Dust--soft, warm dust underfoot. Don took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Green, leafy aspens glittered, sparkling in the breeze. The sun shone, golden light in blue overhead. The air was full of the scents of green, growing things; insects, bees, hummed, buzzed in the undergrowth and somewhere a bird sang a complex melody.
There was a road, like a path extending from the place where he stood, stretching ahead, curving slightly at the edge of vision. Trees and bushes lined the sides, stirring gently in the little winds. Don let his breath out in a sigh of wonder. "Where--" he began.
"We call it the Summerlands." Master Thai's voice answered his half-formed question. He turned to see the cat standing nearby, his hood thrown back, exposing the wide-placed ears and the dark furred mask. The sapphire-blue of his eyes glinted in amusement as he watched the young turtle. "And as to how ," he went on, humor tinting his words. "Humans say that a cat is always on the wrong side of a door. But truly, their pets are only seeking that special portal that all cats are sure is there--somewhere--the door into summer." He gestured to one side and Don spun to look, glimpsed the last vestiges of that incredible 'hole' in the air, slowly and firmly closing up, disappearing as he watched, until there was nothing there any more at all.
"Wow", he said aloud, turning back to the Master Cat.
"Your instruction begins now, Donatello," the cat was speaking to him in more sober tones. "Listen carefully-your Master, my friend Splinter, has told me of the visions and dreams you have had recently. I will tell you for your reassurance that these experiences have occurred because you are one of the favored few who can enter the world of Dream and walk there. Donatello, you are a Dreamwalker and you will travel in this place, both awake and asleep, in your own dreams and those of others--people known and unknown to you. You will learn to do great good in this place--or great harm...but such would not be your choice, I know."
Don shook his head, wordless, vowing silently to himself to do nothing but the best that he could do.
Thai was continuing. "I tell you that this is the safe place, you must never forget that. Whenever you are beset beyond endurance, if you have need of refuge for yourself alone or for someone else, this is where you must will yourself, dream it, wish it, imagine it--and you will come here to safety. Use your five senses to memorize -- the smells, the sights, what you hear, touch that tree leaf, Donatello, feel the shiny green succulence of it? the softness of the dust under your feet? And this, the last..." Seemingly from the empty air, Thai had plucked a tiny cup and was holding it out to him.. A scant mouthful of some clear liquid sparkled in it.
"This is the water of this place, this Summerland, drink, savor every drop, remember the taste, it will be hard to forget, I promise. You will never have drunk such liquor before, but when you reach this place of refuge, it will provide all the refreshment you may need.
Memorize what your senses perceive now, Donatello, then when you have need of this place for your safety, those five memories, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing will bring you and any within your grasp to safety, to the Summerlands.
Don had taken the little cup from Thai's hand and downed its contents. There was carbonation, bubbles, like any soft drink he had ever swallowed, but it tasted like nothing he had ever drunk before. A winy, cidery, sweet tartness-so strange that he knew he would never forget it. Thai was watching him closely. "Do you think you can remember, Donatello?" Don nodded, still rolling the wonderful taste in his mouth.
"We will see, let us test your ability.." The cat reached out and touched him lightly on one arm and his voice rang like a struck bell as his spoken word "ONE!" was echoed by a horrendous blare of thunder right over Don's head...a ferocious bolt of lightning lanced down not far enough away and he was gasping and choking in a maelstrom of wind as a waterfall poured over him out of an angry cloud of sky. Thunder roared again, lightning blinded him--and the taste of summer was in his mouth, the bird melody was sounding in his head, soft dust shifted under his feet, he smelled the warm green of leaves, glimpsed a blue sky and Master Thai's voice was pronouncing the word: "THREE!"
He stood, staggering a little, gasping for breath, dripping water and staring in shock at the cat. "Where was that?" he managed finally.
"Another place," Thai answered dismissively. "One you would not care to visit often, not as pleasant as this one, I'm sure." His face had that cat's smile look and the blue fire of his eyes glinted in an expression of feline amusement as he surveyed the soaked, sopping turtle. "You will not stay wet long in this warm air. Let us go on...Donatello, I may never have a pupil as apt to this work as you have proved yourself. Though I may have the instruction of many in this place" he went on, "and some will be related to you, not many will surpass the quickness of your will to return through all the distractions of the weather which confronted you." He was standing very close to Don then, one furry paw light on the turtle's shoulder when he spoke again and his voice was somber, the humor utterly gone from his expression.
"You have earned a bit of my wisdom, a small thing for me to tell you, though it has little meaning to you now, it will! it will! Listen to me , child of earth, and never forget, for I tell you a truth---Time...Time is the strangest thing, it is even stranger that anything you can possibly imagine...." He had stopped and was looking straight into Don's eyes--then he nodded one and stepped back. "It has no meaning to you now--I thought as much, but no matter, when you have need of such a truth, you will remember."
