Dreamwielder (32 page)

Casstian turned to see what was happening at the last moment and screamed, but Taera did not hear him. The cavalryman's flail swept out toward Taera's head, but she ducked beneath it and swiped at the man with her knife. The collision nearly broke her arm the force was so great, and she was knocked clean from her saddle to land on the ground with a thump. She pushed herself up with a groan, ready to fight even though there was no air in her lungs and she had lost her knife. The cavalryman had been unhorsed as well, she saw, and he was still down, her knife stuck into his belly. He flopped and convulsed on the ground like a fish, trying unsuccessfully to grasp the bloody handle of the knife and pull it free.

Taera stepped on his chest with one booted foot to hold him down and yanked the blade out of him. The man groaned in pain and looked up at her with wide eyes, but she felt no pity for him. With a savage yell, she brought the knife down into his throat, and his startled cry ended in a wet gasp.

“Taera!” Casstian yelled as he reigned his mount to a halt. “Are you alright?”

“Better than I've been in a long time,” Taera remarked, flinging the blood from her blade.

Casstian was off his horse by now and looking her over to make sure she wasn't wounded. “What were you thinking?” he demanded. “You're just as much of a damned fool as Caile is.”

“That's because we both take after you,” Taera pointed out. “Now quit your fussing over me. We have a city to secure.”

Casstian couldn't help but laugh, he was so surprised by her demeanor. “As you say, Your Majesty.”

Makarria came to a stop at the top of the hill and sat down on a rock alongside the road to wait for Talitha to catch up. The morning sky was dull and gray with clouds, but after being trapped in the cavern of ice for so long, it seemed almost bright and cheery. It was liberating to be in the open air, to be surrounded by trees and grass again. The only thing missing was the ocean. Still, the land around them was beautiful, and Makarria felt guilty for not enjoying it more. Knowing where the road before them led took the joy out of everything for her.

They had been walking more than a week now since Siegbjorn dropped them off outside Arnsfeld. Their days consisted of breaking camp at first light and walking as far as they could before the sun set again, sometimes covering as many as thirty miles or more. When the mornings were fresh and they were not yet weary, they talked. On their first day, Talitha had made Makarria describe every instance she could remember where she had dreamed or used her power. Makarria's stories were frequently interrupted by questions from Talitha, and on more than one occasion, Talitha had demanded that Makarria elaborate and provide specific details. She was particularly interested in how Makarria had transformed Parmo into a young man—she asked much about the dead fish—and also how Makarria had managed to trap Kadar inside the cave. The subsequent days had been filled with discussions about the cycles of Tel Mathir and practicing various small exercises. Makarria's part in the discussions was limited mostly to asking questions, but she was content to listen to what Talitha had to say about how plants grew, reproduced, and died, how water evaporated from the ocean only to fall from the sky again in the form of rain and snow to cycle through the ground to feed the rivers and lakes, and how animals created a great hierarchy of prey and predators. Makarria had no idea how any of it was meant to help her face the Emperor, but she dutifully listened and learned from Talitha. If nothing else, it was a welcome distraction from what faced the both of them in Col Sargoth. As for the exercises, they were limited to achieving a meditative state where Makarria was half asleep yet half awake and still able to walk and function at a rudimentary level. Talitha absolutely forbid Makarria from trying to use her power in any way, for fear the Emperor and his scent-hounds might detect it.

“You're a fast walker,” Talitha said when she reached Makarria at the top of the hill.

Makarria shrugged. “In the morning, I suppose. Probably it's only because you're the one carrying the pack.”

“Let's remedy that then, shall we,” Talitha said and hoisted her shoulder sack into Makarria's arms. “That'll slow you down for a while so we can talk.”

“What are we talking about today?”

“Do you remember how you described to me the feeling of resistance you experienced when you were trying to trap Kadar?” Talitha asked, leading the way down the opposite side of the hill.

