There are those in the Waking World who assert that the Dreamworlds are no more than the assembled dreams of all those beings who currently sleep or daydream. Places such as Khalkan-Jho simply represent the most common dreams. To simple country folk it represents the fabled place where they dream they may find their fortune. To townspeople it is the city of delights and opportunities which they somehow never found. All this is true in a way, but it is not easily proved in the perfumed alamedas and the opium dens of Khalkan-Jho.
Some of those who walk its streets of marble, of onyx and of basalt are fast asleep in their beds in Valdran, Tehmor, Ashazôrg or Nârsh. Others who may be found sampling the exotically- spiced beverages of its coffee-houses or the subtleties of its courtesans are accomplished Dreamers with the ability to enter the Dreamworlds bodily and dwell there indefinitely. Many more who throng its bazaars, temples and public baths simply call the city home, and have known no other. The learned sages of Valdran would have you believe that these latter people do not really exist. They are but figments of the imagination of dreamers, animated by the power of MERLO, Demigod of Dreams, and they vanish with the memory when the sleeper wakes.
But is it not the height of arrogance to claim that only one's own existence has any validity? Are the other people we encounter in the Waking World real, or are they too simply figments of our overactive imagination? Mere sophistry this may be, but it is a truism that dreams have a habit of coming true.
Ask an ordinary citizen of Khalkan-Jho if he is but a dream, and he will laugh and say he is as real as you are. Ask him where he went when he dreamt last night, and he will describe somewhere that could perfectly well be elsewhere in the infinite Dreamworlds. Quiz him as to why the principal deities of his city are the Dream Demons, and he will explain that Khalkan-Jho has succeeded because it was built on the dreams of its inhabitants. Its citizens recognise this, and honour the Gods of Dreams.
For nothing has more power than a dream. Certainly any accomplished dreamer knows that MERLO, Demigod of Dreams has ultimate dominion over the Dreamworlds, but that He prefers to operate through His servants, the Dream Demons. In the vast Central Plaza of Khalkan-Jho are to be found the High Temples of five Gods of Dreams Who equate to those same five Dream Demons Who may be Summoned in the Waking World, and the priests of those temples will acknowledge that MERLO is Father of the Gods and supreme God of Dreams, but will confide that He prefers not to be worshipped directly.
MERLO dwells within the Palace of Dreams and keeps His own counsel. Or, some say, He travels the Dreamworlds, observes, and occasionally intervenes to maintain and enhance His domain. The more intrepid or foolhardy of dreamers may seek Him out in the Palace of Dreams. This fabulous and reputedly infinite palace does not lie within Khalkan-Jho, nor in any other specific locale in the Dreamworlds. It has a number of Portals, which allegedly manifest in esoteric and obscure places across the Dreamworlds, and in one or two in the Waking World too (such as on the Isle of Dreams, and a few other more secret ones). It is said that it shares parts of its halls, chambers and gardens with the Crystal Palace of the Kings of Khalkan-Jho, for theirs is the ultimate Palace in the ultimate City of Dreams.
Across the Shining Sea to the glass cliffs of Keharazan, beyond the Great Plain of Zenda to the Mountains of Utar-Thell, amidst the ziggurats of the jungles of Dhooran, and deep into the frozen wastes of Grjell, journey the Dreamers. They hunt the triple-fanged mherrid on elephant-back, sip forbidden cocktails on the pleasure barges of Tantris, and watch the sun go down beyond the Shining Sea from the highest spires of Khalkan-Jho, where the sky is red in full daylight, and so the sunsets are unsurpassed. Worlds without end, perils beyond imagination, rewards as yet undreamt of; all lie ahead of them. Who would ever want to wake up?
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