Final Fieretsi: Part I of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle

  Chapter XXIII: Awakening into Dreams

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Pheia breathed as her destination at last came into clear view with the new day. Of course she’d seen it the night before; she couldn’t have missed it even if she wanted to. Even during the night the city blazed under countless lights to ward off the blackness, as if it frightened the humans rather than soothed and relaxed them.

  Yes, Shizai said, her normal bubbling-brook voice subdued to a trickle, it is on the outside. I have seen the hideous true face beneath the shiny mask laid bare.

  “What happened with Yifunis…”

  Yes. I fear that history may repeat itself with you or Stefi.

  Pheia nodded. “It’s strange. Even immortal beings worry about things.”

  Probably more so than you who are fated to die. What I’d give for a life of only one hundred years.

  “Just how old are you, anyway?”

  Old enough not to answer, not old enough to retire from this line of work, it seems.

  Soon they reached the towering gates of upper Sol-Acrima where the barren hills ended abruptly and the city began. Cyclopean masonry walls ran about the outer limits of the capital to far beyond the northern horizon, either keeping the people in or potential intruders out. Their weather-worn bulk, tall and ominous, served as a psychological deterrent as well as physical.

  “Who would’ve thought the gates would be open?” Pheia asked in disbelief. Indeed, the tall gates yawned open before them, flanked on either side by guard towers.

  I think it’s because no Furosan would be stupid enough just to wander straight in.

  “What about me?” Pheia shot back.

  The line between stupidity and bravery is pretty blurry. You’re on the bravery side. Just try and keep a straight course, princess.

  “How do I get in bravely but not stupidly? Fight?” She unslung her bow from her back and fitted an arrow to the string.

  You’re crossing the line, Shizai said. Try again.

  “A watery distraction?”

  Exactly. But as an elemental I cannot act in a potentially harmful way under my own volition.

  “Then you have my permission to do whatever it takes to prevent history repeating. Just try not to kill any innocent humans, please.”

  Shizai laughed, but it felt forced, unnatural. I’m not Raphanos, you know.

  The next moment a sudden disturbance rippled through the guards on the gates. They gathered up their weapons and within a minute the gate lay wide open and abandoned. All Pheia could do was stare in disbelief.

  “How did you do that?”

  I didn’t…

  Their eyes met and at once the same word passed their lips and mind. “Fieretka.”

  With a watery pop Shizai disappeared and returned to her stone once more. Go! she urged. Call me if you need me.

  And with that Pheia broke into a sprint, bow in her left hand and an arrow held ready in her right, and was swallowed up by the great human city.

  “We can’t just leave them!” Stefi protested and tugged at the airship pilot’s arm. Far below she saw Ifaut and Sansonis’s shocked faces staring skywards, both disbelief and the limitless sky reflecting in their eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” Djidou’s gaze played across the deck but refused to meet Stefi’s. Nor could hers bear to look any more at those two left below in the city.

  “They knew the risks,” Cédes said, her voice barely audible. “And yet they still agreed to help free the ferrets from their confines.”

  Djidou nodded. His miserable face was hidden in the shade of his cap. “I know. If we waited then we’d stand no chance of outrunning those.” He pointed towards the stern of the ship. Only a short distance away five large airships were drawing ever closer, looking like lumbering whales but moving much faster.

  “All this…” Stefi said. “All this for a stupid stone.” She glared at the dimly shining rock in her palm. Its deathly pale yellow light was barely visible in the sunshine, almost as if it would die at any moment. Knowing all that the wretched thing had caused and created, she almost wished it would.

  A moment later Sansonis and Ifaut vanished behind the looming structures of the upper city, like two grains of sand swallowed up in an ocean of buildings.

  “I’m sorry,” was all Stefi could think to say.

  “Do you think we can handle all of these?” Sansonis asked as Ifaut pressed her sweaty back against his, her weapon wavering in her hand.

  “Of course,” she said. Her tears were now forgotten. “As your kamae it’s my duty to ensure your safety. And if I save your butt here then my debt oughta be repaid, yes?”

  Sansonis nodded. “Only if we do dinner or something afterwards.”

  “But we eat dinner every night,” she said, quite puzzled.

  “I mean just the two of us. Something nice.”

