The Dream Gatherer Read online

Thanks to Myrene’s efforts, the little coracle slipped away from the main current and spun into the eddies along the edge. By now they could hear the roar of the waterfall, but the lake had grown considerably shallower. Just yards away, grasses and boulders poked up through the lake’s glassy surface.

  A glimpse toward shore revealed Sedir blessing his knives one by one, now focused on his ritual. Cha’korth stood over the victim with his arms folded, his ugly, scarred face even more contorted with a grin as he watched them.

  The coracle bumped into a rock, impeding further progress.

  “What now?” Tiphane asked. “Water’s still over our heads.”

  “Do some magic.”

  “Do—Are you mad? The boat will—”

  The wizard was immersed in inscribing fire runes into the air, and a glassy cloak of magic shimmered about him. He closed his eyes, falling into a deep magic weaver’s trance.

  “I can’t,” Tiphane said. “He’s wrapped in a cloak and it will deflect anything I do.”

  “Then inflict something on Cha’korth, and hurry.”

  Cha’korth’s amusement at their plight had changed to suspicion, and now he drew his sword.

  “Hurry,” Myrene said, “do something to him. Hurt him if you can.”

  “I can’t use Givean magic to hurt someone,” Tiphane said. Doing so, even to Cha’korth, would pervert all she believed in.

  “Well, do something—anything.” Myrene’s voice was pitched a note higher with urgency.

  Cha’korth stalked to the water’s edge. He glared menacingly at them.

  Tiphane searched her scattered thoughts for an idea. A rainstorm would just drench everyone, and it would take too much energy besides. She could focus the sun on him, but he’d simply walk away with an impressive tan. No, it had to be something else, and she thought of the more spiritual side of her Order, and the words she and Myrene had exchanged about meditation.

  She closed her eyes and blocked out the sound of Sedir chanting his blasphemous incantations to Drakdorn. She did not think about the glinting blade he held aloft as he stood enraptured by the dark ecstasy of his magic. Tiphane drifted deeper into her trance, feeling her own sense of joy as she sought her gift.

  She delved into the deepest part of herself, to the wellspring of her spirit. It was a secluded place—deep and mysterious and tranquil. She felt no shackles about her, nor did she even feel Myrene against her back, at least not in a physical sense. Instead she found her partner’s energy and life within her, like a bright burning flame. This was the link that had been forged between them when they were brought together before Givean, the night she had taken her oath.

  Myrene is a part of me, she thought, as I am a part of her.

  From this peaceful place, she wove together positive strands of fire, life, energy, balance, and love until they formed a net, which she could see only in her mind’s eye, shimmering and glowing. She mentally “tossed” it at Cha’korth.

  Tiphane opened her eyes. It had all taken mere seconds. Cha’korth stood stock-still, his mouth gaping, his eyes wide. His sword slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. A burnished golden glow shone about him, and one could almost hear the harmonious flourish of harp strings . . .

  And even as the glow surrounded him, Myrene sneezed lustily. “Damnation, Tiph, you cast a spell of ecstasy on him?”

  Tiphane had no time to reply for the coracle disintegrated beneath them and they plunged into the freezing lake. She was unprepared and inhaled lungfuls of water. She fought to break the water’s surface, but they kept sinking. Myrene struggled, too, twisting, writhing, jerking, sinking.

  The water-pale faces of the lake’s souls turned up to them. As they sank into a tangle of soft, pale limbs, dead fingers groped at them. A scream welled up within Tiphane that emerged as a cloud of bubbles. She was drowning, suffocating, and the souls of the lake would have them. She kicked their hands away.

  Their feet met the lake bottom and they came face-to-face with the horrors. Tiphane closed her eyes and turned her face away. She felt Myrene gather herself, then launch them upward. They broke the surface sputtering and coughing, only to sink again.

  When they touched bottom this time, Myrene lunged upward at an angle toward the shallows. When Tiphane realized what Myrene intended, she added her ebbing strength to her comrade’s. Sink, push off, and sink again, all the while fighting the grasp of the lake’s souls. Soon they no longer submerged after each lunge, and stood in water only up to their waists.

