Waking in Dreamland (26 page)

Her thoughts reached out to touch the cliff face, and stopped against the surface. It felt solid, cool, and moist. With a gasp, Taboret opened her eyes. It was
real stone
. She couldn’t believe that the chief expected them to be able to sculpt that. She had thought when she had seen his grandiose plans back in the castle, that he meant them to be working with nebulosity, a substance that felt mushy, like marshmallow fluff at the bare end of tactility, but was easily molded into temporary structures. She never dreamed he’d try something so ambitious, so
impossible
as forming stone.

“Go on,” Glinn’s voice said in her mind. She turned her head to meet his eyes, and he gave her an encouraging nod. Taboret looked up at the cliff-face. All right, she’d try. It was only the impossible, after all. She shut her eyes once again.

She saw the blueprints in her mind’s eye. Angle the stone walls upward until they closed together in a seam like a peaked roof. Above her, a vaulted ceiling hung with glittering glass lamps shut out the sky. Natural gaps in the rock became baffles for ventilation, wide so they could breathe easily but narrow enough to prevent them from being observed from outside. All the time, the apprentices were also making the walls grow outward to envelop their circle.

Those walls in her mind’s eye smoothed over, and sprouted red nodules that lit up: Brom’s patented security system. Near the original cliff, a small door was to be formed through which only one person could pass at a time. Stone melted down over it in a concealing curtain only a millimeter thick. This was a secret escape hatch, meant to act as a last hope if enemies invaded during the night. Other walls grew out to form rooms. One of them enclosed Brom and the Alarm Clock. A pit in the ground opened up, and fire belched out from the middle of the earth, and a fireplace-stove combination formed over it, with a chimney reaching for the ceiling flowing upward like a wax taper melting in reverse motion.

When Taboret realized that she was shifting stone as easily as changing her mind, she thought of bursting through the hidden door and leaving a her-shaped hole behind her as she ran home. She was astonished, frightened, and exultant all at the same time. She had always had a reasonable command of her surroundings, but it would have taken months for her to accomplish what the gestalt did in moments. The wonder and awe felt by the others coursed through her body, and a surge of giddiness made her sway on her feet. When at last they were finished with all the details of the plan they stopped. Taboret looked around. She was impressed, and exhausted.

“Well done, all,” Glinn said. His voice sounded tired, too. He took his hand away from under hers, breaking the spell of the gestalt, and the feeling of camaraderie died away. Quickly, all the others withdrew, too. Taboret felt forlorn as she was left alone in her own head. “Now, let’s eat, and we can get some sleep.”

“Right you are,” Basil said, immediately buoyed up by the prospect of cooking, his greatest passion after scientific research. “Give me five minutes.” He bustled away. Taboret grinned indulgently after the plump apprentice. She hadn’t liked him much when they’d started their journey, but he was growing on her.

The apprentices sat down to dinner as soon as the food was ready, without changing their traveling clothes, or even brushing off road dust. Taboret’s only accession to etiquette was to take off her outer tunic, damp with sweat, and carefully remove the pen protector to her undertunic’s pocket. The next level of construction plans would call for an automatic cleaning system that would tidy and launder them without physical effort. In the meantime, they had to wash themselves and their clothes in the old-fashioned way, by influence or elbow grease. Without wanting to appear rude, she sprang up as soon as the meal was finished, to be first in line at the bath. Her legs were long in this particular body, and she took advantage of their extended stride. Carina looked a little perturbed, evidently having similar plans, but the older woman arrived at the door a fraction too late.

“Second,” she said, giving Taboret a speaking look.

“Sorry,” Taboret said. And she
was
sorry, but to be clean and dry suddenly felt like a matter of life and death.

She bathed as quickly as she could. She put on her night clothes while her day things slapped against one another in the tumble dryer, and slipped out to let Carina take over the facility.

Her camp bed lay on the new stone floor within arm’s length of the tiny waterfall. The cataract trickled down the stone face into a minute pool that emptied into an equally small rivulet. Downstream, the flow had been channeled into the sanitary facilities, but here it was virtually unchanged. Taboret was grateful that the chief ’s plans included the bathroom, so she didn’t have to make them up by herself. She was tired. There was no oomph left in her to do anything.

