Dimension Of Dreams rb-11 Page 7

  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.

  Chapter Nine

  Erlik was Blade’s first recruit after Narlena, but he was far from the last. Blade made rapid progress in the next few weeks and part of the reason for that was Erlik himself. The Puran had no more aptitude for fighting than most of his compatriots, but he was willing enough to learn. After he got himself in condition, he was strong, fast, and skilled enough so that he could defend himself from many of the Wakers and guard Blade’s back during their night patrols in search of more Dreamers. The average Waker was not a very good fighter. Nor was there any reason why he should be. The Dreamers were usually helpless prey and too scared even to run the way Erlik had. Because the Wakers were always fighting among themselves, the Dreamers could often get away with their bungling and bumbling. Blade began to be a good deal more optimistic about the chances of a Dreamer fighting force against the Wakers.

  In the meantime he and Erlik had the satisfaction of leaving one or two or even half a dozen Wakers dead each time they prowled through the dark streets of Pura. Although Erlik was a small, thin man, barely taller and heavier than Narlena, he seemed to expand and grow taller and stronger each time he stood over a dead Waker that he had killed.

  But Erlik’s greatest value to Blade was not his sword arm but his tongue and his quick brain. Both were more nimble than his sword arm would ever be if he lived a thousand years. Erlik did not preach Blade’s views on the salvation of Pura with the fervor of a totally new convert. He wasn’t one and couldn’t
have pretended to be one to save his life. That kind of honesty made Blade respect him even more. He held on to much of his skepticism and pessimism even while watching their strength grow and more and more Wakers fall dying in the streets.

  His honest skepticism was the great secret of Erlik’s success. The average Dreamer had been resigned to wait passively in his vault for Pura to collapse entirely about his ears or for the Waker gangs to eat each other up. He would have called anybody who went around joyfully promising the sure salvation of Pura a madman and would have ignored him completely. This was particularly true when the prophet was a man who said he was from another world, where all the people were Wakers. But the same average Dreamer was willing to listen to a fellow Dreamer talk about Blade’s plans in tones of, «Well, I’m not sure myself that we can do any miracles. But let’s give it a try. We can’t be any worse off than we will be if we don’t do anything at all. And we can at least kill off a lot of Wakers.» That made a lot of people sit up and take notice and eventually join up. And the trail of dead Wakers Blade and Erlik left behind them was another convincing part of the argument.

  In any case the Dreamers kept coming in. For good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all except that they wanted a little real-life excitement and feeling. Before a week was out, there were too many to be accommodated in Narlena’s vault. Blade had to appoint some of the promising ones as subcommanders and have them each lead a group out to their own vaults.

  Before two weeks had gone by, Blade had nearly sixty men and women scattered in half a dozen vaults on the south side of Pura. He and Erlik had trained a dozen men and three women in fighting of a sort, and Blade had gathered enough weapons from dead Wakers to arm twice as many.

  The most welcome discovery among the recruits was a big barrel-chested man with a broken nose and a long scar across his left arm and shoulder. This man was named Yekran, and he was a former captain in the security troops. He not only knew how to fight; he actively enjoyed it. And he threw himself into training his fellow Dreamers with an enthusiasm that surprised and delighted Blade. Perhaps part of Yekran’s enthusiasm came from guilt over his retreat to his vault. After all, he had been an officer in the force intended to protect Pura, yet he had run away like any ordinary citizen and let things fall apart. But Blade did not really care much. Yekran was doing the work of three men within days after joining up. And killing Wakers was such a delight to him that within a week he had killed nearly as many as Blade had.

  As the nights became slowly but definitely shorter, the hours for prowling the streets, rescuing Dreamers, and killing Wakers became fewer. Instead, Blade stepped up his training. Often he led as many as half the fighters from the different vaults on long trips deep into the city. They explored the ruins, noted buildings that might be rebuilt or at least defended, and got used to moving and working by day. Gradually the Dreamers’ morbid fears of daylight vanished, and their reason took over, telling them what Blade had been saying from the beginning; if they learned to use the daylight before the Wakers did, they would have a deadly advantage over their enemies. Blade and Yekran both conjured up exciting visions of Dreamer fighters stealing undetected into the strongholds of sleeping Wakers while the noon sun beat down and slaughtering them right and left. Of course, the Dreamers would have only a few such easy victories before the Wakers also learned to fight by day, but Blade and Yekran thought it better not to mention that. And Blade hoped the Wakers might not take too well to daylight. They might possibly be more reluctant to change their century-old ways than were the more civilized Dreamers.

  But Blade was still worried about that one Waker gang that had been trained to a polished weapon by their unknown leader. Blade had no doubt that they would adapt with deadly speed to fighting by day if they ever felt they had to. Before that day came, Blade knew he had to have his Dreamer fighters so numerous and well-trained that they could stand off even the best of the Wakers. Perhaps they could even take the offensive and force a pitched battle at a time and place of their own choosing. With the advantage of surprise the Dreamers might break the back of their most dangerous opponent.

