Those Who Stay Awake, A Crisis Words May Solve, and To Fight a King of Dreams

“Hector, I don’t understand. You said I could harness the power of the city itself, that nothing could keep me from setting things right.”

“Yes and you told me Creed was dead.”

“Well, he is! Or was, look that wasn’t Creed that was Daniel.”

“Daniel! No, I knew Daniel, and I knew his father, and that was neither of them.”

“Who’s...Daniel’s father...He is Creed’s son, isn’t he.”

“Yes, yes, where’s my canteen.”

“That didn’t look like Daniel. And I remember Creed’s face, it wasn’t him either.”

“No, no, ah here’s my tent.”

“Old man, enough,” Lione grabbed Hector’s arm and pulled him straight, “you promised me answers. Remember? Back in the woods when you begged for me to forgive you for leaving my mother to die. All those days I spent feeling out the roots of the forest and making small talk with crazy wood-people while you talked in koans. Well, here we are, there is a big honkin yellow demon thingie, and I need answers.”

Hector looked far older now than he had yesterday. Old, and scared. He had just spent the last twenty minutes trying to pack his gear, something that Lione knew should only take three. Hector’s eyes no longer held joy, but they still could only tell the truth. Hector was terrified.

“I need to know what I am fighting.”

“Fighting! Hah! That, that thing is a force beyond anyone’s reckoning. It took Creed, now it has Daniel. Daniel! He was our hope, Lee sent him to me and I taught him. The red cannot fight the yellow, not at this level. You saw it yourself, it surrounded you, confused you, tired you, until you thought of nothing but dreaming, of waking sleep. Every blow you gave tightened its hold. We thought we needed to fight fire with fire, but instead we gave the dream a better weapon.”

Lione shivered. He remembered the sickly comfort of the dream. “You were once it’s victim, then?”

“Victim? I was it’s pawn. It made me add to it, bring more into slumber when I should have kept my city, my family awake. I fairly fed Daniel to it. And now! Now I have brought you back, and it will have you too.”

“Daniel and Sara broke through before, it isn’t impenetrable.”

“No, the Dream fell back when Daniel bested his father (his own father! Even that a victory viciously won), let him continue on, let him and you and all of you think you were free.”

“We together drove it off, surely we can fight it.”

“You don’t understand, I forsook this city, my power comes from the woodlands. From the life there. That blast to free you was all I had left. You would have to fight it alone, and so would lose.”

“Why could I not feel the roots of the city, father?”

Hector was silent.

“Tell me.”

“I, I do not know, but it may be that the yellow has emptied the power there. If that is true, the only weapon you have against it is gone. This thing is not unintelligent, whatever it is, and we may be playing its game, dream or no.” Hector was calmer now, and thoughtful. “Our only hope would be the power Lee had...Jonathon cut cut through it, once he learned how, he held on to what was real and the dream had no hold on him. But,” Hector resumed his nervous puttering, “he is nowhere to be found, and his daughter, we sent her away to safety.”

“I must stay.”

“I must go.”

They wished each other well, cried freely for a moment, and then went their own ways, both back where they came from, both walking the only way forward they could see.

“I don’t know why, but I knew I would find you here.” Lione slid into the booth, seating himself across from Sara. She wore no disguise but the waitresses and other patrons did not recognize her. She had told them she was someone else, someone who lived around the corner, and naturally no-one disputed it.

“The last time we were here, you told me the city needed to burn to the ground.”

“Well, last time we were here you thought there was a political solution to the old king Creed’s tyranny.” Sara wasn’t amused, so Lione continued. “I know a hell of a lot more now than I did then, Sara. I was a child when I joked about revolution. I want this city to remember its past and go boldly forward without fear. Without Dream.” Sara may have been able to hide herself, but Lione could not. There was practically a glow around him. The patrons sitting nearby seemed to laugh louder, and the people walking passed their booth all nodded almost lovingly to him. Sara took heed and wondered, though Lione didn’t seem to notice.

“I thought I knew him, Lione.”

“You knew he was Creed’s son?”

“Yes.”

“And that did not bother you?”

“No.” Sara could tell from his look that she needed to give more of an explanation. “I am Lee’s daughter.”

Lione leaned back, a wry grin on his face. “I feel like I should have known that. I’ve been gone, you know.” He spun his coffee cup around once or twice before continuing. “And I am Lionheart’s kid. We make a fine trio, we children of the despots.”

