Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) (14 page)

“Why?” Jayce yelled.

“Just do it.”

Jayce grabbed the throttle and thrust it into full reverse. The engines moaned. The
Nubigena
bucked. “What are they doing?” he yelled over the roar of the wind.

“Blowing us back to where we aren’t a danger,” Cassidy said, as the ship lurched forwards. The engines screamed as the powerful gale fought them. “Stop the engines,” he screamed. “They’ll burn up.”

Jayce cut the throttle. The
Nubigena
flew forwards at an uncontrolled velocity.

“Dammit,” Cassidy snapped. “All their
physical
power is on the edges. Once they get us past the membrane, we’ll be in their creation zone, where they make the dreams.”

The
Nubigena
tore back through the membrane and sped between the dream bulbs in mere moments.

“My God,” Jayce said as they neared the vaporous outer boundary. “You mean—”

The Zeppelin struck the border like a solid wall. Jayce flew over his console and crashed into the far wall below the windows. Cassidy slammed into the wheel and sank to the floor. Blood ran into his eyes as the world blurred.

Cassidy woke with his face in a small pool of blood. He touched his head. Felt a deep gash. A splotch of red showed where he’d struck part of the helm’s support frame. Jayce groaned nearby.

“What the hell was that?” Jayce asked. His voice sounded far off as if dampened through thick air.

“They’ve got us,” Cassidy said. He pulled himself to a seated position. His head hammered. “Since this is the area where they make dreams, we’re probably in some kind of dream-bubble they’ve created just to hold us.”

Jayce shuffled, trying to sit up, but couldn’t seem to get his legs under him. “Dammit,” he yelled, and struck the floor with his fist. “They wanted to get us all in one place. Just waited for you to show up.”

Ripping a piece of his scarf, Cassidy tied it around his head. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that. Just stumbled in like a damned idiot trying to save everyone.”

Jayce let out a short harsh laugh. “I’m still liking this better than the void.”

Cassidy tried to nod, but his head hurt too much. “We’re not completely sunk, I still—”

“You all right, Old Boy?” Brewster said, from the doorway. “Blimey, what happened to your head?”

Cassidy winced. “Tried to hammer a bolt in with my skull.”

“Use a spanner next time,” Brewster said. “Karl should teach you these things.”

Cassidy grinned. “Everyone make it?”

Brewster grimaced. “Karl’s hurt his back. Franz and I got lucky because we were already braced. Banner rolled across the floor and hit a wall, but he’s in such bad shape I don’t think he could be any worse.”

Cassidy closed his eyes for a few moments and ran through his limited options. “I need to see Banner,” he said, gripping Tuck’s location watch through the fabric of his pocket. He squeezed a switch and felt the tiny machine thrum against his skin. Time for Plan B.

Brewster nodded and helped him to his feet. They hobbled down the corridor to the bay where Banner still lay motionless. Cassidy sighed. Franz and Karl hadn’t even gotten the captain to his quarters before hitting the holding dream. Banner lay propped up with a pillow in the middle of the aisle. His glazed eyes stared at the ceiling.

“I’ll check on things,” Brewster said over his shoulder as he sprinted away, leaving Cassidy alone with the fallen captain.

“Banner,” Cassidy said, kneeling beside the pale man. “I need to know what they want.”

Banner glanced over, then back at the ceiling and closed his eyes. “They want to know why they can’t absorb me.”

“Why can’t they?” Cassidy asked. He put hand on Banner’s shoulder. “Dammit, I need to know.”

Banner pried his eyelids open. A tear ran down his cheek. “I’m not really a dream. More than just animated Everdream stuff. They can’t get past my consciousness.” His breathing became shallower. His lips parted again, but he could only whisper. “Drained everything they could. But I’m…still…here.” He closed his eyes and his head fell sideways.

Cassidy’s heart shuddered. He gripped Banner by the shoulder and gave it another shake. “What makes you different?”

Banner coughed out what might have been a laugh. “Doesn’t matter,” he rasped. “Never mattered. I exist because I
say
I exist. That’s the only truth there is. It’s about will. Remember that. You can do it too.”

