The Hidden Fire (Book 2) (11 page)

“I
hired you to be a tracker.  Track them!”

Breed
didn’t move.  “I did.  That’s how I found these.  But the whole tribe is
splitting up, going different directions, and you told me to be back in five
days.  So here I am.”

Lerica
nudged Kyric with her elbow.  “I don’t like this one,” she whispered.  “He’s
the only man that isn’t afraid of Thurlun.”

Thurlun
took a step towards Breed.  “Then you’ll be going out again, very soon.  Use
tomorrow to get ready and be off at first light the next day.  Don’t come back
until you have at least twenty.” 

Breed
walked away and Thurlun called to Ral.  “Get the new ones shackled and put them
on the second net.  We’ll see if we can get both nets going at once.”

“We
could use a third hand in the boat,” Ral said.

“Try
the new kid with the body paint.”

With
both nets going and two teams of pickers at each net, the harvesting of halos
at the tables became the bottleneck.  When Ral selected two men from the
haulers to go help at the tables, they hung their heads, as if their time had
come to an end.

The
skinny teenager was dead within an hour.  The dingy was beyond the middle of
the river, where he and the other two boatmen had laid the second net and were
curving back with the loose end for the haulers.  Despite the shackles, he
vaulted the gunwale with one hand and swam for the opposite bank.  The shackles
must have slowed him more that he expected, his stroke becoming an awkward
dog-paddle.  Pacey’s first shot struck him between the shoulder blades, and he
simply rolled over without a sound and sank.  The crocodiles scurried into the
water.

Thurlun
ran over when he heard the shot.  When Ral told him what happened he only said,
“Shit.  There goes another set of irons.”

At
the end of the day, Kyric saw that the water keg had been left sitting out.  He
went over to Ral, who seemed to be the most decent of the guards, and asked
him, “Do you mind if I give Aiyan some water.  Guppy forgot to do it at noon.”

Ral
looked at him suspiciously.  “Be quick about it.  And if you try anything
clever, you know what.”  He waved to the one-eared sharpshooter who manned the
tree above them.  “Keep an eye on this one.”

The
water keg held little more than a quart, and Aiyan drank it dry.  “Unseasonably
warm today,” he said.

Kyric
dropped to one knee.  “I’m going to get you loose tonight.  I’ll wait till
midnight and swim the moat.  Lerica warned me about the alarm device in the
tool shed.  There must be something in there that can cut this chain.” 

Aiyan
didn’t look at him.  “It’s not worth risking the crocodiles.  Besides, I
overheard Thurlun talking to Pacey.  They’re going to keep a night watch from
now on.”

“Then
what should I do?”

“I
will get us out of this,” Aiyan said, at last meeting his eye.  Kyric was
shocked into silence.  The spark of the warrior no longer shone there.  There
was a flame, but it was a dirty, smoldering red fire, not the flame of the
spirit — a deep twisted anger that reminded Kyric of the madman Aiyan had been
the night he met him.

“But
it might take a few more days.”  A darkness passed behind his gaze then, like
black smoke from the fire.  “He will call me by my name.  And he will
acknowledge my knighthood.  He will in the end.”

“This
is what it’s about?  Are you mad?  Your Colonel Thurlun has lost all direction,
and if you somehow beat him at his game he will kill you for it.”

“No!”
said Aiyan through clenched teeth.  “He will not kill me.”

“Aiyan,”
Kyric whispered urgently, “if you have a way out of this, please do it now. 
You have nothing to prove here.  What has this to do with the Knights of the
Flaming Blade?  There are no men of the dragon’s blood here.  You cannot let a
personal matter take precedence over the noble purposes of your order.  You are
the most remarkable man I have ever known.  What was it you said to me at the
games?  I need you to be the knight I know you are.  If you can escape, do it
tonight.”

Aiyan
lifted his manacled hand.  “I’m sorry, Kyric, but right or wrong, the only way
I can find out of this is through my battle of spirit with Thurlun.  But it
must build before it can break.”

“Hey!”
called Ral, “I didn’t say you could have a conversation.  Get in queue for the
island.”