  “Then we have a deal.”

  Despite the fact that the two were far outnumbered and exhausted from the previous fight, they managed to fend off their attackers, each fueled only by the desperate urge to protect the other. But Sansonis’s wound sapped his strength, and no longer could he hold his sword and knife defensively high. Panting, and with blood and sweat pouring off in equal measure, every incoming blow necessitated lifting the heavy steel to deflect imminent pain, every opening, frenzied thrusts of his knife.

  “Sa… Sanso… nis…” Ifaut’s voice came in ragged gasps as a lull opened in the battle. “I can’t take any more. Not even for you…” Every muscle in her body burned with white flames and her matted hair took on a strange pink shade from the blood that seemed to hang in the air like a fog. Her hat was now long lost, revealing her distinctive ears now also damp with sweat and blood.

  Then, as the calm eye of the storm passed over, a new rain fell. A deep boom echoed above the city, drawing all eyes skywards, and the flaming debris of what was once an airship pelted the buildings like a meteor shower.

  “Ifaut, run!” Sansonis shoved his way past the distracted soldiers. Ifaut, tearing her frightened gaze away, found the energy to obey.

  A moment later another explosion rang out. It was quickly followed by an unearthly roar. Following in its wake, a flaming object tore across the sky, twisting and turning sinuously as it followed a second wounded airship that drifted towards the hills.

  “Raphanos!” Ifaut squealed. “Cédes is helping us. So that’s why they left! I thought they’d forgotten us!” She bounced excitedly like a happy ferret kit, a pitiful sight with her ragged appearance. Even now the sunlight glanced off her hair, seeming to illuminate her face. And still her zest for life radiated from her beaming face, refusing to be dampened by her first bitter taste of war.

  “It had to be done,” Cédes said. “I do not like it, but it is our only hope.” She was referring, of course, to Raphanos. Moments before, an argument had ensued with the pale Furosan’s emotions torn between fighting or not, between killing so that others may live or dying. An impossible situation, she thought, until Rhaka had told her sagely, “This is war. They are willing to kill. We must be willing to live.”

  Once the flames of Raphanos had erupted from an inflamed Cédes, fueled by her own willingness to live, the elemental being, destruction incarnate, fell upon the pursuing ships.

  Raphanos tore the first ship to pieces almost instantly, reducing it to flaming shards and splinters as he collided with it headlong and flung the debris across the upper city. Amidst such destruction it also created an opportunity for Sansonis and Ifaut to escape.

  The second ship’s death was much more agonizing. The flaming beast tore off its stern. The force of the blow sent it spinning in a half circle. Deprived of its flightstone-driven engines, it sank slowly towards the nearby hills like a wounded beast, all the while trailing a plume of black smoke. Sensing a chance for fun amidst the chaos, Raphanos gave chase, dancing and twisting through the air. But he was so distracted by the chance for fun that he didn’t notice the other three ships slipping by.


  Stunned and angry cries of “Furosan!” flitted past Pheia as she sprinted through the streets and knocked people to the ground in her haste. She hardly noticed. Or cared. That ominous explosion and the smell of smoke propelled her forward. She didn’t know where Stefi and the Fieretka were, but it had to be where the commotion was coming from.

  She rounded a corner to find a sight that, even after the Arigan war, made her blood chill. There, outside a towering building, dead and wounded human bodies were strewn across the paved street. Their blood was pooling into the gaps between stones. Pheia retched as the coppery smell reached her nose and drew out dark memories of the war. Differences aside, humans and Furosans all bled the same color. She barely managed to suppress her meager breakfast as it threatened to come back up.

  “The Fieretka did this?” she said. “Stefi seemed so nice.”

  You’re one to talk, princess, a voice said in her head.

  “Yes, but that was war. I had no choice but to kill if I wanted to live,” she said, trying to justify her past actions like she had done so many times to herself during sleepless nights.

  This is now a war, too. I’m sure they had to do this.

  Pheia nodded and continued on, now sure she was on the right path. Even if it was red with blood.

  “Where are we going?” Ifaut gasped.

  “After Stefi and the others,” Sansonis said.

  “How we do that? I can’t fly!”

