-20-

"Vortex"

The look on Dream's face just then was almost tragic. Almost. His arm and his expression fell at once, miserably, and he watched with utter devastation as I rose (ha) into the air.

The Corinthian was alarmed. He tried to take out the Ruby, but he was swept up into the tornado-force winds.

I was dimly aware that Zelda, Chantal and Wanda had been swept up too - they were swirling around me, on the periphery of the storm. My storm. And I was floating in the eye of that storm, calm as could be.

There were lights, and colors - my storm, my hurricane, had become like a spiraling nebula galaxy. And all my friends were revolving around me, like planets around a newborn sun.

I dreamt. I knew I was dreaming - the feeling of being in a dream had never been stronger or clearer, not even in The Land. I'd experienced lucid dreaming before, but I'd never had a dream like this.

I was dreaming, and yet, I had never felt so awake.

I could feel my body, what I once thought of as my real body, asleep on the side of the couch that was serving as my bed, and partially on the carpet of Wanda's apartment.

But that body, that couch, that floor, that life, was no part of me - the essential me, the true Rose.

My sense of identity had never been so certain.

Everything around me seemed so real, so vivid; more true and more vital than the waking world.

And in this world, this realer-than-real world, were so many pieces and parts: I could feel the Skerries of the Dreaming, little islands floating in the vast ocean of the subconscious; I could feel the dark and twisting pathways of Nightmare - the abyssal chasms where the Old Ones dwelt, the spooky corridors where things of unseen malice lie in wait to ensnare their unsuspecting prey, the dominion of The Corinthian and the monstrous people-things like him; and further beyond, I could feel the sad ruins of a castle, the vestiges of a power almost lost but not forgotten...

And I could feel them. The dreamers.

I could feel Chantal, dreaming about a sentence: 'It was a dark and stormy night, and the skipper said to the mate "Mate, tell me a story...and this is was the story he told: It was a dark and stormy night, and the skipper said to the mate, "Mate, tell me a story…"

And on and on it went. Like it had a life of its own.

Chantal is having a relationship with that sentence. Just one of those things, a chance meeting that grew into something important for both of them.

They like the same things. She took it to a party. They were a big hit. The perfect couple.

Everybody knows about her and the sentence.

The sentence spent most of last year in Czechoslovakia for political reasons. But it was secretly translated back into English. In order to stop the sentence from being deported, she has arranged to have it read into the Library of Congress. However…

When the time comes, she discovers that she can no longer read.

The sentence says itself.

She has no idea what her sentence is about.

Not quite in Nightmare, but far from comfortable, Chantal is held, like a crashed computer, in an infinitely regressing loop of story… intricate, self-referential loops, trying to reveal nothing of herself to herself...

Despondent and joyless, Chantal began to cry…

ICouldFeelZeldaStillFightingOldBattlesTheLittleGirlLostInTheWomanWhoseHeartSheSharesDreamingOfHerMotherHopingThatItWasNotHerMotherMaybeItWouldBeSomethingBetterLikeGodzillaOrAGiantSpiderOhItWasASpiderThankYouSoMuchSuchARelief…

I could feel Wanda, dreaming about a cold night, a log fire, a leopard-skin rug, a bottle of fine brandy, and several people, both men and women, lounging around in black leather.

I could see Lois Lane there, and Catwoman, and, mm. I dunno. Rutger Hauer, maybe.

And the third Velvet Underground LP, playing hauntingly but beautifully over the crowd, the very first song about a woman named Candy who hated her body…

I could feel Paul, dreaming about seeing Robert again.

Not Robert as he proved himself to be - callow, self-centered, dishonest - no, this is the Robert he had hoped for. The Robert he had dreamed of. Friendly, open, magical.

Their tune is playing in the background as they kiss, like in a romantic movie: "If I were a bell, I'd go ding dong…"

My poor Paul. On an endless quest for identity and love, which I never knew anything about...

I could feel The Corinthian's churning dreams of lust and power and desire… the desire to kill, rather than be killed; to inspire fear, and those who cause it, rather than to be consumed by it.

To be acknowledged by others, whether it was fear or love or gratitude or desire or admiration or envy - it didn't matter. Anything that would cause the lovely sounds of moaning, or begging...

To feel. To live. To exist. TO BE.

That's what he wanted.

I was dimly aware that I had intended to put an end to him, to direct the power of the Vortex to destroy both him and Dream; but suddenly he didn't seem all that important. Or all that different, when you compared him to all the other dreamers who desired and feared the same exact things.

All of them were seeking a place to belong. A place to be safe.

I reached out my mind, extending my perceptions. I could feel dreamers beyond those who I knew personally.

