Dreamstrider

by Lindsay Smith

  The Citadel’s front entrance is cut into the vertical ridges of the fortress, a heavy portcullis raised over it, with guards on either side. They shift their weight as we approach, halberds swinging from hand to hand like great pendulums. The glowing doorway behind them casts their faces in shadow and stretches their horned-helmet silhouettes across the slate path.

  “Compatriots,” the first guard barks. “Speak to the winds so the trees may filter the truth of your words.”

  I barely manage to conceal a shudder. We’ve studied the reports about the speaking style of the Land of the Iron Winds, but it still gives me chills. “I present General Cold Sun, whose loyalty to the Commandant no winds can erode.” Brandt’s Iron Winds accent is flawless—airy as a loaf of Kruger’s bread and duller than dirt. He keeps his eyes on the ground and his hands clasped before him.

  “That is for the Iron Winds to decide,” the guard says. I can’t read his expression—in part because of the failing light, and in part because our Ministry instructors stressed that a general should not make eye contact with a mere guard. “The Commandant is expecting you. Please proceed.”

  My racing thoughts echo through the general’s hollow body as we cross the threshold, and I sense it in Brandt as well. In each of our missions, we reach a moment when we’ve bound ourselves to the whims of fate, and the only way out is to survive whatever lies ahead. I used to think Brandt and I functioned best in this moment—our strengths harmonizing, his hand ready to catch mine in our intricate waltz that has foiled gang leaders and corrupt aristocrats. But since the Stargazer Incident, I can only pray that we work so well this evening. I know Brandt can play his part. But the question is, can I play mine?

  The portcullis slams down, and a locking system clicks and whirs into place behind us. As we pass through the hall, I glance up at the vaulted ceiling paneled with thousands of mirrors, all throwing back the reflection of General Cold Sun with Brandt beside him. I can see other figures, too, lurking in the corners—the tufted hats of hidden guards, tucked behind the corridor’s ribs.

  Focus, Livia. One misstep and I’ll get Brandt killed, and my soul trapped in Oneiros, far away from my body’s tether—and the Nightmare Wastes are a deadly prospect I’d rather not dwell on. Brandt raises his head, breaking character just long enough to give me an encouraging nod. It’s time.

  Now I have to figure out where in the nightmares we’re supposed to go.

  I cast my thoughts back into the forests of Oneiros. When I am in another’s body, my consciousness straddles two worlds; my subject, however, stays asleep in the dreamworld. General Cold Sun’s consciousness threads through the woods in the form of a calm, cool stream. As long as he stays asleep, his body is vacant enough for me to occupy. But to find the information we need, I’ll have to disturb his slumber. I can’t press too deep into his memories—I have to let them trickle out naturally. I’ve practiced this countless times. I can get away with small ripples—he’ll remember the glimpses of wakefulness as only a hazy memory—but every disturbance will tug at his consciousness and risk waking him up.

  If the general wakes up, he can cast me out of his body, leaving my soul untethered in Oneiros. And if that happens … I say a quick prayer to the Dreamer to protect me and dangle my fingertips in the stream.

  General Cold Sun’s thoughts trickle past me, chaotic, like the illogical knotted yarn of a mind on the edge of sleep. I sink my hand deeper into the stream and spread my fingertips wide. I have to sift through the thoughts and bring them to order.

  I channel General Cold Sun’s consciousness and let his deeply ingrained habits take over. His instinct is to charge down the hallway before us, and I follow his lead: he remains oblivious of the guards, paying no mind to the strange bared-teeth sharp corners and polished black stone of the Citadel. With Cold Sun’s guidance, I stride with purpose straight for the compound’s heart, focused only on the Commandant himself.

  “Come,’’ I bark. The voice from the general’s mouth startles me, harsher than I’d intended. Brandt falls into step behind me. My feet—General Cold Sun’s feet—know the way, and his thoughts lap at my fingertips to guide me.

  Our journey through the Citadel coils on itself like the roots of a tree. I quickly lose my sense of direction, but the general’s instincts seem to be carrying us along the right path. We approach a suite of guards flanking double doors.

