A new world more vivid and alive than any she had ever known burgeoned around Drew, but she no longer saw the curiously alert trees with watchful faces hidden in the whorls and gnarls of their trunks. Nor could she still hear the electric thrum that raced overhead as if messages were whizzing back and forth just out of range of her comprehension. She had stopped feeling the ground beneath her as it attentively cushioned her feet and briskly bounced back to lend a spring to each step she took, had stopped smelling the hint of spice that hung so heavy and intoxicating in the air that breathing left a sweet taste on her tongue. None of these things existed for her anymore; now nothing existed except a bloody corpse cast aside in a graveyard of lost grass and earth and trees.
The old man who had helped her, the one Gyfree had called Father and both Mischa and Timi had addressed as Sir, the one all three of her companions had referred to as the Keeper: that old man was dead only because of her intrusion into his land. When she had wrenched Gyfree to his feet, she had somehow seen everything he had seen, and ever since she had been unable to see anything else. She recognized the beasts who had ravaged the Keeper; she even knew the burn of those fangs ripping through flesh, and she knew without a doubt that she had brought devastation to this world. She had brought pain and death to the Keeper, and carnage to the land. She had finally found her dreamworld, and then had tainted it with a nightmare.
The air hummed soothingly in her ears and the trees breathed sighs of comfort, faces in the bark gentle and reassuring. Even the ground reached up to massage her feet and caress her ankles with consoling fingers of grass, but Drew remained oblivious to every sight and sound and sensation that lived outside the confines of her mind. Her inner vision burned with blood; apart yet immersed she watched intently as the dark and viscous crimson blaze rose from the forest floor, long sticky tongues licking the trunks of trees with an all-consuming hunger, heat rising with the bloody flames to scorch her eyebrows and lashes, sickly smoke mounting to blister the lining of her nose. The ghostly forest dropped away as she was consumed in flame, baptized by blood and fire so that she might hope for a different life, a life that beckoned to her now if she would only continue wading through the bloody blaze.
With the same will she used to evade the beasts who haunted her dreams, the will she sometimes even wielded to change the course of unpleasant dreams, she now plunged through her mind, throwing her entire being into the nightmare of fiery death. Grimly she plowed across white-hot coals as the raging flames peeled away her old layers of self, until she was nothing but a skeleton drifting through this infernal world in search of skin. Somewhere ahead that promise of skin, of a new identity to wrap around and heal her, beckoned with increasing intensity, and without pause she obeyed. Stepping through the flames toward the insistent call, she found herself on the verge of a vast desert, heat rippling in waves across an endless stretch of burning white sand. Overhead a sun that dominated over half of the sky swamped the sand and its lone visitor with light so intense that everything here, including the small ridge of sky outlining the sun, was bleached the same blinding white. Drew didn't hesitate as she lunged forward into the shimmering light of this desert, the sand shifting and sliding beneath her feet.
The heat of the fire she had passed through was nothing compared to the heat that blasted into her here. The coals she had earlier braved were no more than warm kisses on the soles of her feet; now jaws with teeth of gnawing flame clamped down around her ankles so that every step was like stumbling directly into the mouth of hell itself. Away from the fire her old skin had reappeared, only to burst into thousands of blisters that popped and then shriveled in the blink of an eye, until her skin was once more peeling away, this time leaving her deeper self raw and exposed to the bleaching sun. The glare of this place paralyzed her eyes, and after the first few steps she could see nothing, but it made little difference in this inferno where there was nothing to see except endless sand and even more endless sun. Onward she staggered, the treacherous sand pulling and gnashing at her feet until she toppled to her hands and knees and started crawling, her entire body now crunched by the mouth of hell. Breathing had become an effort, each gulp of air turning her lungs into a furnace that sent not oxygen, but more heat to course through her body and scorch her veins. She tried to swallow, to find moisture to temper her flaming tongue, but her mouth was as dry as the desert. Water was only a distant dream, faint and tenuous, and she knew she could survive without it for she already had, and after all, in life you survived only if you didn't cling to foolish dreams that bore no relation to reality. For her reality was this consuming heat, this creeping progress through merciless sand, and the voice that promised to heal the deeper pain that even the heat couldn't touch. Time had no place in this reality. Each moment contained all moments, equally full of pain and promise, so her hands and feet channeled through the sand in one eternal moment that no longer had either a beginning or an end.
