An Ass Transformed VOL 1. CHP 1. VERSE 6

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter One

Verse Six: An Ass Transformed

The wendigo didn't so much run as it scrambled across the ground- Marion thought that thing was trying to run on all fours, but was being hampered by the proportions of its body which were still nominally human. The creature seemed bled dry, both of colour and of body fat. The Wendigo was so thin it might have passed for an Egyptian Mummy, save that it was very rapidly closing on Marion.

Marion took a moment before a thought occurred to him. Vision or not, tumour or not, he should probably be running right now. The wendigo was now close enough that Marion could count its teeth and smell its acid breath. That was enough of a preview for Marion.

Marion fled from the Wendigo.

The grey clay mud underneath Marion's feet didn't make flight easy and he scrambled along, not to unlike the Wendigo getting covered in grey as the paint like liquid clay sprayed up from his thrashing attempts to flee.

As he ran he heard bits and pieces of conversation.

"Is that a Wendigo?"

"The Knights of Purity will kill it."

"Who is that it's chasing?"

"Must be a savage, might turn into a Wendigo at any time."

"Maybe a spy for Blackhart?"

"Doesn't look like part of Blackhart's tribe."

"We should kill it just to be safe. Blackhart's raiding parties will starve us all."

"Maybe we should try to make peace?"

"Don't say such things, the King will send the Hound for you."

"He should send the Hound for Blackhart."

"The Hound can smell fear. It will cleanse the heathen and the infidel."

"I don't think Blackhart feels fear."

Most of the people's faces remained a blur as Marion ran through the muddy streets. Nobody got in Marion's way. But he did notice a woman dressed in considerably better than the undyed grey wool clothing of the other villagers. she was dressed in black with red bird-like patterns lining the sleeves and hemlines. Her appearance seemed ageless, she might have been thirty years old and might have been eighty. Her hair was raven black with a streak of grey running through it. Her eyes bore the hard expression of somebody who was used to being under attack and she used those eyes to stare Marion almost to a stop. She looked at Marion, and nodded with an expression that one might use for a business acquaintance or a distant relative.

The snarls of the Wendigo reminded Marion that he should be running. Beside the woman, three Soldiers turned and noticed the wendigo and the fleeing stranger. They were dressed in white tabbards with white leather plates visible underneath. On the tabbard in black was a sword engulfed in flame. One of the soldiers looked distinctly older, one was built like a large fat toad and looked unsettlingly familiar and the third was tall and thin as a paper cut and looked just like Percy Wheately.

"Lady Morrigan, we must destroy the monster." The eldest of the three soldiers said.

The woman nodded and the soldiers joined the pursuit without another word. Marion didn't look back to see how far behind the wendigo the soldiers were and simply ran on.

"Rule number one about horror movies: When running from the monster, don't look back and trip." Marion gasped to himself as he ran. But the grey mud under his feet was hard to get any traction on, and Marion found himself sliding and stumbling for more than he would like to be given the circumstances. He rounded a corner and found himself staring a stone well directly in his path. He tried to swerve and found he feet slipping free from the sloppy surface beneath him. His legs kicked skyward and his swung his arms wildly in a desperate attempt to first regain his balance and then, belatedly, to break his fall. His chin hit the ground first and he bit his tongue. His vision and his hearing faltered, and Marion found himself in a brief sea of white light and distant ringing bells, and then he was aware that he was lying in the liquid grey clay. As his hearing returned, Marion noticed the sounds of battle: the metal clang of swords, the the yells and grunts of physical exertion, the snarl of a cornered beast.

Marion pulled himself to his hands and knees, aware of the taste of blood in his mouth and feeling that blood trickling down his chin. Marion looked behind him to see the soldiers locked in combat with the wendigo, which they had back against the earthen wall of a nearby hut. The wendigo was unarmed, but even with just claws and fangs the monster was keeping both soldiers firmly on the defensive.

Marion tried to gather himself, and as he wobbled to his feet he noticed that a crowd had gathered. And again Marion became aware of bits of conversation from the crowd.

"Look at the savage. Look at the blood on his mouth. Who did he bite? He'll turn for sure."

"No, he has to actually eat them, otherwise every overactive lover would turn."

