Hunters of the Dream, Book One: The Gathering

1

Awakening

The cards rustled , shifting in their dusty threadbare bag. They had lain dormant, forgotten, for generations. The Oracle woke slowly, like a hound sniffing the wind, trying to catch the scent of what had disturbed it, before calling forth a warning. The Oracle bristled. Attuned to the subtle vibrations of the Worlds it sensed a shifting in the balance of energy. The Darkness was once again pulsing, sending out tendrils of elusive gloom. It too had lain waiting, patiently. Over time it had slowly gained power, recruiting those it could ensnare with its black promises. It could not yet escape from the confines of the agreement reached during the Great Darkness...but soon the winds would shift and change. Fully awake, the Oracle began to cast out its own response, filaments of white light unfurling, in a quest to find the Huntress before the Darkness did.

2

Beaumont Seabring − The Arrival

Sails snapped in the wind , ropes creaked and strained, and the Flora de la Mar moved through the thick fog bank. She was a fifteenth century three-masted square sail warship under the command of Beaumont Seabring, adventurer and time dimension traveler.

Seabring muttered under his breath. This fog was not natural. He was having a hard time keeping his bearings. The compass tattooed onto his forearm glowed and pulsed, but he could not get a clear reading. He removed his wide-brimmed leather hat and scratched his head before putting it back on again. Then he tugged at his beard and twirled the ends of his moustache, deep in thought. The warning system that encircled the compass was not flashing an alert, so the fog held no danger. At least, not any kind of danger he and the compass had encountered before. And yet they were powerless, being led to some unknown destination.

Seabring—no one on his crew called him by his first name, Beaumont—had captured the Flora de la Mar when he was a young man. It had been his first attempt at moving large objects between time frames. He’d been young, cocky, and completely sure of himself, as only the young can be. Although he came from a family of healers and artisans, he had always felt called to be an adventurer, a time traveler. In order to do that, he needed a ship.

He’d used the scrying wall in the temple to search for the perfect one. The scrying wall had been used for centuries by seers and travelers to catch glimpses of the future. He knew as soon as he saw her appear in the dark swirling surface of the black quartz wall that she was his.

She was a Portuguese carrack, beautifully crafted, nimble and responsive, yet as strong as a fortress with her high-banked sides, viewing platforms, and many cannons. She was one of the largest, finest, and most beautiful ships of her time—also one of the most famous. Exceptionally spacious, she had ample room for a crew and a large hold for treasure. Her dark wooden surfaces gleamed and seemed to be alive with spirit. A sweeping circular staircase connected the upper and lower decks. He had quarters befitting a master adventurer, where he’d kept the ornate interior intact.

He would never forget the look of complete and total amazement on the face of Commander Alfonso de Albuquerque, the original captain, when he’d materialized on the deck of the Flora de la Mar. Seabring had waited patiently to make his move, taking care not to change the course of history. He waited until he’d seen the carrack floundering in a storm off the island of Sumatra, in the Strait of Malacca. Heavy seas were bringing her and her crew ever closer to certain death.

The Flora Mar, as she became affectionately known, had been loaded down with treasure, including two hundred coffers filled with precious diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, as well as tons of gold cast into animal forms and bullion. It had taken Albuquerque eight years of bloody battle and conquest to accumulate the booty.

Seabring smiled, thinking of the mythical and legendary stories that had been told through the ages about the mysterious disappearance of the Flora de la Mar and her treasure in 1512. He’d hypnotized Albuquerque and the few crewmembers who remained on board, then he’d put them ashore on a distant, uninhabited island. The treasure on board had paid for the retrofitting and updating of the ship, allowing it to travel between dimensions. The remaining booty had financed his early voyages.

For years, he and his crew had travelled between dimensions, to faraway lands and times, making many friends as well as enemies—enemies that they easily outdistanced and outmaneuvered. They had seen many incredible sights, both beautiful and terrifying, witnessed unbelievable acts of cruelty as well as kindness and bravery. Although each dimension or time frame was different, they were all connected to each other. Events from one time rippled through to the others.

