Yet a smaller voice, more circumspect perhaps, hears the terror in the Dream and wonders, what if? Maybe there is some truth in the Dream-induced ramblings of an old man, close to death. So now I fear to sleep, fear that there is more to come, that I may truly have to face my father and also face myself. Who is Hel-nar? I have spent so long running from my father's teachings that I do not think I truly know any longer. I fight sleep, vigourously, desperately, yet I know that the conclusion is foregone. I will sleep, I will Dream and I may awake knowing things that are better left unsaid, unthought. The Dream pulls and tugs at the edges of consciousness, soon now, it is coming...

A small child crouches, naked and filthy in the bushes; heart pumping, lungs burning, breath ragged and harsh. Then, voices, raucous and cruel; torches, in the distance now, but coming ever closer. The hunt is on. Only a matter of time before they catch him. He runs anyway, limbs flailing in a helter-skelter of movement, fleet-footed despite the panic. This is an old, familiar dance for him; scars across his back indicate the consequences of capture yet also its inevitability. Up and up he runs, high above the village below, breath harder and harder to catch; heart losing the race to keep up, to work ever harder. Branches and brambles knot in his skin, adding to the fine, white tracery on arms and legs. He has no more clothes to shed, no way to gain an advantage, a little time, a little hope. The summit looms up at him, out of the mist. He has reached the end. No more places to hide, no more places to run to, just the chase coming ever closer.

He stops running, as he had always known he must and turns to face the hunters. There is no pity in the faces he sees in the torchlight, just anger and resentment. They have brought the dogs too, hounds as tall as he is, slathering, growling, clawing at the leash, impatient to be let free. Released, they circle him, round and round and round, coming nearer and nearer. Then one leaps, he is close enough to smell its fetid breath, claws extended, gaping maw waiting. It crushes him against the ground, lashing and biting until silenced by its masters. Then one of the men approaches, kneels beside him and grabs him by the hair with dirty, calloused hands. He is hauled upright, feet barely touching the ground and the man snarls,

'Dirty littl' sneak! Thought we'd taught you better than to come creepin' 'round decent folk's houses after dark. Or d'you need another lesson?'

The boy just stares, mute and terrified. The man loses interest, the hunt is over, the thirst for humiliation quenched. He dashes the boy to the ground,

'My child. Again? You must stay away from them, Ben-Leret, they are no good to our kind, stay away.'

He cradles the boy for a while, quietly, tears mingling with blood, glinting pale red in the moonlight.