torg 03- The Nightmare Dream (2 page)

Father Christopher Bryce, the Core Earth holy man whose faith had seen the stormers through Orrorsh's worst horrors. In many ways, the priest and Thratchen were alike. Both were seeking confirmation of their faith, but where Bryce's beliefs centered around the light, Thratchen's focused on the darkness that was the Nameless One.

Djilangulyip, another Core Earth holy man, was still a mystery to Thratchen. He seemed to deal in dreams and primitive magic more akin to the Living Land than the technological reality of this cosm. What his role in this would be, the Tharkoldan could not say. But he seemed to give the stormers direction when they needed it, even calling Tolwyn and the others from half a world away with his strange magic.

Andrew Jackson Decker, another Earther, had recently been attached to the Gaunt Man's sorting machine. His power was great enough to order this planet's possibilities for the High Lord, to help him create a pattern of reality where no possibility of failure existed. Without the machine, however, the hold over Decker was severed and suddenly failure was possible, as evidenced by the wreckage all around Thratchen.

Finally there was Kurst, the Orrorshan hunter who the Gaunt Man had sent to capture Tolwyn and Mara.

Instead, he betrayed the High Lord and joined the stormers' cause. He had even wounded the Gaunt Man, a feat that Thratchen had thought impossible. Kurst was a shapeshifter, a werewolf. But he was also something more, something the Gaunt Man had thought he stripped away. Thratchen would have to find out about that, as it had occurred before he had arrived at court and all he knew were the whispered rumors. Knowledge of such events could prove beneficial in case Kurst should decide to return to Orrorsh.

Thratchen smiled. For now, however, he had a truce with these stormers. They had helped him beyond his wildest dreams, and they deserved his gratitude for a time. Besides, they were now on their way to Aysle. With any luck they would eliminate Uthorion and leave Thratchen with one less High Lord to worry about as he sought the power of the Torg.

He watched the storm as it churned before him, and he remembered how it came to be. It was just yesterday, and he had been hiding in the shadows, watching as Mara explained her plan to the others.

"The Gaunt Man is full of energy" Mara said. "But it's a destructive energy, a dark energy. It's the energy of the nothing — what Kurst called the Void. This is a piece of the everything, of Eternity." She held the Heart of Coyote for all to see. "If the nothing and the everything come together, it will create a Maelstrom, just like in Djil's story."

"But nothing was able to survive in the Maelstrom except the Nameless One and Apeiros," Bryce finished.

"Exactly," Mara said.

Thratchen imagined the Gaunt Man and his ravagon, standing before the flaming wreck of the sorting machine. The image was so clear. Even if he had not recorded it

'lli In- built m cyber equipment, it would still be . 11 In .1 Into his mind.

Hi remembered Mara hesitate as her built-in i nmpuler calculated the distance between her and the (..Hint Man. Then she spoke.

"()kay, let's form the circle again," Mara said. She let her mind fill with the feelings of the others. I liey were her group, her teammates, her friends. They shared their experiences freely. They shared their lives. And out of that power, Mara formed the possibility of stepping through a gate over here, then stepping out of one next to the Gaunt Man. She added the possibility that the gate would remain open for a few milliseconds long enough for her to do what she had to and step back. Yes, Thratchen remembered. If the girl thought it was possible, it would be. That was the power which stormers possessed — and which fascinated Thratchen the most.

Then, with the power supplied by the others, Mara made the possible real. A gate opened in front of her, a portal to somewhere else. She entered it, the Heart of Coyote held out before her, and —

— she was halfway across the room, standing before the Gaunt Man. Her left leg was thrust back, for support. Her right was nearly touching the Gaunt Man's left foot. Her right arm was spread out for balance. Her left hand touching fingertips to the Gaunt Man's chest, as high as she could reach — thrusting into the light that spilled from his wounds. That was the hand that held the piece of the everything. She let it go, for when the everything met the nothing, then came the Maelstrom!

Mara stepped back, reacting with computer precision in the instant that the Maelstrom raged into being. The gate, still open by the power of the stormers' minds, took her back in the blink of an eye. But Mara screamed. She had miscalculated, her fingertips a centimeter too far forward. Her hand was destroyed by the Maelstrom, and even though it was only mechanical, it was also cybernetic. As metal and plastic wired synapses ceased to be, pain fired through Mara's arm and into her brain. It was worse than losing a real hand, Thratchen knew, because this metal appendage was totally controlled by conscious thought. She fell to her knees in the center of the circle, between Bryce, Djilangulyip, and Tolwyn.

But she had done her job well. In the center of the chamber a storm raged. It was localized, swirling around the still-visible Heart of Coyote. It filled floor to ceiling, stretching out seven feet to each side. It was a storm of blackness, closing in upon the glowing blue and crimson rock. It touched the ravagon and tore the demon apart without hesitation. It touched the machine, and what remained of the device was consumed within the Maelstrom. But what of the Gaunt Man?

Within the swirling storm that billowed up from the glowing ball, Thratchen could see the Gaunt Man. He was being battered by the mix of nothing and everything, caught within an endless cycle of destruction and creation. But he was holding himself together, using every bit of concentration he could muster to keep his body from being torn apart. Every so often a piece of his body did detach, but the Gaunt Man quickly caught it and replaced it, ignoring the obvious pain. Once he exploded entirely, but he reformed with considerable effort in the center of the storm.

Thratchen let his mind return to the present. The infinite storm was still in the chamber, howling, and some of that howl was the rushing wind and the little flicks of blue or red lightning. And some of that howl was the infinite pain of the Gaunt Man, forever dying, forever being reborn.

"Perhaps a gift is in order," Thratchen said aloud, pushing the memories away. "What do you think, Gaunt Man? Should I reward Mara for her work?" He laughed, and he imagined he could see the Gaunt Man rage from within his swirling prison.

