The Dream Gatherer Read online

  “There are a few random strangers, too,” Miss Bunch said with a shrug.

  “When does it all end?” Estral asked, anxious to have as much time with Alton as possible. “And how?”

  “When the draugmkelder extinguishes itself,” Miss Bay said, “the dreamers will return to from wherever they’ve come.”

  “Will we remember any of this?” Alton asked.

  “It will be like a dream. Some will remember something of its essence, and for others it will just slip away, lost to memory as dreams often are.”

  Estral and Alton moved off so the sisters could speak with more of their guests.

  “Strangest party I’ve ever been to,” he said.

  “Same here.”

  “Estral . . . ” He paused, looked down at the ground.

  “Yes?”

  When he gazed back up at her, his eyes were intense. “I don’t want to forget our time together. I don’t want you to slip away.”

  The Nightmare

  “I won’t slip away,” Estral told Alton. “Not ever. And I’ll be sure to remind you about all of this later so you know it wasn’t just a dream.”

  “Good, because I love you and I don’t want to forget being here with you. And I don’t want to forget the Berry sisters, either. Those old girls are something else. Karigan was not exaggerating when she talked about them. In fact, she may have understated their . . . their . . .”

  “Eccentricities?”

  “Yes, that’s it.” Then he whispered, “They know about the brooches.”

  She whispered back, “Yes, they do,” and patted his arm. They departed the tower for the shore of the pond where it was quieter.

  “You should come back to the wall so we can be together,” he said. “Your voice is working—it sounds so strong. You could sing for the guardians, help mend the wall.”

  “My place is in Selium right now. Besides, my voice is temporary, some magic of Seven Chimneys.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “To have your voice and then have it taken away again must be hard.”

  “I am grateful to have it, for however short a time, to be able to talk with you rather than having to constantly scribble on my slate to say something.”

  “And it was really dense of me to ask you to come to the wall. Of course you can’t. You are needed in Selium.”

  “You could come to Selium.”

  “I’ll try,” he replied, “but my orders are to stay at the wall.”

  Alton’s ancestors had built the D’Yer Wall which protected Sacoridia from evil forces within Blackveil Forest. He was the one person in his clan who could communicate with the ghostly guardians in the wall. But as a king’s messenger, he must also obey orders.

  Estral opened her mouth to reply, but a movement, black against black near the pond’s edge, caught her attention. She squinted, decided she was imagining things, and was about to turn back to Alton, but paused when she detected more movement.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Nothing or maybe someone’s dream. Which sounds strange to say aloud.”

  “True enough.”

  There was the movement again, this time closer. Lanterns flickered as if someone or something moved in front of them. She had the impression of a treelike figure, limbs blowing in a maelstrom. Then it came roaring at them and reared over them, massive and oozing malevolence. They fell back.

  “What the hells?” Alton shouted.

  It was a great black shadow vaguely human in shape, and it carried in its fist a whip. Several knotted thongs hung from its handle.

  “No,” Estral murmured. “No . . . ”

  “What is it?” Alton asked.

  The creature raised the whip. Shadow blood dripped from the thongs.

  “Run!” Estral cried.

  Alton did not hesitate and they made for the tower. Estral could almost feel the shadow’s black breath on the back of her neck. The whistling of the whip through the air was a sound with which she was all too familiar. It lashed the ground at their heels.

  Estral and Alton waved their arms and shouted at party guests who’d wandered outside to run for cover. It took most of them a moment or two to understand. When they saw the shadow and the warning finally sank in, they bolted for the tower, Estral and Alton right behind them.

  “The doors!” Alton yelled as they crossed the threshold. “Close and bar the doors!”

  A number of guests, picking up on his urgency, heaved to, closing the heavy doors and barring them. A scream of rage from the thwarted shadow creature, now locked outside, curdled Estral’s blood. There was a thud and the doors rattled. Guests cried out, their faces anxious in the lamplight, but most did not know what was going on.

  The Berry sisters made their way through the crowd to Estral and Alton.

  “What is all this ruckus?” Miss Bay demanded. “It is disrupting the party.”

  “A shadow creature!” Estral said, and she and Alton took turns describing what had happened. When they finished, the sisters gazed hard at one another. The shadow continued to bang on the doors and cry out its rage. Many of the guests cowered toward the far side of the tower.

  “I told you what could happen,” Miss Bunch said to her sister.

  “I told you.”

  “You did not. I was the one who warned you about—”

  Estral held her hands up to forestall a full-fledged sisterly quarrel. She wondered how long the door would hold up to the beating. “What were you afraid of happening? What is that thing out there?”

  The sisters exchanged glances, and finally Miss Bunch answered, “Sometimes bad things can come through the draugmkelder. Not all dreams are happy after all, and everyone has at least a little bit of darkness in them.”

  “So this creature is a—a nightmare?” Alton demanded.

  An explosive BOOM! shuddered the doors as if to punctuate his question. The hinges appeared to weaken under the assault and creaked against the timbers that framed the doors.

  “In a word,” Miss Bay replied, “yes. A ‘nightmare’ is a most apt descriptor.”