  “We steal an airship. C’mon.” He readjusted his grip on Ifaut’s slippery hand and willed himself to keep running.

  “You can’t fly one!”

  Sansonis knew very well that he probably couldn’t. But to his mind, fogged by pain and utterly exhausted, it seemed the best idea at the time. And it was certainly better than trying to run from the city wounded and on foot. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Though Djidou showed me the basics last night. And do you think we have a choice?”

  Suddenly Ifaut’s legs locked up and the two skidded to a halt.

  “If I had a choice then it would be to go someplace quiet and be away from all of this damn mess. There’s a nice place near home with a small creek and lotsa flowers. I choose to go there,” she said wistfully, a touch of sorrow in her voice. Her shining eyes turned to the sky and fixed themselves on something far, far away. “This is… crap.”

  “I know I’m a damn mess right now,” Sansonis said and glanced at his bloody chest, “but am I that bad?”

  Ifaut smiled. “I don’t mean you. I mean this place, this situation. It’s no place for a princess. Or anybody else,” she added hastily.

  He nodded in agreement. “Once we’re out of here we’ll go to your little special place.”

  “For dinner, too?”

  “Yes,” he said and rubbed his aching forehead, though out of pain or nervousness he didn’t know. “I’ll cook. And see if I can get you some chocolate.”

  Ifaut brightened at the mention of chocolate. “Really? But then I’ll owe you one thousand!”

  “Stop thinking in terms of debts,” he said. “We can do nice things for free, you know. Like this…” He hesitated for a second, his mind conflicted by an act he’d never done before. Would he do it right? Was there a wrong way? Did one have to learn how to do it first? He placed his hands on her shoulders. Before he could finish, a voice stopped him as his face neared Ifaut’s.

  “Human, unhand her at once. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I must!”

  A startled Sansonis looked up to see a Furosan perched atop a low wooden building. A drawn bow quivered in her left hand as her right prepared to let fly an arrow that was aimed right at his already wounded chest.

  “Hey, Browny!” Ifaut shouted back, referring to the other Furosan’s darker skin. “You can’t talk to him like that!”

  “I will talk as I please,” the bow-wielding Furosan said. “You annoy me already, yet I still do not wish the human to harm you.”

  “I’ll have you know he’s saved my life a few times already! He won’t hurt me. Sure, he looks a bit strange, but he’s harmless enough. And he’s mine.”

  “Saved? Then why is he taking hold of you?”

  Ifaut sighed. “Because we have to find Stefi and the others,” she said exasperatedly, only now realizing what he had been about to do.

  At that the Furosan’s bowstring and hostile attitude slackened. “Stefi? You two are Fieretka? Where might I find her?”

  “She and the others are getting out of here on an airship,” Ifaut said.

  “She is safe, then?”

  Ifaut nodded. “For now.”

  Pheia, for indeed that is who the other Furosan was, sighed with relief and leapt down to join Sansonis and Ifaut. “Very good,” she said. “Then how may we reach her?”

  Speaking to her for the first time, Sansonis said, “We plan on taking one of those flying ships. But we need to hurry.”

  “All right, human. Let’s go. I’ll aid you two as best as I can.”

  “It’s Sansonis,” the Kalkic said with a certain amount of hostility. After all, she had just threatened to kill him for touching Ifaut. All things considered, though, he thought it was certainly understandable.

  “Apologies. My name is Pheia. Pheia Ariga.”

  Ifaut’s ears twitched at the Arigan Furosan’s name. “Richo’s sister?” she asked.

  “Yes, although I am a princess in my own right,” Pheia said with some disdain to the dirty Mafouran before her. “Are you one of those silly kits with an infatuation for him?”

  There was something about Pheia that Ifaut couldn’t quite place, something that made the darker Furosan look down on her. Perhaps it was her association with a human. Or maybe her very untidy appearance. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to complicate things by revealing that she was the one arranged to marry her brother. And that any feelings for Richo couldn’t be farther from her mind. “No, I only know his name. I’m Miaun,” she said. “Now, Browny, if you don’t mind we really should find an airship. Right, Sansonis?”

  The Kalkic nodded and the three hurried through the streets, tension crackling between the two Furosans as they headed for the lower city.

  “Another ship closing fast!” Stefi shouted. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the whining of the ship’s two engines.

