Closed [The Sanctuary] Treading Old Paths (Kavala)

[Vanator]

Timestamp: 61st Day of Winter, 513 AV

It was time. The subtle disquiet that thrummed like a deep running stream beneath Vanator's daily existence had been rising to a crescendo since his arrival at Sanctuary over a year earlier. Other issues, more tangible and immediate, had drowned out the persistent nudging. His recovery from slavery, the loss of the Denusk Pavilion, the discovery of his twin children, Zith attack, the coming and going of staff, Sybel's arrival, and the birth of Ralac and Ia’del all served to quell the fleeting sensation that there was something significant buzzing, barely discernible, in the corners his conscience.

The first indications that his restlessness was more than the goings on around him gave rise in the Summer. He began to sense there was more to his presence, and purpose, at The Sanctuary. He had discussed it with Kavala, who's keen insight suggested something more esoteric at the root of his discontent. Perhaps, like her, there was a past, a life past, that lay undiscovered, yet very real, in his being. Both she and Caelum had believed he existed before, as Cytali. Kavala had offered to dreamwalk with him, to search his Chavi for a clue. But Vanator had resisted.

Until now. The restlessness had increased. Sybel's second thoughts about their plans for a settled life inspired Vanator to face the fact that he was part of something greater. It was time to discover what that was. He had finally gone to Kavala and asked her to do a dreamwalk.

They had chosen one of the empty rooms for the event, where they would not be disturbed. Vanator had had a relaxing bath, returning to the spare quarters in a warm bathrobe. He wanted to be prepared, to remove any anxiety that may hinder the walk. Vanator had never experienced a venture such as this, and he wished it to be successful. There was a thrill that fluttered in his stomach, not of fear, but of anticipation. Deep down, the Drykas knew they would find something, his soul telling him as much. What they would find, well, that question was what fueled his anxiousness.

Van sat on the edge of the bed. He whispered a few practiced words, cryptic rhyming syllables that helped him to focus his djed. Res soon pooled in a thick little green cloud in his palm, and he willed its ignition. He shaped it into a rough orb hovering over his palm, then opened his other hand to gather res there as well. Then, he moved his hands closer, and began to juggle the fiery orb between his palms. It was an idle trick, but one that occupied his mind until Kavala arrived.

[Kavala]

The Konti Healer knew Vanator had requested time alone with her. She also knew what he wanted. For so long she knew that they were destined to walk similar pathways together. He was marked like she was but Kavala knew he had no experience in using it. Today, of all days, Kavala was going to show him what awaited him worlds away and worlds within. Kavala knew Vanator _knew_ what Dreamwalking was and that he could do it. But she also realized that he couldn’t even begin to understand what it truly was until he experienced it. Kavala had forged this way before, alone, driven as she always was by the knowledge that she could do it. Vanator needed a helping hand, one that once she coaxed him off the cliff for the first time for a perfect swan dive into the sea, there would be no tethering him back to the land again.

He’d taken a relaxing bath. She knew because when she went to take her own the smell of her brother’s soap and clean scent still lingered in the bathing chambers. It left her smiling as she quickly took one for herself. The children were left with the twins as she walked down the path, tapping the webs in Sanctuary lightly to find him. In one of the opulently decorated guest rooms, alone, Vanator waited. Kavala wasn’t surprised. His suite would have been better, or even her own, but this was a new land and a new experience Vanator was tackling, and they’d do it together. She didn’t bother to dress. Her thick cotton robe was enough. She lightly plaited her hair and padded barefoot to where he was. Opening the doorway, she joined him on the bed, sitting crossways from him with her legs folded neatly beneath her as he juggled his balls.

“Nice balls.” She said with a sisterly laugh, gently interrupting him from his meditation. “Are you sure you are ready for this?” She asked as Vanator dealt with the fiery orbs and freed up his hands.

Once his hands were free, Kavala reached out and took his own in hers. She made sure she turned so she was facing him and then gripped his hands firmly. “You need a key to unlock or find someone’s Chavi. In this case, we are only walking yours… and you are here. Your whole presence is a key. If someone was missing, we’d need something else.. a lock of hair, a favorite item of their jewelry, even a bit of their blood. I have all the keys to everyone who works here and most of the animals. If something were to happen to them, I have them safe… and can find them immediately. This is something you already know, Vanator. This is like webbing on a soul level. You should be good at it, better in fact than I am. Are you ready? Close your eyes. It can get disorienting the first time you do it.” She asked. And when he nodded, she proceeded.

If he hadn’t been Nysel marked as of earlier that winter himself, she couldn’t have taken him along. But since he was, she had the ability for them to go together and witness first hand what it was that Vanator sought. Kavala drew them down, into the Ukalas and through a darkness that was in fact the boundaries between the living and the spirit. She drew them deep within the world, to where all things living were tied to all things divine. And when they were at that halfway space, where thin cords filled the sky all around them in a starless void, she squeezed his hands again.

