Dreamwalker. Part 1

Dreamwalker.

C. S. Friedman.

FOR KIM AND LARRY,.

BEST FAMILY EVER.

Acknowledgments.

This book could not have been written without the support of some very special people. First and foremost I'd like to thank Russ Galen and Betsy Wollheim, for their usual creative input and encouragement. Next, Larry Friedman, Kim Dobson, David Walddon, and Bradley Beaulieu, for providing key plot points that helped me deal with some rough spots in my story. And of course my loyal beta team, whose constructive criticism (and occasional hand-holding) made it possible for me to leave my literary comfort zone and tackle a whole new kind of project without going totally crazy: Zsusy Sanford, Carl Cipra, Jennifer Eastman, and (yes, it's a repeat) David Walddon.

Thanks to Captain David Short of the Sterling Volunteer Fire Company for helping me understand how a house fire progresses, which generated some good story ideas along the way. It was a fascinating lesson, and I hope I did it justice.

Thanks to Tara Flewelling for her hospitality and support, and to all the troubled teens who opened their hearts to me in Sacramento so that I could have insight into their world.

Thanks to my new copy editor, Marylou Capes-Platt, who provided some wonderful creative criticism. This is a much better book for her input.

Lastly, I would like to express my appreciation for two very special people, who, sadly, were taken from us this year. Judy Gerjuoy, a.k.a. Jaelle of Armida, was chair of the Darkover Council for 35 years and inspired writers, fans, and history buffs around the globe with her boundless enthusiasm for the genre. Chazz Mahan was a gamer of remarkable creativity and a man of generous spirit who was always ready to offer a helping hand to people in need.

They were good people. May they never be forgotten.

PROLOGUE.

MYSTIC CAVERNS.

VIRGINIA.

WITH A LAST FURTIVE GLANCE behind him, the grey man began to climb down the ladder. Its metal rungs were damp from recent rains, making them dangerously slick, and the jagged walls of the narrow pa.s.sage sc.r.a.ped against his shoulders, but it was not the first time he'd come this way, and he moved quickly and confidently into the cool depths of the earth. Summer in this version of Virginia was hotter than in his own, and he was glad that his business today was underground. Was this a price the locals had to pay for all their fancy technology? Or was it just a quirk of nature, part of the natural variation of the universe? This close to the heart of creation one could never be sure.

The tunnel grew darker as he descended, the light of sun-drenched land slowly giving way to the underworld's all-consuming darkness. It didn't bother him. His great black eyes drank in what little light there was, and when he looked up they flashed green, like a cat's. Darkness was an ally to men of his Guild, and with his mottled grey skin and neutral-colored uniform he knew he was all but invisible in such lighting. Indeed, for as long as the sheen of summer sweat still lingered on his skin, he was a near-perfect match for the rain-slicked stone surrounding him, almost impossible for an observer to pick out.

A useful quality for someone in his line of work.

At the bottom of the ladder the tunnel opened out into a small natural cavern. A narrow strip of steel grating had been suspended several feet above the floor to serve as a walkway, with rusty handrails flanking it. The metal grate shuddered as he stepped onto it, and he could hear a thrumming vibration run down its length, like a ba.s.s note traveling down a guitar string: the music of the underworld.

He removed the glow lamp from his belt and activated it, casting beams of cool blue light about the cavern. Normally he avoided the use of artifacts from home while on duty, but here in the depths of the earth no one was likely to question him. The small globe of energy hovered steadily in its sealed compartment, the etched sigil of the Guild of Elementals glowing like a tiny thread of blue neon on the metal hood.

Recent rains had worked their way down into the earth and as a result the cave formations glistened, making it seem as if the entire chamber had been coated in gla.s.s. Tiny puddles of water had gathered in pockmarks along the limestone floor, and reflections from his lamp twitched across their still surfaces like fairy flames as he began to walk, jerking in time to his footfall. There was a time when such effects had fascinated him, but familiarity had dulled the edge of novelty. And today he had bigger things to worry about.

Maybe the Shadows already know what's happening here, he thought nervously.

Maybe I won't have to be the one who breaks the news to them.

The steel walkway led him to a sizeable chamber, a large circular cavern with rippling stone formations on every side. Tourists had crowded in here not so long ago, eyes wide as they listened to tales of how bootleggers had once partied in this chamber, far from the watchful eyes of Prohibition authorities. How exotic those ancient parties must have been, with the sounds of drunken revelry echoing from every stalact.i.te! In such a setting it was easy for a man to envision the fabric of this world giving way to another, allowing the dead-and perhaps the living-to pa.s.s through.

