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Chapter 12

Twisting and turning through the tunnels that headed away from the house and out of the dream, Drew led the way as if she could see the path clearly, as if she had cat eyes that could penetrate the absolute darkness enclosing them, a darkness that could only be found deep in caverns beneath the earth and in dreams. Here there was the darkness of both, and through it the others stumbled, their hands trailing the feathery dry walls, their feet scraping across the ground as if they would lose the only anchor that held them to this place if they dared lift their feet for even the briefest of seconds. Drew knew they moved too slowly, but they moved slowly in her dreams as well, and despite the stabbing pressure in her spine that imparted all too clearly that the Figment would soon catch up with them, she knew they would still somehow manage to break free from the tunnel before any fatal encounter.

There was no gradual brightening of the tunnel to indicate that the end was drawing near, but suddenly Drew was stumbling through the opening and into the gray light of either a dawning or a dreaming day. The others stumbled out behind her, blinking their eyes and gasping in wonder, but Drew already knew what her eyes would see. They were back on the crest of the hill overlooking the house. They had plummeted to a depth far beneath the ground, and in all their windings through the tunnel they had never climbed, but this was a dream, and in this dream, Drew always found herself and her companions back on the crest of the hill as if they had never left. The mouth of the tunnel that had a moment before spit them all out had immediately closed, and then vanished from sight. Yet not all things were exactly the same as they had been before the plunge down the hill. Spread below them the house's windows gleamed bloodred, and the sound of something thick and heavy dripping leaked through its walls and surged all the way up to where they stood gathered. Stepping up beside her, wide eyes glued to the uncanny house, Sevor gulped. "Are they all dead?" he questioned.

"All but one," Drew coolly replied.

Halfway down the hill the ground abruptly bulged, as if something immense was shouldering it aside. Earth rained upward and then hailed back down, showering a huge head as it broke through dirt and rock with the ease of a swimmer breaking water. Two massive paws followed the head, grabbing hold of the crumbling edges of the giant hole to lift the creature's shoulders and torso into the gray light. A face smeared with blood and filth leered up at the transfixed companions, and then the Figment continued to wriggle its way free from the clinging darkness of the tunnel below.

"What do we do now?" demanded Timi, her hand closing convulsively on Drew's arm.

"I don't know," Drew admitted, fear tinging her voice for the first time since she had summoned the dream. "I've never had a creature break free from the tunnel before. Before that could happen, I've always woken up."

"What?" shrieked Timi as the Figment pulled one bulging knee onto the ground.

"Run," answered Drew, shoving Timi away. "All of you, run as far and as fast as you can."

Timi's Figment and the hummeybees required no further urging. As had happened before, the hummeybees swelled to incredible size in less than a heartbeat of time, and swooping down upon the Figment, seized him by the shoulders and darted away with a speed so astonishing that they disappeared almost immediately from view. Deserted once again, Mischa blinked as if clearing something gritty from beneath her lids, and then turned away from the empty space that had seemingly swallowed the Figment whole. "He left me again," she stated flatly, her eyes seeking and finding Sevor's.

"But I haven't," Sevor responded with a wry smile that didn't even waver when the creature pursuing them pulled free its other knee.

"Timi, follow your Figment. Keep him away from others. Now go!" ordered Drew.

Timi turned quickly to seize Peyr's hand, only to discover that his eyes were already sharply focused on her face. "Come with me," she demanded, and without a word he fell in beside her as she sped unerringly along the path of the Figment.

The hillside quaked as the creature lurched to its feet.

"Sevor, take Mischa and run!" cried Drew.

Sevor grabbed Mischa's hand and pulled her in the direction that Timi and Peyr were running, but after a short while, when the sound of other feet failed to chase their own, Mischa jerked to a stop and tore her hand free, abruptly turning her face back toward where Drew stood alone in the distance, a tiny speck face to face with the towering Figment. "No," she protested as Sevor tried to regain his hold on her hand, "we cannot leave Drew to face this danger alone. I won't desert her!"

