Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (28 page)

“What things?” Rose Dafoe asked. “I don’t understand.”

The Captain’s voice rose to a shriek. “Not a single one of you cared about what happened to my lawn!”

“His lawn?” Jackson called back in disbelief.

“My lawn!” the Captain continued at the same fever pitch. “All these years of work! But did you care? I knew you were laughing behind my back.” He pushed himself off the ground and rose unsteadily. “I’ll show you what happens to people who laugh at me!” He shook his fists as he swayed before them. “A bunch of scum, bringing the neighborhood down!”

“That’s Hyram.” Constance Smith softly confirmed what they all were thinking. “Hyram Sayre.”

Rose Dafoe looked at the older woman. “You mean he isn’t dead?”

Her husband laughed nervously. “I think he’s worse than dead.”

“I’m coming to get all of you!” the Captain screamed.

Mills looked at the others. “Not if we can get out of here first.”

“Nunn did this!” Dafoe shouted, working himself to a state close to the Captain’s. “He’s going to make us all like that!”

“As long as we’re here,” Mills replied, “all we’ll see is Nunn’s work.”

“Then we have to leave,” Mrs. Smith said firmly from where she still sat in the men’s arms.

“How?” Dafoe demanded. “When Nunn can twist everything we see.”

“We’ll simply leave without using our eyes,” Mrs. Smith replied. “Or our feet. I might be able to do something, now that I know about the nature of this place. But not by anything as simple as walking, my, no. Dear, you should put me down. I must be getting heavy.”

Mills and Dafoe carried her back to the bench, a half dozen steps away.

“I’ll have to think a minute,” Mrs. Smith admitted once she was back on her bench. “This is all a bit too new to me.”

“All right,” Rose Dafoe agreed, looking almost as nervous as her husband. “But please hurry, would you, Constance?”

“My lawn!” the Captain howled. He reached his hands out toward the neighbors as he stumbled forward.

“Maybe there’s some other way we can help Constance,” Mills said as he studied the forest. “Nunn’s done his best to scare us, then left us to look at this illusion.” He turned back to look at the confused faces of the neighbors. “And then there’s this—thing in front of us—this fellow who may or may not be the Captain. Do you believe he just stumbled in here? I don’t think so. This is all supposed to scare us.” He waved back at the surrounding woods. “I wonder if this stuff around us is kept up by our fear?”

“What kind of line are you trying to feed us now?” Jackson demanded.

“Maybe,” Mills persisted, “if we were to stop being afraid, this fake forest would disappear. We could simply walk out of this place.”

“An interesting theory,” another man’s voice said behind Mills. “Pity it is wrong.”

Mills turned around. Nunn had returned.

The Captain started to laugh, a rasping sound that again degenerated into a coughing fit.

Harold Dafoe made a noise like something was caught in his throat. “We didn’t mean anything!” he shouted. “We were just trying to—to— “

“Escape,” Nunn replied calmly. “I don’t particularly blame you. I haven’t exactly been the perfect host. And, while you may not entirely agree with my methods, you don’t have enough information to realize that what lies beyond these walls can be so much worse.”

The forest faded away as he spoke, replaced by bare stone walls.

Margaret Furlong pushed herself forward. “Worse? What could be worse than what you did to Leo?”

That only made Nunn smile. The dark orbs where his eyes should be opened wide with innocence. “Really? What did I do to Leo?”

He shuddered slightly. When he spoke again, it was with a different voice.

“Margaret? Can you hear me?”

Margaret stared at the wizard’s mouth. “No,” she said. “Margaret,” the unmistakably nasal tones of Leo Furlong continued. “I’m sorry we fought so much. Having this happen to me has made me see things so much differently.”

As Nunn talked, his face changed. It was rounder, the severe cheekbones replaced by pudgier circles of flesh, his nose no longer straight but slightly crooked, just like Leo’s.

“Leo?” Margaret asked softly. “But I thought—”

“That I was dead?” Leo laughed, a dry sound. “So did I, for a while. But this isn’t death. It’s something much stranger. And it may be wonderful.” His voice rose, both wistful and excited at the same time. “I wish I could explain it to you. Margaret, I wish I could explain so many things.”

Didn’t she realize that Nunn was trying to confuse them? To demoralize them?

