Dreamwalker. Part 25

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN WE WENT, deep into the bowels of the earth, past the seven circles of h.e.l.l and beyond, into a realm of utter hopelessness. They tied our hands behind us along the way, and while I was lucid enough to remember the Mythbusters trick of pressing my wrists together sideways so that I would have some slack later on, it seemed a futile effort. There was no way we were going to come out of this mess alive.

The underground complex had been expanded since Sebastian's escape, and we pa.s.sed through whole levels that weren't on his map. The upper ones looked fairly prosaic: Add a few windows and they could have been part of any Victorian manor. But the further down we descended, the less normal things looked. Below the residential area was a maze of shadowy hallways that were half Gothic in style, half . . . something else. Below that was a level finished entirely in black marble-floor and walls and ceilings and doors-all of it. The faces of the humans who stood guard there gleamed like polished skulls in the fetterlight as they waved us through. I thought I saw ghosts in the lower levels as well, or things that looked a lot like ghosts: wisps of smoke that were formless when you looked at them directly, but resolved into quasi-human shapes in the corner of your eye when you focused on something else.

For the final part of our journey through h.e.l.l we were squeezed into a cage-like elevator, whose rope-and-pulley mechanism was visible through the bars. G.o.d alone knew what was powering the thing. Given what we'd learned about this world, I figured there was probably a room full of abbies on treadmills, laboring endlessly in the darkness so that their masters wouldn't have to climb the stairs.

As soon as the elevator door was shut, the iron cage dropped out from under us, and for a moment it seemed as if the earth had swallowed us whole.

And then, at last, it was over. The cage stopped moving and our captors shoved us out of it, and I knew in my gut that the terrible journey had reached its end point.

We were in a cavern . . . or something that had once been a cavern, now adapted for the Shadowlords' use. Some of the natural features were still visible-undulating walls of glistening grey limestone, a few thick pillars that rose from floor to ceiling like ancient Greek columns-but most of the place had been slathered over with concrete, its gritty flow following the natural contours of the walls and floors. The result was disturbingly organic, as if some vast cave-creature had swallowed us whole, and we were now trekking through its innards.

They shoved us forward, and we stumbled to a place where alcoves with vertical iron bars across the openings lined both sides of the chamber. A sudden wave of panic overwhelmed me. They were going to lock us in, and leave us down here. In the caverns. In the dark.

I struggled vainly against my captors as they opened the door to one of the cells, throwing my body about in a desperate attempt to break free. Raw animal panic had taken over. Behind me, I heard someone else involved in an equally desperate scuffle, and then the sickening thud of flesh striking flesh.

But we were all as helpless as fish in a net, and eventually the three of us were thrown inside a single cell and the door was slammed shut behind us. The loud metallic clang resonated through the cavernous s.p.a.ce, drowning out the softer click of the lock as it closed.

They left then, without further word. I lay on the concrete floor where I had fallen, trembling as I waited for the moment they would turn out the lights and leave us to the mercy of the cavern's suffocating darkness. I didn't think I could handle it. But endless seconds pa.s.sed without that happening, and when I realized that the lights were going to stay on, some of my sanity returned.

I struggled to a sitting position and looked around. Our cell was one of half a dozen fashioned out of natural alcoves that flanked a long, narrow chamber. If you stood in the middle of the chamber you might be able to see into all the cells, but in our current position the undulating walls of the cavern obscured much from view. The only lighting came from a handful of glow lamps embedded in the ceiling and, because of their positioning, some parts of the alcoves were lost in shadow. I peered into each in turn, struggling to see if anyone was inside them. If this was the place where prisoners were kept, logic said my brother must be here. But nothing moved in the darkness. No one called my name.

"C'mon, girl, let's get these ropes off."

Someone took hold of my shoulder and tried to pull me back from the bars. I shook him off.

Across from us was a long, narrow cell whose depths were mostly in shadow. I squinted to shut out the glare of the nearest light, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It seemed to me there was a deeper shadow near the back that didn't quite match the rest of the rock, but it was still. Too still. A live person would have been moving by now, wouldn't he? We'd made enough commotion on our way in to wake the dead.

"Tommy?" I called out tentatively. There was no response.

So I yelled the name. Why not? What did we have to lose anymore, by being heard? My voice resonated back from all the empty s.p.a.ces surrounding us. I could hear an edge of hysteria in the echo.

The shadow stirred. My breath caught in my throat.

