The Sandman: Book of Dreams

by Neil Gaiman

For a long time the tall man did not say anything. Jessica looked around at all the masks all the eyes all the faces in the shadoes. Then she saw that the King was staring at her.

  And are you innocent, child he asked. She did not know what to say. I am afraid sometimes she said.

  He smiled just a little and said I will think on this. Take her back before the moon sets.

  Thank you my lord said Mister George. Your help would mean a small part of my vast det might be repayed. He turned and went to the door and Jessica followed him.

  Byrun said the Player King. Byrun hold a moment. Jessica wondered who he was talking to but Mister George stopped.

  My lord, he said.

  Her name was Ogusta was it not, the tall man asked.

  It was my lord said Mister George, then turned to the door again and led the Princess out into the fog. Jessica reached way down and took his paw because she thought he looked very sad.

  "King Alexander was awakened by a touch on his shoulder. Groggy and disoriented, he shifted in his chair and looked at his magic window to see if she had come to him at last. Earlier he had felt her moving closer, felt his spell reach out and enfold her, but he was a little surprised to experience results so swiftly.

  "But the woman-child was still prisoned behind the window like a butterfly in a glass case, her limbs out- stretched in sleep as though she had writhed on the pin before stillness came. She had disarranged her coverings, and her limbs gleamed in the moonlight.

  "But if it was not his ensorcelled beloved who had touched him ...

  "The Lord of the Hundred Windows turned his chair slowly and felt broken glass beneath his shoes. A tall figure stood behind him, dressed all in flowing black, but with a face pale as mortuary marble.

  "King Alexander stoned violently. 'Who are you, sir?' he asked. 'How came you to the Palace of Oblong Crystals? What do you want of its master?'

  " 'No mortal can build a palace in the Dreaming and expect to be called "master," ' the figure said. 'That is asking too much. Alexander, you consider yourself a poet, do you not?'

  " I write a little ... but who are you, and how did you come here? This is a private place.'

  " 'If this is a private place, and the dreams you craft here are private, then let them stay that way. If you would recreate them in the waking world, then you must acknowledge the evil that can come of them.'

  " I know you,' said the Lord of the Hundred Windows, moving back in his chair. 'I have heard the servants whispering about you. You are the Dark-Eyed One--the old god of this place. Have I done something to offend you? Do you come to punish me?'

  " 'You have done nothing great enough to offend Dream. You have done something that offends another-- an old servant of mine. He is sworn to protect innocents from such as you. But, no, I will do nothing to punish you. That is not my charge.'

  " 'Then begone!' King Alexander stood up, filled with the sudden confidence that follows a terror proved unnecessary. 'If you have no power aver me, what right do you have to accost me in my secret, private place? What right to interfere in my life, with my loves? She is mine--my creation! I will do with her as I choose. That is my right.'

  "The shadow-eyed figure seemed to grow. A dark nimbus swirled around him like a cape of mist. He reached out a white hand, then he smiled.

  " 'I have rights and powers beyond your ken, O would be poet. But I spoke only the truth. I will not punish you. One thing only will I do, and that is fully within my rights as sovereign over all the lands of dream, and of every hovel and palace therein. I will show you the truth. Look to your beloved secret window and see the reality that even the thickest shadows of Dream cannot hide. See the truth.'

  "With those words the apparition swirled like wind-blown fog and vanished.

  "For some time the Lord of the Hundred Windows stood watching the place where the thing had been, fearing that it would reappear. His moment of confidence was long past. His heart beat as swiftly as it had when he had first beheld his beloved....

  "His beloved! He turned to the magical window, terrified that his spell would be undone, that her image would be gone forever. To his relief, he saw her sleeping, still as compellingly beautiful as she had ever been, still framed in the possessive spell of his blood. She turned restlessly, arching her neck and exposing for a moment the pale soft shape of her breast. Something shadowy was cradled in her arms... a stuffed toy.

  "Alexander smiled to see such childlike innocence in the shape of a young woman. But as he watched, the image before him shimmered, then was slowly replaced by one very different.

  "The Lord of the Hundred Windows leaned forward, gazing in horrified astonishment at this singular and most important window. His eyes opened wide. His lips parted but no sound came from his mouth. Thus he sat for a long time, in silence, staring, staring . .. staring."