"It's not about eating, it's about the symbolic act of cannibalism. A person has to devour something of value, a betrayal of their people."

"That's rubbish, you watch. he'll turn any minute now."

A man screamed in pain, and Marion turn his attention back to the fight. The Wendigo had ripped out the throat of the fat soldier and taken his sword. The wendigo was not a skilled swordsman, but the extra ferocity of his attacks drove to two remaining soldiers back. The tide of the battled had clearly turned against the remaining two soldiers.

Marion shook his head. The soldier weren't winning. Marion wasn't sure they that they were going to survive. Marion glanced around and saw the crowd had dispersed. Now the villages cowered behind doors and peered over window frames. They weren't going to be helping any time soon, and Marion didn't see other soldiers nearby.

"At least in the first dream like this one I had my Tomahawks. What were they called: Victor and Edgar? Weird names, okay- but that fits my brain. Either way it would be nice have them so I could help."

As he was speaking, Marion noticed that his hands had closed around two cylindrical objects. He looked down and discovered that he did in fact have the tomahawks in his hands.

"More proof that this is a hallucination. But maybe I can win the hallucination." Marion said to him.

He sized up the Wendigo, now spattered with the soldiers' blood. It didn't look friendly. But at least compared to his last hallucinated battle, the odds were good here. Marion clenched his teeth and joined the fight. He didn't know how to fight, but he made the most of his position. The wendigo had pushed the soldiers back and Marion was now behind the creature. He charged silently and swung both tomahawks down onto the Wendigo's shoulders, cleaving into the creature and causing both its arms to fall limply to its sides. The Wendigo spun around to face Marion, arms pinwheeling like sock puppets, and the Wendigo lunged teeth first and Marion, causing him to stumble back and fall hard to the ground. The impact of the fall drove the air from his lungs, and Marion looked up in terror at the advancing Wendigo as Marion struggled to force air back into his lungs.

The Wendigo now had it's back to the soldiers and they took advantage by thrusting swords through the back of the wendigo, metal triangles protruding from the creatures chest pinning it to the sky above Marion as it thrashed and frothed and slowly died.

Marion scrambled out from under the quivering wendigo, and the eldest soldier placed a booted foot on the creature's back and pushed it loose from the two swords to land in the liquid clay.

Marion started to thank the soldiers, but stopped short noting that they were staring at him with expressions that didn't scream gratitude. Marion suddenly noticed people whispering about his tomahawks.

"I saw him summon those weapons."

"A wizard."

"Those are the weapons of the savage."

"A witch."

"A wizard."

"He'd have slit our throat while we slept."

"Worse than a Wendigo. We're probably lucky the Wendigo flushed him out." The Mr. Wheately Guard muttered

Marion shook his head as the soldiers began to advance upon him with their swords pointed forward.

"I've got to get a rabbit's foot or something. This luck is going to kill me."

Marion spun his heel in the mud and grabbed the well for support and then bolted. Soldiers gave chase. Marion could hear them behind him. They were armoured, and Marion noticed that they hadn't caught him and the Wendigo until he had fallen. Maybe he could outrun them. Although where he would run, Marion was entirely unsure. He didn't know the layout of the town, and he expected that the soldiers did.

Marion couldn't see any street signs and the repeating collection of mud house, log house, sod house quickly blurred in Marion's mind and he found himself running wildly down slippery mud streaked gaps between buildings that all looked alike.

"I'm lost in a hostile dream town in the middle a hallucination, any minute now I'm going to find myself in my underwear." Marion gasped between ragged breaths.

Marion had been right about being faster than the soldiers, but he was starting to wear out. And to make matters worse, the Soldiers clearly knew the town well and had ambushed him several time by popping out in front of them. Marion had scrambled down a different alley each time, but he had the distinct sense that he was being funnelled and there was little he could do about it.

Marion's fears were confirmed when he scrambled out of an alley and found himself staring a vertical log walls on three sides, trapped against the wall outside the bailey of the castle.

"I see you're in danger Dreamer. Perhaps I can help." Marion turned to see the woman from earlier leaning over the wall to look down at him.

Marion shook his head, "Who are you? How do you know me? I mean besides this being my hallucination brought on by a brain tumour? Should I be doing this, having a discussion with my hallucination about the brain tumour causing that hallucination?"

