Silver Moraine sky hand

The singsong lilt of riverwater pulls him from dreaming. He opens one eye and then the other, vision hugged by dark fingers of cavern wall. Their torn edges blurred indistinct.

Moist stone and algae film his senses, seconded only by the trickling scent of subterranean aquifer.

His gaze climbs to the ceiling where indecipherable carvings faded to monochrome smoke. A carved line points north to south, the channel fading by obscure shadow.

There is a pain somewhere in his body, but so distant now it may belong to someone else.

Anselm shifts to his elbows, the chorus of running water reaching a crescendo echoed in the blood that bounds from his temples. Upon closer inspection he sees the cavern tunnels out to some dark corner -- there is a depression where worn feet have carved the sandstone to a black patina. Along the walls run claw-marks of some ancient sigil. Their inscriptions suggest an age so vast to think of it whittled his very essence to an inconsequential iota lodged between celestial mountains.

A river. Somewhere out of sight, but deep and throaty like the full growl of a beast consumed by the hunt. Anselm's awareness is growing. He sees now he is standing on a silverstone plinth, the carved table jutting out from ancient rock; built and carved and whittled by thousands of generations for some nameless goal-post. The purpose of this singular cathedral was to host the fleshy, beating heart. The arched walls a rib-cage. The boundless river out of sight this ancient faith's lifeblood, and the plinth --

He jolts with a start to see the footstall he laid upon wreathed by bright scarlet petals. Their path winds out from the lazy gloom of the shadow-tongued halls and make their way pointedly towards him.  Each petal so delicate it may be a prick of bright crimson blood left by an indelible fingerprint. As his gaze climbs the pedestal he stands upon he realizes that he is not on some medic table; he is the offering.

The riversong of the water just out of sight joins the heightened scream that loosens from his throat.

At his shoulder, a touch so cold his insides shrivel like they were kissed by glacier water. He turns and is met with the long face of a wolf, whose countenance is so wide it blots out the cavern's dim light. Whose eyes are two swallowing suns, haloed by a red so vivid he knew it could only be blood. Around him the cavern raises its fist, water limning the stones like hungry tongues. As he scrabbles backwards in terror the great beast turns its hideous head towards him, the cavern walls become studded with teeth and conical fangs erupt from the ceiling. At his mouth is a light so blinding that as Anselm scrabbles back from it he feels his fur disintegrate, the nerves along his feet and legs dissipate, reduced to wisps of pale ash and smoke as he is consumed by a god so primordial that time seems to warp around it. He is aware of his ruination and opens his mouth to scream --

* * *

Anselm jolted awake, the scream that tore from his body so loud it nearly split his head in two again. He winced and clutched at his skull with a whimper, eyes flitting around to see a shape lurching near.

The wolf from the cave. He nearly screams anew, but as the seconds turn over and his consciousness trickles in, he realizes this is reality; the crisis of the dream so distant now it was a fading memory in his frazzled brain. Not the wolf from the cave; Amadeo.

No, not Amadeo either -- though the bearing was striking enough Anselm swam in his own confusing thoughts a moment longer.

He pulled his gaze away and cradled his head, flooded now by a sense of nausea that nearly brought him back to his stomach. Somehow, this strange man poking at him was not even his biggest problem -- his spine bent against his own volition and Anselm convulsed in a retch, reduced to a whimpering halfwit at the foot of whoever this man was.