Then something cool, or at least less hot than the heat, touched her tattered face, and time regained its footing in this timeless place. Her hands and then her knees and finally her legs and feet broke free from the grip of the sand, and something that felt suspiciously like mud gently sucked the heat from what was once more skin. Shafts of brown and blue flitted across the field of white that still filled her vision and she blinked, sudden tears welling in the corners and spilling out to wash away the film of grit that rimmed her eyes. She blinked again, and through her tears saw the clouded image of a stream with muddy banks take shape. The memory of water as more than a distant dream returned and she clambered on her hands and knees to the water's edge, lowering her still hot face into cool shallows and gingerly taking a few precious sips. As she lifted her head, a loud buzz sounded in one ear, and she turned her swimming eyes to find the largest bee she had ever seen as it hovered bare inches from her face, its wings a blur of heart-racing motion that reminded her forcibly of a hummingbird. Its fuzzy striped body ended with a barbed stinger longer than her longest finger, and its head boasted what could only be described as an equally long beak. It buzzed again over the whirring sound of its wings, then circling her head once, darted off through the trees lining the bank of the stream. She watched in bemusement as it disappeared through branches heavy with a rainbow of blossoms, and then she turned back toward the welcome coolness of the stream. Yet as she turned her head something flickered in the corner of her eye, and instead of lowering her face back into the water, she swivelled around to face whatever was there.
Stretched across the nearby forest and even across the tinkling stream was a shimmering white wall, and as she reached out a shaking hand, she could feel the unbearable heat radiating from what appeared to be its impenetrable surface. She swallowed a sudden lump of fire in her throat, feeling it burn a path to her stomach and down into her gut. A barrier. She had come through a barrier. Another barrier.
Memory slammed into her with a force that sent her reeling onto her back. Everything was there again, and as disastrously clear as ever. The first dream that somehow was not a dream, and had unexpectedly sent her catapulting through the sky to another world. Gyfree's world, the world she had been absorbing with delight until she had caused the Keeper's death. The blood and fire she had summoned and succumbed to. The call that had promised new life out of death, a promise that she could rise from the ashes that she had herself created. The searing heat of the desert. The endless trek. The loss and now the return of memory.
Dreams within dreams. It had happened again. She had vaulted from one dream to another, and then another. Chased by her own nightmares from dream to dream. And this time there might not even be a way to get back.
For as long as he recalled he had been here, and for just as long he had known that he was simply waiting to leave for the place he truly belonged, wherever that place might be. It was pleasant enough here, he supposed, but it was strangely empty. It wasn't that he was lonely, or at least not exactly, for he had the hummeybees to keep him company. It was just that everything here felt indistinct and remote, as if he was watching his own life unfold from a distance and that everything he witnessed occurred underwater. Somewhere else it all might seem colorful and sharp, but for him it was muted and smudged.
Daily he walked to the shimmering wall that held him here and stretched a hand toward its blistering surface, but he was always careful not to step too close. Once when he had felt a particularly strong need to feel something that was real and intense, he had stepped to within a foot of the wall, but the flash of pain had been transitory and unsatisfying. The most intense things derived from the experience were a persistent itch that lasted weeks as his blisters healed, and the gritty film that covered his eyes for almost a month, fogging his vision even more than it was usually fogged. Undergoing that one pure second of sensation had definitely not been worth the lengthy period of irritation that followed, yet despite the flat flavor of anticlimax he always tasted thereafter, he still went every day and stood cautiously away from the wall, his arm extended in front of his body so that his hand might safely bathe in the vaguely rippling current of heat. He went not for this meager sensation, for his life was pieced together by so many meager sensations that the loss of one meant nothing. He went because he felt compelled to go, because some obscure fascination returned him daily to the one thing in his world that existed with an intensity he could recognize but not share. He didn't know how, but he knew that the wall was the one thing in his world that meant something, the only thing that could ever make a difference. And he knew that someday someone would come through that wall, however inconceivable such an event might be, and that he would then be delivered to the place where his real life, a life rich with sensations, would begin. There was even a face connected with this dream of freedom, a pale face with light eyes and wispy hair, and a smile as distant as a star. When that face found him, he would find life. Until then he would float here on the surface of being and watch the muted colors and shapes swimming by far below, and with each breath he would call into the depths so that face could find him and bring him everything he needed.
Hands heedlessly busy knotting and unknotting a length of vine he had found in the forest, he sat on a rock in the sun and let his mind drift aimlessly through the trees as his eyes inched shut. Spread out below his mind's eye were blossoming trees and buzzing hummeybees, a carelessly brushed watercolor with pastel hues blending into muddy hues. Weaving through this hazy canvas was the smeared thread of the stream, its banks bleeding into the surrounding landscape so that its boundaries remained indistinct. And there, cutting trees in half and cleaving through the stream so that water seemed to flow from its hard face, was the sharply focused line of the wall.
A flutter of movement near the intersection of stream and wall created a sudden blot in the lower corner of the picture, but before he could filter through the other layers of washed out colors to identify the blot, a loud buzz reverberated in his ear. "There'z zomeone at the ztream."
The pigments of his vision swirled together into a random blotch of grays and browns as he blinked his eyes open. As always he tried but failed to focus on the hummeybee's pulsating wings. "The stream?" he echoed blankly. "Someone at the stream?"
"Like you," the hummeybee replied, "but zmaller and zofter. Body not zo flat and hard."
"Someone at the stream?" he repeated.
"Yez," the hummeybee droned excitedly, darting around his head so swiftly that his eyes could not follow. "Come zee, come zee."
