Preludes & Nocturnes

[Marburg]

Previously...

Part I:

Sleep Of The Just

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[Marburg]

[font=Century Gothic]Preludes & Nocturnes

[font=Century Gothic]Part II:

[font=Century Gothic]Imperfect Hosts

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[Marburg]

All the classic tales have their opening line; This one is no different....

Once upon a time, In the beginning, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Somewhere within the Dreamscape, It was a dark and stormy night, ect...

"Don't be a moronic lump of blubbering, quaking, pathetic lard! Open the box! Unwrap it!" Said the thin man with the glasses and the hook nose.

"Uh, B-but it isn't my birthday." the fat one replied.

"Of course it isn't your birthday, Powderbrain! You don't have a birthday!"

"ummm. No. I, uh...don't, do I? You, uh, P-promise it isn't going to umm, explode? Promise?"

The thin one patted the fat one reassuringly on the shoulder, flashing a misfit's smile. "Now, why would I give you an exploding present? What kind of Brother would I be if I did that?"

"My kind of B-brother. The, uh, kind who kills me whenever he's uh, mad at me, or bored, or just in a lousy m-mood."

"Hehh!! Let's let fraternal bygones be bygones, eh, pudgy? Now..."

The skinny one with the hook nose grabbed his brother's collar and put that nose into the fat one's face and screamed with menace at top volume: "OPEN YOUR F***ING PRESENT!!"

He pulls a cleaver from his belt and menacingly raises it above his head...


::Knock, Knock::

"What was that?" the thin one said, turning his attention towards the sound.

"I uh, think it's someone at the d-door...Well, something at the door, anyway..." the fat one replied with relief.

Hook-nose sheathes his cleaver back into his belt and bolts out of the room towards the front door.

"D-don't you think we ought to umm, wait for a while?" the fat one said, following his sibling. "I, uhh, well..I mean...maybe it'll go away on it's own?"

"Who's there? Who is it?" the skinny one asked at the doorway.

"AAWURGK!!" came the reply from outside.

"It's Gregory." hook-nose said.

"M-maybe it's rhu-really something only pretending to be Gregory...Somethng big and Nuh-nasty!"

"Why would something big and nasty 'pretend' to be Gregory?...But still, just to be on the safe side," the skinny brother said, shoving his younger brother ahead of himself, "You can open the door!"

The plump brother opens the door only enough for a peek.

"Come to think of it," the skinny one says from a safe distance, "Greg is extraordinarily big and nasty in his own right...It is Gregory, isn't it?"

The fat one gazes in shock upon a gigantic, monstrous gargoyle standing in the doorway, holding something in it's mouth.

"Well?? spit it out gully-guts! What is it?" asked the other brother from across the room.

Gully-guts was momentarily speechless.

"Oh my god." he eventually muttered in shock. "It's Him Brother...He's...back!"

Gregory nudged open the door with his nose and released Onerios from his teeth, dropping the dream-god to the floor, squawking proudly, like a pet hoping to be rewarded with a treat.

"I duh-don't believe it...the Prince of Stories!" the plump one muttered.


[color=#000000]"...Help me...Please." the Dream-God muttered weakly before passing out.

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[Marburg]

'I awake in the darkness, too weak even to summon a light.'

'The air is musty, tired, old. It smells of lost dreams and rotten fabric.'

'Where am I?'

The fat one peeks into the bedroom cautiously, his face illuminated by the oil lamp he carries. "Hello? M-my Lord?"

"You. I know you. You're, uh..."

"I'm Abel, my Lord. From the 'first story.' The, er, 'Victim.'"

Relieved and encouraged, Abel enters the room and places the lamp upon the bedside table.

"...Yes, I do remember you. I'm sorry. It's been so long. Where are we?"

"This is my B-Brother's House of Mystery." He told his mending King. "Gergory, Uhm--That's Cain's gargoyle--He brought you here. He found you in the shifting zones."

"Yes. I was on my way to the Castle."

Suddenly feeling extremely intimidated, he begins to slowly back out of the room. "I-uh-I-uh-I'll tell Cain you're awake, Sire. He's umm...m-made you some food."

Abel turns and bolts out of the room, down the hallway and out of sight.

The Dream-King imagines the bedroom door closing on its own, and the bedroom door obeys, giving the master of the realm his privacy.

'I lay in the bed, feeling weaker than I have for eons...'

'...Remembering...'

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[Marburg]

'It was a dark and stormy nightmare...'

'Before my imprisonment, I knew, the journey would have meant nothing to me. I would not even have needed to travel.'

'But, weakened and exhausted, I stumbled through the fringes of the Dreamtime...'

'The dream I used to bind Burgess in eternal waking used up the last of my strength...I had to reach the Gates of Horn and Ivory...to reach my castle...but the way was hard, and I was far too weak.'

'I do not know how long I remained there, in the shifting zones. I remember the wind on my face, staring down at the Dreamscape below me...'

'...and then I was here.'

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[Marburg]

The Hook-nosed thin man enters the bedroom carrying a tray of warm food.

"Good evening your Highness, Prince Morpheus...I've made you some dinner. We'll soon have you back on your feet again in no time."

"You are Cain, aren't you?"

"That's me, yer Worship." He says to his Master. "Purveyor of Penny Dreadfuls, Shilling Shockers, Blood and Thunders and First-Rate Nightmares...Or, I was, anyway. Things have been strange since you've been gone."

Morpheus takes a sip of cold water. "Tell me, Cain...do you posses anything of mine? Anything I created?"