"I am Morrigan. This is not a hallucination, this is a vision of the Shadowlands. This is story. That is how I know you, you are one of the Storytellers, and I need your help."

Marion heard the sounds of armoured bodies moving towards the corner where he stood, "What kind of help?"

"Aid my children. They need the help of the Storytellers. Dreamer and Walker are the ones that the story says will guide them to their destiny, and without the help of the storytellers, they will never be free. This is the price of my help. Decide quickly."

"I don't have much other option, unless I want to find out what it's like to die in a hallucination. I don't much like that option. In those dreams where you're falling, you always want to wake up before you hit bottom. So alright. If I ever meet your children, I will help them."

"You swear on your role in the story?" She asked.

"I hear him." One of the soldiers whispered," He's talking to somebody."

"Yes, fine. I swear."

She clasped her hands and drew a symbol in the air and then leaned down to tap Marion's forehead. Marion's vision went black for a moment and then he blinked and found himself standing where he had begun. He looked down, he clothes were unmarked by the mud.

"Yup," He said quietly, "Hallucination."

He grinned, and felt a slightly crackling on his lip and chin. He reached up and wiped cracked and drying blood from his lips.

"okay, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that." He whispered.

Linking Rings VOL 1. CHP 1. VERSE 5.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter One

Verse Five: Linking Rings

Marion trudged out the side entrance to Allons-Y Books, passing through the Comet Coffee Shop that was attached to each Allons-Y Bookstore. He would normally have grabbed a Green Tea Latte, but didn't feel comfortable spending money this time. Today could not have gone worse as far as Marion could tell. He ran back over his situation in his head, trying to get a handle on the scope to which his life had fallen apart and begun to split at the seams. Marion knew that he was not the most put together of people, his mind wandered and although he felt that he was smarter than most people he met, he was acutely aware that his thinking did not proceed in a manner that most people knew how to interact with easily. Marion had felt adrift in his life, isolated from social interaction by what seemed to be a translation barrier. People did not think his mental language and he did not think theirs. They shared a spoken language but somehow this did not translate into a common language of thought.

Even his best friend, Harley Night, did not think as Marion did. That was probably for the best, the two men were each others crutches. Harley was utterly predictable and loved rules and systems. He loved back up plans and redundancies. The fact that the got along would have been considered a miracle if there were not a much simpler answer available. The two had been friends since the first grade. They had known immediately that they needed to be friends. Their names being day and night, when the two boys met they had realized that they either needed to become best friends or arch-enemies, possibly both eventually. Family had argued that the two had become so different precisely because they were friends; offloading tasks to the other until the two friends were so specialized that they almost didn't count as two people anymore. Marion knew that if anyone could help him get through this rough patch, it was his best friend since the first grade: Harley Night.

Marion reached into his pocket and brought out his Samsung Ace to call Harley for advise.

Harley didn't answer on the first ring, which he normally did. Marion wondered if Harley was in a meeting. Harley worked for Pandora Data Storage Systems, a company that stored huge amounts of electronic data for companies that couldn't afford to maintain their own data. Harley was in the Data Coordination Department, although what that mean was beyond Marion's continued attempts at understanding. Harley's job seemed to Marion to be a cross between constantly cleaning one's room and doing far more math than any human should ever do when not involved in sending humans to Jupiter. On the third ring Harley answered.

"Harley Night speaking, I can hear you."

"Hi Harley, its Marion. How are feeling?"

"I'm fine Marion. What's up? I'm at work."

"I think I'm in trouble. They had me work really late last night and wanted me to come in early on top of that. And I was so tired I didn't wake up from my alarm, because I was having a really creepy dream that still won't go away. I mean, I'm had several flashes of the dream while I've been awake- and it's like prophetic future telling dream, so that's creepy. And Mrs. Trilby thinks I have a tumor like John Travolta in Phenomenon. And I forgot to put on my pants so I had to break into my place through the back window, and I broke it- the window not my place. And Mr. Grimly is yelling threats at me and I was late for work. But I didn't get caught, not for being late anyway I don't think. But I got in trouble for helping a delivery guy, which is a really dumb reason to yell at an employee, so I think he was just looking for an excuse. Which means I think Mr. Wheately wants to fire me and he's just looking for a reason.And the delivery guy was really spooky too, like he knew about my hallucinations. And then I won't be able to pay my rent and Mr. Grimly will evict me and I won't have a job or a place, and I'm really kind of freaking out. So, you know, I could really use some good rock solid Harley advice."