“Our fathers tried to make things right.”

“Eventually. And they failed. Except for Creed, which may be why Daniel is not with us anymore.”

“I only know what my father did to fix all this because of what I know of his later life. Same with you and Hector. Daniel will never know Creed’s story.”

“Which is why we must be careful not to be evil dictators, lest our kids, y’know, think we are evil dictators.

They sat in silence. The waitress came by to give out more coffee. They sat in a booth by the window. It was mid-morning on a weekend. People were going about their business. Slowly. Sara spoke again. “Lione, I think this whole thing is worse than just whoever happens to be in power, whether these people are free or not. I think that the mountain this city was built on? Well, it seems insane, but I think it’s eroding. The city is sinking into the sea.”

Lione sat shocked, his thoughts raced. He remembered reaching down to where the roots of the city should have been. The thousands of years of life should have seeped into the earth and rock and sat there, waiting for someone like him to use it to set things right. But there had been nothing but dead earth and blank rock, and even at the time Lione had wondered how the city didn’t just sink since it was not really built on anything. Then it had been afraid that this was always the case, now he realized that the Dream was to blame.

“However or whyever the sea is rising, the thing is I cannot imagine to what purpose. If the Gray City floods, millions die, and the world is useless, uninhabitable, no good for anyone or anything seeking to gain power over us. The survivors would go to Prime, or some other world, and there would be nothing and no-one left.”

“There are always the woods. And the mountains to the north.”

“Rough and harsh, most would not be able to do the work to rebuild. There is a reason they chose this mountain millenia ago.”

“This dream is a strange thing, I don’t understand it.”

“But what I do know is that it needs to end.” Sara looked out at the city again. “I can’t help you, Lione, I am sorry. My focus is on keeping this place going.”

“I know. Let me and Daniel talk this out, whether or not this place crumbles is important enough.” Lione paused, and then took her hand in his. “If I can, I will bring him back to you, I promise. I hope that there was something good in Creed, just as there was in our dads.”

“‘Talk this out.’ Do not treat me as a child, Lord Lionheart.” Sara’s gaze beat Lione down. “Oh yes, Lione, I expect you and Daniel to serve in my cabinet for years to come.” She looked back out the window. “There are schools to build, hospitals to run, crime to fight and trade to negotiate. There will not always be magic, but our people will always need this city.” She looked back to Lione, her eyes softer now. “And they need us, you and me and him. We know a hell of a lot more than when we first met.” Sara paused, she struggled to balance facts, reality, with her love, her hope. “I know it may not be possible, but you have to try to seperate the man from the monster.”

Lione took his hands back, sipped his coffee, and said simply, “I will try.”

“The factories were not farms.”

Sara kept her cabinet in session every hour she could. Clare and Kent were alert, Lady Greenwood and the others slipped away. As it was before, most of everyone fell into the Dream, very few remained awake. Sara found she could cut through with her words, wake up the willing and get them to go out into the city and help the rescue and stabilization efforts. There were earthquakes now, and buildings would collapse, and people would not notice if she did not order them to. But it was only a matter of hours before they would again be found wandering aimlessly.

For the first time since she had returned to her home world, Sara started to truly despair.

“Explain.” Clare spoke in few words now. Weary. Hard to think. Short of breath.

“I don’t know how, but the guards, the...workers, the convoy drivers, everyone involved, thought they were producing food for the city.”

“We thought so as well.” Sara’s mind may have wandered but her focus never did.

“Queen, it appears that each factory is built over a mine shaft of sorts. Well, at any rate, a giant hole. Straight down three to five hundred yards, and then angled straight back under the city. Years it must have taken, there are hundreds of tunnels, and miles of underground travel all told.”

“To what purpose.”

“There are traces of a metal that the Interior has never seen on our world before. It is used in the computurials and advanced equipment systems we buy from the confederation.”

Clare gasped, she could guess where this was headed. Lady Greenwood giggled. Sara snapped Gwen out of it with a word.

“Lady Greenwood, my colleague, I owe you an apology. The sea levels are indeed rising like you said. Because, we have been digging out the ground under our feet. Potentially for decades. And I have consulted four geologists, they say they have no idea why we didn’t have these earthquakes all along.”

“Lord Hellsmith-Kent, I-we do not mean to accuse, but, your office of the Interior is responsible for the oversight of this industry in particular.”

