Nightmare's Edge

  Pulling in broken tombstones and shattered trees, the whirlpool compressed into a tight funnel and spun toward the sleeper’s scalp. Like a corkscrew, it drilled through her skull and disappeared.

  As the light faded, the girl rose to all fours, shaking her head, but if she said anything, the cacophony of battling noises drowned her out.

  With the dream at an end, darkness flooded the area. Nathan’s candle lay on its side a few steps away, but its flame had dwindled to almost nothing. Another candle flame floated nearby, but it shed only enough light to illuminate the hands that held it: Daryl’s.

  Nathan reached down to help the girl. He found a forearm and slid his hand underneath.

  Daryl’s meager candle flame bobbed toward the sleeper and settled opposite Nathan. “She seems pretty groggy,” she shouted. “We’ll have to give her a boost.”

  The paralyzers switched off, dousing their lights. When the sound died away, Cerulean stopped singing and hurried toward them, his dim blue glow revealing his location. Breathing heavily, he added his strength as all three lifted the girl to her feet.

  “Don’t worry,” Daryl whispered. “We’ve got you. You’re going to be all right.”

  With Cerulean now supporting her body from behind, Nathan tried to see the girl’s eyes, but the blue light wouldn’t penetrate the curtain of hair that had fallen over her face.

  “Can you tell who she is?” Daryl asked.

  “I think I know, but I didn’t want to say it out loud until I was sure.” Nathan gently pushed back her hair, but even then shadows kept her features hidden.

  “She is my beloved,” Cerulean said. “I need not see her face to know.”

  Nathan waved at the flickering flame. “Daryl, bring it closer, please.”

  “Right here, Captain.” She pushed a candle stub between Nathan’s finger and thumb. “Not much left, though. Don’t burn yourself.”

  “Thanks.” Nathan laid a hand on the girl’s cheek. “Daryl, can you hear me?”

  “Of course I can hear you. I’m right here. I just said don’t burn — ”

  “I don’t mean you.” As he held the candle closer to the girl, his throat caught. The glow rose to the eye level of her feminine face, freckled, with red bangs draping her forehead. Her lips trembled, and tears trickled down her cheeks. He set the glow near where her collar would be. It was missing.

  His tongue dried out as he tried to speak the words. “I was talking to Daryl Blue.”

  Daryl Red squealed. “It’s really her! It’s really Daryl Blue!”

  “Is she conscious?” Cerulean asked.

  “I’m conscious.” Lifting a hand to her head, Daryl Blue groaned. “But I’m so confused. Am I awake or dreaming?”

  “Awake,” Nathan said. “But we’ll have to convince you of that later. Can you walk?”

  She blinked three times. “I’ll try.” As she set her feet firmly, she smiled. “Is that you, Nathan?”

  “Yeah. It’s great to see you again.”

  After testing her legs, she looked at him, her brow tightly knit. “Dark have been my dreams of late.”

  “Is that a movie quote?” Nathan asked.

  “Yeah. Lord of the Rings.”

  “I remember. Then Gandalf says, ‘Your fingers would remember your old strength better if they grasped your sword.’ ” He patted his hip where a scabbard might have been. “But I don’t have a sword to give you.”

  “I do . . . sort of.” She pulled free from Cerulean and stooped. “I found it while I was floating in that dark place.”

  “We should go,” Cerulean said. “The stalkers fear me, but they might summon enough courage to strike from the darkness, and we have lost too much time already.”

  “Hold your horses just another minute.” Daryl Blue straightened, lifting a long object in both hands. “It’s that crazy bow you used to play that crazier violin.”

  “Perfect,” Nathan said. “Just what we need.”

  Daryl Red pushed her shoulder under Daryl Blue’s arm. “Lead the way, blue eyes. I’ll help this gorgeous redhead.”

  After giving Cerulean the candle, Nathan picked up the bow and searched for any sign of the direction they should go.

  Cerulean turned in a slow circle, the candle dimly lighting his worried expression.

  “What’s wrong?” Nathan asked.

