By Cartagia

In the half-light of a morning sun two scowering scarlet pyramids of eyes glittered with hate and fear upon what passed for the face of a demon, above its only other obvious feature - two rows of perfect marble-white steeples that showed only when it was grinning. If anyone happened to witness this event it was usually the last thing they ever did witness. Only one had ever done so and survived.

   The rest of the dream-eater was oppressive. In the world we know it manifested as a shadowed mist that seemed to soak through to the soul but, truly, it had no real form that it is possible to imagine with the mind's eye. Even Sabin could not tell what it was; only that it was everything he had ever feared and anything he could possibly fear. Yet it was a part of him.

   His own skin was a stark contrast to his anju's earthly form - a thing he had seen for the first time tonight - with its white-hot to cold black change. His - no, their - body glittered with sweat that reflected the light like a thousand needle heads; the six red fiendish eyes faded to his own pale cobalts but the emotions stayed in them. The body they occupied was not overloaded with separate souls but of one, half a dream and half a devourer, fearing one another but unable to live apart not by choice but by fact. Since the night of the joining Sabin had lived a life of half-assurance and certainty, with no end. Only one thing, before this day, had been a sure and she was a frosted face framed in a soft rockslide of curls with two serene sage satellites that orbited his heart. Now even she, his beloved Sam, had joined the many things he had lost to the demon. Sabin could not ask her to forgive his actions yet he yearned to know why he had been unable to kill. What had held them to her side when she was little more than a snack? Could it be true that Sabin's soul had had some affect upon and anju, as the anju had upon him?

   At the thought a fury ripped through them. It, the anju, did not like nor except this - it could not be!  It was the master of this body not the boy with whom it was forced to share it. He learnt from it not the other way around - it had always been this way not the other. It was not!

   The howling frustration turned to delirium between the two entities and caused them to switch control almost by the minute; neither was entirely sure of who was in command but between them and their mutual desires they came, through means unrecalled, face-to-face with a sleeping Samantha.

*

Sabin watched the waves splash playfully off the bow of the ship and disappear behind them as he went forever onwards. He breathed in the freedom of travel and the sight of nothing but the ocean beneath him and the world at his feet, each journey was a new chapter in his life and offered the possibility of self-discovery; something that was more important to him than to most people.

   To his chest he clutched his leather-bound journal of dreams like a child. Certainly it was precious to him in these difficult times. Its pages told of those places he had taken himself and what he had found of his "dark side", as he had grown to call it. He had no better name thus far.

   After quickly drying the nib of his quill Sabin tucked it safely behind his ear and turned his back on the destination to observe instead that which would take him there. An auxiliary merchantman with two masts and one long shaft towering between them was the driving force that moved the ship across the waves. Sabin mused on this. The backup of the sails was apparently necessary despite the change in technology to incorporate the steam power; it could not work alone. To be truly effective both parts needed one another; a wonderful hybrid of the old and the new, of two worlds, the white sails and the black tower.

   Something odd and frightening awoke inside Sabin's mind. Realization that, perhaps, he was not so different. He and his darkness fought always for control with no telling who would win but maybe it was not the way to be - maybe it was their destiny to be as one, to power their fate together? The realization disturbed him greatly but at the same time he found the understanding to be an exhilaration. If it was true then he had found his way, awful as it might be, it was his first step towards his Dark Side sharing a life with him that he could at least tolerate.

*

   A gash across Samantha's head - a reminder of their last encounter - scarred natural beauty but could not spoil serenity. She slept beneath crisp sheets with carefully inked arms folded across her body as if she were in prayer. Her feeble human gods would not save her today, the anju thought as it forced Sabin's consciousness aside, and raised itself over Samantha's bed. It toppled a plant stand to wake her; her eyes opened with a start to the six leering slits in the face of the anju but her fear was only momentary in her expression before she sharply repressed it.

   "I knew you would come back." she said. "I knew you could not stay away for too long a time." The anju grinned terribly.

"No." it said. "I have come to kill you."

"I know," said Samantha. "So why don't you do it?" It was no light thing to challenge a demon but she was quietly confident that no harm would come to her; it unnerved the anju. It smashed a bedside table instead of her face.

"Do not show defiance to one of another world," it whispered in its devastating voice that stood somewhere between hissing and singing. "I can tear your dreams into nightmares and then feast upon your very soul whilst you scream for my mercy. I have none." It looked for something else to destroy. Samantha watched as it proceeded to tear her room apart looking for an answer to the question that made it howl in rage; why couldn't it kill her? Everything but her was a target but it told itself that this was the buildup to break her spirit before it went for the final attack. Yet as all was toppled and destroyed still it did not bring down upon the young woman its final kill. So she sat, defiant, until it temporarily exhausted itself.

  "I know that Sabin is in there," she told it. "Can he hear me?"

"Do you?" the anju raged.

"Yes," replied Samantha. "Yes I do - because he is you as you, in turn, are him. You are one being." With nothing left to turn on, the anju smashed its essence into the floor, tearing its claws across the wood into long gashes, not dissimilar in shape to the one she bore on her forehead.

"It," it spat. "Is not possible." Samantha smiled but said nothing; even in his light she could see the aura of Sabin's monster fading in and out in the ambivalence.

   "I will kill you!" it cried desperately.

"You have had plenty of time to do so all ready - but by all means, go ahead, if you can." Samantha whispered. Though she could feel the quick beat of her heart her facade remained unchanged and her expression was an etching in marble. She had faith that the part of Sabin that was still human would not allow her to be harmed and that his own will was as strong as the anju's evil. If she was correct in this then she knew that she was safe.

   The anju bared its teeth like an cornered animal. Frightened, it fled the room, leaving Samantha alone and unharmed. She observed the devistation it had wreaked upon the room she occupied. It was powerful - but not so much as it thought that it was. There would come a day, she thought, when it would have to face up to the fact that it was not longer 'it' but the dreamer, the occasionally mysterious and the always interesting Sabin Duvert.