The Dreaming
The Shanla tell
stories of a shared dream, the only dream they may have that does not
involve the myth of Death. It comes to all of them, simultaneously, and
always the same. It is described in the Dessra netu as it was told by
one of the Williams three thousand years ago:
"The
dream comes... always the same... And before we can ask it what it
wishes of us, it is gone... In the dream, we are alone, and
not... We are surrounded by things and places that are not true, images
that are not ours... The dream speaks to us, in a thousand voices into
one. It says it is alone... That it is lost... It says the world is
dark, and the sky has long fallen... And though we awake, the dream
remains... somewhere... Whispering in a thousand voices... It is
scared, and alone... And it remains, just out of our reach..."