by Brian Olsen
“She knows better than that, Kirt. We have the better of Yar’s army but he’s far from defeated. Reinforcements from distant baronies are on their way, and the elf tribes have united in support of him. The war will be won soon, but not today. Yes, this trip is necessary, and no, we can’t come back for her later.” He gestures down the road, towards the village center. “Shall we?”
I laugh. “If anyone else spoke to me like you do, Muln, I’d boil their blood. All right, let’s go meet this ‘Queen of Nightmares.’”
We walk down the road, passing more villagers attempting to escape. They’re all writhing on the ground, clutching their heads, screaming in terror. One woman sees me and her eyes come into focus.
“Common King!” She crawls towards me. “Common King! Save us! Save us from the nightmares, please!”
I crouch down and pat her head. “Yes. Possibly.”
“Bless you,” she whimpers. “Bless…aaah! The bees! The bees!” She rolls around, swatting at something only she can see.
I stand and step over her. “Someone who can incapacitate so many people at once is certainly powerful. Are you sure she’ll agree to serve me?”
“Not entirely,” Muln says, huffing a little for breath. “But I’m sure we’ll need her.”
Muln is well past his fiftieth year, and his red face reddens even more as he works to keep up with my quick pace. It’s a little cruel of me to walk so fast, but sometimes I like to remind him that, despite the familiarity I allow him, he’s not my equal.
“Why?” I ask. “We’re winning this war just fine without her.”
“It’s not the war I’m concerned with. It’s what comes after. Oh!” He stops short. His eyes widen and his breathing gets even faster. “No! No, no, no!”
“What?”
“My sister…my nephew…”
I roll my eyes. “Not this again. They’re dead, Muln. They’re dead, and so are the goblins who killed them. This nightmare woman is getting in your head. You’re a logomancer. Act like it. Fight off her attack so we can get on with this.”
He covers his eyes with his hand and bows his head. “Illusion,” he mutters. He looks up again, then straightens his spine. “Thank you. I’ll be all right now. You felt nothing?”
“Nothing. What could she use against me? I don’t have nightmares. Let’s go.”
The village is just ahead. It’s not very big, only a few dirt streets, and no structures over two stories. Lots more people than we passed on the main road, though. Everyone we see is on the ground, crying and shrieking and soiling their breeches. A few have killed themselves. It’s almost funny.
“Look!” As we pass the first few buildings, I point out a trough with a body hanging half out of it. “She drowned herself in a few inches of water! That couldn’t have been easy.” I laugh and poke the dead villager with my foot. “I congratulate you on your tenacity, good woman!”
“Indeed.” Muln’s still a little shaken. I don’t know if it’s the nightmare or the corpses. He’s doesn’t have a great stomach for dead humans.
I put my hands on my hips and look around. Somebody grabs my ankle looking for help but I kick him off. “This town is pathetic. Is there even a tavern?”
“This is a small farming commune,” Muln answers. “Not part of any barony. They have no lord here. Instead they live and work together, and share their bounty with one another.”
“Sounds awful.”
“There is a town hall in the center of the village. I suspect we’ll find her there.”
“Ugh. Farmers.” I don’t even care about farmers, I’m just annoyed at being here. “Let’s go, then.”
We follow the road a little further. It’s all homes and barns and storehouses, not even any shops. There’s a Shrine of the Logos, which makes me hate this place even more. The Logos is a power source, not a god. Only fools and elves worship it.
We soon find what must be the town hall. The single-story building is the largest in the village. It’s open on all four sides, with a roof supported by thick wooden columns, a dirt floor covered in hay, and a little stage at the far end from us. This is probably where they get together to dance to fiddles or something equally ridiculous.
Nobody’s dancing now, though. There are more townsfolk here and some of them are actually up on their feet, but they’re all enjoying their own personal horrors and take no notice of us. Standing up on the stage is the person we’re here for. The Queen of Nightmares, they call her.