“My Queen, absolutely, I am the one who answers for this. At every level, in every report, with every inspection, and believe me I and two of my most trusted aids read through every scrap of record, there was never any indication of anything amiss, never any reason to scrutinize. Everything was running smoothly, so we all left it alone.”

“It was Carlton, wasn’t it.” Clare said.

“It would seem that the envoy was involved in whatever this was a long time ago. His signature is on every shuttle on and off this world. The metal had to leave, we have no way of working it, and it certainly would explain his...support of the factory system.”

“So, we sell the metal to the confederation, buy food from the confederation, and then buy back our own metal in the form of equipment, presumably to mine more of the metal?” Lady Greenwood was awake for certain now.

“With the envoy as a middleman, perhaps.”

“Perhaps? Come on Kent!”

“Gwen, I have little evidence for half of this, and can get no more. We do not have the authority to search property belonging to the Confederation of Planets, and we certainly do not have the expertise to...investigate quietly.” Lord Hellsmith turned back to the Queen. “It is a right vicious plot indeed, Queen.”

There was silence for a moment in the Queen’s chambers. There wasn’t much more to say anyway.

“Has the Confederation questioned your report, Kent?”

“Why no, Clare, they simply acknowledged the report and said they will send a new envoy at some point in the next cycle. The tragic accident that took Carlton from us and hid his body in underwater lakes the living may not access is an opportunity for us all to reflect on the need for safety harnesses when on site inspecting quarries.”

A bit of gallows humor from the dour statesman was appreciated by all. Before they could laugh (if a little guiltily), the capitol building shook violently. Kent and Clare were thrown to the ground, Gwen sat glued to her seat, and Sara involuntarily grabbed hold of one of the ever-present guardsmen. The windows shattered. A rush of wind scattered the affairs of state all over the large room. Bits of the ceiling came down, one peice barely missing the Blue Queen. Their was a yellow whisper laughing on the air. Without thinking, Sara yelled out “Enough! Be still!” She spoke downward, to the earth itself, and she meant it in that moment. She would never have thought to try such a strange thing as this, had she not been convinced that she and her friends were about to die.

But the earth heard, obeyed, and quieted.

“Sara,” Lady Clare was the first to overcome her wonder, “I think I have an idea.”

Lione spent days scouring the city. He went to his old haunts, met up with the few old colleagues that walked free, checked in with the few lovers who would still talk to him. The trappings of his old life seemed so foreign to him now. He had found some old clothes in one of his hideaways: most of them did not fit and none of them suited him anymore. Most of the people he talked to did not recognize him, and the Watch ignored him, whether or not Sara had struck his record clean.

As he traced back and forth over the city, the people grew slow. There was not as much music in the bars, the automobiles grew fewer, the markets less crowded. People stopped yelling at one another. They would walk around all at the same pace, with a vague look on their faces. To Lione, they seemed almost happier as they grew docile, and that sickened him. What was worse was that when the earthquakes started, no-one seemed to mind.

Lione resorted to striking at the people he ran past. He shot some of the red into them and they would give a look as if understanding, and then nothing. The city slowly became still, men and women stood where they were when the Dream took them, children froze in whatever play they had been.

“Enough!” Lione was in the middle of the central boulevard, spinning around to look for any sign of life. “Dreamwalker! Come out!” Nothing, not even a wind. The quakes had stopped. Lione tried again. “Who is running now?” There was a snap, a flash, a bang, and before Lione appeared Daniel. Or at least, a yellow figure in the mode of Daniel, the power cracking through his skin made it hard to tell.

“You called, and so I came, Lione of House Lionheart.”

“What have you done to this place?”

“This place?” the figure swept an arm wide over the boulevard, pointing in turn to the market over there, the skyscraper here, the restaurants thataway. “I have done nothing but make this place more honest.”

Lione struggled to focus, this thing was pure illusion and smoke that sought to confuse and twist. “These people are frozen in a trance, Daniel. This is not honesty, this isn’t what life is really like.”

“Oh but it is, and you have said so yourself. ‘It all needs to burn’, you used to tell your little army of boys playing at revolution. Why? Because all of these are more than happy to live in a place built by slaves and kept going by viciousness.”

“No, this place was built by free men, your father brought slavery.”

“Hah! And I am the lier when your teachers tell you such sweet nothings? There are always those who do what they do not will, and always those that bind others down.”

“Free men may trade their labor as they will.”

