text: > look around
  This, in the darkness:
  
  You are dying.
  
  Orange light hurls itself through darkness, and it takes the shape of a bird. The light-wreathed bird burns your vision as sharply as the sun would, but in this dream, you can gaze without looking away. A feathered crest runs over the bird's skull, and its tail is as long and ornate as a peacock's, painted in all the myriad colors of fire. The phoenix's light parts the darkness....
  
  You stand upon a narrow ledge on the side of a blackened rock cliff. A thin path traces over the rock to your left, but your ledge is cut off from the path by a twenty-foot gap. Far overhead, the phoenix burns in all its glory on a course from west to east, and beyond the phoenix, you see a starry expanse of night sky. Far below, you see city lanterns shining against the night.
  
  > examine the Phoenix
  Looking at the phoenix is as painful as staring directly at the sun, and it leaves raw blue afterimages in your vision, yet you can still see the night sky beyond it.
  
  With the flick of a wingtip, the phoenix turns overhead, raining tiny vermilion flamelets as it shifts its course from east to south.
  
  > examine the night sky
  Among the scattered silver stars, you recognize the constellation of the Heron. However, the constellation has changed from the version that normally shines in the night sky. A new star shimmers upon the heron's breast.
  
  A woman descends into view upon the thin path. In the phoenix's light, you see that she is a very old shaghal woman, pale with age and trembling with exhaustion. Her milky white eyes are fixed upon the phoenix's distant radiance. She does not look at you even for a moment as she hurries along her pained, stumbling course. Upon the mountain breeze, you catch her anguished whisper: "Wait for me. Wait for me...."
  
  From north to south, she passes down the cliff and is gone.
  
  > climb down
  You must name something more substantial.
  
  In the near southern sky, the phoenix folds its wings and stoops. Engulfed in orange fire, it burns out of the heavens like a meteor and drops upon the city. When it strikes, the buildings explode into flame. A broad halo expands around the city. The phoenix is gone; the city is gone....
  
  Everything is gone.
  
  > follow her
  Again, in the darkness:
  
  These dreams are killing you.
  
  > wait a while
  Time passes.
  
  In the near southern sky, the phoenix folds its wings and stoops. Engulfed in orange fire, it burns out of the heavens like a meteor and drops upon the city. When it strikes, the buildings explode into flame. A broad halo expands around the city. The phoenix is gone; the city is gone....
  
  Everything is gone.
  
  Again, in the darkness:
  
  These dreams are killing you.
  
  > wake
  Phoenix's Landing, East Flame Street
  By the light of its own burning edges, a nearby signpost advises that this wide road bears the ill-omened name of East Flame Street. Wooden buildings blaze to the north and south, and the air reeks of scorched vegetables from a nearby farm stand. The air is filled with smoke and the sounds of crying, babbling people as the city's inhabitants flee toward the eastern gate.
  
  > examine the people
  You catch no more than glimpses of faces as the crowd surges by.
  Human, chiroptera, and shaghal, every face is distorted with fear.
  
  Again, the dream changes.
  
  The afternoon sky is completely curtained with cloud, leaving only a cool white glow visible above the northern mountains where the sun should be. A small willow tree drops yellow leaflets along the top of the low stone wall bordering the graveyard, whispering softly in the breeze as it does. Several gravestones stand among the tousled green grass, but no one has tended them for some time, and they are overgrown.
  
  A light autumn breeze sways the willow tree and sends more leaves scattering down across the wall.
  
  > examine the graves
  The featureless, water-smoothed markers stand silent sentinel above forgotten graves. Grass covers their faces.
  
  > look at the willow
  The changing season has painted almost all of the willow's leaves yellow, and many golden leaflets have fallen from the willow's limbs to adorn the wall and the grass below. (But it was spring when you arrived with your father... wasn't it?)  Something glints among the willow's branches.
  
  > move the grass
  You fail to move the grass.
  
  A light autumn breeze sways the willow tree and sends more leaves scattering down across the wall.
  
  > examine the glint
  (the glint)
  The glinting thing turns out to be a small mirror.
  
  > take the mirror
  Taken.
  
  > About you
  There is no reflective surface nearby in which you can get a proper look at yourself. However, despite your best efforts to remain tidy, your fur is dusty from the road, and you are not completely comfortable with your current appearance. You would definitely welcome the opportunity to tidy up.
  
  > examine the mirror
  The mirror reflects your surroundings, but it does not reflect you, and your surroundings are strangely transformed. In the image, it is night rather than afternoon, and moonlit snowflakes drift across the wall in place of willow leaves. In the willow's shadow, a human man stands leaning against the wall.
  
