“Hello?” she hollered out in a panic, as if she might forget who she was if she didn’t act quickly. “Hello!”
Through the narrow slits in her mask, she stared at the icy ceiling above her.
“Please, Jamoon,” she yelled. “I’m ready to talk.”
There was no reply.
“Please!”
A loud click sounded, followed by the creaking of breaking ice. The ceiling and walls began to slowly move outward.
Winter’s heart beat with hope.
After a few moments, Winter actually had enough room to stretch out. Her legs and back and neck rejoiced in the movement. There was some ferocious tingling as her blood rushed back into veins and muscles, but the pain was almost glorious.
The ice continued to groan and creak, and in a few minutes the room was back to the size it had once been.
A tall, narrow door opened, revealing a short rant standing in the doorway. He wore a dark blue cloak and a hood that covered everything but his right eye. Winter could tell from his height that he was not Jamoon. She couldn’t see all of him at once because of her mask, but she could see from his stance that his left side was that of a model. Somewhere in Reality some young girl was dreaming of becoming a runway model.
“If you freeze me, we will draw the walls in even tighter,” the rant warned her.
“I won’t freeze you,” Winter promised.
“Follow me,” he commanded. “But remember there are eyes watching.”
Winter tried to roll over and stand, but the shroud held her down, and she was too weak.
“I can’t get up,” she said. “My legs . . .”
The rant grunted irritably. He stepped into the room and lifted the shroud off Winter but left the hood in place and her hands tied. He took hold of her left shoulder with his right hand in a grip so strong that Winter feared he might break her collarbone. But despite the pain, she kept quiet, not willing to acknowledge his strength.
He yanked her to her feet, and she wobbled like a newborn colt. Her right leg was okay, but her left one gave out, and she found herself back on the floor.
“Is this a trick?” the rant barked.
“I can’t walk,” Winter insisted. “My legs have been cramped up.”
The rant seized her by the shoulder again and hauled her up. “Prisoners like you are more trouble than they’re worth,” he growled.
“I’m . . .”
“Sorry,” he finished for her. “Very sorry, indeed. I know all about you, nit. And a weak apology is not going to make right all the trouble you’ve caused. Jamoon will finish Sabine’s work, and you will be nothing but a memory a few misguided souls will be forced to recall.”
Winter held her tongue. She was not used to rants talking so boldly to her. Despite her loss of memory, she knew that in the social order of Foo, rants certainly had no place talking down to nits. Rants were of less importance than cogs, and cogs were looked down upon by most nits. The only reason rants were so loyal to Sabine was that they were weak and easy to control. It always baffled Winter that not a single rant could see the truth—the truth being that a merger of Foo with Reality would be an end to every rant. In Reality their dream-halves would die and they would cease to exist. Sabine had filled their heads with the lie that their bodies would be restored.
“What’s my motivation for this photo shoot?” the model half of the rant asked. “Be quiet,” its other side ordered.
It was difficult, but Winter followed the rant down an icy hallway. The hood obscured her vision, and she felt pain with each step. But there was also a better range of motion and movement for her legs and arms, and as they went along, she tried to see and memorize as much as she could of the layout of the caves.
There were portraits on the frozen walls—some beautiful, some ugly—all of them coated with patterns of frost. They passed a picture of a man standing over something, a jagged metal sword in his hand. Winter looked away. The floor was also frozen, and there were no windows anywhere.
The hallway made a turn, and Winter slipped on the uneven floor. With her hands still bound, she had no way to stop herself from falling.
“Get up,” the rant ordered.
Winter tried to stand but lost her footing again.
“I think I hurt my shoulder when—”
The rant grabbed her by the sore shoulder and pulled her up with one quick jerk. Winter saw stars.
“In here,” the rant directed, pushing Winter through a low doorway into a warm room.
Through the slits of her mask, Winter could see Jamoon seated behind a large wooden desk at the far end of the room. There was a fire humming in the fireplace behind him, and the floor was covered with thick, furry animal hides.
Jamoon looked up, his right eye glaring at Winter.
“She said she wants to talk,” the rant informed Jamoon.
“Good,” Jamoon replied, laying aside a thick scroll he had been looking at. “It doesn’t take long for the ice rooms to break a soul.”
Winter commanded her mind to stop being so jumpy and confused, but it only halfway obeyed. The rant pushed her farther into the room, hurting her sore shoulder again.
Winter winced and couldn’t help whimpering.
“The lighting in here is awful,” the model half of the rant complained. “If I come off looking pale . . .”
“Leave us!” Jamoon ordered, annoyed.
The rant bowed and backed out of the room, his model half whining about the shoes she was forced to wear.
Jamoon stepped over to Winter and lifted his hand toward her.
“Get away from me,” Winter demanded, shrinking from his touch.
Jamoon ignored her and unhooked her hood, pulling it off to expose Winter’s head.
Winter looked around. The room was filled with heavy pieces of furniture, and its walls were mossy. The fireplace and mantel were large and ornate, and thick patches of black nihils clung to the ceiling, fluttering like bats.