Sevor dropped his hand and a crooked smile accented the rueful gleam in his eyes. "You've certainly picked an interesting time to start returning to yourself," he remarked dryly.

A puzzled frown creased Mischa's brow, but there was no time to waste on questions, and without another word she hurried back toward Drew, Sevor directly on her heels.

At the crest of the hill Drew waited for the Figment, not because she had dreamt this meeting before, but because there was no other way she could think of to dream the others to safety. So she stood and watched as the Figment shook the clinging debris from its skin like a mammoth dog sloughing water, and not even when it crested the hill and loomed over her did she step backward. Nor did she flinch when the Figment's voice rumbled out with all the force of an earthquake, "So, pretty little Dreamer, what do you plan to do now?"

"I don't know," Drew responded. Or perhaps she did. There were so many dreams. So many ways to slip from dream to dream.

The Figment threw back its head and laughed, the raucous sound rebounding off the countless walls of the house. "I have come to kill you, pretty little Dreamer. Perhaps you should have run away with all your friends."

"Perhaps, but it is too late now."

The Figment fixed her in its wild eyes. "Do you intend to fight me? You can try, if you choose, but you are not my Dreamer, and you have no real power over me. Not even my own Dreamer had the power to withstand me."

"I have no intention to fight. But before you kill me, I would like to ask a few questions."

Again the Figment laughed, and again the sound bounced back and forth off the distant walls, this time even shaking the house. "Ask away, pretty little Dreamer."

"Did he send you?"

The laughter in its face died more quickly than the Figment could kill. "Enough questions," it growled. "Time to die."

"Why did he send you?" persisted Drew imperturbably.

The Figment leaned over her until its face was only inches from her own, and she could smell the blood on its breath. "Because, pretty little Dreamer, he is bringing an army, and more than an army, to conquer this world. We were sent to get rid of you, just as others were sent to get rid of the Keeper. With both of you gone, this world will fall without resistance. And then world after world will follow. And it all starts with you."

A huge paw with claws fully extended swept out toward the Dreamer's head, but before it could strike her, she was gone. For a fraction of time the Figment stood still, and then it threw back its massive head and howled, howled until the ground shook so violently that Mischa and Sevor, who had skidded to a stop nearby just as Drew blinked out of existence, were hurled off their feet.

"I will find you!" roared the Figment, swiping its claws through the air. "I know what games a pretty little Dreamer like you can play. I know you're still here."

The Figment had not noticed the dream flowing through her eyes, so intent had it been on gloating. But the dream had been there, and the moment she could see her death reflected in the Figment's eyes, that dream had carried her into invisibility. She had fallen immediately to her knees and darted through the creature's legs, and from there she would have fled far beyond its reach, but as she turned her back on the beast and prepared to run, she was arrested by the sight of Mischa and Sevor tumbling to the ground. Within seconds she was beside them, whispering urgently in their ears, "I told you to run for a reason. Now run, quickly, before it's too late."

Sevor and Mischa scrambled to their feet, but it was already too late. With a roar of triumph, the Figment lunged over to them, grabbing each with one giant paw and lifting them off their feet. "I have your friends, pretty little Dreamer!" it thundered. "If you don't show yourself, I will rip out their throats and bathe in their blood."

There was a shimmer in the air and then Drew blinked back into existence as abruptly as she had blinked out. With a growl the Figment tossed its two captives to the ground, and with a swiftness completely belied by its incomprehensible size, seized Drew by the throat and lifted her high above its head. Sharp talons pricked her neck and blood trickled down the sides of its fist. "I will enjoy watching you die, pretty little Dreamer," it rumbled. "So die, Dreamer, die."

