Page 14 of A Theory of Dreaming
At that, the student drew in a sharp breath. Preston kept his gaze trained on him, unblinking, until the student averted his eyes, looking down at the floor instead.
Preston did not feel any amount of satisfaction at cowing him. Mostly, he felt nakedly vexed, and slightly humiliated.
“So they teach Llyrian in Argantian schools, then?” It was Southey now who spoke. “I suppose that’s wise, since their frontline is crumbling like wet paper. TheTimesis saying that we may be only weeks away from a surrender.”
Preston stiffened. Heat laced through his veins. “Perhaps you ought to leave the speculation to war reporters and defense ministers. This is a classroom, not a political forum.”
He was thinking that he ought to be given a gold medal for restraint when Southey spoke again.
“I hardly said anything political,” he responded, in that same tone of idle contempt. “Only facts. And surely everyone here would agree that Argant ought to surrender—everyone who is loyal to Llyr and its cause, that is.”
Once more, silence fell over the room, as heavy as a velvet drape. The other students all stared very pointedly at the floor. Only Southey pridefully met Preston’s gaze, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. Preston felt his hands start to shake so violently that he had to fold his arms across his chest to disguise their trembling. And inside his sternum, his heart pounded with a dragging, almost painful ferocity.
The clock on the wall ticked past the hour, but Master Gosse never came.
When the bell gonged to announce the class period was over, Preston marched swiftly and immediately out of the room. He had done his best to teach the class himself but had ended up doing little more than awkwardly stumbling through the material, all too keenly aware of Southey’s scornful, derisive gaze. And all too aware of the fact that he was, in some tragic, perverse way, sharpeningthe weapons that would be used against him. Aneurin’s work was a paean to Llyrian nationalism. He was arming the students with its language.
Preston stomped through the corridor of the literature college, not caring who he shoved brusquely past, until he reached Master Gosse’s office. His whole body was racked with tremors of fury, and he didn’t bother knocking. He just pushed in the door.
Master Gosse’s office was in a state of disarray, even more so than usual. The piles of books that usually stood precariously in every corner of the room had been knocked over, and every drawer of his desk was yanked open, the contents strewn about. An ashtray had been tipped, and everywhere Preston walked, he tracked ash onto the carpet. The air stank of scotch.
A fuzzy feeling of bewilderment began to eat through his anger. His heart, which had been pounding erratically, now slowed to an eerie, trepidatious beat.
Preston picked his way through the office, shifting through some of the strewn papers, holding them up to the light and squinting to see if he could find any clues within them. They were torn in places, underlined and highlighted haphazardly. But there was no order to the markings that he could discern, no logic, no reason. He let the pages flutter back to the ground.
Then he rose and walked over to the desk. There were several books lying open upon it. The first was Myrddin’s collection of poems, with a single line underlined:The seafloor is a tomb for dreams.The other was a copy ofAngharad, again with one line underlined, rather forcefully, the pen tip pierced through the page.I had not known that the seam of the world was not between the living and the dead, but rather between the real and the unknown.
There was a note, in Gosse’s handwriting, scrawled near-illegibly beside it. Touching the page, Preston could almost sense the heat of his adviser’s excitement; the paper seemed to singe his thumb.
The seam of the world is where the Sleepers dream. (!!!!!)
Preston felt the hair on his neck rise, his skin prickling with cold, as if a draft had blown into the room, even though all the windows were shut. Gosse had made bold claims. And it was obvious where he would go to test their veracity. Preston knelt down, to the bottom drawer of Gosse’s desk, and found that it, too, was wrenched open, the golden key discarded on the floor.
The photostated copy of Angharad’s diary was gone.
As always, the line for the Sleeper Museum wrapped around the block, despite the cold, and despite the slushy sprinkling of rain that had begun to fall just as Preston left the literature building. Tourists jostled and rocked back on their heels with impatience. Some opened their umbrellas, which caused a great swell of black in the crowd, like the bubbling of a cauldron’s draft.
Preston shoved past them all and came to the entrance, which was being steadfastly guarded by two beige-clad sentinels. They checked tickets at a leisurely pace, as if luxuriating in this small bit of power.
“Excuse me,” Preston said to the nearest one. “I need to go in. Now.”
One of the guards gave a short, sneering chortle. “You and a hundred others. Get to the back of the line.”
“You don’t understand.” Having run the whole distance from the university to the museum, Preston was short of breath, and he had to pant out the words. “There’s a security threat—inside. Ah, I mean, there’s just someone in there who shouldn’t be, who has the wrong intentions...”
The guards both regarded him in a bemused yet contemptuous way. “And who are you, exactly?”
At that precise moment, the doors to the museum burst open rather violently. There was a tall, balding, and well-dressed man that Preston didn’t recognize, and trailing behind him—astonishingly—was Master Gosse.
Given the state of his office, Preston had expected his adviser to look worse for wear, his hair mussed and his cheeks aglow with the red flush of alcohol. But his expression was serene, and when he saw Preston, he smiled brightly, as if he were an old but expected friend.
“Turn the rest of the line away,” the tall man said, gesturing with his chin to the guards. “The museum is closed for now.”
One guard looked as though he might protest, but the other dipped his head right away. “Of course, sir.”
The tall man—who Preston had discerned was the museum’s curator—then looked over at Master Gosse. “Is this the student you were telling me about?”
“Yes,” Master Gosse said, nodding enthusiastically. “My apologies for the delay. My student is a busy young man. Legateof the literature college and all that.” His adviser was practically beaming.
