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.
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