Bridge Between the Worlds

by R. B. L. Gillmore

  He thought hard about his options. Trying to storm the citadel was out of the question. A mighty warrior though he may be, the present force of minotaurs was well beyond his ability to assault. The two humans with him were certainly capable but how far would he risk their lives? The human slaves were being driven up the mountains, which was odd. Minotaurs dwelled underground, so why take slaves into the heights? What was in the mountains here? Iron. So then, the slaves would be mining for iron. Why minotaurs would need so many slaves to mine for metal was a whole other conundrum entirely. Arnorial needed more information. Clearly something important was happening here, and getting to the bottom of it was not going to be easy. The best course he could see was to free some of the slaves and find out what was happening in the Citadel itself. However, the mountains were going to be a much easier target than the dread-keep before him.

  Once darkness fell, Arnorial stealthily made his way back to Samuka and Eva. He knew they would come with him. In fact, the trick was going to be stopping them from doing anything too rash.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Chapter 11

  Amy opened her eyes and saw Martay laughing as he put away his phone.

  “Sorry, but your face while you slept was too funny not to take a picture! I will show that picture around when you turn twentyone!”

  Amy was awake enough now to realise immediately that she was being made fun of and with incredible speed she shot forward and ripped Martay's phone out of his front pocket. There was an intense scramble, at the end of which the photo had been deleted. Snipping had woken up and the phrase ‘immature delinquents’ had floated through the air. After they calmed down, Amy stared out of the window with a smile. She had been distracted for a moment but the images of her dream came flooding back to her. She was in a session with the Arbiter and they had been talking about the rules of dreamwalking, which apparently her parents had broken. This thought made her feel both bemusement and pride. They had always been odd and Amy liked the idea that they were risk takers, always at arms length from what was considered sensible. With this thought though, a clear memory passed through her head from her dream. Her abilities were limited by the physical rules of the world. No matter what her parents had done to break rules, they had also drilled into her the importance of knowing the world, of studying the way it worked. When she had first started to dreamwalk she had thought that school was pointless, unneeded. Now however she realised why her parents had placed so much importance on it. They had been thinking about her safety for when she was dreamwalking.

  “Snipping,” she began softly, “how well do you understand the physical laws of earth?”

  Snipping’s ears pricked up and his sour disposition abated slightly as he showed a flicker of interest in the odd question.

  “Oh, a great deal o’ course compared to little idiots like you lot but certainly not everythin’. Ya parents created a world of incredible depth and complexity. I’ve seen things on earth that seemed utterly impossible and yet existed or occurred without causin’ so much as a flutter in the web of reality.”

  He had been looking almost dreamily into thin air as he answered but with a fixed look at Amy and then Martay, his annoyed expression returned and he added with an acid tone, “Yer immature idiocy, for example, defies reality!”

  Amy couldn’t help it, she laughed but her head was still on dreamwalking rules. She knew that Snipping was being grumpy mostly because he felt she should be concentrating on training so she decided to try and appease him in the hope of getting some answers in return.

  “I was asking because I just had a lesson with the Arbiter and he was explaining the rules of dreamwalking. I got the message that the more I know about the world around me, the more I can safely bend rules.”

  “I think ya mean the better you can obey rules but yeah that does make sense. What else did the Arbiter make ya do?”

  “Not much. Mostly we just talked. He made me turn the grass blue as well, I think. That part of the dream is a bit hard to remember clearly. Then after that he said there was no point trying to create things in the lesson and that instead he would just teach me the rules.”

  Snipping dipped his head in an unmistakable nod of approval.

  “That makes me wonder though,” continued Amy, “why didn’t it turn the grass around me blue in the real world if he made me change it in the dream? I checked out of the window as soon as I woke up.”

  She had achieved her goal. Snipping sat up fully with a pleased look on his face. He was clearly very happy to be ‘back on topic’, as he considered it.

  “As I understand it, a dreamwalker must concentrate very ‘ard on the thing they wish to change or create and actively will the object or circumstance to become a physical reality. That’s elves o’ course. Humans are not, and ‘ave never been, good at controllin’ their creations. But sometimes physical reality simply springs from the dreams o’ those people with powerful imaginations. For this to ‘appen I believe the person must essentially be fixated on the thing they wish to be real. Real in the physical world I mean. Humans do this very naturally because they associate reality with the wakin’, physical world, not the dream plane. You’d be surprised ‘ow much humans create.”

  The train started to slow down as they drew towards Laussanne station. Martay and Amy were still watching Snipping intently, hoping to hear more but as the train slowed and they could hear other passengers starting to move about in the corridor, Snipping quickly buried himself under the mound of little blankets and cushions, where he lay hidden.

