A Warrior of Dreams

by Richard Parks

  The Dream Master hands glowed red. "Stop where you are, I command it!"

  Ghost frowned. "It was your word—happening. Not 'happened.' Your god has not joined you on the Daystage. You are not at one with your god... yet."

  "Damn you, we're not prepared to hold your Nightsou--." Tagramon looked like he wanted to bite his own tongue off at the root.

  "Inevitable," Ghost sighed, borrowing again. "I'm counting on that." Ghost's real opinion was that his own death no longer mattered. Another power would see that his Nightsoul did not escape. But Tagramon didn't know that.

  "Stop—"

  Decorum lost. Tagramon rushed forward with surprising speed and tackled Ghost, shoving him backward. Ghost's head banged against stone and he sagged and fell. It happened very quickly; Ghost almost didn't have time to turn the knife. Almost.

  *

  They weaved the dream like a net at the weakest point of the wall. It was more inspiration than plan, but there was no reason to explain that and no time; Musa and Daycia maintained the shell of a dream large enough to contain a god.

  Now for the bait. What would tempt a god?

  There was only one answer. Joslyn admired the gentle blasphemy of it for a heartbeat, then she created a world. It wasn't so very different from things she—and everyone—had done before, but the scale dared match the gods. Seas gathered, boiled, receded. Mountains rose and became continents, the sun and moon staked their hours and defended them, one against the other. And sometimes, when the moon was not so bright, there were stars.

  Joslyn felt the need for a sip from the well of madness, but there wasn't time. Something was still missing. She thought of Tagramon, gritted her teeth, and did it anyway.

  Come out now. All of you.

  Some came. Not enough. And still Joslyn could scarce tell one soul from another. She strained until she felt as if her head would burst, borrowed every face from every person she could remember: Musa. Daycia and her folk. Deverea, the windfolk, and their children. Faces barely remembered from the market in Darsa. Joslyn closed her eyes, tried to hold the images. It was like catching water. She held one for a moment; it flowed into the next and left her a stew of fragments and distortions. Joslyn opened her eyes and groaned.

  It won't be enough...

  She was wrong. It was a feeble world, but Joslyn saw the god enter it and take possession, as the mad child had done to her pitiful image of a wasp, those years ago. The slotstick god gathered the seeds Joslyn had planted and tended them, his power coming to bear and sharpening the images Joslyn struggled to hold. She got her first good look at the newborn god then; he still seemed rough and unfinished, but the seams were not so visible now, the sums that made the whole not so easy to separate.

  He still had Ghost's face.

  That wasn't right. Joslyn didn't know why at first, but the thought nagged at her until she asked the next question. Where's Tagramon? He has to maintain control!

  Joslyn waited as long as she dared while the god played with its world like a child, then released the dream to him. There was barely a flicker. She slipped closer, trying to lose herself in the faceless ones, the ones who had not, for good or ill, attracted divine attention. She found the answer, a tiny shadow perched daintily on the god's massive shoulder. It whispered and chattered like a monkey, its face inches from the god's ear. It looked a little like the traditional portraits of Gahon the Destroyer, a shrunken, dwarfish little demon, but mostly it looked like someone else.

  Tagramon. Joslyn had seen enough Nightsouls to know that the one who controlled the god was not the sum of the Dream Master. A piece, perhaps. Maybe one he didn't even miss. Still...

  You robbed Ghost. Who robbed you?

  YOU ARE A GOOD OPPONENT, JOSLYN. IT ALMOST WORKED.

  It was all the warning she had. There was barely time to comprehend the words before the dream was ripped apart. Joslyn stood with Musa and Daycia and the deity on the nightstage. Joslyn didn't know what had happened. She did know that the god was as confused as they were. The imp on his shoulder chattered and shrieked, pointing at the three dreamers and jumping up and down. In a moment they had the slotstick god's full attention. Joslyn glanced behind her, saw what a flimsy gossamer stood between them and the waking world.

  She smiled a rueful smile. It did work. But someone let the god out of our bag. It wouldn't need any more help. The air above their heads sizzled with power; Joslyn felt the little hairs rising on her neck. A storm was brewing on the nightstage; in a moment it would spill into the waking world. Nothing in Ghost's worst abuse of Somna's Dream will match this...

