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Chapter 15

Forgotten in their dark corner of the void, the watchers watched, but no longer did they watch because it was too dangerous to close their eyes. Their eyes were theirs alone now, their eyes had served well, and although there would be no reward for the watchers' service, there was actually a chance there would be no punishment if they disappeared before they could be remembered. Yet they did not disappear, and they did not turn their eyes away. They watched still, not out of fear or constraint or even habit, but because they could not help themselves. Watching had given them new identity, new purpose, and they wanted to watch. So on the screen created by the demon they watched the Dreamers prepare for the expected attack, but they also watched through those eyes that had recently watched through theirs, watched through the same eyes that had watched all that they had watched, but had then forgotten whose eyes were attached to whose.

Now the watchers truly saw everything, saw more than they had ever seen before. For at last they could see beyond the fire burning in the demon's eyes, could see beyond the fog that billowed off the ice queen's ice, and they could see that those they had called master were too blind to see for themselves. Yet for all their blindness, the watchers knew their masters were still formidable, perhaps even more formidable for their lack of sight, and unquestionably more dangerous, far more dangerous than the watchers who could see, but who lacked the power to do. They were certainly more than formidable and dangerous enough to deal with the pitiful group of people who stood waiting, and the two Dreamers who clung together without seeming to understand the powers they themselves possessed.

Arm between fangs, heart and lung between fingers, the watchers watched as one, and the dog gnawed bone not because he needed to keep the woman alert, and the woman squeezed in rhythm with the pulsing heart and quivering lungs not because she needed to keep the dog on a leash, but because this was what had made them one and each was simply carrying out the task they had been given: the dog chewed and the woman pinched, and together they kept the joint body that was the watchers alive.

Together they watched the scene unfold before them, watched the Dreamers grip hands in fear, and at the same time watched through the fire and ice within the demon's eyes as the stream of ravening Figments rushed forward, unwittingly concealing their leader in their midst so that he and the invisible companion he carried could sneak into the one world that had been closed to both of them. And they watched as the alien light of this world broke into the demon's shared eyes, watched as he and his queen blinked to see so much color and life, and watched the fire and ice explode behind their eyes when they finally caught sight of the two small figures waiting in the center of the town.

Then the watchers could only watch from afar, from their small corner of the void, for they could not see beyond the towering flames and sheer walls of ice that suddenly filled their masters' eyes, could not see past the madness that had seized not only him, but also her. Yet the watchers still watched, for not only was watching still their purpose and identity, but there was something worth watching, something they would have been compelled to watch even if they had watched nothing of what had come before. As they watched, they could see the Figments break like a wave against a rocky shore, parting ways so they could charge in various directions across the smooth green surface of the land; they could see the demon towering above the others, wading brutally through the bodies that blocked his way so he might quickly reach the two Dreamers; they could see a darkness spread rapidly and irrevocably across the land until there was nothing else to see, and for the first time since they had started watching, all the watchers could do was wait, dog gnawing bone, woman pinching heart and lungs, and both sets of eyes intent on the darkened and uncommunicative screen.

 

The tide of Figments that surged through the gash was so heavy and unceasing that even Sevor, who had known what to expect, knew a moment of overwhelming despair. He clutched his knife convulsively, wondering what he would have seen if his dream had continued, wondering if he would have seen his knife plunging into a slathering Figment, wondering how much blood and carnage would have preceded his own death, wondering if he would have seen Mischa and the others fall before him, or whether he would have seen himself fall first. And most of all wondering if he still had a chance to wake up from this nightmare, wake up and find Mischa folded in his arms, wake up and know for the first time in his life that a dream could just be a dream and didn't have to mean anything else at all.

He and the others stood as if they had no choice but to stand and wait, and then suddenly Peyr was dashing down the hill, waving empty hands above his head and bellowing wordlessly as if sound alone was the most deadly weapon imaginable. There was a moment of stunned silence on the hill, as if the three remaining people had unexpectedly found themselves in a soundproof bubble that could not be penetrated by the stampeding feet and piercing shrieks of the innumerable charging Figments, and then the bubble was burst from within as Timi screamed, "Peyr! No!"

