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July 1890 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger,
I apologize for the presumptions made at our last meeting. Truthfully, I do not know the extent of who you are, what powers you may command, and became over-familiar. I hope I can regain your good graces, and we can continue to write to each other and meet once a century.
Sincerely,
Hob Gadling
*
September 1890 – Letter from Dream of the Endless to Hob Gadling
Hob Gadling,
Our centennial meetings (and letter writing) may continue, so long as you restrain any further ludicrous presumptions.
Morpheus
*
April 1896 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger,
The Olympics have begun! They have revived the practice of nations coming together to compete in athletics, for peacetime camaraderie, from the Ancient Olympics. They are holding it in Athens. Quite remarkable. I have been following in the newspaper, as they receive the information from the telegraphs.
So far we have won two gold medals, but that is far behind Greece. To my regret, France and Germany and the United States are also pulling ahead of us. I do wonder if this will help maintain peacetime. I do not know if it will, tensions continually run high.
Apart from that, they have started experimenting with a communication device called the radio. The physics of it is a bit beyond me, I am afraid.
Yours,
Hob Gadling
*
September 1896 – Letter from Dream of the Endless to Hob Gadling
Hob Gadling,
One of the more interesting traditions in human history. The Olympics were originally conducted as offerings to the gods. Yours to wonder what effect it will have today.
Morpheus
December 1899 / January 1900 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger,
They have been calling the end of this century Fin de siècle, and referencing it in a unpleasant way. Combined with the hope of a new century, many are convinced society is in decay.
I am of course hopeful for the new century. Various people have been experimenting with flying machines and producing new literature and architecture styles. "Modern style" architecture and art in particular is very beautiful.
Yours,
Hob Gadling
*
April 1900 – Letter from Dream of the Endless to Hob Gadling
Hob Gadling,
Humans are so very invested in beginnings and time. Tell me, Hob Gadling, how would the first day of the new year feel different than the last one?
Morpheus
*
July 1914 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger,
Those Olympics did not stop another war from coming. I suppose that would have been too much to ask. It is shaping up to be a big one, the result of countless political machinations, and there are all sorts of new weapons humanity has developed. They make me shudder, though God knows I haven't been a man of virtue all these years. I will be enlisting as an officer, to try to get as many men through it as I can.
Yours,
Hob Gadling
*
September 1914 – Letter from Dream of the Endless to Hob Gadling
Dear Hob Gadling,
I am loathe to think of the creations humanity will make and put to use as weapons. Imagination and creativity all have double-edged swords. And you cannot die unless you choose to, but it may be more difficult to conceal your immortality in this war.
Morpheus
*
(In the Dreaming's library, several unsent versions with scratched out lines appeared:
I do not think the Creator cares to know enough about your virtues and the wars humanity fights.My sister will be at work in the battlefields. I am sure I will hear about what transpires.I will guard your dreams during this war, then.Very valorous of you, Hob Gadling, but I would be loathe to somehow lose one such as you.)
Summer 1916
(Here in the darkness.)
(Here in the darkness.)
Dream had never known such pain. An eternity and a second of dilated time and space in which he was shredded, torn asunder, and blackness consumed his vision.
(Here in the darkness.)
Nothing. Not even his mother's stars. An in-between.
(Here in the darkness…)
*
December 1919 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger,
I hope all is well in your realm and duties. I imagine the war and its suffering among us humans has created much work for you. The war is over, and I hope to God to never see another like it.
The trenches of death and mud and blood and mustard gas and more and more horrifying weapons. So many people died. People who survived fighting in it have been experiencing difficulty re-adjusting into society, myself also. Though at least I have seen suffering before, not like those fresh faced boys who were barely at the age of men. They suffered horribly.
There's also something strange called the sleepy sickness going on. So many people have fallen asleep and won't wake up, or sleep-walk perpetually, or have died. It started in 1916, apparently. The Spanish Flu has hit even harder, primarily young healthy people. I suffered it at one point but recovered.
There is not a lot of good news from these years. However, the first crossings of the Atlantic by air occurred. A flying boat, Vickers Vimy airplane, and an airship all did so this year.
Yours,
Hob Gadling
*
July 1921 – Unsent Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger – Dream,
I am starting to wonder if all is well.
