The Nothing: A Book of the Between (32 page)

Again she screamed. “It’s going to get me.”

Vivian’s blood ran cold in horror but she couldn’t think of anything to do. Then Zee’s sword flashed silver in the sunlight, followed by a wide spray of blood. What remained of Lyssa’s hand fell to the ground at his feet, the palm and fingertips eaten half away. Blood spurted from her wrist, turning the earth to crimson. Zee caught her up in his free arm and dragged her back and away from the growing patch of darkness.

“What have you done?” Isobel cried.

Vivian clamped her hands around the child’s mutilated arm, squeezing hard to compress the radial artery. “We need a tourniquet.”

“No point if that darkness keeps on coming.” Zee shifted the little girl in his arms. Her eyes began to glaze over with shock, the screams fading to heartbreaking whimpers. Black nothingness ate away at the earth not far from their feet, spreading like wildfire in the grass. Zee kept walking backward, Vivian moving with him, hands still clamped around Lyssa’s wrist.

“Into the cave.” Kalina dragged Jared in that direction. He moved like a zombie, stiff and awkward, still with his hands pressed to his eyes and muttering incoherently about darkness. “Quickly,” she cried, “before we’re cut off.”

There was only a small spit of green left between them and the cave. If the Nothing claimed that before they crossed, then it was all over and they had failed.

“She’s right. We have to run for it.”

“Move now.” Zee ran for it, the little girl pressed against his breast.

“I don’t understand,” Isobel said, her voice blurred and bewildered. Vivian grabbed her hand and dragged her into the cave. Everybody present and accounted for, but now they had the dream matter to deal with. At the entrance, there wasn’t much of the stuff, but inside….

“Hold up a minute,” she called to Zee, running to catch up. Lyssa moaned and stirred, a sound that went straight to Vivian’s heart.

“Sleep,” she commanded, using the Voice, and the little girl sighed and snuggled up against Zee, her face peaceful, chest rising and falling in easy breaths. Calling her Sorcieri light, Vivian swiftly examined the wound. It was a clean cut right through the wrist joint, the bones of the forearm intact. The immediate problem was the bleeding. Closing her eyes, she settled into the place where the magic waited.
Just another door, really, or a series of doors. If she could just weave them closed so no more blood could get out.

When she opened her eyes, Zee was staring at her with an odd expression on his face.

“What?”

He didn’t answer, and she looked down at Lyssa to check her work. The bleeding had stopped. What had been a jagged, bloody stump was covered with a weaving of color and texture that shifted in and out of focus.

“Like the door you closed in the Between,” Zee said. “Will it harm her?”

“I don’t think so. We’ll worry about it later. We need to keep moving.” She turned to the group huddled around her, their faces all pale and eerie in the dim light. “The cave is full of dream matter,” she said, keeping her voice matter-of-fact and as calm as possible. “It can be triggered by your fears and hates, as it was for Lyssa.”

“But she wasn’t even in the cave,” Isobel said.

“The dreamsphere died in her hand, reverting to dream matter.” Even as the words left her mouth, it truly sank in that the world of the Giants was gone. Kraal’s face was etched with lines of grief. Jared moved like a zombie. She had no comfort to offer either of them, and went on with her little speech. “Lyssa most feared the Nothing and so has brought it here. What you fear, what you hate, can come alive in this place. So, choose something good to think about. Focus on one simple, beautiful, wonderful thing. And if an ugliness arises near you, do not engage. Don’t try to harm it; you will only make it grow. Keep moving. Kalina and I will do our best to shield you. All right?”

“The Nothing is coming,” Kalina said. “I can feel it.”

“What is that stink?” Isobel asked, covering her nose and mouth with her hands.

“Dead dragon, mostly. There may be other things. Kalina—you’re the one who knows the ritual. Would you lead?”

The girl nodded. A golden ball of light appeared in her hand, shedding a warm glow over the smooth stone walls and the polished floor. The roof of the cave remained obscured by darkness. Anything might lurk there.

Vivian brought her thoughts back, seeking the one good image she had urged upon the others. This turned out to be a slippery problem, her thoughts skimming in and out of all of the complicated relationships and places of her life, all with some darkness attached. And then her eyes fell on Poe.

