The Dream Sanctum: The Eternal World (15 page)

“Oh yes, he’s upstairs. Please, come in, quickly.
Did you walk all this way dressed like that? You must be freezing. Would you
like something to eat? ...oh, no, that’s fine. Please, show yourself up. I’m
sure he will be glad to see you.”

Kai opened his door again, wondering who would
be visiting him at this hour that his mother would send upstairs so
comfortably. To his total surprise, Kwin turned the corner around the stairs
and walked towards him, giving him a polite nod in greeting.

“I apologize for the lateness of my visit, but
I decided it was important to see you.”

“I uh… no problem,” Kai replied uncertainly.

“Please, sit. I’d like to speak with you.”

Kai obliged, thinking that Kwin must be
feeling better if she was inviting him to sit down in his own house. Kai sat on
his bed and Kwin commandeered his desk chair.

“I have been acting irrationally over the past
two days, and for that I apologize, but I feel like I have recovered
sufficiently to continue our work,” Kwin explained casually.

“Are you sure?” Kai asked. “I don’t want you
to push yourself.”

“Unfortunately, the Sanctum will not provide
us with the luxury of making sure we are all well. Its deterioration continues
at the same speed regardless. Nevertheless, I appreciate the thought.”

“Do you have a plan, then?” Kai asked.

“Unfortunately not. But that’s why I came to
you. If there is one person I feel comfortable having an intelligent discussion
with right now, it’s you. And Lindsay, of course, but I imagine she’s sleep–”

“Kwin!” Lindsay exclaimed as she walked into
Kai’s bedroom. Kwin, evidently not expecting to see her, jumped in surprise
before she could stop herself, quickly regaining her composure as Lindsay came
over to give her a hug. “What are you doing here? …did you walk all the way
here? By yourself? Oh,
Kwin
.”

“You needn’t worry, I was not uncomfortable–”
Kwin started, but Lindsay interrupted.

“No excuses. You either stay the night here or
Kai’s mom will drive you home. No more walking alone in the dark. Okay?”

Kwin looked completely taken aback at
Lindsay’s stern tone, then nodded wordlessly. Lindsay looked pleased and took a
seat next to Kai, looking expectantly at her young friend.

“Right. Anyway,” Kwin continued, “I was hoping
we might talk. I have already caused us to waste two full days, and I don’t
wish to cause any further delay.”

“You did no such thing,” Kai protested. “We’ve
all been feeling down about this.”

“That is irrelevant. I expect better from
myself. I don’t suppose either of you have been thinking about this, have you?”

Kai and Lindsay looked at each other guiltily,
then Kai spoke.

“I’ve been trying. I just don’t know what to
think. I feel like we’re missing something right in front of our noses, but I
don’t know what.”

“I feel the same way, but I don’t know how to
connect anything. I have a feeling that the solution will require me to
reconsider all my previous theories, but I don’t even know where to start,”
Kwin mused.

“Well, let’s think about what we know,”
Lindsay said. “These guys are apparently messengers from the Creators, right?
They’re looking for someone called the keeper to help restore the world, and
they do this every so often. To me, this says that the Creators aren’t around
anymore or this wouldn’t be necessary. How the keeper thing works I don’t know,
but it does.”

“If the Creators aren’t around anymore, they
must have left Semyaza and Dumar and their dragon around to make sure the world
stayed in one piece after they left,” Kai thought aloud. “Unfortunately that
doesn’t help much; if the angels don’t even know what’s going on, there’s no
higher power to ask for help.”

“So perhaps we need to figure out how the
keeper is supposed to save the world. There may be a way we can replicate the
process ourselves. Despite what we saw the other night, I’m almost entirely
certain that the answer lies within Golden Capital. There’s no other reason the
angels would guard plain debris so heavily and then request that the keeper
himself go there,” Kwin said.

Kai stood up and started pacing, his hand to
his chin.

“I just can’t stop thinking about how the
angels kept talking about the world. They kept saying that it was dying. I know
they meant that figuratively, but–”

“Unless they didn’t,” Kwin said suddenly.

“If they didn’t, though, how can a world
actually be alive? And how could a keeper help bring it back if it’s dying?”

He could almost see the gears turning inside
Kwin’s head as she thought, her mouth half open as though bursting to explain
what she hadn’t yet figured out.

“Remember when we discussed my
Occupant-Reliant Universe Theory? I explained that I thought the Sanctum
required people inside it in order to exist. I may not have been far off; I was
only thinking about it too mechanically. It could be that the Sanctum needs
people in it to survive, but for some reason it requires one
specific
person.”