  I clear my throat, waiting for them to open the door. Brandt fidgets beside me. I glance toward him, about to scowl, until I realize he’s trying to prompt me. Oh, yes—they want the passphrase. I dip deeper into the general’s stream of thoughts within Oneiros to coax the passphrase from him. The water runs faster the deeper I sink into it. “You shelter the Commandant as a roof shelters us from snow,” I say.

  “But even roofs can collapse, General. We shall never fall.” The captain of the guard snaps his boots together and stands aside.

  The heavy doors creak open.

  Thick shadows fill the hall before us, punctured only by wrought iron chandeliers, their chains twisted around columns like vines. The smell of cold metal washes over us. At the far end of the chamber, on a raised platform, a figure sits bathed in candlelight. We stride toward him in near-darkness. No, not one figure—two, but the second springs away from the first and disappears down the platform in a flurry of sparkling gems. Sapphires, diamonds, flecks of silver.

  Brandt and I glance at each other, my suspicion mirrored on his face for only a moment before he resumes his role. Was that a Barstadter who just slipped away? Our aristocrats stud their faces with jewels, cultivating elaborate, swirling designs on their forehead, cheeks, and throat as they accumulate power and wealth. Perhaps we aren’t the only Barstadters in the Land of the Iron Winds after all. The very thought chills me through.

  We’re too far away to make out the Commandant’s face, but we know what to expect from our informants’ sketches and smuggled bits of artwork: cut-glass cheekbones and a pointed, gaunt jaw. Yet when we reach the base of the platform, we find a soft-faced man not five years my senior. I flinch, struggling to keep the general calm despite my shock. This young man with the faintest tuft of a goatee on his bone-pale chin can’t possibly be the same Commandant who’s ruled the Land of the Iron Winds since he seized power thirty years ago and enforced the Iron Winds code of strength and victory at all costs. My mind churns over the possibilities—maybe he overthrew the previous Commandant, or maybe he’s the first Commandant’s son.

  Whatever the case, we’ve been trained to lure information from the wrong man.

  “General,” he says in an uneven tone. “You walk against the wind, but you do not fall.”

  General Cold Sun’s pulse starts to canter. Not falling to the wind sounds like a good thing, but the Commandant is looking at me like there’s something I should do. Am I supposed to be kneeling? I glance toward Brandt. He’s not urging me to kneel, so I stand as tall as I can and try to remember our training. I’ve rehearsed for this moment even if the Commandant’s identity has changed.

  “I shall never fall with the Iron Winds at my back,” I say. The general’s voice ricochets through the rows of columns, then echoes back toward us in the dead air. The Commandant stands unmoving, unblinking, and panic cinches tight around me. What have I done? Everything in me wants to abandon the mission and flee, but I force myself to hold the general’s breath and wait for a response.

  Slowly, the young Commandant smiles, then charges down the stairs to grip my hands in his own. “You are early,” he says before giving both my hands a hearty shake with his. He’s much shorter than Cold Sun and pudgy in the midsection. No, this is certainly not the old, gaunt Commandant.

  “I did not wish to keep my Commandant waiting when victory is so close,” I say. The Commandant lifts his eyebrows for a fraction of a moment—have I misspoken again? We were told the old Commandant demanded complete and utter subservience at every turn, but maybe this Commandant distrusts excessive posturing. My head hurts just
considering the possibilities. These personality games are Brandt’s realm. I know his instincts won’t fail us; that boy could talk our way out of the grips of Nightmare himself. But Brandt can’t pose as the general for me.

  The Commandant holds one arm out to his side. “Come, then. Let us waste no more time.”

  I climb the dais on wobbly legs. The barrel-chested General Cold Sun must weigh three times what my body does, and though walking usually works out the kinks, stairs are another matter entirely. Sweat builds under the general’s armpits; in Oneiros, the stream is flowing faster now. I pray to the Dreamer that Cold Sun’s slumber will hold.

