by Sophia Sharp
Finally, she arrived at the bottom of the mountain. The torrial allowed her to reach it, and she silently thanked Hunter and the others for giving her the three figurines. They had been right about her lack of experience – she doubted any of them would have had problems keeping the mountain in place.
She stopped and looked around. The enormous slabs of rock jutted out right from the ground. They connected to each other in such a way that there was no break in the façade, no space between them Nora could use to climb the mountain.
She glanced up. The peak of the mountain wasn’t even visible from where she stood. It extended to a dizzying height in the sky. White wisps of cloud swirled around the mountain, giving the impression of an eddy. The sun shone overhead provided neither warmth nor life.
Absently, she wondered why Gray had not followed her here, or even if he would. Then she shook her head. She couldn’t waste time wishing for things that didn’t exist.
Nora considered her options. She could try to scale each one of the rock slabs individually, providing the overflowed volcanic rock gave her enough grip to climb. But doing so would take entirely too long, especially when she didn’t know how high the mountain extended above her.
She knew she couldn’t jump nearly high enough, either. Then, abruptly, she remembered something Hunter had done the first time he brought her to the dream realm. When they were sitting on the hood of his car, with her still unaware they were even in the dream realm, he had pushed himself off and…floated…through the air. Nora hadn’t had much experience in the dream realm since then. How had he done that again? He said the trick was not to make yourself gravitate, but rather, to push the entire rest of the world down.
Nora traced her fingers over the torrial in her hand. With that, she had been able to keep the mountain in place. Surely, it would be enough for her to do what she needed to? Hunter had only managed to lift himself a few feet off the ground. She would need much more than that.
She backed away from the mountain. At the very least, she would have a running start. After she had given herself enough distance, she gripped the torrial tightly. It would be the only way she could get to the mountain’s top.
She sprinted toward the mountain and leapt. At the same time, she focused all her energy on pushing the world around her down, through the torrial.
The world moved with such unexpected force that Nora found herself hundreds of feet in the air, arms and legs flailing, falling quickly toward the ground.
Quickly, she relented on the force she was sending through the torrial and caught herself in the air just as the mountainside moved the opposite way to meet her. She landed forcefully, and with less grace than she’d hoped, sending a jolt of pain through her entire body. Her injured leg cried out in protest.
It took her a few moments to ward off the pain in her leg. When it subsided, slightly, she hobbled to the edge and looked down. Nora marveled at the sight. She had made it up not just onto the first enormous slab of rock, but onto the third one. No wonder the landing hurt.
She looked around her. The top of the slab was much like the side, bare, dark rock. The angles of it were so perfectly straight that it looked like it had been carved by a human hand, rather than created by forces of nature. But Nora knew the dream realm mirrored the real world, and so this mountain must have been formed naturally.
She had a higher vantage point now than before and saw the entire land around the mountain was flat and bare. It extended in all directions as far as she could see, ending only at the horizon. Scaling the mountain seemed to have been the right choice. It was the only thing around for miles. And, of course, there must have been a reason the torrial brought her before it.
She turned and looked up. The mountain continued on as high as she could see, connecting the enormous slabs of rock to one another in a pyramid that rose higher and higher. Now more in tune with how strongly the figurine torrial magnified her power, Nora ran forward, jumped, and pushed the world down.
This time, her control was better. She went up into the air just high enough to land deftly on the next highest peak. She smiled. The verticality she achieved with the torrial was thrilling. Scaling the mountain like this was actually fun.
She ran toward the next rock, jumped, and pushed the world down again. Once more, she timed it all to land perfectly on the next peak. Not wasting any time, she ran at the next slab, jumped, and pushed the world down. She landed and kept moving, running toward the next slab and jumping up, pushing the world down, and landing gracefully. Over and over she repeated the process, until she had reached the first level of clouds.
Chapter Thirteen
~A Cabin~
That was when Nora stopped and did a double take. The mountain she’d been sure extended high into the sky, simply stopped. It was as if the upper half of it had been cleaved right off.
She looked back over the edge and couldn’t see anything below the cloud. She was becoming less sure this mountain was a natural formation. It cut off right where it met the clouds, and not an inch lower or higher. From the ground, anybody would assume the menacing mountain would just keep going up. Instead, it plateaued strangely.
Nora took a step forward. Here, the mountain was shrouded in cloud, and the misty fog made it difficult to see very far. Was this it? Had she arrived where she needed to go?
That would make sense, except there was nothing there. Well, nothing she could see immediately, anyway. The fog from the clouds prevented her from seeing farther than twenty feet away.
She picked her way forward carefully. She might have expected there to be howling winds up here, but there was absolutely nothing. The air was still, keeping the clouds at bay. Why was it she thought she saw them swirling before, when she was on the ground? Nothing about this place made much sense.
The top of the mountain might have been anywhere from a few miles to a few hundred feet in diameter, and Nora would not have known the difference. Once she stepped away from the edge, misty cloud just swallowed everything up.
She proceeded forward carefully. She was acutely aware this was not just any random place in the dream realm. No, this was one of the Vassiz elder’s dreams. How much influence did he have over this place? She didn’t know. But she did know she had to find the elder before he found her.
