The Queen of Dreams (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 6)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  "Did this happen before or after William's murder?" I asked.

  "That's the thing," he said, "the part that bothers me. I'm not sure."

  "Too many strange things going—"

  The hut lurched, spilling warm tea from my cup onto my arm. Ben was thrown into me.

  Morwen was standing in front of her chair, blond hair falling on the shoulders of her elegant long coat that spilled to the floor. The viewscreen showed the hut no longer moving.

  "We have arrived," said Morwen, her gaze shifting with unease.

  "Russia?" I asked.

  "No. The passage the memory of my sister showed you in the library," she said.

  There was a hint of worry, or distaste, in Morwen's tone when she said the words, "my sister," but it passed quickly and it could have been my nerves. My suspicions were drained when I noticed the changed viewscreen.

  Outside, the uneven landscape of grays was pockmarked with areas that seemed to defy sight. Trying to stare at a wavering section only forced the eye to skip over it, like two magnets with the same polarity trying to be forced together.

  In the distance, the land curved upward, twisting into braids. Scraps of star-starved night hid between those rope-like structures.

  "What is this place?" asked Ben.

  "We travel through the In Between, the stillborn universes that are the foam between the others. But in some, time itself has been malformed, creating pathways for those foolish enough to take them," she said.

  "Like us," I said.

  "We're not going to travel through time, not if I can help it, only skirt the edges, since Veles' shield does not reach here," she said.

  Brassy and Nasrine appeared, probably summoned by the heavy stop. Only Santiago was absent as he remained in his cage.

  "Then why are we stopped?" asked Ben.

  "Because I don't know the way forward. Those visions got me here, but the path is obfuscated. We need someone who can find the right way," said Morwen, staring at me.

  "You think I can go out there and tell you?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said. "These time holes are too dangerous to traverse in the hut. If I know the path I can find a way, but the hut is too large to maneuver without some foreknowledge. I'd be afraid the shifting time might unravel the hut and spew out its contents into the In Between."

  "And we'd be trapped here," I said.

  She nodded.

  I sensed there was another reason she wanted me to go. I hoped it wasn't to strand me. There were no hints of the Yolgothi in her eyes.

  "Fine," I said, forming a quick plan. "I want Nasrine to go with me."

  "Me?" she exclaimed in a regal manner. "What good would I be out there? I have no experience with this, this place!"

  "It's too dangerous to go alone. Some of those landscape features look difficult to traverse. It'd be nice to have someone with me who can hold the rope," I said.

  She gestured at the others. "What about Ben, or Brassy?"

  "I think we all know why I can't take Ben. What if the Uthlaylaa have left some trigger message in his mind? And the same for Brassy. You said it yourself, that the glass arm is a danger. How can I rely on her out there?"

  Nasrine glanced to the others for support, but found none. She crossed her arms when she realized she would have to journey out of the hut.

  "Fine," she said with considerable distaste.

  We retrieved gear for the expedition: ropes, pitons, backpacks, food, and water. Though it looked like we could head out and be back in a short time, Morwen warned that the distances were deceiving.

  When I asked how it was that we could exist outside of the hut, Morwen explained that in some ways, we weren't actually in this place. Or that our minds translated the experience into something we could rationalize. We all asked a few questions, but eventually realized that we weren't going to understand it.

  "No weapons," said Morwen, motioning towards the rapier at my hip and the pistol on Nasrine's.

  "We don't know what's out there," I said.

  "No weapons," she said with a note of finality.

  Nasrine shrugged and unburdened herself, setting two pistols, four knives (one in each boot), and a billy club that she'd hidden in an inside pocket on the tea table. I had only the oestium rapier and the petite repeating pistol, which joined her weapons.

  "Can you tell us why?" asked Nasrine.

  "I said before. In some ways, you're not really going out there. This is why the Queen of Dreams uses the In Between as her kingdom," said Morwen.

