Dreamhunter Duet: Dreamquake Part 2

The police handwriting expert peered at the two letters, the one that began "Dear Sir, Please publish this letter" and the other beginning "The time has come for the Regulatory Body to submit to judgment ..." He said that the writer was left-handed, and secretive. "Look at those backward-sloping letters." He said that the stationery was the same for both letters but that one page was more yellowed than the other, was perhaps the top sheet of a pad that had sat around in sunlight for some time. It was export-quality linen paper, manufactured in a certain paper mill in the south. The letters had probably been written at a desk equipped with a writing set, because the ink was blotted with sand. The handwriting was highly distinctive, fluent, and not-the expert thought-a disguised hand. "But, it seems to me that the handwriting is more mature than the composition of the letter-the bad grammar and poor punctuation."

Having given his opinion, the handwriting expert was shown from the room. Cas Doran, the Detective Inspector from Founderston Barracks, and the Director of the Regulatory Body were left alone.

The Detective Inspector said, "Before we ask Grace Tiebold in here, we should think about charges."

Doran closed his eyes, saw darkness, winced, and opened them again. His mouth and jaw were sore. It hurt him to speak. "What can she or Mason be charged with? There is no crime called 'grievous mental harm.'"

"Perhaps there should be."

"Certainly not," said Doran. "We'd then have this Lazarus and his allies bringing criminal charges against the Regulatory Body and the Department of Corrections."

At this the Detective Inspector merely cleared his throat. Then he said, "So, you believe this Lazarus has allies?"

"Yes. The letter says, 'We have overdreamed' and 'It has come to our attention.' But I doubt that 'we' is George Mason and Grace Tiebold."

"Mason and Tiebold could be charged with disturbing the peace," said the Detective Inspector.

Doran shook his head. "There are regulations that cover safe practices in dream palaces, just as there are regulations that govern how many fire escapes any new building must have. But the regulations haven't thought to ban Soporifs from sleeping in dream palaces. Though-believe me-that's about to change."

The Detective Inspector sighed. He would have been much happier if he were closer to an arrest.

The Director of the Regulatory Body said, "Shall we speak to these dreamhunters now? Mason first, I think."

George Mason was cooperative-and no real help at all. He spent only half an hour in Doran's office, then was sent to join the dozen other dreamhunters who had been at the Opera. They had all taken prints of Buried Alive. They were to be transported to Doorhandle and then into the Place so that they could attempt to overwrite the nightmare with something harmless.

The Place was where the dreams came from. It was a territory infinitely more vast than the hundred or so square miles of the mountain range it encompa.s.sed. A limitless, lifeless place, a landscape of plains and rolling hills covered in white gra.s.s and scrub, where leathery leaves still hung on bone-dry trees but fell if touched; a silent, windless, waterless landscape, where time had apparently stopped. Only a very few people could actually enter the Place. Most, on approaching its invisible borders, would only find themselves going on up into the temperate rain forest of the Rifleman Mountains. Perhaps one person in three hundred was able to pa.s.s through into the Place, and of those, only a very few were any good at catching the dreams they found there. These became dreamhunters and made their livings-or their fortunes-from dreams caught, and carried out, and shared with others.

When she was shown into Cas Doran's office, Grace Tiebold was still wearing her dreamhunter's finery, though the peac.o.c.k-print train of her gown had been trodden to tatters by both the police and the people the police had protected her from. Doran saw that Grace had a bruise on her jaw, as well as the now familiar self-inflicted scratches on her cheeks. And, of course, it hurt her to speak.

The first thing Doran did was push one of the letters across the desk and under her nose. "Is this your schoolgirlish false officialese?" he asked. Then, in mocking imitation, " 'It has come to our attention ...' " He waited, then said, "I believe you left school at twelve to work in your father's tobacco shop?"

The dreamhunter's eyes flicked up to his face. She showed fright. Then she stared at the letter and looked puzzled. "I don't recognize the handwriting," she said. She seemed surprised.

"Should you?" asked the Detective Inspector.

She hesitated. Then, "No," she said, finally.

"And how does this letter strike you?"

"It's demented, fantastical," Grace said. "The writer is defending an act of terror. An act of spectral terror. But apparently, according to the letter, you people all deal in terror too."

