by Lilly Pink
It took a few weeks to find exactly the right visions to show Ameretat, but finally, they were able to collect a series of memories showing natural childbirths. Ones that went well, and ones that didn’t, but that the doctor or midwife attending was able to save the mother and child. That way, Ameretat would be able to see, and experience, to a certain extent, exactly what she would have to expect. The Healer was overjoyed. “Zoe, I could kiss you,” she said, embracing her fiercely. “Except that I refuse to go near lips that have been anywhere near Kian’s mouth or anywhere else.”
This was helpful to Zoe too. She didn’t really know what to expect either, and in looking for visions that would help her friend, she had sparked her own curiosity, and the Healers were happy to lend her any books she wanted on the subject. Also, it gave her the courage to ask Darya to show her how her own family fared, back on Earth, and to her relief, they did not seem to be wallowing in grief. They had looked for her for a month or two, but back home, nearly two years had passed already. Zoe’s parents assumed she was dead.
They had a funeral, and visited her grave on her birthday. Lauren had been more upset, and Zoe knew she had not given up, but her sister had also, to Zoe’s surprise, left her husband, and was raising her two children alone. She was too busy to mope. It helped Zoe’s lingering guilt to know they were all right, and also made her feel more secure in the knowledge that she was right where she needed to be.
Almost two months after the trip to the ruined library, Shahin met her in the courtyard wearing an even bigger grin than usual. “I have a surprise for you,” he said, almost bouncing with glee. Though they didn’t have as much cause to socialize, the lead scout was one of Zoe’s other favorite people. He was nearly always willing to accompany her outside, and his cheery demeanor could brighten up her darkest moods.
They bonded over their shared loved of animals and nature. In another life, Zoe knew that she could have easily fallen for him, and she wished most of all that their research would lead to Shahin finding a mate of his own.
“Do you really have a surprise for me, or have you discovered something really disgusting and want to frighten me with it?” He had been a menace ever since he discovered that Zoe had an inexplicable hatred of beetles.
“No, I swear, on my honor, that you will like this surprise very much. Whether the king will like it, well, that remains to be seen.” He brought her to the kennels and led her to a large cage that she had never seen used before. Unlike the others, it had a bed with raised wooden sides, and did not have a hole that led to the outdoor run. One of the Vryka was lying in the box, and Zoe realized, with a gasp, that she was surrounded by puppies. “Oh, I had forgotten,” she said, grinning and leaning into the enclosure. Six fluffy and awkward pups came to greet her, stumbling over each other and themselves in their eagerness to jump up and lick her face.
“They are eight weeks old, and already eating solid food. I thought it was time you came to choose one for yourself. I figure, if you like one, we can get the bonding done right away, and then Kian can hardly object.”
“Why would he object, anyway? He ought to approve of my having a personal guard dog,” she mused as she lifted one of the pups to get a better look. Each one was different already, and not just in markings. Some were shy, some playful, some more energetic while others preferred to relax.
He shrugged. “They can be a handful when they are young, and for a Vryka to serve their purpose well, they cannot be kept in the kennels, but must sleep in your chamber from the start. Luckily, it should be a fairly simple task to teach them to do their business out on the balcony at night. When the dogs make a mess, I usually magic it into the privy.”
“Good idea,” Zoe replied, looking at each of the puppies in turn before finally settling on the one that she wanted. The young dog was nearly all black, with a faint gray mask and socks and a white star on his forehead. Unlike the rest of his siblings, his eyes were still ice blue. She had watched him, and he was curious, but thoughtful.
He watched before diving into the fray, but was still friendly enough to come when she called. With a grunt, she lifted him up; he was already heavy. “He’s going to be a beast when he’s full grown,” she said to Shahin.” She thought of the puppy as a boy already but hadn’t bothered to look. Yes, definitely a boy. “This one. I think I’ll call him Sirius.”
“Good choice. And the name as well. Because of the star on his forehead, I assume.”
Actually, because of Harry Potter, but never mind that, she thought with a crooked grin. “So how does this bonding thing work? Is it a spell?”
“Partly, but it is also due to the nature of the breed. They are pack hunters, and they normally bond to the other members of their pack. Why that is necessary, I have no idea, but we have bred this natural instinct to apply specifically to one person. When the bonding in complete, Sirius will be instinctively aware of your location at all times, and he will protect you exclusively. Of course, you will be able to train him to protect others if you wish, your mate and your children, perhaps.”
“Okay. What do I have to do?” she asked, setting the pup on the ground and kneeling beside him to keep him from escaping.
“It is very simple. I will give you this collar, that is where the activation spell resides. All you must do is fasten it around his neck. He will look you in the eyes, you will say his name. That is all. You will feel the spell activate, and from then on he will follow you wherever you go, until you can train him to behave otherwise.”
“You’ll help me train him, I hope?” Kian would never forgive her if they had a crazy dog running around after the baby was born. Zoe would have to make sure he was on his best behavior by then.
“Of course. You should come here every day, preferably before noon, and I will show you what you need to do. Are you ready?” Shahin asked, holding out the collar.
