The Sandman: Book of Dreams

by Neil Gaiman

Paramore's ghostly smile appeared. "I will order all the king's army to lie down ..." he said.

  "Good!" she cried. "We shall lay them all down on Salisbury Plain--even the horses! What then?"

  "And then, in an enchanted sleep, the English army shall march on Morpheus's castle and pull him from his throne."

  "Yes!" she cried. "Paramore, it is a pity that you and I should have to part so soon."

  "Perhaps," said Paramore and reached up and took down a great blue jar from the shelf. He emptied some white powder into a little leather pouch and tucked it inside his shirt.

  That night it rained, and all of London's sins were washed away. All the streets were full of water and, once it had stopp't raining, all the water was full of stars. Stars hung above the City and stars hung below and London hung between. John Paramore--onetime astrologer and seducer, self-styled poet and magician, present madman--appeared high up among the stars, upon a roof in Blue Ball Court-- laughing and singing and calling on Morpheus to come and fight him. He was very drunk.

  Householders from Shoe-lane and Gunpowder-alley got out of their beds and gathered in the street below, with the kind and neighborly intention of seeing John Paramore break his neck and of telling his relations all about it afterward. Some of the bystanders found a strange, thin man with a long, pale face lurking in a doorway and, believing this to be Lord Morpheus, began to pull his hair and kick his shins and roundly to abuse him, until it was discovered that he was not Morpheus at all, but a cheesemonger from Aberdeen.

  Later Paramore went walking through the dark City streets, from Holborn to the village of Mile-End and back again, stumbling through the scaffolding of all the halfbuilt City churches, clambering over all the beams and shadows and blocks of Portland stone that waited in Cheapside for Sir Christopher Wren to make them into St. Paul's. He could have told you--if you had cared to know such a thing--the number of Morpheus's eyelashes and described in most minute detail the faint crescent-shaped mark on his cheek an inch below his left eye. For there was nothing left in Paramore's head but Lord Morpheus and he filled it till it was nigh to bursting.

  Toward morning London grew colder. The sky was filled with clouds like torn bed sheets and broken mattresses, and a gentle snow began to fall. There was not another soul in all the world.

  The snow spotted the red-brick buildings and the piazzas. Lofty statues gazed down on Paramore with some thing remarkably like pity and the flooded Thames flowed silently between walls of silvery grey Carrara marble.

  "Carrara marble?" murmured Paramore in amazement. "Lord, what city is this?"

  "Do you not know it?" asked a voice.

  "Well, sir, it is London--that much I do know. But she was not so fair and lovely yesterday, I am sure. So many beautiful buildings! So many fine canals--with a pale rose-colored dawn in each and every one! And everything so very geometrical!"

  "This is the London that Sir Christopher Wren designed when the old city was burnt up in the Great Fire fifteen years ago but which the King refused to build. So I took Sir Chris's drawings and I built his city here."

  "Well, I will not tell him, sir, or he will want paying for it. Faith, sir, those Italians brag and brag, but I doubt they have anything so fair as this."

  "A city the color of a winter's afternoon," said the voice thoughtfully.

  "And do they want magicians in this city, sir?" asked John Paramore. "I only ask because I find myself a little quiet at the moment."

  "Indeed? And why is that?" asked the voice.

  "Ah, sir," sighed Paramore. "It sometimes happens that a small man--such as myself--has the misfortune to offend a great prince--how or why he cannot tell. But ever after all his actions miscarry and his life runs all awry."

  There was silence for a moment.

  Then the voice said--in accents of great bitterness-- "For Morpheus is an idle king, grown dull and foolish from the long years of security. His walls are old and crumbling. His gates are unguarded. His servants are not watchful."

  Paramore looked up and saw a doorcase surmounted with two figures, splendid but solemn, representing Winter and Autumn. Between the two was the Dream-king, with his black elbow propped up on the Autumn's marble head and his black boot idly resting in Winter's marble bosom and his long, black hair whipp't by the wind.