These days there were no tour guides. The owners of the property had fallen on hard times in the late 90's and been forced to sell this land as part of a bankruptcy settlement. How their children had wept when it was time to say goodbye! Such a cavern was a perfect playground for the young, its walls riddled with secret nooks and crannies filled with ink-black shadows. Slip into a crevice, hold your breath for silence, and your own mother could stand five feet away and not know you were there. But finances had forced the family to surrender its holdings to a new owner-one who had no children and who didn't intend to let tourists visit the place-and now it was lost to children forever.

No one had ever questioned the source of the financial ruin which forced them to sell the caverns. Of course. The grey man's Guild was good at what it did.

A great stone archway dominated the far end of the chamber. Once it had been a simple enough structure, a sleek limestone arch inscribed with the usual patterns. But calcium-rich water dripping down from above, combined with tremors of temporal seepage from within, had resulted in an explosion of formation growth. Now every inch of the arch was covered with cl.u.s.ters of crystalline needles, some of them as tiny and delicate as flowers, others breathtakingly dramatic in size. Some of the longest needles had even sprouted secondary cl.u.s.ters, which glittered against the absolute blackness of the Gate like stars in a velvet night sky. Beautiful but treacherous. The grey man had snagged his clothing on them more than once, and last week a haughty apprentice had scratched her arm in crossing, necessitating a Healer's attention. Sooner or later he was going to have to take up a hammer and start clearing them all away.

But not yet. Not until he had to. Creations this beautiful-and this rare-should never be destroyed lightly.

Off to one side of the arch, the grey man's charges were waiting: a dozen sleeping bodies carefully arranged on wheeled tables, white sheets covering them from head to foot. The corners of the sheets had been neatly folded so that their points all hung precisely the same distance from the floor, he noted. One of his a.s.sistants was a bit on the compulsive side.

All was as it should be.

Ignoring the nervous flutter in his stomach, he set his glow lamp down on a limestone stump and waited.

There was little prelude to his visitor's arrival. Perhaps the air shimmered ever so slightly within the arch, for less than a second. Perhaps if one listened closely enough one could hear echoes of another world . . . or whispers of the dead. Perhaps someone whose Gift was strong enough would be able to sense a glowing pattern take shape within the archway, for only a moment.

A cold wind gusted into the cavern, raising goose b.u.mps along his arms. Then a tall, thin man stepped through the arch. Or perhaps it was something else, that wore the shape of a man. His skin was translucent white, with cold blue veins that fanned out from his eyes. His long, dark hair curled in the air like wisps of smoke. And his eyes! They were as dark and as colorless as the abyss between the worlds, and it seemed to the grey man that as the visitor gazed around the room he sucked all the heat out of the air. There were spirits stirring in the depths of those eyes that no living man should ever have to learn the names of.

That was something the grey man never got used to.

"My Lord." He bowed his head respectfully, trying to look calm even though his heart was now pounding in his chest. "How may I serve you?"

The man wore the robes of a Master of the Guild of Shadows, but whether he was here in his leadership capacity or just running errands was anyone's guess. The hierarchy of the Shadows was based upon concepts no living man could grasp, and the grey man had long ago given up trying to make sense of them.

"I came to see that you are prepared for tonight's pa.s.sage." The visitor looked around the chamber. It was impossible to tell whether he was pleased or displeased by what he saw.

"Yes, my Lord." Because the grey man took pride in his work he gestured toward one of the bodies and offered, "This youngest one is HIV positive. That seemed a good match for Master Roland's condition-"

The black eyes fixed on him-empty, unreadable-and the grey man flushed. Had he really expected a Shadow to care about the fine points of his Guild's work? As long as commerce flowed steadily from one world to another, the Shadows had little interest in how it was managed. Only when things went wrong did they start asking questions.

The grey man shivered inwardly, remembering the last time he'd had to answer such questions.

The Shadow said, "Pa.s.sage is set for eight o'clock local time. Be ready."

The grey man bowed his head, acknowledging the order.

His visitor looked about the cavern, hollow eyes drinking in everything. Had the Shadowlord ever been here before? Or had he perhaps devoured the memories of someone who had been here before? No matter how often the grey man dealt with his kind, he never quite got used to that concept.

"A rather large expedition is also being planned for later this month," the Shadow said at last. "Several Guildmasters wish to bring their apprentices with them. Some kind of training exercise." His mouth curled in distaste. "Will you be able to accommodate them?"

"How many people are we talking about?"

"A dozen at least. The list is still growing. Probably two dozen, by the time all are accounted for."

"I'm surprised you're permitting so many to cross at once."

The Shadow's lips tightened but he said nothing. Clearly he was not about to discuss the business of his secretive Guild with outsiders.

Two dozen visitors. It wasn't beyond the capacity of the grey man's operation, but it would certainly strain his resources. "Will there be children in the group?"

"Given the nature of the party, I imagine so." The Shadow raised an eyebrow. "Will that be a problem?"

