Visioness (33 page)

It took a moment for Rhene
to realise what he was saying, and a moment longer to consider how he knew all
of this. Adabelle had spoken very little about her family, let alone Aunt
Marie. He didn’t even know who Aunt Marie was! He doubted she’d said anything
about her!

I’ve touched Adabelle’s
mind,
he
thought, turning for a moment to the dark glass wall.
There are no secrets
between us. Not anymore.

“She fears for her life when
she’s near you,” Rhene continued, pointing to the two girls, currently asleep, minds
sealed for fear of escape. “She has never known the love of a father, or the
embrace of a father, or even had someone who can take that place in her life!”

Therron’s expression darkened
now, his eyes becoming slits.

“You’ve deprived her of a
real father, just as you have deprived me of mine.” He scoffed, though he didn’t
know why. “Face it: she hates you.”

Therron threw himself at
Rhene, knife bared to strike at his heart. Rhene leapt away as swiftly as he
could manage, watching with utter horror as Therron quickly got up off the
ground and threw himself at him again.

“You cannot face these words
because you know them to be true!” Rhene taunted, as he ran out of the way
again. He was stalling while he searched for some way out of the Dream.

Just keep running,
he thought.
Just keep
taunting him. He’ll make a mistake eventually!

“I cannot bare to hear those
words because I know they’re all lies!” Therron roared. “And to say otherwise
is a lie! You’re a liar, boy.”

Rhene turned suddenly to
face Therron.
Be brave,
he thought. Therron raised his arm to stab with
the knife, but Rhene threw his arm up to stop him. He didn’t blink, he didn’t
waver, he simply stared at the arm coming down upon him, watching as it
connected with his open arm. Rhene gripped Therron’s wrist as tightly as he
could, and then even more tightly than that. Therron yelped, dropping the knife.
Having no other hand free, as one presently held Therron’s arm at bay, and the
other was moving to block a jab being thrown at his face, Rhene kicked away the
knife as distantly as he could. This dream was not his own, so the knife seemed
to sail longer than it normally would, ungrounded by the mind in which they
fought.

He blocked the jab away from
him, and then threw his own. The attack connected with Therron’s face, and the
man stumbled back. He couldn’t move, though, as Rhene had him still held firmly
in his grasp. As he tumbled back he simply lost his footing and was left
dangling in Rhene’s grasp. He quickly corrected his footing, but not before
Rhene drew back his fist once more and threw it at the man.

Therron roared as fist
connected with face, his nose cracking beneath Rhene’s hand. Despite being
limited to the Dream Frequencies, Therron’s body seemed very real, the bones
breaking, the blood that spurted hot to the touch.

Rhene, not wanted to give
Therron a chance, threw a third punch, and a fourth, before he threw the man to
the ground and proceeded to kick him.

“This,”
kick
, “is,”
kick
,
“what,”
kick
, “you,”
kick
, “get,”
kick
, “when,”
kick
,
“you,”
kick
, “threaten,”
kick
, “the,”
kick
, “person,”
kick
,
“I,”
kick
, “love!” And lastly came a stomp. He threw all his weight and
hatred into the final pump of his leg, driving his foot down, forcing the air
from Therron’s lungs.

Therron groaned. Rhene felt
for the edge of the Dream, wishing he could force his way through it. Despite
beating the man, bloody, he still seemed strong enough to hold up that barrier.

“I cannot die in here, boy,”
Therron said. “You can hurt me all you want, but while I’m here, I’m just a
thought…a dream. You want to kill me? Have Adabelle drag me into the real
world! Kill me there, where I may have a body.” He chuckled under his breath,
coughing on the blood that rose in his throat. “Do not expect it to be easy
though.”

Rhene heard what he said,
but barely processed it. All he knew was that he had to run; he had to break
free.

“No,” he grunted, speaking
only to himself. He turned away from Therron, who writhed and groaned on the
ground. “I won’t let it end like this.”

Rhene stepped on Therron as
he crossed to the very edge of the Dream, where he felt the barrier stopping
him from escaping. Once there, he pulled a fist back and threw it at the wall.
His hand struck the wall, jolting pain up his arm. He ignored it, though,
forcing himself to pull his hand together into another fist. He punched. Again
and again, he struck, groaning with pain.

