These Shadows Remain (3 page)

Immediately the children intervened and touched his tunic and his arms and his belt and his empty scabbard, and Gabrielle and Santiago clutched his hands fiercely and stood straight beside him.

“I can train you,” Tomas said, expressing one of those thoughts that felt necessary to the moment. The words came to him in the same way the wind moved the leaves of a tree and so allowed people who could read the leaves to tell what terrible storm or calming weather was coming.

“I can show you what to expect and how to move on them. I know your friends and families aren't dead.”

The murmuring grew.

“What's happened to them?” a woman shouted.

“They've been absorbed into images, where they're being watched by what you call the toons. We can get to them and free them.”

“How do you know?” the man asked. His hand was still extended towards the knight. He seemed ready to either embrace or attack him.

“Don't ask me how. But as I brought you the children, so I'll bring you the knowledge of how to fight the terror.”

“We trusted him in the woods,” Gabrielle said. “We can believe him now.”

“It appears,” the man said, letting his hand drop slowly, “the little ones have learned a lot in their wanderings. If they trust you, I will too.”

*

Howling from the darkness pierced up so powerfully that those who stood on the slopes of the hill were silenced.

“It's time to get inside the castle,” Tomas said. “They'll be coming for us soon. We must get ready.”

The man nodded, and turned, and gestured to his people, and turned to the children who stood near the knight, and smiled again at their courageous devotion.

“My name is Cyrus.” It was important to tell the knight his name. It was part of the code that the people in the castle had hurriedly developed and written down. Naming had become a test. So had touching. The feel of skin confirmed humanity. Once more Cyrus offered his hand, but Tomas had already brushed by, leading the children towards the gate.

Cyrus hesitated, slivered by worry. What were they admitting into their domain with this strange figure? Could he be believed? Maybe he was a spy.

He sighed. Tomas had brought the children back to them – though Cyrus himself had no children – and had done so with a swift goodness of heart. They'd taken Tomas to themselves, and, Cyrus thought, so must he, for now.

*

The children and the people in the castle had already been captured.

The myriad of floating eyes had been sent again to store up more images. Discreetly they had zeroed in on the knight and they had recorded the paths, the valley, the hills, the gate, the walls and the towers. Now they were preparing to return to the encampment. They would relay to the wizard this surveillance, and image for him the many paths that could lead his armies to those who thought they were safe.

They had caught their data. It was only a matter of time until they caught their essences and flattened them forever on glowing white surfaces. All humanity would be on screens, and the living shadows would be their audience.

Toons made good captors and critics. They had listened to humanity for a long time. The sound of children's laughter had echoed in their ears. They had known the shut off, when they were suddenly left in the freeze-frame of the dark and silence. Their power had often been ignored or dismissed. Mocked, and studied, they had rarely been honoured, and seldom feared. It had come to the point where they themselves doubted they could influence anyone. Yet sometimes they saw that they could fascinate and compel, and they had watched back, and they had learned.

The wizard gave them permission to break away.

“Humanity is a worn-out dream.”

His voice issued through the static of the screens like the sound of a column of fire in a desert.

“Isn't it time to take vision away from them? Isn't it the moment for another creation? You have powers they don't comprehend. Take from those who have fooled themselves into believing they are the only gods. The flat ones are humans who never saw how much there is to the universe.”

So images leapt, vaulting out of their limits.

*

But the mind in the smoke wondered. The last humans had found a castle that had once floated in dreams.

They had taken possession of an illusion and turned it real on their plane.

They had admitted the knight, and done so without questioning his identity.

The smoke became a column of air. Every toon in the encampment felt a strange sensation of a breathing down their necks. The breath made a tingling sound that seemed more, to some who heard and felt it strongly, like a strangling gasp.

He whipped into a whirlwind of dust, pondering his command, at the command of nothing else, and yet he couldn't think deeply enough into the reversal he saw. Humans had made a toon castle theirs. The illusion realm was being turned around by their imagination and will. How could outmoded beings keep ahead of images? How could such creatures, trapped and inhibited by flesh, leap ahead?

The whirlwind thundered.

The thunder was so strong its violent vibration bent trees and cracked branches far away from the encampment.

The thunder came to the castle walls and sputtered out like a wave against a tidal barrier.

Then the thunder fell back to the whirlwind, its echo diminishing.

He stirred around in thought, encircling himself.

A few knights, who dared to observe him directly, considered this gusting inward. It was as if the wizard had turned his back. The cloud spun in a silence that stunned them.

*

“The castle looks like the forest,” the knight said.

Gabrielle gazed at what he saw.

“The towers are like trees.”

“It rises like trees,” she said, and nodded. “It gives shade and protection like a forest,” Santiago said.

The two children didn't want to venture far into this new enclosure without him. The other children had scattered towards the quarters of the adults.

The castle appeared to be made out of wood and stone. So it stood with the auras of the earth and the forest. It was massive, and seemed to extend in many directions. There was no electricity, so the grounds were lit by torches and candles. Eerie firelight flickered everywhere.

“It belonged to the toons. It was a castle we imagined,” Cyrus explained. He wasn't sure he should let Tomas walk around without his company. “They left these . . . dream places for their own camp. Somehow it's become . . . real.”

“Their camp is a city of tents,” Tomas said. “The tent surfaces act as screens. It's on the screens that you'll find your people.”

“You've been there,” Cyrus said. 

“I saw it.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I don't know,” Tomas said. “Sometimes I see clearly. Sometimes I don't. When I don't it's all smoke. It's as if the smoke becomes the world.”

“This is very strange.” Cyrus felt twinges of concern again.

*

Cyrus became bold.

