by Ryan La Sala
Prove to me that it’s all been worth it, he used to tell the universe. Let me have power that they can’t take from me.
Like the X-Men. Like Sailor Moon. Like Avatar Korra. He thought that if he suffered enough, magic might find him in a moment of insurmountable peril. Telekinesis, like Carrie. Or control of water, like Sailor Mercury.
Kane had not, in any of these imaginings, envisioned his hands erupting into projectile rainbows.
But that’s what had happened. He sniffed as he inspected his hands. Surprisingly, there were no burns. All that covered his skin was a layer of grime from his fall. In fact, he was covered with mud everywhere. A mixture of clay, sweat, and something both sticky and pungent.
Blood.
Kane flew into a frenzy feeling for wounds, but instead found that his cotton T-shirt was suddenly made of coarse twill. And his shorts were gone, as were his roper boots. He wore badly torn cargo pants and a pair of brown loafers that crunched on the uneven stone floor of the tunnel he now stood within, which was lit by torchlight.
Torchlight?
Cargo pants?
Kane was not in the locker rooms anymore. He wasn’t even sure he was awake. A crude tunnel curved into the darkness behind him. Veins of scarlet crystals webbed through the stone, their pulsing glow dyeing the passageway a ghastly crimson. A single torch jutted from a mount where the locker room light switch had been.
Kane ran to the walls to feel if they were real. They were. His hand drifted toward the torch to see if it was hot. It was. What was happening? Where on earth did the locker room door actually lead?
In a daze, he turned back to the door in time to see its metal melt into a cobbled mosaic. Still a door, but one that matched this new world. The mosaic depicted a scene of figures bowing before their god, a gigantic, pincered thing inlaid with rubies and black-red garnets.
“Glowing lobster,” Kane whispered.
This is what the Others were talking about. This was the reverie. The realization inspired more questions than it answered, but Kane forced himself to stay focused. He was done crying. For now, at least.
Then the door lurched upward, and Kane let out a cry. Voices hissed through the gap at the bottom, sending him stumbling backward. He reached for his phone but instead found a holstered revolver at his hip. He threw it away in disgust and shock.
“URĪB!” the voices chanted in time with the door’s rise. It sounded like men, and many of them. “URĪB!”
Absurdly, white subtitles appeared on the bottom of Kane’s vision. They read: HEAVE! HEAVE!
He blinked. The subtitles stayed. The voices grew louder, sending Kane sprinting in the opposite direction, down the sloping tunnel and out into a cavern of breathtaking space. The same crimson crystal webbed across the ceiling, clustering and breaking apart like blood vessels, and against a glowering red horizon stood an entire subterranean city. Buildings of stone, crystal, and moss thrust up through the cavern floor, each hundreds of feet tall and honeycombed with balconies. Massive stalactites hung from the cavern ceiling, carved with windows that showed through to torch-lit apartments. Rope bridges threaded between the homes, and gardens of white-leafed plants hung over the grooved avenues and cobbled walkways.
All of it was articulated in bloody red by the pulsing crystals, which summoned the elaborate city into focus and then banished it back into darkness every other breath.
Kane had never had such a realistic dream. He forced himself to keep moving through the streets as he waited to wake up. The city was empty, and he could guess where the citizens were; far in the distance he heard a massive crowd, their roar so loud it vibrated up through his boots.
Then, from behind him, came the sound of men approaching.
Kane threw himself into patches of darkness between a toppled stalagmite, ignoring the angry clicks of whatever creatures he’d startled.
What is happening? What the hell is happening? Am I dead? Can I be dead soon?
Kane tried every trick to wake up. He pinched. He bit. He slapped. He held his breath. He tried to pee. Nothing worked.
Then the men were near, and Kane could only watch. There were a dozen of them, and their uniforms were a futuristic take on barbarian-chic: armor plated in buffed metal over garments of cured flesh. Some wore masks of jawbones and teeth. They were humans, and they were dressed in human.
Kane swallowed back the bile and listened closely as the leader spoke, his words written in white text on Kane’s eyes.
“Sounds like the other caravans arrived. Hurry up, or it’ll be you on that sacrifice block!” He was massive, overgrown with thick muscles and brandishing a whip that looked to be woven from hair. Kane didn’t need to know the language to understand there was something wrong with the man’s tongue, which slid thickly around his words.
His men understood him just fine. They pulled forth a makeshift cage of petrified wood. It swayed atop stone wheels, filling the abandoned city with creaking. Within it huddled a gaggle of girls Kane instantly recognized from the cheerleading squad, except their uniforms had been replaced with oddly dated looks that contrasted with the rough environment. There was Veronica McMann wearing a blue blouse, her hair pushed into a bun. And Ashley Benton in a once-crisp cream-colored pantsuit. And the third might have been Heather Nguyen, but her hands were pressed to her face while she sobbed.
The girls and their outfits were a further complexity Kane couldn’t make sense of. But the cheerleading squad practiced near the football field. They would have been in the stadium, too.
