“Thank you for your patronage,” I remark, as the gruff-looking man nods without a word and turns to leave, ambling out the front door in a gait I know so well.

Mr. Vincent Hovst, a regular of mine since 5 years ago; his pockets are deep, and past the questions of utmost practicality, he doesn’t convey to me many pleasantries. But I know all of his secrets in a way that would have his romantic partner storm off if they ever knew. In fact, he has two partners in love: one is his wife in the waking world of ours, and another woman more perfect than his wife ever was, conjured in the world of dreams which I sell to him. And this dream sells incredibly well.

I hug the pile of Denaros on the counting table and gather them close, clattering the glinting gold of coins into a measured box. Come morning, my assistant Jules will neatly count them up for me with his power over metal – though from the looks of it, it looks like Hovst has given me an extra twenty in tip. Jules and I will split half of the tip to get something extra from Marnie’s shack – perhaps join in a few matches of cards amongst the drunkards – and return home. Jules will be empty-handed, of course. I will return with a hundred in the meantime. What then should I do with those? Allocate them to our stockpile for more Eisen? Try out the new Taro from the Ministry? Or should I just go all-in and return with a thousand instead –

The door rattles open and in strides a young man with a stylish overcoat, his wheat-colored hair slicked back impeccably and frosted gently by the powdery snow outside. He races in so fast that my guards, posted outside in unassuming clothes, only put their hands on his shoulders right before he reaches the counter, the Quans on their wrists about to come ablaze.

One look in the young man’s eyes is all it takes for me to size him up. He’s not a threat – just rich and boisterous. I hold up a hand to dismiss my guards. They eye him with relative suspicion, loosening their grips and extinguishing their Quans.

The young man speaks breathlessly.

“Bravely you descend, through the heavens of dusk.”

Ah, a new client. I answer. “And gravely I ascend, through the mortal rain.”

“Yet lacking my wings, I cannot soar,” he answers back.

“So weather you must, the storm and strain,”

“But wish for it not, the giver of wings.”

“To whom would you beseech for wings of thine?” I ask.

The young man pauses, racking his memory, his syllables stuttering. Then he gets it.

“To – to the white owl of Serien, gracing the heavens from twilight to dawn.”

Not bad at all, I muse. The speed and near-flawless delivery of his side of line speaks to me of his intelligence and betrays his desperation.

I fold my hands and lean in. “Welcome to this side of the world. I see Maestro Ophelia led you to me.”

“Are you Dream Merchant Amelie?”

“In the flesh in this desert of the real.”

“Thank the MAHANIR. I only have about an hour – maybe 50 minutes at most. I heard you can give motivation. Courage. Inspiration. Boldness. All that.”

“You’ve heard correctly,” I speak in casual airs.

“Oh, that’s great, that’s great!” he exclaims, seizing my hands and gathering them in his palms. My guards immediately reach for his shoulder, but I simply utter a soft ‘fura’ from my mouth, which cleaves him from me with a sizable breeze, fluttering my hair.

“Some distance, if you may,” I order casually, adjusting my straight bangs of black and repositioning my impeccable bun. “I’ve yet to be acquainted with your name.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry. I’m Reynauld. Can’t say my last name, it’s a bit... private.”

I chuckle a little on the inside. Nothing can ever be private from a Dream Merchant in this line of work, Mr. Reynauld.

“Good to have your acquaintance, Mr. Reynauld. How may I motivate you today?” I ask, lightly cocking my head, sizing him up at a single glance.

Worry. Listlessness. Timidity. They’re written all over the way he enunciates his words and the way he stands.

“Well, yes, um, hoo – hah – how do I say it – it’s for a negotiation. In one hour.”

“I understand that this upcoming negotiation is quite important?”

“Yes, yes of course! Most certainly.”

“And you are in need of courage?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Is this your first time with a Dream Merchant?” I ask, a standard opener for a new client anywhere.

“Well yes – actually no.”

“Which is it, Mr. Reynauld? Every second we waste is every second your courage is denied its muster,” I inquire, closing my books shut.

“When I was a little kid, yes, once. To remove a recurring nightmare. But that was the only time.”

Oh dear, this wasn’t going to go the way he expected. No wonder Ophelia referred him to me. To meld with a person’s Kaha – the shape of their soul – usually was a process requiring an hour at the least. Several hours more if they weren’t already acquainted to the process by which we Dream Merchants melded with their consciousness in the first place. That was, unless...