  Tiphane, miserable and weak, coughed up what seemed to her to be half the lake.

  “Next time you tell me to trust you,” she croaked, wheezing and shivering, “remind me not to.” A pale hand grabbed at her ankle. She stomped on it, almost retching again at how squishy it felt beneath her foot.

  Myrene did not hear her comment. “Look,” she said, “I think Sedir is starting to come out of his trance.”

  Tiphane’s back was to the shore. “I can’t see.”

  Myrene twisted around, almost knocking Tiphane off her feet.

  “Myrene!”

  “Hush, now look.”

  Sedir was murmuring more incantations, but his eyes were losing their glazed appearance. His magical cloak shimmered about him, and he kissed the sacrificial knife. The boy bound to the rock beneath him sobbed in fear.

  “We’ve got to keep going,” Myrene said, sniffling. “We can’t let him kill that boy.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be much help.” The use of magic exhausted Tiphane, as if she had used up much of her life force. Being half-drowned did not help.

  “You did your part with Cha’korth,” Myrene said. “Now let me do mine.”

  Before Tiphane could utter a single word, Myrene used their chains for leverage and hoisted her onto her back. She then waded through the shallows in a crouched position, Tiphane’s legs dangling over her buttocks.

  Tiphane craned her neck, but could see little beyond the sky, treetops, and mountain summits. She knew Myrene was strong, but . . .

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” Myrene grunted. “Sedir’s ’bout out of his trance now.”

  Myrene’s ankle chains clattered across rock as she staggered onto shore. Tiphane twisted her head, pressing her cheek against the back of Myrene’s head so she could see better. They passed Cha’korth, who still stood enveloped in the spell of ecstasy, drool sliding down his chin. She brimmed with pride at a job well done.

  “What’s happening here?” It was Sedir, apparently fully out of his trance and much surprised by the turn of events. “You’re ruining the ritual. Cha’korth! Cha’korth, to me!”

  “Myrene,” Tiphane said, “you’ve got to strike now while Sedir’s between energies. If you wait, it’ll be only moments before he regains his strength enough to use his power against us.”

  “Hold on,” Myrene said, gasping.

  Tiphane gritted her teeth as Myrene’s lopsided gait increased in speed. “Do I have a choice?” She prayed to Givean that Myrene wouldn’t trip over her chains.

  “Stick your feet out. He’s coming at us with a knife.”

  “Wha—?”

  “Do it!”

  Tiphane obeyed and straightened out her legs. The warrior half-loped at the best pace she could manage, chains ringing, Tiphane bouncing. The priestess thought her teeth might rattle out of her head. The next thing she knew, she was spinning, her surroundings a blur of granite, evergreen, and sky. She glimpsed Sedir briefly, his expression frozen in astonishment before her feet connected with his wrist and sent the sacrificial knife flying out of his hand in a glittering arc.

  They stopped abruptly, but it seemed the world spun for a breathless, dizzying moment. Myrene panted raggedly.

  “Uh oh,” she said.

  “What? What?” Tiphane twisted her head
this way and that, but she still couldn’t see what was going on.

  “He looks unhappy.”

  “Unhappy? How unhappy?”

  “Very unhappy. He’s holding his hands out, and there is a bluish, grayish glow floating above them.”

  “Put me down,” Tiphane said. “I need to see what he’s doing.”

  Myrene straightened, and Tiphane slid down the accursed mail shirt. When her feet met the ground, her legs were wobbly, but they didn’t fail. The two shuffled around so she could see Sedir.

  Indeed, Sedir was recovering rapidly, and the spell he was weaving had a sickly cast to it. Myrene sneezed violently.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Tiphane thought hard. She could not attack him directly—it would go against her beliefs, and she couldn’t get around his protective cloak anyway. Not that she had much energy left for spell weaving, but there was a little reservoir perhaps, and she had Myrene oozing with all her violent urges.

  Sedir’s incantations reached a crescendo as the cloud of blue-gray vapor enlarged.

