Hundreds of hippos crashed into a sea of wraiths, kicking, biting, crushing. Under their feet, and between their teeth, wraiths dispersed into smoke and rose with shrieks into the clouds. Moonmist found herself shouting with a hatred she had never known within her. Her Dreamblade flashed and lit the world, and she screamed until her voice was hoarse. Ash covered her, turning her gray and brown and black.
"Loor, Loor!" the hippos cried. "Today we trample god flesh!"
"For Tam!" Moonmist cried hoarsely, and the hippos echoed her call. Their voices rolled across Dream.
Loor ran. He ran down the hill without glancing behind him.
"King Hippo," Moonmist cried, riding on his back.
"I see him," the hippo said and began to thunder down the hill, following the Lost God. Wind whipped Moonmist's face and streamed her feathers behind her, and she held her Dreamblade tight as they gained on Loor.
They caught him by an old mulberry tree. With a kick, the Hippo King tossed Loor to the ground. Loor flipped onto his back, swinging Tearfall, but the hippo pressed a foot upon his chest, pinning down the Nightmare lord.
Slowly, ash blowing around her in the wind, Moonmist descended from the hippo. She stood over Loor. She kicked his Dreamblade away.
He stared at her, yellow eyes burning, his face--the face of a furless fox--pale.
"Well, go ahead, princess," he hissed. "You know these beasts of yours cannot kill me. You know there is only one weapon that can kill a god of Dream." He looked at her Dreamblade.
She held the Dawnstone, staring down at him, and no pity filled her, nor hatred, nor sadness. Here, after so many days of war, she found no emotion within her, only emptiness. "This is what you did to me," she whispered, dead inside. "You made me emotionless."
He laughed, a sickly laugh. "I knew you couldn't do it, princess." He spat out the word as if it were an insult. "You are a weakling, just like your Twig Eater god. I am going to--"
With a swipe of the Dawnstone, Princess Moonmist sliced off Loor's head.
She kicked it away, then turned and stared with dead eyes upon the battle. The hippos covered the hills, killing the last wraiths. The surviving spirits, seeing Loor's death upon the plain, shrieked and fled into nothingness.
Moonmist tossed her blade aside. She could not bear to hold it a moment longer. Covered with blood and dirt and sweat, she walked up the hill in silence, between the bodies of slain hippos. There, on top of Dandelion Hill, she came upon a cage.
The Hippo King bit the cage door open, and out rolled the Goddess Niv and her pegacats. Harmony and Starlight crashed into Moonmist with an embrace, and she fell to the ground, and together they wept.
"Is he dead?" Harmony whispered tremulously.
Moonmist nodded and kissed the pegacat's head. "He is dead, Harmony. He is dead."
She raised her head over the pegacats and gazed to the west, to Nightmare, and wondered how long it would be until Phobetor heard the news... and how long before his vengeance hit them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Underground
A snowstorm blew in Nightmare, of black snow that smelled and tasted like smog. Cade shivered in the cold and lowered his head against the howling winds.
"You okay, Tash?" he shouted over the wind. The mouse, hidden deep in Cade's cloak, kicked in response. It could have meant either yes or no--if Tasha said anything, her small mousy voice was lost in the storm.
Cade struggled forward, hunched over. The snow whipped his face, foul and sticky, and rose to his knees. Every part of him ached with cold and exertion. Cade clenched his teeth and grunted with every step.
I don't know how much longer I can do this, he thought. If the storm didn't blow over soon, he'd die of cold or, eventually, be buried in the black snow that kept falling. Even Galgev's clothes were no match for this weather.
A light ahead caught his eyes--a blinking beacon only a dozen yards away. Cade trudged toward it, hunched over as the winds slammed snow and fury. The light looked like a blinking red tennis ball atop a pole. Beneath the pole gaped a hole, three feet wide, with a ladder to climb down.
"I found a passageway," he said to Tasha. "A tunnel. I'm climbing in."
He lowered himself into the tunnel and held the ladder with ice-cold fingers. Shivering, teeth chattering, he climbed down into darkness for ten yards before reaching a hard floor. Sliding doors in the tunnel wall swooshed open, revealing a corridor lined with torches.
