Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (31 page)

Feeling the Aphotis’s presence press down on her, she threw away the container and disappeared again.

This time she reappeared several yards away, in the direction they’d thought the other Ping might be. She stood next to Sam, just outside the bank of fog roiling over the lawn.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” she asked.

Sam pointed over her shoulder. “Dad and I saw the explosion, and thought you guys might need help. He’s over there helping Ping. It looks like he fell and hit his head on a rock.”

Mara spun around and saw her father leaning over Ping, laid out on the grass, looking disoriented. She ran over to them and crouched down next to her father.

“How bad is he hurt?” she asked.

“Just a little cut and a bump on the head. Should be okay,” he said.

“Did you guys see the sample container and lightbulb he was carrying?”

She heard Ping shifting around on the ground and looked at him. He raised his arms, his right hand holding the bulb and his left the sample container. “Here,” he said. “I didn’t let them go.”

“Probably how he bumped his head. He didn’t have his arms to break his fall,” Dr. Lantern said.

“Oh, you are so wonderful. Thanks,” Mara said. She took them and stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Wish me luck.” After taking a step toward the fog, she stopped and turned back to them. “Why don’t you tell him to heal himself with his thoughts?”

“I was just getting to that when you walked up,” her father said. “Where are you going?”

“Back into the fog to get the Aphotis. Hold down the fort here.”

After wandering around in the fog for what seemed like forever—but was closer to five minutes—Mara lost her sense of direction. She couldn’t locate Ping, and she concluded that the Aphotis had escaped, since there was no sooty mist hovering around her. She sensed the colorless fog dissipating, though it was hard to tell now that the sun had dropped behind the manor, and the deepening shadows made it all the more obscure. Her palms grew damp holding the lightbulb and sample container she’d gotten from the other Ping.

A lisping baritone intoned from the obscurity. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly does echo it. Wouldn’t you say?” Juaquin Prado walked from the clouds ahead. He held Ping by an arm twisted behind his back.

“More like old dogs never learn new tricks,” Mara said.

Prado placed his free hand on Ping’s shoulder, the contact releasing a flutter of blue light dancing across his chest. Cringing, Ping’s face turned red. Smoke rose from the blistering skin that burbled along his neck and cheek. He screamed in agony as Prado yanked him forward to get closer to Mara.

Ping’s not limping on his broken leg.

“Recall our night on the roof over Woodstock?” He smiled at the back of Ping’s head. “Roasting dragon meat, remember? But I suppose my being the dragon this time out ruins that old saw. History echoing instead of repeating. See what I mean?”

Mara fixed her gaze on Ping’s eyes. He stared back intently through his cries of agony. To him, she said, “I shouldn’t have left you to gather your thoughts.”

Through gritted teeth, Ping said, “I’ve learned my lesson.” He turned his head to the right, exposing more of his burned neck to her. The redness receded, the blisters shrank.

Behind him, Prado said, “Yes, we’ve all learned lessons these past few weeks. For instance, our young progenitor friend has learned that cooperation is the path to assuring the well-being of her loved ones.”

Flexing his fingers, clawing into Ping’s shoulder, Prado pressed again, eliciting another flutter of blue light and a scream of pain.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Mara said. She sat down on the grass, crossing her legs and placing the objects in her hands on the ground before her. “But you’re wrong about cooperation. That’s not at all what I’ve learned recently.”

Prado frowned. “I assure you, I can inflict much more than pain on this poor excuse of a baker.”

Mara shrugged. “Go ahead. I’ve got another Ping sitting a few yards away.” She picked up the lightbulb and twisted off its brass base.

“Give me the child, or I’ll kill this man,” Prado said. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking these people can’t die because they lack physicality. They fear death as much as the rest of us.”

Mara held up the opened lightbulb. “Speaking of death, does this remind you of something?”

Prado didn’t respond.

“Oh, come on. You are from a realm chockful of shiny dead people lighting the way for the world. Don’t you recognize a luminaire? Don’t you recognize your coffin?” she said.

