Disclaimer: Diadem: Worlds of Magic does NOT belong to me. It belongs to Peel and his publishers, currently Llewellyn Worldwide. I highly respect his work and am making no profit from this, nor do I intend for this piece of fan fiction to interfere with his profits.
Author's Note: Takes place sometime after Book of Nightmares and before Book of War
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Diadem: Book of Thoughts
CHAPTER 3: “Perchance to Predict”
by Luna
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A week had passed and the trio still couldn’t figure out the meaning of Helaine’s prophetic writing. But it was not the enigma of her sleepwalking that was troubling Helaine. Each night she was suffering from horrific nightmarish visions, which grew increasingly vivid as the days went by. These dreams Helaine kept to herself, unsure of what to make of them. Tonight, however, was far worse than all her previous nightmares combined.
A human scream, more chilling, pain-filled and bloodcurdling than was ever imagined to come from a mortal soul echoed throughout the castle. Pixel literally jumped out of his bed in fright. In seconds he was running out into the hallway, where he collided into Score.
"Did you hear that, too?" Score asked.
"Yeah, I think it came from Helaine’s room."
With Score slightly in the lead, the two ran to Helaine’s quarters and burst open the door. To Pixel’s relief he found nothing too far out of the ordinary; there were no goblins, demons, or other creatures of magic in the room. The only person present besides themselves was Helaine, who was fretfully tossing and turning in her sleep. Tears streaked her face.
“Helaine, wake up!” shouted Score, shaking her. Like a bolt, Helaine sat strait up and was wide awake. She took a deep breath and looked around. She was safe, in her room on Dondar, but she still couldn’t get her body to stop shaking and her pillow was soaked with cold sweat. It had happened again. The same, torturous nightmare she had been having for weeks.
“Are you all right?” asked Pixel. “We heard you screaming.”
“Y-yeah, I was just having a bad dream. Sorry I woke you up,” answered Helaine, starting to sound embarrassed.
Pixel looked concerned. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, Helaine. Last week you were sleepwalking. Is anything wrong?”
“I--I...” She didn’t know how to continue. She saw two pairs of concerned, friendly eyes upon her, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell them what she had envisioned. At the same time, she couldn’t bare to keep it all to herself any longer. “I’ve been having the same nightmares for weeks now. They just seem very real.”
“Yeah, I always hate those I-went-to-school-in-my-underwear dreams,” Score smirked at his own joke, but the smile was unabel to reach his eyes. He couldn't help but feel uneasy. Helaine was from the planet Ordin, where male warriors were trained to be fearless fighters. As a youth, Helaine disguised herself as the boy Renald and even became the best fighter of her castle. She had fought dragons, wyrms, vampire-ghosts and other gruesome creatures hideous enough to give Stephen King the willies, but Helaine had faced them all without any sign of fear. So what could possibly have frightened Helaine enough to make her scream like that?
“You guys can go back to bed now. I’m all right. Really,” she lied unconvincingly, her embarrassment growing by the minute.
Score felt helpless, which in turn made him feel angry. All levity left him. “You’ve been acting strange all week, Helaine. You don’t smile as much as you used to, you don’t even join us for most meals anymore. You look exhausted and tired all day. Enough is enough!” Score slammed his fist against the wall in frustration. He turned his eyes to directly meet Helaine’s. “So cut the stoic warrior crap and tell us!”
Helaine felt at a loss for words. She had never heard Score express such concern for her in all the years she had known him. Could he truly care that much about her? She felt flustered and unsure how to act. Her friends were worried about her, but what was the point of telling them what was in her dreams? Dreams weren't important, yet she had let them overrule her emotions and startle her friends. If she did tell them what she saw, she wouldn’t be surprised if they thought she was going mad. She was already starting to doubt her own sanity, and she couldn’t stand the thought of losing the respect of Score and Pixel over these nightmares. Telling Score the exact reason she had screamed tonight made her blush.
“I will be fine, Score. I, um, just get a little off when I lose sleep for a week straight, is all. These nightmares are sure to pass.”
“Bull,” Score replied, his hands crossed in front of his chest in defiance.
Helaine's face started to turn red as her temper got the best of her. “What did you say?!” She was exhausted, frazzled and feeling horribly embarrassed, and although she often had trouble understanding Score's strange Earth colloquialisms, she was fairly certain either she or her honor had been insulted. Of all times, she was in no mood to put up with it now.
Pixel looked between the two bickering teenagers, at a loss for what to do. He had seen this scenario play out before and there usually was nothing he could do but let the two fools shout at each other.
“You heard me: Bull. As in everything you said was bull shit. That, and you're being bull-headed.”
Helaine's face managed to turn another shade darker.
“Uh, how about we all calm do--” Pixel's feeble protests were cut off by the icy glare Helaine sent his way.
She pointed one firm finger towards the door. “Out of my quarters! Both of you!”
Score opened his mouth to protest when he felt himself lifted bodily by an unseen force and pushed out the door. “HELAINE!” His feet were a few inches above the floor and he was powerless to move. Obviously, Helaine had had enough and was using levitation to remove him.
Pixel, not wanting to be 'escorted' out the same way, made a speedy retreat on his own.
The door magically slammed behind them and in the same moment, Score was dropped to the floor.
Score picked himself up and started heading back towards Helaine's door, his emerald firmly in his palm and a mischievous smile on his face.
“Throw me out, eh?”
“Score, don't!” Pixel was firmly blocking the Earth boy's path.
“Aw, c'mon, Pix. She totally deserves it!”
“Maybe, but that's not going to help anything!” the smaller, blue-skinned boy grabbed Score's shirt sleeve and guided him down the hallway.
