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Chapter 39: To the Dream Mountain

It was the most difficult challenge of his life. As FullSky stretched farther and farther into the underrealm, following the speeding iffling, he felt that at any moment he would stretch past the limit, and his kuutekka would part from his body forever, and this was where he would die. The underrealm here seemed a hollow void; but he felt the chaos of battle in the Dark Vale booming like a distant drum. He knew that time was growing short.

Somehow he did not reach the limit of his strength. As the small, fiery iffling vanished into a nest of underrealm spells deep within a mountain, FullSky felt a sudden renewal of his energy, and he knew that somehow the draconae were lending him strength through the underrealm connection. He plunged into the mountain, and found himself peering with astonishment at a place he recognized—Hodakai's cavern.

Floating in the cavern near the spirit jar was a strange gathering of beings: the iffling, a false-iffling, and several unfamiliar creatures existing within a gleaming vessel that he imagined to be a rigger-ship. He realized at once that one of them, caught in a web of sorcery, was Jael. The iffling streaked back to him, whispering, Hurry, dragon—if you can do anything to help!

It took FullSky a long heartbeat to understand what was happening. And by then, Jael was dying. Suddenly FullSky knew that a staggering betrayal had just occurred—not against the riggers, but against the Enemy. The cavern had begun to shake, and many of the spells woven around it were unraveling.

But Jael was dying. Had he come only to watch her pass to the Final Dream Mountain?

HELP HER! screamed the iffling, its voice a torn whistle of wind.

It took FullSky a fraction of an instant, which was almost longer than he had, to come to his senses and begin crafting a weaving through the threads of the underrealm. It was his fastest and most perilous weaving yet; he cast it breathlessly around the dying spirit of the rigger. Her kuutekka was already expanding, stretching, thinning, searching in desperation for that which she could not see or find . . .

Not yet, Jael! FullSky whispered, pouring his remaining strength into the spell. I will not let you go to the Final Dream Mountain. Not yet. We need you too much here . . . !

 

* * *

 

The tides of space and time seemed to sway her this way and that in the fuzzy strangeness that was death. She knew she was no longer a part of the world, that she was caught up and carried by forces beyond her reckoning; but the strangest thing, as she came to be aware of it, was that she was aware of anything at all.

I have died.
I am not dead.
Nor am I alive.
Is this the life that lies beyond life?

There was a murmuring presence around her, and she thought she heard a voice answer, No, you are not going to the Final Dream Mountain, not yet. But before she could even wonder what that meant, she felt threads of power coming out of nowhere to gather around her—and she felt a surge, then a whistling, dizzying movement, spinning her like a whirlwind in the net. But she was not in the net; she was not anywhere; she felt no awareness of body, or sight or sound, or smell or taste or touch.

And yet . . .

She felt herself riding a fantastic, invisible thread of power through a sky that had no height or depth or substance. There was a booming presence of life around her, but distant; and closer to her was another presence, and something about it spoke the word dragon in her heart.

We are almost there, whispered the voice she had heard before. And there we shall be gathered in, and perhaps you can find again the life you have lost . . .

And then the voice, once more, was lost on the wind.

But she knew now that it had been a dragon voice—not Windrush, but perhaps someone close to him. It all felt exceedingly odd to her, and again she said, I have died, haven't I? Is this where dragons go when they die?

There was no answer, but only that rushing sensation that was neither sound-sense nor touch-sense, but something deeper within her. And then she felt everything slowing, and regathering . . . and she suddenly felt an astounding sense of safety and enclosure. And then the voice said, You have died, and yet not died. There is little time to explain. We need you more urgently now than ever.

And another, more melodious, voice said, Welcome, Jael, to the Dream Mountain.

 

* * *

 

Her sense of sight came slowly back to her, though she had no idea how. She found she could only gaze in amazement and wonder. This was the Dream Mountain, of which Windrush had spoken so long ago? It was like a great cathedral of translucent glass . . . and in its center, a darkness, within which burned a fire like a hot forge. The fire was enclosed by powerfully woven threads of underrealm magic, which she could see but not comprehend. The fire, the magic, and the darkness were all contained within the Mountain, the outlines of which were sketched by a vast shadow-presence of stone.

