Dreamcatcher

by Christian Rosnell

  Lyght felt a drop on his shoulder, and looked up, sighing. Rain. And they had just started riding. If Lyght could guess, he would bet Lyn would keep them riding through it. Not the greatest first day of travel on horseback.

  Lyn tossed Lyght and Mikael each a pair of gloves and a black cloak, commanding, “Put these on and put your hood up. You don’t want to get burned.”

  Burned? What does he…? Lyght found out as a droplet hit the back of his hand, stinging. The rain was picking up, stinging where it hit. But not regular rain.

  Acid rain.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sky opened her eyes.

  Rolling over with a slight groan, she hit her lamp and looked at her clock – 12:05 AM. She had only really gotten about two hours of sleep. It would have to be enough. She sat up in her bed, throwing the covers off and jumping up, already clothed, stretching and yawning. Rubbing her eyes, Sky drew back the curtain and looked out the window. It was Dark out; it had been for the last five minutes. Yet, she was awake.

  She knew she was the only one who was.

  Sky knew that outside of Dreamcasters, she was the only one who could wake up during Dark hours, which were from midnight to precisely eight in the morning every other night. Apparently, only Dreamcasters were supposed to be physically capable doing this. By contrast, normal people apparently felt the strongest urge to go to sleep right before midnight on Dark nights (not that they knew what the Dark was), and never woke up before the Dark dissipated at eight. Because of this, Sky knew she wouldn’t meet anyone out in the village. She didn’t want to.

  She was a little bit bemused that Lyght just thought she would just hang back in the village and live her normal, boring life while he got to go off to the Capital and train under the most elite warriors in the land. She had no desire to do anything similar to that, of course, but she did desire to do something as exciting. Something that would overshadow even Lyght’s accomplishments, if she was successful. It was odd, really, because it had been her brother’s idea originally. In recent days, the idea had grown on her more and more. Above all, she just wanted to do something. And this something, if she could pull it off, would be pretty damn cool.

  Sky wanted to seek out the Dark at it source; to learn more about it, to understand it, and maybe – if she felt the desire – to ultimately destroy it. Yes, that did seem worthwhile. For unlike anyone else save Kona’s two celebrated Dreamcasters, she had seen the Dark; known it, lived in it. There was only one thing she was certain of about it; it was not right. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t exactly bad either, but somehow it just didn’t feel natural.

  So, over the past few days, she’d planned out exactly how to go about this. Phase one began tonight.

  As she lithely exited her room, making sure to keep quiet – lest she wake up her parents – Sky called easily to mind the experience of being in the Dark. The near-total blackness, dramatic and inexplicable changes to the landscape, the sense of lurking danger... no, it was definitely not natural. And it was definitely a dangerous experience. She had badly hurt herself a few times, and almost gotten herself killed more than once. And when you were out in the Dark by yourself, you did not want to get hurt at all. That could end very badly.

  That’s why she was more prepared this time. Jumping the last few steps quietly and landing catlike on the wooden floor below – her sneaking skills still serving her well – she snuck through the kitchen and quietly slipped out the front door, quick and silent as a breath. Slinging her pack with all the necessary supplies over her shoulder, she stepped out into the grassy yard, wet with dew, and tried to see.

  One thing about the Dark was that the longer the night went on, the blacker it got. At the beginning here, it was good that it was not total blackness yet, as her vision had yet to adjust. Walking through the cool grass with bare feet – her preferred mode of travel – she looked up at the roiling, swirling ultra-black mass of the Dark in the sky and took a deep breath, mentally bracing herself. Casting her eyes back and forth quickly, she found herself indeed alone. Alright.

  Ready.

