The Dream Quest: Eternity

     It started with subtle things, things he could easily handwave away as just a lucky fluke. Falling thirty feet from a tree that only grew fruit at the very tips of its branches and walking away with just a few scrapes. Being the only one in the village unaffected by an outbreak of swamp plague despite nursing the ill back to health for months. But when he stumbled in battle, and a wild dire Lupe slashed him with what should have been a mortal wound, he watched the skin knit together before his disbelieving eyes and knew he couldn’t explain this away.

     He told Eleus Batrin as soon as he limped back into Neopia City, of course. He had entrusted Eleus with his ring until he had proven himself capable of controlling the vast magical power that Solanza, a Xweetok from the future, had unlocked within him.

     The Kyrii didn’t do much more than bat an eye at Xantan’s panicked speech as he eased his creaking bones into an armchair. “Well, I suppose it’s not entirely unexpected,” Eleus said. “Your power is stored in this ring, and so, too, is your life. Your spirit, as it were.”

     Eleus reached inside his tunic and pulled out a simple leather cord. Tied to it, glittering in the firelight, was Xantan’s ring. Xantan felt his heart start to race at the sight of it. True, the power he could command was still unrestricted, but there was always the ever-present threat that Eleus would turn on him and seize control of his magic, rendering him helpless. But Eleus was old and growing more frail by the day. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to pry the ring from his grasp…

     Eleus watched him with knowing eyes, and Xantan knew his heart was laid bare before him. Eleus saw the struggle within him, the temptation to snatch back the source of his own power. But he also saw the way Xantan stood strong in the end.

     A few months later, he was there when Eleus Batrin passed beyond, a serene smile on his wizened face. Eleus had been one of the most severely affected by the swamp plague and had never quite regained his former strength. The old Kyrii pressed something into the palm of Xantan’s paw, whispering something he couldn’t hear, but he knew what it was the moment the icy metal touched his skin. The Ring of Xantan, the repository of his strength, was given back to him. Eleus trusted him. He wept and added another promise to the collection in his heart. I will use my power wisely, Eleus. I will be kind and merciful, Solanza. I will remember you as my brother, Rohane. I will come home, Mama.

     He was busy for the first couple of years helping restore the world to its rightful state, relocating the pygmies to their new home in Kal Panning, and mediating conflicts that inevitably arose as Neopians who had once been corrupted under Rohane’s curse tried to reenter society. But new wizards and elders rose to prominence, clamouring for greater power, and though Xantan could have swept them away with a wave of his paw, he chose to step aside. His ring was warm on his finger, and it felt like Eleus was smiling at him.

     He went home.

     Mama cried when she saw him walking through the prairie grasses to her door. She had already lost a son, and she lived in terror of losing another. He didn’t know how to tell her that her fears would never come to fruition, that as long as the ring remained whole on his finger, she would never mourn another son. He knew that she would instead mourn his soul, the humanity she would think he had somehow lost chasing immortality. It was easier to be silent.

     More years passed, and he buried his Mama beside Rohane’s empty grave. Some days he would come and sit in the grass beside them, watching the breeze sweep lazily across the prairie. Mama had left the house and lands to him, but he felt more comfortable sleeping beneath the stars with nothing but a worn cloak for warmth. The house was too full of memories to let him sleep.

     He let the fields grow wild, and as months blurred into years, he watched trees overtake the grasslands. He didn’t mind the change. He’d spent enough time trying to control his own restless spirit that he had no desire to fight against the unceasing tide of nature.

     Years gave way to decades, and one day he realized that his childhood friends were all growing wrinkled and gray, but when he looked at his reflection in the stream, his white fur was unblemished, his eyes undimmed. People started to stare more than they had before on the rare occasions he went to town, and he retreated into the solitude of the forest. His Mama’s house had long given way to the pressures of time, and so he found himself a new home in the heart of the forest, a cave so dank and foul that no one but him dared to go inside.

     Sometimes people came to the mouth of the cave, and if he was close enough to the surface, he could hear them calling into it, pleading for magical spells or his support on their side of a war. One even offered to make him king if he would help them overthrow the current ruler. At that, Xantan let out a contemptuous laugh and stalked to the edge of the cave, where his silhouette could be seen in the light. The Neopian- a species he had never seen before- cowered back and lifted their sword as he approached.

     “King?” Xantan spat, overgrown claws clicking on the stone floor. “If I wanted power, I would not have to settle for anything as pathetic as king. I have more power in one toe than any king has in their entire body.” He laughed and moved in closer, relishing the way they flinched. “If I wanted to be king, I would not need your help. Now go, before I decide I do want to rule the world after all.”

     That was the last time anyone ever bothered him. No other creatures lived in the depths of the cave, and there was no light to show him his reflection. Still, he knew that he did not age, and though he rarely used it, his power remained as strong as ever. He felt neither hunger nor thirst, only a great yawning emptiness that could never be filled. And though he did not carve the days into the stone walls, he knew that time passed, and centuries moved on without him. But still Xantan remained.

     And remained.

     And remained.

     —-

     A scuffling, scrabbling sound. Light, piercing and burning. A gasp, a sob. A name. A stranger’s name. In the blinding light, a creature whose fur glowed with all of the colours of the sunset. He had forgotten what a sunset even was, but now he remembered it was beautiful.

     “Do I… know you?” His voice, hoarse with disuse.

     The creature looked at him as if he’d sent a dagger into her heart. “It’s me, Xantan. It’s Solanza.”

     Too much noise. Too much light. His ears were ringing, and his eyes were burning, and he turned away, wanting to go back to sleep. He’d been dreaming of something, he thought. Now there was nothing left.

     A touch, a paw on his shoulder. He turned, and her eyes were glittering with more than stars. Tears, he remembered. Sadness. Suddenly, he felt tears in his own eyes as well.

     He cried, and she held him, and he didn’t know why.

     When he was finished, she took him by the paw and led him on unsteady legs up to the mouth of the cave, that unspoken barrier he had never crossed. He flinched away from it at first, and gently she coaxed him underneath the lip of stone into the world. He squinted at first, but his eyes soon adjusted, and he realised it was not much brighter than the cave he had left behind. A black sky dotted with pinpricks of light. The grass, wet with dew, felt strange beneath his callused feet. She led him to a patch of drier ground, and there they sat for a long while, her arm around his shoulder, her body heat bleeding through his fur.

     Then she stood, and his heart fell. She had taken him out of his cave to taunt him with the beauty he had missed in his self-imposed exile, and now she would send him back into the dark. Desperately, he soaked in the last few seconds of starlight.

     “Aren’t you coming?” He startled at the sound of her voice, and when he turned, she was standing before him, her paw outstretched.

     “Where?”

     She smiled, blinking away stray tears. “Home, Xantan. Home.”

     And so he took her hand, and she led him through the darkness, and the ring on his hand sang in time with his heartbeat: Home, home, home.

To be continued…