Chapter Seven

While drifting off to sleep after their lovemaking, Blade hit on what seemed a good way of showing Narlena what was happening to her city and her people: take her out into the city, through it, even out into the country if possible. The Dreamers who wandered around most freely during their Wakings apparently only went out at night. Did their long years in the vaults make them light-sensitive, or was it psychological? Did the darkness make it possible for them to continue living in a lesser sort of Dream world, even during their Waking? Perhaps. But it certainly made them easier prey for the night-prowling Wakers. Blade knew that if he could get just a few thousand-or possibly even a few hundred-of the Dreamers organized and willing to move by day, he would have a powerful force to hurl against the Wakers.

To move, and also to fight by day. Teaching them to fight would be an even knottier problem than persuading the Dreamers to give up their shelter of darkness. He had already asked Narlena why the mobs of the poor had been able to make such rapid progress against the security troops. Didn't the security troops have much better weapons? Hardly, she had replied-there had been no wars in Pura for centuries. The art of making any weapons more advanced than clubs and swords and spears was gone, although there were books and tapes in the secret libraries of the scholars. And the people of Pura had hoped that with the weapons, the knowledge of war and violence had also vanished into history and legend. Blade laughed grimly at that. He had pointed out that people are quite willing to fight and quite able to kill if they think there is something worth fighting over-as the Wakers obviously did. Obviously, that point had never occurred to Narlena. Blade saw the smile vanish from her face and a thoughtful expression replace it.

But giving back to the Dreamers the ability to fight for their city was not the immediate problem. At the moment there was only one Dreamer who knew and trusted him, and he would have to work on her before she would help him seek out other Dreamers. With this before him, Blade drifted off to sleep.

After breakfast the next morning Blade checked his weapons while Narlena tried to find better clothes for him. None of hers would even remotely fit him; he was a foot taller than she and proportionately broader. Eventually he went out into the morning, not much better-dressed than he had been when he came into the cellar two nights before. He wore one of her kilts, sliced into two pieces and wrapped around his waist, as an improvised loincloth and two of her tunics roughly tied together as an equally improvised cloak. More strips cut from yet a third tunic bound his feet. Blade knew that he looked more like a stage beggar than a warrior, but at least this raggle-taggle outfit would help keep the wind out and the dust off.

When he reached the surface after clambering over the pile of rubble in front of the door to stand in the street, there was neither dust nor wind. The storm that had driven him into the shelter of Narlena's building had deposited the dust so, that the abandoned buildings and even the scattered and piled rubble had a fresh, clean look in the morning light. And the air in the street was as still as it had been in the cellar. A faint undernote of coolness told of a chilly night just ended and of one yet to come. Climbing the pile of rubble, Blade saw that all signs of the first night's battle were gone. Then he scrambled back down, reentered the building, and descended the stairs to Narlena's vault.

Narlena was still nude. She stretched catlike when she saw him and giggled at his appearance. «Anyone who sees you, you will not need to fight them. They will be laughing so hard, they will not be able to do anything to you.»

«Possibly. But I prefer to rely on these.» He hefted his spear and sword. «The Wakers are not just enemies in a Dream. They are real, and if we meet any we will need real weapons to kill them.»

Narlena caught his use of the word «we.» The gaiety vanished from her face and voice. «You want me to go out with you? In the daylight? Why?»

«To see the real world, Narlena. To see it and feel it, without being afraid of the Wakers. They sleep by day. You told me so yourself.» He was speaking in short, simple sentences, keeping his voice low, as if he were trying to reassure a frightened child. And Narlena looked like one, that was for sure. She was pale; her lower lip trembling in spite of the efforts she was obviously making to control it, her hands clenched. The thought of being out in the real world under the light of day apparently frightened her more than the danger-even the near certainty of encountering Wakers by night.

«No,» she said in a voice that was nearly a moan. «No. I can't. You-what are your people like, that they do not fear the light?»

«We do not Dream, Narlena. I have told you that before! Your people fear daylight only because you have all Dreamed so much that you have grown weak, weak and silly!» The anger in Blade's voice was not entirely feigned. He reached down, caught her by both arms, and jerked her to her feet. He snatched up her clothes with one hand, holding onto her with the other, and said, «You are going to come with me and look at your city in the daylight. Perhaps then you will see what has happened to it, what your Dreams have done to it!» He scooped her feet out from under her and lifted her in his arms as easily as he might have lifted a child, then strode out of the vault and toward the stairs to the surface.

Narlena lay passive and rigid in his arms as he climbed the stairs and scrambled over the rubble that lay piled across the door. Once outside and facing south, toward the bridge and the open country beyond, Blade lowered her to the ground and stood holding her with his arms crossed over her breasts. He held her tightly, keeping her facing toward the country her people had abandoned in favor of their Dreams.

For several minutes her eyes remained closed and her breathing so shallow that Blade began to wonder if the shock of being dragged out into the feared daylight had done her some real physical harm. Then her breathing grew stronger, and her eyes, after a few preliminary tentative blinks, opened and stared out across the rubble, the overgrown bridge, and the green hills to the blue sky above. He felt her shiver and tremble in his arms.

«There is so-so much to it,» she said in a small, uncertain voice.

«What do you mean-so much? This is nothing unusual. I have seen days far more beautiful than this. (He certainly had. An April day at his Cornish cottage, with Zoe laughing beside him in the grass until he bent over and stopped her mobile red lips with a kiss that rapidly moved on to other things, with the scent of grass and lilacs, the distant rumble of the surf on the rocky foreshore. .) Your Dreams must be very silly if they can't give you anything like this.»

«They can't. They don't try to. They give you so much-so much. .»

Blade suspected that she was trying to say «more» but couldn't quite manage it. Instead she fell silent, then raised her head and began looking about her. Confident that she could stand by herself, Blade unclasped his arms from around her and stepped back a pace. He let her turn freely in all directions as her eyes roamed about the distant landscape, the sky with its drifting white clouds, and the city all around her. At that point he saw her turn pale again and tremble so hard that for a moment he thought she was going to collapse. Seeing her city in the glare of full daylight with no darkness to soften the harsh outlines of what it had become was something new for her.

She did not fall, but it was several minutes before the trembling stopped. Licking dry lips, she spoke. «What have the Wakers done to Pura?»