The Warden

Chapter 26

The ground dissolved and Masis found himself turning over and over again in space. All about him was darkness but none that frightened him with thoughts of lurking creatures or creeping monsters. This groggy deep, befuddled with remnants of sleep, relaxed him with its warmth and assurance that the day had yet to start. He floated in that calm.

This has to be a dream, thought Masis, the wisps of consciousness that he could grasp flimsy with soporific laze. I wonder what it means when one is floating in a dream?

Water's cold shock snapped him into focus. First his backside hit the stream then it swallowed the rest of him, not affording him enough time to hold his breath. Thrashing to the surface, sputtering and coughing, Masis tore his head about in an attempt to make sense of what had befallen him.

Lady Kyla stood on the shore, arms akimbo, a smirk at war with a scowl on her face. One eyebrow cocked upward, a finger drumming on her hip, and a single foot tapping into the sandy ground, Kyla resembled an upset Calla, ready to box Masis' ears for pilfering something from the kitchen.

Masis kneeled there in the water and shook his head to clear out the ironic burning, as the inhaled water scorched up his nose. He stared at Kyla, a question filling his slack mouth.

"Do you realize," said Kyla, "if I had been anyone else, wightie or bandit, you would have been killed? You wouldn't have ever woken up?"

"I was sleeping," said Masis. He spat into the stream, his mouth muddy.

"Do you think that those attacking you will reconsider because you're sleeping?" Kyla screwed her mouth up in mockery. "'Oh, we had best not disturb the little lordling's sleep. He might be mad if we wake him.'" She straightened from her pantomime. "Do you think they will be kind to you because of who you are?"

She stepped into the stream and sloshed her way toward Masis. He scrambled to his feet, his sodden clothes clinging to him, water dripping from everywhere. Runnels coursed down his face from his saturated hair. He blinked rapidly as it interrupted his vision and shocked his eyes. He ran his calloused hand over his face several times trying to clear away what moisture he could. As Kyla neared, he hesitated half-a-step back.

"I can't be aware of everything that is going on around me," said Masis, the shock of the water still not having worn off. "Especially, while I'm asleep. That's impossible."

He shook himself, droplets raining out of his hair. Hitting the side of his head, he tipped it in an effort to dislodge some water that had worked its way into his inner ear. It muted his hearing, but after three smacks it popped out of place and exited in a warm trickle.

"That's where you're wrong," said Kyla, stopping just in front of him. The stream came up to her knees, but without her customary cloak Masis found her less intimidating somehow. She wore only her breeches with her winingas wound about her calves and a loose linen shirt. Her bare feet worked their toes into the silty stream bed.

"You have to always be alert no matter if you're sleeping or not." She raised her eyebrows as if to challenge him. "It is possible. Believe me when I say that it is not only possible, but you will be able to do it before too long."

"Did you have to throw me into the stream just to prove the point?" Masis asked, a full head taller than Kyla. Turning his eyes down on her, though petite, Masis knew her hands, body, her general person were lethal. The two men she had killed in the forest made that more than clear. Not only that, the distance between where he had been sleeping and the stream proved she had strength well beyond his own. Without anger to dampen his reasoning, he hesitated in his stance. His fingers fidgeted. His knees bounced. His muscles tensed.