Dimension Of Dreams

Chapter Seven

While drifting off to sleep after their lovemaking, Blade hit on what seemed a good way of showing Narlena what was happening to her city and her people: take her out into the city, through it, even out into the country if possible. The Dreamers who wandered around most freely during their Wakings apparently only went out at night. Did their long years in the vaults make them light-sensitive, or was it psychological? Did the darkness make it possible for them to continue living in a lesser sort of Dream world, even during their Waking? Perhaps. But it certainly made them easier prey for the night-prowling Wakers. Blade knew that if he could get just a few thousand-or possibly even a few hundred-of the Dreamers organized and willing to move by day, he would have a powerful force to hurl against the Wakers.

To move, and also to fight by day. Teaching them to fight would be an even knottier problem than persuading the Dreamers to give up their shelter of darkness. He had already asked Narlena why the mobs of the poor had been able to make such rapid progress against the security troops. Didn't the security troops have much better weapons? Hardly, she had replied-there had been no wars in Pura for centuries. The art of making any weapons more advanced than clubs and swords and spears was gone, although there were books and tapes in the secret libraries of the scholars. And the people of Pura had hoped that with the weapons, the knowledge of war and violence had also vanished into history and legend. Blade laughed grimly at that. He had pointed out that people are quite willing to fight and quite able to kill if they think there is something worth fighting over-as the Wakers obviously did. Obviously, that point had never occurred to Narlena. Blade saw the smile vanish from her face and a thoughtful expression replace it.

But giving back to the Dreamers the ability to fight for their city was not the immediate problem. At the moment there was only one Dreamer who knew and trusted him, and he would have to work on her before she would help him seek out other Dreamers. With this before him, Blade drifted off to sleep.

After breakfast the next morning Blade checked his weapons while Narlena tried to find better clothes for him. None of hers would even remotely fit him; he was a foot taller than she and proportionately broader. Eventually he went out into the morning, not much better-dressed than he had been when he came into the cellar two nights before. He wore one of her kilts, sliced into two pieces and wrapped around his waist, as an improvised loincloth and two of her tunics roughly tied together as an equally improvised cloak. More strips cut from yet a third tunic bound his feet. Blade knew that he looked more like a stage beggar than a warrior, but at least this raggle-taggle outfit would help keep the wind out and the dust off.

When he reached the surface after clambering over the pile of rubble in front of the door to stand in the street, there was neither dust nor wind. The storm that had driven him into the shelter of Narlena's building had deposited the dust so, that the abandoned buildings and even the scattered and piled rubble had a fresh, clean look in the morning light. And the air in the street was as still as it had been in the cellar. A faint undernote of coolness told of a chilly night just ended and of one yet to come. Climbing the pile of rubble, Blade saw that all signs of the first night's battle were gone. Then he scrambled back down, reentered the building, and descended the stairs to Narlena's vault.

Narlena was still nude. She stretched catlike when she saw him and giggled at his appearance. «Anyone who sees you, you will not need to fight them. They will be laughing so hard, they will not be able to do anything to you.»

«Possibly. But I prefer to rely on these.» He hefted his spear and sword. «The Wakers are not just enemies in a Dream. They are real, and if we meet any we will need real weapons to kill them.»

Narlena caught his use of the word «we.» The gaiety vanished from her face and voice. «You want me to go out with you? In the daylight? Why?»

«To see the real world, Narlena. To see it and feel it, without being afraid of the Wakers. They sleep by day. You told me so yourself.» He was speaking in short, simple sentences, keeping his voice low, as if he were trying to reassure a frightened child. And Narlena looked like one, that was for sure. She was pale; her lower lip trembling in spite of the efforts she was obviously making to control it, her hands clenched. The thought of being out in the real world under the light of day apparently frightened her more than the danger-even the near certainty of encountering Wakers by night.

«No,» she said in a voice that was nearly a moan. «No. I can't. You-what are your people like, that they do not fear the light?»

«We do not Dream, Narlena. I have told you that before! Your people fear daylight only because you have all Dreamed so much that you have grown weak, weak and silly!» The anger in Blade's voice was not entirely feigned. He reached down, caught her by both arms, and jerked her to her feet. He snatched up her clothes with one hand, holding onto her with the other, and said, «You are going to come with me and look at your city in the daylight. Perhaps then you will see what has happened to it, what your Dreams have done to it!» He scooped her feet out from under her and lifted her in his arms as easily as he might have lifted a child, then strode out of the vault and toward the stairs to the surface.