Tasha climbed onto Cade's shoulder. "Where are we, Cade? Smells like monsters."
"I don't know, Tash, but I'm hoping it'll take us past these black winterlands. Maybe the monsters carved it so they can move underground and not face the storms."
Tasha shivered. Tiny icicles hung from her whiskers. "This is all very familiar, Cade. Remember what happened last time we found an underground shortcut? I don't like this place. I don't want to encounter any more eels. But then again...." She sighed. "I don't like that snowstorm either."
Cade peered into the corridor. Its walls were rounded, and the torches flickered. He stepped through the sliding doors into the corridor. The doors boomed shut behind him with a cloud of dust, rattling the underground, and a distant deep laughter rolled. The laughter was cruel, and red eyes filled the tunnel, mocking.
"Cade, maybe...," Tasha said.
"Yeah," Cade agreed, but when he turned back toward the doors, he saw that they had vanished. Only a stone wall stood where they had been.
Tasha sighed again and shook her head wearily. "Where did you bring us this time, Cade?"
"Come on, Tash. Let's explore."
He walked into the tunnel. The torches flickered and the red eyes hissed in the shadows. Soot and puddles covered the floor. A sound like churning engines and whistles came from ahead, accompanied by a smell like oil and rust. Cade continued to walk, wishing he still had his Dreamblade, wishing the pegacats were still here to guide and comfort him, wishing he were not so afraid all the time. Here in the dark underground, his anguish was a living demon twisting inside him, clawing at his stomach and throat.
The sound grew louder ahead, and soon Cade saw orange lights in the distance. He stepped forward to find himself on a deserted platform, a train chugging toward him from the shadows.
"Nightmare's subway," Cade whispered.
The train looked a thousand years old, a dilapidated contraption of rotting wooden slats, rusty bands of iron, bolts, and rope. Glass lanterns hung from hooks atop its carts. The train reminded Cade of some great mechanical caterpillar crawling through the darkness. It stopped at the platform with a cloud of steam, and its doors swung open. The train was empty.
"Well, Tash, dear sis," Cade said, "maybe this time I did make a right move. With any luck this train'll take us right past the snowstorm."
He stepped into the train, Tasha perched on his shoulder. Muddy goat tracks covered the floor among discarded bones and dead cockroaches. Rotten wooden benches lined the walls, which were painted with spirals.
Cade spotted no driver, even through he had entered the first cart. Nevertheless, the doors clanked shut and the train began to move. At first the train chugged along slowly through the darkness, its engines moaning. Soon it gained speed, trundling, its lanterns swinging madly. The tracks screamed and sparks flew. Cade sat on a bench and held on tightly; there were no seatbelts.
"What, no snack cart?" Tasha cried over the ruckus.
Soon a shower of sparks rose. The brakes had been activated, and the train screeched to a halt. The doors clanked open to reveal another platform. Monsters filled it.
Cade leapt to his feet, but the monsters did not spare him a glance. Dead were their eyes and they dragged themselves forward, hunched over, heads lowered. They filled the train, surrounding Cade, bringing with them a stench like old meat and dank fur.
"They look so depressed, I'm surprised they got on the train, instead of jumping in front of it," Tasha whispered into Cade's ear.
There were monsters of all types--big shagg
y ones, small hairless ones, monkeys with the faces of bats, and humanoid creatures with great furry ears. The train began to move again, full of the creatures, and soon screeched to a stop at another station.
Cade checked his compass, but it only spun madly. It doesn't work here underground.
"Let's get off and see if we can find an exit to the surface," Cade said. "Maybe we're past the snowstorm already, and I want to check my compass."
He stepped off the train and found himself in a towering terminal. Thousands of monsters crowded the place, moving to and fro. The shuffling of feet, grunts, moans, and mutterings of monsters filled the dank air. Cade walked among the creatures, seeking an exit, but found only more platforms where more trains trundled.
To his surprise, he spotted a group of Elorians who stood by one platform, their feathers dark and matted, their faces pale, their clothes tattered. Dark circles were painted under their eyes, and their lips were painted deep blue. Black leather they wore, and clunky boots, and they seemed like walking dead.
