Into Dreams: A Gina Harwood Novel (Gina Harwood Series Book 3) Read online

  “Gina-Dreamer, I understand why you did it,” murmured Kyrri, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. “But I wish you hadn’t. That is not a Man. That is a Monster. All kits are taught to watch for the yellow-eyed monster, as he can look like anyone. He wears faces the way some wear masks.” Kyrri covered his eyes with his paws. “He is called the destroyer of hope and the bringer of chaos. We are taught to never, ever make a deal with him.”

  “Can you understand him?” asked Hammer, after a moment.

  Gina blinked at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I understand him.”

  “What did he say?”

  She lowered her gaze. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done.” Gina looked up hopefully at Hammer. “Can you give Kyrri a ride back to Hlanith? So he can get home? Please, I’ll pay anything I have.”

  Kyrri leapt to his feet, tail bristling and teeth bared. “You promised! You promised you would not send me home, Gina-Dreamer!” he hissed, his eyes narrowed to slits. “I am sorry I was sick, but do not send me home!”

  “Kyrri, I can’t have something else happen to you. You almost died. If you died…” she ran a hand through her hair. “I would never forgive myself.”

  “My safety is not your concern! Your safety is mine!”

  “I told you, I’m not on a vital dreamquest. I am just trying to save my friend. Go home, please. I’ll…” she searched for something to say. “I’ll write and tell you how I’m doing, and if I stumble on a vital dreamquest somewhere, I’ll call for you!”

  Kyrri sank back down to the table, his tail flattening and sagging off the edge of the table. Even his whiskers drooped. “Please do not do this, Gina-Dreamer. You do not understand the shame. I will do anything I can to prove to you I am a worthy companion.”

  “You’re too worthy, Kyrri. I’d rather have you alive and shamed, than honorable and dead!” Gina exclaimed.

  “If I may interrupt,” interjected Maestra Crow smoothly and without raising her voice. “I would like the understand our current situation better. You are a Dreamer?”

  Gina looked up at the old woman and Hammer, who were watching the confrontation, perplexed. She groaned and cursed under her breath. “Yes.”

  “And this hat…” she pointed with a long nail to Crowell’s purple abomination. “This hat belonged to the yellow-eyed man, who was in this very room?”

  Gina glanced at the hat and then immediately away. That sense of unease had returned in full force. “Yes.”

  Maestra Crow snapped her fingers and a shadow passed across her face, darkening her countenance into something frightening and somehow even more ancient, before the hat exploded in a blaze of blue fire. Gina watched, astonished, as the hat crackled to dust and was blown away by an unfelt breeze. She turned her attention fully back to Maestra Crow, whose face was the same kindly etched face it had always been. Gina tongued at the place in her mind where her powers used to be, and though the buzz grew painfully loud, she saw that shadow once more fall over the woman’s face for a brief moment and took an involuntary few steps backward.

  “And he spoke to you. Specifically, to you?”

  “Thank you for all your help,” stammered Gina. “But we have to go.”

  “We?” snarled Kyrri under his breath, but he jumped to her side in one fluid movement, picking up on her sudden tension as he did so and whirling to face whatever she felt threatened by.

  “So soon?” asked Maestra Crow levelly, and Hammer looked back and forth between them, confused. “At least stay for a bite to eat and tell me your story. It sounds very interesting, indeed.”

  “It isn’t very, no.” Gina backed to the wall and felt behind her for where the silks parted to reveal the door. “Again, thanks. Good luck in… whatever.” She opened the door and backed out.

  “It sounds like the sort of story that would be interesting to a lot of people,” continued Maestra Crow, watching them with a bemused look on her face. Hammer threw a questioning glance at Gina, but followed her out of the door and into the tiny, spartan receiving room.

