Oberon's Dreams

by Aaron Pogue

  Blake’s wrists were bound tight, but Dave Taker held a knife in his right hand. In his left he held a blazing torch. Corin broke into a sprint, but even as he moved, Dave Taker slashed the first mate’s bonds.

  Corin raced toward them, fire raging on his heels. “Protect those books!” Corin screamed. “They’re all we have left now. Don’t let him burn those books!”

  Dave raised his eyes to Corin once again, uncomprehending, but Blake understood the stakes. His only hope among these men was to destroy the captain. He shook his bindings free, ripped the torch from Dave’s hand, and plunged its flames into the pile.

  “Revenge!” the whispers screamed.

  Corin skidded to a stop next to the growing fire. He kicked desperately at the books, trying to scatter them, but Blake struck him a vicious backhand blow that sent the captain reeling. “See how he serves the ghosts?”

  “The gold!” Corin shouted. The forge-hot blaze began to roar behind him, and Corin bent to grab one untouched tome. “You dogs, save something!”

  But while he was bent, Blake brought an elbow slamming down against the back of Corin’s neck. The captain sprawled, and before he could fight back, Blake planted a polished boot between his shoulders and stepped down.

  Sleepy Jim shoved a hand hard against the first mate’s chest, but it wasn’t enough to dislodge him. “What are you doing?”

  Blake held his voice level. “Corin awakened something evil here. A price must be paid.”

  Before Jim could have answered, a thousand ghostly voices clamored over each other. “A price must be paid!”

  Corin struggled, but Blake stamped down harder and drove all the air from the captain’s lungs. The air burned hot as an oven, and sweat shone on every face, but Blake seemed unconcerned with the fire. His attention was wholly on Sleepy Jim, who alone seemed prepared to stand up for the captain.

  Dave Taker loomed close behind Blake, his eyes sometimes darting to the dancing flames, sometimes darting to the exit. Blake only held Jim’s nervous gaze, his eyes as hard as steel. Seconds burned away like coals inside the roaring blaze, and then at last Sleepy Jim lowered his eyes in shame. He stepped past the united mutineers and fled the burning cavern.

  Blake turned a grin to Dave Taker. “Back to the ships, and we’ll be proper pirates once again!”

  Corin struggled weakly, still woozy from the blows, but the motion caught Dave Taker’s eye. “And what of him?”

  “He is far too clever to leave alive.” Blake’s fingers traced the hilt of his cutlass, but he shook his head. “It’s not my way to kill a helpless man. Pick him up.”

  He moved his boot, and Dave hauled Corin to his feet. The captain spat a mouthful of blood. “What have you done? You’ve burned it all.”

  Blake shrugged. “There are books enough in my father’s library.”

  “Your father! He was searching for this place. How could you destroy it?”

  “I’ve learned to like the pirate’s life. All I needed was a solid crew. And now you’ve given me one.”

  “They will not follow you!”

  “They will when they see your great project has left us empty-handed.”

  “Because you set our treasure to the torch!”

  Blake waved that away. “What is one treasure to a lifetime of command?”

  Corin strained to meet Dave Taker’s eyes. “And what of you, who’ve heard that confession? You’ll stand with him?”

  Blake’s smile glowed in red reflection. “I’ve named him my first mate.”

  Corin fought Dave Taker’s grip, but the huge man would not relent. “That’s it? That’s all he had to offer?”

  Behind him, Dave moved his grizzled mouth up close to the captain’s ear. “It’s more’n you,” he growled. “You’ve passed me over twice. I’d let you burn for no reward at all.”

  Corin thrashed and struggled, but he couldn’t break free. Before him, Blake began to back away, moving slowly to the exit’s mouth. He raised his voice so it would echo through the tunnel, to the frightened crew that must have been waiting at the other end.

  “A price must be paid,” he shouted. “Let Corin answer for his crimes to those he’s wronged. But we have played no part in it, so we will wash our hands of him. We’ll give him nothing.”