Rising reflexively to his feet he turned in the direction of the mysterious blot that still lingered as a dingy smear in the corner of his mind. The hummeybee streaked eagerly ahead, spiraling in circles before zipping back to orbit him, then speeding away again. Ignoring the antics of the hummeybee, he plodded slowly ahead with steps so halting that he knew he could shut his eyes and see himself from afar as just another splotch of color melted into the other browns and grays. Yet when he did close his eyes all he could see was the wistful and pale face with its wisps of silvery white hair.
"Juzt ahead, juzt ahead," whirred the hummeybee, its wingbeats emphasizing each word.
His eyes slid open and shifted forward, but his feet faltered and he knew he could move no farther, so he just stood still, waiting as he always had waited, waiting because that was all he knew how to do.
Ahead there was a faint rustle, and the sucking sound of something pulling free from mud. Then footsteps, the first footsteps he had ever heard beside his own, the sound sharp and musical to his ears. He held his breath, afraid to miss a single note, and even over the steady drone of the hummeybee he could hear the footsteps grow louder and closer and ever more distinct. From around a bend in the path a face suddenly appeared, but it was not the face of his vision. This one was darker, smoky hair glinting with a profusion of color, skin flushed and eyes gleaming with a green more green than the surrounding trees. She stopped and stared at him as he stood staring back, and it crossed his mind that she seemed to be waiting, just as he was waiting. Neither spoke, but both raised their eyes to the nearby wall looming high overhead when a surge of heat washed over them and the white expanse began to pulsate and shiver.
They would have floundered forever through the clearing, or have turned to rend each other to shreds in their hunger and frustration, but their task was farther from fulfillment than before and their master had once again stretched his razored claws across the abyss to not only intervene, but to also punish their latest failure. He had seized them in his invisible yet massive hand, stabbing his venomous talons into their flesh, slicing through leathery skin and muscle until his claws clacked against bone. For a time that seemingly spanned the entire length of existence, he did nothing else but hold them there, the poison in his touch seeping like acid through their quivering forms, atrophying their muscles, dissolving their bones, melting their minds until they were once more reduced to malleable clay. Once again they were his to recreate however he chose. Retracting his claws the merest fraction, he brought them back from the depths of agony, steeling their bodies, sharpening their deadliness, hardening their resolve. Yet even as he reshaped them, he restored the core of their memories and identities just as he always did, not from any fondness or compassion, but because if they were nothing but extensions of him, they would most likely be doomed to fail. As tools they had been and would always be flawed, as all tools were inevitably flawed, but he still believed that they would be the most effective and deadly as themselves, for only if they stayed predominantly themselves could there be any chance that his Dreamer would remain oblivious to the identity of her real enemy, at least until their claws were tearing through her throat, and it was too late for her to do anything other than recognize that it was actually his fiery touch bringing death.
Loosening his grip on them, he turned his minions to face the path that the Dreamer had traveled when she had left the clearing, for although she continued even now to bar him from her presence, he could see her just as he could always see her, and since he had finally gained his bearings in this new world, he could at last place her precise location. He had felt her enter this world, felt her just as he always felt her, but until now his feelings had been confused by the Barrier, and he had been frustrated in his attempts to integrate sight and sensation. He could see her; he could feel her, but he could not feel the direction he could see her take. Yet he was too powerful to be limited for long; it had taken time to adjust, but at last he could not only see her clearly in the center of his private screen, he could also feel her with the same intensity he had known standing that first night at the foot of her bed, could again see and feel her as if she lay directly before him, so close he could follow every movement she made. And now that he could both see and feel where she was, he could herd his minions in the right direction and bring them near enough to their goal that their tracking skills could again be employed. Since she had long ago surrendered her memory and her power over them, and even now did not know or understand what pursued her, they could still follow where he could not.
So he drove them down the path, bypassing the point where the fledgling Sentries had turned aside to circle back, but just as Hund's snout trembled and nostrils flared to life, the Dreamer's presence in this world suddenly vanished. Only a second before she had been there, a short distance ahead, lost in one of her waking dreams, and then she had not been there at all. Yet he hadn't lost her completely, for even now he could see her stumbling blindly, could feel her as she staggered and then crawled through a nightmare between worlds, a nightmare filled with infinite desolation and what should have been unbearable pain. She should not have been able to move through such a fierce and fiery nightmare, but she was moving, and moving steadily, through an agony that made his searing touch seem like a lover's gentle caress. With the full weight of the nightmare bearing down on her, she continued to creep forward until at last he could see her break through a burning barrier and plunge into the cool pocket of a small, isolated world.