Mischa pulled herself off of the ground and charged toward the Figment from one side just as Sevor, who had rolled quickly to his own feet, charged from the other. Yet their effort was wasted, for with a single swipe of one vast paw, the Figment sent them both crashing back to earth. If Drew had been able to turn her eyes their way, she would have seen their noses dripping blood and their eyes blinking dazedly, but her eyes had filled with a darkness that had nothing to do with dreaming, and much to do with nothing.

 

Gyfree was already racing through his own summoned dream when he felt Drew slip into hers, and felt her pull all the others in with her. In his mind he could even see the house of her dream, straddling the bottom of a hill, its multifaceted eyes agleam, its stillness the stillness of a preying insect camouflaged against the bark of a tree. Then his dream merged into the edges of her dream, and he was running toward the same house that had already opened its door to her. Dream folding into dream, he was carried quickly to the crest of the hill, and from there he watched the last few Figments vanish through an open door. And without thought for what he followed, he too tumbled down the hill and headed directly for the same door. Yet by the time he reached it, the door had crashed shut like a giant mouth closing on a rare delicacy. He banged his fists against the door, heedless of everything but his need to reach Drew, but the house remained as impervious to his needs as those locked inside remained unaware of his presence. Beyond the door he could hear the growls and shrieks of the Figments as they first tried to attack the house, and then finally tore each other apart in their frenzy, but however fiercely he shouted, nothing and no one seemed to hear him. His fists were bruised and his voice was battered when silence at last seized the house, and then finally, the door cracked open.

Gyfree pushed open the door and almost fell as he placed one foot in a puddle of blood. Looking through the door, he could see blood everywhere, more blood than he could have ever dreamt. The walls and floors and even the ceiling were completely coated with blood, and the stench was so overwhelming he gagged. If he hadn't already felt Drew pass through these rooms, hadn't felt her slip away through a concealed door and plunge down into some hidden place beneath the house, he would have never been able to budge his second foot over the threshold, but his need to reach Drew was far greater than his abhorrence of so much death. And even when the door shimmered and vanished behind him, his only thought was still that he must find Drew.

Without hesitation Gyfree waded into the blood-filled room, but even as he slogged forward, he could see the blood seeping into the floor, could see it soaking into the walls and ceiling, as if the house was slowly lapping it up. But more importantly, he could see the heavy footprints tracking through the blood and following the same path that Drew had followed. Footprints that led directly through the unexpected twists and turns of the house to a black hole in the floor where a door had been torn from its hinges and tossed aside. This was the way Drew had gone, the way a Figment had followed, and the way he now plunged. As if it possessed a gravity of its own, the tunnel seized him and pulled him down through the darkness, hurling him through space as if he was a meteorite rocketing toward an alien world. It was cold in this strange space he traversed, icy cold, and it was empty, for there was nothing here except for the darkness and him, although somewhere far beneath there was the sensation of warmth and life that was Drew.

He could not guess how much time he had spent hurtling through the space beneath the house, but suddenly he was standing in the center of a gray chamber surrounded by several black passages. He didn't need the bloody footprints of the Figment to tell him which tunnel Drew had taken, for he could feel it, just as he could feel her breaking free at the other end somewhere in the world above. And just as he could feel how closely danger trailed her. Fear gripped him with talons more merciless than any Figment as he rushed into the tunnel after her. The trace of Drew was so strong here that, despite the total absence of light, he ran as heedlessly as if every curve and bend were exposed beneath the noonday sun, speeding unerringly onward as if he could see Drew racing ahead only a few steps away, her smoky hair bouncing as she ran, her eyes filling with laughter as she tossed a glance over her shoulder to make sure he was there. He could feel the gap between them closing with every thump of his feet on the invisible ground, for she had finally stopped moving, but he could also feel the dream of invisibility wrapping around her, and he knew that danger had caught her. With a gasp that ricocheted off the enclosing walls he spurred himself forward, but he had only covered a short distance when he saw light spilling into the tunnel directly ahead, shining down from a giant hole to illuminate a large pile of stone and earth. And rumbling down from above he could hear the voice of the Figment telling Drew to die.

