Authors: Zachary Rawlins
At a convenience store, Yael spends
fifteen minutes staring at ice cream before settling on a bruised apple and
sugar-free iced tea.
Her brother is trying to tell her
something, but the language he is speaking is unfamiliar. Yael tries to tell
him, but when she speaks only nonsense comes out.
“Everything is permitted.”
Scents of candle wax and frankincense, the round
perfection of a pomegranate seed, a mouthful of bitter herbs. Fasting from
sundown to sundown. A secret benchmark, an obscure and critical standard. A
mitzvah, a freewill offering on behalf of the world.
Holly Diem poured tea
carefully from a metal thermos into cups, then broth from a smaller container into
a low dish. Yael accepted a teacup while the black cat lazed over to the dish
with understated desire.
“Thanks, and sorry about that.”
“Please don’t worry yourself,” Holly said, blowing on
her tea. “Snowball is a very close friend of mine. He warned me that you were
coming. We heard about the battle.”
“Tell me,” Yael said excited, starting forward and
almost upsetting her tea cup. “The cats...”
“There were some casualties,” Holly said quietly.
“Though many toads won’t be returning to their awful moon. I am afraid that your
friend Tobi was among the lost. I am so very sorry.”
Yael shook her head, not certain what she had to deny.
Holly let her sip tea in silence until her thoughts
cleared.
“How long do I have?”
“I am sure this night will last as you require to
conduct your business, Yael. Are you feeling better? Would you like me to guide
you through the Market?”
Yael nodded, putting her empty cup down and hoisting
her duffel bag, her mask looped around the shoulder strap.
“Yes, please.”
Holly laughed and took Yael’s hand, leading her into
the fragrant air beneath the Moon Trees, the soft light of candles, the general
murmur of commerce. The Night Market opened before Yael like a pop-up book.
“We may as well start at the beginning. Do you know
how the Market works?”
Yael shook her head, mesmerized by the multicolored
fabric of the stalls, intricate patterns woven into designs that crawled beneath
the flickering light of the lamps. The soft breeze carried the gentle musk of
the Moon Tree blossoms. The people walking down the packed earth promenades which
separated the stalls appeared furtive and serious, haggling in low voices or
gazing critically at the wares arranged on the tables in front of them.
“Well, the Night Market isn’t exactly a typical retail
destination. People don’t come to buy, they come to sell,” Holly explained,
leading Yael toward the center of the market, past shadowy booths and the
plaintive calls of barkers. “The market is organized by the various kinds of
buyers. While they all may buy the same thing, each of them offers different
goods or services in exchange. Anything that can be dreamt can also be found in
the Night Market – assuming you are willing to part with those dreams to acquire
it. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I think so. Please continue.”
“Aren’t you polite?” Holly said, with a friendly
giggle. “How unusual. Do you know what you have to sell, Yael?”
Yael nodded seriously.
“Only as much as is necessary.”
“Then you already know what you are doing in that
regard. Do you know what you want in exchange?”
Yael nodded again, but she kept her full answer to
herself. She had, after all, made it this far without sharing. Regardless of
whatever innate confidence Holly Diem inspired, Yael didn’t trust her any further
than the situation demanded. The pain of losing Tobi was too fierce to allow
her to feel much faith in anything at the moment.
At the thought of the brave, aloof cat, Yael’s eyes
watered and it was all she could do to keep from sniffling. It was too bad that
she couldn’t wear her mask to do business, Yael thought longingly, fingering
the rubber head strap.
“Very well. Let’s start here and then work our way
around,” Holly said, gesturing vaguely at the tents of the vendors around them,
wizened faces beckoning from the shadows of their stalls, staring at her with
uniformly vivid yellow irises. “As I said, the market is organized by the type
of buyer. This area, my dear, is the place to make the most traditional sort of
bargain – your soul, for just about anything you can imagine.”
“I’m not sure that I believe in souls...”
“Well, I wouldn’t try selling one until you are
certain they exist,” Holly said glibly, leading her on by the hand around the
circuitous dirt paths that wound their way through the forested market. From
every alcove and shadowy booth, figures made beckoning gestures, whispered
offers of things she had only experienced in dreams, things that made her blush
or disgusted her. “Let’s try down here, shall we? This might be a little more
in your comfort zone, Yael, from what I’ve been led to believe. This is where
you sell your dreams.”
Yael knew it with a certainty that only came from
having dreamed something before it happened, more profound than déjà vu, like
living in the moment of an echo. The trees were heavy with violet blossoms,
waxy flowers reminiscent of a magnolia, faintly luminous in the moonlight Yael
had come to hate. The vendors here were a motley group: men and women, old and
young, dressed in drab suits or conservatively shapeless dresses. Their stalls
displayed a dizzying array of cages, wrought crudely from pig iron or finely
crafted from precious metals, equipped with barbs and manacles, collars and
bits. Some were large enough to walk inside, while others would have suffocated
a bird in their gilded confines.
The sellers didn’t whisper seductively here. Instead,
each time she glanced at a booth, her attention caught by the beauty and
inhumanity of the restraints on display, the placid shopkeepers would offer
advice in stilted language.
“An office job,” a plain-faced woman urged. “It’s safe
and the skills you will learn ensure a lifetime of employment anywhere.”
“Dreams will fail you,” a balding man advised,
adjusting the angle of his thin tie. “They are fragile and uncertain. You can
teach – society always needs teachers. Stick with it and there is a pension and
tenure. The first things you should look for in a career are safety and
stability.”
“You should get married,” a dowdy woman in a
china-print dress suggested forcefully. “Have children. Children give meaning
to life.”
