The Nothing: A Book of the Between (20 page)

With the aid of the light, she could see passages branching off from the one she followed. She ignored them all, still walking more by what she could feel than by what she could see. There was an overarching power behind everything here. The minute she’d set foot in the castle, she had sensed it, but it had taken a while to fully get a sense of where it stemmed from. Taking one slow step after another, using her glowing fingertips to be sure there was not some great chasm underfoot, keeping one hand pressed against the wall for balance, she worked her way forward until she came to a dead end.

Her eyes told her it was a solid wall made of stones mortared together, blocking the entire passage from floor to ceiling. Her growing magical sense told her it wasn’t real. When she pressed her palm against the cold stone, she felt a vibration like that of the Black Gates, but on a lesser scale. If she pushed against it with her illuminated hand, it gave a little.

Opening that part of her brain that still felt new and stiff, she laid both hands against the wall and said one word.

“Open.”

The word rang out with a volume exceeding any effort of her voice. Echoes bounced off the stone, gathering in strength instead of diminishing. The stone beneath her touch quivered, vibrated, disparate elements tearing away from each other with a cracking, rending sound. The wall crumbled into rubble at her feet, then vanished, leaving her in the center of a room that matched the castle’s rough exterior.

No attempt to make it beautiful. Stone walls with no polish or ornamentation rose to a high ceiling. Narrow slits let in a sullen light from outside, revealing a sky red with either sunset or fire. At one end of the room, steps led up to a raised dais on which stood a throne built of wood, intricately carved and polished to a high gloss. Seven men stood behind the throne, all beardless and young. Their faces were identical, and all seven pairs of eyes watched her without expression.

On the throne sat a man wearing robes of gold and scarlet. A silver crown set with black stones circled his head. Hair and beard the color of ripe wheat, eyes blue as a summer sky. In his hand he held a scepter.

“So, you have found me,” he said, his voice milder than expected. “What would you have?”

“An apology, for starters.” She had been frightened, lost, coerced into using power that made her right hand glow as though lit from within. Here, where there was more light, the skin looked translucent and allowed her to see bones, ligaments, tendons. She tore her eyes away and took a few steps toward the throne, anger burning high and hot.

“I came in peace, seeking your help. I rescued your daughter, who was very nearly dead when I found her. Yet I have been assaulted at your very gates. My comrade is under a spell. Not very hospitable of you and yours.”

He raised both hands upward in a helpless gesture that conflicted with his words. “This is a castle of sorcery. Many of the spells are woven into its very framework, and it is hardly our fault if uninvited guests become trapped. We do not apologize for what we are.”

“Release him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. The interesting question is what to do about you, who have so boldly crashed through my doors without invitation. What are you, I wonder?” He leaped lightly from his seat so that he stood above her at the top of the steps, looking down.

One hand ran along the smooth surface of his scepter, and then back again. The air felt charged with menace. Black shadows flickered in and out of Vivian’s peripheral vision, and the air hummed with power. Flames flickered around her fingertips but caused no pain.

“I am the Dreamshifter,” she said. “Come to warn you that the dreamspheres are dying one by one and taking Dreamworlds and dreamers with them.”

“True,” he said, descending the steps. “And yet not the truth.”

Too young. Too handsome. Too affable.
Beneath the pleasant exterior was something so deep and complex, her mind spun away when she touched it, but malice and power were clearly part of the combination.

Vivian held her ground and lifted her chin. “Perhaps you should tell me what you see in me, and we can dispense with the games.”

“Now, what fun would that be? Suppose you tell me from whence you have the huntress eyes? I think they were not part of your birth.”

“Dragon blood will find its way,” she said, not sure where the words came from. She felt them hit home, a small shift in the invisible web that wove through the room.

“There is a dragon in my anteroom,” he said, moving slowly around her and looking her over, as though she were a sculpture at a museum. The eyes that traveled her body, head to toe, not missing one hair or tiny mole, she felt certain, were coolly appraising. “As for you, you are no dragon. And yet...”

He ended with a long stare into her eyes.