Despite the seeming futility of any effort, Sevor charged down the hill, Mischa's knife clutched over his head, his eyes on the bloodred eyes and dripping fangs of the closing enemy, Mischa directly on his heels. As he ran he could smell the stench of the swarming creatures, could even feel their muddy breaths drizzling stickily across his face, but just as he saw his own certain death reflected in the nearest slitted eyes, something impossibly strange stayed his headlong plunge. He wavered expectantly at the base of the hill with Mischa to one side and Peyr on the other, while a long straggling line of glassy-eyed Figments swayed unsteadily in place only a few feet away, their faces filled with unthinking adoration as they gazed longingly at the lone figure of Timi poised on the crest of the hill. Then, as the next wave of crazed Figments crashed into the stalled attackers, a cluster of diving hummeybees plunged into the packed mob, barbed stingers stabbing into the backs of unprotected necks so that the Figments reeled senseless to the ground.

Peyr and Mischa tumbled immediately into the melee, Peyr throttling unresisting Figments with his bare hands, Mischa calmly slitting exposed throats, but for a second Sevor paused, his eyes on the distant figure of Timi. She stood outlined against a graying sky, but even from here her eyes shone more intensely gray, and her hair glowed more golden than the lowering sun. There was an aura about her, as if all the heat and light in the world radiated from her slim form, and not from that distant yellow ball, and Sevor could even feel the pull of her ensnaring gravity slip over and past him and seize the next wave of Figments. Then his eyes were back on his own personal sun, and he was plunging into battle after Mischa, her knife ready in his hand. Resistless the Figments fell before him until he felt sickened by his own savagery, but he knew better than anyone that they were followed by an endless deluge of more Figments, and he doubted that Timi could hold them all. So like Peyr and Mischa and the fiercely buzzing hummeybees, he struck over and over again, sending Figment after Figment collapsing to the ground, where they either groaned and wallowed in their blood and in the blood of countless others, or sprawled unconscious.

As he waded forward through fallen bodies to reach those still standing, Sevor's arm grew weary and his vision blurred, but still he struck, not killing, for these creatures could not be killed by such as him, but removing them effectively from the battle, at least for the time being. On he moved, until he was covered in thick, oily blood, and the knife he wielded was almost too slick to hold. And still he pressed forward. It was an endless, consuming task, but at last there was a pause, for an inbound wave of Figments had halted abruptly just within the Barrier, and in the lull Sevor glanced back over the innumerable felled bodies toward where Timi still stood, on top of a hill now covered completely with those Figments who had somehow evaded not only the dangerous hummeybees, but also him and his two fellow fighters. He caught his breath in sudden fear, but as one the Figments knelt before her, their eyes tilted upward in abject devotion, and as he watched in amazement, he could see her place her hands atop two of the bowed heads at her sides and lift her shining eyes toward where Peyr, standing in the midst of his senseless victims, smiled up at her.

* * *

Drew felt caught in a dream as the first wave of Figments burst through the crack in the sky, and she watched helplessly as the scene unfolded before her with all the inevitability and distorted aloofness that came whenever she dreamt herself a spectator in her own nightmare. A dark coil of creatures unwound over the land, blotting out all traces of green as they rolled inexorably toward the foot of the hill where even now three small specks rushed down as if to lose themselves in the innundation of darkness. Yet another mass of creatures churned over the road and into the paths of the town, crashing against empty buildings and howling for blood, their driving need blinding them to the two motionless Dreamers hiding hand in hand within the shadows. It seemed as if she and Gyfree floated above the devouring flood, watching and waiting as the creatures swirled madly below, watching and waiting for some faraway dam to completely burst and disgorge a tidal wave of darkness so immense it would wash them away.

