WARNING: This story and all others included in "Dreams of Reality" are copyrighted to FuryKyriel, 1997. Any unauthorized publication of this material will be prosecuted.
How It All Began
Decisions
(Part Two of Three)
I set out early the next morning, my belly and my pack filled with new additions. Besides a more than generous breakfast, Frenna had loaded me down with enough bread, cheese, salted meat, and weak ale to see me through three more meals, at least. In addition, she'd given me a blouse and skirt that had belonged to her eldest daughter, and which would have to be taken in before I could wear them; and two of her daughter's old nightgowns (at Mirrimi's insistence).
She and Hain would have liked to give me a map, as well, but parchment was one of the few rarities in this world, so they settled for drawing in the dirt. It was enough for me--for the present, anyway. I learned from them that I was in a large province called Lethunde, bordered on two sides by the Red Mountains I'd seen from above (named more for the blood spilled there than the actual color), and on one side by the Metic Ocean ... but I was much too far inland to think about exploring that yet. The fourth border was mostly arbitrary, shared with a province called Elamunde, whose people favored laws and citybuilding more than farming--all in all, a boring place.
Mountains or ocean? I thought, as I flew slowly toward Dirss. The mountains held promise of adventure and the chance to right wrongs, a point essential to my nature. But if I really wanted to trace Gandalf's footsteps, I had to go where there were islands. Still, Tolkien himself had died in the nineteen-seventies, and once a person went dual, the death of one body meant the death of both. Therefore, I didn't have to hurry my quest; all the work would be digging up history, anyway. And besides, further to the north, the Red Mountains curved eastward toward the ocean. I might as well follow them for awhile and learn my trade. But first, Dirss.
I came within sight of the city around midmorning and alighted on an empty patch of road, then walked the rest of the way into town. The city walls looked quite formidable up close, even without the pair of armed guards standing watch at the gate. But Frenna and Hain had told me that the watchfulness was mostly tradition; the gates hadn't been closed in ten years, and even then, the invaders were only a pack of wolves, killed and disposed of in a matter of weeks. All I had to do to gain entrance, they'd told me, was register my name, place of origin, and intent. "Kyriel, America, traveler," I told the guard, with a confidence I didn't quite feel. As he wrote my information on a piece of soft cowhide, I added, as nonchalantly as I could, "Are any of my countryfolk in town right now?"
The man pursed his lips a moment, then shook his head. "Can't say I've ever heard that name before, but I'm new on the job. Anji?"
The second guard, a middle-aged woman with a deep scar snaking up one gauntleted forearm, tucked her thumbs into her belt. "We've had just two Americans in all my years in Dirss, and none are here now. The only reason I even remember them is that they were both warrior-types--mercenaries, not soldiers, you understand--and they were both completely ignorant of our culture. Neither of them could even tell me what country they were in." Obviously, she found such ignorance deeply offensive. "I guess you don't know where you are either, do you, honey?" In her mouth, the word held none of the motherliness Frenna had given it.
The last thing I wanted was to insult the authorities before I'd even had a look at the town. It wasn't that they could hurt me, but they could be major inconvenience. "Dirss," I answered the guard, striving for a tone of polite confidence. "In Lethunde. Officer, I hope you'll forgive my countrymen for their lack of knowledge. America is a long way from here, and our customs are very different from yours; but we have the utmost respect for your society, or we would never have come here in the first place."
Slightly mollified, the guard grunted and nodded at the piece of leather that held my name. "When you leave, be sure to register your departure at this same gate." And with that, I was free to enter Dirss.
Naturally, I was disappointed to hear there were no Americans on the registry, but I wasn't overly concerned. It would be presumptuous to assume the only duals in this world came from my home country; the guard's records could just as easily contain references to England, Australia, Brazil, China, Uganda--any other country in R1. Then again, the duals who came through Dirss might just as easily list an R2 locale as their place of origin, in which case I'd have to find some other way of identifying them.
But that could take awhile, and in the meantime, I wanted to learn everything about Dirss that I could. Opening my senses wide, I tried to take a living snapshot of the city. I'd noticed in my flyover that Dirss was about three miles from end to end, not very large by R1 standards, but a bustling commercial city as far as Lethunde was concerned. Its streets and alleys were tight-packed dirt: covered with straw in the more open areas, still muddy from yesterday's storm in the alleyways.