  “The two Daryls have met in the dream world. I do not know what the consequences will be, but we can expect a drastic change. Do you feel the breeze?”

  As a cool wind swept across his forehead, Nathan’s mind rang with the memory of Amber’s warning, and a cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach. “Maybe it’s just a new dream getting started.”

  “It is not.” Cerulean waved a hand. “We must go. Stay close to me. I think the stalkers will feel the same uneasiness, but we should take no chances.”

  He led the way, and the two Daryls followed. Nathan trailed the group, keeping watch for any sign of a white-haired head. With every step, the breeze grew, though no new lights illuminated the area — no fresh images arose from the mind of a sleeper in the real world.

  In the distance, the other dreams dimmed. The football field warped like a curtain blown by a strong gust. The sunlit meadow fragmented, as if cut into jigsaw puzzle pieces.

  Cerulean marched with longer, quicker strides. Daryl Blue, now walking on her own, breathed heavily, but she and Daryl Red kept pace. Nathan cast one last glance behind him, then kicked into a jog. The wind whipped his shirt and hair, causing both to swirl like one of the cyclones that signaled the end of the dreams. He tucked the bow under his arm and pointed it forward, lowering the wind resistance, the only way he could hang on to it at all.

  Seconds later, they reached the ruptured core. Patar stood near the edge, his feet spread and his body leaning into the wind. He shouted above the whistling storm. “Your rescue mission has had disastrous results. Every dream is collapsing, and all are being swept into Sarah’s Womb.”

  Nathan looked around. His parents, Amber, and Kelly were nowhere in sight “Why? And where is everyone?”

  Patar glared at the two girls as they drew near. “Like similar poles on two magnets, she and her twin carry repelling energy forces, and they are creating an environment that makes this realm incapable of maintaining dreams. With every imagination ending simultaneously, the winds pulled the others into the Womb.” He pointed upward and twirled his finger. “The cyclone took Amber and your family to a higher level, though I cannot tell how high.”

  Nathan stared into the darkness. The chaotic choir had silenced, leaving behind only an eerie hum. Somewhere up there, his father carried very precious cargo. Yet, no matter how hard the wind blew, there was no way he would ever let Kelly fall.

  “Maybe it isn’t the two Daryls meeting,” Nathan said. “Could the Lucifer machine be causing this?”

  As if taken by surprise, Patar stared at him. “I do not know. Mictar is the master of the devilish engine.”

  “So what do we do now?” Nathan asked. “Follow the others?”

  Patar blinked at the strengthening wind. “We have no choice. We must release ourselves into the flow, Cerulean first and myself last.”

  Cerulean raised both arms, then, as if swimming with a river’s current, lifted into the air and disappeared.

  Shifting the bow back to his shoulder, Nathan walked right up to the edge. Just as he started to lean into the flow, the floor crumbled beneath him. He fell backwards, but the cyclone lifted him into its grip.

  Everything turned black. As his mind swirled, a sense of flying took over, overwhelming all feeling except the bow pressing against his body. Rushing wind whistled past his ears, then the sound of one of the Daryls calling his name.

  Someone grabbed his hand and pulled. Long hair brushed against his face, and a warm body pressed close. Then a weak whisper blew into his ear. “I’m scared.”

  “Daryl Red?”

  “You got it. But I’m feeling like Felicity. I’m as blind as
a radar-challenged bat.”

  He wrapped an arm around her and tried to silently radiate comfort. For some reason, this rocketing ascension felt safe, similar to one of their drops from the misty world. But with the hum of the Lucifer machine growing louder, that feeling quickly melted away.

  Soon, the sense of rising eased, and the rush of wind ceased. Nathan blinked. Darkness surrounded him — not a hint of light anywhere. He pushed his toes down but felt nothing below, just empty space.

  Warmth from Daryl’s body drew trickles of sweat, plastering his shirt against his skin. Although her trembling continued, she made no sound. A new breeze swept over Nathan’s body, soft and cooling. A sweet aroma rode its current — the smell of roses, subtle, yet leaving little doubt. He took in a long draft. Scarlet’s presence? Before, he had noticed the aroma from within, as if the scent of roses welled up from his own lungs, but now it drifted all around.

