Chapter 26
“Get in, Wren.” Gareth slumped into his seat and fastened his seat belt, before slamming the door.
Wren did the same.
Gareth grinned. “You’re learning. Good.” He started her up and pulled out into the road. “Now, what can you tell us about this… other place?”
Wren sighed. “I… I don’t know how.”
“Try, it’s important.”
“Well, there’s none of… um…”
“None of what?”
“I can’t. I don’t even know what the none of is.”
“Describe it?”
Wren looked around as if trapped, then his eyes widened and he bounced in his seat. “That.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Errr.” Wren glanced around, shuffled in his seat, then reached down and picked an empty coffee cup from the foot well. “None of this.” He held the cup up and dropped it.
Olban’s voice echoed in his skull. I think he means gravity, Gareth.
“Gravity? Is what what you mean?”
“What’s Gravity?”
“It’s the force that keeps us down, stops us floating off into the air. Like that cup?”
“That then, yes. None of that.”
“Anything more?”
“Less.” Wren waved his hand around. “There’s none of that, either.”
Gareth glanced across. “Another none of what?”
He pointed out of the window at a bush by the road as they went past. Then waved his hand in front of his face and pointed at it with the other one. Then pointed at Gareth. “You’re there. My hand’s there. That green thing was there and I could… Well, I knew it was there.”
”Oh, shit… You mean…”
It makes sense, Gareth. No light, no dark, no up, no down…
“Thank you for describing the void from Doctor Who, Olban.”
But think about it, why would it not be a good description?
“Is that what you meant Wren? No light?”
“Is what what it’s called? The thing that lets me… Um…”
“See things? Light shines out from the sun, bounces off things, bits of it get absorbed, other bits get reflected, that’s what gives things their colour. Like green grass, or the blue of your shirt.”
Wren sighed. “Sorry, that’s the best I can do.”
Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me when we get back.
“What do you mean?”
Gareth, think… Think about space…
Gareth nodded. “Propulsion, or course. We need to be able to move around. And light, but… That’ll draw too much attention if there is none, won’t it?”
Exactly, we need another way to see. I have some sand, I know how to make glass. I can come up with some kind of enchantment to use invisible light… Ask Wren, would his kin be able to sense that?
“Olban’s asking… Do you know if you can sense other things similar to light, Wren?”
“I… I don’t know what you mean? I can see you, that’s all I know.”
Damn! We don’t have time to conduct experiments and Wren’s hardly the final model. Even if Wren can’t sense UV or infra-red, maybe that’s something the nameless one’s added since then. We know they’re slowly improving. We’ll just have to trust to luck. I’ll pick UV, far UV. We need to be able to recognise your dad when we find him, after all.
“I think we might need more than that, Olban.”
Like?
“What if we are detected? We need to defend ourselves. Who can tell how many of them are there, now? Could be thousands, millions, even! And what if they all decide rather than attack us, they all turn into carbon copies of my dad?”
Olban groaned. Point taken. I’ll have to call on my master. I can’t do everything by myself, this time. It’ll take ages.
Gareth sighed and nodded. “This is getting too much. It was bad enough when he was trying to kill and kidnap us! Now he’s got my dad! Who next?” He shook his head in frustration and turned the radio on. “I need some music, maybe that’ll calm me down.”
What emerged wasn’t what he was expecting. It was a classical piece. A slow one. A miserable one.
Ah! Good! I like classical. Unusual for you, Radio 3.
Gareth glanced down at the car radio. “What the hell’s going on, now? That’s Radio 1! Oh, shit, you don’t think he’s died, do you? Can’t think of any other reason to have sombre music on bloody Radio 1!”
Eloise chipped in. Don’t think who’s died?
“Charles of course! Only been king a few months, too.”
We’ll find out in a minute, Gareth. Said Olban. Look, it’s nearly on the hour. Switch to Radio 4 for the news.
Gareth nodded and did so.
It wasn’t long before the pips sounded and “The wave of violence has ended. Rioting across every nation in the world came to an abrupt end this evening at 17:34BST to be replaced by a wave of,” the voice froze and let out a little sob, “I apologise. I’m sorry. I’m so,” another sob. “Pull yourself together, Paul.” A deep breath. “A sense of despair, of… of loneliness. The crowds that were previously fighting are now weeping, hugging each other… I’m sorry, I can’t go on.” The sound of a chair being shoved back, footsteps and a door slamming, followed by silence.
Gareth stared at the radio in shock and pulled the car in to the side of the road, turning off the engine. “What the fuck was that?”
Your phone! Check the news on your phone!
“Good idea. Just a sec.”
