Chapter 6: The First Act
A cold wind swept through the Valen province, biting into skin so pale it seemed to drink the light from the morning sky. His obsidian hair, a dark river against the pallor of his neck, danced to the rhythm of his steps. In his silver eyes lay a glint of measured awe and profound boredom.
In the distance, past the soot-stained chimneys and leaning rooftops, stood the towering monolith of the commoners' district: the Giant Clock at the square. Vortagem, soaring high above as a speck of intelligent shadow, had already charted his course.
He passed other people, their threadbare clothes and sunken cheeks mirroring his own disheveled state. They were the lowest caste—beggars and grave-pickers. A few cast glances his way, a flicker of apprehension in their eyes before they instinctively looked away, as if they had unconsciously witnessed the presence of a higher power and knew to avert their gaze.
He scoffed internally. Not only had the Dream descended among mortals, but he now walked amidst the lowliest of them. How revolting. Yet, all this was a transient tribulation.
The buildings were a testament to weary endurance: structures of worn stone and timber, their roofs sagging under the weight of decades, windows patched with waxed cloth or boarded up. His destination was one such place, a bakery whose sign, 'Myre's Hearth,' swung from a single rusted chain. His footsteps quickened. This was where the mortal Mephis had found his only companions. From the memories Vortagem had shown him, an old widow and her daughter had occasionally offered the dreamless boy leftovers, a charity he repaid with meager earnings from his work at the prestigious library.
As he approached the dilapidated shop, a wave of scent washed over him—the rich, warm aroma of roasted flour, melted margarine, and yeast. It was an ironic bastion of quality in a district of poverty. Through the grimy windows, he could see it was crowded with people of his own wretched class, dotted with a few better-dressed patrons slumming for a taste of authenticity. His stomach growled in response, a vulgar, insistent demand. The smell was… more pleasant than he had heralded.
Perhaps this mortal life would not be entirely without its novelties.
"O Master, I advise an adjustment in your linguistics to those deemed suitable for a mortal of this stature. I plead mercy; I mean no imposition." The voice in his mind was feminine and ethereal now. Vortagem had chosen its precipice. Quite selective. But her words held truth, a transition he had already made. He had not only adopted Mephis's memories but had submerged his own vast consciousness beneath the boy's limited persona. To impose himself as the Dream here would be an obstacle to his odyssey.
"There is no need for worry, dear Vortagem," he thought back. "I am not the Dream here. I am Meredith. And as him, I shall act."
He pushed open the wooden door, the bell above jingling a frail announcement. He kept the brim of his tattered hat low.
Inside was a bustling warmth. A line of customers shuffled before a counter, their faces etched with the weariness of dawn. Behind a glass display, loaves of bread were arrayed like treasures: dense, dark-crusted boules dusted with flour, long, slender batons, and small, glazed buns that gleamed with a sticky, honeyed sheen. His eyes found the girl, Auriel, her dark hair tied back, revealing a face with sharp, intelligent features and startling aqua-blue eyes that drifted to him for a moment before flicking back to her customer.
He sighed. Mephis's peer. His only friend. And now, his burden.
He waved a hand, catching the eye of the older woman. Her face was a roadmap of aged lines, yet it shone with a resilient, forty-year vigor. Her dark hair was tied in a bun beneath a faded scarf—a memento of her late husband. She was engrossed, sliding hot, fresh loaves from a peel onto the display.
As he approached and lifted his hood, he forced a casual tone. "Good day, Old Lady Myre." He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, plastering a smile on his pale features.
When her eyes found him, they widened. She rushed from behind the counter, her expression a mix of empathy and apprehension as she stood before his suddenly more imposing figure.
"Mephis…?" Her voice was laced with uncertainty, her eyes scanning him as if he were a wronged marionette.
He, even as Dream, found it belittling and uneasy. Yet, in the tides of pride, he endured.
"It's me, ma'am, I…" His voice caught short as her rough, flour-dusted hands palmed his cheeks, steadying him when he instinctively flinched.
How dare this puny mortal—
"Are you okay?" she interrupted, her words tumbling out. "The Inquisitors… they came from the Noble Realm. They were asking for you." Her eyes searched his face, and he gulped under the scrutiny. "And… is this really you? You seem… taller. More dignified. Your voice is deeper, same as your eyes. And your skin is pale… too pale. By Saint Peryl, have you been eating? Are you sick?"
Her barrage of questions was a plague upon his sentience. He sighed inwardly.
His hands came up to frame her shoulders, staring into her worried eyes. "I'm fine. Truly, Lady Myre," he muttered, just as his stomach roared with a guttural hunger. He offered a crumbling smile. "And a little… hungry."
