Wakeworld (20 page)

A
ll Zee knew of the Cave of Dreams was the little Vivian had told him. Dreamshifters were summoned here on the day they came into their power and were given a dreamsphere by the Guardian of the Cave. Vivian’s voice had softened into near reverence when she spoke of it, and she would say no more than that.

Now, standing on the threshold, he had no idea what to expect. His senses told him that magic had been at work here. No natural forces—water, or fire, or even wind-driven sand—could burnish stone into a mirrored surface like the one on which he stood. But magic or no magic, the only way to reach the Black Gates led through this cave and he was going to have to enter it.

He drew his sword, testing his right arm. The wound was healing but not yet strong enough. The left hand would have to do. In the pocket of his jeans the stone knife of the sorceress weighed heavy. The blade shone in his mind’s eye, lethal and hungry, the color of blood already spilled, but he pushed the thought of it away. The sword he trusted; the knife he did not. He would carry it until he had the opportunity to bury it in the heart of the enchantress, and that would be an end.

Taking a deep breath, he turned and entered. A dim light for which he could find no source allowed him to see that the walls and roof appeared to be formed by natural forces, much like any other cave. Only the floor was polished smooth as glass.

He had walked for several minutes before he felt the cave repelling him, the way one magnet will push another away when the poles are not aligned. He pressed on, becoming aware a few steps later of a faint vibration.

At first he felt it under the soles of his feet, then on the skin of his face, and soon every surface of his body crawled with a low-level trembling. A few more steps and the vibration emerged as sound, an off-key, discordant chiming that scraped through his eardrums and assaulted his brain. A warning.
Go back. You are not welcome here.

At the edges of his vision something moved. He froze, forcing himself to breathe to his own rhythm against the torment of the uneven vibration, trying to see into the dark. Lights flickered ahead—blue, green, violet, crimson—and all of the possible myriad shades between, flashing in time with the unbearable sound. Each burst of light stabbed into his eyeballs like a red-hot needle; the sound tore at his eardrums.

All of it intensified as he pushed on; only a very little more and his cells would burst under the onslaught, splattering his body over the cave as red mist. A sticky wetness tracked from his ears down onto his neck; an exploring hand came away wet with blood.

Still he moved forward, one step at a time. There was nothing to be gained by going back.

Without warning, the cave opened into a high-ceilinged chamber, illuminated by an array of flickering lights, emanating from small round spheres covering the floor. A moment later he realized these objects also created the sound. At the center of the cavern they rose into a great rounded heap. A massive shadow draped over the top of that mountain of spheres.

Tormented by the vibration and the noise, unable to see clearly in the infernally strobing light, Zee tightened his grip on the sword and moved forward one cautious pace at a time. As he shifted his position the shadow came into focus all at once: a huge horned head with blankly staring eyes, black blood pouring from its nostrils. Where the blood struck the spheres a steam went up, hot and acrid, further obscuring his vision.

One less dragon in the world was cause for joy, but it was newly dead, which meant a dangerous predator couldn’t be far away. Wary, he approached the dead creature, taking in as many details as the erratic light, the steam, and the constant onslaught of pain allowed.

As he waded through the spheres the sounds altered as they moved and he gave them closer attention. Dreamspheres, he realized in awe. The entire chamber was full of them. Around the body of the dead dragon they looked different, opaque. Some of them had turned black. Cautious, but curious, he reached out and picked one up between thumb and forefinger. It burned with a freezing cold, disintegrating at his touch into fine black sand. An acrid, bitter smell hung in the air.

Sorcery. He had time to think the word before a shadow warned him of something moving on the far side of the mound. Light as a cat, Zee stepped sideways and back, careful where he placed his feet on the slippery, rolling surface.

Around the curve of the heap of dreamspheres, high above where he stood, a horned head appeared, great green-gold eyes darting this way and that, sometimes spinning, as though following the movement of things he couldn’t see. Zee held his breath, froze his body into stillness, and the eyes passed over him without awareness.

