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Chapter 10

Deep inside of him she shivered, a sliver of impenetrable ice held fast within a seething inferno. Deep inside she whispered, for despite the loss of her body, her eyes still saw clearly, and there was much to explain. Deep inside she thrilled, for she knew that there was much she could accomplish now that had seemed impossible before. Deep inside she remembered and she mused. She had wanted him, not like this, but this had its advantages. She had wanted him, wanted to be like him, wanted to share in his strength, his ferocity, his cruelty, and now she was him, just as he was somehow her. And she saw all too clearly how truly indomitable they could be, for nothing and no one could withstand both fire and ice. But first, before all else, she saw the surest way of killing her Dreamer and his, and this time, keeping them dead. And deep inside of him, she shivered, she whispered, she thrilled. And close, so close there was no easy way to determine where she ended and he began, he responded. He shivered. He listened. He thrilled.

With the rustling voice of ice in his head and cutting shards of blue in his eyes, he reached through the void, claws raking through all the realms of gray to gather every Figment sheltered there. Many tried to flee when they felt the breath of fire blistering their bodies and the stab of ice piercing their spines, many tried to burrow into the farthest reaches of the void while others tried to lose themselves in the fleeting refuge of some fragmentary dream, but the immense and merciless hands with claws that burned and froze could not be escaped. With her in his head he harvested Figments as if they were as rooted as stalks of wheat, tearing them from whatever illusory soil nourished them and gathering them in his invisible arms. The more he amassed, the more his arms swelled to hold them all, until his arms were brimming with every phantom being that called the void home, every Figment that had ever called him master, and every Figment that had carefully evaded his rule. Only then did he draw in his arms, dropping his bounty of Figments at his feet, then erecting a wall of fire and ice to pen them in as they tried to scramble free.

Through his eyes she watched as the Figments milled in panic, the stronger ones trampling the weaker ones as all tried to flee both the wall and the fiery demon who towered above them, his face contorting as flames frolicked across his skin, and his eyes casting daggers of ice. Spread at his feet was every conceivable shape ever born of a nightmare, each with a face that flickered in and out of focus, one moment emerging as something soft and almost human, the next moment reemerging as a monster more hideous than any ever created by an adult mind trying to elicit screams and shudders for the latest horror movie. Among these nightmare creatures were other Figments, their forms as distant and diffused as stars in a cloudy sky, flickering in and out of existence, as enigmatic as the dreams that had given them life. The full spectrum was there, from the merest wisp of a fleeting fear to a fully fleshed nightmare. And there, in their midst, was a familiar one with wild eyes and a slathering jaw, slashing and tearing at those who bumped him in their frenzy to hide from those burning, ice-cold eyes that watched from above.

"That one," she whispered. "Let's start with that one."

He looked as she looked, saw as she saw, and remembered just as she remembered, her memory alive in his memory. He knew why she had chosen that Figment, chosen the first of her kind who had ever taught her the lessons of deceit and betrayal, and he relished the thought, just as she relished the thought, of betraying this one in return. A smile both blazing and chilling split his face, and those below who saw it groveled, blood spurting from their very pores as they tried to hide among the feet of the mob, faces pressed in taloned hands, bodies curling into the eddies of the void. Across them he reached, his claws piercing the rough hide of his quarry as he lifted the flailing body high so all could see.

"Watch and learn," he whispered, and the sound of his voice drove the breath from each and every creature below, and sent the ones still standing reeling to the ground. Yet every wavering face turned up, and even those without faces held still to watch in whatever way they could, as he slit the Figment open from chin to groin and exhaled smoke and frost into the gaping belly. The Figment screamed, the sound as piercing as a drill splintering teeth and striking bone, but then the demon sank his fangs through the other's leathery neck, and there was no sound beyond a faint gurgle and the steady drip of blood.

Lifting his blood-filled mouth, the demon smiled again, and even those without blood of their own writhed in pain as the sharpness of his glance ripped through them. "This one will not die," he whispered, bringing even greater agony to those who must survive not only his smile, but also his voice, "no matter how welcome death might seem. There will be pain, relentless pain, until I choose to end it. If I choose to end it. And what I have done to this one is less than nothing. There will be far greater pain for any who hesitate, however slightly, to do my bidding. There will be everlasting pain for any who do not bow down to me now."