A peasant. Barefoot. Dressed in sackcloth.
“Hello,” she says. “Who are you?”
I draw myself up. “I’m your king. Come down from there. And stop them screaming. I can barely hear myself think.”
“I like the screaming. It’s the best part.”
“If I may,” Muln says to me quietly. Without waiting for permission, he takes a step forward. “Do I have the honor of addressing Tes Tesbrunchild, the powerful logomancer known as the Queen of Nightmares?”
“Oh! Yes, that’s me.” She smiles, then takes her coarse brown dress in her hands and curtsies. “You’re fancy!”
Muln coughs. “Yes. I am Muln Velkinchild, a logomancer, like you. I have the honor of introducing Kirt Nonechild, the Common King, Master of the Sun, Savior of Humanity, Slayer of Monsters.”
“That’s a lot of names.” She drops to the stage, sitting with her legs splayed open. “My neighbors called me a lot of names.”
“They were afraid of you,” Muln continues. “Afraid of your power.”
She giggles. “They’re afraid of many things. Everybody is. I can see.” She hugs herself and twists back and forth. “I can see in their heads! I can see!”
I grab Muln’s arm and pull him back. “This is pointless. She’s a lunatic.”
She slaps her hands on the rough wooden stage. “I’m not!” She glares at me. “I’m not a lunatic. And I don’t like when people call me names.”
“Kirt?” The familiar voice comes from behind me. A shiver runs down my spine. “Kirt? Why?”
I turn. My mother stands in the daylight, outside the cover of the town hall. Her skin is black and crisp, her hair burned away, but it’s my mother. Her eyes are the same.
The same as I see in my dreams, sometimes.
She stretches her arms out to me and staggers forward. “Why, my son? I wasn’t a perfect mother, but I loved you. And you loved me. Why?”
“Ooh!” The girl claps her hands. “Did you kill your mother? Me too! We should be friends.”
Muln gasps. “By the Logos. This is your nightmare? I’d no idea.”
“You can see her?” I ask. “It, I mean. You can see it?”
“I can. It seems she can do more than conjure nightmares in the mind. She can bring them into the real world, as well.” He strokes his chin. “Such power…”
“Send it away, girl,” I command. “Banish it to whatever hell it came from.”
“You’re the king. You do it.”
I grit my teeth. I don’t know why Muln thinks we need this deranged woman. We’ll never control her.
I set my mother on fire. Again. She keeps walking for a moment, unaffected by pain. A man running from something imaginary smashes into her, knocking her to the ground. The fire spreads to him and his cries of fear change to cries of pain. I ignore him. I intensify the flames on my mother and stand over her until she’s reduced to charred, smoking bones. Again.
Muln takes a tentative step towards me. “My Lord…” He’s being cautious. Good. I’m very angry. “Are you—”
I put my finger to my lips.
After a moment, I spin on my heels to face the girl. Muln’s looking at me, so he doesn’t see her thoughtful expression, but I do. It only lasts an instant before it’s replaced with a vacant smile.
“Do more fire!” she cries in delight. “Do more!”
Muln sighs. “Forgive me. When I heard of her power, I thought she would serve you well after you took the throne. There will be challenges to your rule
less overt than an armed rebellion. Someone who can walk through dreams could root out treason before it’s even spoken. But I did not know of her madness. You are correct, she is too wild to control, let alone train. We should—”
“Be quiet.”
I walk back to the edge of the stage, where she still sits. I look into her eyes.
She sticks her tongue out at me. “I can bring out their nightmares, too.” She points at a young boy, lying motionless, face down in the hay. “That’s my cousin. He has nightmares about being crushed by the moon. Isn’t that silly? Would you like me to bring the moon here to crush you? Could you set the moon on fire?” She laughs. “Let’s find out!” She points at the boy and says, “Nightmare!”
Nothing happens.
She pouts. “Oh, he’s dead. I can’t.” She rocks back, throwing her legs up in the air. “I can find something else! I have an uncle who’s scared of giant frogs! Do you want to see a giant frog?”
