A Warrior of Dreams

by Richard Parks

  And what exactly, had he learned? Feran wasn't really sure. It was hard now to think of anything worth seeing, worth going to that was a place, a goal and journey separate from the deeper places that were hidden in dream. As a young Initiate, Feran had thought that, when the older members of his order—those who survived a life of dangerous journeys and questing, that is—retired at last to their monastery in the west, it was because they were too old to travel, to see new places and dream new dreams. Now he understood it was because they were finished with traveling, and the new dreams were just beginning.

  Feran thought that perhaps he should retire, also, but he shook his head. Not yet. There was one more place to go, one more thing to do. He was getting close. Feran kept looking for the sign, finally found it. Carved into a flat rock beside the trail was a long straight line ending in a small circle, the symbol any pilgrim would recognize if he came to this place—the Staff.

  Old Kres was right—there is a Safe House near here.

  The far western lands had been little more than frontier before the time of the Empire, a dangerous place for anyone who normally traveled alone. In those days the Order had seen fit to establish havens for its members in strategic areas, their locations carefully mapped, concealed, and kept secret from outsiders. Times now weren't exactly safe, but the dangers were more defined and predictable and the need for the safe havens had declined. But it wasn't safety Feran needed now so much as isolation.

  Feran turned down a side branch of the valley, a crevice so narrow and obscured that he might have missed it except for the pointing staff. A slow, steady breeze flowed through that narrow way; its walls blocked out most of the late afternoon sun and for a change Feran walked in cool shadow. He came to a place where a small spring bubbled out of the rocks and down into a natural basin about ten feet across. On the rock wall just beyond it he saw another carved staff.

  Feran nodded. Bed and bath—anything more than that after a long hot day and it's pure greed.

  He tapped the wall with his walking stick, found the stone door behind a tangle of Morning Glory vines. It had been carved out of a single piece of sandstone, cracked now but still solid. It took a little effort and more sweat, but he finally got it open. Once inside, Feran could see how the builders had made use of a natural cave, enlarging and venting the space already there. The air was a little musty still, but with the door open it was changing rapidly. There were stone crocks along a near wall; they would have held dried beans and fruit at one time, but Feran didn't trust them now. He dropped his pack on the smooth stone cot and pulled out bread and hard cheese, then went back outside to fill his cup at the spring. The water was sweet and cold. He drained the cup and refilled it, then went back inside to eat.

  As his thirst and hunger faded, Feran imagined he could hear the voice of his old master Aesyd echoing to him now from a time when youth and passionate conviction conspired to make him do silly things. One of those silly things was a fast that had lasted for three days when Aesyd finally visited him in is cell.

  "And how are you today, Lad?"

  “Quite well, Master.”

  "And how are your dreams? Vivid? Insightful?"

  Feran still felt a little embarrassed at the answer he'd been forced to give. I haven't had any. My sleep seems to be fitful. But I have managed a wonderful sense of detachment. I feel serene.

  "You feel faint, Lad. A few more days and what dreams you have will be delusions conjured by an empty stomach bored with nothing else to do."

  But I wanted to deny my body, reach beyond the physical...

  "Then hang yourself and be done. It's quicker."

  Feran, alone in the cave winced at the memory visiting him there. Master, I don't understand.

  "It's simple. The body is not to be denied—it's to be kept quiet. You give it want it wants and it leaves you alone so you can get on with your work. Get on with it, Feran." Then the old man had tossed him an apple and left.

  Feran held an apple now, and as then, he didn't hesitate. When his body was somewhat pacified with food and drink, he went back outside to soak his weary muscles in the basin. He leaned back, feeling his body begin—grudgingly—to leave him alone. He remained there until the hidden sun had truly set, and the first faint stars appeared in the gap between the stones.

  Time to get on with it.

  *

  As dungeons went, the one Joslyn found herself in wasn’t so bad. She looked around her room. That alone was a concept that made her a little giddy. Her room, with a real bed, with linen and quilting and pillow. A table and chair. A closet. A wonderfully long walk of fifteen strides from the door to a tall window that opened high in the wall over a courtyard near the center of the temple. And it was all for her. So were the manacles.

  Joslyn sat down on her bed and stared at them. Delicate but very strong, gold alloyed with something to make them rigid. They were fur lined to prevent chafing and engraved with the sign of the Closed Eye, and easily worth a month's thieving. Right now they just reminded Joslyn that she was caught. Joslyn stood, went back to the window. She looked up, then down, sighed. Even Merasys couldn't climb this.

  Joslyn heard voices in the corridor and her sense of being trapped intensified. She hopped up on the windowsill as someone knocked on the door. After a pause the door opened and Tagramon came in. He noted where Joslyn stood, and smiled at her.

  "Is it really as bad as that?"

