

Beyond the Dream

Oliver Kennedy

Copyright 2012 by Oliver Kennedy

Smashwords Edition

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

William Butler Yeats

For Grace, my shining light.
Once upon a time, a few minutes ago in fact, two remarkable fellows did a remarkable thing. They crossed over from a place that apparently isn't into a place which most definitely is. That might not make much sense right now, you can put it on what I am sure will be a growing list. Having performed this feat of excellence their hearts turned to other matters, darker matters...

Prologue

"Can you see into the future?"

"No."

"Then be quiet and do as I do."

Ilich grumbled but did as he was bid. He felt strange. He always felt a little bit strange of course but now he felt positively peculiar. Elstein stalked on ahead. Elstein was a talented jackal you see; his ability to adapt was what had ensured the survival of his race during the Binding. Ilich, however, was not so used to change.

As soon as the two of them had walked through the archway, Elstein bade him to shrink himself down to a more fitting size, one that would elicit less alarm from the natives. Even having done that, Ilich still loomed at nearly eight feet in height and was impossibly broad for one of this world's inhabitants. However, it was a dark night filled with rain and hoods that were pulled all the way up. They kept to the alleys and the dark places and they received barely more than a glance from those unfortunate enough to be caught out in the storm.

You see, Ilich is not a talented jackal. Ilich is a ten-ton-troll. These beings got their name because, in general, they tend to weigh in at about ten tons. Being such enormous creatures, it can be pretty hard for them to blend in. It can also be hard for them to do other things such as walk through doorways or up flights of stairs not made specifically for them, but fortunately for ten-ton-trolls they are blessed with a special ability. They can shrink themselves down or puff themselves up to full size at will. It takes some doing, and it is not easy to maintain for long periods of time, but an adult ten-ton-troll is capable of making themselves much smaller than their normal form. The stories say the ability came about as the result of a cross-breeding with a shape-shifter long ago.

Although Ilich had shrunk himself down his weight could not be hidden. Elstein could feel the vibrations in the ground as the troll lumbered along behind him, but the night air was filled with thunder so their passage went undetected.

They made their way quickly through the rain until they reached a tiny suburb of the great city. At the top of Hawksdell Road, Elstein stopped and sniffed the air. His canine features were hidden beneath thick hooded clothing, his long snout barely protruding from the shadowy hollow of his garb. The click-clicking of his clawed toes on the pavement was the only indication that any one nearby might have had that Elstein the talented jackal was somewhere he should not have been.

They continued until they were halfway down the street and stopped outside number thirty-seven. The garden was overgrown, unkempt. The grass had swallowed rubbish, a deflated football and an old rusted bicycle. The two figures moved through the squeaking gate and crossed the cracked paving stones leading to the door. The rain poured from the porch, splattering the cloaks of Ilich and Elstein. The talented jackal lifted a hand to reveal a long, dark and bony finger with a black nail.

Elstein whispered a few words of the canine-tongue and the nail grew longer and longer. It slid into the lock of the door and after a few seconds there was a click and the door swung open to reveal a lightless homestead. Elstein entered followed by Ilich, who had to shrink his huge bulk down even further to fit through the doorway.

The ten-ton-troll closed the door behind them and both figures made their way upstairs. The wooden steps creaked and groaned in protest at Ilich's weight. There were many doors leading away from the landing but Elstein moved without hesitation to the one at the end of the hall. As they passed other doors Ilich saw that some of them bore names in colourful letters - Zak, Ellie, Row. The door they approached had no name on, however. They walked into the room and looked at the single occupant who lay upon the bed.

He was a middle-aged man. His once black hair was flecked with grey and even in sleep the lines of worry and stress stood out. The room stank of the unwashed. Clothes lay strewn everywhere and many dark bottles littered the bedside. In his sleeping arms he cradled a music box. The letters EH were etched on the box, though it was closed now and made no sound. Only the persistent beat of the rain on the window could be heard as Ilich and Elstein loomed over the man on the bed.

"You are certain?" rumbled Ilich in his thick deep voice.

"Do we need to go over it again?" replied Elstein in his contrasting high nasal voice.

"No", said Ilich, swinging his tusks from side to side, "the consequences could write a great doom for us."

"A doom which I will gladly accept if we are successful, now please stand aside." Ilich did as he was bid and moved to the doorway. Elstein brought forth from beneath his cloak a piece of blue chalk with which he began to draw lines. He started on the wall above the bed and then went around the room to beyond the foot of the bed, across to the other side and then back up the wall again so that he had completed a large triangle which contained the sleeping man and his bed.

At each corner he drew an image on the tip. At the top he drew the form of a jackal. To the right side of the bed he drew a raven and in the third corner he drew a flower. Once these were finished he drew hundreds of tiny symbols within the triangle, eventually covering everything except the sleeping figure and the bed. Hours passed before he was finished, but once his task was completed he stood back and the blue chalk took on a slight glow.

Elstein pulled back his hood to reveal a long black snout which led up to two dark eyes sitting beneath large pointed ears. He looked over to where Ilich stood watching impassively. "Time to begin", he barked through razor sharp teeth. He brought his hands together above the bed and when they met they emitted a tremendously loud thunderclap which was lost within the storm that raged over the city.
Chapter One: Time to Wake Up

When you get used to having the same dream over and over again, night after night, it can throw you off to have another vision suddenly present itself to your subconscious. Anthony Hallow opened his eyes to see a swirling multi-coloured ceiling many miles above where he lay. This was not his dream, his dream was a grave - his dream was a nightmare. He had become used to the cold comfort of the tomb inside his head to which his mind fled when he slept. He had become attached to the cold white walls of the mausoleum in which he spent his dreaming hours carving their names over and over again. He spent many timeless nights wandering around the tomb looking for the door that was not there, for they were inside; he heard them scratching and crying, far away beyond his reach.

But this was not that place. There was no mud, no rain, no dead trees and no tomb. Anthony blinked a few times; the swirling rainbow in the sky was mesmerising. For a long time he lay staring at it until he realised something very strange. He realised that he was aware. With great clarity and lucidity Anthony Hallow knew who he was, he knew that he was dreaming and that he was completely aware of everything going on in his mind.

This was not the way of dreams. Where was the vagueness? Where was the blur around his vision? Where was the absence of his true self? He could feel the hard stone surface on which he lay, see the sky above him and hear the empty background noise of the vast chamber he was in. He did not feel like he was asleep any more.

He sat up with a start and examined his surroundings. This was not his bedroom and the tangerine-coloured, circular stone table on which he lay was most definitely not the bed he went to sleep in. This could only be a dream though. Next to him lay another person, a young woman with red hair, who was asleep. As his field of vision grew, Anthony's heartbeat started to increase rapidly.

Beyond the stone tables next to him there were countless more. As his eyes scanned up to the horizon he concluded there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sleeping figures all on a table of their own. Men, women and children in their sleeping attire, eyes closed.

They were in a gigantic chamber of some kind. The silence was incredible. Anthony was used to planes, trains, roads, children's playgrounds, building works and all the dull humming background noises of the city. Anthony looked up to the ceiling where blues, greens and yellows mixed and curled around each other like a kaleidoscope.

Here, all was quiet and still, though perhaps not quite still. As Anthony looked he noticed a periodic disturbance in the chamber. Every now and then one of the sleeping figures would disappear and after a few seconds someone else would appear in their place. The red haired girl was already gone, replaced by a portly gentleman.

Anthony was still wearing his pyjamas - if you could call them that - boxer shorts and a t-shirt stained with what he hoped was tea. He scratched his beard and rationalised that this could only be a dream, one that he was simply experiencing on a more vivid level than usual.

He worked with computers, when he worked at all because he had an affinity with machines; he understood logic and what kind of human errors so frequently caused computers to break down. Anthony knew that chaos was the absence of rationality so he resolved to stay calm - he was dreaming and would soon wake up.

Becoming aware that he was dreaming was not unusual, the only thing that was unusual in this instance was the unbelievable clarity with which he was experiencing the vision of the landscape around him.

He decided that he might as well have a look around while he was waiting to wake up. He gingerly lowered himself off of the table, shivering as his bare feet touched the cold metal floor of the chamber and as soon as his feet hit the floor he noted a change. The ceiling had turned from neutral blues and greens to a deep angry red and several forks of orange lightning ripped across the sanguine sky. Then came the thunder which rolled over him like a giant's belch.

This was not a good sign; that much was clear. Still, I will wake up in a minute, he thought. Then in the distance he saw another disturbance. This was not in the sky but at ground level. He couldn't make out what it was at first but soon he realised there was definitely a group of figures running towards him. "Just a dream", he murmured to himself as he started drumming his fingers nervously against his hip. As they got closer and closer he could begin to make them out.

They weren't human. They looked like bears, but very thin bears; bears that hadn't eaten well, ever. They had white fur and brown cloaks and ran like people ran, except of course they were not people.

That's fine because this is just a dream, he thought, although, they aren't human, this is unsettling.

Perhaps the most worrying thing was the weaponry they carried, long-handled silver scythes. Anthony took a few steps backwards. "It's okay", he repeated to himself, "just a dream. They can't hurt me." It was only when they got close enough that Anthony could see the saliva dripping from the jaws of the bear-creatures. That was enough detail, he decided. Dream or not, Anthony Hallow turned and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

As he ran he heard loud bellows coming from his pursuers and thunder rolling down from the sky again. He darted through the rows of the sleeping people but could not outrun them. They gained with every step, in his fear he could imagine the feeling of warm breath on the back of his neck.

Suddenly a bolt of white light flashed past him to strike the side of one of the stone circles. Anthony turned to see another bolt fire from the end of one of the silver scythes, which flashed close to his face. One of the bear-creatures growled to the shooter who stopped immediately. They were obviously reluctant to hit the sleepers.

Anthony was just about to give up and surrender when he saw that he was coming towards the edge of the chamber. From a distance the walls had appeared grey indistinct blurs, but now he was closer he could see that there were no walls. The chamber just opened up to the sky beyond; the real sky, not the manufactured multi-coloured one above his head now.

Despite his predicament, when Anthony reached the edge he stopped and stared in amazement. He was breathless from the running, a very un-dreamlike state of being, but what little air remained in his lungs was taken away by the magnificent vista in front of him. There were other chambers out there, much like the one in which he stood, huge platforms with a ceiling but no walls which were covered in seas of round stones which held more sleepers.

The chambers sat nestled in the boughs of huge trees, colossal trees that must have been thousands of feet tall. In turn these trees straddled vast mountains which were covered in dense forest. Flocks of birds flew here and there whilst waterfalls cascaded down out of the trees and made lakes and valleys unimaginably far below.

There were dozens of chambers like the one he was in, some nearby and some lost in the haze of the horizon.

His time to admire the scenery was short lived, however. He heard a few triumphant growls and turned to see the leader was closing in on him. Up close he could make it out with terrible detail. It was like a shrivelled polar bear, except its skin seemed to be covered in feathers as opposed to fur. Great folds of flesh hung down from its arms and legs, too much skin and not enough body. On the ends of its arms and legs were hands and feet covered in cracked black skin which looked more human than animal. The beast's head was bear-like but with a stubby squashed snout. Its eyes were red and gleamed with more intellect that any bear could have possessed.

Thinking that he was just about to find out how real this dream was, Anthony could do little but stand and stare as the figure bore down on him and lifted his weapon to strike. Before the blow could land, however, his assailant was struck by a ball of blue flame. The bear-creature fell back writhing in pain and a shadow fell over him.

The stone tables did not cover the entire platform and an empty rim several metres wide was left. Even so, the winged creature which landed there barely had room to do so. It was a colossal silver hawk of some kind, its feathers seeming more metallic than natural. Then Anthony saw the rider. A brown cloak covered most of it, but Anthony could still make out the claws on its feet, and the long bony fingers with black nails on its hands. In one hand it held the rains of the silver hawk, in the other a small ball of blue flame which sat there without causing him any discomfort.

As the other bear-creatures renewed their approach, the canine rider looked at him with pure black eyes and said, "I would get on if I were you, Mr Hallow." Its voice was a low growl, the words seeming to come out uncomfortably from between its fanged jaws. It obviously wasn't used to speaking the Queen's English. Anthony quickly decided and jumped onto the back of the silver hawk. The metallic feathers were stiff and they bit into his legs as he grasped the back of the rider's saddle and they took off with a surge of power from the bird.

Several bolts of fire came in their direction but they bounced harmlessly from the wings of their steed. Anthony looked back fearfully at the crowd of beasts gathering on the edge of the receding platform.

"Fear not, Mr Hallow", growled the pilot, "the tallow bears are minor creatures, the domain of the sky is denied to them. We are safe for now."

As they soared through the warm sky over the unknown world of Anthony's dream he attempted to take stock. But the whizzing of the air past his face and through his grey flecked hair stole away any hope of analytical logic. He had been afraid back on the platform but it was not unusual for him to be afraid in a dream.

As they soared through the forest on the mountains, beneath the branches of the giant trees Anthony felt a kind of exhilaration, a sense of life that had eluded him for a decade.

They passed dozens of the chambers, many tens of millions of sleepers must have been in them. They were miniature to Anthony, tiny aspects of a giant dream. Eventually they began to descend towards the foot of one of the hundreds of mountains in the area. As they came down Anthony began to truly appreciate the scale of his surroundings. The shadow of the mountain and the tree which sat atop it covered the land for many miles. This imagined landscape of his dream was beyond anything which his real eyes had seen or that his waking mind might have been able to comprehend.

Their silver mount took them deftly down through the canopy into a clearing. The blue flame which had been in the canine-creature's hand when he rescued Anthony had gone. The creature leapt nimbly from the hawk's back before offering Anthony his hand.

Anthony took it and jumped down. He was surprised at the strength he felt in the slender bony fingers. As soon he was off the canine-creature leaned and whispered into the hawk's ear and it took off through the trees leaving a gaping silence behind it.

The canine-creature stared at him for a while before speaking: "I am uncertain whether introductions or a change of clothes would be more prudent." The more he said the more comfortable he seemed speaking the language.

"I think maybe the clothes might help", replied Anthony. He might only be dreaming but it would be nice to look his best given the majesty of his surroundings. He'd never given much thought to his attire in dreams before but in this instance he felt under-dressed for the occasion.

The canine-creature passed Anthony a grey shirt and trousers and a pair of black felt shoes that were more like moccasins from a leather bag carried over his shoulder. He watched as Anthony slipped on his new outfit over the tops of his boxers and t-shirt.

"Very good", growled Anthony's rescuer, "now allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kannis and I am of the talented jackals."

"Excellent", responded Anthony, "may I just say that this is a particularly wonderful dream. I rarely look forward to waking up these days but on this occasion it will be for entirely different reasons than usual." Anthony smiled as he reached out and shook the hand of Kannis, the talented jackal.

"Mmm", mumbled Kannis in response, "interestingly you seem to be coping through some form of denial. Mr Hallow you are already awake."

"Ha", said Anthony with a big smile, "I awoke in a strange magical world, was chased by bears that fired bolts of white flame at me and escaped on the back of a giant silver bird."

"A sorrow hawk", interrupted Kannis

"A sorrow hawk apparently", continued Anthony, "and now I am standing in a forest having a conversation with a wolf."

"A talented jackal", interrupted Kannis again.

"My apologies, a jackal. I can assure you I am fast asleep in my less than comfy bed in the grand old city of London."

Kannis stared at him again, his keen dark eyes contemplating their next move. With incredible speed he lunged forward and slashed at Anthony's hand with an outstretched finger.

Anthony leapt back and grasped his left hand in pain. When he looked at it he saw blood began to seep from a nasty cut.

"Did that hurt?" asked Kannis bluntly.

"Bloody hell, yes", said Anthony, swearing and clasping his hand.

"Good", said the jackal. "You are awake, Anthony. Bewildered, bemused and stunned? Yes, all of those things I surmise, but you are most definitely not asleep any more. There will be an enormous amount for you to take in and I am sorry if I cannot proceed with the delicacy that may be deserved but we don't have time. Needless to say, Mr Hallow, on this particular occasion you have awoken on the other side of the dream and, as far as I know, you are the first of your kind to have done so."

Anthony slumped down onto the soft mossy ground. His mind raced through logic, reason, talking jackals, giant trees, dreams... This was madness. He considered the possible scenarios: Drug-induced hallucination? No; A coma? Possibly, maybe; Maybe death... He asked, "Am I dead?" which elicited a long sigh from Kannis.

"No, Anthony, you are not dead. You are alive and awake, just not in the same place as when you fell asleep."

Anthony put his head in his hands and rocked back and forth. Try as he might he could not deny his senses. He could see, smell, hear and touch the world surrounding him. He would have wagered he could taste it too if there had been anything around to eat, a subject on which his rumbling stomach was beginning to comment.

Anthony decided that, whatever was going on here, one thing which was undeniably real was the pain he'd felt when Kannis clawed him. It was possible that this was all still fantasy, but now a doubt nagged at him and corroded his belief in the dream scenario. The blood was starting to clot, the wound throbbed.

"Well, suppose for a moment I accept that what you are saying is true? I have questions."

"You may ask three", stated Kannis.

"Three questions? Are you some sort of genie?"

"No, Mr Hallow, the genies tend to dress differently and they reside in another part of the forest. I am simply a person with a limited amount of time and much to accomplish with it. Ask away."

Anthony rubbed at his beard for a few moments, trying to decide what to ask. "Where are we?"

"Specifically, we are in an unnamed forest just below the Mercurial Chambers where you awoke. More generally, we are in a land called Avalen."

"How was I brought here?"

"You have been here thousands of times. For years you have spent your sleeping hours lying in two places, in your bed at home and up there on one of those stone tables. On this occasion, and through no small amount of effort, we have succeeded in waking up the dreamer instead of the sleeper. Last question and then I must be away."

"Tell me why?" said Anthony.

"Ah", responded Kannis, wrinkling his nose slightly, "that is a slightly more complex matter and one which I cannot cover in its entirety. Needless to say my brothers and I have brought you here for reasons which in the long run may prove mutually beneficial. You have a talent you are unaware of which will aid us greatly in our cause and we can offer you a chance to heal the wounds you bear." As he spoke, Kannis pulled out a compass and started to get a bearing.

Once he seemed happy with a direction he pulled some other items from his bag. One was a silver cup which he handed to Anthony. "Drink and eat from this", he said.

"Drink and eat what exactly?" asked Anthony. His stomach had picked up on the term 'eat' and was weighing in with a series of rumbles. He examined the contents of the small thin cup, which were non-existent.

"Anything you wish", replied Kannis who took the cup from him and turned it upside down. Water started to pour from it. The water turned into tomato soup, then to something that looked like tea. "I suggest you stick to soups for nourishment, it may get a little confused if you try to imagine anything more solid. I will be back in three days." He handed the tin cup back to Anthony and then passed him a long dagger. "The wildlife shouldn't bother you too much; anything which does should run at the sight of this."

Finally, he passed him a small cotton bag. From it he produced a small black stone. "For fires, light with this. Use only small twigs and leaves which have already fallen from the trees. Do not make a large fire; the tallow bears will have alerted the Fenngaard Palace already. I do not have time to explain all of these things", he finished when he saw Anthony was about to start asking more questions.

Kannis nodded, patted him roughly on the shoulder and walked into the forest.

"Where are you going?" asked Anthony, as Kannis walked away.

"A small town further up the mountain, they have an Inkling station."

"Why can't I come?" he called as Kannis got further and further away.

"They will be looking for you in the towns. Stay hidden, Mr Hallow, I will return."

"Why don't you take your oversized bird?" Anthony shouted as Kannis was almost out of earshot.

"The sorrow hawks are outlawed; I would draw too much attention", he replied. With that he was gone and Anthony was alone in the forest.

While he and Kannis had been talking the forest had seemed as silent as the grave yet within moments of the talented jackal's departure the sounds of life returned. Anthony could hear hordes of birds chirping and tweeting as they flitted from tree to tree. There were other sounds too, crickets, grasshoppers and humming bees. There were plenty of sounds which Anthony didn't recognise as well, but he tried not to think too much about any of those.

At the moment his priority was food. He looked down at the silver cup. "What exactly did he do?" he muttered. A silver cup which filled itself with a multitude of different liquids was certainly not a naturally occurring phenomenon. One might even say it was magical, though Anthony was loathe to even think that phrase. He understood wires, electronics, diodes and transistors, not magic. Still, when in Rome, he thought as he stared into the cup and thought very hard about soup, thick and creamy tomato soup, bubbling hot and filled with flavour.

Even as he thought of it Anthony saw stirrings of some something in the bottom of the cup. Slowly but surely it filled all the way to the brim with what looked and smelt very much like the tomato soup he'd enjoyed in his own house, back before bears, jackals and giant hawks.

Anthony's memory was a locked door, even to himself. There were corridors in his mind which he did not walk down any more, except in his tomb-dreams when it was beyond his control. But soup, he could remember soup by itself. He could remember the taste of the dense red liquid as it swirled around his mouth, warming his body as it went down.

The soup was delicious. After several cupfuls he tried water. Water was easier and the cup filled quickly.

Once his thirst and hunger were sated, Anthony sat on the mossy ground leaning his back against a tree. He lifted his arms and stared at his trembling hands. He felt the sweat on his brow and his wildly beating heart. Anthony was feeling ever so slightly stressed and confused. He considered running, but not for long. Thrashing around in an unknown forest would avail him nothing.

So he decided to sit and wait for the return of Kannis the talented jackal, except now thoughts of Juliet, his ex-wife, sprung to his mind. I wonder what she is doing now, he mused. He pictured her doing the most mundane tasks, getting changed, brushing her teeth and eating breakfast. It brought him comfort now, but it was also one of the first times he'd been able to think about her without thinking about them.

For hours he sat there listening to the sounds of the forest. He saw no sign of any predator, which was fortunate. The dagger which Kannis had given him would serve against a small animal but was not long or wide enough to cause harm to an aggressor of any size.

The trees looked like any other trees. Anthony was not an expert of such things. He couldn't have told you the difference between an ash and a birch or an oak and a cedar. He could just about spot a weeping willow, not that there were any around here. It was a beautiful scene though, peaceful. He sat and thought about last night, last night's cruel normality. Dinner, microwave, lager from the fridge, bland television. Nothing in the least bit out of the ordinary.

When the hours grew small he'd staggered up the stairs. It was a big house, one his brother had urged him to sell on many occasions. Anthony did not know why his brother bothered; he knew the truth even if he would not say it. Anthony would die in that house. Before retiring to his own modest room, Anthony had carried out his usual night time routine. He'd gone to each of their rooms, sat on an empty bed and stroked the space where they once lay down to sleep and dream.

Then he'd made his way through the wall of tears to his lonely bed, a heavy bottle in his hand, a heavy heart in his chest. He'd slumped down and drifted off to meet them at the tomb as usual and then he'd woken up here, lying on a stone table. He shook his head in disbelief.

As the day passed Anthony searched the local area, being careful to keep an eye on the clearing where Kannis had left him. It was all similar, sunlit glades and corridors of old and serious trees which huddled here and there to whisper to the wind and rustle their leaves at his intrusion. He saw bright white squirrels and thought, it's the little differences that help you understand you're in a new place. The butterflies were pretty too, even though they had a disturbing habit of disappearing into thin air with a flash.

Eventually darkness started to climb over the land. The day creatures took their curtain call and Anthony heard a whole new set of hooting and screeching, even the occasional distant roar as the night creatures awoke. He gathered up a pile of leaves and twigs in the fading light and though it was not cold twilight brought with it a cool reminder about how ill-provisioned he was to withstand night-time exposure without a fire of some kind.

Having assembled a modest pile of kindling he took one of the black stones from the sack and examined it for a few moments before realising that it might have been advantageous to ask Kannis for some instructions on its use.

He took out another stone and struck them together hoping they might spark but they did not. He tried to crumble one over the fireplace but it was solid and would not give. He willed some water into the silver cup and poured it over the stone hoping naively that it might be water activated, but it was not. Anthony was in the business of computers, however, and he was therefore in the business of head-scratching.

Friction had not worked, crumbling had not worked and water had not worked. He tried willing a combustible liquid from the cup, but all that served to do was leave a horrible after taste in the cup from which he drank. He tried breathing hot air on the stone, he tried hitting the stone with a large stick and finally in desperation he picked up the stone and threw it off into the twilight.

In the end Anthony gave up. There was a distinct chill in the air now and the light had almost left the forest completely. He took two sticks and reverted back to tried and tested methods. However easy it looked when they made a fire from rubbing two sticks together on the television, the reality was a cold and frustrated Anthony who after many minutes of failure gave up again.

"Who'd have thought it would be so difficult to start a bloody fire?" he said to no one in particular. As it happened though saying those words, or rather that word specifically, was exactly what the situation required. What Kannis had left Anthony was a bag of fire stones, such a commonplace item in Avalen that he'd not even thought to explain that in order to start a fire all you needed to do was say the word 'fire'.

Upon hearing that word the several stones which Anthony had left in the fireplace burst happily into flames, which soon spread to the pile of leaves and twigs to create an enthusiastic little fireplace. A rather confused Anthony Hallow sat scratching his head whilst appreciating the warmth of his fire and the light by which he could now see. When his mind eventually stumbled on how he'd started the fire he took another of the stones out of the bag, which he promptly sealed.

Looking at the stone he spoke the word, "Fire." Though it was a good idea to test his theory it might not have been prudent to have been holding it in his bare hand when conducting the experiment. Anthony leapt around clutching his burnt hand for several minutes after the stone had combusted in his open palm. Eventually he scrambled together enough wit to pour cool water from the cup over his hand.

The pain subsided but he would have a nasty blister on his palm. To console himself Anthony had some more soup washed down with several cupfuls of lager, all courtesy of what was proving to be a very handy little chalice.

With both hands throbbing from separate wounds, Anthony settled down to get some sleep. Truth be told, he was uncertain where his sleep might take him. A part of his mind still believed he was dreaming and he fervently hoped to wake up back in his house.

When he did wake it took a few seconds to remember where he was. It was still dark, but the forest gave itself away. The fire had burned down low and Anthony wondered what had woken him. For the first time in ten years he'd slept without dreaming of the tomb and despite the interruption he felt more refreshed than he had in a long time. The feeling of refreshment dissipated, however, when he saw the large bear snuffling at the trees on the other side of the fire. This was not a hollowed out tallow bear but a full grown beast that must have weighed almost a ton.

It came closer and closer and Anthony was rooted to the spot. When it got within a few feet he remembered the dagger, not that it would do him much good against something as big as the shaggy brown bear which approached. He felt to the side where he'd left the weapon, never once taking his eyes off the bear. He grasped the hilt and lifted it to fend off the bear.

The bear stopped moving towards him and growled, not in aggression but with more of an inquisitive air. Its large head swung from side to side and then all of a sudden it turned tale and lumbered back into the trees and was soon gone from sight, though for a time afterwards Anthony could hear it crashing through the undergrowth in search of a tasty morsel or two.

Anthony looked down and the dagger in amazement. The hilt appeared to be made from bone, the blade from some form of steel; then he noticed the writing. Etched along the blade from tip to hilt was the word Mercy. The writing shone with a slight glow, it had not been visible in the daylight hours and as the moments passed the words became more and more difficult to see until eventually they disappeared altogether. Anthony laid the weapon back down by his side and then lay down himself. He added magical daggers to the long list of impossibilities which has assaulted his logical mind throughout the last day. Sleep came back swiftly and was deep and dreamless.

*

Halakrin watched. Outwardly impassive. Inwardly indifferent, he was neither enamoured nor repulsed by the scene in front of him. He did not care for the dreams of Avalen, and held little but disdain for the one in front of him now, being beaten mercilessly to death.

Though it would have suffered regardless of the information it yielded the scant intelligence which the dream offered had driven the Lord into a towering rage which bordered on the berserk. The lords hands were locked in a choking vice around the weasels bloody neck as he lifted the creature from its feet and smashed it repeatedly against the wall of the chamber.

The gibbering high pitched begging slowly faded as the weasels grey matter splattered across the room. Despite the array of implements on offer and the torturers willing to use them the Lord preferred the hands on approach, and it was said that his hands could cause more pain than any blade. With the gentlest caress he could elicit screams deep from the soul.

When he'd finished the limp corpse fell to the floor. No one spoke, for a few moments the Lord leaned against a wall, blood pooling around his iron boots.

When he turned he was smiling broadly. Pieces of the dead dream fell from his antlers as he walked over to where Halakrin stood.

"Yes?" was all the Lord said in conversational tones as he started to wipe the blood from his broad torso.

"My Lord" said Halakrin bowing low "Word has reached us from the chambers, the jackal is on the move and he has the dreamer with him."

It was impossible to read the Lords flaming eyes as he dissected the information. "Ready the ninth, we leave at once," said the Lord. Halakrin acknowledged the order. As they made to leave several slaves moved to the body of the dream.

"Leave him for the rats" barked the Lord causing the slaves to scurry back into the shadows. As Halakrin slithered after the Lord he spoke "Might I enquire as to our destination My Lord?".

"Wilderben" came the answer.
Chapter Two: The King of Kings

The Palace of Princes was a grand affair. Of all the palaces in the City of Fenn only four were of equal height, those being the Palace of Princesses, the Palace of Elements, the Palace of Sorrow and the Palace of Night. These five minor palaces were the loftiest and largest structures in the City of Fenn, with one exception.

There was only one which stood above them all looking down on its children. This was the Palace of Fenngaard, home of King Fenn Corul Geddon. Next to the Palace of Fenngaard they looked like children's building blocks sitting next to a mountain.

The City of Fenn was often called the shadow within a shadow, for it was said that all Avalen lived within its shade, the city contained within the shroud of Fenngaard. Prince Karmalaine knew that to be an exaggeration, but one which anyone who actually gazed on the Palace of Fenngaard could appreciate.

The Palace of Princes in which Karmalaine resided consisted of a ring of ten towers linked by bridges and battlements; within this ring was the Thorn Tower which loomed above them.

Prince Karmalaine now sat on an ornate chair shaped to resemble a raven with outstretched wings, the symbol of his house, in the Regent's apartments of the Thorn Tower. A single stairway linked these apartments to the battlements below and it ended in a circular stairwell which wound up into the greeting chamber.

The apartments took up the entire top floor of the tower and from the central greeting chamber there were several doorways which led to the Prince's private quarters, a guardian hall where his bodyguards resided and the audience chamber.

His Consul had informed him that the greeting chamber was already filling up with petitioners. The Prince bade him wait a few minutes before admitting them. As the Prince Regent and an heir to Fenngaard, Karmalaine was expected to hold audience with those who would seek an audience with his father. Some matters were left to the Prince to resolve; the more serious he would grant access to the higher palace, the petty he would dismiss to be dealt with by one of the city's many arbiters. The whole point of the Arbiter-Council was to whittle down the throng of plebeians so that Karmalaine was left with only the issues of dire importance, yet he still found himself dismissing dozens of applicants every day.

The Prince was looking forward to a long day presiding over the masses with less than his usual diligence and enthusiasm. They say that dreams do not dream, yet his night had been fitful and filled with dreadful images. If they were not dreams then he supposed it must be his conscious waking mind that summoned these visions. He'd seen Fenngaard wreathed in flames, beset by a wolf of gigantic proportions. Senseless fantasies, he thought, there were no giant wolves.

Like all who descended from the Fenn, the Prince had jet black hair and a complexion as fair as Calciid marble. He ran a hand through his thick shoulder-length hair with tiredness as he walked to stare out of the window. Beyond the ten towers surrounding the Thorn were the Prince's gardens, half a league across, containing hedge mazes, artificial lakes and flower beds.

His two brothers, Allayne and Drayen, were probably down there now, riding unicorns, swimming in the lakes and generally having much more fun than their older sibling. There'd been a time not too long ago when Karmalaine would have been with them, but then he reached his first century and was told that he must now begin to serve his father, to begin to fulfil the duties of his title.

The light had lifted in glorious fashion this morning. Beyond the gardens was the Stalwall and beyond that the city proper. Fenn was built upon the nineteen pillars, which had been revealed by the first Fenn when he pushed back the dreaming sea and founded the kingdom.

It was not known how they were forged; it was assumed that they were one of the old dreams which existed in the chaos before Fenn brought order. The pillars were cylindrical, each one several leagues across, and the city's inhabitants had built on them all, linking each to the other by huge bridges. Wide chasms existed between each of the pillars, though from Karmalaine's perspective the city looked like a continuous entity. He knew that if he was to fly out on one of the many sky-ships which he could see above the city he would be able to see the gaps between the pillars, the hundreds of bridges provided transit from the outer reaches of the city towards the central pillar on which sat the Palace of Fenngaard and its children.

It was said that the pillars had no end and that they went on forever down into the dream-soil of Avalen. Whether this was true or not, Karmalaine knew that the city had dug deeply. The steady influx of new dreams from beyond Avalen meant that the tops of the pillars soon ran out of room to house everyone. Homes for the people had been dug deep down into the pillars.

Some lived in places so dark that the light of Avalen never reached them. It was rumoured when you got deep enough there were miniature stars and moons, pulled down by the giants which lived beneath the ground to provide light and beauty.

Though it was true that the city extended down into the dark places of Avalen, Karmalaine thought the existence of independent stars and moons unlikely, not least because the giants did not live beneath the city. They resided in Torabane, their mountain stronghold at the far north of Avalen.

Prince Karmalaine could feel the life and energy pulsing out of the city. How he longed to leave the palace, to wander the Maze-Market of Trandoon, to visit the Gallery of Swords.

He heard Clemen gently clear his voice behind him. "My Prince", he said softly. Clemen was a mousekarl, a race of excellent administrators, tireless and loyal. His whiskers twitched as he waited for the Prince's permission to allow the first petitioner through.

Prince Karmalaine sighed as he sat down on the hard wooden chair. "Okay, let's get this over with", he said.

"My Prince sounds less than happy at the prospect of the day ahead", replied the mousekarl, his whiskers twitching again beneath his soft brown eyes.

"The day ahead will consist of an endless throng of dreams telling me that they are low on crystal fuel, or that their neighbour has been burning buckets of Dream Sea and causing a stink", said the Prince in a frustrated tone, "there is little that will bring me happiness."

"If princes were destined for happiness then they would call them something else", responded Clemen with a buck-toothed smile. He left the audience hall and brought through the first petitioner.

"Greetings", said Karmalaine, "welcome to the Palace of Princes. Tell me of your quandary", said Karmalaine to the portly gentlemen before him.

The man bowed before answering, "My Prince, I come before you to discuss the lack of crystal fuel in the Gammene district."

Prince Karmalaine stared at Clemen, who refused to meet his gaze. This was going to be a long day.

*

At halfday Prince Karmalaine called a break. He supped in his private chambers on a plate of flying ham and wilderberries. After this and several glasses of glinting glade which sparkled in the glass he went back to the raven chair. He prepared himself for another dreary afternoon of longing for the sunshine and was listening to the boring rain of petitioners.

He was surprised, however, to see his first audience after lunch was with a tallow bear. The bears lived in the Mercurial Chambers which they guarded and it was strange to see them in the city. They were a reclusive bunch with whom Karmalaine rarely had contact.

The bear had left his silver scythe at the bottom of the stairwell for none were allowed into the presence of the Prince bearing arms. Even unarmed the tallow bear had long claws, however. The strange, sunken and shrivelled skin did not stop him from being an imposing figure who, at nearly seven feet tall, towered over Clemen and the Prince.

"Greetings, welcome to the Prince's Palace. What is your quandary?" asked Karmalaine. The bear shifted from foot to foot and rubbed his claws together. It took only a moment for the Prince to realise the bear was nervous.

"My Prince does not have all day guardian", prompted Clemen.

"Of course", said the bear in a deep growling voice. "My Prince", he said, focusing on Karmalaine with cold grey eyes, "it has been thrust upon me to bring to your attention a most grave matter."

Please don't be a lack of crystal fuel, thought Karmalaine.

"I am from Mercurial-Pelegon, one of the mortal-earth-chambers. I am afraid, My Prince, that we have lost one of the dreamers."

Prince Karmalaine looked at the Tallow-bear with confusion. "You must forgive me..."

"Clowen, My Prince."

"You must forgive me, Clowen, I am not certain how you can have lost a dreamer?"

The tallow bear cleared his throat and continued, "He woke up in the chamber, My Prince. As soon as we became aware we pursued him. He fled and reached the edge of the chamber where..." A thin tongue wrapped nervously around the jaws of the tallow bear.

"Where what?" pressed the Prince.

"Where he was taken from us by a talented jackal riding one of the sorrow hawks."

Prince Karmalaine sat in stunned silence for several moments before turning to Clemen.

"Which arbiter referred this to me?" he queried. Clemen consulted a sheaf of papers.

"Arbiter Praxos, My Prince."

"You will send a messenger to Praxos telling him that he is relieved of his position and is to hand over responsibility to his deputy immediately. If he attempts to argue the point have the messenger thrown him into a chasm."

"Yes, My Prince", said Clemen nodding his head.

"Clowen, you will accompany me", said the Prince, standing and belting on his ceremonial crystal sword.

"Of course, My Prince. May I ask where?"

"To see the King", replied Karmalaine, all sense of boredom gone from his eyes.

*

A single wide bridge led from each of the five minor palaces to the Palace of Fengaard. As Karmalaine strode across he cursed the stupidity of Arbiter Praxos. Yes the arbiters were supposed to elevate matters of importance, but a waking dreamer and a talented jackal riding a sorrow hawk stealing him away from the Mercurial Chambers? This was not a matter of import, it was a matter of life and death which should have been brought to the King immediately.

Clowen followed him and in front and behind were Karmalaine's honour guard of silver claws which followed him whenever he left the Thorn Tower. There were a half dozen at the moment, this number would increase if he left the Pillar of Royalty and ventured into the city proper. At the head of the bridge were a set of doors high enough to admit a giant, a stooped giant but a giant nonetheless. They were over a hundred feet tall and Karmalaine knew that a team of smiling ogres worked in the housing beneath the door to draw the pulley system which would open the doors.

Given their lot in this dream-life, Karmalaine doubted the ogres were smiling any more. Such was the lot of a people who had given themselves to slavery and servitude. Arrayed before the gate were ten more silver claws.

"Captain Vaclav, I need to see my father urgently", said the Prince.

The silver claw by the name of Vaclav bowed before the heir. When bowed the silver claw was almost a match in height for the Prince; most silver claws stood at about nine feet tall. Not an inch of skin could be seen beneath their armour, which was gun-metal grey except for the distinctive silver gauntlets with razor sharp talons they wore. No face could be seen beneath their visors, only the eyes which were no more than faint red glowing balls. Despite their hulking frames they were nimble agile beings and had guarded the descendants of Fenn for many centuries.

"Your will takes precedence, My Prince", was all he said in response. Vaclav's voice was a quiet shadowy thing that struggled to make its way out of the thick faceplate of his helm. He walked over to the right hand side of the doors and pulled on a rope. From somewhere below Karmalaine heard bells ringing.

The image of a raven was emblazoned across the massive wooden doors which split as the ogres below started to pull. As soon as the gap was wide enough to admit him Karmalaine strode through with Clowen and the honour guard in tow.

The Palace of Fenngaard was constructed in a very different manner to the minor palaces. Whilst they were a complex mishmash of towers, corridors, halls and levels, Fenngaard was very simple. It consisted primarily of a single dome which contained the Hall of Providence.

Within this hall was situated the Nested Throne built from twigs taken from the nests of ravens. The throne had been made into the shape of a raven in a similar fashion to Karmalaine's own seat of power, but was many times the size of his. The raven made of millions of twigs looked fierce indeed.

It was a gift to the first Fenn from the Ravenlords of old and part of the reason why Fenn took the raven as the symbol of his house, supplanting his original sigil of the lotus.

The Hall of Providence was as wide as it was tall. At nearly a league across it would take some minutes to walk its breadth in full. All the other rooms were built into the actual walls of the Palace which is what gave such space to the hall. The royal apartments and a thousand other rooms given over to the massive bureaucracy governing the kingdom were built into the walls surrounding the Hall of Providence. The throne itself was situated in the centre of the dome, directly beneath a single opening which allowed in a pillar of light, illuminating the throne during the daylight hours.

The Hall of Providence was always busy but never seemed crowded due to its dimensions. As Karmalaine strode across the blue carpeted floor he saw that hundreds of people were in the hall, talking in small groups or hurrying here and there conducting urgent business of government. Prince Karmalaine recognised a number of people as he walked, the Magister Elementis who controlled the weather patterns of Avalen, the Arachnid King, master of the spiders of Entlewood and Lemer Starys, Chief of the Octaris who guarded the Dreamstone Wall.

There were many more he did not recognise but this did not surprise him. Fenn was often called the infinite city, no one could quantify how many dreams now resided on the nineteen pillars but it was enough to require an army of officials to maintain order.

Around the Nested Throne was a ring of one hundred silver claws. Beyond them was the King, his mousekarl and whoever was receiving an audience at the time. No one was being treated by the time Karmalaine reached the ring of silver steel around his father, however. He knew that the silver claws were high level telepaths and it was likely that Vaclav had alerted his brother captains to the approach of the Prince.

The silver claws parted to allow him entry and Clowen's scythe was confiscated again. Karmalaine's own retinue of bodyguards stayed outside of the circle.

The King was as imposing as the chair he sat on but Fenn Corul Geddon looked old, as Karmalaine imagined he would if and when he reached his eighth century. His hair and complexion were similar to his sons', but there the similarities ended. Where Karmalaine was lean to the point of being slender his father was a huge dream, tall and broad. His eyes were the colour of stone and his face seemed locked in a permanently stern mask. Despite his size, Karmalaine knew that his father did not carry an ounce of fat. His strength was prodigious, as it needed to be to wield the hammer of Fenn, the symbol of their house's power.

To some he was known as Granite Hand, such was the strength in the huge gnarled fingers which now rested on the arms of the Nested Throne.

"My son", he spoke, his voice like distant thunder, "a welcome surprise."

"Father", said Prince Karmalaine dropping to one knee and staring at the floor. Clowen followed suit.

"Rise", spoke his King.

Karmalaine stood and looked into the flinty gaze. "My father, I come with grave tidings."

"Grave indeed", responded the King, "a great weight you bring into my hall, I see it in your eyes Karmalaine, eldest son of mine. Come tell your father why the business of the realm has been halted this day?"

Karmalaine had never been good at assessing his father's mood. Truth be told, there was no one in Avalen who could accurately gauge what Fenn Corul Geddon was thinking at any one time. He looked as stern and foreboding when he was dispensing justice as he did when he was giving gifts to his kindred.

Only Karmalaine's mother, Queen Eldella, seemed to be able to judge the King's mood with any accuracy and she was far away beyond the city, secluded in the Lyrilia where she'd been for some years now.

"I have with me a tallow bear who goes by the name of Clowen. He is a resident guardian at Mercurial-Pelegon. It is from his mouth that I have been told of a grave threat to your majesty and all we hold dear." Karmalaine turned to Clowen and said, "Tell it as you told me."

"Your majesty", said Clowen, bowing low, "less than a full turning of the light ago one of the dreamers in our chamber woke up and left his pedestal. We gave chase but were thwarted by a talented jackal riding one of the sorrow hawks. He attacked us and then carried the dreamer off with him."

Almost immediately the King turned to Hidriss the mousekarl at his side and said, "Send for Mortiune at once." Then he turned back to Clowen: "Why has it taken so long for word of this to reach me?"

Even with his father's masked emotional state Karmalaine could sense the anger. He stepped forward and said, "Clowen acted in accordance with the guidelines set down for such an incident. The delay was caused by the slow-witted actions of one of our Arbiters who saw it fit to refer the matter to me instead of bringing it before you, my father. The arbiter in question has been dealt with."

That seemed to placate his father slightly whose manner turned from anger to clouded contemplation. He addressed Clowen again, "By chance tallow bear, did you deign the identity of the jackal?"

"No, My King, I am unfamiliar with their hierarchy and could not name the creature."

The King mused on that before calling out to his guard, "Vulthian!"

One of the silver claws standing around the throne turned, walked forward and knelt before the King. Karmalaine was not fond of Vulthian Kel-Parr, commander of the silver claws and personal protector of his father. He knew that by necessity the silver claws were merciless, suspicious and highly disciplined creatures but their captain took such attributes to the extreme. Karmalaine had often sensed that beyond Vulthian's cold façade was a being capable of cruel actions, which he would justify in the name of the king he served.

"My King", intoned Vulthian in a voice that would chill even the most hardened nightmare.

"I want you to mobilise the entirety of the silver claw legion. Station them at every entry and exit to the city, including the sky-ports, as well as roaming patrols covering every inch of the lower city. Tell them that any talented jackal within the city is to be arrested and confined to the Howling Cavern."

"Yes, My King", said Vulthian immediately, rising to his feet and departing the steel circle to carry out his orders. Karmalaine was shocked at the swiftness with which the situation was escalating.

"Father."

"Yes my son?" responded Fenn Corul Geddon, turning his grey eyes on Karmalaine.

"I agree that this is a dire situation, but might not such actions prompt panic and fear? There are many talented jackals in the city who show nothing but loyalty and carry out their lives without hostility to the crown."

The stone eyes bored long and hard into the sky blue of Karmalaine's own gaze before the King responded, "My son, a dog is a dog and they are all of one pack. One day you will be king, by which time you will have grown wisdom on top of the courage and intellect you already wield, but know this: you are too young to recall the events of my life which gave me such wisdom. I have been bitten by the hound before. I will not be so injured a second time."

Prince Karmalaine was about to object but thought better of it. Not least because it was unwise to question his father's will, but also because he was not completely sure of his own arguments. The Prince was a keen student of history, he was well aware that the talented jackals had supported the Arma Rebellion, indeed they had been an integral part of it. And it had only been a century since the war against Saal when the jackals had once again taken the opposing side against the Palace of Fenngaard. Despite his reservations he would accede to his father's experience on this matter.

It was not long until Hidriss returned with Mortiune, a Sentinel. If the silver claws were the King's hand of might and physical power then the Sentinels were the hand of knowledge and wisdom. They were the keepers of ancient lore, the bookkeepers charged with the stewardship of the Lyng Library housed in the Palace of Night. What the Sentinels did not know could be ruled out as irrelevant.

Mortiune was a stooped humanoid, an old man, grey and pale and reeking of mortality. It was rumoured the he was a memory dream, a recollection of a true mortal who had lived at some point on the other side.

Despite the elderly gait and the short staff he used Mortiune was afforded great respect due to his ability to dream weave. It was considered a great honour to be able to dream weave, to manipulate the fabric of Avalen by will alone. It was said that the ability came easily to memory dreams since the mortal figures of which they were echoes would have dreamt themselves once upon a time.

Mortiune made as if to drop to one knee but King Corul dismissed the gesture with a wave of his hand: "You do not need to kneel Sentinel. We do not have the time it would take you to rise." Mortiune had the good grace to laugh at that.

"How may I serve My King?" croaked the old man.

"A dreamer has left his pedestal and been stolen away by the talented jackals. I need you to go with this tallow bear to Mercurial-Pelegon, deign the identity of the dreamer, learn his history and if possible discern his future. Why this one, and why now?"

"It will be as you say, My King."

"You will leave at once. The Lonely Ghost will carry you." With that Mortiune and Clowen left the grand hall.

Prince Karmalaine looked up at the ceiling of the dome; the palace was so large that small clouds oft formed within it. There were several now, and the Prince could see the birds which nested at the top of the dome were flying to and fro between them. The ravens were restless, for fate moved against them.
Chapter Three: Fruition and Failure

From his vantage point in the towering oak Kannis could see the town of Wilderben in its entirety. It was not a large settlement, a few thousand dwellings at most. There was no uniformity to the place. Like any dream-town it was a compendium of architectural styles; tall white towers sat next to domed mud huts, neatly made wooden cabins were back-to-back with strange structures made from leaves and movable trees.

The reason Wilderben existed was that it had an inkling well. The well was housed within the Ivy House, a white-brick building in the centre of the town, where the towns Arbiter, Ilas Defain lived and worked.

Though it was well after darkfall the town was illuminated by thousands of crystal lanterns sitting atop poles.

Kannis was pleased to see a distinct lack of activity in Wilderben. Time was still on his side, there were no silver claws in sight which meant that even if the palace knew about the waking of Anthony Hallow they had not yet begun to seek him outside of the city. Confident that there was no threat within the township, Kannis descended from his vantage point and wandered out of the trees onto the streets of Wilderben.

As he made his way along the muddy roads he spied few people. A group of rowdy badger walkers passed him, seemingly drunk on mill mead. They asked Kannis if he'd hunted any nice rabbits recently but the talented jackal ignored them, he was not here to tussle with the locals.

Several frog witches loitered in the porch of one establishment. They croaked and snapped their long tongues about catching flies. They asked Kannis if he would like to be turned into a charming prince. He told them that he was already charming and had no desire to be a prince. They croaked away at that and he headed off up the street.

Up near the centre of town there were several mill mead bars close to the Ivy House. The Gloating Bear, Fenn's Cauldron and The Cat's Seventh were all in the vicinity. As such the streets were slightly more crowded in this part of town. Kannis's eyes swept back and forth constantly scanning the crowd for any threats but there were none and it was with relief that he reached the stone porch of the Ivy House.

Two humanoid guardsmen stood before the white swinging doors. The Mercurial Chambers and Royal Palaces might be guarded by tallow bears and silver claws but out here in the sticks the Arbiters had to make do with the dreams of men to police their establishments.

"Purpose in the Ivy House?" asked the left guard, a portly and bearded gentleman.

"I wish to use the inkling", growled back Kannis.

"A hound who can write?" japed the same guard with a distinctly unfriendly smile on his face. Before Kannis could retort, however, the other guard spoke up.

"Ignore Quinn, he's just annoyed at being on night duty again. Proceed, stranger", he said, giving the portly man a withering look. The portly guard grumbled and looked away. The other guard was thinner and had short dark hair with a humorous glint in his eye.

"My thanks", said Kannis, pushing the white wooden doors aside. As he walked down the corridor he could not help the anger building in him. The attitude of the badger walkers and the humanoids riled him more than he let on. There was a time when the talented jackals were respected and feared in Avalen, if their plans came to fruition then those days would soon come again and people like Quinn would learn harsh lessons from their mockery.

The corridors of the Ivy House were lit by lamps instead of crystal, which was unusual. Crystal lighting gave a clear unwavering light whilst the burning lamps on the walls allowed the gloom to gather in many corners and had a distinct odour. Kannis saw a sign indicating the offices of the Arbiter and another to indicate the presence of the inkling. He followed the second sign and soon found himself in the inkling room.

There were around a dozen other occupants, none of whom even so much as glanced up as he entered. The well itself was situated in the middle of the room. Dozens of pipes emerged from it and ran to the communication stations situated around the edges of the room. On his journey to Wilderben, Kannis had gone over the plan in his head many times; there were many of the Long Tooths who had objected to his idea. They'd proposed marching on the Mercurial Chamber in force but Kannis had advocated stealth and they had eventually backed down after he pointed out how much closer the City of Fenn was to the chambers than Eredyss where they made their home.

They had objected further when he told them that he intended to ditch the sorrow hawk and make his way on foot to the Lair. But again they backed down when he pointed out that Corul Geddon's people would be looking for a sorrow hawk and that, despite the creature's speed, it could not hope to out-fly The Lonely Ghost and a fleet of sky-ships. Kannis understood the desire of many of his brothers to begin using force openly against the minions of Fenngaard, but they had to be cautious until they had Anthony and until he was ready.

As Kannis sat at the communication station and prepared to use the inkling his thoughts turned to Anthony Hallow. Kannis had given him scant information and scant reason to trust him. All the talented jackal could hope was that Hallow was who they thought he was and that he would still be there when he returned. Though he'd been certain of Anthony's fear and worry when he left him in the clearing he hoped that these feelings would keep him in the same spot and prevent him wandering. In the event that he had run, however, Kannis was confident in his abilities to track him down.

The communication station consisted of a desk with privacy boarding on either side to separate it from the adjacent stations. From beneath the wooden surface came a clump of thin blue tentacles that seemed to blur and move as if they were flowing back and forth. They joined onto a piece of very old paper, weaving into it like blue veins. Next to this was a pot of ink and a feather with which to write.

The inkling wells were left over from the days when the Dreaming Sea still covered Avalen. They contained the original elements of the sea which had been used by Fenn to create the land. It was found that if this liquid substance was refined it could be used to communicate across large distances. The inkling recognised thought patterns as well as individual phrases and code words which mean it could be used to communicate securely and discreetly between two individuals who knew each other and possessed a matching set of codes.

In addition to these codes the inkling stations also used physical keys. On the wall above the paper was an opening which would hold a key of many different shapes. Two keys, made to precisely the same dimensions would activate a link between two stations and then you could then confirm the presence on the other end via a code. There were hundreds of inkling wells across the kingdom and they were a vital tool for communicating over large distances.

Kannis carried with him a key in the shape of a Lyrilian butterfly which he inserted into the slot above the paper. Back in Eredyss, Rostrom had a key of the same making which would already have been placed, waiting in the inkling of the lair.

Kannis took up the feather, gathered some ink and started to write on the piece of old yellowed paper.

Down by the house on Berrytree Lane,

the guilders boy howls in pain.

Kannis sat back and waited. He knew that one of his brothers at the inkling station in Eredyss had been watching and would have seen the words appear on their own paper. It might take a minute or two for Rostrom to make his way to the station and use the reply that the two of them had agreed upon. Sure enough, less than a minute later, from nowhere words began to write themselves on the sheet before him.

He gave his life to the guild of rites.

Now he is all covered in righteous bites.

Kannis responded with the second part of their code.

Perhaps he should have spurned the maid

and then not lost the game she played.

The response was almost immediate.

Perhaps may be an awful word,

maybe perhaps is just absurd.

Confirmation. Before leaving the caverns of Eredyss, Rostrom and Kannis had carefully memorised all the passages of their code; those combined with the butterfly key were the surest way possible that Kannis was talking to his kin. Despite this Kannis would be careful not to use any names or other information which would give away his location. The chances of Eredyss having been compromised were remote, but a remote chance could still spell failure.

