He was dreaming, and that was the first odd part. Dom Cobb didn't dream anymore, hadn't since Limbo since Mal; but as he drifted off after a long day out with James and Philippa, images floated through his head, bright, colourful pictures, unbidden and unhindered. Dreams. Sunlight rose over the sprawling hills, a golden crescendo of dawn. It was a beautiful wilderness, mountains as far as the eye could see, forests in the lowlands below, a vast palace in the distance, barely visible but clearly elegant and majestic in nature, the pipe dream of any architect worth their salt. Standing up, Dom resolved to take a closer look at the structure more closely, the soaring tower, the minute intricacies of the carvings, the broad wooden gates…

How long he walked for, he was uncertain, time passed strangely in dreams: he knew that better than anyone else, as he stumbled over jagged rocks he was keenly aware of the strangeness of his situation. He was dreaming, actually dreaming! What the hell?

As the slopes led him down, into a dark, fairytale forest, he began to feel more and more uneasy. Something about this place felt wrong. This wasn't a normal dream, not that he remembered quite what normal dreams should feel like. There was something more than just surreal about this place, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't alter his surroundings, couldn't change things, and he was an expert lucid dreamer. It wasn't working. It felt almost like someone else were controlling the dream, who - other extractors? If so, they were better than any he'd seen before, and besides, if so, there would be others present, his or someone else's subconscious. No, this was not an extraction, he would know if it was, would remember. There was something inhuman in the design, in the sharp breath on the wind, the tang of bitter pine needles, the unearthly feel of everything around him. This was a dream, and only a dream, he could forgive it for being unusual and yet, and yet -

Something about it was simultaneously more and less real, everything put his teeth on edge, the phantom rustles in the forest, that when he turned betrayed the passage of...nothing.

Paranoia. Typical dream-state. Nothing unusual there. He tried to reassure himself with common knowledge, old motifs of older extractors, except he knew one thing: he didn't dream at all anymore, was not biologically capable thanks to years, yes, years, in induced sleep. He didn't dream, not since he stopped accessing his memories and dreaming about her,since he moved on She was gone. Since then, he slept. And he woke. Without interruption.

Now neurones were firing, REM-sleep creating images before him. Creating? Or perceiving what was set before it? Now that was a question. Questions without answers, locks without keys. Dreams within dreams.

A break in the treeline: he rushed towards it eagerly to see the castle rising before him, the beautiful, elaborate, impossible castle, looming over with an almost sinister agency, turrets gleaming in the sunlight, an infinity of stairs leading up to the enormous, solid gates. His heart stopped, his breath caught in his throat. Nobody could have designed that, not himself, nor any architect he knew. A final confirmation someone else was at work.

The woods behind him fell to a hush, deathly silence, and he turned to see, to see, to see what?

To see him.

There he was, the tall pale man, extractors the world over gossiped and theorized about, but few actually encountered, much less saw face to face like this. Dom, on the other hand, he remembered. Something in the unending days in Limbo, the glimpse of that stranger around the corner, always present somewhere. His tangle mass of white hair, his robe which wrapped around him, shone a similar colour - or, rather, not a colour, a neutral. Purest white. His face was young and ancient, peaceful, innocent, but by no means naïve; rather, old, wise, other instead. There was an emerald on a chain around his neck.

And inside his hollow eye sockets, stars gleamed, incandescent fires within, burning all the while with mysterious intensity.

‡

Dom woke up.

He called Arthur immediately.

"Cobb, it's three in the morning-"

"I saw him. Arthur, I had a dream and I saw the pale man. I think I know how to find him. We need to meet, get a team together. Are you still in the States?"

"Yeah, I am, so far as I know Eames is hustling in Vegas and Ariadne's graduating this week so I can collect her."

A pause.

"You do that. Get Professor Miles too. He's practically an expert. Meet me next Thursday. I'll send you details on the location tomorrow morning."

"See you then. And be caref-" Beep. "He hung up on me," muttered Arthur, offended. "Dammit."

‡

Indeed, Ariadne was graduating only two days later, with full honours, and as she accepted the congratulations from her professor, she saw him suddenly stare at something behind her and colour ever-so-slightly. She turned to follow his gaze.

"Arthur-" she broke off "I didn't expect to see you here. Nothing's the matter, is it?"

Arthur sighed, usual put-upon attitude seeping through. "Something unusual happened," He looked at Professor Miles "Actually, you know more about it than I do. There's been a sighting."

"Of what?" Ariadne asked, but the others elected to ignore her.