“You must understand the code of flesh and blood. We've written it down. When we saw that nothing of ours would stop the toons – when we fought them, they simply reformed themselves into shadows and became their original forms again – we had to find a way to identify the human. We were fighting streams of air and mists and shades and illusions. Nothing worked against them. They came from the screens onto our level of existence and they mocked our weapons and strategies. They'd obviously come to know a lot through careful observation over the years. Who'd have known images could learn? Who'd have guessed the images had a life separate from us? It looked like a power had taken hold of them. They had a power we never knew existed. We'd come to believe that all there was in the universe was our perception of things. How we saw was everything. We were wrong. The images wanted revenge. Some came to believe we were being punished for not recognizing we're the shallow ones.”

“What is the code of flesh and blood?” Santiago asked. He would never have asked a question of a stranger before. But being in the presence of the knight emboldened him. He heard in himself a voice he didn't know, saying: “Don't be afraid.”

Santiago saw that his sister smiled proudly at him when he spoke up.

*

“I'll tell you the code,” Cyrus said.

When he answered he looked into the knight's eyes.

“All people who come here.” Cyrus stressed the word ‘people.' He made it sound like an absolute standard. “They must be confirmed in their humanity by the acknowledgement of love by others who have been confirmed human. Two people must speak lovingly, truly, of the other's presence. They must be willing to vouch for that person. They must be willing to say this is human, not an image of the human, or an image of the other side of the human. How do we know? By the test of touch. By the test of love for this plane of existence. Each must stand acknowledged. Each must show they are limited by flesh and blood. This means they can change their minds but they can't change their bodies.”

Cyrus stared hard at Tomas. He saw the stricken look come over his face. The look was conflicted with feelings and thoughts.

*

Gabrielle and Santiago stood on either side of the knight and held his hands. Then they reached up with their free hands and arms and wrapped them around his arms. The three stood together. Though the castle grounds were illuminated by torches, darkness had come now and the grounds looked shadowed. In this half light, half shadow, the three looked from a distance as if they'd blended into one another, forming a protective circuit.

Like one being . . . Three hearts, one spirit . . . The children a part of the knight, the knight a part of the children . . . Each becoming a part of a shield for the other . . .

This was how it looked to Adina, who stood near the forge watching the odd exchange. She knew the knight had been heroic bringing the children here. Now it seemed that Cyrus – who had made himself leader of the castle through his demand for the code – was interrogating the knight and his wards.

She watched on, curious. And she watched because there was something familiar to her about this knight.

At her back the forge sparked. A shower of ashes fell. The forgers were working on weapons. Adina knew these weapons wouldn't work against the toons. How she knew this, she didn't know. But she was certain of it. She had been capable of wielding weapons herself and of sharpening a sword over this fire. Yet she had been at the battle with the toons and saw how the images and smoke, the mists and artful illusions, laughed and reformed. Nothing worked against shapeshifting power. She felt what the children had felt. Still the forgers worked on. They had to do something or succumb to the terror. This knight would help them and show them what to do.

Adina stepped away from the forge fire and the raining ashes.

*

“Why can't you show me the insides of the castle?” The wizard's voice sounded like sizzling meat on a hot-oiled skillet.

The eyes skittered upwards away from the rage.

“There's a protective screen against them.” One of the knights had interpreted the motions of the eyes. This knight was dressed almost entirely in black. Only the upside down mast on his tunic was white. “Someone has figured out how to put up a shield.”

“He's done so.”

The smoke blackened.

“He senses me. He's finding his power again. He's learning without me. Who's teaching him?”

The smoke billowed into a slate-grey cloud, and the cloud went still. Its transformations stopped. Everyone in the tent backed slowly away, their eyes never leaving the apparently immobile formation. This was the time when the cloud was looking inward for knowledge. The wizard was searching the shadows within, and his knights and his eyes withdrew, recognizing that there were places that not even the toons were permitted to go.

*

“We've already spoken for Tomas,” Gabrielle said. “And we gave him his name.”

“We can touch him. You can't touch a shadow,” Santiago said.

“You can't touch a dream,” Gabrielle said. 

Cyrus was surprised by their passion. They had claimed him again. Would the words of children be enough of a confirmation?

“I'll speak for him too.” Adina had stepped up spontaneously, surprising herself with her intense need to be there beside the other three.

“You?” Cyrus said. “How do you know anything about him?”

Quickly, she stepped towards the knight. She looked into his eyes, again with that familiarity coming over her, and she saw him look startled, then smile. On impulse Adina brought her hand up to Gabrielle's face and touched it. She moved her other hand and gently brushed Santiago's cheek. He jumped back slightly, more out of surprise than annoyance. Adina brought her hand up to the knight's face, and though his eyes flashed with a moment of fear, she smiled and delicately touched his cheek.

Tomas felt the heat of her hand, and blushed.

“You see,” she said. “He's human.”

*

That night Tomas wandered alone on the castle grounds. Adina had taken the children with her for food and rest. Cyrus had rejoined the other adults to make plans for the day and the coming engagement with the toons. But Tomas had asked for solitude. He needed to study the castle and its battlements. He hoped to find strategies, because in truth he wasn't sure what to do.

Yet he'd noticed that when the children rallied to his side, he had instinctively thrown up an invisible protective shield around them. He had noticed that he had even felt protective towards Cyrus, who was suspicious of him.

Tomas was beginning to suspect something about his self. He was in communication with the dream realm. Images swirled into him. When he tried to focus on doing what had to be done, he always saw a way. This hap-pened when he stopped thinking about fear and started to draw on the power that was available in the world. This process came to him in pictures. He saw himself stepping forward. He had stepped forward in the forest for the children. He had stepped forward to get to the castle. He had stepped forward in himself when he had thrown up the invisible shield for the children and the castle's inhabitants. And he had stepped forward when he had allowed his cheek to burn from the woman's touch.