Beyond the Black Door

by A. M. Strickland

  “Kamai,” Lenara called, before I opened the door. “You don’t have to go back to that hideous man’s—excuse me, Jidras Numa’s house. We can find quarters for you here and still apprentice you to Zeniri in the meantime, at least by outward appearances.”

  It was a generous offer, especially since I couldn’t remain with Jidras for much longer, both because I couldn’t stomach it and because he would throw me out as soon as he learned I wasn’t planning to marry. But staying here now and waiting for everything to get sorted would take time that I couldn’t stand to waste. Not when my future, my purpose, the answers I had been desperately seeking were hanging in the balance.

  “I’m pleased and grateful to accept your offer,” I said with as much polite decorum as I could muster with my hand on the door latch, “as long as I can go back to Jidras’s one more time.” I caught Nikha’s look. “And as long as Nikha can stay with me when I return.”

  “That should be no problem, for the moment,” Lenara said.

  For the moment. As long as I didn’t prove to be dead weight. Nikha would be the better Keeper, in that case, at least able to wield a sword. To avoid being useless, I needed to talk to Vehyn as soon as possible.

  “Okay. I’ll be back in a day or so. I have a few last things to finish up.”

  Including, of course, saying good-bye to Jidras.

  19

  SHARED DREAMS

  Jidras was out on business by the time Nikha and I returned to the town house. I didn’t mind, since it let me escape up to my room after a short visit with the constable, who took one look at my neck, declared that I was lucky to be alive, and congratulated Nikha on a job well done. When I told him I was still feeling weak and needed rest, he immediately waved me off. I had to resist betraying my lie by bounding upstairs.

  Nikha didn’t abandon the constable to follow me or shoot me worried looks. Because she trusted me.

  After everything we’d already shared, I’d thought it would be awkward on the way back home, but as soon as we left Zeniri’s chambers, she’d stopped me … and hugged me. I was astonished at how nice it was just to receive a hug, without anyone wanting anything in return.

  Still, I wanted to give her something back. “I can call you whatever you wish,” I’d whispered. “Even if it’s only me who does it.”

  Nikha smiled but shook her head. “It’s enough, for now, that you know.”

  I smiled back. “Then I’ll keep knowing who you really are. I swear it.” Even if I didn’t call Nikha he, not before she was ready, I would remember that her body didn’t match her soul. “Was your mother…?”

  “No, she wasn’t soul-crossed. I got my love of fighting from her, but not that. She taught me the many different things women could be, if they wished. But even being a woman like that didn’t fit me right. It never has.” She sighed. “Maybe that’s another reason why I was uneasy with Lenara’s plan for me to become a bodyguard. It’s not fair for only me to gain what both my mother and I earned, just because…” She swallowed. “Because of what I truly am, and not because of skill alone. Women should have the same chances as men.”

  I better understood, then, why she disliked Heshara and her worship, even if I didn’t see the goddess or my faith in the same way. Nikha wasn’t resentful only because of what she had been denied personally, but because of what was denied to all women.

  She didn’t want to be treated better. She wanted everyone to be treated the same. Like her hug, it was the simple desire to share, selflessly, just to be kind.

  I had to admit that sharing, at least with Nikha, felt wonderful. Now I had someone who knew almost all my secrets, and I knew theirs. What a novel concept, I thought as I prepared to meet Vehyn.

  * * *

  Beyond the black door, he was waiting for me in something like a study, with a black floor, black walls, black desk. From a single floating lamp came a dim red light, casting no intricate shadows this time. His pale face and the shining cuffs on his biceps were the brightest things in the room. He sat in a high-backed black chair behind the desk, regarding me over folded arms. His acute focus nearly made me take a step back.

  “Uh, hi.”

  “How was your little meeting? Learn something about yourself? Chart your inner reaches?”

  I raised my chin, refusing to feel ashamed. Nikha’s and Lenara’s—even Zeniri’s—acknowledgment and support had already changed something within me. I felt stronger, lighter … brighter. Like a new moon floating in the sky, cloaked in secretive darkness, but with a glowing core. Not empty. Not broken. Whole and wholly myself. “Maybe. Why do you care?”

