Fever 4 - DreamFever (38 page)

  There were billions of mirrors around me. Billions of portals. And I had a tough time
choosing between fifteen shades of pink.

  After a while, I checked my watch. It was stuck at 1:14 P.M.

  I slipped off my coat and began to strip, tucking the pouch containing the stones in
my waistband. The Hall was too warm for the layers I was wearing. I removed my
sweater and long-sleeved knit jersey, and tied them around my waist, then put my coat
back on.

  I performed an inventory of items on my person.

  One knife--an antique Scottish dirk--that the LM hadn't known about, pilfered from
the Baubles portion of Barrons Books and strapped to my left forearm.

  One baby-food jar full of wriggling Unseelie flesh in my left coat pocket.

  Two protein bars tucked into an inner coat pocket, squished.

  One MacHalo, still strapped beneath my chin.

  One cell phone.

  I took inventory of what I didn't have.

  No batteries or flashlights.

  No water.

  No spear.

  I stopped there. That was bad enough.

  I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket and punched up Barrons' number. I've
become so accustomed to his invincibility that I expected it to ring, and when it didn't, I
was flabbergasted. Apparently even his cell service had dead spots, and if it wasn't
going to work somewhere, I could understand it not working here. Even if I'd had
V'lane's name, I doubted it would have worked in this place.

  My own mind nearly didn't work here. The longer I sat, the odder I began to feel.

   The Hall wasn't merely the confluence of infinite doorways to alternate places and
times. The many portals made the Hall live and breathe, ebb and flow. The Hall was
time. It was ancient and young, past and present and future, all in one.

   BB&B exuded a sense of spatial distortion from harboring a single Silver in Barrons'
study.

  These billions of mirrors opening onto the same hall created an exponentially
compounded effect, both spatially and temporally. Time here wasn't linear, it was ...
My mind couldn't focus on it, but I was part of it, and I didn't get that at all. I didn't
matter. I was essential. I was a child. I was a withered old woman. I was death. I was the
source of all creation. I was the Hall and the Hall was me. A tiny bit of me seemed to
bleed into every doorway.

 Duality didn't begin to describe it. Like this place itself, I was all possibles. It was the
most terrifying feeling I'd ever felt.

  I tried IYCGM.

  No service.

  I stared at IYD for a long time.

  Ryodan had said he'd kill me if I used it when I didn't need it.

   My first thought was, I'd like to see him get here and try. My second thought was that
I wouldn't, because then he'd be here, too, and he really might kill me.

  I couldn't begin to present a convincing argument that I was dying. I might not like
my current situation, but there was no arguing that I was in perfect health, with no
apparent threat to my life in the immediate vicinity. Although I seemed to be growing
more ... confused by the moment.

   Memories from my childhood had begun to stir in my mind, seeming too vivid and
tantalizing for mere memories.

  I skipped lightly over them, found one I liked.

  My tenth birthday: Mom and Dad had thrown a surprise party for me.

   The moment I chose to focus on it, it swelled with dramatic appeal, and there were
my friends, laughing and holding presents, real, so real, waiting for me to join them in
the dining room, where they were having cake and ice cream. I saw it all happening,
right there in the molten gold of the floor I was staring down at. I traced my fingers over
the vision. The gold rippled in the wake of my fingertips, and I was touching our dining
room table, about to sink into it, slip inside my ten-year-old body in the chair, laughing
at something Alina said.

  Alina was dead. This was not now. This was not real.

  I jerked my gaze away.

  In the air in front of me, a new memory took shape: my first shopping trip to Atlanta
with my aunts. It had left a serious impression on me. We were in Bloomingdale's. I
was eleven. I wandered, staring up at all the pretty things, no longer seeing the gold
walls and mirrors.

  I closed my eyes, stood, and shoved the cell phone into my back pocket.

  I had to get out of this place. It was messing with my mind.

  But where?

   I opened my eyes and began moving. The moment I did, the memories vanished from
the air around me and my mind was clear again.

  A thought occurred to me. Frowning, I walked a few yards and stopped.

  The memories resumed.

