Chapter 92
Chapter 92:
Fregósbor stands on sand so thin it felt like chalk. What is this place? Maybe it doesn’t exist. Who is he? Maybe he shouldn’t exist. How peculiar, this shouldn’ing not exist.
He looks up, feeling like a ship at the bottom of the ocean. He is the ship. He is also the ocean. Ourside, he knows, a storm sings and dances. Why can’t he reach it?
Fregósbor moves, the whiteness around him stirrs. He seeks someone to tell him who he is. Yukari is coming down the paper corridor, marble animals twirl at her feet. She will soon come up the stairs where the mage sits underneath the cobwebs of times that should not have known him. Who is that mage? Yukari has the power to wake him, but Fregósbor knows that, as soon as she leaves him, once again he will sink in the quicksands of his own forgetfulness.
He does not answer when Yukari touches his shoulder. He needs more than momentary conscience. He needs to find out who he is.
There is something black in the dusty horizon. He walks to the black smudge, which grows and grows, becomes a cloak and a faceless hood.
‘Onca again you pull me into your dream,’ says Sáeril Quepentorne. ‘How do you feel today?’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘I do.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I can tell you your name, but you are not your name,’ says the Wraith. ‘I can tell you your story, but you are not a story.’
‘A name is a beginning.’
‘Yours is Fregósbor.’
‘I know,’ says Fregósbor, surprised.
‘You also know who you are. You just need to remember.’
‘Is the answer in me?’
Sáeril almost confirms, but now that Fregósbor voiced the question, he is not so sure. Does Fregósbor contain the asnwer? Sáeril looks around him, to the empty dustiness, memory crumbles, ruins. This is not Fregósbor, this is what Fregósbor should be. Ash.
‘You are here,’ said Sáeril, ‘but who you are is out there. If you wish to wake up and be present, you have to find out who you are.’
‘Can you help me find the way?’
‘Follow your name when it is called. Find a purpose, a reason to exist. If you find yourself a role, you might find who you are.’
A role. Fregósbor looked everywhere, the ruins of his own past crumbled under his feet. A vague blur makes him think of the world outside, but it disappears when he tries to focus on it. Where can he find a role, a purpose?
Where did his name go? It doesn’t matter. What matters is where his name came from. A black, Satironese bow stands on the white dust. Fregósbor reaches for it. He remembers dreaming of it before. A black hand appears, holding the bow. From the hand grows an arm, a body, the black face of a previous dream. The archer calls him by his name. Fregósbor.
‘The story is here,’ says Neville. ‘Its name is Pierre.’
‘Pierre.’ Now Fregósbor has two names to follow.