Chapter 4: Oh let me sleep, sleep among the dead, not disturbed by my coffin my dear

Olice stopped falling, she also stopped screaming. This was not due to her dying a horrible death, rather that she had started floating up rather than falling up. She opened her eyes, after she had calmed down and bravely rubbed the tears from her eyes.

What looked like red snow was rising from the ground to meet her. Olice huddled into a ball, thinking that the crystal snow would be hard and sharp, but it was like snow but softer and not at all cold. It tinkled as she passed through it, and it was thick enough that it was quite hard to make anything out beyond a few feet.

With the softness of it, and how it just felt so safe, Olice found herself falling asleep. She dreamed she was back in the tower. Ira taught her wondrous magic and she opened up a portal so that she could visit her father and mother, she showed them all that she had learned and they praised her, said that she could come back for good. Everything was so wonderful, Olice was never going to wake up again.

Wake up? No she wasn’t asleep. The red crystal realm, that had just been a bad dream.

“…but all dreamsss have to come to an end missstress, even the ssssweet oness, perhapssss essspecially thossse onesss” Gander hissed in her ear.

Olice leapt up into the air, startled.

“Ahhh! Gander! That was horrible, I was having such a nice dream”

Gander sniffed.

“At leassst you had the sssenssse to hold onto the ribbon” he remarked, descending back into Olice’s shadow.

Olice had at some point in her dreaming landed. She was amid piles of crystal sheets, almost like quilts, they billowed, throwing up crystal snow and slipped about as Olice tried to walk over them. It was not a simple task. Surrounding the field of sheets were a number of what were unmistakably barrows.

They had the feel of death to them, Olice was wary of the mounds and their dark entrances. Some barrows are made, constructed for the oncedead as new homes, or prison in many cases, barrows however can also form as a matter of course around stationary once dead. In the world of Kigan and its shadow Awarth, most things not spirit must die twice, once in body and once in spirit.

The oncedead are usually quite vulnerable to change, and to chlanic influence. The spirit body of a oncedead gradually undergoes corruption, at the end of this corruption lies Wraithdom, a chlanic state. So it was reasonable enough for Olice to have misgivings about the barrows.

Who had made them, if they were made? Whether they were made or not, what exactly was inside them? Olice would have liked to avoid discovering the answer to either question, but she was in danger of discovering them, as the ribbon lead what to Olice looked like the most grim and spiky of the lot. It wasn’t though, that was just her imagination, it was actually one of the smaller and less ominous ones.

Small or big, it was the one that Olice had to go inside. It was without ornamentation, which could perhaps have meant it had grown from the crystal. Olice paused at the entrance, trying to see further in, sense further in. It wasn’t much use. The swirling nature of the flow and the crystal of the realm would have confounded a mature mage, never-mind a child.

The inside of the barrow was cold and wet, some dark liquid dripping from cracks in the crystal. The glow of the crystals was low and sullen, as if the light was dying. It was a kind dejected mustiness to it. That was often the way the once dead, either they rotted where they were or engaged in sleepless revelry to distract themselves from the downsides of their condition.

More than once Olice heard a moan, a clatter or some other echo of the oncedead, but the ribbon’s path through the winding passages never brought her near to any of them.

What it did bring her near to was a trio of arguing voices.

“I tell you look at my sheen! This isn’t just like the real thing! It is realer than the real thing!” shrieked one voice.

“If that is the case my dear, then it is a failure! We aren’t supposed to look more like the thing than the thing! We are supposed to look like the thing!” this one spoke with a clatter of chains in its voice.

“Well whatever about that, I say it is all in the detail! Take my lines for example, core to the illusion!” This voice was oily.

There was a sigh so heavy that Olice was able to hear it from where she was.

“How many times have we had this argument anyway?” Chains said.

“Too many!” Shrieker shrieked.

“Why don’t we move?” Oily suggested. “Change of scenery, different food, that kind of thing?”

“Oh not this again” Chains complained.

“Change of scenery? EVERYTHING IS RED CRYSTAL!” Shrieker shrieked.

“Well, the shape’d be different at least, this barrow is pretty miserable really” Oily objected.

“It doesn’t matter, we tried to leave once before, the Golemer would just bring us back here… or worse bring us back and use us for parts” Chains moaned.

“I’ll pass on that, we’d not be us anymore” Oily said.

There was the sound of heavy scraping.

“What’s wrong?” Chains asked.

“SOMEONE IS COMING!” Shrieker shrieked.

“Finally! Places everyone!” Oily said.

Olice paused, considering how she should handle what she was going to walk in on. With an idea in her head, she stepped into the chamber.

Inside of this chamber was a trio of coffins and pooled around the coffins was a scattering of random treasure, all manner of impractical cups and do-dads, the loose gems of many colours looked quite attractive though.

One of the coffins was rectangular, some manner of dark metal studded with gems, and the lid was actually a series of clasps. The metal had a lovely sheen to it really.

Another of the coffins, a bluish grey stone one, was shaped like some strange creature lying on its back. Something with wolf-like legs, a lizard’s upper body and a hideous horned and fanged face. Chains extended from the mouth of this head all over to loops affixed on the coffin.

The last of these coffins was a deep green wooden coffin, completely plain apart from looking like it was made from absurdly good quality wood.

“All of you are terrible mimics!” Olice said to the coffins.