by Ramy Vance
Nor were they from Middang3ard. No, this was something else. It was not familiar.
Alex continued her search, her feet moving forward as if something was pulling her forward. She was a slow-moving arrow. There was a destination, and she moved toward it inevitably.
There was a crow cawing, a call that sent shivers down Alex’s spine. She knew what was coming now. This was how it always happened.
She wasn’t far from her birth canal. She could go back. It would be possible to find her way back.
Alex felt as if she always ran, no matter the reason or circumstance.
The crow stopped cawing. The air was now hot and humid, clinging like a second skin waiting to be peeled back.
The blackness sizzled and foamed above as if it were a plastic plate melting in a fire. It reeled back, and beneath was a streak of green light, filtering down like smoke, filling the sky. Every color was present, with a bright jade flame that threatened to engulf all.
Alex stood, watching the green insinuate itself into her universe. It did not care for the stars that fell like fruit once they were touched or crows whose eyes bulged like bugs when the green washed over them. The color brought silence, indifference. It made Alex’s legs buckle under the weight of her fear.
She ran in no particular direction. The green was coming down around her. It didn’t matter where she went.
And then the green began to pull back. It was running, hiding from something bright and loud down on the ground, not too far from Alex. She knew that was where she had to go. As she ran toward the sound and the light, the green pulled away.
The alien from the ship was basking in the light, its legs crossed, staring up at the green, singing loudly. It was driving the green away.
Alex stood there, watching the creature. She was very aware that she was not dreaming about the alien; it was in her dreams. “What are you doing here?”
The alien did not stop singing. It merely looked at the sky. Its eyes fastened on Alex and her brain slid out of this dream and into many others, all playing at the same time. There were many voices screaming in pain and agony, folk who looked like the alien, their bodies piled high in ditches as blood poured from the heavens in a great sheet.
Alex fell to her knees, covering her ears, trying to block the sound of so much pain. There were few words, but the ones Alex could make out were “the Dark One,” over and over.
The crow began cawing again.
Alex snapped awake, gasping for breath. She was still in the quarantine room. It was a little after eight in the morning. Her dragon anchor was peeping, a message from Myrddin. “Quarantine is officially over. You may now mix with the general population. Come to the alien’s room ASAP. He says he needs to speak with you.”
Chapter Four
Alex was met by some scientists who supplied her with a change of armor. She followed them down the halls to the room that held the alien. Myrddin and Roy were standing on the other side of the glass, waiting for her.
The alien looked at Alex when she walked in. The same deep darkness was in its eyes, but Alex didn’t feel the overwhelming sense of dread like before. Instead, she felt almost as if the eyes were inviting her to step closer, to engage in conversation. To listen and learn.
Myrddin motioned for Alex to come to his side. “He requested to speak to you by name,” Myrddin informed Alex. “He identifies as male, by the way. We can stop saying ‘it.’”
Alex wasn’t surprised he wanted to talk to her. She had just been dreaming with him, she was certain now—not dreaming of, dreaming with. “Did he happen to give you a name?”
Myrddin shook his head. “He’s refused to talk to anyone other than you. I guess he must have a different idea of ‘take me to your leader’ than we’ve seen in the movies. We’ll be out here in case you need anything.”
The glass slid open, and Alex stepped into the room. The alien stared at her but made no motion. The dragonrider took the initiative, walking over to the bench and sitting down next to him. “My name’s Alex,” she said as she extended her hand.
The alien took her hand and shook it with the familiarity of a human. “My name is Vardis. It is good to meet you properly.”
“You were in my head last night, weren’t you?”
“Yes, we found ourselves sharing the same dream. It was unexpected. Usually, my kind cannot dream with others of different realms, but with you, it was almost like your dream called out to me. I was within it before I realized.”
Alex thought the order of what Vardis had said was backward. Her recollection of her dream was a little fuzzy, but she knew Vardis had pulled her into his dream. Maybe that was what people felt like when they shared dreams. She didn’t have a context. “Why would I have done that?”
“It might have been reflexive. Perhaps being around someone you could dream with caused you to do it instinctively. But how is a more interesting question. You must have had contact with someone like me in the past, and you must have dreamed with them.”
Alex knew exactly what Vardis was talking about. She had shared a dream with the Dark One within the meteor, and gotten lost in that brain essence of hatred. She could have carried something out with her. Lucky if it was the ability to dream with someone. “Myrddin said you weren’t from the same planet as the Dark One.”
Vardis nodded. His eyes looked murky as if they were losing themselves to thoughts that could not be held. “Not the same planet, but the same realm. But I can see that you know that already. Where I come from, nearly all sentient beings can share each other’s dreams.”
“Where are you from?”
Vardis looked somberly at Alex. “If I were to tell you, it would mean nothing. It is only able to be said in the common language of my people, and I am afraid that your consciousness would not understand. We speak in something like image forms when conversing about our heavenly bodies. It is the only way to properly describe them.”
“That sounds really cool. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. But is that what you called me here to talk about? Myrddin said you called for me by name.”