Greetings brother, the words appeared on the paper before him.

Greetings to you my kin, he wrote back.

How goes your quest? wrote Rostrom

My path is straight and unopposed. The Sad Father has awoken.

He sits at your side?

He waits beneath the leaves, scribbled Kannis

Beware the silver hands that will reach forth to steal your fate.

I am wary and well. We will walk the wooded path home and see you in a score of the turning of the light, wrote Kannis.

I will fill the forest and the mountains with welcome to bring you home to us, came Rostrom's reply, which Kannis found comforting. The longer that Anthony spent in Avalen the more intense the search would become, it was a relief that other members of the pack were waiting for them.

Any word from our brother beyond the gate? asked Kannis.

No word, nor could there be. But the presence of a dreamer in the forest is testament to his success, we must have faith in our brother, responded Rostrom. Kannis had to agree. Elstein was one of the most gifted jackals, if anyone could have pulled off such a feat it was him. They could only hope that he was able to protect Anthony's mortal body for long enough. The thought that he had Ilich to help him with that inspired a degree of confidence.

When you leave your footsteps in the snow then we will meet again. Good fortune brave brother, may you deliver us our dream, said Rostrom in closing. That was a comfort as well - Snowdell was at about the halfway mark in their journey so to have the protection of the pack from this point on would be a boon. How he had longed to have their aid from the outset, but his own advice came back to him. A large group is too easy to spot and track, they would be much better moving as a stealthy pair.

Good fortune to you too brother, hunt well and sleep soundly.

Hunt well and sleep soundly, came the final words from his mentor and brother.

Kannis watched the last inky words fade on the page before removing the butterfly key. The link was broken and his task was complete. In the flickering torchlight he made his way over to a refreshments table and poured himself a glass of warm lemon water. Referring to Anthony as the Sad Father made Kannis think of the prophecy again, it was on this that everything hinged. Rostrom was convinced that Anthony was the Sad Father referred to in the Night Book. Kannis had leapt on board and now they were leading their people down the path to war, but beyond the war lay the victory to which their people had a destined right.

Kannis finished his water and left the inkling well. He stepped out onto the porch and took in the night air. Talented jackals earned their name for many reasons, one of these being their perceptiveness. As soon as he left the Ivy House, Kannis knew that something was wrong. He looked into the deserted street, the mill mead taverns were still open and if anything the crowds should have been growing. Yet there was not a soul to be seen, nor could any kind of carousing or rough-housing be heard. Not a song broke the night or the merry cheer of cheer and merriment.

He looked to his left and right where Quinn and the friendly guardsmen stood. Both were still and silent, pinned to the wall by the blades, the handles emerging from their eye sockets. Thick tears of blood ran down their faces and dripped onto the white stone of the porch.

It was not yet time to run, Kannis was a tactician. The Ivy House was no doubt secure; it was probable that some of the occupants of the inkling well, who had done such a fine job of acting nonchalant when he'd entered, were likely to be part of the enemy force.

Instead of running he stood on the porch and waited for the enemy to show themselves. He did not wait long. One by one, starting at the other end of town, the crystal lanterns were extinguished until Wilderben was lit by moonlight alone. Out there in the silvery shadows Kannis's keen eyes caught movement.

"A jackal in the dark is just as deadly", he called, deciding it was time to draw them on their purpose. Although the two dead guardsmen had already made plain what they intended, Kannis would like to identify them if he could.

"A jackal in the dark is just as alone", a voice replied. It was not one he recognised. An old voice, deep, proud and carrying a great weight of power behind it.

"I would have not thought the honour of the silver claws would allow them to seek such advantages."

"Our claws are not silver which you well know and we seek advantage less than we do secrecy. The advantage is ours, no matter the level of lighting."

"I hope you carry a weapon as weighty as your confidence", Kannis called back at the voice. He was still none the wiser as to who is assailants were. The voice was unrecognisable and all he could make out in the dark were faint shades moving furtively between buildings. For a moment he spared a thought as to what had happened to the townsfolk. There must have been thousands of dreams living in Wilderben; they were now either cowering or dead, and in no position to help the talented jackal.

"You will see", was the ominous reply. Almost as soon as the words had reached Kannis a ball of flames erupted out of the darkness. Kannis ducked down with lightning-fast reflexes and the flames struck the top of the doorway, which caught light instantly and began to blaze. Kannis whispered a dream weave and a small ball of blue fire appeared in his own hand. He sent if flying in the direction the enemy projectile had come from before throwing himself backwards through the burning doorway, turning and running down the corridor. As he ran he heard what remained of the door explode inwards from the force of another enemy missile.

This time Kannis took the turning which led to the offices of the town's Arbiter. The route led up a stairwell and Kannis took the stairs three at a time. From behind him his keen ears heard the crunch of many armoured feet on the wooden floor of the Ivy House.

As he reached the top of the stairs a doorway opposite opened and he finally saw one of his enemies. It was a hulking figure in grey armour; he wore no emblems and no adornments. The armour was plain, but thick and durable. His face was completely covered by a visor. In his hands was a huge broadsword which he swung sideways with enough force to cut Kannis in half. The jackal leapt upwards to avoid the blow which missed and demolished the wall at the side of the stairway. Kannis dropped nimbly to the floor before turning and delivering a hard kick to the chest plate of the off balance opponent, who was thrown back through the door which he'd come through.

A quick glance through the opening the destroyed wall had left revealed a bed chamber and on the bed lay a person who Kannis perceived to be Arbiter Illas Defaine. The Arbiter's dead eyes stared vacantly at Kannis as he scrabbled through the opening and made his way across the room. The sound of heavy boots could be heard on the stairwell as the jackal pushed open the bay windows and vaulted from the balcony to the street below.

Almost as soon as he'd landed he heard a boom and rolled to narrowly escape another fireball flung in his direction. This time he ran into the darkness in the direction the attack had come from. Again he whispered a dream weave and threw his own admittedly smaller ball of blue flame at the enemy. By its light he saw several of the grey armoured knights frantically working around a cannon of some kind. His fireball struck it and sent the knights around flying backwards though the air.

Kannis stopped for a moment to examine the burning weapon. The sky-ships of Fenn were equipped with such weapons which they called sabre cannons. Though there were similarities here this weapon was of a different style, an older design. There was a nagging familiarity about it that Kannis could not put his finger on. If he'd had time to examine the weapon further he might have placed the memory, but he heard shouts and saw dozens of the grey knights running through the darkness towards him.

Kannis ran and leapt from the top of the burning cannon onto the roof of the nearest building. He ran along the rooftops of Wilderben, he leapt and jumped across the mud huts, the cabins, the white stone temples and the pyramid shaped structures. He swung through the branches of the tree-houses as he made his way towards the edge of town. As he went they tracked him with their cannons but he was always too fast. There must have been dozens of them situated throughout the town, but whenever the rain of fire landed on a building or cluster of homesteads Kannis had moved on.

At the edge of Wilderben he dropped down into the alley by which he'd first entered the town. Three of the grey knights ran at him. He ducked under the first broadsword and jumped into the air striking the other two about the head simultaneously, one with a foot the other with a curled fist. They dropped silently to the ground; the talented jackals knew how to pack a punch. As he landed he whispered, turned and threw a blue ball of fire at the third warrior who had barely started towards him. The flames engulfed him and he also fell to the ground, with the flames covering his armour inside and out.

Breathing heavily and taking a moment or two's respite, Kannis considered how strange it was that none of his enemies thus far had uttered a sound when they fell. The burning enemy would have felt excruciating pain as the flames washed over him, yet he died silently.

The two which Kannis had struck were beginning to stir, the respite was over and Kannis ran down the alley to the edge of town in order to escape into the forest. Just as he made to run across the clearing between the town and the trees he stopped. There had been no clearing before. Kannis stared intently at the ground just in front him. It was pitch-black but as his eyes adjusted he saw it, there was no ground, just a gaping chasm which he had no hope of clearing.

Just as he was debating how such a feat was possible the old powerful voice came from behind him again. "Yield", was all it said.

Kannis turned slowly: "Why will you not show yourself?"

"I am of the night. I have neither fear of nor fondness for the light."

Kannis was beginning to get a little bit tired of the cryptic answers. Whoever this was he was certainly not affiliated with the Palace of Fenngaard. Corul Geddon was not a person of subtlety; any attack sanctioned by him would have been open, forthright and conducted in a fashion demonstrating his power to all Avalen. It would also not have involved the death of the town's Arbiter and what Kannis was beginning to assume was most of the townsfolk. Many buildings were now on fire but no screams or sounds of people combating the flames could be heard.

Kannis estimated his time in the inkling could only have been about fifteen minutes. To clear a town the size of Wilderben in such a short period with no sounds of fighting and also taking the time to carve a trench around the place would take not only a high degree of dream-weaving but also thousands of efficient soldiers. Kannis had been involved in conflict fighting both against and alongside combatants from the other four centres of power in Avalen - those being Bloodren, Archaven, Torabane and Mirgarden - never had he come across a foe with archaic sabre cannons and unadorned grey nights.

Gradually, Kannis's eyes started to make out forms in the dark. It seemed as if large numbers of grey knights were converging on his position. In front of them was someone else, something else, something so familiar yet at the same time alien.

Then the lead figure came forward. As he approached Kannis took in more detail: antlers, and eyes of fire, three of them. The recognition hit Kannis hard, he felt like he'd been struck in the chest.

"You", he whispered. "How are you here? How can this be?" he asked of the being advancing on him.

"I never left, jackal. I walked a quieter road for a time. I have returned." As the being reached him, Kannis dropped to one knee in a gesture of obeisance. Then he suddenly rolled to the side, sprinted past the antlered form and jumped up onto a nearby roof top which was blazing with fire. Many of the grey knights chased him and hundreds of cannons now fired at him, decimating the already half-burnt town.

He jumped, flipped, rolled and dodged to reach his destination. Kannis ran into the burning Ivy House and back to the inkling. He put in the butterfly key but there was no time to go through the code phrases. He spilled he ink pot as he scrabbled at it with the quill in haste. He started to scratch words on the paper but he only managed two before the Ivy House collapsed on top of him and his world descended into darkness...

*

....Hundreds of leagues to the west Rostrom, the old jackal, sat deep within the walls of the Lair staring at the piece of paper in front of him. Written there were only two words, The Grey, but no more did he hear from Kannis.
Chapter Four: An Old Prophecy for a New Future

Mortiune had served as a Sentinel for twenty-seven years. It was a position which gave a lot of time for reflection. Sat beneath the crystal light, the main duty of the Sentinels was the collection and preservation of knowledge. The Lyng Library was the largest of its kind in Avalen. It was also the oldest, for the Great Fenn had seen the sense in creating an archive of his own endeavours as well as a place to keep hold of their explorations of all that they did not yet understand of the place in which they now dwelt.

Such reflections as he had in the library were often coloured by his surroundings and the tomes on which he worked, deciphering and copying. Up here, however, on board King Corul Geddon's flagship The Lonely Ghost, he was given to ponder the true gravity of his situation and the world around him.

Most Lyrillian sky-ships tended to be around fifty feet in length. Ravenclaw fleet vessels averaged between seventy five and a hundred feet. The Lonely Ghost was just over two hundred feet long. All sky-ships were powered and piloted by the Gravita Lorgas, a special caste of dream weavers who were trained in manipulating the natural forces of the world. They would provide the lift and propulsion. Most sky-ships had a team of three, The Lonely Ghost had twenty-one.

They sat below decks with their hands never leaving the Lyrillian rods. These rods were connected to bands of Lyrillian which ran all around the hull of the ship; Lyrillian was particularly conductive for this kind of dream-weaving and it helped maintain smooth balanced flight. Though it was theoretically possibly to fly the vessel without the aid of Lyrillian, it would be unwieldy and unstable and Mortiune would certainly not have been able to stand on the foredeck looking out over the clouds as he did now.

Twenty-seven years he had given to King Fenn Corul Geddon and his family, his rule. Yet Mortiune knew that when he died he would be replaced within hours. The King would likely not even be informed until the next time he summoned Mortiune, when he would be introduced to his replacement. To a King who had ruled for eight hundred years, to have known someone for twenty-seven was a handshake and the blink of an eye. Dozens of sentinels had come before Mortiune and dozens would come after. It was a depressing fact with which Mortiune had wrestled for years. Sometimes he even managed to convince himself that he was at peace with his place in the grand scheme of things.

Mortiune had been pulled out of the Dream Sea by the fishers at Whistlewood forty years ago. He was not a young dream, even then. He met with the master-fisher who told him where he was. He also told him that he was a mortal dream, a memory of someone else, and as such he would slowly wither and die in Avalen. When he asked to be thrown back and given a chance at living forever the master-fisher said no, that it would be a contravention of the King's laws. Once a dream left the Dream Sea it could never go back. He had then told Mortiune that he'd not truly been alive in the Dream Sea, he'd been part of a chaos, a dangerous infinite storm of unpredictability. The master-fisher told him that he would be better off in Avalen where, though he was mortal, he might still serve and make a name for himself, he might be remembered.

So Mortiune had accepted his fate and left Whistlewood. He joined a crystal caravan headed down the Crystal Road. He dwelt for a time on the shore of the Lyr Sea where he met a troupe of dream weavers who plied their trade entertaining passing travellers. When they learned that Mortiune was a mortal dream they insisted on training him up as they suspected Mortiune was a highly proficient manipulator of the forces of Avalen. In time he came to lead the troupe and eventually they decided to make their way to Fenn, the infinite city of legend.

Once there they lived in a small house on the eighteenth pillar. Talk of Mortiune's impressive displays of fire-walking and living-rock soon circulated. He went from one performance house to another, each one more glamorous than the last. Then, twenty-seven years ago, he was approached by Sentinel Mathazaer who talked him into a life of dignity and prestige. So Mortiune joined the Sentinels and rose through their ranks to become head of the order after Mathazaer's death. Dignity and prestige were indeed his, though it was still a life of servitude.

Mortiune's main source of resentment was the indifference. Memory dreams were mortal, in Avalen they aged and died in the same manner as the memory of those who dreamed them. It was Mortiune's opinion that the cause of this could only have been that the great Fenn unwittingly brought reality into the dream when he pushed back the Dream Sea and created Avalen.

The same rules did not apply to the unique dreams; they lived for as long as their mortal dreamer had intended them to live. Often they were immortal, for the chaotic minds of the linear corporeal beings did not put expiry dates on their dreams. So had it been with Fenn the Great, so it was with his family, the silver claws, the tallow bears and a thousand other races in Avalen, but all around them the memory dreams faded and died and were forgotten as quickly as they had been conceived.

All these things spun around in the mind of Mortiune as they sailed across the sky. Without his books he quickly became maudlin, the reality of the dream was never far from his mind.

The sword-shaped vessel cut through the sky with ease, the huge silver raven on its prow staring proudly down at the kingdom. The five decks of the ship were almost empty. Normally when the King sailed on The Lonely Ghost it was filled with hundreds of courtiers, guards and family members, but with only a Sentinel on board the vessel was quiet. A handful of silver claws accompanied Mortiune and Clowen to the Mercurial Chambers so aside from them and a few crew members the ship lived up to its name.

It had only taken them an hour to clear the metropolis that was Fenn, still an incredible amount of time given the speed at which the ship travelled. Looking down at the sprawling mass made him appreciate just how large Fenn was, and it was said that the city was deeper than it was wider. Many millions of dreams lived there, more than could be accurately counted, or methodically governed.

Another hour and they would reach the Mercurial Chambers. Mortiune had only been there a couple of times and both were many years ago. They were constantly building new chambers, largely based on advice from the Whistlers' Guild. They were the ones tasked with bringing in new dreams from the Dream Sea and analysing the temperament of the endless ocean of dreams which lay around Avalen. It was their opinion that the more dreamers which were harnessed by the chambers the calmer the sea became, and the likelihood of a dream storm diminished.

Mortiune and the Sentinels disagreed. They urged more study and caution saying that the evidence to suggest a link was sketchy and tenuous, but they were sadly ignored on this matter. The King's own brother, Brukiel Geddon, lived in Whistlewood and was responsible for the guild. Family over wisdom seemed to be the ethos behind such decisions.

The Sentinel Forest was below them now, a green mass a hundred times the size of the city it surrounded. On foot a journey such as this would take months, if they had an uneventful trip, which was unlikely. The forest was home to many strange dreams which had never made it as far as migrating into the city. They chose to live alone or in clans and often caused problems for travellers. With the exception of the Mercurial Chambers, Lyrilia and Whistlewood the King's law beyond the city of Fenn was questionable in its effect.

This did not surprise Mortiune for the criteria for bringing new dreams into Avalen seemed to consist of grabbing whichever dreams floated close enough on the Dream Sea. Mortiune often wondered what different fate might have been his had he not been caught in the nets of the fishers that day.

The Lonely Ghost dazzled in the sunlight, its metallic construct making it look like a star whizzing across the sky. After a time they arrived at the Chambers. At the Palace of Fenngaard, The Lonely Ghost docked on a large platform attached to the side of the dome, reached by a set of external stone steps. There was no such landing platform at the Mercurial Chambers, however. Those that were there were designed to accommodate a regular-sized sky-ship, not a mammoth craft like the Ghost.

Instead of landing they descended to hover alongside the Mercurial-Pelegon. A movable footbridge was pushed across the short gap which allowed Mortiune and Clowen to descend. Mortiune had spoken few words to the tallow bear. He got the distinct impression that Clowen was unhappy at having been caught up in a matter of such gravity and he seemed to sullenly resent the impact that this mission was having on his routine. The tallow bears were guardians who lived to wake, eat, protect the Chambers and sleep. Any deviation from this set operating schedule seemed to make them irritable.

As they walked down the footbridge Mortiune saw a number of scorch marks on the platform. "You were fired upon?" he asked.

"Yes, Lord Mortiune."

"I am not a lord, you will call me simply Mortiune or you will address me as Sentinel."

"Yes Sentinel", replied the Bear.

"What manner of weapon?" asked the Sentinel.

"Fire, pure fire. The jackal held it in his hand and threw it. My brother, Hujka, stood and died here from its touch", replied the bear with anger in his voice, pointing at a particularly large burn mark on the metallic floor.

"My sorrow for your loss Clowen", said Mortiune looking down at where Hujka had died. Dream-weaving was an interesting art. There was still no conclusive reasoning as to why there were dreams that did not seem capable of performing such arts.

The talented jackals were one of the oldest races of Avalen, they were also unique dreams. They were long-lived and though much of their leadership had been decimated during various conflicts in Avalen's history there were still some from their order who had lived since the early days of the first Fenn.

This made them very dangerous individuals. Command of the elemental forces, in a controlled environment that was safe and secure, following a great deal of practise, was something only achieved by dream weavers of the highest order. To do so in a combat situation from the back of a sorrow hawk would require a master of the art. From Clowen's description it sounded like well formed balls of explosive fire were being used, not random columns of uncontrollable flame. Whoever the jackal was he was a person of great talent.

"Can you show me the stone from which the dreamer walked", Mortiune asked of Clowen, who nodded and led the way.

Several other tallow bears had gathered whilst Mortiune was examining the floor where the fireballs struck. They followed in silence as Mortiune hobbled along for many minutes behind Clowen, who was obviously irritated at having to proceed at such a slow pace.

"Would you like me to bring a carriage of some kind Sentinel?" he said at one point, craning his head round. Mortiune answered with a stare that contained all the words necessary; he was old and slow, but he did not need to be carted around on wheels.

As they walked, Mortiune stared with fascination at the sleeping mortals who disappeared into thin air regularly to be replaced by another of their kin. These were all humans, the Whistlers' Guild thought it prudent to keep different species in different chambers. There were forty-seven currently with many more planned.

Eventually they reached the empty stone table from which Clowen said the dreamer had risen from after waking. Mortiune walked around the table examining it closely with his eyes before eventually stopping and laying a hand upon it. Then he started to whisper the words of a dream weave under his breath and the nearby tallow bears looked on intrigued as lines of thin blue light crept from Mortiune's hand like a spider's web made from miniature lightning bolts.

For some minutes he sat in the same position murmuring. For the bears and the claws it was a tedious silence, for Mortiune it was journey in which his subconscious journeyed to a place that most dreams could only wish to dream of. Sadness and life and the origins of conflict were unveiled to the sentinel. In a flash the lights disappeared and his eyes snapped open.

"What did you see Lord Sentinel?" asked Clowen curiously, "did you descry the identity of the dreamer?"

For several seconds Mortiune ignored him, his mind rapidly calculating the consequences of what he'd just learnt. "I must return to Fenngaard immediately. Clowen, send word down into the trees, all auxiliary units of the tallow bears must be mobilised. Tell them to triple the guards on each watch and maintain round the clock vigils. This stone must not be touched."

"Of course Sentinel. This is with the King's authority?" he queried. Corul Geddon had not mentioned any such orders when dispatching them to the chambers.

"The King will not dispute my orders when I tell him of what I have gleaned", with that Mortiune started to hobble away.

"Which is what exactly?" asked Clowen, but Mortiune paid him no heed as he walked as fast as his old legs would carry him back to The Lonely Ghost.

When he reached the ship he climbed aboard and summoned the captain of the silver claw detachment who had accompanied the vessel: "Captain Asgoth."

"Yes, Sentinel", replied the hollow voice.

"We need to make for the Palace of Fenngaard as fast as we can."

Captain Asgoth issued several short commands, the gangplank was pulled aboard and within seconds the long sleek ship was lifting into the air above the Mercurial Chambers and the giant trees which held them aloft.

Once they were under way, Mortiune addressed the captain again. "You have a telepathic link with your fellow silver claws back at the palace?" he enquired.

In answer Captain Asgoth lifted one of his deadly looking gauntlets to his head and looked off into the distance before shaking his head.

"I do Sentinel, but the distance is too great. We need to wait until we are above the city before I will be able to address my fellow guardians at the palace."

"I want you to inform me as soon as we are within range", said Mortiune.

"Yes Sentinel", replied Captain Asgoth diligently. With that Mortiune made his way back to the prow of the blade ship and stared out as the raced back across Avalen towards the City of Fenn.

As they sped away from the mountains and started back over the Sentinel Forest, Mortiune's mind was clouded with doubt and worry. But then he noticed clouds of a different kind, dark, inky and building up in the sky over the forest.

The Magister Elementis controlled the weather over Avalen. He also controlled the movement of the light of Senbel governing the transitions of day and night in Avalen. During the elder days many of the first dreams had argued to abolish the night but the first Fenn stayed their hand, telling them that there were many benign creatures who found life only in the darkness. It would be unfair to rid them of their ability to dwell and prosper in Avalen.

So it was that equal amounts of light and dark were imposed. On the weather front, however, the first dreams got their way. Sunshine was eternal in the daylight hours of Avalen; the occasional cloud could be seen but these were often artistic affectations of the Elementis rather than anything that was needed.

Most of the trees and plants grown in Avalen were of a kind that did not require water. Those who did choose to grow cyclical flora and fauna did so on the banks of the many rivers criss-crossing the land or down by the Lyr Sea in the southeast.

Therefore, when Mortiune saw towering storm clouds building in the sky ahead it was an odd and disconcerting sight. As they came under the first of the clouds and the rain started to fall he held out a hand to catch the drops. So rare was the phenomenon that he did not realise the danger until it was too late. Deep rumbles of thunder could be heard after the flurries of lightning which tore the sky asunder.

Captain Asgoth and the ship's First Hand, Commander Lione, both approached Mortiune across the slippery deck.

"Your orders Sentinel?" asked Lione, a short thickset humanoid with eyes that pointed in the wrong direction when he spoke to you. "Do you wish to land until the storm has passed?" he added.

Mortiune looked down at the beautiful forest below; yet it was a savage beauty for the canopy disguised all manner of unpleasant dreams which lived there. Only the four Sunlight Roads which wound their way through the forest could be considered safe zones. They were sturdily built and patrolled by the Kings Lancers, even so they were not immune to attack, and beside that none of the Sunlight roads were anywhere nearby.

"No", said Mortiune, having to raise his voice above the raging storm, "we would face just as high a level of danger down there as we do up here."

"It will be hard going on the Gravita Lorgas", said Commander Lione.

"The information I have must reach the King's ears sooner rather than later", said Mortiune.

Lione seemed about to protest again before Captain Asgoth interrupted him: "You have your orders Commander."

A rain-soaked Lione stumbled off through the wind.

"Do you think it is a dream storm?" asked the Captain once they were alone, his hollow voice somehow making itself heard above the torrent.

That was an interesting and worrying thought for Mortiune. If the Elementis had somehow lost control of the weather patterns of Avalen then what other institutions governing the dynamics of their world might have been compromised? To that particular question, however, he was confident in responding in the negative.

"No Captain, if this was a dream storm we would be contending with more than wind and rain. A dream storm would come with an array of monstrous elements and we would not be able to fly through it. Even the most highly trained Gravita Lorgas would not be able to content with the forces at play."

The captain nodded at that before speaking again. "Even so, it might be prudent to continue the rest of this journey below decks", he said before walking away without waiting for a reply.

Mortiune decided the captain's words were sensible advice. Even with the Gravita Lorgas in place the ship was being buffeted by the storm's winds. He took one last look at the furious weather before descending the wooden steps to the decks below. Despite the anger and chaos of the storm Mortiune could not help but see a certain beauty there. Perhaps, if the Elementis regained control of the weather patterns, the King could be persuaded to allow a more natural weather course in certain parts of Avalen.

Mortiune had not been assigned rooms as it was only a short voyage so he took refuge in a sparsely furnished visitor's cabin where he spent the rest of the flight in deep contemplation. Several times he heard tremendous crashing noises which can only have been made by lightning hitting the vessel. The only interruption came when Captain Asgoth knocked on the door to inform him that they were now over the city and that he had managed to establish a link with Guard Captain Reyas at the Palace of Fenngaard.

"What message would you like to forward?" asked Asgoth.

"Inform Captain Reyas that I need the Hall of Providence to be cleared of anybody not of the royal family or the Silent Council. Additionally, please ask him to contact Sentinel Paraya in the Lyng Library and instruct him to bring a book titled The Raven and the Jackal to the Hall."

The unwavering discipline of the silver claw could not be doubted. He lifted a claw to his helm without hesitation or question. A few moments later he spoke only to confirm that Captain Reyas had received the instructions, "It is done Sentinel."

"Thank you Captain", said Mortiune as Asgoth left the room. Mortiune went up on deck not long afterwards. The storm seemed to have less power over the city. Behind the sky-ship he could see the sky was a patchwork of lightning bolts and clouds, but over Fenn the cloud was thinner and the rain less intense. Even so it would be a novel experience for all those city dwellers who had never before seen precipitation.

It did not take long until Mortiune saw the huge dome of the Palace of Fenngaard appear in the distance, towering above the world. What reception would his words find today, he wondered?

*

Prince Karmalaine stood silently close to the Nested Throne where his father also brooded. The Prince hoped that Mortiune had good reason for the instructions he'd sent. Many feathers were ruffled as the hundreds of people who formed the kingdom's elite were ushered out of hall following Captain Reyas's announcement. Those members of the Silent Council who had not already been present were summoned and gathered: The Magister Elementis in his multi-coloured robes, Lord-Captain Vulthian Kel-Parr, Lemer Starys. Evessa Tremaine the Witch-Maker was also present. The leader of the Witches' Guild was dressed in her customary black robe adorned with red stars.

Trodolkin was there too, he was second in command of the Whistlers Guild of Whistlewood who monitored the Dream Sea. He represented the King's brother, Brukiel Geddon, on the Silent Council. Prince Brukiel rarely left Whistlewood.

It seemed like an age before Mortiune reached the Hall of Providence and made his slow way to its centre to address them. The ever-present ring of steel parted to allow him through.

King Corul Geddon cut straight through any formality and nicety with his first question. "Tell me what you know", he commanded.

"My King, the dreamer which the talented jackals have taken from the Mercurial Chambers is a human male who goes by the name Anthony Hallow. He is from a city called London on Old Earth." Mortiune licked his thin dry lips before continuing, "It is my opinion that the jackals believe this man to be the Sad Father, and that they intend to act in accordance with the Ayalla Prophecy."

Magsiter Elementis shook his head, Evessa Tremaine's beautiful face went pale and even Lemer Starys muttered some negative to himself. Vulthian Kel-Parr did not flinch, but with his kind it was difficult to tell what they were thinking behind the armour.

Much to his embarrassment, Karmalaine found himself to be the only person present who had never heard of the Ayalla prophecy, though thankfully he was not too proud to say so. "My apologies wise council, but my knowledge of such a prophecy is lacking, can you elaborate on its origins?" asked the prince, stepping forward.

It was not Mortiune but King Corul who answered, "The Ayalla prophecy was written by Ayalla Geddon, wife of my great uncle, the disgraced and defeated Arma who led his rebellion against my grandsire the Great Fenn. She wrote it on the walls of the grand hall of Magadoon just before that place fell and she was found dead. The words were written down but thereafter the Great Fenn banned their utterance and stated that all copies of the prophecy should be burned."

There was a silence after he spoke until Mortiune spoke once more, "As you say My King, though in contravention of this decree some copies of the prophecy did survive. Following the passing of the Great Fenn one such copy found its way into the Lyng Library where your father decreed it should stay, stating that knowledge burned is knowledge forgotten and that we should never forget the enemies of our history."

"My father and grandfather were at odds on that question. To my mind the existence of the prophecy in writing makes it no more or less likely to come true."

"Yes Your Majesty. If you will permit me, I have a copy of the prophecy here, recorded in Pathanene's The Raven and the Jackal. Might I read it to give those of us here gathered a better notion of what has inspired the jackals to go down this path?"

The King nodded his approval and Mortiune started to read from the large tome which he'd carried into the chamber:

That written in blood will be lived by the descendants of the words:

Lo, there will come a Sad Father who will wake into this world from another.

His woe will mark him as a man amongst the stars

For his sons were the children of the prayer

And his daughters were the children of the meadow

And all were claimed by the ocean of the ancients

And therein was his sadness writ upon his soul.

His coming will herald a time of reckoning during which all matters

Between the walls will be settled.

And in the silent aftermath the sea will reclaim the land

The Jackal, the Raven and the Lotus will sleep once more,

The children of the grey dawn will inherit the dream,

The tall men will turn to stone, the fire bellies will go out

The demons will rue their sin and the angels will walk in darkness.

Mortiune finished and closed the book.

Prince Karmalaine was the first to speak. "She wrote all that in her own blood?" he asked incredulously.

"Ayalla took her own life. Whilst her husband fought and fell upon the plains of Meregoth, she did herself in with a crystal blade. She wailed and cursed for many minutes in her death and before she finally fell she daubed her life-force across the walls of Arma's throne room. These words she wrote and then she fell straight down at the close", said King Corul sullenly.

Karmalaine took the book and read through the words again. "There is something I don't understand", he said.

"Share your query and we will attempt to unburden you my prince", said Lemer Starys of the Octaris. Starys was a tall thin being; he looked to be a cross-breed of several different dreams. His legs resembled those of a fawn, his torso was skeletal where every bone could be seen, there was very little skin or flesh to his abdomen, his neck was equally thin and sinuous, his head was catlike and covered in fur with large slit-like eyes of deep golden yellow.

The Octaris was a strange order, one of the oldest guilds in Avalen, and tasked with one of the most important jobs. Many people said that the Dreamstone Wall was of a strength that meant it did not need defending, but despite its height and width the immense wall which the Great Fenn had built around his kingdom was still subject to attempts to breach it.

The Whistlers' Guild fished the wall at Whistlewood to bring dreamers into Avalen, but the Octaris defended the rest of the wall from the nightmares which often tried to scale it and cause carnage in the land.

Prince Karmalaine had known Lemer Starys for many years, once you got past his odd physical appearance he was a dutiful and loyal defender of the realm. The Prince proceeded to explain his confusion: "What credence can there be for such a prophecy? Was Ayalla a dream seer? Could she walk the path of the many futures?"

"Little was known and that which was known was lost following the fall of Malladoon. Your great uncle Arma was a mysterious type, he made many friends and acquaintances amongst the fell beings of Bloodren as well as many odd folk from beyond the Dreamstone Wall. Ayalla was one such, a beautiful but fragile creature", replied Lemer

"Then why do the talented jackals believe in her words, and more importantly judging from the seriousness of this discussion, why do we?" asked the prince.

At that question his father spoke again, "My grandfather's final words are why they believe it, and indeed those words are what give any semblance of credibility to what Ayalla wrote."

"The kingdom is the world?" said Karmalaine, echoing the Great Fenn's final words.

Even through his stony passive façade the King managed to look uncomfortable.

"May I, My King?" asked Magister Elementis.

"You may", replied the King.

Magister Elementis turned to Karmalaine. "This is a subject of some delicacy, My Prince.'The kingdom of the world' was in actual fact only the penultimate phrase uttered by the Great Fenn on his deathbed", said the Magister. He was a rotund man with several chins which wobbled and competed with each other for room on his tiny head.

He was the descendant of a Lizarial and his skin was a very light green covered in very subtle scales. Like the other members of the Silent Council he'd held his position since the elder days.

King Fenn Corul Geddon inherited the Council from his father, Fenn Dray Geddon, who had inherited it from his father, Lor, twin brother of Arma and son of the original Fenn. For over twenty centuries they'd provided counsel to the Geddon kings, and kept their secrets too. Karmalaine was intrigued to hear that his great grandfather's last words were in fact not his last words, particularly since he knew they were inscribed above the doorway of one of the five doors to the Hall of Providence.

"Then pray tell me, what did he say at the end?" asked Karmalaine.

"He said, 'That written in blood cannot be washed away by more'. Then he passed from Avalen and left a great sadness in his wake", said the Magister.

"A great sadness and many questions; word of what he whispered was supposed to be a closely guarded secret, yet it got out somehow. The jackals have known for years", grumbled King Corus who then continued: "Was he saying that her words were true and that we should not resist their meaning? That would be the main question, and one which we have agonised over, on and off for many years. He may not even have been referring to the prophecy."

"But we cannot take that risk", interjected Vulthian, his first contribution to the discussion so far.

"But we cannot take that risk", repeated the King and no one there present could ignore the profound implications contained in those words.
Chapter Five: A Gathering of Champions

The discussion of the Silent Council continued for many hours and many hours more after that. They quizzed Mortiune on all that he knew of Anthony Hallow, they learned from him the tragic past of this lonely mortal that had given rise to the talented jackals assumption that he was the Sad Father the prophecy spoke of. They went through each line and compared it against the life of Anthony Hallow. They debated the meanings of the children of 'prayer' and 'the meadow' and what was meant by the ocean of ancients. By the time they were done talking Karmalaine could have easily recited the prophecy from memory.

He was tired in a way that only a dream could be, tired of the static gloomy light of the Hall of Providence. There were still a great many things to discuss. Mortiune reported the violent storms which he'd encountered on the way there whereupon he was told by the Magister Elementis that control of the elements had been lost, a consequence it was assumed of the waking of the dreamer and the disruption which that must be having on the dynamics of Avalen.

The Magister Elementis told Mortiune that there was still some semblance of control over the city itself but that beyond Fenn the elemental forces would act of their own accord for the foreseeable future. Mortiune suspected that the Magister Elementis was aware of more than he was letting on but the King did not press him on the matter, so neither would he.

As the discussion started to wind down there were only a few more essential matters to be discussed. One of these was the security of the city.

"My King", began Vulthian, "as per your instructions all ten thousand silver claws have been mobilised. But they are stretched thin, their commitments on guarding the palaces, as well as all of the city's sky-ports and the bridges in and out of the city leave few left over. If the talented jackals mean to start a conflict then in their current state the silver claws do not have sufficient strength to fight back. I would ask that we seek assistance."

"From whom?" asked King Corul, stroking his chin.

"The Arachnid King", stated Vulthian.

"No Vulthian!" said Lemer Starys, "do not speak of such folly."

"He may speak his words and their folly shall be judged by me", said the King

"Thank you, My King", responded Vulthian, whose gaze did not wander from his monarch. "As you will know the Arachnid King is currently visiting from Entlewood. In the vastness of their forest web-forts the Arachnid King commands tens of thousands of spider spears. He is a loyal subject and I am certain that if asked he would lend his strength to your own in order to bolster the city's internal defences, leaving the silver claws free to strike back at the jackals."

The King pondered his words. Karmalaine saw Lemer Starys give a vile look to Vulthian.

The King's reply was swift, if slightly cryptic, "Whether the folly is in the proposal or my response time will be the best judge", he said, as if debating with himself, "make it so."

"Yes, My King", responded Vulthian, who made to turn but was stopped by the King's voice.

"Only the sky-ports and the city gates, Vulthian. The defence of the palaces and my family will remain with the silver claws."

"Of course, My King", said Vulthian with a bow. Vulthian turned and went to speak to one of his fellow silver claws who strode swiftly down the hall and out through one of the gargantuan doors. He then returned to the rest of the Council where the King asked more questions.

"Can any amongst you deem how it might have been possible for the jackals to have woken this man?" he said.

"We know that such a feat is not possible this side of the mortal form. The body which appears on the pedestal here is a projection of their physical self created by the subconscious mind of the sleeper in their real world", started Mortiune. "To have woken them here would have required a complex dream weave to be cast on their real form."

"The Brazen Gate", whispered Evessa Tremaine. Again the King nodded and Karmalaine was inclined to agree. From his studies he knew that there was only one method by which a dream may pass through into the mortal world. The Brazen Gate had been built by Archamel Torimund, an angel of Archaven who served the Great Fenn in the early days of Avalen.

It was said that the gate was only used once, and the consequences of what occurred in the mortal realm were so far reaching that the Fenn sealed the gate and forbade any from entering it. It had always been of curiosity to Karmalaine that the gate was sealed and not destroyed, unless the Great Fenn meant for his own rules to be broken.

"Is not the gate guarded by salamanders in one of the deepest parts of the first pillar?" asked the Prince.

"It is, My Prince, and we've had no word from the salamanders of any transgressors seeking passage to the mortal realm", answered Evessa. Karmalaine never failed to be struck by the Witch-Maker's beauty when he was in her presence. Her lustrous purple hair was flat at the back but cascaded in curls to frame her face. This colour helped to give a healthy glow to her pale complexion, pale but flawless, much like the Prince's own features. Her eyes matched the colour of her hair and were a well of mystery the depths of which young Karmalaine could only imagine given the longevity of servitude she'd shown to the crown. He often found himself staring at those eyes and wondering at the wonders they'd seen.

"Evessa", said the King.

"My King", she responded.

"Proceed to the gate room, take a detachment of claws with you, speak with the salamanders and quiz them on any suspicious activity."

"As you say, My King", she replied, walking away from the throne with a grace that made it look as if she was floating.

Who knows, thought Karmalaine, maybe she is.

The King continued issuing orders to each member of the Silent Council. He sent Lemer Starys back to the dream-stone wall to alert the Octaris and tell them to be wary of any threats coming from within Avalen.

Whistler Trodolkin had remained silent thus far in the council. The King despatched him back to Whistlewood to inform Prince Brukiel of the unfolding situation. He told him to tell Brukiel to be ready to muster the forces at his disposal in the event that the talented jackals attacked. The King told Trodolkin to take ten sky-ships from the Ravenclaw fleet in order to bolster his own forces and to ferry them about swiftly if needed.

Vulthian Kel-Parr was dispatched to coordinate with the Arachnid King on the deployment of spider spears in the city. The King also told Vulthian to send out messenger globes to float through the city, informing the people that the spiders were being deployed for their own safety, by the will of the King, and that they should remain calm and continue with their daily lives.

The Lord Captain of the silver claws departed and King Corul turned to Magister Elementis. "Magister, what chance of getting word to anyone outside of the city?" he asked.

"The storms are fierce, My King, but the Ravenlords are hardy creatures. I am certain that they can endure the elemental chaos to carry the King's word to wherever it is needed, though the palace's inkling wells may be an easier method of communicating", replied the magister.

"That may be, however the places I need to send word to are not in possession of inkling wells. Additionally, I feel the presence of the Ravenlords may convey my words in a more fitting manner", responded the King thoughtfully.

"Of course, My King. What words would you send and to where?"

"You will send three of the ravens each to Torabane, Archaven, Mirgarden and Bloodren. They will carry the message that a threat has come which threatens each of their houses as well as our own. They will each send a delegation here to Fenngaard, we will speak and decide how to respond collectively to the actions of the jackals."

"Yes, My King, though I must offer some advice on this matter. Can you be certain that none of these old foes are in alignment to the jackals cause?" asked the magister worriedly.

"No", responded the King plainly, "but I know two things: the words in the prophecy contain threats specifically against each of them, 'the tall men', 'the fire bellies', 'the demons', and 'the angels'. From that the prophecy heralds the downfall of each."

He paused and Karmalaine spoke up, "What of the second thing father?"

"Secondly, if any of them conspire against us then I would have them nearby that I might smell their treachery upon them and dispense justice."

"And if they do not come?" asked Magister Elementis.

"Then their absence is a demonstration of their complicity in the jackals' plan. Despatch the ravens then return to me."

"Yes, My King", said the Magister, leaving Karmalaine alone with his father.

"What would you have me do father?" asked the Prince.

King Fenn Corul Geddon looked at him with cold hard eyes: "Gather your brothers and sister and bring them here to the Hall of Providence. Until this matter is resolved they will dwell here in Fenngaard with me."

"As you will so shall it be, father", said Prince Karmalaine, turning and leaving the King to dark sombre thoughts.

*

So it was that Magister Elementis dispatched the Ravenlords from the Misty Tower where they lived in Fenn. They were larger by far than their cousins who inhabited the rafters of the Fenngaard palace. They also spoke the dream-tongue and had since the old days been loyal messengers and representatives of the Geddon family. Three each were sent to the other four centres of power outside of the City of Fenn.

Far to the north flew three, to Torabane, the Hollow Mountain, home of the God-giant Rokumung and his sons, the giants. Through the rain and wind the birds flew, for it seemed the whole of Avalen was cloaked in storms. They flew through caves down into Torabane and presented themselves to Rokumung, who had grown so large that he could not lift his mighty frame from the Throne of Skulls on which he sat. He was now at one with the throne, for his body had sat there for centuries and merged with it.

When the Ravenlords told him of the King's summons he roared at being spoken to in such an imperious manner. But he remembered the Binding and his oath of peace and he said he would send his first son, Balg-Miur, and a trio of other giants to the city of the small folk to hear the words of the King.

Far to the south the Ravenlords also flew, and as they closed in on the Tower of Mirgarden, home to Draxes the Dragon King, they were joined in the sky by creatures whose wingspan was so large that they were left but pin pricks in the shadows. The dragon guards escorted them over the vast dry deserts of the south to the top of Mirgarden, the Golden Peak, where the gold dragon Draxes greeted them. All around the tower dragons of every hue flew: the silvers, the reds the blues and the greens and many more shades lesser and greater.

Draxes heeded the summons of the King. Three of his finest he would send, Veramax the Green, Cyra the Silver and Astare the Black. So the Ravenlords gave their thanks and made to return to Fenn and as they went they were passed by three shadows, green, silver and black who flew ahead of them on for Fenngaard.

To the east three more Ravenlords flew, to Archaven, home of the angels, the dreams of light and life. They flew through blinding clouds infused with the holy light of the heavens. Eventually they found themselves in the presence of the lord of that place, called Arcturion, the Angel Lord. They were humbled before his wizened gaze and were wroth to issue such a thing as a summons to a being of such purity and power, but they stammered out their King's words beneath a benign smile. Arcturion gave them his thanks and assurances that his angels would attend a gathering of such import.

Five of the legion did he send: Elwyn, Colwyn, Alwyn, Denwyn and Kalwyn. Five brother angels who would heed the word of the King in Fenngaard and carry the word and will of Arcturion with them.

The final trio went west, far west beyond the Sentinel Forest, beyond the Mercurial Mountains, beyond the Dagmir Swamp and beyond the Firelands. These three Ravenlords found themselves afraid, for they flew into the only place in Avalen where evil lived and breathed. Past the floating rocks all bathed in sooty red, down the fiery chasms and into the heart of darkness they went. Bloodren it was called, named for Azarak Bloodren its first lord.

Azarak did not rule there now for he had fallen in the elder days after aligning his house with the jackal. But after the Binding there was forgiveness in exchange for peace and now the demons lived there, restrained by the hand of their new lord Gulgazish, a ruthless demon who seized power following Azarak's demise. He was all of claw and sharpened horn and bloodied hoof when the Ravenlords met him.

He cackled and spat at the summons and threatened the ravens with all forms of torture and pain for their affront, but his wrath dissipated swiftly and was more for show than malice. Gulgazish would send two of his minions to the Hall of Providence: Golgoleth the Bloodfiend, and Bolach of the Fury would represent Bloodren at this gathering of champions taking place in Fenn.

So they were called, so they would gather soon enough.

*

Karmalaine sat in the Thorn Tower, in his private study. He looked down at a copy of Ayalla's prophecy, but though his eyes went over and over the words many times his mind was elsewhere.

A fine layer of dust covered much of the room. There were a few walk ways through it he used regularly and of course his desk which was a half-circle with a cut out seating area in the middle, and was clear due to its high level of use. Clemen would often frown when he came to fetch the prince from his private study, asking him to allow some of the palace maids in to clear away the dirt but Karmalaine forbade him, every time.

This was his one place. In a metropolis that never slept, in a role that allowed him no private life, this was his one place, his hole of serenity into which he climbed for respite. Aside from himself and Clemen, no one had set foot inside the room for decades, not since the Thorn Tower had been occupied by his father. Karmalaine often mused at the disappointment the King might feel if he saw the room now. When he had taken it over it was neat, tidy and Spartan.

Now the shelves which ran down the two long sides of the room were piled high with books and scrolls. Along the middle of the room ran Karmalaine's workbench on which there were more scrolls and books as well a number of ornaments, some of them so old that any palace maids would likely throw them out if they ever saw them. Prince Karmalaine was a collector and a tinkerer. He was fascinated by the history of Avalen, by the evolution of dreams from the chaos of the Dream Sea to a land of their own governed by law, and ruled by kings.

The elder days when his great-grandfather Fenn walked in Avalen were a favourite. In these times Fenn and his companions had experimented and explored a myriad of avenues in their quest to create a stable place for dreams to exist. These experiments had involved the creation of dream-machines. Though individual dreams were capable of dream-weaving to alter the state of many naturally occurring elements in Avalen the elders needed ways to perform certain tasks without the need of constant physical intervention.

A prime example of the dream-machines was Elementis Forge. It was with the forge that the Magister Elementis was able to manipulate the weather patterns of Avalen. Karmalaine glanced out of his window at the relentless drizzle pouring down on the city. The forge was evidently not all-powerful, but then the elders probably never anticipated the machine having to work against the chaotic presence of a living breathing mortal.

The small machines on Karmalaine's workbench paled in comparison to the gargantuan engine which controlled Avalen's weather, but these were mere prototypes. Karmalaine walked around and the table and examined some of them, smiling with the memories of his first years. There was a funnel shaped object, the funnel of which was made up of dozens of rings of very fine golden metal. On the base which the funnel ran into there was a button which Karmalaine pressed activating the machine.

The funnel started to turn and a humming noise could be heard, then suddenly darkness welled up from the bottom of the funnel to fill it. It was an inky liquid dark that did not spill over or between the thin strands of gold. Karmalaine turned the device off and the darkness disappeared. It was small experimental machines like this which gradually led Fenn and the elders to the point at which they could create a large-scale darkness that would act as an artificial night.

It was always a profound disappointment of Karmalaine's that the age in which he now lived did not seem to herald any such innovation. The days of experimentation and invention seemed to be over. The kingdom had stagnated as far as dream-machines were concerned. Karmalaine spent considerable time tinkering in his study but alas he was also denied inspiration and had failed to construct any working machines of note.

The Prince walked over to the window and held out a hand to catch some of the falling rain. His brothers had been most put out when he told them to make their way to the security of the Hall of Providence but Karmalaine would brook no argument, their father had been clear. Drayen had complained most vehemently, tangles of blond hair flopping down over a frowning face but Allayne, the elder of the two, had complied and Drayen fell in after them. Allayne bore more of a resemblance to their mother, with his red hair, freckles and a permanent scowl. But he was a sensible lad and Drayen had dutifully followed him to Fenngaard surrounded by their silver claw bodyguards.

His sister had proved more trying. Though they had an elder sister, Infenael, she was with their mother in the Lyrilia. So when Karmalaine went to the Palace of Princesses he received a pout and a declaration of defiance.

"The Hall is drafty and cold and I have no friends there", she announced before running through the doors of her chamber and attempting to slam them shut. The door was large and made of silken oak so in the event it did not slam so much as slowly close with all her weight behind it.

Karmalaine politely waited for her to finish closing the door before going over and knocking on it. "Esmerel, you can wear a thick cloak for the drafts and your brothers will be there to keep you company", he said.

"My brothers are aggressive bullies", she protested.

"Your brothers are teenagers and so are you. Father has asked for your presence, Ezzie", said the Prince, using her nickname, "this is not negotiable."

"I will begin packing my princess some things", squeaked a voice from behind Karmalaine. It was Sippil, Esmerel's mousekarl.

"Which I will promptly unpack", came an almost as high-pitched squeal from behind the door.

Karmalaine sighed. "It is for your protection Esmerel, father is trying to look after you", he spoke through the door.

"I am in a huge palace surrounded by guards!" she exclaimed.

"And he would have you in a bigger palace surrounded by more guards", retorted Karmalaine. "Please Ezzie, there are things afoot that you do not understand. I have much that needs doing, we both know you're going to have to give in so can we please make it sooner rather than later?" he implored.

The door slowly opened. In terms of physical appearance she was very much like her father and eldest brother: Marble-pale skin, raven black hair and piercing eyes.

"I am not foolish you know", she said in a quiet voice.

"I know you're not", said Karmalaine conciliatorily.

"You could just tell me what is happening", she said. Esmerel was fifteen, compared to Karmalaine's one hundred years and to her elder sister Infenael she was a babe-in-arms. Her, Allayne and Drayen all were and as such they lived sheltered lives. None of them had ever even been off of the first pillar into the city proper. Even so, she was the daughter of the King and Karmalaine knew her to be a studious creature, much more so then Allayne and Drayen despite them being three years and a year older respectively. But he did not want to put fear into her, and could give her no certain answers when he did not have them himself.

"Old enemies may have become new foes. There has been an event and now there is a threat which the Silent Council deems to be very real."

"Have you been taking lessons on how to be vague Karmalaine?" she asked sarcastically.

"There is a reason they call it the Silent Council", he responded.

"Because it has nothing to say?" she said.

"Because it keeps secrets, secrets of a dire nature, dire to us and dire to Avalen. Now please, will you make your way to the Palace of Fenngaard or shall I have the silver claws carry you?"

"Well, since you ask so nicely", she snorted before beginning to pack, much to Karmalaine's relief.

It was after that he had come here, to his study, to examine the prophecy and try and come up with some sort of reasoning, to try and guess what the talented jackals' next move might be. Clemen had informed him that following the precedent for times of uncertainty all applicants for an audience with the Crown Prince had been referred back to the city's arbiters who would now have to resolve civil issues of their own accord.

Karmalaine was grateful for the respite but felt that there was an extent to which the lack of royal petitioners and the ensuing silence in the Thorn Tower was simply highlighting the lack of progress that he was making. After more hours of analyzing the prophecy than Karmalaine cared to think about Clemen came practically bursting into his study.

"My Prince", he said bowing, "you must come at once." Clemen's nose was twitching wildly and he was obviously very excited about something.

"What has happened?" asked Karmalaine fearing the worst.

"My price, the dragons have arrived!" said Clemen scooting around the side of the Prince's desk and almost shooing him down the stairs and out of the Thorn Tower into the rain. Karmalaine and his bodyguards walked around the stone walkway which joined the five bridges leading to the Palace of Fenngaard. It was a long walk until they got the bridge which led from the Palace of Night up to Fenngaard. It was here that the dragons had been told to land and enter the Hall of Providence.

A large crowd had gathered. Bureaucrats and courtiers, jugglers and merchants, pretty much anyone who had access to the first pillar and the palace complexes seemed to have turned out to see the arrival of the winged lizards. Karmalaine's silver claws made their way swiftly through the crowd knocking down any one stupid enough to stand in their way.

When Karmalaine reached the front he stopped and like many started to examine the skies above for some sign of the dragons. He spotted the first one when it was some distance away; a hushed awe went over the rain soaked crowds as they peered up at the rapidly approaching form.

At distance the beast looked large, as it got closer and closer its true size became clear - the dragon was less large and more colossal. Despite flying in at speed it hit the bridge with delicacy, achieving a complete stop in a single motion. Even so Karmalaine and the onlookers felt the massive vibration run through the stones of Fenngaard as it landed.

The dragon was emerald-green and covered in scales which glimmered in the rain. The bridges leading to Fenngaard were hundreds of feet long but seemed no more than narrow walkways under the giant claws of the dragon. Its head alone was the size of the top of the Thorn Tower. Beneath the scales Karmalaine got a sense of tons of densely packed muscle which gave the dragons their prodigious strength, a strength they needed to carry such a weight through the sky.

The dragon's head was just below the top of the mighty raven-emblazoned door leading into the Hall of Providence. Its long tail ended in a sharpened tip which could have punched through stone, a tail which currently wound its way up into the Night Palace and curled around one of the towers.

The dragon looked about at the crowds, it snorted in a derisory fashion which made the crowds cry out in surprise at the tongues of flame which emitted from its cavernous nostrils. The dragon showed its teeth, each one longer than a silver claw, and then the doors swung ponderously open following the ringing of the bell and the pulling of the smiling ogres. No sooner had it disappeared into the opening than the second dragon landed.

