The Sandman: Book of Dreams

by Neil Gaiman

Fida closed her eyes. Resting against her belly, the heart pulsed slowly, each beat sending warmth through her, and a trickle of strength.

  In the blood-red chamber, the Witch sweated and shivered.

  "It's the bitch-girl or me," murmured the Lady, soft as snow falling. "You can't have both. Why are you hesitating? She's an animal, not like you and me. She'll be dead in twenty years or so, just like the rest of them, and who knows whether I'll still want you by then? What do you know about this wolf-girl? How do you know you can trust her? Don't you want to know what she's doing right now?"

  The Witch put her hands to her burning forehead, pressed it between them until the pain stopped her. "No. Yes. No. She loves me. I trust her."

  "Suit yourself. She might be in trouble, be hurt, even dying. You could help her. But I guess you don't care."

  "No! I do care. If she's hurt, I want to see."

  The Lady smiled, a feral baring of the teeth. "Very well," she said. "You asked for it." She nodded at the mirror, which clouded and resolved into a dark painting of a naked girl curled on a wolf pelt. The girl was nursing something against her belly. Bending above her was the Witch, her proud face pleading, her hand beseechingly outstretched. The wolf-girl's lips were drawn back, snarling. Her eyes were wild.

  "Does she look hurt?" asked the Lady.

  "She looks ... angry."

  "Mad as hell," agreed the Lady.

  "Why won't she give me the heart?"

  "She wants it for herself," said the Lady.

  The Witch screamed and, lifting her fists, shattered the vision into a thousand glittering shards. She turned to the Lady, sobbing, the tears hot on her cheeks, bloody hands begging an embrace. "You," she said thickly. "Who are you?"

  The Lady opened her arms. "I am whatever you wish me to be," she said. "I am Desire."

  But the Witch was still speaking and did not hear her. "You are Love," said the Witch. "You are Family and Home and Safety. You are my Heart."

  Then she stepped into the embrace of Desire, which was as cold as the moon, and raised her lips to the lips of Desire, which sucked from her all warmth and hope of warmth. As they kissed, the fire in the hearth burned blue and white as ice, filling the room with a deadly chill. And far below, in the ritual chamber, her father's corpse shuddered and sighed.

  In Fida's grasp, the heart throbbed wildly and unevenly, gave a wild, shuddering beat, and was still. Fida cradled it to her, willing it warm again, lifting it to her mouth and licking it. It lay cool and elastic in her fingers, dead meat.

  "It's no use," said Desire. "She doesn't love you. She can't love you. She belongs to me."

  "But I love her," said Fida passionately. "I love her more than my life."

  "Die then," said Desire.

  Not long after, Desire took the Witch's heart from between Fida's torn and bloody paws and set it back on the rocky spur where it had reposed for the past three hundred years. She spat upon it and smoothed the spittle into a casket of ice, faceted and fantastically carved, bound in silver bands and set with moony jewels. Then she pulled her cowl up around her face, shook down her long, dark sleeves, and drifted back into the corner.

  The Witch sits in her blood-red room, cocooned in wolf pelts. The hands on her porphyry clock stand at half past one--whether morning or after noon is impossible to tell, for the windows are shuttered and curtained. So are the Witch's eyes, lids closed against the ruddy firelight and veiled by the mahogany hair hanging loose over her face. Stone and glass and wood and cloth stand between her and the moon, but she can feel it nonetheless, cold and hungry outside her chamber window, riding above the Mountain where her heart lies frozen in ice. Someday she'll get it back. All she needs is someone who will brave the moon and the Mountain and the Lady's White Wolves, to break the spell and get it for her. Someone who will not betray her. Someone who will love her. A wolf with a human shadow. The Lady has promised.

  THE MENDER OF BROKEN DREAMS

  Nancy A. Collins

  The first time I met Nancy Collins, we were

  sharing a hotel room. Nancy had to sleep on

  the floor. It was Steve Bissette's fault, and I

  tell the story in the afterword to Nancy's anthology, Nameless Sins, so you won't hear any

  more of it here.

  Here she gives us a glimpse further into

  the murky background of The Dreaming.

  I am the Mender of Broken Dreams. That is my occupation, my calling, if you will.

