Part XII -- Dreamcatcher
Vader wasn't sure which was worse -- the libidinous demoness making a pass on his son every five minutes, or the pining puppy-eyed werecorn gazing adoringly at Luke whenever she thought he wasn't watching. Luke was obviously uncomfortable with the women's attentions, but for now he seemed to be handling the problem by simply ignoring them. But Vader was considering a more direct course of action.
There was little he could do about Metria, of course, her being Luke's Companion. Vader seemed to have a certain control over the demoness, so he was at least able to keep her amorousness in check.
Wara was another story. Never mind that her attraction to Luke was magically induced; she simply raised his hackles in some undefineable way. Maybe it was her connection to Darius. Maybe it was the fact that, though she claimed Darius had altered her talent, she hadn't told them what talent she now possessed. Maybe it was the fact that she had plotted to make Luke fall in love with her and had very nearly succeeded.
Maybe it's the fact that no woman will ever be good enough for your son, a voice in the back of his head nagged.
There was a rustling in the brush, and a large green snake slithered across their path. The group halted to avoid trampling it.
"Is it venomous?" Vader inquired.
"How should I know?" demanded Metria.
"I know her!" Jenny exclaimed. "Hello, Nada!"
The snake raised its head, and a human woman's head replaced the serpent head.
"This is Princess Nada Naga of the naga folk," Jenny introduced. "Nagas are like weresnakes -- they can assume human form, snake form, or naga form, which is a mix of the first two."
"Hello, Players," Nada greeted, nodding. "As no one selected me as a Companion, I am to guide your party to the next challenge. Follow me." She became a snake again and slithered on down the path.
Wara paused, a thoughtful look on her face. "There's a hypnogourd patch ahead."
"How do you know?" asked Chang.
"I just do," she replied.
A small tangle of vines sprouted in the center of the path, bearing several small gourds. Nada assumed naga form and halted near the plant.
"Your friend was correct," she explained. "This is a hypnogourd plant -- and your next challenge."
"Oh boy," Jenny said nervously.
"Hypnogourd?" Vader repeated, nudging a gourd with the toe of his boot.
"They serve as gateways to Xanth's dream realm," Chang replied. "Night mares and day mares can enter and exit them as they please, but with a regular Xanthian it's trickier."
"If you look into the peephole that grows on a gourd, your mind will be transported into the dream realm," Metria explained. "But to everyone outside the gourd, it'll look like you just went into a trance. The only way to escape the dream realm is to have someone else cover the peephole or destroy the factory."
"The what?" asked Wara.
"Manufacturer, assembly line, bush, vegetation..."
"Plant," Nada told her.
"Whatever."
"I'll warn you ahead of time," Jenny said, "that the dream realm is a lot stranger than anything we've encountered so far."
Already Vader was loathing the next challenge.
"Each of you take a gourd and look inside," Nada instructed.
"How will we escape the realm?" asked Wara.
"That's up to the Players to figure out," Nada replied.
Vader considered. "Chang, summon a day mare. She can accompany us into the dream realm, then inform Nada when we've finished the challenge so she can release us."
"Very well," Chang replied. "Done."
"It's Day Mare Imbrium!" Wara exclaimed.
"Where?" Luke asked, looking around.
"There," she replied, pointing. Just beside Chang was the vague outline of an equine creature.
"How can you tell it's Equilibrium?" asked Metria.
"Imbrium," Jenny corrected.
"Whatever."
"I don't know how," she confessed. "I just know it's her."
"That must be your new talent," Chang replied with a smile. "The ability to identify things of the dream realm."
"All right," Luke murmured, "here goes nothing." He picked up a gourd and rotated it until he found the peephole. He froze, locked in a trance.
Vader selected a gourd, turned it to the side...
Suddenly he was standing in a great field of rippling silver grass, with a dark blue-violet sky overhead and craggy green mountains in the distance. A moment later Metria joined them, then Sammy, Jenny, Wara, Chang, and Imbrium, who appeared as a jet-black horse in the dream realm.
"Sammy, find the challenge," Jenny urged.
The cat loped off, and everyone followed.
If Vader had thought Xanth to be the product of a spice addict's imagination, the dream realm was the creation of a deranged surrealist's mind. Fish swam through the sky over their heads. Twisted, leafless black trees uttered haunting song-like cries. Smoke danced and swirled in eddies and rivers around them, carrying scents of perfume one moment, decay the next, and still another moment metallic odors. The ground beneath their feet became solid rock, then spongy mud, then sand, then iron, the grass changing colors from silver to violet to crimson.
"What's that?" asked Luke, approaching what appeared to be a primitive well.
"That's the Well Ee-nuph," Wara told him with a dreamy smile. "Don't touch it."
"Why not?"
"Sometimes," Vader quipped, "it's best to let Well Ee-nuph alone."
Luke stared at him a moment, then they both began laughing.
"I thought you hated puns," chuckled Luke.
"I am learning to tolerate them," Vader replied amusedly.
"There's a patch of Coulda Beans ahead," cautioned Wara.
"Lord Vader, watch your step!" Jenny shouted.
But in the time it took Vader to process the command, he'd stepped right in the middle of the bean patch.
Then he was suddenly no longer in Xanth's dream realm, but in a cluttered teenager's bedroom, tucking a young, embarrassed-looking Luke into bed...
