The Fading Dream (31 page)

The woman was stretched out on the stone. The sentry could see her broken leg and the blood around her, the dagger fallen to the side. And he felt nothing from her. Already dead. Something gleamed on the back of her neck, and he took a step forward to see what it was.

She moved in an instant, her hand wrapped around his leg. Surprised as he was, the sentry raised his spear to finish her. Or he tried to. Something was wrong. There was no strength in his arms. No arms. She was crushing all that he was and pulling it down, pulling it into her, pulling it …

Into the stone.

He could hear the other voices clamoring around him, the dragon, the demons, the angels. And that was his last thought for a long time.

Thorn gasped, still clutching the ankle of the guardian. The pain was gone, flushed away as the strength of the sentry flowed through her. She flexed her leg and
found the bone intact. Once again, draining the life of another had saved her own.

Sarmondelaryx’s power, she thought. I used it again.

It was only then that the events of the past few moments fully came back to her. She sat up and looked around. “Drego?”

He was nowhere to be seen. More than that, she couldn’t smell him anymore. With all the other voices, she wasn’t sure if he’d really been there at all.

Voices. She picked up Steel.

You’re alive
, he said.

“You sound so surprised,” she told him.

You weren’t watching you for the last few moments. Quite a remarkable recovery
.

“Isn’t it? It might make you think of Toli or a certain Deneith bastard.”

Yes
 … Steel said.
I felt the surge of power again. It seems you’re learning more control
.

“So it seems,” she said. “If you were watching the last few minutes … Was anyone here before the guard? Did anyone talk to me?”

I was trying. You didn’t seem to hear. You were too busy using me as a chisel
.

“No one else?”

No. If you’re thinking of Marudrix, he must have been captured. Or killed, if that’s possible. I suggest you start thinking about escape
.

“Escape?” Thorn looked around herself. She could see the wall of bones far away. The towers stretched up toward the night sky, but they had changed while she was inside; they seemed to be formed from raw muscle, glistening wetly in the light of the moons. “Without Drix?”

Yes, well, I suppose you could try to find Drix and rescue him. On your own. Given your spectacular success rate to
this point, I think the Citadel would prefer that you admit defeat while you’re still alive and get safely back. If you can even manage that
.

“Such confidence,” Thorn said.

Then it all fell into place.

“Of course.” She cursed.

What?

“Don’t you see? It’s only a dream.”

I’m afraid I don’t see at all. And dreams aren’t exactly my area of expertise
.

Thorn stood up. Her thoughts were racing, and she felt a renewed surge of energy. “The manticore told us this place was both dream and reality, right?”

Correct. If that’s literally true, it means that we are in some way on the plane of Dal Quor at this moment, that we are physically walking through dreams
.

“These things play on fear. When I faced them, every time I doubted myself, every time I thought I might fail, I did. While Drix—”

Succeeded against all odds despite having little more than a sunny disposition and the most unlikely magical weapon I’ve seen
.

“Exactly. Aureon’s word,
I
felt better when he smiled at me. When he finally fell, it was when Shan Doresh confronted him with
his
fears. Stole that confidence away.”

So do you truly think you can do anything you can imagine in this place?

“I don’t know.” She looked up at the sky. “I’m not flying now, so the answer appears to be no. I think it’s smaller than that. Luck. Not thinking about the ways that I’ll fail.”

This begins to sound like a kalashtar sermon
.

“I suppose it does. But it’s worth a try. I believe I can find Drix.”

And how will you do that, exactly?

Thorn sighed. “Always the practical one, aren’t you? Still …” She reached back and ran two fingers over the stone in her neck then shifted to feel the shard in the base of her spine. “Drix could sense the other stones with his crystal heart. He was surprised I couldn’t.”

Which could be because your shards are not, in fact, ancient eladrin relics
.

“Yes,” she said. “Or it could be because I don’t believe that they are. I’ve spent this entire mission questioning everything. Perhaps it’s time that I try believing the story and seeing where it takes me.”

If you think that will work, I’d like to see you try
.

“Fine,” Thorn said. She slid the dagger back into his sheath and closed her eyes.

It wasn’t so easy for Thorn to concentrate. All of her other senses had returned to their full sensitivity. Even with her eyes closed, she could hear the feet against the stones below, feel the beasts in the air moving overhead, smell the salty tang of tears and blood. She did her best to push it away, to focus on a single sensation: the stone in her neck.

