When he reached the top of the ladder, the window opened to show a beautiful courtyard lit by a full moon, with a night sky above.
28 : CHARMED BY DELIGHTFULNESS
He peered through the window. There were high walls to be seen. They were decorated with flower baskets overflowing with beautiful flowers within containers in the shapes of birds, and lion heads containing magnificent shrubs.
In the middle of the courtyard stood a fountain, the centrepiece of it a shoal of fish, slowly spinning. Surrounding it were white stone columns and upon each one stood a statue in a metal cage. One of the placid statues moved slowly as if shedding the constraints of cold stone.
‘I sensed you were in danger. I have managed to intersect again,’ the young woman said from her cage. ‘I must be quick, though. Here in one of our special places, Tremelon Zandar is near. I can feel the cowbell vibrating.’
One of our places?
Stave looked to her with a quizzical expression.
Do you know Cassaldra?’ he asked.
‘I am Cassaldra.’
‘How can you be? She is a much older lady.’
He gazed at her attractive face. For a fraction of a second, with heart lurching, there was recognition, then it was gone.
‘Have you believed all I’ve told you so far?’ she said.
As good an explanation as any.
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Then you must believe me when I tell you this: you are my husband, also known as Marcello Sanctifus, amongst other names.’
Stave shook his head.
‘That is preposterous. You told me Marcello Sanctifus is an old man. I am under thirty. At least I think I am.’
‘It is too much for you to consider at once,’ Cassaldra continued. ‘I’m sorry I had to tell you now; I should have waited. Another part of the nightmare created by Tremelon Zandar – I am seen as an old woman when I’m a young woman; and vice versa.’
‘So I’m also an old man and also a young man? And you are a young and old woman – at the same time?’
‘Leave time for another day for when we meet again. Hopefully in our cottage, when the nightmare is over.’
‘So I live with you in the cottage?’ Stave said.
‘A humble cottage is one of the places we choose to live unless that has been captured by Tremelon Zandar as well.’
‘Yes, captured and destroyed,’ Stave answered with sadness.
‘It can all be back as it was again, you have to believe me. You will learn how to repair once he has been defeated. For the while, I must soon keep quiet. One thing is for certain, to defeat him will be easy.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he and his agents are bound by the dreams despite them turning to nightmares. Dream logic, like scientific logic, is unassailable; it cannot be undone or conquered. You will find a way to set yourself free again.’
‘But what about you? How can I help to free you?’
‘You have no choice but to continue deeper into your own mind which has become Tremelon Zandar’s mind,’ Cassaldra explained. ‘Once he has been defeated, I will be free, as you will be. The dreamscapes within your realm and beyond have been damaged enough.’
Beyond the realm. Other realms, as Quikso mentioned; other dreamscapes. Other realms without dreamers?
‘You will learn more soon enough.’ Now the cowbells sounded about Cassaldra’s and Stave’s necks, with their dry clunks. ‘Tremelon is listening, so I must go. I bid you farewell, my love.’
‘My love?’ replied Stave.
Cassaldra’s sight misted with tears.
‘Yes, Stave. I love you with all my heart and have done so for a long time. Goodbye, and I hope to see you again soon.’
The courtyard became obscured when fierce flames covered the window – hot despite being made of paper – and Stave was alone again.
A yearning for Cassaldra jolted throughout his being. Yet how could a stranger be so familiar a spirit?
Most of the smoke serpents across the field had disintegrated into clouds of grey and blue, and drifted into the orange sky. The few remaining slithered around the bottom of the ladder, and whichever part of the ladder they touched, it turned to cardboard and began to collapse with his weight.
Ahead was the object catching the fierce orange light, now glowing as if on fire.
29 : MOCKING OF MARCELLO SANCTIFUS
As Stave began climbing down, he cried out, ‘Yes, see you again soon, I must,’ and as the window above him vanished, he felt a sense of loss.
He reached the bottom of the ladder just as it collapsed and as the last of the smoke snakes evaporated.
There was an explosive round of applause. Two lines of people wearing eye masks stood not far ahead of him on the churned ground. Stave recognised some of them as the ones captured at the gathering. They huddled together with expectant faces as if waiting for something to happen or someone to appear. Stave kept his distance from them.
Then, without warning, a blue disc in the sky began to overlap the orange sun – no less than an eclipse, happening at a fast rate. A direful searing noise rent the air as if the sun was being erased permanently. The masked people clapped more, with some cheering and whistling.
Stave wanted to move on but being intrigued by their behaviour, he waited.
The orange sunlight lessened by the second until finally the process was complete. All were bathed in deep blue.
With the barren landscape plunged into cold light, some of the guests lit lanterns mounted on poles and all stood silently, in anticipation of the next event to occur.
The horse skeleton, with snakes still writhing in its ribcage, appeared from out of the dark blue into the light of the lanterns. Thick lengths of rope from its shoulder blades were attached to the front bumper of a wheelless car. The skeleton dragged the dilapidated vehicle behind it across the darkened soil.