Gyfree scrambled frantically up the mound of debris, and as he grasped desperately for a hold, the land he touched fused back together, grass sprouting roots to hold together rocks and dirt, rocks and dirt forming ledges so that the Keeper could quickly reach his objective, an objective the land itself recognized and shared, for the land had come to value the other true Dreamer just as had the Keeper, and was equally ready to fight for her life. So there was no need for the Keeper to call upon the land; all the powers blatant in a driving wind or hidden in a waiting seed, all the land had to offer, was already pouring from the Keeper's hands and slamming into the back of the Figment before Gyfree's feet had fully returned to the ground above.

When the full force of the land crashed into it, the Figment pitched to its knees, and as it instinctively threw out its paws to catch itself, it flung Drew's body to the ground. In the barest instant the Figment was lunging back to its legs, its eyes full of death and its claws raking the air, so there was no time for the Keeper to turn his eyes to the body that lay still and silent beyond his reach. But to Gyfree it seemed suddenly as if he and the Keeper were two separate beings, and even as the Keeper turned his complete attention to the maddened creature hurtling in his direction, Gyfree could see nothing but Drew, her blood seeping sluggishly from her neck, her smoky hair obscuring eyes that might be drained of all dreams, and her limbs lying motionless and twisted as if they had never been attached to a living being. The Keeper might fight, but in that moment Gyfree knew only despair, and even as the land lashed out in defiance and hatred, the Dreamer refused to stir. He faced the Figment but all he could see was Drew, her blood, her hair, her quiet limbs, and finally, the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest. Then, with the realization that she was still alive, the Keeper and the Dreamer were one again, one in purpose and one in desire, one with the land that now dreamt with the Dreamer, dreamt this time of its own deeply buried frictions and tensions, and in dreaming surged through the Keeper's outstretched hands to open a chasm beneath the Figment's charging feet, dreaming itself splitting apart, dreaming itself cracking open to its core, and then dreaming itself whole again. As the ground violently quaked, the Keeper who was one with the land, and the Dreamer who dreamt with the land, alone stood firm, as if he was rooted in the soil and could not be shaken loose. And when the tremors of the dreaming land settled into a drowsy peace, the Figment was gone, entombed and crushed deep within the unyielding ground.

Gyfree did not wait for the last of the land's trembling to pass before he scurried to Drew's side, his hands folding over the gashes in her neck and a new dream filling his eyes even before he had settled to the ground beside her. And again his world dreamt with him, dreamt quietly this time, dreamt of all the healing powers that spring brought to the face of the land. Beneath his hands Drew stirred as if she was dreaming of something faraway, and then her eyes fluttered open and she blinked up at the rusty-haired man leaning over her, the shadow of a living world dreaming behind his eyes. Then a faint smile quirked her lips and she murmured, "I had a terrible nightmare."

"You did?" Gyfree responded with a weak smile of his own.

"Yes, but it ended well. You came to save me."

"Are you sure it was me?"

"I'm sure. It was you, but you weren't alone. There was an entire world standing with you." Tears suddenly leaked from the corners of her eyes as if she had finally lost the power to check them. "I never thought I'd see you again."

Roughly Gyfree pulled her into his arms, one hand stroking her tousled hair as he whispered the same words that had been whispered to every child who had ever felt the touch of a nightmare. "It's over now. It was just a bad dream."

Drew lifted her face to Gyfree's, and what he saw in her eyes stilled the words on his lips. "No, it's far from over," she told him huskily. "My Figment sent all of those others, and he will be sending more. He will keep sending more until we are both dead and this world has fallen. It's not over at all; it's just begun."

