The Consuming Flame

Posted with permission from Metara.

 

 

Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile
The precious moments are all lost in the tide
They're swept away and nothing is what it seems
A feeling of belonging to your dreams...

-Roxette

 

 

~*~* THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM ~*~*

The children dreamed. In their world a single night, a frozen instant: in Nightopia a month, a year, a lifetime. Flies in amber; fossils in stone; a moment of trapped time prolonged to eternity. Incomplete, bereft, the dreamers could do no more than dream on, relive their loss and wait, wait for a gift that might not come: the finding of that which was lost, the return of that which had been stolen.

In Spring Valley all was still. The sylphs no longer played in the long grass and the nixies had buried themselves in the bottom of their pools. News traveled fast on the wind. The fire was coming. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but soon.

 

 

They found the boy in the early morning when dew lay thick on the grass of the valley. None knew what had come to him or what had been taken from him. None had seen. He was older than the others had been, seventeen or eighteen perhaps, and dark skinned, with long hair bound into a thousand tiny intricate braids. The dew had frozen on his face and in his hair to crust the braids with diamonds and pearls.

"Wisdom again," said Finestill, stooping awkwardly to lift the young man.

The griffin who had found him shook her head. "I would say Intelligence. He has the look of a blue dreamer."

"Whatever he was," said the kobold, "he doesn't have it now."

Fear spread on the wings of the wind. Sylphs fled across the valley, not dancing now but moving in haste: silent and frightened as they sped with messages to the far places of the dream realm. It was not a rumour they carried now but a warning. Another dreamer lost. Beware!

Another whisper began to circulate as the day progressed. It was a name. Eyes flicked towards the sky when that name was spoken: meaningful looks were exchanged. Where was NiGHTS?

By midday there was a delegation formed from the two adjoining dreams, Spring Valley and Splash Garden. In the midafternoon it sought him out and found him on the lake shore, sitting cross-legged on the sand as the water washed and flooded around him. There were twelve of them, Nightmaren of the hills and waters: fairies, sylphs and nixies mostly. Phalanx the unicorn was the elected leader. He would rather have been elsewhere.

"We want to know," he said nervously, glancing at the assembled ones behind him, "what you're going to do about this."

NiGHTS's back was turned. He made no reply. Phalanx, switching his tail, saw the sprite's long fingers clench a handful of golden sand and let it spill.

"You must do something. You saved us before. Do something!"

Now there was a movement. The sprite half turned his head. A purple eye gleamed coldly, reproachful, bitter even. There was something in that look that Phalanx had never seen before - not from the gentle sprite. His withers prickled; his ears went back, and he jibbed back a step or two.

NiGHTS was a hero to all of Nightopia. He alone had fought the Wizeman. He had been the one who made a stand when no other Nightmaren would. He had put himself in unbelievable danger to save the dream realm. Now he was being asked to do so again. Phalanx had never thought that the sprite might feel trapped by that fame. It was a heavy burden to be the hope of a world.

A kirin grew impatient, butted at his shoulder, pushed him aside. The hooved and horned kirin were beings of mixed elements, water and earth: dark cousins to the unicorns. Pilaster did not guess what Phalanx had seen in the eye of the sprite - all he knew was what he saw, and that was that NiGHTS was ignoring them in their hour of need. His black deep-sea eyes glistened with anger. "Why won't you help us?" he said, pawing the ground, and Chime the fairy responded at once: "Yes, why?" Voices called out, a cacophony. Go to the red dreamers, go to Claris and Elliot, bring them back to fight the Wizeman! They surrounded him, each shouting their own message, striving to be heard.

NiGHTS stood. The movement was sudden as the wind, smooth as the water, and it startled the others into backing off. A sylph fell over Phalanx's back and fled. He was tall, the sprite, taller than any of them there though that had not been apparent while he sat so quiet. His eyes glittered chips of amethyst. Abruptly (gust rips leaves from an autumn tree) he raised his arms, held them stiff. Blue sparks burst in the air. Up on his toes - a kick - a spiteful swirl of wind tearing at the dust and one's own hair. He was gone: he was a blue gleam arcing into the eastern sky, fading like a vow made in haste. They watched that light fade, all of them together. Then the delegation drifted apart. Sylphs slid away on the wind, nixies crept silently into the shallows. Phalanx stood alone on the shore, his head raised, his mane rippling softly in the breeze. The sun was warm and pleasant. He thought his heart might break.

 

 

~*~* FROZEN BELL ~*~*

He flew fast and angry, fighting the wind instead of being one with it. He clawed his way up the wrong side of a current, beat his way through a downdraft that wanted to fling him onto the mountainside: made it to the top (one foot kicking crystals from a snowy peak) and flashed across a glistening field of white. It was empty here, blessedly so. NiGHTS dived between stone spears, followed the course of a ravine for a while, then flung himself into a snowdrift and lay there half buried, breathing like a hunted beast. His fingers wrung the snow.

Presently he sensed an approach. The wind which had been tugging idly at his sleeves lost interest in him and sang out in sudden welcome, lifting loose snow crystals in a spinning dance.

NiGHTS closed his eyes and made himself small.

A little way away there was a flurry, a focus of the wind, and then the creak of a foot in snow. The footsteps approached and stopped. He dared to hope that he had been overlooked somehow. But the wind betrayed him: cleaved to him, brushed the snow from his back and laid bare his regal purple. After a while the dragon spoke.

"They are right, you know."

He knew. It made it no easier.

"I am sorry," said the dragon, "that this has come to you. It's an unfair thing to ask of you, especially after the last time." Pause. "Don't be angry with them. They are frightened, or they would not do this to you."

NiGHTS pushed himself up out of the snowdrift and rubbed ice from his eyes. He sat cross-legged and glanced to where the robed man stood in the shadow of a standing stone, gray hair coiling like twists of smoke in the fierce mountain breeze.

"They have found two more dreamers," said Donovan. "The wind told me. Six now are lost in the nightmare, lying in Finestill's house."

NiGHTS shook his head helplessly. A tear slid from one eye and the dragon saw it.

"I am sorry. But this is how it is. There is no escaping it now, there is nowhere left to run. Either we fight or we die."

We?

