Dream Finder

Abruptly, he stopped.

Arwain turned.

Ibris's sons faced one another. Behind Menedrion lay ruined Serenstad like a crumpled map. Behind Arwain stood the archway, blue with summer sky and bright with the hope of a world beyond that of men.

Arwain beckoned Menedrion forward, gesturing towards the archway.

Pandra, bound to each of the Dreamselves, found their two desires, needs, resonating with his own. This was, beyond a doubt, a Gateway to the Threshold. How it came to be found by a dreamer unaided was a question that could perhaps never be answered …

He is sensitive, he is injured, and he has travelled here before, came Kany's thoughts, colder, less awed than the Dream Finder's, but fearful for all that.

… but he had found it, and just as Arwain, bruised and hurt, sought the seeming solace of the world it opened on to, so Pandra, the Dream Finder, was drawn almost irresistibly to step through into the world he knew he might never find again. Yet too he knew that dangers lay beyond the Gateway with which he was not equipped to contend. And to step through would be to enter a world from which he might not be able to return, leaving his body perhaps to perish here.

And it was not the way, Menedrion knew. Here was where they both belonged. Fighting to bring the beauty of the world beyond to this world here. Fighting to prevent the horrors about them. Not chasing after vague shadows; resting while their people suffered.

Pandra was surprised at Menedrion's perceptiveness and his deep feeling for his future role.

The situation, however, was dangerous and, to his horror, caught in both Dreamselves, Pandra knew he could do nothing. He could speak to either, but he could not instruct the dreamer; the Dreamself was not the real self and would not necessarily be directed by reason.

And, in any event, he was as torn as they were. The desires of the half-brothers began to mingle. Both felt the lure of the beautiful world beyond, both knew that they did not belong there.

Then the archway began to grow larger. Arwain staggered towards the brightness.

Menedrion's hand closed about his brother's in the instant that Kany's powerful reflexes, beyond all conscious control now, tore away the veils of sleep.

Chapter 29

Pandra dashed through the camp, accompanied by the guard who had been posted outside his wagon. The air was cold and damp and, after only a few paces, the dew-sodden grass had soaked his feet and the hem of his robe.

The dull red remains of camp fires, and the guttering efforts of a few torches were all that lit their way, though, to the east, the sky was greying slightly.

The guard, still bewildered by Pandra's abrupt and explosive emergence from the wagon, was leading the way.

'There, sir,’ he said, pointing towards a large tent.

Menedrion's tent, however, needed no identification, for the entrance flap had been thrown back and the Duke's son was standing there, illuminated by lamplight from within. He was berating two sentries who were making a desperate attempt to rekindle a fire.

Pandra stopped and raised his hands in relief.

'Sir!’ he shouted. Menedrion started and peered into the gloom. Pandra stepped forward and without any courtesies took Menedrion's elbow and guided him back into the tent.

Inside, Menedrion yanked his arm free. ‘I was about to send for you, general,’ he said acidly. ‘I have the feeling that you left our retreat a little late there, or am I mistaken?’ Then, angrily, ‘What in thunder's name is going on? And why was Arwain there? And where is he now?'

Pandra dropped down into a nearby chair and leaned forward, breathing heavily.

'Give him a chance to catch his breath, man,’ Kany's voice snapped angrily into Menedrion's mind. ‘He's older than your father, you know. He shouldn't be being bounced about the countryside in a cart like a pig going to market. And even less should he be running around at this time of night to be roared at by ungracious louts. He'll be lucky if he doesn't catch a chill.'

Menedrion started back at Kany's commanding tone and began to raise his hand apologetically. Then he clenched his fists and, after taking a long breath, burst out furiously, ‘I won't be spoken to like that by a … a … rabbit! By a … pie filling!'

Kany struggled out of one of Pandra's pockets. Pandra was still catching his breath, but he placed a restraining hand on his Companion's indignant head. It was to little avail.

'I'd give you a rare belly ache, Irfan Menedrion,’ Kany retorted furiously. ‘It's me you can thank for getting you out of there at all.'

Menedrion's jaw came out and he raised a menacing finger.

'Enough, enough,’ Pandra managed at last. ‘No more, please. It's like being in a sack with a cat and a dog with you two. Please give a moment then we'll talk quietly, and calmly.'

Kany, his nose twitching ferociously, scrambled awkwardly round into Pandra's lap where the old Dream Finder stroked him gently. Gradually both began to breathe more easy.

'I don't know the answer to any of your questions, sir,’ Pandra said eventually. ‘My hope is that you saved your brother, but in all honesty I don't know.'

Menedrion abruptly sat down on the edge of his bed, his angry face becoming bewildered.

Pandra did not wait for him to speak. ‘You and your brother are both sensitives,’ he said. ‘It was probably him who became tangled in your dream and brought you back from the Threshold the other night; drawn to you unknowingly in your danger.’ He shrugged. ‘By some quality in your bloodline, just as you were drawn to him tonight.'

Menedrion, however, was hardly listening.

'That world through the archway seemed so real,’ he said, his voice unexpectedly soft and distant. ‘So bright, powerful…'

'It was real, sir,’ Pandra said. ‘And viewing it from the grim darkness of your dream made its brightness all the more vivid.'

'You wanted to go into it as well, didn't you?’ Menedrion said, looking into Pandra's eyes.

The old man nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘But it would have been too dangerous.’ He paused. ‘Every world has its sunny days.'

'Why didn't you warn us?’ Menedrion asked.

'I couldn't,’ Pandra replied. ‘I'm not a Mynedarion. I can't change things. I can speak, reassure perhaps, and certainly wake you if necessary, but dreams pursue the course the dreamer sets at some level beyond his knowing or controlling. Besides, I've never encountered even a shared dream before, let alone found one of the Threshold Gateways. I took risk enough in making Kany wait until I saw … felt … what was happening.’ He looked down at Kany. ‘It may be that I stayed too long. It puts a great strain on a Companion to leave a dream like that.'

Menedrion nodded. ‘I felt it,’ he said. ‘A great surge of power. I sat bolt upright, wide awake. I've been drowsier waking to a night ambush. It was … very strange.'

Tentatively he reached out and stroked Kany with his thick forefinger and the three fell silent.

Their reverie was disturbed by the entrance of a guard.

'Look-outs report that Lord Arwain's platoon is in sight, sir,’ he said quietly but urgently.

'Saddle my horse,’ Menedrion said, standing up quickly.

He looked at Pandra as he struggled to fasten his tunic in haste. ‘We'll wait, sir,’ Pandra replied to the unasked question. ‘Whatever's happened, there's nothing I can do now.'

Within minutes, Menedrion and two guards were galloping towards the approaching platoon. A dense, ground-hugging mist gave them a ghostly quality in the greying dawn and as he looked at the slow-moving hospital cart and its shadowy escort seemingly rising up out of this soft cloud-carpet, Menedrion wondered for a moment whether he was not dreaming again, and that he would wake up suddenly to find himself in his tent, or perhaps