"You know what we do," Doran said. "There's nothing you don't know about what we do."

Grace looked into his eyes. She was exhausted, bleak, but she seemed to have recovered from her moment of fright. She said, "I doubt that."

"The Intangible Resources Act provides for the use of certain sorts of dreams, including nightmares-punishments that cause pain but not injury-'for the public good.' I'm sure we can agree that this is something you already know."

"I know it," Grace said. She gestured at her own nail-marked cheeks, then at Doran's injured mouth. "But-is this pain without injury?"

"There were no precautions. No restraints."

"So you strap your prisoners down, then give them nightmares?"

Doran leaned back in his chair. "Mrs. Tiebold, are you defending yourself? You seem to be saying that inflicting a virulent nightmare on the general public is no different from the controlled use of nightmares on convicted criminals."

"It wasn't my nightmare!" Grace Tiebold's eyes blazed. "This Lazarus used me! Me and George."

The Director of the Regulatory Body spoke up then. "Why did you ask the Soporif George Mason to lie in with you?"

"I've been having difficulty falling asleep. George went In with me to catch Homecoming. We even have a witness. Jerome Tilley was at the site with us, catching it too. Jerome had a booking in Westport for a feast day performance at the Second Skin Theater. George and I walked back to Doorhandle with him, and George drove us all to Founderston. He dropped Jerome at the station and me at my house. Three hours later I met my daughter and niece for lunch, then we went home, changed, and came out to the Opera. I'm sure George can account for all his movements that afternoon too. We didn't hike back In- days In-and catch that nightmare. We are not Lazarus. I'm very sorry that this person chose to spill his nightmare out on my penumbra. And I'm sure George is very sorry that he made it difficult for everyone to wake up."

Doran made a steeple of his hands and gave Grace Tiebold a little pinched smile over the top of them. "That wasn't your penumbra-it was Lazarus's. Perhaps five hundred yards. Lazarus wanted your audience, Mrs. Tiebold, not your powers of amplification. Lazarus is very probably a more powerful dreamhunter than you."

"Where has he been hiding himself all this time?" Grace said.

"Has he been hiding himself?" Doran said, as though she knew who they were talking about.

"Tziga's dead," Grace said, and dropped her gaze. "I'm tired, Mr. Doran. I don't know anything more. I want to go In and erase this, if I can. And first I want to go home to wash and change and check on Rose and Laura."

"Rose is spending today in the company of my wife and Mamie," Doran said. "The girls go back to school tomorrow."

Grace glared at him. "You might have mentioned that first. And if Rose is with Mamie, where is Laura?"

Doran spread his hands and shrugged. "I thought you might know."

"Laura will have the nightmare too. She might not realize it until she falls asleep."

"Your daughter told me that Laura didn't sleep. But we are looking for her," Doran said.

"Good," said Grace, and turned her face away.

"That will be all for now," said the Director of the Regulatory Body. "Some of my people will escort you to your house, then take you on to Doorhandle."

"Thank you." Grace Tiebold got up and nodded to the Detective Inspector, who said that he'd like her to come and see him once she was back. At the door the dreamhunter turned and asked, "How is President Wilkinson?"

"He is recovering well," Doran said.

"I'm glad to hear it. We need him," Grace said.

Doran smiled again, his mouth performing a kind of spasm of involuntary glee that opened the wounds on his lips. Here was evidence that, despite the nightmare, Plasir's apprentice Gavin Pinkney's little bit of "coloring" had been absorbed and remembered. Doran risked saying, "Yes, we do need Wilkinson, and it's such a pity his term is nearly up."

"Yes." Grace hovered in the doorway, frowning. "Eight years does seem far too short a term for such a constructive President. Or, at least, that's what I think."

Grace was feeling very foggy when she left Cas Doran's office, but once she was out in the cold morning air, she remembered something she'd noticed while she was there. Something much more important than what a shame it was that Garth Wilkinson was shortly to retire. She had recognized the stationery on which Lazarus's letter was written. The paper was expensive, and probably plenty of well-off, or very particular, people liked to use it. It was expensive and elegant, like everything of Chorley's-for it was Chorley's. Grace's husband wasn't much of a letter writer and tended to make all his plans on drawing paper in his workshop. So the stationery sat in a boxed block on the desk of Summerfort's library, in full sunlight, often for weeks-and for months once the family packed up at the end of summer and went back to Founderston. The paper of the letter had been yellowed, and printed with a paler mark, a star shape, where Chorley's fossilized starfish paperweight had sat while the sun shone and turned the page yellow around it.