Despite the gloom many in the crowd had to lift their hands, shining so brilliantly was Cyra the Silver. Silver metallic crystalline scales covered it, stronger and more durable than any substance made in the forges of Fenn. This one was smaller than its green counterpart but still just as majestic and awe-inspiring. When it looked around at the crowd Karmalaine saw that even its eyes were silver. The Prince felt them bore into him and a shudder went down his spine. The creature walked into the hall on claws large enough to crush a horse and they looked up again into the rain waiting for the final dragon.

When it arrived they shied back and several fled. A black dragon. Its shape blurred and shifted, the light was reluctant or unable to pierce the veil about this beast. It was a huge shadow which writhed and shook. It belched fire into the sky and even this was black, a strange liquid fire that gave the sense of pestilence and plague. Karmalaine watched in mute fascination as it moved into the hall.

After a few moments Karmalaine regained his composure and remembered that he was the Prince Regent and would be required in the hall to greet their guests. With his silver claws around him he walked into the hall. Despite the dimensions of the dragons, the Hall of Providence was wide enough for the Prince to hurry around them unnoticed as they stalked across the blue carpet. Karmalaine noted that even with their razor sharp claws the thick blue carpet on which they walked remained unspoiled by their passage.

He reached the ring of steel just as his father was speaking to the first dragon: "Welcome then Veramax to the Hall of Providence, you have my gratitude for making the journey so swiftly."

"I came swiftly as befits the honour of the descendants of the first Fenn, father of our hearts and minds, liberator of our souls."

"You do my house great honour", responded the King

"As it should be", answered the Dragon.

Karmalaine could not get over his voice. It was almost enchanting, deep and rhythmic. It was a voice of reassurance and wisdom.

"Now", Veramax continued, "allow me to introduce my brothers, Cyra", he said indicating the silver dragon who had walked to his right.

"Great King", said Cyra the Silver. His voice was different, deep still but more metallic, with a tinny echo to it.

"And Astare", said Veramax indicating the black dragon to his left.

Astare did not speak but simply snorted loudly and nodded his huge head. Now they were indoors and the creature was still Karmalaine could make out the black dragon's features with more clarity. Beneath the shadowy whirl his scales were like obsidian, but his eyes burned deep fiery red; a fury lurked there, kept in check but barely.

"Welcome all to the Hall of Providence. May Draxes fire burn forever."

The dragons all nodded at the King's acknowledgement of their own lord. Then Veramax spoke: "So, King Geddon, you summoned us and we have come. Pray tell us, what matter of urgency called us down from Mirgarden."

"To that matter we shall soon come, however, I must apprise thee that we currently wait on other parties to come to council, those of Bloodren, Archaven and Torabane."

At the mention of the home of the giants Veramax's eyes widened, Astare snorted again and Cyra looked away as if in disgust. "We are to treaty with vermin of the north?" he asked plainly, all of the previous courtesy seemingly forgotten.

Karmalaine noticed his father tense up upon the Nested Throne. Karmalaine had almost forgotten the old enmity between Mirgarden and Torabane. The giants and the dragons had been foes for many years, some said that even before Avalen's inception those two races would do battle out in the Dream Sea. Certainly they had brought their conflict with them and in the two millennia since the Great Fenn's founding of the kingdom the giants and dragons had chosen their loyalties based almost entirely on choosing the opposing side to whichever the other was on.

"The matter at hand concerns us all, and it will be dealt with by us all. I will make it clear now and just this once; you will leave your quarrels with the sons of Rokumung outside this hall. Now, if it pleases you, make yourselves comfortable."

That did not sit well with the dragons but they stayed silent. They moved away from the throne, melting into the shadows at the side of the dome.

Prince Karmalaine wondered how long they might be waiting. The Ravenlords had all flown at the same time but there was nothing to say that the other three races would reach Fenngaard with the same speed as the dragons. The answer to his wondering came almost immediately. Karmalaine saw Hidriss the mousekarl point upwards to the top of the dome, close to where the opening was. The opening had been closed due to the rain but still five globes of white light had appeared.

They floated gently down towards the throne. The King's silver claws had seemed uneasy at the presence of the dragons and now this new entity seemed to unsettle them even more. Several even broke ranks to stand near the King as the globes floated down towards him.

A barked order from Vulthian saw them move back to their positions but Karmalaine noticed that the Lord Captain went to stand closer to the throne himself, clawed gauntlet at the ready and his other hand on the broadsword at his belt.

The globes floated away from the throne and gently bobbed on the other side of the ring of steel before materialising into the forms of five humanoid figures. Karmalaine blinked several times as he stared at them. They sported no unique features, all possessed short blonde hair, pale skin, and identical facial features. They bore no weapons and each sported two large wings on their back.

"May we enter?" said the one in the centre. Its voice sounded like music, as if each word was being sung as part of the most beautiful ensemble.

"You may", said the King, at which the silver claws parted to allow the Angel Lords through. They walked and knelt before the throne.

"Rise", said Corul.

When they stood Karmalaine spotted the differences. It was the eyes, each one had a distinctive colouration in their eyes, but aside from that Karmalaine could not see a difference.

"King Fenn Corul Geddon, I am Elwyn of the House of Tangeth-Marr, of the Legion of Archaven, faithful servant of Arcturion and subject of the Palace of Fenngaard. You summoned and I am yours to command", said the middle angel with a florid bow. Karmalaine noted his eyes were a deep ocean-blue.

"Welcome to the Hall of Providence Elwyn of Tangeth-Marr. You are a most welcome guest of the Crown. You have my gratitude for attending so swiftly. Who are your companions?" asked the King.

The Angel Lord smiled and held out his hands to his side. The angel to the far right stepped forward and said, "I am Colwyn of the House of Seriad, of the Legion of Archaven, faithful servant of Arcturion and subject of the Palace of Fenngaard." He bowed and stepped back. Green eyes, thought Karmalaine.

Then the next Angel Lord stepped forth, who had been standing between Colwyn and Elwyn. This one had eyes of bright orange, orange like one of the suns which Karmalaine had read of in his books. "I am Alwyn of the House of Atreas, of the Legion of Archaven, faithful servant of Arcturion and subject of the Palace of Fenngaard", he said stepping back.

After him the remaining two Angel Lords stepped forward and gave the same speech, introducing themselves as Denwyn of the House of Balisk and Kalwyn of the House of Merywel. Denwyn could be picked apart from his brothers by his caramel coloured eyes, whereas Kalwyn's were pure black through and through.

Just as Kalwyn had finished speaking and the King seemed about to say something there came several loud shouts from the other end of the hall. The Door of Night through which the dragons had entered had been left open due to the steady stream of state functionaries who were coming and going. State business was currently being kept at the far end of the hall well away from the Nestled Throne.

Karmalaine looked up and saw two winged forms had flown in through the door and were flying in circles above the crowd at the far end of the hall. Dozens of silver claws were flooding into the hall from the huge doorways which suddenly all swung open and also from a dozen other smaller doors built into the wall of the dome which led to the labyrinth of rooms which were part of the domed wall and housed the King's private chambers as well as the offices of the kingdom bureaucracy.

The newcomers were large. They were nowhere near the proportions of the dragons but still impressive figures. Even from a distance Karmalaine could see the fiery red glow which came off them. They flew closer and closer to the throne. Karmalaine heard them cackling and laughing as they circled.

They landed with a crunch. The Prince saw their wingspans were approximately twenty feet, the wings themselves paper thin and covered in thick black veins, as were the rest of their figures. They had cloven hooves for feet, thick furry legs and torsos which were muscular to a warped degree. Their mighty arms ended in single curved claws which dripped with blood. The minions of Bloodren had arrived.

Though they were similar physically Karmalaine still noted significant differences. One was taller and carried tattoos on every patch of red skin. His head was that of a ram, but with the skin stretched so tightly it seemed to be made of bone. In hollow eye sockets sat two small pools of fire that occasionally released drips down out of an eye socket and when it hit his skin he did not seem to notice as it scorched and smouldered.

The second demon had more human like features, offset by the two twisting black horns which formed the greater part of his upper skull.

All was chaos upon their landing. The mighty dragons snarled and belched clouds of fire as they reared up. Suddenly the Angel Lords held swords of pure light in their hands and dropped into combat positions, hissing at the demons, though even their hissing had a musical tinge to it.

The demons roared and lifted their claws as they faced off against the angels whilst hundreds of silver claws swarmed in to surround them. The taller of the two demons then leapt through the air to attack. He made it no more than a few feet before crashing to the ground beneath a blurry light and within a split second the other demon was down. It had happened fast than was possible.

Karmalaine looked at the empty Nested Throne and then at the magnificent figure of his father who stood over the two demons. In his hand he carried the Hammer of Fenn, the golden hammer with which the first Fenn had forged the world. The air around it pulsed with the raw energy of the device.

"Enough!" roared Corul Geddon in a voice with such power and resonance that the dome seemed to shake. All who were there present, be they dragon or demon or any other kind of dream, dropped their head and fell to their knees at the sound of his voice. Corul Geddon had just reminded those present of who was King in the Palace of Fenngaard.

The silence was palpable and remained in place as long as the King deemed necessary. The demons cowered at his feat, they seemed shrunken lesser things compared to the beasts which had flown about their heads only minutes before. In comparison Karmalaine's father seemed to have grown, to have moved beyond his form to stand like a giant above the minions of Bloodren.

The ring of steel had fallen back and the King walked back to the throne. As he went the Hammer wavered and disappeared back to the place where he kept it, the ether from which he took his weapon when he needed it. This was one of only a handful of times that Karmalaine had looked upon the hammer which might one day become his, as was his birthright.

The King sat and looked at the demons. "Speak", was all he said.

"Great King", rasped the smaller of the two, the black horned one, "forgive us, forgive us, we are but lowly creatures not used to finding ourselves beyond the realm of fire that is Bloodren. We were foolish to come before you with such arrogance, it was hubris to act in such a manner and think that we would not be justly admonished." Both creatures were on their knees with their wings folded in.

"It was indeed", rumbled the King, "I trust that the lesson is well learned?"

"Yes great King, you will not need to teach us our place again", said the fawning demon.

"Good, now give me your names", asked the King.

"I am Golgoleth the Bloodfiend and this is my brother, Bolach of the Fury."

"Golgoleth the Bloodfiend and Bolach of the Fury, you have been summoned to answer a threat to all Avalen including Bloodren. You will give your counsel on these matters when you are asked for them, is that clear?" said the King in ominous tones.

"Most clear great King, we are but statues who will find life at your command", responded Golgoleth who along with his brother slunk off to the side of the throne, well away from where the dragons and angels stood.

A semblance of normality returned after that. The King spoke quietly to Hidriss, the dragons and the angels stayed silent. The angels had their eyes closed and seemed to be meditating. The demons whispered quietly too each other and stole furtive glances about the hall.

Some time passed before a messenger came running down the length of the hall to whisper in the King's ear. The King nodded and declared to all those gathered which now included the Magister Elementis and Mortiune, "The final delegation is on its way, I will have calm and civility from all parties." As he said he looked at in the direction of Veramax, Cyra and Astare.

The King stayed standing, Karmalaine noticed that he kept clenching and unclenching his right hand, maybe preparing to draw the hammer out again. After a few moments Karmalaine felt the ground begin to tremble. Then he became certain that he could hear screams from outside.

In his mind he tried to picture the route the giants would have taken to get to the first pillar and the palace complex. There were only a few avenues large enough to take their size. The main worry would have been the bridges, the city had been a host to giants before, however, so the prince was confident that a way in would be found that would not involve too many buildings collapsing.

The trembling got louder and louder and the occupants of the hall waited with baited breath, except the dragons who stomped restlessly. The rumbles continued until it seemed like there was thunder in the Hall of Providence.

Then it appeared. It came lumbering into the Palace of Fenngaard and the first thing that Karmalaine felt was fear. The giant stood over a hundred feet tall, it was warped and bulbous and in the Prince's mind there was no way that such a thing could exist anywhere but here, anywhere but in dreams.

Balg-Miur, son of the God-giant Rokumung stomped down the hall shaking people from their feet as he came, behind him came two others, smaller but still epic in their scale. Aside from the dragons all else seemed miniature before them, like toys. Karmalaine had never thought to see the day when the Hall of Providence would seem crowded, but now that day had come. The giants had arrived and the council would now begin.
Chapter Six: Wilderness

Anthony stared down at the last of the fire stones. It sat in his hand looking back at him. He was agonising over whether or not to use it whilst the stone did not have an opinion either way. It sat silently waiting for the word.

Anthony was sheltered under an outcropping of rock. The beautiful scenery which his eyes had embraced whilst he flew through the air on the sorrow hawk was gone, now replaced by a bleak vista. What a difference a bit of rain and snow can make.

Kannis had never returned. Anthony had waited the three days, three fairly uneventful days which he spent worrying and pacing. After the deadline had passed, Anthony waited another day, then another and then another until finally his patience had snapped. He wanted to go home, back to the loneliness and the emptiness. This was not his place; he knew it, the trees knew it, the blasted magpie which stole his magical cup knew it.

That theft had been one of the reasons why Anthony decided to move on; that and the fact that he had started to question the rationality of waiting in the mysterious wood for the big bad wolf to come back, rather than doing what he should have been doing all along and running.

It was evening when the bird struck. Anthony had left the cup by his side along with the mercy dagger and the bag of fire stones when he went to sleep. He had no dreams but when he woke there was the sound of fluttering and flapping in his ears. He had looked up at the branches above his head and seen a gleeful magpie flitting to and fro along a branch. His glee no doubt resulted from the silver cup which it carried in its beak.

Anthony had leapt up and jumped for the blasted bird but to no avail. The magpie flew down under his arms, with the weight of the cup dragging him down, then past him haphazardly but happily off into the trees. Anthony had not seen him since.

Anthony had taken this as a sign, he'd gathered up his things and started to move. Kannis was well past his deadline and he had little inclination to wait any longer.

At first things had gone well, he'd found a little stream which he used to drink and then wash himself. He proceeded on for a couple of days thinking he would run across a settlement of some kind soon but he did not. He thought maybe he would bump into another person, preferably a human, but he met no one.

So he'd pressed onwards and upwards through the forest. Gradually the trees had started to thin and now he found himself here, halfway up a mountain, surrounded by rock and mist. The rain hammered down and was soaking him despite his being wormed as far into his little alcove under the outcropping as he could manage.

Kannis had evidently not intended for Anthony to spend a long time out in the wild by himself otherwise he would have supplied more stones. Though Anthony knew that was an assumption, for all he knew Kannis meant for him to starve out here.

There had been streams aplenty, but it was food that was becoming worrying. Having subsisted on a diet of mainly soup for a number of days it hadn't taken long for Anthony to become ravenously hungry.

His clothes were drenched and though he'd spent hours shivering under the rock he had now stopped and started to feel numb. Anthony had seen enough documentaries to know that this was a very bad sign. Deciding to leave later on until later on Anthony set the stone in amongst the few scattered leaves and twigs he'd scrabbled around for and said, "Fire", watching as the satisfying flames gathered and started to consume his fuel.

As he held his arms out to the precious heat he considered his predicament. The intention of moving up the mountain had been to get a bird's eye view of the surrounding area in order to spy out a settlement. A nice idea in theory had gone horribly wrong; not only had he not been able to see anything except for the endless expanse of trees, the weather had also turned and a thick mist had rolled in, making attempts at traversing the slopes tricky at best, deadly at worst.

The wind rushed around the mountain and threatened to put out his final fire until he placed a ring of rocks around it to act as a windbreak. Anthony thought back to the place where he'd first woken and not for the first time wondered if the only way out of this rapidly worsening dream was to go back there. The shrivelled bears had looked a fearsome sight and they had fired on him, but that was where he woke. Maybe that was the only place he would be able to go back to sleep.

But then he remembered the flight, the mountains alone from which they'd descended were thousands of feet, the giant trees thousands more. Without aerial transportation of some kind he had no chance of returning.

In darker moments he had considered the knife. Though there was a part of his mind that still thought this a dream he was no longer convinced. If he took his own life in a dream, as he had done many times, then he would simply wake, alone and cold with a pounding head and a guilty heart. But if what Kannis had said was true, if he had truly woken up on the other side of the dream, then what would become of him if his life blood spilt here? Endless darkness? Or something much, much worse?

He laid his head back on the rock and closed his eyes. As with every time he closed his eyes a kaleidoscopic slide show of images confronted him. This time it was Clara, dressed up for Halloween. She'd gone as a wolf in the final year. He could see her now in his mind's eye jumping around the living room, howling away. The sound was so real, so near.

Anthony's eyes snapped open, the images had gone but the howling was still very much present, and getting closer.

A chorus of howls was echoing around the mountain. For a moment he entertained the thought that it was Kannis, but something wasn't quite right. Kannis had not seemed like the kind who would howl, he was too well spoken, too... sentient? These noises sounded feral and wild. Even as he listened he heard the sound of tumbling rocks just beyond the outcropping.

Anthony picked up one of the larger burning sticks that lay in the fire and held it in front of him. Suddenly he saw a face through the gloom, the head of a wolf peering at him from the dark. "Kannis?" Anthony whispered hopefully. Two more heads then swung into view and as the beast moved further into the light Anthony saw that all three were connected to the same large body. Okay, not Kannis, he thought.

Anthony thrust the burning stick in the thing's face but, unlike all the wildlife magazines which he'd read back home had promised him, this denizen of the forest did not seem the least bit afraid of fire. The middle head snatched the stick from his hand, extinguishing the flame with its tongue, and flung it into the night which had fallen so rapidly upon them.

The beast came up to Anthony's chest and had powerful frame beneath its black fur. For a moment Anthony considered what might be easier, fighting three smaller wolves or one large one with three heads, but quickly realised that now was not the time for such considerations.

As he backed away from the flames the wolf followed him and then crouched as if to pounce. Anthony pulled the dagger from his belt and held it in front of him. Again the words glowed blue upon the blade, Mercy, it said, a mercy which Anthony prayed to receive himself. The dagger gave the beast pause, just as it had the bear, but this animal did not seem quite as perturbed.

It sat on its haunches and gave a three-pronged howl into the night which echoed around inside Anthony's head. It did not take long for the call to be answered. As Anthony had backed further and further away from the precious fire, so his eyes adjusted to the dark, and from it he saw more of the three-headed wolves appear. First two or three, then six, then eight and then too many to count.

Sweat poured down Anthony's back as they all advanced on him, snarling, swiping at the air, barely held back by the mercy dagger. He took more steps back, then a few more, then a few more still until his nerve broke.

Anthony had run only a few feet when the lead wolf crashed into him. The human went down under the weight of so much wolf, but fortuitously for him he fell just before the impact into a gully. Both he and the wolf tumbled down, the gully was icy and slippery and Anthony found himself sliding down it with the wolf just in front of him. He managed to reach out and grab a rock, and clung to it as he watched the wolf slide to the bottom of the gully. He soon heard it get to its feet and began to climb back up slowly.

Anthony heard the rest of the wolves racing down the rocky sides of the slanting gully, then much to his chagrin it began to snow. Perfect, he thought. Anthony pulled himself up onto the opposite side of the gully via the rock to which he clung, then he had his first bit of luck, as transient as it might turn out to be.

There was a cave mouth, not a dozen feet from where he stood. Anthony ran for it, getting to the entrance and stumbling inside just as the first of the wolves started to jump across the narrow gully. Turning back he saw the snarling slavering beasts closing in for their meal before something shoved him to the side and he heard, "Move", in a soft but decidedly cross voice.

The figure who had pushed him stood in the cave mouth which suddenly filled very rapidly with snow as if it were being squirted from a cannon of some kind. It took only seconds before the outside world was invisible. Anthony heard the wolves strike the wall of snow, but it was packed hard and they could but snarl and snap at each other as their prey slipped beyond their reach.

All Anthony could hear was the sound of his own breathing but he knew the figure who had miraculously filled the cave mouth must still be in there with him. "Thank you", he said, breathing heavily.

After a pause the soft voice responded, "I would not be too quick to thank me. I have a fear that that was the only way out of this cave."

"Oh well, I'd much rather starve than be savaged by wolves", said Anthony.

"The wolves would be quicker."

"Yes", agreed Anthony, "but it's the thought of them crapping me out somewhere down the road that really bothers me."

The unknown figure chortled with genuine mirth before saying, "Quite."

"I'm Anthony", he said once he'd recovered his breath.

"It's nice to meet you Anthony", said the voice.

"This is the part where you tell me your name", said Anthony.

"Ah", spoke the soft voice, "to be honest my people are not known for their naming. I am sorry if that sounds strange to you."

"Well, I was just chased into a cave by a three-headed wolf. That's after I lost my magical dagger and my magical cup and used the last of my magical fire stones. A people who don't bother to give themselves names doesn't really strike me as strange as it might have a week ago."

"It sounds like you've had quite a time of it all."

"You can say that again."

"May I?"

"May you what?"

"Say that again?" said the unknown figure, sounding confused.

"It's just an expression", said Anthony, reminded once more of his stranger than strange surroundings.

"I see. One I am not familiar with, apologies."

A silence followed. Anthony could hear the wolves pawing at the snow and yelping in anger outside. Their efforts seemed in vain, however, for they did not come through.

"I don't suppose you have one of those handy fire stones do you?" asked Anthony after a time, the darkness was adding to his misery, also the adrenaline was wearing off and he was starting to shiver.

When the stranger replied he sounded most contrite: "I do apologise, I had no idea you could not see. My own vision tends to stay the same no matter the level of light. I don't have a fire stone I'm afraid, they are an anathema to my people, but let me see what I can do."

There were a few moments of scrabbling as if the figure was looking through a bag of some kind. Then a light started to appear, tiny at first but then brighter. It was coming from a small crystal which the stranger held in its hand, a hand that looked very far from normal to Anthony.

As the whole cave was illuminated, Anthony could make out his companion in his entirety. As far as he could tell the stranger was made entirely from snow. Not in the traditional sense of a man of snow, there were no bulky ill-defined limbs and features, nor were there any carrots to be seen. It resembled a man in every way, from the definition in its kindly face and the muscular shapes in its arms and legs to the outline of a tunic which it seemed to be wearing. But it was all of it from head to toe made from snow.

"Are you okay?" the snowy mouth asked, with concern showing in its snowy white eyes.

"So you are a...?" Anthony left it hanging.

"I am a Snowman", responded the Snowman predictably. "And you, Anthony are a...?" he asked.

"Just a regular man, no snow involved", responded Anthony, still staring wide-eyed at the all white figure.

"Ah", was his response. "Well as you can see from my earlier deduction we seem to have gotten ourselves in a slight pickle", continued the Snowman, lifting the crystal light up and shining it around the cave. It was not a large one; it only went back for a couple of dozen feet before descending into the ground.

Anthony looked at the doorway which was sealed tight with hard-packed snow a couple of feet thick. "That's a fairly handy skill to have", he remarked.

"Thank you. I must confess that being able to manipulate the snow does have limited scenarios for use but I am pleased to have found one on this occasion. So, Anthony, if may I ask - are you a memory or an original?"

"Excuse me?" said Anthony raising an eyebrow.

"Are you a mortal dream or a unique dream? I know some people do not like to discuss such things, particularly the memory dreams, I understand their resentment so if that is the case then we do not need to continue."

Anthony interrupted him, "I am not a dream. I'm real."

It was the Snowman's turn to look confused. He furrowed a flaky brow and quizzed Anthony, "Probably a memory dream then, if that's the way you feel, and a new one perhaps? There is no need to feel bad."

Again he was interrupted, "I'm not a memory. I'm not a dream. My name is Anthony Hallow and I am a real person. I woke up in a Mercurial Chambers and was taken from it by a talented jackal called Kannis, an intervention that I strongly regret as if I could get back there and on to the stone bed I woke up on I might be able to get back to sleep and wake up where I was supposed to - in my less than comfortable bed in London." Anthony finished with frustration.

The Snowman pondered his words for a long time. In the end his response was to repeat Anthony's last word in a manner indicating that he was unfamiliar with it. "Lon-don", he said.

"Yes, London", said Anthony.

"I am not familiar with it."

"Well it's not near here. It's probably on the other side of the magical moon or something", said Anthony, with a heavy dollop of sarcasm which failed to hit home.

"The magical moon? I am also unfamiliar with this place, where is it near?"

"I made it up in order to be facetious, let's drop it okay?"

"As you wish", said the Snowman. "Anthony?" he continued, tentatively.

"Yes?"

"This talented jackal, Kannis, did he tell you why he brought you here?"

"No", said Anthony with a heavy sigh, "he was decidedly vague. He told me that the place where I woke was called the Mercurial Chambers. He told me the world was called Avalen, that I have been here many times before but have always slept and that he and his kind had brought me here for mutually beneficial reasons in advance of their cause."

The Snowman rubbed at his chin thoughtfully: "The jackals are a disreputable people, their cause was likely something clandestine and mutual benefits likely not forthcoming."

"I was beginning to think the same thing, which is part of the reason why I left our rendezvous point and struck out on my own, though I do have certain regrets on that score. I blame the bloody magpie."

"The magpie?" asked the Snowman.

"Never mind", said Anthony before changing the topic. "So you live here?" he said, gesturing at the cave.

The Snowman chortled at that: "Goodness no, I live in Snowdell with the rest of my kin."

"So what brought you up into the mountains?" asked Anthony.

"The weather", answered the Snowman, who continued, "snow is unusual in Avalen. It has been absent for a very long time and as a result my people have been in a state of enforced hibernation. The snow has awoken us and I volunteered to scout out from Snowdell to see just how far it has fallen."

"How far have you come?" quizzed Anthony.

"Almost two hundred leagues", replied the Snowman, "which leads me to conclude that this is not an isolated regional falling, but that some ill has occurred in Fenn and that the Magister Elementis has either lost control or had a change of heart. I suspect the former given the blunt response which my people received long ago when we asked him to allow a little snow to fall so that we might live and thrive."

"Fenn, the Magister Elementis, what are these things?" asked Anthony who was trying to take his mind off the cold which was biting at him from head to toe.

"What is Fenn?" said the Snowman, "goodness, the jackal really did leave you in the dark. Fenn is the capital of the world and home to millions of dreams as well as the current king who I believe is Fenn Corul Geddon."

"The city is named after him?" asked Anthony.

"No, the city was named after the First Fenn who was Fenn Geddon, but since his day the other kings have adopted his name as a sign of respect and also to remind people from who they are descended. As for the Magister Elementis, he is tasked with control of Avalen's elemental forces; hence he is not hugely popular in Snowdell. When we asked for snow he told us that is not how the Elementis Forge works and that it produces the weather patterns based on majority wishes not individual input, not that we believed him." Having finished his explanations, the Snowman nervously asked, "Anthony?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay? If you don't mind my saying, you have gone a strange shade of blue and your teeth are chattering."

"I'm sitting in a cave having a conversation with a Snowman, so I am slightly out of my comfort zone. Yes, it is cold in here, would be the plain answer to your question."

"I see. I don't really have any way to keep you warm, I'm afraid. I could cover you in snow which might insulate you for a while, though it might be hard to breathe."

"I think so", agreed Anthony.

"I think we are going to have to go out there you know", said the Snowman, glancing at his impromptu door.

"Well", chattered Anthony, "as I said before, I feel that either starving or freezing to death are both preferable to being eaten."

"Though I agree in principle I must point out that leaving the cave does not definitely mean being eaten, whereas staying in it will most definitely lead to being frozen. I have heard nothing from the outside for some time and it is not impossible that the wolves have grown bored and gone to look for prey elsewhere."

Anthony cocked his head and listened. The snowman was right, there were no more sounds of scraping and snarling. If the wolves had gone and they managed to reach the tree line then they could possibly light a fire.

He had lost his dagger during the tumble with the wolf but Anthony decided that the Snowman was right, it was better to try at least. He got unsteadily to his feet and said, "Let's give it a go then. But if we get eaten then I'm blaming you."

"Fair enough", said the Snowman. I feel that I should point out, however, that I am highly unlikely to be eaten, given that I am made of snow."

The joke did not get a warm response from Anthony, who moved to the doorway. The Snowman said no more but moved up beside him. He put his white hands on the snow and began to move them up and down. As he did so the snow funnelled into his arm and disappeared. It took only about a minute before the entryway was clear.

The crystal light had been put out so both of them peered into the blizzard outside. The Snowman walked out first and motioned for Anthony to follow. Together they walked out into the snow. No wolves were present and so they started to make their way down the slope towards the trees. They'd gone about a hundred yards when Anthony thought he heard a sound behind him. He'd half turned when the wolf landed on him. He shouted and the Snowman turned back and started to run back towards them.

The beast's middle head sank its teeth into Anthony's arm and pain exploded in his mind. Real pain, worse than anything the cold had brought, he felt it searing his arm and then he felt the blood start to pour from the bite. Then something strange started to happen. Anthony felt warmth, a heat from deep inside of him, a heat which became all of a sudden as painful as the bite on his arm. He cried out in blind panic and lashed at the wolf with clenched fists screaming, "No!" Then all he could see was a haze of colours.

When he came to he was being carried. Back up the mountain he could see the form of the wolf receding into the snow, the creature was twisted and broken and smoke was rising from its corpse.

Anthony looked down at his hand from which steam was pouring. He felt blisters forming and gently touched it with his other hand before lapsing into unconsciousness once more.

*

He woke with a pounding headache but also to the comforting sound of a crackling fire. Anthony opened his eyes to see that he was lying in a clearing with a generous fire burning in the middle of it. There was a bowl fashioned from bark which contained water, as well as several bits of strange looking fruit beside him.

"I would eat and drink if I were you", Anthony heard the Snowman's voice. He sat up and looked beyond the edge of the clearing in the shadows where he could just about make out the silhouette of the snowman.

"Why are you sitting out there?" asked Anthony.

"I am not good with fire Mr Hallow, it was all I could do to get it started and then run away."

"How did you start it?" asked Anthony sitting up fully and shaking the grogginess from his head.

"It would have been helpful if this Kannis had told you that fire stones grow on bushes, rare bushes, which can be hard to spot in a forest but are there if you look hard enough."

"I think it would have been handy for the jackal to have told me anything of use", said Anthony, before adding, "thank you for whatever you did to the wolf."

The Snowman leaned forward so that Anthony could see him more clearly and said, "I was about to say the same thing to you."

"What do you mean?" asked Anthony, confused.

"I did nothing to the wolf. I started to run back, you cried and were thrashing at the beast; the next thing I know there is a blue flash and the creature is flying back through the air, all mangled and bloody."

Anthony looked down at his hand which seemed to have miraculously healed, not just from the blisters but also the cut which he had sustained from Kannis. "How long was I out?" he asked.

"Some hours", replied the Snowman, "I carried you a reasonable distance to ensure the rest of the pack would not follow, though I think it unlikely given what happened to their alpha."

"Thank you for carrying me, and for the fire and food."

"You are most welcome Anthony. Please, tuck in."

Anthony did not need to be told twice; he drained the water from the bark cup and devoured the pieces of fruit which, though strange-looking, were succulent and delicious. As he ate he considered the Snowman's words. He could not recall exactly what had happened, his only memories were primal, of heat and colour, not cognitive recollection. This new mystery only added to the overwhelming sense of his being lost and out of his depth.

After he'd finished eating he turned and looked at the Snowman. "I don't know why I'm here, or what I'm going to do."

The Snowman had a look of deep sympathy on his face. "I cannot give you answers I am afraid, I do not know this Kannis or why he brought you here. Judging from what happened to the wolf there is more to you than meets the eye; perhaps that is what the jackals are after. I cannot take you back to the Mercurial Chambers either, there are too many of them, they are too far away and even if we got the right tree there is no way for us to access the platforms without fighting our way through halls containing thousands of tallow bears, or using a sky-ship. Neither of these is viable." Anthony could do nothing but look more dejected at the frank dissemination of the situation.

"However", he continued, "this I can offer you. I can take you to Snowdell, my people are there and I am not ashamed to say that there are wiser and more imaginative minds than mine there. It is possible that they might shed some light on your predicament, and may even know of a way for you to return home, to Lon-don."

Anthony mulled it over for a moment or two. Not for the first time since waking in Avalen he thought about Juliet. Back in the glory days they had a system for making decisions that was not unique to their marriage. She would decide what to do and he would nod and do exactly that. But she was far away now, Cornwall had felt like a world apart; now they were actually worlds apart his loneliness swamped him.

She'd been a phone call, an email away. He'd never called, nor did he email and neither did she. But the option was there, the possibility of reconciliation. She was just another memory now.

"This place, Snowdell, how far is it?" he asked the Snowman.

"A two week journey, across less than forgiving terrain", replied the Snowman, patiently waiting for Anthony to make a decision.

"I suppose you all live in igloos?" asked Anthony searching for understanding.

"Igloo?" repeated the Snowman, as if it was an alien term.

"A small round house made from ice", said Anthony.

"Ah, I see. No, Snowdell is a modern and thriving place, you will find that we live in dwellings considerably more sophisticated than your igloos", he responded.

"Sophisticated Snowmen, eh?" said Anthony wryly.

"Quite", responded the Snowman. Anthony was becoming familiar with the way he used that response as blank canvas for any conversational conclusion that he was not certain of.

"I am going to have to call you something you know, I can't just refer to you as Snowman", said Anthony.

The Snowman raised his hands in a neutral gesture and asked, "Do you have any preference?"

"Well, in happier days my youngest daughter built a Snowman. He lasted for two months across a particularly hard winter. She named him George."

"George", repeated the Snowman, "that sounds fine to me."

"Great", said Anthony, "George?"

"Yes, Anthony", replied George.

"I would like to take you up on your offer of journeying to Snowdell. Though in part I feel I would be going in the wrong direction, at least I will be going somewhere."

"Excellent, Anthony, we shall leave come the morning", said George, who leaned back into the shadows on the tree beneath which he sat.

"Thank you", said Anthony.

"Most welcome", said George, and with that they both tried to get some rest. Sleep would not come easily to Anthony, however, but it was not the hard ground which denied him slumber. In his mind he turned over the events of the past couple of weeks again and again. The possibility that he might be dreaming was becoming less and less easy to consider. The possibility that he'd gone mad and that this was all a figment of his imagination was still there.

But he did not feel like a mad man, not that he would know if he did. He had only one point of reference to determine that he was the same Anthony Hallow he had been for these last ten years: the sorrow. Had his mind been driven from the edge of sanity then surely it would have been driven far away from his sadness, but there it was, deep down and embedded in his soul. He closed his eyes to the fire and the kaleidoscope of melancholy rolled across his mind once more, his memories accompanying him into a restless woe-born sleep once more.
Chapter Seven: A Call to War

Prince Karmalaine knelt down and examined the gorge once more. Its smooth sides were an indication of a machine-like mechanical process. Across the deep darkness of the chasm there was the empty town of Wilderben and the mystery which had so far stumped both himself and his companions. Vulthian stood nearby and though it was difficult to tell whether or not the silver claw was scowling Karmalaine sensed he was. In fact, it felt like Vulthian had done little but glower since they'd left Fenn. The Lord-Captain had been caught off guard by the King's suggestion that he accompany the party; he was not used to being ordered into the field and it showed.

Vulthian Kel-Parr's inclusion in the group chosen to hunt down Anthony Hallow had been almost as strange as Karmalaine's own, but it had been a strange meeting by all accounts...

...The introduction of the giants had proceeded swiftly. They were not a race given to overly enthusiastic social nicety and etiquette. In fact, when Karmalaine's father had started the introductions the lead giant had interrupted and said, "I am Balg-Miur. Let us begin." That did not go down well. The King had bristled with anger for the rest of the council but had managed to keep his cool.

The reactions from the four representatives of the other centres of power, upon hearing about the waking of the dreamer, had been guarded. They were all aware of both Ayalla's prophecy as well as the last words of the first Fenn. There had been questions, and also a notable number of criticisms. They wanted to know how a dreamer was able to escape so easily from the Mercurial Chambers. The brothers from Bloodren enquired as to whether the tallow bears responsible had been flayed and eaten in punishment, they were surprised to find out they had not.

Though they were a source of concern and general disgust to the rest of the council, the presence of the demons had been vital. During the Arma uprising Bloodren had allied itself with Arma Geddon. They were a part of his inner circle and might have been able to shed some light on his final days, and more importantly the final days of Ayalla.

The demons whispered and conferred many times during the council. As to any information on Ayalla, they said that she was a nightmare, a witch-queen of rare beauty and rarer malice. Evessa Tremaine had objected hotly to some of the assertions made about witches. The demons suggested that Ayalla had bewitched Arma and that his entire uprising was based upon an agenda of hers. They said that when she came forth from the Dream Sea she came with a dark coven which she called her Rattakurl, who were hooded and masked and never left her side.

Gulgazish even went so far as to suggest that Ayalla did not take her own life as was suggested, but that the Rattakurl had held her down, sliced her open and painted her blood upon the walls. But neither of the demons had been there, and thus was the information treated as hearsay. Beyond this the demons had little to offer in terms of concrete information about the prophecy, so the discussion had moved on.

They had debated and argued for many hours about the prophecy before moving on to more practical concerns, such as how the dreamer was woken and how they would return him to sleep.

At this point King Corul had asked Evessa Tremaine to recount her findings from her visit to the Brazen Gate. When she'd arrived at the gatehouse, buried within the rock of the first pillar she told them that the gate was closed but that the lock was mangled. She also recounted that the salamanders which guarded the gate were still there, but had been frozen in Chalcidian crystal. After some hours of dream-weaving, Evessa had thawed the salamanders out and heard from that what had occurred.

The lead salamander, Firir Curr, said that a jackal had come down to see them bearing an official document from the King. The scroll bore the seal of the screaming raven and so it was thought to be genuine. When Firir broke the seal an icy mist poured forth from it which enveloped them all and frozen them to the bone.

When Veramax the Green remarked that salamanders were barely a step above insects and that they should not have been guarding something as valuable and dangerous as the Brazen Gate, Vulthian told him that Firir and his team had already been removed and replaced by silver claws. The angel Kalwyn had then said that this jackal had evidently made his way through the gate and woken the dreamer from the other side.

A heated debate then started about whom to send through to deal with the jackal. The general consensus was to send a small group of silver claws to slay the jackal on the other side and then bring the body back through the gate. It was known that the first Fenn had decreed the gate to be possibly the most dangerous of all the machines built during the elder days. Many times he'd reminded his people of the grave misfortune that might affect both the mortal realm and the dream lands if the mortals were to become aware of their existence. For that reason the general will was for a small elite force.

However, Evessa Tremaine spoke again saying that the opening of the scroll was not the full telling of the tale by Firir Curr. Whether by design or fault, the salamanders had been frozen but still awake. Firir was near the gate when his freezing occurred, his eyes had been open and he'd seen the jackal walk through the gate. Evessa told the Council that he had not been alone; accompanying the jackal was a ten-ton-troll.

Firir had told her that he believed it to be Ilich, whom he recognised from an illustrated tome which he'd read detailing the Battle of Morror during the war against Saal. That changed everything; a small elite force was out of the question. The hardiness and fighting capability of the ten-ton-trolls were legendary, that of Ilich even more so. He had stood on Highcorn Hill and single-handedly fended off three hundred spider spears. This was a tough call to make as they now needed stealth but also overwhelming force.

In the end it was the King who made the final decision. They would send one hundred silver claws and a dozen fire drakes. When Karmalaine had questioned why not send a dragon or a giant he was surprised to find out that the Brazen Gate was not big enough. It would fit the fire drakes through at a push, but nothing larger. King Corul added that Mortiune and half a dozen sentinels would go through the gate with a three-fold objective: help the fire drakes and silver claws subdue Ilich, counter any interference from the talented jackal and monitor for mortals, dream-weaving away their memories if need be.

With that settled they moved on to what to do about the dreamer on this side of the gate. The King decided that each of the four would pick a champion to pursue Anthony Hallow. The demons had poured scorn on this idea, asking why the great King did not just send out his hundreds of sky-ships to find the dreamer and bring him back. With incredible patience the King had explained that they would have likely ditched the sorrow hawk and continued on foot, in which case a sky-ship could fly over them a hundred times and not see them.

This was a search that would need to be carried out on the ground. When quizzed on the possibility that he was wrong and that they were this minute flying through the air on the sorrow hawk to Eredyss the King said that he had planned for that contingency. Captain Asgoth would take one hundred ships of the Ravenclaw fleet, they would scour the skies from Fenn to Eredyss and if they found the bird they would shoot it out of the sky. Even if they did not find the bird the fleet would continue on to Eredyss, find the lair of the jackals and launch a full-scale aerial assault on it, bringing down the mountain and burying the jackals.

It was then that Vulthian had suggested it was his duty to lead such an attack, and at that point the King told Vulthian he would represent the silver claw in the hunting party which would pursue the dreamer on the ground...

..."I fail to see what close examination of a hole in the ground will achieve us. The village is deserted and the dreamer is not here", said the Lord-Captain from behind Karmalaine.

"Are we not duty-bound to investigate what has happened here?" asked Karmalaine, turning to the silver claw.

"We are duty-bound to locate Anthony Hallow and return him forcibly to the Mercurial Chambers. He is not here, thus we should move on."

"There were thousands of dreams living here, they are all dead. I would say that regardless of our primary objective we have an unspoken moral mission to get to the bottom of this."

"My mission was given to me by the King. That is my only concern", said the silver claw, folding his arms across his heavy grey chest plate and giving every indication that he truly meant to give no help whatsoever.

They'd come across the town some hours ago. Though they had no idea of the route the jackal and the dreamer might have taken the party had decided that their most prudent course of action was to head in the direction of Eredyss until they picked up the trail. They'd flown from Fenn to the Mercurial Chambers to start since it was deemed unlikely that the jackal would have come any further east than was necessary.

Once they reached the chambers they made to continue on foot, waiting only for the giant Balg-Miur to catch up with them. From the chambers they moved on foot, those who did not have wings. Balg-Miur had come for the giants and Vulthian had been sent to represent the silver claws. The dragon Cyra the Silver was with them, the demon Golgoleth the Bloodfiend and Kalwyn of the House of Tangeth-Marr from the angelic legion completed their party.

The search had consisted of Cyra, Golgoleth and Kalwyn ranging ahead over the canopy performing large sweeps in every direction whilst the giant, the silver claw and the Prince made their way on foot down the middle of the range. It was slow going but necessary, Karmalaine had been confident that their pace would pick up once they found the trail, until they'd come across Wilderben and been forced to stop and examine the scene.

Not for the first time, Karmalaine pondered what had prompted him to offer to go along. When his father had asked him why, he said that it was to represent the crown. The King told him that Vulthian would represent the crown, but Karmalaine specified that he would represent the family, the name of Geddon on this mission on which so much might rest. Almost to his surprise his father had agreed, warning him aplenty of the dangers in the wild and that he must be vigilant for enemies that may present themselves from unexpected corners.

There were hundreds of towns and villages in the forests of Avalen. It was by chance that Wilderben was on the route they were taking, a chance that led to a grim discovery. When Karmalaine had first asked Balg-Miur to lift him across the gorge around the town the giant had glared down with undisguised disgust, muttering something about small-folk and that he was not some sort of crane. Thankfully, Kalwyn had happily agreed to fly him across the gap.

Wilderben was a scene of grisly discovery. Every home which Karmalaine had explored revealed the same thing, dead and rotting dreams, killed in their beds, killed at their dining tables. The streets were empty though thousands of tracks could be seen, mostly the same heavily armoured tread. Every street had yielded a similar picture until they got to the centre of the town, a white brick building which Karmalaine assumed held the town's inkling well and was likely home to Wilderben's Arbiter.

The building had been demolished, it looked as if it had been hit by a hundred projectiles. There were scorch marks everywhere and a few bodies, one of which bore a chain with a golden raven about it which marked him out as the Arbiter. Cyra, Golgoleth and Kalwyn had swept the forest all around the town but there was no sign of any hostile force.

As Karmalaine stood looking over the gorge with Vulthian glowering behind him the other members of their party gathered. In the shadows of Balg-Miur they stood.

"Any clues, any indication as to who was responsible?" asked the Prince of the angel the demon and the dragon, all of whom replied in the negative.

"The air in this place reeks of ironide, young Prince", said Cyra. Whenever the dragon spoke, Karmalaine could hear the sound of the fires churning deep down inside him, giving his voice a crackling smouldering edge. Ironide was used in the firing of Sabre Cannons.

"Vulthian, have you still got a link to Captain Asgoth?" asked the Prince.

Vulthian raised a claw to his helm before shaking his head, "They will be many hundreds of leagues in front of us by now", he said before adding, "if it is in your mind that the fleet bound for Eredyss was involved here then put such thoughts to rest. This massacre is many days old, long before the sky-ships reached the Mercurial Chambers.'

Karmalaine nodded before adding, "I was more of a mind that they may have seen something less than having been involved, though it is strange. Do you know of any other force in Avalen aside from the King's fleet which uses Sabre Cannons?" he asked.

"No, My Prince. It was the case in the elder days, before the advent of the sky-ships, that there were many ground-based variations of the Sabre Cannon. But within modern memory, no. Only your father's armies utilise them", replied Vulthian.

"We need to move on", rumbled Balg-Miur from above them, echoing Vulthian's earlier sentiment. Prince Karmalaine looked up at the giant. He was clothed in huge armour plates from the knee up to his shoulder, except the armour could not cloak his huge belly which caused a giant shadow of its own. From his arms and legs also hung massive wedges of excess weight; there were times when Karmalaine thought he looked like a giant tallow bear, with a human's head.

The giant was bald, though he had some fuzzy grey hair behind his ears. The other night when he'd been sleeping against a tree the Prince was certain he'd seen rodents scurrying around inside the hair. He chose not to mention it though, even irritated as he was by the lack of sleep; the giant's snoring was louder than a war-horn.

"What if what has happened here has something to do with our mission?" bellowed Karmalaine up to the giant.

Again came the frown, the saggy wrinkles on the giant's face scrunching up as he peered down at the Prince: "You do not need to shout, little Prince. Balg-Miur's ears can hear small sounds well."

"So what does Balg-Miur say to my question?" asked the Prince in a normal tone.

"Find the dreamer and we find the answer. No answers here, little Prince, just death."

"He makes a good point, Prince Karmalaine", said Kalwyn in his musical tone, "if this incident is connected to Anthony Hallow then we will learn more by finding him. If not then I think it would be best when we find the next functioning inkling, or when we come into contact with kingdom regulars, that we pass word to your father back in Fenngaard of what has occurred so that he can send a separate party to investigate."

"I take it you are in agreement?" said Prince Karmalaine to Golgoleth, who dipped his horns in affirmation whilst gnawing on a bone. The Prince decided not to ask the demon where he'd gotten his meal from, fearing the answer and instead turned around to where Cyra the Silver sat, still as a statue, silver as the moon, fearsome as the dragon he was. "What is your take, Cyra?" he asked of the dragon.

"Though it pains me to side with a giant I must agree. We all know of the cost contained within that prophecy. Even without it, for the jackals to have in their possession a dreamer is an unacceptable upset to the balance of power. We dragons are not the only ones who feel that that the jackals got off too lightly during the Binding", Cyra responded.

"So be it", said the Prince, "we press on until nightfall." As the dragon, the demon and the angel lifted into the air and began circling over the forest once more, Prince Karmalaine turned to Vulthian, "I want you to tell me if you come within range of another silver claw. My Father must hear of what happened here as swiftly as possible."

"As you say, Prince Karmalaine", said the silver claw before stalking off into the trees. The Prince followed with the giant lumbering along behind them. As they walked the Prince thought on the silver dragon's words. Again, the Binding had been mentioned. Prince Karmalaine had been barely one year old when it had happened and therefore had no actual recollections of it. But he'd read up extensively and thought often of its consequences.

The last serious challenge to the line of Lor Geddon had come in the form of Saal Geddon. Lor and Arma were the twin sons of the First Fenn. At the end of the first millennium had come the Arma Rebellion, when Arma and his sons had risen up against the rule of the first Fenn and tried to wrest control of the Palace of Fenngaard from him. In that conflict Arma had fallen along with two of his three sons, Baniwel and Felorn. However, his third son Saal had survived the battle of Meregoth.

The first Fenn himself had received a mortal wound in the lord of all battles. There was therefore much wroth against Saal, but Lor, who had inherited the throne from his father, decreed that Saal should not be harmed but banished back to the Dream Sea.

Thus had it been so and the line of Arma Geddon was no longer considered a threat. Many centuries of relative peace went by. Power passed from Lor Geddon to Dray Geddon. Yet Dray, Karmalaine's grandfather, was the next to fall foul of the Arma line. Dray was poisoned and the kingdom thrown into disarray. That very night Saal Geddon returned to Avalen and at his back was an army of nightmares from the Dream Sea.

Chaos erupted, angels, demons, dragons and giants all fought each other. Saal and his nightmares ravaged the land and many innocent dreams were extinguished, their light gone and forgotten. It was a dark age which lasted for many years. Due to the manner of passing the Hammer of Fenn had gone beyond the grasp of the Geddon family, so they were left to fight using conventional armies only.

However, after some years Karmalaine's father, Corul Geddon, had gleaned the secret of the Hammer of Fenn and succeeded in pulling it forth from the ether. With the hammer his enemies did not stand a chance. Saal was destroyed at the Battle of Kaymar Bridge, the nightmares were driven back and order was restored. But Corul Geddon did not stop there. He'd seen the horror of war and the scourge it had brought to the lives of normal dreams, how through their ancient enmity the giants, dragons, angels and demons had wrought appalling destruction on the fertile and free lands of Avalen.

So came the Binding and the leaders of the land were brought forth. Be they dragon, giant, angel, demon, centaur, arachnid, troll or jackal, all were brought to the Palace of Fenngaard. There the newly crowned Fenn Corul Geddon demanded from them an oath of peace and fealty. Each swore and to each he told the consequences of breaking such an oath, that they would be erased from the history of dreams, that he would raise the Hammer of Fenn and strike at them with such ferocity and might that they would be obliterated from the history books. There would be no banishment, simply destruction.

To each of the four great powers he granted territory, Torabane to the giants, Archaven to the angels, Mirgarden to the dragons and Bloodren to the demons. Though there was a largely symbolic element to this as the races had inhabited those area for aeons now, they were granted official autonomy over their lands, and those lands only. Except now, if they passed beyond set boundaries in exercising their authority then the Hammer would find them wherever they were. This treaty was called the Binding.

The King had then turned to the matter of the talented jackals. Given the aid that they'd given to Saal Geddon most expected at least banishment, at worse the destruction which Corul had so sworn the other races would meet if they raised their hand against the crown once more.

However, the King chose a different path. At the last moment the talented jackals had turned against Saal and helped to best him at Kaymar Bridge. This Corul remembered and, given that it was a time of reconciliation, he chose to forgive the jackals their early mistakes. He awarded them some small territory far off in the dense mountainous wastes of Dyss. Thus had they founded their city, Eredyss, and thus had they now once again become a problem for the realm.

It had not yet been spoken, but Karmalaine sensed a deep anger from his father over what had happened. The arrest and detention of the talented jackals in Fenn had proved that, this time he knew that they would suffer for raising rebellion once more against the line of Lor.

The Prince was interrupted from his recollections by the sound of something large landing in the trees in front of him. He entered a clearing to find Cyra the Silver filling it where, despite having landed in a clearing, a number of trees on either side had been snapped and pushed over by the towering silver form.

"Prince Karmalaine, I have a scent about an hour to the east."

"Jackal or dreamer?" asked Karmalaine.

"I could not say, which would indicate the dreamer. I have hunted in Avalen for many centuries, My Prince, and am familiar with the scent of most dreams. This does not resemble that of any that I have come across."

"Lead the way!" shouted the Prince. Karmalaine was almost tempted to ask the dragon to bear him on his back, but caution stayed his hand. The dragon was likely to react with the same level of disgust as the giant had when Karmalaine requested he carry him over the gorge, possibly worse. From the books he'd read on the dragons they were proud creatures, not beasts of burden, and would treat it as an affront to even have the suggestion raised.

One thing which had come about as a result of their voyage so far was that the fire of wanderlust had been lit on the soles of Karmalaine's feet. He had spent all of his life in Fenn, certainly there had been the occasional trip out on a sky-ship, but never anything like this. The feel of the forest was intoxicating and he was mesmerised by the complex life cycle of the dreams which made up the wild.

Out here there was a sense of freedom and possibility which Karmalaine had never felt whilst surrounded by the old stones of the nineteen pillars, locked up in high towers behind high walls. He resolved that when this crisis was over he would ask his father for permission to study in the Sentinel Forest. He envisioned a cabin overlooking a wooded valley, a place where he could find the inspiration for invention which had eluded him in the city. Surrounded by the dreams of nature he knew that he would finally be able to innovate and give life to his ambitions, to be the next great name in the Geddon family.

The Prince ran through the forest following the shadow of the dragon, which surged on ahead. Over fallen trees, beneath the gaze of an ancient oak, through sunlit glades and across gatherings of ferns Karmalaine ran until he came to another area where the dragon had landed. This time there hadn't been a sufficient clearing for the dragon to land, so he had simply crushed a large section of forest beneath him. Karmalaine wondered who was cutting the greater swathe through the trees, Cyra or Balg-Miur. The giant had also felled many of the trees as he bulldozed through the forest.

Cyra motioned to some trees which he'd managed not to crush beneath him when he landed and Karmalaine approached. There was an old fireplace, not used for many days, and two sets of tracks. One set was undoubtedly jackal and went back in the direction of Wilderben, the other went north.

Prince Karmalaine did not have the tracking ability of a dragon, but even without the scent he felt a strange feeling, a tingle down his spine, as he knelt in the clearing where the dreamer had evidently been.

"Can you track him from here?" Karmalaine asked Cyra, as Vulthian and Balg-Miur arrived.

"Most certainly, the trail is old but unique. The scent is so strange that I could pick it out from beneath a thousand others."

"We have a trail. It is old but traceable", the Prince explained to the others.

"Then let us assail this dreamer that I might return to the heat of Bloodren. The failure of your magister has left a cold blot on this land", growled Golgoleth. Even as he said it Karmalaine felt the falling of a fresh rain, it had been on and off for the entirety of their search. The Prince noticed it was getting cold as well, and would likely snow soon. He had read about snow in books but never seen it himself. He was fascinated by it, as well as slightly daunted about what such a phenomenon might do to their search.