The silence on the line was not encouraging. Marion could hear Harley breathing through the phone line.

"Harley, man? I'm freaking out, I need to know what to do. You know you're all I got. Don't leave me hanging."

"Marion, you need to lie low, stay away from places where you can rock the boat. How's your finances?"

"I gave Mrs. Trilby that money to help her when she was short that money to pay for her cat's surgery. I haven't got a paycheque since then. I'm overdrawn on my bank account and I need the paycheck to pay my rent and make a payment on my VISA so that don't cancel my card."

"So, you're not just tight, you're over the limit. That doesn't give us any wiggle room to work with. My company isn't showing the positive growth numbers this quarter that people were predicting, and so nobody is likely to be getting any bonuses. I've heard rumors of people being offered early retirement packages, which never bodes well. The whispers have me a little nervous, they don't add up to anything good. So I don't know that I have room in the budget to help you much. You've got whatever I can offer, but it may not be much. So lay low, tone down the Marion meter from Marion to corporate drone and don't give anyone any reason to fire you. You're a customer service clerk in a book store, and you sell a lot of books. Just stop pissing people off and they'll ignore you for bigger problems. Do you hear what I'm saying Marion?"

"I'm trying to do that. But I'm not doing so great. I'm seeing stuff. I told you. I saw Men in Black guys watching me from the alley when I broke back into my apartment. And while I was in my apartment I had this hallucination of a phoenix like out of Harry Potter flying through all sorts of weird places and then landing in deep space and watching a little girl trapped in some kind of giant space spider's web. The whole thing creeped me out and Mrs. Trilby thinks it means that I have a brain tumor. I mean, I didn't tell her about the phoenix vision."

"You don't have a tumor Marion."

"I don't think so either, but what I'm trying to say, is that it feels like I can't keep things under control, even as well as normal. I'm seeing things, and it's not like I'm very good at acting normal most times. How do I act normal when I'm going all possessed prophet on everyone? I walked out of the house without pants today Harley. That's weird even for me."

Harley was silent. Marion wanted to keep rambling, but restrained himself and waited.

"Have you seen anything weird since getting to work?" Harley asked at last.

"Not so far. Just a creepy dream. Forgetting my pants. Seeing an agent like in the Matrix. And a full blown hallucination of a Phoenix in deep space. But no, nothing since I got to work. But if it happens when I'm on the floor talking to a customer then I'm doomed."

"You could call in sick, explain that you're seeing things and think you might have a concussion."

"Wheately would find a way to fire me. He would say that I was lying."

"You could apologize and say you feel light headed as soon as a hallucination hits, then the customer would probably be sympathetic rather than angry."

"If I remember to say it. I sat like a moron for the Phoenix hallucination."

"Stop looking for reasons to fail Marion."

"I'm not looking for reasons to fail. I am afraid of what will happen in anything goes wrong. It feels like I could get fired at any moment. It feels like everything is hanging by a thread about to snap."

"You could always go back to school. Get a teaching degree."

"That's a long term plan. I don't have money to feed myself or put a roof over my head if I lose this job."

"I'm not letting you starve, you're my best friend."

"You just said you didn't have any wiggle room."

"I don't care. I won't let you starve unless we starve together."

"Amy would love to hear that."

"Amy would understand."

"No, she wouldn't. Amy has hated me since we met. She doesn't like the fact that you've known me longer than you will ever had known her. She thinks she needs to one up me or something. She doesn't like me at all."

"You're a good person and she's a good person, we can work things out if, and only if, it comes to that, but keep your head down and do your job in the most mediocre and boring way possible and it won't come to that. Can you do that for me.?"

"I can do that as long as I'm lucky and don't start going all Oracle of Delphi again."