Zoe nodded, taking the thick leather braid and turning to the young canine. When she wrapped the collar around the pup’s neck, he went unnaturally still, which she supposed was part of the spell. She looked right into his pale eyes as she slipped the end of the leather through the loop and fastened it, speaking his name as she did so. “Sirius.”
The dog’s pupils contracted to pinpricks and then widened. Zoe felt a pulse of magic, and something in her mind like the click of a key in a lock. Sirius licked her face, his tail wagging.
“There you are. Now he is yours,” Shahin said with a wide grin. “I hope Kian isn’t furious with me.”
Kian was prepared to be furious. He did not think a puppy was a responsibility they needed at the moment. But Zoe could tell that he was charmed by Sirius immediately, and he reluctantly admitted that it was a good idea for Zoe to have a guard dog, especially after Zhubin helpfully pointed out that the Vryka were especially effective against mirrored vipers, as they had been bred to be remarkably resistant to the venom.
Sirius was just as intelligent and easy to train as Shahin had reported. After a few days, the pup never had accidents indoors, walked at Zoe’s heel, and responded to several commands. Including the one Kian had taught him, “Down,” which was to indicate that he was to get off the bed.
He didn’t mind the dog keeping Zoe company when he wasn’t around, but, as he told her, he knew how big the Vryka got and he was not going to fight with a dog over space. “Besides, I feel at least here, I should be allowed to have you all to myself,” he muttered into her neck.
Everything was going perfectly. The wedding was little over a month away, but the preparations proceeded so smoothly that Zoe had almost nothing to do. Ameretat was pleased with how the baby was growing: large, but not in a concerning way, the Healer assured her. A few days previously, Zoe and Kian had felt their child move for the first time. She would never forget the look of stunned awe that passed over his features when he felt the little nudge against his hand.
The only thing that was troubling Zoe was insomnia. It had grown more difficult to sleep the farther her pregnancy progr
essed. She could never get quite comfortable, and now she felt like whenever she really got settled down, the baby kicked her in the bladder or something. And her dreams had grown vivid and terrifying. For several nights now, she had dreamed of a monster that was stalking her in the dark, and she often woke in a cold sweat, shaking with remembered fear. She had assumed, a vague memory of her sister’s pregnancies in her mind, that it was a normal side effect.
That night was different. The monster crept closer, growls reverberated through her skull. She started to run, she was screaming, and then she tripped and fell and the monster was almost upon her, jaws opened wide.
“Zoe! Zoe! Wake up!” Kian was shaking her by the shoulder, the lamp on the bedside table was already lit, and she blinked in confusion. “You were screaming,” he said by way of explanation. “Sirius started to howl.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up and taking a drink from the glass of water she always kept by the bed. Something about being pregnant made her terribly thirsty at night. “I’m fine. I had a nightmare, that’s all.”
“A nightmare of what?” Kian asked in a fierce, low voice. She looked up at him in surprise and confusion.
“I don’t know. Just something chasing me. A monster. The kind of thing a kid would imagine hiding under their bed. Why? It was just a nightmare.”
Kian frowned and opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, shaking his head. He pulled her into his lap, stroking her hair, and she felt his heart beating wildly. It had frightened him, much more so than it had her. “I should have thought to tell you, but no one has found danger there for years, not without seeking it out,” he said quietly.
“In this world, there is no such thing as just a nightmare. If you remember your dream, even a scrap of it, it was real. Something that happened to your spirit while it traveled the Dreaming. Some parts of the Dreaming are closer to reality than others, hence we managed to conceive a child while our bodies were asleep,” he added, smiling down at her before his face turned serious again.
“If you are dreaming of being chased, then there is something chasing you, and if you are harmed in your dreams, you could be injured in the physical realm as well.”
“You mean, I could die in my sleep because of something that happened in my dreams?” she asked, shivering against his chest.
“Exactly. Tonight, I will set wards. That should keep anything harmful away, but tomorrow, I believe we will take a trip. The old wizard who taught me, Mehr, was an expert at traveling the world of dreams. He is long gone, but I have kept his library preserved, hidden from prying eyes. Perhaps he has something to say about the identity of your monster.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mehr’s library was in the mountains, a little ways west of the “library” where Kian had brought her through from the human world. Unlike his graceful little tower, this sprawling underground compound was carefully concealed. A magical barrier surrounded it, protecting it as well as hiding it by reflecting the scenery around the library so that it blended right in to the snow and trees.
Even after Kian dismissed the magic, Zoe wasn’t sure she would have been able to see it if she hadn’t already known it was there. The only part of it that was above ground was a small cottage which was so closely surrounded by trees that it almost appeared to have grown out of them.
“Judging by this place, it seems like your mentor enjoyed socializing even less than you do,” she said, elbowing Kian playfully after they had returned to their human appearances.
“I do not dislike being with people,” he protested. “It is all the excessive ceremony which some find necessary that irks me. Much of the time I spent in alleged solicitude was spent with you, in point of fact,” he added, a small smile flickering across his lips.