Another dragon, this one alive and on the prowl. It lowered its head, opened wide jaws and shoveled into the mound of dreamspheres. When its mouth was crammed full, it extended its long neck to swallow, and then came in for another mouthful. It shook its head and swayed, as if it were dizzy. Still, it scooped up more of the spheres. Again it swallowed.

Zee’s ready hatred flared. The creature must be responsible for the black and dying dreamspheres, for the imbalance in the cave, for the terrible cacophony of sound and sensation that was tearing his body apart. Most likely it had killed the other dragon.

He waited for the head to lower again and lunged, scrambling up the heap of spheres so he could reach the kill spot just where the jaw met the neck. Time slowed. He felt his body fighting for leverage on the shifting surface beneath him. Saw the soft, unprotected spot that he must strike with the tip of the sword. Felt the stretch and tear of his wounds as he leaped upward.

The dragon blocked him. Almost negligently she twisted her long neck aside so that the sword struck broadside to scales instead of stabbing into the soft flesh beneath her chin. The effect was like striking metal. His arm numbed from the blow and sent him staggering off balance. He slipped on the unstable surface, tumbling head over heels. The sword escaped from his numbed fingers, sliding away in a cascade of spheres.

Dragon jaws snapped at where his head had been; a wind of hot dragon breath tore at his clothing and hair.

The dragon shook its head again, its eyes unfocused and spinning. Once more it reached for him with wide-open jaws, the teeth as long as his arm, razor-sharp. Its breath smelled of molten iron, of copper, of overheated stone. It was hotter than the last blast had been, and when the creature drew back a little, sucking in air like a giant bellows, making a wind that shifted the heap of spheres on which he lay, he knew that he was done for.

The dragon was going to flame. His sword was gone. The cave offered no place to hide, no shelter from dragon fire.

Zee twisted his body upright, his hand reaching for the blade in his pocket. The thing was too small to kill a dragon, unless he could get to the eye, but it was his last and only chance. His right hand closed on the hilt, his left tore at the protecting sheath. His arm drew back as the dragon’s head stretched toward him, smoke curling out of her nostrils.

“Stop, both of you. In the name of all things holy!”

Improbable, impossible, but the dragon paused, mouth open to flame, and turned toward the voice. Zee released the knife. It arced through the air, a lethal, perfectly balanced weapon, hungry for blood. He’d been aiming for the great golden eye, but the target had moved. The blade struck where the right foreleg joined the belly, drove into the flesh, and stuck there, quivering.

Nothing more than a flesh wound, a fly bite to a dragon. Zee slid backward, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the monster, his eyes searching all the while for the glint of his sword blade. If it had been buried beneath the shifting spheres, he would never find it.

Of course, if he was burned to death he wouldn’t need it.

The newcomer lacked the wits to run away. Instead, he strode forward, scrabbling up the spheres toward the monster. The dragon didn’t strike, didn’t flame. It just stood, mouth hanging open, neck extended. Its gigantic sides went concave with each breath and its black tongue stuck out. A strident wheezing sound filled the cave.

The stranger reached up, grabbed the knife with both hands, and tugged it free. “Dragonstone,” he said, and his voice was sharp with fear. He put a hand on the dragon’s neck, looked directly into a golden eye, and commanded, “Change back, at once! Before it kills you!”

The monstrous dragon crumpled and twisted and shrank into the naked white body of a woman, lying limp and still with a bleeding wound in her breast. In the continuously flickering light the red blood gleamed the same color as the blade still gripped in the stranger’s fist.

Zee staggered back as he saw Vivian’s face, her hair, her body. Tears flowed silent from beneath closed lids, but she didn’t move, other than a slow rise and fall of her chest.

“Talk to me,” the man said, kneeling by the body and pressing his hand over the wound. Blood welled up between his fingers and over his hand. “Wake up and tell me what to do. Can you hear me?”

Zee edged closer. He’d seen a glint of steel near where the man was kneeling. His sword. Exultation grew within him. This was not Vivian, but the sorceress, at his mercy. Fate had given her to him after all, led him to use the stone knife when he thought he was fighting an entirely different foe. And now here was her accomplice, distracted and an easy target.

