The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults)

by Robert Scanlon

  “What did I say?”

  “You said; ‘Breathe and feel your love for Paolo’.”

  Nathan blushed. “Ah yes. Well. Good thing it worked.”

  “Good thing you remembered you had a heart.” Sarina beamed at him some more.

  Nathan cleared his throat. “Right. Thanks. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, Paolo. Good to have you back, Paolo!”

  Paolo nodded and smiled. “Thanks. It’s good to be back. And even better that I can see my mother’s face again. Mother, why don’t you go to Lucio? He will want to be reassured that you are safe. We have some unfinished business here.”

  Eva smiled and tousled Paolo’s hair. “Already thinking of your brother. You are right. I will go and spread the news.” She nodded at the others and started walking back to the forest.

  “So what do we do with him?” Paolo gestured to Makthryg, who was moving in slow motion and trying to escape the net. Several townsmen had secured ropes around him and were waiting for instruction from Andreas.

  Sarina looked around and frowned. “And where is Valkrog?”

  Tomas returned, sliding the arrows he had gone to retrieve back into his quiver. “When that crazy noise was filling our ears and that wave of energy rose up,” he pointed his finger up into the sky, “I was keeping watch on that ugly bird-man. He was crawling away from our sorcerer friend here,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the sorcerer in the net, “then, when the energy exploded,” he struggled to find the right words and looked at Sarina, “he vanished. I mean vanished, pffft like this,” he snapped his fingers, “into thin air.”

  Sarina looked at Tomas and shrugged, lost for words, unable to grasp what had happened to the creature.

  “I suppose we assume he was banished, or vaporised, or …” she trailed off.

  “I had hoped to kill him myself,” Paolo said. “To avenge my father. But he is finally gone, and that is all that matters.”

  “Whatever happened to Valkrog,” Andreas said, putting his hand on Sarina’s shoulder, “you have proved that you are his better.” Then he went down onto one knee, took her hand in his and kissed it. “Thank you, Sarina. You are incredibly brave. As are you two,” he looked at Paolo and Nathan.

  “Ah, thank you,” Nathan said, “I don’t do kisses.” He flicked a glance at Makthryg, then back to Andreas. “Anyway, Paolo has a point. What do you plan for him?”

  Andreas pursed his lips, thinking and looking over at the net. “My hunch is that his power has been diminished due to your efforts. But we should be careful.” He looked back at Nathan. “Do you have any ideas? You do seem to be the ideas man,” he said, smiling.

  Nathan looked at Sarina who was now laughing, then back at Andreas. “Well I do actually, now that you ask. It just came to me when Tomas was explaining what he saw happen to Valkrog. It’ll take a few moments to explain but I reckon we can do it here and now.” He raised an eye at Andreas and Tomas.

  “Do go on,” Andreas said, grinning, “it already sounds fascinating.”

  Nathan explained how they could add negative energy into the plasma to create a vacuum. “Ah, it will involve the use of dark energy,” he glanced nervously at Sarina, but she was looking at the man in the net. “So we’ll have to take care to make the containment field first.”

  They walked over to the men guarding Makthryg, and spread out until they encircled the defeated sorcerer.

  Makthryg had exhausted himself in his slow struggle, unable to summon a curse or overcome the magic Sarina had used. He eyed them suspiciously as all five of them joined hands and encircled him.

  Sarina stared at him and wondered what had caused the injury to his leg. She shrugged. Must have been an energy ricochet when she hit Valkrog. Anyway, he was immobilised and that was what mattered.

  “Sarina, are you feeling OK for this?” Nathan said.

  “Oh yes. Sorry, I was just thinking about something, but it’s not important.” She smiled at Nathan. “My energy is refreshed and I am most certainly completely OK for this. Let’s give him what he deserves.”

  All five gripped hands in readiness.

  She nodded to Paolo and Nathan to begin and straight away they felt a fast vibration in the air, humming around them. Sarina inhaled deeply, nodded her head and a small red glow sprang into life into everyone’s intertwined hands.

  “Ready?” she said. Everyone nodded. The red glow snaked out and joined itself to form a rope-like circle running through all their hands.