"Oh yes, Master Thai," Don assured him. "I'm--we're used to that. Master Splinter is always telling us things like that..things we won't understand until later..some things don't really make sense until they walk up and punch you in the beak ..." he stopped in some confusion for the cat was staring at him, his ears slanted back against his head. "Indeed!" he murmured, in a voice so like Splinter's "Indeed!" that Don could hardly keep from laughing out loud.
Then those tall pricked ears were rising again and Master Thai was grinning that subtle cat's smile at him, saying, "You have earned something more to your present needs, Donatello...tell me, other than a half dozen large towels, is there any one thing you would like to have with you right now?"
Don was almost wistful as he answered. "I really miss my bo-staff. It's just about the simplest weapon there is, but it always makes a good walking stick when I'm hiking in the country..."he gestured unhappily with both hands, "I really do miss having it around.."
Master Thai was looking at him with a very serious expression. "But if you were to have such a 'walking stick' as you name it, could you forget, utterly forget, that such a staff is also a weapon? As I told you in the beginning, physical weapons will avail you nothing against whatever confronts you in this place..the only weapon of any use here is your mind."
Don stood very still and considered for a long moment. Could he not swing his 'bo' into a defensive position if faced with some menace, could he control the skill drilled into him from childhood? Control, yes, that was the key. Control! His eyes narrowed as he thought about it. Splinter was always going on about control...control your movements, control your thoughts, control your body, and above all... control your emotions!
"Yes! Yes!" he almost shouted. "Yes, Master Thai! Please, I would like to try!"
"Very well," the cat had stepped back and was looking at him again, thoughtfully, as if he too, had considered. A decisive nod and "Then shall we find a straight limb on one of these trees...?"
Within minutes, Don had spotted one perfect length of wood and was pulling it down to where it could be snapped from the trunk.
"Slowly, slowly, now... " the cat cautioned him. "Let us do this in the catly fashion, the easy way...here, you hold firm the end of this branch and I will...." Don held the leafy tip of the branch tightly in both hands, pulling it closer to the ground until it was level with the cat's height. Thai stared at the length of limb directly in front of him for a few seconds, saying thoughtfully, "You do realize, Donatello, that had we a saw or even an axe, we would use those tools proper to this task...as it is, we are forced to use the tools at hand..." and then almost inaudibly, "or rather, at PAW!"
Puzzled, Don watched as the cat reached out to gently touch the limb in one place and then again several feet further down. Immediately, all the bark and twiglets along this length had fallen away and a clean six feet of wood was bare to his astonished gaze. At the tips of his fingers, Thai's claws flared out, pulsing with a faint blue glow. For a few seconds, the earth seemed to quiver with a soundless vibration as he grasped the exact center of the limb and then he was holding six feet of perfectly bare, perfectly straight walking stick and turning, offering it to the turtle.
"Here is your walking stick, Donatello." he said calmly. The part of the limb still attached to the tree was just now springing back to its natural position and Don was holding a loose bundle of small leaf-tipped branches. There was only one thing for him to do.
He took the proffered staff and making the deeply respectful bow of student to master, said quietly, "Thank you, Master Thai."
"You are most welcome..." Thai began and then stopped..."But that reminds me, Donatello, son of my dear friend Splinter, it is not needful that you address me as 'Master '-- for I claim no mastery of any particular discipline, I am only a student....of many arts."
Don glanced up at the stump of tree limb and managed, "I think I almost know what you mean, but Splinter is awfully quick to bang heads if we forget the courtesies..."
"Of course."
The humorous glint in the blue gaze on him prompted Don to ask suddenly, "Do you...do cats think everything is funny?" He was appalled at his temerity, but the cat's smile only grew wider.
"A dash of amusement in the dish flavors the whole meal, my young friend, and humor is the only viable weapon against the ultimate dark...." Saying this, he turned and they moved along the path, strolling in the sunshine and dappled shade.
A few moments later, Thai spoke again. "As you walk the Dream, Donatello, you will meet other Dreamers, both friendly and unfriendly. Deal with friends in your own amicable fashion. But for the unfriendly you will need defenses -- we call them 'wards' -- guardians as it were, your only weapon against the darkness of this place. You must now envision three such wards against the different kinds of danger you will face while you walk the dream. Three images for your mind to call to your aid. The first danger is the animal, unthinking, unfeeling, non-sentient, mere animal -- very dangerous, of course, able to wreak great damage, great harm, a mindless nightmare, if you will think of it as such -- and how will you counter such a menace, Donatello?"
