Visioness (35 page)

One, two, three…One, two,
three,
Rhene thought as they danced about the room. Adabelle’s dress seemed to glitter
with an inner light, catching and shimmering like the crystals on the
chandeliers above.

“Thank you, Rhene,” she
said, as the song neared its conclusion. “For everything.”

Rhene smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she
whispered without a moment’s hesitation.

They moved in to kiss, but a
voice snapped them from their reverie.

“I was assured those
shackles were unbreakable!”

Rhene and Adabelle both
turned suddenly to face the entry to the ballroom. Standing underneath the
lintel, surrounding by the shadows of another person’s dream, stood Giles
Corbine. The tall, bald man stepped into the ballroom, seeming to bring his own
Dreams with him. The wood of the floor turned to rot, the lacquer peeling, the
gold leafing on the wall curling and the paint flaking. This ruination flowed
out in his wake, waves of breaking and decay.

Rhene stood in front of
Adabelle.

“You’ll have to go through
me to get to her,” Rhene said, throwing up his arms, as their beautiful world
collapsed around them.

“I don’t need to go through
anyone,” Mr. Corbine replied. In one moment, he was at their side, his hands
about both their arms, and another moment later, they were standing in what
appeared to be a bedroom, the bed empty, the sheets pulled back, and a dream
shackle sitting on the mantle, opened.

Without a moment’s indecision,
Rhene shook Mr. Corbine’s hand free and threw a punch at the man. The man
screamed, hands flinging out for something to hold onto as he fell backwards,
striking the bed with a loud smack. He fell still as he lay limp on the floor.

“We have to get Charlotte
and get out of here,” Rhene whispered, running for the door. Adabelle followed
close behind, closing the door behind her.

“Up here,” Adabelle pointed
to a set of stairs. “We’re still in the apartment. Our room’s up here.”

He followed her up the stairs
and into another room, where they found Charlotte still asleep and the rifle
still on the ground. Rhene quickly checked it—yes, the bullets were still
there—and picked it up.

“Charlotte,” Adabelle said,
shaking her sister. “It’s time to get up. We have to go. Come on. Hurry!”

Charlotte stirred sleepily,
somewhat confused. She saw Rhene, though, as she sat up suddenly in the bed.

“Rhene!” she exclaimed.

“We’ve got to hurry,”
Adabelle said. “Put a skirt on, grab your red coat. We’re escaping.”

She nodded. Rhene turned
away while she pulled on a black skirt, and tugged on her favourite red coat,
and then turned back around when Adabelle said it was safe.

“Right,” he said, “let’s
go.”

From the room, they went up
the short hallway towards the stairs. Rhene kept the rifle ready, in case they
needed it.

With light steps and quiet
breathing, they descended the stairs, heading towards the door.

“Stop right there,” Mr.
Corbine said, emerging from the room to their left with swing of the door.

Without thinking, and
without quite knowing what he was doing, Rhene pumped the rifle, turned and
pulled the trigger. Mr. Corbine was thrown off his feet, knocked into the room
once more, the sound from the shotgun like a thunderous snap.

“Oh, God!” Charlotte
screamed.

“I think you just killed
him,” Adabelle said, her voice quavering. There was a moment of silence, and
then she hugged him, tightly.

Rhene ran to the room and
found Mr. Corbine lying on the ground, eyes facing the ceiling. Blood stained
his shirt from a large and bloody hole in his chest.

“We can’t just leave the
body here,” Adabelle said.

“We could hide the body
within the Dream Frequencies,” he said.

“Or perhaps a Dream within a
Dream,” she suggested. And then she stopped herself, handing grabbing for
Rhene’s arm. She gripped it tightly. “Wait.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” she
whispered. “I think…” she glanced at Charlotte. She shook her head and turned
back to Rhene. “Hide the body.”

“We need someone asleep,”
Rhene said.

“Oh, right,” Adabelle
muttered.

Rhene lay down beside the
man, hand gripping the man’s shirt.

“I’ll only be a moment,” he
said.

“Okay,” she nodded.

He closed his eyes, forcing
his thought tendrils out. They grasped at the corpse, wrapping around him like
string around a package. Then, he willed his mind into restfulness, approaching
the Dream Frequencies with sudden assurance. One moment he could feel the
ground below him, and the next he was in the Frequencies, with Mr. Corbine
beside him. He’d never done that before except when going to sleep. He felt an
odd moment of pride at his achievement, and then felt it quashed as the corpse
rolled against him.

Adabelle watched Rhene
disappear, her own words echoing in her mind.

Dream within a Dream,
she thought. She turned to
Charlotte again, whose eyes glistened and hands were shaking.

