Alterverse

by Keith B Darrell

  Alaric nodded. “Of course. Everyone dreams and we have no control over what we dream about. Even our deepest secrets are revealed in our subconscious. It all plays out here, in the Dreamscape. The vampires have found a way to curry favor with their overlords by ferreting out those humans who may be harboring rebellious thoughts.”

  Kita bowed her head. “We don’t do it by choice. That’s why I ran away. But as you know – from what I overheard of your conversation – there are humans that seek their freedom from the Dark Gods, as I do. Some are aware of how the vampires are using kitsune to discover their subconscious thoughts, and in turn seek to destroy us. You may be unfamiliar with Japanese culture, so you might not know of the Kunoichi.”

  “The female ninja that tried to kill you?” Alaric asked.

  Kita nodded. “The Kunoichi hire themselves out for missions. They’re skilled in ninjutsu – the art of unconventional warfare. They’re trained to turn common objects into deadly weapons. But more often than not they infiltrate as spies, relying on psychology, intuition, and manipulation – particularly their sexual prowess – to ensnare and poison their targets.”

  “What will you do now that you have your freedom?” Asabi asked.

  A bemused expression appeared on Kita’s face. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead because I never thought I’d truly be free. Even now, although the vampires cannot follow me into the Dreamscape eventually they’ll send other kitsune after me.”

  “Why would your own kind hunt you down?” Asabi asked.

  Kita frowned. “We’re powerless against the vampires. Few kitsune would be willing to risk the lives of those they care about by disobeying the vampires.”

  “You overheard us,” Alaric said. “You know we’re planning a resistance movement. If you truly desire your freedom, then join us and earn it.”

  Before Kita could reply, the kunoichi appeared through the rift. “Stand down, or die alongside the kitsune,” she said, raising her hand to reveal the trenchant metal throwing stars that had already felled three vampires.

  Chapter Three

  “Look!” Alaric pointed at the shrinking dimensional rift. “It’s closing.”

  “I haven’t done anything to close it,” Asabi said. “Apparently the universe self-repairs tears in the fabric of its reality.”

  Kita morphed into her fox form. The kitsune arched her tail upward and a bolt of lightning shot from it, striking the kunoichi. “You think me weak because the vampires were immune to my powers? You may be a skilled warrior but you’re still a human and vulnerable to my foxfire.” Kita’s mouth gaped open, releasing a fiery blaze. The kunoichi cartwheeled out of the path of the foxfire, simultaneously throwing her shuriken at Kita. The kitsune arched her tail once more and the silver throwing stars hurtling toward her were deflected by lightning bolts. Kita opened her vulpine snout discharging a wave of foxfire to both the left and the right of the kunoichi, attempting to anticipate in which direction she might try to escape. But the kunoichi, having foreseen the kitsune’s tactic, stood motionless in the center.

  “Now I shall incinerate you with my foxfire.”

  “Enough!” Asabi cried. Two cages appeared, each materializing around one of the combatants.

  A look of bewilderment engulfed the kunoichi’s face as she tried to comprehend what was happening. Kita merely tapped on the bars of her cage with her paw and they dematerialized. “I see you know how to manipulate the Dreamscape,” Kita said.

  “As do you, apparently,” Asabi replied.

  Kita reformed into a human and smirked. “I’m at home in the Dreamscape. I know everything within this realm is composed of dreamstuff and that it can be reformed to create or uncreate whatever I imagine.”

  “Something I, too, learned long ago about this realm as an interdimensional traveler,” Asabi said. “But now I would speak with the kunoichi before she comes to the same realization.” Asabi approached her cage.

  “Release me,” the kunoichi demanded.

  “Momentarily,” Asabi replied. “There’s no need for hostilities. You’ve completed your mission.”

  She looked askance at the emere. “What do you mean?”

  “You set out to kill the kitsune because she represented a threat to your fellow humans.”

  “She came here to the Dreamscape to spy on their dreams and report back to the vampires.”