It took her a little while to realize that she was inhabiting several layers of the Flux at once. She was inside a mountain, but in the underrealm; and in this place there was a sharp boundary point in the continuum, and that boundary was something extraordinary to behold.

There is much to make clear, sang a low voice which she at once knew was a female dragon.

But we cannot take the time, or the Forge of Dreams may fall to the Enemy, cried another.

The voices were a distraction. She was fascinated by that ghostly fire in the center; it created in her a strange and irrational mix of fear and wonderment. The fire, she perceived, did not exist just in one particular layer of the Flux; it penetrated through the layers, and within its woven enclosure, it seemed to warp and twist the space that immediately surrounded it. It gave off tremendous energy, which was somehow being channeled by the draconae's weaving of magic here in the Dream Mountain.

It was, she realized, a space-time singularity. At the heart of the Dream Mountain. The Forge of Dreams.

Even as she considered the name of the singularity-fire, she realized that she was connected to it now; it was the powers of the dreamfire that gave her life.

Her thoughts and memories were expanding into the darkness like little puffs of air into a vacuum. She saw memories gleaming around her like raindrops in the sun: memories of her father, helping her and cursing her; of her mother, trying and failing to shield her from the darkly mercurial person her father had become; of friends in rigger-school who could never quite gain her trust; of Mogurn, who enslaved her; of Highwing, who freed her; of Ar, who befriended her; of Ed . . .

In this strange realm of energy and darkness, surrounded by voices that were trying to gain her attention, she wept silently for all those people who had been a part of her life. Especially, she wept for Ar, and for Ed.

It was Ed's voice that brought her back, away from those glittering memories: (Hawwww, Jayyyl . . . very, scrawww, interes-s-s-s-ting place here, awwwwk? How do you lik-k-ke being f-f-f-freee like a bird-d-d, hawwww?)

(Ed?) she whispered in astonishment. And then she remembered, Ed had joined himself to her in her passage to . . . death, or whatever this was, if not death. How did she like being free? She remembered a memory of Ed's she had witnessed once, when she had "rescued" him from a recreational cyberbank: the parrot's own recollection of being captured, his memories and personality being siphoned out of his physical body. Now she understood what a terrible shock it must have been to him.

(Hawwww, yes . . .)

But Ed was not the only one speaking. The draconae were becoming more insistent.

You have come, and the realm is trembling.

But it may yet fall.

Help us, Jael, friend, of Highwing . . .With a great rush, the urgency of the struggle closed back in upon her, and she was aware now not just of voices, but of the quick, shimmering movements of glassy beings within this mountain. What she saw were the ghostly presences of the draconae in the underrealm. They were singing desperately, Will you trust us, friend of Highwing?

And at last she managed to answer, I trust any friend of Highwing. Is he . . . here among you?

She felt a surge of energy, as though by speaking she had somehow loosed a reservoir of powers. His spirit lives in the Final Dream Mountain, sighed one of the voices. But not precisely among us, though we have often felt his presence.

Jael tried not to show her disappointment. Are you his friends? I am . . . Jael, friend of Highwing.

The answer was a rippling choir of voices.

Lavafire, friend of Highwing

Cooltouch, friend of Highwing

Gentlesong, friend of Highwing

Starchime, friend of Highwing

Strongthought, friend of Highwing

Starfire, friend of Highwing

Deeprock, friend of Highwing

The names streamed by in a torrent, more than she could count. With each one she glimpsed the sparkling presence of a dracona, and felt the surge of a fiery soul. Finally she heard a different voice, the one that had come with her from the Cavern of Spirits. I am FullSky, brother of Windrush, it whispered, speaking with difficulty. Highwing was my father. And she felt something different about that one, not just that he was a male, one of the draconi, but that he was present here in a more tenuous and perilous fashion. She recognized great pain and weariness in him, and glimpsed the sacrifice of strength that he had made to bring her here. And even now, he was laboring, crafting a final spell for her.

That realization made her tremble. But she knew that, whatever it was he was preparing, it was something she could not refuse.

Then, my friends, she whispered, tell me what it is you want me to do.

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