It felt like a dream, yet not a dream.
Ruger seemed to hear all kinds of sounds. Some came from outside, while others seemed to come from within him, like creaking or whispering, some distant and some close.
If this was a dream, he should have been beneath the two Dream Trees. If it was not, everything felt unreal in a way he could not quite describe.
It was as though spell models surrounded him, hovering around him one by one, watching him sleep. Some ugly, crooked things surrounded him too; those seemed to be the characters of his true name. In a fleeting moment, he seemed to see blood rushing through his veins, bringing strange sounds and drawing in an eerie silence.
Different things, different sounds, flashed past. Yet it seemed he had seen nothing at all, that it was only a faint illusion.
Blood surged along the walls of his vessels, making a soft rustling sound.
His heart beat soundlessly.
With each contraction and expansion, those fleeting images seemed to contract and expand as well.
He seemed to be exerting himself, his powerful muscles creaking.
After a while, everything fell still again.
It was bizarre, yet he could keep sleeping in a haze, without any instinctive urge to jolt awake.
It was like watching a strange performance, except that he, its audience, had watched it through in a daze, half asleep and half awake.
It was the music of life.
But he was too tired, inexplicably exhausted.
It seemed nothing could wake him.
When everything ended, he slipped naturally into an even deeper sleep.
This time, all was utterly quiet.
Time flowed slowly, with no point of reference by which to judge whether it was fast or slow.
All he knew was that it kept passing, unchanged through