A figure stepped from the line, ten feet tall, polished ebony, naked, lifting each foot knee-high to the side, then swinging the leg forward and stamping down. The earth shook.

The figure was female, perfection but hairless, wore a girdle of childrens skulls. Her face was protean, one moment radiant dark beauty, the next a nightmare of burning eyes and vampire fangs.

The figure seized a demon and devoured him, rending, tearing, flinging entrails. Demon blood spurted and sprayed. It burned holes in the face of the plain. The figures jaws distended. She swallowed the demons head whole. A lump ran down her neck like a mouse bulging a snakes throat.

The horde beset her. And could do her no harm. She devoured another screaming devil, then another and another. With each she grew and waxed more terrible.

I am here, Daughter. Open to me. I am your dream. I am power.

The voice floated like gossamer in golden caverns where old men sat beside the way, frozen in time, immortal, unable to move an eyelid. Mad, some covered by fairy webs of ice, as though a thousand spiders had spun with threads of frozen water. Above, an enchanted forest of icicles hung from the cavern roof.

Come. I am what you seek. You are my child.

But the footing was treacherous, making it impossible to advance or retreat.

The voice called, summoned, with infinite patience.

This time I remembered both dreams when I wakened. I still shivered with the chill of those caverns. The dream was different every time, I thought, and yet was the same. A summoning.

Im not stupid. Ive seen enough incredibilities to know the dreams were more than nightmares. Something had singled me out. Something was trying to recruit me, to what cause I couldnt yet guess. The method was ancient. Ive used it a thousand times. Offer power, wealth, whatever the desire is, dangling the lure till the fish bites, never revealing the cost.

Did this thing know me? Unlikely. I was receptive so it was trying to pull me.

I wouldnt accept it as a god, though it might want to be thought one. Ive met only one god, Old Father Tree, master of the Plain of Fear. And hes no god in the accepted sense, only a being of immense longevity and power.

This world has shown me just two beings stronger than I. My husband, the Dominator, whom I cast into oblivion. In a thousand years he may be remembered as a dark god.

And Father Tree, greater than ever I could have been, who has roots anchoring him. He can project his power outside the Plain of Fear only through his servants.

Croaker told me about a third power that lies buried under Father Tree, imprisoned while the tree survives. The tree is immortal by human standards.