Death Weavers (42 page)

When Cole entered the grove, all outside music stopped, replaced by low, peaceful strains. It surprised Cole that such a small grove with such gentle music could overpower all other sounds. As he proceeded among the trees, he still couldn't see or hear a bridge.

But he did encounter a house—a simple structure made of mud bricks with flowers growing on the roof. Two benches sat out in front. A man sat on one of the benches. He stood as Cole approached.

Cole recognized him.

“Dandalus?” Cole asked.

“Yes, my boy,” Dandalus said. “Have we met?”

“I touched the Founding Stone,” Cole said. “I spoke to the imprint you left there.”

“Perhaps you did,” Dandalus said, sitting down again. “What brings you so far into the fringe? It's much more humane to just leap into a channel.”

“Sometimes that doesn't sound like a bad idea,” Cole said. The beacon was pointing straight at Dandalus. “I'm looking for the Warden of the Light.”

“You have quite a light of your own,” Dandalus said. “Did you rob the Grand Shaper?”

“She gave it to me,” Cole said. “Then She Who Stands at the Summit sent me to you.”

“You think I'm the Warden of the Light?” Dandalus asked.

Cole started walking sideways. The lantern kept shifting to point right at Dandalus. “The Weaver's Beacon seems to think so.”

“If we can't trust a stranger's lantern, what can we trust?” Dandalus asked, a sparkle in his eye.

“Can you read my mind?” Cole asked. “Do you know why I'm here?”

“I've gathered the basics,” Dandalus said. “I'm not as quick at raiding memories as our friend on the mountaintop. It would speed this up and make it simpler if you give me permission to know what you know.”

“Sure,” Cole said.

Dandalus stared at him for a long moment, then gave a nod. “Thank you. I think we can keep the test straightforward. She already tested you, and the Pass of Visions was wrenching.”

“Yeah,” Cole said, barely keeping his voice steady.

“Without knowing the secret of the pass, it's almost impossible to make it through. I know of nobody who has done it. Even knowing how to survive it, many fail. That's part of the reason I chose this spot as my sanctuary.”

“Can you only get here through the pass?” Cole asked.

“The two channels run at either side of the towering cliffs,” Dandalus explained. “They have no bridges between here and there. I'm protected by a triangle—two slipstreams and a wall of rock with a single way through.”

“I'll have to go back through the pass to get out?” Cole asked.

“Unless you sprout wings, it's the only way,” Dandalus said. “But you survived it once, so I expect you can do it again. Now for my test. Cole, I can send you home. Not an illusion. Not temporarily. I framed the Outskirts. I know how it all works. And I can bend the rules to send you back to your house in Mesa, Arizona. Say yes, and I'll do it. Say no, and we can discuss other matters.”

“Wait,” Cole said. “Can you send me anywhere?”

“I can send you back Outside,” Dandalus said. “I can't send you elsewhere in the echolands or the Outskirts.”

“Isn't Arizona farther?” Cole asked.

“This sanctuary effectively cuts me off from the rest of the echolands and the Outskirts,” Dandalus said. “As with She Who Stands at the Summit, it was the price I had to pay to avoid the call of the Other. However, I am not separated from the ways to the Outside. That I can still do from here.”

“What about my friends?” Cole asked. “Could you send Dalton and Jenna home too?”

“They would have to be here. I explained that I am separated from the rest of the echolands and the Outskirts.”

Cole paused to think. Could he go home alone? Could he leave behind Dalton, Jenna, Hunter, and the other kids who were taken from his neighborhood? It would be so nice to be back in his house. The vision at the Farthest Mountain had given him a taste—his own room, his own bed.

He longed to see his parents. Even his sister. He missed living a normal life. He missed school and sports and bikes and breakfast cereal and hot showers. No running for his life. No monsters to fight. Nobody to save.

If he snuck home, who would know? Were there ways he could help there that he couldn't here? Maybe he could remind all the parents about their missing kids.