  Sky sprang forward lithely from her doorway and hit the dusty street running, flying at a full sprint through the village. She didn’t have much time if she wanted to reach the port in northern Hope, where her “friends” waited to pick her up. That, and she didn’t want to linger in the mysterious darkness – she sometimes felt as if it were alive somehow, like it knew what she was planning. That couldn’t be right, could it? Regardless, she didn’t feel very secure in the eerie darkness. It just kind of… sat there, watching, like some sort of predator – full for the moment, but never entirely satisfied. Everywhere, yet nowhere to be seen. It really was very hard to describe unless you’d lived it. And of course, the only ones who had outside of herself, apparently, had special powers to protect themselves. She didn’t have that luxury.

  As she ran, she glanced around intently at the shifting blackness – yes, she almost had forgotten how it moved like that – and tried to glean what she could about her mysterious enemy. She couldn’t quite count on both hands how many times she had been out in the Dark, but it was less than twenty. She hated it, she really did. It was so unsettling. The annoying part was that she couldn’t really figure out why. Bad things just always seemed to happen to her when she was out in the Dark.

  In short order, Sky had flown thrown through village at her top speed – which was pretty fast by anyone’s standards – and erupted out onto the main dirt road leading out of the village, looking back to see the village shining warmly for a split second before it vanished into the hungry darkness. Red clay clung to her shoes as Sky settled into more even pace to avoid tiring herself out. Arms pumping, eyes straight ahead, she settled into a state of relaxed mental reflection, while making sure to stay aware of her surroundings. Now was the time to plan and strategize, while she was nice and alone. She couldn’t go into this recklessly; she knew she had to have a plan. She had to form a plan on the basis of the information she knew about the Dark, which was unfortunately not a lot. She would have to expand and upgrade that information significantly, starting now.

  So she began by visually tracing the Dark down from its source. The Dark was visible on Dark nights as that ultra-black film in the sky. Not only was it in the sky, but it seemed to come all the way to the ground to cover your position, wherever you were, then spread outward from there. So at the beginning of the Dark night, although it wasn’t as black yet, one had the smallest field of vision, usually only a few feet either way. Now, at about 12:15, her vision was ten feet at most in any direction. As the night went on, the area of the Dark seemed to expand, and you could see farther and farther, even though it became blacker at the same time. It was a really odd experience, and like she’d always thought, it didn’t seem natural somehow.

  Frustratingly, Sky never had been able to learn much about the Dark through experiencing it and watching it; each time awake seemed to leave her more confused than she had been before. She felt that somehow, she if anybody should be able to find out more about the mysterious entity that somehow forced everyone but Dreamcasters into a blissful sleep. Sky was obviously different in this respect, and she burned to know why. She needed to find out more about the Dark; what is was, how it operated, and why it existed, before she could decide whether she wanted to go through with trying to “destroy” it or not… whatever that entailed. Sky shook her head at herself – she knew she’d let Lyght and Mikael’s overconfidence influence her. How did one go about destroying a fundamental part of nature, anyway? That wasn’t exactly an everyday task, but still… she couldn’t help but wanting to try. As the only non-Dreamcaster who could stay awake in the Dark, she felt she had a responsibility to do it, if indeed it needed to be done.

  That, and she was just downright annoyed that Lyght was overshadowing her again. To be honest, she had been secretly impressed when Lyght told her he was going to try to find the source of the Dark and defeat it. Honestly, she hadn’t ever thought t
hat the Dark had a source, but it made sense – it had to come from somewhere, right? Regardless, she was still kind of angry that she hadn’t thought of it first. And now Lyght was just going to ditch the whole plan to run off and join the Legion? For what? That seemed unnaturally selfish of him.

  Or maybe she just wanted it to be. Maybe she was selfish herself to think she could hold him back from making his own decisions concerning his journey. Of course, she was pretty sure that the consensus among Dreamcasters – or so Lyght had told her – was that the Legion existed for the express purpose of protecting people from the Dark while they were asleep. It made sense, really, because Dreamcasters were the only ones (oddly, besides her) who could remain awake. The common people simply weren’t aware of any supernatural force acting on them, and probably wouldn’t believe you if you tried to tell them about it.

