“I knew those pennies’d be lucky for something,” Hutchings said happily, as they rode out of the narrow passage and into another valley.
The sky had changed from sunny on one side of the gate, to breezy and damp. The ground around them was wet, as if it had just been raining. A mountain with a forked top lay immediately to the west, and Roan saw a distant line of mountains just over the horizon to the north. The land they had just left was no more than rolling hills.
“Where are we?” Lum asked.
Bergold produced the map, and surveyed the surroundings.
“I would say that we’re here,” the historian said, pointing to a spot not far from the border of the next province.
“How’d we do that?” Spar demanded. “We should still be clear back here.” He put his thumb on the map on a spot
farther to the south.
“We wanted transportation,” Bergold said. “We have been transported.”
“So the Sleepers still favor us,” Misha said, his boyish face in a grin. “This is better than the Déjà Vu.”
“None of their favor is free,” Bergold reminded them. “We still have to strive onward. If we grow lazy, they could change our luck to the worse just like that.” He snapped his fingers, and a flower fell out of the sky. He looked up. “Ah, it’s a tree shedding blossoms.”
“Another hole in reality,” Colenna said, with satisfaction. “All according to the Sleepers’ will. This time it was a good one for us. Brom can’t cause them to destroy, unless the Sleepers will it. He can only steer us into them, or if that evil power of theirs is so great, push them our way.”
“So that man who fell through the hole . . . ?” Leonora asked, tentatively, recalling the horror of the night before.
“Might still be alive, my dear,” Roan said, as positively as he could. “He might even be able to get home again.” Leonora looked relieved.
“If the dreamers dreaming him don’t wake up,” Felan said, always ready with the negative alternative. The princess frowned, starting to worry all over again. Roan turned to glare at him. “Or if he doesn’t get killed where he landed. . . .”
“Shut up, you!” Spar snarled. “All happy and positive, remember?”
“There’s hope,” Bergold said, reassuringly, patting Leonora’s hand. “There’s always hope.”
Roan nodded solemnly, and rode beside them in silence.
For him, the most difficult part of keeping a positive attitude was that small, nagging doubt that still remained in his heart. It was hard to focus on saving the world when a part of him didn’t really believe that Brom could put an end to the world. No matter what grandiose plans he had, he was still a creation of the Sleepers, and they had power over him. And yet, Roan had to believe in the threat. He had to force himself to believe that Brom’s success could mean the end of everything he knew and loved. To his surprise, he didn’t fear the coming catastrophe, but he was angry about it, angry that Brom and his minions would dare to terrify those people Roan loved for the sake of a question. It wasn’t that there were things Man was not meant to know, but there were some with such a high price that Man was not meant to test them. Brom should have taken into account the potential for danger that would befall others.
If he admitted the truth to himself, Roan did not know what he would do when he finally caught up with Brom. He worried what he would do to him. He was so angry . . . could he kill? But he must control himself. He couldn’t break the law just because Brom had. He was Roan, the King’s Investigator, a representative of the crown and people of the Dreamland. If he did something as evil as that, the king would be disappointed, and he would no longer deserve Leonora’s love. But he honestly wouldn’t know how he would behave until the situation was in front of him. He had learned a lot about himself so far on this journey, but not that, not yet.
Chapter 29
Taboret didn’t feel her saddle bruises, sunburn, or any of the verbal barbs that the Countingsheep brothers kept shooting her way. She was happy. Every time Glinn looked her way or even thought about her, she felt warm inside. She knew at once what he was thinking, and knew he did the same. The landscape looked more colorful. The trees were taller. Birdsong was sweeter, and all because he was with her. She knew she was being terribly subjective, and didn’t care.
Their romance was the subject of much amusement among the other apprentices.
“Think it’s a side effect of the gestalt?” Carina asked, playfully, as they rode northeast into the worsening weather. “Who’s next?” Taboret turned back her parka hood to make a face at the older woman.
