by Ryan La Sala
No, cheering.
He stepped to the edge and then wheeled back, dizzy from the height. This cavern was a vast bowl; thousands of people swarmed the shallow slope. They chanted and stomped, giving the whole view the reeling, spacious chaos of a stadium. And as inconceivable and chaotic as the space was, it was all drawn like a gasped breath toward one single feature: a monstrous shrine at the far wall, carved to look like a face contorted with rage. The mouth, full of a golden inferno, was so big a house could sit on the tongue. The plucked-out eyes poured forth streaming white waterfalls that sizzled against the cracked lips. Steam swept into the crowd, which writhed and cried out for more.
“What on earth is this? Where did all these people come from?” Kane gasped.
“Most aren’t real,” said the boy. “You can tell by the eyes. The people created by the reverie have white irises.”
Kane remembered the icy stare of the barbarian leading the caravan. Everyone else had been from the football team, but he had been a creation of this world.
“What are they doing?” Kane asked.
“Look closer, at the court.”
The court was a platform of obsidian wreathed in magma, giving it a malevolent under-glow. In the center whirled a man in filthy robes, shouting as he wielded a gnarled staff topped with a rattle of tiny skulls.
“The High Sorcerer,” said the boy.
“What is he doing?”
“Look closer.”
Stabbing up through the black tile of the court was an altar of pale marble, carved in the shape of a gigantic hand and draped in chains. Things were bound to it.
Not things. People.
His eyes came to rest on Adeline Bishop, her deep brown skin glowing against the cold marble holding her.
Of course, he murmured inwardly. Adeline had been the third person in the boiler room. Within the warped logic of this world—this reverie—it followed that someone as powerfully beautiful as Adeline Bishop would be cast as a damsel in distress. The main damsel, it looked like. The other girls were strung among the reaching fingers, while Adeline hung dangerously vulnerable in the palm.
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“Probably she’ll be sacrificed,” the boy murmured. “It depends if the hero makes it to her in time. He’s close.”
“What if he doesn’t make it?”
“Then definitely she’ll be sacrificed.”
Kane looked at the boy and then, perhaps by the brightness in the cavern or by the closeness they shared, recognition finally took hold. He knew this person. It was the eyes, the only thing about the boy visible beneath the thick mask of bone.
“You’re Dean Flores, aren’t you?”
The boy kept his eyes on the court, unblinking. Kane knew he was right.
“You’re the one who gave me that photo of the Others. You wanted me to find my way here, didn’t you?”
Dean turned to Kane. “Not quite, but I’m glad you’re here. They need you. But for now you need to keep out of sight until Elliot shows up. He’s with the hero—the person at the center of the reverie, the one creating it. They’re traveling through the traps beneath the cavern. They’re going to try to thwart the sacrifice, and maybe they’ll be successful. Regardless, the reverie is going to start collapsing soon after.”
“But—”
“And then it’ll be up to you to unravel it.”
“But—”
“And this last part is very important, Kane.” Dean’s face was a loveless mask of shadows. “You must never tell the Others about me. If you do, they will hurt you, and then they will hurt me. Do you promise?”
Dean was unflinching. Curiosity clawed at Kane to ask more, ask about the Others and their secret worlds. About his role in all this. He promised himself he would if he survived.
“I promise.”
“Good. Now don’t move, and try not to get in trouble. I’ve already spent too long here—I won’t be able to return.”
Another explosion blew from the mouth. Behind the blackened teeth squirmed a crimson tongue, something swollen deep in the earth’s throat.
When he tore his eyes away, Dean was gone.
He spun around. Dean had slipped into the caverns without disturbing a single pebble. Kane knew it was stupid to try and catch up; the boy had moved with the smoothness of a centipede through those lightless corners.
Kane had two options: stay, or go.
He made his choice.
