This is an excerpt from The Seer and the Starlit Key, in which the Portuis, Seer of Caphar, voyages in dreams.

Of those given the gift to voyage in dreams, few there were who actually dared to do so. To awake in a dream was to face a reality few mortal minds could bear, and it was for this fear that most shied away from it. Months and years would pass, and they would forget their power altogether. Of those given this gift, only a few ever proved worthy to wear the deep blue garb of seers.

Portuis, being seer, had long since forsaken fear upon the shores of his dreams. Or so he preferred to think, at least. In truth, a fear forsaken could always return if given adequate cause.

A day after the mist had erupted in Caphar, Portuis dreamed, and in his dream, he voyaged.

He found himself standing upon a white beach. The water lapped the sand, leaving it dark with the secrets of the deep. Sparse palm trees swayed in a breeze that stirred his black braids, and the salty air almost stung as the spray left its droplet kisses upon his skin.

The sky above was a blend of the purples and oranges that marked the perpetual sunset of this particular dream. Never did the flame of the sun dim in this place. Well did Portuis know this, for these shores were the crux of his many voyages in this realm. Oft did he come here in sleep to gaze upon the sea and sky, seeking to divine whatever portents were borne in the curling of the waves or the wisped tatters of the clouds above. The peace of this realm gave way for the voice of the wind to be heard more clearly as it bore rumors from places beyond the reach of the waking sky.

Seek him beyond the horizon and the mist, for he calls after you, said the wind.

Tonight, Portuis sought no rumors nor portents. Tonight, he looked beyond the waves of the sea, beyond the purple and orange sky, beyond even the eternal sunset itself.

He turned his mind beyond it all, and he found himself wondering: what was that mist at its edge?

As if in response, the wind tousled his hair and fluttered his clothes, promising to bear him away if he so desired. He needed only to yield himself to its tumultuous embrace.

All distance and all time is illusion, it whispered in his ear. Wheresoever thou canst see, there thou mayest step.

Portuis started at the wind’s message, nearly waking with the surge of terror that struck through his heart. Those words. He had read them before.

Sorscha fell, eyes wide in shock . . .

Shaking himself from his momentary fear, he sat upon the sand, folded his hands in a meditative pose, and closed his eyes. He stilled his heart with several deep breaths, exhaling his dread until it had diminished to nothing. Upon calming himself, he witnessed behind his eyelids a vast starry sky, deep with the blue of midnight and bright with the hosts of the heavens. He relinquished his mind to the fluttering wind, and the wind drew him through all barriers and beyond all distance. A yearning entered his heart and mind to see the most distant star, and so it was that he found himself flying among the lights of heaven. Here he witnessed entire worlds with their entire histories and fates wrapped in their eons of existence, all flying past him in a great rush of glittering light. His clothes fluttered about him as the wind carried him through this starry expanse.

So it was that he entered the realm of the stars. Where his mind looked, there did he indeed step.

He reached the farthest star and saw another beyond that. Turning his mind toward it, the wind bore him there to see a great red giant burning with an age far beyond that of the other stars nearby. New constellations came to his view, shifting and morphing as he flew past.

He leapt from star to star until a bright white line crossed his view ahead. A horizon beyond horizons. He looked. He flew. The horizon widened, the line opening ever more into a view of a new realm beyond any to which he had before voyaged. Still wider it spread until he again stood upon a beach, this one with silver waters lapping at shimmering sands. An extraordinary shore, yet one he thought could have been found in any world.

The sky beyond, however . . . the sky beyond the shore was something else entirely.

Here the very sky twisted and rent, fraying into a thousand thousand tendrils. The tendrils curled back upon themselves, forming a vast billowing mist that not only stopped sight, but turned it back to reveal all that had come before. In the fog, Portuis saw reflected images of this shore, the darkness of the night sky behind, and his own face. The events of his life unfolded to his eyes in the great cosmic mirror before him.

Behold the mirror at the edge of creation, whispered the wind, flitting through his hair from somewhere behind him. Behold therein the doom of all things.

He saw himself a child with his parents and siblings, then as an urchin upon the streets of Taramad until a sage had taken him in. He saw himself an adolescent sorting books in his master’s study, then an adult traveling many lands and living with his wife Sorscha. He saw joyful days and days of toil. He saw—

No. He could not bear to look. But at the same time, he could not turn away.

He saw the knife. He saw her lifeblood flow unstaunched. He saw her bright eyes fade in death.

There were also events he did not recall. He saw himself traversing great mountains, striving against the elements themselves. He saw a great burden upon him, the glint of something he could scarcely make out. A key?

He saw a monster from ancient lands far beyond the remotest reaches. He saw a heroine and a vile pretender. He bore witness to more details than any mortal man could comprehend, a myriad of perils and fortunes and misfortunes. Countless elements conspired against him in every moment, and countless others worked to preserve him through every forward step. The magnitude of it all consumed him, and he felt as if he were a grain of sand upon this shore to be jostled by the tides and steeped in their mysteries, all without even being aware of what they were. For what is the nature of the tide to a mere speck of sand?

The wind tousled his hair and whispered into his ears, urging him forward into the mist. Yet though Portuis thought himself a conquerer of fear, he found he could not move his feet.

Step into your fear, the wind said.

With effort, Portuis stepped forward, first onto the silver water, then over its surface toward the roiling mass of endless mist. A terror mounted in his breast, one that raged against the gentle lapping of the water against his feet. He drew near the endless fog wall, and within it he beheld the multitudinous possibilities it bore before his eyes, each more dreadful than the last. Death after death appeared before him, all of them his own.

He looked away, but the wind urged him forward.

Step into your fear, and so abandon it here upon the shores of creation.

He took the last step into the fog wall, and he found himself beset by terrors uncounted and unremembered.

The Astral Wanderer is brought to you by The Seer and the Starlit Key, out now on Amazon and Kindle! Buy the book, or share this post with anyone you think might find it entertaining. All proceeds go toward helping wayward seer widowers face their deepest fears. Really!