They'd stopped, facing the bank of underbrush alongside the pathway. A bush shook suddenly, was shoved aside by a huge low slung shape emerging out of the shade. Don's fist closed convulsively on his staff and then he asserted control, clamped down on the spurt of fear and banished it. He swallowed, managed to speak with only a small quiver in his voice: "Hello, Smiley, it's good to see you in the flesh, for once."
The creature halted in its tracks and looked at him, its slant sulfur eyes on a level with his own -- out of the long ages and dim time -- massive forequarters, sparse mane, tiny ears and that impossibly hinged lower jaw dropping away to reveal the pair of terrible swords in its mouth...
"Very good, Donatello," Thai's words softly from behind him. "Most appropriate, a nightmare beast to oppose the nightmare." With his speaking, the image of the great beast faded and vanished. "Can you remember that one, will you be able to call that image to mind when you face a beastly foe?" the cat asked him.
"Yes, oh, yes, " Don answered happily. "I'll remember, because one of the first kid's playthings Master Splinter found for me was a toy-set of miniature fossil animals--dinosaurs, mammoths and a saber-tooth tiger! oh, yes, I won't forget what Smiledon looks like."
"Very well, then, let us go on. The second shape of the foes you will front in the Dream is the thinking one, sentient, perhaps even human and it will carry a weapon. This one can do you great harm, even to the wounding of your body to the death, so that you do not awaken from the Dream."
Don drew a deep breath, tried to think what defense would best counter a human with a weapon, say a sword...
Up ahead, a boulder jutted a little way onto the path. All at once, a figure had stepped out from behind it and stood facing them, only a few yards away....
Don shuddered once and clamped an iron control over the grief that surged through him. Still, a small sob escaped him as he managed to say, "Yo, Raph.." His brother grinned at him, that nasty menacing grin that was never, ever a smile, drew a sai from his belt, flicked it through guard and strike positions, then cocked a thumbs-up gesture at him, and still grinning, faded to the vanishing point and was gone.
Closing his eyes, he told himself: I will not cry. Slowly, he turned to face his companion. The cat was looking at him, silent for a space of time, then nodded slightly and said very softly, "I should have known, no need even to ask. Truly, that image will serve you well. You need never fear the armed enemy now."
They walked on.
"Only a dream," Thai offered some measure of comfort. "Only an image, Donatello, a thought from your mind, not real, do not grieve overmuch. Remember Time, you can never forget, in Time, you will see a new truth." Don nodded, still clenching his teeth against the tears stinging his eyes.
"We continue the lessons," Thai resumed after a short while. "The third enemy is perhaps the worst of all. The essence of pure evil, formless, shapeless horror from the bottommost pits of the Id. Nothing of the good, only the nameless dark. The hurt this third can do will steal your mind and eat your very soul. Mindless madness, evil without surcease -- and what will guard you, what ward will you choose against such a foe, Donatello?"
Ahead, the path widened slightly, a bit of open space lay to one side, a small grassy meadow. Don was thinking of another meadow, not in the bright day, but bright just the same, bright and glowing in the light of a full moon...
With a shout of joy, gladness filling his heart and banishing all grief, he dropped his staff and ran to meet the one pacing toward him. Mane and tail flowed in the wind like banners of flame...over all the spiraling glory of his horn! Not real...small reminder in his mind, but he held out his hands just the same and wondered again at the incredible softness of the muzzle that pushed forcefully into them. The horn lowered to touch his shoulder, as before.
"You're real!" he formed the thought in his mind.
"I am the most real thing that ever is..." that strong, stern voice in his mind answered him.
"I never knew I would see you again.." he thought.
"Yet, in your dreams, you have seen me, child of the world."
"I remember now, but I had forgotten.." touch of sadness.
"As always, until now. We are never to be parted in the Dream. I am your ward against all evil, none such can withstand me here."
"Will we ride together, again.." Don asked, hoping.
"Never again, you are changed..." came the answer.
Don was conscious of a burst of startlement. "But I'm still...I haven't..." he gulped convulsively and could not finish.
"Has the Teacher not told you that Time is the strangest thing?" The unicorn was easing away from him now, moving off at a slow walk, his magnificent head still turned towards him. "But..how then, do I still see you and not just a big white horse?" He almost asked the question aloud.
The final thought from the great creature was and would always be a balm through all the days of his life. "Because -- although Time runs and does not stand still, you are and will always be a Dreamwalker, Donatello."
Don stood, his arms at his sides, until the glory had vanished and there was nothing left of it at all. Then he turned with a sigh and trudged back across the little meadow to the dusty path. Picking up his staff, he faced Thai again.