The hand he had started to withdraw from his minions again tightened its hold, this time hauling them back to the void where he watched and waited. Brought into the trap of his actual presence, the minions groveled and whined, pressing their faces into the still-fresh bloodstains at his feet. His lips split open as a razor-sharp smile sliced his face apart, and if they had seen this edged smile, new blood would have spurted from their eyes and noses and mouths. They were spared because they cowered, and watching them wallow in the blood and tears they had previously shed, he felt himself swell as he had many times before, swell with unbridled pleasure, swell to immensity, the void swelling around him to contain his expanding magnitude. Then he contracted into himself again, still immense, but not so immense that he made demands on the void's unceasing capacity to adapt.
Many waking worlds believed the void was just an empty place, devoid of substance and life, but it wasn't a vacuum; it was infinite space filled with unending potential, space so infinite that it could hold him however immense he became, potential so unending that even a Figment with an inescapable face could dream. Floating free from the worlds of waking and dreaming, the void thrived in an in-between place that bordered both but was limited by neither. And although it was vast, comprised of thousands, perhaps even millions, of separate pockets, none of the places in the void were truly separate from one another. All places in the void existed together, folding in upon each other in an infinite number of layers. These layers of supposed emptiness that he and countless other Figments inhabited were not all that different from the world of dreams, which might be why he and the others were so comfortable here. The void was in many ways a mirror of the dreamworld, a place of infinite possibilities where nightmares were the reality, a place where Figments were as real as the nightmares they had been born to inhabit. And just as all places in the void were folded together, all dreams and nightmares in the dreamworld also existed as one, eternally there whenever a Dreamer chose to pay a visit. These dreams were also folded in layers, dream within dream within dream into infinity, and it was easier than waking for a true Dreamer to slip from one of these dreamworlds to another and on until the end. Yet for both the realms of dream and void there was really no end to the layers, and even if there had been, the last would have simply folded over onto the first and back into every previous layer, so that slipping into one was almost like slipping into them all. Only the lack of vision could erect nonexistent walls.
So Dreamers could travel dream to dream, visualizing each destination whether or not they realized it, and Figments could travel from one pocket in the void to another as long as they too could picture their destination. It was in fact easy to travel anywhere from the void, whether it was a waking world or dream world or just another space in the void; in the realm of infinite possibilities, all the traveler had to do was envision a destination, although only the strongest Figments had the substance to fully enter a waking world, and to therefore stay. And it was almost as easy for Figments and Dreamers both to travel anywhere from a dream, although few Dreamers had the strength to carry themselves fully into the dreamworld, and thus beyond into the void or a waking world other than their own. The only thing that was impossible, impossible for even the most powerful Dreamers and Figments, was moving directly from one waking world to another; jumping from world to world, in fact, was possible only by way of a dream or the void. That was why he had brought his minions here. The dream path his Dreamer had taken to the nightmare was too difficult and elusive for them to envision and follow on their own, and he was too impatient to usher them through it. And even he could not speed them directly to their goal, carrying them straight from one world to another. From here, though, he could send his hunters directly after his prey, right through the nightmare to the tiny quiet space where his Dreamer now stood. It would be just as easy as delivering them to the nightmare itself, and far more efficient. When he had pulled them back, that had been his intention, but as they groveled at his feet, he knew he could not take so simple a course. If he sent them straight to his Dreamer, he would spare them the pain she had suffered, but that was not his way; it was not in his nature to ever show mercy, however inadvertently, not even if his own best interests were served by foregoing one act of cruelty.
Closing his minions once more in his grasp, he hurled them directly toward the blazing sand and dropped them beneath the immense and merciless sun. But he did not leave them there. He watched from the safety of the void as their skin shriveled and split apart, then his unseen but ruthless hand goaded them forward with quick jabs from his claws, stabbing and slashing whenever they faltered. Across the vast desert he never relented, driving them through sand as hot as his hidden core, beneath a sun as blinding as death. They had known agony before, known agony so many times that its embrace was as warm and comforting as a friend's, although neither had ever known what warmth or comfort or even a friend might be. They had known agony that removed them from themselves, that left them hovering somewhere in the air their master breathed, that left them dangling above their mangled bodies as if the bloody wrecks they saw belonged to their own hapless victims, for there was a limit to the scope of pain even they could know and still know themselves. They had known agony that burned, that blazed through skin and muscle and bone and kept burning until the old self was ashes, and then burned even more as the ashes were fused into a new skeleton, new muscles, new skin, a new self. They had known agony, were familiar with all its tricks and ways, but they had never known agony like this. And this time there was no escape, no cessation, no release; they were bound to their bodies, bound to the agony, bound because they couldn't lie still in their master's hands or sprawl senseless at his feet, bound because they had to keep moving, bound because he wouldn't let them stop, wouldn't let them drift away, wouldn't let them die.