I feel either something has happened – perhaps something that has caused a need for full attention to your duties – or you have decided to no longer write me.
I wish I knew. I wish you would tell me.
*
March 1922 – Unsent Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger,
I wish I knew if you were done with me or just indisposed.
Why aren't you writing back? I need you. You're the only one who knows who I really am. I am both worried and afraid.
1916 – 1923
Lucienne spent the first few years waiting on Lord Morpheus to return. Then she spent the next several after that trying to hold the realm together. She had not ventured into Morpheus's inner sanctum, a place where everyone knew to not trespass. The letters from Hob Gadling started coming to the Library, however, as if the Dreaming's last gasps of magic recognized the need.
*
April 1923 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Dream of the Endless
Dear Stranger – Morpheus,
Everyone's sleep is troubled, the sleepy sickness still prevalent but more and more people simply do not dream. If you have forsaken us, please return. I suspect more and more that something has happened, however. That you cannot return.
I know not why I continue writing, then. Only that it is habit, that these may be received somewhere and be a record for you if you return, a record of me and those around me. Of whatever this correspondence and our meetings mean.
Yours,
Hob Gadling
*
June 1923 – Letter from Lucienne, Librarian of the Dreaming, to Hob Gadling
Dear Mr. Gadling,
This is Lucienne, Librarian of the Dreaming, writing to you. Normally I would not take such liberties, but Lord Morpheus is missing and thus unable to answer your letters.
He went to the Waking World (your daytime world) for his work in 1916 accompanied by his raven, Jessamy. Neither have returned, and we have heard nothing from them. The Sleepy Sickness you write of almost certainly is associated with his disappearance. The Dreaming has begun to suffer for his absence, and therefore affects the Dreamers. I am very worried about him, as he would never abandon his duties.
I will write to you as I can, if you wish, though I am no Lord Morpheus. I fear the magic sustaining the Dreaming has begun to fade, so I do not know long the letter exchange will continue functioning.
Sincerely,
Lucienne
Royal Librarian of the Dreaming
*
June 1923 – Letter from Hob Gadling to Lucienne, Librarian of the Dreaming
Dear Lucienne,
Thank you for writing to me (Please call me Hob, if you like). If the magic is fading, it's possible we don't have much time, I assume. Is anyone looking for him? If I were to look for him, where would I start, beyond the occult? Is there anyone else I could contact?
Yours,
Hob Gadling
*
June 1923 – Letter from Lucienne, Librarian of the Dreaming, to Hob Gadling
Dear Hob Gadling,
Some of the residents of the Dreaming ventured to look for him – against my advice, as dreams rarely survive in the Waking – and have not returned, nor have I heard anything of them since. He has siblings, but they are bound by ancient laws to not interfere, if they even know where he is.
Wherever he is, it must be completely cutting him off, or else Jessamy would have been able to return with news, and the Waking would not be suffering for his absence so.
I will begin looking into the dream journals of prominent occultists but have found nothing thus far. I will also search for rituals that could ensnare someone of his power, to try and trace any books used. It seems the best chances you would have to search for him would be finding Jessamy, looking into the occult, and/or seeing his vestments are anywhere in the Waking.
Jessamy is an African pied crow, a white-breasted corvid.
His vestments are his sand, typically carried in a pouch; his helm, which to you might look like a gas mask or an insectoid head with a spine attached; and a Dreamstone in the form of a ruby necklace. The sand and ruby would probably have the most effects in the Waking. None of these are meant to be used by mortals, and I do not know what effect mortal use would have on them.
Sincerely,
Lucienne
Royal Librarian of the Dreaming
Late March, 1924
Jessamy had thought, after another round of narrow misses with a shotgun, to retreat to the Dreaming, tell Lucienne about Lord Morpheus's situation. She flew up, and up, to the point where she ought to have crossed through.
Then the sky flipped in utter wrongness, throwing her back with such force that she fell instead of flew for several long and precious seconds. She cawed in fear, desperately trying to regain her wings. A roadway loomed beneath her, a straight cut through the copse of forest. Jessamy flapped her wings, managing to pull up at the last second to avoid hitting an automobile.
The automobile swerved, going off the road and hitting a tree at low speed.
Despite her mission to find help, she did feel obligated to make sure someone hadn't turned themselves into bloody paste (unlikely given the low speed, but still).
