Dreamlands (12 page)

“Best
exit by the back,” he wheezed, signaling the server for more wine.

I returned
the artefact to its accustomed home under my left arm and went through a
swinging door into a long, dim cloakroom.  I made for the outlet to the street at
the other end, but a painful rap on the ribs brought me to a stop.  I was pushed
back a step by the ferrule of a hardwood walking stick.

“Come
up in the world, have you?” Jacob Roth chuckled.  “Not so high, I trust, that
you’ve forgotten your old friends.”  The usurer was in a jolly mood, and a
College Street haberdasher had tempered his feral appearance.

“Imagine
it, Tom,” he said, “Mr. Sloan and I, both members of the Sparrow Club.”  As
ever, his muscleman, narrow of eye and broad of shoulder, was close behind.

I
set the book carefully on a shelf, knowing as I did so that any item suggesting
value would draw Roth like a crow to a gem.

“Hello,
what do you have there?” he asked, tracking it hungrily.

I grabbed
his stick and jerked him forward.  In less time than it takes to relate, I separated
him from his cane, gave him a smart blow to the kidney, and spun him face down. 
Ajer Akiti had taught me the arm lock I used to fix him to the floor, a
technique just as effective in Arkham as in the Dreamlands.

Tom
and I regarded each other.  His great knife weaved a figure eight in the air as
he stepped to his right to block the exit.

Roth
took awhile to decide on his reaction, eventually stammering, “Here now,”
followed by laboured respiration and, “Now.”

I rested
my full weight on Roth until he let out a muffled shriek.  His shoulder popped from
the socket and, with a bounce of his forehead on the parquet, he fell unconscious. 
I rose to my feet, holding the walking stick up for a better look.  The shaft
was oak, the grip a silver plated raven’s head, but the metal was tarnished and
the carving poorly done.  It was a fitting tool for a thug.

Thinking
perhaps that I was distracted, Tom rushed me, his technique not much different
from a woodcutter assaulting a recalcitrant chunk of hemlock.  With the stick I
knocked his khukuri aside, and followed with a chop to his arm.  I was about to
deliver a debilitating kick, but Tom dropped his weapon and, cradling his
wrist, fled straight out the door.

I
smashed the walking stick on the brickwork corner of a wall.  For the first
time since my return I felt my need for laudanum waning.  I retrieved my book, noticing
of a sudden the man in the door to the lounge.  He had the sapling straight bearing
of a soldier and the waxed mustachios of a grandee, and had obviously witnessed
the entire skirmish. 

“Quite
right,” he said, bowing from the waist.  Then he collected his coat, stepped
over Roth’s prone form, and continued on his way.

* * *

At
Miskatonic Library I discovered Professor Armitage was absent, and slumped
wearily into the armchair facing his door.  When I shook myself awake an hour
had passed, and I decided that when the professor returned I had best not be
sleeping on his doorstep.  Hoisting myself to my feet, I walked up and down a
few aisles, running my finger along the bindings.  When this diversion ceased
to entertain, I sat at a study table with the forbidden object before me.

Turning
back one corner of its wrap, I confirmed that the illusion of a paper and board
book had been banished, though what had taken its place could hardly be
compared to glass.  I saw movement within, and light that had nothing to do
with the glow of the library’s gas lamps.  It shimmered depthlessly.  I brushed
the surface with my fingertips, expecting perhaps that it would be icy cold, or
that I would receive an electric shock, but it was warm to the touch, silky.

“Mr.
Sloan.”  I heard a muffled voice, some distance away.  The object’s insides
shifted like smoke, first in a myriad of bright colours, then sea green and
roiling.

“Mr.
Sloan,” it said again.  Though the voice was not the least bit interesting to
me, it persisted.  It was approaching me from behind, while ahead I neared an
opening in the smoke, a starry space through which lay an unearthly revelation.

“Isaac
Sloan,” it said and the world regrettably returned, brown, dull, and tedious. 
The glass book was uncovered and cradled in my lap, my head bent over it in a
familiar nod.  A middle-aged woman had been calling my name.

“Mr.
Sloan,” she said, careful not to look in my direction, “kindly conceal that object
of yours.”

Eyes
shut and hands pulled back into my sleeves, I fumbled the glass book back into
its wrapping.  When its mesmerizing surface was hidden, the woman strode over
to pluck it from my lap.  Motioning me to follow, she ushered me into a
different office, this one quite cramped, with a bare slit of a window, but neat
as an army mess.

