Keith Baker - The fading dream

She didn’t even see the blow coming. She was lucky he struck with his open hand; he had all the power of an ogre. She hit the floor hard, vision blurring, Steel sliding from her grasp.

“I fought the lords of Xen’drik before your kind walked the world,” Doresh snarled. “You’re lucky I have no wish to sully my blade with your blood. But there are others willing to do the deed. Don’t you recognize this place, Marudrix? The hall of Making? Your father was here on the Day of Mourning. Here when you killed him, along with all these others. With everyone in Cyre on that day, save you.”

Thorn shook the cobwebs from her head and forced herself to her feet. Tendrils of fog were all around her. No, not fog… mist.

The dead-gray mists of the Mourning.

People were screaming all around them, thrashing in the sudden gloom. Thorn concentrated, and Steel flew back to her hand. “Drix!”

He didn’t answer.

He hasn’t moved, Steel told her.

“Are those windows still there?” she said.

Yes.

“Good.” She ran toward where she’d last seen Drix.

It was a simple plan: grab Drix, smash the window, regroup, and start again. There was only one problem with it: the people in the way. She’d thought the people trapped in the mists were dying. They were simply changing. She’d gone a matter of steps before the warped ones were upon her. She caught a glimpse of a face that seemed to be sliding off the skull, of limbs stretched like warm wax, and they were all around her. She had only one thing in her favor: her enhanced senses were with her again. She could feel the creatures moving in the mists around her, feel the twisted revelers clawing and swinging. It was enough to dodge the worst of it but not nearly enough for all. There were simply too many of them, and they seemed utterly immune to pain; they didn’t even react when she slashed with Steel. She felt a few of her ribs crack under a mighty blow, and another nearly sent her to her knees.

I’ve lost track of Drix, Steel told her. You’ve got to get out now. Just go.

It was easier said than done. Another barrage of blows left Thorn reeling. For a moment she wanted to just let go, to fall and forget it all. Then, for a moment, she saw Drix’s face… and Nandon’s. And she thought about the locket among the bones.

“It’s not going to end this way!” she cried. Reaching inside, she called on the strength of the dragon. As the next twisted reveler swung at her, she grabbed his wrist and spun him around, battering the others away with his body. She could feel the broken ribs tearing at her as she moved, and in her rage, she tried to draw the life from the man in her grasp… and felt nothing. There was no spark of life in the thing.

There was no time to hesitate. Holding on to the fury and the strength, she threw the man in front of her, scattering the brutes that lay between her and the window. She broke the arm of the one man who grabbed her as she ran. Then she was at the window. She struck the glass with Steel’s pommel, felt it shatter, and threw herself through.

It was a longer fall than she’d expected and far from a graceful landing. The world disappeared in a flash of pain as she struck hard stone, and she heard the crack of bone. It was hard for her to tell what was broken; her world was a mass of agony. Steel was talking but his voice was like wind; she couldn’t hang on to the words. She knew only one thing: she couldn’t stop, not yet. She couldn’t seem to stand, but Steel was still in her hand. She forced herself onto her arms, drove Steel down into the ground, and dragged herself forward.

There were voices in her mind, shouting along with Steel. She heard Daine, the Son of Khyber, but his words were as incomprehensible as the voice of the dagger.

She pulled herself forward again. She could feel an alcove up ahead-shelter.

Drulkalatar railed in her mind, mocking cries and howls lost in the torment.

Time lost its meaning as she dragged herself forward-another foot… another. Finally she was hidden from view.

Her destination reached, she fell back against the ground. All she could feel was pain. She wanted to let go of it, wanted to stop struggling, but something made her hang on.

She felt movement behind her. She tried to find the strength she needed to rise, to throw Steel.

“Relax, beloved,” Drego said. “You’ll need that fire soon enough.”

Taer Lian Doresh B arrakas 25, 999 YK

Blinded by agony, all Thorn could see was the outline of the man. But she knew his voice, and his scent.

“Come… to mock?” she said.

“Never, beloved,” he replied. “Yet surely you know that you could end all this. You’ve drawn on her strength but nothing more. If you release the dragon, she will survive this. She will make your enemies suffer for what they have done to you.”

“No…” she said. Drawing in breath was a challenge. “If I die… I die… as Thorn.”

“Mortals,” he said. “Stubborn to the last. I suppose that’s what you get for having a last to be stubborn to. If you’re so certain, then I suppose I’ll have to help.”

“Help?” she murmured.

“Just remember one thing, beloved,” he said, kneeling beside her. “It’s only a dream.”

He disappeared then and she wasn’t sure if he’d walked out of the alcove or simply vanished. The voices were still clamoring beneath the pain. Daine… Drulkalatar… dozens more.

The world faded away, and when it came back, someone was coming toward her hiding place.

Drego? No. She could hear hard boots scraping the ground, the hem of a long robe dragging.

The stranger drew ever closer. Thorn gathered her strength, and she realized what she had to do. She stopped struggling, dropped Steel, and let the tension flow from her body.

The sentry paused at the edge of the alcove. He’d heard a sound, and he’d seen the bloodstains along the stone. But sight and sound weren’t his primary senses. He perceived the living by feeling their fears, and there was nothing up ahead. Still, spear at the ready, he turned the corner.

The woman was stretched out on the stone. The sentry could see her broken leg and the blood around her, the dagger fallen to the side. And he felt nothing from her. Already dead. Something gleamed on the back of her neck, and he took a step forward to see what it was.

She moved in an instant, her hand wrapped around his leg. Surprised as he was, the sentry raised his spear to finish her. Or he tried to. Something was wrong. There was no strength in his arms. No arms. She was crushing all that he was and pulling it down, pulling it into her, pulling it…

Into the stone.

He could hear the other voices clamoring around him, the dragon, the demons, the angels. And that was his last thought for a long time.

Thorn gasped, still clutching the ankle of the guardian. The pain was gone, flushed away as the strength of the sentry flowed through her. She flexed her leg and found the bone intact. Once again, draining the life of another had saved her own.

Sarmondelaryx’s power, she thought. I used it again.

It was only then that the events of the past few moments fully came back to her. She sat up and looked around. “Drego?”

He was nowhere to be seen. More than that, she couldn’t smell him anymore. With all the other voices, she wasn’t sure if he’d really been there at all.

Voices. She picked up Steel.

You’re alive, he said.

“You sound so surprised,” she told him.

You weren’t watching you for the last few moments. Quite a remarkable recovery.

“Isn’t it? It might make you think of Toli or a certain Deneith bastard.”

Yes… Steel said. I felt the surge of power again. It seems you’re learning more control.