  “Well, if it gets in here, it’s going to do some real damage and maybe hurt people. Er, can it hurt those of us who dreamed our way here?”

  “Yes,” Miss Bunch said. “Those of you who are corporeal in your presence like yourself, as well as non-dreamers like Lady Fiori and ourselves may be harmed. Dear, oh dear, what have we done?”

  Estral thought fast. “The draugmkelder is a lantern, right? Couldn’t we just extinguish its light to break the spell?”

  “We could,” Miss Bay said, “buuuut—”

  “There would be consequences,” Miss Bunch finished. “One thing our father learned over the years is that magic is rarely convenient.”

  BOOM!

  Estral’s nerves jangled with each pound on the doors. She reached for Alton’s hand and clasped it firmly. He gave her a gentle squeeze in return and smiled. It calmed her.

  “Extinguishing the draugmkelder,” Miss Bunch continued, “could do unknown harm to the dreamers—permanently hurt their minds or perhaps even kill them. It needs to burn out on its own.”

  Estral wanted to shake the sisters and demand what they thought they were doing using such a dangerous magical device for their entertainment, but then, if they hadn’t, she wouldn’t have gotten to see Alton. And of course, berating them wouldn’t do anyone any good at the moment. She gripped Alton’s hand hard and he looked at her in surprise. She would not let anything happen to him. She wouldn’t.

  BOOM!

  Some of the guests were crying and holding onto one another. Wood splintered around the hinges. Alton let her go and stalked toward the doors. He paused as if sizing up the situation.

  “Alton?” Estral called.

  He raised his hands, palms outward, and she
realized he was calling on his magical ability to shield. She held her breath hoping he’d succeed, but when the creature attacked the doors once more and wood continued to splinter, his hands dropped to his sides and he returned to them.

  “My ability isn’t working without my brooch,” he said.

  “That is most unfortunate,” Miss Bunch said. Miss Bay nodded in agreement.

  “Then what in five hells do we do?” he demanded. “Those doors aren’t going to hold. Can we kill the shadow?”

  “Killing it is possible, I believe,” Miss Bunch said, “but you may damage the nightmare’s dreamer.”

  “At this point, I don’t care. We need to protect ourselves.”

  Miss Bunch licked her lips. “You may find that an unpalatable solution as the nightmare is being dreamed by someone you know, and I believe care for.”

  “Who?”

  BOOM! Followed by a terrible crrraaack as a hinge finally gave way.

  Estral looked up at Alton. “Karigan. The dreamer is Karigan.”

  “Karigan is dreaming that thing?”

  “If you had been there and seen exactly what she went through—”

  The banging stopped and the shadow cackled. The hair rose on the nape of Estral’s neck.

  “Quickly,” she said to the sisters, “how do we fix this?”

  “You must reach the dreamer,” Miss Bay answered, “and persuade her to stop dreaming the nightmare, get her to wake up.”

  “Persuade . . . ? She’s miles and miles from here, only the gods know where.”

  Alton wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You got me here all the way from the wall. There’s got to be a way to reach her.”

  But then the one door crashed down in a cloud of dust and Alton pulled her away. Everyone pressed toward the back wall. The shadow ducked under the lintel and stepped into the tower chamber. When it straightened to its full height, its figure struck Estral as female and familiar, which did not surprise her in the least. The person who had tortured Karigan, the whip-wielding Nyssa, had been a woman.

  The creature snapped the whip overhead through insubstantial dream images floating above and shredded them. What was left disintegrated immediately. One—a woman—screamed in agony before it vanished.

  “Karigan!” Estral cried, not sure how she was supposed to get through to her friend. “Karigan, wake up!” That was the usual way to dislodge a nightmare, wasn’t it? To wake up?

  The shadow hurled the whip against the table, and food and crockery exploded in all directions. Those hidden beneath the table scrambled and crawled away.

  “Is there another way out?” Alton shouted at the sisters.

  “No, child,” Miss Bunch replied. “There is only the one entrance.”

  The tower was a folly in more than name, Estral thought.

  The whip came down again on the table, and wire barbs knotted into the thongs left grooves in the wood.

  Then, from the trembling mass against the far wall, one man sprinted across the floor to stand before the shadow. It was Stickles and he wielded a carving knife.

  “No!” Estral cried, remembering what Miss Bunch had said about how harming the shadow could harm the dreamer. Karigan.

  The shadow looked down on Stickles and hurled the whip at him. He jumped aside just in time, then rushed the creature and stabbed it in the leg. The shadow’s howl of pain quaked the tower, showering dust down on them.

  “Alton!” Estral said. “He’s hurting Karigan when he stabs the shadow!”

  “Wait here.” Alton ran into the fray dodging the thrashing of the whip. Stickles raised the knife again, but before he could plunge it into the shadow, Alton grabbed his wrist and tackled him to the floor. The shadow looked down at the two men rolling between its feet. Stickles might seem to be all bones, but he was wiry strong and squirmed out of Alton’s hold.

  Alton staggered to his feet, wrenched Stickles’s arm, and spun him around. He planted a sound fist in the pirate’s face. Estral felt for Stickles, knowing the strength of those stonecutter hands. Strong as the granite itself.

