This dream sequence comes from two sources. My imagination only a little and Piers Anthony’s “Incarnations of Immortality” series. I thank him for an excellent series that worked so well in this story. As this story is a labor of love I hope he doesn’t mind too much…Tracy Roorda

Part 6: The Dream

Everything around them was bright and colorful like in spring. There were trees everywhere. She was standing on thick green grass. She stood in a circle with her friends and she was excited. She didn’t see any of their faces except Ares’ but that wasn’t unusual. All she had to do was close her eyes and his face came to mind. The unusual part was that she knew the people around her were her friends. People she had known for years but she still couldn’t see their faces and she didn’t recognize them. They were all dressed in different types of clothing. Some of the clothing she recognized, Ares’ clothes and the person across from her was in white robes, but her own clothes were different. They kept changing shape and color. They were always green but different hues of green and continually changing in thickness. Like a living mist surrounding her.

She looked down at her hands and was excited. “I can change time can’t I?”

“Yes” the man in the white robes said, “but only within a limited sphere. I still control the actual time.”

“Watch” she said to Ares with a glimmer in her eyes. She walked over to a tree and laid her hand on it. “Autumn” she said to the tree. Suddenly the leaves of the tree started to change color, first red, then orange, gold and brown in turn. “Pretty great huh?” She asked Ares.

“Impressive” he answered with a smile for his love.

“Now, try to change it back,” The man who controlled time said.

“Spring” Gabrielle said after putting her hand back on the tree, but nothing happened. She dropped her hand from the tree and quizzically looked at the man who controlled time. “Why didn’t it work?”

“You have moved the tree out of time. You have to complete the cycle for the tree to come back to spring again. Try again.” He said

“Okay.” Laying her hand back on the tree she said, “winter”. But nothing happened again. “Okay, what’s going on? I went from Autumn to Winter. Why didn’t it change?”

“What season did the tree start in?” He asked.

“Spring”

“What season did you move it too?”

“Autumn”

“What season is missing?”

“Summer” she answered. She thought for a moment and then asked a very bewildering question. “But how can I get it back to summer so I can advance it back to autumn and then to winter and then to spring again?”

“You can’t.” was his simple response. “You have moved the tree out of time and caused a ‘time paradox.’” With that he raised his right hand and an hourglass raised with it. (This seemed normal to her. After all it was a dream.) She watched as several grains of sand moved back up to the top portion of the timepiece. When the hourglass sands stopped moving, he indicated the tree. It was back to spring again. “Whenever something is moved out of time by anyone other than me, it causes a time paradox or a mistake in time. Each of us is strong in our own areas but can be influenced by all the others. You were able to advance time by advancing the tree to a different season. I suggest only doing that as a last resort. As you saw one little slip of the tongue can do irreparable damage.”

“So you’re saying I can influence nature but I can’t really change it?” Ares asked.

“Correct. You can influence nature by causing a war someplace and the weapons they use destroy a forest. That is your influence on nature. But you can’t destroy nature entirely.” Time said.

“But how would I influence war?” Gabrielle asked.

”By changing human nature, Nature. If you were to take the desire for war out of the equation of humanity, you change war. More than just changing war, you would eliminate it.” Gabrielle looked as Ares with fear. “You might redirect a single someone’s desire to wantonly destroy onto another path, one that is less destructive. That is a way for Nature to influence War. But again, I don’t suggest trying to remove the desire to destroy from the whole of humanity. It has been tried and it didn’t work.”

“When was it tried?” Gabrielle asked.

“It was an experiment done a long time ago. They put two people in a garden and took away the desire for destruction. But when you take away the desire to destroy you ultimately take away the desire to create as well. It really didn’t work.”

“Why haven’t any of the others said anything?” She asked.

He smiled indulgently, “You will meet them in the proper ‘time’. Sorry for the pun, but it had to be done.” He said as he gave a small chuckle.

“Oh. Okay. Hey, do we die?”