  I start each day by walking the long halls of the castle, climbing great staircases that curl and wind like the chambers of a nautilus. Every day the halls are different, the stairs head in a different direction, the artwork and furnishings decorating the wings no longer the same.

  Some days the door leading to the Restoration Department looks like an ancient vault, sometimes it resembles the yawning, laughing maw of a funhouse clown, other times it is twisted and off kilter, like the lurching doorways from a German expressionist film.

  The Restoration Department is always huge; that much never changes. There are thousands upon thousands of towering shelves that stretch up to the dim ceiling, each shelf divided into cubbyholes of various sizes and shapes, each cubbyhole carefully labeled and marked according to some arcane filing system created while Man picked his neighbors for nits. And in each specially marked cubbyhole there is a box holding the remains of a dream.

  My job is to repair the dreams or, should that prove impossible, retool them so they might somehow continue to work. It is an endless task, but immensely rewarding on a personal level. I love my work. It challenges me daily, both artistically and intellectually. I approach each case with the utmost interest and dedication. The repair and restoration of so delicate and ephemeral a thing as a dream is something only a true master craftsman would attempt. And while I blush to sound my own horn, false modesty has no place here. To state it simply: I am the best there is at my craft.

  My attendant, Kroll, is waiting for me to arrive, as always. Like many of Lord Morpheus's servants, he is not native to the Dreaming but an emissary from one of the many realms of myth. Kroll claims to be a prince of Nibelheim, the Land of Dwarves, but with his great shock of orange hair, round little belly and thick features, he looks more troll than dwarf.

  I take off my topcoat and drape it over the back of a chair carved to resemble a flying monkey. "Good morning, Kroll."

  "Morning, boss. Here's today's schedule," he announces in his basso profundo squeak as he hands me a sheaf of computer printouts.

  I glance at the columns of serial numbers, nodding my head. "Looks like we have a busy day ahead of us."

  "Lucky us," Kroll grunts, and heads over to the motorized cart he uses to traverse the labyrinthine stacks. To aid him in reaching the higher shelves, it comes with a cherry picker.

  I do not know how long Kroll has been working in the Restoration Department, but I would hazard a guess that he has been here for a lifetime or two. Occasionally he forgets himself and makes references to my predecessor, the previous Mender. As Kroll starts up the retrieval cart, I unlock the huge freestanding cabinet behind my workbench and take out the tools of my trade: a jeweler's eyepiece, a potting wheel, sculpting tools, a set of soldering irons and glass cutters, a sewing kit, an electron microscope, and far more mundane objects such as C-clamps and drill bits. Just as I've finished laying out my tools, I hear the puttputt-putt of Kroll's retrieval cart heading in my direction.

  Today there are several small and medium-sized boxes, a couple of crates, and what looks to be a rolled-up rug on the cart. I watch Kroll as he unloads a box big enough to hold a freezer unit without breaking a sweat. Although he is the size of a three-year-old child, Kroll's strength is prodigious. Rumor has it that once, while in his cups, he got into a brawl with one of the Aesir while in Valhalla and was forced to flee his myth cycle, which is why he's in Lord Morpheus's service.

  I check the serial numbers on the boxes in order
to make sure we have the same ones as those listed on the manifest, then open each box to check the contents.

  "Hmmm. Lot number 36/92: damaged stained glass. Lot number 87/12BB: frayed tapestry. Lot number 410/ZF: broken mechanical bird-of-paradise."

  "I'll get the looms and spinning wheels ready. Let me know what fabrics and dyes you'll be needing."

  "Very good, Kroll. And you'd better see to the blast furnace and kiln while you're at it."

  I decide to start with the clockwork bird-of-paradise. Mechanical things are always the easiest to fix, even when they have suffered the roughest of handling. I turn the bird-of-paradise over in my hands, admiring the workmanship.

  It is made of burnished gold with delicate patterns, chased in silver along its body and with precious stones set in its tail and head. Reality has taken its toll on the thing's beauty, though. Tarnish has corroded the silver and covered the settings with a black goo that turns the rubies and emeralds and pearls into grimy pebbles.

