The Wayward Godking

by Brendan Carroll

“Tell me more…” Simon lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Simeon and Reuben sat across the desk from him in the quarters he shared with Lydia. His wife sat in a rocking chair near the open door, taking in the afternoon breeze, sipping a cup of hot tea. Mark Andrew sat in the corner of a black leather sofa with Lucio Dambretti sprawled beside him, head thrown back eyes closed making it hard to tell if the Italian was awake or sleeping. Simon had been drilling his two eldest sons for over an hour, making them tell him everything about ‘this dream walking thing’ as the Healer called it.

  Reuben sighed and then smiled at the top of his father’s head as if he were looking down at a stubborn child.

  “Let’s see,” he mused and then winked at Simeon. “Dream walking is something one can do if one can sort of leave the interior fantasies created in the mind during sleep and go out beyond them into other dreams.”

  “Other dreams.” Simon looked up at him, repeated the words and the smile was gone in an instant. It would never do for ‘Poppi’ to see his son smiling at him in such a manner. Reuben would have been rebuffed soundly. His father might have been ancient, but he was not doddering… not yet. “You can actually get into other dreams… other people’s dreams, correct?”

  “Exactly.” Simeon nodded. They had already been over the topic two or three times.

  “If you go walking in other people’s dreams, do they know you are there?” A new question. Eventually, Simon would cover every minute detail.

  “Yes, they would see you,” Reuben answered.

  “Would they be happy to see you?”

  “It would depend on who they were… what your relationship to them might be. For instance, if I suddenly entered one of your dreams, say one you might prefer to have without prying eyes, you would most likely be surprised and unhappy to see me. If I discerned I was not welcome, I should leave immediately.”

  “Should leave, but would you?” Simon narrowed his eyes. He was trying to remember if he’d ever encountered either of his sons in his dreams and could not actually remember ever having dreamed of either of them at all.

  “Now, Poppi…” Simeon’s face reddened. “Reuben and I would never go into anyone’s dreams if we had not already arranged such a meeting. Normally, dream walkers do not enter into specific person’s dreams, but rather go exploring. The purpose of dream walking is similar to astral projection. You travel by means of dreams, yours or someone else’s to wherever it is you wish to go. You don’t have to be inside their dreams, but rather, you may say, you are simply passing through, using their dreams as stepping stones. In order to accomplish this, however, it is advisable to be an adept at weaving.”

  “Weaving?” Simon perked up.

  “Yes, dream-weaving,” Reuben took up the narrative. “Making your own dreams. Controlling the content of your dreams as if you were scripting them or writing them consciously, though you are actually asleep.”

  “Is that possible?” Simon addressed the question to Mark Andrew, startling him. He had been cleaning his fingernails with his dagger absently.

  “What?” The Knight of Death frowned and grimaced. He had jammed the point of the knife under his nail.

  “Dream weaving? Is that possible?”

  “Of course.” Mark nodded. “It’s a rather simple exercise.”

  “You do it?”

  “Not often, no.”

  “But you have done it?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “What for? What purpose does it serve?”

  Mark’s mouth fell open slightly, and Lucio raised his head to look at him quizzically. The Italian’s expression was full of mischief.

  “I don’t understand the question,” Mark said evenly.

  “Yes, you do.” Lucio smiled at him devilishly. “He wants to know why you would control your dreams, and perhaps, he would ask what you dreamed in your controlled dreams.”

  “Oh, does he now?” Mark eyed the Italian darkly. “You practice lucid dreaming, do you not? And I believe you also practice this dream walking as the Shamans call it, even though you denied it.”

  “I might.” Lucio’s expression changed. “How do you know?”

  “I believe I have seen you in one or two of my own dreams,” Mark answered and smiled at him. “Surely you haven’t forgotten. There are others among the Council, past and present, who have been quite adept at the practice. Some would even use the method to attempt suicide. Have you forgotten? Entering the fantasies of another can be very dangerous. There are creatures that live only in dreams. It is their world and they like nothing better than to entertain guests from time to time. You might ask my brother, Luke, about the nature of dreams. You might even ask Sister Meredith about the power of dream weaving and the dangers of snooping about where angels fear to tread. Even the deepest, darkest dreams can reveal answers, if you ask the right question. Some believe this is how some people go on holiday, but you have to be careful what you wish for, else you might become someone else’s nightmare.”

