Dreamcatcher

by Christian Rosnell

  Lyght had to admit, though he hadn’t really realized it, that his Dreamcasting skills had improved over the last few weeks. He hadn’t had much opportunity to try out his skills outside of the structured environment of training, but he could already see the usefulness of one particular skill that Lyn had taught them. It involved using the slightest possible amount of spirit, pretty much round the clock, projecting into the ground from your feet. Theoretically, if you did it right, you could get the spirit to hover in one spot just below you in the ground, and it would waver when anyone approached. If someone stepped on the ground above the energy, the user would feel the vibration. It was very tricky to control round the clock in one small area just below you, and even harder to channel Dreamcasting power through your feet. Lyght hadn’t even thought that it was possible, but apparently with focus and training an individual could learn to Dreamcast from each of their limbs, although the others besides your dominant arm would have a much weaker output. It was enough for this technique, however.

  Lyght kept the technique on as he was walking, pleased with how well it worked in reality. It had honestly surprised him that he was one of the only people in the class who’d grasped the concept yet; he, Iri, and another girl named Maia were the only other ones.

  That was one of Lyght’s strengths; control of spirit energy. Mikael, by contrast, was much better at sheer force of spirit, and Lyght still wasn’t sure of much of anything about Seth. Lyght was most often matched up against him and the other leaders in training exercises, and unfortunately hadn’t had much time to analyze Seth’s Dreamcasting style.

  By now, Lyght was only a few minutes away from Triumph. He checked his watch again, frowning. He had to go fast enough to not alert the person trailing him that he was suspicious, but slow enough to reach the tower hopefully following a changing of the guard. He frowned, thinking that maybe he should take a circular route to add more time to the journey. Before he could decide, however, he felt a sudden, strong vibration in the Dreamcasting spirit he maintained in the ground just below. He started to turn, but before he could get around fully a hand grabbed on to his arm. He tensed, realizing belatedly that he’d been caught, and fast.

  How…?

  He wrenched himself out of the grip and spun around suddenly, reaching over his shoulder for his sword, ripping it halfway out of its sheath with a metallic hissing sound before he stopped dead in his tracks. He found himself looking down at the person who had apparently been following him; however, they didn’t look that dangerous.

  Or, more accurately, she didn’t look that dangerous. Rising just above Lyght’s shoulder in height, he set eyes upon a girl about his age, wearing a brown sweatshirt with the hood up, dirty-blond hair spilling out the front, green eyes wide with shock as she considered running. Slowly, Lyght lowered his sword back into its sheath, but didn’t take his hand off it quite yet. Frowning, he noticed a rolled-up piece of paper in the girl’s hand. Even from here, he could see a Royal Coat of Arms wax seal stuck onto it. A message?

  The girl drew herself up haughtily as she apparently realized she wasn’t about to get impaled by a sword. Crossing her arms, she looked at Lyght, but just stood there. Lyght, confused, dropped his hand off his sword and raised his eyebrows. He had trouble finding his voice for a second before asking, “What?”

  The girl held out the paper and passed it to Lyght asking, “You’re Lyght of the Legion Academy, right?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued on, “What I just gave you is a message from the King himself, which, so you know, is not an everyday thing. It makes me wonder, who are you? For what it’s worth, I’m a messenger for the King, and I usually only bring these to military leaders, Senate members, and even once or twice to the First Legend. I’ve been asked to bring these to you and your friend Mikael, whoever he is, but I was hoping he’d be with you. Now I’m going to have to find him too. But enough of that – where are you headed, anyway?” The girl tried to sound offhand, but Lyght noticed something odd in her voice. He couldn’t place it however.

  Again, Lyght had trouble for some reason thinking of what to say, but he found his voice after a moment and asked the obvious question, “Forget me, who are you? I mean, no offense, but you were following me through the city for a good twenty minutes. Why not just come up to me and hand me this… message, is it?”

  Lyght frowned as he thought of it, could it really be a message for him from the King? It seemed like too big of a coincidence that he would receive that now, on his way to the tower itself to try and meet with the man; or at least with his advisors, the senior Legends. And there was something else that was bothering him…

  Lyght looked down at the girl, who was standing noticeably more confidently now, despite being unarmed and having been caught following an armed Dreamcaster. Who is she?, Lyght wondered. He asked his question aloud, “And how come you’re awake right now anyway? You’re not a Dreamcaster, are you?”

  The girl shook her head, “No, of course not. Then I’d have to be in your guys’ dumb training program, and that’s the last thing I want.” Lyght frowned. What does she know about the program, and why bring it up?

  “Anyway”, the girl continued on, “you asked why I’m not asleep? Well, why would I want to be? That would just be downright boring, don’t you think? I usually have to spend my daylight hours sending messages from the King, dreadfully boring though that is. At night though”, she spread her arms out, “that’s when the real fun begins.”

  Lyght thought he knew what she was talking about. So she wasn’t a Dreamcaster, and yet she was able to stay awake on Dark nights? That sounded exactly like Sky, though Lyght had never really found out how his sister could do it. Maybe it was just a really rare ability a few people had? He couldn’t tell.

