What more could a man ask for? Rapture thought, gleeful, spinning the girl—his sister—as she laughed ever more in the motion. If only this would remain so; just him, his North, and his sister, forever in this world... this Dream.
Tears streamed down his face. "This is paradise!"
"That makes me happy." A new voice flowed into his awareness.
He knew that tone—that softness with just a hint of depth. He had heard it before. Who was it? Rapture settled his sister down, her eyes startled by the sudden stop. But she would have to understand. It was about that voice.
He turned and found the source. There he was—a man, floating between two colossal elastic woods. Dressed in a black, side-buttoned robe, his eyes glowing with a tiny, dim whiteness. His skin was pale, and a ring of white light glowed behind his head. In fact, most of his face was obscured by that pure, blinding radiance. What a thing he was, a soft smile playing on his lips. And even more mythical was the bird perched on his shoulders, its wings like metal plates layered over one another.
A desire bloomed in Rapture's heart. To bow. Why? Perhaps it was the oddity of the figure, the divinity of his presence. Rapture felt the need to wail and scream and adore this man. To love him. To worship him.
Rapture fell to his knees. "Shadowma—" He stopped the words in his throat. They were not right, not accurate for what this man—this god—was. Perhaps it was him. The Kael'theuron that was said to come. The promised sun that was to rise from one of the Great Clans.
He looked up at the figure. Was he... was he a part of a Great Clan? More tears streamed down his face. Could it be that this being was...
"Tell me," the softened voice spoke. "How exactly did you find your way into this place?"
Rapture was stunned. He was talking to him. There was a sense of warmth in his heart—to be seen, to be addressed. "I... I... I," he mumbled.
The figure chuckled. "Please," he said, "calm yourself."
And like that, a sense of serenity came over him. So calm he felt, so clean, almost as though he were staring into dim eyes that possessed a strange, glassy quality. He lowered his head. "Praise him."
The light dimmed for a moment. "You are Rapture," the figure said.
He knows me? That brought more euphoria than he expected. "Uhm... Yes, that is me."
"Excellent," he replied. "It seems that during your sleep, your dreams have brought you here. To me."
"Yes."
"How?" The bird cawed, and the figure added, "How did you find yourself in this place?"
"It." The fear was gone, granting him the words he needed. "It was the Shadowman." It was you!
"I see," he said. "He brought you here, is that what you say to me?"
Are they not the same person? Rapture was stunned. "Yes, he made us sleep. He made us dream. And in that, he brought us to—" The words were gone, replaced by a question. Where were the others? Surely, there were plenty. Guardsmen, Casters, handmaidens... everyone should have slept. So where were they? Sweat trickled down his face.
"It seems you know this now," the figure said. "It strikes me as strange. A lone guardsman in my world. In my dreaming. Who are you?"
Rapture fell back, panting. Suddenly, this place wasn't as joyous as he thought. His mother, her blank face. His sister... she should... He stopped again. There was strangeness here. An oddity in the thoughts flowing through his mind.
His sister... what was her name? He could not remember. Was it this place? Did it take his memories? "What is..." he muttered. "What is happeni—"
A hand cupped his cheek—small, soft. He knew those hands. At least, he believed he did. A small face moved close to his. A girl whose body was covered in long hair. His sister? She whispered into his ear.
"There is nothing wrong."
And the fear was gone. The terror, the confusion, all of it vanished. What had he been thinking? This was his sister. This was his mother. What difference did it make if her face was gone? What difference did it make that his presence here was questionable? There was no problem at all.
He smiled and moved toward his mother—his North. The only thing that mattered in his life. The only thing that pointed him toward safety. It was not the Shadowman, even though the man had for a moment been his North. He wondered why that had happened. Well, not that it mattered. There was only now, only his mother, this place... his dream.
Merrin watched the first true denizen of the Dreaming fall into a state. He was unsure what that was—that state. It felt akin to what the soulForce did to the body—the calming—although this was deeper, cleaner.
His eyes moved to the girl.
She was something else. Not a creation of the beads, no; she was here, just like Rapture, she had dreamt her place. How was that possible? He needed an answer. To refuse to question this would likely reveal some flaw in his creation. He could not have that. This place was to be a safe paradise for his people. It must remain so.
Merrin remained silent, still afloat, watching the girl as she turned her gaze toward him. So small she was, her tiny fingers and legs mostly covered by that messy black hair. She was a uniqueness, that was certain. But there was something else. Her eyes. Those knowing eyes.
A person should not maintain such a level of awareness within a dream. The first to have done so was... Merrin paused. He could not find the memory. Odd. He stared back at the girl.
"I suppose you are the one who did all of this," he said. That much was easy to grasp.
She offered a rather cold, dead gaze. "I knew there was a strange thing within Nightfell's Cognitive Realm space. I did not know it was this."
She tracked me? A brief flicker of fear sparked. "You... used this person?" Merrin tried his best to maintain his composure. He could let go of this woman—this child. She was a problem. She was a threat to his people. She could not be allowed to—
"So," she scanned the surroundings. "Is it always this quiet here? Although I see it does get pretty loud... at least up there. Your skies. They seem more gray and black to me. Good use of pictorial symbols, at the very least."
"No!" Merrin raised his arm. "Come to m—"
"Doing that would simply delay what's about to happen," she said. "This place you have—it's excellent. Building something like this within the Cognitive Realm, against all the terrors that live inside of it. Amazing. But it is also shabby. Your world could easily be entered with nothing but a linkage symbol."
Merrin realized. "So Rapture was a ride."
She said nothing.
"You sensed what you wanted, and you used a guardsman—his memories and desire."
She snapped her fingers. "False memories."
A coldness swept down his body.
"The real Rapture is long gone," she continued. "This one believes in certain things—a 'North'—simply put, a fact that he would love and pursue when directed. He saw the Shadowman, was it? He loved, and that became a contact. Vague, I know, but given the fact that he could have become a spaceRunner, the natural affinity to the cognitive and space symbols made his eventual entrance here easy to facilitate. After that, there was just me getting myself in."
Merrin rubbed his face. He hated this. He hated such people. The utter lack of care for what they did. For the things they controlled.
Like Catelyn thought I was. He closed his eyes. This was more trouble. Even here, more of those had somehow found him. He hated it.
"So what was this for?"
She shrugged. "I wanted one. And now I want it. Although now that I think of it, I could have used that Ivory princess as the link. She seemed more connected to it, anyway."
That was the last thing that sparked his frenzy. This person reminded him of another. Of Yoid, or that strange caster—all of whom had attempted to take his world. That could not happen.
"COME TO ME!" he shouted, and heard then the soft giggling of the girl.
"I told you that was meaningless."
Regardless, as always, they came to his words. His Ardents—figures clad in pooling shadows, faces like dark orbs with spinning elements—shot through the heavens like skystones, hammering into the forest below.
Boom. Boom. Boom. The Dreaming shook. Merrin floated higher, watching, maintaining that caster-ensured calmness. Panic, it appeared, had been a cause of many past mistakes.
Be better!
"Aren't you listening to me?" The voice spoke again, but this time it seemed to echo from everywhere. Every point. "I'm taking this now!"
The world dimmed.