Shadows on Leathern

Wings

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Sensations, impulses, nothing, darkness. Slumber, dormancy. Stirring. Lamentation, dread,
hopelessness, shock. Nourishing, filling me up. Delicious despair, desperation, frustration.
Trembling, tears, self-pity.

My first moment of consciousness is an awareness of pleading, coming from my mortal host. It

takes some time to accustom myself to the creature's mewlings--I have to get into the habit of
thinking in words, not just images and sensations. I do not like it; it feels like a bad habit to
develop.

I'm only about when the fleshling becomes hot--when the sickness waxes in its vile organs, its
blood and bile. I only come with the fever; the rest of the time, I am not.

It continues to suffer, intermittently sleeping and waking to lie in its misery on the rough cave
floor. There are others nearby--I can sense them by their fears, their regrets, their uncertainty.
They are keeping their distance from this one, the one that I have claimed.

The cave grows light, then dark, then light again. Slowly I begin to adopt my host's conception
of night and day, and with it, the passage of time. It's a foreign concept to me; it feels wrong
somehow, like it does not quite fit with my nature. The fleshling continues to lie on the cave
floor, mewling, pleading, swelling with despair and self-pity every time it wakes. It takes me
three of its "days" to realize what it is pleading with.

Me. It's pleading with me. It's begging me for something. What? Why does it think I could do
anything for it, even if I wanted to? I'm only the fever dream that comes with the disease that is
killing him, only a symptom, a dream that has awoken to itself.

I think it is changing me, dreaming me into more than I was, imagining me to be a being, a
consciousness. My dreamer is dreaming me into a more complex form, something new.

"Please..." it mutters miserably. I wait patiently for it to sleep again, and then I do...something...I
move somewhere else, within its dreaming. It is having a dream of a cave, where a thick joint of
meat skewered on a mighty spear roasts over a roaring fire. This one has not eaten for more
than two "days"--it has been too sick; no wonder it dreams of food and comfort. I am a
nightmare, standing in another dream--I look upon the dream-image of my dreamer, and I feel
myself resolve into something like a shape, a shadow with two gleaming red eyes. I feel so
confined; such a strange new sensation...

"Please, I beg of you, please..." It takes me a moment to realize the dream-self is speaking to
me. Suddenly it is on its knees, pressing its palms together, begging me for...what?

I try to speak, try to dream of myself communicating with the dreamer's dream of itself. Finally, I
hear a dream-sound, and to my surprise, it seems to be coming from me, from the new

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shadowy form that this dreamer has clothed me in. "What is it that you want?" I hiss in the voice
of nightmares.

"Leave me be. Let me live. Spare me, just this once, spare me." It knows it is sick; it knows it is

dying, and will not last much longer. Suddenly I realize that we are both in precarious

positions--if the fleshling dies, surely its fever dream will fade away with its consciousness. Who

will I feed on? Where will I find the delicious despair I need for nourishment? In our own ways,

we are both on the brink of perishing. For the first time ever, I feel something like regret. It wants

to go on existing. So do I.

I writhe in my shadow-form, this way and that, as if I am searching the dream-cave for some
solution. The dreamer trembles; I must look fearsome indeed to its eyes. Then I have an epiphany of
sorts--a moment of inspiration. I think I see a way for myself to continue. Perhaps...

"I will spare you, but you must make a vow to me. You must make a pact with me."

"Anything--anything! Anything you want, anything you say!" the dream-self mutters, becoming
agitated.

"If you truly wish for this sickness to leave you, you must pass it on. When the sickness finds a
new host, I shall go with it."

The dreamer looks stunned. It does not want to do what it has sworn it would do for me, even
though I can see in its eyes that it knows it has no choice. "Who?" it finally asks, quietly.

"Your mate, your offspring, one of your elders--it does not matter who. When you wake, you will
choose another of your tribe, and you will embrace them. Take them into your arms, and I will
pass into them. They will become sick--but you will be spared. That is my offer."

"I cannot do this terrible thing..."

"Then you will die, and very soon. Think on it, and decide. If you wish to die in misery, all you
need do is nothing. If you wish to live...you must decide soon, you will not have much longer to
consider it." Suddenly everything was dark and still.

