Jordan Smith - "Mary Did You Know" (#24)
The tradition of having a #1 Christmas single seems to be a British institution; when I watched Love, Actually over the holidays with my family there was a considerable subplot about Bill Nighy's character, an aging rockstar, doing a publicity tour to promote his new Christmas single to take the top holiday spot. And then, of course, there was the furor in 2011 when a grassroots campaign took Rage Against the Machine's “Killing in the Name” to #1 in protest of the continual domination of Christmas singles by whoever the latest X-Factor winner was.
Which is the format that Jordan Smith's “Mary Did You Know” seems to exist in – a Christmas standard recorded by the winner of a televised singing program. I don't have much to say about The Voice, which is the program in question. I've not watched it, but it seems self-evidently superior to American Idol (formerly a country-dominating institution that is being mercifully put out to pasture this next year). What's notable about The Voice is that, for all its commercial success, it's never produced a genuine star. Sure, American Idol gave us some truly mediocre artists like Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, and Jordin Sparks, but even years after their appearances on the show those artists continue to maintain a commercial and popular relevance that none of the winners of The Voice even had in the first place.
Sure enough, I don't expect that to change for Jordan Smith. Right now he sits at #24, and the #1 song, as it has been for eight weeks, is Adele's “Hello”. This particular tune will drop off the charts rapidly, and Jordan Smith will come out with his debut album around October, hopefully with some original songs. Because, strangely, that's what you need to succeed as a singer with a reputation for having a great, distinctive singing voice – original songs. It's what Adele has done, after all, and she's dominating the world right now.
And you can see why that would be a preferable alternative to this. It doesn't help that “Mary Did You Know” was never a good song in the first place – its only value as a Christmas song compared to all the others is as a demonstration of vocal skill. Even then, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is the better song you could use for that purpose, but also by far the more overplayed. So this is a sensible pick – an easy song to show off Jordan Smith's chops.
But it also misses the point – there's a reason why the most iconic version of this song is from Kenny Rogers and Wynona Judd, neither of which are singers renowned for their terrific voices, at least not to the exclusion of their songwriting sensibilities and other talents. Rogers and Judd fight like hell to make the song feel personal and inspirational, against the song's inherent glurge and sappiness. That they succeed is a testament to their passion for it, however misplaced.
In Smith's hands, it flounders, but of course it would. He hits all the notes perfectly and gives a performance that at once belies his considerable skill while also never even coming close to going overboard. But he can't save the song.
What is it about the song that's so bad, anyway? For my money, the best straightforwardly religious songs tend to trade in a kind of bright-eyed ecstasy – see Hank Williams's “I Saw the Light” for the best example of this. “Mary Did You Know”, though, is didactic in the extreme. No, worse – it's patronizing. The exhortation of the song's title repeats throughout and only serves to ingrain the idea that we, the listener, are the ones being told about the glory of Jesus by the singer, who is of course put on a pedestal above us because of his total knowledge of the Lord's works. It is the closest any popular religious song has ever dared to come to sounding like a sermon, and sermons were always my least favorite part of church services.
I don't have a particular aversion to Jordan Smith, nor to singing competitions in general, but that's the trick with “Mary Did You Know”. You have to, like Kenny Rogers and Wynona Judd, pack your vocal delivery with tics and decisions to communicate the ideal tone of passionate evangelizing that works best with it. Jordan Smith's problem here is that he plays it too straight, that he hasn't realized what basically everybody else in the world has already: “Mary Did You Know” kinda sucks.
C-
Monday, December 28, 2015
Friday, July 31, 2015
Chapter 15: Icelus
Icelus spied Piper lying down at the bottom of a little crater, and shrank herself down to meet him.
He was in a sorry state; weakened from his overuse of psychic energy, he was trying to crawl away. He would get back his strength soon, once the Nexus was restored and his power was tied once again to the dreams of humans, but for now he was weak and desperate. He stopped when he saw Icelus. She waited for him to try one last attack, out of anger, but instead he started sobbing – which she really hadn't expected.
“You...” he rattled out, his voice filled with utter malice, “you... tyrant.”
Icelus said nothing.
Piper breathed in slowly, painfully. “I did this... for my friend... and for all nightmares. Now nothing will change. Now we'll never -”
“Shut up,” Icelus interrupted, so coldly that Piper actually did so. “I've seen cities of nightmares who have suffered without the Nexus. They're on their last legs. And it's all because of you. A stupid little cretin who fell for a con man's lies. You thought that what you saw and what you heard were enough to blow up the world. It was foolish – and here is your friend.”
She opened her mouth and let out another glowing strand of energy. It curled on the ground next to Piper and slowly expanded to reveal another form – it was a frail, lizard-like creature.
“Canis...” Piper said meekly.
The other nightmare coughed and opened his eyes, then dragged himself to his feet. “Dammit,” he said, “Dammit! It's all for nothing!”
“I'm sorry,” said Piper.
Canis merely snarled and looked at Piper, as if he had just now noticed him. He shook his head. “Pathetic,” he growled, and began to limp off, the better to get away from Piper.“You've failed me.”
Piper took a long look at his former friend. Of course Icelus would go and capture Canis eventually, but by dragging out this scene she was hoping to make her point.
Piper turned back to her, his eyes black with hatred. “You'll never win,” he said. “You know nothing. You're just a lonely old relic with no friends, waiting to be demolished. ”
Icelus snorted. “Always talking about things you know nothing about. Maybe once I like that. Maybe I was still like that when you first came to me. But I have Remont, and Osette, and Lya. And Marc,” she continued, “I couldn't have defeated you without Marc. He stuck by me more than Canis did with you. That's a real friend.”
All of a sudden they were interrupted by the faraway sounds of shouting. Before Piper knew it, he was being dragged up by his arms and put in cuffs. He recognized the city guards who had him now. He had talked with them, worked with them, ate with them. And they knew full well that he had just betrayed them all - it showed in their hard, unsmiling faces.
As Piper was led away, he was really only wondering one thing: who the hell was Marc?
Marc's vision swam and he groggily blinked. Slowly a picture began to form – pink? A skinny pink thing. An animal. A dog!
Icelus!
He opened his mouth and the words came creaking out: “Did it work?”
Icelus laughed and shook her head. “I don't know exactly what you did... but yes. It worked.”
Marc took a long pause to process this information, then finally groaned in relief. “We don't have to worry about it anymore! Great... great.”
He heard two female voices giggle and turned his head to see Lya and Osette standing together. “Hey,” he said.
Lya crouched down next to him. “I'm glad you're okay.”
“We did it, Marc!” Osette said. “We did it!”
Marc smiled, broadly and deliriously. “What happened to Piper?” he asked Icelus.
“Exiled,” she said. “Canis, too. Town's going to have to elect a new chief, but at least everybody knows what rotten pieces of work they were. Piper's dream was for every nightmare to support himself, so let's see how he likes it.”
Marc chuckled and sat up – his joints ached weirdly. He cast a glance around and noted an absence. “Where's Remont? Is he okay?”
He couldn't miss the way that everyone's faces fell at the same time.
They decided to spread Remont's ashes all around the countryside. He hadn't left a will, but Osette and Lya thought it would be just the thing to do for someone who loved exploring and adventures as much as he had. This would take a few days, though, and Marc had to get back to his grandmother's house before she arrived.
So it was only a few hours later that Marc, Icelus, Osette and Lya were gathered outside town. Osette was preoccupied drawing up a plan for their trip, and Lya was listening good-naturedly while she explained the various ins and outs of it.
Marc and Icelus stood facing each other, wondering if it would be the last time.
“I can't thank you enough for all that you've done for me,” said Icelus. “You've helped me protect so much more than you'll ever know.”
“Um... I kind of normally say 'no problem,' but that seems like an understatement here,” said Marc.
Icelus smiled. “Of all the people who could have been there when I woke up in that house... I'm glad it was you.”
“Well, I was kind of an asshole at the end there,” he said. “I nearly ruined... a lot.”
“You didn't, and that's the important thing,” she replied. “I hope you don't get too much of a big head with that memory of yours, though.”
Marc furrowed his eyebrows and then his face lit up. “Oh!” he said, “I never told you.”
“What?”
“It's gone,” Marc shrugged. “After I hopped in your mouth and got out... the whole perfect memory thing, I don't have it anymore. I'm just normal.”
Icelus' jaw dropped. “How?”
Marc made an “I dunno” noise.
“So does that mean... the fear is back?”
He knew what she meant. Marc took a good look at Icelus and had to admit it: that familiar feeling, that she might just leap up and kill him, was still there. It was more distant and vague than ever, but it was there. He gave a deep sigh. “Yeah.”
Icelus looked down for a second, then stamped her foot. “You know what? That's okay. I'll be okay. I know you're my friend, Marc. That won't change.”
He vigorously nodded. “Absolutely.”
She reached out a paw to shake his hand, but he let her hang for a second and changed his mind: instead he reached forward and pulled her into a hug. It was horrible and uncomfortable for her, but it was a nice gesture.
Then they disappeared.
Osette and Lya were left alone for the first time since Cizruviel. There was a lot unsaid in that silence. “So,” said Lya, “I guess you're in charge of your family's estate now.”
Osette nodded. “Yeah.”
“That'll be some work, I guess.”
“I think I'm gonna sell it.”
Lya was almost knocked off her feet at this. “What?!”
“I don't want it. I think I'm gonna sell it.”
“Why?!”
“I love you,” said Osette.
“Okay, but... that doesn't -”
“I love you. I want to stay with you. So I'm going to sell the mansion, I'm going to sell everything off and help Cizruviel with the money.”
Lya looked away, trying to hide her face as tears began to form. “You don't have to do that. You could do what Remont did.”
“No,” Osette said, “I don't want to, I'm not Remont. What I want is to be with you. Forever.”
And when Lya looked back, she saw Osette looking more confused, more vulnerable, than she ever had before. She never tried to reach out to someone like this – never even to her. Osette was going out on a limb here.
So Lya took Osette's hand. “Yes,” she said. “Okay. Yes.”
They leaned into a kiss. It wasn't a very hard kiss, or a very passionate kiss, but it was sweet, and it had been too long.
In the weeks since leaving Oniron, Marc had returned to his parents' house and had been preparing to start a new job with a landscaping company. He hadn't heard from Icelus at all, and the whole adventure had started to feel like a thing of the past – like a dream, even. She must have been busy, but Marc still hoped she'd be able to stop by before he found himself caught up with other things.
This all changed one day. He was upstairs straightening his room when he heard a strange noise from behind him. He had heard it once before – Marc turned around and sure enough, there was a portal.
“Thank god Mom and Dad aren't home,” he whispered, and got ready to receive Icelus.
Instead what came through the portal was a big awkward flurry of feathers that shot through the opening, circled his room, realized what a small space it was actually in, and came to rest awkwardly on a lamp. A giant owl stood in his room now, shaking itself and straightening its feathers.
“Solon!” said Marc.
“Marc, my boy! Oh, I haven't seen you since the Catharsis Ritual – I'm so glad you and Icelus managed to put everything right,” said Solon warmly.
“It... wasn't easy,” said Marc, “but you were a huge help. We couldn't have done it without you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Solon said, pleased at the compliment.
“So... what are you doing here?” asked Marc.
“I have come to convey a message from Icelus,” said Solon. “She truly regrets not being able to come herself, but right now she's very busy with helping repair the damage to Zamasea.”
“Oh!” said Marc. “Is she on good terms with the town, then?”
“On the contrary!” Solon piped up, “The town quite adores her! Not only were they shocked at the betrayal and cruelty of their former chief, they were glad to see her quickly dispatch him. She's been an invaluable asset with rebuilding the town! She uses her powers to perform difficult and menial tasks – moving rubble, things like that, you know – Icelus has become quite dedicated to helping the town.”
“That's great!” said Marc. “I'm really happy for her.”
“She said to me a few days ago that you were the one who really taught her what it meant to help those in need,” said Solon. “You have changed her, Marc. She's much more open towards humans now than she ever was. I have to say, you might make an old man jealous of your relationship with her!”
Marc awkwardly laughed, not exactly what Solon was trying to say there.
Solon didn't continue that train of thought any further. “Now then!” he said, hopping off the lamp and landing in front of Marc, “I shall give you this.” He held out a curled wing and dropped something in Marc's outstretched hand.
It was a crystal.
“I can get to Oniron with this!” Marc said.
“Indeed you can. Icelus, as I said, is quite busy and at any rate is worried she might enter at an inopportune moment and reveal herself to the world. So she sent me to deliver this to you and asked you to visit her at your convenience.”
“Thank you, Solon!” Marc beamed. “What about you? Can you get back?”
“I'm an old god, Marc,” Solon answered, “I can do so easily. Of course, I'll be seeing more of your world in the future.”
Marc furrowed his brow. “Why?”
Solon seemed quite mortified once he realized his gaffe. “Oh, my dear! I suppose I never got around to telling you! No, I think I never did. Please excuse my old, forgetful mind.”
“What is it?”
“Well, you see, it won't be very long before your kind discovers where the Nexus lies over on this side, and starts crossing over to our side, and vice-versa!”
“What?!”
“Well,” said Solon, “You don't give a dream to every human in the world and not expect them to follow up on it, now, do you? I expect it might take a few weeks, or months, but they'll find it soon, I daresay. The idea's caught in their heads now, and ideas are hard to kill. In fact, once it happens you might find yourself able to explain the part you played in the adventure to your friends and family! Get some proper credit for your hard work, eh?”
Marc was dumbstruck. The idea of having people actually know about Oniron was too much for him to think about. And it would be here in a few months? Weeks? It would literally change the world forever, and here Solon was talking about it like it was just some new movie he was excited for.
“Well, Marc,” said Solon, “Knowing me I probably forgot something important, but I do believe that's everything. I should be going now. I'll leave you to yourself. Come and visit Oniron sometime soon!”
Solon closed his eyes tight and screwed his face up, and with a flash he was gone from the room.
Marc sat down, utterly ruffled from the visit, and tried to process all that had just happened. He almost wanted to visit Icelus right now so he could ask her what it all meant. But he was interrupted by the buzz of his cell phone.
It was his grandmother, Mary. He hadn't talked to her since he finished house-sitting. That was what started this whole thing, he thought to himself as he answered it. “Hey, grandma.”
“Hi, Marc! How are you?”
“I'm good, you?”
“Fine. Listen, Marc, I'm just calling because I had a question.”
“What's up?”
“Well, I was going through my attic, trying to sort things out, and I realized I couldn't find that dog statue anywhere. I looked around the house everywhere and it just disappeared! Did you see it while you were over here, maybe? Do you know what happened to it?”
Marc gulped. “Uh...”
“Nightmare!” Tally shouted, running through the town square. “A big one!”
The alarm was raised, bells rung across the town, and the citizens rushed into the nearby houses. Tally caught sight of many of the guards guiding people back to their homes, or else finding somewhere safe they could take shelter.
There it was – the town hall! She ran up the short steps and pushed the door open. Curt Dreithart was in the hall, and turned to meet her in alarm. “Nightmare?”
“Yes. Big.”
“How big?”
“Like... five or six stories! It's crazy!”
Curt shook his head. “New horror movie monster for the humans, maybe?”
“I don't know, Curt. Is the chief ready?”
A door opened on the far side of the hall and the chief strode out, poised and collected.
“Show me where, Tally,” said Icelus. “I'll handle this myself.”
It was just as she had said – a gigantic red being with goat legs and nasty horns, a few kilometers out of the town, heading straight towards it. Icelus looked it up and down, appraising it.
“No problem,” she said. With a leap, she was off, flying dazzlingly high in the air and growing to an enormous size to meet this new threat.
Everyone who saw this spectacle rested a bit easier seeing it. They had nothing to fear with Icelus protecting them.
He was in a sorry state; weakened from his overuse of psychic energy, he was trying to crawl away. He would get back his strength soon, once the Nexus was restored and his power was tied once again to the dreams of humans, but for now he was weak and desperate. He stopped when he saw Icelus. She waited for him to try one last attack, out of anger, but instead he started sobbing – which she really hadn't expected.
“You...” he rattled out, his voice filled with utter malice, “you... tyrant.”
Icelus said nothing.
Piper breathed in slowly, painfully. “I did this... for my friend... and for all nightmares. Now nothing will change. Now we'll never -”
“Shut up,” Icelus interrupted, so coldly that Piper actually did so. “I've seen cities of nightmares who have suffered without the Nexus. They're on their last legs. And it's all because of you. A stupid little cretin who fell for a con man's lies. You thought that what you saw and what you heard were enough to blow up the world. It was foolish – and here is your friend.”
She opened her mouth and let out another glowing strand of energy. It curled on the ground next to Piper and slowly expanded to reveal another form – it was a frail, lizard-like creature.
“Canis...” Piper said meekly.
The other nightmare coughed and opened his eyes, then dragged himself to his feet. “Dammit,” he said, “Dammit! It's all for nothing!”
“I'm sorry,” said Piper.
Canis merely snarled and looked at Piper, as if he had just now noticed him. He shook his head. “Pathetic,” he growled, and began to limp off, the better to get away from Piper.“You've failed me.”
Piper took a long look at his former friend. Of course Icelus would go and capture Canis eventually, but by dragging out this scene she was hoping to make her point.
Piper turned back to her, his eyes black with hatred. “You'll never win,” he said. “You know nothing. You're just a lonely old relic with no friends, waiting to be demolished. ”
Icelus snorted. “Always talking about things you know nothing about. Maybe once I like that. Maybe I was still like that when you first came to me. But I have Remont, and Osette, and Lya. And Marc,” she continued, “I couldn't have defeated you without Marc. He stuck by me more than Canis did with you. That's a real friend.”
All of a sudden they were interrupted by the faraway sounds of shouting. Before Piper knew it, he was being dragged up by his arms and put in cuffs. He recognized the city guards who had him now. He had talked with them, worked with them, ate with them. And they knew full well that he had just betrayed them all - it showed in their hard, unsmiling faces.
As Piper was led away, he was really only wondering one thing: who the hell was Marc?
Marc's vision swam and he groggily blinked. Slowly a picture began to form – pink? A skinny pink thing. An animal. A dog!
Icelus!
He opened his mouth and the words came creaking out: “Did it work?”
Icelus laughed and shook her head. “I don't know exactly what you did... but yes. It worked.”
Marc took a long pause to process this information, then finally groaned in relief. “We don't have to worry about it anymore! Great... great.”
He heard two female voices giggle and turned his head to see Lya and Osette standing together. “Hey,” he said.
Lya crouched down next to him. “I'm glad you're okay.”
“We did it, Marc!” Osette said. “We did it!”
Marc smiled, broadly and deliriously. “What happened to Piper?” he asked Icelus.
“Exiled,” she said. “Canis, too. Town's going to have to elect a new chief, but at least everybody knows what rotten pieces of work they were. Piper's dream was for every nightmare to support himself, so let's see how he likes it.”
Marc chuckled and sat up – his joints ached weirdly. He cast a glance around and noted an absence. “Where's Remont? Is he okay?”
He couldn't miss the way that everyone's faces fell at the same time.
They decided to spread Remont's ashes all around the countryside. He hadn't left a will, but Osette and Lya thought it would be just the thing to do for someone who loved exploring and adventures as much as he had. This would take a few days, though, and Marc had to get back to his grandmother's house before she arrived.
So it was only a few hours later that Marc, Icelus, Osette and Lya were gathered outside town. Osette was preoccupied drawing up a plan for their trip, and Lya was listening good-naturedly while she explained the various ins and outs of it.
Marc and Icelus stood facing each other, wondering if it would be the last time.
“I can't thank you enough for all that you've done for me,” said Icelus. “You've helped me protect so much more than you'll ever know.”
“Um... I kind of normally say 'no problem,' but that seems like an understatement here,” said Marc.
Icelus smiled. “Of all the people who could have been there when I woke up in that house... I'm glad it was you.”
“Well, I was kind of an asshole at the end there,” he said. “I nearly ruined... a lot.”
“You didn't, and that's the important thing,” she replied. “I hope you don't get too much of a big head with that memory of yours, though.”
Marc furrowed his eyebrows and then his face lit up. “Oh!” he said, “I never told you.”
“What?”