Donovan saw the flash of his startled look. "That is the other thing," he said quietly. NiGHTS stood up and brushed ice off his clothes, running his fingers over his chest. He was still bruised from the fight he had had with Reala in the nightmare. Donovan looked at him for a moment then raised his left hand. Around them the wind died away and retreated: they were alone, utterly alone in a calm so intense that not a breath disturbed the air. NiGHTS felt a tremble of fear. To be separated so from his own element was akin to being blind.

"I'm sorry," Donovan said again. "But this is something I do not want the wind to hear. Do you understand? Not a whisper of this must come to Nightmaren ears." He made a faint shadowy smile at NiGHTS's widened eyes. "You will not wonder when you hear what I have to say. The Fire Guardian has betrayed us. The accord of the elements no longer bars the Wizeman from entering Nightopia. He can come. More than that - he is coming."

NO!

The dragon caught up with him as he bolted down the mountainside with wind screaming against his face. The draught from the vast and smoky wings drove at him, forcing him to slow or be blown against the rock as Reala had been within the tower. He veered sharply away and banged into a snowy slope: rolled and slithered and skidded to a halt on hands and knees upon the edge of a precipice, staring down at Spring Valley. Beside him there was a flurry in the wind as the dragon too came to earth. A thin cool hand, light as the air, touched his shoulder.

"You are not alone," Donovan said. "I will help you. If the Wizeman is free to act, then so am I." NiGHTS looked up. The other was looking out with distanced eyes towards the far horizon: the nightmare lay in that direction. It was getting on towards night and the darkening in the eastern sky was an omen of things to come. "NiGHTS," Donovan said quietly. "Can we get word to the red dreamers, just you and I? Can we ask them for help?"

NiGHTS thought about that. The last time it had been easy. Claris and Elliot had dreamed. Of their own accord they had entered Nightopia, bearing the red ideya that alone could free him from the Palace: a need fulfilled, an answered prayer. With the help of the red dreamers he had escaped the Wizeman's prison trap. But he did not know why they had come, or how. It was enough that they had done so. He knew nothing of their world: neither how to get there, nor how to return. He did not know how to bring a dreamer to the dream world.

He shook his head.

"Then we are on our own," Donovan said. "Nightopia must look after itself for a change." He smiled. "And the situation is hardly as bleak as it was before. You are free of him, and I also. The Water Guardian will stand forth if he must, as will the Earth. With three out of four elements on our side we are hardly defenceless."

But the Nightmaren, NiGHTS thought - the beautiful, silly, defenceless children of the dream. The kobolds, the nixies, the chattering sylphs. Would any one of these face Reala? Perhaps there might be one or two who had the courage. But none had the strength. He knew it in his heart: anyone who went up against the djinn would die. And Reala was only the servant of another. Who would fight the Wizeman? He knew that he could not. Even with the spirits of Claris and Elliot to give him strength he had barely prevailed: and even that victory was a failure, for he had not destroyed the Wizeman.

Donovan knew his thought, or saw it in his look. "I would try," he said. "I do not know if I have the power to break him. But I would try, if it comes to that end."

You would die too, thought NiGHTS. He remembered how it had felt, the aura of the Wizeman, when he sensed it in the nightmare. Defeat had not mellowed that dark fire. The efreet was as strong as ever he had been - maybe even stronger than before.

He glanced up, and saw a faint amused smile on the face of the Wind Guardian. The dragon knew. Knew from the beginning that it was hopeless.

"Shall we give in?" said Donovan. "Shall we stand here on our hilltop and watch the fire sweep across the dream?" A spark kindled in his dark eyes; he smiled. "Or shall we fight it? What do you think, NiGHTS? You, after all, have two elements at your command. The wind alone is strong, but coupled with the water it becomes an unstoppable tide. You have more power than you know."

The air swirled and gusted: the dragon spread its wings. Vast, misty, it hung before him a moment on the current of the wind - winked one dark and gleaming eye, and was gone into clouds and distance.

 

 

~*~* MYSTIC FOREST SHRINE ~*~*

There was a clearing, a place of silence and drifting fairy lights, where the moss lay inches thick on the old floor. There was an old ragged ruin overgrown with climbing plants, and within it a still pool that glistened like crystal beneath the luminous moon.

White and silver was the unicorn: silent as the stars. Cloven hooves barely bruised the springy moss.

Reached the pool and paused, head tilted like a deer's, ears searching the silence. A white curve of loveliness - a startle frozen in the night - beautiful prey.

The head dipped, drank. The silver mane draggled in the clear water; a puff of breath sent ripples curving over it, concentric rings spreading to vanish in the reeds.

In the forest something crackled.

At once the unicorn's head came up and the ears twitched back and forth, seeking a disturbance in the dark. Another beat of the heart and a kirin, suitably abashed, showed itself for a moment at the edge of the clearing - glint of moonlight on shadowed pelt and iridescent fish-skin scales - before turning, dark and dreary, to slink back beneath the cover of the trees. The tufted tail flicked out for a moment and was gone into darkness.

The unicorn did not drink again. Its head remained up, its ears moved nervously. The long neck twisted: the silver horn inscribed an arc in the still night air. For an hour, a day, a year, the world was just so.

The movement when it finally came was from a different quarter, but the unicorn turned at once to face it, horn tilted like a lance and front feet planted square in the moss. One cloven hoof shifted slightly: a threat. At the edge of the forest a dark shape drifted forth trailing golden light from the taloned hands that hung loose at its sides. Bushes stirred and leaned away as if driven by a wind. Beneath the floating feet the verdant moss trembled and scorched black.

Even as the djinn swept his body into a low bow, his blue eyes remained fixed upon the unicorn: that look gleaming with mischievous malice.

"You are not welcome here," Rowan said.

"I? Not welcome?" Reala sounded gloriously self-satisfied - his voice was alive with laughter. "Are not all Nightmaren welcome in your domain, O fair one?"

"They are, if they come with good intentions." The silver horn did not waver.

"Sweet Rowan, I do. I am naught but an errand boy this night. From nightmare have I come to bring you word."

"I sincerely doubt," Rowan said drily, "that your word is one I wish to hear."

"No?" Still laughing. "You know not what it is yet."

The Earth guardian sighed. "Reala. Must we go through this charade? You have come to offer me what you offered Campanile. You already know what my answer will be."

"Nonetheless I am sent to ask it. Will't please you listen?"

Rowan lifted a hoof, scraped at the moss. "Speak, then," she said, and her voice was chill.

