These Shadows Remain (7 page)

“He's speaking to them,” she said.

“I don't hear anything,” Cyrus said nearby.

“I think I understand,” Gabrielle said.

“I do too,” Santiago said, though both of them were speaking more to themselves than to one another.

“He's found an answer!” Cyrus shouted so that those on the walls and in the towers could hear. They rustled in anticipation, boldly grabbing at the weapons that they had carried to the walls and that they had positioned on the battlements for when the last battle would begin – weapons which they knew would be useless, but holding on to them had made they them feel more secure for the moment.

*

But Tomas knew there was no answer.

There was only another image, another sign.

He embodied the sign in his hands.

The toon swarms stopped because they could see his split. He was in two realms.

They had never seen such a power. When he held up his hands the toons knew, with the quick sharpness of an arrow into their collective mind, that they had no response to this double vision. Here was another level of experience. The smoke hadn't prepared them. They had been led by a whirlwind into a desert that was now revealed to be capable of still greater complexity.

The hill and valley buzzed with a fluttering like insect wings.

*

“Now what?” Cyrus asked from the battlement. He wanted to reach for a remote and unfreeze this image. But he was powerless to do anything.

“Stay tuned,” Gabrielle said.

Now I know where I saw him before, Adina thought. His face came clearly to her through the words of another. Her friend, Miranda – that name had stayed with her while Tomas told his tale – had spoken of a knight over drinks at a roof-top lounge.

She'd thought her friend was speaking metaphorically, of course.

Miranda had prattled on about a hero in shining armour, gleefully describing his look. It figured, Adina mused: Miranda was pretty, always lively, but shallow. “A total ditz,” she said aloud, startling those beside her who were spellbound by the freezeframed field.

Adina knew her memory, her snappy words, belonged to another reality. That memory seemed quaint in the wake of the speaking twister, and this hold-out castle, and the children who put their trust in skittish adults, and this image attack that had disfigured the world she once knew.

*

The image swarm on the field was now jitter-free.

Tomas wasn't holding them with magic. He'd shown them a frame. And their depths weren't developed enough to come up with an original response.

Slowly the once giddy swarm began to back off. Bashful and Doc, Prince Valiant and Mushu and Cri-Kee, Scat Cat and Jiminy Cricket and Cogsworth the clock and Chip the teacup, wound back as if they were being reeled into retreat by an invisible cord.

A message poured through, what was happening? This came in the static that they'd heard when they had been flat.

Here on the field the toons had learned that there was more to the universe than they had anticipated. The knight, whom they recognized, had shown that he could live between realms. He was true to both worlds. This was seemingly an impossible thing to do, but there it was.

They crept backwards as if they had been tweaked by a dial into a gradual frame by frame rewind.

Cheers came from the castle walls.

Tomas remained standing with his hands up. The toon hand was clear in its black and white outline, the other hand more human than ever.

The toon forces withdrew into the woods. Sent to record a victory, the eyes had floated above the abruptly stilled fray. Then they returned to the encampment with images of the backwards running scene.

But the cloud didn't tower into anger. The wizard merely brooded. The eyes began to pop like flashbulbs, the sound like dozens of balloons bursting at the same time.

*

The castle gate burst opened. Children poured out first, breaking away from the grown-ups. They rallied around their friend, thanked him, and spoke in awe, and touched his tunic.

Cyrus came next, followed by many of the castle guards, and he carried inside him a mix of feelings. He was grateful to Tomas, and admiring, but he was curious about how he had known how to act in this way. Cyrus was certain that this confrontation was by no means the end. It did pass through his mind too that he seemed to be always thinking in terms of conclusions. Clearly, Tomas didn't do that. His every action spoke of beginnings. Was this why the children had taken to him?

Adina came out slowly. She was carrying something in her cloak, and it was heavy enough to slow her down.

Tomas had dropped his arms and hands to his side, and he smiled down at the children.

