Kerry Schafer - Wakeworld

“You are wrong,” she said, and the voice was cold as ice, neither Vivian’s nor that of the old hag. “There can never be enough pain to make up for what I have suffered.”

Silence hung absolute. Even the wind died away and a darkness seemed to hang over the sun. But then she shrugged her Vivian-shaped shoulders and held out a black cylinder, carved all around with symbols. Vivian felt herself step forward in response to an invisible pull from the Key, only to be pushed back again by the woman’s power.

“What happens next is that the Chosen One is going to open the Gates.”

“You’ve got the Key. What do you need me for?” The ongoing push and pull of both brain and body and emotion was beginning to produce a blessed numbness that was beyond pain. A little piece of Vivian’s brain wormed itself free and began putting together one piece after another of the puzzle.

There were flaws in the image the woman wore. The shape of the face wasn’t quite right. The eyes were a little too close together, the nose a shade too aquiline.

“It turns out that it’s not only the Key that’s needed. It wouldn’t work for me, even in this body. So you are going to open the Gates for me.”

“No,” Vivian said. “I am not.”

“Oh, I think you will.”

Again the pain overwhelmed her. When she was able to focus her eyes, the woman’s body was shifting again, this time to that of a child just on the edge of womanhood. Dark hair braided in two pigtails; an innocent face with knowing eyes. Worst of all, a rail-thin child body and the abomination of a pregnant belly. Vivian had seen that face before on the dream construct back at the Cave of Dreams. But again, it was subtly wrong.

Tears streaked Weston’s cheeks. He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

“A lot of people are dead on account of you, Weston,” the girl said. “Help me now, and you can make it right.”

Vivian wanted to warn him, but she didn’t yet know of what. Zee’s knuckles on the hilt of the sword were white.

Weston gasped, as though he’d been struck. His face set in lines of determination. He took a step in her direction. “I owe you,” he said.

Grace smiled. It should have been a sweet child smile, but it was too knowing, too calculating. “Kill the Warrior. Then we’ll talk. Don’t look at me like that—you have a gun.”

In slow motion, as though he were sleepwalking, Weston bent and picked up the shotgun from where it lay beside him. He chambered a shell. Vivian stepped sideways to put herself between him and Zee, and Zee shoved her out of the way, hard enough that she fell to hands and knees.

The muzzle of the gun came up. Zee hefted the sword and launched himself toward Weston.

Vivian watched, helpless.

And then both trajectories changed just before they met at the middle.

Poe stepped directly into Zee’s path and tripped him. A sharp curse, a tangle of legs and feet and feathers and Zee went down.

Weston swung the gun to the right and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out and blood blossomed on Grace’s breast.

“You’re not Grace,” he said. And pulled the trigger again. The child staggered backward, her eyes huge with shock and pain. An inarticulate cry burst from her throat, outraged and inhuman. Her skin rippled and expanded as her mouth elongated into jaws and her nose into a snout. A long, serpentine neck grew to support the massive horned head, Vivian’s pendant dangling incongruously from a chain that had expanded to accommodate the new bulk. Talons sprang out of what had once been hands but were now feet on the ends of legs as thick as tree trunks.

Before Weston could reload, the dragon pinned him to the ground with one foot and held him there.

“Let him go!” Vivian shouted, moving toward the fallen Dreamshifter, but a warning jet of smoke from the dragon’s nostrils stopped her in her tracks. The wound in the creature’s breast was a small thing now, not even bleeding. She towered over Vivian, as black as the Gates themselves, sucking up all of the light.

It was all Vivian could do to stay on her feet.

Words formed, soundless, in her mind.

You will take the Key. We will fly to the Gates, and you will open them for me.

“And if I don’t?”

All of your companions die.

Weston wasn’t moving, and Vivian couldn’t tell if he was still breathing. Zee inched forward, flat on his belly. His arm was bleeding again. If he took on a sword battle with this dragon at this time, he would die. He simply wasn’t strong enough. She also knew that he was planning to try.

Somewhere there was dragonstone. In Weston’s pack, probably, and she felt a flare of anger that he’d chosen the familiar gun over much more effective magic. Still, they might find the dragonstone, get a chance to use it, if she could buy some time. Her mind was still putting together pieces to try to get to the only acceptable outcome. Nobody dying. Getting her hands on the Key. Stopping the disintegration of the dreamspheres and finding her way to the water from the river so she could free all of the trapped undead Dreamshifters.

It took time to solve a puzzle like that, and maybe there was a way to bargain.

“If I open the Gates for you, will you carry us all? And promise our safety after?”

That depends on what you will promise me in return.

“To do my best to open the Gates.”

But I have told you—if you do not open the Gates, they will die. And I will continue to cause you pain.

“No matter how much you hurt me, I will not open the Gates for you. And if they all die, you might as well kill me.”

Oh, very well. And my safety? Where is the dragonstone?

“I don’t know.” True enough, although she hoped it wasn’t true for long.

Can you control your minions?

The idea of either Weston or Zee as minion almost made her laugh, despite the desperate straits they were in. “I don’t seek to control them, and I cannot speak for them. But if you want me to open the Gates of my own voluntary will, then you must carry me there and guarantee their safety.”

You strike a hard bargain. I will not seek to hurt them. Or you. Until the Gates are opened.

“And we will also hold our hands until the Gates are opened.”

“Vivian—”

She silenced Zee with a look. His eyes smoldered in an unminionlike way, but he nodded, keeping the sword unsheathed while she bent over and picked up the Key that lay by the dragon’s great foot. As before, it surprised her with its weight. Only now it felt alive in her hand, as though it were made of pure energy and not just stone.

The energy fed her. She felt her shoulders straighten, felt herself draw a deeper breath. “Another thing,” she said, looking way up and into the huge golden eyes. “I want my pendant.”

I do not wish to give it to you.

“Doesn’t matter. It isn’t yours, and if you’re planning to leave me alive, as you promised, you won’t be needing it and I will.”

She knew full well what she was asking. It meant the dragon was giving up control. No more ability to inflict that mind-numbing pain.

The black dragon shot flame out of her nostrils. Vivian waited. At last the great head bent toward her and the pendant was in reach. Surprised at the steadiness of her own hands, Vivian unfastened the clasp of the chain and hung the pendant around her own neck. When the chain automatically shortened to fit, she didn’t even feel surprise. Her hand closed around the familiar little penguin.

“All right then,” she said. “If you would move your foot so we can retrieve our comrade, we’re ready.”

I will carry him.

It took a minute for Vivian to realize that the dragon meant to carry Weston in her talons. She shook her head. “No. He rides with me.”