Some healers could move between dimensions in spirit form, but, without a time traveler, they could only penetrate the veils in a limited way and they could not physically move between times. Lately, Seabring and his crew had begun to hear quiet whispers of a dark power that was slowly sending tendrils, elusive as smoke, between the layers of time. No one seemed to know where this dark energy originated. He wondered if he should find a healer to look into it.

A soft whistling sound interrupted his train of thought. Saira, the wandering albatross that Seabring had rescued as a chick, was returning from a reconnaissance mission. She’d been his faithful friend and companion since he’d nursed her back to health from near starvation many time jumps ago. The crew loved her. She was their good luck charm.

He looked up into the fog, watching Saira’s dark silhouette circle down towards the ship. The wandering albatross was one of the largest seabirds known to man. Seabring had always marveled at Saira’s wingspan, which was over twelve feet. When she stood beside him, the top of her head came to his waist—and he was a very tall man.

Saira made a running landing, stopping with a small thump. She gracefully folded her long black and white wings, then preened a few loose feathers with her pink bill. She’d been away for hours. Gliding on air currents, she would have traveled hundreds of miles in that time.

Although she vocalized while communicating with Seabring, she actually communicated with him through images and words whispered in his mind. His early training had focused on becoming a healer as his parents and his family, for generations before them, had been. As a child he’d been taught by the village healers to commune with animals of all kinds. It was one of his gifts and had come in handy on many occasions. By the time he was twelve, he’d begun to dream of time travel. The dreams haunted his nights, taking him to places he’d never imagined existed. Strange beings, mythical animals, plants, and worlds far removed from his reality came to life and beckoned him. Many of his dreams had turned out to be prophetic.

In recent months he’d been having a recurring dream, a premonition that puzzled him. The dream was always the same: completely silent and filled with a foreboding dark mist that swirled around a young woman with long flowing red hair. She was turned away from him; he couldn’t see her face. Desperately he tried calling out a warning to her, as the mist began to envelope her, but she couldn’t hear him. The dream always ended the same way, the dark mist obliterating his vision, and leaving him feeling helpless. Once awake he wondered which of the worlds she was trapped in.

Times, or worlds, were arranged in twelve concentric circles, that radiated outwards from a central channel of brilliant golden light called the Corridor of Light. Time travelers could move through this Corridor of Light to access different worlds, but it was a tricky business. It wasn’t as simple as just jumping from world to world on one flat plain.

Each of the world time bands oscillated independently while orbiting another world. Together the twelve rotating time bands created what looked like a globe of moving energy. Each of the time band circles was sectioned into quadrants that could be accessed from the same time band by healers, but that was as far as they could journey. To move into worlds on adjacent orbits was a process that required split-second timing, nerves of steel, and a time-traveling vessel. It was all about timing and how accurately a time jump could be calculated.

The Corridor of Light was only accessible when the orbiting worlds aligned perfectly, creating a tunnel that connected them together. Beaumont knew of many time travelers who had just vanished. Beyond the far edges of the outer circle of the time lay the Darkness. No one had traveled that far, so no one knew for certain what was there—nor was anyone certain where the Corridor of Light began or ended.

Saira nudged him with her wingtip, reminding him to pay attention. She made small movements with her wings and hopped about on the deck as she drew a mental map for Seabring. Excitedly, she told him that just this morning there had been a blast of energy, like a shooting star, coming from the outer edges of time, at the outer reaches of their travels. Seabring questioned her about what she thought the blast had been, but she’d never seen anything like it. From the sounds of it, neither had Seabring. Strange things were afoot, strange things indeed.

The ship shuddered. A grinding sound filled the air. Beaumont reacted immediately, yelling orders to his crew who scurried over the deck, trying to maintain control of the ship. The fog that had been following them grew thicker, completely enveloping the Flora Mar. Static electricity sparked through the air, lifting everyone’s hair straight up.

