Chapter One: Time to Wake Up
When you get used to having the same dream over and over again, night after night, it can throw you off to have another vision suddenly present itself to your subconscious. Anthony Hallow opened his eyes to see a swirling multi-coloured ceiling many miles above where he lay. This was not his dream, his dream was a grave - his dream was a nightmare. He had become used to the cold comfort of the tomb inside his head to which his mind fled when he slept. He had become attached to the cold white walls of the mausoleum in which he spent his dreaming hours carving their names over and over again. He spent many timeless nights wandering around the tomb looking for the door that was not there, for they were inside; he heard them scratching and crying, far away beyond his reach.
But this was not that place. There was no mud, no rain, no dead trees and no tomb. Anthony blinked a few times; the swirling rainbow in the sky was mesmerising. For a long time he lay staring at it until he realised something very strange. He realised that he was aware. With great clarity and lucidity Anthony Hallow knew who he was, he knew that he was dreaming and that he was completely aware of everything going on in his mind.
This was not the way of dreams. Where was the vagueness? Where was the blur around his vision? Where was the absence of his true self? He could feel the hard stone surface on which he lay, see the sky above him and hear the empty background noise of the vast chamber he was in. He did not feel like he was asleep any more.
He sat up with a start and examined his surroundings. This was not his bedroom and the tangerine-coloured, circular stone table on which he lay was most definitely not the bed he went to sleep in. This could only be a dream though. Next to him lay another person, a young woman with red hair, who was asleep. As his field of vision grew, Anthony's heartbeat started to increase rapidly.
Beyond the stone tables next to him there were countless more. As his eyes scanned up to the horizon he concluded there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sleeping figures all on a table of their own. Men, women and children in their sleeping attire, eyes closed.
They were in a gigantic chamber of some kind. The silence was incredible. Anthony was used to planes, trains, roads, children's playgrounds, building works and all the dull humming background noises of the city. Anthony looked up to the ceiling where blues, greens and yellows mixed and curled around each other like a kaleidoscope.
Here, all was quiet and still, though perhaps not quite still. As Anthony looked he noticed a periodic disturbance in the chamber. Every now and then one of the sleeping figures would disappear and after a few seconds someone else would appear in their place. The red haired girl was already gone, replaced by a portly gentleman.
Anthony was still wearing his pyjamas - if you could call them that - boxer shorts and a t-shirt stained with what he hoped was tea. He scratched his beard and rationalised that this could only be a dream, one that he was simply experiencing on a more vivid level than usual.
He worked with computers, when he worked at all because he had an affinity with machines; he understood logic and what kind of human errors so frequently caused computers to break down. Anthony knew that chaos was the absence of rationality so he resolved to stay calm - he was dreaming and would soon wake up.
Becoming aware that he was dreaming was not unusual, the only thing that was unusual in this instance was the unbelievable clarity with which he was experiencing the vision of the landscape around him.
He decided that he might as well have a look around while he was waiting to wake up. He gingerly lowered himself off of the table, shivering as his bare feet touched the cold metal floor of the chamber and as soon as his feet hit the floor he noted a change. The ceiling had turned from neutral blues and greens to a deep angry red and several forks of orange lightning ripped across the sanguine sky. Then came the thunder which rolled over him like a giant’s belch.
This was not a good sign; that much was clear. Still, I will wake up in a minute, he thought. Then in the distance he saw another disturbance. This was not in the sky but at ground level. He couldn't make out what it was at first but soon he realised there was definitely a group of figures running towards him. “Just a dream”, he murmured to himself as he started drumming his fingers nervously against his hip. As they got closer and closer he could begin to make them out.
They weren't human. They looked like bears, but very thin bears; bears that hadn't eaten well, ever. They had white fur and brown cloaks and ran like people ran, except of course they were not people.
That's fine because this is just a dream, he thought, although, they aren't human, this is unsettling.