“Yes, it was like climbing a steep mountain,” Makarria replied, recalling the sensation. “A mountain I could barely get to the top of.”

“Indeed. The apex of that mountain, the wall you must break through—however it is you perceive it—that is the border between your dream state and reality. If you do not push through that boundary, your vision becomes nothing. There were probably many times when you were growing up where you dreamt things, and they started to become real only to disappear the moment you awoke. This, partly, was because you did not yet have the strength or ability to push through that border, but mostly because you were not purposely trying to dream things.”

“My grandfather said I used to have lots of dreams that would show themselves then disappear,” Makarria said. “Every once in a while the dreams would stay. The dress stayed and then my grandfather himself, of course.”

Talitha nodded. “Yes, those were the times you pushed through the boundary and solidified your dreams. The danger comes when you commit yourself to dreaming something too big, when you create a hill too tall to climb over. If you try make that dream reality and do not have the strength to make it happen, you will die. You see, Makarria, you cannot make something from nothing. When you utilize your ability, you are drawing upon the life force within you and the energy around you to literally change the fabric of matter. In the case of the wooden knife, you rearranged the particles of wood from a spoon shape to a knife shape. In the case of the door, you did something much more difficult: you changed wood to stone. But if you do not have the strength in you and the energy around you to draw upon, you will fail and you will die.”

“That's why I was so cold and so tired after changing the spoon,” Makarria said, remembering the sensation.

“And why you fainted after trapping Kadar. What you did in that cave with so little heat or energy around you was very dangerous. It is fortunate you are a strong young lady.”

Makarria couldn't help but take the statement as a compliment and smile. “So that means if I get stronger I can create anything I want?”

Talitha shook her head ruefully. “No. There are always limits. Much of it depends on your imagination and your spatial cognition—you cannot create what you cannot visualize. It also depends much upon your understanding of Tel Mathir though.”

“But how did I make my grampy young again when I didn't know anything about Tel Mathir? You said that was the most difficult thing you've ever heard a dreamwielder do before.”

“It is,” Talitha conceded. “I can't fully explain it myself, but in simple terms, you needn't be taught the ways of Tel Mathir to understand Tel Mathir. Some people simply have a connection with the natural world and have an innate sense of how it works. Do you remember what I told you about the limitations of prophecy when we were in Issborg?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, the limitations of being a powerful seer and being a powerful dreamwielder are much the same. Do you see that tree there?”

Makarria looked at the large birch Talitha was pointing toward. “Yes.”

“And that one?” Talitha asked, this time pointing at a cedar tree.

“Of course.”

“They are quite different, aren't they? And yet you know that they are both trees. How?”

Makarria grimaced. “I don't know. Because they both look like trees.”

“Your answer is a dodge, but nonetheless correct,” Talitha said, smiling. “The essence of Tel Mathir is that she creates templates—perfect images—of all things in existence. We see trees around us, and each of these trees is a copy of the image of the perfect tree. Each squirrel is a copy of the perfect squirrel image. Each rock is a copy of the perfect rock image. Those of us with the power to wield magic have a connection with Tel Mathir and access to these images whether we are cognizant of it or not. Seers see an image of the future because they see in their mind the end result of a perfect equation with many variables. They see people of specific persuasions in unique circumstances and are able to see the outcome if everyone acts according to their innate persuasion. One variable is a greedy husband, another variable is a jealous wife, and the outcome would be easily predicted if the variables stayed true to their perfect images—if the husband remained greedy and the wife remained jealous—but as people, we rarely stay true to our perfect forms, and hence the unreliability of prophecy. The randomness of people can never fully be accounted for.”

“I don't think I understand,” Makarria said, shifting the pack on her back.