Despite the relative unkemptness of my surroundings, I was clearly in the business sector. Brightly colored, stylized signs advertised to the illiterate, their pictures dwarfing the printed names beneath them. Some of the larger buildings had no writing on them at all, as if their function were so obvious that naming them would be superfluous. One such building was clearly a hospital, judging by its clientele. Another, topped by a wooden pillar from which hung a pair of handcuffs, I took to be the jail.
Most structures were two to four stories tall. Buildings squeezed and jostled one another as if, like yesterday's trees, they needed fresh air and sunlight to survive. Walking beneath them, I had the sensation that one of them was bound to topple over at any minute, its stories sliding one-by-one into the street like layers off a cake.
The Dirssans, meanwhile, strolled or rushed about their daily activities without a glance at the maybe-danger above them. Children tumbled through the streets playing tag or sat making mudpies in the alleys. Men and women went purposefully about their chores, some carrying babies papoose-like on their backs. Others sat gossiping as they watched the traffic pass. On one bench, a pair of old men played a game remarkably like chess, as calmly and concentratedly as if they were all alone in the world. When a trio of laughing boys roared around their corner, one of the seniors stuck out his cane as a makeshift fence, and the children detoured around him, neither group seeming the slightest bit put out.
On the whole, the Dirssans were a fairly homogeneous lot, mainly tan-skinned and dark-haired like Frenna's family. A few were darker with soft, wavy hair like Australian aborigines; and a handful were pale enough to pass for Scandinavians. I saw no African or Asian types. Most of the men wore hats; most of the women, braids. Both sexes wore baggy trousers like my own, stuffed into sturdy boots; although a few of the more prosperous, settled-looking women wore skirts like the one Frenna had given me. Seeing them, I began to wonder if my benefactress had been hinting at the kind of lifestyle she wanted me to adopt.
Approximately one adult in ten carried a sword or dagger, but none of them looked as if they could be potential duals. Based on Anji's description, I was searching for large, fierce, heavily-weaponed types, or at the very least, someone exotic enough to stand out in a crowd. Then again, would anyone else using those criteria have found me? It was so hard to know what to look for. And maybe I was asking for too much, hoping to spot another dual on my second day in R2. After all, the Guardians had told me that only one out of every half million R1 dreamers found their way into R2; we were a rare breed. On top of that, the door I had chosen as my entrance to R2 was one of nearly fifty portals, each opening into a different, isolated location. There was no reason to think any new duals had come through my door anytime recently, or that they'd made their way to Dirss if they had. Sighing, I tried to tell myself it didn't matter. It was enough that I was here. But I didn't stop scanning the crowds.
Before long, the noise around me increased and the muddy, strawy smell of the city gave way to scents of perfume, oil, spices, produce, fresh bread, grilling meats, and candy. Turning one last corner, I stepped out into a wide open marketplace, jam-packed with booths of every shape and color, a din of well-trained voices hawking their wares. My spirits lifted instantly.
Smiling now, I wandered out among the booths, studying wares that ranged from silk scarves to farm implements, until I finally ended up at a stand that offered high-grade weaponry. Unconsciously my hand flickered to my own small sword. Like all my personal belongings, it had come to me seemingly tailor-made and as well-worn as if I'd owned it for years. But now, eyeing the shiny new blades before me, I felt a totally unexpected yearning. Why should I care what my sword looked like when it wouldn't be my chief weapon, anyway? For heaven's sakes, there was no need to think of changing something I didn't even know how to use yet!
"Beautiful, aren't they?" a voice said, and I looked up into the mild, slightly dreamy eyes of the vendor. He must have been about seventy years old, well-tanned and wrinkled but surprisingly muscular. "I make them myself." His hand passed lovingly over an ivory dagger handle inlaid with tiny jade dragons.
"You're an artist," I told him in complete sincerity. "May I hold one?"
"Of course." He made a broad gesture, indicating that his whole table was open for my inspection.
Delicately I lifted a short sword about the size of my own, its handle a spiral of stylized flames in red, orange and gold that almost seemed to flicker in my hands. A thin scrawl of runes ran the length of its hilt, something in them causing me a moment's unease. "What do these mean?" I asked, and the swordsmith smiled proudly.
"They're signs of power, blessed by a cleric and fully functional against any supernatural creature short of a balrog."
Which would include me, I realized. No wonder the thing made me nervous.
But the old man, his eyes firmly on the sword, was oblivious to my discomfort. "You've chosen well. Most people who look at my wares go for the heaviest pieces or the largest gems. But that sword's one of the finest items I have in stock. It'd cost you fifteen hundred golders."
