Devastation

by Jane Dougherty

  “That was very welcome.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Jack took back his glass and filled it again. “What are friends for?”

  “The work they do here is…miraculous. There’s no other word for it.”

  “How about, thirsty?”

  Tully jabbed his dad sharply in the side and frowned.

  “And the most incredible part is that they have hardly any machines here. Raulf, one of the modelers, explained that it’s possible to do almost anything just by using our innate powers. You know, like that mind over matter stuff people used to talk about?”

  “And joke about,” Kat said, not yet ready to give up her natural skepticism

  Yvain sighed. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—”

  “Than are dreamed of in your philosophy. Hey, do you have Shakespeare here too, then?” Tully asked in astonishment.

  “William Shakespeare was one of the most talented modelers and sages who ever lived—in any of the worlds! He modeled words essentially and placed his wisdom in the mouths of his characters. He shaped his words so that everyone understood them, from kings to swineherds. You see”—he leaned forward on the table and his blue eyes grew even more intense—“when you first listened to Wormwood and put your faith in what you could create with your hands—the engines you could build and control—you lost the ability to create with your minds. Not that it was entirely your fault. Demons can be extremely persuasive. It was just…unfortunate.”

  “It was criminal,” Jim burst out. “Everything that we lost! If you had only been there this afternoon and seen the things the modelers can do. The bridge, the sculptures and all that, is just fantastic, but”—Jim looked at Yvain with wide eyes—“the barrier… I’d never have imagined—”

  Yvain’s jocular expression disappeared, and his voice took on a sharp edge. “Another time, master modeler. Not here.”

  Tossing a handful of coins on the table he rose to his feet. The others also rose, awkwardly, and looked at one another.

  As they passed from the shadowy interior of the auberge to the brighter terrace in the shade of the vines, the buzz of conversation met them. Only Carla seemed to notice the dead areas in the animation, the slight faltering, like a missed step, and how the faded-looking faces, which stood out like deadheads in a bouquet of bright flowers, turned away as they made their way into the lane beyond.

  The others were standing inside the doorway of one of the houses, a three-storied building with a covered veranda running around the first floor level. The internal garden was full of fruit trees and flowers and old ladies shelling peas and chatting. A fountain splashed in the middle, and children and dogs ran around it excitedly. Yvain was explaining how many families shared the villa and the advantages it brought—the sharing of tasks and the sense of security, knowing somebody was always around to help in case of need and to keep an eye on the children.

  Carla hung back, deep in thought. Tully waited for her to speak.

  “It’s about last night,” she said finally. “I had a dream.”

  “Not surprising, really”—Tully took her hand—“after all we’ve been through.”

  Carla shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant. “It wasn’t like an ordinary dream—or an ordinary nightmare, you know? Where everything’s a bit hazy and dark and you can never get your legs to move fast enough or see exactly what’s up in front? It was clear as daylight. I could even smell the burning hair and the singed clothing.” Her voice became more frantic and breathless. “I was back there, just before we jumped, and the Burnt Man—Babbo—he was looking at me, reaching out his hand. I could have touched him, pulled him after us!”

  “It was a dream, Carla.”

  “I could taste the ash in the air. I could see every scar on his face. It was like what your dad was saying about his dreams. I was there, Tully. I really was!”

  Tully licked his lips and an anxious frown appeared between his brows.

  “What if I’ve shown him where we are?” All her terror of the Burnt Man and what he brought with him poured out in a rush of frantic words. “What if he gets here through my dream?”

  “But that’s not possible!”

  “Isn’t it? Tell me. What of all of this is possible?”

  “Maybe you should tell Yvain.”

  Tully’s eyes were full of concern, but Carla could find no help in them. No one was there when she slept to keep the probing stare of that ravaged face from following her through her dreams. “I’m frightened, Tully. I daren’t fall asleep. Promise you won’t let me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Military Operations

  “You mean you have an army? Guns, tanks, all that kind of thing?” Jack looked devastated. “I thought making armaments was against the rules!”

  The setting sun lit the Assembly building dining room through the west windows, turning the flagstones a warm golden color and picking out ruby reflections in the carafe of wine on the table.

  “This isn’t a game, master traveler.” Yvain set his wineglass down with a disconcerting thump. “The skill of turning metals into weapons is known to all advanced peoples. Not all of us choose to use that knowledge, but that does not mean we renounce the right to defend ourselves. What irresponsible leaders we would be, to leave our people with no defense against the forces of evil!”

  “So, you do have weapons then?”

  “You are ill-placed to point the moral finger, master traveler. For millennia, evil was allowed to fester and proliferate in your rotten world, ever since Wormwood gave you the knowledge to misuse the Earth’s treasures. Your history has been one long disaster, an endless succession of wars and destruction.” Yvain’s eyes glittered as his voice rose in anger, anger at the waste and cupidity and ignorance that had reduced the Earth to dust and ashes.

  Jack opened his mouth to reply then snapped it shut again and stared at his fingernails.

