Dreamweaver Ward
Dreamscape Artist
I'm so glad my rambling made some sense! I was afraid everyone would just look at it and roll their eyes. :P I like your connection between Ronaall and the Vespari demon - it's a poetic idea, and definitely plausible. :) Perhaps the ballad was originally written by Alyda in response to her brother's situation?
Ember has a lot of dreams of that same general scene. Usually she’s just watching, but once, she’s Ronaall, and the final time, she’s Shenavyre. The main reason for me thinking that this really happened was because of Johnny the policeman talking to Ronaall. Ronaall observes that "This was a dream that it had encountered many times on Keltor and it always ended in the same way." As Johnny says, the normal pattern of the dream is this: "The woman walks and sings and then the beast comes. Or something, I never see what it is. She screams and then I wake." (Darksong 149)
So I guess what I'm really wondering is what IT is. The Unykorn? The Chaos spirit? Something else altogether? I don't see how it could be the Chaos spirit, given it has no physical presence ... unless it found a way to take over the Unykorn? :-/
Here are Ember's dreams, or what I could find of them - I thought it might be interesting to see them all together. Plus her final thought leads into another theory of mine. (This is why it takes me so long to reread. :P)
Her first dream is on the first night she’s on Keltor: “She was standing alone in a green clearing, surrounded by tall trees. The sun fell pure and hot where the trees did not shade the ground. Ember could hear music all around her, haunting and demanding.
‘Where are you coming from?’ she murmured.
The music stopped, and now she had the feeling she was being watched from the dappled dimness under the trees.
‘Who is there?’
There was no answer, but the feeling of being observed grew. Ember felt a prickle of fear.
A bush rustled and suddenly she was really afraid. She turned to run, only to catch her foot in an exposed root and fall hard.
A hand touched her shoulder, and she screamed…†(Darkfall 90-1)
Later, in the citadel: “It was dawn, and Ember had slept little. Every time she closed her eyes, she found herself in the same dream. She was in a forest clearing and there was music. She would speak or move and the music would stop. Then she would have the feeling of being watched, and this would grow until she woke, sweating and trembling, terrified of the darkness that loomed on the edges of the dream.†(Darkfall, 199)
In the citadel, in Anyi’s room: “She struggled fleetingly before succumbing to the sleep that dragged at her eyelids and then she was in the dream wood again, and the music rose around her in a heartbreaking crescendo.†(Darkfall 223)
Still in the citadel: “Ember was in the dream wood again but it was different from all the other times. It was snowing – just a powdery coating like icing sugar, frosting the edges of the world. The green grass still showed, and the leaves had not fallen from the trees.
Then she heard the music. It sounded nearer and more specific than on the other occasions. She pushed through the bracken, showering herself with slush. An inner voice warned her not to go any deeper into the leafy dimness, but she did not listen. For the first time in this dream, she had no sense of being watched. The further she went, the darker it grew: trees became closer to each other at the base, their branches interlaced overhead, but she wove her way through them, drawn towards the music.
She came so abruptly to a pond that her feet slipped on the muddy bank and she slid in up to her ankles, breaking the thin rim of ice around the edge. Using an overhanging branch for leverage, she climbed out and pushed her way around the pool to the other side. Her feet made black prints in the powder snow. Beyond a screen of feathery fronds growing in the sodden earth around the pond, she saw there was another clearing.
The music was perfectly audible now, each note discernible, but still she could not see where it was coming from, nor could she decide from what instrument or creature it came. It was unlike anything she had ever heard.
A movement caught her eye and a woman emerged from the trees on the other side of the clearing. Ember registered with astonishment that she had found the source of the unearthly music. The woman was young and slight with high breasts and coppery hair hanging to her waist in a great tangle of fiery ringlets. She wore a long pale dress with short tight sleeves. A shadow passed over the clearing and Ember looked up to see what had made it, but the trees blocked her view. She looked back at the young woman to find her staring upward, her face suffused with joy and golden sunlight. It was still snowing, but no snow fell where the woman stood. As Ember watched, the golden glow around her deepened like a spotlight intensified, shifting from gold to crimson.
‘Beloved…’ the woman sang, and lifted her hands to the light.
Unaccountably, a weight of dread settled on Ember.
‘Firstmade of the Song … Heartsong of my soul…’ the woman sang. The shadow passed over again, then it stopped over the young woman and began to grow as if something enormous was swooping down towards her. Ember’s dread deepened into icy terror.
Shenavyre … I come … a voice hissed, and a violent flurry of wind blew snow into Ember’s eyes, blinding her.
Then the woman began to scream…†(Darkfall 293-5)
In Darksong, on the ship leaving Vespi: “Gradually she sank into a deeper sleep and segued. She found herself watching the red-haired woman she had come to think of as Shenavyre, walking about her green clearing. As in other dreams of the woman, she was singing in a voice of such unearthly sweetness and purity that every molecule of Ember ached at the beauty of it. Then she realised that, whereas before, she had merely observed the woman, this time, she knew what was to come in the dream, so that she felt a strong sense of foreboding even as the woman sang. She looked up anxiously but there was nothing in the sky. Her unease forced her to do what she had not done in her other dreams, and that was to come out into the open. She wanted to warn the woman. Shenavyre turned and her song faltered when she saw that she was not alone. Ember noticed, as she came hesitantly nearer, that although Shenavyre did look like her superficially, their expressions were so different as to make it clear they were not the same person. Her own face did not have this woman’s glowing vivacity, her tender brow, slightly furrowed with curiosity, this sweetly curving smile. Most of all, the kindness she saw in Shenavyre’s face was absent from her eyes and mouth. This woman, Ember thought in a dazed way, looked like she might have looked if she had spent her entire life making music, not for herself and her death to come, but for the joy of offering something beautiful to the world.
‘Come out. Do not be afraid,’ Shenavyre invited, holding out her hand. ‘I will not harm you.’
Ember stepped out and was chilled to see Shenavyre’s expression of kind welcome transformed into a mask of terror. It was as if, in looking at Ember, she looked upon the face of all her nightmares. Ember tried to speak, but the dream Shenavyre backed away, her face twisting in repulsed pity. Then Ember glanced down and she saw that her hands were not hands, but animal paws, black-furred and claw-tipped.
‘I am a monster,’ she thought in dreamy horror, and screamed.
And woke to darkness. (Darksong 287)
“Why am I dreaming of these people? She wondered, but all at once she was dreaming again of Shenavyre, walking in a forest clearing and singing. But this time, she was the one walking about and singing. Realising it, she stopped with a thrill of terror, remembering what always came next in the dream: danger swooping from above. Instinctively, she looked up.
To see a huge looming shadow swooping down on her.
‘Wake, visionweaver,’ Soonkar called urgently. ‘You are having a nightmare.’
‘I was…it was me all the time…’ Ember panted…†(Darksong 547)
