Dreamweaver, page 22
Where I clung to the precipice, the stone beneath my unbandaged hand began to burn.
Yelping, I shot to my feet, whirling around. Though it was difficult to see properly, a shaft of moonlight showed the rugged rockface and nothing else. Nothing to explain the searing heat that had bitten through my skin.
Had I imagined it?
Hesitantly, I reached out, making contact again.
What should have been ancient and cold was warm and moving, starting to wriggle beneath my touch. My hand sunk through the rock, and I ripped it back out in fear.
“Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
“Norie!” I cried. At the lip of the chasm, I could barely make out someone standing near its edge, but I recognized her. “Norie, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
She woke her solarlight and swept it left and right. “Enea? Gracias al Cielo! Estás bien?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Are you alone? Can you see anyone else?”
“I’ll go look and find a way to get you out of there. Will you be alright?”
“I’m fine. I’ll wait.” Hopefully, she wouldn’t tell how my voice shook.
As she hurried off, I turned back to the rockface. Slowly, I tapped it, watching my fingertips disappear.
You must.
The words seemed to rebound from the depths of the trench. Or maybe it was from the depths of my mind. I couldn’t tell.
Must. Must. Must.
You.
I pushed through the stone.
I stood on silver grass.
It crackled beneath each step I took, slowly scanning the yellow sky. There were no clouds. No birds. No trees. Empty.
Empty except for where the silver grass turned to a hideous dead beige the closer it came to a well. The vines trying to hold on to the well were halfway to death, blemished with rot.
A woman with dusty pink skin sat on the lip of the well, slowly turning the crank on the pulley, winding the rope around the beam. Her clothes were hardy more than threadbare tatters. When the rusted, fractured water bucket finally made it to the top, she withdrew the golden ladle sitting inside of it. Inky fluid dribbled over its edge, staining her skin as she carefully swung around to face me. Her eyes were a milky white with no pupil.
She held the ladle out towards me.
“Anoint yourself,” she spoke, hardly more than a sigh.
Lifting my arms, I found that both of my hands were whole. I accepted the ladle, feeling its scorching heat biting into me. Lifting it up, I slowly poured it over my head, like a curtain or possibly a veil.
“Now take the first Memory.”
I stepped to the well and looked in.
Existence spun. The scenery around me changed, showing a flimsy image before me like a watercolor painting saturated with too much water. I didn't know what room we were in and couldn't make out any details beyond what was sharply clarified around two people before me.
A woman, recognizable even though her skin was no longer mauve but a dusky, velvety black.
I recognized the man she spoke to—yelled at, really—as well, though he was younger and without a stoma in his throat.
"You know we cannot do this. We cannot delve any further!" she was saying. "Souls are meant to be untouched essence and what you are asking for will ruin everything that we have worked for."
"What we have worked for?" he scoffed. "We both know in this duality that it has been entirely one-sided when it comes to what is done. It's always what you want, isn't it? What about what I want? What about a bigger goal? The better outcome for all?"
"I know you have been treated unfairly. But you have allowed hatred to corrode away your heart. Unraveling is not the answer you think it is. You are talking about the destruction of a world! How can you be so short-sighted?"
"You call me short-sighted? What of those you mentioned, who thought me weak, who thought I was nothing? They were the blind ones, incapable of grasping that I am more than them and more than you and more than anyone else. I am destruction! I am rescue!"
"We are a team."
His laugh was mocking. "We are a broken Dichotomy, and you know it. I am done listening to you. You only hold me back from what I am meant to do."
"I will not stand quietly by and simply allow this. You wretch! You complete broken mess! Listen to me! Don’t—”
The memory swirled away, leaving me gasping. I was left using the well to hold myself upright. I let myself sink to the dead grass below, vines breaking off in my grip, spraying over my lap.
The woman watched me sadly from her perch. “I have been waiting to speak with you, Dreamweaver. I am severed from contacting through memories and so I have had to speak to you through dreams.”
"Dreams?"
"Aren't dreams like changing memories?"
"Are you Harvester Memorykeeper?"
"I am."
"And what I just saw..."
"A regrettable event. The shattering of a Dichotomy, which led to the beginning of Unraveling. Without that balance in place, without our support, things begin to collapse, you see. That’s the price to be able to control essence in the first place. It cannot be reversed."
"What is the Unraveling?"
"Ruin," she said. The image before me warbled, like someone had cast a stone into a pond, rippling the surface. "It's destruction and dismantling. Harvesting and Spinning will come undone. Or at least, they would, but he has other plans."
"I don't understand."
"He was too full of hate. He tried to bend our essence manipulation into something it could never be. Soul Harvesting. Reaping. He wanted souls as payment for his years of torment. But I could not stand still and let that happen. I did not know... I did now know that when I broke our Dichotomy, that sparked the Unraveling. The fault lies on me."
I could barely see her now, like trying to catch hold of a picture made of fog.
"You must remake the duality. Reaping souls must be stopped."
"How?"
“Catastrophes will occur,” she went on. “With each memory you take of mine, the Unraveling will speed up. There is a cost for me storing away this information for you. Seek out my other memories. I was only able to send it out into fragments.”