The cat stood immobile, paws folded into the sleeves of his robe, regarding him with a direct, unblinking stare.
Uncertain, Don stared back. Had he done something wrong?
"No!" the cat said aloud. One ear twitched and he chuckled, with delight, it seemed. "I had much opportunity to know your brother when he stayed with me and mine in California. I found him a marvel and a wonder and thought him unique. But I know now that although he is a marvel and a wonder, he is not unique!" He stared a moment longer at Don, then turned away. "Now we go on."
Don gathered his thoughts as he followed and ventured, "I have a question.." Thai assented with a glance back. "I could touch that last image, the unicorn, and talk to him. Why?"
"Because.." the cat pronounced, "That, such as that, are beyond the bounds of any laws or rules. Did he not say to you that he is the 'most real'? No rules for that one, Donatello, no stay to his going. The whole universe is his pasture, there are no laws for his kind." The cat's voice finished, very softly. "And one other..."
Moving off down the path, Don looked back only once at the empty meadow. I hope the grass tasted good to him, he thought as they rounded a curve in the path. All such thoughts were wiped from his mind as he saw what lay ahead.
The contrast between the Summerland behind and what spread dismal before was stupefying.
He spun around to stare back and it was still there, golden and green in the sun. But it stopped as if cut by a knife at the very edge of a dank dimness of misty swamp, a dreary fell of stagnant water and grayish plants.
He looked over at Thai. "We're going through that?"
"Not we," was the amused answer.
"It's not very solid ground," Don muttered. "I'll never make it through there..."
"Truly, it is only as solid as you think it is..." the cat said meaningfully to him. Don glanced at him, a wild surmise building, his mouth formed a small 'oh' as his eyes met that intent stare.
"Ooookay" he was able to say after a while. "That's fair enough..." He began to prod the ground at his feet, seeking a firmness for his first steps into the quagmire.
"A moment," the cat said. Don turned to look at him. He stood very quietly, hands tucked into sleeves as usual, but his head was raised and he seemed to be looking at something in the sky. "It is not so far to the other side, a few miles as the crow flies..." speaking softly, almost as if to himself, he glanced down at the turtle. "You will make it through, Donatello, remembering what you have learned here...You have done well. I am so pleased with the skills you have found and the wards you can summon that I think I will let you see one of mine....I will await you on the other side, but since I do not wish to wade through a muddy swamp, I will take the crow's path..." That feline smile again, fang tips showing as the enormous shadow floated overhead for a hovering moment, settling to the ground. A wave of heat flushed Don's face as he glimpsed the long snaky neck, the black scaly hide of the huge body and then the reptilian eyes were on him.
The scarlet slash of maw opened and a gout of flame licked out like a long red tongue. The horrid jaw snapped shut, twin plumes of smoke swirling from the nostrils. Thai was walking towards it and the creatures mouth had something of the cat's own smile in greeting.
Don watched as one foreleg crooked to make an easy step for the cat to reach the perch of a sort of saddle on its back at the point where the neck joined the body. Then the terrible bat's wings flexed out with a resounding crack and swept down in a powerful lift.
"On the other side...go well!" Thai's voice reached him faintly as the black sinuosity soared upward and was a vanishing speck in the distance.
Don stood motionless, then he blinked once and drew a deep breath. "If I live to tell this story..no one..not even Splinter, is going to believe it!"
* * *
Hours passed or what seemed like hours. There was no sun moving across the sky to give any notion of time passing, only an overcast of low fog. It didn't seem to be getting any darker, for which he was grateful. The ground underfoot had stayed firm enough to bear his weight, but it had taken some effort.
With every step, it quivered beneath him and only by constantly reminding himself that it really was solid had he been able to walk across it with only a few mishaps. One stumble into a mucky pool had covered him to the neck with greasy slime that was beginning to itch a little. But he had known there was a solid bottom only a few feet below...and there was!
He paused a moment, considering a new idea. "I bet I know..." he'd been talking to himself a lot lately. Or maybe he was addressing his staff. "I bet I know a place where I can get a good shower--if those lightning bolts don't get me first.! I'll ask Thai if I..No! ...when.. I get to the other side of this hell hole."
He struggled on, one step at a time. "C'mon, Donny, keep it up. Thai said it was only a few miles across. Don't stop now, you've gone too far to quit!"
Skirting a low set bush that rustled as he passed although there had been no breeze to stir it, he recalled the first of the assaults he had faced: a monstrous green frog-like creature sprawling towards him.
"With a mouthful of fangs no less!" he muttered to himself. Countered with one roaring sabre-tooth tiger. He nodded decisively. "Splinter's right as usual, mind is the most effective weapon."