Then he was standing amidst the rubble of a ruined lake retreat on Naboo, watching a dazed Luke pick up a shattered crest...
Then he was at the controls of an antique wheeled vehicle, tearing down a city street, an unfamiliar female voice screaming for him to "keep your freakin' eyes on the road..."
Then he was addressing a trio of robed teenagers -- a boy with glasses and a scarred forehead, a girl with bushy brown hair, and a freckled red-headed boy...
Then he was astride a huge bronze dragon, flames billowing from the creature's mouth as they soared over an extinct volcano...
Then he was back in the realm of the gourd, somewhat unnerved by the experience. Shaking his head, he moved on.
Sammy stopped. They had come to a great hedge of thorns, broken only by a circular gate of sorts that was ringed with weavings like spiderwebs. Was this the challenge, or merely an obstacle on the way to it?
"Wara?" he inquired. The unicorn girl was actually serving a purpose.
"It's a dreamcatcher," she replied.
"What's a dreamcatcher?" asked Luke.
She smiled lovingly at him. "I wish I knew. I suppose my new talent lets me identify things of the dream realm, but not explain them."
[The dreamcatcher is your challenge.]
Vader glanced around, alarmed. Who had said that?
"Relax, Lord Vader," Jenny told him, placing a hand on his arm. "That's Mare Imbrium talking."
"What's a dreamcatcher, Imbrium?" inquired Chang. "Centaurs are a learned species, but we know nothing of the dreamcatcher."
[The centaur studies rarely focus on the dealings of the dream realm] said Imbrium, swishing her tail. [Long ago, certain sects of Mundanians were closer to Xanth and the ways of magic than they are now, and some still hold on to bits and pieces of magic. One sect, known now as Native Americans, learned of the dreamcatcher and recreated it on a regular basis, though theirs were not imbued with magic. Their version of the dreamcatcher is a hoop decorated with string, beads, feathers, and other objects. They believe it catches bad dreams and allows the good dreams to reach the sleeper.]
"Who cares about Mundania?" humphed Metria. "What's this one gonna do to us?"
[In Xanth, a dreamcatcher is a portal, a means of entering your own dreams. Not daydreams or sleeping dreams, but the truest and deepest desires of your heart.]
"Suddenly I'm afraid," Luke murmured.
"It can't be that bad," Jenny replied optimistically. "Tell you all what. I'll go first. Then we can see what this challenge is all about."
Vader wasn't sure about letting his Companion risk herself needlessly. But she had a point. Someone had to be the first to go through. "Lead the way."
Jenny and Sammy walked up to the dreamcatcher and stepped through.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. Everyone watched in nervous anticipation as Jenny looked back at them anxiously, then took a few more steps. Then she stopped, a wondering expression on her face.
Someone was approaching her -- an elf. A young-adult male elf, apparently one of Jenny's kind, enormously good-looking with a gentle smile and sparkling eyes. Jenny stared at him, then started to laugh joyously. The elf man chuckled and embraced her, literally sweeping her off her feet. Their happy laughter echoed through the air...
The scene blanked out. Jenny was standing back on their side of the dreamcatcher, a horrified expression on her face.
"No! Come back!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "Don't go!"
"Jenny," Chang told her softly. "It was just an illusion."
"I know... but..." She whirled and buried her face in Vader's side, crying.
Vader's first instinct was to push the elf girl away. But she was in great pain, a feeling he knew all too well. How could he deny her even the smallest comfort? He gently placed a hand on her back in an awkward attempt to console her. She was his Companion, after all. She had done so much for him. The least he could do in return was drop his guard a little.
"What happened?" Luke asked, staring at the dreamcatcher as if it would turn into a dragon and charge them.
"I... I thought he was real," she choked. "One of... my kind."
"That's right," Vader realized. "At the beginning of the game, your Player description stated that Xanth is not your native world. You are an elf of the World of Two Moons."
She nodded. "Sammy and I got lost in Xanth a long time ago. His magic will let him find anything except our homeworld. No one here knew how to get me back home, so I was stuck. I learned how to survive here, what could help or harm, and I've grown to love it here." She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. "But I miss my family. And I wish there was a boy of my kind here."
"Aren't you a little young to..." began Luke.
"In reality, I know about the Adult Conspiracy," she told him. "Only in the game am I subject to it."
"What if you gave Sammy reverse wood?" suggested Wara. "Then he could locate the World of Two Moons."
"I tried that, but it only mixed him up. He couldn't find anything."
"Why not consult the Good Magician?" asked Chang.
"I asked him once, but he told me I had a destiny to fulfill in Xanth," she replied.
"Then for now," Vader stated, "all you can do is accept the fact that you may not see your homeworld or another elf of your kind for a long time."
She sighed. "I guess you're right. I do like it here. And with Sammy around, I'm never really lonely. Besides, I have new friends now." She smiled at Luke and Vader.
"This is all touching," Metria grumbled, "but we still have the dreamfetcher to deal with."
[Dreamcatcher] Imbrium corrected.
"Whatever."
Jenny took a deep breath, then walked through the portal a second time.
A wolf padded up to Jenny, sniffing her palm before nuzzling her hand for a pat. She smiled and scratched it behind the ears. Abruptly it barked and stood on its hind legs, and in an instant it became a human man. He grinned broadly and took Jenny in his arms in a tender embrace. She smiled and returned the hug, and they walked away, arms around each other's waists.
