Chapter 10: Cizruviel

And then Lya collapsed – it could have been from the stress, exhaustion, shock, or something else entirely. A lot had just happened in a very short time.
Osette darted to catch her before she hit the ground, and gently lowered her down. “Lya!” she said, her voice full of worry, “what's going on?”
Lya's eyes fluttered and her voice, when she spoke, came out in a whisper. “The spell circle...”
Icelus, standing with Marc and Remont, seemed to calm down at this. She craned her neck to look. “Did... did she use herself as the energy source for that spell?”
“Must have,” said Remont.
Lya hacked and coughed. “That took more than I thought...”
“No!” Osette shouted.
Icelus and Remont slowly made their way over to take a look at Lya. Marc followed behind, feeling more and more like he was intruding. “Is she going to be okay?” he asked.
“I don't know,” said Lya, “there's not a lot left in me.”
Osette began to sob – ugly, wracking cries. “No,” she said, “you can't, don't go, no...”
Marc leaned over to Icelus, who at the very least didn't look like she was going to attack Lya anymore. “Can nightmares die?” he whispered.
Icelus shook her head noncommittally. “Maybe they can, now the Nexus is gone.”
“Why did she collapse?”
“Nightmares sustain themselves on psychic energy,” she said. “And spell circles drain that. She was using up her life force to get us out of danger.”
“B-but I have lots of that now, don't I?” Marc looked at his hands. They didn't look any different to him. No more powerful and no more capable of healing. “Can't I transfer it? Use a spell?”
“There isn't a spell to transfer energy,” said Icelus. “Lya won't survive this unless we find another crystal, and it doesn't look like there's anything for miles.”
Remont suddenly snapped his fingers. “I've got it!” He took off the pack that he had been wearing and dug around in it. “I took these out of the vault before we left.” He pulled out three small, purple crystals, just like the one that he had given to Icelus earlier to open the portal.
Icelus leaped up. “That's great! That will work!”
Lya had heard the conversation and meekly spoke up. “Remont... are you going to...?”
“Of course,” Remont said, and pressed the crystals into her hand.
“But...” Lya looked away, “I lied to you...”
“Yes, you did,” Remont replied, “but you're never going to get to explain yourself if you're dead.” He crossed his arms and motioned to her to go ahead.
So she balled her hand into a fist and crushed the crystals, and a bit of energy escaped them and floated, swirling, in the air above her, next to Osette's tear-stained face. Then it spread out, and covered Lya, and as it dissolved and disappeared she began to breathe easier.

Icelus had told Marc that nightmares didn't “dream,” not really, but it sure seemed like Lya was asleep. They had to wait for her to wake up, and until then they were stuck – possibly miles from where the Wanderlust had crashed, which was where all their supplies had been.
Instead they tried to work out where they were. This was a lot easier with Osette, who was still a geographic whiz and could identify landmarks and mountains even when they were on the horizon. She was confident they were around thirty or forty miles north of Zamasea, which meant a difficult but doable walk back to the Bairdsley mansion. Osette seemed to be grateful for the distraction – when Remont tried to talk to her about Lya, she seemed to shut down.
But when Lya came to it was Osette who noticed first. She ran over in a hurry and cradled Lya's head gently and made sure she felt okay before anyone else could even talk to her. And they definitely had questions for Lya.
“Why didn't you tell us you were a nightmare?” Remont asked.
“Because you might not have believed me,” she said, “and if you believed me then you wouldn't have trusted me.”
“We trust you!” Remont protested.
“Now you do. I know how people are about nightmares. I didn't want to draw that kind of reaction.”
“Okay. But when we met you, you had just gotten into town. Were you trying to blend in? What were you up to?”
Lya didn't answer this. Her face was set and her mind was racing. “I can't tell you,” she said.
Marc and Icelus eyed each other. She couldn't tell them? “Why?” Marc asked.
“I just can't.”
“Lya,” said Osette, sweetly enough but with a vein of steel in her voice that none of them had ever heard before. “Please tell us.”
