storm. The storm will not be outside the farmhouse-- oh no, not unless Wander underestimated the pregnant clouds and they wish to give birth to frolicking trolls of thunder and lightning. No, the real storm Wander braced for is the hailstorm within the subconsciousness of the boy, the unpredictable terrain within, and, most importantly, the hostility of the parasitic beast that lay hidden there in the cool, dark shadows of its illusions.

When Marx stirred in his bed and barely uttered a whimper, Wander turned his head just slightly to gaze and hush the boy’s cries. “You are fine, it will all be over soon, soon.” The tall stranger leaned over the child and brushed a few strands of hair from the sweaty visage, clicking his tongue still. “Looks like it’s time to meet now, isn’t it?”

Wander didn’t wait for a reply before he attempted to straighten the child out in his bed. When Marx tried to weakly fight back, the Witch uncorked the serum’s bottle and poured just a few drops onto the boy’s swollen tongue, whispering words of encouragement to entice him to swallow. Marx did swallow, and because he did he fell into a deep, calm sleep, much like would would look like when they have just broken through a midnight fever.  A soft smile graced his black-dyed lips as he settled himself back down in his creaky chair, and he tilted his head back as he swallowed down the rest of the golden serum. Like the liquid fire of liquor the serum scorched through Wander’s throat, searing through his spine and opening up his brain. The Witch always reveled in the high, the experience of his brain splitting open and pouring down his spinal column, his heart slowing as darkness pooled around him, the tentacles withering up and grasping the various objects of the room, his leg, around his arm, the patient, all enveloped in darkness and being pulled down, down, down into the dark depths of the subconscious, where a mighty beastie lay waiting.

Diving into the dream could be compared to standing upon a tall bridge and having to fall down a hole the size of a pin’s head. With time and practice a Witch can widen that hole and make it easier to dive through. Even though Wander perfected the dive it never made it easier for him to conquer the parasite. The dive never had any correlation to the monster.

Until today.

Wander felt the wind whistle and slap its whip-like tendrils across his gaunt face, but that did not concern him as much as the sight of more shadowy tentacles poked and prodded their way through from the darkness of the tunnel leading into Marx’s subconscious. His eyes narrowed slightly at the sight, for if anyone were to look at the Witch now they would not see the concern and feelings of anxiety flaring in his mind, setting fire to his nerves. Inside his own mind Wander felt himself to fret over this new discovery. Why are they here? What does this mean? This has never happened before. No, no. This is too strange, too rare, too new. Wander searched his mind frantically for any scrap of memory that could possibly relate to the alarming scene beneath him, but only found a small scrap he read long, long ago in his days in being an apprentice:

For when the daemons emerged from the Pit, the gods donned their armor and down they fell.

“How reassuring,” Wander murmured, rubbing his temples as he shaved the foreboding message away. he breathed deeply as he shrugged to control his nerves. “It is just a parasite. It is nothing yet.”

Yet.

After another loud exhale, Wander looked down at the festering hole. Without a second thought, without hesitation, he jumped.

They say that death is like a tunnel that you wander and grope your way through as you try to see and reach for the light at the end of it. For Wander, and perhaps many other Witches, diving blindly into the abyss of another person’s dream is a sort of death. Many times Wander wondered if he would be desensitized to the sensations of death and, in becoming so, never really realize that he has died. No, I have not died, not yet, he often thought, and especially thought now as the tentacles slipped and rubbed against him as he slowly passed down through the tunnel.

Wander often remembered that it is not easy for a Witch to die or be killed.

Time did not feel slow or quick, but the journey did feel abrupt as Wander felt no support beneath him and so fell harshly onto the surface below. It took Wander a few moments to realize that the surface upon which he landed upon beat. No, not beat, pulse. It had a pulse. It was also sticky but not too sticky, but it felt more like a kind of slime that rolled off of his skin after just a little bit of effort. Wander pushed himself onto his hands and knees, his vision blurry and head in a daze from the plummet. Looking down at the ground, he observed the criss-cross pattern of veins and flesh, the little blood cells pumping and the sinews of muscle strewn out and about like a great, white web of an arachnid. The sight of such a floor chilled the blood of the Witch, who did not imagine that he would come face to face with such an environment in what he perceived to have been a strong victim. I could not have underestimated this rhyskha, he thought, I just couldn’t.

