Chapter 5

Lurker in the Depths

The scene was beautiful, carefree and innocent. The tiny part of Aliya that was not caught up in the dream knew that wouldn’t last. If only she could escape; it’s wasn’t like she wanted to know what other people thought and felt when they slept. Even worse, she was invading her best friend’s mind, an unwilling spy on her unconscious fears.

A rotation of leaves and sky… She—they—were on the rope swing in the meadow. Elena was pushing her, their childish laughter mingling, the arguments and the drugs still years in the future. The dream trembled as Juna almost remembered, the waking world trying to push its way in.

She swung down, and Elena’s arms were not there to support her. Her sister had disappeared, a rent in the earth like a deep grave gaping open where she had been. Juna leapt from the swing and slid frantically down into the hole, her searching fingers dislodging dirt and small scurrying things. A dark tunnel, her hair catching in the roots snaking through the soil above.

‘Elena!’ she called.

Fingers fastened onto her arm. She spun. And there was her sister. Grey skin, frizzy hair hanging lank with dirt and blood, empty eyes beginning to ooze putrescence.

‘I’m waiting for you, Juna,’ the revenant said. ‘Are you going to join me?’

She ran. Her breath was rasping in her throat, her heartbeat throbbing just inside her ears; she risked a look back, and the creature that was once her sister was shambling along behind her, pleading with her to stop. She screamed and ran on, bouncing off the walls, forced on by terror.

Aliya tried to pull herself away from Juna’s consciousness, but the fear was so overwhelming it scattered her concentration and all she could do was run, and run—until she tripped, and a cold, dead hand caught her ankle, the stain of rot spreading to her own leg, creeping upwards—

And then Azak was there, standing in front of the creature, his eyes burning with a focused intensity, his skull-topped staff planted on the ground. An immovable barrier. He said, ‘Juna, wake,’ and banged his staff on the floor of the tunnel. The whole world shook like his words had caused an earthquake.

But Juna continued to scream and black mould continued to eat its way up her body.

A look of sorrow crossed the old shaman’s face. He said, ‘Aliya, I feel you in there. I need your help.’

What did he expect her to do? She was only Juna, scared and not ready to die.

‘Aliya,’ the shaman said again, ‘this is no time for your rebellion. You must make Juna realise this is only a dream. She won’t wake from it without your help.’

Just a dream. It must be a dream, because she was Aliya, here inside her friend’s body. No, not really her body: this was imagination. Their flesh could not truly be rotting from the bone. There was no real pain to distract her. Come on, Juna. There was no monster. There were no frightened eyes staring imploringly at her from within a glass prison. But it hurt so much it couldn’t be anything other than real.

Aliya flailed desperately towards wakefulness, but something was pulling her down. A fear that was bigger than her own, bigger than Juna’s; a fear that was outside herself, but part of the fabric of the dream.

That fear was stronger than she was, and it would not let her wake.

Unable to rise out of the dream, Aliya instinctively curled inwards, a mental gathering that pulled her consciousness, and Juna’s with it, further down… The ghost of Elena was gone. The pain was over. Every sensation had ceased and there was only vast white space, safe and peaceful. Safe? Safe from nightmares, maybe, but how was she to get out?

It was hard to even think clearly. Juna’s mind had relaxed so far that there were no longer any thoughts or feelings. Her friend was deeply unconscious, and she was trapped here inside Juna’s mind.

Like a moth battering itself against a window, Aliya struggled to think, to feel, to come back to herself.

Aliya jerked awake and sat up in bed, breathing hard. The still night air tasted familiar, smoke and burnt corn and her brother’s feet. Real. She had escaped…and left her best friend behind. Azak had saved her life. She wouldn’t have been able to resist the dream on her own, and if she had stayed…

If she had stayed, then what? She was being melodramatic, surely. She was glad Azak rescued her from a truly horrible dream—but after all, she was only dreaming.

Nonetheless, she pulled on her clothes and slipped out into the night.

Azak, a fur cloak thrown over his nightshirt, was standing in the doorway of Juna’s hut, talking to her mother. Aliya shoved past and flung herself down beside Juna’s bed, shaking her friend’s shoulder roughly. She didn’t wake. Would she ever wake again?

Azak placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘You saved her life.’

‘I’ve as good as killed her.’