The first thing that appeared when the news app opened were stories of rioting. He swiped back to the previous day. Reports worldwide of anger erupting for no reason. Violent arguments. A few fights. Another swipe and complaints of nightmares. Of waking up, some people just grumpy, others, furious, livid, for no reason, other than their dreams. And the first to awaken with these foul moods… Eastern Europe.
“Why the hell would it start in eastern Europe?”
It was me, wasn’t it? It must be!
“We know it all started with you, Eloise. But why there?”
Prague! That’s where I was when I fell asleep that night. When I tried… When…
“When you tried to kill one of your personalities… But Prague? How the fuck are we meant to… I can’t afford to ship… Oh, fuck!”
A single ticket, Gareth. We obviously don’t cross fully over. We’ll have to stay in here until everyone’s together. It’ll take time for me to complete the rings, anyway. Came from Olban.
“We’ll have to bring her back with us, Olban! Please, tell me you have a passport, Eloise!”
I had. But I’ve been in the institution for years, they took it when I arrived. It must’ve expired by now.
“So, what the hell are we meant to do? How the hell do we… We can’t make a circle there, I can’t afford the materials. The only one we can use is right here! In bloody Whitby!”
Olban chuckled. Well… We do know quite a few fishermen. A lot of them owe you a favour.
“People smuggling, now? I don’t want to end up in the slammer, Olban! Neither do you!”
True, but most of that sort of thing happens in the English Channel. From France. All those small boats. We’d be doing it from the Netherlands, to get back here, wouldn’t we?
“And just how many other countries between Prague and bloody Rotterdam? This is… It was bad enough with the global riots? What the hell that was all about…”
We saw the effect on the dream, Gareth. Everything about it was war and violence the last time we crossed. Let’s just hope this downer continues. It should be safer, this time, if everyone’s too miserable to do anything. If it continues long enough, it might make it easier to travel here, too.
Gareth sighed, nodded and started the car again. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
* * *
“Make yourself comfortable, Wren.” Gareth picked up the TV remote and turned it on. “Keep yourself entertained, by watching that.” He pointed at the telly.
“What… I thought magic didn’t work here.”
“It’s not magic, it uses all natural forces, believe me. We’ve become very good at manipulating some of them.”
“What does it do?”
Gareth ushered him to the sofa, urging him to sit and sat beside him. “This is a remote control. You push these little bumps here.” He pointed at them. “And it sends instructions to that. Watch.” He changed the channel. “See?”
“Does it do that stuff that you got in your box?”
“What stuff?”
“He pointed at his ears.”
“Oh, the music?”
“I… liked that. It was… nice.”
“Want the same type? Or something a little more lively?”
“The same, please.”
Gareth nodded, brought up the programme guide and selected Radio 3. He didn’t know what it was that was playing, but Wren smiled.
“Thank you.”
“Try to get some sleep.”
“Some… I’m sorry, I…”
“You…” Gareth sighed. “Humans tire. Wear down over the course of the day. We sleep to refresh ourselves. It’s when we dream, when our body gets a chance to heal itself. When our minds can handle what happened during the day, sort things out.”
“I could try. How do you do it?”
“For us, it comes naturally. Lie on the sofa, close your eyes while you’re listening. See if you drift off.”
“But I can’t fly.”
“I meant your mind. Drifting off to sleep. Never mind. Just give it a try, you might feel better about things in the morning if you manage it.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good. I’ll see you in the morning.”
* * *
Gareth trudged through the emptiness of the between and as he continued, the two misty forms appeared and slowly materialised beside him. He glanced at them both with a grin.
“Good to see you’re fully clothed, this time, Eloise.”
“Well, I know, now!”
Gareth nodded and they continued.
The forms of the landscape began to melt into existence as they did so, and when the forms became more solid, the differences to last time were striking.
The trees, though still black, no longer had a threatening aspect, no longer jagged, reaching branches. Instead, is was as if they’d been made of wax and exposed to heat from above. They drooped miserably.
They continued for a while and Olban froze.
“What is it?”
“Listen.”
Weeping, a child, by the sound of it.
“First of the dreamers. Let’s see what’s happening this time, then.” Gareth strode forward and it wasn’t long before they emerged into a clearing, in the centre of which was a stone wall that stretched to the left and right of them, vanishing into the woods on each side.
Sitting beneath a long crack in the wall was a small boy, the source of the weeping.
Gareth sighed. “I don’t like the look of that wall. It could go on for miles in both directions.”
“Couldn’t we…” Eloise looked up and smiled. “Couldn’t we dream up some wings and fly over?”
Olban shook his head and craned his neck. “Do you see a top to it? It could go on forever.”
“So we’re stuck?”