  But who were these people, and who under the heavens of every conceivable and inconceivable dimension was their leader? Yekran had no idea. Several of the recruits recognized Blade’s description of the Waker gang that fought in well-coordinated pairs, but none of them could give him the faintest clue about where it came from or who led it. One thing stood out; the other Waker gangs seemed to have limited territories, but the trained one roamed freely all over the city.

  Blade was not surprised. Such a gang would be able to march through the territories of other gangs and raid where it wanted to as easily as a fox prowling through a nest of field mice. And things would be just as one-sided if the gang came up against his Dreamers before he, Yekran, and Erlik had the chance to put several more months into recruiting and training. When he thought of that possibility, a cold sweat broke out all over him. He would pace up and down the vault like a caged animal, face working in frustration at the small amount of time he had to do so much. Then Narlena would come to him and caress him until he was calmer outside if not inside.

  More weeks passed; the Dreamers now had over two hundred people and nearly fifty fighters, and the Waker gangs were becoming fewer and farther between. Blade doubted that the losses he and his followers had inflicted were enough to account for this. The word was out among the Wakers, no doubt. The darkness, for generations the time when they moved about and raided with impunity, had suddenly become deadly. Now it was infested with gangs of Dreamers that did not cower or flee but fought back and, turning the tables completely, hunted down the Wakers! Blade wondered if the Wakers were concerned about a mysterious new leader that the Dreamers had found! The Wakers at least had the advantage of knowing what Blade looked like. Would any of them be able to put two and two together?

  As the activity of the Waker gangs declined, more and more of the Dream patrols drew a blank. They continued to bring in Dreamer recruits in ones, twos and half-dozens until there were enough to fill more than forty vaults. But there were nights when not even a single wandering and bewildered Dreamer appeared. When that happened, Blade would inevitably lead his patrol into one of the regular hiding places and wait for daylight to spread across Pura and give them a safe return home.

  The night had become unexpectedly chill and rainy toward the end of one of those useless patrols. The first gray light of a tentative dawn found Blade, Erlik, Narlena, and four other Dreamer fighters huddled on the tenth floor of a tower in the western section of Pura. The small windows had kept out much of the wind and rain. But the chill seeped through nevertheless. And the dampness in the air turned the dust on the floor to a thin layer of slimy mud that covered the tiles and smeared the clothing of the people squatting there and shivering.

  Blade wondered, not for the first time, why he was here, doing what he was doing. For the marconite, of course-that might be worth more than everything else he had brought back from Dimension X put together. But that wasn’t enough to explain why he was training and leading the Dreamers, risking his neck every day and night for them.

  It wasn’t that he had forgotten Home Dimension. On his early trips into Dimension X, he had. Then there had been a new Richard Blade who came out of the computer, a Richard Blade who barely remembered that there was a Home Dimension. Alterations in the computer had taken care of that. Now Blade not only remembered Home Dimension as he struggled to survive in Dimension X but had total recall of everything that happened to him there and took it back with him to Home Dimension.

  Remembering Home Dimension didn’t help. He still tended to get involved with the people he encountered, tended to hope that the computer would not snatch him back until he had finished whatever work he had set himself to do. Was that foolish sentimentality, something he would have to root out of himself? Maybe it was, but he clearly saw he couldn’t do things any other way. He would just have to struggle along, getting suc
ked into every local problem that came along and hoping he was fast and smart enough to get out again.

  All this deep thinking wasn’t going to make him any warmer, drier, or less muscle-cramped, he reminded himself. He stood up and looked out the window. A watery dawn light was gradually washing away the darkness. Blade hoped that the sun would be out shortly, drying the streets and banishing the rest of the gloom from the city. In this shadowy morning light a few bold Wakers might continue their prowling beyond the normal time. Both he and his companions were chilled and weary after a long night of tramping through the pitch-black streets, slipping on wet rubble with clatters and crashes that made them clutch their weapons and would certainly have attracted any Wakers within earshot. He did not want to face a fight now on the way home.

  He decided that if another week went by and the night patrols continued to draw a blank, it would be time to seek out and raid a Waker stronghold. He hoped this would not be throwing away the lives of his followers and their hard-won selfconfidence. Right now they saw him as an almost super-human being and in spite of their occasional losses they were developing an almost arrogant belief in their own prowess. Yekran was the only one not so naive. He shook his head when he heard boastful talk of rooting the Wakers out of their lairs like the vermin they were.

  The sullen gloom of the morning bothered Blade. It gave him the feeling that such an unusual light might hide more than it revealed. And what it hid might be unwelcome. The feeling was too vague for him to make anybody else believe it, almost too vague to be put into words, but it was there. And he would not ignore it. Those same vague forebodings had put him on the alert and saved his life three or four times during his career as an agent. Perhaps it had taken his brain this long to create these feelings of adjustment to Dimension X — certainly he had never felt this way during any of his previous trips.