Tears in her eyes forming, Lya shook her head.
Osette began to cry now, too. “I love you,” she said, “please don't keep lying to me.”
And that did it – Lya's face softened and her features dropped. She gave a deep sigh and admitted it softly. “I was ordered to.”
“By who?” Remont hadn't moved or reacted to any of this. “Who would've ordered you to do this?”
She hesitated for a second before answering: “Cizruviel, my... my hometown.”
The name was familiar to Marc – that was where Icelus had wanted to go to find Solon. He looked over, and found her deep in thought.
“Your hometown ordered you to do it?” Remont was puzzled.
“The elders – the ones in charge.”
“Why did they order you to mingle with humans?”
Lya bit her bottom lip. “I can't tell you. I've said way too much already.”
Remont didn't press her for more information this time. Instead he motioned for everyone to gather together and talk. Lya wouldn't be going anywhere – she was still weak.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” said Remont, “but the first thing we need to decide is: do we still want her around?” He glanced back to make sure Lya couldn't hear. “I can't say I trust her anymore. Not like I did before, at least.”
“It depends on whether she still wants to help us with the Nexus,” replied Icelus. “We cannot entirely trust someone who's lied to us like this... but she still might want to help. And I think I know a way she could.”
Remont nodded. “Osette,” he said to her, “what do you think? I know this can't be easy for you.”
Osette nervously bit her finger. “I don't know,” she said, louder than she should have – probably loud enough for Lya to hear. “I don't know. Why did she lie to me?”
“She lied to all of us, Osette.”
“But I'm more special to her!” she shouted, forgetting about the unspoken mandate to keep their voices down. “Why did she lie to me?”
They all awkwardly turned to Lya, still sitting on the ground where they had left her, a pained and deeply regretful expression on her face.
“Osette,” said Remont. “We want Lya to stay with us. Is that okay with you?”
Osette nade a “hmph” noise and then said, “Yes. I want her to stay with us.”
“Okay.” Remont nodded at Icelus. “What's the plan?”
In lie of an answer, Icelus turned and approached Lya. “You're from Cizruviel?”
Lya obviously didn't know where this was going. “Yes.”
“Is it safe to go there?”
“No. Definitely not,” said Lya.
“Why not?”
“They don't trust anyone who's not a nightmare. Cizruviel is a town of weak nightmares. They banded together to form a community – to protect themselves from stronger nightmares and humans alike.”
“What about you? Could you go there?”
Lya scratched her head. “I could. Probably. But I'm not going back.”
“Yes,” insisted Icelus, “you are. We are going to see Solon and we are going to get him to help us.”
“No, I won't,” said Lya.
Icelus narrowed her eyes and raised her voice. “Then we will leave you. This is the price of continuing with us. Do you want to stay with the life you love? With the woman you love?” Her tone was as cold as ice. “Then you help us. No exceptions. That's the only we can trust you again.”
And she left Lya there to stew.
“Damn, Icelus,” said Marc when she got back to the rest of the group, “that was scary.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I've been told I can be scary sometimes.”

Lya, of course, eventually agreed to take them to Cizruviel. According to her, they would have to pretend to be nightmares – otherwise they'd get attacked as soon as they went in. This would pose a problem when they got there.
More immediate was the problem of finding it in the first place.
“A map would be useful,” said Marc offhandedly.
“Oh,” said Osette, “you mean... one like this?!” She dug in her pockets and whipped out a small map of the region.
Marc was flabbergasted. “You just have maps in your pockets?”
“If anyone has maps in their pockets, it's Osette,” said Remont. “We basically had to beg her to leave behind all her other maps once we got out of the Wanderlust.”
“One of these days, we need to go back where the crash was and get all our stuff,” said Osette.
But for now, it was just a matter of Icelus throwing out some half-remembered geographical features and putting her head together with Osette to find out where it was located. They eventually narrowed it down to about twelve miles from where they were. It wasn't even a day's walk. They headed off immediately.