“What do you—?”
But the memory went threadbare and cast me out.
Chapter Nineteen
Staggering out of the rock wall, I gulped for air, trembling head to toe with a fine sheet of cold sweat clinging to my body. Mindful of the ledge I stood on, I sank down, trying to reorient myself.
What I had just seen was confounding. The memory reeled through my mind on replay while my pulse thundered.
“Enea?”
Craning my neck back, I hastily turned my solarlight back on at the sound of my twin’s anxious calling. “Right here. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Kenji and Norie and Venny are with me. We’re all a bit bumped and bruised, but we’re okay. We took shelter under an overhang. How did you get down there?”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
She didn’t appreciate my sarcasm. “Kenji is working on a rope to get you out. Hang on.”
“What else would I do with a rope?”
“En!”
My laugh echoed around the ravine. It was possible I was losing it, but I didn’t care.
Dayja tossed a rope over and I managed to snatch it, balancing my feet and my uninjured hand on the loops Kenji had tied. As my friends labored to pull me out, I kept my eyes closed so the swaying wouldn’t churn my stomach. It was bad enough being hauled out like a sack of potatoes; vomiting everywhere would shred the last strand of dignity I had left.
When I made it to near the mouth of the trench, I used my feet and elbows to pull myself out while Dayja dragged on my shoulders.
“Thank you,” I gasped, sprawling onto my back. They all leaned over me in a half circle, and I grinned. “I am so glad to see you guys. Sort of. My glasses are bust.”
“En,” Dayja groaned in vexation.
Standing up was a chore and I rubbed at an ache in my side. “Where are the others?” My face fell when they shook their heads.
“Turn your light off. Wretch will likely have scouts combing through the wreckage they made,” Venny said, stretching a crick out of his neck. “We need to find the others and get out of here as fast as we can.”
“Where do we start looking?” Norie gestured around hopelessly. The side of the canyon had altered completely, a gaping wound left behind in the side of the mountain where chunks had fallen. “There’s so much land to cover.”
I shoved down at the panic trying to consume me. Letting my worry engulf me would help no one right now. “How much essence do we have left?”
Dayja rattled the beads on her leg. “Just a little bit.”
“What the actual hell?”
Kenji’s alarmed shout spun me around and I looked to what he gaped at. The rope he had made bubbled in his hold, turning to an oozing mess that he flung from himself. Before it could hit the ground it dissolved into smoke that drifted away.
Norie stumbled back, the blood draining from her face. “Qué sucedió? Nunca había visto eso!”
"Me neither," I squeaked.
Kenji wiped his hands on his sleeves vigorously, shuddering in disgust. "It just fell apart. I didn't do anything to it, and it just went poof!"
Dayja cut in before he could carry on. "Look, we will have to worry about that later. We should get moving."
"To where?" Norie wanted to know.
"Any direction is better than just sitting here waiting to get caught."
"Let's move down, then," Venny suggested. "We can look for places that may have offered some protection from the rockslide. The others would likely have run for the closest safe spot to find shelter."
Moving in single file, with Venny in the lead, we picked our way down the uneven slope. Trying not to twist my ankle with every step, I resisted the urge to hang on to my sister like a little toddler needing help keeping their balance, but I silently cussed out my broken glasses.
A sound pricked my ears, and I went still, holding my breath. "Hold up. Do you hear that?"
"Is it Wretch's men?" Dayja scanned the area uneasily, crouching down.
But I didn't see any figures creeping their way towards us in the moonlight. Certainly, no scopes from solarguns either. "No, I don't think—"
The sound came again and this time I recognized it.
"Poppy Muffin!" My breath whooshed out of me, and I darted towards the mewling I heard, clicking my fingers. "Come here, girl. Over here."
The robocat obeyed, prancing over rock and felled tree limbs. She purred madly as she arched her back against my touch, brushing her cheeks along my forearm in greeting. I scooped her up, my knees weak with relief. "If Aro had amplified her senses like he said, that's probably how she found us, and it means she should be able to find the others."
"I'm starting to think I need to get myself a robocat," Norie said.
Kenji's eyes lit up. "Did you know, way back, that real animal cats didn't have to have amplification? Their senses were innately acute."
“Weren’t they, like, born programmed to hunt?” Norie wrinkled her nose.
“Yeah! They’d hunt mice and birds and—”
“I’m not getting a robocat,” Norie decided firmly.
I released Poppy Muffin, watching as her nose and whiskers bobbed as she sniffed around. When her ears swiveled forward the next moment, she was off, darting ahead like a loosed arrow and I hurried to keep up. The familiar cramping throughout the right side of my body wasn’t a good sign; it was surging because I was pushing my body too far, but I disregarded it for now. Not like a had a choice.
The robocat bounded down the canyon, leading us towards the dirt road that snaked its way through the center. Large beams of light hung from drones buzzing around a military base. It was packed with soldiers carrying solarguns, using visors to scan the area with night vision.
