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Chapter 11

Dreamlessly asleep, only half aware of the arms that encircled her, Drew was still startled awake when those arms hastily withdrew. She didn't need Gyfree frantically shaking her shoulders to fully return her to his waking world, although her heart would not have quickened with the same alarm if he had only tried to whisper her awake. Her eyes were sharply clear as she opened them on his hovering face, and she recognized immediately that the shadows flitting across his cheeks were the shadows of distant trees thrashing their branches in alarm, and that the wounded darkness in his eyes leapt from a pain that was not human.

"Figments have broken through the Barrier," he whispered, his voice rough and rasping, as if something unbearably heavy was stepping down upon his throat. "I must stop them before they do more damage. I cannot spare the time to bring the others with me." A haunted darkness that was not the land's entered his eyes. "I must leave you here with them. There is no one else with the ability to hold them here, hold them asleep. There is no one else I can trust to keep control. You must guard them. They won't be able to cause any trouble as long as you keep them asleep."

"What if I need to awaken them?" she asked, his urgency echoed in her voice and eyes.

"You dreamed them asleep with me, so you have the same powers to wake them that I do. But there should be no reason. I'll be back as soon as possible." His lips pressed into hers for a single breath, and then he was gone, dashing away through the dwindling night, spurred on by a need far greater than his own. She watched him until the distance consumed him as completely as that impersonal yet somehow personal need. Then she pulled her legs into the circle of her arms, nestled her chin between her knees, and waited for the coming day to banish the intruding darkness back beyond the barrier of the distant horizon, beyond the barrier hidden by the very dark that had broken through the night before, and that would be back however many times it might be driven away.

 

The watchers watched, dog fangs clacking together through a fleshy arm, jaws gnawing on bone. The watchers watched, woman fingers pulsing in rhythm with a captured heart, fist opening and closing with gasping lungs. The watchers watched, and what they saw so did those who could not watch. The watchers watched, watched what they were intended to watch, watched without thought, watched despite the searing pressure behind their eyes, watched despite the icy pangs that shivered down their spines, watched because the penalty for not watching would bring much greater pain, more pain than they could bear.

As the others watched through the watchers' eyes, they saw all they wanted to see, all but the watchers themselves. They saw all they had hoped to see, all they had intended to see. They saw and they schemed and the watchers watched.

"Now?" whispered the ice queen watching through demon eyes.

"Now," replied the demon watching as the watchers watched.

 

The dark still held sway in the sky when Drew was startled by the sound of Sevor moaning loudly in his sleep. Turning her eyes to where he sprawled in the grass, she saw his mouth twist as if he was trying to unleash a scream. Beneath her startled eyes his arms and legs flinched, muscles bunching as if some invisible hand held him back from running. He groaned again, head thrashing from side to side as if in denial, or as if he was trying to throw off the heavy yoke of sleep that she and Gyfree had placed around his neck. Crawling to his side, Drew placed a hand to the heart thumping wildly in his chest, and into her eyes drifted a dream of bright mornings and busy stirrings. Sevor moaned again, but the sound was choked off before it was finished, and his eyes popped open, as alert and keen as Drew's.

"You were having a bad dream," she murmured soothingly, but as the meaning of her own words pierced her understanding, she gasped, eyes widening in alarm. "What did you dream? What is going to happen?"

"There are Figments coming toward us," he blurted, scrambling to his feet. "We must flee!"

"Gyfree has gone to deal with the Figments," Drew responded, relief warring in her face with the greatest fear of all. "He will be back, won't he?"

"I don't know," admitted Sevor, reaching down to haul her unceremoniously to her feet, his words racing to be heard. "I dreamed that he had gone, and I dreamed of the Figments he had gone to face. I did not dream of the outcome of that confrontation, although I could see him facing the Figments as clearly as I can see you. I don't know what will happen with him, but I do know that the Figments he will face are not the same Figments I dreamed were coming our way. We have Figments of our own to deal with and Gyfree cannot help us."