He laughed and pressed on Ping’s shoulder again. “You are no luminary. And I am no mere soul. I am the Aphotis, the one predicted in the oral histories of my people. I am borne of the darkling wraith and cannot be wrangled like a common spirit.”

“At first I fell for that line. There’s just one problem with your reasoning. Those oral histories of yours predict that you would become one with the progenitor, and you failed to do that. You’re no Aphotis, no metaphysical demon. You’re just a dead man who needs to be put in his place.”

Mara lifted the sample container of blue steam to the opening in the lightbulb and pressed the release button, sending the vapor rushing into it. Tossing aside the plastic globe, she held out the open bulb.

Doubt filled the seconds before she saw anything happen. After all, Prado was no longer in his misty form.

Until his face dissolved. It atomized into tiny particles that wafted into the air, bobbing along an invisible stream between where he stood and the opening at the base of the bulb. Soon his head lost all cohesion, followed by his shoulders and torso, melting into a formless blob torn into misty ribbons drawn forward by an unseen force, a magnetism that the substance of him could not resist.

Ping stepped from the path of the vaporous rapids. Rubbing his cheek as the redness faded, he stood several feet away, looking amazed and concerned.

The bulb shook in Mara’s hand as the impossible volume of mist poured inside. Glancing across the way, she watched the last of Prado—his feet—evaporate, its particles joining the weakening stream that glided toward her.

A few moments later, a speck of him danced at the edge of the bulb for a moment, but Mara lifted it, scooping the last of Juaquin Prado from the air. She grabbed the brass base of the bulb and, with a quarter-turn, sealed it.

A blue-black light ignited inside.

Less than an hour before Mara expected Dr. Canfield to cut her off from this realm, the other Ping handed her a small rectangular carton. He had fashioned it with sturdy siding and a cushioned interior to accommodate the lightbulb that now contained the soul of Juaquin Prado.

“This should allow you to safely transport the bulb without fear of accidently releasing its contents,” he said, crossing the steam lab to put away some tools. As he arranged them in a drawer, he turned and pointed to Mara with a screwdriver. “What I don’t understand is how you can transport a container consisting of the ephemeral substance of this realm into the physical one without it losing its cohesion and releasing its occupant. How have you accounted for that? Come to think of it, when you are returned to the physical realm, how will you take it with you? When our Mara was disconnected from us, she simply disappeared. Even the clothes you are now wearing stayed behind.”

Blankness, then panic swept across Mara’s features as she turned to Ping—her Ping. “None of that occurred to me. Once I got the idea of how to capture Prado, I didn’t consider any of that. What are we going to do?”

“We may have no choice but to leave the bulb in this realm,” Ping said. “I’m sure we can trust Ping and Dr. Lantern to keep it in a safe place.”

Mara shook her head. “No, that’s not good enough. It’s too fragile to leave behind and hope for the best. There has to be a way I can get it into the physical world.” Turning to the other Ping, she said, “You said your Mara crossed over and came back with substance, Consciousness. That’s how she’s pregnant, how she’s planning to establish perpetuity in this realm. There must be a way to reverse the process.”

“She did it in her dreams, while she was asleep,” he said.

“I don’t have time for that. Even if I did, it could take years to figure out how she accomplished it.” Looking back to Ping, she said, “Come on. You’re always theorizing about how this stuff works. Metaphysically how would we do this?”

“Metaphysically it’s a matter of passing from one realm to another.”

Mara’s eyes widened at the same instant as his, and together they said, “The Chronicle!”

“Do you think I could use the Chronicle of Creation to pass from this realm into the physical world? Wouldn’t that cause some kind of conflict? I mean, my body is already there in the physical realm.”

“Conceptually it should work. I’d recommend that you not touch your body while you are there, however. Since you exist as thought in this form, you may appear somewhat insubstantial, assuming you are visible at all.”

“Okay. I must hurry, or they will yank me back into the physical realm before we are ready,” she said. “I need both Pings over here beside me.”

The other Ping closed the drawer and joined them in the open space at the center of the doughnut-shaped counter. Slipping the gold medallion from her pocket, Mara held it out on her right palm while holding the carton in her left.

