LURAY
VIRGINIA PRIME
JESSE
WE DECIDED TO TAKE THE TRAIN. A zeppelin might have been nearly as fast, as it could travel in a straight line over geographical obstacles, but in the end we agreed that it lacked one important feature: our ability to jump out if there was unexpected trouble. Granted, that wouldn’t be easy to do from a moving train either, but at least there was a chance of not dying in the process. Zeppelin travel was all-or-nothing.
It was sobering reflection on the nature of our journey that we had to plan for such things.
We booked passage on a train that would take us to the last station in the western provinces, after which we would have to find another means of travel. We were wary of spending too much money at the start of our journey, but we paid for six tickets in order to have a small sleeper cabin all to ourselves, figuring the privacy was worth it. The berths were shallow slots set high in the wall, accessed by built-in ladders, with curtains for privacy. I was reminded of the Edgar Allen Poe story The Premature Burial, where a man wakes up in a dark, enclosed space and thinks that he’s been buried alive, only to discover that he’s sleeping in a ship’s berth. Other than that the train was pleasant enough, and its polished wood, brass, and leather decor reminded me of movies I’d seen of the old Orient Express.
None of us relaxed until the train finally pulled out of the station, but once it started moving the tension bled out of everyone, and I slumped in my seat as if my bones were dissolving, my heart slowing to a normal pace for the first time in hours. No one had tried to stop us from leaving Luray, and the only threats we had to worry about now were those that were present on this one train. Our fears had become finite.
Soon the cities of the Shenandoah Valley (or whatever they called it here) faded into the distance, and the train began a gently twisting course through the mountains and valleys of Victoria Forest. Our cabin had a southern exposure, which meant it was awash with sunlight, so I took out my portable solar charger and set it up on the seat beside me, my backpack shielding it from the view of anyone passing by. I figured this was as good a time as any to harvest some sunshine.
“What are you doing?” Isaac demanded.
“Charging my stuff.” I pulled out the e-reader I’d brought with me and plugged it in. Terra Prime might differ from Terra Colonna in the fine points of its history, but physically the two worlds were identical, so I’d loaded the device with every map of the American southwest that I could find. Better safe than sorry.
But from the look on Isaac’s face you’d have thought I was torturing small animals. “Electrical?”
“Yes. Of course electrical. Why? Do you work for customs now?” I started to slide my e-reader into the charger’s storage pocket, but to my surprise he reached over and yanked the plug out of its socket and pushed the device away.
“Hey!”
“You know the rules, Jesse.”
“Who’s going to see it?” I indicated the barrier I’d erected to block it from sight. “I was careful.”
“You don’t know who’s on this train.”
“No one looking in will know—”
“Jesse, there are people who can sense electromagnetic activity. And it’s not impossible that one of them is on board.”
“You didn’t have an issue with my flashlight in the Warrens.”
“Because no one was going to detect a brief spark of power down there. Or if they did, it was unlikely they’d crawl through filthy tunnels to find the source. But now we’re on a cross country route, one of very few that goes as far as the western provinces. If someone wanted to ship contraband to that region, this train would be a great way to do it. Some of our fellow passengers might be customs agents assigned to watch for just that.”
I remembered the e-reader I’d given Sebastian in Luray. He’d seemed happy enough with it at the time. Had he been unaware of the existence of electricity enforcers? Given how obsessive he was about collecting information, it seemed unlikely. But he was also a child of the eighteenth century, I reminded myself, not the twenty-first, and probably had no innate understanding of how electromagnetism worked, or the fact that the e-reader’s subtle emanations could be detected through a closed door.
He understood it now. I could see it in his eyes.
“All right.” I closed the solar charger and began to fold it up. “No charging. But now you have to explain to me why electricity is such an issue here. It’s not like your people don’t know what it can do, since they visit our world all the time. And it’s not like it’s hard to generate power.” I remembered Tommy’s comment, “Two wires and a potato and you’re up and running. So what’s the problem?”
I expected some long, convoluted explanation, with Gifted greed and/or Guild paranoia woven into it. Or maybe no explanation at all. But instead he simply said, “It inhibits Gifts.” And I was totally taken aback, because damn, that made sense. I remembered Devon’s dad telling us how our fetter lamp was triggered by the electromagnetic field of the human body. “So if I shine my flashlight on you, you won’t be able to talk to the dead?”
“That’s overstating it a bit. A device that small won’t have any measureable effect. But on a world like yours, where the very air is teeming with electromagnetic energy, everything gets harder. Gifts are more difficult to invoke and less effective. Our world decided long ago that such technology isn’t worth the price, and since it would be nearly impossible to control it once it was established, they banned it altogether.”
Had dreamwalking been harder back home? I had so little experience with my Gift it was hard to be sure, but certainly it was possible. “By they, I assume you mean the Gifted.”
Sebastian muttered, “Is there anyone else whose opinion matters?”
Isaac shot him a glare. “We have our own kind of tech here.”