He saw Gabrielle and Santiago smile with a special pleasure. And he observed every child had a smile of their own. Each person was a language too. There was the world's language, the language of inventions, the language of images and dreams, and the language of every individual. He wasn't sure yet which of these was the hardest to read.

He felt strong emotional bonds with all the children, but with Gabrielle and Santiago especially. There were cords spreading out in beams of warmth between them. Although they couldn't see them, these lines of affection spoke volumes.

There were more languages to learn.

But though he felt pride and confidence over his actions on the field, he knew the war wasn't over.

*

“We were thrown backwards,” the black knight said to the cloud.

“He knows things,” Batman said.

“He has a new power,” Superman said. 

“He knows too much,” the Phantom said. They spoke to the cloud through unseen fibres that telepathically leapt from their minds back to the encampment and to the screens. The cloud thrived on networks. He devoured the signals, and grew.

On the screens the people, flattened in their emotions so that they couldn't respond with any depth, nevertheless felt the vibrations of awful change.

The cloud wondered again how the knight had managed to stay ahead of them.

Had he read the books of black and white magic?

How had he come to understand the power of ritual?

The wizard knew that he would have to drive his swarms on with more demands for sacrifice. Give up more, he would tell them, and your rewards will be greater.

*

“What are you carrying?” Tomas asked Adina.

She had approached cautiously. The children's circle had been tight. But their voices had died down eventually. It was then that Cyrus had offered his thanks on behalf of the castle.

Now all looked at her.

From under her garment she produced a sword.

They gasped because it wasn't a sword like any other.

It gleamed and wavered between states, half solid, half air.

Tomas watched it warily. Still his emotions said, reach forward, touch the gift. He did so, and the sword sang, its high pulse like the wire-sounds familiar to anyone who had stood near a hydro-electric pole.

“I made it for you last night while you slept. I couldn't sleep and suddenly an image came to me from the movies and paintings I'd seen over the years. It was of a sword. I thought I saw it rise from water, and the pale hand holding it was mine.”

So many dreams, Tomas thought. We were inhabited by dreams, and moved by them. We'd been wrong to think that images couldn't move around and shift into new formations. We were wrong to think that the image realm was only something fantastic, what we forgot when we went about our daily affairs.

He held the sword by its hilt. 

“How did you make this?”

“In the forge. You know, I'd been trained to design lasers. So long ago.” She looked back at the castle gate. Then she looked at Tomas. “And I was guided in my mind to make an outline for a sword, something that would be . . . ”

“. . . a frame.” Tomas completed her sentence. 

“Yes,” she said. “A frame for your feelings.” 

“What are we becoming?” Gabrielle asked. 

“Something strange,” Santiago said.

*

The children shivered in the way they did in the forest clearing. The day was bright, and the terror had retreated, yet they felt lost, the fear surging again. Not even the castle was protection enough.

Cyrus watched Adina closely, wondering if it was possible that a human could drift to the image side. After all, if Tomas could shift towards flesh, anything was possible.

The children whimpered in their worry. All except for Gabrielle and Santiago, who gazed at the sword with admiration and wonder.

“Don't be afraid,” Santiago said to the other children.

“It's been made to help us.”

Gabrielle felt once more that steadying quality in her brother.

“If a human made this then it must be a key. It will open up a path back to the dreams,” Santiago said.

Our inventions, Cyrus thought, are ahead of us. We make things and only learn of their consequences later. But time had been shortened because of the terror. Then it struck him: standing here in this circle with the children and with the knight and with these two wise children and with Adina, each of them were capable of learning and knowing more quickly.

They were talking to one another on many levels.

*

Tomas handled the sword with his toon hand. When he did, the sword sang and tingled, and shifted and coloured. He traded the sword over to his flesh and blood hand. When he did so the sword became silver and solid, more familiar to everyone's eyes.

In his toon hand again the sword's blade flashed the word
Rage.

In his human hand the blade flashed the word
Cœur.

“It's French for heart.” Adina blushed.