"Hob Gadling?" she squawked as the door opened. This couldn't be just a coincidence. The man in question jerked his head up, toward the tree she'd made it into. Right, he had no idea she existed and was a bird. Well, Lord Morpheus probably had not mentioned her.
"I'm Lord Morpheus's raven," she added, fluttering into view and landing on the hood of the relatively undamaged automobile.
"Lucienne mentioned you," Hob said. "I didn't know you could talk."
Jessamy started. "You have been in contact with Lucienne? How?"
"Letters," Hob said. "The letters I kept sending to Morpheus started re-routing to the library. Apparently."
"Oh." How very strange. Or not strange, given that it was the Dreaming. "I could not access the Dreaming."
"That why you fell out of the sky?"
"Oi," Jessamy said, with a huff and then a caw. "Are you looking for Lord Morpheus?"
Hob smiled like a knife, sharp and feral.
Early April, 1924
His friend lay slumped unconscious in a glass orb. Jessamy's description had not conveyed the proper horror of it. Still, he remembered to break the binding circle, studiously ignoring the blood spattered on his sleeves from the guards.
Wingbeats sounded, and he turned, expecting Jessamy, but he only caught a flash of massive wings, here and gone. Jessamy flew in in their wake, landing on Hob's shoulder.
"Do you know how to open this? They had to get him in somehow."
"No," Jessamy said. "I think we may have to break the glass."
Hob snarled softly, and seized a bloodstained chair, sending a guard's body to the floor. He raised it, and brought it down heavily against the orb – once, twice, three times, and then part of it shattered. He used the chair to hit a wider hole and try to clear the jagged edges before gently tugging Morpheus out of the cage.
He cradled Morpheus in his arms, kneeling on the grass near his car. Breaking the binding circle and glass orb seemed to have done something. His friend was still unconscious, but his hands kept twitching, like he was trying to reach for something. Jessamy had found his cloak and dragged it in, and they had dressed him in it.
"Morpheus, please, wake up."
"Sir," Jessamy added, preening at his friend's hair. "It's Hob and Jessamy. We have you out of the cage."
"Does he need to breathe?" Hob asked. Morpheus's chest was still.
"No. I think he just needs a bit of time."
As if cued, Morpheus's eyes fluttered open, and his smile at seeing Hob and Jessamy was dazed. Beatific. "Hob Gadling. You surprise me once more. And Jessamy. My loyal raven."
"Yeah, yeah, Morpheus, flatter me, why don't you," Hob grumbled, and rose, lifting his friend in the same movement, supporting him to stand.
Jessamy cawed, and flew up to sit on Morpheus's chest. "It's good to have you out of there, my lord."
"You may call me Dream if you so choose," Morpheus murmured. He tilted his head up, as if listening to something, and told Jessamy, "Return to the Dreaming, and inform Lucienne of these updates. I will be returning shortly." He raised a hand, stroking Jessamy's head gently before drawing back.
"Yes, sir!" Jessamy bobbed her head to first Dream, then Hob. "Thank you for helping, Hob. I hope to see you again." Then she took to the air.
"I must return to the Dreaming very soon," Dream said softly. "But I would speak with you first. You deserve that much." His eyes flitted to the bloodstains on Hob's sleeves.
"You need not have come to my defense," he added, wryly.
"Oh, yeah, you had it all under control," Hob agreed.
"I am … pleased you did," Morpheus said. "Once I have reviewed and repaired the damage done in my absence, I will meet you in the Waking World. Until then, we have our letters, and your dreams. And you should depart from this place, they may yet find you."
Hob walked to the driver's side of the automobile. "Until then, I suppose," he said, reluctant to leave Dream behind.
"Until then, Hob Gadling. I thank you," Dream said, and smiled, something like fondness in his face. Before Hob knew what was happening, Morpheus bridged the distance between them and kissed Hob soundly on the forehead. He waited until Hob, dazed, had climbed into the vehicle and started the engine before vanishing.
April 1924
Two weeks later, a letter arrived, bound in a black silk ribbon.
Inside was a single, pressed red rose, and message that they would meet quite soon in the Waking.
Well. Hob supposed that did clear up any confusion about what the forehead kiss meant.
He retrieved pen and paper to write back.