The Temple of Perpetual Somnambulance was lit with a greenish glow. The Walkers walked in slow circles around the Holy Bed, wherein lay the effigy of the great god Narcolepsis, closed round by curtains of finest Beruvian silk. No person but her Reverence the High Dreamer could peer at the effigy and avoid instant slumber. Even she had to approach in a painstakingly precise state of partial self-hypnosis, so that the activities of her waking mind would not disturb the Holy Slumber. Artfully instilled muscle memory allowed her to complete the rituals and close the curtains once again without requiring her to awake. The rank-and-file Walkers would likely never lay eyes on their effigy of their God, for only those possessed of the deepest dedication and natural abilities would ever rise to the rank of High Dreamer. But for the rest, they were content to walk slow circles, basking in the unending hebetude emanating from their dormant God.
Carl, the burglar, didn’t believe in such mumbo-jumbo, of course, but he paid attention to the ritual in order to aid in his task. He yawned widely as he watched the twice-daily Waking of the Walkers for the second time that day. Six hooded Walkers made their way through the outer temple from the dormitory, and reached the gallery. There, they made a single circuit, led by a Low Dreamer waving a censer and chanting something that sounded like a lullaby. By the time the circuit was complete, the formerly energetic Walkers were now shuffling along, their heads bowed. The Dreamer led them out into the cloister, where he facilitated the changing of the guard around the Holy Bed by leading the new Walkers into the circle already being walked by the present Walkers, then gently guiding the retiring Walkers out of the cloister into the gallery. As they left the courtyard they seemed to perk up, one by one, and by the time they exited the inner temple, on their way to the dormitory, they looked positively lively, chatting amongst themselves about breakfast.
Carl was watching from the roof of the inner temple. He was reclining against the slope of the roof, on the inner side, where he had wedged himself between the roof and a convenient chimney. He was getting rather stiff, having sat there since the early hours of the morning. He made the climb during the previous night, after having crept through the grounds of the outer temple. He had observed the Waking of the Walkers at noon that day, while he lunched on hard cheese, soft bread, and sweet red wine from a skin. He had come well-prepared. Indeed, he’d even managed to bring up a rather nice turkey leg, which he’d had for breakfast. Now, at midnight, with the Waking just past again, he nibbled on the last bits of cheese and contemplated his next few moves carefully.
The Lower Dreamer, one of five men and women who held the post within this particular Temple, was the issue. The Walkers seemed to be truly asleep, as far as Carl could tell. During the day he had thrown pebbles, brought for this very purpose, down at them. He was a good aim, and had hit more than he missed, but the Walkers never faltered in their shuffling steps. They seemed to be in a very deep sleep indeed, ambulatory though they were. The Dreamer, on the other hand, seemed to maintain at least a modicum of consciousness. He was now moving sleepily about the gallery with his censer, chanting his lullaby and pausing at the cardinal points to yawn elaborately with ritual importance. He reached the mornward edge of the gallery and began to make his progress along it. Carl began to limber up his limbs, stretching one leg, then the other, then one arm, then the other. Reaching the center of the mornward gallery, the Dreamer yawned in the proscribed fashion. Then he continued onto the fountward side, did the same at the center there. Carl stood and gathered his pack, though he continued to crouch in the shadow of the chimney. As the Dreamer continued down the fountward side, Carl lost sight of him. Carl got to his feet and left his little sanctuary. He moved along the roof in the same direction the Dreamer was moving, crouched low, his soft boots making little noise on the roof tiles.
As Carl made his way onto the roof of the fadeward side of the temple, the Dreamer came back into view, maintaining a steady pace along the fountward side, then turning the corner and progressing along the edgeward. The chimney was in the center of the edgeward side, and Carl suspected he knew what the Dreamer would do there. Beneath the chimney’s location on the roof was an ornate little fireplace. Here the Dreamer placed the censer on a shelf, stoked the fire a bit, and threw a small offering of herbs into the flames. Carl watched the strange purple smoke rise out of the chimney, as he had seen it at noon when the previous Dreamer completed the same ritual. Then Carl watched the Dreamer make a final obeisance towards the Holy Bed, take a considering look at the Walkers, who seemed to be shuffling their steps with proper nescience towards the waking world, and then, apparently satisfied, leave the inner temple through the door on the edgeward side.
Carl took a deep breath. The time had come. He crept back to the chimney and kicked the coil of knotted rope over the edge of the roof into the cloister. The near end was tied to the chimney. Putting on a pair of light, fingerless gloves, Carl took hold of the rope and backed himself off the roof. The climb was easy with the rope in place. The second level of the temple was also an open gallery. There were statues placed at even intervals around that gallery. Carl had heard they were representations of the dreams of the Sleeper. He studied them as he lowered himself down, from knot to knot, using one of the pillars of the gallery as a ladder for his feet. They didn’t look like very interesting dreams. Just big statues, of figures who looked much like the Walkers in the courtyard below, cloaked and hooded.
When he lowered himself down into the first level and onto the paving stones of the courtyard he took a moment to reassess the Walkers. They were walking, in their circle, and not a one had made any sign of noticing his descent. Carl walked cautiously closer, readying in his mind the route out of the entire temple complex, if he was wrong about the nature of the Walkers’ vigil. But when he stepped in between them, walked backwards in their circle in front of one for a bit, and even poked another lightly in the arm, the Walkers gave no sign of any awareness. Their eyes were open just a crack, the eyeballs moving about beneath the lids. Their steps were shuffling and slow.