  Corin sagged in Taker’s grasp. Blake grinned and carried on. “Nothing! No punishment for what he’s done, but no share of this great treasure. No horse from our pickets. No water from our stores. No place among our tents. Let him find his own way from this place.”

  Then he nodded to Dave Taker, and as casually as if he were tying knots, the big man shattered Corin’s ankle with one vicious kick. Corin tried to run, blind now to everything but pain and fear, but Dave caught him easily, one hand at his shoulder and one at his knee. The big man swung around in a tight circle and then let go, and Corin flew a dozen paces through the air.

  The hateful flames reached out to him, still begging for revenge, and Corin disappeared within the fire.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Corin hung in a moment suspended above the hungry flames. Within that moment, he felt no pain—not the fire’s blistering heat, not the stab of broken bones, not even the old fatigue of too many days’ hard work under an unforgiving sun. Within that moment, even through the choking smoke and creeping darkness, he could see the cavern with extraordinary clarity.

  He saw the shops ablaze and saw the fire spreading. For a moment he could see the city all spread out, even larger than he had imagined. It sprawled for miles over rolling hills and gently curled around a little lake. There was a palace all of silver, marble, and gold. There were avenues and parks. There were grand cathedrals and twisting towers. And from this edge, the fires could take it all.

  Then time returned. Corin landed hard. His head hit paving stones and a light brighter even than the raging fire flashed behind his eyes. He gasped for breath and coughed at the thick, unpleasant air.

  He rolled three times and landed staring up. Light and heat and sound. He heard the growling crackle of the flames. But there were other sounds within the noise. Corin imagined he could hear the rattle of a cart on brick-paved streets, the clatter of a thousand striding boots, the greedy cries of merchants and shouts of little arguments and fights.

  Corin took another measured breath and winced at the bruises on his ribs and the agony around his broken ankle. He sucked in air, and it was sour in his mouth—not with the acrid sear of choking smoke, but with the smell of sweat and men and animals packed too close together.

  He blinked three times against the light, then stared up at a bright-blue sky. A summer sun sat low and hot, wreathed with tiny wisps of woolly clouds. A four-wheeled cart rolled by, scant inches from his right hand, then a boot stamped down by his left shoulder. He bent his neck and saw a street alive with busy shoppers who crowded along the storefronts and now gathered around Corin.

  He struggled up onto an elbow as questions rang inside his head. What in Ephitel’s wretched name is happening? Where am I?

  He looked up to find a stern-faced woman standing over him. She wore outlandish pants, the gray of ash and creased along a seam, and above them she wore a blouse of brilliant white. And above that, she wore an irritated scowl. “Find somewhere else to spill your sick, you worthless drunk, or I will bring the guards.”

  Those last words cut through all the strangeness, all the impossibility, and moved Corin to motion. He raised his shoulders, and even that much exertion hurt. He groaned and reached to press a painful rib, then scooted back and heaved himself upright. It jostled his ankle, and he almost screamed.

  That much of reality remained. The fire was gone. The cavern was gone. But broken bones were a familiar agony to a boy who’d learned to survive in Aepoli’s shady alleys, and Dave Taker’s vicious blow had left Corin crippled even in this…this dream? This waking madness? What was this place? Corin considered what he’d seen in the crowd around him. The busy street felt so familiar, but the clothes were strange—to
o bright, too clean, too neat of hem, even for the lords on Prince’s Way. What would a proud Vestossi pay for a single bolt of that strange cloth?

  And the men were strange. They moved about their ordinary business just like ordinary folk, but nearly every one of them stood a full head taller than the people of Ithale. They wore a thousand shades of skin, but every one among them had the same basic build. Tall and thin, high cheekbones and narrow faces, flowing hair left loose. And men and women, old and young, on busy errands or at an idle stroll, these lords and ladies all moved with the easy, rolling grace of seafarers and soldiers.