Drew perched above the roiling creatures, and then her ears were shattered by the roar of the explosion she had unwillingly awaited, a roar of crushing madness; raising her eyes once more to the gushing crack, she saw him looming over her just as he had once loomed over her child-size bed, his eyes filled with the promise of her death. Even now she could remember that first moment so clearly, could still see him as she had seen him then, his face on fire and his eyes aglow with all the other flames that raged within him. He had opened his lips, not as if he wished to speak, but as if he had wanted to suck her into the furnace of his mouth, and his forked tongue had flickered out like the tongue of a snake smelling fear in the air. Cowering in her bed, she had met his eyes, and had recognized that he was laying claim to her, that he had already marked her as his own just as her parents had warned he would, and then he had smiled, his fangs glinting in the glow of his flames, smiled because he knew that she had recognized his possession. She had screamed then, and he had fled, but she had seen him once again, and felt his presence stalking her as she grew from child to teen, from teen to adult, felt him waiting to collect what he had laid stake to all those years ago.

Now he had returned, just as she had always secretly feared he would, and the years seemed to fall away, leaving her as helpless as a child again. Watching him plow through the swarming Figments, blood in his wake, she was more afraid than she had ever been before, for she realized that he had grown more dangerous, more merciless, than she had once dreamt him. That was, in the end, the only change she had dreamt possible for him. His fiery features hadn't changed in the least since that first time, but he had grown infinitely larger, just as she had dreamt he would, for she had dreamt that over time all those flames that he held inside would grow, and that he would be forced to grow with them, would need to keep growing so that he could contain all his pent-up hatred and rage. All the hatred and rage that he had saved for her.

Yet as he drew ever closer she realized that there was something about him that had changed after all, something that she had never dreamt possible. His eyes flamed, but intermixed with the flames were shards of glittering ice. Flames licked across his face, but at the heart of each flame was a sliver of ice. And when he opened his mouth to loose another insane roar, his fiery tongue was forked with ice, and his fangs glinted more silvery blue than burning red. Something incredibly cold snaked down Drew's spine, and with a shudder she squeezed the hand that convulsively gripped her own, knowing that Gyfree had seen the ice long before she had, and that he had felt its touch all his life. Timi had been right; there was more here than could be easily understood.

Rushing in with the thought of Timi came the memory of her explanation of what exactly had become of her Figment, and rushing in behind that memory came an idea that rocked Drew to her core. She knew what she and Gyfree needed to do now, not without a doubt, for there was no way not to have doubt, but still she knew that of all possible choices, there was now one that might be the best. And once that choice was made, there would be no time to change, since they were already nearly out of time, already in danger of not having enough time, for now she could feel both the heat washing over her face and the chill radiating from Gyfree's body. With a gasp she blurted her idea into Gyfree's ear, and then the demon was upon them, towering directly above, his eyes both aflame with hunger and cool with anticipation.

A dream erupted in Drew's eyes, a dream she had dreamt only once, and had feared to dream again. The dream itself had been born of fear, born from all the dire warnings and threats that her parents had bombarded her with, all the mad ravings of the robed man they had dragged her to hear, and in the dream she was surrounded by flames, and the flames formed a creature who always burned, a creature whose laughter crackled as he reached out to make her burn with him. He had seemed so real, so full of life, so full of fire, that when she forced open her eyes, he was standing there, flames licking across her bed but scorching nothing other than her mind. And now she dreamt him again, and saw him again, saw him not as he towered above her, but as he had stood at the foot of her bed, and this time across the chasm of years she saw that what glowed in his face was need, and that what burned on his tongue was a plea, and that the eyes marking her recognized that she was the one who owned him, that he was hers to love or hate, embrace or spurn, need or reject, and whatever her choice, forever hers to possess. Finally she could see him clearly, see him as no more than a child himself, and seeing him new and vulnerable she understood that when she had turned from him in fear, she had turned him into something to fear.