The blood drained from Drew's face more rapidly than the dark could ever drain from the sky. For a moment she stood helpless, as if frozen by a nightmare she could never hope to escape, watching from an impassable distance as Sevor futilely tried to shake Mischa awake. Now that she knew they were coming, she could feel the approach of the Figments like an itch in the center of her back, an itch that would be impossible to soothe even if she could reach it. She had felt this way before, but only in the darkest dreams, had felt the dreaded approach of something vicious, something that could not be confronted but must be escaped at all costs. Looking out into the distance, beyond the range of her eyes but not her dream-laden mind, she could even see the grotesque shapes of the stalking monsters outlined by the first hint of light in the sky. Many times she had seen similar shapes in her dreams, had even felt them menace the companions whose faces never solidified in her eyes, but whose danger was as great as her own, and whose lives hinged upon her actions. In dreams, one dream in particular, she always saved them. She took them to the house that always waited, not to hide within its walls, but to slip completely away.

She was rocked with a shock of recognition. The house. A large rambling house with rooms that merged together, like a maze with no ordinary way out but countless ways in. She had dreamt that house more times than she could remember, and would dream it again now. And this time she would not only dream it, but make it real.

Across from her a frantic Sevor continued to shake the unresponsive Mischa, and from where Drew stood, dreams within dreams pouring from her eyes and over the murmuring ground, she felt Mischa stir and blink in wonder and surprise at the man who held her. "You were calling me," whispered Mischa, but Drew had no time to ponder how Mischa had heard, for now she felt her dream of waking take Timi and Peyr, felt the Figment and the hummeybees regain themselves. From within her dreaming she could hear Sevor explaining their danger, could sense the fear that deadened even the hummeybees' buzz, but as had happened in innumerable dreams before, she felt as if she had stepped outside herself and was watching her own dream unfold from a quiet, hidden refuge where no nightmare could harm her. From her refuge she saw herself open her mouth, heard familiar words fall from her lips. "We will be safe if you follow me to the house."

From afar she watched as Timi seized her by the arms and shouted, "What's the matter with you, Drew? What house? There is no house near here."

"She's dreaming," Sevor observed, pushing Timi aside and looking far into Drew's eyes as Drew watched him from where she stood invisible, watched him peer into the wells of her eyes, watched him look for her in the one place she could not be found. "She's trying to save us."

"Follow me," the Drew dreamt by Drew said, turning to run down a hill that hadn't been there a moment before, but that had to be there now because the house was always nestled at the foot of a hill. Without a word they followed, and from her refuge Drew watched the Figment charge ahead of the others, the hummeybees on his shoulders but everyone else forgotten in his mad rush to save himself. As his hold on them loosened, Peyr and Mischa stumbled and fell, unable in that moment to comprehend that their lives held any value apart from the Figment and that they had good reason to try to stay alive. Sprawled on the ground, they watched with confused yet wounded eyes as the Figment deserted them, and then Sevor was sweeping Mischa into his arms and cradling her against his body as he hurried down the hill, and Timi was trying to pull Peyr to his feet. At first he resisted, but then his eyes moved from the retreating figure of the Figment and he blinked up at the pale woman above him as if he was truly seeing her for the very first time. For a second they stared into each other's faces, and then a strange recognition widened his eyes, and he staggered to his feet. Hand in hand, he and Timi scampered down the hill.

Ahead they could all now see the house unfolding its wings at the base of the hill, its myriad multifaceted windows and glass-inlaid doors all glittering like insect eyes. Drew watched herself as she halted outside the first of many doors and pushed it open, watched as the Figment shoved his way through the gaping mouth, as Sevor disappeared with Mischa over the lip, as Timi led Peyr into the rumbling belly of the house. And she watched as she stepped through the door, just as she had stepped through all those times before, and shuddered as she found herself back behind her eyes.

The others stood huddled in a group nearby, the Figment cowering with his back to a wall, the hummeybees buzzing dangerously as they hovered above his stricken face. Everyone else, even Mischa and Peyr, had turned stunned eyes onto the innumerable windows, for each window displayed a different view, all familiar to Drew, but alien to those who had not spent their lives in dreams. Shrouded city streets like the ones that had brought her to this world, twisted gray hallways leading into the far recesses of some other shadowy house, the brick road that had carried many of them from Sevor's world, empty gray land that stretched desolate as far as any eye could see, and the secret room beneath the stairs, glowing now as it never had before: these and more were outside the windows. And there, through the largest window of all, was the hill. Drew already knew what she would see on its crest; there was no reason to look, except that she always looked. She lifted her eyes and there loomed the hill. The hill where the Figments stood outlined against the gray sky, the hill that was the same distant hill where they had stood when she had first seen them, but now was also the hill overlooking the house, for that was how she always dreamt this dream.

Behind her Timi gasped, and then gasped even more sharply as the door shimmered and vanished into the wall. "We're trapped!" she cried.