“Not yet. When you become one of us, your mortal body will stop aging until….” He left the sentence to dangle because Ares had drawn his sword.

“I have to make sure.” And before anyone could do anything, he plunged his sword into Gabrielle until to emerged from her back.

The impact of the sword being pushed through her body made her yell out and made her body jerk. The motion also woke her and Ares up. She looked around and realized she was next to the fire at their camp-site with Ares standing behind her. He had his sword drawn and ready for a fight. She glanced at Ares and when she saw his sword, she unconsciously shuddered. She remembered what woke her and she reached for her stomach. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find but she only felt solid flesh.

When Ares saw that there was no danger in sight, he calmed and looked at Gabrielle. “What?” He asked.

“I’m not sure. It was a dream but all I really remember is the God of War running his sword through me.”

He was standing behind her so she didn’t see his eyes grow big and the color drain from his face. He thought the world dropped out from under him, again, but when she quietly uttered the words “on purpose” he felt the world crash in on him rather than drop away.

He dropped his sword from his trembling fingers as he sat down behind her and pulled her to him, her back to his front, saying, “I would never…. I would never…” over and over again. But in his heart he was screaming because the God of War might do something like that. And his heart was breaking because she still thought he would hurt her and she might be right. Suddenly he changed what he was saying to “it was only a dream…. It was only a dream….” He was saying it more for himself than for her.

She hadn’t moved. Just kept puzzling. It was just a dream but something kept bothering her about it. She knew there was more involved in the dream than what she remembered but it was just outside of her memory. “We were talking to someone. He was telling us things, and then you pulled your sword and stabbed me with it. It hurt.” She reached for her stomach again but couldn’t move her arms. The large man hugging her from behind had pinned them down. Finally, his words registered to her mind.

“Ares, I know. It’s okay. I know you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose.” She said it with such conviction that she almost believed it herself. Suddenly the arms squeezed tighter and tighter until she almost couldn’t breath. “Ares.” No response. “Ares!” The only response was his arms tightening around her. “ARES.” She was becoming alarmed because breathing was getting more difficult but still he didn’t give any indication of hearing her. “ARES!” She felt his arms loosen just a fraction. Then a little more and then more until she was able to move her arms and turn to face him. She had never seen such a look on his face before. On any ones face before really. If it was possible to have living body without a mind to work it, that’s what he looked like.

Someone calling his name finally caught his attention. It was pulling him to respond. Not sure who or what or why, but he had to respond. Slowly, like the world had stopped and was just now starting to rotate again, he let go. ‘Oh, I’ve been holding something. What was it? No, who was it? Oh yea. The woman I love. The one who dreamt I stabbed her.’ With that thought he tried to grab her back into a hug but she stood and stepped back. He blinked a few times before the face before him became recognizable as Gabrielle’s.

“Ares, I know. It’s okay. I know you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose.” This time she said it with less conviction but with better results. He actually looked like his mind started to work again. She sat down next to him and continued “You were trying to prove something but you weren’t trying to hurt me.” Slowly trying to put it all back together, she said, “Well, I know you were the God of War, but I wasn’t me. But I was me.” It seemed the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t remember about the dream. She stared off into the coming dawn and tried to remember it all. After a few minutes, she shook her head and looked at Ares again.

He hadn’t moved away from her, but just sat and watched her as she tried to pull the dream together. She had been wrong in thinking that his mind was working again. It still couldn’t wrap itself around what she said. “Gabrielle, I….” He wanted to tell her something but didn’t know what to say. After all what can you say the woman who holds your world in her hands when she has just dreamt your worst fear, that you killed her?

She stared at him for a moment and turned away. What could she say to the man who just stabbed her in her dream? Was that how it was going to turn out? ‘Would he really stab me?’ she thought. ‘Is that what that inscription on the marker meant? That the God of War was going to turn on me?’ If “Everything feels as it might be”, then they were in a lot of trouble because right now it felt like she had been stabbed! And by the man she loved.