She felt that her cheek had been touched. “Heart rage,” Santiago said.

“Or rage heart,” Tomas said.

“If you put them together. . .” Gabrielle said. 

“. . . they almost spell another word. Courage,” Santiago said.

“Yes, both. All of those,” Tomas said. 

“When it pulses you can hear the wind,” Cyrus said. “But it isn't the sound of the wind we heard when the cloud came here.”

\The children had long stopped their whimpering, and astonished they watched the sword's shape-shifting and the two words flickering. They thought that Adina had magic too.

*

“This will help us,” Tomas said.

“It was the least I could do.” Adina was still blushing.

“We'll never defeat the toons directly. The only way is to free them to be at the service of our dreams again. They must turn from being nightmares.”

“And how will you do that?” Cyrus asked. 

“It's time to go back inside,” Tomas said. 

He gathered the children, and placed the sword to his side and, with a gentle push with his toon hand, he directed the children towards the gate, and nodded to Adina to help move everyone on to the castle.

“They may be back, and we have to stay ahead of them in our thoughts,” Tomas said. “Come along.”

“Do you know what you'll do?” Gabrielle asked.

“Shhh . . . ,” Tomas said in the voice he used in the forest.

It was as if they were in the forest and the dark again, although they were on the hill and in the sunlight, and before the castle gate and its walls, among friends and human guardians. All saw that a cloud had descended over his features when he hurried them along. He knew that his victory over the toons had been temporary, and it was best to turn towards walls and their protection.

*

They huddled inside the castle.

What to do next? This thought connected them. The people had once more crowded together in the open space near the forge.

Tomas read their mood.

“Stay ahead of him,” he said. “Imagine more.” The people mulled around him knowing that he was their link to what the world was becoming. But few understood what he said.

*

The whirlwind plucked up four reserve images in the encampment. He flung them, shocked and silenced, onto the screen, where they melded with people. Sylvester, Mickey Mouse, Mowgli and the jazz cat Thomas O'Malley peered back from the surface at the funnel of smoke. They had been in the audience, now they had returned to their flat realm. They were frozen in horror.

“You were from the same story anyway,” the wizard snarled.

He followed his snarl with a cloudy smirk. Only he knew the depths of his joke. This had been one of the secrets he thought he'd snatched from his readings in magic. All stories were one story. It should be easy to flatten everything onto the same plane.

The whirlwind plucked them out again. The four oozed, watery, pouring from the flat surface. He plunked them back on unsolid ground.

They had changed again. They were larger, firmer, brighter, clearer, a savage glare in their eyes. These toons were ready to return to war.

Trapped on the screen the people stared at this exchange, and cringed, shrinking from the stunning display of power.

And Pluta summoned the toons back from the battlefield to reanimate them.

And he stripped the people on the screen of their range of words, reducing them to just one word.

*

“I knew Miranda,” Adina said.

“Did you?” Tomas didn't think he that he wanted to go on with this. He was preparing himself. This was the only moment he would have, among the people, and the children. They had backed off, to let him consider the next move.

He had already felt in waves how the wizard was reforming. He would appall them with a new spectacle of change, if they were not quick and clear in their countering images.

“But you recognized me from somewhere.”

“Yes. A medieval image. A face from long ago. I've seen your likeness before.”

“I'm not someone else.” 

“No, you're here.”

“A steady hand with the children.” He smiled.

She nodded. “You'll go alone.” 

“He won't expect that.” 

“Why?”

“He thinks I need an army to defeat him.” 

“Don't you?” She was suddenly worried by the prospect he'd placed before her mind. “I'm going to the origin. He's the beginning of this.”

“Will you get that close?” 

“That's what I have to find.” 

“Are you afraid, Tomas?”

His hand rested uneasily on the hilt of the sword.

“The terror's inside us.”

“You're offering yourself as a sacrifice?” Adina reached for him.

He met her eyes. “It won't be like that. Something else has to happen.”