Shadows & Sorcery #12
Welcome to issues twelve of Shadows & Sorcery! This is a paid subscriber post. Below you will find stories of strange mountains, primal rites, and places none should ever set foot…
Today’s stories are:
Mountains of Dream
Huntsman’s Shrine
Night’s Deep
Hunters of the Dead
Sinner’s Altar
Mountains of Dream
The world over is dotted with places of curious import. Some are vast, some are a mere patch of land. Amongst those of world-spanning fame, a range of mountains far to the east is the least spoken-of, but one to which great numbers of people disappear every year.
They have some effect on the dreams of those who live there. What it is, none can really say, no clear answer can be given. But rumours abound, so there must be aught at the base of it all. Some say the mountains let dreamers see clearly, into the future, or perhaps into some other world. Others have said the mountains are a dream themselves, of some lost god, or maybe of all the people who now dream there.
The mountains have no road or path through them. There are no resources to speak of to take advantage of, and no land of note lies on either side, but the villages and towns around and about them cater to the pilgrims who pass through seeking to build a dwelling on the slopes. It is, at the very least, a consistent business.
To see the mountains of dream for oneself give credence to the rumours, in some form. The clouds are light and pinkish, there is a soft haze about the whole of the range, deep or high, the land is sparse but not bleak, with tough little shrubs and grasses, low trees, long stretches of relatively flat or gently sloping land that makes traversal lonely but easy.
Then of course there are the dwellings themselves. A curious sight it is to see those singular huts with their warm fire-glow windows and wisps of grey smoke, sitting alone in the midst of an incalculable vastness. Sometimes one comes across a few small clusters of single-room huts, huddled by some small cliff or clump of trees. Mostly these are empty, but the traveller in these vastlands might be lucky to be taken in by those dwellers if a commune still exists.
It must be assumed that most folk who end up in the mountains don't survive. There are enough graveyards to testify to that. And yet, there's no telling how old some of these huts might be. How old their occupants might be, and what they've seen in their dreams. Sages of centuries past relied heavily upon the veiled wisdom of dreams. Perhaps they were onto something.
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