“It's gone,” Marc shrugged. “After I hopped in your mouth and got out... the whole perfect memory thing, I don't have it anymore. I'm just normal.”
Icelus' jaw dropped. “How?”
Marc made an “I dunno” noise.
“So does that mean... the fear is back?”
He knew what she meant. Marc took a good look at Icelus and had to admit it: that familiar feeling, that she might just leap up and kill him, was still there. It was more distant and vague than ever, but it was there. He gave a deep sigh. “Yeah.”
Icelus looked down for a second, then stamped her foot. “You know what? That's okay. I'll be okay. I know you're my friend, Marc. That won't change.”
He vigorously nodded. “Absolutely.”
She reached out a paw to shake his hand, but he let her hang for a second and changed his mind: instead he reached forward and pulled her into a hug. It was horrible and uncomfortable for her, but it was a nice gesture.
Then they disappeared.
Osette and Lya were left alone for the first time since Cizruviel. There was a lot unsaid in that silence. “So,” said Lya, “I guess you're in charge of your family's estate now.”
Osette nodded. “Yeah.”
“That'll be some work, I guess.”
“I think I'm gonna sell it.”
Lya was almost knocked off her feet at this. “What?!”
“I don't want it. I think I'm gonna sell it.”
“Why?!”
“I love you,” said Osette.
“Okay, but... that doesn't -”
“I love you. I want to stay with you. So I'm going to sell the mansion, I'm going to sell everything off and help Cizruviel with the money.”
Lya looked away, trying to hide her face as tears began to form. “You don't have to do that. You could do what Remont did.”
“No,” Osette said, “I don't want to, I'm not Remont. What I want is to be with you. Forever.”
And when Lya looked back, she saw Osette looking more confused, more vulnerable, than she ever had before. She never tried to reach out to someone like this – never even to her. Osette was going out on a limb here.
So Lya took Osette's hand. “Yes,” she said. “Okay. Yes.”
They leaned into a kiss. It wasn't a very hard kiss, or a very passionate kiss, but it was sweet, and it had been too long.
In the weeks since leaving Oniron, Marc had returned to his parents' house and had been preparing to start a new job with a landscaping company. He hadn't heard from Icelus at all, and the whole adventure had started to feel like a thing of the past – like a dream, even. She must have been busy, but Marc still hoped she'd be able to stop by before he found himself caught up with other things.
This all changed one day. He was upstairs straightening his room when he heard a strange noise from behind him. He had heard it once before – Marc turned around and sure enough, there was a portal.
“Thank god Mom and Dad aren't home,” he whispered, and got ready to receive Icelus.
Instead what came through the portal was a big awkward flurry of feathers that shot through the opening, circled his room, realized what a small space it was actually in, and came to rest awkwardly on a lamp. A giant owl stood in his room now, shaking itself and straightening its feathers.
“Solon!” said Marc.
“Marc, my boy! Oh, I haven't seen you since the Catharsis Ritual – I'm so glad you and Icelus managed to put everything right,” said Solon warmly.
“It... wasn't easy,” said Marc, “but you were a huge help. We couldn't have done it without you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Solon said, pleased at the compliment.
“So... what are you doing here?” asked Marc.
“I have come to convey a message from Icelus,” said Solon. “She truly regrets not being able to come herself, but right now she's very busy with helping repair the damage to Zamasea.”
“Oh!” said Marc. “Is she on good terms with the town, then?”
“On the contrary!” Solon piped up, “The town quite adores her! Not only were they shocked at the betrayal and cruelty of their former chief, they were glad to see her quickly dispatch him. She's been an invaluable asset with rebuilding the town! She uses her powers to perform difficult and menial tasks – moving rubble, things like that, you know – Icelus has become quite dedicated to helping the town.”
“That's great!” said Marc. “I'm really happy for her.”
“She said to me a few days ago that you were the one who really taught her what it meant to help those in need,” said Solon. “You have changed her, Marc. She's much more open towards humans now than she ever was. I have to say, you might make an old man jealous of your relationship with her!”
Marc awkwardly laughed, not exactly what Solon was trying to say there.
Solon didn't continue that train of thought any further. “Now then!” he said, hopping off the lamp and landing in front of Marc, “I shall give you this.” He held out a curled wing and dropped something in Marc's outstretched hand.
It was a crystal.
“I can get to Oniron with this!” Marc said.
“Indeed you can. Icelus, as I said, is quite busy and at any rate is worried she might enter at an inopportune moment and reveal herself to the world. So she sent me to deliver this to you and asked you to visit her at your convenience.”
“Thank you, Solon!” Marc beamed. “What about you? Can you get back?”
“I'm an old god, Marc,” Solon answered, “I can do so easily. Of course, I'll be seeing more of your world in the future.”
Marc furrowed his brow. “Why?”
Solon seemed quite mortified once he realized his gaffe. “Oh, my dear! I suppose I never got around to telling you! No, I think I never did. Please excuse my old, forgetful mind.”
“What is it?”
“Well, you see, it won't be very long before your kind discovers where the Nexus lies over on this side, and starts crossing over to our side, and vice-versa!”
“What?!”
“Well,” said Solon, “You don't give a dream to every human in the world and not expect them to follow up on it, now, do you? I expect it might take a few weeks, or months, but they'll find it soon, I daresay. The idea's caught in their heads now, and ideas are hard to kill. In fact, once it happens you might find yourself able to explain the part you played in the adventure to your friends and family! Get some proper credit for your hard work, eh?”
Marc was dumbstruck. The idea of having people actually know about Oniron was too much for him to think about. And it would be here in a few months? Weeks? It would literally change the world forever, and here Solon was talking about it like it was just some new movie he was excited for.
“Well, Marc,” said Solon, “Knowing me I probably forgot something important, but I do believe that's everything. I should be going now. I'll leave you to yourself. Come and visit Oniron sometime soon!”
Solon closed his eyes tight and screwed his face up, and with a flash he was gone from the room.
Marc sat down, utterly ruffled from the visit, and tried to process all that had just happened. He almost wanted to visit Icelus right now so he could ask her what it all meant. But he was interrupted by the buzz of his cell phone.
It was his grandmother, Mary. He hadn't talked to her since he finished house-sitting. That was what started this whole thing, he thought to himself as he answered it. “Hey, grandma.”
“Hi, Marc! How are you?”
“I'm good, you?”
“Fine. Listen, Marc, I'm just calling because I had a question.”
“What's up?”
“Well, I was going through my attic, trying to sort things out, and I realized I couldn't find that dog statue anywhere. I looked around the house everywhere and it just disappeared! Did you see it while you were over here, maybe? Do you know what happened to it?”
Marc gulped. “Uh...”
“Nightmare!” Tally shouted, running through the town square. “A big one!”
The alarm was raised, bells rung across the town, and the citizens rushed into the nearby houses. Tally caught sight of many of the guards guiding people back to their homes, or else finding somewhere safe they could take shelter.
There it was – the town hall! She ran up the short steps and pushed the door open. Curt Dreithart was in the hall, and turned to meet her in alarm. “Nightmare?”
“Yes. Big.”
“How big?”
“Like... five or six stories! It's crazy!”
Curt shook his head. “New horror movie monster for the humans, maybe?”
“I don't know, Curt. Is the chief ready?”
A door opened on the far side of the hall and the chief strode out, poised and collected.
“Show me where, Tally,” said Icelus. “I'll handle this myself.”
It was just as she had said – a gigantic red being with goat legs and nasty horns, a few kilometers out of the town, heading straight towards it. Icelus looked it up and down, appraising it.
“No problem,” she said. With a leap, she was off, flying dazzlingly high in the air and growing to an enormous size to meet this new threat.
Everyone who saw this spectacle rested a bit easier seeing it. They had nothing to fear with Icelus protecting them.
Chapter 14: The First Dream
Marc saw everything – maybe if he had looked away, or if his line of sight had been blocked, maybe then he could have pulled off something. But no, he saw it, and in perfect detail; a huge scaly monster attacked Remont, and ripped a gaping hole in his chest.
Now they were looking in horror at Remont, on the floor, blood spilling out of him and pooling around his body, and the nightmare that had just attacked him. Marc remembered a story Icelus had told him, long ago, and connected it to the creature he saw now.
“Canis,” he said.
The nightmare glowered at them and spit a bit of Remont's blood out. “I won't let you wreck everything I've worked for. You're all going to have to die!”
Canis leaped at Marc in a violent rage, but Marc was ready for him; he ducked, grabbed Canis around the middle and used the momentum to throw him across the room.
This wasn't actually the highest point in the astronomy tower; this floor was a large, empty marbled room with a separate stair that led up to what was probably a large telescope. There was another door that led out to a balcony, whose doors were currently thrown open. That was probably where Piper had leaped out of.
This was the environment that Marc found himself facing down Canis in – while Remont lay bleeding on the floor, Osette and Lya rushed to him and Marc prepared himself to have a knock-down-drag-out-fight.
“You don't stand a chance,” said Canis, “I've been empowered by Piper's spell.”
Marc noticed a pattern on the floor, drawn in chalk; it was smudged now, but he could tell it was the remains of a spell circle. “Is that where all the guards went?”
Canis chuckled in response.
This guy is bad news, thought Marc, I need to finish him and get outside before the portal opens.
Canis began to run towards him, teeth and claws bared. Marc readied himself.
Icelus flew at top-speed to the ground and pulled herself straight forward at the last second, skimming along the ground. She darted in between buildings and alleys, varying her direction and sometimes doubling back. Her only goal was to play for time.
Above her was Piper. He was looking for her and shot out blasts of energy whenever he saw her. None of them ever hit her – never even got close, really – but they punched basketball-sized holes in whatever they made contact with, and she was keen to avoid them.
Back, forth, around, forward – through the city Icelus raced, with Piper's cursing and taunting ringing out. But then something seemed different. Maybe it was the wind in her ears, but had Piper stopped firing bolts?
She got her answer soon – a giant shadow reared itself above her, and as she looked up she saw the underside of a giant boot.
No time to backtrack – all she could do was pump the magic and speed forward even faster. She escaped the shadow of the huge boot, but just barely. The shockwave sent her flying forward and she only barely managed to adjust herself in time.
Okay, she thought, he's not going to be fooled by that any longer.
So instead Icelus landed and took a good look at Piper. He was huge and towered every other building in the city save perhaps for the astronomy tower. And he saw exactly where she was.
No big deal. She closed her eyes and willed herself to grow, and suddenly she was jostling the sides of buildings, and then when she opened her eyes, she was eye-to-eye with Piper.
He didn't attack her – not right away. Instead he opened his arms wide. “Last time you were like this,” he said, “you killed people and got yourself banished. Sure you want to repeat that?”
“Everyone's left the town,” she replied. “No chance of crushing anyone. Not that you cared about them anyway.”
“That's rich,” he said, drawing himself up to be taller, “coming from you. You know what you are, Icelus?”
Still had to play for time. Humor him. “What?”
“A dictator. You're imposing an old doctrine, an old way of doing things. Sitting in your grand old castle, protecting your traditions. You don't know anything about the people you're supposed to be protecting.”
“And you think your way is better, than?”
“My way is a revolution, Icelus. A revolt against your outdated laws.”
“Your revolution,” she spat, “is based on nothing and nobody.”
Piper began to retort, but Icelus realized this was a damn good time to attack him, so she did.
“Shit,” said Remont weakly, “that's a lot of blood.”
Lya tore off Remont's shirt and ripped it into pieces to try to make a bandage for it, but the wound was broad and deep; it didn't look good. “Remont, stay with us,” she begged. “You can't die, we need you.”
He laughed, but it was too much effort for him and he immediately broke into a fit of hacking and coughing. “No,” he said after calming down and lying back, “you really don't. I think more than anything I was getting in the way.”
“Don't say that,” said Lya sternly, trying to tie the strips around Remont's torso. Her hands were shaking.
That was nothing compared to Osette, who was heaving and crying. She was on the edge of a breakdown, and didn't even seem to hear the battle between Marc and Canis happening right behind them.
“Osette,” said Remont, his voice tender and weak, “you need to listen.”
She made a loud sniff and looked to Remont.
“I know you don't want to take charge of things, but,” he winced in pain, “I don't think I'm gonna make it. You have to be in charge of a lot of things now. You can do it, I know.” He gave her a weak smile. “You can handle it. You're so strong.”
Osette grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “No,” she said, “no, no, no, no, no...”
Quickly – so quickly that nothing could be done – she felt the strength leave it. Remont's body gradually fell limp. His eyes were glazed over and his expression stared at nothing.
“No, no, no, no, no...”
Marc had to duck to avoid another leaping attack from Canis, who came for him with fangs bared and claws slashing. No sooner had he gotten out of the way than he reached back and shot a white-hot bolt of energy at Canis, but the nightmare was good. He conjured shield of his own to block it. They had been at a standstill like this for a while, and it was beginning to wear on Marc a bit. He could only hope it was doing the same for Canis, but it didn't look like it. Marc was breathing heavily, and his reactions were getting closer and closer to the wire. Meanwhile, Canis remained tight, composed, and angry, with no hint of fatigue in him.
Sounds of crashing were heard from outside – whatever Icelus and Piper were doing in their fight, they must have been smashing up the city and unleashing some huge spells. Every couple of seconds Marc heard smashing architecture and crushed buildings.
He started wishing that he hadn't used up all that magic fighting the guards. The others were good fighters; they could have taken them. Marc risked a glance over at the other three, lying on the floor at the entrance to the room. Osette was sobbing against Lya's chest and Remont didn't look like he was moving. Okay, thought Marc, that's a very very bad sign.
A flash of movement erupted at the sides of his vision, but Marc had been distracted – he tried moving to the side, but he got a face full of claw instead. He found himself smashed to the ground, head swimming. Desperate, he acted on instinct – the only faculty available to him right this second – and teleported across the room.
He hadn't done this before now, and Canis was confused, just for a second, enough for Marc to stumble to his feet and feel out the side of his face. It was hot and wet with blood, and burned to touch, but it didn't seem that bad.
Canis had relocated Marc and went tearing straight at him, but Marc had a new idea now, and simply teleported away. Marc had had this power from the start; he wouldn't be using up psychic energy this way. And maybe he could bait Canis into using up some of his.
Marc and Canis continued this dance for a few intense minutes, with Canis giving chase and Marc teleporting away at the last second, throwing out taunts and jeers the whole way. Right now Canis was bearing full-speed at him again – still he wasn't tired – and Marc prepared once more to teleport away, but just then the entire tower shook violently and threw off his concentration.
It did for Canis, too; the nightmare tripped and instead of attacking Marc he roughly collided with him, and the two of them, tangled together, flew backward.
Marc felt the breeze and the evening air, and remembered that there had been an open door that led out to the balcony; he must have been just in front of it.
Below them, getting to her feet after having smashed into the tower, was Icelus. Marc was surprised to see that she was enormous; and several blocks away – or several paces, considering their size – was Piper. It was like a monster movie come to life.
Piper and Icelus started talking, but whatever they said, Marc didn't have time to listen; he found himself tangled up with Canis, the both of them reduced to wrestling with each other. And in a wrestling match between a young human and a huge lizard-creature, the result is obvious; Marc got himself pinned and found himself with a clawed hand to his throat.
Canis's rattling breath covered his face. “Any last words?” Marc heard him say.
Marc cast a glance out; there was a banister on the edge of the balcony, but between the legs he could see Icelus and Piper, huge, still talking. He remembered seeing something exactly like this before, in fact. Not too long ago.
“I had a nightmare like this once.”
“Oh?” Canis responded, amused. “Afraid, are you?”
“Not anymore. I gave up fear to get this magic power. To help my friends.”
Canis laughed cruelly. “It didn't help your one friend over there, now did it?”
Marc didn't say anything in response.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Who?”
“The fear... of being eaten alive. I used to be weak, but now I'm my own nightmare. I'm not relying on humans for strength. And I have the power to eat... you... whole.”
Any other person would've been terrified of a monster who had pinned them down and was planning on eating them, but Marc wasn't entirely a person any more. He simply looked at Canis and stated, “I got eaten in the nightmare too.”
Canis's lips folded over his teeth in a ghastly way that was probably a smile. “Then let me make your dream come true.”
“It wasn't you who ate me, though,” said Marc.
He had realized – something about this whole situation was like an equation, and he had just found the answer. The very person who he had always been afraid of, who had always eaten him alive in his nightmares, was right below them, and here he was with the manifestation of that fear. Something about it just felt right.
So this is what he did.
Before Canis could react, Marc yelled out, “ICELUS!”
And he grabbed Canis and teleported them both up to the rail – Canis didn't expect this, and they swayed on top of the thin railing. Marc only barely had time to yell out “OPEN UP!” before he grabbed Canis tight and threw himself and the nightmare off the top of the tower.
Icelus had heard him, and saw Marc and Canis, tightly wound together, plummeting, but she barely had time to react, and did the only thing she could think to do in that instant to save Marc was to snatch them in her mouth.
Marc's vision went black and neither he nor Canis knew anything more.
Piper didn't see what happened, at least not in any detail, or else he would have been alarmed that his friend had just been swallowed. But it was clear to him that Icelus had just played some sort of trick and it was time to stop talking and finish the job. So he bounded toward her, winding up a huge portion of his energy into a devastating spell...
...and Icelus turned to him, calmly, her eyes a brilliant bright shade of blue. She simply nodded at him and dispelled his attack – when he swung, it missed her entirely, and the cataclysmic force he had in mind just fizzled out and died.
She brought one paw up and hit Piper on the back of the neck – slammed him, really. He instantly collapsed to the ground, the weight of his body and Icelus's attack sent shockwaves throughout Zamasea.
There was nothing to be done – he couldn't maintain this form without burning up all his psychic energy. So he let it go, and felt himself shrinking down, curled in the middle of the crater he had made.
This is bad, he thought, I've used up too much of my energy...
But it got worse immediately. Piper heard a familiar sound, and as he dragged himself up to look at the sky, he saw the little pinprick of light expand into a huge tear – and there it was. The other world. It was bright and blue and totally strange.
And, with a sinking feeling in his heart, he saw the giant Icelus lift her head up to meet the portal, and breathed out a long, dissolving golden strand – a memory.
It went into the portal and disappeared.
Nobody on Earth had dreamed for several nights now.
For some, this was a blessing. Many people – perhaps more than anyone realized – were haunted by their nightmares, their anxieties, and their traumatic experiences, and those people were grateful that they could sleep soundly. These were people that wanted to be dead, and for a few hours at a time, for just these few nights, they very nearly could be.
For others, it was a curse, although a strange and inexplicable one. The first group of people to notice the lack of dreams was the lucid dreaming community. These men and women were dedicated to a certain practice and method where they would try to assert their own will in their dreams by making themselves realize they were dreaming, and mentally guide what they did and didn't experience – this is what “lucid dreaming” meant. Their efforts, on the whole, were only partially successful, but one of the techniques they found to be especially helpful for creating lucid dreams was to keep a dream diary. And, of course, for nearly a week they had had no dreams to note. This was of particular concern to the experts and the fully invested members of the lucid dreaming community. They were used to having vivid dreams every night, and for several days they gathered on their online message boards and discussed this remarkable coincidence. They wondered how it happened, and they wondered what it meant for the future.
Most inhabitants of the world, though, didn't notice that their dreams were gone. After all, who remembers their dreams anyway? To the vast majority of humans on Earth this five-day stretch was, as far as their sleep was concerned, totally ordinary.
There were other effects on the world, though, and they were much more easily noticed. It wasn't just dreams that had been erased; it was what dreams represented – inspiration, passion, creativity. The world didn't fall apart in five days; people who worked kept at their jobs, out of sheer obligation and momentum. Some of them, the ones who hated their jobs, kept on as if nothing was wrong (or, at least, nothing aside from the usual). Others found themselves succumbing to lethargy and losing their inspiration to create. Festivals were derailed and canceled, productivity in nearly every corporation went down the drain, sermons were dull and trite. All over the world, artists took sabbaticals and lost their inspiration to write, to paint, to film. It was a five-day stretch of quiet and steadily building despair.