I heard Rita and Devon come to the bars, but I didn't turn to look at them; my eyes were fixed wholly on the figure moving toward us. It paused in the darkness, and I saw blue light glint from its eyes as it blinked. Then suddenly it lurched toward us, with the kind of inarticulate cry a wounded animal might make.

Please G.o.d, let it be Tommy. Please.

My brother hit the bars of his cell with the force of a bird flying into a plate gla.s.s window. His skin was pale and his eyes were grey pits of exhaustion-he looked like death warmed over-but he was alive. Alive! I wanted to reach out to him, but the ropes on my wrists kept me from even trying, so I pressed my face between the bars of my own cell, wanting to get as close to him as I possibly could.

"Jesse!" he rasped. His voice was hoa.r.s.e, as if he'd been sick. "I knew you would come for me! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!"

"Hey, kid," I whispered back. Ever since the night I'd watched the video on his computer I'd dreamed of what I would say at this moment, but now that it was finally here I was almost too overwhelmed to speak. "I couldn't leave you here alone, could I? Who would help me figure out my video games?"

"It's you they want." His voice cracked as he spoke. "You know that, right? Something about your dreams."

"Yeah," I whispered. Shutting my eyes for a moment against the sudden tide of guilt. All that Tommy had been through in this terrible place had been because of me. "I figured that out."

"I didn't tell them anything. I figured that as long as they stayed focused on me they wouldn't go after you, so I kept feeding them stories. To give you time to rescue me . . ." The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. "Of course, when I pictured that, I imagined you would be on the other side of the bars."

Despite myself I smiled. "d.a.m.n! I knew there was something we got wrong."

"How long has it been?"

I sighed. "A week, I think. I've lost track of time at this point."

"A week? Jeez." He shook his head. "We are gonna be soooo grounded when we get home."

I couldn't help but laugh, and then I cried, and then I laughed and cried some more. Eventually I slid down to the ground with tears pouring from my eyes, and when Devon and Rita finally got the ropes off my wrists I lowered my face into my hands and just let it all flow-all the sorrow, all the fear, and all the joy that I felt in discovering that, although my baby brother had been a prisoner of monsters for a week, he was still every bit as much of a snarky smarta.s.s as before. It was a good thing that there were bars between us at that moment, because if there hadn't been I would have grabbed him and hugged him so hard that all his anti-contact neuroses would have been squeezed out of him like toothpaste from a tube.

"Hey." Devon prodded me. The urgency in his voice brought me back to myself. "Someone's coming."

I wiped my face with my sleeve and hurriedly got to my feet. I felt more strength in that moment than I had for days. Never mind the fact that we had no fetters and no plan. Whatever came at us now, Tommy and I would face it together.

Footsteps were approaching. One person, it sounded like. I drew in a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves. Then he entered the chamber, and I stiffened.

Isaac.

Rita spat out a curse as soon as she realized who it was; I'm not even sure it was in English. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her looking around for something to throw at him. Of course there was nothing. We were helpless.

I just glared at him. I wondered if he really grasped how much I hated him at that moment.

Calmly he looked toward Tommy's cell, like one would look at a caged animal in a zoo. "So this is the infamous little brother? The one you risked your life to save?"

"Don't touch him," I snarled.

He put up his hand to rea.s.sure me; it was the kind of gesture one would use to calm an angry dog. Then something seemed to draw his notice. He looked around the chamber, startled. It was as if he expected something to be hovering in the air, that wasn't there. "There are no shades . . . ?"

"You mean the ghost things?" Tommy asked. "I sent them away."

The look of surprise on Isaac's face gave me perverse satisfaction.

"What do you want with us?" I demanded. "Haven't you done enough damage? What's left to do now, gloat? The fact that I can't get out of this cage to wring your neck doesn't mean I'm going to jump through hoops to amuse you."

He turned toward us. Well, he turned toward me, really. I got the sense Rita and Devon were peripheral to him.

"This place isn't the same as it was when the Green Man was prisoner here," he said quietly. "There are things stored here now that are of great value to the Shadows . . . and anything that we value, the shades of the dead guard for us. You would never have seen such sentinels, nor heard them coming. You would have walked through halls that seemed utterly empty, confident in your secrecy, while in fact your every move was watched and reported upon. And if you had dared to enter those places which are off limits to the living-they're never marked as such, because those who live here know all about them-you'd have been killed on the spot. Not captured. Not questioned. Just killed. Maybe then your dead spirits would have been bound in service to the Guild." He glanced at Tommy. "Maybe you'd even have been forced to stand guard over your brother, so that no one else could save him."

"Great," I growled. "So everything was hopeless from the start. Things could be much worse than they are now. Got that. Thanks so much for the update." I glared. "Anything more?"