  “Only because the vampires forced her to,” Asabi said. “Kita was fleeing the vampires when you attacked. Now that she’s free from their control, she has joined our resistance movement to fight the Dark Gods and end their autocratic rule. You’ve achieved your goal of eliminating the threat to humanity and you and Kita are now on the same side.”

  “You’ve demonstrated impressive battle skills,” Alaric told the kunoichi. “Our number is small so far but we each bring special skills and talents to the Resistance. But as you saw at the farmhouse, Asabi and I aren’t fighters. Someone with your ability would be of tremendous value to the Resistance.”

  “You’re asking me to join you?”

  “I realize it means putting your life in constant danger and facing overwhelming odds challenging omnipotent opponents. But humans were meant to be free to choose their own destinies, not to serve as playthings for capricious deities. We seek to liberate the multiverse from the Dark Gods. Help us free humanity from the invisible cage they’ve placed us in.” Alaric tapped on the cage bars the way he had seen Kita do it while concentrating, attempting to manipulate mind over matter, or in this case mind over dreamstuff, and the bars of the kunoichi’s cage crumbled to dust.

  The kunoichi bowed. “Mentsu wo ushinau.”

  “What?” Alaric asked. “I don’t understand Japanese.”

  “She has lost face,” Kita said, translating for Alaric. “But why?” the kitsune asked the kunoichi.

  The kunoichi raised her head. “You fight for a noble cause against overwhelming odds and are willing to give your lives so others you’ve never met may live in freedom. You are heroes.” She shook her head. “I cannot join you. I’m not a hero. I’m a paid assassin, not a paladin; I kill people for money, while you risk your lives for altruism.”

  Alaric approached the kunoichi. “No one is born a hero. Yesterday, we were each ordinary individuals going about our mundane lives. Heroes are created by circumstance.” He offered her his hand. “What we were is no longer important. All that matters is the future we’re fighting for. A future in which anyone can be whatever they wish. Seize that future – become a hero.”

  The kunoichi hesitated a moment before accepting Alaric’s proffered hand.

  “What’s your name?” Asabi asked.

  “My face is cloaked for a reason,” the masked kunoichi replied. “Kunoichi are masters of stealth and espionage. We assume whatever identity our mission may require. We’re trained to eschew any sense of self-identity, including appellations.”

  “But what do your friends call you?” Alaric asked.

  “A kunoichi does not have friends,” she replied. “Friendship stems from emotion, which detracts from battle readiness. Too often kunoichi have succumbed to the temptation of forming emotional attachments to those on whom they were supposed to have been spying. I’ve forsaken my name as I’ve forsaken potential friendships; I’m devoted only to the mission at hand.”

  “Fine,” Alaric said, curious as to what the young woman looked like beneath her face mask. “We’ll simply call you Kunoichi.” He turned to Asabi. “Do you think you can open another dimensional rift to take us all back to Las Vegas?”

  “I’m not sure, but we don’t need a rift. I can teleport you and Kunoichi and as a kitsune Kita can freely enter and leave the Dreamscape.” Asabi held out her hands offering to teleport Alaric and the kunoichi.

  “Wait,” Kita said. “We should take advantage of the venue we’re in.”

  Alaric gave her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

  “As you know, the vampires are spread across the globe acting as high
priests for the Dark Gods. We’ll need to fight on every continent and that kind of massive organization requires more than merely teleporting back and forth. We need a place where everyone who joins the Resistance can meet. What better place than the Dreamscape, a realm that everyone visits in their sleep?”

  “And the vampires can’t follow us into the Dreamscape,” Asabi said. “But I’m sure the Dark Gods don’t have the same weakness.”

  “I keep forgetting you come from someplace where the Dark Gods are forgotten legends,” Alaric said. “It’s true the Dark Gods are ubiquitous but there’s one realm they dare not enter: the Dreamscape. It’s more a matter of politics than of power. The Dreamscape is ruled by Nyx’s son Hypnos, the god of sleep, and his offspring, the Oneiroi: Morpheus, the god of dreams; Phobetor, the god of nightmares; and Phantasos, the god of prophecies. They share a paranoia that Hypnos’ siblings desire to take the Dreamscape from them, so were any to cross its threshold it would be interpreted as a hostile act.”

