“Greetings, Dancer!”
Just like the last time, I had missed the brief instant when they appeared in front of me. They glided toward me—my old friends, the living shadows, the mistresses of Nothing. I thought of them as First, Second, and Third. Three shadows, three friends, three sisters, three lovers … They hadn’t changed at all since our last meeting and our last dance, which had helped me get out of here the last time. Perhaps I might be able to escape with their help this time, too?
“Hel-lo, la-dies.” My teeth were chattering and words were hard to pronounce.
“Do you not know, Dancer, that some dreams are as dangerous as reality?” There was a note of sadness in Second’s voice.
“D-dreams are d-dangerous?” I recalled all the nightmares about the past that I had seen in the last month. “Yes, I sup-pose I kn-now that…”
“Then why do you summon them to yourself, Dancer? Prophecies and destiny cannot protect you forever.”
First and Third did not say anything.
“I did not wish to ap-pear in your d-dream world,” I said, trying to make excuses. “I d-don’t even know how I ended up here in this cr-cr-crimson snow.”
“You think our world is a dream?” First asked in amazement. “That is a mistake, Dancer. Our world is far more real than yours—it was the first of all to appear. The world of Chaos had served as the basis for thousands of others when your kind started creating and destroying shadows. It is not a dream, and we are not a dream, and you are not in a dream now.…”
“And you are dying, Dancer,” said Third, joining in the conversation. “You are dying because you wander too often through dreams that are too dangerous for you as yet.”
“I d-don’t und-derstand what you…” The cold was lulling my mind to sleep.
“Dreams can kill,” First murmured. “Once you believe a dream is reality, you don’t just see it, you start living in it. And then how dangerous it becomes! The one who did this to you was in your dream—”
“Or you were in his,” said Second, interrupting First.
“That’s not important now. You believed and so you received this wound…”
The Master’s prison is a dream?
The reminder of the wound and the sincere sympathy I could hear in the shadow’s voice made me take a look at my stomach.
I really shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t know why I was still alive. Wounds like that guarantee a quick passage into the light with no chance of ever coming back to see the blue sky.
The leeches of pain started gnawing on me twice as viciously, and I was unable to hold back my scream.
“There, Dancer, now you see how dangerous uncontrolled dreams can be?”
“How d-did … How did I g-get here?”
“We should ask you that—you entered our house of your own free will.”
“I d-didn’t want to come here! I wanted to g-go home!”
“Now our world will be your home forever. In Siala you would have drawn your last breath ages ago. You can only stay alive here.”
“I n-need my world!”
“Your world?” Third began swirling round me, scattering a shimmering curtain of crimson snowflakes. “Why is it better than this one? Can you do this there?”
Third moved close, until she was almost touching me, and I caught a brief glimpse of a woman’s face. Then she merged into me, and I felt a wave of warmth run through my body, and the leeches of pain unclamped their suckers with a rasping groan of disappointment and drifted away into the black night to find a weaker and more accommodating victim.
In an instant Third was beside her sisters again, and I stared in astonishment at the spot where only a second ago there was a terrible, gaping wound.
Nothing. No wound at all. My torn and bloody shirt was the only reminder of the Messenger’s blow.
“Is your world capable of that, Dancer?”
I shook my head in bewilderment. Nobody, not even the Order, can make healthy, unbroken skin appear where there was a hole the size of a man’s fist, gushing blood, with guts spilling out of it. In Siala only the gods can pull off tricks like that.
“Then why are you so eager to go back there?”
“I have b-business to finish,” I blurted out. “And ap-part from that, it’s t-too cold here.”
First laughed, and the snowflakes responded to her laugh by bursting and turning into little sparks. Then they fused together into the ravenous beast whose name is fire, and in an instant it had devoured the black night and surrounded us with a dense cocoon of heat.
The shadows remained as impenetrably black as ever.
“Well then, Dancer, is that warmer?” First asked mockingly.
“Yes…” I didn’t have the strength to feel surprised. Just how omnipotent were these three? And why were they so interested in my humble person?
“Are you staying with us?”
“What d-do you want with me?” I asked, playing for time as I warmed up.
“You are the Shadow Dancer. The first Dancer who has appeared in more than ten thousand years! And you can do things that other people cannot. You still don’t know what you are capable of. We need you, this world needs you, and you will breathe into it the life that has gone to other worlds, thanks to your kind. Without you our home will die!”
“Without me my world will die,” I tried to shout above the vicious roar of the flame. “It’s my duty…”
“Your duty?” Second said sarcastically. “A thief talking about duty.”
“I have to go back and finish a job,” I insisted stubbornly. “I accepted a Commission, and until I carry it out, I am not free to follow my own wishes.”
The shadows put their heads together and started talking quietly. Had I really managed to persuade them? My place was not in this world, a world of emptiness filled with fiery snow or hot flame. Surely they could understand that?
“All right, you can leave,” Second announced. “We have waited for thousands of years, we will wait a little longer. You will come back to us in any case. He who has found the way to the primary world always returns. Now go!”
“Which way?”
“Forward.”
I cast a wary glance at the wall of fire.
“You know that I cannot pass through the fire without you.”
“True. But this time you must pass through without our help. We shall not always be beside you. A djanga with shadows will not always lead you through the traps of the House of Power. The time will come when you will have to fight it singlehanded.”
“The House of Power?” I exclaimed. “You said ‘the House of Power’! And do you know about the Houses of Love, Pain, and Fear as well?”
“Yes, we know.”
“And the Master? Who or what he is? You know about—”
“Yes, we know,” Third interrupted.
“Then tell me. It’s very important!”
“A moment ago you were in a hurry to get away, Dancer, and now you are hungry for information,” First answered my question coldly. “Information must be paid for, are you ready for that?”
“That depends on what you want for it,” I said cautiously. You should never agree to anything until you know what price you’d be asked to pay in return.
“You will have to stay with us.”
“Then your knowledge is not worth a bent penny. I won’t have any use for it here.”
“I’m sorry, but it will be a long time before your world is ready for this knowledge,” Second answered