  Screwing the jeweler's glass into my right eye, I set myself to repairing its clockwork guts. Within a half hour the dream-machine is whole once more. I hand the bird-of-paradise to Kroll, who produces a burnishing cloth and begins polishing it like a fiendish Aladdin. Soon the clockwork bird looks as good as new--its golden skin reflecting the sunlight that spills in through the high windows like the face of the sun itself.

  "Now, let's see if she'll fly," I mutter, holding up the key I found in the box alongside the broken dream. It fits just below the clockwork bird's right wing. I turn the key clockwise, careful not to overwind it. The dream jerks into motion, flapping its wings and tossing back its head to give voice to a joyful burst of clockwork birdsong.

  Spreading its gold and silver wings, the bird-of-paradise takes to the air, circling over our heads a few times before flying out the open window in search of its rightful owner.

  "What kind of dream do you fancy that was?" Kroll asks, scratching himself with his three-fingered hand.

  "Probably one of wealth. It's no doubt going to roost on the bedpost of a peasant farmer somewhere."

  I decide to tackle the tapestry next, since matching threads, dyes, and weaves is the most time-consuming of restorations. As I unroll the tapestry, I find myself impressed by its elaborate design and dismayed by the state of its decay.

  Brave Persian warriors battle hungry lions and fearsome djinni. An invading army riding war chariots and Soviet tanks is met by heroic soldiers armed with spears and AK-47s, while angry gods and helicopter gunships hover in the war-darkened skies. Some of the images are obscured by bloodstains, while other parts have been damaged by bullets and fire. The tapestry reeks of smoke and gunpowder. Cleaning and restoring it to its former glory will be difficult--I will have to reweave the more damaged sections myself, using more modern materials while utilizing traditional crafts--but the task ahead of me is not impossible.

  I clip a small sample from the damaged portion of the dream and slip it under the electron microscope in order better to comprehend the elements necessary to duplicate the weave. Looks to be a mixture of hope, fantasy, romance, pride, and tradition. Not that unusual a blend, really. I jot down notes for Kroll to use for reference as he spins the raw materials into thread.

  Satisfied I have the composition correctly identified, I proceed to clean the dream as best I can before placing it on the loom for repair. This is, in fact, far trickier than replacing the damaged portions. If I am not careful and use too much force or too caustic a cleaning agent, I may permanently alter--if not completely eradicate--the elaborate designs worked into it. It requires a steady hand and sure touch to remove the effects of a few centuries of abuse from such a fragile thing as a dream.

  By the time Kroll has finished spinning the raw materials into fine thread and dyeing them the proper colors, I have finished cleaning the dream and placed it in the handloom. As I work the treadles and guide the shuttle along its race, the loom's ancient rhythm fills me with the magic of the woof and the weave.

  The loom's rhythm is that of the sea. It is the sound of the womb tides each mortal rides before birth. It is the rhythm of bodies as they create life. It is the sound of Making. It is as if I am listening to the beating of a giant's heart, and I allow myself to fall into a trance.

  Whiteness. Pungent smells and frightening, bestial sounds that do not come from animals. A memory of pain. Dull, repetitive pain.

  The vision is so sharp, so immediate, it startles me from my trance with an audible gasp. My first concern is for the dream I am working on. To my relief, I see that the restoration is a success. While the tapestry will never be mistaken for new, it is once more whole. The colors are a bit faded and the bloodstains are still visible, if one knows where to look, but it does not affect the overall impact. In a way, it serves to enhance the mystique. This is an old dream, but one with many years of use still in it.

  Although I am still shaken by my vision, my hands do not tremble as I free the dream from the loom. I lay it out on the floor so I can get a better look at it. Kroll nods his head in admiration.

  "Great job. Some of your best work yet, boss."

  "Thank you, Kroll. I value your opinion on these matters."

  Just then the tapestry flexes itself, like a cat in front of the fireplace. The figures woven into the dream begin moving and making noise. The lions roar, the djinni laugh, the armies clash their swords against their shields, the AK-47s fire celebratory bursts, while the helicopter gunships hum like giant dragonflies.

  I nudge the dream with my boot tip. "There you go. You're free to return to your people."

