014

Listen to the sound of my voice.

Frank was in a cave. The mouth of the cave was visible in the far distance as a speck of grey on an all-black canvas, but otherwise his world was shadow and rock.

Thou art safe here. Listen to me. Believe me.

Frank heard a dog bark.

“Madison?” he said. It was a question, but he already knew the answer. He heard her approach, pattering feet on wet mud, and then felt her warm weight press against his shins. He bent down to pet her, finding her fur as long and soft as he remembered, and then remembered also that she’d been dead for twenty years. “Are you here to keep me safe?”

Go towards the light.

The dog slipped through his legs, and Frank heard her footsteps retreating toward the cave opening. The footsteps stopped and she barked once, calling him. He started walking.

Do not fear. I will keep thee safe.

The sound of crashing waves filled his ears. He could no longer hear his dog, but he continued moving, trusting that she would not lead him astray. The light of the cave opening grew as he approached, first a speck and then the size of a quarter and then a fist and then a doorway.

Almost there now.

Frank stepped out of the cave and into a grand temple. It was open to a dark sky, surrounded on all sides by giant white pillars, and paved in smooth marble that felt cool beneath his bare feet. Two braziers, roaring with fire, were set in the center of the room, flanking a giant statue made of gray-green stone that shimmered like wet clay.

The statue was of a man dressed in flowing robes and wearing a laurel of lotus petals. He was sitting cross-legged, his arms outstretched as if in supplication. He had three eyes on his head, and an eye in each of his palms, the eyes shining with an inner glow like trapped starlight.

A warm breeze swept the temple, bringing the faint scent of brine and lavender, and tugging the hem of Frank’s tunic. His tunic?

When had he changed clothes?

He looked down to find his armor was gone, replaced by roughspun cloth, simple and clean and tied at the waist with a cord. It took a while to reconcile the sudden shift in dress, but it took even longer for him to realize which body he was wearing.

He was his old self again, with all the familiarity that came with it. Gone was the somatic give, the cognitive wiggle-room, of the Skulltaker body. He felt perfectly fitted to his form now, like wearing a suit tailored just for him.

He hated it.

The body was everything it was supposed to be: comfortable, predictable, frictionless. But he would have traded all of that for Skulltaker, for the power it possessed and the struggle it took to wield that power. He missed the thrill of it, like riding a motorcycle that was just a little too big for you, just a little too fast.

“Thou art dreaming.”

He turned to find Thune standing at the entrance to the temple. He was whole now, tall and bearded, with thick silver hair and two grey-blue eyes. An ivory cloak hung from his broad shoulders, and his robes were violet stitched with gold. He looked bigger than Frank had expected, with strong hands better suited to a mason than a mentalist.

“I don’t feel like I’m dreaming,” Frank said.

“Does one ever?”

“Where are we?”

“A place shaped by thee, colored by thine experiences, but made accessible through my influence. This is a mental reconstruction. A sanctuary.”

“Who’s the statue?”

“Ezean, the Mind Fire. Not a god, but as close as a man can make of himself.”

“I didn’t bring him here.”

“No, I did. I thought it might inspire thee.”

“Since when can you bring things into my dreams?”

“Dream incursions are the providence of mentalists of the third rank. I attained the third rank five centuries ago.”

“I meant when did you get strong enough to do those kinds of things again,” Frank said. “You seemed pretty weak at the temple.”

“My power returns the farther I get from that wretched place. I wonder if proximity has some effect on my curse. Regardless, progress is slow. Mayhaps in two or three decades, I shall be half of what I once was.”

“Where are our real bodies?”

“Back in our chambers at the Saar’Jin spire.” Thune moved to warm himself by the brazier, the gold runes stitched into his robes shimmering in the firelight. “It is deepest night there. No one is likely to disturb us at this hour. And we may speak freely here, without fear of the princess’s spies.”

“What do you think of her?” Frank asked. “The princess.”

“She is most certainly not telling the truth. Or, more accurately, not the whole truth. What exactly she is hiding is more difficult to discern.”

Kinda like someone else I know, Frank thought.

Thune cocked an eyebrow. It was a subtle gesture, but Frank noticed.

He wondered if Thune could read his mind in this place. He’d claimed to be unable to, back at the temple, given the presence of the Allflesh. But that was out in the real world, not this strange dream co-op they’d built together. He’d just have to be more careful with stray thoughts.

“You’re not buying the princess’ story about her mother’s ring?” Frank asked.

“Not entirely,” Thune said, his voice even-keeled and direct, as usual. If he’d been offended by Frank’s thoughts, he wasn’t showing it. “Maybe there is a ring. Maybe her mother did own it. But simple jewelry, no matter how valuable, does not end up locked inside an impenetrable tower.”

“What do you know about it?”

“The tower?” Thune folded his arms across his chest, his hands disappearing into the deep sleeves of his robe. “Only rumors and legend. It has stood longer than the city, that part is true. But who built it? What it houses? How to enter? I can not speak to these questions.”

“Should I go along with her plan?”

“It is thy life at risk, Frank Farrel. I can offer guidance, but you alone must decide.”