And then the huge blond warrior, brandishing a very large axe. He visualizing the horned helmet. Maybe a Viking?
He was grinning a little as he clambered over a rotting log and jumped the bubbling pool on the other side. "Bet a Viking never fought a sai-armed turtle before," he chortled aloud.
And that last, which appeared as a puff of smoke, rolling silently towards him. He shivered a little even as the geyser he was edging around sent a gout of moist heat over him. Almost, he did not want to remember the feeling of menace exuded by that cloud.
"Now I know what it means to be frozen by fear," he murmured, shuddering again. He stopped for a moment, shutting his eyes to better recall the bright image of the unicorn against that terrifying darkness.
"And then it was gone and I was alone like I am now. I hope there's not much more of this, I'm getting a little tired. Ground's rising, maybe if I get higher up, I'll be able to see ahead to the end of this blasted heath!"
He strode on, carefully, testing the footing with his staff, firm in his belief that the ground was safe to walk on. A few minutes later, the face of a cliff rose before him. It looked to be an easy climb, there were even holes for foot- and hand-holds scattered in random profusion over the vertical surface.
Don took one step more, reached out for a handy hole to start his upward climb...and paused.
"Wait this is too easy," his eyes narrowing at a sudden thought. "It would be just like a master, any master to throw one last banana peel under a student's foot. I wonder what made those nice homey holes -- and furthermore, is it..are they...still at home?" He poked one end of his stick into the hole he'd been about to put his hand into... and something grabbed it!
A furious tug of war began. Don was not about to lose to an invisible whatsit and exerted all his strength to yank his precious staff back out of that hole. After a brief struggle, something let go just as violently as it had grabbed. He staggered back a few steps away from the cliff and its horrible holes. As an afterthought, he glanced down at the end of the stick and then back at the hole from which he had wrestled it.
"I know all I need to know about you," he muttered. "You've got TEETH! Sorry," he went on, fighting fear with humor. "I can't come to tea this afternoon, I've got a previous engagement!"
He was trying to watch all the holes at once as he moved a little further away from the cliff and started walking alongside it. There might be a stretch where there were no holes. A weary walk; the holes persisted for a long time.
Finally, their number begin to thin out and a little further on, disappeared altogether. At the same time, he spotted a narrow trail zigzagging upward toward the top of the cliff. A perilous climb, but not impossible.
All at once he was aware that the gray overcast sky was getting darker. Knowing he did not want to be in this swamp when night fell, he gritted his teeth and started up. "C'mon Donny, you've got to; hanging around here won't do it!"
It was a mad delirium of a scramble; the path not really wide enough for turtle bulk and shell.
He slipped and fell a couple of heart-stopping times, clutching his staff and whatever protrusions offered themselves to his hands and bare feet. At last, he was near enough to the end of the path to cautiously peer over the edge. One look was all he needed. Slowly he lowered his head and closed his eyes.
All the catch phrases, metaphors, similes, cliches, bromides, and banalities flowed in a dizzying circle through his mind. Twixt wind and water, Between the devil and the deep blue sea, Between a rock and a hard place, Out of the frying pan...
After a while, he was able to think again....
It had been lying there, an all too familiar gigantic shape...head on stretched out forelegs, wings folded neatly across its back...a few faint sparks in the thin wisps of smoke wafting gently from the slits of its nostrils... eyes closed, maybe it really was asleep, making a noise he could barely hear, a rumbling purr like the throbbing of a distant engine.
But it was only three or four yards from where he, Donatello, clung precariously to a narrow ledge of unsolid rock.
That's the other real thing...realization wound a slow spiral through his thoughts. As real as the unicorn, the same kind of thing as the unicorn...mythic, legendary...
So...what do I have to be afraid of?? I've ridden a unicorn! Should I be afraid of a dragon?
He ignored the small voice in the back-most of his mind that screamed "yes!" and stood, ninja stealth easing him over the last of the trail and up over the edge of the cliff. At last, upright on his own two feet, he was leaning on his staff and looking at the Dragon.
Calmly he considered the lengthy, snaky coiled heap. It was fifty feet at least, from nose to tail tip, a graceful curl of serpentine form -- barbs at the tail end, sharp spurs ridging the neck and back.
No matter what happened now, the dragon could wake and extinguish him with one angry, flaming breath. He did not think that would happen...somehow, he had come back to a center. His mind went on with its usual thoughtful wondering. Did someone see dinosaur fossils and then imagine dragons... or did someone just see a dragon and all the stories flow from there?
