How much pain there is behind his words! This is a man who lost everything he once lived for, and still he survives. Banished from his home world, displaced in time, trapped in a universe where the very plant life despises him, he has every reason to give up hope. And yet he’s still here. Long after other men would have surrendered to despair, he’s still here. Surely, if he can find the strength to keep fighting, so can I.
“No,” I whisper weakly. “I don’t want them to win.”
“All right then.” He releases my face. “Now, we have two choices. We can try to find a way to get home that doesn’t involve immediate impalement, or we can go explore those ruins. Maybe you’ll find something there that will point you to a new path. Or show you a way to deal with this one. I don’t know. But we won’t know the possibilities if we don’t even look.”
I glance back the way we came and see that the black vines have taken root at the base of the ridge. A new hedge is in the process of creation, and it’s already taller than I am. Even if we wanted to retrace our steps, we couldn’t. It’s as if it’s herding us. Deep in my heart I know that Sebastian’s right; I’ve travelled across half a continent and braved the nightmare of El Malo to search for answers here, and I owe it to myself not to give up prematurely. “Okay.” I nod toward the black mountain. “Ruins it is.” After a moment I add softly, “Thanks.”
While Isaac helps me to my feet, Sebastian reaches down to remove the vine that’s wrapped around his ankle. One of the thorns has penetrated his boot, and when he pulls it out I see a dark red stain spreading on the leather. “Sebastian—”
“It’s not deep,” he says quickly. “When we’re in a more sheltered place I’ll tend to it.”
I look up at the sky. It’s still brightly colored, but any moment that could change. Is there any shelter here that would be meaningful if a reaper appeared? We came prepared to fight one if we had to, but that doesn’t mean we’d win.
One thing at a time, Jesse. Stay focused.
We work our way carefully down the rocky slope, sometimes walking, sometimes sliding. Sebastian is having a hard time of it, and he uses the spear as a hiking staff to keep his balance. It’s clear his ankle hurts, but he doesn’t complain or ask us to slow down. Once we get to the bottom of the ridge, walking becomes easier, and soon we’re hiking along the dried lake bed, slabs of mud interlocked like paving stones beneath our feet. I try to energize my spirit by imagining the freezing cold water that was here last time I came this way, picturing it sloshing over my feet as I walk. It helps a bit.
When we get to the black mountain we look for a good route of ascent, but there really isn’t one, so we begin to climb. The damn thing is obsidian, so the going is anything but easy; more than once I slip on the smooth volcanic glass and nearly lose my footing. Is this how the avatar girl intended to reach the tower, when she was fleeing from the reaper? I doubt it. Probably there are stairs somewhere that we don’t know about. Or maybe she had enough control over her dream to create some. I’m wary of straining my Gift by making so many alterations, but maybe I can try to make things a little easier for us. I create some shallow horizontal ridges on the slope, so we have something to brace our feet against. It helps us climb, but the effort leaves me dizzy and breathless.
Soon we see scattered bricks and have to pick our way around mounds of shattered stone. Who was responsible for all this destruction? I’m acutely aware of how little I know about the history of my kind, other than vague stories from Morgana that might or might not be true. Finally we reach the top, and I bend over for a moment to catch my breath, then look up at the part of the tower that’s still standing. It seems much taller now, and the illusion of long black streaks on its surface gives it a doubly ominous aspect. From this close I can see that the face of the brickwork has actually been scoured clean by the elements, but the soot embedded in a thousand tiny pits and crevices gives it the illusion of recent scorching. Whatever fire left those marks burned out a long time ago.
“Do you think it really changed shape?” Isaac asks. “Before it was destroyed, I mean.”
I put a hand on the wall of the tower, but it feels like you would expect stone to feel: gritty, solid, slightly cool to the touch. Then again, what is a shape-changing tower supposed to feel like? “I don’t know. Maybe each dreamer sees it differently. In the avatar’s dream it was still intact.”
I step over some rubble to go through the main doorway. Rusted hinges scrape my shoulder, their wooden doors long gone. The interior is cooler and surprisingly free of stone debris; whatever force destroyed this place must have exploded from within, blowing most of the bricks away. There are mounds of blackened wood everywhere, from where walls and ceilings collapsed and burned. When I step on a broken plank the outer husk of charcoal breaks away to reveal an interior riddled with insect tunnels. Even in this place of death, life persists.
Looking upward, I have a clear view of the sky. It’s still blue.
“No ghosts here.” Isaac comes up beside me.
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s surprising. A place that suffers this kind of destruction usually produces at least a few soul shards. It’s hard to imagine all this happened without someone dying.”
“Maybe the place was empty when it happened.” I look at him. “Is Jacob with us?”
He shakes his head. “Didn’t expect him to be. You aren’t able to sense his presence, so how could you transport him?” He pauses. “I do admit, it feels odd not to have him here. Strange how you can get used to someone’s presence in so little time.” He looks around the devastated space. “Not much left, is there?”
I whisper it: “No.”
“I’m guessing Shadows were responsible for this. I don’t know how, since our Gift doesn’t give us the ability to manipulate dreams, but I remember reading in our archives that at the end of the Dream Wars a small band of Shadowlords followed the Dreamwalkers to their home base and destroyed it. This place seems to fit the bill.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Our archives?”
