Chapter 14

 

“Nico!” David somehow found his voice in the dream, but he was surrounded by the empty void. He could not see Acacia anywhere, and he worried that Nico was somehow keeping them apart. “Show yourself, coward!”

No response. David willed himself to move, but there was nowhere to move to. “This is unimaginative, even for you!” he called. “I’ve had dreams about bunnies scarier than this!”

Still, no answer. There wasn’t any presence of malice, or any hint that anyone was paying attention to him. David wondered how it was, for all of Nico’s pompous pride in his “cleverness,” that the fox-man was so mediocre at creating a dream atmosphere.

Hypnos had built a realm of millions of dream-paths, a swirling garden where all dreamers and dreams could connect. The lifeless void surrounding David was not unnerving; it was dull. Then it made sense. Nico was not Hypnos by any means. Nico was unskilled at manipulating a dream atmosphere, and trying to balance millions of dreams would be far too great a task for him. Nico was not interested in that, anyway; he was focused on tainting David and Acacia’s dreams.

Dios mío, Acacia! What if that was why Nico wasn’t tormenting David? The fox-man most likely didn’t have the talent to invade two different dreams at once. He would have to pour all his attention into one dreamer at a time. Where was Acacia?

At the thought of Acacia, a pinprick of light appeared in the black void. David could not walk to it, since there was no ground to walk on, but he was drawn to that tiny shard of light. He willed his projected self to broaden the light, to tear through the void. He reached out, hooking a finger into the spot of light and pulled. The blackness gave way easily, ripping open at his touch. David did not need to pull the rip open too wide, as he found he could slip through it like liquid through a funnel.

Hot sand pushed up between the toes of his bare feet. The whispering wind whipped his hair and clothes, but its abrasiveness was muted. It was the impression of sand, the impression of wind that David felt, for a small part of him remembered that this place was not real. Vast stretches of desert extended to meet the cobalt blue sky, high in which a white-fire sun beat its rays down on all below.

Panic took hold of him. Was he trapped here? Was he doomed to wander a desert of solitude forever? Could he starve or die of thirst here, or blister into a sundried piece of charqui? No, no, this was a dream. Remember it’s a dream. There’s got to be something here. This desert appeared because he had thought of—

Acacia. Find Acacia.

There was a temple before him. It had not sprouted from the sands, or appeared in a puff of smoke. It was there as if it always had been. Two square outer walls faced him, with an entryway in between that was flanked by two statues of seated royals with tall pointed crowns. Beside the statues stood an obelisk tattooed with symbols and images that David recognized as hieroglyphics. A smooth avenue extended out from the temple for well over a mile, and along both sides of the avenue were rows of sandstone altars. Atop every altar, creatures were chained down to them, forced into lying positions as they struggled to stand up.

Sphinxes. Hundreds of living, breathing sphinxes. Men’s faces, young and old, were set on lion bodies that each had their own distinct fur color, musculature, and sheen. They roared and screeched, their claws scratching uselessly on the altar-tops. Human guards, brandishing spears, shouted and jabbed their weapons at the sphinxes to keep them under control. A dozen humans stood at the end of the avenue in front of the temple: the head of the group was a tall sun-bronzed man, wearing white linen robes, jewelry of gold and precious stones, and a golden-and-black headdress with matching armbands. The others wore long brown robes with hoods covering their heads. One of the brown-roped men held a thick book made from papyrus paper.

David had books on ancient Egypt in his home library, and he could tell by the head man’s attire that he must be of high status, possibly a pharaoh or king. The other men, he could not tell what they might be. The man with the book raised a hand and began to chant a string of archaic words, the tips of his fingers emanating a bluish glow. The other robed men did the same, their fingertips glowing as cerulean fireflies. David realized the men must be sorcerers.

The sphinxes howled in pain at the sorcerers’ chanting, and they thrashed against their binds to no avail. Some sphinxes even cried out in human voices, pleading, shrieking.

Their cries were instantly silenced as all of them turned into stone.

A wave of nausea swept over David. Hundreds of lives, snuffed out in a second. Even worse, none of the sphinxes possessed their own faces any longer. Every single one of the statues bore a facade that resembled the pharaoh, headdress and all. And the pharaoh, who saw the handiwork of his sorcerers, could not have beamed prouder.

The pharaoh and the sorcerers turned and walked into the temple, followed by the procession of guards. From within the temple came song and music, the sounds of a great festival, but above the joyous melodies, one lingering cry echoed through the desert. The cry was that of a child’s, and David could make out a form standing in front of one of the stone sphinxes.