Narlena lay passive and rigid in his arms as he climbed the stairs and scrambled over the rubble that lay piled across the door. Once outside and facing south, toward the bridge and the open country beyond, Blade lowered her to the ground and stood holding her with his arms crossed over her breasts. He held her tightly, keeping her facing toward the country her people had abandoned in favor of their Dreams.

For several minutes her eyes remained closed and her breathing so shallow that Blade began to wonder if the shock of being dragged out into the feared daylight had done her some real physical harm. Then her breathing grew stronger, and her eyes, after a few preliminary tentative blinks, opened and stared out across the rubble, the overgrown bridge, and the green hills to the blue sky above. He felt her shiver and tremble in his arms.

«There is so-so much to it,» she said in a small, uncertain voice.

«What do you mean-so much? This is nothing unusual. I have seen days far more beautiful than this. (He certainly had. An April day at his Cornish cottage, with Zoe laughing beside him in the grass until he bent over and stopped her mobile red lips with a kiss that rapidly moved on to other things, with the scent of grass and lilacs, the distant rumble of the surf on the rocky foreshore. .) Your Dreams must be very silly if they can't give you anything like this.»

«They can't. They don't try to. They give you so much-so much. .»

Blade suspected that she was trying to say «more» but couldn't quite manage it. Instead she fell silent, then raised her head and began looking about her. Confident that she could stand by herself, Blade unclasped his arms from around her and stepped back a pace. He let her turn freely in all directions as her eyes roamed about the distant landscape, the sky with its drifting white clouds, and the city all around her. At that point he saw her turn pale again and tremble so hard that for a moment he thought she was going to collapse. Seeing her city in the glare of full daylight with no darkness to soften the harsh outlines of what it had become was something new for her.

She did not fall, but it was several minutes before the trembling stopped. Licking dry lips, she spoke. «What have the Wakers done to Pura?»

«This wasn't the Wakers, most of it,» replied Blade. «Most of it was time-all the years when you and your people lay Dreaming in your vaults instead of using the Dreams the way my people would-to rest after finishing all the day's business. The Wakers would never have become so strong or so numerous if you Dreamers hadn't made the way so easy for them.»

Narlena shuddered. The idea that her people-and even more, the Dreams, their proudest achievement-were responsible for this desolation was more than she could take in, at least at the rate Blade was throwing it at her. Blade saw this and decided to be quiet for a while, letting his first burst of words work in Narlena's mind. She was a product of her crippled and decadent culture. But Blade thought he detected a lively intelligence under that black hair. At least he was going to assume it was there until he was convinced otherwise. Silently he took her by the hand and led her up the street, away from the bridge.

They wandered through Pura for several hours, feeling the warmth of the day increase as the sun rose higher and higher. It burned down from a cloudless sky into the windless canyons between the high towers and was reflected from their polished surfaces until it was almost oppressively warm in the streets below. Narlena did not appear to notice it; she still had something of the air of a sleepwalker about her.

They found no living people, either Wakers or Dreamers, but several skeletons of victims or comrades that the Wakers had not managed to carry away. Beside one of them lay a long, beautifully made knife, obviously looted from one of the vaults. Blade picked it up and handed it to Narlena. She took it without comment, but Blade noticed that as her fingers closed around the hilt, the trembling of her hands increased for a moment. Her people had cast away much of their capacity for violence even before they had secluded themselves in their vaults and had lost much of what remained during their century of Dreaming. Not that they were totally unfamiliar with violence-but with the Wakers ruling the night city, they knew it only as victims.

Blade saw a great deal of Pura that afternoon. Their wanderings took them in a wide sweep through the littered streets, past more of the high towers and smaller buildings. They also passed other structures that Blade would not have recognized if Narlena had not gradually shaken off her numbness enough to point out and describe them-or describe them as they had been.

«This was the House of Wisdom,» said Narlena. She was pointing at a quartet of red-tinged domes, flaked and cracking, occupying most of a hundred-acre park, now as rank and overgrown as any meadow. One of the domes showed a black cavity where a section fifty feet high had fallen in or been knocked out.