He looked back at me. There was a turmoil in the back of his eyes that I could not put a name to. "You couldn't have gotten down here on your own," he said. The volume of his voice had dropped; no one outside this chamber would be able to hear what he was saying now. "The Shadows had to bring you down here themselves. There was no other way."

Devon drew in a sharp breath. "Are you saying . . . that you arranged all this . . . to help us?"

"Bulls.h.i.t!" Rita spat. "You played us. You won. It's over. Go back to your friggin' undead playmates and leave us the h.e.l.l alone."

But I was looking in his eyes. I saw what was there.

"Show me," I whispered.

He took out a key from his pocket.

The room fell utterly silent. In the distance I could hear a single drop of water fall from the ceiling to the floor. Softer than a pin falling.

"You came back to Shadowcrest to help us," I murmured.

"No, I came back because I belong here," he corrected me. "This is my world, and everything that has meaning to me begins and ends here. Sooner or later I would have tired of wandering and returned to my people. You were the one who made me realize that. Of course, it might have been years before that happened, but then I realized that if I came back today," his eyes held mine, "I could help keep you alive."

I had nothing to say. Even if I'd had the right words, I don't think I could have gotten them out past the lump in my throat.

He stepped forward and unlocked the door. Rita edged out of the cell with her back to the wall, eying him as if he were a wild animal who might pounce on her at any moment. Devon was a bit cooler, and he nodded to Isaac as he walked out, feigning a confidence I was sure he did not feel. I walked right up to Isaac, close enough that I could feel the heat of his body radiate against my own.

"They'll figure out that you freed us," I said. "You could lose everything."

"No I won't." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of small items, and stuck one into the lock. The other he dropped on the floor just beneath it. A faint smile touched his lips. "What they'll discover is that one of the guards who patted you down did a lousy job."

Sticking out of the door was one of the tools that Rita had used to try to pick the lock in the sewers. The one on the floor was a broken fragment.

"You'll find an exit in that direction," he pointed. "Keep going, and it'll lead you down to the portal in short order. Bear in mind, the Gate is probably in use right now. How you handle that is up to you. But the security along the way should not be a problem. This place is designed to keep intruders out, not to lock Shadows in."

I hesitated. We had the codex, so there was a chance we could get home safely. But Isaac didn't know that. Was he only pretending to free us from prison, while he sent us to our death between the worlds?

Devon voiced my thoughts. "If we go through the Gate without a Shadow to guide us, won't we die?"

"Or wind up in the wrong world?" Rita challenged him.

Isaac shook his head. "Every person is naturally attuned to his own world, and unlike Sebastian, you four haven't done anything to screw up your attunement. Odds are good that if you make it across safely, you'll come out in the right sphere."

"IF we make it across," Devon said sharply.

Isaac shrugged. "I didn't say there was no risk. If you want to stay here instead, no one's stopping you."

He walked over to Tommy's door and unlocked it. The minute the door was open my brother sprinted toward me, and to my astonishment he threw himself into my arms and hugged me like the world was about to end. So I hugged him back just as hard, marveling at the therapeutic power of alien abduction. When I finally drew back I saw there were tears in his eyes. Good ones. "Don't you ever go off to an alien world without me again," I told him sternly.

I stood up and looked at Isaac. The grat.i.tude I felt toward him was more than I could express in words.

"Here," he said softly. "You'll need this."

He held out his fetter lamp. I took it. Then he took a small silver disk from his pocket and offered it to me.

The stealth fetter.

I felt my breath catch in my throat. "Aren't they going to notice if this is missing?"

"They would if it was yours. But this lamp is mine." A faint smile twitched his lips. "Now that I'm not hiding from my own people, I won't need it anymore."

On an impulse, I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. As my lips touched his face I could hear his sharp intake of breath, and I felt a tremor run through his body. I held the kiss for a long second, savoring the intimacy of the connection, then drew back. "I'll never forget you," I whispered.

"But I will forget you," he warned. Pain echoed in his voice. "It's the curse of my Guild. So if you ever do come back here . . . don't count on me for anything. Don't even tell me you're back in this world. I may not be the same person who cared enough to free you."

"Uh . . . guys?" Tommy coughed. "Maybe we should start moving? Not that I don't love this place."

With a sad smile I moved away from Isaac.

"Good luck," he murmured. "Be careful."

"You, too," I told him.

As we turned to head in the direction he'd indicated I patted my little brother on the head. Tommy muttered something about not being a puppy dog and batted my hand away.