  "Ha!" cried Paramore. "Now this is fortunate. I have lately heard a puzzling rumor that Your Grace has taken it into his head to be angry with me and, since it is my wish always to have Your Grace's good opinion, I have come to make amends."

  "Paramore," said Lord Morpheus, "is there no end to your impudence?" Then he said, "I am glad you like my London. I intend you shall stay here for a good long while."

  In the empty streets the chill winds (or dreams of winds) eddied and played. Yet the streets were not quite empty. Dreams of voices and dreams of sad, tolling bells were carried on the wind, and what looked like ghostly bundles of fluttering, flapping rags.

  "What are they?" asked Paramore.

  "Old dreams. Tired dreams. Bitter, angry dreams," said Lord Morpheus. "You will come to know them better."

  "Your Grace is very kind," murmured Paramore, but he seemed to be thinking of something else. "Ah," he sighed, "if only Your Grace were a woman, then I know that I might make you pity me."

  "True, Paramore," said Morpheus. "For so many years you have lived on the kindness of women. But there are none here for you to play your tricks on."

  Along the street (which both was and was not Cheapside), came the dead Jewess. She walked slowly, for she had a great way to go and had all the breadth of Dreame-Countries to cross before she would reach Heaven's Marches. In her arms she carried the little Christian boy, the widow's child, Orlando Beaufort. He was not sleeping (for the dead do not sleep) but he had buried his face in her neck and his golden curls were mingling with her own.

  Lord Morpheus raised one black eyebrow and smiled at Paramore as if to say: she cannot help you. She cannot help herself.

  Deborah Trismegistus stopped in front of the doorway where Lord Morpheus sat. To Morpheus she said, "I see, sir, that you have mended your walls." And to Paramore she said, " 'Tis always disheartening to see a king. They are never so tall as fancy paints them."

  But Paramore did not reply.

  In the waking world snow falls directly to the ground or is carried on the wind, in accordance with the rules and protocols of the waking world. In Dreame-Countries the snow falls and returns into Morpheus. It melds with his white skin in accordance with the rules and protocols of that world. Morpheus's face glistened with snow. He parted the snow to get a better view of Paramore. For it seemed to Morpheus that something had happened to Paramore--it was as if his soul had fallen away in grains of sand and reappeared the next moment with some strange new quality.

  Without warning a lady appeared. She came from the direction of Friday-street, for she had just been with Mr. Newbolt. She strode capably through the snow. She wore a black silk gown and something very queer swung from a silver chain about her neck. Her smile was full of comfort and her eyes were kind and happy. She was just as Mr. Newbolt had described.

  And the name of this lady was Death.

  What happened next can only truly be expressed in metaphors--being, as it is, an exchange between two immortal beings. But let us say for simplicity's sake that a kind of argument took place between Morpheus and his sister, Death. Let us say that both of them claimed John Paramore's soul. Let us say that the argument went on for some time, but that the lady (who was a great deal older and cleverer than her brother, and who had ample proof that Paramore had just died of poison in an alley near Blackfriars) paid not the least attention to her brother's many grievances, and Morpheus was forc'd to yield to her.

  Death and John Paramore, the dead Jewess and the dead Christian child went away together, and already John Paramore was beginning to bargain and to plead with Death to be allowed to follow the dead Jewess into her own particular Heaven ("...
For I have often thought, madam, how strangely Jewish I feel in my soul..."), and Morpheus heard his sister (a most compassionate and forgiving lady) begin to laugh at Paramore's nonsense.

  It was whispered among some of Lord Morpheus's servants and subjects that their lord was displeased: but who among them could say for certain? Those dreams which haunted London that night might well have peered up at Morpheus to discover if he were angry, but they surely came away none the wiser--for there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.

  AFTERWORD: DEATH

  Tori Amos

  I discovered Tori in 1991, when she sent me a tape, through a friend, of the record that would become her album Little Earthquakes. We've been fast friends and mutual fans ever since.