Slowly, very slowly, he came to his feet, and mustered enough courage from within himself to look around at the rest of the surroundings. Almost immediately he noticed that there was no points of entry and exit, save for the hole in the ceiling through which Wander fell through. Looking up, Wander saw that the tentacles wove together, sealing the tunnelway shut.

There is no way out for Wander.

To prevent the anxiety of being without an escape route, Wander turned his attention towards other details. The walls of the cavern were also of the same flesh and sinew-like consistency as the floor. Darkness mostly dominated the space around Wander up and around the top of his head, for higher up the room became brighter and more distinct in detail. Torches mounted on the walls burned brightly, providing the light for the top two-thirds of the room.

“We have been expecting you,” a chilling voice spoke softly in the darkness, the sound feeling like rocks churning in a grater to the Witch’s ears.

Wheeling around, staring into the darkness, Wander tried to pinpoint the location of the voice. “Where are you?”

“In the dark, always in the dark, never again to see the light,” the voice chanted softly again, the same harshness predominating the sound of the voice. “We are always within, hardly without, but again we’ll rise, again we’ll see the light of day.”

Rhyskha, Wander thought immediately, but decided to keep asking questions anyway. “Where can I find you?”

“Come closer, to the light. Come and speak.”

Wander glanced around the room again, and noticed the darkness lifted slowly by a few degrees. The details of the flesh along the walls were still difficult to distinguish as the darkness still sat close to the ground like a black fog. Nevertheless, the slight change in lighting did help Wander see somewhat better than before. He glanced off towards his left and saw two torches burning on a distant wall, perched level to his head. Wander began to head towards them slowly but cautiously.

“Who are you?” Wander asked calmly.

“We are the plague of the mind, the shadow of the subconscious. We feed from your memory, from your thought, your dream. The plague from the beginning and a plague to the end. As long as you exist and live, so shall we.”

Typical, thought Wander, for a rhyskha to address itself in the collective term. “Where is your host?”

“He is here, he is safe.”

“No host is safe with you.”

“Our host has to be safe for us to be able to feed and thrive. Without our host we are nothing, nothing.”

Wander continued to slowly move across the cavern, which felt much more like a very large and long chamber. The torchlight that he moved towards grew brighter and larger by degrees, but it still many paces off. “Do you know who I am?”

“You are a Witch, you must be. You reek so much that we would smell you from your grave.”

“You know me right and well then?”

“We know of your kind, your powers, your purpose. To kill the parasite, kill the rhyskha, kill us. Sent to kill, sent to revive, sent to retrieve.”

“This body, this mind, this boy is not yours to take.”

Closer now, Wander could see shadows dance upon the wall by the flickering firelight.

“The boy is ours, the mind is ours. The body will be ours soon enough, soon, soon.”

“Hardly--”

When Wander could see the torches clearly he couldn’t suppress a gasp. Backed against the wall was the creature, large and looming, a mass of flesh and sinew, muscle and bone, sitting and slithering. Arteries and vessels attached the creature to the wall, and its face, a grotesque, lion-like shape, bent its head down low. Several limbs, mostly legs, arms, and heads of human anatomy, protruded from the mass in random parts of the body. Tentacles slithered slowly over the ground like snakes. Stationed in the middle of the rhyskha’s body was the boy, Marx, slumbering peacefully and calmly, as if unaware of his fusion with the beast, for vessels and arteries also buried themselves deep into the pale, lanky flesh of the boy’s body. The dreamverse is completely overrun, Wander thought, his eyes flickering over every detail of the monster, the subconscious could be irreparable.

“What was it that you were saying, Witch? Hardly? Look around you, Witch, you are in over your head. Your kind will fall down dead. You will not stop us now just like we could not be stopped before.”

“Before?” Wander looked up at the rhyskha’s face, “What do you mean by ‘before’? Are you suggesting that this has happened before?”

“Once upon an age, we have feasted and we have won. We won against the great ones, we will win against the lesser ones. We cannot be stopped now.”

“I can stop you now.”

“You might be able to destroy me, but you will not destroy them.”

Them? The Witch felt startled, shaken down to his core. “What do you mean by them?”

“One day Witch, someday soon, if you survive me now, you shall see.”