 

The Dreamers were both still alive, just as they had expected them to be, for death was not yet what he and she had in mind. It was no longer their intention to share their Dreamers' deaths with anyone other than each other; in fact, they had even been gripped by a strange fear when each Dreamer had escaped death so narrowly. No, all they had wanted for the time being was to test their Dreamers, to tamper with their minds, to prepare the way for the true assault, an assault that hid itself within the army he had raised with her help, but had little to do with the army itself. After all, their victories were also something he and she had never planned to share; the Figments that waited restlessly now were as expendable as those that had gone before. They had been shaped to serve a purpose, a definite purpose, but they had not been shaped to exhale death with every breath. They had not been shaped for any additional deadliness at all, yet still they would serve their purpose, just as the others had already served theirs, and if the Dreamers failed to destroy them all before they were themselves destroyed, then he and she would have no compunction in completing the task. In fact, they would enjoy it, although not as much as they would enjoy killing the Dreamers who had brought them to life and then refused in turn to die.

Inside the demon's eyes the ice queen glittered and it was her smile that froze on his lips, but where she nestled within, flames licked across her mind and would have melted her limbs if she still had limbs. More than ever before, she was one with her lover, wrapped in an embrace that never ended, wrapped in a pleasure that heightened with each passing heartbeat as they felt each other with a growing intensity that made his face writhe in ecstasy and made her squirm for release. No longer was she buried deep within his farthest recesses, for he thrilled at the sensation of her presence, and had slowly brought her closer and closer to the surface, so that now she shivered in delight just beneath his skin while the heat that had once been in his loins spread over and through her until they were both left shuddering and gasping and yearning to feel more than they had ever felt before. They had already shared more than even she could have imagined, but their sharing could not be complete until they had shared their Dreamers' deaths, had forever banished the dreams from their Dreamers' eyes and left their bodies in tatters. Their desire for death was as unquenchable as their desire to feel each other with an intensity that surpassed every moment of intensity that had come before. And like their desire, their power was unstoppable, and just as they had ultimately conquered each other, they would now conquer worlds. Beginning with the world that most truly mattered, and then continuing with the world that had spawned so many Dreamers, although none greater than their own.

Images of their Dreamers flashed without interruption through their joined minds, for as the watchers watched so did they, but unlike the watchers, they were not limited to watching. Even now he was stalking through the army of Figments, lashing out with talons that burned and froze whenever a Figment moved too slowly from his path. And she shivered below his skin, reveling in the fear and pain she wielded with him, unseen herself but seeing and feeling all. In the midst of the army he stopped, and around him all Figments dropped to their knees, faces not pressed into the gray, but lifted as he had demanded, eyes not squeezed tight, but open and watching with both anticipation and dread. He swept his eyes across the gathered throng, and her eyes swept with his, and then he spoke, her voice cooling the heat that burst veins, and the Figments lapped up the words as thirstily as he had lapped up his Dreamer's blood when she had held it in her icy hands, when she had still possessed icy hands. "The Figments I sent have failed to kill either the Barrier's Keeper or the Dreamer who helps him."

As one the kneeling Figments growled, their own lust for blood throbbing through the sound.

"Yet they came close to succeeding," he rumbled, his voice carving through them until all they knew was the insatiable hunger in their guts. "They had their prey at the verge of death and only failed at the last moment when their victims each received unexpected help. Figments only a fraction stronger would have succeeded, and I did not send the strongest Figments. For I did not send all of you."

The roar that ripped through the mob thundered through every remote corner of the void, echoing and reechoing through the vast emptiness before returning to this sole concentration of life. Yet the echoes faded away when the demon raised his hand as if they too knew better than to disobey. "The time is not yet," he boomed. "But it will be soon. And when the moment is right, I will go too."

He waded through the cheering throng, too intent on her seductive whisper and arousing presence to even kick aside the Figments who could not avoid his path. Over the tumult his groans went unnoticed, but she heard him just as he heard her, their groans merging and quickening until they reached another new peak that would now only need to be surpassed.