The djinn stood straight and tall. All trace of mirth was gone from his blue eyes as he spoke again in a measured formal tone. Even his voice had changed. "The Wizeman, sovereign lord of all Nightopia, sends this message to Lady Rowan, Guardian of the element Earth: I am coming. You can no more prevent my victory than you can damn the fire at the heart of the world. To you and you alone I offer choice: you may save your forest and your life by joining with me. Even now it is not too late. Continue on that lost road and you will die in fire. But turn back, and you, and all that you hold dear, will be spared. Upon my name do I swear it."

"And that is the Wizeman's offer, is it?" said the unicorn.

"It is."

"Then I believe that Lady Campanile has made a very poor decision which exhibits a painful lack of foresight on her part."

"Oh?" said Reala.

Rowan's eyes narrowed. "Shall I lie down in the fire, then, at your bidding? I know my elemental lore a little better than that. Fire is not discerning about what it consumes, any more than it is sated by what it is given. You would have me put myself into his hands and expect mercy? No, Reala, you and I both know the truth. Your lord's fine words are nothing more than dung." The djinn's eyes widened sharply. "Yes," Rowan said. "Dung. You can tell him that from me."

Reala was shocked, but he covered it well. He folded his arms and smiled coolly beneath his painted mask. "Tell him yourself."

There was an instant of frozen time. Rowan's head jerked up.

The stone hand swept out of the sky.

The unicorn reared to meet it. Belling in fury, shrieking like a stallion: the horn swept upwards, silver-bright, and grazed against the globe of the eye and scarred it blind. The giant fingers clenched convulsively and would have snapped the spine if they had had it - but the unicorn danced out of the grip as it closed, and struck again, drawing sparks from stone with the blade of her spiral horn.

Reala's golden talons left four smoking slashes on her haunch.

Snapped round - the horn slashed air where a moment before the djinn had been - but forewarned by the wind's movement he had retreated, hovered now grinning down at her with folded arms.

Rowan's moment of distraction cost her her life.

The Wizeman's hand swooped again. The unicorn leaped like a deer over it - and was caught by the second hand, the one she had not seen lurking beneath the shadow of the trees. Her hind leg snapped between two massive fingers. She tumbled to the moss and struggled to rise, mad with pain. A shadow blotted out the moon. The unicorn's lovely head twisted up to meet it, spearing the horn towards her death: crippled and defiant she screamed her final challenge.

The blow was a mountain. The silver horn shattered beneath it, and then the long slender neck snapped, and the white body lay dead and broken on the moss. The stone fist hit it again and again, smashing down until red blood stained the white pelt.

"It is done," said the Wizeman.

And above a horrified sylph caught the echo of that cry and sped with it into the wind. On the wind it flew to the far corners of the dream realm, and upon Mystic Forest there was nothing left but a deathly silence.

In that still time Reala said, "It is, lord."

 

 

~*~* FROZEN BELL ~*~*

The cry reached the Wind Guardian as he dozed, brooding, in the heart of a gathering thunderstorm. Rowan's death arrived in a squall of confused air as three sylphs fought to be the first with the news.

The dragon's eyes snapped open.

The wind exploded.

Roaring, furious, incandescent, the dragon descended on the dream realm: a hurricane rolling down the mountainside. It stripped bare the trees on the slopes and then uprooted the trees themselves. By the time it arrived in the low lands it was a thing of intense darkness, a storm that blotted out the stars. In a heart's beat it raged through the valley and forest and was there, in that place, where a circle of terrible calm surrounded the death: the eye of the storm.

He was too late. The murderers had fled with the speed of the wind and the wildfire.

The dragon's roar of rage and loss drowned out the echoes of the unicorn's scream - and gave the sylphs something else to snatch up and carry to whoever would listen. All that night there were fell whispers on the wind and gales tore at every tree and exposed knoll. Save in that one place: the circle of deadly calm.

 

 

~*~* SPRING VALLEY ~*~*

Dawn broke across a valley beaten by the worst storm in living memory. The wreckage was everywhere: broken branches, leafless stumps, the shattered fragments of a windmill, a rock smashed in pieces from a hilltop where it had stood firm since time began. The Nightmaren emerging into this changed and desolate world did so reluctantly and with great fear.

Is it true? was the question upon every tongue. And came the answer from a sylph sitting stunned upon a clifftop, a trembling fairy, a kirin who had SEEN: yes, it is true.

Watching the sun rise over the valley, Finestill the kobold wept for the passing of the Earth Guardian. The tears ran down into his whiskers and dampened the fold of his cloak, but he did not raise a hand to wipe at them. He could only sit, and watch the light, and hug his knees.

Those that were not made numb or comfortless by the news talked: compared stories, and wondered at their meanings. The night had been full of phantasms, but all agreed on having heard two awful cries. Some said that the Wind Guardian too was dead - that that second cry had been his as he closed with Rowan's killers. The frantic sylphs could not find him: he was nowhere that the wind could reach.

NiGHTS returned late that morning, bedraggled and weary from a hellish night. He knew already what had happened in Mystic Forest. The storm had carried him far to the south of the valley: the wind had been mad with grief and NiGHTS had been forced at last to ground himself or be dashed against the ground and broken as the Earth Guardian had been broken. A troll had saved his life by venturing out at great danger to his own and dragging the sprite down into one of the canyon's limestone caves, where he huddled with Nightmaren of the earth element and listened to the wind's rage. After just a little while in that darkness, engulfed by a foreign element and horribly conscious of the weight of crushing stone around him, he had wished himself back outside.

He made his way across the valley, and those Nightmaren he saw looked at him with reproach in their eyes. They blamed him! He knew what all were thinking. Why had NiGHTS not done something? Why had he not stopped this from happening? What COULD he have done? he wondered angrily. Was he supposed to have thrown himself in the way of that descending fist? He was not a miracle worker!

Finestill's house was a ruin. The windmills were shattered and broken. The windows were smashed or torn out and the house itself had cracked open when a tree fell on it. The tree was still there: lying at a crazy angle through the house, upside down with its roots clutching empty air. It was not a local tree but a heavy old pine from the slopes of the mountain, many miles away. Several Nightmaren were sitting on it or wondering aloud how it might be moved. NiGHTS looked around suddenly frightened for his friend. It took him a while to spot the kobold, alone on the cliff above the waterfall. He rose up on his toes to fly.