  Here and there among them, rare as the south wind, he spotted ordinary folks. They looked small and awkward in the crowd, and their tanned skin and dirty clothes named them all farmers, sailors, or servants. Every sign of wealth belonged to those elegant creatures, larger and sleeker and prettier than ordinary men, who so densely packed the streets. For just a moment, Corin recalled the ancient carvings on the sandstone cliffs, of Oberon and Ephitel and dozens more like them. This city was crowded with lords and ladies who looked like living gods.

  Another wave of pain bent Corin double, his gut a knot of stabbing cramps. A groan escaped between his teeth, and then the angry woman was kneeling over him. She thumbed back his eyelids, staring close, then pressed a finger to his throat. She tried to help him up, but the agony in his ankle drew another cry, and she let go. Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment she just stared, then she rose again like a mainmast sail and grabbed two strong men from the curious crowd.

  “Get him in my shop. Right now. And you. Fetch me Jeff from Snakestaff Lane. No, shoulders and knees! And stabilize his neck. Move it! Now!”

  Corin saw the sign above the money changer’s shop as he was carried through the door. It was the same sign he had seen in an enormous, deserted cavern. Was this Jezeeli, then? In another time? Another world? There was no room left in him to be surprised. He recognized the room beyond when they carried him in, though it was mostly devoid of books now.

  A heavy mesh of polished steel divided the room in two, and in the cage it made were four small vaults. Shelves above them held stacks of heavy paper trimmed in gold and green. The floor held leather bags in piles, their sides worn with faded lines that traced the rounded edges of coins. Minted gold and silver stood in neat little stacks atop the vaults.

  The money changer had a desk outside the cage, hastily abandoned as she’d gone to check on Corin in the street. Its blotter held one of the expensive sheets of paper, with scrollwork on the edges and a detailed embossed seal. Those embellishments did more than decorate the page; they made the devil’s work of forgery.

  Rare was the document that demanded such an expensive medium. This sheet looked remarkably like a gentleman’s credit note, and even those were often satisfied with just a waxen seal. But all the vaults in all Ithale could not have honored the sum the woman had been draping in calligraphy. No king could have requested such a note.

  But the gentleman himself was in the room, leaning lazily against the wall while he waited for the money changer’s return. The gentleman was tall—taller even than the lords and ladies who packed the streets, and more heavily built. His eyes were bright and sharp, a cutting blue like that traitor Ethan Blake’s, and possessed of the same easy arrogance. His jaw was lean and strong, his shoulders broad, and there was something in his stance that screamed of violence restrained. But only just.

  And on his hip he wore a sword so fine some kings would have gone to war to own it. His left hand rested on its guard, his thumb idly sliding the blade up and down against the scabbard’s throat. It filled the room with a constant steely hiss.

  The weapon was a massive thing, with a blade wider than Corin’s spread hand, with silver on the scabbard, gold and gems upon the guard, but the grip was honest steel just like the blade. Sliding from the sheath, it sang of blood and shadows and the death of nations. The man who owned that blade might well demand the outrageous sum on the unfinished credit note. But then, the man who owned that sword would not need gold.

  The man who owned that sword showed an inconvenienced frown as he watched the porters bringing Corin through the shop, and he turned it full upon the money changer as she came behind them. She was one of those rare few of normal build, though she used her voice to make up the lack in height. Still sour, she chivied the conscripted porters up the stairs.

  Then, behind them, she turned with profuse apologies to the waiting gentleman. “Some nameless drunk, my lord, forgive his sins. But he’d done himself some violence somehow, so I fetched a leech to look him over. Shouldn’t think they’ll disturb us further—”

  The gentleman sniffed sharp disapproval. “You bring a leech to tend a drunk in off the street? His bill will come to more than the blackguard’s worth. My guards can take him off your hands—”

  “No need to trouble them, my lord. I have a friend.”

  Then Corin lost the rest of the exchange as he was carried up the stairs. They took him to a little sitting room and stretched him on a couch beneath a window. One man pushed aside the sash to crack the window. Still baffled by this place, Corin expected billowing smoke or the dreary silence of the cavern tomb. Instead he heard birdsong and a busy market street, and he felt cool air against his face.