After about a mile or two of walking, they began to see Cizruviel – it was hard to miss, a very large and very old spire that dominated the landscape its sheer and obvious artificiality. As they drew closer, they saw a makeshift small town of tents and wooden huts gathered around its. There were people living here.
Lya stopped them before they got too close. “Okay,” she said, “I'll take you in there, but you have to not draw attention. Make up names. But pretend you're nightmares, and don't make a fuss when they talk about my orders. It'll look more suspicious if you start asking questions.”
“How convenient for you,” said Remont.
She shot him an irritated look and continued. “You all also have to pretend to be weak nightmares looking for shelter... so, uh, pretend you're out of breath all the time, or that you can't lift heavy things.”
“Will they believe Icelus is a nightmare?” asked Marc.
“Of course. Lots of nightmares aren't humanoids, remember? I know between me and Piper you might start to think that... actually, wait!” She pointed to Icelus. “You wanted to see Solon?”
“Yes.”
“It might be better if you tell the truth about who you are, Icelus. Not everyone gets to visit Solon. He's a bit of a hermit. But he would open his doors to you. I'm sure of it.”
Icelus nodded in response. “That's good. You all are a band of weak nightmares headed to Cizruviel to find shelter and I joined up with you after I escaped from Agremonth.”
“Is that good with everybody?” Lya asked the group.
It was. Now it was time to finish the journey.
The townspeople – Marc figured that was the word to use, even though a good half of them weren't “people” - saw the group entering the town and expressed a mixture of concern and worry. Sometimes they would reach out to Marc or Osette and ask if they needed help, convinced by their shows of fragility. They had to decline, but Marc was still surprised by their consideration. Though he was also disoriented from being offered help by a giant snail.
“These are very kind people,” said Marc.
“They're vulnerable,” said Icelus. “Vulnerability tends to make people kind. Not everyone... but most people.”
It was true; for every offer of help from an able-bodied stranger, there were offers of shelter from fragile old women who leaned on canes and young children who were unnaturally bony. Lya insisted that they had somewhere to be. A lot of people were coming out to see them – it was only a matter of time before someone recognized her.
“Lya!”
It was a walking, talking mannequin – he showed no emotion in his static features but the surprise and concern in his voice was real, and he ran over to greet Lya with palpable relief.
“You're back! It's been years.”
“Auten!” she said. “It's good to see you. Are you okay? Everyone seems... more ragged, now.”
The mannequin, Auten, shook his head. “It's the Nexus. You must have heard about that?”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “That's right. You all must have been hit so badly. I'm sorry I wasn't here.”
“It's bad now,” said Auten. “Some of us have even died. We're all still adjusting. But hey!” he said, brightening up a bit, “you're back! We never heard from you after you left. Did it work? Did you find R-”
“No,” Lya said it suddenly and loudly, cutting Auten off. “Or... I did, but... I'm sorry, I don't want to talk about it. Not now. I wasted too much trying to make it work. Listen,” she gestured to Icelus, “you won't believe who I've met.”
Icelus padded forward unsurely. “Me?”
“Yes,” said Lya. “And all these others, too – Garron, Malaya, and Jamen,” she pointed to Remont, Osette, and Marc in succession, “but it's urgent business. This is Icelus,” she told Auten in a hushed tone.
Auten looked at Icelus and jumped in surprise – his face was expressionless as always, but he was plenty expressive with his body language. “Icelus?!” he said. “The guardian of the Nexus...”
Icelus nodded. “It's good to meet you. I'm here because I need to speak with Solon.”
“Solon? He... doesn't really take many visitors anymore.”
“He'll take me,” said Icelus, “we need to talk. If anyone knows how to restore the Nexus, it's him.”
“To restore the Nexus...” Auten considered it. “But if he knew how to do that, wouldn't he have done it himself?”
“That's not his way,” replied Icelus. “Solon is an advisor, and a sage, but not a warrior and not a mover. I'm sure he wants the Nexus restored, too, but that's not his role. He needs someone to act for him.”