The demon flew off again. Prince Karmalaine had noticed that the fiery red glow which it had brought with it to the Hall of Providence had faded slightly; he wondered if the weather was having a tangible effect on the durability of a creature quite literally born in the fires of Bloodren.

They continued on through the forest. Cyra led the way, Golgoleth and Kalwyn continued to circle and Vulthian, the Prince and Balg-Miur squelched their way through the muddy forest floor in search of their prey.
Chapter Eight: The Barren Beauty

George pushed tentatively at the ice with his foot.

"I heard a crack", said Anthony, who stood a few feet away on the river bank.

"Maybe it was just taking the strain?" offered George, not taking his eyes from the foot which he'd stepped onto the frozen river with.

"Maybe you are too much of an optimist", responded Anthony.

"Ah", said George, "so is the river half-frozen or half-thawed then, Anthony?" stepping back and turning to his companion.

"Either way I don't think the best way to find out is walking across. Are you certain there are no bridges?" asked Anthony.

"This is not Lon-don, Anthony. We are far from anywhere that might be called civilised. These are beautiful but harsh lands. I am certain that this is where I crossed the ice when I came this way but days ago."

"Maybe it was colder then, the ice thicker", said Anthony, not really believing the words himself. If anything it felt like the temperature dropped with every passing hour. He glanced back at the tree line about fifty yards away, the river bank was clear all the way along and the wind raced over them with reckless icy-cold abandon.

George pushed at a few more patches of ice cautiously and said, "I am sorry I cannot impress you again but ice is not quite the same as snow. One day, perhaps I will master it."

"Don't apologise, please. I can't do any better, can I?" offered Anthony.

They'd travelled through the forest for about a week. During that time Anthony had learnt much of Avalen and its peoples. He learned about Fenn, the infinite city, about the first Great Fenn, revered by all, and about his descendants who now ruled, revered only by some it seemed. Though none of George's answers to Anthony's many questions had solved the riddle of his own purpose here, and what the absent Kannis had intended to do with him, they did at least give him a much needed background on the world in which he now found himself.

Thoughts of dreams, madness and comas had receded to the back of Anthony's mind. When he woke on frosty mornings to find a white forest bathed in snowflakes he found it more and more difficult to imagine this world to be anything other than that which it seemed to be. The wildlife became rarer and rarer too. He assumed the birds, squirrels and bears which he'd seen in his early days in Avalen had either succumbed to the cold or were hibernating.

The cold weather had brought new life with it, however. George had introduced him to several entities who had awoken due to the sudden onset of winter and seemed to be thoroughly pleased with the change of circumstances.

One such species were the snow fairies who, after a short time, Anthony discovered were responsible for the provision of the food he was eating. George told him that snow fairies were very maternal creatures who had been only too happy to help when he had told them of the outsider and his predicament.

They seemed to be just tiny globes of light whilst in motion, but when they slowed down to drop off the increasingly rare fruits Anthony was able to identify their features. The arms, legs and bodies lacked any detail; they were just white silhouettes and only the faces and wings had any definition. They had small smiling faces with little locks of pure white hair and wings which were made from snowflakes. They were charming and helpful little creatures and as well as the many fruits they also located and carried fire stones to Anthony each night, even though they complained to George that the smooth black stones burned their skin when they touched them.

After a few nights, Anthony had asked George why, if he was able to hear and understand the Snowman, he could not communicate with the fairies. George had spread his arms wide and shrugged, a gesture he was doing more and more as he ran out of easy answers and was pressed on the more complex aspects of life in the world of dreams.

'Dream-speak is not a language like that which you find in the mortal world. You and I may be speaking completely different tongues yet understand each other, why you cannot speak to the fairies, I do not know', he said.

They spent a little while walking up and down the river bank looking for a stronger point to cross but the ice looked the same all the way along. In the end they decided to bite the bullet. They picked a point and walked across with a wide gap between them, in order to spread the weight being put upon the ice. George had told Anthony that this was the Falkern River. When Anthony had asked if it was named after the person who discovered it the Snowman shook his head and told him it was named after the dreamer who dreamed it.

As Anthony walked gingerly across the icy river he looked down and was surprised to see movement, not of water but other things beneath the ice; fish of all shapes and sizes, many of which glowed with multi-coloured light. As he moved on he noticed lights beside him, and looked up to see the snow fairies had followed them out onto the ice. Several dozen of them hovered around giving encouraging smiles and whispering to each other. Anthony found their presence comforting.

Even though they'd crossed at a narrow point the river was still around a hundred yards across. They were about halfway across something happened. The snow fairies, who were dancing happily around them, suddenly looked afraid and flew at incredible speed back across the river and into the tree line. Then Anthony heard it, a low drone, in the distance but coming closer.

Anthony stopped and looked over at George who was also craning his neck and listening. Then his face took on a fearful expression and his eyes locked to Anthony's.

"Run", he said, starting to sprint across the ice. Anthony hesitated for only a moment before following him as quickly as he could. As he moved he heard the ice cracking beneath him and the noise of rushing water as some of it disintegrated and disappeared into the flow, but over those sounds he heard the droning getting closer and closer. He jumped the last few feet onto the bank and turned to see the trail of broken ice and holes where the river water could be seen. Barely had he stopped for a second before George grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the trees. The tree line was closer to the bank on this side of the river so it didn't take long until they were into the trees and hidden in some large frosty bushes. They'd hunkered down for only a few seconds when Anthony saw the first of them come into view.

It looked like a thin squashed boat with a pointed prow. It was silver with bands of a different kind of metal running around the hull. There were no masts or sails, the vessel was high up but even so Anthony could see figures walking around on deck. It passed over them and then he saw more come into view. They were all of similar dimensions and as he studied them he saw that just below the deck what looked like cannons were sticking out.

As they passed overhead the droning noise grew so loud that Anthony was forced to cover his ears. Dozens and dozens of the vessels flew over, Anthony soon lost count. It took several minutes for the entire flotilla to pass them. The silence they left in their wake was palpable.

"What were they?" asked Anthony.

"Sky-ships from Fenn, the King's fleet", George said sombrely.

"Looking for us?" asked Anthony.

"Looking for you", corrected George, "but no, I don't think so. They were all together and moving at speed, if it was a search party then I would expect them to have been spread out and moving slower and closer to the ground. This was not a search party, it was an armada."

"Headed where?" asked Anthony.

"Well, there are only two settlements of any size north of here: Snowdell, my home, and far beyond that Eredyss and the Lair of the talented jackals. Let us hope they are heading for the latter."

"Do you want to move on?" asked Anthony, hearing the concern in his companion's voice.

"No", said George shaking his head, "we are still some days away and night is falling, we will camp here."

Within in a short space of time Anthony had a warm fire going and had prepared himself a springy bed of heather on which to lie. He'd also erected a screen of bushes and fallen branches to protect himself from the wind. As usual, George sat a long way from the fire, slightly in the shadows, leaning up against a tree.

"Are you worried about your home?" asked Anthony, after a period of silence.

"Worried in general Anthony. Large fleets of sky-ships do not take to the air during times of peace and tranquillity. They facilitate worry, they are also the product of it. Worry from many perspectives causes more worry, worry becomes fear, paranoia, worry about your neighbours starts wars. As for my home, we are not a fighting people Anthony, and we have been asleep for so long. It strikes me as a sad fate that we would wake just in time for a conflict. I do not want us to get caught up in another fight between the jackal and the raven", spoke George, his soft voice heavy with woe.

"Have I caused this?" asked Anthony. He'd spent plenty of time on the road concerned with his own fate, he was only now starting to appreciate that this was a real world with real people who might end up suffering because of something to do with his presence.

George shook his head at the question: "No, they have been doing this for aeons. You are another victim, another part of some Machiavellian plan." It surprised Anthony to hear George use that terminology.

"You've heard of Machiavelli?" he asked incredulously.

"Of course, Machiavelli was a trickster dream. He fomented dissident activity against Lor Geddon, which eventually culminated in the Lyrilian War. Machiavelli was caught and cast into the Dream Sea and the Lyrilian Lords submitted. It was a short conflict, but notable for the way in which the trickster dream succeeded in turning otherwise loyal subjects against the King based on fruitless empty promises."

"Did you know that there was a human called Machiavelli?" asked Anthony.

"No, though it is not surprising. There have been many cases of dreams adopting the names of humans, and reportedly also cases of humans adopting the names of their dreams. We are worlds apart yet inextricably linked, us mortals and dreams", responded George sagely.

"Well, a philosopher Snowman, most impressive", said Anthony with a smile, which George returned.

"There is more than meets the ice when it comes to us Snowmen", japed George, which caused Anthony to laugh and throw some seeds in his direction.

"That was a terrible pun", he said with mirth.

"Thank you", responded George, "so, you have learned much about Avalen and myself. Might I ask you about Old Earth and your life there? You have mentioned children before, do they wait for you to wake at home?"

The smiles faded, the laughter died, all mirth disappeared into the fire. "No, they do not", said Anthony in a low voice.

"I am sorry to hear that", said George, who did not press the matter.

"The sorrow is mine", said Anthony. Despite being a Snowman, George shivered slightly not at the cold but at the tone of Anthony's voice; a tone, a statement, which suggested a melancholy deep enough that one might never climb out of it if they fell in. The rest of the evening passed in silence. Anthony turned over, away from the fire, and fell into a dark sleep. George leaned against his tree and dozed to the sound of the crackling wood. He noted that the snow fairies had not appeared following the appearance of the sky-ships. Such timid things, he thought.

*

Dawn was slow to come, the light struggled to make itself known through the leaden sky above. Anthony's mood had improved with sunrise but only by a degree or two. George made a mental note to steer well clear of any topic that might involve speaking about Anthony's family. They moved on with only a few words between them, mainly about the weather and the dreary prospects for the day.

The grey garments which Kannis had given Anthony many days ago were looking decidedly worse for wear by now. They walked and walked. The land was deserted but incredible to look upon. Ever further north they went, through valleys and the endless forest. Anthony thought sometimes of back home and simple old Blighty. It was often said that before man came all of Britain was forest, just trees from coast to coast. Anthony wondered if this was what it had looked like before it became the patchwork of farms, towns and the sprawling cities that it was today.

There were distinct differences, however, there were things here which one would only see in a land the make-believe. There were areas where fields of roots stuck up from the ground, tangled masses which went on for leagues, millions of roots all joined together in the frosty landscape. George told him that these were called confused forests, places where the trees grew down into the ground whilst the roots sprouted into the air.

Anthony was familiar with the phenomenon of seeing faces and objects in the clouds, here, however, such things were taken to the next degree. The clouds were filled with hundreds of detailed aspects, faces, dragons, buildings and also mirrors, areas of cloud that were filled with forests in a mimic of the land below them.

When he remarked on such things, George told him that they were not normal, that the clouds seen under the will of the Magister Elementis were white, fluffy and manufactured from the perfect image of what a cloud should look like. "What you are seeing is genuine dream cloud, a reflection of Avalen, a reflection of dream, a natural interpretation of the universe", George told him. Anthony would stumble and fall many times and even started to develop an ache in his neck from looking up at the faces in the clouds.

Such strange cloud formations did little to detract from the sometimes bizarre and magnificent scenes which greeted his feet and his eyes as he walked. There were places where lakes sat not in hollow bowls but floated some feet above the ground. They were frozen in parts, but otherwise they lapped gently at the air with no care for the absence of a shore. Fish swam freely as did other things that looked less like fish and more like men in the guise of fish.

It seemed to Anthony that the further they went the more oddities they encountered. In one area of the forest they found the snow was moving like water, it flowed and splashed around the trees but when he walked upon it Anthony found it solid, if a little unsettled.

"It's getting more severe", remarked George at one point.

"What do you mean?" asked Anthony, "you said you made this journey only a week or so ago, was the land not like this then?"

"No", said George, "there was snow, certainly, but this level of disruption to the natural order of things - floating lakes, snow like water, irregular cloud patterns - this is beginning to look less like Avalen and more like..." He did not finish the sentence.

"More like where?" pressed Anthony. They stopped.

"It's beginning to look more like something from the Dream Sea, chaotic and free. Whether they admit it or not, Avalen is comprised of the same base material as the Dream Sea, it's just here the Great Fenn brought order to the chaos and constructed the Dreamstone Wall to keep the order in and the chaos out. These developments would seem to indicate the guards Fenn put in place are unravelling."

They trudged on in silence, ever northwards, through the snowy forest to Snowdell, home of the Snowmen.
Chapter Nine: The Lair

"Maybe it was just a mistake?" growled Carthis.

Rostrom looked up, his black eyes shining in the half-light of the inkling chamber. For the thousandth time since the message had appeared on the piece of paper at their station they had met, the Long-Tooths, in order to discern the meaning of the words. And for the thousandth time, Cathir had suggested that the message from Kannis was just a mistake.

Following the appearance of The Grey, Rostrom had tried replying several times but there was never a response. In the end he had removed the butterfly key from the station which had remained unused since. The station was in the lower part of the Lair. Down here there were no carpets on the floor or rugs on the walls. Down here the Lair was jagged stone and a darkness reluctant to depart even under the gaze of the harshest flames. Down here the cold was so harsh that Rostrom could feel it in his bones; even through his greying fur and hardened muscle, the cold permeated to his core.

Though they all had the right to call themselves Long-Tooth, Rostrom was eldest by far. Cahir and Carthis, the twin pups, had only two centuries to their name, Orfuss had three and old Jakalen three and a half. But at almost six hundred years of age, Rostrom eclipsed them all with his longevity. Therefore, he felt no shame at feeling the cold, though he could never admit it. None of the others seemed uncomfortable. Maybe they are all like me, he thought, maybe we are all sitting here in discomfort with the cold seeping into our souls, locked in place by pride.

"It was no mistake", said Jakalen. Jakalen had taken a nasty claw from a tallow bear during a minor skirmish in his youth, the bear had torn off the left side of his face. Even now, after many years of healing, the face was bare and the fullness of his fangs shone through. His tongue had also been slashed during the fight which gave him a permanent slow drawl. Nonetheless it was a voice that was respected, Jakalen had proved himself as a warrior many times. Indeed it was said that he eventually vanquished the bear who scarred him, finally sinking his fangs through the folds of loose distorted skin into its neck. "An action performed in haste and under duress, but no mistake, and we should make no mistake about its meaning."

"Which is?" said Carthis. Though Cahir and Carthis were twins of the same litter there was one major physical difference, Carthis came as close to fat as it was possible for a jackal to be. His large frame bulged through his black robes. Many saw him as an embarrassment to the talented jackals, whose position in the Long-Tooths and the Lair was afforded only due to the prowess of his brother.

Carthis's chambers were a showcase of fine living, pillows, thick rugs, a large bed, golden wine jugs and silver platters from which he feasted it seemed almost hourly. The opulence was in stark contrast to the Spartan chambers of cold stone furnishings and clay goblets that most jackals lived in.

By dint of his seniority, Rostrom's own quarters had a roaring fireplace and were insulated with carpets and wall hangings but even this was sparse and utilitarian compared to the lavish furnishings of Carthis's quarters.

"That is what we met to discuss, and it is the cryptic nature of the message, which was obviously unfinished, that has led us nowhere near answers", growled Orfuss. Orfuss was a cadava jackal, a slightly different caste to the talented jackals. His snout was much shorter and his ears noticeably smaller, in addition to the distinctive yellow eyes.

His position within the talented jackals and as a Long-Tooth was unique for, in general, most talented jackals looked down on the cadava jackals as an inferior breed. Only Orfuss stood equally amongst them, due to his service and highly skilled dream-weaving. He was arguably one of the most capable dream weavers in the Lair.

"Orfuss is correct", said Rostrom, "whatever our brother was trying to warn us of we will not find out the specifics until we are confronted with them. We must take solace in the fact that we have received any warning at all. He is now three days late and the scouts that we sent out to greet him report back regularly saying there is no sign. What we need to decide is this: Did Kannis make it back to the Sad Father, or was whatever The Grey may refer to able to intercept him?" He put the questions to the Long-Tooths knowing that there would be no definitive answer.

Rostrom had wrestled with those questions himself for days. There was just no way of knowing and, not for the first time, he regretted the subtlety employed as they had gone about trying to bring the dreamer to Eredyss. Kannis had argued long and hard for the need for guile and stealth over force, and Rostrom had agreed. The Palace of Fenngaard was too powerful to take on directly. They were better off bringing the dreamer to the Lair, and then attacking in a few years once he had grown into the power that Rostrom knew he would become.

But Kannis had evidently run into a foe that he had not anticipated, and now he was possibly lost or dead, as was the dreamer. The Long-Tooths discussed the matter for some hours but, as predicted, they got nowhere. In the end Rostrom called for silence, and said, "Enough. They may be dead, they may be captured and they may be on their way here as we speak. The only solid conclusion we can come to is that here, in the Lair, we learn nothing." Rostrom stood up from the solid wooden chair on which was sat. "Time slips through our fingers. I believe that, though I was a keen advocate of stealth and acting covertly, my cold old bones tell me that the time for this tactic is passing. I mean to send out the sorrow hawks with riders to ascertain our lost brother's location. Do any of my fellow elders find fault with such a solution?" He posed the question knowing that none would go against him. A boon of leadership was being able to make all the decisions, the curse of leadership was having to shoulder the responsibility.

Rostrom left the inkling chamber and started to make his way up through the Lair. When Corul Geddon had first awarded Eredyss to the talented jackals it had been seen as a slight. This was a cold barren part of the world pressed right up against the Dreamstone Wall. The Elementis Forge had difficulty reaching this far from Fenn, a fact which Rostrom suspected Corul knew when exiling them here.

But though the jackals were known as a people for nursing their resentment they had not let it stand in their way. In their thousands they arrived in the mountainous regions of Eredyss. The King had outlawed the sorrow hawks which they traditionally used to get around, stating that the realm of the sky would now be reserved for the sky-ships, though Rostrom noted that the restrictions had not been passed on to the dragons, angels or demons. Without flight they had been weary when they reached the mountains but launched straight away into construction of the Lair.

During the days of Arma and Saal the talented jackals had dwelt within whichever hall the current lord of the jackals dwelt in. Arma had his fortress at Malladoon in the southwest of Avalen whilst Saal had constructed a sprawling base beneath the surface of Lake Nemeral which was called the Hall of Sharks and Bones. Outside of these periods of turmoil the jackals had had no permanent residence. Certainly some of them lived in Fenn but they never felt at home there, not least because of the suspicion with which most of the dreams that lived there treated them.

The talented jackals simply could not settle in the city, they felt restless, in need of the true outdoors, the forests and the rivers. Following the Binding, Corul Geddon had given them a unity they never before possessed; the jackals were gathered en-masse, one mighty pack in Eredyss where they built the Lair. Some might think it ungrateful that barely a day had passed after the King's generous terms were imposed on them before they were plotting the downfall of the raven.

But it made sense to the jackals; one concession following thousands of years of persecution did not wipe the slate clean. Arma had given life to the jackals, he had lifted them up out of the savage beauty of the wild, taught them speech, order and the ability to weave dreams. For that they owed him everything, including vengeance for the fate which his own family had brought upon him. Struck down in the field at Meregoth, with his passing the eternal hatred of the talented jackals for the Geddon family was cemented.

The jackals had chosen a mountain which they called the Arma Peak to build their home in. Their ability to dream weave meant that their home took shape with incredible speed. They used no tools but their minds and the dreams they wrought. The rocks were made living liquid and shaped into a den for a pack of thousands. The actual face of the mountain was altered until it resembled the face of a jackal. Within this huge visage they carved out halls and chambers in which to live.

The Lair went deep, below the mountain and into the old rock of Avalen; it was impregnable. During its construction and many times since the jackals had seen sky-ships from Fenn in the distance keeping the peace, spying for the Palace of Fenngaard, but the jackals paid them no heed. All the sky-ships saw was the face of the jackal in the mountain, they could come no further for outsiders were not welcome in the Lair.

As he walked up the stone steps of one of the many spiral staircases in the Lair, Rostrom passed large vaulted chambers where talented jackals practised fighting with weapons of all forms, daggers, spears, swords, maces, curved kalans and more. In others he saw jackals practising their dream-weaving, fireballs of ten different colours flying through the air and bouncing from invisible shields, lances of lightning skewering the air with hundreds of spikes of light which exploded when they hit their targets.

In one chamber he saw Kalum Sathr showing some young pups the mastery of invisible cloaking. The young jackals stared in awe as Kalum vanished from sight from one footstep to another, disappearing and reappearing as he walked. Though the tall jackal made it look like an act he performed with ease it was not. The young jackals would spend decades learning this art, and many other dream weaves, before they were adept enough to replicate Kalum's skills. He nodded and raised a hand as he saw Rostrom on the stairwell walking up through his chamber into the next.

Up and up he went, through the chambers where they kept their herds, up and up until the artificial construct of the Lair was left behind and Rostrom found himself walking up natural mountainside. He thought sometimes about getting a staff. He imagined that he could pass it off as a symbol of authority and prestige, but he feared they would call it a walking stick, which it would be.

As he left the Lair he came out under the shadow of the Dreamstone Wall. He stopped to gaze upon it, despite having done so thousands of times. When one comes in sight of such a wonder, the fact of having seen it before becomes irrelevant in the eye of the beholder. The wall was flawless. It was the colour of desert sand and it stretched up far above the clouds. Somewhere up there the Octaris patrolled around the clock, keeping the nightmares at bay and maintaining a vigil over the Dream Sea.

The wall stretched to the horizon in both directions and Rostrom knew that if he was to walk along with his hand upon the wall he would one day return to the spot from whence he started, many years older and wearier than now. The wall ran for tens of thousands of leagues and cradled all Avalen in its arms.

The talented jackal moved on up the snow capped peak. The snow had been a new addition to the mountain, one which Rostrom felt added to its beauty. Such things had been denied them by the Elementis for many years. That would change if the jackals won the day, if all Rostrom's plans came to fruition, but that was years away yet. The top of Arma Peak had been hollowed out into a crater by the hands of the jackals. As Rostrom reached the edge of the crater he heard the distinct cry of the birds which were housed there.

Standing on a flattened platform overlooking the crater, Rostrom gazed upon the nest of the sorrow hawks. Their cry was a single note, long and forlorn, a lovely sadness which was best heard in a chorus, for when one cried others joined in creating the song of sorrow for which they were named. Thousands of them were nested within the top of the peak, here and there were scattered nests and eggs. Rostrom was pleased with their progress in gaining the loyalty of the birds.

The sorrow hawks had originally dwelt to the north-east in Torabane. The giants brought them with them when they came to Avalen. Out in the Dream Sea the hawks had been enslaved by the giants for it was known that the giants navigated the Dream Sea by floating along in a hardened carapace in a dormant state and that they used the sorrow hawks to draw their bulk along. When not in this dormant state they used the hawks as messengers and also to go into the small places where the giants could not to hunt down their tiny prey.

However, after they settled in Avalen they became less and less reliant on the birds to do their bidding. Gradually some of the hawks were captured and trained by the talented jackals and now, many years later, they had been disciplined to the point where they would hold a rider. The hawks would be vital in Rostrom's future plans, they were the only way the jackals could fly and would be vital in seizing the palaces of Fenn, if they ever got that far.

Rostrom whispered a few words and in the air before him appeared a flute, which he grasped in one hand and started to blow on. The notes emitted from the flute mimicked the call of the sorrow hawk. It had taken Rostrom a long time to learn their language, but now he had it mastered. As he blew several notes a number of the sorrow hawks lifted themselves up to the edge of the crater. They walked around near him, looking for instruction. Once he had fifty or so hawks with him on the ledge he made ready to take them down to the entrance of the Lair where he would call forth riders to take them into the sky in search of Kannis and the dreamer.

But as he made to walk from the platform Rostrom saw something in the distance. The clouds were low and heavy and at first he dismissed it as another of the many cloud-mirages which had been forming of late, but as he looked harder he saw a line of objects starting to appear on the grey horizon...

*

Captain Asgoth had served in the upper circle of the silver claw legion for many years and through all those years he never forgot the early days after he'd been woken in Avalen. The inception of the silver claw was something which was known only within the legion. The kings of Avalen had never questioned the manner by which the legion replenished its ranks and the legion had never made the process known of their own volition. This secrecy was well deserved, for if it became known then the King's reaction might have been to disband the order altogether.

The silver claws had been made by Soren Lyng, he for whom the Lyng library was named and one of the first dreams from the early days. He'd presented the great Fenn with the first silver claw and told him it was a gift, an ardent guardian of stalwart loyalty who would never surrender, never back down and never allow harm to come to those of royal blood.

Asgoth remembered the day when he'd been woken, back when the Silver Chamber had been in the Palace of Night. It had since been moved to the Hell Tower, the silver claws own abode which stood on one of the main bridges between the first pillar and the fourth. His eyes had opened and he'd seen several grey-robed acolytes standing near. He'd already been armoured, completely covered in thick plate steel, gun-metal grey and dipped in Chalcidian fire to harden it with the durability of dragon scales.

That was his first memory. The red lens of the eyes of the silver claws covered his vision, the heavy armour seemed as light as air about him and there standing before him was his Lord Captain, Vulthian, who greeted all new arrivals. He told him that his name was Asgoth, that he had been a lost dream who was now found and whose days would be spent in protection of the King and serving the silver claw legion.

Training had followed, then war and more war. Asgoth had shown prestige and valour and risen through the ranks. He was considered by many to be second only in authority to Vulthian in the legion. Thus was he awarded great responsibility and thus had he accepted proudly when the King had tasked him with taking a hundred sky-ships to Eredyss to lay waste to the Lair and permanently end the threat of the talented jackal.

The journey had been eventful, and slow. Following the return from the Forest of Fenngaard after visiting the Mercurial Chambers with Mortiune, Asgoth had watched the bodies of five of The Lonely Ghost's Gravitas be carried away. The struggle of keeping the Ghost level and under control whilst navigating a ferocious storm had proved too much for some of the younger members of the navigators' order.

Thus when they'd set out from Fenn, Asgoth had ordered that they proceed slowly with less emphasis on maintaining a stable and serene gravitational level and more on simply staying in the air and progressing at a steady speed. Thanks to his caution they had not lost any navigators and once they moved beyond the Mercurial Chambers and the mountains the storms had lessened. There was still permanent cloud cover and almost constant precipitation, be it snow or rain, but the wind had died down and they were able to increase speed without putting too much strain on those responsible for propulsion.

They flew for many days over a snow-covered canvas of a land. They also started to see many oddities. At one point he'd rushed up on deck after the lookout reported seeing a floating mountain. The lookout was just a boy who'd only been part of the crew of Asgoth's own ship The Gentle Death for a few years and Asgoth suspected exaggeration. But when he walked up on deck what he saw he could only have been described as a floating mountain. The piece of rock was leagues across, jagged with a faintly triangular shape. Asgoth was not sure what he was more concerned with, one of his ships hitting the object or what must have happened wherever the mountain was originally.

He had navigated the fleet around the rock, which span slowly in the air on the same spot, before regrouping and continuing on. They had seen other things as they flew too, lakes and rivers floating in the sky, clouds which looked like they were on fire. He'd maintained contact with Lord Captain Vulthian on the ground for as long as possible, keeping him up to speed with their discoveries until eventually the distance had become too great.

The whole legion looked to Vulthian as a father, despite what might be going on in the kingdom at the time he made a point of being there for each of their births, or 'awakenings'. He was the first person they spoke to when their red glowing eyes opened and it was he who taught then to lift a sword during their first days of training. Following that he was someone who always made an effort to keep up a personal link with those under his command. Vulthian was someone with who all doubt could be discussed and dismissed.

When he had lost the telepathic link with the legion's commander Asgoth felt the same loss he always did. Vulthian spoke to him with barely disguised criticism for both the primary mission with which he'd been charged and the way in which Prince Karmalaine had taken charge of their party and was conducting the operation.

The scathing assessment which Vulthian gave of the Prince's leadership was not the first which other members of the legion had been privy to. Asgoth still remembered the Binding and the manner with which Vulthian had portrayed the fate of the talented jackals to the rest of the legion. "Our wise King is letting the dogs have the run of the forest", were his exact words. Vulthian's loyalty to the crown was unquestioning, as judged by his actions and unfailing obedience, but knowing the undeniable feelings of his heart and mind there was often underlying disapproval conveyed in the way he spoke to his brothers. The heart was more difficult to disguise when one claw spoke to another by the mind-link.

Asgoth went regularly down into the control room beneath the deck of The Gentle Death and the Gravitas reported that steady progress was being made. The ship's captain, Ramone, had served under Asgoth for many years; he knew which matters to bring before the silver claw and which to deal with himself but even so Asgoth liked to be involved in as many aspects of life of those he commanded as possible.

It was a grey cold day when they finally came in sight of the jackal. Though he'd never been on any of the King's scout ships which had come this far before he had had it described to him many times, even so there was a slight sense of shock and awe. Externally you would have never known that he was feeling such sensations, but internally they were there, such was the way of the silver claw.

It looked like the jackal's head was erupting from the side of the mountain. As soon as he saw it in the distance, Asgoth told his signalmen to inform the rest of the fleet. The telepathic link was one of the primary tactical advantages that the silver claws possessed on the battlefield, orders were issued and obeyed in an instant, there was no flag waving and no need for coloured flares and trumpets. Though they stood far apart on the decks of their own vessels it was as if his brothers stood by him, linked arm in arm within the corridors of the mind.

Asgoth felt the heavy internal murmur as the signalmen told the silver claws on the other ships to form up and prepare for a strafing bombardment. The Empty Talon and The Eaglebane came up alongside The Gentle Death, with the other ninety-seven vessels under Asgoth's command gradually following suit.

The Lair of Eredyss was situated on a peak which sat nested in a circle of other mountains and beyond it Asgoth saw the Dreamstone Wall rising to meet the sky. He could not help but admire the place the jackals had chosen to build their fortress, easily defended from all angles against most conventional foes. It was a shame for the jackals that on this day they would be assaulted not by a conventional foe but by the armed might of the Palace of Fenngaard.

There was a distinct change in the sounds coming from the lead vessel as they closed in on their target. The familiar drone of the sky-ship cutting through the air was joined by a higher pitched whining noise as the thirty sabre cannons mounted around The Gentle Death started to charge. Each cannon was attended by a team of two silver claws who were well versed in their use.

First blood on this day, however, was not shed by the silver claws. As they crossed the mountain range surrounding the jackal-head's peak, which got larger with every second, Asgoth heard a noise. It could be heard above the ship and the primed weapons on board and it could be heard above Asgoth's own thoughts concentrated totally on the fortress below. It was the sound of sadness, an elongated note of melancholy which filled the sky around the ships.

Asgoth recognised the sound at the last second, so long had it been since such a noise dared to approach his ears. Using his mind like a megaphone he bellowed out to his fellow silver claws, those on The Gentle Death and those on the other ninety-nine ships of the fleet. 'Sorrow Hawk', was all he shouted, disregarding his own signalmen who were normally responsible for passing commands between the vessels.

No sooner had the words left his mind than he looked up to see furious silver descending from the grey clouds and battle was joined. Doubt vanished from the mind of Captain Asgoth. He was a sword and a silver claw, he was death.

The birds funnelled down from the clouds and spread out over the fleet. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. Some bore a single jackal on their back, focused pilots who clung with one long-fingered paw to the back of the hawk whilst lobbing fireballs down onto the decks of the ships with the other. Other hawks bore multiple jackals who leapt down onto the decks of the ships as they swooped over them. The wise jackals used their dream weaves to throw fire and smoke into the eyes of the silver claws they faced, the more foolish amongst the jackals chose to draw swords against the gun-metal grey ones. Two such fools rushed across the deck of The Gentle Death towards Asgoth.

As they drew thin blades which could not hope to pierce his armour, they cloaked themselves with invisibility. Asgoth imagined that they'd spent years learning such a skill but sadly it had little practical implication in a fight against the paramount warriors of Avalen. In battle instinct was the most valuable weapon possessed by a silver claw. To his left he struck out into the air with claws of silver almost a foot long, at the same time he slashed to his right with his silver-steel sword.

Both weapons struck home and blue blood poured forth from him invisible foes that became all too visible as they fell to the floor clutching at wounds to the midsection. The curses which they spat at Asgoth lingered before dripping harmlessly from his armour as he finished them both off.

He took a moment to study the sky which had become a portrait of battle, a scene painted by the hand of time which saw the sky filled with sorrow hawks screaming through the air with talented jackals on their back.

Being able to admit defeat is not a weakness, it is what one does with that knowledge that matters. A number of the sky-ships were already falling from the heavens, transformed from ships into burning wrecks which would soon scorch the earth with their failure. For every hawk and hound which fell ten more took their place. As he surveyed the battle it became apparent to Asgoth that the Palace of Fenngaard had dramatically underestimated the strength of Eredyss.

He considered his options, attempt to flee? Though the sky-ships could no doubt outrun the hawks they would not escape unscathed and would lose many vessels as they tried to run. Even so, Asgoth knew that he must try to at least send some word to Fenn that the jackals were far more advanced in their plotting than was known.

Asgoth sent a signal to one in every ten ships left to rally on him and proceed onwards down to the Lair. It was a source of great pride to hear his sub-commanders report back their compliance immediately. The rest of the fleet he told to turn back and make with all possible haste to friendly skies to warn the palace. He was just as proud to hear these commanders affirm their obedience with regret in their voices, regret at leaving the battle, regret at leaving their brothers to die.

Only six ships convened on the position of The Gentle Death, sixty turned to go home. Five of those fell in the act of fleeing under the ceaseless rain of fire coming from the hands of the jackals. Forty-five ships destroyed within minutes, when the King leads his armies back here to victory they will need to bring hundreds more sky-ships, mused Asgoth, barely dodging a globe of fire thrown in his direction. His threw his sword in retort, watching with satisfaction as it sunk into the side of a jackal, his death pulling him from his saddle on board a sorrow hawk.

Asgoth turned back to the jackal's head as from all around The Gentle Death he heard the rumble of cannons, purple balls of fire shredding the sky and heading towards the Lair as Asgoth closed in on death.

*

They are running, thought Rostrom, who had not moved from his place on the peak of Arma. Ah, the sacrificial lambs, he thought as he saw the enemy's movements. A large section of the fleet was breaking off and retreating, but a small vanguard continued on towards the Lair, drawing the fire of his brothers as they came. The six sky-ships heading for the Arma Peak had opened fire with their Sabre Cannons. Caution told Rostrom that he should retreat below but pride would not let him, Fenngaard had reached out to snuff the flame of resistance, but their hand was burned and snatched back. The logical part of his mind said that this would prompt an even stronger response from Fenn but even so he could not help but be elated as his watched the flaming silver wrecks fall out of the sky.

The cannons boomed and filled the air with purple fire and an acrid smell. Most of the fire rained down on the jackal's head, they sought to deface the mighty beast even as they flew to death in its jaws. Some foolish gunners tried to fire at the sorrow hawks, but the birds were too fast. They stand more chance of hitting their own, thought the old jackal as he watched their numbers reduced to three, then two, then one last sky-ship.

Several fires burned on its deck and hundreds of fireballs slammed into it as it soared over Rostrom's head. The last vessel crashed down into the hollow that housed the nest of sorrow hawks. Most of the hawks were absent, having flown out into the clouds upon Rostrom's command, but he spared a thought for the eggs still down there, many of which would be crushed by the falling vessel.

All restraints of age and faculty were forgotten as Rostrom raced back up the mountain path to the platform around the crater. He'd walked down to the Lair to sound the alarm and it had only taken minutes for hundreds of jackals to answer his call and swarm up the mountainside to mount sorrow hawks and go on the offensive. Many more were emerging from the Lair in addition to those who now swooped in to land from their steeds.

As Rostrom reached the platform he was joined by Cahir and Jakalen. The ship was destroyed, a mound of burning metal which had carved a crater into a crater. Hundreds of talented jackals were now standing around the edge of the mountain top. They watched the sky-ship burn, its heat like victory in which they bathed and cheered. Then came a sound from the ship and Rostrom saw a figure emerge from the wreck. It was a silver claw, battered, bloody but alive. The figure staggered upwards and Rostrom was not surprised when it flexed its claw and lunged up towards him in a clumsy charge. Several of the jackals tackled him, threw ropes about him, blew misery dust in his face and then struck at him with hammers.

They tried to smash the silver claw on his gauntlet but were unsuccessful; unsurprisingly, the claws were made of sterner stuff. They settled for tying his arms close to his sides, rendering the claw useless.

"Bring him", barked Rostrom, turning and heading down into the Lair.
Chapter Ten: Earthbound

"Can we please dispense with the music", snapped Elstein. Ilich took one last look at the spinning lady before closing the lid of the felt-lined box and letting the silence back in.

"I don't know why you don't like music", grumbled the troll.

"Because we are supposed to be listening out for the enemy, not playing with children's toys", snapped the jackal.

Ilich left the bedroom and stomped angrily about the house. It had been many days since they'd come to Old Earth, many days of waiting, watching and listening. There had been no sign of any foe from Avalen. Sometimes the metal things on wheels raced past with lights flashing on top of them. In the day some children played on the grassy area in the middle of the road.

Aside from that there was little to entertain the two visitors from another world. The dreamer still dreamed, the blue chalk still glowed and Ilich was growing bored. Trolls got bored easily. Back home he would have wrestled other trolls, or hunted some bears or challenged his brother Lom to a rock throwing contest. But none of those simple pleasures were available to him here so he'd explored the house from end to end, and he'd found the music box with the dancing lady which seemed to irritate Elstein so very much.

At first he'd found it strange that he felt no thirst or hunger here. The jackal had tried explaining it to him using long complicated words. When these did not work he just told the troll it was a side-effect of where they came from and what they were. Ilich was no closer to understanding but he grew used to the phenomenon. He did not seem to tire either, which was also odd and only added to the boredom for there were all the more waking hours to be filled.

Sometimes he heard noises from the house next door which was joined on to the one in which they hid. He heard them talking, crying, laughing and doing something which Elstein called 'watching television'. The jackal had told Ilich that he must be extra quiet during these times for his footsteps and the ten tons they carried made an awful creaking din when he stomped up and down. In the hours when the family next door were up and about Ilich was told to stay down stairs and be as still as possible, only adding to the boredom.

After the first few days Ilich had asked Elstein why no one else had come to the home of the dreamer. The jackal told him that this dreamer was alone in the world and that its people were used to not seeing him.

Ilich went down to the room all covered in pink things where he'd found the music box. He sat on the comfortable bed and thought how he might whittle away the night. The sky was clear and the moon low; there was not even rain to entertain him with the pitter-patter song which it played in the windows. Then he head Elstein's voice. "Ilich", was all he said but it was the tone which got the troll's attention. It was not a tone of casual summons or irritation at something Ilich was doing, this was a tone of apprehension and caution.

Ilich placed the music box gently on the side which he'd taken it from and then walked back to the bedroom where the dreamer slept. The talented jackal stood by the window gazing out intently. "Elstein", said the troll. The jackal peered out of the window for a moment or two more before turning his black eyes on the troll.

"I think it may be time for you to serve your purpose", said Elstein.

Ilich nodded and made to leave the room.

"Wait", said the jackal who took out his blue chalk and began to draw more lines around the room. He spoke as he drew: "It may be that I need to get the dreamer out of here, in which case I will move everything within this border", he said, drawing lines all around the walls of the bedroom. "You will need to be within the lines to come with us, otherwise I cannot help you, do you understand?"

"I understand", said Ilich, walking down the hall and making his way down stairs.

*

Mortiune had been stumped when faced with the complexity of the task: To move one hundred silver claws, a dozen fire drakes and a handful of Sentinels undetected through the streets of a densely populated city of mortals. He'd wracked his brains for many hours dismissing all sorts of plans involving invisibility and flying. All these he'd dismissed before finally settling for mist.

Fortunately, the Brazen Gate exited into the mortal world in a place that was not populated. Mortiune had gone through first by himself and in the wooded glade which housed the archway he started to dream weave. He had been struck by one thing straight away, that dream-weaving on this side of the gate was effortless. Back on Avalen he had to concentrate and focus a great deal of his energy on any given weave, but here it was with a flicker of thought that a rolling mass of dense mist started to envelop the hill on which the gateway sat.

By the time the first of the silver claws started to make their way through the gate a high thick cloud of mist was covering the land around the Brazen Gate. All one hundred of the claws came though, followed by his fellow Sentinels and then finally the large fire drakes, which fit through the gate with a squeeze. Each one came with a chain around its neck held by a handler which Mortiune learned was called a drake walker. Though to look at them the drakes bared a resemblance to their distant cousins the dragons, there were marked differences; mainly the absence of wings and the fact that drakes were wild creatures, possessing neither intellect nor the power of speech.

They were found in the hills near the desert city of Sandagga to the south-west. The city was comprised largely of drake walkers who over many generations had learned how to tame the drakes. They were a mercenary people who hired the drakes out to the highest bidder and it was not uncommon to find both sides fighting with fire drakes on their side in conflicts in Avalen. They were ferocious beasts and importantly they did have in common with dragons one ability, that of breathing fire. Not as large or as hot a flame, but nonetheless enough to melt armour and burn flesh from bone. They were a pale blue colour with hunched backs and large dull eyes, walking on all fours with thick stubby tails.

The contingent of silver claws was commanded by a tight-lipped captain who had introduced himself as Krullen. Though he issued a number of orders to the claws on arrival, Captain Krullen seemed to content to allow Mortiune overall control of the party. Prior to coming through the gate Mortiune had given the whole group, including the drake walkers, a thorough briefing about their mission.

They would make their way swiftly through the outskirts of the city to the suburb in which the dreamer's house was. The silver claws and the drakes would subdue the ten-ton-troll whilst Mortiune and his Sentinels dealt with the talented jackal. He told those gathered that it was vital none of them strayed from the mist. Within the cloud Mortiune had control and would be able to deal with any mortals who came upon the scene.

As they'd made their way through the misty streets they saw few mortals, those few which did walk into the mist would find themselves confused and unable to move whilst in it. Once the mist was gone they found they were bereft of any memories of their time within the cloud and would go on their way none the wiser.

Mortiune was more concerned with bigger issues, however. If they were successful in besting the troll and the jackal, Mortiune was not completely certain that he could wake up Anthony Hallow, he was not certain what spell might have been cast on the mortal to keep him asleep and it was possible that without Anthony's dream form being put back on the stone bed from which he'd risen it might not be possible to wake him at all.

They made their way down Hawksdell Road. It had been Mortiune who laid his hand upon the stone circle and Mortiune who had seen into the life and mind of Anthony Hallow, thus was he able to navigate the winding streets of London without difficulty.

The Sentinels with him were a mixed group; he'd brought three elders, Caspar, Riddlin and Montrose. They were seasoned dreams, well-versed and practised and would keep their cool in a high pressure situation. He'd also brought three younger Sentinels, still in training but having shown great promise. They were Klayvius, Mackalel and Dashiel. Though their abilities were still raw and undisciplined they had excelled at a rate which their fellow novices could only envy.

As far as Mortiune was concerned this sojourn to Old Earth may well be the only time such a thing happened, for the King had spoken openly of destroying their gate upon the successful return of his party. Mortiune did not want the experience of visiting Old Earth to be something which died off within a couple of generation of Sentinels, he wanted it to be something that younger dreams could experience in order to pass on long after he and the other elders were gone.

They formed up in front of the house and Captain Krullen walked over to where Mortiune stood with the other Sentinels. "How do you wish to proceed, Sentinel?" he asked, in the echoing tone that all the silver claws seemed to possess. When Mortiune hesitated the silver claw offered some suggestions: "Do we give them a chance to come out peacefully or would you like us to simply storm the residence?"

"Bear with me Captain", said Mortiune, who walked forward and knelt before thirty-seven Hawksdell Road. He placed his hand upon the cold ground and focused his concentration. He needed to be completely certain that they were at the right house. He felt the tarmac and he saw the sunlit day that a group of workmen had laid it; his mind moved on through the ground, across the path which had been trodden many times by many souls, under the garden gate it went and down the path, hearing the lost laughter of the innocents who once ran up and down it.

His consciousness got to the door and heard the turning of many keys, though less often these days, up the well-trod carpets he went and along the landing into the main bedroom. There, lying on the bed, was Anthony Hallow and standing above him was a black jackal whose malicious gaze was focused on him.

Mortiune snapped open his eyes back on the street and was just about to order Captain Krullen to assault the house when there was a horrendous crashing noise. All eyes turned to see that something had broken out through the entrance of the house bringing the doorway and the brick work around along with it. Mortiune watched as the ten-ton-troll stomped down the garden path. As he came he got bigger, much bigger. Eight, feet, ten feet, then twelve, fifteen, twenty feet tall until finally he was as tall as the house from which he'd emerged.

His skin was like living rock, everything about the troll bulged and swelled with power and fury. His face was flat and brutal aside from the two huge horns that emerged from just below its flat nose. When he reached the gate he let out a roar which shattered every window in the street, and probably for several streets in every direction. Mortiune was not alone in pressing his fingers to its ears. For a fleeting moment Mortiune panicked, the physical damage done to the mortal realm was going to be difficult to pass off; even though they could erase the mortals' memories they did not have time to stay and replace that which was broken.

But the panic passed quickly, such things could not be dwelt on now. Mortiune hoped that the mortals would blame the damage on one of the many tremors in the earth which they experienced.

"Come, play with Ilich!" shouted the ten-ton-troll, before running through gate towards the ring of silver claws. There was no need for Captain Krullen to issue any orders. Say what you want about the inability of silver claws to think outside the box, they did not hesitate when it came to battle. Without fear or panic they drew their swords and leapt to meet the troll. In all the lands that are dreamed and real there are not many who would have been able to do so.

The battle was joined and from the outset Mortiune realised why they had to bring so many swords to deal with a single enemy. The silver claws swarmed the troll, they slashed at him with blade and claw but those blades which struck home were snapped or blunted and the claws drew little blood. Silver things flew through the air as Ilich fought back against the initial onslaught. The troll punched and kicked and stamped and the silver claws fell back. They were sent flying though the air, they hit the ground, they hit the sides of houses, they struck the tops of the metal objects with wheels which lined the streets.

Some of them struggled to their feet and ran back into the fight, others lay in mangled heaps and then Mortiune saw one of the bodies dissolve into grey dust which disappeared into the air. It was the first time he'd seen a silver claw perish, dead to dust in a few heartbeats, and he was struck by the finality of it. The fight continued.

Ilich had pulled a tree from one of the neighbouring gardens and was using it to batter the silver claws which ran at him. He struck two or three at a time, sending them hurtling through the air this way and that. Even so a number dodged under the trunk and made it through, throwing themselves on top of the troll and stabbing at him. Then Mortiune saw one of the silver claws run up Ilich's back and grasp hold of his head, slashing down with incredible force. As the claw hit the troll's left tusk all but tore his from his face; the roar of pain which Ilich let out was deafening and several more rows of houses further out than before were now left with no windows.

Ilich grabbed hold of the claw who had robbed him of a tusk and pulled him down until he held him at his feet. Then with a series of sickening crunches, Mortiune saw the troll pound the silver claw into the floor until it was a ruined heap of scrap metal. Ilich then picked up one of the wheeled metal objects and started to use it to flatten silver claws. There seemed to be fewer of the silver guardsmen running at the troll now, the wall of steel which had stood between the troll and the Sentinels had thinned and Mortiune saw the beast advancing towards them.

Young Klayvius moved to Mortiune's side. "Should we intervene, my lord?" he asked earnestly.

"No Klayvius, we reserve our strength for the jackal", was Mortiune's response. He turned to where the drake walkers waited with their charges. "Go", he said to them. Each of the drake walkers drew a small cylinder from their pocket. At the ends of the cylinders were strange pink lights they started to weave in the air, leaving a trail of light behind them like a sparkler. Then the drake walkers threw the cylinders through the air so that they struck Ilich, the luminescent light seemed to stick to the troll whilst the walkers removed the chains from their drakes.

Mortiune was amazed at the difference, the drakes had seemed relatively docile the entire time he'd been with them, but something about the lights had stirred a fire in their eyes and as soon as the chains came off they moved like they were possessed. Their eyes were no longer dull orbs but glowed with bright pink fire. They charged at the troll and in unison they breathed a wall of fire which washed over the mighty beast. Mortiune heard him cry out when the fire hit, less in rage and more in genuine pain now. The drakes leapt onto the troll who was brought down under the weight of the pack.

They rolled around with a cacophony of shouting and snarling. The troll punched at the drakes that bit him and clung on and where they bit they breathed fire from their jaws which added to the troll's pain. But the troll fought back, several of the drakes were flung through the air and he managed to get to his knees and pull a lamppost from the ground. There was a crackle of electricity and a bang as the orange glow from the street light went out.

Then Ilich was on the attack. The drake's breathed fire at him but Ilich lifted one of the metal wheeled objects in one hand and used it as a shield, the flames washing to either side of it harmlessly. He struck back at them with the long metal pole, smashing heads and bodies and bringing yelps of pain from the drakes.

In the distance Mortiune heard sirens and saw flashing lights which heralded the arrival of the many mortals, in the sky he thought he heard a sound as well, similar to the droning of a sky-ship but more rapid.

All along the street lights had come on in many houses, but Mortiune had strengthened his mist to such a thickness that mortal eyes could not pierce it. They could hear the sounds of a battle they could not see and in the aftermath he hoped that the rationality of the mortal minds would provide for them some other explanation of what had happened.

The Sentinel saw the metal post which Ilich was using as a club break to a jagged end. Ilich threw his shield at the drakes, grabbed one of them and drove the sharp metal into it so hard it passed in one side and out of the other. With a gurgling shudder the drake slumped and the light went out from its eyes. Having gained a few moments respite, Ilich staggered back to the garden of number thirty-seven.

Despite the toll of battle the troll did not look fatigued, though he bled from a hundred smaller wounds. The loss of blood would soon make itself felt even for such a hardy foe. He was burned also, much of his skin from head to toe still smoked from where the drake fire had washed over him, but perhaps the worst wound was on his face, blood pumping freely from where the silver claw had taken one of his tusks. Despite the injuries he raised his fists and made ready to fight.

There were still half of the silver claws remaining, they'd taken a respite whilst Ilich tussled with the drakes but now they advanced again, this time with the drakes in tow. Mortiune sensed that the troll could not last much longer but in spite of this he also got the distinct impression that the troll seemed to be enjoying the fight. His satisfaction was delayed, however, because as the silver claws advanced the front of the house exploded and Mortiune looked up to see that the entire front wall of the building fall down into a pile of rubble.

The insides of the house were visible and there, standing on the top level, was the talented jackal. He lifted his arms above his head and Mortiune felt the air stirring. A ferocious wind leapt from nowhere into the thick of battle, pushing aside the mist and knocking a number of the armour-clad soldiers from their feet. Those who stayed standing struggled to do so. Following the wind, Mortiune saw dark clouds swarm in from the empty sky and out of these clouds lightning forked, striking several of the silver claws.

Mortiune turned and spoke to his Sentinels, "Montrose, Caspar, maintain the mist, we cannot allow the mortals to see what is happening. Riddlin, the mortal authorities are close, stay vigilant and deal with any who try and make it on scene." The three elders nodded. Montrose and Caspar started to weave their hands in the air and as soon as they started Mortiune saw the mist start to thicken. Riddlin set off down the street in the direction that the sirens were approaching from.

Mortiune turned to the three novices. "Follow me in. Remember, the dream weaves seem particularly strong here, that counts for him and us. We do not know how strong he might have become but take comfort in the fact that we are equally strengthened, advance with me and be prepared for anything", he shouted over the noise that the impromptu storm was making.

He walked towards the house with Klayvius to his left and Dashiel and Mackalel to his right. Mortiune raised his hand and started to whisper his dream weave as he walked and the lightning streaming out of the sky at the silver claws was suddenly rendered ineffective, now striking an invisible barrier against which it raged as it sought to strike its foe.

Mortiune clenched his fist and raised it in front of him, the whole time whispering the words of the dream weaves as they had been taught to him. Truth, mercy and regret, the three central tenets of dream power, thus was he protected, thus would he strike out with compassion and meet his regrets only when he finally reached his tomb. From the outstretched fist a bolt of white light fired, it was intended to stun, to knock the jackal from his feet and put him to sleep.

The bolt got close but then slowed in the air in front of the jackal who caught it in his hand and snuffed it out before smiling. The silver claws and drakes had rushed in at the troll, now the battle was joined with Mortiune and his group focusing completely on the jackal above them. Mortiune fired another bolt, larger and stronger; this one the jackal deflected before striking back. It seemed all of a sudden to Mortiune that he was drowning, that he could not breathe and was being crushed beneath a wall of water. The old Sentinel closed his eyes, forced back the panic and countered the telepathic assault. The water was gone and he could breathe again. "With me", Mortiune shouted to his novices.

All four raised their fists and weaved the dream, four large balls of white light span through the air at the jackal, one he deflected but the others struck him in the chest sending him flying back into the bedroom and out of sight.

The fight with the troll was ongoing. The entire front garden was splattered with blood, much of it from the troll but plenty from the fire drakes, of which only three were alive. Ilich looked to be fighting for his life as Mortiune and the other three Sentinels climbed over the rubble into the front room of the house.

They ran up the stairs and as they went the whole house seemed to be swaying from the damage done to it during the fight. When he burst into the bedroom Mortiune almost lost his head from the blade which span towards him, but he ducked just in time and heard, "Oof", from behind him. Mortiune turned to see young Dashiel with a dagger sticking out of his chest. On the part of the blade which could still be seen blue writing was glowing upon it.

Mortiune turned and brought up a shield of hard air in front of him as several small red fireballs flew across the room from where the jackal crouched on the other side of the bed. The fire hit the hard air and fizzled out with a bang. Then a fork of light leapt though the air at Mortiune who let the shield drop so that he could grab it on one end. He whispered the dream weave and started to send his own will back along the beam of fire.

