Dreamstrider

by Lindsay Smith

  I cannot spare a thought for it. There’s too much to be done now.

  The mountains slope downward into the wool of fog. Am I meant to find the general’s consciousness down there, somewhere? She should be right here beside me, but all I can see is the meager outline of the mountain range, as if I’m peering through thin vellum. I stagger forward, and the snow crunches beneath me like an avalanche. There’ll be no sneaking up on the general’s consciousness in these conditions.

  I raise one bare foot, willing away my boots, then wiggle my toes into the snow. It parts softly; the snow is soft and powdery around me. Gradually, painstakingly, I make my way perpendicular to the mountain slope.

  Then I catch sight of a little burrow, a whisper of a shade darker than the surrounding snow. Two ears peek out of the darkness, tipped in downy coal, on an otherwise snow-colored body. A fox. The wind quiets around me as I concentrate on the fox’s breathing, which comes in tiny, fitful breaths, characteristic of exciting dreams filled with giving chase to rabbits across an empty tundra.

  My hand trembles as I stretch it out before me and lower it into the den. I must use the gentlest touch imaginable. Can’t wake the little kit. My fingertips come to rest on the soft patch between her ears. The fox quivers, as if startled; I hold my breath and pray to the Dreamer she won’t awaken. But then she settles against me, welcoming my warmth into her rest.

  We open our eyes.

  Back in the hotel room, Brandt staggers back from me with a weighty breath. “Bloody dreams, Livia, what took so long? Is everything all right?”

  “Sorry. She was a sneaky thing,” I tell him, though I’m sure the words sound mushy as porridge. I can’t tell, myself. My left ear is nothing but a hollow echo, like the distant chatter of insects outside my window at night. “Oh. She’s deaf in one ear.”

  “Which ear?” Brandt asks, and I motion to the left. “All right. Jorn, always guard her left side. We’ll manage, as long as we don’t have to orchestrate a terrifying escape route.”

  The fox twitches in Oneiros, as if recoiling from a bad dream—or memory. I stroke the crest of the fox’s head to calm her. Sleep, sly fox, sleep. “I’ll play it carefully—let’s be on our way.”

  My limp body gets stuffed unceremoniously into the carriage; someone has already dressed it in a courtesan’s gown, with a deep slash of exposed skin from my collarbone down between my breasts to my navel, another slit running up one thigh. Vera’s dressed in a matching costume, gauze artfully wrapped around her scarred arm, while Edina wears a subtle servant’s uniform.

  The horses gallop toward the sealed city’s gates. None of us dares to speak, or even breathe too deeply, lest we break whatever spell has molded us into the shape of a credible Iron Winds entourage. As the saying in this strange land goes, the winds will surely scatter us like dust for our falseness, our heresy. We will bend and break.

  Brandt deals directly with the sealed city’s guards, producing papers that he’s dug up from Dreamer knows where. I hear something of a scuffle outside the carriage, but finally the guardsman peeks his head inside to find Vera coiled around General Sly Fox like a viper, hands on either of my thighs as she coos nonsense words at me. I offer the guard a stern look as I scratch the fox’s ears inside Oneiros.

  “So what if we registered more attendants than actually came?” Brandt shouts on the other side of the carriage door. “There’s been a nasty round of cloud cough in the east. We didn’t think it prudent to bring that into Birnau’s walls.”

  The official jerks his thumb toward my limp body, its head propped against Vera’s shoulder. Its. Its. I cannot think of it as mine. Even if those are my curling lashes, my honey locks, my scrawny-girl form stuffed in a woman’s gown. Vera reaches up and pats its cheek and whispers sweet platitudes into its ear for as long as the official watches.

  “She had too much to drink on the long ride. She’ll sleep it off,” Brandt assures the official.

  After another exchange, the official must finally be satisfied, for the carriage lurches forward into a dark tunnel. I hold my breath and continue stroking the fox behind its ears, even as my new body’s heart races in anticipation. Is the general afraid? Should I be?