  The Commandant escorts me to a low wooden table at one end of the platform, where a scroll painted in shades of brown and black is weighted down across its surface. It takes me a moment to recognize the design as a map of the Itinerant Sea, where it swoops up the western edge of the Land of the Iron Winds and sneaks through the narrow strait that separates the Land from the Barstadt Empire in the north. Black iron figurines in the shapes of horses’ heads, pikemen, war vessels, and cannons line up along the Commandant’s edge of the table.

  I lean forward, scarcely able to contain the excitement skittering through me. It was all worth it—my uncertain dreamstriding, the outrageous expense in smuggling us into the Citadel, our months of preparation to infiltrate the Iron Winds’ culture. Because our informants were right.

  The Land of the Iron Winds is preparing to invade Barstadt—and I’m looking at the battle plans.

  The Commandant shuttles three of the war vessels to a port city on the western shore. I squint to make out the stylized lettering of the city’s name. Grast. “The Second Fleet will await your troops in Grast in one month’s time,” the Commandant says. “Will they be ready by then?”

  Were this the older Commandant we’d prepared for, I would know it’s not a question at all, but an order, unless I fancy getting Cold Sun’s head conveniently detached from his body for him while he sleeps. This Commandant, however, seems more casual than the man described in our reports. Nonetheless, I’d rather err on the side of caution. I suspect one doesn’t become Commandant without an explosive blend of shrewdness and egomania.

  “Whatever the Iron Winds…” I glance toward Brandt, but he’s looking through the living space on the other side of the dais, searching for additional clues while the Commandant’s focus is on me. I cast about for a suitably formal word. “Demands.”

  The Commandant nods. “And what of the battle preparations I proposed?”

  A spicy curse springs to my tongue—well, the general’s—but I stop from voicing it. I knew I’d have to sink deeper into the general’s thoughts sooner or later, and this is far too important not to take the risk.

  In Oneiros, I dip my bare feet into the stream and settle them into the loose dirt at the bottom. Suddenly a cloud passes over the sun, flooding the forest with darkness. The birds cease their chatter. Am I interfering too much with Cold Sun’s thoughts? I fight to rein in my panic. Focus, Livia, I remind myself. Direct the stream and nothing more. The battle preparations. How did the Commandant send them to Cold Sun? By raven, by horseback messenger? Hurry, General, yield your secrets. Awaken just enough to provide the answer.

  The stream churns, frantic, agitated by my probing. Elite squadrons, it cries. Troops from the west. But the water is leaping up, crashing against the banks—I’ve pushed too far; I’m letting him wake too much. He’ll remember this conversation as more than just a hazy dream. I need to hurry and leave the Citadel before he wakes up completely.

  “We shall have two of the elite squadrons prepared for Barstadt City’s dockside gates.” I’m rushing through the answers I gathered from the general’s thoughts. “And the ground troops will arrive from the west.” Please, Dreamer, don’t let him awaken. But then another thought of the general’s reaches his lips before I can stop it—“You’re not seriously considering the mystic’s proposal, are you?”

  Brandt’s back is to me, but I see him pause, hands withdrawing from whatever he’d been reaching for. The Land of the Iron Winds is supposed to be stern, revering subservience to the Commandant above all else. Nothing in our research indicates they are given over to mysticism about anything but the Commandant’s supremacy.

  “That isn’t your concern,” the Commandant says. “If his aid ensures our victory, then I must seize such an opportunity.” But the Commandant’s gaze lingers on the heart of the Land of the Iron Winds map, a hatchmarked patch of earth labeled only as “Quarry.”

  The general leans forward with a determination I’m not controlling. “It’s madness, you know.” The stream rushes faster now, threatening to sweep me under, as his thoughts pour out of his mouth before I can rein them in. “We should leave the dreamworld to the Barstadters who understand it. We have no right to meddle in metaphysical gibberish—”

  “You think I don’t know that?” the Commandant hisses. “But the mystic has shown us proof of what he can do. If he can pull that off with the entire fleet, then Barstadt’s navy won’t stand a chance.”

  I strain to get ahead of Cold Sun’s thoughts—I could take advantage of this outburst of information by asking the Commandant what exactly he means to pull off—but the general purses his lips, squashing my words down.