This aspect of the state of the world was noticed much easier, by psychologists and psychiatrists. People in therapy all mutually complained of their lack of drive and inspiration, so when psychiatrists got talking with each other about their patients' woes, they all discovered that nearly every person was undergoing the same issue. So they reached out to as many others as they could, and found that almost every single case of depressive symptoms was replicated exactly amongst every single person they treated. They shuddered to think of their task: to find out how far this lethargy had spread. But how could anyone ask them to do this? What would the sample size be? A city? A country? By God, could they diagnose the whole world with depression?
All of this occurred over five days, and it was only then that a portal opened up above the Earth. Now, as ever, nobody noticed it; it was too far away and only showed at certain angles – the Adjoining was not nearly as visible on Earth as it was on Oniron. But nonetheless, the memory that leaked through it reached the other world, and invisibly dissolved around the planet, into the heads of every man, woman and child.
When they went to sleep that night, they would all dream the same thing: of crossing an enormous bridge, so tall and wide that it couldn't have been built by any human means. The spires seemed to be made of marble, but they were so clean, so free of erosion and wear and tear that they must have just been created yesterday. It stretched across a gulf wider than all of the world's oceans combined, and was wide enough to fit a thousand or more people across. But though they could see what a vast scale the bridge encompassed, the endless miles seemed to vanish, and they found themselves on the other side, standing before a huge pair of ancient doors. They would push the doors open, with some effort, and look at what lied beyond. There, the dream would end. Nobody would really know what it meant after they woke up.
Icelus would. She would feel the Nexus as the force of several billion dreams willed it back into life, as glorious and perfect as it ever had been.
And the people of Earth would collectively shake themselves out of their funk – or at least wind the clock back to where they had been before – and carry on with that vision of the majestic bridge in their heads, never quite fading and never quite going away. The rumblings of the strange phenomena were dropped as everything returned to normal, and for those who had noticed something amiss, they wouldn't find an explanation. Or at the very least, they wouldn't find one immediately.
Next
Now they were looking in horror at Remont, on the floor, blood spilling out of him and pooling around his body, and the nightmare that had just attacked him. Marc remembered a story Icelus had told him, long ago, and connected it to the creature he saw now.
“Canis,” he said.
The nightmare glowered at them and spit a bit of Remont's blood out. “I won't let you wreck everything I've worked for. You're all going to have to die!”
Canis leaped at Marc in a violent rage, but Marc was ready for him; he ducked, grabbed Canis around the middle and used the momentum to throw him across the room.
This wasn't actually the highest point in the astronomy tower; this floor was a large, empty marbled room with a separate stair that led up to what was probably a large telescope. There was another door that led out to a balcony, whose doors were currently thrown open. That was probably where Piper had leaped out of.
This was the environment that Marc found himself facing down Canis in – while Remont lay bleeding on the floor, Osette and Lya rushed to him and Marc prepared himself to have a knock-down-drag-out-fight.
“You don't stand a chance,” said Canis, “I've been empowered by Piper's spell.”
Marc noticed a pattern on the floor, drawn in chalk; it was smudged now, but he could tell it was the remains of a spell circle. “Is that where all the guards went?”
Canis chuckled in response.
This guy is bad news, thought Marc, I need to finish him and get outside before the portal opens.
Canis began to run towards him, teeth and claws bared. Marc readied himself.
Icelus flew at top-speed to the ground and pulled herself straight forward at the last second, skimming along the ground. She darted in between buildings and alleys, varying her direction and sometimes doubling back. Her only goal was to play for time.
Above her was Piper. He was looking for her and shot out blasts of energy whenever he saw her. None of them ever hit her – never even got close, really – but they punched basketball-sized holes in whatever they made contact with, and she was keen to avoid them.
Back, forth, around, forward – through the city Icelus raced, with Piper's cursing and taunting ringing out. But then something seemed different. Maybe it was the wind in her ears, but had Piper stopped firing bolts?
She got her answer soon – a giant shadow reared itself above her, and as she looked up she saw the underside of a giant boot.
No time to backtrack – all she could do was pump the magic and speed forward even faster. She escaped the shadow of the huge boot, but just barely. The shockwave sent her flying forward and she only barely managed to adjust herself in time.
Okay, she thought, he's not going to be fooled by that any longer.
So instead Icelus landed and took a good look at Piper. He was huge and towered every other building in the city save perhaps for the astronomy tower. And he saw exactly where she was.
No big deal. She closed her eyes and willed herself to grow, and suddenly she was jostling the sides of buildings, and then when she opened her eyes, she was eye-to-eye with Piper.
He didn't attack her – not right away. Instead he opened his arms wide. “Last time you were like this,” he said, “you killed people and got yourself banished. Sure you want to repeat that?”
“Everyone's left the town,” she replied. “No chance of crushing anyone. Not that you cared about them anyway.”
“That's rich,” he said, drawing himself up to be taller, “coming from you. You know what you are, Icelus?”
Still had to play for time. Humor him. “What?”
“A dictator. You're imposing an old doctrine, an old way of doing things. Sitting in your grand old castle, protecting your traditions. You don't know anything about the people you're supposed to be protecting.”
“And you think your way is better, than?”
“My way is a revolution, Icelus. A revolt against your outdated laws.”
“Your revolution,” she spat, “is based on nothing and nobody.”
Piper began to retort, but Icelus realized this was a damn good time to attack him, so she did.
“Shit,” said Remont weakly, “that's a lot of blood.”
Lya tore off Remont's shirt and ripped it into pieces to try to make a bandage for it, but the wound was broad and deep; it didn't look good. “Remont, stay with us,” she begged. “You can't die, we need you.”
He laughed, but it was too much effort for him and he immediately broke into a fit of hacking and coughing. “No,” he said after calming down and lying back, “you really don't. I think more than anything I was getting in the way.”
“Don't say that,” said Lya sternly, trying to tie the strips around Remont's torso. Her hands were shaking.
That was nothing compared to Osette, who was heaving and crying. She was on the edge of a breakdown, and didn't even seem to hear the battle between Marc and Canis happening right behind them.
“Osette,” said Remont, his voice tender and weak, “you need to listen.”
She made a loud sniff and looked to Remont.
“I know you don't want to take charge of things, but,” he winced in pain, “I don't think I'm gonna make it. You have to be in charge of a lot of things now. You can do it, I know.” He gave her a weak smile. “You can handle it. You're so strong.”
Osette grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “No,” she said, “no, no, no, no, no...”
Quickly – so quickly that nothing could be done – she felt the strength leave it. Remont's body gradually fell limp. His eyes were glazed over and his expression stared at nothing.
“No, no, no, no, no...”
Marc had to duck to avoid another leaping attack from Canis, who came for him with fangs bared and claws slashing. No sooner had he gotten out of the way than he reached back and shot a white-hot bolt of energy at Canis, but the nightmare was good. He conjured shield of his own to block it. They had been at a standstill like this for a while, and it was beginning to wear on Marc a bit. He could only hope it was doing the same for Canis, but it didn't look like it. Marc was breathing heavily, and his reactions were getting closer and closer to the wire. Meanwhile, Canis remained tight, composed, and angry, with no hint of fatigue in him.
Sounds of crashing were heard from outside – whatever Icelus and Piper were doing in their fight, they must have been smashing up the city and unleashing some huge spells. Every couple of seconds Marc heard smashing architecture and crushed buildings.
He started wishing that he hadn't used up all that magic fighting the guards. The others were good fighters; they could have taken them. Marc risked a glance over at the other three, lying on the floor at the entrance to the room. Osette was sobbing against Lya's chest and Remont didn't look like he was moving. Okay, thought Marc, that's a very very bad sign.
A flash of movement erupted at the sides of his vision, but Marc had been distracted – he tried moving to the side, but he got a face full of claw instead. He found himself smashed to the ground, head swimming. Desperate, he acted on instinct – the only faculty available to him right this second – and teleported across the room.
He hadn't done this before now, and Canis was confused, just for a second, enough for Marc to stumble to his feet and feel out the side of his face. It was hot and wet with blood, and burned to touch, but it didn't seem that bad.
Canis had relocated Marc and went tearing straight at him, but Marc had a new idea now, and simply teleported away. Marc had had this power from the start; he wouldn't be using up psychic energy this way. And maybe he could bait Canis into using up some of his.
Marc and Canis continued this dance for a few intense minutes, with Canis giving chase and Marc teleporting away at the last second, throwing out taunts and jeers the whole way. Right now Canis was bearing full-speed at him again – still he wasn't tired – and Marc prepared once more to teleport away, but just then the entire tower shook violently and threw off his concentration.
It did for Canis, too; the nightmare tripped and instead of attacking Marc he roughly collided with him, and the two of them, tangled together, flew backward.
Marc felt the breeze and the evening air, and remembered that there had been an open door that led out to the balcony; he must have been just in front of it.
Below them, getting to her feet after having smashed into the tower, was Icelus. Marc was surprised to see that she was enormous; and several blocks away – or several paces, considering their size – was Piper. It was like a monster movie come to life.
Piper and Icelus started talking, but whatever they said, Marc didn't have time to listen; he found himself tangled up with Canis, the both of them reduced to wrestling with each other. And in a wrestling match between a young human and a huge lizard-creature, the result is obvious; Marc got himself pinned and found himself with a clawed hand to his throat.
Canis's rattling breath covered his face. “Any last words?” Marc heard him say.
Marc cast a glance out; there was a banister on the edge of the balcony, but between the legs he could see Icelus and Piper, huge, still talking. He remembered seeing something exactly like this before, in fact. Not too long ago.
“I had a nightmare like this once.”
“Oh?” Canis responded, amused. “Afraid, are you?”
“Not anymore. I gave up fear to get this magic power. To help my friends.”
Canis laughed cruelly. “It didn't help your one friend over there, now did it?”
Marc didn't say anything in response.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Who?”
“The fear... of being eaten alive. I used to be weak, but now I'm my own nightmare. I'm not relying on humans for strength. And I have the power to eat... you... whole.”
Any other person would've been terrified of a monster who had pinned them down and was planning on eating them, but Marc wasn't entirely a person any more. He simply looked at Canis and stated, “I got eaten in the nightmare too.”
Canis's lips folded over his teeth in a ghastly way that was probably a smile. “Then let me make your dream come true.”
“It wasn't you who ate me, though,” said Marc.
He had realized – something about this whole situation was like an equation, and he had just found the answer. The very person who he had always been afraid of, who had always eaten him alive in his nightmares, was right below them, and here he was with the manifestation of that fear. Something about it just felt right.
So this is what he did.
Before Canis could react, Marc yelled out, “ICELUS!”
And he grabbed Canis and teleported them both up to the rail – Canis didn't expect this, and they swayed on top of the thin railing. Marc only barely had time to yell out “OPEN UP!” before he grabbed Canis tight and threw himself and the nightmare off the top of the tower.
Icelus had heard him, and saw Marc and Canis, tightly wound together, plummeting, but she barely had time to react, and did the only thing she could think to do in that instant to save Marc was to snatch them in her mouth.
Marc's vision went black and neither he nor Canis knew anything more.
Piper didn't see what happened, at least not in any detail, or else he would have been alarmed that his friend had just been swallowed. But it was clear to him that Icelus had just played some sort of trick and it was time to stop talking and finish the job. So he bounded toward her, winding up a huge portion of his energy into a devastating spell...
...and Icelus turned to him, calmly, her eyes a brilliant bright shade of blue. She simply nodded at him and dispelled his attack – when he swung, it missed her entirely, and the cataclysmic force he had in mind just fizzled out and died.
She brought one paw up and hit Piper on the back of the neck – slammed him, really. He instantly collapsed to the ground, the weight of his body and Icelus's attack sent shockwaves throughout Zamasea.
There was nothing to be done – he couldn't maintain this form without burning up all his psychic energy. So he let it go, and felt himself shrinking down, curled in the middle of the crater he had made.
This is bad, he thought, I've used up too much of my energy...
But it got worse immediately. Piper heard a familiar sound, and as he dragged himself up to look at the sky, he saw the little pinprick of light expand into a huge tear – and there it was. The other world. It was bright and blue and totally strange.
And, with a sinking feeling in his heart, he saw the giant Icelus lift her head up to meet the portal, and breathed out a long, dissolving golden strand – a memory.
It went into the portal and disappeared.
Nobody on Earth had dreamed for several nights now.
For some, this was a blessing. Many people – perhaps more than anyone realized – were haunted by their nightmares, their anxieties, and their traumatic experiences, and those people were grateful that they could sleep soundly. These were people that wanted to be dead, and for a few hours at a time, for just these few nights, they very nearly could be.
For others, it was a curse, although a strange and inexplicable one. The first group of people to notice the lack of dreams was the lucid dreaming community. These men and women were dedicated to a certain practice and method where they would try to assert their own will in their dreams by making themselves realize they were dreaming, and mentally guide what they did and didn't experience – this is what “lucid dreaming” meant. Their efforts, on the whole, were only partially successful, but one of the techniques they found to be especially helpful for creating lucid dreams was to keep a dream diary. And, of course, for nearly a week they had had no dreams to note. This was of particular concern to the experts and the fully invested members of the lucid dreaming community. They were used to having vivid dreams every night, and for several days they gathered on their online message boards and discussed this remarkable coincidence. They wondered how it happened, and they wondered what it meant for the future.
Most inhabitants of the world, though, didn't notice that their dreams were gone. After all, who remembers their dreams anyway? To the vast majority of humans on Earth this five-day stretch was, as far as their sleep was concerned, totally ordinary.
There were other effects on the world, though, and they were much more easily noticed. It wasn't just dreams that had been erased; it was what dreams represented – inspiration, passion, creativity. The world didn't fall apart in five days; people who worked kept at their jobs, out of sheer obligation and momentum. Some of them, the ones who hated their jobs, kept on as if nothing was wrong (or, at least, nothing aside from the usual). Others found themselves succumbing to lethargy and losing their inspiration to create. Festivals were derailed and canceled, productivity in nearly every corporation went down the drain, sermons were dull and trite. All over the world, artists took sabbaticals and lost their inspiration to write, to paint, to film. It was a five-day stretch of quiet and steadily building despair.
This aspect of the state of the world was noticed much easier, by psychologists and psychiatrists. People in therapy all mutually complained of their lack of drive and inspiration, so when psychiatrists got talking with each other about their patients' woes, they all discovered that nearly every person was undergoing the same issue. So they reached out to as many others as they could, and found that almost every single case of depressive symptoms was replicated exactly amongst every single person they treated. They shuddered to think of their task: to find out how far this lethargy had spread. But how could anyone ask them to do this? What would the sample size be? A city? A country? By God, could they diagnose the whole world with depression?
All of this occurred over five days, and it was only then that a portal opened up above the Earth. Now, as ever, nobody noticed it; it was too far away and only showed at certain angles – the Adjoining was not nearly as visible on Earth as it was on Oniron. But nonetheless, the memory that leaked through it reached the other world, and invisibly dissolved around the planet, into the heads of every man, woman and child.
When they went to sleep that night, they would all dream the same thing: of crossing an enormous bridge, so tall and wide that it couldn't have been built by any human means. The spires seemed to be made of marble, but they were so clean, so free of erosion and wear and tear that they must have just been created yesterday. It stretched across a gulf wider than all of the world's oceans combined, and was wide enough to fit a thousand or more people across. But though they could see what a vast scale the bridge encompassed, the endless miles seemed to vanish, and they found themselves on the other side, standing before a huge pair of ancient doors. They would push the doors open, with some effort, and look at what lied beyond. There, the dream would end. Nobody would really know what it meant after they woke up.
Icelus would. She would feel the Nexus as the force of several billion dreams willed it back into life, as glorious and perfect as it ever had been.
And the people of Earth would collectively shake themselves out of their funk – or at least wind the clock back to where they had been before – and carry on with that vision of the majestic bridge in their heads, never quite fading and never quite going away. The rumblings of the strange phenomena were dropped as everything returned to normal, and for those who had noticed something amiss, they wouldn't find an explanation. Or at the very least, they wouldn't find one immediately.
Next
Friday, July 24, 2015
Chapter 13: Arrogance
By now, the news of a fight had spread across town and everybody was on edge. A group of people who were starting fights were not good news to have at a large festival. There was an understandable air of paranoia.
Marc's group was fortunate in two ways, though. For one thing, eyewitness accounts of them hadn't gotten around. When they slipped into the town square and mingled with the crowd, nobody recognized them, and they overheard several whispered conversations about the mysterious gang by people who didn't even know that said gang was right there. The other thing was that the nightmares seemed to have disappeared – the only ones keeping order were the regular city guards, but they were overwhelmed by the tense and paranoid crowd. There was an atmosphere of unease, but not panic. Not yet.
They had made it to the base of the astronomy tower, but noticed two guards standing outside. Marc asked Remont, “how many guards are in the city?”
“Ten or eleven, I think.”
“That's not a lot.”
“Yeah, I heard the Chief – Piper – complaining about how short he was on manpower for the festival. I guess that's why he got those nightmares to do security.”
“But if guards are at a premium,” said Marc, “why use up two whole people to defend the astronomy tower? There's gotta be something important there.”
“You're probably right,” said Remont. “They'll know us four, though. Marc, I think you should go try to talk to them. See if you can get into it. It's a kind of tourist destination, it should be open normally.”
Marc nodded and put on his best acting face, crossing the street to talk to the guards. He found himself brusquely turned away – none of the townsfolk were allowed in, they said.
This stymied Marc until he heard gasps from the crowd and saw fingers pointed up at the top of the astronomy tower. He ran down the street to get a better look. It was tough to tell, but it looked like the person at the top of the balcony was...
Piper!
He cast his gaze over the crowd that gathered beneath him, but he didn't look concerned with them. Piper got onto the railing of the balcony, and calmly stepped off into midair. There were more shocked yells from the pedestrians below, but even these were eclipsed by the shouts at what they saw next: he didn't fall.
Instead he remained suspended in midair, supported by a pillow of incandescent space that warped and twisted like a kaleidoscope. Piper examined the crowd below him – Marc wanted to turn and run straight away to warn the others, but if he did that he'd certainly be seen. He had to remain calm and keep an eye on Piper like everybody else was.
Finally Piper floated off leisurely, and to Marc's great relief he went in the opposite direction from the alley where his friends were hiding. Only once Piper's back was turned did Marc push through the thick, stunned crowd to find the others. “Shit,” he whispered to himself.
“What happened?” Lya asked when he arrived back. He was wide-eyed and on edge.
“Piper flew,” he said shortly.
“What?!” the whole group said in unison.
“He walked off the astronomy tower and flew. Now he's looking for us from the sky.”
ICELUS.
Piper's voice came booming across the town, supernaturally loud and clear.
I KNOW YOU'RE HERE, ICELUS, AND I'M TIRED OF LOOKING. SURRENDER YOURSELF IN TEN MINUTES OR I'LL TEAR THIS TOWN APART.
A deathly silence had gripped the area. Tear the town apart?
IN FACT, I WOULD ADVISE EVERYONE IN THE TOWN HALL TO EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.
“What is he going to do to the town hall?!” Remont stood up and ran off. This was such a shock to the others that they barely had time to register it they had to chase him. “Remont!” Lya yelled, “don't!”
Remont dashed to the town square and stopped cold – there was Piper in the sky, observing the town hall. From out of the front doors spewed a group of panicked workers and tourists. As they all fled, Piper reached out his arm to the hall.
It was a remarkable sight – from top to bottom, the whole building seemed to dismantle, screws coming loose and boards getting torn out, then falling to the ground in a heap. Pillars and support beams fell where they stood, strewn haphazardly in the street. It took a whole minute for the entire building to become completely disassembled.
I HOPE YOU REALIZE I'M SERIOUS.
Piper cast his gaze around the town square, at the people looking up in awe at him. He would have seen Remont if he had just glanced a bit further to the left for one second. But Marc got there first, pulling Remont from behind the shirt collar and dragging him behind a building, out of Piper's sight.
“I guess we should consider that a resignation,” Lya remarked.
“He's right there,” said Marc, “we need to go. Take cover in a house or something.”
As it happened, many of the tourists at the festival had had the same idea; they were streaming into nearby shops and houses to protect themselves from this malevolent man floating in the sky.
TEN MINUTES.
And Piper began to float around the town square, scanning the area. It was only a matter of time before he saw them.