Another foot. Six inches. Slow and easy. There. His left hand curved around the hilt, tightened.

He raised the sword, ready for the death blow, even though his sense of honor clamored against it.
Stab a man in the back, Zee? Unarmed, unwarned?

The man is in league with her.

“Vivian, you can’t die now,” the man said, dropping the knife and pressing both hands to the wound. “Wake up. I know you can hear me.”

Zee checked himself in midswing, overbalanced, and almost fell. His stomach twisted, his heart hammered in his ears. He’d almost murdered an innocent man, somebody who had fallen under the spell. All too easy to do, as he well knew.

Put things right, kill the enchantress, and the man would come back to his senses. He circled around and stood over the unconscious woman on the other side, putting the tip of the sword to her breast.

“What are you doing?” The man’s eyes were keen; his bearded face bore lines of strength and grief and a quick intelligence. He didn’t look like a man under enchantment.

“You think it’s Vivian,” Zee said. “But it’s not. It’s a thing that needs killing.”

Strong words, but still he hesitated. So much blood. Her face was dead white and so very still, except for the slow tears that continued to well from beneath closed lids and flow silently down her cheeks. Zee longed to gather her into his arms and soothe her, to bandage the wounds and heal her, but it wasn’t Vivian, couldn’t be.

He pressed the tip of the sword against her chest and demanded, his voice harsh, “Where is the Key? Tell me, and I’ll ease your death.”

The other man’s hands withdrew and Zee heard the familiar sound of a shell pumped into a shotgun, but he never looked up to see the weapon. Unwilling, disbelieving, his eyes caught the glimmer of scales on a white shoulder, noticed the absence of a carved stone pendant lying over this woman’s heart. And then her eyes opened, wide and golden, bright with tears. Her lips parted to speak, her voice little more than a whisper. “Would you really kill me, Zee?”

His heart contracted in grief and dismay. In the next instant, a heavy weight caught him on the back of the head and he plunged forward into a darkness that was beyond despair.

W
eston’s eyes felt like someone had scrubbed them with sand, leaving a liberal supply behind. His muscles ached from clenching against the chill. The rock he sat on had seemed smooth enough hours ago but had long since begun to dig into his backside. Soon enough the sun would be blazing down and he’d be wishing for the predawn coolness.

Discomfort kept him awake, and watchfulness was in order. Anything that had ever been dreamed in any nightmare since the dawn of time could show up in the Between. And what emerged from the mouth of the cave could be even worse. His shotgun lay across his knees, loaded and ready, for all the good it would do.

His prisoner was still unconscious, propped up against the exterior wall of the cave with his hands bound tightly in front of him, but Weston didn’t trust him for a second. He would have killed the bastard, given him a face full of lead at point-blank range, if Vivian hadn’t spoken his name at that last moment. Zee. Obviously not the man she’d believed him to be, but Weston wasn’t going to kill him without her permission. Unless he had a damned good reason.

He was praying for a reason.

The raven stood on the stone only a foot or two away, head cocked to one side, eyeing him. It croaked once, gravely, and flew off to a farther distance. How the bird had managed to follow him he’d never know. It certainly hadn’t been with him under water, able to swim through the door. But there it was in the Dreamworld, waiting, when he came out the other side.

As for the penguin, it stood at Vivian’s feet, black eyes never leaving her face for an instant. Weston watched her just as closely; it was all he could do other than apply pressure to stop the bleeding and make her as comfortable as possible. He’d wrapped her in a blanket, elevated her feet to counteract the effects of shock, made a pillow out of his own warm flannel shirt. He’d have given her the T-shirt too, if he’d have thought it would make any difference to her comfort.

Her skin looked bloodless, her forehead furrowed with pain, her breathing too rapid, too shallow. When he put his ear to her heart, it fluttered like bird wings, quick and light. At least she wasn’t bleeding anymore, but that didn’t ease his worry much. He’d heard of dragonstone—that was one tale he had listened to when his father told it, mostly because it also involved the legend of the dragon slayers, and an adventurous hero had appealed to him. But what effect the stone would have on Vivian in human form he couldn’t begin to guess.

