A Warrior of Dreams (5 page)

He took another step down.

It happened again. The lurch, the shiver of the dream. Feran stopped. Like a deer drinking at a stream and suddenly aware that it's being watched, the dream just wanted to run away. Feran knew how to prevent that, but hesitated. The dream itself had set the terms. It was up to him to meet them or not.

Feran made his choice. He let go of the last bit of his separateness and truly joined the dream. He was on a long set of stone steps cut into a tall cliff, descending to a white sand beach. He didn't know where he was, or why. He was relieved to know that Aesyd was with him.

"Master, where are we going?"

Aesyd winked at him. "On an adventure, Lad."

From far below Feran heard the sound of the ocean.

*

Joslyn stood in a forest made of crystal. Sunlight peering through glass leaves and branches covered the mossy earth into a shower or rainbows. She laughed, clapped her hands in delight.

"It is lovely, Joslyn. But it's time to go now."

Tagramon stood beside her, looking around him with open appreciation. She suddenly knew who he was, and, more important,
where
he was.

I'm dreaming
...

And then she wasn't. All the crystal shattered, then grew misty and faded. Joslyn was on the verge of fading, too. She felt heavy, as if she should sink through the earth and it was the most natural thing in the world to do. But she couldn't. Something, someone was holding her back. Then the feeling of heaviness went away and she opened her eyes. She stood with Tagramon on the misty plain, his hand gripping her shoulder.

"I remember this place," she said aloud.

Tagramon nodded, looking pleased. "It's called the nightstage. This is where dreams happen, Joslyn. Like the one you just left."

Joslyn frowned, remembering. "What happened?"

The Dream Master sighed. "My fault, I'm afraid
—
you almost woke. Dreams demand absolute devotion, Joslyn. They're jealous things. I made you aware of yourself, when all you should have been aware of was the dream. It's possible to do both, but it's not easy." He shrugged. "You might learn how. Others have."

"Can't you teach me?"

He shook his head, smiling. "That's something you either learn or you don't. Now let's concentrate on a thing that
can
be taught."

Tagramon let got of her arm. For a moment Joslyn felt like a fledgling swimmer, suddenly released in open water. She had a brief sensation of sinking and instinctively closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was back in the crystal forest, with no knowledge of how long she'd been there, or even aware that she'd been gone.

"Lovely."

IT IS. BUT I KNOW A BETTER PLACE.

Joslyn recognized the Dream Master's voice, and didn't really think it strange that he should be there. But she couldn't see him. "Where are you?"

HIDE AND SEEK, JOSLYN. FIND ME.

Joslyn laughed and immediately got into the game. She peered behind glass trees, looked up into crystal branches. Nothing.

IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?

Joslyn was getting annoyed, now. "Come on out. I give up."

YOU CAN'T GIVE UP UNTIL THE GAME IS OVER.

Joslyn tried to judge where the voice was coming from. She wasn't hearing it, exactly; it was more like the words were just appearing in her mind, but she could still sense direction. She started after her best guess, no longer quite so aware of the crystal forest as she concentrated on her goal.

"Then I'm going to find you."

Joslyn knew that Tagramon was not in the crystal forest, and with that thought she came to the end of the wood, where no end had been in sight before. Joslyn kept walking.

WHERE AM I, JOSLYN?

"I... I don't know."

WHERE?

“I don’t know!”

WHERE?

Joslyn could sense his laughter, though she never heard it. "I do know, Dream Master." And she did, but didn't dare say the word.

The Dream Master repeated, demanding. WHERE?

"Outside!"

This time the dream didn't leave Joslyn; she left it. She stepped through what looked like a curtain of gauze, and, as before in the dream of the thieves' room, the place behind her vanished, as if she alone could reveal what was there, a light in a dark room that returned to invisible darkness when the candle was taken away. Joslyn stood before Tagramon on the nightstage. She felt a little unsteady yet, but she took a hint from what the Dream Master had said, and didn't lose her awareness of self. It was a little like a swimmer remembering to paddle now and again to stay afloat.

The Dream Master was smiling. "We weren't wrong in you, Joslyn. You're a Dreamer. With talent, possibly, to be among the best."