There was no hesitation. As one the captive Figments bowed their heads, and even those Figments too nebulous to possess anything resembling a head prostrated their wavering forms until they almost appeared as nothing more than another feature of the swirling gray ground. With heads or entire forms bowed, all were spared his next smile, although not the shredding onslaught of his voice. "If you are wise, you will always serve me this promptly."

A soft gurgle sounded in the silence that trailed his voice, and a faint voice begged. "Let me serve you too, master. Please."

Through the demon's eyes she looked down into a face with a jaw that no longer slathered, for it had been torn away. Once wild eyes were now not only tamed, but beaten, and from their dull depths the Figment pled for a reprieve from the unbearable pain, even conceded that no price would be too high. Glancing down his pain-wracked body, she watched tiny flames lick his intestines while slivers of crystalline ice pierced his lungs and heart, and then she watched as the fire and ice changed places, the flames sealing the gashes left by the ice before scorching the exposed tissues, and the ice soothing blisters before tearing new holes in the quivering gut. "Let him see me," she whispered so only her demon could hear. "Please, just for a moment, let him know it's not just you holding him in your claws."

He heard her whisper, as he now always heard her whisper. He understood her desire, as he now always understood her desire. And he knew, as she knew, that there were other ways this Figment could suffer, and ways this Figment should still suffer. Deep inside she felt herself lifted, as if she was soaring toward the very eyes she could see through but not touch. Then she was seeping through the fire of his skin, and cascading over the furnace of his face, and she could feel, since he could feel, her own perfect features sculpting themselves from layer upon layer of ice across the seething surface. The eyes she looked through were still his eyes, but the smile that abruptly silenced the whimpering Figment was her smile, cold and brittle and full of malice, and it was her beauty that brought new fear to the Figment's face and a shattering recognition to the once wild eyes. And it was her voice that whispered, "You should never have betrayed me," as his claws released the Figment to plunge alone through the void, eternal fire and ice weaving through his belly in an agonizing waltz. Then, like a glacier that had perched atop an erupting volcano, the layers of ice melted away, and she felt herself seeping back through his skin, plunging through smoke and fire, and settling back into the inviolable sliver of ice nestled within his inferno.

From deep within once more she watched through his eyes, but he had let her show herself, had even let her taste the blood of the doomed Figment as her lips shaped themselves above his lips, had let her voice sound for all the gathered Figments to hear. He had taken everything from her, but when there had been something she desperately wanted, he had given it to her with as little hesitation as his captives had given him their allegiance. She was part of him now, a valuable part, a part as lethal as his own mind, and although this was not what she had wanted, for this moment, and the even bloodier moments to come, it was enough.

* * *

There was no twinkle in Sevor's intense blue eyes as he and Peyr's father struggled to pin the thrashing young man to the ground, but Drew somehow knew that the grimness that had replaced his usual wry smile had more to do with the way Mischa shivered and groveled on the floor, her eyes beseeching as she stared across the room at the Figment, than with anything else. On either side of the prostrate Mischa knelt Timi and Peyr's mother, but their ineffectual attempts to comfort her only hardened the lines around Sevor's mouth and intensified the murderous look in his eyes as they rested on the bound and gagged Figment. Sevor certainly wasn't focusing enough of his attention on Peyr, who suddenly thrashed free from the arms holding him down, breaking away from Sevor's grip and knocking his father over as he scrambled to his feet and assumed a defensive posture in front of the object of an obsession he felt but could probably not explain.

"Enough!" boomed Gyfree, and even Drew turned startled eyes in his direction, for in his voice she heard wind pelting restlessly through tall grasses, the groan of rock sliding against rock, the roar of water tumbling toward the sea. In his eyes she saw reflected the impatience of a burgeoning seed, the implacability of a mountain soaring to impossible heights, the strength of a massive tree whose roots could never be dislodged from the unbelievable depths to which they had delved. It was Gyfree who spoke, but it was also more than Gyfree, and for the first time everyone saw clearly the new Keeper of this world.

From where she sprawled on the floor, Mischa raised overcast eyes to the Keeper's face. A glimmer of recognition drifted across her tearstained face. "Gyfree?" she asked. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

The Keeper answered softly, the hum of a summer evening in his voice and the light of dawn streaking his eyes, "I want you and your friends to come with me."

