Tartan Dreamer: Nightmarish Future
Title: Tartan Dreamer: Nightmarish Future
Author: Roelon McColend
Shadows dance through your sleep, dark and terrible. You look down at a field of cracked and dry earth, hideous blue light bleeding up from below. The air is impossibly hot, and trees around you are ablaze, blown by a sere breeze that makes their fires dance like candleflames.
As your smoke-stung eyes search about, you see a man in black. He has the build of a warrior, but his form is tortured. His skin is as cracked as the earth, and from it blazes the same unsettling energy. The energy is of a hue that you cannot name, some unknowable shade that is beyond the spectrum of colors you have come to know. He looks down upon you from atop a heap of smoldering bodies, each more twisted and broken than the last.
You are haunted by the last shreds of the dream. It is almost as if you can feel the last tingles of the immense heat that assaulted you in that desert landscape, a tormented, burning land without relief. You recall the sight of the hills to the east of you, burned clear of snow and trees and wildlife, the ruins of the abbey scattered like a broken crown over the barren earth.
The dim light of a lamp illuminates a small cabin from on top of an old desk.
A Giantkin stares at the dancing flame with heavily-laden eyes as he struggles against the slumber coursing through his weary body.
“Ye hae shown me many things, but this… terrifies me.” he finally manages to say, “Because ah dinnae see ah way to stop it...”
A brawny fist slams onto the desk, breaking off an eroded corner in the process. The Giantkin ignores this and instead removes a small totem from within his jacket.
It looks like a swathe of tartan at first, but nestled within it is a miniature black sword outline in sterling silver.
“Nae...We will nae give up.” The Giantkin tightened his grip on the totem, causing the sword to pierce his hand, “We hae been warned. Let us nae lose this chance.”
The Giantkin wipes a streak of blood along his kilt and snuffs out wavering flame of the lamp in one breath, returning the cabin to darkness.