Waking in Dreamland (46 page)

“Go immediately,” Brom instructed them. “We will continue on until we reach our optimum stopping point. This distraction must be enough to dissuade Roan once and for all. You will use the gestalt power. Draw whatever you need, but it must be effective. We are trusting you with the entire bank of power.” Taboret nodded solemnly. She’d have been flattered if it wasn’t so wrong. She turned her motorbike to follow Acton. Glinn fell in behind, and Maniune brought up the rear.

As the sounds of Brom’s motorcade receded behind them, Taboret felt a sudden urge to rev up her steed and speed away home. She glanced back at Glinn, who shook his head. He had something in mind, she felt it. They would set the trap, just as Brom had directed them to, and then find some way to prevent anyone from falling into it. That wouldn’t be easy with the two bruisers breathing down their neck.

The road widened out, and Glinn sped up to ride side by side with her.

“I’m glad he sent both of us,” she said in a voice low enough she hoped neither of the others could hear.

“It’s nice to be able to ride alone with you for a while,” Glinn agreed, with a smile. Taboret tossed her head. Her hair, not usually her best feature, waved and curled around her face beguilingly.

“Hey, lovebirds!” Acton called over his shoulder, in a sneering voice. “When you smooch, do the rest of them get it on vicarious-like? Huh?” He laughed loudly at his own wit. “Huh? You touch her, and those others get a handful, too? It’s better than those feelaramas they talk about in the Waking World, huh? Hey, too bad we’re not part of your intimate little circle, huh? I wouldn’t mind having a piece of that!”

Acton could use a solid scientific explanation and a few spare IQ points, since he had none of his own. Taboret looked daggers at him. With a quick swipe of his hand, Glinn brought them down out of the air. The knives clattered to the ground and vanished. She glanced at him in surprise. Then she realized that making enemies of the mercenaries would ensure they would keep a close eye on both of them the whole time. Taboret felt ashamed of herself. Glinn was by far the better strategist. He always thought farther ahead.

“Our personal lives are really none of your business, gentlemen,” Glinn said, evenly. “Why don’t you give us details of the mission we are on?”

“You’ll see when we get there, huh?” Acton said. “Right, Manny?”

The temperature was almost oppressively hot, and their clothes thinned out further. Taboret found she was watching Glinn. This form was a nice body, slim, with big, capable hands. But then, he’d been sort of attractive through most of his changes. He must simply have a handsome base shape. She wondered what he thought of her, and got a quick burst of sensation through the link of satisfaction with her beauty. She felt herself blush, and hoped Acton had not noticed. He did, however, continue his lewd comments, only semi-audible over the rumble of his motorbike.

Maniune shouted them to a stop near a cluster of nebulous boulders on the road where it passed over the rails. He swung one muscular leg off his bike, and leaned against the saddle with his arms crossed.

“Himself noticed these when we came up this way,” he announced to the apprentices. “He wants you to plant a hole out there,” he nodded toward the way they had just come, “using this stuff for anchors. Leave it wide open, so things can come out of it from the other side. That’s what he said. Make it a good one, right?”

“Right,” Glinn said, striding down the road. “Come along, Taboret. We’ll make this the best way we know how.”

Taboret understood. They’d set their trap, but they’d make it so obvious that no one who could see would fall into it. She gathered handfuls of the nebulosity and followed him.

She formed the pseudorock into tent stakes and sky hooks while Glinn surveyed the spot where the hole was to go. He directed her where to place the stakes and helped hang the sky hooks in the air on either side of the road.

“It won’t hold long if someone rides into it,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, a gesture that he must have caught from Brom, “so we won’t worry about that. It isn’t meant to hold, just to scare Roan and the others off. He’ll see it in time.”

Glinn put out his hand, and waited for her to lay hers on top of it.

Acting as a conduit for the entire crucible made Taboret feel like the business end of a fire hose. Power surged into her from nowhere and everywhere, and all but sprayed upward into a gleaming net. It was too much at once. She couldn’t control it. She felt panic, and mentally stamped down on the flow. But Glinn was prepared. His mind-touch was gentle as he helped her open up again, guiding the burst of energy.

