The Crosser's Maze (The Heroes of Spira Book 2)

by Dorian Hart

  Boss, we need to talk.

  Oh? About what?

  Pewter hopped down from her shoulder and hissed into the shadow of a passing alley. Sorry. Another rat. I mean we should talk about your feelings.

  My feelings? I try not to have them, when I can help it.

  Yes, I’ve noticed, which is exactly what I mean. Now the rats, they make you nervous, and that’s natural. They’re nasty. But when was the last time you felt strongly about anything else?

  Aravia frowned down at the cat. What a strange avenue of discussion for a cat to embark upon!

  I’m sure I don’t know, and that’s as it should be. Master Serpicore often talked about how emotions were the enemy—

  Yes, the enemy of wizard-craft. I know. You’ve told me.

  And I’ve also told you he ascribed my unusual talent in large part to my mastery over my emotions.

  Sure, sure. Boss, I’m not knocking your skills. You’re a masterful wizard, especially for someone so young and relatively new to the magic game. But…

  But what?

  Pewter batted at a passing moth. But I’m not sure it’s healthy. You’re a human. You ought to be happy and sad and frightened and excited more often. I’m sure your wizardry would still be top notch.

  Is there a reason that you’re bringing this up now? Don’t we have enough to concern ourselves with?

  Aravia had from time to time entertained internal debates similar to this one, particularly after Mrs. Horn’s death. She had done her due diligence, examining the powerful emotions the event had brought out in her colleagues and the lack thereof in herself. Her conclusions had been straightforward: While it was normal for tragedy to provoke strong emotional responses, they only served to introduce irrationality to decision making and distraction to more immediate priorities. That she avoided these things so adroitly was most satisfactory.

  Boss, I worry that you’re distancing yourself from your friends.

  You worry too much, Pewter. Do all cats concern themselves so much with emotional interplay?

  Of course not. Cats’ emotions are generally limited to satisfying hunger, chasing prey, fending off predators, and mating with other cats. But since I woke up, my emotions are much more… more human, I suppose you’d say. Not to mention, how many cats do you know who can do advanced math in their heads? I’m one of a kind.

  Aravia couldn’t argue with that.

  Pewter, at some point we should figure out why that is. When the Kivian Arch opened, you became intelligent, but it would good to know why that happened.

  Complete agreement, boss. Maybe—

  Something shifted on the wind, something indefinable. They both felt it; Pewter leapt back onto her shoulder and dug in his claws. Aravia shivered despite the heat and looked up and down the street, half expecting to see something awful but with no idea what or why. She experienced the terribly odd sensation of someone rewriting the rules of how the world worked.

  For a scintilla of time, she imagined that she stood in her emerald-green dream-forest, peeking into the clearing over a root-entwined boulder. All was quiet there, the wood profoundly watchful. Something in the clearing waited for her.

  From a distant neighborhood, a dog howled, snapping her back to reality. Aravia disliked dogs—they were stupid and ridiculous as a rule—but the sound of that plaintive canine wail pierced her like a knife of ice. Closer at hand, just down the road, a second dog took up the cry, howling as though its heart had broken. Behind it came the noise of more and more dogs, baying out some sudden sorrow all at once. The other people on the street stopped and looked around in confusion and alarm. A pair of women who had just emerged from a shop quickly dashed back inside.

  Boss, why do I feel so sad? They’re just dogs!

  I don’t know, Pewter, but I feel it, too.

  Dozens of dogs, near and far, howled to the sky, a piteous sound that spoke of unfathomable tragedy. Aravia discovered tears on her cheeks. A sourceless distress filled her, along with a great frustration that she didn’t understand what was happening.

  One by one, after more than a full minute of filling the air with their dismay, the dogs fell back into silence. A chocolate-colored droopy-jowled retriever padded slowly up to her.

  Careful.

  Don’t worry, Pewter.

  The dog dropped to the road on its belly, looked up at Aravia with huge sad eyes, and whimpered. It was a pleading sound, as if it thought she had some power to ease its invisible suffering. She reached down and scratched the top of his head.

