Could it be the Dreamer?

[Peredhil]

He moved through the Pen without meeting any of the others. Coming at last to the passage, he paused to catch his breath.

Just finding the passage was difficult enough for most Pen inhabitants. Not that it was hidden, that would provoke curiositly. It was a subtle pressure, which worked from within, a tiny voice saying, "I think it's shorter to go this way over here."

No one walked down the corridor by accident, and never without an act of will.

 

He stopped before the blank wall. Not smoothly blank, but weathered like the rest of the stone. It wasn't halfway down the passage, in the middle, and sometimes it wasn't on the same wall.

 

Peredhil had a feeling that the Pen moved, but the Door stayed constant.

 

Like most Doors in the Pen Keep, this Door liked him. Most Runes, Sigals, and Wards tended to like him. It wasn't anything he did on purpose, it was just a side effect of who he was, and how he related to whatever Plane he was in.

 

Everyone knew that Yui Temae was a Planes Walker. And Valdar of course. As a point of fact, most of the Pen members had their own little ways of slipping between world, dimensions, universes, and Planes. A Planes Walker worked with the primal energies which were common to all existences, and some things which didn't exist.

 

The most powerful and obvious of the Planes Walkers was the Dreamer.

 

It was usually overlooked that Peredhil was a Walker as well. Although he and his boys called it Adept Magic, it had the same roots.

 

Annael was missing. If the Dreamer was involved, then there was nothing at all the rest of the Pen could really do about it.

 

Before he began searching in other places, he'd decided to slip away and Politely ask the Dreamer to avoid potentially wasting everyone's time.

 

He realized he'd been standing letting his thoughts wander for an indeterminate amount of time. As he gathered his thoughts, one of the minor Wards winked at him. He smiled back and let his appreciation for its subtlety show. It twinkled happily and he stealed himself not to become lost in its glamour once more.

 

To ask the Dreamer a question, one first had to attract his attention. Attracting the Dreamer's attention could be instantly fatal. A pretty conundrum. Peredhil thought he had an answer.

 

He began gathering Power. A silent inflow from a thousand thousand links throughout his journeys. Small potentials became channels, routed through the fabrics which separated the Planes. Strings and cables, ropes and roads, they began to gather existence.

He wasn't drawing any power yet, just opening the potentials to gather it. Like a storm on the horizon his power drew near.

 

A Sensitive in the corridor might have sensed the inflow. The Door murmured its appreciation even as it prepared to guard and defend the privacy of its Master.

 

Like gold wires, channels began to trickle the smallest amounts of Power. Threads seated in dying stars, expanding universes, mana-rich volcanos. A slumbering Entity called Growth sent a sleepy tendril of Plant Life to its old friend.

 

Vilya was beginning to shine with a harsh actine light, as the channels met at the Ring and were filtered into the Ring's master.

 

Peredhil began to glow, painfully bright. His grey eyes darkened with the stir of memories he'd left behind; possessing such power, it took great restraint and wisdom not to use it. He'd not always been wise enough, or controlled enough.

 

The Power pooled and crackled around him, small worms of raw energy writhing away from his aura to be eagerly consumed by the Door.

 

The inflow washed, pooled, came to a stasis. All he'd done was open the potentials, all he worn was the shadow of a shadow of Power. Unless he released it, he could hold no more.

 

And so he waited.

[Peredhil]

In his place of repose, the Dreamer stirred uneasily. There was a whisper on the edge of hearing, the memory of an itch, a remembered smell. His enemies were Powerful and Clever, Gods and Devils. He began to investigate even this minor irritation. Had something found him?

 

His eyes began shifting colors as he concentrated, then flashed an wryly amused green. Power or no power, even he had trouble viewing the Ancient half-elf standing Politely outside his Door as a threat.

 

A finger twitch, and the Door began to open.

[Peredhil]

As the Door's awareness flashed away for a moment, Peredhil immediately began closing down everything. Thanking each one, he sent a wave of love and affection wafting back down each river...

stream...

cable...

rope...

thread...

channel...

Potential...

 

The Door opened and the last of the light around Vilya faded in the radiance that was the Dreamer. Peredhil hastily adjusted his eyes away from spiritual auras and back into the more normal views.

 

For a moment, he thought he'd guessed wrong, but the unfamiliar expression contorting the Dreamer's scarred face was a smile.

 

Peredhil beamed back a smile of his own.

 

"I do hope you don't mind an interruption, but I wanted to ask you a question."

 

The Dreamers eyes cycled briefly through yellow and purple before coming back to green. "Ya?" he asked warily.

 

"Annael is missing and we're going to search for her. Before we began, I just wanted to ask if you were involved, so we wouldn't waste our time or chance interfering in your plans." The Dreamer mentally smiled as Peredhil managed to ask without asking. He touched his traps and checked his snares. None of his Enemies had triggered any by showing interest in the Pen.

Eyes shifting, he frowned.

"Naw, I know nothin' 'bout her absence, m'lord Peredhil, an' I 'aven't got any idea where she might be." Dismissing the issue to those more interesting in solving it, he raised an eyebrow at Peredhil who hastily responded with a chipper, "No, no. That's it, just wanted to ask. Have a good day!"

[Peredhil]

The Dreamer found himself nodding back as Peredhil ambled away down the corridor. Such an oddly passive little Elf. Shaking his head, he closed Door and went back to his thoughts