Narlena took a couple of deep breaths and went on, «The House of Wisdom. Where our scholars lived, studied, did their experiments. Where they developed the Dreams and the vaults.»

Blade made for a place where half the wall around the park had collapsed, but Narlena grabbed his arm.

«Don't go in there! See that white marking on the wall? That's a Waker gang badge!»

Blade looked to where she pointed, saw three white circles set in an equilateral triangle, staring back at him from the dingy stone. He nodded and stepped back. There was no point in barging into a Waker stronghold, alone except for Narlena. With a band of fifty armed Dreamers at his back it might be another matter-would be another matter, some day soon. Treading as lightly and as softly as he could until they were around a corner and out of sight, he led Narlena away.

When they were out of sight and earshot of anybody lurking in the domes of the House of Wisdom, he stopped and turned to the girl. «Did your scholars leave any of their records in the house before they went into their vaults?»

«Many of them didn't go into the vaults, Blade. Even when that was the only way they could be safe from the Wakers, many of them still stayed in the house. They were killed there, or they died of disease and starvation. There were not many of them in the vaults. It is said that even those who spent one or two cycles in the vaults eventually tried to return to the house. They were killed by Wakers, so there are possibly no scholars left.»

«Why did they stay in the house, when they knew they were risking their lives?»

«'They-I–I've heard stories. They thought they could find a way to fight the Wakers and stop the Dreamers and-oh, I don't know, don't ask me!» she wailed, then burst into tears.

Blade put his arms around her and held her while she shook and sobbed. Some of the people of Pura had apparently realized the disaster they had brought on their city. They had risked and eventually sacrificed their lives in a last-ditch effort to save it. An unsuccessful one, but it had proved they were not all as blind as Blade had begun to suspect. And even if the scholars themselves had died. .

«Do you know if they left any notes on what they had been doing in the house?»

Narlena jerked her head up and stared at Blade for a long time. Then she bit her quivering lower lip until it was still, and a frown spread over her delicate features, a frown that suggested to Blade she was making a serious effort to remember. Finally she shook her head.

«You don't know? Or they didn't leave any?»

«I don't know. Nobody I talked with during my Wakings has ever been into the house.» She stopped for a moment, then said sadly, «Even if the scholars had left material there, wouldn't the Wakers have destroyed it by now?»

«They might have,» Blade conceded, «but we can't be sure.»

«No,» said Narlena slowly. «We can't.»

Blade felt like hugging her and cheering out loud. For the first time she was showing signs of interest in doing something about the situation in Pura. She certainly seemed to have adjusted at least partly to being out and about during the daylight that she and her fellow Dreamers had so rigidly shunned for so long.

During the afternoon they wandered on through the streets of Pura, their course taking them slowly back toward the river. They saw no more signs of Waker gang lairs. But they did find occasional abandoned weapons, which Blade collected, and scraps of clothing that had been lying out long enough for even the tough synthetic materials to show signs of wear.

About mid-afternoon they finally reached the river at a point several miles west of the bridge that Blade had used to first enter the city. Here there was another bridge across the rain-swollen river, carrying another rubble-strewn and weed-choked roadway out into the open countryside. And here for the first time in several hours, Narlena cringed and shivered. Blade made no effort to force her across the bridge or even to look across it. For a time he let her turn her head away and bury it against his broad chest. She had come this far already, bit by bit, carefully led by him but drawing to a great degree on her own inner resources. He was sure that she would go the rest of the way if he just gave her time. But they would not have too much time left for exploring the country if she did not nerve herself up for the crossing fairly quickly. The danger they would both be in if darkness caught them outside Narlena's vault was obvious.

But after only a few minutes Narlena forced her gaze back to the green tree-clad hills across the river and said in a pathetically small voice:

«I want to go across.» A pointing hand indicated where when her strained voice failed her.

«You're sure?» said Blade, keeping the triumph out of his voice only by a terrific effort.

«I-there's been so much new today-I want to go on, I want to feel-I-«and her emotions simply outran her ability to express herself. Again Blade kept a grin off his face. Bit by bit Narlena was realizing that the Waking world had feelings, beauties, and qualities that no Dream could offer. She was still a long way from preferring the Waking world and even farther froze being able to live in it and cope with all its sensations and dangers. But this was a start. Blade took her hand and at a brisk walk, led her out onto the bridge.

