Roar, page 11
Rather than prove them right he took to his heels, and then leapt for the trees, bounding up a trunk and then running out along the branches the moment he was out of their sight. From there he began vaulting from one outstretched branch to the next. That way he was hidden by the canopies and he wouldn't leave a trail if they chose to follow. Besides, they would never look for him above their heads. It was the clever thing to do.
But even that calculation went astray as unexpectedly he heard a high pitched scream, turned and saw a woman's face he recognised right in front of him. It was the blonde woman from the sewers!
This time she'd climbed into a tree instead of simply trying to crawl up onto a walkway, but the result was exactly the same. She saw him, screamed in terror, and let go. He heard her hit the ground, cry out in pain, and then watched her hobble away, still screaming.
What was happening with his life? Thorm shook his head in disbelief as he tried to make sense of the bizarre series of coincidences that seemed to have become his life of late. But then he decided it just didn't matter. No matter which of the Seven Sisters was toying with him, or even if it was all of them holding hands and laughing at him, he was doing his job. The hamadryads now had weapons and he simply had to stay further back from them as he tried to keep them safe.
On the better side though, the escapees now had more weapons and supplies. They were stronger again. They would need less protection.
Thinking about that, Thorm’s anger subsided and he continued his path across the trees, leaping from branch to branch. After all he had more important things to worry about. Like digging a musket ball out of his backside.
Chapter Ten
Camille was surprised when she first saw the shade coming for her out of the darkness. But mostly she was surprised that it had taken so long for the King to send it after her. Perhaps the Eternal King's connection to the Night Maiden wasn't as direct as many believed? Regardless, it didn't make the shade any less dangerous.
Shades were terrifying. But that was what they were meant to be. Tools of Nyx, the Goddess of Dark Dreams, their sole purpose was to create overwhelming fear in the victim. They would destroy a person’s sleep. But that was the least of what they did. They usually went further than that. They would terrify someone until they were too scared to close their eyes. Send them running away screaming in the middle of the night. And they would ultimately leave their victims in a state of permanent exhaustion. In time they would break their wills and sap their resistance. They could even shatter minds and leave their victims as babbling madmen.
And on some level as she saw the amorphous bundle of all her worst fears coalescing into a creature in front of her, she was scared. But she was also prepared. Her mother had taught her from a very young age to guard her thoughts. Shown her how to instantly enter a waking dream the moment a threat appeared. And in that state she could control her fear. He mother had always been very insistent that she not become a victim of the dream world.
It also helped – if “helped” was quite the right word – that Camille had seen so many terrifying things during her life that it had become hard to scare her. She had seen the opening of the Tri-consular Orb and watched men pushed into it. She had heard their screams and the otherworldly cries of the lamaia as they welcomed their dinner. She had seen people murdered by the soldiers, often butchered in front of her. She had watched as her own mother was slowly twisted and bent to the will of the King. She had even witnessed the snakes start growing out of her mother’s head. After that how much more scary could anything be? Even this creation from the nightmare realm?
“So you're a shade then?” She mocked the creature – if it was actually a creature. “I was expecting – more.” Of course she knew that if she hadn't been prepared for it, things could have been very different. Shades struck terror into the hearts of those who weren't prepared for them. They spoke to the sleeping mind. It was the time when the soul was least able to defend itself.
The shade of course said nothing and instead began showing her images of those things she was most afraid of, and then made them worse somehow. Things like the river sharks that could bite her feet when she swam. The nameless monsters that had lurked under her bed. And it somehow wrapped those childhood night terrors up with everything else she had learned to fear as she had grown up. Her mother twisting ever more under the power of the philtres, until when she held her, her vipers started biting. Sinking their fangs deep into her eyes.
It was terrible, but it had no effect, as the waking dream state allowed her to see that those things weren’t really happening. It was only the shadow of them. But then her fear had never really been based on seeing the monster under the bed, or the sharks in the water. It was the bump in the night, the sound of heavy breathing, or the feeling of soft mud beneath her feet that hid sharp rocks and the sense of betrayal as the woman she loved and trusted hurt her, that had been the basis of her fears. The shade though didn't understand that. It just kept replaying everything that it knew terrified her, and changed them a little so that they surprised her. So that what she feared came from where she didn't expect it.
“You should probably go back to your Mistress. Tell her you failed.”
Of course the shade did no such thing. It probably couldn't understand her. It quite likely wasn't a creature at all. Just some sort of spell. It had no free will. No intelligence. So it continued trying to make itself even more frightening. But something about its attempts seemed almost comical and finally she found herself laughing at it.
But she knew even as she laughed, that she was lucky. Her mother and her aunt had both taught her the art of the waking dream. They had drilled her in the techniques to master fear. And now, some fifteen years later, the training was still showing its worth. Others would not be so lucky.