“I
am Ms. Granville,” she said coolly.  She looked the archetypical librarian,
with a prim bun of hair going grey, a floor length skirt and hand knit
cardigan.  Yet there was something tight in the lines about her eyes and mouth,
and I sensed a mettle one did not earn maintaining a card catalogue.

“You
were hoping to see Professor Armitage, I presume?”

I
nodded dumbly, staring at the object now lying casually on her desk.

“What
is it?” I asked.

“I
do not know its name,” she said.  “I suspect it has none.”

“But
you know who I am.”

“Henry
keeps me apprised of all library business, and you struck him as something
other than the run-of-the-mill fool begging to get into the Occult Room."

"No,
I'm definitely not your average fool."

"I
won’t ask how you came by this item,” she said.  “Honestly, I don’t want to
know –as long as I can trust you will leave it in our possession.”  She raised
her eyebrows not as a question, but an implicit threat.

"I
was told by a friend,” I said, “the man who revealed the book’s whereabouts,
that it would allow me to travel to the Dreamlands."

As
if unable to help herself, she glanced to the door at my back before
responding.

"On
behalf of Miskatonic University, I promise we will provide what assistance we
can.  But on the ultimate disposition of the artefact, I cannot be
swayed."

“Yes,”
I answered.  “Yes, of course it is yours.  I want nothing to do with it.” 

She
studied me for a minute, gauging my sincerity.

“Then
I think I can get you what you want.  There is a property outside Arkham which
we reserve for people who need to remain hidden.  There you may sleep uninterrupted
and, if it is in you, dream.”

* * *

A
half-hour later, we were rattling through the dusk in a conveyance like a
mechanical beetle.  I had never seen a woman operate an automobile, but Ms. Granville
navigated the smooth track with easy confidence.

“This
is all very cloak and dagger,” I said into the hard silence.  The pines pressed
close on either side and, despite growing straight as the shaft of an arrow, gave
the impression of a tunnel.  “I can’t imagine this is the normal purview of a
librarian.”

“No,
you are right.”  She allowed herself a small smile.  “The Occult Room is a
special charge, one we at Miskatonic have risen to defend.”

I
thought this was all she was going to say on the subject but, after a few
minutes, she continued.

“In
the early days it was a novelty, housing items of interest to a handful of
scholars.  Over time the collection attracted more, and more valuable,
donations.  When the size of the catalogue increased, it began to attract
undesirable types, cultists, secret societies.  Our decision to close access to
everyone but credible academic scholars was poorly received.

“My
duties have grown beyond those of a typical librarian, that is true.  I am on
occasion called to act as a guardian of knowledge, though it does not usually need
to be protected with pistol and sword.  Here it is.”

Past
the mossy humps marking the remains of a split rail fence, we pulled into the
yard of a disused farm.  Beyond waves of unchecked grass, the windowpanes of a
modest cottage winked in the last minutes of twilight.  Ms. Granville jerked up
the lever for the parking brake.  The close-spaced evergreens stood like a line
of sentries, though the shadows betwixt their crowded boles to me seemed
fearful enough to need no guard. 

“Mr.
Sloan.”  Ms. Granville used the same tone with which she had brought me back
from the fascinating depths of the nameless book.

I
preceded her to the low front door.  The inside was clean, but clearly not
lived in.  There was no newspaper casually forgotten, no stray teacup, no fish
or deer’s head mounted on the wall, though the mantle cried out for such an
ornament.  Two shelves and a coal stove, where Ms. Granville began arranging a
fire, served as a kitchen.  One bedroom had a card table with an ashtray, and
two of the unforgiving wooden chairs favoured by sharecroppers and frontiersmen.
 The other, darkened by a double set of curtains, had a cot with an itchy
blanket and a set of flannel pajamas.  They were baggy on my thin frame, but as
I was disinclined to shop for another pair I did not complain.  I climbed between
the sheets, feeling more like an invalid starting on a lengthy recuperation
than a man headed for adventure.  Awhile later, Ms. Granville entered with a clay
mug.

“What
is this, some kind of sedative?”  I sat up, hackles raised.  “I warn you,
madam, I will take no narcotic, whatever its nature.”

“It’s
cocoa.”

I thanked
her and drank sheepishly.  I thought back to my abrupt exit from the coal
burners' camp.

“Ms.
Granville, I managed to escape death the last time I was in the other place.  Was
it as narrow a thing as it felt?  Am I proof against harm as long as my body
remains here?”

I
finished my cocoa while she weighed her words, and despite myself began to drift
off. 