Blushing, I lay the weapon back in its place. The price he'd quoted was more than a hundred times what I had in my money pouch. "I'm afraid I can't afford any of this," I admitted reluctantly. "I was just admiring."
"I knew that when you came up," the swordsmith smiled, unoffended. "No harm done. An old man likes to be appreciated once in a while." The dreaminess in his eyes gave way to a clear-eyed friendliness. "And look here, young lady--there is one thing I have that you can afford. I noticed when you were holding that sword that your grip was all wrong. If you're ever going to use your own little pigsticker for more than cutting shrubbery, you'll need a few lessons. Come back here this evening and I'll see what I can do."
"That would be terrific," I grinned, overwhelmed by my good fortune. If he and Frenna were typical, R2-er's were an amazingly generous bunch--which probably meant, I realized, that I should follow suit. "Is there anything I can do for you in return?"
The old man considered a moment, then answered with a complete lack of embarrassment. "Some dinner would be nice. When you come back, you can bring me one of Fredic's steak sandwiches and some beer."
"Gladly." I practically bounced as I left his stand.
I returned to Brustus' booth just as the sky began to purple, carefully balancing a warm sandwich and a mug of room-temperature beer. The old man was just finishing up a sale. His customer, a burly young fellow with dark brown hair and almond-shaped eyes, looked me over briefly and tromped off, strapping his new longsword to his belt. Something about him bothered me, but I lost my train of thought as Brustus asked me to help him put his wares away.
"You're very trusting," I commented as I wrapped the short sword I'd handled earlier in soft cloth.
"No," Brustus answered, his back to me, "just slightly psychic. Here, I'll show you. Pick up any weapon in front of you and hide it wherever you like."
My breath quickened a little as I chose the tiniest weapon I could find and slipped it under my vest. Psychic powers were one of the gifts available in the Guardians' chambers. I might have found my first dual.
Still not looking my way, Brustus laughed. "That's the one everyone tries to steal--the little silver dagger with the horse's head. You've got it in the left inside pocket of your vest."
"I'm impressed," I told him, bringing the dagger out and wrapping it with the rest. "So, how far do your powers go?"
"Only as far as what I own or make with my own hands." He turned back to me, rolling his wrapped weapons into a bundle. "Now let's get these into the trunk and have dinner."
I still wasn't hungry and was beginning to suspect that this body didn't need food, but I pulled some of Frenna's provisions from my pack and joined Brustus on the bench behind his display table. "You know," I said between bites of my ham and cheese sandwich, "we don't have too many true swordsmiths in my homeland anymore."
"Oh? Where's that?" Brustus sounded more interested in his meal than my conversation.
"America," I said casually, and found myself tensing slightly in anticipation of his answer.
"America?!" Brustus cried, and I sat up grinning, ready to claim him as a fellow dual. Then the old man laughed until he nearly spit food. "I remember the last time I had an American in here, a big, hairy fellow with weapons sticking out from every angle like quills off a porcupine. He didn't make much of an impression with old Anji at the gate, or with too many of the townspeople, for that matter."
My excitement shriveled.
Brustus shook his head and took another bite, then spoke around a mouthful of sandwich. "He did buy one of my most expensive pieces, though, so I shouldn't make too much fun of him."
I tried to chuckle along with him, then gave up and went back to my meal. Suddenly I thought again of Brustus' last customer, the man who had bought the long sword, and I realized what it was about him that had bothered me. He had had almond eyes--yet none of the Dirssans I had seen earlier had any Asian features. That was my dual, not Brustus! And I'd let him get away without a word.
Now I was torn. Should I leave Brustus and try to track the other man down, or should I stay for my sword lesson and hope to find the other man later? Well, I thought, the town was only three miles from end to end; he couldn't be that hard to find. And I might not have another chance to learn how to use my sword.
It was a decision I'd come to regret bitterly.
"I guess I'm just totally hopeless," I panted after a good hour's worth of drills on the swordsmith's practice floor. I wasn't really out of breath, but I didn't want to raise any more suspicions than I had already, so I faked it.
"Not at all," Brustus replied, leaning on his own weapon, his chest heaving. "I won't lie to you, Kyriel; swordplay is not your gift. But you do have more natural speed and quicker reflexes than anyone I've worked with in fifty-odd years. You should be able to hold your own, at least, as long as you don't tackle any professionals." Much of the easy friendliness had left his face, replaced by frustration and confusion. "And yet you say you've never had any special training, never been blessed by a sorcerer, never picked up a magic talisman?"
