Dreamstrider (18 page)

Part Two

NIGHTMARES

Chapter Thirteen

I dream of citizenship papers, of records, of words blurring together like drops of water into a pond. Once more, I dream of the archives, hunting for anything that can help us in Birnau. But I walk away more confused than when I began.

Rather than sink back into dreamless sleep, I find myself awake within my dream. The Dreamer must be hearing my prayers after all, because even without the vile dreamwort tonic I usually use for dreamstriding, I’ve wound up in the city at the center of Oneiros. My feet are bare, and I’m dressed in the same ruffly nightgown I’m wearing back in my bed in the barracks, but the night is just the right temperature, and the cobblestones are soft under my soles. I twist through the labyrinthine streets, between buildings towering over me that rise like tidal waves of metal, or erupt like bouquets of glass flowers, or sink into the earth, opening to deep subterranean lands.

Yet the streets are strangely empty this night. I don’t pass a single soul as I wander—usually I see at least one or two priests wandering about. Perhaps it’s the hum in the air, like the frantic quiver of insects before a storm, that keeps them away. I’m grateful to avoid the priests’ suspicious stares—I need the space to think and dream—but their absence itches all the same.

The night sky greets me with millions of winking stars, and the two golden posts of the spire at the center of the city rise up in greeting. They represent the Dreamer’s embrace, holding a golden disc high in the air. I take a deep breath and launch into the sky, and then rush up the height of the spire and land on the disc’s upper edge. The dreamworld unfolds in every direction; the city fades into the patchwork pastoral fiefdoms of Shapers’ homes. But nothing moves. No birds, no animals, no humans. The night air turns stale and heavy around me.

Something flickers in the forest, a structure with walls that flicker and glow amber like a candle’s flame. I’ve seen stone like that before, drinking up the sunlight and leaking it back out. It looks just like Twyne Manor. But it must be coincidence; what dreamshaper wouldn’t want a shimmering alabaster castle? Still, the sight of it tugs at me. I ought to surge across the city and into the forest for a closer look, just to put my mind at ease. I ought.

I look away, to the streets beneath me, to gather my resolve.

Now I see others in the streets. At first, they’re only shadows, rippling from side to side. The figures swell, rising from the cobblestones like tar oozing up. The black, sticky shapes congeal into figures: hunched-over half-humans with vile, sightless holes for eyes.

Wings sprout from their disfigured backs. The night sky fades under a rotten cloud of thick, putrid smoke. The ragged creatures circle the spire’s base, looping around it like a hungering pack.

A massive shadow falls across me from above.

The creatures take flight, wings fully formed, still circling the spire. The stink of rot floods my nose. I try to will myself airborne but remain pinned to the disc’s edge. I try to cry out, but my screams crumble in my mouth. No sound leaves me, and I can’t move.

The mob becomes a buzzing black wall of death that cinches closed around me. My chest heaves with agony, as if the weight of all my failures has crashed into me at once. Professor Hesse’s empty eye, piercing despite its cloudiness, his fist clenched around some terrible secret that I couldn’t be bothered to pry free. My mother’s hand reaching for me as I turned away, my bag full of everything I owned. The beasts are closer now, rank breaths heating my face. I reach up to claw them away—

I sit up. I’m back in my barracks bed. My throat burns, as though I’ve screamed it raw. I claw at my arms, trying to rip off the feeling of beating wings. Is that blood under my nails? Tar? I leap out of bed, and my legs nearly collapse beneath me.
Come on, come on, wake up.
I shake one leg, then the other. Finally, I hobble over to the desk on fuzzy, uncooperative feet, and I crank on the kerosene lamp.

Nothing under my nails, nothing on my arms. I’m all in one piece, though decidedly sweaty and ragged. I click off the lamp and let the moonlight guide me back to bed.

Dreamer, protect us all.
I pray for some time and regulate my breathing, but sleep remains cold and distant, watching me from the far corner of my room.

Chapter Fourteen

“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.” Marez settles onto the lip of the marble fountain at the center of Dreamer Square. He’s gnawing absently on a meat pastry from a market cart and watching a gaggle of bejeweled aristocrats stumble out of the High Temple. “I thought you might benefit from joining me on this questioning. If my source is correct, something far more sinister than we anticipated is afoot.”