  The other of the men had busied himself at a cabinet on one wall, and now he brought a heavy glass with a splash of amber whiskey. He pressed it in the pirate’s hands, then ducked his head and followed the other porter from the room.

  For a moment Corin floated on the gentle waters of exhausted bafflement. The breeze was pleasant on his face, the noisy hum a kind of lullaby, and even before he tasted it, the spicy vapor off the brandy glass glowed warm and soft inside his head. He released a pent-up sigh and sent some tension with it, sinking down into the soft cushions. He sighed again and sipped the whiskey and closed his eyes.

  This couldn’t be a dream. No dream could ever hurt as much as this. His ankle was a throbbing agony. It felt as swollen as a banquet goose and heavy as an anchor. He would be crippled no matter what the leech attempted—too many little bones, too many joints—but at least they might do something for the pain. Even the bone saw would hurt less than this, and gods knew he wouldn’t be the first to sail the seas with missing limbs.

  He stopped at that and something like panic finally broke through his shock. Home. He had to find a way back home. Whatever this place was—and it seemed real enough—he’d left behind a girl who needed his protection, and a traitor who needed his revenge.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  But what was this place? By every indication, this was the same Jezeeli he had found. Moved somehow by mystic arts or madness, this was the place he’d found behind the cliffs. He knew the shop. He knew the street. But it was not a tomb. It was alive and in the open, apparently as rich and powerful as it had been in the legends.

  How many legends had he read? All of them with different names for the city—he’d found Gesoelig and Gesaelich, Jesalich and Jazil—and different locations all around the Meddgerad Sea, but all of them had spoken of its wealth and grandeur. All of them had spoken of the king, mighty Oberon, who’d conquered hells and made the gods his loyal vassals. They’d spoken of forgotten magic and powers lost to man, of scholars who held secret understandings of the dreams behind the stars.

  But they had all been stories. They’d painted jeweled Jezeeli as the city of the gods, but not…not a real place. Not a sister city to Aerome in Ithale. Not full of heavy-handed shopkeepers and curious bystanders and spoiled gentlemen. Even as he thought it, Corin remembered the gentleman downstairs. He remembered the sword. Now there was a piece of legend. There was something out of story. It cried to Corin’s thieving soul and overwhelmed everything else.

  The man who owned that sword had power. A man like that could open doors. If this place was anything like Aerome, a man who wore such an extravagant display would also have a wizard to his name, and a wizard might send Corin home. Corin had se
en the cold disgust in the man’s eyes, but he could overcome it. He could steer a man as easily as a ship. It was never hard to learn the prevailing winds. Corin had learned much just in the brief exchange downstairs, and he could guess a volume more, but every hint he captured would aid him more.

  So he braced himself against the pain he knew would come and pulled himself upright enough to catch the windowsill. He slid the thin pane shut to block the pleasant breeze and, with it, all the noise. Silence settled on the sitting room, but blood pounded in the pirate’s ears. Fire like a living coal burned in his foot. He breathed in frantic little gasps and fought it down.

  He pushed away the pain and tried to focus. There were voices down below. Corin heard the personalities before he heard the words. Their cadences rose up the narrow stairway like the rise and fall of little waves against the hull. The lady’s voice was carefully polite, but Corin heard the brittle edge of her disdain. The gentleman gave orders in everything he said. He was loud and resolute and unyielding.

  But however Corin strained his ears, he could not make out the words. Even when an argument raised both their voices. The pirate dashed off his expensive whiskey, braced himself against the pain, and lowered himself to the floor. He dragged himself toward the stairs and down, stifling groans every inch of the way. But he found strength as he came closer and finally understood the words.

  The gentleman shouted in anger. “Well, blast it, girl! I’ve told you twice—”

  The money changer interrupted with a pretense of patience in her voice. “Tell me again, but it will make no difference. Oberon himself made that decree.”

  “And with good reason, but you cannot believe he meant it to apply to me.”