“Why am I here?” Winter challenged. A long strand of her blonde hair stuck to her lip, and she spat it out.
“Winter,” Jamoon said, walking around her. “You don’t look like the Winter I used to know. Do you remember me?”
“I know you’re Jamoon,” Winter answered.
“And?”
“That’s all I can remember,” Winter replied honestly. “My visions of Foo are fading. I can only remember Reality.”
Winter felt odd being so truthful, but she couldn’t see any advantage in creating lies. She had lived such a solitary existence in Reality—few friends and only the coldest communication from her fake mother, Janet.
Jamoon stepped closer to Winter and leaned down so that his mouth was only inches away from her face. She could smell the bad breath coming from whoever was currently occupying his left side.
“You remember nothing of the . . . plan?” he whispered, withdrawing just a bit.
The dead nihils on the ceiling screeched.
“Plan?” Winter whispered back, feeling as if discretion were needed.
She could see only Jamoon’s right eye, but he used that eye to stare deeply into both of hers. He was looking for something, but Winter’s green eyes were too hard to read.
“Morfit holds the answer for you,” Jamoon growled softly.
Jamoon straightened. His right side was under control, but the left side of his body flailed about wildly. Somewhere in Reality, someone was beginning a new dream. There was a sucking noise, like a big wad of wet clay being expelled from a glass tube. The noise was followed by deep breathing, and Jamoon’s left side collapsed beneath his robe. He now looked like half a person standing on just one leg with a deflated left half. He hopped over and sat down behind his wooden desk.
Winter tried hard not to stare.
There was a faint croaking sound, and Winter made the assumption that half of Jamoon was a frog at the moment. She was glad he was robed; the uneven matchup would have been almost impossible not to laugh at.
> Jamoon leaned back in his furry chair, trying hard to balance his unequal self. He now smelled wet and mossy. On his desk was a mug of hot liquid. He picked it up and took a sip.
“What of Morfit?” Winter asked.
“Morfit was necessary to the plan,” Jamoon said hoarsely.
“And I was a part of it?” Winter asked. “How could that be?”
“You don’t understand,” Jamoon snapped. He paused and lifted his right hand, pulling the hood of his cloak even tighter. Only his right eye showed. “We were in this together. You implemented it. Don’t you remember?”
The pain in Winter’s shoulder was mild compared to the sock in the gut she felt on hearing Jamoon’s words. “In this together?” she whispered. “How could that be? Who am I?”
There was a sharp knock on the door, and Jamoon quickly stood. The wide wooden door opened, and a hooded messenger announced, “The Sochemists have sent word.”
Jamoon glanced at Winter. With his right hand he quickly pulled her mask back over her head and sealed it.
“I have a few things I need to take care of in Morfit,” he said. “You’ll be returned to your cell.”
Winter stared as Jamoon left the room. “Who am I?” she whispered again.
Chapter Sixteen
Blackness Gathers
Berchtesgaden is a beautiful little German village filled with interesting locals whom tourists enjoy watching. There are quaint cobblestone streets lined with Alpine-style houses that, with their black exterior beams and white walls, look like life-sized cuckoo clocks. And as with cuckoo clocks, every so often a door or window opens and a German maiden steps out and waters blindingly red flowers in a flower box or enjoys a smoke from her pipe.
The buildings alone are a visual treasure, but add a lake of magical beauty right next to the village, and surround those uniquely green waters with an emerald forest towered over by spectacular, snowcapped mountains, and, well . . . there are not words to describe it. Poets have tried, but all have come short of capturing its true enchantment. The village of Berchtesgaden and the nearby lake called Konigsee are two of the greatest photo opportunities Mother Nature has ever put together.
But Mother Nature had to be a little concerned about what had been happening lately in the picturesque setting. It had begun a couple of days before, when the locals had awakened to find hundreds of fish floating on the green surface of the Konigsee. The fish appeared to be dead, but when the townsfolk began to scoop them up, they realized that they were still alive. They were just limp and listless.
The lake water was tested, but there was no indication of conditions that would cause fish to suddenly give up swimming and decide to float on the surface. Besides, there were still plenty of fish swimming in normal fashion in the lake. The locals cleared the lake of those floating on top and continued on as if nothing were the matter.
But, the next morning, there were more floating fish.
The residents of the Konigsee area were baffled.
What they didn’t understand was that the mysterious underwater explosion that most of them hadn’t seen or heard had blasted Sabine into hundreds of bits. A lot of those bits had perished; others, still stunned from the blast, were alive but too sluggish to escape the mouths of hungry fish swimming by. To the fish, the residue of Sabine looked like nice little treats. But after ingesting particles of Sabine, the poor fish became despondent—so much so that they simply stopped swimming and floated to the top to await their deaths.
As those listless fish were being hoisted on board the boats, bits of Sabine oozed out of their mouths and slipped away.