Something is terribly wrong, Beaumont thought.

The ship spun in a slow circle, descending—falling and spinning at an ever-increasing rate. Brace yourselves for impact! Prepare to abandon ship! he yelled.

3

Reindeer Dream Messenger

In the dark cave , the umber firelight throws eerie shadows on the smooth, undulating walls and the animal figures etched there: reindeer, bears, and elk. The animals seemed to breathe and move as the rising voices chanted in unison, filling the still air. The Shaman, Vaadin, sat on a stage formed by a natural outcropping of the cave wall. A sacred bear skull rested on the small altar in front of her. The raised faces of those gathered glowed in the firelight as she beat the large drum on her knee. The drum vibrated with each beat, beginning to luminesce. The images drawn on its surface jumped and hovered, appearing and disappearing in the light. Channeling deep magic, the Shaman called forth the Ancestors who live between worlds.

Vaadin kept the beat on the sacred drum, handed down from Shaman to Shaman, each sharing its language and secrets over a lifetime of learning and teaching. Made of reindeer hide stretched over birch wood, steamed and bent into an oblong, it had been marked with sacred symbols in red dye, its face divided into four unequal sections. Near the top of the drum, a horizontal line created a space that represented the sky and held drawings of the sky spirits, the Shaman, and the sun. From the center of this horizontal line, a line dropped down to the bottom of the drum, dividing the lower portion of the drum into halves. In the middle of that line, an empty circle created the fourth section of the drum. The circle represented a portal, the passageway that the Shaman must travel to unknown worlds. On both sides of the vertical line, symbols depicted reindeer, boats, bears, hunting, and reindeer sleds.

The drum was older than living memory. For countless generations, Shaman had used it to travel, to create trances at ceremonies, to communicate over great distances with animals, spirits, and beings between times. The drum provided the map and vehicle that each Shaman must use to reach their destinations; the symbols painted on the drum were the markers along the journey.

Now Vaadin turned to the drum in her people’s hour of need. She had heard many whispers lately. Animals had disappeared, leaving her people to suffer from hunger even as fear crept into their hearts. Sometimes they found the animals dead of some mysterious ailment that no one had seen before. Sometimes wild animals had even wandered into the village, their eyes strangely cloudy, unsteady on their feet. It seemed that they simply stopped eating and drinking, eventually falling to the ground, unable to move.

Vaadin attempted to communicate with the Animal Spirits, but the Shaman had not been able to get a clear answer. She had journeyed to the Animal Spirit world, but only saw a mist that choked not only the animals, but also the Spirits of the trees and plants, the water and sky.

Now Vaadin had only one ceremony left to try, but it was dangerous and had never been used as far as she knew. The deeply sacred ceremony was so old that no one could even tell her its origins. In preparation for the ceremony, Vaadin had completed the training of her son, Karhu, who would be the next Shaman. He would assist her in the ceremony tonight, but she planned to leave him here to guard the cave. He would live to carry on the teachings and bloodline of the Shaman if things did not go well for Vaadin in the ceremony.

Karhu, who had been waiting in the shadows, took a seat beside his mother. Vaadin quickly glanced over at him before handing him the drum. Barely missing a beat, he accepted and took over, maintaining the hypnotic rhythm. Vaadin stood, then bent over to pick up the red ochre bowl waiting on top of the bear skull. Lifting the bowl, she stretched her arms towards the sky as she sang, calling forth the Alncestors and all creation to help and guide her on her journey. As her song finished, she brought the bowl to her lips and drank from it. The deep red liquid spilled onto her chin as she tipped the final dregs into her mouth.

A sudden scream and a flash of light shocked the cave. The drum fell silent as Vaadin slowly crumpled, falling to the stage. Her eyes remained open but vacant as her son lowered her to the prepared bed covered in reindeer and bear furs. He resumed drumming, slowly picking out the hypnotic beat as the clan, raggedly at first, began chanting. They would guide Vaadin home.

Vaadin watched herself as if behind