CHAPTER II

A week after he and his friend were parted, the second dreamer became very sick. For months he stayed in bed, feverish, fighting in his dreams, striving and searching through the day and the night, and what he sought, it seemed, was ever more distant. And in the end he failed, he was beaten. The dreams stopped, and he seemed to recover, but he never dreamed again, nor could he remember what it was that he could be searching for, which was, perhaps, rather merciful.

Afterwards he went through life trying to do what was right, although if any where to ask him to what end he strived, he could never say. He did not look for meaning in the things around him, and it seemed to him that those who tried to analyse things where generally unhappy. Just doing things because he thought they should be done was good enough for him.

When the time came, he moved away to a distant city to go to school. And one day he was exploring, for the first time, the old cemetery, when he came across the statue of a sphinx.

He was suddenly weighed upon by the impression that the sphinx was gazing at him. There was a riddle hidden within him, a riddle whose answer he clutched, but dared not open his hands to gaze upon for fear of what he might see.

He could not meet her gaze, and felt himself becoming as she, becoming stone. He reached inside himself, and forced his head upward. Somehow he found the strength that had failed him before, and faced the truth he had so long denied.

All the energy that carried him forward, his drive to do what was right, was one single, desperate hope. Somewhere in the world was one person, one single person. And although there was almost no chance he would ever find her, it was that chance that kept him going.

He met the gaze of the sphinx, and almost as soon as he did, he heard a raven's caw. He looked, and watched in surprise as something fell from the raven's beak. The dreamer stepped forward and picked it up; it was an old and rusted skeleton key. And this brought back a memory from long ago.

The two dreamer had sat together in a cemetery, for what had seemed like the last time, watching the sunset.

"Are you crying?" He asked, because she was hiding her face.

"Yes, but for the last time until we meet again. I will not waste my tears on any lesser sorrow than this.

"Then you will never cry again?" He asked.

"Don't say that!" She said. "This world may be vast and cruel, and against it we may wield but little power, but there is another world, and a better one; the world of dreams. For only in dreams shall all our promises be true. In dreams we shall meet again."

"But the land of dreams is so vast, and constantly changing. However shall I find you there?"

"Oh, you are so silly!" She said, and smiling through her tears, she removed a ribbon from her hair, took his hand, and tied it around his wrist. "Don't you remember how many times I have told you about the Key? How it has the power to bring whoever truly loves to that thing he desires above all else to find? But, all things in their proper time. When it is meant to happen, you shall find the key, and it will lead you to me."

"If only this was the key that would bring me back to her!" Said the dreamer, sadly. " But even if it was, I suppose it would be no use. For I have forgotten how to dream."

And shaking his head, he removed the ribbon that he had kept on his wrist all these years and tied the key to it.

"Alas, that I am trapped in this world, instead of the world of dreams!" He said, wistfully gazing at the key as it swung back and forth, blurring the world around him.

"For this world is just as unreal, and makes as little sense!" Suddenly he felt weary. The sun had not yet begun to set, it shined on his face, making him drowsy. He leaned against the crypt and yawned, and sat down and closed his eyes.

When he awoke, the crypt, the cemetery, and everything he had ever known, had vanished. He was standing on a wide road that stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction, the sky was grey, and he could not tell if it was day or night. The road cut across a vast plain, the grass was short and grey, it seemed as though all the color had been drained out of it. There were no other living things to be seen. The plain stretched flat in every direction. At one end of the road he thought he could see a patch of black, at the other end, there seemed to be a single point of white. The only other thing in sight was a signpost with two arrows.

One, pointing toward the patch of black, said "road without end", and the other, pointing toward the point of white, said, "beginning of the road without end." The key was still swinging, it swung the same direction as the road, but always higher toward it's beginning. So he tied the key around his neck and set off toward the point of white.

He normally whistled while he walked, but now he could not find a tune, it seemed as if he couldn't even remember what music was. The point grew into a needle, and grew, and grew, until it towered high above his head, when he finally reached it, he could barely crane his head back far enough to see the top, a single point that pierced the sky. It was a marble tower that loomed before him, smooth, hard and indominable.

The purity of it was broken only by a single small door, which was open before him. Almost against his own will he stepped through it and began to climb the long and winding stair.