"Put those back!"
There was a flicker as the dream adjusted itself, and the manacles were back in place. Joslyn was disappointed but not surprised. And she wasn't through yet. She blended with the dream as much as possible, a chameleon moving only when she must, blending with a wall of stone, a brazier of fire and smoke, and then she leaned close and whispered, so softly that the sound could have been in Quin's mind all along, "I took off the manacles. I put them back. What else could I do?"
Quin became the 'I' Joslyn whispered about; she saw the confusion return for a moment only to be replaced by puzzlement.
That's right, poor Quin. Think about it. And while you do I'll give our friend another surprise
. Joslyn considered. Whatever she did, Quin had to think it came from him. Chameleon again. Joslyn whispered into Quin's mind again. "What would I do... with the whip?"
A gamble, but necessary. Like tossing dice with Dyaros' thieves. Sooner or later you either made your point or lost everything, but, either way, the throw had to be made. Joslyn made her throw.
Quin, wearied past worry or understanding, loaded the dice. "I wish that whip would bite your nose."
Point
!
One pure hot thought from Joslyn and the whip coiled through the air and struck. Only now it wasn't a whip at all but an angry blacksnake. It granted Quin's wish and sank sharp little teeth into the Moth's big nose. He shrieked and cursed, holding his hand over his face while the snake wriggled away into the mists. Joslyn took advantage of the confusion to remove Quin's manacles again.
"What..?"
That was Moth. Quin was laughing at him. Tears ran from Quin's dark eyes and his laugh was almost hysterical.
"How dare you
—
"
Quin dared a little more. "You're not so strong."
And the Moth wasn't so strong. His presence and power within the dream visibly shrank. Still unable
—
or unwilling
—
to believe that he had lost control, the Moth raised his fists and took a step toward Quin. Quin started to shrink back, almost by reflex, but again Joslyn was there to plant the thought that his mind needed. "You won't hit me."
And Moth didn't hit him. For a long moment the Moth did not move at all. And then Quin did, and the thought and the movement was all Quin. He stepped forward and, as hard as he had the strength, he struck the Moth across the face. The intruder staggered back against the wall of the dungeon, now made more real than ever by Quin's will. All the despair he had felt was very rapidly turning into anger. It wasn't dream skill, or even a strong will, but it was much more than the poor Moth had left in him.
"I want you chained to the wall," said Quin.
The moth was chained to the wall.
"I want the whip in my own hand."
The whip was in Quin's hand, and with no direction from Joslyn at all.
I did it
!! Joslyn fairly hugged herself with excitement.
"I don't have enough whips," Quin said. And he now had six. And as many arms to hold them. His face was no longer quite human.
I did it
... Joslyn wasn't nearly as joyous now. The whips cracked forward and struck the Moth like a feast of snakes. His scream nearly tore her heart out. Quin was pain incarnate now, all that he had suffered gushing out of him in a blind fury of vengeance on his former tormentor. It was all Joslyn could do to remind herself of what had brought the Moth to this, that he got no less now than his deserving. It was hard. It was all Joslyn could do to keep from breaking the dream herself now and ending the torture for everyone. She knew better. The Supplicant was what mattered, and until he had cast out all his pain and fear, her work was not done. Still, there was nothing that said she had to witness the bitter end of it all.
Quin will not finish for some time
. The Moth could not leave, because at heart it was Quin's dream and he would not end it until he had no anger left. Joslyn left him to his revenge, slipping once more unnoticed through the mist curtains and out onto the Nightstage.
Tagramon was waiting for her. "Dear Girl, you astound me."
At first Joslyn didn't understand him. Then she developed some anger of her own. "You expected me to fail!"
"Was that unreasonable of me?" Tagramon asked.
Joslyn thought about it. "No."
"I should say not. Your first Augury, and frankly, one of the more difficult subjects I've seen in years. Take a lesson, Dreamers."
The others came out of the mists. Her new friend Alyssa and her brother Ter. Dark, quiet Pari. Several other young men and women Joslyn had only seen in passing, apparently quartered in a different wing of the Temple. They all looked at her with even mixtures of envy and awe. Joslyn couldn't say which bothered her the most.