The image winked out, and Jenny was standing alone beyond the dreamcatcher, an exultant expression on her face.
"I'm through!" she shouted. "I made it!"
"What was that second image?" asked Vader.
"What second image?" she protested.
[Do not speak to her of it] came Imbrium's stern warning. [She knows not of it because she was not permitted to see it. It speaks of her future. She will discover it in due course.]
So instead Vader mused, "That must be the key to solving the challenge. You must come to terms with your heart's desire and accept that, for now, it is a dream before you can move on to receive your future."
Chang stepped up to the dreamcatcher and ducked through. Everyone waited for his dream to manifest itself, but it never came.
"Do you not have a heart's desire?" asked Jenny.
"Of course I do," he replied. "To be rid of my magic and return to my brethren in Centaur Isle."
[He is not a Player or a Companion] Imbrium explained. [The game's programming will not allow a bystander to the game to directly face a challenge. Chang and Wara will not be made to face the dreamcatcher.]
"Go on through, Wara," Luke urged, putting a hand on her shoulder to ease her along. She looked thrilled at the contact and obeyed instantly.
"Don't lead her along, Skyshredder," Metria hissed.
"I'm not," he shot back.
"She's Xanthian. You're Mundanian. It's not gonna work out."
"I know, Metria."
"Then canal her the first chance you get."
"What?"
"Creek, channel, brook, lose, dump, break up..."
"Ditch?"
"Whatever."
"She's helping us with the mission, Metria. I can't dump her now."
"You two shut up," Vader ordered. "We need to decide which of us is going next."
"I'll go," Luke volunteered, and he passed through the dreamcatcher.
The moment he was through, something odd happened. His face seemed to shed a few years in an instant, and every second afterward he became younger and younger. The process halted when he reached the age of five, leaving a bewildered child in place of the adult Jedi trainee. The Luke-child looked around as if searching for something, his disorderly blond hair flapping about with each motion. His gaze rested on two figures who seemed to appear out of thin air nearby. With a delighted cry he ran to meet them.
Vader's pacemaker seemed to malfunction for a moment. The couple were exact replicas of Padme and an unmasked Anakin.
The proud parents embraced Luke, and Anakin grabbed him and tossed him into the air, Luke squealing with laughter all the while...
Suddenly Luke materialized on their side of the dreamcatcher, adult again and quite shocked.
"Oh Luke, are you all right?" cried Wara plaintively.
He was too stunned to do anything but whisper. "I was with my father... my father..."
"Your heart's desire," Metria noted. "To be with your parents again."
Vader realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to encourage Luke to join him. He could offer him the chance to be with his father again, to live out his heart's desire. And with Luke's guard shattered by his experience in the dreamcatcher, he would be much more likely to accept the offer.
But he kept silent.
"I never knew my parents," Luke murmured. "My aunt and uncle raised me. I loved them, but I always wanted to meet my father. Uncle Owen told me he was a navigator on a spice freighter. Obi-wan told me he was a great Jedi Knight." He stared sullenly into the blood-red grass. "When I fought Vader on Bespin, it destroyed all I'd been led to believe. I want to know who my father really is, what I can truly believe in."
Your father is a Dark Lord, Vader thought. Accept it. There is no changing it.
"Why don't you ask black-britches?" asked Metria, indicating Vader.
"How can I be sure he's being truthful?" Luke replied.
"Regardless of who your sire is," Chang pointed out, "there is a great difference between a father and a parent."
Luke stared at the centaur. "What do you mean?"
"Use logic, boy. Who raised you? Who fed and clothed you, educated you, protected you? The man who begot you may have been Lord Vader, or he may have been another man. But the man who raised you... there is no question as to his identity."
"Uncle Owen," Luke realized. "Yes. I suppose he was a father of sorts to me."
"And you may still have questions regarding your biological parents," Chang went on. "But for now, accept that your adoptive caretakers are as close as you'll come."
Luke nodded gravely. He strode toward the dreamcatcher and passed through.
The scenery on the opposite side of the portal became desert, and Luke's gray Rebel jumpsuit became black Jedi robes. He knelt before a trio of familiar-looking grave markers -- the ones that existed just outside the Lars homestead, one belonging to Vader's mother. But a fourth marker had been erected, dedicated to Owen and Beru Lars. Luke bowed gently before the headstone, then stood, took a lightsaber from his belt, saluted, and slowly walked away.
The scene vanished, showing Wara, Chang, Jenny, and Luke standing together beyond the dreamcatcher.
"Who's next?" asked Luke.
"Your turn, iron man," Metria told Vader.
Vader braced himself. He walked forward and passed through the portal. There was a slight resistance, as if he'd just broken through a force field.
A warning alarm, audible only to him, blared from his life-support systems. His respirator was malfunctioning! Sithspawn! Of all times to develop a glitch in his hardware! But before he could respond to the alarm, he felt first one system shut down, then another. His armor, normally his link to life, was betraying him.
But strangely, he didn't feel as if he was dying. Truth be told, he'd never felt better.
Dazed, he raised his right hand and slowly, wonderingly, pulled off the glove. His arm had been restored, a flesh-and-blood limb replacing the cursed cybernetic replica. He flexed the fingers, reveling in the sensations of muscles and tendons tugging against bone, of cool air against his skin, of his pulse drumming gently through veins in his wrist.
