For an instant her mask of confidence slips, and he can see the fear that lies beneath it. “Still around. Apparently it’s harder to find a good necromancer than you’d think.” She looks around the dreamscape, studying the grey land, the grey sky, the grey-on-grey horizon. “Not sure I could see the warning signs in this place. So if it suddenly looks as if this whole dream is getting sucked into a black hole, you need to wake yourself up, okay? For both our sakes.”
He nods.
She’s studying him now. He feels strangely naked.
“You all right?” she asks at last.
It takes him a moment to find his voice. “Yeah. I’m all right.” If she suspects that he’s lying, she doesn’t challenge him on it. “Why are you here? I mean, it’s great to see you again, but I know how dangerous dreamwalking is for you right now. You wouldn’t have come to me if there wasn’t a pretty important reason.”
“I need information,” she says quietly. “And yeah, it’s pretty important.”
Not about the Shadows, he prays. Please, let it not be about the Shadows. The one time he was ordered to reveal Guild secrets, to test the mental binding that a Domitor had placed upon him, the results were unpleasant enough that he had no desire to test its limits again. “What is it you need?”
She glances at the sky again. Looking for wraithly invaders? “When someone is born with a Gift, does it always have a . . . a type? Back at the fair we saw a little girl playing with fire. Was she born with that particular talent, or could she have done something else with her Gift if she wanted to?”
“Depends on the person. Some people are born with the ability to apply their mental energy in a particular way. Others may take years to develop a focus. That’s why the Guilds exist, to help people specialize. The more focused a mind is, the more powerful it can become.” He looks at her closely. “What’s wrong, Jessica? You know I’ll help you if I can.”
But he can see that she’s hesitant to speak. Is she wondering about his loyalties? Is she worried that even though he helped her before, he’s still a Shadow, apprentice to the undead, and that if she shares the wrong secret with him he may have to reveal it to his Guild? The irony of that makes him want to laugh. Or cry.
With a heavy sigh he puts a hand to his forehead, where the mark of shame is. The transformed skin feels slick and cold beneath his fingertips. “Jessica, this mark means I’ve been cast out of my Guild, and can never join another one. I’m an outsider, now, politically and socially. No duties, no loyalties, no allies. No friends. If I showed up at the door of Shadowcrest with all the secrets of the universe in hand, they’d slam the door in my face. So whatever you want to say, it’s just between us. I swear it.”
Her eyes grow wide. “You’re being shunned?”
Biting his lip, he nods.
“Jeez, that’s pretty extreme—”
“It is what it is,” he says sharply. “I’ll survive.”
“What about your parents? Are they okay with this?”
See now, this is why I didn’t want to talk about it. “Just ask what you came to ask, okay?”
“All right.” She draws in a deep breath. “My brother is hearing voices, Isaac. He thinks they’re spirits of the dead, like he heard in Shadowcrest. And I just found out that my father used to hear voices, too. I . . . I don’t know what to make of all that.”
“You’re worried that Tommy’s becoming a Shadow?”
“Is that possible?” she asks.
“Sensitivity does run in families. The original Jessica Drake was harvested because she was Gifted—” He pauses. “You know about that, right?”
Quietly she says, “I know.”
“So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think her blood relatives might manifest the same talent. But if the Seers thought Tommy was truly Gifted, they would have harvested him, too. So whatever ability he’s got must be minimal.”
“But why that Gift? Doesn’t it stretch the bounds of coincidence?” She spreads her hands wide. “I mean, why on earth would someone hide a Dreamwalker in a household full of necromancers? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Unless Tommy didn’t start out as a Shadow. Wasn’t that your original question?”
“He hears the dead,” she points out. “As did my father, apparently.” A shadow of pain passes over her face.
“You said that your father heard voices,” he reminds her. “There are plenty of Gifts which can manifest like that. Seers and Farspeakers, to name just two.” He shakes his head. “Tommy was emotionally vulnerable when he was a prisoner in Shadowcrest. He was surrounded by wraiths that may have mocked or even threatened him. It’s possible that survival instinct kicked in, molding whatever little talent he had into a useful form.”
Her brow furrows. “Is that kind of thing common?”
“No. But it’s not unheard of. We call it imprinting.”
“Is it permanent?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She exhales noisily. “So my little brother’s turning into a necromancer? Great.”
He smiles slightly. “Hearing the whispers of the dead isn’t the same thing as forcing spirits to do your bidding. At best he’ll become what your world calls a medium, able to sense the presence of ghosts and sometimes understand them, but no more than that. Mind you, most of what the dead have to say, you don’t want to hear anyway. Few of the spirits who cling to this world are sane.”
“Can you do that?” she asks suddenly. “Force spirits to do your bidding?”
His heart skips a beat as he realizes what she’s really asking. He chooses his words carefully. “Had I completed my apprenticeship, I might have mastered that art. But without proper training, without knowledge of the necessary rituals, I doubt I could do more than voice an emphatic request.”
“But you might be able to do more than that someday?”
“Maybe.” He says it quietly. “But not as soon as you would need me to.”
There is silence. It’s all out on the table now. All his secrets. All her need.