Across the city, and beyond… a parade of sleeping minds.

The brutal, towering dreams of the very young… the fine tracery of lace memories of the very old. And the others. All the others. There are so many dreamers… so many…

Each mind creates and inhabits its own world, and each world is but a tiny part of that totality that is The Dreaming...

And I could see how thin and fragile the walls that divided them truly were.

How simple it would be to shatter them. To create one huge dream...

Just a little nudge, and the walls would come tumbling down…

"ENOUGH!" shouted a deep and echoing voice.

I opened my eyes, found myself in that ever-expanding whirlpool galaxy. My body was wrapped lightly in a band of mist-droplets that were both cool like the wispy breath coming from a block of dry ice and warm like steam, and it seemed like the only sensible form of clothing there ever was.

Morpheus was floating toward me, his cloak of darkness billowing out behind him.

What did he want? I thought. Surely he knew it was too late to kill me. I was too powerful. He was not. I wasn't scared of him, wasn't angry with him - he just wasn't important, not anymore. Or, I should say, he was every bit as important as everybody and everything else that lived or dreamed.

Morpheus swam toward me in the void - though it was in fact the opposite of a void, it was EVERYTHING. And I watched him impassively, as he came very close to me.

Doesn't matter, I thought. Whatever he says or does means nothing to me. I am beyond such things. I have ascended beyond his control or influence.

"Enough," he said, frowning with concern. That was interesting, if only slightly - the fact that I read concern on his face, rather than anger or fear. "Rose."

Rose. Too limiting a name for what I had become. I was The Dreaming. I was DREAM.

But then again, maybe that didn't matter either - as the Bard said, "A rose, by any other name…"

"Rose… you are disintegrating."

Disintegrating? Surely not. Integrating, maybe, but not DIS-integrating. How stupid that he couldn't tell the difference.

But then I looked down, and realized that little specks and sparks of my form were flaking off into the galaxy around me.

And it wasn't just the pseudo-physical aspects that were flying away from me - it was thoughts, memories, opinions, feelings, beliefs… I would feel them for a brief moment as they fled my mind, and then I'd forget what they were, but I could feel their loss.

"What's… happening…" I asked, my words feeling heavy and thick. Like putting them together in a sentence and speaking them was suddenly a monumental task.

"Your identity is disintegrating," said Dream, in the calmest way possible for something that terrifying. "Fusing with The Dreaming itself. You must allow me to help you contain it, Rose. To contain YOU. Death is not always a bad thing… but this, undoubtedly, is."

Suddenly I felt a dull panic - like some part of me I could no longer access was panicking, but I could still hear the distant sound of it's alarm bells sounding off and sirens blaring. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to not be me anymore.

Oblivion, a fleeing memory whispered to me on it's way out into the nothing/everything. I could no longer recall who said it, but it was supposedly the worst way to die.

"... Help me," I said, with all the feeling I had left.

And then the words were gone. I'd used the last of them up.

I felt his arms pull me into the shadow of his cloak. I felt his face close to mine.

"Heal, Rose Walker," I heard him say. "Heal and breathe."

And then I couldn't hear, or see, or feel a thing.

There was nothing.

I came to. I was somewhere.

I could hear the sound of rustling leaves in the wind. The wind blew across me, my almost-naked body, and through the band of gauzy mist which covered me. It was the perfect temperature - not too cold, not too hot. Goldilocks. And there was music on the air, barely perceptible… a jaunty tune played on a fiddle, the kind that made you feel like dancing a jig, regardless of whether it would make you look like a fool or not.

I could feel soft grass underneath me. Gentle sunshine on my face.

I opened my eyes. Everything seemed to be a glittering, vibrant emerald green, lit with streams of golden sun the color of honey. There were trees and endless miles of green rolling hills.

And there were flowers. So many big, lovely flowers of every color. And it seemed like every flower was paired with its own colorful butterfly flitting about.

It was different from The Land - everything in The Land was saturated in cartoon candy colors. This was like… a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Or someone's version of heaven. Perhaps mine.

Mine. Me. Rose Walker.

Oh hallelujah, I was me again!

Someone blocked my sunlight, leaning over me. It looked like Dream at first, someone pale and thin with a messy mop of wild black hair.

"Hey look! She's awake! Hiya, Rose!" this person said, in the most cheerful and peppy feminine voice I think I'd ever heard. With her back to the sun it was hard to see her features accurately - I groaned and sat up, and she offered me her hand. I took it, and she pulled me to my feet.

