Sweet Dreams and Mortal Hearts

The Dream Realm

The dream spirit Hila and her companions had gathered before the Ancestral Fish Swamp, where she was working a dream divine technique she had learned only ten-odd years before.

A divine technique, the Art of Pottery.

God had granted her the divine technique to make ice and snow, the divine technique to make oil, metal, and glass. These she had long since mastered.

The casting material that ice and snow needed was water, oil needed fish and insects, metal needed ore, and so on.

But the casting material pottery needed was nothing more than earth.

"La la la la la!"

"Here come the presents!"

Dream Spirit Hila tapped the mound of heaped-up earth, and a swirl of dreamlike starlight rose up. In the blink of an eye, the earth had become one exquisite piece of snow-white pottery after another.

Among them were pottery statues half the height of a man, small but lifelike ceramic figurines, painted clay tablets, each one different from the last.

"Ah!"

"So pretty."

"Wow wow wow wow! Lady Hila is amazing!"

The little spirits circling around her could not wait a moment longer, and swarmed forward all at once, picking out whichever gift they liked best.

Dream Spirit Hila's face broke into a smile, thoroughly pleased with herself.

She loved the feeling of bringing others joy. The happier the little spirits were, the happier it made her.

"Lady Hila is so amazing, she can make anything at all." One little spirit pressed close at her side, gazing up at her with open worship.

"It's so pretty! When will we be able to make whatever we want, just like Lady Hila?" Another little spirit, newly born not long before, held her painted ceramic figurine high, beaming with delight.

Dream Spirit Hila led the little spirits on into the sea of flowers, and some of them simply floated up into the air, circling round and round about her above the blossoms.

"Once you turn a hundred years old, you'll get to choose a Dream Egg of your own too."

"By then you'll be able to practice your own dream divine techniques, and make whatever you like, all on your own."

So Hila told the little spirits.

The little spirits said at once, "The big spirits have Dream Eggs too, but what they make always turns out so plain."

The other spirits, drifting above the sea of flowers like petals themselves, chattered in agreement, "Right, right, right."

"It comes out ugly as sin."

"Nothing at all like what Lady Hila makes. Hers are so much prettier."

Most of the little spirits loved Hila best. Set against the other big spirits, who loved their games and mischief and never seemed to grow up at all, she felt far more like a mature and steady elder sister.

One after another, the little spirits ran to Hila to tattle, telling her all about the pranks the older spirits had pulled.

"Last time, the metal pendant Xiao made was nothing but a horrible bug."

"And, and, last time they conjured up a horrible monster statue just to scare us."

"Those big spirits are the worst."

Just then, several heads poked up out of the sea of flowers.

The big spirits were offended, and would not accept the little spirits' criticism. "How is what we make not good? What we make is great!"

They glared. "Right, right, right! Clearly you lot just don't know good taste when you see it."

Some of them even stuck out their tongues. "Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh."

The big spirits and the little spirits differed enormously in age, but hardly at all in temperament.

Whether little spirits or big spirits, they were all, every one of them, still children.

The whole crowd of dream spirits burst into an uproar once more, and God's Garden dissolved into chaos.

The big spirits were simply second-rank spirits who had come into possession of a Dream Egg, but their divine techniques had not been bestowed on them directly by the divine. Most of them had far less talent than Hila, and even less love of study.

Years of study had never brought them true mastery of these dream divine techniques, and the things their divine techniques conjured up drew nothing but scorn from the little spirits.

At that moment, before the temple's great metal gate, one mischievous little spirit slipped away from the crowd and crept off alone, craning its neck to peer curiously inside.

It had heard the big spirits say there was a terrifying monster inside the temple.

It was burning with curiosity, and wanted to see for itself just what this legendary monster looked like.

Peering into the temple, it caught sight at once of the Mother of Life, Shelly.

"Ah!"

"So scary!"

But in that same moment it also saw beams of light spilling out from the idol of the god Yinsai, and the little spirit's lips puckered into a pout at once.

Its golden robe streaming in the wind, it drifted quickly down from the temple, and made its way to God's Garden.

"Lady Hila."

"Lady Hila."

"God is awake."

Hila froze for a moment. God had only just fallen asleep. How could he possibly have woken so soon?

It did not match the divine's recent pattern of rest at all.

But she was glad of it all the same. She had been afraid that, just as before, he might sleep on for centuries at a stretch.

If that had happened, then even with a lifespan far outstripping any trilobite man's, she might have seen God only a handful of times in the whole of it.

In the hall of the gods, Dream Spirit Hila came hurrying to stand before the divine.

She saw God, who had only just woken. She was overjoyed, but she did not show it with gestures the way the other dream spirits liked to. It showed only in her eyes.

She smoothed her lavish robe, stood straight before the divine, and bowed in reverence.

"God!"

"Why have You woken so early?"

Though Yin Shen had fallen into a deep sleep, his subconscious mind had gone on watching everything outside the whole while, recording whatever happened.

"Hila!"

"You opened the gate to the Spirit Realm?"

The dream spirit felt a flicker of embarrassment. The Spirit Realm had only just begun to take shape, and this was the first time she had ever taken on the duty of guarding its gate.

But she would not lie to God, and so she answered honestly.

"God!"

"A trilobite man read the poet Tito's chapter, and called me by my true name."

"I looked at him once, within the dream. Just the once, nothing more."

God looked at her, and after a long silence, he spoke.

"Do you know something?"

"That single glance of yours will bring a vast calamity down upon the world of the trilobite men."

The dream spirit froze. Nothing in her understanding or her imagination could grasp what that meant.

She could not imagine that a single glance of hers at someone could bring them disaster. When had she ever possessed such power?

But, of course, what God said could never be wrong.

As if she had committed some terrible fault, she fumbled helplessly, stammering out her words.

"I only heard someone calling me, and I... I looked at him once. That was all."

"God!"

"I am a dream spirit. All I have is the power to dream."

"My eyes hold no divine power to bring down disaster!"

God did not blame Hila. He only spoke.

"Hila, you have a good heart."

"But!"

"All of you who were born out of sweet dreams do not understand the hearts of men."

God told her, "For every sin and every greed, men need only cry out 'in the name of God,' and they will commit it without the slightest restraint."

"A single phrase, 'for the glory of God,' and countless thousands will march to their deaths."

"To you, it is nothing more than a single instant, glancing down from the Divine Kingdom toward the mortal world."

"But to the trilobite men, it is power. It is glory. It is a right."

"It is everything they want, everything they strive for."