In the Age of Dreaming, after the Great Ices melted, but before man mastered working iron, the powerful dreams of banished elder gods sweep the lands like a plagues.

Garen the Undreaming is immune to god dreams because he cannot sleep.   This unique talent earns him special work that only he can do, if he can hold together his fragile, exhausted sanity in the process.

Indeed, Tog had not seen Garen rest since they had set out from the inn for Alamoi, although Tog required sleep so it was possible that Garen had only waited to bed down until after Tog. Suspicious of the claim, Tog had only pretended to sleep one evening. Through slitted eyes, he had watched the madman drink from a wineskin, wave his hands in some elaborate pantomime, and mutter to himself for hours.

The novelty of it wore thin and Tog had drifted off, but not before he decided that it made no difference whether the assertion was true or not. Garen was mad in either case. He was especially mad if the claim was true; immune to sleep he might be, but immune to the effects of deprivation he was not.

Reprinted in Lightspeed Magazine.