The sound of dripping water echoed through the cave, eerily in time with the thuds of their boots as they strode across the black stone. George repressed a shiver; it was cold down here, and damp too – neither of which he found especially pleasant. Following behind Hugh, he threw a questioning glance the reaver’s way.
‘Not long now,’ said Hugh, answering George’s question before it had even been uttered.
He’s said that for at least the last ten minutes, George thought ruefully. He exclaimed as his foot caught a pebble and he tripped. As he reached for the side of the cave for balance, a strong hand grasped his arm and pulled him to his feet. George gasped, looking up at Hugh.
Hugh’s face, bearing a clenched jaw and furrowed brows, leered back at him. ‘What did I tell you about touching the cave walls? This isn’t a cave, not like you think it is. If you touch those walls, not even I could save you.’
George recalled what Hugh had said earlier, when they’d first passed under the Dream Arch and entered the cave. The reaver – almost immediately as they’d entered the cave – had turned to him and said, ‘It’s like I thought: we’ve entered a Dream Realm, a pocket dimension inhabited by dream-eaters and infused with psychic and phantom energies – though it’s the former you should be more concerned about.’ The man’s tone had suddenly hardened. ‘Don’t touch anything – not even the walls. While everything may look and feel real, it is not. Pocket dimensions are not real; they are simply illusions, and Dream Realms are no different – only more dangerous. If you touch those walls, you will become theirs. The dream-eaters will ravage your mind and tear out your soul,
‘You know those Barrens I was telling you about earlier? Well, you’ll end up just like them, only you won’t last anywhere near as long: only beings with psychic and phantom activity can survive in a Dream Realm, and Barrens have neither. Once the dream-eaters are finished with you, you’ll have about a minute to live as a Barren before your head explodes, overwhelmed by the Dream Realm’s psychic energies.’ He had sighed. ‘No reaver has ever survived flesh contact with a Dream Realm. Ov’l or not, you should be careful.’
Back when Hugh had first told him, George had nodded obediently and continued after him into the cave; this time, however, after what was beginning to feel like an endless slog through shadows, he was feeling considerably more irritable. He pushed Hugh’s hand away and retorted, ‘I don’t need saving. You said it yourself: I’m an Ov’l, which means I’m powerful. I don’t need anyone to save me.’
‘You’re untrained,’ Hugh replied through gritted teeth. ‘You may be powerful, but it’s experience which makes the best reavers – not power.’
‘That’s only what someone who was weak would say,’ George retorted. ‘That’s the sort of thing my dad used to say. Fat lot of good his “experience” did when Rod and his boys came by the house asking for trouble–’ He cut himself off. Talking about his father was never a happy conversation.
Hugh was silent for a second. ‘Shut up and follow me. If you want to be treated with respect, don’t cling to me like some helpless infant all the time.’
As Hugh turned away, George sighed. Lilly said that to me sometimes, too. She was struggling after what happened, just like me – and my over-dependence on her didn’t help. His eyes filled with tears at the thought of his sister. You were right, Lilly, I couldn’t rely on you forever – and I shouldn’t have relied on you for so long either. He looked ahead at the dark silhouette of Hugh, visible only by the glint of his leather jacket. Just like I shouldn’t have to rely on Hugh. I didn’t rely on him to defeat the dream-eater, so why must I rely on him now? He bunched his fists. I am my own man!
Adrenaline coursed down his veins like liquid lightning. He marched forwards, overtaking Hugh and storming into the blackness.
‘Hey! Don’t go on too far!’ Hugh called after him.
George ignored him. He was his own man, after all – he didn’t need to take orders from anyone.
Hugh jogged to catch up with him and cast George a glance of slight bewilderment. ‘What’s got into you?’
As they continued through the cave, the cavern soon became engulfed in green light. The green light was coming from an opening in the cave wall. Hugh peered through the opening, making sure not to rest any part of his body on the stone, then turned back to George; the look on the older man’s face did nothing to quash George’s nerves. George decided, against his better judgement, to take a look for himself.
The opening fed into a large chasm, as wide as three buses lined end-on-end and at least twice as tall. The chasm was carved from the same jagged black rock as they’d been walking over for the last ten minutes; it twinkled like onyx, shining with reflected green light. The gentle pitter-patter of running water echoed through the cave.
As George looked through the opening, he spied the source of the luminescent green glow; and when he did, his eyes widened to globes. Sat at the centre of the chasm on a sharp pedestal of rock was a bright-green, egglike structure. It was huge (at least twice his size, he reckoned) and dimly reminded him of some of the dinosaur eggs he’d seen at the Marsheton Museum – except, of course, that those dinosaur eggs did not glow green. He also noticed a plethora of greyish-brown rootlike structures snaking across the walls, feeding into the egglike structure at the centre of the chasm.