“What is it?” Charlotte
asked, eyes shimmering with shock.

“What I just said,” she
muttered. “A Dream within a Dream.” She paused, mouthing the words again. “I
think I’ve just cracked your mindlock.”

Rhene imagined the body
burning, and so it did, bursting into flames, brilliant, white and blazing.

From there, he left the
Frequencies, stepping out of his own mind once more. He opened his eyes,
feeling the floor beneath him.

“Rhene,” she said, the
second he was in the room again. “Quick, tell me, do you think it’s possible
for there to be multiple layers to a mindlock?”

“What? As in what your
sister has? I can’t see why not…why?”

“Because I think I’ve just
solved the mindlock. I think we can break the seal. And we need to do it now,
before we face Therron. We need Lady Morphier and Aunt Marie together.”

“But Charlotte has seen both
of them,” he said. “She has sat in front of both of them.”

“And both times I’ve had
headaches,” Charlotte interrupted, stepping into the conversation.

“Oh, God! You’re right!”
Rhene said.

“Well I can get to Lady
Morphier if you can get Aunt Marie,” Adabelle said. “It might be tough, but
we’ll have more luck bringing Aunt Marie to her. Charlotte, once we’re gone, do
you think you could make your way to the Oen’Aerei?”

She nodded. “I can.”

“But there will be the
soldiers there,” Rhene said. “The battle.”

Adabelle glanced out the
window. “We have about an hour till the sun rises. Do you think you can get to
the Halls in time?”

Charlotte nodded again.

“And you can get Aunt Marie
from the hospital, Rhene. If you ask for her at the counter, they will guide
you. Once the nurses are gone, take her. There’s not enough time to risk a
fight. And, Rhene, her mind is addled. I do not know how she will respond to
the Dream world.”

“But she is a Sturding?”

“She is,” Adabelle said.

“I can work with that. I
promise I will get there.”

The pair kissed.

“Let’s go,” Adabelle said,
running for the door, beginning the search for the nearest sleeping mind she
could intrude upon. It was only now Rhene noticed that her hair had grown back.
Apparently she had brought that back from the Dream with her. It made him
smile, watching it shimmer like an inky, iridescent wave as she ran.

It’s time,
thought Rhene as he
followed close behind her, Charlotte racing up the rear.

We have an hour.

PART FIVE

Oblivion

It’s a double mindlock,
thought Adabelle, as she
snapped into the mind of the nearest sleeper she could find with an open
window.
It’s the reason Aunt Marie’s mind is so addled. She holds a metal
key within a mental lock. Her mind is already full…maybe even broken.

She paused, remembering
Larraine’s funeral.

It’s the reason she had that
moment of lucidity when she and Charlotte were together. The key was trying to
free itself, but it couldn’t without the other key from Lady Morphier.

It made so much sense.
Therron had needed two minds that would never meet, unless forced together for
this exact purpose, and who else to trust than two women on opposite sides of
the battle. Two sides of the battle, forced to come together, to unlock a mind.
There was a simple, poetic beauty to it, Adabelle couldn’t deny, and yet it
also made her sick inside. It was the reason Lady Morphier knew so much about
the mindlock; she was part of the lock itself.

Binding two minds together
could cause instability,
she remembered.
But three minds led to…well…Aunt Marie.

She could feel the army
marching through the street, a strange, extrasensory sensation reaching out and
touching the minds of those men and women despite them being awake. She felt pride
in their hearts, and murder in their minds, and she was sure now if she did not
hurry, there would be blood in the streets before midday. The shifting darkness
acted as a constant reminder of the pressure at hand.

The question of what Therron
had locked away eluded her still, though. What would he need to hide within
another’s mind? What aspect of his life was he so ashamed of he had to hide it
within the mind of his daughter.

What part of his life was he
so willing to share with Lady Morphier?
she thought. Aunt Marie would have
been forced to do this mindlock against her will, but Lady Morphier had to have
been in cahoots the whole time.
What did she herself know, too, that she was
willing to let it be sealed away?

In the distant real world,
she heard the clock tower chime the hour. Their time was lessening quickly.
Can
I get into the Halls?

These questions plagued her
mind as she ran through the dreams of those who slept. All the while, she
thought of Rhene, and hoped and prayed that he would find Aunt Marie in time.

Rhene stepped out of the
Frequencies and into a quiet ward of the hospital. Around him, people slept.

He’d left his rifle in the
Dream, now, realising he would not need it any time soon. And even if he did,
he could Dream one up. A man in uniform in a hospital was one thing. A man in
uniform in a hospital with a rifle was a different matter entirely.