The little penguin bobbed along just in front of her, behind Kraal and Jared. He had been her steadfast companion since she had become a Dreamshifter, and often her guide. She kept her mind focused on him with love. In her peripheral vision, more penguins appeared on either side of her. All of them built like Poe, not quite the right size or shape for any Wakeworld penguin breed, with bright yellow breasts and even a crimson patch on the chest marking the spot where Poe had once been pierced with a sword.

Other figures filled the cave, pacing silently along beside them. Callyn walked beside Kraal. Another Vivian walked beside Zee, golden eyes and scales, and her heart overflowed with love for him. Kalina produced no specter, walking steadily ahead and lighting up the dark.

Jared was another story. Thronging around him so thickly, they tripped him up at times, were manifestations of himself. All were deformed. Blind Jareds with blank eye sockets, legless torsos dragging themselves along with their hands. Twisted, ugly, muttering things.

Vivian began to build up in her mind all of the things she most wanted to preserve. Flowers and grass sprang up around her feet. Birds flew overhead. But blood ran red through the grass. Blades appeared in the air, razors and knives and shards of broken glass. Vivian knew only too well who was manifesting these horrors. Isobel wept silently, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“Think of something else,” Vivian pleaded. “Landon. Some good and beautiful thing.”

“All I can see is darkness and blood.”

“You can change that.” Grabbing her mother’s free hand, she towed her on, keeping her own mind empty of blades and blood and even of the good things, just breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, put one foot in front of the other. Keep moving.

The narrow walls widened and they entered the large chamber at the heart of the cave. Here the decaying corpse of the Guardian was draped over a heap of dream matter that half filled the chamber. If any dreamspheres were left alive, buried beneath the dark sand, not one was visible. Vivian faltered at the full extent of the deaths represented here. So much lost that could never be replaced.

Kalina led them around the dead Guardian to the far side of the chamber, not stopping until she stood about a foot from the wall. Then she turned and thrust the griffyn cub at Isobel.

“Here—keep him for me.”

Then she turned back to the wall, raised both of her white arms, and began an invocation. An aura of lurid red light formed around her. Her voice deepened, strengthened, taking on a tone and texture as it filled the cave, echoing off of floors and ceilings. Flames wreathed her body but did not consume her. With a command in an unknown tongue, she touched her hands to the wall, and the stone itself began to burn.

Amid the flames, an arched doorway took shape, glowing crimson like molten lava. A gesture of Kalina’s hand, and the melted stone flowed away, revealing a small alcove. Within stood an altar, translucent as colored glass and the color of blood.

Flesh and bone responded to that stone in a pulsing vibration that made the world spin. The wound in Vivian’s breast throbbed brutally with every beat of her heart. She could scarcely catch her breath. Her vision darkened. She closed her eyes, but even behind her eyelids, she could see the shape of that altar. It was hungry, and she knew what it was hungry for.

“Bloodstone,” Zee whispered.

Kalina, robed in flame, turned to face them. In a voice so charged with power that the words themselves took on weight and shape, she commanded, “Petitioner, present your request.”

Vivian stepped forward. No time for last words with Zee, or to soothe her mother, or tend Lyssa’s wound. No room for second guesses. Only one way forward now, one last hope, dark as that way might be. Black dream dust rose in flurries with each step, glittering red in the light of Kalina’s flames. She felt her eyes changing as the inner dragon woke and stretched. As she passed through the arch from the cave to the alcove, she felt a shift that nearly dropped her to her knees.

The three powers at her center sustained her, and when she spoke into the waiting silence, it was with the voice of dragon, Sorcieri, and Dreamshifter as one.

“I request passage into the Forever.”

“For yourself alone?”

“For myself and my companions.”

“A sacrifice is required.”

She had tried to tell herself that only an offering would be required. A few drops of blood, no more. But this bloodstone altar demanded all or nothing. Sacrifice, in the fullest sense of the word. Swaying a little, holding herself upright by sheer force of will, she said, “I am willing.”

“Blood must be spilled, flesh of your flesh and yet not your own.”

“No,” she whispered, the full realization sweeping over her at last. All of the veiled hints, the old Master’s laughter. The meaning of Kalina’s cryptic words.

