Dimension Of Dreams

Chapter Eight

Blade waited long enough to get a clear look at the approaching Wakers, a brief few seconds that were enough for the Dreamer's frantically churning legs to carry him many yards closer. Then Blade plunged forward, passing the man at the edge of the rubble. He crashed into the Wakers before they could notice or prepare to meet the gigantic figure hurling itself at them out of the darkness.

Blade took out his first victim without using either sword or spear. He shot out one long leg, and his foot connected with the nearest Waker's kneecap. The man screamed and dropped to the ground. Blade leaped over his falling body into the gap his fall left in the advancing line. He swung the sword in one hand to decapitate the man on his right and thrust with the spear at the man on his left at the same time. The second man jumped back in time to escape with a graze on his side, but he could not save himself a second later from the sword. Blade whipped it around and brought it down in a slashing blow that took off the man's arm at the shoulder.

One dead, one dying, and one down in a matter of seconds. Two of the survivors were on his left, one on his right. Blade retreated a few steps until he could get a clear view of all three survivors. They showed no signs of either coming after him or of running. They were going to stand and fight. As he watched, they drew into a rough triangle, each facing outward in a different direction.

They lacked the precision Blade had seen in the first gang of Wakers. No doubt they were of a different gang, not as well trained. But that would not make them easy victims. Blade began sidling around the triangle, keeping out of the range of a spear thrust or sword slash. He was afraid of a lucky spear cast and also of the fight going on and on until time or the noise it was making brought yet more Wakers on the scene. He spared a glance toward where he had left Narlena. She had flattened herself in the rubble again, and beside her was the fugitive Dreamer.

Watching Blade circling around their triangle without venturing to attack seemed to have given the Wakers more courage. They flourished their spears and made feints, faces, and obscene gestures with them, but they said nothing. Were they also afraid of other Wakers hearing the fight? If these men were outside their own gang's «territory,» they might be so, and with good reason.

Time to end the fight. The triangle was not something Blade cared to try breaking by force. But his opponents could not come at him, either, without breaking up the triangle. How to get them to come at him? Blade shifted his grip on both sword and spear ever so slightly, feeling underfoot for a loose piece of rubble. Then he bore down hard on it until he felt it turn under his foot, exaggerated the stumble with a whiplike snap of his trained muscles, went down, hit the ground with a thud-and rolled hard to the right, straight into the legs of a Waker rushing out of the triangle, spear poised high to thrust down into Blade's chest. Blade took the man off his feet with a crash and a thump, leaped to his feet, and hurled his spear into a second man before either of the others could recover from their surprise. Then he spun around to slam the heel of his right foot hard into the fallen man's chest; the man fell back and lay still. The last Waker turned to run, but Blade caught him before he had gone ten feet. Desperately the man turned to fight, but be was no swordsman. Blade feinted at his thigh to bring his sword down; then he thrust hard at his stomach. The heavy, clumsy sword would be no good against a target smaller or less vulnerable than a man's stomach. But into that it plunged straight and deep. As Blade jerked the sword free, the man doubled over and sagged to the ground, blood gushing from the wound just above his greasy belt.

Blade retrieved his spear and used it to finish off the man with the smashed knee. Then he turned back toward where Narlena and the man had gone to cover. They were still there, crouched still farther back in the shadows under the slab. They were so motionless that if Blade had been a casual passerby, he might not have noticed them at all. He wiped his sword and spear clean on the ragged, scanty garments of his victims and walked toward Narlena and the new man.

Blade saw the man flinch and show signs of wanting to crawl out and run as he approached. He smiled. The Dreamer had just seen him cut down six Wakers single-handed. Now he saw him approaching steadily, smeared with sweat and the blood of his victims, loaded with weapons, and looking formidable and even terrifying. But Narlena grabbed the man by the arm and spoke urgently into his ear. Blade could not catch her words, but her tone was a reassuring one. The man nodded reluctantly, rose, and with Narlena came out to meet Blade. His hands were spread wide in the universal gesture of peace.

«My name is Erlik,» he said nervously. «You are Blade, and Narlena says that you are from a world where all people are Wakers. Why do you help us, the Dreamers of Pura?» There was uncertainty and skepticism on his face as he looked at Blade.

Blade decided that right now was the time to start working on Erlik. «Because you need help,» he replied bluntly. «In my home world, where all are indeed Wakers, those who want to live by robbery and violence find many other people to oppose them.» Not always enough, he added to himself. But Erlik didn't need to know everything about Home Dimension.

«Here in Pura,» Blade went on, «you have all made a mistake that only a few people in my world have made. You have run away from reality into your Dreams. None of you are left Waking, none of you are left to fight the robbers and killers. There has been no one to fight the Wakers for a hundred years. So your city has fallen apart and even you Dreamers are being killed off as you Wake and wander around.» Blade was not sure if he had put his argument in words that were too simple, since he had no idea whether Erlik was intelligent or well educated. But at least he had made the point he wanted to make with all the Dreamers-they had run away into their Dreams and left their city to die. And they would have to Wake and fight to get it back.