  He stood swiftly. “Because your soul, Kamai, is unchartable. It’s useless for them to even try. Only I understand you.”

  I had to resist rolling my eyes. I needed him to tell me what he knew, and provoking him probably wouldn’t help. “That’s all very comforting, but sometimes it’s nice to relate to … I don’t know … other human beings?”

  “Can you really, though? If so, why are you here?”

  “You told me there was another way to get close enough to people to soulwalk,” I said carefully. “Other than … you know.”

  “It sounds to me like you’re trying to avoid relating to humans too much. I think you know all of that—all of them—are beneath you.”

  “Thinking of it in those terms definitely makes me feel less alone.”

  Vehyn took a step closer to me across the study without seeming to move. “You’re not alone.”

  I have Nikha, I thought, but I didn’t say that aloud. Vehyn was jealous enough of Razim, whom I didn’t even like, as it was. The less attention he paid to Nikha, the better. “Yes, because talking to the mysterious being that no one else can see is really helping me feel connected to the world.”

  He shrugged. “I can leave you to your situation, then, if you prefer. What did Zeniri say? ‘It’s just like acting’?”

  It was creepy that he overheard so much of what I experienced. I dropped my hands and sighed. “Sometimes I wish I wanted to sleep with people. Not just to feel more normal, whatever that means, but … but I don’t actually want to,” I finished, in case he got any ideas.

  He considered me. “Why do you wish you did?”

  “Just to share. Feel close to someone. I want that, sometimes.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling the truth. Maybe because it would be nice to have with Vehyn what I had with Nikha. Honesty.

  “This isn’t close?” He gestured between us, the floor dark enough that the space could have been bottomless—a chasm.

  I snorted.

  He took a step closer. “How about now?”

  “Vehyn … you know I don’t mean literal closeness.”

  “Which is why I’m illustrating the absurdity of tying such sentiment to physical bodies.” He looked like he had an idea. “But if it’s sharing you want…” His black robe swirling, he closed the gap between us entirely, but I flinched away from his hands as he raised them to my face. He froze, his dark eyes serious, searching. “I’m not going to hurt you, Kamai, or try to do anything you won’t want.”

  “I’m a little jumpy,” I said with a nervous laugh, my heart stuttering in my chest. “Someone just tried to strangle me to death, after all.”

  “And you saw what I did to him.” He hesitated. “May I?”

  I couldn’t believe he was asking my permission. Because of that, I blinked and said, “You may,” even though I didn’t know what he would do.

  He brushed his fingers along my cheeks and into my hair, tickling my scalp, finally settling his cool palms against my temples.

  “What—?” I began.

  “Close your eyes,” he instructed. And then he did one of the strangest things. He closed his own. I realized I hadn’t seen him with his eyes shut for longer than a blink. It made him look almost vulnerable. Almost trusting. His heavy black lashes and something … else … shadowed his pale lids, something I’d mistaken for kohl, but perhaps it was whatever darkness was begi
nning to stain my own eyes.

  I found myself wanting to stare at his face, map each and every line of his eerie beauty, now that I could look at him without his intense regard in return. Instead, my own eyes slid shut.

  Behind my lids, there was only darkness, complete. I had a second realization: I didn’t often close my eyes in the sleeping realm, either. I was already asleep, after all. Here, where I wasn’t even technically shutting my lids in a real, physical sense, I quickly lost track of any connection to or memory of my body, even the pressure of Vehyn’s hands on my face. My spirit was simply floating in the dark. My thoughts began to drift.

  And then the darkness began to take shape, passing like rippling black water underneath me. A vague, faint light, a little like moonlight, glinted on the water’s surface, and warm wind blew through my hair. I began to feel my surroundings on my skin, such that I had skin—distantly, like I was both in and outside of my body. Seeing was like peering through eyes that weren’t fully open, and watching from outside myself, at the same time. What I saw and felt was both clear and sharp, blurry and fuzzy.