  This is the end of my story, gentle reader. If you feel that you do not understand it, then perhaps I am at fault. But is it the task of a poet to explain all, every allusion, every symbol? Or does he merely sow the seed, and is it not then the reader's responsibility to bear the final issue? Too frequently the blame is cast onto the writer, the poet, when in fact I think it is the ingratitude and sloth of readers which so frequently mars the highest, best truths an author can create.

  What happened to the child, you ask? What happened to Princess Jessica? She was a writer's child, and thus only a figment. Together you and I engendered her. Perhaps we were wrong to do so--perhaps to invent a fictitious child to avoid the fear and pain of raising a real one is to murder Time. If so, then lam Time's secret murderer-- and you are my accomplice. So take care before you sound any loud alarums.

  Whatever the case, the story is finished and the child is dead. All is cast away, a flawed draft that will not see the light of day. Perhaps a writer's child, because she carries the aspirations of the poet, because she is not of the mundane world, is too perfect to live. Perhaps there are forces in the world--those who would tyrannize dreams and regulate dreaming--that cannot bear such perfection. If so, then they have won a victory.

  The child is dead. The dream is dead. Do not complain to me that it is not the story you wished. It was the only story I knew.

  Thats the last of the story. Princess Jessica put it with the other parts and it is in a box under the bed, but she doesnt read them any more.

  Jessica doesnt live in the Glass Castle any more either. The new house is smaller but its not glass. There is a garden which is mostly rocks but her mother says she doesnt feel much like putting in flowers yet. She is tired of flowers. He was a good man Jessica, her mother says. I know you miss him very much and I do too.

  Jessica is not sure that she misses him very much all tho she does sometimes. But some other times it feels good that she doesnt have to think about hiding so much. Now it is her mother who makes the crying sounds sometimes but she makes them on the couch not in a room with the door closed. Jessica always tells her its okay Mommy but sometimes her mother doesnt believe it.

  Jessica tried to talk to Mister George but he doesnt talk any more, not even at night. His ears are still raggedy tho, and he still sleeps next to her in bed. She wishes they could still have talks, but the doctor told her mother once it was just a faze, which means just for a while so maybe everybodys bear stops talking after a while.

  Jessicas mother wouldnt let her see what happened to her father but the Duchess, who still lives with them and watches even more television said that he fell and cut himself on a broken wine glass that was on the floor and Weeded and died. When her mother was sleeping that day after the ambalance men went away Jessica went to the room and looked at all the blood. It was all in the carpet and wine was there too so there were two colors of red. Thats when she found the rest of the story too, it was beside the tipewriter.

  But there was something Jessica didnt understand quite.

  The big mirror over his desk was broken and all the pieces were
gone.

  Someone must have cleaned them up. In the Glass Castle they always cleaned up the broken stuff and threw it away.

  ENDLESS SESTINA

  Lawrence Schimel

  I love sestinas. (A sestina is a classical verse form, six verses of six lines each, in which the final words recombine according to an obscure formula from stanza to stanza.)

  They are not easy to write. (I've written one successful one, and the beginnings of innumerable other ones.)

  Here Lawrence Schimel coruscates his way through lust, towards death, in a sestina with sickness and brio.

  The sunlight helps to hold delirium

  at bay. Seated, warm, I desire

  nothing more than my dreams

  can provide: escape from death,

  from sliding into despair

  contemplating my inevitable destiny.

  I do not like to call it destiny

  for I merely took delight

  in the flesh--mine, theirs. While I might now despair

  my end, I do not--cannot--regret my desire;

  who knew it would lead so nimbly to death?

  Warmed by the sun, I sit near the window and dream:

  before me on an endless field stands Morpheus,

  himself, and I wonder if I am facing my destiny,

  a vision of how I will look just before Death

  comes to claim me. I must be delirious,

  I think, for as gaunt and drained as he looks, I still desire

  him. At least a frustrated libido is an easier despair

  to handle than one's own death. These days, despair

  is such a constant companion, even my dreams

  are full of her. The angst of wanting--of needing

  to be desired--

  is inevitable; every boy's unavoidable destiny.