Therron simply laughed. “You
will not break through,” he said. “No one is strong enough to do that.”

“I’m not
always
strong enough,” he replied, pausing a moment to gather his thoughts. He stared
at the wall.

“It’s not always a matter of
brute strength,”
Rhene said.

“No?” asked Therron,
triumphant brimming from him.

“No,” Rhene said, “But
sometimes it can be.”

He threw all of himself at
the wall—all of his mind, and his body—and every bit of his strength. All the
while, he thought of Adabelle. He expected to meet glass and pain, but the wall
gave way. Glass separated around his fist, the wall parting before him by his
sheer force of will. It seemed to scream as it fell, and yet it also shattered
silently, falling away like water.

I’m out,
he thought, turning for a
moment to see Therron still bleeding on the ground. He was reaching for his
knife now, ready to fight again.
I should go.
He ran.

He would have his revenge on
Therron before too long.

“…and then the barrier fell
away,” Rhene explained, his arms miming the punching motion with which he’d
bashed through the glass wall. “It just shattered and it was gone.” He clapped.
“Bang. Gone.”

Matthon—he had stopped
referring to him as Dreamless quite some time ago—folded one leg over the other
as he sat on the other side of his desk. He crossed his arms, brow furrowed,
eyes staring towards the ceiling.

After a period of silence, Rhene
said, “What do you think of this?”

“I honestly don’t know what
to think,” Matthon replied, removing his arms from his chest and leaning onto
the table. He seemed fidgety, as if unable to find a comfortable position to
sit in. His eyes darted about the room, from one corner to the other, taking in
seemingly meaningless details. He wasn’t fidgeting, Rhene realised; he was
troubled. He was stalling.

“But this is
Count
Therron Blaise
we’re talking about here,” Rhene said, speaking each part of
the man’s name as if it were a sentence unto itself, banging his fist against
the desk. He kept his other hand under the desk on his lap, wrapped in
bandages. He had damaged it somehow in the dream. The nurse had said it was
only a minor injury—a bruise more than anything—and that it would only take a
few days for the swelling and darkness to fade.

That hickey on the other
hand,
Rhene
thought, thankful his uniform was mostly collared shirts and coats. He couldn’t
bear to think what other Dreamless would think of him if they saw that. Days
had passed, and yet it still hadn’t fully faded. A gentle red spot on his neck,
left as a reminder of his and Adabelle’s single night of passion.

“I know what you mean,”
Matthon said. “He is a powerful Dreamer, and if what you say is correct about
him only being a thought within the Dream, then we have no way of really discovering
the extent of his powers.” Matthon’s eyes widened. “Imagine the strength he’d
have if he were a Sturding.”

“But he was a Sturding,”
Rhene replied. “In the past he was. Adabelle told me so.”

“But he can’t be a Sturding
now if he’s just a memory, a thought. He’s no more a Sturding now than he is a
real human.” He hesitated here, looking Rhene in the eyes. “That said, how he
manages to seal people off from their dreams has me stumped. He’s only a
memory…a sentient thought.” He paused, laughing. “He’s like one of those Nhyxes
of theirs. Except he can harm us.”

Rhene absorbed all Matthon
was saying now, listening intently. If Matthon wasn’t able to piece this all
together, he needed all the information he could gather so he could pass the
knowledge on to someone who could.

“And you said that Adabelle
is the only one who can bring him out?”

“She’s his own flesh and
blood,” Rhene replied. “It has to be either her or her sister, and her sister
is currently sealed away from the Dream by some kind of mindlock.”

“You mean those bracelets?”
asked Matthon.

“No,” Rhene replied, “it’s a
mental thing. Therron has the key within someone else, and only once those two
people meet can…whatever it is that’s been sealed away be released and
Charlotte’s mind will be her own again. But even then, we don’t know if
Charlotte is a Dreamer, or even a Sturding for that matter. From my
understanding, Therron needs his own flesh and blood, and they
have
to
be a Sturding. They have to have the ability to pull dreams out of the Frequencies
and make them realities.”
And I’m helpless to wait and see what happens.

