"Hello, Grimm Afelnor."
In shock that overwhelmed his astral serenity, spirit-Grimm looked down at his avatar, seeing the blue and yellow silk robes he habitually wore as a mortal. Now, he had arms and legs, and a true human form once more. He was sitting on a very solid-seeming stool in the middle of-nothing!
As if from a great distance, he heard a voice, “Are you all right, Questor Grimm?” This was a dream of another sort; the physical world seemed so far away now. What, now, was real, and what fantasy?
All right, Numal, he pulsed along the long, silver thread trailing behind him, using an analogue of the clumsy, leaden speech that mortals used. It's getting very strange, but I don't seem to be in any great danger yet.
"Have you got a handle on it yet?” the smiling, gnome-like man asked.
"What?” Spirit-Grimm now seemed to have a voice, instead of a series of vague, drifting thoughts. Now, confusion, a mortal feeling, had replaced spiritual tranquillity, and spirit-Grimm now seemed to have been crammed back inside his prosaic, physical form.
"It's all a dream, moron! Haven't you worked that out yet?"
Grimm slapped his hand to his occiput, his apparently-real hand finding a dense mass of hair. All the familiar, complex panoplies of adolescent anxieties flooded into him with an intensity he had never even known in his true, mortal form.
"Erm, yes, I am quite aware that Brianston isn't real, thank you."
"I'm not talking about that, idiot! I'm talking about the whole dragon thing. Good spell, isn't it?"
"Dragon? I don't know what you're talking about. I'd be very grateful if you'd just treat me as an ignorant-"
"Well, that's easy enough, I'm sure, boy."
"Why don't you just tell me who you are? You seem to know my name well enough, you-"
Grimm swallowed an insult; dumped back into a semi-physical body, he felt about as powerful as a newborn babe in this bizarre, empty world.
"I am Garropode the Creator, Grimm! A long, long time ago, I was a Guild Mage, just like you. A Seventh Level Manipulant, unsatisfied with his lot. I became so confident that I believed I could create a true living creature from nothing but my own thoughts, and I succeeded where so many others had failed. I managed to create a dream so real that the borders between reality and fantasy began to blur into a cohesive continuum. That is where I lost control. Now, my creation and I are one. While you are here, in my realm, I know all about you. Out there, I am nothing."
Dream-Grimm shrugged. “I can handle ordinary speech quite well, Garropode; there's no need to try to impress me with abstruse comments. Ignorant as I am about your craft, I'd be very grateful if you'd confine yourself to something a simple soul like me could understand! Another stream of incomprehensible babbling might sound good to you, but it doesn't enlighten me in the least."
Grimm looked into the mage's dark eyes and saw absolute nothingness.
Garropode sighed. “I am sorry, Grimm. I have been alone here for a long time, and the whole thing seems so simple to me. I do understand if it is too arcane for a mortal like you.
"I have seen everything that has happened here for the last two hundred years, and I am tired. Gruon was my greatest creation, my triumph. During the course of my interesting little experiment, I saw him blossom and grow from a vague concept into an independent physical being. I had no idea that my little intellectual diversion would end up taking over my whole life. I became so obsessed with my living dream that I poured more and more of my essence into him, spending more and more time in his mind-until I became Gruon!"
Grimm shook his head, reeling in confusion. “I understood that the people of Brianston were dreams of Gruon. Are you saying that Gruon is one of your dreams? If so, will he not vanish when you wake up?"
"I cannot wake; in a sense, I no longer exist as an independent being. Whatever Gruon once was, he is now a true, living, breathing being with his own identity and self-awareness, and most of that is me. I am trapped here, in this created body, and I cannot escape. My own body must have turned to dust long ago, and I have nowhere to go. This is my new reality."
Garropode seemed to have paid the ultimate price for his arrogance: he had surrendered his independence for the continuance of his own creation. For a brief moment, Grimm felt a pang of pity for the trapped mage, but this was soon subsumed by contempt for the proud man's conceit.
"Because of your ‘interesting little experiment', Garropode, you have given rise to a race of beings whose only hope of survival is human sacrifice,” he said, trembling with anger. “Because of your irresponsible meddling, living men and women are kept as slaves, as mere baby-producing machines, providing nutrient for your precious creation.
"I despise you and your egotistical pride. Because of you, men and women are drained of blood so that these dream-beings may continue to exist! I spit on you and your arrogance! What on earth possessed you to give Gruon an appetite for human blood, you maniac?"
The Manipulant, or, more properly, his spirit form, shrugged. “When Gruon first came to be, he was a small, mute being with no more self-awareness than a rock. Along with my thoughts, I provided him with my own blood, so that he might grow and prosper. Once consciousness came to him, I realised I had made a serious mistake; I was already too deep inside Gruon, and I no longer knew where I ended and he began. We fused, merged, blended."
"You seem sure enough of yourself, Garropode,” Grimm snarled. “I see no sign of such fusion at this time. Can't you command the dragon to wake, and to take no more blood?"
Garropode laughed, long and loud, until tears began to run from his avatar's dark eyes. “That's the joke!” he gasped, trembling with mirth. “When Gruon wakes, any trace of Garropode the Creator will cease to exist, along with his dream-city. In his place will be Gruon the Dragon, the rampaging anthropophage, whose only desire is sustenance. Only when sated with human blood will he sleep and release me once more from my bondage."
"And if I were to kill him?"
"You cannot, mortal! Your body is confined in a structure immune to even Questor magic. You cannot reach Gruon, and I doubt that even a Seventh Level Questor could last against such a mighty creature, in any case. ‘Grimm Afelnor, called the Dragonblaster'-how ironic!
"In any case, think of all the beings you would destroy along with my dragon-humans with dreams, hopes and desires little different to your own. My dual life may lack richness and variety, but it is my own, and I, at least, have accepted my lot. I suggest you accept yours with good grace-the citizens of Brianston will treat you well while you live.
"Goodbye, Grimm Afelnor. This audience is at an end."
Grimm felt his spiritual body fading away like mist under the morning sun, and he began to fly backwards with ever-increasing velocity, through the dreamscape, back out of Gruon's mind, through the walls of the stone mausoleum…
"Say something, Questor Grimm!” The voice was urgent, concerned, and the mage realised he was back in his own body.
Nothing but an incoherent gargle came from his throat at first, but the words came at last: “All… right."
He opened his eyes and saw Numal, Quelgrum and Guy bending over him, their faces lined in concern.
"What did you learn, Grimm?” Guy demanded. “Can you get us out of here? Did you wake Gruon? What's happening?"
Grimm began to shiver, as the cold shock of the knowledge of absolute failure roared through his being in an icy torrent. Bitter, metallic and turbid it was-the taste of blood, mingled with ashes.
"I failed, Guy!” he snapped. “Is that all right? Do you need to know any more? I failed, just as you thought I would-we don't have a chance! Now, just leave me alone, all of you!"
Conscious of the critical, concerned stares of his colleagues, Grimm Afelnor, Mage Questor of the Seventh Rank, called the Dragonblaster, broke down in a flood of hot, self-pitying, adolescent tears.