The door opened and Rollan emerged with Essix on his shoulder. Conor and Briggan looked up expectantly. Apparently Lenori and Rollan were finally done.
“Your turn,” Rollan said.
“How was it?” Conor asked.
Rollan shrugged. “She wanted to know about my dreams. If it was a test, I don’t think I passed. Have fun.”
Conor entered the room where Lenori waited in a large, padded chair that dwarfed her petite frame. Her green cloak rested on a nearby table. Feathers were braided into her long hair and several beaded necklaces and bracelets hung from her neck and wrists. Her bare feet rested on a low ottoman, her soles callused and brown.
Beside her chair, a peculiar bird roosted on a tall, portable perch. The bird had a slender neck, a down-curved bill, and vibrant plumage of every shade. Lenori indicated a nearby chair to Conor. He sat down, Briggan on the floor near him. She looked at him with eyes as unfathomable as the ocean. He wondered if she could read his mind.
“How are you, Conor?”
The question was posed mildly, and seemed sincere. “Me? Honestly? I keep wondering whether Briggan came to the right person.”
Lenori smiled. “No beast would bond with the wrong person, least of all a Great Beast. Where does this worry come from?”
Conor regretted having expressed the concern. Her posture was relaxed, but there was no escaping those watchful eyes. “All of this is just so far beyond anything I ever expected.”
“I think I understand.” Her voice was gentle and melodious. “Don’t pressure yourself to evolve overnight. You’ll grow into this role. Tell me about your dreams since Briggan arrived.”
Conor considered the question. “Once, in real life, I had to fight off a pack of wolves from the sheep I protected. I’ve had to relive that night in my dreams a lot lately.” He glanced over at Briggan, who had his mouth open with his tongue hanging out. It was the closest a wolf could get to smiling.
“Have any other animals visited your dreams?” Lenori asked.
“I don’t know,” Conor said. “I saw a ram not long ago. The kind with big curly horns.”
Lenori leaned forward. “Where was it? What was it doing?”
The circumstances returned to him vividly. It had been the rare sort of dream that felt exactly like real life, even in memory. He had been climbing a high, rugged mountain, the rough stone as cold as ice beneath his palms. Scaling a sheer face, he had reached a point where he could progress no farther, nor could he descend the way he had come.
As the wind kicked up, he had clung to the mountainside miserably, knowing he could continue or retreat, and either way he would fall. His muscles burning, the air too thin to satisfy his lungs, he had held on as tight as he could, knowing that eventually his strength would fail and he would plummet to the base of the cliff. Why had he climbed so high?
Since holding still meant certain death, he’d decided that he had to keep going, no matter how scant the handholds. Stretching, he hooked his fingertips over a tiny wrinkle in the rock overhead. As he searched for his next handhold, the sun crested the mountaintop, blinding him.
Squinting, grimacing, arms burning, toes slipping, he fumbled for anything to grab with his right hand. Then a shadow had fallen across him, and he peered up at the huge silhouette of a ram, staring down at him from higher still up the cliff. The sight of the beast had made him forget his peril. He had stared for a long moment before his hands failed him. He gave an agonized scream and then he fell, his stomach lurching to his throat as he hurtled toward the ground. Just as he was about to hit, he woke up, slick with sweat.
“I was in the mountains,” Conor said. “I saw it right before I woke up. The sun was in my eyes. The ram was big, but it was hard to see details.”
“Have you ever worked with bighorn sheep?” Lenori asked.
“No. But I’ve seen pictures of Arax. My parents have one. The ram in my dreams was like him.”
“Was it like him, or was it him?”
Conor was very conscious of her heightened interest. Didn’t she ever blink? He knew the answer, but felt awkward. He worried it would come across like he was trying to sound important. He glanced away, then back. “It was just a dream. But, yeah, I think it was Arax.”
“Have you dreamed about any of the other Great Beasts? Rumfuss? Tellun? Do you know all of them?”
Conor chuckled uncomfortably. “I know there are fifteen, the Four Fallen plus the other eleven. I’m no expert. I can name some of them — Cabaro the Lion, Mulop the Octopus. Arax, of course. Shepherds pay extra attention to him. With enough time I could maybe remember them all.”
“The Great Beasts have protected Erdas since time out of mind. We would all do better to be more familiar with them. Besides the four obvious ones and those you named, we have Tellun the Elk, Ninani the Swan, Halawir the Eagle, Dinesh the Elephant, Rumfuss the Boar, Suka the Polar Bear, Kovo the Ape, and Gerathon the Serpent.”
Conor noticed Briggan’s ears prick up. “I haven’t dreamed about the others. Just that ram. Do you mind me asking why you’re so interested?”
“I doubt it was an ordinary dream.”
Briggan stood up, watching her intently.
“The wolf seems to agree,” Lenori said.
Briggan barked, making Conor jump.
“Dreams can range from the meaningless to the prophetic,” Lenori said. “It usually takes experience to discern one from the other. The dreams Rollan and Meilin shared with me were of little consequence. I hoped for more from Meilin, but she needs to grow closer to Jhi first. I suspected your dreams might be weightier, and you haven’t disappointed me.”
Conor shifted in his chair. “Why’d you suspect me?”
“Briggan was among the more visionary of the Great Beasts. He is known by the titles Packleader, Moonrunner, and, significantly, Pathfinder.”
Conor reached out and rubbed the coarse mane on the back of Briggan’s neck. “Are you really all of those things?”
Briggan turned his head, his tongue lolling out in another wolfish grin.
“I too have seen Arax the Ram lately,” Lenori said. “That is why we gathered at the Sunset Tower in Amaya, the nearest Greencloak tower to his current domain.”
“You know where to find him?” Conor asked.
“I don’t know his exact location,” Lenori said. “But I hope we may be able to find him together. Aside from the recent return of Briggan and the Fallen, none have encountered the Great Beasts for many years. Arax is among the most solitary. He prefers the mountaintops, exercising his influence over the winds and terrain in the highest places of the world. We can’t trust luck or woodcraft to find him. The wilds of western Amaya are untamed. Unguided, we could search for years and never get close.”