• Ten •
PLOT TWISTS
Kane had many regrets, and somehow they all had to do with Ursula. Sneaking into the boiler room to eavesdrop on Ursula and the Others. Confronting Ursula on the fields. Running away from Ursula and into a deadly dreamworld. Going after Ursula again only to get whipped by a whip of actual hair. Disgusting.
Kane’s newest regret, however, was about Dean. Kane had of course decided against listening to the boy, sure he could find his way out of this cavernous mess, but as soon as he reentered the tunnels he was instantly lost. After ten minutes he couldn’t even figure out how to get back to the perch in the arena. The tunnels, he was sure, were rearranging themselves. Dean had said the reverie would collapse. Was it happening? What would it feel like to be crushed beneath miles of rock and dirt?
“Amazing work, Kane. Really awesome, amazing choices today. You’re killing it.”
He was so busy scolding himself he didn’t hear the barbarian guards until he waltzed right out of the passage they’d been guarding. They sat up, as surprised as he was, but soon had Kane backed against the wall at spearpoint. Their eyes were normal. People from school.
“Keologist,” the bigger one grunted menacingly.
Kane could have sworn he was standing before Evan from the pep band, except this version had a much more flattering chin. The other—possibly Mikhail Etan, also from band—had temple acne even in this world.
“Mikhail, Evan, it’s me! It’s Kane, from school! We had homeroom together last year!”
They blinked at Kane, uncomprehending.
They don’t know they’re acting. They don’t know this isn’t real.
“This isn’t real! This is all like…a dream or something. You guys aren’t really—”
Just then a sickening shudder rolled through the tunnel, toppling the three of them. A dark electricity zipped through the fibers of the world itself, shocking him—literally. The reverie felt…angry. The texture of the air went taut and smothering, like it was twisting itself around the trio. Punishing Kane for getting caught.
The two guards lunged, but Kane was quicker. He fled, and suddenly the world around him began to twist and warp. The rock beneath his feet shifted with every step. The tunnels before him smashed together, rearranging themselves into new routes, leading him somewhere like a mouse trapped in a maze. Dean had told him that it was imperative he play along with the reverie, and Kane had just broken character in a big way. Now he sensed the reverie was deftly leading him toward something much worse. But he couldn’t stop running. The guards were right behind him.
Kane’s next step struck nothing, and he was falling through open darkness until he plunged into a frigid, brackish pool. He splashed and sputtered as a current dragged him along curved walls slick with grime, his hands slipping and scraping. The current quickened, and a glow pulsed ahead. From it he heard chanting. The roar of falling water. He knew what came next.
The current pulled him under, out into the crashing chaos of the waterfalls that poured into the arena. He curled into a ball as he slid down a slimy slope, jolting and bouncing between clots of moss until finally he rolled to a stop.
Water hissed to steam all around him on a floor of glittering black. He was aware of dropping into a brand-new, stunned silence, like when he’d entered homeroom that morning. He sat up and stared, and three thousand cloud-white eyes stared back.
The crowd, the entire arena, was captivated by the boy who had just gushed out of their giant god’s weeping grimace.
Kane felt like he should pose. Or wave. Or do something. It felt strange to make such an entrance with so little flair. He looked at Adeline, bound to the altar, and her face was the only one absent of awe. The cloud of her black curls rocked as she shook her head. She looked deeply, witheringly annoyed with Kane’s arrival.
The silence ended when the other sacrificial virgins started screaming.
“We’re saved!”
“Our hero!”
“We knew you’d come!”
And, just like that, the plot twist was complete. Kane went from distant spectator to sudden savior. Outrage exploded from the crowd, bathing the court in a dissonant demand for sacrifice. Sacrifice. SACRIFICE!
Shivers rocked his body, rattling his teeth. He had messed up so bad that the worst possible scenario was being realized, and there was nothing he could do to stop it now.
“Kane! The sorcerer!” Adeline shouted.
Up close the man was something between corpse and exoskeleton, his skin scaled in smooth burns, his teeth just rotten pebbles jammed up into gooey gums. He pulled a twisted bone dagger from his sleeve and, locking his white eyes on Kane, rushed toward Adeline. He drew the dagger back, aiming right for her stomach. She flinched, but there was nowhere to go.