“In there,” said Osette, pointing to a nearby store that people were flooding into. They had to make sure Piper's back was turned, but they slipped in.
Inside was a crowd of worried people who had just come for the festival; now they were all scared and wondering what was going on. The presence of an intelligent dog in their ranks attracted some looks, but not as many as Marc was afraid of. The five of them took refuge by the wall and spoke in whispers – impossible to be heard, considering how the rest of the shop was a din of noise.
“What are we going to do?” asked Osette.
“He wants Icelus,” said Remont, “but what's he going to do with her once he finds her?”
“Kill her, probably,” said Marc. “We're not giving her up. Right, Icelus?”
Icelus looked distant and unmoved.
“Right?”
She shook her head and when she spoke it was slowly and deliberately, “I think he probably will kill me. Or else imprison me. But,” she said, “it could buy us time and distract Piper.”
“No!” Marc shouted. “You can't do that.”
“I can, Marc,” she replied sternly, “the most important thing is that you send that memory through the opening. It's not going to last that long. If we can buy some time for you to do it, that's the priority. Not my safety.”
“The Nexus needs a protector,” said Marc. “You can't do that when you're dead.”
“Someone can,” she said dismissively. “Someone who the people approve of – who doesn't kill people when they're trying to do their job.”
Marc deflated. She was still upset and insecure about this. He hadn't even thought about it for so long.
“Icelus,” said Remont, poking his head in, “you don't have to keep beating yourself up for that. It was seventy years ago.”
“Not for me, it wasn't.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming and an authoritative voice filling the room. “Visitors, citizens, please remain calm. We will try to handle this situation as well as we -”
The voice belonged to a city guard, who had addressed the crowd, but immediately stopped when he actually saw the room. His eyes fell on the five of them, and one word escaped from his mouth: “Bairdsley?”
Remont scrambled to his feet. “Curt Dreithart?” Remont held up his hands. “Please -”
Dreithart quickly unslung the rifle that hung from his shoulder and pointed it at Remont. “Stay where you are!” He gestured to Icelus. “Is that her?”
Remont clenched his jaw and answered tensely. “Yes.”
Dreithart fixed the rifle barrel steady on Remont. “I knew it, Bairdsley. I always knew you were a bad one.”
“Curt, please, let me explain.”
“No. No explanations. You're all coming with me. Or else -”
“Or else what?” Remont acidly replied. “The Chief will destroy the town? That doesn't seem like something that's really our fault, Dreithart.”
“Shut up, Bairdsley.”
“Hey, I'm just asking you to make a decision,” said Remont, “you can either help the guy who's floating around using some weird dark magic and tearing apart the town... or you can listen to me. Me, who is currently putting myself at your mercy.”
Dreithart's rifle seemed to tremble.
“Just take a moment to peek out the door, Curt. Look at the Chief up in the sky and ask yourself if that looks like the good guy.”
“I saw him,” said Dreithart. His rifle was shaking even more now, which didn't make anyone huddled in the shop feel safe. “Bairdsley, how is he doing this?”
“He's a nightmare, Curt. He fooled us. He fooled all of us. He fooled you, he fooled me.” Remont shook his head. “He's the one who destroyed the Nexus, and we're trying to set everything right. His only goal is to keep it gone.”
“The Nexus,” Dreithart sneered, “what's the point of that?”
“You fool,” Icelus spoke up, “you don't even know what you're saying. Does anyone in this day and age even know -”
“Icelus.” Remont cut her off. Icelus's outburst had made Dreithart take a step back, and his rifle head was wavering uneasily between the two of them. “Please,” said Remont, “let me handle this.” He took on a reassuring but serious tone. “Curt, I don't have time to spell all this out for you. All I can do is ask you to please... trust me. I'm putting us at your mercy. It's your call.”
Remont held his hands up and gestured for the rest of the group to do so. Marc and Lya did it immediately. Osette had to be nudged into it. Icelus did a weird little bow with her front paws.
ONLY TWO MINUTES LEFT, ICELUS. I'M COUNTING.
Dreithart made a little whining noise and lowered his rifle. “Chief Decan is a nightmare?”
“He couldn't do all that otherwise.”
“Dammit,” Dreithart spat, “those fucking nightmares. Can't trust any of them.”
Lya made to move toward him angrily – and Marc had a vague idea that he should be offended now, too – but Remont wordlessly indicated not to. He sighed. “I know, Dreithart. You're right. We need to stop them.”
Dreithart slung his rifle on his back and began looking around uneasily. Lya was fuming, but Remont had to ignore her for now. Marc felt a rush of sympathy for him – he'd had to sell them out to defuse this situation. He pulled Lya aside. “We can't let this guy know, okay? It's easy enough.”
Lya ground her teeth.
“I know, okay? He didn't mean it.”
She huffed and turned away. Normally this would be where Lya turned to Osette for comfort, but it was really not the time.
“Okay, Curt,” Remont had taken Dreithart aside and was urgently talking to him now, “we don't have a lot of time. We need to get to the astronomy tower.”
“Why?”
“It's complicated. That's the only way to restore the Nexus. But now Piper's definitely got his eye on that -”
“Who?”
“Sorry, uh, Chief Decan's got his eye on that place. We need to distract him somehow. But...”
Dreithart snapped his fingers. “I think I might know something.”
Remont grabbed his shoulders. “Curt, what is it?”
“There was something in the Chief's house that he had locked up in some sort of safe. He just got it recently and seemed really keen to keep it away from everyone. I tried asking about hit, but he just changed the subject. It's got to be something important.”
Remont considered this. “A weak spot?”
“It's something we could hold hostage, at least,” said Icelus. “It's our only way in. I think it's worth a shot.”
Marc nodded and stood up. “We know where the Chief's house is?”
“I know just where it is,” said Remont. “I can lead you to it.”
“Great. What about them?” Marc asked, pointing his thumb at the other people huddled, confused, in the shop, who had watched this whole scene go down and hadn't remarked on it.
Lya marched forward. “Everyone, it's not safe here. That nightmare out there, he's ready to tear down buildings and raze the whole city. It's not safe to be inside – he could bring down the whole thing on us. You really should leave the town, but at least get outside.”
Dreithart nodded and opened the door. “Everyone, file outside. The city guard will protect you.”
Loudly and sullenly, the crowd of people shuffled outside, only to be met with an even scarier spectacle than the one they had been running from; Piper still floated in the air nonchalantly, but the dozen or so human city guards who remained had joined ranks and were taking shots at him with their rifles. The bullets whizzed through the air, well-aimed, but as they approached Piper they seemed to lose motivation and curve around him. It seemed to be an annoyance to Piper more than anything.
Dreithart saw this and unslung his rifle once more. “Bairdsley, go find that safe. See if you can crack it, find out what's in it.”
“You're not going to help the tourists?” Remont said skeptically.
Dreithart shook his head. “They'll be fine if we can take the Chief down, stophim from wrecking the city.”
“Curt -”
Dreithart swung around and glowered at Remont. “Bairdsley,” he said, “don't make me regret trusting you. You need to go.”
“You're a city guard, Curt!”
“Yeah,” answered Dreithart, “and I'm guarding the city. Go on!” And he turned his heel and joined the other guard's ranks as they took volleys at Piper, still to no avail.
“Idiot,” said Remont.
“Nice guy,” said Lya bitterly. “Glad he's on our side.”
Remont snorted and turned to the group. “Okay, follow me. Piper's distracted, we should be good, but definitely keep out of his sight.”
TIME'S UP, ICELUS!
“Go, go, go!” Remont yelled and took off, the four others following him, as the sound of another building crumbling and crashing rang in their ears. Marc couldn't see what he was targeting this time, but he really hoped nobody was inside.
They stopped around an alley and Remont took a minute to see if anyone was there.
“I could take him,” Marc remarked to Icelus. “I have enough energy to take him.”
“Don't be stupid, Marc,” she said, “you need to conserve your energy, and we don't know how much power he has. It could end very badly.”
“I know I can beat him in time for the portal to open!”
“You're presuming too much,” she said curtly, and that was the end of the conversation.
Remont nodded to the rest of them. “Piper's house is right there. Nobody's around. Where did all those nightmare guards go?”
“Doesn't matter,” said Lya, “they're not here, so we're safe.”
“I guess,” said Remont. “Follow me. Now!”
They ran again, down a wide street, beating themselves against the fleeing crowd, up to a small, nondescript clay house.
“This it?” asked Marc, as composed as the others were exhausted.
“Yes,” Remont panted, “but how do we -”
Without waiting for an answer, Marc turned and delivered a swift blow to the door, knocking it out of its frame and opening the house to them. “Like that. No time to waste. Come on.”
“Marc!” shouted Icelus, “I just told you that you needed to conserve your energy!”
“It's not a big deal, Icelus, that was nothing.” Marc set himself to looking around the house for anything that looked big and sturdy and hiding something.
She was speechless at this sudden change in Marc. What had happened? Had the Catharsis Ritual changed his attitude somehow?
“I'd be confident too,” Lya whispered to her.
Icelus was all ears. “What happened to him?”
“He's just been gifted perfect memories,” she answered, “and he's not used to it. It's easy to think that you can do anything if you can just remember someone else doing it and try to imitate it... you know, for example. I can do lots of things... pick locks, operate aircraft. Remont and Osette relied on me for a lot because I was handy. But I had a good head on my shoulders.” Lya put her hand to her chin in thought. “Seems like Marc has lost some perspective.”
But however unjustified Marc's newfound confidence was, he was the one to deliver the goods news: he had found a small, tightly locked safe in Piper's office. They all gathered around to see, and Icelus winced a little more as Marc carelessly used his magic to blow it open, and pulled out what was inside before the smoke had cleared.
All thoughts of chewing him out fled her mind when she saw what it was he was holding.
“It's a crystal,” said Osette.
It was. This one was small, about the size of a palm, and unlike the purple crystals they had seen before, this one had a yellow tint. Marc eyed it uneasily.
“This one has quite a lot of power,” he said. “But... why didn't I absorb it when I touched it? That's what happened last time.”
“It's mine,” said Icelus.
The group turned to her. “My power, that is. The power of an old god. Piper must have... captured some of it when he destroyed the Shieldwork.”
“Can he do that?” asked Remont.
“Sure,” she answered. “But he could never use it. I'm sure he tried.”
“And you?”
Icelus strode forward and put her paw on the crystal. It was like a long, sustained deep breath – clearly something was flowing from the crystal to Icelus, but it was tough to see, only visible when their eyes became tired or foggy and started seeing double.
And then it was done. The crystal's yellow luster was dull and dark now, and Icelus rose up, her back straighter and her face prouder than Marc had ever seen it.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Icelus chuckled. “Good. Better than I have in a long time.” She looked around, deep in thought. “I had forgotten what it felt like.”
“So is that it?” asked Remont. “Are you back to being a deity?”
“No,” she responded, “Piper's spell wasn't perfect. I don't think there's any magic that could drain all of an old god's power at once. But it's good enough.”
“Good enough for what?”
She turned tail and strode towards the front door. “I'm going to do what I couldn't before, and beat Piper. It's about time he got what was coming to him. You all,” she said over her shoulder, “should take advantage of the distraction.”
And she left the house, and flew off. The group was flabbergasted for a second. Lya quietly muttered, “they all act like that when they get more power, I swear.”
“Icelus is right,” said Remont, “we need to leave now.”
FINALLY DECIDED TO SHOW YOUR COWARD FACE?
“Like, right now.”
“Hold on! Get near me,” Marc commanded, and grabbed the three of them into a tight hug.
“Marc, what -”
With one thought, Marc had teleported them all to the base of the astronomy tower – he had a perfect memory of it.
YOU FOUND THE CRYSTAL?!... NO MATTER. I DEFEATED YOU IN ONE WORLD AND I'LL DEFEAT YOU AGAIN.
YOU'RE ON YOUR LAST LEGS, PIPER. GIVE UP.
They were near the town square again, well and truly evacuated now – or abandoned. No telling if those city guards had actually managed to do their job and help anyone as they got out. This time they took no care to hide themselves – where before there had been sounds of buildings demolishing themselves, now there was the sound of magic energy balls colliding, bodies being knocked into buildings, and the occasional bold taunting from Piper. When Marc took a look up, the sky was filled with bright sparkles of electricity and long streaks of color.
Remont was quick to pull himself together, and he was the first to throw open the astronomy tower door and tear up the stairs. Marc, Osette and Lya followed him up the spiral staircase to a door at the top.
“Is Icelus going to be okay?” Lya asked when they were all together again. “Does she have enough power to subdue Piper?”
“It looked like an even fight to me,” said Remont as he opened the door and strode into the main observatory. “More than anything, we only need to distract him until -”
The rest of Remont's sentence was abruptly cut off by a large creature; it leapt on Remont with frightening speed, and he went down followed by a stream of blood.
Next
Marc's group was fortunate in two ways, though. For one thing, eyewitness accounts of them hadn't gotten around. When they slipped into the town square and mingled with the crowd, nobody recognized them, and they overheard several whispered conversations about the mysterious gang by people who didn't even know that said gang was right there. The other thing was that the nightmares seemed to have disappeared – the only ones keeping order were the regular city guards, but they were overwhelmed by the tense and paranoid crowd. There was an atmosphere of unease, but not panic. Not yet.
They had made it to the base of the astronomy tower, but noticed two guards standing outside. Marc asked Remont, “how many guards are in the city?”
“Ten or eleven, I think.”
“That's not a lot.”
“Yeah, I heard the Chief – Piper – complaining about how short he was on manpower for the festival. I guess that's why he got those nightmares to do security.”
“But if guards are at a premium,” said Marc, “why use up two whole people to defend the astronomy tower? There's gotta be something important there.”
“You're probably right,” said Remont. “They'll know us four, though. Marc, I think you should go try to talk to them. See if you can get into it. It's a kind of tourist destination, it should be open normally.”
Marc nodded and put on his best acting face, crossing the street to talk to the guards. He found himself brusquely turned away – none of the townsfolk were allowed in, they said.
This stymied Marc until he heard gasps from the crowd and saw fingers pointed up at the top of the astronomy tower. He ran down the street to get a better look. It was tough to tell, but it looked like the person at the top of the balcony was...
Piper!
He cast his gaze over the crowd that gathered beneath him, but he didn't look concerned with them. Piper got onto the railing of the balcony, and calmly stepped off into midair. There were more shocked yells from the pedestrians below, but even these were eclipsed by the shouts at what they saw next: he didn't fall.
Instead he remained suspended in midair, supported by a pillow of incandescent space that warped and twisted like a kaleidoscope. Piper examined the crowd below him – Marc wanted to turn and run straight away to warn the others, but if he did that he'd certainly be seen. He had to remain calm and keep an eye on Piper like everybody else was.
Finally Piper floated off leisurely, and to Marc's great relief he went in the opposite direction from the alley where his friends were hiding. Only once Piper's back was turned did Marc push through the thick, stunned crowd to find the others. “Shit,” he whispered to himself.
“What happened?” Lya asked when he arrived back. He was wide-eyed and on edge.
“Piper flew,” he said shortly.
“What?!” the whole group said in unison.
“He walked off the astronomy tower and flew. Now he's looking for us from the sky.”
ICELUS.
Piper's voice came booming across the town, supernaturally loud and clear.
I KNOW YOU'RE HERE, ICELUS, AND I'M TIRED OF LOOKING. SURRENDER YOURSELF IN TEN MINUTES OR I'LL TEAR THIS TOWN APART.
A deathly silence had gripped the area. Tear the town apart?
IN FACT, I WOULD ADVISE EVERYONE IN THE TOWN HALL TO EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.
“What is he going to do to the town hall?!” Remont stood up and ran off. This was such a shock to the others that they barely had time to register it they had to chase him. “Remont!” Lya yelled, “don't!”
Remont dashed to the town square and stopped cold – there was Piper in the sky, observing the town hall. From out of the front doors spewed a group of panicked workers and tourists. As they all fled, Piper reached out his arm to the hall.
It was a remarkable sight – from top to bottom, the whole building seemed to dismantle, screws coming loose and boards getting torn out, then falling to the ground in a heap. Pillars and support beams fell where they stood, strewn haphazardly in the street. It took a whole minute for the entire building to become completely disassembled.
I HOPE YOU REALIZE I'M SERIOUS.
Piper cast his gaze around the town square, at the people looking up in awe at him. He would have seen Remont if he had just glanced a bit further to the left for one second. But Marc got there first, pulling Remont from behind the shirt collar and dragging him behind a building, out of Piper's sight.
“I guess we should consider that a resignation,” Lya remarked.
“He's right there,” said Marc, “we need to go. Take cover in a house or something.”
As it happened, many of the tourists at the festival had had the same idea; they were streaming into nearby shops and houses to protect themselves from this malevolent man floating in the sky.
TEN MINUTES.
And Piper began to float around the town square, scanning the area. It was only a matter of time before he saw them.
“In there,” said Osette, pointing to a nearby store that people were flooding into. They had to make sure Piper's back was turned, but they slipped in.
Inside was a crowd of worried people who had just come for the festival; now they were all scared and wondering what was going on. The presence of an intelligent dog in their ranks attracted some looks, but not as many as Marc was afraid of. The five of them took refuge by the wall and spoke in whispers – impossible to be heard, considering how the rest of the shop was a din of noise.
“What are we going to do?” asked Osette.
“He wants Icelus,” said Remont, “but what's he going to do with her once he finds her?”
“Kill her, probably,” said Marc. “We're not giving her up. Right, Icelus?”
Icelus looked distant and unmoved.
“Right?”
She shook her head and when she spoke it was slowly and deliberately, “I think he probably will kill me. Or else imprison me. But,” she said, “it could buy us time and distract Piper.”
“No!” Marc shouted. “You can't do that.”
“I can, Marc,” she replied sternly, “the most important thing is that you send that memory through the opening. It's not going to last that long. If we can buy some time for you to do it, that's the priority. Not my safety.”
“The Nexus needs a protector,” said Marc. “You can't do that when you're dead.”
“Someone can,” she said dismissively. “Someone who the people approve of – who doesn't kill people when they're trying to do their job.”
Marc deflated. She was still upset and insecure about this. He hadn't even thought about it for so long.
“Icelus,” said Remont, poking his head in, “you don't have to keep beating yourself up for that. It was seventy years ago.”
“Not for me, it wasn't.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming and an authoritative voice filling the room. “Visitors, citizens, please remain calm. We will try to handle this situation as well as we -”
The voice belonged to a city guard, who had addressed the crowd, but immediately stopped when he actually saw the room. His eyes fell on the five of them, and one word escaped from his mouth: “Bairdsley?”
Remont scrambled to his feet. “Curt Dreithart?” Remont held up his hands. “Please -”
Dreithart quickly unslung the rifle that hung from his shoulder and pointed it at Remont. “Stay where you are!” He gestured to Icelus. “Is that her?”
Remont clenched his jaw and answered tensely. “Yes.”
Dreithart fixed the rifle barrel steady on Remont. “I knew it, Bairdsley. I always knew you were a bad one.”
“Curt, please, let me explain.”
“No. No explanations. You're all coming with me. Or else -”
“Or else what?” Remont acidly replied. “The Chief will destroy the town? That doesn't seem like something that's really our fault, Dreithart.”
“Shut up, Bairdsley.”
“Hey, I'm just asking you to make a decision,” said Remont, “you can either help the guy who's floating around using some weird dark magic and tearing apart the town... or you can listen to me. Me, who is currently putting myself at your mercy.”
Dreithart's rifle seemed to tremble.
“Just take a moment to peek out the door, Curt. Look at the Chief up in the sky and ask yourself if that looks like the good guy.”
“I saw him,” said Dreithart. His rifle was shaking even more now, which didn't make anyone huddled in the shop feel safe. “Bairdsley, how is he doing this?”
“He's a nightmare, Curt. He fooled us. He fooled all of us. He fooled you, he fooled me.” Remont shook his head. “He's the one who destroyed the Nexus, and we're trying to set everything right. His only goal is to keep it gone.”
“The Nexus,” Dreithart sneered, “what's the point of that?”
