Dreamcatcher

by Christian Rosnell

  That is my most treasured possession – the Aramis Rahkar. It was passed down to me from my mentor, and it really is quite an extraordinary object… although I can’t really explain how it works, as I don’t know. My mentor never was able to explain much about it to me, due to circumstances, but I’ve figured out some about it on my own.

  The white star is meant to rest over your sternum for a reason. You, like most Dreamcasters, may have the general feeling that your power comes from somewhere in your general torso area. Well, Dreamcasting spirit is in fact held in a small construct right behind the sternum, which only Dreamcasters have, and which they are born with. So yes, they are predestined from birth.

  What the Rahkar does – again, I’m not sure how – is greatly amplify the use of your spirit on your own muscles, giving you a seemingly impossible boost in strength and speed that you can use to great effect. It does have one drawback though – it makes your spirit evaporate at, I’ve found, roughly twice the rate it would otherwise. I can’t explain why exactly it’s twice the rate, but it’s still worth it for the incredible boost in speed and power. This is a unique object, and almost impossible to make, but it’s one of the main weapons I have in completing my mission.

  Lyght finished reading and looked up, fascinated to actually hear so much from Seth at once. This was a good way of communicating. He had to ask though, “What mission are you talking about?” Seth nodded, like he’d anticipated the question, and ripped off another piece of paper to write on – shorter this time. He handed it to Lyght, who read.

  Something of the highest importance, that my friends and I are involved in. You should consider it too; I think you’d do great with us. Me and Iri are two of the four in the group, but you and your friend Mikael could be the fifth and sixth.

  Our mission, you see, is to destroy the Dark once and for all. And we need help.

  So, what do you say?

  Lyght looked up suddenly as he finished reading, looking at Seth in an entirely new way. Seth smiled for real, for the first time since Lyght had known him, and Lyght couldn’t help but smile back. How had he known that Lyght had been planning about the same thing? Was it fate, maybe? Whatever it was, Lyght wasn’t going to pass it up.

  Lyght held his hand out, “Can I have the pen for a second please?” A bit puzzled, Seth handed it over. Lyght scrawled three big words underneath Seth’s writing, and handed it back, smiling.

  Let’s do it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Beep, Beep, Beep…

  Rolling over grumbling, Lyght hit the alarm, flashing 3:30 AM. He fell back to the bed for a minute, exhaling, arms behind his head. After lying there a minute, Lyght used a touch of Dreamcasting to boost his alertness and help wake him up. Rolling out of bed and landing on his feet, Lyght stretched, yawning, and walked tiredly over to the window, pulling the drapes open. Lyght rubbed his eyes, but was unable to see much of anything outside of a few dull, blurry orange lights from some of the city buildings. The space where he knew the channel flowed was completely black. It was a Dark night. As he intended.

  Walking over and flicking on the lamplight next to his bed, Lyght dressed and tried to think through the plan. He really didn’t have much of one, to be honest. He’d probably have to improvise much of it. The main reason he was even going out on a Dark night was because he still burned with curiosity about the bizarrely coincidental, yet fascinating, discussions he’d recently had with both Lyn and Seth. It seemed highly improbable to him that it could be accident that both men had mentioned to him – almost back-to-back – a mission to destroy the Dark. This was, of course, Lyght and Mikael’s original mission that they’d planned for themselves, before circumstances had changed and they’d decided to come to the Glory to enroll in the Legion Academy. It almost seemed like his past was following him now, and he was determined to figure out why.

  Venturing out at night, of course, would not answer any of these questions. He’d have to find a way to talk to Lyn and Seth about why they wanted to destroy the Dark; ask what their motivations were, and how they’d come to the conclusion that it needed to be done. But before that, he wanted to go out and conduct his own investigation. An experiment of sorts.