“Or in research. However, you are correct in you assumption about Mehr. I do not know if he was always so retiring. Long before I was born, Mehr was considered a wizard of great power, and he held important positions within the Court, but by the time I knew him, he was known for his dislike of palace life, and he almost never ventured from this place.”
The cottage did not appear to have a door. Another security measure, apparently. Kian explained that you had to coax the house into creating a door to let you in. It was a bit troubling to Zoe, imagining that a house had feelings that needed consideration and appeasement. If she bumped into the doorframe, would she need to apologize? Could the house suddenly decide it didn’t like her, chuck her out into the snow and refuse to let her back in?
Luckily, the house appeared to recognize and like Kian, because a door materialized in the stone the moment he laid his hand upon it. He turned the knob, and the door swung inward without a sound, revealing a surprisingly normal interior. It looked exactly like the kind of place where a wealthy but mad, old, hermit would call home.
A fire lit in the old stone hearth as they entered and Zoe wasn’t sure if that was evidence of the old man’s formidable power, or a normal feature of Kumari houses. Otherwise, there were a few chairs and stools by the fire, some sanded wooden tables, and a comfortable bed in a corner alcove. The stone floors were covered in mismatched rugs and furs, and a variety of herbs, vegetables, and dried flowers hung from the ceiling.
The entrance to the rest of the library was hidden in the cellar, amidst copious quantities of wine, and bags of potatoes and carrots that were fresh enough to invite Zoe’s curiosity. “This room probably has some sort of preservation spell on it,” Kian opined thoughtfully when she asked.
“All of these things are probably for show, since I doubt he ate any of it. He was a brilliant mage, but he couldn’t cook, so he made his apprentices do it for him. I was the last of his students, so I suppose he would have had to live in the palace if I hadn’t been around. Otherwise he would have starved.” His tone was one of amused and nostalgic fondness.
“I’m surprised to hear that you even know how to cook,” Zoe said with a raised eyebrow. “I can hardly imagine anyone allowing you to do such a menial task.”
“That is one of the things I appreciated most about Mehr,” he replied, sighing heavily. “He never made me feel as if I was incapable of doing anything, and he always made it clear that being of royal blood did not make me above physical labor. It was… a relief, I suppose, to be treated like a normal person. No different than any of his other apprentices.”
It took a moment for him to find the hidden panel that opened the door to the rest of the compound, but finally they were walking down a long hallway lit with magical torches which opened into a huge natural cavern. It reminded Zoe of the Batcave, but there was no point trying to explain that to Kian.
“Have you ever thought about just telling everyone that you like doing that kind of stuff? You are the king. If you decreed that it was now required for the king to do the dishes every third day, they could hardly stop you. You could even do away with the monarchy all together. There are so few Kumari now that you could easily just have everyone vote on major decisions.”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” he admitted. “But I was afraid the people would see it as abandonment, or that I was destroying one of our few remaining traditions. Besides, without knowing whether or not the prophecy regarding our restoration is true or what it might entail, it seemed foolish to institute a major cultural change at the same time.”
“I guess that’s true,” Zoe replied with a thoughtful expression. “One change at a time.”
Kian led her along the branching paths and stairways, pointing out some of his favorite places and recalling memories of his youth as they passed. The actual library, meaning the room in which the books were stored, was hidden deep within the caverns under additional layers of protection and concealment. “Mehr always said that this was the most important room in the house, where he kept his greatest treasure,” Kian said as the finally reached the door and stepped inside.
“Does that make him a bookwyrm?” Zoe asked, grinning, but Kian either did not understa
nd the joke, or was pretending not to, out of disgust.
The library was gigantic. At least three stories of bookshelves soared into the darkness of the faraway ceiling, accessed by the tall rolling ladders Zoe had only ever seen in movies. Though she liked to read on occasion, she had never been one to get worked up over books, but even she was awed by the size and grandeur of the room. “How are we ever going to find anything here? We could be looking for weeks!” she said, part awe and part desperation.
“I hope not,” Kian said, chuckling. “Do libraries in your world have no system of organization? We are looking for information on denizens of the Dreaming, and so we will begin our search in the section that contains books about the Dreaming.”
“Oh, right.” When he put it that way, it seemed kind of obvious. Zoe tried to squash the voice of self-recrimination at her own stupidity as Kian lead her up a short flight of stairs up to the second balcony and into a small room off to the side. A circle of bookshelves surrounded a small table with two squishy armchairs. If there had been a fireplace, it would have been, in her opinion, the most perfect reading room ever.
“Here we are,” he said with a smile. “There are still many volumes to examine, but not, I think, an unbearable number. We are looking for tomes relating to the native creatures of the Dreaming. Surely something as large as what was chasing you will have been encountered before. If we discover the nature of this beast, we will be able to devise a way to banish or appease it so that it will leave you alone.”
“I don’t even really understand what the Dreaming is. It’s where Kumari and humans go when they dream, right? But for us, it’s usually imaginary, while for Kumari it is real, just not physical? How does something like that even exist? Where would it have come from?”
