Old bones.

[Cherny]

The apparition speaks in its harsh and discordant tones, issues instructions and warnings; the Governor disputes with the thing, argues, offering not agreement but debate, and this is a startling realisation for the boy - that the thing might lie.

An obvious idea once proposed, yes - what else would one expect from something whose currency is dreams and illusion? - but one which opens up all kinds of uncertainty and doubt in the boy's mind. What if it tells the truth, and ignoring it brings disaster? What if it lies, and heeding it brings something worse? The details lie beyond his limited experience of folktales and common sense, which have ill-prepared him to deal with dreamsmithing ghosts and filthy-coated trees and faceless things wrought of woven gold who might equally offer respite or calamity.

We're here to find truth, the Governor had said. But how can you tell if you've found it?

Maybe they're dreaming in this moment, some kind of waking vision - after all, great oak trees shouldn't ooze corruption from their roots or sprout guardians from their trunks. He bites savagely at the inside of his mouth to wake himself, until he realises the attempt proves nothing - the fire dream had felt real, painfully so, down to the skin blistering from his flesh. What's left?

His hand reaches instinctively for the hound's neck, thin fingers digging into brindled fur to feel corded muscle beneath, and that solidity steadies him, clears his whirling thoughts. It doesn't matter. His friend is here, fierce and fearless, and that knowledge is enough. The Governor will pry truth from the apparition's words, and then Cherny and Many-Fights will do whatever needs to be done.

[catch]

The feel of fingers on his neck is not enough to relax him. No, what relaxes him are the words, more words, Governor-words and Golden-words. There is no attacking, no immediate fighting. No, what this is is a circling, but not the sort he could immediately grasp, with bared teeth and stiff legs, and muscled shoulders turned to take the inevitable rushing of teeth. One would rush the other, and since Glenn has come forward to take this challenge, Many-Fights would leave it to him. Many-Fights would protect his Cherny-beast, and - perhaps - he would step in if Glenn's battle goes ill.

He does his best to listen, but his dreams were foggy things, base, animal, still, though sometimes they dreamed of the numbers and words that Cherny-beast taught him. He grasped them only as a sleeping-time, the sort of things that came with sleeping-time.

MANY-FIGHTS DOES NOT MIND BONES-SLEEP, he shall offer, cautiously, his head tilted to look sidelong out of this scene from the corner of his eyes. NO GOLD-GOLDS BLACK, THOUGH. MANY-FIGHTS WILL NOT SLEEP WITH THAT.

He had his standards.

[Kylerryth]

"I can, and have," the not-Cameron said, craning its neck to focus on Glenn. The motion produced a series of cracks and pops; the oily corruption on the creature's body began to bubble at its joints. "But you in turn should not assume their ignorance to these possibilities. You should, in point of fact, assume everything you know of the situation to be a fabrication--another element to the elaborate, elegant Design."

The creature shuddered then, faltering ... and upon its back--no, emerging from its back was another pair of hands, twisted, malformed, grasping at the open air. The veins of golden light did not extend into them.

"There is a significant difference between truth--mundane belief--and Truth--the absolutes of the universe," the not-Cameron said, forcing itself upright. "This ideological apparatus is key to the Design. It is the perception and context through which all is manifest, individually and collectively, and latent--which is purely individual.

"I tell you this not to further obfuscate the situation. I tell you this because you must comprehend the difference between them in the dream."

The oozing, wretched hands rising from its back started to wrap themselves around the not-Cameron's helmet, its neck. Yet another pair of hands appeared, sprouting from the creature's hips and slow-climbing its sides like slimy spiders.

"You are clever, mortal," the not-Cameron breathed, its voice laden with exhaustion. "Perhaps you will better understand this particular instance if I tell you a latent Truth, and I will answer your unspoken question.

"I wish to die."