"No," responded Drew, "because I have always dreamed the only way out. Follow me. They will be here soon, and as long as they choose another door, the house will open for them as readily as it opened for us." Turning on her heel, she headed into the dark center of the house, the walls pulsing around her with every step the Figments took down the slope of the hill. As the pulsing grew ever louder, she twisted a path through the recesses of the house, following the curve of a hallway that could not be seen or touched, and then in the middle of nothing she stopped. There seemed no particular reason to stop, no sign that there was something to help them here, but this was the place she always stopped, and she knew its feel as clearly as she had dreamt its secret. Dropping to her knees, she slipped her hands unerringly into an invisible groove in the floor and lifted a weightless door. "No arguments," she told the others as they stared at the black maw in the floor, faces filling with dread as a breath of musty air wafted from the hole like the exhalation of some giant, lurking beast. "There's no time. This is the way we must go."

For a fraction of time no one moved, and then Timi stepped forward, her hand pulling Peyr behind her, and together they plunged into the black throat, instantly vanishing from view. Without hesitation Sevor followed, dropping Mischa in before jumping after her. The Figment, however, only backed away when Drew looked up to meet his eyes, the hummeybees buzzing furiously as they whirred around his head. There was no way and no time to reach through the fear in the Figment's eyes, so instead Drew focused on the pinpoint glare of the hummeybees. "He will die if you stay," she said flatly. "Either you must all go now or I will go without you."

As if testifying to the truth of Drew's words, the house shuddered as the crash of a huge door slamming open echoed through its invisible halls, and then the floor shook with the approach of monstrous steps. Drew glanced quickly over her shoulder, knowing that if anything other than darkness met her eyes, it would be too late for even the most potent dream to save her. Her eyes met nothing, but the floor bucked wildly, and she turned back toward the Figment, her own eyes spilling fear. Fear became shock when she saw the two hummeybees, swollen to incredible size, their burred feet clutching the Figment's shoulders as they carried him over the gaping darkness and dropped his thrashing body into the inky depths. Then with a swiftness as startling as the pulsing of their wings, the hummeybees returned to their usual size and plummeted from sight.

From closer than she had ever heard in any other dream something growled, and then the floor beneath her heaved, tossing her into the waiting hole. She had no idea how she managed not to lose hold of the secret door, but her hands continued to grip it as if they had minds of their own, minds that understood the danger that would follow if the door was not in place; as she slid into the darkness, arms stretched over her head, the door clicked home above her, and only then did her hands agree to let go. And just as she had dreamt so many times before, she was sliding through complete darkness, speeding through a tunnel that curved about her but that could not be seen. The tunnel twisted and turned, and as she plunged endlessly downward through its coils, she lost all sense of time. Yet she could feel the others plunging through darkness just ahead of her, could feel the frantic thrumming of their hearts, could feel the sobbing of their lungs, could even feel the vibration of the hummeybees' throbbing wings. And she could feel the trapped creatures crashing through the house above, could feel their claws tearing futilely at the unyielding walls, could feel their fangs gnashing in hunger, could even feel them ultimately turn upon each other with claws and fangs, slashing and rending with a success that they could never know against the house itself.

On through the tunnel she plunged, and then she knew her ride through the dark would be over soon, not because her speed had slowed or because a hint of light could be seen faintly outlining her feet, but because no matter how many times she dreamt this dream, she always knew. She knew, yet she still felt a jolt as the tunnel opened before her and she rocketed out, feet landing firmly on the ground as if she had never sailed through the darkness of space. Around her the others lay strewn across the ground like discarded rags, but she knew that they had survived just as her dream companions always survived, although this time their faces would resolve and when the dream ended she would still remember who they were and why she had needed to save them. Even now one of the faces turned toward her, and she could see with startling clarity bright blue eyes above a wry smile. "That was quite an experience," dryly remarked Sevor.

Another face with pale eyes surrounded by a halo of ashen hair came into focus. "Where exactly are we?" questioned Timi.

"In the tunnels beneath the house," answered Drew.

"Are we lost?" Timi asked, her eyes on the featureless walls curving over their heads.

"No. I've dreamed my way through these tunnels before and I know the way out."

A whining buzz erupted from one of the others still sprawled on the ground, and as the perfect face of the Figment lifted into view, the two hummeybees darted out from beneath him.

