LUCKY WOKE up. Or so he thought, until he became aware of his surroundings.
No, he thought. It’s just that I’m not truly sleeping anymore. Or at least I hope that’s it, because if this is the world I woke up to, that means they’ve won.
He tried to think who they were, but he couldn’t. The things that had happened to him in his previous dreams—or the places and times he called dreams for lack of a better description—were still there in his memory, somewhere. He knew that. He could feel them trying to come forth when he wanted them, but they’d been blocked like water behind a dam. Still, this putrid darkness and cold blue light was all too familiar, and he was pretty sure that whatever had happened in those earlier times, this was where they had taken place.
He wondered if he could wake up, and when he focused his mind on the idea, he thought he felt some kind of activity near his normal-world body. Normal! Hah! That’s a joke. But as true as it was that his world had never seemed normal, at least he’d felt more like a living, breathing human than he did in this dark limbo he’d been stuck in for the last… well, he had no idea how long. Felt like forever.
The slimy feel of the black mists tightening their hold on Lucky interrupted his thoughts. He felt a slight downward tug and started to slowly descend. Things got colder as he went, and he felt nauseous. He smelled something awful, but he couldn’t hear or see anything beyond the tinge of blue light lining the ropes, pillars, and pools of black. He splashed down in one of those pools and thought certainly he would choke to death on the fumes.
He almost welcomed the idea.
He heard a familiar and unwelcome voice. After a moment, he remembered. Oh yeah. My mother. Why me? A million teenage boys have half-assed decent moms, but mine? An undead monster. Perfect. He got mad, but instead of lashing out he asked, “Why, Mom? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Oh, son,” she said, and for a moment it almost sounded as though her words held compassion. “I’ve been trying to show you what awaits my enemies. But perhaps I’ve failed to show you what can await my friends, and especially you, my dear son, if you join me. I know that when you look at me, and when you look at my world, you see something ugly, but I’ll show you a different side—what it can be like when we are together after the fighting is done.”
The mist surrounding him pulled away like a curtain, and he found himself in a huge chamber. The walls were made of darkly beautiful stone mortared with perfect everlasting ice. The floor was as smooth as a flawless mirror, the ceiling lost in the heights. White flames hissed in glass fixtures with no candle or wick to support them. He felt neither warm nor cold. Silken fabric slid over his skin softly. A long mahogany table was laden with what appeared to be his favorite foods—even Top Ramen. But he didn’t trust his senses. Didn’t trust any of this.
He saw then that two chairs had been set across the table from one another, and in one of them sat his mother, smiling. She looked blonde and beautiful and strong, like the memory of her he’d always dreamed about during his banishment to Earth. But if he squinted his mental vision, he could see the overlay of her more recent undead self.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m doing this because you have power that should not be wasted. Because you deserve to abide forever in riches. Because you, in company with the fools of Sunlands, have been misled by the meddling wizard, have been polluted by the tools that misdirect the power of Ethra. What I want is for you to take my hand. Together we can destroy the illusion that is today’s Ethra. Once the false image our people see is shattered, paths always intended—paths of true power—can be trod by those who are meant to be powerful. Those like us. We can become what we were meant to be, you and I. We can remake the world without any of the foolishness of wizards and magic, prophecies and fates. We will rule an honest world!”
“You’re dead, Mother.”
“I’m dead to Ethra, for now. But my life is not extinguished. By uniting the worlds within me, I’ve found the way to live on, free of the chokehold of Ethra’s blind magic. I will help you to do this too, son, and you will see how different things look from this side.”
She reached out a hand then, and though Lucky knew she thought she maintained the illusion of her beauty, the hand he saw was emaciated, no more than a rotting, evaporating claw. He recoiled, and the movement took him far away from her. The vision of the rich, lonely room she’d built up for him vanished to smoke, and he saw her there, an unholy, undead apparition made up of equal parts bitterness and greed.
“I am Luccan Elieth Perdhro, Mannatha, Suth Chiell, and you may not touch me.”