He'd been so kind to me, I really couldn't leave him with such hard feelings. But what could I tell him without incriminating myself? Suddenly I thought of the Guardians. "Well, I did have a dream once, about an elderly couple who gave me gifts. The man wore a blue robe and the woman wore a green robe, but they didn't really look like sorcerer types. And it was just a dream, wasn't it?"
Brustus raised his eyebrows in surprise. "There are legends about those two, the angels who keep the cosmos in balance for the Holy One. But you're the first person I've met who ever dreamed about them. It must mean something, and certainly, you have been blessed--although to what end, I don't know." Suddenly he frowned and looked me straight in the eye. "But I must tell you, child, to be careful whom you share this with. A tale like that could bring you unwanted attention, and worse."
"Absolutely," I murmured. I'd thought I was just throwing him a bone. If I'd known he knew even this much about the Guardians, I never would have mentioned them at all. "Well, thank you very much for the lesson. You don't know how much you've taught me."
"It was a pleasure," Brustus murmured, sounding more worried than pleased. "And now, this old man needs some sleep. Take care of yourself, Kyriel." And sheathing our two swords, he hung them from hooks on the wall and led me to the door. It seemed like a very final goodbye.
I had found a place to stay earlier that afternoon, an inn whose name seemed bound to attract any duals in the area. The Sword and Shield was kept by a very large, round woman named Breta, who had agreed to give me free room and board for as long as I helped her in the bar. I told her I'd be staying for about a week, figuring that would give me enough time to get acclimated to this world before setting out on an adventure. And truth be told, I was in no real hurry to begin. Dirss was a pleasant enough place, and I was still not entirely comfortable with my role as Fury.
It was a subject I could never entirely forget, and one whose seriousness came to me more forcefully than ever the day Breta invited me to go to church with her. Our destination turned out to be the building I'd mistaken for a jail, its stake-and-handcuffs the R2 equivalent of the cross. On this world, I learned as I studied the artwork inside and listened to the sermon, the God Incarnate had been burned at the stake rather than crucified. Yet listening to the priest, I had no doubt that he was speaking of the same divinity that had manifested in R1 as Jesus Christ--a sort of divine dual, you might say. There was just one major difference here: in R2, Christ was Chresta, a woman. And why not, I asked myself as my mind initially rebelled against the possibility, if God is neither male nor female? In my own male-dominated reality, the Messiah almost had to become male in order to be taken seriously. But in a world of gender equality, God had chosen the other path--to balance things out, perhaps. Then again, how was I to know God had stopped at two realities, or two forms of Messiah? There might be hundreds or even millions of them.
It was a thrilling train of thought, but I couldn't hold it for long without contemplating of my own place in the picture. In Greek mythology, the Furies were demigoddesses, but I wouldn't have considered myself divine even if the Guardians hadn't warned specifically against such arrogance. I was more of a demihuman than a demigoddess, although my role was much the same as the Greeks had imagined. Vengeance: that was the Fury's function. All my life I'd lived in a world where the innocent suffered and justice failed. I'd prayed to God to right the wrongs; and now, instead, I'd been sent to a world where it would be my job to right them myself.
It must have been what I truly wanted, on some level, or the dice would never have given me that result; but still I felt afraid. I didn't understand all of what my calling entailed, wouldn't understand until I'd given in to it, but I knew this much: being a Fury involved killing. And how was I, who, when I found crickets in the house carried them outside rather than squash them, supposed to kill a human being? No wonder I hadn't taken on the Fury form yet, not even to see what it felt like. No wonder I was in no hurry to leave Dirss.
Yet even as the thought crossed my mind, I felt the first twinges of hunger. And it wasn't food that I craved, but death.
Four days later I was still in Dirss, trying to ignore the pull of the Mountains, when they came to me instead. I was working in the bar, wiping down tables before the evening rush, when I heard the commotion outside. I glanced at Breta, who was behind the counter; and when she started for the door, I dropped my rag and ran after her.
There was a crowd coming our way, most of those in the lead looking backwards at someone or something behind them. As they got closer I saw the object of their attention: the almond-eyed man I'd spotted at Brustus' stall. His posture was strange, his upper body rigid, his legs moving as if they belonged to someone else. And his eyes were completely unfocused, their pupils dilated and filled with a subtle purplish light that I knew only I could see. Everyone around him was chattering, tugging at his clothes, even slapping at him, but he paid them no attention. Finally he arrived at the door of The Sword and Shield, where he made a militarily precise right angle and stopped dead in front of Breta.
