A Warrior of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

nightstage as a place somewhere above the waking world, but in time he's learned that it was more of a separateness , existing in the same time and space and yet never touching. Sometimes he caught himself looking for echoes of the nightstage in the waking world, but had never found any. Feran took another slow look around now, and for a different reason.
    Nothing. No dreams here but my own .
    That wasn’t exactly true, Feran knew. At least not yet. Since a dream is at heart an illusion created instinctively by the nightsoul, the easiest way to travel the nightstage — once you mastered the trick of it — was not to dream at all, but rather leave the nightsoul unfettered by dream. Traveling, questing from within your own dream was trickier still, but it could be done. It was also more dangerous. If you went too deep there was a chance of awakening things best left to slumber.
    Feran stood alone, a distinct identity able to move through the Nightstage at will. This was what his training prepared him for, and this was what Feran forced himself to surrender now. As a Traveler, Feran knew better than most that the secret ways that led to the heart of Somna's dream were not to be found in a place. That left one direction, one road only.
    “All roads lead to one road.”
    Feran smiled, remembering old Aesyd's exasperation. "'All roads lead to one road.' Master, when will you teach me what that means?" "Student, when will you learn it?"
    Feran had finally learned. He took strength from that knowledge and forced himself to relax, to let his separateness go. It took a moment. Walking the nightstage was not the same as dreaming there, and he'd allowed himself that seemingly childish luxury so seldom over the years that now he found himself having to stop for a few moments and try to remember how. Then the mists receded, a faint glow came up around him like a slow dawn rising.
    Feran stood in his old cell at the Traveler Monastery at Colthys. He kept the scene static for a moment as he tried to judge how well he'd managed to hold part of himself aloof. That was the tricky part — given free rein, a dream tended to serve its own needs until the dreamer was no more in control of it than a babe trying to control a rutting stallion. Feran moved in the dream, and at the same time kept just a bit of identity and will separate from the dream. He watched himself look around in pleasant recognition of his surroundings, and wasn't at all surprised to find his long-dead teacher waiting there, sitting in Feran's only chair and shaking his head in amused wonder.
    "Why are you here, Lad? More important, why am I here?"
    "Because I'm dreaming you," Feran said.
    Aesyd shrugged. "Me only dead a few years and you get arrogant. In the old days I'd have given you something to dream about."
    Feran smiled. "I remember."
    It was more common to dream, in his apprentice days when the nightstage was still difficult and dreaming still easy. But Aesyd had a habit of looking in on his nightly rounds, and let him catch you dreaming about him , good or bad, and you'd find yourself in a nightmare quicker than you could wake up.
    "You still haven't answered the first question. I'm waiting."
    Feran felt a little foolish, since there was enough of himself playing the detached observer to realize that he was having a discussion with himself. He started to interfere, hesitated. It was a tricky business — the dream had its own needs and its own way of getting them, and adjustments were for when there was no other way to regain control. He held back, watching. And listening.
    "I'm not your apprentice now, Aesyd. If you want to know, it'll cost you a little walk."
    "Lovely night for it," the old man said, rising. "Lead on."
    Feran looked around. "There doesn't seem to be a door."
    Aesyd smiled cryptically. "Allow me." He pointed to the far wall of the cell and there was a door where none had been before. Feran walked up, opened it. He didn't need to look at what was