  “What were you think...” he managed to say as the outer door flew open and three black-cloaked figures filed into the room. Their faces were obscured by the shadow of their deep hoods, and they glided across the floor in an instant. Time slowed for Gina as they moved and she heard her heart quicken its drumbeat, her eyes sliding like molasses across the figures moving towards them. The one nearest Hammer withdrew a long, curved, wicked-looking blade from the folds of his cloak, and thrust it smoothly between the burly man’s ribs as the other two silently drew identical weapons. Hammer’s eyes went wide and he choked thickly, sending a spray of blood across the room.

  Gina and Kyrri were frozen by the sudden and unexpected violence, but only for a beat before they each lunged forward, Gina with her dagger slashing at the nearest opponent and Kyrri launching himself at the face of the murderer with a howling roar that froze the intruders in their tracks. It was just enough. Gina saw the Man’s surprised eyes as she plunged the dagger into his throat. His hood fell back to reveal a heavily tattooed bald head, and her thoughts rang clearly and clinically in her head as she observed her actions. I am killing a man. This is murder. He tried to say something, perhaps curse at her, but his mouth was thick with red. Tiny bubbles of air were all he could manage before he slid, lifeless, to the ground, his sword clattering to the side.

  She pulled her dagger out of the man, trying not to concentrate on what she was doing, and whirled around in time to see the final man sprinting out of the door and back into the alleyway. Kyrri had the man who murdered Hammer on the ground, his teeth digging into his neck. As Gina watched, he tore his head sideways, ripping the man’s throat away and sending a spray of blood into the air. Her eyes fell on Hammer’s corpse, fallen forward and with an ever-expanding puddle of crimson oozing out, his last drops of warmth, his kind face twisted into a mixture of agony and surprise and confusion.

  Gina turned and vomited on the floor, bracing herself against the wall. She felt a paw on her back and turned to see Kyrri, whose maw was painted red, and she returned to heaving.

  “Gina-Dreamer, we have to go,” he pleaded, his voice fluttering and low.

  “One second,” she spat, breathing heavily and trying to ignore the blood on her clothes and skin.

  “He’s right, you know,” called the taunting voice of Maestra Crow, and Gina snapped her head around. She was nowhere to be seen. “It’s time to run, little birds. Fly!” She cackled and the sound bore into Gina’s skull. “Give my hounds some sport!”

  Kyrri pushed her with all his might and she stumbled out of the door and fell onto the hard cobblestones of the alleyway. She could still hear the woman’s cruel laugh floating out of the door, and Kyrri bounded forward a few steps. Gina looked up at the winding shadows and flinched; they looked alive, writhing and pointing and laughing. She shook her head and pushed herself to her feet, stumbling forward a few steps to Kyrri, who bounded ahead a few more feet.

  “Dreamer! Run!”

  Gina ran.

  36

  The walls were melting.

  Morgan observed this as calmly as he could. He looked at Eliah, who was watching him intently from halfway around the giant hut, her skin illuminated by the large fire flickering in the center of the room and her naked skin beaded with sweat. The firelight took on a life of its own when it struck her face, dancing and taunting him somehow, laughing at him, a movie of another life playing across her stony expression. He looked back at the walls, his vision seeming to adjust slowly, leaving brightly colored tracers of her outline as it shifted. They looked normal again at first, the textured mudbrick enveloping the thick leather that waved, rippled, rippled like ocean waves, and no, they were still melting.

  “Ebene,” he said, his tongue feeling too thick in his mouth, and the word coming out as if on a slow-motion reel.

  “Ebene,” echoed Eliah, and he couldn’t tell if she was smiling or if the fire had taken over her face.

 
<><><>

  “Ebene!” gasped Ila, cocking her head at the mixture in his mortar. The bark had succumbed to the pestle and there was a handful of fine powder in the bowl. “Nana wanted you to make ebene?!”

  Morgan smiled. “I guess so. What is it?”

  Ila looked up at him sidelong. “You don’t know what ebene is?” She rolled her eyes. “You really don’t know anything.”

  He set the bowl on the table and scratched his beard. “I know a little,” he replied, “But not that.”

  She rolled her eyes again and sat next to him on the bench. “Ebene is how you talk to your ancestors,” she said matter-of-factly. “But only grown ups get to do it.”