"Why?"

"Because you are needed."

For a fraction of a second the old Mischa looked through her laughing eyes, and Sevor jerked a step nearer to where she knelt, but then something luminous surged through the Figment's eyes, and the old Mischa vanished as quickly as she had appeared. "You will hurt him," she mumbled. "You will send him away."

"No," replied the Keeper. "Not unless you tell me to."

"Never," asserted Mischa, although there was a fleeting flicker of doubt behind her eyes.

"So you will come," stated the Keeper.

Tears welled in Mischa's eyes and traced the dirty tracks on her cheeks. "Ask him," she mumbled. "Don't ask me."

The glow of countless sunrises and sunsets seemed to follow Gyfree as he stepped across the room to confront a glowering Peyr. "I must protect him," insisted the young man, squaring his shoulders and raising his chin defiantly.

"I will not hurt him," promised the Keeper. "I only wish to speak with him."

Peyr's forehead creased with uncertainty, but he turned to meet the Figment's eyes, and whatever he saw there caused him to quietly step aside.

With a motion so swift it seemed to spring from a dream, Gyfree whisked the gag from the Figment's mouth. "Will you come with us willingly?" he asked.

The Figment's eyes darted across the faces of those gathered in the room. "Where are all of the others? They must come too."

"No," replied the Keeper. "We have far to go and cannot be slowed down by so many. The two here who follow you will have to be enough."

The Figment stared up with eyes as hurt and perplexed as a small child faced with the death of someone loved. "But I need more."

A sob broke from Mischa as she burrowed her face into the floor.

The Figment looked at the weeping woman, his expression puzzled. "She was so colorful, so bright, so alive. It is because of her. She made me want more."

"There will be no more," insisted the Keeper, his voice as unyielding as a storm.

The Figment blinked, his eyes sweeping the room once more. "Where are the hummeybees?" he asked. "I cannot leave without them. They have been with me forever."

Gyfree tossed the blanket slung over his shoulder to the ground and out skittered the motionless hummeybees, their silent bodies sliding across the floor like chunks of scattered ice.

"What have you done?" gasped the Figment.

"I have frozen them," answered the Keeper. "I will thaw them only if you agree to come with us, and if you promise to meet all my terms."

"What must I promise?"

"That you will not seek any others to follow you. That you will not try to escape again. That you will not have your followers interfere with the rest of us in any way. And that you will not allow the hummeybees to harm a single person here. If you violate any of these conditions, I will destroy the hummeybees. I assure you, it is within my power."

The Figment turned anguished eyes to where the hummeybees had come to rest, their fuzzy bodies tipped with blue, their wings as still as glass. "Very well," he whispered, "I promise. So please, bring them back."

The Keeper's face filled with light as if the sun was rising in his eyes, and from where she stood nearby, Drew could feel the heat radiating from his body, could even see the air shimmer in waves off his skin as it traveled across the room to where the hummeybees lay unmoving on a floor that continued to shudder in Drew's eyes. As the heat washed over the creatures, the blue streaks on their bodies were flicked away by fingers of yellow and black, and their stingers quivered like guitar strings plucked by invisible hands. A buzz vibrated through the air as the hummeybees stirred to life, their wings blurring into motion and casting rainbows across the faces of all who watched. In a blink they were high in the air, razor beaks and barbed stingers pointing unerringly toward the faces of the two Dreamers who had encased them in ice. Yet something seemed to hold them back, and although their eyes and weapons stayed focused on the Dreamers, their pulsing wings carried them back to the Figment's shoulders and away from where Gyfree and Drew both stood unflinching, shards of uncompromising ice again glittering in their eyes.

The Figment's glance was as soft and distant as the world that had once held him as the two hummeybees settled to his shoulders, their hums reverberating through his ears as his eyes slid slowly shut. In the momentary lull, Sevor edged closer to the spot where Mischa hunched on the floor; kneeling beside her, he stroked the back of her golden head with a shaking hand. "You're far too beautiful to hide your face against the floor," he chided playfully, although his eyes were like two open wounds marring his smiling face.

Mischa raised her tear-ravaged face and blinked uncertainly at the man with the wry smile. "Who are you?" she whispered, curiosity chasing the tears from her eyes like a wind blowing clouds across the sky.