“Drop the act. You’re no madder than I am.”
She lunges forward, slapping her hands down on the edge of the stage. She kneels on all fours, her face right in mine, and barks and growls at me like a rabid dog.
“Please.” I cover a yawn with my hand. “This is embarrassing for both of us.”
She stops, her face frozen in a snarl. We meet eyes.
Then we both laugh.
I can’t stop, and neither can she. We lock eyes for a long while, laughing and laughing. I haven’t laughed like this in ages.
She takes a breath to calm herself, laughs one more time, then breathes out a long sigh. “I knew the barking was too much as soon as I started.”
I wipe a tear from my eye. “No, no. I admire your commitment to the part.”
“Excuse me, my Lord.” Muln shuffles forward. “What’s happening?”
“For someone so well-versed in illusion, Muln, you’re surprisingly easy to deceive. It was all an act. She’s perfectly sane.”
“Er, yes.” He lifts his robe as a whimpering old woman rolls by, scratching her skin so hard it bleeds. “Perfectly sane.”
I lift myself onto the stage and sit next to the girl. Or woman? She carries herself with a much more mature bearing now. I’m not sure how old she is.
“How did you know?” she asks.
“I wasn’t sure until I saw how you looked at us when we weren’t looking at you. Not a hint of madness.”
She sighs. “I was distracted. Gauging the power of your logomancy.”
“There were other clues. You’re targeting every person in the village with a nightmare unique to them. And you maintained that multi-pronged attack while using your word in a different way, to bring the image of my mother to life. That shows more precise control over the Logos than a madwoman could bring to bear.”
“True enough,” she says. “But it’s not impossible to be both gifted and mad. What else?”
“You’ve lived here all these years,” I continue, “with all this power, but I’d never heard of you until Muln brought you to my attention. He’s been tracking down powerful logomancers.” I turn to my friend. “How did you hear about Tes, Muln?”
“I met her tutor, from when she was a child,” he answers. “The town paid for a logomancer to come train her for a few months.”
“Oh, dear old Pok!” Tes says. “I was giving everyone in town such nightmares until he helped me to control them.”
“Exactly,” I say. “You’ve been living here in peace with these people for years, using your powers so sparingly that no word of such a powerful logomancer reached the surrounding baronies. Then, suddenly, you attack the entire village all at once? Preventing a single soul from escaping? All this suggests a plan to me, not madness.”
She smiles coyly. “And what plan would that be, do you think?”
I lean in and nudge her shoulder with mine. “Well, I happen to know something about killing everyone who ever knew you, so if I had to guess, I’d say you’ve decided you’re too big for this pisspot village and are off to make your fortune in the world. You’re going to use this ‘mad’ act as a cover, perhaps? And you wanted to be certain nobody who knows the truth about you lives to tell the tale. Am I close?”
She winks. “Very. The lunatic bit was just for you, though. I panicked a little when the old man was strong enough to fight me off, and I hoped you might underestimate me if I pretended witlessness. No, once I left the village I was going to go for ‘naive innocent, so helpless and lost in the big scary capital.’” She opens her eyes wide and bats them at me, clasping her hands under her chin, then drops the pose and nudges me back. “The men, boys, and a fair few of the wives here could swear on the Logos that I’m no innocent.”
I laugh. “I like her, Muln! You’re right, she will be useful.” I hop down from the stage and offer her my hand. “What do you say, Tes Tesbrunchild? Will you follow me?”
“Follow you?” She looks at my hand, then leans back on hers. “Why would I follow anyone? I told you, I’m headed to the capital. With my power, I can kill the queen and take her place at the king’s side within a year.”
“This really is the middle of nowhere. Aren’t you aware there’s a war on?”
She sticks out her lower lip. “There’s always a war on.”
“Not like this one. Not like my war.” I lean forward, resting against the stage, between her legs. “I am fifteen years old, and I will be king of the world before my sixteenth birthday.”