Against all his instincts, Kane sprinted after the sorcerer. He was not as fast. His soaked clothes caught with every stride. There was no way he could reach the dagger as it plunged toward Adeline…but…
Kane snatched the rotting robes and yanked as hard as he could. The dagger skewed upward, caught in the hollow of Adeline’s jaw, and then wheeled away as Kane pulled harder. Together they fell to the ground, entrapped in the clinging fabric. Kane grabbed blindly at the knife, finding the sorcerer’s wrist and squeezing hard. The old man spat and whined, and next came the clatter of the dagger hitting the floor. Success! With a kick Kane dislodged himself from the robes, snatched up the weapon, and ran for Adeline.
Pinpricks of blood rolled down her neck like stray jewels, but nothing more. The dagger had only nicked her jaw.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Saving you!”
“Wrong move, Kane.” Adeline flinched as Kane slashed at the chains. “I’m set. You should be—will you please be careful?”
“I’m trying!”
“Well try running!”
“What?”
“Running. Like, with your legs.”
“No, I heard you.”
Just then Adeline thrust her knee into Kane’s stomach, doubling him over in time for the sorcerer’s staff to whistle over his head. It smashed into the altar, shards of skull bouncing across the floor. Adeline had saved Kane, but the sorcerer’s hands fell on him, grabbing his shirt and tossing him into the center of the stage with inhuman strength. Kane landed too hard; his neck snapped back, and his head cracked against the obsidian floor. The dagger skittered away from his twitching hand, and he saw red.
Everything slowed. The sorcerer loomed over him, eyes hard with hate, cloak churning like volcanic smoke. He knelt and dragged a filthy finger across Kane’s upper lip. It came away coated in blood. He brought it to his mouth, sinking the bloody finger between his lips with relish. Then he smiled, showing Kane all his teeth. All five of them.
“Virgin,” the sorcerer said, and another dark twist gathered in the reverie.
He turned to the crowd and thrust the staff into the air.
“VIRGIN!”
The response shook the cavern, the reverie warping to accommodate this new path. The hysterical shrillness of the cheers seemed to fortify the sorcerer. He put a bony hand to his ear and leaned toward one half of the spectators. “Sacrifice!” screamed the men. He did this again, to the other side, which also chanted: “Sacrifice! Sacrifice!” He made a show of deliberating which side had been louder, then shrugged comically and gave each side another chance to outdo the other. It was the cheesy dramatics of a halftime performance at a minor-league sporting event. Kane, in his delirium, found himself wondering if the cheerleaders would be released for the purposes of tossing T-shirts into the crowd.
The sorcerer declared the right side the winner, and the resulting cheer was earsplitting. It ran through Kane, numbing him. He barely felt the sorcerer heaving him up and carrying him a short distance. Idly he wondered if it was getting hotter.
His head rolled to the side, and he could see Adeline. She was yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear her. He was being carried away, toward the other side of the arena. Toward the hearth shaped like a mouth, ready to eat him up.
Adeline did a weird thing then. She grew calm, almost stern, as though she’d made an important decision. Her fingers wrapped around her chains, like she meant to tear them off herself.
The sorcerer jostled Kane, forcing him to look into the hellish flames before him. The mouth filled his vision, and the air vibrated doubly with the shouts of the crowd, now interlaced with a deep tremor from below. Sweat stung Kane’s eyes. He could smell his hair burning. Still, the sorcerer pushed forward, offering him up.
“Sacrifice!” growled the sorcerer.
“SACRIFICE!” roared the crowd.
And with that, Kane was tossed into the fire.
• Eleven •
LIMITS
Kane landed on the ground, flung backward instead of forward. The chanting of the crowd dissolved into confusion. Bewildered, Kane opened his eyes and saw the dagger on the stone beside him, the bloody tip flashing in the firelight. He blinked away his tears and made out the sorcerer desperately clawing toward it as a chain, fastened around his leg, dragged him back.
