Chapter 5: High Time, Cymbelline

He was dreaming; that much Gregg was certain of. Dreams were rarely relaxing these days. They had taken on strange abstract look with kaleidoscopic sets of colours and shapes that seemed to twist his mind with their looping, pulsing, dissolving flows. Occasionally he would find himself confronted with some individual or other but, in his dreams, none had spoken to him. Until now.

He was in a long corridor, white and cool but with a clear sense of heat beyond its walls. The stonework was pierced, decorative. Bas-relief carvings line the walls, elaborate scenes featuring improbable sexual antics featured at every turn.

At the far end of the corridor he saw two figures both dressed in Indian costume. One, the man, beckoned him. The other, the woman stood quietly beside him.

From beside them another two figures emerged. To their left Dr Strange, looking just as Steve Ditko had imagined him, stood square on to the corridor, arms folded across his chest, eyebrows raised in scepticism as Gregg approached. To their right, Mandrake, top hat in hand, stared down the corridor in silent thought.

"Swami?" Gregg was convinced that that was who his dream host was.

The man nodded, acknowledging Gregg's question.

Gregg went closer until the Swami held up his hand to stop. "The question is, Gillstrom, what are you going to do about the girl, Samantha? Disrespect has been shown. She has failed to know her place as a handmaiden, as dasa."

Gregg realised at once the Swami was right. He couldn't believe that he had forgotten her insults and the way that she had ignored him. Sam needed to be shown the error of her ways; to be convinced of the power of the Swami. He was about to thank the Swami for his guidance when Strange lifted up his hands sending two shimmering globes of light along the corridor towards Gregg. As they passed him the walls of the corridor dissolved with a soft hissing noise and he was laying, sweat soaked, in his own bed.

He rolled over with a groan. These night time excursions were proving to be exhausting. He got up in search of a drink and almost fell back into bed. He went to put the glass down on the table beside his bed and, as he did so, knocked a magazine to the floor. He picked it up and it fell open at the pictures of the bound and gagged cheerleader. He had a very good idea of what to do next.

Samantha Wallace was in a hurry. She had, she reckoned, about twenty minutes to get back to her room from class, change, and then get over to the gym. She hadn't found it easy to persuade them to let her try out for the cheerleading team but in the end they'd given in and said she could have a chance. She still had the uniform that she'd been leant when she'd first discussed it, before she'd decided to waste all that time with that looser, Gilstrom.

The last thing Sam wanted to see as she got back to her room was Gregg in the corridor outside. "I've got no time," she said, as she went to rush past him. "I've got a chance to try out for the cheer leading team. I can't stop."

"I thought we might have a talk," Gregg said.

Sam was having none of it. "I don't think so, even if I had the time. Why don't you do what you magicians are supposed to be so good at — just disappear!"

Gregg clenched his teeth for a moment but then regained his calm. Sam was opening the door to her room. "I wanted to show you this," he said, turning the ruby over in his hand so that it caught the sunlight shining in through the large window beside him.

"I'm not interest ... oh, that's ... that..." Sam stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes captivated by the jewel. As Gregg turned it in the light he could see at once, from the glazed look in her eyes and the way her mouth dropped open slackly, that she was under its power.

"Why don't we go inside?" he said.

"Of course, yes, if you like," Sam replied compliantly, all thoughts about her try-out for the cheerleaders gone.