In the middle, standing on a wooden construction, stood the others in a line. They were blindfolded, arms tied behind their backs. I cringed at the blood staining their clothes and the gouges tracing across their bodies. They had survived the rockslide, but not without it leaving marks on them. My gut clenched and my mouth went dry.
Dayja yanked on my arm, dragging me down behind a pile of rubble. We all inched our way along, towards the perimeter of the base, with Kenji holding tightly to Poppy Muffin so she wouldn’t run off. Peeking over the crest of a barricade, I spotted Wretch, who was now pacing before the others. He swung a solargun carelessly in his grip.
“Can you feel that?” Wretch asked them. He lifted his finger from his stoma and held a lit cigarette to it, nearly down to its stub, dragging on it slowly. “Someone has opened that first Well. The effects are flowing through essence even as we have our little chat here. I think our Dreamweaver is alive and causing trouble.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like that.”
Anessa snorted, her blindfold creasing as she frowned. “Do you think we give—”
Wretch turned on his toes as she spoke, leveled the solargun at her, and fired.
She screamed as the bolt went past her ribcage, tearing through clothes and flesh. Blood welled from the wound, darkening her pants and she buckled to the floor of the platform.
Wretch tsked disapprovingly. “You have a lot of impudence for someone who can no longer Spin. I’d keep my attention off of you if I could help it. You are entirely useless to me, like your giant friend over there. Dim-veined.”
“I’m not useless,” Anessa snarled.
“Better than being a dimwit,” Aro said conversationally.
Wretch lifted his solargun—
My mind went blank. I popped up from our hiding spot, slinging myself over the barricade. “Leave them alone!"
Wretch smiled cruelly as those blindfolded startled in surprise. He swung his solar gun towards me and fired.
I barely managed to dodge with my head intact, shielding myself behind the bulk of an armored steamcar. Turning my head, I could see my terrified sister looking at me from behind the barricade. Kenji was shaking his head wildly and Norie looked like she was going to pull her hair out by the roots. Venny watched me though when I tapped on the steamcar's wheel.
"Come out, Dreamweaver," Wretch commanded, "or I'll shoot your disposable friend here." He aimed the barrel at Aro's chest. "I promise that was just a warning shot. I will let you live for now. Come out and play."
As Dayja bit down on her knuckles and Dane protested from where he stood with a slew of violent curses, I stood back up and walked out into view. I kept my hands up, moving slowly.
"What was in the Well?" Wretch's jaw twitched.
"A memory," I said, coming to a careful stop, flicking a glance towards my friends. Anessa lay unconscious at her brother's feet, and he knelt over her. Was I imagining things, or was he crying silently?
Wretch's face blotched red. "Don't antagonize me! Tell me what was in that well of stone! Tell me now!"
I cleared my throat. "You were. At least, a memory of you. And Harvester Memorykeeper. I saw the two of you arguing. You... You were both one half of a duality. Only, she didn't want to Reap like you did, and she broke it. She broke the Dichotomy and everything started to fall apart from there. Why are you so interested in Soul Harvesting?"
He flicked the butt of his cigarette towards me, and it rolled in the dirt. "Penitence. Suffering."
"Why?"
"I justify it," he spat, baring his teeth.
My lips quivered. In fact, my entire body shook. "I don't know what happened to you, but I'm sure it doesn't justify wanting everyone destroyed."
His eyes flared wide, and his lips curled. He was trembling too, but his emotion was sheer rage. "Don't. Don't talk to me like that. You are the new half of a new Dichotomy and I will not—"
The steamcar behind me revved, headlights blaring on.
I leaped to the side as the vehicle barreled forward. Dayja screamed as she laid on the accelerator, the wheels chugging through the dirt, smashing into the line of soldiers. She screamed louder when they fired on her.
Kenji flew out of nowhere and tackled Wretch around the knees. They both crashed into the ground. Wretch twisted his torso and aimed for Kenji, who was already hurtling himself for cover.
Dayja plowed into another clump of men as they tried to shoot him. The steamcar shrieked as she harshly spun the wheel. It skidded sideways before it gained traction and raced on. The windshield was pulverized as bolts rained down on her.
Meanwhile, I was scrambling to get to the others. Norie and Venny had beaten me there and were working on cutting through Aro's and Cay's bindings with a set of knives that Kenji must have made. The moment a hand was free, Cay ripped the blindfold from his head, shaking Venny off to go to his sister. Aro promptly reached out and ripped Dane's holdings with his bare hands.
A scorching bolt zipped by me, missing me by inches. As it struck the ground, the reverberation knocked me forward and I plowed into the earth. Winded, I threw myself to the side, spinning out of the line of fire as more thudded down.
Dayja came to my rescue, driving the bulky car in reverse, careening into the three soldiers that were trying to kill me. She peeled out as she shifted back into drive, flinging up dust, speeding forward.
Wretch was already inside of another armored solarcar, sneering at us. The door banged shut and he and what remained of his men sped away in their last two vehicles, peppering behind them with their guns to keep us from following. Their retreat took them down the canyon, vanishing past a jagged cliffside.
I let my face hit the dirt as I sagged where I lay belly down. "Ow."