But then this was how the King ruled. Through fear. Through the fear of his armies and his trolls. The fear of his wizards. The fear of who might be listening to what they said. And the fear of his shades. Those who were not trained, would wake screaming in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat. And they would likely keep doing that for days or weeks to come as the shades kept coming to them. By the time it was over they wouldn't have any resistance left. Few would be willing to speak out against the King again. At least not in public.
In time the shade left, disappearing into the darkness of her sleep, its work done. It had no understanding that it had failed. It had no understanding of anything at all. But as it left her she remained for a time in the world of the waking dream, thinking about what its visit meant.
She had expected the attack of course. She was the leverage the King could use against her mother, and he wanted her back. It would help if he had managed to break her. Too ravaged by fear and a lack of sleep, to keep running. It would make it easier for his soldiers to recapture her. And once they had recaptured her it would make it easier for him to control her mother. But were the shades more than a mechanism the King used to crush rebellion?
Some said the shades could be used by the King to see into the thoughts of his subjects. If a true rebellion was about to start it was said the King would have advance notice through his shades. Others said that the shades were the blood hounds of the Night Maiden's realm, and could be used by the King to track people through the Great Dream. Camille had never given those claims serious thought before now. They had always seemed somewhat fanciful.
Now though she considered the claims more seriously. Could the King track her down through her dreams? Or track the others down through theirs? Could he guide his hunters to them even when they were getting away? She didn't know. She had had only a learner's training in the world of the waking dream. Enough that she was always on guard for a shade or another attack and would instantly enter the waking dream when it happened. She could protect herself. But she didn’t know anything more. Not even how to enter the Great Dream; the dream that all dreamers shared.
The possibility that the shade was more than just a spell of sleeping fear, worried her more than the actual terrors the creature had tried to inflict on her.
Eventually though she had to accept that if these stories were true, there was still nothing she could do about it. She could not stop the shade from returning to her the next night and the next. Not unless she decided not to sleep at all. No one could do that for long. Nor could she stop the shade from reporting back what it saw or knew if it saw or knew anything. The only thing she could do was what she was already doing. Walk as far and as fast as she could. Put as much distance between her and their pursuers as she could.
And hope that the green eyed lion with the white mane that had been sighted really was an ally. Because that beast actually scared her.
Chapter Eleven
Camille was waiting for the avaryads when they came the following night. It wasn't just that she'd been expecting to see them since they had said they would return with more supplies. Or even that she'd guessed they were coming when she'd watched the sentries fall asleep. It was that she had things she needed to tell them. More importantly she had questions. And almost from the moment the first of them had landed in the camp, she launched into the first of them.
“There's a beast following us. A green eyed shaggy beast. A lion we think. Or a bear. And we don't know if it’s a friend or a foe. Do you know anything about the creature?”
She doubted they did in truth. But if they didn't they needed to know about it. And they needed to find out what it was doing. If nothing else, Elspeth needed some answers.
The woman was terrified out of her mind by the monster, having now seen it twice up close. It also didn't help that she was crippled, only able to walk thanks to bandages wrapping her foot and with Mara's support. It made her vulnerable. But the woman’s sighting of the beast was important because she was the only one who could confirm that it was the same beast she had seen in the sewers. The hamadryads didn't believe her. They said that one beast was much the same as another and that she was simply letting her fear tell her what she'd seen. And it didn't help that Elspeth couldn't seem to describe the beast clearly. All she really saw were green eyes and teeth.
But Camille believed her. Because there was too much else that needed explaining. The bodies of the trolls had been burned. What sort of beast burned bodies? Save for dragons of course. And despite Elspeth having seen it twice close up, it hadn't attacked her. Surely she would have been a perfect meal for a beast that large?
And then there were the eyes. What sort of beast had emerald eyes? Certainly not a natural one. Not a bear as the hamadryads were claiming it had to be. Certainly bears could climb trees as this creature seemed to. But there simply couldn't be any bears in the sewers under the Eternal City. What would they eat for a start? And bears didn't roar. This one had roared like a lion. They'd all heard it. Even if lions didn't climb trees or have emerald eyes and shaggy white fur or burn bodies.
“A beast?” One of the avaryads approached her, handing over his supply of food parcels and healing potions they were delivering to the escapees to another avaryad.
He had to be the one in charge Camille thought. Especially when another of the avaryads quickly took his supplies off him to keep handing them out.
“It may be protecting us. It killed a lot of trolls and a party of hunters. But then again it may be hunting us and just found something else to eat first.” Camille told the man everything she knew of the beast, as well as the theories some of the others had raised. But it wasn't a lot. No one really knew anything about the creature and a lot of what they conjectured about it was contradictory. But for her the only thing that mattered was that it had been there in the sewers first. It might be connected somehow to their escape. It might actually have been responsible for their escape, though how she didn’t know.