"Anything of yours?" he responds, avoiding eye contact with the Dream Lord. "I wouldn't think so...no...no, I definitely do not--"

"--Yes you do!" declared Abel as he enters the room. "B-both of us do! Our letters of commission, remember? They h-have his signature on them...he muh-made them."

Cain turns to Abel with a raised fist, furious. "You...button burster!" he screamed. "You low-down, spying, peeking, prying, butterfingered--"

"Fetch me these letters." commanded Morpheus, non-pulsed at Cain's display of rage towards his sibling. "Fetch me anything of mine."

"I have m-mine on me, Sire. And Cain has his, too." said Abel, as he moves carefully past his brother, offering the letter. "Here. Tuh-take it."


'Unrolling the parchment, I release something I created before the dawn of time, reabsorbing that fragment of myself I placed inside it.'

"Now...Cain: Your turn."

"Uhh, Mu-My Lord, uh, if it's not a f-foolish question...umm, uh..."

"What my brain-dead brother is so spectacularly failing to enunciate is this: Where have you been for so long, Lord? What were you doing?"
"Where have you been?"

"Where have I been?..."

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[Marburg]

"...I have been imprisoned."

Meanwhile, at the Rampwick Hospital for the Criminally Insane:

"Young man, please do not prevaricate. I wish to see my Son, and I wish to see him now."

"You must understand, Mrs, er--"

"Dee. Ethel Dee."

"Yes, well, this is most irregular, Mrs. Dee. Rampwick does not encourage visitors--"

"--This is my Son, John Dee." Mrs. Dee said, ignoring the words of the man across from her and pushing an old photograph of John across the desk.

"We do have a patient by that name, but again Madam, this is most irregular, and I'm afraid--"

"--Hmmph!" she interrupted. "Young fellow, I am ninety years of age. I haven't seen my son in over ten years and have traveled a long way in order to see him today."

"...And I will see him, or my attorneys will know why."


The pair head down to the cellar...

"Watch the steps! They can be slippery."

"I'm flabbergasted you couldn't bring John up to see me Mister Huntoon."

"It's Doc-tor. Dr. Huntoon. We can't risk letting him out. he's simply too dangerous." he replied. "He no longer sleeps, or dreams--in the normal sense of the word...and physically, he's quite debilitated..."

Once they reach the cell, Ethel Dee peers past the bars and into the shadows. "John?...Is that you?...John?"

"Mother...?" croaked the voice in the darkness. "I would have dreamed of you...if I could dream. It's been such a long time."

"What have you done to him?" she demanded of Dr. Huntoon. "What have you done?"

John rises to his feet. "Mother? You look so old. Things are so strange these days."

Lunging against the bars and into the light, he screams through rotted teeth. "Mother? THEY TOOK MY DREAMS AWAY FROM ME!!"

"Mrs. Dee? I'm afraid he's getting over-excited...we should go. Mrs. Dee? say goodbye..."

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[Marburg]

.......

"Guh-Goodbye. I-uh-I feel I ought to give you guh-good advice, and I-uh-I-uh--"

"Ohhh, shut up sponge-wit--can't you?" said Cain. "Goodbye, Sire!"

Morpheus walks up the floating stairs towards the top of the hill and shrinks off into the distance.

"There he goes. Shuh-shouldn't we have told him? About the castle, I mean? About what's happened to the Dreamtime?" Abel said, as he followed his brother back into the House of Mysteries.

"Why?" replied Cain. "He'll find out soon enough."

"You aren't muh-mad at me, are you?"

"Mad? Why should I be mad?" Cain told his brother, putting a comforting arm around the younger sibling as they make their way back into the den. "I don't own you...you refugee from a bloody shambles."

"Now, open your present." he said with a misfit's smile.

.....

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[Marburg]

'Beyond, outside my dreamworld, there is infinite dust, infinite dark.'

'And the Dreaming is equally infinite, although it is bounded on every side.'

'The way to the center is a slow spiral. One passes both the houses of Mystery and Secrets--old way stations on the frontier of Nightmare--'

'From there, one charts a course nightward until one reaches the Gates of Horn and Ivory. I carved them myself, when the world was younger and order was needed.'

'...I hasten to the gates.'

'The Dreams that pass through the gates of Ivory are Lies, Figments and Deceptions. The other admits the Truth. No one guards the horned gate anymore. ...I remember the way of old.'

'Once through it, I can see my castle. Through it I will be able to see...My Home...'

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[Marburg]

Through the gate of Horn, Morpheus lays eyes on his seat of power...in complete ruins.

"Breaks your heart, My Lord, doesn't it?" said the man leaning against the wall, closeby.

"Lucien?"

"One and the same, Sire." The man kneels at the Dream King's feet. "...At your service, Lord, as always"

"Get up. Please, get up. Lucien...what happened here?"

"What happened?" he began, "You are the incarnation of this Dreamscape, M'lord...and with you gone, the place began to decay, began to crumble..."

"The process was slow at first." Lucien continued. "Things in the Dreaming began to transmute. I was aware of it in my Library...slowly, the words began to fade. Sometime after you vanished, my books became bound volumes of blank paper. The next day, the whole library was simply gone."

"I never found it again."

"It's been a strange century for all of us M'lord."

"The Raven Woman has decayed badly. She now lives only in nightmares. Many of the palace servants dispersed back into the dream-stuff that formed them...Brute and Glob vanished two-score years ago...I do not know where. The Fashon Thing has been many things: Flapper, Mod, Punk...She was a 'Mad Madonna Witch' for a while...Last time I saw her, she was a Yuppie, but that was over a year ago."

"I have encountered Cain and Abel already."

"Ah. Yes. Those two...disturb me. I mean, they've always been weird, but since you've been gone..."

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