“That is true. I wished to know how you acquired the ability to dream. Based on what I’ve seen, my assumption was that the wizard was in charge here.” Vardis paused, looking Alex over. “Yet it was you, a child with whom I can dream. I find that interesting. How did it happen?”
Alex looked over at Myrddin. She knew he was listening and she wasn’t sure how much she should tell Vardis. No one knew what Vardis was doing here other than his vague promise to give them something that would stop the Dark One forever. He hadn’t said anything else about the subject. For all they knew, this could be an elaborate trap.
But how could telling Vardis about her meeting with the Dark One’s essence backfire? She hadn’t learned anything important, hadn’t walked away with pertinent information. All she had received from the Dark One were terrible nightmares.
Myrddin’s voice popped into Alex’s head. Tell him whatever you think he should know. It was so surprising that Alex nearly jerked off the bench. Don’t react too much, Myrddin said telepathically. But as of this moment, I don’t see the need to be secretive about your fight with the Dark One.
Alex thought back, When did you start being telepathic?
When it started being useful for you to know.
Alex turned her attention back to Vardis. “Uh, a while back, a meteor fell here. We thought your ship was the same kind of thing. The meteor wasn’t a rock, though, more like a giant hive filled with these weird monsters. And the Dark One. There was an essence of the Dark One, and I interacted with it. I went inside whatever that thing’s mind was. That’s how I acquired the ability to enter your dream.”
“That would explain it. A truly unique skill amongst your kind. I believe even among wizards, it is rare.”
Vardis leaned forward and stared at Myrddin. Alex wasn’t sure if this was a challenge or something but it made her feel extremely uncomfortable. There was a weird v
ibe going on between Myrddin and Vardis. Alex didn’t know how to answer Vardis. She had no idea what wizards were capable of.
“So, what are you doing here?” Alex asked.
“As I said,” Vardis began, “I am here to—”
There was a loud boom in the distance, and the room quaked. Cracks shot through the barrier like bolts of lightning. Alex and Vardis were thrown to the floor. On the other side of the room, Myrddin waved his hand, and the glass separating him and Roy from Alex and the alien disappeared.
A screeching alarm blared through the quarantine area as Myrddin and Roy helped Alex and Vardis to their feet. “What the hell was that?” Alex asked as another boom set the room shaking again.
Myrddin conjured a HUD into existence and pulled it up over his eyes. “An explosion,” he replied. “We’re under attack on the east side of the campus.”
Alex’s heart jumped up in her chest. During the last invasion of the Nest, they had lost so many cadets. The image of their bodies stacked in the main hall while orcs massacred the unarmed teenagers was burned vividly into Alex’s mind. It didn’t seem as if it were ever going away.
This can’t be happening again, Alex kept repeating to herself as her feet went cold. The chill ran up her legs and nestled in her stomach, where it grew and grew, pinpricks of ice all up and down her skin.
The last few months of victorious missions faded away as if they’d never happened. There was only the invasion. The constant invasion. It had never stopped. Alex knew that now.
The tightness in Alex’s chest was slight at first. There was no indication that it was growing until she found herself on her knees, gasping for breath. She couldn’t hear anything other than the explosions and the screams of children, the trampling of feet running for life.
She felt something on her back. It was an orc, had to be. She whirled around, striking it with her robotic arm as hard as she could.
Myrddin stood over her, a magical barrier floating in front of him. The barrier was more badly cracked than the glass in the room. “Alex, what’s happening?”
Alex opened her mouth to speak but only screams came out before she doubled over again, grabbing her head, trying to keep from slipping into the darkness that clawed at her from the inside.
Jollies was dead in her hands while orcs dragged Gill away. Brath was screaming and kicking as two orcs took hold of his arms and legs, ripping him apart. Jim was lying face-down in a pool of his own blood. They were all dead. All of them.
Alex leaped up and backed against the wall as tears rolled down her cheeks, and she kept shaking her head.
Myrddin stepped over to the rider. As he waved his hand over her head, mist came from his fingers, covering her.
The panic broke, and Alex hiccupped. She still didn’t feel as if she were in her body, but at least there was some relief from the fear that had raced through her like poison and shut down her ability to think. “Are you okay?” Myrddin asked.
Alex shook her head as the panic began to rev itself back up. “No, no! I can’t do this, I can’t do this again.”
Myrddin grabbed Roy and said, “Take Alex. I have to figure out what’s going on.”
Roy nodded gruffly as Myrddin vanished. He grabbed Alex gently by the arm and led her out of the room as quarantine scientists rushed in. The glass wall went back up, and Roy told the scientists to keep a watch on Vardis.
Alex wasn’t as panicked as she had been minutes ago, but she still wasn’t certain where she was. She knew Roy was taking her someplace, but she felt as if she were floating along in a dream. Hadn’t Vardis been talking to her about dreaming? Maybe that was all this was—a dream.
But dreams weren’t like this. Dreams didn’t make sense, and they weren’t nearly this horrifying. This was a nightmare. It had to be. There was no way this could be happening again.
The world froze. Alex could have counted the hairs on Roy’s neck, and reality became more focused and clearer.
