Oberon's Dreams (30 page)

The druid twisted her hands together, anxious, and Corin understood her frustration. Everything hung in the balance, and there was nothing she could do to tip it. Talking hardly satisfied.

Oberon seemed at last to sense her angst. He caught his breath and nodded. “That is for me,” he said. “I only have to move the city, but you will have to deal with the aftermath. Go. Find Maurelle and see how you can help prepare the people.”

Delaen swept a graceful curtsy. “Yes, Your Majesty.” She went two paces, then turned back. “Fortune favor, and statistics all be damned.”

It had a ritual sound to it, and Oberon grinned in answer. “And you as well. Evermore and evermore and evermore, amen.”

The king and Corin watched her go. Neither spoke until she’d left the landing, and then Corin realized that he was left alone in that vast chamber with the king.

The world was ending, but for just a moment, there was nothing more important than a conversation. The maker-king himself had said so. But for all the maddening things he’d seen, with Delaen’s parting words still hanging in the air, Corin could only think of one question. He turned toward the king. “What are proofs and postulates?”

Oberon smiled. “Filthy words.”

“And…scientist?”

Oberon gasped. “Who in all Hurope would speak that name?”

“Kellen. He said it to Ephitel.”

“Ah. If ever any black soul deserved such slander, it is Ephitel.” Oberon thought for a moment. “No. It is fitting. A scientist is one who would trade all the magic, all the majesty of this world for a little bit of power. It can be done with ways of thinking, or by remembering forbidden lore, or through certain artifice…”

“Guns,” Corin said. “And cannons. Ogden said you feared the dwarves.”

“Not the dwarves themselves,” Oberon said. “No more than I would fear my precious druids, though they carry living science in their strange little hearts. No, I fear what other men would do with their secrets.”

Corin nodded, very nearly understanding. “Tell me the story, then. What is yesterworld?”

Oberon heaved a weary sigh. “It is math and science. Schools and jobs. Reason unrestrained, taming all the fascinating mystery into one broad and pale monotony, as far as the eye can see. Politics and forms. Taxes. Statistical significance.” He sniffed and dabbed fresh tears from his eyes. “I watched a world of wild fancy reduced to tedium by the postulates and proofs, and then I dreamed a dream. I dared to make a new world untarnished by such things. I formed Hurope and welcomed certain of my brothers and cousins to enjoy the taste of
magic
once again. I even brought some selected few from among the mortals of that world—”

“Your druids.”

“Even so. Because…no matter how I hated reason, a world must have
some
to work at all. I chose representatives as devoted to the dream as I, and they brought with them just enough of rationality to keep the sunrise running smoothly.”

“I thought…” Corin started, but he trailed off, considering his words. He nodded. “I thought perhaps you were drifting, there. Perhaps you were telling tales to avoid thinking of the matter at hand.”

“No.”

Corin shook his head. “No. I think Ephitel is threatening your dream, in a very real way.”

“Just so. For the sake of power, he will undo the world he wants to rule.”

“I have seen the world that he rules,” Corin said. “It is not as bad as you predict.”

“Are there schools?”

“Aye, in the larger cities. Rikkeborh has a famed university, but it is lovely. It is useful. Ephitel’s true villainy lies in his abuse of honest men.”

Oberon waved that away. “Honest men will always be abused. It is their nature. In a fairy world or yesterworld, honest men will suffer. But we could have a world with
mystery
—”

“There is magic in my world,” Corin said. “There is mystery enough to drive a storm.”

“Heroes?” Oberon asked. “True heroes?”

Corin hesitated. “There are stories.”

“Old or new?”

Corin shrugged. “We know Aeraculanon. Tcilleas and the Hivernan War. Disis. The heathen Alleshim and his companion. And…well, there are those who know of Avery of Jesalich.”

“So. Age after age has passed, and these are the names you know? Avery who made his name on this very day. Aeraculanon who is ten years dead. Tcilleas lived to see the fall of Old Maedred, and Disis might still be enjoying himself on his little island kingdom. I remember Alleshim, and a hundred other heroes you’ve forgotten. But you cannot name me one I haven’t met. What does that suggest to you?”

“That there is greatness in your land—”

“No. It tells you greatness
died
at some age long past. It began to die when Ephitel attacked the city. In my time—in this time—there were heroes ever rising, falling, but in your time they are just a memory.”

“And you blame Ephitel?”

“I blame order. I blame reason. I blame schools and science. The traitor Ephitel will open those floodgates just to fill his cup, and everything I’ve made will wash away.”

“Does it have to be so grim as that?”

Oberon sighed. “I had a dream. But now this world, like every world, awakes to sad reality.”

“Because of Ephitel! We can stop Ephitel.”

“I wish that were enough.”

“That
is
enough. If the thing you fear is guns, we can take away his guns. If the thing you fear is challenge, we can answer his challenge. Swiftly and absolutely. Even if some of your soldiers die, is it not worth that sacrifice to save a world?”

“Would you sacrifice the members of your crew to save your ship?”

“Aye. I
have
. I could name you half a dozen worthy men who gave their lives to the roaring waves. That is the nature of the game we play.”

“And nothing in that answer surprises me. But would you sacrifice Iryana for the sake of your ship?”

Corin hesitated, jaw hanging open. “I…”

“That is what you’re suggesting. I would fight my brothers to save this land. I would lead soldiers into battle for a greater good. But how many of my children, how many of my loyal subjects can I risk just to protect my dream?”

“Stop calling it a dream!” Corin said. “Even if that’s where it began—”

“It is a dream.”

