29

Tashala, the pig warrior, feeds the campfire with dry branches. The flame thanks him by driving away the horrors that swarm at night and fear the light. The place where he takes refuge is proof of the voracity of the wilderness. What was once a whale is now a colossal ivory-arched thoracic chamber. Curling up in her cloak, her back resting on a rib, Tashala closes her eyes and decides to follow the example of the ostrich sitting next to her, and sleep for a while. She needs rest, the last few days she was trying to find any trace of the princess, without much success.

He dreams of a place where the mist rises like a wall less than ten paces away, and among that ethereal mist he glimpses a slender silhouette, with a point of light on its neck. Tashala, drawn like a moth, penetrates the mist and comes to a hill with the greenest grass he has ever seen. A silent woman, standing ten paces ahead, has her back to him. She has shoulders the color of copper, and black hair tied in a ponytail that reaches her waist. The princess! He thinks excitedly, but the fabrics covering her are black, she is a little taller, and the princess usually wears her hair down.

"Mother consort Nadjela..." Tashala says between surprise and respect.

Nadjela at first begged the leader to change his ways, and stood by her husband for the sake of tribal unity. But as the years went by she began to doubt her hopes more and more as she saw that Neddin continued to oppress, and to limit his people in the name of tradition and of guarding against outside threats. Nadjela accused him of tyranny, of cruelty, until Neddin had had enough. Since the exile Tashala had no news of her. Is she there now, in his dreams?

Tashala moves forward with the intention of speaking, and apologizing to her for looking the other way when she needed him most. She touches the woman's shoulder, that seemingly warm skin turns out to be stone cold. Nadjela turns and Tashala pales in horror. The gaze that faces him comes from a white skull with absent eyes.

Nadjela grabs Tashala by the scruff of the neck with enough force to take his breath away, and with his other hand he points to a point of light in the distance, the same one that led him up the hill and that a while ago was displayed on the neck of the mother consort. Beyond the mist, almost lost in the distance, Tashala sees Princess Nadjela accompanied by a man with a strong body, red eyes, and abundant blue hair. They both smile at each other, but soon a heavy seriousness wipes the comfort from their faces, and they look down to discover blood flowing from an open wound in the young woman's side.

Tashala sits up screaming and drenched in cold sweat. He wakes up the ostrich, who watches him restlessly. The warrior brings his hand to his neck, where the marks of spectral fingers remain for several seconds. The nearby fire still crackles. He observes the surroundings, hoping for more visions, but the darkness is quiet and solitary... That relaxes him, although the idea of a nap was nipped in the bud.

"I've got to keep moving..." He says and stands up.

He had no clues as to Nadjela's whereabouts, but he understands that the mother consort wants him to find her daughter in a hurry. What if he fails? Tashala shakes her head. It is one thing to deal with Neddin, and quite another to deal with the dead. If anything became clear to the pig warrior, it is that the hand and desires of Nadjela's mother come from a different realm, just like the necklace that guards the light.