“You fool,” Icelus spoke up, “you don't even know what you're saying. Does anyone in this day and age even know -”
“Icelus.” Remont cut her off. Icelus's outburst had made Dreithart take a step back, and his rifle head was wavering uneasily between the two of them. “Please,” said Remont, “let me handle this.” He took on a reassuring but serious tone. “Curt, I don't have time to spell all this out for you. All I can do is ask you to please... trust me. I'm putting us at your mercy. It's your call.”
Remont held his hands up and gestured for the rest of the group to do so. Marc and Lya did it immediately. Osette had to be nudged into it. Icelus did a weird little bow with her front paws.
ONLY TWO MINUTES LEFT, ICELUS. I'M COUNTING.
Dreithart made a little whining noise and lowered his rifle. “Chief Decan is a nightmare?”
“He couldn't do all that otherwise.”
“Dammit,” Dreithart spat, “those fucking nightmares. Can't trust any of them.”
Lya made to move toward him angrily – and Marc had a vague idea that he should be offended now, too – but Remont wordlessly indicated not to. He sighed. “I know, Dreithart. You're right. We need to stop them.”
Dreithart slung his rifle on his back and began looking around uneasily. Lya was fuming, but Remont had to ignore her for now. Marc felt a rush of sympathy for him – he'd had to sell them out to defuse this situation. He pulled Lya aside. “We can't let this guy know, okay? It's easy enough.”
Lya ground her teeth.
“I know, okay? He didn't mean it.”
She huffed and turned away. Normally this would be where Lya turned to Osette for comfort, but it was really not the time.
“Okay, Curt,” Remont had taken Dreithart aside and was urgently talking to him now, “we don't have a lot of time. We need to get to the astronomy tower.”
“Why?”
“It's complicated. That's the only way to restore the Nexus. But now Piper's definitely got his eye on that -”
“Who?”
“Sorry, uh, Chief Decan's got his eye on that place. We need to distract him somehow. But...”
Dreithart snapped his fingers. “I think I might know something.”
Remont grabbed his shoulders. “Curt, what is it?”
“There was something in the Chief's house that he had locked up in some sort of safe. He just got it recently and seemed really keen to keep it away from everyone. I tried asking about hit, but he just changed the subject. It's got to be something important.”
Remont considered this. “A weak spot?”
“It's something we could hold hostage, at least,” said Icelus. “It's our only way in. I think it's worth a shot.”
Marc nodded and stood up. “We know where the Chief's house is?”
“I know just where it is,” said Remont. “I can lead you to it.”
“Great. What about them?” Marc asked, pointing his thumb at the other people huddled, confused, in the shop, who had watched this whole scene go down and hadn't remarked on it.
Lya marched forward. “Everyone, it's not safe here. That nightmare out there, he's ready to tear down buildings and raze the whole city. It's not safe to be inside – he could bring down the whole thing on us. You really should leave the town, but at least get outside.”
Dreithart nodded and opened the door. “Everyone, file outside. The city guard will protect you.”
Loudly and sullenly, the crowd of people shuffled outside, only to be met with an even scarier spectacle than the one they had been running from; Piper still floated in the air nonchalantly, but the dozen or so human city guards who remained had joined ranks and were taking shots at him with their rifles. The bullets whizzed through the air, well-aimed, but as they approached Piper they seemed to lose motivation and curve around him. It seemed to be an annoyance to Piper more than anything.
Dreithart saw this and unslung his rifle once more. “Bairdsley, go find that safe. See if you can crack it, find out what's in it.”
“You're not going to help the tourists?” Remont said skeptically.
Dreithart shook his head. “They'll be fine if we can take the Chief down, stophim from wrecking the city.”
“Curt -”
Dreithart swung around and glowered at Remont. “Bairdsley,” he said, “don't make me regret trusting you. You need to go.”
“You're a city guard, Curt!”
“Yeah,” answered Dreithart, “and I'm guarding the city. Go on!” And he turned his heel and joined the other guard's ranks as they took volleys at Piper, still to no avail.
“Idiot,” said Remont.
“Nice guy,” said Lya bitterly. “Glad he's on our side.”
Remont snorted and turned to the group. “Okay, follow me. Piper's distracted, we should be good, but definitely keep out of his sight.”
TIME'S UP, ICELUS!
“Go, go, go!” Remont yelled and took off, the four others following him, as the sound of another building crumbling and crashing rang in their ears. Marc couldn't see what he was targeting this time, but he really hoped nobody was inside.
They stopped around an alley and Remont took a minute to see if anyone was there.
“I could take him,” Marc remarked to Icelus. “I have enough energy to take him.”
“Don't be stupid, Marc,” she said, “you need to conserve your energy, and we don't know how much power he has. It could end very badly.”
“I know I can beat him in time for the portal to open!”
“You're presuming too much,” she said curtly, and that was the end of the conversation.
Remont nodded to the rest of them. “Piper's house is right there. Nobody's around. Where did all those nightmare guards go?”
“Doesn't matter,” said Lya, “they're not here, so we're safe.”
“I guess,” said Remont. “Follow me. Now!”
They ran again, down a wide street, beating themselves against the fleeing crowd, up to a small, nondescript clay house.
“This it?” asked Marc, as composed as the others were exhausted.
“Yes,” Remont panted, “but how do we -”
Without waiting for an answer, Marc turned and delivered a swift blow to the door, knocking it out of its frame and opening the house to them. “Like that. No time to waste. Come on.”
“Marc!” shouted Icelus, “I just told you that you needed to conserve your energy!”
“It's not a big deal, Icelus, that was nothing.” Marc set himself to looking around the house for anything that looked big and sturdy and hiding something.
She was speechless at this sudden change in Marc. What had happened? Had the Catharsis Ritual changed his attitude somehow?
“I'd be confident too,” Lya whispered to her.
Icelus was all ears. “What happened to him?”
“He's just been gifted perfect memories,” she answered, “and he's not used to it. It's easy to think that you can do anything if you can just remember someone else doing it and try to imitate it... you know, for example. I can do lots of things... pick locks, operate aircraft. Remont and Osette relied on me for a lot because I was handy. But I had a good head on my shoulders.” Lya put her hand to her chin in thought. “Seems like Marc has lost some perspective.”
But however unjustified Marc's newfound confidence was, he was the one to deliver the goods news: he had found a small, tightly locked safe in Piper's office. They all gathered around to see, and Icelus winced a little more as Marc carelessly used his magic to blow it open, and pulled out what was inside before the smoke had cleared.
All thoughts of chewing him out fled her mind when she saw what it was he was holding.
“It's a crystal,” said Osette.
It was. This one was small, about the size of a palm, and unlike the purple crystals they had seen before, this one had a yellow tint. Marc eyed it uneasily.
“This one has quite a lot of power,” he said. “But... why didn't I absorb it when I touched it? That's what happened last time.”
“It's mine,” said Icelus.
The group turned to her. “My power, that is. The power of an old god. Piper must have... captured some of it when he destroyed the Shieldwork.”
“Can he do that?” asked Remont.
“Sure,” she answered. “But he could never use it. I'm sure he tried.”
“And you?”
Icelus strode forward and put her paw on the crystal. It was like a long, sustained deep breath – clearly something was flowing from the crystal to Icelus, but it was tough to see, only visible when their eyes became tired or foggy and started seeing double.
And then it was done. The crystal's yellow luster was dull and dark now, and Icelus rose up, her back straighter and her face prouder than Marc had ever seen it.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Icelus chuckled. “Good. Better than I have in a long time.” She looked around, deep in thought. “I had forgotten what it felt like.”
“So is that it?” asked Remont. “Are you back to being a deity?”
“No,” she responded, “Piper's spell wasn't perfect. I don't think there's any magic that could drain all of an old god's power at once. But it's good enough.”
“Good enough for what?”
She turned tail and strode towards the front door. “I'm going to do what I couldn't before, and beat Piper. It's about time he got what was coming to him. You all,” she said over her shoulder, “should take advantage of the distraction.”
And she left the house, and flew off. The group was flabbergasted for a second. Lya quietly muttered, “they all act like that when they get more power, I swear.”
“Icelus is right,” said Remont, “we need to leave now.”
FINALLY DECIDED TO SHOW YOUR COWARD FACE?
“Like, right now.”
“Hold on! Get near me,” Marc commanded, and grabbed the three of them into a tight hug.
“Marc, what -”
With one thought, Marc had teleported them all to the base of the astronomy tower – he had a perfect memory of it.
YOU FOUND THE CRYSTAL?!... NO MATTER. I DEFEATED YOU IN ONE WORLD AND I'LL DEFEAT YOU AGAIN.
YOU'RE ON YOUR LAST LEGS, PIPER. GIVE UP.
They were near the town square again, well and truly evacuated now – or abandoned. No telling if those city guards had actually managed to do their job and help anyone as they got out. This time they took no care to hide themselves – where before there had been sounds of buildings demolishing themselves, now there was the sound of magic energy balls colliding, bodies being knocked into buildings, and the occasional bold taunting from Piper. When Marc took a look up, the sky was filled with bright sparkles of electricity and long streaks of color.
Remont was quick to pull himself together, and he was the first to throw open the astronomy tower door and tear up the stairs. Marc, Osette and Lya followed him up the spiral staircase to a door at the top.
“Is Icelus going to be okay?” Lya asked when they were all together again. “Does she have enough power to subdue Piper?”
“It looked like an even fight to me,” said Remont as he opened the door and strode into the main observatory. “More than anything, we only need to distract him until -”
The rest of Remont's sentence was abruptly cut off by a large creature; it leapt on Remont with frightening speed, and he went down followed by a stream of blood.
Next
Friday, July 17, 2015
Chapter 12: The Astronomy Tower
Lya found Osette outside that night, struggling to read and mark up a map by lantern-light. This was one of her favorite past-times. More than often it was to help whatever expedition they were undertaking next.
“Whatcha doing?”
Osette looked up, but didn't say anything. She turned back to her work.
“Those markings, are those roads to Zamasea?”
Still no response.
“Are you trying to figure out which one's the safest?”
“I am not talking to you.”
That was what she had been afraid of, but it didn't make the words sting any less. “Osette, don't you still want us to be together?”
“I don't know.” Osette's markings became slightly more erratic. “Shouldn't come with us tomorrow. It's not safe.”
“What?” Lya couldn't believe it. “Why?”
“It's not safe.”
“It's not going to be safe for any one of us,” said Lya, “I can fight. I can protect you.”
“You said I had to be the one to protect you one day. Maybe that starts today.”
Lya felt herself tearing up again and had to take a sharp breath to keep that from happening. She couldn't be doing this all the time. “Not like this,” she said.
Osette didn't say anything to that. And Lya knew there wasn't going to be any point in talking to her further. She had shut down.
A kind of zapping sound made her turn her head. Marc, Icelus and Remont all stood there, grasping books and weapons and all kinds of other materials.
“We're back!” said Remont. “It looks like Piper didn't go through our stuff while we were gone.”
Lya got up and took the three metal polearms from Remont to lighten his load. They had served everyone well in the past and it would be good to have them. “So Marc's teleportation worked?”
“Perfectly!” said Marc excitedly. “It doesn't even use up any of the psychic energy I got from the crystal. I already had the power, I just couldn't figure out how to use it.”
“And now that you have perfect memory you can?”
Marc nodded. “Just have to remember my mental state from the other times I did it. It's no problem now.”
Icelus and Remont had walked off to store their supplies, so Lya decided to go with Marc. “So, Marc,” she said as they walked toward the tent where he stayed, “what's it like? Going from fallible memory to perfect recall.”
“It feels kind of... refreshing? Like every decision was a struggle before, I was working off cloudy information. Now I can just... remember. That doesn't even sound like the right word, though.”
“No,” she said, “Memories are always imperfect. Parts are cut out. Things are exaggerated. What you can do now is... seeing. You can see your past, as clearly and as vividly as your present.”
“That's exactly it,” he said. “Plus the fear is gone.”
“The fear?”
“The irrational fear. The nervousness. Especially around Icelus. She was... a big fear of mine when I was little. And you never get over those childhood fears. They just drag at the back of your mind.”
“Unless you can actually remember them?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It's funny – seeing things properly makes them so much less scary. Would you ever want to have an imperfect memory?”
“I've never known anything outside what I have. I'm going to stick with what I know. But...”
Marc smirked. “But what?”
“...but I've seen memories fade and turn into something nicer. Sometimes the stories people construct give them a purpose. Makes them feel like it was all worth something. I've seen humans forgive each other for terrible things, and I've seen them move on and make it all better. And the fear is part of that, too. Sometimes fear makes us do impossible, great, kind things. Sometimes we can use fear. You don't get that when your memories are always right there. I wouldn't push it away so easily.”
Marc smiled, impressed. “I hadn't thought of it that way. It's all new to me right now. I can do so many things now that I couldn't before. But... well, you've given me something to think about, at least.”
“Good. I don't mean to say that you'd be better off as a human, though. Humans and nightmares, they're not better or worse. They're just different ways to be.”
“I see that now. Hm... you know what, the fear? I bet that'll happen to Osette.”
“What?”
He laughed. “She'll forgive you. I think she already wants to. What could inspire forgiveness faster than the fear of being alone, right? You just have to give her some time.”
Lya sighed. “We may not have that much time. She doesn't want me to go with everyone to the Adjoining Festival tomorrow.”
“Whaaaat?”
“It's true.”
“Damn! Well... I want you to come with us.”
She lightly smiled. “Is that going to be enough?”
“I'm sure Remont and Icelus do, too. You're the one who knows how to do everything. We couldn't work without you.”
“Thanks, Marc. I'm glad you're all up for throwing me into danger.”
“Aww, shut up. Just don't try any more spell circles and you'll be fine.”
They arrived at a small tent where Marc was staying. One of the villagers – the giant slug that he had been put off by earlier, actually, though not so much now – had offered to let him stay the night. Marc didn't expect to get much of a restful sleep, but he could at least put some of this junk in the tent for now.
Waiting for them outside was Icelus. “Oh!” said Marc, “done with your packing?”
“Wasn't carrying much,” she replied, “no opposable thumbs.”
“Right.”
Lya opened the tent flap and gently laid the polearms down. “That's that. Do you need some help, Marc?”
“No, I got it. Thanks, Lya.”
She nodded. “I guess I'll see you all tomorrow morning. Sleep as well as you can,” she said, and went off.
“Marc, I'll make this quick, because you need some rest,” said Icelus, “But I just wanted to make sure you were ready. I know it can't be easy to go through the Catharsis Ritual, but... you're our only shot.”
Marc knelt down to meet her eyes. “As ready as I'll ever be. We don't now what we're really up against. We don't know if Piper has something up his sleeve. It could be a wash. We're kinda fighting uphill here. But,” he said, clenching his fist, “we owe it to everyone on both worlds to try our best. Right?”
“Right. Thank you...” she looked down, “...so much. If I'd known all this was going to happen that night that I first asked for your help..”
“I would've said yes anyway,” he replied.
She couldn't look at him. She was so proud and happy. “Get some sleep,” was all she said.
“Yes, ma'am.” He patted her on the head and went inside the tent.
The road from Agremonth to Zamasea hadn't seen a single soul cross it since Icelus had been broken out. This made it the ideal place for the group to materialize – weapons in tow, and hauling three sphere-cycles.
“I can't believe they didn't just take these,” remarked Lya.
“Or post anyone in the mansion,” said Icelus.
Remont mounted his vehicle and checked the engines. “The Chief was having trouble getting people for guard duty,” he said, “I'm not surprised.”
“So there might not be many people on the lookout for us?” asked Marc. The idea made him feel a lot better; this whole plan was down to him and he was looking for any reassurance that it might not be that hard after all.
“Maybe,” said Remont, “but we don't know what Piper has up his sleeve.”
“And he has something up his sleeve, mark my words,” said Icelus.
The road from Agremonth joined up with a major road on the way to the town, so they could blend in with the incoming crowd – there would be many visitors from all over Oniron coming for the Adjoining Festival. Sure enough, after a mile of driving (Icelus still complained about the sidecar on Remont's cycle) they found a whole caravan of travelers – mostly on foot, but some of them were riding strange lizardlike quadrupeds that behaved a lot like horses, and others still had wagons. Their plan to blend in, then, was misconceived; they stuck out horribly on their automobiles. All they could do was duck their heads down and try not to talk to anyone.
The town drew larger and larger on the horizon, until they could see the entrance.
“Wait,” said Remont, “what are those things checking people?”
They could all see them now: at every entrance to the town, accosting the line of visitors flowing in, were hulking monsters – some were vaguely animalistic, like the giant rhinoceroses, and then there were some that were only vaguely humanoid, like the orange demonic-looking thing that was guarding the entrance they were headed to. They halted the groups, checked them up and down, and only then did they let some through. Others still they turned away, leaving a large amount of loudly complaining tourists just outside the city limits.
“Nightmares,” said Lya. “They've got nightmares doing security for the Festival.”
Remont gawked. “How? Surely nobody in the city approved of that.”
“I don't know,” she responded. “Maybe he overruled the rest of the city council.”
“Maybe he's not planning on being chief much longer,” said Icelus. “This is our last chance, so it's his last stand. He's pulling out all the big guns.”
“Hey, guys,” said Osette. “We're getting close. We're getting close, what do we do?”
“They'll have told these nightmares what we look like,” said Remont.
“Not me,” said Marc immediately.
Remont turned to him, surprised. “Not you?”
“No,” said Marc. “Piper may or may not know we have a fifth member, but he's definitely never gotten a good look at me. He knows everyone else. If anyone can slip into the Festival unnoticed, it's me.”
Nobody had anything to say about this. They looked at each other uneasily. “Marc,” said Icelus, “are you sure about this? You'll be all alone in there.”
“Totally sure,” he said. “This would be one of those things I was afraid of before, but... not anymore, you know?”
She was unconvinced. Osette seemed to approve, though. “Okay,” she said, “you should do it.”
Marc smiled. “Osette, do you know if there's a good place with a view of the portal, once it shows up?”
Osette scratched her chin in thought. “Ahhh.... any place, I guess,” she said, “but if you get to the top of the astronomy tower? Straight shot. Guaranteed.”
Marc nodded. “I saw it when we were far off. Easy to find. Okay, guys, you can leave this to me.”
“Marc,” said Icelus, “I don't like this.”
“I do,” he said blithely, “but if I run into trouble I'll make a ruckus so you guys know.”
Icelus wanted to protest, but she got cut off by Remont. “Marc, we'll be right there keeping track. Send up a magic flash or something if you're in trouble, promise us.”
“I promise.”
“Good luck.” And the other four disengaged from the line and parked over distantly to get a view of the whole town. Marc turned around and took a deep breath. He was almost to the front of the line.
There were two nightmares guarding either side of the road that led into the city. One of them was the demon-looking one – Marc decided to go for the other one, a large leopard. When he got to the front of the line, the nightmare looked him up and down. “Are you alone?” it asked.
“Yes,” answered Marc.
“Name?”
“Marc Spall.”
“Are you armed, Marc Spall?”
Marc hadn't taken any of the polearms with him, fortunately. He had nothing but his clothes. And his magic, but they didn't need to know about that. “I'm not armed,” he said.
The leopard nightmare looked him over and announced that he was going to be searched. Marc got a pat-down – some things didn't change between worlds, it seemed – and a few pokes from a nasty-looking knife. Marc hoped he wouldn't have to deal with that knife if it came to a fight. He smelled the leopard's warm, rank breath as he was examined, but he didn't shiver or flinch.
The nightmare seemed to be satisfied. “Go on in,” it said. “By the way, we're looking for some fugitives. One man, maybe two, and two women. They're traveling with a small dog. If you see them, report it to the nearest guard immediately.”
Marc nodded. “Will do.”
And then he walked on by. He was home free.
Until his arm was roughly grabbed by the nightmare again. “Wait,” it said. Then it took a deep sniff of Marc.
Its eyes shot to him and became excited. “You smell like Icelus.”
Marc had to try his best not to twitch his face, not to act surprised. “Who's Icelus?”
The leopard nightmare didn't answer. Instead he turned to the other guard and called to him. “Vaster! Come over here!”
The second guard had blotchy orange skin and a bull-like snout and horns. He was examining another visitor, but when he heard his name being called he shoved them off and walked towards them. “What is it, Myrn?” he asked the leopard.
“This one,” said Myrn, “has Icelus's scent all over him. There was another man with them. Does he fit the description?”