Gareth chuckled. “Nah. One thing you learn once you’ve been through here a few times is just how fluid people’s dreams are. We just talk to the kid. Try to cheer him up a little, that should shift it. Might even cause it to erupt into a cloud of butterflies.”
“As long as it’s not a cloud of elephants,” Olban strode forward. “I’m all for it.”
As the other two trotted to catch up, Olban entered the clearing. “Hello.”
The boy didn’t respond, he just continued crying his eyes out.
Olban sat beside him. “What’s wrong, lad?”
“I… I don’t know… It… I don’t understand… I…”
“Feeling bad about something? Want to talk about it?”
“Feeling? Feeling. Yes… Feeling. Why does it…” The boy slapped his head.
“Hurt?”
“Hurt? Why does it hurt?” The boys eyes blazed a fiery red and the next voice to emerge was a deep growl that shook the earth. “What did you do to me!?”
Olban sprang to his feet and leapt away from the boy, only to bump into something. “Oh, shit! You’re him, aren’t you?” He turned around on the spot. They were surrounded by more walls, boxed in.
“Tell me what you did!” The boy’s voice returned, letting out a pitiful plea. “Please, make it stop!”
Gareth pressed himself against the wall at his back, trying to get as far away from this… thing as possible. “Olban…”
“I know! But look at him!” Olban sighed. “Alright. I know about you. Vellan told us enough. You want to know what you’re feeling?”
“Tell me, now! Make it stop!”
“We awakened in you the feelings you’d buried. They’d always been there, but you ignored them. We had Wren delve into the footprint you’d left in his mind when you abandoned him. All we did to you was allow you to read him.”
“Please, help me! Please? It hurts!”
Gareth stared and barged forward. “Help you!? You’ve done nothing but attempt to kidnap us and murder us since you realised the barrier was weakened! And now you’ve taken my father and you expect us to help you!? Where is he?!”
“He’s here.”
Gareth looked around. “No he bloody well isn’t.”
“I think he means where he is, Gareth. Obviously this isn’t the whole him. It’s just a crack, remember, this is probably just the equivalent of poking a finger through. If he had his full power right now he would’ve already ripped the planet apart.”
Gareth nodded, strode forward and knelt before the boy, staring him in the eye. “Listen you psychotic cunt! If you think you’re feeling bad right now, that’s nothing compared to how my dad’s feeling! Trapped, in perpetual darkness, unable to move. Floating in a void?”
The boy sniffled. “Worse? I don’t understand!”
“Gareth. Step back, let me deal with it.”
“What? Why? He has my dad!”
“Yes. And you’re wearing the armband.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting”
“Yes, yes I am.”
“But he’ll know all our plans!”
“Gareth, he already knows about the rings, remember? What was it Wellick offered us? A short cut? Premade rings in a different world, all in an attempt to trap us? We don’t have any other plans right now!”
“But what about”
“I’m willing to take that risk! Step away!”
Gareth sighed, nodded and returned to Eloise’s side.
It was Olban’s turn to kneel before him. “As I said, Vellan told us about you and your kind. About, how, at the start of creation, your kind appeared. How each had a purpose in shaping the universe, but you decided your purpose was to destroy it before they’d even begun their work.”
“But it is my purpose! I must! What does that have to”
Olban placed his finger over the boy’s lips. “Shush. I’m getting there. You’re an intelligent being, just as we are. Correct?”
The boy nodded.
“Well, intelligent beings need others of their kind. They need companionship! They need each other, but you cut yourself off from the others long before they cut you off from the universe. Didn’t you?”
The boy nodded again.
“That’s what you’re feeling. Loneliness. A need so deep and profound. You need to reconcile with the others. You need them!”
“But they’ll never talk to me again! They sealed me away! I have to end it all. It’s my purpose!”
“But do you have to end it all, now?”
“What?”
Olban sighed. “Look. Think about it for a minute! You tried to undo everything the others were doing in shaping the universe. Tried to end it before it had even properly begun, but others of your kind had purposes, too, didn’t they? Some of those purposes couldn’t be fulfilled straight away, they had to wait. Why couldn’t you?”
“What do you mean, wait?”
Olban rolled his eyes. “Some of your kin had the purpose of creating the stars, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but”
“But some had the purpose of causing the destruction of those stars! But they didn’t do it the moment they were created! They guided that destruction after the stars had spent their fuel! After they were about to burn out! They must’ve waited millions or billions of years for some of them to reach the point where destruction was appropriate, and when those stars were destroyed, whole new forms of matter were created. Matter that went on to form planets and life, like us! Some of those powers, like Vellan, had to wait a hell of a long time before he could carry out his purpose!”
“But Vellan didn’t have a purpose!”