Slowly, it dawned on Kane: the men pulling the carts looked familiar, too. It had taken him a second of hard staring to look through the armor, but their sneering faces all looked like boys from the football team.
“Hurry or I’ll sacrifice you all!” roared the leader. The boys cheered merrily and the girls whimpered.
“Sir,” one called, “You know none of us to be virgins. Th’mighty Cymotherian would be furious if she tasted our spoilt blood!”
The brigade trundled on, and Kane followed in the shadows. The next swell of red light allowed him to see a fourth girl in the cage. She was at the back and was not crying. She held her arms crossed over her chest and looked outward with an expression of annoyance. She wore a rosy dress that belled just above her knees, and the stiff magenta belt clasped around her waist matched her shiny magenta pumps. Her copper hair had been coiffed into a bulbous beehive that stayed up—huge and proud—with no deference to gravity, and on her upturned nose balanced a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Quite clearly there was a dent of contempt between her newly sculpted eyebrows.
Kane gasped. It was Ursula.
He began to comprehend her final words before he’d slammed the door shut.
I’ll find you. It wasn’t a threat. It was a warning. A promise. She’d known.
This was the reverie. This was what Kane was not supposed to discover but was somehow supposed to unravel.
He crept to the back of the cart, where no barbarians were stationed, and was able to get right up to the cage without anyone even noticing.
“Ursula.”
Ursula’s foot tapped impatiently. She didn’t respond.
“Uuursulaaa.”
Nothing.
Kane stuck his finger through the bars and poked her side. One of Ursula’s hands darted out and caught Kane’s finger, then dragged him close.
“Hush,” she hissed, still facing away. “You need to hide. Now.”
Her grip was like iron. Kane thought of the torn fence. How easily could she break his knuckles if she wanted to?
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he whispered.
“Run.” She squeezed so hard he was surprised his bone didn’t snap.
“Just break the bars,” Kane begged. “I know you can do it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
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“I mean of course I can, Kane, but I can’t.”
“Why?”
Ursula huffed. “It’s not ladylike.”
A crack rang out like a gunshot, and Kane’s arm erupted in pain. He was dragged to the ground, the whip of braided hair burning around his wrist. It yanked hard as the leader rounded the cart, grimacing at Kane, his pupils two black pits bored into irises of cloudy white.
“Hands off the meat,” he slurred.
Pain fuzzed Kane’s vision as he tore uselessly at the tether, which only bit deeper into his wrist. The cage ground to a halt and the boys huddled over their new capture. The stink of them was real. This was all real.
“Found this one prodding around,” said an underling, a sophomore Kane recognized from his lunch period last year, except in this world his cheeks were covered in bright scars. Unlike the leader, his eyes were their usual blue.
“Cut out his jaw!”
“Smother him with his own guts?”
The leader knelt over Kane. “Where’s the rest of you?”
“Rest of me?”
“The other Keologists.”
“I don’t—”
The leader nodded, and two boys pinned Kane down while a leader wrenched the whip back, pulling Kane’s arm. Someone handed the leader a gigantic axe and took the whip from him. He lifted Kane’s chin with the serrated tip, gently, showing his exquisite control of the weapon.
“Tell me.”
“I said I don’t know!”
The leader backed up, raising the axe, and then took two quick steps as he brought the axe down toward Kane’s limb. Kane screamed and jerked against the weight of the boys holding him, but the bite of the blade never came. When he opened his eyes, he saw shock eating away at the leader’s bloodthirsty grin. One of the other barbarians had intervened, catching the ax’s handle.
“Enough.”
This boy was unlike the others. He wore matching harnesses of leather and bone, but his status was marked by an elaborate mask of bone shards fastened to his brow, cheeks, and nose, as though his skull lay exposed. There was a deadliness to him that the other underlings lacked. An authority that even the leader felt compelled to obey despite the boy’s youth. The axe was lowered.
“You must go to the ceremony. Leave this one,” commanded Kane’s savior.
Thank God.
He unsheathed a blade from his harness.
“I wish to slaughter him myself.”
• Nine •
PARASITES
Oh shit.
The brigade simmered with irresolute whispers. Kane looked from the boy to the leader to Ursula, but he didn’t see any of them. He saw only the numerous ways he could—and was probably going to—die.
“Why should I leave this Keologist to you?” asked the leader.
“The ceremonies are starting soon. You must deliver the sacrifices.”
“Why not bring him along for sacrifice?”
The brigade murmured in agreement.
“Because he’s a Tiįxorn.”
No subtitle showed for that word. Just
“Tiįxorn!” the slur echoed in hushed horror.
The boy went on: “Th’Mighty Cymotherian would never host in such spoilt blood. He is better slaughtered beyond the sanctuary. Otherwise, we risk defilement.”
The brigade simmered with irresolute whispers.
“So be it.” The leader shrugged, and the boy was handed the whip. “But you may not kill him. Put him in the dungeons. I will cut out his jaw after the ceremony.”
The masked boy bowed. “As you command.”