He approached cautiously, not sure if the crying person would be aware of him or not. As he got closer, he recognized the violet-black wings and the golden fur, the mane of dark hair that shrouded the feral but beautiful human face. This version of Acacia, however, was smaller, the wings not fully formed as bits of grayish down poked out from the feathers. She cried uncontrollably, her paws pressed against the altar of the petrified sphinx before her. David looked up at the statue, seeing that this one statue did not perfectly mimic the pharaoh’s face. This one had the sorrowful face of a woman, set on a sleek feline form. It was also the only stone sphinxes that had two nubs on her shoulder blades—right where a pair of wings would have been, but hers appeared to have been sliced off. To his horror, David could see how much this doomed sphinx resembled Acacia.

David knew that the human heart did not truly possess strings, but as Acacia’s despair became his own, he could hear his heartstrings snap. “Acacia… Dios mío, I…I am so sorry. I can’t believe they would do this to your people, to your... Please, please don’t cry. This is a dream. It’s not really happening.” He knew his words would do no good.

Dream or not, it didn’t make the memory less painful. Acacia did not acknowledge his presence, as she wailed and clawed at the statue.

“Acacia, you need to wake up.” David tried to grab hold of her, but his hands were stopped half an inch from her. There was a force keeping him from making contact with her. David felt a shadow creep over him, and a wicked chuckle burned in his ears.

“Poor little kitty,” Nico said dryly. “Couldn’t do anything to save them. How many times, do you think, can someone relive such a soul-breaking moment before she loses her mind? Let’s find out. How about we keep her asleep long enough to experience this again and again, a thousand times over, or at least until I’m bored with it.”

David spun around to face Nico, venom in his eyes and voice. “You’re not going to hurt her again, Nico. Your mind games are over.”

Nico grinned in amusement. “Good, you’re as foolishly optimistic as ever. It’s more fun to break a boy who has a shred of hope. I knew you would find your way here. That makes less work for me, not having to jump back and forth between your dreams and hers. But don’t worry, I have something delightful for you, too.”

David swung at Nico to land a punch to his face, but again he was stopped half an inch away.

“Do you think you can hurt me here? Or in the real world, for that matter? I’m beyond physical pain now.” Nico tapped his foot on the ground, and David sunk downwards. He was sucked into the earth up to his waist, and then the ground solidified around him. David pushed as hard as he could to get out, but he was stuck.

“But do you know who’s not beyond pain, David?” Nico knelt, bringing his lips within an inch of David’s ear. “Your pretty wife.”

David lashed out with his fists again. Nico darted back about ten feet, not to avoid the punches but so he could remove a glass orb from within an inner pocket of his coat. Inside the glass orb was a miniature Florence, who pressed her hands against the glass, trying to see out. She was shouting something, but her words were inaudible from within the orb.

“How…how did you…” David stammered.

“She does nothing but dream about you while you’re away. It made it easy to find her. Pathetic.” Nico tossed the orb back and forth between his hands. “I would have thought you’d prefer a lady with a stronger will. She succumbed to me with no resistance.”

David clenched his teeth. “This is a dream. You can’t hurt her.”

Nico twirled the orb on his fingertip. “Physically, you mean? No, I can’t kill her, per se. But it’s amazing what one can do to the mind in dreams. For example, I could destroy her memories, her thoughts, her ability to think, until she’s no more than a bedridden vegetable. Or I could induce such insanity that the only place for her will be the asylum. Oh, the options are endless…”

“She’s done nothing to you. If you want to turn someone into a vegetable or a lunatic, do it to me!”

“I might. Although, the notion of brainwashing you into adoring me, pledging yourself to be my unquestioning servant…that tickles me. But I’ll give you the option: should I destroy your wife’s consciousness first, or make you watch as I break my cousin beyond repair?” Nico slapped a hand to his forehead. “Of course, easy answer! I’ll just do both at the same time!”

Nico did not get the chance to do either, however, as a black-and-white whale dropped from the sky above and smashed directly on top of the fox-man. The glass orb popped out of Nico’s grasp, rolling along the avenue until David could reach it and snatched it up.

“That’s for my Master Yofune, you monster!” the whale bellowed in the familiar voice of Tanuki.

David gawked at the whale. “Tanuki? What are you doing here?”

The whale turned his eye to David. “Sorry, David-san. I must have fallen asleep. But I could sense you were in trouble. I thought of you, and here I am!”

“You’re incredible! But how are you shape-shifting again?”

“David-san, this is a dream. You can do anything you want in a dream!”