“I see. The process of acquainting with a completely uninitiated client takes several hours. Even up to a day. Based on current circumstances, I’m afraid what you’re asking is a pretty tall order,” I reply.

“Wait, wait, wait, everyone said that. But I can manage it. I can manage it. I’m sure of it. I said I was a little kid when I first engaged with a Dream Merchant, but I remember the steps clearly.”

“I’m iterating it for your own sake, Mr. Reynauld. If you can be sure that you are open enough for me to incept the dream you desire in less than an hour, I can avail your request.”

“That’s perfect. That’s perfect! I am sure of it.”

“I can make no guarantees,” I say, despite knowing full well that I actually can if I tried - but a disclaimer in this line of work is needed for more than just habit. And disclaimer I need to issue, because I would need something extra: Eisen.

“I would like to engage your services, Maestro Amelie,” he says, extending his hand. Well, if he so wants. The fact that he didn’t ask for a quote on how much it would cost was a testament to his desperation.

And desperation equals money. I take his hand and shake it heartily.

“No time to waste,” I say, jumping to my feet and striding past the counter with my new client in tow, nearly dragging him along. “Jules! Need you in the Garden.”

My assistant Jules’ head pops out from behind one of the bookshelves, in his hand a ladle. “Will be right there!” he says, dumping everything to dash and nearly tripping on the books, the alchemical instruments, and vines protruding on their way down to the heart of my establishment.

I chant softly to throw open the several curtains of green, and descend a flight of mossy stone stairs lit by yellow antaric spotlights. Reynauld and I pass a set of doors at the landing, bearing us down and closer to the subterranean center of my building complex, through a small passage flanked by bookshelves, and out of a spacious wooden gate into a large clearing.

Reynauld turns his head this way and that as I stride with him in tow towards comfy hammocks suspended from the branches and vines on the ceiling. The entire chamber was a nature-repose; it was in the shape of a circle, some 20 yards in diameter, with a tall ceiling. Small birds which I kept chirped by the side branches, tuning down their song with a silent hush from me; moss and flowers grew around the sides in carefully arranged-pots, the air infused with the fragrance of petrichor, the scent of the soil after rain. A mellow, hazy light of warmth emanated from the carefully installed antaric spotlights above, camouflaged among the leaves of interior trees, shining down to make this subterranean garden a picture of veritable paradise. Since I’m holding Reynauld’s hand, I can feel his heartbeat slow little by little – a far cry from the skittish rhythm he had up at the counter.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Reynauld,” I instruct, as I motion him to take his recline upon a comfortable hammock in pine-green. He takes off his shoes and, with some gentle adjustments, manages to position himself into the hammock, swinging a little.

“Do I need to do anything else?”

“Not yet. We will be starting in a few seconds.”

Jules sprints over with a bar of Eisen. I plop myself down into a velvety armchair next to the hammock, and crack the crimson bar in two, letting loose a powdery cloud of red. A spark from my fingers is all it takes for it to set alight, making a light puff as it burns up into a red haze that I inhale deeply.

Oh, it is so good.

The world in my vision comes alive in a multitude of colors. Every color becomes more radiant, every edge sharper until I can see even the outlines of the cells of my plants. The spellsongs float up from my memory into my immediate consciousness, ready to be sung; my veins feel pricked by ice and fire, all the while my mind hones its focus to a razor’s edge. It’s been a year since I’ve done Eisen, outlawed in the Republics by the order of the President, but goodness, what power we folks are denied.

I close my eyes, and can see the radiant lines that separate the living from the inanimate. The stone floors below the armchair are muted and dull, while Reynauld and Jules standing behind me are outlined by weaves of white as if trembling in the moonlight. I dismiss Jules with a motion of my hand, and turn my focus towards Reynauld, my heart awakening to the size and shape of his soul.

“Take my hand, Mr. Reynauld.” His hand brushes mine. Our fingers entwine.

Both of us have our eyes closed now.

In the beginning, only a soft, velvet black drapes my vision where his heart should be. But as I wait, holding Reynauld’s hand in mine, the pulse of our own hearts becoming known to each other, I hear a trickling of a stream emerging from the silence. I see a droplet of water in the far-off distance, trembling, wavering, racing like a raindrop down a window to one side and then to the other, observing me like a curious little critter. His Maht – the element at his coming of age – is water. This is going to be manageable, easy, even: those with souls of water are eager to become and take shape.