Up here, he noticed, there was a sort of twilight, a silvery, unshadowed glow in the air. A glance back and down showed only a heaving blackness covering the land he had so laboriously traversed. Glad to be out of there, never mind what was up here, he turned to look at the dragon again. It had not moved, but two slanted ovals of yellow luminescence were slowly widening in the reptilian face. The dragon was looking at him.
Slowly, very slowly, it was shifting its position -- edging ever so carefully, backwards, and all the while, its terrible gaze never left Don's face.
"Well met, Donatello," the sibilant purr at his side startled him only a little. The dragon blinked. Its mouth opened and one hissing, gusty sound emerged.
"Why, yes, Snorli, if you wish it," Thai spoke as if answering a question. The dragon blinked again. There was something apologetic in its manner as it faded to the vanishing point and disappeared.
"It went away," Don said simply, turning to face the cat.
"Yes," was the amused answer. "I would also ask permission to depart if I were a dragon waking from a pleasant nap to find myself being stared at by the Dreamwalker, Donatello." Thai was looking at him. "You do understand, do you not? Do I have to tell you?...Well, perhaps I do...modesty is a virtue, they say" this last in a disparaging aside. "You have walked the Summerlands, you know them, you have found your wards and thus there is no enemy you cannot vanquish. You have made your way across the Swamp of Despair and not despaired. Climbed that cliff -- it does have a name, by the way, but I will not name it. Donatello, you are a Dreamwalker, as I am, my young friend."
Thai was looking at him with a friendly fondness in his intent blue gaze. Don felt a sort of shyness as he stared back.
"It is contrary to your master's discipline, I know, " the cat assured him, "but as we walk the Dream together, there is no need for formalities... name me 'Thai' and if I may, shall I call you 'Donnie' ?"
"Of course!" Don managed, stammering a little. "Thank you", he added shyly.
"Now that's settled, " the cat looked him up and down. "Wouldn't you like a bath?" he asked suddenly.
"I'll settle for a quick, cold shower!" Don answered.
"Well, then!" Thai threw his arms out in a 'why not' gesture.
Don closed his eyes, remembering a place... and was bowing his head and gritting his teeth against the furious onslaught of wind and water while thunder and lightning played a terrible game of tag around him.
He endured for a few minutes and then was wiping water from his face, opening his eyes and Thai was surveying him, his own eyes thin blue slits of satisfaction. "Better?" he inquired.
"You know it! That mud was beginning to itch!"
Don had seen a cat smile, but never a broad grin until now.
* * *
Cat and Turtle strolled in comfortable companionship along the ridge that stretched away from the cliff without a name. The ground was mostly bare rock with a few sparse clumps of some low growing bush that sent a sharp spicy odor into the air as they brushed past.
"Ah," Thai sniffed appreciatively. "The scent of the Sunless Land."
"Is that where we are now?' Don asked.
"That's the name I give this place," was the answer. "I've been here before..not a bad place, never see the sun or moon, though, never a hint of dawn or moonrise, either, no matter how long I stay, only the stars in the sky.."
Don followed his gesture and looked up. Stunned, he dropped his staff and stared in awe at the multitude of stars in their burning glory overhead. He searched for the familiar patterns of the constellations he knew, but could find none he recognized. "If I didn't know better," he finally managed to whisper, "I'd say we were no longer on Earth!"
"A possibility," was the unsurprised answer.
"Oh yeah, right," Don was jolted back to himself. It had all seemed so ordinary, so natural, to be hiking along the hillside in the half light of dawn or dusk near the farm in Massachusetts. How could he have forgotten? "Are we still in the Dreamlands?"
"We still walk the Dream," Thai assured him, stopping to look around. "I should orient you a bit, tell you of some of the other places I've crossed over. This ridge, for instance, goes a long way, mostly upwards. Some parts are hard climbing, but stay on it and eventually you find your way to the top of that mountain."
He pointed ahead and Don saw the bulk of a solitary peak, visible only as a looming darkness where no stars shone.
"North, south, east, west?" he exclaimed a frustrated question.
"Haven't the slightest," the cat shrugged. "I long ago decided that there wasn't any real directions. You find yourself here and you either realize that you've been here before or you haven't. That calls for a bit of caution, in places you don't recognize. It is best to be wary until the feel of the place lets you know if it's a good one or the opposite...doesn't take long."
Don was puzzled. "The "feel" of a place?"
"Yes, think, Donnie..." The cat urged. "How did you feel when you found yourself in the Summerlands?"
Don sighed, remembering. "I understand."
"And then, when you first saw the Swamp?" the cat prompted.
Don took a step back, recoiling from the memory. "Yuck!"
"See? Now, for instance, this ridge we're on.. What 'feel' do you get from it?"
Don glanced around. "I like the smell of these bushes, and the stars are glorious...I think it's alright.." he hesitated.