“You are,” she said, lightly. “You’ll fall in love with both of the Countingsheeps at once.”
“I hardly think so!” Carina called back, and laughed. The brothers glared at them, and Taboret felt dark thoughts from them.
Taboret was glad she and Glinn were helping to raise the company’s mood. Brom had been sour since the morning, when he had tried for the third time to change the motorcycles into an efficient truck. He had not been able to make the gestalt raise enough power to complete a lasting structure. Even with Glinn’s input, the transformation into a single unit was not working as Brom had planned. He didn’t know why, and that upset him. His feelings permeated the link, making everyone else uneasy. He kept muttering about controlling the individual will, which worried Taboret. They were scientists, not mindless, long-haul transport workers. The steeds were protesting the harsh treatment, and she was afraid they would reach the end of their strength before they reached their destination. She tried hard not to think that having to stop short would be a good thing.
However, Brom had succeeded in having the gestalt upgrade the motorcycles to a higher technological level than before. Their engines ran more quietly and smoothly, reducing the number of times the Alarm Clock bells chimed by accident. Taboret found that to be a minor comfort.
“This is the step before complete integration,” Brom said, half to himself, half to Lurry, who was riding beside him. Lurry was a good conduit. Taboret could hear the conversation as perfectly as if she was inside him. “It is only a matter of time. I will fine-tune the parameters still further. We will end up with not only a supertransport, but a superhuman to drive it! One being! One unit!”
The gestalt energy changed almost from hour to hour. Taboret was aware of a growing oneness in behavior among the apprentices. At lunch, all of them reached for the same plate of food. They all stood up when one of them drove over a bump in the road. At first they did it in sequence, but now they did it each time in unison. The increasing physical coordination worried Taboret.
Glinn, riding beside her, must have sensed her concern. He put out a gloved hand to squeeze hers. She mimed a surreptitious kiss in his direction, and he tilted his head, as if catching the kiss on his cheek. Gano caught sight of the interplay, and teased them. Taboret felt her cheeks turn hot, but she knew Glinn didn’t really mind.
She’d never had much patience before with lovers who constantly mooned about their “one and only,” but she’d never left herself vulnerable to affection before. She had thought married life and families, like those of the villagers whose small town they were riding through, were ordinary and dull, never something she wanted for herself. Now, a little of the ordinary would be a nice, new experience if only she lived to have it. When the Sleepers woke up, everything would change or die or go away. It hadn’t mattered to her before.
Why had she valued her own life so little? Now that it was almost over, there was someone else to care about. She wanted to see what happened over time when two lives joined. The experiment would prevent it, not only for her, but for all the couples in the Dreamland. And families, she thought with a blush and a growing curiosity to see what it would be like to have her own.
A child’s shout made her and all the other apprentices look to the right in unison. A little girl was running through a cottage garden, laughing. Taboret felt her heart sink at the sight. She wanted desperately to
stop the experiment, but she feared it was too late. Glinn gave her hope. He thought he knew what to do. She clung to that. Someday, the two of them might have a little lab of their own, maybe in a place like this. A junior scientist or two, blowing up retorts on the kitchen table. . . .
She stopped staring at the little town and turned her attettion forward. To her shock, Brom was looking back at her, his red eyes ablaze. She realized she had been thinking without filtering her thoughts through the usual haze of obedience and optimism. Oh, no! What had he heard? Had anyone else been listening? But Brom turned around again and kept riding, without his usual sour comment. Perhaps he’d just caught the edge of her discontent, and was saving a lecture for her later. She hunched over her handlebars, and tried to review her thoughts.
She was still feeling distracted when they came over the headland and saw the bronze bridge leading to Rem. It was very handsome, with ornamented arches and spans, standing on granite pilings stained green with algae around the water line. The road ran past it, rather than to it, and two pairs of shiny rails spanned its length. It was a railway bridge.