  Yvain went on relentlessly. “You have killed your children and pulled down your forests, poured filth into the oceans and into the air and stored poison beneath the earth. Now the earth has rebelled, and your world is finished. Why could you never listen to the warnings? Why did you have to continue on your path of self-destruction?”

  “That’s not entirely fair, though,” Tully leapt to his dad’s defense. “We haven’t all wanted to live in a world like that. We’ve had our heroes.”

  “Name some! You will find it easier to name the monsters.”

  “Well, of course the people who do good tend to get forgotten. It’s always easier to remember the serial killers and the dictators.”

  “So how can you learn from people whose very names are lost?” Yvain’s anger overwhelmed his placid nature, and he let the harsh words escape. “When you do eventually remember a few names out of all the people who have given their lives for justice. Tell me, exactly. What lessons did you ever learn from any of them?”

  There was a silence. Yvain looked at the heads hung in shame and felt he had been a fool. These young people were possibly going to give their lives to prevent evil submerging a world that was not their own. He had no right to berate them with the failings of their ancestors.

  Jack was the first to disperse the tension. “Did I ever mention my Uncle Dinny?”

  “You might have, just once or twice,” Tully said with a sigh.

  “Well, there was a great man for you. He always said to never put off till tomorrow what you can drink today. Single-handed, he kept the pubs of Liverpool and Dublin in business, not to mention some very important breweries.”

  “He must have been an exceptional man,” Yvain said, trying in vain to keep a straight face.

  “He was more what you’d call a very thirsty man.”

  Kat put a hand to her mouth and spluttered. Carla threw back her head and roared like in the old days, and Dusty began to howl.

  “That dog has real talent, Jeff.” Jack patted the hound’s head. “And an uncanny sense of humor.”

 
; The tension might have disappeared, but Jack still looked concerned. “Look. I’m sorry to keep on about it, but it was a bit of a shock to hear that we’ve been encircled by the army.”

  “But it isn’t the army. The barrier is a protection, Jack!” Jim was bursting with enthusiasm. “The modelers are constructing a sort of barricade around Lutecia, tying the air into knots that will keep out the Burnt Man, Wormwood thingy and…the others.”

  “Will this barrier keep out…dreams?” Carla asked in a hesitant voice. Yvain looked at her sharply.

  “What kind of dreams?” Yvain asked.

  “You said your dreamcatchers brought us here. Well, could they bring the Burnt Man here too?

  “Why would they want to do that?” Yvain asked softly.

  Carla shrugged. “They might not do it on purpose,” she said, pulling her napkin into knots. “Could they not just dream of him and…bring him here…accidentally?”

  Yvain took her hand, sympathy for Carla’s fear softening the expression in his eyes. “The dreamcatchers need to be in a receptive state in order to pick up the dreams of the person they want to contact. It takes time and concentration. No one could do it accidentally.”

  “But could he—Wormwood—do it? I mean, if his dream crossed…someone else’s dream, could he find that person through their dream?”

  Yvain hesitated then said, “Perhaps, if the contact was very strong. Tell me, Carla, what exactly did you dream? Because you did dream, didn’t you?”

  When Carla had finished, she fell silent and refused to look at anybody. Yvain could not conceal the anxiety that had settled in the pit of his stomach, but he placed a comforting hand on hers and she let out some of the pent-up tension.

  “I think that Carla should be taken in hand by our dreamcatchers before something irretrievable happens. It seems that you are more than just a warrior, child. You have an innate capacity as a dreamcatcher, and if that talent is left untrained—”

  “I could be the one who guides old Wormwood here, into the heart of Lutecia, right?”

  Yvain nodded.

  “Something unpleasant has already got here, though. That’s what I saw in the faces, isn’t it?”

  “I am afraid so, child.”

  Carla was pale, but she forced a smile. “I suppose I’m down for a crash course in dream management. That takes care of my evenings off for a while, I guess.”

  “I’m afraid it takes care of all our movements for the foreseeable future. We must make plans to leave. Right away.”

  “But what about my mother? I was supposed to go with a traveler and bring her back here!”

  Yvain patted Carla’s hand. “If your gift turns out to be as strong as I suspect, if she is to be found, you will be able to bring your mother here all by yourself.”

  “Me? How?”

  Yvain smiled his most reassuring smile. “If we can train you quickly enough, you might be able to catch your mother in a dream.”

  Carla slumped back in her chair, excitement glittering in her eyes. She clutched the armrests until her knuckles went white, then sat upright, wearing her now familiar determined expression. “Right, let’s go!”

  “Can we finish dessert first, please?” Jeff pleaded. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  They finished eating in a pensive silence. Yvain watched with a certain satisfaction as Jim illuminated a vase full of flowers on the table to light the Earth-dwellers to their respective rooms. Jim no longer fought against his talent, but accepted it as he was beginning to accept all the other changes that had hit him and his friends. Jeff took the lily Jim held out to him with an expression in his eyes wiser than his years, and Yvain’s heart twinged with compassion. They had all been changed by their journey from one world to another. He only hoped that the changes made up in a small way for what they had lost.

