I laid in bed, barely able to move for what seemed like days.  Mara Kar fed me and nursed me back to health.  I slipped in and out of consciousness, and always with the darkness came dreams of the world I had seen in the cloud-koma.  

I wake up after a nightmare flashback to find the daylight streaming through the glas and onto my chest.  It must be early morning.  I hear the curtain that encloses the bedroom of my home swish as Mara Kar enters.

"Good, you are awake, Malig-Jon," she says as she moves to sit beside my bed.  "Sufar-Jon is here to see you.  He wants to hear of your koma-dream."

My father?  I would not have thought my dream was so important.  It had nothing to do with crops, or game, or medicine.  These are the things that the tribe usually seeks from the sikanda root. 

Sufar-Jon does not kneel as he enters the room.  He towers over my bed, and makes a hand gesture for Mara Kar to leave.  When she has passed through the curtain, he pulls the chair from my desk, and sits beside me.

"Malig-Jon, it is nice to see you are in such good health.  Mara Kar has related your dreams and visions to me, but I wish to hear for myself."

I go over the experience with my father.  I talk about the land of the gods, that pristine, clean metal world with the blue sky.  I tell him of being in the body of one of our ancestors as he trekked with the tribe around the coastline of a blackened lake.  We talk about the future that I saw.  A future filled with war and terror, but with good as well. 

Sufar-Jon feels that the land of the gods I have seen is actually a past, long forgotten.  He speaks of records from other shamans that have been kept secret except to a chosen few.

"Son, if you would undertake the sikanda root ritual again, we might be able to collaborate what you see with the records of others.  We might uncover the truth, and how to restore it."

"Sufar-Jon, I am willing, but how could it ever be restored.  For our future I only saw war and destruction.  I could only sense that an underlying healing would come from it.  Do you really think our skies were ever blue?"

"Yes I do," Sufar-Jon was quick to answer.  "We've had other visions that atest to such.  I will send messengers to the Hunter-Shaman amongst the other tribes.  They will send detailed accounts, or come to speak with you if possible.  It will be several weeks before you are ready for the Dreaming Drink again.  I wish for you to have as much information as possible before then."

"Thank you, Father.  For the good of the Tribe."

"For the good of the Tribe," he answered, as is customary.  He stood and left the room.

Soon, Mara Kar was back at my side, asking about our future.  The weight of what I had seen, and what I would see was heavy on my shoulders.  I spared Mara Kar the signs of trouble I had seen for our tribe, and focused on our future together.

"Will we only have the one child, Malig-Jon?  Will we be happy?"

"Yes, Mara, we will be very happy, and so will our daughter."  I may have lied to my betrothed, but even I could not be certain as to what my koma-dream had meant.