Harley didn't answer. Initially Marion thought that this must be due to his friend trying to think of more strategies to manage the hallucinations, and then Marion became aware of his surroundings and realized that he wasn't in the Park courtyard beside Allons-Y Books anymore, but standing in a large vaguely Dark Ages looking village beside a Motte and Bailey Castle.

People wandered the streets of the village. Soldiers stood on wooden watchtowers that sat interspersed on the out wall of the village and a few walked with large spears through the village. The ground was a grey clay mud and the logs used everywhere in construction were painted with some kind of white paint. Pale straw thatch was the only real color visible. The soldiers dressed in black and white cloaks and surcoats.

As Marion was taking all of this, a human like figure in tattered grey rags with wide eyes and sharp teeth peered out from behind a building. Marion saw it and recognized it from his earlier dream as a Wendigo. Other people had seen the Wendigo as well and people began screaming.

Marion shook his head in frustration.

"Why can't I be lucky? Am I wearing the wrong underwear? Does the universe have something against Astro Boy?"

The Wendigo stared at Marion, and then charged.

Dreamwalker Rises VOL 1. CHP 1. VERSE 1 (Draft 2)

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter One

Verse One: Dreamwalker Rises

"We are that with which stories are made. And our little lives are added to the story when at last we sleep forever. And so we become part of the dreams that others dream when stories are told around a council fire."

The darkness wreathed the council fire as the flames spit sparks and pitch into the night sky. Dreamer stood, looming before the fire to best cast a shadow across the younger members of the tribe as they watched the storyteller in wide eyed wonder. Walker stepped from behind Dreamer and continued speaking where Dreamer had left off.

"These are the stories of the tribe. These are your stories. They belong to you, but more important- you belong to them. You will pass them to the unborn elders of tomorrow. You will keep the Demons and Heroes of the tribe alive by keeping those stories alive, for there is nowhere else where Demons and Gods may live but within the stories that we tell each other."

The children murmured to each other. Virtually every child had heard this before, but every child began to understand the weight of the words in their own time. Some children required many tellings of the story before the lesson took hold. Amidst the sound of murmured voices, Dreamer rose like an ambushing warrior behind the children- now outside the circle- and several of the younger children shrieked.

"And so we will tell you the stories of the First Mother and her companion: First Hero. We will tell you of the Witch Doctor and the Locust King. We will tell of deals First Mother made with the Elder known as Weaver and the pact made between First Hero and the Great Serpent Elder. We will tell you how the Witch Doctor found the ancient laws of the Great Phoenix, that mystery of Void and Fire. And will tell you of the Wendigo and the Hunger that drives them, the fearsome Men of Black and White- that Evil Wyrm known as Falsenight. And we will tell you of what lies behind their hunger and the fear that drives them."

From inside the overlapping Capes that Walker wore, the storyteller produced a grapefruit sized wooden egg carved with designs depicting two figures walking a winding road. The Storyteller grasped the wooden egg at both ends and twisted, and the egg split at the middle with a hollow popping sound. Inside lay another egg, this one carved with depictions of the tribe's history. Dreamer reached in and delicately plucked the smaller egg and then wrenched it open, launching a still smaller egg within high into the air. Walker reach up and snatched the egg on its descent, revealing it in the fire light to be marked with Wendigo faces, and popped it open and tipped the egg within to fall towards the dirt. Dreamer knelt and caught the falling egg with cupped hands and showed the children the vast city walls carved into the egg's surface. Dreamer then gently opened it to reveal an egg again. Dreamer picked the egg from its resting place and handed it to Walker. This egg was smaller than a quail's egg and, as Walker displayed it to the children, the children could see a great tower depicted upon the egg. Walker grasped the egg with both hands, leaving it momentarily invisible. Walker's hands unclasped and in the space where the egg had been lay a black cloth. Dreamer reached up and snatched the black cloth without standing and unfolded it with a flourish and an unexpected flash of light exploded into the air above the storyteller.

Walker stood behind the council fire, cape spread and arms wide.

"And now, the story begins again."

But before either storyteller could speak again, the night was banished by a blast of shimmering snow that roared like a winter lion across the landscape and scoured the darkness away leaving everyone blinking in the sudden washed out light and shivering from the bitter cold. Snarling withered figures with wild hair and hollow eyes appears from out of the whirling clouds of snow. The creatures almost looked like people, and in fact they had been people once. They snapped jaws full of broken bottle teeth and advanced upon the council fire.

