An Unexpected Son has appeared in various guises and has been dreamed one hundred and twenty-four times. In the last thirty years, it has been dreamed seventy times. In every case, the dreamer reported a sense of foreboding. One described it as the cringing servant who expects punishment. Another reported a sense of shame before justice.
I have dreamed my own form of the dream of the Unexpected Son. I believe it is a dream of justice and punishment to come, brought to those who least expect it. And I have dreamed it more than a dozen times. I believe this dream is an inevitable future. I have studied other dreams of the Son, attempting to find from whence he comes, and to whom he brings judgment. In none of the dreams can I find this information.
Dream 729, of Della of the Corathin lineage
Clerres was the strangest place I had ever seen. I stood on the deck, forgetful of my errand for Dwalia, and stared. Ahead of me was a kindly harbour with water that was impossibly blue. All around the harbour there were square buildings of pink and white and pale green, with flat roofs and numerous windows. Some of the buildings had small pointed tents pitched on their roofs. Greenery cascaded down the sides of some, framing the windows.
Behind the buildings that fronted the harbour, the gentle rolling hills beckoned in shades of gold and brown. There were random, solitary trees with fat trunks and wide-spread branches, although on one hillside an even rank of trees might have been an orchard. The distant hills were speckled with herds of grazing animals. The white-and-grey ones were probably sheep. The other herd creatures were cattle, of a sort I had never seen, with branching horns and hummocks on their shoulders. The small boats of our ship had been deployed and our sails furled. Bare-chested sailors bent their backs to the oars as they towed us toward the docks. Slowly, so slowly we drew closer to shore.
The terraced city followed a curve of land that embraced the harbour. One arm of the embrace was a long narrow peninsula, but the peninsula was broken. Beyond that gap, as if it had broken off from the land, was a big island with a dazzling ivory fortress upon it. The island itself was also white, almost dazzlingly so. Its lumpy shores of tumbled blocks of stone sparkled. Quartz. I’d once found a rock that sparkled like that, and Revel had told me it had quartz in it. All the land outside the fortress walls was barren. Not a tree, no trace of green. It looked to me as if it were an island that had suddenly popped up out of the sea with a magical castle atop it.
The outer walls of the castle were tall and crenellated. At each corner a staunch guard tower rose, each topped with a structure like the skull of some immense and fearsome creature. Each of the empty eyed skulls stared off in a different direction. Within the stone walls and taller than the walls, a sturdy stronghouse stood. And four slender towers rose from each corner of that, the spires even taller than the castle towers, with bulbous rooms at the top, like the top of an onion left to go to seed. Never had I seen towers so tall and slender, gleaming pale against the blue sky.
I stared at it, my destination. My future.
Despair tried to rise in me. I pushed it down with frozen stones. I didn’t care. I was alone. I would be enough for me. I’d had two dreams since my father had cast me aside. Two dreams that I dared not think about for fear that Vindeliar might glimpse them. They had frightened me. Badly. I had awakened in the dark of night and stuffed the front of my shirt into my mouth so no one could hear me sobbing. But when I calmed, I understood. I could not see my path clearly, but I knew I had to walk it alone. To Clerres.
I had been sent out of Dwalia’s stateroom to return a tray of dirty dishes to the galley. Usually she did not choose me for such tasks. I think she intended it as yet another demonstration to Vindeliar that I was not only trusted but quickly becoming her favourite. I had perfected my grovelling servitude and taken it to levels he dared not approach. I radiated repentant loyalty at her in a small, steady stream. It was dangerous, for it meant I must constantly be on my guard against Vindeliar lest he gain entry to my mind. He had grown terribly strong since he had drunk the serpent spit. But he was strong as a bullock was strong, good at large motions and breaking walls. But I was not a wall. I was a tiny rolling pebble, hard as a nut, with no edges for him to grasp. I’d felt him try, more than once. I had to keep myself very small and let out only the thoughts that had no real ties to me. Like my slavish admiration of Dwalia.
I’d carried my pretence well, even to standing by her bath and holding a towel for her, and then stooping to dry her callused feet and lumpy toes. I’d rub her feet to hear her groan with pleasure, and I’d set out her clothing as if I were garbing royalty rather than draping a hateful old woman. My ability to deceive her almost frightened me, for it involved thinking the thoughts of a defeated slave. Sometimes I feared that those thoughts were becoming my true thoughts. I did not want to be her slave, but living without the threats and the beatings was such a relief that it was almost an acceptance that this was the best life I could hope for.
I felt a familiar squeezing in what I thought must be my heart. I had heard of being ‘heartbroken’ or ‘heavy-hearted’ but I had never known it was an actual sensation one felt when the whole world abandons you. I looked out at what I knew must be Clerres, and tried to believe I could make a life for myself there. For I knew now I would never go home. I had felt my father’s touch upon my mind. I had felt him spurn me, cast me aside so violently that I had awakened shaking and sick. I had reached for Wolf Father. He had not understood it any better than I had. So. It was done. I was alone. No one was ever going to come and rescue me. No one cared what had become of me.