What I saw, when I got a good look at her, was a very pretty goth girl, about average height and petite, wearing a tiny black tank-top and black tight pants. Her makeup formed some kind of 'Eye of Horus' motif around her right eye - her irises were black, but the sclera was whitish like a normal person's. Her cheerfully smiling lips were darkened with ash, and around her pale neck was an ankh necklace.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Dream's sister," she answered.

"Okay," I said. "So… how does that work? Do you control some aspect of The Dreaming?"

"Nah. I don't control any of it," she said. "It's not my thing. Dreams and ideas are completely my brother's gig."

"Then… what's yours?"

"She is Death," boomed Morpheus. He was standing in the shadow of a nearby tree watching us, looking like the Huntsman from Snow White.

Death spun around and put her hands on her hips. "Well that's just perfect, thanks bro," she said loudly. "Ruin my intro, why don't you!"

"My apologies, sister."

Death shook her head, and turned to face me with another winning smile. "Sorry… my brother's a real lunkhead sometimes. I don't like to just come out and say who I am and what I do. It tends to freak people out."

"Am I dead?"

"Not yet. But I don't blame you at all for jumping to that conclusion." She shot another glance at Dream. "SOMEBODY decided that he could bring someone here BEFORE they actually died."

"Where is here? Is this heaven?"

Death shrugged. "Sort of. I guess you could say it's 'a' heaven. It's called Fiddler's Green. It's mostly been used as an afterlife hangout for sailors."

"Fiddler's Green? But I thought that was just another name for Gilbert?"

"Hoom! You are indeed right, my dear Rose Walker," said Gilbert, climbing up a steep hill toward us. He was huffing and puffing - apparently being the size that he was made walking something of a challenge. He was exactly how I'd always seen him around the apartment complex, with his hat and his coat and vest and cane.

"I am both," he continued. "A person, as well as a place. It is most confusing, I know."

"Gilbert! Thank god you're here!" I said, running to him like a beloved family member - which is what I felt like he was. He put a big arm around me and smiled, looking glad to see me.

"Fiddler's Green," said Dream, emerging slightly to the edge of the shadows. He had an agitated look, like an unhappy cat.

"Ah. It's you, Dream-lord," said Gilbert, with a tip of his hat and a deferential bow of his head. "I thought I'd see you here, eventually."

"Mm. How perceptive of you."

"Now, that's unworthy of you."

"Perhaps it is. You are the second person today to express their disappointment with me," and this he said while glancing at Death, who was admiring the flowers and the butterfly who had landed on her finger, and with a glance of her own made it clear she would make no effort to correct him. "Am I really that disappointing?"

"Disappointing? Hoom… I'm not sure I would have put it that way myself. Not exactly. But I… AM… concerned for you, my Lord."

"Don't you mean for the girl?"

I looked at Gilbert then, concerned. It suddenly became a little darker - the sun had disappeared behind a threatening storm-cloud overhead.

"For all of us," said Gilbert. "Look about you: this is Fiddler's Green, where sorrow and care are unknown." He pointed at the sky with his cane. "The skies of The Dreaming are grey and mournful, even here, in ME."

"Enough. This conversation has gone far enough. I am attending to my responsibilities."

"And I attend to my visitors. I like them. I am responsible for them - for the sailors, and the centaurs and the children and the dreamers."

"Why, then, did you leave?" asked Dream. "I relied on you. I trusted you. You were so steady. You were the heart of The Dreaming."

Gilbert wiped his spectacles on his tie. "Some time ago, it became too much for me. I left because I was curious. And because I was tired.

I stole the idea of this body, and walked into the waking world.

Life as a human contains substance I never dreamed of in The Dreaming, Lord. The little victories, and the tiny defeats.

I had my reasons."

"I, too, have my responsibilities. And my reasons."

"Hoom. I'm not entirely sure we're talking about the same thing, here."

"We are. The girl must die, that The Dreaming may survive. I am sorry…"

"Whoa whoa WHOA - are you serious?!" I cried. "Haven't we been over this already?"

"I thought that there would be an alternative, Rose Walker." Dream floated in the air, his cape billowing. "But you are a Vortex of dream. And you have already used your powers to threaten The Dreaming. Without my intervention, you would have destroyed it. You must pay the price for that."

"What choice did I have? You were threatening to maroon my friends in the skerry. And you let The Corinthian get away, instead of helping me to defeat him! And then you save me, only to kill me? Are you kidding me?"

"Indeed, I saved you from oblivion - and brought you here, to your close friend… to walk in his meadows, and his green glades, and rest beneath his trees. It was a far more pleasant fate."

"So that's why she's here," I said, indicating Death.

"Yes. I have no choice either, Rose."

