Unquiet Dreams

by Mark Del Franco

  Keeva tumbled senselessly through the air as Guards raced up. They caught her before she hit and rushed away with her body. Joe popped in next to me.

  He reappeared right in my face. “She said hi.”

  “Dammit, Joe, I think you killed her,” I snapped.

  “Oh, calm down. I didn’t use the blade. I gave her a head shock. She’ll wake up in a week or two,” he said.

  It worked, though. Without Keeva, the Guild agents seemed to come to their senses. They moved up higher and began deflecting essence instead of firing it. It wasn’t enough, though. The agents and the Cluries were too outnumbered to stand their ground against everyone else.

  The malignant green veining of Gerin’s spell contaminated the essence around me, radiating from the dome. It infected everything—the ground, the trees, and each and every fighter. Gerin hadn’t lied. No one could tap essence without becoming thrall to his spell.

  A deep rumbling built around us as the ground vibrated.

  “Now what,” I muttered.

  The trees shook in a frenzy as a gale wind came up. The tremor increased. Dirt cascaded into the pit as Murdock and I scrambled up the ramp. Trees toppled as the earth heaved upward. The fighting slowed as people felt the effects. The shaking became more severe, and I lost my balance. I grabbed at a tombstone to steady myself. My sensing ability kicked in as a wave of essence flowed over me. A misty halo rose above the ridge, pure essence flickering in a viridian arc across the sky. I could hear a voice raised in song, chanting words I didn’t recognize, a deep language resonant with the Power of the wild oak

  The light above the ridge grew brighter and a spray of rock and earth shot into the air as more trees fell. Everything stopped. The wind. The tremoring. Everything but the song of Power. Dust hung in the eerie gray light, outlining a diminutive shape.

  On an upthrusting of bedrock, Meryl glowed with preter-natural light. My chest ached at the sight of her, her face taut, her eyes roiling with light. She was still alive. I couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked. And terrifying.

  A silence fell, a thick heavy pause as though for breath, while the light around Meryl grew even brighter. She threw back her head and screamed. Wind roared as essence cycloned out of her, tearing up everything in its path. A thick, rushing wave of it tore through the fighters, knocking them away like specks of insignificance.

  Bolts of essence leaped from her hands, raking across the ground, while above her it fanned into a blaze of flaming emerald. With methodical precision, the lines of Power sought out the taint from Gerin’s spell. Incandescent flashes burst out everywhere as Meryl’s attack burned through the green veining. It gave way before her, retreating into the glowing dome of light. And then she stopped, her voice cutting off abruptly.

  In the unnerving quiet of the aftermath, Meryl stood alone facing us from the top of the slope, a fierce white light still glowing in her eyes. My chest ached with astonishment at what she had done. Wherever her essence wave touched, it purged Gerin’s spell until the entire clearing was devoid of his Power.

  As I got to my feet, the sword felt awkward in my hand. Granite from the tombstone had flowed over my skin. I could see the troll residue clearly now, an azure haze over my body. With pain stabbing in my head, I forced my essence to push the stone off me. It crumbled into dust.

  Murdock stood next to me, his gun clenched in his hand, breathing heavily. He didn’t say a word but nodded at me.

  Behind us, the dome rumbled and groaned. In a tumult of color, it expanded with a deep shudder. A wave of dizziness came over me as I felt a pull at my chest. Essence flowed under my feet like the undertow of surf. It streamed into the dome, leaving nothing but dead earth behind it. Truly dead, without a spark of life or essence in it. The dome pulsed and bulged, lightning crackling on its surface. We backed up the slope away from it.

  “A harrowing,” Joe said, his voice thick with horror.

  I didn’t realize he was still with us. He hovered behind me, his face white with fear. For a moment, I thought a trick of the light made him appear transparent. Then I realized it was no trick. Joe was fading.