“Wasn't much of a description,” said Vaster, “but we should let Piper take a good look at him.”
“Come with us, boy,” said Myrn, roughly pulling Marc aside, “and don't try anything.”
Well, that didn't take long.
Channeling the psychic energy was as simple as breathing – Marc balled his hand into a fist, swung, and in the same moment willed a burst of energy to explode from the end, and it did so. He caught Myrn squarely in the rib, and before anyone knew what was going on, the leopard was flying through the air, and then slammed against a building.
There was only an angry yell from Vaster before Marc swiveled around and delivered a kick to his chest, which sent him airborne too.
There were shouts of alarm from the crowd, but the two guards were totally incapacitated. Marc had never been any sort of martial artist, but with his perfect memory he had instantaneously drawn on every kind of fighting he had seen, in television and in movies. It wasn't perfect – good technique was obviously down to practice – but it was good enough.
“Marc!”
It was Remont's voice. He looked around and noticed the four others driving up in the sphere-cycles. The crowd shouted and scattered as they drove up. “What happened?”
“Well, the cover's blown already,” said Marc. “One of them smelled Icelus on me.”
“Damn.” Remont saw Myrn staggering to his feet and rushed over, took out his polearm and held it to the nightmare's throat. “How many guards are in the city?”
Myrn snarled at Remont. “Dozens and dozens. You can't fight 'em all yourself.”
Remont didn't answer that. Instead he pressed the polearm down harder and asked, “Why are you guarding the city?”
“Piper and Canis found us yesterday. Took us here, gave us orders.”
“What's he offering you?”
“A bit of power,” said Myrn, “He said we wouldn't have to worry about surviving again.”
Then, from off in the distance, came a mass of stomping feet and violent beings. Myrn laughed. “That'll be other guards. Hope you're ready for a fight.”
“We are,” said Marc. He stood facing the town proper, where the rest of Piper's guards were out of sight but rapidly approaching.
“Marc,” said Icelus, “what are you doing?”
Marc's eyes were closed and he seemed to be concentrating very hard. “Just let me know when they're in sight. As many of them as possible.”
He didn't have to wait long – in a few seconds, twenty or thirty guards came filing around the corner and charging towards them. Lya and Osette gasped.
“Here!” shouted Icelus. “They're coming!”
“Okay,” said Marc calmly, “watch this.”
He opened his eyes, just barely. His vision swam and everything looked vague. To him, the guards looked more like one gelatinous mass than thirty distinct beings. In fact, you could just about imagine ten or fifteen people filling the same amount of space.
Which is what he did. Ten or fifteen, he thought, ten or fifteen.
And then Marc opened his eyes wide, and the world snapped into focus, and suddenly there were only about half of the guards left that there were before. He could feel everyone else's shock – it must have looked really strange to them. The advancing guards stopped and looked around, wondering where half their force had gotten to.
“Okay,” said Marc, “I cut them down as much as I could.”
“What did you do?” asked Remont.
“Same thing I did after the Wanderlust crashed. I focused. Looked at the world in a new way. Revealed new things. There aren't as many now. Remont, Osette, Lya, do you think you can take on some of them?”
They all nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay, then. Let's get 'em.”
And he launched himself into their midst – just kicked his foot against the ground and sent himself sailing and then there he was, surrounded by hostile, confused guards.
He wasted no time attacking them, sending his limbs flying and trusting the magic he had to connect. Every hit he felt acutely, and everything he saw he could immediately remember – he never lost track of where any of his enemies were. Remont, Osette and Lya were there, too, smacking the guards around the head, twisting them, throwing them. Marc was pulling most of the weight but the fight was much easier with their help.
“Retreat!” he heard one shout, and the guards did so, wriggling out of their positions or getting up from where they had fallen and heading back to... somewhere.
Marc found himself not surrounded anymore, and dropped to the ground, breathing heavily. He was safe, though – no bruises, no cuts, no broken anything. This magic power was awesome.
“Marc!” It was Icelus.
He turned to see her running up to him. “Pretty cool, right?”
She didn't look convinced. She looked a bit angry, actually. “Marc, you only have so much psychic energy. You can't go around using it up. What if you run out before the portal opens?”
What? That was stupid. Marc shook his head. “I know how much I have, and it's more than enough. I'm running on a full tank, still.”
“And do you know how much it will take to send a memory through?”
He slumped. “No. How much?”
“I don't know!” Icelus stamped her feet in frustration. “That's why you have to be careful. Conserve it!”
“I know what I can and can't do, Icelus,” Marc near-shouted at her, “I'm okay. I'm not afraid anymore.”
She frowned and huffed at him, but didn't say anything. That was as good as he was going to get. “Okay,” said Marc, standing up, “I think we should try to blend in again, if possible. Yeah?”
“Good idea,” said Lya. “Everyone see the astronomy tower? Let's try to make our way towards that.”
They all approved. Abandoning the sphere-cycles, but keeping the polearms, the five of them ducked into a side street and tried to make themselves look as inconspicuous as possible. They hadn't seen Piper yet, and couldn't know what he was up to, and that was nothing but a bad sign.
“Is everyone here?”
It was cramped up here – Piper had gotten the services of nearly fifty guards and thirty-five of them were here at the top floor of the astronomy tower.
He stood in the center of them all, glowering. Disappointed, but he expected this outcome, at least a little bit. “I need someone who was there – just one person, please – to clearly describe what happened.”
One voice rose above the rabble – it was Vaster. “It was some boy. He had this huge psychic power that he used to beat us all. And then when reinforcements arrived he just made half of them... disappear. And then the rest got picked off.”
“We're lucky we could retreat,” another one spoke up, a rather grotesque-looking human this time. “But you didn't say we'd have to deal with anything like that.”
Piper scowled. “I didn't make any guarantees as to what you would or wouldn't be facing,” he said, “but fortunately I'm ready for this. Plan C,” he turned to Canis, sitting by his side, wearily.
The crowd of nightmares packed in a little tighter to hear his plan, but Piper didn't say another word. Instead he crouched down and put his hand to the ground. This should have been a warning to them, but nobody realized what was happening until it was too late.
The floor underneath them glowed – a pattern emerged. None of them had noticed the markings, but they realized soon that they were standing inside a spell circle.
There was only time to cry out briefly before the assembled horde of nightmares dissolved, becoming unnaturally twisted and losing their shape, separating into molecules and atoms, and then into psychic energy, which then flowed into the center.
Piper stood up, feeling more powerful than he ever had before. He looked at his hands. They almost sizzled and crackled with the raw force available to him. He looked at Canis. “Feeling better?”
“Much,” replied Canis.
“Good.” Piper strode to one end of the tower and threw open a set of double doors. “Stay here. Keep safe. If anyone gets up here, you can defend yourself now.”
“Are you going to find Icelus?” asked Canis.
Piper was on a balcony now, the tallest point in the city. He could see nearly every building, every street, every alley. They couldn't hide from him for long. “Yes,” he said, “she won't know what hit her.”
And with a leap, he was off, floating in midair, electricity crackling all around him, ready to finish the fight.
Next
“Whatcha doing?”
Osette looked up, but didn't say anything. She turned back to her work.
“Those markings, are those roads to Zamasea?”
Still no response.
“Are you trying to figure out which one's the safest?”
“I am not talking to you.”
That was what she had been afraid of, but it didn't make the words sting any less. “Osette, don't you still want us to be together?”
“I don't know.” Osette's markings became slightly more erratic. “Shouldn't come with us tomorrow. It's not safe.”
“What?” Lya couldn't believe it. “Why?”
“It's not safe.”
“It's not going to be safe for any one of us,” said Lya, “I can fight. I can protect you.”
“You said I had to be the one to protect you one day. Maybe that starts today.”
Lya felt herself tearing up again and had to take a sharp breath to keep that from happening. She couldn't be doing this all the time. “Not like this,” she said.
Osette didn't say anything to that. And Lya knew there wasn't going to be any point in talking to her further. She had shut down.
A kind of zapping sound made her turn her head. Marc, Icelus and Remont all stood there, grasping books and weapons and all kinds of other materials.
“We're back!” said Remont. “It looks like Piper didn't go through our stuff while we were gone.”
Lya got up and took the three metal polearms from Remont to lighten his load. They had served everyone well in the past and it would be good to have them. “So Marc's teleportation worked?”
“Perfectly!” said Marc excitedly. “It doesn't even use up any of the psychic energy I got from the crystal. I already had the power, I just couldn't figure out how to use it.”
“And now that you have perfect memory you can?”
Marc nodded. “Just have to remember my mental state from the other times I did it. It's no problem now.”
Icelus and Remont had walked off to store their supplies, so Lya decided to go with Marc. “So, Marc,” she said as they walked toward the tent where he stayed, “what's it like? Going from fallible memory to perfect recall.”
“It feels kind of... refreshing? Like every decision was a struggle before, I was working off cloudy information. Now I can just... remember. That doesn't even sound like the right word, though.”
“No,” she said, “Memories are always imperfect. Parts are cut out. Things are exaggerated. What you can do now is... seeing. You can see your past, as clearly and as vividly as your present.”
“That's exactly it,” he said. “Plus the fear is gone.”
“The fear?”
“The irrational fear. The nervousness. Especially around Icelus. She was... a big fear of mine when I was little. And you never get over those childhood fears. They just drag at the back of your mind.”
“Unless you can actually remember them?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It's funny – seeing things properly makes them so much less scary. Would you ever want to have an imperfect memory?”
“I've never known anything outside what I have. I'm going to stick with what I know. But...”
Marc smirked. “But what?”
“...but I've seen memories fade and turn into something nicer. Sometimes the stories people construct give them a purpose. Makes them feel like it was all worth something. I've seen humans forgive each other for terrible things, and I've seen them move on and make it all better. And the fear is part of that, too. Sometimes fear makes us do impossible, great, kind things. Sometimes we can use fear. You don't get that when your memories are always right there. I wouldn't push it away so easily.”
Marc smiled, impressed. “I hadn't thought of it that way. It's all new to me right now. I can do so many things now that I couldn't before. But... well, you've given me something to think about, at least.”
“Good. I don't mean to say that you'd be better off as a human, though. Humans and nightmares, they're not better or worse. They're just different ways to be.”
“I see that now. Hm... you know what, the fear? I bet that'll happen to Osette.”
“What?”
He laughed. “She'll forgive you. I think she already wants to. What could inspire forgiveness faster than the fear of being alone, right? You just have to give her some time.”
Lya sighed. “We may not have that much time. She doesn't want me to go with everyone to the Adjoining Festival tomorrow.”
“Whaaaat?”
“It's true.”
“Damn! Well... I want you to come with us.”
She lightly smiled. “Is that going to be enough?”
“I'm sure Remont and Icelus do, too. You're the one who knows how to do everything. We couldn't work without you.”
“Thanks, Marc. I'm glad you're all up for throwing me into danger.”
“Aww, shut up. Just don't try any more spell circles and you'll be fine.”
They arrived at a small tent where Marc was staying. One of the villagers – the giant slug that he had been put off by earlier, actually, though not so much now – had offered to let him stay the night. Marc didn't expect to get much of a restful sleep, but he could at least put some of this junk in the tent for now.
Waiting for them outside was Icelus. “Oh!” said Marc, “done with your packing?”
“Wasn't carrying much,” she replied, “no opposable thumbs.”
“Right.”
Lya opened the tent flap and gently laid the polearms down. “That's that. Do you need some help, Marc?”
“No, I got it. Thanks, Lya.”
She nodded. “I guess I'll see you all tomorrow morning. Sleep as well as you can,” she said, and went off.
“Marc, I'll make this quick, because you need some rest,” said Icelus, “But I just wanted to make sure you were ready. I know it can't be easy to go through the Catharsis Ritual, but... you're our only shot.”
Marc knelt down to meet her eyes. “As ready as I'll ever be. We don't now what we're really up against. We don't know if Piper has something up his sleeve. It could be a wash. We're kinda fighting uphill here. But,” he said, clenching his fist, “we owe it to everyone on both worlds to try our best. Right?”
“Right. Thank you...” she looked down, “...so much. If I'd known all this was going to happen that night that I first asked for your help..”
“I would've said yes anyway,” he replied.
She couldn't look at him. She was so proud and happy. “Get some sleep,” was all she said.
“Yes, ma'am.” He patted her on the head and went inside the tent.
The road from Agremonth to Zamasea hadn't seen a single soul cross it since Icelus had been broken out. This made it the ideal place for the group to materialize – weapons in tow, and hauling three sphere-cycles.
“I can't believe they didn't just take these,” remarked Lya.
“Or post anyone in the mansion,” said Icelus.
Remont mounted his vehicle and checked the engines. “The Chief was having trouble getting people for guard duty,” he said, “I'm not surprised.”
“So there might not be many people on the lookout for us?” asked Marc. The idea made him feel a lot better; this whole plan was down to him and he was looking for any reassurance that it might not be that hard after all.
“Maybe,” said Remont, “but we don't know what Piper has up his sleeve.”
“And he has something up his sleeve, mark my words,” said Icelus.
The road from Agremonth joined up with a major road on the way to the town, so they could blend in with the incoming crowd – there would be many visitors from all over Oniron coming for the Adjoining Festival. Sure enough, after a mile of driving (Icelus still complained about the sidecar on Remont's cycle) they found a whole caravan of travelers – mostly on foot, but some of them were riding strange lizardlike quadrupeds that behaved a lot like horses, and others still had wagons. Their plan to blend in, then, was misconceived; they stuck out horribly on their automobiles. All they could do was duck their heads down and try not to talk to anyone.
The town drew larger and larger on the horizon, until they could see the entrance.
“Wait,” said Remont, “what are those things checking people?”
They could all see them now: at every entrance to the town, accosting the line of visitors flowing in, were hulking monsters – some were vaguely animalistic, like the giant rhinoceroses, and then there were some that were only vaguely humanoid, like the orange demonic-looking thing that was guarding the entrance they were headed to. They halted the groups, checked them up and down, and only then did they let some through. Others still they turned away, leaving a large amount of loudly complaining tourists just outside the city limits.
“Nightmares,” said Lya. “They've got nightmares doing security for the Festival.”
Remont gawked. “How? Surely nobody in the city approved of that.”
“I don't know,” she responded. “Maybe he overruled the rest of the city council.”
“Maybe he's not planning on being chief much longer,” said Icelus. “This is our last chance, so it's his last stand. He's pulling out all the big guns.”
“Hey, guys,” said Osette. “We're getting close. We're getting close, what do we do?”
“They'll have told these nightmares what we look like,” said Remont.
“Not me,” said Marc immediately.
Remont turned to him, surprised. “Not you?”
“No,” said Marc. “Piper may or may not know we have a fifth member, but he's definitely never gotten a good look at me. He knows everyone else. If anyone can slip into the Festival unnoticed, it's me.”
Nobody had anything to say about this. They looked at each other uneasily. “Marc,” said Icelus, “are you sure about this? You'll be all alone in there.”
“Totally sure,” he said. “This would be one of those things I was afraid of before, but... not anymore, you know?”
She was unconvinced. Osette seemed to approve, though. “Okay,” she said, “you should do it.”
Marc smiled. “Osette, do you know if there's a good place with a view of the portal, once it shows up?”
Osette scratched her chin in thought. “Ahhh.... any place, I guess,” she said, “but if you get to the top of the astronomy tower? Straight shot. Guaranteed.”
Marc nodded. “I saw it when we were far off. Easy to find. Okay, guys, you can leave this to me.”
“Marc,” said Icelus, “I don't like this.”
“I do,” he said blithely, “but if I run into trouble I'll make a ruckus so you guys know.”
Icelus wanted to protest, but she got cut off by Remont. “Marc, we'll be right there keeping track. Send up a magic flash or something if you're in trouble, promise us.”
“I promise.”
“Good luck.” And the other four disengaged from the line and parked over distantly to get a view of the whole town. Marc turned around and took a deep breath. He was almost to the front of the line.
There were two nightmares guarding either side of the road that led into the city. One of them was the demon-looking one – Marc decided to go for the other one, a large leopard. When he got to the front of the line, the nightmare looked him up and down. “Are you alone?” it asked.
“Yes,” answered Marc.
“Name?”
“Marc Spall.”
“Are you armed, Marc Spall?”
Marc hadn't taken any of the polearms with him, fortunately. He had nothing but his clothes. And his magic, but they didn't need to know about that. “I'm not armed,” he said.
The leopard nightmare looked him over and announced that he was going to be searched. Marc got a pat-down – some things didn't change between worlds, it seemed – and a few pokes from a nasty-looking knife. Marc hoped he wouldn't have to deal with that knife if it came to a fight. He smelled the leopard's warm, rank breath as he was examined, but he didn't shiver or flinch.
The nightmare seemed to be satisfied. “Go on in,” it said. “By the way, we're looking for some fugitives. One man, maybe two, and two women. They're traveling with a small dog. If you see them, report it to the nearest guard immediately.”
Marc nodded. “Will do.”
And then he walked on by. He was home free.
Until his arm was roughly grabbed by the nightmare again. “Wait,” it said. Then it took a deep sniff of Marc.
Its eyes shot to him and became excited. “You smell like Icelus.”
Marc had to try his best not to twitch his face, not to act surprised. “Who's Icelus?”
The leopard nightmare didn't answer. Instead he turned to the other guard and called to him. “Vaster! Come over here!”
The second guard had blotchy orange skin and a bull-like snout and horns. He was examining another visitor, but when he heard his name being called he shoved them off and walked towards them. “What is it, Myrn?” he asked the leopard.
“This one,” said Myrn, “has Icelus's scent all over him. There was another man with them. Does he fit the description?”
“Wasn't much of a description,” said Vaster, “but we should let Piper take a good look at him.”
“Come with us, boy,” said Myrn, roughly pulling Marc aside, “and don't try anything.”
Well, that didn't take long.
Channeling the psychic energy was as simple as breathing – Marc balled his hand into a fist, swung, and in the same moment willed a burst of energy to explode from the end, and it did so. He caught Myrn squarely in the rib, and before anyone knew what was going on, the leopard was flying through the air, and then slammed against a building.
There was only an angry yell from Vaster before Marc swiveled around and delivered a kick to his chest, which sent him airborne too.
There were shouts of alarm from the crowd, but the two guards were totally incapacitated. Marc had never been any sort of martial artist, but with his perfect memory he had instantaneously drawn on every kind of fighting he had seen, in television and in movies. It wasn't perfect – good technique was obviously down to practice – but it was good enough.
“Marc!”
It was Remont's voice. He looked around and noticed the four others driving up in the sphere-cycles. The crowd shouted and scattered as they drove up. “What happened?”
“Well, the cover's blown already,” said Marc. “One of them smelled Icelus on me.”
“Damn.” Remont saw Myrn staggering to his feet and rushed over, took out his polearm and held it to the nightmare's throat. “How many guards are in the city?”
Myrn snarled at Remont. “Dozens and dozens. You can't fight 'em all yourself.”
Remont didn't answer that. Instead he pressed the polearm down harder and asked, “Why are you guarding the city?”
“Piper and Canis found us yesterday. Took us here, gave us orders.”
“What's he offering you?”
“A bit of power,” said Myrn, “He said we wouldn't have to worry about surviving again.”
Then, from off in the distance, came a mass of stomping feet and violent beings. Myrn laughed. “That'll be other guards. Hope you're ready for a fight.”
“We are,” said Marc. He stood facing the town proper, where the rest of Piper's guards were out of sight but rapidly approaching.
“Marc,” said Icelus, “what are you doing?”
Marc's eyes were closed and he seemed to be concentrating very hard. “Just let me know when they're in sight. As many of them as possible.”
He didn't have to wait long – in a few seconds, twenty or thirty guards came filing around the corner and charging towards them. Lya and Osette gasped.
“Here!” shouted Icelus. “They're coming!”
“Okay,” said Marc calmly, “watch this.”
He opened his eyes, just barely. His vision swam and everything looked vague. To him, the guards looked more like one gelatinous mass than thirty distinct beings. In fact, you could just about imagine ten or fifteen people filling the same amount of space.
Which is what he did. Ten or fifteen, he thought, ten or fifteen.