"NiGHTS?" said someone as he raised his hands. He stood back down and turned. Phalanx the unicorn stood there: his white pelt muddied, his mane full of burrs, his eyes red and sore. "I'm sorry for yesterday," he said. "And I don't blame you for this." His voice trembled. "It was the Wizeman. Her body was..."

NiGHTS shook his head quickly. He already knew. He did not want Phalanx to talk about it.

"We've been talking," Phalanx said mastering himself with a visible effort. Others were coming now, gathering around them - looking with hopeful eyes towards their hero. Phalanx lifted his head. "Lady Rowan's death must be avenged," he said. "We are going to go to the nightmare - all of us, together. We would like you to lead us."

What?

Wide-eyed, panicked, he jerked his head from side to side, seeing truly for the first time the buzz of activity around Finestill's house. Wreckage from the storm had been gathered into a great heap: he had guessed it nothing more than a place to put the broken things, but now he saw that there was method in the selection. Sharp rocks, broken branches - and the assorted group beside it was not breaking up the wreckage into manageable pieces as he had thought but were shaping the fragments: binding splinters to long poles, planing lengths of wood with makeshift tools. From the storm's destruction they were making weapons.

O dream, no...

He kicked hard against the ground, took off, arced up to where Finestill sat alone. The kobold made no reaction to his coming. NiGHTS knelt beside his friend and touched the bent back with his slender fingers. At last Finestill turned his head. His whiskers were soaked with wet.

"They're all going to die," he said.

NiGHTS turned his head away and looked down at what the kobold saw. The news had gotten out. From here he could see Nightmaren coming from all across the valley, moving towards the rallying point of the Nightopian rebellion: Finestill's house.

They would face the Wizeman with pointed sticks, those that had hands to hold them.

He sat, folding his long legs beneath him, and watched the preparations. It did not seem that there was anything else he could do.

 

 

~*~* THE STONE CIRCLE ~*~*

Two alone stood in the ring of standing stones. Two out of four Guardians remained.

Barachois the Siren, Guardian of Water, lifted back his hood. His face was stoic: his pain showed only in his eyes. Matters were different for the one who stood opposite. Donovan had no hood and his black robes were tattered. His untied hair cascaded wild and windblown, a tangled curling mass of smoky silver. But his eyes were strange: they were flat, dark and lifeless, showing no hint of any feeling. They were dead eyes.

"So we two remain," said Barachois.

Donovan lowered his head for a moment, playing with something in his fingers. "I presume you have heard the latest news."

"Nightopia is going to war." The siren nodded slowly.

"They haven't a hope in hell without us."

"You want me to fight with them?" said Barachois.

"Will you not, then?" Donovan said, looking up again. Now there was emotion in his eyes: they flamed. "We can't stop this, not now. The Earth Guardian has been murdered. It is too late for Nightopia to listen to reason. They are going. They will fight him, and they will die. Perhaps if we two go we can save a few lives."

"Against Campanile and the Wizeman together? It is suicide."

"Yes, it is!" Donovan shouted. "But there's no avoiding it now! What kind of guardians are we if we don't fight for what we're sworn to protect?" He whirled and began to pace back and forth across the heath, and the wind sang thin and angry around him.

"Calm yourself," said Barachois in a dead voice. "You are behaving like a child. Your tantrum last night was bad enough. If you cannot act in a manner befitting your age and dignity, we have nothing more to discuss."

Between the two of them stood a great stone tablet: an altar worn by years of wind and rain. Donovan came to it and with his left hand slammed something down onto the stone between them. It was a silvery fragment, delicate and sharp, the length of a hand from wrist to middle fingertip. Barachois looked in silence at the piece of a unicorn's horn.

"You loved her," he said.

"She was a sister to me. As you are a brother! Will you counsel me to be calm - to turn the other cheek?" Donovan's fists clenched until the knuckles whitened. He turned away and bent his head, hunching his pain into the curve of his spine. In a forced and struggling voice he said, "I did not go to the nightmare. I did not challenge him. I wanted to, more than I have ever wanted anything before. But I knew that it was futile and would accomplish nothing. I did not go, Barachois, because despite what you may think of me I am not fool enough to kill for revenge." He turned and his voice gathered power. "But this is not revenge. This is no more than that which we are sworn to do. We exist to protect these folk. It is their right to make idiotic decisions - like going to war against the Wizeman. But no matter how stupid they are we are still their Guardians! We swore to protect them! It is nothing less than our duty to stand by them at this time!"

"Donovan," Barachois said gently, "you are not a Guardian any more."

The dragon's head snapped up.

"And nor am I," Barachois went on in the same tone. "There are no Guardians any more. The covenant ceased to be at the moment when Campanile joined the Wizeman."

"So you'll stand by and watch them die," Donovan said in disgust. "That is an answer Campanile might have given. I expected better from you."

"Be still and understand! I am telling you, Donovan, that you are not a Guardian. You cannot rush into this merely because of an oath that no longer binds you." Barachois's eyes glittered. "What does your heart tell you? Are you going to fight - not because it is what the Wind Guardian must do, but because you, as a Nightmaren and nothing more than that, believe it to be right?"

Donovan was silent for a long time. At last he reached out and took up the silver piece. He turned it over in his hands. "Yes," he said quietly. "If that is the way it is, then I alone, no Guardian but a mere dragon, am willing to give my strength in defence of the dream realm."

"And I, a mere siren, will do so also." Barachois smiled thinly. "Then we understand each other."

For a moment Donovan returned the smile. Then he looked down at the silver piece in his hands and slipped it away into the folds of his robe. "There is one more thing we must do as Guardians," he said. "The Wizeman must acquire no more ideya."

Barachois's eyes widened slightly. "I know what you intend to do. But there are only two of us now - it has never been accomplished by less than a full conclave."

"Does that matter now?" Donovan said. "We ARE the full conclave. You and I must try, at least, to use the Stone Circle. We must close the dreamers' path. Nightopia must be cut off from the waking world."

"It means trapping those six lost dreamers within Nightopia. And it means also that we will receive no help from the red dreamers."

"And I say that we cannot wait for two dreamers who may never come. Every moment we delay makes the Wizeman stronger." Donovan laid his hands on the stone and looked at the other with fierce dark eyes. "Help me try at least!"