‘No,’ Azak said, ‘you’ve given her a chance. Without your help, she would be dead. Now, I have time to find a way to save her.’ He fixed her with his burning gaze. ‘I couldn’t make her wake. That has never happened before.’

Aliya shook her head like a horse did when it was being bothered by flies, hoping to dislodge the terrible uncertainty that had just settled in her stomach. ‘But it was just a nightmare.’

‘Was Elena’s dream just a nightmare? Was Alaan’s?’ The shaman’s eyes bored into her.

‘You can’t die because of a dream.’ She squeezed Juna’s limp hand.

‘You can if you get pulled too deep and don’t know how to return. The question is, what is doing the pulling?’

‘Ah, Azak?’ Aliya asked hesitantly. She had never talked about her dreamwalking before. ‘Alaan dreamt about Elena all the time. And in Elena’s dream—her final one—she dreamt about Juna.’

‘And then the same force tried to pull Juna down,’ Azak said with a frown. ‘It doesn’t make sense; it is a knot that needs unravelling, and I must look for a thread to pull. But I do know that it is something dangerous: doubly dangerous for you, Aliya. There is more of your mind awake than there is for most people, but that means you also sleep at a greater depth. And you were in Juna’s dream.’

‘But—I wasn’t visible or anything,’ she said. ‘Surely whatever this is doesn’t know…can’t find me…’

‘I don’t know, Aliya,’ he replied. ‘For pity’s sake, control your dreams. Don’t even think of anyone you know. Beware the depths: something unknown is lurking in those depths, now.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Aliya asked him.

With a feral grin and a glint in his eye, he replied: ‘Go fishing.’

‘How do you even dare to smile?’ Juna’s father shouted from behind them. He was holding his sobbing wife in his arms; his grief was taking the form of anger. ‘Are you going to let both our daughters die?’

Azak rose stiffly to his feet, leaning on his staff. He towered over all of them, emaciated and fierce.

‘Juna is not dead,’ he said, ‘and she won’t die while I watch over her.’

‘How did you know there was something wrong with her?’ Juna’s mother asked. It sounded like an accusation.

‘It is my job to know,’ Azak said; but he didn’t mention the dreams. Why not?

Juna’s father rounded on Aliya. ‘Was she smoking that mandrake, too?’

‘Of course not,’ Aliya gasped. ‘You know how much she hated Elena taking drugs.’

‘She must have been,’ he said, ignoring Aliya. He grabbed Azak’s arm and dragged him out of the hut, saying, ‘Your medicines are poison! You’re responsible for protecting our children, not killing them!’

Juna’s mother and Aliya hurried out of the house after them. Drawn by the shouting, people were beginning to emerge from neighbouring huts. Lit only by a few hand-held tapers, the familiar village street appeared menacing in the flickering light.

‘I’m not responsible for idiotic children who dig up dangerous roots to smoke,’ Azak said. ‘Maybe their parents bear some responsibility for that.’

Alaan’s mother stepped angrily from the growing crowd. ‘They got the drugs from you! My boy would never have smoked that poison if you hadn’t encouraged him, I know he wouldn’t.’

‘Give us the antidote,’ Juna’s father demanded.

‘The antidote to idiocy?’ Azak replied.

But the villagers were all rallying behind the grieving parents. Two young people were dead, and another dying—they wanted someone to blame. Aliya’s father, one of the village elders, came forward and put a comforting hand on Juna’s father’s shoulder.

‘Azak, you are not welcome here until you right this wrong,’ he said.

It felt like being punched in the gut. Her father had unknowingly turned on her, telling her that her hidden abilities were not trusted. Aliya’s heartbeat throbbed in her ears. How would any of them be safe with Azak gone? Why didn’t he tell them that the problem wasn’t drugs at all, but some strange plague of dreams?

‘I will go, and I will return with a cure,’ Azak said. His gaze swept over the crowd and fixed on Aliya. ‘I am not the enemy: fear is. The more fear, the more danger’.

Aliya stared back mutely. If she just told everyone what she knew, then they could no longer blame the shaman. Except that, in times of trouble, it was always the odd one out who received the blame. Instead of absolving the shaman, would the villagers extend their judgement to include her? After all, she was guilty—more so than Azak. She had failed to save Juna.

She watched in silence as Azak walked away.