  He wanted to try and use his Dreamcasting power directly on the Dark again, as he had only once before in his life. It had been the first time he’d accessed the power, actually. The time when he’d literally ripped a hole in the Dark. It was something he’d always wondered about, deep down, but told himself must’ve been an illusion or somehow a mistake. Without his dad around to explain it to him, Lyght had always just consigned the event to a fluke. The tragedy that happened afterward only served to make Lyght think about the occurrence even less. And in the craziness of being here in this giant city, training and leading, and trying to do his best to deal with the problems on his team in the Academy, Lyght had admittedly gotten caught up and not thought about one of the biggest mysteries in his life lately. Well, not tonight. Tonight, he was going to do a little investigating.

  Pulling his jacket on and zipping it up – it was beginning to get a bit cold here at night in mid-November – Lyght slung his sword across his back and headed out, locking the door behind him. As he headed down the stairwell and out of the hotel, Lyght tried to think of where he was going, but couldn’t settle in on any particular destination where he felt like he needed to carry out his experiment. Anywhere could work, really. He did want to get out of the city, though.

  Thinking, Lyght stood outside for a moment in the chill air, breath fogging in front of him, before striking off east along the channel. He couldn’t see the un-lighted channel of course, not in the Dark, but he could hear it rushing softly past, waves dashing against the stone levees and docks. The hotel was in the far northeast corner of the city, so once he got out of the Belt, he only felt the need to walk east for less than ten minutes. He knew he was somewhere out in the country by now – although he couldn’t see where specifically. Visibility, by Dark standards, wasn’t great at this time of night, but it wasn’t as blindingly suffocating as it was right after midnight. Lyght stopped all of a sudden, feeling his heels kick up a puff of dust below him, and looked ponderingly at the Dark sky.

  Although it was a very deep black – seeming almost nonexistent – the Dark was not a static thing at all. It churned and tumbled over itself like clouds, slightly different shades of deep black marking the different plumes of Dark and their direction of movement in the huge sky above. Lyght looked up at it – analyzing it, trying to understand it. He’d tried so often, but never felt like he totally had a handle on it.

  On Dark nights, one who was awake would see the pulsing black mass seem to originate out of nowhere from a point directly above and seep across the sky, blanketing either horizon. From there, it would descend rapidly down to earth, seemingly pressing in on you if you were outside. As the night wore on, the Dark seemed to retreat from you on the ground, leaving an increasing degree of visibility in its wake. However, it seemed to somehow get… denser as it crept away from you. Like you could see farther, but the Dark seemed increasingly impenetrable as it crept back toward the horizon. Lyght had never been able to understand that, either.

  By morning, the horizon would still be obscured – but by close to eight o’clock AM the odd, creeping blackness would jump back into the sky again, contracting back to a point apparently directly above you, before disappearing exactly at eight as the sun came up. It all seemed so exact, so… calculated. The fact that everyone went to sleep exactly when the Dark was descending indicated to Lyght that there had to be a connection between the two. There was just no way that could a coincidence. As much as they were told it was just part of the natural way of things, to Lyght it had just never added up completely.

  And not only that; he had proof with his own eyes, from that fateful night over ten years ago, that the Dark was not in fact impregnable. He had somehow – unbelievably, mysteriously – poked a hole in the Dark above with his Dreamcasting p
ower. It had seemed almost like a kind of funnel up through the atmosphere, a telescope through which they could suddenly see through the impenetrable blackness. And there’d been some kind of odd white dots against a black – albeit less dark – field above. Lyght had definitely never understood that. That unanswered question, coupled with his renewed desire to investigate these matters, was what had brought him out here tonight.

  Closing his eyes, Lyght thought back to the first time he’d used Dreamcasting, trying to remember what he’d done specifically to cause the hole above.

  Wait, no. It wasn’t exactly the first time. It was the second time. The first go was when I tore those furrows in the ground. The second one, I…

  He suddenly remembered the instructions from his dad on that night, refreshed in his memory from the odd dream or vision he’d had weeks back. “Now raise your right arm in the air”, his dad had said. Current Lyght did so, a slight smile on his face from the nostalgia of it. “Now, flex your hand to connect to your power, and heat the air.” Lyght snapped his eyes open, wanting to ask the same question he had back then… except this time, there was nobody around to ask. How did one heat the air? Although Lyght obviously had a much greater understanding of Dreamcasting now, he still wasn’t sure exactly how one changed the temperature of the air. He supposed he’d have to try to just do it by feel like he had done ten years ago.