Barachois sighed and came forward. Standing opposite he laid his own hands upon the ancient altar. Both closed their eyes. And beneath the outstretched hands the stone began to hum as it drew power from the wind and water. Beneath their feet there was a rumble as ancient machinery began to move. Power ran along invisible channels in the air and in the ground and gathered in the mossy standing stones until it sparked blue and white from one to another. Out along the ley lines it ran gathering speed and spreading out quicksilver to other standing stones around the borders of the dream realm until Nightopia's entire perimeter crackled with magnetic light.

And still it intensified drawing ever more strength from the two at the heart of the magic. Wind and water crashed together over that hilltop, and lightning struck the stone again and again, earthing itself amid wind and torrential rain. Nightopia was alive with lines of light that shimmered in the ground.

Somewhere a standing stone exploded and showered molten bits on the singing earth.

But the magic had peaked now and was winding swiftly down. With a groan of worlds the thing that had moved became still again. Rain as it fell upon the altar hissed and spat and leaped away. The hilltop was shrouded in steam.

"It is done," said Barachois, exhausted.

Donovan leaned with both hands upon the altar, his gray hair falling forward to hide his face. He said nothing but, after a little while, nodded.

 

 

~*~* THE NIGHTMARE ~*~*

Reala flew like a spreading fire along the darkened passageway. At the end the bronze doors stood open: he shot through them and skidded to a halt before his master, sliding on one knee to the ground. Others made way for him.

"What have you seen?" said the Wizeman. One vast stone hand soothed another that had been slashed across the palm.

"The Nightopians, lord." The djinn was grinning: his eyes glowed blue. "They come!"

"Coming here?" Disbelief.

"Yes, lord!"

"And what of NiGHTS?" said the Wizeman.

Reala straightened. "I saw him not. He is not with them."

The fires in the court dipped low for a second before recovering. "This is unexpected. But... not inexpedient. Yes... We can use this. We are prepared." A stone hand swept down, opened up before them: in the palm lay six pearlescent marbles. Each rose up, swelled, became a spinning globe of coloured light. "There is one for each of my generals," said the Wizeman. "Choose."

Reala stepped forward first with the imperious consciousness of his right. From the air he took a yellow ideya. It shrank in his hands, became again the size of a marble. He swallowed it. When his eyes opened once more they gleamed with a new strange light. Jackle the gargoyle was next: he chose green. Clawz bounded down from the shadows and took a white in his crimson talons; toyed with it for a moment as a cat might chase a ball. Gulpo the selkie bit a second green into his mouthful of triangular teeth. Puffy the sylph took blue. One remained, a white. The stone hand caught it and tossed it out into the darkness. Something vast flicked out and snapped the ideya like a fly. Gillwing the wyrm settled down once more a coiled hump of shadow, his reptilian eyes fixed upon the immense figure of the Wizeman.

"Now you have the powers even of the dreamers," the Wizeman said. "No Nightmaren in the dream realm can defeat you." The stone hands formed two concentric circles and spun left and right, each eye gleaming blue as a gas-flame.

"You should know something," said another voice, a dry and crackling one. "The Wind and Water Guardians have made a pact of their own. They have used the Stone Circle successfully. Now they swear that they will see you dead." Campanile drifted out of the tunnel. She had shed her human form and glowed now like a candle, a seraphic creature of elemental fire.

"This is already known to me," said the Wizeman.

"And do you not fear them, the most mighty of their elements? You took Lady Rowan by surprise. Do not imagine that the Lords of Wind and Water will be so easily crushed."

"They are two and we are two." A stone hand swept out of the circle and regarded Campanile impassively for a moment. "Are we not the stronger?"

"Then I want the water," Campanile said. She judged Barachois to be the least dangerous.

The Wizeman knew at once the reason for her choice. He laughed, the hiss and bubble of a volcano. "Very well," he said. "Then the wind is mine."

 

 

Eight flew through nightmare to meet the invading army. The six came first, the Nightmaren henchmen and now generals of the Wizeman's army. Behind them came Campanile, onetime Guardian of Fire. And behind her came one who had not risen to battle since the forming of the conclave: huge as the sky, terrible as the inferno, the efreet from the dark beginning of time: the Wizeman.

Around them in homage gathered the minions of nightmare: lesser sylphs, mephits, gargoyles, wraiths: children of wind and fire, the destructive elements that ruled in this place. On the wind the word went out. The Wizeman comes! Many fled in terror.

Many more came and joined the swelling army's ranks.

 

 

~*~* STICK CANYON ~*~*

The sun's light was hot and bright. Beneath the golden flare of fire dust swirled in giant clouds stirred up by a thousand tramping feet: those of the Earth element trudging down the canyon as the sylphs and griffins swooped above. Phalanx walked near the head of the straggling crowd. His white coat was red with dust and sweat; his mouth was parched; his feet hurt; but he did not pause or falter. He had seen the broken body of the Earth Guardian. That memory drove him on like a whip so that he walked ever eastward toward the realm of fire, the nightmare.

The way was hard. Many already had dropped back: the nixies, those of the pure element water, could not bear to remain for long in the dry desert heat. But more had joined them on their march. The army's numbers were increased by half a hundred trolls of the canyon, by nymphs and kobolds and even a gargoyle or two. He looked back at the column and saw it stretching into distance and the clouding dust.

A roar went up from the crowd. Over the upturned heads came now a sweeping form of smoke and gusting wind: a dragon coasting on the air. A thousand mouths shouted joyfully, welcoming the Wind Guardian to their cause. Phalanx grinned through cracked lips as he turned back to the road. So even now after Rowan's death the Guardians were still with them. They had a dragon on their side. What need had they of NiGHTS? The dream realm had never seen such a gathering of like minded souls. What could the Wizeman do against so many?

A single sylph cried out in warning. With great confusion the Nightopian army halted; heads were lifted, eyes looked up. Ahead stood a single slender pillar of rust coloured stone fifty feet high. Atop it, clear against the cloudless sky, stood a red and black form. Reala's arms were folded: he balanced carelessly on his toes with closed eyes and head lifted towards the sun, seeming unaware of the army's approach. Even from here Phalanx could see that the djinn was smiling.

Reala opened his eyes and looked down at them. "Go back!" he said, and in the still and dusty air his voice carried even to the far side of the canyon. "Go back and live! If you continue you will all die! None will be spared!"