  “Myrene,” Tiphane said, “it’s your turn to trust me.”

  “I always have,” her partner said in a quiet voice. “Always.”

  Tiphane was touched by this admission, and wished she had not seemed to doubt Myrene in return, for she depended on her brave partner—no, not just partner, but friend—a great deal more than she liked to admit.

  “We need to get closer to Sedir.”

  Without comment, they shuffled within feet of the vengeful wizard. He was so involved in his spell that he could do little to stop them. It was such times as this that a magic weaver was most vulnerable and depended on his Shield for protection. Sedir’s Shield still stood on the lakeshore drooling.

  “I want you to face him,” Tiphane said.

  Myrene’s shoulders tightened, but she faced Sedir without argument. She was, after all, the Shield, and putting Tiphane’s life before hers was a matter of course, and of honor. Still, it humbled Tiphane.

  “Now what?” Myrene asked, her voice catching on a sneeze.

  “I’m going to make a little spell. I think I have the necessary energy.”

  “Do it quickly then!” Myrene replied.

  Tiphane was already deep within herself, shaping a globe of blue fire, calling up a gust of wind, or at the very least, a slight breeze. She molded it into the globe. Then she found that spark of light and energy belonging to Myrene, and touched it with the globe.

  Myrene sneezed so explosively the two of them toppled over onto the stony ground. The gust of wind, born of Tiphane’s magic and channeled through Myrene’s sneeze, blew Sedir’s cloudy spell back into his face. He screamed, clawing at his eyes. Red, oozing boils spread instantaneously across his flesh. He whimpered and ran knee-deep into the lake, splashing water onto his face.

  Myrene clucked. “Not a good move. You would think he’d know better.”

  Half-wedged beneath Myrene, Tiphane wiggled around so that she might see better. Sedir paused in his splashing, looked into the water, and screamed again. Something jerked on his leg.

  The surface erupted and boiled around him. Pale deathly hands reached out to clutch at him and drag him under. The struggle was brief.

  * * *

  “Sedir had the key to the lock,” Myrene said ruefully, “and I’m not going in after it.”

  They sat on the “sacrificial altar,” still chained back-to-back. They had managed to use one of Sedir’s knives to cut the ropes binding the boy who had been the intended sacrifice. He had then run on ahead to his village to tell family and friends the news of his rescue and the demise of Veidan Sedir in the Lake of Souls.

  “The boy said his uncle was a blacksmith,” Tiphane said, “and would break the chains.”

  “Do you think he’ll remember to send him?” Myrene asked.

  “I doubt it. They’ll be celebrating all night.”

  Already, the autumn sun was making its westward descent. The Lake of Souls darkened in the shadows of the mountains.

  “I’m cold,” Tiphane said, “and hungry.”

  “Let’s go before all the feasting is over.”

  “That village is five miles away, and over a mountain path, no less.”

  “Then we’d better get started.”

  Tiphane groaned.

  They stood up, accustomed by now to coordinating their efforts.

  “What about Cha’korth?” Myrene asked.

  Tiphane glanced at the warrior still caught in the rapture of the ecstasy spell. “The spell will wear off in a day or so. Exposure to the harmony of Givean will undoubtedly give him a new perspective on the way he leads his life. Like it did for you.”

  Myrene snorted.

  The two women sidled and shuffled along the trail that skirted the lake. It was slow going.

  “Why is it again you can’t magic these chains away?” Myrene asked.

  “As I’ve told you, I am not a lockpick. I’m a—”

  “I know, I know. A weaver of light and wind and rain. And your power can’t touch worked iron.”

  “Exactly.” Tiphane paused, then added, “I could accelerate the rusting of the iron so that it weakens and breaks.”

  “How long would that take?”

  Tiphane sighed. “About a year.”

  “Just perfect.”

  Tiphane shrugged with a rattle of chains at the limitations of her magic.

  “There is one positive thing that has come out of this,” Myrene said.