“Just like you warned me,” she said to the other Ping, “please don’t touch anything. I don’t want to chase you down in some strange realm where people are made of gumdrops.”

“Is there such a thing?” he asked.

“At this point I wouldn’t doubt it.”

The copper medallion floated up from her palm and spun like a DVD, its blue crystals blazing, turning into bright track lines as it blurred. Flipping and gyrating, it morphed into a bright molten ball of glowing mercury. It grew in intensity until it emitted a burst of light, a wall of static that passed through and engulfed them in a translucent sphere.

The other Ping gasped and turned in a circle. Pointing at the periphery of the sphere that now filled the laboratory, he said, “It’s displaying a diagram of lines and circles.”

“Nodes,” his counterpart said. “We call them nodes. Each represents a distinct realm.”

Lines appeared and connected, extended and filled the space within the sphere. In front of Mara and each of the Pings, a node appeared. The other Ping narrowed his eyes at the ball several inches from his nose.

“It looks a little out of focus,” he said. “Overlapping realms? Ours and the physical world?”

Mara nodded. “That makes sense. So all I need to do is touch the more solid one and it should transport me there. I can drop off the carton and come right back with enough time to say good-bye to Dad.”

The other Ping pointed to Mara’s left hand, the one that held the carton. “Why is that node floating to the carton?”

“It must recognize Prado. That must be his realm,” she said.

“What were you planning to do with him after you got him back?” he asked.

“I would take him back to his realm.”

“Why not take him directly? Go to his realm now instead of when you get back to the physical realm.”

Mara glanced over to Ping. He nodded and said, “Makes sense. I see no more risk in doing that now. Do you?”

“No, I don’t. I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. She grabbed the node, and the translucent sphere collapsed around her, taking her with it.

The Pings stood in the center of the room, blinking at each other.

“How long do you think it will take her?” the other Ping asked.

“Time isn’t a factor when moving between—”

The blue sphere erupted from nowhere, and Mara stood next to them again. She extended her palm, and the static light surrounding them collapsed into a blue sunburst above it, revealing the copper medallion as it faded. The Chronicle dropped into her hand.

“There. Prado’s back where he belongs,” she said.

“Where did you put him?” Ping asked.

“In the luminarium, where he belongs.”

The other Ping looked confused.

“It’s what they call their funeral homes, where they store dead people,” she said.

“In lightbulbs.”

“Exactly.” She waved toward the doors. “Let’s go. Dad and Sam are waiting in the study. We thought we’d wait there until I, well, until I disappeared.”

The Pings followed her from the steam lab, down the hall and up the staircase. As they took the first flight, Ping asked, “Did you happen upon anyone interesting while you were in Prado’s realm?”

Without pausing, Mara said, “No, but I stopped by the shop—the gadget shop where my counterpart works. I wanted to ask her a question, but she was not there, and I was a little nervous just hanging around, so I came back.”

“What did you want to ask her?” the other Ping asked.

“It’s a little complicated. I’m not sure I have time to explain.” She cleared the top of the stairs and took a right toward the study, breaking into a jog. “I think we are cutting it close.”

When she entered the study, she ran to her father who stood at the windows with Sam, looking at the back lawn, still scarred by the encounter with the mechanical dragon. He embraced her and said, “I didn’t think you would make it. If my timing’s right, your twenty-four hours was up a couple minutes ago.”

“I know. I’m sorry. We ran into a complication with Prado that had to be resolved.”

He waved away his complaint and hugged her again. “Thanks for coming here and showing me another side of my little girl. And for giving me my son back, even if it was for a short time. I’m so proud of you, of both of you, and of how willing you are to give so much of yourselves to help strangers in a strange world.”

Pulling back from the hug but leaving her arm around his waist, she said, “You are not strangers. We are family—you, me, Sam and Ping. We’ll never forget you.”

Sam pointed at her. “You said I could stay one more day.”

Mara nodded and was about to say something when she flickered. Her body flitted in and out of sight, but her brown leather pants and vest remained solid. A moment later, the flickering stopped, and Mara was solid again. Except she had a look of confusion on her face.