But how could he abandon his quest to find Destiny? How could he leave Mira and Honor to fend for themselves against their father and Nazeem? How could he ditch Dalton, Hunter, and Jenna?

Cole folded his arms. Did his presence here really make a difference? What were his chances of surviving the echolands? What were their chances of winning? Supposedly, there was a chance while he remained. But was that really true? How much did he matter?

In many ways, it would be such a relief to quit all this.

“Would my parents remember me?” Cole asked.

“Probably,” Dandalus said. “I can't guarantee it.”

“But I would be home to stay,” Cole said.

“To stay,” Dandalus agreed.

Cole shook his head. One day he might regret letting this opportunity pass, but he knew his answer. “I can't go. Too many people are depending on me. Can I take a rain check?”

“If you can ever find me again, sure, the offer would stand,” Dandalus said. “Though finding me is seldom easy. You are a loyal friend, Cole.”

“I guess,” he said. “Now what?”

“You may ask me three questions,” Dandalus said.

Cole figured he should get the big one out of the way. “Where can I find Destiny Pemberton?”

Dandalus smiled. “I know where you can find her. I will tell you before we finish our conversation, but I prefer to wait until the end. Is that all right?”

“Sure,” Cole said, relieved that Dandalus knew the answer.

“Good. What else can I tell you?”

“How can I get home with my friends? Besides bringing all of them to you.”

“Bringing all of them to me would work,” Dandalus said. “I would send them. But there could be another way. Shall I explain?”

“Please,” Cole said.

“Understanding the particulars involves something of a history lesson,” Dandalus said. “Thank you for opening your mind to me. Among other benefits, I know that I can confide in you. Mine has become a lonely existence. I've only had one other visitor in the last two hundred years.”

Cole gave a low whistle.

“I spend a lot of time in trances,” Dandalus said. “Not the dangerous kind. The kind you used when running here.”

“Was I in a trance a lot?” Cole asked.

“Is that your third question?”

“No.”

“I'll answer regardless,” Dandalus said. “You were in a trance a good portion of the way. Mostly harmless trances, until recently. When you get far enough into the fringe, the call becomes almost irresistible. Even sheltered by the beacon, your defenses were starting to break down.”

“The homesong got pretty tempting,” Cole admitted.

“Which is unavoidable,” Dandalus said. “The whole purpose of the echolands is to prepare individuals to answer that call. Let me take you back to the beginning. Back before the Outskirts existed. Can you guess what was here?”

“I don't know,” Cole said. “Outer space?”

“Wrong,” Dandalus said. “There was no outer space here. There still isn't, matter of fact. This entire plane of existence was simply the echolands. Nothing more.”

“So you were an echo?” Cole asked.

“That's another question,” Dandalus said. “It's hard to converse without them. Keep asking and I'll tell you if you stumble onto a topic that requires you to use your third official one. I was and I am an echo. There was originally a single type of shaping here. It was most similar to Sambrian shaping, but you could accomplish all that can be done in any of the five kingdoms. And more.”

“Did people shape the echolands a lot?” Cole asked.

“Quite a bit, as you might imagine,” Dandalus said. “Not all the echoes were strong shapers. But everyone could at least shape a little. People carved out their own versions of paradise while waiting to heed the call of the Other.”

“You came here from another world,” Cole said.

“After my physical body died, yes,” Dandalus said. “Everyone did. Nobody is native to the echolands. You've heard the Outskirts described as an in-between place? It really is. It's a physical realm built in the afterlife. A place between life and what comes after. A place between reality and imagination, because you can turn just about anything you can imagine into reality. A place between sleep and wakefulness, because if you can't sleep, how can you be sure you're truly awake? The echolands have a transitory, dreamlike quality. This place is intended as a permanent home to none.”

“But you changed it,” Cole said. “To add the Five Kingdoms.”

“Some of us got greedy,” Dandalus said. “We didn't mean any harm. But a handful of us were extremely powerful shapers. We learned how to cheat the call of the Other and used the time to grow in power. Eventually, we decided that we wanted to live again. So we used our abilities to create a material world here in the echolands. A mortal world.”