Deflated by the utter civility of it all, the brigade resumed their slow trek, and the cart rumbled off. Kane tried to catch Ursula’s eye, but she had turned away. And now Kane was trapped. The boy was much bigger than he was. Stronger. He looked down at Kane with mild distaste.
“Come on. Let’s go,” he said in English, walking off. Kane trotted after him like a dog unsure of being walked. He looked for an opportunity to escape, but the whip was secure around his wrist. The boy was less hostile now, almost disinterested as he lead them through a network of walkways, into a hollowed-out stalagmite, and up a staircase of smoothly carved steps.
“Where are we going?” Kane wheezed as they reached a landing.
“Not barbarian jail, that’s for sure.”
“Who are you?”
“A barbarian.”
“You don’t sound like a barbarian.”
“Well, I am.”
Kane tried to recall the word that he’d been called. “What’s a tiich…tiixoo…”
“Tiįxorn. I think it means you lay with other men. The other boys were saying it, so I tried it out. Whatever it means, it worked.”
“You outed me?”
The boy gave the whip a yank. “I saved your life.”
“Are they actually going to cut out my jaw?”
“Ew. No.”
The passage reached the tip of the stalagmite, and a sturdy bridge lead them over a dizzying drop toward a half-moon tunnel carved into the cavern’s wall.
“But you said—”
The boy rounded on Kane, rocking the bridge dangerously. “I said what I had to say to get you out of there. Otherwise Ursula would have had to break character, and the reverie is much too fresh for that. It only manifested an hour ago. Now be quiet and hold on to me.”
Kane held on as they advanced through a network of tunnels similar to the passage he had first appeared in. He smelled smoke, and elsewhere water dripped. It was more level here, and Kane could walk upright. He was about to start asking more questions when the boy beat him to it.
“Do you still want to run?”
Kane surprised himself by answering honestly. “If you were going to kill me, you would have. I think I’m safer with you than without you.”
The boy produced his knife, slicing through the whip of braided hair. “That’s right. Now tell me, what do you remember?”
Kane rubbed his wrist. “I was running away from Ursula and tried to escape into the locker rooms, but I ended up here instead.”
“Before that.”
“I tried to go to the football practice to…deliver a coin.”
“That’s a terrible lie. Here, does this mean anything to you?”
With the tip of his dagger, he traced something on the damp floor.
“It’s the number eight?” Kane guessed.
The boy was unimpressed. He asked, “Okay. And what do you remember about reveries?”
“Reveries?” Kane stumbled on a loose stone, and the boy hauled him forward. They were moving quickly now. “Like, dreams?”
“Sort of.”
They crept into another cave, this one marbled in bioluminescent pools the color of a cloudless June sky. Things moved in the pools, their wakes edged in phosphorescence.
“Reveries are what happens when a person’s imagined world becomes real. They’re like miniature realities, with their own plots and rules and perils. For instance this reverie appears to be about a subterranean civilization that worships a god called the Cymo. My guess is that we are in someone’s rescue fantasy, made real. For instance you appear to be some sort of—what do you call the people who study bones and dirt?”
“Archaeologists?”
“Yes. Keologist, as they say here. The reverie’s plot appears to be about archaeologists that stumbled upon these caverns and must rescue those girls.”
“The cheerleading team?”
“Evidently.”
“But why were they dressed like sexy secretaries?”
The boy shrugged.
“And those boys—they were the football team, right?”
“Right.”
“How come no one remembers who they are?”
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br /> The boy hooked an arm around Kane’s waist, helping him over a mound of mushrooms.
“Most people never know they are in a reverie. Their mind just accepts the new world they’re in and the new role they’re given. Think of it like a movie, full of actors, except they don’t know they’re acting. They think it’s real. Very few people remain lucid like us and Ursula, but we still need to play along or else we’ll get in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Every reverie has a plot. If you don’t follow the rules of the reverie, you risk triggering a plot twist, and plot twists can be pretty deadly for people trapped inside reveries. So we have to play along, and we have to do our best to keep people safe until the reverie reaches its end.”
The skin of Kane’s neck prickled. Something splashed nearby, gone in a sparkling ripple.
“But if this is all just a wild fantasy, how can it be dangerous?”
The pale light pitched shadows into the boy’s eye sockets. “Just because something is imagined doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Sometimes the things we believe in are the most dangerous things about us. That’s why people build entire worlds in their minds. Because they think they’re safe, but they’re wrong. Dreams are like parasites. They grow up in the dark within us, and they grow deadly. Trust me when I tell you these reveries can kill you.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“You don’t have to believe it. You just have to survive it.”
“How?”
The boy pulled them into a cavern with a vaulted ceiling and irregularly spaced columns.
“Reveries don’t last forever. As they reach their ending, they become unstable and start to collapse. If you can last until then, you can unravel it.”
Unravel, like the Others had said.
“Unravel it how?”
“I guess we’ll see.”
The boy enforced silence after that. The roaring crowd Kane had heard earlier was much louder now. The sounds vibrated right from the stones. When they walked out onto the remains of an ancient, truncated bridge, the roaring resolved into chanting.