She felt more than saw the breach open up in the fabric of reality between them. The hole began as a tiny, bright gleam that quickly burned away the edges of nature until Taboret could see through into that other sphere beyond everyday existence. Madness lay there, she had been told as a child. Madness and formlessness.

Glinn let go of her hand and stepped backward, stretching the hole between them. Taboret feared at first that breaking contact would end the gestalt, but its form had advanced far beyond the primitive structure of the first day. The link held. She took hold of the near edge of the tear, and drew it outward.

The broad oblong was like an elaborate, silver-gray spider web, spiraling down into an endless center. If one stared at it too long, the whirling took hold of one’s mind. Taboret turned her eyes away and listened to the faint roar. She thought it sounded like a cry of pain. As if he was hanging curtains, Glinn tacked up his side of the hole, and came around to fasten the edges on her side. Taboret felt like bursting into hysterical laughter. Chaos, neatly pinned and tucked.

“And if he doesn’t see it in time?” Taboret whispered to him. Glinn didn’t answer. She knew. He put his arm around her and held her. She was grateful. He felt so real.

“Good job,” Maniune said. He and Acton came over to inspect. The two burly men looked the web up and down, approving the stakes of nebulosity holding it in place. “All done, then?”

“All done,” Glinn said, dusting his hands. “It’s as deadly a trap as we can make it. I think Master Brom would be pleased.”

“Good,” Maniune said. “We’ll just test it.” Each of them grabbed one of Glinn’s arms, and rushed him backwards toward the web. Glinn scrabbled for a handhold, but they were prepared for a struggle. Grinning ferally, Acton threw a punch at Glinn’s narrow middle, and Glinn doubled up on himself with a grunt. Taboret screamed, and jumped on Maniune’s back, pounding his head with her fists. The bruiser brushed her off without effort, picked Glinn up bodily, and tossed him into the hole. Shouting, Glinn was swept down and out of sight.

Taboret ran to the edge.

“Glinn!”

The infernal winds battered at her face. All she could see was swirling nonexistence, defying her senses. She reached into the hole, hoping to find him. There was no sign, none at all. Had he been reduced to a singularity? Her eyes danced with the gray dazzle. She felt for him with her mind, but the link had been broken.

She felt a shove from behind. The mercenaries were trying to push her in, too! Taboret twisted and clutched the arms and hands coming at her, refusing to let go.

“Don’t!” she cried, refusing to let them peel her off them. She found a face: Maniune’s. “Please! Help me get him out.”

“He’s done for,” Maniune said, carelessly, but his face was pale with terror. He hadn’t known what chaos was like until that moment. “The boss doesn’t like traitors. He wants you both finished. We’re going to do the job.”

“Please don’t,” Taboret begged. She clung to them both, gripping with an unnatural strength enhanced with gestalt power. “Please! Look what happened to him. He was torn to pieces. Don’t kill me.”

“All right,” Maniune said. “All right, you can live for now. But that’ll be you next if you don’t cooperate. It’d be easy to throw you right in after him.” He jerked a thumb toward the swirling mass.

Taboret felt her heart wrench in her chest as if it was tearing itself in two. Maybe that would be the best thing that could happen. If Glinn was dead, there was nothing left in life she wanted to do. She felt dead inside, too. Taboret let the men put her down, and she brushed at her clothes and hair, which felt as lifeless as her soul. She couldn’t even cry.

“I’ll behave,” she said.

“Good,” Maniune said, relieved. “That’ll do. The boss will settle for that.”

“Hey, she bruised me,” Acton complained, rubbing his skinny neck.

“Tough,” Maniune said, glaring at his comrade. “Take it. You’re getting paid to take what happens.”

“What does Master Brom want us to do now?” Taboret asked.

“He wants us to make sure this trap of yours works. He didn’t trust you not to put a monkey wrench into it. Well, it won’t, because you know what’ll happen if it does.” Maniune mimed giving something the heave-ho. Taboret had no trouble understanding him. She glanced behind her at the hole, and saw a pair of unearthly lights like eyes.

She shuddered. Maniune whistled the bikes to him, and they headed down the railway cut toward the river.

* * *

“That way, sir,” Lum said, pointing at the bridge. Roan looked at the slagged grass and jumbled cobblestones leading to the shining silver rails. Parts of the golden-brown bridge bulged and buckled, the result of the Alarm Clock’s passage.

