The Tale of the Normal Newts. (Part 2 of 2)

From: Nick Fortune <nxf_at_uniplex.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:08:11 GMT


It wasn't easy to drag your father away from his second fight near fight of the day, but I did though he kept up a muttered monologue about "lousy, dishonest, sneaking, conniving traders most of the way back down. Now that the the light had dawned on me, it was a lot easier finding my way around in the town, and I set off back to the inn we'd visited earlier. Eventually your dad stopped cussing me for long enough to ask where we were going. He wasn't too impressed with that idea either.

At the inn, no one seemed to remember us from earlier on. This time I paid the asking price on the ale without quibbling (two sivers this time, so maybe they did remember) and found a quiet spot to talk.

"It's like this: You remember the tower? Well it's a dragon".

"It's a tower shaped like a dragon. So what?"

"No, the tower is a dragon. A dream dragon".

"What?"

"Keep your voice down. This is a dragon that is dreaming that it is a
town. It's dreaming it's a town in the days of Empire of the Wyrm's Friends, and that's why there is no moon. We've walked into the dream, and since the dreamer doesn't remember the moon from the EWF, we can't see it from inside the dream. It also means that the storm is probably still out there and just hidden the way the moon is".

"How do you know this?" asked your father.

"Well, partly it was what that priest said about the Cosmic Dragon.
There's better than that though. Do you remember that picture I brought from the Holy Country once?"

"The one that looked like an old woman or a young maiden, depending on
how you looked at it?"

"That one. Well this town is just like that. Look one way and it's a
town. Look another way, and it's a bloody huge dragon. Go outside and try it if you don't believe me".

"Tell me the rest, first. What should we do - wait for it to wake up?"

"I think that would be a bad idea. Suppose the dream ends the same way
as the EWF did? I don't think leaving is an option either. We should have passed the gate we came in by on our way here. I couldn't find it".

"You mean it's sealed us in?"

"I don't think it did it deliberately. I think the gate appeared so the
dragonewts could be helpful to a couple of humans, they way they were in old Empire. Once we were in though the gate served no purpose in the dream, so the dragon forgot it and the gate went away".

"What does that leave us with - waking it up?"

"Well yes. The touble is waking up the right dragon", I said.

"Eh? How many of them are they?"

"Well, there's only one, really. But there's the real dragon that's
dreaming this dream, and then there's the dream dragon, who also looks to be asleep. If we wake the real one, the town and the newts vanish. If we get it wrong though, we might just bring on the Dragonkill War part of the dream".

"And I suppose you got an idea how we can do that", says your father.

"Well, I think so".

"You think so? What happens if you're wrong?" he asked.

"Then brother, you get to practice your dragon slaying".

"All right, we'll try it your way first. What's the plan?"

"I was thinking, suppose you were leading a warband. There's a battle
likely to start at dawn, and you haven't slept in days. You really need a few hours shut-eye, but you don't dare oversleep. What do you do?"

"I get someone reliable to wake me up early".

"Well, I think that's why the bell is there. I think the real dragon set it up
there to be rung at a certain time, so he wouldn't sleep too long".

Your father frowned at me. "Can they do that?"

"They can do all this", I gestured around us. I don't know what they
_can't_ do. Besides, it would explain how the bell 'ends the world'. Once the dragon wakes, this town and everyone in the dream cease to exist".

"Ring the bell and everyone here dies?"

"Apart from us, cause we weren't dreamed in the first place".

Your dad considered this. "Small loss", he said eventually. "They were never real in the first place".

"Hum. If that priest was right, the same could be said of us".

"What was that?"

"Never mind", I said. You always said you weren't afraid to die, didn't
you? I suggest we get a few hours rest and give that storm a chance to move on. Come sunrise we'll go and see about that bell. I doubt they'll let us near the thing, so what I suggest is you keep the guards busy while I do the ringing part".

"There's finally someone I can hit? Praise be to Urox!"

