Cold. Cold and dark. Of all the possible evenings, why did tonight have to be cold and dark? Softly Ash sighs, pulling the hood of his dark robe closer around his face. Cold, dark and wet, he mused grimly. From within the deep darkness he hears her light footfalls, crunching the early winter snow beneath her feet. “Ash?” she asks softly, voice quivering from the cold.

“Here I am, Nimera.” Stepping forward into the moonlight he threw back the dark cowl. “You came.” It was a statement, not a question. “Nimera…” Ash begins, suddenly feeling foolish, standing cloaked in black while the only thing the hedge witch wore was a thin shawl that hardly fit for covering a decaying corpse. Despite the obvious cold Nimera seemed oblivious to its bite.

“I barely recognize you, Ash.” Pointing a bone-like finger at him she steps closer, eyes squinting as if he was suddenly not the same young man that she had met years ago. Fidgeting within the folds of her frail rags she pulls out a huge wooden pipe, smoke already magically drifting from its open bowl. Taking a long, deep puff on the pipe, the witch stares up at him. “You found it, didn’t you?” frowning she exhales in a cloud of smoke. “No need to answer that. I can feel its dark taint all around you now, my boy.”

“Its taint?”

“Deep Dark! It is obvious, Ash. Almost like a shadow that is where one is not supposed to be.” Biting the wooden stem of her pipe, her thick eyebrows writhed like a snake. “Only this shadow has the power of unmaking. Why you are unable to sense that is anybody’s guess.”

“Surely you do not think that I will wield it without great care? I will only use it to destroy her. You know that Nimera. You know me.”

“Ash, my boy, I used to know you. Didn’t I once tell you how every path leading towards darkness starts? It starts with a quest to right the wrongs that have been done to you.” Hesitating, her pale brown eyes looked up at him. “Vengeance, my boy. Only, few paths lead towards acts of unmaking.”

Sighing under his breath Ash glared at the old witch. “Nimera, you never taught me about unmaking. How am I supposed to avoid it when I cannot even recognize it?”

The sudden shaking of her head disturbed the graceful dance of snowflakes spiralling downwards around them. “You do not understand Ash. I will not be the one to teach you about unmaking because I do not have the power or understanding of that.”

“But what I can do is tell you what my old teacher told me. Like all things in life, magic too follows a set of rules. There is the magic that most of us wield, called the power of making. The power of making adds elements of the mage into the world. His willpower and talent gives birth to his desires.” Pointing the stem of her wooden pipe at him she smiles. “Do you still remember how to conjure a ball of light?”

Despite himself, Ash smiled gently at the memory. It was something that took the young wizard months of hard practice to master. For days he was followed by a bright light, so bright that he was unable to find any sleep at all. During this time Nimera simply smiled at him and refused to dispel his light.

“I have to visualize what it is that I wish to achieve and then, following the correct elemental currents I can twist them and combine them, adding to that a spark of my willpower.”

Chuckling, Nimera grinned at him. “Of course, and there is the secret of making. You add something to the universe. You add a part of yourself to it. A spark, like you so eloquently put it.”

“Nimera, I understand the basic principles of magic, and I appreciate the fact that you want to remind me of this, but, what about unmaking? How can I control it?”

A look of concern flashed through her brown eyes as she took another deep puff on the pipe. “Ash, you seek to control the power of unmaking because you seek to wield it. Down that path lies only ruin, worse things than destruction – oblivion.”

“Nimera…” A single bone-like finger stopped him.

“Ash. When you make something, you add an essential spark of yourself into the universe. Almost like a flower giving off a particular fragrance. The flower does not become less by sharing its fragrance with the world. Isn’t it obvious then, that when you unmake something, you remove that essential spark?” Sighing softly Nimera waved her wooden pipe in the air before hiding it within the folds of her rags. “When a mage, a Dreamer like you, removes a part of their spirit from the universe, they don’t just unmake and remove something but they also lose an essential part of what makes them, well, them. Like a flower that has no fragrance. It becomes an empty and almost useless vessel.”

Folding her arms across her thin chest the old witch smiled sadly up at Ash. “Who do you think she is, Ash? How do you think she came to be what she is today? Ire only seeks oblivion. Not death. No, not even destruction for in every death, in every act of destruction, something, energy, that essential spark of life is transformed from one form into another.”

“Unmaking, oblivion, is different. It removes that spark forever. It robs and steals from the universe creating – nothing, absence, silence. Ire is a flower with no fragrance and she seeks to rob the universe of all colours and perfumes.”

Hanging his head, Ash nodded quietly. “I have to do this, Nimera. Nobody else but me can do this.”

“You do recognize that as a lie, don’t you, Ash? It is an excuse. Simply because you are the only Dreamer to have been born in the last one thousand years, it does not mean that you have to set out and rid the world of the likes of Ire.”

“Nimera, I am the only Dreamer. I alone am able to wield the powers of making as well as unmaking. Therein is my duty to do what is right and just. As a Dreamer I am charged with the responsibility protect the world.”

Growling Nimera glares up at him. “Impudent. Foolish young boy. You are not the only Dreamer in this age. There is another.”

Eyes wide, Ash shook his head. “It cannot be. Why have you never told me about this until now.”

“Oh, but I have Ash. You have known about her for a long time now, and it seems that you are intent on unmaking her.” Dark brown eyes narrowing, Nimera glares up at the young Dreamer before her. “Ire is also a Dreamer, Ash.”