For a long time after Far Passage, the stone had been a source of constant pain. She’d relied on dreamlily and alcohol to dull the agony, weaning herself only when the addiction nearly brought down a mission. She realized that the pain was still there, that she’d just learned to hold it at bay. It wasn’t physical pain at all. It was anger, hatred. She could feel hundreds of voices in the stone, clamoring for release, raging at her. She could faintly sense Daine, doing his best to hold the others at bay and bring her what peace he could. Drulkalatar, filled with feral hatred, was there too. And she sensed another, vast and dark, filled with hunger … Sarmondelaryx herself.

There were more, dozens more, hundreds. She remembered the vision that had come to her in Fallen,
walking through the chamber of whispering skulls, and Tira’s words at the Silver Tree.
The Preserving Shard holds the spirits of our greatest leaders
. She could feel them, faint, for they were not struggling for release, ancient spirits buried deep within the shard.

Intriguing as that was, at the moment it was more inconvenient than useful. She couldn’t reach any further within the stone. The rage that burned within it was too great. She let the image of the stone drift away and brought her focus down, to the shard in the base of her spine.

That stone had never brought her pain, though it occasionally grew cold. The Quiet Stone, Tira had called it. And compared to the raging shard above, it certainly was silent. Thorn tried to explore it with her thoughts and found nothing. If not for the voices she’d heard just seconds earlier, she might have given up, dismissed it as madness. This time …

This time I learn your secrets.

That one thought—that moment of determination—was all it took. It was as though she’d been pressed against a wall of glass only to have it turn into air. She felt her consciousness slip inside the stone, and she knew it for what it was, for what it could do. The Quiet Stone had been made to conceal and to warn. Thorn knew that she’d only touched a fraction of its power, and then only by instinct. She had no idea yet how to unlock its greater functions, but she could feel the depth of it, a deep pool of still energy. And as she studied it, she could sense the echo of others nearby. She knew then that there was a time when the stones had all been together. Words flashed through her mind—
Ourelon’s Gift
—and the dragons at the Silver Tree, a pact made in an age past. The vision faded in an instant, but she could still feel the echo of the others, feel them calling to be rejoined.

She opened her eyes and drew Steel.

So
, he said.
Have you found Marudrix?

Thorn spun the dagger in the air and caught him. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I believe I have.”

T
horn strode through the halls of the Fortress of Fading Dreams, following the call of the crystal heart. She walked through streams of blood and chambers of writhing eyes, through halls where shrouded eladrin were harvesting fears from imprisoned dreamers and the kennels where those phobias were bound and trained for battle. No guardian gave her a second glance, nor did the strange and terrible beasts challenge her approach. Perhaps it was the Quiet Stone, responding to her touch. Perhaps the world of dreams was responding to her belief in herself. And perhaps it was simple arrogance on the part of the ancient fey. Thorn wore the long cloak of the guardian who’d walked the halls, and she hid her face behind his silver mask. Perhaps the disguise and the confidence with which she walked was all it took to remove all obstacles to her path.

There were many moments when something could have gone wrong, many times when a casual twist of fate could have revealed her deception and brought the full force of the citadel to bear. Yet at every turn, Olladra smiled, and fortune favored the Lantern.

The call of the heart led her to the highest tower in the central keep, to a chamber that looked out over the fortress and the haunted woods around it. In the courtyard the forces of the Fading Dream were preparing for battle. Sages in bronze masks assembled weird weapons of war, things torn from the most horrible dreams of mortal artificers. Nightmares writhed and twisted in the skies, howling in a multitude of voices.

And high in the chamber above, Thorn found Marudrix Juran Cannith bound in the center of a circle of fey symbols. She’d seen its like before, at the heart of the Silver Tree. She’d also seen the other artifacts in the room: the Sword of Winter, the Stone of Joy, and the sigils of all the mighty ghaele.

And there her luck finally ran out.

Thorn set the silver mask on the floor next to the spear and drew Steel. “What can you tell me?”

That you should never have made it this far unchallenged
.

Thorn rapped the blade against her knuckles. “Kalashtar sermon, remember? Be positive. What can you tell me about this seal?”

The power is immense—enough that it shows up clearly, even against the background energies of the fortress. Binding, abjuration, what you’d expect from defensive wards. There is something else. The power … Marudrix is the focal point. All the others … the energy feeds to him
.

“To what end?”

That is unknown
.

“What do you think? Can I cross it safely?”

By my analysis, the wards are purely defensive in nature—powerful, yes, but merely holding the artifacts in place
.

Thorn nodded. “That’s what it looks like to me.” Avoiding the nexus points of the wards where the air
rippled around the artifacts, she strode over to Drix and knelt by his side. “Well, he’s still warm,” she said.

It’s a start, I suppose
.