"That's settled then. Let's get some sleep. Big day tomorrow; we have
to destroy the world".

Early the next morning saw the two of us climbing the central tower. Once you could see the dragon as well as the town, there was a sort of logic to the street layout and it didn't take us long at all this time.

When we reached the platform, there were still a few 'newts milling about, but the majority of them had gone off to whatever passes for home if you're a dragonewt. There were still a couple guards by the stairs though. We wandered over trying to look casual.

"Hey fellows", I saud when we got close. "Do you like poetry? My
brother here has some he'd like to recite for you. He made it up himself".

"Oh, sure", said your father taking his cue. "Everyone likes poetry.
Listen to this:

	Wind of the desert,
	My enemies now stand before me,
	Grant me your strength that I may destroy them,
	Grant me your courage that I shall not falter
	Grant me your rage that I show no mercy"

He started off making out like he was a great poet, but as usual with his battle song, he didn't get beyond the first line before the rage took him. I knew what was coming of course so I had stepped back, and then once he was off, I dodged past them all and sprinted off up the stairs. From the sounds of things, I'd say your father was causing all sorts of commotion, which I suppose is what you expect if you invite a storm bull to a party. I didn't have time to watch though; those stairs were steep.

It's the always, little things that always trip you up. In this case it was the gap between the stairs and the platform. Wasn't much, no more than six foot to jump, but I wasn't expecting it, and it gave me pause. Down below I could see your dad had dropped one of the guards, but the other one was still going strong and there were more arriving from all over the place, so I jumped, and slipped and ended up hanging onto the bell to keep from falling off the platform. It was bigger than it looked from below. As I grabbed it, the clapper inside struck the side of the bell, but I must have been muffling it hanging on like that, cause all I heard was this dull "dunk" noise, I knew that was never going to do the trick. Then the bell swung back again and I couldn't hold on, and fell off the platform. And as the ground rushed up to meet me, the bell swang back again, and tolled a single sweet note, and everything faded away to white. Happily, everything included the ground in this case.

It took a moment for my head to clear. When it did, everything was still white like I was floating in thick fog. There was however this huge dragon that front of me, and I could see that just fine. Except it was more like he was inside my head, or maybe it was a bit like both and not quite like either. I guess you had to be there.

The dragon looked at me, and I could feel how ancient and powerful it was. Then it spoke.

"Little human", it said. "You have dared to awaken me from my slumbers".

"Little human, I admire your courage. As reward I shall answer three questions
truthfully".

"Little human. Your presumption must be punished. After you have your answers,
I shall devour you".

"Little human, ask you questions. Already I grow impatient".

My mind was racing. I thought of every clever trick and fast deal I'd ever pulled or heard of, looking for something to get me off the hook. Then I looked into those awful eyes and knew that nothing like that was going to work with this customer. I needed more information, and I had three questions to try and get it. I could either take a wild stab in the dark and hope to get lucky, or I generalise and try and cut to the heart of the matter. I'm the plain spoken sort by nature, so I decided to keep it simple.

"So", I said. "What's it all about, then? What's going on?"

"Little human", said the dragon. "You already have the answer to that
question".

	"'The Cosmic Dragon unborn lies, still sleeping in her shell,
	And in that sleep, She dreams the world, and dreams us all as well'.

"Since you failed to understand this the first time, I shall provide two
proofs to aid your comprehension.

"The first proof is this: Dreams are illusion. All illusions that are
created in that which you call 'reality' do themselves become real for as long as the illusion does persist. Thus your reality is but a dream. This is the truth of the Illusion Rune.

"The second proof is this: When the Cosmic Dragon dreams of dragons,
and when in her dream those dragons themselves dream, that which they dream also becomes reality. This is the proof that the Dragon is the Dreamer".

"I further tell you that when the Cosmic Dragon shall at last hatch,
all of dragonkind that she has dreamed will be re-constituted in the new reality she shall create. All else is distraction and therefore irrelevant. That is all you will ever need to know about 'what is going on'.

