Dream a Little Dream (19 page)

“What do you mean?” But on some level, she already knew.

I can feel your heart, Nola. I see there that if you accept him, you will be giving up all you ’ve ever known to be the truth, and you are confused.
He breathed heavily the sweet breeze.
There are many truths in this place and time. You needn‘t be tied to just one.

Nola wiped a damp eye with her dirty hand and sniffed. “Yes, but I accept you; why can’t I accept him?”

I have always been with you and you knew that one day you would meet me, even if it be in death, but you were untrusting about him. The men you’ve been with let you down. They abused you physically and mentally. I’ve often felt your pain when one would strike you. I hated them for that. Now, I hate your reality even more. Reality made you not trust men, but you must realize that yours is not the only reality. And not the only truth.

“I suppose that’s right,” she said, sitting down and putting her arm around his foreleg, “but I’m still having trouble. I want to trust him. He deserves that. But I also want to—to get physical with him, even though I’m afraid that after that he’ll turn possessive and violent and ruin everything. And he keeps ignoring me that way. So I just don’t know.”

You have spent twenty years in one reality. I know it is hard for you to trust a new one in only a few weeks. It will take time.
Spirit folded his forelegs, being careful about her arm, and lay down beside her. His size still awed her.

“I’m so glad that you understand,” she sobbed. She reached up to hug the massive neck and kissed him on the cheek as he lowered his head. “I love you so. Will you always be here for me?” she asked, even knowing the answer was yes.

Forever,
he thought to her.

“Yes!”

Then she turned back to the house. She toyed with the notion of going into Mich’s room instead of Tina’s. But he was probably already “asleep,” and might resent being disturbed. She owed it to him to leave him alone, at least to that extent. So, with mixed, possibly scrambled feelings, she went to the proper room.

In the morning, Nola summoned some bacon and hotcakes and they all ate their fill. Mich accidentally let a burp slip and blushed from embarrassment. Nola giggled. She was glad he liked the food she produced.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crescent-shaped object that was the Kahh. “What should I do with this?” he asked.

I believe it should be stored for safe keeping until this war is over,
Heat thought.

“But where? No place is safe from the Fren.”

“Oh, yes, it is!” Nola said, taking the Kahh. She stuffed it down
her halter top between her breasts. This time, Mich was the one to laugh.

Heat’s equine lips twitched and he looked as if he was trying not to grin.
That may not be sufficient. We must find a place that will be unknown, yet well guarded.

“Where can we find a place like that?” Nola asked.

Perhaps Castle Edward would suffice,
Heat thought helpfully.
The Kahh would be well hidden in the catacombs.

Mich was uncertain. “But who would guard it? The castle is probably deserted.”

Snort slithered up and jetted a small flame. He aimed his snout at a bush and jetted a larger flame that engulfed it and left it a pile of ash. It was obvious that Snort wanted to guard it.

“Do you really think you can do it?” Mich asked. “What if the Fren come?”

Heat broke in.
All he has to do is snap up the Kahh and lose them in the catacombs.

“That is true,” Mich agreed. “No one has ever been able to find his way out of the catacombs, unless he was a resident of the castle. That’s because it requires the use of secret doors.”

“Good,” Nola said. “Now that that’s settled, I’m still not sure that we can do this. I can summon food and shelter by using my imagination, but transforming evil back into good is another story.”

Tina had a thought. “Mich, Heat, Esprit, do you know of anyone who might be able to help us out? “

Mich shook his head. “Madrid might have been able to help us, but she’s gone. What about you, pal?” he asked Heat.

There may be one. However
—

“Who?” they asked together.

Spirit caught on.
The Volant, the goddess of the sky. But her price for information is steep. You do not want her help.

“Who is the Volant? And how could she demand payment? This is a worldwide emergency!”

Figuratively, she is our mother. She is the one who released us from rainbow service when she discovered that our colors were not true. She governs the sky, the air, the sun and the moons,
Spirit thought.
She is the goddess in charge of the other minor Volants and she governs the skies of many worlds. She has always demanded a price.