The Dream Master glanced at the supplicant's dream. It showed no signs of fading. "It'll be some time before he's done with that poor idiot. You have the rest of this time to wander the Nightstage at will. Thank Joslyn, Dreamers."
And they thanked her, solemnly, speaking with one voice before, in ones and pairs, they slipped away into the mists.
*
It had been too long since Joslyn had the freedom of the Nightstage. The training of the Temple was incredible; Joslyn had learned to do things with the fabric of dreams that were beyond her imagining. But that came at a cost; sleep was no longer a time of rest
—
short naps during the day had to suffice for that. Time to herself was meant as a reward and she saw it as such.
What to do
?
The trouble with unlimited possibilities is that it's hard to pick just one. And to do anything at all you have to pick just one. Joslyn thought about it and decided that a little good-natured revenge was in order.
*
One of the first lessons of the Temple was that the Nightstage and the waking world were only different forms of the same thing. With practice, you could read the layout of streets and buildings just by watching where dreams were and where they weren't. Joslyn knew the waking city as well as any thief who depended on it for her livelihood. It wasn't too hard to find her way to the shrine of the forgotten god where the thieves were.
The glowing mists that marked individual dreams were winking out all about her as dawn crept closer. Soon all the good folk of Ly Ossia would be up and about their days, but to the thieves the time of rest was fast approaching. Joslyn wasn't sure she'd be able to wait much longer.
She didn't have to.
There
...
The dreams appeared, one by one. Joslyn moved carefully, trying not to let her recent triumph make her careless. She looked for the one dream, grander than all the others, that led to Dyaros. It wasn't hard to find. Joslyn paused only a moment at the curtain of mist and then slipped inside.
Dyaros dreamed of treasure. Gold coins gathered together in piles, jewels and plate heaped themselves on the floor in great mounds. Joslyn thought at first that the treasure had come to the thieves' hall, but she didn't recognize the image of the room. It was much larger, its limits ill-defined and changing. Great tapestries hung in heavy folds from walls that were more shimmer than substance. It occurred to Joslyn that Dyaros's dream of treasure was much clearer than his imagination of
where
that treasure might be.
She found him sitting on a throne of rosewood and ivory; she didn't bother to mask herself from him. "Where is this place?"
Dyaros frowned, but the dream did not change. Joslyn's presence apparently was incidental to him; he did not take his attention from the treasure. "I don't know. Go away."
"It's not real," Joslyn pointed out, slyly.
"You're not real," Dyaros said.
Joslyn smiled.
I'm going to enjoy this
. "I'm a Dreamer of the Temple of Somna now, Dyaros. I am very real. This is a dream."
Now Dyaros did look at her, and Joslyn's smile went away. "You think I don't know that?"
"What..?"
Dyaros's gaze was back on his phantom gold. "I know this dream
—
I've had it almost every night of my life. Sometimes others, I admit, but I always return to this room. It exists, Joslyn, somewhere. It's more real to me than you ever were."
Dyaros knew that he was dreaming, knew
her
. Joslyn slowed her breathing with an effort. "Just because you never possessed me
—
"
Dyaros laughed. "I know I'm not dreaming you; I'd never imagine that you understood so little. Possessed? What thief possesses anything? What belongs to a thief except a few dreams and a body that is one day hanged
—
or worse? I know I'll never find this room; I know this gold will never buy my way out of this wretched Guild. But what about
your
dreams, Joslyn? You thought my pursuit of you was about pride? Heavens, girl, I've been turned down by far worse than you and smiled to think of it. It was about
life
, Joslyn. I dream, yes, but I don't live in them the way you did... and do. Living in a dream is all you know, Joslyn. Will it really be no different for you in the temple?"
"I am a Dreamer!" Joslyn said with a shaky voice.
"Somna made us all dreamers, Joslyn. Now you'll be paid to steal the dreams of others, though I'm certain the priests have other names for it. Did you come to steal my dream, Joslyn? One of the very few things a thief can call his own?"
"I came..." Joslyn didn't finish. She did know why she came now, and she knew it wasn't about life. It was about pride.
And I accused you, Dyaros. Somna forgive me
.