  The five of them advanced inwards, pushing the glowing circle in towards Makthryg, who cowered inside the net. He tried to speak. “No! I meant no harm! All I wanted was to make things better. Noooo …” he shrank away from the red energy and flinched as it touched first the net and then him—but instead of inflicting pain and death as he had appeared to expect, the red light spread out, shimmering and covered both him and the net.

  “What do you plan to—” but he never finished his sentence—well not that Sarina could tell anyway—as the red glowing net, along with Makthryg, was whisked up into the sky, where it hovered momentarily before flashing away out of sight over the horizon.

  “Well that worked,” Nathan said releasing his grip from the others and looking into the sky. “Though I’m not exactly sure how far away we managed to send him. Hopefully it won’t matter. If my calculations are correct, the energy we stored in that net should hold him for quite some time.”

  Tomas and Andreas were both inspecting their hands.

  “Would you have believed this was possible, Tomas?” Andreas said looking back at his friend.

  “No, I would not,” Tomas said softly, turning his gaze to the point at the horizon where the sorcerer was last seen. “Our world has changed indeed.”

  ~~~

  The entire party regrouped and headed into the forest trail that led back to the township, where the women and children were emerging from where they had been hiding, shaking leaves and debris from their clothes.

  Lucio stood next to his mother, who pointed out Paolo, then he ran out to meet his older brother and stopped a short distance away, too shy to speak.

  Paolo crouched down. “Hello, Lucio. The last time I saw you, you were only a baby. You’ve grown.”

  The boy stared a moment, then broke into a beaming smile and rushed over to hug his brother. Paolo laughed and looked over the small boy’s head at Sarina.

  “It’s great to see him laugh like that, isn’t it?” Nathan said.

  “It sure is—” Sarina was interrupted by a young girl who had run up to her from the group and was tugging at her hand.

  “Are you really a witch?” the star-struck girl asked.

  “Um, well, I really don’t know. Maybe,” she said starting to laugh.

  The girl giggled. “You’re the bestest witch I’ve ever met!” she said and pulled Sarina along to parade her in front of the others.

  Sarina looked back at Nathan, who rolled his eyes.

  Before long, they were back at the township, arriving at the same time as another much larger party of men, women and children emerged from the woods close by. Andreas looked at Paolo and answered the question in his eyes. “Some of the townsmen volunteered to go to the fortress and lay in wait. They hoped to free the rest of the women and children, which was courageous since they couldn’t be sure we would succeed. I imagine they saw our fireworks and risked an assault. It’s been a long time, but we’re reunited at last.”

  Sarina, Paolo and Nathan walked down Main Street, arriving in the Town Square, exhausted and triumphant. An impromptu cheer broke out and women, children and men started to line the streets and clap. Nathan looked at Sarina. “Could you ever imagine, I mean ever imagine?”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “No, not even this mentally-deranged artist would have said this was possible!”

  “I didn’t mean …” Nathan faltered.

  “It’s OK,” Sarina said with a grin as they walked past the townspeople, still cheering, and up into the same
building where Nathan had unveiled his plan earlier, “I was just taking what might possibly be my only chance to make the great Nathan feel uncomfortable.”

  Nathan looked sheepish. “I promise I will never make fun of anyone who is, er … ‘different’ to me again.” He looked at Sarina, hoping she would believe him.

  They sat at the same table, but this time the room was packed to standing room only, with men, women and children all keen to hear the story of the great vanquishing of Makthryg by the Orange Witch.

  “Andreas! Tomas!” shouted a voice from the back, a red-headed man pushing his way through the throng.

  “Rocco!” Tomas hugged his friend, and pushed him back, holding his shoulders and looking him in the eye, “I’m glad to see you are safe and sound!”

  Paolo jumped up. “Rocco! I have to thank you for saving me.” He tried to throw his arms around the man, but Rocco was staring at Paolo in disbelief, as were some of the women and children.

  “Paolo!” Rocco said astonished. “You can speak!”

  “And hear,” Paolo added.