  They chose their avatars. Musa spread harpy wings; Daycia stretched and unsheathed the claws of a great cat. Joslyn alone kept the form she normally carried, but all three put all their will into the chosen form, summoning images of strength and power.

  On the nightstage, everyone is a god. There was a seed of truth in that, but Joslyn knew that nothing less than the full flower would do. They would fight because there was no choice. They would fall because there was no chance.

  Clear thought is such a burden --

  Joslyn suddenly wasn't so burdened. The imp disappeared. One moment he was there, and the next the god was alone, looking more confused. The seams in his flesh returned, spread, deepened. He looked like a puzzle box. Joslyn heard the flap of the harpy's wings, sensed the tension as the leopard prepared to spring.

  "No!"

  Joslyn held them. It took all her strength, but neither the harpy nor the great cat completed its attack. Daycia's voice rumbled in her throat. "Joslyn, what are you doing?!"

  Joslyn didn't know. She did have a sense of disaster avoided by the width of a knife-edge. Musa was the first to understand. "Whatever that thing was, it held him together, and now it's gone. We attack now and we give the god something outside himself to focus on. Few things are a better reason to live than the threat of death."

  They stepped back slowly. Harpy wings and black fur disappeared. Three bare nightsouls moved apart from each other and retreated into the mist.

  THAT ALMOST WORKED, TOO. BUT I'VE WAITED TOO LONG.

  Damn it, who are you?!

  Joslyn was the first to see the other. He strode out of the myth-dreams in robes of black, and under the hood of his robe there was nothing. Nothing at all.

  Malitus!

  She didn't see the God of Ending's smile, but she knew it was there. The empty hood focused on the patchwork deity.

  "Face me, Godling."

  The slotstick turned slowly and began to heal itself. Joslyn clenched her fists. Not this time, Ender. One god is enough --

  But that wasn't right, was it? One was too much, but the slotstick god was literally made of nightsouls dreaming small, controlled dreams. Its nature made its presence on the nightstage understandable, almost inevitable. But no other god was like the patchwork god. No other god could exist outside the Myth-dreams created for them by their followers.

  No other god...

  One moment of understanding, and Joslyn finally did choose an avatar, one very different from harpies and cats and images of power; something small and wizened, something with a little impish face and the wings of a gadfly. She soared above the dream and landed on the slotstick god's shoulder. She whispered into his ear.

  "Listen."

  *

  The great weight was gone. Feran was awake, but it was hard to be awake. It hurt his eyes; it hurt his mind. The others were in pain, too. He tried not to be aware of them, of the stifled sounds they made. There was too much he didn't understand, but he—they, were threatened by the god in black. He understood that, understood what must be done. It came naturally to a god...

  YOU'RE NOT A GOD.

  The voice again. It told him lies, but it had no power. And he had no time. "Go away."

  YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

  "The place of mortal dreams. The Nightstage."

  It was trying to confuse him. He would not allow it. He tried to swat the insect on
his shoulder, but it was too quick for him. It buzzed around his head like a gnat and settled again by his ear. IF YOU ARE A GOD, it went on, relentless, WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

  "I—" He stopped. He had a name, but it didn't belong, not to all the hidden ones who were part of him, not to the whole they made. It was his. "—don't know."

  LIAR. YOU KNOW, YOU REMEMBER. BUT IT ISN'T THE NAME OF A GOD, IS IT? THERE'S AN EMPTY SHELL IN THE WAKING WORLD, AND HE'S WAITING FOR YOU. WAITING TO REMEMBER HIS NAME.

  Feran couldn't shut it out. He tried. For an instant a mortal dream appeared before his eyes; he saw an image of a sad-faced man in the robes of an adept. It was too late not to realize where he was, what it meant. He remembered what had happened to him and the others. He felt their separateness, felt their pain and knew it would soon tear the feeble union apart.

  The Adversary didn't wait that long. He became lightning, and he flickered and hissed through a gathering storm. His voice was thunder incarnate. "Little God, I'm going to burn you."