“Open your eyes.” She asked softly, and then waited until she he did so. He wasn’t physical here, but in asking him to open his eyes, she was in fact asking him to take in new sensory. All around him was dancing cords of light, twisting and turning in spirals that flowed all around him. They were in a void of darkness otherwise, but one could never call it dark. The cords of dancing light went on forever and even in front of him where his sister should be was a brilliant cloud of light that twisted in and out of itself. It was easily recognizable as Kavala, not because of its form, but because of its feeling. The light body she wore was like his own, a twisted glowing mass of cloudy light that reminded them of gas fields in the night sky. She slipped into him, her light blending with his until his thoughts were her thoughts and they were together. He could feel his awareness linking with hers, his light becoming her own, and then they descended again, spiraling down to travel one of the cords of light that he instantly recognized as his own.

Kavala did not merge with it though. She instead traveled along it, back, further than he suspected he’d ever want to know. She dipped her own tendrils of light into it periodically and when she did he caught glimpses of himself – through his own eyes – once a Drykas riding hard on the grass, once a strider carrying a Drykas, and other lives, other pasts, all linked together. Still futher back she went, pushing the limit, it seemed, but confident in doing so. Then, where his Chavi was think and powerful, Kavala dipped into it and merged them both into the life, flowing around and into it until they both looked out his eyes.

It was a war room in a palace. Queen Kova sat at the head of a table, and advisors surrounded her. He was one of them, sitting further down and drumming his fingers on the table before them. The Queen looked fourteen, fifteen tops, not old enough for the Valterrian for sure. But it was close. That she was alive was enough for Kavala to know what time they were in and what was looming on the horizon. She turned inward, delving into the brain of her brother’s past. Magic flowed in and around him, powerful and she sighed along with Vanator at its comforting presence. The sharp intellect she knew and recognized was there.

For Vanator it was coming home.

Kavala reached for his name and it came readily. She reached for his background and that too came just as easily. The mind greeted them like old lost friends, perhaps because it recognized the Dreamwalkers subconsciously without conscious being affected. The man spoke out at the meeting, part of it, never flinching, even as the two in his brain got to know him.

Maedoc Drust.

The name almost made Kavala shiver, though she wasn’t sure why until her Kelvic past as the shield pinto reminded her they had been enemies way back. Drust had been in charge of hunting down and ruining Marcus Kelvic’s research… that was until the Valterrian interrupted all that. Back then, Kavala had been A’Kenas Zanrisi and a bondmate to one of the leading researchers for Marcus Kelvic. Drust had struck fear into the hearts of all the researchers. He was the Alahean boogie man, a mage of renown that was said to be a traitor to the Suvan Empire since he was half Suvan on one side if rumors were to be true. It made him a deadly warrior who wielded Alahean magic with the finesse of one of their finest mages. So he was, in short, a war mage and one of extremely powerful resources. It was said he wasn’t powerful due to his position in court as War Advisor, but that he was powerful due to his lightening quick sense of strategy. He was smart, and he was on The Suvan Empire’s most wanted list. Kavala could see it too, sinking her and Vanator’s awareness into Maedoc’s own. He was brutal and systematic in his effectiveness. He wasn’t afraid of bloodshed, though she noted with interest that he had no unhealthy fondness for it either. It was just a means to an end for him. He was aristocracy and was raised utterly and completely military. And he liked to be in the heat of battle himself, not because he liked the fighting though he was skilled at it, but there and only there could he study the movements of the enemy like a true scientist, treating enemy forces like a singular living entity. It was truly frightening, what Kavala saw there, when she realized he’d been utterly and completely raised to be a tool…. an Alahean war tool.

There was more too him though as well. He was Alahea's War Dog, one that Kova and her family strove to keep restrained with little or no effect. Why? He was a Dreamwalker too, a deadly one, and not only did he comb the enemies records and minds for information, but he was also one that combed the Chavena for it as well.

If he had a piece of the enemy, there was no stopping what he could know about them.

Kavala wrapped her light more closely around Vanator and gently swore in his awareness. “Do you see?” She asked wordlessly, injecting the thoughts into his light as clearly as if she formed the words on lips she did not have. “Look closer, Vanator… this is who you are. This is what is buried beneath.” She offered, supporting her brothers light and trying to give him the courage to look deeper.

[Vanator]

Kavala's arrival set a renewed flutter in Van's stomach. Not of fear, but of anticipation. His sister's jest lightened the moment, easing Vanator's nerves a bit. He closed his fists on the fire orbs and extinguished them. "Yes, I am more than ready." He answered the Konti with a confident grin. Van allowed Kavala to slip her small, calloused hands into his larger ones, and he closed his fingers around them, his thumb gently spinning the ring on her finger, one of a matching pair they had forged together with their Reimancy. It's mate sat on his own finger.