Several times during the crossing Narlena's fears flooded back into her mind, and she stopped, trembling, clutching Blade's hand, and sometimes looking desperately from the desolate city to the countryside ahead. Once she looked down into the rushing, murky blue green water of the river far below. That was the only moment when Blade took an extra firm grip on her arm. He remembered the woman fleeing from the battle who had preferred hurling herself to death in the river below to fleeing to at least a temporary safety in the darkened countryside beyond. But the moment passed, and she again began to put one foot slowly in front of another. Eventually they came to the hill on the far side of the river, climbed up it, and looked back down its slope to the river, the bridge, and Pura beyond.

To see the corpse of her city lying there naked in the daylight was almost too much for Narlena's precarious mental balance. Once again Blade saw her cringe, tremble, and cling to him, saw tears start from her wide staring eyes and her lips tremble. But it passed after a few minutes. Then she drew him gently but irresistibly behind a clump of flowering shrubs and then drew him down to the ground, onto the sun-warmed grass amid the hum of insects and the sweet-sour scent of the yellow flowers of the shrubs.

It was well on into twilight before the darkening sky and the insistent clamor of his own empty stomach made Blade sit bolt upright, then spring to his feet, and hastily rouse the sleeping Narlena. Night was moving in on Pura, and they had more than three miles to go before reaching the safety of her vault. It was time that they got started.

Blinking sleep from her eyes, Narlena rose to join him, and together they swung out along the crest of the hill, moving parallel to the river and keeping well south of it. Blade had no desire to cross the river any sooner than he had to and risk a meeting with Waker gangs prowling streets which they inevitably must know far better than Narlena or himself.

Although they moved at a pace fast enough to make Narlena pant, it was still almost dark before they reached the bridge. Blade looked across it into the darkened ruins and then down into the river rushing past under the bridge. If its current had not been so swift and its banks not a sheer drop of nearly a hundred feet on both sides, Blade would seriously have considered swimming the river. He did not like the idea of crossing a bridge that prowling Waker gangs could easily seal off. He himself would have had no objection to spending a night in the open countryside, but he doubted whether Narlena's mind or body could endure the experience.

As the moon rose and lit the visible face of the city, it showed nothing moving. With sword and spear held ready, Blade led the way out onto the bridge, half crouching as he stalked forward. Every few yards he dropped on his stomach to peer out from behind the tangled thistles toward the far end of the bridge and the piles of rubble beyond.

It took them many minutes to cross the bridge this way, minutes that rasped like files on even Blade's trained and tough nerves. It must have been far worse for Narlena. But though her face in the moonlight was white as flour, she kept moving steadily and made not a sound. Perhaps returning to Pura and feeling the cover of darkness over her again was easing her mind.

Finally they both lay on their stomachs behind a mass of thistles grown almost to the proportions of a hedge, looking up at the ridge of debris that lay between them and the entrance to Narlena's building. They could not move at a rush across the hills and valleys of piled rubble. They would have to pick their way across it, clearly visible to anyone lurking in the shadows or watching from a high window. And they would be unable to move fast if attacked.

Blade took a deep breath and motioned forward. Up the slope they went as fast as their legs would carry them, then down into the first hollow and down on their stomachs for a momentary halt. Then on again-brief pushes forward, longer pauses lying in pools of shadow that should provide concealment, then on again. They could not move silently; chunks of rubble turned under their weight or came loose and went clattering down slopes.

Over the last crest now, and down the last slope, half-climbing, half-falling, down into the shadow of a massive slab of fallen wall precariously balanced at an angle. Stare out into the empty street, grip weapons, catch breath, get ready to make the final rush across the level street to the door of Narlena's building.

Blade turned to Narlena and murmured with teeth bared in a flickering grin, «Almost there, Narlena. If your people had known how to move like this by night, half the ones the Wakers got would still be alive and free.»

She nodded. Then he motioned her forward again. They had just slipped from the shadow of the wall slab and were straightening up, ready for their run, when the sound of racing feet hit their ears from farther up the street. A second later a human figure burst from the shadows. It was a man in Dreamer clothing, sprinting toward them as though he were running for his life. He was. Hard on his heels came half a dozen Wakers.