The next time I was aware again, I was feeding on the despair of a female, one of the old ones,
as she coughed and sweated on the cave floor, ravaged by fever. It had worked; I had found a
way to pass myself on--myself in the dreams, along with the sickness into the flesh. I knew I
could do it again and again, as long as mortals grew ill, and pleaded with their dreams to be
spared.

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For a moment I thought I could feel the familiar emotions of my old host nearby, watching on
from the shadows, awash in guilt, but also aglow with relief. He would live, but he would live with
the choice he had made.

As would I.

I wonder how long it has been since I first congealed from random, primitive fever-dreams into
the glorious Nightmare God that I am now. It was not long after I found my tongue, my shape,
that the Sapiens arose. Such imaginations--the nightmares of the youngest mortals made the
night-terrors of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons seem facile and insipid by comparison. Not
only fears of sickness, death, and hunger, but of betrayal, of thwarted avarice, of humiliation, of
judgment in the spirit worlds after death. Such delicacies! I feasted, and grew, and refined
myself. And my spawn--so many frantic, ravenous little nightmares, smaller versions of myself,
eager to emerge from my shadowy mass and infest the world of dreams whenever I gorged
myself too much and grew too massive and looming; an army of devoted get, eager to emulate
my cruel methods. They sing praises to me, call me their mother--the Mother of Fevers.

Even some of the wisest of the Sapiens shamans wake in terror from their dream-quests with
my name on their lips, such is the shadow I cast over the dreams of the mortal world.

And how the dream-realms themselves have changed and expanded! When I birthed myself,
the land of nightmares was only caves, one nightmare-cave linking to another as the dreams
accumulated over the years until a vast subterranean labyrinth of nightmares lurked below the
wholesome, sunlit meadows of brighter, sweeter dreams above. Since then, other dream-realms
have germinated and taken root--somewhere up above an infinite dream-sea stretches in every
direction, so I'm told, and my own fever-children have gnawed through the thinner walls of the
Caves of Night to find themselves in a vast, unwholesome twilight forest of enormous black
trees, squatting malevolently on vast, twisted roots, nourished on tears and blood and other,
more exotic ichors. Perhaps these new dream-realms suit the tempers of the other Elder Darks
and their own get who sometimes whisper to me in the night, but I prefer these ancient caves,
the reflections of the ancient shelter-places in the waking world where the sick are laid out to
recover or waste away, the dark holes in the earth where the fevers are born, and where my
favorite victims can always be found, helplessly awaiting my caresses.

I am old, and powerful, and I have unlocked many secrets of the nightmare realms; few of the
other Elder Darks save the Emerald Sleepers, the very first of us, might hope to rival my
feverish might. The Caves of Night host many nightmares, but there is no question who rules
over these black pits and yawning tunnels. There are none who may oppose me, none who may
raise a hand against me in my place of power.

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Tonight is a special night, for one of my eldest spawn has returned to my personal territory, to
pay me obeisance and tell me what he has seen and heard in the newborn outlying nightmare
realms. Few of my spawn have been burdened with names, but there are some who know this
one as the Seething, because his predations come with the brain fever and bring on a killing
wrath in his prey, a berserk frenzy that has been known to wipe out whole tribes of mortals in a
single night of orgiastic violence. In him I am well pleased; he has brought such exquisite
suffering and terror into the sunlit realms—

Something is wrong. The Seething approaches me, not cloaked in terror as he usually strides,
but stinking of it instead. What could make my own child feel fear? "Mother--" he croaks, and
then the chitinous shadows of his impenetrable hide split and burst, and silver cords, like wildly-
lashing sinews woven from moonlight, flail and quiver from the rapidly-dissipating mass that a
moment before was his dream-form. I no longer feel his thoughts...has he perished? What could
this mean?

Somehow, along the silver cords, other slide into the dream-space before me. They seem to be
bats, bats the size of mortal men. They breathe, and their hot breath reeks...they are creatures
of flesh and blood. Here, in the nightmare realms? Impossible--only spiritual forms may walk in
these dreams; how is it possible they have brought their coarse flesh along? I reach out to take
strength from their fear, but I find nothing to sink my teeth into, as if they have somehow shut off
their instinctual responses. I hesitate--how can any mortal creature look upon me without
dread?