  Martay got up and grabbed their bags while Amy pushed the pram. The train had stopped completely and they quickly alighted and started looking for their next platform. As all the signs were primarily in French, Amy took the lead and soon they had worked out where they needed to go. The next train would take them through the Valais Canton but not particularly close to the resort in Port Du Soleil. They weren’t too sure how they wanted to travel the last, short stretch to their destination. Amy had always come here by car. Whilst Martay had his licence, getting a hire car at their age could be a real pain, if not impossible. What they really needed was their own. As it stood, they would need to either pay a small fortune for a taxi or try to find a bus that would take them there. Amy was thinking longingly of her parents’ extremely comfortable Range Rover with its heated seats as she looked out at the frosty surroundings and the snow-capped mountains, not all that distant from them.

  The next train they got onto was an all stations commuter, stopping constantly. The ticket inspector kept briefly looking in before realising he had already checked their tickets. As such, there was little opportunity for further discussion. Martay and Amy spent most of the time gazing absentmindedly out of the windows at the ever-closer mountains. Every so often, Martay shot a look over at Amy but she was completely fixated on the window, as if entranced. Eventually he started to feel hungry and went searching for a packet of mixed nuts they had brought with them. His sudden rummaging through the bags caught Amy’s attention and she asked what he was after.

  “The bag of nuts, I thought they were in the backpack.”

  “Oh, no, sorry I had some earlier and put them in my hand bag. They must still be in there.”

  Martay started pulling out various bits and pieces from Amy’s bag as he searched: their tickets, some tissues, a scarf, a notepad, her keys and a water bottle. As always happens when searching for something in a bag, his desired item was buried in the very bottom. He removed the nuts triumphantly and started putting the other items back. As he picked up Amy’s keys though, she suddenly reached out and grabbed them, holding them up in astonishment.

  “That key isn’t mine.”

  Martay looked up in surprise.

  “Which key isn’t yours?”

  “The car key. It’s the one for my parent’s range rover, only I’ve never had one of the keys for it because I don’t have my license yet.”

  “So where did it come from then? Are you sure yo
u didn’t pick it up by accident? We sort of left the house in a big hurry.”

  “Definitely not! They don’t leave the car keys with the others in the kitchen.”

  “So where does it come from then? It has to be from somewhere!”

  It was clear to Amy and Snipping that Martay wasn’t thinking clearly, or at least that he hadn’t carefully considered who he was speaking with. Snipping actually stood up in the pram, leaned over and slapped him hard across the face.

  “She dreamwalked it ya dim-witted, moronic…”

  Snipping was interrupted by Amy who interjected to explain.

  “I don’t understand how. I was just thinking about how great it would be to have a car like my parents’ to get to the resort. I guess I must have made them in a kind of day dream.”

  “That’s entirely possible,” Snipping said with a knowing tone. “If you were daydreamin’, fixated on this thought, wishing that you ‘ad the car, I’m certain ya could’ve created one. The real question is, where did you create it?”

  This time Martay made a suggestion, trying to make up for his slow start on the topic at hand.

  “Well, we have been worried about that trip from the train to the resort. If you were thinking about wanting a car, surely you were thinking about having one to take from the station! Maybe you created one there?”

  “I suppose that makes a modicum of sense,” added Snipping. “We’ll need to be watchful when we arrive. It could be almost anywhere. The only real guarantee is that it will ‘ave appeared somewhere where its appearance wouldn’t be noticed by others.”

  “What makes you say that?” Amy asked.

  “Because dreamwalkers always keep their creations subtle and hidden so that…”

  He ground slowly to a as Amy’s face sank. She looked nervous and uncertain.

  “Does it matter all that much if people noticed it show up? I mean, people would probably just assume they hadn’t noticed it before, right?”

  “What’d ya do?” asked Snipping accusingly.

  “I don’t know! I’m not like an elf, I can’t control my creations yet! I didn’t even mean to create a car! What could happen if people noticed it appearing?”

  “It’d cause a perceived temporary paradox. The imps should’ve reversed the creation if it wasn’t confined to a safe location. ‘ow could they ‘ave missed this?”

  “What happens when a paradox is caused? Not the end of the world or something!?”

  Amy and Martay had to laugh a little at this absurd thought. Snipping’s face however was deadly serious.

  “O’ course not but for the people who are certain they saw somethin’ appear out o’ nowhere, it’ll probably drive ‘em mad. Other people won’t believe ‘em, they’ll grow frustrated, fixated. Their minds’ll be consumed by tryin’ to understand what they’ve seen and this fixation’ll cause… well, think of it like a stone bein’ dropped in water… it’ll cause noticeable ripples which can be felt a long way away by those who are attuned to such things. Basically, it won’t go unnoticed by those who actually matter and whose attention we don’t wanna to draw to us.”

  The mood in the compartment changed significantly. It was full of concern now.

  “It… it could drive people mad?” Amy asked quietly.

  “Certainly. For the most part the workers stop these things but occasionally, inappropriate or dangerous realities from ‘uman dreams slip through. You should both be aware of many supposed miracles or mysteries on earth that get laughed at and disregarded as fantasy because they can’t be explained. The people who get exposed directly to these impossibilities can’t let go of the experience and because they aren’t believed, they’re treated as if they’re mad until eventually they really are driven mad.”

