Dreaming Death

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  Shironne felt the woman’s intellect stirring, like wind rustling through piles of leaves. Deborah Lucas, who tried very hard to control her thoughts, counting numbers in her head to keep her brain occupied. In the Family, that was how they were trained to control their errant emotions. That revelation made Shironne curious about how she’d come to the same conclusion herself a couple of years ago.

  Shironne felt the skin, a woman older than Mama, who’d had a child once. The muscles under her skin spoke of carrying and lifting. Deeper, Shironne sensed strong bones, not gone to brittleness with age. She felt down the length of the arm, up to the elbow, where bone scarred by an old break burned when the weather turned.

  Deborah’s thoughts winged near her fingers like birds, and Shironne knew she’d found what Deborah wanted her to find, because one of the birds told her. She lifted her fingers from Deborah’s arm. “You wanted to see if I could find where your sister broke your arm when you were seven.”

  Deborah rolled down her sleeve, brisk sounds. “Did you?”

  “Yes, but . . . I can’t be a doctor, ma’am. I can’t see.” She’d picked that idea out of Deborah’s head as well.

  “No. I don’t suppose that you could attend the college to study there. There are things you wouldn’t be able to do. However, you have the ability to see things that none of the rest of us can. The Family has records of sensitives like you who did an amazing variety of things with their talents—translators, doctors, engineers.”

  Deborah referred to her powers as talents, something she needed to remember. “Truly?”

  Deborah laughed, her amusement overriding her self-control. “Certainly, dear. It runs in certain bloodlines, although it’s not common.”

  “Are . . . were they all blind?”

  “No, I’ve only ever read of one being blind, and I have researched this quite a bit. We don’t know exactly how the inheritance of these things works.” She shifted out of her chair and then stood. “Tone deafness does run among sensitives, though, to varying degrees. Whatever you do, don’t ask Dahar to sing.”

  Shironne sensed humor behind that. Deborah actually regarded him fondly, Shironne decided, despite his lack of vocal ability. “I’ll remember that, ma’am. Do other talents run in Families, like Mr. Lee’s?”

  “His ability is extremely unusual,” Deborah qualified. Her voice took on a guarded tone, as if she didn’t want to say too much.

  “I’ve never heard anyone else’s dreams.”

  “There have been other dreamers. Mostly among, I must add, the House of Vandriyen. However, I’ve never before heard of one who combines that with Mikael’s ability to broadcast, nor of one who focuses on death as he does. He has what I perceive to be an unprecedented combination of talents.”

  Colonel Cerradine had told her most of that long ago, but without revealing any names. “So his parents didn’t have them?”

  “Just as yours apparently did not. Sensitives seem to be shaped not only by what they inherit from their parents, but also by what happens to them,” Deborah told her. “I have a theory that Mikael’s odd dreaming stems from his father’s death. I believe that Mikael was on his way to being comparatively normal, but as his father lay dying he reached out to Mikael, trying to tell him something. Perhaps who’d shot him; we don’t know for certain. But that experience triggered Mikael’s change from normalcy to this unique fixation on others’ deaths.”

  Shironne considered that idea, working out an analogy in her head. “Most of us are like clay balls, then, but a few are a different shape because someone smashed us before we were fired?”

  Deborah laughed. “Very impressive, Miss Anjir. Let’s say reshaped instead of smashed.”

  Reshaped sounds better. “So you think something made me odd as well?”

  “Well, I believe you had to inherit the possibility of it, dear, but the correct trigger was required to cause you to become such an extreme sensitive.”

  “What would have changed me?” Shironne asked.

  Deborah’s mind tucked itself away from that question, not wanting to divulge that answer. “It’s difficult to be certain,” she equivocated. “I understand you have a scar on your hand.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I fell once and cut my hand.”

  “May I look at it?”

  Shironne couldn’t guess at the reason behind the request. She tugged off the right glove and held her hand out, thinking that if Deborah took it, she might be able to find the answer.

