Molithe

Molithe. The name both terrified and attracted her. Molithe. Slayer of a thousand dreams. Yet she had seen a glimpse of something else in those shadowed eyes, something more than death or dreams.

She was probably just lying to herself. After all, people tried to get close to Molithe all the time. She had seen one such person at the market just last week, babbling by turns of death and demons and angels and light. Nobody was quite sure what to do with these broken-minded wretches. Once a vengeance-crazed mother had found one wandering in an open field beside her house. The mere whisper of Molithe was enough to send her into a frenzy and she bashed his head in with her household god. She awoke the next morning to find her village in flames and her neighbors slaughtered. They fished her body out of the river a week later. After that, Molithe's cast-off lovers were treated with care, if not respect.

Yet still they came, once or twice a month, from every corner of the world. With Molithe's name on their lips and dreams in their eyes, they trudged straight up the temple steps. The great golden gates would swing open to receive them, and them alone. Some had mates or children trying to drag them back, yet still they strode forward.

Molithe. She shivered. What was it that brought men and women of every race to the Temple of Dreams? What could draw them so strongly? And why were they always found mindless, weeks or months or even years later?

Nobody knew what went on in the presence of Molithe. Those who went willingly, not drawn by dreams, found the gates closed to them. If they managed to climb the wall, they were found later missing both eyes and tongue.

Except her. She had seen Molithe. She had waylaid a dreamer and convinced him to smuggle her through the gates in his pack. She was small and he had been a large barbarian from the North. It had been easy to convince him, but then, dreamers would agree to anything so long as it didn't keep them from Molithe.

So far as she knew she was the first mortal to see Molithe and still retain all her sense. She wondered if she would start going slowly mad, or perhaps if this growing obsession with Molithe was how it started for dreamers. She almost thought it would be worth losing her mind to see Molithe just once more, this time without the hood and veils, face to face with the Keeper of Dreams.

So it was that she found herself striding up the long staircase to the great golden gates of the Temple of Dreams. The people gathered to watch her go by, muttering the same words of condolence and regret they always bestowed on a dreamer. "I'm not a dreamer!" she wanted to yell at them. "I just want to see Molithe!" But she held her peace. To her surprise and slight dismay, the gates swung open at her approach. She hesitated, then strode boldly through them before falling to her knees in front of Molithe. As her eyes met the eyes of the Keeper of Dreams, she felt a sense of peace. This was where she was meant to be. This is what she had been dreaming of all her life.