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    Ever since he could remember, since he was a tiny child, he had been afraid, and every thing he learned, every scrap of power he obtained, he had gathered in the hope that it would drive away the fear. But the fear remained. It waited behind him, and in the heart of him; it was there when he slept and there to greet him when he woke in the morning; it was there when he made love, and when he drank, and when he bathed.
    It was not a fear of death, for in his heart he suspected that death might be an escape from the fear. And there were days when he wondered if, by his arts, he were to kill every man, woman and child in the world, that the fear would be gone, but he suspected that the fear would still haunt him even if he were alone.
    It was fear that drove him, and fear that pushed him into the darkness.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    Why do I have no peace?" he asked the youngest of the three women.
    "Because you are alive," she told him, with her cold lips.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    The monk took the fox into the temple, and set her down beside the brazier, to warm herself. Then the monk said a silent prayer to the Buddha, for the life of the fox, "For she was a wild thing," thought the monk, "but she had a good heart, and I would not see her die."
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


Then he made his evening devotions, although he made them with slightly less enthusiasm than usual. It is one thing to pray; it is another to pray to entities who might not only be listening, but who will search you out on the road and beat you across the head with sticks if you say something that offends them.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    "You would not seek to question a poem, or a falling leaf, or the mist on the mountaintop," said the raven. "Why, then, do you question me?"
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    "I have come," said the monk, "to plead the life of a fox, who is, in my world, lost in dreams. Without your aid, she will perish."
    "And perhaps that is what she wants," said the King of All Night's Dreaming. "To be lost in dreams. Certainly she has a reason for what she has done, and it is a reason you know little of. Besides, she is a fox. What is her fate to you?"
    The monk hesitated. "The Buddha taught us to have love and reverence for all living things. This fox has done me no harm."
    The King of Dreams looked the monk up and down. "And that is all?" he said, unimpressed. "That is why you desert your temple, and come to me? Because you love and revere all living things?"
    "I have a duty to all things," said the monk. "For, as a monk, I have put behind me all the bonds of desire, all worldly ties."
    The King of Dreams said nothing. He seemed to be waiting.
    The monk lowered his head, "But I remember the touch of her skin, when she pretended to be a woman, and it is a memory I shall take to my grave, and beyond the grave. And the ties of affection are very hard to break."
    "I see," said the King od Dreams. He stood, then, and stepped off the dais. He was a very tall man, if he was a man. "Follow me," he said.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    "Well," said the king, "are you ready to leave this place?"
    "My lord," said the monk. "I am a monk. I own nothing but my begging bowl. But the dream that fox dreamed was my dream by rights. I ask for it to be returned to me."
    "But," said the king, "if I return your dream to you, you must die in her place."
    "I understand that," said the monk. "But it is my dream. And I will not have this fox die in my place."
    The king destured, and the mirror lay empty on the floor, while the fox spirit stoof beside the monk in the dark.
    "You have done the right thing, at some cost to yourself," said the king to the monk. "So I shall, in my turn, do something for you. You may have a little time to say farewell to the fox."
    The fox spirit threw herself to the floor at the king's feet. "But you swore to help me!" she said, angrily.
    "And I helped you."
    "It is not fair," said the fox.
    "No," agreed the king. "It is not."
    And, calmly and imperceptibly, he left the two of them alone in that place.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    The fox sat in the wilderness of rocks beside the huge black fox of dreams.
    "All that I did," she said, "everything I tried to do. All for nothing."
    "Nothing is done entirely for nothing," said the fox of dreams. "Nothing is wasted. You are older, and you have made decisions, and you are not the fox you were yesterday. Take what you have learned, and move on."
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    "He told me not to seek revenge, but to seek the Buddha," said the fox spirit, sadly.
    "Wise counsel," said the fox of dreams. "Vengeance can be a road that has no ending. You should be wise to avoid it. And...?"
    "I shall seek the Buddha," said the fox, with a toss of her head. "But first I shall seek revenge."
    "As you will," said the fox of dreams, and the fox could not tell if he was happy or sad, satisfied or dissatisfied.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    "But what good did it do?" asked the raven.
    "Good?" asked the King of All Night's Dreaming.
    "Yes," said the raven. "The monk was to die, and he died. The fox who tried to help him failed to help him. The onmyoji lost everything. What good did it do, your granting her wish?"
    The king stared away at the horizon. In his eye a single star glinted and was gone.
    "Lessons were learned," said the pale king. "Events occurred as it was proper for them to do. I do not perceive that my attention was wasted."
    "Lessons were learned?" said the raven, bristling its neck feathers, and raising its black head high. "By whom?"
    "By all of them. Particularly the monk."
    The raven croaked once in the back of its throat, and hopped from one foot to the other. It appeared to be hunting for words. The king watched it patiently with dark eyes. "But he is dead," said the raven, after some time.
    "Come to that, so are you, my raven, but there were lessons in here for you as well."
    "And did you also learn a lesson?" asked the raven, who had once been a poet.
    But the pale king chose not to answer and remained wrapped in silence, staring at the horizon; and after some time the raven flapped heavily away into the sky of dreams, and left the king entirely alone.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters


    And that is the tale of the fox and the monk.
    Or almost all of it. For it has been said that those who dream of the distant regions where the Baku graze have sometimes seen two figures, walking in the distance, and that these two figures were a monk and a fox, or it might be, a woman and a man.
    Others say no, and that even in dreams and in death a monk and a fox are from different worlds, as they were in life, and in different worlds they will forever stay.
    But dreams are strange things, and none of us but the King of All Night's Dreaming can say if they are true or not, nor of what they are able to tell any of us about the times that are still to come.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - The Dream Hunters