A sound of a drum struck at regular intervals, the lantern light dimming and brightening in time with the beat. And those without lanterns clapped slowly and starting a chant of “Sanctifus, Sanctifus, Sanctifus—”
Another nightmare unfolding.
A shuddering of air, like the last gasps of a dying man. The light from the lamps flickered across the hopeful faces as the skeleton horse ceased pulling, and the rusting heap of metal came to a halt.
With difficulty, an old man climbed out of one of the car’s passenger seats. His wrinkles resembled the bark of a tree, his eyes burning with fierce passion yet filled with grief. His silver hair was covered by a large, dark blue teapot, worn upside down as a hat. He pulled it from his head and flung it away but another appeared immediately after.
The old man’s features were familiar to Stave: his heart gave a jolt when he realised that perhaps he was looking at an ancient version of himself.
On the old man’s back, weighing him down so he stooped, was a massive crab, its pincers around his frail neck. Every time he appeared to want to speak, the pincers tightened about him, dull grey sparks emanating from it.
‘Sanctifus, Sanctifus, Sanctifus,’ the crowd continued, the chant now low and forbidding.
The humiliation of this man is terrible. Already I feel the weight of the massive crab on my back, its pincers tightening about my neck, and firm pressure on my head from an invisible pot. There’s nothing I can do to help – I must escape before the nightmare worsens...
Stave stepped quickly away from the crowd, the old man, decrepit car and horse skeleton. He glanced back to see the dream of Sanctifus attempting to retrieve body organs that were dropping from his chest and stomach. With a sharp pain in his own chest, Stave fled from them all.
Over the earth he went, with day turned to night. And looking back he saw the spectacle behind him, now like a bonfire of blue flames.
As he stumbled further on across the dark field, the blue disc began to fade, until the glaring orange sunlight returned with all its fiery strength.
Once more, the unknown
object ahead of him glinted.
30 : FLIGHT TO WORSE
The closer he got to the object, the more detail he could make out. And when no more than ten feet away, he could see a shining semicircle of polished metal, the size of a van. There were studs around its perimeter and a line of holes at one end, poking above a mound of earth. Stave went further towards it and around the mound.
He found an identical semicircle of metal there, and realised they were wings, both attached to the sides of a substantial barrel of brass that was studded with copper rivets. A silver pipe came from one end of the barrel. Attached to that, a copper sphere was mounted, representing a head. And on the head were metal rings forming brass eyes, and an iron beak. All together the construction was a large, metal bird. It looked an impressive contraption as it still glowed in the glare of the orange sun.
Inset in the side of its body – the brass barrel – was a hinged door. Stave opened it and climbed inside, and sat on a polished metal seat. The door closed of its own accord and a green light lit the interior. The only controls were two buttons marked “on” and “off”. There were two lenses set ahead, together like a pair of binoculars. Stave looked through them and saw outside to the destroyed landscape.
After inspecting the interior more, he found a copper jug under the seat, filled with fresh water. He took it and drank greedily.
Feeling refreshed, he was even more refreshed by an unusual coolness within the cabin, lessening the temperature of his hot brow.
He pressed the button marked “on”.
Immediately there was juddering, the whole contraption moving up and down with the squeaking and quaking of metal. Through small glass panels on both sides, he could see the stubs moving as though the metal bird attempted to fly.
Stave opened the door and got out. A strange machine, he considered, and one which had failed if the intention was to launch into the sky.
He was about to walk away to investigate the other side of the valley when a particular thought occurred to him. Dream rules could be applied again.
A solution to the flying device unable to take off was conceived: he took out the sixteen tiny wings from his trousers pocket. Then, after retrieving the magnifying glass from his waistcoat, he placed the wings on the ground, spaced widely apart. Once that was accomplished, he inspected each feather with the magnifying glass, pulling back to see the object larger and larger until he had every one of them the size of an adult arm. The process hadn’t taken long. They were all beautifully detailed, each with a nib of metal at one end of them.
He lifted them up, one at a time. They were surprisingly heavy. He went over to the metal bird and attached eight of the feathers by placing the nibs into the holes on one of the wings then repeated the process on the other one.
He opened the door of the metal bird and climbed into it once more, leaving the orange sunlight behind. As he sat, the green light glowed and after he had pressed the “on” button, the bird pumped its wings with singing of metal. But instead of flying into the parched sky, the contraption began burrowing into the earth, using the articulated feathers much as a mole might.
Down the metal bird went, its great metal wings churning the soil as they flapped, with spurts of boiling water spitting from its beak and oil seeping from its eyes. On it went through layers of the earth, past ancient and unknown artefacts, and cavernous areas with underground rivers, until it reached a clear space, and dropped to a stratum of rock.
31 : SEWER OF BAD DREAMS
He was exhilarated after the ride into the earth and sat for a minute within the cabin of the metal bird.
Finally, he opened the small door and got out, jumping down from the rock that the contraption had landed upon.
He found himself in a red-brick sewer, with the sounds of dripping water coming from arches of granite. There was a distinct stench of rotting fruit. Down the centre of the sewer ran oily, blue liquid in a wide gulley. A paper aeroplane floated on it. Burning torches lit the morbid place.
