The body hangs unearthly still, suspended in the air by the thick, coarse rope that stretches around the neck of the man. A wolf, far more massive than ought to be possible for a mere animal, lounges comfortably beneath. The rafters of the dilapidated shack should not have supported such a weight, nor should the small space of the rotting and rude hut been able to hold the mass of the animal, and yet the strange scene seems to accommodate both easily. The body, a man, long-black hair and the dark skin of a laborer who spent his days toiling in the sun, gaping wounds where already the ravens perched upon his shoulders had made a meal of his eyes, though no other signs of death does he show.
Long have I dreamt the same scene, this dream which seems to haunt me. Sealed upon my soul with a brand of fire, I cannot seem to escape the dreadful shadow cast by this hanged man. I still remember the first time it came to me: I awoke screaming, though there was nothing inherently frightening in the scene before me. It was like and unlike the faceless terrors of childhood, not the thing itself but the unrealized and incomprehensible horror behind it which inspired terror enough to illicit such screaming, sobbing hysterics.
As I grew older, the unease and horror did not fade as much as I became accustomed to them. I felt the imagery begin to take hold in the waking hours, driving me inexplicably to leave my people, depart from Itjivut, and make my way first to Laeto and then into the Highlands. Here, I have waited, and I have seen the meaning in the scene that nightly stretches before me. When I sleep, I dream of the dead man, and when I am awake, he dreams of me. I have felt him, heard his voice in the rear of my thoughts, like a serpent slithering through the autumn's dried and fallen leaves. I stretch forth my hand and feel him flow through through, exercising his will through me. I am his dream even as much as he is mine, not a separate entity, but a transposed thought.
With every passing day, the distinction between the dream world and the waking world, my dream and his dream, seems to be diminishing. Hanged within that horrid hall, I feel his will will wilt and wane. The vision will come less and less clearly, until it withers and vanishes into blackness, this I know as surely as if it has already come to pass, and his thoughts seem to echo this to me. What will my dreams be like, when he and his wolf at last vanish?