And then Marc opened his eyes wide, and the world snapped into focus, and suddenly there were only about half of the guards left that there were before. He could feel everyone else's shock – it must have looked really strange to them. The advancing guards stopped and looked around, wondering where half their force had gotten to.
“Okay,” said Marc, “I cut them down as much as I could.”
“What did you do?” asked Remont.
“Same thing I did after the Wanderlust crashed. I focused. Looked at the world in a new way. Revealed new things. There aren't as many now. Remont, Osette, Lya, do you think you can take on some of them?”
They all nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay, then. Let's get 'em.”
And he launched himself into their midst – just kicked his foot against the ground and sent himself sailing and then there he was, surrounded by hostile, confused guards.
He wasted no time attacking them, sending his limbs flying and trusting the magic he had to connect. Every hit he felt acutely, and everything he saw he could immediately remember – he never lost track of where any of his enemies were. Remont, Osette and Lya were there, too, smacking the guards around the head, twisting them, throwing them. Marc was pulling most of the weight but the fight was much easier with their help.
“Retreat!” he heard one shout, and the guards did so, wriggling out of their positions or getting up from where they had fallen and heading back to... somewhere.
Marc found himself not surrounded anymore, and dropped to the ground, breathing heavily. He was safe, though – no bruises, no cuts, no broken anything. This magic power was awesome.
“Marc!” It was Icelus.
He turned to see her running up to him. “Pretty cool, right?”
She didn't look convinced. She looked a bit angry, actually. “Marc, you only have so much psychic energy. You can't go around using it up. What if you run out before the portal opens?”
What? That was stupid. Marc shook his head. “I know how much I have, and it's more than enough. I'm running on a full tank, still.”
“And do you know how much it will take to send a memory through?”
He slumped. “No. How much?”
“I don't know!” Icelus stamped her feet in frustration. “That's why you have to be careful. Conserve it!”
“I know what I can and can't do, Icelus,” Marc near-shouted at her, “I'm okay. I'm not afraid anymore.”
She frowned and huffed at him, but didn't say anything. That was as good as he was going to get. “Okay,” said Marc, standing up, “I think we should try to blend in again, if possible. Yeah?”
“Good idea,” said Lya. “Everyone see the astronomy tower? Let's try to make our way towards that.”
They all approved. Abandoning the sphere-cycles, but keeping the polearms, the five of them ducked into a side street and tried to make themselves look as inconspicuous as possible. They hadn't seen Piper yet, and couldn't know what he was up to, and that was nothing but a bad sign.
“Is everyone here?”
It was cramped up here – Piper had gotten the services of nearly fifty guards and thirty-five of them were here at the top floor of the astronomy tower.
He stood in the center of them all, glowering. Disappointed, but he expected this outcome, at least a little bit. “I need someone who was there – just one person, please – to clearly describe what happened.”
One voice rose above the rabble – it was Vaster. “It was some boy. He had this huge psychic power that he used to beat us all. And then when reinforcements arrived he just made half of them... disappear. And then the rest got picked off.”
“We're lucky we could retreat,” another one spoke up, a rather grotesque-looking human this time. “But you didn't say we'd have to deal with anything like that.”
Piper scowled. “I didn't make any guarantees as to what you would or wouldn't be facing,” he said, “but fortunately I'm ready for this. Plan C,” he turned to Canis, sitting by his side, wearily.
The crowd of nightmares packed in a little tighter to hear his plan, but Piper didn't say another word. Instead he crouched down and put his hand to the ground. This should have been a warning to them, but nobody realized what was happening until it was too late.
The floor underneath them glowed – a pattern emerged. None of them had noticed the markings, but they realized soon that they were standing inside a spell circle.
There was only time to cry out briefly before the assembled horde of nightmares dissolved, becoming unnaturally twisted and losing their shape, separating into molecules and atoms, and then into psychic energy, which then flowed into the center.
Piper stood up, feeling more powerful than he ever had before. He looked at his hands. They almost sizzled and crackled with the raw force available to him. He looked at Canis. “Feeling better?”
“Much,” replied Canis.
“Good.” Piper strode to one end of the tower and threw open a set of double doors. “Stay here. Keep safe. If anyone gets up here, you can defend yourself now.”
“Are you going to find Icelus?” asked Canis.
Piper was on a balcony now, the tallest point in the city. He could see nearly every building, every street, every alley. They couldn't hide from him for long. “Yes,” he said, “she won't know what hit her.”
And with a leap, he was off, floating in midair, electricity crackling all around him, ready to finish the fight.
Next
Friday, July 10, 2015
Chapter 11: The Catharsis Ritual
“The spell circle is ready,” Solon announced.
The group had decamped to a clearing somewhere out of sight of the townspeople (although there was much attention and shock when Solon had emerged from his spire) so that they could prepare the large and complex spell circle. Solon had traced it on the ground in chalk around Marc, who had to stand in the middle while it was drawn around him so as not to mess up the design.
“I had to modify it myself,” said Solon, “usually spell circles take the energy of the caster, but since nobody here except you can spare the psychic energy to do it, Marc, I've made it so that the target is also the source of the energy.”
“Wait a second,” Marc interrupted, “you have opposable wings?”
Solon glanced at the chalk that he had somehow curled his feathers around. “Well,” he said, “it would be awfully difficult to maintain a library if I couldn't pick things up, now, wouldn't it?”
Marc shook his head. “So what do I have to do?”
“Simply crouch, put your hand on the ground and give a mental indication to start. I recommend thinking this phrase, very clearly: 'Begin the Catharsis Ritual.'”
Marc nodded and looked off to the group. He couldn't see them very clearly, off in the distance, but their concern was evident. “Don't worry!” he shouted. “I'll be okay!” But when he turned his back to them, he didn't feel so sure.
“Marc,” said Solon, “something just occurred to me.”
“What's that?”
“Well, the humans in your world have lost their ability to dream. They may not have figured it out yet, but they will realize it soon. You're going to be plunging into a web of memories here. It's not unlike dreaming... if you don't succeed at restoring the Nexus, this Catharsis Ritual might be the last dream that any human ever has.”
Marc bitterly smiled. “Or the last nightmare.”
Solon chuckled. “Maybe that's how it will end up for you. I wish you luck, Marc. Wait until I'm out before you start.” And he took off for the others, out of the range of the spell circle.
Okay, Marc thought to himself, moment of truth, now or never. He took a deep breath and crouched down, put his hand on the ground and thought to himself: Begin the Catharsis Ritual.
Suddenly he felt nothing, and collapsed onto the ground as he slipped away.
“Marc!” Icelus shouted, moving forward.
“Don't enter the circle!” said Solon. “This is what's supposed to happen. Now we must wait.”
Lya wrung her hands. “How long will it take?”
“Several hours,” said Solon. “The spell unravels all your memories and straightens them out, and that takes time.”
“What should we do until then?” Remont asked.
“I would like to return to the town and let them know what we're doing,” said Solon. “I'd like to come clean about who you all are.”
“Are you sure they'll be okay with it?” asked Lya nervously.
“I think they will,” said Solon. “They are willing to take help where it comes, from all places. I think you would know that very well yourself, Lya.”
Remont and Osette eyed her suspiciously after he said this. Lya shifted uncomfortably. “Well, er, could we go to Cizruviel and tell them before they come? So we know it's safe for them?”
“I suppose,” said Solon, “but really, Lya, what's happened to your trust of your own people?”
“I just think it'd be a very good, safe idea,” she replied in a tone that made it very clear to Solon that she wanted to talk to him alone.
The old owl sensed this and nodded. “Very well. Remont, Osette, Icelus, you stay here. Please come get me if anything happens to Marc.”
Lya and Solon set off for the town, about a half a mile off, and Lya waited until they were well out of earshot before she spoke up. “Solon, I need to ask you a question.”
“You've made that clear, my dear.”
“Well...” she fumbled, “I haven't told Remont and Osette about my mission.”
“It seems so,” he said, “nor can I blame you.”
“The three of us... I like what we have together. Especially myself and Osette. I don't want anything to endanger that. I still want her to love me.”
“She does love you,” said Solon. “Very much so. You may not have noticed the way she wanted to duck behind you when she first saw me – the giant old talking owl – or how many times she turned to you and wanted to ask you a question but stopped. Osette wants to trust you again. And if she wants to, eventually she will.”
Lya continued fidgeting with her hands. They always felt so empty without Osette's to fill them. “Do you think I should tell them everything?”
“I think you should,” he replied. “I know what it's like to be dishonest to someone you're in love with. In my case, I never told her.”
“Who was it?”
“Oh, just an old, old friend I dropped out of contact with. She turned up on my doorstep earlier.”
Lya did a double take. “Wait – Icelus?!”
Solon chuckled. “We're both old fogies now, though. And she's busy. It wouldn't do.” They continued to walk in silence for a bit. “I know she'll restore the Nexus,” he said, “I just know it. Nobody's more determined than that woman.”
he came out of a place of darkness & wow his parents looked young had they ever been that young before? they were so happy
& then there was a succession of endless days of being swaddled & cared for & gawked over & and endless nights of staying awake screaming & when his parents came in those times he could see their fatigue and their impatience like he never had before, as no infant ever really did
& neither did toddlers really, he was present for many conversations about money and living conditions and arguments & he even vaguely remembered the general tone of the air in some of them but never the specific words they had used, words they never expected their little boy marc to ever understand, how weird; looking back with perfectly clarity on one's childhood truly was bizarre, it was a film reel of something marc was technically present for but that he was never really supposed to understand, not even in retrospect & yet here it was laid out before him
but here was the first time he saw scary monster in the night, there was reid marshall handing his parents a complimentary copy of his new children's book because they were friends of his, the sad kind man with the desperate eyes & the falling-apart life & now marc was glancing at it, looking at the illustrations because he was too young to be able to read but oh god how those illustrations invoked something primal & unsettling in him, how they touched a nerve that only years later would be ripped open
& there it was, perhaps the defining moment of his childhood, the moment where he first laid eyes on icelus, how she reminded him so much of those eerie illustrations and how her very appearance had just made his heart come to a full stop.
& then there were the frequent nightmares. they didn't even match up with when he was or wasn't at his grandmother's house. it was just random, every few weeks he'd have a terrible nightmare of icelus – she wasn't icelus then, though, she was just the dog statue – tricking him in some form & eating him. & none of his family members took his fear very seriously, because of course none of them shared it. marc could never explain why he found the dog statue so terrifying. now, looking back with perfect clarity, he knew it was at least partially because of scary monster in the night. the book may have faded from his memory and become lost to the mists of the subconscious, but it was merely the spark that had created the conditions necessary for him to be frightened by dog statues, it was not the fear itself. he couldn't explain that to anyone, though, because who could? & so his family mostly tended to find his fear either funny or annoying – marc remembered the time his father had snuck the dog statue behind him while he wasn't looking & then laughed it off. his grandmother mary at least was kind enough to make sure the dog statue was covered & that marc wouldn't have to stare at its cold eyes. this was enough to hold him over until he could grow up a bit. It was only when he grew up that he could try to explain the fear, even if it never really went away.
Perhaps accurate memories were the enemy of fear, though. Watching these threads of memory become untangled and sorted, Marc was struck by the fact that he was clearly in a different mental place now. He could briefly dip back & relive the anxiety of being in the same house as the dog statue, but it was a shallow & surface visit to the past, as if he was taking someone else's feelings into himself & not experiencing emotions that extended from where he was right now.
There was Icelus, asking for his help. They were going to Oniron, visiting Agremonth, & she was sending him back. & then she had reappeared, and gotten him to come back. In all of these cases he felt that familiar sense of dread, the sense of “if I turn my back she might attack me,” but now it just seemed so silly and trivial. How could he think that? After all, here were all his memories, laid out nice and neat for him to instantly pluck out and see, a simple series of cause-and-effect chains that led invariably led to who he was today. And only now did he see that the fear was silly. It was human. He didn't need it.
He saw himself as he was: the culmination of twenty years of experiences – but not the end. It was time to get up. He had work to do and he had the power to do it. And most importantly, he had a friend to help.
“So while they may not be nightmares,” said Solon to the crowd, “I can assure you that they mean you no harm. Their only goal is to restore the Nexus. I know it is not normal for this community to accept outsiders, but these are not normal circumstances. I only ask that you extend to them your hospitality, for the brief period that they need it. I believe they can help us,” he finished. “They are our best hope.”
The crowd of humanoids, giant insects, sentient clouds, mannequins, and other nightmares had heard Solon out, and now a murmur spread across them. Lya worriedly looked among the crowd, wondering if any of them were going to turn hostile or violent.
They didn't. They all seemed concerned – the citizens of Cizruviel didn't have a good history with outsiders – but they remained calm. Finally a voice called out, “I trust Solon!”
Others followed. Soon most, if not all, of the crowd was shouting out support for Solon, and these new strangers. “We trust Solon! We trust Solon!” some chanted.
In response, Solon bowed his head and pronounced with a surprisingly resonant and booming voice, “Friends! Thank you so much. I assure you, we will do all we can to defeat the man who destroyed the Nexus, and to restore a peace and stability to Oniron. Thank you.”
Another voice shouted out, “What are their names?!”
Solon looked to Lya. “Make fake names,” she whispered. “Please.”
“You must tell Remont and Lya,” he said. “Sooner rather than later.” He turned to the crowd and announced: “Their names are Icelus – she is not a human, but not a nightmare either. She is an old god, like myself. I have known her for millennia. The other two are humans – Remont and Osette Bairdsley.”
At this announcement the crowd gasped and chattered excitedly. One more voice rose up from the crowd – Lya recognized it. It was Auten. “Lya!” he shouted, “you said you'd failed, you couldn't get the Bairdsleys to help us!”
Now the town turned to her, and she almost seized up. Things were coming out so much differently than she had wanted them to – and so much faster. She worked herself up and said to the crowd: “I did not succeed in my mission. Remont and Osette were led here on other business. I haven't secured their financial assistance to help the town.” Even saying it out loud felt dirty. Financial assistance. As if Remont and Osette were nothing but investors, worth only as much as their money. But that had been her mission, and that was how she had looked at it... at least at first. If only she had never met Osette. This wouldn't have gotten so complicated.
The townspeople talked among themselves, but nobody shouted. “This is a situation with some nuance,” said Solon to Lya. “It doesn't lend itself well to shouting. But I think they want to believe the best of you.”
“I hope they do.”
Solon turned to address the crowd once more. “Thank you for your hospitality and kindness! If there are no objections, Lya will go and fetch them. They may be exhausted from their long voyage; I would ask that you not harass them. Their plan is to act during the Adjoining Festival, so they only have afew hours to rest.”
He turned to Lya. “Wait until Marc is done with the Ritual, and then bring them back here.”
Lya nodded. “Okay... but Solon, I wish you hadn't told the town. There's no hiding my past from them now.”
“I know,” he said, and his voice had a twinge of genuine regret, “but it's for the best. Trust me. Only honesty and understanding can wash away deceit and resentment. Good luck.”
So she left Solon and the citizens of her town to make the trip back to where the rest of the group was waiting. Every step she made took her closer to Osette and Remont again. Every step made the black hand of dread close tighter around her heart.
Before she knew it, she was there. Osette, Remont and Icelus were looking at her.
“Are we okay?” asked Remont.
She nodded. “I mean, we probably can't stay long anyway, but the nightmares in Cizruviel are on our side. Once Marc finishes his Ritual and wakes up, we can go there and rest at least for a little while.”
“Good,” he said. He looked absolutely exhausted.
Deep breath. “Listen,” she said, sitting down with the rest of them, “I've been lying too long. It's time I told you... everything. Both of you... and Icelus, too. No offense,” Lya quickly added.
Icelus shrugged. “I'm interested, but it's not my issue. I'm more worried about Marc,” she indicated his body, still on the ground and seemingly asleep, “I won't cut into your story.”
Lya sighed. “Okay,” she turned to Osette and Remont. “I was sent by the elders of Cizruviel to find someone to help our community. You saw over there – we live in tents and huts, not proper buildings. We're not a town.”
“Why us?” asked Remont.
“Well... I was sent specifically to find you, Remont.”
“What?” they both said in unison. Remont sputtered, “why were they after me? Did they want -”
“They wanted your money,” Lya said simply. “You were the newly-made heir of one of the biggest fortunes in the land. They sent me to ask for your support.”
“Then why not just ask me?”
Lya sighed. “Because we were – and we still are – mistrustful of humans. The elders didn't think a rich man would help a stranger or a strange town he had never seen.”
Remont crossed his arms, resenting the accusation but knowing she was almost certainly right. It showed on his face. “Go on.”
Lya chuckled. “I think they had the measure of you. At the time, at least. But they sent me to befriend you and convince you that communities like Cizruviel were worth saving. And, if...” Lya gulped hard. This was the truly awkward part. “...if I had to seduce you to do it, then they told me to.”
Remont's eyes widened, but Osette shot up. “You were going to try to seduce
Remont?! My brother?!”
Lya stood up to meet her, flustered. “I never – it was a backup plan. It was a worst-case scenario. And I didn't know you when we decided on it.” Desperate, she took Osette's hands in hers. “Osette, I never... had any real intentions on Remont. From the moment I met you, I knew you were special. And then after months of being with you I knew you were the one. Please...” tears started welling up in her eyes, “please believe me.”
Osette's mouth hung half-open, and she let her hands drop from Lya's grasp. “You were going to seduce Remont, and... and, and, and take our money.”
Lya was openly now. “I'm sorry,” she said, her voice quavering. She looked to Remont. His face was pained – understanding and sorrowful, but pained.
“Were-were you t-t-trying to break us up, then?” Osette was stuttering like mad now.
“What do you mean?”
“All the- all the- all the chores and stuff. You l-leaving me alone. Why?”
Lya winced. “Osette, I was – I was so worried... the Nexus was gone... I would've been so weak soon.” She did a sharp intake of breath and tried to steady herself. “I've always taken care of you, but... if the Nexus never comes back, I'll just get weaker and weaker. And you... I don't know if you could have taken care of me...”
“I totally could!” screamed Osette.
Lya sobbed. This was a lie. She knew it, and Osette probably knew it too.
“I love you,” Lya softly whispered.
Osette's face didn't change. “I... I...”
Whatever she was about to say, it was abruptly cut off by a whining noise that sounded like the universe letting out a bit of steam. The group looked over to the source – it was Marc.
He was standing up now, in the middle of the circle, looking slightly dazed.
“Marc!” Icelus shouted and ran to him. “Are you okay?”
“Woozy,” he said, “but fine.” His eyes met Icelus's, and he chuckled a bit.
“What is it?”
He kneeled close to her. “The fear. It's gone. I just looked at you and... you were Icelus. That's it!”
“You... don't even remember all the nightmares you had?”
“That's the thing, I totally can! I can go back to all my memories and they're all perfect and accurate, and they're all just... available. It's like I could flip back the pages of a book and it's right there. I can relive those nightmares!” He paused briefly. “I just did! When I was a child, I had a dream we ran through Agremonth and I teleported! That dream must be why I can teleport sometimes in Oniron.”
“Marc,” she said, “you were in Agremonth in a dream?”
“Yes.”
“Can you remember if you saw the Nexus?”
“I did,” he said without hesitation. “The Shieldwork wasn't there, for some reason. I had a clear view of the Nexus. It was at the end of the room, that throne-thing was in the way, but the room behind the threshold extended out and out forever. I saw the Nexus.”
“Marc,” said Icelus, “that's wonderful! If we can get to the Adjoining Festival... we might actually do this.” She seemed delighted and overwhelmed at the prospect.
Marc gave her a broad smile, and saw the other three out of the corner of his eye. They seemed... out of it. “What's with them?” he whispered to Icelus.
“Oh. Er... Lya just confessed everything about her past. It was very awkward.”
“What?!” Marc threw his hands up. “I keep missing all the good stuff!”
Piper was in his office with Canis when he felt a mental link being severed.
“Agh!” He rose from his desk and staggered.
“What is it?” Canis approached him, looking for some sort of wound.
“It's... the shadow dogs,” said Piper. “They've all disappeared. I just felt it.”
“What?! How is that possible?”
“I don't know... the only way that could happen is if...” Piper pinched his forehead, mind racing. “If everyone who had nightmares of the shadow dogs stopped being afraid of them, then they would disappear.”