As Mackalel and Klayvius came into the room they reached out their own hands and beams of light erupted from them, lancing across at the jackal. He caught them both in the same palm as the one through which he and Mortiune fought. Slowly the three advanced into the room, their three beams focused across the bed at the jackal who held them off with every ounce of will he had left.

Mortiune glanced down to see the still form of Anthony Hallow lying on the bed, pale but breathing deeply as he slept, oblivious to the battle raging around him. Mortiune looked up at the jackal, despite the black fur the Sentinel could see that his enemy was sweating profusely, soon his strength would expire and the fiery light being focused on him by the three Sentinels would strike him down.

Then the jackal shouted, "Ilich!" the strain of the battle evident in his voice.

Mortiune heard several heavy footsteps, then two large hands reached up and grabbed hold of the edge of the floor at the open front of the house. The troll pulled himself into the bedroom, shrinking in size as he did so. Drake fire followed him up, sweeping into the room. The Sentinel met the dark eyes of the jackal and he saw not fear but triumph in the black calculating orbs. The jackal gave an almighty push which sent the three sentinels flying backwards through the wall of the bedroom; then there was a blinding flash of blue light followed by silence, glorious and profound silence punctuated by only one small noise. Mortiune looked up groggily, he was in a room all adorned with pink; on the side there was a box with a small dancing figure in it and as she danced music played, soft, light and calm.

Mortiune looked to either side of him where Klayvius and Mackalel lay, both had blood streaming from their ears and nostrils. The bedroom where Anthony Hallow had lain was gone entirely and the house now groaned in what Mortiune suspected were its death throes. He got up and struggled forward.

"Sentinel?" said a voice from below. Mortiune looked down to see a battered but alive Captain Krullen standing in the demolished front room of the house. "Were we successful?" he called up.

"We were not", responded Mortiune, with the dust clogging his throat.

The silver claw nodded. "What are you orders?" he called. He did not sound disappointed or angry. Only twenty of his silver claws remained alive and only two of the drakes, in addition to these losses they'd also lost their primary target who could quite literally be anywhere on Old Earth, and yet the Captain accepted this knowledge, broke it down and digested it in his pragmatic mind and was ready to move on swiftly to the next part of their mission.

"We must get back to the gate and inform the King." Mortiune dragged the still forms of Klayvius and Mackalel to edge of the room and dropped them off, where they were caught by silver claws who put them over their shoulders and started to make their way down the street. The top part of the house was wrecked and Mortiune was forced to lower himself down the same way to get free. And not a moment too soon, he had no sooner climbed over the rubble and started to stagger across the garden when with one last crash the whole house came down behind him.

The drake walkers had already put fire to the bodies of the dead drakes, which shrivelled and burned away like wax. The remains of the silver claws who had fallen were already gone. Mortiune met up with Caspar and Montrose and behind the silver claws they made their way out of the bloodied ruin that was Hawksdell Road. On the way Riddlin joined them silently. As they walked the mist walked with them, Mortiune saw many of the wheeled metal boxes with flashing lights about them. There were mortals in and around them, some of which held black metal weapons in their hands. But none of them moved, none of them looked upon the strange party which walked past them, Riddlin and the mist had worked well.

Out of the city they went. Dawn was creeping over the horizon when they got back to the hill outside London. They climbed it and started to walk back through the Brazen Gate. One by one, Mortiune watched them pass beneath the archway. As they filed through he looked back over the land, the vivid feeling of being alive had infused him the moment he'd walked onto Old Earth. Somewhere out there was the mortal who had dreamed the memory of Mortiune, or the fellow mortal that Mortiune once was, but he would never meet or know them for this was not his world. He was but a dream.

It was only as Mortiune went to walk beneath the arch himself that he remembered something which he should not have forgotten. He cursed himself and looked over the brightening land. Back along the route, down Hawksdell Road and lying beneath the rubble of number thirty-seven was the body of his dead apprentice, Sentinel Dashiel, with a mercy dagger lodged in his chest.

Dashiel was not a silver claw, he would not turn to dust and fade away. Nor had he been put to the flame like the dead drakes to leave only a small pile of blue ash which would be explained away as some sort of chemical leak of unknown origin by the rational minds of the waking dreamers. They would pull him from the rubble, study him and attempt to identify him, but they would not succeed for the same reason that Mortiune would never find the mortal who he once was; this was not Dashiel's world and he was but a dream.

For a brief second Mortiune considered going back to retrieve the body, but he could not, they had tarried too long, failed too deeply and caused too much destruction. Dashiel would remain a mystery to the mortals, one of many which they would soon forget. Mortiune was not yet in his tomb, but nonetheless his regrets weighed heavily upon him as he passed through the Brazen Gate back to the great dream of Avalen.
Chapter Eleven: A Brave Captain

Pain is a distant sensation to the silver claws; it is a warning, a sensory experience to highlight injury and threat. It is something of which they are aware, but it does not hinder them in any way, it enhances them. So when Captain Asgoth awoke he felt pain, his body was telling him he was hurt. In truth, he had a hundred hurts and when The Gentle Death had collapsed around him he'd expected his own swift demise. But it had not occurred, he'd found his feet, he'd found his will and he'd staggered from the wreck. Find the Lair, bring down the mountain, eliminate the threat. Asgoth had recited his mission over and over in his head as he'd staggered through broken hawk eggs and broken rocks towards the enemy.

Asgoth had murmured his mission even while he was unconscious and now he was awake it was at the forefront of his mind, along with the pain. Despite his grogginess it did not take long to identify its cause. When he lifted his left arm and noticed that half of it was missing, then he knew where his pain originated. A silver claw without the claw. They'd taken from the elbow joint to the tips of his razor sharp fingers. It was a clean cut and there was no blood to be had, just an emptiness, a hollow socket of darkness.

There was no way of telling how long he'd been out, a few seconds, minutes or days he had no idea. Long enough to carry him down into this dark hole. The cell was made from natural rock which had been hollowed out and fitted with a thick iron door. There were no windows and what air the room held was still and silent, outside his cell the world might have ceased to be for all that Asgoth could see or hear of it.

Despite a few impressive dents it was obvious that the door was not going to give way under brute force. He'd half lifted his left arm to slash the door to pieces with his claw before he'd glanced at the stump, remembered and felt the pain come back.

There was a small opening along the back wall of the cell which formed what could have been a bed for a smaller being but was barely adequate as a bench for the Captain. He sat upon it and wondered how long it might be before the dogs returned to finish the job. He was not waiting long.

The sound of a wheel turning heralded their arrival. After a few moments of metal screeching on metal the door swung open silently. There stood a stooped jackal, its fur mostly turned to grey with the odd patch of original black. The darkness of his eyes had not faded with age, their pitch was as black as the moonless night and colder than the crypt. He seemed to be alone and Asgoth was not one for missing opportunities, he ran towards the tiny jackal with his one gauntlet clenched into a fist.

He got to within a few feet of the dog when it raised its hand and Asgoth felt himself thrown backwards through the air to slam into the cave wall. More pain now. The dog walked into the room not at all intimidated by the silver claw without a claw.

"We had to take the arm I'm afraid", it said, "the claw would not come off of its own accord and we could not allow you to retain it", its voice a gravelly whisper.

"Who are you?" asked Asgoth, getting slowly to his feet and feeling very aware of the dents in the armour on his back.

"I am Rostrom."

"You are the leader here?" asked Asgoth, readying himself for another charge. The dog was almost close enough to reach out and grab.

Rostrom smiled at his question, revealing long aged fangs. "Yes, there is no King Corul here, just Rostrom, just the talented jackals. Please don't try again, some of my colleagues suggested taking your other limbs to render you unable to threaten them. My caution stayed their blades, please don't make me admit my mistake and allow them to come in here."

The silver claws are not trained to accept defeat, the concept of backing down is not something with which they are familiar, however Asgoth decided to refrain from attacking again. Without his claw he could still stand a chance of getting free in order to launch a more efficient and deadly strike at the enemy, with no arms or legs he was scrap metal and would rot and rust at the bottom of a hole for the rest of his days.

"What do you want with me?" Captain Asgoth asked.

"Nothing and everything", replied the jackal, studying him intently, "do you feel happiness? Remorse? Do you feel at all?" Asgoth did not respond. "Some within our pack were surprised that you did not shed dream-blood when we took the arm, they had even prepared bandages and swabs. I was not surprised. I am older than most, I have met plenty of silver claws to know that beneath the armour and the claw there is little else, no flesh, no bone. But there must be a mind, a consciousness, so I am curious, do you feel anything I wonder?"

"Your questions are meaningless to me. I feel loyalty to the King and the Geddon family, beyond this there is nothing, nor does there need to be."

"Why?" asked Rostrom.

"Why what?" responded Asgoth. The Captain was well aware of the trickery and the deceitful ways of the jackals, their mindset was an alien concept to the silver claws, to most dreams.

"Why do you feel loyalty to the King?" asked Rostrom, his voice barely a whisper.

"We have been guardians of the King since the elder days, since Fenn pushed back the Dream Sea, since he gave life to the dreams and helped make all of us what we are."

"I could ask my question again", said Rostrom.

"And you would receive the same answer."

"But you have not answered, you have told me why you are loyal to Fenn Geddon, long-dead Fenn. You have not told me why you are so fiercely loyal to a lesser dream, a mere descendant of no consequence who rules only through fear of the weapon, forged by his greatest grandsire, the Hammer of Fenn."

"King Corul is much loved by the dreams over whom he holds power", said Asgoth.

The jackal laughed openly in genuine amusement. "King Corul has not even the slightest inkling of the feelings of the dreams of Avalen. He has not left the Palace of Fenngaard in years. Under his rule there is stagnation, he has failed to continue to grow the dream of the first Fenn and he has extinguished the line of the first son of Fenn, the true heirs to the dream who knew what was required to carry forward his father's early vision."

This time Asgoth laughed, an empty harsh sound. "You speak of Arma, the mad dream, the consort of nightmares."

"The history books call them nightmares to placate the masses. They were not nightmares which came forth from the Dream Sea to aid him, they were true dreams, brave and noble, destroyed because they dared to suggest a free dream was better than one whose existence was dictated by the occupant of the Nested Throne."

"Save your breath", said Asgoth, whose patience to debate good and evil with a dog was at an end, "this argument serves neither of us. You were wrong at the start when you chose to back the usurper and you are wrong now in defending his name, kill me and have done with it."

"Kill you?" said Rostrom with a twitch of his snout, "we did not go to the trouble of so neatly removing your arm in order to simply kill you."

"Then what is our purpose here?" said Asgoth.

"If I have your word that you will not use violence or try to escape then you may accompany me from this cell into the Lair and I will show you."

Asgoth did not trust the jackal one ounce. Though he had a limited emotional spectrum the silver claw could feel a steady anger streaming through him at the loss of his claw. The anger, like the claw, was a background sensation, a stream of information more than a chemical reaction that would cause only loss of control or discipline, but it was there and Asgoth would be patient until he found an opportunity to use it.

"You have my word", said the captain to the jackal.

"Very good", said Rostrom, turning and leaving the cell. Asgoth followed him, stooping to get through the door. The Lair was in stark contrast to the Palaces of the first pillar. Where Fenngaard was smooth seamless architecture which could give the impression of having been carved out of one gigantic piece of rock, the Lair was jagged, twisting and seemingly random in its layout. Fenngaard was wide open spaces and light, the Lair was small, twisting and dark.

They walked for some time, first up but then back down. Here and there Captain Asgoth could see groups of jackals engaged in the day-to-day activities of the Lair. All stopped as he moved passed them, staring at him with those cunning eyes full of hate and deceit. The Lair was labyrinthine and went on for miles, just on this route Asgoth saw thousands of jackals. Their underestimation of the strength of the enemy was significant indeed; they'd been breeding an army down here for years, not even an army, a nation it seemed.

Finally they reached a large chamber which felt like it was deep under the mountain. In it was a round stone table, the table was hollow in the middle and within it was a model of Avalen carved in black rock. The model was twenty feet across and showed the dream-lands in remarkable detail. The Dreamstone Wall was built so that it merged into the edge of the table, the battlements of the Octaris guarding the edge.

A number of other jackals were seated on high-backed stone chairs around the circle. No fire burned here and the breath from the jackals gathered in clouds before floating up to be lost in the dark heights of the chamber. Those present all wore heavy hoods, all Asgoth could see were the snouts.

"Be seated, Captain", said Rostrom.

Captain Asgoth looked suspiciously around the room, though there seemed no overt threat he was uneasy. This Rostrom was being altogether too accommodating. Captain Asgoth sat down on an empty stone chair that was barely wide enough for him to balance on. Rostrom sat opposite.

"Why am I here?" demanded the silver claw.

"As I stated before good Captain, flesh and bone you do not have, but there is a mind in there and it is the mind we are interested in." Even as Rostrom said the words Asgoth felt an odd sensation. Like an out-of-body experience, the closest thing he could liken it to was his birth, the day when he woke up in his armour and growing accustomed wearing it. His good hand reached up onto the stone table and rested on it, the fingertips touching a strip of metal which went in a circle all around the table. He was vaguely aware of the jackals in the room putting their hands on the table to touch the same length of metal.

Asgoth felt drowsy, heavy and slow, as if time were quicksand. He tried to remove his hand from the table, but it was not his hand any more. There was panic now, panic in addition to the pain and the anger. Again it registered and again it had no outward effect; just another sensation to be compartmentalised, dealt with at a later date. His vision blurred and his mind wondered and waned in its independence until Asgoth was not certain who Asgoth was any more...

*

Kalwyn dropped Prince Karmalaine gently down on the opposite bank of the Falkern before flying back for Vulthian. Though the ice looked solid enough to walk on there did not seem to be any point in taking chances. They were gaining on their prey, Cyra said that the strength of the dreamer's scent got stronger with every league, with each passing hour they closed the gap.

They'd followed the tracks out of the forest and up onto the mountain. It had taken some deduction to figure out what happened on the mountainside. When the dreamer had entered the cavern he was alone but when he left it he'd gained a companion. Cyra told the Prince that the new trail smelt just like the snow and ice. The footprints were indistinct and they would have to wait until they caught up with their quarry for identification. The wolves had been easier to spot, their tracks were everywhere and they'd even found a decomposing corpse of one which looked as if it had given chase to the dreamer. The cause of death was unknown. Karmalaine assumed that whoever was with the dreamer must have defended him from the wolves.

They were wolves of the three-headed variety, with a savage intelligence. Though they could be spotted at regular intervals on hill tops in the distance and a long way off in the trees they came no closer. It would be a very brave, very dead wolf who attacked a party like theirs, three heads or one.

They found the trail easily enough once the river was crossed. Balg-Miur stepped over it with easy and Karmalaine called a meeting.

"The trail goes north?" he asked the dragon. Karmalaine could barely see Cyra for the steam, flying through the cold air he had a cloud of it about him and when he landed and sat in the snow as he now did the cloud thickened to engulf the silver beast.

"It does My Prince, straight and true."

"So we can assume they are definitely heading for Eredyss?" asked the Prince, opening the question to the group.

"There is nothing else north of here before the wall, they must be heading to the Lair", stated Vulthian.

Kalwyn interjected with his musical voice, "It seems odd though. We know that the dreamer does not travel with a jackal for we would certain know the dream-scent of one such as they. How is it then that he knows where Eredyss is, and why would he head there of his own volition?"

"Evidently whoever is travelling with the dreamer is in league with the jackals", responded Vulthian.

Kalwyn responded, "Is it not odd that the jackals would place the safety of an individual so pivotal to their plans in the hands of one who was not of their own?"

Vulthian was used to having the run of the Palace of Fenngaard. There, aside from the royal family and fellow members of the Silent Council, his authority was total. The Prince knew that the Lord Captain was not used to being questioned or having to debate a course of action once decided on.

However, it was Golgoleth who responded first and headed off any arguments, "Dreamer with jackal, dreamer with stranger, dreamer heading to Eredyss, dreamer heading to anywhere. It does not matter. We will have caught up with them within a day and then the dreamer will be heading to wherever we want him to head."

"Back to the Mercurial Chambers", stated Prince Karmalaine.

"Of course", said the demon, with a vicious grin showing several rows of fangs. During the course of their travels Prince Karmalaine had become used to the nuances of his companions, except for Golgoleth.

Kalwyn was friendly, if a little mysterious. His habit of turning into a globe of light during the night was at first unsettling but the Prince got used to it after a while. The angel was all that Karmalaine thought a dream of the divine would be: Polite, well-spoken, noble, helpful and inspiring in his apparent lack of ire and malice.

The dragons were thought of as a haughty race, often conducting themselves with barely disguised disdain for lesser dreams over which they saw themselves as something akin to gods. There were times when Karmalaine got this impression from Cyra, never towards the Prince but often when speaking about other species of dream in Avalen. Karmalaine got the distinct impression that the dragon regarded them as little more than vermin. Even so, Cyra was respectful towards the Prince and had revealed a number of aspects of the dragon-kind that Karmalaine had not known before.

Dragon dreams of the kind which dwelt on Avalen had come about as the result of actual mortal dragons on a world known as Old Fiurdein. Each dragon in Avalen was the dream of a still living dragon on Mir. Real dragons had an entirely unique relationship with their dreams which is why you will never see the body of a dragon lying in the Mercurial Chambers, the dragon had told the Prince.

Prince Karmalaine was intrigued to hear this; Cyra could actually recount the memories of his waking dragon and vice-versa. When the Prince asked whether or not this got confusing the dragon replied that such confusion would only afflict inferior minds.

Karmalaine had known Vulthian his whole life, he would not say that they were close on any level but he understood the Lord Captains motivations and though he was suspicious of his sometimes cruel manner he was tolerable.

In spite of his physically terrifying size Prince Karmalaine had begun to see signs of a sense of humour in the giant Balg-Miur too. Though the least likely of the company in which to see this, the attributes were nonetheless there. The other day when breaking camp the Prince had looked up and spotted a number of feathers about the face of the giant. When he asked him where they came from Balg-Miur told him that an owl had flown into him during the night and that he'd eaten him.

Prince Karmalaine was surprised, "I thought owls were night creatures, how did it come to fly into you?' he'd asked, suspecting that the owl had been the victim of the giant's hunting.

But Balg-Miur had stared down at the Prince with eyes the size of boulders for a moment or two before responding, "Perhaps it thought I was a tree, little Prince?" The giant had then stomped off leaving the Prince to ascertain whether or not he was being facetious. Balg-Miur was quick to anger, slow to forgive, uncouth and at times downright barbarous, but at least he had a sense of humour.

But the demon, the demon Prince Karmalaine just could not abide. The fading of its red glow had continued so that it barely glowed at all now, and even looked quite pale. But it had lost none of its savagery. When it spoke, it did so with hate in its voice, even when it spoke of something mundane, some benign aspect of the scouting which he and Kalwyn did from the air, he could not help but do so with scorn and rage. It had taken a while of travelling with such a beast before the Prince had been able to put his finger on what was so disconcerting about Golgoleth.

The arrogant dragon, the brutal giant, the glowering silver claw, they all had redeeming features. There was something more to each of them than the obvious, an incredible history, a sense of humour, steadfast loyalty. But with Golgoleth, there was only what you saw, an angry demon writhing within its own skin, at war with the light. In the others Karmalaine sensed a future in which they could change, he sensed dynamic beings with a broad scope for construction and the preservation of Avalen. With Golgoleth there was only death and wrath, and that is all the ever would be.

The Prince had once quizzed his father on Bloodren and the presence of demons in Avalen. There was no dream more out of place than the dream of evil which they were, surely? It was balance, his father had explained to him. The first Fenn had experimented for a long time in creating a stable environment for dreams back in the early days. Initially he had excluded the demons, but he'd found that the world was not balanced and the Dream Sea could not be held back for any significant amount of time.

But with the demons, when they were within the Dreamstone Wall, there was a harmony to the governing dynamics which was not present in their absence. So the first Fenn had relented, and thus had significant portions of his time, and the time of those who'd ruled following his demise, been spent trying to control the demons which they had to accept as neighbours.

King Corul had told the Prince that fear and power were all the demons understood. They knew that they could not stand against the power of the Hammer of Fenn and fear of their destruction beneath it was what caused them to restrain their urge for war and destruction.

They continued on through the forest, the thought that within a day they would be heading back towards Fenn comforted the Prince, not for the want of the hustling noise of the city, no, but because of his family whose company was dearly missed.

It came upon them as almost a surprise, the forest suddenly ended. To the east and west it continued to circle around but before them was a large empty basin, a snowy field that went on for many leagues ahead. And there, far off in the distance, the Prince could see the mountains of Eredyss.

The tracks led straight down the long but gentle sloping hill into the basin. The Prince made to follow them down when he was stopped by Balg-Miur's voice. "A city there", he said pointing.

As he looked, the Prince saw that the giant was correct. He had not spotted it before, so well camouflaged it was with the snow, but certainly there was a large dwelling before them. In the middle of the valley, surrounded by snow, there was a township. The town itself seemed to merge with the snow, those parts of it which Karmalaine could make out were the parts made from blocks of ice. Only the different shades of ice and snow here and there made it possible to distinguish at all. At this range it was impossible to see any one moving within the city.

The airborne contingent of the group flew down and joined them at the top of the valley. "Snowdell", sang out Kalwyn.

"Snowdell?" asked Prince Karmalaine.

"The city of the snow-dwellers, long lost, long forgotten."

"I would think so, I have never heard of such a place, nor is it on the maps. What manner of folk live there?" asked the Prince.

"The manner of snow", replied Vulthian, "I remember a little of these people. They lived in the elder days, before the Elementis Forge was active. When the eternal sun started to shine in Avalen their habitats disappeared. They protested to the palace, but were turned away and little was heard of them after that."

"Why were they turned away?" asked Karmalaine, looking back down at the far-off city.

"You will know of the imprecise nature of the controls of the Elementis Forge. Snow for some would be snow for all, the Magister would not darken the skies of the whole world in order to provide a home for a few Snowmen", replied Vulthian with almost a sneer.

"A shame", said the Prince. "So we may have found out the identity of our mystery traveller", the Prince mused. Karmalaine was pleased that the dreamer seemed to have departed company from the talented jackals. Whether by design or fault, it went in their favour for the dreamer to be away from the enemy.

"Let us press on and find the dreamer, with a hope he has not yet made it to the city. Given their history these snow-folk are unlikely to feel particularly friendly towards a party from the Palace of Fenngaard", said the Prince.

"They are a weak people, My Prince, their opposition would prove fruitless before our might", said Vulthian.

"Even so", responded the Prince, "I would sooner retrieve the dreamer without incident."

Karmalaine had just started to walk down the hill when Vulthian spoke again, though it did not seem as if he was addressing any one in their group. "My brother", he said, and when Karmalaine turned he saw Vulthian was holding his claw against the side of his head in the fashion of a silver claw engaged in telepathic communication.

The Lord Captain did not seem to be aware he was speaking out loud.

"You are certain? Well done Captain, keep me informed of your progress. Currently south of Eredyss, moving to intercept the dreamer before he reaches a dwelling called Snowdell. Good work."

When Vulthian had finished speaking he looked up to see the others staring at him. "Who was that?" asked Karmalaine.

"You heard?" asked Vulthian, sounding uncertain.

"Yes, it was a telepathic link?" continued the Prince.

"It was, My Prince", responded Vulthian his usual disdainful tone gone, "that was Captain Asgoth of The Gentle Death. He says that the Lair is crumbling and that they are bombarding the mountain. He states that resistance is minimal and the task is in hand."

"How was it that we heard you?" said the Prince curiously. It was the first time that such a thing had occurred in his presence and what was more intriguing was that the Lord Captain seemed to have been unaware that the other members of the group could hear him.

"Perhaps..." Vulthian did not sound sure, "it has been the case that when a link is weak, at very great distances sometimes the silver claws voice their telepathic communications out loud, it is an involuntary response which works to strengthen the link." he surmised, though in Prince Karmalaine's opinion it sounded almost as if the Lord Captain had made it up on the spot. Still, the Prince did not press him on the matter. He was pleased that Captain Asgoth and the fleet had been successful in their mission. Provided that they could secure the dreamer the conflict could be kept small in scale and brought to a positive conclusion.

"Very good then", said the Prince, "let us press on and fulfil our part of the mission." They'd only got about halfway down the hill when they stopped again, this time interrupted by a sound coming from the sky above them. Karmalaine recognised it instantly. "That sounds like a sky-ship", he said.

"Multiple sky-ships", said Vulthian in a whisper.

"There", rumbled Balg-Miur pointing. Then they saw them, far off in the distance, heading south-east across the top of the basin. Prince Karmalaine counted about fifty, less than half the number that had originally set out from Fenn, and of the ones he could see many of them were emitting significant amounts of smoke from fires on deck.

"Try and raise Asgoth again", said the Prince, turning to Vulthian.

The silver claw lifted his gauntlet, but after a few moments he shook his head. "He is gone."

"How can he be gone when you only just spoke with him?" asked Kalwyn.

"Can you get to any of the silver claws with those ships?" asked Karmalaine.

Again Vulthian lifted his claw, he took longer to respond this time. He sighed before speaking: "I have just communicated with Captain Dagcla on The Weeping Scream; the attack on the Lair was repulsed by the talented jackals. Captain Asgoth ordered most of them to retreat before distracting the enemy with a small number of vessels in a full assault. The Captain says the last he saw The Gentle Death was going down in flames."

"Then who have you just given our location away to?" growled Golgoleth.

"I do not know, he sounded, he sounded just like captain Asgoth. Even his mind was familiar, his memories", responded Vulthian.

"We do not have time to discuss who it may or may not have been, we need to retrieve the dreamer now", flamed Cyra the Silver, before lifting into the air sending a cloak of snow spraying in every direction. Kalwyn and Golgoleth followed suit. Prince Karmalaine and Vulthian began springing down the hill followed by the pounding footsteps of Balg-Miur.
Chapter Twelve: Sophisticated Snowmen

Anthony awoke in comfort, suitably amazed by the warm-ice he had slept in. When he'd first walked through the icy walls of Snowdell he imagined he was going to spend some uncomfortable time here with a people who did not even seem to exist unless it was below freezing. But George told him that in times past Snowdell had received guests from other lands, warm-blooded dreams who could not abide their snowy halls, so the thinkers within Snowdell had come up with warm-ice. It started cold but adjusted to the temperature of whoever touched it without defrosting.

Were a Snowman to lie upon a bed of warm-ice then it would staying frozen cold and he would be none the wiser as he slept. However, when a warm-blooded creature lay on the same bed it would change. It would turn a deeper blue and start to emit heat, not too much but enough to make the sleeper comfortable. In addition the texture of the surface would soften.

It had felt very odd when Anthony first lay upon it. He felt like he was lying in a warm puddle and expected to be soaked to the bone, but the ice did not melt and instead felt like a soft gel.

Anthony stood, covered himself with the white bear-skin rug that he'd been given and walked to the balcony. Snowdell was not a huge city, in fact he estimated that it probably held no more than between twenty or thirty thousand snowmen. Back home it would have been a mere town, but what it lacked in size and populace it more than made up for in majesty.

Considering the Snowmen only had at their disposal snow, ice and the occasional white rock, what they achieved was miraculous. The skill which George had showed back at the cave when they first met was the same ability which the people of Snowdell had used to make their home. Modest towers with interlinking bridges which criss-crossed the air were the defining structural feature. The random haphazard manner in which they were placed did nothing to detract from their beauty.

They'd only been in Snowdell for a few days and during that time George's people had made Anthony most welcome. There were no gates in the wall of ice surrounding Snowdell, but when George placed his hand upon it two portals had appeared to allow them through, promptly closing afterwards.

Curious and mostly smiling faces had greeted them as they walked through the streets. Most of Snowdell's dwellings were towers and as such most of its business seemed to be conducted on raised bridges which acted like streets between them. They'd soon found themselves walking up onto one of these bridges where Anthony could make out most of the place which George called home. There were hundreds of snow-towers and therefore thousands of icy bridges. Their winding paths made Spaghetti Junction look like a mini-roundabout on a housing estate.

Anthony was not sure what he was blown away by more, the fact that this was possible at all or the fact that George told him that this place had only been built a few weeks ago when the snow started.

The Snowmen did not have names, nor did they have personal abodes. Snowdell was always changing, new towers rose and old towers fell, new sculptures took shape and the snow-dwellers, artists all, tended to lay their caps wherever they found themselves in the town. There were no children that Anthony could see, prompting all sorts of images in his head of how the Snowmen came to be and how they reproduced, none of which he had chosen to discuss with his hosts.

George had introduced him to many Snowmen, but none of them personally due to their lack of names. Still, they were friendly enough, the Snowwomen and the Snowmen, cold handshakes and cold kisses to the cheek. It was only on his second day in Snowdell that Anthony was introduced to three Snowmen who did seem to have some form of individuality and authority over their people. George had taken him to a tower in the middle of town. George said that during their long period of hibernation the Snowmen had lived in a cave deep beneath the ground, far from the warm eyes of the light of Avalen. The tower to which they went was built directly above the cave where the people of snow had stayed compressed and asleep for centuries.

Anthony had been given a pair of boots with spikes in when he first entered Snowdell for which he had been thankful as he climbed the one hundred steps of the ice tower. There was one large chamber at the top, in which there were three thrones. The seats of the thrones had been fashioned into the shape of a lotus flower and on these lotus flowers sat three old looking snowmen.

They were pitted and cracked, with long icicle beards. George had explained that during the sleep these three alone had kept their form, within the snowball that was their people. They did this in order to maintain a vigil, to be able to wake their people should the cold ever come back to Avalen.

The three old snowmen nodded to Anthony when he entered the hall, the one to the left was introduced as Dawn-Frost, he one in the centre was called Day-Frost and the Snowman on the right was called Night-Frost.

"Greetings, Anthony", said Dawn-Frost. When he spoke his breath formed a cloud which froze and formed tiny ice particles which fell to the floor with a tinkling noise.

"Anthony is a dreamer, revered ones, a mortal from Old Earth", said George, though his voice held its usual soft tone his customary jovial note was gone. Anthony got the impression that the three Frosts were something akin to holy men for the Snowmen.

Day-Frost raised his eyebrows at that statement, the ice in them making a crackling noise as he did so. "And how did you come to be here mortal-man?" he asked, his voice like hissing steam.

"I was brought here by a talented jackal named Kannis. He gave me a dagger, a cup, some firestones and little else. He told me he would return for me in the forest beneath the Mercurial Chambers, but he did not. I walked up and over the mountains, I bumped into George in a cave, he saved me from wolves and we journeyed here."

"We had hoped that your wisdom might shed some light on Anthony's predicament, he is not of our world and longs only to return to the land of the dreamers", said George. The three Frosts mulled over that for a while.

"There is war in the air", rasped Night-Frost, "the King's ships sail the sky, battle is not far off and I suspect the cause stands here before us."

"The prophecy of blood", said Day-Frost.

"The prophecy of blood", said Dawn-Frost.

Night-Frost nodded before repeating the statement, "The prophecy of blood, aye. Are you a father Anthony?" This was a line of questioning which Anthony had not expected and did not feel comfortable with. It was George who spoke in answer.

"Anthony does not like to discuss such things, they cause him pain."

"It's okay, George", said Anthony, raising a placating hand. "Yes, I was a father, to children who are lost", he continued, addressing the three Frosts.

"The Sad Father", said Day-Frost, eliciting a nod from the other two.

"They mean to use you Anthony Hallow, they believe you to be a pivotal instrument from an old prophecy, written in blood, verified by a King on his deathbed."

"What does this prophecy say?" asked Anthony, both intrigued and confused, "how could a prophecy written by a dream have any relevance to a mortal?"

"It says much in few words, mayhap some of it will hold meaning for you, and mayhap none of it will. Take your leave and we will see what can be done", said Night-Frost.

So Anthony had left them and heard no word since. But he'd had plenty to do to occupy his mind. He had been watching the Snowmen go about their daily lives which consisted mainly of constructing wonderfully realistic ice sculptures, some of which even came to life. In addition he'd had the pleasure of joining in a large snowball fight and though he was hopelessly outgunned he'd smiled even whilst he was pelted relentlessly until he fell to the floor.

The dream of the tomb had not haunted him for many nights. Though his woe was still there it lived now at the back of his mind, not banished but at least on a temporary sojourn.

Today several of the Snowmen had told him that they were going to try and create a life-sized moving ice-dragon. This was something Anthony wanted very much to see so after having got dressed and having drunk some of the plentiful supply of ice water he went to leave. The apartment he was in, of a type designed for hosting outsiders, had a sliding ice door unlike normal Snowman doors, which were solid and simply opened and closed for the people of the snow.

When he slid back the door he saw George standing there.

"Good morning Anthony", he said.

"George, you could have knocked", Anthony replied, bemused to find the Snowman waiting outside the door.

"I am unfamiliar with the rest patterns of mortals, I did not wish to disturb you until you were ready to be disturbed."

"At which point it isn't really a disturbance?" commented Anthony.

"Quite", said the Snowman. In his hands he held a cube of ice, about a foot along each side.

"What's that?" asked Anthony as George brought it into the room.

"This is likely why the jackals brought you here", said George. He walked to the middle of the empty room, knelt down and put his hand on the floor. Within moments a hump appeared in the floor, a hump which grew into a lump and got higher until it reached waist height, whereupon it evened and straightened out until it had formed a flawless table of ice.

"You guys would make a fortune at ice-sculpting competitions on Earth you know", remarked Anthony, causing George to look at him in disbelief.

"Mortals can sculpt ice?" he said with a gasp.

"Well yes", replied Anthony, "but they use axes, chisels and chainsaws, and it takes them many days to do what you do in minutes."

"Well well, wait until I tell everybody. Mortals sculpting ice", said George, shaking his head and putting the ice block down on the top of his newly made table.

"The Frosts have sent this with their blessing", said George. As he spoke he started to pull the block apart until it was in four squares lined up on the table. "We are not a people who write things down, our memories are our history. However, the Frosts have created this; the prophecy in a written format that you will hopefully understand."

The Snowman moved away from the table and Anthony moved forward and leaned over it. Upon the squares of ice he could see hundreds of tiny symbols had been scratched. Looking at them they seemed meaningless, but as looked longer and harder he started to make out the odd letter, an R here, an E there. Soon, there were whole words, then sentences and then paragraphs until eventually the four squares only held legible English.

Anthony started to read the prophecy, he heard George clear his throat and turned to see that a chair had risen up from the ice. He smiled his thanks and sat on it to read:

That written in blood will be lived by the descendants of the words:

Lo, there will come a Sad Father who will wake into this world from another.

His woe will mark him as a man amongst the stars

For his sons were the children of the prayer

And his daughters were the children of the meadow

And all were claimed by the ocean of the ancients

And therein was his sadness writ upon his soul.

His coming will herald a time of reckoning during which all matters

Between the walls will be settled.

And in the silent aftermath the sea will reclaim the land

The Jackal, the Raven and the Lotus will sleep once more,

The children of the grey dawn will inherit the dream,

The tall men will turn to stone, the fire bellies will go out

The demons will rue their sin and the angels will walk in darkness.

Anthony read the words three times, digesting them, guessing at meanings he did not know. The initial portion could have been about him, but it could have also been about millions of other sad fathers.

"Any thoughts?" asked George.

"Many. But honestly, I'm not sure how the jackals pinpointed me for this."

"What about the references to Prayer and Meadows and the ocean of ancients?"

"Prayer and Meadow don't ring any bells. The ocean..." Even as he said the words he thought the thoughts and heard the memories, he heard the doorbell ringing, saw the awkward smiles of the police officers as they asked to come in, told him to sit and then informed him of what had happened at the cliffs that day.

"The ocean maybe? That is where, that is the only thing which has any meaning to me, but the rest, no. And even so, I am sure I am not the only sad father who has lost loved ones to the sea." Though he spoke to George, in front of his eyes were the images, the long drive, the hospital bed, the cuts and bruises to her face, the tears which ran from her eyes even while she was unconscious.

"Anthony", said George, softly placing a cold hand on his shoulder causing the dreamer to snap out of his reverie.

"Sorry George, it's just... Memories."

"Of course", said the Snowman. "Are you up to accompanying me back to see the Frosts?" he enquired.

"Yes, let's go and see what light they can shed."

The two of them left Anthony's quarters and headed out across a bridge towards the Frost Tower. The Frosts were still in their thrones, looking closely Anthony mused that the Frosts and the seats on which they sat might be one and the same.

"Mr Hallow", spoke the Day-Frost, "did you receive our tome?"

"I did, my thanks. I have read through the prophecy and interesting as it is, I am not certain the jackals have the right Sad Father in this instance", said Anthony.

The Frosts looked at each other and Night-Frost shook his head. "I am sorry, Mr Hallow, that cannot be the case. In order to wake you the jackals would have needed to send their minions through the Brazen Gate to your world, they would not have undertaken such a risky feat unless they were certain that you were the mortal they were after. The odd inaccuracy there may be, some parts which are seemingly inexplicable, but trust us, you are who they think you are."

Dawn-Frost spoke next: "Since you have been here in Avalen, has anything strange happened?" he asked, before heading off Anthony's smile with more words. "I know, I know, this has all been strange. But beyond the obvious, beyond the things which have happened around you, is there anything which has occurred involving you personally?" asked the Frost.

"The wolf", said George.

"The wolf?" queried the Day-Frost.

"Yes", said George, stepping forward. "May I?" he asked Anthony.

"Please do", said Anthony.

"We were pursued out of the mountains of the south by wolves. One of them followed us further than the rest, an alpha I suspect. He leapt on Anthony as we came down the mountain. I heard a cry and ran to assist but before I reached them there was a flash and then the wolf was flying through the air as if catapulted. What landed was a mangled dead ruin of a wolf", explained George.

"Do you recall that happening?" Dawn-Frost asked Anthony.

"Not really", said Anthony, "there was heat, and panic and then darkness. Next thing I know, George is carrying me down the mountain and the wolf is dead."

The Frosts all nodded in unison. There was a pause before Night-Frost turned to George. "You have done well, please leave the dreamer with us for a time", he rasped.

George nodded, turned and left without question.

"A dependable snowman that one", remarked Day-Frost.

"He saved my life", said Anthony simply. The room seemed to get darker and Anthony saw that the arched windows around the tower were closing. Ice was freezing over them at incredible speed. Once they were frozen over, however, a blue glow infused the ice in the tower. "Come closer, Anthony", said Day-Frost.

Anthony walked towards them until they were only a few feet apart. He looked into the eyes of the three Frosts, mazes of crystal, hundreds of tiny white threads. There was the look of age in them, they were eyes which had seen the long tides of history come and go.

It was Night-Frost who spoke, "There is a power in this world Anthony, here they call it dream-weaving. To you it might be more commonly recognised as magic, though in truth there are differences. In Avalen, to dream weave is to change the natural order of things. The Dream Sea beyond the wall is a roiling cataclysm of constant dream weaves on an unimaginable scale. But here, within the boundaries of the Laws of Fenn there is limited scope for such power, only the greatest dreams can perform the greatest feats", Day-Frost continued.

"The talented jackals have always been some of the most proficient dream weavers, much to the consternation and jealousy of others. The dragons, the giants, the angels and the demons, they have limits to their power. But the jackals have always been adept at learning new magic. Yet they have never held any authority in Avalen, they backed the wrong side in a conflict long ago and since then they have always been considered an outcast race. This has caused them to hate, a hate focused directly at the Geddon family, the kings who rule from the Palace of Fenngaard."

Dawn-Frost now spoke for his brothers, "Despite their abilities there has always been one thing which prevented the jackals from achieving any kind of supremacy, an object called the Hammer of Fenn, the Gods-bane, the object which Fenn infused with all his might. He used it to beat his enemies, he used it to build this world. Now it rests in the hands of his descendants and the jackals have plotted for aeons to try and find a way of countering this weapon. Now they have found you and brought you here", he finished.

It was a lot to take in, but Anthony was still sceptical: "I have no power and I have no weapons. Again I say that the jackals must have made a mistake."

Again the Frosts shook their head. It was the Dawn who retorted, "What surrounds you? Dreams. The ground beneath our feet, the light in the sky, the sea around our shores, just dreams, the products of mortal minds, idle mortal minds. Where mortals dream whole worlds rise and fall in the blink of an eye. Imagine what you could do here, in the place which to your peers is but a figment of their imagination?"

"But I can do nothing. I feel the cold, I feel thirst, is it not possible that your thoughts on the abilities of a mortal here are incorrect?"

They shook their collective heads and the Night-Frost dismissed such a notion. "You have the power; unrecognised, latent, but it is there. It manifested itself with the wolf and will do again. This is why the jackals want you; they will turn you into a weapon with which they will end the reign of the Palace of Fenngaard."

No one said anything for a while before Anthony asked, "How do they know I will help them, how are they certain that I will be that weapon?" he asked quietly.

"They will offer you something Anthony, they will bargain with you."

Anthony was reminded of what Kannis had said about mutually beneficial goals. Try as he might, however, he could not think of anything which he truly wanted, aside from returning home. There would be a certain irony if the jackals who stole him away from Earth offered him a return in exchange for helping them. Though maybe that was their plan, maybe they would blackmail him into helping them in order to go back.

There was much to think on, but it was his immediate situation which concerned him. "You spoke of something called the Brazen Gate, what is that?" he asked them.

"A door to your world, but do not think to use it. Not only would getting to it be even more difficult than climbing back up into the Mercurial Chambers, but it is likely you would not even be able to walk through it for if you did there be would two Anthony Hallows back on Earth, the sleeper and the dreamer and such a thing could not be."

"Your knowledge of this world is great. How is it that you are so well informed when your people have been in hibernation?" asked Anthony curiously.

"They are our children Anthony", said Night-Frost, "we have watched over them while they slept down in the cold belly of the ground, but we did not slumber. We hear much, down through the rock we have heard the history of our world, for it is sung loud and clear for those with the patience to hear it."

Again Anthony paused whilst considering the situation. "What should I do?" he asked simply.

But they did not have the answers to this question. They spread their arms before Dawn-Frost answered, "We cannot say, Anthony. We are a meek and weak people. They will come for you, they will come in force and, though we might will so, it will not be within our might to stop them. However, you are more than welcome to stay within our icy halls for as long as you wish, and as long as we are able to keep you safe." They smiled then, their frosty demeanour was softened.

"Thank you", said Anthony. The ice melted from the windows and light bathed the room once more. Anthony left the chamber. George had gone so he walked alone down the ice-steps around the tower. George had been right about the wisdom of the Frosts, but despite being remarkably better informed than he was before he still had no ideas about how to get home.

He was about halfway down the staircase when he heard several cries of fright. He saw a number of Snowmen pointing to the sky. He followed their gaze and saw a line of objects in the distance. As they got closer he heard the droning noise from them, many were on fire. They were sky-ships, the same ones which had passed over him on the Falkern River, though wherever they'd been it had not gone well. There were far fewer than before and the damage to those which remained was obvious even from this distance. Much of the activity in the city stopped as the Snowmen stared at the sky-ships, fearing perhaps that they were coming in their direction.

But it was not so, the sky-ships passed far to the north of Snowdell. They were soon out of sight and the people breathed a sigh of relief and went back to their snowball fights and their ice-sculpting. Anthony could not relax, however; the presence of the ships was a reminder of what the Frosts had told him, of the implications of his presence.

Anthony walked back to his chambers. The table and chair had already disappeared. He lay back down on the warm-ice bed and closed his eyes. Sleep came swiftly, the weight of his choices pulling him deep into the slumbering sea.

When he awoke it was to screams. More fear this time, a host of screams, as if all the Snowmen were screaming. He heard running and the sounds of breaking ice. Anthony got up and pulled on his clothes and fur cloak. He ran down out of his tower and into the streets, but they were deserted. He looked here and there, in doorways, underneath the arches, up and down at the other ice-bridges.

For once the sky was clear and the night was brighter than many he'd seen so far, but even so he could not spy a silhouette of a Snowman anywhere in Snowdell. Anthony climbed up and up but even at the top of one of the tallest towers he could see no-one on the bridges of Snowdell. Then he turned, then he saw it, then he could not blame the people of the city for running. He would have run himself had he not been rooted to the spot by fascinated terror. For there, running across the snow towards the ice walls, was a giant whose shadow dwarfed the darkness of the night.
Chapter Thirteen: Palace Intrigue

Esmerel was well aware that she was considered temperamental. It was something which she learned to use to her advantage. It was soon after learning that people considered her to be like this that she stopped allowing her emotions to get the better of her, internally. However, on the outside she kept up the flighty, highly strung and wilful façade. She found it very useful for all sorts of things, which mainly involved getting her own way. Those who opposed her would often roll their eyes and concede any given matter within a few moments of the Princess unleashing her shrill tones.

For times when shrillness did not work there was the other approach, the doleful pout, the soft lilting voice, the tilt of the head and the sad sorrowful eyes which she practised in the mirror on a regular basis. So it was when her father had confined her and her slightly elder brothers to the Palace of Fenngaard, Esmerel had used her temperamental façade to push the limits of her confinement to breaking point.

Her mousekarl, Trillian, was frequently victim to her manipulations. The old mouse was now well and truly broken and offered little resistance when his Princess demanded her own way. Sadly, her current confinement was by decree of the King, however, and Trillian did not have the authority or the ability to overcome his fear of him. Being his daughter, Esmerel's fear of defying her father was considerably lessened, which made sense considering that if she went against his wishes she was unlikely to be thrown in the Howling Cavern or the endless chasm between the pillars.

The Princess did not try and use her abilities directly against her father. Of all the dreams she knew he was the only one who was totally immune to both the shrill screeching Esmerel and the sad doleful Esmerel. She'd tried both of course, almost the first thing she'd done before even unpacking her bags in the Palace of Fenngaard was to go to her father and beg to be allowed to return to the Palace of Princesses. But he was adamant, like steel and stone, and would not be moved.

Her rooms in the Palace of Fenngaard were nicely furnished with wall hangings and a chess table with pieces which came to life when they moved. The ladies' quarters of Fenngaard had been decorated by her mother when she still lived and as such most of the carpets and bed spreads were lilac white with purple trim, the colours of the Lyrilian rose, emblem of her mother's household.

The rooms had been cleaned and flowers and fresh fruit were laid out. But they were in no way as spacious or elegant as her rooms in the Palace of Princesses. There she had the Knight's Maze where she could play with her ladies-in-waiting; there she had her calo piano; there she had her ilka lizard, Tomis. She could take none of these things with her. Tomis was kept in his own special fire-proof quarters in the Palace of Princesses. She imagined neither her mother nor anyone else would be particularly impressed to find her new lovely lilac surroundings scorched black by a playful ilka lizard.

So in the wake of boredom she'd gone in search of a friendly party who might grant her access to the outside dream. She tried the Magister Elementis, who smiled and shook his head causing all of his chins to vibrate. She tried a couple of the silver claw guarding the huge doors to the palace who just stared at her with those cold red eyes. She tried Hidriss, her father's mousekarl, but he proved to be as unmovable as her father on the matter of her effective imprisonment.

But then, as she sat sulking in her room, there came a knock at the door. Her salvation had arrived.

"Good morning Princess", said Evessa Tremaine as she waltzed into the room.

"Evessa", squealed Esmerel, leaping to her feet from the thick rug on which she lay to hug the Witch-Maker. A member of the Silent Council and the head of the Witches' Guild, Evessa Tremaine had also helped deliver Esmerel and they had been fast friends ever since.

"Where have you been?" the bubbly Esmerel asked her friend, pulling her towards two deep comfy chairs next to a wide window.

"Following the King's orders", said Evessa mysteriously in a way that indicated the Princess was not going to get any more information out of her about that. "I trust you are settling in well?"

Esmerel pulled a face. "This may be the centre of power but it is the edge of everything else, I am so bored Evessa!"

"You mean you have not been bowled over by the delights of the office of dream registry? Or the ministry of arbiters?" said the Witch-Maker with a smile.

"Magister Elementis said that there is a vault on the far side of the hall which contains a list of all the bridges in Fenn. He offered me a candle and a chair if I wanted to sit and read it. The worst thing is that I don't even think he was being sarcastic!" said a glum Esmerel.

"Sadly the Palace of Fenngaard was not designed with the entertainment of Princesses in mind", said Evessa with a sympathetic smile, her purple eyes glittering. Trillian came in and poured them both some peppermint tea. After he'd gone Esmerel leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "I've been trying to escape."

"I know", replied Evessa. "People talk", she added in response to the Princess's crestfallen look, "it's not safe you know."

"Oh please", snorted the Princess, "this is the first pillar. We are surrounded by an army of silver claws. I know that there are dangers beyond the palaces, but inside them, surely not? This is a prime example of Father's paranoia and over-protectiveness", she pouted.

"It is better to be safe than sorry", said Evessa, sipping the tea from her thin china cup with a raven emblazoned on the side.

"A play at the Smith House, a brief unicorn ride around the lower gardens, maybe some kite flying from the Windtower. All this could be done on the first pillar, all are perfectly safe."

"That is all you really wish to do, see a play, ride a unicorn, fly a kite?" asked Evessa over her teacup.

"Truly", said Esmerel, leaning forward again and taking the Witch-Makers smooth hand in hers. "Will you help me?" she asked meekly.

"Esmerel Geddon, you are asking me to defy my King!" said Evessa with feigned shock.

"I am asking you to help prevent me going mad with boredom", whimpered Esmerel with her most puppy-dog-eyed expression.

"You know that doesn't work on me either don't you?" said Evessa with a direct stare.

"I'm certain I don't know what you mean", said the Princess. There was a short silence whilst both of them sipped their tea and looked out at the leaden sky above Fenn. These apartments were on the east side of the Hall of Providence, despite the vastness of the hall there were still hundreds of rooms in the circular walls around it. Not all of them were plush royal apartments with windows though, many were windowless offices where the bureaucracy hunched over documents in the candlelight.

"A glamour", said Evessa eventually.

"A glamour?" said the Princess.

"Yes", said the Witch-Maker nodding, "you will be you, but you will not look like you, and thus will you be subject to much less scrutiny then a raven-haired princess."

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!" said the Princess, almost leaping to her feet as she hugged Evessa.

"But", said the Witch-Maker lifting a finger and pushing the excited Princess back towards her chair, "you must take Rekulen with you and never leave his sight."

The Princess hesitated. Rekulen was one of the Witch-Maker's wards from Kagairn, he was fearsome-looking and had a reputation for violence, not that the Princess had ever seen any evidence of such. "Okay", she nodded.

"Excellent", said Evessa, "go and dress. Wear something discreet, inconspicuous."

The Princess jumped to her feet and ran to her dresser room. The Witch-Maker sat and gazed out of the window; her purple eyes were emotionless, they were old and they were knowing.

*

The Princess was not used to sitting anywhere but in the royal box. In fact, when she'd arrived at the Smith House, the only theatre on the first pillar, she'd almost made straight for the royal seat. But Rekulen had tapped her on the arm and so she'd made for the public gallery, looking up every now and then longingly at the comfort of the royal area high above. Rekulen did not say much, nor did he reveal much of himself beneath the thick dark-blue cloak he wore. On the odd occasion his hands appeared they looked soft and well maintained with short even nails. She had yet to glimpse his face, he did not like the light or he did not like to be seen. Either way he was hidden for now.

The glamour radiated out from a thin silver chain at her neck. Evessa had told her that it would only affect her face and hair. When she'd slipped it on she'd gasped at the blonde-haired, dour-looking stranger staring back at her. Evessa told her that the glamour would remain in place as long as she wore the chain. At first she'd been petrified. If somebody noticed her missing before she left the palace would be sealed and she would face her father's wrath.

But here the Witch-Maker helped her too. Before Esmerel left her apartments she saw the sleeping form of someone who she knew was not in her bed sleeping gently. Evessa said she would inform Trillian and her silver claw guard that the Princess was not feeling well and would spend the rest of the day recuperating.

So the Princess had left the royal apartments with Rekulen in tow. She'd been shaking as she approached the large open doors where the silver claws gathered, but there were hundreds of people coming and going for even in conflict day-to-day matters of governance continued. Besides, the claws were more interested in those coming into the Hall of Providence than those going out. Esmerel had felt like skipping once they were clear of the door and walking down the bridge out of Fenngaard. From there it had been easy, down the giant steps, across Longmoor Bridge and into Lower Palace.

Lower Palace was the unofficial name for the small area of the first pillar which was not occupied by the gargantuan palace complex. It ran all the way around the pillar and housed a number of areas. Some were the houses of the kingdom's elite, some were small parks and others were markets for the rich. Then there was the Smith House, just before Dalgate Bridge, a large pentagonal structure built from red marble. Plays had been performed here by the most gifted of dream-actors since the days of the first Fenn.

At that very moment Esmerel sat watching The Jilted Night, a play about how night was forsaken by the day and would wallow in eternal darkness for all time afterwards. It was a seminal piece which the Princess had seen several times before but it never failed to amaze her, especially the finale when the character of night finally erupted in a volcano of darkness which swamped the stage and then the entire audience.

After the darkness had receded and the lanterns had been relit the audience started to filter out. Esmerel was not yet ready to return to the palace, however. Once they were outside she turned to Rekulen: "We will be going to the Dust Market", she told him imperiously. As ever, he said nothing but simply nodded. I will get him to talk at some point, she mused to herself as she turned, swishing her grey cloak and walking down the road towards the Dust Market.

As they walked the rain started up again. The cloak did offer some protection against the elements but in truth it had been so long since it rained in Fenn that there was nothing in her wardrobe designed to resist a lengthy downpour.

Much of the market was covered by large canopies which had been newly built following the change in the weather. There were a whole lot of people in Fenn who were shaking their fists in the air at the Magister Elementis and his apparent failure in his primary role, but the canopy makers were not among them for business had been booming.

They called it the Dust Market for it was named after the original stall which had appeared. The first Fenn was said to have a fondness for hourglasses and the first stall sold thousands of different kinds of multi-coloured dream dust which he used in his hourglasses. Gradually many other stalls had sprung up to cater for the needs of the kingdom's lord and lady dreams who inhabited the large houses of the first pillar.

