Visioness (37 page)

“What’s he doing?” Adabelle
asked, pointing, eyes widening as she watched both of them enter the house once
more through the Dream connection.

“We have agents sleeping in
our infirmary too who can care for wounds during the battle, to reduce our
losses. So many people on the Dreamless Army will die just from bleeding to
death because of one wound.” She spoke so nonchalantly, so callously. “We’d
rather avoid that where we can help it.”

Sure enough, that Dreamer
returned a few minutes later.

And Adabelle kept watching,
sick with herself for observing the way she was. Lady Morphier poured herself
and Adabelle a cup of tea, and all the while she looked sickeningly calm. But
Adabelle’s mind was wandering about now, wondering where Rhene was. What was
delaying him? And where was Charlotte. She hoped she would find a way into the
Halls without having to face the battle.

She hadn’t seen hide nor
hair of her yet, so it was with a troubling but carefully surveillant gaze she
continued to look out upon the battle before her.

Rhene sliced his arm open as
he raised it in defence, pushing off the wildly angry Matthon. The man stabbed
furiously at Rhene’s face, Rhene not quite sure how he managed to dodge those
blows. The sharp, needle like point hissed loudly as it passed his face.

Marie sat on the fringes of
Rhene’s mind, and in the background, past Matthon’s grunting and swearing, he
could hear her babbling nonsense.

Rhene grabbed Matthon’s arm
as it moved down to strike. Matthon was indeed strong, but Rhene had been
training alongside him. He was stronger than he had once been, both in and out
of the Dream.

He also doesn’t know I’m a
Sturding,
he realised.

“There’s nothing you can do
here that can harm me,” Rhene said.

“Just because you’re only
here in your mind,” Matthon retorted, swiping at him with the spike, the
emerald seeming to shimmer with an inner light, “doesn’t mean I can’t harm your
mind. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be just like her.” He nodded over
to Aunt Marie.

Matthon flailed his arms
about, attempted to release Rhene’s own grasp, but Rhene wasn’t letting go. Not
now, not ever; not while he still had Aunt Marie to protect, and Adabelle to
save. Matthon seemed to alternate between strikes with the orbitoclast and
jabbing with his fists. He punched Rhene in the gut, throwing him to the
ground. There, he straddled Rhene’s stomach. Rhene rolled slightly, avoiding
Matthon’s stab. But he couldn’t unseat him.

He could feel Adabelle’s
mind, so close yet so distant. She was scared, or worried. Either way, it
wasn’t good.

“And once you’re gone,”
Matthon went on, wrestling with Rhene, arms constantly grabbing and blocking,
“and I can get rid of that stupid bitch, Adabelle.”

Rhene’s eyes widened with
surprise. For a moment, he forgot himself, and the orbitoclast came frightfully
close to stabbing him through the eye. He stopped it, mere centimetres away,
letting out a relieved sigh, before pushing his arm back, and then pushing
Matthon himself back. He hadn’t the strength to throw him off, entirely, but it
was enough to give him a chance to find his strength once more.

You can’t kill him,
he thought, mind reeling as
it searched for a way to stop the man.
You can’t kill him in person, at
least.
He paused, hearing Matthon’s own threat.
But you can harm his
mind.

“How dare you call Adabelle
that!” Rhene roared.

Matthon said nothing else.
He rose his hands above his head and thrust downwards, spike aimed for the
centre of Rhene’s now uncovered chest.

I’m sorry, Adabelle,
he thought, pushing the thoughts
in her direction. He raised his hand to block, but it was useless. He felt cold
steel pierce flesh, blood spray. Metal scraped against bones, parted tendons. A
scream ripped from his lips. His own vision faded.
I’m sorry.

The pounding in her head was
almost unbearable. Each beat was a deafening storm in her head, a beat against
the drum, and a wave against a wall. The voice had returned only once,
repeating her name again, and then it was gone as it had been before. The
sounds of that pain played against the gunfire in the distance. Somewhere over
this wall was the battle, and she could find no way to get over. The Hall of
the Oen’Aerei was the goal, she could feel it pulling her towards it, feeling
her mind screaming as she neared her target.

Adabelle must be right,
she thought.
Morphier
must be the key.

She wondered whether Rhene
had gotten Aunt Marie there safely yet. The way her head was pounding suggested
were she not already there, she was close.