  “Brothers, please! My wife… you will frighten her.” Simon nodded toward Lydia, who was pretending to ignore them. Simon was always attempting to protect his wife, who actually needed very little protection.

  “Excuse me,” Mark said before turning a dark look on the Healer, “but I believe Mrs. d’Ornan might even be able to shed some light on dreams.”

  At that, Lydia locked eyes with her husband and nodded slowly.

  “We will forego that, Brother.” Simon drew a deep breath and looked pointedly at Lucio. “Sir Dambretti, if you have something to add, please let us hear, but keep a civil tongue, I pray thee, if for no other reason than to indulge an old man’s wishes. I would rather keep my own fantasies to myself, if possible.”

  “As you wish, Brother.” Lucio nodded curtly to him and then sat down, but his smile and the glimmer was gone from his dark eyes.

  “So tell me, Brother Ramsay, what dangers might we encounter if we agree to go on with this… project,” Simon continued his line of questioning and both his sons were relieved that their Poppi had zeroed in on someone else, giving them a rest.

  “I use the practice to learn things,” Mark acquiesced. “I do not use it lightly, nor do I go traipsing about in everyone’s nightmares. But it is possible to connect with others if they are in the dream fields and willing to allow the connection. As far as physically transporting myself from one place to another through the fields, I have not done such a thing though, on reflection, I would have to assume it is entirely possible and may be quite common for some.”

  He frowned slightly as he remembered the strange fall he and Andrea had taken into Sabaoth’s mind. It was entirely possible the place had been the same sort of dimensional plane as a dream field. He’d not given it any thought until now. Surely Luke Matthew and Paddy Puffingtowne had been physically inside the dream field of the Red Dragon and its seven heads. “But I will agree with Simeon’s summation. One should be an adept dream weaver before attempting to dream walk”

  “Everything that takes place in the realm of dreams is illusion on the material plane in which we spend our waking hours, but since the experiences are indelibly imprinted on our minds as memories as real as any other memories, we cannot help but be affected by what occurs in our dreams. You have all experienced these feelings. A pleasant dream leaves you with a sense of well-being upon awakening, but a nightmare can leave you upset, in the least, and even physically ill. If a nightmare has the ability to effect physiological changes in our bodies, then we must be prepared to deal with emergencies in the dream fields as surely as we deal with them on the battlefields.”

  “Of course, with meditation and practice, one can stay conscious during their own dreams,” Simeon said. “It is something to be attained with an awaking consciousness on all levels if one wishes to live an upright life and protect himself from black magicians, who would use dreams to work harmful magick against the sleeping dead.”

  “Sleeping dead?” Simon asked.

  “Yes,
” Reuben answered. “If you do not remain conscious in your dreams, you fall prey to all sorts of elementals and demons who would play you most viciously, and you might never know it. To expiate karma, we must maintain our consciousness at all costs. We would not want to go to hell for things we do in our dreams.”

  “I thought you said we weren’t culpable for what happens in our dreams, Brother,” Lucio said and frowned at Simon.

  “I merely teach what is right for the moment,” Simon said. “Milk for the masses. You weren’t quite ready for the entire truth, if I remember correctly.”

  “Then you already know all of this?” Mark Andrew asked. “What is the point of this discussion?”

  “I want to know if my sons are knowledgeable enough to do this thing without endangering themselves and others. I, myself, have not done much along the lines of the meditation in the Eastern Style. I’ve had my hands full with studying Kabala. But be that as it may, all these things are not secret to me. I am merely looking out for everyone’s best interests. So now, let me see.” Simon nodded thoughtfully as if digesting the information and looked down at his notes. “Dream fields…” he repeated Mark’s words slowly. “If this practice allows us to travel… astrally… then we may go wherever we please. I know what astral travel is, and I happen to know it is exactly what happened when Omar, Lemarik, Luke Andrew and Jasmine went to the underworld and left their bodies behind. We do not want to do that. If we leave our bodies here, unprotected, anything could happen to us. Look what happened to Omar’s body.”

