by Travis Peck
“HOW?”
Moira nearly fainted at the question and the force that battered her like an invisible club smashing against her mind. She instinctively raised her arm but it did no good. This was an attack not in the physical realm, nor did she have a real body to inflict harm upon in this place. As she thought this, the pain suddenly ceased.
She detected the shocked silence as the Shadowman’s black tendrils writhed back from her, as if repulsed, and froze their sinuous movements.
“YOU ARE LIKE HER!” The Shadowman’s words betrayed conflicting emotions at the accusation.
When he said the word her, Moira felt intense hate and love, as well as jealousy, betrayal, and guilt. She could not fathom how this creature could have such conflicting feelings about only one woman. But she knew that it was the terrible ravinor queen that he referred to. And how in the Giver’s name could she be at all like her?
“STAY AWAY FROM ME! GET OUT OF MY MIND!”
Moira was stunned at the apparition in front of her cowering away from her like a beaten cur. She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it. What could she possibly say to this mad creature?
“GO AWAYAWAYAWAYAWAYAWAYAWAYAWAY…” The Shadowman babbled. His semi-distinct arms wrapped around his cowl-covered head as he rocked back and forth from his crouched position down on his heels.
A force slammed into her, and she was flung away from the insane, darkness-shrouded specter. Moira was now in a stone room. No window, no door. Hard-packed dirt composed the floor. Large flagstones made up the walls and the domed ceiling above. She knew she was still in the ravinor dream. Where else could such a building exist?
Moira was relieved that she was alone. Any place else was better than watching the histrionics of an unhinged madman breaking down before her. She had mixed feelings about the Shadowman. She hated him with all of her heart and utterly despised him and what she had seen him do within the ravinor dream. But she had also sensed great torment and self-loathing from him, along with the mind-numbing and all-consuming wrath that spewed from him like a tangible miasma of emotion. She found herself pitying the horrible creature more than fearing him.
As she looked once more around her prison, she suddenly felt a wave of desperation surge through her. Moira fought down panic as she realized that this room had no air inside it. Taking deep and ineffectual breaths, she frantically searched for an opening in the stonework, any opening, any tiny crack in the stone to draw air from. She scraped at the mortar between the large stones, trying to remove enough to make a portal to the outside. Her fingernails tore and bled from the frantic effort.
Moira stopped struggling. There was no air here, but she did not need air. Her fingers were not even really here, so how could they be bleeding? She did not take a deep breath, for the urge to breathe was gone, as was the pain and panic that had filled her full to bursting only moments before.
Moira had another thought: This prison was not real. Nothing. The stone wall still surrounded her. Taker be damned! she cursed in her mind. Exhausted, she leaned against one of the walls and slid down to the dirt floor. Moira closed her normal eye so that she could focus on using her other one. As she expected, the stone vanished. In its place was the same wall of black energy that had pushed the souls onward in the grass field during her last visit.
Moira stared at the wall and focused on bringing about the power again. The hum rose within her, and she filled herself up with it. Her body tingled, and her bones and teeth began to ache with the vibration of power that threatened to spill out of her. She put her hand against the stone and released the buildup into it, or rather, into the dark energy behind it. A concussion flung her up against the far wall as her white lightning met the blackness. She felt a large bump rising on the back of her head and winced. Her vision was blurry in both eyes, and the room spun wildly about in her vision. Moira turned to look at the spot on the wall that had taken the brunt of her power. There was no sign of damage. The black shield looked the same as it had.
The Shadowman had countered her only weapon in this place. She ground her teeth in anger, fighting back desperate tears at her dilemma. She was now stuck in the ravinor dream in this small room. Would her body eventually starve in the waking world—would that kill her here? What would her father think when he found her in some sort of catatonic and unresponsive state in her bedroom? What if she were already dead and she had to spend her afterlife here in this stone cell?
The tears came then. It was impossible to tell how long she had cried. There was no sun to keep track of time, or moon. She saw nothing but the rough surface of gray stone around her. And behind it, or through it, still stood the onyx shield. Once her crying fit subsided, she tried to think of how she could escape. If someone woke her up, would she be able to go back to her body? Moira shook her head, she could only worry about her stone prison and the Shadowman. Was he still out there babbling maniacally?
