Page 92 of A Theory of Dreaming
There had been no official statements by the university, by the literature department, or by the Llyrian government. No one guessed at the truth. And Preston was no longer arrogant enough to believe he knew what the truth was. All he knew was that it was over. He had not heard the bells in days. And when he did sleep, it was solid, dark, and dreamless.
When Preston finished up with Lotto, there were still a few hours left of daylight. Long enough for him to make that fourth appointment. He bid his friend goodbye (making him promise he would go straight to the library to work on his abstract) and walked away from the café, away from the university, toward the pier that overlooked Lake Bala.
The thick sheet of ice trapping the water beneath it hadmelted. In its absence, the lake was remarkably clear, more blue than green, and holding the reflection of the cloudy sky like a mirror. His hands tucked into his pockets, Preston made his way to the very end of the pier—not so that he could see the lake, but because from this vantage point, he could glimpse the ruins of the Sleeper Museum.
The three blocks leading up to the museum had been completely closed off, with metal barricades and endless wreaths of yellow caution tape. Dozens of police officers lined up around it like border guards, their faces impassive. Preston would not be able to get close enough to see anything, and he didn’t much relish the thought of being recognized by Somervell if he arrived at an inopportune moment.
But as Preston approached the end of the pier, he found that he was not the only one to have this idea. Standing there, silhouetted against the sunset, arms folded and leaning forward on the railing, was Master Gosse.
His adviser looked more than a little worse for wear. His hair and mustache were uncombed and his left eye was swollen with a pulsing purple bruise. A bandage had been wrapped haphazardly around his head, the dark shape of dried blood showing through the gauze. It seemed he had made it out of the Sleeper Museum only just in time.
“Héloury,” Gosse said in a hoarse voice.
“Gosse,” Preston said, inclining his chin.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Gosse.
“And where should I be?”
“Asleep,” he replied. “Dreaming.”
Preston glanced out over the water—not toward the Sleeper Museum, not yet, but toward the mountains in the distance, black peaks sharp against the gray sky.
“What did it mean for you?” he asked. “Was it just your fantasy of power, of infinite knowledge? Or was it something more?”
“What could be more than infinite knowledge?”
“Peace,” Preston said. “Safety. Love.”
Gosse let out a breath. “What a sap you are after all, Héloury.”
“Maybe.”
The water itself was uncommonly still. There was not even the faintest ripple of a current. The only illusion of movement was in the reflection of clouds, which shifted across its surface in wisps of white. A perfect imitation of the blustery sky.
“So what now?” Gosse’s tone was both bitter and plaintive. “You’ve ruined it. Taken a brusque pen to our oldest myths and dulled the shine of all our heroes. What are people meant to think now that the Sleepers are gone? How are they meant to still believe in magic—when it was real, but not strong enough to save them? When, in the end, it all crumbled at your direction? Not that anyone will ever know it was you, of course. They’ll call it a freak accident, a spell, an act of terror. They won’t know it was just one boy who did it all for the sake of just one girl.”
Preston had expected to feel anger at Master Gosse’s words. Instead, he felt pity. A twinging of grief.
“Aneurin the Bard isn’t the only hero who’s lost his shine,” Preston said. “I used to admire you. You were so willing to do whateverit might take to uncover the truth, even if it meant tearing down Myrddin’s legacy. But there was nothing principled behind it. Only your vain quest for fame, glory, and power.” He shook his head. “You’re no true scholar. You never have been.”
“Oh, and you are? No, Héloury—you’re just an ungrateful, self-important whelp from Argant who I was beneficent enough to take under my wing. You would be nothing without me.”
“And yet I was the one who dreamed your precious palace into being,” Preston said. “I was the one who heard the bells.”
“What bells?” Gosse snapped.
“Never mind.”
At last, Preston turned, just slightly, so that he could see the ruins of the Sleeper Museum. He was shocked by what little remained. No more than the skeleton of the building, its scaffolding like a naked rib cage, and all around it, a graveyard of crumbled yellow stone. He was not near enough to discern whether anything else was intact—the coffins of the Sleepers, their falsely preserved corpses. But he couldn’t imagine they had survived. When he had stood in the underwater palace and wished for the end to this story, he had wanted no epilogue, no addendum, no sequel. A blank page, upon which a new tale could be written.
“You’re not fool enough to think that people will stop believing entirely—despite your best efforts,” Gosse said. “Just because some building has been wrecked... myths and stories can’t be broken down like stone. Would that it were so simple.”
“Of course not,” Preston said. “‘A king can reign a thousand years from a castle built on clouds.’ That’s what faith is—belief inwhat can’t be felt or seen. But it’s enough to give their faith a little shake. Enough to make some of them start to doubt. The real magic was never the men themselves. It was their stories.”
“You’ll be taking away the only thing that keeps many people alive. What gets them through the day. All those Southerners in their sad, fish-stinking little hovels, reeling in nearly empty nets, praying to their saints at night... they need Aneurin and Myrddin more than a bunch of snot-nosed university students do.”
“Then they’ll have to find something else to believe in,” Preston replied, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “Something that doesn’t justify warplanes and border walls.”
