reality of pain and death.
I had to go forward.
I stepped out of the boat into the water, warm around my calves. The boat disappeared. Right. No going back. I waded to the water’s edge and stepped onto the shore. Mere yards away, the smoke obscured whatever was beyond.
“Okay, Mab, I’m ready. Lead the way.”
Mab didn’t budge. “I can’t, child. You must go alone.” Water rippled around her ankles. “This isn’t me; it’s a dream avatar.”
A dream avatar is an image that can be projected into a person’s dreamscape. But the avatar is part of the dream. And that meant Mab couldn’t leave my dreamscape.
“Hold tight to the stone, child. It’s our connection. It will lead you through the wilderness to my dreamscape. When you arrive there, you’ll be safe.” She reached for me, but her hand passed through mine like a ghost’s.
Grasping the bloodstone, I plunged into the dense, swirling smoke.
BLIND AND COUGHING, I GROPED MY WAY FORWARD. SOMETHING brushed my right cheek. I jerked to the left. Footsteps pounded close by. Deep, evil-sounding laughter echoed. I spun around so much, trying to locate strange sounds, I had no clue which direction I was facing. Not that it mattered. Once I’d stepped outside my own dreamscape, I couldn’t return. It was gone.
The bloodstone was my only chance for finding my way through this morass. I held it near my face and squinted at it through the dark, hoping it would glow to light my way to Mab. No such luck. The bloodstone, though polished, was dark, its colors dull. Mab had said it would guide me to her dreamscape, and I believed her. I just wished it had come with an instruction manual.
Out of the dark, something slimy wrapped around my ankle. I kicked it off and ran forward. Immediately, the stone began to vibrate. Galloping hooves pounded straight for me, and I swerved to the right. The stone’s vibration ceased.
Something huge galloped past. Although the smoke didn’t part, air rushed past my cheek. When the echo of hooves faded, I stepped forward. The stone vibrated. I turned ninety degrees to the left and took another step. The vibration stopped. When I turned back the way I’d been facing, the vibration began again.
I let the bloodstone lead me. At first, I proceeded with my left arm stretched out ahead, feeling for boulders or trees—or other, more sinister obstacles—that loomed suddenly from the darkness. But the stone guided me around those. I wished for a weapon, and a sword materialized in my left hand. It was a comfort to curl my fingers around its grip; the next time something tried to grab me, I’d slice the attacker in two.
There was no way to gauge my progress. I kept moving forward, following the vibrations of the bloodstone. The ground felt soft and springy under my feet, like a stretched-out trampoline. Each step sunk and rose, and I had to concentrate to keep my balance. Through the darkness came every sound and scent that feed people’s imaginations: Howls of rage or pain. Deepthroated cacklings. A distant siren song. A baby wailing. A woman sobbing. One moment the smoke blowing across my face smelled of rotting flesh; the next it smelled of roses or camphor. I kept going.
I took a step, and the bloodstone’s vibration changed to an electric pulse. The shock nearly made me drop the pendant, but I clenched it tighter.
Until what I did see made me wish the smoke would close back in.
A black blob emerged. A form, sucking up everything in its path, even the dense smoke. The form was right in front of me. I stabbed it with my sword, and the blade disintegrated. The form simply absorbed it and kept coming. I turned to run, but the form was there, too. And there. And there, wherever I turned. I felt like I was at the bottom of a deep well, and the walls were closing in on me. The bloodstone’s frantic pulses cut through my hand.
The form touched my left arm. A sickening, liquid sensation shot through me, like I was melting, as my flesh began to merge with the form. The bloodstone flashed, delivering a teeth-clenching shock.
And I woke up.
13
USUALLY IT’S A RELIEF TO WAKE UP FROM A BAD DREAM. Your racing heartbeat gradually slows to normal as the familiar surroundings of your warm, safe bedroom come into focus. But for me, waking up meant returning to a reality worse than any nightmare.
I shivered; the room where I lay a prisoner had grown icy cold. My left arm felt bruised where the form had touched it. I wished I could move to rub some life back into the spot. I clenched my fingers and felt something. In my right hand, I still held Mab’s bloodstone.
Maybe I could try again.
And I did try, but I couldn’t settle back into sleep. As soon as my mind started to descend into my dreamscape, the form was back, surrounding me, cutting off air and light, pulling me in. Again and again, I jolted awake.
It was useless. I gave up and lay shivering in the darkness.
The door opened. Two Old Ones came in, their icy auras chilling the room even more. One of them bent over me, eyeballs rolling in the lidless sockets, fangs stopping just short of my face. His mouth stretched in a ghastly smile. Then they positioned themselves at the head and the foot of the table that held me and silently wheeled me out into a hallway. Harsh fluorescent lights blinded me; I closed my eyes against them, then blinked to get my vision back.
They steered me into a large room. As far as I could tell, there were no windows. What I could see of the walls were white-painted concrete blocks. Above me hung stained, cheaplooking ceiling panels. Then I could see myself, as the Old Ones wheeled me beneath a flat mirror that took up the space of two ceiling tiles.
I wore a hospital gown, its ties loosely closed in the front. Thick leather straps, fastened with buckles, held my ankles and legs, my wrists and arms, my waist and chest—even my forehead—tying me down more thoroughly than Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The table stopped. The mirror showed me another table right beside me. On that table, under a white sheet, lay Pryce.
This time, I had no doubt it was him. I recognized his pale skin and black hair, but in the month since we’d done battle, he’d gotten thin. His eyes were closed, the skin under them sunken. His tongue protruded slightly. Although the room was freezing and he was covered by a thin cotton sheet, he didn’t shiver. His only movement was the slow, even rise and fall of his chest. If not for that, I would’ve thought I lay next to a corpse.
“Hello.” Myrddin’s voice was cheerful as his face appeared above me. His foul breath washed over me, and I could see the back of his head in the mirror. “And soon, good-bye. The sedative should be working its way out of your system now. Don’t try shifting your shape; I can prevent it. Power over animals is one of my skills.”
I double-checked in the mirror; the IV was gone. “Then why did you drug me?”
“Convenience. I had preparations to make. You don’t think I’d trust these backstabbing Old Ones or their vampire puppets to make them for me.”
He turned to Pryce, put a hand on his shoulder. “My only son. Do you know how difficult it is for my kind to reproduce? This boy is my most prized possession. I’ve followed him with interest over the years, of course, to the extent I could. But I was . . . away. And scrying is so passive. I couldn’t help him, guide him,
Myrddin ran the back of his hand along Pryce’s cheek. “Now that I’m back, we’ll be gods together, my boy and I,” he murmured. Then he raised his voice. “You hear that, Colwyn? Gods! True gods, not skulking shadow-dwellers like you desiccated fossils.”
I guessed that Colwyn was one of the Old Ones who’d rolled me in here. He didn’t reply to Myrddin’s taunt.
Myrddin returned his attention to me. “And how is your . . . aunt, I believe she calls herself?”
His question took me by surprise. “Are you talking about Mab?”
“Mab. Yes, of course. So many names, one loses track over the years. At any rate, how is she?”
“None of your business.”