  My daddy was cheering at my first ever--and last--softball game. He'd bought me a
pink mitt with magenta stitching. My mom had embroidered my name and flowers on it.
The boys were laughing at me and my mitt. I ran to catch a ground ball to prove to them
how tough I was. It popped up and slammed me in the face, bloodying my nose and
chipping a tooth.

  I winced.

  They laughed harder, pointing.

  I manipulated the memory, fast-rewound, caught the ball perfectly threw out the
runner at home plate, and got it there in plenty of time for the catcher to take out the
runner at third.

  The boys were awed by my ball-playing prowess.

  My daddy puffed with pride.

  It was a lie, but an oh-so-sweet one.

  I began walking again.

  The memory exploded into pink-mitt dust and sprinkled the floor.

  Stopping in the Hall was dangerous, perhaps even deadly.

   My suspicion was confirmed a short time later when I passed a skeleton sitting cross-
legged on the floor, leaning back against the gold wall between mirrors. Its posture
evidenced no signs of struggle, gave no hint of agony in death. The face of the skull
had--inasmuch as a skull could--a peaceful look to its bones. Had it starved to death?
Or had it lived a hundred years, lost in dreams? I felt no hunger pangs, and should have,
considering all I'd had since yesterday afternoon was coffee, hours ago. Did one even
need to eat here, where time wasn't what one expected at all?

  I began glancing into the mirrors as I passed.

  Some of the things in the mirrors glanced back, looking startled and confused. It
seemed some of them could see me as clearly as I could see them.

  I was going to have to make a choice, and sooner was probably wiser than later. I was
beginning to think gold was the most peaceful, right, perfect color I'd ever seen. And
the floor--so inviting! Warm, smooth, I could stretch out and rest my eyes a bit ...
gather my strength for what was certain to be an arduous journey.

  First danger of the Hall of All Days: When you can live any day over again in your
mind--and live it right--why leave at all? I could save my sister here. Save the world.
Never know the difference after a while.

  Second danger of the Hall of All Days: When anything is possible, how do you
choose?

   There were tropical vistas of white beaches that stretched for miles, with aqua waves
so clear that coral reefs of rainbow hues shimmered through, glinting in the sun, and
tiny silver fish leaped and played in the swells.

   There were streets of fabulous mansions. Deserts and vast plains. There were ancient
reptilian beasts in verdant valleys and postapocalyptic cities. There were underwater
worlds and Silvers that opened directly onto open space, black and deep, glittering with
stars. There were doorways to nebulae and even one that led straight to the event
horizon of a black hole. I tried to fathom the mind that would want to go there. An
immortal that had done everything else? A Fae that could never die and wanted to know
what it felt like to be sucked up by one? The more I saw in the Hall of All Days, the
more I understood that I understood nothing about the immortal race that had created
this place.

  There were mirrors that opened onto images so terrible I looked away the instant I
caught a glimpse of what was going on. We've done some of those things. Apparently
other beings on other worlds have, too. In one, a man performing a horrific experiment
saw me, grinned, and lunged for me. I took off in a mad dash, heart pounding, and ran
without stopping for a long, long time. Finally, I glanced behind me. I was alone. I
concluded that Silver must have been one-way. Thankfully! I wondered if all the
mirrors in the Hall were, or if some of them still worked both ways. If I stepped through
one, could I immediately return if I didn't like the world? From what Barrons had told
me, unpredictability was the name of the game in here.

   How had I gotten to the Hall? What had the stones done to rip me from the tunnel of
a set of Silvers and dump me into the vortex of the entire network? Did they work as a
homing beacon, and would uncovering them always bring me here?

  I walked. I looked. I looked away.

   Pain, pleasure, delight, torture, love, hate, laughter, despair, beauty, horror, hope,
grief--all of it was available here in the Hall of All Days.

  There were the surreal mirrors with Dal�-esque landscapes, so similar to his paintings
that I wondered if they hadn't been hung here and animated. There were doorways to
dreamscapes so alien I couldn't even give name to what I was seeing.