It was eerie how quiet it was up here. Not a single sound penetrated the white barrier of the cloud. Nora could barely even hear her own footsteps against the rock. There could be anything lurking beside her, and she would not even know of it until it was right on her.
Nora kept walking until she saw a dark shape ahead. Instinctively, she froze. The shape did not move. She counted ten breaths to see if the shape moved at all. It did not. It was about the height of a man, although significantly wider than any she had seen. Nora crept forward carefully.
She crept a little bit closer. The shape still didn’t move. In fact, from where Nora stood, it looked more like an upright rock than the figure of a man. She relaxed slightly. Hopefully, there was nothing to worry about.
She walked even closer, until she was a mere ten feet away. The foggy cloud still obscured her eyesight, but she could now tell the shape was no ordinary rock. It was the carving of an unclothed man, and he towered over her. His back was to her, but she could see the heavy muscles running from his shoulders to his waist. She moved closer and started to circle around to look at him from the front when her foot caught on something.
She nearly stumbled, but caught herself in time to avoid falling over. She looked down. There, carved into the ground, was an odd hollow that started at the statue and extended out until it was hidden by the clouds. She couldn’t see where it led. But she noticed that it curved inward slightly, in the direction the man was facing.
Nora turned her attention back to the carving of the man. She saw now, from up close, that the features of his face had washed away over time. The carving was probably ancient. Cracks ran along parts of the rock that made up the man’s torso. In one ha
nd, he held a long spear, fixed sturdily to the ground. In the other, a circular shield, although the lower half of it had broken off a long time ago. It was nowhere to be seen.
Nora wondered what the statue was for, and why it was there. She looked up at the face again. At one point, the eyes would have stared straight over her into the distance. At what? The carving reminded her of a guard, a sentry of some sort. She wondered what it was protecting.
The curving hollow caught her eye again. Even though Nora could not see far, the way it angled inward made her feel like it was part of a larger circle.
She walked away from the statue until it was lost in the fog behind her. She followed the path of the hollow, staying to one side of it. It was about the width of her wrist, and maybe an inch or two deep. It made her think of a river bed, although what its purpose was, she couldn’t say.
She was right about the curve of the hollow. It never strayed from its circular angle. Nora continued walking along the hollow, wondering where it led, when she spotted another shape in the distance. This one had the familiar form of the previous sentry. She walked up to it, unafraid, and found it was a replica of the carving she had seen earlier. The wear on the rock was different, of course, and this one had his whole shield intact.
Nora traced her path back. By her estimate, this statue was about a quarter of the way along the hollow. This statue’s gaze was also directed inward. She wondered what was there. That was where she would go, she decided, but first she wanted to see if there were other statues along the circle.
She walked quickly, and found another sculpture, exactly like the ones before, standing exactly a quarter of the way from the last one. If she were a betting woman, she would have guessed there would be a fourth statue another quarter of the way along, at the halfway point between this one and the first one. She walked on, and after a while found the last carving. She went right past it, following the hollow all the way back to the first statue.
Sure enough, the hollow made a complete circle. It was almost as if it was some kind of warding. Nora could not see far, but she felt sure there was something in the middle. Perhaps even what she came here for.
She ventured forward slowly. She had an uncomfortable feeling she was being watched. She strained her ears, listening for the tiniest noise that would give away the watcher. None came. Everything around her was quiet, blanketed by the discomforting fog. There could be somebody twenty feet away, and she wouldn’t know at all.
She didn’t like how helpless the fog made her feel. It was almost an unnatural creation. It seemed to grow thicker the deeper she went into the circle. She tried willing it away, making it dissipate using her control over the dream realm. Nothing happened. She frowned to herself. That was supposed to be a simple thing. Perhaps she needed more control? She reached through the torrial, using it to influence the world…again, nothing happened. The blue aura around the three figurines sprung to life, but Nora couldn’t manage to do anything with it.
Suddenly she noticed a pale light breaking through the fog. It came from in front of her. She went toward it carefully, aware of how vulnerable she was right now. Any attacker who knew the land would have her at his mercy.
By her estimate, the light came from somewhere near the middle of the circle. However, it was impossible to tell without a clear view. Nora wandered closer, and abruptly the sky overhead darkened. She heard a roll of thunder in the distance and froze. The noise was the first to break the barrier of cloud. It sounded ominous.
She looked ahead. In the darkened landscape, the light before her was more prevalent. She felt uneasy. She didn’t like how the sun just disappeared, as if it had been swallowed up by some beast.
She went to the light, and as she got closer, a shape revealed itself to her. It surrounded the light. It was hard to see through the mist, so Nora went even closer. She was ten feet away when she finally saw the source of the light.
There, in the middle of the circular clearing, stood a small wooden cabin. It was completely at odds with this place. The walls were made of freshly lacquered wood and the roof of tile bricks. Unlike the statues that surrounded it, the cabin showed no signs of wear. In fact, none of it matched what was here. It looked like it had just dropped out of the sky.
There was one window on the side facing Nora. That was the source of the light. She saw now, from the flickering shadows dancing on the ground before her, the light came from some sort of fire.