His heart... it beat naturally, unregulated by machinery. His lungs inflated and deflated without aid. His legs were no longer pillars of circuits and metal struts, but muscle and bone. He was a droid-man no longer, but had been restored by powers beyond comprehension.
Perhaps, as his mask was no longer necessary, he could be rid of it once and for all. He reached for the tiny, nearly invisible clasps at the base of his neck...
The transition back to reality was cruelly abrupt. His armor seized control of his body again. He was back with Metria in Xanth's dream realm, once again a cyborg.
"No!" he screamed, not wanting the illusion to end.
"What was that?" asked Jenny. "I couldn't tell..."
"He was able to breathe on his own," Luke observed. "He didn't need the mask."
"That's your heart's desire?" Metria said in disbelief.
Vader clenched both fists tightly. Tears streamed beneath his helmet. He might as well tell them. They'd seen enough that they should know the rest.
"You don't know what it's like," he snarled, "to look at the world through a mask, knowing you can never remove it. To never know the touch of another's hand, or feel the breeze in your face, or breathe deeply and freely without the aid of a machine. To be forever... a droid. A machine-man. A freak."
Chang pawed the ground with his forehooves. "The freak part of that I know very well."
"And I," Wara added.
"Perhaps, one day, you can be healed completely," Luke suggested. "Health technology is always improving. But for now..."
Vader knew the answer. He could only accept his fate as a cyborg. How deeply that cut! But it was his only choice. Again he attempted to brave the dreamcatcher.
The others' eyes were wide as he emerged from the opposite side of the dreamcatcher. What had they seen? It was no use asking. Imbrium had sworn them all to silence.
"Metria?" asked Jenny. "You coming?"
"Demons don't dream," Metria replied.
"Of course they do," Luke countered.
"We don't dream because we don't sleep," she told him. "We simply go into stasis for a time every so often. It works for us."
"But you must have a heart's desire," said Luke.
"Sure," she replied. "To get this dumb game over with so I can go back to stirring up mischief and flashing my panties to any male I fancy."
Luke rolled his eyes. "Sorry I asked."
"Then go through the dreamcatcher so we can move on," Vader ordered.
She snorted and marched through.
A youthful giggle halted her in her tracks. A young child had appeared in a swirl of smoke next to her, grinning lovingly. Metria's eyes sparkled, and she squatted and embraced the toddler, smiling herself. There was such tenderness in her expression, such warmth, that Vader wondered if he was viewing the same demoness that had accompanied them this far.
Then the scene ended, leaving Metria on the side of the portal opposite the others.
"What the !!!! was that?" she shrieked, turning the grass around her a lurid shade of pink and startling three angelfish out of the sky. They were unused to such words, coming from a far loftier plane than Metria's term had suggested.
"Your heart's desire," Wara marveled. "It's to have a child."
"Nuh-UH!" she protested. "Who wants a brat?"
"Evidently you do," Vader remarked.
"But I don't!" she countered. "I'm a soulless demon. How can I love a child? It's impossible!"
"Then that's your desire," Chang pointed out. "To obtain a soul so you are capable of loving your offspring."
"But -- but -- but I don't want a soul!" she sputtered. "That would ruin all my fun! I wouldn't be able to make mischief and summon the stork at random anymore!"
"Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to achieve our heart's desires," Luke told her, and his tone suggested that he knew that from experience.
"All right, all right, all right!" Metria screamed, stamping her foot like a two-year-old. "So I've always wanted to know what it's like to cuddle a baby, to love someone, to feel joy and pain and emotion! Demon's don't know that stuff! The only emotions we know are boredom and the brief sense of satisfaction we get from a prank gone right or a stork-summoning session! What am I missing? Why do you mortals have it so good? And I'll never know, because who wants to share their soul with a... a stupid lusty speech-impeded demoness?!" She ended the sentence with a snort, her nose and mouth briefly assuming the shape of a pig's snout.
"Calm down, Metria," Luke urged.
"Why?" she demanded.
"Maybe someday you'll find someone willing to give you half of their soul," Jenny suggested. "But for now, you'll just have to accept being a regular demon."
"I don't wanna accept it," she pouted.
"You have no choice," Vader replied.
With a weary sigh she flounced through the dreamcatcher a second time.
A new scene appeared in the portal. It showed Metria and a human man kneeling and clasping hands over an altar in a foreboding-looking castle. A fearsome demon ("That's Grossclout," Jenny whispered) appeared to be officiating while a winged goblin girl, an elf, and a human man looked on. Vader could make no sense of the image.
Then Metria joined the others on the other side of the dreamcatcher.
"So what'd I miss?" she inquired.
"We can't tell you," Luke replied.
"Curses."
There was a jolt, and they all found themselves back in Xanth's material realm. Compared to what they had just seen in the gourd, it seemed almost normal. Imbrium's hazy outline stood nearby. Nada, who had curled her serpentine body around the hypnogourd plant to break their trances, smiled.
"You'll find a game-approved campsite just past the geome-tree grove," she told them. "Congratulations. You passed the challenge."
"Bye, Imbrium!" Wara exclaimed, waving, as the day mare galloped off.
"Are you sure you can't tell me what you saw the second time I went through?" begged Metria.
"We are sure, Metria," Vader replied firmly.
"Why are you such a grouch?" she demanded. "Did you leave your sense of fun back in Mundania or what?"
