Somewhere in a dreamland. Rhyaad de/ Annar – having been cruelly forced by the strange time device that appears to be nothing more than an odd bookcase in the West Wing of Collnwood, to watch the events that lead to his becoming a vampire – has found himself unable to control the terrible sense of sorrow that has filled his soul. In an attempt to heal himself, he has sought to use the portal provided by his friend “The Marshal”, only, as he has stepped into the device he finds himself now – not in Tibet – his intended destination – but the beautiful and sometimes nightmare world of earth’s dreamlands. A dimension only a few have ever found, and fewer have dared to enter.

A final meditation under a moon that was so much larger, far closer than the moon to which Rhyaad had become accustomed. Although it had at first taken some time to look up to the moon without some trepidation, as it was so obviously not Luna, Earth’s moon, nor the night sky of Earth – or Earth as he knew it – but the moon of Earth’s dreamlands. And as he looked up, his keen vision was all but able to discern various peaks and craters upon its surface, he was acutely aware of how much he would miss it – as he would miss the singing of the river Oukranous as it flowed along the jasper terraces, which sloped down to the clear, beautiful river’s edge – just below the terrace upon which the temple had been erected thirteen hundred years ago.

The time had come, he knew, for him to depart the sanctuary he had been given. To leave the vast temple made all of jasper – which covered an acre with it’s walls and courts, its seven pinnacled towers, and the inner chamber, wherein the river Oukanous was allowed to flow via hidden channels – to pool before the shrine where the priests and monks gave their daily supplication. A sight only for those who had given their vows to the god of the river and donned the magenta robes of the monks and the azure silks of the priests – even as none were to pass within the walls of the temple itself. For the gauze masked monks had revealed to him early in his stay just how privileged he was – for in all of the Six Kingdoms of earth’s dreamlands it is known that only the King of IIel-Vad has ever been allowed within the Temple – least of all to have see the shrine of the inner chamber.

Now that list secretly included Rhyaad de’Annar and the tall blonde woman who had brought him here.

His itinerary had originally been mapped with a destination hidden on a mountain in Tibet – where he had hope for a long sojourn to restore his spirit – only instead – somehow he had arrived here in this majestic temple, where monks dressed in their magenta robes with lavender gauze to conceal faces barely visible, within the hoods of their heavy cowls – and priests in featureless white masks and azure robes of silk, prayed and meditated.

The woman, whom he had recognized as the former head of The Diogenes Club, Catriona Kaye, had stood in a solemn conversation with the high priest – who seemed very agitated with her as they both stood on a balcony overlooking the river below, and occasionally turned in their discussion to look at him. He quickly surmised that he was the subject of some heated debate, but the magenta robed monks kept him some distance away so that he could not actually hear what was being said – even with the acuteness of his vampiric hearing. He noted that she removed from a pocket of her dress a very intricately carved key of silver, slightly tarnished, about five inches in length. It seemed to be carved in obscure hieroglyphs; and it was more than obvious to Rhyaad that the High Priest held it in some reverence, as he soon bowed to Catriona Kaye, upon its appearance, and acquiesced to whatever she was apparently demanding of him. He later learned that what she had been requesting of the High Priest was that he be allowed to stay within the temple to – as one of the monks told him in a whispered voice, as no monk ever spoke above a whisper, to heal his soul – and to learn the form of meditation that they had been taught by the god of the River Oukanous.

Rhyaad stood and appeared to walk across the water to the stone path, where he sank to his feet and went inside one of the domed entrances to a chamber of learning. The High Priest was waiting for him there, and Rhyaad approached in stealthy silence and did the ritual bow and greeting he had been taught. “I am ready to leave now. The pain will always be a part of me, but now it shall also be a reminder of how much I should be compassionate to others. To help those threatened by forces beyond their powers to comprehend. I will do my best, to honor what I have learned here from you – I will remember that one must flow, as does the river, always forward. May I have my leave now?”

The pale, gaunt, ancient priest turned from the onyx alters and nodded, and spoke from behind his white, featureless mask, “Those to whom you have been charged to protect by the inexorable flow of the river of life have need of you. As the river follows the bank and looks not from whence it comes but to where it goes, so must you put your past behind you. Go to them now, Rhyaad de’Annar.”

“How is it that I shall return? I know now that I am in the land of Earth’s dreams, but I am not certain how I will awake.”

“She who brought you here is a mighty dreamer, she has dreamed your device and given it to us to watch over until you were ready – this thing you call your “Portal.” It has its own magic, which even I know not. The river has yet to bring me this knowledge and one can only sit by the riverside and await its coming.”

He nodded, knowing that the basement contained both strange magic and technology from “The Marshal” that would not for a very long time, if indeed ever, flow through the river to Earth’s stream of time.

“I too know little of it’s true nature, and perhaps I shall never perfect these ways like the mages of old, but I will return to Collinsport – as I understand it . . . I will be gone only a few days, not the weeks that I have spent here with you.’

“Time here is of a different magnitude and order.”

“I am ready now.”

The High Priest clapped his hands, and magenta robed figures came out from various side passages, “They shall lead you to your magic portal. Take your leave of us, Rhyaad Domelanne de’Annar. But please do try to visit again as you do not have The Silver Key.”

Rhyaad nodded and bowed again.

“Remember your code and follow the Watercourse Way. Now go “
“I shall”, he replied.

The magenta monks led him away and down a long darken corridor that grew progressively narrower, until they had to step sideways into a small room, there, he saw what looked like his stable portal device sitting in the center of the marble floor.

“Farewell my friend. May the waters of the river carry you forward and the stars above be your guide,” the monk he had come to know whispered softly and stepped backwards with a bow.

He placed his staff and began the enchantment. The hole in the fabric of spacetime opened again, first black, expanding with a violet and white tinged aura. Mana to Prana, Prana to Void. He stepped into the one sided hole, crossing the two-dimensional opening in a six dimensional reality. Instantly, he knew something was wrong. Was it because this device was some dream world replica?

He was floating in blackness – a rift of some kind – or was it interference?

Then a flash of light, as had come from that bookcase.

Then suddenly the bright light changed into a kaleidoscopic swirl of light and he stepped forward.

He heard the voice of woman speaking with a British accent as she was asking someone, “Do you Have him?”

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