Page 46 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

The Neiriad forces us to accept what might be considered facile reasoning: that if a king is good, the land will prosper; that acts of bravery are always rewarded and acts of treachery punished; that there never lived a hero who shirked his duties or who faltered in battle.

Why is this so? Because it has always been.

Why must it be true? Because we, who read, desire it to be.

Our belief in a world that is just and perfect gives us strength to survive in a world that is anything but.

Daylight died early in the winter, so by the time they reached the museum at closing hours, the sun was setting, the shadows lengthening, the light filmy and inconstant.

The wind swept day-old snow from the sidewalk into the air, where it danced and swirled, white flecks against the darkness.

The cobblestones were slick and black enough that Preston could see his reflection in them, though it looked bleary and strange.

All around them, crowds of commuters milled, older men in top hats, women in fox-fur stoles, students in their uniforms, their faces stony and silent and their breath pale in the cold.

The people of Caer-Isel seemed like entirely different creatures to Preston.

He felt, for a moment, that he was not an interloper in their world, but rather they were foreign entities in his.

The seam between the real and the unknown was pulling apart.

Lotto didn’t let him linger in these thoughts for long. “Is there a side entrance?” he asked as they approached the Sleeper Museum. “Or are we just marching through the front doors like conquerors?”

“No, there’s a side entrance.” Preston felt for the key in his pocket, and as they approached the small door, his heartbeat quickened.

We’re not doing anything illegal , he reminded himself.

Technically. The curator had given the key willingly to Master Gosse.

And for all he—or the police—knew, it had then been passed willingly to Preston.

It was just as much a matter of Master Gosse owing him as it was that he knew his adviser would not want to be embarrassed by the fact that one of his students had stolen the key from him so easily.

If Preston was sure of nothing else about Master Gosse, he knew that he was a man of enormous ego.

And—well. Preston finally had a trump card. He was Master Gosse’s only way into the underwater world. He would not want to compromise that.

Preston slipped the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed. The door swung open without a sound.

The corridor, long and half-lit, was just how he had remembered on his previous visit with Master Gosse. He forged ahead, Lotto following him with uncharacteristic hesitation.

“I’m assuming you have a plan if we encounter a night security guard,” Lotto said in a low voice.

“Of course,” Preston said, with more certainty than he felt. “All we need to do is explain that we’re here on behalf of Master Gosse. I’ve met the curator, Somervell, so...”

Lotto gave a slight grimace. “Not that I doubt your poise and diplomacy, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Poise indeed. Preston’s hands were shaking so hard that he had to return the key to his pocket so he wouldn’t risk dropping it.

They walked on for several moments in silence, until they came upon the door on the left. Through the small window, Preston glimpsed the lectern upon which the original copy of the Neiriad sat.

“Wait,” Preston said suddenly. “Let’s just see...”

He had meant to go directly to the Sleepers’ chamber, but there was some force within him—something greater than mere opportunistic curiosity—that made him pause. The manuscript seemed to emit an energy of its own, a low humming sound, like electrical wires. It called to him, a wordless siren song.

And so, with Lotto at his back, he opened the door.

There was nothing else in the room aside from the lectern, though it stood rather ignominiously on a dusty linoleum floor. Preston approached, his heart hammering in his throat. This isn’t for me , he thought, suddenly and with great bitterness. I don’t belong here.

But didn’t he? The blood that sang in response to the Neiriad was just as much Llyrian as it was Argantian.

He was his mother’s child as well as his father’s son.

And so he did not pause or slow his pace until he was standing just before the lectern, staring down at the book through its protective case of glass.

The book was lying open, its pages yellowed and water-stained, the ink faded and nearly illegible in some places.

Preston squinted. He could read Old Llyrian, but the lines were crammed together, little space between the words, and with its baroque flourishes, the text was almost impenetrable.

Perhaps he could have used his glasses after all.

Over his shoulder, Lotto was squinting, too. “I should have paid more attention in my language classes. I can’t make out anything.”

So Preston leaned closer, until his nose was practically pressed against the glass. The manuscript was open to its very first page; he could, at least, recognize the Neiriad ’s famous opening lines.