Yes, I thought, but anyone on my world can buy a flashlight at Walmart. On your world, the equivalent tech would be a customized fetter from a Lightbringer, crafted by a Weaver, and I’ll bet that’s way more expensive than a tube of plastic and a couple of batteries. Thus you limit the amount of tech your lower classes can access, and give the Gifted upper class yet another way to control society. Don’t tell me that wasn’t a factor in their decision.
Little wonder there were people who specialized in detecting electronic contraband. Gifted tourists from Terra Prime would have a vested interest in supporting the system, so they were unlikely to bring forbidden items back home. But with the unGifted, like Tommy said . . . two wires and a potato. If dreams could bleed from one world to the next, then surely some people on this world had seen visions of what electromagnetic energy could do to transform their lives. Surely some understood that electrical power could serve as an equalizer, lessening their dependence upon the ruling elite. Nipping those dreams in the bud must be a full time job.
I thought about the Fleshcrafter who had healed Mom. Would she have eaten fewer donuts if the air around her hadn’t been buzzing with stray cellphone signals and electromagnetic bleed from the toaster oven? The thought was almost too bizarre to grasp. “All right, what about plastic, then? Why is that banned?”
Isaac and Sebastian looked at each other.
“What?” I asked. Their expressions made me feel like I’d stumbled into a mine field.
“Terra Fuentes,” Sebastian’s tone was unusually solemn, even for him. “Wasn’t that the name of it?”
Isaac shook his head. “Phagia Fuentes, if you’re referring to the source world. It was reclassified.”
“Whoa!” I said. “In English, please?” Then I added, “My kind of English?”
Lips tight, Isaac nodded. “Terra Fuentes was a world like yours. A bit ahead of you in its technology, but following the same general pattern. By the middle of last century they’d dumped enough plastic into their oceans to kill off several species, and their environmentali
sts demanded a better solution than looking at pictures of dead turtles and feeling guilty. So they developed a bacteria that could digest polymers. They made it incapable of reproducing, so it couldn’t spread on its own, and gave it a lifespan of only a few days, just long enough for the specimens they created in a lab to do their job.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Please tell me this story isn’t heading where I think it is.”
“The initial tests went well, so they took it out into the middle of the ocean and sprayed it on some floating junk. And it worked. Polymers in the ocean were digested, and harmless compounds were excreted. Ecological salvation was at hand.”
“It mutated?”
“I don’t know the exact science involved. In school we’re taught that ‘Nature defies restriction,’ and Terra Fuentes is the prime example of what happens if you try to ignore that. By the time the altered bacteria got to shore, it was too late for anyone to stop it. Not that people didn’t try. Desperately.” He leaned forward in his seat. “Imagine what would happen to your world if all plastics suddenly disappeared. Devices dissolving in your hands, polymer adhesives disappearing—”
“Planes would fall from the sky,” I murmured. “Communication would fail. Utter chaos.”
“Terra Fuentes is a failed world now. And the bacteria that destroyed it is still active, and very contagious. It spread to half a dozen spheres in the Terran cluster before we could get an effective quarantine in place, and there are probably still reservoirs of the bacteria hidden on less travelled worlds. One person passing through an infected area could spread the plague to a hundred new locations.”
“So is that what happened on Terra Prime?”
He shook his head. “No. It hasn’t arrived here yet. But given how much our people travel, infection is inevitable. We went off the polymer standard decades ago, not only to protect ourselves, but to avoid infecting other spheres.” He paused. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I drew in a deep breath. “Because in all the time I’ve been here, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone express concern for the welfare of other worlds.”
For a moment he just stared at me. There were emotions in his eyes I couldn’t give a name to, but they were dark and pained, and I sensed they were rooted in memories I might not want to know about.
“Those who have the power of life and death over entire worlds don’t take it lightly,” he told me. And without further word Isaac got up and left the cabin.
Shadowcrest is empty.
I walk past abandoned buildings that stand tall in the darkness, like ghostly sentinels. Tonight there is no light coming from the windows. Tonight there are no workmen in the yard. I am alone.
I know that I’m dreaming, because these days I always know when I’m dreaming, but this scene lacks the sense of urgency that usually accompanies dreamwalking. It’s just a simple dream, a natural vision, the kind of sleeping fantasy that other people have all the time and forget upon awakening. I probably have dreams like this every night, because the human mind can’t function without dreaming, but after all my dreamwalking it feels . . . strange.
I find myself walking toward one of the abbie dormitories, where the Shadows’ slave hominids are housed. Something important is inside it, I know. Something I have forgotten. As I walk, letting instinct guide me, I wonder if the reapers can find me here. One of them attacked my mother, and she wasn’t dreamwalking, so that suggests they can enter normal dreams. But if that’s true, why haven’t they killed me yet? They’ve had enough chances. It’s a paradox I don’t know how to resolve.
The dormitory is cold and grey and nearly windowless, and sadness is draped over it like a shroud. This is where Devon and Rita and I came when we were trying to sneak into Shadowcrest through a service tunnel. Back then there were abbies in the building, and we had to take care not to be seen by them. Tonight there is only silence; no one exists in this universe but me. Again I have the sense that this dream matters, that something is here my sleeping mind wants me to see.