"How could you?" whimpered the Figment, his eyes full of an injury darker than the twisted bowels of the house.

"It waz nezezzary," droned the larger hummeybee, its eyes on the Figment, its wings a blur of agitation. "We had to zave you."

"Yez," continued the smaller hummeybee. "You are too preziouz to die."

The Figment shuddered as violently as the house shuddered each time monsters crossed its sensitive threshold, and in response the hummeybees settled on his shoulders, trembling wings brushing his face and casting rainbow hues across his cheeks. As they buzzed soothingly in his ears, his trembling slowly abated, until soon his eyelids drooped heavily and a sensual smile drifted across his lips.

Beside Sevor another face lifted, and Mischa turned expectant eyes toward the Figment, but when no silent summons forced her to his side, her eyes darkened with bewilderment rather than pain. And when a strong arm encircled her, and then pulled her close, she turned her eyes to a different face. "You saved me," she murmured.

"Now that you mention it, I suppose I did," Sevor replied, his voice warm and his eyes teasing.

"Why?" she asked with a perplexity that was more haunting than the plaintive cries of a child trying to shake loose the clinging tendrils of a nightmare.

"Because I care about you," answered Sevor, eyes turning as dim as the light in the surrounding tunnel.

"How can you care? He doesn't."

"I care because you're special."

Mischa gently shook her head as silent tears slid down her cheeks. "He said I was special too. But I am clearly not special enough."

As Sevor and Mischa continued to whisper back and forth, the last face materialized, and Peyr gazed up at Timi as if she was the solution to a puzzle that had long teased his mind. "You're like him," he murmured. "I can see it in your face."

Timi startled backward as if he had raised a fist to strike her. "Like who?" she blurted.

"Like him," answered Peyr, gesturing toward the Figment as if he was the only possible answer to her question. "There's something about you too. Something powerful. Something enthralling. I can feel it in you, feel it just as strongly as I feel it in him."

Timi recoiled as if he had in fact punched her in the face. Turning toward Drew, she snapped, "Why are we still here? Are we waiting for something? Perhaps for one of those Figments to find its way down?"

Far overhead a solitary pair of feet scraped back and forth across the hidden door, the sound reverberating through Drew's dreaming mind like a scream bouncing off the walls of an empty theater. The vague shape of something monstrous crept through her eyes. "There is always one," she murmured.

"One what?" demanded Timi, her voice tight with a fear that was only in part the house and the dark and the creatures that stalked them.

"One will find the door and follow. We must go."

From far away a door shrieked open, and a shock of cold air erupted from the twisting tunnel that had dropped them all there only minutes or maybe hours ago.

"We must go," repeated Drew, her words jolting the Figment from his reverie and spurring the hummeybees into flight.

"I need," moaned the Figment as he stumbled to his feet, his voice drawing both Mischa and Peyr like the bait in a trap, and his eyes snaring them before they could feel the steel jaws slamming shut on their ankles. At the first sound of his voice, Mischa jerked free from Sevor's arm and Peyr tore his eyes from Timi's flushed face. There was a long moment as they stood poised, not fully recaptured yet still not free, and then something seemed to blast into them and their bodies crumpled. Shoulders slumped and heads bowed, they both limped to his side, limbs twitching clumsily as if their ownership was in contention and they were struggling either to surrender completely or resume possession of themselves. Peyr halted just before he reached the Figment and swivelled around to face the others, his stance once more challenging, although his eyes were gently questioning as he again focused on Timi's face. Mischa, however, did not stop until she was tucked beneath the Figment's arm, but instead of nestling against him as she had in the past, she shivered, and the eyes that had once been completely absorbed by his face gazed outward with a yearning that had nothing to do with desire.

Without another word, Drew turned toward a dark, narrow opening in the tunnel wall, and plunged forward. She could feel the others falling in behind her, just as she could always feel those who involuntarily shared this dream, and just as she could feel the monstrous predator plummeting through the darkness that was the only exit from the house.

 

And the watchers watched, teeth gnawing through arm and hand clutching both heart and lungs while the watchers watched their Dreamers move farther and farther apart. Together the watchers watched, but separately as well, for what they watched was not the same. Intent on watching what he must watch, the dog still felt the grip on his heart loosen, felt his lungs suddenly expand without interference, and he growled a warning and a reminder of what failure in this task would mean.

"I am sorry," whispered the woman, "but there is something about my Dreamer that pushes my eyes away. It is so very hard to watch when in her dreams I've never truly seen her."