“I see,” said Auten. “If we restored the Nexus... well, it wouldn't solve all our problems, but at least it would get us back to where we were before, and that would be a huge help. If only your plan had worked, Lya. You really have to tell me how it went some time.”
“I know,” said Lya, obviously still cagey about it and not wanting any of the group to hear any stray pieces of information, “but this is what we can do for now. Auten, will you show us to Solon?”
Auten nodded. “I can do that. It's good to have you back, Lya.”
The spire lay in the center of the town, which looked to have grown out around it, and only had one stone door as an entrance. As they all drew closer, Auten pounded on it three times and loudly spoke: “Solon! You have a visitor!”
There was no response. The group looked at each other warily.
Auten pounded the door once more. “It's Icelus! She needs your help!”
Another, shorter silence followed, and then the door slid open. Nobody was behind it, but Auten waved Icelus in. He held out a hand to stop the rest of them, though. “Solon is particular about who visits him. This is not your concern.”
“I was the one who led Icelus here,” Lya objected.
“I'm sorry, Lya. Icelus can tell you what she has learned, but the more people who come in, the more dangerous it is for Solon. He has knowledge of a great many things,” said Auten darkly, “and that makes him a target.”
How could they maintain their cover while still seeing Solon? Marc bit his lip. He needed to know what to do with his psychic energy. Could Icelus tell Solon what had happened? But then what if Icelus told the whole truth and Solon decided to tell the townspeople that they weren't really nightmares?
“I insist that they come in,” said Icelus. “These are good nightmares who wish to help me restore the Nexus. The advice I need from Solon is sorely important to them as well.”
Auten tilted his head to indicate confusion. “Is this true, Lya? Is that your goal?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“You shouldn't have taken on a new mission before letting us know,” said Auten. “We were worried about you.”
“I'm sorry, Auten. I might have to leave again, too. Please tell the elders what happened to me if I do. But I am going with Icelus.”
He said nothing and did nothing to indicate his reaction, which was unnerving coming from a mannequin. Instead he turned to Icelus. She took a step into the inside of the spire and shouted, “Solon! I have four friends with me. They must hear what you have to say. I trust them.”
A long pause.
“Very well,” came a strange voice from on high, “send them in.”
Auten nodded and allowed them to pass. Once the four of them were through the door, it slid closed again and they were briefly engulfed in darkness.
But then the lights came on – dozens of torches placed on all the walls that reached up to the very top of the spire and lit the alcoves in the walls. It was only then that Marc saw what was in the alcoves – hundreds and hundreds of books, ancient and leather-bound. They weren't arranged in some sort of order, but instead according to their color, so that a whole shelf was full of reds that gradually grew lighter and turned into pinks and then faded back into yellows.
And flying down to meet them was Solon – a huge owl who came up to Marc's chest. He landed in front of Icelus and reached out to stroke her with his wing. “Icelus!” he said in his almost-cartoonish voice, “It's so nice to see you again!”
“Don't pet me, Solon,” said Icelus. “You know I don't like it.”
“Well,” he replied, “in that case... I suppose I could refuse to help you and your friends – most of them are definitely not nightmares, by the way! Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're all lovely people,” he waved a claw in their direction reassuringly, “but the elders would have a field day if they knew some humans were in their city. You're lucky that door is closed.”
“You wouldn't.”
“Hmm...” he flapped his wings and lifted off to do a circle of the room. “You're right, I wouldn't!” He landed in front of the four of them and looked them up and down. “Strapping young fellows you've found here. Yes. I'm sure they will be an asset in restoring the Nexus. Oh, and you!” He cast his enormous black eyes on Marc. “You're a human, but you're full of magic! How is that?”
“He absorbed energy from one of the crystals. That's how nightmares get their energy now,” Icelus explained, “now that the Nexus is destroyed.”
“And how did that happen?”
“A nightmare named Piper was able to create a popular story in the human world, and he put my sigil in it.”
For the first time since they had seen him, Solon was still. The news had shocked him. He turned his head all the way around to look at Icelus. “You're sure it was Piper?”
“Why?” Icelus stood up. “Do you know him?”
