CHAPTER I

The first dreamer, finding herself alone, turned inward, for there was no longer anything outside of herself that could capture and hold her attention. Her parents worried about her, and sent her to a number of specialists, but as she was more inteligent than they, she fooled them all into believing exactly what they wanted to, and so the truth that was within her went unnoticed, her inner self remained untouched. Passing through life, she analysed everything that came within her path, and found it all to be without meaning, value or beauty. Nothing, in the final analyisis, seemed worthwhile, and yet even nihilism was also vain, foolish and futile. There was no point in seeking to do right, no point either in seeking to do wrong. Only in dreams was there anything worth seeking, and to dreams she devoted herself, gave all of herself sacrificed everything, in every moment, to have one more dream.

She passed lightly through the waking world, and those few who by some unlucky accident became aware of her, would more than likely become trapped in the webs she weaved around herself, as she glided lightly by, not noticing them at all. Until one day day it happened, when she was walking through a cemetery in the waking world, that she came upon the statue of a gryphon.

She gazed upon it. It seemed far older than anything in the cemetery, even this, the oldest cemetery in the town she lived, which had a few graves which were over two hundred years old. And she had never heard what gryphons were made of. Perhaps they could be made of stone. Surely this could not be a real gryphon. But still...

And so she approached it slowly, and cautiously bowed low, and said;

"Good day sir gryphon. May I beseech of you the pleasure of a conversation?"

"It is not necessary to bow, you know." Said the gryphon.

"Ah!" Said the dreamer, her eyes widening. Then you are a real gryphon?"

"In the same sense that you are a real person, yes, I am."

"And any question I ask of you, you shall answer?"

"If I can."

"Then tell me of a place other than this foul, drab world of empty shells. Tell me of a place where my dreams may become real." And the gryphon, obedient to her will, told her the tale of a land of dream and enchantment that long ago faded away, because nobody believed in it anymore. And because she believed, it became real again.