The Runes of Norien

V

  Having spent his whole life in the darkness of the Eye, Wixelor was unprepared for the brightness of Feerien’s sky, avidly gazing straight at the two rosy moons till he suddenly realized that, no matter how hard he blinked, he couldn’t see a thing.

  Thus blinded and gripped by terror, he started to pedal like mad, hoping that he could prevent the flying machine from plummeting and crashing down and killing him in the process. He just had to remain afloat long enough to regain his sight.

  And then things took a dramatic turn for the worse, as the headily fresh air he’d been breathing was replaced by a mass of smoke so bitter, thick and scorching it was like inhaling fire. Wixelor coughed and retched, and cursed Huxor and Zaepix and his own stupidity for listening to them instead of resuming the dull but safe life of a Dreamer.

  But the deluge of tears brought on by the smoke seemed to have a healing effect on his blindness, because he could now discern the vague shape of the smoke and pedal around it, and when he looked down to avoid the glare of the moons he saw a great mass of fire whence the smoke rose, and on one side of it a great structure he’d seen in plenty of dreams to recognize as a castle or fortress – which meant that people must live there.

  So he directed his descent towards the grey, walled edifice, and little by little he made out the tiny specks between it and the burning forest as humans; and by the time he could distinguish the details of the gathering, Wixelor had recognized another thing that, though unheard of in Ienar Lin, was common in most other worlds: war. He was looking at two opposing parties standing their ground on the verge of bloodshed.

  However, it seemed like an unfair, uneven fight: a few people against a throng. Wixelor’s instinct told him to land the machine on the side of the former, and rightly so, for now he could discern the red garments of the Lurienites he knew from their dreams. Of course warfare supposedly relied on the element of surprise, and descending from above in a noisy flying machine wasn’t exactly stealthy – and indeed, as he steadied the steering rod and slowed down his pedalling, Wixelor saw each and every head turn up and stare at him. But there was something strange about these human beings, something not quite right in the way they didn’t grow any bigger, as they should, the lower he got.

  And then the machine hit the ground, hopefully without any damage to its inner workings, and Wixelor unfolded himself from the seat and stood up, looking towards the group of warriors whose bulging eyes were fixed on him in mortal terror. He didn’t mean them any harm, and was about to tell them as much, but with the first step he took in their direction they let out a collective scream, and dropping their weapons they swiveled around and bolted, many among them running straight into the fire.

  Wixelor was appalled by the effect of his presence, and even more so when the warriors (wretched creatures called Scavengers, if he recalled correctly) began to howl as they were burned alive. It was unbearable, and so Wixelor turned around, hoping he wouldn’t inspire the same panic to the people he had left his very world to seek.

  Only then, when he saw the five of them gaping at him in fear and disbelief, did Wixelor finally realize what was off in their proportions. For although he’d spent two and a half centuries immersed in other people’s dreams, watching other people live and die, laugh and cry, love and hurt each other, he was never in those dreams himself – and so he was utterly clueless as to their actual size compared to his.

  But now he knew, and was amazed as the Feeres and Lurienites before him: he was at least three times taller than the tallest of them, towering above them like a giant.