  “Get out, Joe. Get out before it kills you!” I shouted. He brought his hands in front of his face. I could see through them, saw his eyes widen. The dome was pulling his essence out of him, sucking up his life force with frightening speed. Without another word, he winked out.

  Essence coursed past us in ribbons of color. Murdock and I backed away as the dome ground closer. A new wind came up, and we pressed against it to the top of the ridge. Meryl stood alone now, still glowing with enormous Power. Everyone else had fled.

  “What the hell is a harrowing?” he asked.

  “An essence storm.” It was Meryl’s voice, but unlike the way I had ever heard her. She had came down from the spire of rock and stood next to us. “It sucks up everything in its path. I’ve never heard of one getting this big. I could only force back Gerin’s spell, but he’s unleashed more Power than I can stop. It’s over. We’ve lost.”

  Before I could say anything to her, Murdock gasped and staggered away from me. He grabbed his chest and crumpled to the ground. I crouched by him. He was unconscious, his essence caught in the flow of the harrowing. It leached off him in rivulets, merging with the streams rushing down into the dome.

  Meryl looked over at us, her face uncomfortably calm with the power of the drys still within her. “Lay him on stone. It will protect him for a brief time.” As quickly as I could, I dragged Murdock past her and lifted him onto the stone vault of an exposed grave. Above the vault, its monument read AS THE BONES OF MAN JOIN THE BONES OF EARTH, THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE.

  I hoped Murdock wouldn’t take it as a bad omen when he woke up. If he woke up. Standing on the granite soothed the pain in my head. My own essence was trying to release, but the mass in my head kept it in check. For once I was grateful for it.

  I looked over my shoulder to Meryl, who was facing away from me. “Are you okay, Meryl?”

  She didn’t look at me. When she spoke, she sounded almost like herself again, only with a note of despair that tore at me. “I tried to save the drys, Grey, but we’ll never get out of here in time. There’s no anchor to the harrowing. It’s out of control.”

  “The drys are inside you, aren’t they? That’s what Hala meant by vessel.”

  She just nodded, staring into the dome. Except for the dome, darkness surrounded us. From my vantage point, I could see off into the cemetery toward the city, everything dead and devoid of essence. The darkness spread as I watched, an ugly black stain moving faster and faster as more essence drained into the harrowing.

  A discharge went off like thunder. The dome moved closer, covering several acres now. It pulled at my essence, but the mass of darkness in my head resisted, not letting any leave my body. Just like it did when I tried to use essence, it resisted and pulled it back. I started to laugh. I’d been wishing the darkness in my head would go away, and now it was the one thing saving what little ability I had left.

  “It’s going to explode. I can feel it,” Meryl said.

  We didn’t speak, watching it all end. A cold sensation came up my legs. The granite from the tomb was trying to bond with the troll essence on me. Standing next to Meryl was enhancing it. I shook the stone off. As I did, I felt the pull of the harrowing even more strongly. The granite flowed up again. I was about to shake it off, but paused as my eye caught the epitaph again.

  I looked down at it for a long moment, then back at the glowing heart of the dome. Stone acted as an anchor for essence. It’s what made ward stones do what they do. The thing in my head resisted the dome. It fought the pull of the harrowing.

  I looked at the epitaph again and thought of Virgil’s cryptic comments about bones and circles. “Dammit, Virgil, I hope like hell you didn’t mean hide inside a tomb,” I muttered under my breath.

  I stopped fighting against the troll essence. The remains of Moke’s spell still clung to me. All the ambient essence seemed
to have stabilized it instead of letting it dissipate like Moke said it would. As soon as I relaxed my body shield, the spell began to bond with my body essence. It catalyzed the spell even more, drawing the stone around me like it had done at Carnage. The granite softened under my feet, then flowed like water, sliding over my body. It ran up my legs, spreading up my back. I shuddered at the cold sensation of stone oozing around my chest, encasing my torso, seeping over my groin. Tendrils crept up my neck, curled over the back of my head and down over my face. I could feel it even in my eyes. I held my hands up as the last of my skin vanished beneath the stone.