Perhaps the most worrying thing was the weaponry they carried, long-handled silver scythes. Anthony took a few steps backwards. "It's okay", he repeated to himself, "just a dream. They can't hurt me." It was only when they got close enough that Anthony could see the saliva dripping from the jaws of the bear-creatures. That was enough detail, he decided. Dream or not, Anthony Hallow turned and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.
As he ran he heard loud bellows coming from his pursuers and thunder rolling down from the sky again. He darted through the rows of the sleeping people but could not outrun them. They gained with every step, in his fear he could imagine the feeling of warm breath on the back of his neck.
Suddenly a bolt of white light flashed past him to strike the side of one of the stone circles. Anthony turned to see another bolt fire from the end of one of the silver scythes, which flashed close to his face. One of the bear-creatures growled to the shooter who stopped immediately. They were obviously reluctant to hit the sleepers.
Anthony was just about to give up and surrender when he saw that he was coming towards the edge of the chamber. From a distance the walls had appeared grey indistinct blurs, but now he was closer he could see that there were no walls. The chamber just opened up to the sky beyond; the real sky, not the manufactured multi-coloured one above his head now.
Despite his predicament, when Anthony reached the edge he stopped and stared in amazement. He was breathless from the running, a very un-dreamlike state of being, but what little air remained in his lungs was taken away by the magnificent vista in front of him. There were other chambers out there, much like the one in which he stood, huge platforms with a ceiling but no walls which were covered in seas of round stones which held more sleepers.
The chambers sat nestled in the boughs of huge trees, colossal trees that must have been thousands of feet tall. In turn these trees straddled vast mountains which were covered in dense forest. Flocks of birds flew here and there whilst waterfalls cascaded down out of the trees and made lakes and valleys unimaginably far below.
There were dozens of chambers like the one he was in, some nearby and some lost in the haze of the horizon.
His time to admire the scenery was short lived, however. He heard a few triumphant growls and turned to see the leader was closing in on him. Up close he could make it out with terrible detail. It was like a shrivelled polar bear, except its skin seemed to be covered in feathers as opposed to fur. Great folds of flesh hung down from its arms and legs, too much skin and not enough body. On the ends of its arms and legs were hands and feet covered in cracked black skin which looked more human than animal. The beast's head was bear-like but with a stubby squashed snout. Its eyes were red and gleamed with more intellect that any bear could have possessed.
Thinking that he was just about to find out how real this dream was, Anthony could do little but stand and stare as the figure bore down on him and lifted his weapon to strike. Before the blow could land, however, his assailant was struck by a ball of blue flame. The bear-creature fell back writhing in pain and a shadow fell over him.
The stone tables did not cover the entire platform and an empty rim several metres wide was left. Even so, the winged creature which landed there barely had room to do so. It was a colossal silver hawk of some kind, its feathers seeming more metallic than natural. Then Anthony
saw the rider. A brown cloak covered most of it, but Anthony could still make out the claws on its feet, and the long bony fingers with black nails on its hands. In one hand it held the rains of the silver hawk, in the other a small ball of blue flame which sat there without causing him any discomfort.
As the other bear-creatures renewed their approach, the canine rider looked at him with pure black eyes and said, “I would get on if I were you, Mr Hallow.” Its voice was a low growl, the words seeming to come out uncomfortably from between its fanged jaws. It obviously wasn't used to speaking the Queen's English. Anthony quickly decided and jumped onto the back of the silver hawk. The metallic feathers were stiff and they bit into his legs as he grasped the back of the rider's saddle and they took off with a surge of power from the bird.
Several bolts of fire came in their direction but they bounced harmlessly from the wings of their steed. Anthony looked back fearfully at the crowd of beasts gathering on the edge of the receding platform.
“Fear not, Mr Hallow”, growled the pilot, “the tallow bears are minor creatures, the domain of the sky is denied to them. We are safe for now.”