“What kind of price would she ask? I can give her anything she wants,” Nola said as she conjured a credit card. But she winced internally as she thought of the charges she had piled up on Earth; the trolls there would be after her for sure, when the time for settlement came. At least they wouldn’t be as bad as the thug Charlie. She hoped she wasn’t incurring some similar magical debt in Kafka.

There is a story that long ago, a wyvern captured a child. The child’s mother went to the Volant to ask how she might save her child from being eaten. The Volant told her to drive the wyvern from its nest with a smoke fern. When the woman had saved her child the Volant demanded payment, but the woman had nothing to give. The Volant took her child.

“Ouch,” Tina mumbled. “That’s a steep price, all right.”

“That’s okay, maybe she will deal with me,” Nola said.

We must test your ability first; you are strong, but if you fail, Tina will do no better. Then we will have to seek the Volant.

Tina stifled her ire at that comment, but knew it was true. “Well, then, let’s get goin’ and find the Fren before we lose what’s left of Kafka.”

They turned to go, and found themselves face-to-face with a group of expressionless Fren. The group contained about five creatures; each one looked uglier than the next.

“Well,” Tina said with a sour face. “That didn’t take much time.”

Spirit’s quick mind spoke silently to Nola. It was time for the test. She nodded her head. She closed her eyes and tried to think of
something that the Fren could not escape. She thrust her hands forward as if throwing something.

Her friends watched as a metal mesh net appeared just above the Fren, and settled over them, clamping down with barbed spikes into the blackened ground. The Fren spit and hissed at one another as they were drawn close to the ground. They tried to saw through the net with their metallic lightning jags, but Nola had imagined a magic net that could not be cut with anything, no matter how sharp.

She had worried that it wouldn’t work, thinking that she had to do something special to create something magical. Instead, she simply believed in what she was doing. She had faith in herself and her abilities. She was happy it worked.

“Now what?” she asked.

Go on with the experiment,
he thought.

Nola remained nervous about this. The Fren frightened her. What if she just made them angrier than they were? As it was, they were so angry that they were eliminating on one another and chewing viciously at the net, and each other, while uttering strange sounds.

“Oh, crap! I’ll do it first!” Tina said. She closed her eyes.

“Wait!” Mich said. “What if you change one back and the others attack and kill it?”

“That’s right!” Tina said. “We’ll have to let one out.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Nola said. A single Fren was released. She closed her eyes and made another throwing motion, and it was netted. “Now try.”

Tina concentrated on it. She tried to imagine what kind of creature it must be. She concentrated harder and she began to see an outline. It was some kind of dragon, but she could not make out the details. She opened one eye. The Fren stood there, unchanged.

“Looks like I goofed. I thought it might’ve been a dragon or something.”

Nola gathered her strength. “Let me try.”

She looked hard at the Fren, then shut her eyes. The image of a large reptile was firm in her mind. “It looks like a dragon, but I don’t think it is. It’s too fat.”

She tuned in and intensified what she could see. The fuzziness went away and she saw the rear of a huge dragon. She imagined it turning to face her. She was shocked. It had three golden horns on its head and small dark eyes. For a moment, she locked mind’s eyes with—a triceratops, with red spots.

The image wavered. There was a flash behind her lids and it was gone. “Damn! I lost it!” she said as she opened her eyes.

There, before her, stood the dinosaur, horribly cramped. It was covered by the net. The Fren had been transformed!

Nola waved her hand and the net was gone. The dinosaur trotted over to her and nodded its armored head in a gesture of thanks. Nola nodded back and it galloped away into the burned wilderness.

“You did it!” Tina said. “But why couldn’t I?”

Nola was getting a notion. “Try it again.”

She brought a second Fren forward and netted it. Tina closed her eyes. This time she saw an image right away, but could still not make it out.

“It’s a bird,” she said, squinting her eyes. “It looks familiar.”

