Fractured Dreams

by Greg Alldredge

  The motion of the boat changed as they approached the beach. The swells grew in height, allowing Zorra to see farther over the distance. Something sat directly in front of her, yet she was not sure what. Heat shimmered off the black sand, making her vision wavy and hard to focus.

  Dog spotted something as well. He started barking at some yet unseen object.

  It was no surprise when Joti sat bolt upright. The barking dog made sleep impossible. Given it was the first time since they picked the animal up that it had made a peep, the guard stood ready to fight in an instant. While standing, his left hand gripping a mast tether for support in the rising swells. “What is that?” Joti asked while pointing in the distance with his free hand.

  Zorra answered, “Maybe our destination? I have never seen anything like it.”

  Joti shook his head “Not the flat black area but the… thing sitting on the ground.”

  Zorra wasn’t sure what he talked about, but she risked standing to gain a better view of the landmass in front of them. The boat slipped down the backside of a swell and into a trough.

  Gravity forced her to sit or fall over the side. She stood again as the boat rode up the next swell, and she was able to spot what she thought Joti pointed at.

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  From this distance, it looked like something large covered with a black cloth. The color and texture blended the shape into the black desert sands. The small craft was headed directly for the shape. That must be the source of what was drawing her to this strange land of flat nothing.

  Before long, the swells turned into waves crashing onto the beach. Under the water, the drop off must have been abrupt, as the waves grew in size quickly. Before they reached land, Dog jumped over the side, swimming in the rough surf.

  Joti tried to drop the sail to slow their flight onto the sand, but the waves had them and pushed them ever closer to their fate. If the black mass was dangerous, they had little chance to avoid it now. The water drove them to their destiny.

  Zorra worked the tiller to keep the boat pointed diagonally down the waves, letting the vessel surf its way closer. However, the keel of the boat was not made for beaching and hit bottom before the hull reached a safe place.

  The sudden stop threw Joti over the side, as the craft listed dangerously to starboard. If Zorra hadn’t gripped the tiller with all her might, she would have gone into the water as well. The incoming tide pushed the boat farther up the beach, digging the keel into the black sand. Zorra finally jumped before the craft keeled over and landed on her.

  She was lucky and swam to the side before the craft capsized in the surf, snapped the mast, and washed ashore upside down. Before she could make it to shore, the next wave lifted her high on its crest and slapped her down on the sandy beach. The force of the impact shocked her, knocking the wind from her lungs. She tried to breathe but sucked in more water than air. Her body rebelled and started a coughing fit. All the while, Dog stood in front of her barking wildly.

  She tried to scan the area, but her eyes refused to focus, her vision swimming from the rough landing. Joti was nowhere to be seen. She tried to call his name but coughed up water instead.

  “Shush, Dog.” A calm voice she didn’t recognize, spoke from up the beach.

  Dog stopped barking with a soft whimper. Zorra calmed her coughing and looked up. There, standing before her, was the shortest man she’d ever seen. His face seemed hidden behind a grossly large mustache and beard. Barely tall enough to reach her waist, he looked twisted and bent, as if life crushed him under its weight. Funny she should think like that: she must have been projecting her feelings onto the old man.

  A body washing ashore to her right caught her attention. It had to be Joti. Zorra staggered to her feet and stumbled to his side, ignoring the little man for now. She needed to pull her guard—her friend—from the surf.

  With her help, he was able to crawl from the water’s edge up the slope of the beach. His lungs spewed water with every hack. He vomited foam before he dropped to the sand, nearly dead from the experience.

  Zorra pulled one of his swords and held it out, protecting the two of them. Dog moved behind her, licking Joti’s face.

  “Did you come all this way to kill me?” the little man asked.

  “I’m… I’m not sure why I came… Who are you?” Zorra wiped the water from her face with the back of her hand and filled her eye with sand. If the man attacked her with a feather, she would be helpless to defend herself.

  “You are here because Xorbis sent for you.” The short man spoke with such a high-pitched voice, it sounded almost comical.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know any Xorbis.” Tears ran down her cheeks, trying to clear the sand from her vision.

  “You didn’t, but now you do. Xorbis stands before you. Are you ready to save the world?” The short man spread his arms like a showman introducing the greatest act throughout the shards.

  Zorra didn’t know what the short man was talking about. The sound of it was crazy. She had nearly died reaching dry land. She wasn’t some savior for anything. She answered in a wry voice. “I do believe you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

  “You might resist now, but once we travel to the center, you will think differently!” Xorbis pointed to the massive black cloth fluttering in the wind.

  “That’s impossible. I have heard the Great Beach is impassible.” Zorra wished she had some water to wash the sand from her eyes.

  “Just because something has never been done, doesn’t make it impossible. Only difficult, improbable, or maybe even unlikely, but not impossible.”

  “Or deadly,” Joti added as he struggled to stand next to Zorra. He reached for the sword she held. His second was pulled in defense from the diminutive man.

