The Dreaming Kingdom

2

Eileen's eyelids fluttered, and she peeled her cheek off a flat, grainy surface.

"Ow, my neck," she complained under her breath, her mind mussy and confused, sore as if she'd spent the night passed out on her couch after too much wine. Eileen couldn't remember having anything to drink; in fact, she didn't remember much of anything, definitely not how she'd gotten home or why she appeared to be face-down on the floor.

Wasn't I...at the convention?

Again her eyelids fluttered, and with an absurd amount of effort, she finally pried them open.

She regretted it almost instantly.

A soft, pale light poured down upon her from above, thick enough to nearly be tangible, though not bright or intense, not illuminating anything outside of her immediate vicinity. She felt like an island in a shallow puddle, surrounded in all directions by gray stone marked in strange black sigils.

"This is the worst hangover dream I've ever had," she muttered. It was a hangover, wasn't it? Because if it wasn't—.

"Welcome Eileen Weir—!"

Her breath buffeting a mic—.

A bland white bathroom with music echoing in the vents, cold water on her hands—.

A dagger held over her head, blue light spilling from her chest—.

Eileen grasped at her temple as sharp pain flashed behind her eyes, wincing.

She'd been attacked. She remembered that now, though the memory felt splintered and unwhole, tainted by swirls of inexplicable blue light and a strange heaviness over her heart. Where was she?

The shadows stirred, and Eileen yelped, thinking her hallucinations had taken on a whole new terrible form—but the blurry shapes resolved into long, dragging cloaks and stiff shoulders, a ring of stooped figures closing in. One stepped in front of the others, and Eileen stared, her mouth open and slack.

She knew him.

Birds pecked at the red feeder outside her window, dusting the sill in millet and safflower seeds as Eileen idly watched them. Her chin rested on her propped-up arm, and as she mused, her free hand tapped words on the keyboard.

"A beard the color of a sparrow's wing—wisps of gray among the brown tufts, the strands slick with perfumed oil. He was a mountain of a man, dourly dressed in his ceremonial robes, thick white bindings covering his blind eyes. Atop his head rested a crown formed of gold and iron, honed with sharp peaks like the mountains ringing his beloved city."

"Is this some kind of joke—?" Eileen demanded, only to break off in a cough, her throat dry and aching. The man in front of her didn't react, choosing not to speak until her fit subsided.

"Name me, Anomaly."

Eileen stared at him. "I—this is ridiculous."

"Name me, Anomaly."

Her brow furrowed. What was that supposed to mean? She again recalled the disjointed scene in the bathroom, the cloaked intruder calling her the same thing. "The Anomaly" was the name Eileen had given Dorivalia's god—or, rather, the main goddess in an otherwise unimportant pantheon. She hadn't even bothered to name most of the others, not even in her own notes.

"Listen, I don't know what in the hell you think you're doing—."

"Name me, Anomaly," he boomed, more forceful this time.

Eileen licked her lips, annoyed and agitated—and frightened. Who were these people? What did they want? If she indulged in their delusion, would she get out of there faster? Would they let her go?