"Sevor," he answered, his eyes filling with light as hers returned to their customary blue.

"Why are you here?"

"To be with you."

Her brow puckered, but she didn't look away. "Do I know you?"

"Not yet. But I've known you most of your life."

Mischa lifted a hand to wipe the wetness from her cheeks, her eyes still fixed on the man who smiled down at her as if she was the only other person in the room. "That doesn't make sense," she stated.

"It will in time," replied Sevor. Reaching out a hand to grasp her tear-dampened one, he added, "Here, let me help you up. You really don't belong on the floor."

Mischa allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, and a smile even flitted across her mouth as Sevor stepped a fraction closer, but then across the room the Figment's eyes burst open and the light instantly drained from her face, darkening her expression more dramatically than a nightmare ever darkened a Dreamer's sleep. As if some unseen force had caught hold of her, she inched back step by step until she had reached the Figment's side and collapsed to the floor beside him. With a growing distance overshadowing her once vibrant eyes, she carefully untied the Figment's wrists, and as she finished, he reached out an arm to wrap around her shoulders and pull her close, his eyes suddenly hard and ugly as he glared across at the impudently grinning Sevor. And although she was again lost in the circle of the Figment's hold, there was a flicker of new life in Mischa's face as she stared across at the man with eyes that were once again as smiling as his lips. A man impervious to the Figment's powers.

A quick look passed between Timi and Drew as Gyfree turned to Peyr's mother, who stood wringing her hands. "I hate to ask anything else of you," he apologized, "but we have no packs. We have a long way to travel, and we will need supplies."

The woman lifted wet eyes to his face. "What of my son, Gyfree?"

"I'm sorry, but he must come with us."

"Why?" demanded the man, stepping forward to encircle his wife's shoulders in a comforting embrace. "If he stays here with us, won't he recover on his own?"

"He'll die," Timi interjected with unaccustomed authority. "He's too ensnared to survive on his own."

"And just how do you expect to free him?" wailed the woman.

Timi's eyes drifted to where the tall, muscular young man stood, feet apart and chin lifted as if daring anyone to approach the Figment. As she watched, Sevor took a single step in Mischa's direction, and Peyr snapped, "You are the one he trusts the least. You will stay away. Or else."

Sevor only laughed and tweaked an eyebrow toward Mischa, and as she turned back to Peyr's parents, Timi murmured so softly that no one could hear, "I don't. Not even in my dreams."

 

The last shrill scream of their agonized victim permeated the heavy air with a stench that gagged the horde of cowering Figments and choked their minds with fear. She watched as he watched, through eyes that no creature dared meet, and she waited as he waited, with a patience as cold as a glacier and enduring as hell. Time slipped into eternity and still the scream echoed through the void, and still they waited, patiently waited for fear to drive every Figment to the edge of desperate and unthinking violence. And as they waited they watched, her eyes moving where his eyes led, together probing each prone figure, looking for something they would see with more than any set of eyes. When they found what they were seeking, found first one and then another, he reached into the trembling mass and extracted two writhing Figments whose features filled with a horror more vivid than any found in a nightmare.

The first creature wavered between two faces, one a shimmering ghost and the other a stocky woman with empty eyes, but it was the human face rather than the phantom that rendered it monstrous. The second fluctuated back and forth between the smiling faces of different men, women, and children, always returning after each face to a snarling dog, and unlike the first Figment, this one's menace clearly lurked behind fangs and slitted eyes. The demon brought them close to his own changeless face, but he stayed his claws from shredding their hides and stayed his fangs from ripping their throats. "Will you serve me?" he rumbled, drawing blood from their open mouths.

"Yes, master," both gurgled, blood dripping from their jaws.

In the depths she stirred, and when he spoke again it was with her voice, a voice that froze the dripping blood and cooled the panic in the Figments' eyes. "You have been chosen for a special task. Do you know why?"

The face of the dead-eyed woman turned upward, and a voice as flat as the eyes answered, "We were dreamed by the same Dreamer."

"No," whined the dog, "the master was not created by the one who dreamed me."

"But me," the cold one whispered through his fiery lips, "don't you know me? Don't just look. Listen."