The lion-head of the rhyskha lashed out at Wander, but the Witch dodged by rolling to the side, amazed at the incredible speed the parasite managed to have despite the amount of mass its body possessed. However, when the creature moved forward, its steps were slow and almost labored, like the effort to move away from the wall took much more effort than it should. It doesn’t make sense.

“Why are you so slow, rhyskha? Don’t you feel powerful from all that you have ingested?”

The monster growled. “The energy is not for me, the energy is a sacrifice, for them, for them. But not for Marx-Eha.”

“Marx-Eha? Is that what you call yourself?”

“We exist as much as you do. We deserve a name.” Marx-Eha lashed out again for Wander, but again missed, but came much closer this time.

“You do not exist. You are only here, in the mind of someone. If anything, you are more like a concept, but you are not a thing. You will never exist.”

“Not yet I do not exist, we do not exist, but we shall, we shall.”

    Wander continued to slowly step away from the creature until he stumbled over his own feet, falling hard on his back and knocking himself off-guard. Marx-Eha seized the opportunity to grasp the Witch with its many limbs, hoisting him up off of the ground, squeezing tightly with inhuman strength. “First we shall eat you,” the parasite cackled, “we shall peel your skin off your bones and chew on it nice and slow. Then we will crack open that skull of yours and taste the sweet Witch-memories inside. We believe the Witch to be a delectable treat, yes, yes. You shall be a treat, and they will enjoy it gladly.”

    He struggled against the hands, but the movement only encouraged them to grow tighter and tighter around his limbs. He felt his flesh bruise and bones creak beneath the pressure. I have to get out of this, but I can’t... I can’t depend on the power...

    Do you not want to get out of this alive?

    Yes, I do, but...

    Then let go and release me. Let me free you from this complication. The boy’s life is at stake and there is no way that you will survive this ordeal without me, a voice hissed somewhere by Wander’s ear.

    Wander sighed deeply and felt his shoulders slump in defeat to the voice. You win.

    Good boy.

    The parasite drew the Witch closer to its giant lion-head, its jaws stretched out wide and slowly inching closer to sink its teeth into Wander’s body. Suddenly, the creature screamed in pain as pieces of its limbs began to cascade onto the ground. “What are you doing?!” The creature screamed in agony at Wander, whose once-icy eyes flooded with darkness and whose nails grew considerably longer and sharper, forming talon-like claws. Wander said nothing but continued to sink his claws into the limbs and render them in pieces, dropping the flesh onto the ground and grasp for another section. Marx-Eha dropped him onto the ground and began to back away from the Witch, terribly afraid of this sudden turn.

    “You are different, you smell different. Why, why?”

    Wander’s lips curled up into a malevolent smile and slowly advanced towards the rhyskha, not bothering to utter a word.

    “Who are you?” the parasite screamed at him, hissing and continuing to back away until it pressed up against the wall. Wander plunged a hand into the flesh of the parasite and rummaged around until it located a familiar shape that pulsed rapidly in his palm.

    “They call me Wander,” the Witch replied cooly, just slightly tightening his grasp on the creature’s heart.

    “But you cannot be alive, you cannot exist. You’re dead, dead.”

    “I am very much alive, for how can a dead man be having a hold on your heart at this very moment, Marx-Eha? Now tell me what do you mean by ‘they’, and just maybe I will kill you in a more graceful way.”

    The rhyskha shuddered. “The Master, the one who rules us, he sent me, he controls us. He is they.”

    “What is the name of your master?”

    “We do not know, we only call him by Ohoro, the rhyskha word for ‘king’.”

    “You parasites are not complex enough to have a king. You work on your own, you fend for yourselves. You reproduce asexually. Since when did you begin to work together as a collective besides addressing yourself as a collective?”

    “For a long time, Marx-Eha does not know exactly when. But we have, we have. Not forever, perhaps forever? It might as well be, for it is just that Ohoro rules us all. Ohoro is the one who secured our victory against the great ones.”

    “Who are the great ones?”

    “Marx-Eha has said too much.”

