The Lord of Dreams

by C. J. Brightley

  “What does this symbol mean?”

  “Nothing and everything.” He clenched his jaw and turned away.

  “That is profoundly unhelpful!” Claire cried. “Don’t you want me to help you?”

  “More than nearly anything,” he murmured. “I’m trying. Madmen and lovers have such seething brains.”

  She stared at him suspiciously. “Was that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Everything means something. The question is, ‘what does it mean?’” His eyes gleamed. “Everything and nothing, Claire. If I could be more clear, I would be. Perspective is everything.”

  “You said the heart was always what mattered.”

  “And what is the heart but the organ with which you see?” He tilted his head, and the sudden motion reminded her of a falcon deciding whether to eat her. “Surely you don’t evaluate a person with your eyes? How foolish you humans can be!” He wrinkled his lips in disgust and turned away. “No wonder you dismissed Faolan so quickly. And I…” He frowned. “Oh, that does not bode well at all for me.” He glanced at her again and murmured, “Oh, Claire. Do you mean to be so cruel, or does it come naturally?”

  Claire shivered, her mind drifting upward from sleep and turning away from cold, uncomfortable wakefulness. She shifted her shoulder against the ground, pressing her head against a pleasing warmth against her ear and neck.

  Warmth?

  She snapped awake and twisted in place to look up at the nightmare king.

  He was leaning back against a tree trunk, legs crossed before him. Her head rested in his lap, her shoulder snug against his hip. She slid out of his lap and backed up hurriedly.

  “What were you doing?” Her voice shook, and her pulse thundered in her ears. His hand had been resting on her head, hadn’t it? Her scalp tingled with chill where his palm had been warm against the soft bristles of her hair.

  He blinked blankly at her. “Keeping watch.” His voice rasped a little with fatigue.

  Her tension began to fade. Though he frightened her, he didn’t seem the type to molest her while she slept. His striking eyes slid over her face and away again, and she frowned. They seemed duller, less like lightning flashing and more like a deep pool, still blue but clouded with silt.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He looked back at her, frost-kissed eyelashes half-lowered. “As well as can be expected, I imagine.” His eyelids fluttered, and his head thunked back against the tree trunk.

  The thin skin of his throat moved slightly as he swallowed. The wound in his shoulder seemed darker, shot through with an odd purple color.

  “Do you feel feverish?” she whispered, unsure whether he was conscious or not.

  “I feel a great many things, most of which are contradictory,” he murmured. “The air is bright with hues of light, And rich with laughter and with singing: Young hearts beat high in ecstasy, and banners wave, and bells are ringing.” He sucked in a deep breath through his nose, as if to keep himself awake. “But silence falls with fading day, and there's an end to mirth and play.” He slitted his eyes open and glanced at his shoulder; his lips tightened in some expression Claire could not decipher.

  “What do you dream of?” she asked before she could bite back the words.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, and for an instant, she thought he had his mind back, all of it, all the terrifying brilliance and magic of him. “I dream of you.” Then he began drawing patterns with a finger against the worn fabric of his trousers. “Even as I stood with raptured eye, absorbed in bliss so deep and dear, my hour of rest had fleeted by, and back came labor, bondage, care.” He frowned. “Hour of rest… hour of rest…” He leaned forward to press his face into his hands. “All mimsy were the borogoves… No! It’s missing something.” He looked up, focusing on her again, his eyes momentarily sharp upon her face. “Light doth seize my brain with frantic pain.” He shuddered and pressed his hands against his temples, digging his nails into his scalp.

  “Stop!” Claire’s heart twisted inside her, filled with pity and a strange, unpleasant guilt that she could not at first identify.

  “Stop. Stopstopstopstop.” He placed his hands on his legs, long narrow fingers digging into the sides of his knees. His eyes flicked to her again, slid from her eyes to her lips and lingered, hungry and desperate, then down her neck to her chest. “A fairy gift is never without cost, even one so generously meant.”

  “What gift do you mean?”

  “The gift!” His voice cracked. “The gift you did not want, cannot remember even when you wish to, and so never knew you had! The gift you would not give back even though you despised it.”

  “What gift?” Claire cried. “I know you wanted something but I still don’t know what you wanted!” She clenched her fists. “And how can you say I despised it if I never knew I had it? That’s not fair.”

  “I never said anything about fair.” He tilted his head and looked at her as if she had something completely bizarre. “I said fairy. What does fair have to do with anything?”

  Claire’s voice rose in frustration. “Fair! Like right and just and… and… all those things that this ridiculous adventure isn’t.”

  The king’s eyebrows drew down in apparent confusion. “We weren’t talking about your right and just service to the throne.” He looked down at his hands. “I’m confused. Stopstopstopstop.” He pressed the tips of his long fingers together and examined them, as if the symmetry would reveal something to him that would explain everything. “No, this is not your right and just service. Not fair not fair. But generously given and repaid in full.” He looked up, his eyes sharp for an instant as his gaze met hers. “I paid in advance in full. I trusted you. Do you say now that my trust was misplaced?”

