all right. It was just a nightmare.”
“I want Mama.”
“What is it?” Sarah asked, confused at being abruptly
roused. Nonetheless, she immediately took charge, kissing
Jason’s forehead and cheeks, stroking his hair, bestowing the
special comfort only mothers can give. He fell asleep in her
arms moments later.
But Lord Anderson would sleep little that night. No sooner
had Jason returned to slumber than he drew his wife into the
outer chamber.
“This is dreadful,” he said, his face ashen.
“Tell me,” she replied, drawing her robe close about her,
her eyes still dazed by sleep.
Carter had awakened to find himself within the shadowy,
other-worldly country of Dream, a dangerous region the
Masters walk only when they must. Whether it is really the
place where dreams go, no one knows for certain, but the halls
of Evenmere are replicated down to the last detail there. Carter
had been drawn into the dream dimension by the danger to his
son, a threat to the Master’s family representing a danger to
the house itself.
With his Lightning Sword drawn and the Tawny Mantle
about him to cloak his movements, he had followed an
unfamiliar corridor. Seeing his son and the clown standing at
the threshold of the Room of Horrors, a chamber filled with
unspeakable nightmares, he had spoken the Word Which
Masters Dreams and seized the clown.
“Yet,” he told his wife, “once the Word was used, I should
have been able to prevent him from waking. Whoever he is, he
wields considerable power. Power enough to transport Jason to
the Room of Horrors by moving him in a dream.”
“Could this power come from the stolen book?”
“I believe so. I suspect the clown was the same man who
posed as L’Marius. Both were heavy, but not as fat as they
looked. The bosun had a powerful handshake; and when I
seized the clown, I could feel solid muscle under his garb. Our
son is in grave danger. I thought the Room of Horrors
destroyed.”
“Perhaps Evenmere must always have a Room of
Horrors.”
“I know I’ve rarely spoken of it.” Carter spoke
vehemently, pacing across the room. “You don’t know what
it’s like. The things I saw as a child—my boy must never go
through what I did!”
“Shhh,” she said, though her own eyes were frightened.
“You will wake him. Certainly, we will protect him. But
how?”
Carter sat at a table and ran his hands over his eyes. “The
Inner Chambers would be safest. It has some proof against the
anarchists’ powers. I’ll have a company of the White Circle
Guard escort us there.”
“But you were going to the College of Poets. Can that
wait?”
Carter drummed his fist against the arm of the chair. “I
can’t leave him unguarded. Someone must protect his nights.”
“Isn’t that what our enemies want? To keep you
occupied?”
“Of course it is. But how can I … wait, perhaps I can!
While I sleep, I can return to the Inner Chambers and watch
over him within the dream world.”
“You will soon be exhausted.”
“I won’t. A paradox, I know, but I have always been able
to walk the world of dream and wake refreshed. You mustn’t
allow him to sleep, except at night when I can be there.”
“No naps? That won’t disappoint him.” She managed a
smile. “Proof there is some good in everything. But I will feel
helpless, not even knowing if his dreams are peaceful.”
“I’ll see to it that they are.”
She went to him and they held one another. Carter felt
himself relax in her arms. He took a long breath.
“There’s no help for it,” Sarah said, “but he will be
dreadfully disappointed. We promised to take him to the
circus.”
“The circus?” It took Carter a moment to realize what she
was saying. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Little boys don’t understand the danger. He only knows
he won’t get to see the elephants.”
It was with some dread that Carter and Sarah met with
their son after breakfast the next morning. In such moments
children have great power to discourage the heart, if only they
knew. When told that other things had come up, he did not
weep as they expected, but his eyes grew sad. And later Carter
saw him lying on one of the couches in the Mere, weeping and
murmuring, “I don’t know why my papa always has to leave.”
Stricken to the heart, Carter could not even bring himself
to comfort his son, but went misty-eyed to Sarah. “I’ve
recreated my boyhood in Jason. My father was often gone; I
missed him terribly. Have I done no better?”
“A child lives for the moment,” Sarah said. “At this instant
he is sad. You spend time with him whenever you are home.
He loves you very much.”
But Carter would not be comforted. Though he and Jason
were both brave when Sarah, Hope, and the boy had to depart
in the company of the White Circle Guard, their eyes were
mournful. Thus they suffered one another’s pain.