The main currency of Fenn was the crystal chit, thin pieces of crystal-fuel, and Esmerel saw many of the glinting circles changing hands as she perused the market. Crystal-fuel was a staple source of much that a dream needed to survive. It was utilised by the vast majority of dreams who were unable to dream weave to any effective degree or whose dream weaves were not of a manner that could help them survive. Some dreams called the crystal-fuel the 'miracle metal' such were its properties.

Depending on the user, the fuel in its basic form was capable of anything that the user could conceive. The limitations were in the amount possessed and the will of the dream. The crystal was also refined so that certain types could only be used for certain things: food crystals, fire crystals, water crystals. Since the elder days the crystal had contributed to the ecology and economy of Avalen in a myriad of ways. It was harvested at Whistlewood from the Dream Sea where the Whistlers' Guild refined it into its various forms.

The rain was beating down steadily, the first pillar was paved with blue marble, but beyond it puddles would be forming in the muddy streets of Fenn. Esmerel wondered aimlessly for a while until she found herself strolling up a plank into a raised stall. There was a sign across the top with a picture of a golden horn and the words 'Unicorn Blood' next to it. Esmerel was fond of unicorns and she had several of her own in the stables at the Palace of Princesses, so was shocked to see someone selling such a product; shocked but also intrigued as to why anyone should want to buy such a thing.

Rekulen was behind her as she walked into the large stall. It was dark and gloomy inside, the Princess could see shelves on which stood thousands of tiny bottles containing powders and liquids in an array of colours. At the far end of the stall was a table where a pale bald little man sat. He wore threadbare brown robes and his head seemed to be disproportionately large for his body.

"You sell unicorn blood?" she asked him. His pale eyes regarded her with what looked like contempt.

"Who would buy unicorn blood?" he asked in an absurdly high-pitched voice.

"Well, your sign says 'Unicorn Blood'", she pressed. He didn't say anything in response and in truth Esmerel was beginning to feel uneasy. Her uneasiness increased when she turned to see Rekulen slamming the shutters for the stall shut.

"Rekulen, what are you doing?" He did not answer her. "We are returning to the palace?" she said, her voice becoming shrill.

He did not answer her.

Instead he walked towards her and made as if to grab her. She struck and knocked his hood back as one of his hands clamped over her mouth. She suddenly started to feel very drowsy and weak. Darkness closed in on her vision and the last thing she saw was Rekulen's face which had been revealed when she knocked his hood back. He is very beautiful, she thought as the dark closed in.

*

Mirris purred softly as Evessa stroked his furry stomach. He was as docile and lazy as cats got. When the original Mirris had started to get old over two thousand years ago Evessa had laboured long and hard to figure out a way to preserve his life, for he had been with her since she'd been pulled from the Dream Sea by the Great Fenn himself and she was very fond of him.

In the end she'd worked out a way to transfer Mirris into a crystal which she wore around her neck. Though his lifespan could not be increased while he was vanished into the crystal he would not age, therefore provided that she did not release him for too long or too often his time with her could be spread across the ages. Thus it was a very rare occasion when she whispered into the crystal and caused the cat to appear on her lap, a very rare and usually very stressful occasion. The approaching tide was about as stressful as anything she had faced thus far in her life in Avalen.

Several times within the last twenty-four hours she'd been down to Mortiune and the others. They were being housed in the Bathing Light Hospital which was buried in the first pillar, close to Witchhaven Dell where she had her own home. The truth of what had happened was being kept as quiet as possible. The silver claws who had been guarding the gate had sent for her straight away.

When she'd reached the Brazen Gate she'd seen Mortiune, several Sentinels and a handful of silver claws lying on the floor of the gate room, alive but unconscious. They could not be roused from their slumber no matter how hard they were shaken or how loudly they were shouted at. She'd told the King who ordered them transferred to the Bathing Light. He also told her to investigate and bring him answers about what had happened to them.

Her investigations had proved fruitless. She'd asked several of the other silver claws whether or not they were able to make contact with the minds of their brothers but they could not. She spoke to the silver claws who'd been guarding the gate room about exactly what had happened and they said that as the party started to reappear through the gate they collapsed almost immediately, no words had been spoken by any on their return.

None of the methods which Evessa or the doctors in the Bathing Light had employed were capable of waking them so they slept still, several days after returning, much to the frustration of the Witch-Maker and the anger of the King, who seemed to be growing more and more wrathful with each passing hour. The news of the riots had not helped. A group of protesting memory dreams had been told by the spider spears to disperse, when they did not the spiders had attacked and killed hundreds of them.

That was the spark which lit the tinder and tens of thousands of dreams were now rioting. The eleventh, fifteenth and sixteenth pillars had become veritable warzones. She knew that the King was regretting having let the spiders into the city, but there was little choice. Fenn was a city of many millions of dreams and the silver claw legion could not be expected to fight against external foes whilst also keeping order in the city. Even so, spider spears were not militia, they were deadly and remorseless and their corrosive presence in the city was beginning to tell on its populace, exacerbated by the steady stream of dreams making their way to the Howling Cavern at the point of a spear. There were more than just jackals currently being detained.

It had been a few hours since Evessa had aided Esmerel in getting out of the Palace of Fenngaard. The Princess had been easy to manipulate. Evessa had a slight feeling of guilt, but it was assuaged by the justification for her actions, the knowledge she had of what was coming.

When the knock came at the door she whispered and Mirris disappeared instantly, his life force pouring back into the crystal. "Enter", she said.

The door opened and the King's mousekarl, Hidriss, stood their flanked by two silver claws. "Your presence is required immediately", he said.

She nodded and followed him. Hidriss was not the most jolly of mousekarls at the best of times, his mood now was positively grim. It was a long walk up to Fenngaard from the buried chamber of Witchhaven and it was a long walk conducted in silence. As they climbed the hundreds of steps up the winding stairwells towards Fenngaard, Evessa spotted a number of sky-ships sitting on the many landing platforms dotted around the palace. Not a one of them seemed to be without fire damage of some kind, this was not a good sign.

They made their way through the press, many fearful faces gazing at them as they went. The throng got smaller the closer they got to the Nested Throne, from the bellowing she could tell why.

"A flock of birds?!" King Corul roared. "The arm of the King broken by dogs and birds?!" came the next outburst. King Corul Geddon was known for his cool, for his emotionless implacable calm under fire. He seemed to have temporarily lost control of that nerve, precisely what his enemies were waiting for.

"Tremaine!" he bellowed when she appeared.

"My King", she said bowing low.

"Is the Sentinel awake?" he asked.

"I am afraid not my King", the King spat in disgust.

"Failure is becoming endemic it would seem", he said to several silver claws in burnt and battered armour knelt before the throne.

"What has happened, My King?" Evessa asked after a few moments, hoping that the King would regain his self-control.

It was the Magister who answered, "The fleet which assaulted Eredyss has returned defeated. They were attacked by the jackals borne on the backs of sorrow hawks. Captain Asgoth is missing, presumed dead."

Evessa walked to where the silver claw knelt. "How many sorrow hawks?" she asked.

"Thousands my lady, many thousands. We were outmatched."

Evessa raised a finger to pursed lips. "The sorrow hawks possess many bizarre attributes as a species, My King", she said, turning to a King who seemed to have regained some of his composure. "One of these is the rate at which they reproduce. A breeding couple will produce only one offspring every ten years or so."

"Meaning?" said the King.

"Meaning that in order to have bred the numbers which the silver claws are talking about they must have started breeding them almost as soon as they got to Eredyss, in spite of the ban." Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. The knowledge that the jackals had started plotting against him almost as soon as he'd generously spared them during the Binding seemed to tip the King over the edge.

"Kazarel!" he bellowed.

From the ring of steel a silver claw turned and dropped to one knee. "My King?" said the hollow metallic voice.

"You will take the silver claw legion and the Royal Fleet and eradicate the talented jackals."

There was a hesitant pause. "Yes, My King?" replied Kazarel, "may I ask which elements of the legion and fleet you wish to despatch?"

"You will leave two hundred silver claws here in the palace, the rest you will take with you. The entire fleet captain, you will need every ship to carry that many claws."

Again there was a hesitant silence: "That is almost a thousand ships My King, it will take some time to gather such a force-"

"Then I suggest you begin immediately", interrupted the King.

Captain Kazarel, the most senior ranking silver claw after Vulthian and the deceased Asgoth, got to his feet, smashed a gauntlet against his chest, turned and started the long walk from the Hall of Providence.

It was the Magister Elementis who took the stand and voiced what everyone else within earshot was thinking: "My King, with that number of silver claws leaving there will not be enough to guard the first pillar. Though I understand the desire to hit back at the jackals I feel this may leave us vulnerable."

The King interrupted him, not with words but by reaching into the air beside him and pulling forth the pulsating Hammer of Fenn. The air itself seemed to shy away from the weapon.

"We are never vulnerable, Magister", said the King.

"Of course, My King, but the wider area of the palace complex, the logistics of protecting those outside of the Hall of Providence-"

Again he was interrupted, this time by another bellowed summons from King Corul, "Bring me the Arachnid King." The tense silence continued whilst messengers looked for the Arachnid King. It took only minutes for him to arrive, it seemed that the Arachnid King had been in the Hall of Providence already before being summoned.

Evessa felt repulsed by his appearance. He scuttled through the line of steel and he did not kneel before his King due to the way his legs were formed, the spiders would never kneel.

Four of his legs touched the ground, supporting a fat, round insectoid body which curved upwards into the torso. His shell was shiny black and the other four legs came out of his upper body from which the many eyed head also protruded at the top. His maw was long and thin and contained a row of glassy razor-sharp fangs. He carried no weapons, none of them did, for their legs were like hardened steel and ended with sharp hooks which could punch through armour.

"High King", said the arachnid, bending his body slightly. When he spoke it was a chewing crunching noise, a mouth that always sounded like it was filled with bone and phlegm.

"Arachnid", said Corul, "I have a need to dispatch my silver claws to deal with a craven enemy, there is a concern that during their absence the security of my palaces may be jeopardised. Mayhap you have enough spider spears remaining to cross over to the first pillar and maintain order here?"

The Arachnid King nodded his head slightly again. Evessa had never liked the self-proclaimed king of the Entlewood, not least because he was unreadable and his loyalty to the crown had always been tenuous. Certainly the spider spears had never risen up against them but the Arachnid King had also been notably absent from their side during the battles of the past.

"Of course, High King, the spiders live to spin your wishes", he crunched. "Would you like me to bring the blanket of protection over your grand Hall of Providence?"

"No", said the King pointedly, "a small contingent of my claws will remain in the hall and I have the hammer should any of our enemies seek to contest my will here."

"Your wisdom is as great as your might, High King."

"As my claws withdraw from the first pillar you will bring the spiders across. Coordinate with my captains concerning matters of logistics and deployment"

The Arachnid King bobbed his head and scuttled away. Evessa sighed internally; it was all happening, just as he said it would. How she longed to speak out, to tell her King of all that she knew, but she dare not for she'd been warned and sworn to secrecy. There was the constant murmur in the hall that was always there as the hundreds of bureaucrats and courtiers dealt with the business of the kingdom, but her King sat silent, brooding on his Nested Throne.

*

Everything sounded like it was coming from far away. The return to consciousness was a slow process. Eventually the sounds were closer, her mind was her own and she remembered her name. Esmerel, I am Esmerel, she thought. Then it flashed back to her, the market, the strange little man with the bulbous head and Rekulen, Rekulen the betrayer. Her eyes snapped open. Though dazed, Esmerel could make out her surroundings, limited as they were. She could feel the cold chains around her wrists which linked to a ring on the floor of the coach which rumbled over rough streets.

She could see Rekulen opposite her, cloaked again. The driver was on top of the carriage, in front of it a team of four horses pulled them at great speed. Thick curtains hung around the cab but there were gaps through which the Princess could glimpse the city. The Princess was used to travelling by sky-ship, or on the back of a unicorn, in contrast the carriage felt bumpy and rocky.

"What do you think you are doing?" asked Esmerel. Her voice was croaky, her throat dry from whatever Rekulen had used to drug her. "I asked you a question", she croaked more loudly at the silent being opposite her in the carriage.

"I am taking you somewhere safe", he said.

"By drugging me and chaining me up? I am the daughter of Corul Geddon, do you have any idea what they will do to you?"

Rekulen pulled back his hood and looked at her. He was just as she remembered before she lost consciousness. "They will do nothing, your father and the kingdom are about to be confronted with matters even more pressing than a missing Princess", his voice was low but with a hard edge to it.

Esmerel stared at the hair so blonde it was almost white, the pale blue eyes and the ears, the high pointed ears.

"Are you an elf?" she whispered. He spread his hands.

"There are no elves in Avalen", he said. Before she could quiz him further she heard several screams. Looking through the small gaps in the curtains Esmerel could see fires, tall fires as if whole buildings were burning. They were passing down a side street but through the alleyways she could see in the main boulevard more fires and large numbers of people. The screams continued, coming and going as they rumbled through the streets.

"What is happening?" she asked. Rekulen looked out.

"Riots. First it was just the memory dreams, protesting against what they see as imprisonment in a land where they will be forced to confront their mortality rather than the unconscious passing that they would feel in the Dream Sea. But the King's new watchmen are a heavy-handed bunch. They have stirred up many of the dreams against the King with their tactics. So now they riot and burn on seven of the nineteen pillars."

"Then why are we here?"

"We are less likely to be pursued moving through an area of instability, anyone coming after us will assume that we are using one of the more peaceful routes through the city", he replied.

"I demand you return me to the palace!" said the Princess.

He smiled; it was not a cruel smile, it was almost sympathetic as he shook his head.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked meekly.

"Somewhere safe", said Rekulen, donning his hood and leaning back as the carriage made its made down the dark and frightened streets of Fenn.
Chapter Fourteen: Where on Old Earth

His breathing was steady, the cuts had all healed well except for the one around his tusk, but Elstein had patched it up as best he could and spoken a number of basic healing weaves over it. If he'd been back at the Lair he would have summoned old Brascils, a jackal talented in the arts of healing. It was rumoured that he could bring the dead back to life, preposterous of course but Elstein had seen him work first-hand following the Battle of Kaymar Bridge. Limbs were reattached, eyes that were blind could see, Brascils was nothing short of miraculous.

Elstein's talents lay elsewhere, but he had done what he could. The rest was down to Ilich's own healing ability which, judging from what he had seen so far, was also nothing short of miraculous.

Elstein got up from where Ilich lay in the cave and moved to check on the body of Anthony Hallow. He slept peacefully, oblivious still to his surrounds. A small blue fire crackled nearby, the smoke funnelling up through a natural chimney at the rear of the cave. It had been days since the jackal had seen any mortals and even then they were on the horizon, walking with sticks and dogs and thick jackets to ward off the wind.

It was cold despite the sun and the clear blue sky. Elstein could tell they'd come north, how far he was not sure. Truth be told, it mattered little to him. They were a long way from the home of Anthony Hallow and there was no way for the forces of Fenngaard to track them. Though his part in the process was vital it had led to long periods of inactivity. Ilich had started to grate on his nerves due to his ambling around Anthony Hallow's house yet in truth the jackal was equally frustrated with the monotony.

Though his mission through the Brazen Gate had never been considered a one-way trip he had always known that it would be a long time before he could return. He'd gone over the plans with Rostrom many times before leaving the Lair. He would locate the home of the Sad Father, secure the body and cast the spell of awakening. He was then to stay with the body for as long as was necessary until Rostrom was able to secure the gate from the other side, come through and bring him back. Easier said than done, much hinged on their interpretation of the Ayalla prophecy. Much depended on Rostrom's ability to convince the dreamer of their cause, or barter with him for exclusive gain. Much depended on chance and there was little that Elstein could do for now but wait and guard his charge.

Upon analysis, the battle against the silver claws who had come to Hawksdell Road had been positive, though Ilich was unlikely to agree when he eventually awoke with one less tusk. The presence of Corul Geddon's minions on this side of the gate meant that things must have gone well for the jackals back on Avalen. Had the dreamer been captured or Eredyss fallen then there would have been no need to try and get to the dreamer on this side of the gate. They would likely have just sealed it at the other side and left the jackal and the troll to their own devices.

Elstein glanced at where Ilich lay breathing deeply and not for the first time he was grateful that Kannis had changed his mind about bringing the troll. It had been Elstein's plan to come alone but Kannis knew, he knew that despite the risks Corul would be reckless enough to come through the gate after them.

The two jackals had gone north-east together to Trellem, the range of mountains between Eredyss and Torabane. Some said that the trolls and their mountains lived in the shadows of the giants, their larger cousins. This is something that you would never actually say to a ten-ton-troll, however. They were fiercely independent, in fact generally fierce about everything. They did not consider themselves to be small giants, and to look at them it was a fair point, their tusks and general shape marked them out as an entirely different kind of dream to the giants.

Ilich was famous and had not been difficult to find. They asked directions from the odd troll that they met here and there in Trellelm, after convincing said trolls that they were not particularly edible of course. It seemed to be the case that any opening conversation with a troll consisted first of explaining to them why they wouldn't want to devour you with "some rocks and a nice mug of pumpkin juice" and after that they were generally quite civil.

Ilich was different, however as he hadn't even tried to eat them. Elstein had quickly discovered that there was an intellect to this legendary warrior troll, an intelligence not possessed by his brethren. Had the jackals attempted to explain the nuances of political history and rebellion to most trolls they would have either laughed or continued scratching themselves with a broken tree branch, but not Ilich. That is not to say that he was likely to invent a time machine any time soon, but he understood their point. This troll had seen war and he knew the price of such things.

He'd also known the price that he demanded from the jackals in return for their help. Elstein and Kannis had both been surprised at the speed with which he'd agreed and named his price. This was not something plucked from the air, this was something the troll had had on his mind long before the two jackals sat in his mossy cave drinking spring water from bark cups.

They'd agreed of course, they had no choice, though in the long run that which Ilich had demanded for helping them might end up costing more than they won from this venture. Now, with hindsight, Elstein knew it had been the right decision. He had been at the end of his abilities against the Sentinels and there was no way that he could have dealt with the silver claws or the fire drakes.

The pieces of Anthony Hallow's bedroom which had been transported with them had gone on the fire even though it required no fuel for it was born of his chalk. Elstein opened his pack and took an inventory; he still had eight full lengths of the chalk left, enough to last for now. The wards around the dreamer and the weave to move the room had used up almost two whole pieces. The remainder had gone on the fresh wards on the cave floor surrounding the dreamer.

The question now was whether or not to stay put. The cave was secluded, high up in a series of craggy hills and unlikely to be disturbed. Neither he nor Ilich required sustenance and the dreamer was sustained by the dream weaves under which he had been manipulated. There was still a nagging feeling of exposure, though he supposed he would feel like that anywhere on Old Earth.

As he pondered he heard a noise. Ilich's eyes opened and he sat up rubbing his head. "Good evening", said the jackal to the troll.

"How long?" asked Ilich.

"Some days. You have healed well, apart from the tusk", Ilich's stumpy hand went to his face and he felt tenderly at the bandaged area where his left tusk had been.

"It will grow back", he said but there was sadness still. A troll's tusk took decades to come to maturity, until then he would feel limited, weak, less-than-troll.

"Did we win then?" Ilich asked.

"We are alive and the dreamer is still ours so yes, I would class that as a win."

"Well, you're the details man so I'll go with that", said the troll. Ilich looked over at the dreamer. "He okay?" he asked.

"Fine this side, in Avalen, who can say?"

"Would we know if he perished beyond the gate?" asked the troll.

Elstein shook his head. "I think not, though I cannot be certain I think he would probably just stay asleep until his body decayed away."

"We might be here a while then", commented the troll.

"We may well", said Elstein. They sat in silence for a while. Ilich warmed his hands on the fire. Since coming to his colour had improved and after a time he got to his feet and started to swell. At about nine feet he'd hit the roof of the cave so stopped and instead took to flexing his arms and legs and punching one fist into his other hand.

"Is everything well?" Elstein asked him. Some form of troll exercise perhaps, he thought.

"You cannot see him?" Ilich asked.

Elstein's eyes swept across the empty landscape, sunset was still an hour or so away. "No", he said "See who?"

Ilich nodded to a rocky hill similar to their own some distance away. "High up in the rocks, been there for a while I think. Possibly time for me to go and say hello."

Elstein stood up and stared long and hard at the hillside which Ilich had motioned to, still he could not see anything. Perhaps the troll had taken a blow to head more severe than he realised. "Ilich, are you certain?" he asked again.

"A cloak like rock and still as stone, up there someone sits and watches us from afar."

Elstein looked again, straining his eyes and then he saw it. Just as Ilich said the figure did not move, indeed it might not even be a figure. But there was a humanoid shape up there on the hill. A person or a rock shaped like one, its leaden grey cloak blending in almost perfectly to the stone around it. Elstein had never known that trolls possessed such keen eyesight. "I will go", said Elstein, still watching the watcher.

"I am recovered", said Ilich in protest.

"It's nothing to do with that. This is a situation where stealth may prevail over brute force."

"Well, I've always found brute force to work well for most situations and unless you've figured out a way to turn invisible..." the troll's protest faded as Elstein stepped back into the cave, shimmered and then vanished from sight.

"Watch the dreamer", he whispered as the troll felt him move past to start climbing down from the cave.

Elstein moved quickly down the rocks across the grassy valley which ran between the hills. The light was just beginning to fade and he knew he would never be able to spot the watcher in the dark. Though he was nervous at leaving the dreamer in the cave at least Ilich was awake, and not foolish enough to jeopardise their enterprise by leaving them in a vulnerable position.

It did not take long for Elstein to reach the foot of the hill, always keeping one close eye on the target. One of the only drawbacks of invisibility is the lack of sound; perception is greatly lessened, therefore to move soundlessly whilst invisible takes a great deal of care and precision over how one is moving. Therefore Elstein did not rush up the rocky hill but rather picked his way carefully over the rocks. Such was the speed of his ascent that darkness was almost upon them by the time he got close to the watcher.

At one point he looked opposite at their distant cave, which he could spot easily from the blue flame burning at the back of it. Our isolation has made me complacent, thought the jackal as he crept inch by inch upwards until he reached the ledge where the watcher lurked. Elstein slowly lifted his head over the ledge. There he was, only a few feet away, his eyes focused unmoving on their cave.

Those eyes were pale blue and set inside skin which even in this light Elstein could tell was incredibly fair. The fact that he had remained still for so long was remarkable and had it not been for the faint veins which the jackal could see Elstein could have considered him a statue. Whoever he was he obviously wasn't mortal, the jackal could sense the supernatural about him.

Just as Elstein was deciding what action to take his foot slipped where he clung to the rocks sending a shower of smaller stones tumbling down the hillside. The being turned and his eyes locked on Elstein. How it was possible the jackal did not know, but before he could blink the watcher leapt at him, his arms encircling the jackal, his weight coming down on him forcing them both to roll down the hillside until they reached flat ground.

The watcher was phenomenally fast and almost before Elstein had regained his feet a short thin blade had been drawn and was slashing at him with deadly precision. Many other foes would have fallen there on the hillside, but the jackals were not called talented without reason. A whispered dream weave created a wall of hard air in front of Elstein and when the blade hit it snapped in half. More whispers followed and the attacker suddenly found his arm locked in a vice like grip that came out of the air, his arm wrenched back causing the remaining half of the blade in his hand to clatter to the floor.

The watcher's left hand pulled a dagger from beneath his cloak which he threw in the same movement towards Elstein. There was no time to cast another dream weave so Elstein ducked, breaking his concentration on the arm lock and freeing the watcher, who threw himself at the jackal with a series of high flying kicks which Elstein blocked. The jackal then hit back with a dream weave, a pulse of light cloaking his hand as it struck out at incredible speed to strike his opponent in the middle of the chest. The watcher flew several metres through the air hitting the rocky floor with a painful thud.

Despite his slender form the watcher rose instantly and made as if to attack again. Elstein decided to bring the brawl to a dignified end, dignified for himself anyway. He cast the dream weave and felt the air around him come alive, feeling it form into two thick channels which lunged through the air, pinned his opponent's arms to his sides and then lifted him from the ground rendering him harmless.

"Who are you?" growled Elstein, slightly out of breath and bruised from the tumble down the hillside. The watcher did not answer, squirming ineffectually against his invisible bonds for a moment or two before relaxing, accepting his entrapment. Elstein walked forward and pulled back the hood of the watcher's light grey cloak. The blue eyes and pale skin were framed by hair just as fair through which two pointed ears could be seen.

"An elf?" said Elstein incredulously. "How is an elf here?" he asked not expecting a response. "There are no elves in Avalen", he said still bewildered by the elf's presence.

"You are not in Avalen any more, jackal", said the elf in the light but strong voice which was a trademark for his people. As he said it his eyes flicked, just momentarily, but enough for Elstein to catch it. He turned towards the cave where Ilich guarded the dreamer. The night had fallen proper, but even in the dark light Elstein's eyes could not fail to spot the shadowy forms climbing up towards the cave where the blue fire burned.

"Your friends will get more than they bargained for up there elf", growled the jackal. The elf smiled a thin-lipped smile and said nothing, watching as Elstein scrambled back up the rock face back from whence he'd come.
Chapter Fifteen: A Massacre Of Ice

Prince Karmalaine could scarce believe his ears. "Perhaps you misunderstood me", said the Prince.

But before he had a chance to repeat his original statement the figure in front of him spoke, "I did not misunderstand you prince of Fenn. I am certain you are not used to being defied but out here in the wild lands, away from your palaces and your power, defiance will come to you at the most surprising moments", The Snowman spoke.

"The Prince's power rests beneath his feet no matter he stands from Bloodren to Archaven. You would do well to remember that, ice-fiend", said Vulthian vociferously. Prince Karmalaine lifted a hand to calm his Lord Captain.

"Be that as it may the dreamer is a guest in our hall, and a guest he shall stay until he decides otherwise", responded the Snowman frostily before stepping backwards through the hole in the ice wall which had formed when he first came out.

"Say the word My Prince", said Vulthian, drawing his sword and flexing his silver claw.

"Wait", said the Prince raising a hand. When they'd reached the village Cyra, Golgoleth and Kalwyn had flown over the top of Snowdell before returning to the ground before the wall. They told him that it appeared deserted and the few Snowmen they did see were running for shelter. They'd been before the city for mere minutes when the doorway had appeared and the old man came out. He hobbled along with what appeared to be great difficulty, the ice in his joints cracking and scraping as it moved.

He'd asked them their purpose at Snowdell, though it was obvious from his tone that he knew why they were there. Prince Karmalaine told them that they had come to escort the dreamer back to the Mercurial Chambers. That was then the Snowman had simply said the word 'no' and opened up a whole new unpleasant avenue of possibilities as to how things would go down today.

Prince Karmalaine considered himself civilised, he also considered himself a shrewd negotiator, but in this instance there was no-one to negotiate with and he was forced to admit to himself that no matter how reluctant he was he might end up having to use force to bring the matter to a successful conclusion. The Prince licked his lips which were chapped by the cold winter.

"Balg-Miur", he said.

"Yes, little Prince?"

"Can you create a doorway for us?" said the Prince. If he could make his way into Snowdell and speak with more of its occupants he might be able to persuade them to give up the dreamer without a fight. Given the firepower at his disposal it felt almost obscenely unfair to attack the unarmed and peaceful Snowmen.

The giant grinned at the Prince's request before striding forward and aiming a solid kick at the white wall around the settlement. At thirty feet tall the ice-wall appeared a formidable obstacle from Karmalaine's point of view, but it only took one kick from the giant to smash a large hole in it. The kick hit with such force that the Prince almost lost his footing.

When the cloud of ice cleared that was a wide v-shaped hole in the ice wall. "Balg-Miur, Vulthian, Cyra, you will walk with me. Search for any sign of the dreamer, do no damage and cause no hurt. We are not here for conflict. Demon, Kalwyn, circle the city and report back to us regularly." They all nodded and obeyed except for the demon who muttered a profanity before launching himself into the air.

Prince Karmalaine made his way over the broken ice with Vulthian beside him and the heavy footsteps of the giant and dragon behind them. The same spiritual trail which the Prince had picked up on in the forest and felt tingling beneath his feet every step of the way was here, but stronger. It was not just in the ground but also in the air he breathed and in the walls of ice and snow which cast their shadows upon him now.

The Prince shivered, not just from the extra cold that the streets of ice and snow were causing. There was resentment in the air; he felt out of place, he felt as if every door and window were shouting silently for him to leave. There seemed to be an inordinate number of towers in Snowdell, navigation between which seemed to be done via a vast web of ice bridges. Such was the maze of shadows cast by these bridges that it was dark down where the Prince walked in the wide street.

They had not gone far when they had to stop, for the interlinking walkways had become so thick that Balg-Miur and Cyra could no longer get through. Prince Karmalaine would have never have thought that such a large settlement could be so eerily quiet. Cyra's eyes still burned brightly in the gloom. The giant stood tall above the highest tower in the city. Prince Karmalaine was almost reluctant to speak, so deep and all-encompassing was the silence. He was just about to look to his companions for suggestions when he noticed that snow had started to fall. It was just as the first flake struck the ground that the attack came.

He saw it on Cyra first, ice bubbling out of the ground, swarming up the dragon's legs like a wave washing up a cliff face. Except the wave did not recede, the spiky ice swarmed up and over the dragon faster than was conceivable until he was a statue, a giant icy dragon statue whose eyes still burned. Next Prince Karmalaine heard Balg-Miur roar. The ice was on him now, thick white snakes curling up the giant's legs, but he reacted faster than the dragon. Perhaps it was Cyra's disbelief that he could have been assaulted by such a lowly foe as the Snowmen that had seen him encased but the giant had no such hesitation and his mighty fists started crashing down at the ice. Though he stopped it from rising above his waist, where it held his legs it got thicker and stronger despite the succession of loud blows he brought against it.

Then the Prince felt a freezing cold stab at his feet, he looked down to see tendrils of liquid ice weaving themselves around his legs. He looked at Vulthian and said, "I thought these people did not know how to fight?" shivering violently as the ice took him.

"They learned", said the Lord Captain, who the Prince could see was also being swamped by a wave of ice.

There was a stillness to Karmalaine's world as the ice sealed around him. He noted that even though it had him it continued to get thicker, layer upon layer until his vision was white. His heartbeat slowed and the ice pressed so close that he did not even have room to shiver. Just when everything went numb and the Prince started to think that this wasn't so bad after all there came the light and a tremendous heat. Then the ice disappeared and the Prince saw Kalwyn hovering before him with his broad wings beating at the air and his sword of light shining.

He grabbed the Prince with his other arm and pulled him into the air, landing on an ice tower not too far away. The angel was radiating intense heat and the Prince was soon warm, as was the surface of the tower of ice on which they stood which started to melt rapidly. Prince Karmalaine could see Golgoleth with a thawing Vulthian next to him on another tower.

"My Prince, I know it is your intent to take the dreamer peacefully, but it may be we need to employ some force before we were overcome."

"The Snowmen are not the pacifists we thought", responded the Prince.

"They think that they under attack and are acting accordingly, there is little point in avoiding a conflict that has already started."

The Prince was just about to respond when there was a loud rumbling noise and what felt like an earthquake striking the area. Prince Karmalaine turned and looked to where Cyra sat beneath the ice. He reached out his hand and shouted, "No!" but the dragon did not hear him and even if he had he would have been ignored. The ice exploded outwards from the dragon, pieces the size of houses crashing through the ice towers, knocking them to the ground. The ice around the dragon disintegrated as the dragon freed himself and as he came free the mighty wings beat and he lifted into the sky with a roar. The roar contained all the rage of a slighted dragon and it was followed by another roar, not just of sound but of fire.

The flames were pale, a multitude of light blues, dull oranges and reds. They swept across Snowdell and where they hit the city was gone. The ice beneath the flame was not melted, it was vaporised and beneath it scorched earth was left, molten rock and black ashen dirt. The flames brushed close to where Balg-Miur still struggled and burned most of the ice away from him, that which remained was easily broken by the furious giant. The second titan was loosed and his rage was palpable, whole streets were demolished as the giant laid waste with his mighty arms. He did not stand still, in order to foil the ice which every now and then made another attempt to lock him in place, but the giant was aware of it not. He kept moving, kept destroying, carving a path of chaos through the empty streets of Snowdell.

"We must stop them", said Prince Karmalaine.

"My Prince, truly those of Archaven appreciate your peaceful outlook but-"

The Prince interrupted him, "This is nothing to do with peace. Tell me what use is the dreamer going to be if he is toasted to a cinder by a dragon or stomped flat by an out-of-control giant?"

The realisation appeared on Kalwyn's ethereal face. "Ah, of course, wise Prince."

"Go to Cyra, get his attention and tell him that if he burns the dreamer he will answer to my father for it."

"What of the giant?" asked the musical voice of the angel.

"Take me over to Golgoleth and Vulthian, we will stop Balg-Miur."

Kalwyn nodded and took off, grabbing the Prince effortlessly in his hands and flying him across the rooftops to where the demon and the Lord Captain waited. The angel deposited the Prince next to them and then flew off immediately in the direction of the raging dragon who still breathed fire all around.

"Golgoleth, can you carry both of us at the same time?" the Prince asked of the demon.

Golgoleth's colouring had grown so pale that the red glow could not really be seen. He was a pale demon now, though the change in colouration had not lessened the horror of his visage. Only the two horns kept their colour, the deep inky black.

"Your weight is that of a sparrow, little Prince, but your captain is like a lump of granite."

"This armour is not ornamental", retorted the Lord Captain.

"Very well", said the Prince, keen to head off an argument, "I want you to fly me to the giant."

"Take care, My Prince", said Vulthian, "the creature is in a rage and is just as likely to lash out as he is to listen."

Karmalaine nodded as the demon grabbed hold and lifted him into the air. This was the first time Golgoleth had flown the prince anywhere. When Kalwyn flew him his grip was always warm and gentle and the Prince felt elated each time he was deposited back on the ground. The demons touch was awful, it felt like a glove of daggers digging into his skin. He started to sweat and even feel nauseous, the hate and negativity radiating from the demon was vomit inducing.

"Put me on top of him", shouted the Prince as they neared the giant. Karmalaine was as keen of being free of the demon's grip as he was stopping the giant. Had he issued such a command to Kalwyn, or within earshot of Vulthian, there would have been protest at the wisdom of such a course of action but the demon had no such qualms. They got close to the giant and then the Prince was flung through the air to crash into the giant's back. "Balg-Miur", he bellowed but to no effect. The giant was full of battle-lust and continued his path of destruction.

Prince Karmalaine had hold of the rough coarse material of Balg-Miur's jerkin. Slowly but surely he started to climb up towards the giant's head to try and shout some sense into those cavernous ears of his.

*

The tremors were growing louder. Being made from snow, Anthony assumed that even when they were afraid the people of snow could maintain facial expressions that belied their true feelings. Unlike the flesh, bone and sinew of humans which would stretch and grimace and paint their emotions for all to see Anthony thought that the snow could hide all, but it did not. They huddled here and there and the fear was obvious, he even saw a few icy tears.

Snowmen and Snowwomen clung to one another in fear, in hope. The terror which had gripped Anthony when he'd first seen the giant standing outside the city had been broken by George who, with a cold firm grip, had pulled him down out of the towers and towards the cave. George had told him that the people were retreating back to the cave from whence they'd come and that the Frosts insisted he go with them. The longer they stayed down there the more Anthony got the feeling of responsibility for what was happening, the more he got the sense that he should make his way upstairs and end it.

"This is wrong", he said out loud.

"What do you mean?" said George who sat close, his snowy chin in snowy hands.

"They are here for me."

"Do you want to go with them?" asked George, looking at Anthony.

The mortal thought about it for a while. "No, they come to force me. I understand very little of what's happened to me since I came here, but I understand your kindness and I understand enough of the nature of power to know that those who would coerce me against my will have no care for me beyond the fulfilment of their own aims."

"Then put the doubts from your mind. The Frosts have said that you are our welcome guest and will remain so until you decide otherwise, have faith that they can protect us."

"Can the Frosts overcome the forces of this King Corul?" Anthony asked.

George shook his head. "If they could then I do not see why they would not have protected our way of life before, rather than cause us to fall down into the long sleep."

"Then why do you not sport the same despair as your fellows?"

"Hope, Anthony Hallow, hope. If our victory over our enemies was always assured then we would never need to hope, and it is in hoping that we learn much of our own resilience and will to be", responded George.

"Profound", said Anthony.

"As I told you before, sophisticated Snowmen", said George with a hint of a smile on his snowy lips.

Anthony looked around the cave again. It was at the far end of Snowdell that the entrance had been placed. It had looked a little bit like a sink-hole when George brought him to it but the Snowman had assured him that it was safe, and after watching several Snowmen slid without hesitation into the hole he did the same. He'd slid for some time down, spiralling down into the ground. He'd landed on a soft mound of snow and taken stock. The cave was more of a cavern, carpeted with thick mounds of snow which he soon learned had been there since Avalen began.

It was out of the original snow that the people of Snowdell had come and it was back here that they fled. The cavern had the sense of age, the rocks had frosty beards and thick veins of white and silver. For many centuries the people had slept here waiting for the snows to fall above once more. Now they had, yet the reprieve from their enforced hibernation seemed likely to be short-lived judging from the now constant rumbling which was coming from above them.

"Doesn't it make you angry to hear that which you have built being damaged so?" Anthony asked of George, who again gave a wry smile.

"They can knock it down and we will rebuild it twice as fast. Fear not for Snowdell Anthony Hallow, the buildings can always come back."

Despite the positive note, Anthony could not but feel doubt as he listened to the constant thunder from above.

*

"Son of Rokumung!" the Prince screamed in Balg-Miur's ears. The sound of his father's name got the giant's attention as the Prince had hoped it would and he slowed his march.

"Step back, Balg-Miur", shouted the Prince. The giant's stench was almost overpowering and the matted grey hair around his ears was most definitely inhabited by something for Prince Karmalaine could see many beady eyes staring at him. He was not sure what type of creature they were and did not mean to enter the forest of hair to find out. The giant heard him through the hair and the pieces of wax the size of dogs and Karmalaine was pleased to feel him take a step back.

Prince Karmalaine had good reason to issue such an order, the ice behind the giant was broken and in many places the ground could be seen and the tendrils of ice which had continued to try and grab at the giant could not get hold. Balg-Miur stood still, breathing heavily. As his chest heaved up and down like some huge bellows pumping so much air around the Prince could feel it gusting about him. Then the Prince felt himself gripped by something tremendously strong, yet surprisingly gentle.

Balg-Miur dangled the Prince in front of him and stared at him with angry eyes.

"Giants are not for riding, little Prince", he grumbled.

"Needs must my large friend", said the Prince.

The giant gave a contemptuous, "Harrumph", as he deposited the Prince down next to him.

Karmalaine looked across the city to where Cyra still bathed the ice in fire and reduced it to nothing. Then something appeared in front of the dragon, a ball of light in the air. The dragon did not see it or did not care, but the globe grew brighter and larger and then the Prince heard singing, just a single note, a single beautiful note whose beauty was marred by its volume which got louder and louder until the Prince was forced to put his hands over his ears. Even this was not enough though as the pain from the sound caused him to fall to his knees and he felt blood between his fingers. Through blinding flashes he felt the ground shake as the giant next to him also doubled over and fell to his knees.

Then it stopped. The Prince looked up and saw Kalwyn in the air before the dragon. An exchange took place but the Prince was too far from them to hear it. The dragon stopped burning and then both of them flew over towards where the giant and the Prince stood. Golgoleth and Vulthian joined them soon after. The Prince wiped the blood from his fingers onto his black cloak and looked around. Approximately a third of Snowdell was gone, scorched earth and broken ice was what remained though the heavily falling snow was doing its best to cover over the ruins of ice and mud.

"That was unfortunate", said the Prince once they were all gathered.

"They should have known better than to try and freeze a lord of fire", said Cyra with his rage barely in check. Whatever Kalwyn said to him had calmed him down, but only just. He seethed with anger and stared intently at the remains of the city, obviously keen to take battle to the Snowmen once more.

"This is their home", said the Prince slowly, "they were defending themselves as is their right."

"They struck first", said Cyra, oblivious.

"Actually, it was us who broke their wall", chipped in Kalwyn, eliciting a hostile gaze from the dragon.

"What matters is how we continue. The dreamer is no good to us dead, we need to proceed with caution and a greater understanding of the situation."

"My Prince", interrupted Vulthian, pointing over Karmalaine's shoulder with his sword at the city. Prince Karmalaine turned and saw what the others had already seen. Something was lifting up out of the city, something was rising fast.

"What is that?" he asked in a whisper. None of the others replied, so entranced were they with the colossus forming in front of their eyes. The remaining buildings and parts of the wall still standing started to shift and blur until they were being sucked into the maelstrom building in front of them. The group were mesmerised as the mountain of ice and snow got higher and higher until even Balg-Miur was smothered by its shadow. Then it started to form, to coalesce into a definite shape. It was a bear, a white bear so tall that it brushed the clouds, so vast that it could devour the mountains.

The snow-bear gave a roar like all the war-horns that had ever sounded blowing together in one might crescendo. Then it started to lumber slowly towards them. "I think the time for diplomacy has gone, My Prince", shouted Vulthian over the noise the snow-bear made as it moved towards them.

"I think I agree", said the Prince grimly, "gentlemen, bring that thing down and secure the dreamer, give no quarter. For Fenn!" he shouted, drawing his own sword and running forward. The others took up the shout and the party attacked.

Prince Karmalaine was under no illusions about the impact he would have on such a battle, even carrying a mercy sword. As he ran he saw the blue glow from the letters on the blade and was reminded of the three words on the Great Fenn's tomb: Truth, Mercy, Regret. His epitaph, his lesson to the world. But no, even with such a sword the Prince would leave fighting titans to the titans. He ran wide around the behemoth deciding to make it his mission to find the dreamer whilst his companions dealt with the snow. Vulthian ran beside him, keeping pace despite his armour, the conditioning of the silver claws was legendary.

As they ran the Prince looked to his fellow journeymen to see how they fared. Cyra leapt to the air, flying high up in the clouds before descending with a roar of fire. Where it hit the creature melted just as the city had before, but it did not stay melted. The snow-bear was liquid and where the fire burned it away more flowed to take its place. Then it struck back and a huge paw the size of a castle soared over and struck the dragon in mid flight with tremendous force. The dragon was knocked from the air like a fly which had been swatted and Cyra hit the ground so hard a long crater was formed, in which he lay in a smoking heap at the end.

Next came Balg-Miur's turn, it was bizarre to see a giant dwarfed by another life form but he looked like a child next to the snow-bear. His attack was far from childlike, however, as he ran at the beast's leg without stopping, crashing through the funnel of snow that did not end in a paw but in a swirling tornado of snow. The snow gave way and the bear faltered, falling down through the air where there had just been a leg supporting it. The success did not last long, however, as the snow and ice twirled and funnelled again and a new leg appeared. The beast rose up to its full height again before sending a paw lashing behind it to strike Balg-Miur in the side and send him tumbling just like the dragon before him.

Then came Golgoleth and Kalwyn, one from the east one from the west, like two comets flying so fast that they left streaks of burning air behind them. When they hit they smashed straight into the snow-bear, exploding from its back and torso in plumes of snow. The cumbersome claws lunged at them but the creature of snow and ice was too slow. The demon and the angel ducked and dived to avoid its swipes before coming in for several more runs at the creature, which were successful but ineffective. Each time they exploded through the bear the wounds filled up with more ice and snow and it roared again.

A thought began to form in Karmalaine's mind. From all that he'd learnt of the Snowmen they were not a warlike people, what's more the behemoth which had risen up to defend them did not have the look of sentience about it. It must be being controlled, infused with power by the Snowmen from somewhere nearby, he thought, if he could find that place and neutralise them then the snow-bear would come down.

The Prince and the silver claw ran quickly through the falling snow. They had gone way out around the snow-bear and now moved in again. The Prince was concerned that they would be spotted and buried beneath a mountainous stomping of snow but Golgoleth and Kalwyn had the bear's attention, and Balg-Miur and Cyra had both risen up alive and well to rejoin the fight. As they neared the creature's right leg the Prince spotted something in the ground ahead, an opening of some kind. It was difficult to stay upright, such were the vibrations in the ground as the snow-bear moved and clawed, but they reached the hole and looked into it.

It was what appeared to be a sinkhole of some kind, into which the snow pooled. Though he could not see that far into it two things told Prince Karmalaine that this was where they needed to go; the first was instinct, the second was the familiar spine-tingling sensation that heralded the dreamer's trail.

"Down there", he shouted to Vulthian, indicating and preparing to make a move before Vulthian blocked him. "Me first, My Prince, we don't know what's down there", said the Lord Captain moving in front of the Prince and leaping down into the snow hole. Moments later the Prince joined him, sliding and spiralling down into the snowy darkness.

*

Anthony knew that situation was worsening when the three Frosts appeared. Night, Day and Dawn had come down into the cave to be with their people. Though many had crowded around them when they first appeared from one of the many holes around the top of the cavern, the people were soon ushered away by three Frosts who seemed very distracted. They hobbled up to the top of a large mound of snow and sat in a circle. They joined hands and after a few moments icy bonds had formed around their arms making it difficult to see where one Frost ended and another begun.

Not long after they'd started doing whatever it was they were doing, Anthony felt more reverberations. But these were different, the noise was so loud and the vibrations so powerful that it was as if the ground itself was churning and breaking apart.

'What is happening?' he'd asked George in hushed tones, but the Snowman had shrugged and said he did not know. What he did say was that the Frosts had made a clear statement that if Snowdell came to be again as it was in the Elder age then they would not allow it to fall as it had before. To what lengths they were capable or willing to go he did not know, however.

The rumbling went on for a long time, punctuated by what sounded like a cacophony of war horns coming from a long way away. Then suddenly there was chaos in the cave as two figures emerged from the holes and fell into the old snow on the far side of the cavern from where Anthony was standing. They stood up and Anthony assessed them. The smaller of the two was all in black, black trousers, black jerkin and black cloak, a look rounded off by his raven-black hair, flawless white skin and fiery blue eyes.

Though he was armed with a short sword which glowed blue in places, reminding Anthony of a dagger he once carried, there was nothing malign or violent about the first newcomer. His companion was terrifying, however. He must have been almost nine feet tall and bulky, though you couldn't tell it by the way he moved. His grey armour was thick but still afforded him a reasonable economy of movement. It looked to be made of hundreds of pieces and was adorned with the symbol of a raven on its right breast. This figure was also cloaked though his cloak matched his armour in colouration. He carried a sword in his right hand which looked short to him but was likely about six feet in length, but by far the most outstanding feature was the silver claw on his left gauntlet.

There were seven razor sharp spikes in all, each one a foot long and gleaming with sharp perfection. As soon as they landed the Snowmen closest to him started to scream and run. Anthony saw the clawed knight indicate the Frosts to the other figure and both of them started to make their way towards the hill on which the three figures sat.

When the Snowmen saw that the enemy were heading towards their holy men, however, they stopped running. They might be afraid but the Frosts would not be harmed by outsiders whilst they still stood. Snowmen and Snowwomen rushed to defend the Frosts and as they ran Anthony saw weapons materialise in their hands, mainly an assortment of hammers and axes.

The claw-wielder took the lead and started to cut a snowy path through the people of Snowdell. They slashed at him with their axes and they struck at him with their hammers but ice and snow could not seem to stomach the hardened steel of the enemy. To his chagrin Anthony saw a number of the friendly Snowmen go down, those struck by the sword rose again but those slashed by the claws disintegrated and did not take the floor again. Then George started to move and Anthony saw a large hammer appear in his hand, Anthony ran with him towards the enemy.

Though the Snowmen were falling in droves to the clawed warrior they had at least halted the advance towards the Frosts. Then Anthony saw George charge into the fray as he brought the hammer down with force on the helm of his enemy. But the armoured warrior shrugged off the blow and aimed a solid kick at George, knocking him to the floor before stepping over him and preparing for a death blow. "Stop this madness!" Anthony shouted at the top of his lungs. The claws halted but inches from George's frightened snowy face, then all eyes turned to the dreamer.

Anthony walked forward. Behind the grey mask of the clawed one two red orbs burned, there was no quarter there. When his companion stepped up, however, the man in black, Anthony saw reason, there he saw compassion.

"You are the dreamer?" he asked in a voice which resonated with power, a voice older than the body which spoke it.

"I am Anthony Hallow. Please ask your man there to stand down", said Anthony indicating the clawed one. The man in black placed a restraining hand on the arm which held the claw. Anthony detected a moment of hesitation before the silver-clawed giant stood down and moved slightly down the hill of snow.

"And you are?" Anthony asked of the black-clad man, who sheathed his sword.

"I am Prince Karmalaine, son of the King Fenn Corul Geddon, heir to the Nested Throne and the Kingdom of Avalen."

"These people are not your enemies, they are nobody's enemies."

"I know", said the Prince in a voice containing genuine regret, "it was not my wish for violence to befall anyone this day, but my father has tasked me with returning you to the Mercurial Chambers and it is a task I mean to fulfil. I gave these people a chance to hand you over. They chose instead to attack us."

"They were defending my right to choose my own path."

The Prince smiled at that. "A noble sentiment, truly, and one with which I empathise", said the Prince with sincerity, "but let us be honest with each other, you and I. This is not your world, these are not your people and this is not your path to choose. You are in the land beyond the dream, Anthony Hallow, you do not belong here and I have come to send you home. Is that not what you desire?" the Prince asked earnestly.

It was a good question. It had been at the forefront of his mind since he'd arrived here. At first Anthony's only desire was to return home to normality, but as the days and weeks had passed his thoughts had changed. Home was misery where the laughter which had filled his life had died. Did he really want to go back to that? The empty house, the woe, the nightmares, now he was unsure. The only certainty was that his presence was causing problems for people who had shown him care.

"You mean to return me to the chamber where I awoke?" Anthony asked of the Prince.

"You have my word."

"The words of Fenngaard mean little here, Prince Karmalaine", said George who had climbed to his feet and recovered. Anthony saw a momentary flash of irritation on the face of Prince Karmalaine but it was not in his voice when he responded, if anything he sounded contrite.

"I have never wronged you Snowman. Before a few days ago I didn't even know you existed. I can assure you that I was not aware of your plight, now that I am I can further assure you that upon my return to Fenngaard I will do everything within my power to ensure that Snowdell can continue to exist in all its glory."

That statement was greeted by a host of murmurs from the Snowmen, some positive, some sceptical. Anthony felt the former. Though he trusted in the wisdom of the Frosts and his friendship with George it was like a mist was starting to clear. The Prince was right, regardless of what waited for him. It was on the tip of his tongue; he was just about to speak the words of agreement which would take him back to the Mercurial Chambers and back to sleep.

But he was interrupted by a scream. One of the Snowwomen pointed up the hill where the Prince's silver-clawed companion had moved away but circled around the hill of snow. For a big man he moved quickly and stealthily and now he stood over the three Frosts who were oblivious to his presence, so deep was their concentration on the battle they waged above.

A collective scream came from the Snowmen who rushed up towards where the armoured killer had raised his silver claw, but their screams could not stop him. Neither could Prince Karmalaine's own shouts, which were drowned out by the fear of the people of the snow. The claw came down and sliced through all three Frosts in one go. They fell apart to nothing, just chunks of ice lying in the snow. A wail went up from the Snowmen and the earth seemed to shudder before they all heard and felt what sounded like a mountain collapsing outside.

Scores of Snowmen rushed to the top of the hill and the clawed killer made as if to defend himself, but they did not attack him. Instead they went to what remained of their holy men, the pieces of broken ice. Anthony looked at Prince Karmalaine who had a look of genuine anguish on his face. The Prince's desire for peace seemed to have had little impact in terms of staying the hand of his champion, however. The clawed one moved slowly down the hill through the throng of despairing snow people.

"We need to leave now", it spoke in a voice which chilled Anthony to the bone, cold, metallic, remorseless.

"Why did you do that?" hissed the Prince at him.

"Our companions were still above ground fighting that monstrosity. Would you have left them to fight for themselves?" asked the clawed one in an accusatory voice. The Prince did not respond but Anthony could tell that was a conversation the two of them would be continuing at a later date.

The Prince reached and grabbed Anthony's arm. "Come", he said but Anthony wrenched away from his grip.

"I think not", he said, amazed that the Prince would think he was going to come willingly after what had just happened.

"What just happened was unfortunate but it changes nothing, you must come with us."

"I must do nothing", said Anthony. The cold callous way in which the clawed one had dispatched the Frosts left the dreamer in no doubt of the lack of integrity of the Prince and his executioner. He turned to run up the hill to where George and his people mourned, but he had climbed only a few feet when something struck him about the back of the head and darkness closed in on his mind.

*

Vulthian sheathed his sword and picked the dreamer up like a rag doll, slinging him over his shoulder. The silver claws were not diplomats, but even so Vulthian's lack of tact was approaching intolerable levels. It was a matter he meant to take up when they returned to Fenngaard. The Prince had just started to look around for a way out when the roof of the cavern caved in. He looked up in shock as two large hands reached down into the cave, clasping Vulthian and the dreamer in one and the Prince in the other. As before, Balg-Miur's grip was surprisingly gentle with its power. The Prince gasped as he was lifted at speed from the snowy dark of the cavern back up into the open air. A small mountain had appeared in the basin, the remnants of the giant snow-bear which undoubtedly fell following Vulthian's execution of the three snow-elders.

What happened next seemed to go in slow motion for the Prince. A bruised but standing Balg-Miur was lowering them down towards the ground and he could see Kalwyn and Golgoleth circling overhead. Then he saw Cyra who landed just in front of the hole which the Prince had been pulled out of. His head pulled back and at first the Prince did not realise what was about to happen. As the dragons head came down the realisation came with it, the Prince shouted in protest at the dragon but could not be heard and a jet of flames powered out of the maw of the dragon down into the hole.

