The Butcher's Ring: Episode Twelve

Introduction
Welcome to Dreamwalker’s Diligence, a biweekly, bite-sized fantasy serial about a magical antiques shopkeeper with a penchant for mysteries.
If you are new to the serial, here is Episode One. You can also check out The Complete Guide for episode and character lists.

To Faolán, navigating dream rules is as natural as breathing. The waking world has its own set of general rules that applies to everyone, and then there are local rules put in place by authorities. The latter can be broken, but there might be consequences. It is very much the same for dream rules. Some are universal. Others only exist because someone, usually the dreamer, has created them.

There is, however, one common misunderstanding amongst humans about a general rule. The misconception is that you will die in the waking world if you die in a dream. In reality, there is no correlation and yet, the superstition has not appeared out of nowhere.

Every single dreamer, possibly except mares, is connected to their physical body regardless of whether they are human, dreamwalker, or animal. This means that when you wake up panting from a nightmare, it is because you were panting in the nightmare. You have to breathe in dreams, and if you can’t breathe for too long, you will wake up because your body needs air. Dreamwalkers, annoyingly, are not exempt from this rule.

Faolán plunges through the surface of the nightmare lake. And the lake is not only a feature inside the dream. Its surface is the surface of the dream itself, and Faolán is thoroughly breaking the local rules that make this particular nightmare what it is. And in this one, the rules are not that of the dreamer himself. Faolán’s client is somewhere above, trapped in the nightmare for the umpteenth time, a vicious cycle that will continue as long as the ring is on his finger. The rules of this recurring dream, the very structure of it, have been laid down by a human mage, and William the butcher is only an accidental victim. And that is why Faolán has to find the anchor, the heart of the dream, and rip it apart with his own powers. He failed once, but he is wiser now and knows he will have to forgo finesse and instead brutally break it.

The substance that is not water but something thicker and stickier presses in on Faolán. He holds his breath instinctively as he plunges down, down, down towards the ever-clearer beacon of the anchor.

It is not, he discovers, a homogeneous mass. It is a slippery wetness embracing him with what feels like a thousand fingers that caress his face and hands. His eyes are closed, but he can sense tendrils slithering over his eyelids and questing into his nostrils and ears.

The dreamer is not meant to come here. This deeper part of the nightmare is, ironically, worse than the narrative that plays out on the surface. Most people would wake up right away if they were submerged like Faolán is now. He easily could, too, but that would solve nothing. When a dreamwalker actively makes a dream, it is nothing like this. This is … all wrong. There is hatred and pain mixed into the very structure. There is vicious human magic all tangled up, trying to mimic mare magic, and despite the way it feels, the whole thing is so very fragile.

Faolán’s heartbeat is loud in the silence. It pounds at his ribs and in his temples. His head is buzzing, pressure building inside and out. He might be a fundamentally magical being, but he has a corporeal form in the waking world, and he needs to breathe soon or risk waking up. Sure, it would be simple enough to change the structure of the nightmare, to make a bubble of air and light and space around himself, but he is so close to the anchor, and this deep in the dream, everything is delicate. If he changes any of the rules down here, he will risk ending and resetting the dream, and he really does not want to have to do this again. He does not want to have to drag William back into the nightmare to try again. And he absolutely does not want the butcher to think he is incompetent and overly confident.

What he needs to do is more like changing himself to adapt than changing the dream. It is a fine distinction, indeed, that makes little sense to humans, but to Faolán’s kind, it is both clear and sensical.

So Faolán opens his eyes and his mouth, and the dark mass of tendrils surges into every opening it can find. He nearly gags, but he can breathe now. He is adapting himself to the circumstances. And he takes a deep breath, not of air but of the foul magic that holds the nightmare together. That first breath is like swallowing gallons of thick, disgusting stew. The next ones are a little easier.

Finally, Faolán’s feet hit solid ground. He can see through the murk now, through the undulating mass of dark magic. And right in front of him is the very thing he is searching for. The anchor pulses, red and visceral. It looks like a human heart. Faolán knows exactly how they look because he has walked in dreams with people who do.

He reaches out for the heart with both hands and closes his fingers around it, even as it shudders against his touch. It feels warm and alive. Pain lances through his arms, hot and fierce as if the nightmare he is killing is intent on killing him first. And pain is real in dreams. You might not wake up maimed or bleeding, and it will fade into oblivion because the waking world cannot sustain it, but it is absolutely real.

Faolán grits his teeth and squeezes. The heart is the anchor, and it is a defense mechanism put in place by a clumsy human mage dabbling in magic that is not theirs to wield and tainting it. Nothing more.

His fingers spasm, and he gasps at the sharpness of the pain. At the angry teeth of this dream that sink into him. He is aware that the function of this pain is to wake him up so he doesn’t destroy the anchor. Waking up would be easy. Staying asleep is the harder option. But the mage did not count on anyone being quite as stubborn as this dreamwalker.

Faolán refuses to let go. He digs his fingers into the heart and pushes magic into it. It is a mix of his natural dreamwalker magic and his learnt human magic, volatile and destructive, and he knows he is almost there, even as every part of him is trying to wake up to escape the agony. He pushes harder, and finally ... Finally, the heart explodes in a flash so bright it whites out Faolán’s vision, and all sensations peak before they disappear. Before everything disappears.

Continue to Episode Thirteen.

Thank you for reading! Dreamwalker’s Diligence: Season One: The Butcher’s Ring concludes in the next episode!