Pool of Twilight - James M. Ward [33]
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Waking was like swimming up through a cold, dark, bottomless sea. Finally, Evaine broke through the surface. She felt something warm and rough against her face. Gamaliel's tongue. She was alive!
She opened her eyes and smiled weakly. Gamaliel gazed at her with concern.
I almost lost you, he chided her. His tone was aloof, but Evaine knew he was afraid because his whiskers were twitching furiously. Do not do such a foolish thing again.
"Shal…?" she managed to gasp. Then she was racked by a painful fit of coughing.
You must lie still. Gamaliel's tone was stern. I do not know about your wizard-friend. Your mirror shattered when the spell ended. Her loved ones will have to help her. My concern is for you.
"Just put me to bed, Gam," she managed to whisper hoarsely between agonizing breaths. She felt as though she had just lost a fight with a dozen angry ogres. "I need… I need to rest. But you must do something for me in the meantime. Go to the Valley of the Falls. Ask Ren o' the Blade to come here as soon as he can. There's a pool somewhere in the Dragonspine Mountains, and no one knows that territory like Ren does. I must talk to him."
I can't simply leave you, the cat replied indignantly.
"I've lived through worse, Gam," she gasped, though she wasn't certain that was strictly true. "Now please. You've got to find Ren. I'm begging you."
Begging does not become you, Evaine, Gamaliel answered wryly. Very well, I will go. But remember, sorceress, you owe me one!
6
A Test of Worthiness
The dreamstalker approached the sleeper's chamber. The tower was surrounded by layer upon layer of magical wards and alarms, but they had caused no difficulty for the bastellus called Sigh. They were designed to keep corporeal foes at bay. They were useless against the dreamstalker.
The door to the sleeper's chamber was locked, but the darkness of his being slipped like black, oily smoke through the cracks around the door. The dreamstalker drifted silently toward the bed.
The sleeper was a young man with a broad, honest face and short red hair. Yes, he was the one. The wizard's spawn. Sigh's mistress, the sorceress Sirana, wanted him for her own. It was a simple enough task for the dreamstalker. He would slip into the young man's dreams and weave nightmares in his mind that would drive him to the brink of madness. It would be easy enough to brand the mistress's message in the sleeper's susceptible brain. Soon, the boy's only thought, his only desire, would be to become Sirana's willing slave.
Sigh hovered above the bed. The young man's brow was wrinkled. A low moan escaped his throat. He was already caught in the throes of a nightmare. Excellent, the bastellus thought. Most excellent. This would make his task easier yet. A smile of shardlike ivory teeth appeared in the haze.
Sigh reached out hands full of countless fingers, like dark, spindly twigs. He prepared to plunge into the dreamer's psyche, to revel in his victim's subconscious, and to feed upon his spirit. The twig-fingers brushed the young man's troubled brow.
The dreamstalker screamed in soundless, ethereal agony.
He had been burned! He looked down in astonishment to see that several of his dark, beautiful fingers had been transformed into a sticky mass of blue cobwebs. The bastellus writhed in pain. He had never known such a sensation before. Somehow the young man was immune to his touch.
Sigh shrank away from the hideous, vile human that had caused him pain. Blast Sirana! She could seduce the wretched creature herself. Sigh would have nothing more to do with this task.
The bastellus drifted quickly out the window and into the night, cradling his wounded hands. He would find another victim to feed upon, one with sweet, delicious dreams that would not harm his shadowy form.
Alone once more, the young man groaned in his sleep. Despite the bastellus's passing, the dreamer's nightmare-sent by the guardian of the hammer-had only just begun.
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This time Kern knew he was