A little later I found that Adric and I were staring stupidly at one another, puzzled, but without animosity. Cynara came and slipped an arm round Adric, and I turned away, embarrassed, for the man was sobbing like a child. I was amazed and sick with the enormity of all that I had seen and done. I stood and shivered and shook with deadly chill. I suppose it was reaction.
"Steady!" Narayan's steely hand on my shoulder kept me once again from making an ass of myself. "You've done us a big favor," he said after a few minutes. "I wish I had some adequate way of thanking you—not for myself—for millions of people. Perhaps one day we'll find a way of sending you back to your own world, but—" his shoulders moved negatively, "I can't say—"
Adric's lean non-human face peered over Narayan's shoulder. He looked subdued, and spoke with a curious humility. He sounded sane. "There will be a way, some day. It will take time to find it, now, but—there will be."
Spontaneously we grinned at each other. I could not hate this man. I knew him too well. I knew, suddenly, that we would be friends. Which, indeed, is what happened.
Narayan looked from one to the other of us, troubled; then Gamine's intent face was at his elbow.
"I'll see to these men," she said quietly. "Narayan, they need you, and it's your responsibility. They have to be told why they were wakened, and how; there are slaves to be freed, armies—"
Narayan glanced guiltily over his shoulder at the other Dreamers who stood huddled together in a bewildered little knot. "That's so," he acknowledged gravely, and went to his people. I watched him, feeling as if my one friend here had deserted me; but it had to be that way. Narayan was not our kind. He was the sort of man who could remodel a world; but the look he sent us over his shoulder told Adric and I that we should, if we liked, have a share in that work.
"Now Mike Kenscott," said Gamine, "I want to talk to you."
We left Adric and Cynara in that place, and I cast a wistful glance back at them. Cynara was lovely, and very human, and I suppose I had hoped that in some way she would compensate for my enforced stay in this world. But there was Adric—
Gamine and I stood on the steps of the Dreamer's Keep, and her voice, soft and wistful, mourned in the grey dawn. "No one ever knew I had the Dreamer powers—except old Rhys. Rhys and I were bound together—he knew, and kept me close to him, hid me and helped me. One day Adric found out. It—changed Adric. He—we freed Narayan together. Then Karamy made me what I was—what you saw. It hurt Adric—hurt something in him. I could have cured him, in time, but Karamy had him bewitched. She stripped him of power, of memory. I do not know, but perhaps some day, Adric may remember that I was—I was—"