"How is that possible?" snarled the dog, his own fear turning his growl to a whine.

"I am the mother of her nightmares. The one who never looks at her except to kill her, and even then doesn't truly see her. And since her real mother never paid much attention to her, I have never completely escaped her thoughts and memories. And those thoughts and memories continue to insist that I don't notice her. I am trying, and I will not stop trying, but you must bite harder, for this is arduous."

The dog's teeth clamped down until the taste of withered flesh was bitter on his tongue. Even more intent on his task, he watched, but this time while he watched his Dreamer he watched the other watcher as well.

And those who watched through the watchers' eyes still saw everything except the watchers.

 

Gyfree ran through the night, ran through trees that shuddered with a distant pain, ran over ground that trembled with the strain of bearing too much weight. Gyfree ran through the night and toward the first gray smears of dawn, toward trees that thrashed in unspeakable agony, toward ground that sank beneath the pressure of so many monstrous feet. Gyfree ran directly into a nightmare rather than away from it, but he knew he was not running quickly enough, that just as he ran so did the Figments, their giant strides carrying them farther than he could match and farther than the land could withstand. He was the Keeper, and no one could stop the Figments other than himself, but first he must reach them, and he was going far too slowly.

As the world grayed around him, Gyfree felt as if he was running through a dream, his limbs leaden with exhaustion, the air in his lungs as trapped as a scream. Yet this wasn't a dream, for a dream would have brought the monsters to him shortly after he felt their presence. A dream would never have placed so much distance between him and the menace that threatened. A dream would have carried him farther and faster than he could ever carry himself. With that thought, Gyfree's feet faltered and the gray touching the sky and marking the trees filled his eyes. A dream. He needed a dream; needed to dream a dream. A dream that spanned distances, a dream that rocketed through the grayness, a dream that could transport a Dreamer across any world.

The seeds of gray in his eyes blossomed within his mind, and now when he ran there was nothing beneath his feet and nothing to mark the course of his passage, and more importantly, nothing to slow him or to keep him from his destination. He ran with all the speed of a dream winging its way through the night, with the urgency of a Dreamer trying to awaken from a nightmare. And then with the disjointed abruptness that characterized the most restless of dreams, he was there, feet back on firm ground, the dream spilling from his eyes like muddy tears, more than a dozen Figments rushing toward him.

Suddenly confronted by the Keeper, the lead Figment skidded to a halt, clawed feet tearing deep gashes in the skin of the land. Behind him came others, each as solid as the shivering trees and as present as Gyfree himself. There was not a single misty phantom or fluctuating figure. Each Figment wore a face twisted and torn from some unbearable nightmare, but no other faces emerged from beneath the deformed masks, and the only rippling Gyfree could see was the rippling of muscles beneath grainy skin or slimy scales. The Figments stood before him, massive and hideous, their exhaled breaths rancid with the reek of death. And the most massive and hideous was the one that stood before the rest.

"You must leave," boomed the Keeper, voice echoing in the still air as if bounding and rebounding from cavern walls buried deep within the earth.

"You must die," rumbled the giant Figment in response, voice as fathomless and vast as the void, eyes agleam with malicious laughter.

The Keeper's eyes squinted as if he was trying to focus on something far away while the sun shone fully into his face, and then flitting across his features there came the vague shapes of leafs, the shadows that marked time passing across the ridges of a mountainside, the fluid outline of a waterfall dancing its way down from incredible heights. As if of their own volition, his hands spread open, palms toward the emerging sky, and all the verdant greens and rich browns of fertile earth, all the elusive blues and trapped rainbows of water and sky, all the riotous colors that heralded spring, burst through his skin and ignited the air.

"You must leave," boomed the Keeper, his voice the rumble of nearby thunder that warns that lightning can strike anywhere at any time.

This time the Figment did not offer a response, but instead stepped forward, the earth sinking beneath its feet. All of the light and color ablaze in the Keeper's hands exploded outward to strike the creature directly in the chest, but the Figment swiped it aside with one immense paw as if swatting at an annoying bug. Closer it came, and icy waves from the Keeper's hands pounded against the creature as if it was a rocky shore that time and the elements could patiently erode away. Yet still closer came the living nightmare, and the waves shimmered with the heavy heat of a summer afternoon, a heat that always coaxed the very trees and rocks to lose themselves in drowsy fantasies, but even that did not slow the approaching monstrosity. Instead of hesitating as the waves crashed into it, the Figment cupped its paws to its chest, so that all the light and color, all the numbing cold of deep winter and all the sapping heat of high summer, the very essence of the land itself, cascaded from the grimy palms and splashed upward into the black hole of the Figment's gaping mouth.

