But what to do about the dreams?

Perhaps the shamans in NAN would be willing to listen. But then I remembered the dustup we'd had before the Great Ghost Dance. They hadn't been too happy to hear my predictions about the magical fall- out from all the blood they'd planned to spill.

Idiots. If only they'd listened. I suspected then that this would be the result. Like bees to honey, it would draw the creatures again. And we'd had no time to plan. To prepare. This time the monsters from the past would lay waste to the whole world.

Are you waiting/or me? Have you been waiting for me? Does your flesh crave my caress? Do you remember? Remember the centuries of pain and humiliation?

Do you know how I have missed you?

The sound of his voice echoed inside me.

I went to the thermostat and pushed it up. To hell with the regs about fuel waste, I thought. A century ago, Caimbeui had given me a Renoir. I liked to look at it when I felt like this. Afraid and lonely in the dark hours before dawn when the past spreads before me like a black spill of ink.

I flicked my hand and the illusionary wall I'd cre- ated long ago vanished. It was a simple enough spell, though in the past few centuries there'd been little enough magic to go around.

That was changing.

The last few years-a human life span-just a drop to me-had seen such a burst of magical en- ergy and growth. The Awakening, they called it on their ugly little trids. Oh, I know Dunkelzahn found this brave new world far too fascinating, but he'd 16

been dreaming for more than five thousand years. What would he know of it? He hadn't seen what the world had become.