Phalanx stepped forward. "Reala!" he shouted, and his own voice was thin and weak, clogged with dust. Behind him the army shuffled their feet and looked one to another. "We will not go back!" Phalanx shouted. "We have come for your master! He has murdered the Earth Guardian, and we will have revenge!"

"Listen to me, all of you!" the djinn responded. He lifted his arms and golden light burst around him with a showman's timing. All eyes were on that shining light. "Go back!" Reala said again. "The Wizeman, your sovereign lord, intends no harm to those who peacefully accept his rule! This is his word! Go back to your homes and you will be spared! Walk on down this road and you will be consumed in fire!"

The army wavered. Phalanx's tail was down between his legs. He was no longer sure of the way. In that space of balance Donovan spoke out, and his voice had all the power of the djinn's.

"You offered the same to Lady Rowan, did you not? And she turned it down because she knew the truth as we do! Your master would no more spare us than he spared her! The Wizeman's mercy is a swifter death!" The dragon stretched into his full size, so that the misty wings spanned the canyon's width. "Reala!" Donovan said scornfully. "Spirit of wind and fire! It seems you speak from the heart - your words are nothing more than hot air!"

"You were offered your lives," Reala said, "and you have turned the offer down. So be it." He lowered his arms and the golden light died around him.

"Now you will all die." That was not Reala's voice: it was the hiss and spurt of a primal fire. Over the edge of the canyon rose a shape so huge it rejected the eye. A rippling tide of blue blocked out the sun and cast an immense shadow over the assembled army, dwarfing them as a mountain dwarfs a scatter of sand at its foot. A ring of stone hands wove strange geometries in the air. Few there were who had seen this one before: but all knew at once who and what it was.

The cliffs were suddenly black with crawling forms. The Wizeman's army was a forest ringed about a single tree. With a high pitched laugh Jackle swooped to hover beside Reala. Gillwing reared his massive head above a dune. Puffy, giggling, trilled a six note scale.

"There will be no mercy," said the Wizeman.

Like a fire, like a volcanic eruption, the dark army swept over the cliffs and poured down into the canyon. There was a second or two before the storm hit - time enough for Phalanx to think, there are so many! Then hell broke loose. And it was hell. The Nightmaren of fire and wind were freakish horrors. Chattering mephits, horned and flaming, raced across the barren ground as gargoyles screamed and cackled overhead. Goblins bounded down the rocky cliffs - a swarm, a monstrous bestial tide. The Nightopians were outnumbered ten to one. And here - dear dream! - here came the wyrms, fire-born cousins of the dragons: the mighty Gillwing roaring at their head. Reala leaping from his pillar to strike like a meteor in a golden blast of flame. And stone hands were flying like monstrous hawks, diving and swooping into the heart of the Nightopian army. Rock burst and fountained up around every blow. Everywhere they struck was death. Phalanx whirled wildly on his stumbling feet and saw at every turn some new exaggerated horror. Terrors tormented his ears. The Nightopians were beset upon all sides. Terrified and thinking only of escape they struggled with each other as they tried to flee, and the Wizeman's minions cut them down from behind. Gouting blood coloured the canyon dust a brighter and more vital red.

Phalanx turned again at the sound of a scream - louder and closer than the general discord. A kirin, eyes huge and puzzled, met his look for an eternal moment before slumping and tumbling in the dirt at his feet. The rough dark pelt was torn open behind the kirin's shoulder revealing things that should never have seen the light of day. Blood cloaked the lustre of the blue-green scales - spurted from the gaping reaching mouth to spatter his own forelegs red. He felt the sticky warmth of it. The body trembled and the light went out of its eyes: it lay twisted upon itself, the curved black horn scarring the red dirt.

A bloodstained mephit leaped over the corpse and howled in his face. Phalanx screamed his answer and drove with his back legs: throwing the weight of his entire body behind the length of his spear-sharp horn.

Dream save us, thought Donovan in the frozen instant of clarity before battle was joined. It is going to be a slaughter. Then three wyrms hit him at once and there was no time to do anything but slash and bite and claw.

 

 

NiGHTS had not gone with the army. He had refused, indeed, to have anything to do with it. He had hoped that by depriving the Nightopians of their hero he would be able to stop them going - to avert the terrible disaster that he could foresee. But it had not worked. They had gone, they had all gone in spite of him. Spring Valley was deserted. Only the young, the very old and those unable to make the journey remained.

Finestill had stayed too though the combatants had done their best to persuade him. He was adamant. Someone at least needed to stay behind and watch over the lost dreamers. He was old, he would be of little use in battle: it might as well be he.

For a while, in Nightopia, it was utterly silent.

Over the course of the morning a few stragglers came creeping back: nixies mostly and other Nightmaren of the water element who had been unable to make it through the canyon. A dispirited unicorn limped back lamed by a cut foot. None brought any real news. The Nightopians had been making good time. Many more had joined them as they made their way through Soft Museum and into the canyon. They would reach the borders of the nightmare by midday.

After a while there were no more returners. Those few who remained in Spring Valley looked ever to the skies, hoping to see a sylph with some intelligence of the army. The time when they were to have reached the Wizeman's realm came and went. Not a breath of wind disturbed the air.

The sun was low in the sky by the time word came at last. It came from a griffin who crashed in the meadow before Finestill's house and lay there prostrate with exhaustion. They gathered around and stared in horror. She was unrecognisable: her feathers were filthy with red dust and stickiness, and it was only when she spoke that they knew her. Finestill knelt and held her head in his hands. "Parse," he said, smoothing back the disarrayed feathers. "What's happening? How goes it? Is everyone all right?"

"It is butchery," said the griffin, and began to weep.

And they all looked up at NiGHTS, sitting on the overhanging branch of a tree. He had failed the dream realm: he had allowed this to happen. He stood abruptly and balanced on his branch as he looked to the east. A thick black smudge of cloud lay heavy on the horizon. His fists clenched and trembled.

"NiGHTS!" called Finestill fiercely. "Don't you dare! You'll throw your life away with the rest of them! I need you here! Help me!" The kobold patted Parse's wounded head and then stood, leaning on his stick, glaring up. "We have to get the dreamers out of here," he said. "He'll come for them, you know he will. We can't help the others now, but at least we can save the dreamers." NiGHTS wavered. "Please," Finestill said urgently. "There is very little time left!"