Reynauld should’ve seen the wisps of my soul too, because his raindrop recoils in the shock of the unfamiliar new, and rushes back as if to run away. I call out gently to Reynauld in this half-waking, half-dream state, dropping the prefix of ‘Mister’.

It’s alright, Reynauld.

We’re speaking soul-to-soul, outside the boundaries of social confines.

I’m not someone who will hurt you. I’m here to help you grow. You are not being chased by anyone or your past.

His soul still wavers. The raindrop that represents the core of his being is ever on edge. It’s hard to take his mind off the upcoming negotiation he has, but he must try his best.

The world you are in is timeless, suspended in slumber. Here, you are not being chased by dues and wants of other people. You can feel free to be who you are.

And with that line, Reynauld’s raindrop slows to a crawl, and instead, the curious little blob seems to look back towards my voice. Like a critter, it stops its retreat; taking the shape of a little squirrel, it looks me up and down from afar, cocking its head, brushing its face and tail. I hold out my palm for it to arrive.

Ever so cautiously, the water-squirrel that is Reynauld’s soul inches closer. It sniffs the fragrance of my fingers and tests the palm of my hand, poking it, putting its tiny paws and feet on it, hopping off, then hopping on again, precious minutes transpiring in the world outside.

I occlude the sensation of urgency I feel with my heart, shuffling it away into the dark where Reynauld cannot see. I am a beacon here; what my state of mind is, it will be the state of mind for those that I am melded to. I cannot risk it startling Reynauld’s soul.

I see the water-squirrel’s tiny heartbeat soften in rhythm as it snuggles up to the warmth of my Kaha and rests upon my outstretched hands. It ruffles its tiny nose and whiskers as it squeaks, turning its head this way and that, its beady eyes of acute and alert intelligence trying to read my thoughts.

I lean in my ears within this boundary between the waking and the dreaming, listening to the whispers of Reynauld’s soul. At first, the words it enunciates is unintelligible to me, but it’s because I still cling onto the language of human construct. I let them go, letting the words and grammar I know so well fall away, and in my ears enters a new kind of speech, one which does not need logic or reason to be understood. Words from Reynauld’s heart arrive into mine, and the more I hear, the more I feel the threads of meaning surface from the black; they tug at my intuition and instinct, making their meaning known like words said from a dream, words which make sense without a need for justification.

And as I sit there ever-still, my heart open, the words from Reynauld’s water-squirrel form themselves into threads of gold, shaping into constellations on the firmament of our imaginations. As I listen on further, my eyes gently closed, the words of the little squirrel-sprite manifest themselves into distinct waters and waves, gather into anvil clouds of epic repose, and to earth and craggy rocks amidst a tempestuous sea. The three-heads of a hydra – a monstrous sea creature – wrap themselves into being with the threads cording like bandages upon their skeletons, emerging from the stormy waves, their scales of green adamant and steel reflecting the rapidly fading sun, their jaws and serrated teeth bared towards Reynauld, his lonely figure cowering amidst a rocky outcrop. The threads envelop and wrap themselves into distinct objects and beings until every corner of the painting that is our shared dream is filled with vivid color and motion, of substance and texture.

So this is his dream. His state of mind. He’s facing down against a monster that he has no hope of defeating, and that’s what made him seek me out.

To incept in him indomitable courage, I need to do two things precisely: One, to help him reshape the image of himself, and Two, to help him defeat the monster. For that, I myself require a costume change.

I suspend the scene and Reynauld in it with a brief spellsong from my lips, and clad myself in a armor of silver and diamond, radiant with the glinting sunlight, entering the sphere of the dream itself. My hair loosens from its bun and comes down to my waist in flowing lustrous black – I don on my forehead a circlet befitting an empress, my straight bangs cut and fluffing up in volume. I turn my eyes from a color of violet to luminous cyan; in my hand I conjure a lance of light, eight cubits long, enough to dwarf a grown man.

I dress Reynauld in the dream with an armor of blue and gold befitting knights, pauldrons glittering with such force that gazing onto them would banish all darkness; I loosen his hair from that impeccable but suffocating slick into loose and strident waves; I make him muscular, bulkier, and don him his boots with a flick of my finger, metal plates coming together and into a spiked toe that could crush mountains with a kick.

“Continuare,” I enunciate, as the scene resumes, and Reynauld unfreezes. He jolts to his senses, panicking at the scene unfolding before him, his gaze darting from the sea to the monster to the lone outcrop amidst the ocean where we were perched. He doesn’t yet know how he’s dressed, let alone that he can conjure as much strength as he desires in this dream world of my craft.