“I just thought of something,” Lindsay said.
“The angels come every couple decades, right? That’s about how long a person
could stay in the Sanctum after they got in, at least if they were around my
age, right?”

“Generally, yes. It’s a safe estimate, at
least,” Kwin answered slowly.

“Well… remember what Dumar said at the gates
after you beat Semyaza?” Lindsay recalled. “He said that in light of our
determination, the Creators decided to let us in. He talked about them in
present tense, like they were still…”

 
Kai
felt like they were either on the verge of finding an important answer or close
to finding absolutely nothing, but he was excited all the same. He tried
desperately to connect the dots in his head, hoping they would form a shape and
not just a tangle of unrelated points.

And then it hit him. He looked up at Kwin to
find her staring at him, and he knew she must have reached the same conclusion.

“The Sanctum
is
alive,” Kai said softly, and Kwin nodded excitedly.

“And not just that. The Creators never left,
Kai. We’re inside their minds, perhaps a single mind, and that mind is dying.”

“So what does the keeper do?” Lindsay asked
breathlessly.

“I’m not sure, but that may not be important,”
Kwin replied. “We still don’t know who the keeper is or how to find them, but I
don’t think we need them anymore. Don’t you understand? The Creators are
still here
, which means we need to try
to communicate with them. Dumar’s pessimism be damned, we can still find a
way.”

“We need to get back to Golden Capital,” Kai
murmured.

“Right. But before that we need to get to
Alastor,” Kwin said quickly, standing up to leave. “I’ll ask him to send Fred.
In the meantime, you two need to get ready to go.”

“Oh, but… we just came from there! And not
Fred…” Lindsay whined. Kwin patted her shoulder comfortingly.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you,” Kwin said
with an amused smile. Lindsay glared back at her. Kwin walked to the door, then
paused to glance at Kai. “I will remember to inform your mother as I go
downstairs that I need a ride back home.”

Without another word she walked swiftly
downstairs.

“All right, let’s do this, then,” Kai said
with a shrug. “I didn’t expect this, but I’m not going to be the one to tell
her no.”

Lindsay looked like she would rather do
anything then get back in a car with Fred, but she didn’t say anything. With a
groan of displeasure, she went back to the bathroom to change.

L
indsay left a few minutes
later, heading back across the street to her house to pack, and Kai had the
house to himself for a few minutes. He pulled everything out of his bag from
his previous trip to Alastor’s and filled it with clean clothes, then stuffed
his comb and toothbrush in.

Once he was dressed and ready to go, he paced
anxiously, waiting for everyone to get back and Fred to arrive. He half hoped
Fred would get to his house before his mother got back from dropping Kwin off,
but he knew that was unlikely. He just didn’t want to have to try to explain
why he was going back to a place she had just picked him up from today, and why
it was suddenly so urgent that he do so.

Sure enough, he heard the front door open ten
minutes later as his mother returned, and then heard her footsteps on the
stairs.

“Kai? Can I talk to you?” Sarah asked as she
rounded the corner towards his room.

“Sure,” Kai replied apprehensively.

“You know I trust you and that I like your
friends, but I’m really starting to get worried,” Sarah said, standing in the
doorway. “Could I maybe convince you to stay home this time?”

“I… don’t think so, sorry,” Kai said, and he
meant it. “There’s something important going on that we have to finish. It’s
not illegal or anything,” he added quickly.

“Oh, I know!” Sarah replied. “I’m only
concerned about you and whether you’re okay, especially because I heard you’re
getting into that awful driver’s car again.”

Kai laughed.

“He’s not so bad. He’s never had an accident.”

Sarah smiled, but then her expression turned
serious again.

“Can you tell me what’s going on? Are you sure
there’s nothing I can do to help? You might be surprised what your old mother
can do.”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m sorry, but this is
something you just wouldn’t understand, and I don’t have time to explain it.
Maybe when I come back I can…”

He trailed off, not wanting to make any
promises he couldn’t commit to later. With another apologetic nod he turned and
headed for the stairs.

“It’s the Sanctum, isn’t it?”

Kai froze. He turned at looked at her. She
still wore the same look of concern on her face, but at his reaction it changed
to something else. It was a look of knowing, of sadness… of hurt.