  Boss, what are you doing?

  “I don’t know, Pewter.” Instinctively she spoke out loud, so the dog could hear. “I wish to the gods that I did, but I don’t know.”

  The dog quieted beneath her hand, but its tail was still and its eyes didn’t lose their misery. Presently it pushed itself back onto its feet and slunk away.

  Pewter, I think we should return to Laramon’s Lair. Maybe the others will have heard some explanation for the dogs’ behavior.

  But she doubted that they had.

  She and Pewter hurried back through the streets of Lyme, passing several knots of townsfolk puzzling over the howling of the dogs. Two servants hurried past them, and one said to the other, “I never heard anything like it. Had the chickens acted up, I’d have expected an earthquake.”

  More rats, in that pile of leavings.

  Aravia glanced nervously at a refuse heap behind a grocer’s shack. It seethed with rats, squeaking and squirming. She shook her head; she could have sworn they were celebrating.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Morningstar tried her best to project calm and confidence, but her recruits couldn’t hide their apprehension.

  There were three of them, four if she counted Previa. All of them looked around, at the stars, the grass, the bright moon that made them squint and shade their eyes.

  “Thank you for agreeing to this,” she told them. “You have made a great leap of faith, and the goddess will be pleased at your boldness.”

  “I’m still not certain where we are,” said Jet, the shortest and youngest of the three. Like the others, her hair was as black as a shadow. She seemed of an age with Ernie and Tor. “In fact, I’m not entirely sure this isn’t just a dream. A normal dream, I mean.”

  “I will make you sure,” said Morningstar.

  She forced herself to sound more confident than she felt. It had been a tricky thing simply getting them here. The avatar had trained her in the ways of traveling the Tapestry, but she hadn’t yet brought anyone with her. The sleeping minds of her sisters had resisted, as the avatar had warned, but through gentle persistence she had convinced each of the three to accompany her.

  “That sounds like a threat.” The sister named Scola towered over the other two; she must have been six foot four, with the stocky middle-aged build of a seasoned Shield of Ell. Unlike her sisters, she wore armor, some sort of chain shirt and skirt, and she held a large martial hammer. Her long hair was bound up into a bun.

  Morningstar looked up at her as serenely as she could. “I want there to be no doubt in your mind when you wake that your time here was a reality.”

  “I have no doubt,” said the third sister. Amber was older than Jet but not much taller, and her hair was short and spiky. She had appeared holding a long knife in each hand. “What concerns me more is the secrecy. If Ell wishes us to learn dream-fighting, we could have an army training to fight beside you.”

  “I will explain everything to you. It will be brief since I am eager to begin, but I want you to know the full truth of what we do.”

  She waved toward them, willing four large cushions to appear on the grass. “Please, sit.”

  Jet’s mouth opened in astonished delight. “How did you do that?”

  “The same way you will, once I’ve taught you. Now, before I start, I want you to swear on Ell’s name, here in a place holy to her, that you will keep secret all that we say and do. Do you promise?”

  Jet assented i
mmediately. Scola and Amber were slower to respond, but they also made their oaths.

  “Good.” Morningstar smiled warmly, but inside she was as nervous as her would-be pupils. They might very well break that promise, figuring that any oath made to the White Anathema could not possibly be binding. But they had trusted her—or Previa, at least—enough to come here. She took a deep breath.

  “Our kingdom is under a grave threat. Hundreds of years ago the Kingdom of Charagan was in thrall to a monstrous and powerful tyrant called Naloric Skewn. The most accomplished wizards of that age managed to banish him to another world, but now his son, Naradawk, a creature just as mighty and malevolent, is about to escape from his banishment and return to Spira.”

  She gave her sisters a moment to absorb that much.

  “How do you know all that?” asked Scola.

  “I work for one of the archmagi. It is they who have been keeping Naradawk out, but they cannot contain him much longer.”