Zee stepped up beside her, still holding Lyssa in his arms. “I am the bond and I freely give my life.”

Blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh. Vivian’s heart lurched and then went on beating around a pain that far surpassed any wound her body might be asked to bear.

“Accepted,” Kalina said. “The altar awaits.”

Zee turned to Kraal and shifted Lyssa into his arms. “Take the child. Be gentle with her.” The Giant nodded, cradled the little girl in one arm, then bowed, touching two fingers to his forehead. Isobel’s eyes were wide with horror.

“What’s happening?” Jared stretched out his arms, waving his hands through the air as though he could see with his fingertips. “Somebody tell me.”

Zee unsheathed his sword and held it out to Vivian.

“No, Zee. I won’t do it.”

He smiled a little. “You must,” he said. When she shook her head and put her hands behind her back, he laid it at her feet.

Zee stripped off his shirt and lay down on the altar, hands folded over his breast as though he were already dead. Vivian backed away, stumbling over a stone and nearly falling. Kraal’s strong hand steadied her and she leaned against his rock-solid support, her knees shaking so hard, they would barely hold her.

“Are you all insane? How can you even ask such a thing of me?”

“It is the only way into the Forever,” Kalina said.

Vivian had eyes only for Zee. “You really think I would do this? Spill your lifeblood with my own hands?”

“I die, one way or another. Kill me now, and you have a chance to save the others.” Zee lowered his voice to a caress. “You are the only one who can save them. And what’s left of the Dreamworlds and the Between.”

“I hate the Between! I wish I had never been asked to walk there. Good riddance.”

“And Wakeworld?”

He had her there, and he knew it. So many lives at stake. The nurses she had worked with at the hospital. Brett Flynne. The postman and her hairdresser and the little old lady who lived in the apartment next to hers in Krebston. Kraal and Lyssa. Jared. Even Kalina, though Vivian’s rage burned against the Sorcieri enchantress.

“I can’t,” she said again. “If it must be done, if it must be Zee…” Her voice broke as the beloved name passed her lips. “Somebody else will have to do it.”

“The petitioner must spill the blood,” Kalina intoned.

“I am willing to be the sacrifice.” Kraal’s deep voice filled the cavern. “Would that ease the task?”

A wild, guilty hope welled up in Vivian’s breast. Killing Kraal—killing anybody—would be the hardest thing she could ever be asked to do. But if it meant sparing Zee, then she could do it. Would do it. Especially with all of the lives at stake.

“Blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh,” Kalina responded. “There is no substitute.”

“Vivian,” Zee said. “Come here.” His voice drew her, trembling, to stand beside him at the altar. He cupped her chin in his hands, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs, wiping away tears. “My love,” he whispered. “It must be done. Let me help you. Bring the sword.”

Gathering some comfort from his calm, at last she turned back to do as he bid her. It was heavier than she expected, and even two-handed, she had to work hard to raise it up off the cave floor.

Zee put his hands over hers and brought the tip up to rest on the altar. Then he rolled onto his side, facing her, so that the tip of the sword lined up with the notch at the base of his throat.

“Get your weight behind it and hold it steady,” he said. “We’ll do it together, on the count of three.”

“Wait,” she said. “Please. Just one more minute.” She wanted a clear memory of his face to carry with her, but tears blinded her, blurring him in and out of focus.

Footsteps shuffled up behind her, somebody standing so close she could feel body heat, could smell sweat and blood.

“Vivian,” Jared said.

For God’s sake. Not now.
She ignored him, blinking to clear her vision. She gripped the hilt harder, trying to steady her shaking hands. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine what it must feel like to hold it as he did, as if it were just an extension of his body.

“Vivian, listen.” Jared touched her shoulder.

“Get the hell away from me.” She shrugged him off, just a small gesture but it moved her hands enough to nick Zee’s skin with the tip of the sword. Horrified, she watched as the first drop formed, grew into a crimson teardrop, and fell. It seemed to take forever to fall, but the instant it touched the bloodstone, the altar came fully alive.

A glow ignited at its center and the stone itself began to pulse in concert with the beating of her heart. Reflexively, she pulled the sword back, recoiling from ravenous bloodlust of the stone. The blade slid off the altar.