Marked (20 page)

The
stone that made up the rock face was different than anything else I'd
ever seen. It wasn't black, not compared to the living black of the
plants, but it was close enough. It was cold to the touch and had a
glassy texture similar to obsidian.

I
knew without having to ask Alec that this cliff couldn't be scaled,
not even by a hybrid. The smooth surface was unmarked by seams or
cracks that could be used as finger holds and when I experimentally
tried to chip the stone with the point of my sword I nearly cut off
my left arm. The black rock didn't just resist chipping, it deflected
my sword away with as much or more force than I'd used to drive the
sword forward at the wall.

"It
circles the jungle for as far as I've been able to explore so far and
all the rest of it is just as featureless and unclimbable as this."

Alec
still looked exhausted, but he was back on his feet and his breathing
was nearly back to normal. I would have rushed over and given him
another hug, but he was still in hybrid form and with the way he was
shaking his claws were even more dangerous than they were normally.

"There
aren't any openings?"

"Only
one that I've found so far. Here, it's this way."

We
traveled less than twenty feet before coming to a cave entrance. If
I'd been by myself I probably would have been too scared to go
inside, but I followed Alec into the darkness without hesitating.

A
few steps later we came around a corner and I found myself looking at
a set of pewter-gray metal bars. Just on the other side of the bars
was a barren, mist-filled landscape that made me want to cry for joy.
Barren and gloomy was an infinite step up from the nightmarish
existence we'd been subject to up until now.

I
took an involuntary step towards the bars and shifted my sword so it
was leaning against me. My fingers were only inches away from the
dull metal when I realized that Alec hadn't moved forward with me.

I
looked back and was confronted with a vision of the future. I was
still looking at Alec, but now he looked like he'd aged two hundred
years over the last few steps. His fur was a patchy white and he was
hunched over as though bearing the weight of the world across his
shaking shoulders.

"What
is this place, Alec?"

"It's
the exit. Every place has to have a way out, and this is the way out
of Dream Stealer's domain."

"How
do you know this isn't just another trap, something designed to make
you waste your time and effort here instead of spending it fighting
back?"

"There
isn't any other possible exit. The cliffs can't be climbed. I tried
digging on my third day here, but I only made it down five feet
before I hit the same kind of impenetrable rock the cliffs are made
out of. This has to be the way out because there has to be a way out.
That is a belief at the core of me, something that Dream Stealer
couldn't have entirely subverted."

There
was an element of madness to Alec's voice and I realized in that
instant that this was part of what was keeping him going. Alec needed
to believe there was a possibility of escape or he would simply give
up and die. I couldn't take that away from him.

"I'm
sorry, Alec, I didn't mean to second-guess you. You're the expert
when it comes to this place. Honestly I'm surprised that it's this
big. I would have thought that would make it harder for Dream Stealer
to find you."

"Yeah,
I would have thought so too, but he never seems to have any problem
in that area. I tried to get lost in the jungle on the first two days
I was here—that's actually how I found this cave—but
simple distance never seems to matter. He finds me…and then we
fight, and once he's beaten me nearly senseless he drags me back to
the pyramid, but the trip back only takes a couple of minutes for
him."

"Why
are you staying so far back away from the bars, Alec?"

"They
make me weak. It's like they suck the life out of me. From here it's
bad enough, but if I get closer it gets worse and worse until
eventually I pass out."

I
moved my hand a little closer to the bars and left it there just a
couple of inches away from the metal that was apparently Alec's own
personal brand of kryptonite.

"I
don't feel anything. Do you think I need to be closer?"

"No,
I think it doesn't work on you. I think that Dream Stealer designed
the exit to be as impenetrable as possible to me within the rules of
this place, but he never even considered that I might have help from
the outside."

"Okay,
well, I guess there's only one way to be sure."

I
reached out and grabbed hold of one of the bars with my right hand,
unsure whether I was going to have my soul pulled out through my
fingernails, or whether the experience was going to be completely
anticlimactic.

I
was completely unprepared for a third option.

When
I was in ninth grade I got hit in the face with a basketball during
gym class. I can still remember how it felt at the exact moment the
ball hit me. When you're completely unprepared for something like
that the shock is more than just physical. It was like the ball hit
my face and the force of the blow continued past my skin and bone and
tore something inside of my brain.

This
was like that. When I touched the bar it delivered a shock that
wasn't electrical, but which still rocked me back on my heels. I
tried to let go, to distance myself from the bar, but my arm felt
almost disconnected from the rest of me.

I
dropped to my knees, but I retained just enough awareness to yell at
Alec. "Stop, don't get any closer."

"What
just happened, Adri?"

I
opened my mouth to tell him that I didn't know, but before I could
get the words out I realized that my eyes were closed…they
were closed but I could still see everything around me.

All
of my senses seemed to have been thrown into overdrive. I could hear
Alec's heart beating from three feet away, could smell one of the
creatures—one of the shadows—approaching from more than a
mile away. I was aware of my body in ways that I'd never been aware
before.

The
dull pain in my arm beat a slow counterpoint to the sharp pain of my
headache and it seemed almost as though I could feel each separate
pain neuron firing off to tell my brain which parts of me had been
pushed too far.

I
felt a god-like sense of awareness regarding what was going on around
me, but all of that paled in comparison to the scene that had painted
itself on the backs of my eyelids. Alec was still a figure of pure,
silvery light, but he was less distinct now—like someone had
poured white fire into a container that was only vaguely man-shaped.

Alec
was brighter now too, but that was only the beginning of what I could
see. Every single bit of our environment seemed to be made up of
shining golden threads that were so fine even my new vision almost
couldn't see them.