Carter departed the Mere that same hour, making his way
past the rosewood tables and oak shelves in a thoroughly black
mood, remembering how the anarchists had tricked him into
stealing the Master Keys as a child, then imprisoned him in the
Room of Horrors. No matter how he tried to blot out the
memories, he could never forget his time there—always in
half-darkness, running from monsters, ghosts, every form of
terror a boy could imagine. He still dreamt of it sometimes,
waking Sarah from her sleep with his muffled cries. And Jason
had almost suffered the same fate …
Following Carter’s rescue, his father had sent him from
Evenmere for his protection, an exile that had lasted fourteen
years.
Despite the pain he had suffered, he did not hate the
anarchists. Rather, he despised their doctrine, that strange
mingling of compassion and murder, the ends always
justifying the means. And he despised them for daring to strike
at his son.
He knew their motives well; finding the Master difficult to
capture or kill, they attacked his family to break his will. Like
wolves, they employed the same hunting methods again and
again.
The splinter group known as the Poetry Men, however,
was a different matter. They no longer seemed to share the
same goals as the Anarchists’ Society. Save as a show of force,
Carter could not fathom their destruction of Jossing. So far, it
had not been followed by demands or ultimatums. What were
they attempting?
Lord Anderson’s fury grew as he walked, until at last he
stopped, drew a deep breath, and reprimanded himself for
wasting his strength in brooding. Such was the power of hate,
to gnaw away the inner resources. He needed to focus on the
task at hand instead
of on endless fears.
The day went better thereafter, and he reached the guard
post at Ghahanjhin before noon, where he was saluted by
sentries garbed in silver and sable and given passage through
that country. He did not travel into the interior, where lay
Lamp-lighter’s Lane, or even far enough to enter the Looking
Glass Marches, but skirted along the southern border, traveling
east toward Aylyrium.
He spent the day trekking through the halls and corridors
of Ghahanjhin. By the end of the evening he reached regions
where an hour often passed without his seeing another person.
The solitude of the house entered him, a seclusion he found
pleasurable, especially journeying, as he now did, through
previously unvisited parts of Evenmere. The corridors changed
from dark-paneled oak to Oozian variations of gilded French
boiseries. As was common in Ghahanjhin, there were few
windows, and Carter deeply regretted the lack of time that
prevented him from viewing the skyline from the upper
reaches, where the rose minarets and heavy modillions were
reportedly exquisite.
Instead he padded over stone steps, always in half-shadow,
often forced to light his lantern through the darker ways. As
the evening progressed, a disquietude fell upon him, an
indefinable apprehension. He was accustomed to traveling
alone, yet now he fancied phantoms in every shadow. He
reminded himself how much he loved the winding ways and
empty chambers, the carpeted steps and paneled walls, the red
rose in the blue-stained glass, but it did no good. His
uneasiness grew, and by the time he stopped for the night
before a mammoth fireplace in a marbled hall, he hurried to
build a fire to chase away the darkness. The fender, sticking
down like jagged teeth, reminded him of a gaping maw.
Once a small flame burned on the andiron he felt
somewhat better, though it cast but a dim light through the
great chamber. For supper, he roasted a potato on a spit.
Supplemented with dried meat from his pack, this filled him
well enough, and a few swallows from a flask of wine warmed
him.
He could feel the immense silence on the floors above him,
broken only by the creaking of the house settling for the night
and the throbbing song of a cricket echoing in some distant
hall. The thought struck him, as it sometimes did in such
desolate places, that if he became ill or injured, he could die
alone. Perhaps no one would even find his body. The logs
popped cheerlessly in the flames; the smoke roiled upward.
Above him, in the red glow, he could just make out the dim
shapes of the brass ceiling tile.
The room was comfortable enough, with floral rugs, floral
couches, floral chairs. He had slept in worst surroundings. But
tonight he longed for his wife and son.
His reverie was broken by a noise from above, the dull,
regular thump of heavy feet.
He sat up in his chair and glanced around the shrouded
room, wondering who walked the deserted halls. Another
traveler like himself? He had met many such in his journeys.
Or perhaps someone seeking him, hoping to find him in a
dark, lonely place. He glanced at his pocket watch—a quarter
past eight. His son would be in bed by nine. By then, Carter
had to be in the dream dimension.
He listened to the footfalls for what seemed a long time.
Doors opened and closed. Silence fell again. The seconds
passed into minutes. Just when he thought the stranger had
moved beyond earshot, the slow treads came again, creaking
the overhead boards.
Like someone walking on the ceiling , he thought. He
traced the sound, left, right, left, right, shuffling from one side
of the fireplace to the other, proceeding across the middle of
the chamber. The shutting of a door. Silence. A distant
pattering.
He strained to listen, his whole body tense.
Most likely a hermit, living out his years in these deserted
halls. Probably more afraid of me than I of him.
The door at the far end of the room creaked open.