  “So you’re saying the Resistance could use the Dreamscape as a meeting place irrespective of its individual members’ physical locations and neither the Dark Gods nor their vampire minions can enter the realm?” Asabi asked.

  “The denizens of the Dreamscape share their rulers’ paranoia about the other Dark Gods,” Kita said. “We may be able to recruit many of them to our cause, as well as sway some dreamers.”

  “Think of the countless dreamers we could rally to the Resistance,” Alaric said. “And all away from the prying eyes of the vampires and the Dark Gods.”

  “It would be best if we secured the consent of this realm’s rulers before embarking on an undertaking of such scale that they might perceive as infringing on their empery,” Kita said.

  “What if they refuse, or worse, interfere with our attempts once they learn of our plans?” Alaric asked.

  “The lords of any realm would soon become aware of our actions within their borders once we begin contacting the inhabitants,” Kita said. “They’re more likely to be amenable if we approach them first rather than let them find out from other sources once we’ve begun.”

  “Kita’s right,” Asabi said. “You can’t try to proselytize billions of people without someone in authority noticing.”

  “Then, we’ll need an emissary to the lords of this realm.” The kunoichi looked at Asabi. “You say you’re an interdimensional traveler. You must have diplomatic experience dealing with the ruling authorities of the realms you travel through.”

  Asabi gulped. “I have, on occasion, needed to communicate with many of the rulers of Heaven and Hell but I’ve never encountered Hypnos or the Oneiroi in my travels. Meeting such prominent figures makes me nervous.”

  “I’m sure you’ll overcome that rapidly,” the kunoichi said. “You’re still our best choice to be the emissary.”

  Asabi recalled how she would often gender switch uncontrollably whenever she was nervous. She gazed down at her feminine form and realized that would no longer be a problem. “Very well, but how do we find the individuals to whom we need to speak?”

  “I suggest we mingle among the locals until we find someone who can arrange an audience,” Kita said.

  Alaric looked around. “I don’t see anyone to speak to.”

  Kita chuckled. “You forget, we’re in the Dreamscape. Our surroundings may change in the blink of an eye. This is a land of dreams and there’s a reason why it’s under the control of the Lords of Chaos and not those of Order. Nothing is more chaotic than a dream. In dreams, people you’re speaking to and places you’re standing in often change from moment to moment.”

  Asabi nodded. “If it’s anything like the Dreamscape of my universe, then we’ll find the local inhabitants, and probably many of the dreamers too, at the tavern or in the marketplace.”

  “But how do we — ?” Alaric gazed up and saw a marketplace filled with wooden stalls.

  “One need only think of something for it to materialize,” Kita said. “Everything you can imagine exists in the Dreamscape but either you control the Dreamscape or it controls you. You must impose your will on it and in so doing impose order on chaos. This is a realm where physics is completely different. Time and space have no meaning here. A decade can pass in seconds in a dream; likewise, one might travel for miles and miles, or arrive at his destination in a millisecond.”

  Alaric and the kunoichi gazed in wonder at their surroundings. “What do they sell in this marketplace?” the boy asked.

  “One may find all sorts of imaginative goods for barter or sale,” Kita replied. “The tavern is up ahead.”

  The kunoichi, always alert to her surroundings, perused an assortment of tall, genteel men clad in three-piece suits wearing dark sunglasses and carrying briefcases in their gloved hands. “Who are those oddly garbed men?” she whispered to Kita.

  “Dream merchants.” Kita glanced up at her hoshi no tama, the smoke-filled globe that continually hovered above her housing her kitsune powers when she assumed mortal form. Rarely visible outside the Dreamscape it was comforting to see because Kita knew she would lose her powers if she were parted from it. “They specialize in only one commodity: people’s dreams.”

  “They actually sell dreams?”

  “They buy, sell, barter… They’re merchants in every sense of the word. Unlike most denizens of the Dreamscape, the dream merchants share my ability to travel to the waking world. They make deals, sometimes Faustian bargains, with humans granting them their desires in exchange for their dreams which they store in colored vials within those briefcases.”