He blushes. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
I look around and sigh. All I see is centuries of accumulated rubble and decay. If there are clues here I’m missing them. “Whoever did this is long dead.”
“That doesn’t mean much among the Shadows. They Commune with the souls of their ancestors, remember? Whoever ordered this strike may still be walking the Earth, albeit in a new body.”
“Jessica! Isaac!” Sebastian waves to us. “Over here!”
We pick our way over to where he’s standing, next to a knee-high brick wall. Something of structural significance must have been here. “Take a look,” he says, and he points to the ground by his feet. Or rather, to the lack of ground.
Stairs.
They go down quite a distance, following the shape of the tower as they curve to the left, but the bottom is lost in darkness, so there’s no way to tell where they lead. I feel a flutter of excitement as I gaze down at them, even a spark of hope. Maybe whatever is underground escaped the explosion that destroyed the upper portion of the tower. If so, I might find answers there.
“We’ll need light,” Isaac says.
I create three flashlights and hand one to each of them, trying not to let them see how much that small effort weakens me; I’m reaching the end of my dreamwalking strength. I turn mine on and lead the way downstairs. It’s good that there’s a stone wall on one side of the staircase, because I need it to steady myself. This Gift has its limits, I remind myself as I focus on descending safely. The last time I tested those limits I got violently ill, and I can’t afford for that to happen here.
The curving staircase leads us down into a vast circular chamber, but we have to keep our flashlights focused on the stairs as we descend, so not until I finally step onto the chamber’s floor am I able to swing my light wide, sweeping from one side of the chamber to the ot
her, trying to get a sense of the room’s overall purpose. When I do, I am so stunned I nearly drop the flashlight. “Holy shit,” I whisper.
There are shelves. On every wall. Shelves filled with books. This place is a library.
Trembling with excitement, I walked to the nearest set of shelves. Could this be the archive where the collected knowledge of the Dreamwalkers is stored? The shelves are black, all black, set far back into the stone wall, with rows of black books lined up neatly along each one. I hunger to touch the books, but I’m also afraid to, as if contact with human flesh might reveal that this whole room and everything in it are illusions. I have so much hope invested in this place . . .
Sebastian and Isaac come up beside me, and they add their light to my own so that we can take a better look at the books. They’re all different sizes and shapes, some stacked vertically and some piled horizontally, all neatly arranged. There’s no print on any of them, just identical black bindings in some kind of matte finish. Finally, still wary, I reach out to take one of the smaller books from the shelf.
It crumbles in my hand.
Startled, I stare at the pile of ash and charcoal in my palm, then turn my hand over to dump the debris on the floor. I try to remove a different book from a different shelf, but it, too, disintegrates as soon as I touch it. Shaken, I start to go around the room, peering at each shelf in turn but not touching anything, shining my flashlight into every nook and cranny. I’m desperately searching for something that looks like a readable book. I don’t even care what’s in it; I need confirmation that something here hasn’t been reduced to ash. But all the books I look at are charred inside and out, so thoroughly that not a single page remains readable. All is black.
The truth of the situation is slowly sinking in, and as it does, the last precious bit of hope I’ve been clinging to fades within me.
“This wasn’t a natural fire,” Sebastian says, shining his flashlight between two stacks of books. “The destruction’s too perfect. None of the covers are even warped. And every page is perfectly blackened, even in the center of the thickest volumes. Real fires don’t work like that.”
“You’re thinking a pyromancer did this?” Isaac asks.
“Or someone with a pyromantic fetter. Either way, the fire was clearly set for the express purpose of destroying the library’s contents.” He looks at me and says softly, “I’m sorry, Jessica.”
“It was all here,” I mutter hoarsely. “All the knowledge of the Dreamwalkers. That’s what this place must have been for. Rituals, history, maybe even catalogs of codexes, all stored in a secret library halfway between the waking and dreaming worlds, so that only a Dreamwalker could access it. It should have been safe.” I gaze out at the endless rows of literary corpses. “Someone must have figured out another way to get here.”
“Or maybe a Dreamwalker betrayed his own people,” Isaac says quietly. I glare at him so fiercely he puts up his hands as if to guard himself from a blow. “I’m sorry, but if only a Dreamwalker can come here, that means that either one of them brought an enemy with him, or provided an enemy with the knowledge he needed to come here on his own. Either way . . .” He spreads his hands.
It’s all overwhelming. I lower my head and rub my forehead, as if that could banish the pain of this discovery. Surely there must be something left here, some fragment of knowledge that can be salvaged! But even if there is, how are we supposed to find it? I look around the immense room, and I feel the sharp bite of despair once more. It would take weeks to inspect every volume here. Our physical bodies would die of thirst long before the job was finished. There must be another way.
Suddenly I realize what it is. I push myself away from the wall and walk over to Sebastian. “Spear, please?” I hold out my hand. He looks curious but gives the weapon to me.
I walk to the nearest bookcase, study it for a moment, then swing the spear at a row of books with all my might, back end first. The wooden shaft breaks through the charred volumes with little resistance, scattering ash and charcoal chips everywhere. When the dust settles there’s nothing’s left.