“King of the human world, you mean.”
“King of all the world.” I cup her cheek in my hand. “Join me.”
She squeezes her legs against my hips. “If you’re trying to seduce me,” she whispers in my ear, “I’m not susceptible to that sort of thing.”
“Neither am I,” I whisper back. I take her hands in mine, and our fingers intertwine. We stretch our arms out to the side and I rest my cheek against hers. “Follow me, and I’ll make you a true Nightmare Queen.”
She laughs, softly, and I can’t help but smile. She’s delightful.
“I believe you,” she says, “and I’ll follow you, Kirt Nonechild. My Common King.”
I laugh too, and spin out, holding on to one of her hands. Muln doesn’t know where to look and his red face makes me laugh again.
“Smile, Muln,” I say. “My people have a queen!”
I help Tes down from the stage. Someone whimpers at my feet.
“Oh,” I say. “Right. Tes, do you want to kill the rest of your townsfolk, or shall I?”
Twenty-five
Somebody’s shaking my shoulder. “Chris! Chris, wake up!”
I roll onto my back and blink the sleep out of my eyes. Zane’s leaning up on his elbow.
“Whuh?” I murmur. “Whuh?”
“You were crying in your sleep.”
“Whuh time izzit?”
“Almost two.”
I yawn. “In the morning?”
“In the afternoon. We slept all morning.”
I scratch my face, and find my cheeks are wet. “Sorry. Bad dream.”
He puts his arm around me and I nestle into his armpit.
“Bad dream, like Nightmare Queen bad dream?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Shit. So it’s not just London. She’s really coming for you now.”
“Yeah.”
He starts talking about what we should do, and how we should tell everybody right away, and what it might mean that she’s started giving me dreams after ignoring me until now, and I cry again. Just a little, but he notices.
“Chris?” He puts his other arm around me. “Was it that bad?”
I press my face into his chest. I don’t want to look him in the eye right now.
“It’s not the first nightmare she’s sent me,” I say.
“I know, on the bridge.”
“No. That wasn’t the first either.” I roll away, onto my back, and he lets me go. I stare up at the ceiling. “She’s been sending me dreams for almost three weeks. Since a few
days after prom night.”
“What? No. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I knew you’d all want to find a way to stop them and I didn’t want them to stop.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If she’s attacking you, why wouldn’t you want it to stop?”
I sit up. He stays lying down but rests his hand on my lower back and rubs it gently.
“She’s not attacking me. She’s dredging up memories. Memories of him. Of when I was him.”
His hand stops moving. “You’ve been getting your memory back?”
“Yes.”
“But…” He drops his hand. “But you don’t want that. You said you don’t want to be him again.”
“I don’t.”
“But that’s what happens. Right? Anyone who gets their memories back starts to become more like who they were before.”
“That’s not happening. When I wake up, they don’t feel like my memories. I remember them like a story somebody told me.”
“I don’t get why you’d be any different than anybody else who’s remembering. Lily. Liefer. Miller. Your…” He breathes in sharply. “Oh. Your mom. That’s why you didn’t want it to stop.”
I turn to face him. “I thought the Nightmare Queen might show me something about my mother. Something that would help me understand who she used to be.”
“Something that would help you reach her,” he says. “Bring her back.”
I nod.
He sits up, leaning against the headboard. He brings his knees up to his chest. “And did she?”
I shake my head. “She showed me herself, though. Just now.”
His eyes widen. “You saw the Nightmare Queen? Who is she? Is it someone we know?”
“I don’t know. I looked at her and talked to her but I can’t remember her face now, or what her voice sounded like. She’s hiding that from me, I guess.”
“If she can do that, then how do you know these dreams actually happened? She can show you whatever she wants.”
“That’s not how her power works. She can only work with the fears we already have.”
“And you know this because…?”
I sigh. “Because of what she showed me. But I know they’re the Common King’s real memories! I can feel it.”