“Your
life may not be at risk Mr. Sloan, but death is not the only end.  There are
certain eldritch portals which open onto other worlds, and those who pass
through them in dream may slip into a coma and never awaken, or wake physically
healthy but incurably insane.  Here, such a portal is so singular a person may
search his entire life for one, and when it appears it will open but briefly.  In
the other place they are not so infrequent.  Simply by swimming in a lake or
climbing a mountain you may stumble through one.  You may find, quite by
accident, that you have gone much farther than you intended, and arrived in a much
less hospitable place, a place from which there is no return.”

She
removed a weighty object from her carpet bag whilst I studied a ceiling beam,
my fatigue having quite abruptly vanished.

“I
will leave the glass book on the floor just here.  Relax your arm so the
fingers of your left hand touch the surface.”

“But
I was advised never to touch–”

“Shhh. 
When you are asleep I will retrieve the book and the world will know it no
more.  You will be safe here for as long as your journey lasts.  Take care in
your travels, Mr. Sloan.”  She paused again, her expression now inscrutable.  “Take
a great deal of care indeed.”

The
massive stones of the Steps of Deeper Slumber were ravaged by weather and time,
and smoothed by the feet of centuries of travelers.  On either side the outlook
was obscured by a gently eddying mist, which evaporated as the stair melted
into an empty court.  Two cyclopean pillars, carved from the luminous granite
of the cliff face, framed the cavern entrance.  I looked to the elaborately
decorated lintel high above, hoping to see some legend or piece of wisdom. 
Instead, the frieze depicted a series of marching figures, some human, some
animal –a cat, a fox, a gazelle– some harder to place.

The
Temple of Nasht and Kaman-Thah was sculpted from naked rock, the polished floor
cool on my bare feet.  I was arrested, as every visitor must be, by the towering
flame burning at its center.  I looked to the dimly lit passages about the
perimeter, but no one else was present.

There
was no dais, altar, or other furniture of worship, however the walls were
carved with a continuation of the procession above the entrance.  The subjects of
the relief grew wilder as they progressed towards the ceiling.  The folk clutched
their skulls and cavorted feverishly, arms raised to the skies, and their
animal companions began to walk upright in a skewed anthropomorphism, and grinned
as if full of some secret knowledge.  On the uppermost tier the outlandish
troupe’s backdrop changed from hills and forests to a scantily starred night
sky, and the exact nature of the much larger figures there was, happily,
obfuscated by restless shadows.

Turning
from the outlandish parade, I approached the focus of the temple.  The flame danced
in a heptagonal stone basin, feeding on no visible fuel and, despite flaring as
high as two men, giving no heat.  As the white firelight washed me, the
troubles worrying at my conscience like a clutch of hungry mice seemed
lessened, insignificant.  Then I recognized by its cessation a sound that had
been with me since my descent, a deep, ongoing reverberation, like that of a
massive bell.

“Welcome,
Isaac Sloan.”

A
tall, avuncular man regarded me.  He was dressed in a dun cassock, his flowing brown
beard reaching almost to the floor.  He had the ageless aspect granted to people
of peaceable nature.

“Do
you know me?” I asked.

“I
know all Dreamers,” he replied.

He
added nothing more, standing like a Mandarin with his hands folded in the
sleeves of his garment.  I returned to my contemplation of the sacred flame.  The
stillness of this place denied, gently and utterly, any kind of discord or strife. 
I suspected it to be a dangerous sort of peace, the repose it granted more
final than one might wish.

“What
must I do?” I asked.

He
gestured to an alcove, where sat a wooden trough and jug.

“Kneel
and wash your hands, and your journey begins anew.”

* * *

My
awakening was ruder than my visit to the cavern temple.  Coughing, I rolled off
a low couch onto a damp and gritty floor, to sit guarding my eyes from the intolerable
glare of a lone candle.  I found a set of simple garments and rope sandals hanging
from an iron hook.  Beneath were my cutlass and the sheath with the pearl-handled
dagger, all precisely arranged as if by a valet.  I had supposed I would arrive
happy and full of the sailor’s vitality I had left behind.  I leaned on the
wall to gather my strength.  In this assumption I was disappointed.

I
shifted a makeshift plank door to look out on dreary midday.  I had lain in an
ancient stone shed, one of a row being consumed by the darkly thicketed
hillside.  They were the sort of long abandoned structures that children
claimed to be the home of inexplicable lights and hauntings, stories at which
adults laughed, though they too seemed to avoid such places after sunset.

Outside
I smelled the sea, and when the tepid breeze shifted, the tang of the port, along
with something worse, an ill wind.  I followed my nose east under the lowering
sky.  I did not know how long I had been absent from Zij and misgave what I
would find as I approached the Groaning Gate.