"Laura," Grace thought, again. For the letter showed her niece's lack of punctuation and, as Doran had so descriptively put it, her "schoolgirlish false officialese."

But the handwriting was not Laura's.

4.

T WAS AFTERNOON WHEN THE CAR SENT FOR LAURA AND HER AUNT MARTA REACHED ITS DESTINATION. IT pa.s.sed through an open arch into the courtyard of the Grand Patriarch's palace. Laura had a glimpse of Temple Square-of suns.h.i.+ne on damp cobblestones and people strolling about in their feast day finery. She could hear the music of an accordion coming from one of the cafes in the square. These signs of life came to her through a hot mist of fever and exhaustion.

The running boards of the car were slick with mud from country roads. Laura climbed out carefully. She had slippers on her feet and one of her aunt's coats over the borrowed nightgown.

There was a priest waiting to meet them. Aunt Marta called him Father Roy. Marta and the priest fell into step, their heads together. As they were climbing the steps to the side entrance to the palace, Father Roy turned and gave Laura a sharp, wry look. Laura was led into a chilly room with dark wood-paneled walls and ceiling. Father Roy asked her to wait. He and Marta went out. A few minutes went by, then Laura heard several people hurrying back along the pa.s.sage. Father Roy returned with a couple of black-clad religious sisters.They got Laura up and conducted her out. Aunt Marta was nowhere in sight.

Laura was marched up several flights of stairs, along corridors, then out a door onto a rooftop walkway, which crossed from the roof of the palace to that of the Temple, and to a small door beneath the deep masonry lintel around the base of the dome. One of the sisters behind Laura tapped her back to urge her forward. Laura stooped and went on. The door led into a short tunnel, at the end of which Laura glimpsed a grille and, beyond that, a place she recognized, the gallery that ran around the inside of the dome, which was as far up as she'd ever been on visits to the Temple with her schoolmates. The sister behind Laura seized her arm and turned her in the narrow s.p.a.ce to face a dark opening in the wall of the tunnel. "Wait," the woman said. Laura heard a match struck. The sister edged past Laura, carrying a candle, and stepped up into darkness. She was standing on a stone staircase that disappeared upward in a tight spiral. She gestured for Laura to follow her.

The dome of Founderston's Temple was eggsh.e.l.l smooth but was set into a four-tiered crown of decorated masonry, topped by an ornate turret. The turret had blind arches, window-shaped recesses filled with mortared stone. The stone was coated with gold leaf.

Like every other child in Founderston, Laura had wished she was allowed to climb high enough to stand on one of the little iron balconies below the dome. She had occasionally caught sight of someone up that high. And she-like every other child in the city-had noticed that a ladder ascended from one of the balconies to the golden turret on its top.

Laura remembered her childish wondering when she emerged from the long climb up the spiral staircase and found herself on the balcony below that ladder. The balcony wasn't big enough to hold four people, so one sister lingered at the top of the stairs while Father Roy edged around Laura and stepped onto the ladder. "Please follow me," he said.

The dome was like a horizon. Laura felt that she was nestled up to the moon. Below, the accordion music and the metallic slither and clanging of a streetcar sounded far away. All noise was sucked up into the blue air surrounding them.

"It's completely safe," said the sister behind Laura. "Just go carefully."

Metal loops enclosed the ladder at every fourth rung. Laura saw that she would be inside this protective spine of iron. She began to climb. Father Roy's black coat flapped and crackled above her. The ladder vibrated. They ascended the curve till they weren't climbing but crawling.

Laura put her head down and watched her hands. The more shallow the slope became, the more precarious she felt. When the curve had been steeper, gravity had seemed to hold her on the ladder; now it seemed all too easy to slip through the protection of the bars beside her and slide away down the smooth marble skin of the dome. Laura stopped. She clutched the ladder and closed her eyes.

"Come on, you're nearly there," the woman behind her said.

"What's the holdup?" said the sister bringing up the rear; she sounded anxious.