“Enough. Look, and see the way the world actually is outside of your model of it. Their is no art left that is not labor, no value outside of product, men are shown as numbers and women are seen as cattle while children must be caged until their love can be bled from them. There is no joy that is not paid for tenfold in pain.”

“We must never give in to spite, to hate.”

“You are worse than the slave drivers! You would stoop to the slaves in the dung and say to them ‘be thankful for the whip, for it shades you at least a little from the sun as it splits your back’. Lionhearted, you of all of these I would expect better from.”

“No, no...you are a corruption Daniel, this is not us, you, you yourself told me to remember what this city was, and could be…”

“It is the city, and the good people know it, they left to live in the woods, and you met them. All that are left here are sheep and leeches.”

“Your Sara is not like that, she will die trying to fix all of this.”

“‘All of this’? Ha! You admit it! The task is too big for one woman, magical Queen or no. She and all she does will be swallowed by this city, and her life will be spent adding to the sins of this place. There are none left pure enough that their fellows will not beat them down with shame if they dare call attention to what this place has become.”

“You can lie to me, I may even be swayed. But you cannot lie to Sara, Daniel, and she is this city’s anchor, she is my Queen.”

“You are obstinate, little man.”

“And you are not this, Daniel!” Lione was yelling, because there was a great rushing of wind coming from the figure.

“You are correct,” the thing chuckled almost, “I am not Daniel. I have no regard for whatever connection you feel to him. But I will take you anyway.” The figure struck at Lione, a whip of yellow streaked out and wrapped itself around his right hand. Lione stumble forward, then jumped a little to get some slack, and threw his right foot over the line to stomp it down.

The yellow figure hissed as it stumbled now. But it threw a wild, wide right arm to catch Lione. He ducked under and struck three sharp blows to where a man’s ribs would be before standing to bring his rear knee up hard into whatever bit of the figure he could. His knee connected with its chin, and the figure shattered into a thousand pieces of light, scattered, and reformed twenty feet away.

“Well, you are quite impressive, boy,” it wasn’t chuckling now, “but you brought fists to a magic fight.” The figure seemed to suddenly be gone, and then appear again in front of Lione. He could see, it was Daniel, it was Daniel’s face.

“Daniel,” Lione could only get the word out before his hands were on his temples. Streams of thought random and confused poured into Lione’s head, keeping him off topic, unfocused. He would scream if he could.

“Why are you, of all these, so resistant? I should think you would appreciate a fresh start, the people free from the chains of this place.”

Lione searched for anything that he could hold on to, his hands groped out and around. He fell to his knees.

“Your father was useful, and I enjoyed torturing him especially when he was done doing what I commanded. Though I should have liked to have met your mother. I did not know he was the fathering type.”

Lione grabbed at whatever he could on the ground, but the asphalt was bare. He had no idea why, but he flashed back to a time when he was a child, and another boy held him down like this. He did now what he had done then: scooped up the mulch from the playground and threw it it Daniel’s eyes. And he had no idea why, but Daniel screamed like he had when Hector hit him, and he reeled back. Lione stumbled to his feet and stared in wonder at his arm. It was on fire with a pure blood red flame. Lione grinned as the fire burned in his mind and he got his thoughts back.

“Well, at least now it might be fun,” there was a little bit of Daniel left in the demon after all.

“Daniel, I made a promise I wouldn’t kill you less I had to,” Lione set himself and set himself aflame, “but either way this is gonna hurt like hell.” There was a war then, there in the boulevard, hundreds of people looking on but not seeing the battle for their souls. The yellow whipped and the red burned. But Hector, the old sage who knew of these things, was right: the yellow fed off the red, confused it, stifled it, until again Daniel’s hands were on Lione’s temples. Lione fell to his knees. Daniel cackled.

“This was how it had to end, you have nothing to draw on but your own power, and that pales next to the Dream.”

Lione reached out to grab anything he could. A thought pierced through the fog in his head, you have already burned away, connect to what you are. He knew what he had to do. He placed one hand on Daniel’s chest, and one hand he ached towards the ground.

“No, Lione, you will kill all of the people who are dreaming!” That was Daniel talking, but Lione was not listening.

Lione’s hand hit the ground, and there was a powerful crack of sound. The Dream flowed through Daniel into Lione and into the empty earth. A long minute later the Dream was gone. People woke up as if they never had slept. Daniel was gone but Lione had no time to wonder as traffic resumed on the boulevard.