A young woman stood among them, and for an instant, so fast Cade wondered if he had imagined it, her eyes met his. Her eyes were blue, and hot life still pulsed in them. She was not like the others. Her lips, painted black, opened as if to speak, but just then a towering shaggy beast walked between them. Cade peered around the beast, to find the girl, but she was gone.
"Did you see that girl, Tash?" Cade asked.
"Oh, Cade, give it a rest, really!" the mouse said. "All you think about is girls this, girls that."
"I do not!" Cade said, bristling.
"Oh yeah? Back home you never shut up about Emily from the fourth floor, and at the Begemmed City you couldn't take your eyes off Princess Moonmist. Even that girl Little Star, in the whale, caught your eye, didn't she? I mean, really Cade, if you can find girls even in Nightmare's underground, I do think I'm going to bite you."
"Fine, Tasha. Be that way. But I'm telling you I saw a girl, and her eyes were not dead like the others."
Tasha sighed. "Instead of chasing skirts, concentrate on finding our way through the subways."
"Well, this subway station has no exit, we've explored all of it. Let's get on another train."
They chose a platform randomly and waited for the next train. This train seemed even more dilapidated than the first. Instead of wood, it seemed built of bones--both monster bones and animal. Cade shuddered as he entered a cart. The skeletal train began to move, trundling and shrieking and creaking. The monsters stood around him, some towering, some squat, some slimy, some hairy, all staring forward with dead eyes. Their eyes are not merely dead, Cade thought. Their eyes have lost hope.
Cade exited the train at the next station. This subway station had towering walls of bloodred bricks. The spirals of Nightmare were splashed onto the walls with purple paint, faded with age. The place was ancient, a ruin by now, dilapidated to the point where the walls should be tumbling. And yet the station stood, by force of evil alone perhaps, as thousands of monsters still flowed through its halls.
Cade walked through the station, corridor by corridor, but could find no exit here either, just more platforms and more trains.
"Can you point me to the exit?" he asked one monster, a humanoid creature with the skin of a rhino and four horns upon its head. The monster ignored him and walked by silently.
"I'm looking for the exit," he told a second passerby, this one an ancient, bent over woman with a beak and snakes for hair. The creature just shuffled on, mumbling to herself.
"Look, Cade, Elorians," Tasha said, pointing to a group of elderly Elorian knights. Their feathery beards were long and white, their armor rusty and ridden with holes. Their blades were broken, and they held but cracked hilts. They sat at one platform, heads lowered. Cade stepped toward them.
"Hello," Cade said, "I'm glad to see you here. I was wondering if you could point me to the exit."
The knights looked at him with sad eyes, then lowered their heads again, saying nothing.
Cade sighed deeply. He would get answers from nobody here, it seemed. Wearily, he stepped onto the next train that reached the platform. Just as the train's doors clanked shut, he glimpsed a figure outside, still standing on the platform. The Elorian girl!
She gazed at him with blue eyes, but before Cade could think of how to react, the train began to move, leaving the girl behind.
Cade and Tasha spent the next few hours searching station by station, but could find no exit to the surface, nor any sign of sentience. They're all zombies here. Finally, weary and bewildered, Cade sat on a bench in a station of cracked wooden walls bedecked with moss. All around him the monsters flowed and the trains shrieked.
Tasha climbed onto his shoulder and perched there.
"Tash, I'm scared," Cade said, and hated that his voice shook. The fear rose in him, and he felt like he could weep. He had never been more frightened, not throughout all his quest. "I don't want to end up a zombie like them, traveling these subways for years and decades." He looked at the mouse. "I think everybody here was once like us. They kept trying to escape, moving from station to station, until nothing was left of their soul or hope... and they were left traveling mindlessly, dead inside. I'm scared, Tasha, that we'll become like them."
He lowered his head into his hands, forcing himself to take deep breaths. I wish I was never chosen for this quest, he thought. I wish Windwhisper had chosen somebody else, somebody stronger or wiser. I can't defeat Nightmare. I can't save Dream. He wished this were nothing but an ordinary nightmare, one he could wake up from, wake up and find himself back on Earth. But here he was, stranded in Nightmare itself, trapped forever.