“I have to find answers,” she says. “About what I am, what I’m going to become. Most of all, about how to kill the reapers before they kill me. There’s a place where I think I can find those answers, but I’m going to have to search for it. And once I get there, the reapers might be waiting.” She holds out a hand toward him. “Come with me, Isaac.”
For a moment his throat is so dry he can’t force words out. “I . . . I . . . that’s not possible . . .”
“Why? Is there somewhere else you have to be?” A corner of her mouth twitches slightly.
“The Greys will never let me pass through a Gate with this mark on my face. And even if they would . . .” He hesitates. “I can’t hold the reapers at bay for you. And I don’t know how to destroy them.”
“But you understand their nature. So you can help me find someone else who knows how to destroy them. Someone who doesn’t answer to the Shadowlords. Or maybe find rituals you can use yourself.”
He turns away from her. He’s trembling now, partly from fear, partly from the desperate hunger to have purpose again. That’s what she’s really offering him: hope. “You don’t understand,” he whispers. “I’m marked. You couldn’t travel discreetly if I was with you.”
“So hide the mark.”
“How? A hat won’t cover all of it. Or a scarf.”
“Makeup.”
“Tried it. Doesn’t stick. At least, not anything I’ve been able to steal.” He laughs weakly. “It’s not like I can walk into a beauty salon and ask for help.”
“But if we could find a way to make it work,” she pressed, “Would you help me?”
He wraps his arms around himself. He wants purpose so badly. He wants hope. He wants her. “If I could help you destroy the reapers, I would. You know that.”
“Yes,” she says quietly. �
��I do.” There is a pause, then a soft chuckle. “I guess I should go back and tell my kid brother he’s turning into a necromancer. And a shitty necromancer, at that.”
He turns back to look at her. He wants to reach out and touch her, but he doesn’t know how. So he just stares at her, praying it’s not pity that he sees in her eyes.
“Take care of yourself,” she whispers.
And then she’s gone.
Suddenly his legs feel weak. He wishes there was somewhere to sit down that didn’t involve piles of bones, but there isn’t, so he just stands where he is, staring at the space she occupied. Trying to imagine her still there.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Jacob’s sudden speech from behind startles him. The dead boy is talking in Isaac’s voice, expressing Isaac’s thoughts. “If the Shadows find out you’re helping her, they may rethink their decision to let you live.”
No, he thinks, it isn’t wise. Does that make a difference?
In the distance, along the horizon, a hint of color begins to seep into the sky.
6
MANASSAS
VIRGINIA
JESSE
THE BLACK PLAIN TREMBLES beneath my feet, its surface rippling like water as I walk. Unsolid. The feeling that I might fall through it at any moment is terrifying, but I force myself to keep walking. I must keep walking. The doors nearest my entrance point hold no answers for me, I know that, and so I must risk a longer journey, trusting that the black water surface of my inner mind will not betray me.
Is the new instability my fault? Is my dream vista reflecting my own fears back at me? Or is there some external cause? How I ache to find a teacher who could explain these things to me! How tired I am of guessing, soul-weary of stumbling blindly through dreamscape after dreamscape, figuring out the rules of my Gift by trial and error. I starve for guidance.
The doors surrounding me were jagged arches when I first arrived, but I have transformed them into gleaming Arabian arches, like the ones that were there when the avatar invader appeared in my dreams. Will that make it easier to find her? Maybe. Once more, I am guessing.
I don’t think the reapers can come here—their previous appearances have all been within other people’s dreams—but if they do, I’m ready. Worlds away, my mother is holding my hand, her finger pressed against the pulse in my wrist. The minute I experience any major agitation she’ll know it, and she’ll call me back.
That much I have learned, at least.
I walk past dozens of arches. Hundreds of arches. Though the images behind them are only dreams, I know now, each one reflects the mind of the person who created it, and it echoes that person’s world like a warped mirror. The nearer arches will lead me to worlds not unlike my own, created by people not unlike myself. Since those won’t help me find the one I seek, I keep walking.
What will her reaction be if I do find her? The last time I saw her she tried to attack me, and if not for the sudden appearance of the reaper she might have succeeded. If I do manage to locate her, will she attack me again? Or will the fact that we’re both Dreamwalkers allow me to establish some kind of camaraderie, so that she’ll be willing to share information with me?
She knows where the changing tower is. More to the point, she knows what it is. One moment a cathedral, the next a ziggurat, or a vaulted tomb. Is it just a dream symbol, or does the building really exist somewhere? The boy in the Weaver’s camp had seen it, and the reaper who attacked me had been there, so its significance is beyond question. Can I find the answers I seek within those inconstant walls? Or at least an indication of where I should search for them? All instinct insists that I can. But what if instinct can’t be trusted, if I’m so desperate for enlightenment that my mind will grasp any hope it is offered?
