2.14: The Starlit Palace p.2

The cosmos stood before me in all her unveiled glory. Stars and constellations stood by the thousands in the sky around me, enveloping me above and below. Some constellations I recognized from the star-gazing guide I frequented from guildmaster. Others were entirely new creations, vast, complex networks of stars not to be found in the Waking World, but breathtakingly enchanting nevertheless. I felt as if I could gaze at them for hours on end and still feel that same sense of exhilaration the first time I laid eyes on them.

Beyond the stars were half a dozen nebulae filling large swaths of the void like celestial clouds. They came in brilliant shades of red, blue, green, and orange, some taking the shape of large discs and others as billowing pillars of a distant palace. I had never seen such a colorful sky before, even at the Dawn, which was known for its stellar night skies.

"Welcome to the Starlit Palace," Gordon said. "You will always have a home here so long as you remain loyal to her Majesty."

"Who would ever want to leave a place like this?" I replied.

Gordon stepped onto a grated silver walkway in front of my doorway. The walkway connected to a massive, winding road made of fine gold. The road wound upwards in counterclockwise fashion for what to seemed to be at least three stories like the ramp of parking lot that could fit ten cars side by side. Emerald lampposts the size of telephone poles flanked the sides of the wide road at every ten meters or so, though not a single one of them was lit. I found this odd until I realized that if the lights were on, I would be unable to see the stars from where I stood.

I stepped out onto the massive road, tapping down the surface with my lead foot several times just to make sure it wouldn't crumble beneath my weight. The road held firm, much to my relief. I cautiously stepped onto the road, holding my breath as I did.

Gordon noticed this and scoffed disapprovingly.

"This isn't the observatory, my scaredy-cat friend," he quipped.

"So you did call me a scaredy-cat back there!"

"Only because your terrified screaming merited such name-calling."

"Don't you even. We'll call it even."

"For now."

I turned around and saw that the building I had just left was identical to the dormitory back at the Dawn. The only difference was that the building was floating in the void of space, only connected to the road by the silver walkway I had just crossed. I found it odd that there would be a replica of the building here in the nightmare.

"Did she make the building just for me?" I asked.

"Keen observation, dear servant," Gordon replied. "Yes, that building was created by her Majesty. She wanted to make you feel more at home."

"All that work for a place I'm not particularly fond of," I said. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate her sentiment. I do. I would give anything to be back home right now."

"You are home. Precisely, you are within a pocket dimension made to appear like your home inside of a giant fish. But, should your living quarters not be to your liking, Iris can change the layout should she be willing. It should be simple for an illusionist of her skill and talent."

"It will do for now," I said. "Speaking of pocket dimensions, it makes me wonder what you’re hiding inside that dimension of yours. Can I see what's inside?”

“Absolutely not!" the cat meowed. "But if you must know, within the dimension are a myriad of tools for the tasks ahead of us, such as my favorite herbs and food stocks should I ever be separated from my kitchen. And what do you know, I left most of my spices back at the lodge. Be thankful I had the foresight to prepare ahead of time. Otherwise, you'd be eating canned soup for the rest of your stay here since I am her Majesty's one and only chief chef."

“Duly noted,” I laughed. “Please, take me to Iris. I really do need to speak with her.”

“Ah, yes, yes! She did tell me to bring you to her study as soon as you had a chance to rest.”

He dashed back into my dormitory room and returned with the pocket dimension clasped between his jaws. He left the knapsack at my feet. As the cat trotted toward me, I remembered that Priscilla and I planned to adopt a cat once our trip to Nivandor was done. And here was one now, bringing my backpack to me like a dog playing fetch.

Funny how life works, I thought.

Gordon dropped the pocket dimension at my feet. I picked it up from the ground and shouldered it.

"Thanks."

Gordon motioned for me to help him up into the pocket dimension.

“I thought you were safe here,” I said.

“Yes. I just enjoy being pampered.”

With a sigh, I picked the cat off the ground and held him near my shoulder. He lifted the pocket dimension flap and crawled inside. The moment he entered the dimension, the cat became weightless, his mass no longer affecting me. He poked his head out a moment later, a big grin on his face.

“Onward! Up the ramp!” he cried.

“I’m not your horse.”

“Yes, but I am the Cat Commander.”

I laughed, having nearly forgotten the nickname I had given him not too long ago. It really did seem like a long time ago though it couldn't have been more than a day since.

As I stepped out onto the golden road a surge of excitement filled my heart.

I loved outer space. I loved stars even more. And there were enough stars here to keep me counting for the rest of my life. I loved seeing how they all fit into the grand tapestry of this sunless sky.

It crossed my mind that Iris was the one who had placed the stars one at a time. These kinds of high-resolution illusions could not be procedurally generated and had to be painstakingly crafted by hand. A project of this scale could only be accomplished by a talented illusionist with a treasury’s worth of dispensable time.

Some of us are here because we want to be, I remembered her saying.

“I can see why Iris wouldn’t want to leave this behind,” I said to the cat on my shoulder. “Never seen anything like it.”

“It was a difficult decision to leave, yes,” the cat replied. “But you have brought her something she has been searching for, a reason enough to leave her palace behind.”

“And that would be?”

“A chance.”

“Go on.”

"A chance to free those unjustly imprisoned within the nightmare. A chance to end this nightmare once and for all, as she told you. And it all begins with freeing a certain prisoner."

"You know about the prisoner," I said slowly.

"Only that her Majesty desires to speak with said prisoner."

"Must be someone important since the cell is at the bottom of the ocean."

"Someone dangerous," Gordon replied. "At least to those who wish for the nightmare to persist. Her Majesty believes our prisoner holds the knowledge to end the nightmare."

"I figured as much. There's something that's been bothering me though, bothering me since Iris asked me for my help. Why don't those in power just kill the prisoner that holds the knowledge to end the nightmare?"

Gordon's ears perked up like a pair of antennas.

At that moment, a distant clinking noise rang out in the distance, piercing the silence around us. It took me a second to recognize that it was the sound of a hammer striking an anvil. The noise was steady, calming, like the beating of a heart.

“I believe you know the answer to that question," he yawned.

I really don't, I thought, annoyed that he refused to answer my question.

"Let us not rush so eagerly to our inevitable demise," Gordon said. "There is a proper order to the way things must be done. First, a trip to the forge. Her Majesty has prepared gifts for your next assignment.”

Demise? I thought.

“Next assignment?” I asked.

“Begins within the hour, precisely.”

“Doesn’t waste time, our Host,” I chuckled.

"We don't have much time, I'm afraid. Not anymore."

A chill went down my spine. The ever unpleasant reminder that I was still falling to my death in the real world. I pushed the thought out of my mind, knowing that meditating on it would do nothing to change my situation.

“Lead the way, then, Cat Commander,” I said.

“Up the ramp! No, down the ramp, down the ramp! The forge is to our left. Although-”

"Which way is it?"

"Left!"