Visioness (24 page)

“This is true,” Berne said.
“Without that, you can bang and thump and smash against the mind with the seal
over it as much as you want. You’d never break through.” He seemed to hesitate
at that, as if he knew in his heart-of-hearts that wasn’t entirely true. There
were exceptions to every rule; she supposed it was the same with Dreaming.

“Well I must go, then,”
Adabelle said. “I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

He seemed taken aback by the
swiftness of her visit. He soon recovered from his confusion, and smiled at
her.

“Good day,” Berne said,
sinking into his chair. “And good luck.”

Rhene sent flowers to
Adabelle three days following their date at the carnival. They were yellow
ones, chosen specially for the colour of the dress she had worn on their first
night together. She replied in kind with a telegram thanking him for them, and
also for Charlotte’s stag.

The thank you letter brought
a great smile to his face, and made it difficult for him to fault anything for
the rest of the day.

That night, though, while he
slept, he slipped into the dream and found the familiar music and scent warning
of Therron’s coming. Heart racing, suddenly panicked, the world around him
shifted and he was at the centre of a long, thin hall. A single, flickering
light hung above him, golden in its glow, yet so narrow in its reach. His eyes
pierced through the darkness, yet all he saw were more shadows, more darkness.

The scent intensified,
choking him from the blackness. Then, the music screamed, and Rhene knew he
could not run.

Sure enough, he appeared,
calmly, stepping out of the shadows of Rhene’s own mind.

“Good evening, Rhene,” he
said, his tone jovial.

“Therron,” Rhene replied,
calming his breathing, assuaging those thoughts that seemed so content to
remind him that the man held a knife.

“How are you?” Therron
asked.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Rhene
replied, bracing himself. “And you?”

“Well I’m quite exhausted
actually,” he replied. Rhene then realised the man was puffing. Smoke tinted
the odour of cologne. Rhene thought he was only imagining the smell, but as he
sniffed, he found that choking smell growing worse as it mixed with the
cologne. Therron’s trousers appeared stained with ash. “Been quite busy
tonight.”

“Causing trouble, no doubt,”
Rhene replied.
The Dreamer’s Lullaby
seemed to have calmed a little, but
replacing it was another sound. This wasn’t music, though, but
noise.
Rhene couldn’t quite make it out, yet, but he kept his mind open, hoping to
decode its meaning before long.

“As always, my dear boy,” he
replied, smiling. “That’s all done, now. I’ve come to speak to you.”

Rhene stepped back,
surprised. “What for?”

“To thank you, my boy,” he
replied, stepping forward. He did not hold a knife anymore. It just
disappeared. But Rhene knew it was there somewhere. He resisted recoiling.

Be strong,
he reminded himself.

“You were able to get the
information I needed out of your master, Dreamless Matthon! I know what I need
now. You’ve done a brilliant job!”

Rhene couldn’t help but
smile. He felt a strangely freeing sensation, as if a weight on his heart had
released itself.

“So I’m free now?” he asked.
“You won’t bother me?”

“Oh, God, no!” Therron
replied. “Our little…
partnership
has only just begun. You are far too
useful to me to simply use and toss aside. No, no, no, I have my uses for you.
I know a vague time for the battle, but no specifics yet. You did well
recognising my presence in your master’s mind, and also concealing it. I thank
you for that. The results would have been catastrophic had you revealed my
hiding place. Very catastrophic indeed.”

Rhene’s muscles tensed.
“Then what use do you have for me now?”

He smiled broadly. Therron’s
grin, like an alligator, seemed to show far too many teeth and unveiled a kind
of malevolence hidden below. Rhene’s heart stopped.

“Well from my understanding,
you know my daughter, Adabelle, quite well.”

Rhene could not hide his
shock.

“Ah, you do. Excellent. Now
she is currently in a tiny spot of trouble at the University.”

Rhene’s eyes narrowed. “What
sort of trouble?”