[Glenn]

Oh good, the dog was offering to sleep with the bones. That would make things easier when it came to Rhaena and he didn't even have to suggest Cherny did it. Thank heaven for noble beasts.

Design. Truth. Belief.

"I have found," and some of this was unfortunate to say in front of the lad, but necessity was paramount, always, but especially when dealing with unwordly magical beings. You led with scornful levity and then you went right on to necessity. There was an art to this sort of thing. "that belief and perception are far more important than Truth." That was half of it. The other half was this. "Of course, Truth is an important tool to have when you're shaping belief and perception." If it was being offered Burnie would take it. What he did with it however was his own business.

He was offered Truth, and this is what he did with it in the immediate. "You wish to die, you say. Again, three possibilities." No fingers this time, just quick words. "You are an aspect of Holbrook and wish to find peace for him and yourself though he does not want this. You are a trap laid by Kylerryth for me to find, so I am to think that. Alternatively, he led me to you so this is in his plans either way, you see." He only mentioned two. The last would be a question, and a more straightforward one this time. "Does Holbrook, the rest of him, of you, wish to die as well? I rather thought he wished to win."

[Cherny]

Many-Fights volunteers to take the bones, to carry them into whatever dream may come, and this earns him a sharp look from Cherny, a silent shake of the boy's head and a flinching of fingers upon the hound's muscled neck. Many-Fights didn't know what he was accepting, what he was inviting. The mill-boy has some notion, from his own experience and the Governor's descriptions, and is already resolved to face whatever the next dream holds - to enter it informed and prepared. The fire dream had come without warning, an unanticipated night-terror; knowing the pattern, though, armed with the Governor's advice, he'd do better next time. He'd confront the dream, he'd bear the bones of its maker, and do whatever was needed to break the cycle.

Meanwhile the Governor speaks on with the thing, a conversation of unfamiliar words and familiar words used in new contexts, of belief outweighing Truth, of shaping perceptions. Strange new ideas and abstract concepts that will come to lodge in his thoughts like iron nails in the wood of a young tree. Barely noticed at first, but with the potential to irrevocably alter future growth.

[Kylerryth]

"Belief and perception are latent," not-Cameron said, even as it struggled against the slick black hands dragging it back into the oak's trunk. "Truth is manifest. Inescapable. The power and beauty of Truth is that it exists regardless of belief and perception, in fact provides the invisible foundation on which belief and perception may be subsequently built and shaped to the individual.

"But you are aware of this; you have said as much, if not in as many words, and with certain implications that cannot be denied."

The creature paused to grapple with the hands. With every passing moment, a little more of it sank into the trunk.

"You are correct; I am a defiant fragment. My desire is not that of the Dreamwaker, the malicious construct you seek in the dreams. And he does intend to win, although not in the manner in which you might expect. In order to defeat him, you must enter the Chimera physically with all of the bones and use them to locate and bind him. It should not be difficult; the Chimera is as of now incomplete. If it achieves completion, however, your task will be complicated.

"His demise, however," the creature gasped, "will release the last of the Four."

[Glenn]

Beauty.

The beauty of truth. Burnie had to smile of that just a little. There were things beautiful in this world, but the only thing about truth that fit that description was how malleable it was. The governor made his own dreams and he made them in the waking world each and every day. To strive for anything else was to live a life wasted.

"I see." The monster spoke, said ghastly things, made an ultimatum. "Of course." Because nothing was ever easy, was it? I was perhaps unfortunate that young Cherny was here to see this, but it could serve as an object lesson for him to remember in the years to come. "In that case, know this. For all that I hate the Dreamwaker and what he does to us, I am not utterly unsympathetic. According to Kylerryth he was an innocent man done wrong; he was a creature thrust into a world not his making and he tries to strive and survive. If he does so with malice in his heart, then that is understandable, if not forgivable. We've dealt with such beings before.

