Dreamfire

by Kit Alloway

  You have to believe, Haley had said, but what was there to believe in now? That she was the True Dream Walker? Such a pretty fiction. She wished she believed it, but she didn’t.

  Despair crushed her, as endless as the universe itself. There was nothing else, and it grew deeper and heavier and louder. Josh squirmed inside it, trying to find some relief, but the bonds of suffering only tightened. Finally, she gave in to the despair, not once but again and again; she stopped trying to prove that she was not helpless, weak, or faulted—even to herself. She surrendered over and over.

  And over and over, the pain only grew worse.

  Thirty-five

  Feodor was going to kill Josh. That much was clear to Will.

  He sat in a chair with his wrists tied to the armrests and watched as Feodor sank every ounce of his misery and insanity into the white room. Josh thrashed on the floor, but Will doubted she was conscious of her body because no one who could feel pain would crack her head against the wall and beat her arms and legs on the floor so hard that Will feared her bones would break. Or maybe the physical pain was just all the relief she could find from Feodor’s poison.

  Feodor stood with his eyes half-closed, wearing that dreamy look he’d worn earlier when he spoke of the True Dream Walker’s return. He murmured to himself, running his tongue over his lips every so often. “Yes, yes, there. Remember my sister? Everyone said she was the bright one. Here is where she met her end. Oh, yes.”

  Josh’s mouth opened in a scream Will couldn’t hear. He felt like crying.

  He wasn’t meant to be here. He knew that now, knew that his place in Josh’s life was unequivocally illegitimate. When Haley had revealed that Josh’s scroll was a fake, Will had felt so devastated that he’d promised himself he would leave the Weavers’ house and never come back.

  None of that mattered anymore. When Feodor’s memories had hurled Josh to the ground, Will had struggled so hard against his bonds that he’d thought he would tear out of his own body in order to help her.

  Beside him, Haley watched Josh with an expression of mixed hope and horror. Will had believed him when Haley said that Josh was the True Dream Walker, but he began to doubt it now as he watched her suffer so helplessly. If she had been able to stop that pain, she would have. Anyone would have.

  “She has to believe,” Haley repeated.

  “Go into the forest,” Feodor told Josh. “You see what they did to my teacher, what they did to all the teachers? Look at that crater where his face used to be.”

  Josh threw up again.

  “Hey!” Haley said, but he said it in a sharp, demanding voice, and when Will turned to look, he found a stranger sitting beside him.

  Ian tossed his head to get Haley’s hair out of his eyes and said, “She’s not gonna make it.”

  Will, already shaken, was too shocked to reply.

  “This isn’t a Tempering ritual,” Ian went on. “It’s just torture. He’ll kill her once he has her soul.”

  “Ah,” Will got out, “I don’t know what to do.”

  Ian’s tone was blistering. “Well, figure it out. You’re supposed to be a smart guy.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Haley deathly pale and doused with sweat.

  As bizarre as Ian’s sudden appearance had been, he was right. Will was the only one who could stop this now. But with his hands tied, none of the things Josh had taught him were any use.

  What would I have done before I met Josh? he wondered. And then he knew.

  “Feodor,” he said. The man’s half-closed eyes flickered toward him. “You’ve got to push her harder.”

  Feodor nodded. “Yes, yes, past her limitations.”

  “When were you at your lowest? Show her that.”

  “My lowest. Hmm.” He frowned as if faced with too many choices.

  “Show her the moment when you wanted the True Dream Walker to return the most, when you needed the True Dream Walker to come and save you.”

  “Ah!” Feodor smiled. “That night, I remember.”

  In the white room, Josh began convulsing.

  “You thought of the True Dream Walker then, didn’t you?” Will asked quickly. He tried to keep his voice from shaking, but he was terrified that he had just pushed Josh past her breaking point. If he had killed her …

  “You imagined the True Dream Walker coming to save you.”

  “Yes,” Feodor agreed.

  “What would the True Dream Walker do? How would he save you?”