“Oh, lots of trouble,
really. Trouble with the police. They think she killed her cousin, when in fact
it was me, and I was able to frame her.”

He spoke so casually. So
carelessly.

“She’s in trouble with me,
of course, but specifically she is in a rather dangerous situation right now. I
think she might need some help, and
I
cannot personally be of
assistance. You see, I put her into this trouble, but she might need some help
getting out. Think of this…as a test. I have to insure you’re good enough for
her.” He laughed at his own jest, the humour apparently lost on Rhene.

“What have you done to her?”

Therron remained calm.
“Might I suggest you head to the rooftop and look for yourself. Shouldn’t be
too hard to see really, given the hour.”

Rhene leapt from within the
Dream, emerging out into his room. He shot through the door, running like a
bullet up the hallway and ascended the nearest flight of stairs he could find.

What has he done?
he thought as he ran.
What
has he got planned?

He burst onto the rooftop,
rushing to the edge facing the University.

Fire on the horizon, burning
like a great halo of scarlet above a city in darkness.

How has he managed that?
he thought as he stared in
horror, heart racing, mind reeling as he searched for a way to get there. If he
ran, he wouldn’t get there in time, and he doubted there would be taxis at this
hour.

I have to Dream my way
there,
he
thought.
You’re a Sturding. You’ve got these powers for a reason. Now use
them!

He searched for the nearest
mind he could leap into. It was across the courtyard before him. A woman,
sleeping peaceably, dreaming deeply. He pushed himself towards her mind, yet
could not reach.

She’s the nearest and she’s
too far away.
He swore loudly, eyes passing between the woman’s open window and the growing
blaze. The whole city began to ring clamorously as the fire brigade commenced
their response. And yet the entire University burned as if it had been alight
for hours. Surely it hadn’t taken that long to respond.

Therron has his ways,
he thought, and left it at
that. The pressing issue now was reaching that window. Or at least close enough
to enter the woman’s mind. She mustn’t have taken her Slugleaf tea that night.
He could fold in on his own mind if he was sleeping, but that would take too
long.

I have to do this,
he thought.
I have to
make it, for Adabelle.

He drew backwards, away from
the ceiling, breathing deeply in and out. The gap between him and the window
was probably ten metres or so. Surely taking into account a run up, and the
leap from a higher point, he would get close enough to the window to throw
himself, body and all, into the Dream Frequencies.

Adabelle,
he kept reminding himself.
Adabelle.
Yet a more logical part of his mind told him he was an idiot for trying.

The stupid things we do for
love,
he
thought. He breathed out, and then sprinted for the ceiling’s edge. The edge
ran up to meet him, and with a grunt and a yelp, he pushed off the roof and
into the open air above the courtyard. For a second, he hung there, believing
for a moment that he’d made a huge mistake. He was going to fall to his death,
or at the very least end up with another set of broken bones.

But he felt his mind reach
out, tendrils of thought grabbing for the mind of the woman he relied on. At
first, those links were only weak, furtive and hesitant. But then they
recognised the mortal peril, and their reaches became grasps, their caresses
outright embraces.

For a moment, it seemed he
would strike the wall. He threw out his hands to protect his face, closing his
eyes, accepting the fact that he was going to die.

And then the mental links
snapped together, like a padlock into place, and he was connected. He felt his
body hang in the air for a moment, a sudden bout of whiplash sending a mighty
snap of pain up his body. But then it was gone and he was in the Dream.

A field of poppies flew up
to meet him, and he collapsed into the soft earth, the scent of the flowers
carried on the wind. He felt a sudden bout of energy, the adrenaline of the
leap coursing through him. He forgot the whiplash, forgot the pain of his face
planting itself into the ground, and got up.

The dreaming woman looked at
him, confused at the appearance of this man who’d come crashing from the sky.
All the precursors in the world wouldn’t prepare anyone for that.