  Cédes nodded and whispered something in her own tongue that Stefi couldn’t hear. Raphanos appeared to hear, for just as the elemental’s second victim plowed into a hill and half-buried itself as it broke apart he turned tail and streaked with a roar back towards Cédes.

  The air filled with a terrible symphony of sound: Raphanos’s crackling roar, screaming engines, shouts from the city. Then the chorus was joined by a staccato bang from the nearest ship.

  “Get down!” Djidou yelled and he and Adnamis threw themselves on the deck. Stefi, hesitating for a second, heard something scream past her ear and narrowly miss Gemmie.

  What was that? the ferret squeaked. It was hot!

  “They’re shooting at us!” Stefi threw herself flat and clutched the ferrets beneath her.

  Can’t breathe! Maya protested, but Stefi ignored him. She looked up to see Cédes still standing defiantly at the ship’s stern, hand and staff ablaze.

  “Cédes, get down!”

  “I am fine,” she said calmly as she ignored the bullets, searing points of death, whining past her. In a spray of scarlet blood and pain, a piece of metal punched a neat hole through her left ear. She didn’t even flinch.

  A moment later a boom that shook Djidou’s ship echoed across the sky and the guns fell silent.

  “We have only two more to worry about,” Cédes said, her voice weighed down by despair. The knowledge that she had just killed many humans fell heavily on her heart, and even knowing that this was because of war and necessity did little to alleviate her anguish. Raphanos didn’t care. The mounting deaths only seemed to lighten his spirit.

  “You’re bleeding!” Stefi gasped. A river of red flowed through Cédes??
?s hair and down one side of her face, creating a frightful half-mask.

  “I know. My ears have been pierced before. I shall cope.”

  “It’s not just that. You’re hurting. I mean really hurting. I’m worried.”

  “I am touched by your concern. Let us first get you to safety and then we can worry about me.”

  It might have been the stress. It might have been seeing her friend shot and her ferret nearly so. Perhaps it was abandoning Sansonis and Ifaut. Whatever it was, Stefi snapped. “It’s not about me!” she shrieked. “Don’t you see? We’re all important in this!”

  “But as the Fieretsi you are first amongst us. My safety is nothing compared to yours.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” Stefi’s voice rose to a scream before bottoming out into a whisper. “You’re my friend. I… I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Cédes said and flashed a pained smile. “Love means doing whatever it takes for friends. Even if, to save the ones we love, we must harm ourselves and others.” She flicked her wrist and Raphanos twisted towards yet another airship. His fiery jaws snapped at the ship’s hull and came away with a mouthful of flaming splinters. The ship gave a lurch and spiraled out of control towards the still waters of the harbor, all the while shadowed by a flaming ferret looking for more fun. It smacked against the waves and sank with such speed that those aboard barely had time to shout for help.

  “One more to go,” Cédes said weakly, and Stefi noticed much of the Furosan’s pale hair was now dyed red.

  “No. Make that two. One more’s decided to join in,” Stefi said as yet another ship lurched from its moorings.

  After knocking out several airship-dock workers, Pheia motioned for Sansonis and Ifaut to take the ship.

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” Ifaut asked, halfway up the ladder.

  “Not yet, Miaun. You and the human, I mean Sansonis, need to get away from here.”

  “And you? Why not come with us?”

  “I don’t know,” Pheia said and avoided eye contact. “Something tells me I have to stay here, to prevent history repeating itself.”

  “Do you mean Yifunis?”

  “Yes. Shizai told you?”

  In reply there was a popping sound and a watery Furosan appeared in their midst. You called? Shizai said brightly, her sapphire eyes twinkling.

  Pheia nodded. “Help these two out of here. And watch out for Raphanos.”

  Raphanos? Shizai looked up just in time to see her burning brother tear a chunk from a ship. Oh. He’s here. Don’t worry. I’ll keep him off Ifaut and Sansonis.

  The Arigan Furosan started. “Ifaut? Ifaut Mafouras? Then you’re my brother’s… I thought you said…”

  Ifaut laughed nervously. “Yeah, I kinda lied about that… well, bye!” She scurried up the ladder and out of sight.