  Joslyn suddenly felt very foolish. She wasn't going to jump, and the faint amusement on the Dream Master's face told her that he knew it, too. She stepped down from the window.

  "They tell me you tried to run away."

  It hadn’t been much of a try. Joslyn had barely made it one level below her room when two White Robes cornered her in a blind corridor. And despite her struggles, which included a bite and several well-placed kicks, there had been no anger or punishment. The acolytes had handled her with a care bordering on reverence as they clamped the gold manacles on her wrists and delivered her back to her room. "I didn't get very far," she said.

  "Why?"

  Joslyn shrugged. "I got lost."

  Tagramon chuckled. "Joslyn, don't try to make me think there's no more to you than that. I know you, girl. Perhaps better than you know yourself just now."

  "How do you know me? I never saw you before last night!"

  "But I've seen you, Joslyn. I've seen your dreams. That's how we found you, and we'd find you again as easily if you did manage to leave the Temple. Now tell me why you tried."

  Joslyn held up her hands, showed him the chains. "When one is imprisoned, shouldn't one try to escape?"

  The Dream Master considered this. "There's a catch on each manacle opposite the hinge. Throw it."

  Joslyn had noticed those, but hadn't paid much attention. After all, they couldn't be what they seemed. But they were. Joslyn opened each one and her manacles fell to the floor. "Damn..."

  "Your perceptions have played you falsely, Joslyn. The Temple of Somna is not your prison. Prison is where you were, trapped in a life certainly difficult and more than likely short. Prison is going through that life being a Dreamer and not knowing how to dream. You'd found some little bit of it, Joslyn. We saw that. But there's so much more. Remember last night, when your Nightsoul stepped out of your dream for a moment onto the Nightstage?"

  Joslyn thought about it. "You mean the place of mists? What of it?"

  The Dream Master chuckled softly. "What of it? Joslyn, do you think just anyone can see beyond their own dreams, free the Nightsoul to wander and explore? Or enter the dreams of another? To walk the mists of sleep as something outside of all dreams, including your own? No. You are truly blessed by Somna. Or don't you believe in the Dreamer?"

  It was as if someone had questioned her acceptance of solid earth beneath her feet, or the sky above. "Of course I do. She's the Creator."

  Tagramon smiled, nodded. "Just so. The one who dreams the Greater Dream of which we are all a part. Are we then trapped in S
omna's Dream? Should we try to escape? No, Joslyn, because this is where we belong. The Temple is where you belong. We need you, Joslyn. Dreamers are not so common that we can afford to lose one. You're young, I know. You don't remember when the Emperor brought his armies to the west. The Temple of Somna was at Darsa then, and I one of the humblest of the Temple Dreamers there. Orders were relayed, but it seems they were forgotten when the walls were finally breached. The Temple was destroyed, most of the priests and Dreamers slain. We've been years recovering from that."

  Joslyn frowned. "I thought the Temple was always at Ly Ossia."

  He smiled ruefully. "It would have racked the Dreamer's sleep to rebuild at Darsa, with such evil memories lingering there. So I came here with one other priest, and with the Emperor's help by way of atonement we rebuilt the Temple. But it's taken a long time. There are only a handful of Temple Dreamers now, compared to what we had." Tagramon seemed to hesitate, then continued. "I can't force you to join us, girl—an unwilling servant is hateful to Somna. And there's more than enough to disturb her sleep now, more than enough to make her dream so troubling that she finally wakes from her ages-long sleep. Do you know what happens then?"

  Joslyn nodded. Her lips and throat felt dry. "The Dream is the World. When the Dream ends, the World ends."

  Tagramon nodded. "Just so. It's the responsibility of the Temple and the Temple Dreamers to help keep that from happening, Joslyn. It is our mission to sooth the dreams of the Faithful, give auguries and guidance, cast out nightmares and summon bliss. In short, girl, to ease the collective pain of our world! Do you think everyone has a chance to make such a difference, to matter as much as that? Is it really such a poor way to spend a life?"

  "No," Joslyn said, because she knew what he said was true.

  He smiled at her. "No, indeed. But it is not an easy road I offer, Joslyn. As a Temple Dreamer you will be part of Somna's defense against the demon Gahon, perhaps the most important part. By your work on the nightstage in the realm of Lesser Dreams, you will make Somna's world a better place. But for your trouble sometimes you will swear that the lowest servant in Ly Ossia has more freedom than you. In some ways you will be right. You will be guarded well, and kept closer to hand than miser's gold, but only because you are rarer and more precious than gold. Do you understand?"

  "I think so." Joslyn didn't say anything else for a long moment, but when she did she couldn't quite keep the eagerness out of her voice. "Can you really teach me to visit another person's dreams?"

  Tagramon chuckled softly. "Bless your innocence, Joslyn. That's the very least of what I'll teach you."