  This is the introduction she wrote to Death: The High Cost of Living.

  It's funny but on good days I don't think of her so much.

  In fact never. I never just say hi when the sun is on my tongue and my belly's all warm. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage, and suicide is definitely your last performance, and, being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option--plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing.

  So we talk.

  She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hot dog, and then it's like nothing's impossible.

  She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is."

  Like yesterday, all the recording machines were breaking down again. We almost lost a master take and the band leaves tomorrow and we can't do any more music till we resolve this. We're in the middle of nowhere in the desert, and my being wants to go crawl under a cactus and wish it away. Instead, I dyed my hair and she visited me and I started to accept the mess I'm in. I know that mess spelled backwards is ssem, and I felt much better armed with that information. Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said, if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore.

  When you're on your knees you're closer to the ground. Things seem nearer somehow.

  If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp, then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog, and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me anymore and, after all, she has a brother who believes in hope.

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

  Tori Amos has been playing the piano since she was two years old. She was accepted into the Peabody Conservatory at the age of five. She was kicked out for irreconcilable differences at the age of eleven. Her album Little Earthquakes was initially released in the U.K. in January 1992 and worldwide release followed. A 1992 world tour gave Tori a chance to eat lots of good food and play over two-hundred cities worldwide alone at her piano. Since then Tori has released two more bestselling albums, Under the Pink in 1994 and Boys for Pele in 1996.

  Steven Brust is the popular author of the Vlad Taltos series, chronicling the adventures of an assassin-for-hire. His most recent works include The Phoenix Guard and 500 Years After.

  Brenda W. Clough is the author of four fantasy novels, a novel for young readers, and a number of short stories. Her latest book, How Like a God, will be published by Tor Books. She has been reading and collecting comics since she was seven years old.

  Susanna Clarke lives in Cambridge, England, where she spends most of her time editing cookbooks and watching people take photographs of food. In her stories, she likes to blend history with magic. She is presently working on a novel set in a nineteenth century Britain where magic is a respected profession, more or less. Her other stories appear in Starlight and White Swan, Black Raven.

  Nancy A. Collins is the author of Paint it Black, Walking Wolf, Wild Blood, In the Blood, Tempter, and Sunglasses After Dark. Her collected Sonja Blue Cycle, Midnight Blue, was published in omnibus format by White Wolf in early 1995. Nancy is currently working on the comics and screenplay adaptations of Sunglasses After Dark and the fourth installment in the Sonja Blue Cycle, A Dozen Black Roses, and a romantic dark fantasy called Angels on Fire. She currently resides in New York City with her husband, anti-artiste Joe Christ, and their dog, Scrapple.

  George Alec Effinger began writing science fiction in 1970 and has published about twenty novels and six collections of short fiction. Beyond his science fiction. Effinger has written two crime novels, Felicia and Shadow Money. His most recently published novel is The Exile Kiss, the third book in the Budayeen series that began with When Gravity Fails. He is collaborating with Walter Jon Williams to combine the worlds of When Gravity Fails and Hardwired.

  John M. Ford is the author of eight science fiction and fantasy novels and many pieces of short fiction, including the World Fantasy Award-winning novel The Dragon Waiting and the Nebula Award finalist "Fugue State." His stories and poetry have appeared in Omni, Analog, the anthology Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder, and many other publications.

  Lisa Goldstein's first book, The Red Magician, won the American Book Award for Best Paperback in 1983. Since then she has published six novels, the most recent being Summer King, Winter Fool, a short story collection, Travellers in Magic, and numerous short stories. Her novels and short stories have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.

  Colin Greenland won all three U.K. science fiction awards in 1990 for Take Back Plenty. His other works include: Death Is No Obstacle, a book-length interview with Michael Moorcock; Harm's Way, a Victorian space opera; the Tabitha Jute trilogy, Take Back Plenty, Seasons of Plenty, and Mother of Plenty; and a graphic novel with Dave McKean, to be called Tempesta.