On and on the agony drove them, for agony and their master had always been one, and were more so now than ever. And whenever they thought that agony had driven them as far as they could go, that there was nothing else the agony could do that it hadn't done before, that succumbing to the fierce sand and sun would be a relief, then the agony reawakened whatever had numbed, reattaching severed nerves solely to unravel them once more, fiber by ragged fiber. Now they knew agony that would not end, yet would never grow familiar, and for the first time since they had been born from the mind of their Dreamer, they knew not just pain; they knew boundless fear, a fear that overwhelmed them because their suffering was no longer limited to the cruelties of their master. With the birth of this all-encompassing fear they scurried without prodding, trying to jettison their drumming hearts and the choking lumps in their throats, thinking to leave these unwanted things behind as sacrifices on the altar of panic. Now at long last their master withdrew to his fold of the void, gnawing on his own lips until the blood gushed down his throat, gulping the salty flow so he wouldn't howl his need and hunger as he watched his minions finally dive through the shimmering expanse of the barrier that divided them and him from the Dreamer.
Gyfree stomped ahead as if he could release all his sorrow through the soles of his feet and trample it into the ground, but even though he knew the ground would gladly accept any burden he asked, he could not let loose of his pain. He carried it in the back of his throat in a bitter lump he could not swallow, in his chest where his heart and lungs had solidified to stone, in his arms so heavy that his fingers dangled like lead weights at his sides; he carried it everywhere except his legs, for all the pain there emptied into his feet so that he could haul his burdens forward. The only real father he had known was dead, and he was filled with grief, but the weight of what he had lost was nothing compared to the weight of all he had gained. For the land, with its miles-deep layers of soil and rock, and all the life clinging to its rich surface, was a heavy load to carry, and the added bulk of its sorrow and pain and fear made it heavier still. If the land had laid quiet, as it usually did, he could have borne the weight its presence added to his own sorrow, but the land was no more at peace than its new Keeper. The land mourned as he mourned, but it also bucked and writhed in a way only he could feel, like a giant frantically trying to shake loose the small yet vicious creatures climbing with jagged claws up its mountainous spine. And now he could feel those deadly claws as if they ripped through his own spine, and the scourge of their passage across the land was an open wound spreading over his skin. It was almost too much to bear, though bear it he must, and this necessity also weighed him down.
His thoughts were too cumbersome, too entangled with the land, for him to notice anything outside himself. He didn't notice the troubled frown that creased Mischa's usually smooth forehead or the consternation that shaded her habitually sunny eyes. He didn't notice the sudden and uncharacteristic intensity in Timi's face as she studied the Dreamer. Most importantly, he didn't notice the distance in Drew's eyes or the silence that enfolded her like an impenetrable shield as tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. He did notice, however, when she suddenly winked out of existence, for he felt her loss even before Timi had time to scream.
"She's gone!" wailed Timi. "I could see it happen. I could see in her eyes that she was dreaming." Tears now streaked her pale cheeks, blurring the angles and lines of her face until she seemed, if possible, even less distinct than before. "She was still with us, still walking, but with each step she seemed to grow more distant. She didn't shrink or dissipate like some Dreamers do before they leave. She somehow just seemed farther and farther away. And then she was gone."
Mischa's frown deepened, but she shrugged her shoulders with her usual light playfulness. "Well, if she's gone, our job is done. I guess she was just a particularly lucid Dreamer after all."
"She didn't return to her own world," Gyfree announced, and the trees around the three shivered.
"Then where is she?" demanded Mischa.
"She's not anywhere in this world, for I can feel no sense of her presence from the land."
"Your unprecedented promotion to Keeper hasn't destroyed your other skills, has it?" Mischa grilled sharply.
Gyfree didn't answer, but he knew Mischa didn't expect him to. She knew what he was and knew what he could do, and he finally recognized that it troubled her now as it never had before. He even agreed that she might have good reason to be troubled. She was right that his selection as Keeper was disquieting, and certain to cause an upheaval in this quiet world. She was also right in assuming, as she clearly did, that his previous skills were completely unchanged. Becoming Keeper could add to his powers, but it couldn't alter who he was. The growing distance in his eyes would quickly confirm the suspicion in hers.
Still facing her across the trail, he mentally stepped away to test the current of the dreamworld, the sensation of Drew vivid in his mind. It took only a fraction of a moment to locate her trace. As clearly as he could feel the land still beneath his feet, he could feel the path she had taken away from him, a dream path that led directly to the clearing where his father sprawled dead, his limbs twisted in grotesque imitation of the nearest trees' gnarled branches. Yet the path didn't end there, and it wasn't her journey here that had taken her completely away. She had come to this death-filled place just as he had, for the strongest Dreamers could walk through the waking and dream worlds at the same time. It was the path from here, the path he could sense but not follow with only his dreaming mind, that had snatched her from him. If he was to find her he must follow that path just as she had, and with a wrench that tore the ground from beneath his feet, he threw his entire being in pursuit. Mischa wouldn't be happy when he disappeared from view, but she would understand what had happened and would know what to do.
For the first time since he was a child, he found his complete self in a place other than his world. He could still feel his connection to the land he had left, stretched behind him like a safety rope that would not only keep him from falling to his death, but would lead him back home. Even without this security he would have plunged forward without hesitation, but now he could do so with an untroubled mind. Unlike Drew, he would not be stranded in a strange world with no idea how to return. She would be as lost as she could have been in his world if he hadn't found her, but he wouldn't allow her to stay lost for long.