  I was flying through night air over the dark waves, so fast it took my breath away. For a moment, I had lungs to breathe, and then I forgot them, because they weren’t necessary.

  As a hand took mine, I realized someone else was with me.

  Vehyn. He was less distinct than I was. A shadow next to me, but I could sense his presence, feel his hand squeeze mine. And then I could feel more than that. His thoughts. A calm assurance blanketed me, and a flash of eagerness pierced me. And then his arms were around me and we were soaring up, up, into the darkness. The bottom dropped out of my stomach, wherever my stomach was, as the water fell away below. We climbed so high that I saw the horizon of a dimmed world far beneath us, with a midnight sky that seemed incomplete, unreal without moon or stars. I laughed in delight; I couldn’t help it. Vehyn was still a shadow, but I felt lips brush my cheek.

  With his kiss, I felt a rush of … something. A warm tingling. A deep, buzzing thrill. I wasn’t sure if it came from him or me, but it was strong and heady, like downing a glass of wine.

  And then suddenly we were falling. I felt like screaming now, but his strong arms held me tighter, cupped my head to his chest. The dark water flew up to meet us, rising as fast as my fear. When we hit, it didn’t hurt, but water was all around me, in my mouth, in my nose. I didn’t need to breathe, but still I tried, I struggled, I didn’t want to sink into blackness … but Vehyn wasn’t letting me go.

  * * *

  My eyes flew open. Vehyn’s arms were around me, like they had been in the water, but we were standing back in the dark study behind the black door, where he’d first put his hands on my face, the lamplight still red and low. I was gasping, as if I needed air.

  “What was that?” I asked, steadying myself against his chest. But I knew the answer to my own question. “Were we dreaming? Together?”

  Vehyn blinked, as if it was taking him a moment to come back to himself. “I … I’ve never actually done that before. I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen, or what I would do.” His voice sounded unusually off-balance, dazed. And for a second, that made him look truly young.

  “What do you mean?” I pushed away from him, though his arms only slid from my back down to my waist, still holding me close. “You weren’t in control?”

  When he looked at me again, his eyes were clear, focused, but shadowed. Walls were going up that I hadn’t realized were there until I saw them being built. “Not entirely. That seems to be the nature of dreaming, even for me. I was worried I might drop you, but then…”

  He’d fallen with me, instead. “Could we have gotten hurt?” I demanded.

  “I don’t think so. No bodily harm, at least. It’s a place of pure unconscious thought and emotion, without boundaries. The sleeping realm within the sleeping realm. It’s true sharing, if you have the ability to go there with someone else. But who’s to say what might hurt there, hm?” He shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. His eyes had that ageless quality to them again.

  I stepped back so his arms fell entirely away. I was suddenly self-conscious, unsure of what to say. We had shared something dark and deep with each other, a melding of our latent selves, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it … or how Vehyn felt. It hadn’t seemed planned on his part. I hugged myself, remembering the feeling of his arms around me, of soaring, falling. Good and bad. Had he been able to sense my emotions, like I had his? I both liked the thought and wanted to hide. Maybe this was what people who weren’t new souls felt like when they were naked before another person.

  “Was that … um … what you wanted to show me?” I asked, for something to say.

  Vehyn arched an eyebrow. “No, Kamai, that was my attempt to share something with you without expecting anything in return.”

  Exactly what I’d wanted, for once. Except this time, I actually needed something else from him. Of course he knew that, so he was trying to make me feel greedy. Even giving me something I wanted, he still managed to try to take from me, to gain leverage.

  Manipulative bastard.

  I threw up my hands. “Fine, I can just go back to the waking world and—” He caught my hand, stopping me short. I’d guessed he would. He didn’t seem to want me sleeping with other people any more than I did.

  “What I have to show you is dangerous,” Vehyn said. “Very dangerous. I want you to be prepared.”

  I felt something materialize between our hands, and I pulled away to look at it. It was my mother’s knife, which he had taken from me in the sleeping realm the first time we’d met. “That dangerous?”