"Kylerryth himself, is another story. He tampers and feels justified in doing so. No," Glenn raised a dismissive hand. "He feels himself about justification. He brings down horrors upon us as part of a grand plan in which we have no say at best. At worst, it is mere whim and boredom. I find either unacceptable. You say that I can bind the Dreamwaker before the completion of his.." Chimera did he say? That matched no meaning of the word that the once-mapmaker. "dream. You say that if I do so, I will release another horror upon Myrken, that I will trade a devil I know for one I do not. I say this instead: What if it suits me.. what if it suits Myrken Wood, that we ally with the Dreamwaker against Kylerryth instead. Why fight a symptom with a cure that causes even more damage when we can use it to help strike back at the disease itself? You seek for an ending, fragment. Perhaps there is another end possible."

[Kylerryth]

Despite the creature lacking facial features to convey its emotions, the trio would easily recognize that not-Cameron was taken aback by Glenn's proposal. The slip cost it some ground; the four hands attacked with renewed vigor, and not-Cameron sank deep into the tree--almost to its chest.

The oak's golden veins began dimming.

"Now I see," not-Cameron whispered. "I see! I do not have the time required to explain, but know this:

"If you believe Kylerryth your enemy, you believe an elaborate lie. He is your greatest ally in this endeavor.

"Take the bones," not-Cameron rasped, now buried to its shoulders. "Find and destroy the Dreamwaker within the dream. Release Bás.

"You, too, will see."

Not-Cameron vanished, and the pulsing light of the veins softened to a fitful flickering. Then they too disappeared, either drawn back into the trunk or extinguished by an unseen hand--

In the distance, a hawk's piercing cry. The sharp knives of winter slid across any stretch of exposed skin, between any crevices discovered in their clothing. The pallid sun sat a few minutes lower in the sky.

They were returned to reality.

[Cherny]

Throughout this exchange Cherny remains watchful, silent, a dark-eyed shadow peering cautiously past the Governor as he converses with the gold-thing, as he offers deductions and speculations and receives explanations, of a sort.

A great deal of it makes little sense to the boy, or proposes actions that seem almost nonsensical, impossible. Enter a dream physically? Use bones to find someone? The conversation is above him, lofty concepts and abstracts beyond the experience of a mill-boy whose education is for now limited to basic letters and figures.

Later, fortified with the gleanings of weightier books he might come to understand them, but for now he catches only scraps and pieces - that the gilded apparition is part of yet apart from Holbrook, some rebellious fragment; that defeating one enemy will unleash another, unknown; that the Governor, while stern, is not merciless; that he proposes an alliance, a mutiny against the Dreamwaker's creator; a proposal rejected, dismissed as misguided.

A long, quiet moment passes after the gold-thing sinks back into the tree, as the vile ooze fades from the bark, as the world becomes a simpler place of snow and forest and path and a little deputation stood before a gnarled oak. The boy shakes his head sharply, blinking at the tree, at the Governor, at Many-Fights stood close by his side. When he speaks at last it's barely more than a whisper, reluctant to break the peace that returns to the woods around them.

"What's th-the, the Four, s-ser?"

[catch]

This Returning to Reality was not a thing that was shared by all. Many-Fights, no matter his intelligence, was only a dog. He had seen the Gold-threaded man, had smelled him. His world came through his nose, for though his eyesight was good, in many ways it was poor, forsaking color and light for vibrancy and sharpness. He was no smell-hound, but his World existed through the nose.

He utters a great sneeze, and shakes himself to settle his fur. But Holbrook was not entirely gone. He lingers, in Many-Fights' nose, deep and deep among the tree's roots, deep in the winter-hard ground, and he stares at the spot in suspicion.

FOUR COMES AFTER THREE, he says, entirely mistaking Cherny's question, thinking that the boy plays Their Game, a game of Numbers and Letters and Words. The importance of this is lost on him, save through Cherny, and - to a lesser extent - Ser Glenn.