The largest and eldest of them, his braided hair festooned with bone and flint trinkets, squats
and begins to clumsily scratch at the stone floor of my cave with his yellowed, curved claws.
"Hold it off until I have finished--no matter the cost," he grunts quietly to his younger
companions, as if there were any chance I might not hear every word uttered in my domains.
The bat-people gird themselves, ready to strike at me. How amusing.

A young male hisses and swipes at my shadowy form. I gaze into his eyes, only for an instant,
and find something in his memories to play with. Suddenly I am gone, and in my place stands a
wrinkled old hag with kind eyes, leaning on a crooked stick, reaching out a withered brown
hand, warped with arthritis. The bat-creature freezes, his resolve broken. "Muh...mama?" he
whispers. My hand reaches out, and quicker than lightning, elongates into a tendril of liquid
shadow, darker than the void between stars. The tapered tip shoots down his throat and out the
other end of him, impaling him with a terrible ripping pop, killing him instantly. The other bat-
people gasp. I rip my tendril free of the still-throbbing, gory mass, and resume my favored form,
looming over the interlopers, smiling down at them with a maw filled with hundreds of needle-
sharp teeth.

"Oh, was this your offspring, old one? A pity when a monster kills your child right in front of you,
isn't it?" I hiss mockingly. The young ones wail and gnash their teeth; the elder does not even
raise his eyes from his scratchings.

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They try to fight me. They really do. Their suicidal courage might be admirable if it weren't so
very pointless. All of them except for the elder leap upon me at once, desperate to overwhelm
me. Their claws and fangs pass harmlessly through my shadowy form as I bestow upon them
one gift after another--for this one, a killing fever that turns the lungs to jelly, for that one, a
glimpse of my favorite feedings that drives her to shrieking madness so mind-shattering that she
tears out her own throat just to make it stop. A few moments of explosive violence, and all of
them are dead, except for the elder. I flow viscously towards him, eagerly anticipating the
sensation of ripping his crude flesh to shreds, and restoring my domain to profound silence and
stillness. "You are the last, old one. Whatever your goal was in trespassing here, you have
failed."

"No," he says simply, without a trace of fear. Then he crosses his arms and is suddenly
enveloped in shadows almost as thick and dark as my own. Does this fool think he might hide
himself from me in shadows? Shadows? From me? But then the shadows dissolve, and the old
bat is gone--back to the world of the flesh, no doubt. What a strange evening--accosted by an
invasion of flying mice, who slaughtered one of my favorite spawn in the bargain. Ah, well--there
are other nightmares to nurture into worthy monsters. I absently attempt to brush away the
scratchings the old one left on the cave floor, and to my chagrin, find that they will not be
marred. I scrape, I slash, I lash out with corroding tendrils--but the little crescent-shaped sigils
will not allow themselves to be erased. They even begin to glow dimly red after a few moments,
marring the perfect darkness of my home.

This can only mean one thing--the old bat means to return. Somehow the magic of this sigil will
allow him to find his way back here. And he will be ready; if he had the power to find his way
here, and has the power to force his way back in, why wouldn't he have other powers I cannot
anticipate? Possibly even the power to wound me, maybe even...

My first impulse is to breed myself a force of minions, guardians to protect me from the old one
and his bat-folk, but I realize I do not have the time; he could return at any moment, perhaps
with new minions of his own. I flee, deeper down into the Caves of Nightmare, down into the
oldest tunnels and pits. I find myself in the lowest and darkest of the nightmare caves, the place
where I birthed myself so long ago--the cold ashes of the fire-pit are still here, as are the
splinters of the spear on which the dream-meat roasted. I find the flint spear-head, still
reassuringly sharp and solid, and squeeze it in my hand until the edges cut into my shadowy
flesh. I cannot hide from him--not even I can hide from bats in a cave, nor from night-creatures
in the darkness. I cannot flee--for where would I go? It will be here, then. I crouch in the
ineffable darkness, gripping the ancient spear-head, and wait.