As they soared through the warm sky over the unknown world of Anthony's dream he attempted to take stock. But the whizzing of the air past his face and through his grey flecked hair stole away any hope of analytical logic. He had been afraid back on the platform but it was not unusual for him to be afraid in a dream.
As they soared through the forest on the mountains, beneath the branches of the giant trees Anthony felt a kind of exhilaration, a sense of life that had eluded him for a decade.
They passed dozens of the chambers, many tens of millions of sleepers must have been in them. They were miniature to Anthony, tiny aspects of a giant dream. Eventually they began to descend towards the foot of one of the hundreds of mountains in the area. As they came down Anthony began to truly appreciate the scale of his surroundings. The shadow of the mountain and the tree which sat atop it covered the land for many miles. This imagined landscape of his dream was beyond anything which his real eyes had seen or that his waking mind might have been able to comprehend.
Their silver mount took them deftly down through the canopy into a clearing. The blue flame which had been in the canine-creature’s hand when he rescued Anthony had gone. The creature leapt nimbly from the hawk’s back before offering Anthony his hand.
Anthony took it and jumped down. He was surprised at the strength he felt in the slender bony fingers. As soon he was off the canine-creature leaned and whispered into the hawk’s ear and it took off through the trees leaving a gaping silence behind it.
The canine-creature stared at him for a while before speaking: “I am uncertain whether introductions or a change of clothes would be more prudent.” The more he said the more comfortable he seemed speaking the language.
“I think maybe the clothes might help”, replied Anthony. He might only be dreaming but it would be nice to look his best given the majesty of his surroundings. He'd never given much thought to his attire in dreams before but in this instance he felt under-dressed for the occasion.
The canine-creature passed Anthony a grey shirt and trousers and a pair of black felt shoes that were more like moccasins from a leather bag carried over his shoulder. He watched as Anthony slipped on his new outfit over the tops of his boxers and t-shirt.
“Very good”, growled Anthony’s rescuer, “now allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kannis and I am of the talented jackals.”
“Excellent”, responded Anthony, “may I just say that this is a particularly wonderful dream. I rarely look forward to waking up these days but on this occasion it will be for entirely different reasons than usual.” Anthony smiled as he reached out and shook the hand of Kannis, the talented jackal.
“Mmm”, mumbled Kannis in response, “interestingly you seem to be coping through some form of denial. Mr Hallow you are already awake.”
“Ha”, said Anthony with a big smile, “I awoke in a strange magical world, was chased by bears that fired bolts of white flame at me and escaped on the back of a giant silver bird.”
“A sorrow hawk”, interrupted Kannis
“A sorrow hawk apparently”, continued Anthony, “and now I am standing in a forest having a conversation with a wolf.”
“A talented jackal”, interrupted Kannis again.
“My apologies, a jackal. I can assure you I am fast asleep in my less than comfy bed in the grand old city of London.”
Kannis stared at him again, his keen dark eyes contemplating their next move. With incredible speed he lunged forward and slashed at Anthony's hand with an outstretched finger.
Anthony leapt back and grasped his left hand in pain. When he looked at it he saw blood began to seep from a nasty cut.
“Did that hurt?” asked Kannis bluntly.
“Bloody hell, yes”, said Anthony, swearing and clasping his hand.
“Good”, said the jackal. “You are awake, Anthony. Bewildered, bemused and stunned? Yes, all of those things I surmise, but you are most definitely not asleep any more. There will be an enormous amount for you to take in and I am sorry if I cannot proceed with the delicacy that may be deserved but we don't have time. Needless to say, Mr Hallow, on this particular occasion you have awoken on the other side of the dream and, as far as I know, you are the first of your kind to have done so.”
Anthony slumped down onto the soft mossy ground. His mind raced through logic, reason, talking jackals, giant trees, dreams... This was madness. He considered the possible scenarios: Drug-induced hallucination? No; A coma? Possibly, maybe; Maybe death... He asked, “Am I dead?” which elicited a long sigh from Kannis.