She went over his strange outburst again and again. He had raved about Moira being similar to this woman that he had an obviously complicated relationship with. If it was the queen, as she suspected, how could she use that to her advantage? The Shadowman was clearly mad, but could she use that fact to help her get out of here? Or would taking liberties with his fragile psyche prove to get her into more trouble?
All she had were questions, but she did not think she was going anywhere any time soon, so she sat back and mused now that she had calmed from her emotional outburst.
The fact was, she had bested the Shadowman the previous night to release those souls back to their bodies, so she had to consider that she had at least a chance of doing the same thing again. But why hadn’t her power worked this time? She had felt the same amount of the strange force fill her as she had released that first time. Moira knew that she was inexperienced. She didn’t know the rules of the ravinor dream, but she realized that she would not learn anything new by sitting on the floor feeling sorry for herself.
The floor.
It was dirt, unlike the walls and ceiling which were composed of stones that were not really there. But more important, the black shield did not appear to exist under her feet. Her cloudy eye discerned nothing, much like a small section of dirt in the waking world would appear to her. She saw no colors, only muted blacks and little else. She started to dig into the earth with her hands then stopped. Moira instead began to call up the power.
The thrumming buffeted her again, filling her up. Once more she released it. She visualized a wedge of power rather than the jagged branches of white lightning. The energy formed as she wished, much to her delight, and she released it into the earth in the center of the room. Dust and dirt filled the sealed off space that was her prison. There was nowhere for the dirt and dust to go. No. If the shield keeping her inside the prison was the only thing that was real, then there was no dust. The dirt and dust vanished in a flash.
I’m missing something, Moira thought as she observed the wedge-shaped hole in the center of the dirt floor. It went down only a yard and there was still dirt visible at the bottom. Moira was perplexed. She could make the dirt disappear when it was floating around her, yet she could not banish the dirt itself?
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I FEEL YOUR POWER. IT WILL NOT WORK. I HAVE MADE THE WALLS MUCH THICKER THAN WHAT YOU BORED THROUGH THE LAST TIME YOU WERE HERE.”
Moira jumped at the booming voice echoing inside the walls and her mind. “Why are you doing this?” she cried out, partly wanting to distract the Shadowman from his question.
“YOU TRESPASSED INTO MY WORLD. NOW YOU CAN STAY HERE!” He cackled at his pronouncement, and his mad laughter resounded in her mind. She covered her ears, still knowing that it would do nothing to help, but acting instinctively to muffle the harsh sound.
She changed tactics. “I want to stay here, but not in this prison!” she shouted to her captor.
“WHAT?”
“I want to learn of this place,” she said, inwardly surprised that this was the truth.
“AH. YOU SEEK TO TR
ICK ME. YOU WILL BORE ANOTHER HOLE TO THE OUTSIDE AND RETURN TO YOUR BODY IF I LET YOU OUT,” the voice answered.
Moira swore she had heard a catch in his voice, but she was not certain what it meant, if anything. “No, I will stay here until I wake up,” Moira promised.
The voice was silent for a few moments.
“YOU WILL NOT WAKE UP.”
“What? Why not?” she shouted out the question as she felt the terrible panic threaten her own sanity at the thought.
“HER CHILDREN ARE NEAR WHERE YOUR BODY RESTS. YOU WILL NOT WAKE AGAIN.”
Moira froze. The ravinors that had attacked Deepbrooke were now closing in on the manor? She had to warn her father and Daeris. She must! Desperate to believe that the Shadowman was just trying to frighten her, she asked, “How do you know where I am?”
The Shadowman did not answer so Moira strained to hear what was happening outside her cell. A strange creaking sound like a rusty hinge of a barn door or a poorly oiled wagon wheel could faintly be heard for a moment, but then it was gone. She had no time to ponder the strange sound as he answered.
“I CAN SEE YOUR MANOR NOW IN THE DISTANCE. I CAN SMELL YOUR SOUL ANCHORED TO YOUR BODY THERE.”