That at least was true. NiGHTS breathed out and then nodded, though it cost him a lot to do so. He jumped down and hovered to the ground.

"Where can we take them?" said Asphodel, the unicorn who had come back lamed.

There was a silence broken only by the sobs of Parse. Those who had not fought and those who had never left the valley had been horrified at the sight of the bloodstained griffin. But now they were clutching at a thin thread of hope: the potential that they might be of some use. It was Chime the fairy who spoke up.

"The Mystic Forest cave," she said. There were nods and murmurs of assent.

A cave! NiGHTS shuddered at the thought. It was no exaggeration to say that he would rather have died in the battle than take refuge in a cave... in the earth... underground... No. He would not go in. No matter if the Wizeman himself was behind him: he would not go in.

Finestill knew his fear. The kobold smiled wanly up at him. "You needn't come with us. But will you go and watch for us? Find out what's happening and bring us news. At the very least we need to know how far off they are and how much time we have to prepare."

That he could do. NiGHTS nodded solemnly and rose.

 

 

"CAMPANILE!"

The dragon was torn from a hundred wounds but yet unbowed. He was in his full fury now and swatted aside those who dared challenge him as if they were no more than flies. Many times he had seen the efreet and many times now she had fled from him. He reared back and roared once more:

"CAMPANILE!"

And there she was a flitting wisp sliding out of sight behind a wall of rock. The dragon roared and stormed forth. His eyes were full of red. He saw only the death of the traitor, desired only to taste the hot miasma of her blood.

Something shoved him aside. He turned snapping and beheld the siren: blue-scaled, fish-tailed with dark weedy hair, wreathed in damp mist. Eyes like pearls glistened fiercely through the fog.

"She is MINE," snarled Barachois, and surged ahead on a tide of fog to meet the fleeing shape. With him Campanile closed at once though she had fled again and again from the dragon. The efreet and the siren slammed together with a blow that shook the ground. The fire spat and blazed; the water steamed. In moments both were engulfed in a thick white cloud through which issued only the sound of clashing elements, and now and again a flickering tongue of flame.

Snarling the dragon gave chase; but a smash to the side of his head rocked him and sent him spinning towards the ground. He was dizzy. His wings flailed before he found the wind once more and righted himself: turned to face his new foe. The dragon was big but the Wizeman towered over him as immense as the sky. Many had tackled the mighty efreet during the course of this battle, but all that had been accomplished was a rent here and a tear there in the fabric of the blue cloak. The stone hands spun without cease. For a moment even the dragon was cowed, but then he thought of Rowan. Before him at last was Rowan's killer and his chance to make amends.

If I die, he thought, so be it. At least I have tried.

He charged. Met. Crushing hands closed about the dragon's form; enfolded it; and the long neck curved and the smoky jaws opened with a snarl to tear at the efreet's head and shoulders. Wind and fire flared and roiled.

Blinded by the smoke and fog of their battle Barachois and Campanile wrestled. They were evenly matched. Back and forth they went over the shattered ground, turning it into a morass of bubbling mud. The fighting going on around them was less than a distraction, it was nothing: each was bent on the destruction of the other and nothing but a death could end this conflict.

"I never liked you," hissed Barachois through clenched jaws.

"The feeling is mutual," whispered the efreet. For a moment the hot fog between them cleared and they stared into each other's eyes. Campanile grinned. She opened her mouth and spat a gout of fire that lashed across the siren's face and seared his eyes. Barachois roared in agony. Blinded and enraged he surged forward, his fingers finding her thin throat amidst the fire. The element water responded to his pain. The heavens opened: rain cascaded in a torrential stream over the canyon so that the dust turned into a swamp of choking mud and blood. It had not rained here in living memory.

The water beat down on Campanile. She choked and clawed at the fingers round her throat, scourging him with flame. Barachois's arms and face were charred and black but he did not relinquish his hold in the slightest. He was forcing her down now with the weight of oceans, down into the oozing mud. Her struggles began to have the air of desperation.

"You will die," she choked out. "Let me go, or you will die with me."

Barachois's voice was as cracked and hissing as her own now. "That is a fate I will gladly accept," he said hoarsely, "if it means I can rid Nightopia of you." And slowly, almost kindly, he pushed her down into the murk. Water and earth closed over her head. At once the mud boiled and bubbled: the fire fought wildly, scourging the water that held it down. But the rain did not let up and nor did the pressure from Barachois. Slowly Campanile's struggles became weaker, faded, died. Water flooded across the face of the mud, seeking to quench the fire within. There was a violent hissing in the bubbling mud, and then, at last, a cloud of noisome steam. It was over.

The siren remained crouching, his arms buried to the elbows in the mud. The rain was letting up now. Barachois was burned so much as to be unrecognisable: a black and smoking thing. He knew that there would be no healing of his wounds. It was all right. He had done what he came to do. Alone of the screaming hordes he was at peace. He closed his eyes and, in a manner as careful and deliberate as he had acted his whole life, died.

Even in his own battle frenzy Donovan felt them go: the last two Guardians. He was alone. ALONE! And he had so little strength left with which to fight. The Wizeman was forcing him back now towards the wall of the canyon. Were he to be pinned there against the earth he would die. He fought back as Campanile had done with Barachois, with a courage born of despair. And it worked! His jaws shattered a stone hand: pieces scattered over the ground below, raining havoc on a knot of struggling mephits and fortuitously saving the life of a sylph. He surged forward, clawing, biting, tearing. The Wizeman slid back a little, unprepared for the dragon's sudden recovery. But then the efreet rallied and became firm as the mountain, impervious to the wind which could do no more than fan this flame. Once more he was pushing Donovan slowly, inexorably back.

 

 

On the edge of the canyon NiGHTS stood staring down through torrential rain. His heart sang with horror.

It was hopeless. The Wizeman's minions had completely surrounded the Nightopians: on all sides they were four, five, six deep. Half a mile away he could hear them dying. It would be a lucky thing if a handful escaped.

Something was strange. He could pick out the six, Wizeman's trusted allies: Puffy, Gillwing, Gulpo, Clawz, Jackle and Reala. They were carving bloody paths through the enemy resistance. To his eyes each glowed with an unmistakable aura of power. Ideya! NiGHTS understood then what had been done and why. There would be no defeating a Nightmaren whose elemental powers were boosted by ideya.