Joslyn was nearly flushed with triumph, but even then she couldn't help but dwell on the irony of the word.

I'm a Dreamer. Because I know how not to dream
.

She smiled then, too, and Tagramon never knew the real cause of it.

*

"Is this the end of the adventure?"

Feran stood with his old master on the shores of the Dark Sea. Aesyd shrugged. "Is it?"

Feran didn't answer. He looked at the inky waters reaching up onto the sand. "I know this place."

"Every apprentice knows this place," Aesyd said. "In theory. Not many ever see it, which is just as well."

“Is it? I think they should all see it. Here we are, at the deepest place known to a dreamer. What do we find?"

Aesyd shrugged. "At the core of everyone
—
a deep, dark sea waiting. Madness."

"And that's all there is?"

"Haven't we seen enough sign of it? Everyone, every little player on Somna's stage at heart a lunatic." Aesyd smiled. "Doesn't it explain a great deal?"

Feran smiled, too. "Yes. But not everything." Feran sensed danger, but did not try to smother the thought. After a moment the dream strengthened again.

"That felt like a warning," said Aesyd.

Feran smiled. "Which means I'm getting close."

Aesyd dismissed that. "It means some dreams are more pleasing to Somna than others."

"And her own dream, filled with players filled with madness, that pleases her enough to maintain it for all these ages?"

"Who are you to question Somna's will, Lad?"

Feran didn't answer just then. He turned away from the Dark Sea and moved further up the beach, past the high tide marks in the sand. "Do you think Somna never questions herself?"

"You're close to blasphemy." Aesyd followed close on his heels.

Feran smiled. "I'll be a lot closer before we're done, I'll wager. I've been thinking..."

"Somna preserve us."

Feran ignored that. "I'm serious, Master. Have you ever had a dream, even once, that you understood perfectly? That you knew exactly what it meant, the rationale and genesis of each and every thing that happened?"

The memory of Aesyd hesitated, then answered in one word. "No."

"Neither have I. And if Somna's dreaming us now even as we dream, then we are a part of her. Things of her imagining as we in turn imagine. Vast as she is, and wise, and brilliant, I don't think she understands everything about her dream any more than we do."

"Congratulations
—
you just crossed the border." Aesyd looked disgusted.

Feran shrugged. "Maybe. But what happens when a dream becomes old, and tired? When it's gone on too long? It ends, Master. Something's held Somna's interest all this time. Perhaps there are things she still wants to know. Perhaps I'm her tool for finding out."

"Perhaps you're a fool. Or do you really think you're the first Dreamer in the world to have these thoughts? You're not that clever."

Feran stood at the end of the beach, looking up at the wall of stone. And, strain his eyes though he did, he could not see the top of it. "No," he said, grinning. "But I might be the first to act on them. And I am that foolish... Didn't we come down this way?"

"We arrived. 'Down' is meaningless. 'Way' is meaningless. What is it you're looking for?"

"A door."

"It's a wall of stone. Why should there be a door?"

"Why should there be a wall?" Feran returned, mildly.

"To protect you from what's behind it."

"Which means there is something behind it," said Feran. "Something more than madness. I'd like to think Somna's been kinder to us than that."

"Feran, don't... I'm afraid."

Feran put his fingers against the stone, felt its cool, rough surface. "I know. Your memory, but my fear. But I do want to know..." He stopped.

"What is it?"

Feran drew back. "I don't know."

For a moment the surface of the stone had... changed. It was the only word he could think of that described what happened. It hadn't cracked, or shook as if in an earthquake, or broken as if worn too long by wind and water, or anything else that stone could reasonably be expected to do. It just went misty for an instant, not solid, not stone at all. Feran shook his head. It shouldn't have surprised him so much.

Isn't this a dream? Isn't it all just illusion
?

He knew the answer, and it wasn't comforting.
Not always. Sometimes it's a way to see something that is real but unseeable. We give it a shape, sometimes even a name—like the Dark Sea. But its reality is its own
.

"Feran, I'm going."

Feran nodded, not looking back to see the memory of Aesyd fading, doing in symbol what Feran wanted to do himself. The memory of his old master had serves its purprose. He felt an odd sense of excitement as he put his hand back on the stone. What had the goddess hidden here?