"Little human, I await your second question".

As Eurmal once said to Orlanth: Well, _that_ didn't work. I thought maybe if I narrowed the scope of my question.

"Very well. You were dreaming now of a time we call the Empire of the
Wyrm's Friends. There was a big secret there that was lost to humanity. What was that all about?"

I asked the question, and the dragon told me. Not in words though. It was more like the knowledge was poured into my brain. It was as though I could feel thoughts and ideas being moved around inside my head to make way for all this new stuff and it seemed like it would go on for ever. After about an Age or two the dragon spoke again.

"Little human, do you now understand?" And I did.

I can't explain it to you. It's like the words or the language is the wrong shape for the ideas, but I knew then and I still know now. It isn't an easy knowledge to own sometimes.

"Little human", the dragon said. "Ask your final question".

I reckoned I was just pure out of luck here. My head was spinning with all this new lore, and neither of the answers I'd had had given me the least clue. The fact of it was, I thought to myself, that I'd woken the wrong dragon, and now I would die. And then I remembered a dream I once had where I realised that I was dreaming, so I asked:

"Answer me truly then - are you awake?"

"Little human, I ... I am asleep". The dragon sounded surprised by
this. "I am asleep and merely dreaming that I have awakened". And the dragon's presence began to fade. See, every time I've ever realised I was dreaming, I've been so surprised that I woke right up. I was just gambling that it was the same wih dragons.

"Little human, you are clever. Your life is spared". Then it was gone.

The next thing I knew I was lying in the dust. No storm, no dragon, no town. Your father was close by, and I spent a bit of time healing him up again. He'd had a close run with those 'newts, it seemed. Then when he was feeling better, he showed his appreciation by cussing me out. Then he didn't say anything for a bit. At last he says, "So you woke the dragon, then."

"Seems like", I said.

"So what do you think will happen now?"

"Well I get the distinct impression that something as big and old as
that might take its own good time betwen waking and getting up, but I reckon before too long we'll have a new dragon appears somewhere. Probably in Dragon Pass".

"Hmmph. I just hope it eats a few lunars when it does", he says.

And that, boy, is pretty much it.

The events in my uncle's tale happened when I was about 10 years old. It was shortly after that that my father, once again out in Prax, found another storm and this time no one stopped him when he walked into its heart. He never came out again. I think Kevil felt guilty about that, though I can't really see that it was his fault in any way, but I think that was why he told me the tale. To the best of my knowledge, he never told it to anyone else.

I few people must have suspected something of the truth though. See, he kept that secret knowledge, and he kept the trick of talking to dragonewts. Properly talking, that is. Often he'd trade with them, and one time he had a wyrm come and talk with him for a couple of days. Of course by this time he was acting pretty strange, and everyone said he had gone mad. I'm not so sure about that though. I think that the dragon could give him information, but not understanding. The understanding of what he'd been taught by the dragon had to grow slowly over the years, and as it did, I think my uncle grew more and more draconic in his thinking and more and more alien to us. The end came one day when a party of 'newts came to see him with a noble at their head. He talked with them a while, and then told me to settle his affairs and set out with the dragonewts, never to return. He said something about a chance to get himself an Egg.

As to my father, I like to think that he was being Called that day in the wastes. He couldn't go then because of an obligation to his brother, but as soon as was settled he went back to heed the call of his god. He was always telling me about heroes when I was young, so I like to think he made it through to his Eternal Battle and is even now killing choas alongside the Bull.

Who knows, maybe someday my father will return, bigger, meaner and nastier than ever and roll up 'the whole of the stinking lunar empire right that way back to Glamour', just the way he used to say. Aye, and maybe someday my uncle Kevil will sit on the throne of the Inhuman King. Right now I'd settle for that dragon to wake up and eat a few regiments of lunars.

As Uncle Kevil used to say: A man's allowed to dream.


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