“It is my world,” Corin said. “This is reality to me. I have never known a yesterworld. This—” He waved around him. “This is my real life.”

“Not
this
,” Oberon said. “Surely you don’t mean your time here in Gesoelig.”

“I do. I mean my other life, too—the fate of Iryana and my crew burns bright and real inside my heart—but since I’ve come here, I have met real people. I have come to know Maurelle and Kellen, Avery and Ephitel. All of this is real, and I would fight for it!”

Oberon smiled despite his tears. “You soothe my aching spirit, Corin Hugh. But it serves you not to think of this as real. As I said before, this time is neither past nor future. It is a dream within a dream.”

“What does that mean?”

“It isn’t real. It’s even less real than the life you left behind. It is just a sliver of my memory, trapped in time and saved to share with you—”

“With me? A pirate out of Aepoli? I scarce believe it.”

Oberon hesitated. Corin watched while the king considered sticking to the flattering lie, but Oberon shrugged and answered, “No. Not so specifically. It was preserved for anyone who might come later. This, just as the Isle of Mists, has long been part of my plan.”

“So you remember what comes next? You remember how these things will go?”

“Not…entirely. There already have been changes. Your presence shifts the narrative, and every little act has ripples.”

“Ripples?”

“Who will die and who will live. You’ve saved a normal city’s worth of souls by discovering Ephitel’s plans for the piazza. You’ve changed the fates of all my regiments who might have been rescuing the fallen in the hours to come. I cannot predict how much will shift from that—”

“But I have changed the future? Or…the past? I have changed how the story goes? If I can save a hundred thousand lives, then I can finish one.”

“Do not spend your energy on that. Killing Ephitel would gain you nothing.”

“Why are you so determined to give up? Killing Ephitel would save the world.”

Oberon shook his head. “That would do no good.”

“It would make him dead.”

“Please, Corin, that is not how this story goes. There are more profitable ways to spend our time.”

“More profitable than saving your kingdom?”

“From
this
threat, in
this
dream, yes.”

“How? How can that possibly be true?”

“Because it’s all become too much. When the world was yet young, I had no trouble keeping it alive. But the years weigh heavy on me now. Even without Ephitel, I would be weak. Even without the threat of gunpowder and blood, my time would be limited.”

Corin shrugged. “We all grow old. That is no reason to despair. You may find a better successor than Ephitel. Delaen or Aemilia. Or…oh.” He swallowed hard. “Is that why you’ve chosen me? Is that why you brought me here?”

“A pirate out of Aepoli?” He chuckled. “I could do worse. But no. There is no succession for me. For who but I could dream my dreams? When I die, the dream dies with me.”

Corin gaped. “The…the dream? The
world
?”

“The world and everything in it.”

Corin forced a smile. “Then I suppose we should be glad this is a memory. We should be glad to know that you survived—”

“I didn’t.”

Corin shook his head. “You did. You must have.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know, last time, but I remember now. It took everything I had to move the city.”

“Then don’t—”

“I have no choice. This is my memory, and I remember how it happened. Those who survived the fire slipped off to the Isle of Mists, but I was trapped within the city. I never left this throne again. I died with Gesoelig beneath the mountain.”

Corin groaned.

“Please,” the king said softly. “We come at last to the point of everything. Give me ten minutes more, and all will be made clear.”

“All?”

“As much as I can grant.”

Corin sighed. “Very well. Go on.”

Oberon nodded. “As I said before, all Hurope is my dream, and if I die—”

“The dream ends.”

“Indeed. And in the end, in the days after
this
day, even as my spirit faded, I saw that more than I feared the nothing, I grieved the billion pretty little lives that I had created. I ached to know that everything I’d made would be undone—”

“Then let me ease your heart. It was not. The world without you is no paradise, but it is not undone.”

“That is the story I brought you here to tell. You see, as I lingered, waning, in Gesoelig’s magnificent tomb—”

“It
was
magnificent.”

He smiled. “Thank you. Before I slipped away completely, I devised a plan to keep the dream alive. There was one, among all my subjects, who would not leave me for the Isle of Mists. I demanded it of her, for her own sake. I begged it of her. But she would not leave my side.”

“Delaen?”

Tears shone in the king’s eyes. “A well-thought guess, but no. My druids’ craft in trade is logic, and though it broke her heart, sweet Delaen saw reason and went off with the others to keep the kingdom of my refugees in order.”

“Then who?”

“Maurelle. The loveliest of Violets. She blossomed while Gesoelig burned and coordinated our response, but when the survivors left to found New Soelig, she stayed with me. And when my memory began to fade, when I felt my fire burning out, she spent a thousand years in darkness, in silence, imprisoned on a wild, foolish errand to preserve the dream.”

Corin swallowed hard and told a lie. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“She wrote it down. She caught my dream and pinned it to a page. She wrote down the fifteen million lives that made Gesoelig. She captured everything I could recall of these last days.”

Corin said, “The books.” And in his heart, he thought,
Please, fortune, no
.

But Oberon nodded. “The books. They are my legacy. They are my memory writ down, the dream preserved.”

For a while, Corin marveled at the immensity of it. Then he frowned. “But…where’d she find the paper? Or is that the wrong sort of question?”

Oberon laughed. “It is. You have an unromantic soul. But there was paper in the city. You have seen Aemilia’s shop. Even Gesoelig had its documents and forms. She used those at first.”

“At first?”

“She filled them up—every empty page within the cave, though it did not tell half the memory. Still, I begged her once again to leave, to take her memory and return to the world of living men. She would not leave me. She devised instead a way to scrape the pages of old books, erasing what was there to record my dream.”