“Well we can have some small
comfort in knowing we have only one person to worry about. If we can get
Adabelle out of the picture, we’ll all be safe. The Dreamless can take it from
there. We may even be able to have him sealed away in a Dream Sphere once
more.”

“But Matthon, the whole
reason this has started is because on the Oen’Aerei decided to release
Therron.” Adabelle had never received precise confirmation, but Rhene could guess
who had been the culprit.
Lady Morphier was the only person with access to
that place, and who would not be questioned. The sheer fact she is in love with
that madman is just a sign she was the one to release him.
Another thought,
not wholly his own. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to bring him out of the Dream
and kill him? I know he won’t go down without a fight…heavens! He’ll probably
have an army waiting to fight those who try to kill him! But surely something
more final, like that, is better than having his conscience sealed away with
the possibility of having his prison broken again?”

“It’s too risky,” Matthon
retorted, waving his hand dismissively. “The number of things that could go
wrong! And putting our trust in an Oen’Aerei like Adabelle?”

I suppose it’s impossible to
lie in a Dream
.

He suddenly realised what
Matthon had said. “Adabelle’s not Oen’Aerei,” Rhene corrected. “She’s just a
Dreamer. She holds no stake in that place.”

“Regardless, there are too
many risks involved, and unless you know someone who’s willing to drag
themselves into Oblivion with him, then we don’t have any other option.”

Rhene settled back in his
seat, having only just noticed he’d shifted to the very edge of it before when
he’d piped up. He wanted to argue more, but Matthon was right; there really
weren’t many options. He had to accept that.

Who knows?
he thought.
This kind of
action…having him sealed away again, might help make a temporary treaty between
the Dreamless and the Oen’Aerei.
It seemed a distant idea, and highly
unlikely, but a shaky treaty was better than no treaty at all.

“But we can discuss the
terms of this after we go to war,” Matthon continued.

Rhene nearly fell out of his
chair with shock.

“What?”

“Well we need to have
something to barter with,” Matthon said. “If we just go up and knock on that
gate, they’ll think we’re mad and send us on our way. We need to have something
to hold against them, something that will genuinely make them tremble. And what
makes humanity tremble more than the fear of mortality itself?”

Rhene was silent here. He
wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. Matthon’s logic was, once again, sound.

“So with that in mind,”
Matthon went on, “I will be informing the army tonight that we will be marching
before dawn tomorrow.”

“What?” Rhene cried.

“Before dawn, we’re
marching,” Matthon repeated. “We cannot risk these things any longer. We have
to deal with the Dreamers before they are well-and-truly prepared, because I’m
sure by now they are getting prepared for some kind of assault. With Therron involved,
with you involved with this girl, we need to strike while we still have the
element of surprise. So tomorrow morning, we will move through the city under
the cover of darkness and then we will march on the gates. If we go under the
cover of night, they should all be sleeping so we can tackle them before
they’re fully aware. If it’s at morning, too, the number of minds a Sturding
can pass through should be lessened simply by way of everyone waking up.

“Hopefully once we have the
Oen’Aerei, we can work on getting back Adabelle.”

“She’s got those dream
shackles on her,” Rhene said, running a finger around his wrist. “You don’t
know any way to get them off?”

“Not without the key,”
Matthon replied, shaking his head. “Which is why we need Lady Morphier. Dead or
alive, she has the key. From there, we know Therron will lose his power within
the Halls and
then
we can take on that gentleman who has her captive. I
promise you, we can deal with all this easily.”

“But I was able to break
through that wall of Therron’s.”

“That’s a little different.
That’s a mental barrier he’s somehow able to put in place. Therron has always
been a powerful Dreamer; there’s things he’s able to do I’m sure a lot of
people haven’t.”

“But I was able to
break
it!” Rhene replied. “I broke through the barrier. Can’t I do that for
Adabelle?”

Matthon bit his lip, brow
furrowed in frustration. “The rules are set in stone,” he replied, tone firm.
“There’s nothing we can do to break them. Admittedly, those rules are still
only theories, so it might be possible for a powerful Dreamer to break the
seal, but if Adabelle hasn’t been able to break the shackles herself, there is
very little chance you can. I’m sorry.”