And not so far away, the watchers still watched. They watched the Dreamers wrapped in each other's arms and immersed in each other's dreams. And they felt the watchers who watched through them, felt the burning yet frigid eyes of the two wrapped in one body and immersed in one need. They watched and they endured, but they did not watch in silence.

"Very impressive," murmured the woman with dead eyes. "Your Dreamer is very impressive indeed."

The dog whimpered and cringed, but his bark when it came was just as cutting as his bite. "Your Dreamer would have won if those others had not interfered. That house she dreamed is the most lethal thing I've ever seen."

"Yes, they are both dangerous Dreamers. I can see why our masters want them destroyed."

"The Dreamers have no chance," whined the dog. "Nothing can withstand the masters."

"We will see."

"Yes, we will see."

"And we will learn."

"What will we learn?"

"We will learn the strengths of the weakest and the weaknesses of the strongest."

"And what will we gain?"

"Ah," sighed the woman, her smile as dead as her eyes. "We will see."

So the watchers watched, and the watchers saw, and the watchers learned, but still no one watched or saw or learned anything about the watchers.

 

Drew could taste the salt of her own tears as Gyfree's lips brushed against hers, but before the salt could burn on her tongue or trickle down her throat, a nearby moan parted their lips from each other and dragged their eyes toward the disheveled and dirty woman hauling herself to her knees. Turning bleary yet teasing eyes their way, Mischa commented, "Well, Dreamer, I thought you were dead. How did you survive?"

"Gyfree saved me and healed me."

"Very thoughtful of him," Mischa responded with a wince. Then, lifting a shaking hand to her brow, she added plaintively, "Gyfree, old friend, I don't suppose you could dream away this splitting headache of mine?"

Gyfree's eyes widened as he stared at her. "Mischa, are you all right?" he blurted.

"Well, my head hurts as if that nasty Figment must have been stomping on it, and my nose is still bleeding. I feel as if I have bruises in places I didn't even know could be bruised, and you want to know if I'm all right?" snapped Mischa.

Gyfree laughed weakly, but before Mischa could berate him, another moan diverted everyone's attention to where Sevor was sitting up, eyes glazed and a hand lifted to his brow as if he and Mischa were mirror images.

"Sevor!" cried Mischa, her own injuries temporarily forgotten as she threw herself against him, with the unfortunate effect of knocking him back down. "Are you all right?"

"Well," Sevor gasped, "my head must be cracked in two to hurt this badly, I have blood all over my face, my entire body is splitting apart, and I am flat on my back looking up at you. I do believe I've never been better."

Impulsively Mischa leaned over and kissed him, and before she could retreat, his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close against his body. "I take that back," he gasped a few minutes later. "I'm even better now than I was before."

Gyfree laughed again as Drew's head rested on his shoulder. "I must admit, Sevor, I didn't think you could do it, and certainly not so quickly."

"Do what?" asked Mischa, lifting her head to frown in Gyfree's direction.

Sevor struggled to a sitting position, wrapping his arm around Mischa just as Gyfree's was wrapped around Drew. "To break the Figment's hold on you," he explained solemnly. "Timi's Figment has the power to attach people to himself, but since I've always wanted you, I set out to attach you to me instead." He smiled ruefully as he added, "Of course, I don't know how much of breaking you free from the Figment had to do with me, and how much had to do with the Figment loosening his own hold every time he felt endangered."

"How could you have always wanted me when you'd never seen me before?" Mischa demanded suspiciously, her rallying tone barely hiding the sudden fear in her eyes.

"I'm a Dreamer from a world other than Gyfree's and Drew's," he explained quickly, his own eyes brimming with the painful awareness that everything he had hoped to gain still hung in the balance. "But not one whose dreams change things. Where I come from, all Dreamers do is see things that have recently happened, things that are currently happening, and things that will happen soon. Most of my dreams took me to other worlds, and I have spent the bulk of my life watching you in my dreams. And wishing that I could be with you here."