  “Fire! He would incinerate the Nazis, and the Italians, and the damned Russian turncoats! And he will! He will burn them like stick dolls!”

  This wasn’t going in the right direction. Josh rolled on the floor and slapped her skin as if she were on fire. “But after that,” Will rushed on, “would the True Dream Walker free Poland? Would he bring the dead back to life?”

  “Yes!” Feodor’s face lit with a crazed light. “Yes! He’ll give my mother back her legs!”

  In the white room, Josh stopped thrashing. For a terrible instant, Will thought she had died, but then he saw her chest sink in a long sigh.

  He couldn’t believe he had been angry at her a few hours ago.

  “Who else will he heal?” Will asked Feodor, before whispering to Haley, “I have to talk to Ian.”

  Haley bit his lip.

  “Now!” Will hissed, and Haley swallowed and shut his eyes.

  “He’ll give my teacher back his face!” Feodor cried. “The dead will walk out of Palmiry Forest together, singing ‘Poland Has Not Yet Perished’!”

  “Not bad,” Ian commented, appraising Feodor’s state.

  “You see that guy behind us, in the trench coat?” Will asked, knowing he had no time for niceties. Ian glanced over his shoulder and grimaced at the sight of Gloves, who stood guard over them as unmoving and lifeless as a mausoleum angel. “That’s your body, Ian. It’s yours, and Feodor stole it from you. Can you get back into it?”

  Ian inclined his head toward Gloves, and Haley’s features went slack for a brief moment, during which Gloves stumbled and coughed. Then Gloves resumed his statue act, and Ian again animated Haley’s face.

  “Almost, but I can’t get in. There’s something blocking me—he did something to keep me out. I can feel it, though. I’m so close.”

  Will thought. Feodor burst into song, waving his free hand and singing robustly in Polish. He stomped a beat with one foot.

  “Could you give it a command?” Will asked Ian. “A single command?”

  Ian considered, then nodded. “I can try. What’s the order?”

  “Tell him to kill Feodor’s body. His real body, back in the corner, in the shroud.”

  Ian cocked a little smile and rushed out of Haley.

  All things aside, Will was beginning to like Ian.

  “And you?” Will asked Feodor, raising his voice. “Will they give you medals?”

  “So many that I will walk stooped like an old man!”

  On the floor in the white room, Josh smiled, her eyes still closed.

  “We will enslave the Axis, and our enemies will fall to their knees when I pass by. I will take not one wife but one from every country we defeat, and they will cower and never meet my eyes for fear I will cause them to burst into flame!”

  Feodor was too lost in his fantasy to notice Gloves approaching his mummified body. He began singing again: “Jeszcze Polska nie umarła, kiedy my żyjemy!”

  Will watched, hardly breathing, as Gloves climbed on top of Feodor and wrapped his hands around the man’s neck.

  Feodor’s projected image never noticed. He continued to sing, even as his image began to fade. Gloves bent over his body, crushing his master’s throat.

  Feodor lifted his arms, but not to fight for his life. He waved his hands gracefully through the air, dipping them rhythmically as he conducted an imaginary orchestra. His gray eyes, though they had begun to bulge, glistened with the joy of a faraway paradise, then slowly grew dull, and his hands floated down to rest on his
chest as he lost consciousness. His singing voice grew distant before trailing off. He flickered out and then back one more time, but in the last instant before he faded forever, his face was full of joy. He died smiling.

  It was not, Will thought, a fitting death for such an evil man.

  But it would do.

  * * *

  Gloves sat on the floor next to his master’s body. His face registered no expression, but he sat like a loyal dog, waiting for instructions.

  The lights in the laboratory flickered off, but only for a moment. When they came on again, Will saw Josh sit up on the other side of the window. She examined her arms and hands, which she had beaten red from thrashing, and then she rose uncertainly to her feet and tried the doorknob. It remained locked.

  “Damn,” Will muttered. Still tied to his chair, he walked hunched over to the door and opened it with his teeth.