“How do you mean?” I try tucking one leg under me on the fountain lip, but can’t keep my balance that way, so I swap to the other. I’m trying to act calm—Marez has no idea we’re undertaking a mission to the Land of the Iron Winds tomorrow morning—but my pulse is galloping.

Marez gulps down the last bite of his roll. “My source claims to know something about the late Lady Twyne. Something to do with those nightmares you all fear so much.”

I narrow my eyes; suddenly the cool mist from the fountain at our backs turns chilly on my skin. I still haven’t shaken the dread I’d felt in Oneiros last night; that coupled with Lady Twyne’s eerie final words about Nightmare makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. “You don’t mean to mock us again, do you?”

“Of course not, my dear.” His eyes sparkle as he looks right at me. “In fact, I was hoping you could help me make sense of it.”

“Then what do you want to know?” I ask, still on my guard.

“Well, all this business about nightmares—how Nightmare has been vanquished, and all that. Clearly people still have bad dreams, or they wouldn’t turn to Lullaby.”

I cringe inwardly, recalling Hesse, but take care to keep my feelings from my face. “A true believer can fend off a nightmare easily. They’re nothing more than our doubts and regrets haunting us. If you can keep the faith, then the Dreamer’s guidance will shine through.”
But the Nightmare Wastes are growing in Oneiros,
I think. “The Lullaby users shouldn’t give up on their hopes—if they keep their good dreams close to them, then their bad dreams are powerless.”

“Ah, so it’s their own fault.” He nods, his eyes dark now. “What about the Dreamer? Isn’t it his duty to protect them?”

The Dreamer’s duty—what do I really know of that? He never answers my calls. But then, I am not as devout as I should be. If the priests are to be believed, I disgrace the Dreamer every time I dreamstride. I don’t know if they’re right, but I’m trying to do right for the Dreamer and for his people—honestly, I am. But the only way I know how is through dreamstriding. If the Dreamer would only let me know that what I’m doing is right, that I’m following the path he’s set for me … I clench my teeth together and try to force that thought away.

“Maybe they don’t trust in him like they should,” is all I say.

Marez drums his long, slender fingers against the fountain lip. “Interesting.”

A few weeks ago, I’d have been certain this conversation was another game of his; that he was a predator, hunting for my weaknesses. But now, I see it’s just his nature—to be curious, to seek deeper knowledge of things. He may not trust in the Dreamer like I do, but he seems more respectful. More understanding. He saw me for what I really am, after all—a tunneler—and didn’t so much as flinch.

“And what about the dreamworld?” he asks.

“Oneiros?” I say, before I think to stop myself. The dreamworld’s existence isn’t a secret, per se, but no one but the priests are supposed to be able to visit it. It’s where they do their work Shaping and soothing others’ dreams. A sacred place, meant only for the Dreamer’s chosen servants, who understand it in a way the average Barstadter can’t.

He nods. If my mention surprises him, he doesn’t show it. “I hear common folk occasionally slip into it from their private dreams.”

“Rarely,” I say. “And it’s very dangerous—the priests have to usher them safely back.”

“Most curious. Can they have nightmares there, as well?”

A rivulet of sweat rolls down my back, despite the autumn breeze. “Not that I’m aware of,” I say. “Nightmare is dead, so his minions are powerless. The Dreamer’s priests protect us.” Except for whatever vile threat is festering even now inside Oneiros.

“So it’s forbidden to dream badly. But even though your Dreamer slew Nightmare, there are plenty of souls who experience bad dreams.”

Yes, bad dreams persist. In the tunnels. The Dreamless dens. They hang over the luckless like a cloud of misery. I say nothing and stand up, straightening my skirts. “Shouldn’t we be meeting with your informant now?”

But he plows onward. “I can’t help but think that if you bottle those bad feelings up, eventually they have to break free. Like steam from a kettle, you know?” Marez seizes my hand in his. “In Farthing, we believe in balance. Give in to all emotions in turn; accept your baser instincts, lest they tear you up inside.” He flips my hand over in his and studies the thick calluses at the base of my fingers from years of scrubbing stone.

I snatch my hand back from him. “Are you saying it’s our own fault?”