  “Not at all.” The man with the huge beard and mustache snapped his fingers, and the black cloth billowed in the south wind, revealing the wooden hull of a ship constructed on six massive wheels. “We will travel in style, make history, and save mankind from itself.”

  Chapter 14, Hope Shoemaker:

  The path to the throne had taken Hope down many dark alleys in her mind. Her grip on Perdition remained precarious at best. Whatever she tried, her magical ability wasn’t growing. She’d reached a plateau and no matter the course she took, her power had peaked.

  She wore the preserved skin of Verity’s witch like a leather suit, held together in the back with added straps. Blood of every type had been spilled in the name of magic, and she found no new power. New spells failed to work for her. She could barely light a candle from across the room. The virgin witch’s dying curse must have stuck

  Worse yet, the court began to mumble and mutter. Too many courtiers questioned her ability to rule and even her very sanity. The scandal of her experiments might be the end of her. When too many hard questions were asked, she would have no recourse.

  Word reached her of Ollie’s death. She mourned the loss in public yet celebrated the deed in private. She was surprised he fell. When her agent didn’t return, Hope assumed the assassin had been caught and murdered. When no repercussions came back to her, Hope guessed the woman attacker died without revealing who hired her. Any number of things could have killed her brother, his decision to take the side of the shards’ lowest of people proved the true cause of his death. Those types of people should be used for profit and shunned, lest their taint wear off on the ruling classes.

  Ollie’s death didn’t stop the court from gossip. The more she consolidated her control, the more tongues wagged. At first, she considered killing all who questioned her rule, but she would have soon run out of subjects. She needed a way to secure her seat on the throne for all time.

  Zar tottered into chaos. If she controlled enough forces, the shard of Shakopee, perhaps even Zar itself, lay open for invasion, but her forces stood depleted. The war her father started, and the actions in the mountains, left Perdition weakened. The city limped along, a shadow of its former self. The need for
her protection… and the protection of Perdition drove her to unspeakable acts in search of power.

  To make matters worse, with her half-brother/lover Meyers off hunting demons in the mountains, she had little to console her needs. Except for her man Tanner. When the giant lay with her, she forgot all about the problems of leadership. His massive body filled her with pain and joy all in the same moment. Unfortunately, she could not spend her days sating her appetites with the common help. There must be a path that would open magic to her.

  She stood in her private chambers, staring into a basin filled with virgin blood. When she was younger, she tried a spell that never took. It was an ancient spell to summon a demon. Since she had grown older, and hopefully wiser, she should have better luck calling a creature from the under-earth to help her. In her desperation, she started from the beginning, reworking old spells in an attempt to discover the missing key.

  Candlewicks trimmed low, the flames barely allowed her to see. Hope started with a low whisper, “Veni ad me, invoco te, veniunt ad me.” She chanted over and over into the small basin of blood. Closing her eyes, she focused hard on calling the demon to her… nothing happened.

  She kept it up. Growing louder with each repeated sequence until her throat ached from the volume and repeated call.

  She cracked open one eye and scanned the bowl of blood. There was nothing. The candles still burned low. There was no bloody body standing before her… no demon came.

  She had found the same effect when she was a child. At an early age, no more than ten seasons, she tried this spell. The failure nearly caused her to quit magic altogether, but she redoubled her efforts to learn what she could from the ancient tomes she had squirreled away. Who would have thought the keep’s library was such a dangerous place for a young girl?

  “Damn it all.” She looked about the room in defeat. An army of demons would have gone a long way to cementing her powerbase and shoring up her control over the city. Running out of options, she might need to experiment on some form of drug-induced control. She had heard wonderful things about a refined formula of vine mixed with a portion of the drug caulk. The problem, the drug needed to be administered one at a time. It would take ages to control the population of Perdition.

  “Don’t do that,” a familiar voice called out from the dark.

  Hope froze. She knew she worked alone, locked securely in her private rooms. There was no way anyone could enter the chambers without her knowledge or letting them inside.

  Perhaps she worked too hard, and her sanity had finally snapped. She heard voices in the dark. The court was correct, she was crazy.

  “Who’s there?” she cautiously asked.

  “Oh, you know who this is.” The high-pitched voice spoke out once again.

  This was no delusion of madness manifesting itself. She reached out for the sacrificial dagger she always kept on her workbench. “Show yourself, or I will call the guards.” The hair stood on the back of her neck. Unsure to whom the voice belonged, she doubted the guards would be of use, but it remained the only threat she had left.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you. Remember, you called me… Like before, I have come to you.”

  “I called you…” Hope nearly jumped with joy at the words. Maybe her magic did work. “Where are you?”

  “I can’t come to you. You will need to follow the sound of my voice.”

  If asked to describe the sound of the creature when it spoke, Hope would have found it difficult. If pressed, she would describe it like a petulant child taunting another to tear the wings off an insect. She took one step cautiously in front of the other while she continued to talk to her visitor. “Do you have a name?” she asked.

  “I have gone by many names. Most can’t be heard in your range of hearing or pronounced by your primitive tongue.”