  “She’s a princess?” Pheia asked Shizai in disbelief. “And the one promised to my brother in ahiyau?”

  I’ve said too much already, Shizai said and glanced away. Perhaps we should focus on the task at hand first.

  “But she’s so… so… messy and un-princess-like!”

  Enough! Shizai squirted Pheia with a jet of water from her fingertip. The true measure of a princess lies not in her appearance, but her deeds. Now, your orders?

  “Protect them. And me. She’s weird and he’s a human, but make sure they live.”

  Soon the rising roar of the airship’s engines made normal conversation nearly impossible. Sansonis punched a button on the console and eased forward a lever that removed the protective shielding from the Fairun-based flightstone. As the nullifying Nefairu-infused metal casing within the bowels of the airship withdrew, divine energy radiated forth from the creation born of science and nature. It lifted the heavy craft upon the wings of impossibility.

  “Easy…” he reminded himself, trying to keep the lever on an even course.

  “Hey, are we away yet?” Ifaut’s voice snapped him from his concentration and, startled, he lost his steady hand. There was terrible shudder as energy flooded the ship and strained the engines, and in a second the two found themselves in an ungainly heap upon the deck and the ship already speeding out to sea.

  “We are now,” Sansonis said as his heartbeat thudded in his ears and adrenaline flooded his body. “You know,” he said and took the wheel, steering a course towards Stefi and the others, “you’re lucky we didn’t blow this thing up.”

  She gasped. “Really? I’m sorry!”

  “Don’t worry. We’re nearly in the clear.” He removed one hand from the ship’s wheel and found Ifaut’s warm, reassuring grasp. He looked into her eyes and was shocked to see them wide and the pupils dilated.

  “Raphanos… he thinks we’re one of them!” she screamed as the sinuous, flaming beast hurtled towards them. She squeezed Sansonis’s hand and gritted her teeth in preparation for the blow. It never came. Instead a hissing roar and a cloud of warm steam enveloped them, dampening their already wet clothes and making breathing difficult. When the steam cleared they could see, tumbling towards the sea, Raphanos and Shizai in her giant, watery ferret form.

  “She saved us, but she looks hurt!” Ifaut said.

  “And Raphanos?” Sansonis shouted back.

  “He’s reeling, but not so bad. Shizai’s… Shizai’s lost a leg!”

  “Of course. His flames must have evaporated her body.”

  “She can reform, right?”

  “I hope so. And I hope she can’t feel pain.”

  “What is going on?” Cédes asked as a new sound joined the battle. “I feel… is that Shizai?”

  “Yes,” Stefi said. “She’s fighting Raphanos. It’s almost like she’s protecting that other ship that just arrived.” She fell quiet for a moment and a new thought hit her. “No, it couldn’t be Sansonis and Ifaut, could it?”

  “Perhaps,” Cédes said. “But Raphanos… he is no longer listening.” She staggered and fought to keep standing, using her staff for support as blood and strength left her body. “Why… why must I endanger our friends to save us?”

  Stefi could find no answer. Instead she watched helplessly as the last of the hostile ships drew closer, unimpeded by Raphanos.

  There was a muffled boom as Raphanos let loose a flaming ball from its mouth, aimed at the ship it perceived as hostile in all its anger. Shizai, thinking quickly, threw her slender form before it. She disappeared in another hiss and cloud of steam.

  Aaahh! A tortured, pained scream rang through their minds, and the steam cleared to reveal a sight that made Stefi’s blood chill. Half of Shizai’s head was gone, blown away in a hot cloud. It didn’t reform like it had when she was playing around the Valtela. Something was terribly wrong.

  “Why won’t she heal?” Stefi shouted.

  “It is no ordinary wound. The only thing that can truly harm an elemental is another elemental,” Cédes said in a shaky voice. “Although we creatures of flesh and blood can be hurt by many things.” She tottered on uneasy feet and fell to her knees.

  Stefi hurried to support her. “You need to rest. You’ve lost too much blood. Stop pushing yourself.”

  “Perhaps… perhaps this is my punishment for Valraines and now taking the lives of those aboard the flying ships. I deserve this.”

  “No. You had no choice, and Valraines was an accident. We’ll find forgiveness, won’t we, Gemmie and Maya?”