Stave walked slowly onwards. The noise of his footsteps echoed.
He felt despondent all of sudden, still trapped in another bad dream. How had he felt fine within the metal bird yet here, within a larger space, claustrophobia pressed in on him? He longed for a return to normality.
He discovered a tunnel leading off to his left from the main sewer. He heard shuffling and the beating of wings. Intrigued, he entered the tunnel and went between the damp, roughly hewn stone walls. Grey-blue limpets moved slowly over their uneven surfaces, exposing or covering pairs of eyes. Some of those eyes were tearful, aggressive or apathetic, others sorrowful or depressed. They blinked at random, following Stave’s movements as he walked through puddles of water.
The essence of memory only – gentleness and peaceful existence, even in my dream life; day to day happenings filled with joy and calmness. This I must hold in my mind as hope.
There must be no resigned acceptance of his situation. He heaved a sigh of determination. He would manipulate the dream, whether it be his or someone else’s.
Before he could consider what to do next, he found a seagull at the end of the tunnel, its orange beak cruelly bound with wire.
‘Come here, bird, let me take that off for you,’ Stave said and bent down to it. But it flapped its wings and skipped out of the way. ‘It’s for your own good.’
Stave ran after the bird and cornered it. He lunged for it before it took flight and managed to grab hold of its body. Holding it tightly under one arm, he untwisted the wire and placed the bird back onto the ground.
It opened wide its orange beak but instead of the usual screeching seagull call, it began to howl like a demented demon, blue smoke emitting from it that curled in the air towards him.
Stave ran from it and out of the side tunnel into the main brick-lined sewer again.
He ran into a soft mass – a portly man, dressed as a butler.
‘Don’t mind me,’ the man said, holding onto the glass of liquid that had rocked on the silver tray. ‘I was only trying to help.’
‘How were you trying to help?’ Stave asked.
‘In your adventure. But that seems long gone. As a proud member of the dream cast…’
‘You’re very solid for dream cast.’
The shadows shivered from the light of the flickering torches along the brick walls.
‘Would we want it any other way? As I was saying, as a proud member of dream cast I would like to congratulate you for getting this far into the dream adventure. Have a glass of whatever you enjoy drinking.’
The butler offered the tray with the drink upon it to Stave.
‘No thanks, and anyway, It looks like water. And I’m not thirsty anymore, I’ve just had some.’
‘Ah, but it will taste of your favourite tipple, sir.’
‘No, really, although I’m sure it would. You spoke of a dream adventure – this is far from an adventure. I’m trapped in a bad dream heading towards a nightmare. All of Tremelon Zandar’s doing, you must know.’
‘Is that so?’ the butler said. ‘No wonder I haven’t seen an adventurer in a while, and the private party in the mansion house vanished.’
‘Sounds mighty grand, in the mansion house, I mean.’
‘Oh it certainly is, sir, with guests of the wonderful and magnanimous Marcello Sanctifus. Everyone partaking in a wondrous dream adventure. The house has beautiful objects to be seen, magnificent gardens too, including the maze of delights. I am a good butler there, one of the best. I was given the honour of butler of the year award, two years ago. Can I direct you to the orangery?’
‘If you’re talking about the orangery I’ve seen, it’s dilapidated, derelict in the extreme,’ Stave replied. ‘As for the mansion house…’ He stopped from speaking further.
‘That is a shame. Yes, such a shame.’
‘More destruction by the agents of Tremelon.’
‘Then you don’t want a drink and no need to be directed anywhere?’
‘Unless you know where this sewer tunnel leads?’
‘Let me see now – I do remember, and bear with me, this is from the back of my mind – to avoid a bad dream you have to avoid any sewers, amongst other places. But then that’s a bit late now, isn’t it?’
‘Just a bit,’ Stave replied. ‘Right, I’ll carry on, see if I can avoid any more badness along the way, although I doubt it. Nice to meet you.’
But there was no reply from the butler: he had turned into a wooden carving.
As Stave carried on along the sewer tunnel, he pondered on the adventure game that was no more. He guessed that if he was Marcello Sanctifus, then he had been instrumental in organising the adventure. But with his loss of memory, there was no way of knowing for sure.
The torches along the walls distracted his train of thought. Their flames doubled in size with bursts and a whooshing, and lit the tunnel no less brightly than the orange sun had shone light over the barren landscape above.
A mass of butterflies of all shapes and sizes appeared from the walls and they squeaked like bats. They fluttered and twirled until their colourful wings began dropping from them, the bodies of the insects now no more than wriggling black slugs, falling into the blue stream.
Ahead of him were dark blue rats with extended legs, their bodies bigger than cats. They appeared ungainly as if on stilts and they scampered along like four-legged spiders. They seemed more afraid of Stave than he was of them; they disappeared into the shadows. They took the light with them. The brightly burning torches extinguished all at once and Stave was plunged into darkness. He felt his way along one of the brick walls.
Turquoise Traveller Page 14