Page 34 of A Theory of Dreaming
Brandished his war knife, battle-sharp,
With the luster of [... ] and love [sic] in his eyes.
—from theNeiriad, by Aneurin the Bard, est. 202 BD
Without letting go of his father’s hand, Preston turned about slowly, taking in the now-familiar details of the chamber. The statues stood proudly in their niches, the puddles on the floor gleamed crystalline, and the window—again he saw Master Gosse drifting outside it, his body suspended in the green-blue water, eyes closed and face in peaceful repose. Sleeping.
And he heard, of course, the bells.
“Father,” he said, his voice low and breathless. “What is this place?”
“Don’t you remember?” His father cocked his head. There was that canny gleam in his gaze, which Preston had not seen in so long. Which had been stolen from him, in those wretched weekspreceding his death. “You’ve known all along. You’ve known since you were small.”
He used the Argantian word forsmall, which intimated more than just physical size.When you were a child, a baby, a little boy.Preston felt warmth pulse from his chest.
“I think I’m starting to remember,” he said. “I think I’m starting to—to know.”
To believe, he didn’t say.
His father smiled at him—warmly, sagely. Nothing empty in his eyes. “Would you like to see the rest?”
“Yes,” Preston said, his voice eager. “Please.”
With another warm smile, his father began to lead him through the first chamber, and beneath the archway to the second. Preston’s heart was racing, stuttering unevenly. He was so close now. Soon he would see them, and he would understand, and then—
They came to the pedestal of Effy’s statue. It was carved so cleverly, so intricately, that every detail of her face was captured: the pertness of her nose, the slightly defiant slant to her chin. Her hair streamed down her shoulders in arrested motion, like falling water frozen by the sudden advent of winter. The curve of her cheek, the slant of her collarbones, which were exposed by the rather flimsy dress she wore, sleeveless, much like a nightgown. Her feet were bare.
Preston paused there, and examined the statue for cracks. For anything that might threaten its soundness. Not even moisture or dust had gathered on the marble, no barnacles or moss smothering her, no seaweed entangling her... he let out a long, low breath of relief.
“You love her.”
He turned. His father had his face tilted up, admiring the statue.
“Yes.” Preston swallowed. “More than anything.”
“I can see that,” his father said gently.
“But I’m so afraid,” he whispered. “Every time I leave her—even sometimes when I’m staring right at her—I’m so afraid that I’ll lose her.”
He had never confessed this to anyone, of course, and he could never, ever say it to Effy. She would think herself a burden to him. It all felt so fragile. Even this statue, made of impermeable marble, seemed as though it could crack and shatter at any moment. This place, which supposedly bent to his whims, still could not keep her safe. His very imagination was strangled by fear.
“That may be what it means,” his father said, “to love.”
Preston’s throat grew too tight to speak. He only stared at his father, intact, whole, but only in the palace of his mind. When he woke and returned to the surface, he would be gone again.
“And how are we meant to bear it?” Preston asked at last.
His father did not answer his question directly. Instead, he said, “Tell me about her.”
“She’s brilliant.” His voice cracked a bit. “She can read a passage once and know its meaning. She can get at things I would never even think to consider.” He couldn’t help but smile a bit, remembering how she’d quoted Myrddin at him, word for word, the challenge in her green gaze. “She’s brave. She doesn’t believe that she is, but...” He trailed off, suddenly suffused by the agony that was his affection. Then, thickly, he went on, “It takes strength, to feel so much. To feel so deeply.”
His father looked at him fondly. Waited.
“There’s just so much of her,” Preston said, the words pouring out of him, as if they came not from his head but had risen straight from his heart. “She makes me feel things I never thought I could feel, want things I never thought I would want—believe things I never thought I...” His gaze caught on the emerald-colored flames, flickering in the torches that smoked on the walls. “‘I am seized by such love, I vow / that I must come to ruin now.’”
He spoke in Argantian, these lines from an old Argantian poem—alai, as it was called in his tongue. He had learned the laiin secondary school, his father bending over the table as he paged through the book, pointing out subtleties he had missed.
This small memory cut him like a shard of glass. His father would never do such a mundane thing as help him with his homework again.