"Actually, you do," corrected Death, softly. "It's just whether you want to accept the consequences of doing something different or not. That's the question."

I shivered. "I don't want to die."

Dream looked at me with sympathy. "I am sorry. There is nothing personal about this. We all have our responsibilities. This is one of mine."

"Gilbert? Listen, isn't there anything we can do to stop him?"

"No. No, there is nothing he can do. Fiddler's Green - you abandoned your duties and trespassed upon the waking world without my cognizance, nor my consent. But I cannot find it in my heart to punish you for leaving. Not now. However, it is time to take up your appointed position once again."

"Surely the girl would be no threat if she stayed here, in me," said Fiddler's Green. "I would look after her. She would be no trouble."

"That is noble of you. But unfortunately, that is not an option. Say goodbye."

Gilbert sighed, hanging his head. He turned to me. "I must apologize to you, Miss Walker."

"For what?" I asked, shakily.

"For not being a very good human being. Not even being a good COPY of a human, perhaps I should say. And now, when you need me most, it seems I have failed you."

I threw my arms around him, hugging him tight. "Oh just shut up and say goodbye, Gilbert, or I'm going to start crying!" I shot a look at Dream. "And I'm not going to give him that satisfaction."

"Farewell, my dear. You were the best thing about being human."

He took my hand, and kissed it.

"Flirt," I accused. Teasing him made my heart hurt, though. It was time. I pulled away, turned around, and walked toward my death.

"Do you want me to do it?" Death asked both me and Morpheus.

I walked right past her. "Don't touch me, bitch - and don't let him off the hook. If he wants me dead, he'll have to do it himself."

Dream hovered as I drew closer. I willed myself up to meet him.

I got closer, and closer. Finally, he folded his arms around me, enveloping me in his cloak.

He cupped my cheek. "I… I am sorry, Rose."

"Forchrissakes!" I cried, my courage faltering. "Look, just do it! Stop friggin' apologizing and just do whatever you're going to do! Okay? Just do it."

"Stop that," said a woman's voice.

Morpheus looked down, and I felt us slowly descend. As my feet touched the ground, I was able to pull out of his grasp and take a look at the woman who was joining us.

It was my mother Unity. As I had seen her in my dream.

"I know who you are, Unity Kinkaid, but I require you to leave this place," Morpheus went on. She walked right up to him, unafraid. He very subtly moved and stood away from me, awkwardly, as if ashamed of what he'd been caught doing. "I have business to attend to with this woman."

"No, your business is with me," she said, wagging a finger at him. "I have an urgent message for you - and I was told that it would put an end to your plan to terminate my daughter."

"Go on then."

Unity took his hand in hers. "It was this: THE KINDLY ONES SEND THEIR REGARDS."

Dream looked stricken, mouth slightly agape - if he'd been able to grow paler, he would have. "The Kindly Ones?" he repeated. "Are you sure?"

She pet his hand. "Yes. That's what they said."

"And was there not… more, to this message?"

"No. That was it I'm afraid."

"Dream," said Death, with a serious frown of concern. "What's going on?"

"I do not understand-"

"Of course you don't," said Unity. "You're obviously not very bright, but I shouldn't let it bother you." She reached up and patted his cheek.

I didn't know much of anything about my mom up until this point, but it was fast becoming pretty clear to me that she was one bold woman.

Dream straightened, pondering, and then turned to me. "Leave this place," he told me. "Return to consciousness. I offer you and those close to you safe passage - view it as a gift from me to you, Rose. Your family has suffered enough."

Unity looked relieved. She let go of Morpheus' hand, and reached out to me. "Come here, daughter." I did, and she embraced me.

"Come with me," I asked.

She shook her head. "I can't. Not yet at least. Don't worry - I'll stay here in this wonderful place with Gilbert, until…"

"Until what, mom?"

She smoothed back my multi-colored hair. "...Until whatever happens, happens," she answered. "Now go, and live. And if you get any more trouble from Dream, call upon the Kindly Ones for help."

Yeah, no I thought firmly. No way was I ever going to ask those scary bitches for help.

"We take our leave, lady," Morpheus said to my mother. "I will be seeing you again; although you, for your part, are unlikely to see me."

"Oh. Well. Nice to meet you," said my mother.

"And I hope not to be seeing either one of you, for quite some time," said Death, which was really quite sweet of her to say.

Then there was that sensation you get on waking, as everything moved further away, and I started to be aware of the cold. There in that dream it was warm, and my mother was there. I tried to stay in my dream forever... but the harder I held on the further it slipped away from me…

And then I

And then I woke

And then I woke up.