"Shut up," he snapped.
Vader wasn't sure which was worse -- the libidinous demoness making a pass on his son every five minutes, or the pining puppy-eyed werecorn gazing adoringly at Luke whenever she thought he wasn't watching. Luke was obviously uncomfortable with the women's attentions, but for now he seemed to be handling the problem by simply ignoring them. But Vader was considering a more direct course of action.
There was little he could do about Metria, of course, her being Luke's Companion. Vader seemed to have a certain control over the demoness, so he was at least able to keep her amorousness in check.
Wara was another story. Never mind that her attraction to Luke was magically induced; she simply raised his hackles in some undefineable way. Maybe it was her connection to Darius. Maybe it was the fact that, though she claimed Darius had altered her talent, she hadn't told them what talent she now possessed. Maybe it was the fact that she had plotted to make Luke fall in love with her and had very nearly succeeded.
Maybe it's the fact that no woman will ever be good enough for your son, a voice in the back of his head nagged.
There was a rustling in the brush, and a large green snake slithered across their path. The group halted to avoid trampling it.
"Is it venomous?" Vader inquired.
"How should I know?" demanded Metria.
"I know her!" Jenny exclaimed. "Hello, Nada!"
The snake raised its head, and a human woman's head replaced the serpent head.
"This is Princess Nada Naga of the naga folk," Jenny introduced. "Nagas are like weresnakes -- they can assume human form, snake form, or naga form, which is a mix of the first two."
"Hello, Players," Nada greeted, nodding. "As no one selected me as a Companion, I am to guide your party to the next challenge. Follow me." She became a snake again and slithered on down the path.
Wara paused, a thoughtful look on her face. "There's a hypnogourd patch ahead."
"How do you know?" asked Chang.
"I just do," she replied.
A small tangle of vines sprouted in the center of the path, bearing several small gourds. Nada assumed naga form and halted near the plant.
"Your friend was correct," she explained. "This is a hypnogourd plant -- and your next challenge."
"Oh boy," Jenny said nervously.
"Hypnogourd?" Vader repeated, nudging a gourd with the toe of his boot.
"They serve as gateways to Xanth's dream realm," Chang replied. "Night mares and day mares can enter and exit them as they please, but with a regular Xanthian it's trickier."
"If you look into the peephole that grows on a gourd, your mind will be transported into the dream realm," Metria explained. "But to everyone outside the gourd, it'll look like you just went into a trance. The only way to escape the dream realm is to have someone else cover the peephole or destroy the factory."
"The what?" asked Wara.
"Manufacturer, assembly line, bush, vegetation..."
"Plant," Nada told her.
"Whatever."
"I'll warn you ahead of time," Jenny said, "that the dream realm is a lot stranger than anything we've encountered so far."
Already Vader was loathing the next challenge.
"Each of you take a gourd and look inside," Nada instructed.
"How will we escape the realm?" asked Wara.
"That's up to the Players to figure out," Nada replied.
Vader considered. "Chang, summon a day mare. She can accompany us into the dream realm, then inform Nada when we've finished the challenge so she can release us."
"Very well," Chang replied. "Done."
"It's Day Mare Imbrium!" Wara exclaimed.
"Where?" Luke asked, looking around.
"There," she replied, pointing. Just beside Chang was the vague outline of an equine creature.
"How can you tell it's Equilibrium?" asked Metria.
"Imbrium," Jenny corrected.
"Whatever."
"I don't know how," she confessed. "I just know it's her."
"That must be your new talent," Chang replied with a smile. "The ability to identify things of the dream realm."
"All right," Luke murmured, "here goes nothing." He picked up a gourd and rotated it until he found the peephole. He froze, locked in a trance.
Vader selected a gourd, turned it to the side...
Suddenly he was standing in a great field of rippling silver grass, with a dark blue-violet sky overhead and craggy green mountains in the distance. A moment later Metria joined them, then Sammy, Jenny, Wara, Chang, and Imbrium, who appeared as a jet-black horse in the dream realm.
"Sammy, find the challenge," Jenny urged.
The cat loped off, and everyone followed.
If Vader had thought Xanth to be the product of a spice addict's imagination, the dream realm was the creation of a deranged surrealist's mind. Fish swam through the sky over their heads. Twisted, leafless black trees uttered haunting song-like cries. Smoke danced and swirled in eddies and rivers around them, carrying scents of perfume one moment, decay the next, and still another moment metallic odors. The ground beneath their feet became solid rock, then spongy mud, then sand, then iron, the grass changing colors from silver to violet to crimson.
"What's that?" asked Luke, approaching what appeared to be a primitive well.
"That's the Well Ee-nuph," Wara told him with a dreamy smile. "Don't touch it."
"Why not?"
"Sometimes," Vader quipped, "it's best to let Well Ee-nuph alone."
Luke stared at him a moment, then they both began laughing.
"I thought you hated puns," chuckled Luke.
"I am learning to tolerate them," Vader replied amusedly.
"There's a patch of Coulda Beans ahead," cautioned Wara.
"Lord Vader, watch your step!" Jenny shouted.
But in the time it took Vader to process the command, he'd stepped right in the middle of the bean patch.
Then he was suddenly no longer in Xanth's dream realm, but in a cluttered teenager's bedroom, tucking a young, embarrassed-looking Luke into bed...