The burst was sustained and heavy as flames poured down into the cave where the Snowmen had wailed. When he finally stopped and lifted his head again there were no more wails, just the hissing of clouds of steam wafting up from the cavern.
Chapter Sixteen: Turncoats

Cyra the Silver looked confused by the Prince's outburst. "A battle is not finished until your foes are vanquished, Prince Karmalaine", he rumbled.

"They were not attacking us!" said the Prince angrily.

"They may yet have done, this way we can be certain that there will be no retribution."

Prince Karmalaine stalked away from the bemused dragon. He walked over to the steaming hole and stared in. It was a long way down into the rocky cave but he could not see a patch of snow nor anything moving. What a waste of a people, Prince Karmalaine thought, he had been away from Fenn too long. Was this what his father meant, he wondered, about the lessons he must learn in life before he could sit in the Nested Throne? He had learnt much about the ruthless nature of the dreams who inhabited Avalen. He had seen where the hate and the desire for war started. Within a few short moments Cyra had eradicated a species which had lived in Avalen since the elder days.

The dreamer was still unconscious. Balg-Miur had laid him down in the snow at his feet and Karmalaine walked over to where he lay. The radiance of youth had faded from this mortal, drained by time and sadness painted in the lines on his bearded face. Golgoleth landed nearby and stalked over on his thick goat legs, the Prince did not like the look in his eyes. "The dreamer?" he growled.

"The dreamer", Vulthian confirmed.

"We should take him to Bloodren", said the demon with an angry gleam in his eye. Prince Karmalaine walked to stand between the demon and the dreamer as Cyra stalked over from the entrance to the cavern.

"We are taking him to the Mercurial Chambers", the Prince said slowly.

"Bloodren is closer, Bloodren is safer. Enemies are near", said the demon.

"Our enemies cannot hope to stand against us, and I will be long dead before I allow a dreamer into the hands of the vermin of Bloodren", said Cyra.

"Long dead", said the demon with a malevolent tone. Suddenly there was a boom in the air, like thunder or as if something was moving at a tremendous speed through the sky. Then there was a blinding flash which struck down from the sky just above Cyra's head. The burning light struck down on the dragon and seemed to pass right through his head. When the light passed Prince Karmalaine saw Kalwyn of the House of Merywel standing on the dragon's head with his black eyes gleaming in a fashion that Prince Karmalaine had not seen before.

Cyra's head had slumped to the floor and his eyes were closed, the fires gone out. In the angel's hands was a long golden spear which went right through Cyra's head pinning it to the ground. Prince Karmalaine was rooted to the spot, he could not tear his eyes from the apparently dead dragon in front of him.

"Why have you done this?" he asked the angel.

Kalwyn shrugged. "The dragon was most arrogant, he would have undoubtedly stood in our way and I could not afford such risks when the event came."

"Stood in your way?" said Karmalaine. Before an answer could come Golgoleth walked forward to pick up the dreamer. Vulthian stood in his path so the demon swung at him with a claw with which was blocked. Vulthian's own claw struck home, however and the demon screamed like an animal and jumped back. A series of bloody rents had appeared from his neck to his waist.

"My Prince, we are betrayed", said Vulthian, drawing his sword and dropping into a combat crouch.

"Wait, stop, what is going on here?" said Karmalaine, who could scarcely believe what was happening.

"Ah, my sweet young Prince. The ages are changing, the sun is setting on the line of Geddon. We will take the dreamer to Bloodren. From there we shall see where prophecy takes us", said Kalwyn walking towards him.

"But you are an angel. Bloodren is your nemesis", said the Prince.

"Bloodren is our counterbalance Prince Karmalaine. I can assure you that the lords of Archaven are not above working with their demonic kin to achieve a common goal." As he talked he drew his sword and leapt at Vulthian. The silver claw did not hesitate to meet him and the sparks flew from silver talons as the angel and the claw started to duel. Prince Karmalaine drew his own sword just before Golgoleth leapt into the air with a blood-curdling scream. The mercy blade was in front of him and he gulped as the large demon fell towards him. Thankfully he never got to find out how well he might have fared as a huge hand caught Golgoleth in mid-flight sending him tumbling into the air. A similar blow knocked Kalwyn from his feet, though the angel was back up again immediately, staring at the giant which had just struck him.

"Balg-Miur, you are surely not siding with the dead dragon?" the angel said with a smile.

"This is not right Kalwyn", said an indecisive sounding giant.

"Oh please, now is not the time to develop a sense of delicacy and honour. I took your aid as assumed in this matter, or are the children of Rokumung content to bend the knee to the fool of Fenngaard still?"

"We gave an oath, you gave an oath. Rokumung's promise is a giant's promise, as are the promises of his sons, we do not betray", rumbled the giant, balling his fists.

"Then you will perish along with everyone else", said Kalwyn. All traces of the benevolent angel were gone. A cold hard creature was here now, something devoid of compromise or compassion. "Give us the dreamer and your suffering will be brief, delay us in our fate, and we will carry you back to Bloodren to endure a lingering demise", said the angel as Golgoleth flew down to stand next to him facing the giant, the silver claw and the Prince.

Karmalaine was thankful that the giant had sided with them. Had Balg-Miur decided to join with Bloodren and Archaven then he and Vulthian would be as good as dead and the dreamer would be on his way to hell. In truth, the giant's actions had surprised him. Like Kalwyn he would have assumed that Torabane would have joined in a rebellion on such a scale, particularly given that the Tower of Mirgarden would now side with Fenngaard to avenge the fallen Cyra.

"You over-estimate your strength, traitor", the Prince said bitterly to the angel. "I would advise you flee and tell your masters that there is nowhere in Avalen or beyond where they will be able to hide from my father's wrath."

"You father will not survive the next moon, wretched Prince", drawled Golgoleth, "and as for my masters, why not tell them yourselves?" He started to laugh at the end and Prince Karmalaine looked up into the sky and saw the reason for his mirth. The grey sky had gone black and there, moving towards them, was a cloud darker than all the rest. Its shape was not random, it was that of a skull, a skull with horns and a thousand huge fangs. The maw raced across the sky with a blanket of darkness at its back. Beneath that darkness there flew countless angels and demons, all the might of Bloodren and Archaven.

Before he knew what was happening Balg-Miur had swept the prince, the silver claw and the dreamer up in his hands and was running across the snow. Behind they heard Golgoleth roar, "Run, run like fools. Gulgazish has come, he will devour you along with your dreams, Haaaaaaaaa!"

The giant ran fast, impossibly fast, but it was not enough. The sky darkened and the shadow of the clouds overtook them. From the east came hell and they could not outrun it. Balg-Miur turned, beyond the black clouds over them they could see other things, huge pieces of sooty red rock moving through the sky dotted here and there bearing fortresses made from bone. It was as if the realm of Bloodren itself had come.

The air above them was filled with demons of every ilk, wing spans as wide as the valley in which they stood, chattering, hollering fiends with maws big enough to swallow a man whole. Flying around and with them were angels, the legion of Archaven. This union of the despicable and the pure was an abomination. It was as if the presence of the dreamer in Avalen had warped not just the weather but the psyche of every dream which lived in it. What madness could have taken hold of Arcturion that he would align his people with the repulsive minions of Bloodren, thought Karmalaine.

These were thoughts which the Prince would never find the answer to, however, for the enemy were now upon them. The demons flew down, laughing and roaring as they came. The air was thick with them and Prince Karmalaine steeled himself for the inevitable. But when they were close enough that he could count the spikes on their wings an explosion occurred within the ranks of the first wave of demons, then another, then another. Brilliant balls of blue fire exploded with a radius to swallow dozens of demons at a time. Prince Karmalaine turned in Balg-Miur's hand and saw that from the north there came salvation, a salvation which the Prince would not have thought himself thankful for until now.

Under the dark sky of Bloodren there came a host of silver sorrow hawks and on their backs rode the talented jackals in their thousands. Within moments the firework display to end all others had begun. Balls of flame, blue, red, orange, an array of colours flew through the air. Those demons and angels caught in it were vaporised or knocked from the air like swatted flies. The huge mouth in the clouds seemed to roar and from it flew even more demons and angels which responded to the flaming projectiles of the jackals with flaming swords and power bolts of their own.

The wings of the sorrow hawks were true and much of the demonic and angelic assault was absorbed by them, but Prince Karmalaine saw a number of the jackals tumbling through the air. His elation at the timely intervention was tempered by the fact that he saw a number of the jackals swooping down in their direction. They had their own agenda, of that the Prince was certain.

"Balg-Miur, go south, we have no friends here", the giant nodded and started to run. The battle raged overhead. Fire and lighting carpeted the clouds. On and on the waves of sorrow hawks came. In many cases the jackals riding them stood on their saddles to cast their dream weaves at the enemy. The air crackled as they lay about them with pure energy. The angels and demons reeled from the initial assault but quickly started to recover. Both airborne armies came south after the giant and his cargo and as they flew through the air alongside each other they exchanged volley after volley which saw hundreds incinerated.

The speed of the giant and the interference of the two foes with each other's progress meant that soon they started to gain some distance from the battle, a respite for which they were thankful. Sadly the respite was not to be a long one. Balg-Miur was only a league or so from the shallow ridge at the southern end of the basin which they had traversed but days before when he stopped.

"Why have we stopped?" asked Vulthian.

"Yonder armoured dwarf, look yonder", said the giant who breathed heavily. Prince Karmalaine had been so intent on the battle going on in the sky behind them that he'd paid no heed to their path, save for his desire that it lead away from battle such a hope had seemed futile. Yet lined up on the ridge was a mass of grey armoured figures. Here and there in their ranks the Prince could see cannons mounted on wheels.

"Vulthian", the Prince called to the Lord Captain who was held in the giant's other hand, "are these silver claws?" They looked similar, the same build, the same colouration on their armour.

"No, My Prince", shouted Vulthian over the noise of the battle, "they bear no claws and they have no familiarity to my mind."

"I recognise them", said the giant, his tone guarded.

"And?" said the Prince.

"No friends will you find here either, little Prince", said a sombre giant.

"Who are they?!" shouted the Prince in exasperation. But before Balg-Miur could answer the air was filled with the sound of ten thousand cannons firing. Purple fireballs filled the sky as they streamed from the army of grey knights on the horizon. The cannons which could be seen along the ridge were obviously a fraction of those which were hidden in the forest behind them. From the trees the cannons thundered and sent their deadly projectiles screaming through the air. Some were aimed at the giant, but many soared high into the sky over them where the jackals and the demons and angels had closed in.

Balg-Miur turned his back as the fireballs reached them. They exploded against his frame and Prince Karmalaine heard him grunt in pain. "Balg-Miur, run!" shouted the Prince. But the giant did not move.

"There is nowhere left to go, little Prince, and Balg-Miur has had enough of running." With that the giant put the three of them down on the ground and turned. He bellowed a war cry and ran at the grey knights which Karmalaine saw had started to descend the slope in neat well-ordered ranks. On and on they came and the Prince knew that the forest hid the largest part of their numbers. Already he could see many thousands and from the looks of things, from the sound of unseen boots marching and the momentum with which they came, there was no sign of them thinning out.

The giant ran into their midst and started thrashing and stamping at them. With each strike more and more of them were crushed beneath him, but that did not seem to deter them. On they came and those who got past the raging giant reformed their ranks and continued to march towards where the Prince stood in the snow, with Vulthian at his side and the dreamer sleeping at his feet.

"We must go, My Prince", said Vulthian. The Prince nodded and knelt down to grab one of the dreamer's arms. As he did so he saw the dreamer's eyes open.

*

Before he opened his eyes, Anthony felt that this could be much like one of the many hangovers that he'd had before. His head was pounding and his eyes stung, but when he opened his eyes he saw that the thundering noise existed beyond the space between his ears. Now this, this must be a dream, he thought as he lay there. The black-clad prince was just about to pull him to his feet but Anthony waved his arm away and stood of his own accord.

Anthony had visited galleries before, seen pictures of battles. He'd read books in which there were descriptions of battles. He'd even seen a re-enactment at Tilbury Fort, stood and applauded as Sunday hobby soldiers fired blank muskets at each other and pretended to run each other through with swords. He'd watched documentaries in which there was footage of the great battles of the twentieth century, and of course there was the news where one could sit and watch a battle unfold in the midst of some doomed suburban hell somewhere in a less fortunate part of the world.

But to be there, to stand there; the flight of fantasy which his imagination might take him on paled in comparison to what he saw now with his own eyes. The wars of men are brutal affairs. The wars between their dreams are no less filled with attrition and a thirst for blood, a desire for victory no matter the cost.

To the south he saw a giant wading in blood, some of it blue some of it red. He waded through a host of knights which assaulted him with sword and cannon. He raged and rumbled and stamped them into the ground, pounded on them with fists the size of double-decker buses. Some of them ran past him, through the bloodied snow, and he knew they were coming for him. But he did not care, his mind had had its doors blown off by the scale of what was happening around him.

It was raining, but not water, nor snow. That which fell from the sky was larger, heavier and deadlier. Winged beasts with no name that he could give them were crashing into the ground around them with shredded wings and broken claws. They writhed and painted the thinning snow with their blood, or they lay still in defeat and death. The fiends were not the only subjects of the canvas in the sky. Angels flew there, with large white wings and swords of light. So noble they looked, so dignified, yet even as Anthony looked he thought something was awry. The angels surely fought the demons but it did not appear so, for not a blow landed between them. Instead they flew together against a common foe, one he recognised, for there were the kin of Kannis, the talented jackals and their hawks, filling the sky with magic, filling his mind with wonder, filling their enemies with fire.

From the backs of their sorrow hawks they brought merry death to their enemies and all the while the hawks sang, that long sad note over and over. The sky was a myriad of colours which competed with each other through fiery flashes and constant waves, the purples, the blues and the reds. Above it all Anthony could only see black, a dark cloud in which there was a face, but unlike those which he'd seen on the journey to Snowdell. This was no benign formation, it was a living moving mass twisted in rage.

In the face of all this who could feel fear? What was the point of being afraid? No, in Anthony's mind there was no room for fear. But his mind could not revel in its amazement for too long; the clawed murderer grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and began pulling him along, north, away from the bloodied giant and the marching knights. Though it seemed senseless to run, it did not matter where they went. It still rained demons, they could not escape the tumbling sky. But he ran with them, the pale prince and his ruthless protector.

Every now and then a demonic form would descend and land in front of them, laughing gleefully and coming at him with claws and teeth. But the murderer and the prince would leap in front of him and hack at the beast with the sword and the silver. It was only days ago that Anthony had come here with George. Their trails might have still been seen in the snow were it not for the footsteps of tens of thousands of grey knights marching the same way. Only a few days ago he'd gazed in wonder at the beauty of Snowdell and been introduced to the friendly passive people who lived there.

"Where are the Snowmen?" he shouted above the din as he ran after Prince Karmalaine. The Prince just shook his head and kept running. That could have meant anything, he thought, he would press him on their fate later, if they survived. Scanning the battlefield Anthony could see no sign of the city or its people, but that meant nothing. The beautiful valley was fast filling up with a collection of dead demons and the odd fallen hawk, some with dead riders still attached.

The demons were still a frightening sight when dead. Their sizes and forms were so varied. All had wings, all had claws, all had maws but these were the only similarities. Some were shaped like giant flying slugs with many mouths on their underbelly, some were grey-skinned and looked like flying dinosaurs. Others were coloured red like blood and could bear no comparison to any living creature which Anthony could name, bulbous and covered in spikes, thin and spindly and covered in pussy sores which exploded with bright green acid. As he ran beside the prince he saw them all, some living, some dead.

For a time Anthony had no idea where they were going. The giant had covered a large amount of ground in a short period of time and now they seemed to be heading back into the middle of the basin, but it was taking much longer than it had when they were heading away. Then he saw where they were going. Up ahead was a small mountain which Anthony had not noticed before. The mountain looked to be made from snow and ice, Anthony wondered whether or not the Snowmen might be in there.

A hundred feet from the cave several demonic forms dropped to block their path. The clawed one leapt through the air like he was dancing, impressive given the weight of his armour. One of the demons took a claw while the other received the sword. The third was just about to be engaged when a bolt of fire hit it in the back. Black blood exploded from its mouth as it crashed to the floor in front of them. Behind it a talented jackal on the back of his sorrow hawk had landed and as he looked down on them another flame appeared in his hand.

The Prince grabbed Anthony and started to shove him along while the clawed one engaged the jackal. Anthony saw several fire-bolts head in the armoured killer's direction but he dodged each one with cat-like reflexes. The last Anthony saw, he'd leapt up onto the back of the hawk and joined in close combat with the jackal. Then they were around them and Anthony was forced to turn away from the fight and look ahead to where they were running.

It did not take long before they reached the mountain. There was an opening at its base which the Prince ran into without hesitation and Anthony followed him into the gloomy passage. Once inside his eyes adjusted to the dark quickly, for the snow and ice seemed to hold a faint glow, and he had no difficulty in finding his path. They moved under the mountain for quite a way before the Prince finally called a halt.

Prince Karmalaine crouched low and listened intently. The sounds of the battle could still be heard raging outside but the hostilities did not appear to have followed them down the tunnel.

"Worried about your hired goon?" said Anthony.

"Hired goon?" said the Prince, unfamiliar with the phrase.

"Your friend with the claw and a propensity for using it on people."

"Oh, Vulthian", said the Prince sounding unconcerned, "he is more than capable of taking care of himself."

Anthony also crouched down, glad for the respite. He leaned back on a wall of ice and took several deep breaths.

"What happened to the Snowmen?" he asked. The Prince did not respond, nor would he turn his piercing blue eyes to meet Anthony's gaze. "I said-", started Anthony again.

"I heard you", said the Prince, who now turned to face Anthony. "They are all dead", he said bluntly.

"You killed them."

It was not a question but the Prince responded anyway. "I killed no one, that was the work of the silver dragon. If it is any consolation he is now dead, slain by one of our companions."

"It is not", said Anthony, folding his arms and leaning back. Just like that, George and his people, George and his family. Anger started to build in him. Misdirected or not it was still there, seeping into every pore of his being. Anthony had been sad for a long time, for a decade he'd wallowed in his despair, but something always kept his anger in check. Some part of his melancholy always succeeded in suffocating his anger at what had happened, perhaps because there had been no one to be angry at and he could not hate the sea. Or perhaps the only person who he had to blame was now the only one left to him, the only love which still lived.

Anthony stood up and started to stagger down the corridor of ice. It came as a surprise to him that the dreams of mankind could act as cruelly as people themselves acted in life. Naively perhaps, he believed that one's dreams were the only place where they might be truly noble, unbound by the prejudices and afflictions of mortal life. But thus far it was not so, perhaps they were even more vicious for a race of dreams had been exterminated for reasons that even the most fanatical human would find hard to justify.

The prince in black grabbed him by the shoulder as he walked away.

"Where are you going?" he hissed.

Anthony turned and aimed a punch which caught the Prince on the chin. Anthony was not a fighting man, most of the fighting he'd done in life was at school and consisted of curling up into a ball until it was over, so his satisfaction at landing the blow was tainted by the fact that the Prince's chin felt like it was made from granite and he barely flinched.

"We do not have time for this", shouted the Prince. But Anthony ignored him and aimed another punch, which the Prince caught in his hand. Anthony was disappointed to find that despite being slightly smaller than him, the Prince possessed great physical strength. He held Anthony's arm in a vice-like grip and try as he might Anthony could not move it an inch. He aimed with the other fist which was similarly caught and the Prince flipped him through the air like a rag doll so that he struck the roof of the tunnel with force and fell to the ground with a bang.

The Prince loomed over him, knocking aside Anthony's kicks with contemptuous hands and then pinning the dreamer to the floor. The rage was overpowering, Anthony felt a warm sensation starting off deep down inside, but growing to encompass his whole form. The heat began to build rapidly until it was searing, pain erupting in his mind accompanied by a kaleidoscope of colour. When it abated, Anthony opened his eyes to see a war-torn sky above him. There was a huge hole in the roof of the tunnel the led right to the outside, and no sign of the Prince.

Anthony started to run along the tunnel back where he'd come from. He exited the mountain and looked around. Amidst the carcasses of demon, jackal and hawk he saw the Prince laying some distance from the snow mountain. Anthony ran over to him. The Prince was in better shape than the wolf had been in that his arms and legs were all the right way round and his torso was relatively undamaged, however blood was oozing from his ears, nostrils and even from beneath his closed eyelids. Anthony noticed the Prince's chest rising and falling gently, though he was not certain if there was any relief to be felt at such a realisation.

He was reaching down to check the Prince's pulse when he was knocked sideways by a heavy metal hand. He looked up to see Vulthian advancing on him, though his advance was checked by a fire-bolt which hit him in the chest. He scrambled elegantly to his feet and stood over the prone form of Prince Karmalaine.

Anthony turned to see a large group of sorrow hawks with talented jackals riding them had set down behind him. Above them the main bulk of the flock had pushed back the demonic-angelic horde in order to give the grounded party a brief reprieve from battle. The lead jackal got down from his Hawk and walked over to Anthony. His fur was more grey than black, except for the eyes which were deep black and filled with the wisdom of the ages. Though older, he still walked with the same wolf-like grace that all of the other jackals did.

"Hello Anthony", said the jackal in a sharp crisp voice stamped with authority.

"And you are?" asked Anthony. He was past caring about civility, the dreams which had promised such had turned to nothing and he was beyond tolerating being a pawn in the political power plays of the inhabitants of this world.

"My name is Rostrom", he said.

The name rang a bell. Anthony recalled Kannis having mentioned a Rostrom what seemed like a very long time ago in the forest below the Mercurial Chambers.

"The sons of Geddon do not suffer hurts easily", he commented, nodding towards where the Prince still lay with the clawed one standing over him.

"I do not know what happened", said Anthony, reluctant to admit any part in it. He was not a violent man and would have found it unconscionable to have hurt someone like that back home.

"I understand", said the jackal, "this must have all been very confusing. However, it pleases me that we have met each other and that your path here can continue as was intended."

"I am nobody's pawn, Rostrom. There is a part of me which strongly wishes I'd never got on that sorrow hawk with Kannis, and I'm certainly not going to climb onto another one with you. So if that's what you're thinking then I suggest you get on your bike."

"On my bike?" said the jackal, confused.

"It means you should leave", said Anthony. The jackal stared thoughtfully at him. Despite the battle which still raged and the attentions of Rostrom's fellow jackals constantly wandering to a sky torn apart by battle, the leader of the talented jackals seemed totally focused on the dreamer.

"It was windy that day", started the jackal, "there were warning signs of course, but in your world there are warning signs everywhere from cliff tops to pieces of fruit."

"What are you talking about?" asked Anthony, even though he knew full well.

The jackal ignored the question. "You blame yourself of course; it is a natural mortal response. You were a hundred miles away, you were not driving the car, but somehow it was your fault, and it is that blame, that guilt, which has followed you for years. You have become your sadness, Anthony Hallow, and it has inhabited you like a parasite. It gets up, it eats, it drinks, it sleeps and it cries. But it is not a person any more, it is a shade, it is a memory, a ghost who has forgotten to die."

"You don't know me and you have no right to-"

The jackal interrupted him with a wave of his hand, "Please, enough of the self-pity. You want a reason, Mr Hallow? You want me to tell you why you are here and why you should get on this hawk with me?"

Anthony could only nod in answer. Though there was nothing the jackal had to offer he would allow him to finish his tirade before walking away.

"Come with me Anthony, and I can reunite you with them."

Anthony stood dumb-founded. The jackal was not saying what he thought he was saying, that would be too cruel even for a dream.

"Zachary, Marcus, Luke, Ellie, Row and Clara."

He knew their names, how could he know their names?

"Follow me, Anthony Hallow, and I promise that you will see your children again."
Chapter Seventeen: He Who Wields

It had been a long time since Evessa had been in the King's royal apartments. It had, in fact, been years, when Queen Eldella still lived in the Palace of Fenngaard. Back then it had been a bright place filled with flowers, puppies, soft cushions and magnificent works of art. In his wife's absence the King had not so much made changes as he had removed any sign of the Queen. The rooms now resembled barracks rather than a royal apartment. They were neat, utilitarian, bereft of any character beyond the necessary hard wooden furnishings with empty grey walls.

Evessa sat stiffly on one of the wooden chairs whilst the King stood away from her looking out of his window at the unparalleled view which he had of the city below. He'd summoned her about an hour ago, for what she knew not because few words had been spoken. She told him that the riots in the city had been subdued and that the spider spears had assumed full control of security for the first pillar. The silver claw legion had left along with the fleet, and now they were alone.

"Have I sent him to his death?" the King asked suddenly.

"Who, My King?" said Evessa rising from her chair.

"My first born son, my heir, have I sent him to his doom do you think?" he asked again.

"No Corul", she said, using his true name. Alone like this she felt that the formality could be assuaged for now, she'd been there when he was born after all. The formality between them was, well it was naught more than formality. "He could not be safer. There are no foes who could overcome the might of the company he travels with."

He sighed at her words. She longed to hold him, to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, longed for so much but acted on so little.

"I have been uneasy of late", he confided.

"That is natural, these are tumultuous times. Such decisions must lie heavily even upon the mind of a king."

"My ultimate grandsire was not afflicted with doubt", he said morosely

"That is not true", Evessa objected.

"No?" queried the King.

"No", she said, "you forget that I was on his Silent Council as well as yours. Quite rightly is he painted as the father of this kingdom but he was a dream nonetheless, a dream who doubted himself, a dream who worried about his actions just as you do."

"Yet he triumphed", said the King

"As you will", she said. The lie tasted bitter in her mouth. What do you do when you swear too many oaths, when your promises start to contradict each other? Do you swear a final promise to yourself, she thought, discounting all others? The King fell silent again.

"How is the Sentinel?" the King asked finally. He seemed greatly concerned by Mortiune's absence, missing more than his counsel but also his ability to dream weave she suspected.

"The same", she replied wishing she could have lied again, but that was a truth he would have known in short order.

"Well, I have a kingdom to run", said the King turning and walking to the door. Evessa Tremaine followed him, out the door and down a corridor on the walls of which hung the likenesses of the previous three kings, Fenn, Lor and Dray. As soon as they walked into the Hall of Providence she sensed that something was wrong. If the King did as well he did not show it, his step did not falter as he walked the long walk to the Nested Throne. Evessa had to hurry to keep up with his strident march.

The Hall was empty and cold. There should have been hundreds of people here, the elite of the kingdom, palace functionaries, courtiers and messengers. But only the silver claws were there, the two hundred who remained standing in a ring around the throne. All five doors to the hall were closed. The silence was thick and heavy and even the ravens in the rafters above seemed subdued.

The silver claws bowed and parted to allow the King and the Witch-Maker through and the King had no sooner sat down when one of the huge doors opened. But it was no messenger who entered, no diplomat, no servant. In scuttled the Arachnid King, flanked by a column of spider spears.

*

Prince Karmalaine watched as the sorrow hawk flew away, the dreamer clinging to its back. His vision was still red despite wiping the blood away.

"What happened?" he croaked to Vulthian who knelt over him.

"The jackals have taken the dreamer, My Prince", rattled the silver claw, "we must try and escape from here."

"To where?" said Prince Karmalaine looking at the battle still raging around them. The sorrow hawks were now starting a fighting withdrawal. Many of the demons and angels in the sky followed them, but a fair number had landed and joined battle with the mysterious grey knights who had arrived from the south. In the distance he could see that Balg-Miur still stood, still under cannon fire and still decimating the enemy.

"If we can return to Fenn then-" started Vulthian, but he did not finish. His claw lifted to touch his helm then he went limp, his arms drooped lifeless down by his sides and his head dropped so that his chin was on his chest.

"Vulthian?" said the Prince, reaching out a hand to tap the silver claw on the chest, but there was no response.

*

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" said Corul coolly as the Arachnid King and his entourage approached.

"High King, the time has come."

"Time?" said the King ominously.

"For change, for rebirth. Please step down from the throne." At these words the two hundred silver claws drew their swords and adopted a combat pose. By now there were thousands of spider spears in the Hall. They circled the thin silver circle around the King.

"You are insane", said the King.

"I am but a dream of madness, High King, now again, please step down from the throne", the munching rumbling mouth of the Arachnid King uttered.

"Oh I'll get down from the throne all right, my eight-legged traitor", said Corul Geddon standing up.

*

Vulthian opened his eyes. The light was low in the Hall of Providence. He could not sense Amolach's mind. He'd inhabited the bodies of many of his brothers before and never been able to tell where their consciousness went when he did. On speaking to them afterwards they were not able to tell him either. They said there was no memory, as if they were asleep.

Compared to the snowy battlefield where he'd just stood the throne room was warm, but not that warm. The breath from the thousands of spider spears which stood around him and his brothers could be seen billowing out of them in small white clouds. Behind him the King walked down from the Nested Throne. Vulthian heard the high-pitched screeching he always heard when the King drew forth the Hammer of Fenn from the place that was nowhere.

A few feet away the Arachnid King stood. He appeared calm, remarkably so considering that the King had just drawn a weapon capable of obliterating him in an instant. He looked at Vulthian in the same way he seemed to be looking at everything. The many eyes of the Arachnid King took in the world around him as one vision. Everything seemed to slow down.

The King walked forward and Vulthian who had been Amolach moved to the right to allow him past as another of his brothers did the same on the left. The gamble was approaching, he felt no fear. His failure would result in a quick death, a welcome death.

The King walked past them so he stood before the Arachnid King. He raised his right arm and the golden hammer gleamed and pulsed. It was of an energy that was unworldly, even in this place. The hammer was unique, a world, a dimension, unto itself. In it was held all the fates of those if struck, a multitudinous singularity for their fates were death, eradication from memory, from history, from dreams.

Vulthian stared at the raised arm and the hammer. He stared for what seemed like a long time and he continued to stare as the hand came loose from the wrist in a burst of blood. Still he looked on as the hand and the hammer fell down to the floor, he who had wielded both falling down next to them. Only after they'd all hit the floor, the hand, the hammer and the King, did he look down at the royal blood on his silver claws.

Then time sped up again. The faraway echo that had been the King's roar became a scream that was inside Vulthian's mind as he writhed on the floor in pain. The Arachnid King stepped forward, lifted the hammer, casually prised the fingers from it and threw the hand back down next to the King.

"You may keep the hand", he crunched.

The King without a hand looked up at Vulthian. "Why?" he screamed.

Vulthian knelt down next to him. "The Raven wanes, My King", he said. The realisation in the King's eyes seemed to hold more pain than losing the hand.

"Vulthian", he whispered, "I am your King."

"The hand that wields the hammer is king in Fenngaard, Corul", said Vulthian. He said no more but stood up and closed his eyes. When they opened again he looked out over the snow as the battle still raged around him. Prince Karmalaine was speaking to him even as he woke into his own body.

*

The why would bother Evessa Tremaine for a long time. She longed to know and she ached with a desire to strike them down, the silver claw and the spiders who had just laid low her King in front of her eyes. But it would have to wait, the moon was waxing and its light would shine on Fenn for many turnings hence. As the Arachnid King held aloft the Hammer of Fenn to the cheers of his spider spears, one of them asked what to do with Corul, who lay on the ground trembling in shock and staring at his dismembered hand.

The Arachnid King gave a contemptuous snort. "Take him and throw him from the pillar", he said, before walking to the Nested Throne. There was no way for him to sit on it in a conventional fashion, instead he climbed up onto it and hunkered down in a very spider-like fashion, his shiny black legs clinging to the throne like a web.

"Take his children down to the Howling Cavern", said the spider to his soldiers. "Find the fat Magister and execute him swiftly", he added.

"What of the witch?" said one of the silver claws who stood near her.

"Her too", said the Arachnid, gazing at the Witch-Maker.

Evessa saw the silver claw raise his gauntlet and slash it right through her body. It gave her a momentary satisfaction as the silver claw stumbled right through her, her form dissolving to the dust that it was and the Arachnid King growling angrily as she disappeared. He started to shout more orders but she did not hear them.

Evessa opened her eyes in her the Witchhaven Dell. She took one last look around. Ornamentation could be replaced and her memories she would carry with her. The Witch-Maker picked up her pre-packed case, a small travelling trunk, some clothes and a collection of the rarest of dusts. The last thing she did before walking out of the door was turn over a large hourglass with grey sand in it that sat on her writing desk. The door closed quietly behind her and she hurried up the path which led to the surface of the first pillar. She pulled her cloak up high, pushing her lustrous purple hair back inside.

She did not make for any of the bridges which were too heavily guarded, as she knew they would be. She could hear the chants and cheers of the spider spears; from the lowest avenues of Fenn up to the heights of the Palace of Fenngaard they cheered their King and the great victory which he had proclaimed. Some treacheries were masterpieces, but this one had been all too easy for the lord of spiders to achieve.

Evessa walked to a dark edge of the pillar and stepped off lightly onto the deck of the Howl at the Moon. She was thankful that she'd decided to commission her own sky-ship all those years ago. It was nowhere near the size of one of the King's fleet which even now sailed east. It was only thirty feet long, with a few small cabins. But it was sleek and stealthy and painted jet-black to hide it against a dark sky. It bore only one small emblem, the three red circles inside each other, linked in a swirl, ever decreasing ever increasing: the symbol of witchdom.

Hidriss waited on deck. "It is done?" he asked as she stepped aboard. There were tears in his eyes. She nodded and fresh tears fell.

"Go below, Hidriss", she said gently. The mousekarl went below decks sobbing. His loyalty had been so strong it had taken everything she had to persuade him to follow her. Despite the inevitable she knew he would feel it was a betrayal, she hoped that he would learn to deal with his hurt in time.

"My lady", said a figure cloaked in a similar fashion to herself who had come up on deck as she arrived.

"Silissa", said Evessa greeting her fellow witch.

"Are we ready?" said Silissa, pushing back her hood to reveal a plain face surrounded by locks of faded red hair.

"As ready as we will ever be. Let's get underway", replied the Witch-Maker, who went below decks as the Howl at the Moon pulled away from the pillar and climbed quickly into the sky, heading above and beyond the Palace of Fenngaard and the city of Fenn.

*

Caljorual Raig scuttled down the path to the witch's cave. Find her, kill her. Simple orders for simple spiders, the kind of orders Caljorual liked. The kind he had followed a thousand times before. It was his ruthless efficiency which had led to his command of an Octal. His seven underlings scuttled along behind him. If successful in killing the witch, Caljorual hoped to be in line for a promotion. Perhaps he would command an Ocacatan, a troop of eighty-eight spider spears, or even and Ocurion, a large band of eight hundred and eighty-eight spears.

The Witchhaven Dell was a dome set slightly into the ground of the first pillar. Caljorual reached the door first. It was round and thick, a combination of wooden and iron supports. Raig looked around the door for runes, witch-magic which might catch him unaware, but there were none. He lifted his claws and started stabbing at the door which shook beneath the blows. Kil-Majurel and Snayissta appeared to his left and right and also started stabbing at the door. Then Valkaramy and Tolojuramein were there and they did not stab but they bit, their razor-sharp teeth gnashing at the iron supports.

It was not very long before the door started to sag and then give way, crumbling in splinters to the floor. The spiders scuttled quickly into the room, on the ground, the walls and the ceiling. Sniffing and sensing for the witch they scoured every inch of the dell. Caljorual made his way into the witch's bedchamber. His eyes took in the whole room in one go, she was not here. But one thing did grab his attention, it was an hourglass sat on a small table near the bed and as his eyes focused on it the last of the sand dropped through.

The explosion was thunderous and felt even as high up as the Hall of Providence. The Witchhaven Dell crumbled in fire and smoke, Caljorual and his Octal died with it.

*

In a similarly swift fashion to his transformation into a statue Vulthian lifted his head up. The red glow returned inside the visor and he looked at Karmalaine.

"Are you there?" asked the Prince of the Lord Captain.

"I am, My Prince", said the silver claw, lifting his arms as if getting used to being back in his own body.

"What happened?" asked the Prince, but the silver claw did not respond. Prince Karmalaine looked around. The battle in the sky had ebbed away, most of the sorrow hawks were gone having flown east to Eredyss with the dreamer, he assumed. The dark cloud of Gulgazish and a large host of angels and demons had followed them, but still more had remained to do battle with the mysterious grey knights who continued to march from the forest.

Despite their superiority as individuals the Prince saw that the angels and demons which had descended to battle with the knights were on the back foot. For each dead angel or demon there were twenty casualties in the knights, but numbers were playing a crucial role here. The Prince had never seen so many soldiers in one place. The silver claw legion was ten thousand strong and had often appeared for ceremonial purposes back in Fenn. The number of grey knights which Karmalaine could see was many times this number and they kept on pouring from the trees in an unstoppable tide, swarming over the angels and demons.

Only Balg-Miur stood against them. He was a red giant now, the blood literally dripping from him. The mound of dead knights around him was so large that others were struggling to get up the steep slope of corpses to be able to reach him. The northern part of the battlefield on which he stood had started to empty as the main thrust of the battle had shifted south. Though the grey knights were pushing inexorably north towards him through the demons and angels their objective, like everything else about them, was unclear. The Prince assumed that they fought here for the same reason as everyone else, the reason which was now winging its way north on the back of a sorrow hawk.

Just as the Prince was considering his options he heard a strange noise. Beyond the thundering of the cannons of the grey knights, beyond the roaring of the demons and the angelic war screams of the angels, there was a familiar droning which it took the Prince a few moments to place. He realised it was the sound of a sky-ship; No, not a sky-ship but hundreds of sky-ships.

From the east they came, filling the sky. Those demons and angels still in their air which chose to engage them were shredded to pieces by the sabre cannons mounted on the side of the ships. The remaining minions of Bloodren and Archaven were too few in number to stand against this new foe, they either joined their brothers in the fight on the ground or flew north behind Gulgazish who pursued the sorrow hawks and talented jackals who had stolen his prize.

Wave after wave of sky-ships appeared. The Prince's pride and hope swelled, his father's arm was long indeed and had reached out to intervene. The lead ships descended towards them whilst others formed a defensive perimeter. The ship which lowered towards them was much larger than any of the others and for a moment the Prince wondered whether or not his father had come in person, but it was a silver claw and not the King who stood on the deck waiting. A boarding plank was lowered which Vulthian walked onto first, much to the Prince's annoyance, but he made no issue of it and went to follow.

The silver claw stopped and turned and looked at the Prince. Then, much to Karmalaine's surprise he lashed out with a powerful kick which sent him sprawling down the plank into the bloody snow. This had been a day for surprises, a day for betrayal, but this one shook the Prince worse than any of the others.

"Just what the hell do you think you are doing?!" he raged at the silver claw. "Seize him", the Prince shouted to the other silver claw who stood watching from the deck of The Lonely Ghost. Not one of them moved.

"I am the son of King Corul Geddon, heir to the Kingdom of Avalen. I command-"

"You commands no longer hold any meaning, My Prince", he said the last words with exaggerated derision and sarcasm. "Your father is already dead and you are the heir to nothing, you're just another dream now Karmalaine", finished the Lord Captain, before walking up the plank onto the ship's deck. The plank was swiftly withdrawn and the ship lifted up into the air. It met up with the others and then the whole fleet started to move away, back east from where they'd come.

The Prince sank to the floor. He reeled from the silver claw's words. Was he lying? The boy in the Prince hoped so, the man in the Prince suspected not. It was all gone within the space of hours. Why did I come here, he asked himself? The angels, the demons, the silver claws, turncoats and betrayers one and all. Why did Fenn do this, why make a world for the dreams to live in? All they will do is fight you and when you are dead they will fight each other.

The sounds of the battle were drowned out by his own dreaming heart, which moved to its unique beat inside his chest. What the Prince needed to do was heal, to flee somewhere safe, to rest and recover from the wounds the dreamer had inflicted on him. But to do so would require some form of hope, a hope that the Prince did not have, so instead he sat and wallowed in the snow. Until the hand came down and scooped him up. Until he felt himself being carried through the air by something big and fast. There had been one this day who had not betrayed him at least, there was the spark, there was the hope. As Balg-Miur gathered up the Prince and ran north Karmalaine came alive again. The inside of the giant's hand was slick with blood, so much so that it took him a while to climb to his feet and look out.

Behind them the battle ebbed. The grey knights continued their advance across the field of blood, but with the absence of the dreamer the demons and angels stomach for fight was lessened. Those who remained had lifted into the sky and flown away, with their departure Balg-Miur had also moved away.

"I thought you were done with running", the Prince called up to the giant. Balg-Miur's crimson face was horrific to behold. Though much of the sanguine splatter which covered him belonged to the hundreds of knights who'd fallen before him that day no small amount of it was his own. There were dozens of deep gashes in his face alone, and across his whole body there were more than the Prince could accurately count.

"My mind was changed", said the giant in pain.

"By what?"

"We giants are prone to whimsy, little Prince", he responded with the hint of humour showing through his physical discomfort. The Prince stayed silent and on the giant ran.

He continued running as the light rose and fell and rose again across Avalen. The giant and the Prince crossed rivers, ran through forests and stopped infrequently in the shadows of mountains. They left their enemies far behind, they left the world behind as they ran through the wilderness. There were dreams that lived out here, wild dreams, but not so wild as to disturb a giant.

The Prince thought back to the instances of a giant who had protested most strongly at conveying him across a small chasm, yet now he carried him for hundreds of leagues. He stayed silent on such matters; to have spoken of the sudden change in the giant's opinion would have come as an insult. As they travelled they spoke little. The Prince tried to form some sort of plan but nothing could come together in his mind and if fruition would not present itself to his consciousness then how could he hope to cause it out here in the real world.

Prince Karmalaine knew where the giant was heading. Though the path might seem rugged and random he knew where it led. Again he did not comment, there were worse places to be going at a time like this. Several days after they'd left the ruined valley where Snowdell had been the giant began to slacken his pace, slower and slower he got until eventually, at a cleft in the face of a small nameless mountain, he stopped and lay back, uncurling his hand so that Prince Karmalaine could crawl out.

The Prince looked up at his carrier. Balg-Miur had left a trail of blood and he bled still for he had not stopped to rest and heal for long enough, so intense had been their pace.

"I am at the end, little Prince", he rumbled.

"You are Balg-Miur, son of the God-giant Rokumung, surely not to be laid low by a few knights with their tiny swords?" said the Prince.

The giant almost managed a smile through ruined bloodied lips. "The little Prince attempts to lift me, but you have not the strength of will or body. Here I lay and here I will stay, for my last breath draws near."

"You saved my life twice", said the Prince, "yet I cannot do you even one turn of the same."

"Feel no woe, Prince Karmalaine", said the giant, suddenly very serious, "you have greater responsibilities now than saving the lives of giants."

"My father is dead, the world is lost to war", said the Prince despairing.

"Then you must find it again", said the giant.

The Prince had already radically revised his opinion of giants following his time with Balg-Miur but still they continued to rise in his estimation.

"I don't know how", said the Prince, realising how hollow his words were as soon as he'd finished saying them.

"You will do fine, little Prince, I have faith", said the giant, closing his eyes.

"Balg-Miur, who were they, the grey knights? You said you recognised them", asked the Prince.

The giant's eyes opened. "I saw them before, long ago. I fought alongside them on an ancient battlefield at a place called Meregoth", said the giant in a distant voice.

"Meregoth! the fall of Arma, they were his creatures?" said the Prince. But he received no answer for Balg-Miur's eyes had closed once more and they would not open again. The son of Rokumung was dead.

For a long time the Prince stared at the still form of the giant, a red mark on the side of a mountain, a giant in life and a giant in death. Finally he looked to the horizon and considered his options. As far as he was concerned there were three. The first was to head for Whistlewood to Brukiel, the King's brother and his uncle. The head of the Whistlers' Guild needed to learn of the tragedy and treachery that was engulfing Avalen.

The second was far to the south-east, to his mother in Lyrilia. This is what his heart wanted, for his elder sister was there also and never before had Karmalaine missed his family in the way he did now.

The third option was the wall. Lemer Starys had been a loyal subject and he commanded the Octaris, not a force to be dismissed in this unfolding age of war. But a warning bell in his mind stopped him. Kalwyn had seemed a loyal subject, Vulthian had seemed a loyal subject and both proved themselves false. Faithful or not, the Prince dared not get close enough to the Octaris to find out lest he be captured if they had turned.

In the end he opted for the fourth path, the option that was not an option. He did not follow the path of his head to Whistlewood or the path of his heart to Lyrilia. Both places were far from here with a host of known enemies and potential enemies separating him from them. Instead he decided to continue on the road which Balg-Miur had been treading, instead he continued north.
Chapter Eighteen: The Grey Knights

Kannis waited nervously. He felt like he'd been nervous for a long time now, on edge and jittery. Despite previously having been the kind of jackal to take direct action who would have found such feelings an anathema he was getting used to them. He was getting used to the cold sweats, he was getting used to the way his hands shook all the time. He was getting used to jumping with fright every time someone closed a door and he was getting used to the pain of no longer having a tongue with which to speak.

His tail had been taken as well, this he could live with despite the loss of balance causing him to become clumsy and ungainly. But without a voice he was but a dog, which was exactly what his new master wanted from him. When the Ivy House had collapsed in on him Kannis had thought that was the end. The darkness had swamped him and a part of his mind saw it as the conclusion of his efforts, a failure he would not have to confront again. But alas, his swim through the dark waters of death was a brief one.

The light came back, the pain came back and the memories came back. When he'd woken the first time he still had a tongue and a tail. That was when he met Hekyll. Hekyll was not one of the grey knights. He was a nightmare, a true nightmare. Not like the demons which are the dreams of evil men, he was the fear of good men made by their own minds to terrify them, to keep them afraid and to keep them good. For the fears of the just are far more terrifying than the fantasies of the sinner, Kannis could not even begin to imagine the mind that dreamt Hekyll.

His back was hunched and he had several humps, from each which grew a head. These were the small heads, the ones which laughed as he did his work. The main head was bald and round, his features were a blur but every now and then Kannis spotted a serrated smile, a thin nose or eyes like pieces of coal. His legs were short and stumpy and his arms long and thin giving him the look of a primate. His hands were grey fleshy things, indelicate and cruel.

Hekyll did not say whether or not he had been ordered to take Kannis's tongue and tail, for all the jackal knew he'd done it for enjoyment. Indeed, it seemed to have given him great delight for he could have performed the amputations while Kannis was still injured and unconscious from the collapse of the Ivy House. But instead he'd nursed him back to health and waited for him to wake so that he could tell him what he was going to do. He told Kannis that he was going to put him back to sleep and that when he woke he would not longer have a tail.

Hekyll had been true to his word, when Kannis woke up his tail was gone and he writhed in pain, then the torturer told him that he was going back to sleep again and that when he woke he would no longer have a tongue. Hekyll had asked him how that made him feel, all Kannis could do was whimper. Again he was drugged to sleep, again he woke to the pain of a new injury, but now all he could do was gag and gargle unintelligible guttural noises.

Only then had he been taken before his new master, in chains until these were taken off so his master could attached a leash around his neck, a thick leather one with a metal collar. Kannis had been beaten and told never to come before his new master standing on two legs. When he'd dropped to all fours then he'd been beaten again for doing something without permission, without an order.

Day in, day out the beatings and torture had continued. Now Kannis was a broken thing, no longer a jackal but a true dog who scurried about on all fours, doing his master's bidding. He'd tried to dream weave at the start, back when he had a will of his own, but the gift was denied him now. His new master had cursed him thrice: a tail, a tongue and the power to dream weave, all lost and rotted away.

Only then had he been questioned, only once his mind was broken; his master did not speak to him, he just laid his cold metal hands upon Kannis's skull. He searched within the waking mind of the jackal for answers. Kannis saw what he took but he made no effort to stop him, his new master often made jokes about taking his arms and legs and using him as a footstool. The heads on Hekyll's back laughed with glee and anticipation, the main head just made licking slurping noises, the sound of anticipation. But the act had not yet come and Kannis did not stand in his master's way as he fished through his mind for all the secrets with which he'd been gifted.

The master wanted to know about Eredyss and the Lair and he wanted to know who ruled the jackals. Most of all he wanted to know about what the talented jackals had planned on doing with the dreamer; all this he gleaned from his dog.

Knowing what the jackals planned, his master had sent Kannis on a mission. This was when Kannis had met another of his master's servants who was called Block. Block had two legs and half a body out of which grew the tentacles, how many Kannis could not tell as old ones retracted and new ones grew all the time. There were eyes and mouths along the tentacles every now and then, between the clusters of spikes. He spoke from several mouths at a time, giving the impression that Block was many people.

Block was another nightmare. The new master had a reputation for consorting with nightmares, a reputation well deserved as Kannis found out. Block took Kannis back out into the open air for the first time since his capture. He did not know where they were, the wilderness went on for all the horizons around him. There they met up with grey knights, a thousand or so.

They'd trudged for a goodly while across the land until they reached the Dreamstone Wall. Kannis was a student of history, he knew that his new master had been known for his association with nightmares from the Dream Sea, what he did not know was how his master had managed to bring nightmares across the wall into Avalen. Now he did. When they got to the foot of the wall they found hidden beneath tall thick trees a portal going into the base of the wall.

The portal was tall and wide, oval in shape with a flat bottom, and to look at it was an ever shifting layer of grey, like a small neatly shaped storm cloud which churned in and over and around itself constantly. When Block had pushed Kannis towards the wall he refused to go.

"If you refuse we are to take teeth until you comply", Block told him, speaking from the many mouths on the many tentacles. As if to add reality to the point he'd reached down into the writhing body from which the tentacles came and pulled out a pair of sharpened pliers. "Hekyll gave me these, he said you would like them", Block told him. That had got Kannis moving pretty quickly, towards the portal. He'd hesitated again directly before it but a spiky prod in the back send him stumbling through.

Kannis, like every dream in Avalen, had been taught that once a dream had left the Dream Sea there was no going back. To do so would be to relinquish one's hold on their individuality and personality, to become another flash in the chaos. However, as Kannis soon discovered this was not entirely true. The portal led to a tunnel, the sides of which were made of similar grey matter. However, here and there beyond it the jackal saw glimpses of the Dream Sea, the sea of storms, coursing within lighting and fire. Within it were a thousand images a second, all the dreams of history colliding with one another in this great maelstrom.

The tunnel went on for a long way, it was wide and tall and it felt a lot like they were walking through a tunnel at an aquarium. After a time, Block pulled a device which looked like a compass from his body. It was made of bronze, when he activated it many points of light floated from its sphere and started to rotate around one another like a miniature three-dimensional map of a solar system. Kannis had heard of dream finders before, but he had not the slightest idea of how they worked.

As they walked on more tunnels appeared diverging off from their main branch in many directions. Block followed the route the compass told him to. For many leagues they walked beneath the Dream Sea until he stopped at one point when the globes of multi-coloured light had begun to spin incredibly fast before coalescing into one bright ball in the centre of the compass.

Block nodded and several of the grey knights who'd escorted them grabbed Kannis and attached a harness to him, from which extended a very long chain.

"You will find the first one through there", said Block pointing to the wall of the tunnel. Kannis had not budged until the wicked-looking pliers were brandished again. Even then several of the grey knights had to physically push him into the tunnel wall.

It felt like he was being pulled in a thousand different directions, like he was spinning so quickly that movement no longer had any meaning. He was falling and rising at the same time, every ounce of his being moved in a different direction, far and away but at the same time colliding with one another. Then he was through and he collapsed upon the grass.

It was a small field and the grass was short, neat and mottled here and there with patches of daisies and dandelions. The colours and lights were thick and blurry, lacking in definition not unlike a dream. The harness was still attached, the long thick chain clinking as he stood. The field was only a hundred yards or so in any direction, beyond the Dream Sea still raged. Kannis did not know where the light was coming from, it was just there, emitted from the grass, permeating the small sky above. Busy bees buzzed here and there, but the main feature of the field was the child's swing in the middle of it.

The swing squeaked as it went back and forth, the child on it laughing gleefully. He continued laughing and swinging until he saw the jackal approaching. The blonde haired boy had stopped and looked solemnly at Kannis.

"Hello", he'd said. But Kannis could not speak, he just stared and with staring he'd inspired fear. The boy did not run, he curled up into a ball and sobbed. He covered his eyes for in his mind if he did not see the jackal then there was not a jackal. But he'd felt Kannis's long clawed fingers curl round him just as Kannis felt the force of the chain pulling him back through the air and the wall of the Dream Sea. He collapsed back into the tunnel with the boy in his arms; the boy wailed and hid his eyes, but the nightmares would not go away.

The boy was bundled into a thick sack and thrown over the shoulder of one of the grey knights. They moved on. The next child was a girl. She played on a castle made of fabric filled with air. Kannis's claws had burst the castle as he'd climbed upon it, the hissing of the air rushing from it masking her screams. The brown-haired brown-eyed child had been taken like her brother and she ended up in a sack just like his over the shoulder of another grey knight. She kicked and moved for a way before staying still and quiet but for the occasional lost and sorry sob.

The third child was riding a horse through the surf of a long beach on which the sun was forever setting. He was older than the previous two, being about ten years old. This was the hardest to catch so far. His horse was many hands high, young, powerful and fast. Had the jackal taken the time to speak to the lad he would have found that the horse's name was Bucephalus, named for the horse ridden by one Alexander the Great, of whose exploits the boy was fond.

But Kannis was not there to talk, he was there to do his master's bidding. In the end he was forced to slash the horse's throat as it made to run past him. The creature tumbled with a scream, the boy too. Kannis gathered him up and the chain was pulled, bringing them both back through the side of the tunnel. Despite being older this one cried the longest, probably for the horse. Kannis had never been one for stealing dreams but each one got easier, his hesitation lessened. He was his master's dog, he would do as he was told.

The fourth child played with his blocks as the jackal snuck up behind him and took him from his game. The fifth, another girl, sat at a table with a mirror and comb and pretended that she was a princess. She saw the jackal in her mirror just before he took her, she had time to scream but little else, and soon she was in a sack being bumped along against the hard armour of a silent knight in grey.