  “I said it is similar to astral projection. I did not say it is astral projection,” Simeon spoke up. “We would not leave our bodies behind.”

  “Then you intend to physically walk?” Mark sat up straighter. He had called others to his own dreams, particularly he recalled vivid examples of this peculiar ability wherein he had called up Inanna and carried on conversations with her, asking her friendship and advice. And he had been called to the dreams of others. A case in point was when Meredith had called him from the Louisiana swamps to the cottage in the underworld. Both instances had certainly been cause for regret, but had he been physically in the underworld with Meredith when she’d convinced him to take her head, she would have been beyond redemption.

  “Yes,” Reuben continued. “We would take our physical bodies with us. It would be something a bit like your Wisdom of Solomon excursions with the so-called ‘magick garters’. I believe grandfather successfully transported over a hundred thousand people from Israel that way. Correct?”

  Reuben raised both eyebrows. He could not understand why they were making such a big deal of it, after all, they had purportedly done it in the past, and this was not even magick. It was more a matter of mind control and inter-dimensional recognition. It was there for anyone who cared to utilize it. People in general just refused to look, and if they did look, they refused to see, and if they saw, they refused to believe. “There is a space wherein the appearance of individual dreams is similar to the pictures taken by the deep space telescope, Hubble. Infinite star fields, galaxies, planets, solar systems, nebulae. These are not celestial bodies, but each one a visible manifestation of the dreams of all who dream… including dogs and cats.” Reuben chuckled. “You have to watch out for those or you’ll find yourself chasing your tail through a meadow full of conies.”

  Simon chuckled and then caught himself.

  “And this place… where you can see the dreams of others.” Mark was frowning again. Reuben’s description struck a discordant note in his head. “Where is it?”

  “That, I cannot say.” Reuben frowned with him. “You would think it is within your own head when you first see it, but then you realize it can’t be, simply because the content belongs to other people, and you cannot have all the dreams of all the people within your own head at any given time, so you have to assume it exists somewhere. Of course, Lavon disagrees with my idea. He says quantum theory allows the possibility of being everywhere at once, but I have always assumed we simply have innate connections to the dreams of others because we are all connected through the Divine Spark residing in us all. My theory is supported by Einstein’s ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ AKA ‘Quantum Entanglement’. I’d rather go with Einstein than Schrödinger’s Cat. I wouldn’t want to wake up dead just because someone decided to have a peek at me.”

  “Hmmm.” Lucio crossed his arms over his chest. “Sounds more disturbing than a trip through Purgatory. At least we know where that is.”

  “Wot th’ divvil air ye talkin’ aboot, Reuben, fur th’ love o’ God?” Mark asked.

  “He likes to ramble,” Simeon put in quickly and punched Reuben’s arm. “Shut up, big brother. Just stick to the facts and leave quantum physics out of it. You know you don’t know what the devil you are talking about.”

  Reuben grinned and smiled at them apologetically.

  “So if you two can pull this off, and you can guide all of us and take us with you, where would we go?” Simon asked his sons.

  “I think we should consider going to the underworld first,” Reuben told him gravely, and then flinched at the expression on his father’s face.

  “Underworld! Good grief, why? Why there?” The Healer asked in consternation.

  “Because Simeon and I… and the rest of our brothers held a family meeting of sorts, and we decided that we are not in Kansas anymore. Surely you don’t believe this is Italy? This is not Italy. This is nowhere. Some sort of illusion. If we go to an intermediate plane, if you will, we can gather our wits, and we should know how to get home from there.”