The wall was too tall to
climb, though, and from her knowledge all the streets had had the trees removed
in order to ward against intruders. She had, in truth, only one entry. The
front gate.

But that’s where the battle
is,
she
thought. The gunshots were growing louder as she neared that entry, but so was
the pounding in her head. The scent of gunpowder wafting over the river mixed
with the vanilla perfume that came from who-knows-where. Despite her best
attempts to escape that sweet aroma, she couldn’t.

Rhene’s own words echoed in
her mind.

Can’t you be brave?
he had asked, while they
were escaping the fire.

“Can I be brave?” she asked
herself. “For my sister? For Rhene? For me?”

She nodded, biting her lip,
beginning to run despite the fact she wanted nothing more than to lie down till
this headache was gone.

“I can be brave,” she
thought out loud. Then she yelled it. “I can be brave!” She raced up the
street, the river appearing before her, the first visible signs of battle appearing
in the form of gunpowder clouds.  She caught sight of a bridge. She could
cross that to get to the gates.

I will,
she thought, heart racing,
lungs burning as they strained for air.
I have to be.

Blood flooded the streets
like water. The heavens rumbled with thunder, and unleashed a fresh cascade of
cold rain. The battle continued. Rain soaked clothes already-drenched with
blood, cleaned wounds that had long-since bled empty, collected the blood in
crimson puddles. And yet the battle continued, and Adabelle wasn’t sure which
side was winning.

“Where are you, Charlotte?”
Adabelle whispered under her breath. A part of her hoped she was already
somewhere within the Halls. But Lady Morphier would know: Charlotte would have
been caught already.

More importantly, though,
where was Rhene? He should have been here already. If this was to go to plan,
then they had to arrive at around the same time so as to avoid Lady Morphier
having an opportunity to stop the unlocking from occurring. It was the only
way.

And what of Therron? Where
could he be hiding during all of this? Was he taking care of some part of this
battle, and if so, what part? Was he insuring the movements within the
Frequencies were going smoothly? Yes, that must be it. There could be no other
part for him to play.

Lady Morphier rose out of
her chair slightly, standing closer to the window. “What is that…? Is that…?”

Adabelle stood up, too,
approaching the window. Just as she had expected from Morphier’s surprise and
uncertainty, she found Charlotte walking down the street towards the bloody
battle. She looked quite calm, in her red coat and black skirt, her steps
hesitant but constant. She walked forward, always forward, towards the madness
and the gunfire.

“Oh, God,” Adabelle
whispered, suddenly panicky. The battle raged on, yet Charlotte had no way to
get in through the Gates. “Lady Morphier,” Adabelle said, turning, grabbing the
lapel of Morphier’s crimson cloak. “Please, you have to open those gates for my
sister.” She shook the lapel again when Morphier said nothing. She simply stared,
her gaze as blank and unreadable as that of the deer around her neck.

Adabelle glanced down at her
sister. She had never been a very tall girl, always quite young for her age,
though Adabelle had always put that up to her still being yet to hit her growth
spurt. It seemed, in this case, to play to her advantage. She ran as quickly as
she could, ducking and weaving between, all the while managing to not slip on
the blood that pooled about her feet.

“Please!” Adabelle cried,
desperate. The gates weren’t open. Her sister was walking into a dead end.
If
she dies because of me, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself.
“What are
you doing? Why aren’t you saying anything! Do something! This is my sister!”

“No,” Lady Morphier said
coldly, almost triumphantly. “This is it, Adabelle. You know I can’t open the
gate; all the Dreamless will come flooding in. We won’t be able to stop them
fighting inside.
Our
lives will be in danger.”

“But that is my
sister
!”
Adabelle roared. “That, out there, is a girl who did not sign up for any of
this. She needs me, she needs me now! Either you let me go or you open the
gate!”

Lady Morphier’s expression
remained completely impassive. “No,” she said simply.

Adabelle pressed herself to
the window.

“Be safe, Charlotte!” she
yelled. “I’m here! I’m here!”

“She can’t hear you, silly
girl,” Lady Morphier said.

Adabelle shared her
terrified, disbelieving stare between Charlotte and Morphier, and she didn’t
know what part scared her most. The fact her sister was walking through a war
ground, somehow avoiding bullet fire from either side, or that Lady Morphier
seemed quite content to simply drink tea and watch the bloodshed unfold.