Solon deeply sighed. “Oh, Icelus. You must forgive me. I was weak. This... was all my fault.”
“What?” She walked up to him. “How is it your fault?”
Without warning, Solon took off again and perched in an alcove. “Oh, Icelus,” he said. “This Piper visited me many, many years ago. He used violence. I am not a fighter, Icelus, you know that. I could not escape... and so I told him what he wanted to know.”
“Solon, what did you tell him?” Icelus shouted up at him.
“I showed him your sigil,” he said softly. “He must have used it to enact this plan. To destroy the Nexus. Oh, Icelus. I'm so ashamed...”
Icelus said nothing. Nobody really knew how she was going to react. Marc was about to reach out to her when she finally yelled, “Damn him!”
She looked up at Solon. “Solon, this is not your fault. This is all Piper's doing. He hurt you, and he hurt me. His beliefs are twisted and he's about to hurt many more.”
Solon had hidden when Icelus had shouted, and now poked his head out of the alcove. “You do not blame me?”
“I do not,” she said. “But we do need your help to fix this.”
At that, Solon swooped down and landed happily in front of her. “Help shall be rendered! I know exactly what you need to do to restore the Nexus!”
“What?!” said everyone at the same time. Icelus was the one who followed up on it. “How?”
“I will tell you. You!” Solon pointed at Marc. “You are from the other world. Have you ever been able to do mysterious and unexplainable things while over here in Oniron?”
“Uh,” Marc stuttered, “I don't know.”
“You must think, boy!” Solon urged. “Anything at all.”
Marc winced and looked to Remont, Lya and Osette for help – but just seeing them jogged his memory.
“I think maybe I have something,” he said.
“Good! Good! What is it?”
“Well,” Marc scratched his head trying to figure out how to explain, “we were in a... crash recently. It should have killed us, but it... didn't. I kind of... woke up, and my head was swimming, and then I saw them, but then I started to see more clearly and it was like the world... snapped into place?”
Solon nodded – strange to see an owl do, but the gesture was unmistakable. “Yes, yes! This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Let me ask you a question. This is very common – have you ever found yourself mysteriously in a different place while over here? Like a teleportation has occurred?”
“Um...”
“Marc!” Icelus said. “You did it while we were in Agremonth. Remember?”
She was right. “Yeah!” he said. “I didn't think about it then, but...”
Solon was nodding more furiously now. “Humans dream of Oniron and it changes Oniron. This is how it has always been. All the dreams of humans take place in Oniron. You know, it has been observed by many humans that stories and dreams are alike.”
“How so?” asked Remont.
“I'm glad you asked! Because I was trying to set someone up to ask anyway,” Solon winked. “In stories, you skip the boring parts! You shift the focus onto the important things. That is what humans do in their dreams – skip around, only focus on one thing at a time. And when they do it in dreams, it follows that they can sometimes find themselves doing it in Oniron as well.”
“Wait, Solon,” Icelus interrupted him. “You're talking as if humans have been to Oniron before. Have they?”
“Well, no,” said Solon, “but it's a theory I've had. Thank you for confirming it!”
Icelus shook her head. “What does that have to do with restoring the Nexus?”
“I was just about to get to that! Rude,” Solon ruffled his feathers, “Just as Marc here gained the ability to make things real in Oniron by way of his dreams, so too can we make the Nexus real again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if humans dreamed about the Nexus, it would restore itself,” Solon said.
“Of course,” Icelus mused, “but... now that the Nexus is gone, humans can't dream anymoer”
“Wait, what?” asked Marc.
“That's what must have happened,” said Solon, “You, Marc, have you been in the human world since the Nexus was destroyed?”
“Um, yeah,” he said, “a couple of days. Why?”
“Did you ever dream during that time?”
Marc struggled to recall. “I... don't know. I can't remember.”
Solon nodded. “I expect that nobody has, for the last few days. Possibly your world hasn't realized what an epidemic it has on its hands. It will, soon, unless we restore the Nexus.”
“But if humans can't dream,” said Marc, “then how are we going to get them to dream about the Nexus?”