“That has to be half as old as the Dreamland,” Bolmer said. “Metalwork like that hasn’t been common for ages.”
“You have the soul of an architect,” Basil said. But Taboret knew they all saw the image in their minds and admired it with Bolmer’s interest and expert knowledge. She hoped that if she survived the experiment, she would retain some of what the others’ minds had put in her memory.
To either side along the bank overlooking the gap, she could see numerous small villages, each with its own little footbridge spanning to the other side. Some of them were as uncomplicated as a few ropes and some planks, some more elaborate. Did they indeed help as escape routes in times of Changeover? She also wondered, guiltily, if they would serve any function at all when she and the Alarm Clock reached the Sleepers. It was funny to see palm trees on the far side and icicles on the near one.
Brom signaled them to the left.
“We will cross here!” he said. He rolled forward, and the tires of his motorbike widened and became ridged to fit over the left rail. Lurry hastily caused the same alteration to his steed, and rode the right rail.
As she and Glinn passed side by side over the bridge, Taboret took a brief look down into the deep gorge, and experienced a surge of vertigo. That was one of the facets of shared intelligence that she didn’t like, since she was not normally this afraid of heights.
Halfway across, the weather changed from winter to summer. It was a hot day in Rem. All of the apprentices began to shed layers of clothing. And, as usual, when passing from one Sleeper’s influence into another, their bodies changed, too. Once she had shed the sweaters, thick pants, parka, and boots, Taboret was pleased to see that she’d acquired a more shapely form than her usual practical body type. Had it been wishful thinking on her part? Was this a subconscious, nonintellectual attempt to attract Glinn’s attention? It worked. Glinn’s warm thoughts were more ardent than before. If they stopped in a while for a meal, she’d make sure they found themselves a little privacy.
They rolled down the gravel bed of the railway cut until they found another road, and bumped up onto it. Brom directed them to the right, so they were heading north again.
A few miles later, a broad, sharp-edged shadow veered in over their heads. Taboret was just in time to see the huge, white-headed bird zoom in for a landing on the ground beside Brom before it turned into a small square envelope with an eagle stamp in the corner. Lurry jumped off his bike to retrieve it for their master.
Brom tore open the envelope and read the single page within.
“They are close behind us,” he said, and no one had to ask whom he meant. “We need another deterrent set.” He glanced up and down the line, and his glowing gaze lit on her. “You.” His head swiveled until he found Glinn. “And you. Go with Acton and Maniune. Roan has not yet crossed the bridge. We can use that to our advantage. Men, here are your instructions.”
He turned to the pair of mercenaries and started to talk to them in a low voice. Taboret, through Lurry, tried hard to eavesdrop. What kind of nefarious trap did Brom want them to set? She found that the chief had thrown up a privacy barrier, in exactly the same way she and Glinn had the night before. Drat. She wondered why he was blocking them out, then decided he must have been doing it all along, but the link hadn’t been strong enough before for her to have detected it.
Brom looked up at last. “Glinn, hand Basil your nuisance detector. We do not want to encounter any snags while you’re gone.”
“Yes, sir.” Glinn undid the gold chain and handed over the watch-sized object. Taboret found Brom’s expression puzzling. He looked disappointed. Could it be that he felt Basil was not as adept at Glinn at reading the little indicator? True, the philosophical device was a complex piece of machinery, but it was as easy to use as a compass. She felt a surge of pride, to think that in the eyes of their employer Glinn was not considered to be easily replaceable.
“Go immediately,” Brom instructed them. “We will continue on until we reach our optimum stopping point. This distraction must be enough to dissuade Roan once and for all. You will use the gestalt power. Draw whatever you need, but it must be effective. We are trusting you with the entire bank of power.” Taboret nodded solemnly. She’d have been flattered if it wasn’t so wrong. She turned her motorbike to follow Acton. Glinn fell in behind, and Maniune brought up the rear.
