Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (27 page)

“Consider your enemy. What is his nature and how can he be defeated? You’ve already concluded that technically he’s not the fully realized Aphotis since he failed to maintain his hold on you.”

“
What is his nature
? What do you mean?” she asked.

Over his shoulder, Sam said, “You just said it a minute ago. He’s a dead guy.”

“Right. But he’s a dead guy from another realm.”

“So how do you deal with a dead guy from another realm?” he asked.

“Good question.” She got lost in it for a moment.

“Ah, I think we’ve got a problem up ahead,” Sam said.

“What?” Mara leaned sideways to see around him.

“Miders. Lots of them, like a herd. No, a plague,” he said. He pulled on the reins, and the carriage stopped. “What do you want to do?”

Fifty yards ahead, the road writhed and rippled like a blanket in the wind. Thousands of miders scrambled toward them, their legs and bodies bumping and
click
ing against each other, pushing and shoving like insects swarming toward a carcass. They surged forward and spread to the dirt road’s shoulders, filling the path ahead, like fluid flowing toward the carriage.

The horse flapped her lips and clomped in place, getting nervous about the strangeness ahead and the
tick-tick-tick
that grew louder, echoing in the air like the drone of cicadas.

A shiver ran down Mara’s spine. “Turn around and head back to the manor. Hurry,” she said.

The mider onslaught was less than ten yards behind them by the time the carriage made the U-turn. Sam encouraged the horse to speed up but waving the reins and yelling
yaw
didn’t have an effect.

Mara looked behind them and couldn’t believe it. The wave of miders had gained on them. “Sam, get that horse to go faster. They have almost caught up.”

Ping pointed into the canopy of trees above them and said, “The miders behind us might not be our most immediate problem.”

Overhead, more miders leapt and swung from limb to limb, their spindly legs navigating through the branches like a web of their own. The tree-bound spiders moved faster than that phalanx on the ground.

One leapt from the trees, arched over the carriage, extending a leg toward the edge of Mara’s seat. It hooked the seatback, but its momentum carried its body and other seven legs forward, flailing in the air as it executed a somersault. Mara cringed as it flopped over the side of the carriage, its one leg still attached to the seat. Several legs reached back over the edge and hoisted its body into view.

Mara kicked at it and yelled, “Get out of here.” The mider froze for a second and then exploded into a puff of steam. Smoggy blue steam. Mara’s eyes widened as she watched it, suspended in the air, falling away as the carriage continued forward.

“It’s the Aphotis. He’s inside the miders,” she said, yelling at Ping louder than she needed to, but that
tick
ing noise filled her brain. “Sam, get us out of here. We’ll be overrun any minute.”

“I’m trying, but Nell isn’t a racehorse, you know.”

Up front, a mider fell from the trees and landed on Nell’s back. It scampered along her spine, eliciting a loud snort and a kick from the horse, sending the mechanical messenger into the air and the carriage rocketing forward.

“All right, that’s more like it,” Sam said. He handed the reins to Ping and said, “Take these. I need to crawl in the back and help Mara slow them down.”

Ping looked at him absently and said, “I don’t know how to control this animal.”

Pointing at the cloud of dust through which they were hurtling, he said, “Do you think I’m controlling her now? I just hope Nell isn’t too freaked out to find her way home.”

The carriage slid sideways, its wheels skipping across the road as the horse took a left turn. Sam, who was standing up to get into the back, lost his balance and began to pitch over the side. Ping grabbed his belt and yanked him back, holding fast until Sam had regained his balance.

“Thanks. I think she knows the way home. That was the turn we took,” Sam said. “Just hang on to the reins. It will help her calm down once she’s got some distance from the miders.”

As Sam clamored to the backseat, he pulled rocks from his pocket.

“What are you doing with those?” Mara asked. She rocked back and forth as the carriage careened down the rough road.

A mider popped up on the large wooden wheel to her left, riding it up from the ground and jumping onto the ledge of the carriage before the wheel’s rotation returned it to the road. Sam tossed a rock at it, which bounced off its body, but hit with enough force to dislodge it from the carriage, sending it flying into the road.