As if seized by a gravity greater than any world's, the force spilling through the Keeper was sucked into the Figment's maw and drawn down its throat. The Keeper shuddered and gasped, and across his face now flitted the shadowy smudges of dust-filled clouds stirred by a hot, dry wind from arid land where nothing lives and nothing grows. He tried to close his hands, to hold back the surge of life and power that came from the land, but it seemed as if some force greater than his own pried his fingers open each time they curled shut. With unappeased hunger the Figment continued to swallow the stream of brightness flowing from the Keeper's hands, continued to swallow it even after the colors faded and the light dimmed, and long after all of the surrounding land had visibly started to fade, the trees and the grass, the sky and the soil, now all empty and wan. Only when the knees of the Keeper buckled, and his hands fell to the brittle grass, did the Figment close its massive jaws. Then, with scraps of green and blue and brown hanging from its fangs, it smiled, and to Gyfree it seemed as if death itself stood smiling over him. As if from far away he could hear the mob of Figments laughing derisively, could hear the giant Figment laughing above all the others. And resounding through his mind he could hear the sighs and whispers of death as his world teetered on the edge of the waiting darkness.

He was the Keeper, the one chosen to defend this world, and he had failed. He was the Keeper, and he was dying, just as his world was dying. He could feel countless withered trees trembling in unison with his own feeble limbs, could feel every river and stream turn to sludge with the blood in his veins, could feel the dense and gritty air settling in his lungs and across the land with the heaviness of cement. He was the Keeper, and he would never again walk through tall grass or along the paths of a dream, would never hold Drew in either his waking or dreaming arms, for there would be no world or dreams left in which to hold her.

He was the Keeper. The world stirred within him, and the sighs and whispers changed from mourning to admonishment. He was the Keeper, but he had been chosen for a reason. He had been chosen because he was different. He had been chosen because he was a Dreamer. A Dreamer before all else, a Dreamer before he was the Keeper. A Dreamer first, a Dreamer always, for only as a Dreamer could the Keeper hope to prevail against enemies more numerous and powerful than any this world had ever faced before.

He was the Keeper. The world stirred within him, and the sighs and whispers changed from admonishment to advice. He was the Keeper, but no ordinary Keeper, for he had the power to dream. Even now a dream was streaming through his eyes, and in his dream he was no longer crouched in the crumbling grass with heavy dust deadening his lungs; instead he was adrift in a sun speckled clearing among trees as green as Drew's eyes. Here the air was vibrant, crackling with all the pent-up energy of undischarged electricity, and he was the outlet it had chosen. Lightning thrilled through him, sparking from his fingers, forking from the soles of his feet, and when he laughed his was the voice of thunder, this time warning that the lightning had indeed arrived, and that it was now too late to seek shelter.

Spread below in his dream were the tiny figures of more than a dozen Figments floundering in a flood of gray, distant faces turned upward as if gulping for air, but he was in the air, and into their gaping mouths he rained lightning. At first the Figments all seemed to possess the same unquenchable appetite as the largest one, the capacity to consume anything and everything, but then their forms began to bulge as if hundreds of snakes were tunneling beneath their skin, and forks of light poked from their eyes and from beneath the claws of their splayed paws like reptilian tongues testing the air. The light licked their faces and wrapped around their arms and legs, and then sank its own bright fangs into their bulky torsos, closing its jaws until they were swallowed whole. Then the light slithered its way across the gray ground and, with a flick of its sinuous tail, vanished.

The Dreamer still dreamt, suspended in the electric air, for below remained one Figment, the largest of them all, its leering mouth crammed with greens and browns and blues too dense for any light to penetrate. The Dreamer dreamt, for in this place, dreams were power, but the creature beneath had power of its own, and locked away behind the bars of its fangs it held the Dreamer's world hostage. The Keeper might despair; in fact, the Keeper had despaired, but the Dreamer still dreamt, and through him the land now too had the power to dream. And together the Dreamer and the land dreamt of trees that grew and grew to enormous heights, scraping the stars from the sky with their swaying branches; of mountains orbiting beyond the trees to pierce through the velvet fabric of space; of waterfalls leaping from the tips of the mountains to extinguish distant suns; of a world too galactic to be contained.