  After flexing his hand to prepare his power, Lyght alternatively tried moving his hand in slashes, tight circles, and in and out of a fist; all the while generally trying to concentrate on the air particles. Nothing happened. Lyght growled a little with frustration. He knew how to whip up the air into gusts of wind… why couldn’t he change its temperature?

  Keep his right arm raised skyward, Lyght closed his eyes; trying to think of what had been different the last time he’d done this. He’d definitely been excited at the time, and intent on his task. Lyght tried to focus in like he had back then, tried to find enjoyment in the process. Maybe that would somehow do that trick. His eyes burned into the Dark above, willing it to part ways. It had to do it soon. After all, he’d done it at the age of eight. He had to be able to do something now, after all this training. He just had to push it a little harder, use a little more energy. Lyght narrowed his eyes intently, but the obstinate blackness stared back at him. Ambivalent. Unmoving.

  Come on!

  All of a sudden, Lyght felt it – the characteristic heat splashing through the air, making him suddenly uncomfortable in his winter coat. Even with the limited visibility, Lyght could see the air particles above him waver from the intense heat blast, just like before. And now, ten years later, Lyght could control his spirit much better, and had a much higher capacity. He should be able to heat the air with much more force now. Indeed, he felt like he was standing beneath an invisible volcano as he kept his right hand pointed skyward, sending spirit spiraling through the air particles, whipping them into a frenzy.

  So that was the secret. To make the air heat up, he merely had to make the air particles move faster. It seemed simple in retrospect. Lyght made a mental note; sure he could use this new technique later to either heat or cool the air with spirit. It was an interesting prospect, he had to admit. With as hot as the air was blazing now, it occurred to Lyght that maybe he’d get an even better view of the sky above this time.

  Over a minute had to have passed though, with nothing appearing. A bit frustrated, Lyght redoubled his efforts, determined to find out what he could. If Lyn and Seth were talking about destroying the Dark, it would help Lyght immensely to come to them with information on the Dark’s weakness. He had to make himself useful in this respect, and this was the perfect opportunity. Now if it would… just… work…

  But it wasn’t working.

  Lyght, thoroughly annoyed now, flared his spirit to a prodigious level, heating the air above to a dangerous temperature – much hotter than it would ever get in the heat of the summer, in any part of the Dreamscape. He couldn’t keep this up much longer – but if this didn’t work, nothing would. Mouth locking in a snarl, battling against the sky, Lyght willed it to give way. It had to. He’d seen it break before. But it still wasn’t working. Exhaling in frustration, Lyght geared up for his last resort.

  A Dreamcaster could, it one furious blast, use up the rest of their remaining spirit capacity in one ultra-powerful explosion of strength. They’d learned the concept in the Academy, but hadn’t yet tried it out in practice. Lyght didn’t care though; he was ready to get this over with. He wanted to see what he’d seen ten years ago. He just needed a little more power, he was sure.

  Bracing himself, Lyght surrounded the spirit located deep down near his sternum, apparently, preparing to break it with a burst of force and use it all in seconds. He prepared his mind and body, like he’d been taught. It was a dangerous process – he had to make sure the explosion of power wouldn’t injure himself, which was always a distinct possibility with this move. And if he did that, out in the Dark, by himself. Well… he tried not to think about it. He’d do fine of course, even if this was his first time trying it. He just had to jump in and do it. Do it…

  Now!

  Lyght opened his eyes and pulled his arm down, then sent it skyward with a yell – resulting in a heat wave that he would have sworn came straight from the sun. The heat itself almost knocked him out. But before he could pass out, vision flashing black and red, Lyght cried out in pain and grabbed his right hand, which seemed suddenly on fire. The heat ended suddenly, though he could see through the pain that there was no hole in the sky of any kind.

