It was time for Chloe and Hannah to travel to Dahma to undertake their mission.

They had completed their short nine month course of training in the Larakian school where Katetheuna and others had taught them. The eve of the date that Hotzeh had forthtold they would find the heir, the 14th of ‘Nisan’, had arrived. They had said goodbye to the friends that they had made during their time there. None of them were going to be coming on this mission. The mission was for them and them alone. Except for Katetheuna and Hotzeh themselves as their primary caregivers and very experienced Larakians, nobody else would be accompanying them. Any more than that and, it was judged, it would be too dangerous for them in Dahma.

“How will we get there?” asked Hannah back in the atrium of Hotzeh and Katetheuna’s house, where they had been staying. “By foot? By boat? Plane?”

“I don’t know what a ‘plane’ is, my dear,” said Katetheuna, “but by none of those means. You will get there by dreamtravel.”

“Dreamtravel? What in Mashal is that?” said Hannah, using one of the local phrases she had picked up. Chloe rolled her eyes.

“Dreamtravel,” said Hotzeh, “is a special means of transportation that has been granted to the people of Larakia by the One True King. It is a somewhat…unusual method but as it is possible to cover very great distances by it, and seeing as Ubal is so far away in Dahma, it is the most sensible option to choose in this case.”

“But how does it actually work?” said Hannah. “What kind of thing will we get into?”

“Oh, that part’s very simple,” said Katetheuna. “All you ‘get into’ is your bed. You simply go to bed as normal, then fall asleep. But it’s what happens after that which is important: Hotzeh here will use his gift to see what you are dreaming. Then, he will write down what you dream, as it happens. Next he will start to rewrite your dream from the outside, changing what you see in your dream. It’s very important that when you feel the dream changing you pay attention and make sure you don’t wake up, that you cooperate with him in order to change the dream from within. There will be something to find in the dream, such as a special object to pick up or a door to go through. When you find it, you will wake up at your destination—in this instance, the city of Ubal in Dahma. Does that make sense?”

Chloe and Hannah just looked at Katetheuna open-mouthed.

“You what?” said Hannah, after a while.

“It’s straightforward enough once you do it the first time,” said Katehteuna. “And don’t worry, it’s quite safe. I’ve done it plenty of times. In fact, when it comes to getting to Shul, where we sometimes go on missions too, it’s the safest way of traveling without being detected by the enemy.”

Ah yes, the enemy. The girls had learned lots in the school about the country that Larakia was at war, Shul, and the wicked King Echthros who ruled over it. They hoped they would never have to run into any of the Shulites in their lives, let alone on this mission.

That night, Hannah and Chloe went to bed as normal, except they went dressed in their robes, with their weapons tucked into the folds, their sandals on their feet, and their rings on their fingers, ready to go. It took a little while to get to sleep because of the fear and excitement about finally going on their mission, but when they did eventually nod off, after a while they each began to dream…

Chloe dreamed that she was on a golden beach looking out at the sea. Azure waves lapped at the shore and with each wave she felt as if they were calling her, pulling her out into the enormous roaring blue. She stepped forwards and the water sloshed over her toes, around and in between them. She took another step, and another, and soon she was running into foam and spray. Then she was submerged in the water, diving down into the depths of the sea.

Only, she found she could breathe absolutely fine, and see clearly, and even hear without any problems. A current of bubbles caught Chloe fully, the same current that had beckoned her forwards into the waters, one of many, and dragged her along with it underwater. All around her were myriad fish of all different shapes and sizes, brilliant and uncountable in their variety. Some of them swam in the currents of water; some of them seemed deliberately to swim away from her. As the rush of the currents swept past her Chloe thought she could hear sounds, echoes, being carried along with them too. When she listened carefully, she realised that they were voices. The voices of people making requests, or something close to that:

“One True King, please protect my brother and sister in Sepher…”

“Please bring the people of Madebah safely back to you…”

“I ask, One True King, that you would take care of the journey of my son…”

Then Chloe understood that she was being carried along not just on currents of water but of prayers, the invisible connecting flows that linked up different families, groups, and countries, the subterranean streams along which people’s petitions, promises and gratefulness to the One True King travelled. She added her own prayer to the bubbling swirl of voices.