  I looked into mirror after mirror, growing more uncertain by the moment. I had no
idea if any of the portals actually opened into my world at all. Were they different
planets? Different dimensions? Once I entered one, would I be committing to a perilous
journey through an unbeatable maze?

  Billions. There were billions of choices. How was I ever going to find my way home?

  I walked for what felt like days. Who knows? It might have been. Time has no
meaning in the Hall. Nothing does. Tiny me. Huge corridor. An occasional skeleton--
the rare human one. Silence except for the sound of my boots on gold. I began to sing. I
went through every song I knew, staring into Silvers. Running from some.

  Then one stopped me cold in my tracks.

   I stared. "Christian?" I exploded disbelievingly. His back was to me as he walked
through a dark forest, but the moon in his mirror was bright, and there was no mistaking
his build and walk. Those long legs in faded jeans. The dark hair pulled back in a queue.
The broad shoulders and confident gait.

   His head whipped around. There was a line of crimson and black tattoos down the
side of his neck that hadn't been there the last time I'd seen him.

  Mac? His lips moved, but I couldn't hear him. I stepped closer.

  "Is it really you?"

  Apparently he could hear me. Elation and relief battled with anxiety in the gorgeous
Scotsman's eyes. He stared at me, leaned closer, looked confused, then shook his head.
No, Mac. Stay wherever you are. Don't come here. Go back.

  "I don't know how to go back."

  Where are you?

  "Can't you see?"

  He shook his head. You seem to be inside a large cactus. For a moment, I thought
you were here with me. How are you seeing me?

  I had to make him repeat it several times. I'm not the best lip-reader. The word
"cactus" threw me. I couldn't see a single cactus in the forest. "I'm in the Hall of All
Days."

  Tiger eyes flared. Don't stay long! It messes with you.

  "I kind of figured that out." A moment ago, my pink mitt had reappeared in my hand,
and I could hear the sounds of the ballpark around me. I began to jog in place. The Hall
was not fooled. The mitt remained on my hand. I jogged a tight circle in front of the
mirror. Glove and memory vanished.

  It's a dangerous place. I was there for a time. I had to choose a Silver. I chose badly.
They are not what they seem. What they show you is not where they lead.

  "Are you kidding me?" I nearly went ballistic. If I entered a tropical beach, would I
end up in Nazi Germany with my highly inconvenient black hair?

  The one I chose didn't. I've been jumping dimensions ever since, trying to get to
better places. Some of the Silvers are true, some are not. There's no way to tell which.

  "But you're a lie detector!"

  It doesn't work in the Hall, lass. It only works out of it, and not always. I doubt any of
your sidhe-seer talents work there, either.

  Still jogging a tight circle, I shut my eyes and sought that place in the center of my
mind. Show me what is true, I commanded. I opened my eyes and looked back at
Christian. He still stood in a dark forest.

  "Where are you?"

   In a desert. He gave me a bitter smile. With four suns and no night. I'm badly burned.
I've had nothing to eat or drink in too long. If I don't find a dimensional shift soon, I'm
... in trouble.

  "A dimensional shift?" I asked if he meant an IFP and explained what they were.

  He nodded. They abound. But they have no' been abounding here. "Abooondin',"
he'd said. Although the mirror was showing me a perfectly clean, well-rested man, now
that I knew what to look for, I could see his exhaustion and strain. More than that, I was
picking up a certain ... grim acceptance? From Christian MacKeltar? No way.

  "How bad off are you, Christian?" I said. "And don't lie to me."

  He smiled. I seem to recall saying the same to you once. Have you slept with him?

  "Long story. Answer my question."

   That's a yes. Ah, lass. Tiger eyes held mine for a tense, probing moment. Bad, he said
finally.

  "Are you actually even standing there? I mean, up on your own feet?" Was anything I
was seeing remotely true?

  No, lass.

  "Could you stand if you wanted to?" I said sharply.

  Not sure.

  I didn't waste another moment.

  I stepped into the mirror.
 

S   ome Silvers feel like quicksand. They don't like to let you go.

   I expected this one to behave like the one hanging in the LM's house: hard to push
into, certain to expel me with a rubbery snap.