  There was, however, an odd symbol burned onto the back his hand. It was a sort of circle with a series of pentagonal shapes, like a web, in the middle, with a smaller identical shape hanging below, along with other strings and what looked like feathers hanging down from the mysterious symbol. Lyght frowned at his hand; it seemed like the symbol had appeared immediately after he’d burned the last of his power. But… wait, no.

  Lyght’s spirit was completely restored.

  When he realized this, Lyght looked around in confusion. He’d just burned the last of his spirit in one move… how had he retained any, let alone gotten it all back? He looked back down at the inexplicable symbol on his hand, wondering what it all meant. He extended his hand out in the darkness, admiring the look a bit. Whatever it was, he had to admit, it seemed pretty cool.

  For a few seconds, it burned an electric blue on Lyght’s hand, a defiant light in the impenetrable night, before fading out quicker than it came. As blackness of the night set in again, Lyght had to wonder.

  What in the world was that?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  When Sky woke up, she was colder than she’d ever been in her life.

  Even inside her tent in her sleeping bag, the frigid air cut like a knife. Shivering, she reached over and grabbed a sweater out of her pack to pull on. Standing, she quietly left the tent, careful not to wake the three other crewmembers she shared it with. Breath fogging in the crisp morning air, Sky made her way over to one of the few fires that was going this early. Three crewmembers sat beside it, warming their hands over the flames; Max (who of course, was always the first one to rise), Jon, going over some maps and charts, and a younger boy named Quin who, at thirteen, was the youngest member of the crew. Jon looked up and nodded to Sky as she approached, then looked back down at the map sitting on his lap. A roughly-drawn map of the North, Sky saw.

  “How far out are we?”, Sky asked, craning her head to look at the red star on the map that marked their position at the base of Mount Arex, in the Faryn mountain range that sprawled across the northern reaches of the Confusion, Hate, and Sorrow domains. They’d set up camp at the base of this mountain for multiple reasons. First of all, it was one of the smaller mountains in the area of northern Hate where they were (although it still dwarfed anything Sky had ever seen in the South). Thus, the risk of an avalanche from the snows already accumulating on the mountain’s peak would be not as big of
concern. Secondly, Arex’s location was ideal for them because while it was tucked off in the mountains away from prying eyes, it also provided easy access by way of the mountain path back out into the open land, which was the direction they’d head to arrive at their destination today.

  Jon had that destination circled on the map; the “Great Gate” that spanned the entire southern border of the Fear domain, and was the only way of entry into perhaps the most mysterious and rarely-visited of the domains, after Apathy. There were stories about how the King’s influence was very weak there, even weaker than it was in the rest of the North, making the whole domain a lawless wasteland where no one was safe. Sky wasn’t sure how true that could be, but still wanted to see for herself. With the Great Gate guarding the south, and a similarly-massive Sea Wall guarding the north, the Fear domain seemed to Sky to be the perfect place for the Dream Syndicate to headquarter their ultra-secretive organization.

  Jon studied the map a second more before answering Sky’s question on their location, “Hmmm? Oh… I’d say we’re only about an hour’s walk away – not far at all. I feel like we’ve made good time, and although this map is somewhat hard to gauge, we should in any event reach the Gate shortly after we pack up camp and leave. Meaning we have to be ready for whatever comes today, because we’re really entering into the unknown here, you know that right?”

  Sky nodded, “Yeah, obviously. But when have any of you guys ever been scared of a little bit of mystery? I mean, intrigue and adventure is what you’re all about, right?”

  Max laughed and stood up, beginning to slide some sausages onto the spike that stood over the fire, and glancing sideways at Sky, “Yeah, well, that’s the story right? That we’re all supposed to be out here for the fun of it? Well, I’m having fun, I tend to hold that as a standard, but I’m also being realistic in saying that not everyone here views camping in icy cold foreign lands to be fun. We were pretending to be pirates, you see, not winter warriors. But hey, I think they’ve been doing an admirable job considering the circumstances.”