  The Adversary's power enveloped him, but there was no fire, not yet.

  HE HAS TO FINISH THIS PLAY, AND THAT REQUIRES YOU TO REMAIN A GOD A LITTLE LONGER. HE'S NOT MALITUS, NOT WHO HE SEEMS. HIS NAME IS --

  A misty hand held up for silence. "I know who I am. I know where I am. It's enough." He spoke to the image of the God of Ending. "Burn me. I won't stop you."

  The Adversary laughed and the heavens rolled. "Truly a sad world where a newborn god is in such a hurry to die."

  The slotstick, the patchwork god gathered strength instead of storms and noise. Understanding gave him a plan, but did not remove fear. The world might stand one small use of power, and again it might not. They were too close to the waking world; their power would destroy it. But if the legends were true... "I can't stop you. No one can stop you now. Except, perhaps, yourself."

  Confusion. Just an instant. Perfect.

  "Why should I—"

  Time itself hadn't a chance to move. The patchwork god closed the gap between himself and the image of Malitus and took hold of the lightning with desperate, divine strength. He held the hood in a grip an earthquake wouldn't loosen. The Adversary didn't move.

  "That's right; I know you. You've found a hidden way into the Dream, a mask that will let you destroy it from within. It was masterful, your triumph deserved. Use it. But there's just one condition if you do—I swear that your own true face will be the very last thing the Dreamer sees before her dream ends. She will know you, and when she awakens she will remember."

  Nothing moved. Across the Nightstage all dreams were still.

  "It's a simple choice," the patchwork god said. "Make it."

  *

  On the plain before the city of Ly Ossia, the army of Malitus watched a theater in the sky. One of the players was a scarecrow giant, but, at the sight of the other, Brother Ligen's face shone with the light of heaven.

  "See! Malitus himself has come to lead us!"

  A great shout went up from the plain; a thousand curved knives were held aloft to catch the rising sun. On the city walls, bows were drawn, pole-arms made ready, but everyone kept their eyes on the sky, watching the doings of gods as if through a distorted glass.

  Brother Ligen held his own knife high. "Follow—He didn't get to finish. Another shout came from the army, but it was not of joy. Ligen saw what everyone else saw: Malitus seized by the scarecrow giant. Malitus held like a rag doll. Malitus retreating from the sky to leave the spindly god alone in triumph. Ligen's throat felt like ashes; it was hard to speak, but he tried. He spoke of signs, of tests. He spoke of what the vision meant. Some listened, and held close to him. Others did not. They had their own ideas about the meaning of defeat.

  They ran.

  *

  The gadfly was gone. In its place was a young woman with long, dark hair and a voice of command. "Come out. Now."

  "Wait," he said. He didn't know why.

  "No. You've done enough damage."

  "Damage..." The confusion was coming back. "I saved the dream!"

  "Only because you know the proper place for a god. Is this it?"

  It was not. And with the Adversary and the Dream Master's avatar both gone, there was nothing to hold the dreamers together. Nothing but himself. He looked back at the way he had come, but the woman shook her head. "Even a god dies at the proper time, and it is time. Break free; the others will follow you."

  Every word distracted, every truth drove in the wedge a little more. You. The others. He was Feran. Separate. Alone. The unity split apart, the god emptied like a burst sack of grain and scattered. When it was over the kernel that was himself stood before the dark dreamer.

  "What are you waiting for?" she asked.

  "I don't remember the way," he said.

  The hardness was gone from the woman's eyes; it wasn't needed. She held out her hand. "That's all right," she said. "I'll show you."

  *

  Joslyn moved warily in the catacombs, but as far as she could tell, she was alone. Once a sudden rattle in a pile of bones startled her, but it was only a rat, more frightened than she was. It disappeared behind a pile of skulls.

  Joslyn found a trail of blood. It glistened darkly in the weak light.

  Right or left?

  The droplets seemed to splash more to the left. She followed that way and found the Dream Master. His robes were caked with blood, his eyes open and staring. She knew he was dead, had known since the imp vanished from the nightstage. It was quite another thing to see the blood, feel the stillness of his body. Now revenge was satisfied, now the anger could leave her alone. And it did leave her alone, all alone with a cold, empty place inside where it had lived. She wondered if the emptiness would ever go away.