“We will seek it out.” The man nodded to her.
“Good. You should also know that the King has sent Nyx's shades after me. Last night one of them came to me as I slept.”
“Are you well?” The avaryad sounded concerned.
“I am. My mother taught me the art of the dream defences. I entered the waking dream immediately it appeared so it could not frighten me. But it will return. And I am worried by the stories that they can be used to track people through the Great Dream. Are they true?”
“No,” the man answered her quickly. “These stories are all just a part of the fear. Shades have no will of their own.”
“Good.” And it was good Camille thought – if it was true. But was the avaryad simply telling her what he believed to be true, or lying to her in order to reassure her? She couldn't be sure. But at least she had done her duty and told him what she knew.
“There is still one other matter I hope you will be able to look into. One of the women here – Mara,” she nodded at the dark haired woman sleeping soundly barely ten feet from her, “was betrothed to the wizard who battled and crippled my mother.” The coincidence involved in that still kept surprising her. Though maybe it shouldn't. The dungeons were filled with the loved ones of wizards.
“His name was Thorm Endorson,” she continued. “Mara says she knew nothing of his magic. That she believed he was simply a gunsmith. Raised among a family of itinerant traders. And yet to battle my mother and destroy a city block he must have been immensely powerful and well trained. But how could he have been so trained, when magic not under the control of the King is unlawful? Who trained him? Is his family gifted? And are there others like him?”
Camille asked because as much as she hated what the dead wizard had done, she knew that if her mother was ever going to free herself, she would need help. A powerful wizard who was not controlled by the King could be useful. And until she had been told about Thorm, it had not occurred to her that there were any wizards of that strength left.
The avaryads however didn't seem interested in finding other powerful wizards. But then she didn’t know where their interests lay. After all, they had yet to tell her anything of their reasons for helping them. They were as closed mouthed as their hamadryad cousins in that. Still she knew that whatever their personal interests were, there was one thing they all wanted. To bring down the Eternal King. She knew that the avaryads hadn't decided to help the group of escapees – or Camille herself – simply because they were in need. Instead she was sure that their escape – or perhaps just hers – from the Eternal King's clutches must help their cause in some way. Similarly, she guessed that the reason they were all so closed mouthed with her, was that they worried she would share with the others what they told her and they feared the Eternal King would eventually recapture them. They did not want anything they said getting back to him.
Camille didn't actually care about the Eternal King. She hated him, obviously. But for her the battle was not about waging a war. It was not about killing him. Not even about killing his cadre of lords. His Court of murderers. It was only about finally having her mother free again. And if there were other wizards out there with that sort of power, she needed to know about them.
“Thorm Endorson?” One of the other avaryads spoke up from where she was busy applying some sort of poultice to a sleeping woman's feet. “I know the name. But he is no mere gunsmith. He is a true master of his craft. My uncle has one of his weapons. A long barrelled rifle that shoots with the fury of the Goddess Artemis herself. It can puncture steel armour at two hundred paces and is dead accurate to three hundred. I had not heard he was dead though. It is a loss.”
A loss maybe – to the world of hunters. But not to her, and Camille had to work hard to keep her true feelings on the matter from showing. The man was lucky to be dead!
She understood that it had been a battle. That her mother had attacked the wizard first and that he had merely defended himself. But he had gone too far. Killing her would have been one thing. But to cripple her so terribly was something else. Besides which, her mother was a victim too. The people called her the hag. They considered her a monster. A murderer. But that wasn't true. She had no choice in anything she did. If the wizard had still been alive she would have liked to have killed him herself.
Camille was grateful that Thorm was dead and not just for the sake of her anger. It left her with only one priority. Saving her mother. Not running away. Not defeating the Eternal King. Not even searching for revenge. And saving her began with finding out the one thing she hadn't asked before.
“How do you speak with my mother?”
“We share a common dream,” the avaryad answered her.
Dreamers! Camille was surprised. But she also understood the answer, perhaps better than the avaryad imagined. He didn't mean that her mother and the avaryads shared a common goal, though perhaps that was also true. He meant that they were both able to access the Great Dream and speak to one another through it.
She hadn't known her mother could do that. Very few people could. Most people dreamed and many joined the Great Dream shared by all the people of the world from time to time. But those who did were seldom able to act and think in it as if they were awake. And even if they could they rarely remembered anything of the Great Dream come morning. At most they would remember a few disconnected fragments that made no sense. It took a special gift and years of training to be both awake and asleep at the same time. To live in two worlds at the same time. And to avoid falling into the depths of the Night Maiden's realm.