He was gonna be all right.

The last leg of our journey was a short one, for which I was grateful. Between my injured ankle and the various parts of me that had been punched, sc.r.a.ped, stabbed, and mauled, I was nearing the end of my physical reserves. Tommy didn't look so good either. A week's close confinement had taken its toll on him, and by the time we reached the place where the tunnel we were following joined the main conduit, I could see that he was straining to keep up.

"Almost home," I murmured to him. "Hang in there, kid."

We pa.s.sed some wards, but whatever power was fettered to them was intended to keep people from entering the citadel complex, not leaving it, so they didn't affect us. Finally we came to a steel door, bolted on our side. It opened easily. Beyond that was a wide, well-lit tunnel, with glossy tiled walls and a gracefully arched ceiling. It reminded me of an old subway tunnel I'd once seen in New York. And of the ornamentation surrounding the Gate.

We were almost home.

We could hear voices ahead of us now-or rather, the hollow echo of voices, channeled to us by the polished walls and ceiling of the tunnel. It was impossible to tell how far away the sources were. Silently we crept toward them, not even daring to whisper to one another, for fear that the tunnel's acoustics would amplify our voices. No longer were we the confident kids who had smuggled ourselves into this complex days ago, recklessly defiant and ready to bluff their way through any encounter. Rita and I were visibly bruised and bleeding now, and Tommy looked like one of f.a.gin's kids. Devon's dark skin masked the worst of his bruises, but one of his eyes was swelling up, and it was clear from he way he walked that his right leg had been hurt. One time he lost his footing and nearly went down. Rita grabbed him in time to keep him from falling, but he wound up hitting the wall pretty hard, and the noise of it echoed down the tunnel ahead of us. For a moment we all froze, waiting for the inevitable sound of someone coming to investigate. But as with the creak of hinges in the abbie tunnel, the noise seemed to go unnoticed.

Only that last noise didn't go unnoticed, I reminded myself. The rats were watching us all the time. But there was no movement visible ahead of us, and though I turned back quickly a few times, to try to catch any pursuing rodents unawares, there appeared to be nothing behind us either. Given that the tiled corridor was straight and smooth, and a line of glow lamps in the ceiling provided fairly consistent lighting, even a rat would have trouble finding a place to hide. But that still left the spirits of the dead to worry about. I prayed that whatever Tommy had done to drive them away from our prison cells would apply here as well.

As we walked, I wondered what Isaac would have done differently, had the Shadows' pet ghosts been watching our reunion. Did he have the power to control them, like the Shadowlords did?

Soon we could see the stronger light of the main chamber brightening the tunnel ahead of us. I felt a nervous flutter of antic.i.p.ation in my stomach. Would the arch look any different to us now that we understood its true significance? I reached into my shirt and pulled out the codex. The tiny gold lines were brighter than I remembered, and they seemed to shift position as I looked at them. Like the trembling of a compa.s.s needle.

Tommy's eyes grew wide when he saw it in my hand. Then he grinned. "Very Men in Black," he whispered.

"Shhh," I whispered back, and I mimed a smack to his head.

Other than the echo of our footsteps, the world appeared to have grown silent. Whatever discussion had been taking place in the chamber ahead of us was apparently concluded.

I remembered how the grey man in Terra Colonna had left the main chamber as soon as his job there was done, leaving the portal unattended. Since no one would be foolish enough to activate the Gate without a backup team of Shadows and Greys to get him through safely, there was no need to guard the thing when it wasn't in use. Which meant that if no one was using the Gate right now, the chamber might be empty.

As we neared the end of the tunnel we stopped walking, and for a few seconds we all stood very still, listening intently for any hint of movement. But there was no sound. None at all. Fortune seemed to be on our side, for once.

About d.a.m.n time.

As we entered the chamber, Tommy's eyes grew wide. I suddenly realized how little he probably knew about this world. All the time that we'd spent running around like headless chickens, struggling to learn about Guilds and Gates, he'd spent sitting in a dark prison cell, alone.

I took his hand in mine and squeezed it. "Keep hold of my hand," I whispered to him. "No matter what happens to us, no matter how scared you get, don't let go of me."

He nodded solemnly and gripped my hand, so tightly that it hurt.

There were three gurneys with sheet-covered bodies on them lined up neatly next to the Gate. Someone had left a clipboard and a pen lying on the stomach of the nearest one, and I had to resist the urge to go over and read the list of names on it. This time I would know what all the t.i.tles meant. This time I would understand exactly how each person on that list was helping the Shadows rape my homeworld.