Kane followed the chain to its source: Adeline, now standing in the center of the arena, legs braced as she used one hand to reel in the sorcerer while the other spooled the chain into a neat coil. The sorcerer, who had been strong enough to lift Kane, was no match for Adeline’s fluid, deliberate movements. He clawed and gasped, as powerless as a caught fish.
“Get away from the fire!” Adeline screamed.
There was nowhere to go. The sorcerer lurched forward, his pupils just pinpricks in the yawning white of his blank eyes. Kane slammed his boot into the man’s hands, bending the brittle fingers like straws. With another kick Kane sent the dagger skittering into the fire, and the man screamed in rage. In a blink he spun toward Adeline. Like a kite caught by the wind, he launched into the air and dove upon her, but she was ready. Maneuvering the chain as easily as one might maneuver a ribbon, Adeline twirled gracefully and whipped out the spooled length in a violent slash. It cracked against the sorcerer, cutting into him like a wire through soft cheese.
Blood splattered Kane and evaporated instantly. He stumbled out of the hearth’s edge, fighting down vomit as he hopped over the crumpled body of the sorcerer to join Adeline.
“That was wild!” he panted. “How—”
“Later,” Adeline snapped. “Right now we need to get the real people out of here before the next plot twist. Give me a hand.”
She was wrenching lengths of chain from the hand-shaped altar. Kane couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten free, but then he saw an ancient lock by her feet, popped open with a single hairpin.
“That actually works?” he gasped, helping a girl off the altar.
“The reveries love a good trope,” Adeline grunted, “Get ready for the twist.”
“Another twist?”
Adeline dragged her chains up, coiling them again, as the last girl ran off. None of what just happened pleased the crowd, but it appeared to be the virgins saving themselves that fundamentally offended the reverie, and not the sorcerer’s defeat. Kane sensed another distortion boiling through the fabric of this universe.
“Here it comes. Get behind me,” Adeline said, putting herself betwee
n Kane and the crowd.
“Where are the glowing lobsters?” Kane asked.
Adeline glanced at him. “How’d you know about that?”
“I was in the boiler room. I heard you talking with the Others. That’s what you call yourselves, right? The Others?”
Adeline unraveled a length of chain. She was looking past Kane now, her face unreadable as several barbarians vaulted onto the court. They were the biggest people Kane had ever seen, each one a tower of mass and muscle, glaring with pearly, white eyes that matched the polished blades of bone they swung.
Adeline shrugged. “Okay, Nancy Drew, I hope you’re ready to fight. Do you remember how to do that snappy thing with your fingers?”
“What?”
With a shriek, the closest warrior lowered into a gallop, sword held high over his head. Adeline grabbed Kane’s arm and held it up, his hand aimed at the warrior’s chest.
“Snap!” she commanded.
In a flash he remembered the jet of magic that had burst from his fingertips to stop Ursula. He wiggled his fingers and, when nothing happened, Adeline heaved them out of range of a slicing blade. The warrior snarled, ready for another jab, and his friends were close behind him.
“I said snap, not jazz hands!” Adeline screamed.
Kane snapped.
The sound was loud like thunder, sharp like a gunshot; the sight was a vein of iridescent brilliance carving the air apart. It was hard to see anything else as the flare slammed into the warrior with such savage ferocity that he was blown backward, very quickly and in a great many pieces. And then the other warriors were upon them.
Adeline didn’t let them get close. She swung her chain in elegant sweeps and slashes, flicking the metal whip with remarkable precision. She struck where the joints of armor failed. Throats, elbows, groins. The warriors barely had time to gnash in frustration as she drove them back.
“Kane. Focus,” she commanded, but Kane was transfixed by the remnant blaze that played across his knuckles. Every color he had ever known vibrated in the pale magic. The prints of his fingertips glowed, as though he’d pressed his hand into liquid light.