Then he was standing amidst the rubble of a ruined lake retreat on Naboo, watching a dazed Luke pick up a shattered crest...
Then he was at the controls of an antique wheeled vehicle, tearing down a city street, an unfamiliar female voice screaming for him to "keep your freakin' eyes on the road..."
Then he was addressing a trio of robed teenagers -- a boy with glasses and a scarred forehead, a girl with bushy brown hair, and a freckled red-headed boy...
Then he was astride a huge bronze dragon, flames billowing from the creature's mouth as they soared over an extinct volcano...
Then he was back in the realm of the gourd, somewhat unnerved by the experience. Shaking his head, he moved on.
Sammy stopped. They had come to a great hedge of thorns, broken only by a circular gate of sorts that was ringed with weavings like spiderwebs. Was this the challenge, or merely an obstacle on the way to it?
"Wara?" he inquired. The unicorn girl was actually serving a purpose.
"It's a dreamcatcher," she replied.
"What's a dreamcatcher?" asked Luke.
She smiled lovingly at him. "I wish I knew. I suppose my new talent lets me identify things of the dream realm, but not explain them."
[The dreamcatcher is your challenge.]
Vader glanced around, alarmed. Who had said that?
"Relax, Lord Vader," Jenny told him, placing a hand on his arm. "That's Mare Imbrium talking."
"What's a dreamcatcher, Imbrium?" inquired Chang. "Centaurs are a learned species, but we know nothing of the dreamcatcher."
[The centaur studies rarely focus on the dealings of the dream realm] said Imbrium, swishing her tail. [Long ago, certain sects of Mundanians were closer to Xanth and the ways of magic than they are now, and some still hold on to bits and pieces of magic. One sect, known now as Native Americans, learned of the dreamcatcher and recreated it on a regular basis, though theirs were not imbued with magic. Their version of the dreamcatcher is a hoop decorated with string, beads, feathers, and other objects. They believe it catches bad dreams and allows the good dreams to reach the sleeper.]
"Who cares about Mundania?" humphed Metria. "What's this one gonna do to us?"
[In Xanth, a dreamcatcher is a portal, a means of entering your own dreams. Not daydreams or sleeping dreams, but the truest and deepest desires of your heart.]
"Suddenly I'm afraid," Luke murmured.
"It can't be that bad," Jenny replied optimistically. "Tell you all what. I'll go first. Then we can see what this challenge is all about."
Vader wasn't sure about letting his Companion risk herself needlessly. But she had a point. Someone had to be the first to go through. "Lead the way."
Jenny and Sammy walked up to the dreamcatcher and stepped through.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. Everyone watched in nervous anticipation as Jenny looked back at them anxiously, then took a few more steps. Then she stopped, a wondering expression on her face.
Someone was approaching her -- an elf. A young-adult male elf, apparently one of Jenny's kind, enormously good-looking with a gentle smile and sparkling eyes. Jenny stared at him, then started to laugh joyously. The elf man chuckled and embraced her, literally sweeping her off her feet. Their happy laughter echoed through the air...
The scene blanked out. Jenny was standing back on their side of the dreamcatcher, a horrified expression on her face.
"No! Come back!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "Don't go!"
"Jenny," Chang told her softly. "It was just an illusion."
"I know... but..." She whirled and buried her face in Vader's side, crying.
Vader's first instinct was to push the elf girl away. But she was in great pain, a feeling he knew all too well. How could he deny her even the smallest comfort? He gently placed a hand on her back in an awkward attempt to console her. She was his Companion, after all. She had done so much for him. The least he could do in return was drop his guard a little.
"What happened?" Luke asked, staring at the dreamcatcher as if it would turn into a dragon and charge them.
"I... I thought he was real," she choked. "One of... my kind."
"That's right," Vader realized. "At the beginning of the game, your Player description stated that Xanth is not your native world. You are an elf of the World of Two Moons."
She nodded. "Sammy and I got lost in Xanth a long time ago. His magic will let him find anything except our homeworld. No one here knew how to get me back home, so I was stuck. I learned how to survive here, what could help or harm, and I've grown to love it here." She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. "But I miss my family. And I wish there was a boy of my kind here."
"Aren't you a little young to..." began Luke.
"In reality, I know about the Adult Conspiracy," she told him. "Only in the game am I subject to it."
"What if you gave Sammy reverse wood?" suggested Wara. "Then he could locate the World of Two Moons."
"I tried that, but it only mixed him up. He couldn't find anything."
"Why not consult the Good Magician?" asked Chang.
"I asked him once, but he told me I had a destiny to fulfill in Xanth," she replied.
"Then for now," Vader stated, "all you can do is accept the fact that you may not see your homeworld or another elf of your kind for a long time."
She sighed. "I guess you're right. I do like it here. And with Sammy around, I'm never really lonely. Besides, I have new friends now." She smiled at Luke and Vader.
"This is all touching," Metria grumbled, "but we still have the dreamfetcher to deal with."
[Dreamcatcher] Imbrium corrected.
"Whatever."
Jenny took a deep breath, then walked through the portal a second time.
A wolf padded up to Jenny, sniffing her palm before nuzzling her hand for a pat. She smiled and scratched it behind the ears. Abruptly it barked and stood on its hind legs, and in an instant it became a human man. He grinned broadly and took Jenny in his arms in a tender embrace. She smiled and returned the hug, and they walked away, arms around each other's waists.