Adabelle,
he reminded himself.
I
have to find Adabelle.

He ran.

Dreamer to dreamer, he
leapt, crossing minds, the thoughts of others. He
felt
the direction in
which he needed to run, sensing a mass where no one slept. It was a great dark
patch in his consciousness, and it drew him.

Be safe,
he thought, extending his mind
towards that dark hole.
I’m coming. Just wait.

Adabelle forgot to take the
Slugleaf tea before bed and found herself Dreaming.

Her father was waiting for
her when she arrived.

“Good evening, Adabelle,” he
said, nodding, tipping his hat at her.

“Father,” she replied,
taking an uncertain glance about the place. It was indeed her own mind she
stood in now, her room a familiar sight. She attempted to leap out of the
dream, but found herself stuck.

“No, no, don’t run,” he
said, holding out an open hand. She didn’t know why, but she stopped herself.
“I only wish to see you.”

“How do you know Rhene?” she
asked.

“I have my connections here
and there,” he replied. “He just happened to pop up one night while dreaming.
He’s been far more useful than I think he realises.”

“In what way has he been
useful?” asked Adabelle. “What have you done with him?”

“Oh I’ve done nothing with
him,” he replied. “He’s done a few tasks for me. He’s a good boy, that one. Be
sure to stay in touch, you have my approval.” He smiled.

“I don’t need your
approval,” she replied. “You’re hardly what I’d consider a good father.”

Therron grimaced. “You hurt
me! I have done all I can from my prison in the Dream. Besides, I have come
with gifts.”

Adabelle tensed, eyes
narrowing. She had to be ready.

“What gifts?” she asked.

“These,” he replied.

From behind him burst three
shadows, shapeless and bodiless for a time. Then, when they landed on the
ground before Therron, they took the form of her father. Three of them before
her, all staring with gazes as malevolently gleeful as each other.

Adabelle screamed, taking a
step backward.
Nhyxes,
she thought.

“Strike, Nhyxes,” Therron
said.

The nightmares leapt at
Adabelle like a cat to their prey. As they shifted, they returned to their
shadowy forms, not fully able to hold a material shape. Another two emerged
from within the Dream, throwing themselves at Adabelle. She turned to run, and
found another one. Six Nhyxes, all before her, all holding her in place.

“Be safe,” her father said,
turning away. As he did so, the Nhyxes caught aflame. It seemed none of them
could feel it, though, for they did not scream. They also didn’t retain their
forms as her father. They returned to their shadow forms, their limbs like
branches, their bodies pointed like arrows, their heads spiked with black. A
thin mist of darkness swirled around them, mixing with the gold and orange
flames.

She finally found the
strength within her to return to the physical world. She pulled herself from
the dream, yet as she did, the Nhyxes gripped her limbs and travelled with her.

She smacked onto her bed,
surrounded by six flaming beasts. They roared, their voices a high-pitched
wail, like nails down a board. And then there were the flames that ripped at
the sheets of her bed tore at the wood of the wall. The Nhyxes leapt about the
small room, spreading fire throughout.

Charlotte screamed, and in
the confusion, Adabelle lost track of where she was. She wasn’t in her bed, for
that now blazed. Where was she? The room filled with smoke, obscuring the
darkness. She heard a door burst open, and watched as five of the six Nhyxes charged
down the hall, throwing fire upon the carpet, up the walls. The shadows of
their bodies turned golden, glowing with the heat of the inferno, and then they
were gone. The sixth one leapt out the window, smashing glass. Like molten
stone, their bodies shimmered and crackled with a brilliant heat.

“Charlotte! Run!” Adabelle
roared.

As it leapt, though, its arm
struck Adabelle in the head, throwing her back into darkness, the flames
forever burning about her.

Screams echoed up the halls,
as people emerged from their bedrooms, awoken by the fire. It spread so
quickly, moving from one part of the university to the next, carried by the
Nhyxes.