“No, Anthony, you are not dead. You are alive and awake, just not in the same place as when you fell asleep.”
Anthony put his head in his hands and rocked back and forth. Try as he might he could not deny his senses. He could see, smell, hear and touch the world surrounding him. He would have wagered he could taste it too if there had been anything around to eat, a subject on which his rumbling stomach was beginning to comment.
Anthony decided that, whatever was going on here, one thing which was undeniably real was the pain he'd felt when Kannis clawed him. It was possible that this was all still fantasy, but now a doubt nagged at him and corroded his belief in the dream scenario. The blood was starting to clot, the wound throbbed.
“Well, suppose for a moment I accept that what you are saying is true? I have questions.”
“You may ask three”, stated Kannis.
“Three questions? Are you some sort of genie?”
“No, Mr Hallow, the genies tend to dress differently and they reside in another part of the forest. I am simply a person with a limited amount of time and much to accomplish with it. Ask away.”
Anthony rubbed at his beard for a few moments, trying to decide what to ask. “Where are we?”
“Specifically, we are in an unnamed forest just below the Mercurial Chambers where you awoke. More generally, we are in a land called Avalen.”
“How was I brought here?”
“You have been here thousands of times. For years you have spent your sleeping hours lying in two places, in your bed at home and up there on one of those stone tables. On this occasion, and through no small amount of effort, we have succeeded in waking up the dreamer instead of the sleeper. Last question and then I must be away.”
“Tell me why?” said Anthony.
“Ah”, responded Kannis, wrinkling his nose slightly, “that is a slightly more complex matter and one which I cannot cover in its entirety. Needless to say my brothers and I have brought you here for reasons which in the long run may prove mutually beneficial. You have a talent you are unaware of which will aid us greatly in our cause and we can offer you a chance to heal the wounds you bear.” As he spoke, Kannis pulled out a compass and started to get a bearing.
Once he seemed happy with a direction he pulled some other items from his bag. One was a s
ilver cup which he handed to Anthony. “Drink and eat from this”, he said.
“Drink and eat what exactly?” asked Anthony. His stomach had picked up on the term ‘eat’ and was weighing in with a series of rumbles. He examined the contents of the small thin cup, which were non-existent.
“Anything you wish”, replied Kannis who took the cup from him and turned it upside down. Water started to pour from it. The water turned into tomato soup, then to something that looked like tea. “I suggest you stick to soups for nourishment, it may get a little confused if you try to imagine anything more solid. I will be back in three days.” He handed the tin cup back to Anthony and then passed him a long dagger. “The wildlife shouldn't bother you too much; anything which does should run at the sight of this.”
Finally, he passed him a small cotton bag. From it he produced a small black stone. “For fires, light with this. Use only small twigs and leaves which have already fallen from the trees. Do not make a large fire; the tallow bears will have alerted the Fenngaard Palace already. I do not have time to explain all of these things”, he finished when he saw Anthony was about to start asking more questions.
Kannis nodded, patted him roughly on the shoulder and walked into the forest.
“Where are you going?” asked Anthony, as Kannis walked away.
“A small town further up the mountain, they have an Inkling station.”
“Why can’t I come?” he called as Kannis got further and further away.
“They will be looking for you in the towns. Stay hidden, Mr Hallow, I will return.”
“Why don't you take your oversized bird?” Anthony shouted as Kannis was almost out of earshot.
“The sorrow hawks are outlawed; I would draw too much attention”, he replied. With that he was gone and Anthony was alone in the forest.
While he and Kannis had been talking the forest had seemed as silent as the grave yet within moments of the talented jackal’s departure the sounds of life returned. Anthony could hear hordes of birds chirping and tweeting as they flitted from tree to tree. There were other sounds too, crickets, grasshoppers and humming bees. There were plenty of sounds which Anthony didn't recognise as well, but he tried not to think too much about any of those.