  Sunlight sets fire to the inside of the carriage, bathing us in gilded glory. We crowd around the windows. The City of Sealed Secrets is built like a vast stadium, similar to our coliseum for sporting games on the fringe of Barstadt City, with an elaborate dome of mirrors that spin and swirl. The brothy, thin sunlight outside Birnau is magnified, multiplied, sent dazzling throughout the walled world, tumbling onto the elevated ring at the city’s heart. Our goal—the assembly hall.

  “We’ll have to find a safe room just off the assembly ring to stash you,” Edina says to me, though she’s looking at my body as she speaks. “I’ll do what I can to arrange it. Jorn, stay with the general at all times. Brandt and Vera, see what you can learn from the other servants and guests—the gossipier, the better.”

  Vera for once looks too stunned to mouth back at Edina as she nods. I can’t help but agree with what Edina said back on the ship—we could have used a commander like her more often in the field.

  We exit the carriage at the grandiose base of the assembly ring. A dozen staircases prop it up like great spikes; we pour into one, clinging together tightly enough to conceal my motionless form in our midst. Brandt wears my vial around his neck and keeps grabbing it, running his thumb over its edge.

  Thankfully, the outside corridors of the assembly ring are made of the same labyrinthine, black-ridged metal as the Citadel—full of tucked-away corners where we can conceal ourselves. We pass countless patrols of tam-hatted guards and horn-helmed patrollers, but at the sight of me they bow and scrape the ground with their noses. Irritation flutters in the general’s veins, even as my consciousness heaves a relieved sigh that they don’t notice the deadweight body in our midst.

  “Sly Fox! Always with an eye toward the festivities, I see,” a man calls out, wearing the same stiff-collared uniform as me. Another general. I greet him with hands clasped over my heart. “Save room for me later, eh?”

  “Of course, General,” I mutter, but thankfully Sly Fox’s feet agree with me, hurrying us away from him. The fox curls herself into a tight ball, like a fist closing. Easy. Patience. I can’t risk her waking now.

  A gong rumbles through the corridors, setting the whole construction to a gentle sway. Time for the assembly, Sly Fox thinks, her mind following well-worn trails of habit. I look to Jorn on my left, and he nods. We split off from Edina, leaving her to nestle in one of the alcoves with my limp form, and Brandt and Vera to strike up idle chatter with other courtiers as they dig for clues.

  We twist into the corridor to the general assembly, and I nearly fall back into Jorn.

  It’s made of glass. The whole structure is suspended across the heart of an iron ring, looking over the sealed city far below. Glass seats rise up in a smaller concentric circle; the assembled generals of the Land of the Iron Winds seat themselves here, with their bodyguards at their backs. And at the very center, towering over everyone on a glass pulpit, sits the younger Commandant.

  All right, Sly Fox. Show me the way. I swallow down my fear and head into the ring of chairs. “The Iron Winds will shred their foes with gale force,” the Commandant intones as soon as I settle into Sly Fox’s seat.

  “But the Land of the Iron Winds shall never fall,” everyone else answers. I find the words a split second behind them, mumbling them under my breath.

  As I watch the Commandant, the fox’s pulse quickens under my hand. She’s twitching and fighting against an unseen foe in her dreams. Fury heats her soft coat. Nightmare’s curse, I can’t risk her waking up now. I’ll need another dose of mothwood soon. But what has her so agitated? Is it the Commandant’s presence?

  “I have plucked a most magnificent gem from the Iron Cleft,” the Commandant announces. I scour my mind to remember the incomplete map I’d glimpsed in the Citadel. The Iron Cleft is thei
r main mining operation, I think—was it the one the Commandant showed me when I was General Cold Sun? “This gem will allow us to devour our northern enemies. Even as they slaughter our faithful on the executioner’s block for the path of righteousness, they feed the warbeast that shall destroy them.”

  Everyone in the circle mutters assent, but my heart is pounding. What is he talking about? Some magical gem? This land gets stranger and stranger. Maybe it’s all a mad bluff. Just another strange addition to the Iron Winds mythos. But the bit about slaughtering the faithful—does he mean Lady Twyne? Surely it can’t all have been part of their plan.

  “Our agents are working now to put the artifact into place. We set sail in three nights, my children!”