At the end of the hall was a young boy. He was as white as fresh snow and wore the mask of a buck deer with spreading antlers. He turned to face Alex but said nothing.
Then the world reeled back into motion, and the boy was gone.
Roy led Alex into a room no larger than a broom closet and flipped on the lights. He sat Alex down and took a seat beside her. “Are you holding up okay?”
Alex shook her head as her body trembled. “I don’t know what’s happening. I-I can’t stop shaking. I can’t—”
Roy took Alex’s hand and held it tightly. “Breathe. You need to breathe,” he said. “Concentrate on your breathing. Nothing else matters. Just focus on breathing.”
Alex tried to follow his advice as best as she could. She thought of inhaling and then exhaling, over and over. Slowly, her heart slowed its incessant hammering.
Roy let go of Alex’s hand and leaned forward, his face covered by shadows as he spoke. “It gets easier. Doesn’t feel like it, but it does—the stress.”
“I can’t do this. There’s no way—”
Roy cut Alex off. “You can do this because you have to. If you don’t, no one else will. It’s that simple.”
Roy stood up and offered his hand to Alex. “We all have to. Together. Are you with us?”
Alex pushed down the vomit threatening to creep up her throat. Roy was right. This was why she was here. Someone had to defend the realms from the Dark One. She’d done it before. She could do it again.
Alex took Roy’s hand and stood. “Yeah. I’m a dragonrider. I’m with you.”
Chapter Five
The main hall of the Nest was filled with cadets and recruits. There were more than Alex remembered; Myrddin must have stepped up his recruitment game. There was nearly three times the number of certified dragonriders than there had been during the last invasion. The mech rider corps had grown as well.
Alex wasn’t staying in the main hall, though. She was only passing through with Roy. The two were heading to the war room for an officer briefing since she was no longer a cadet or a recruit. She led Team Boundless and would be needed for the planning stages of the assault.
As Alex walked past the recruits, she could see how young most of them were—only a little older than she was. There were still no other humans besides the mech riders, who were housed in a different facility. Alex wondered how they had arrived at the Nest so fast. Maybe Myrddin had known the attack was coming.
The two made their way to the war room, where Myrddin and the rest of the faculty were gathered. A round holoprojector in the middle of the room displayed a large scale map of the Nest and the surrounding area.
Toppinir was talking with Myrddin and politely nodded at Alex when she walked in. “Good to see you are out of quarantine. I was worried Myrddin was going to keep you there indefinitely.”
Alex chuckled nervously. She was still uncomfortable with the attitude change that happened with teachers when she was in a combat situation and not in class. It was as if they forgot she was a student or preferred to remember that when it came to a fight, she was their equal in many ways.
There were faces in the room Alex was unfamiliar with. Many of them were older students, cadets who had recently become certified dragonriders. The age gap was noticeable since the other captains looked like they were in their early twenties. She hadn’t seen any of them in classes before and wondered just how large the Nest was if it could house people she’d never seen.
Alex already knew that Boundless was the youngest certified team of dragonriders. She hadn’t realized how young she was compared to the rest. Most of the older cadets were only a year or two older than her. It was hard to tell with elves, though. She still didn’t have a good handle on what constituted adolescence for an elf.
The older captains were standing in a line near the projector. Alex looked around the room, hoping someone would tell her what to do or where to go until it became obvious that no one was going to hold her hand. She lined up with the rest of the captains and tried to look p
rofessional.
Myrddin finished talking to one of the teachers and turned to address the room. “The shocks we’re feeling are long-range attacks,” Myrddin explained. “We still have some time before the bulk of the Dark One’s forces arrive. At the moment, we’re waiting for an update from our recon dragons.”
The display on the projector changed, showing the terrain around the Nest more closely. “Based on the assaults so far, we’re assuming that they’re coming from the west and will be attacking that wing. It would be safe to assume they have some understanding of the setup of the Nest. We were unprepared during the last invasion, and I would not be surprised if they had done their homework.”
Toppinir cleared his throat before speaking. “Do we have any guesses as to why they’re attacking? It’s been months since the meteor, and we’ve had no reports of any attention from the Dark One. What changed?”
An image of Vardis appeared on the projector screen. “As some of you might know,” Myrddin explained, “two days ago, we retrieved a crashed ship from an unknown planet. The being inside, Vardis, stated that he was from the same dimension as the Dark One. I find the claim doubtful, but this sudden attack does lend credence to it. I have no doubt that the attack has to do with Vardis’s arrival.”
Alex was glad to hear that Myrddin didn’t trust Vardis. It wasn’t that the alien was lying, but how often did someone show up on your doorstep and offer to fix all your problems?
Roy, who was leaning against the wall chewing on his cigar, asked, “So, what’s the plan? Are we going out to meet the Dark One’s welcoming party, or are we waiting until they come here? I’d like to avoid what happened last time.”
Myrddin’s eyes softened as if he were experiencing the pain of the last invasion. “What happened before cannot and will not happen again,” he said slowly. “Our defenses have been upgraded. No one can teleport into the Nest. We can keep the battle outside and protect the cadets who aren’t combat-ready.”
