Part 21 (2/2)

”Sure,” I said, and I followed him in that direction.

My clothes, as it turned out, were not completely dry yet, but with the others rummaging in the cave for blankets and the darkness of midnight closing in, we had as much privacy as was possible in this place.

He took out a folded piece of paper from his coat. It was a large piece when opened out, and drawn on it in red and black ink were a series of diagrams. The first few looked like the floor plans of a building. Beneath that were some spider-like sketches that reminded me of a metro map. Everything was labeled, but in the darkness I couldn't read it. Should have kept my flashlight, I thought dryly.

”Those are the plans for Shadowcrest,” he said, ”as best my memory serves. The route labeled in black is the way I travelled when I escaped my own imprisonment there. Follow my steps back to their source and you will come to the place where your brother is likely being held. The details in red indicate things that others have reported to me since then. I can't vouch for their accuracy, but I included them in case you are forced to choose another path. Better unverified information than none at all.” He paused. ”This is what you wanted from me, yes?”

I suddenly had a lump in my throat, that made it hard to speak. ”Yes,” I whispered. ”It's . . . more than I dared hope for. Thank you.” I looked up at him. ”But why talk to me alone? We're all in this together.”

He shook his head. ”Three of you are in this together. One is a boy you picked up en route, whom you know nothing about. And yes, I know your instinct is telling you to trust him-that's clear from the way you look at him-but trust me, people from this world may look just like the folks back home, and we may want them to be like the folks back home, but there's more dividing our two worlds than a mystical barrier. You have no idea where his loyalties lie. You can't begin to name the prejudices that drive him. You don't know his real feelings about what you're planning to do. So for your safety, and that of your friends, you should part from him as soon as possible. And until that time, share no information with him upon which your life might depend.” When I said nothing, he put a finger beneath my chin and tipped my face up until I was looking in his eyes. ”Promise me that, Jessica.” When I was still silent he pressed, ”for Tommy's sake.”

Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. Finally I nodded, because he was right. I didn't want him to be right, but I knew in my heart that he was.

”Good, then.” He glanced back to make sure we were still alone, then took a small object out of his pocket. It was a gla.s.s sphere, maybe an inch in diameter, hanging from a thin chain. Clear gla.s.s with tiny golden threads running through it, that glittered in the moonlight. ”I want you to have this. Guard it with your life, because if the Shadows find out you have it that will indeed be the price.”

”What is it?” I murmured.

Silently he placed the marble in the center of his open palm and focused his attention on it. After a few seconds, ribbons of golden light began to swirl out from the depths of the gla.s.s. A glowing pattern perhaps three feet across took shape in the air above his palm. Familiar, it was so familiar . . . could it be the pattern I had seen at the Gate? No, not quite that, but something similar.

Then he closed his hand about the marble and the light disappeared.

”The portals don't actually transport you from one world to another; they simply allow you to enter the formless chaos that lies between the worlds, from which you exit elsewhere. Some worlds, like this one, have a powerful attraction, and tend to draw travelers to them, but if you want to go anywhere else the journey is much more precarious. Many have become lost between the worlds, trapped in a terrible darkness from which there is no return.” He held up the marble before me. ”This is a codex. It's a kind of fetter the Shadows create to facilitate travel between the worlds. Activate this one when you step through the Gate and it will help you reach Terra Colonna safely.” A corner of his mouth twitched. ”No guarantee on the time frame.”

He took my hand, pressed the marble into my palm, and closed my fingers over it. ”I risked much to obtain this,” he said, a tremor of emotion in his voice. ”Now I give it to you, for your brother's sake. Guard it well.”

I stared at him. For a moment I was speechless. ”I can't,” I said finally. ”I can't take this from you.”

”I want you to have it.”

”But if you did want to go home someday . . . wouldn't you need it?”

He touched a hand gently to my cheek. There was a terrible sadness in his eyes. ”I told you before: I'll never walk that road again. Better this should be in the hands of someone who can use it. Someone whose family is still alive, and needs them.” His hand fell away from my face. ”I failed to rescue my loved ones, Jessica. Let me seek my redemption in helping yours.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. ”Sebastian, I can't ever-”

”Shhh.” He put a finger to my lips to silence me. ”Just say thank you. I ask for nothing more.”

I whispered it from the depths of my heart: ”Thank you.”

He turned away before I could say anything more, and probably that was a good thing. My throat had become so tight from emotion I couldn't have gotten another word out.

After he left me I stood there for a long while, feeling the weight of the codex in my hand. The weight of this whole mission on my shoulders. Tears began to flow freely down my face, but they were good tears. The kind that wash away pain.

Tomorrow the final leg of this journey would begin. Tomorrow I would rescue my brother or die trying.

Slipping the chain over my head, I dropped the codex inside my s.h.i.+rt so no one would see it. Then I headed back to the cave to see if I could get a few more hours of sleep before we started back to Luray.

24.