  “And worse. So I’m also going to give you this.” It wasn’t an offer, more of a statement of fact. He kept hold of my wrist, moving his own fingers above it, like he was tying a thread. Shadows moved indistinctly between us. When he let go, there was something dark like a ribbon, but transparent and ghostly, that ran from me to him. “This will help you get back to me.”

  I tried to brush a finger against the ribbon. It passed right through, but the air felt thicker, warmer there. “Am I, what, wandering into a forest to meet a witch? Is this my trail of breadcrumbs?”

  Vehyn gave his end a light tug. I felt the pull all the way into my arm, drawing me to him. “Similar. You’re going to wander the ways between souls.”

  20

  SΗORT ETERNITIES

  Between souls.

  I froze, my feet rooted to the floor of Vehyn’s study. I barely dared to hope. “There are ways for a spirit to enter a soul through the sleeping realm? Without bodies needing to be close in the waking world?”

  Vehyn nodded.

  “And you can’t come with me? Or you won’t come?” I asked.

  Vehyn’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “What is that human saying about not inspecting the craftsmanship of a gift?”

  “Yes, fine, but where do I go?”

  “To whomever’s soul you want.”’

  “I need to get to Razim’s.”

  “He’s not asleep right now,” Vehyn said. Almost too quickly. He was probably right, but he seemed keen to direct me away from Razim. Maybe because he didn’t want me to win our game. That was fine—I would find my way back into Razim’s soul sooner or later.

  I tried to think of someone else who might be asleep at this hour. Zeniri. He’d been up all night and was no doubt sleeping through the morning in preparation for another wakeful evening. This would be the perfect way to present “my idea” of how to soulwalk to the Keepers. “I know someone.”

  “Good. But before I teach you this, Kamai, you must listen to me very carefully: never try this alone. It might be tempting, knowing you, but without me here to pull you back if you’re in danger, you could easily lose yourself forever. Not even I would be able to get you back, if enough time passed. And out there, there are fates worse than death. Much worse.”

  His warning definitely gave me pause. “But how do I stay out of danger?”

>   “Much like seeking something within a soul, you must imagine what you wish to find. Focus on that soul, keep moving, and whatever you do, don’t stray from your goal.”

  I lifted my mother’s knife, gleaming dully in the dim red light. “When does this come in?”

  His lips pursed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t. But, needless to say, strike first, greet whomever you’ve stabbed after.”

  My stomach did a little flip. “Who will be out there? Other soulwalkers?”

  Vehyn shook his head. “Not likely. This is too dangerous for most mortals to attempt. Many don’t even know of the possibility.”

  I shuddered to think of what else I might encounter. More creatures like Vehyn … or worse? “And it’s not too dangerous for me? I am still human, you know.”

  “You have me.”

  “Not quite.” I glanced down at the strange ribbon around my wrist. “I hope this is stronger than it looks.”

  “You know, sometimes I’m not sure why I bother giving you anything.” He said the words in an airy, unconcerned tone as he headed across the study for the black door with me in tow. It was closed now, and when he opened it, my usual clearing didn’t lay beyond the threshold. Instead, I saw what looked like a jungle of night and shadow. The sky was black with faint stars overhead, and the trees indistinct smears. A path wandered straight from the door into the darkness.

  I hesitated on the threshold. This was definitely the strangest, darkest place I’d seen since I’d ventured into the black door. At least in Vehyn’s fortress, there was a sense of order. This looked wild, feral.

  “Remember what I said,” Vehyn murmured. “Hold your goal in mind at all costs. Don’t stray. Don’t linger. There aren’t only souls to be stumbled upon out there, In Between.”

  In Between. Nice. It sounded like the space between walls or deep cracks or stars. A place for getting lost, filled with cobwebs and dried-out husks and darkness. Small, endless pits and eternities. Nowhere you wanted to find yourself. And I was headed right into it. At least now I knew for sure that marriage or the pleasure arts weren’t for me, since I preferred this to either of them.