"For the most part, yes, but there are places between here and the mountain-top where it becomes very dark and the stars are no longer visible. I have heard noises in that darkness, very unpleasant sounds, but so far I have had no trouble with any thing there." He paused and turned to one side, walked a few paces to where the ridge fell away to slope downwards. Don followed and they stood together, looking down at a flat featureless plain spread out before them. He stared hard, trying to see the horizon in the far distance.
He could not seem to find it.
"Endless..."he murmured, finally.
"Yesss.." the cat's whisper was a hiss. "That's where you get chased -- they never catch you, because you awaken just before..but they chase you across the Endless Plain...and you run and run and..."
A strangled groan brought his head around sharply. Don had dropped to his knees, his head bowed against the fists clenched on his staff. He stayed there, shuddering, for a long time. Thai bent in concern. "Bad memory?" he asked quietly.
The turtle collected himself and got to his feet, staggering a little. "Yeah.." he managed, finally. "When I was a kid..that wasn't too long ago...I used to dream often about being chased by a...a something..it seemed to go on forever before I could wake up..and just now, I realized that - that -- down there, was where it always happened...endless, endless -- flat, down there.." he finished, still shaken, still trying to control his breathing.
"I, too, can summon a memory of what the child psychologists call the 'night terrors', the cat remarked thoughtfully. He added: "But I have a more recent awareness of their effect..." he paused.
Don was not surprised, remembering the cat's all too vivid evocation of the memory of being chased.
Thai was silent for a moment and then he said, "There is a young one, a child I know, just past her sixth birthday..for several months, almost every night now, she has dreamt of being pursued across those endless plains.." a pause, and Don shivered again.
"Poor kid," he muttered.
Thai continued. " I have had to come for her here several times -- to help her out of the dream, although her mother can usually awaken her in time and one of her younger brothers is valiant in her defense..I believe she will be a walker in the Dream when she is grown..perhaps you will meet her.."
Someone screamed! A fearful, sobbing,screaming cry of the purest terror!
"Sooner than you think!" Thai hissed. His ears flattened against his head as he turned and bounded, long flying, pouncing leaps down the slope to the flat plain below.
Don followed, running as fast as he could, and he heard Thai shout, "Beta!..here, come to me here!" and glimpsed the small form darting with desperate speed toward him.
It ran into his arms and clung to him, gasping in the convulsive way children do when they have cried too long and too hard and can't stop.
There was time for one instant of disbelieving shock before he was looking up as the image of his brother stormed past, plunging into the mass of huge shadowy forms emerging out of the distance and heard Raph's voice in a roar of maddened rage: "You slimy mucks! You don't chase my kid!"
The battle, as with all conflicts in this place, was over in a moment..a swirling red flare of movement and then there was nothing. Nothing at all..except the three of them, alone on the vast twilit plain where a chill wind moaned around them.
Don shivered and looked down at the small teary face turned up to his. "Beta?" he inquired gently.
The child nodded, still shaking, quavered, "That's my name, that's me.." It -- she -- tried a smile and his heart turned over.
He rose to his feet, lifting the small turtle in his arms.
She sighed and laid her head against his shoulder, her arms were around his neck and she was hugging him. "I was glad to see you, Uncle Don. I was so scared!"
Startled, he glanced over at Thai. The cat stood straight in his upright slenderness, his hands folded into his sleeves as usual, looking at the two of them. His face in the half-light showed only a calm contemplation, but the cat-smile hinted.
"I thought they..the eggs, hadn't hatched, yet..." Don began, hesitantly.
"They haven't," the cat returned serenely. "But time is..."
Don closed his eyes for a moment, drew a breath and finished, "... the strangest thing..." The cat nodded once, his eyes slitting narrow in amusement.
"Beta!" If there could be an angry roar in a child's voice, this was it. A second form hurtled out of the distance and skidded to a crouch before them.
A startled Don saw the poised ninja stance that could propel one in any direction whatsoever and recognized the expert's grip on the miniature sai clenched in the fists of this terrible small warrior. Beta twisted in his grasp to look down at the newcomer.
"Delta!" she addressed him in that tone of voice used by older sisters everywhere. "What kept you?"
The one so addressed straightened to his full diminutive height, stamped a small two-toed foot and howled in frustration, "Dammit!" Through gritted teeth and with a grimace that would never be a smile, he growled,"I came as fast as I could!"
Beta made a short, sharp sound that might have been a disdainful sniff as Don lowered her to the ground and set her on her feet. "If you say so..but now we must make our bows and go home."
"Arrrgh!" Delta's reply to this was a low snarl. He slipped his weapons into the leather strap that girded his mid-section shell and plastron. His sister's hand snatched his to yank him around to face Thai in a jerky bow.