  Very faintly Cédes could hear a yes in her head. It was enough for her strength to trickle back. “Thank you, everyone. But I believe I can hear another problem. Look.”

  And there, just meters off their stern, was the pursuing ship.

  “Djidou, get us out of here!” Stefi cried and pulled a weakened Cédes to her feet.

  “I’m trying!” He turned around to see the closing ship. “Oh hell! It’s the Resolve.”

  “And that means?”

  “That means it’s the most powerful experimental warship in the fleet. Heavily armed, very fast, very deadly. Very expensive, too
.” He pointed to where a row of cannons protruded from the hull. They stared like dark, gaping eye sockets. “Hold on to something!” he shouted as he spun the wheel hard to port and pulled back on the lever that regulated the flightstone.

  In the seconds that followed, far too many things happened for time to keep up and it seemed to grind along in the process. The ship’s engines died and it plunged downwards, sending Rhaka skittering across the slanting deck until his teeth found purchase on a railing; the Resolve’s six port cannons all barked a deafening salute; and Djidou’s ship rocked as the cannons found their mark.

  “Adnamis, how badly are we hit?” Djidou shouted as he restarted the airship and it lurched back onto a straight course. Something was different. The ship was slow to respond.

  “Starboard engine’s gone,” Adnamis said calmly as she assessed the damage. She peered over the railing, holding her glasses on her face. “We have hull damage, but it doesn’t look like all their shots hit. My expert assessment: another bombardment and we’re screwed.”

  “All right,” he said and cleared his throat before addressing the others. “Guys, we have about a minute until they shoot again. Then we’re dead. Whitey, can’t you help?”

  “No, Mr. Djidou. Look.”

  As Raphanos made yet another attempt to destroy Sansonis and Ifaut’s ship, a gravely wounded Shizai summoned the last of her power to halt her destructive brother. She hurled her translucent bulk at Raphanos and sank the remains of her watery teeth as best as she could into the flaming flesh and scrabbled to pull him back with her paws despite the searing pain. Twin anguished screams rang through the minds of everyone nearby as Shizai’s body exploded in a giant cloud and Raphanos’s flames finally died, leaving behind a blackened mess. Both sapped of their strength, their remains, now little more than two misshapen masses, plummeted into the open sea. They sank beneath the deep-green waves with a towering splash.

  Suddenly a blackened and cracked head thrashed above the water’s surface and vomited one last fireball in its death spasms towards the target that so enraged it.

  Ifaut, still staring over the side of her ship, felt her heart drop into her stomach and her stomach rise into her throat. “Oh no…”

  She rushed over to Sansonis and, seizing him in both arms, stumbled over to the side of the ship. She looked into his gray eyes and could do nothing but smile. “Thank you for making me happy,” she said.

  Then she hurled herself and Sansonis from the ship towards the sea far, far below.

  The two ferrets, Gemmie and Maya, surveyed the chaotic scene through their tiny masked eyes. They clung to Stefi’s shoulders as she fell, weeping and drawing in gasping breaths, to her hands and knees.

  What happened? Gemmie said. She was vaguely aware that another blast of warmth had just flashed somewhere behind them.

  “If… Ifaut and Sansonis are dead!” she choked out, her face twisted in grief.

  That’s impossible! Maya shot back. They can’t be! The funny ferret-girl and the blue-haired guy, dead?

  Gemmie seemed hardest hit. B-b-but, she stammered, I wasn’t there to comfort her.

  Just then they felt Stefi’s body pulled forward to Cédes’s as her head came to rest on the Furosan’s chest.

  “Stefi, I am sorry. I have failed you.” Tears ran down Cédes’s face. They streaked the drying blood and washed away her hopes for the future in one ebbing tide. “I have failed Ifaut and Sansonis, the ferrets, everyone. Especially you.”

  Stefi took her Furosan friend in her arms and the embrace was returned. “You haven’t failed me, silly,” she said and smiled through her own tears. “All I ever expected was for you to be here till the end. And you’ve fulfilled all my expectations and more. Thank you.”

  Alongside them the indifferent, deadly cannons prepared to fire once more. In that moment the ferrets knew that Stefi, weighted with grief and failure, had accepted the inevitable death Cédes had foretold.