The prisoner stirred, a low groan escaping him before he was awake enough to contain himself. Weston watched him shift his position, sitting up straighter with his back against the stone, shivering a little, trying to rotate and ease the muscles in shoulders pulled tight by the bonds. Weston had stripped him out of his T-shirt after he knocked him out just to see if there were any fatal hidden wounds. There hadn’t been. But his torso was a mass of bruises, his right arm bloody from a laceration running from shoulder to elbow. Another wound marked a line down his ribs.

Injured, bound, and weaponless, he still had a dangerous look about him. Weston didn’t trust him for a minute. He cradled the shotgun, hoping for an opportunity to use it.

“No need for that,” the man said, his voice rough with thirst and pain. “Not going anywhere.”

“Can’t see as I put much stock in your word. Zee, is it?”

A nod of assent, that was all. Not much of a talker, this one. “Vivian worried about you. All-fired set on your rescue. And when you find her, you try to kill her. What sort of man does that?”

“I thought . . .” Zee stopped, his face closing like a shutter, unreadable and self-contained. In a moment he said only, “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough.” Weston didn’t know the answer, not yet.

Vivian’s eyes opened, as though she had been roused by the sound of their voices. Her hands reached out, grasping at something invisible to Weston, and she murmured words that sounded like, “I’m coming,” but he couldn’t be sure. “Hurts,” she added. Her lips were dry and cracked. He tried to give her a sip of water, but she turned her head away and it only dribbled across her face.

Weston pulled the blanket and his makeshift bandage away to check the wound and gasped with dismay. The flesh of her chest wall, from collarbone to breast, had risen in a tight, irregular swelling. The edges gaped, although there was no more bleeding. To a gentle touch, the whole area felt rock hard, as though the flesh beneath the skin had turned to stone.

“Dear God, what is that?”

Startled, Weston looked up to see Zee, made awkward by the bound hands, kneeling on the other side of Vivian’s unconscious form.

Weston reached behind him for the shotgun. At such close range there was little need to aim.

“The knife,” Zee said. “You called it dragonstone. Would it do this?”

Weston’s hands tightened on the gun, his trigger finger itching. “Don’t try to play stupid. If you were carrying it, you know what it’s for.”

“I found it. What will it do to her?” Agate eyes stared into his with all the intensity of a hunting cat. “Tell me!”

Weston found himself answering, compelled by the need behind the demand. “I don’t rightly know. It is said the stuff will kill a dragon, no matter how slight the wound. No way to stop the bleeding. Whether it will kill her in human form, I don’t know. Whatever this is, she’s not bleeding.”

The raven fluttered down and landed on his shoulder, poking an intrusive beak into his beard. Weston shoved it away. “Shoo, would you?” The bird edged sideways a little but stayed firmly rooted to his shoulder.

Vivian shifted restlessly. One of her hands clawed at her chest and he held it back with one of his, the other never leaving the gun.

He looked up at Zee, whose eyes didn’t budge from their focus on Vivian. “Get back where I put you.”

“Can’t. Look—you have to do something.”

As Weston watched, horrified, the swollen flesh shifted on its own, the lumps moving as though alive. The wound stretched and gaped as something blood-colored and shining tried to push its way out. Weston touched it with a shaking hand and found it smooth and hard as polished stone.

“Whatever that thing is, you have to get it out.” Zee’s voice betrayed him in that moment, stretched to breaking with guilt and grief.

Weston applied pressure, ever so gently, to the skin on either side of the stone, watching the flesh tear and stretch to make room. A gush of blood stained her white skin. Vivian cried out, both of her hands grasping at his wrists, but he steeled himself to go on. Little by little he eased the stone free. She sighed and went limp.

“Vivian,” Zee said, his voice sharp with alarm.

“She’s just resting more easy.” It was true. Her hair was damp with sweat and her lip was bleeding where she’d bitten it, but her breathing was more regular and her face looked almost peaceful.

Weston held the thing up to the light—as big as Vivian’s fist, red as heart’s blood and strangely beautiful.

“What the hell is it?”