I walk to the common room and pause in the doorway. This is where the dream has been leading me, I realize. Opposite me is the mural the abbies created, an entire wall covered with lines and patterns and shapes and random bits of scenery, a mad scrambling together of images that seem to have nothing to do with each other. The image wavers in my vision as I stare at it, fading in and out of focus as my mind struggles to recall its details. I only spent a few minutes looking at it that night, and we were all pretty distracted, focused as we were on sneaking past the Shadows’ security. I don’t remember enough to conjure a clear image.
Something in that mural matters. It matters a lot. But I don’t know why.
My neck was sore when I woke up. Apparently I’d dozed off while slumped against the window, probably from sheer exhaustion. Thanks to the state of my nerves, it was the first sleep I’d gotten since leaving Luray.
“Are you all right?” Isaac whispered. He’d been keeping watch while Sebastian and I slept.
I reached up to try to rub the crick out of my neck. “Yeah. How long was I out?”
“Barely an hour.” He nodded up toward the berths. “You should lie down and try for more.”
I looked up and saw Sebastian sleeping, tucked into one of the crypt shelves with the curtain half open. Given that he was used to sleeping in caves it was probably comfortable enough for him, but it still looked pretty unappealing to me. I went over to the other bench seat and began to move our bags aside so I could stretch out a bit. My backpack and Isaac’s still smelled a bit stale from the Warrens, so I moved them to the far side of the cabin. Next came Sebastian’s bag, a long black canvas duffel with a worn bedroll tied to it. As I moved it I could feel a long, rigid object inside it. I’d noticed the bag’s odd shape when he returned to the docks with it slung across his back, but I knew that he often hunted with a bow, so I figured he’d packed it for the trip. Or a hiking staff, maybe.
This was neither.
I hesitated, then glanced up at Sebastian. He was still sound asleep, and Isaac was busy reading a magazine he’d picked up in the dining car, something with a lead story about angry ghosts. I shut my eyes and asked myself if I really wanted to betray their trust by snooping through other people’s luggage, but my curiosity was just too strong. I positioned myself with my back to them, so they couldn’t see what I was doing, and eased the zipper of the duffel open just far enough to see what Sebastian had packed.
It was wrapped in protective cloth, but even so I had no problem identifying its shape. It was his musket.
I stared at it a moment, then asked, very quietly, “Hey, Isaac. Are there guns on your world?”
“Huh?” I heard Isaac put down his magazine. “Yes, of course. Not as many as on your world, I’d expect. Even the police rarely carry them.” I could hear a smile in his voice as he added, “No plastic ones, of course.”
Hand trembling slightly, I rezipped the bag and carefully put it aside. Why would Sebastian bring his musket with him? If he expected to have to shoot things on this trip, a modern rifle would be a much better choice. The musket was more about memories than firepower, a memento of the life Terra Prime had stolen from him. Why on earth would he bring it here, when we were facing such unknown dangers that he couldn’t guarantee its safety?
He’s not planning to go back to Luray, I realized. Even if we survive this.
For a moment all I could do was stare at the bag, wishing I hadn’t opened it. Then, finally, I lay down on the bench, drawing up my legs so I could fit. It wasn’t a comfortable position, but that was all right. I no longer felt like sleeping.
12
SHADOWCREST
VIRGINIA PRIME
AARON HARDT
THE HALLWAY LEADING TO Virilian’s audience chamber seemed unusually dark tonight, but the Secundus of the Soulriders hadn’t come to Shadowcrest recentl
y, so perhaps his memory of it was skewed. He certainly didn’t remember hearing the moaning of the dead last time he visited. Supposedly that was something only a Shadow could hear, though it was rumored that if the dead were numerous enough—and powerful enough—even the unGifted might become aware of them. The dead surrounding Virilian were both numerous and powerful, it seemed. And agitated.
He’d heard rumors that people were asking questions about the Shadowlord’s mental state. Virilian had always been bloodthirsty—to a degree that often dismayed his fellow Guildmasters—but no one had ever questioned his sanity before. His plans might have been twisted, even perverse, but there was always a rational purpose at their core. And who expected a Shadowlord to be compassionate, anyway? But things were changing now. Rumors from inside Shadowcrest suggested that Virilian’s own people were uneasy about his behavior. Having heard about the Shadowlord’s tirade against Dreamwalkers in the Guild Council, the Soulrider could understand why.
Maybe it would be better not to do this now. Maybe he should wait until things settled down within Shadowcrest before delivering his information to the Shadows’ Guildmaster.
Things are moving swiftly now, he reminded himself. If you delay your duty too long you may go down with Morgana.
Morgana. Sometimes he was so frustrated with her he could barely contain himself. What good would it to do bring down the Shadows if there was no one to replace them? How would Terra Prime function if no one could arrange safe passage between the worlds? Where would new slave stock come from if the abbies’ homeworld could no longer be raided, and how would the Guilds strengthen their bloodlines if they couldn’t steal promising babies from other worlds? Everything would fall to pieces.
We must lay the groundwork for change first, Morgana once told him. Then we will have new options. But the groundwork had been laid and no new options were in sight. A man had to protect himself as best he could.
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