Gold-flecked dark irises met the the deep azure that Kavala's gaze had assumed. She wasted no time, beginning to explain to the newly marked devotee of Nysel the process of walking the Chavena. Vanator soaked in her words, eyes sliding shut. He understood the concept of relinquishing hold of the physical, his being having ventured the djed strands of the great Web. So it was with little effort that he let go his tangible self and allowed his sister to lead him into the ethereal.

His awareness remained blinded, heeding Kavala's admonition, but even the sensation of movement was very much unlike traveling the Web, the realm they traversed felt vast and seemingly without cardinal direction, and Vanator soon could not discern up from down, left from right. Not until he felt the gentle squeeze of Kavala's hand and the encouraging softness of his sister's voice, did Vanator 'open his eyes'. His awareness ignited. At first, it was shocking, the awe-striking beauty of the seemingly infinite space. it was a place of light, the darkness only serving to delineate and magnify the beauty of each strand that made up the glorious expanse of the whole.

Turning to where he expected Kavala to be, Van beheld her luminous form, with Nysel's gift, he knew it was her intuitively. Looking down, if looking was the right word, Van saw himself as the dazzling geometry of light and color as well. It was all amazing, beautiful, and hauntingly familiar. There was no time to question as Kavala stepped into him, their beings joined, yet separate. It was at once both peculiar and comforting. Thus joined, together they descended the cord he instantly recognized as his own.

The periodic probes Kavala sunk into his strand as they followed it allowed them to share glimpses of his past. Some were readily know, his own physical memory able to connect the images with his current life. After that, flashes of strangers that Van knew were himself, men, and at least one woman, who were of cultures and places the Drykas self did not recognize. And that was only from the sampling of Kavala's few brushes into his chavi. Ahead, Vanator saw, sensed a widening of the strand's girth, and this is where Kav plunged then into his timeline. Then they found him.

The immersion into the psyche of the man, the man he had been, was phenomenal. There was a peculiar familiarity to him. Van instantly bathed in the power his past self possessed, as if clothed in magical prowess, and began to sift through the immediate thoughts to discern the context of the scene and its participants. Vanator's knowledge of pre-Valterrian Mizahar was basic, the tales shared by elders to those curious enough to ask. The regal youth, Queen Kova....he had heard of her. The war, certainly the subject of this meeting, was known from the stories. This man, through who's eyes he was watching history, he only knew from the resonating vibrations in his soul. But the name came easily, as if offered to the dreamwalking Denusks freely.

Vanator sensed Kavala's reaction. To find his sister quaking at the name, Maedoc Drust, unsettled the brother. Dread seemed to hang like a pall at the name. But, when the Konti's presence spoke to him, urged him to discover his fromer self more thoroughly, Van hesitated only a moment. He had to know, had to know what he had been. Already, the powerful presence of the man loomed huge before him. Then Van delved into the mind of the war mage.

Inclinations, perceptions, plans, desires. Ghosts of terrible things, ambition, passion, resounded in Vanator's deepest conscience. It was like drinking from a waterfall. The sheer intensity of the magicks Drust commanded, the passion for war and power consuming, the almost devout drive to destroy the Suvan, his campaign against Kelvic. Yes, Drust was a powerful, dangerous man. And the magic, Van craved the knowledge of this man for himself.

At first, Vanator seemed to cringe at the War Dog, so draconic and violent and terrible. But soon he found that his judgement was self-incriminating. He was this man. Apparitions of Drust seeped in his current existence. Vanator's ever growing fondness for the battlefield, his readiness to kill to defeat his foes. The magic that burned shut up in his bones, the fire that the Denusk so carefully meted out, when in truth he wanted to spew flames from his hands and mouth and set the sky on fire. More magic there was in him, Vanator knew, so easily it would come, should he seek to learn. Vanator hated the Zith, his current version of the Suvan Empire, his need to destroy them, even though he was at one time a part of them, just as Drust was part of his enemy. And now, dreamwalking. All of it ghosts of this man, the notorious Alahean War Dog.

"He is me." Van stated rhetorically, somewhat amazed. Van was bathing in it, as if he wore Drust as an ennervating suite of armor, fitted for him. The wiring of their minds were the same, only the paradigm their world had given them, the resources possessed, and the propensity to use them, differed. Staring out of the man's eyes at the Queen, the council, Van could see his plans. He was a terrible man, and an incredible one.

Drust slammed his fist down on the heavy wooden table, making wooden figures representing armies jump and topple on their map. The queen visibley flinched. "Nonsense! Let me closer! I just need closer to one of the higher officers, Gurlich, or Strang." Keys, Kavala had mentioned needing keys. He sought keys to the Suvan's leadership.

"Kav, how long can we stay? There is much we can learn from him, if he permits us. But I ask that you...watch me. Don't let me slip too far into him." His sister would discern Vanator's fascination with Maedoc Drust, as well as his wariness of the man's monstrosity. Vanator had been a monster himself, knew what he was capable of. Kavala's reaction still haunted Van as well. "And, you acted as if you...knew him. Why?"