Drew's blurted words had pierced through the cold that held Gyfree in its grip, and just as she had flung herself into her dream, he had flung himself into one of his own, flung himself with complete abandon into the one dream that had so haunted him as a child that it had chased him into another world. Plunging into the dream he could even recall, as if it was an integral part of the dream itself, how he had shivered in the freezing cold, a small boy dragged through a snowstorm, teeth chattering as some cheery adult voice pointed out that a little snow never hurt anyone, and then the same voice, less cheery, questioned why he didn't recognize the beauty in the snow-gowned land, and at last icily hostile, as all adult voices ultimately were, the faceless voice snapped that he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself. Still shivering uncontrollably in his dream, he watched the snow swirling above the ground, silvery flecks dancing as if in a playful wind, then whirling madly through the tops of the snow-laden trees and dislodging icicles that then joined the dance of silvery flakes. Like a tiny tornado of ice and snow, the silvery flecks whirled and spun around him, catching at his clothes and then twirling him helplessly through deep drifts of snow before tossing him to the frozen ground. Through tears that froze as soon as they trickled from his eyes, he stared up at the silver ice storm as it hovered above him, and stared as the silvery flecks coalesced and solidified into an exquisitely lovely little girl, a little girl more beautiful than the snow-gowned land, a little girl who reached out to touch him with hands of solid ice, reached out to freeze him so that he would never be warm again.

This was the moment, as a boy, that he had shuddered awake, and teeth chattering with a cold that had to do with much more than just his dream, saw the exquisite little ice maiden reaching out her hand. He had screamed then, and she had fled, only to return later, more beautiful and far more deadly, and it had been his turn to flee. He started to shiver even now, started to turn away from the beautiful girl of ice and snow, but then he paused, for he wasn't a child anymore, and his hand was gripped in the warmest of clasps, and he had not faced this dream again only to let it frighten him away. So he turned back toward the beautiful creature sculpted from ice, and as he turned he saw the pleading in eyes where tears were permanently frozen in place, saw the trembling of arms that were extended not because they wanted to touch, but because they longed to be touched, saw the shivering of the tiny hand that wanted, just like his, to be held in a warm clasp.

Standing eye to eye with his beautiful creation, Gyfree noticed as if from a great distance that the silvery blue was draining from the suddenly paralyzed figure towering above, that the ice was melting from the fiery eyes, seeping through the flaming skin, shivering away from the searing claws, and that there in the space before him, where the girl he had dreamt long ago and finally dreamt again stood wavering, the silver drifting down from above swirled and danced, sinking through her transparent skin, filtering through her translucent eyes, until she was once more as substantial and chilling as she had been the first time she had reached out her tiny hand to touch him. And this time when she reached out, her eyes full of crystal tears, he did not flinch, but he still did not move to take the hand she extended. Yet he paused not from uncertainty, or even from fear, but because the fiery creature looming over them all was dissolving into a whirlwind of sparks that rained down upon the shimmery form of a much smaller, although equally fiery creature poised expectantly, flaming eyes on Drew.

Hand in hand the Dreamers stood, and as they watched, their Figments reached out to each other, icy fingers slipping into a fiery paw, and although the frigid eyes that gazed back at Gyfree were the same eyes that had watched him with longing, and the fiery eyes that burned into Drew were the same eyes that had first marked her, both pairs of eyes were also the eyes that remembered everything. And those eyes were filled with demands that must be answered, needs that must be fulfilled, and the consequences that would be delivered if this time was to be no different from the time that had gone before. Gyfree saw the icy warning, just as Drew saw the fiery menace, but they both saw the fear behind the threat, saw the shadows of infinite hurt that neither Figment could bear to endure again, and this time when the ice maiden extended a shimmering hand, and the demon's forked tongue slipped between his parted lips, the two Dreamers stepped forward hand in hand, and Gyfree wrapped his free fingers around the tiny frigid hand, while Drew reached up her empty palm to cup the demon's fiery cheek.

A shudder shook the Figments, and shook the ground beneath their feet more violently than the swarming army of Figments shook the world beneath theirs. Together the Dreamers stepped forward again, until their bodies almost touched the bodies of their creations, and Gyfree could feel the wintry chill that radiated from the glistening sheen of the ice maiden's skin, while Drew could feel the burning heat that leapt from the demon's pores. Then, looking deep beneath the ice-coated eyes, beneath all the layers of ice she had built around herself, Gyfree met the gaze of the small shivering creature that needed warmth, needed love, needed him, and he pulled her gently by the hand and tucked her into the space beneath his shoulder, holding her as closely as she had always wanted to be held. She shivered against him, but where her body touched his, he felt only warmth, and when she sighed, there was no cloud of frost hanging in the air.