He speaks in panicked grunts.

“What, where, who –” he stutters, stumbling on his feet.

I grab his hand.

“VALIANT REYNAULD, KNIGHT OF THE SEAS!” I call to him, conceiving in him a quality he never knew in himself. “Too long hast thee walked amidst shadows. Too long hast thee been stalked by nightmares of late, haunting thee so and reducing thee to a mere wisp of thyself! But fear no more, for Dame Amelie hast come to reaffirm thine courage!”

Reynauld’s hand instinctively tightens in my grip.

“Knight of the Seas? Me? Who am – who am I supposed to be?”

Perfect.

I snap my fingers to pause the hydra while revealing the length of a mirror amidst the sea-spray, reflecting Reynauld’s image in full glory to himself. He looks taken aback, recoiling a bit because who he sees in the mirror seems not to be the timid himself he knows, but he touches his face and pinches his cheeks to feel real pain – pain that I make, of course. He feels his metal armor, cradles its sturdy plates; astonishment seizes him as he stands with mouth agape, movements of his head fluttering his hair in triumphant waves.

Strong. Handsome. Heroic.

The creases around his eyes, initially squeezed in fear, begin to vanish. He flexes his fingers, opening and closing his hand in his metaled gloves, engraved with patterns of the sun and the stars. He glances at his boots, lightly putting his feet down to feel the earth quake beneath his step.

Protected too.

“I am... a knight?” he asks, not taking the gaze off himself. The corners of his mouth begin to relax.

“Always was,” I reply, taking his hand and pulling him up to where I am. “A Knight of our King.”

“How long was I gone?”

Fantastic.

“Fifty years.”

“Fifty?”

“Indeed. Cursed by shadows that haunted thee, thee were bound to a dreamless sleep where the Sun does not reach. The shadows took thy memory, banished thee to oblivion! At great cost, across three days and three nights, I have rescued thee from their evil.”

“What of the monster that stands before us?”

“In thine absence, monsters of their ilk began to run rampant,” I enunciate with clarity. “We fought them bravely, and are holding them at bay, but we have not been able to vanquish their all-mother. For that, we need thy wisdom, thy power.”

“And their all-mother is –”

“The creature that rears in front of us.”

“Why must I be the one to do it? Couldn’t you have done it yourself?”

“Few knights of the King come close to thy power, Knight Reynauld. We have been waiting for thy return, and that is why I have been sent. We need thy power to split the sky and sunder the seas. Thou hast done it many times before – and thou shalt do it again. I have frozen this monster in time for only a moment, but to vanquish its evil, we need thee.”

At my words Reynauld’s lips tighten in silent determination. His eyes assess the hydra monster ahead of him, suspended at my will by the force of my command. He does not remember fully of being a Knight – after all, it is an idea I conceived within his psyche – but thrust into this dream where he is the strongest, most capable, and most wanted by the peoples of whom I speak, he begins to believe.

He speaks. “You speak words of courage. Yet, how do I know if I possess the strength still?”

“You need only to grasp your weapon,” I say, briefly peering into the thoughts from his childhood and adolescence, flooding my mind with his memories. An image of a warhammer springs into my consciousness. He’d played around with a toy warhammer ever since he was five, but when he had brought it to school, his jealous peers had broken it and thrown it away. The warhammer he once had was painted yellow and navy.

And so in Reynauld’s hand I place a warhammer twelve cubits long, its handle longer than my own lance, the hammerhead itself weighing a thousand pounds. Engraved in gold and navy blue, humming a tune like that of an ancient chant, it is doubtlessly a weapon of the divine. Now, Reynauld is to wield it, and with it, triumph over the creature that represents his fears.

An unmistakable change comes over Reynauld’s eyes. It is almost as if he has rediscovered a part of himself that he’d lost long ago. As he tenuously grasps the shaft of his warhammer and brushes the gleaming metal, feeling its sturdy weight upon his fingers, the hazy cloud of his eyes begin to disappear, his hair brightening in color, the creases in his world-weary forehead becoming taut.

He begins to smile.

Something tells me it’s been his first smile in a long while, ever since he was thrust into his line of business by his father just 3 years ago, a memory which also rushed into my cognition – a business in which he was unwilling to partake. He had always wanted to be an explorer, but was denied the path due to the cruelty of circumstance.

Now, he has a chance to change it.

Reynauld sets his eyes upon the hydra. I raise my lance.