The site Brom had chosen for that night’s camp was very comfortable. It was a rounded gully that had been the oxbow joint of a river long ago in some Sleeper’s deep dream. Now the riverbed was dry and full of saplings as narrow as her finger. The ways in and out were very close together, easy to watch and guard.
The fact that they needed to be on guard reminded her that she had once again betrayed the cause. That button she had left behind—who knew what it might have become by way of warning. She hoped someone would see it. Would the police in Reverie have put Roan in jail? Or worse? She’d heard of Durance Vile. Although she didn’t know where it was, the pictures the name had always summoned up in her mind were horrible. Taboret forced the memory of the lost button to the back of her mind, and made herself think harder about her job. Blend with the others, and no one would notice any discrepancy in her thoughts. It was hard, though. Every time Brom turned her way, she expected to hear an accusation. He’d had his eye on her for some time, now. No, she admonished herself, think sconce.
She spotted Glinn in the kitchen area. He was piling stones together to make the refectory table and benches. Taboret watched him fondly. They’d been working together for almost a year, and she had never seen him as more than a colleague. How blind she’d been.
He must have sensed her regard even all the way across the camp, because he looked up and smiled directly at her. She felt that little, warm tingle run up and down her skin. Then she felt a surge of panic. What would Glinn do if he knew she was a traitor?
Glinn straightened up and beckoned to her. She shook her head, pretending to have trouble tying up some of the twigs. This was the last torch. When she finished with it, she’d have no excuse not to go and help him. He gave her that silly sideways grin that she had always liked. All right, she’d go, but she promised herself she’d keep a tight rein on her thoughts.
“You’re finished,” he said, as she joined him. “Would you like to help me?”
“Of course,” Taboret said. “What do you need me to do?”
Glinn looked around at the others. Everyone else seemed to be very busy, or deliberately not looking their way. Even Basil had his back to them, choosing bottled herbs from his pack.
“Come on back here,” he said, escorting her behind the cobblestone stove. “We can shore up the insulation and help save fuel.”
Taboret recognized the excuse as a thin pretext. Basil always saw to the stove and the utensils himself, jealously guarding the privilege, and he never asked for help. Something savory was simmering in a big pot on one of the two burners. Taboret took a good sniff as she went by. Pepper, she thought. It could use another pinch. She realized she had acquired at least a small portion of Basil’s gourmet cooking mentality. Who knew what else, or who else, was in there now. The twinge of guilt returned, and she tamped it down hard.
“Come on,” Glinn said. “I’d like to have a quiet talk with you.”
He took her hand, and pulled her into a kind of alcove consisting of the back of the stove and a jutting wall of rock that almost met it. Between them, she saw Carina go by. Carina shot her a friendly leer and a wink. Taboret realized suddenly that she couldn’t understand what the other woman was thinking. She gaped up at Glinn.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I’ve given us a little privacy,” he said. He took her in his arms, making her tingle in all kinds of places. A little nervously, she put her arms around him, too. His present form was very thin. She could almost feel his ribs, but there was a good layer of muscle over them, and that was reassuring. Glinn lowered his face so it gently touched her hair and moved down next to her ear. His light exhalation made her tingle again.
“I know what you did,” he said, very quietly. “Back there on the trail.” She jumped, almost feeling her bones pop out of her skin. He folded her tighter against him. “Don’t panic. It’s all right.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she protested, putting her hands on his chest to push him away.
“That’s what happened to the button, isn’t it?” he asked, keeping his grip on her. She could feel his mind pressing against hers, but no one else’s. Was he trying to get her to confess? To report her to Brom?
“No, it was an accident,” she said. “That’s what happened.”
“It’s not,” Glinn said, quietly. “I know you dropped it on purpose so someone following us would not miss that turning. Please, tell me the truth. We’re shielded from the others, but it can only last for a short time. Brom will get suspicious if we’re out of the loop for too long. Quickly!”
“Yes, I did,” Taboret blurted out before she could stop herself. “I did it once before, too.” She stopped and put both
hands over her mouth. But instead of having her stomach turn somersaults of guilt, she was relieved. It helped to have someone to share her secret with, someone she could trust. But, oh, could she trust him? Then she realized it wasn’t only her relief she felt. She could feel the muscles in Glinn’s neck and back relaxing, in sympathy with her own.
“I’m glad,” he said, looking around to make certain no one was watching them too carefully. Everyone was still walking by with smirks on their faces. He put her arms down around his waist again, and enfolded her in his arms. “So have I. I’ve been leaving signs all along for the King’s Investigator.”
“You?”
“Yes. Do you really want to help?”
“Oh, yes,” Taboret gasped. “But how?”
“Help me,” Glinn said. “I can’t stop Brom by myself. Neither can the two of us alone. Roan has to catch up with us and join his strength to ours. With help we can use the gestalt itself against Brom.”
“But you’re the one that he trusts, his second-in-command,” Taboret said, bewildered. “How can you be the one trying to stop him?”