“I thought so. The Sanctum is in trouble, and
somehow you’ve been caught up in it. I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re just
like your father that way, you know. If I’m correct, this isn’t the first time
you’ve tried saving the world… only this time it’s destroying itself, and the
guardians haven’t found the next keeper.”

Kai was speechless. He heard the words coming
out of her mouth, but his brain was still struggling to accept them.

“How… how do you know…?”

“Oh, your father and I spent years and years
in the Sanctum before you were born. It was our favorite getaway. We were both
veterans, I suppose you could say. He was the explorer, I was the bookworm.
Because of that I learned a lot about how the Sanctum works. It was never
backed up by any evidence, but some scholars believe that the Sanctum is alive.
A few times every hundred years, the mysterious guardians would appear and take
a dreamer away. The dreamer would never be seen again, but the world would
remain calm again until another few decades passed. These vanishing dreamers
were called keepers, and the world stayed alive because of them… unless a
keeper couldn’t be found.”

“You… so this has happened before, has it?”
Kai asked slowly, still trying to comprehend what she was saying.

“Only once, and it was before my time. The
world was in turmoil and the guardians were becoming agitated. They kept
saying–”

“The keeper must show himself,” Kai replied
automatically, and his mother nodded.

“It turned out that the one chosen as keeper
had backed out, terrified of his role as the chosen one, so he avoided coming
back to the Sanctum. The world almost destroyed itself.”

“How did they fix it? Did they choose someone
else?” Kai asked.

“No. Once a keeper is chosen, no one else can
replace them. Eventually he was found in the real world and was persuaded to
come back and perform his duties. It was quite lucky, too. Had he waited much
longer, the world would have surely died.”

Kai felt his heart sink as he heard these
words. Maybe they weren’t as close to solving their problem as he thought.
Maybe what Dumar had said was true, and that only the keeper could save the
world. Even if the Creators were still there as he suspected, there was no
guarantee that they could do anything more. If they could, they might not be in
this predicament in the first place.

Seeing his agitation, Kai’s mother stepped
forward and placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“I wish I could give you happier news, but I’m
afraid I’m going to have to be the bearer of bad news instead. You’re
brilliant, Kai, you always have been… but you aren’t going to be able to save
the world this time. The Sanctum is dying, and this time it will destroy itself
completely. There is nothing anyone can do.”

Kai took a step back, startled by his mother’s
negativity.

“You don’t know that. We pulled out of
difficult situations before. The Nightmares took over everything but Golden
Capital, and we destroyed them. We saved someone’s life in the real world in
the process and reunited someone else with her family. We traveled beyond the
ends of the world and put new information on the Sanctum’s maps, we met new
civilizations no one else had ever heard of and we even escaped a world where
half the people who lived there were trying to kill us. You can’t say it’s
hopeless. Not yet.”

Instead of looking more optimistic, Kai’s
mother looked stricken.

“You… went over the edge, didn’t you? You
found the broken Sanctum?”

“Yes,” Kai answered quietly. “You know of it?”

“Oh, I’m very familiar with it,
unfortunately,” she replied, and to Kai’s complete surprise, she suddenly
looked furious. “I don’t suppose you ran into a man named Devnon while you were
there?”

“Yes, we did,” Kai answered. “He was the one who
tried to have us executed. But he failed, obviously,” Kai added hastily upon
seeing his mother’s expression.

“Oh… you were off almost getting yourself
killed, and I never would have known,” she whispered, almost to herself. She straightened
suddenly and shook her head, then looked at Kai. “You know, I never did tell
you how I lost your father.”

“I… hang on, this isn’t the time for–” Kai
started, but his mother silenced him with a wave of her hand.

“No, I insist. It’s not fair that I’ve kept
you this long. I told you that he passed away in his sleep just before you were
born, but while that was correct, that wasn’t the whole story. You see, he and
I decided to go off and explore the world beyond The End. He and I took a ship
called the Wave Rider and headed off for waters unknown.”

Kai paused.
Wave Rider
. That sounded familiar. After a moment his eyes widened.

“Wave Rider… we found that ship on the beach
of the mirror world! It looked like it had been abandoned years and years ago. That
was… that was your ship?”

“Yes. We didn’t dock quite as gracefully as we
would have liked, and we were stranded. A very friendly gentleman named Devnon
promised he would help us, and that we should stay with him while our ship was
being repaired. Days passed and we began to feel fatigued. It was becoming
harder and harder to sleep, we had none of our powers, and Devnon was acting
strangely. He forbid us from seeing our ship, and seemed anxious about letting
us leave the city entirely.”