  My heart skipped a beat at mention of the queen. "Should we be worried?"

  "Tsk. The queen cannot come here, or she would be scrambled by time," said Morwen. "Less talk. It's dangerous to be here. Those time pools shift without warning."

  The air outside reminded me of the Shard of Time. It was cool, but my skin felt warmed by some unseen sun. The light was flat, shadowless.

  Nasrine caught up to me as she tied her dark hair back with a piece of aqua ribbon. "Must you walk so fast?"

  "You heard her," I said, adjusting the coil of rope I had over my shoulder. "We don't want to be here any longer than we must."

  Nasrine tapped her tongue against her teeth in a disapproving manner. I quickened my pace.

  "Can you at least tell me where we're going?" she asked.

  Focused on the uneven ground, I saw the shimmer in Nasrine's path almost too late. I yanked on her arm, pulling her into me.

  "Bok! Why did you do that?"

  I indicated the oblong pool quivering against the stone a few feet away. Her expression deflated.

  Standing so close gave me a migraine. Try as I might, I couldn't look into it for any longer than a few seconds before my eyes automatically skipped away. But if I stared right near the pool, I caught flashes of images, like reflections on a pond on a bright day. The shimmers showed me great glass towers kissing the sky while steel birds soared through them.

  "If there are many of those little ones," she said, "we'll never get through."

  "That's what I'm afraid of," I said, pulling her away from the pool. I didn't know what it was showing me, so we moved on.

  The ground was more uneven the further we went out. We hiked up small hills, keeping a careful watch for the time pools, which besides the first, were easy to avoid.

  We stopped on a tall rise. Nasrine studied me.

  "Are you finding the way through?" she asked.

  I searched my mind for tugs from the prophecies. They were as dormant as a hibernating bear.

  "Nothing yet," I said.

  The prophecies only seemed to come when triggered. I wondered if I needed to force them somehow.

  "Let's go further," I said, tramping down the other side towards a larger hill ahead.

  The valley had dozens of time pools. It was about forty meters between the two hills, so the shimmers were easy to avoid.

  "Do you hear that?" asked Nasrine with a grimace.

  It took a moment. "Yes. It's like a high whine."

  "Do you think it's the pools or is something out here?" she asked.

  Nasrine's head swiveled around, her forehead knotted.

  "We'll find out," I said, forging ahead.

  At the next hill, Nasrine grabbed my arm again. "Do you hear that?"

  "Yes, yes. The whine. I hear it. Probably the pools as you suggested," I said.

  "No," she said, eyebrows drawing together. "Another sound. Almost, almost like..."

  I strained to hear over the whine. "Like what?"

  "It's gone," she said.

  "What was it?" I asked, but Nasrine shrugged.

  I prepared to climb the hill, deciding that if the prophecies hadn't spoken to me yet, that I was going the wrong way. There had to be at least six of these peninsulas, so it was going to take some time to explore them all.

  The slope was steep, and I had to scramble up the incline and throw down a rope for Nasrine. Despite her skill with spanners and wrenches in the lab, she seemed a little out of
her element climbing, hesitating at each handhold. Or she was over thinking it.

  With the rope around my waist, waiting for Nasrine to make it up, I saw a black shape move behind a distant hill on the next finger of land. The darkness against the muted colors of the landscape was unmistakable. The prophecies stirred in my head. Whatever it was, was meaningful.

  When Nasrine reached the summit, I said, "We have to go back down. Headed that way."

  "What?" she asked, puffing and leaning over on her knees.

  I forged ahead without her. I didn't want to miss what was ahead. Nasrine caught up again and immediately my brow tightened and my palms hurt. The prophecies coiled in my head like a snake about to strike.

  Was I supposed to lose her? Possibly whatever was ahead was something I, and I alone, was supposed to find.

  The land dipped between the peninsulas into canyons. The sides were angled enough for an expert climber.

  "We need to cross here," I said, motioning towards the three meter gap between the sections of land. "There are a few time pools, but we can avoid them."