  “That’s terrible! What if I… I didn’t mean to…”

  “We can’t be certain that the car got noticed yet! Let’s all calm down a little.”

  Martay's voice was loud and assertive. He could see the distress building in Amy’s face, which was, as he suggested, premature.

  “Let’s just get out of the station first and work out where the car is.”

  The next few stops passed by quietly and it wasn’t long before they had reached their destination. They clambered out onto the platform a little awkwardly with the pram and bags. No time was wasted in finding their way to the streets. Being a smaller town there was not so much hustle and bustle on the streets themselves, even near the station. Cars were lined up, parked simply on the sides of the road.

  Amy’s heart felt like it didn’t know whether it should jump or sink. Parked almost directly in front of the exit from the station was a sleek looking brand-new range rover with Hungarian marked license plates. She quickly looked sideways at Martay who was clearly more impressed than he was concerned. With a careful examination of the street he came to a comforting conclusion, which he expressed openly with a sigh of relief.

  “Well, if that is the car then no one is taking any real notice of it.”

  He grinned broadly and lifted the key. There could hardly be any doubt but there was still a sense of nervousness as he pressed the unlock button to check if it was indeed the right car. The flash of the hazard lights, in tandem with the telling beeps, confirmed their suspicions.

  The trickiest part of the manoeuvre was getting Snipping and the pram in without drawing any undue attention but shortly they were all inside with Martay at the wheel. The windows were so tinted that Snipping could place himself in one of the back seats without fear of being seen. This obviously improved his mood. To be safe in case they were pulled over, he had pulled on a number of winter items including a beanie and a scarf to hide his giveaway facial features and ears which he had to tuck in around his head and hold in place with the beanie.

  Martay seemed a little nervous but excited to be at the wheel of such a valuable car and couldn’t help grinning as he pulled out onto the street. The arrangement could not have been better. Amy had quickly shown him how to use the in-built satellite navigation, which was now calmly directing them toward the Port Du Soleil ski resort with the pompous tones of a female british voice who provided the verbal direction. Once they had cleared the little town and started the ascent into the mountains, Martay finally let out a laugh.

  “This is amazing! I mean every young person dreams of waking up and having any car they want but you never think that your dream will literally come true! All we need now is for you to dream us up some ski equipment!”

  Amy laughed too. She had been very nervous about the whole arrangement since Snipping pointed out what could go wrong but it seemed as though everything had gone more smoothly than they could have hoped. So far as they knew, nobody had taken any notice of the car at all, a point of great relief to Amy. Furthermore, it was a much more convenient way to travel. Amy had even checked the glove box where she found the registration papers for the car, listed under the name Szekeres. If they were to get pulled over they wouldn’t have any real problems.

  Meanwhile, back in the town, a homeless man was limping along as fast as he could toward the train station, beckoning to the two policemen behind him to hurry up. They both looked incredibly sceptical about the whole situation. The man hoped that he would be rewarded for his discovery. After all, how often did an entire car just appear out of thin air in front of you? When he came to the spot however, he was dismayed to find that the car was gone. The police yelled at him loudly in French for having wasted their time and told him to spend his money on something better than hallucinogenic drugs. They left. But the man couldn’t be so easily deterred. He took up a watch from the warm corner of two walls and waited, convinced the car would appear again. He wasn’t crazy, he knew what he had seen and it was miraculous.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Vencel wandered aimlessly through the city. It was night time. Now what was it he had to do again? His head was sluggish and unclear. Thoughts were only moving at a snail’s pace. It was as if he was solidly drunk. To the office he
thought? Yes, that was where he was headed. Reports to read. Had to check the reports before the Duke.

  He shambled along the cobbled streets slowly, a strange sense of apprehension beginning to settle on him as he walked. The narrow, two story wooden houses that lined the streets seemed to stretch and loom over him. People walking past jostled him as if they hadn’t really seen him. Then he was seated at his desk.

  The sudden change in location didn’t seem to alarm him in the slightest. He was there, his brain accepted it.

  His office walls of stone were drab and bare aside from the plain cast iron candle holders which threw shadows across the room. He settled in to review the reports for the day, though in truth he merely stared at each page blankly for a few moments before turning to the next without much purpose. This continued for some minutes before he looked up and had his heart set racing. A figure was seated in front of him.

  “Ahh, master Vencel. So good of you to pay attention to me at last.”

  The voice was high, clear and icily cold. Vencel could not see the lips that formed the words. The man wore a dark, heavy hood and his back was to the candles, meaning all of his frontal features were shrouded by shadow. For such a slight figure, the man had a disproportionately intimidating presence.

  “So sorry,” Vencel stammered, “I didn’t hear you come in.” Vencel hesitated. “And you would be?”