The dog yelped, its hackles rising before its face shifted away to that of a sniveling boy. "The ice queen," whimpered the boy, sprouting fangs and a muzzle. "You I know, but you and the master are far greater than me."

"Yes," she whispered, "we are. But we have much to do, many worlds to conquer, and we want you to perform a task, a simple task, but one that consumes valuable time. We are tired of wasting time on this task, but your time is of no importance, so you will do it for us from this moment on."

"Yes," sniveled the dog as the ghost shifting back to woman nodded a tongueless head. "Just tell us what we must do."

"You will watch both our Dreamers ceaselessly so that we too can see," the demon growled in his harshest voice, and as they opened their mouths to shriek their unspeakable pain, he pierced their skulls, stabbing through their brains with talons that dripped fire, slicing away their hidden thoughts with daggers of ice. As they dangled from his claws, he breathed into their gaping mouths, spilling fire and ice into their lungs until the fragile sacs burst and volatile air ignited the blood coursing through their veins to shatter their hearts. He had taken other creatures like this before, taken them far away from her prying eyes, but now he took them as she watched avidly, took them and made them his own, made them her own, melded them to the single purpose he and she now shared. He fused them to himself and to her, fused them until their shapes were as unchangeable as fire, as permanently frozen as she had always wanted to be. Then he returned them to those tattered remnants of self they still possessed, and set them before the now lifeless screen where he had always watched his Dreamer as she stumbled sleepily through the waking world and sprang fully to life in the world of dreams. "You will watch from here," he murmured in their ears, carving the words like bloody graffiti into their brains, "and everything you see, we shall see. Do not forget. The moment either of you close your eyes, we will know. And the moment we know, we will be here. And the moment we are here, you will both die. Not just once, but many times. Over and over again, each time in a new and dreadful way, until we grow bored. And when it comes to killing, we never grow bored."

He loosened his claws from their skin and slowly, and for them quite painfully, pulled away. As he withdrew, the numb-faced woman stumbled, her legs quaking beneath her as she sank toward the gray eddies hiding her feet and the dog's paws. With a growl the dog sank sharp fangs into her hand, his jaw snapping shut with the sound of crunching bones as the woman jerked upright and turned her dead eyes upon him. With her hand held deep in his throat, he snarled, "I will not be punished because of your weakness. You will watch, as I will watch, if I must gnaw on your hand forever."

The woman remained completely still as she stared back at the dog, and it seemed to the snarling creature that no lungs had ever expanded in her chest, that no heart had ever pumped blood to warm her clammy flesh, that she had known death long before she had ever tasted birth. The dog shriveled in her gaze, but held firmly to her hand even when her arm followed her fingers down his throat and she seized hold of the lungs that filled his chest, and pinched the heart that directed his blood. She held in her hand his shrinking lungs, held his quivering heart, but she did not tighten her grip. "Very well," she stated flatly. "You will hold my hand to keep me awake. I will hold your air and your blood to keep your attention. We will forever more be as one."

Watching through his slitted demon eyes, the ice queen smiled as he smiled, satisfied that these long-deserted Figments, these Figments long ignored, would serve their purpose well. No longer would he or she be blind to their Dreamers; they would be watching through these eyes, these eyes that were now theirs although not their own, and they would see more clearly than they had seen in years, for once again they would be seeing with eyes that were new, at least to them. Even now the emptiness was dissipating; the screen was filling as if a hidden projectionist had snapped awake, and out of nothing she could see the face of her Dreamer coalescing as if from frozen dust, just as he could see his Dreamer flaming back to life like a match igniting in the darkness. What the watchers watched they too saw, and would continue to see wherever they might be, whatever they might be doing. From this moment on there would always be a constant, unfolding drama played in the back of their shared mind. A drama they were determined to bring to a bloody end.

At his feet and below their joined eyes the mass of Figments still groveled, the skin on the backs of those with skin crawling, the muscles of those solid enough to possess muscles writhing, the combined breaths of both substantial and insubstantial hissing loudly and harshly as they all waited in growing trepidation for whatever violence would next befall them. And watching both them and the drama unfolding far from their eyes, he and she waited as well, waited for the fever of unthinking terror to seize them completely and transform them once and for always into mindlessly grateful slaves.