In one swift motion, Carter stepped away from the fire and
backed into the shadows, drawing his Tawny Mantle about his
shoulders; it lengthened, falling past his knees, covering him
in its chameleon darkness. He clutched the hilt of his
Lightning Sword.
The floorboards popped and creaked beneath the intruder’s
tread. Carter pressed himself against the wall, not daring to
breathe.
A figure appeared at the edge of the flames, hovering
between the border of light and darkness: a slender man, his
face half-lost in shadow. He turned his head, surveying the
room as if listening. Lord Anderson searched the gloom, trying
to see if the intruder was alone.
“Lord Carter … Anderson,” the man finally said, his voice
soft and mellifluous. “Master of Evenmere. Keeper of the
Master Keys. Owner of the Lightning Sword and Tawny
Mantle. Wielder of the Seven Words of Power. I see you in the
shadows; I espy you in the night. Pray come closer to the fire;
let us parley in the light.”
Carter drew his sword so smoothly it left its sheath without
a sound. To his surprise, it did not emit its golden glow, but
remained quenched, as if safety lay in concealment. By this,
Lord Anderson suspected the man lied about being able to see
him. Yet, how had he recognized him? Had he known Carter
would be here?
“Who are you?” Carter demanded. As soon as he spoke, he
stepped three paces to the left to avoid being located by the
sound, in case the man carried a revolver. By keeping close to
the wall, where the floor had the most support—a trick learned
long ago—he prevented the boards from creaking.
“Once I had a face. Once I had a name. Now I am a Man
of Verse, needing none, requiring none.”
Carter strained to see through the obscurity. The man did
appear faceless, for a mist streamed up, revealing only
glimpses of his head: a chin, an eye, a shock of unruly hair. A
reptile of some sort, with red, unwinking eyes, stole along his
shoulder. Carter felt a chill at the back of his neck. He kept
quiet, waiting for the other to speak.
When the silence had grown long between them, the
intruder said, in his sing-song voice, “Perhaps you have heard
of us. We were men … once.” He gave a peculiar laugh, low
and tonal as a flute. “We are more now. Would you like to
hear? Would you like to see? Would you like to know what
you can be?”
Carter remained still.
“I will tell you. We tapped into … a source of power.
Archetypal force. Immeasurable, indefinable. Have you read
Arkdeason’s Treatise on God’s Puppy ?”
Carter took another step to the left, keeping his eyes on the
intruder. The reptile on the interloper’s shoulder crept down
his arm, making its way to the floor.
“According to
Arkdeason, there is an archetype for every
kind of life, a master image from which plants and animals
take their form. Thus a babe grows up to be a boy rather than a
cat. God’s puppy, the archetypal dog, the very soul of
doghood, sits at his Master’s feet, creating the mold for dogs
everywhere.”
The reptile, at least a foot long and resembling an iguana,
slipped along the circle of light, moving toward Lord
Anderson, its crimson tongue flickering in and out.
“What is the archetype of man, you might ask,” the
stranger said. “Are we dreams the dreamer dreamt, or cast-off
toys from days of play? I do not know. But there are other
archetypal forces. Water, fire, earth, and air! Grendel-beasts
and dragons! Courage itself in corporeal form! And they exist
not just in the human heart. We have touched them. We have
seen music incarnate, heard words given flesh. So beautiful.
So beautiful. Some of us were destroyed by it; we were each
driven a little mad. And now we journey throughout
Evenmere, sharing what we have seen.”
Carter became aware of a distant throbbing somewhere
within the house, created by engines he could not identify.
“We are bringing the archetypes to Earth,” the Poetry Man
said. “Not to tame. Oh, no, there is no taming them! We carry
them like fallen stars in our hands, until they burn their way
out, eating through the flesh, scalding us as they go, a terrible
ecstasy. We have touched the infinite; we have seen the face of
the Ultimate; and we will give this gift to all of Evenmere.”
The reptile slid toward Lord Anderson, head held high,
hissing slightly, its serrated teeth glistening. Carter relaxed his
grip on his sword, letting it hang loosely in his hand. The
throbbing had grown louder, filling his thoughts, making it
difficult to concentrate.
“You have tasted it,” the poet continued. “You tap into the
Eternal whenever you use the Words of Power. But that is all
you will ever know unless you join us. Listen to the Wild
Poetry, Lord Anderson! Few have ever known its like; artists,
poets, mathematicians, those we call geniuses, have glimpsed
only a single spark. Come and take your fill!”
Carter kept his eyes fastened on the lizard, which was
nearly within striking distance. The throbbing, ever louder,
was indescribably exquisite, and in its measured beats he
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