  “Their ability to traverse both the Dreamscape and the waking world could prove invaluable to the Resistance,” Alaric said.

  “Quite possibly; however, they would be unlikely to volunteer their services. The dream merchants are not altruistic. They’re businessmen seeking a profit and we have nothing to offer them.”

  “You said they deal in dreams.” Alaric looked at Kita. “We have the most valuable dream there is: the dream of freedom. Consciously or unconsciously, the billions of souls composing the multiverse yearn for the right of self-determination. Those dreams are incredibly powerful and will bring about a revolution. I must arrange to meet with these dream merchants.”

  Kita pointed to the tavern. “We have arrived.”

  They stepped inside. Alaric was about to ask whether the kunoichi’s leather catsuit and mask might make them stand out conspicuously but realized on entering the tavern that would not be the case. The customers were clothed in all manner of garb, and some did not even appear human. A moment later, they found themselves seated at a table being served by barmaid whose flowing red locks of hair changed color each time they gazed at her, to blonde, then brunette, and then to black with silver highlights.

  Alaric sipped from his tankard of ale. “It’s certainly… Different. So how do we go about finding someone to get us an audience with Hypnos and the Oneiroi so we can do what we need to and leave this realm?”

  “Then you don’t think we should remain in the Dreamscape indefinitely and conduct the Resistance from here?” Asabi asked.

  Alaric shook his head. “It’s best not to put all our eggs in one basket. We can incorporate the Dreamscape as an immensely important component of our strategy but it can’t be the entire strategy. We must oppose the Dark Gods on many fronts.”

  A stocky man wearing a black derby joined them at the table. “I hope you don’t think it presumptuous of me but I couldn’t help overhearing you say you can leave this realm freely. Might I ask how you’re able to accomplish that enviable feat?”

  Asabi studied the stout stranger. “I’m an emere, and as such, may travel to any dimension. My companion Kita is a kitsune and thus able to enter and leave the Dreamscape. But why should that concern you?”

  “Forgive me. I’ve forgotten my manners. My name is Nitrate and I’m, unfortunately, what one might call a permanent denizen of the Dreamscape.”

  “Unfortunately?” Kita asked.
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  Nitrate sighed. “The only glimpse I get of life outside the Dreamscape is through the dreams of others, and even then although surrounded by dreamers I’m unable to enter their dreams unless summoned. I long to see the world beyond this dimension but alas, like most of our realm’s denizens, I lack the means to cross the interdimensional threshold.”

  “I appreciate your yearning for freedom,” Alaric said. “That’s something we all share.”

  “If you’re a denizen and not a dreamer then you must be composed entirely of dreamstuff,” Asabi said. “Dreamstuff can’t exist in the waking world. You’d combust the moment you left the Dreamscape.”

  Nitrate leaned forward and whispered. “That would be quite true… In ordinary times. However, I happen to have been studying old tomes in the Bibliotheca when —”

  “The what?” Alaric interrupted.

  “The Bibliotheca is the great library of the Dreamscape,” Asabi said. “It’s filled with row after row of all the books men have dreamed of writing but never actually gotten around to doing so.”

  “I find it a constructive way to occupy my spare time.” Nitrate adjusted his derby. “So I stumbled on one manuscript revealing a prophecy that we were about to enter the Age of Magic, during which time dreamstuff could exist in dimensions outside the Dreamscape. All I need now is the means to travel to another dimension. To put it colloquially, I thought I might hitch a ride with you whenever you depart.”

  Asabi frowned. “As much as we may sympathize with your desire to achieve your freedom, we can’t allow ourselves to be sidetracked by the needs of any individual. We’re working toward the greater good of all to bring about the day when everyone across the multiverse shall have the freedom to do as they choose and go where they wish.”

  The beguiling stranger smiled slyly. “But of course. You misunderstand me. I wish to offer my services to help you achieve your goal; and in turn, earn my transport.”

  “What services could you provide?” Alaric asked.

  “I overheard you need someone to get you into the palace.”