“Your constant vigilance in preparing for the Mokarran.” She opens the cover. “Sun Tzu?”
“He was an Osirian whose wisdom of battle was studied for thousands of years. Sometimes his advice sounds like double-speak, but his astuteness never falters. I don’t know if I’ve anything left to impart upon you except more of Sun Tzu words: If you know your enemy and you know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”
“A Zayar follows the teachings of an Osirian?”
“Much of his teachings are older than the Osirian home world, but rarely have I encountered all these guidelines displayed in one tome.”
“I will treasure this, always.”
“Study, and stay true on our course. The war with the Mokarran will arrive before we are prepared.”
THE HOOF OF a magnificent black steed strikes the soft green earth, kicking up sod as it bolts forward. Reynard distributes his weight in the saddle, keeping his balance as the stallion reaches full gallop. He nudges the spurs into the beast’s hind flank. A final burst of speed surges from the animal.
The grass waves in the wind. The horse’s ears flick, detecting—a machine’s low hum.
The gleam of a silver bird flies eye level over the horizon.
Reynard whips his head. When the shape comes into focus, he spots the outline of a fighter heading straight at him. He digs the spurs into his mount and cuts the reins to his right, angling perpendicularly away from the direct flight path of the unfamiliar silver plane.
Red-hot plasma beams burn past his nose and explode in the side of a hill, filling the air with dirt and dust. Fear gives the steed an extra boost to avoid the next volley of red beams imploding the ground around him.
The next set of plasma bursts tumbles the horse. By the time he regains consciousness, the fighter has landed, and three men in brown battle armor approach.
The Halcary invaders. Mind games again.
Reynard pushes himself up to his elbows, recognizing the ploy. They play with a memory, as his horse was never shot and he was never pinned under it when the Halcary captured him.
The armored men raise their rifles.
He fires.
They fire.
The dust clears. The three men slump dead. Reynard’s magnum smokes.
Strange—dream? Memory? I shot one Halcary. An accomplishment for an untrained kid.
It’s my brain. I destroyed the fear of the monster under the stairs.
They live on fear.
What do I fear?
Fear—what do I desire? Home—I want to go home. Even if I know it’s impossible. I want to return.
He marches the green fields toward his childhood.
Entering his house, he notices the archway from the kitchen to the living room is now an oaken door.
Not quite the way I remember.
He presses on the knob-less door. It fails to move. He pounds on the sealed entrance.
“It’s sealed at your behest.”
Reynard twists at the familiar voice.
Eymaxin stands just out of his reach. “I’m not here, before you ask. I’m part of your mind searching for reason. The Sandmen wouldn’t block you with a door. They want to release your fears.”
“There are places in my own mind…I don’t want myself to go?”
“All people lock away parts of their past.”
He slams a fist into the wood, crumbling it.
Foreboding darkness beckons.
“This’s the point where the dumb blonde drops her flashlight down the stairs in the haunted house and instead of running away still goes down the stairs.”
“It’s not stairs. It’s a dirt tunnel.”
Home.
But I have no home to return to. Even if I find a TARDUS, and my home was ruined by the Iphigenian invasion. My entire planet no longer exists.
Accepting doesn’t remove the desire to return.
“Dreams. Sandmen filter through dreams,” Eymaxin says.
“Nothing about the actions of these creatures makes sense.”
“All the Sandmen do contain logic. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” she says.
“They kill. Some attack with the intent to kill, others toy with memories.”
The tunnel shifts from dirt to rock, expanding into a cavernous chamber.
“They’ve taken the Tolkien from my memory.”
Piled in the central cavern are gems and precious metals. Scattered among the treasures are books, all with only titles Reynard’s read. Including the dreaded Algebra I text from sophomore year. Toppled golden file cabinets spill contents on top of the coins. Shiny paper, file folders, floppy disks decorate the piles. Above what must be the wealth of information from all he has learned in twenty-five short years sleeps a black dragon.
Caged above the smoking nostrils hangs Eymaxin.
“How?”
“It’s all your mind. Who better to give you assistance than the woman able to destroy Sandmen—” the Eymaxin next to him says.
“And who more important to keep from me than the person able to destroy a Sandman.”
Each snore wafts more black smoke as if an internal fire bellows within the beast.
“Everything here represents some part of my mind?”
“You must learn to control your thoughts. What does what you see represent?” she asks.
Before Reynard answers, a fox bounces on his hindquarters toward the sleeping beast. Clad in chain mail armor, the fox draws a katana, prepared to strike.
The carved handle mirrors the blade Reynard recovered from Guil III. It slices down on the neck behind the dragon’s horny frill. The grand beast stirs from the tickle as the blade bounces off the scales. The reptilian eye flicks, beholding the furry attacker. It towers up, reaching its full height before slamming its clawed foreleg toes onto the treasure, smashing an overturned file cabinet.
Reynard grabs at his head as if a spike slams through his eyes. The memory of something important fades, but he has no idea what it was. Reynard sinks to his knees. The pain of damaged knowledge radiates through him.
“I don’t know how much more brain damage I can stand.”
The dragon snaps its massive jaws. A generous amount of fox makes a snack for the monster. Compelled to protect the