"The Wendigo are here." Walker said, flinging the capes aside and drawing his Flanged Mace: Boneshaker.

"Worse will be coming. Children, get behind us." Dreamer added and drew the twin tomahawks: Victor and Edgar.

The corrupted Knights of the Locust King marched out of the freezing mists, the Knights of Unity and the Knights of Purity. Behind them, the monstrous Harvester and the legions of Truthtellers and Confessors stood ready and waiting.

Behind Dreamer and Walker stood the children and the tribe. Between the Locust King's forces and the Tribe stood only these two Storytellers dressed in their crimson armor against a tide of white shrouded soldiers ready to do them harm. Slowly the ranks of Locust King begin marching forward, pikes and Gusarmes out and leveled at the two in blood red raiments. Troops with muskets and flintlocks march besides ones with Kalashnikov variations. The troops washed over and around the two warriors like an avalanche. The Tribe lands disappeared around the two, buried in snow and freezing mists. Tips of corn stalks poked out from the snow as they withered from the cold.

Dreamer and Walker stood back to back in the midst of the enemy, their weapons in constant motion. The army seemed disinterested in them, marching past to devastate the landscape and drown it in winter. Then, as though a signal had been given, the army parted like the red sea and a figure dressed in crimson war robes fringed with gold strode out from the army brandishing an enormous scythe: the Locust King.

Walker stood ready, a bulwark of defense with no gaps through which the enemy could enter. Dreamer shifted constantly, a puzzle no enemy could decipher. Dozens of Knight and Wendigo bodies lay in a gruesome circle around the two. The Locust King strode over the bodies and swung the great scythe one handed in an arc the cut the air in two as it went. The blade bit through Boneshaker without slowing and slit Walker's red armor cleanly, dropping the storyteller to the ground. Dreamer turned to face the Locust King, but the scythe kept swinging, completing a full circle and continuing around, slicing through Dreamer as though the storyteller were maybe of morning fog.

The Locust King stared down at the ruined forms of the storytellers, "What makes you all oppose me? I bring liberation. Through me you all are freed to tell your own stories. Why are you fools willing to die rather than embrace my offer?"

The army in white stormed across the landscape until the land lay like a blank canvas out to the horizon. The Locust Skin stood, leaning on his scythe, staring down at the bodies of Dreamer and Walker, three figures in red against a background painted white.

The wind whipped the Locust King's gilded robes like a scourge and tossed his twin feathered crests wildly.

"Why do you resist?"

And the wind replied, "A good story is like soil, it must be built up and nurtured. You nurture nothing. You get one harvest, and then the winter rains wash away the top soil and nothing grows for years after."

The Locust King turned, swinging his scythe wildly trying to find the source of the voice, "Where are you?"

"Here. We are of the story." The voice said, echoing as though it were two voices speaking as one.

"Who are you? I have defeated everything and everyone."

"Have you defeated the fear that drives you? What do you fear so much that you felt driven to burn and salt everything you love? What fear could drive you to this destruction?"

"I fear nothing! There is no fear!"

Before him, the broken pieces of the storyteller reassembled themselves into a single form, neither Dreamer nor Walker, but both.

"What are you?" The Locust King hissed.

"We are Dreamwalker. And we will test your claim. We are Dreamwalker and the Shadowlands of your mind and your dreams are open to us. We shall see if there is no fear within your story."

And Dreamwalker stepped forward and passed into the Locust King. And the Locust King shuddered as it happened.

The Shadowlands of the Locust King stretched far away, the horizon pulling up rather than down. Color was missing in these Shadowlands, everything was black or white and the contrast was jagged and painful when viewed too long. Dreamwalker stood in front of a great tower of crystal and steel, a door opened at the base of the tower. And Dreamwalker entered.

Inside the tower the floor was built of black and white squares in a chessboard pattern and a great staircase with no protective railing curled up to the top of the tower. Positioned like chessmen around the room, the Men of Black and White stood frozen in their black suits and black sunglasses, sharp against white shirts and white pocket squares. As one, the Men of Black and White turned to look at Dreamwalker. As one, the Men of Black and White raised their left hands to touch their left ears. As one, the Men of Black and White spoke.