Her expression softened into near laughter. "You boys your age need to eat a lot," she chided, disappearing behind the counter and returning not with stale scraps, but two sizzling, floppy loaves dripping with margarine.
He salivated, a disgusting, mortal reflex he quickly suppressed.
"It's on the house," she said, pressing the paper-wrapped bundle into his hands. "Mind sticking around? Auriel's almost done. She's headed to the same destination as you—the library."
He muttered a low thanks, his fingers closing around the warm, greasy paper with a hungry instinct he despised. He settled on a wooden bench near the window, the queue of customers now thinning to three.
He was yet to begin the first step of his long-term plan. He needed the Ascended Angel's essence, and quickly. To wait seven days was to heed the decree of Fate, and the Dream heeded no such commands. But since this was the last time he would be seen as Mephis, it would not be a waste to bid his farewells.
He clutched one of the loaves. The heat slightly scalded his palm, but the pang in his stomach overshadowed it. He brought it to his mouth, his teeth crunching through the crust. Flavor, a sensation of shocking complexity he had never known existed, erupted on his tongue. It was a satisfaction more immediate than the reverence of infinites or the bows of gods. Such profound ecstasy in such simplicity.
He devoured the first loaf in ravenous mouthfuls, crumbs plastering his face. He was reaching for the second when a slightly folded sheet of paper collided against his cheek.
Instinctively, he grabbed it. His gaze shifted sideways to see the puny feminine friend of Mephis now seated across from him.
How insulting.
But the earlier display of goodness tempered his revulsion.
His eyes moved from the loaf to the paper. He straightened it. Drawn in black ink, colored with care, was the face of Mephis Meredith. Below it, stamped in furious red ink, was the word: WANTED. REWARD: 4,000 VALS. The cause was a detailed sketch of a golden necklace—the one the petty thief had stolen. The artist had gotten the jawline wrong; the dreamless mortal had a more streamlined jaw.
"Just what were you thinking?" the girl, Auriel, muttered, her hands clutching her head. "Stealing something of that value? You could spend a decade in prison."
So, this was why the Inquisitors, the patrol officers of Valen, hunted him.
"Does Old Lady Myre know?" he asked, resting his face in his palms.
She sighed, a heavy sound. "No. I made sure to pull the posters down around here. Only a few folks know." Her aqua eyes left his to scan him from head to toe. "I've never been one to anticipate your antics, but why?"
Why had the mortal done it? The memory surfaced: Auriel was leaving, discreetly, to undergo Hypnoapotheosis with the Church of Hallowed Beginnings. Mephis, planning his own journey to find his parents, wanted to give her a proper send-off gift. A final, desperate gesture of a boy who could not dream, for a girl who dreamed too much.
He could have just wished for it. He could have dreamt of it. And He, the Dream, could have granted it. And yet, Mephis had remained insistently dreamless.
"Are you even listening?" Her voice jolted him back to the cramped bakery. "So, what will you do now? I suggest you leave Valen for a while. I'll come find you when I return."
"I'll take your suggestion to heart, Auriel," he said with a shrug. After all, this was the last time he would appear before her as the dreamless. "You haven't told her." He glanced toward the counter. "You don't plan to, do you? You should."
He watched Old Lady Myre offer a wavering smile from across the counter were she tendered more loaves of bread..Such a kindred spirit.The Dream pays back acts of Gratitude,should he fully ascend, he would grant her her dearest wish:To See Her Husband Again..
"She probably wouldn't let me go," Auriel muttered, her head hanging low, hands clasped tightly.
"You wish to give the slums a better life. To make Valen an utopia." He spoke the words he knew Mephis would have said, a final, fleeting gratitude for the body he now occupied. His eyes, however, were again entrapped by the wanted poster. The pieces of a plan, audacious and simple, clicked into place within the infinite calculus of his mind..He sent an Subconscious order to Vortagem..
"The slums deserve a place in the Economical Hierarchy, Mephis," she insisted, her gaze fixed on him. She sighed in frustration. "Are you even listening?"
He raised his eyes to hers. Oh, he was listening. She dreamed of a revolution. The same as he, the Dream, willed. His was merely on a grander, existential scale.
To think a mortal bore even a strand of similarity to him. How credible.
But her plans held no primary value for him now. Before him lay an opportunity. A perfect leeway to take his first step. In that simple moment, he beheld a shred of gratitude for the dreamless mortal. His petty crime was the perfect instrument.
The First Act of the Dream in the mortal realm.
He glanced at the mortal girl, who was now gazing at him as if he were a weirdo.
"What?" she asked, uneasy under his sudden, focused attention.
He leaned forward slightly, his voice a low, purposeful murmur that cut through the bakery's homely noise.
"Auriel… how would you like to earn four thousand Vals?"