As the sounds of Brom’s motorcade receded behind them, Taboret felt a sudden urge to rev up her steed and speed away home. She glanced back at Glinn, who shook his head. He had something in mind, she felt it. They would set the trap, just as Brom had directed them to, and then find some way to prevent anyone from falling into it. That wouldn’t be easy with the two bruisers breathing down their neck.
The road widened out, and Glinn sped up to ride side by side with her.
“I’m glad he sent both of us,” she said in a voice low enough she hoped neither of the others could hear.
“It’s nice to be able to ride alone with you for a while,” Glinn agreed, with a smile. Taboret tossed her head. Her hair, not usually her best feature, waved and curled around her face beguilingly.
“Hey, lovebirds!” Acton called over his shoulder, in a sneering voice. “When you smooch, do the rest of them get it on vicarious-like? Huh?” He laughed loudly at his own wit. “Huh? You touch her, and those others get a handful, too? It’s better than those feelaramas they talk about in the Waking World, huh? Hey, too bad we’re not part of your intimate little circle, huh? I wouldn’t mind having a piece of that!”
Acton could use a solid scientific explanation and a few spare IQ points, since he had none of his own. Taboret looked daggers at him. With a quick swipe of his hand, Glinn brought them down out of the air. The knives clattered to the ground and vanished. She glanced at him in surprise. Then she realized that making enemies of the mercenaries would ensure they would keep a close eye on both of them the whole time. Taboret felt ashamed of herself. Glinn was by far the better strategist. He always thought farther ahead.
“Our personal lives are really none of your business, gentlemen,” Glinn said, evenly. “Why don’t you give us details of the mission we are on?”
“You’ll see when we get there, huh?” Acton said. “Right, Manny?”
The temperature was almost oppressively hot, and their clothes thinned out further. Taboret found she was watching Glinn. This form was a nice body, slim, with big, capable hands. But then, he’d been sort of attractive through most of his changes. He must simply have a handsome base shape. She wondered what he thought of her, and got a quick burst of sensation through the link of satisfaction with her beauty. She felt herself blush, and hoped Acton had not noticed. He did, however, continue his lewd comments, only semi-audible over the rumble of his motorbike.
Maniune shouted them to a stop near a cluster of nebulous boulders on the road where it passed over the rails. He swun
g one muscular leg off his bike, and leaned against the saddle with his arms crossed.
“Himself noticed these when we came up this way,” he announced to the apprentices. “He wants you to plant a hole out there,” he nodded toward the way they had just come, “using this stuff for anchors. Leave it wide open, so things can come out of it from the other side. That’s what he said. Make it a good one, right?”
“Right,” Glinn said, striding down the road. “Come along, Taboret. We’ll make this the best way we know how.”
Taboret understood. They’d set their trap, but they’d make it so obvious that no one who could see would fall into it. She gathered handfuls of the nebulosity and followed him.
She formed the pseudorock into tent stakes and sky hooks while Glinn surveyed the spot where the hole was to go. He directed her where to place the stakes and helped hang the sky hooks in the air on either side of the road.
“It won’t hold long if someone rides into it,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, a gesture that he must have caught from Brom, “so we won’t worry about that. It isn’t meant to hold, just to scare Roan and the others off. He’ll see it in time.”
Glinn put out his hand, and waited for her to lay hers on top of it.
Acting as a conduit for the entire crucible made Taboret feel like the business end of a fire hose. Power surged into her from nowhere and everywhere, and all but sprayed upward into a gleaming net. It was too much at once. She couldn’t control it. She felt panic, and mentally stamped down on the flow. But Glinn was prepared. His mind-touch was gentle as he helped her open up again, guiding the burst of energy.
She felt more than saw the breach open up in the fabric of reality between them. The hole began as a tiny, bright gleam that quickly burned away the edges of nature until Taboret could see through into that other sphere beyond everyday existence. Madness lay there, she had been told as a child. Madness and formlessness.
Waking in Dreamland Page 36