  Scola narrowed her eyes. “Is it true, then? That you walk in sunlight in service to your wizard?”

  “High Priestess Rhiavonne granted me permission to do so. If it troubles you too much, I suggest you pay her a visit to complain.”

  “Never mind,” said Previa. “Tell us how our being here will help stop Naradawk.”

  Morningstar looked gratefully at her friend. “One of Naradawk’s minions has already slipped through the portal between the prison world and our own. His name is Aktallian Dreamborn. We must defeat him, but he is extremely dangerous, and I will be unable to best him on my own.”

  Jet took a deep breath and gulped while Scola remained stoic.

  “Why?” asked Amber. “Why do we need to best him? What’s he going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Morningstar admitted. “The avatar who trains me in the Tapestry has only told me that he will present a deadly threat and that if we fail to stop him, all our efforts to keep Naradawk out will come to naught.”

  “Why isn’t your avatar training us, then?” asked Scola. “Surely she’d be better at it than you.”

  Morningstar shot a quick glance at Previa, who grimaced and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders that said, This was the best I could do.

  “It is a matter of the Injunction,” said Morningstar. “That Ell has sent an avatar to train me already strains the ancient laws of the gods, that they do not interfere directly with the mortal affairs of Spira. I posed similar questions to the avatar when first she came to me, and my answers to you are the same. Amber, I have been told to recruit in secret—not even the High Priestess Rhiavonne knows of what we do. Ell has foreseen this great need but walks a tightrope where a fall to one side breaks the Injunction, and a fall to the other results in Naradawk conquering Spira.”

  “Then we’d better get on with it,” said Jet. She stood, rocked up and down on her toes, and grinned through her fear. Scola and Amber looked less convinced.

  “You know your own reputation,” said Scola, “so you must know how this looks. The White Anathema draws us into her dreams and asks us to take her at her word that we take part in some project without the sanction of the church or its leaders. You could be inviting us to some secret rebellion—or even to commit blasphemy! I’d feel better if you offered us some assurance.”

  Morningstar smiled and shook her head. “So would I, but the nature of our task forbids it. All I can do is ask you to trust me and to trust Ell. Previa believes that what I say is the truth. If you cannot yet trust me, then trust her judgment.”

  Morningstar felt guilty about transferring the weight of confidence onto Previa’s shoulders, but she needed to shore things up before they fell apart at the start.

  Amber turned to Scola. “I believe her. Let’s give her a chance.”

  “Fine.” Scola stood up and swung her hammer loosely over her shoulders. “Morningstar, teach us. Teach us how fighting is different here inside our dreams.”

  It would have been most effective simply to make Scola’s weapon disappear, but Morningstar doubted she had the skill. Eliminating a thing from the Tapestry was difficult if it had been manifested by another dreamer. The avatar had drilled her in the technique on many nights, but clean removal of such “solid” matter still eluded her. She put out of her mind the ease with which Aktallian Dreamborn had rid her of her mace during their only meeting in the Tapestry.

  But she could still make her point. Changing simple properties of existing objects was a good deal easier. Morningstar focused her will on Scola’s hammer. It was not a hammer, of course; it was Scola’s dreaming idea of the weapon, a mental figment given form and meaning in the context of the dream. It was a thing of imagination—and she could reimagine it.

  “Oof!” Scola’s arm dropped, dragged by the sudden weight of her weapon. The solid iron head of the hammer thumped into the grass, leaving a deep indentation. While the tall sister tugged futilely at the handle, Morningstar walked swiftly forward, her mace raised. Scola released her weapon and jumped backward.

  “In the Tapestry, nothing is fixed. We define the reality: the terrain, the weapons…even the light. Your ability to do battle here is defined as much by your imagination and mental focus as by how well you fight in the physical world. Scola, I suspect you would best me in the sparring yard of Tal Hae, but here, I have a weapon and you do not.”

  Morningstar stepped back and again regarded the hammer, reconsidering the dream as one where the weapon had lost its weight. She picked it up effortlessly and handed it back to Scola.