David could not believe his own foolishness. Of course he could do whatever he wanted! Nico could manipulate him as much as David allowed him to, but David’s will had to be stronger. With one final push, he broke free of the ground, leaping up onto his feet. He brought the glass orb up to his face, smiling warmly at Florence inside. He pressed his hands against the sides of the glass, imagining his wife standing before him, free and unafraid. The next thing he knew, he was holding Florence’s hands in his, her sweet face gazing at him.

“David, is that you? Have you come home?” she asked.

“Florence,” he said, holding her close. “You’ll be all right. I’ll come back to you. But for now, you need to wake up. The next time you sleep, you won’t have any nightmares. Dream of me, and I’ll come to you.” He kissed her forehead, and then released her hands.

Florence gradually floated up into the air, and she reached down for David’s hand again. “Wait! Don’t leave! Please, David, please…”

“I’ll come home, Florence. I love you,” he said.

Florence ascended higher, until her dream-self faded away. David could no longer feel her presence in the dreamscape, and he knew she had awoken. Seeing Florence, for that short time, filled him with a pining sorrow, and he knew he had meant what he said. He would come home to her.

Tanuki let out a deep low as he was hoisted upwards, Nico lifting the whale above his head. To say he looked furious was a gross understatement. “You think you can make a fool out of me?” He threw Tanuki with the ease of tossing a cushion, and the whale soared across the sky, landing straight into a whirlpool of quicksand that Nico materialized. Tanuki changed into an eagle to fly out, but the quicksand sucked him down, not allowing him to escape.

“If you don’t want to play my games,” Nico growled, “then I’ll just shred your mind apart right now!”

David could feel himself being pulled in different directions, and a tearing agony in his being that set his soul on fire. Nico was literally ripping him down the middle, but David summoned all his will, resisting. Nico was unrelenting, as the two opponents struggled against one another. David pulled himself inwards, imagining that his body was steel armor, sealing himself inside. But Nico changed his attack, as he summoned a dozen warhammers and swords around David. The weapons pummeled at him mercilessly, bending and cracking the armor.

David visualized the ground beneath Nico crumbling, and the fox-man found himself tumbling down as the stone avenue beneath him broke apart. Nico leapt up to avoid falling through, but as he jumped, David directed one of the warhammers to spin around and fly smack into Nico mid-air. The fox-man was flung so far, he became a speck on the horizon where the desert met the sky.

David knew Nico would be back any second. He allowed his armor to vanish, and he rushed to Acacia, who remained trapped in her memory. He hoped Nico’s hold on her had faded, given David’s distractions. He reached out for her, and his hands fell on her shoulders. “Acacia! Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?”

The young Acacia faced him, her eyes red with tears. She peered at him curiously. “You…you don’t belong here…”

“Yes, I do! This is a dream. You’re reliving a memory that happened a long time ago. Do you know who I am, Acacia? Can you tell me my name?”

The sphinx locked eyes with him. Recognition dawned on her face. “D…David. Your name is David.”

David helped her to her feet. “Yes, Acacia. Right now, I need your help. We need to stop—”

The whole temple collapsed around them, the rubble cascading over them in a tidal wave that buried them in an immovable tomb. The young man and the sphinx pushed upwards to find freedom, but the weight of the rubble grew heavier and heavier. David could hear Nico laughing above them.

“You two can remain buried together, for all I care! You’ll never wake up! Your bodies will be useless. Nothing will be able to revive you. But you’ll feel it when the crows and vultures pick your bones clean!”

It was dark beneath the rubble, but David could feel Acacia’s paw in his hand. “Acacia, I know he’s your family, but I’m sick and tired of your cousin.”

Acacia squeezed his hand. “I’ve been sick of him since before the fall of Rome. So let’s teach this weasel in fox’s clothes a thing or two.”

“Suggestions?”

“Oh, I have one…”

Nico’s laughter stuck in his throat as a hot geyser blast blew up from beneath the rubble, blowing the pile of stones as well as Nico sky high. The geyser wrapped around him, forming a lion’s paw, swooping back around and slamming the fox-man on the ground. A female voice came from within the water. “It was about time you had a bath, Nico!”

Meanwhile, David was hanging on to the tail of the geyser stream, which was in fact Acacia, as he followed her out of the rubble. He could see Tanuki was fighting with the quicksand, staying afloat in the form of a dolphin but unable to free himself. David let go of Acacia’s tail, willing himself into the form of a three-masted ship that sailed on top of the desert sands. As he circled the quicksand, he threw out a fishing net at Tanuki, catching him and pulling him out of the whirlpool. Once they were clear of the quicksand, the two shifted back into their normal forms, man and badger.

“You were a boat! Why didn’t I think of that?” Tanuki said. “It looked like fun!”