[Glenn]

"Cherny, Many-Fights," Burnie stared at the tree, stared at where the creature had been not long ago at all, in that shifted non-reality. He stared and he spoke to his companions. "I'll think through this out loud, for your sake. You've seen so much that it's only fair I give you as much of the rest as would be safe for you to have. It will likely not reassure you, but then you can handle it. Many-Fights. If you don't want to listen, and that's quite alright, I won't feel hurt by it, the bones do need digging up after all. If you wanted to get a head-start on that? We'll join you soon if you need the help."

That settled, thoughtful for both of them and their needs, he continued to stare. "As i said, the dream you experienced, Cherny, was an offshoot of the shared dreams that have plagued us before. A being named Kylerryth, who can only be considered godlike, I suppose, both in power and in arrogance, came to me recently. Told me of the creation of the dreamwaker, which was his doing and also the creation of The Four, being monsters that caused amongst other things, the Bloody Flux. Apparently he did this to for our own good. I very much want to destroy him."

That was only natural, no? The Dreamwaker had hurt them in some very specific ways. Kylerryth, on the other hand, claimed to devastate them indirectly on a much more intense level. "If I was lied to about how Kylerryth is not our real enemy, then it was he who lied to me himself. The elaborate part, though? Elaborate and irritating. That I can believe. Regardless, I want us to have those bones ready. Better to have the choice to use a weapon than not to have it at all."

[Cherny]

"I'll n-need to, t-to break the g-ground, ser. It'll b-be f-frozen." Iron-hard beneath the ice and snow of late winter, and for all that Many-Fights is capable the boy fears for the hound's paws. He hefts the mattock, ready to apply thin limbs and rusted pick to the task, but the Governor speaks on and so the boy pauses to listen carefully. Considering what he's been told, trying to make sure he understands, and in part explaining so that his friend will understand as well.

"S-so Killereth, h-he made four m-monsters that've b-been hurting people for years. And the f-fire-dreams come f-from one of, of them." He's heard of the Bloody Flux, bits and pieces learned from his time in the Rememdium - the healers' patient explanations, and Catch's fearful ramblings.

"And n-now h-he wants us t-t-to stop the monsters, even th-though he made th-them. Just t-to see if, if we can?" Just to see the people of Myrken struggle like ants poked with a stick. Or bleed and die like beasts in a fighting-pit. "And h-he's s-set us to d-dig these bones t-to beat the, the dream-waker, so th-that it'll get h-him out of th-the way for the fourth m-monster to sh-show up."

This is a troubling prospect; the risk that they might manage to defeat the sender of fearful dreams, but in the process would unleash something else - something worse, perhaps, that'd go on to hurt and kill and terrorise Myrken in some new way. Or they could refuse, and suffer on with things as they are now. Fire dreams and worse.

What sort of a choice was that?

And meanwhile Killereth, powerful enough to create these things and presumably powerful enough to stop them, did nothing. Well, offered hints and clues to steer the Governor onto the next part of the monstrous plan. Or game. Or whichever it was.

"He s-sounds like a, a b-bad one, s-ser." The mildest possible word for a being who'd unleash such horrors upon Myrken and her people, but it places him very clearly upon one side of a line. "B-but if, if w-we can't beat h-him, b-beating his m-monsters is a, is a start."

His gaze drifts to where the ancient oak squats atop its hoard of old bones, and he eventually nods at the Governor's conclusion. Best to dig out the bones now they were here, having come all this way. Wasted journey, otherwise, and they'd have to repeat it if it turned out they did need them after all. "D-doesn't mean we're g-going to use them. J-just that we c-can, if w-we choose."

Resolved, then, he offers the Governor a nod and steps towards the base of the tree to aid Many-Fights in making a start on the snow.

[catch]

All this speaking. All this talking. Many-Fights' brain may be an anomaly, may be stimulated far beyond, grasping knowledge with all his teeth, he was not so far along to understand this. He was cold, now that he was not moving, and the immediate threat has passed, and he was tired after all his running, and he wished to get digging, for at least that would warm him up and bake all the cold-pain from his joints.