“He wanted to keep you there until it was too
late,” Kai said knowingly.

“He did, but I was too stubborn for him. I
snuck out one evening to check on our ship’s repairs, only to find our ship
sitting there untouched. Devnon wasn’t helping us, and he never planned to. I
rushed back to tell your father, but by that point it was too late. He could no
longer wake up, and since the guards noticed I escaped, they were keeping him
under close watch. As soon as I came back into the city, they captured me as
well. Devnon gave us a grand speech about how he had won and asked if we had
any last words. Your father asked me if I still had the ability to wake up, and
I said yes. Before I could say another word, he looked right into my eyes, told
me to take care of you, and then pinched my arm. The last thing I heard was
Devnon screaming as I returned to the real world.”

At this point her voice wavered and she broke
off, taking a moment to wipe a tear from her eye. She took a deep breath and
continued.

“I made sure I was awake and that I was fine
and free of harm, then returned to bed. I thought I could go back for your
father later, but… well. I knew I couldn’t. If I did I would be stuck there
too, and you and I both would die. In the end, your father never woke up again.
I sat next to him for as long as I could stay awake, knowing that he was alive
but trapped inside his own mind, facing death at the hands of a madman. And I
could only sit there and watch him die in front of me.”

The house was completely silent. Kai felt a
wave of cold wash over him as he took in this news. He had walked upon the same
shore his father did, looked upon the boat that brought him there and met the
man who killed him. His father has explored the mirror world almost two decades
ago, and it had gotten him killed.

“That was the day I lost both your father and
the world we shared together. Everyone lost a great man that day, but I lost a
wonderful husband, and you lost a father. Oh, I wish you could have met him.
Every day I see you, I see a bit of him as well. You two are so alike, you
know.”

Kai gave a hollow laugh. He had never met his
father, and although he had heard stories, he had never really connected with
him. Not until now. To find out that they both shared the Sanctum, much less
the same insatiable desire for exploration and knowledge, made Kai feel like he
already knew more about his father than any other story could tell… and the
fact that his father had saved his life before he was even born lifted the
weight of grief from his heart. That was the kind of man Kai aspired to be.

“I’ve never been back since that day,” his
mother said softly. “In a way I suppose I was glad to leave it behind. It held
too many memories for me. I needed to move on with my new life and take care of
you. I never dreamed that one day you would enter the Sanctum as well, though
now that I think about it, I’m not surprised at all. But in any case, it’s
irrelevant. The world is dying, and this time it can’t be saved.”

“How can you say that?” Kai asked quietly,
feeling stung by his mother’s pessimism. “You’ve been there, you should know
anything is possible. We still have time to find the keeper if it turns out
that’s what we need to do.”

“I guarantee you won’t find him.”

“Say what you want, but we’re not giving up
yet. Not until the very last moment,” Kai answered. “We’ll keep looking until
it’s too late.”

“I’ll save you the trouble, because I know
exactly where he is,” she answered, and her voice quivered with emotion. Kai
looked up at her in shock. “If you want to find the keeper, go to the cemetery
just outside town and go the headstone I always used to visit when you were
younger.” At Kai’s look of dawning horror, she nodded. “Yes. The next keeper
was your father. And unless you can find a way to bring back the dead, there’s
no way to save the Sanctum this time.”

It was silent again, only this time Kai’s mind
was racing. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be the end. There had to be
something
they could do. They were going
to try to communicate with the Creators themselves. They couldn’t have designed
the world so that it could fail so easily. It had lasted this long, which means
there
must
be a way to restore it.

Kai’s mother looked at him, and after a
moment, a small smile crossed her face.

“I know that look. You aren’t going to give
up, and I could sit here all night and not be able to convince you.”

Kai shook his head.

“I can’t. I have to try. I can’t accept that
it would end like this. There has to be something else I can do. We’re going to
find a way.”

Sarah nodded.

“I would love to be proven wrong, and if
there’s anyone who can do that, it’s you. Just… please, be safe. I couldn’t
stand to lose you.”

They shared a tight hug, and Kai felt a
powerful appreciation for his mother he had never quite felt before. For the
first time he felt like they were in this together, and he felt an even greater
need to solve this mystery once and for all. He would do this for her, and give
her back the world she lost so long ago.

Just then the doorbell rang, and they stood
apart, sharing a knowing look.

“Go ahead and join your friends. Don’t keep
them waiting; I know time is short,” his mother said softly. “Oh, and… good
luck.”