She concentrated harder. She saw a color, red. The color of the bird grew brighter and brighter, until it was almost blinding. “I’ve got it! It’s a phoenix,” she said and opened her eyes.

It was indeed a phoenix. The net was gone; the bird had fried it to ashes with its magic fire. The phoenix squawked, spread its flaming wings and leaped into the air.

Tina and Nola hugged each other with girlish excitement. This was a good start, but there was much, much more to do.

Nola pulled back, smiling. “We’d better finish these off,” she said.

Tina tried again with a third Fren. This time, she couldn’t make it out. Nola tried. She put forth a great effort but came up blank.

Try the other two,
Heat suggested.

The last two were equally difficult. The images remained blurry and they were unable to tell even what species the creatures were.

“Try to make ’em disappear,” Tina suggested helpfully. “I tried and I can’t do it.”

Nola tried, to no avail.

I fear that you may not be able to do that. To disappear, they must be forgotten, and only their human Dreamers can do that,
Spirit thought.

“Say, that’s right. Maybe only their Creators can change them back.”

The more she thought of it, the more sense it made. In fact, she remembered dreaming as a child of a dinosaur just like the one she had changed back. She had long since suppressed it because her mother said she was foolish.

“Tina, did you recognize that bird?” she asked.

“You know, it’s funny, it looked really familiar, but I can’t remember where I saw it.”

“Well, what do we do now?” Nola asked the group.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Mich said. “How do we call the Volant?” he asked, turning to Spirit.

You must recite an incantation,
Esprit thought.
I shall put it in your mind. Speak it to the sky.

“Why me?” Mich asked, surprised. So far, he had been kept pretty much out of things. He hoped he could do something valiant to impress Nola.

You are the king of Kafka now. She will be more apt to listen to the one who can legally represent this world. She would simply be annoyed if one of us were to call her.

Mich had almost forgotten about his royal blood. It was true. With his father gone, it was his responsibility to be king now. The realization
was almost overwhelming, when he thought about it, yet he knew he must do all he could to save Kafka. Even if he died trying.

“I’m ready,” he said, straightening his shirt. He felt for his sword. He forgot that he had left it and his clothes on Earth. Their return had been so abrupt that he just hadn’t thought to gather his things. He didn’t want to ask Nola to make him a new sword, so he would get along without it for now. It hadn’t served him terrifically well anyway.

Suddenly, his mind was filled with words. He looked to the sky and repeated the spell. “Lady of the sky, Lady of the air, hear me now, listen to my prayer. You are needed here, on the ground. Only in you can help be found.”

He dropped his head. “Kind of corny, isn’t it?” he asked of no one in particular.

Almost instantly, there was a slight stirring in the air that grew stronger and stronger. Ashes from the burned-out ground were swirling into dust devils. The wind swept their hair and caused their eyes to tear as it picked up horrendous speed.

It soon turned from a gale into a hurricane. The two unisi kept their wings tightly clamped to their bodies, lest the wind catch their wings and hurl them, uncontrollably, into the air.

“Look at that!” Nola cried over the roaring wind.

The others looked and saw a shape in the distance. It was a white tornado. It was as high as the highest peak of the Mangors and as fast as the wind around them. It wiggled in the air like a serpent on a string.

Nola looked harder and was surprised to see that the tornado had no cloud feeding it. The sky above it was clear and blue. The tornado itself was very pale, almost like snow or steam. In a moment it was upon them.

Just when they thought they would all be blown away, the tornado
exploded. They found themselves lost in a thick fog that settled around them, blocking all vision.

“Where are you?” Mich called.

“I’m over here!” Nola called back. She held out her hands so that she wouldn’t bang into anything.

“Where?” he cried as he felt through the fog.

The fog started to open up and he saw her and his friends. The fog continued to open until there was a hole in the middle where the group stood. The fog completely surrounded them, even above. It was like being in a giant igloo. The light from the sun filtered faintly in so that there was barely enough illumination to see.