Bless Cherny. He speaks so much clearer than Glenn, and Many-Fights can, at least, grasp this.

CRUSH MONSTER-MEN, DRIVE OUT BAD-ONE, he says, in his simple way, his brain trickling it down until it is condensed. He looks up at Cherny to be certain he has it right, and goes with the boy, grumbling a little to himself as he starts, skimming through the snow with his blunt nails. COLD COLD COLD, is his running litany. He had agreed to dig, but he didn't know how cold it would be.

Once the frozen ground is reached, Many-Fights will step back to allow his boy to spike through the crust.

[Glenn]

If we can't beat him.

That is what the boy says. He stutters as he says it. What an utterly appropriate symbol of the old Myrken. There are lines one does not cross? Not if that one is Glenn Burnie, not if the stakes are his province and his people. He was willing to work with one devil against another if it meant fighting the battle on their terms, if it meant minimizing the damage.

That wasn't all of it, though. He knew it as well as anyone. If we can't beat him, we beat what we can. And we keep beating them, one after the other, until we do beat him. We beat everything he stands at us, and we endure.

Myrken Endures. That was Cinnabar Calomel's credo as Governor. It is a noble thing, a realistic thing.

It was not Glenn Burnie's.

"You're close, Cherny." None of that emotion reached his tone, which was mainly encouraging, nurturing. "There are Four and then there is One, and that one is Holbrook, the Dreamwaker. The Four surfaced here before I arrived, caused the Flux, other such things. They were fought off by Quincy Randall, by others. Apparently, one of those Four is left, the Bas that was mentioned, and who knows what dark gift he has for us. Holbrook is the one who gave us the fire dream. I'd take a dream over the Flux, though. Ideally I'd take neither."

He was moving now, he and the silent Neb. Three shovels, then. The Governor could stand back, could watch people do his work for him. In other situations, he might. Here though? Digging up the bones of a demigod? Defiling such a grave. No, that was a task for Glenn to participate in. "Let's see if we can dig up some leverage so that may become an option."

[Cherny]

"B-but don't c-crush the, the b-bones." Just that correction for Many-Fights' sake. In firm agreement with the hound on the cold, though, and he huddles into his coat while Many-Fights digs, setting the mattock's head down on the ground so that he might rub his palms together, restoring some circulation to thin fingers. After this they'd go back to the tavern, and Cherny would buy two big bowls of soup, and they'd fill their bellies with warmth inside just as the hearthfire thawed them from outside in.

"If, if we b-beat the other... three before, we c-can beat the l-last one. Since w-we'll know it's, it's c-coming." Fairly confident on this point, since it stands to reason - it's been done before, it can be done again; Glenn Burnie probably wasn't even the Governor when the first three fell, so now he's in charge matters should be even easier. "So th-that'll be the, the Four gone and th-the dream-maker." Never mind that the last of the Four is a mystery, that they have no knowledge of its capabilities, of the form it might take. They'd work something out, learn about it, find out how to end it once and for all.

Many-Fights backs away from the cleared patch of dull grass and frozen earth, then, and Cherny steps up to take his place, waving the hound back a little further to be safe. The pick is heavy, but the mill-boy lifts it gamely to his shoulder, pausing just a moment before bringing it down at the frozen earth; it drives in an inch or two, and he pries the handle to loosen the iron-hard soil before lifting it to take another blow.

There's a certain wiry strength that comes with hauling sacks of meal and flour, but even though he's far from being grown, and for the most part lets the weight of the mattock's head do the work. Chipping away diligently at his task, a dozen strikes and he has to pause to catch his breath and unbutton his coat, nodding for Many-Fights to scrape clear what's been loosened so far.

"What w-were the... the others... b-before, ser? The... the r-rest of th-the Four?"