The path opened before him, and he teetered on the edge of a blistering white desert beneath a sun-bloated sky. The air around him exploded, heat blasting him apart, but the cool touch of the land at his back was enough to bring him to himself again. He could not conceive how Drew could have survived this place, how she could have found the strength to venture forward, but as he stood in the same spot she had stood, he could clearly feel her path unrolling at his feet. To follow her he would have to dive into the waiting inferno, but he would do everything within his power to protect himself first. Dreams within dreams. That was how Drew had described the seamless layers, although it was clear to him that she didn't yet understand how deep or far the layers reached. Nor did she really comprehend the implications, or see what dreams could shape even from within other dreams. But he did.
His earliest dreams had been filled with ice, his nightmares stocked with ice maidens whose cold fingers could drain him of life, but in a place like this ice was the promise rather than the defeat of life. From the depths of his mind he raised the dream of ice, and his breath frosted into the molten air, the tiny crystals hovering before his face like multifaceted diamonds that twinkled then melted away. That was his first breath of ice, and the only one he lost. With his next exhalation, a thin coat of ice spread across his face, and the next breath thickened and extended the ice. Silvery blue veins branched over his head and down his back, icy threads racing down his neck and chest, crisscrossing his arms and cascading down his legs. Every breath brought more ice, layer upon layer just like the dreams that had brought the ice, and soon he felt like a pond in winter, his surface frozen enough to bear almost any weight, while all the life he contained retreated to the warmth of the muddy bottom, swimming freely far outside the range of winter's grasp. His shape was the shape of a pillar of ice, and his vision was as obscured as his features beneath the thickening blue, but deep within all this ice he was completely unrestricted. With his dream eyes he could see Drew's trail, and with his dream strength he could haul the heavy ice as effortlessly as he could haul the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs.
Shielded in his suit of glistening ice, he strode into the mouth of hell. The heat immediately swallowed him, licking his shield with a fiery tongue, gnashing at the ice with fangs of flame. The surface of the ice chipped and melted, but this was to be expected, and he was already breathing more ice to replace what he lost. From his hidden core new ice formed, rising from the bottom up, lower layers pushed upward by each new layer below, emerging finally to perish beneath the onslaught of the heat. In the depths of the ice he was sweating, for he was working furiously now to not lose more ice than he could restore. Time stalled as he rushed forward, as if it was holding him back from his destination, intent on delivering him as a prize to the heat. And yet time also seemed to race against him, helping the heat melt the layers of ice more quickly than he could ever hope to replenish them. Soon he was sweating from more than exertion; he was sweating from the nearness of the heat, his shield reduced to the thinnest of veneers. And still the shield kept thinning, until finally each layer melted as soon as it formed and he was drenched in water rather than encased in ice. The heat dragged at him now, tugging at his feet to pull him down, flicking the water from his body with a careless slap, but still he persevered, breathing ice that instantly melted, but even in melting, kept him just cool enough that he could push on. He had long lost count of how many times water had splashed down his face and temporarily soaked his body, and had long lost hope that this nightmare would ever end, when he stumbled into an unexpected pocket of coolness, and the most recent gush of melted ice didn't evaporate, but instead left him sodden and shivering.
Blinking away the icy water and the salty sweat from his eyes, he saw a new green world, strangely washed out and fuzzed around the edges, slowly come into focus. Sharper than his view of this new world, however, was his perception of Drew. He could feel her clearly now, could even feel the sudden fear that quickened her heart, and he knew she was directly ahead. Without waiting for his eyes to finish readjusting to a world with dim rather than blinding light, he stumbled down the path in her direction.
Around a bend in the path there were two faces, both immobilized by surprise, turned in his direction. The first, as he already knew, was Drew's, the flush in her cheeks the only sign of the hellfire through which she had waded. The other face was a man's, and even Gyfree could not help but recognize the absolute perfection of the other's features. He was like a breathing statue carved from the purest white stone by an artist obsessed with the slightest possibility that his work might be flawed. The man was pale where Gyfree was golden, but instead of looking sickly, his polished fairness made Gyfree's darker, sun-touched skin seem sallow and harsh. Next to him Gyfree knew his nose would be too crooked, his hair too unruly, his eyes too muddy, his frame too bulky. These were things he would never have considered only a short time ago, but he saw himself now reflected in Drew's eyes, face streaked with water and sweat, and his lungs constricted until he thought the inferno must have stolen his breath away after all.
"Gyfree!" exclaimed Drew, breaking the brittle silence. "How did you get here?"
"I followed you," he answered colorlessly.
"Followed me?" she repeated. "How? To tell the truth, I'm not even sure how I got here."
From behind the pale man's head there darted a black and yellow striped body with iridescent wings beating too rapidly for eyes to follow. "They zpeak, they zpeak!" it buzzed.