At the moment his priority was food. He looked down at the silver cup. “What exactly did he do?” he muttered. A silver cup which filled itself with a multitude of different liquids was certainly not a naturally occurring phenomenon. One might even say it was magical, though Anthony was loathe to even think that phrase. He understood wires, electronics, diodes and transistors, not magic. Still, when in Rome, he thought as he stared into the cup and thought very hard about soup, thick and creamy tomato soup, bubbling hot and filled with flavour.
Even as he thought of it Anthony saw stirrings of some something in the bottom of the cup. Slowly but surely it filled all the way to the brim with what looked and smelt very much like the tomato soup he'd enjoyed in his own house, back before bears, jackals and giant hawks.
Anthony's memory was a locked door, even to himself. There were corridors in his mind which he did not walk down any more, except in his tomb-dreams when it was beyond his control. But soup, he could remember soup by itself. He could remember the taste of the dense red liquid as it swirled around his mouth, warming his body as it went down.
The soup was delicious. After several cupfuls he tried water. Water was easier and the cup filled quickly.
Once his thirst and hunger were sated, Anthony sat on the mossy ground leaning his back against a tree. He lifted his arms and stared at his trembling hands. He felt the sweat on his brow and his wildly beating heart. Anthony was feeling ever so slightly stressed and confused. He considered running, but not for long. Thrashing around in an unknown forest would avail him nothing.
So he decided to sit and wait for the return of Kannis the talented jackal, except now thoughts of Juliet, his ex-wife, sprung to his mind. I wonder what she is doing now, he mused. He pictured her doing the most mundane tasks, getting changed, brushing her teeth and eating breakfast. It brought him comfort now, but it was also one of the first times he'd been able to think about her without thinking about them.
For hours he sat there listening to the sounds of the forest. He saw no sign of any predator, which was fortunate. The dagger which Kannis had given him would serve against a small animal but was not long or wide enough to cause harm to an aggressor of any size.
The trees looked like any other trees. Anthony was not an expert of such things. He couldn't have told you the difference between an ash and a birch or an oak and a cedar. He could just about spot a weeping willow, not that there were any around here. It was a beautiful scene though, peaceful. He sat and thought about last night, last night’s cruel normality. Dinner, microwave, lager from the fridge, bland television. Nothing in the least bit out of the ordinary.
When the hours grew small he'd staggered up the stairs. It was a big house, one his brother had urged him to sell on many occasions. Anthony did not know why his brother bothered; he knew the truth even if he would not say it. Anthony would die in that house. Before retiring to his own modest room, Anthony had carried out his usual night time routine. He'd gone to each of their rooms, sat on an empty bed and stroked the space where they once lay down to sleep and dream.
Then he’d made his way through the wall of tears to his lonely bed, a heavy bottle in his hand, a heavy heart in his chest. He'd slumped down and drifted off to meet them at the tomb as usual and then he'd woken up here, lying on a stone table. He shook his head in disbelief.
As the day passed Anthony searched the local area, being careful to keep an eye on the clearing where Kannis had left him. It was all similar, sunlit glades and corridors of old and serious trees which huddled here and there to whisper to the wind and rustle their leaves at his intrusion. He saw bright white squirrels and thought, it's the little differences that help you understand you’re in a new place. The butterflies were pretty too, even though they had a disturbing habit of disappearing into thin air with a flash.
Eventually darkness started to climb over the land. The day creatures took their curtain call and Anthony heard a whole new set of hooting and screeching, even the occasional distant roar as the night creatures awoke. He gathered up a pile of leaves and twigs in the fading light and though it was not cold twilight brought with it a cool reminder about how ill-provisioned he was to withstand night-time exposure without a fire of some kind.
Having assembled a modest pile of kindling he took one of the black stones from the sack and examined it for a few moments before realising that it might have been advantageous to ask Kannis for some instructions on its use.