“Margaret!” Mills called. “Don’t be fooled. It couldn’t be!”

“No, Evan,” Constance Smith said solemnly. “Actually, somehow it could. Every new feeling in me tells me that voice does belong to Leo.

Somehow he’s now a part of Nunn.”

The Leo-thing smiled. “Thank you, Constance. I knew you’d understand.”

Margaret began to cry again.

“What are we going to do?” Joan asked.

“Yes, what are you to do?” the Captain called from the far corner of the room. “No matter what you try, you will pay!” He took three steps toward the others, steps that seemed to bring him nearer at last. Nunn, his face suddenly his own, glanced at the emaciated soldier. The Captain froze, mid-step.

“Sorry for this inconvenience,” the wizard remarked with a gracious smile. “Even for someone like me, there will be an occasional loose end. But I, too, believe it’s time for a decision. Will you work with me”—he paused, his smile fading slightly— “or not?”

Jackson sneered at everyone, as if there was only one choice. “We’ve got to join him. Look at his power. He can get us anything we want.”

“You heard him,” Harold Dafoe agreed. “If we don’t join him, he’s going to kill us, do whatever he did to Leo.”

“Leo,” Margaret said in a voice that was little more than a monotone. “What am I going to do without Leo? People thought we fought all the time. Oh, nobody understood!”

“I would like to consider my options,” Mrs. Smith remarked coolly.

Nunn’s smile grew even broader. “And give you a chance to get away? I think the time for your little surprises is over.”

“What can we do?” Dafoe asked those around him. “He’s strong enough to kill us all.”

Evan Mills stepped forward from the group. “I think, then, that we should get ready to die.”

“No, Evan!” Mrs. Smith called. “I can do what we talked about.”

“You’re not doing anything,” Nunn said. Small lights danced in his dark eye sockets. “I’ve had enough interference from a pitiful old crone.”

“What?” Mrs. Smith called. “Keep away!” She swatted at the air around her, as if surrounded by insects. Her body shook. The wrinkles on her face and hands grew into spider webs of age. Her cheeks hollowed, her teeth retreated into her gums, until her skin was no more than a thin parchment coating over her skull. She was withering away to nothing.

“Why are you hurting her?” Dafoe demanded. “We’ll stay! We’ll do whatever you want!”

“Of course we will,” Jackson agreed. “We’ll work together, just like you said!”

Margaret looked guiltily at the others around her. “I’m staying with him, too. I have to stay—for Leo.”

Mrs. Smith’s eyes had sunken deep into their sockets. Worms crawled from the empty holes.

“No!” Mills screamed. “I won’t let this happen!”

Constance Smith raised her hand to brush at her face. She stood, her legs unsteady at first. She took a deep breath and stood up straight as a soldier. “We will not let this happen, Evan.”

“You will not let anything happen, crone,” Nunn retorted, “once you’re dead.”

Mrs. Smith cried out.

Mills couldn’t stand this anymore. He rushed toward the wizard.

“E
van!” Joan Blake called out as Mills ran headlong for Nunn. Everything was moving faster and faster.

The Captain groaned and shook himself. He was no longer frozen. He put his foot down, one step closer. The crazy glaze in his eyes had been replaced by anger.

“I will not be taken over by someone else!” He spoke between clenched teeth as he, too, headed for Nunn. “If I’m going to die, let it be as a soldier!”

Nunn’s hands, both stretched out toward Constance Smith, began to shake.

“No!” Nunn shouted back at all around. “This won’t happen. I am too good for this!”

“Enough of this nonsense,” Constance said calmly. She looked over at the other neighbors, once again her sixty-year-old self. “Shall we try to leave?”

“I have only begun!” Nunn shouted back.

“Then begin with me!” Evan shouted as he jumped for the wizard. Evan’s hands went around Nunn’s throat. But they passed on through, as Evan’s forward momentum carried him into the wizard, his arms and legs first, then his torso and head disappearing within Nunn’s robes, as if Evan Mills was being sucked inside the other’s form.

“Evan?” Joan called out again.

The wizard’s eye sockets were filled with white light. Nunn screamed.

“Who is with me?” Constance Smith called. “Now!”

What was Constance saying? Joan was with her, no matter what. Nunn, and the room around him, disappeared.

M
ary Lou woke with a start. She hadn’t remembered even feeling tired.