All day and night long, tiny flecks of black worked their way out of the water and oozed on shore. Some attached themselves to boats and rode up to the docks. Some clung to the outsides of fish being hauled out, and a few grabbed hold of any tourist who had the nerve to stick a finger in the water to see how cold it was. Each of the surviving bits migrated to a spot behind a weathered shed. There they waited until all had gathered.
When the gathering was complete, the bits merged into a mass the size of a soccer ball. Moaning softly, it lay on the ground like a giant, black, pulsating amoeba.
Sabine was not finished.
He could feel his incompleteness. He was aware that the best of him—or, more appropriately, the worst of him—had been destroyed. But he sensed that a part of him had survived, not only in Reality but also in Foo. His plan to mesh the two realms had not been completely thwarted—not yet, anyway.
He would need some help. He could feel that somewhere in Reality there was something else from Foo—something or someone who had made it out of the gateway. Sabine willed his residue to form a shape that the wind and the elements could manipulate more easily, flattening out into a thin, black sail. He was but a shadow of his former self: His edges were tattered, his two thin arms were hard to control, and his face was nothing but a couple of eyes above a white, oozing slit, but it was a start.
Sabine moaned, and the wind scattered in fear. He hissed, and the ground trembled.
He was exultant. His dream was not yet over. There was an ocean to cross and someone he desperately needed to find.
He billowed, letting the wind lift him up and away toward the west. Riding a strong current, he sped along, hissing like a black bullet through the sky, heading directly toward America.
Chapter Seventeen
Bugged
Leven maneuvered between two exceptionally thick fantrum trees and jumped over a hole the size of his old twin bed. His breathing was hard and labored. Clover clung to his neck screaming about how much better the immediate situation would be had Leven actually listened to him and left the humming dirt alone. Now a handful of confusing secrets were tracking him.
“Sorry,” Leven said as he ran. “Do you think they’re still following us?”
“If any saw you, they are,” Clover replied sternly. “Secrets don’t give up.”
Leven scrambled up a small hill and ducked behind a pink bush that was shaped sort of like a squatty camel.
“I can’t run any farther,” Leven wheezed. “Let me catch my breath.”
Clover materialized on Leven’s head. He was shading his eyes with his hand, peering over the bush for any sign of what Leven had just dug up.
“You might be lucky,” Clover said, turning invisible again. “I’m not sure the big secret saw you.”
“I hope you’re—”
Leven stopped talking. There on his nose was another small burning secret. Before Leven knew what was happening, the secret made eye contact.
“I didn’t wash my hands before making that bread you’re eating,” the small secret admitted. The secret laughed joyfully and wiped its brow, looking relieved after having confessed. It then dimmed and took off running away from Leven and Clover.
Leven ducked farther behind the bush, hoping no other secrets could see him.
“What do we do?” he asked Clover.
“Stay hidden.”
“The secrets don’t seem very dangerous,” Leven pointed out.
“That’s exactly what they want you to think,” Clover explained. “They’re trying to lull you into a false sense of security so that when the real secret catches up to you, you won’t run away.”
“How many little ones are—?”
The bush they were behind began to shake. Leven stared at it. The bush then spit, hunched its back, and walked off, looking more like a camel, and leaving Leven and Clover crouching there exposed.
“I thought that was a bush,” Leven said, moving to hide behind some trees.
“It is,” Clover said. “Our bushes, like our clouds, have a tendency to become what you imagine them to be. You must have thought that looked like a camel.”
“I did.”
“Well, then, it’s your fault it walked off,” Clover said. “It’s probably looking for water.”
A loud, deep scream pierced the sky from behind them. Leven turned to face the noise.
> “I don’t think I like this forest,” Leven complained.
“Shhhh,” Clover whispered.
The screaming sounded again.
“What is it?” Leven asked.
Clover let just his hands become visible. Both hands opened and spread.
“I have no idea, but I think it’s wise to run from screaming things. It could just be a tree or rock, trying to trick us into helping. Then when we get there, whack.” Clover smacked both his hands together.
There was another long scream, followed by the sound of moaning and a clicking noise. Leven could think of few things he would enjoy more than turning and getting away from the sound, but he couldn’t just leave someone in danger. Despite what he knew was right, he was still a little surprised to find himself actually running toward the noise.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Clover said, hanging onto Leven’s neck.
“So do I,” Leven replied.
The screams sounded desperate. There were hollow pockets of noise around each, like feedback from a hot microphone.
Leven plowed through a patch of shrubs, searching for the source of the cries. In the distance he saw a man hovering a few inches above the ground, seemingly caught in a large shaft of light. Surrounding the shaft of light was a thick swarm of millions of flying bugs. The bugs surrounded the man like a gigantic cloud of dirty exhaust. Several palehi were shrieking and running in various directions off into the woods.
“That’s Albert Welch,” Clover hollered into Leven’s ear. “I know his mother’s sycophant quite well. We used to go—”
“That’s great,” Leven interrupted. “What’s he doing?”
“A dream has him,” Clover yelled. “When the dream fades, the sarus will take him captive.”