  So, in a way, Sky really couldn’t blame her foster brother for his decision – maybe he felt like this was the best way to accomplish his goal. Maybe he really had done with for altruistic motives. Or maybe – and she hoped this was not true – he had been simply hanging around Mikael for too long. Sky liked Mikael, but even she, somewhat of an attention-seeker herself, did have to admit that Mikael really loved the spotlight. She could picture all too well the ease with which Mikael would picture himself in the famous Legend uniform, and feared that his grandiose visions of achievement and glory had corrupted Lyght to make this decision for more selfish purposes.

  Regardless of the specific reasons involved, Sky remained sure of one thing – she wanted to compete her brother, at all costs. This wasn’t any sort of malicious intent; she merely wanted to prove that she could be just as good, or even better than him. Despite the fact that she was not gifted with supernatural powers, despite the fact that she hadn’t received all the attention and praise growing up that those two had, she was believed unconditionally that she could do something just as heroic, something just as important. If there was one thing that scared Sky more than anything else, it was mediocrity. Irrelevancy. No, she would not have it.

  There was also simply the fact that she truly believed that the Dark needed to be understood much better, if not outright destroyed. Even if she couldn’t reverse the whole trend, she could better understand it, and better ensure the protection of her family and fellow villagers. So, she did have a selfless motive too, right? She told herself so, anyway. She didn’t like to think she was in this for herself; that just wouldn’t be right. No, The Dark was something that needed further study, for she was sure of one thing above all else – it was not her friend, nor anyone else’s. Whether it was her enemy remained to be seen, but she thought she knew the answer to that. She just felt it.

  For now, everything was so still.

  Then, all of a sudden, as if in answer to her thoughts, an earthquake hit; the shaking combined with her own momentum throwing her tumbling violently into the soft clay on the ground. Damp as the clay was, it still hurt tremendously as she banged her head hard off a half-buried piece of granite on the side of the road. She pulled herself up to her knees, vision flashing, as she tried not to lose consciousness. It took all her coordination to avoid being knocked over again by the trembling earth. After about a minute, it stopped. Silence.

  Sky released her tense crouching position and sat down hard upon the broken, torn up ground, exhaling and closing her eyes. She sat waiting a few minutes for any potential aftershock, and seeing none, got slowly and gingerly to her feet, working slowly back into a jog, teeth gritted in pain. She must’ve twisted her ankle as well in the sudden fall. She hoped running on it wouldn’t further injure it, but she had to keep going. The Dark wasn’t kind to stragglers.

  Even running and keeping a low profile, Sky had been hit with an earthquake. She’d never experienced one of those; during the day, night, or Dark even. Earthquakes just didn’t happen this far south. In fact, that technically shouldn’t have been possible; there were no fault lines in the area, as far as Sky knew. However, this was just more proof that The Dark was somehow unnaturally affecting the landscape. She doubted she could ever prove this, but she felt like it was somehow watching her, trying to challenge her right to be awake during its reign. Well, she wasn’t going to sleep, if that’s what it wanted.

  Eyes set determinedly, she slowly but increasingly worked her way up to a full run again. She wouldn’t go down this easily… No, not by a long shot. She had to make it to the port town she aimed for by morning – Max’s hometown. Her friends were waiting. Her journey would start there.

  And, she suddenly decided, it wouldn’t end until the Dark was destroyed. Sky closed her eyes, smiling, noticing the irony.

  In a way, Sky was declaring war on the sky itself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lyght saw the statue first.

  Though the massive dark steel monolith stood in the channel on the far side of the city, it was so large it became visible to them hours before the city itself did. Soaring thousands of feet into the air with its arms outstretched – as if to embrace all of humanity – the immense monument of King Decimader Vuruman was far and away the most awe-inspiring construct Lyght had seen in all of the Dreamscape, and he had been a lot of places when he and his father had been nomads. Although he had never been to the capital itself, Lyght had in fact been close enough to have seen the statue, and had even sailed by the foot of it. As a small child back then, he felt he was looking upon the likeness of God himself.