Beside Gyfree, Drew stroked the flaming cheek beneath her palm, but even though flames erupted between her fingers, she felt no pain, only a comforting warmth. Looking up into the pits of fire that were her demon's eyes, and gazing deep into the heart of the flames, she could see the truths concealed within, the secrets of fire itself, but she could also see that these were not the secrets she had always thought them to be. There was no ecstasy in burning, only a gnawing hunger that could never be assuaged; no eagerness to destroy, only an empty yearning to find something that would not disappear, and that could never be devoured. And there was no drive, no great desire, to consume the very thing that had granted life, but there was a need, a burning need, to be gathered in and sheltered, to be contained, to be granted the freedom to leap and dance with no need to find food and no fear of being extinguished. Without hesitation, and without the smallest trace of fear, Drew pulled down the demon's head to nestle on her shoulder and wrapped her arm around him, holding him close, and where his body touched hers, the flames flickered and subsided until his skin glowed like hot embers that needed only a nudge to spark back to life.

Together the Dreamers and their creations stood, pressed so close that from afar they seemed to form a single whole, and then Gyfree lowered his head to kiss the quivering lips of his ice maiden, and Drew turned her head to kiss the blazing lips of her demon, and into their kisses they dreamt all the words they had never said but should have, all the comfort they had denied but should have provided, all the love and acceptance they had withheld but now gave freely, and a promise that should have been made years ago, but was still not too late to keep. And in the embrace of their Dreamers, the two Figments shuddered, and their forms wavered and flickered, and with a sigh that seemed to tremble throughout their bodies, they dissolved into the air, flecks of silver and red swirling together as one, climbing high into the sky in a joyous explosion of color and light, and then floating back down and drifting apart to stream into the bodies and dreaming minds that would finally, or perhaps once more, be their homes.

Alone in the shadows, although never truly alone again, the two Dreamers stood hand in hand, and while the hand Gyfree held felt deliciously warm, the hand Drew held was soothingly cool.

 

All around her were creatures who desired only to serve her, creatures who would do anything just to satisfy her slightest whim. And there were more creatures than these, just beyond the Barrier, more who would just as readily, just as eagerly, bow down to her. At first she had only had the power to attract a few, but then her strength and confidence had grown, and she had added more and more to the growing number of creatures who groveled before her, had added more and more until only one creature who had entered this world was left untouched. It was intoxicating, this sense of overweening power, but it was also strangely empty. She was adored, even worshiped, but what she truly wanted was something different, something more. What she wanted couldn't be found in these groveling creatures, or in the ones sprawled senseless, or even in the ones still to blunder into her trap; instead, everything she wanted, everything she had always wanted, was in the smile of the one man gazing back at her, his eyes neither reverent nor submissive, but filled with love and pride and even a hint of laughter.

Timi smiled back at Peyr, but she did not release the multitude she held in thrall, for there was a reason she held them, and that reason was as pressing now as it had been the moment she had unleashed all those powers she had kept carefully restrained inside. She had not wanted to loose her powers, for she had not truly trusted her ability to rein them back in when the time came; she had feared that she would crave more, just as her Figment had always craved more, that once she had tasted conquest, she would never be satiated. Peyr had known her fears, had told her to trust herself, but her terror of what she might become had been so great that she would have preferred to die rather than risk becoming a monster. But she hadn't been willing to watch him die, and he had known that too. He had not been able to convince her, so instead he had compelled her to act, compelled her to save his life the only way she could. And since he had compelled her, perhaps his power over her was as great as any power she might wield over him. With that thought she was able to release her last nagging doubt; whatever his feelings, and whatever her attraction, she had not ensnared him. She was capable of so much, but she didn't need to be afraid anymore; she knew now that she could trust herself, just as he had wanted her to trust herself.

Across the space that divided them, Peyr smiled again, and Timi knew he understood everything she had felt, and everything she had learned. But she also knew he was waiting, for she still had a job to complete, and it was time to begin. Lifting her eyes from his face, and summoning a smile that was her own private weapon, Timi turned to the Figments surrounding her, and asked softly, "Who will serve me?"