Then he turned back for the corridor and the secret staircase, leaving the storm to run its course alone, hidden in the darkness beneath Illmound Keep.

Dreams

Dreams are shadows of the real things.

— Djilangulyip

Beware what you dream, for the difference between dreams and nightmares is but a thin veil of sleep.

— Orrorshan Proverb

1

Her name was Mara, and her pain was almost unbearable. She sat alone in the jungle, staring at the severed metal of her left arm. The hand, all claws and wires and printed circuitry, was gone, ripped away when the Maelstrom formed around the Gaunt Man. Her calculations had been off, and the slight mistake had cost her dearly. Her left hand was the sum of her work, filled with the instruments that allowed her to create microchips. Its loss left her less than whole.

Another wave of pain rippled through her. She knew it was only a sensory ghost, echoes of electrical impulses firing from her brain along synthetic neurons, leaping across enhanced synapses only to find no connecting circuits. They had been obliterated along with her hand, and the resu lting feedback was translated as pain by her cerebral sensors. As long as her nervous system considered the pain real, then it was real and she would have to live with it until her built-in diagnostics corrected for the feedback.

"My hand," she weeped, and suddenly all of the pent up sorrow and frustration of the past few years exploded from her as uncontrolled sobs.

Images of her life on Kadandra flowed across her mind, memories of the child genius being taken from her parents to live at the university so that her progress could be better studied and her potential more fully realized.

... memories of force-education via RNA injections. ... memories of her first cybernetic implant, set into her brain to boost her natural mental capabilities.

... memories of the further cybernetic enhancements, the price of which indentured her to the World Council. ... memories of her theory of the cosmverse and the

subsequent invasion of the Sims. If she had never discovered the damn principle the invasion would never have occurred. Illogical, yes, but her heart told her it was true.

"Dr. HachiMara-Two reports on her theory of the cosmverse to the General Council of the Academy of Sciences ..."

Mara, she thought as the images came unbidden to the surface of her mind. Call me Mara.

"Cosm. A dimension where a particular set of laws holds sway. A specific reality that can be quite different from any other reality."

"Mara, Mara, Mara," she whispered as the images continued. She was only fourteen then, and the Council dismissed her findings as the product of an overly-active imagination. "Fools!" she spat.

"Our own cosm is just one of a multitude of dimensions that, together, form what I refer to as the cosmverse.
As
our own universe contains the whole of our reality, the cosmverse contains the whole of all realities. What is possible here, using our laws of science, might not be possible in another cosm, where a completely different set of laws govern the workings of their world."

She had been so full of herself then, so sure. If not for her childish pride, she could have had Mikkos or Kendal present the report. They were older, respected. The Council would have listened to them. But then Dr. Hachi Mara-Two wouldn't have received the credit she deserved — or the guilt.

"Mara," she whispered again, "my name is Mara."

The memories flashed by with mechanically-enhanced precision and speed, their clarity and accuracy due to implants which still worked at peak efficiency. They were what gave her an edge, but the edge cut both ways.

More sobs, and tears flowed from her one natural eye.

It isn't fair," she wailed, acting like a child and disgusted by it.

"Stop. Acting. Your. Age." She shot the words through clenched lips like bullets from a gun, one at a time between her sobs.

"What is wrong with acting your age once in a while?" Asked a usually commanding voice that was now soft and gentle.

Wiping the tears from her cheek, Mara turned to see Tolwyn walking toward her. She turned away quickly, trying to hide her tears. She did not want the strong warrior to see her showing weakness. It was ... unbecoming.

Tolwyn gently brushed at Mara's mane of silver hair. "Do not turn from me, child," she said soothingly. "Let me help you."

Mara forced the sobs to subside before she spoke. "I don't want you to see me like this."

"Like what?" Tolwyn asked, genuinely surprised. "To see you acting human? What is the shame in that? You have been asked to do more than someone your age should ever have to worry about. The weight of worlds has been on your shoulders for so long. It is all right to let some of the pain and sorrow come out, as long as it does not overwhelm you."

"But what good am I now?" Mara cried. "I lost my hand!"

"Yes, you have. But you are still alive. You still have your mind and all the knowledge that it contains. We need that knowledge, Mara. We need your spirit," Tolwyn explained.

More memories flashed through Mara's mind. Her days as a soldier for the World Council, battling beside friends and companions against the Sims, suddenly came to the surface. All of those people — people that she knew and loved — they were gone now, dead at the hands of the Sims. But her contributions allowed Kadandra to eventually destroy the connections that gave the techno-demons access to her cosm. That had to count for something. If only her curiosity hadn't gotten the best of her. If only she hadn't looked through her cosmscope a second time. Then she would not have seen Earth — and neither would the Sims.

"You don't need me, Tolwyn," she finally replied. "All I've ever done was get people killed. It was my fault that the Sims attacked Kadandra, my fault that they discovered this world. You and the others will be better off without me." She turned away.

Tolwyn grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. "How dare you give up now!" Tolwyn shouted, the softness in her voice replaced with her usual commanding tone. "We have accomplished much, you and I, but neither my world nor this one is yet free of the invaders. If this is all your fault, which I do not believe, but if it is, then by giving up now you are conceding victory to the Sims and those like them. You owe it to yourself to finish what we have started. It is the only way to ease your guilt and get on with your life."

"What life?" Mara raged back. She was standing now, looking up at the taller woman. "I've never had a life! All I've had was potential and responsibility. You can't understand that, but it's true."

"I am the daughter of Duke Bordal of House Tancred," Tolwyn answered evenly. "I am heir to the throne of House Tancred, leader of the Knight Protectors of Aysle, paladin of honor. I know what responsibility is. I know what it means. There is no little cottage in my future, no