  I was completely encased now. “Meryl?”

  She looked back at me and gaped, the color draining from her face. “What the hell have you done, Grey?”

  “I think I can stop it,” I said.

  She made as if to touch my arm but then drew her hand back. “How?”

  I smiled, feeling the oddness of the stone forming the familiar expression. “Turn myself into a living ward stone. I’m going to try and anchor it.”

  She looked doubtful. “It’ll suck the essence out of you before you even reach the barrier. You saw what was happening to Joe.”

  I shrugged. “I have to try. We’re going to die anyway. You can give me some breathing space, though. Charge me with everything you’ve got.”

  Her face set with resistance. “That could kill you.”

  I shook my head. “I’m hoping not. Not with this thing inside my head. It won’t let me tap my own essence, but it’s not bothering with the troll essence. I just need a boost to get me through the barrier.”

  Anguish crossed her face as she tried to decide. At least she had an advantage over me when she took the drys inside herself. She probably knew it wouldn’t kill her. We both knew we had no idea whether my idea would work.

  “I’m asking, Meryl. You don’t have to do it. Either way, I’m going,” I said.

  She breathed heavily as she held back emotion. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Damn the Wheel,” she said, her voice sharp with a bitterness that surprised me.

  The Power of the oak surged within her, and her eyes turned a pure white. Stepping up to me, she pulled my head down to her face. Instead of letting her essence flow through her hands, she pressed her lips against mine, holding me tightly. I wrapped my arms around her as essence flooded over me. The Power of the drys rushed into me, my body humming as the granite absorbed it. Still Meryl held on, refusing to end the kiss. At last, she slumped against my chest unconscious. I caught her in my arms and lowered her gently next to Murdock.

  The dome trembled closer. I debated whether to wait, but decided the inevitable was inevitable. I felt the harrowing pull at me while the mass in my head pulled in the opposite direction. I took a deep breath and stepped up to the dome. The essence from Meryl’s charge clawed at it with razor shards of lightning. The last of the drys essence tore a jagged opening in the barrier. I stepped into the light.

  Everything

  went

  white

  20

  White.

  Sound stopped. The howling wind. The groaning oaks. Gone.

  Whiteness filled my vision. I paused for several long moments, but nothing changed. The white remained, all encompassing. I looked behind me expecting to see Meryl and Murdock lying like the dead on the tomb, but I saw only more white.

  Above me. Around me. Below. White simply was. A mass of dense essence that emanated purity. I had the impression of solid ground beneath me, yet my feet did not rest on anything. With nothing to orient myself in the space, a sensation of weightlessness made me dizzy.

  The essence had a current. I could feel it flowing around me but not through me. The stone protected me. The thing in my head held me together. Radiant waves streamed over me with a magnetic-like pull. It all flowed in the same direction, and I followed. I put one foot in front of the other but could not perceive any forward motion. I began to doubt I was even moving. The more I walked, nothing changed, but I pushed forward anyway.

  A humming pricked at my ears, a low bass tone. Once I noticed it, I realized I had been hearing it for some time, growing louder, vibrating in my chest. In my groin. In my head. It came from the direction the essence was flowing.

  A core of white light, whiter against the white, towered ahead. I couldn’t tell if I were seeing it with my eyes or sensing it with my druidic ability. The dark mass in my head shifted, a literal, physical movement of wrenching pain worse than anything I had ever experienced.

  I hunched forward, nausea ripping through my gut. A shock of white essence burst from my eyes, a sensation I hadn’t had in a long, long time. It hurt. It felt good. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it, and I had no control over it. It was just the thing in my head, adjusting to wherever I was, releasing essence like a pressure valve as it realigned itself in my head. The mass clenched again, and the essence stopped flowing out of me.

  I staggered in confusion as a darkness flickered across my mind, like a lid had come down and shut out all thought, then lifted off again. Like a blink inside my head.