"I can hear that," the man responded in a voice as smooth and polished as his face. Ignoring Gyfree he smiled at Drew and murmured, "You're not the one I was expecting. Your hair is darker. Your skin is richer. Your eyes are more vibrant. You are not a watercolor, and she is. I will leave with you instead."
Somewhere between the world he had left and the world he had entered, something tugged violently on the invisible rope securing Gyfree. Ignoring the other man just as he had been ignored, he grabbed Drew by the arm and declared urgently, "We have to leave this place, and soon."
Drew didn't resist the pull on her arm, but her eyes moved from Gyfree's face to the stranger's. "Where are we?" she asked.
A puzzled frown turned down the corners of the man's mouth, but not a single crease marred his brow. "Where I have lived while I waited," he answered slowly. "It is simply a place. There is nothing special about it. Except for the hummeybees, it lacks color."
"Hummeybees?" Drew repeated blankly.
"Like me," droned the hovering creature. "We are hiz friendz."
Both Drew and Gyfree stared at the wickedly barbed stinger protruding from a body as large as a man's fist, and neither said a word.
The stranger whistled loudly, and another hummeybee hurtled through the trees to hover next to the first. "These two will come with me," the man announced calmly. "We are ready to go now."
Another savage jerk on the invisible rope made Gyfree stagger. There was definitely something following the same path he and Drew had already followed, and he was afraid he knew exactly what that something must be. "There are Figments on the way," he blurted. "Drew, we must leave before they arrive!"
The pale stranger stepped forward, a hummeybee on each shoulder, and seized Drew's other arm. "You are not leaving without me," he insisted. "I have waited too long already, and now that you have come, I will wait no more. I will not stay a prisoner here."
"You can't come," Gyfree growled. "It will be difficult enough for us to escape. We can't carry you along as well."
The hummeybees buzzed dangerously, their stingers twitching as the man's eyes narrowed. "If you refuse to take me, then I will refuse to let you leave. The sting of a hummeybee is poisonous, you see."
Gyfree's eyes narrowed as well, and the shadow of a nightmare flitted across his face. Yet before he could summon his own lethal threat, Drew intervened. "There is no time to argue if the beasts that killed the Keeper are coming. And if they are coming, we can't leave this man here, defenseless and alone."
"Not defenzelezz. Not alone," objected the second hummeybee in a buzz that was softer than the first's.
"We have to take him," Drew continued as if the hummeybee hadn't spoken. "It would be wrong to abandon him here."
Gyfree's eyes darkened as if somewhere behind them the lights had all blown out. "Very well," he conceded, his voice as flat and lifeless as his eyes. Holding Drew's eyes with his own, he told her, "Ice. You have to dream of ice." Releasing her arm, he clasped her warm hands in his. "Just do as I do. We are going to dream that we are buried under a mountain of ice."
Comprehension widened Drew's eyes. "So that's why you are soaking wet," she murmured. A smile trembled on her lips. "I have no idea how to intentionally do this. You'll have to show me."
Gyfree's eyes lightened ever so slightly as he smiled back. "We've done this sort of thing before; you just haven't been given enough time to think about it before now. So watch the dream fill my eyes, and just follow."
Slipping into the cool light in Gyfree's eyes, Drew suddenly found herself floating within an icy blue bubble. She could still feel the touch of the stranger's hand on her arm, and still hear the drone of the hummeybees, but the only thing she could see other than silvery blue was the luminous brown of Gyfree's eyes. The blue evoked the image of ice in her mind; not just a little ice, but a field of ice that towered above her and fell below her and stretched across the horizon as far as she could see. She was encircled by ice, growing colder by the second, with veins of ice webbing her skin, thickening until she had grown a second skin, a crystalline skin of ice. Her skin of ice was a fragile creation, beautiful and delicate, like a clinging gown of snowflakes. She could see each individual crystal, unique and sculptured, a work of art more intricate than anything she had ever seen in the dusty corridors of a museum. She squeezed the hands in hers to share the wonder of it all, but as the hands squeezed hers in return, a shock of heat blasted through the ice to leave both her and Gyfree dazed and drenched.
The wall above them was swaying, trembling as if some unbearable pain had recently ripped through its frame. Their feet back on relatively solid ground, Gyfree and Drew blinked, their eyes drawn toward the rocking and bucking barricade, and as they watched through the foggy remnants of their dream, the wall shuddered and a crack snaked upward to split it apart. Another wave of heat spilled over them, but this time it was countered by a burst of cool air, as if this slumbering land had been aroused by the sudden danger and had hastily armed itself with its only weapon. Or at least the first weapon at hand.
A howl replete with pain and hunger echoed off the damaged wall, and then a howl even more wracked and ravenous than the first tore the leafs from the trees. The ground trembled as if recoiling from insupportable weight, and then the beasts charged into view, lips curled back, saliva dripping from bared fangs to sizzle and smoke in the dirt, bloodstained claws fully extended, red-veined eyes focused unwaveringly on Drew. Together they threw back their heads to howl once more in triumph, and the sound shattered the air and drove away the last few wisps of Gyfree's and Drew's ice-filled dream.
