In Vandelin's nightmares, everything towers over him. They are nightmares in part because he can't exert any control over them, any at all, to cut things down to size.

He winds his way among buildings that touch the lowering ink-green sky, houses whose doorknobs are far above his head, statues whose shoe soles alone come up to his waist. His staff and robes are the simple, shoddy uniform of an apprentice, none of the brocade or delicate metalwork he wears in his waking life. He tilts his head back, back, far back, to look a pride demon in the face. They look alike, all of them, but he recognizes this one well.

"It's almost as if you miss me when I'm not here," he tells it.