“Jesse?”
I can tell from Isaac’s tone that my actions have alarmed him. Maybe he thinks the stress of this journey has finally proven too much for me, and I’ve snapped. But when I look back at Sebastian, he stares at me for a moment, then nods his approval. He’s figured out what I’m doing.
I assault another row of books. And another. The fragile volumes disintegrate as soon as I hit them, filling the air with black snow. Even the shelves themselves, thick enough to have remained intact for centuries, give way before my assault, leaving only dust behind. Sebastian and Isaac are joining in now, and soon there’s so much ash in the air that it’s getting hard to breathe. If any portion of a book didn’t burn completely, this course of action will reveal it. Of course, there’s also a chance we’ll damage any extant pages by this method, but that can’t be helped. I can’t leave this place until I’ve verified that no information survived the fire.
I’m starting on my fourth bookcase when Isaac calls from behind me, “Jesse!”
I turn and see him pointing to a shelf near the floor. With so much ash piled on top of everything it’s hard to make out what he’s pointing at, but as I swing my flashlight that way I see a glint of a reflection. Definitely not charcoal. I head across the room as quickly as I can in the near-darkness, tripping over the skeleton of a half-collapsed table. Like the books, it falls to pieces as soon as I touch it.
By the time I get to where Isaac is, he has pulled out the object in question—or, more accurately, the objects. There are ten in all, sheets of blank metal with holes running down one side.
“They were inside one of the books,” Isaac says. “Totally invisible until I broke through the cover.”
“The holes suggest they were bound together,” Sebastian says as he joins us. He takes one of the metal sheets from me and studies it in the beam of his flashlight. “The cover is what burned.”
“Which may be what saved them,” I point out. “Whoever destroyed this place probably thought he got everything in it.” I turn one of the sheets over in my hand. “But why metal? That’s an odd material for a book.”
“Well, it did survive the fire,” Isaac says. “Maybe someone anticipated that.”
“But there’s nothing on them.”
“Maybe someone planned to write on them later?”
Sebastian offers: “Maybe there’s writing on it that we can’t see.”
His words prod something in my memory, but I can’t pin it down. As I run my hand over the smooth metal surface I have a strange sense of déjà vu. Why do I have the sense that I’ve seen something like this before? Then I remember.
“They’re fetters,” I murmur. My fingers can still recall the feel of the metal plates in the Weaver’s camp. Those had been blank sheets of metal just like this, with nothing on them but identification codes. Metal must be the Weavers’ material of choice for binding Gifts.
I rest the plates in the crook of my left arm so that I can place my right hand flat on top of them, but Sebastian grasps my arm before I can make contact, stopping me. “Upstairs,” he says. “In the light, with clean air, where we can see anything that comes at us.”
“I don’t think reapers will attack us here—or they would have done so already, don’t you think?”
But he’s right; this dark, dusty hole isn’t a good place to be experimenting with unknown powers. I hold the fetters close to my chest as the three of us head back up the stairs.
The sun is dropping low in the west when we emerge, which means that we spent way more time in the library than I’d thought. Our real bodies are still in the desert, I remind myself, unable to drink or eat until we return. We need to go back soon, regardless of what we find here.
I settle myself on the ground with my back to a partially collapsed wall. Sebastian and Isaa
c remain standing, poised to move quickly if they have to. “You know this could be a trap,” Isaac warns. “Maybe these were left behind after the tower was blown up, to take care of any survivors.”
I nod. “I know.”
I lay the ten metals sheets out in front of me, hesitate for a moment, then place my palm on the first one. I concentrate on my Gift like I did in the Weaver camp, trying to trigger whatever Dreamwalker essence might be attached to the thing. If it works like the Weaver fetter, only a Dreamwalker will be able to activate it. What more perfect communication method could there be for creating a book you don’t want outsiders to read?
For a moment nothing happens. Then, suddenly, sounds fill my head. Wood burning. Bricks falling. People screaming. The noise is discordant, overwhelming. Reflexively, I start to remove my hand from the fetter to cover my ears, then force myself to hold my position.
I see the library again, this time not filled with ash and rubble but with books. There are hexagonal crystals set in the ceiling that channel light down into the chamber, illuminating a table of polished ebony at its center. A woman stands before the table, turning the pages of a large book. Metal pages. These pages. She closes the book and walks to one of the bookshelves, where she tucks the volume in among the regular books. Her intent is clear: no one looking at that spot will see anything unusual.
We will all die soon. Her words fill my mind without her speaking them aloud. Our name will die with us. We leave behind the knowledge of what has happened here. Forgive us that we do not have time to prepare more.
The vision fades. I sit there in silence for a moment, trying to absorb what I have just seen. Isaac opens his mouth to speak but I wave him off. Then I turn the page, brace myself, and activate the next fetter.
I see a tower whose shape reflects the mind of each observer, whose windows look out upon a thousand worlds. I know that from within that tower I can touch all possible worlds and draw sleeping minds to me. This is a place where dreams intermingle, the realm that Dreamwalkers call home.