I do not know how much time passes. I do not sleep, nor do I relax; I never even take my eyes
from the cave entrance. I wait, and eventually, the old bat returns to face me again. He looks
older--greyer, more tired. His visible mortality stokes my courage, quickens my killing instinct.
"Took you long enough, old one. Did you have trouble finding me again?" I hiss derisively.

"Not at all. I did not wish to return until I could bring a gift worthy of my hostess."

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"Indeed--" I mutter as I pounce, lashing him with my shadowy tendrils, biting into his flesh with
my mouthful of needles. But his hide is toughened against the nightmare-substance of my form,
as I thought it might be. He slashes at me with his own claws, which pulse with a scarlet
glimmer, the only light in all the Caves of Nightmare. Somehow, he manages to cut into my
viscous dream-flesh. I swat his hand away and plunge the spear-head into his belly, opening up
his guts. I peer into his eyes as he spasms and gushes blood and offal from the wound,
expecting to see shock and sheer terror, but I am disappointed to find only stoic resolve. "I have
killed you, bat," I whisper.

"I was counting on that..." he grimaces, and makes a sign with his hand. He dies, but just at the
moment his spirit flees, his blood begins to glow. No! It is bright, too bright, blinding! I am
covered in it, and it burns! Never - such agony - no -

I was summoned to pay obeisance to the Mother of Fevers some time before, but when I
arrived I could find no trace of her in her audience chamber. Instead, I found the moldering
corpses of a number of furred mortal flesh-creatures, and the suppurating residue of the
Seething, my eldest brother. The younger nightmares capering at my feet grew still, and looked
up at me with baleful eyes. "What does it mean, Bloodgout?" chittered an execrable little tumor
of a night-goblin.

"Trespassers, Greedyglut. I think they must have come here through the Seething, and turned
him inside-out in the process." Greedyglut looked up at me thoughtfully, which was of course a
lie--that little pustule has never had a thought of its own since the Mother of Fevers exuded it.
The only other thing of note in the cave was a fresh smudge of ash in the center of the floor, as
if something very hot had burned itself out.

"Where is the Mother? Where is the Mother?" the others began to chant discordantly. I had
some idea; if invaders had gotten the best of the Mother, as impossible as that might seem, she
would have retreated to a stronger position.

"Let us search the oldest of the caves," I said, trying to sound confident. If the Mother of Fevers
had been attacked, that is where she would have gone to make a stand. She might be injured,
weak; she might need to replenish her strength. She might be hungry...

I made sure to keep the lesser nightmares in front of me as I descended, herding them along as
we climbed down.

In the oldest and lowest of the caves we found what was left of the Mother of Fevers--shreds of
shadow and needle-like teeth mostly, covered in thick lambent gore. One of the night-goblins

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touched the glowing mess before I could stop him, and was instantly vaporized with a deafening
hiss. The others, all in unison, let out a wail, a ululation of grief for the destruction of the Mother
of Fevers, their progenitor.

"What do we do now?" Greedyglut whimpered. Something caught my eye--a little black sphere,
like an egg or a pearl, glittering in the glow of the poisoned blood that soaked the cavern. I
snatched it up, and held it in my palm; I could feel it throbbing.

It was her. Or what was left of her. I knew what the Mother wanted me to do--to swallow the
seed, so that she might be reborn from my own nightmare flesh. She would feed on me, and
grow strong, and one night, she would emerge from within me. It had to be done--the will of the
Mother could not be denied. But I thought of the remains of the Seething, and of how he must
have suffered as he burst from the inside, and I hesitated. Perhaps...

"I am the eldest remaining of the Mother's get, so I am in charge. At least until she returns, if
she does." Suddenly I grabbed Greedyglut by its ears and shoved the black seed down its
throat.

"What was that for?" the night-goblin stammered, coughing and spitting.

"To make you grow strong, Greedyglut. You are to be my minion, favored above all others," I
lied. It smiled, seemingly pleased with itself.

"Do you think Mother will come back?"

"I think it inevitable, given time."

"That's good. I feel hot inside."

"Do you now? Well, that's for the best." Greedyglut scampered back the way we had come,
hapless and stupid as ever.

Soon, Mother. Soon.

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This is only the first

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