  Joslyn backtracked until she found the chamber. Ghost lay slumped against the near wall, a trickle of blood coming from his scalp. Perhaps the injury was worse than it looked, but then again... Stubborn nightsoul? It worked before. She drew back and slapped Ghost hard across the face. His eyes shot open, his arms flailed.

  "Damn!"

  Joslyn danced out of reach and gave him her brightest smile. "Good morning."

  Ghost slumped back against the wall, rubbing his eyes and cheek. Joslyn studied his face, looking for... something. She wasn't sure what, but she'd know it when she saw it.

  Ghost stopped moaning long enough to notice her. "I think I know you," he said.

  "Does that matter?"

  "I think so," he said, "because if I do, then I deserved that swat. If not, then I have a right to be angry. I think being angry would feel marvelous just now."

  "You know me," Joslyn said, "but I'm sure we can work something out."

  Ghost started to laugh but winced instead. "I'm sorry. We—I, know you, Joslyn. I am whole again. But I'm also a little confused right now."

  "You've been less than a man and more than a god all in the same day. That's enough to confuse anyone."

  Ghost slowly massaged his jaw. "What's happening above?"

  Joslyn pulled a kerchief from her belt and started to dab at the blood on Ghost's head. "The Watchers killed the few Enders who didn't flee with their god. And it seems dear Musa had a few hidden followers, too. She's securing the Temple now; Daycia and her folk will join Musa here in a few days. Without Belor and Tagramon to disturb his dreams I doubt the Emperor will interfere."

  Ghost nodded. "That's as it should be. And I'm sure Musa will have a place for you—ow!"

  Joslyn was still smiling, but she was putting a lot more pressure on the wound than was really needed. "So now I go back to making auguries? Not likely. The average man's dreams are a bubbling swamp; I've waded in them quite enough."

  Ghost pried the cloth loose from her fingers and applied it himself. "You're a Temple Dreamer. What else can you do?"

  "What else?! Ghost, I've found the road of the gods!"

  Ghost groaned. "So did I, Joslyn. An adept working alone, and you see where it got me. I want you to promise you won't take that road again.
"

  Joslyn rested her hands on her knees. "Was that actual concern in your voice? No, of course not. Well, I'll strike you a bargain—I'll make that promise if you will." She saw Ghost shake his head. "Why not?"

  "Because I spent years to find it, and my way was no less difficult than yours. And because everything we do, everything we feel, everything we are is there, with them... There's not an idea or ideal in this world that isn't reflected there, and in its cleanest, most archetypal form. The Nightstage is a cluttered mess by comparison. I have to go back. I have to understand."

  Joslyn nodded. "I knew your answer before you spoke. You know mine."

  Ghost smiled at her then, and Joslyn saw the thing that had been missing from Ghost's face all along—fear. His own fear, not borrowed, not imagined. He was whole again; he could feel. Pain, for instance. He seemed to be expecting it.

  "Joslyn, I saved your life and you've done as much for me. I am whole again, and you've rid yourself of some old burdens. The debt is settled between us; I have no claim on you. But I have learned the Mythstage is no place for anyone alone. For what we've seen, and what we still must do, I think we could work well together."

  Joslyn's smile was like a cat's—all teeth. She shook her head. "Settled? And what kept you tied to this world while awaiting your glorious restoration? Who sacrificed strength and energy and a great deal of time nurturing—you know the truth of it—an inhuman thing? The Dream may be worth that, but I don't know if you are. So I want that time back, Ghost. You're going to give it to me. You'll start by telling me your name. After that you're going to help me find a friend who's still lost in the Dark Sea. After that... well, I make no promises."

  Ghost sighed. "Who taught you to bargain like that?"

  "Musa," she said, "and the Dream Master. Two rather fine teachers, and I'm afraid you're no match for me. Your name, Ghost. That's the least part of your debt."

  "All right, but it was a long time for me, too. Can't I keep my name for myself, just a little longer?"

  Joslyn helped him stand. "Come with me."

  "Where are we going?"