Dreamwielder (24 page)

Talitha reached the top of the ridge and slid from her saddle to join Caile. “You set a grueling pace,” she said.

“The horses are doing most of the work,” he replied with a shrug. “They're sturdier than they look.”

“Northern animals always are. It takes strength and fortitude to live out here.”

Caile motioned toward the clouds in the distance. “Are we going to make it before the snows come?”

“Those are not snow-bearing clouds. At least not yet. We have another two days before we reach the caverns. With any luck, the first storms will hold out until then.”

“And then what?” Caile asked.

“Then we journey into the mountain. It is another four days from the entrance to Issborg.”

Caile had refrained from voicing all his concerns for fear of sounding too worrisome and cynical, but he had heard of Trumball before and the caverns of Issborg. “I thought the caves were gone,” he said. “Weren't they destroyed when Trumball was killed?”

“The southern entrance was collapsed, that is all.”

“That's where we are going isn't it? The southern entrance?”

Talitha smiled. “Trust me. I know another way.”

“You say that a lot,” Caile remarked. “You'd be a lot more trustworthy if you were more forthcoming with information.”

“And you'd be a much more pleasant traveling companion if you weren't so worrisome.”

Caile waved one hand at her in exasperation and hopped back onto his horse. “Lead the way then. These caverns aren't going to find themselves.”

Makarria was awake, but she did not stir when Roanna entered their chamber. Typically she was up and awake when Roanna arrived to fetch Taera each morning, but with Siegbjorn gone Makarria saw little reason to get out of bed and so stayed hunkered down beneath her covers.

Taera, on the other hand, threw aside her covers and started to get dressed out of rote habit as soon as she heard Roanna enter.

“Don't bother,” Roanna said. “You're staying here today.”

“What?” Taera asked, still groggy. “Why?”

Roanna sat Taera back down on her bed then sat beside her. “The time of reckoning is upon you, Taera. Kadar grows impatient with your lack of growth. I have been stern with you, I know, but you will find he is a much crueler master than I if you fail now.”

“What is it he wants?” Taera asked, instantly wide awake, bristling with danger.

Roanna sighed. “He wants to tap the power inside of you. He feels that if it has not come out naturally, then he must pry it out of you.”

Taera stared at her, confused.

“I've convinced him to give us one last chance,” Roanna continued in a near whisper. She handed Taera two metal hoops that were linked together, about the size of manacles.

“What's this?” Taera asked.

“It is a test. In the Old World it was the first test that young dreamwielders had to complete before continuing their training. To pass the test you must separate the rings. Metals have always been the most pliable materials to the mechanizations of dreamwielders. I've taught you as best I can how to go into a dream state. Imagine the rings in your mind, then imagine them separate, and make it be. You have until tomorrow morning to complete the test.”

“And if I fail?”

“Then Kadar will try his methods upon you,” Roanna replied. She stared at Taera long and hard before continuing. “He will torture you at first. Pain and fear trigger a certain response inside our bodies. In normal people this response is to fight with more fierceness or to run from danger more swiftly, but with sorcerers it sometimes awakens new powers. Kadar has many tools at his disposal. He will cut you, he will burn you, he will press your eyeballs until you think they will burst, he will bend your hands and feet in ways that will make you want to die, he will use his powers to hurt parts of your body you didn't know existed. And if none of that works, Taera, he will bed you as many times as it takes to get you with child. Nothing changes a woman's body more than carrying a child—not the coming of your moonblood or the waning of it when you are old. Sorceresses of old were known to gain and lose great powers when they gave birth.” Roanna's eyes glistened with tears, but her voice remained steady. “I do no wish this fate upon you, but Kadar will stop at no ends to see your power come to fruition.”

“I can't do it,” Taera whispered.