VICTORIA FOREST.

VIRGINIA PRIME.

THE BLACK PLAIN beneath my feet feels solid enough, but this time I know that it isn't. Beneath my toes I can sense the thrumming of a terrible chaos, that measureless void where nothing is real, which my dreaming mind has frozen into solid form. The realm between the worlds. That's what my dreams have always been about. I sensed the truth without understanding it. I witnessed a multiplicity of worlds without knowing their names.

How much of what I see is real, how much is metaphor, how much is just illusion? The gla.s.sy surface beneath my feet feels solid enough, but I sense that's just a feature of the dreamscape, an image my mind supplied to mask a reality I can't yet comprehend. Now that I don't need the mask as much as I once did, it's becoming less substantial. Reality is seeping into my dreams. I recall the darkness that engulfed me as we pa.s.sed through the Gate, and I shudder. Will it come to the point where my dreams deposit me directly into that void, without any familiar images to serve as anchor?

All about me I see doors. This time they all look like the entrance to the Green Man's cave, burlap curtains hung from stone archways. The stone surrounding them doesn't end suddenly, but bleeds off into the darkness on all sides. And the curtains waver as I look at them, as if they are fading in and out of existence. It's as if the whole place is becoming less solid as I look at it. Less real. Clearly the constructs of my dreaming mind are beginning to break down. But what lies behind them: reality or madness?

I walk to the nearest curtain and pull it aside. Beyond it I see a dark room with a small boy huddled inside. Tommy. I watch him for a moment as he sleeps, his body twitching like a kitten's as some unseen nightmare wracks his brain, and my heart aches. Is this a world that is merely possible, or one that actually exists? If I had the right codex and a Gate to transport me, could I travel to the place where he's sleeping, right now, take him up in my arms and bring him home? Or am I only dreaming things that might come to pa.s.s, but which, like Schrodinger's cat, are not yet realized?

I walk to another curtain, but I don't open it. I don't need to. The worlds that are cl.u.s.tered together will all be similar; the ones that are farthest from me show the greatest variance. So if I walk for miles in this place, what will I find? A world where Australopithecus Afarensis rules supreme? Where soaring pterodactyls still fill the sky? Or perhaps where the landscape is so alien and the life forms so incomprehensible that I won't be able to make any sense of it at all. Behind me I can see that I've left a thin trail of golden fire, marking the path I have been walking. It reminds me of the pattern I sensed within the arch back home, just before the Shadow pa.s.sed through it. Are the two connected? Will manipulating one affect the other? Or is the similarity a fantasy, conjured by a mind that is desperate to discover meaning in such things?

Too many questions. Too many questions. I sense that the truth is out there, waiting for me to discover it, but I'm not sure that I can face it and still remain anch.o.r.ed in reality. A world needs boundaries. A soul needs limits. In a place where everything is possible, nothing can exist.

No wonder dreamers go mad.

I woke trembling; it took me a minute to remember where I was. Fortunately Sebastian had brought some embers into the cave just before we all retired, so we weren't in total darkness. By their dim orange light I could see three dark, blanket-swathed bundles on the floor. It took my sleep-addled brain a few seconds to remember that Sebastian had insisted I take the bed. I'd been wounded, he said, and needed it more than he did.

The pterodactyl was asleep on my chest. Apparently it liked me.

As I looked around the room, it struck me that something was wrong. Why were there only three people on the floor? I could see the spot where a fourth blanket was lying, but there was no one underneath it. Who was missing?

I pushed aside my blanket gently, nudging the snoozing creature (bird? reptile? dinosaur?) off my chest as gently as possible, then sat up and looked around. Everything looked normal, except for the missing person.

I got up and padded out of the cave as softly as I could, trying not to trip over any sleeping bodies. Maybe Sebastian had just gone off to do some hermit-type errand. He'd probably berate me for worrying, when I finally found him.

Hopefully that's all it was.

Most of the sky was still ink-black, stars glittering overhead like diamonds. But to the east the first light of dawn was rising, and a thin line of pale blue was edging up from behind the mountains, outlining them in dramatic silhouette. As a city girl I wasn't used to such sights, and for a moment I was so entranced I almost forgot what I had come out here for.

Almost.

I headed to the campfire area to see if anyone was there. Along the way I caught sight of a figure standing off to one side of the path, near the edge of the shelf. He was staring at the sunrise, so focused in his observation that he seemed unaware of my presence.

Isaac.

Conflicting emotions churned in the pit of my stomach. On the one hand I felt overwhelming grat.i.tude toward him. Without him, Devon would have probably been killed in the raid, and G.o.d alone knew where Rita and I would have wound up after that. On the other hand, Morgana had talked about things she could only know if there was a spy reporting to her, and how many people in our party were in a position to fill that role? Seyer had suggested that she could influence whether I went back to the Warrens or not, and wasn't it Isaac who had tried to talk me out of doing that? It was too much coincidence for comfort.

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