Mercedes Lackey - The Gates of Sleep

“Bringing me here was a mistake, my girl,” Madam said silkily. “And believe me, it will be your last.”

That was when it struck Marina—what that moment of nothingness had meant. Although her spirit might be imprisoned here and unable to return to her physical self, this place and everything in it took its shape from the minds of those who were held here.

Madam had realized this fundamental fact first; only the faint rustle behind her and the sense that something was about to close on her warned Marina that Madam had launched her first attack. She ducked and whirled out of reach, barely in time to escape the clutching thorn branches that reached for her, the thorns, now foot-long, stabbing for her. She lashed out with fire of her own, and the thorns burst into cold flame, flame that turned them to ash—and she felt the power in her ebbing.

Belatedly, she realized that this could only be a diversion, turned again to face Madam, and flung up shields—behind her, the thorns scrabbled on the surface of a shield that here manifested as transparent armor—while inches from her nose, Madam’s green lightnings splashed harmlessly off the surface.

Madam smiled—and the ground opened up beneath Marina’s feet.

Andrew dismounted awkwardly from his mare’s back, and walked toward the front entrance of Oakhurst. The place was quiet. Too quiet. It was as if everything and everyone here was asleep… and he knew he was walking into a trap.

He opened the door himself, or tried to—it lodged against something, and he had to shove it open. That was when he realized that it wasn’t as if everything was asleep. For the thing that had temporarily blocked the door was the body of one of the footmen, lying so still and silent that he had to stoop and feel for a pulse before he knew for certain it was sleep that held him, and not death.

Oh, God help us… Past the entrance hall, and he came across another sleeper, the shattered vase of flowers from the hothouse beside her where she had fallen. The silence was thick enough to slice.

His heart pounded in his ears. He knew—or guessed—why every member of the household had fallen. He could only suppose that Reggie had been with or near Madam when her spirit was jerked into the limbo where she had sent Marina. Somewhere in this great house, Madam lay as silent and unresponsive as Marina, for the tie of the curse worked both ways, and as long as Marina was still alive, the magic that bound them together could be used against Madam as well as against Marina. That was the first part of what the old Master had imparted to them; that using that binding, they could throw victim and predator together into a situation where neither—theoretically—had the upper hand. Their environment took its shape equally from both of them; in a fight, they both depended on the power held only within themselves.

Theoretically. But Madam was older, treacherous, and far more ruthless… He couldn’t think about that now. Because Madam was only half of the equation; Reggie was the other half. Satanic rites demanded a Priest, not a Priestess, and it was in the hands of the Priest and Celebrant that most of the control resided. No matter what Madam thought, it was Reggie who was the dangerous one—doubly so, if he, unlike his mother, actually had the gift of Mastery of one of the four Elements. He hadn’t shown it—but he wouldn’t have to. The power stolen from all the tormented souls that he and his mother had consigned to their own peculiar hells was potentially so great that Reggie would never need to demonstrate the active form of Mastery. Only the passive, the receptive form, would be useful enough for him to wield—which was, of course, impossible to detect. But if Reggie could see power and manipulate it, rather than working blind as his mother was, he was infinitely more dangerous than she.

And if he actually believed? He could have allies on his side that no mortal could hope to overcome. The one advantage to this was that such allies were tricky at best and traitorous at worst. “ I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”

“Aye, so can I, and so can any man, but will they come when you do call them?”

Countering this was that true believers must be few and far between, and would the Lord of Darkness be willing to squander them?

Andrew felt himself trembling, and tightened his muscles to prevent it. Yes, Reggie was the more dangerous, as this house full of sleeping servants demonstrated. Their condition proved to Andrew that Reggie was, if not a Master, a magician as well as a Satanic Priest. He had, in one ruthless move, pulled the life-energy of every servant in this house that could not resist him into his own hands, draining them just short of death. Not that he would have balked at killing them—but that could not be done by occult means, or at least, not without expending as much energy as he took in. So Reggie was now immensely powerful, bloated with the strength stolen from an entire household—his mother’s collapse a half hour ago had given him plenty of time to array his defenses, and he would, of course, be expecting an attack.

And before he went to face his enemy, Andrew now found himself faced with a dilemma. Of all of those sleeping servants, there must be some who had fallen while doing tasks where their lives would be in danger—tending animals—near fires—

He ran for the kitchen.

Marina, transmorphing into the form of a wren in the blink of an eye, shot up through her own shields and darted into the cover of the dying bushes. All she could do was to thank heaven that she had spent so much time among wild creatures—she knew how they felt, moved, acted. She could mimic them well enough to use the unique strengths they had. And it didn’t take nearly as much power to do so as it did to lash out with mage-fire or change the world around her. If she could keep attacking Madam physically, Arachne could not possibly attack Marina magically. To change into a beast or a bird or some other form cost Marina a fraction of the power it took to lash out with mage-lightning. And she was younger than Arachne; that might be an advantage too.

She left the shields in place behind her, hoping that Madam would be deceived into thinking she was still inside them.

She peered out from under the shelter of a leaf the same color and almost the same shape as she, shaking with fear and anger mingled. Green lightning lashed at the shields, splattering across their surface, obscuring the fact that there was nothing inside them. Madam held both her hands out before her, lightning lashing from her fingertips, her face a contorted mask of hatred mingled with triumph.

Go ahead. Waste your power. You won’t find any more here. Marina let the shields collapse in on themselves. Taken by surprise by the sudden collapse of those defenses, Madam lashed at the empty place for a moment, the energies that pummeled the spot where Marina had stood so blindingly powerful that when she cut off her attack, there was nothing there but the smoking ground.

Madam stood staring at the place for a moment, then cautiously stepped forward to get a better look.

She was so single-mindedly intent on destroying Marina that it had not yet dawned on her that if Marina really had been destroyed, Madam herself should have been snapped back into the real world again.

And in that moment of forgetfulness, it was Marina’s turn to strike.

Madam’s advantage—she was swollen, bloated with stolen power. Still. But bloated as she was—and used to having all the power she needed—she might not think to husband it. And here, probably for the first time, she was able to see what her power was doing, able to use it directly instead of indirectly. That might intoxicate her with what she could do, and make her less able to think ahead.