Nora approached the cabin carefully and held on tightly to the three torrial in her pocket. Just because they afforded her greater control did not mean she could be stupid. The elders were more experienced, more sinister, and that undoubtedly gave them the advantage. Even with the torrial, she knew the odds of her matching one of them were slim to none. Still, she had to try.
She circled the cabin, keeping one eye on it and the other on the fog around her. The window she had seen was the only one. The only other feature that broke the uniform outer façade was a medium-sized door, just tall enough for her to fit through.
She completed one circle, and seeing nothing else, proceeded toward the cabin. She came to the door and stopped. What if this was some sort of trap? Surely the elder knew she was here by now. What if the cabin was a set-up, a way of getting Nora to put herself in some vulnerable position? She couldn’t shy away now. The torrial Gabrielle used had brought her here for a reason. Specifically here, to this barren land, right before the mountain. There was something here for her, and it was based on her need to kill the elders.
She put her hand on the door and gently pushed it open. It swung easily on freshly-oiled hinges. The interior revealed itself to her.
The cabin was empty except for a single bed and a roaring fireplace on the opposing wall. The flames gave no heat. But that wasn’t what held her attention.
Seated on the bed, facing away from her, was a dark-haired man. He had his head between his hands, and by the way his body shook Nora thought he was sobbing. His hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Nora crept into the cabin, careful not to make any noise. She felt a…pull…toward the man, and knew she had to be cautious. Could he be one of the elders? For some reason, she had always imagined them as frail, aging men, with hair as white as snow and skin leathery from too many years of living. Yet even from behind, Nora could tell the man before her was middle-aged and in possession of good health.
Just as Nora was about to step in front of him, the man looked up. And Nora saw that he had not been sobbing. He had been laughing.
Upon seeing his face Nora’s estimate was confirmed. The man was right in his middle-years, and some might say in the prime of his life. He had a strong, if not handsome, face and a full beard that reached half-way down his chest. The clothes he wore were expensive. Nora had not seen luxuriant robes before, but the ones he had on gave no doubt to their worth. The seams were lined with threads of gold, and the outside lapels had magnificent animals stitched into them. A boar, a wolf, and a snake, among others that Nora did not recognized, twisted all the way around the collar of his jacket.
A sinister smile distorted his face as his black eyes bore into her. That gaze was unearthly. Nora froze where she stood.
The smile came and went, but the man made no move toward her. Neither did he relent on that gaze. His eyes did not shift from her face. Nora didn’t know what to do. If this was who she thought it was, he should be attacking her, or her him, right at this moment. Neither of those things came to pass. Instead, Nora just stood there, unable to move a muscle, as the man continued to examine her. A long minute passed, and Nora felt like she was stuck in some sort of limbo. She could not move her eyes from his face, either.
“It is true,” he said finally, muttering the words as if in disbelief. “You are here.” On hearing his voice, Nora jerked backward, ending the spell. His voice was smooth and rich, but possessed a subtle menacing overtone. Nora backpedalled until she hit the wall. That voice had an uncanny resemblance to Hunter’s.
“Do you know where you are, girl?” the man asked, not moving from his seat. “Do you know where you’ve brought me?”
“Who are you?” Nora asked. Her voice trembled. She knew that with the torrial she had, she should be able to face anyone here. Yet, the man still frightened her. It felt like she had gone to war with nothing more than a toothpick.
The man smiled again, then threw his head back and laughed. It was a rich, full laugh, and the sound filled the small space of the cabin until Nora felt like suffocating. He didn’t stop before he ran out of breath, and even then, when he returned his attention to her, Nora could hear the echoes of his laughter in her mind.
“Do not ask stupid questions you already know the answers to,” came the man’s reply. He said it with such scorn that Nora had to flinch. His answer confirmed who he was. He looked at her and frowned. “What I would like to know,” he said slowly, “is how someone like you found the strength to bring me here.”
Nora could find no words. Her resolve to see justice done against the elders did not give her the courage she expected. It was not that she was frightened when she looked at the man, per se, but rather that his very presence made her feel less sure of herself. And she had never felt that way, not since her Vassiz transformation. The closest thing she could think of was a pupil facing her master.
“You’re not one for talking, hmm?” the man mused after a few moments. “Very well.” He thrust his arm toward Nora, and she felt an invisible force wrap itself tightly around her arms, her legs. She tried to resist, but whatever the elder did had her stuck in place. The force extended upward, wrapping itself around her neck like a collar, and pulling in tight. She couldn’t even squirm.
Instantly, her mind flashed back to being imprisoned by Borrak and Serkhol. She could not face that again. No. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the force to go away. She had control over this place. She strained…and nothing happened. Her pulse quickened, and her breathing increased. The elder had her trapped because she had been so absolutely careless! Anger seethed inside of her, anger at herself for walking into such a dangerous situation and not being prepared. She tried again, imagining the force dissipating, calling on her control over the dream to make it so. Nothing happened. The confines of the force pressed against her wrists and ankles, latching her tightly to the wall. The collar around her neck tightened, making it difficult to breathe. Control! She had it here. She could make this go away. But no matter how hard she tried, nothing happened.