The image winked out, and Jenny was standing alone beyond the dreamcatcher, an exultant expression on her face.
"I'm through!" she shouted. "I made it!"
"What was that second image?" asked Vader.
"What second image?" she protested.
[Do not speak to her of it] came Imbrium's stern warning. [She knows not of it because she was not permitted to see it. It speaks of her future. She will discover it in due course.]
So instead Vader mused, "That must be the key to solving the challenge. You must come to terms with your heart's desire and accept that, for now, it is a dream before you can move on to receive your future."
Chang stepped up to the dreamcatcher and ducked through. Everyone waited for his dream to manifest itself, but it never came.
"Do you not have a heart's desire?" asked Jenny.
"Of course I do," he replied. "To be rid of my magic and return to my brethren in Centaur Isle."
[He is not a Player or a Companion] Imbrium explained. [The game's programming will not allow a bystander to the game to directly face a challenge. Chang and Wara will not be made to face the dreamcatcher.]
"Go on through, Wara," Luke urged, putting a hand on her shoulder to ease her along. She looked thrilled at the contact and obeyed instantly.
"Don't lead her along, Skyshredder," Metria hissed.
"I'm not," he shot back.
"She's Xanthian. You're Mundanian. It's not gonna work out."
"I know, Metria."
"Then canal her the first chance you get."
"What?"
"Creek, channel, brook, lose, dump, break up..."
"Ditch?"
"Whatever."
"She's helping us with the mission, Metria. I can't dump her now."
"You two shut up," Vader ordered. "We need to decide which of us is going next."
"I'll go," Luke volunteered, and he passed through the dreamcatcher.
The moment he was through, something odd happened. His face seemed to shed a few years in an instant, and every second afterward he became younger and younger. The process halted when he reached the age of five, leaving a bewildered child in place of the adult Jedi trainee. The Luke-child looked around as if searching for something, his disorderly blond hair flapping about with each motion. His gaze rested on two figures who seemed to appear out of thin air nearby. With a delighted cry he ran to meet them.
Vader's pacemaker seemed to malfunction for a moment. The couple were exact replicas of Padme and an unmasked Anakin.
The proud parents embraced Luke, and Anakin grabbed him and tossed him into the air, Luke squealing with laughter all the while...
Suddenly Luke materialized on their side of the dreamcatcher, adult again and quite shocked.
"Oh Luke, are you all right?" cried Wara plaintively.
He was too stunned to do anything but whisper. "I was with my father... my father..."
"Your heart's desire," Metria noted. "To be with your parents again."
Vader realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to encourage Luke to join him. He could offer him the chance to be with his father again, to live out his heart's desire. And with Luke's guard shattered by his experience in the dreamcatcher, he would be much more likely to accept the offer.
But he kept silent.
"I never knew my parents," Luke murmured. "My aunt and uncle raised me. I loved them, but I always wanted to meet my father. Uncle Owen told me he was a navigator on a spice freighter. Obi-wan told me he was a great Jedi Knight." He stared sullenly into the blood-red grass. "When I fought Vader on Bespin, it destroyed all I'd been led to believe. I want to know who my father really is, what I can truly believe in."
Your father is a Dark Lord, Vader thought. Accept it. There is no changing it.
"Why don't you ask black-britches?" asked Metria, indicating Vader.
"How can I be sure he's being truthful?" Luke replied.
"Regardless of who your sire is," Chang pointed out, "there is a great difference between a father and a parent."
Luke stared at the centaur. "What do you mean?"
"Use logic, boy. Who raised you? Who fed and clothed you, educated you, protected you? The man who begot you may have been Lord Vader, or he may have been another man. But the man who raised you... there is no question as to his identity."
"Uncle Owen," Luke realized. "Yes. I suppose he was a father of sorts to me."
"And you may still have questions regarding your biological parents," Chang went on. "But for now, accept that your adoptive caretakers are as close as you'll come."
Luke nodded gravely. He strode toward the dreamcatcher and passed through.
The scenery on the opposite side of the portal became desert, and Luke's gray Rebel jumpsuit became black Jedi robes. He knelt before a trio of familiar-looking grave markers -- the ones that existed just outside the Lars homestead, one belonging to Vader's mother. But a fourth marker had been erected, dedicated to Owen and Beru Lars. Luke bowed gently before the headstone, then stood, took a lightsaber from his belt, saluted, and slowly walked away.
The scene vanished, showing Wara, Chang, Jenny, and Luke standing together beyond the dreamcatcher.
"Who's next?" asked Luke.
"Your turn, iron man," Metria told Vader.
Vader braced himself. He walked forward and passed through the portal. There was a slight resistance, as if he'd just broken through a force field.
A warning alarm, audible only to him, blared from his life-support systems. His respirator was malfunctioning! Sithspawn! Of all times to develop a glitch in his hardware! But before he could respond to the alarm, he felt first one system shut down, then another. His armor, normally his link to life, was betraying him.
But strangely, he didn't feel as if he was dying. Truth be told, he'd never felt better.
Dazed, he raised his right hand and slowly, wonderingly, pulled off the glove. His arm had been restored, a flesh-and-blood limb replacing the cursed cybernetic replica. He flexed the fingers, reveling in the sensations of muscles and tendons tugging against bone, of cool air against his skin, of his pulse drumming gently through veins in his wrist.