“One True King, please get us to Ubal alright…”

As she said this, she suddenly recognised one of the voices, a faint murmur that, nonetheless, sounded like Hotzeh’s voice—deep and gravelly. Remembering Hotzeh, Katetheuna and Hannah, she suddenly knew that this was in a dream, and it was hard not to wake up. But somehow Chloe tried not concentrate on that and she remained in the dream. She listened more closely to what Hotzeh’s voice was saying.

It was something like “Swim upwards Chloe…towards the surface…”

At this, Chloe looked up. Sure enough, there high above her was a small round glowing of light. She started to kick with her legs to take her upwards. Rather than holding her back, the current she was in seemed to alter its course and shift in order to help her, propelling her up towards the little golden disc. Up, up she went, and before she knew it she was approaching the glow. At first she had thought that it was the whole of the surface of the water, then she realised that it was just one small spot on it, one particular marked out place that she was supposed to aim for, which she was about to arrive at.

Chloe surfaced.

Next, it was Hannah’s turn to dreamtravel. In her dreams at that particular moment she was not swimming, but flying. She was high up in the sky, having one of those wonderful lucid dreams that you may have had yourself where you can fly, soaring free as a bird above fields, mountains, clouds. It was glorious. Sometimes what happens in those dreams is that you suddenly lose your ability to stay in the air and you fall, and your stomach drops out of the back of you with a horrible plummeting sensation. To avoid that, Hannah had to exercise her Gift of trust, to believe that she was able to stay airborne, to think and act as if she could fly. But at the moment, lost in the dream, this was easy. She felt light as a feather, free as a bird.

Just then, she heard a whisper, a voice breezing past on the wind ever so softly:

“Hannah, it’s me. Look down for your destination…”

This shocked Hannah, and she lost control and wobbled a bit with surprise, dipping down dangerously for a moment, but then she recovered and lifted back up. The voice had been Hotzeh’s, which is what surprised her and made her realise she was in a dream. But she retained her concentration and trust, managing to stay in the dream.

Hotzeh had told her what to do so she obeyed and looked down. Far below, just over the green, brown, white and grey countryside underneath her, huge letters started to appear, hovering above the different features of the landscape. They looked like they were being inscribed in black ink, as if someone was writing over the world itself. One by one another and another appeared, this one over a plain, this one over a mountain, this one over the grey shape of what seemed to be a city, until Hannah realised what they were: place names. She began to read them aloud as she flew through the sky, searching for the one that she was supposed to be looking for.

“Aythia…Awmeer…Qereth…Sadeh…Shaveh…Shemuesh…Tur…Ubal!”

There it was. The city of Ubal, its four big black letters inked unmistakably over a large circular collection of settlements, built where five rivers marked Nahar, Piychon, Giychon, Hiddekel and Perath met, on the borders of the lands of Sadeh, Shaveh and Choresh.

Fixing her eyes on her destination, Hannah dove towards it. It was exhilarating to be flying with purpose, even in the dream. The dream air hurtled past her, caressing her clothing and skin, making her hair flutter out behind her like a flag. It would be easy to reach the city, her destination. She wished that she could always travel this way when she needed to go somewhere far away. She almost did not want the dream to end.

All of a sudden Hannah noticed as she glanced upwards that there were a collection of black shapes approaching her in the distance, as if they were going to converge on Ubal too. Instinctively, she knew that there was something evil about them. In the dream world, they looked something like droplets of ink that have been dropped in water as they begin to spread out—blurry dark blotches growing slowly bigger and bigger. There were a great number of them, but Hannah counted three that were coming right towards her. Hannah’s trust began to wobble, and so did her flight. They were coming towards her very fast. They were going to reach Ubal faster than she would.

Seeing this, Hannah tried to alter her course and change direction to avoid the approaching black shapes. But it was too late. Moving impossibly fast, one of them came straight at her.

Hannah began to scream.