As expected, Red House was mostly deserted. A few philosophy majors sat miserably in the corner booth, pouring over notes and battered paperbacks, glowing with highlighter. Sean, however, wasn't at his usual station behind the counter, but seated at a table by the window. Furthermore, he wasn't alone. Christian almost took a misstep. A woman sat across from him. She turned when she heard the chime on the door ring, and Christian thought the world was falling out from under his feet. He knew he was warded, had made the extra effort that morning, and indeed, Sean's vague nimbus confirmed that he had dampened the auras around him. This woman, though, even warded, blazed like a bonfire. Her eyes widened as she looked at Christian. Her light hazel eyes had sparks and flares within them, and they burned him to his core.
The world slipped sideways and Christian fell...
...the shackles, always the shackles. The carved letters and emblems kept him from inadvertently blasting apart the palace in his frenzy, but it was never easy to wake up and find himself chained. He shifted slightly, glad that they had allowed him a small but comfortable mat on the floor. The room was dark, save for the reflected light of torches from the courtyard far below. Getting up while wearing the cumbersome restraints was a challenge, but he wanted to look out the narrow, barred window. The sky was its deepest shade of red, a swirling mass of cloud that nauseated if stared at for too long. By the strange measure of time here, it was what passed for night. Unlike his homeland, night did not mean the end of activity. It simply meant that what was out and moving changed drastically. The braziers and torches in the courtyard added a hellish glow to the twisted abominations that shuffled and limped below, coming in and out of the uneven black archways and tunnels that dotted the high red-brown walls. They seemed to grow out of the living rock, for it was quite literally a living rock. He shuddered as his naked shoulder brushed the window opening. He knew that this part was mere exoskeleton, like coral, and long-since abandoned, but it still made his skin crawl. He had seen the animal that created the palace, and its barbed and hooked teeth looked as though they would do serious injury to soft human flesh.
The unlocking and opening of the cell's door broke him from his reverie. A gray-skinned, shambling human-like creature entered, carrying a tray with a lamp and an ewer, presumably of water. There was a napkin-covered plate, though he didn't hold out much hope that it was palatable food. The creature set the tray on a shelf that protruded from the wall itself, then shambled out of the room. It was hard to say, but there seemed to be something akin to pity in the star-like glinting in its deep-set eyes. He wasn't sure if they were even capable of emotion, or if his loneliness gave human-like qualities to things most human-like in this damned land. Well, if the shambling servant was here, then she would not be far behind. There was no use in trying to make himself presentable, but he could take a moment to drink and perhaps eat. He didn't attempt to pour the water into the small cup on the tray, but drank straight from the ewer. The water was warm, and had a stale quality, but it could have been fresh and icy and still not have been as welcome. He knew he was dribbling down his chin and chest, and he could not care. When his thirst had been slaked somewhat, he twitched aside the napkin. It was a revolting mass of foul-smelling meat. He nearly threw up what water was in his belly. Hastily he re-covered it, then took the half-empty ewer and sat down on the mat again.
The door opened again, and this time it was her, in her long black veil, so tall in the flickering lamplight that she seemed to stretch to the height of the vaulted ceiling. He felt for a brief second that he ought to attempt a bow, but instead remained firmly seated on the floor. He was naked, shackled, starving, and completely at her mercy. He would exert what little control he actually had in the situation. She did not seem offended by his actions. Instead, she knelt down in a billowing mass of whispering black silk. They sat in this tableau for what felt like an eternity, the towering figure in black and the shackled young man, pale in his nakedness. At last she spoke.
"I never intended this for you, walker of the ways. You had chosen your path, you were moving onward. I swear on the stars of Carcosa, I did not call you back here." There was a note of pleading in her voice. He responded, as he always did.
"I know you did not." She flinched, like she had been struck, and it took a second for him to realize why. In the countless repetitions of this scene, in the countless times that she had pleaded her case and he had responded, never had those words actually issued from his lips. They echoed in his mind, he willed them to be spoken, but never did they come. Whatever spell of silence he had been trapped under, it had been broken. He laughed, though there was no humor in it, then took another drink from the ewer. "You had nothing to do with it."
"Then how do you remain here?" she asked, eagerness creeping into her tone. "I feared that you were damaged beyond saving, way-walker." She shifted slightly, leaning closer. "Tell me how you remained."
"Rei. My friend in my world, he breathed life back into my dying body, dragged me back to my own existence." Why had he not been able to articulate this before? "There have been strange happenings in my world. I've not been--" but then he stopped himself. He had started to say that he had not been dreaming, but he had suddenly realized that this was his dream-self, trapped and chained. "Half my soul is wandering the waking world, and only when I sleep there am I whole here."
"A riven soul is a difficult thing to mend, even for the walker of the ways. I have no power that can aid you." She did not question the truth of his story. "It is strange that you are able to speak now, after all this time. Did you find a way to yourself?"
"Not by my own skill. My waking self was caught in the spot in my world where we last met. I think it must be a thinner spot. It had been warded previously, and I walked through it unwarded. I collapsed." Collapsed. Yes, that had brought him here now. The woman! "There was a woman, just before I came to myself again. Small, fine-boned, full of power. She looked at me, and I fell. Who is she?"
The world started to darken. He screamed in rage. The veiled woman's voice carried, even as black turned to white and shadows became blinding.
"If it is her, she will be able to help you."
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