"I will!" resounded a chorus of voices, and the sound was echoed all the way down the hill, across the land and to the Source itself. It even penetrated into the town, where from the corner of her eye Timi could no longer see the monstrous creature who had rushed toward the place where she had last seen Drew and Gyfree, and where now she could detect nothing but shadows. A moment of hopelessness seized her, for if Drew and Gyfree had not survived, all her efforts would be futile; there had been something in that massive Figment that, she had sensed from even here, would be beyond her ability to control. But that Figment was nowhere to be seen, and she shook the hopelessness aside, for she had no choice but to try, even if she was destined to fail, and with a strength she had never known she possessed, she threw herself fully into her task.

"Will you do anything I ask of you?" she crooned seductively.

"Yes! Anything!" cried the Figments.

"Will you leave this world and never return?"

There was abject pain in the eyes that gazed back at her, but there was only one answer the Figments could give. "Yes," they whispered, "we will leave." Then beneath her hand, one creature shivered, its imploring eyes fixed to her face. "I will leave if you wish, but I would rather stay and serve you," it whimpered, and all around Timi the Figments shivered, and their eyes begged for her to reconsider.

Panic rushed through Timi, and for a brief moment she doubted her ability to simultaneously hold the Figments and send them away, for it seemed impossible that she could still exert control at the same moment she was spurning them. But then she saw that the eyes on hers were begging not just to stay, not just to be allowed to adore her, but to be cared for in return, and she armed her smile with a gentleness that could not be dodged. "Every Figment who has come here before you is dead," she related. "Not one has survived. This is a dangerous world for all of you, a world so dangerous that I fear for your safety. I want you to leave, but only because I can't bear the thought of harm coming to you."

The Figments nearest her shivered again, but one with a bloody gash across its throat whined, "But you let those three people hurt many of us. They are covered with our blood, and the ground is covered with those of us who are injured."

"Yet they did not kill any of you. They only stopped you before the dangers of this world could find you. I had to let them hurt you so I could save you."

A sigh rippled through the gathered Figments, and in their eyes she could see how desperately they needed to believe that she cared. "Will you come with us?" begged one raspy voice, and then another, and another, until the plea was left trembling in the air.

"No, for I cannot live where you live. If I left here it would mean my death."

As one the Figments quaked, for the thought of her death was more intolerable than the thought of never seeing her again. "Then we must leave," rumbled a voice from somewhere within the mob.

"Please, before it is too late," urged Timi, tears actually springing to her eyes as she felt the power of their feelings wash over her. "And help those who do not yet have the strength."

First one, and then another, and then countless others turned from Timi, bloodred tears streaming down their forlorn faces, and with heavy steps they walked back toward the white gouge in the sky, some battered creatures stumbling alone, but most trudging arm in arm with those who had somehow gone unscathed. Even from the farthest recesses of the town they poured, as if Timi's voice had tracked them down wherever they had ventured, and lured them back to the road that led away from not only a town, but also a world. They left far more slowly than they had arrived, and there were many backward glances cast at the lone figure standing silhouetted on the crest of the hill, but as they neared the Source, an invisible hand seemed to reach out and wrest them away, and finally, as the sun tilted in the sky to light the hill on fire, the last Figment vanished into the white slash that stood out even more starkly in the darkening sky.

 

How long the Dreamers stood hand in hand dreaming they could not guess, but they could see as if from a fathomless distance the dark tide of Figments that continued to roll past them into the town, and that slowly covered the distant hill. From afar they could hear the land wailing beneath the onslaught of a terrible pain, and then for an uncharted time a roaring drowned all other noise, until finally the roar subsided and they could hear a seductive voice rippling through the Figments like a strong current. From their far-off dreaming they could even sense the reluctant departure of the surprisingly gentled Figments, but this too was just something to note in passing, for what held their attention above all else were the scattered memories and lingering sensations that had filled their Figments' lives, and which they now absorbed dreaming just as they had absorbed the Figments themselves.