Lo! How we have heard the deeds and glory

Of the last-and-greatest king;

How he broke the land through the sea

As quick as the spear shafts of his enemies;

How he kept at bay the water

Just as he repelled the pillagers

Who threatened his supremacy.

Preston almost stumbled back in shock. These were not the words he had read a hundred times—at least, not quite.

What had happened to that final line? The one that described the king’s enemies as those who spoke the demon Ankou’s tongue ?

The one that established, beyond all doubt, that Argant was Llyr’s bitterest, most ancient rival?

And for that matter, there was no reference to Llyr in the second line, either.

The way he had learned it was Of Llyr’s last-and-greatest king .

“Am I going mad?” Preston asked aloud. “Lotto, look—the words aren’t right.”

He maneuvered his friend over the lectern, until he was bent close enough to—just barely—make out the letters.

Surely even Lotto would know them. These lines were drilled into the minds of every child of Llyr from the time they learned to read.

Lotto certainly didn’t have his eidetic memory, but still.

These were arguably the most famous lines of literature in Llyr’s history.

Or was it Llyr’s history?

After several moments of staring, brow furrowed in concentration, Lotto straightened up again. His face had gone ashen.

“This is fucked, Héloury.”

“It’s all fucked.”

The swear felt strange on Preston’s tongue. He never cursed—at least, the old version of himself never did. Now...

A chilling silence swept through the room. It was as if someone had opened a window and let in a cold breeze from outside. But the room had no windows. It was as small and enclosed as a tomb.

“I don’t like this,” Lotto said, shifting anxiously. “Maybe we should just go—”

“No,” said Preston sharply. “There’s something more I have to see.”

And so, with no small amount of reluctance, Lotto followed him out of the room and back into the poorly lit corridor. It led them straight to the chamber of the Sleepers. It was just as cold inside, and the skin on the back of Preston’s neck rose in gooseflesh.

Please be silent as you observe the exhibit. You would not want to disturb the Sleepers before their time, lest they wake in a foul mood!

Preston’s gait did not falter as he walked around the circle of coffins until he arrived at the foot of Aneurin’s.

He did not even glance at Myrddin, or any of the other Sleepers.

He looked only at the bard, in his gold-trimmed robes, with the sleeves that obscured all of his body, even the tips of his fingers.

He stared down at the bard’s death mask.

There was nothing that could be discerned in it, no expression, only what one’s imagination could impose.

Depending on who looked at it, and how, the bard could have been either peaceful or defiant.

He had come to expect it, by now, and it did not come as a shock at all, when the bells began to ring in the back of his mind.

“What am I meant to be seeing?” Lotto’s voice was a whisper.

“It’s not what can be seen,” Preston replied, “but what cannot.”

It had the cadence of a song—mystic, portentous. He did not know what compelled him to speak this way. The words had seemed to simply emerge, fully formed, on his tongue.

It was against the museum rules, and it felt almost sacrilegious, but Preston placed both of his palms on Aneurin’s coffin. He half expected some electric shock to his skin, or some alarm to sound. Yet there was nothing. No sound, except the softness of his and Lotto’s breathing.

The glass itself was almost as cold as ice, and just as fragile.

Preston’s heart pounded viciously. And then, summoning up a memory of Effy—of her in that secret room behind Ianto’s bookshelf, where they had discovered Myrddin’s diary—he brought down one of his fists with all the force he could muster.

The glass shattered.

“ Preston! ”

It was impossible. It shouldn’t have broken so easily; these corpses were Llyr’s greatest treasure, more precious than any sum of gold. He was not especially physically strong. And yet the glass had almost leaped apart under his hand.

“Oh, fuck,” Lotto was chanting. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—”

But Preston didn’t turn around. He reached down instead, fingers quivering as they neared Aneurin’s body. The bells were ringing almost deafeningly.

He lifted Aneurin’s death mask from his face. Only—there was no face beneath. There was not even a blanched skull, the bone made fragile and translucent with time. There was nothing except a pit of blackness, an absence where a body should have been.

Preston didn’t even have time to react before the alarms sounded.