“Why would they go over a railroad bridge?” Misha asked.

“Anything else might pass too close to habitations,” Bergold said, casting a look in either direction along the gap. The nearest spans were a good quarter-hour’s ride each way. By then, Brom would have regained the advantage in distance. Roan was unwilling to let him take another inch.

“We’ll have to walk the steeds across,” Roan said. “The beams look weaker than they ought to be.”

“Hmph!” Colenna snorted. “Considering what’s been this way, it’s no wonder.”

Waving her back to a safe distance, Spar and Lum took the lead onto the near edge of the bridge. Misha and Felan came next. The others fell into line, and Roan brought up the rear, ready to pull anyone back if the footing became unsound. As Spar moved forward, the old bridge let out a loud and piteous groan. The captain flinched once, but kept marching.

“Don’t crowd up too close,” Felan called back to those behind him. “This thing could give at any moment.”

Roan looked down. The gorge was deep, and the river at its bottom flowed as fast as any train that had passed over these tracks. He pulled back a pace from Leonora, giving her a moment to get a few yards ahead of him. Curious that the bridge had been so badly damaged, but the rails themselves remained in perfect shape. There was a permanence about the railroad that ran deep in the fabric of the Dreamland. Brom might be able to pervert it, but he could not destroy it. When it was his turn, Roan picked his way carefully. Every beam of the bridge seemed to have been transformed into a different material along its five hundred feet: cork, chalk, cheese, leather, rubber, diamond.

Spar gave a wordless shout, and Roan raised his head. The noise that had alerted the guard captain reached him, too. A train was coming along these tracks!

Roan scanned the bridge. The first wave was already past the middle of the long center span. Could they and their steeds huddle at the sides, and let the train pass them? No. It was impossible for these spans to support the weight of a train and the party, too. The train would plummet into the river far below, probably killing everyone on board.

“Turn around!” Roan shouted at them. He turned Cruiser and gave him a swat on the rump to send him off toward the bank. “Come back! I’m going to warn the engineer!”

The chug-chug-chug sound grew louder. Leonora’s long dress suddenly wrapped itself around her legs and split into trousers, freeing them for action. She wheeled Golden Schwinn in a circle. The others turned, too. Roan beckoned them past him so he could run ahead and stop the train, if he could.

“Don’t crowd,” Bergold warned, stretching his short legs out to reach from beam to beam. Colenna trailed him by one pace, watching his feet before placing hers. “It’ll collapse under us.” “Hurry!” Felan called from the end of the line. “That train’s getting closer.”

“Hurry,” Roan said.

“Hurry!” Spar shouted.

The clattering and clicking began to echo into the canyon. The train was still concealed by the overgrowth of brush at the top of the bluffs. Roan sprang from beam to beam as fast as he dared. Thank the Sleepers, the length of his legs made the distance between the spans no difficult jump. What if the engine came onto the spans? If they braked hard, would the rest of the weight behind keep the front from falling in? He glanced behind him. The others were passing the tower and moving onto the far span. The train was coming on faster now. He didn’t think he could save it. Could he save himself?

Two gleaming white lights appeared through the brush, and shot towards him on the rails. The clattering became deafening. Roan stared at the lights. That didn’t look like any train engine he had ever seen. The tan and gold scale pattern of the boiler front looked like an animal head, almost reptilian. Those lights were like slitted eyes.

Roan gaped. They were eyes. In fact, it wasn’t a train at all. It was a rattlesnake the size of a train.

“Run!” Roan shouted at his friends.

The snake slithered forward. Its long tail shook, producing the noise that had fooled them into believing in an oncoming train. But this was worse. Opening its huge, pink mouth, the snake displayed man-height fangs dripping with venom. Faster and faster it came, seeking to engulf the tiny humans. And the bridge began to buckle under its weight.

“We’ll have to jump for it!” Roan called.

There was no more time. He vaulted the guard rail, and the bridge crashed into pieces above him as he fell.

Chapter 30

Taboret let out a little shriek as the bridge collapsed into the gorge. The giant snake, people, steeds, and all tumbled down the steep banks into the river. She ran to the edge, and parted the brush with her hands. She searched the water for bodies. Was anyone still alive?