More than a Dream?

"That was certainly quite some dream," Checkers said when he had finished. "It's hard for me to believe that there could ever have been a Glider mage, though; and I certainly never noticed a statue of a Glider in the ampitheatre. I slept well myself without dreaming, and feel much refreshed for it... This storage place for tools that you mentioned. Was there anything there which we could use to help Astra?"

"There was a pickaxe but, even if it's there in reality as well as in my dream, it would take weeks if not months to excavate enough rock to allow Astra to escape."

"I think that we should look anyway, and see if it corresponds to what you saw in your dream. If that part should prove to be true, then we can hope that the rest of it is as well, and we can try waking one of the statues."

"It might be dangerous," Fred pointed out. "Paul thought that it would be all right, but whoever we awaken might not prove as amenable as he expected. I'm prepared to run that risk for myself, but if you would rather go and rejoin Astra and wait to see if I return, then I will understand."

"If whoever we revive proves hostile, then it would be much better if there are two of us with weapons rather than one. I will come with you when you try this. But perhaps - for all its seeming realism and great detail - it was no more than an ordinary dream. Now let us see if your tool shed really exists."

The tool shed was where Fred remembered it as having been. And its contents were also as he remembered. Most remarkable of all, whilst everything else looked brand new, the wheelbarrow and rope ladder showed signs of recent use; there was a little rock dust in the barrow, and there were slight scrape marks on the rope.

So they returned to the ampitheatre, and attempted to identify the statues of the three people whom Paul had thought most likely to be able to help them.

1. They decided to attempt to revive Sartoma.
2. They decided to attempt to revive Solbert.
3. They decided to attempt to revive Gardener.
4. But there were far fewer statues than fifty. For some unknown reason, many were missing, the three that they sought apparently amongst them.

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