  And, in a way – if the legacy of the Great Hero Decimader Vuruman was anything to judge by – he kind of was. It still seemed surreal to Lyght that he was actually on his way to the capital city, invited by special invitation to train under a real Legend, with a legitimate chance to join the Legion. To say it was the chance of a lifetime wouldn’t quite cover it. Sometimes Lyght just had to shake his head in disbelief at how far he had come. It astounded even him sometimes.

  As Lyght was mired in thought, their horses were nearing Glory, the capital city of the Dreamscape. Lyght could already see the hazy outline of soaring towers and massive fortresses in the distance. Much closer, however, were the outskirts of Glory – the Belt, as it was called. It was not very descriptive, so Lyght had been very curious to see what exactly this Belt was. He knew that it was where the lower classes of the city dwelled, so he expected a lot of people crammed into a smaller area. This was essentially the gist, but he was still somewhat shocked at what he found.

  As Lyght, Mikael, and Lyn rode into the Belt, a very interesting sight presented itself. By now, the massive dark steel buildings that earned Glory its nickname – “The City of Steel” – were visible but well ahead, off towards the center of the city, with their backs to the wide, flowing channel. Below them, strewn in a giant ring – or belt – lay scattered rows upon rows of shorter steel buildings, strewn haphazardly around twisting cobbled streets and uneven squares. These buildings were made of steel, but not “dark steel” – the tough, imposing, and even beautiful smoky blue metal that was the primary material used in every building, save the palace “Triumph”, in the heart of King Decimader’s capital. No, these buildings were made of ordinary steel, and it showed. Rampant corrosion and red rust completely dominated these structures, which Lyght could only suppose came from the acid rain that had been falling every night. This was definitely odd; now that he thought of it, considering Lyght didn’t remember any acid rain falling in the Pride domain as a child.

  Nonetheless, Lyght couldn’t help nudging Mikael on the arm and pointing as they rode past a particularly hard-hit building, apparently a factory, in which massive rusted out holes allowed bystanders to see nearly the entire interior of most of the floors. “See that? This is incredible. How can The King let his own city go through that?”

  Mikael shook his head, but Lyn brought his gaze back down from Triumph and answered “As you might have surmised, the acid rain that plagues this city and the entire domain didn’t begin on a regular basis until just less than a year ago. Of course, da
rk steel is far too valuable and difficult to make to build a whole city on it. The regular steel used in the Belt never became a problem until acid rain began falling every night and corroding the metal. And, before you ask, we still don’t know why it only falls at night. I have it in good confidence that this is something the King is very worried about, but… I just don’t know what you can do about that.”

  Lyght took the Legend at his word, but somehow still found the striking difference between the Belt and the dark steel city center very odd. Even if these buildings hadn’t been rusted out and falling apart, they would still pale in comparison to the majestic, soaring dark steel towers in the heart of the city. The King was renowned far and wide as being a man of the people, first and foremost. To Lyght, at least, what he was seeing here didn’t fit with what he had heard. There was nothing glorious about the Belt in Glory. Lyght was having trouble reconciling what he had heard about the capital with what he was actually seeing.

  As they rode up the broken, uneven cobblestone street through the Belt, children playing barefoot in the street stopped and stared up with wide eyes. Although they had surely seen Legends before in the city, the sight of this absolutely massive one, along with two other armed companions on enormous war horses, was clearly a bit intimidating. Lyght tried to nod assuringly to them as they passed, but he was not sure if he was doing a great job. Mikael seemed to be successful enough; however, smiling down at the kids and reaching down to high five and fist-bump them as they passed. Lyght almost said something, but closed his mouth and looked away. Just because Mikael was comfortable with strangers, why should he care? He kind of envied his friend, to be honest. His open confidence was a trait that Lyght felt should try and cultivate more in himself anyway.