She held the gaze, taking the opportunity to look deep into his, which rewarded her with such a jumble of faces and forms and emotions, she couldn’t begin to catalogue them or guess what they meant.

“The blood has been squandered,” he said at last, a dangerous edge sharpening his voice. “So much power. Wasted for such paltry reasons. Do not try to tell me that dragon blood has allowed you past my defenses. It is a lie.”

He cupped his hand beneath her chin and turned it up, squeezing his fingers into the skin, pressing into the bone of her jaw hard enough to make her gasp with pain.

“What are you?”

“Can you not read it for yourself?”

“Speak!” he cried, and the whole room buzzed with the Voice of Command. Light flashed into shadow and back again. The pressure of his fingers ached against her jaw. But the command slid over her like water, and she shifted her shoulders to shed the last of it. “I will not be compelled,” she said. “If I speak what I am to you, let it be understood that I speak of my own free will. You will first reveal yourself to me. Your true form, Master, and not this shadow puppet.”

The silence that followed was louder than any explosion or scream, full of portent. His hand shifted to her throat, resting on the vulnerable soft flesh in what might have been a caress had it not been for the rage darkening his blue eyes. He smiled, a wide, open-mouthed smile full of teeth. The skin at the corners of his mouth split and peeled back over his cheeks, his face coming undone to reveal a grinning skull.

Vivian didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, kept her eyes on his, burning now like flame in the bony sockets. With a sound halfway between sigh and sob, his whole form folded in on itself, leaving an unexpected pile of soft gray feathers at her feet.

When she looked up, the room had changed once more.

Not a throne room, or a dungeon, this was more like a well-used study. Two large books lay open on a long table of highly polished wood, next to a bottle of wine and eight glasses. Shelves held more books, all shapes and sizes, bound in leather. Boxes and jars, labeled but too far away to read, were neatly stacked on the shelves amid other items of sorcery. A skull. Some feathers. An astrolabe. A crystal ball. And a host of other magical-looking paraphernalia she’d never seen or dreamed of.

A man sat at the head of the table, seven young men occupying the other chairs. The girl from the grove stood about a pace behind the old man’s shoulder, the griffyn cub at her feet, lapping at a saucer of milk. She stood with her head bent slightly, eyes downcast, glancing up briefly to catch Vivian’s gaze and then away.

“Satisfied?” the old man said.

“For now,” she answered, taking his measure.

He was a tall, well-built man who held himself fully erect. No crippling of joints or spine, no thickening of the knuckles of his slender hands. A thin band of black metal circled his head. Long white hair cascaded smoothly over his shoulders. Clean-shaven, handsome face with expressive lips and a strong chin. Dark eyes, brooding and intense. He wore a simple black robe without any decoration or jewelry.

Leaning forward a little, fingertips resting on the table, he commanded, “Identify yourself.”

“Release my companions.”

“Not before you tell me who you are.”

“Do I have assurance of their safety?”

“Would you trust me if I said it were so?” He sighed. “It seems we are at an impasse, as we both know my commands do not work on you. Very well, then. I will release the man. I regret that dragons are not allowed within the sanctum.”

“And yet the dragon is with me.”

“You presume! I can easily cast you out.”

Vivian held her ground. “I think not. Your daughter has welcomed us into the castle. Do you not honor the invitation?”

The Master’s dark eyes bent on the girl, who stood small and still behind his chair. “She, too, will pay for her presumption. The dragon may enter the castle. He will be housed and fed, but I will not allow him in my presence.”

He meant it. Vivian sensed this. The girl caught her gaze and nodded slightly. Vivian didn’t like it, but she had to take some action.

“Do we agree that he will not be harmed?”

“I promise that he will be held safe for you. Is it well?”

Vivian nodded. The Master responded with a small curving gesture.

A moment later, a door burst open and Zee strode in, sword drawn, his scarred face set in lines of battle. His eyes took in the room, the Master, the girl, whose face, Vivian couldn’t help noticing, lit up at the sight of him like a morning sunrise.

Vivian caught his gaze and shook her head slightly.