“That’s why you brought a pocket of rocks? On the off chance we might get mobbed by a bunch of miders?” Mara asked.

“No, that didn’t occur to me,” he said.

He glanced around and spotted another one, swinging from a branch they were about to pass under. Like a baseball pitcher winding up, he reared back and threw a rock. As it gained speed and altitude, it erupted in flames. The tiny meteor struck the dangling mider in the center of its brass body and exploded, sending metallic legs flying in every direction.

“Cool,” Mara said. “But let’s not cause a forest fire.”

The canopy of tree branches hanging over the road thinned out, but they could still see several miders jumping from nearby foliage, skittering alongside the road, attempting to keep the pace of the carriage. Mara pointed and said, “Keep your eyes on those.”

Looking back the way they had come, she estimated that they had put at least a mile between them and the bulk of the little messengers. She wondered if that was enough distance for them to lose track of the carriage or their interest in catching them. Somehow she doubted it.

With the manor now in sight less than a half mile away, the horse slowed to a steady trot. Mara slipped into Sam’s seat up front, leaving him to act as sentry.

Ping held up the reins, looking helpless. “I think none of us were ever in the driver’s seat. Nell’s in control.”

“I’m just glad she took charge and got us away from there,” Mara said.

“I didn’t get the impression it was happenstance we ran into that sea of miders,” he said. “We’re not out of danger yet. They appeared to be on their way here, to the manor.”

“That’s preposterous,” the other Ping said. They had found him at the kitchen table, reading a book when they returned from their shortened carriage ride. “I know you have felt uncomfortable with the miders, but they are not amassing, preparing to attack the manor. Even if that were the case, what would be the point?”

Mara put one hand on the table, the other on the back of his chair and leaned into him, putting her face just inches from his. “It’s the Aphotis. He doesn’t need to have a point. He’s a dead guy who doesn’t want to stay dead.”

“How could he be in control of thousands of miders all at the same time? If he’s capable of possessing machinery, wouldn’t he have to pick one?” the other Ping asked.

“He simultaneously possessed dozens of people in my realm. I’m sure it was a piece of cake to take over a few mechanical bugs here,” she said.

“Please forgive me, but I’m having trouble conceiving of a bunch of harmless messengers posing much of a threat,” he said.

Mara took him by the arm and said, “Okay. If you won’t take me seriously, then we’ll just go out front and wait for them. I’m sure they’ll be here shortly.”

She pulled him from the chair and pushed past Ping and Sam on her way to the hall leading to the front of the house. Without pausing, she strong-armed the other Ping to the front door and opened it. Ping and Sam followed.

Outside, they stared across the rolling front lawn that sloped up to the road leading into town, a field of waving grass split in half by the path that led away from the manor. Other than a light breeze, there was no sign, no sound of activity.

The other Ping surveyed the scene and, without looking at Mara, asked, “When you said
wait for them
, I presume you meant miders. Is that correct?”

“Shut up and wait. And listen,” she said.

He turned to his counterpart and said, “We all might have benefitted more if you’d taught her manners instead of metaphysics.”

“Hush,” she said. She cupped a hand to her ear. “Hear that?”

Tick-tick-tick. Rustle, rustle, rustle.

Grass along the road shifted, being disturbed from below. A mider stood up on extended legs, lifting its body above the grass.

The other Ping pointed and said, “It’s just one mider.”

The peeking mider disappeared, lowering itself below the grass line. A ripple ran through the field like someone had dropped a stone into a pond, the waves moving from the periphery of the lawn toward the path that bisected it. When the first ripple reached the path, miders poured on to the road—from both sides—flowing toward the manor as if guided by a funnel.

“Still think they are harmless?” Mara asked.

The other Ping frowned. “But they are designed to be harmless.”

“How many of them does it take before they stop being harmless?” she asked.

Thousands more flooded down the gentle slope from the road, now visible because the grass has been trampled. A brass-colored waterfall rushed toward them with an insectoid soundtrack. The miders were twenty feet away.