  Cheers accompany this announcement—bloodthirsty, primal roars, all around me. My voice joins them, though inside I am terrified. I am these hunters’ prey.

  I lock eyes with the man seated at the Commandant’s right as I wait for the cries to die down—General Cold Sun. There’s no way he could recognize me for what I am, but his hard eyes set my teeth on edge all the same.

  The Commandant’s fist crashes down on the podium. “I will give each of you your marching orders. Do not share them with a soul.” He folds his arms at his chest, hands clasped at his heart. “The Winds of Victory have cleared a path for us, and our allies have foretold our victory in terms we cannot ignore! We shall use their mighty weapon, and the Iron Winds shall blow with ever greater force!”

  Mad cheers all around me. But the Commandant jabs both fists into the air, eliciting instant silence. We all lean forward, starving for his next words.

  He looks around us, jowls sheened with sweat. “Shred our enemies,” he finally intones.

  “The Iron Winds blow fiercely,” we echo back.

  That’s it? The other generals are already climbing from their seats, jostling into something resembling a line to take their turn receiving orders from the Commandant. The fox quivers under my palm. Please don’t wake up. I need another dose of mothwood smoke, desperately, but if the Iron Winds are setting out in three days for Barstadt, I have to find out their plans.

  Brandt rests his hand on my shoulder and leans down to my right ear. “Sly Fox is a demanding woman.” He grins. “Be the Iron Winds.”

  Yes. I try to summon that strength, and the fox’s fur bristles in response as it stokes my blood like a furnace. My hand, of its own volition—or perhaps of Sly Fox’s—reaches for my deaf left ear. I find it, just under the sheath of stark black hair, laced with scars.

  I charge straight for the Commandant, parting his flock of black velveteen generals. “You owe me more.”

  His eyes flash like musket flare. “You do not speak to me this way.”

  But Sly Fox is eager; in her dreams, she is ready to pounce upon her prey. I open her mouth and let her subconsciousness do the talking.

  “My men cleared the Iron Cleft for me. Not you. We tolerated your strange foreigners as they searched for the gem. And now you owe me an explanation.”

  “Hold your tongue, or I’ll claim the rest of your hearing,” he hisses. The other generals press forward, carrying us toward the corridor, but I feel Jorn steady as stone at my back.

  Sly Fox’s eagerness spikes like excitement in my veins. “Meet me in the alcove on the northern face of the ring,” I tell him, while in Oneiros I try to keep the fox calm.

  Dreamer’s mercy, what have we put ourselves in the middle of? I fight upstream through the clamoring generals as they jostle and shout, hungry for their scrap of the feast of war. I have to get to Brandt to administer more mothwood smoke to Sly Fox and the dreamwort elixir to my body. We have to uncover this crazy source of power that the Commandant claims will lead them to victory. If it’s even real. Dreamer, let it be a bluff.

  The fox stirs under my fingertips, on the brink of waking up, as the snowfall around us picks up pace. But it’s not me who has alarmed her deep inside Oneiros.

  Long, sinuous shadows stretch across the mountain slope, tearing through the fog and snow with the rank stench of death.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The winged horde radiates with frost. You’ll never stop the plan. Already too late … better to rest, surrender to whatever’s to come …

  I smell these creatures; I see them. I’m not strong enough or devout enough to reshape the dreamworld around me in order to fend them off. We have to run. Please, Sly Fox, trust me just a little bit longer.

  I scoop the fox into my arms and take off through the snow, now swirling into a blizzard. I’m certain each crunching step will wake her. But what other choice do I have?

  “Sly Fox.” It’s Jorn’s voice, slicing through the fog. “General Sly Fox.”

  I look around the real world. We’re standing in the middle of the corridor ring while the other generals and their retinues shove past us. My heart races, or maybe it’s Sly Fox’s, or both.

  “Is something the matter?” Jorn asks, tugging me into the shrouded alcove where Brandt sits beside my body, clasping my hands in his own. Oh, how I wish I could be feeling that with my own skin. Jorn helps me onto the bench and wedges his thick shoulders into the opening to shield us from sight.