“How can you see the manor? Aren’t you asleep?”
Another cackle was her answer. “I AM AWAKE THERE AND HERE.” The voice sounded smug and more than a little proud.
Moira tried to think of another question but had too many swirling through her mind, each vying for her attention. One particular thought would not let go. What were the implications that the Shadowman’s physical body was near her own? Could his body be harmed more easily in the real world than in the ravinor dream? She vehemently wished that Daeris, or one of his guards, would find the Shadowman’s physical being and end its existence.
Summoning up her power again, Moira shaped it like an auger she had seen one of the workers on the estate use to dig a deep well. The spiraling shape plowed into the earth, and dirt was heaped out of the hole as she spun the power-auger. The hole deepened rapidly.
“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THAT WAY, EITHER.”
Moira ignored him.
“IF YOU BREAK THROUGH THE GROUND BARRIER, YOU WILL FALL INTO NOTHING. FOREVER. EVEN I CANNOT SAVE YOU THEN.”
As if by cue, her manifested auger hit something solid. She let go of the shape in her mind and the power dissolved away. Her afflicted eye immediately saw the radiant blue light shining brightly at the bottom of the hole. She could not fathom how the dirt here was real and yet unreal, but there was no mistaking the barrier the Shadowman had warned her about.
“TIME PASSES DIFFERENTLY HERE. IF YOUR BODY DIES IN THE WAKING WORLD AND YOU BREAK THROUGH AND FALL, IT WILL FEEL LIKE AGES. IF YOUR BODY IS KEPT ALIVE, IT WILL BE AN ETERNITY.”
Moira paused. She moved away from the hole, wrapping her arms around her as she involuntarily shuddered at the image. She had no way of telling whether the Shadowman was lying or not, but it seemed to her that if she could get out this way, the mad creature would have put his black barrier beneath her as well.
“WISE DECISION.”
She fumed at the words but could not bring herself to risk such a terrible fate. Moira prayed silently to the Giver to get her back to her body so she could warn her loved ones about the impending attack, but there was no answer. This was the domain of the Shadowman, after all.
“Let me out, please!” Moira cried, knowing that it would do little good.
The Shadowman did not respond to her plea and was silent. Moira waited. She could not shake the image of everyone at the manor being being eaten or infected by ravinors while she was stuck here. She was no warrior, but she hated not being there, even if it meant she would only die alongside her family. That would be better than this forced separation at such a time.
“Hello? Are you there?” Moira asked the stillness beyond her cell’s walls. No response. She stood and peered down the hole in the dirt floor. Her right eye still showed her the azure glow of the shield that she did not dare break. Her stomach rumbled. She willed the hunger to go away but nothing happened. The hunger remained. My body is hungry in the physical world, she realized and cursed. She sat down again with her back against one of the stone walls.
Moira fought back despair. Hope seemed to be slipping away from her. It was going to get much worse here before the end, if she was doomed to spend the rest of her time left in the ravinor dream, powerless to do anything about it. She closed her eyes, more to block out the sight of her stone cell than any real need for sleep. Could she even fall asleep here in the dream? There was so much she did not know about this place. She had meant what she had said to the Shadowman. She did want to learn about it, though she did not want the insane creature to be her tutor.
Even though she couldn’t feel her body back at the manor, other than the hunger that reached her here, Moira hated this feeling of vulnerability. The Giver forfend that if the manor were overrun by ravinors, that her family would take her body with them. What if they were surprised and only had time to get themselves out of the manor? Moira groaned. She would drive herself as mad as the Shadowman with these questions that were impossible to answer. As far as she knew, she had only been pulled into the dream for a few candles, but her captor had mentioned that time moved differently here. Could her family already be fending off marauding ravinors, or was it only moments after she had been snatched into the dream?
“Where are you?” she screamed out the question, her voice hoarse with the effort.
“I AM HERE.”
Moira was relieved that she was no longer alone, but then felt anger at her weakness.
“I HAVE GIVEN ORDERS THAT YOUR BODY WILL BE KEPT ALIVE.”