Now so far below that it seemed no more than a mote of dust, the figure lost its leer, but the Dreamer that was the Keeper and the Dreamer that was the land were too immersed in their dream to notice. The figure swelled, but the Dreamer and the dreaming land were too wide-ranging to mark so minuscule a change. The figure continued to swell, and the Dreamers continued to dream, for in their dream was forgotten the distant pangs of a dying and parched world. But when the figure finally burst, and the greens and browns and blues, and all the other countless colors of life, flooded back through the Keeper to shower every dreaming particle of land, the Keeper's eyes refocused on a world once more vibrant and alive. A world in which not a single Figment could be seen.

The Keeper who was a Dreamer climbed slowly to his feet, still dreaming with the land, but now dreaming of a land that was content to shrink back within the limiting boundaries of its world. Within his mind the world then stirred, its sighs and whispers filled with relief. And then, with a jolt that dispelled the last clinging tendrils of the dream, he felt something else rip through the Barrier. Something far from where he now stood. Something large and dangerous. Something rushing directly toward Drew.

 

Still the watchers watched, watched because they had no choice, watched because they were the ones who could watch. Yet watching was not an easy thing. The dog had watched long and faithfully, but as he watched so many Figments die, his tail pulled between his legs, and a trickle of urine sizzled into the gray. The hand around his heart and lungs squeezed tightly, and the dead-faced woman, the nightmare mother, leaned over him, her eyes darting briefly away from her own Dreamer. "Is the poor puppy frightened?" she hissed.

The dog bit harder on the tattered arm and growled deep in his throat. "At least I have no trouble watching."

Ragged nails pinched the fitful heart and palsied lungs. "Perhaps my Dreamer is more powerful."

Before he could stop it, a whimper slipped up the woman's arm. "My Dreamer just killed all of the Figments sent against him."

"So you are frightened," she mocked.

"There is reason," snarled the dog.

"Why? Is he the type to kill a stray dog?"

A whine reverberated deep in the dog's chest. "In his dreams, I was always the one to turn on him. He was hurt so many times that he dreamed me, and in his dreams I became every thing and every person ever to give him pain. To him I was always more than a stray dog; I was the teeth that hid behind a friendly face to snap and rend, and he would have no reason not to kill me."

Again the nightmare mother's eyes slid off of her Dreamer like rain off of an umbrella.

The jaws snapped shut.

The fingers curled into a tight fist.

The watchers shuddered, but still the watchers watched. And as they watched they could feel the piercing heat of the demon eyes watching through their eyes, could feel the blistering cold of the ice queen watching through the demon eyes, could feel both watching as if they were one. Two watching as one through watchers who had been chosen as one but who watched as two. Two watchers who watched two Dreamers who had learned to dream as one. Two in one body. Two watchers with one task. Two Dreamers who even apart were slowly becoming one.

"Two in one," murmured the woman, her eyes slipping again.

"You must always watch!" barked the dog.

"I will watch if you will watch."

"I am watching."

"We are one in this task. Two in one. Two interchangeable parts of a single whole. Just like those we watch. Just like those for whom we watch."

"What are you talking about?" growled the dog, his teeth crunching bone as his tail thrashed through the gray.

"You must watch my Dreamer. I must watch yours. Then I will always be able to see. And you will always be able to remain unseen, not to mention unpunished."

"It's impossible to watch another's Dreamer."

The woman continued as if the dog had never interrupted. "We are connected now. Two in one. Even now I can feel your Dreamer, just as I can feel you chewing on my arm. If I can feel, I can also watch."

The dog's jaws stopped gnawing and his ears cocked as if he was listening for that high-pitched whistle that only dogs could hear. Then he yelped and scampered from paw to paw. "You are right," he barked. "I can feel your Dreamer. I can feel her through the fingers you have wrapped around my lungs and heart."

"Watch her," whispered the nightmare mother as her eyes glided to something new.

"Watch him," whined the dog as he cringed away from the friend he had bitten far too often.

The watchers watched, and those who watched through the watchers watched. And the watchers were satisfied, for now it was easy to watch, and there was so much to learn. There was much to learn from the Dreamers, and much to learn from the touch of those other feverish yet chilling eyes. And those who watched through the watchers' eyes also saw much, and also learned much. But they still did not learn anything about the watchers.

 

 

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Framed