Page 47 of A Theory of Dreaming
The king reached out, to take hold of his daughter’s hand and drag her back to her tower. But Dahut had now tasted true passion and pure love and would not be imprisoned again. From the king’s belt she wrestled his sword, and she cut off her own father’s hand to free herself from his grasp.
Distraught by the loss of her lover, Dahut fled the castle and dove into the ocean. The saints took pity on her and, rather than let her drown, transformed her into a mermaid. The king was fitted with a silver hand but, so aggrieved by the loss of his daughter, he never lifted a sword again. Indeed, he rarely left his chambers, and the great city of Ys began to wilt and decay, as a flower garden left dry and unattended.
In retaliation for the king’s cruelty and apathy, it is said that the sea itself rose up and swallowed the city. The great stone cracked and the artisans and bards were drowned.
But all was not lost when the city of Ys sank beneath the waves. Under the sea, mermaids pray in the cathedral. Under the sea, fire burns green. Under the sea, its great bells still toll. And it is said that the city may one day rise again, lifting from its ocean tomb, and whoever first hears the music of the bells will be its new king.
It was so easy now, to slip into the sea-green water of his dreams. He no longer needed the rigid structure of Master Gosse’s ritual. Preston only had to lie down beside Effy, feeling the brush of her warm body through the sheets, and close his eyes. Within moments, the real world shuddered away. He was kneeling on hard, cool stone. Brine and smoke drifted into his nose. And when he opened his eyes, he saw the rising of the gray walls without the aid of his glasses, every detail crisp and sharp, just the same as it had been since the very first time.
And he did not even need to think of it to summon his father: already he stood before him, that warm smile on his face, and reached out a hand to pull Preston to his feet.
A part of Preston had hoped he would not hear them—the bells. But in the background, from that third chamber, they rang as sonorously as they ever had. His stomach turned, empty and sick with bewilderment and fear.
“It isn’t true, is it?” he asked. “I mean, it can’t be—none of this isreal.”
His protests were pitiful, even to his own ears. He had stepped too far into the waters of magic, of unreality, that he could not return to the shore. A distant memory returned to him, an echo of his words, which he had spoken so many weeks ago to Effy at Hiraeth.
I think magic is just the truth that people believe.
He had been more right and more wrong than he even knew.
“It is whatever you wish it to be,” his father said.
Preston looked out the window. The ocean shivered andglistened with beams of light from the distant surface. A school of fish, a white-bellied dolphin, something he couldn’t quite make out with bright green scales all darted past. No Master Gosse. If this was really Preston’s kingdom, he had succeeded in banishing his adviser at last.
“So if this is the drowned city,” Preston said slowly, “then where is its king?”
He had seen him once. Preston now knew that was the man who had appeared to him, with his braided beard and his iron crown, with his deep blue eyes. And he had also seen the statue, the marble reproduction of the king in that moment of fear, when his daughter, Dahut, had struck him the terrible wound and fled. Or perhaps it was the moment that the king realized his city was sinking, that the saints were making him pay for his sins.
As if he could read his thoughts, his father replied, “The king is no man.”
“Then who...”
“Isn’t there something else you’d like to know?” his father cut in, not harshly, not unkindly. “You haven’t come here because you believe in fairy tales.”
“No,” Preston admitted. “I came here because...”
Because reality is too much to bear. Because everything else is too fragile, too changeable, too frightening. Because I have no power there.
He did not need to speak any of this aloud; his father knew the thoughts in his mind as if they were his own. The corner of his mouth lifted. He said, “Shall we go, then?”
Preston nodded. And then they walked through the archway,together, into Effy’s chamber and beyond. As they walked, they talked, but only occasionally. For the most part, Preston was content to be silent. His father’s mere presence was enough. The knowledge that he was safe here, and that he would remain here, as long as Preston willed it. In this world, in the drowned city, there was not even any silver in his father’s hair.
Preston woke to the sound of Effy’s soft weeping.
It was so muffled and quiet that at first he thought he had misheard, or that it was the vague vestige of a dream. But as his eyes fluttered open and his vision adjusted to the light, he knew it was real. He fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand and then sat up, heart thumping in alarm.
“Effy?”
Her face was still buried in the pillow. She drew in a breath that made her shoulders tremble and, without turning toward him, she said, “I’m fine.”
Hesitantly, he reached for her. Once it had felt so daring to touch her, so perilous. He had been afraid of hurting her. Now he was afraid that no matter what he did, he could not help her. That he was not strong enough to save her. She had saved herself from the Fairy King; didn’t she deserve someone who could protect her in the aftermath, someone to keep her safe from the cruel realities of the world without its sheen of magic? He understood now—perhaps better than he ever had before—how hard it was, to be without it. How much the most mundane, most banal things could hurt, when there was nothing to paint them in gold.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Whatever’s wrong—”
“That’s just it.” She turned over at last, the tip of her nose pink and her cheeks shiny with tears. “There’s nothing wrong, especially... it’s just too much. It’s all too much.”
It would be useless, Preston realized, to prod her. What could he make her say that they didn’t both already know? That there were the newspapers, her fellow students, Dean Fogg, Finisterre, Professor Tinmew, Master Gosse... she was right. There was nothing more to say except that it was all too much.