Carl felt a little thrill of triumph. He had had difficulty believing he might have scored such an easy mark. The treasure was there for him to take, and there were no guards, at least none who weren’t dreaming. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before, to hop onto the roofs of the Temple of the Dreaming God and see what could be seen, what could be stolen. Taking a last look at the Walkers, and grinning a bit to himself, he advanced past their circle. They didn’t stir. He walked up to the square-roofed shrine wherein sat the Holy Bed.
The shrine was four pillars and the roof, nothing more, with the Bed within. As Carl passed the pillars and entered the shrine, he looked back once again. The Walkers still walked, as slowly as ever. Carl placed a rough sack on the ground next to the Bed. The Bed itself was carved of marble, all one piece. The deep purple of the Beruvian drapes was set off nicely by the gold curtain rings. The rings rested around a thick oaken rod. With a grin and a last look at the Walkers, Carl reached up and lifted the first rod off its mount. He held up the sack and let the heavy gold rings carry the silk curtain into the bag. As they fell he idly looked into the Bed to see if there was anything else of value amongst the linens.
He woke up with a start, trying to figure out how he had ended up lying against the side of the Bed. Had he been attacked? Knocked out? The Walkers still walked outside of the shrine, undisturbed. The curtain he had been in the middle of stealing was half in, half out of the sack. He stuffed it in in full. Had he been tired enough to fall asleep? He’d sat around all day, idling the time away. Surely he shouldn’t be that drowsy? Vaguely distrubed by the whole thing, he got to his feet, chancing to glance into the Bed.
This time he woke lying on his stomach, his right cheek pressed against the stones of the shrine’s floor. He was drooling. There was too much light. With a thrill of terror Carl realized that the dawn was coming. Jumping to his feet, he peered out of the shrine. The Walkers were walking, as ever, but the firmament above was starting to glimmer with greater light, and the stars were starting to disappear. Cursing himself for a lazy fool under his breath, Carl turned to grab the next drape and happened to find himself looking into the Bed.
He figured it out in a dream he had while he was sleeping. When he awoke the third time he was very careful not to look towards the interior of the Bed. The cloister was flooded with the light of early morning. His heart started to beat very quickly. A caretaker came through the courtyard every morning, sweeping fastidiously while moving amongst the Walkers. The man could be arriving any minute, and he would find Carl in the midst of his larceny. Taking pains to keep his back to the Bed, Carl got to his feet and started to make his way around the marble bower, feeling gently behind himself with right hand for the next drape. His outstretched fingers had just touched a golden ring when the caretaker, clad in a habit like the Walkers, but with his hood thrown back and broom in hand, walked through the doorway on the edgeward side of the temple. Carl froze, and his heart leapt into his throat. The old caretaker looked at Carl, eyes wide with astonishment, and then looked behind Carl at the open bed. Then he crumpled in a heap, and even from across the yard Carl could hear an instantaneous, sonorous snore.
His heart running like a horse with three legs, Carl fumbled at the curtain rod behind his back. He lifted it from its station and hefted it and the curtain it held around in from of him, struggling with the folds of fabric. Moving with unnaccustomed haste he tilted the rod so that the curtain and rings slid off into the waiting sack. Then he dragged the sack round to the next side of the Bed, his back all the time to whatever was lying on that holy mattress. He repeated his awkward, backward struggle with the curtain rod, once, then a final time. He made his way carefully back to where he had started, eyes fixed all the time straight ahead at the courtyard, never straying back to the Bed and its torporous cargo. Finally, he pulled the neck of the sack closed and threw it over his shoulder.
He felt incredibly strange not looking over his shoulder to survey the scene of his crime, to check for any clue he might have left. But he walked rigth out of the shrine, out into the court and through the circle of Walkers, without once peering over his shoulder. He went straight out through the edgeward entrance, out into the grounds of the larger temple complex. He stole through the shrubberies, past the dormitory, still blessedly quiet. Tying the sack securely to his back, he was out over the wall in twinkling, with a silent climb up a conveniently placed apple tree followed by a graceful leap. He didn’t look back until he was over the wall. No alarm was raised. No one had seen him on his way out. He wiped his forehead, surprised to find a sheen of sweat there. Normally he was as cool as the north wind, but the thought of having woken up not with the endlessly incognizant Walkers but with a true guard or perhaps even the High Dreamer standing over him, in the midst of his thievery, made him shudder. Recognizing his dumb luck, thankful he had not slept longer each time he gazed on the fateful thing that rested on the Holy Bed, he made his way through the awakening streets.
All in all it seemed a job well done. He skipped town the never next day, and seemed to escape cleanly. He sold the silk curtains and the gold rings for an incredible sum in a city nearly a month’s travel mornward. And that was how he came to find himself sitting in a rather expensive tavern, explaining the whole tale to an up-and-coming young cutpurse.
"It all seems rather absurd, thinking back. I never heard how the Temple staff managed the whole scenario. I’ve had daydreams about the entire monastery, one by one, arriving in the cloister only to fall asleep when they looked on the – well, whatever was lying in that bed. Imagine each monk stepping through the doorway and falling asleep, each one on top of the other, and the poor groundskeeper beneath!
“Oh well,” he sighed, taking a sip from his mug, “It was a strange adventure. But I got away without a scratch, as you can see, and –”
The cutpurse jumped as Carl’s head dropped onto the table with a thud. He looked around the crowded common room, but no one seemed to have noticed. He poked at the unconscious burglar. Carl seemed to be completely asleep. Musing to himself about the danger of meddling with unknown gods, the cutpurse performed his office, then left before the unfortunate sleeper might awaken.