  “Then it truly is a miraculous day.” The man smiled and thumped Paolo on the shoulder. “Sit down, Paolo and we’ll have your tale now.”

  “And then may we have some food?” Nathan said looking hopeful, and the room erupted in laughter.

  Andreas climbed up onto the table and motioned for quiet. “Hush. I will tell you how we were successful, thanks to this amazing strategist and our own witch.” He winked at Nathan and Sarina.

  “We came to understand that Makthryg was searching for a special compound and would be attracted by the idea of us leading him to it. We faked an attempt to rescue the women and children from the stockade and tricked him into thinking he had the better of us by allowing ourselves to be caught. It didn’t quite go as planned,” he looked at Sarina, who was rubbing her side, remembering the electric vines.

  “Nonetheless, we were successful in setting the trap, and Makthryg and Valkrog were deceived into thinking we had failed. What is more, they became distracted at the thought of finding the Xtrium.

  “We were reliant on good timing and some hastily arranged signals,” he looked down and smiled at Nathan, “which worked perfectly.

  “Tomas was able to lead the men in and overpower the guards, while Paolo and Sarina and Nathan joined together to activate their”—he grappled for the words—“power and set Nathan’s idea into motion.”

  “Which was?” asked one of the elders with a raised eye.

  “Which was ingenious.”

  Nathan was trying to avoid the stares and attention as everyone peered in and tried to get a glimpse of the young man who had appeared in their world to become one of their saviours.

  Andreas continued.

  “Ingenious because, in their world,” he swept his arms across Sarina and Nathan, “they are privy to information about the very makeup of matter”—gasps and whistles flew around the room, but Andreas ignored them—“and our friend here deduced that by combining Sarina’s power and his knowledge of ‘moll-eck-yules’,” he struggled with the unfamiliar word and looked at Nathan who nodded confirmation, “that they would be able to transmute the Xtrium into another substance with a very similar structure.”

  “As I understand it, this would only be possible if they were in close proximity to the Xtrium and with both Makthryg and Valkrog distracted enough to allow them to enact their magic. A brave feat indeed.”

  The crowd started to clap, but stopped when Nathan jumped up onto the table to join Andreas. Nathan carried on. “The bravery was from Andreas and all of you in risking the idea of a schoolboy. In our world, transmutation has been attempted many times over hundreds of years and never achieved.”

  Andreas looked at Nathan sharply. “You didn’t tell us that!”

  Nathan looked down and picked at his t-shirt, embarrassed. “Ah yes, I didn’t think it was wise.” He looked up at Andreas, but Andreas was grinning.

  “What did the transmutation change the Xtrium into?” called a voice from the back, “what was this similar molly-kewel?”

  Nathan hesitated. “It’s a bit complicated actually. When I researched the blue stuff in our world, I had a hunch that it had something to do with a substance we call fluorite. I knew that some fluorites had been found to have a blue glow, and I discovered it was due to a rare earth called europium …” he stopped and looked at the crowd, who had fallen silent. “Is this too much information?”

  The room broke out into laughter again and Andreas slapped Nathan on the back. “Carry on my friend, carry on. These strange names and your science have us all enthralled—not bored!”

  Nathan nodded, feeling strangely shy. “Ok, well, ah …” He cleared his throat, found some energy and straightened to address the wide-eyed crowd.

  “This europium is super-dangerous, I mean they use it to make lasers and it’s also radioactive and toxic—” he saw the blank looks that had appeared when he mentioned lasers and radioactive and realised he had gone off into geek land again, so he changed direction.

  “Anyway, even in our world, it is super-dangerous, but who knew what could happen in this world if it was combined with Makthryg’s curses?” He shrugged and carried on, “But I thought that because before we had been able to use Sarina’s powers to neutralise the gas”—he had to stop because the crowd had erupted again, this time cheering and yelling and clapping. He waited for the applause to die down and continued—“then maybe we could also alter, er, transmute … the structure of the Xtrium into a similar, but inert metal, maybe a phosphorous-type element or something …” He noticed the blank looks again and sped up.