  “Try me.” Hope knew she grew closer, but she could see no one hidden in the shadows.

  The sound of a fork scraping across a plate echoed through the room and assaulted her ears.

  Hope covered her ears, attempting to escape the pain in her head. Once she recovered, she said, “You have got to be kidding me. That’s your name?” A large floor standing mirror stood with its back to her. The creature must be hiding behind it.

  “I can’t help what my parents named me any more than you can.”

  Hope bolted to look behind the mirror but found no one hiding there. Stymied, she put her hands on her hips. “I don’t mind my name. It could have been worse.”

  A soft chuckle came from behind her. “If you say so.”

  Hope spun around, and there in the mirror stood the strangest creature. It looked human but sported huge ears and a nose that didn’t match the size of his bald head. The most disconcerting parts proved to be the interlocking teeth and skin the color of a pus-filled blister. It took all her concentration to not gag at the sight of him. “You are in the mirror?” At the time, it seemed a reasonable if obvious question.

  “We all can’t control our destiny like we wish. Sometimes we need to play the cards dealt us,” the little creature said.

  Hope fully understood the critter’s sentiment. She was dealt a shitty hand in life and had worked her way up to lead the strongest cities of the shards. Now she just needed the power to expand her reach. “You are here to help me? To help me gain more power?”

  “I might be able to help, but I have some bad news first. Your uncle, the one you sent off to fight on the island of Shakopee is dead.”

  “Who?” For the life of her, she could not remember what the little creature spoke of.

  “Your Uncle Roddie, the brewer. He died when the monsters of the under-earth came pouring out of the mountain valleys.”

  “I totally forgot I sent him to see what was going on there… Wait, what about monsters?” Hope stepped around the mirror and pulled a stool closer so she could relax while she talked to the little demon in the mirror.

  “Monsters from the under-earth have been awakened. They pour from the caves that run deep under the earth. They are ravenous and extremely hard to defeat.” As the little imp spoke, he began to take on the form of a human. His skin color shifted from the ghastly yellow color to a more appealing shade of tan. Nice curly brown hair formed on his head. He looked amazingly like the children of Soto Shoemaker.

  Hope’s eyes narrowed. All this seemed too good to be true. “What is this information going to cost me? Why should I trust you?”

  “Listen… you summoned me. Not just anyone—but me. If you want my help, I am here to help. If not, simply release me, and I will return to my happy life without your meddling.” He turned away from her, pouting.

  “I want your help. I just want to be sure of the costs, if your help is worth it. I need more than simple information. I need power.”

  The imp looked over his shoulder. “You don’t remember, do you? This isn’t the first time you called for my aid. Last time you summoned me, I did everything you asked, even though you were a snot-nosed brat. I helped you for several years to gain your power.”

  Hope shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry, I think I would have remembered talking to a… little man in a mirror, even if only a child.”

  He turned to face her now, his fingertip tapping the mirror surface with the tip of a nasty looking claw. “We never spoke. You called me to take care of a problem, and I did… How do you think your brother Hayline became so strong and so crazy in such a short time? I knew what you wanted. You wanted your brother dead. It took time, but I succeeded.”

  “That was you? You caused him to go over the edge like that?”

  “Interesting choice of words, but yes. You called me, had me take care of him for you. It took nearly eight years, but now that task has finished. Now you call me again… If you don’t want my help, then set me free. I will leave you to handle your own problems. You have been doing such a bang-up job so far.”

  “NO!” Hope jumped from her stool. “I want your help… Tell me what I need to d
o to take over the world.”

  “It is good to meet such an ambitious person these days. Most just want to lie about and stuff their face with food and drink. It is a rare breed that wants to grab life by the horns and take over the world. I will be—”

  Hope cut him off, “Can you tell me what I need to do or not?”

  The little man stuck out his lower lip, pain easy to spot in his eyes. “No need to be rude.”

  “I’m sorry, but if monsters are about to attack my city, we need to prepare. I need power now, not after you talk about it for ages.”

  “You’re right, I transgress. You will need a shallow pool of virgin blood. A size large enough for your henchman Tanner to fit in comfortably should do. The depth of the blood… it does not need to be so deep to cover a body but deep enough to cover the ankles if stepped in. Once you have this ready, you will need to have volunteers willing to walk through the thing. Barefoot, everyone that steps into the blood must be barefoot.”

  Hope raised her right eyebrow. Once the court heard of this plan, all doubts about her sanity would be removed. She would be taken down by a mob carrying torches and pitchforks as a monster herself. “Will this have a reason? If I make people do what you ask, they will tackle me and burn me at the stake.”

  “Once they learn of the power they will gain, I am confident they will be more than happy to take a slight stroll through a little blood.”

  “You keep mentioning power, but what kind of power will you offer them? I need to be able to describe what they will gain by this… inconvenient experience.”

  “They will gain the power that Hayline, your brother, had without the undesirable side effects. The insanity he suffered. They will become like gods walking among men.”