“You can!” Roanna barked, leaning in close. “You are the one, Taera. I don't have the power to show you or help you any more than I already have, but I know it is within you. Find your inner strength, delve into your darkest fears, do whatever it takes to accomplish this. You don't have a choice anymore.” Roanna stood. “I return in the morning with Kadar. If you have not separated the rings then I will have no choice but to let him have his way with you. Be scared, Taera, because if you are not, I promise you, you will fail.”

With that, Roanna turned and left, slamming the door behind her.

Makarria waited for a long time to make sure Roanna wasn't coming back before pulling the covers away from her face. “Taera?”

“Don't worry,” Taera replied, crying softly. “I won't tell them. When they come in the morning, Kadar can take me away and do whatever he wishes, but I won't say a thing. I won't tell them about you, Makarria.”

Makarria got up and walked across the room to take the rings from Taera. “No, I can do it for you. I've done things before. I've changed dresses. I made my grampy young again. I can do this.”

“And then what?” Taera whispered. “They'll think I did it, and they will expect me to do more, to pass more tests. They'll find out it wasn't me at all and that it was you this whole time. Then what? Then Kadar can beat and rape you instead of me?”

The tone of Taera's voice was quiet, but intense—frightful—and Makarria stood silently for a long moment as she considered what she was proposing to do. She was scared, but at the same time, she was not willing to let her friend be harmed needlessly. “It'll give us more time at least,” Makarria reasoned. “Siegbjorn will be back soon. He will help us if I ask him.”

“I said no!” Taera said, snatching the rings from Makarria's grip with more force than she intended.

Makarria yelped and pressed her stinging fingers against her lips in surprise.

“No, I'm sorry,” Taera sobbed, crying harder now. She tossed the rings aside and reached her hands out for Makarria. “I'm sorry, Makarria. I just wanted to keep you safe. I never meant for any of this happen. I never thought this would happen. I was so naïve. I thought… I thought… I don't know. I thought I was stronger.”

Makarria put her arms around Taera, her fear suddenly gone. She felt oddly misplaced, consoling the friend who had mothered her and was five years her elder, but it felt right. Protecting her friend made her own fear disappear. “It's not your fault,” Makarria said. “It's going to be alright. I promise.”

Taera said nothing and only wept into Makarria's shoulder for a long time. After a while her crying subsided, and Taera slumped back into her bed. Makarria covered her up the best she could, then quietly treaded to the far end of the room to where the rings had landed. She picked them up, ran her fingers over the entirety of them, then went and sat down on her own bed. She had already made up her mind: she was going to separate the rings, no matter what Taera said.
You've been obeying others your whole life
.
Mother, Father, Grampy, and now Taera. They can't take care of you anymore. It's time to start making your own decisions.
She laid down with the rings in hand over her chest and closed her eyes.
You can do this, Makarria. You just need to dream it true.
She pictured the rings in her mind and tried to go to sleep, but found she was anything but tired. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and the anticipation of what she was attempting to do kept distracting her. After a while, she gave up trying to sleep and sat back up. She recalled walking in on Taera that first day on the airship and finding her sitting up in a trance.
A dream state, Roanna called it.
Makarria closed her eyes with her back against the wall and again pictured the rings in her mind, but the thought again distracted her and made her think of Roanna and Kadar and his black teeth. With an exasperated snort, she pushed all those thoughts aside and focused on her breathing.
Relax,
she told herself.
You didn't change Grampy when you were scared and sobbing, you changed him when you were half-asleep.

Makarria focused on the sound of her heartbeat in her head and the air moving through her nose with each passing breath. Her body relaxed. Time passed—how much, she lost track of—and eventually she realized she had forgotten about the rings. Remembering them quickened her pulse again, so she pushed the thought of them aside. When she was relaxed again, she allowed herself to picture the rings in her mind but only for a moment before turning her attention back to her breathing. She repeated this multiple times, then forced herself to remember her goal.
Separate them,
she told herself. The next time she envisioned them in her mind, she pictured the rings melded together, the border between them blurry. Then again and again. Then she envisioned them separate. A chill swept over her body, but she shook it off and forced herself to stay focused on the image.
Two rings, separated.
She repeated the statement in her mind. She duplicated the image in her imagination over and over again. She duplicated it so many times it became instinct and soon she began to forget what she was doing. Her breathing slowed even more, and she lost track of what she was doing. Her mind wandered, fatigue swept over her. It was as if she was climbing a hill that got ever steeper.