A boom echoed up from the beach, a powerful surfbreak striking land. “What if it were you?”

“I do not see another choice, for now. To refuse her is to invite death. Killing thee will cost the princess nothing. She will have perhaps wasted an opportunity, if she is truthful about moons and tides affecting her timeline. But she will have other chances, I am sure.”

“What’s the risk to me?”

“Tremendous,” Thune said. “Attempting any theft is dangerous in Uqmai. There are crime families and merchant lords who will wish to stop thee, or worse. That is before we consider the threat of the tower itself, or the ritual needed to enter it. And let us say, against all odds, thou dost succeed, there is still the chance the princess will have thee killed afterward.”

“So what should I do?”

“Bide thy time for now. Let the princess think thou dost see this as an opportunity. That she has thy trust. All the while, keep thine eyes and ears open for ways to escape the island.”

“Where do we need to go again?”

“The Mirror Manor is on a small island in the icy seas of the far north, a place called Frostveil. No ship in Uqmai will take us there. It would require weeks of travel, a specialized boat, a well-trained crew. The best we can hope for is passage to Antillai, the last city before entering the north seas. But enough talk, the hour is late. I would show thee a lesson before we must wake.”

Thune eased himself to the floor, sitting cross-legged.

“What kind of lesson?” Frank followed suit, groaning as his lower back and knees whined from the effort. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d sat like this. Maybe a yoga class years ago, that little place out by Century City, the one owned by the girl from Boy Meets World.

“I shall teach thee to restore what thou hast lost,” Thune said.

“My psionic reserve.”

“Precisely.”

“Take it easy on me. I was never too good in school.”

“This will be a basic instruction. I do not anticipate it will cause thee much trouble. Indeed, given thy latent powers, I suspect it will be a fast lesson.”

“And once I learn how to do this, I’ll be able to do it on my own?”

“Correct.” Thune gestured again and a wooden harp appeared between them, simple but well-made. “This is how we teach initiates to understand their powers. Strong psionic harmonies emanate from the core of Argos, where a latticework of living crystals, the Psychic Monoliths reside. All of us are bathed in these harmonies, like rays from the sun. To restore our powers, we need do no more than pluck at these unseen harmonies, like plucking the strings of a harp.”

As Frank watched, the strings on the harp vibrated one by one, though no fingers worked them. A pleasant melody filled the temple.

“Simple,” Thune said. “As easy as it looks. The trick is to picture an invisible hand, focusing the totality of thy concentration into it, and then to use that hand to play. Please try.”

Frank focused, picturing his mind as a hand and his will concentrated into its fingertip. He imagined the hand floating through the air and then moved the finger, plucking at a harp string.

Nothing happened.

He reached again for the harp, his invisible hand running up and down its strings this time, strumming like a guitar. He knew that wasn’t the way you played a harp, but he wasn’t trying to write a tune, just make a little noise. But still, no sound came.

“It’s not working,” Frank said.

“There is no harp and there is no hand,” Thune said. “Dost thou understand that? These are simply references, easy concepts for the mind to grasp.”

“I get it. Just having a little trouble concentrating.” Another boom from the beach. Frank turned to see the crashing waves, but past the temple, the world was as black as the inside of a coffin.

“Perhaps a different metaphor will be of use.” Thune waved his hand and the harp disappeared. In its place an earthenware bowl appeared, followed by a mound of pebbles. “Picture this bowl as a repository for thy power. And picture each pebble as a tiny amount of psionic energy. To lift a pebble and place it in the bowl should take no more effort from thy mind than it would from thy hand.”

As if to prove the point, Thune gestured toward the mound. A pebble floated up and away, sailing on unseen psionic currents, and then fell into the bowl with a faint clatter.

Thune nodded to Frank, signaling his turn.

Frank concentrated on a single pebble sitting atop the mound. He tried to imagine what it felt like, how light and insignificant it would be in his palm. He pictured himself lifting it, but that didn’t work. He screamed at it, screaming in his head anyway, trying to will the damn thing to move.

Nothing.

He strained, balling his hands into fists, and clenching his jaw. He pictured a beam of blue light exploding from his eyes, snagging a pebble like a tractor beam from a spaceship. His head throbbed with the effort, and he felt a trickle of blood drip from his nose.

Did the pebble tremble or was that the wind?

The sound of the ocean in the distance picked up – a slow, endless susurrus, like the ragged breath of a thousand mouths – and his concentration slipped.

“Goddamn it,” he gasped, every pebble unmoved. He wiped his nose. “No luck today.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Thune said, his voice suddenly hard-edged. “This is a matter of skill, a matter of determination. I shall remind thee, this is not an academic endeavor. This is life and death.”

“I know that, Thune. Why are you getting upset with me?”

“If thou didst truly appreciate the danger here, then –”

“I understand,” Frank said. “I’m the one with the weird parasite inside his body. I’m the one with the brain tumor. And I’m the guy who’s been knocking on death’s door for the last six months. So spare me the lecture.”

Thune’s jaw tightened. The bowls and stones vanished. Seconds later a small bucket appeared at Frank’s feet, the handle of a bronze ladle resting on its lip. Next to the bucket stood a tall, ceramic amphorae.