"At last," growled Auge, creeping forward steadily, eyes glowing in anticipation, shoulders hunching and thighs bunching in preparation for his inevitable lunge. "We know who you are now, and you must be ours."
"Ours at last," Hund agreed hungrily, snout flaring and nostrils pulsing wildly as he too inched forward, clawed hands clenching and unclenching as if already shredding his prey.
Before Drew could open her mouth to scream, before Gyfree could react or the stranger could flee, the two hummeybees darted forward, whirring behind the heads of the impervious beasts, their wings flashing sparks and their stingers quivering as they aimed directly at the backs of the leathery necks. With a grace that was balletic, the two swooped down in perfect unison and drove their jagged stingers home.
Auge and Hund jerked to a stop, their eyes filming over and their limbs twitching as they struggled vainly for control of their own bodies. Drool dribbled from the corners of their mouths and their eyes rattled in their sockets as the color drained from their hides, leaving them as washed out and indistinct as the surrounding land. Then in a unison as sickening as the hummeybees' had been breathtaking, their legs buckled beneath them and they toppled to the ground, rousing a storm of dust and dead leafs as they fell.
In a flicker of motion too fast for eyes to follow, the hummeybees zoomed back to hover above the strange man's shoulders. "Quick!" buzzed the larger of the two. "They will not ztay down for long. We muzt be gone when they awake!"
The smaller hummeybee flitted across to Drew, hovering directly before her face. "You two will dream of the ize again. Thiz time dream uz into the ize az well. Now hurry!"
Even through the swirling debris that obscured them, Drew could detect the darkening of the beasts' skin and the progressively wild thrashing of their limbs. Tearing her eyes away from both her stalkers and the insistently buzzing hummeybee, she found herself held once more by Gyfree's eyes, her hands clasped in his. Within the brown depths his eyes flickered with the silvery blue of ice, and once more he carried her with him, but this time the ice didn't drift gently across her skin; it crashed down like a mountain, burying them both, along with the hummeybees and the other man. Everything was cold, more cold than she could have ever dreamt, too cold for any nightmare of hers. She was lost in the cold, too cold to try to jolt free from the dream that held her, too cold to ever dream again. Cold, all she knew was cold, and the only warmth she had ever known had been in another dream, a dream she could not quite recall although she could still feel its touch slipping through the cold to clasp her fingers.
Heat rushed up her arms and wrapped around her shoulders as Gyfree squeezed her freezing hands and enfolded her in his hidden dream of warmth, a warmth that somehow could survive in the very heart of the incredible cold. Brown eyes smiled into hers and she basked for a second in their light, but then the weight of the ice pressed down, and the rumble of the stirring beasts reverberated through the ice, and Drew awoke to herself. Gyfree's hands still clutched hers, fingers curling between fingers, while the stranger gripped her arm with the chill hand of death, two hummeybees poised with frozen wings on his shoulders. They were all encased in ice, and except for the hands embracing her hands, they were all completely immobilized. With Gyfree she had dreamt that ice, dreamt enough ice to withstand even the inferno, and she could see in his eyes that he was dreaming it still, but she had no idea how the ice could save them when its weight was almost too heavy to bear, and certainly too heavy to allow them to move. As if he could see the question floating behind her eyes, Gyfree squeezed her hands so tightly that she would have winced if her face wasn't ice, so tightly that his hands seemed to tell her hands to just hold on.
Gyfree was surprised by the outpouring of ice that he and Drew had dreamt together, surprised once again by how quickly they had been able to fuse their visions, surprised by the overwhelming power that had burst from their combined dreams. Even in his worst nightmares there had never been so much ice, but despite the mass pressing down, he knew no fear. Together he and Drew could clearly accomplish amazing things, but this time he didn't even need her help. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes, could see the strain of the ice in the tense lines of her face, and he squeezed her hands again, once more to reassure her rather than to pull her back from the brink of the dream before it could claim her. Then he mentally took hold of the rope that stretched tautly between him and his world, and gave it a sharp tug. As he had anticipated, the rope rebounded, and a fraction of a second later, the mountain of ice was being hauled through the blasting inferno as if it had no more weight than a clump of frozen dirt. Heat slid over the speeding ice, and water trickled from its surface, but the world to which they were all now tethered reeled in its catch with ever increasing velocity as the excess bulk melted away. At first, and for a long while, Drew could not even sense the heat around them, but gradually she could feel the slightest hint of warmth whisking by, and could even feel the nameless man's fingers finally stir against her arm. She could hear the buzz of the thawing hummeybees, and could feel her own limbs tingle back to life, but the sensation at the center of her awareness, a sensation more intense than any other she could recall, was the sensation of Gyfree's hands clutching her own, his fingers weaving a pattern through her fingers more complex than any dream.