  “What did you trust me to do?” Claire felt the edge of understanding just beyond her grasp, understanding not only of his confused words now but of everything that had gone before. Right and just service. Who had said that before?

  “Become the queen. Checkmate.”

  The silence between them seemed fraught with emotion, and the king did not look away. His eyes were glassy and feverish, the extraordinary gold and silver dulled but not entirely vanished.

  “Right and just service?” Claire murmured. “What do you mean by that?”

  The king winced, as if the words pained him in some way. “Paid in full,” he whispered, and looked down at his hands clenched white-knuckled in his lap. “More than required of you but paid in full.” He closed his eyes. “I wish I could think.” The words were almost inaudible, and Claire reached out to put her hand on his arm.

  The king leaned gracefully against a tree across the clearing. “My apologies. Coherence seems a bit beyond me at the moment.”

  “What did you mean by right and just service? I’ve heard that before.” Claire glanced between the king sitting before her, clutching his head, and the vision of him standing across from her.

  He raised a graceful eyebrow at her. “Service to the crown. Your family is of my… house, I suppose you could call it.”

  “You mean we’re related?”

  “Not by blood. The relationship is more akin to that of a feudal lord in your human history; the lord owed his vassals some measure of protection, and the vassals owed the lord some measure of service.”

  “Are you trying to say you’re king over me? I don’t think so!” Her voice rose in anger.

  He tilted his head in what might have been confusion. “You seem affronted by the implication that you owe loyalty and service to anyone. Or is it only that you owe it to me that makes you angry?” His lips tightened. “Be assured the obligation is equally strong in the opposite direction.”

  Perhaps that’s why he saved me from the cockatrice. Because he thought he had to, or magic made him do it.

  But why does the phrase right and just service seem so familiar?

  “How are you in two places at once?” The question felt like stalling, but it was a real question n
onetheless.

  His smile looked both startled and amused. “I’m not. This isn’t real.” He gestured at himself, the gesture both graceful and vaguely arrogant, as if he fully expected her to be impressed by his lean elegance.

  “But you’re here and also there. That’s two places, isn’t it?” Claire frowned as the seated, physical king shuddered, then began to rock gently, hands clenched into fists and eyes closed.

  The standing king sighed softly. “Do I look as if my mind were there, in that body?” When she met his eyes for an instant, there was an offended, bitter gleam in the brightness, and then he turned away.

  “Where is it, then?”

  “Hidden,” he snapped. “Hidden away, in a place I thought was safe.”

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t very well leave it in there, could I?” the vision muttered. “I don’t even want to imagine how cracked I’d be if…” His teeth snapped together, and he swallowed the words. “No, that would have been exceptionally unwise.”

  Chapter 28

  They walked for hours. The forest grew darker as the trees grew closer. Claire followed the king, watching his bare feet padding silently over the moss and damp leaves. The silence weighed upon her, oppressive and foreboding.

  “Why aren’t there any sounds of birds or bugs or anything?” she whispered.

  The king stopped walking, one hand out to stop her as well. He listened with his head cocked to one side, then began walking again.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “The dryads are deciding whether to delay our pursuers or not.”

  Claire looked at the trees with new caution.

  “What will they do?” She drew closer to him. Insane or not, villain or not, he was the closest thing she had to an ally here.

  He glanced at her. “Probably nothing.”

  “Aren’t they your subjects?”

  “These are Unseelie lands. But many of the Unseelie king’s subjects are not entirely loyal. We cannot change our nature, as humans do, but we choose our allies, friends, and lovers with the same freedom humans do.”

  “You’re saying you’ve subverted the Unseelie king’s subjects?” She frowned at his back.

  “Nothing so formal as subversion.” He gestured gracefully, and Claire wondered whether he had talked with his hands when he was sane, or whether that was an effect of the insanity. “Indeed, if I had subverted many of the Unseelie king’s most loyal forces, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we?” He turned to smile at her, his eyes alight with humor. “No, it is more that I have, through the long years of my reign, established a certain reputation. Even many Unseelie would prefer my rule to that of their own king.”

  “So they just like you better?”

  There was a moment of silence, and Claire was about to repeat her question when the king stopped and raised a hand to his head, covering his eyes. His mouth contorted in pain or frustration, and his breath caught for a moment.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m forgetting something,” he groaned. “Something I meant to forget but must remember. Because he knew what I knew, and I had to hide the knowledge like a treasure, not to be found until the right time. And the time is speeding away, and I asked you…” His voice trailed away.

  “Asked me what?”

  He gasped in deep, shuddering breaths, ran his long fingers through his hair, leaving it more disheveled than Claire had thought possible.

  “Tendrils of malevolent magic ran through my brain, searching out all that I had hidden within myself. But I hid it so well he could not find it! Not even Taibhseach could guess or search it out.” He smiled bitterly, his eyes meeting hers with a spark that shook her to her bones. “Too clever by half, I was. Gave it away where he’d never find it, at least. So clever I fooled myself too.”

  “What did you forget?” Claire asked softly. Perhaps, if she asked with the right words or tone, she could help him remember. He asked me for a gift he’d given me. But what gift does he mean?