‘A delaeon,’ said Hugh, pointing at the glowing egglike structure. ‘That’s where the dream-eaters keep the souls they steal. It’s almost like a larder of sorts. Judging by its size, I’d say it’s likely a Tharin – the most common type of delaeon, which feeds off negative emotions. The dream-eaters are bound-by-life to the delaeon by their psychic tethers.’
‘But where are the dream-eaters?’ George asked.
Hugh answered his question by pointing at the cave floor. As George looked down at the floor, he gasped – the floor was moving, writhing, and oscillating! But as he looked closer, he saw the floor itself wasn’t moving; rather, there were a plethora off odd-shaped creatures walking across it. Their chattering and footsteps echoed loudly through the cave.
He spied creatures like the one he had fought back up in the hospital – which Hugh had told him were called “vendig”. Their translucent, teardrop-shaped bodies shimmered in the delaeon’s green light. He also spied others of different shapes: doglike creatures with shaggy, purple fur, wearing what looked to be brains on their backs – though he convinced himself they couldn’t possibly be brains – and large apes with round heads and a single golden eye. Like the vendigs, they had pink “psychic tethers” – the doglike creatures had a tether at each corner of their mouth, while the apes’ tethers were wrapped around their wrists.
As George eyed the creatures, Hugh told him their names: the doglike creatures, he learned, were called “por’avas”, and the apes were known as “cothelids”. Aside from special-rank dream-eaters, por’avas, cothelids, and vendigs were the three main variants of dream-eaters.
George was so immersed in watching the dream-eaters scurry about the cave floor that he didn’t notice his hand inching closer and closer to the cave wall. Luckily though, Hugh spotted it.
Two strong hands gripped George’s shoulders and pulled him away, just before his hand could touch the wall. George turned to see Hugh looking at him, face grim.
‘Don’t touch the walls,’ the reaver warned sternly.
George nodded. ‘So, how do we destroy this Dream Realm, then?’ he asked in a hushed whisper.
‘There is no way to truly destroy a Dream Realm,’ Hugh replied. ‘Their number is fixed and has always been so, ever since the Psychic Abandonment of Tissain. The trick is to shrink them down so they cannot harm anyone – not that this solution is permanent. The size of a Dream Realm is proportional to the amount of psychic energy connected to it.’ He gestured at the various dream-eaters as they scurried across the floor of the cave. ‘It relies on the energies of these dream-eaters to sustain its size. If we removed the dream-eaters’ psychic energies, the Realm would collapse on itself, with only enough psychic energy to maintain its existence.’
George’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘And what about us? Would we not be crushed?’
Hugh shook his head. ‘As long as we remain in the Dream Realm, it would remain large enough for us to exist in, at least until we left it.’ He gestured at the delaeon. ‘The delaeon exists only because of the dream-eaters’ psychic tethers to it; itself, it contributes nothing to the psychic energies of the Dream Realm. Still, if we destroy it, we can destroy the Dream Realm–’
‘–because the dream-eaters are bound-by-life to their delaeon, and will die if they are separated,’ George finished.
Hugh looked at him, grim face splitting into the barest of smiles. ‘Nice to see you’re paying attention.’
George nodded. ‘Of course. Now, what’s the plan?’
‘Close your eyes,’ said Hugh. At George’s questioning glance, he added, ‘Just do it. Trust me.’
Feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, George closed his eyes. His world was thrust into black – lit only by the barest hint of the delaeon’s green light as it pierced his eyelids.
‘Now,’ Hugh continued. ‘Slow your breathing. Slow your thinking. Slow everything. And feel.’
Though he felt an idiot doing so, George obliged Hugh’s request, using a meditative breathing technique Lilly had taught him. His mind roared with activity; using another meditative technique – “mental singing” – he was able to silence his mind by projecting a mental song through his mind.
And then it was as if his eyes had been opened. As if a whole new world had exposed itself to him. He looked around and could see the chasm, though he could not see any rocks. All he could see was voids, everywhere, absences of psychic activity. Though he could see the shapes of the rocks, the rocks themselves were made of nothing but empty space. As he turned to face Hugh, he suddenly saw, floating before the voids, a bright ball of white light in place of where Hugh was standing.
He turned to look into the chasm in which the delaeon sat and was forced to squint for the sheer blinding-ness of the light which had enveloped the chasm. There were so many balls of light, each brighter than the last, which seemed to fuse into a huge block of blinding light. It was beautiful – magnificent, even, ethereal…
‘You can see it, can’t you? The psychic activity – you can see it.’ Hugh’s voice seemed to come from far off, though George knew the reaver was stood right next to him. ‘Now mask it. Mine and yours. The dream-eaters can see psychic activity – when they bother to look, that is – so must mask ours.’
