(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

or witch’s brew or somesuch. While it was an interesting exercise, it was
somewhat less dramatic than I’d hoped.
"Aye, well, this is enough..." She sniffed. "Aye, but there was one thing I
forgot to tell ye to fetch when ye left last time, and it'll take ye back to the
merchant square it will... look for the cloth-seller, Giscorl. He has some rags
of mine that he was supposed to wash, and long has it been since I first
asked him to do it."
My eyebrow twitched, "You could have mentioned that before I left... "
Mebbeth snorted, "Aye, blame an old woman's failing memory, why don't
ye?"
A sliver of golden amber light filtered through a small crevice in the roof.
And Mebbeth looked up with those pale eyes of hers, "Mayhap ye should
leave it for tomorrow. These streets aren't safe for the likes of ye at
sundown, and I'd hate to have me first apprentice gutted and laid out in the
street for the Collectors just after his first task."
I agreed reluctantly, "Could I rest here?"
She nodded, "Of course, child. I have a mess of blankets in the corner that
would serve..."
~~~~~
It happened again that night.
Intellectually, I knew what dreams were. They were pictures of the mind,
landscapes surreal and terrible. They were the loves and hopes of the living,
and the respite of the downtrodden. In some ways I knew the nature of
dreams as one might know the nature of a far-off land by reading about it
from a book. In other ways it was like describing the colors of a field of
blossoms to the blind or a grand symphony to the deaf. The taste of a dream
eluded me.
There was only that terrifying void, as if I perched on the precipice between
reality and oblivion.
~~~~~
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