  “He has a point,” Mark agreed. “If we are in the Abyss and our, rather, your bodies are in the overworld, then it might be dangerous to travel in spiritual form to the overworld. I have had the unfortunate opportunity to experience this phenomenon and it is not pleasant to find one’s self separated from one’s body with no way to get back to it. It would be like an astral projection from which you could not return without powerful intervention, and I can’t promise what will happen when you try this. Considering my own situation, I don’t even know if I will be able to participate in this dream walking. I should be able to go anywhere I please if we are in the Abyss, or even the underworld, but I am as trapped as you are. If we stop in the underworld first, we can do exactly as Reuben suggests, gather our wits, get a true perspective on the situation and make our next plans with more information.”

  Simon nodded his agreement reluctantly. He was clearly frightened of the idea. He did not want to take Lydia back to the underworld. He’d never had much luck there personally.

  “All right, then,” Simon said quietly and cast a quick look at his wife, who had gone back to pretending to read while sipping her tea. “We’ll see a demonstration then.”

  “A demonstration?!” Both brothers asked in unison. “What do you mean?” Reuben followed up.

  “I want to experience this personally. I want Brother Ramsay and Brother Lucio to accompany us on the initial test of the theory, and I want us to agree on a specific target destination before we do anything.”

  “I would suggest the cottage in the meadow,” Mark shrugged. “It is most likely vacant since most of its usual occupants are here with us.”

  “The cottage would be good,” Lucio agreed and then grimaced. If one single place held more memories of more wonderful and terrible things for the three of them, it had to be the damned cottage. “Maybe not,” he added quickly on second thought.

  “Then where would you suggest?” Mark looked at him in surprise. The cottage held no particularly passion for him. Places outside of Lothian meant very little to him in connection with emotional factors.

  “How about Armand’s castle?” The Italian suggested. “That would…”

  “Wait, wait!” Simeon held up both hands. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. First, we have to learn whether we can bring people with us. Have you forgotten the original proposal? If we prove we can actually dream ourselves out of here
, then we will have to go into the dream state together and meet at a pre-arranged destination. We will have to teach some twenty-five people to indulge in dream weaving and dream walking. We can reasonably assume that Sir Ramsay here and Sir Dambretti will not have a problem with the process. Reuben and I are already adept. Barry should have no problem. I’m pretty sure Catharine knows of this thing as well. Vanni is game for most anything as is Leonardo. Galindwynne… who knows? Grandfather, I would expect is acquainted with it, or else he would be here asking all the questions instead of you, Poppi. Sir Dambretti, what about Galen? Is he in anyway handicapped in the mystical department you know of?”

  “Galen spent several years traveling in the ether, among other places, with Lucifer, the Lightbringer. What do you think?” Lucio smiled at him.

  “Point taken,” Simeon nodded.

  “What about your brothers?” Simon asked suspiciously.

  “I doubt we will have trouble with Carlisle Corrigan. He’s probably willing to do most anything to get out of here. He’s made several remarks about Miss Lydia that have come close to losing his pretty head for him, uncle or no uncle,” Reuben commented off the subject.

  “What about your brothers?” Simon asked again.

  “And there should be no problem teaching Adam and Anne. They are still young and flexible. What about Ronni?” Simeon directed the question to Lucio, ignoring his father.

  “Ronni? Not a problem. I’ll talk to her,” Lucio assured him.

  Simon rose up in his chair and leaned across the desk.

  “What about your brothers?” He asked again very slowly emphasizing each word.

  “No problem.” Reuben smiled at him.

  “You’ve taught them all, haven’t you?” Simon asked and raised one blonde eyebrow.

  “We are, after all, very close,” Simeon shrugged apologetically. “And we’ve had no television or Disney World for ages.”

  “Andy, too?” Simon was shocked.

  “He shows great promise of being a true Shaman,” Reuben told him.

  “Weelll, then.” Mark Andrew stood up. His aggravation was written clearly on his face. “Thot makes things a bit easier, wouldn’t ye say? Th’ trainin’ will take less toime than we thought. We’d best get to it. Air we agreed on th’ cottage then?”