Kyric
didn’t have any more to say anyway.  He began to turn when Aiyan murmured, “You
know, when you sit here in one place all day, you can see the island move.”

Kyric
turned back.  “What?”

“Yes,
it floats.  It’s wedged against that big tree on the other side, but it still
has some room to drift.”

Kyric
shook his head.  “How can an island float?”

“It’s
made of peat.  I thought I recognized the odor.  They have floating islands of
peat in the lowland lakes of Oriana.  I’ve seen a few that were even bigger
than this one.  I’d have thought you knew about them.”

Later,
after they had eaten their fill of angel ray, Lerica tore the cuffs off her
trousers and wrapped them around her shackles for padding.  Kyric wandered
among the Ilven, looking for Rolirra.  When he found her, she nodded, knowing
what he would say.  He said-signed it anyway.

‘
I
am ready to go with you to the rainlands
.’

They
passed through the opening in the dream tree and stepped into an underground
cavern.  “There are many ways leading from these caves,” said Rolirra.  “Most
of the ways are known.  I’m looking for a narrow tunnel.”

A
hole in the roof of the cavern was open to the sky and sunlight shone through. 
Rolirra found her tunnel and led them along a dark passage that ended in the
soft light of dawn.  They went out to find themselves standing on the banks of
an enormous river.  It was miles across, so wide that it flowed with dozens of
currents and counter-currents.

“This
is the world river,” Rolirra said.  “The bending forest lies on the other
side.  I think that would be the easiest way to go.”

“It’s
a far swim.”

“Oh,
we must not attempt to swim it — to swim in it is to be lost in it.  We must
find another way to cross.”

Kyric
turned to her.  “This isn’t the first time you’ve spoken of needing to find
things.  Do you mean that there are things already there to find, or is this
your way of saying that we need to create them, to dream them up?”

She
shook her head at him.  “You still think of this side as the dream and the other
as real.  It is all real, Kyric.  And the answer to your question is somewhere
in-between.  We cannot truly create anything, but we can find it, we can make
it so, if the potential for it exists.  The wings I found in the desert of
light, you could never find here.”

He
smiled helplessly.  “So what are we looking for?”

“Sometimes
it is not so much a thing as it is a being.”  She waded into the river.  It was
brown and muddy and completely opaque.  She waded in up to her waist and cocked
her head low to the water, listening.  She slapped the surface with the flat of
her hand, then again, and again, beating out a rhythm on the river.

A
pair of creatures broke the surface a hundred yards out, twin waterspouts
rising from their blowholes.  They dove and leapt, swimming quickly into
shore.  They were very much like dolphins, but wider and more flattened, with
oversized flippers, rather like wings, and a very broad tail.

Kyric
waded in with Rolirra and the creatures circled them slowly.  They didn’t have
the bottle snout of a dolphin — a lump for a nose and a mouth with teeth made
their faces look all too human.  Their dark eyes shone with intelligence and
for a moment it seemed that they were smiling at him.  Rolirra lay alongside
one of them, holding on to it by the flipper and the dorsal fin.  Kyric
mimicked her, and soon as he took hold, off they went.

The
power of these beings was overwhelming.  They plunged along relentlessly, and
Kyric held on for all he could.  Suddenly the cross-currents ran in every direction. 
It felt like the creatures were swimming in a wide arc.

“They’re
turning back,” he called to Rolirra.  “They’re not going to take us across.” 

“Hold
tight,” she called back.  “Don’t be afraid.”

He
let go and struck out for the far bank.  “Come on,” he yelled to her, “this is
the way.”

With
a cry of frustration, she let go and came to swim alongside him.  At length
they came to the shore, but no forest lay there.  They were on an island that
bore a massive stone city.  A square island in the middle of a square lake, the
outer shore jammed with houses and temples, how the ruins in the jungle might
have looked in the distant past.

Rolirra
wrung the water from her hair.  “At least I know where we are.”

“I’m
sorry,” he said.  “I guess I panicked.”

She
shot him a reproachful glance.  “I am a skilled and experienced dreamer.  You
must learn to trust me.  If I tell you it is so, then it is so.”

