But what to do about the dreams?
Perhaps the shamans in NAN would be willing to listen. But then I remembered the dustup we'd had before the Great Ghost Dance. They hadn't been too happy to hear my predictions about the magical fall- out from all the blood they'd planned to spill.
Idiots. If only they'd listened. I suspected then that this would be the result. Like bees to honey, it would draw the creatures again. And we'd had no time to plan. To prepare. This time the monsters from the past would lay waste to the whole world.
Are you waiting/or me? Have you been waiting for me? Does your flesh crave my caress? Do you remember? Remember the centuries of pain and humiliation?
Do you know how I have missed you?
The sound of his voice echoed inside me.
I went to the thermostat and pushed it up. To hell with the regs about fuel waste, I thought. A century ago, Caimbeui had given me a Renoir. I liked to look at it when I felt like this. Afraid and lonely in the dark hours before dawn when the past spreads before me like a black spill of ink.
I flicked my hand and the illusionary wall I'd cre- ated long ago vanished. It was a simple enough spell, though in the past few centuries there'd been little enough magic to go around.
That was changing.
The last few years-a human life span-just a drop to me-had seen such a burst of magical en- ergy and growth. The Awakening, they called it on their ugly little trids. Oh, I know Dunkelzahn found this brave new world far too fascinating, but he'd 16
been dreaming for more than five thousand years. What would he know of it? He hadn't seen what the world had become.
I stepped into my room. The walls were win- dowless and covered in heavy oak paneling. Art- work and bookcases covered every available space, crammed full of everything I found precious. Centered on the north wall was the Renoir.
It was of a young woman and a little girl sitting on a balcony. The woman was wearing a brilliant red hat and she had a face of such sweetness that just looking at her almost hurt. I remembered when he'd painted it. A beautiful copy used to hang in the Chi- cago Art Institute, but I think it might have been de- stroyed during the riots in 2011.
So much beauty was lost then.
Here in my secret room I kept the relics of so many dead worlds. Of course dead worlds are all around us. They're just so much a part of our lives that we stop thinking about it. In London, five- hundred-year-old buildings snuggle next to glass columns built yesterday. Asphalt poured in nineteen- fifty is worn down by the wheels of a thousand rigs never dreamed of until five years ago. And the sweetmeats dance in nightclubs with rags on their backs sewn in sweatshops during the eighties. But that was just a momentary madness. A fad. A pass- ing whimsy of fashion.
The things I'd distract myself with at times like that.
And here too were memories from a place and time out of mind. A place as unreal to this world as any trideo fantasy. What possessed me to recreate what I could remember? That time was done. Over. Dust.
Right.
Then why were there pictures painted by artists far greater than I, depicting places described by me? Why had I done it? Why had I asked Francisco Lucientes to recreate those nightmare visions? What madness had I unlocked from his mind? For surely he saw them-saw the demons.
His painting leaned against the wall, face down. I reached out and turned it around. Curators from ev- ery museum of the world would kill to have this lost treasure. Could they have understood it came not from Goya's demented vision, but from mine?
It showed a forest of such expanse that it fled from the viewer's sight back into a ghostly oblivion. Standing in the foreground were two people: a male and a female. She was human, slight of build with a curious face. He was an elf, tall and lithe with dark hair and a small goatee. Growing from his body were thorns.
The skin was puckered where the thorns protruded from his flesh. They ran across his face and showed as stark points across the back of his hands. A thou- sand slashes rent his tunic, letting the thorns escape.
I reached out and almost touched their faces with my fingertips.
Tears were streaming down my cheeks as hot and warm on my face as the blood that once fed that great forest. Blood poured from the wounds of my people.
But that wasn't the worst of what had been in that time.
My own complicity. Could such acts of evil ever be forgiven? Or forgotten?
I tried to push these dark thoughts away. But the dream wouldn't let me go. Wouldn't let me forget. I'd let myself become distracted by worldly matters. I'd forgotten why I was here.
I swallowed the last of the scotch. A pleasant heat had settled into my limbs. Perhaps now I would be able to sleep. With a simple gesture the illusionary wall was once more in place. I went upstairs. After closing the drapes, I settled under the quilts and comforters. But I couldn't bring myself to turn off the light. A childish notion, but it gave me some comfort.
And small comfort was all I would have for a long time to come.
A vast forest stretches out before her. Green and lush. Beautiful and deadly. And there are secrets. Terrible secrets. She steps forward and feels that she is sinking into something. Looking down, she sees her foot being swallowed by a pool of blood.
Dreams, I thought, can't hurt you.
The day was dreary and overcast. They usually were here. It was well past noon before I managed to pull myself from bed. Despite the scotch and leaving the light on, I didn't manage to sleep until after the sun rose.
Normally, I would have downloaded the morning Times and printed it out while I made tea. But I felt restless and penned-in by the house. I threw on jeans, boots, and heavy sweater, then grabbed my leather jacket as I went outside. It was late October and already the wind was blowing colder from the north.
It took me a few minutes to climb down to the beach. During the night it had rained and the path was muddy. I slipped a little as I ran down it. The sharp tang of the air cleared my mind.
Dreams, only dreams.
But I suspected they weren't. I'd had premoni- tions like this before. Before the Great Ghost Dance in 1888. And again before the one in 2014. Before the first VITAS plague. Before the start of goblinization in 2021. Each time I'd seen what was to come and I couldn't stop it.
Oh I'd tried, but the others weren't willing to lis- ten. But they rarely thought about the consequences of anything that was happening. It has been that way for far too long. They've forgotten. Or didn't believe the danger was so close at hand.
I was so engrossed with my morbid thoughts that by the time I looked up, I'd gone onto my neigh- bor's property. He was a surly bastard and hated the fact that he had an elf for a neighbor. What was it he called me? Ah yes, a pointy-eared, pencil-necked, daisy-eating nigger. The last I assumed had to do with my skin color. It took every ounce of self- restraint I had not to slowly pull his tongue out his hoop the hard way.
But the Brits had an annoying habit of frowning upon murder. Especially when it involved a human and any sort of "meta" being. However, there were plenty of elves among the nobility in the UK, and I actually had good relationships with them. I hated to bum karma with them on someone who would be more annoyed by my continuing presence.
I turned and made my way back to the house. The fog had burned off finally and it was looking to be a rare sunny day. My security system let me back in with a cheery, "Good morning. It's October 20, 2056. The temperature is 9 Celsius outside…" It 21
rambled on and on, and once again I reminded my- self to have the thing removed. But I always forgot. So tomorrow it would be the same, "Good morning. It's October 21, 2056. The temperature is… blah blah blah."
As I pulled off my boots in the mud room, I found myself whistling an old tune. Well, maybe not whis- tling, more a tuneless wheeze.