  Two gloved hands took hers, rotating it slightly as if to improve the view. “It seems to have healed well. This happened when you were, what, eleven?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her mother had to have told the colonel about the embarrassing incident. “It seemed infected for a while, and Mama worried about it, but then it healed.”

  “How interesting,” came the enigmatic response. “Did you know that the Anvarrid cut their palms as part of their marriage rituals? They mingle their blood, an ancient custom, although most don’t make more than a tiny cut. That’s what this scar reminds me of.”

  Shironne sighed. “Yes, Mama told me that too.”

  “Ah. Tell me, dear, what do you know about the history of my people and our fortresses?”

  Shironne felt her brows drawing together as she tried to figure out where the doctor’s seemingly rambling thoughts had gone. “Not much. I learned Larossan history, not the Six Families.”

  “Then let me tell you a few important things. The Founders built the fortresses, breathed life into them, and ordered them to watch over each Family. But like any other living thing, sometimes one of the fortresses becomes ill. For that reason, the Founders also created touch-sensitives, a small cadre of individuals able to communicate with the fortress. A fortress could tell the sensitives what ailed it, and they, in turn, could fix it.”

  “It spoke to me,” Shironne said, suddenly feeling breathless.

  “Yes, Mikael told me you were quite startled.”

  “I didn’t realize it was alive,” she admitted. “I mean, legends say it’s alive, but I never thought it would talk.”

  Deborah reflected mild amusement. “Yes. Most people assume it’s alive in the same way that a mushroom or a potato is alive. Not very, I mean.”

  The mental image of the Family living in a giant potato floated into Shironne’s mind, and she had to press her lips together to keep a laugh inside. This wasn’t an appropriate time for humor. “But how do your people fix the fortress, then, if it can’t tell you what’s wrong anymore?”

  “I’m told there are ways of working around that problem,” Deborah said, “built in for the eventuality that the touch-sensitives—or interfaces, as they were once called—didn’t survive. You know from your own experience that when such abilities first manifest, it can be debilitating. Many touch-sensitives starve to death before they learn to tolerate food again, and some simply never learn to cope, and choose to join the snow.”

  Join the snow was a Family euphemism. Shironne knew that because Mikael knew it. There had been a time when those who couldn’t deal with life in the fortress would simply flee it in the winter and lie down in the snow to die. It was an ancient term, which carried a great deal of racial guilt behind it, because most people who did that had done so because they felt they were a burden to the Family. Shironne shook her head, not wanting to chase down the meanings of that at the moment.

  “So we manage without,” Deborah continued, “although the communication isn’t as clear as it would be if a touch-sensitive was there to interface with the fortress. Languages are naturally limiting, I’m told, especially when it comes to Anvarrid. However, my point is that the Families very quickly learned that touch-sensitives have myriad other uses. Translating, interrogation, investigation. I believe you’ve done all of those for the colonel at one point or another. And you’ve seen that your talents can be used in the medica
l sphere as well.”

  Shironne thought she finally understood. “So you want me to be a doctor for the Family.”

  “Hmm . . . not exactly where I was going with this, dear, but I have to admit I wouldn’t mind your help in the infirmary. Aron says you’re well versed now in human anatomy, although you’ve generally worked with dead specimens.”

  “Then what?”

  “You have abilities that are very useful to many people. Those talents, however, include the ability to walk into Mikael’s dreams. You may not be aware of this, but he usually manifests a reflection of the victim’s injuries. Almost as if he’s a living record of that information, because he can’t truly recall the dream himself, just as most of us forget our dreams.”

  Yes, there was a memory in Shironne’s mind now of Mikael waking with blood soaking his shirt, of short breath and tight lungs and fear. He’d done that the last time, forcing other sensitives to endure it. He feared it would kill him one day. He’d feared that for a couple of years now, because it had been growing worse and worse. Her breath grew a bit short in response.

