But this time the dream took another turn, veering toward a new ending to a movie he knew by heart. It shocked him, the divergence.

Rory tensed, suddenly uncertain in unknown waters. What next? Would his body double do what the real Rory longed to? Would he take her in his arms and bury himself deep between the woman's warm thighs? Would watching them be better or worse than always wondering what came after that heated look in her eyes?

Her gaze flitted over his twin's body, lingering on the bunched muscles in his shoulders, the tight ridge of his abs, sliding lower to the hard-on that stood tight against his belly. She flushed and turned away, moving with jerky steps to the table where she filled a cup with wine and gulped it down. Rory found himself entranced by the play of candlelight on the slope of her spine, on the curve of her ass, the long length of leg. His body double watched with equal fascination.

She took another drink before facing his twin again, but whatever Dutch courage she'd gained vanished when she turned. She looked so vulnerable standing before the massive size and barely restrained power of his muscled twin. Rory wanted to intercede, not trusting his double with his dream woman. Even now, a part of him caught the irony in that. Rory was no more trustworthy than this stranger who looked like him.

He watched with growing frustration as the two met in the center of the room. As his twin reached out and touched her skin, slid his hands from shoulders to buttocks, pulled her tight against his body. It enraged him, watching. Confounded him, because he also felt some strange sense of participation. The old phrase, taking a shower in a raincoat came to him. It fit exactly. He experienced some of what his twin must be feeling, and yet only through the thick layer of distance.

His twin and woman backed up until they reached the crude bed and then fell on it. Rory's gut tightened as they came together in a tangle of limbs and passion. There was little love, that was apparent, but there was heat and need that perfumed the air and sizzled in the silence. The two seemed to clash in a battle for control, yet neither relinquished it and neither retained it. Rory could only ride the wave, dry and isolated while his mind and his body yearned to take his twin's place, be one with the complex and fervent confrontation.

When it was over, he was twisted tight and hard as a rock. He cursed under his breath, damning this dream world that had dominated him. Wishing to awaken but unable to bring his consciousness back to his sleeping body.

He heard a sound to his right. Confused, he looked at the stone wall and saw the woven banner with a crest at its center billow and then move. A man appeared-dressed like Rory's twin had been, only not so fine, not so resplendent. This man's clothing lacked the adornment and embellishment, but it had the same ancient look to it. He was armed with a bladed weapon-too short to be called sword, too long to be a knife. His manner said he knew how to use it.

What happened next came in a jerky blur-a film strip that jumped and dragged then sped forward without pause. His twin leaping off the bed, the woman sucking in a harsh breath that seemed to clog the scream she wanted to release. There was recognition on all of their faces, and Rory understood that this intruder was no stranger.

Unfettered by the vulnerability of his nudity, his twin crouched in a fighting stance as the new man circled him with that long and wicked blade clenched tight in his hand. Then they charged one another, one naked, one garbed. The fight was quick, silent, and violent. Rory's twin overpowered the other but not without a struggle. Then in a blur, he unarmed the attacker, slamming him against the unrelenting stone and crushing the intruder's throat with his bare hands.

Stunned, Rory looked from the dead man now sprawled on the floor to his naked twin to the woman who watched from between spread fingers. She rushed toward his twin with a look of horror on her face. Rory spun and saw that his double was on his knees now. His hands clutched his gut and something dark and viscous ran through his fingers. Blood.

Rory crouched beside the woman as she stared at a gaping wound across his twin's abdomen. Blood gushed from it, splashing her bare skin, seeping into the straw and twigs covering the floor. There was so much of it. Too much.

"Why?" she breathed the question, those eyes scanning his twin's face.

Yes, why? Rory wanted to know as well. Why had the intruder attacked them without provocation?

His twin was bent with agony and didn't answer. The woman tried to staunch the blood with the red blanket from the bed, but Rory could see it was pointless. The cut was too deep, too wide.

As his twin reached out a bloody hand to the woman, Rory knew the life was draining from him. It was like watching his own death, unbearable and inescapable. The look in his twin's eyes cut him as deeply as the gash in the other man's flesh. There was rage and there was pain. Desolation. Realization. And something deeper, more agonizing. A wound more painful than the one emptying his life onto the floor.

"It's the both of us he's betrayed, isn't it?" the woman said, her words so soft Rory thought they were imagined.

His twin closed his eyes and nodded once. Then he looked up and for a cold instant, it seemed he stared right at Rory. There was comprehension in the look-comprehension and shock. Then relief. Rory felt the how forming on his lips, but he had no voice here, in this nightmare that had morphed into something no longer symbolic but terrifyingly real.

His twin stumbled to his feet, and now he clutched an object in his hands. Rory gaped at it, reeling again from the shift this dream world took.

It was the Book of Fennore. Rory would recognize it anywhere, even here, in this warped fantasy he couldn't escape.

The Book had a black cover made of leather, beveled with concentric spirals, and crusted with jewels; gold and hammered silver twisted and twined around the edges and corners. Three cords of silver connected in a mystifying lock fixed over the jagged edges of thick, creamy paper. As old as the earth and sky, the Book was more than a bound text, it was an entity with its own consuming desires and twisted needs. Just touching it gave it access to the heart, mind, and very soul. Its call was irresistible. Its promises, unimaginable. Rory knew better than anyone.

A low humming had swelled around the three of them, a sickening buzz that lodged in the pit of his stomach and blocked out the sounds on the other side of the curtain. He felt hot and cold . . . and scared. The dream breached what little barrier remained between nightmare and terror.

The humming whine throbbed and pulsed-too low to be heard, too insistent to be ignored. With it came a blistering heat that burned like a coal in his head. A reasonable, alien part of him began to cite calming words-It will be all right. It's just a dream. Just your imagination . And once again, dream Rory recognized that the input was coming from his wakeful self. Dream Rory found that even more terrifying because that implied a plurality that went beyond the symbolic twin.

This can't be a fucking dream if I'm thinking all of that . . .

Everything began to shimmer, became the stuff dreams are supposed to be-translucent, then transparent, then transcendental. . . . Before he could wrap his thoughts around it, the woman turned her head to where he knelt beside her. The cold fear on her face struck an answering chord within him. She saw him.

She saw him.

She lifted a hand that shook and set it against his chest, as if to test his solidity. Her eyes widened; her mouth rounded into an "oh" of disbelief.

And the shock of her icy fingers against his hot skin jerked him awake.

end.