He took out another stone and struck them together hoping they might spark but they did not. He tried to crumble one over the fireplace but it was solid and would not give. He willed some water into the silver cup and poured it over the stone hoping naively that it might be water activated, but it was not. Anthony was in the business of computers, however, and he was therefore in the business of head-scratching.
Friction had not worked, crumbling had not worked and water had not worked. He tried willing a combustible liquid from the cup, but all that served to do was leave a horrible after taste in the cup from which he drank. He tried breathing hot air on the stone, he tried hitting the stone with a large stick and finally in desperation he picked up the stone and threw it off into the twilight.
In the end Anthony gave up. There was a distinct chill in the air now and the light had almost left the forest completely. He took two sticks and reverted back to tried and tested methods. However easy it looked when they made a fire from rubbing two sticks together on the television, the reality was a cold and frustrated Anthony who after many minutes of failure gave up again.
“Who'd have thought it would be so difficult to start a bloody fire?” he said to no one in particular. As it happened though saying those words, or rather that word specifically, was exactly what the sit
uation required. What Kannis had left Anthony was a bag of fire stones, such a commonplace item in Avalen that he'd not even thought to explain that in order to start a fire all you needed to do was say the word ‘fire’.
Upon hearing that word the several stones which Anthony had left in the fireplace burst happily into flames, which soon spread to the pile of leaves and twigs to create an enthusiastic little fireplace. A rather confused Anthony Hallow sat scratching his head whilst appreciating the warmth of his fire and the light by which he could now see. When his mind eventually stumbled on how he'd started the fire he took another of the stones out of the bag, which he promptly sealed.
Looking at the stone he spoke the word, “Fire.” Though it was a good idea to test his theory it might not have been prudent to have been holding it in his bare hand when conducting the experiment. Anthony leapt around clutching his burnt hand for several minutes after the stone had combusted in his open palm. Eventually he scrambled together enough wit to pour cool water from the cup over his hand.
The pain subsided but he would have a nasty blister on his palm. To console himself Anthony had some more soup washed down with several cupfuls of lager, all courtesy of what was proving to be a very handy little chalice.
With both hands throbbing from separate wounds, Anthony settled down to get some sleep. Truth be told, he was uncertain where his sleep might take him. A part of his mind still believed he was dreaming and he fervently hoped to wake up back in his house.
When he did wake it took a few seconds to remember where he was. It was still dark, but the forest gave itself away. The fire had burned down low and Anthony wondered what had woken him. For the first time in ten years he'd slept without dreaming of the tomb and despite the interruption he felt more refreshed than he had in a long time. The feeling of refreshment dissipated, however, when he saw the large bear snuffling at the trees on the other side of the fire. This was not a hollowed out tallow bear but a full grown beast that must have weighed almost a ton.
It came closer and closer and Anthony was rooted to the spot. When it got within a few feet he remembered the dagger, not that it would do him much good against something as big as the shaggy brown bear which approached. He felt to the side where he'd left the weapon, never once taking his eyes off the bear. He grasped the hilt and lifted it to fend off the bear.
The bear stopped moving towards him and growled, not in aggression but with more of an inquisitive air. Its large head swung from side to side and then all of a sudden it turned tale and lumbered back into the trees and was soon gone from sight, though for a time afterwards Anthony could hear it crashing through the undergrowth in search of a tasty morsel or two.
Anthony looked down and the dagger in amazement. The hilt appeared to be made from bone, the blade from some form of steel; then he noticed the writing. Etched along the blade from tip to hilt was the word Mercy. The writing shone with a slight glow, it had not been visible in the daylight hours and as the moments passed the words became more and more difficult to see until eventually they disappeared altogether. Anthony laid the weapon back down by his side and then lay down himself. He added magical daggers to the long list of impossibilities which has assaulted his logical mind throughout the last day. Sleep came back swiftly and was deep and dreamless.