81st Turn, Seventh Year, Twenty-Fourth Cycle, Skyday

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From the Journal of Aframos Longjourney, Pilgrim

With notes by Avos Torr, Scholar of Rheve Library

Skyday, Twenty-fourth Cycle, Seventh Year, 81st Turn

Eighty-Fourth Day in the Trees

I think that Torne has been hurt terribly.

Not physically, at least not in any permanent fashion, but in his mind and his heart. He laughs, he smiles, but there is something just on the edge of his smile, at the back of his eyes, like something hunted. I had not noticed it before, but he does not sleep wrapped up very tightly in the blankets. He always loosens them before going to sleep. When we make camp, his eyes keep moving, as though searching for some hidden danger. Were these things there before, or did I simply not notice them until now?

Last night, he woke up screaming. There was a moment when he didn't seem to know me, or where he was. He tore the blankets from his body, and huddled against a tree. He didn't speak for a moment, and then told me it was merely a bad dream. A bad dream, perhaps, but no mere horodach. No, this was a tredach or a naroda¹. Since he did not chant any prophecies, I must assume it was a tredach. What happened to him, that he should have so much fear? Why does he hide it so carefully? I knew there were things he did not wish to speak of, but I had not realized how terrible his fears might be. I will need to be careful with him. I wish my second-father were here. He would know the words that would unlock those fears, and he would know how to enter Torne's dachraim to help him conquer them. I wish that I could ward his soul so easily.

All I can do is listen well, and hope that when the time comes, he will trust me. He has saved me several times, as I have saved him. He is not clan, but he is as close a friend as I could wish, and it tears me inside to know he is in pain.

This morning, he was himself again, making little songs. But there was a crack in his mask. He seemed too intent to convince me, and was therefore not convincing at all. But if he does not wish to broach the subject now, I will let it rest. It will do no good to force him, and may do harm.

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Footnotes

1. The Baro have a hierarchy of dreams. A horodach, literally a fog dream, is a mild nightmare. A tredach is a fear or terror dream, and much worse. Finally, a naroda, which translates very roughly to trance, is a state in which one spouts visions. Like many nomadic, spiritualistic cultures, Baro are highly susceptible to prophecy and other undesirable magical effects.