“But... they were so strong before.”
“I know,” said Piper. “But... the book they were from, in the human world, was a failure. The writer killed himself. There can't have been that many people who actually read it and were afraid of it. One or two, at the most.”
“Then why were they so strong?”
“It could be...” Piper said, “...it could be because they were in Oniron. Their power, it fluctuated, remember? Whoever's psychic energy was keeping the shadow dogs alive, they were flitting back and forth.”
“And now they're just... not afraid?”
“I suppose so.”
“How is that possible?!” Canis began to pace angrily. “Humans can't let go of fear, they never can, not completely.”
“I don't know, Canis.”
“Well, that doesn't help!” he growled. “If Icelus and her group are any kind of smart and they make their move at the Adjoining Festival, we have no way to stop them aside from the city guards.”
Piper looked back at his desk at the roster for the festival's security detail. It was still meager. “That won't keep them for long. One of them – I don't know who – absorbed the power of a crystal. Another – possibly the same one – is a nightmare who can perform spells.”
“What?!”
“I know, Canis.” Piper sighed, and cast a glance at the strongbox he had in his office. If only he could find out how to use what was in it...
“That fool of a nightmare,” Canis rumbled. “Working against everything we've tried to do to help people like us.”
“Is she, really?” Piper asked. “What reason could she have to restore the Nexus?”
“Cruelty!” Canis spat out the word. “I tell you, Piper, that nightmare is cruel and cowardly, or else brainwashed by that old fool of a deity, Icelus. Trying to keep her power alive, she is. Keep the old dynasty running. Things are better now than they ever have been for nightmares, and they're about to ruin it all if we don't so something.”
“What can we do?” asked Piper. “We don't have much in the way of force anymore.”
Canis turned to him. “I know people. People who we can cut a deal with.” He chuckled. “Don't you worry, Piper... you will have your security. The Festival will go on as planned. And we will crush Icelus. Trust me.”
Piper smirked. “You know I do. We should meet these people soon, though. The Festival starts in the morning. We have maybe half a day.”
“Not a problem,” said Canis. “Let's go.”
They swept out of the room quickly, headed to their mysterious destination. They couldn't let Icelus bring their glorious new world tumbling down around their ears. They would need to have a force worth reckoning with to meet her.
Next
The group had decamped to a clearing somewhere out of sight of the townspeople (although there was much attention and shock when Solon had emerged from his spire) so that they could prepare the large and complex spell circle. Solon had traced it on the ground in chalk around Marc, who had to stand in the middle while it was drawn around him so as not to mess up the design.
“I had to modify it myself,” said Solon, “usually spell circles take the energy of the caster, but since nobody here except you can spare the psychic energy to do it, Marc, I've made it so that the target is also the source of the energy.”
“Wait a second,” Marc interrupted, “you have opposable wings?”
Solon glanced at the chalk that he had somehow curled his feathers around. “Well,” he said, “it would be awfully difficult to maintain a library if I couldn't pick things up, now, wouldn't it?”
Marc shook his head. “So what do I have to do?”
“Simply crouch, put your hand on the ground and give a mental indication to start. I recommend thinking this phrase, very clearly: 'Begin the Catharsis Ritual.'”
Marc nodded and looked off to the group. He couldn't see them very clearly, off in the distance, but their concern was evident. “Don't worry!” he shouted. “I'll be okay!” But when he turned his back to them, he didn't feel so sure.
“Marc,” said Solon, “something just occurred to me.”
“What's that?”
“Well, the humans in your world have lost their ability to dream. They may not have figured it out yet, but they will realize it soon. You're going to be plunging into a web of memories here. It's not unlike dreaming... if you don't succeed at restoring the Nexus, this Catharsis Ritual might be the last dream that any human ever has.”
Marc bitterly smiled. “Or the last nightmare.”
Solon chuckled. “Maybe that's how it will end up for you. I wish you luck, Marc. Wait until I'm out before you start.” And he took off for the others, out of the range of the spell circle.
Okay, Marc thought to himself, moment of truth, now or never. He took a deep breath and crouched down, put his hand on the ground and thought to himself: Begin the Catharsis Ritual.
Suddenly he felt nothing, and collapsed onto the ground as he slipped away.
“Marc!” Icelus shouted, moving forward.
“Don't enter the circle!” said Solon. “This is what's supposed to happen. Now we must wait.”
Lya wrung her hands. “How long will it take?”
“Several hours,” said Solon. “The spell unravels all your memories and straightens them out, and that takes time.”
“What should we do until then?” Remont asked.
“I would like to return to the town and let them know what we're doing,” said Solon. “I'd like to come clean about who you all are.”
“Are you sure they'll be okay with it?” asked Lya nervously.
“I think they will,” said Solon. “They are willing to take help where it comes, from all places. I think you would know that very well yourself, Lya.”
Remont and Osette eyed her suspiciously after he said this. Lya shifted uncomfortably. “Well, er, could we go to Cizruviel and tell them before they come? So we know it's safe for them?”
“I suppose,” said Solon, “but really, Lya, what's happened to your trust of your own people?”
“I just think it'd be a very good, safe idea,” she replied in a tone that made it very clear to Solon that she wanted to talk to him alone.
The old owl sensed this and nodded. “Very well. Remont, Osette, Icelus, you stay here. Please come get me if anything happens to Marc.”
Lya and Solon set off for the town, about a half a mile off, and Lya waited until they were well out of earshot before she spoke up. “Solon, I need to ask you a question.”
“You've made that clear, my dear.”
“Well...” she fumbled, “I haven't told Remont and Osette about my mission.”
“It seems so,” he said, “nor can I blame you.”
“The three of us... I like what we have together. Especially myself and Osette. I don't want anything to endanger that. I still want her to love me.”
“She does love you,” said Solon. “Very much so. You may not have noticed the way she wanted to duck behind you when she first saw me – the giant old talking owl – or how many times she turned to you and wanted to ask you a question but stopped. Osette wants to trust you again. And if she wants to, eventually she will.”
Lya continued fidgeting with her hands. They always felt so empty without Osette's to fill them. “Do you think I should tell them everything?”
“I think you should,” he replied. “I know what it's like to be dishonest to someone you're in love with. In my case, I never told her.”
“Who was it?”
“Oh, just an old, old friend I dropped out of contact with. She turned up on my doorstep earlier.”
Lya did a double take. “Wait – Icelus?!”
Solon chuckled. “We're both old fogies now, though. And she's busy. It wouldn't do.” They continued to walk in silence for a bit. “I know she'll restore the Nexus,” he said, “I just know it. Nobody's more determined than that woman.”
he came out of a place of darkness & wow his parents looked young had they ever been that young before? they were so happy
& then there was a succession of endless days of being swaddled & cared for & gawked over & and endless nights of staying awake screaming & when his parents came in those times he could see their fatigue and their impatience like he never had before, as no infant ever really did
& neither did toddlers really, he was present for many conversations about money and living conditions and arguments & he even vaguely remembered the general tone of the air in some of them but never the specific words they had used, words they never expected their little boy marc to ever understand, how weird; looking back with perfectly clarity on one's childhood truly was bizarre, it was a film reel of something marc was technically present for but that he was never really supposed to understand, not even in retrospect & yet here it was laid out before him
but here was the first time he saw scary monster in the night, there was reid marshall handing his parents a complimentary copy of his new children's book because they were friends of his, the sad kind man with the desperate eyes & the falling-apart life & now marc was glancing at it, looking at the illustrations because he was too young to be able to read but oh god how those illustrations invoked something primal & unsettling in him, how they touched a nerve that only years later would be ripped open
& there it was, perhaps the defining moment of his childhood, the moment where he first laid eyes on icelus, how she reminded him so much of those eerie illustrations and how her very appearance had just made his heart come to a full stop.
& then there were the frequent nightmares. they didn't even match up with when he was or wasn't at his grandmother's house. it was just random, every few weeks he'd have a terrible nightmare of icelus – she wasn't icelus then, though, she was just the dog statue – tricking him in some form & eating him. & none of his family members took his fear very seriously, because of course none of them shared it. marc could never explain why he found the dog statue so terrifying. now, looking back with perfect clarity, he knew it was at least partially because of scary monster in the night. the book may have faded from his memory and become lost to the mists of the subconscious, but it was merely the spark that had created the conditions necessary for him to be frightened by dog statues, it was not the fear itself. he couldn't explain that to anyone, though, because who could? & so his family mostly tended to find his fear either funny or annoying – marc remembered the time his father had snuck the dog statue behind him while he wasn't looking & then laughed it off. his grandmother mary at least was kind enough to make sure the dog statue was covered & that marc wouldn't have to stare at its cold eyes. this was enough to hold him over until he could grow up a bit. It was only when he grew up that he could try to explain the fear, even if it never really went away.
Perhaps accurate memories were the enemy of fear, though. Watching these threads of memory become untangled and sorted, Marc was struck by the fact that he was clearly in a different mental place now. He could briefly dip back & relive the anxiety of being in the same house as the dog statue, but it was a shallow & surface visit to the past, as if he was taking someone else's feelings into himself & not experiencing emotions that extended from where he was right now.
There was Icelus, asking for his help. They were going to Oniron, visiting Agremonth, & she was sending him back. & then she had reappeared, and gotten him to come back. In all of these cases he felt that familiar sense of dread, the sense of “if I turn my back she might attack me,” but now it just seemed so silly and trivial. How could he think that? After all, here were all his memories, laid out nice and neat for him to instantly pluck out and see, a simple series of cause-and-effect chains that led invariably led to who he was today. And only now did he see that the fear was silly. It was human. He didn't need it.
He saw himself as he was: the culmination of twenty years of experiences – but not the end. It was time to get up. He had work to do and he had the power to do it. And most importantly, he had a friend to help.
“So while they may not be nightmares,” said Solon to the crowd, “I can assure you that they mean you no harm. Their only goal is to restore the Nexus. I know it is not normal for this community to accept outsiders, but these are not normal circumstances. I only ask that you extend to them your hospitality, for the brief period that they need it. I believe they can help us,” he finished. “They are our best hope.”
The crowd of humanoids, giant insects, sentient clouds, mannequins, and other nightmares had heard Solon out, and now a murmur spread across them. Lya worriedly looked among the crowd, wondering if any of them were going to turn hostile or violent.
They didn't. They all seemed concerned – the citizens of Cizruviel didn't have a good history with outsiders – but they remained calm. Finally a voice called out, “I trust Solon!”
Others followed. Soon most, if not all, of the crowd was shouting out support for Solon, and these new strangers. “We trust Solon! We trust Solon!” some chanted.
In response, Solon bowed his head and pronounced with a surprisingly resonant and booming voice, “Friends! Thank you so much. I assure you, we will do all we can to defeat the man who destroyed the Nexus, and to restore a peace and stability to Oniron. Thank you.”
Another voice shouted out, “What are their names?!”
Solon looked to Lya. “Make fake names,” she whispered. “Please.”
“You must tell Remont and Lya,” he said. “Sooner rather than later.” He turned to the crowd and announced: “Their names are Icelus – she is not a human, but not a nightmare either. She is an old god, like myself. I have known her for millennia. The other two are humans – Remont and Osette Bairdsley.”
At this announcement the crowd gasped and chattered excitedly. One more voice rose up from the crowd – Lya recognized it. It was Auten. “Lya!” he shouted, “you said you'd failed, you couldn't get the Bairdsleys to help us!”
Now the town turned to her, and she almost seized up. Things were coming out so much differently than she had wanted them to – and so much faster. She worked herself up and said to the crowd: “I did not succeed in my mission. Remont and Osette were led here on other business. I haven't secured their financial assistance to help the town.” Even saying it out loud felt dirty. Financial assistance. As if Remont and Osette were nothing but investors, worth only as much as their money. But that had been her mission, and that was how she had looked at it... at least at first. If only she had never met Osette. This wouldn't have gotten so complicated.
The townspeople talked among themselves, but nobody shouted. “This is a situation with some nuance,” said Solon to Lya. “It doesn't lend itself well to shouting. But I think they want to believe the best of you.”
“I hope they do.”
Solon turned to address the crowd once more. “Thank you for your hospitality and kindness! If there are no objections, Lya will go and fetch them. They may be exhausted from their long voyage; I would ask that you not harass them. Their plan is to act during the Adjoining Festival, so they only have afew hours to rest.”
He turned to Lya. “Wait until Marc is done with the Ritual, and then bring them back here.”
Lya nodded. “Okay... but Solon, I wish you hadn't told the town. There's no hiding my past from them now.”
“I know,” he said, and his voice had a twinge of genuine regret, “but it's for the best. Trust me. Only honesty and understanding can wash away deceit and resentment. Good luck.”
So she left Solon and the citizens of her town to make the trip back to where the rest of the group was waiting. Every step she made took her closer to Osette and Remont again. Every step made the black hand of dread close tighter around her heart.
Before she knew it, she was there. Osette, Remont and Icelus were looking at her.
“Are we okay?” asked Remont.
She nodded. “I mean, we probably can't stay long anyway, but the nightmares in Cizruviel are on our side. Once Marc finishes his Ritual and wakes up, we can go there and rest at least for a little while.”
“Good,” he said. He looked absolutely exhausted.
Deep breath. “Listen,” she said, sitting down with the rest of them, “I've been lying too long. It's time I told you... everything. Both of you... and Icelus, too. No offense,” Lya quickly added.
Icelus shrugged. “I'm interested, but it's not my issue. I'm more worried about Marc,” she indicated his body, still on the ground and seemingly asleep, “I won't cut into your story.”
Lya sighed. “Okay,” she turned to Osette and Remont. “I was sent by the elders of Cizruviel to find someone to help our community. You saw over there – we live in tents and huts, not proper buildings. We're not a town.”
“Why us?” asked Remont.
“Well... I was sent specifically to find you, Remont.”
“What?” they both said in unison. Remont sputtered, “why were they after me? Did they want -”
“They wanted your money,” Lya said simply. “You were the newly-made heir of one of the biggest fortunes in the land. They sent me to ask for your support.”
“Then why not just ask me?”
Lya sighed. “Because we were – and we still are – mistrustful of humans. The elders didn't think a rich man would help a stranger or a strange town he had never seen.”
Remont crossed his arms, resenting the accusation but knowing she was almost certainly right. It showed on his face. “Go on.”
Lya chuckled. “I think they had the measure of you. At the time, at least. But they sent me to befriend you and convince you that communities like Cizruviel were worth saving. And, if...” Lya gulped hard. This was the truly awkward part. “...if I had to seduce you to do it, then they told me to.”
Remont's eyes widened, but Osette shot up. “You were going to try to seduce
Remont?! My brother?!”
Lya stood up to meet her, flustered. “I never – it was a backup plan. It was a worst-case scenario. And I didn't know you when we decided on it.” Desperate, she took Osette's hands in hers. “Osette, I never... had any real intentions on Remont. From the moment I met you, I knew you were special. And then after months of being with you I knew you were the one. Please...” tears started welling up in her eyes, “please believe me.”
Osette's mouth hung half-open, and she let her hands drop from Lya's grasp. “You were going to seduce Remont, and... and, and, and take our money.”
Lya was openly now. “I'm sorry,” she said, her voice quavering. She looked to Remont. His face was pained – understanding and sorrowful, but pained.
“Were-were you t-t-trying to break us up, then?” Osette was stuttering like mad now.
“What do you mean?”
“All the- all the- all the chores and stuff. You l-leaving me alone. Why?”
Lya winced. “Osette, I was – I was so worried... the Nexus was gone... I would've been so weak soon.” She did a sharp intake of breath and tried to steady herself. “I've always taken care of you, but... if the Nexus never comes back, I'll just get weaker and weaker. And you... I don't know if you could have taken care of me...”
“I totally could!” screamed Osette.
Lya sobbed. This was a lie. She knew it, and Osette probably knew it too.
“I love you,” Lya softly whispered.
Osette's face didn't change. “I... I...”
Whatever she was about to say, it was abruptly cut off by a whining noise that sounded like the universe letting out a bit of steam. The group looked over to the source – it was Marc.
He was standing up now, in the middle of the circle, looking slightly dazed.
“Marc!” Icelus shouted and ran to him. “Are you okay?”
“Woozy,” he said, “but fine.” His eyes met Icelus's, and he chuckled a bit.
“What is it?”
He kneeled close to her. “The fear. It's gone. I just looked at you and... you were Icelus. That's it!”
“You... don't even remember all the nightmares you had?”
“That's the thing, I totally can! I can go back to all my memories and they're all perfect and accurate, and they're all just... available. It's like I could flip back the pages of a book and it's right there. I can relive those nightmares!” He paused briefly. “I just did! When I was a child, I had a dream we ran through Agremonth and I teleported! That dream must be why I can teleport sometimes in Oniron.”
“Marc,” she said, “you were in Agremonth in a dream?”
“Yes.”
“Can you remember if you saw the Nexus?”
“I did,” he said without hesitation. “The Shieldwork wasn't there, for some reason. I had a clear view of the Nexus. It was at the end of the room, that throne-thing was in the way, but the room behind the threshold extended out and out forever. I saw the Nexus.”
“Marc,” said Icelus, “that's wonderful! If we can get to the Adjoining Festival... we might actually do this.” She seemed delighted and overwhelmed at the prospect.
Marc gave her a broad smile, and saw the other three out of the corner of his eye. They seemed... out of it. “What's with them?” he whispered to Icelus.
“Oh. Er... Lya just confessed everything about her past. It was very awkward.”
“What?!” Marc threw his hands up. “I keep missing all the good stuff!”
Piper was in his office with Canis when he felt a mental link being severed.
“Agh!” He rose from his desk and staggered.
“What is it?” Canis approached him, looking for some sort of wound.
“It's... the shadow dogs,” said Piper. “They've all disappeared. I just felt it.”
“What?! How is that possible?”
“I don't know... the only way that could happen is if...” Piper pinched his forehead, mind racing. “If everyone who had nightmares of the shadow dogs stopped being afraid of them, then they would disappear.”
“But... they were so strong before.”
“I know,” said Piper. “But... the book they were from, in the human world, was a failure. The writer killed himself. There can't have been that many people who actually read it and were afraid of it. One or two, at the most.”
“Then why were they so strong?”
“It could be...” Piper said, “...it could be because they were in Oniron. Their power, it fluctuated, remember? Whoever's psychic energy was keeping the shadow dogs alive, they were flitting back and forth.”
“And now they're just... not afraid?”
“I suppose so.”
“How is that possible?!” Canis began to pace angrily. “Humans can't let go of fear, they never can, not completely.”
“I don't know, Canis.”
“Well, that doesn't help!” he growled. “If Icelus and her group are any kind of smart and they make their move at the Adjoining Festival, we have no way to stop them aside from the city guards.”
Piper looked back at his desk at the roster for the festival's security detail. It was still meager. “That won't keep them for long. One of them – I don't know who – absorbed the power of a crystal. Another – possibly the same one – is a nightmare who can perform spells.”
“What?!”
“I know, Canis.” Piper sighed, and cast a glance at the strongbox he had in his office. If only he could find out how to use what was in it...
“That fool of a nightmare,” Canis rumbled. “Working against everything we've tried to do to help people like us.”
“Is she, really?” Piper asked. “What reason could she have to restore the Nexus?”
“Cruelty!” Canis spat out the word. “I tell you, Piper, that nightmare is cruel and cowardly, or else brainwashed by that old fool of a deity, Icelus. Trying to keep her power alive, she is. Keep the old dynasty running. Things are better now than they ever have been for nightmares, and they're about to ruin it all if we don't so something.”
“What can we do?” asked Piper. “We don't have much in the way of force anymore.”
Canis turned to him. “I know people. People who we can cut a deal with.” He chuckled. “Don't you worry, Piper... you will have your security. The Festival will go on as planned. And we will crush Icelus. Trust me.”
Piper smirked. “You know I do. We should meet these people soon, though. The Festival starts in the morning. We have maybe half a day.”
“Not a problem,” said Canis. “Let's go.”
They swept out of the room quickly, headed to their mysterious destination. They couldn't let Icelus bring their glorious new world tumbling down around their ears. They would need to have a force worth reckoning with to meet her.
Next
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)