"Lift your head, Laura," said Father Roy.

Laura raised her head and opened her eyes. She saw that Father Roy had emerged from the ribbed tube and was standing at a doorway in the gold wall. There was light in the room behind him. A room! An enclosed s.p.a.ce. Safety.

Laura scrambled toward him. He gripped her by the collar of her coat and drew her into the room. There was a step down, and Laura stumbled and caught herself on the edge of a big round table. The sisters piled in behind her, the second with a basket on her back filled with bundles, blankets, candles. The woman heaved the basket off her back and tipped it out onto the table, then lunged to catch the candles as they rolled toward its center.

In the little bit of light coming through the door, Laura saw that the table was about ten feet in diameter, so big that it nearly filled the round room. Its surface was concave, so anything set on it slid into the middle.

The sister sorted some candles from the pile of blankets. She placed them on the ledge above the door and lit one. Then she began to arrange the blankets into a bed on top of the concave table.

Father Roy faced Laura. "You'll be safe here, and sufficiently removed that other people should be safe from you."

Laura looked out the door at the blue air, then down at the floor, as if it were transparent and she could measure the distance between this isolated, elevated room and the nave of the cathedral below. She considered how far she'd climbed but still wasn't sure if it was far enough.

Father Roy said, "Someone will come to wake you before everyone else's usual bedtime. Any paris.h.i.+oners nodding off during the sermon will just have to take their chances." The priest studied Laura's face. "We can't warn them," he said, then, "His Eminence has spoken to your aunt and has read your letter. It is your letter, isn't it? Anyway-we know what dream you have."

The nuns were waiting at the door, flanking it like black sentinels, their hands concealed in the folds of their habits.

"Sleep now," said Father Roy.

"Don't lock me in," Laura said.

He nodded and went out, followed by the sisters. The door was closed. Laura walked around and checked it-it gave when she pushed the latch. She fastened it again, then peered around the cylindrical chamber. There was a mirror suspended in one corner of the room, high on the wall, angled down, a round mirror about forty inches in diameter. Beside the mirror was a handle and meshed cogs and wheels.

Laura went closer to inspect this machine and experimentally pushed the handle. It was stiff but slid half a turn. She heard a rolling noise of machinery moving in the ceiling and thought she saw a colored shadow swimming on the surface of the mirror. She leapt back. The whirring stopped, and the mirror showed her only the tabletop and the blot of her makes.h.i.+ft bed.

Laura took her aunt's coat off and added it to the bedding. Then she pushed down the rolled sleeves of Marta's nightgown. The sleeves dangled from the ends of her arms; they would do to trap her hands and save her face from scratches. Laura pulled the nightgown off, knotted the ends of the sleeves, then put it back on. Then she clambered onto the table, burrowed into the blankets, and closed her eyes.

Before long she was drowsy. She could sense the nightmare suspended in her sleep like a monstrous fish hanging motionless beneath the surface of a dark pool. It wanted to swallow her. She was afraid but so worn out that she simply gave in and went under.

Laura struggled up in pain. Her tongue hurt, and the roots of her nails, which she'd bent back by clawing at the tabletop. She lay still. There was salty blood in her mouth. She opened her eyes. The room was filled with bright light. By the light she saw first the small tears in the sleeves of her nightgown, and her fingers hooked through the cloth, nail tips split and nail beds white with prolonged pressure. She closed her hands, hid her abused fingertips in her palms. Then Laura saw that the sleeves of her nightgown were covered in color-blurred scales in warm terra cotta-and that there was movement in the color, a tiny, flapping splash of vivid red and shapes that crawled in a grid of brown and gray, through which- within which-she could see the shape of her own arm.

She felt dizzy. She felt that she had woken up to find herself lying on a window. She was in a big wheel of light, in which she could see tiled rooftops, a silver river split by streets, and one familiar roof, oval, with a jeweled dome-the Rainbow Opera.

Laura sat up. She found that she was sitting within a circular image of the Isle of the Temple. It was a projection. She turned to the source of the light and looked up into the mirror. Through its dazzle she thought she saw the island, impossibly bright, impossibly compressed.

The candle above the door had gone out.

Laura climbed off the table and pulled the door open. She looked back at the table. The image had disappeared. When she closed the door again, sealing out the light, the image came back.