  *

  Feran stood alone in the mists rising from the nightstage. By looking very carefully he was able to make out the ghostly outlines of the valley where his daysoul and physical body both slumbered together. For a long time he had thought of the nightstage as a place somewhere above the waking world, but in time he's learned that it was more of a separateness, existing in the same time and space and yet never touching. Sometimes he caught himself looking for echoes of the nightstage in the waking world, but had never found any. Feran took another slow look around now, and for a different reason.

  Nothing. No dreams here but my own.

  That wasn’t exactly true, Feran knew. At least not yet. Since a dream is at heart an illusion created instinctively by the nightsoul, the easiest way to travel the nightstage—once you mastered the trick of it—was not to dream at all, but rather leave the nightsoul unfettered by dream. Traveling, questing from within your own dream was trickier still, but it could be done. It was also more dangerous. If you went too deep there was a chance of awakening things best left to slumber.

  Feran stood alone, a distinct identity able to move through the Nightstage at will. This was what his training prepared him for, and this was what Feran forced himself to surrender now. As a Traveler, Feran knew better than most that the secret ways that led to the heart of Somna's dream were not to be found in a place. That left one direction, one road only.

  “All roads lead to one road.”

  Feran smiled, remembering old Aesyd's exasperation. "'All roads lead to one road.' Master, when will you teach me what that means?" "Student, when will you learn it?"

  Feran had finally learned. He took strength from that knowledge and forced himself to relax, to let his separateness go. It took a moment. Walking the nightstage was not the same as dreaming there, and he'd allowed himself that seemingly childish luxury so seldom over the years that now he found himself having to stop for a few moments and try to remember how. Then the mists receded, a faint glow came up around him like a slow dawn rising.

  Feran stood in his old cell at the Traveler Monastery at Colthys. He kept the scene static for a moment as he tried to judge how well he'd managed to hold part of himself aloof. That was the tricky part—given free rein, a dream tended to serve its own needs until the dreamer was no more in control of it than a babe trying to control a rutting stallion. Feran moved in the dream, and at the same time kept just a bit of identity and will separate from the dream. He watched himself look around in pleasant recognition of his surroundings, and wasn't at all surprised to find his long-dead teacher waiting there, sitting in Feran's only chair and shaking his head in amused wonder.

  "Why are you here, Lad? More important, why am I here?"

  "Because I'm dreaming you," Feran said.

  Aesyd shrugged. "Me only dead a few years and you get arrogant. In the old days I'd have given you something to dream about."

  Feran smiled. "I remember."

  It was more common to dream, in his apprentice days when the nightstage was still difficult and dreaming still easy. But Aesyd had a habit of looking in on his nightly rounds, and let him catch you dreaming about him, good or bad, and you'd find yourself in a nightmare quicker than you could wake up.

  "You still haven't answered the first question. I'm waiting."

  Feran felt a little foolish, since there was enough of himself playing the detached observer to realize that he was having a discussion with himself. He started to interfere, hesitated. It was a tricky business—the dream had its own needs and its own way of getting them, and adjustments were for when there was no other way to regain control. He held back, watching. And listening.

  "I'm not your apprentice now, Aesyd. If you want to know, it'll cost you a little walk."

  "Lovely night for it," the old man said, rising. "Lead on."

  Feran looked around. "There doesn't seem to be a door."

  Aesyd smiled cryptically. "Allow me." He pointed to the far wall of the cell and there was a door where none had been before. Feran walked up, opened it. He didn't need to look at what was there; he knew. Created of his own will and need, and leading in the way he wanted to go.

  "Where to?"

  "Down." Feran stepped through, and didn't have to look to know that Aesyd's memory followed. Feran knew that, for some reason he had yet to fathom, the dream needed Aesyd’s memory.

  And Feran knew that that's all it was—an image, a symbolic construct to rationalize an action taken, to make visible what was, at heart, a journey with no real path, only a destination. Feran thought of the augury dreams he'd been forced to interpret as an apprentice—visions of a storm meant disruption, confusion. A snake had all sorts of interesting interpretations, a lotus or a horse likewise. And a stairwell. What did a stairway mean?

  "It means you need a method of going from one level to another. What's more natural than a stairway?"

  Aesyd's voice held just the faintest trace of amusement, as it always had when he felt forced to explain something that, at the core of it, was a very simple matter. Feran didn't mind, for he'd realized why Aesyd was there. It wasn't that he really needed Aesyd's lectures to echo his own thoughts and understandings—though that would certainly happen, since the old man was there. It was mostly because he did not want to go alone.

  "And a memory's better than nothing, yes Lad?"

  The dream shuddered.
Feran felt it as a sickening lurch in perception, as if everything that seemed so real and solid around him had suddenly turned to mist, ready to tear itself apart at the slightest breath. Feran forced himself to stop, to relax, to let the dream strengthen around him again. He’d almost forgotten how fragile dreams were.

  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.