“Why don’t you tell the others?” Cassidy spat.

The lines in Banner’s forehead creased with pain. “Won’t listen. Do what they’re dreamed to do. Good pilots. Soldiers.”

“Then why me?” Cassidy asked. “Why tell me now?”

Banner rolled sideways, eyes wild. Grabbed Cassidy by the lapels and drew him close. “You’re the only one who ever asked,” he said and thumped back to the cot. His eyes shut and he was unconscious.

A solid knocking hammered at the outer hatch as Brewster and Franz rushed towards Cassidy. It stopped for a few seconds and started again.

Cassidy glanced between them. Brewster shrugged. “Little point. We let the bastards in or they’ll tear the ship apart.”

Cassidy reached up and released the hatch. An Armada agent stood outside, floating in mid-air. He was taller than the other one Cassidy had seen and more solid. No soft features or liquid skin. This one could kill.

“You are Cassidy?” The agent said, stepping inside. His voice was more natural than the voice in the Everdream. It must have had difficulty communicating within its own mind, but here it seemed to have no trouble through this Armada emissary.

“Why are you doing this?” Cassidy asked.

“You belong here,” it said without emotion. “We made you. We made all of you. You’re a part of us.”

Cassidy took a deep breath. He’d half wanted this a few days ago. Considered breaking free of the crew and returning to whatever he’d been. He couldn’t remember why he’d ever wanted that now. “I don’t want to go,” said Cassidy. “I’m free. I have my own mind.”

“It’s against the order of things,” the agent said. “Understand. We mean none of you harm. But you must return.”

“Then why haven’t you just done it?” Jayce shouted from behind. “Why torture us like this?”

The agent stepped forwards and looked down at Banner’s emaciated body. “This dream is an abomination. We must know what he really is.”

Franz’s blue eyes flared as he drew the Webley from his belt and fired in one swift snap of his wrist. The bullets tore into the emissary and it fell backwards out the hatch.

A moment later, the weapon tore from the young German’s hand and flew out the hatch as well. Another emissary moved through the door at blinding speed and slammed Franz against the wall, knocking him unconscious. “If you use your weapons again, we will be forced to restrain you all,” it said, with the same emotionless voice as the first.

The crew glanced at each other. Cassidy wanted to fire as well. At this point, what did it matter? At least it would feel good hurt one of them. But it didn’t matter, did it? The Armada were all just blobs of dream matter that would return over and over. “It’s not that easy,” Cassidy said, digging into his fragmented memory. “Banner’s not something you can understand. He’s a god from the lower worlds.”

Brewster glanced at him with narrowed eyes.

Jayce blinked hard.

Karl nodded. “He is ancient. Woden One-Eye of the gallows tree. If anything should happen to him, his family will make war on you.”

The emissary was silent. Somewhere, deep in the nebulous cloud, the Everdream considered the possibility. “This seems doubtful,” the emissary said at last. “Woden visited us once. If this creature were a god, he would have spoken by now.”

Cassidy couldn’t believe the Everdream had even considered the possibility. Was this Woden Karl spoke of
real
? A clicking came from Cassidy’s pocket. He pulled out his watch and flipped open the lid. A red light flared. The emissary regarded him with what might or might not have been a strange look. Cassidy turned towards the bridge. “Jayce,” he said over his shoulder, “shoot him and keep shooting,” and bolted for the helm.

A shot rang out. A loud thud sounded from behind followed by more shots, shouts and more thuds. Cassidy had his Mauser out as he made it through the bridge door and slammed the hatch shut. He pushed the throttle all the way down and leapt to the wheel. The engines screamed as the dream field held them fast, but he levelled his eyes on the horizon of the holding dream, trying to find the outer boundary beyond the atmosphere. The watch continued its clicking as the red light blinked. Behind him the steel hatch buckled and tore away.

Cassidy whirled and emptied his gun into the line of agents who rammed into the room. At least the damnable things were bottle-necked. The Mauser bullets tore down the corridor, slicing through several agents at once, creating a growing pile at the entrance. He fired off his eighth round as agents from the back staggered over the bodies.