They
wandered silently into the city, the paving stones warm on Kyric’s bare feet. 
He was surprised to see the buildings standing painted in shades of red, gold,
and lavender.  He had supposed in his ignorance that the ancient Terrulans
lived in cities of bare grey stone like the city of Aeva.  Huge palaces towered
over him that had collapsed to rubble in the real world.  The other side of the
dream as the Ilven would say.  He simply couldn’t think of it like that.  It
had to be another plane of power, like the spirit realm that was the source of
the weird arts.  Magicians delved into their own realm, the plane of the Essa. 
This was another layer.  A term from one of the Eddur kept coming to mind.  The
battleground of dreams.

And
what kind of change would it bring in him if he started thinking of his real
life as only part of a dream? 

There
was no evidence of any people, no furnishings in the houses.  The streets and
porticos echoed the silence of the city.

“We
should go to the Temple of the Dreamers,” Rolirra said.

Kyric
shook his head.  “Is there a Temple of the Warriors?  After our last travels
together, I would like to
find
a weapon to carry.”

“No
temple,” she said.  “I will take you to the Palace of the Hunters.”

He
followed her through the broad avenues, and past squares where mournful fountains
sat dry.  A stiff breeze whistled though narrow alleys and filigree gates. 
Kyric saw something move in the corner of his eye and turned sharply, but
nothing was there.

“Do
you ever run into other dreamers when you go beyond the dream tree?”

“Certainly,
in realms such as the sunset coast.  There are many pleasant lands, but I fear
that we must walk in lonely and dangerous places to find our way.  And who
would do that without purpose?”

“Rolirra,
how did you learn to make your way here, on this side of the dream?  How old
were you when you started?”

She
looked surprised.  “From the day I was born, I imagine.  Like the other side,
you don’t remember much from your first years.  Learning is the same way.  You
learn the ways to the lands and how to find things from your parents, aunts and
uncles, brothers and sisters.  When you get older, we have teachers.  That is
what I do.  I am a teacher.”

“Can
you teach me as we go?  You know that I had never been to the dreamlands before
you drew me here.  Before this, my dreams were . . . “  He didn’t know how to
say it.

“What
I teach to my people,” Rolirra said, “you already know.  I would be afraid to
make this journey without you.  Many dreamers who try to reach these far realms
get lost and are never seen again.  Their hearts often turn dark on the other
side; they become anathema to their families.  But whenever I become lost, you
always find a new way and bring me back.  Even when you got us lost in the world
river, you brought us ashore close to home.  It could have been much worse. 
Most who get lost in that river come out into some form of hell.”

The
Palace of the Hunters was a gigantic log house, gilded in copper along all of
its seams.  Less grand than its neighbors, it sat in a grove of silk-cottons
behind one of the towering temples.  Inside lay an altar of skins, horns,
claws, fangs, and skulls of jaguars, crocodiles, pygmy elephants, and other game
animals.

A
tangle of weapons lay before the altar.  Kyric dug through the pile but could
only find a tiny bow used for hunting monkeys.  He discard it in favor of a
shortsword and a heavy spear slightly taller than himself.  Rolirra selected a
quiver of javelins and a pair of knives.

The
weight of the spear across his shoulder felt good to Kyric as they crossed the
square of palaces.  The wind blew harder, and little whirlwinds rose with the
dust of the square.  Once again, Kyric thought he saw someone watching him from
behind the corner of a temple, but when he turned his head they were gone.

“Are
there ghosts on this side of the dream?” he asked Rolirra.

“Not
in the way you mean it,” she said.

A
translucent figure came out of one of the palaces.  Kyric could see that the
man was dressed in purple robes and a feathered headdress, and he could see
right through him.  The figure walked with the measured step of one performing
a ceremony.

Kyric
turned to Rolirra.  “Then what is
that
?”

“One
of the faded lost,” she said in a voice edged with fear as well as sadness. 
“Like those I spoke of before, only long dead on the other side, and near to
passing away on this side.  He must have been a powerful dreamer to remain in
the world all this time.  And if he has been lost for so long he is surely
insane.  We must avoid him.  If he passes into you he can become a part of your
inmost self and infect you with his madness.  I wonder how he found his way to
this land.”