Tick-tick-tick.
TICK-TICK-TICK
.

From behind them, Ping said, “I think it might be a good idea to get inside.”

Everyone rushed through the door and closed it. The other Ping, the last one through, had lost all the color in his face and leaned against the door. “What do they want?” he asked.

Ping eyed Mara and said, “I believe the Aphotis may be here to fulfill its destiny according to the legends of its realm.”

Mara shook her head. “If we were in the physical world, I would agree with you—that I am its target—but in this realm, I’m as much a reflection of thought as anyone else. The Aphotis needs to possess something with Consciousness to survive, and the only place to find that is here.” She patted her midsection.

Ping gasped. “You think it is after the child? Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“It changes nothing,” she said. “I am still the one who will have to confront him. And I didn’t want you”—she looked at both Pings—“both of you, telling me that I shouldn’t do what needs to be done.”

“That is wholly unacceptable,” the other Ping said. “If the miders are carrying this creature of yours, you certainly will not put the baby, our perpetuity, in danger by confronting it.”

The window next to the door cracked, and everyone jumped. Mara glanced through the glass to see two miders striking the panes with the pointy ends of their metallic legs. Scratching noises ran up the door beside them.

“I have no choice. He’s confronting me by coming here,” Mara said.

The other Ping was about to say something, but Sam, who sat at the foot of the staircase, said, “Do you guys really think this is the safest place to be standing around and gabbing?”

Mara nodded. “He’s right. We must stop arguing and find a better place to defend ourselves. Let’s go upstairs. That will buy us time to think.”

“What about the steam lab and the fabrication shop? If we leave them unprotected, there’s no telling what kind of damage could be done,” the other Ping said.

Mara ran to the foot of the stairs and pushed Sam ahead of her. “I’ve got a feeling the miders aren’t interested in the lab or the shop. Come on.” She waved the Pings up the stairs and followed them.

On the second landing, she heard glass breaking below and stopped to lean over the banister. Miders jumped through the broken window, skittered around the foyer as if catching a scent. Several stopped moving and inched toward for the staircase. The rest followed suit as the door crashed down, sending a wave of scratching and
tick
ing reverberating up the stairwell. The flood of miders clawed over each other before climbing the steps, a few breaking away from the undulating morass by scaling the spindles and banister.

After the four of them arrived at the third floor, Mara pointed to the right and asked the other Ping, “What’s on that side of the house?”

“Your father and I each have a suite of rooms,” he said. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you might have an arsenal up here or something.” The skittering and scratching grew closer. Pointing to the right, she said, “Okay, here’s the plan. We split up. You guys go to the right while I head to the left.”

“I don’t understand the rationale of that,” Ping said.

“If the miders are chasing me, maybe they won’t follow you guys to that side of the house. That will leave you freed up to help in case I need it. You’re the backup plan,” she said. “I have to go this way to check on Abby.”

“But—” the other Ping said.

A mass of miders turned the corner from the second-floor flight of stairs to the one just below the third where they stood.

“No arguing. If the miders follow only me, that might give us some options. Just do it,” she said. She turned right and jogged down the hall.

Sam followed her, waving at the Pings to go in the other direction. “Wait up. I’m going with you,” he said.

Mara glared at him but said nothing as she sidled up to Abby’s bedroom door and pressed her ear to it. Turning the doorknob until she heard a
click
, she pushed open the door with a shoulder and peeked inside. Abby was asleep. Mara pulled the door closed. Nodding to her own bedroom door, she took Sam by the arm and pulled him toward it.

“Hey, I can walk without being assisted,” he said.

While opening the door, she pushed him inside the room and closed the door. “Listen, I need to know something. When those chasms appeared everywhere, did you actually see one?”

“Yeah, I saw the one that caused the dirigible to crash back in town,” he said. “Why?”

“Did you ever see something enter one of them, something from this realm? What happens if something from here goes into one?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. It looked like the tip of the dirigible just sort of faded away. When it came tumbling from the sky.”