Prelude (cont.) - Part IV

Part IV

      Torin arrived home the following morning. He and Epona waited out the storm in the corner of the stable. It was too cold to sleep, and Torin was afraid someone might sneak up on them in the middle of the night. Besides, without light, finding his way home would be nearly impossible in the snow. Following tracks was pointless and he could not see any familiar landmarks, the sleet was so heavy. Instead, he stuffed some dry straw into his coat and pants and leaned against Epona's warm hind legs.
       Enjoying the heat that radiated from her thighs like a summer afternoon, Torin slipped into a somber doze. His head began to sink to his chest and soon the blinding white turned into a soft black....A fire flickered above him. Hovering, suspended in the air like a ghostly apparition. It was a single flame, like a lit candle; it shifted and stretched against some unfelt wind, then curled into a tight coil. Suddenly, it shot off like an arrow in flight. Torin gave chase, but he struggled to keep pace. His legs somehow felt twice as heavy and no matter the effort, he could run no faster than a brisk stroll. The fiery apparition continued to pull away and a wave of panic seemed to overwhelm Torin. He would be left alone, in the bleak void, blind and without a soul to hear his desperate pleas. Torin was on the verge of tears. He tried to force himself to move faster, to sprint with all his might. But the ground was a thick bog, sucking each step into the vacuous black ground and every belabored step was only more futile than the last.
     The flame was now at some unseen horizon. Like a dying star in an empty midnight sky. He sank through the floor, steadily watching the flame rise higher and farther away, until at last  he saw nothing. He fell headfirst into some other dark space, devoid of even the faintest light or the sound of his own terrified gasps for air.
     "This is it," he thought. "I have died, and my God has rejected me."
     For an eternity there was nothing. Then, a voice.
    "Breath.....Although your heart has ceased its rhythmic beating, you must still draw in this putrid atmosphere and blow out the stale remains."
    Torin awoke with a gasp, as if he had come up for air. The dream was over, and his fear and confusion were steadily subsiding as he quickly took stock of his surroundings again. Epona was anxious to leave, so Torin checked to make sure there was no one nearby and then slowly led her towards the front of the church.
     He could not remove the image of Father Gregory's neck splitting in half from an assassin's arrow. And he wanted to leave sight of the church as soon as possible. Once he was sure there was no one outside or one the road, he mounted Epona and road home, the path clearly visible now that the blizzard had passed.