In a flash of horrific blue lightning, the scene changed. Cries and sobs of terror and pain surrounded him, and he dimly recalled standing witness to a battle. This time, he looked where he expected to see fighting, and gasped in surprise. On the one hand, an army of grim soldiers advanced—some as spirits, others like zombies. But on the other hand, innocent spirits futilely raised their arms to ward against the blows of swords while the dark army mowed through them, subduing them and then dragging them along behind, bound in the abominable mists.
The rolling plain where Lucky stood was huge, extending far beyond the end of his sight. Feeling sick at the brutality he witnessed, he wanted to run away. He struggled, hopelessly unable to pick a direction—things were equally horrible everywhere he looked. Then he heard a horse approaching fast, and he looked over his shoulder. It was his mother, still some distance away but riding fast and hard, so the direction he chose was, simply, away from her.
Amazed that he could run so far without getting tired, he eventually left the battle behind, but the lifeless plains rolled on toward every horizon. Finally, his strength began to flag. He started to slow and to stumble, and he could hear his mother’s terrible mount coming closer, ready to ride him down.
The change that brought him hope came suddenly. In a blink, light washed the plain in gold and red. A wind rushed by that smelled like struck matches, cedar, and sweetgrass—a memory of Hank George’s cabin on Black Creek Ravine. Overhead, he heard a rush of wings, and he looked up to see the most wondrous thing.
A dragon. The dragon. The beautiful, powerful creature that, in this world of unbeing, was Han Rha-Behl Ah’Shieth. Where before he’d seemed small, now his huge form dominated the plain, as if he’d decided to be all the dragon he could be. The sky above was red like the earliest moments of a summer dawn over a California desert, but gold glinted off Han’s scales as he dove to harry Liliana with a blast of brilliant flame. Her horse whinnied and reared and Liliana barely retained her seat. As she fought to control her mount, Han swooped down to land next to where Lucky stood awestruck.
“Get on,” Han said. “And hang on tight.”
After some fumbling, Lucky found a foothold in the wing joint, sort of vaulted onto Han-the-dragon’s back, and took hold of his two long, spiral-curved horns. “I’m ready,” he said, just as he heard the horse’s hooves thundering close.
Apparently the dragon needed to get a running start before he could get airborne, so the first, overland, part of the ride was pretty bumpy. Once they were up, though, it was smoother, the rhythm of Han’s great, scaled wings creating a rocking motion almost like a ship riding over waves. At least Lucky supposed a ship might be like that, because he felt seasick.
But seasick on the back of a dragon that also happened to be the uncle he loved was better than any feeling he’d had while stuck in his mother’s macabre world. They flew upward toward the red sky, and the higher they went, the more the sky brightened to gold, as if they flew through a swift sunrise. The sound of Liliana’s pursuit faded until suddenly it stopped. Her shout came to Lucky borne on a black wind that nearly tore him from Han’s back.
“One way or another, Luccan, I will have you with me!”
A cold blue fire rose up and licked at his legs where they dangled at the dragon’s sides. Han turned a great arc and breathed back toward where Liliana held her wand aloft, the source of that icy flame. His breath blazed ruby and gold, struck against the chill wind, and where the opposing guest met, they flared up and out into a great sheet of battling flames. The towers and pillars of mist they touched turned to gray ash and fell back to the plains below, and Han turned and once again began winging skyward.
There was daylight up there, not far now, but Lucky realized that, as before, a membrane separated the world of the living from this awful place. His hope stuttered until Han reassured him.
“Use your Key again, Luccan, and Ciarrah. She’s in your other hand.”
“Ciarrah?”
She answered. “I’m here with you, Blade-keeper. I will help if you ask it.”
“Yes, please.”
Instantly, her light streaked toward the barrier overhead and began cutting like a torch.
“Use the Key too,” Han said, “and wish. We’ll go through together this time. We have a lot of help on the other side, and Maizie’s waiting.”
“Maizie?”
“She came home with Thurlock.”
It was such a wonderful thought that Lucky laughed, and with joy in his heart for the first time in what seemed like forever, he grasped the Key of Behliseth in one hand, held Ciarrah’s light toward the sky with the other, and fervently Wished for a world full of sunshine, and people who truly loved him, and dog kisses, and—especially—Han with him safe and sound.
They burst into a splash of sunlight. In his heart, Lucky knew his nightmare was, at last, truly over.