Dream a Little Dream (22 page)

After the episode, all went quiet again and most of the Fren lay down to rest. Several stood guard over their “guests,” facing outward, while four stood guard outside the ring of travelers.

Mich moved closer to Nola in order to whisper to her. Tina also moved in to hear. They did not look at one another, in order to avoid suspicion. The Fren who guarded them stood with their backs turned and were far enough away so that they could not hear their whispers.

“I discussed this with Heat. He seems to think that we should just go along with them. They don’t have any idea who we are,” Mich whispered.

One of the Fren turned his head and looked at them, grinned and turned back. They seemed more concerned with who might approach them than who might escape them. Perhaps they were expecting an attack from the Nola whom they believed was still out there somewhere.

Tina lowered her voice below a whisper. “You know, I just can’t believe how we lucked out!” she said. “If they knew it was us, we’d
probably be dead. I have an idea.” She paused, then said, “I think we should give ourselves new names to call each other, you know, for safety’s sake.”

“That’s a great idea, Tina,” Nola whispered. “I’ll be Wilma. That is my mother’s name.”

“That’s good,” Tina said. “I’ll be Joy. That was my friend’s name when I was little.”

“Okay,” Mich said, “I’ll take Richard.”

With that taken care of, they all sat quietly through the night, unable to rest. None of them had any idea of what lay ahead for them, or how they would get themselves out of this fix.

After an eternity of dead silence, the morning sun’s rays descended upon them. The Fren rose and moved on. Nola and the others got moving with alacrity, so as not to attract any hostile attention. This wasn’t entirely successful, but did cut down on the abusive behavior.

The Fren took them along the river and it wasn’t long before they arrived at the cliffs. The sheer stone rose above them, seemingly deep into the sky. The cliff face was riddled with tunnel entrances.

They stopped at a point near the center of the cliffs. Nola heard a bellow from somewhere far above.

“HOOO!” the voice floated down.

“Incoming!” yelled the guard next to Mich.

They stood a moment, waiting for something to happen. In a moment, they could see a huge wooden crate descending on ropes. As it neared the ground, the three humans were pushed forward toward it.

Spirit and Heat both whinnied loudly as they were hauled away from their friends.

“Esprit!” Nola cried. She hadn’t anticipated this. She struggled to follow but was roughly held back by two Fren. “Where are they taking you?” she called.

I don’t know,
came his thought.
I cannot read the minds of evil creatures, nor would I choose to. Do not worry for me, my friend! It is bad enough I should worry for you.

Spirit’s thoughts came quietly. Nola had to concentrate in order to make them out. Perhaps the evil of this place prevented telepathy. She was losing him.

In one last rush of thought, he managed to say,
Don’t forget, my friend, never lose faith! Never!

And with those words, he disappeared into one of the lower tunnels and his thoughts came no more.

Nola stared after them, the tears coming painfully to her eyes once again. She was shoved into the box with Mich, Tina and four Fren. The door was pushed closed from outside.

She hung her head in the darkness of the crate as it began to rise. She felt an emptiness she’d never felt before. She’d gotten used to Spirit’s reassuring thoughts, and she felt as if a large piece of whom she was, was gone. How could she be strong now? She was no longer a whole person. She'd lost her dreamstone cross and her best friend. She felt the walls of the box closing in.

The crate rose in silence. The only noise was that of the Fren’s harsh breathing. Nola’s ears were popping as the crate jarred against something. The door behind them fell with a loud crack against the tunnel floor.

Beyond the doorway was nothing but dust-filled blackness. The three friends were forced into the tunnel. As they stumbled along, they could still see rays of light that squeezed between the planks of the crate and around its edges.

Nola was afraid as she once again faced forward. Her eyes strained, trying to penetrate the darkness. The walls around her were dark and rough. They seemed to feed hungrily on any light that shone on them. Nola searched desperately for her feet and hands in the dark but could see nothing.

She could feel that the tunnel had begun to wind to the left. She kept her shoulder close to the wall, touching it occasionally with her hands. She tried to keep a mental map of the tunnel. However, when the tunnel became steep, it twisted right, then left again; then it seemed to double back. Nola had lost all sense of direction. It was weird enough to be hauled way up to enter a tunnel that then wound steadily down, without trying to figure why it curved all around instead of going straight to its destination. But maybe the Fren were just naturally crooked creatures.

“Wilma?” came Mich’s whisper. He brushed against her back to let her know he was close.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Don’t be scared,” he reassured her. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, but as long as we are careful to keep up appearances, I think things will work out.”

It occurred to her that it shouldn’t be hard to keep up appearances, when it was impossible to see or be seen in this black hole. Maybe the Fren could see in the darkness; she could not be sure of that.