 

Although her life in fact revolved around something quite different, Drew felt as if she had blundered into a group of lost planets caught in the gravity of the Figment's sun, and that like the rest of them, she had no choice but to circle endlessly around his bright core. As they traveled through space he remained in the center, the hummeybees orbiting him closely as if that was their only chance to keep warm. Next and directly behind him came Mischa, caught as firmly in his gravity as the closest of planets is caught by a sun, her face alight whenever he smiled upon her and darker than night the moment he looked away. Beyond Mischa ranged Peyr, eyes glazed as if he had stared too long at the light, his feet helpless satellites that the Figment could pull between Sevor and Mischa. For of all those not truly caught by the Figment, Sevor remained the nearest, his eyes dark when Mischa's were light and light when Mischa's were dark, his feet weaving a path through separate orbits as he first tried to intercept Mischa, and then stepped aside for Peyr. Beyond Sevor was Gyfree, his eyes darting constantly back toward the Figment, flecks of ice leaping to his fingers whenever the hummeybees drifted too far from the center, and a mere step behind Gyfree walked Drew, not so much as if she orbited the Figment, but as if she orbited Gyfree, and so had no other choice but to follow the path he followed. Beside Drew walked Timi, as far from her creation as she could be, yet not truly free to wander off on her own or escape the sphere of the Figment's influence.

On they moved, even after the sun in the darkening sky had lost its hold on them, long after its face had faded into the distant hills, for the light in their center had not faded and his hold had not weakened, and as long as he moved, so did they. Through the deepest of the night they traveled, and they might have traveled until that world's sun once more lifted its head and captured them with its luminous smile, but at last Gyfree stopped, and the entire group stumbled to a halt. As she gazed back to see the Figment's wan face reflected in the moonlight, Drew suddenly realized that he had never been the center that moved them after all, that in fact it had been Gyfree, the Keeper, leading the way and pulling the others behind him, like a comet trailing a tail of debris. Within that cloud of debris the Figment was just another fragment, large enough to draw smaller particles into the small sphere of his gravity, but no more able to control and direct than any other speck of stellar dust.

"We'll rest here until morning," announced Gyfree, dropping his heavy pack to the ground. "We've covered more than enough distance despite our late start."

The sigh of his followers was echoed by the sigh of the wind, as if the very earth beneath their feet was weary and as badly in need of rest as the most weary of the small creatures stumbling over its vast back. Copying Gyfree's example, all those with packs dropped their heavy burdens to the ground and, rolling their necks and flexing their shoulders, tried to ease their aching muscles. When Gyfree settled to the grass, so did they, nestling down into the welcoming softness, snuggling beneath invisible blankets of warm air. Drowsily Drew wondered if someone should at least remain awake to keep an eye on the Figment and his followers, when she felt the grass rustle as if something surprisingly huge moved through the dark. In the stillness that followed there came an unnatural hush, as if the grass and the air and the people were all expectantly waiting. Then humming through the grass like sound through a telephone wire came the Figment's coaxing murmur, followed by the crackle of Mischa's equally joyful and agonized whimper. The grass thrashed and the air whirled as Sevor stirred, his limbs convulsing as he felt Mischa succumb to the deadening embrace, his sudden pain and longing blasting through the night like an exploded bomb.

"You will all sleep," ordered Gyfree harshly, but the fingers he slipped through Drew's were gentle and warm, and the eyes that caught hers shimmered with a dream. "Sleep," he whispered, "let's dream them to sleep."

Drew's eyes filled with the grit of countless mornings, filled until the heavy sand spilled from between her open lashes to swirl away in a miniature dust storm, tiny twisters angling into every open eye, corkscrewing downward until even the most anchored minds were caught in the calm center of the storm, caught and carried into the peaceful quiet of sleep. Yet as the last grain of sand drifted away from her, she realized her own eyes were wide open and clear, untouched by the sleep that had held her before she and Gyfree had summoned the dream.

"I can guard them," she whispered. "I'm not tired anymore."

The breath on her face was as warm as his laughter. "They won't need guarding," he murmured, his lips hovering above hers, his taste already alive on her tongue. "They will sleep until we dream them awake again."

Lips brushed her lips as gently as a dream, and his embrace was the welcome embrace of sleep. Holding her in his arms, her head nestled into his pulsing neck, he whispered, "Sleep, but don't dream yourself away from me. Just sleep."

