The Dreamer in the Sea of Dust

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It is said that Kor Ithren was once a cartographer who collected the dreams of men as others collect the stars. But at some point, he began to draw maps not with ink, but with dust. The lines blew away, and only the desert itself knew where they led. I came to the Sea of Dust one evening when the moon hung low and yellow like a lamp over the dunes. The wind was silent. No sand moved. Only my footsteps left traces that never closed. I sought Kor Ithren, of whom the ancients said he slept somewhere where the heavens hold their breath. In the Valley of Stranded Winds, I found a ship. It stood on dry land, but around its hull lay a circle of fine, glassy sand, as if the sea itself were trapped in sleep. The ship was built of dark wood, its planks blackened by the wind, and on its stern grew an enormous conch shell, its spiral gleaming in the moonlight. Not a sail stirred. Not a shadow moved. A rope ran from the bow to my feet, and at the end of the rope lay a brass clock without hands. It didn't tick. I picked it up, and the moment I put it to my ear, I heard something—not a sound, but a thought, old and tired like sand that dreams from time to time that it is water. "If you wake the dream," said the thought, "you must stay until it sleeps again." I climbed aboard. Dust shimmered between the planks, breathing softly. On the deck, bottles lay in rows, each with a spark in it, scarcely brighter than a firefly. As I opened one, a scent of tea and ash rose, and in that scent, I saw him: Kor Ithren. He stood at the bow as if he had always been there, barefoot, with eyes like faded moons. The wind didn't play around him; he himself had become wind. His hands held a parchment of sand that changed with each breath. "The world sleeps in its own tracks," he said. "I draw it so it won't forget itself." I asked him if he still knew where the sea ended. He smiled. "There where the dust begins to dream." Then he handed me back the handless watch. "Hold it to your heart when the moon threatens to sink. And forget that you are awake." I did as he said. The moon still hung large above us, but its light began to tremble, as if someone were stirring it from within. Around the ship, the dust rose, light, circling, like water breathing. The conch at the stern turned, slowly, and the ship began to glide—not on waves, but on memories. Kor Ithren dissolved into the mist, as if the dream were calling him back. I called his name, but the wind echoed it more faintly, until nothing remained but the ticking of a clock with no hands. Then that, too, was gone. When I awoke—if it was awakening—I stood again in the sand. The moon had shrunk, and the ship was gone. Only the spirals in the dust remained, endlessly intertwining, and at the edge of the outermost spiral lay the clock, silent and open. Inside, I saw no mechanism, no spring, no wheel—only a trail of fine dust that formed a face that might have been his.