  A gentle laugh floated by, but it was more than a laugh. It was musical, like the tinkling of chimes blown by the wind. Nathan craned his neck to listen, but another sound drowned out the laughing song. Daryl’s rapid breaths passed over his cheek, hot and damp.

  He relaxed his arm and felt for her elbow. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” She blew out a longer, calmer breath. “Where is everyone?”

  He searched the darkness in the area where her hand should have been. “Do you have a candle?”

  “No. I thought you had one.”

  Nathan closed his eyes, trying to remember when he had set down his candle. Was it when he started jogging back to the central core, or when he got there and couldn’t find Kelly or his parents?

  “I see a light!” Daryl whispered sharply.

  “Where?”

  She turned his head. “There!”

  He squinted into the black canopy. A dim glow, small but steady, drew closer. It seemed to be the familiar aura of a supplicant, bluish, though not as shimmering as before. “Cerulean?”

  Nathan called. “Is that you?”

  “Yes.” Cerulean’s face came into view. At his side, he held Daryl Blue by her arm. “We are both well.”

  Daryl Blue laid a hand on her forehead. “That crazy tornado scrambled my brains. I can’t tell which way is up.”

  Patar’s voice pierced the darkness. “You have good reason to be confused, for there is no longer any floor beneath us by which you may orient yourself.” A few seconds later, his white-capped head appeared, then his body. “Since there is no floor beneath us to pull us downward, you feel no gravity, and that is a disorientating sensation.”

  “You’re telling me,” Daryl Blue said. “Back when I first fell into this place, I felt the air rush by, then after about five minutes of gut-wrenching terror, I slowed down and fell the opposite direction for maybe a minute. Then I stopped again and fell for only thirty seconds or so.” She moved her hand up and down to demonstrate. “I bobbed like a screaming, redheaded yo-yo for an hour. Once I settled into floating around like a seasick guppy, I was so dizzy I just slept most of the time.”

  Patar gave her a grim nod. “And a similar disorientation will affect the three Earths, assuming they survived. Without an intact core and an anchor in the foundation, they will drift apart. Sound waves will become so corrupted that no human will be able to survive the brain-splitting frequencies.”

  “So what do we do?” Nathan asked.

  “We must continue to follow my plan to restore the foundation, heal the cosmic wounds, and draw the three worlds back to their anchor points.” He looked up, his brow deeply furrowed. “With much of the floor beneath us crumbling, we will ascend to the great violin, though I have no idea how long it will take. Once there, we will attempt to call everything back into order. It could well be too late, but we must try.”

  “I can understand why we’re not falling,” Nathan said, “but what makes us ascend?”

  “Just as we drew together around Cerulean’s natural aura, we will drift toward the light in my world. At some point gravity will come into play again, likely somewhere still out of reach of the violin, so we will have to devise a way to continue when our upward movement ceases.”

  Nathan gazed into the darkness above, searching for any sign of Amber’s glow. Since she and the others lifted off first, they were likely somewhere up there. He blinked. For a moment it seemed that a yellow light flickered, but it was only a pinpoint if anything.

  A low moan sounded from somewhere below, a stretched-out lament, almost like a song. Nathan looked down and saw nothing. Those three stalkers likely were ascending, too, but would they cause trouble? Would they dare do anything with Patar and Cerulean around?

  Daryl Red reached out and clutched Nathan’s sleeve. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to go psycho. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel had better show up soon.”

  “I know the feeling,” Daryl Blue said. “Dropping like that was . . .” Her voice suddenly fell to silence.

  Nathan looked into her sad eyes, two glistening orbs barely visible in the blue glow, squeezed half closed by her fear-tightened features.

  He set a hand on Daryl Blue’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I have to tell you something.”

  As he took in a breath, every eye turned toward him. The silence seemed to thicken the air. Even the moaning quieted. “I . . . uh . . . I misjudged you, Daryl, and I said some pretty bad things about you to Kelly.”

