The King of Terrors
I dreamed I was walking along a road
I could not remember choosing.
The rain had stopped.
Water tickled from the hedges.
Mist coiled around my legs, soaked into my clothes,
and tangled with each puff of breath.
The road climbed higher.
I saw the castle only when I was almost beneath it.
The gate stood open.
Above it, worn almost smooth,
was a coat of arms I could not quite make out.
Beneath it, an inscription too weathered to read—
yet something in the lettering
looked oddly like my own handwriting.
Inside the walls, my footsteps crossed a courtyard,
churned with rain and deep boot prints, already there.
I entered a hall smelling of wet stone, woodsmoke,
and the damp stink of old familiar forest campfires.
There were candles. Barely alight. Not many!
At the far end they flickered and bowed, though there was no wind.
I held my breath. They stopped.
I breathed again. They danced. Then stopped.
In the corner, above three stone steps, stood an empty throne.
A crown rested crooked on its seat.
Its gold was dull, stained almost brown,
dark red stones set around its rim.
I walked towards it. I did not try it on.
The stones pulsed red and glowed.
\"Come on. Give it a go.\"
Then, softer: \"You did before?\"
I stepped back. Withdrew and moved away.
Behind the throne,
a heavy curtain hung partly open.
A door stood behind it, ajar.
Cold air brushed my face. I knew that smell.
Beyond it, stone steps wound steeply down,
the walls streaked with dank water, like sweat.
Someone had been there lately. Were they still there?
The stairs opened into a dungeon.
A rack. Chains. Iron hooks. Whips, spikes and daggers!
Things whose purpose I well understood,
without wanting to look at them twice.
Near the stocks lay an old singlet,
stiff with sweat, mud and dried blood.
Mine! I knew the tear beneath the arm.
I didn\'t remember leaving it there.
Beyond it, another stairway descended into darkness.
I took it quickly, wanting only to get away from that horrid room.
Down. Down. I went, The air grew colder, thicker.
Far below, I thought I heard the ocean.
Then, somewhere ahead, a faint glimmer of sky.
Daylight, perhaps.
I pressed on.
The light grew smaller. Flickered out. The silence gelled.
The passage tightened. Stone scraped my shoulders.
I turned sideways, sucked in my breath forcing myself through.
Then the floor disappeared.
I fell.
I waited for the impact.
It never came.
I was suspended in darkness, weightless, utterly weightless,
I thrashed my arms and legs feeling for something.
Nothing was there. I stopped spinning.
I screamed in terror. No echo. I screamed again. No sound came back.
I looked up. Nothing. Down. Nothing.
I twisted around.
Nothing.
No stone.
No wind.
No cold.
No smell.
No sense of falling.
Nothing.
I reached for my own face.
But I could not feel my hand touch it.
I tried to hear my breathing.
Nothing.
My heartbeat.
Nothing.
Even the blood inside my ears had gone silent.
Only blackness.
Then the blackness began to thicken.
Slowly. Syrupy. Oily. To black-blue ooze.
It seemed to press against my open eyes.
I blinked.
Nothing changed.
I squeezed them shut.
Nothing changed.
Opened them again.
Nothing.
Suddenly I could no longer tell
whether my eyes were open or closed.
I screamed. Cried out!
Or thought I did.
And somewhere inside that blackness—
something inside me screamed back.
Or I thought it did?