“‘Fun’ is not the term I would use,” David said.

The desert around them was no longer the tranquil stretch of sand that it had been. It was now an arena of dust storms churning around them, the sky clouding over with tombstone-gray thunderheads. Nico had quite enough of Acacia drowning him in her geyser grip, so he transformed himself into lightning, setting the clouds afire and spitting electric shocks down at his liquefied adversary. Acacia altered her form, becoming a metal obelisk that absorbed Nico’s lightning, trapping and sending his energy into the earth beneath her. But Nico became an earthquake, cracking the ground to swallow Acacia and crush her. In response, Acacia became a river, filling the fissure to flush Nico out. Nico chose the form of an icy wind, breathing over Acacia’s river to freeze her over, but she retaliated as a twirling tornado, pulling Nico’s wind into her spiraling vacuum.

David scooped up Tanuki into his arms, bracing himself against the winds and ice and flying debris. “This is crazy! They’ll go on until they destroy each other’s minds!”

“This is a bit out of my league, David-san,” Tanuki squealed against the howling wind. “What are we going to do?”

By now, Nico had become a firestorm, a cylinder of raw raging flame, and Acacia was a tsunami, preparing to extinguish him. David sent his voice up into the clouds, amplifying it and filling the entire space of the dreamscape. “STOP!”

The firestorm and the tsunami froze in place. Both twisted around in David’s direction.

It was the first time David was stared down by two natural disasters, and he took an extra moment to find his composure. “This is going nowhere! You both could do this until the end of time, and no one will win. We need to end this, in the way most fitting. No shape-changing, no tricks. One final test, one indisputable winner.”

The firestorm and tsunami paused. They did not change back, as if waiting for the other to resume normal form first.

“For Pete’s sake.” David imagined the firestorm and tsunami disguises stripped away, and moments later, the fox-man and the sphinx were standing before him.

Nico looked down at himself in surprise. “Now that’s hardly fair.”

“Oh, the back-stabbing dream-corrupting madman knows what’s fair,” Acacia snarled.

“You both like riddles, right?” David said. “Then let’s see who truly is the cleverest. No cheating, no mind-killing.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “We’re going to play this idiotic game? I know every riddle there is. There’s no riddle my cousin can propose that I cannot answer.”

“That’s why I’m going to give the riddle,” David said. “One riddle, for each of you. If Acacia answers hers correctly and you don’t, you will swear on your master that you will stay out of our dreams. If you break your vow, I’m sure your master will be cross that you blasphemed his name.”

“And if I win?”

David bit his lip. “Then do what you want with me. Make me a vegetable, or a lunatic, or your servant. Whatever you prefer.”

Nico scratched his chin. “No protecting my cousin, human. I’ll do what I want to both of you. And the badger, if I feel like it.”

Tanuki gulped, but Acacia replied firmly, “Deal.”

“Such confidence in your plaything,” Nico sneered at her. “You trust that he can give a riddle that will actually stump me?”

“It seemed to work well enough last time,” David replied.

Nico glowered at David, remembering the last time he had incorrectly answered a riddle that the young man had invented. “It won’t happen again, I assure you. What if we both answer our riddles correctly?”

David paused. “Then you still win.”

Nico lifted his eyebrows. “Really? So, whether or not my cousin answers her riddle correctly, as long as I answer mine with the right answer, I win?”

Acacia gave David a stern look. Tanuki tugged David’s pant leg, shaking his head.

“The odds would be in your favor,” David replied.

Nico snickered. “Then, by all means, let’s play riddles. I’ll even be sporting and let my cousin answer her riddle first. Not that it will matter, but you know how much I love crushing one’s hopes.”

“First, swear to your master,” David ordered.

Nico groaned. “Fine. I swear to my malevolent master of madness, Lord of all Insanity, may he stricken me with smallpox and have maggots feast on my innards, so on and so on.” With his finger, he drew a cross over where his heart should have been.

Acacia took one step towards David. She held her head high, her voice unwavering. “Very well. Tell me your riddle.”

David held his hands out, and a small wooden box appeared in his hands. It was the size of a cigar box, smooth on the outside with no carvings or markings. “What’s in the box?” he said.

Acacia’s eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”

Nico looked equally baffled. “Not that I agree with my cousin, but that’s not a riddle.”

“It’s no different than a riddle. One hint: it’s small enough to fit in this box,” David said.

Acacia stared at the box. Her jaw went slack. “David, that’s not fair!”

“It’s fair enough that you and Nico know as much about this box as the other.”