“I have a hard time understanding it and putting it into words myself,” Talitha admitted. “Let me put it this way. Most dreamwielders are limited to combining things they can see with their eyes. The horrors of the Dreamwielder War were creations of this sort: dogs melded with sorcerers, sorcerers melded with coal furnaces to become fire-wielding machines of destruction, warriors melded with steel weapons to create inhuman assassins, and so forth. But a truly powerful dreamwielder understands the perfect forms and images of Tel Mathir. She can see past the boulder and envision the perfect form of a tree and literally break the matter apart to reform rock into tree. In the case of your grandfather, you saw him in his perfect form—a young man in his prime—and were able to make him so, despite knowing nothing of how the body ages or works. This is a rare ability, Makarria. In my years traveling the Old World, I saw this only on two occasions, and neither were as significant or profound as what you did.”

Makarria walked on in silence for a long time as she pondered Talitha's words. The road stretched out before them, a brown ribbon through sparsely wooded rolling hills. “I understand, I think,” Makarria said at last, “but how does this help me against the Emperor? He's immune to magic, right?”

“I don't know how it helps you, Makarria. All I can say is that you should follow your instincts. You have an unusual knack for visualizing the true nature of things. Do what seems right to you, but just be aware of your surroundings. Don't push yourself beyond your limitations.”

“But what if you were me?” Makarria pressed. “How would you try to kill the Emperor?”

Talitha shook her head. “I honestly don't know. To me the only thing that makes sense is to try to attack him from afar. If he can't see you, if he can't detect your presence, he would have no way of stopping you. But at the same time, if you can't seem him, I don't see how you could kill him either.”

Again, Makarria nodded and contemplated Talitha's words. They walked the rest of the morning in silence. At noon they halted briefly to take a quick meal of dried meat and cheese, then continued on. As was the case every afternoon, the walk turned into a mind-numbing blur where Makarria merely focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Each curve in the road, each hill and valley was gone from Makarria's mind the moment it was behind her. She didn't notice Forrest Weorcan come into view far to the south, and she didn't notice the little town in the distance late that afternoon as they crested yet another hill. Talitha had to point it out to her.

“I think it best if we pass straight through town and make camp when it gets dark,” Talitha said. “We're getting close now. It's not wise to chance exposing ourselves by letting something slip in a random conversation at an inn.”

Makarria just nodded. As nice as sleeping in a bed sounded, she had bigger concerns on her mind. They were getting close, Talitha had said. They were getting close to Col Sargoth and the Emperor.

Natarios Rhodas sat at a bench in the common room of The Mountain Jewel, the most luxuriant inn the small town of Pizer had to offer. Ostensibly, he had chosen the inn because it stood along the main thoroughfare through the center of town and gave him an ideal vantage point, but in reality he had chosen it because it was the only inn that had proper down mattresses. And also because of the mulled cider.
I love mulled cider,
he thought fancifully and tipped his flagon back to take a hearty swig of the sweet substance. His four days in Pizer had been a welcome relief to his time in Col Sargoth. With the gold the Emperor had given him, it had been an easy matter to bribe the other innkeepers in town and also the farmers on the outskirts of town to stay watchful and bring him news of any travelers. He'd accomplished all that on his first day, and since then had just sat tight in The Mountain Jewel and enjoyed himself.

“Another cider,” he yelled at the innkeeper.

The innkeeper grunted and waved in Natarios's direction noncommittally. Natarios grumbled at the man's insolence but said nothing. He knew the cider would come eventually if the innkeeper wanted his coin. Natarios laughed inwardly at the path on which fate had set him. From Kal Pyrthin to Col Sargoth to Pizer. He had lost his riches Roanna paid him but now found himself with more gold than he could spend in this small town. He smiled, more than a little satisfied with himself. His self-satisfaction was cut short, however, when a stout woman suddenly burst through the doors into the common room from outside. She saw Natarios sitting there and rushed to his side.

“You said you were looking for a girl coming from the east, yes?”

“That's right,” Natarios replied, setting his flagon aside.

“Well, I've seen her. She just walked into town with an older woman. Now give me my gold.”

“Hold tight a moment. Where is she? Where did they stop for the night?”