Two rings, separated…

All thoughts were gone from Makarria's mind, and her body—completely exhausted—began to slump over. As she hit the mattress, the rings fell from her hands and clattered onto the stone floor and startled her awake. She pushed herself up and shook her head but could see nothing.

“Makarria?” Taera said from across the room. She too had been startled awake by the sound of the rings hitting the floor.

The room was nearly pitch black. The lone lamp in the corner near the door had almost been extinguished and burned now only with the faintest of lights. Taera got up slowly and felt her way toward the lamp. When she reached it, she adjusted the lamp to draw more of the wick up into the globe. It sputtered, then glowed brightly again, and Taera turned back toward the center of the room.

Makarria and Taera both stared at the two rings in the middle of the floor: two rings separated.

Makarria spoke first, nothing more than a whisper. “I did it.”

“Yes,” was all Taera could reply. After a while she got up from the floor beside the lamp and grabbed up the rings. “You will speak nothing of this,” she told Makarria. “I will stretch out what little time you have bought us.”

Makarria found that she could only nod. Taera tucked her beneath her covers, and she slept. Sometime later, the
Snjaer Firan
tribesman who guarded their door brought them their midmorning meal and escorted them to the privy. Makarria woke and dutifully followed him and Taera to the privy chamber and back but remembered hardly any of it or any of their dinner many hours later. She could barely walk or lift her arms to eat, and Taera silently assisted her, ashamed that in her moment of weakness she had let a girl bravely do what she could not. When they finished eating their evening meal, Makarria laid down and again fell into a deep slumber, while Taera returned to her own bed to sleep fitfully throughout the night.

When morning came, Roanna and Kadar entered without knocking. Taera wordlessly handed Kadar the rings. He examined them for a moment, then handed them over to Roanna. “Get working then,” he told her. “I want constant progress now that you have opened her.”

“Yes, Master,” Roanna said with a stern nod, but when Kadar exited and left them alone, Roanna smiled. “I told you, Taera. You are the one.”

King Casstian's study bustled with people and a chorus of disconnected conversations. In one corner, Casstian's supply sergeant met with the Minister of Agriculture and the guild masters for the millers and butchers to begin procuring the food necessary to feed an army. In another corner, the Royal Armorer met with the guild masters of the smiths, fletchers, and ore miners to expedite the manufacturing of more weapons. Around the fire, Rufous and the other high ranking officers of the Pyrthin navy tallied the number of ships in port at their disposal—naval and merchant vessels, both—and discussed how they would structure the chain of command between the navy and the civilian captains. And around the desk, Casstian himself looked over a large map of the Five Kingdoms with his top advisors, including the archer Tharon, and Parmo.

“We will make Kylep our marshaling point and base for attack,” Casstian said, pointing on the map to the city that sat at the northwestern juncture of the high road and the River Kylep. “Lepig would be better in some ways, perhaps, but folk there are of mixed loyalty, and the Emperor has a garrison with two-hundred cavalrymen. It would be a crippling blow if we could take the city from him, but we cannot hope to hold Lepig if the Emperor brings the entirety of his forces south from Col Sargoth. Kylep is better suited to that. It sits upon a high vantage point making it impossible to approach unnoticed, and it has outer walls which can be fortified. We can access it by both road and the river to begin sending supplies immediately.”

“And what of Valaróz?” one of the advisors asked. “If they come by land through the badlands, they will cut off our supply lines between Kylep and Kal Pyrthin.”

“We will send our advanced troops to Makady to begin fortifying the town against attack from Valaróz,” Casstian said. “Prince Parmenios assures me that Valaróz will be disinclined to attack by that route, however, and I agree.”