“How? I thought the ravinors were hers?” Moira asked as she tried to keep her revulsion in check.
“SHE IS NOT THERE! I AM! THEY WILL OBEY ME!”
“So order them to leave the manor alone!”
“I MUST FOLLOW HER COMMANDS, BUT I CAN DO WHAT I WILL WITH YOU.”
Moira was furious, but she did not dare let her rage at the Shadowman spill into her conversation with him. He was her only way out of here, and she needed him to keep talking to her if she wanted any chance of convincing him to do just that.
“Why is the queen not here like you are? I have seen her here before?” Moira asked to keep him talking.
“SHE ONLY COMES FOR SOME OF THE REAPINGS. THIS IS MY REALM, NOT HERS.”
Moira could not stifle her interest in the queen but it was clear that the Shadowman was quick to anger whenever she was mentioned. Moira did not want to risk angering him further, but she still wanted to test his limits. “Obviously, it’s your realm. That is why you should teach me and not her.”
“SHE CANNOT TEACH YOU! SHE KNOWS NOTHING. NOTHING!”
Moira did not believe that the queen was powerless here, or ignorant of the dream, but she also found it odd that he did not say the queen would not teach her, but rather, that she could not.
“If I ask her to teach me, perhaps she would save my family since you will not?” Moira said, knowing she would get a reaction from the Shadowman but hoping she was not pushing him too far.
“SHE WOULD NOT SAVE YOUR FAMILY.”
“But she would teach me?”
“OF COURSE, SHE WOULD TEACH YOU! YOU ARE JUST LIKE SHE IS…WAS. LIKE I WAS. BUT I TOLD YOU, SHE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT I KNOW HERE. I WILL TEACH YOU, NOT HER! NEVER HER.” The Shadowman quieted.
Moira knew this was important but could not fathom what possible similarities she and the ravinor queen could possibly share. It certainly wasn’t her affliction. The queen, though terrible, was beautiful. Unlike her.
“Very well, you will teach me then,” Moira said, as if she had decided. “Let me out so that we can begin.”
A mad cackle echoed in her cell once more. “NOT UNTIL YOUR BODY IS SECURE.”
At least she had a promise that he would teach her. She did not want to think about the safety of her family or her physical body bein
g in the hands of ravinors and this poor, mad creature.
“IT WILL NOT BE LONG NOW.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE HORN SOUNDED ONCE more. Garet was up before it had finished blasting its call. He had not even bothered to take off his armor since the last alert had been called. Three assaults had taken place and the night was only half over. Not that daylight would give us much of a reprieve. Grabbing his quiver of arrows—Barsus had his father’s bow with him on watch—he belted on his longsword as he raced down the stairs. He nearly collided with Crallick coming out of his own room. They both sprinted out of the door and scaled the ladder up to the catwalk, where Barsus and Myrna stood overlooking the gate.
Garet quickly surveyed his opponents. A score of ravinors were pounding at the gate, ineffectually scraping their elongated, claw-like nails against the hard-banded oak door. There was no way they could get through like that.
“Where are the rest of them?” Garet asked.
“There are two dozen or so around the wall,” Barsus answered. “I think they just keep enough there so that we have to keep a person to watch them.”
“I think you’re right. And when we do, then just enough ravinors are sent for the alarm to be raised, preventing us from getting any sleep,” Garet said, guessing at the enemy’s intentions. “Have you seen him yet?”
“No. I would guess he’s in the large group there, but none of them have stood out yet,” Barsus said, pointing out toward the small rise where the majority of ravinors were congregating. “Even with the full moon up, I can’t make out much detail at that distance.”
If they were to have any chance of surviving, Garet knew that they would have to find a way to trick the ravinor leader into revealing himself so they could eliminate him. The intelligent ravinor was doing exactly as he would have done to prevent the defenders from getting any rest. If the defenders failed to appear when an assault on the gate was carried out, then all the ravinors would be called into action. With the concentrated mass of all the ravinors’ weight pushing up against the wall, they might be able to breach it. He would also have some ravinors begin to dig under the wall in several places, if only so they would have to task a person to account for them.