"Who saw him?"

"Dom."

"He had a dream?" the professor inhaled sharply and Ariadne sensed concern for his troubled son-in-law. "How much did he tell you?"

"Almost nothing, but he wanted to meet."

"Of course he did," Professor Miles laughed mockingly. "Well. I suppose I'd better ask when our flight is."

"Excuse me," Ariadne interrupted "What's going on. I'm confused."

"Of course you are," said the professor bluntly "You're unfamiliar with key parts of extractor subculture. You're new to this world, and to be quite frank, you should stay away from it. But no-one ever can, that's the thing. Well, Arthur? Do you want to tell her what you're here for?"

"Way back in the 80s, when entering dreams first became possible, there were...rumours, of a strange, pale man, dressed all in black. Allegedly he had complete control over the content of the dreams, so that even the best architect would find themselves lost in buildings they hadn't designed."

"Not allegedly," Professor Miles cut in "I was there. He makes us look like children."

"Anyway," Arthur continued. "Somewhere in the mid-90s the sightings stopped, then picked up again, except this time the pale man wore white, had white hair instead as black. All the accounts agree on one thing though - his eyes were like stars."

"Who - or what - is he?" Ariadne asked with some trepidation.

Professor Miles shrugged vaguely. "That's the thing. When you look into it more, he appears in myths dating back thousands of years, across all cultures. Among extractors, he's almost a deity. You might think of him as the Sandman."

"No," Ariadne shook her head. "He's a bedtime story. There's no such thing."

"I agree," said Arthur "Personally, I don't think the pale man is a person at all, nothing more than a natural human delusion. An evolved belief, a shared dream. Human nature. Eames disagrees, of course, because he's-"

"Bloody argumentative." Professor Miles finished. "How is the old fraud anyway?"

"The usual," Arthur replied noncommittally. "Gambling, conning strangers, sleeping around. You know what he's like."

"Reminds me of an exorcist fellow I used to know back in the day. Only with more redeeming features, and less occult murders wherever he goes."

"Anyway," Arthur glanced at his watch, quickly trying to change the topic to something more comfortable. "Saito's giving us free flights on his airline, keeping us on tenure so to speak. What do you say? Are you in?"

"How could I miss this? The semester's ended, and anyway, you young people'll need my research. I know more about the pale man than you'll ever forget, Arthur, and besides, Dom's an idiot. I should be there."

"What about you?" Arthur turned to Ariadne. His face seemed so hopeful, she couldn't possibly turn him down, besides, she hadn't seen Cobb in a while, wasn't sure how he was doing. Still, she had to ask a question that was pressing on her mind.

"In what, exactly? What's the job?"

The Professor smiled faintly and Arthur said: "We're going looking for him."

"It's impossible, of course," Professor Miles muttered.

"Yeah, well, so was inception. If anyone can do it, it's us."

"What do you need me for?" Ariadne asked curiously. "You've already got an architect if Professor Miles is going, and anyway, I think Cobb can build again now that-" she hesitated "Where exactly do I fit into all of this?"

Arthur blinked, confused. "You're part of the team. We wouldn't do this without you. Besides, somebody needs to tell Cobb when to get his head out of his ass, and he'll listen to you."

"Will he?" she couldn't help but sound dubious.

"Of course he will." Arthur smirked "If he doesn't, you'll give him hell."

Swelling with pride, Ariadne quickly called a cab and went back to her apartment, where she filled a suitcase and then headed straight for the airport to meet the others, with God only knew what waiting for her on the other end.

‡

In the castle deep within the very heart of the Dreaming, on a grand throne, sits a figure in white. For a few moments, he sits in silence, lost in his own thoughts, staring at a fixed point somewhere far away. There is a long silence, seared in two by the raucous caw of a raven, a very particular, very important raven.

The figure looks up. "Matthew," he murmurs "Head out towards the desert at the edge of the Dreaming. We will soon be having visitors. Please escort them here."

The raven shrugs as best a raven can. "If you say. Who're we expecting, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Not at all," the figure in white says in a soft, but clear voice. "Do you remember Mr Cobb…?"

Matthew the raven nods, flies off then, to await the anticipated guests. In the meantime the figure on the throne stands and moves toward the window. Outside, the sky is bright, cloudless, cornflower blue. There is nothing of note out there, nothing you or I might perceive, but evidently the figure in white sees more because he nods, as if accepting some unwritten, unspoken truth, then exits the hall and the palace itself altogether.

For there is, as ever, much work to be done.