Stretching out on her belly along the cot, she reached out and dabbled her fingers in the water. About fifty-nine degrees, she thought. Clarity, ninety-seven percent, color brownish, probably due to a combination of lichens and mineral content. Almost certainly drinkable.

“Does that feel good?” Glinn asked suddenly. She looked up and found him standing nearby, watching her.

“Good?” Taboret asked, surprised, curling her legs around and sitting up. “I suppose so. Can’t you tell?” she added, with more force than she intended.

Glinn looked away, a little embarrassed. “I . . . felt coolness over my fingers, and I wanted to know where it was coming from.”

“I’m sorry,” Taboret said, at once apologetic. “You must know that, too. Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Doesn’t it bother you that everyone knows everything you feel or think when you’re in the gestalt?”

“Well,” Glinn said, sitting down on the nearest bunk to hers. “Not everything.” His cheeks reddened. “I mean . . . there are some things. . . .” He smiled at her, and his soft brown eyes wore a hopeful expression.

“I know what you mean,” Taboret said, hastily. She was aware again how much she was beginning to like him. With the growing strength of the link she could no longer could hide it from him, or anyone else in the group. And it felt, it almost felt as if he liked her, too. Did he? “Glinn, I’ve . . .”

“Are we settled?” Brom asked. He appeared at their side, looming over them. Taboret stared up at his glittering eye like a mouse caught in the gaze of a bird of prey.

“Yes, sir,” Glinn said, springing to his feet.

“Good! Let us finish making up our little comforts, then seal this place up so we will not be disturbed.” Brom stared down at Taboret. “It will not take everyone’s influence. These are small tasks. You may rest.”

Taboret settled gratefully on her bunk to watch. She was sorry for Glinn, who looked as tired as she felt. He and the chief closed the great stone doors, and locked them with a huge key that Glinn took out of the keyhole to wear around his neck.

“Aren’t you going to set the Clock? Haw haw haw!” Lurry called from his corner of the sleeping area, and the Counting-sheep brothers laughed. Brom gave them an icy look that quelled them, and Taboret climbed into her bunk, pulling up the cover to deliberately shut out the sight of them. In spite of the early hour, she was ready to go to sleep.

The chief had spoiled that lovely warm mood. He had a knack for appearing just as she and Glinn were starting to have a real conversation. Taboret regretted that she’d never know what either she or Glinn had been going to say before Brom interrupted. She had known what Glinn was thinking, to a certain extent. Could he read her thoughts? Did he have an inkling that she had betrayed the mission? Taboret knew she ought to feel remorse, fear, or justification, but it just didn’t seem very important at that moment. She hoped no one would read her dreams.

Chapter 16

Lightning crashed overhead, illuminating decrepit old houses on the top of the surrounding hills. In the barren fields amid blackened, wasted crops, Roan caught the occasional glimpse of skeletons hanging on crossbars. Bare trees creaked in the wind. Roan peered out from under the stiff brim of his hat at the road. It had been raining for hours, yet the tracks they were following barely imprinted the soggy ground, as if they had skimmed lightly over the surface. Lum was puzzled by the anomaly, but Roan suspected another of Brom’s machinations. The steeds had become bicycles when the rain turned cold. Roan wished he could deaden his nerve endings at will and still remain functional.

His clothing was soaked through, in spite of a quick waterproofing and the wide brim of his hat, which deflected much of the rain. Beside him, the princess pedaled gamely onward on Golden Schwinn. Her hair under her hood was dampened down, curling into dark ringlets at the sides of her face. It looked perfectly charming, although it was as much as Roan’s life was worth to mention it. He would have been enjoying riding out with her through the countryside if it wasn’t for several factors: the rain, their mission, and the discomfort of riding for so far and so long.

Leonora noticed him looking at her, and blinked water off her lashes.

“We have to get in out of this gale,” she said. “At this moment, I wouldn’t care if Brom dropped a bomb on our heads.”

Roan nodded, and started peering ahead through the downpour for likely shelter. At the top of the next rise, he thought he caught a glimpse of red lines in the sky.

“I think I see dry weather up ahead,” he called to Spar. “Let’s step up the pace if we can.”

“Hah! Gladly!” the guard captain shouted back. He raised his hand to signal to the others.