  Josh didn’t come out, just stood in the white room and stared at him. Her arms were covered in rising bruises, and Will saw more all over her face. He didn’t doubt she had a concussion.

  “What happened?” she asked. Her voice drifted with soft confusion. “Am I dead?”

  “No, you’re going to be fine. Untie me.”

  She frowned but reached out to work on the ropes that bound his wrists. “I had the most wonderful dream,” she said, sounding more like Feodor than Will liked. “I dreamt the True Dream Walker returned and saved the world.”

  She freed one of Will’s arms. “Go untie Haley,” he said. “I can get the other one.”

  She wandered unsteadily toward Haley, then turned back to Will. Her dreamy peacefulness faded, replaced by confusion and weakness. “I failed, didn’t I? I failed the test.”

  Her vulnerability in that moment made Will want to hold her. “Of course not.”

  “I did, though,” she said, and she turned away with sadness. “I’m sure I did.”

  The lights flickered again.

  Everyone looked at the ceiling, even Gloves. In the distance, the sound of constant bombs exploding and air-raid sirens stopped, only to be replaced by a rushing sound, like white noise growing louder and louder.

  “It’s collapsing,” Haley whispered. “It can’t exist without Feodor.”

  This seemed to wake Josh from her trance. “Oh, shit,” she said.

  Will yanked at the rope on his wrist and loosened it enough to pull his hand through. He ran over to Haley and freed one of his arms while Josh got the other.

  Gloves suddenly rose and headed for the door to the street. Something about the action reminded Will of a dog who—hearing a signal for danger too high-pitched for humans to register—gets up and runs away.

  “Follow him,” Haley said, leaping out of the chair. He grabbed both his and Will’s lighters and compacts off the table and handed one set to Will. “He knows where the gate is!”

  Haley ran toward the door, but Josh gazed around the room as if trying to place it. “We have to go,” Will told her.

  She shook her head. “I know I failed. Hundreds of times. Thousands.”

  “We have to go now,” Will repeated, and he grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the door. After a few zombielike steps, she began to run with him.

  By the time they reached the street, the whole world was shaking. Half-collapsed buildings collapsed the rest of the way, creating avalanchelike slides of rubble. Will struggled to follow Haley in the fading light, but he held tight to Josh’s hand. When she tripped on a charred wooden beam, he pulled so hard on her arm that he lifted her back onto her feet.

  Gloves darted through the streets like he was running a familiar obstacle course. Haley managed to match his pace, but Josh’s steps were slower than usual, her reflexes hesitant. Keeping a firm grip on her hand, Will kicked pieces of wreckage out of their way as he ran, clearing the path for her as much as possible.

  The shaking grew worse until the street was rising and falling beneath their feet. He felt like he was trying to run on a trampoline. Gloves and Haley safely crossed a street ahead, but as soon as Josh and Will started to follow, a four-story building beside them began to collapse.

  “Run!” Will shouted, but he didn’t wait for Josh to speed up before breaking into a sprint. He clenched her hand—he’d get her across that street safely or else he’d get there with her torn-off arm.

  In his haste, he didn’t look down in time to avoid a fallen street sign. As he fell forward, the ground dropped out from under him, and he rolled into empty air. Josh’s hand slid from his grasp, and when the ground rose up again to slam him, he landed as hard as if he’d fallen ten feet. Joints all over his body cracked.

  The building on the corner failed neatly from the top floor down, like boxes falling into each other, and only the air blowing out and shattering the windows let Will know that the building protested its demise. For a moment he watched it, unable to get up from the jolting street. He thought he might have hit his head. The building they’d been running toward came down—not neatly but in a meteor shower of detritus, pelting Will with debris.

  Something landed between his shoulder blades and flattened him to the pavement. Something big.