He ran to the nearest
counter and asked for Marie, who was Adabelle Blaise’s Aunt—he’d forgotten to
ask Adabelle for a surname.

They seemed to recognise the
name, though, and quickly directed him.

He ran as swiftly as he
could manage up the hallway, arriving at the ward indicated by the staff.

She was awake and sitting up
in her bed when he arrived. As he entered, her expression changed from one of
relative serenity, to concern.

“She sometimes gets like
this,” the nurse said. “She’s quite stable at the moment. Feel free to go in
and talk to her. She’s having one of her more lucid episodes.”

Finally,
he thought, sighing.
A
bit of good luck!

“Hello, Aunt Marie,” Rhene
said, approaching the bed slowly, hands at his side, open palms. He spoke in a
gentle voice. He had nothing to hide, and she needed to know that. “Aunt Marie,
you don’t know me but I’m a very good friend of your nieces, Adabelle and
Charlotte.”

Aunt Marie seemed to quiver
in her bed, distrusting eyes glancing from Rhene, to his hands, to the door and
back to him, all in quick, triangular succession. She let out a soft moan of
worry, and Rhene raised his hands in the hopes of quelling her troubles.

“Shhh,” he whispered, “it’s
all right. I’m not going to hurt you.” He paused, searching for something to
say. “I need to talk to you.”

Marie seemed to calm at
that, the wild fear in her brown eyes waning slightly. He took that as a sign,
and sat a hand on the bed. He did not touch her, but he left his hand on the
blankets.

“It’s about Adabelle and
Charlotte,” he said, speaking softly, as one would speak to a child. “They’re
in trouble and I want to help them. You see, I love Adabelle, and I need to
protect them from their father, Therron.”

At that name, Marie’s entire
body jolted into a kind of rigid palsy, fingers quivering, legs kicking up and
down, her eyes unable to quite stay open.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry,” Rhene said, quickly. He began the shooshing noise again, touching her
shoulders softly. “I can see that name hurts you.”

Aunt Marie sobbed, nodding.
A small collection of tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she
settled.

“Then you understand the
danger they’re in. You see, this thing that’s happened to your mind…the trouble
you’ve gone through is all because he’s put something in here and we have to
get it out.” He pointed at her head. The woman raised her hand, touching the
same spot where he had touched. As he withdrew his finger, it was sticky with
sweat. She was hot with a fever of some kind.

“Now I know he’s done
something bad to your mind, to your dreams. Do you remember how you used to
walk through other people’s minds?”

It took a moment, and it was
tentative, but she eventually nodded.

“Well if we can fix what’s
in there,” he pointed at her head again, “then we might be able to do that
again. We might be able to have you back to normal.” He paused here, slightly
taken aback at how aware and lucid the woman was. Her eyes were so calm now, in
comparison to how they had been when he had first entered. She seemed so
settled, so gentle.

He saw so much of Adabelle
in her aunt in that moment.

“Would you like to be
fixed?”

Aunt Marie licked her lips,
revealing teeth that looked a little broken and rotted in places. The years
spent without much independence had not been kind on this woman.

“Yes,” she replied, her
voice croaking from somewhere deep. Her voice was rich and strong, and he
imagined she might have been a beautiful singer at one point. He wondered
whether Adabelle had inherited any of this musical talent? He’d never
considered asking, really. He imagined her for a moment, singing, her voice
like heaven. Perhaps with an instrument of some kind. Not a piano or a
flute…but a violin. A violin sat quite well in his mental image of her.

“Well we have to go.”

He pulled back the blankets,
fixing up the woman’s nightie so that she had some kind of modesty before she
was carried out. Then, he swept her up in his arms, her body light. Everything
about her seemed so thin and worn. This was a young lady, thrown into old age
by the machinations of some other person. It made him want to see Therron die
all the more, and yet it also made him tremendously sad.

So many people’s lives have
been cut short because of the actions of this one man,
he thought, his stomach
churning with sickness at the thought.
So many lives ruined and broken and…
he thought of Adabelle, …
put on hold because this man had his plans. This is
why we have to stop this. This is why we have to fight till the end.

He only hoped no one else
had to give up their lives before the end. The pulsing fear in his chest
suggested otherwise.

“Excuse me!” yelled one of
the nurses. He hadn’t noticed, but he was already part way down the hall with a
sedate Marie in his arms. The nurses had called out a number of times, but he
had been so lost in his thoughts, he had not noticed.

“Excuse me!” she cried
again. Rhene turned.

“We’re going through the
Dreams,” he whispered to Aunt Marie. She seemed to understand, for he felt the
tendrils of her mind reach out and touch his own. They seemed to weave together
into a tight braid, binding them together before they entered the Dream, so she
would not be left behind.

