Page 72 of A Theory of Dreaming
Who threatened his supremacy.
Preston almost stumbled back in shock. These were not the words he had read a hundred times—at least, not quite. What hadhappened to that final line? The one that described the king’s enemies as thosewho spoke the demon Ankou’s tongue? The one that established, beyond all doubt, that Argant was Llyr’s bitterest, most ancient rival? And for that matter, there was no reference to Llyr in the second line, either. The way he had learned it wasOf Llyr’s last-and-greatest king.
“Am I going mad?” Preston asked aloud. “Lotto, look—the words aren’t right.”
He maneuvered his friend over the lectern, until he was bent close enough to—just barely—make out the letters. Surely even Lotto would know them. These lines were drilled into the minds of every child of Llyr from the time they learned to read. Lotto certainly didn’t have his eidetic memory, but still. These were arguably the most famous lines of literature in Llyr’s history.
Or was it Llyr’s history?
After several moments of staring, brow furrowed in concentration, Lotto straightened up again. His face had gone ashen.
“This is fucked, Héloury.”
“It’s all fucked.”
The swear felt strange on Preston’s tongue. He never cursed—at least, the old version of himself never did. Now...
A chilling silence swept through the room. It was as if someone had opened a window and let in a cold breeze from outside. But the room had no windows. It was as small and enclosed as a tomb.
“I don’t like this,” Lotto said, shifting anxiously. “Maybe we should just go—”
“No,” said Preston sharply. “There’s something more I have to see.”
And so, with no small amount of reluctance, Lotto followed him out of the room and back into the poorly lit corridor. It led them straight to the chamber of the Sleepers. It was just as cold inside, and the skin on the back of Preston’s neck rose in gooseflesh.
Please be silent as you observe the exhibit. You would not want to disturb the Sleepers before their time, lest they wake in a foul mood!
Preston’s gait did not falter as he walked around the circle of coffins until he arrived at the foot of Aneurin’s. He did not even glance at Myrddin, or any of the other Sleepers. He looked only at the bard, in his gold-trimmed robes, with the sleeves that obscured all of his body, even the tips of his fingers. He stared down at the bard’s death mask. There was nothing that could be discerned in it, no expression, only what one’s imagination could impose. Depending on who looked at it, and how, the bard could have been either peaceful or defiant.
He had come to expect it, by now, and it did not come as a shock at all, when the bells began to ring in the back of his mind.
“What am I meant to be seeing?” Lotto’s voice was a whisper.
“It’s not what can be seen,” Preston replied, “but what cannot.”
It had the cadence of a song—mystic, portentous. He did not know what compelled him to speak this way. The words had seemed to simply emerge, fully formed, on his tongue.
It was against the museum rules, and it felt almost sacrilegious, but Preston placed both of his palms on Aneurin’s coffin. He halfexpected some electric shock to his skin, or some alarm to sound. Yet there was nothing. No sound, except the softness of his and Lotto’s breathing.
The glass itself was almost as cold as ice, and just as fragile. Preston’s heart pounded viciously. And then, summoning up a memory of Effy—of her in that secret room behind Ianto’s bookshelf, where they had discovered Myrddin’s diary—he brought down one of his fists with all the force he could muster.
The glass shattered.
“Preston!”
It was impossible. It shouldn’t have broken so easily; these corpses were Llyr’s greatest treasure, more precious than any sum of gold. He was not especially physically strong. And yet the glass had almost leaped apart under his hand.
“Oh, fuck,” Lotto was chanting. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—”
But Preston didn’t turn around. He reached down instead, fingers quivering as they neared Aneurin’s body. The bells were ringing almost deafeningly.
He lifted Aneurin’s death mask from his face. Only—there was no face beneath. There was not even a blanched skull, the bone made fragile and translucent with time. There was nothing except a pit of blackness, an absence where a body should have been.
Preston didn’t even have time to react before the alarms sounded.
Lotto grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him back toward the dimly lit corridor, Preston stumbling as he tried to break into arun. The alarms were loud enough to drown out the sound of bells, and his heartbeat was even louder, the panicked pulse of blood in his ears. He struggled to keep up with Lotto—who, for all of his drinking and smoking, could not shed the athleticism of his juvenile years on the rugby field—but they managed to reach the side door before even glimpsing a security guard. Lotto shoved the door open and they burst out, gasping for breath, onto the sidewalk and into the frigid night air.
“Oh, shit,” Lotto panted. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees, shoulders rising and falling with great strain. “Do you think they saw us?”