“Joy?” Mich asked.

Tina answered with a cough. She was at the front of the procession, while Mich, Nola and a Fren were bringing up the rear.

“Schilenche!” yelled one of the Fren, prodding Mich with his razor jag. “Now we are taking you inferiorsch to schee the chief. He will dechide which schector you are to work in. I would schuggescht that you schpeak when schpoken to. Otherwische, keep your mouthsch shut.”

There was something familiar about that particular Fren. But what did it matter? All Fren were enemies, until she had the magic to revert them to their true forms and natures.

As time passed, Nola’s feet began to ache. She tried to keep her feet from shifting unnaturally on the stony floor. The tunnel continued
its deep descent for some time. Nola was positive that they were no longer in the cliffs, but far below Kafka’s surface.

At one point, Nola’s ankle turned inward as she stepped on a sloping rock in the dark. Mich managed to keep her from falling by bracing himself between her and the wall. However, the pause in movement caused the Fren to show their impatience. One of them pushed Nola forward and she fell, again twisting her sore ankle beneath her. She knew her ankle was sprained, and the rope that tied her feet together cut painfully into her skin.

She was forced to struggle to her feet and move on. She limped badly and was bound to fall again on the loose stones of the tunnel floor.

She suddenly felt a pair of hands moving over her own. They belonged to Mich. He was walking backward so that he could use his bound hands to untie hers. It was very difficult, as Nola kept stumbling on her injured ankle.

He walked that way for a moment, face-to-face with a Fren. It was a good thing that it was so dark. Mich wasn’t sure if he could stare into its face for more than a few seconds without vomiting from the ghastliness.

Finally the rope loosened and slipped off her wrists. Nola felt the blood rushing to feed her starving hands. She rubbed them together to help the circulation. Then she tried to untie Mich’s hands but she couldn’t even loosen the rope. Her limp was so bad that she had to keep moving her hands away to keep herself from falling.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Just brace yourself on me.”

Nola put her arm around his neck and he helped her steady herself. This made walking much easier and more comfortable. She was so grateful that he was there to help her. He seemed to know just what to do. She wished
she
knew.

“Reility will recognize me,” Mich whispered.

Nola hadn’t thought of that. If they were being taken to Reility,
he would surely recognize Mich, and therefore Nola’s mud covering would not help her. As it was, her mud was drying out.

“Halt!” a Fren snapped. “Get in there.”

They were shoved to the side, where there turned out to be a hole in the wall. They found themselves in a musty chamber barely large enough for the three of them. Was this their destination?

Tina was the last to be shoved in. “They’re ahead of schedule, so they’re taking a break,” she muttered. “I heard them talking. We just have to wait.”

“That’s great,” Nola said. “We can use the time.”

“We can?”

“Yes. Ti—I mean, Joy, sit so you’re blocking the entrance, so they can’t see in.”

“Okay,” the girl agreed dubiously. There was the sound of her body shifting around. “Done.”

Now Nola got busy. First, she created a tiny hooded flashlight, then she created a small spray bottle filled with water. These things appeared in her hand. She sprayed the mud and worked it over the places where it had dried and flaked off. She then disbelieved the bottle. She was learning how to make her talent work effectively for her. She didn’t have to perform great feats of magic, just make little efforts of the right kind.

She imagined a pair of scissors and a bottle of hair dye. “Mich, I want to change your appearance pretty drastically, so you won’t be recognized. Okay?”

“Very well,” he agreed with resignation.

She hated to do it, but she sheared his long black hair so that it came down no farther than the back of his neck. She squirted some of the brown hair dye into her hands and tried to apply it to his face and arms. She worked hurriedly, as there was no telling when the goof-off Fren would decide to resume the hike. That meant an imperfect job of makeup. His skin was a bit splotchy and he’d have a
heck of a time getting it off, but at least he looked nothing like himself. She labored to improve the details, but this just wasn’t the ideal laboratory for such an operation.

“Douse light!” Tina hissed. Nola disbelieved the items immediately, to avoid discovery. She would have done so anyway, in due course, so that she wouldn’t have to carry them.

There was motion at the cave entrance. “Out, captivesch!” the naggingly familiar Fren ordered.

They obediently crawled out. Nola wondered whether she should have focused on untying the other two, but realized that the Fren might check their bonds. In fact, she would have to conjure more rope for her own hands the moment they entered any lighted region. So she did that now, knotting the cord around one wrist and leaving a loop, so that she could quickly slip her other hand in when she had to. The Fren probably wouldn’t check it for looseness, because they would figure she'd have freed her hands if she could.

They resumed the trek, wending down. Nola realized that the slant wasn’t as bad as she had thought; they were going into the mountain behind the cliff face, rather than down below it. Still, she had the impression of enormous depth.