  The knife clattered to the floor, and Stickles rolled away and curled into a fetal position and did not move. Alton, breathing hard, rubbed his hand as he watched after Stickles. The shadow loomed over him.

  “Alton!” Estral cried, but she was too late.

  Giving Voice

  The shadow grabbed Alton around the neck and lifted him off his feet.

  “No!” Estral cried.

  Alton struggled, trying to pry away shadow fingers that squeezed his throat.

  “Karigan!” Estral shouted in desperation. “Wake up!” Then as a whisper she added, “Oh, please wake up, your nightmare is hurting Alton.”

  But it was to no avail. The guests remained huddled together sobbing and clinging to one another as the shadow strangled the one she loved, choking the life out of him. She couldn’t be responsible for failing him, too. She—

  To her surprise, Miss Bay hobbled by her at a good clip bound for the shadow.

  “Bay!” Miss Bunch cried out from Estral’s side. “What are you doing?”

  “The girl is feeling sorry for herself again and being quite useless, so someone has got to do something.”

  Estral’s mouth fell open as Miss Bay went right up to the shadow and walloped it with her cane. The shadow made a questioning sound and gazed down at her.

  “Filthy beast!” Miss Bay chided it. “You are ruining our party. Put the young man down immediately.”

  When the shadow did not comply, she whacked it with her cane once more, and kept whacking until it sidled away. She followed and must have hit a sensitive spot because it roared and dropped Alton. He fell to his hands and knees and started retching. Estral was about to run to him when Miss Bunch grabbed her arm.

  “You must help! You must reach Bay or—”

  The shadow growled at Miss Bay. It fingered the tendrils of its whip as if thinking about what vengeance it could wreak upon the irritating woman.

  “Remember the benevolence of the house,” Miss Bunch said. “Use your voice.”

  But Estral had been using her voice to yell at Karigan to wake up, hadn’t she? What else could she do? How else could she—?

  “Bay!” Miss Bunch cried. “You leave that shadow at once and come back here.”

  Miss Bay, who was apparently in no mood to listen to her sister, raised her cane to lay another one on the shadow. Alton climbed to his feet and moved toward her. The shadow gathered its whip and cast it back in order to deal its irritant a mighty blow.

  They were both in danger—Alton and Miss Bay, even as he attempted to take her arm to lead her away. They would not be fast enough. Estral had to act. She was not like Karigan who rushed into danger with sword drawn, but she possessed her own strengths. Use your voice, Miss Bunch had said. Her words finally sank in and Estral knew what she had to do. She drew in a deep breath, felt the expansion of her diaphragm, felt song rise from every part of her, from her toes to her crown. It flowed through her throat, filled her mouth. Her whole being vibrated. She was song.

  After Karigan’s torture, while she’d lain hurt and bleeding, Estral had sung songs of healing as taught to her by their Eletian guide, Enver. It may have helped Karigan rest, may have helped her heal, but she did not know for sure. Now, however, she’d never felt song so visceral. It awakened her to the very roots of her hair and tingled. Maybe it was the benevolence of the house boosting her strength, giving her a voice, but it was in fact truly hers, and as she released the song, she felt as if she were soaring. The tall hollow tower amplified the sound and enveloped everyone in resonance until they, too, became song.

  It was song without words, harmony taking flight. Estral could not reverse the harm that had been done to Karigan, the result of her own misguided actions, but she could at least try to provide her friend com
fort, a respite from the nightmare that tortured her. She gave it everything, all her vocal power and skill, and all her heart, for the friend she loved who had suffered more than anyone should.

  It was a song of healing, a song of redemption. It unlocked her prison of grief and guilt and self-loathing, and so she was able to spare a little love for herself, too.

  A glance when she paused for another breath revealed Alton bringing Miss Bay to the arms of her sister. Stickles was nowhere to be seen. The shadow stood frozen, its gaze locked on her. She sensed more than saw the burning eyes and anger, the joy it felt in mutilating others. A moment of fear passed through her as chill and sharp as a dagger because this was no ordinary nightmare. It was very present as if the torturer it represented still held power even though she was dead. Estral could not imagine the torment Karigan still experienced under its influence.

  The shadow stepped forward. Fear washed over Estral anew and she wavered, but then Alton was there beside her.

  “You are amazing,” he told her. “You can do this. I’ll stand with you, no matter what.”

  She sang again as the shadow advanced, her voice quavering at first, but strengthening with melodies of streams and meadows and mountains, of gentle rainfall on a roof, of spring leaves fluttering in a breeze. It filled everyone in the tower with peace, she knew, just as it filled her.

  The fire of the shadow’s eyes cooled. The thongs of the whip trailed along the floor, limp with no muscle to wield it. The creature shrank and shrank and yet doggedly staggered forward, so determined was it to be the nightmare.

  Estral kept singing even as it came within arm’s reach, but by now it was tiny, its roars a squeak, and of a sudden it erupted into a puff of vapor that drifted away on a breeze. No anger, no turmoil, no cruelty remained. Instead, a transparent figure wrapped in blankets lay just outside the broken doorway with a green greatcoat folded as a pillow beneath her head.