Glinn grimaced. “Because he’s not making sense any more. I thought the experiment was interesting in the beginning. I also thought he had permission to fulfill it. I should have known the king would never give his leave to rouse the Sleepers. It’s too late. Partly my fault, for being too fascinated with the concept to think about the outcome. Will you help me?”
His plan was so daring it was exciting. Her mood rose at once, now that she knew she was no longer alone in her fear or her feelings.
“Of course I will,” Taboret said, shifting a little bit so his upper arm was comfortably settled in the curve of her neck and the other one was around her waist. “I would keep leaving a trail anyway. I’ve been so afraid one of the traps would kill . . . someone. . . . Is that the only reason we’re back here alone?”
Glinn smiled at her, his soft brown eyes crinkling at the corners. He glanced down at her mouth and back to her eyes. “You know it’s not. You can hear what I’m thinking.”
With pleased satisfaction, Taboret knew that he wanted to kiss her, and he felt shy about it. So did she. He understood that, and his gaze was tender. Very slowly, he dipped his head, his lips reaching for hers. She tilted her face up, waiting. The moment they touched, she felt skyrockets of joy exploding inside her. She locked her arms around him and hugged him close. The meeting of bodies was as nice as the meeting of minds.
“I said, come and get it!” Basil’s voice shouted over their heads. “Come on, you two, everyone’s waiting.” Sheepishly, they broke apart.
“Remember,” Glinn said, in so low a whisper that she had to put her ear right next to his mouth to hear him. “One mistake, and Brom will know what we’re doing. He needs us for the gestalt, but not so badly he’ll keep overt traitors around. Shield your thoughts. The safety of the Dreamland depends upon it.”
“I will remember,” she said. But it was too tempting, standing there close to him in the shadow of the trees. She turned her face up for another kiss, and Glinn was only too happy to respond.
When they came around at last to join the others at the table, Dowkin and Doolin jeered at them.
“Doing a few biology experiments of your own, are you?
” Doolin asked.
Taboret felt so wonderful she didn’t care. She gave each brother a friendly smile and sat down at her place.
“What’s wrong with extracurricular activity?” she asked, and realized she was smirking.
“As long as it does not interfere with our work!” Brom boomed from the head of the table.
“Of course not, sir,” Glinn said, concerned, facing their employer. “I wanted to mention to you, sir, that I had some ideas for increasing our speed without endangering the steeds. . . .”
In daylight, the distortion to the landscape was almost an unbroken ribbon ahead of them. Lum shook his head and walked his bike back to join the others.
“You don’t need my skills any more, sir,” he said to Roan. “You could follow this with a glow worm in a snowstorm.”
“Are you certain that there is no residual effect on passersby?” Misha asked, surveying half-melted rocks, and birds with whiskers perched in the trees.
“There shouldn’t be,” Bergold said, uncertainly. Today he had a curly blond beard, which he scratched thoughtfully. “But I really don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like the gestalt before. Brom certainly isn’t trying to hide his passage any longer.”
“I’m not sure he can,” Roan said. The paving stones formed a crazy-quilt under his steed’s tires, almost too soft to ride over. “This is worse than it has ever been. There’s one small comfort, though. If the Alarm Clock is causing this much ill-effect, he’ll have to travel through as few habitations as possible, but because it’s so cumbersome, he must stay on major roads. We won’t have to follow him cross-country.”
“There will be towns on every road at the edge of the province,” Leonora said, in a worried voice.
“Surely we’ll have caught up with him by then,” Roan said, and hoped he sounded more certain than he felt.
“But just where in the mountains is he going?” Felan asked. Bergold opened the map.
“Brom took us on a merry chase when we first set out in pursuit,” the historian said, “but I don’t think he can afford to waste any more time. Since we are now going northeast, my assumption would be he is heading toward the Dark Mysteries, although to what part I cannot guess.”
“He must be miles ahead,” Spar said. “We need motor transport like theirs.”
“We don’t need physical transport if we have the luck,” Bergold said. “Keep working hard to attain our goal, and we’ll earn that luck. We’ve been going about this the wrong way. Our steeds are old-fashioned, and we can’t make them into jet engines or motor cars or airplanes. Only the Sleepers can do that, and only on a whim. We can’t count on it.”
Misha nodded. “This is also doctrine according to Continuity. So what can we do?”
“We all have influence, to a certain extent,” Bergold said. “Use it. Keep striving honestly forward, and hope for good luck. The Sleepers created us to be their problem-solvers, and that’s what they’ll favor. I’ve always found that the more focused I am, the luckier I am.”
“No, no,” Colenna protested. “We’re supposed to be contented with what the Sleepers send, not change it.”
“You don’t believe that,” Leonora said. “Otherwise you would never have left Mnemosyne.”
“I have come along to stop someone who is interfering with the Sleepers’ will, not to change things myself!”
“This is where Brom and his crucible have their advantage over us,” Roan said. “They have been concentrating on a single goal, and it has kept them ahead of us. We need to catch up. Therefore, we need to cooperate.”
“Goblins and closet monsters, what do you think we’ve been doing?” Felan demanded.
“We have to go still further than we have,” Roan said. “Colenna, it does no harm to hope for luck. Our ultimate goal is the same: to stop Brom. We’ll argue dogma when it’s all over.”