"Of course not," he said hurriedly. "But I'll need extra time to gather the necessary supplies."

"You will have two weeks. No more, no less."

The grey man nodded tightly. There were beads of cold sweat on his forehead, but he didn't want to do anything as obvious as reach up to wipe them off. In truth, he hated dealing with children. Infants weren't a problem-transporting them was his bread and b.u.t.ter-but once a child reached the age of p.u.b.erty things became . . . well, complicated. They changed so fast it was hard to get everything right. He knew of one case where the improper handling of a teenager's pa.s.sage had resulted in a three-week temporal displacement. Which wasn't a major issue as far as his Guild was concerned-it was well within the bounds of acceptable distortion-but the boy's parents had been livid. Something about a university examination he had missed, lifetime opportunities now compromised forever, etc., etc. Far be it for the grey man to point out that maybe if the exam had been so important the boy should have been home studying for it, rather than playing walkabout on strange worlds. But logic bore little weight in such a dispute.

It was rumored that the operator responsible for that incident had been rea.s.signed to a mosquito-laden swamp in the middle of nowhere, which might or might not be true. No one had heard from him for a long time.

"I'll need their profiles as soon as possible," the grey man said.

The black eyes glittered coldly. "I'm familiar with what the process requires."

The grey man flushed. "Forgive me, my Lord. I just . . . I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly."

"It will go smoothly," the Shadow said coldly. "I'm certain of it." The unspoken message was clear: nothing else is acceptable to us.

The grey man bit his lip and said nothing. It had taken him years to acc.u.mulate enough seniority to be a.s.signed to this prestigious post, but he knew that he could lose it all in a heartbeat. Rivalry within his Guild was fierce, and the displeasure of a Shadowlord could impact who was promoted . . . or demoted. If anything went wrong at this facility he might well find himself a.s.signed to some dreadful backwater, where the locals hadn't worked out the basics of personal hygiene yet.

And in fact, something had gone wrong. Odds were that more than one head would roll for it in the end. Maybe even his own.

For one brief, mad moment he was tempted to keep his silence. Let someone else tell the Shadows the bad news. Let someone else explain why their usual strategies wouldn't fix things in this case. It isn't my fault, he told himself defiantly. Surely they will see that!

As if the Shadows were known for their sense of justice.

As the visitor turned to leave, the grey man thought he saw a wisp of darkness flit across his robe. A ghost, perhaps? Some said that the Shadowlords drew spirits of the dead to them like flies, in such quant.i.ties that even common men might see them. Others claimed that the dead were as wary of the Shadows as the living were, and that only a ghost who had lost all vestige of free will would ever come within ten feet of one.

The grey man was glad he did not belong to the Guild whose job it was to keep track of such things.

The Shadow paused before the archway, bracing himself for pa.s.sage. A faint golden light seemed to flicker about him.

Tell him what's wrong, the grey man urged himself. Right now. It will only get worse if you wait.

"My Lord." The words came out in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. The sweat on his forehead felt like ice.

Slowly the Shadow turned back. His eyes were mirrors that reflected the grey man's own fears back at him. Perhaps other men's fears as well. Who could say how many souls were hidden behind that gaze, each one pa.s.sing judgment upon this moment? The thought of it made his skin crawl.

"They know," the grey man told him. "They developed a science we didn't foresee, discovered things they weren't meant to learn. They're talking to each other now, all across this world, asking questions as a group that no one would have thought to ask alone. And others are starting to listen."

The Shadowlord stared at him. There was no way to read that half-dead expression or to guess at what thoughts lay behind it. Anger? Condemnation? Uncertainty? The grey man held his breath, bracing himself for the worst.

Then, with a sharp nod of dismissal, the Shadow turned back to the arch. He paused for a moment in concentration, then quickly stepped through. Wisps of darkness that might have been ghosts followed him into the void, like pet dogs at the heel of their master.

And then there was silence.

After a long moment-when it was finally clear that no one else was going to come through the Gate-the grey man dared to breathe again.

I did my job. Now the Shadows know the truth. They'll decide how to handle this mess.

It wasn't a rea.s.suring thought.

1.

MANa.s.sAS.

VIRGINIA.

TOMMY?"

No answer.

I pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped into the house. The interior was gloomy, not at all what you'd expect on a summer afternoon. It took me a few seconds to register that all the curtains had been drawn shut.

I called for my brother again. "Tommy?"

Still no answer.

On a normal day, that wouldn't have worried me. My little brother generally spent more time in imaginary worlds than in the real one, and I strongly suspected that his "chest cold" earlier that day had more to do with a World of Warcraft game taking place during school hours than anything rooted in biological causes. He was probably hooked up to his computer right now, ear buds blasting game feed straight into his brain, and wasn't even aware that I had come home.

But.