The sphinx continued to stare at the box, as if she could see through the wood. After a minute, she shook her head. “A…a key?”

David frowned. “I’m sorry, it’s not a key.”

Nico grinned ear to ear. “Wow, not even giving your friend a chance. That’s as cold as…well, what I would do.”

David turned to Nico. “Your turn. What’s in the box, Nico?”

The fox-man’s smile withered. “Wait, I get the same riddle?”

“She couldn’t answer it. Now you try.”

“That’s preposterous!”

“So, you’re not smart enough to figure this out.”

Nico bared his teeth, and a trail of saliva dripped from his lips as he growled. “I know exactly what I’ll do with you after I win this. I’ll render you brain-dead, find out where your body is, and I’ll hunt it down to eat your heart!”

David stared at Nico coolly. “What’s in the box?”

“No matter what answer I give, you’ll just change whatever is in there before you open it!”

David knelt, turning his back to Nico and facing Tanuki. He opened the box towards the badger, showing him what was inside. He snapped the box shut again and stood up. “There, Tanuki can be witness to what’s in here. He won’t lie. So, are you done wasting time, or do you give up?”

Nico tightened his lips. He glanced over at Tanuki, and was about to pry into the badger’s mind to find out the answer. But he found he couldn’t—as he had blocked David from Acacia before, David was now mentally blocking him from the badger. Nico grimaced. Honestly, what was the point? No matter what the outcome, this boy didn’t have the willpower to keep Nico out of his dreams forever. And who cared if he stayed out of their dreams, even if they could make him? He would find them in the waking world soon enough and slit their throats. This whole game would be for naught.

“Fine,” Nico said. “There’s nothing in the box. Right? It’s such an old trick. People have been pulling that one for centuries.”

David did not reply.

Acacia’s face blanched.

David turned to the badger. “Tanuki?”

Tanuki shook his head. “Nope, not the right answer. There is definitely something in the box. Badger’s honor.”

Nico frowned. “So what? She didn’t get it right either. That’s a moronic riddle. There was no way anyone could answer that!”

A smile drew across David’s face. “Exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘exactly’?”

David tapped his fingers on the box. “You know, Nico, you really should have asked me what happens when both you and Acacia lose.”

The fox-man was knocked silent. He stared at David, and the boy’s smile filled him with dread. “What happens?”

“I win.”

Nico shot his gaze back and forth between Acacia, Tanuki, and David. “W-what? But, you didn’t…you said…” He threw his hands up. “Not that it matters! You want me to stay out of your and the sphinx’s dreams? Make me, if you can. But you can’t protect the dreams of your Huntsman friend, or your wife, or anyone else! I can turn the whole world against you, if I wish! I can influence your wife to despise you! I can make the Huntsman want to kill you!” He laughed wildly. “On second thought, the Huntsman won’t be killing anyone, after what I’ve done to him! After all, dead men don’t dream!”

“What did you do to Gullin?” Acacia bared her claws and teeth, her fur bristling.

“Oh, you’ll find out,” Nico said. “That’s just the start. I know there’s a lily-livered warrior with you. I could strike him with a madness that will convince him to turn his axe on you!”

David opened the box. Inside was his dagger, Fenrir’s fang. He took it out of the box, gripping it tightly.

Nico almost doubled over with laughter. “Are you stupid?? You can’t kill me, you idiot! Not in this world, and not in the real world!”

“No, I can’t. But what I want isn’t for you to stay out of Acacia and my dreams.”

David raised the dagger and plunged it into Nico’s skull. Nico hadn’t bothered dodging, knowing the dagger would not hurt him. But a jarring sensation rippled through out his being, as an oozing heat seeped inside him. He quavered like a reflection in a pebble-tossed pond.

“You are going to stay out of everyone’s dreams. Fenrir’s fang is a weapon that destroys anything, Nico. If Fenrir can eat the heavens, can devour souls, then this fang can destroy the intangible as well as the physical. Your mind is already broken, so there’s nothing more I can do to damage it. But I can destroy the part of you that allows you to dream, Nico. You will have no more connection to this realm. You’ve had your last mind game, and you better pray your new master doesn’t find out what a worthless simpleton you are like your last master did.”

With a bellow of rage, Nico disintegrated, his consciousness obliterated under the power of Fenrir’s fang.

David opened his eyes. Violet-black feathers brushed against his face. He could feel Acacia’s body beneath his head, her breath calmly inflating and deflating her sides.

“Acacia?” he whispered.

“That was the best dream I have ever had,” she replied.

From the other side of Acacia, Tanuki peeked his head over her wings. “David-san, you are scary. Amazingly, wonderfully scary.”