Woken

For most of his life Caul was like anyone else. His mind edited out what it should, and the Reach was just the forgetting on the far side of sleep. Then he woke up: not in the waking world, but inside the dream itself, the Sundered Reach. His cat Argus woke him.

Since then he has been awake in both worlds at once, able to bear witness to all of it. Why he was woken, why Argus chose his mind out of every mind in two worlds, and what he is now for, he doesn’t know. Finding out is the spine of his story.

The quiet crossing

Caul can step into another mind the way a witch steps into a sleeping self, but he takes nothing. He doesn’t steal memories like the witches, or take the self like the Hollow. He crosses to be with someone: to lend his steadiness to a mind too loud to bear its own seeing, and to share what it sees so that neither of them carries it alone.

Where Lethe crosses into a mind to take, Caul crosses to keep company.

Powers and limits

• Awake in both worlds. Present in waking reality and in the Reach at once.
• The quiet crossing. One mind at a time. It costs him, and a hostile or shattered mind can wound him on the way in.
• Seeing across. He sees the monsters and sleeping selves others edit out, and he can mostly close that sight at will. Mostly.
• The bond with Argus. He can ride, and at close range see briefly through the cat’s eyes.
• He takes nothing, so he gains nothing. In a straight fight he is only a man.

The Trees

His task is bound to the Trees of Ebbs. The Trees hold the two worlds apart, and they are being hollowed out. Caul can speak mind to mind with Kreg, the last of the menders, and through him see what Kreg remembers. A Branch of Ebbs helps him.

Connections