"Target has arrived. Commencing operation. Target will be sanctioned."

Dreamwalker drew twin tomahawks and flanged mace and charged the Men of Black and White. The Men of Black and White moved between the blinking of Dreamwalker's eyes. They did not seem to move, but when Dreamwalker swung a weapon towards one of the men of black and white, that man was simply not in the same spot when the weapon arrived. Dreamwalker could not see them move, but that did not stop the storyteller from feeling the results of their movement. Fists like concrete cinder blocks struck from impossible angles, and gunshots rang out after Dreamwalker felt the exploding pain of bullets striking flesh.

"We can't beat them. They are too many, too fast."

"Target is injured."

"This is the Shadowlands, we live or die as the story demands."

"Target is vulnerable."

"This is not the Shadowlands. This is his Shadowlands. How do you think his stories end?"

"Proceeding with sanctions."

"It ends in the throne room. It has to. We can make it."

Dreamwalker moved, leaping straight up to grasp the spiral staircase. Dreamwalker pulled up onto the stairs and charged up the staircase with the Men of Black and White in hot pursuit. Dreamwalker took the stairs five at a time, almost flying up the stairs. Below on the stairs, the marching cadence of the Men of Black and White echoed like a drumbeat of a military band. Another sound added to the chorus, the rich syrupy sound of something very large sliding across a wet surface, black oily liquid dripped from the edges of the stairs as Dreamwalker ran. Coiling down from above was a great monster serpent with a head like a crocodile and a body wide enough to swallow Volkswagen.

"Hello little morsel." The Serpent said, "I am Falsenight, and it is time for you to learn your place. You are not the hero of this tale."

The Enormous black monster rolled and swirled around the staircase, a liquid cable the width of a sedan, a oily black tsunami in the form of a serpentine leviathan.

"You must remember your role, teller of tales. The chosen one must face our hunger and choose. You may only guide the chosen one, but the choice is not yours to make. The hunger is not yours to face."

"How can we guide the chosen one if we do not know what drives your hunger? How can we teach the chosen one if we do not know the choice that must be made."

Falsenight chuckled, a sound not unlike shaking a bag of razor blades dipped in bear grease.

"That is your challenge. Don't you like a challenge?"

"The Dreamwalker is the storyteller and the mentor. Knowledge is their portfolio." A cold monotone voice whispered, a sound so quiet the breeze tore it apart. "The unknown terrifies them, they cannot quantify it or explain it or weave it into song."

"Who's there?" Dreamwalker called.

Falsenight chuckled, "You have awakened The Grey. He smells your fear. You who sought the fear that drives our little Locust now must face your own."

"Show yourself!"

"If you wish."

Before Dreamwalker a shape gradually faded into view. Human-like, but absurdly thin with long insect-like fingers and a grotesquely large head, smooth like a carapace with mandibles rather than a mouth and compound eyes. The being hung in the air, silent and monochrome, as though superimposed on the the space and not fully occupying it.

"We know your fear. We can take it away: take control, walk our path, and the uncertainty will vanish. We promise certainty, stability, safety. Walk our path. Tell our story."

Dreamwalker took a step back. Falsenight chuckled a third time as the Men of Black and White marched through the serpents great coils and blocked the path down the stairs.

"There is no way out. We offer an answer."

"No, you offer lies." Dreamwalker stepped back again, but this time there was no stairway beneath, and the storyteller tumbled backwards into the unknown.

* * * *

Marion Day awoke gasping for air, and sat upright in bed. He looked around at the disgraceful mess that was the bedroom of his bachelor suite. The bed was a simply mattress laying on plastic on the floor of the room. Movie posters were mounted on the wall with rubber cement, 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', 'The Last Man on Earth', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and 'The Day of the Triffids. Books were left in piles around the room, clothing left piled on books. A laptop lay in the otherwise unused closet. An alarm clock sat on its side next to the bed.

Marion looked around the room again, "It was a dream. Damn. What time is it?"

He looked at the alarm clock, tilting his head.

"Why's it on its side? It's five past five! I start work at six. Did I not wake up when I shut the alarm off? Damn, I'll be late for work!"