He was expecting to hear Tasha reply, but the voice that spoke beside him did not belong to his sister. It was a soft voice, feminine, sad and pretty.
"If you are scared," the voice said, "that is good. It means you have not yet lost your soul to the gods of the trains."
He did not need to look up to know who had spoken.
"You are not like the rest," he said to the Elorian girl with the pale skin and painted black lips. "You still have light in your eyes."
He raised his head and looked at her seated beside him. He stared into those eyes, blue eyes surrounded by dark smudged circles. The black feathers on her head lay matted, and her leather pants fit into her clunky black boots. A word was tattooed onto her arm, coiled by black roses: Candlelit.
"For now," Candlelit said. "I haven't been here long enough, perhaps, though I don't know how long it's been. Some of the others, they've been here for centuries. Some have been here for millennia." She clutched a skull amulet that hung around her neck. "Our bodies do not age in this land, for time does not truly flow here. The others, they have forgotten the rest of the world. They have forgotten anything but the subways. But I remember still."
Tasha brushed cinder out of her fur. "Stuck here for millennia, eh? Man, they could use some neon exit signs."
Candlelit stared at the mouse. "There is no exit, mouse, nor has there ever been one. The subways run Nightmare. Their power is the engine that keeps Nightmare alive. And the subway needs travelers, for travelers are its lifeblood." The girl rose to her feet. "Come with me. I'll show you something."
She began to walk down the platform, and Cade followed. Black bracelets encircled her arms, and the spiral of Nightmare was painted onto her black shirt with purple dye. She led them across three platforms, down a flight of stairs, across several corridors, and finally through a door.
Beyond the door lay a towering cavern, the size of a football stadium. It seemed carved from rock, a soaring cave, and intricate weavings of glowing silver ran across its ceiling. Cade gasped at the beauty, his eyes widening with awe. The ceiling was a map, he realized, an impossibly complex map of the subway routes. Every line was drawn in brilliant silver that glittered like starlight. There must have been thousands of routes drawn along the ceiling. Tens of thousands.
"The subways must be thousands of miles large," Cade whi
spered. "There are thousands of stations."
Candlelit nodded. "The trains run beneath all of Nightmare, giving it life, like worms beneath the soil of Earth."
Cade looked at the center of the map, in the highest peak of the towering cave's ceiling. There, drawn in silver, appeared three horrible bird-like creatures. Their beaks were twisted, their necks gangly, and they held onto the web of routes with sharp talons. Cade shuddered.
"These are the Sisters," Candlelit said, following his gaze. "They are the caretakers of the subway, and direct all the trains that move here."
"I don't like the look of them," Tasha said and buried her face against Cade's shoulder. "Those beaks look sharp, and their eyes are evil."
Cade nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrible image. "I agree. Nonetheless, we must find them."
"Are you crazy?" both Tasha and Candlelit demanded.
Cade stared at the girl. "If the Sisters run the subway, they can free me from it."
Candlelit laughed bitterly. She clutched her skull medallion. "True, human, if you wish to escape the subways, you must seek the Sisters. Only they can open and close the doors. But know that many have come to the Sisters, requesting to leave the subway. If they are lucky, the next day, they are back here, on the trains."
Tasha peeked from Cade's shirt. "And if they are unlucky?" she asked with a small voice.
Candlelit smiled. She pointed to an image of bones etched beneath the birds. "The Sisters do love hot, fresh flesh to eat."
Tasha moaned and buried her face again. Cade patted her. "Come, Tash. We've always been the lucky sort. Let's go."
Candlelit placed a hand on Cade's shoulder. Her hand was ice cold, but her voice was warm. "You will not find the way alone. I will lead you."
* * * * *
Moonmist stood upon a hill over rolling plains of boulders and grass, holding the Dawnstone, the tip of the blade resting at her feet. She placed a palm over her eyes and gazed into the distance. Far to the east, she could still see smoke rising, a thin pillar of gray, where they had burned Loor's body.
The Gods of Dream: An Epic Fantasy Page 25