  The Commandant’s eyes take on a glassy sheen as he continues. “The mystic’s dream interpretations are too uncanny. His messages from my father…” My mind whirs. Does he mean the old Commandant? Perhaps he’s not dead after all, or else this mystic is pulling off quite the con. “And he foretells a great victory for us, atop the spine of a mighty warbeast. The Barstadt Empire shall tremble and bow under our fearsome gale!”

  Is the warbeast some new weapon the Iron Winds has designed? Dreamer curse their allegorical speech for muddling it all up! I want to poke further at that thought, but General Cold Sun steers the conversation, my grip on his consciousness slipping once more. “This mystic is a charlatan, preying on us. I’ve never known you to be one for superstition. It doesn’t behoove your father’s philosophy: man as god, Commandant as controller of the Winds of Fate. Strength and victory above all.”

  The Commandant’s hand trembles; his fingers dance across the sharp edge of a tiny ship’s sail. “I fear if we don’t give him what he wants, he will turn the warbeast’s power on us.”

  The general’s shoulders tense; I want to learn more about this mystic, but Cold Sun is on the verge of waking. I lift one foot out of the stream in Oneiros, trying to let him settle back into sleep, and let his thoughts wash over my other foot. Barstadters. Agents. Traitors, they say. “And what of our agents within Barstadt City’s walls?”

  The Commandant swishes his hand, as if the question was beneath him, but he betrays himself with a glance over his shoulder, toward where the jewel-spangled figure disappeared. “Yes, yes, they will carry out their tasks. You needn’t worry about them.”

  But my efforts to ease back from Cold Sun’s consciousness didn’t work. Within Oneiros, the stream is bubbling, rising, heating up, threatening to boil over. I’m out of time.

  I try to move Cold Sun’s arms to signal Brandt, but the general’s body fights against me. I’m getting squeezed out as his consciousness tries to return. In Oneiros, steam pours off the water as it rises from its banks, sharp and acidic against the dark earth. There’s no doubt he can sense me now. I splash back onto the forest floor, but it’s not enough. The stream turns red—molten.

  “Commandant—” General Cold Sun speaks freely now. “I fear that I am—We may have been—”

  Brandt rushes forward from the shadows, the perfect portrait of the concerned valet. “General, we must return to our carriage. Take you to a physicker.” He casts a glance toward the Commandant. “I’m afraid our fortress has not been spared the latest fever coursing upon the winds.”

  Dreamer, bless Brandt and his calm, quick mind. Red lava oozes from the stream in Oneiros, turning the trees into columns of fire. The general’s instincts
war against mine; even as I fight to stride down the long corridor leading out of the Citadel, he tries to turn the other way. Bile tickles the back of my throat—it’s more his now—and dimly, I feel Brandt’s hand gripping our elbow.

  The Commandant is shouting at us, but I can only hear the shapes of his words, not their substance. We must be violating twelve different social customs right now, but whatever punishment the Commandant has in mind for us is nothing compared to the danger that awaits me in Oneiros if I can’t get back to my body in time.

  My vision blurs as if an earthquake is jostling my sight away from the general’s eyes. He’s forcing me out. I’m adrift in Oneiros, bait for the hungering void that I dare not tempt. The Nightmare Wastes feed on fear and doubt; they swallow up souls that are lost from their bodies, and forever trap them in emptiness. I have to cling to the general, keep control of my soul until we reach my body—

  Until I can—

  Rest your head, and join us in eternal rest …

  The Wastes reach out for me like the embrace of winter frost. Come, they beckon. Forget these worlds. Forget your dreams and your life that can’t compare. A simple request, as insistent as sleep tugging at my eyelids. You needn’t struggle any longer. Surrender, and suffer no more.

  “Livia, please, stay with me,” Brandt pleads as he guides me through the Citadel. Then he says, softer, “Dreamer, please show us the way…”

  The Wastes chuff at me like wolves checking their prey. Their tug is so strong, stronger than it’s ever been before. Where once the Wastes whispered behind my back, they now seem to have surrounded me, their urges twisting around my limbs like rope. You’ll only fail again. Surrender to us, pay the price for your weakness … It tempts me more than it ever has before.