The
being seemed to notice them then, and started to drift in their direction.  Rolirra
kicked dust into one of the little whirlwinds and it flew upward, spreading
into a cloud that hid them momentarily.  “Let’s move along quickly,” she said.

They
ran from the square, and into a street lined with temples, leaving the lost one
behind.  The Temple of the Dreamers was a huge onion dome that sat on the
ground across from the egg-shaped dome Kyric had seen in his waking life. 
Along the upper part of the dome, oval windows covered in fine filigree stared
out at the dreamscape like veiled eyes.  They passed through an archway and a
maze of columns to reach the inner chamber.

In
the center of the temple, a silver walkway led up to a dais of glowing quartz
resting on a pyramid of crystals.  At the top, a polished stone floated in a
bowl of golden mercury.

“This
is the dreamstone,” Rolirra said.

Kyric
swallowed.  “I know.”  It was the very same stone he had handled in the rune
temple.  “I touched it when I was a boy.”

Rolirra
looked at him.  “That is not allowed.”  She stood over the stone and gazed down
into it.  “We can only watch and wait for it to open to us.  Then maybe we can
see a good way out of here and onto the rainlands plateau.”

Kyric
stared at the stone and it suddenly went black.  He looked past the glossy
sheen of its surface and saw many people within.  They were in a terrible
place.  They reached out, pleading silently as their mouths moved without
voices.  Kyric felt like he could pull them to safety.  He held out his hand.

Rolirra
slapped it away, hard.  “What are you doing?”

He
staggered backward.  “I . . . I don’t know.”

They
both stiffened as he felt a vibration ripple through the stagnant air.  Something
had changed.  Outside, the wind howled with the fury of an approaching storm.

Rolirra
took his arm.  “This is bad.  We need to go.”

Outside,
dark clouds spun overhead.  The air was chill and snow flurries swirled all
around them.  But out on the lake the water boiled.  Cracks began to open in
the streets and squares, spewing out jets of steam.  Blurry figures formed in
the clouds of steam, and when they moved forward Kyric could see right through
them.

“I
don’t know how you have done it,” Rolirra said, her eyes rimmed with terror, “but
you have summoned the faded lost from the four corners of the world.”

There
was no way past them in either direction, and more cracks were opening.  The
faded lost limped toward them.

“Here,”
said Kyric, leading her toward the egg-shaped dome.  He had a feeling about it.

“That
is the Temple of the Star Watchers,” Rolirra said.  “We will be trapped in
there.”

He
pointed to the narrow steps that spiraled upward around the outside of the
dome.  “We’re not going inside.”

A
wide stone stairway led to the roof of the understructure, then they began to
climb the dome.  The steps were no wider than Kyric’s hand.  Rolirra went
first, as quick as caution would allow.  The faded lost had no trouble
following.

The
clouds turned faster as they climbed.  As they reached the top, a funnel began
to form, and it began to snow in earnest.  A large bronze instrument, something
like an astrolabe grafted to a sundial, sat on the peak of the dome.  Kyric
scrambled onto it, to get a bit more height, pulling Rolirra after him.  The
faded lost spilled onto the summit.  Kyric reached for the funnel cloud,
raising the spear.  It dipped lower.

“Jump
straight up,” he shouted over the roaring wind.

They
leapt high, and the funnel drew them into the clouds.  They spun violently. 
Kyric lost his grip on her and they were thrown into each other — a bump of
heads, a jab of sharp elbows.  He did his best to hold the spear above them.

The
funnel spat them out onto flat, rocky ground and then was gone.  They sat up
and sat still.  It was quiet.  The storm had passed and all that remained were
grey, dirty flakes blowing on a hot wind.

Kyric
wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.  “It’s not snow.  It’s ash.”

They
stood on a featureless plain in the rain of ashes.  There was nothing else.

“How
did we come to this place?” Rolirra said in a numb voice.  “There is no choice
of direction here.  We are lost.  We could wander here until we fade away.”

They
stood in silence, ash quickly covering their bodies until they merged with the
barren landscape.