Instead of replying immediately, Erlik looked nervously about him, particularly up the dark street. Then he nodded slowly and said, «Blade, there is much I want to think about in what you say. It is like what some of the Scholars I met told me. But this is not the place to talk about it. May I ask for space in Narlena's vault tonight?» He looked from Narlena to Blade and back again. Blade recalled that a Dreamer's vault was an exceedingly private territory; even another Dreamer could enter only with its owner's formal permission. Blade nodded at the girl, and she faced Erlik and made the formal gesture of opening her vault to him-hands raised to each side of her head, palms inward, then moved outward until the arms were fully outstretched.

Meanwhile Blade was gathering up the weapons of the six dead Wakers and tying them in a bundle, which he then handed to Erlik. The man looked at the weapons and then at Blade. «Why do you want these?»

«To arm other Dreamers, so they can learn to fight and protect themselves.» That was enough for the moment. Later he could mention his plans of a Dreamer army to carry the attack to the Wakers. «But as you said, we must not stand out here talking about such things.» He led the way at a trot toward Narlena's building.

Once inside the vault, they piled the weapons in a corner, stripped off their dirty clothes, bathed, and ate as heartily as the bland food and drink permitted. Blade decided that one thing he was going to do if he wound up making a long stay in Pura was to teach the foodmakers to make something more palatable than the cake and drink. Either that or find edible plants and animals in the open countryside. The food in the vaults revealed as much as anything how completely the Purans had gotten into the habit of ignoring the real world.

When they had eaten, it was time for the talk with Erlik. Narlena sat on one side, silent for the most part. Occasionally she chimed in to confirm or amplify the comments and tales of one man or the other. Gradually Blade got Erlik's tale and gave the Dreamer his own.

Erlik had been in early middle age when the Dreamers retreated into their vaults. In terms of the lifespans of Purans, that meant something close to sixty. He had been training to be an interior decorator when all the professions and arts involved with improving the real world started dying out. But his family had been wealthy enough to purchase Dream vaults for all its survivings sons and daughters.

His father had not gone into the vaults, however. A widower and well into old age, Erlik's father was a man who might have been a scholar himself if he had not preferred the pleasures and responsibilities of a large family. The scholars, though not celibate, were forbidden to marry. And he had been friendly with many of the scholars who recognized his abilities. He had hosted many of their gatherings during the final years when the Dreamers were retreating into their vaults, the Waker gangs were growing steadily more ruthless, and Pura was beginning to fall apart.

The scholars had been sad and desperate men. They had realized long since that the Dreams would be the ruin of Pura and had been saying so for many years. But no one had listened to them. They loudly denounced those who fled into the Dream vaults and did their best to aid and encourage those who wanted to stand and fight. But the scholars were mostly men of intellect with small ability in practical matters. They were quite unable to cope with the savage street warfare that was becoming the rule in Pura. Many of them retreated to the House of Wisdom and slaved night and day at finding methods of helping people to stay Waking. They even tried to find weapons to fight the Waker gangs. But little came of it. In the end those scholars who had not already been captured and tortured to death by the Wakers faced the same choice as the other Dreamers. They could flee into a countryside that already seemed an alien and terrible world or retreat into the Dream vaults and hope they might Wake in a generation or two to a city less mad.

The scholars were ill-equipped for survival outside Pura, but a surprising number of them joined the bands of emigrants headed south. Others had carefully packed up their notes and records and taken these with them into their vaults, planning to Dream quietly until the time came when they could come out and use their knowledge to rebuild Pura. Of course, they had been as thoroughly disappointed as all the other Dreamers.

What was worse, much of the accumulated knowledge of many centuries of Puran civilization had perished with the scholars the Wakers had caught and slaughtered. At the end of each Dream cycle the scholars were fewer in number, and Erlik knew personally at least seven who had died at the hands of the Wakers. The scholars were not yet extinct, but they were dying off fast. The other Purans might still have a chance to come out into a city cleared of Waker gangs. But without the scholars they would be hard put to rebuild their city or indeed do much of anything except drop into the same barbarous way of life as the Wakers.

Erlik, it was obvious, had no illusions about what was happening in Pura. Blade realized that the problem would be to overcome the man's fatalistic acceptance of the impending doom. Blade had the advantage of having just given a vivid, practical demonstration that the Waker gangs were not invincible. And Narlena was able to add that in daylight it was possible to move around not only without going mad, but even more important, without meeting Wakers. She and Blade had even gone across the Great West Bridge to the countryside beyond the city. They had found no Wakers, spent hours there, and returned safely to Pura, again meeting no Wakers until they were back across the river and in the city.

All during Narlena's account Erlik nodded his head slowly, the uncertainty and nervousness now almost gone from his face. It was also gone from his voice when he spoke.

«Blade,» he said. «I do not really know who you are or what you are. If this were a thousand years ago, I would call you a god come down from the High Houses and taking the shape of a man. You say you are from another world»

«Dimension.»

«Dimension, then. The scholars have said that such exist. But the scholars spent much of their time talking about what only they believed existed, even when Pura was crumbling about their ears. So I do not know if what you say even can be true. But you certainly have shown that you know much that we must relearn if Pura is to be saved. You have taught them to Narlena. Can you teach them to me?» There was almost a yearning note in his voice.

Blade nodded. Erlik might not be willing to admit that Pura could be saved. Pessimism had been instilled too deeply in him by a hundred years of failure. But he was at least willing to learn new things in the hope that they might help save his city. For the moment Blade would be quite happy with that.