  Nasrine heaved each breath, hair sticky with sweat against her forehead.

  "I can't climb that," she said.

  I uncoiled the rope, throwing one end into the canyon. The other end I wrapped around my waist, bracing myself.

  "You can now."

  Nasrine's upper body went rigid for a moment, but then she steeled herself and started moving down the rope. When she was at the bottom, I pulled the rope back up and coiled it around my shoulder.

  "Hurry up," called Nasrine. "There's another time pool down here. It looks like its growing."

  After taking a running start, and with a boost of magic, I leapt the canyon. The impact jarred my knees. I dusted myself off and looked down at Nasrine.

  "That was impressive. Throw the rope down," she said with a coy grin.

  "Apologies, Nasrine," I said. "I'll be right back. There's something I must do without you."

  "What? You can't leave me here. The time pool is growing! My head hurts already," she screamed as I jogged up the next rise.

  As Nasrine's wails faded, I pushed my guilt into my gut. A little stewing would help later, but for now, the prophecies wanted me to see something.

  When I crested the ridge, a black shape hopped across the rocky scree. I nearly fell into a section of shimmering rock from the shock of recognition.

  It was a Great Raven. Tall, ebony feathered bird with an oily plume around its neck.

  "Katerina?" it cawed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The last time I'd seen Zora, she'd been a skull around my neck, taking a sorcerous blast from my son, Pavel. I had to assume her presence here had something to do with the time pools.

  "Zora?"

  The raven nodded its beak. "Did you come to rescue me?"

  "Rescue you? I...I..."

  The raven tilted her head. "Not rescue?"

  "No. I didn't expect to see you...have you been to Philadelphia?" I asked.

  "Philadelphia? What is this place? Why would I go?" asked Zora.

  I stared at the shifting time pools around us, realization lighting my brow like dawn.

  "Then where did you come from? Or when? Who sent you here?" I asked.

  "I don't know," she said.

  "How long have you been here?" I asked.

  The bird hopped to another rock. "A few hours. Maybe more."

  "Right," I said, tapping on my lips.

  In a manic burst, I ran to the nearest pool. My efforts startled Zora into a caw, ruffling her feathers with distaste.

  Staring near the time pool, but not in it, I caught glimpses of a pattern of rocks on wet mud. The rocks were set in concentric circles. My heart sped up, thumping in my chest. It wasn't until I realized that I recognized the place that I was able to keep from hyperventilating. It was Koschei's island.

  If I watched longer would I see the boney fiend stalking across it? Or myself with Aught, going after the duck egg holding Koschei's soul?

  The next pool showed me a stygian darkness with impossible lights floating through it like gas bubbles rising from the deep. I wanted to linger and learn what they were.

  But that wasn't why I came.

  So I moved to the next pool and the next, until I found what I was looking for. The Philadelphia roof line.

  It was dusk. I knew that part of the city by the style of the overhangs. It was the night I'd visited Rowan Blade, when Zora had saved me from the Empty Men.

  "What do you see in the shiny thing?" asked Zora.

  "Where you're going," I said, rather smugly.

  "Not with you?" she asked.

  Then I remembered what happened at the end of the journey for Zora. She sacrificed herself to save me from Pavel. My grin turned sour, but I forced it to stay up.

  Was it fair for me to send her to her death? Even when it was she that made the decision?

  "Not with you?" she asked again, tilting her head.

  "Yes and no," I said, motioning towards the time pool. "I'm sending you to help someone."

  Zora hopped off the rock onto the edge of the shimmering rock. "What am I going to do there?"

  It occurred to me that it might not have been Zora's choice. What if I'd told her something that had made her sacrifice herself? Wasn't that just falling back into my Russian habits? Manipulating people to get what I wanted?

  "Anything you want," I said eventually, then added, "but you can't tell anyone that I sent you there. That's very important."