  Karen Haber has been published in several anthologies, among them After the King, The Further Adventures of Batman, and Alsen Pregnant by Elvis. She has just finished the last book, Sister Blood, in a science fiction trilogy published by DAW Books. Karen is the wife of science fiction author Robert Silverberg, and lives in California.

  Barbara Hambly's works are mostly sword-and-sorcery fantasy novels, though she has also written a historical whodunit and novels and novelizations from television shows, notably Beauty and the Beast and Star Trek. She has also made an excursion into vampire literature with Those Who Hunt the Night, and at one time she wrote scripts for animated cartoon shows.

  Caitlin R. Kiernan was born in Dublin, Ireland, but has lived most of her life in the southeastern U.S. She holds degrees in philosophy and anthropology, and has worked as a paleontologist, a newspaper columnist, and an exotic dancer. In 1992 she began pursuing fiction writing full-time and has sold stories to a number of magazines and anthologies including Aberrations, Eldritch Tales, High Fantastic, and The Very Last Book of the Dead. Her first novel, The Five of Cups, was published by Transylvania Press.

  Mark Kreitjhbaurn has had stories published in anthologies such as Enchanted Forests and Weird Tales from Shakespeare. His work has also appeared in numerous small press magazines. His latest novel, a science fiction collaboration with Katherine Kerr called Palace, was published in 1996.

  Frank McConnell was a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was a literary critic, author of four Harry Garnish detective novels, and the media columnist for Commonweal for television, popular culture, comics, and rock 'n' roll. In his undergraduate course, The History of Storytelling, Neil Gaiman's San
dman emerged as a major topic of study.

  Robert Rodi is the author of Fag Hag, Closet Case, What They Did to Princess Paragon, and Drag Queen. His fifth book, Kept Boy, is due in November. A longtime comics and fantasy devotee, he had several stories published in the 1980s anthology magazine, Epic Illustrated, and was, for many years, a regular critic for The Comics Journal. He lives in Chicago with his partner, Jeffrey Smith.

  Lawrence Schimel is the editor of a dozen anthologies. His own stories and poems have appeared in over eighty anthologies including: Weird Tales from Shakespeare, Excalibur, and The Random House Treasury of Light Verse, and in numerous periodicals, including: The Saturday Evening Post, The Tampa Tribune, Physics Today, The Writer, Modern Short Stories, and Cricket. Twenty-four years old, he lives in Manhattan, where he writes and edits full-time.

  Delia Sherman is a teacher and novelist who lives in the Boston area. Her novel, The Porcelain Dove, has garnered much critical acclaim. Her short fiction has appeared in many major genre magazines as well.

  Will Shetterly is a novelist (Elsewhere, Cats Have No Lord) as well as a comic book writer (Captain Confederacy). With his wife, author Emma Bull, he has co-edited five collections of short stories about the magical city Liavek. He is also the publisher of SteelDragon Press, which produces limited-edition books as well as compact-discs and tapes. He and his wife live in Minneapolis.

  Tad Williams is a novelist, newspaper journalist, short story author, and writer of television and film screenplays. He produces the interactive television show Twenty-First Century Vaudeville, seen in San Francisco and Boston, with his next sights on the U.K. His syndicated radio talk shows, One Step Beyond and Radio Free America, have focused on controversial subjects such as clandestine intelligence, the drug-and-gun trade, political crimes, and assassinations. After spending most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tad now resides in London.

  Gene Wolfe has written mainstream and young adult novels and many magazine articles, but is best known as a science fiction writer, picking up the Nebula Award (for his novella "The 402 Biographical Notes Death of Doctor Island"), the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award (for his novel Peace), and the Rhysling Award for SF Poetry (for "The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps") along the way. His most recent full length works, and particularly his exemplary Book of the New Sun series, fall into an entirely different category, merging high technology with an almost Dark Age environment. Meanwhile, his short fiction continues to prove you never know just what to expect from him.