  I looked around. Everything was white. Something tugged at my memory. I had been here before. I remember being angry and running and falling into a bright white light of essence. I turned slowly in place, trying to remember why, trying to remember what this place was.

  My mind blinked again.

  I jerked my head up, feeling like I had passed out. People surrounded me, staring at me. Some I recognized, and some I didn’t. Their faces held a multitude of expressions—fear and horror and sadness. Then the screams began.

  My mind blinked.

  Everything around me was white. I lay on my back staring into a nothingness of white. I was here again. This place. Above me, I could see two vast shadow shapes. Powerful shapes speaking with words I couldn’t understand. They moved closer.

  My mind blinked.

  My mind blinked.

  My mind blinked.

  I didn’t know where I was. Everything around me was white. Facing me, a core of white essence burned like a star. I moved toward it. Near its base, the white seemed—darker—not as brilliant. I kept moving toward it. The darker white faded to gray, then the first hints of color. The color began to resolve into three figures standing around the column. I remembered them. I remembered why I walked here. I remembered who these people were.

  Nigel, Eorla, and Gerin faced each other in a loose circle. They all reached toward the center, gripping Gerin’s staff of oak. None of them moved. I could see their faces now, their expressions frozen in a rictus of agony, their eyes white in their sockets. Gerin held the staff with both hands, his head thrown back. White essence smoked from his eyes and open mouth.

  The staff hummed with power. Teutonic runes spiraled around it, incandescent green glows against the shining white essence of the wood. I could feel the drys trapped inside it. I could feel Hala there. She had hidden in Meryl and then me. Then I used her to break through the dome. The spell had pulled her back in. More drys were with her. I could feel them, too, their Power caught in Gerin’s spell. I could feel Nigel and Eorla, their focus on the staff, forcing themselves against what was left of Gerin’s mind. They had come close, pushing his will back, stopping his control. They had achieved only a kind of equilibrium. But they had only stopped Gerin, not the spell. I could feel nothing from the High Druid. He had lost control of the spell and had lost the fight with Nigel and Eorla. His mind had dissipated. He had lost his mind. Literally. Into the white.

  I saw what Nigel and Eorla had tried. They had joined their essences, joined their knowledge, into a counterspell. They had wrenched control away from Gerin but did not gain it for themselves. Like Gerin, they could not both fight their adversary and the spell. In achieving the stalemate, the spell had broken loose, guideless, mindless. They did not have the Power to contain the essence and reverse its course. I could feel the spell’s hunger, a massive maw sucking in essence. Running free, it had no equilibrium to achieve, no
thing to anchor or contain it. It would just continue to feed itself, devouring more and more essence until it exploded, exploding with an energy never seen before, obliterating everything in its path. Maybe never stopping. Maybe exploding forever. Maybe.

  I looked down at my hands. They were stone, sheathed in granite. I remembered this happening, remembered doing this to myself. I looked up at the essence running free. It had no anchor. I remembered someone saying something about an anchor. Something about a harrowing needing an anchor. Something to ground its energies and interrupt the spell. Stone. It needed a ward stone. I remembered why I had come here. I reached out my hand.

  My mind blinked.

  I was surrounded by white. One moment I was running, and the next there was white. I turned. Bergin Vize had been standing behind me, a look of fevered hope on his face. His youth surprised me, his almost black hair worn long for an elf, fanning out as though filled with static. I had thought him older. He held his hands out in front him about a foot apart. A gold ring hovered between them, pulsing with essence, revolving around a shaft of light.

  Vize’s eyes locked with me, and he smiled. “One door opens; another closes,” he said.

  I reached for the ring.

  My mind blinked.

  My hand was extended toward the staff. My hand wore stone. My body wore it. Like a ward stone. I was a living ward stone. The dark mass in my head held me back for a moment. But only a moment. Pain cut through my mind as I reached forward and closed my hand around the staff. A hot, searing jolt coursed through me. I screamed as the thing in my head tore open and