She couldn’t have slept for long. The sun still hadn’t reached too high in the sky. It was midmorning at the latest. The last she remembered, the prince had been there with her, talking about how the People were so excited about some upcoming Ceremony that involved her, too. She had hardly thought about that Ceremony at all, though, because of the prince; her prince, who now seemed able to come whenever she called, as if she had broken through whatever spell controlled him.

Why had she slept, then? She studied the branches overhead with half-closed eyes. Exhaustion, maybe. She had only dozed the night before, especially with all that had happened with the prince.

The People had given her something to drink. More of that fruit juice from the night before. Had that put her to sleep?

Did this have anything to do with the Ceremony?

She was suddenly very wide-awake. The Ceremony, so distant in the early morning hours, seemed more real with every moment the sun climbed up in the sky.

She had no idea what the People wanted to do with these planned festivities. All sorts of things could happen with something like this. She saw how brutal the People could be with that other tribe, and how they had hurled spears and arrows at her fellow humans. Why were they being so kind to their Mary Lou?

A chorus of the People called out her name.

She pushed herself up on her elbows. The tribe stood in a circle around her sleeping place, all maybe ten feet from her. The words “a respectful distance” came into her head.

The two People who acted as healers each held one-half of the leaf cast in their hands. She looked down and saw they had taken it from her ankle. The healing must be complete. The tribe shouted out her name three times in triumph.

Mary Lou smiled. What did she have to worry about from the People and their Ceremony? Why would they plan to harm her after going to such pains to help her heal?

The Chieftain took her hand. His skin was very warm and very dry. Where it rubbed against the skin of her own palm, it scraped ever so slightly, a bit like being licked by a cat’s tongue. The Chieftain pulled at her, calling out her singsong name again. The People responded in kind.

Mary Lou realized they wanted her to stand up.

She let the Chieftain’s strong grip pull her into a sitting position. He was very strong for one so small. Letting go of his hand
{Merrilu!)
,
she gathered her legs beneath her
{Merrilu!)
and carefully stood up on the platform
{Merrilu! Merrilu!).

She wondered if this could be the beginning of the Ceremony the prince had told her about. The way the People celebrated her every movement, could she even tell if something special was about to happen?

When the cries died down, Mary Lou realized there was one voice crying out something completely different. Something high and quick, like words of warning.

“Lodda!” the Chieftain announced abruptly. “Dobble!” the others called back. “Lodda!”

The People moved quickly, and silently, away from her.

Before she could really wonder why, she heard another voice, calling her name as it should be called.

“Mary Lou!” The voice cracked as it shouted. “Mary Lou!” It sounded like Bobby from the neighborhood.

“Bobby!” she called back, walking to the edge of the platform. She felt no pain at all in her ankle.

“Yeah!” Bobby called. “She’s up there, all right!”

“Okay, shrimp!” a second voice said. It was Todd. He’d found her again. “Mary Lou! We want to talk to you. We understand you’re not alone. Can you convince the others that we won’t hurt you?”

Mary Lou squinted through the leaves. She couldn’t see anything of the ground through the heavy foliage.

“Todd!” Bobby more shrieked than called.

“Mary Lou!” Todd added. “Could you call your little bloodhounds off? We just want to talk! Shit!”

She saw the People now, swarming through the branches beneath her, bows and quivers in their hands. Occasionally, one would stop to fit an arrow to its bow and shoot it toward the ground below. “No!” she called to the People directly below her. “Don’t do it! No!”

The People paid no attention to her. They were totally immersed in their attack.

“Christ!” Todd called with rising panic. “They’re everywhere. We gotta go!”

“No!” Mary Lou shouted at the top of her voice. “Why don’t you listen to me!”

Somewhere in the distance, she heard a group of the People chant her name like a battle cry.

“No!” Mary Lou replied. “Shut up! I don’t want to have anything to do with you again!”

“Then why don’t you leave?” a deep voice said at her side.

With the first word, she knew it was the prince. He smiled at her. He seemed to come more quickly every time she needed him. This time she didn’t even remember calling his name.

“Could I?” she asked.

“You seem to be healed,” he replied gently. “And I know where all the People are. It is one of the advantages of my earlier condition. I think we could avoid them, easily, if we move quickly. The People seem very intent on driving your friends away.”