“You do realise she is a
permanent resident?” asked the nurse. “She can’t just go out without clearance
from the doctor first.”

“Oh, is she?” Rhene asked,
feigning surprise.

“She is!” The nurse stepped
out from behind the desk and began marching towards him. “So I will ask if you
can please return her to her bed immediately before I call the police.”

“The police?” Rhene asked,
taking a few tentative steps towards the nearest room. It was still dark in
there, and the people in there slept soundly. He let his and Marie’s thoughts
reach out towards the nearest mind. They needed to be a few metres closer
before they could enter.

“Yes, the police. Also, if
you wish to take her out, you need a wheel chair. We are living in the modern
age, boy, and there is no need for carrying her about like a babe! Give the
poor woman some dignity.”

“Good point,” he said,
glancing over to one of the wheel chairs inside the room full of sleepers. He
set her down in one, the nurse watching over his shoulder as he lowered her
gently. Rhene and Marie kept their thoughts woven together, though, constantly
reaching for the mind of the nearest sleeper. She must have trusted him, for
her tendrils seemed to grip tighter with every passing moment.

“Now take her to her room,”
said the nurse, pointing with a sharp, angry finger. “Now!” she said sternly
again, as he fumbled with the chair, hoping to make the distance between him
and the sleeper before this banshee of a nurse woke them all.

“I will, I will,” Rhene
mumbled, as he turned her around. “Later.”

And then he ran at the bed,
wheelchair and all, wrapping his and Aunt Marie’s thoughts around the mind of
the sleeper. One moment, it seemed they were going to crash into the corner of
the hospital bed, breaking both wheel chair and Marie in the collision, and
then the next they were in the Frequencies, standing in the field of someone
else’s dreams.

“Right, Aunt Marie,” he
said, pushing the chair onwards. “Let’s hurry. We don’t have long. Hold on
tight.”

Aunt Marie understood,
gripping to the sides of the chair with a  firm grip. Rhene ran as quickly
as he could from dreamer to dreamer, heading towards the Halls of the
Oen’Aerei, and to Adabelle. He could feel her mind already, even from this
distance, sensing the way. Then, he felt Adabelle step out of the Dream.

She’s there,
he thought, as he continued
on.

Charlotte’s heart pounded in
her chest with the force of a thunderous drum, her throat dry from running.
Adrenaline drove her onwards, though, giving her the energy she needed to push
on.

A small part of her was
excited for what was coming, too, though. She would finally dream again! She
would finally know what it is like to see those images when she slept, the ones
that were usually kept from her by the wall of endless shadow.

The question arose suddenly
in her mind: would she be a Dreamer, like her sister? She imagined her mother
and father, both incredibly powerful Dreamers themselves. Sturdings, at that!
Lady Morphier had said Dreaming was something that needed strength and training
to get perfect. It was by sheer skill that her father had been a Sturding from
the very beginning of his life. She might be a Sturding somewhere down the
track, but a mighty part of her told her for the time being she would be a
Dreamer and nothing more. She would not bring objects in and out of the Dream,
she would not walk through it with her sister in physical form. She would just
Dream.

But the part of her that
felt that excitement told her it would be enough for now. You couldn’t miss
what you didn’t have, so she was sure Dreaming would be enough to get by. It
was enough for what she needed to do.

Who knows?
she thought.
Maybe my
Dreaming might come in useful with stopping papa.

Adabelle had told her to
stop calling him father, but a part of Charlotte still knew he deserved to be
acknowledged as their father. He was their flesh and blood, and he needed
Adabelle now like Charlotte needed her. Despite the horrible events, Charlotte
could see the beauty in Therron’s plans, and appreciated his perspective on
things.

For almost two decades, Therron
hadn’t been able to feel the wind on his skin or the sunlight on his face or
see his daughters in any other capacity than in the Dream. Charlotte was sure
he wouldn’t even know what she looked like, given the mindlock.

He has his reasons,
she reminded herself.
He’s
just doing what he has to.

She wouldn’t forgive him for
the murders and for the cruelty and the torture, but she could, at the very
least, call him father. That was what he was, and saying otherwise wouldn’t
change that. That was where she and her sister were different. Adabelle could
be cold and selfish at times, in a way that made her wonderful. All that time
holding the secret of her father’s return from her just to protect her. It was
a beautiful gesture, if occasionally foolish. But Adabelle needed to know, too,
that she wasn’t alone in the world. The world did not revolve around her. There
were others there, to help where they could. Rhene was doing his part, and so
would Charlotte when the time came.