  Without a blink, Daryl’s eyes stayed focused on his. Cerulean’s glow strengthened, shining a brighter light over her pain-streaked face.

  “So,” Nathan continued, “I apologize for my stupidity. You’re a true hero, and I hope you’ll forgive me and help me finish what we started.”

  Gentle laughter drifted again through a freshening breeze. Daryl’s red bangs brushed back. The lines in her forehead slackened. She threw her arms around Nathan’s neck and pulled him close. “Of course I forgive you!” she cried as she rested her head on his shoulder. “I was worried you wouldn’t forgive me for being such a coward.”

  The aroma of roses returned, this time in his own breath as well as in the surrounding air. Words streamed to his mind, but they were much too eloquent, way beyond his normal ability. He had to speak them in his own way. “You faced your worst fear and forestalled a world disaster. I don’t call that cowardice, Daryl. You suffered a lot more than I did. I really owe you everything.”

  Daryl hugged him closer. “Paid in full!”

  He breathed in deeply, enjoying the aroma as well as the warmth of her embrace. Now he couldn’t stop the words from slipping through. “If there is any debt between us, it is cancelled. We now owe nothing to each other but love.”

  She pulled back, sniffing as she stared at him. “You . . . you love me?”

  He glanced at the other Daryl, then met Daryl Blue’s stare. “Of course I love you. You’re like the sister I never had, a really cool sister. I’d do anything for you.” As he let a smile break through, he pointed at himself with his thumb. “Next time, though, let me take the fall. I’ll play the part of the guy in Vertigo.”

  “You and your movies!” Daryl kissed him on the cheek and whispered into his ear. “You’ve got yourself a sister, buddy, for better or for worse.”

  Daryl Red piped up. “Well, if that goes for me, too, then your big sister says we need to figure out a way to get this freight elevator moving faster. I mean, it smells nice, but the Spartan décor makes the Flintstones look stylish.”

  Nathan turned toward her. “Any ideas? With the smartest girls from two Earths putting their heads together, you ought to be able to come up with something.”

  Daryl Red leaned her head against Daryl Blue’s. “My brain sprang a leak. How about yours?”

  “Drained dry. I think my IQ dropped to single digits.”

  “There is a way to accelerate our ascension,” Patar said. “One of our songs carries such power, but it is obscure, and I have not sung it in a long time. It left my mem
ory ages ago.”

  Cerulean nodded. “I have heard you speak of it, but I have never heard the song itself.”

  “Can you remember the tune?” Nathan asked Patar. “Maybe the words will come back to you. I mean, we can’t just wait until doomsday to get up there, or doomsday will come too soon.”

  Patar lowered his head. “My mind is not like yours. Once a memory has been purged, it will not come back. I am not as human as I appear to be. I am — ”

  The moaning voice returned, this time carrying a cadence, the familiar vowel sounds that marked a stalker’s song.

  Keeping his voice low, Patar translated. “I see you, you vile supplicant. Are you drawing me into your clutches to slay me?”

  Nathan stared down again. A tall, slender figure floated slowly closer. With Cerulean’s glow washing over his upward-turned face, his identity became clear. It was Tsayad.

  Cerulean sang a string of vowels, similar to the stalker’s, yet far more beautiful in tone.

  Patar continued providing the translations. “If you bring evil intent, I will surely sing you into ashes.”

  Tsayad held up a book, the same music book he carried when Nathan first met him, and spat out a barrage of vowels.

  “I heard you mention the song of ascent. It is in this book, and since I also desire to safely rise to my home, I offer it to you in exchange for safe passage.”

  Tsayad slowed to a stop, now only a few feet below them.

  Cerulean extended his hand. “Give it to me. Otherwise I cannot be sure it is really there.”

  Tsayad hugged the book against his chest. “Do you think me fool enough to come near you? I would have used it earlier, but my ascent would have taken me past your destroying hands. You have grown far too powerful. That is one of the reasons I was hoping for replacement supplicants. They would have been easier to control.”

  “You are wise to fear my touch,” Cerulean said. “Do you have a suggestion that will break the impasse?”