  > examine man
  Gazing into the mirror, you find that you can make out very little of the man's features. This is partially because his face is averted from the moonlight, and partially because of the willow tree's shadow, but it is also partially because the moonlight does not seem to illumine him well. He is an indistinct shadow among indistinct shadows.
  
  > talk to the man
  You gaze into the mirror.
  
  [1] "Hello?"
  
  A light autumn breeze sways the willow tree and sends more leaves scattering down across the wall.
  
  > 1
  At the sound, the shadowed man in the mirror lifts his chin sharply and looks directly at you.
  
  Can you hear me, dream creature?
  
  [1] "Yes, I can hear you."
  
  > 1
  The shadowed man in the mirror shifts his stance to brace both of his hands against the wall behind him.
  
  Let us talk, then.
  
  [1] "Who are you?"
  [2] "Where am I?"
  
  > 2
  This is my grave -- or a dream of it, at least. To the north is the mountain I travelled. To the west is the city I loved, though too far to see from here.
  
  [1] "Who are you?"
  
  > 1
  There is a long pause.
  
  For my failure, they buried me, and they took away my name.
  
  [1] "They buried you? Who is 'they'?"
  [2] "Who are your companions?"
  [3] "You are a ghost, then...."
  
  > 1
  The temple of Ferran. High Tashreg commanded that I be buried in an unmarked grave, and he struck my name from all records. If any of my companions endure, they may be able to speak my name to you, but I know that many have been lost.
  
  [1] "Who are your companions?"
  [2] "You said High Tashreg. You don't mean High Caerwyn?"
  [3] "You are a ghost, then...."
  
  > 1
  I don't even know who's alive and who's dead. Achimi is dead, but she died before I did. So did Ichethe. Hichaesho, Arleza, Draskeg... maybe one of them survives. Or Hazeltricema. The melia are long-lived, they say....
  
  [1] "You said High Tashreg. You don't mean High Caerwyn?"
  [2] "You are a ghost, then...."
  
  > 1
  High Tashreg of the Stars. I know no Caerwyn... but she surely came after my time. If Tashreg is dead, I have no grief for it. May he wander and dream, as I was bound to wander.
  
  [1] "You are a ghost, then...."
  
  > 1
  You are not a ghost, then.
  
  In the mirror, the shadowed man stands up a bit straighter.
  
  How did you come to be here?
  
  You explain how you were deceived and drugged, including, at the ghost's request, a description of the drink.
  
  It is called dreamwine, and they strengthen it with heartkenning -- a diviner's tool used in my day, though only carefully. It draws you to your destiny... but if you have no greater destiny, no geas and no star, then it will draw you to every man's destiny.
  
  [1] "Can you help me?"
  
  > 1
  You are lost in dreams, and your dreams are poisoned by your fate. If you have no destiny, then you will die.
  
  I died without completing my destiny. If you accept my destiny, then you will live. I can help you, if you will accept my help.
  
  [1] "What is your destiny?"
  
  > 1
  I will stay with you through the dreaming, and I will draw you into wakefulness. But once you are awake, you will obey me and serve me until the end of your days. It is an exchange: your life for my destiny. Do you accept?
  
  [1] "I accept your offer."
  [2] "I refuse your offer."
  
  > 2
  The shadowed man in the mirror looks surprised.
  
  How can you reject my offer? This will mean your death.
  
  "Because, if I do not reject it, then it is also my death. What you offer is no gift -- it is slavery. You would chain me to your will -- but I am bound already to my creche-clan. If I make such a vow for my life, I am no chirop at all, but a dead thing broken on the stones. So find another way, or I will die here willingly."
  
  There is a long pause. The shadowed man rubs his chin for a moment.
  
  And your counterproposal?
  
  [1] Answer the ghost....
  
  > 1
  "Save my life," you say. "Come with me. When you see the path of your destiny, you may tell me, and I will listen -- but I will not be bound to obey."
  
  And why should I make this compact? I can merely wait for the next lost soul, who will be more sensible than you.
  
  [1] Answer the ghost....
  
  > 1
  "You should make this compact because you have been buried so long that you have forgotten your own name. When another comes along... if another comes along... you may have been buried so long that you forget how to speak." After a moment, you add, "Also, because I have a star."
  
  I accept.
  
  Break the mirror.
  
  > Break mirror
  You smash the mirror across the low wall. As the mirror breaks, it sounds like a shattering icicle, and a cold blast of wind whips across you, heavy with the scent of snow. As you draw your next breath, the taste of winter comes with it, and a heavy, liquid coldness courses into your chest and down your limbs. For a moment, you glimpse the shadowed man leaning against the low wall by the willow tree, but then, he is gone.
  
  The broken shards of mirror melt before your eyes, and they, too, are gone.