Joslyn backed toward the curtain of mist, hoping that the dream would return to its normal course. Dyaros did not turn back to his gold; without his attention the image of wealth was not quite so real.
"Time to hide, Joslyn? I think it must be."
"I will go. I... I will not trouble you again."
Dyaros shrugged. "You trouble yourself far more than me, always. This is a new dream for me; perhaps I will forget. But if I remember I will breathe a sigh of regret into my wine now and again for a girl who is little
but
dream."
Joslyn stopped. "I am real."
Dyaros laughed again. "Bold words."
Joslyn took a breath. "I will prove it."
"How?"
"In the alley behind the Temple there is a grating in the wall ten feet from the ground. Tomorrow after sundown you will find it unfastened." Joslyn didn't stop to think about what she said; the time for that was past. "Take the stairway on the right up one level; the first door you see is mine."
"What about the White Robes?" Dyaros asked.
"Most will be in the Chamber of True Dreaming for augury then; I'll feign illness. They will not miss me overmuch."
Dyaros was still smiling, but he looked thoughtful. "Well."
"I am real," Joslyn repeated. "If you are, too, then come to me."
Dyaros's dream closed in around him, faded. "Well," he said again, and was gone.
*
On the morning following the second evening Joslyn woke to a the sound of knocking and a babble of voices in the hallway. She glanced at the empty place in the bed beside her for no reason she could name, then woke up enough to remember.
I fell asleep. Dyaros never came, damn him
. So why did she feel so relieved?
She threw on a robe, scurried to the door and opened it. Alyssa stood by Ter's door, rapping. Already other doors were opening along the hall. Ter opened the door and Alyssa grabbed his arm and dragged him out into the hallway. Alyssa spotted Joslyn, smiled and beckoned her to follow as she turned and ran down the hall toward the far stairwell. Joslyn yawned and started after them.
"What's this about?"
Pari, trotting beside her, just shrugged. Ter and Alyssa went down the stairs two at a time. Joslyn didn't catch up with them until they reached the bottom and stepped out into the morning light in the central courtyard.
"What is it?" Joslyn demanded. Alyssa pointed.
There was a scaffolding in the center of the courtyard, empty since Joslyn first came into the Temple. It wasn't empty now.
"A thief," Alyssa said. "He was caught in the Temple last night."
"Thief..." Joslyn didn't say anything else.
"I wonder how he got in," Pari said. "Did he confess anything?"
Joslyn fought a rising tide of blackness.
Yes. Did he
?
"I heard he wasn't taken alive," Alyssa said.
"Why hang him, then?" Ter wanted to know.
Pari shrugged. "That's what you do with thieves."
They all watched for a while. Then, one by one, the others got bored and wandered back into the Temple. Joslyn looked at Dyaros's slowly turning body longer than she wanted to, as long as she dared to, and then followed the others out of the sunlight.
Chapter 4
—
Dark Waters
Ly Ossia lay across the foot of the White Mountains like the pieces of a shattered jar. That was not to say there was no pattern at all
—
the older buildings spiraled away from the center like the arms of a pinwheel, and, rough and massive though they were, they kept a harmony of line and form that made them parts of the whole. The rest of the city was everything sudden wealth could build and grandiose competition spawn. It was a mess.
Ghost sat on a high tor to the west, studying the city with the vague interest of a schoolboy kept too long on the same subject. He wore the brown garb of a traveling ascetic; it was the only clothing he owned, as far as he knew. He didn't feel like an ascetic
—
there was no burning faith at the core of him, just a slight boredom. He cocked his head from side to side as if new perspectives might succeed where study failed. Finally he gave a deep sigh and leaned back against a cold hard rock.
Nothing. Ly Ossia meant nothing to him.
Ghost knew that wasn't right. If the help he sought wasn't here, then there was a very good chance it didn't exist, and the meaning of that was too terrible to consider. And still the city evoked nothing in him. Not fear, not anger, and especially not hope. Even its profound ugliness was an abstraction, evoking none of the emotion that the words 'beauty' and its dark twin bore by right. How long since his Nightsoul disappeared? How long since any such emotion was more than a memory? One year? Two?