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cast fire from slumber. It wore the likeness of a darkened
shepherd, and it bore in its hand a bleeding crook.”
I recalled the Crucifier’s yellowed journal. “You speak of
the Shepherd of Wolves, do you not?”
The man looked a bit irritated, as if I’d disrupted the
rhythm of his carefully planned sermon. “Of course. He is
the thing that calls to you—and all the rest of your kind.” He
waited for the words he knew I would speak.
“I have no ‘kind,’ dreamer. I am no wolf. I am a repairer of
dreams, an artist. Everything else is merely parenthetical—
nothing more, nothing less.”
“Are you an artist, indeed?” the man said. “I will say
this for you—you are different. But you have no idea what
you are, do you?” Some of his words were like the distant
notes of a weakly remembered song. His latest words were
offensive, but his was the knowledge of things that walked
the distant shores of dream, not of matters concerning the
business of firmer worlds. He was again forgiven, or at the
least ignored.
His smile returned to light up invisible worlds. He was
quite pleased with himself. “You have no choice but to play
the Shepherd’s Game, and you have every reason to play it
well, my giant friend. You see, the Shepherd is one of the
Unbegotten. His will, even from down within so deep a
hole, is simply inevitable. He cannot be denied his sport. He
wrote you an invitation in blood and twilight, and he means
for you to join him and all the others in a game that can
displace stars and conjure worlds from whispers.”
“And should I win, the Red Dream is mine for the
wielding?” I asked, my curiosity rising.
“Who is to say? The Shepherd is as mysterious as the
nightmare that dismembered Boston and raised New Victoria
from its riven corpse. The wills and ways of such things are
not for us to know. We simply symbolize their power, in the
same way ink symbolizes our thoughts on paper—though
we are not the ones holding the pen.”
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