Yael shook her head firmly, tugging on Holly’s hand to
move her along.
“This isn’t it, either.”
Holly’s laugh dispelled the bland misery that hung in
the air around them like sun burning through morning fog.
“I thought as much,” she said, tugging Yael along
cheerfully. “Let’s try another area, shall we?”
The faces in the crowds were a dizzying blur of
variety, but the desperation, the furtive nature of their movements, lent them
all a similarity of nature that vaguely alarmed Yael. The shoppers looked as if
they were running away, like there was something just behind their shoulders
that would swallow them if they ever looked back, if they slowed their steps or
raised their eyes from the ground in front of them.
One look at a vendor’s table was all she needed to
know that this was not the right place. They sold nothing here but escape.
“Ready to go?”
“Yes, please,” Yael said dizzily. “This isn’t the
right place, either.”
“Onwards and upwards, then,” Holly cried cheerfully,
grabbing her by the hand and leading her along. “Except that, well... you don’t
look very well, Yael.”
“I do feel a bit tired, actually.”
“That isn’t surprising, considering what you have been
through. Would you like to rest for a while?”
“No, I am alright,” Yael said sincerely. “Though, to
be honest, I am a bit confused as to why you are guiding me.”
“Because of what you did on the Black Train,” Holly said,
patting Yael’s hand fondly. “Because you stood against the Outer Dark. And
also…”
Yael’s internal suspicion immediately kicked in and
she almost pulled away from Holly, who must have noticed her reaction, because
she laughed brightly.
“Yes?”
“…your key. It drew me to you, as it drew you to
Kadath.”
“It’s not my key,” Yael blurted out. “It belonged to
my brother.”
“I know,” Holly remarked sadly, looking at Yael with
sympathetic eyes. “I was terribly fond of your brother, if you don’t mind me
saying so.”
Yael recoiled, pulling her hand free from Holly’s grip
and coming to a stop in the middle of the path, forcing the shoppers to angrily
work their way around them, muttering and staring rudely.
“How do you know about my brother?” Yael demanded,
with her fists balled at her sides. “Why is it everyone here seems to know more
about him than I do?”
The words hung in the air around them like static
electricity, a cloud of potential energy that caused the crowd of shoppers to
give them a wide berth. Yael didn’t realize that she was crying until the tears
started to tickle her cheeks.
“We remember him because he was a great sleeper…”
“…dreamer. You mean dreamer.”
“Not exactly. You and your brother come from a family
of sleepers.”
“I don’t understand,” Yael said, pinching her lip.
“What is the difference?”
“Every human is a dreamer of one sort or another.
Sleepers are unique, because just occasionally, they wake up
inside
of a
dream.”
Yael shook her head.
“I still don’t understand.”
“Have you ever had a dream that you can’t remember
waking up from?” Holly asked with her face composed and evidently serious. “Have
you ever fallen asleep during a dream?”
“Everything is permitted,” Yael said hesitantly.
“Nothing is real,” Holly agreed.
She puzzled it over while Holly led her through the
market, hardly bothering to glance at her surroundings. Out of the corners of
her eyes she saw tables laden with luminous glassware, fragrant with drugs and
exotic herbs, glittering with opals and blue emeralds. In the tiny alcoves
between the tents there was another sort of vendor; pale women perched
half-naked with brilliant red hair and yellow cat’s eyes, dark-skinned men wearing
cut-off slacks with lean musculature and mischievous smiles, androgynous
blondes with skin like the inside of a mollusk, their pupils fashionably
dilated. Whenever possible, Yael averted her eyes from such things, but Holly
seemed to be on a first name basis with half of them, which made for a number
of rather awkward encounters.
Most of them were too discreet to make overtures. Yael
was carefully polite to the rest.
Yael was startled by a young calico cat that jumped
boldly up on the edge of one of the market tables to walk along beside her. The
cat dipped his head respectfully when she saw that he had Yael’s attention.
“Yael Kaufman,” the cat said, in a pleasant, confident
voice. “The Lord of Ulthar sends his regards, and hopes that you are well.”
“That was nice of him. How is Snowball?”
The cat was visibly taken back at her lack of
formality, but Yael was too tired for niceties.
“He is recuperating in Ulthar. None of his injuries
are serious.”
Yael hesitated before she asked the next question.
“And... the rest of the cats of Ulthar? Were your
losses great?”
The cat narrowed his eyes.
“Too many,” the cat said grimly. “But many more toads
won’t find their way back to their awful moon tonight. The Outer Dark will be
wary when crossing Ulthar in the future.”
Yael suspected that the cat’s confidence was likely
misplaced. Then again, Yael herself had been equally starry-eyed at the
beginning of her journey, though that seemed like ages ago. Yael felt like a
completely different person, as if the heat and the desolation of the Waste had
burned away the trappings of her previous identity, shedding fragments of her
former life to wither beneath the sun amongst the ruins.
“I hope so. What is your name?”
“Dunwich.”
Yael stroked the cat affectionately, and he purred and
rubbed against her hand unselfconsciously. She smiled to herself, suspecting
that it hadn’t been long since Dunwich had lost or run away from a human home.
“I want you to thank Snowball and the Cats of Ulthar
for me. Tell them that if they ever need anything from me, that I will be
there. I won’t forget Tobi, or the other cats who fought so that I could complete
my journey. I won’t forget my friends.”
Dunwich detached himself reluctantly from Yael, leaping
to the lowest bough of a nearby Moon Tree, claws digging into the velvet
surface of the branch.