His eyebrows went up, but he sheathed the sword. She smiled, hoping he would see her heart and understand, knowing he wasn’t going to like anything that happened next. Then she turned back to the Master and took a step forward, Poe waddling right along beside her.

“I am the Dreamshifter, as I have told you. I am also dragon, yet another truth. And I am of the blood of the Sorcieri, direct descendant of the Sorceress Jehenna. In the name of the blood, I come to ask for your secrets, that the Dreamworlds might not die.”

At the name of Jehenna, all seven of the young men turned their faces toward her in unison, dark eyes glittering. The girl looked up, her face full of alarm.

The old man’s expression did not change, but currents of magic swirled around Vivian’s feet. Tendrils explored her skin, trying to read her secrets. She strengthened her will and tried to shut them out, but even that gave him information. After a long moment, he leaned forward with his hands on his knees and said, “How does a woman come to have magic at all?”

Vivian blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

Of all the things she had expected, coming to the place that had spawned a sorceress like Jehenna, this was not one of them.

“Sorcieri women have no magic. This is a law. Now here you are, barging into my castle, thrashing about, shedding magic that you obviously have no idea how to control, and you seem to think I shall reward you for this?”

“But Jehenna—”

“Precisely. Why are you here? What do you want?”

Too much was happening at once; she couldn’t track it all. The itch in her brain distracted her, trying to draw her attention to a whole new level of experience she didn’t know how to label or categorize or even understand. Beyond getting here and dropping Jehenna’s name, she’d never really had a plan. Intrigue wasn’t a game she could play with any skill, so she went directly to the point.

“The Dreamworlds are dying.”

“What does that matter to us? We have no use for them.”

“Father,” the girl said, her voice barely a whisper.

The old man made no sign that he had heard her.

Setting down the griffyn, she stepped around the table and knelt beside his chair. “Forgive me, but I must speak. The mirrors have gone dark. If it does not affect us, then why do we have the mirrors at all?”

Not even looking at her, as if she did not exist, the Master instead looked to his sons.

“Have you checked the mirrors? Is this true?”

All of the dark heads nodded as one, but only one of the boys spoke. He seemed to be the leader, his face more animated that the others, a keener interest in his eyes. “Three of the mirrors have gone dark, one of them the mirror of Jehenna. And the dreamflowers are dying.”

“And again I say, what has any of this to do with us?”

Vivian caught a quick exchange of glances between the girl and her brother. His eyes widened, questioning, and then he turned to the Master and said, “There is a long tradition of minding the mirrors. We are the guardians—”

“To what purpose? To await, as the threadbare tales tell us, the coming of the Three in One?”

Again, Vivian caught what looked like subtle prompting from the girl before the young man spoke again. “And yet it appears that she stands before us now.”

“This one? Pah. She is naught but a half-breed with a paltry power and no knowledge. We should throw her out. See if she can find a way off the island. That would be a true test.”

The six silent brothers all rose to their feet and moved forward in eerie unison.

“No!” The girl grabbed her father’s hands in both of hers and looked up into his face, pleading. “Please. You must listen—”

In answer, he backhanded her across the mouth, knocking her into a little heap. She crouched there, one hand pressed to a bleeding lip. The griffyn cub hissed once, then set about lapping at the blood with a pink tongue.

“Are we to become killers, then?” the son asked. He stood at his place behind the table. His voice shook a little, but he stared the old Master down. “Have we sunk to casting those who come to us, seeking, out into the dangers of the island? If you do not see fit to grant the request, might we wait at least until dawn to give them a chance of survival?”

“You try my patience,” the Master said, a warning note in his voice. “But as my daughter has granted them welcome, and as you have spoken for them as well, I will heed your words. Take them to a room and let them rest. In the morning, I want them gone before I break my fast. Is this clear?”

The boy bent his head in submission. “Yes, my Master.” He turned to his sister and ordered, “Take them, then.”

She scrambled to her feet and bowed. “Come with me.” The cub cradled in her arms, she turned, back straight, head tall, and led them from the room.