Written October 29 2015
Waves crashed at the crags of Nephalia the mist mingling with the night air. Birdsong, akin to damned screams echoed on the sea winds.
None of this was seen or heard in the warm fire-lit home of Prenkus Karv, who sipped his tea in quiet meditation. Prenkus was uncertain if the crackling of the flames was putting his haggard mind at ease, or if it was the alcohol he has added to the tea. Oh, the many perks of leaving the collar behind.
A knock. Prenkus ignored it
Knock. Knock.
Prenkus’s sigh sent ripples through his beverage.
A voice “Please father, it’s beginning to rain!”
“Do not call me ‘Father’” Prenkus did not get up from his armchair.
Lightning.
“Please, Fa— Mister Karv, surely you heard that! Surely you would leave me to the whims of darkness and lightning.”
Prenkus poured more ale into his tea “That depends. I don’t even know how you are.”
“Timas sir, I was a parishioner of yours.”
“Then take you problems to Avacyn, or someone who still wears her collar.”
“They recoil.”
“What?”
“They recoil to me; they will not speak to me. Thus, I am as your are: disillusioned.”
“This is not one of Dowid’s plays, speak commonly.”
With great reluctance, Prenkus stood and trudged to the door allowing dirty beard with a man attached to it that called himself Timas in.
“You look awful.”
“Yes,” Timas agreed, revealing his silver ring.
Prenkus returned to his chair and raised his silver cup “Sit where you like.”
“I’d hate to dampen you carpet fath—Prenkus.”
“Then you should have stayed outside, what issue is it that bothers you?”
“Nightmares.”
“You come to me for bad dreams? Take your issues to a herbalist, I have no help for you.”
“Not bad dreams. Nightmares.”
Prenkus rubbed his bristled chin “I don’t see the distinction.”
“No one seems to. They are compelled by an outside force father, like fingers of darkness along my brain.”
“Again that sounds like the work of a devil or demon; the church will not aid you?”
“No, and nor will the devils, they recoil at the whispers as well.”
“Whispers?”
“Whispers, fingers, nightmares IT has many natures.”
“Have…have you considered a dream diary?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Timas produced an utterly massive tome. It was as damaged and twisted as its author.
“Recounts of every death I have died, sketches of each maddening vista, and this is but volume one.”
Prenkus tentatively picked up the grimoire as flickered through the pages, he felt ill, not the illness of his inebriation but an illness of the soul. Throughout the book, a name repeated itself, the whisper, the nightmare as it repeated all humor fell from the air, shriveled and died.
Prenkus read aloud“Eldra—”
“Nonononono do not speak it. They are the thing beyond all things. Beyond Innistrad itself.”
Timas’s pleading struck a chord with something shriveled and dead in Prenkus’s heart.
“Nothing is beyond Innistrad.” Prenkus reassured himself “Nothing.”
“Then They are nothing, and they compel me.”
“Yes, I saw.” Prenkus recoiled from the book.
“You haven’t acted on these… compulsions have you?”
“I have not.”
The silence between the two mortals was sickeningly long
Timas broke it “you do not want to read more.”
“No” Prenkus lied, mending the air back to silence. The horror itched at his mind, he feared he could not restrain himself from scratching.
Prenkus did not notice that Timas left, nor, for several days, that he had left his book behind to him.
It was as though it had not happened. Then news reached him that Timas died, not to a creature of the night, but by his own hand and his own ax. Prenkus wished he had paid more attention, been able to help. Prenkus could not understand, no one could, after all, death was no refuge from the horrors of the world.
Maybe, maybe he could learn what his mistake. Was he only to—
No.
Do not give in, Prenkus he would tell himself. No longer did he hide his drinking, no longer did he sleep. And for a time, he did not give in.
Timas’ Tome still called to him, its dark secrets infesting his mind, deep in his soul he knew The Eldrazi were not done with him.
“May you be blessed with eternal sleep Timas, I know I will not” Prenkus whispered as he turned to the first page and was engulfed.