George reached towards the bright ball of light that marked Hugh’s psychic activity. He wasn’t sure, however, how exactly he was supposed to mask the psychic activity, but kept the notion firm in his mind. As he touched it, the bright ball of light suddenly began to dim – though, just before it could be extinguished entirely, some part of the voids surrounding it loosed themselves, covering the minute speck of white light. But George knew the light hadn’t been entirely extinguished – he could feel it. However, he judged, it seemed to be sufficiently shrouded.
Having done the same for the ball of light marking his own psychic presence, George opened his eyes to see Hugh looking at him grimly.
‘So that was your first excursion to the Psychic Realm,’ said Hugh. ‘The Psychic Realm is the source of the Ov’ls’ powers, the servant of the Ov’ls. But beware, George, for you cannot let that power go to your head. Ever.’ His grim look faded into a smile. ‘Good job. Now that our psychic presences are masked, the dream-eaters will think we were just unlucky civilians who wound up turning into Barrens.’
‘We only have a minute, then?’ George concluded.
Hugh nodded. ‘Indeed. Past that minute, the dream-eaters will begin to wonder why we are not dead and why their Dream Realm is not slick with our splattered brains.’
Pleasant thought, George mused as he followed Hugh through the opening in the cave wall and into the chasm. Compared to how the chasm had looked in the Psychic Realm, it looked markedly less wondrous now, back in the Dream Realm.
As they’d begun walking, George’s instinct had been to shuffle slowly – almost like a zombie – in an effort to impersonate the Barrens. However, he’d been reminded by Hugh that, while the Barrens had lost their minds and souls, they still retained access to their full motor functions.
The dream-eaters they passed seemed to have a mix of reactions: some ignored the would-be Barrens, while others eyed them up curiously. As their beady eyes fixed on him, a shiver ran down George’s spine. They knew. He was sure of it. They knew they weren’t Barrens.
Almost as if sensing his panic, Hugh once turned back to him. ‘Quench your fear,’ he murmured. He nodded at one of the nearby dream-eaters, one of the apelike connoliths, who was peering inquisitively at the pair of them. ‘They can sense your fear.’
George nodded slowly, trying to calm his racing heart. He exhaled sharply, fixing his gaze on the glowing egg-shaped delaeon ahead of them and gritting his teeth. He could feel the delaeon now, almost pressing into his mind, almost as if pressing him for answers as to who they were and where their psychic presence was. He closed his eyes to see the briefest flash of white light appear where Hugh was stood, before a piece of the void, again, smothered it.
But that brief flash was enough. When he opened his eyes again, he saw, with an audible gasp, all of the dream-eaters’ eyes were fixed on them.
They know, he thought. They know!
With a yelp, he raced forwards, to Hugh, just as one of the dream-eaters – a vindig – leapt at him. The reaver reacted swiftly in a calm and efficient manner: he twisted and launched a fireball from his palm into the creature’s translucent face.
He turned to George, brow furrowed. ‘Run!’ With one hand propelling a line of fire at the dream-eaters, he pointed with his other in the direction of the delaeon.
At once, George rid himself of his fear. He gritted teeth and ran for the delaeon, sprinting past Hugh as he did. As he passed by the reaver, Hugh thrust what seemed to be a hollow metal cube into his hand.
‘That’ll destroy it!’ Hugh yelled, batting away one of the dream-eaters with what looked to be a sword made entirely of fire. ‘Don’t touch the delaeon!’ the reaver called as George sprinted away. Above him, the orange light of Hugh’s flames and the ghostly green glow of the delaeon did battle, twisting and twirling across the cave ceiling.
Dodging a pouncing dream-eater, George raced forward, fixing his eyes on the delaeon ahead of him, holding the metal cube Hugh had given him in a tight fist. He barely noticed the dream-eater hordes as he ran, barely noticed their fleshy, long appendages as they lanced out towards him. His boots pounded against the stone like thunderclaps; his heart beat in his chest, clubbing against his ribcage.
As he reached the delaeon, he threw the metal cube; there was a squelch as it struck the delaeon’s soft flesh. However, carried forward by momentum, George could not stop himself in time; his foot snagged on one of the rootlike structures on the cave floor and he toppled forwards.
His eyes widened as he saw his hand pressed into the green flesh of the delaeon. Little by little, the feeling of brushing against wet silk spread through his hand as the delaeon engulfed it. Seconds later, he let out a final desperate yelp, reaching in Hugh’s direction, before the green mass enveloped him and his mind was thrust into a world of pearly-white…
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