Dagger Magic

"I said dreams just now," he began, "but actually it seemed to be just one dream that kept repeating itself all through the night. I kept dreaming I was imprisoned inside a round glass bubble, like a flying fishbowl. The fishbowl was hurtling through the air above a high range of mountains. I remember a loud humming sound, like a hornet's buzz, and the sensation of rushing wind. But nothing more than that seemed to come of it until early this morning, just before I woke up."

"What was different then?" Adam prompted.

"On the last recurrence, I caught sight of something new in the distance," Peregrine continued. "It appeared to be some kind of monument on top of a cliff. As I got closer, I could see it was some sort of Oriental shrine with a statue in it. Then, as I got closer still, the statue seemed to come suddenly to life."

He shivered and slid his hands up his arms as if against a sudden chill.

"It looked up and saw me. The glance it shot my way was like a laser beam. It hit the fishbowl - shattered it like broken crystal - and the next thing I knew, I was falling, plunging straight for the ground. I could see the ground rushing up to meet me, when someone suddenly grabbed me by the arm and called my name loud enough to wake me up."

He broke off with a wan attempt at a grin. ' 'It was Julia. Apparently I gave a yelp in my sleep, and she was trying to get my attention to ask me what was wrong. I'm damned glad she did. I've had flying dreams before - and dreams about falling - but this was the first time I've ever really thought I was going to die."

Another shiver accompanied this last disclosure, and Peregrine bowed his head over his close-clasped arms. If it had been anyone else, Adam might have encouraged him to make light of the whole experience. Where Peregrine was concerned, however, the occurrence of such a vivid dream had the makings of a worrisome development.

"This statue," Adam said thoughtfully, mentally reviewing everything the artist had just told him. "Can you describe what it looked like in any detail?"

"I can do better than that," Peregrine said. "As soon as I was wide enough awake to recover my wits, I sat down and made a sketch. Here, I'll show you."

Hefting his sketchbox up onto the table in front of him, he opened it up and pulled out one of his sketch pads, not opening it until he had set the sketchbox back between his feet. McLeod returned at that moment with three plastic cups of black coffee.

"Peregrine's done a sketch from a rather unpleasant dream he had last night," Adam murmured, taking one of the cups from McLeod as the inspector sat down across from him.

Peregrine flipped his pad open to the appropriate page and set it in front of Adam, then took a second cup of coffee off McLeod's hands.

"Anything familiar about him?" he asked.

Shaking his head, Adam cast his eyes over the figure of a princely male form seated cross-legged on a low throne. It reminded him at once of the votive images to be found amongst the shrines and holy places of India - except that the figure's face was blank. It wore the flowing robes of a bodhisattva, the head crowned with a peaked hat reminiscent of a bishop's mitre. But one hand cupped a drinking bowl made from a human skullcap; the other grasped an implement that Adam recognized as a stylized thunderbolt symbol, shaped something like a small, openwork dumbbell with pointed ends. The hands themselves were sheathed in gauntlet-like gloves which, like the robes and the mitre, had been given a watercolor wash of emerald green.

"Interesting," Adam murmured, angling the pad 180 degrees so McLeod could look at it. "Was this figure literally faceless?"

Peregrine frowned. "I don't think so - no. But I didn't have time to make anything of the features, and I couldn't tell you now what I saw."

"What made you color in the vestments?"

Peregrine's frown yielded to an expression of perplexity. "I don't know. It just seemed - important."

As McLeod wordlessly closed the sketchbook, casting a questioning glance at Adam as he pushed it back in front of Peregrine, Adam clasped his hands before him, the fingers of his left hand cupped over the sapphire on his right.

"Whatever else may be said of this 'dream' of yours," he said slowly, "I think we may safely agree that it was no ordinary nightmare. We'll show the sketch to Lama Jigme, along with our evidence, but I expect he'll confirm that there is some connection. The clothing on the figure is similar to what you sketched before, except for the mitre and the gloves. The human skullcap makes me very uneasy. That's a thunderbolt symbol in the figure's other hand. In Sanskrit, it's called a vajra - I think the Tibetan term is dorje - and they're usually made of bronze. Both are suggestive of a cultural link, if nothing else, between whoever this individual may be and the kind of weapon used to kill Mick Scanlan."