Roaring through Drew with the fury of a wildfire were all the searing sensations of pain that had shaped her Figment, and all the cruel delight he had eventually felt bringing that pain to others. She watched in her dreaming as so many others writhed beneath his burning touch, watched as he ripped them apart and made them his, and the heat of his remembered pleasure drove through and scorched her most cherished dreams. Everything beautiful that had ever graced her dreaming mind was consumed in the blaze of his presence, and she knew that if she could not control the fire, she would be lost. Yet as quickly as it had flared out of control, the fire he had brought abated, cooled by all those dreams she had only moments before feared lost, and her own memories and self fell back into place, so that once more she could watch and fully understand as she had promised.

Flickering through her dreaming mind were now other images, and although these too were fueled by an incredible heat, their glow was soft and seductive, and in them she could see Gyfree's Figment, could see the desire the two Figments had shared, the pain they had given even in passion because pain was all they had ever known; she could even feel the intensity of their need to almost completely consume each other. She watched as her Figment took his lover deep within himself, watched as she filled him as if he was empty rather than brimming with fire, and was shaken as she felt how their need for each other had even then flared out of control. And as she once more felt in danger of losing herself, the flames again carefully receded, until at last she watched herself through his eyes, watched herself grow and change and wander aimlessly through her world, living with intensity only in her dreams. She watched just as he had always watched, watched every movement and every moment he had ever watched, watched herself thwart him again and again, and at long last watched as she finally and miraculously opened her eyes to him, then opened her arms, then opened herself. With this final vision the flames subsided, content for the moment to smolder quietly in the recesses she had provided, fueled by her presence and her power. And there was a warmth in her smile greater than any she had known before when she realized the gift he had unintentionally given her.

Gripped by a cold more intense than any he had ever felt before, a cold more intense than he had even felt when his Figment had placed her hand over his heart to steal his life, Gyfree stood frozen beside Drew as he too watched all his Figment needed him to watch and felt all she had yearned for him to feel. He wandered lost with her as she had wandered lost, and he held in his dreaming arms all the victims she had held, and he was left as cold and hardened by their deaths as she had been. He was filled with the coldness of so much death that his mind was numbed and he doubted that he would ever feel again, even wondered if he had ever felt before at all. But then the ice that filled him cracked, and he saw himself, a scruffy boy with dream-filled eyes, and he did feel again, feel with a sharpness as cutting as a dagger of ice. He felt the yearning she had felt for him, felt the despair his final rejection had brought, and for the first time felt the joy of killing she had found when she pursued him, a joy that was icy but joy nonetheless, and deep within he knew that he would rather never feel again than to feel all of this.

Gyfree recoiled from the cruelty of the cold, and he knew that he was lost now, as lost as his Figment had once been, lost to wander in the darkness and the cold that he now held within, but suddenly he felt a flash of warmth, and there in his dreaming mind was Drew's Figment, his fiery figure promising release just as a sweltering sun promised release from the grasp of winter. And then the release came, came when it was least expected, and he felt himself dragged away from his body just as she had been dragged away, felt himself enfolded with her in a dark that was filled with heat, a heat that penetrated to the very core of the ice without melting it. He was wrapped as she was wrapped in a sensual heat, and as the heat intensified the dark receded until he was looking with her through the demon's eyes and feeling with her through the demon's skin. And then he was watching himself standing before her, ready to turn away as he had always turned away, but then unexpectedly turning back and seeing her truly for the very first time, and he dreamt with her as she remembered the promise she had made so many years ago, the promise that if he would just see her and smile, see her and not run, she would leave him in peace, and the cold drifted as silently as snow down into his farthest recesses, to be wrapped in a warmth that would lull rather than arouse her needs.

As their Figments settled, Drew and Gyfree awoke to the sight of Peyr rushing up a hill to catch Timi in his arms and swing her exuberantly through the air. They blinked to see Sevor and Mischa wrapped in each other's arms despite the oily blood that coated them both. And then Drew was turning her head toward the white gash that now pulsed in the sky as if a giant artery pressed against it from behind, and with a new dream filling her eyes, she was stepping in its direction. Yet even as she succumbed to the pull of the Source, a sharp tug on her arm pulled her in the opposite direction.