  “I will teach you to alter the heft of things. I will teach you to make them appear, and when you are strong enough of focus, to remove them from the Tapestry. With enough practice, you will be able to raise hills, excavate pits, transport yourself short distances in an eye-blink. You are not constrained by how the physical world works; our training will consist largely of learning how to convince your mind to let go of the limits it has learned to accept.”

  Scola’s expression had gone from skeptical to impatient. Jet leaned forward, eyes bright. Amber’s smile was eager. Even Previa, to whom she had given some warning about what training would be like, appeared rapt.

  “We will start with what for me was the simplest exercise. I would like you each to try altering the design of your cushion. Change the upholstery into a diamond pattern.”

  Jet picked up her cushion. “And all we have to do is imagine it that way?”

  “In a sense. But it’s not so much that you are changing its physical properties as you are changing the dream itself, so that the cushion within it is changed. Your mind will rebel. The more you consider the cushion, the more you will come to think of it as a real thing. But the trick to changing it is to remember that it is not. That everything about it is simply as we, collectively, are dreaming it.”

  Scola picked up the cushion at her feet and scowled at it. Amber and Previa left theirs on the grass and stared down at them with furious concentration. Jet sat down next to hers and gave it a thoughtful look, a half-smile on her lips. Morningstar said nothing more. She had explained enough to get them started, and any exhortations or advice would now be as much distraction as assistance.

  A small voice of doubt whispered to her as she watched her students work. How had she come to this? A teacher? Had she been obliged to list all the vocations she might ever have come to practice, instructing her fellow priestesses would have been right down at the bottom. And worse, how well she instructed her pupils could well decide the fate of every last person on Spira.

  The passing of time was hard to judge in the Tapestry. Minutes flitted by, but how many? Each of the four had her own approach. Scola muttered and swore soft curses at her cushion, as if it were a willfully disobedient child. Previa walked slow circles, keeping her eyes fixed on the object of her thoughts. Amber stood still over hers, whispering calmly either to it or to herself. And young Jet sat across from her pillow, still smiling, but staring as though she were engaged in a contest where neither side wanted to blink. />
  Previa succeeded first, which was no surprise to Morningstar. The Chronicler had a sharp mind, well-suited to the mental reconfiguring of the Tapestry.

  “Good,” said Morningstar. “Now change it again, to something else. Take the pattern of your cushion through as many different forms as you can.”

  “Gah! This is ridiculous!” Scola kicked her cushion, sending it tumbling away through the grass. “Previa said you would help train us to battle in a land of dreams, but this isn’t fighting. You are wasting my talents.”

  Amber looked up from her own cushion and observed Morningstar and Scola with apparent curiosity, as though she regarded Scola’s insolence as a test of Morningstar’s leadership and wanted to see who would win out.

  Morningstar looked pointedly at Scola’s hammer. “Have you already forgotten? Scola, the act of swinging a weapon here isn’t much different than in the waking world. I doubt there is anything I could teach you about breaking Aktallian’s bones or parrying his attacks. But without mastering the mental side of dream-combat, all of your martial prowess will mean little.”

  “Yes, yes.” Scola flicked an annoyed glance at her cushion. “But can’t you show us how it works?”

  That was the heart of the problem. “No. I can explain it, but I cannot make you understand it. I can truly state it no more plainly: Don’t change the cushion. Change the dream so that the cushion is as you envisage.”

  Scola gave a frustrated grunt and retrieved her pillow.

  Sometime later, after what felt like an hour or more, Jet gave a little squeal of delight. Her cushion was covered with stitched diamond shapes. “I get it! I didn’t think about the pillow. I thought, ‘I wish I were dreaming about a pillow with diamonds,’ and it just happened!”

  Scola held out her own cushion at arm’s length, staring daggers at it, sweating under the moonlight. It didn’t so much as flicker. With a roar of frustration she tore the thing in half, scattering feathers around her arms and head.