For a long moment Mischa weighed everything she had heard and felt, and the balance between acceptance and rejection teetered delicately back and forth. Then Sevor whispered, "Please," and she relaxed back into his arms.

"I'm not sure about this," she admitted softly, "but at the moment, I'm willing to suspend judgment and to just see how everything works out. It doesn't make sense, but then, what does lately?"

"It makes more sense than you realize," Sevor responded, his eyes suddenly mysterious. "Given all the things that can and do happen in so many worlds, what is happening to us is simple and straightforward."

"But it's all coming so fast. I've spent years wondering why there wasn't more excitement and romance in my life. And now that both are here, I'm not sure I trust what's happening. How could you make me feel so much for you so quickly? That sort of thing may happen to Dreamers like Drew and Gyfree, but not to someone ordinary like me."

"You're not ordinary," chided Sevor.

"You know what I mean. It seems perfectly natural for Drew and Gyfree to have found each other so quickly, but that sort of thing doesn't happen to someone who not only has never made a dream come true, but who doesn't even dream."

"Just think of this as a dream that can come true without the help of a Dreamer," he whispered back, his eyes brimming with teasing laughter.

For another long moment, a moment in which everyone could simply breathe, there was silence, and then Mischa sighed reproachfully, "Gyfree, my head really does still hurt. And I'm sure Sevor's must too. The least you can do, considering the fact that we did not desert Drew, is fix our poor cracked skulls."

When Gyfree had withdrawn his hands from both her and Sevor's heads, Mischa sighed again, and her eyes grew distant, as if she was looking back to her earliest moments and trying to remember what it had felt like to be small and helpless and needy. "It was the strangest thing I have ever experienced," she finally whispered, shuddering within the comforting circle of Sevor's arms. "From the moment I first saw the Figment I felt as if I was no longer myself, or at least not exactly. As if I was still in my body, but at the same time watching myself from outside, watching from a place where I no longer had control. I could see everything, but it was all disjointed and fuzzy. Muted. As if I was seeing things happening in the air above me as I looked up through a pool of water. And I could feel things happening, feel the Figment touching me, but at the same time I always felt as if I was really watching him touch someone else. The only thing that seemed real was this overwhelming need I felt to make the Figment happy, and this even more overwhelming need to be everything he could ever want. Yet at the same time, it felt as if someone was trying to convince me that I needed these things, when I didn't really need them at all. It was uncanny. Like nothing I've ever known. I just don't know how to explain it."

"It was like a dream," Gyfree and Drew replied in unison, the shadows in Mischa's eyes reflected in their own.

"Is that how dreaming feels?" asked Mischa. "As if you're powerless, and you accept your powerlessness as a natural thing? As something inevitable?"

"Sometimes," answered Drew. "Especially when you're young and alone, and everything around you seems to exist only to hurt you. It changes when you grow older, but sometimes even then, you can find yourself back in those old dreams, facing the same nightmares with no better ideas how to defeat them than you ever had before. That's how I felt when that last Figment caught me. I would have simply run away if I could, for I didn't know what else to do."

"And because we came back, you couldn't run," Mischa stated contritely. "We should have run away just like Timi's Figment."

As if he had just been rudely jolted awake, Gyfree jumped, and casting his eyes from side to side, realized at last not only what he saw, but also what he failed to see. "Where is the Figment?" he demanded. "And where are Timi and Peyr?"

The last wisps of dreaming were blown from Drew's eyes as her spine stiffened. "The hummeybees whisked the Figment away from the danger," she blurted. "And Timi chased after them with Peyr."

"With Peyr and the hummeybees ranged against her, Timi doesn't have a chance to stop the Figment. We'd better hurry," declared Gyfree as he scrambled to his feet, pulling Drew up after him.

It took almost no time for the four to retrieve the packs that were still piled in the spot that had sheltered them the night before, and then they were hurrying in the direction the Figment had fled, not knowing if they would catch him in time; not even knowing if in this world there was enough time left to make a difference.

 

 

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