At long last, it seemed that her eyes were adjusting to the darkness. She began to see dark shapes ahead of them.

Nola felt they were at least two miles beneath the surface (though she knew better) when she noticed the crystals. The walls of the tunnel were lined with tiny glowing crystals that cast a dim bluish light in the dusty air.

She began to hear noises. She could hear banging sounds through the thick walls, as well as far-off voices. The echoes of their footsteps took on a deeper tone. Soon she could see well enough to realize that the tunnel was slowly widening. Ahead of them was a huge cavern.

Inside the cavern, they were told to stand at the end of a short line
of creatures. Tina was first, Mich second and Nola was third. She slipped her free hand into the loop of cord, and tried to work it reasonably tight. She hoped they wouldn’t notice that her wrists were no longer cruelly constricted.

In front of Tina was a huge brown rat. In front of the rat was a medium-sized Dalmatian with bright orange spots. Next was a small boy with strange ears and shaggy pants. Nola saw, upon closer inspection, that his ears were really stubby horns and his pants were really furry legs ending in cloven hooves. She decided it was a faun. She had read about them in her mythology book.

The first creature in line, a gray mule with a single sharp, slender horn between its eyes, stood before a small desk. Behind the desk sat Reility. There were several guards standing around.

The friends watched as Reility stamped a page in a book, made a note in pencil, then waved to two guards. The guards escorted the mule into one of the many tunnels that circled the cavern.

“Next?” Reility said.

The faun stepped forward.

“State your name and race,” the Fren king said in a bored tone.

“Saffron Quandrey, Cava faun, sir.”

“Territory?”

“Mangor.”

“So, you are a Cava faun? Then you have experience working in caves. You’ll be an asset.”

The faun bowed his head. In the process, he showed a rather large wound across the back of his neck. No doubt it had been put there by the Fren.

“Sector one,” Reility said, stamping his book. “Next?”

The faun was led through a tunnel as the Dalmatian stepped forward. It seemed to have an injured paw. It looked at the ground, and never turned its eyes up.

“State your name and race.”

“Bow-wow!” the dog barked.

Reility nodded to one of his guards. The guard stepped forward and lashed the creature’s back with a whip. The dog yelped.

Reility stared at the dog as it whimpered. The guard stepped back again.

“I have no patience for your ilk today. So, I ask you once more: state your name and race.”

Nola was shocked as the dog began to speak in a male human’s throaty voice. “My name is Curbie Martin. I am a Dalmatian.” He growled sarcastically, showing his canines.

“Territory?”

“Welton Town.”

“Ah. You guarded pigs?”

“No. I guarded the town.”

“So, then you are a coward. You were not there when I invaded.”

The dog growled, his hackles raised. “Who is the coward? Why do you not dismiss these flunkies and face me, Fren to canine?”

Reility laughed. “Such effrontery will not go unpunished, runty puppy. Sector seven!”

Two guards approached the dog with their jags. The dog looked furious, but relented, and was taken out of the chamber.

Reility was still laughing nastily when the rat was called. It was taken to sector three without incident.

“Next?”

Tina stepped up to the desk. Reility did not look up from his book.

“Name?”

Nola prayed that Tina remembered to use her phony name.

“M-M-My name’s Joy Cooper. I’m a h-humanoid,” she stammered.

Nola flinched as Reility glanced at her friend. Tina’s hair was snarled and her face was dusty from their journey, but she still looked
decent. “I assume your territory is Welton Town?” he asked, not looking up.

“Wh-What?”

This time he stared at her directly. “I see from the amount of bruises on your body that you are not a fighter. Perhaps a lover? Maybe a sexual slave?”

This time, Tina flinched. That statement had cut a little close to home. “Yes, that’s what I do.”

“We have no need of that type of service. However, you seem to have strong limbs. At least strong enough to last a week or so.” Reility paused and looked thoughtful. “You look very familiar to me. Have we met previously? Perhaps in the town?”

Tina decided to do the opposite of what was normally done in a case like this. She hoped she was not being stupid. “Yes, I think we did meet. Y-You destroyed my baby daughter,” she lied.

Stupid or not, it worked. “Oh, I see.” He paused briefly. “I destroyed many children that day. Oh, well.” He looked back at his book.

Tina was never happier to see anyone stamp a page in her life. “Sector twelve. Next?”

Nola had been thinking desperately of something to say, when Mich was called forward. She came up with a crazy plan. While Reility and his guards were distracted by Mich, she disbelieved her clothing and armor, but kept the mud wet and in place.

Mich felt very apprehensive as he approached the desk. He kept his eyes turned down. His biggest fear was that the moment he met Reility’s gaze, his charade would crumble.