Rhene lowered his gaze,
feeling the pain of his sadness well up towards the surface. “But tomorrow?” he
asked. “Isn’t that a bit…early. I mean, I understand why, but it all seems a
bit rushed to me is all.

Matthon shrugged. “No better
time than the present.”

Rhene nodded in agreement,
but couldn’t quite convey the certainty he’d wanted to.

“What’s wrong?” asked
Matthon. “Is there anything you’re not telling me? You don’t seem entirely
prepared, nor willing.”

“Well…it’s really just
facing the Dreamers in general,” he said. “I don’t think we can really
generalise with them that they’re all evil. I mean, there’s Therron and Lady
Morphier, but even if we destroy the Oen’Aerei, there will still be Dreamers in
the world. And worst of all, they’ll be wildings with no control over their
ability. Is it really worth what we are risking in this battle? I mean, there
are so many other options. Surely a hundred well-trained Oen’Aerei are better
than a hundred people lost to Oblivion.”

“A hundred
Dreamers,
”
Matthon corrected.

“You’re a Dreamer yourself!”
Rhene retorted, pointing accusatorially across the table. He did not mean to
speak as loudly as he did. But it was out now. He might as well go on. “And
Therron and Lady Morphier…they’re the enemies here! Not every other Dreamer in
the world. You think that because you have made it your mission to fight the
Dreamers you’re right in your ability? Well you’re not. You’re a hypocrite,
like me! There’s no other word for it. We’re liars and hypocrites. We are
fighting for a cause that we ourselves are breaking! The Dreamless began, in
case you forgot, as little more than a small group of concerned people. And now
its aim has been warped and darkened to this…
army!
It’s meant to be a
peaceful group, and now we’re going to war.” He wasn’t sure whether he should
stop. A wiser part of his mind told him he ought to calm down before he said
anything he would regret, but on he went, unbridled by the fear he once held.
He could thank Adabelle for that.

I always have a choice!
he thought.

“There are innocent humans
in that place out there,” Rhene said, pointing out the window towards the Halls
of the Oen’Aerei, its white dome just visible over the city skyline. “Just as
surely as there are innocent people here, in the Dreamless. We’re sending people
off to their deaths, Matthon. I hope you know that.”

Matthon barely allowed a
breath in before he replied. “I know as well as they do that death is a very
real possibility. Hell! We’re dealing with Dreamers. There’s a very real chance
we could end up insane once they’ve all meddled in our heads. Remember that,
boy: Dreaming is by no means a reprieve from damage.”

He still doesn’t know I’m a
Sturding,
Rhene realised. He kept his expression impassive, remained strong.

“And every person who is
going to fight is going to fight with a cause. Everyone has a stake in this
battle, and every person who has come here has come with full knowledge of our
intent. No one is conscripted, no one has their hand forced. That is, and
always has been, the rule.” He spoke slowly here, with intent and purpose and
meaning, hammering home each word with all the significance his voice could
manage. “And I do not want you, for a second, thinking you have no choice.
Leave, if you must; but know that makes you an enemy. If you are not with us,
you are with them, and I will not hesitate for a moment in destroying you
should the need arise.” He smiled here, nodded.

Rhene had nothing to reply
with. He simply sat before the man, unable to contain the quiver in his lips,
or the way his fingers seemed overcome with some kind of palsy.

“You may go now,” he said,
“but I need to see you tonight before I make the announcement so I know what is
to happen. And think long and hard, Rhene. Consider carefully where your
loyalties lie. Go.” He nodded to the door.

Rhene rose and soundlessly
exited the room with fear in his heart and fluttering in his gut. He felt ill
as he walked down the halls, Matthon’s words playing in his mind repeatedly
against Adabelle’s own.

Consider carefully where
your loyalties lie.

But where do my loyalties
lie?
he
thought. He was a Dreamer in the Dreamless, a lie amongst truths. By all
rights, he shouldn’t even be allowed to exist within this group, and yet
Matthon had been gracious enough to allow it. Then again, as he considered it,
he realised Matthon would be even more of a hypocrite had he not allowed it.
Questions of loyalty and picking sides arose in his head. Matthon’s stern
expression, his parents’ bodies bleeding out onto the white sheets of their
bed, and Adabelle’s voice all the while reminding him,
You always have a
choice.