The stone remained stone, cold and unyielding. Feran forced himself to remember what had happened in that instant when the stone changed before, renewed the sensation of fluidity under his fingertips. After a moment the memory became real. Feran shuddered, but this time he didn't draw away and the section of the cliff wall in front of him began to dissolve, turning to mist like the nightstage far above.

Something moved.

Feran tried to see, couldn't, took a half step forward into the mist.
There's something here, something besides the Dark Sea. I have to know
...

He took a full step, and was enveloped in grayness. Another step and the fog began to clear.
Sweet Somna
...

Feran had only that one instant to consider the revelation before several dark, shadowy hands reached out from the mist and took hold of him. He struggled, the hands wavered like shadows in torchlight, but the grips did not waver. He turned, tried to see who had grabbed him. He could make out nothing but the dark shapes, human-like, but not human. There were more of them than were holding him now, and he realized through a haze of shock and fear what they were doing.

The shadow-fingers holding him were like ice, and he felt as if seeds of that iciness had been planted in his own skin, and were growing slowly to cover his entire body. His teeth chattered for a moment, then mercifully he began to go numb, and the entire world faded to shadow. As the darkness rose he had one last memory of Aesyd, walking away from him. He turned once and looked over he shoulder at Feran with great sadness.

"I told you this wasn't such a good idea."

Feran tried to laugh, couldn't. And in another moment the darkness was complete. When Feran came out of the darkness he was in the company of shadows. Man-form shadows, as if cast by unseen bodies. They wavered and danced into the erratic light around him, but the shadows were real enough; their grip on his arms were unbreakable. Feran had already given up any physical struggle as useless at best and painful and exhausting at worst. Once, and once only, he tried to imagine himself back in his own dream on the other side of the wall, but nothing happened. The nightsoul that was Feran was held like a dog in collar.

Can this be
?

It could. It was. Feran blinked as his eyes readjusted to the light.

The moved through a mist field like the nightstage, only the were-lights of human dreams were missing. Instead they moved through a valley flanked by mountains of flickering light, as if all the dreams of the world had grown to incredible heights of power and scope. Or he personally had dwindled to something not quite the size of an ant.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?

Feran tried to identify who was speaking, but there was no change in the shadows that held him.

"Show yourself!"

IF YOU INSIST.

There was something beside him. A shadow, but not like the others. This shadow did not waver or stretch or flicker in the uncertain light. This shadow was deep and dark and effortlessly kept pace with them stride for stride.

ANSWER ME.

"You first: Who are you?"

Feran did not see the thing smile, but he sensed it. It set his teeth on edge. MY QUESTION WAS FOR YOUR BENEFIT, NOT MINE. CHOOSE VERY CAREFULLY WHAT WOULD BE ANSWERED.

Feran looked around. "I'm beyond the nightstage, at a place of Greater Dreaming. I-I do not know who dreams here."

YOU DO. RATHER, YOU WILL.

Feran looked at the mountain-scaled dreams about them. "I cannot dream such as this."

NOT ALONE, NO. BUT YOU WILL HAVE HELP. WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU... OR RATHER, ONE LIKE YOU. WE THOUGHT WE MUST SEARCH, AND YET YOU HAVE COME TO US. IT WAS A SIGN. YOU ARE THE ONE.

"The one what?"

THE ONE WHO WILL BE A GOD.

Feran laughed. "Are you mad?"

AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE. NOT AT THE MOMENT. PITY...

"I am a man. That is all I am."

NO, YOU ARE NOT A MAN. YOU ARE HALF OF A MAN, A NIGHTSOUL, AS I AM. SPECIFICALLY, YOU ARE THE NIGHTSOUL OF AN ADEPT. AND FOR OUR PURPOSES THAT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.

"Whose purposes?"

THAT OF MALITUS, DREAMER. THE GOD OF ENDINGS. HE HAS NEED FOR SUCH AS YOU.

An Ender... Somna help me
.

UNLIKELY, replied the shadow, then smiled again. MERE MORTALS HAVE NO SECRETS HERE.

"Suppose I don't wish to be a god?"

WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE YOU HAVE A CHOICE? DO YOU NOT YET REALIZE WHERE YOU ARE?