That was her sister. Her
sister
,
and Adabelle could only sit back and watch.

“Do something!” Adabelle
demanded again.

“No, I will n—” Lady
Morphier cut off, her eyes wandering elsewhere for a moment. She seemed to be
muttering something. For one, tense moment, Adabelle thought Morphier was on
the cusp of talking. Then, she sighed. “Fine. I will open the gates.”

Adabelle wasn’t sure if she
was more shocked before when Lady Morphier had said she wouldn’t help, or now
when she had suddenly changed her mind.

Therron’s in the
frequencies,
she reminded herself.
He must’ve intervened.
She scoffed at the thought.
Therron wants her protected?

She stared out the window,
and sure enough the gates were opening, the battle spilling through the entry
and into the grounds of the Halls. Nhyxes seemed to avoid Charlotte entirely as
she ran, following the crowd in.

“She will be safe,” Morphier
said, quietly settling back in her chair, her finger toying with the trigger of
the gun. “The Nhyxes won’t harm her if Therron has said so. And if you look
you’ll see the Oen’Aerei are targeting anyone that targets her. Someone will be
waiting at the door to let her in.”

“But how?” Adabelle asked.
“Why? Why would he do that? How have you not moved.”

“The Frequencies have many
secrets,” Lady Morphier replied. “Just trust in that.”

The spike went right through
the middle of Rhene’s hand. Blood dribbled down the spike, collecting on the
tip, then dripped onto his face. His own blood was hot and bright, glistening
like rubies as they fell. It was only by the force of his hand that he had been
able to hold off Matthon’s attack from cutting into his chest. He saw that now
through the foggy haze of pain, shrouding his sight and his thinking.

Adabelle needs you,
he thought. He could feel
her now. She was close, so close, but still so far away. An entire universe
away. Matthon stood between them.

Matthon pressed all his
weight down upon the spike, forcing Rhene to scream as the orbitoclast
penetrated through skin and muscle and bone, deeper and deeper, driving closer
to his chest. Blood poured down the spike, pooling on the dip in his chest,
dying the wool of his coat.

Rhene roared loudly, forcing
all the strength he could muster into his arms. He pushed against Matthon,
fighting the pain that came as the orbitoclast dug deeper. He found the
strength, and he was able to throw Matthon off him. The man fell back, allowing
Rhene to sit up and slide himself out from underneath the man. He stared down
at his hand in horror, at the emerald stained with blood, at the spike he dare
not remove for the pain he would suffer.

“Why are you fighting me?”
Rhene roared. “We were brothers! We fought together.”

Matthon puffed on the ground.
“Because you betrayed us!” he replied. “You told Therron our plans, you fed our
intentions to the enemy, and you show no remorse.”

“You don’t think if I had a
choice I would have kept those secrets?” Rhene asked. “You don’t think that
maybe, just maybe, I would have kept them were it not my life on my line.”

“Not your life. Just your
mind.” He paused, staring at Rhene’s wounds, hearing his ragged breathing.
“You’re a coward. You abandoned your post for some girl, and that makes you a
coward.”

“Coward?” Rhene scoffed in
disbelief. “
Coward?
You call me a coward! You know nothing of bravery,
Matthon. Nothing!” He tugged gently on the orbitoclast in his hand, he winced.
He could not remove it yet. He needed to stay composed, and for the time he
could bear the pain. He looked up to Matthon, staring at him with furrowed
brows and darkened eyes.

“Bravery,” Rhene said, “is
facing uneven odds!”

Charlotte felt so tiny as
she walked through the battle. Her scarlet cloak was stained with crimson from
the blood of those that died around her, from the blood of those that fought as
she ran. Her heart fluttered, her mind reeled with fear, and yet she walk
onwards.

Be brave,
she thought to herself, and
that kept her walking onwards. Towards her sister. Towards her fate.

Be brave.

Matthon rose slowly off the
ground, getting the footing he needed. Rhene had winded him apparently, for he
heaved in and out as he rose.

“
Bravery,
” Rhene went
on, “is accepting the fact that sometimes the choices you make, the life you
have chosen, may be wrong.”