 

The flames within him writhed around her, but the sliver of ice that was her remained untouched, and in fact provided enough coolness to hold the violent eruption of his impatience in check. Sprawled at his feet and spread beneath their shared eyes was a multitude of Figments, faces still pressed to the ground as if they could remain unseen if they themselves could not see. Fear had made them grovel, fear had long held them in debased subjection, but fear had not yet fired them, had not yet gnawed away enough of their minds to drive them into the frenzy he and she desired. So he waited, and she waited with him, but his patience was burning away, and only her presence, her icy whisper drifting through his mind, kept him from reaching out his claws and rending his conscripts to shreds.

Then finally, when even her coolness could no longer assuage his fiery fury, a massive Figment reared its head from the ground and roared, sharp fangs glinting as it turned its face upward, eyes black as if something darker than the darkest night moved through its mind. In a motion too swift to anticipate, it turned on its nearest neighbor, a Figment that had tried to hide itself against the other's impressive bulk, and sank its fangs through the back of the exposed skull, piercing bone as easily as if it had been decaying flesh. Raising its head again, blood dripping from its jutting jaw, it thundered, "Let me kill for you, master! Whoever and whatever you hate, I will kill! Just let me kill!"

The mob erupted, Figment turning upon Figment, those with claws and fangs ripping into others, tearing through flesh as well as through more elusive matter, while those with less substance sizzled like lightning as they bolted their way through the grappling bodies, leaving a plume of smoke and the stench of seared flesh wherever they struck. Within moments blood and strips of tattered skin were everywhere, and the sundered scraps of countless phantom Figments drifted through the melee like wisps of stray fog.

"Enough!" he boomed, the cutting edge of his voice inflicting more damage on the warring multitude than they had inflicted on each other. As one the Figments fell to their knees, but this time they all faced him, eyes or whatever passed for eyes lifted, blood dripping from innumerable wounds, shredded phantoms shivering as their lost pieces wafted between bodies like lost children trying to find their way home. "You will all kill for me," he whispered, and a shudder of both unbearable pain and intensely sensual pleasure rippled through the kneeling creatures. "You are mine now, my nightmare army, and nothing can stop you."

A ragged cheer broke from the gathered masses, only to be strangled at the moment of birth as he reached out a hand and a wave of icy flames engulfed them. In a flash they no longer existed, not even to themselves, as more than burning agony and freezing pain. Everything that made them what they were was peeled away so that the acid fire could course through their frames and the merciless ice could freeze it forever in place. Their wounds were healed: jagged gashes closed, burns sloughed away, lost wisps reattached to shivering forms. Yet they were also injured in ways they could not even comprehend as the fire and ice crackled through their minds, reducing their old selves to ashes but sculpting them new selves from the frozen soot. When the fire and ice finally withdrew, they were left standing, spines straighter yet more jagged, eyes brighter yet more insane, purpose decided yet unexplained. There were no more wavering forms, and even those that had once been only insubstantial mists stood solid, eyes in actual faces seeing for the first time as others saw. And what they saw, what they all saw, was the demon looming over them, fire and ice storming through his eyes.

"There will be enough killing for all of you," he rumbled, "but not until I say." Whipping out a hand with flaming fingers and icy claws, he separated more than a dozen Figments from his eager army. "These will face the enemy first. They will fight the first skirmish. They will start the war. There are many worlds to conquer, many battles to win, and they will be the first to taste combat. They will face the Barrier's Keeper. For when the Barrier world falls, all other worlds will follow."

This time when the Figments cheered, he did not stop them. Towering above them he smiled, and so completely were they his creatures now that they didn't even wince at the devastating sight.

She watched as he watched, and thrilled as he thrilled, and whispered finally words only he could hear. "Do you see our Dreamers?"

They were one in thought now, one in intent, but still the hidden whisper of her voice seared him with pleasure, and simply to feel her response, he answered, "They are sleeping."

"Yes, sleeping but not dreaming," she sighed, knowing why he had answered in the same way he had known why she had asked, and aching as he ached for the sensual intensity of their silent exchange.

"A shame, since dreams are their life," he moaned.

"Yes, a shame."

"Perhaps we can help. Let's bring them a nightmare."

 

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Framed