Solon flapped his wings and flew over to an alcove that was two stories up from them. He scanned the book titles. “If I'm not mistaken,” he said, “you'd have to send a memory of the Nexus to the human world. It would then disperse into the heads of every human. But it would require a lot of psychic energy.”
“Well, we have a lot of psychic energy,” said Remont, patting Marc on the back, “but a bridge? I don't know. The Nexus was the only bridge between the worlds.”
“I wouldn't speak so soon!” Solon poked his head out and flew back down. “There is one other. And I believe you all know it. Especially you, Icelus,” he turned to her, “the last time it opened, you were banished.”
Icelus gasped. “The Adjoining Festival!”
Solon nodded.
“Marc,” said Icelus, “ if we can't transfer that psychic energy, it has to be you. You have to send a memory of the Nexus through the portal during the Adjoining Festival.”
“Wait just one minute,” said Osette. “Isn't the Adjoining Festival tomorrow?”
Remont stomped his foot. “Dammit, that's right!”
Tomorrow? How could they possibly pull everything together by tomorrow? They were miles from Zamasea, they would need to go to the city and hope they weren't discovered – which would be difficult, since Piper was the Chief – and send a memory through a portal that everybody would be watching at the same time.
Plus...
“Icelus,” said Marc, “I don't have a memory of the Nexus.”
She stopped cold. “What?”
Marc gave a slow, painful shrug. “I've never seen it.”
“But you were there when we went to Agremonth!”
“There was a glowing wall in the way... I never got a good look at it.”
“Marc,” Icelus said with a grave tone, “nobody else can do this. Are you sure you've never seen the Nexus? This is important.”
“I know it's important. And I haven't,” he said. “Not ever.”
Icelus looked like she was about to scream. That would have been the worst thing for Marc. But she held it in. The six of them stood in silence, stewing.
“I think you probably have, Marc,” said Solon.
“...Why?” replied Marc.
“Because you're connected with Icelus,” he said. “I can feel it. You've dreamed of her. Some essence of her power must have made an imprint on your subconscious. Why, I'd say you could even enhance her magic!”
“I can,” said Marc. “We've done it before!”
“Oh, splendid!” exclaimed Solon. “Then I think it is very likely that you've dreamed of the Nexus sometime before!”
“I don't remember ever doing that.”
“You wouldn't,” said Solon. “Who can really remember dreams? This may have been years ago. But if you could... oh.” The last word was the sound of a sudden and terrible realization. Marc was afraid to ask.
“Oh, what?”
“Let me think,” said Solon, and he hopped around in circles on the floor, going “hrm” and “hum” and sounding very concerned. He finally turned back to Marc. “No. There is no other option.”
“What is it?”
“Marc – there is a spell I can perform that would give you perfect memory. It is called the Catharsis Ritual. If you have ever seen the Nexus in a dream, the Ritual would allow you to remember it.”
“That sounds like it would solve all our problems!” Marc said. “So... what's the catch?”
“It's... it's not a matter of feasibility. I could do it. But,” Solon took a deep sigh, “if you were to undergo this ritual, it would change what you are. You would become a being who could possess and channel psychic energy, with perfect memory. I would essentially... be turning you into a nightmare.”
Marc stood, stunned, at this news. He had a brief thought of what it would be like to return home and explain to his mom and dad how he sustained himself off the dreams of humans now. He thought how bizarre it would be to remember everything that he had ever experienced. He wondered if the Catharsis Ritual would hurt. What would happen if he didn't do this? Was there an alternative? Could he possibly become a nightmare?
He looked at his friends, hoping to find some guidance. But Icelus and Remont and Osette were just waiting expectantly – hinging on his reaction, knowing that if he said yes they might just have a chance.
And then there was Lya. She looked distraught – and Marc thought he knew why. She was wondering if he hated nightmares so much that he would never consider being one.
Did he hate nightmares? Did he hate Lya?
Marc turned to Solon. “I'll do it. Whatever it takes, I'll do it.”


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