"Drew, no!" Gyfree's voice rasped harshly in her ear. "I can't lose you. We'll have the hummeybees fly us away from here, and you'll be fine. Just close your eyes and come with me."

Drew met the pleading darkness in his eyes, but instead of following the pull of his hand away from the Source, she stood firmly in place. "I can't just leave," she whispered. "It's calling me, and if you let yourself listen, you will hear it calling you too."

The Dreamers stood poised in the lengthening shadows of the town, Drew pulled toward the Source, while Gyfree tried to pull her away, until finally Gyfree's shoulders sagged and his body slumped in defeat. Then a wry smile twisted his lips, and he whispered, "I can't stay here without you. So if you must go, I'll go too. This world will have to find a new Keeper for itself. Perhaps Timi might accept the job."

A smile ghosted over Drew's face in response, but the dream filling her eyes could not be frightened away. Without another word, she turned back toward the Source, and with his hand in hers, led him away from the town and away from his world. From somewhere far behind them, they could hear a cry of protest, but their feet were on the road and were being hauled forward by something they could no more control than they could control their need to dream. They didn't feel themselves moving; instead it seemed as if the Source rushed toward them, or as if the intervening space had been an illusion that had been erased as soon as their feet had touched the road. They didn't know how they had reached the Source so quickly; all they knew for certain was that they were caught in the hold of something larger and far more powerful than they were, and that it was towering above them, an immense white that filled the entire field of their vision. Yet the white did not reach out to engulf them as Gyfree had expected; rather it receded before them, drawing their eyes but not their bodies into its unknown depths, revealing a distant gray that briefly swirled with the hazy forms of the last retreating creatures, and then closing against the gray so that once more there was nothing but an empty white that split apart the sky.

Pulled into Drew's dream, Gyfree felt his hand lifted in hers and then watched in detached surprise as their joined hands were plunged into the barren white. Suddenly his hand felt turned to ice, fingers wrapped in Drew's fingers of pure fire, and his eyes were stunned by the sight of ice-filled flames pouring into the gaping trap, filling the emptiness with heat and cold that first expanded then contracted the white in a wild pulse that threatened to shatter the whole. Like a giant and frantic heart the Source beat in and out, but even caught up in the frenzied throbbing, Gyfree realized that each outward thrust was being driven back by a wall of flames that had spread to the very edges of the white, and that each inward pulse constricted tighter and tighter around a thin silver vein of ice that ran through the center of the white as if offering permanent refuge from the blistering heat. Ever farther inward the white contracted, freezing to the ice in layers as the Source strained more and more toward the coolness and away from the heat, until at last all that remained was a solid core of glittering ice surrounded by flames. Then, just beyond where his fingers still twined through Drew's, the fire and the ice reached out long fingers to seize hold of each other, wrapping around and twisting together until they were once more completely intertwined, with every flame flickering around a chunk of ice at its center, and every chunk of ice fueling a silver-tipped flame.

There was nothing now except the fire and ice that had poured through the clasped hands of the Dreamers, and as Gyfree continued to watch with the detached surprise of a dream, the flames shrank back into the palms of their hands, and once more he could feel the cold soaking through his skin just as he could sense the heat seeping through Drew's. Then with a surprise that was no longer detached he realized that his eyes were filled with a smooth, pristine blue, and that this unmarred blue curved gracefully over him and the woman who still stood at his side, a dream slowly fading from her eyes, her warm hand clasped in his cool one.

"What just happened?" he asked her hoarsely.

A faint smile flickered over Drew's lips. "There was something my Figment gave me with his memories," she replied. "Something that gave me the courage to listen to the call of the Source, and to trust my own response."

"What could that have possibly been?" Gyfree asked faintly.

The smile that blazed across her face was reflected in eyes as clear as the sky arcing overhead. "The knowledge that I am here, completely here just as you are here, and not asleep in another world."

There was nothing tenuous in the pressure of their lips, and nothing tentative in the way their bodies curved together beneath the dark blue sky curving over them.

 

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