Dreamwalker. Part 20

"Wait!" Tommy cried. "What was that?" He grabbed the bars, his heart pounding wildly. "What's down here?"

The lizard-man looked back at him. "Spirits of the dead. They're immaterial, and cannot hurt you."

"Ghosts?" he demanded, aghast. "You're leaving me down here with ghosts?"

"Fragments of ghosts," the man corrected. "Echoes of shattered lives, granted brief autonomy and the illusion of purpose. Some call them soul shards. Don't worry, few men can see them in any detail, and fewer still can make sense of their whispering. I don't expect they'll bother you much." A faint, cold smile spread across his face. "Surely not enough to disturb your sleep."

He motioned to the other two men, who followed him out of the chamber. A few seconds after they rounded a natural turn that took them out of Tommy's line of sight, he heard the strange elevator sound again.

Then there was silence.

No, not silence.

Whispers.

...scared . . .

The disembodied voice was so soft it was almost inaudible. A shadow wisped across the front of Tommy's cell, then vanished.

...so scared . . .

Shaking, he slid down the bars of his cell to the concrete floor. The courage he'd been clinging to so desperately up to now was beginning to crumble. A handful of blue light bulbs in the ceiling was all that stood between him and a nervous breakdown.

Jesse, he swore, if you don't come find me soon, I'm gonna go crazy. Not gamer-crazy. The real thing.

A few of the soul shards began to circle around him. They seemed to find him interesting.

But the lights were still on. So things could be worse.

Right?

23.

VICTORIA FOREST.

VIRGINIA PRIME.

THERE WAS A PTERODACTYL sitting on my chest.

Not a big one. Parrot-sized. Its head was turned to one side, and its little black eye was staring at me. There was no mistaking the profile. A pterodactyl.

"Ah. You're awake." A man's voice filtered into my awareness. I tried to turn my head toward him, but the motion hurt. Everything hurt.

"Here," he said, to someone other than me. "I saved one for you."

A small fish came flying in my direction. The pterodactyl reached up and snapped it out of the air. One gulp later the fish was gone. The pterodactyl went back to staring at me.

"Brought over from a world where the great asteroid never hit. They were popular pets among the elites for a while. Then the aristos tired of them, like they tire of everything. Here." He knelt down by my side. "This will help."

My chest burned like fire as he helped me to a sitting position. The pterodactyl squawked as it was dislodged, and fluttered off to take up a post on a nearby chair. My left leg, I saw, was swathed in thick bandages. It smelled of herbs. Every inch of my body was sore.

He lifted a cup to my lips.

"What is it?" I whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Chicken soup. A thousand worlds have yet to come up with anything better. Drink."

I did so. Its heat soothed my throat, and my stomach soaked up the nourishment like a sponge. As I handed him back the cup I looked around, ready to face whatever my next trial was to be.

We were in a narrow cave, lit by flickering candles that were lined up in a neat row along a natural ledge at the far end. The chamber had been outfitted as a living s.p.a.ce, albeit a spartan one. The bed I was now sitting on had a rough-hewn frame, and next to it stood a matching table with a single chair. In a dark recess far from the candlelight I saw some rough wooden shelves with a collection of items arranged on them, but I couldn't make out any details. A curtain had been hung across the mouth of the cave, made from some coa.r.s.ely textured cloth. Burlap? There was no light bleeding through it from the outside.

"Where are the others?" I asked. The previous day's events were coming back to me now, along with bodily echoes of fear and exhaustion.

"Waiting outside. Very anxiously, I might add. Which is appropriate, given the condition you were in."

I put my hand up to my stomach and felt a thick swath of bandages there. My leg was wrapped in linen, with some kind of coin strapped to it. I ached in some places and burned in others, but it was nothing compared to the pain I'd been in the day before. I felt . . . better.

"You're a costly guest," the Green Man told me, as he saw my eye fall upon the coin. "The fetters that I used to heal you were worth their weight in gold. Not the sort of thing I usually part with for strangers."

"Was it necessary?" I asked.

He chuckled softly. "My dear, you swam in sewage with an open wound across your stomach, not to mention a day spent walking, jumping, and climbing on an ankle which, while not broken, was sorely damaged. Had I a month to heal you, then no, I would not need a Gift to do it. But your friends said that you wouldn't be willing to wait that long-that in fact you would want to jump up to go raid a Shadow's citadel as soon as you were capable of moving again. So other means were required."

"I didn't swim in sewage," I muttered.