  Will had always been analytical about pain. He’d thought that if he could choose not to fight it—to accept it as a product of nerve conduction and ignore the alarm it caused—he could free himself of physical pain forever. It had worked well enough for small cuts and dentist visits, but this pain was something else entirely. There was no ignoring it, no allowing it. He made a choking sound and wondered if his airways were blocked, but no, it was just that inhaling made the pain follow the arch of his ribs from his back into his sides.

  “Will,” Josh said, her voice so drowned out by the cacophony of collapse that his name sounded like a whisper. She knelt beside him, and he knew it was bad—even worse than it felt—by the way she began saying, “Shit, shit,” over and over, like a benediction against panic.

  Her words almost made Will smile. In spite of the pain, he felt fond and tender toward her. If this was the end, he was glad she was with him.

  Then again, maybe all he felt was the euphoria of the dying.

  “Haley!” Josh shouted. She must be waking up again, Will thought as he recognized the look on her face. She’d worn the same tough, unflinching expression when they entered Feodor’s universe, and Will was relieved to see it again. “Help me!”

  The pain changed as Josh and Haley dragged the heavy thing off of Will’s back. The pressure moved from his spine to his left shoulder, and then he saw a giant hunk of concrete hit the street beside him with a crack. The size of it shocked him—no wonder Josh had cursed. After a moment of relief, the pain returned, not as loud but still too loud. But at least he could breathe.

  Will managed to climb to his knees. Moving made him want to throw up, and he was afraid that if he made one wrong turn, his spinal cord would snap—but if they stayed much longer, it wouldn’t matter if he could move below the waist or not. Behind them, Warsaw was on its last legs. Block by block, the streetlights and building fires blinked out, and a sound like a ferocious waterfall grew nearer and louder, white noise turning black.

  “Where’s Gloves?” Josh shouted. Their guide was nowhere in sight.

  Haley pointed to a corner. “He turned left there.”

  “Shit!” Josh shouted again. “Get Will’s other side!”

  Taking Will by the arms, they lifted him to his feet. The pain shifted and resettled like a jostled pile of bone fragments; Will hoped that wasn’t really what he was feeling.

  Before he could adjust to the pain, they were running again, and Will stumbled along, aware that he couldn’t feel the fingers on his right hand. That had to be a bad sign.

  Then they turned where Gloves had, and they saw the gate.

  At the end of a wide boulevard, the world ended with a two-story iron gate painted dark green. Beyond it, the city simply stopped, as though a black canvas had been erected behind the bars. Gloves was trying to drag the enorm
ous gate open, but it weighed too much for even his strength.

  Will slumped against the bars a few feet away from Gloves and watched Josh and Haley throw their weight behind his. If Gloves was surprised by their help, he didn’t show it.

  We came all the way here for this guy, Will thought, trying to rub feeling into his hand again. All this, and he’s not even a person anymore.

  The three of them managed to create an eighteen-inch opening. Strangely, no light or mirror was required for the space to fill with glittering Veil. Gloves vanished through it, then Haley, but when Josh turned to help Will, her eyes lingered in the direction from which they had come.

  In the distance, blackness swallowed Warsaw. Even the fires couldn’t stand up to the rising tide of nothingness.

  “Feodor would have loved to see this,” Josh said.

  The nostalgia in her voice freaked Will out.

  But then she looped one of Will’s arms around her neck and helped him stand, and they followed Haley through the gate and into the Dream, leaving Warsaw to meet its final destruction alone.

  Through a Veil Darkly

  Emergency! Help Needed NOW!

  At this very moment, three dream walkers have entered the pocket universe where Feodor Kajażkołski has been housed since 1962 and are facing off with the madman over the issues of the TCM and CSAD. Just before they entered his universe, they told me that they’d found evidence that the TCM are not nightmares, but are actually two dream walkers: Geoff Simbarticolsi and Ian Micharainosa. Both were believed to have been lost in the Dream, when in fact, they had been taken hostage in Feodor’s dimension and either brainwashed or otherwise compelled to do his will. He has been sending them into the Dream in order to attack dreamers, and it is these attacks that have resulted in CSAD.