Stopping for a moment, I shut my eyes and breathe deeply, turning my focus inward. Concentrate, Jesse. Concentrate. I’m going to try to find my dream invader the same way I once found Sebastian, by focusing my mind on her and letting instinct guide my steps. But my connection to Sebastian was much stronger, and I don’t have an artifact to guide me. All I can do is create an image of her in my mind and hope it will be enough. I force myself to see her: slender, youthful, androgynous, with the spiked black hair and impossibly wide eyes of an anime character, and strange golden patterns swirling around her body. I have no idea what she really looks like, so I focus on the image she has presented to me in dreams, hoping it can connect me to its creator.
Golden patterns begin to flicker inside my eyelids, gone too quickly for me to remember them. Strains of music accompany them, exotic alien melodies that resonate within my flesh, as if their source were inside me. The patterns are similar to some I’ve drawn myself, tracing my journeys through the dreamscape. Are they maps? If I follow the right one, will it lead me to the avatar? I concentrate on those patterns with all my might, trying to sense if one is more important than the others. But to no avail. And then they all fade from my mind, and the music gives way to silence. I mutter a curse under my breath and open my eyes, meaning to resume my search.
The avatar girl is there.
She’s standing a good distance away, her hand resting on one of the arches as if she is ready to flee through it at any moment. She looks much the same as I remember her, except that now her hair is arranged in a kind of mullet, with short spikes on top and a long, thickly plaited braid hanging down over one shoulder. There is a small striped feather fixed to the end of the braid. Golden patterns twitch across her body like spastic spiders, and I realize suddenly that they are bits of the mystical maps that reveal the paths one must follow to get from world to world. The girl’s a living atlas.
For a moment we just stare at each other. I’m afraid to move, afraid to speak, lest any change in the situation might cause her to turn and run, like she did the last time. But then I remind myself that she came here of her own volition. I called to her, and she came. That’s a powerful statement of intent.
“I’m not an enemy.” I say it slowly, spreading my hands wide, as if to show her that I’m not holding a weapon. She continues to look wary, and says nothing. “The reaper attacked me,” I remind her. “It’s my enemy as well as yours. We’re on the same side.”
Still she doesn’t respond. Does she not understand English? She’s never said a word to me, so I don’t have a clue. But then, very slowly, she lowers her hand from the arch. She still looks like a deer about to bolt for cover, but the message of the movement seems clear. We’ve passed our first hurdle.
“I’m a Dreamwalker,” I tell her. “Like you.” I’m watching her closely for reaction as I speak, trying to read her. Though she doesn’t nod, something in the way she looks at me confirms that yes, I’m really standing in front of another Dreamwalker, one who knows how our shared Gift works. A sense of relief washes over me, followed by wonder. There’s so much I want to ask her, to learn from her! But we’re not there yet, not by a long shot.
Slowly I walk toward her, and though she looks nervous, she doesn’t back away. Soon we are only a few yards apart, and I can now see that her skin is unnaturally smooth, her eyelashes spaced so perfectly that they look like they’ve been painted on. According to Tommy, what I’m looking at is an avatar, an image that this person designed to represent herself. Its creator could be an alien from Mars for all I know. Or from any other planet where people think sticking feathers in mullets is a good idea.
What matters is that she’s a Dreamwalker. I’m not alone any more. The sudden shift in mindset is dizzying, and my lips feel so dry I have to wet them with my tongue before speaking. “The tower,” I manage at last. “The one in our dream.” Our dream—our shared dream—what a wondrous concept! “It’s important, isn’t it? Some kind of fortress? Or meeting place?” I sketch the shape of the tower with my hands, just in case she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
A flicker of pain comes into her eyes, but she says nothing.
“Where is it?” I press. “How can I find it? At least tell me that much.” Tell me anything! I want to scream. Don’t leave me in ignorance!
Slowly she reaches out toward me. Her hand is curled into a fist as if she’s holding something. Does she want me to take it from her? She’s standing too far away for an easy transfer, so I just wait for some clear indication of what she wants me to do. Then she loosens her grip slightly and sand begins to trickle out from between her fingers: golden sand, the same color as the map-designs on her body. It cascades to the ground in a thin, glimmering waterfall, and as she moves her hand a pattern takes shape on the ground between us. Intricate, delicate in its detail, hauntingly familiar. As more and more details are drawn with sand-trickles, I suddenly recognize where I know it from. Parts of it are from the design that I once saw a Shadow invoke in Mystic Caverns, before passing through that Gate—the pattern that led to Terra Prime. But there is more to this one, and I find myself mesmerized as the design on the floor grows larger and larger, until its outermost details almost reach my feet. A strange music fills the air, alien in melody, unbearably beautiful; it seeps into my skin, my flesh, my soul. I am the music. I am the pattern. I am the pathway between two worlds, which leads to a place that has no name. I am the gateway.
And then, suddenly, the music is gone. The design in front of me grows dim, its magic extinguished. I look around for the avatar girl, but all that I see is the feather from her hair, lying in the center of the sand pattern. As I lean down to pick it up my movement stirs a breeze that scatters the sand, erasing the pattern. Now there is nothing left of her but the feather in my hand. I don’t know what it signifies, but the message of the sand painting seems clear. Either the tower that I seek is on Terra Prime, or there is a path there that will lead me to it. To find the changing tower, I must return to the world of my birth. The world of my enemies.
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