Lady Morphier’s lips
quivered as she sat before Adabelle, cup of tea in her hand, the milky liquid
sloshing over the edge. Her hands were shaking, her eyes darting about
nervously.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered
through tightly pursed lips, not looking at Adabelle, but contrite nonetheless.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you sister…for saying I would not open the gates.”

Adabelle sat in shock,
saying nothing as she turned from Morphier to the window, where her sister was,
indeed, walking through the battlegrounds, protected by the Oen’Aerei, shooting
the Dreamless who targeted the dark girl in the red coat.

Matthon was rearing for
attack, preparing to tackle Rhene. If Matthon could wrestle him to the ground,
he could take the orbitoclast from Rhene’s hand and finish the job.

“
Bravery,
” Rhene
said, feeling his courage well within him. Feeling Adabelle’s own strength beat
in his heart, “is making a difficult choice, when you know the consequences may
be severe.”

Matthon roared. “LIAR!” He
threw himself at Rhene, and Rhene raised his unspiked hand in protection.
Matthon drove forward, carried on the speed and strength of his own legs.

But Matthon was distracted
by the hand Rhene had raised, and had not noticed the orbitoclast now trained
for his heart.

He may not be a Sturding,
Rhene thought,
but that
does not mean his mind is safe.

Rhene pulled the spike from
his hand, grunting. He ignored the pain and the blood, though, holding up the
spike and driving it forward. The spike sliced into Matthon’s chest, spraying
blood against Rhene’s hands. A prickle of pain burst through Rhene’s hand as
the sheer force of Matthon’s weight panged up his arm. Matthon’s body shivered
slightly as Rhene removed the spike. Then, he looked down at his ruined hand, at
a gaping hole of only muscle and sinew and blood. The orbitoclast dripped with
blood, hot and steaming. He wrapped his hand tightly around it, raising it
high, and stabbed it through the man’s eye, aiming for where the brain lay.
More blood, but no screams. Matthon began to babble, and he dropped to the
ground, his body slowly fading.

Sometime in the morning,
somewhere in the street of Odilla, a person would find the body of Matthon,
babbling madly, lost to fits of insanity. Of this Rhene was suddenly sure.

“Bravery,” Rhene whispered,
“is loving someone, when everyone else tells you not to.” He turned to Aunt
Marie, who seemed entirely unperturbed considering what had just happened.

He could not heal that hole
in his hand. The damage was far too great for his skill. But he could imagine a
bandage, so at the very least he could stem the bleeding.

“Right, Aunt Marie,” he
said, grabbing the chair and pushing it onwards. “It’s time to find Adabelle.”

The pair drove deeper into
the Dream, Rhene feeling a mass of shifting Dreamers nearby. He was getting
close to the Oen’Aerei. The closer they got, the more Aunt Marie shifted in her
chair and shuffle, uncertain and unsure. She moaned quietly in her seat,
glancing up at Rhene with frightened eyes.

“Don’t worry, Marie,” Rhene
said, patting her gently on the shoulder. “It’ll all be over soon. You’ll be
free. Your head will stop hurting. I promise you.”

Aunt Marie nodded, her eyes
unblinking and wide with fear. She was shivering now, and sobbing on occasion.

Rhene sniffed the air. He
could smell cologne—Therron’s cologne—mixing with the gentle smell of vanilla. He
knew from where the cologne was coming, but he didn’t know what made that other
scent. He had to move away from that before Therron could intervene. He was
late enough as it was.

He arrived in the mind of a
sleeper, hoping he was within the boundaries of the Oen’Aerei’s walls. He could
feel Adabelle close by, though which direction he was suddenly unsure. There
was so much movement within the Dream Frequencies here, of people coming and
going, of Sturdings shifting each other through, that Rhene’s mind was muddled
by it all.

He found a mind he could
use, and stepped out…

…into an infirmary of some
kind. He was surrounded by beds, of people in crimson cloaks bleeding out into
the whites of the sheets. It was madness and chaos in here, as the wounded were
tended to.

“What are you doing here?”
asked one of the nurses. “You’re not meant to be here!”

Rhene swore under his
breath.
What is it with me and nurses today?

“Can someone take these two
to Lady Morphier,” the nurse yelled, as she worked with a needle and thread to
stitch up a nearby wound. “Have her sort them out.”