my head and shoulders thrust out over the edge of the platform. I was about a second away from falling all the way to the ground and breaking like an egg there.
“I’m awake,” I mumbled. “It’s okay, Monono.”
I sit up and set my back to the upright post again, rubbing sleep out of my eyes and confusion out of my head. The dream still hung on me, the way a dream of that kind is like to do, but now I was awake the memory of lying with Spinner brung me no happiness. She had done her choosing. She give herself to Haijon up on the tabernac, and took him in return, and there wasn’t no mistaking the joy in her face when she done it.
I seen the foolishness and the meanness of all my hopes then, and I guess I got over them. The dream was sweet, but it was something that couldn’t ever be and only an idiot would cleave to it. I hoped I would see Spinner again, and Haijon too, not to strive against their contentment but to say I was sorry for the ruckus I made on their wedding day. I wanted us to be friends again, the way we was before jealousy and pridefulness set me at odds with everyone including my own self.
Then I remembered the other thing I done since that day. I killed Mardew, breaking the cutter into the bargain. I left Mythen Rood one Rampart short, for aye and ever. That was what I won with all my wanting.
That, and Monono.
“Are you ready, Koli?” she asked. “We’ve got about an hour yet before dawn, so this is a good time to go.”
I wondered how she could know the hour of the day when she was stuck inside the DreamSleeve, but I seen that was a question I would have to ask her another time. I put my trust in her and made ready to go.
It was clear that I would have to leave my bundle behind. It would slow me down and might get me stuck as I pushed my way through the brambles and knotweed round the gate. I took out the last of the mutton and bread and et it where I sit, taking big bites and gulping it down half-chewed. I drunk a lot of the water too to make the skin lighter. There was no way I was going to leave that. I stripped off my torn shirt and trousers and throwed them away, putting on the other ones that was in the bundle. The knife I would tuck into my belt, and the rope would go over my shoulder. I looked for the compass, but it was nowhere to be found. I must of dropped it when I fought with Mardew.
That left the DreamSleeve. I could put that at my belt too, like I done oftentimes before. But I might be running as hard as I could before long, and it would be too easy for it to fall out and be lost.
I remembered how Fer Vennastin carried the bolt gun in a leather sling at her shoulder that she called a holster. I reckoned I could make something similar out of the torn-up strips of my ruined shirt. I gun to do it.
“We should go, dopey boy,” Monono said. “The light’s just under the horizon.”
“I’ll only be a minute,” I says to her in a whisper. “What’s a horizon anyway?”
She give a laugh, but when she answered her voice was somewhat serious. “I’ll teach you,” she said. “That, and lots of other things. Entertainment is peachy-keynote, but there’s so much more I can give you now. You got all six balls and the bonus, Koli Woodsmith. You don’t have any idea how lucky you are.”
“Yeah, I do,” I said. For I was seeing all kind of things clear then, in the wake of that dream and that waking.
“Ready?”
“Ready, Monono.”
“Then go for baroque!”
With the DreamSleeve all snug in its sling and my shirt closed and tied over it, I swung out over the edge and gun to climb down the ladder. The creaking was loud from the first, and it sounded every time I moved, whether I was going fast or slow. So I went fast. I hoped Mole and Cup and the other woman was far enough away not to hear, but if they did hear and come to see, I wanted to be running headlong for the gate before they got there.
That was