  “In Oneiros. There’s something wrong. Nightmare’s monsters are back—”

  I choke down a scream as pain shoots through me. Oneiros drags my attention back as an outstretched claw rakes against my bared shoulders. It’s not a normal pain, not the union of flesh and a sharp edge, but a lifetime of pain bubbling up from my marrow. My mother, staring lifeless at the wall, because I’m too late for her. Professor Hesse and his eyes, his soul drained out of them. Brandt pulling away from me, fingers slipping from mine as Edina Alizard calls his name. The tunnelers, writhing and swarming around me like rats as they flee a tunnel fire. Some truth, some lies, but they all sting with the same hateful toxin.

  Suffering. Pain. Not even in dreams will you find relief. We will hunt you, asleep and awake.

  I am alone. My skin aches for him. My wounds bleed for him. I am alone.

  Another claw tangles in my hair, tugging at my scalp. I imagine how soothing emptiness would feel, draining away my failures, erasing my dismay. I imagine nothingness, and how that absence might feel. Cold. Static.

  No. No. I need warmth—I have to resist.

  A golden light grazes my skin. I glance up, looking for its source as it parts the swarm of nightmare beasts. Please, let it be the Dreamer trying to speak to me. Why won’t he save me? I’m desperate for his guidance, for his interpretation, for anything he can offer me. A weapon placed in my hands or a prayer or incantation that will make this go away.

  But he’s silent again. No answer comes.

  The beasts have circled me and my sleeping charge, a buzzing noose shrieking into the chill night. They open their beaks, and my will to live on seeps away from me, gray ash floating into the night. I am a dried-out husk of the girl who dared to leave the tunnels, the girl who dared to serve the Emperor, the absent Dreamer himself.

  No. A tear slides down my face, burning its way down. There has to be more. I have to see Brandt smile again. I have to give value to Hesse’s work. I can be more than just a dreamstrider, an imperfect realization of a perfect dream. If I can weep, if I can still imagine more than this, then I haven’t given up yet.

  The pain in my scalp shrinks, replaced by the warmth of a distant flame. Brandt, smiling, knowing my next step always. The sun tearing through overcast clouds to warm the city harbor for another day, free of war and invasion and strife. I will not succumb to fear.

  I think of the Dreamer’s warmth—though I’ve never heard him speak, my dreams warm me, spurning me to reach beyond myself. I’m warmed by fighting for them, earning them—for myself, and for the Dreamer and the world he made into flesh and dirt and tree. Even if the Dreamer never answers me, even if he never shows his face, my belief in him has kept me strong.

  My heart pounds as two images war within me. Devastation and victory: Barstadt overrun
and Barstadt standing free. Slipping back down into that sewage pit while I hid from the gang enforcer, or finding a new foothold.

  I leech power back from the monsters, one grain of sand at a time. Their wings smolder and scald as a golden glow erupts from them. The snow sizzles against my skin as I force the dark visions away, refusing to let them get their hooks in me.

  Their cries rip across the mountaintop, and I stand alone, shaking and radiant, with a slumbering fox cub in my arms.

  I collapse to my knees. Can I really fend them off by clinging to my faith, my memories, even when I don’t hear his call? Thousands have died under the crushing weight of Nightmare, choking on that black tar of despair. But those monsters were only a vanguard for darker fears—for Nightmare himself. If Twyne’s found a way to awaken Nightmare, there are much greater foes to come.

  I open my eyes to find Brandt clutching my hand desperately, his eyes marbled with red.

  “Livia. Livia. Where are you? Are you here?”

  Two bodies, side by side in the corridors of Birnau. I try to lift Sly Fox’s hand, but it’s like trying to move with a body made of smoke.

  “Now,” I wheeze in Sly Fox’s voice. “Don’t let her wake up—”

  Cold metal presses to my mouth and I plunge back into Oneiros.

  The mountainside melts away under a luscious, filtered sun. A stream trickles nearby, clotted with chunks of ice; the white fox laps from it with a lazy, groggy tongue. She must have leaped from my arms in that moment when Sly Fox started to wake up. A chorus of birds veils my footsteps through the soft, squishy snow and the moist earth underneath as I approach the fox.