  Nevertheless, Lyght gave up trying to understand anything about this girl and broke the wax of the message, beginning to unroll it, tense with anticipation. The girl saw him doing this, and put her hand out, palm up, explaining, “The King said it’s a summons, for both you and your friend. Now that’s what really shocked me when I heard him say that. The King usually reserves such occasions for meetings with the heads of domains, high-ranking senate members, and the most senior of the Legion. Care to enlighten me as to why you’ve been invited?”

  Lyght was only half listening; he was reading the black ink letters written by the King himself, addressed to him. Until he’d opened it, he hadn’t really believed what the girl had been saying. But now he couldn’t help but read it top to bottom several times:

  Lyght,

  Greetings, I hope my friend Lyn’s program is treating you well so far. You’ve been made class leader, as I understand it? That’s excellent. I have to admit, considering you and your friend Mikael are the first Dreamcasters to come out of the Hope domain, that’s very impressive. In fact, I’m quite interested in you two for this reason. I’m curious to know what it’s like for you two, coming out of that specific place, traveling all the way here and having such early success. I hope to learn more about you.

  So I would like to formally invite you and your friend Mikael to my monthly Legion dinner this Friday evening at eight o’clock, in the tower of Triumph. The messenger I’m sending this letter with will come to your quarters that night, to escort you both there. I’m looking forward to meeting and talking with some of the rising young talent in the organization. The First Legend will be there, of course, along with some of the other senior Legends and some other dignitaries you probably haven’t heard of and don’t care about.

  Anyway, I hope to see you there. It will be good to see you again.

  Yours in service,

  Decimader Vuruman, King of the Dreamscape

  As he finished reading for the third time, Lyght’s heart was beating a drum against his chest. He couldn’t believe it. He and Mikael were actually being invited to dinner with the King of the Dreamscape! Never at any point in Lyght’s life had he thought he’d meet the man and talk to him personally. It really was
a sign of how far he’d come.

  But there was something that was bothering him…

  Lyght would have to go through the letter in more detail later, but one thing that jumped out to him was the, “It will be good to see you again” part. Again? Lyght had never met the Decimader Vuruman, obviously, and assumed that most people probably hadn’t. So that was definitely confusing. He looked up at the girl who’d brought the message, who was smiling at his reaction.

  She spoke up, “No need to go to Triumph today, then, is there?” Lyght frowned, How did she know I was going there? Nothing about her makes any sense. And she’s supposed to bring me to this, what is it, dinner?

  Lyght had to thank her, however. “I guess I owe you thanks for tracking me down to bring this to me. So thanks, um…” He paused. The girl walked forward and extended her hand out, “Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself.” After hesitating for a moment, Lyght shook her hand.

  “I’m Lyaness, nice to meet you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Lost was the word.

  Sky stood atop the gently heaving crow’s nest of the Joy, looking down at the rather joyless crew. She really couldn’t blame them. After the shock of finding their contact in the Northern town of Aston brutally executed in the center of town, the crew hadn’t really been able to think of anywhere else to go. Without any leads or good ideas, the crew had retreated to the ship for at least some modicum of comfort and shelter against the bitter Northern cold. Supposedly, they were planning the next step. But really, the normally adventurous and bold crewmembers just sat around, keeping to themselves – not talking much. Lost.

  Sky herself just felt numb. Now that she thought of it, looking down from atop the slightly rocking crow’s nest, she had never seen somebody die. She had never expected the first death she experienced to be so violent. So… meaningless. Sky supposed she should’ve been shaken – scarred even – by the sight of Gairen’s body nailed to the wall, writing smeared in his own blood above his mangled corpse. But really, she just felt numb. Emotionless.

  It bothered her somewhat that she apparently wasn’t going through the same trauma the rest of the crew was. Maybe it was because some of them had known the guy, and she hadn’t. Maybe it would hit her later, she didn’t know. For now though, all she felt was just numb. It was weird – numbness was not something she typically felt or experienced. It seemed like she was always doing something. It scared her a little that she just didn’t seem to care as much as she should.

  Sky raised her eyes from the crew on the deck to the coastline just ahead of where they were anchored. The near-blizzard from before had died down somewhat, but silent snow still swirled across her vision. Her gaze followed the steely-gray waves as they rolled landward, curiously muted by as the snow drifted softly from above, the occasional sea gust blowing the large flakes into beautiful patterns and formations in mid-air. She couldn’t see more than a half-mile or so inland, even from her height. Pulling a scarf up from her neck to cover the lower part of her face, Sky took a deep breath of the salty, frigid air, staring out into the wintry landscape as she tried to think. She had to have some ideas, right? What were they going to do next?

  She had, after all, promised that she would try and make herself more useful. Remembering her discussion with Max, she shook her head, laughing at herself a little. All she had promised then, now that she thought about it, was to “enjoy herself more”, whatever that entailed. Sky had supposed she’d been letting the gravity of their mission and the difficulties they’d faced get her down. Which, or course, was uncharacteristic for her in any case.