    Suddenly, the rhyskha’s heart burst in Wander’s hand without the Witch’s inclination. What just happened? Wander shook his head and slowly drew his bloody arm from the mass of flesh, which now sunk down into itself, limp, lifeless. The darkness faded away from the Witch’s eyes as the shadows and the chambers began to slowly fade into white. Quickly, Wander forced himself to recover from his spell and begin to tear the vessels and tubes away from Marx, liberating the boy from the monster before the parasite faded away completely, obliterated by its own nightmare’s fading. Wander carried the boy further into the whiteness and away from the space where the rhyskha was before.

    “Come on now boy, wake up. The nightmare is over, you are strong, you are young. Remember what I told you? Your youthfulness will save you. Now, awake, awake...”

    Wander leaned his ear down over the boy’s chest and listened for a pulse, closing his eyes softly. His keen ears heard a distant heart beating slowly, weakly, but beating all the same. The Witch let out a sigh. “What a relief.”

    A soft rain pattered against the windows and the roof of the farmhouse, all was still. Night had already descended outside; how long ago Wander did not know. He allowed the boy to sleep comfortably in the bed for some time longer as he reclined in his chair after opening the window, allowing fresh air inside and the smoke of his pipe waft out into the night.

    Much occupied the Witch’s mind. Ohoro? Since when did the rhyskha begin to order itself into a social structure and believe themselves to need a throne and one of themselves to rule the rest like a queen bee? Since when did the rhyskha begin to act like drones, sending energy away from hosts and no longer feast for themselves? How are they transmitting this energy? Where is this energy going? And how powerful can this Ohoro become with gods know how many drones feeding into it? Wander’s mind began to ache with the speculation.

    Closer to dawn, the Witch heard the child mumble a bit and stir in his bed. Turning to watch him, Wander watched Marx slowly blink open his eyes to the dim light of dawn, breathing deeply and slowly, his body contorted and tangled in his sheets.

    “You have survived a very difficult battle,” Wander told the boy gently.

    “I feel like I had the worst nightmare ever. I dreamt of a giant mass of flesh attached to me. It had tubes sticking out of my arms and my back and I could feel stuff pumping and moving in and out. It’s head was like a lion but it was so gross and ugly. It smelled awful. I tried to fight but I couldn’t move. I remember a man with talons and black eyes, with long dark hair but it was shaved off on the sides. His skin was the whitest I ever saw, as white as his eyes. He had symbols on his skin that look like...whoa, like these.” Marx gestured to the symbols Wander painted on. “He ripped up the monster and tore me away from it. He took me to a whiteness-place and then I woke up here. It felt so long, like I have been asleep for years.”

    “You might as well have been. Do you know why you have been asleep for so long and why you had such a grotesque dream like you did, Marx?” Wander asked.

    The boy looked up at Wander and shrugged a bit. “I’ve heard stories about people who fall into deep sleeps plagued by the worst sort of nightmares, the strangest kinds of infections they say because I guess people can be infested by dream parasites. What were they called? I wish I could remember.”

    “Rhyskha.”    

    “Yes! Rhyskha. I think that is why. I never had a fever that left me feeling the way I do now.”

    Wander nodded a bit and took a deep inhale of his pipe. “You were infested with a rhyskha, you are right about that. I believed that it would have been an easy exorcism giving your condition. When I entered your dream, I noticed that things were a lot worse. The parasite morphed into a much greater form that I would expect for a host who was in as good of a condition as you were, for if I were to see the rhyskha first before you, I would have assumed that your body would have begun morphing too.

    “You are very fortunate though, to have contracted a very strange strand of the dream-parasite that I believe no Witch has ever seen before. I can say though that your passenger has been killed and destroyed and it will no longer pose harm towards you or your family. I suppose it can be considered a blessing to say that the rhyskha never occupy a body that has already been used as a feeding site more than once. You will not be experiencing that sort of infestation ever again. Congrats.”

    The boy looked down at his body and smiled. Good, Wander thought, the boy ought to be happy. He watched as Marx glanced out at the window and locked his eyes upon the sky, where in just a small area he could see a break in the clouds and the beautiful watercolor of dawn shine through.

    “I have never seen a sunrise, sir. Have you?” Marx asked.

    Wander also looked out of the window and spotted the same splash of color the boy is seeing. “I have seen sunrises and sunsets, boy, but I can tell you that they never look any more beautiful than the ones you wake up to after conquering the dragon in your sleep. Enjoy it while it’s there, natural beauty does not last in this world like it ought to.”