| Synopsis | - 54000.0
- 4.73364E10
- Dream recalls having long ago spoken to his brother. He had been walking the streets with the Corinthian when he was accosted by Destruction. Suddenly, Dream caught a pickpocket by the arm and demanded his Dreamstone be returned to him. The pickpocket professed no knowledge of the item, so Dream warned that until the day that the man is hanged, he will have nothing but nightmares of the event, and his future would be coloured by images of his own death. Finally, the man gave up the stone.
- Delirium tries to think of the people on her list, and she reaches out. She finds that Bernie Capax is certainly dead, as there is nothing but darkness in his space. Etain has moved from her original location. She has taken refuge somewhere. She considers that some old power may be blocking her from knowing exactly where Etain is. There is something strange and different about the familiar impression of Lieb-Olmai, but she moves on. She senses the dancing woman, a stripper. Reaching out, she appears to the dancer and warns her that they'll be seeing each other soon.
- Dream returns from his reverie to find that the room he is in is on fire. As it turns out, Ruby fell asleep with a lit cigarette in her mouth, and set her self and her room on fire. He heads out into the parking lot, where he finds his younger sister waiting. He explains that Ruby has died, and suggests that the deaths of those who are supposed to be helping them suggests that something is trying to prevent them from succeeding. Delirium only takes from this the fact that she is now free to drive their car.
- In his room, Dream contacts Lucien in the Dreaming. Despite having no wish to find his brother, Dream senses that there seems to be a force that is attempting to prevent them from finding him. He asks Lucien to have someone look into that for him. Lucien comments that he hopes that they do find Destruction, as he was a well-liked and respected man.
- Somewhere in the North of Scandinavia, a Lapp Alderman named Leib Olmai senses trouble after watching the Northern Lights. He checks the traps he set in each of the four directions, and finds that the trap in the south has been triggered. He transforms himself into a bear, and sends his shadow to return home in his place.
- Destruction commented that the threats were unnecessary in recovering the stone, adding that times are changing. To demonstrate this, he took Dream to a college where scholars were depending more and more upon reason and science. In this particular college a scientist was performing a vivisection on an orangutan. Destruction explained that soon, there would be a shift in the thinking of man that would put reason at the forefront, and the chaos of destruction would no longer be needed. In this way he foreshadowed his own abandonment of his post.
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