The final girl was older, a little more so than the boy on the horse. She sat in the carriage of a train which went round and around in circles. She listened to music as she travelled, staring solemnly out of the window. She had soft brown eyes, much like those of her father. It took Kannis quite a while to get on board the train. He was worried that the chain which held him would not be long enough and that he would be pulled away.

But he managed to reach a surprised girl. After the surprise, however, came defiance, not fear. She kicked and punched at the jackal but to no avail, he dragged her from the carriage and then they were both pulled through the tunnel wall. This one shouted and screamed all sorts of profanity at the grey knights as they put her in the sack. Several hard blows from a steel gauntlet silenced her shouts, soon she just cried quietly like the rest of them.

With all of the children gathered they'd walked back through the tunnels. It took hours which turned to days, so far had they wandered from the portal in the Dreamstone Wall. The old Kannis would have been fascinated with the things which he glimpsed through the swirling grey walls which led to the Dream Sea, but the new Kannis had had his mind dulled along with his will and the strength of his body. Every so often he glanced at the wall to see a reflection of himself in it, the matted fur which had gone white from pain and fear did not suit him, nor did the look of a dead thing which inhabited his eyes.

They'd emerged from the portal back into Avalen and walked the long walk back to the hole in the ground which led to his new master's fortress. Block led the way down the slope into the underground. Light came from the small fires which burned without fuel along every tunnel they walked through. Eventually they'd reached the outside of a large set of doors and here they'd waited.

Kannis was anxious, he did not want to see his master for he knew that Hekyll would be there with his laughing heads and his lip-smacking slurps at thoughts of torture. Through the doors Kannis could hear the sounds of metal striking metal, a hammer beating something into shape. Block stood with him as did six of the silent knights, each carrying a sack over his shoulder.

Eventually the doors opened. At Block's prompt Kannis walked through remembering to get down on all fours as he did so, his master did not want to see him on two legs. It was a sign of equality with the rest of them that he did not deserve, the master told him. Kannis prowled through keeping his eyes to the floor. The chamber they entered was large containing thousands of tables, long thin metal tables bearing a resemblance to operating tables.

They were all occupied by what Kannis assumed would be grey knights when they were finished. Some lacked arms, some were missing legs, some tables contained only a torso or a head. At one nearby his master stood. In his hand was a huge hammer and with it he beat into shape a piece of metal which was starting to resemble the torso of a grey knight. The master looked similar to them, bar the antlers, but Kannis knew that he was living metal formed into shape by his own will, not that of a forger as he was to the grey knights.

As they approached he stopped his work and turned to them. His silver eyes burned like molten metal. "All of them?" he said to Block.

"Every one, My King", responded the many-tentacled minion. Hekyll was nowhere to be seen. "How did my dog do?" asked the master.

"He did well, I think he started to enjoy himself", laughed Block.

"Good, good", said the master slowly. "Open them", he said to the grey knights, his voice rumbling like a volcano. The grey knights opened their sacks and dumped the children at his feet. They were dazed and confused, their eyes were red from crying and each one looked pale and sick. But still they paled further as they looked up through their tears at he who was known as Arma Geddon.

*

Cyra opened his eyes. A forlorn wind howled down through the spire. It landed in his cave, beating against the blood brick walls until it had howled itself to nothing. The dragon stood up on his thick scaled legs and as he did so he sent a small mountain of gold and jewels tumbling down the mountain of similar items on which he sat. The gold and other precious metals which lay beneath him had melted and fused into a glassy layer, it had been some time since he'd moved.

He walked slowly down the golden mountain, into the huge vaulted tunnel which led from the spire. Outside the forever-storm raged over Fiurdein as it always did. The sand blew in sheets as he walked hitting him, cascading down and blowing past him. It was a long walk and he saw a few other dragons on the way. Pellum-Darys the Blue eye-balled him from across a wide valley, Cyra paid him no heed.

Trell-Kolumber the Red flew over him at one point. He circled once and blew fire through the air but Cyra ignored him as he had Pellum-Darys so the red dragon moved on to the next challenger. On and on he went, through all the ranges. As he went the territories became larger and his contact with other dragons more infrequent. As he neared the north pole of Fiurdein he saw the odd green or black dragon but then there were none for a long time and he knew that he was in the land of the gold.

The platinum flats went on for miles and miles until he started to ascend Mount Mirden. Cyra considered how quickly the journey would have been had he flown but he was not his dream, the silver wings on his back were bent and old. In all likelihood if he attempted to lift himself up from the sandy surface of his home he would crash back down within a few feet. So he walked, but he felt no shame in walking. His feet had touched the surfaces of hundreds of different worlds, they had never failed him, nor would they.

After almost a day of climbing, Cyra reached the top of Mount Mirden. The lake of fire at its summit burnt brightly as it ever had. He knocked one of the white tumble stones down into the liquid fire and waited. After several minutes a number of large bubbles could be seen at the surface. Then the fire erupted as a huge golden figure emerged from it. His King flew around the mountain before landing on the surface of the lake, he did not sink down into it as the rocks had done, the fire sustained him, lifted him in a way that it would no other.

"Cyra", boomed the long deep voice of his King.

"Draxes", said the silver dragon bowing his head low.

"What brings you to Mirden?" said the King.

Cyra hesitated. "My dream has died", he said eventually. The King's golden eyes burned.

"Our dreams do not die", he said finally.

"They do when they are betrayed", said the silver one with the broken wings.

"Betrayed?" said Draxes, the word seemed to burn as it came from his mouth. The King walked over to where Cyra sat, he towered over his silver counterpart.

"Those ones from Archaven raised their hand against me", said Cyra.

Draxes closed his eyes to Fiurdein. He closed his mind to Cyra and the fire-world where his body lived. When he opened his eyes again he was not at the top of Mount Mirden, he stood in the nest on top of the Tower of Mirgarden. He stood at its highest point and blew a column of red fire into the sky, along with a roar of summoning. All across the south they heard him, dreams of dragons coloured within every scale rose up and flew to their King. The sky was filled with them, as they answered the call to war.

*

Godwyn lay down with his chin resting on his arms looking over the edge of his cloud. Far below him between the rich grassland of Sel Fereden to the north and Cortuine to the south he could see the Angel Road, winding its way through the grassland. Below the road were the Lyr Sea and the Entlewood, above it the Five Lakes and the Crystal Road to Whistlewood. The Angel Road stretched for over a thousand leagues, eventually reaching the eternal city of Fenn.

Beneath the lofty heights of the cloud city of Archaven there were a number of small towns dotted about. The Angel Road itself continued until it met the Dreamstone wall. At the end of the road nestled up against the wall was the town of Fairwane. It was to Fairwane which Godwyn now turned his attention. Down by a stream several child dreams played the games of the young. They took turns leaping across the stream, working their way up to the wider points where some of them inevitably fell in, squealing with delight as the cold water rushed over them.

Godwyn watched them from several leagues up in the sky, following as they abandoned the stream for a game of hide and seek. From his vantage point he could see them all, it brought him great pleasure to watch the seeker moving about sometimes to within a few feet of his friends hidden behind a rock or up a tree and yet not seeing them. These were dreams born in Avalen, happy dreams with no knowledge of conflict.

His reverie was disturbed by footsteps on the cloud which could not be heard but could be felt. "My Son", said the Father as he knelt down next to Godwyn.

"Father" said Godwyn, lifting himself up so that he sat cross-legged opposite Arcturion. Today he sported the face of a younger person, flawless features and close-cropped blonde hair; only the eyes were the same, as ever, pools of liquid grey. Godwyn recognised his father not so much by his features but by his presence, which remained the same no matter what his physical form.

"What were you doing?" asked Arcturion, his voice a perfect unattainable note that would drive musicians mad as they tried to emulate its perfection but failed.

"Watching the children, their lives are simple, happy, un-blighted."

"You feel our actions will affect them?"

"How could they not?"

"Do you trust me no longer, Godwyn?" asked Arcturion.

"I trust you, but our enemies are moving", Arcturion nodded and Godwyn continued, "the dragons have learned of Cyra's demise."

"As we knew they would", said the Father.

"Their desire for vengeance will overpower any other sense, they will bring their fire to our lands", said Godwyn.

"Kalwyn returns to us soon, with the greater part of the legion. The dragons will not prevail here while our strength persists."

"Kalwyn returns without the dreamer", said Godwyn.

There was a tremor of irritation, it did not move the face of Arcturion but the cloud felt it and therefore so did Godwyn. "The dreamer is not in the hands of the Palace of Fenngaard, for now that is enough. Our allies from Bloodren will soon lay siege to Eredyss and secure the dreamer in time."

Now it was Godwyn who felt irritation. "Our allies in Bloodren? Truly I did not think to see the day when we joined hands with the demons", he said to his Father.

"We are two sides of the same coin my son, one day you may realise that. The differences between us are the split seconds at the start of the dream; we ended up as we did and they as they did."

"They are vile creatures", protested Godwyn.

"Some might say that we are too based on our actions", said the Father. Godwyn looked troubled at this. "Such things are based on perspective my son, do not trouble yourself for our perspective encompasses all", reassured Arcturion.

They said nothing for a time. Godwyn looked back down to Fairwane. The children were gone, called home to eat by the dreams which bore them. At first Godwyn had thought it strange that many of the dreams of Avalen tried to emulate the mortals who would have dreamed them. However, having observed them for many years from up on high it had clicked, they emulated the happiness and the sense of family. Avalen was a land of wonder, but in the midst of it there were many quite happy to turn their back on the magic and embrace as normal a life as they could get.

"Clouds gather Father", he said after a long silence.

"They do."

"There is chaos in Fenn. They say the King has fallen."

"They are right."

"Is that what we wanted Father, did we see that in our perspective?"

Arcturion shrugged at the question. "It matters not who sits on the Nested Throne, nor who wields the Hammer of Fenn. Our plans remain the same."

"And what of the shadow of the jackal?" enquired Godwyn.

"He has left it far too late to make his move, we have nothing to fear from those long dead."

Godwyn wished that he felt his Father's confidence. Perhaps what bothered him most was that their plans remained the same. He'd harboured his doubt since day one, since the prophecy, for Arcturion meant to take them to the place where dreams do not go. The legion followed his will as they always had, but Godwyn had asked himself the question over and over again: what fate would lie in store when the dreams of angels met the real thing? Their path was beyond the Brazen Gate and the closer they came to it the more doubt Godwyn felt.
Chapter Nineteen: The God-giant

"Do not make eye contact", Ashal told the newcomer who nodded impatiently. That was about the tenth time that Ashal had told him not to make eye contact but it would probably not be the last. There were many strange strands of etiquette to be observed when going before their hosts and masters. It would do no good for the newcomer to get eaten before he'd had a chance to spill his words.

Ashal had found a Red Demkin robe which fit the newcomer perfectly. To go before them without wearing such garb would also be a breach of etiquette, one which would also result in the newcomer being eaten. To appear before their hosts and masters without wearing the red robe was a statement, a statement that you were a stranger in these halls and that you had given yourself freely to the cauldron where the unlucky dreams were cooked.

When he felt they were ready Ashal motioned for the newcomer to come with him. As they left the Last House an honour guard of Red Demkin fell in with them. In the olden days, which Ashal had never seen, the Red Demkin order were used by their hosts and masters to go into the places where the small dreams were and herd them out. The masters would then gather those poor dreams up and they would go into the cauldron. In return for their services the Red Demkin were given the dubious honour of not being eaten themselves.

Of course the world had become more civilised since then, apparently. The hosts and masters had been told that they were no longer allowed to flush small dreams from their homes in order to eat them. They were told that if they did so they would be forced to climb back over the wall into the Dream Sea. So the hosts and masters had changed their diet, much to their rage. The cauldron these days was filled with vegetable, trees and rocks, though the occasional foolhardy hero would try and breach the mountain without wearing the red, and such idiots were fair game as far as the hosts and masters were concerned.

The newcomer had been in an awful state when he'd arrived, his clothes stuck to his skin with blood, and he'd demanded to be taken before the lord of Torabane immediately. Luckily for him Ashal was a stern and strict fellow. He had first had the stranger bathed, his wounds were tended and he was trussed up in the fine regalia of the Red Demkin.

They walked the Long Valley which led to the Gate of Skulls. The gate was another reminiscence of the days when the hosts and masters held the lands of the north in a bloodied fist. It was made from the skulls of tens of thousands of dreams, mortal and immortal, humanoid, jackal, centaur, ogre, troll and many other species of dream had gone into making the gate, a symbol of the fear and repression of the masters. It was almost a thousand feet high and as wide again. The skulls had been ground down along with rocks and clay in order to give it strength, even so the features of many skulls could be seen protruding from it.

The guardian of the gate differed from day to day as the masters willed it. Today Ashal saw that it was Moiglin the Drum, also famous from the old days of Avalen when he used to make giant drums from the skins of his enemies. There were still many of them inside Torabane, they would be played in celebration, they would be played for war or they would be played just to give the giants something to do. They got to within Moiglin's shadow and Ashal knew that he looked down upon them, but the Red Demkin did not look up for they knew better than that. Ashal was pleased to see that the repetition of advice which he'd given the newcomer had sunk in, as he stared solely at the ground.

"Who comes to the gate of Torabane?" coming the booming voice above them. Ashal felt the fetid stench of the giant's breath wash over them with a powerful gust.

"I present Prince Karmalaine of Fenngaard, son of Fenn Corul Geddon and heir to the Kingdom of Avalen", Ashal announced before sinking to his knees.

*

Karmalaine watched the wretches sink to their knees and reluctantly followed suit. Too much time had already been lost pandering to the bizarre rituals surrounding entry to Torabane and the seat of Rokumung. The Prince knew that this was where Balg-Miur had been heading, for the giants believed that to lay outside Torabane in death was a misfortune that would blight their family and for certain Balg-Miur knew that he was dying given the pace with which they'd moved.

Despite Balg-Miur having covered over half the journey after leaving the basin of Snowdell it had taken the Prince weeks to get here. He'd drunk from the rivers and the streams, he'd hunted his own food and he'd had to defend himself against numerous wild dreams on the journey but finally he'd arrived.

Torabane itself was the largest mountain in all Avalen. It was the only piece of physical geography which was the same height as the Dreamstone Wall. This was another of the many places in Avalen which the Prince had only read about in books. Though he told himself in advance that anywhere designed to house beings as large as giants was going to be big he was still astounded by Torabane which came into sight when he was still hundreds of leagues away from it.

The closer he got the more of the horizon was filled by the mountain until eventually Torabane had become the horizon. The sides of the mountain were lost beyond his ability to see and its heights stretched up into the clouds and beyond. Though the Palace of Fenngaard was the largest structure in Avalen it would have looked like a toy model if placed next to the sire of all mountains.

To get to the home of the giants it was necessary to pass beneath the gaze of a number of forts occupied by the people known as the Red Demkin. They had an appalling reputation as a people who betrayed their own in order to feed them to the giants and be spared themselves. But such was history and the Prince had found the current Red Demkin occupying the forts to be a fussy bureaucratic people more concerned with making sure that he was dressed properly rather than serving him up as dinner.

Torabane was surrounded by a range of mountains and hills, all of which looked up in envy at the one who towered above them. The forts of the Red Demkin were linked by a wall which ran across all the hills and mountains. They patrolled it around the clock despite there not having been a threat to the giants in centuries. It would have been impractical and impossible for the Prince to have gotten across the wall without being noticed, so he'd submitted to a suspicious group of Red Demkin led by the one who identified himself as Ashal.

Though the Prince had been keen to see Rokumung as soon as possible truth be told he was relieved for the respite which Ashal had insisted upon. The bath in the unnamed fort had been deep and hot and the chirurgeon had patched up his wounds with indelicate but effective skill. Then he'd been dressed in the thick, heavy and soft rouge robes of the Red Demkin and led to the infamous Gate of Skulls. Ashal had been very insistent that Prince Karmalaine not make eye contact with any of the giants. The Prince recalled having made eye contact with Balg-Miur many times and the giant had never taken offence, he could only assume that this was a regional custom observed in Torabane and not in the wider world.

The scale of the Gate of Skulls was a taste for the Prince of giant architecture. What to the giants was a modestly large doorway was to the 'small people' an archway worthy of entrance into the heavens. It was much larger than the doors leading to the Palace of Fenngaard through which the giants had to stoop upon entering. A number of giants standing on each others' shoulders could have walked through the Gate of Skulls with room to spare.

Beyond the gate was a wide paved area several leagues across. It was dotted here and there with giant statues showing a variety of giants standing in victorious poses. Had he walked around the foot of the mountain, a journey which would have taken months, he would have seen that Torabane was ringed by the statues of long dead giants who'd once shaken the world with their footsteps. But it was not the dead giants Karmalaine was here to see. The one who'd been guarding the gate had stepped aside without a word when Ashal had announced him. The Red Demkin led the way past the giant and into the plaza of statues.

As they walked it started to rain, the water forming tears on the faces of the giant statues they passed. The weather which had afflicted Avalen in the wake of the dreamer's presence persisted in all quarters. The Prince could not recall the last time he'd seen a blue sky, or felt the pure natural light of the world shining on his skin. The red garments were thick enough to keep most of the rain off, the tail ends became sodden, however, dragged as they were through the many puddles on the plaza. The Gate of Skulls had been formed between two natural mountain peaks which held the path to Torabane. As they neared the mountain the Prince saw alterations made to the base of the peak that dwarfed even the Gate of Skulls.

The base of the mountain had been transformed into a huge colonnade which stretched as far as the Prince could see. Leading up to the columns was a series of steps. They were giant steps for a majority but here and there between those steps, which Karmalaine would have needed a ladder to climb, small culverts with 'small people' steps had been carved. The Gate of Skulls, though impressive in its magnitude, was a crudely built misshapen structure. The colonnade, the steps and the lintel above were flawless, fitting together with a neatness that gave the impression that it was all one piece, that the foot of the mountain had simply grown this way.

They made their way up to the platform beneath the overhanging lintel that merged into the mountain. In front of them Karmalaine saw a huge arched entrance with no door. Either side of it stood two more giants brandishing clubs big enough to level a small town. They gave the Red Demkin no quarrel and the group passed beneath the arch into the mountain proper. What he saw next stunned the Prince to an abrupt standstill causing the Red Demkin behind him to almost walk into his back. What he was seeing was simply not possible. The mountain was hollow. It was one large cavern, the walls of which were lined with an ascending spiral staircase which went up for miles to the peak of Torabane.

What struck the Prince was just how much like Fenngaard the concept of Torabane was. Many walkways led from the spiral staircase into smaller caverns built into the mountain wall, but the central space was hollowed out to make a hall which Fenngaard could have fit into ten times over.

"Come", said Ashal in a hushed voice. The Prince followed haltingly, blown away by the scale of the hall of giants. Lanterns hung around the hollow mountain, so large that they would have put torch to whole villages with a single swipe. The fires which crackled in them did so with such volume that to the Prince it sounded more like thunder rumbling that fire burning.

The centrepiece of the hall towards which they headed was another statue, larger than the rest by several times. It was of a giant sitting on a throne, a colossus to dwarf the colossi; this must have been a statue to the father of the giants surely? Then it moved. Just slightly shifting in its throne, the ground rumbled and Prince Karmalaine's heart beat in his chest so hard he thought it might burst. The snow-bear which the occupants of Snowdell had conjured had been bigger, but unnatural and made just from ice and snow, there was little of substance to it. The thing sitting on the throne was flesh and bone.

So grey and stony was its skin that the Prince had thought it could be nothing but a statue. Indeed there was little to differentiate it from the throne on which it sat and in places they seemed to have become one and the same, to have merged into one. Some distance from the throne they stopped and the Red Demkin fell to their knees once more. The Prince followed suit, overawed by what he was seeing. Ashal was silent and the Prince wondered whether or not it had fallen to him to speak. He was considering doing so when he on the throne did so.

"Speak", he rumbled in a voice so deep and powerful that it echoed off the walls for many moments before descending the distance to their ears. It was a voice which spoke from far away, so high was the giant's head from where they knelt.

Ashal responded without lifting his head. "Rokumung, God-giant of Torabane, we found this dream wondering before the red line, it sought an audience with your greatness."

"What is its name?" came the long words of Rokumung back to them.

"It is called Prince Karmalaine, son of Fenn Corul Geddon, heir to the Kingdom of Avalen."

Rokumung seemed to think about that for a time before answering. "Arise, little Prince", said the giant, adopting the same frame of speech as his son had used. "What brings you to my hall?" he bellowed. The prince did not know if the giant was bellowing but his voice was so loud that it seemed that way though it might have been a whisper spoken to one of his own kind.

So the Prince recounted his tale. He started with the gathering of champions and detailed the quest they'd journeyed on to find the dreamer. Rokumung listened without interruption. The Prince told them of how they'd picked up the trail, the journey to Snowdell and the battle with the ice giant. He told him everything, the betrayal of Bloodren and Archaven, the death of Cyra, the battle over the valley of the snow people and the arrival of the grey knights.

Prince Karmalaine recited the incident with the dreamer in the snow mountain and his subsequent escape with the jackals, he told him of the arrival of the sky-ship fleet, the treachery of Vulthian and the yet to be confirmed news of his father's fall in Fenngaard. He told him of all this and then he told of how he and Balg-Miur had fled and raced north to Torabane. At this point he stopped and hesitated. He was not sure how to recount the next bit of his tale or how it would be received by the one which his people referred to as the God-giant.

Rokumung picked up on his hesitation. "Where is my son?" he rumbled in a tone low and ominous even for a giant.

"He died of his wounds. His body lays some week's travel south-west of here, resting against the side of a mountain. He saved my life", finished the Prince.

Rokumung closed his eyes and then he started to tremble. When they opened again they were filled with bulging red veins which pulsed with anger and the giant's fists began to clench. The arms of the throne on which he sat started to shake, then giant cracks appeared. The Red Demkin who had stayed kneeling got up and started to retreat, Prince Karmalaine went with them.

"You should have told me", hissed Ashal, grabbing him by the arm.

"It was not your place to know before his father", said the Prince wrenching his arm away.

As they moved away the trembling increased as Rokumung shook in his throne. Then suddenly there came an enormous crack signalling the release of force. The God-giant stood and the throne which they said he'd never leave broke and crumbled into a pile of rubble behind him. Much of it still clung to him where it had fused with his skin but he did not seem to notice. As he stood a low roar started in his throat which grew louder and louder as he lifted his head and bellowed his rage to the top of Mount Torabane.

From the cave openings which decked the inner wall of the mountain Prince Karmalaine saw hundreds, no thousands, more giants appearing to join the shout. They started to stamp and thump their hands against their chests and then they started to make their way down the spiral steps to the central chamber. Prince Karmalaine watched dumbfounded as the giants gathered. All the while the God-giant's roar continued, it shook the ground, it shook the mountain and it would shake the world. The giants were going to war.

*

Rollin Starys was not the world's greatest wei chi player. The game had been reconstructed from a similar one played on Old Earth. It had been around for a long time and Rollin Starys had been playing it for as long, but he just didn't seem to have got the hang of it.

But Lemer did not mind, this was not one of the Game Houses of Fenn. This was the small Spartan headquarters of the north-eastern brigade of the Octaris, and they played merely to pass the time.

The Starys were native to Mohep in the south of Avalen. Lemer had brought Rollin with him not because of any particular skill that he possessed but for his company. Being Chief of the Octaris was often solitary work as Lemer spent years at a time moving between the four headquarters of the brigades, liaising with his deputies, ensuring the safety of the realm and monitoring the Dream Sea.

Rollin was a distant cousin, for the Starys were not a populous dream. Lemer had taken him on as his second in command for fear of the madness of silence that would have assailed him otherwise. Octarians were not prone to speaking, being bereft of mouths this was easy to understand. After the first Fenn had put up the wall he announced that a new breed of guardians would be created in the workshops of Fenn to man the wall and keep the nightmares at bay.

So the Octarians were born, fit and suitable for their purpose. They were the only beings in all of Avalen created from the crystals which were mined at Whistlewood. They were blue with blank faces, features were deemed unnecessary; they did not need them for the task they were performing, even from an aesthetic point of view, for the Octarians would never come into contact with the rest of Avalen's occupants. They looked to be cut directly from crystal, with crystal arms, crystal legs and a glassy body which looked as if it might crack if not handled delicately, but they moved with dexterity and agility and they were stronger than steel in their composition.

The Octarians of the Octaris did not eat or drink nor did they sleep. They patrolled every day from the moment they were woken, and they would continue to do so until either they or the wall were destroyed. There was no rank, no politics and no need for barracks or shelter of any kind. They did not need weapons for their limbs, so willed, could form any weapon of their choosing. They were the perfect guardians. They were also incredibly dull to be around.

Due to their inability to vocalise the Octarians spoke in nods and shakes. Usually a nod was all that was required. "Is all well on the wall?" Yes nods the Octarian. They were self-sufficient to the point that many debated whether or not they even needed an overseer. In the end it was decided all those years ago that someone must take responsibility for them. The task fell to Lemer and resulted in him being elevated to the Silent Council, though he sat on it rarely due to spending so long at the wall.

So he'd brought in Rollin. Mohep was a jungle, filled with predators and his cousin had been only too glad to assume the position of number two in command of the Octaris. The wall was about fifty feet across at the top and the headquarters along with a small sky-port for Lemer's personal sky-ship. The cluster of small square grey buildings was utilitarian. There were the living quarters where Lemer, Rollin and the crew of the sky-ship slept, an inkling station for communication with Fenn, a kitchen and a common area.

It was in the common area that Lemer sat, waiting as his cousin slowly blocked himself in on the wei chi board. Lemer was just about to lay the small black stone which would seal his frowning cousin's fate when the board started to shake, the stones were knocked out of place and his victory was postponed.

"By Fenn!" Rollin exclaimed, standing up as the tremors continued. "An earthquake?" the smaller Starys said staring at Lemer.

"There are no earthquakes here on the wall or anywhere else in Avalen", said Lemer, but no sooner had the words left his mouth that he doubted them. The Magister Elementis had lost control of the weather patterns, other problems could now be occurring as a result of the dreamer's presence, problems that might shake the ground beneath their feet. Lemer walked to the sliding door which led out onto the wall proper, though he doubted if there would be anything to see from this height he thought it might not be a bad idea to check that the world wasn't actually falling apart.

Outside the trembling was steady but there was a sound with it. Not a natural sound, not the sound of rocks and earth churning and shaking but a vocal sound, the sound of many voices shouting as one. Before the Elementis had lost control of Avalen's weather the views from atop the Dreamstone Wall had been the most spectacular and scintillating views available anywhere in land. On a good day, which most of them were before the weather failing, it was possible to see the faraway towers of Fenn to the south. Now, however, there was just cloud. The top of the wall was above the cloud and from where they stood it totally covered the land.

Only one thing could be seen from such a height when Avalen was covered in clouds which was the very top of the mighty peak of Torabane, the home of the giants. The snow-capped peak was comparatively near to where Lemer now stood. It was known that the very tip was hollowed out with an opening that went right down into the bowls of the mountain where the giants dwelt. As the tremors and roars continued, Lemer focused his eyes and more importantly his ears on the top of the mountain for it seemed that the sound was coming from there.

The longer he concentrated the more certain he became that the sound was coming from Torabane.

"The mountain?" quizzed Rollin who stood beside him. Lemer nodded. They watched for a while until a thick plume of red smoke started to funnel out of the top of the mountain. "That's not good", said Rollin. Lemer couldn't help but agree.

"Stay here, keep a close eye on the mountain", said Lemer.

"Where are you going?" asked Rollin.

"The inkling, Fenngaard must hear of this", said Lemer, walking back indoors and making his way to the inkling station. He sat down at the table where a piece of aged yellow paper was connected to many silver threads which went into a hole at the back of the desk. From that hole the wires went down through the building and into the Dreamstone Wall itself. Thousands of feet down went the threads until it reached Avalen where it joined the vast web which lay beneath the ground and linked the thousands of inkling stations across the kingdom.

From around his feline neck, Lemer took a chain to which was attached a key in the shape of a raven's wing. He inserted it into the slot at the top of the station then took the quill from the ink pot and started to write.

Too few stars and too few moons

Too many reflections on dark lagoons

Lemer scrawled the first lines of the code set and then waited. The station holding the other half of the raven key was in the Palace of Princes in Fenn and was manned around the clock. The Starys did not have to wait long for a reply.

A light divided shines as bright

We need but one torch to shine at night

With the first part of the cipher confirmed Lemer entered the next.

I had a dream I could not recall

Of its meaning I was denied

The second part came back straight away:

Such a meaning might mean none at all,

For many a dream has lied

Lemer was confident that he was speaking to the watch station in Fenn. Each time he visited the city he would go to the station and meet with the team of mousekarls who operated it. They would change the cipher and everyone would learn the exact wording of it. Lemer sent his message, Strange activity at Torabane. Red smoke seen coming from the mountain top, a trembling of the wall and the sound of many giants moving and bellowing. Please inform the King and advise.

With that Lemer sat back to wait. It would take time for messengers to run to the King who would then brief a senior agent on his orders. That agent would then communicate with Lemer and give him his directives. Torabane was only a short journey from their current location, it was likely that the King would order him to take his sky-ship and survey the mountain, to try and ascertain what the source of the activity was.

After what seemed like a very long time indeed words finally started to appear on the piece of paper in front of him. They were few in number, shocking in their gravity: The giants have rebelled against the rule of the King. You are to use all the forces at your disposal to assault them should they leave Torabane and drive them under the mountain.

Lemer read the words several times to make sure his slanted yellow eyes did not mislead him. The words were there, accurate and true. He leaned back in his chair. Finally he leaned forward, gathered some more ink to his quill and wrote again, Please clarify previous message.

The reply came quickly, No clarification is required. You have your orders Chief of the Octaris, carry them out in full. Vulthian Kel-Parr.

The King hadn't sent just a messenger, the Lord Captain himself was at the opposite inkling station. Even without the sign-off the dismissive response alone would have been enough to indicate that it was him. Lemer got up from his chair and went back through to the common room. The tremors had stopped but upon opening the door he could still hear an unusual amount of roaring coming from the mountain. The giants were always roaring about something or other, but this level of anger was unprecedented. Rollin was still outside staring at the smoke billowing from the peak.

"Rollin, I need you", said Lemer to his cousin. Rollin Starys followed Lemer silently through the compound to the inkling station where Lemer pointed to the series of messages on the paper. "What do you make of that?"

His cousin read it. All the Starys shared the same physical attributes, the fawn legs, emaciated skeletal bodies and feline heads. Rollins fur and eyes were blue where Lemer's were yellow, and these blue eyes went wide as they read the messages. "I don't understand", he said when he was done.

"Neither do I", concurred Lemer.

"For a start the Octarians can't leave the wall, so I am uncertain what force they think that we could bring to bear?" said Rollins confused.

"Indeed. Either they don't know, or they don't care. We have both seen and heard the activity coming from the mountain, but rebelling against Corul? Rokumung has been in Avalen for a very long time, he would not be so rash, particularly following the Binding."

Rollins nodded. Both Starys stood stroking their chins for a minute or two.

"Have you any other keys?" asked Rollins eventually. Lemer shook his head, he knew what his cousin had been thinking because the same thought had passed his own mind. If they could contact another inkling station in Fenn they might be able to get more information on the alleged rebellion. But Lemer communicated via the inkling stations only rarely, and never thought that he would have a need to speak with anyone outside of the first Pillar.

"Ravens?" said Rollin.

"Ravens", said Lemer nodding. The headquarters contained a small rookery. Sadly, due to the use of the inkling network the rookery was poorly maintained. The ravens had long made a number of holes through which they came and went so there was every chance that it would stand empty. The two Starys made their way to the rookery and were pleased to see a raven within.

As they approached, however, the lonely bird began to hop towards a large hole in the side of the rookery. Soft words and slight movements were required in order to get close enough; they were fortunate and managed to grab the bird before it flew the coop.

"Where shall we send it?" asked Rollin, as Lemer scribbled a message on a piece of paper.

"To Fenn, but not the palace complex." Lemer tapped the piece of charcoal against his chin as he thought. "Send it to Witchhaven Dell, I trust Evessa Tremaine enough to rely on her discretion and on any confirmation she gives us."

Rollin nodded and picked up a crystal from the box next to the rookery door. It was small and red and on it were the three circles of the witches' symbol. The ravens of Avalen were excellent homing birds but given the size of Fenn and the enormity of the palace complexes of the first pillar the crystal system had been developed to allow a little more accuracy when sending the winged messengers. Witchhaven Dell contained a larger homing crystal towards which the bird would be drawn as it neared the first pillar.

The message which Lemer had scribbled was simple. The palace informs us of a rebellion from Torabane, please confirm. He felt it would be enough and someone of Evessa's perception would know that he was looking for as much information as possible regarding the current situation. With the crystal and message attached, Lemer had faith that the raven would remember its purpose and not simply fly off into the horizon never to be seen again. Both Starys walked from the rookery and Lemer released the bird, which flew straight and true down through the clouds towards Fenn.

"What now?" asked Rollin.

"Alert the crew", replied Lemer, "I don't plan on launching any kind of attack on the giants but I would like to circle the mountain a couple of times to see what's causing all the commotion." He started to walk down to the sky-port and was surprised to see Rollin rooted to the spot. "Cousin?" he queried.

"I don't think it would be wise for us to be in the air right now", he said quietly. Rollin was not looking at Avalen. His eyes had turned behind them, towards the endless mass of colour and fire that was the Dream Sea. Lemer walked across the perfectly flat wall-top so that he stood looking out at the sea. The Dream Sea was never calm, it was a perpetual maelstrom which rotated through varying degrees of fury but Lemer had never seen it as he did now.

Mushroom clouds of orange flame exploded across the sea. Columns of fire were rising up from the depths, towering over the wall and forming gigantic clouds of ash and lightning which grew larger and more unstable with each passing moment.

"Fetch the crew", shouted Lemer over the wind, which suddenly whipped over the wall carrying the storm with it, "get to the bunker." As he turned to walk into the complex himself Lemer saw an Octarian. The creature moved with the same casual gait they all did. Flecks of fiery rain were starting to fall over the wall, striking the blue crystal of the Octarian's body, hissing and fizzling out as they did so.

"Is all well with the sea beyond the wall?" Lemer asked formally. The Octarian shook his head slowly. "Is there anything the Octaris can do?" Again came the shaking of the head. Lemer left the crystal being where he stood and ran towards the bunker built into the wall. He reached it just as the storm proper came over and tore the headquarters from the wall with casual ease.
Chapter Twenty: Dream Storm

The storm was so large when it finally broke that it could have covered Avalen a hundred times over. It rolled across the kingdom like a wave; none would be spared its touch both in the short- and long-term. The storm touched the lives of the power dreams who lived in their mighty fortresses and it touched the dream of the lowliest worm wriggling through the snow-covered dirt of Avalen.

The dream storm came with four kinds of rain. That of water, so much that it drowned those it touched. That of fire, so hot that it burned those it touched. That of plague, so virulent that it caused sickness in those it touched. The last was the rain of sorrow and all those caught in it would lose their senses; their minds and eyes would become vacant for there was room in there for naught but woe and such melancholy cannot fuel the life of a dream.

In a whimsical frenzy the spinning fingers of fire touched down on the green lands of Avalen, in their wake leaving ashes from which no phoenix would rise.

In the west there lived a badger walker called Blake Tanner. He'd been a dream in Avalen for many years. He built his own home in the woods, crafted with his bare hands over the decades. His pride and joy was his wine cellar for, where his brethren preferred the taste of berry mead, for Blake there was no sweeter nectar than the wines of the Kagairn Vineyards. Blake retreated to his cellar as the storm hit. He was an old badger who slipped on slippery steps as he made his way down. He was an unconscious badger walker as he lay there and the rain poured and filled the cellar to bursting; Blake Tanner would drink no more.

At Torabane the unthinkable happened. The tumultuous roar of the giants was drowned out by something louder. A storm to drown the rage of the giants is a storm that comes but once an age. From above the arches which had no doors the giants pulled down heavy concealed defensive barriers. They sealed off the mountain which shook now not beneath their footsteps but from the endless fire and lightning which scorched its side for hour upon hour. Within the battered peak Prince Karmalaine sat, his thoughts becoming one with the storm as he waited with the titans for the light to come again.

Esmay Chelldakken was a teacher of dreams in a school house on the banks of Lake Lana. The school house taught mainly ferret dreams for many of them lived nearby, though the odd beaver dream and even a couple of Squirrel Walkers could be seen attending on brighter days. In Esmay's school house they learned the history of Avalen, as well as the geography and the flora and fauna of Avalen. She also taught those that were capable basic dream weaves.

Esmay Chelldakken lived in a small comfortable room attached to the back of the school. It afforded little protection from the storm and as the fire-rain fell the old wooden building went up swiftly, the flames consigning the teacher to ash along with her school and the hopes she taught there.

The coach carrying Princess Esmerel from Fenn was still on its long road to the east when the storm struck. They had veered off the solid stone path of the Eastroad for fear of flooding but the road now taken was one of dirt, dirt which turned to mud and sludge in the rain. Soon the horses could do nothing but strain against the whip and the wheels would not turn a full circle again.

Rekulen pulled the Princess from the carriage and they made for the trees. Though the Princess could see no safety in the trees in truth she could see little of anything, so she had to trust her kidnapper and protector, into whose firm warm hand she placed her own. They came upon a mighty tree around whose trunk a giant could not have wrapped his arms. Rekulen shouted some words as he leaned against the trunk and there opened a door from which a warm light glowed. Inside were smiling faces with pointy ears who made Esmerel welcome and sheltered her from the dream storm.

Eddin was a blacksmith in Sandagga, the desert city from which the drake walkers hailed. Eddin was not a dream given to fear so when the storm struck he carried right on hammering. Sparks flew and the furnace roared, but dream storms are not as random as they might seem, and Eddin was to pay for his foolhardy bravery. For as his hammer struck a mighty final blow on a new collar for a fire drake a bolt of lightning flashed through the air like a fiery finger of accusation and retribution. The whole of the forge was lit by it and Eddin the Brave would hammer no more.

In Archaven the clouds were buffeted in a way which many of the younger angels had never seen but Arcturion did not move from his throne and those who lived in the city of light were reassured by him. They knelt in contemplation and prayer to the god of all dreams. They weathered the storm with the faith which they themselves were a product of. All bar Godwyn, the lonely son; he still lay on his own cloud, being lifted up and down as it shifted in the hurricane winds which blew across the land and the sky of Avalen.

Godwyn paid little attention to his own fate for his angel eyes were focused far down below, in Fairvane. The children had been playing their games when the storm struck. Godwyn watched as they struggled back into the town where they were gathered up in the arms of their parents. They were taken down into storm cellars or rushed out to some natural caves in the edge of town, for the tornadoes were carving a path of destruction across the land which would soon touch the idyllic town at the end of the angel road.

Then there was a scream. Godwyn's eyes focused on its source and there he saw the lone child, clinging to the bough of the tree into which he'd climbed during their game of hide and seek. The boy's wailing clawed at Godwyn's conscience for his father had been strict on his instruction not to leave the abode of the clouds during the storm which had come so suddenly from the Dream Sea.

But the screams of a fearful innocent cut through the obedience to the rules of his father and master. Another bolt of lightning struck the muddied ground near the tree in which the boy sheltered but this was not of the storm for when the bolt hit the angel materialised. Outside of the protection of Archaven Godwyn felt the full force of the storm, the wind was so powerful that it threatened to pull the wings from his back. He folded them in as tight as possible and went to the sorry looking tree in which a sorry looking boy hid.

Godwyn reached up into the tree and plucked the boy from its embrace. He dared not fly back up to his father's abode for his wings would not suffer such a strain. Nor could he ride the lightning back up into the clouds for such was the nature of the protective wards around his home that such a method could only be used going out of Archaven, never going in.

So with the child in his arms Godwyn ran across the fields and into the town. There he saw a man-dream staggering alone through the empty streets bellowing a name which was lost to the wind. When he saw the boy in Godwyn's arms he ran forward with relief on his face despite the fury of the storm. The dream took the child from Godwyn's arms and started to run back into town. He turned and saw that the angel did not move. With one hand he beckoned and Godwyn followed. They ran to an open storm shelter where many concerned faces peered out.

The doors closed behind them and Godwyn saw the faces of the score of dreams who huddled there, lit by candlelight and fear. In this place would Godwyn stay and shelter from the storm, concerned for the words of his own father, comforted by the words of the grateful father whose dream he'd saved.

Tang-Sool and Layalanuine had been picnicking when the storm hit, on a hill near Lake Norel, for Tang-Sool had it in his mind to take Layalanuine's hand, to be part of a spiritual union that could stretch forward into the ages. He had a ring of pure dream-crystal in his pocket; it cost him all he had which was nothing compared to the worth of that which he would gain in life with the dream he loved.

But before the question could be put forth the storm washed over them. The red-checked blanket blew over the horizon as did the glasses from which they drank and the platters from which they ate. Hand in hand they ran down the hill together, but the storm resented their love and the grip was broken. Tang-Sool watched as his love was carried into the air and into the lake whose waters had risen to fifty-foot waves with the wind which stirred it. Her purple dress disappeared beneath the water and Tang-Sool could do naught but drop to his knees and let the water wash over him, a drowned love was a love still and preferable to the nothing he'd left behind.

In the Gold Castle of Lyrilia, Infenael Geddon stood on a balcony. The waves of the Lyr Sea were equal in measure to the height of the castle in which she stood, but she barely saw the storm. Her eyes stared through it and her mind saw even further, all the way to Fenn where her father had fallen in a maelstrom of treachery. Both storms had come as predicted, and in their fusion was her desire for vengeance born. She would have stayed there and allowed her anger to grow, to be fed by the dream storm, but her mother's cold hand touched her shoulder and she retired to security inside the Gold Castle. In the darkness of its vaults she would feed her hatred with the shadows.

Potter Malian was a ferryman who trudged the Spinning River just north of Entlewood. He had plied the choppy waters reliably for fifty years and crossed the river ten thousand times but now he was on his final crossing. The storm struck at the midway point, his specially shaped oars were all snapped and his many long arms which held them were also broken. The thirty-foot oaken pole with which he'd pushed his ferry and its cargo away from the dangerous rocks of the Spinning River splintered to nothing and Potter Malian sank in despair down to the deck of the ferry.

He turned and looked through the steamed windows where the hundreds of dreams he'd been transporting were peering out in hope. That hope faded as the ferry span and sank into the furious waters of the river. No foot would make it to the opposing bank which could have been on the other side of an ocean for all the good it would do them.

In the nest at the top of the Tower of Mirgarden, Draxes the Dragon King sat and watched the storm. The countless wings which had filled the skies around his home had been dispersed down into the various levels of the tower to ride out the storm. As he looked out images appeared in the sky and he saw his kin Cyra with a golden spear driven through his head, the arrogant angel standing above him like a conqueror. Draxes had experienced dream storms before, he knew that they granted images of the past the present and the future. In addition to the death of his kin he saw other things.

The Dragon King saw a woman in a throne room, cloaked figures held her and used her blood to paint words on a wall. He saw a wall come tumbling down. And above all the chaos he saw a jackal and a raven fight to the bitter end; they did it all before a chair in the shape of a lotus, but the chair was empty and there was no one to keep the jackal and the raven from clawing and biting at each other. Draxes considered closing his eyes and waking up in Fiurdein. The fire beneath the mountain in the mortal universe would be calm and soothing, but he knew that he could not wake from his dream while the dead dream of his silver kin was un-avenged. So he watched the storm and the flurry of images which came with it, pasts obscured, a distorted present and a future that may be just a dream.

Stovil was a ten-ton-troll who lived in the ranges of Trellem. Large trolls make large targets for the cruel lightning which scorched the rocks and felled the trees around his home, so Stovil had shrunk himself down to the smallest size possible. He gave thanks to his ancestors who bred with the shifters of shapes, without the ability to morph in size he would surely have presented too large a target for the storm to have resisted striking him many times over.

Hunkered down as small as possible he sat beneath an outcropping of rock with rain dripping from his tusks. As he sat there with the dream storm destroying parts of the world around him he thought of his cousin Ilich and wondered how he fared. It had been many days since anyone in Trellem had seen him and Stovil was concerned for the fate of the legend of the troll people.

At Bloodren many of the demons howled and shouted back at the storm which boiled over them but their anger availed them nothing in the face of the implacable strength of the storm. The futile fury of the demons would not save them and the fingers of fire reached down and smote them just as they had smitten the rest of Avalen. The gigantic floating rocks of Bloodren on which they built their bone-yard fortresses were burned and smashed to pieces by the dream storm.

Gulgazish and the demon horde were not spared for the storm was equal in the devastation it dealt across the kingdom of dreams. Even as they lay siege to the Lair at Eredyss they were also besieged and forced to shelter at the foot of the mountain with the stone face of the jackal above them, from which the rain poured in waterfalls formed by the curvature of the jackal's eyes.

The vast shutters around the Mercurial Chambers had been closed. The Tallow-Bears in their thousands had rushed onto the floors of the chambers to pull the gigantic metal doors closed in order to protect the dreamers who lay within, oblivious to the storm which raged around them. Even the giant trees which held them could not resist the wind which carried the storm, they swayed to and fro and the chambers swayed and shook with them. Clowen held onto the empty round circle in the Mercurial-Pelegon where the dreamer had lain and not for the first time he cursed the fact that he and his comrades had not seized the dreamer before he left the chamber. He dropped his silver scythe in order to grip the stone circle with both hands, so strong was the swaying of the tree beneath them.

Sansahar, Eredyss, Trellem, Valtyriel, Sel Fereden, Cortiune, Kelenestra and Mohep: There was nowhere across the vast regions of Avalen which was not affected by the storm. The full force of the cataclysm, however, seemed to focus on Fenn, the eternal city at the heart of Avalen. From the fruit shops to the towers of Fenngaard it did not matter. Fire fell from the sky, lives were lost, histories erased and hearts broken. Down in the Howling Cavern the fallen princes, Allayne and Drayen, listened to the storm. There was little comfort from the irony that their imprisonment had in fact kept them safe. Down there they were just two more prisoners and no amount of tears would bring them freedom or return their father to them.

Up above the fire-storms swiped at the palaces. The five smaller palaces lost many towers; those most tall and proud fell first. Fenngaard was not spared either and several holes were punched in it as the storm hammered with windy fire-filled fists upon it. However, a reluctant Arachnid King would not relinquish the Nested Throne on which he had gambled so much betrayal. He was alone in the Hall of Providence for his followers had scuttled to safety when the storm hit. The Hammer of Fenn hung useless in his hands, for it was a weapon aware of its strength and would not submit willingly to a new master.

Those few silver claws who had stayed in Fenngaard also sheltered, faring far better than their brothers aboard the royal fleet, it would be low in its strength when it finally emerged from the storm with Vulthian still at its head.

Amidst all this the dreamer stood with the jackal. The stone hound looked sternly out over the mountains of Eredyss and Anthony and Rostrom were just as stern in their composure. The storm brought them a reprieve from the onslaught of the demons. They did not speak for there was no sound that would be heard bar the thunder but they pondered, their fates entwined by a bargain which the talented jackal offered; one which Anthony both could not believe to be true but nor refuse even if it was a road to nowhere. It was a road of hope, one which he had not had the pleasure to walk in many years.

So for a time war was put on hold. Even the back-from-the-dead son of Fenn Geddon could not send his forces out into such chaos, so Arma, his grey knights and his nightmares stayed below the ground.

Kings and commoners, knights, fairies and dragons: The dreams of Avalen shared the same uncertain fate beneath the random destiny of the storm. This uncertainty of the future was not restricted to Avalen either. For on Old Earth a ten-ton-troll and a talented jackal also found themselves on a path that they could not have foreseen. They were led beneath the waves to a place lost in the legend of both worlds. The two remarkable fellows were not yet done with their crossing from places which are not to places which most definitely are, back and forth into the unknown with the dreamer who still slept, oblivious to the dreams so close by that he could have reached out and touched them.
Epilogue

Dashiel expected a headache as his mind emerged from darkness. His last memory had certainly been headache inducing. A dagger had struck him, he felt his own blood in his hands, sticky and warm. There was no magic in it, just his own fear of death. So he had lay there for a long time dying. Then the floor collapsed and he sunk into the ruins of the house along with the wood and the paint and the stone. Then there had just been darkness, for dreams did not have dreams. Had Dashiel been aware during such a time then he might have thought it death, a quiet, lonely and boring death that might endure for a very long time.

But now it seemed life had reared its head, for Dashiel was awake, aware and surprised that he did not have a headache. The pain he did have was centred in his chest. He remembered with a shudder the odd feeling as the dagger sunk in, firm skin, tough bones and a hard and noble heart were no match for sharpened steel. He was young, but he'd at least now learned that lesson, the hard way.

Upon waking he did not open his eyes. Dashiel was unsure if he was savouring the feeling of being alive or terrified of what he might see. He let his other senses stretch out and interpret what might lay around the corner for his vision. He lay on a bed, that much was certain, one far more comfortable than those allotted to apprentice Sentinels. The pillows were soft and thick and the mattress perfectly divided between support and comfort.

There was sunlight in the room. He could feel this warming the bare skin of his arms as well as shining in through his stubbornly closed eyes. There were aromas in the room, not unpleasant, a combination of the sweet smell of flowers combined with something else, a darker heavier scent of a drink which brewed somewhere there about. The sounds were the oddity, a rhythmic beeping noise which came from close to his head was steady and even in tempo and volume.

Taking several deep breaths Dashiel decided that the time had come to open his eyes. Before he could take that rather large step, however, he was interrupted.

"I know you are awake, you know", said the voice. It was a sweet voice, that of a lady, a knowing voice of compassion. Slowly Dashiel forced open his eyes. They were reluctant for unbeknownst to him they'd been closed for many days. He slowly moved his head from side to side, his stiff neck complaining all the while. The beeping came from an alien looking machine by his side, all flashing lights and symbols, wires trailing from it which led to his chest, their ends hidden beneath the white overall he wore.

The bed was wide and long with metal bars on the sides. The light which bathed him streamed in through large open windows. Outside was a world of sunlight and greenery with the odd pond here and there. He saw a man standing with a tube from which water sprayed over a large flowerbed.

The room was spacious though sparsely furnished and all within it was coloured white. Dashiel surmised that he was in a hospital of some kind and he took a deep breath as he started to realise that he did not even know which world he was in. Had Mortiune and the others pulled him from the rubble of the dreamer's house?

A little way from the bed was a small white table. On it sat a china pot of some sort. Next to that was a china cup in which there was a smooth dark liquid, steaming hot and probably responsible for the scent in the room, the one which mingled with the flowers dotted here and there on shelves.

Next to the table was a chair, padded green leather, with golden studs holding the material in place. On that chair sat the lady with the sweet voice. She was very beautiful. Not young, but far from old, a light of beauty shone in her that came from the very soul. Her blonde hair was tied back from a face which carried few lines. Her age was in her eyes instead, eyes which had seen too much and smiled too infrequently for many years. Those green eyes studied Dashiel as he took in the room. She lifted the china cup and sipped cautiously at the dark liquid inside it.

Dashiel closed his eyes again and tried to take stock. He'd been an apprentice Sentinel for ten years. His mother and father had wept as he left their house just off the Crystal Road near Whistlewood. He'd always regretted his last image of them being one of tears. He would have liked a smiling memory, instead whenever he tried to picture them there was only sadness, red eyes, frowns and sorrow. At first their unhappiness had confused him. They were the ones who allowed him to go with the old man, they were the ones who told him he had a gift and was going to a place where he would learn how to use it. As he'd got older he started to understand a little of their sadness, but Sentinels were forbidden from being parent-dreams themselves so he doubted that he would ever truly appreciate the difficult decision that they'd made.

As a young dream he'd been dazzled and amazed by Fenn and all the wonders of the first pillar. This amazement had been sustained by the things he'd learnt to do. Back in the village he'd weaved simple things for simple dreams. In Fenn he learned the limits of what he could do, which were few and often negotiable by a pioneering mind. Mortiune had been a brilliant teacher. All that he'd learned, all the progress he'd made, had led to his being chosen to accompany his teacher through the Brazen Gate to Old Earth on a mission which dreams would speak of for centuries, vanquishing the enemies of the King and returning order to a realm threatened by chaos.

The knife had cut through his naivety, his youth and his idealism. The new perspective which it had left him with was still forming, still drawing its own conclusions from the world around him. But the only thing being drawn now was a conclusion of confusion found in the green eyes of the mysterious lady whose company he kept.

"Don't you feel like talking to me?" she said, her cup clinking as she put it down on the table next to the pot.

"Where am I?" Dashiel said, his own voice sounded strange, so long had it been kept hidden from even his own ears.

"Meadowfield Hospital, Cambridgeshire. It's private", she replied.

None of these places sounded familiar to Dashiel. He was loathe to ask the next question. "What world?" he said.

That made her chuckle, a delightful sound. "What world?" she repeated, "very amusing, there's more than one is there?" she said.

"There are many", he replied with his eyes still closed, his mind trying to process a thousand different options.

"Well you, young man, are on Earth, as am I and as is everyone else I, should hope."

Earth. They had not come back for him then. Dashiel took several more deep breaths trying to stave off the panic. "Why am I here?" he said, opening his eyes and meeting those of the lady in the room who still stared intently at him.

"Hmm, an interesting question and one which I was planning on asking you, if I'm honest." She got up from her chair and walked over to sit on the side of the bed.

"You see, young man, my name is Juliet Hallow and you were pulled from the ruins of my old house. I have many questions that I would like to ask you concerning how it ended up like that, but there is one question which I would ask before them all. I'm wondering, can you tell me what has happened to my husband?"

The End
Acknowledgements

Many thanks to George (not the snowman) for his diligent editing. Thanks also to PK and LK for their proof-reading and input at various levels. A wider thank you to all those family and friends who have voiced their opinions on all matters from the front cover colour scheme to the inner working of the silver claw hierarchy. Without you the journey would not have been nearly as fun or worthwhile.

Oliver

