Stephen Zimmer - Crown of Vengeance

At first, he felt a little nauseated, as if he had ingested something wholly unnatural within him. He gagged and heaved as he slowly got up into a sitting position, but the worst of it passed by quickly enough. In a few short moments, the initially strong sensations had settled into a mild discomfort and gentle cough.

The dream-experience had left its images vivid and freshly imprinted upon the eye of his mind. He breathed slowly, as his full orientation returned.

Slowly, he braced himself on his hands and pushed himself back up to his feet. Taking a look all around him, he discovered that there was nothing to be seen close by, yet he did not feel alone.

A sense of wariness brought to the fore, Janus started back for the stream near to the village. On the way back, he recalled the sequence of the dream over and over again within his mind.

Ever since he had arrived in the tribal village, and began to listen more carefully to the tales of his newer hosts, he had heard a lot of talk about dreams and the genuine significance of them. To the people of the village, dreams were not considered to be merely a whimsical or fanciful conjuration of the mind. Nor were they simply a practical process demanded by the subconscious mind, to sift and sort through the things of life’s experience. To the villagers, they were something else entirely, experiences to be taken very seriously, if not unquestioningly at some times.

If the dream that he had just experienced was indeed something more, like something that the tribal people spoke so openly of, then there was something important for him to understand within the essence of that vision.

The tribal people would suggest that there was much to discover and learn from the vivid and meticulous dream, whether on the surface or buried deeply.

Whatever the reality was, Janus knew that he would be pondering the incredible dream for quite some time to come.