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From: peters@physics.ubc.ca (Dan Peters)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [BBD] Scratching an itch
Date: 2 Mar 1994 05:36:53 GMT
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Myrnien drew her sword, and took a step forward.

BBD laughed.  "My dear, you can't really think that you can hurt me with
_that_ now, can you?"

Myrnien said nothing, and continued to advance until she stood immediately
in front of her enemy.  One swing of her sword, and BBD's left arm fell onto
the floor as the blade bit into his side.

He kept laughing.

A backhand swing.  The other arm fell.  A stab, and his entrails started
pouring out.

He still stood, laughing.

Another swing.  His head came off, and his body finally collapsed in a 
bloody mess.

The head continued to laugh.

She hacked at it again and again until it finally stopped.  Myrnien felt a
little better, but somehow wasn't completely satisfied.

The grisly corpse slowly faded, along with all the blood.  

Looking around, she saw the upper chamber in the small tower which marked
the highest point of the mountain pass which she had reached when travelling
westward from the Mbaki Empire.  Ebineke the Lorekeeper had told her that to
find the city of Generica, she would need to sleep in this chamber during the
night when the first moon was new, and get up and continue westward before
dawn.  It had seemed like a meaningless ritual, but Myrnien had followed these
instructions anyway.  Ebineke was the sort of person whose instructions were
followed.

Now she saw two large wolves, curled up at one side of the chamber, apparently
asleep.  Curious, she approached them, and one of them opened an eye.

And spoke.  "Not particularly effective, is it?"

"What do you mean?" Myrnien asked, puzzled.

"Killing BBD over and over in your dreams.  It's like scratching an itchy
insect-bite.  I can't blame you for doing it, but it just makes it worse."

"Of course, I'd rather kill him in reality."

"That, unfortunately, probably _would_ satisfy you.  That's a rather
disturbing thing about humans, this powerful instinct for revenge.  Causes
so many problems."

"It's not just revenge.  Think of all the misery he causes.  People need to
be protected from him."

"Yes, yes, true enough.  I didn't say he _shouldn't_ be killed.  I'm just
questioning your real motives."

"Who are you?"  Myrnien suddenly realized that these wolves were not mere
dream-constructs, like the BBD she had killed so many times, but were real
entities which had intruded in her dream, like Master Aluz had done many
years before.

"Your brother calls me Zana.  And this" -- here the she-wolf nudged the male
one, who opened his eyes, yawned, and waved a paw in a very human gesture --
"is my mate.  Kaalzic calls him Toric."

Myrnien recognized the names of the old couple who had taken care of Kaalzic
for a year after his injury.

"You appear in his dreams sometimes, then?"

It was Toric who answered.  "No.  We haven't been able to get in.  Kaalzic
blocks us out.  Not intentionally, mind you.  I don't think he can help it."

Zana elaborated.  "He had constant nightmares, after his face was disfigured.
It wasn't the horror of it so much as the sheer amount of pain he went 
through.  He could never sleep properly, for that first year, but nightmares
came anyway, mixed together with the reality around him.  He has been
suppressing his dreams ever since."

Myrnien nodded.  She could remember coming upon the scene of the attack.
It was she who had taken Kaalzic (though he would not remember this) to the
old healers.  

"What I find remarkable," said Toric, "is that he actually feels _guilty_
about the fact that it was his pain, rather than the horror of seeing Thalei
getting killed, that caused him the more grief at first.  Silly of him.  I
managed to touch those memories once, and the pain was more than anyone could
possibly bear.  No wonder he is, shall we say, unstable."

"Thalei's the lucky one," said Myrnien.

"Yes," said Zana.  "But we're here to talk about _you_."

"And about us," Toric added.
--
|       Dan Peters      |  My idleness expands to fill  |
| peters@physics.ubc.ca |      all available time.      |