“All right,” the older woman said, with a half-admiring sideways grin at him. “Truce.”
“Very well,” Roan said, and he held out his right hand. “Brom’s method seems sound. Let’s put our hands together as a sign of unity of purpose.” Bergold and Leonora put in their hands at once. The others followed suit a little more reluctantly. Spar and Felan looked as though they felt silly, but reached out to touch the others. Roan found the contact reassuring and strengthening.
“To one purpose,” he said. “For good luck.”
“To one purpose,” they echoed.
“Good. Let’s go on, then,” Roan said.
“This is amazing,” Felan said, as they rode through a field of four-leafed clovers. “I’ve traveled before. Why has this never happened to me? All of these symbols of good fortune?”
“A combination of circumstances,” Bergold said. “Most of us do have significant influence of our own. I would also cite Sleepers’ whim. And perhaps it is true what has been said in the past, that effects are magnified or multiplied as one approaches the Seven’s presence.” Roan thought he believed in the latter, since Bergold had been changing shape more frequently than ever. His beard had brightened to red, and he was smoking a long, thin pipe.
“That would make Brom’s messes worse as we go,” Leonora said.
“Well, aren’t they?” Misha said.
“Yes, but look behind us,” Bergold said, pointing back with the stem of his pipe. “Our own passage has erased some of the effects of the Alarm Clock. We’re already having a beneficent influence on the land itself.”
Roan felt more optimistic. They were making excellent time. The sponginess of the road had become an advantage, instead of a liability, as the steeds turned from bicycles into horses again, and bounded along happily.
“Look what I’ve found,” Hutchings said. He showed them a brimming double handful of shining, ruddy coins. “Pennies!”
“Lucky man,” Felan said. Pennies had no monetary value in the Dreamland, but they were much prized as amulets of good fortune. Hutchings’s brows went up in surprise.
“Yes, that’s it! Take one, sir. You, too,” he said to Roan. “Ev erybody should have a lucky penny. It’ll give us an extra push.”
“Everything helps,” Bergold said, accepting his lucky piece with pleasure. “This is a strange manifestation of Sleepers’ will. Look at that.” He nodded toward a soft-looking hill in the middle of the green field to their left. It appeared to be made of hand-sized patches of multicolored cloth.
“Alette!” Spar commanded. “Go and see what it is.”
The guard trotted over, and came back with an armload of cloth.
“It’s socks, sir. Stockings and leggings and socks. All one of a kind.” She started to sort through them. Felan reached over and grabbed a royal blue sock with a diamond embroidered on the calf.
“That’s mine!”
Roan stared at him. “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not,” Felan said, sulkily. “My mother gave those to me years ago. She said they were unique. . . .”
“Well, they are unmistakable,” Colenna said, her lips twisting in a grin. Felan ignored her.
“Then, one of them disappeared in the wash. I never found it again. I’m sure this is it.” He tucked it carefully away in his saddlebag, and turned his nose up at the snickers.
“This is a lucky place,” Bergold said, looking very pleased.
“All kinds of things that have been lost are here. We may find items we’ve lost all the way back to childhood. I often wondered where things vanish to.” As they rounded a bend in the road, more heaps of clothes came into sight. Roan spotted the gleam of shiny black leather, and let out a whoop of joy.
“You see a sock?” Leonora asked.
“No, my boots!” He handed her Cruiser’s reins and slid off to go get them. And next to them, he found the suit that had been stripped off his back by the nuisance, and his underwear and socks and his silk top hat. Close by was a small heap of scanty, periwinkle blue underthings that could belong only to Leonora. He stood up and beckoned the party over.
They turned their backs on one another, and changed into their real clothes. With pleasure, Roan tied his silk cravat, and settled the knot comfortably under his chin. In the pockets of his suit, he found all kinds of little things he had lost over the years, including a baseball card, a coin with a buffalo on it, and a plastic decoder ring that was a family heirloom.
The road led out of the broad glen and into a narrow passage between high walls of gray stone that squeezed them from both sides until they were riding single file. Gradually, the file slowed to a stop. Roan stood up in his stirrups to see what was happening, but all he saw was the back of Spar’s head. The way was too constricted for the steeds to pass.
“What’s the holdup up there?” Felan shouted from the back. His voice echoed up the stone passage.
“I can’t get through!” Spar called back. “There’s a bar across the road. We might have to back out of here.”
“What’s around you?” Roan asked.
“Well, nothing!” the captain said, feeling the walls with both hands. “The sides are flat stone—no, wait a moment. There’s a metal slot here on the side, about as wide as my thumbnail.” Roan looked at his own thumbnail.
“The pennies,” he shouted. “Try the penny Hutchings gave you, Spar.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard captain said dubiously, putting his hand into his saddlebag with difficulty in the tight space. But there was a grinding sound, followed by a rusty screech. “It’s lifting!”
He moved forward. There was a heavy THUNK! and Colenna stopped next. “My turn,” she said. Roan watched her elbow shift to the left, and heard the mechanical whirring. “That’s it,” she said. “Like an entry gate.”
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