“I’m only playing the devil’s advocate again. I like finding a way to argue for or against whatever suits my needs in the role I’m playing. It’s something every successful operative should be able to do.” His lips curl into a closed smile. “Let go of your convictions and sink into whatever role you must play.”

“Maybe I’m not interested in playing a role,” I say.

He arches one brow. “Don’t you remember your dream, trying to choose which costume you should don? You’re in the wrong country to get away with not playing a role.” He stands and shakes the crumbs from his trousers—dark, well-oiled leather. “Today our role is to tolerate all sorts of despicable creatures to find out what we need.”

Marez swaggers against the throng of aristocrats pouring from the temple, leaving me to scamper along in his wake. I risk a glance around the square, seeking out Jorn, who trails us from a distance. He gives me a slow nod; I harden my expression and stay close to Marez. At first, I didn’t like the way Marez keeps poking and prodding me like I’m an experiment, but now, I can see the value in his tips on conducting myself in the field, and his hints of Farthing life. Is he really trying to train me as an operative? Somehow that feels far too altruistic a possibility for their sort of people. He said himself that Farthing is about balance, about give and get.

Yet maybe he really does see something in me the Ministry can’t. Brandt said I had a determination in me. Maybe Marez sees it, too—perhaps sees it even more. I swallow as a nervous excitement ripples through me. Maybe Marez’s interest in me is about something else entirely. Feeling my face start to burn, I duck my head.

We follow a curving alley off of the main square; Marez tosses a glance over his shoulder to make sure I’m with him. His glossy curls look especially lustrous in the early dawn light. “Let’s see how right you are about your Dreamer protecting his flock from bad dreams.”

He slides up to a doorway set into the alley and raps casually, then purses his fist to his lips, affecting modesty. The door cracks open just long enough for a bloodshot eye to appear, and then it slams closed again. Chains rattle and the door flings wide.

“‘E’s got cold feet.” A burly, aging gang enforcer, swaddled in ratty aristocratic garb, holds the door open for us. “I told him you’ll pay good for what he knows, but he’s not believin’ me.”

“I’m sure we can convince him.” Marez’s pencil-thin smile invites me to reconsider the definition of
convince
. My pulse races. I’ve never taken part in a questioning at the Ministry before. I try to turn my fear into excitement at the unknown, a new adventure.

We duck into a smoky gaming den, where men and a few gap-toothed women huddle around tables that constantly rock back and forth under the force of their Stacks playing. I think I could get drunk off the stink of ale in the air alone. Indulging my delicate secretary role, I clutch both hands to my chest and gasp.

In truth, though, I’ve seen worse—far worse—in the tunnels. I’ve lived through worse. The suffering is just a fact of Barstadt life. Could Farthing life really be so much better?

“Apologies that this isn’t up to your usual standard, Miss Silke,” Marez whispers, right into my ear. His lower lip lingers a little too long against my earlobe—or do I imagine it? A thrill runs through me, or maybe it’s a shiver.

We follow the enforcer across the gaming floor and duck through a ratty curtain into a hallway. I hold my breath in sudden panic. Please don’t let him be leading us to a Dreamless den. I can’t face that smell of dark memories, laced with the sweet, seductive Lullaby resin. We drift down the corridor, and I feel it on the air, stale and thick as a wall pushing me back. My mother’s distant stare swims before my eyes, begging me to let her sleep a moment longer. Please, please, no.

The lieutenant stops before another doorway and holds up his hand. “Wait here while I get him.” I release my superstitious breath. The lieutenant ducks under the curtain, revealing only a slash of the horrors beyond: a full-grown man shriveled down to his skin and bones, rolling upon his hammock in unending sleep.

I flatten against the wall and shut my eyes, trying to clear away the memories of my mother as she succumbed to another night of Lullaby sleep or of Hesse and his final days.

“What’s the matter, Silke?” Marez asks, flattening his palm beside my arm against the wall. “Never seen a Dreamless den before?”

The lie rests on the tip of my tongue. I expect Marez to be watching me with haughty indignance, but his face is soft, tinged with sadness. Marez understands my feelings toward my previous life; he didn’t try to wave it away like the others in the Ministry do, telling me it’s just the way of things, it’s how Barstadt’s always been. “It’s been a long time,” I say slowly. “From my life … before.”