Laura pushed her blankets off the table and looked down on the round bird's-eye view of the Isle. She made out the movement of vehicles in streets, pedestrians in the square, the quick alteration of sunlight across the face of the river, the streaming speed of a flock of birds pa.s.sing over the rooftops. She gazed at this small circle of the world surrounded by darkness. She was turned inward but looking out. She watched without being seen. It was eerie and wonderful. And, as she circled, peering down, the image very gradually grew darker. The windows of the Isle bristled with gold light, then the streetscape and river turned ghostly, and, finally, the chamber went black.

Laura felt her way to the door and opened it on a square of dark blue twilight air. She fumbled around on the ledge above the door and found the other candle and a box of matches. She lit the candle, set it upright, and sat on the floor to wait.

Later there was noise and vibration from the ladder, and one of the sisters reappeared, a basket on her back. Laura gave the sister a hand and helped her into the room.

The nun unpacked food and drink. She said, "I'm here to feed you and prevent you from sleeping." And, "Here," she pa.s.sed Laura a chamber pot and a bottle of water.

"Thank you," said Laura. "Where's my aunt?"

"I won't answer questions. Would you like to make yourself comfortable now, then replace the lid, rinse your hands, and have something to eat."

Laura did as she was told. She emptied her bladder and washed her hands. The nun had found two seats under the table. She set food before one and watched as Laura ate. Then she lit several more candles, got out some darning, and pa.s.sed Laura a Bible. She asked that Laura read to her as she plied her needle. Acts. Then the Gospel of St. Thomas. "His disciples said to him: On what day will the Kingdom come? Jesus said: It cometh not with observation. They will not say, Lo here! Or Lo, there! The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

Sometime during the night Laura picked up a blanket and wrapped it around herself. And sometime during the night the nun gave her a lesson with needle and yarn and darning egg. Laura hadn't darned before-nor had she ever worn a darned stocking. She was clumsy; her hands were sore. The sister read to her while she worked.

When they heard the bells in the bell tower ringing, the sister stopped reading. "Matins," she said. "I'll go now. I was told you could be safely left by morning. I suggest you push that chamber pot well under the table so that you won't risk knocking it over with your foot." She gathered her darning and the remains of the meal, leaving Laura several apples, a bottle of water, and the Bible.

Laura left the door open. She rea.s.sembled her bedding, knotted the sleeves of her nightgown again, and lay down. She made no attempt to fight sleep. She'd managed perhaps five hours in all-five hours in five days. The nightmare didn't let her stay asleep. She'd had it three times now-when she'd first caught it, then at the Rainbow Opera, then in the late afternoon of the day before. Each time she'd fought her way out, fought as the buried man strained to escape his coffin.

This time her body's need for sleep anch.o.r.ed her in the dream. Her struggle was horribly prolonged. When she was finally able to free herself, she could scarcely move. She lay in her twisted bedding and howled with shock and despair.

Once her shuddering had subsided to s.h.i.+vers, Laura's eyes kept trying to shut themselves again, so she got up and went to sit on the sill of the low doorway in the cold morning air. From there she watched the Isle come to life, its bridges fill with cars, carts, and pedestrians. She watched the men at work on telegraph poles, putting up wires for the new phone system that was slowly spreading its way around the city. She watched the smoke of trains pa.s.sing across the two bridges that linked the west bank to the Isle, and the Isle to the east. This was a commuter line; it came in from Founderston's western suburbs through villas and parks, then past Founderston Girls' Academy. It pa.s.sed through the district that held the museums, galleries, libraries, and government buildings, after which it crossed the river, went through a tunnel built under the wide plaza before the tower of the Regulatory Body, and left the Isle by a bridge to the east. The line then pa.s.sed through the Old Town and terminated at Founderston Central Station, with its rail yards, warehouses, station hotels, circling cabs, and rail lines on to long-distance destinations. Laura watched all the traffic, and birds pa.s.sing above and below her. The sun came out of the clouds and warmed her where she sat. She ate an apple.

Midmorning she felt the vibrations on the ladder, and shortly afterward a head appeared over the horizon of the dome. It was Father Roy. He was followed by a man in a white robe, with a golden beard and a square, brimless white hat.