"Well done, children. Now, my dears, can you find your way back from here?"
"Yes, Master Thai," Beta replied respectfully but Delta's words held only a rough impatience. "Yeah, we know how."
Hand in hand the two little figures trudged away. The last Don saw of them was Beta turning to wave back at him and heard her say, "Bye-bye, Uncle Don." And another voice, faintly, "Yeah, catch ya later. C'mon, Beta!"
"They'll be alright?" Don asked, feeling a twinge of anxiety. The two little figures had looked so small and vulnerable, walking off into the vanishing distance.
"Yes," the cat answered. "At this instant, a bit more than six years from the now, they lie warm in their own little beds, waking to the dawn of a California summer's day, vaguely recalling that they dreamed last night about their Uncle Donatello..."
Don was silent as they walked on. He couldn't think of anything to say for a long time. But all at once, he was struck by a surprising notion and guessed, his voice rising shrill at the end of: "The Greek alphabet in order of hatching??!"
"Yes," Thai chuckled, "and there were no letters left over.."
"Twenty-four?" Don was awed. Thai shook his head, "Twenty-three..one was double-yoked, a pair, the twins, Mu & Nu."
Don stopped in his tracks. He could think of only one thing to do. Throwing his arms wide and raising his staff, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Raph! You son-of-a-gun, you!"
Braced in his usual cocky stance, his brother's image stood before him. Both fists lifted in a thumbs-up gesture, his eyes met Don's and glinted with jubilant glee.
Don, choking, covered his face. When he bear to look again, he and Thai were once again alone on the bleak plain.
"You should not do that," the cat was very gentle. "The pain of your loss is still too sharp, with time and the flow of years, you will walk the Dream with your brother's image at your side and feel only a little sorrow for the might-have-been. But not yet, not now."
They went on after a while. Crossing the starlit plain to come at last to the banks of a smooth surfaced river that raced away into the distance. "Our home path," Thai told him, indicating the small boat moored to a post nearby.
Very soon, they were drifting down the river, Thai at the tiller in the stern. Oars lay at rest in the locks, no need to row, the current was bearing them steadily down stream.
"You're the one who's had a hard day," Thai had said to him as they pushed off. "Rest now, I'll see to the steering."
Yawning, Don settled down into the bow, resting his head on one of the seat cushions. He gazed up at the strange stars overhead for a few moments, made sure his staff was within his grasp and said to the quiet figure in the stern. "Wake me when it's over..."
Thai's soft purr of "I will." merged into the purling rush of water under the hull as his eyes closed.
* * *
He opened his eyes to see the familiar stains and cracks of the section of ceiling just over his bed. Sleepily, he watched the shadows move and change as the light of dawn filtered through the old oak just outside the window.
Wonder what April's fixing for breakfast? Leo'll be charging in here pretty soon, yelling as usual. Is there time for another little nap before he hauls me out for morning practice? What a great dream that was...fantastic even! Where did my mind get all those wild ideas? What was that thing Thai wanted me to understand? Time, time is the strangest thing. He looked so somber when he said it, not smiling at all. C'mon, Don it was just a dream!
With that thought firmly in mind, he pushed the quilt away and sat up.
"Here we go" he said to himself as sudden loud yells and other noises erupted from across the hall.
Leo was dragging Mike out of bed...'dragging' being the best description for the operation. "From all the fuss and racket Mike's making, you'd think Leo was trying to drag him clean out of his shell, for Pete's sake! Sometimes I think he does it deliberately, just to give Leo something to take his mind off. Good ole Mikey! Never thought he'd figure out something like that. I don't think anybody misses Raph as much as Leo does..."
By now, he was out of bed and strapping on his pads and belt. Standing in front of the 'bo' rack on one wall, he was deciding which of his staves deserved the honor today.
Strangely, not one of the five well seasoned, iron-bound lengths of wood looked quite right as he stared at them. Something seemed just a little wrong about each one.
The idea bloomed in his mind like a stellar burst. I want to use the one Thai made for me in the Summerlands! He reached for the bright new staff leaning against the wall beside his bed.
The door slammed open and Leo strode in with his usual "Rise and shine, Donatello! Up and at 'em! I've got Michelangelo out of bed and now it's your turn!"
Don was looking down at the staff in his hands, standing quite still in the middle of his room. Slowly, he raised his head, the strangest expression on his face. But he said nothing and finally Leo asked, "What's the matter, cat got your tongue? Hey, where'd you get the new 'bo'?"
Leo watched the slow, wondering smile appear on his brother's face and heard him answer, "I got it in a dream."