  Another thing I shouldn’t know.

  Shironne took a deep breath. “You think I can help him, don’t you?”

  “I think that if you see into his dreams, he won’t have any need to show them to anyone else. I hope that having someone to interpret his dreams will cause him not to reflect the victims’ wounds.”

  “That would be better, wouldn’t it?” she asked aloud.

  “For Mikael? Without a doubt. Better for the sensitives in the fortress as well. But . . .” She paused, as if about to say something terrible. “He struggles to escape his dreams, like he can’t let go of the victim, and I fear that one day he’ll follow one down into death.”

  And she suddenly grasped exactly what the doctor intended with this conversation. For Deborah Lucas, it wasn’t about Shironne coming to help the Lucas Family with their lonely fortress. It wasn’t about aiding their doctors or finding murderers for Colonel Cerradine. Her powers had a more important use.

  The doctor didn’t care about helping the rest of the world nearly as much as she wanted Shironne to save Mikael Lee from his own dreams.

  And Deborah was pressing her—gently—to determine whether she would be there the next time Mikael Lee had a terrible dream. She couldn’t actually ask that, though. It was forbidden. The very question implied a relationship between Shironne and Mikael that was unacceptable in the eyes of the Lucas Family. To them, Mikael was an adult, and she was a child.

  For four more months.

  Shironne shifted in her chair. “You want me to walk into his dream to stop him from getting lost and hurting himself.”

  “Yes,” Deborah said. “But you need to consider whether you want to risk this. After the last dream, some of the other sensitives had bruises and were short of breath. His dream affected them, and I can’t guarantee that it won’t affect you that way if you try to help him tonight. I would rather have had your mother here for this discussion, but I’ll ask you, taking into consideration that among Larossans, you’re an adult.”

  And she was quite desperate. Shironne could sense that, despite Deborah’s calm voice.

  “I have no doubts, ma’am. I want to help.” No, that wasn’t what the doctor needed to hear. Shironne lifted her chin, facing where the doctor sat. “I want to help Mr. Lee.”

  Relief surrounded the doctor like a fog, quickly settling away. “I am grateful, Miss Anjir.”

  Fear began beating at the back of Shironne’s mind, a whisper from a room down the hall. Shironne shook her head to dispel it, but it continued to rattle away. “I think Mr. Lee is about to start dreaming,” she warned. “He’s frightened.”

  Deborah stood. “Then we should go see if you can break into his dream, don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Shironne followed Deborah to a room farther down the hall. She sensed the colonel waiting wakeful in one corner. Mikael’s mind fluttered in fear, like a bird in a cage.

  “Is he dreaming?” Deborah asked softly.

  “Not that I can tell,” the colonel returned.

  “He will be in a while,” Shironne told them. “He knows that and he’s panicking in his sleep.”

  “The sensitives told me that he screamed for a time before his dream began,” Deborah said, placing Shironne’s hand on the back of a tall chair. “Is he doing that now?”

  Shironne sat down, trying to hear this the way her mother might have. “I suppose they might perceive it that way. If they don’t hear him well, they probably wouldn’t know exactly what’s wrong. He just doesn’t want to do this alone.”

  Her response started Deborah thinking hard again, the doctor’s mind spinning down in tight spirals, hiding all her feelings inside.

  Shironne slipped off one glove and touched a linen shirtsleeve that bore the sense of Mikael. She located his hand, gone chill in slumber. His knuckles were scarred, his hand calloused but clean. He had a scar slashing across his palm as well, rather like the one she had. She tried to wish reassurance at him. His anxiousness calmed then, as if he’d only been waiting for her to arrive.

  He started slipping away from her, the dream pulling him down. It tugged at her as well. Shironne slid with it, not aware when she passed into sleep.

