When we had parted from the Tanelornians (of whom I could not help thinking in my own mind as 'the Three Hussars'), I asked Oona how she understood so much. She smiled and again settled her small body comfortably against mine as we walked through the twilight canyons in which so many commonplace activities were no doubt taking place.
'I am a dreamthief's daughter, ' she said. 'My mother was a famous one. She stole some mighty dreams.'
'And how are dreams stolen?'
'Only a dreamthief knows how. And only a dreamthief can safely carry one dream into another. Use one dream against another. But that is how she earned her riches.'
'You could steal a dream in which I was emperor and place me in another where I was a pauper?'
'It's a little more complicated than that, I understand. But I did not receive my mother's training. The great school in Cairo was closed during my time in the city. Besides, I lacked the patience.'
She paused in her step, bringing me to a halt. She said nothing, merely stared up into my face. Ruby eyes met my own. I smiled at her and she smiled back. But she seemed a little disappointed.
'So you are not the thief your mother was?'
'I didn't say I was a thief at all. I inherited some of her gifts, not her vocation.'
'And your father?'
'Ah, ' she said, and began to laugh to herself, looking down at the jade-green street which reflected our shadowy figures. 'Ah, my father.'
She'd not be drawn further on that matter, so instead I asked her about her journeyings in other worlds.
'I've traveled very little compared to Mother, ' she said. 'I spent some while in England and Germany, though not in your history. I must say I have something of a fascination with the worlds that would be most familiar to you, perhaps because my mother had such affection for them. And you, Count von Bek, do you miss your own family?'
'My mother died giving birth to me. I was her last child. Her hardest to bear.' 'And your father?'
'A scholar. A student of Kierkegaard. I think he blamed me for my mother's death. Spent most of his time in the old tower of our house. He had a huge library. He died in the fire which destroyed it. Dark hints of madness and worse. I was away at school, but there were some strange tales told of that night and what the people of Bek believed they witnessed. There was a grotesque and sensational story spread about my father's refusing to honor some family 'pact with the devil' and losing an heirloom that was his trust.'
I laughed, but not with my companion's spontaneity. I found it difficult to grieve for a man so remote from me, who would not, I suspect, have grieved if I had died in that fire. He found my albinism repulsive. Disturbing, at least. Yet my attempts to distance myself from my parents and their problems had never been wholly successful. He expected me to carry the family duty but could not love me as he loved my brothers. Oona did not press me further. I was always surprised by the levels of emotion such memories revealed.
'We share a complicated family life, ' she murmured sympathetically. 'For all that, ' I insisted, 'I still intend to return to Bek. Is there no way you can get me home soon?'
She was regretful. 'I journey between dreams. I inhabit the stories, they say, which ensure the growth and regeneration of the multiverse. Some believe we dream ourselves into reality. That we are yearnings, desires, ideals and appetites made concrete. Another theory suggests the multiverse dreams us. Another that we dream it. Do you have a theory, Count von Bek?'
'I fear I'm too new to these ideas. I'm having some trouble believing the basic notions behind them.' I put my arm around her because I sensed a kind of desperation in her. 'If I have a faith, it's in humankind. In our ultimate capacity to pull ourselves from the mud of unchecked appetite and careless cruelty. In a positive will to good which will create a harmony not easily destroyed by the brutes.'
Oona shrugged. 'Anxious dogs overeat, ' she said. 'And then they usually vomit.'
'You are a cynic?'
'No. But we have a long battle, we Knights of the Balance, to achieve that harmony.'
I'd heard that phrase earlier. I asked her what it meant.
'A term some use to describe those of us who work for justice and equity in the world, ' she explained.
'And am I one of those knights?' I asked.
'I believe you know, ' she said. Then she changed the subject, pointing out the flowing cascades of what she called moonflowers, pouring down the slender terraces of Mu Ooria's spires.
In spite of all the dangers and mysteries I had known, it was a privilege to witness such beauty. It defied anything I had ever anticipated. It had an intensity, a tactile and ambient reality, that even an opium-eater could not understand. I knew that, whatever I experienced, I was not dreaming. There was no denying the absolute reality of this gloomy, rocky world.
Oona clearly wished to answer no further questions, so we spent the next while in silence, admiring the skills of the Off-Moo architects who blended their own creations with the natural, giving the city an organic wholeness I had never seen in a place of that size before.
As we turned from admiring a fluted curtain of transparent rock appearing to undulate in the light from the lake, I saw a man standing not four feet from me. I felt sick and silenced by the shock. Again this was my doppelganger, still clad in the baroque black armor, his face an exaggerated likeness of my own, with high cheekbones, slightly slanting brows and glaring red eyes, his skin the color of fresh ivory. Screaming at me. Screaming at me and understanding that I could not hear a word.
Oona saw him, too, and recognized him. She began to approach him, but he moved away down an alley, signaling me to follow. His pace increased and we were forced to run to keep up with him. Twisting, turning, dipping down into narrow tunnels, ascending steps, crossing bridges, we followed the armored man to the outskirts of the city, until we were some distance inland. He remained ahead of us, moving steadily up the bank of the river, in and out of the constantly changing shadows, the flickering, silvery light. Every so often he glanced back and the black metal helmet framed a face filled with urgency. I was certain that he wished us to follow him.
Momentarily blinded, I lost track of him. Oona began to run ahead of me. I think she could still see him. I hurried in her wake.
Then, from ahead, I heard a sudden, agonized scream, a wail of grief and terror combined. Rushing forward I found the young woman kneeling on the ground beside what I took at first for the corpse of the black-armored stranger.
The stranger had vanished. The carcass was that of the great saber-toothed panther who had kept pace with our raft as we sailed towards the city. Oona raised her weeping eyes to mine.
'This can only be Gaynor, ' she said. 'Murdering for pleasure.'
I looked up, hoping to see the stranger, wondering if he had killed the cat. I thought I caught a glimpse of coppery silver, heard a mocking note in the current of the river, but there was no sign of my doppelganger.
'Did you know the animal?' I asked Oona, kneeling beside her as she wrapped her arms around its huge body.
'Know her?' Oona's slender frame shivered with unbearable emotion. 'Oh, yes, Count von Bek, I know her.' She paused, trying to take control of her grief. 'We are more than sisters.' The tears began to come now, streaming silver against her bone-white skin.
I thought I'd misheard her.
'Only Gaynor, ' she whispered, rising and looking about her. 'Only he would have the cruel courage and cleverness to attack our cats first. They are crucial to Mu Ooria's defense.'
'You say she's your sister?' I looked wonderingly down at the massive black cat, her curved, white tusks the length of swords. 'This beast?'
'Well, ' she said abstractedly, still trying to recover herself. 'I am, after all, a dreamthief's daughter. I have some choice in the matter.'
Then Gaynor, still in his SS uniform, stepped from behind a pillar.
Incongruously he had a short, bone bow in one hand. With the other, he was drawing back a string. Nocked to it was a slender silver arrow aimed directly at Oona's heart.
She reached for her own weapon but then froze, realizing that Gaynor had the complete advantage.
'I've been having some interesting adventures and encounters, cousin, ' he said. 'Learning some good