It
would have been impossible to trace it all back to its source by
following one of the threads, but it turned out that I didn't need to
find the source that way. Instead I merely followed the brightness of
the light coming off of the threads. They got dimmer the further away
from us they were, but they never truly went completely dark.

I
turned my head, surveying the furthest extent of the dreamscape we
were trapped in. The miles of distance that it covered didn't serve
as any kind of impediment to my sight, I could see it all. The
pyramid was exactly as Alec had described, a hulking stone edifice in
the exact center of the jungle.

I
saw the remaining shadows that were slowly closing in on our cave and
felt a tremor of fear at facing six of them at once, but even terror
wasn't capable of tearing my mind away from the vista before me.

The
black, glassy walls stretched around the jungle, unbroken just as
Alec had guessed, except for the spot where we were standing. From
the ground previously I hadn't been able to follow them up very far,
but now the darkness concealed nothing from me and I traced their
route up as they arched back over top of us and met miles above in a
black dome.

In
every direction I looked but one, golden threads wove an impenetrable
barrier. Alec had been right, there was no other way out. These bars
were the key, but in more ways than just one. The threads all got
brighter the closer they got to us, but it was the bars that were
where the brightest threads were located.

They
were so bright that I couldn't see the misty landscape on the other
side of them, but they weren't so bright that I couldn't see the
glowing rope that ran from Alec to the bars. Even as I
watched, Alec— nearly overcome by worry for me—shifted closer to the bars and the
threads that made them up got even brighter as the rope between them
and Alec swelled with yet more light.

I
brought my injured left arm up and watched as my free hand got closer
to the bars. Tiny golden threads shimmered into existence, joining me
to the bars with ribbons of light that flowed only in one direction.

"You
were the key all along. It really is devouring us, but you most of
all. You should be dead already…"

"Adri,
what are you saying? Come away from there, I don't like what it's
doing to you."

I
looked more closely at Alec and felt my vision sharpen yet again.
There were other threads attached to him, threads that I could
somehow feel weren't stopped by the walls that Dream Stealer had
built around Alec.

Light
flowed along these as well, some in one direction, some in the other,
but I got the feeling that the net effect was positive. It was the
only explanation for why Alec was still alive after days of having
his light pour out to sustain the very prison entrapping him.

"You
said that you found this cave on one of your first days here?"

"Yes.
Why?"

"You
didn't think that was odd? Dozens, maybe hundreds of miles' worth of
wall and you came directly to the exit. It boggles the mind."

"I…I
could feel it pulling at me. No matter where I go inside of this
place I can still feel it."

I
opened my mouth to explain what it was I could see, but instead a
harsh, almost mocking laughter came out. There was an edge of
hysteria to it that scared me, but I couldn't seem to stop. I'd seen
stuff that the human mind wasn't equipped to deal with, and now I was
paying the price.

"Adri…"

Whatever
Alec was going to say was interrupted as the world around us
shivered. There was no telling what Alec saw, but for me the rate at
which the bars sucked light out of Alec increased noticeably and I
could see the light being sucked from the threads by another creature
of light that had materialized at the pyramid.
That
was enough to cut off my laughter.

"Dream
Stealer just arrived, Adri. We need to get you somewhere safe."

"I
know, I can see him. There isn't anywhere safe for me to go though.
It's too late to get to your hiding spot."

I
tugged on the bars with my right hand, but it was pointless. I wasn't
strong enough to bend metal—for that you'd need the muscles of
a hybrid at the very least. I started to tell Alec to run and then I
noticed the feather-light weight of my sword which was still leaning
against my chest.

"Alec,
take my sword."

"I
don't know how to use it, Adri. It won't be enough for me to stop
Dream Stealer."

"No,
not to use against Dream Stealer, to use against the bars. It's the
obvious solution."

Alec
shook his head as he started back the direction we'd come, obviously
intent on making sure that he wasn't going to have to worry about
being pushed back into the bars during his fight with Dream Stealer.

"I
already tried that. I tore a small tree out of the ground when I
first found the bars and tried to use it to knock a hole in the gate
while staying back far enough that I wasn't being drained, but it
didn't work."

I
grabbed my sword and ran after Alec, desperate to convince him before
Dream Stealer arrived.

"No,
you don't understand. Anything from this place isn't going to work
because it's all you and the bars are designed to stop you. Use my
sword; it comes from somewhere else. Look, no threads."

Alec
didn't seem to have heard me. He'd already started walling the
external world out, leaving himself just enough awareness to be able
to fight while burying as much of his core identity as possible down
where Dream Stealer would have a hard time getting at it once the
torture commenced.

I
could see Dream Stealer headed our way. He was moving faster than any
living thing should have been able to move and I knew that we had
only seconds left. I dropped my sword and wrapped both arms around
Alec's arm in an effort to stop him.

"Trust
me, Alec, please trust me. This is the solution!"

Something
got through to him. I couldn't tell whether it was the sound of my
voice, the feel of my bodyweight hanging from his arm, or the clear
bell-like note that rang out as my sword hit the rock under our feet,
but
something
made him stop and look at me.

"You're
sure?"

"Yes,
but
hurry
.
Dream Stealer is almost here."

Alec
turned and scooped up my sword with one smooth motion. I wanted to
yell at him to run faster, but I knew he was hurrying as fast as he
could already—it was only my altered time sense that made it
seem otherwise.

I
followed after him, but whatever I'd done to myself to make me able
to see and think as fast as Alec wasn't enough to actually let me
match his speed. I looked towards the bars as he got nearly to within
striking range, and neither his body nor the stone blocking my line
of sight was sufficient to stop me from seeing the golden pillars
that he needed to destroy.