"I have a message from the Sultana," he said, his voice as dull as a sleepwalker's. A wave of moans swept through the crowd, then was replaced almost instantly by frightened muttering.
Breta paled but stayed put, only dropping her eyes from that horrible, unfocused gaze. "Go on," she said.
"My mistress has sent me back as a warning to your town. You sent me to her, thinking I would defeat her, but instead I have become her slave. And now, because of your lack of respect, her raiding parties will extend southward into Dirss for the next three years."
Again the wave of horrified moans, and Breta shut her eyes and made the sign of the stake, as I'd seen Hain do. But the man who had caused their reaction stood perfectly still and silent, like a robot that had been turned off. The crowd milled around him for several minutes, until finally a young woman I recognized as one of the healers from the hospital pushed her way to the front and took Breta's arm. "We have to get him inside," she whispered, and Breta nodded. I watched as they each took an elbow and pulled, ready to help if the man proved as intractable as he looked; but he came along with them easily enough. So I only shut and locked the bar door to keep out gawkers, then followed them up the steps into the inn proper.
We took him to an empty room and laid him down. Then, as the healer tried in vain to bring the man out of his trance, Breta told me what she knew of his circumstances. His name was Gorg, and he'd come up from the South only a few days before I did, full of bragging about his exploits and loaded down with more gold than Breta made in a year's time. He booked a room at the inn--the very room he lay in now--then began grilling the townsfolk about the Red Mountains. It was obvious he was looking for adventure, and the Dirssans, only to glad to be rid of him, had given him a whole list of possibilities.
The nearest one had been the Sultana. I had known she was a dual by her name, even before Breta began describing her to me. "She just appeared in the Mountains about ten or fifteen years ago and took over a whole swath of territory that belonged by a local warlord. Took him over, too, and all his soldiers. She's got some kind of power that lets her steal people's minds and make them do whatever she wants. They say she's got an army up there bigger than this city, plus hundreds of other workers--and a harem." Breta brushed the hair off Gorg's pale brow and clucked softly. "But this poor fool thought he could fight her. He said he had an amulet that would protect him from sorcery. I guess she found a way to take it from him."
"Or she wasn't a sorceress at all," I mused. The Guardians' dice were marked with runes I couldn't translate on my own, but I was willing to bet one of those hundreds of faces said something like "hypnotist."
Gorg hadn't spoken since we'd brought him inside, and his breathing was becoming shallower by the minute. Having tried in vain to heal him by the laying on of hands, the healer was reduced to attempting to feed him a medicinal broth. Gorg, though, refused to swallow. After a long moment, the healer sighed and looked up at Breta and me. "There's nothing I can do for him; the Sultana's spell is too powerful. It's eating up his mind a little at a time. By morning I'm afraid he'll be unable to breathe on his own. I'll continue to stay with him if you like, though."
Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "Breta, if you don't mind, I'd like to have a few minutes with him myself."
The two women stared at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted wings. "What on earth for?" Breta asked.
"To pray for him," I improvised. "Please?"
"Well," sighed the healer, "she can't do him any harm; he's going to die anyway." Breta shrugged, and the two of them left me alone with the entranced man.
As soon as the door was shut, I bent forward and whispered fiercely in his ear. "Gorg, can you hear me? You've got to wake yourself up! Wake yourself up, Gorg! It's the only way you can get free!"
The final warning the Guardians had given me before letting me choose my door was that I must never exit the dreamworld except through the sleep tunnel, the umbilical cord between realities that was only accessible to a mind drifting into sleep. To force an exit while awake would be akin to jerking myself out of a dream; it would mean never being able to return to that dream again. But in Gorg's case, being banned from R2 would be better than dying here with a blasted mind.
"Wake yourself up, Gorg!" I hissed again, louder this time, but the man continued to stare blankly at the ceiling, a trickle of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth.
After a long while, I opened the door and let the other two back inside.
I was with him when he died. The morning sun streamed through the window full into his eyes, but he had long ago ceased to blink. His breath, only the faintest of whispers for the last several minutes, gave one last ragged hitch and ceased for good. Like Breta and the healer, I bowed my head and made the sign of the stake, then turned a final time to the evidence which had confirmed my suspicioun that Gorg was a dual.
He'd written something on the wall on his previous visit here, and Breta hadn't yet bothered to wash it off. It wasn't very long, probably a quote he liked or perhaps something as simple as "I was here." I couldn't read it, though; it was written in the Cyrillic alphabet of Russia.
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