  The dream-tapestry wastes no time. It leaps into the air, flapping its outer edges like a manta ray cruising the sandy bottom of a lagoon. Like the bird-of-paradise before it, it slips through the open window and, within seconds, is well on its way home.

  I clap my hands together and smile down at my assistant. "What do you say to knocking off for lunch, Kroll?"

  "I'd say it's about bloody time."

  I like to take my lunch on the window seat, looking out at the wondrous garden below. The garden, like everything else in Lord Morpheus's palace, changes from day to day. Sometimes it is a Japanese meditation garden, complete with elaborate designs raked into the sand, other times it is an English country garden. Once it was a topiary, and I distinctly recall the day it was a cactus grove. On this particular day it is a French garden, like the one at Versailles.

  I look down on the neatly manicured grass and the regimented lines of trees and flowering shrubs as I eat my box lunch. The mingled fragrances of orange and cherry blossoms, of rosebushes and honeysuckle in full bloom tickle my nose, erasing the smell of human excrement my vision had summoned so vividly.

  As I sip from my thermos of iced tea, I glimpse movement at the corner of my eye. Something dark and yet pale at the same time. Without thinking, I turn my head to look.

  That's when I see them--a man and woman, each dressed in clothes black as the space between the stars, each with flesh as white as alabaster. The man is tall, gaunt--almost unhealthily so--outfitted in a long cape. His hair is dark and tousled, as if he has just left his bed.

  The woman is shorter, not nearly as thin, wearing jeans and a cutaway tuxedo jacket, an undertaker's mourning derby atop her own unruly mane. The woman is talking, laughing, her hands clapping at some joke. The man looks preoccupied, his features dour. Although he is a stranger to me, there is a haunting familiarity to his features. With a start, I suddenly realize who I am looking at.

  It's him.

  After all this time--Has it been years? Decades? I cannot remember exactly when it was I became the Mender--I am finally looking upon the face of my master. The face of the Shaping Lord himself: Morpheus, he whom mortals know as Dream.

  And if he is Lord Dream, it occurs to me, then the woman with him must be his elder sister, Lady Death.

  Even as I think these thoughts, the pale woman turns her gaze from her broth
er. I glimpse her smile and the sign of the ankh that marks her right eye. Even though she has no way of knowing that I am sitting here, watching her, she smiles in my direction. She is beautiful. Possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, or will ever see. I quickly look away.

  Lunchtime is over. Time to get back to work.

  I open the next job lot--this time the dream is in the form of a shattered Ming vase, decorated with heavenly storm dragons and good luck bats so stylized they resemble exotic flowers instead of animals. I try to focus on the job at hand, rearranging the broken pieces and mixing the necessary fixative to glue it back together, but I cannot shake the image of Death looking at me and smiling as if I were an old friend she was looking forward to chatting with.

  Luckily the shattered dream-vase is not a difficult repair job. I find my mind wandering as I meticulously paste it back together with a brush made from the eyelash of a newborn camel.

  Not for the first time, I wonder where it is I come from and go every day. By the time I am aware of my surroundings at the start of the day, I'm already well within the confines of the palace. And, as far as my memory is concerned, the moment I step over the threshold of the Restoration Department at the end of the day, everything goes blank.

  I should be able to recall if I go home, relax with a beer, and tell my wife about my day. However, I don't even know if I have a home to go back to, much less a wife. I can remember what transpires within the walls of the palace perfectly well--but everything else remains a gray, amorphous mist. I don't even know where or how I came about my prodigious knowledge of the restoration and repair of dreams. It is as if with each working day I am born anew, like Athena leaping from Zeus's brow.

  Only once in a while do I have bursts of--I hesitate to call it insight. Visions is a better word. Visions like the one I had earlier. They're always brief, always confusing, and seem to involve pain. Maybe I'm better off not knowing. I keep telling myself that. But I really don't believe it.

  The rest of the day passes in a haze. I repair the dream-vase without a hitch, even though my heart is not really in it, and set about repairing a dream in the form of a medieval stained-glass window depicting the martyrdom of St. Sebastian. The saint's face has been eaten away by both man-made and natural forces, leaving the features indistinct. As hard as I try, I cannot replicate the saint's original appearance, so I substitute those of a young actor who died on the street. Aesthetically, it works.