“The Outskirts,” Cole said.

“It didn't go well at first,” Dandalus confessed. “We made a modest realm. We brought in mortals from some of the neighboring worlds. The easiest to access was Earth. But the mortals arrived with much more powerful shaping skills than the typical echo, and they soon destroyed the world we created. Everyone we had brought here died.”

“Could you visit the world you made?” Cole asked.

“That was the point,” Dandalus said. “We transformed our echoes so we could dwell there. It made us feel alive again. A detailed simulation of mortality.”

“What did you do when the world was destroyed?” Cole asked.

“We escaped back to the echolands,” Dandalus said. “And we tried again. We made the next world much more sturdy and complete before transplanting actual mortals. Once all was ready, we brought a new group of mortals, and within five years they destroyed the world again.”

“Bummer,” Cole said.

“We felt terrible,” Dandalus said. “Hundreds of lives were lost. We decided that if we were going to make a third attempt, we needed to rethink everything.”

“What did you do?”

“We labored to restructure the shaping power itself,” Dandalus said. “Shaping had been the main problem. Mortals would come to the world we had made and destroy all we had created. So we toiled until we learned to use shaping to redesign how shaping itself functioned.”

“That sounds like shapecraft,” Cole said.

“Doesn't it?”

“You're hurting my brain.”

“It hurt ours, too. But eventually we succeeded. Once we were finished, very few echoes besides ourselves could shape in the echolands. Those who could had limited abilities.”

“And you divided the new world into five kingdoms.”

“Yes!” Dandalus said. “You're catching on! We only allowed certain shaping abilities in the various kingdoms. We wanted mortals to be able to shape, but not enough to destroy what we had created. The shaping in Sambria is called shaping because it is the closest to the original shaping. Just not quite as powerful. There was also enchanting, tinkering, weaving, and minding. When we brought mortals in the next time, the experiment worked. The world held together. We had produced the five kingdoms of the Outskirts.”

“And you guys were the first Grand Shapers,” Cole guessed.

“There were six of us,” Dandalus said. “I was the first High Shaper. The other five each supervised one of the kingdoms. Over time, a new threat developed.”

“The torivors?” Cole guessed.

“They came later. The first threat was from the echoes. Too many of them wanted to migrate from the echolands to the Outskirts. There were unfair advantages to living as an echo in the mortal world, and many echoes abused their power. Though the six of us did our best to protect the mortals, other echoes commenced to exploit and enslave them. Some mortals died on purpose so they could return as echoes. It was becoming a mess.”

“How did you handle it?” Cole wondered.

“Can't you guess?” Dandalus asked. “We stepped away from our creation. Together, we reshaped the world so that echoes couldn't dwell in the mortal Outskirts. The six of us withdrew and left mortal Grand Shapers in our place. There are still some places where echoes can sneak back into mortality, but not many, and not without incurring mortal weaknesses.”

“What about the Shiver Moon?” Cole asked.

“We didn't want to completely sever ties between the echolands and the mortal kingdoms. The weavers of Necronum became the bridge. The Shiver Moon allowed for easier communication for all on certain nights in Necronum.”

“When did the torivors come?” Cole asked.

“Right before we divided the echolands from the Outskirts,” Dandalus said. “The six of us slipped back across and captured them. Barely. It took all our ingenuity.”

“So if you split up the shaping powers, how does shapecraft fit in?” Cole asked.

“Shapecraft taps into the original shaping of the echolands,” Dandalus said. “Raw shaping. Natural shaping. The torivors have figured out ways to work around the system we established. They can sidestep many of the rules we made. If they succeed in truly unleashing raw shaping, mortal shapers will once again tear apart the world we built. Except this time, millions will perish.”

“Wow,” Cole said.

“And the torivors will take control of the echolands,” Dandalus said. “The five kingdoms will be destroyed, and whatever remains will be ruled by an all-powerful tyrant.”

“I see why you don't want Nazeem to get free,” Cole said.

“Perhaps you are wondering what all this has to do with your question.”