His heart... it beat naturally, unregulated by machinery. His lungs inflated and deflated without aid. His legs were no longer pillars of circuits and metal struts, but muscle and bone. He was a droid-man no longer, but had been restored by powers beyond comprehension.
Perhaps, as his mask was no longer necessary, he could be rid of it once and for all. He reached for the tiny, nearly invisible clasps at the base of his neck...
The transition back to reality was cruelly abrupt. His armor seized control of his body again. He was back with Metria in Xanth's dream realm, once again a cyborg.
"No!" he screamed, not wanting the illusion to end.
"What was that?" asked Jenny. "I couldn't tell..."
"He was able to breathe on his own," Luke observed. "He didn't need the mask."
"That's your heart's desire?" Metria said in disbelief.
Vader clenched both fists tightly. Tears streamed beneath his helmet. He might as well tell them. They'd seen enough that they should know the rest.
"You don't know what it's like," he snarled, "to look at the world through a mask, knowing you can never remove it. To never know the touch of another's hand, or feel the breeze in your face, or breathe deeply and freely without the aid of a machine. To be forever... a droid. A machine-man. A freak."
Chang pawed the ground with his forehooves. "The freak part of that I know very well."
"And I," Wara added.
"Perhaps, one day, you can be healed completely," Luke suggested. "Health technology is always improving. But for now..."
Vader knew the answer. He could only accept his fate as a cyborg. How deeply that cut! But it was his only choice. Again he attempted to brave the dreamcatcher.
The others' eyes were wide as he emerged from the opposite side of the dreamcatcher. What had they seen? It was no use asking. Imbrium had sworn them all to silence.
"Metria?" asked Jenny. "You coming?"
"Demons don't dream," Metria replied.
"Of course they do," Luke countered.
"We don't dream because we don't sleep," she told him. "We simply go into stasis for a time every so often. It works for us."
"But you must have a heart's desire," said Luke.
"Sure," she replied. "To get this dumb game over with so I can go back to stirring up mischief and flashing my panties to any male I fancy."
Luke rolled his eyes. "Sorry I asked."
"Then go through the dreamcatcher so we can move on," Vader ordered.
She snorted and marched through.
A youthful giggle halted her in her tracks. A young child had appeared in a swirl of smoke next to her, grinning lovingly. Metria's eyes sparkled, and she squatted and embraced the toddler, smiling herself. There was such tenderness in her expression, such warmth, that Vader wondered if he was viewing the same demoness that had accompanied them this far.
Then the scene ended, leaving Metria on the side of the portal opposite the others.
"What the !!!! was that?" she shrieked, turning the grass around her a lurid shade of pink and startling three angelfish out of the sky. They were unused to such words, coming from a far loftier plane than Metria's term had suggested.
"Your heart's desire," Wara marveled. "It's to have a child."
"Nuh-UH!" she protested. "Who wants a brat?"
"Evidently you do," Vader remarked.
"But I don't!" she countered. "I'm a soulless demon. How can I love a child? It's impossible!"
"Then that's your desire," Chang pointed out. "To obtain a soul so you are capable of loving your offspring."
"But -- but -- but I don't want a soul!" she sputtered. "That would ruin all my fun! I wouldn't be able to make mischief and summon the stork at random anymore!"
"Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to achieve our heart's desires," Luke told her, and his tone suggested that he knew that from experience.
"All right, all right, all right!" Metria screamed, stamping her foot like a two-year-old. "So I've always wanted to know what it's like to cuddle a baby, to love someone, to feel joy and pain and emotion! Demon's don't know that stuff! The only emotions we know are boredom and the brief sense of satisfaction we get from a prank gone right or a stork-summoning session! What am I missing? Why do you mortals have it so good? And I'll never know, because who wants to share their soul with a... a stupid lusty speech-impeded demoness?!" She ended the sentence with a snort, her nose and mouth briefly assuming the shape of a pig's snout.
"Calm down, Metria," Luke urged.
"Why?" she demanded.
"Maybe someday you'll find someone willing to give you half of their soul," Jenny suggested. "But for now, you'll just have to accept being a regular demon."
"I don't wanna accept it," she pouted.
"You have no choice," Vader replied.
With a weary sigh she flounced through the dreamcatcher a second time.
A new scene appeared in the portal. It showed Metria and a human man kneeling and clasping hands over an altar in a foreboding-looking castle. A fearsome demon ("That's Grossclout," Jenny whispered) appeared to be officiating while a winged goblin girl, an elf, and a human man looked on. Vader could make no sense of the image.
Then Metria joined the others on the other side of the dreamcatcher.
"So what'd I miss?" she inquired.
"We can't tell you," Luke replied.
"Curses."
There was a jolt, and they all found themselves back in Xanth's material realm. Compared to what they had just seen in the gourd, it seemed almost normal. Imbrium's hazy outline stood nearby. Nada, who had curled her serpentine body around the hypnogourd plant to break their trances, smiled.
"You'll find a game-approved campsite just past the geome-tree grove," she told them. "Congratulations. You passed the challenge."
"Bye, Imbrium!" Wara exclaimed, waving, as the day mare galloped off.
"Are you sure you can't tell me what you saw the second time I went through?" begged Metria.
"We are sure, Metria," Vader replied firmly.
"Why are you such a grouch?" she demanded. "Did you leave your sense of fun back in Mundania or what?"
"Shut up," he snapped.