  I beg him, "I can show you such delight...."

  But Morpheus has other things on his mind than

  le petit mort.

  He is a banshee, foretelling my death

  with a keening wail of utter despair.

  I shiver at the sound, cold, and know that delirium

  and night sweats wrack my body, invading even

  my daydreams.

  I know what I cannot avoid; therefore, call it destiny.

  Who am I trying to fool with this desire

  for time, for life, for the chance to be desired

  again, if only once more before I die?

  Before I die! How cruel this untimely fate!

  I am so far sunk into despair

  I can't even get laid in my own dreams!

  But I know this abstinence is only the delirium

  invading my dreams. Morpheus, help me fight

  my destiny.

  Let me be desired! I won't give way to despair!

  Rage, rage, against the dying of delight!

  THE GATE OF GOLD

  Mark Kreighbaum

  Mark Kreighbaum is a San Franciscan poet and author.

  His story and Tad Williams's came in at the same time, like two sides of a coin. Companion tales, perhaps, or bookends.

  The doll watched helplessly as Ginny suffered through the nightmare that owned her every time she slept. An immense shadow, reeking of strange smells and sour hate, swung a belt like a snarl of midnight against the skeletal figure of Ginny's mother. The shrieks echoed with agony. The whine of the shadow's belt cracked like lightning against the mother's flesh. Ginny wept, her own screams weak and thready. Ginny's doll hung from the little girl's white-knuckled fist.

  He was only a doll, but he tried to hug Ginny, to comfort her. Ginny clasped the doll to her chest with all the force she could manage. She was so small, so frail.

  "No no no no. Don't hurt Mommy. Stop it, Daddy. Please. I'll be good. Please." The little girl's voice shattered into sobs. But the nightmare went on, pitiless. The father-monster paid her no heed.

  The doll wished it could weep, too. He loved Ginny, though he was only a sliver of the Dreaming, the smallest of small matters in this realm. But he had been thinking and planning. The nightmares couldn't go on. They mustn't. Awake, Ginny didn't consciously know what the dreams told her, but the doll knew how they were scarring her soul and mind.

  He knew what he had to do. It meant abandoning Ginny here, though, and he couldn't bear the thought of leaving her alone with no hope. But as she wailed into the darkness and the lightning of satisfied hate fell over and over again, endless, the doll knew it must find the courage to go, to save his friend.

  He slipped from Ginny's grasp. She looked down at the doll, her eyes wide with a new fear. In the Dreaming, Ginny's green eyes were transformed into holes of night. He could see all the way down those dark corridors to the pearl of her soul, bleeding, burning.

  "Dolly?" She spoke in a terrified whisper.

  "I love you, Ginny," said the doll. "Remember."

  Then, he turned and ran away into the silver mists before she could say another word and chain him to her side for the rest of the nightmare. He wanted to promise her he would return, but that would be a lie. He was about to violate all the laws of the Dreaming, and he had no illusions about the penalty.

  The doll was ancient. He had been the companion to children since the first night brought fear to an innocent's day. Always, he had done his duty, giving comfort, playing games, tumbling and telling tales. He loved all his children. The pain of losing them to older dreams was softened by the new spirits who welcomed him into their small lambent hearts. He had known joy and sorrow both for as long as children dreamed and had never failed his trust. Until now.

  He knew many things about the Dreaming that were hidden from his younger kin. Over centuries, he had glimpsed other creatures, some kind, some bitter, observing his children's dreams. The doll took notice, studied them, learned the paths they used to travel in and out, spoke with them if they wished. He had learned about the Dreaming, and its Lord.

  Once, he had even felt the cold passage of the Lord of the Dreaming, as he moved on some errand beyond the doll's tiny comprehension. Mere contact with the wake of the Endless brought deeper knowledge of the Dreaming, even to such a speck of illusion as he.

  The doll was determined to seek out the Master and demand an end to Ginny's nightmares. Surely, the sculptor who fashioned such love for children out of the stuff of the Dreaming would not deny him. But he was afraid. Afraid. The brush of the Lord's wake had been terrifying. He was less than a spider's web to the storm of the Master. Would such a being even notice a mote like him, much less listen to his plea?