The rain whipped into Roan’s face as his tires spun downhill. Now and again, images of trucks from the dreams of minor sleepers appeared on the narrow path, crowding the riders to one side. The party formed a single-file line with Colenna and Leonora riding between Spar and Roan, then Bergold and Lum. Roan kept an eye on the clouds, searching for that trace of red he’d seen. It had been there a moment ago, near the horizon to the northeast. Weather was so unpredictable. If they didn’t run into that high pressure system soon, he’d have the group take shelter somewhere and continue on when the rain ended.

“Whiiinnnggg,” a small truck whined reproachfully, zipping past them. Another one followed in its wake. “Whoiiinnnggg.”

“Traffic’s getting heavier,” Felan complained, shouting over the wind. “And I think the road is narrowing!”

The junior historian was right. The sides of the road were closing in under their tires. Soon it seemed no wider than a tightrope. The steeds clung to the narrow pavement. Another vehicle came straight at them. Spar let out a hoarse cry. The truck swung wide at the last second. The gray road bed expanded like a rubber band under its wheels so it just missed them.

“Hang on,” Roan said, encouragingly, though his own heart was pounding in his chest. “The dry weather’s just ahead. We can pull off in a moment.”

“Hard right!” Spar shouted. A pair of glowing yellow globes appeared in their path, taking up the entire roadbed. It was a big truck, its engine roaring. “Jump for it, men!” He started to veer toward the right, into the red band that Roan thought was a high-pressure zone, but where an H should have been was a roiling, greasy-looking glaze of white.

“What’s that?” Leonora screamed.

“It’s a hole!” Bergold shouted. “Don’t go into it.”

Roan gasped, and grabbed for the rear fender of Leonora’s bike. He misjudged his aim, and Schwinn’s rear tire scraped his hand. He urged Cruiser to go faster so he was beside her, and shoved the frightened steed over and away from the hazard, but the red border stretched outward like an open mouth. The truck roared nearer, forcing them over into it. The bicycles squeaked with fear as their tires skimmed the edge. Roan hauled hard on the handlebars, forcing both steeds backwards, away from the red band, but it reached out to envelop them. They were blinded by a mad swirl.

The glow died away, and they found themselves on a road that looked the same as the one they had just left, except that it was no longer raining. Roan coasted to a halt and looked around them.

“What was that?” he asked Bergold.

“A hole in reality,” the senior historian said. “We were lucky. This one was very mild. Nothing happened to us.”

“But where are we?” Leonora asked.

“Right where we were before,” Bergold said. “But things changed around us.”

“That’s not possible,” Lum said, wrinkling his forehead.

“Soldier, all things are possible,” Spar said. “What in the Nightmare are those?”

He pointed to clump of trees surrounded by a wide band that stretched from a foot off the ground to as high as Roan could reach.

“I’ve no idea,” Roan said. Bergold opened his small book and leafed through it.

“Is it there to protect the trees?” Hutchings asked. He put out a hand. The moment he touched the belt, there was a huge CLANG! He was flung through the air, steed and all, right across the road into another banded clump of trees. That one, too, let out a mighty jangle, and propelled him away. He flew toward a third clump, but fell just short of making contact. Roan and the others rushed over to help him up. There was a loud clicking noise in the air, but Roan could not see the source of the sound.

“Fascinating!” Bergold said, standing and looking around him with interest. “I’ve heard of the Bally effect, but I’ve never seen it before.”

“That could kill you,” Hutchings said, staggering to his feet. He was pale with shock, and his light brown hair stood out from his head. His steed, a little dented, squealed wildly as Misha helped it up.

“Avoid touching any more of them,” Bergold ordered. “We have to find our way out of this effect. Look for anything that says ‘Game Over.’ ”

Avoiding the trees was not easy. The forest was thickly overgrown. The party had a tight squeeze to pass between two clumps that flanked the road. Lum led the way, crouching over his handlebars, and looking warily from side to side, as if fearing the bands would reach out and kick him. Roan pedaled cautiously, keeping his knees in as much as possible. Bergold forced his usual comfortable bulk into a tall, narrow form, until they eased out into a wide meadow, where the path ran safely out of the reach of any trees.