  Tiphane, of course, knew it was not only the demise of Veidan Sedir that made this a good day, but the reaffirmation of their friendship. So it surprised her when Myrene sniffed and said with great joy, “My head has never felt so clear!”

  * * *

  The eagle soared above the lake, anxious to tell his brothers and sisters all he had witnessed. Never before had he seen such sport, and he wondered what folly the winds held next for the two females. Whatever it was, it was sure to be entertaining.

  Maybe, the eagle decided, he would stick around and find out.

  THE DREAM GATHERER

  From Karigan G’ladheon and the Green Riders: A History

  by Lady Estral Andovian Fiori, the Golden Guardian of Selium

  Vol. 2, Appx. B “Author Notes and Reminisces”

  (3) The Berry Sisters, Seven Chimneys, the Draugmkelder

  Among the first helpers Karigan encountered on that long-ago journey was a pair of elderly sisters improbably located in the wilds of the Green Cloak Forest. They were the daughters of one Professor Erasmus Norwood Berry, who had been an instructor at Selium. His interests lay in the arcane arts, but back then, such a field of study was anathema to the leadership of the school, including the then Golden Guardian. It is not surprising considering that the general populace of Sacoridia equated all magic with the evil of Mornhavon the Black, who had committed such terrible crimes during the Long War. Professor Berry was subsequently exiled from Selium and never set foot on the campus again. Despite his dismissal from the school, he continued his inquiries into the nature of magic from his estate in the Green Cloak. After his death, it seems his daughters inherited all, including his extensive library and myriad magical objects he had collected over the course of decades (notably, for this reminisce, a model ship-in-a-bottle, which, it turned out, was no model). His daughters did not continue his work, however, but resided quietly at the estate they called Seven Chimneys.

  Penelope and Isabelle Berry, also known as Bunch Berry and Bay Berry respectively (the sobriquets given them by their father after the local flora), took in the exhausted Karigan and made her warm, dry, and well-fed. Karigan spoke so vividly of these eccentric ladies, their hospitality, and their unusual home that I secretly hoped to one day meet them. When it finally happened, it couldn’t have been at a better time . . .

&n
bsp; The Dream Gatherer

  Return to Seven Chimneys

  “We have been away too long. Farnham will have his hands full.”

  Two sisters, clearly in their elder years and of gentle breeding, looked in dismay upon the grounds of their estate. Entire swaths of greenery had browned and died from an unnatural inland incursion of seawater and were only now starting to regreen. In other places, the forest encroached on the formerly well-kept lawns and gardens. Plantings that had once been carefully cultivated and groomed now grew in riotous abandon. Farnham, their groundskeeper, certainly would have his hands full.

  The taller and frailer of the two sisters, attired in a dark-green velvet dress and leaning on a cane of twisted hickory, shook herself. “The grounds are not the first thing I see when I look upon our home. Is that what you see?”

  “Well,” the other mused—she was rather rounder of girth than her sister and favored the color of burnt orange with a crisp white apron. “The ship does add character to the house.”

  They stood in the drive beside a carriage burdened with trunks and parcels and furniture, with no evidence of horses or carriage driver or attendants to be seen.

  “Honestly, Bunch,” the one in green said, “I have never heard such understatement from you in all my years.”

  The home their father had built, a country manse of stone and timber, rose in the midst of the estate. Grand it was, or at least it had been. Peculiar, it now appeared, with the addition of a pirate ship protruding from its midsection. The figurehead of a mermaid seemed to stare at them in accusation.

  “Perhaps we should rename the house Three Masts,” Bunch suggested.

  “Don’t you dare,” her sister, who went by Bay, countered. “Father named it Seven Chimneys, and so it shall always be known.”

  There were actually nine chimneys, or there had been until the ship’s materialization had knocked one over. Others slanted at precarious angles. Their father, the late Professor Erasmus Norwood Berry, who had been a collector of arcane curios, had deemed the number seven far more magical than nine, and so bestowed the name “Seven Chimneys” upon the house. Whatever it was called, the masts towered above the roof, the slate tiles now neatly arranged around them as if the ship had been part of the house’s original construction.