Hero of Dreams - By Brian Lumley Page 0,1

the weight of the other on his back and a lancing agony as a single drop of mordant poison burned through his clothing to the skin . .. then felt the horror kicked from him and heard its final hiss as the rescued man took both hands to his sword and hacked its cockroach head clean from its body.

Quickly, without a backward glance, Hero tugged his own weapon free of the scale-armored hound where it twitched and jerked among shale and lava fragments, then split its chitinous skull with a single stroke. The fight was finished, and only the moaning of the wind over the peaks remained: that and the panting of the men, and the nameless drip of the thin gray ichor which was the life-blood of these denizens of nightmare.

Now Hero turned to the other man, peering at him where he stood cleaning his weapon on his black jacket. The other looked back in turn, and gratitude shone in his eyes; but his breathing was ragged and he coughed painfully.

'They took you by surprise," Hero ventured.

"Eh?" the other finally grunted. "Yes, they did. Damned horrors! Didn't see 'em till they were on me. They don't hiss at all when they're tracking you-only when they have you cornered!"

"I wouldn't know," Hero answered. 'This is the first time I've come across them-I'm happy to say!" He touched a severed head with his fur-booted foot and turned it until starlight fell onto the faceted eyes, then grimaced at the way the thing seemed to stare at him even in death.

Then, headless as it was, one of the carcasses began to twitch and the hard carapace rattled on the rocks. Both men stepped back from the dead things and shivered-and not alone from the chill of the night air. Finally they turned more fully to one another and clasped hands in the manner of dreamland.

"In the village where I sometimes lodge, I'm known as Eldin," the dark-jacketed man told Hero. "Since Eldin is the old word for 'wanderer,' it suits me well enough. Of course, I've another name in the waking world ... at least, I think I have. And how are you called?"

"My name's Hero, David Hero. I haven't earned myself a dream-name yet, though I'm pretty well-traveled in the better known places."

"No dream-name, eh, David?" Eldin grinned and nodded as if he knew something special. "Just a fellow traveler from the waking world, eh? Well, there seem to be damn few of us about these days. And what brings you here?"

"I could ask the same of you," Hero answered, casting nervously about. "And I would if I didn't think this a funny sort of spot to be spending our time in idle chatter. Is there no place we can make ourselves at ease for the night?"

"I was making for a cave back there in the shadows when these damned things set on me," Eldin said. "I've a flint in my pocket and the makings in my pack, and we should be able to pick up a few dry sticks for a fire. What would you say to a cup of tea?" Hero caught a flash of grinning teeth in the darkness.

"I'd say that was a very kind offer," he answered. "Lead on, Eldin, and we'll pick up some sticks as we go."

"Now then," said Eldin when they sat on flat stones in a dry and sheltered cave and sipped their tea out of tiny silver cups, "you were going to tell me what you're doing here, on these unbeaten paths so far away from dreamland's towns and cities."

Hero shrugged. "I go where dreams take me. This time they brought me here."

"You're not an inveterate dreamer, then?"

"Well I am, yes, but my dreaming never seems to have much point to it-if you know what I mean. It's like I said: I go wherever my dreams take me. I have no anchor here, as you seem to have. No village where I board, no place to call home. I never seem to be here long enough to build up any sort of permanency. Come to think of it, I believe I'm pretty much the same in the waking world. When I'm there I can't remember much of this place, and when I'm here ..."

"You can't remember much of the other place, eh?"

"Only my name," Hero answered, "and that's about all."

"I always make a point," the other said, "of going down the seven hundred steps to the Gate of Deeper Slumber. I've found