  But now? It seemed like it was going to be hard for anyone in the crew to respond remotely positively after what they had just seen. She glanced back down at the deck, looking for Max, but she didn’t see him. She frowned, guessed he must be below deck. Sky was honestly curious to see his reaction to the brutality they’d just seen. After all, Max was one of those in the crew who had met Gairen, and spoke highly of him. Not only that, Sky felt that if anyone in the crew were able to take their situation with a positive outlook, it was her high-energy friend Max.

  Since she didn’t see him, however, Sky turned to look at Jon, who was below on the deck with many of the others. He sat with his back to the side of the ship, with a semicircle of four other crew members sitting around him. Sky couldn’t hear from up here, but she would guess they were talking about the next step.

  Since Sky had found the “Dreamcatcher” on the island of Apathy, the mysterious woven object that had split the Dark open, their main plan of action was to seek out the Dream Syndicate, a rumored criminal organization in the North, to figure out what it all meant. The Dream Syndicate’s mission apparently was, after all, to destroy the Dark once and for all. Sky felt like she could relate. She’d so keen to meet these individuals, criminal or not, and see what they knew. Not only that, but Sky had found that those often portrayed as criminals or rule-breakers in the Dreamscape were sometimes the ones who were just trying to do what they thought was best. They weren’t always as selfish as they were portrayed to be. Sky felt she could relate to that too.

  However, their one connection to this path of actually finding the mysterious Dream Syndicate, if indeed it even existed, had now been destroyed. Gairen, who Sky was sure had known something, had been killed. Brutally. Not only that, but they didn’t know who had killed the man, or why. For all they knew, he could have been killed for something completely unrelated to them, and their arrival at that moment was unfortunate timing.

  Sky didn’t think so, however. She just felt like this man knew something, and this knowledge was very dangerous or threatening to somebody. Somebody who didn’t want them to find the Dream Syndicate. Someone who didn’t want them to succeed in their mission of destroying the Dark. Sky knew that maybe she was just being paranoid, but she couldn’t get past the image of the man impaled into a wooden wall, with eerie spiked letters written in blood above his head. It had been a very vicious killing. Sky just didn’t think it was a coincidence. No way.

  Regardless, it had happened, and the crew had to figure out where to go from here. As she looked down at Jon and his gathered associates, she could sense their disquiet. Even from up here in the swaying crow’s nest, Sky could see clear as day the look in the crewmembers’ eyes that revealed the question they were all surely asking themselves.

  Why am I here?

  Because if nothing else, it would seem that they could just go home if they wanted. After all, what was really stopping them? They’d sailed up here as adventurers, slightly naïve, even, to seek out the prospect of glory and accomplishment. In fact, Sky was almost sure that none of them had seen this mission as different from anything else they had done… until that night on the island of Apathy when the blinding blue light had lit the clearing, and a legitimate hole had ripped open in the Dark above. That had changed everything; about the mission, about the lengths they’d go to achieve it, and even their perspectives on the world and how it worked. After all, if a small, mysterious object could rip a hole in the sky, what wasn’t possible? Adventurers such as those who made up the crew of the Joy would, naturally, burn to find out more.

  But that was what had driven them this far in the first place. That was what had led Sky’s friends into the bitter North, where most of them had never been. However, Sky was sure that none of them, like her, had ever seen a sight like what they had just seen. And it scared them. It really put in perspective just how wild of a chase they were on, and what go could wrong. Yes, it could go very wrong. So it didn’t surprise Sky at all to see that the crew was down to their last. Ready to give up.

  Oddly, that realization gave Sky a peace of mind. She knew what to do.

  Not fully aware of why she was doing it, Sky jumped up onto the lip of the crow’s nest – precariously keeping her balance in the swirling snow – and, bending her knees, jumped off into the whistling wind. Falling parallel to the wide rope ladder descending to the deck, Sky grabbed th
e ladder as she fell past it about twenty feet from the ground, using it to swing her around the pole of the crow’s nest and out into the open air. She landed on the deck, in the midst of the circle of Jon and his friends, with a thud.

  Still not entirely aware of what she was doing or why, Sky whipped her dagger out of its sheath at her waist and hurled it straight down at the deck, where is landed quivering with a thunk. That got most of the crew’s attention, but she drew a deep breath and yelled for good measure, “Everyone, come on over! Now!” When most of the crew hesitated, she exhaled and tried to relax her posture a bit, “Please”.

  Apparently, she had yelled loud enough to bring out the crew from below deck, in addition to the majority who braved the elements above. She saw Max emerge from the main stairwell behind two of his friends. He winked at her as he joined the rest in the semicircle that was forming around Sky. After no more than a minute, the whole crew was in place and ready to hear what Sky had to say. She gulped, not sure what she was doing, but kicked her dagger up out of the deck and into her hand with a fluid motion, twirling it. She hoped she looked confident. Looking into the curious eyes of her friends, she couldn’t help but feeling a nervous rush. It felt good, though.