  The doll followed a winding path out of Ginny's dream that led sideways out of the imperfect walls of the little girl's imagination. Once beyond Ginny's nightmare, he saw rainbow spheres in countless number filling every space of the silver realm of the Dreaming. They were other dreams, he realized. He was only a doll and could not count above a number he thought of as eleventeen, two pudgy hands full of fingers, but a sudden realization of the immensity around him gave him pause. What he planned was hopeless. The Master would not even notice him, might destroy him with a flicker of thought. And then, what of the generations of children to come? There would be no doll to play with them in their dreams, to make them laugh and grow into dreamers. He wavered. He should go back. Ginny would grow up, lose her need for the doll, and he could go on to another child. He had been the companion to children with nightmares before, some far worse than Ginny's. There would be an end to the pain. He looked back and saw that Ginny's sphere was a dull gray tumor tumbling in the mists. The doll's heart was filled with sorrow and pity. Why did children have to suffer nightmares? It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. He stiffened his tiny form. Let the Lord destroy him. He would be heard.

  The Master's home lay at the center of the Dreaming. It was a long way to travel, and he had to finish his journey before Ginny woke. The doll moved with desperate speed through the infinite rainbow spheres.

  The p
alace rose up before him like a black tree. It loomed in the mist as if brooding on incalculable matters. The doll fearfully approached the entrance. An enormous gryphon trained its glittering gaze upon him.

  "You are far from your home, little one," the gryphon boomed. The doll could not tell if the gryphon was angry or amused. "You have no business here. Leave now."

  The doll felt his courage dissolve. The gryphon was right. He didn't belong here. Some of the strangers who had paused in his children's dreams had told him that the Lord of the Dreaming had guardians who were quick to anger and nearly as powerful as their Master. The doll trembled.

  "I... I've come to see the Lord Morpheus."

  One of the other guardians, the wyvern, gave a throaty chuckle, like the memory of thunder. "I think not," it said.

  "Mercy, brothers," murmured the third warden, the hippogriff. "You have traveled in vain, little one. Morpheus is not in residence."

  The doll felt the shreds of his courage tatter to whispers. All for nothing. He had failed Ginny.

  "Couldn't I please wait? It's very important," he said, timidly.

  "Important?" The wyvern laughed. "The Lord of the Dreaming has the care of all reality. You presume greatly, child."

  But when it spoke the word "child," the doll felt an answering flare of anger that strengthened his resolve. He was a speck to these beings, true, but he was not nothing. He had cared for children all of his existence, and that had been a very long time, even measured in the millennia counted by such creatures as these.

  "I will wait." He tried to say it with some dignity, but it came out as a quaver.

  "That would be foolish," said the kindly hippogriff. "Morpheus has passed through the Gate of Gold and his return may be very long in coming."

  "The Gate of Gold?"

  "There are three gates that rule the Dreaming," said the gryphon. "Surely you know of them."

  The doll could tell from the gryphon's tone that it supposed that he did not. But he had listened to many travelers and learned much of the Dreaming.

  "Of course. The Gate of Horn is for true dreams. The Gate of Ivory for false." The doll's voice faltered. "But I have never heard of the Gate of Gold."

  "Even the Endless must dream," said the hippogriff. "Morpheus bides among the Infinite."

  The doll fell silent for some moments. At last, he worked up his courage to speak.

  'Tell me how to find the Gate of Gold," he said.

  "Why?" asked the gryphon.

  The doll could think of no good answer. But as he looked at the gryphon, he saw that it was not angry at him, but rather deeply sad. He had seen such an expression too many times to mistake it. And suddenly he knew. This creature was a child, and the doll had been made to amuse children.

  The doll did what he had done for thousands of years. He capered before the gryphon, turning himself into a bright-feathered bird, a colorful dream gryphon, that skirled in the air playing tag with his own feathers. He played games that were old before the first human tamed fire. He flew around and under and behind the great guardian, telling tales of eggs stolen and recovered, singing breakfast songs and cloud rhymes. He played and teased and tickled and tumbled. He used every thing he had ever known or learned. He thought of Ginny, who never laughed anymore, and invented still more games.