Two shots left.

One.

A fourth agent scrambled over the pile and fell through into the bridge. Cassidy glanced out the window as the red Fokker tri-wing barrelled through the dark boundary. Its twin guns spewed their steel-jacketed payloads as the very
real
fighter penetrated the dream world with its very
real
pilot. A dreamer in Everdream, Cassidy thought, and glanced back to see a fifth agent climb in and freeze in place.

The
Nubigena
shuddered forwards, accelerating from nothing to full speed in a matter of seconds as the holding field broke. The weird physics of the Everdream took over and slingshot them past the border and into the pink free-space of the Twilight.

Cassidy picked himself up off the floor and steered in the direction of anywhere. If he’d known anything about how to find Banner’s gates, he would have taken one immediately for the
real
world and hoped like hell for a storm on the close horizon. But, without the captain’s knowledge, or whatever it was that allowed the man to instantly find proverbial needles in their haystacks, Cassidy made for whatever spot appeared the most remote.

Brewster stumbled in through the sludge of dissolving Armada agents. “Damned if these don’t fade properly,” he said shaking gobs of dreamstuff off his boots.

Cassidy glanced behind and returned his gaze to the deep pink of the clouds that began gradiating to yellow. “Is everyone alright?” he asked.

Brewster coughed. His voice came out hoarse as if he’d been choked, or his windpipe struck. “Alive, I think. Unconscious. Hit us hard.”

Cassidy nodded. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”

Brewster coughed again and spat. “Only way, bloody hell. What happened?”

“It was my B plan,” Cassidy said without looking. “Richthofen is tearing into the Everdream with everything he’s got. His fighter’s
real
. He’s
real
.”

“Don’t follow,” Brewster choked out, as he moved over to the navigation controls, obviously trying to correct whatever mistakes Cassidy and Jayce had made. “Thought you hated him.”

“Didn’t have much choice.” Cassidy searched the side windows for signs of pursuing Armada, but didn’t see any. Too bad he could only see out the front and sides of the windows. “Point is, Richthofen’s a dreamer. The Everdream won’t know what to do with his presence inside it. His influence. Think about it,
real
people are the clients. They have the power to shape dreams and he’s in the middle of the place they’re made.”

“You’re over my head,” Brewster said. He cleared his throat hard and his voice came out more normal. “Head twenty-six degrees starboard. There’s a good place over there until Banner gets his legs on straight.”

Cassidy adjusted their bearing. “Can you find gates?”

Brewster snorted. “Couldn’t find a barn door on a farm. We’re lost if the captain doesn’t come around.”

Cassidy was silent. The wiry yellow clouds darkened to deep magenta and navy blue. Stars showed through in places. This had to be the edge of Twilight. Something different than he’d seen so far. The furthest from Dusk and Dawn if such concepts truly existed in whatever strange metaphor this world followed.

Jayce made his way to the helm, leaning on the wall and holding a hand to his head. He dropped into a chair and sank down. “Karl and Franz are with Banner. We got him into bed. Where we going?”

“Gunyin,” Brewster said.

Jayce gave a loud sigh. “I don’t like Gunyin.”

“I know,” said Brewster. “But neither does the Armada.”

As they spoke, the red Fokker tore past the forward windows and Richthofen gave a thumbs-up. Cassidy waved back, though he doubted the German could see. The crimson fighter rolled and banked, and was gone. Cassidy couldn’t have imagined a stranger ally, but as Richthofen vanished, his chest felt tight. Something deep inside still hated the Baron, but a part of him also hoped he hadn’t been wounded taking on the entire Everdream like that.

Perhaps it would even be a while before the Armada would be able to pursue now. It didn’t matter though. When they did, they would pursue with the dogged ferocity, not of hungry wolves, but angry, vengeful ones. He hoped to God Banner would know what to do. “Will we be safe in Gunyin?” Cassidy asked.

Brewster cracked a sardonic smile. “No one is safe in Gunyin.”