  “Your ancestors?” prompted Morgan, an incredulous smile on his face.

  “Yeah! Like when I get older, I’m gonna talk to my grandnana. I miss her a lot, but it’s okay, because she’ll come and talk to me someday.” Ila kicked her feet in the air, since they didn’t reach the floor, and Morgan was reminded again how young she actually was, probably around nine, he’d guessed. She spoke and acted as though she were older, and was amazingly well-versed in the plants and animals of her surroundings. Morgan had a hard time remembering that she was still, ultimately, a kid.

  “I’m sorry you lost your grandnana,” he said softly. “I miss mine too.”

  “Well, not for long,” scoffed Ila. “You’ll probably get to talk to yours tonight! I gotta wait for moons and moons. And moons.” She frowned.

  “How does it work?” he asked, careful to phrase his question as though he didn’t think the idea was insane.

  “I don’t know, I’m not an adult yet. I just know they make the ebene, then they go into the Spirit Hut and burn a big fire.”

  “The Spirit Hut?”

  “The hut at the end of the village. The big one. You had to see if it you went to the elonkata tree.” She delivered this information in a tone that clearly said Come on, keep up, this is basic stuff here. “It’s where we go to talk to our ancestors. And that stuff,” she pointed at the mortar, “is ebene, which lets you talk to your ancestors. See?”

  Morgan didn’t see but the conversation felt pretty circular. “What does your mother want me to do with it?” he asked.

  “She said to leave it here. I’m supposed to show you how to wash clothes, because your pants are gross.” Ila turned her nose up and scooted away. “Gross,” she repeated for emphasis.

  “Got it,” he laughed, moving the mortar to the center of the table and standing up. “Lead the way, teach.”

  “My name is Ila,” she said, rolling her eyes again and bouncing past him. “You are bad at names!”

  “Yeah? Do you even know my name?” he asked, laughing.

  “Morgan. I listen. But don’t tell my Nana, I’m supposed to call you Stranger,” she informed him casually, before skipping out the door. Morgan looked after her, surprised.

  “Okay, Ila. Lead the way,” he amended, ducking through the flap into the sunlight.

  <><><>

  Scritch, scritch.

  The shadow flitted and bobbed, slinking around the edge of the hut. “There’s something trying to get inside,” he informed Eliah, and his tone was casual. He wasn’t particularly concerned about a wild animal trying to enter, but he thought she would probably want to know.

  “Mm,” she vocalized, and her face was cloudy and distant. She was thinking about the last time she’d visited, when she’d spoken to her mother, and was wistful for the past times, the good times, dancing in the waves in an unfamilar cove...

  Morgan paused and blinked, her face focusing and then disintegrating into a wispy tan cloud. How did I know that? he heard himself think, sure that the vivid memories that flashed in his head couldn’t be his own imagination. “What…” he swallowed thickly, his mouth dry as a bone. “What am I seeing?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied softly, and her voice touched his ears, touched them. They felt like calloused fingertips, rough but not entirely unpleasant. “Everyone is different. Do you see your family?”

  No, I see yours, he thought, but chose not to say. The choice hung in front of him for a moment, a glistening thread in the air, a certain color, a certain pattern. He jumped on that thread and zoomed out, seeing other threads jumping up to meet his own decision, and for a moment he thought he glimpsed a vast tapestry, stretching out in all directions, a beautiful and terrifying thing with veins of golden white and arteries of thick black vile. He blinked, and the shadow scratched at the edge of the hut.

  “Does anyone ever see,” he started, each word tugging its way out of his mouth. “Anything not family? Anything else?”

  “People usually don’t talk this much,” she replied, and these were prickly on his ears, sharp but not altogether painful.

  “I am not most people,” he managed.

  “Sometimes,” she said unhelpfully, and the words felt like being splashed with lukewarm vinegar. Morgan’s nostrils flared and he turned away from them to see paws scraping under the wall. He felt a surge of fear, real fear, fear that felt more real than anything he’d ever experienced, and he remembered the shape-not-shape of the shadow hound in the cemetery.