  * * * *

  Carla slept with the dreamcatchers that night, in their quarters beneath the eaves of the Assembly building. They would stay with her while she slept to guide her dreams. Immense windows had been fitted into the steeply pitched slate roof, so that almost the entire sky was visible. On moonless nights, starlight filled the room. The moon lit it bright as day. She lay in an alcove with Orion overhead and listened to the calm voices of the dreamcatchers as they explained the map of the sky and the paths of dreams. The words washed through her like waves on a sandy beach, and she held them in pools of her mind like shining fish. When she finally drifted away into sleep, she trod the paths of the sky, timidly, in awe of the gift that had blossomed.

  * * * *

  Tully threw a cloth over the still-glowing lily and gazed at Orion through his open window. Back home, the glare from the earth had always smothered the night sky in a blanket of murky orange. Here the sky was immense and not black as he had always imagined, but aglimmer with millions of pinpoints of light. Some of the stars appeared huge and intensely brilliant, and as he focused on their brightness, he became aware that they were in movement. The universe moved in a solemn rotating dance, moving in slow circles around and around, circles that moved around other circles forever. This was the balance that Yvain had tried to explain to them, worlds within worlds, each a part of the dance, each one with its orbit to follow, its place in the intricate plan.

  He pictured his tiny, insignificant planet eaten through at the Light-Bringer’s orders by giant worms, his Horsemen galloping through the ragged holes to spread death and destruction from world to world, and the shining Earth turning gradually from blue to glowing red to gray ash, then dropping out of the dance and into the nothingness between the worlds. The faces of the gray men in the auberge merged with the faces of the Flay tribe—Ace, Joe, the ferret twins. All gray. All dead. It was as terror began to grip his heart that Tully heard the singing, faint at first then louder until it filled his head, and he realized that the shimmer of the starlight was not only the movement of the light, but the vibration of the song. He felt tears of joy well up in his eyes as he recognized the words of the song inside his head.

  Israfel! Israfel!

  Tully would be the song of the Earth. He would place himself between Wormwood and Eblis. The final trumpet would not sound.

  * * * *

  The clearing was deserted. Starlight fell upon grass, stirred only by the night breeze. No small rodents gave away their presence to the keen eyes of waiting predators. No night birds soared watchfully above. The herd of fallow deer had left the previous day, melting silently into the green depths, far from the darkness that had appeared in the glade. A single hind had lingered, loath to leave, torn between the panic that had gripped the herd and her anguish over the lost baby. The clearing was deserted, but a presence grew there, a presence that spread until the green glade was a gray blur and the light of the stars was extinguished. Far away from Lutecia on a lonely hill, a piercing cry broke the unnatural silence. The hunt had begun.

  Chapter Ten

  Evil in Paradise

  Carla walked the paths of the sky. She was guided by two dreamcatchers until it became clear she needed no guidance, and they let her run free among the stars. With her first tentative steps, Carla knew that unconsciously she’d been walking the night skies for years. She followed a star path in the crystal clear purity of the night air that was filled with the music of the stars, until she was drawn to one side, onto a path as familiar to her as the route to school.

  She found it almost instantly, the rocky path she’d taken so often in her dreams before, felt herself skimming through the familiar forest, waiting for Fermo to bound ahead after a rabbit. She knew that in a moment two more hounds would join him, one brown brindle, the other brown with white patches. She would hear the low tones of Nonno Dario calling out praise and encouragement to Fermo, the louder voices of his two friends, the crashing and scuffling as the dogs homed in on their prey.

  Carla had left her body in her Paris bedroom so many times, with the hum of traffic on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, and the harsh glimmer of the street li
ghting, to escape to the mountains. She had always thought they were dreams born of her desire to be with grandparents who were always at home, to lead a life full of little habits and certainties. Her heart gave a lurch as she realized that the dream was not hers after all, but Nonno Dario’s.

  The sudden knowledge led to another thought that penetrated even her dreaming state. Perhaps those dreams that were a jumble of exotic colors and unfamiliar landscapes, interiors full of candles and bright-colored robes, streets full of barking dogs, lush forests filled with tropical flowers and jewel-like butterflies. Perhaps they too belonged to somebody else. Perhaps those dreams were not the result of indigestion or some half-remembered film. Perhaps they were her mother’s dreamings.

  Carla felt the tears welling up, waiting to fall, but sadness turned to shock as the familiar dreampath turned to broken, burnt chaos. The dogs did not appear, Nonno Dario’s voice was silent, and the forest suddenly dropped into a raw chasm, where fire rampaged through the twisted trunks left clinging to the ragged edge. The mountain was gone, reduced to a scab on a landscape she no longer recognized. Worst of all was the echoing silence. There was no dreamer. No trace of Nonno Dario.

  Carla woke with a scream, flailing arms and legs in the strange, cool sheets, the moonlight falling cold and pale on the worried faces leaning over her. A woman took her hand and Carla raised anguished eyes. The woman gazed into them, and in the pale light, saw death and destruction reflected there.

  “Stay on the star paths, child,” she said. “Do not stray into the broken dreams of your world. Keep to the star paths until you hear a dreamer calling. Then you will find a dream to catch, not before. The other way leads into oblivion.”