"But you are planning to raid a Shadow's citadel."

I flushed a bit. "Well . . . yeah. Sort of."

"Then we should get you on your feet right away." He motioned toward the niche with the shelves. "There are some clean clothes over there. I regret that none are likely to fit you, but your own clothing is still damp, so choose whatever works the best. I'll let your friends know you're up and about."

He started toward the burlap curtain, but before he could push it aside, I said, "Have I . . . have I missed much?"

He looked back at me; the piercing blue eyes seemed to take my measure. "Several hours of your companions bringing me up to date on American history, punctuated by complaints that I was not answering enough of their questions. The information had enough value to me that it paid for the use of my healing fetter, but nothing you should worry about missing." He smiled slightly, indicating the coin that was on my leg.

"American history." I blinked. "From . . . my America? My world?"

There was a pause. The smile faded. A haunting sadness veiled his expression.

"It was my world once," he said softly.

Then he pushed the burlap curtain aside-I saw that the world outside was dark, with a tiny fire in the distance-and left me alone in the chamber.

Easing myself off the bed, I gingerly tested my left foot against the ground. The worst of the pain was gone, but my ankle still didn't feel strong; I would have to be careful with it.

I suddenly realized I was clean, which mean that someone had washed me while I slept. And I was dressed only in a loose smock of some kind, so someone had changed my clothing as well. Not that I wasn't glad to be rid of all that filth, but I dearly hoped Rita was the only one who had seen me naked.

I walked over to the shelves, and discovered a collection of items that reminded me of the mementos in the magpie room-that chamber in the Warrens that had reminded me of a magpie's nest. Aside from basic supplies like food and clothing there were books, charms, small pieces of pottery in seemingly random shapes, and a few personal items that didn't look like they would belong to my host. There were a few things I couldn't identify at all.

I saw there was a pen on one of the shelves, but it seemed so normal, so insignificant, that I just looked past it without thinking. A few seconds later it hit me just how significant it was.

It was plastic. One of those cheap pens you buy by the dozen, with a clear plastic shaft and a ball-point tip that always clogs. Totally unremarkable in my normal context. But it wasn't a normal context, and this was a world with no plastic in it.

He says he's from my world originally, I reminded myself. So maybe he brought it with him.

The clothing on the shelves was too large for me, as he'd warned, but I managed to find an off-white linen shirt that was wearable. It hung down to my thighs, so I figured I didn't need to go through the effort of trying on pants. I'd worn dresses shorter than that.

As I finally headed toward the cave entrance, I realized there was one other thing of significance in the cave, resting on a narrow ledge near the curtain.

A gun.

It was a heavy piece, shaped like a rifle but much longer than any I'd seen before. Below the age-blackened barrel was a slender ramrod, and when I looked at the trigger mechanism I saw a fragment of stone in a metal clamp, arching over a small, flat pan.

A flintlock. Next to a ball point pen. Guarded by a pterodactyl.

Maybe I should just give up trying to make sense of this world.

Pushing my way past the curtain, I found myself standing on a smooth natural shelf jutting out from the side of a steep hill. The surrounding view was magnificent. Overhead the sky was a vast black pool of blackness, filled with thousands of stars and a brilliant quarter moon. Richly forested mountains surrounded us, their crests gleaming in the starlight. Summer's heat had given way to a breeze that was blissfully cool, and it stirred the folds of my borrowed shirt and soothed my skin. For a few seconds I just stood there and drank it all in, a precious moment of peace.

I saw the flicker of a fire coming from a short distance down the path and began to walk toward it, my bare feet reveling in the delicious chill of the dirt beneath my feet.

In a place where the shelf widened out a bit a small campfire burned, around which my companions were sitting and talking. As soon as they saw me they jumped to their feet, and Rita squealed and ran over to hug me in relief, which was not a response I would ever have expected from her. Devon and Isaac waited for me to come to them, but you could see from their faces how relieved they were to see that I was okay. Their clothes were clean now, though it looked as if Devon's shirt was still damp. I saw that our bags had been piled up at the far side of the campfire, and next to them was all the stuff I'd been carrying in my pockets. Further down the path I saw a rope strung between two trees, with a shirt and jeans clipped to it.

The Green Man watched our reunion in silence. When we finally sat down, using various rocks and logs for makeshift chairs, he remained standing.

"Where are we?" I asked him.

"You would call this place West Virginia," the Green Man said. "But the state never divided in this world, so that name does not exist."

