The Journey to Song

(The Crossing, Zoluren: circa 349)

This is a Legend that spans many generations, indeed, many eras, as it is told from one Dreamweaver to the next.

Once upon a time, when the world was young, and gods still walked upon the face of it mingling with the men, elves, dwarves, and halflings, a young Elven woman came to a little trading village on the bluffs. Located in a strategic spot on the main route, the village had a nice Inn, supported the local hunting and farming communities, and welcomed weary travelers as they passed through.

In this little village of Squires Bluff, the seed of all tomorrows grew with the hopes and dreams of those who lived, worked, loved, and died there. The young woman enrolled as a novice at the Temple, serving a goddess whose name she could not even utter, and serving the people of the town. Music filled her dreams as prayer and healing filled her days. But there was no song.

She lived in the village as her hair turned white with age, and in the last period of her life, she adopted a young human orphan child, raising her quietly in the ways of the Temple. The child loved music, but her adopted mother knew she must earn a living, and encouraged her to tend the wounded, comfort the spirits of the dead, and serve the people of the town as best she could. When the lass was still young, her adopted mother disappeared, as heart-broken elves are wont to do.

As she matured in her own grief at this loss, this new generation turned to the music she heard in her dreams. And sing, she did, though there were no bards, she sang.

But a fell darkness shaded the beloved homeland, and the world was threatened mightily with destruction. The gods withdrew to try to save the world. The greatest mages worked long and hard to prevent the blackness from taking the land and the people.

But it was not to be — and finally there was naught else that could be done but save one or the other. And the gods smiled at the First World, but knew that their greatest treasures were the people. And so the people of the First World were solemnly told that they must move before the world was sealed away in time, lest the darkness take it.

The singing woman had a family of her own by now. Her ties to the world were great, and she and her husband decided to stay and be part of the protection of the future, sending their family off to the Next World to grow.

In those melancholy and troubled last months of the First Worlde, a Dreamweaver came to the village. She learned the woman’s songs, she felt the people’s dreams, she memorized the magic which bound the Dreaming Tree forever to the People, and she learned all she could — so that she could take the memories to the Next World.

And the First Worlde sang a haunting and beautiful song as it was saved from the blackness and sealed utterly away in time.

Into the Next World was born music and bards, and the people walked upon it in wonder. There was song.

The Dreamweaver lived for a time in the Next World, which would become the Olde World, rooming with a student Empath, and watching this Next World grow into an even greater place of wonder. Watching ever, the Dreamweaver learned from the Next World, and carried the memories of the First Worlde to her companions. After some years of study far away back in the Dreamweaver Community, the Dreamweaver returned to the Next World and began to sing in the Landing.

The Dreamweaver loved well, sang heartily, and remembered all as the years passed in the New World. Here she met the Mage. They were one.

But for all the music, there were no instruments.

Years passed until there were sudden rumblings of a great magic that would take one to a New Era, a New Worlde — and the Mage and the Dreamweaver went to see it. In the peculiar magic of all frontier towns, the New Era was charming, and easy to love. But the Mage returned home to the Olde World, and soon, the Dreamweaver was pining away for him, and sent word back to send a replacement for her. She would not be staying.

And so on a moonless night, when all things are born and made new again, the Dreamweaver quietly left the Crossing and her replacement stepped into the New Era.

But the song was stifled still.

For months this new Dreamweaver called Dreamheart toiled to earn her place beside friends old and new, without benefit of a guild or training. She was young, this was her first assignment, and she worked for the music, for the songs.

The Dragon Priests called her name, and named her death, but the song would set her free from them.

And in a magical moment born of great sacrifices of many others — the song was unleashed upon the New Era, and the bard gazed upon her guildmistress in awe.

In a stunned quiet, she went through the motions of what she was instructed to do at the Bard Shop. Buy this, get that, do not forget the repair kit — pick up some songs.

…Quiet until the mandolin touched her hands. Then the dreams of the First Worlde and the Olde World were finally realized in the New Worlde when the song was set free in the warmth of the wood of the instrument. The moment of her dreams, the moments of all dreams.

And she wept. For joy. For Siryn. For the silence. For the song.

She wept.