  “Whoa, Stranger, calm down. Whatever you’re seeing cannot hurt you. This is but a dream,” Eliah said, suddenly next to him. He turned slowly to look at her, and her eyes filled his vision. She was dancing in the waves, naked, in an unfamiliar cove, and there was a man… Morgan broke their gaze and stared into the fire.

  “It feels… wrong. I don’t like it,” he said. “Why did you do this?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I meant it when I said I thought it would help…”

  “Well, I don’t know if it helps her, but I can certainly say my spirits are raised! Ebene! First the waters and now this? You’re an addict to madness! And nudity! A soul after my own heart!”

  Morgan realized the shape that was Eliah was no longer responsive and he poked at her experimentally, to no avail. The words that were caressing his ears now felt sickly and wrong, and very, very familiar. He raised his eyes to the fire, which pulsed with his heartbeat, and let out a long groan of pain as he saw the hoofed half-man dancing cartoonishly around the fire. The final part of his mantra hung above him, flames licking their metal edges as the syllables crackled and hummed: KILL PAN.

  <><><>

  Laundry was a quick affair, but Morgan’s mind was elsewhere. He rushed through his remaining chores with the barest of attention, running through every possible scenario and wishing Eliah would show back up so he could ask. He did his best to keep up conversation with Ila, but his thoughts were a whirl underneath his skull.

  Still, he had to admit, it feels good to have clean pants. He smiled and looked down at his still naked feet. Have to appreciate the small things. Morgan was on the coastline now with the children, holding a basket for the shells they found and appreciating the sunset. Whatever this place is, he thought, it’s beautiful.

  He saw movement out of his periphery and turned to look, then jumped, startled. Eliah was next to him. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “For what? What’s ebene? What does it do?”

  Eliah sighed. “Walk with me.” She nodded for Ila to take the basket from Morgan, and she did so obediently. As soon as her mother’s back was turned, she handed Morgan a slip of paper and pulled him down into a hug.

  “Please give to this to your grandnana when you see her, promise me you’ll do it,” she said quickly, and let him go. He nodded at her and she smiled and waved, running down the coast. Taken aback, Morgan unfolded the small slip of paper. The scrawled writing was barely legible, and clearly written by a child.

  “PLEASE TELL MY GRANDNANA ALARA STARGAZER THAT I LOVE HER AND I MISS HER AND I WILL TALK TO HER AS SOON AS I PASS MY HUNTING TESTS. ALSO TELL HER I KILLED A GROUNDCHUCK BY MYSELF.-ILA STARGAZER”

  Morgan smiled and turned to follow Eliah. There was a warmth in his heart that he imagined must be what fathers feel on particularly good days
. He hurried to catch up to the huntress, but didn’t have to hurry too much. She was walking slowly, for once, allowing him to walk at his least painful speed.

  “Did she give you the note?” she asked non-commitally.

  Morgan cocked an eyebrow and didn’t answer.

  Eliah smiled sadly and looked out at the sunset as they strolled along the beach. “It’s okay, I know about it. Ana Riverrunner told me,” she explained. “She wrote the note for Ila. She’s one of the last of us who knows how.”

  Morgan opened the note and showed it to Eliah, but the woman waved it away. “I am not a scribe, I cannot understand that,” she said. Embarrassment and anger fought on her face.

  He read the note aloud to her and Eliah laughed in a short burst that seemed to surprise her as much as it did him. She smiled and laughed some more, but more quietly, and took the note from him, scanning across the ink before handing it back. “Is that what it says,” she said, still grinning. “Oh, Ila.”

  Folding the note back up and closing it in his fist, Morgan continued down the coast. Eliah walked up and remained beside him in silence.

  “What is ebene, Eliah?” he asked seriously.

  “We drink it in a tea,” she said. “Surely you have it where you come from - I thought every place had its own ebene.” She glanced sidelong at him. “Which village are you from, Stranger?”