  “It worked, but I think that it was affected by Makthryg’s simultaneous curse and it went dangerously out of control. We were lucky that Sarina was able to use her powers and she sent a bolt of some orange energy into it. I’m guessing that this, ah, accelerated and distorted the transmutation process quite unexpectedly, because we didn’t end up changing the Xtrium into another similar metal at all.”

  The crowd were murmuring and making appreciative sounds and looking at Sarina with admiration when the voice from the back piped up again. “So what did yer end up changing it to? Do yer know?”

  Nathan reddened and, bending down, reached into his bag for something and stood up.

  “Yes,” he said, holding up a bunch of orange vegetables for all to see. “Carrots.”

  The room burst into hysterics, with many men women and children clutching their sides and slapping backs, and eventually applause at the sheer audacity of it all.

  ~ 34 ~

  The Project

  Paolo, Lucio, Eva, Andreas and Tomas waited to one side while the remaining townsmen finished their goodbyes and moved back from the treehouse.

  Tomas walked up to them both and took their hands. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You will always be welcome in my home.” He bowed and turned away, returning to the men.

  “Aw shucks,” Nathan said, “there’s no—”

  Sarina held her hand over his mouth. “Don’t say anything. You’ll spoil it. It’s already hard. For all of us.” She had tears in her eyes.

  Nathan nodded, her hand still over his mouth. She released it as Eva came to say goodbye.

  Eva hugged Nathan, then turned to Sarina. “You gave me back my son. I’m so happy. For five years I ached to know how he fared, and who he was growing into. Now I see a young man, who, thanks to you both, has found himself. And his family.” She embraced Sarina for a long time, then released one arm and beckoned Nathan to join them, pulling him in tight. “I cannot help but think that Paolo has found another brother and sister.” She released them and pulled something from her tunic. “Here,” she gave a hand-braided wristband to each of them. “I want you to have these to remind you of us. May you travel in peace.”

  She smiled and returned to her sons.

  Andreas came forward and spoke.

  “My friends, I cannot thank you enough. Before you
came, we had run out of hope. Now we have our women and children back, we are secure from threats by Makthryg and Valkrog; and Paolo can speak and hear again.” He smiled, his eyes glowing with pride. “You must return. Perhaps we can build a better waystation for you?” He indicated the treehouse and they all laughed.

  He gave a brief nod of respect and walked back to join Tomas.

  Paolo, all smiles, walked up with Lucio and yanked them all into a tangled embrace. They pulled apart and looked at each other.

  “What an adventure. Our world will never be the same again, now that we have encountered the Orange Witch and The Scientist.” Paolo grinned. “But I will not say goodbye, because I am certain I will see you again”—he lowered his voice—“in my dreams.”

  Sarina nodded, brushing away a tear. “I hope so, Paolo, I hope so. But let’s not forget little Lucio here. Maybe he can dream with you too?”

  “Andreas says Paolo snores.” The boy looked disgusted. Paolo grinned and tickled his brother. “Go back to Mother, Lucio. I have to share a moment with my friends.”

  The boy smiled at Sarina and Nathan and ran back, stopping to give a wave.

  Sarina waved back and looked at Paolo. “Our own adventure isn’t over yet. I am pretty sure we have a lot of explaining to do when we get back.”

  Nathan agreed. Privately he had been worried. He’d even considered on a couple of occasions if it might be simpler and safer to stay in the valley, rather than face the Chief Inspector again. He stepped forward and held out his hand to Paolo. “Paolo, it’s been a real honour,” he paused, “I think if I hadn’t met you and felt your cry for help, I would have continued to be a real—”

  “Pain in the butt?” Sarina finished.

  “Yeah.” Nathan sounded disgusted with himself. “Thanks to you too Sarina, I …” he stumbled, “I am truly sorry for being such an arrogant moron.”

  “Oh shut up,” Sarina said. “You’ve got a lot of redeeming to do if you’re going to help me stay out of Frenchstone.” Her face fell. “Oh dear. I almost forgot. Stratfords. What do we do about that? You’ll have to answer to the police for kidnapping me; and I’ve got to talk my way out of being put straight back in there.” She shivered.