  He closed his frost-white eyelashes, and tilted his head, as if listening to music only he could hear.

  “What did you forget?” she asked again.

  He winced, and a shiver ran through his body. “I forget.”

  After a moment, he began walking again, eyebrows still drawn downward in frustration.

  The underbrush grew denser, but the king seemed to have little trouble picking a path silently through the bushes.

  The shadows deepened. Claire had the unsettling impression that sometimes the shadows moved of their own accord, and she stayed close by the king. She tripped on a root and nearly fell, then sucked in a surprised breath when the king caught her hand.

  “Can you not see?” he asked.

  “No.”

  A faint glow of moonlight filtered through the canopy of branches above, but it wasn’t enough to see the king’s expression, much less the path he followed.

  He let go of her hand and knelt, pressing both hands to the ground. Claire felt the silence like a physical presence, something threatening waiting patiently for its moment.

  “We have a few hours,” the king said. He remained on one knee, head hanging down, as if the idea of standing were entirely too difficult to contemplate.

  When the king showed no signs of moving, Claire said, “Should I make a fire or something?”

  He sucked in a soft breath, making Claire wonder whether he’d begun to doze.

  “Do you know how?” he asked.

  “Not at all.” She smiled at him, and he tilted his head as if trying to figure her out.

  “Wait here.” He gathered a few sticks and fallen branches without going far and made a fire by rubbing two sticks together. It took longer than Claire had expected; he seemed so competent that watching him struggle with something relatively mundane was surprisingly amusing.

  “That took awhile,” she finally said, knowing he would shoot her a venomous glare.

  He did so, and she smiled sweetly at him.

  “Normally I would use magic. I haven’t done it this way since I was child.” He glared at the little curl of smoke now emerging from the pile of bark and shreds of wood.

  “When will you get your magic back?”

  A stick snapped in his hand, and Claire almost regretted her flippant tone.

  “I don’t know,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “So it’s almost like you’re a normal person.”

  He made an odd sound in the back of his throat; Claire couldn’t tell if it was a laugh cut short or a cry of angry protest.

  Bright tongues of flame emerged from the little pile of twigs, and the king angled a slightly larger piece of wood gently over the top.

  The soft crackle of the fire was the only sound in the oppressive silence. For a moment, she almost forgot that the king was insane. He was quiet, perhaps pensive, but entirely coherent.

  A soft rain began to fall.

  Claire shivered and drew closer to the fire, wishing she had some way to gather the water.

  The king picked a fresh leaf from a nearby branch and deftly folded it into a cup, which he set on the ground. In a few more minutes he had woven another six leaves into a wide funnel, which he placed over the leaf cup.

  He folded another cup, and wove another funnel, then a third cup and funnel.

  “That’s kind of brilliant,” Claire murmured.

  The king shrugged one shoulder as if the compliment bothered him. “Another childhood skill not used in many years.”

  The firelight flickered on his face, glinting on the drips running down his thin cheeks. His wild, dirty hair became even more bedraggled, dripping into his face in long, silver-blond strands.

  He shivered and rubbed his hands over his arms.

  “Are you cold too?” Claire asked.

  He blinked and looked up at her, as if he’d only just noticed she was there, his eyes wide and blank.

  “But to me the darkness was red-gold and crocus-colored
…” His voice trailed away, his gaze sliding from her into the distance.

  “What?” Claire asked tentatively, when he did not continue.

  His gaze snapped back to her. “Your brightness. Words whispered torches flames orange against the silver rain.” He frowned. “No, that’s not right.” One finger began tracing curling patterns in the damp dirt. “Cold rain. Silver rain.” He winced, as if the wrongness of the words were deeply offensive.

  Claire edged closer to him, careful not to move too suddenly. She put her hand on his wrist.

  “Please don’t,” she said softly. The words were unnecessary; as soon as her fingers touched his skin, he froze as if electrified.

  “There’s water in the cups,” he said in a strange, quiet voice.

  Claire licked her lips and removed her fingers from his wrist. He remained motionless, and she handed him one of the leaf cups, then took the second for herself.

  “Feighlí told me not to drink or eat anything,” she murmured. The water was so very tempting though. Thirst made her tongue seem too large in her mouth.

  The king blinked slowly, lost in thought. “He was wise to warn you. But rainwater will not trap you here; it has, temporarily, lost its connection to the earth, the richness of the soil and running rivulets of streams.”

  The water was cool and fresh, though with a faint hint of a dusty texture that she imagined was some sort of pollen from the leaves. Raindrops pattered softly on the leaves around them.

  The king held his cup between his long, thin fingers, staring at it as if it were something unknown and unimaginably complex.

  “Drink some water,” Claire prompted.

  He glanced at her before taking a drink. She couldn’t tell whether the strange light in his eyes was a wry amusement at her prompting, appreciation for the reminder, or something else altogether.

  “How did you know who I meant?” Claire asked suddenly. “He said that wasn’t his real name.”

  The king snorted softly, his lips curling in a slight smile. “Feighlí isn’t a name. It’s a word that means childminder or nanny.”