"And all of this?" I nodded back toward the cave. "This is your home?"

He chuckled. "Hardly. Call it a waystation. A place where I entertain guests who aren't yet ready to learn where I live."

So many questions were filling my head that I didn't know which ones to ask first. "You said you were from Terra Colonna."

He nodded. "Yes."

"From what time period?"

Devon and Rita were startled by the question. They hadn't seen the gun.

The Green Man just smiled. "Born in the year of our Lord 1747. In a small town northwest of Richmond, Virginia. I'm guessing that was your next question."

I'd expected some answer like that, but even so it was hard to absorb. "Do people not age normally in this world?"

"They live and die at the normal pace here. As they do in most worlds. Though I've heard there are a few exceptions."

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he raised up a hand to silence me. Then he reached forward with a long stick and stirred the embers at the base of the fire. Orange sparks went floating up into the night. "You want my story. You want all the Shadows' secrets. You want to understand this world well enough to get home safely, after you take advantage of those secrets. Those things do not come free."

"We've been giving you information for hours," Rita said testily. "Shouldn't it be our turn now?"

"That has paid the bill thus far," he told her. "And you're getting off rather cheaply, in that I saved all your lives. So if you want more from me, you will have to offer more."

"What is it you value?" I asked.

His sharp eyes fixed on me. In the firelight they were a steely grey, shadowy and ominous. "I trade in information, my dear, and not just for my amus.e.m.e.nt. Information is what keeps one alive in a hostile environment. Now, it happens that because I am from your world, I value news of its progress-as your friends have discovered. But they've already covered that ground. Otherwise?" He stabbed the stick into the dirt by his side; it remained upright when he released it. "Secrets, artifacts, innovations . . . the more rare things I collect, the more likely people will seek me out when there is something unusual they want."

"What about an update on technological developments?" Devon suggested. "There's so much that's happened in the last few years, and we didn't tell you about that at all." He pulled out his iPhone, turned it on, and showed it to him. The Green Man glanced at it for a moment. A faint smile flickered across his lips. He shook his head. Devon shut the phone off and put it back in his pocket.

I remembered the items that I'd seen on his shelves. Artifacts. Innovations. Rarities.

I walked over to our backpacks and began to dig through mine. Everything I'd brought with me was necessary for survival-that's why I'd packed it all in the first place-but most of our supplies had been purchased in triplicate, so as long as I didn't get separated from my companions, I could afford to part with something.

I considered what would have the most value here, reflected upon the artifacts he already owned, and finally took out my flashlight. One of his eyebrows rose a bit, but he said nothing. I switched it on and off to show him how it worked, then put it down on a flat rock next to him. An offering.

He still said nothing, but I thought I saw a gleam of interest in his eyes.

Rita headed over to her backpack, and after a moment of rummaging she withdrew something round and silver: her roll of duct tape. She peeled off a short length to demonstrate its stickiness, ripped it to reveal its texture, then walked over to him and put the roll down on what had become our official offering rock.

Devon's turn. He hesitated, clearly uncertain about what to offer. Finally he reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of water bottles. At first that struck me as pretty lame-the last thing the Green Man was likely to need in a land of rivers and streams was water-but as the Green Man nodded in thoughtful approval, I realized the brilliance of Devon's choice. Lightweight plastic bottles, flexible and watertight, had a thousand possible uses. And in a world without plastic they were a true rarity.

We all looked at Isaac. You could tell from his surprised expression that he hadn't expected to be included in our little ritual. But then his eyes met mine, and I pleaded with him silently: please. I thought there would be a dramatic value in all us making this offering together, as a group, that might outweigh the value of the items themselves.

Finally he took out his little glow lamp and put it on the offering rock.

Thank you, I mouthed silently.

The Green Man studied the items before him for a few seconds in silence, then nodded. He walked over to where a fallen tree trunk lay in a bed of weeds and sat down on it. I felt the knot in my chest loosen a bit. Hopefully we were about to get one step closer to our end goal: rescuing Tommy.

"My name is Sebastian Hayes," he told us. "And yes, I fought in the War of Independence. After the city of my birth was burned to the ground by a traitor, I signed up. Fought till the end. It wasn't glorious, like they tell you in history books, just . . . necessary. And d.a.m.n b.l.o.o.d.y." A shadow of pain crossed his face. "When it was over I hurried home, anxious to see my wife and daughter again."

There was a long pause, during which he stared into the fire without speaking.