“It'd be fun...” Score pleaded, no longer feeling as angry, only playfully vindictive.
Pixel rolled his eyes at him. “You don't get it, do you?”
“Get what? Xena over there is hiding what's really bothering her and it's my problem, too, when I get dragged out of bed by her strange trances or screaming.”
Sometimes, Pixel couldn't believe how dense his two friends were. “Yes, but barging in by enchanting her door away is only going to make things worse.”
“Actually, I was going to turn her bed into sticky marshmallows. Hehe.”
“Marsh-mallows?” For a moment Pixel lost his train of thought, curious as he was to the nature of this 'marshmallow'. He shook his head. “Whatever. The point is, you know how touchy Helaine is about never looking weak. It's a large part of her culture. Us barging in (twice now) when she's been vulnerable is only going to make her more upset and determined to pretend that nothing is wrong.”
Pixel paused a moment to let his lecture sink in.
Score sighed. Now that he had calmed down, he knew Pixel was right. Not that he would ever consider Helaine 'weak' – that was as accurate as thinking sandpaper was smooth – but to prideful Helaine, being caught crying out from a nightmare was a sign of cowardice. And Helaine would rather die than show any signs of that. “So now what? I'd rather not wake up to Helaine screaming in terror anymore.”
Pixel tapped his index finger on his cheek, in thought. “The most we can do is talk to her after she's calmed down – without making a large fuss or making her sound weak.”
'Easier said than done,' Score thought, but merely nodded. A large yawn escaped him and he stretched. “Until then, I'm going back to sleep. I'll turn Helaine's bed into a giant twinkie tomorrow.”
“A thought you said 'mash-mellow?'”
Score staggered off to his bed with a shrug. “Same difference.”
***
Pixel returned to his room unable to shake his uneasy feeling. As much as he wanted to sleep on the problem and deal with it in the morning, something was nagging at him to solve it now. Helaine was keeping something important from them, and he didn’t like it one bit. He focused his thoughts on summoning Oracle, their knowledgeable, although slightly annoying, magical projection. Despite having once served the Triad, Oracle had served the trio faithfully since their defeat. Even though his uninvited appearance always resulted in disastrous news, Oracle was a good source for information and guidance.
Pixel focused on a mental image of Oracle and called out “Lizxov”. He felt the little twist inside him that told him the spell had worked.
“You rang?” asked the tall pale figure in front of Pixel.
A few minutes later, Oracle was brought up to speed on the recent strange events.
“Hmm. Something like this was bound to happen,” replied Oracle.
“What do you mean?” asked Pixel.
“Eremin had the gift of sight. As a youth, she would have intuitions of troubling events approaching; a tingling, bad feeling in the back of her mind.”
“Just like Helaine when she foresees danger!” added Pixel.
“Ahem, yes,” said Oracle, irritated that he had been interrupted. “As Eremin grew older and more powerful at magic, she began to have prophetic dreams and visions. Sometimes she would enter a trance. It became quite a nuisance because she couldn’t control it or stop it. She’d be in the middle of a task one minute, such as talking or sleeping, and without warning enter a hypnotic state and start to speak or write cryptic messages of impending doom. In fact, it was Eremin’s cursed gift of prescience that helped the Triad eliminate most of their future rivals and plots to overthrow their rein.”
“Do you think that’s what’s happening to Helaine? The nightmares, the sleepwalking, it's all part of predicting the future?” asked Pixel, amazed. He loved the feeling of solving a tough problem, especially when it lead to more interesting questions.
“It would make sense. Essentially, she is Eremin, just as Score is Traxis and you are Nator,” reasoned Oracle.
Pixel frowned. He didn’t like being reminded that they were the reincarnated essence of the Triad. They were corrupt, arrogant, heartless dictators and he, Score, and Helaine couldn’t deny being their potential nasty selves.
“Do you know who Morphos is?” asked Pixel.
“Why, yes. He was the love child of Shanara and Traxis.”
“What?! Shanara had a child? With Traxis?” It took all of Pixel's willpower to keep from stuttering. It was very close to hearing that Score (or at least his evil persona) had conceived a child with their sorceress friend.
“Yes. Traxis and Shanara were very fond of each for a time.”
Oracle smiled at Pixel’s astonishment. Although only a magical projection, he enjoyed gossip as much as most mortals.
“What else do you know?” asked Pixel, putting aside his shock, to gather more information.
“Eremin predicted that Morphos would someday destroy the Triad. Not for power, but for the thrill of destruction. Eremin’s prediction occurred when Morphos was four years old. He was already showing great promise as a powerful, though slightly mad, magician. He used to brainwash humans and animals alike and make them fight each other to the death for his amusement. It was quite disturbing. Nator and Eremin decided the best course of action was to kill him before he could reach adulthood.”
“They really killed him, even though he was just a kid?” inquired Pixel, appalled at the thought of murdering a child, even one such as Morphos.
“The Triad were undoubtedly ruthless dictators, but they did keep the Diadem in balance and eliminated destructive lunatics like Morphos. However, they didn’t get to kill him,” continued Oracle. “Morphos disappeared. It was suspected that Shanara found out about the plot and saved him, but they never had definitive evidence. Even under a slew of truth spells it seemed she had no part in it. The Triad failed to find him, despite all their tracking spells. Whether he’s alive or dead is uncertain to this day.”
“Hmm. Now this Morphos guy might be after us,” summed Pixel, more to himself than to Oracle. “I should tell Shanara and the others. Thanks, Oracle.”
Oracle shrugged, secretly pleased. “’Tis my job,” he replied, and with a playful bow, vanished.
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