  "Understood," said the raven. "But what will you do? Did you come here for the message?"

  "Message? What message?" I asked.

  Zora hopped back and pointed her beak in the other direction, towards a pillar of rocks that didn't look natural.

  The bird followed me with short wing thrusts as I scrambled over the rocks. At least a dozen rocks had been stacked on each other, forming a pillar.

  Zora was on the other side, indicating something on the ground with her beak.

  Scratched into the rocks was the phrase: "Don't trust," and then a pictogram followed. It appeared to be a human figure with something on the person's back: two oval circles. Wings? Or glass tanks?

  Was that a picture of Morwen? Why would there be a message left in this place? Did the Jaguar Woman leave it? There were too many coincidences for this not to mean something, unless the Queen of Dreams had left it for a trap. Which seemed unlikely, since she would have to know that we were coming here.

  "Katerina understand message?" asked Zora.

  "If I do, then I am mightily worried," I said. "I must send you on, and get back. My companion will be quite ripe."

  Zora didn't question my rambling and together we moved back towards the time pools. Along the way, I realized there were more forming, smaller ones, like pox marks forming on the skin.

  The Great Raven looked at me expectantly. I was supposed to know the answers after all.

  "It's a portal," I said, remembering the similarity to the portals that the silvery gauntlet created.

  "Katerina come with Zora?" asked the bird.

  I shook my head, thinking about Neva's explanation on how only one of them could exist in the same universe at the same time. It seemed logical that different time-versions of the same person would have the same rules.

  "I don't think I can. You'll have to go alone. But don't worry, you'll see me on the other side," I said.

  "Farewell, Katerina," said the bird.

  She hopped into the shimmering pool, disappearing in a blink of light. The whine increased momentarily, then resumed its regular frequency.

  "Nasrine," I sighed.

  When I reached the canyon, I found Nasrine clinging halfway up the far wall, screaming. The lower half had filled with shimmers, time pools that had grown and connected until they formed a glistening river. As I gazed across the peninsula, I saw silvery movement across every stretch of ground. The dull whining increased.

  "Merde," I said, the
n leapt to the other side with my sorcery.

  I uncoiled the rope and lowered an end until it was right out of reach for Nasrine. She shook as she clung to the stone, fingers dug into the side.

  "Nasrine, listen quickly and carefully. You don't have much time left," I said.

  She couldn't look up, but I heard her whimper, "Let me up, let me up, let me up..." over and over.

  "I'll let you up as soon as you tell me why you came to America. Why do you want to join the Transcendent Society?" I asked.

  "I told you. For Ben, for the Society," she said, her voice quivering with fright.

  "Then why were you searching my room? Who are you trying to deceive? If you don't tell me, I'm not letting you up. That pool beneath your feet is inches away," I said.

  She started cursing in a language I didn't understand.

  "Less anger and more answers," I said. "Hurry, Nasrine."

  The whine increased in frequency again, forcing me to squint. I wasn't sure I had much longer either. The path back to the hut was turning into a huge patch of silver, and Morwen wouldn't be able to rescue us.

  "Fine!" screamed Nasrine, a vein of hate running through the word like lava. "Your Catherine killed my father. Had assassins kill him to keep my empire down! I planned on killing you if you had anything to do with it."

  I nearly dropped the rope in shock. After I recovered, I lowered it the rest of the way so Nasrine could grab it, feeling a cold wind blow through me. I'd been doing it again, reverting to the tools of the Russian court.

  When Nasrine finally climbed out, she lunged towards me and held a knife to my throat. She must have hidden another somewhere on her person. The edge was like a line of ice against my skin.

  "Did you know about the order to kill my father?" she asked, lips curled like burnt parchment.

  "I...I didn't know," I said.

  "I should kill you now," she said, and I could tell she meant it.

  "If you do, you won't be able to get back to the hut. You need me," I said.

  "You'll try to kill me then. Just like my father," she said, eyes glassy and bloodshot.