“Behold,” Thune snapped. The ladle lifted out of the bucket, drifting toward the amphorae, and then tilted, emptying itself. “We refill what has been lost, from a well that is endless and everywhere.”

Just as Thune returned the ladle to the bucket, Frank tried to seize it with his mind. But he couldn’t even conjure up his imaginary hand now. The sound of crashing waves filled the temple, filled his head as well, and he couldn’t hear himself think. He couldn’t focus, he couldn’t even breathe.

Suddenly, he remembered drowning inside that egg. How trapped he felt. How hopeless. The problem then was a matter of perspective. He’d been struggling to swim up, when what he really needed to do was break out.

That was the trick.

Think outside the box (egg). But what did that mean?

Don’t ladle the water into the amphorae? What then? Make the amphorae drink the water?

Something wriggled in the back of his head at this revelation, pleasant and warm. He glanced over to the statue, to see that it had shifted positions. It was kneeling now, its fingers resting lightly on either temple so that its five eyes were arrayed like a W across its head. The light from the eyes winked, and Frank felt dizzy.

“I can’t,” he said, lowering his gaze. His brain felt like it was sloshing around inside his skull, like ice in a cocktail shaker. God, what he wouldn’t give for a nice single malt scotch right now. Make it a double.

“Thou must.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Thy mind is elsewhere, dreaming of poisoned swill again.”

Frank looked up. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Do not question me. I am the master here.”

Frank rose to his feet. “No one talks to me like –”

“Do as I say,” Thune shouted.

The fire in the braziers flared white-hot, blinding Frank, and when they died, he saw the hem of his tunic had caught fire. It was a small flame, nearly smokeless, but it was spreading.

Thune’s eye blazed. “Put it out.”

Frank reached to beat the flames with his hands, but they froze in mid-air, like his arm muscles had seized up.

“Put it out with thy mind,” Thune said.

The flames climbed.

“I can’t.”

“Then burn.”

Thune had said this was a dream, but the pain was real. More real than any dream pain Frank had experienced before. He could smell his own burnt skin, feel his flesh cooking. He tried to scream but it caught in his throat.

“Do it!” Thune roared.

The scream burst out of Frank. His body spasmed, like that sudden involuntary kick you sometimes get in dreams, and then his limbs were free again. Half his tunic was on fire now, the flames reaching up to his chest, his eyes filled with smoke. He ran for the exit, passing between two towering columns at a sprint, and leaped into the sand.

He rolled, choking on the heat and smoke, until finally the flames guttered out.

Still panting, he turned to find Thune standing between two pillars at the edge of the temple. His arms were outstretched, as though feeling for something in the dark. He pressed both hands into the air, shoving forcefully, but seemed unable to move forward. It was like an invisible wall was blocking him.

Frank could still hear the ocean. It was louder than ever. His heart was racing, head throbbing with pain. But the waters were calling.

The ocean didn’t move, its waters impossibly still. Frank could hear waves crashing, but when he looked out over its vastness, stretching endlessly to the horizon, he saw only a flat black expanse, like an ice-skating rink covered in oil. He moved toward it, his bare feet warm in the powdery sand, until he stepped on something hard and slick.

Looking down, he saw a pane of glass buried beneath his feet. He rapped the glass with his knuckles, finding it thick and sturdy, with no give. He continued walking, the sand growing thinner and thinner as he approached the ocean, and the pane of glass underfoot more visible with each step.

At the edge of the beach, where the waves should have been lapping at his toes, he instead found himself standing atop the water. The glass, it seemed, extended over the ocean like the wall of an impossibly large aquarium. And beneath this wall churned violent, black waters.

The waves were full of thrashing things. He saw limbs, dozens at first, then hundreds, coiling and knotted like cables sucked through a turbine. Shapes pulsed in the deep, some vast, some small, all of them frantic.

At first, he thought he was watching a thousand people drowning at once, a hundred thousand maybe. But he soon realized none of these bodies were intact. He caught sight of arms and legs too numerable to count, ribcages spread open like hungry mouths, clawing hands. But no fully formed people. No intact heads or eyes glinting with intelligence. Just a miasma of flailing, agonized flesh.

A yellow light flashed in the depths, distracting him from the thrashing limbs. It was narrow, no wider than a flashlight beam, but long. Longer than a jet plane.

It was dim at first, but unmistakably there. And as he watched, it grew wider and brighter. When it was as wide as a sidewalk, something floated to its surface, like a beach ball in a pool, an orb of deepest black, ringed in rust.

It was a pupil.

The realization hit him like a gut punch. His knees grew weak. He felt like he was going to throw up. As the lids of the eye peeled open further, he saw the pupil constrict with focus.

Awareness.

Recognition.

The eye saw him, and Frank froze.

And then –

CRACK.

The air shook with a sound like a rock slamming into a windshield. The glass trembled. Frank stumbled but stayed on his feet.

Looking down, he saw a man pounding on the glass from underwater. He was lithe and wiry, with long dark hair and eyes the color of burnished brass. The glass was breaking under his repeated blows, thin cracks spider-webbing beneath Frank, all while the eye below grew bigger and bigger.