  Maya, Gemmie said, directing her thoughts at only the other ferret. It’s time. Stefi knelt emotionally distraught beneath them; Cédes bloodied; Sansonis and Ifaut dead; Rhaka utterly dumbed in grief.

  I know, he said. Kilara can’t have meant any moment but this. ‘To ensure the safety of the Fieretsi. That is your highest purpose.’ She died for us to make it this far, and damned if I let my girl down now.

  Yeah. Let’s go.

  The two ferrets turned to face Stefi, only for a second. Her face, pressed so near to Cédes’s, showed all the markings of despair and the complete lack of hope. And that’s how they knew it was time. The path was written clearly by their best friend. All doubt was gone. Only determination remained.

  For the safety of the Fieretsi, Maya began.

  And for the Fieretka, Gemmie continued.

  For Feregana,

  Mother to us all.

  “Huh?” Cédes’s ears pricked. “The ferrets are talking!”

  Stefi nodded. “You hear them too? What are they saying? It makes no sense.”

  Cédes listened intently, still clinging to her human friend.

  To keep the Dream alive,

  And the hopes of all who live there.

  What little color that was in Cédes’s bloodied face drained away and left her even whiter than usual. “They are Awakening!” She shuddered. “You have to stop them! They cannot Awaken just for our sakes!”

  “What? Awaken?” Stefi asked, quite puzzled. They weren’t asleep. Nothing was making sense. Nothing.

  “They are going to sacrifice themselves in order to save us.”

  Stefi gasped and a feeling of nausea boiled up in her stomach. She only just managed to keep it down. “Gemmie, Maya, stop right now. That’s an order!” Her cracking voice fell dead and lifeless, the command barely registering in the ferrets’ little ears.

  For those we love,

  And so they may continue to love…

  They cast one last look at Stefi as she turned to each of them, inky black eyes lingering upon her own. “No!” she said weakly. The ferrets didn’t listen. Their minds were set, their hearts steeled for the task ahead.

  The two ferrets spoke together: We Awaken from the Dream.

  “No!” Stefi cried, screaming from the bottom of her lungs and weeping from the deepest depths of her heart. The two fuzzy bodies that had once been so warm, so busy, so vibrant with the joy of life, tumbled limply from her shoulders, all traces of their life gone. They hit the deck with muffled thuds. Their black eyes, now devoid of their sparkle, stared at nothing.

  Now, time itself really did stop, stilled across Feregana. Both airships stopped, their engines stalled in time. The waves of the ocean froze in awkward positions. Even the plume of smoke issuing from the remains of the starboard engine had ceased billowing and resembled an ethereal black pillar. And the ship that had been carrying Sansonis and Ifaut hovered, split in two, just above the waves; the flames consuming it were snapped frozen like melted stained glass. Only those aboard Djidou’s airship seemed immune to the effects of whatever had just happened.

  But Stefi barely noticed those things. Or the tear that rippled through the very fabric of reality. At first it appeared to be merely a lightning bolt, but it moved far too slowly through the cloudless sky. A sudden flash illuminated the deck, bathing it in the calming, otherworldly twilight of another sun.

  Thank you, Stefi, she heard two familiar voices say. She looked towards the source of the light.

  Don’t cry, Gemmie said, her voice quiet and gentle. Please don’t cry. This was our purpose.

  Yeah, Maya said, still displaying his characteristic attitude to the very last. It’s been an honor walking the Dream alongside you. But now it’s time to wake up so you can keep being safe.

  “What do you mean?” Stefi asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  Our dream is over. Yours is just beginning, Gemmie said. So don’t be sad. Smile.

  “But I’ll see you at the Rainbow Bridge, like Cédes told me about, won’t I?”
>
  There lies no Bridge for us. We are gone from the Dream. Only nothingness awaits, Maya said.

  Gemmie piped up. Just don’t forget to smile for us once in a while.

  Then the shining light was gone.

  “What did they mean?” Stefi asked and turned to Cédes.

  “They no longer exist.”

  There was a tinkling like thin glass shattering and the Resolve broke into countless tiny pieces that danced away like dust on an unseen breeze. Then, with a sigh, reality settled itself back into its rightful place. Only now it was all the more lighter.