  • • •

  Shironne stood on a cobbled street under the dim lamplight, clad in her worn pink tunic. She glanced down at herself, seeing orange petticoats, startlingly bright against the brown of her leather slippers. She glanced down at her gloveless hands. Her fingers looked slim and elegant, like Mama’s. In her dreams they usually looked plump and shorter, the way she recalled seeing them last, before she’d lost her sight. She turned them over and saw that her left palm lacked the scar that should mar it. Mikael had never seen it, she realized.

  I’m not seeing anything. This is what his mind sees. This is what I look like to him.

  Then she shook her head. She wasn’t here to stare at her hands.

  Where is he? She should see Mikael somewhere, shouldn’t she?

  She glanced up and down the street. Nothing seemed familiar, giving her no answer. She supposed it could be the northwest quarter of the city, past where the wealthier Larossans lived; a newer section of town, with stone streets and sidewalks and gaslights—possibly the Seychas District. Why here?

  Rows of houses three and four stories high lined both sides of the unknown street, close together and dark now. Little traffic moved on the street, only a few pedestrians bundled heavily against the chill wind. She spotted a couple of coaches heading away from her, and then turned about to inspect the other side of the street.

  A man stood almost directly behind her. Shironne took a startled step back when she saw him, but he ignored her. He remained standing under the lamppost, appearing lost in thought.

  “Who are you?” she blurted out, too surprised for courtesy.

  He failed to react, as if unaware of her presence. She tried again, reaching out to shake his sleeve, and he ignored her. He must not be able to perceive her at all.

  This had to be the victim. I’m looking at a man who’s about to die.

  Shironne swallowed, feeling her breath shorten. She couldn’t save him, could she? Mikael watched in his dreams but couldn’t interfere. All she could do was observe. Frustration welled through her, making her grind her teeth.

  Who was he? His clothes told her nothing about him. They were casual, and not a wealthy man’s, but well tailored. His face appeared more angular than those of most Larossans, that and his height hinting at some Anvarrid blood. Otherwise, she couldn’t see anything distinctive about him.

  He appeared to be debating something in his head, his eyes lowered. Shironne lifted her left hand to his cheek, lightly touching his unresponsive face, and his anxiety swarmed around her.

  There were two
men inside that worried mind. She sensed the one, his thoughts tortured by a decision he fought to make. Mikael’s consciousness twined through the other’s like two vines growing together.

  The first man worried, thinking he needed to talk to her first before reporting it, that it would only be fair to discuss it with her. He didn’t even know what he’d say, his thoughts argued. Just come out with my suspicions?

  This was a soldier, even if he wasn’t wearing a uniform.

  Shironne lowered her hand, staring into the man’s face. She wished he’d surrendered a name to her, so she’d have some idea of his identity. She tried again, drawing from his conscious mind only the same circular pattern of worry and responsibility.

  She should be able to pull more out of him.

  She hadn’t touched him at all, she realized—she couldn’t. She’d left her overly sensitive skin behind in that room where her body slept. She rubbed one hand along her tunic sleeve and felt nothing other than the normal texture of the wool, the embroidery and beading around the cuff. Her presence in this dream existed only through her link with Mikael, and he’d reached this man with his mind, not his skin. She could access only what Mikael was accessing.

  Movement caught her attention, and another man passed them by in dark garb. He had a heavy coat pulled close around him and was apparently unaware of Shironne’s presence. The first man stilled suddenly, his thoughts going awry, scattering like marbles dropped on the ground. His face went slack and his mouth fell open.

  Shironne stepped away from him, perplexed. His left hand brushed his neck and he swallowed with a pained sound. Shironne backed farther away, frightened now.

  He put his hand to his throat. A whisper feathered out between his lips, too indistinct for her to catch. She touched him again, but his mind only chattered with fright and anger.

  He knows. He knew exactly what had just happened to him. He knew what would happen, just as it had to the others. The man in front of her knew he’d been chosen to die.

  Who is he? He seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t place him because it was Mikael who was touching him, not her. This new limitation frustrated her.