“Feels like stone. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He turned back to Vivian. She was still breathing, slow and even, no longer muttering. He put his hand to the area around the wound and pressed gently at a smaller lump, manipulating it into the opening and out. Another stone, smaller. One by one he expressed more of the stones, easing them out until the flesh felt soft and there were no more swellings.

“Will she live?” Zee’s voice sounded like broken glass.

“Time will tell. But she’s better.”

Already her face had gained a touch of color. When he put his ear down to her heart, it had slowed and steadied to a more even rhythm. Weston gathered up the handful of strange stones. They chimed as they shifted against each other, with a clear crystalline tone for all the world like dreamspheres. In all of his memories there was nothing to prepare him for this, nothing that even hinted at what they might be.

“When I found her in the cave, she was a dragon,” Zee said. “The other dragon was dead, I still don’t know how. Maybe they fought, and she killed it. The dreamspheres—the noise was mind-bending. I saw that they were dying. And she was—she was—eating them. Swallowing them. And then I saw—I thought I saw . . .” He broke off there and wouldn’t say more.

Weston was wrung with a reluctant pity. Set adrift in such a maelstrom he could see how the mind would go astray, how a person might mistakenly turn on a loved one. And he had reason to believe that the man had seen more in the cave than he was going to be willing to mention.

Weston shook himself, jolted back out of the memory and into a now he wanted to escape. Zee was looking at him, apparently expecting an answer for some question asked and not heard. He jumped back to the last thing he remembered and assumed the topic hadn’t wildly strayed.

“I remember a childhood tale about the Guardian . . . she is the dragon who guards the Cave of Dreams. There was danger once to the dreamspheres; some sort of blight had come upon them and they were beginning to die. The Guardian consumed as many as she could hold, preserving them . . .”

“If the dreamspheres were to die, what then?”

“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps dreamers would die with them.”

Zee caught the hint of something left unspoken. “And sometimes?”

“I don’t wish to speak of it, not here. So close.”

The other man’s eyes appraised him, warrior’s eyes, reading both the warning and the fear. “What—who—do you think killed the Guardian, then?”

Weston shrugged. “I suspect it was whoever took Vivian’s pendant and set up the trap for the two of you.”

“The sorceress?”

“Looks like it.”
Oh, Gracie. What have you done?

“We’re not safe here, if that’s true. She’s not safe.”

This was true, and not just because of the sorceress. And a shotgun wasn’t going to be of much use against anything that would come against them. But Weston also didn’t think Vivian should be moved.

“That’s not your concern,” he said to Zee. “Get back over there and sit, would you? She’ll be mad if I shoot you, but I can live with that.” Maybe. Unless she turned into a dragon again. Hell and damnation, he was in way over his head. He thought back to the flaming house with longing. A moment of pain, and then nothing. No responsibility, no guilt, no worry.

The man named Zee hesitated. “I know you don’t have to tell me anything,” he said. “But it would ease me to know who you are—what sort of hands she is in.”

Weston wasn’t entirely sure why he answered; something in the eyes, the tone of voice. “Name’s Weston. I’m a Dreamshifter, but not a good one.”

“George told her she was the last—”

“Yes, well. Never say I didn’t try to make it so.”

“So you know what to do then—how to get to the Black Gates. As soon as she’s well enough to travel, anyway.”

“Haven’t a clue. There was a book with a map, but it’s missing.”

“I have the map.”

Weston was on his feet, shotgun ready to fire, before the words were fairly out of the other man’s mouth. “So you’re in cahoots with her then, the one who stole the pendant and the book. Where is she? And give me the map.”

“Whoa, easy. Vivian’s mother drew it for me. In Surmise. It’s in my head.”

A few steadying breaths, and Weston lowered the gun. Just because he hadn’t pulled the trigger when he should have so many years ago, didn’t give him the right to get trigger-happy now.

“So which way do we have to go?”

Zee nodded toward the cave. “Through there.”

Weston looked at the mouth of the cave and thought about what lay within. His stomach churned; his mouth went dry. He shook his head. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“Well, then, I think we have a problem.”