“When you were locked away, he didn’t. Now, with life on this world, he does. He is the guardian of sleep. He guides and protects the people who dream, but it was billions of years of waiting before life developed with the capability to dream. Do you see where I’m going?”
“No!”
“Gareth, you’re more familiar with it than me.”
“With what, exactly?”
“Your scientists. Their predictions. Fate of the universe?”
“Oh, shit! You mean…”
“I think I do, yes. I’ve been thinking of Vellan’s tale for a while and it does make sense. Tell him.”
Gareth returned to kneel before the boy again, this time beside Olban.
“Our scientists know nothing of your kind, of the powers shaping the universe. All they know is what they’ve observed about it and what they observed over the past hundred years is that the universe will end. Well, not end exactly, but over the course of the next few trillion years, every star will burn out, every galaxy, everything. All the matter that created them will evaporate back into energy and at the very end, there’ll be nothing but a sea of energy. Nothing more will exist. Ever. It’ll be like that for all eternity. The scientists call it the heat death of the universe.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “But that’s horrible!”
“More horrible than what you intended?”
“Eternity? Like that? I can’t allow that! I have to destroy”
Olban placed his finger over the boys lips again. “Perhaps that is your purpose. But you don’t do it now! You shouldn’t’ve begun your work at the beginning. You should’ve waited until the end! Waited until that last star had expired. Waited until there was no more life in the universe, and then ended it! Why? I don’t know. Maybe your purpose was to be the demolition crew. To make way for a new one?”
“But it still hurts! You said you’d tell me how to make it stop!”
“Read me.” Olban closed his eyes and his face took on an expression of deep concentration. “Read me, now.”
The boy stared intently at Olban for a few seconds and started blubbing again, but it sounded different this time.
Olban pulled him into a hug and started stoking his back. “That’s what you need.”
“What was that?”
“The love I have for my family. The love he has for his mother and father, a man you’ve taken. He was right when he said his dad was feeling worse, too. He’s not just all alone in the dark, he’s terrified out of his mind.”
“But”
“It’s the love I have for my family, the love you need from yours! You need your own kind, that’s the only way to lose the loneliness! Speak to Vellan. You have a lot of talking to do.”
“But I don’t know how!”
“This is his domain. This is the realm of dreams, the hub of the universe. Every world with sentient beings touches this one. Vellan can be your go-between. He can speak to the rest.”
“Thank you.” The boy let out one final sob and sniffle and vanished in a puff of smoke, which, like the smoke from a genie vanishing into its lamp, drifted into the crack.
Gareth sprang to his feet. “OI! What about my dad!”
The walls began to fade away, and “Go to the cave,” drifted out of the crack before it, too, vanished.
“What the hell did that mean?”
Olban shrugged. “I can only think of one cave, right now. Let’s get going.”
“But that’s in your world!”
“Ah, look on the bright side.”
“Bright side?! What bright side? He’ll never see Mum again!”
“Course he will. Just need an extra ring, that’s all. Besides, he’ll be safer there, as long as I get one of my brothers to look after him when I’m asleep… And of course…”
“What?”
“Looks like he'll get to meet me in person, after all.”
The rest of their trip through the woods was uneventful, no more dreams, and by the time they’d crossed and the trees began to dissolve, even the colour seemed to be returning to them.
As the last of the dream vanished, again, the wolf was there, sat on its haunches waiting for them.
“Good evening, Gareth, Olban, Eloise. I commend you on your insight, Olban. None of us had considered the possibility his purpose might be correct, if timed right.”
“You know?”
“Of course. I know everything that happens in the dreaming. Don’t worry, you weren’t at risk. He couldn’t have harmed you while you were sleeping.”
Olban nodded. “Thank you, sir… About him…”
“I will speak with him. I’ll pass on what he says to the others. He did still commit a crime against us and the universe. A planet is lifeless because of him. Because of who he killed.”
“Hmm… Sir? Every single mythology that I know about on Gareth’s world has stories of resurrection. Couldn’t you bring her back?”
The wolf cocked its head in the way dogs do when curious or puzzled by something. “That’s impossible. It’d take the power of every single one of us to perform such a task.”
“Before, it might’ve been… But if he was included?”
“Undo some of the damage he did? Interesting idea. I’ll be sure to mention that when we speak. It won’t be safe to perform such a task until after the balance has been restored, however. Such a use of power…”
“Understood, sir.”
“Oh, and Gareth?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t worry. I have had one of the others follow his progress. The man in the cave isn’t another one of the nameless one’s minions. It’s the genuine article, so no need to treat him with suspicion or waste time on the lens. It’s him. I’d get to him, though. He’s currently feeling his way around the chamber, it’ll be a while before he finds his way out.”