This battle was lost before it began, he thought. But then I knew it was so.

Through the tumult came a familiar roar: the fury of a dragon. NiGHTS blinked water out of his eyes and saw what he had not made out before. The Wizeman, vast and terrible as he swayed back and forth above the muddy sea, was struggling with something indistinct, a misty smoky form.

The Wind Guardian is going to die, NiGHTS thought. And knew that it must not happen.

Finestill had cautioned him in the strongest possible terms not to get involved. Those warnings went to the winds as he leaped from the cliff and sped as an arrow of blue light towards the swirl of violence above the canyon floor. The fighting was so intense that few even noticed him as he passed overhead. The Wizeman's back was to him. NiGHTS accelerated and spun in a drill-dash: blasted out through the center of the cape and rose through a closing net of stone fingers. Whirled - once-twice-thrice - around the head: crossed his own trail and was soaring out of reach even as the efreet reeled back. The explosion bounced four times off the canyon walls before dying away.

"It's NiGHTS!" came a thin cry. At once it was taken up by others. "NiGHTS is here!" "He's come to save us!"

The Wizeman had dropped the dragon to reach after the fleeing sprite. NiGHTS dodged the snatching hands that would have broken him and arced away towards the far end of the canyon where the enemy Nightmaren were thinnest. If the circle could be broken at least some of them might escape. He dipped down and flew no more than a foot above the mud, accelerating all the while: spun into a drill-dash and blasted through the group of mephits that clustered together to stop him. The path was opened and those Nightmaren who had watched his flight followed him, dashing for the exit as the Wizeman's minions struggled to close the gap around them.

And here now came Reala, ablaze with fury, and behind him four or five of the Wizeman's hands. NiGHTS fled from them knowing that he had little chance against one alone, none at all against both. He turned sharply northwest and sped towards Splash Garden knowing that if he could reach water he might live. He was not sure about the Wizeman but he knew that Reala would not follow him into the lake. Even with the power of an ideya to back him, Reala was of wind and fire: water was his enemy as earth was NiGHTS's.

He wasn't going to make it.

Splash Garden was too far away. And there was no nearer water for the canyon was parched dry aside from the rain that was ceasing fast now. Reala was catching up with ease - perhaps the ideya within him made him faster as well as stronger. NiGHTS cast about desperately for something else to try.

There was nothing.

He was going to die.

"NiGHTS!" The shout came from behind. In another moment the wind caught up with him and he was flying faster than he had ever flown: speeding on the wings of storm. They left the battlefield in a blur and exploded into late sunlight over the desert. Spring Valley gleamed green on the horizon and then was before them, and then below them.

The wind faltered now and died away and NiGHTS was flying alone, shaking with the backlash of his fear. He glanced to his left and saw the dragon coasting by his side. A dark eye winked at him.

"One good turn deserves another."

NiGHTS slowed and stopped. Finestill's house was below. He could see nobody moving in the grass and that gave him hope: perhaps they had got away already. But then Asphodel stepped out of the door with an unconscious dreamer draped over his back, and NiGHTS's heart sank. He descended to the ground.

"You're back," said Finestill, coming out. "How is it? We've only got two more to go."

Two more? NiGHTS thought frantically. There wouldn't be time. If Reala came straight for him, the djinn would be here in minutes; and Reala would come straight for him, he knew it in his soul.

There was a flutter in the wind behind him as the dragon came to earth. He turned and saw Donovan stumble and fall sideways to lean against the wall of the house. Blood was in his gray hair and caked in a rusty smear across his forehead: his ragged robes glistened wetly. NiGHTS reached out to him; the dragon shook his head and pulled back a little. "I'm all right," he said and then looked past him to where Finestill stood with Asphodel and the dreamer. "Go," Donovan said. "We'll look after things here until you come back. But hurry!" He watched them into distance and then sank down in the long grass and leaned his head against the wall.

NiGHTS went inside and checked on the last two dreamers. The ones left were the black boy and the girl who was called Amy. Their faces were cold and peaceful as they lay on the hall floor. He knelt momentarily beside each of them and then went outside again.

Donovan was getting painfully to his feet, using the wall as a prop. He looked up wearily and made a weak smile as he saw NiGHTS standing there. "I am sorry," he said. "I must leave you now. In any case I can be of no more use as I am: I must rest." He did not wait for a reply. The dragon faded into the wind and was gone in the direction of Frozen Bell.

On the flattened grass where he had sat there were red spatters, and another smear was drying to brown upon the wall.

The sun was setting. It was very quiet in the valley: that unnatural calm lay still upon it. NiGHTS flew to the roof of the house and stood there balanced on the chimney stack, looking into the east to try and see whether Reala was in sight. He was not. But how long could it be? How long was there left? The sprite danced from foot to foot in his impatience. There was no sign of Asphodel or Finestill either. NiGHTS fretted. He could carry one dreamer but not both. Should he go to Mystic Forest? But then there would be nobody to watch over the remaining one. Still no Asphodel. Why was it taking so long? He shaded his eyes against the setting sun and peered towards the forest willing himself to see the white speck of a unicorn coming his way. There was nothing. He turned then towards the east where the darkness was. A golden speck gleamed in the distance, in the heart of the night, and grew steadily brighter as he watched. Reala.

He jumped from the roof and bolted inside. The door slammed behind him. Indecision froze him to the spot: one but not both. Which one? How could he make such a choice? Time... there was no time! He stared from one face to the other. The girl. The girl was lighter - he had more chance to get her away safely. He stooped and took her in his arms.

A shadow prowled past the window. Turning NiGHTS beheld the silhouette of ram's horns against the closed curtain. The front door was closed: the wind could not tell Reala where he was. On silent feet he backed away towards the stair. The shadow passed from the window. A moment later there was a rattle at the door. Reala snorted impatiently. The rattle came again, violent. NiGHTS crept back around the curve of the stair, moving towards the upper storey. The boy - the last dreamer - he could not save him now. Reala would see him the moment he gained entry. NiGHTS only hoped that Reala would content himself with having that one - it might give him time to escape with the other.

Something burst the door open. NiGHTS could not see now what was happening on the lower floor but he heard the door bang twice and clatter on the wall. Golden light flickered around the bend of the staircase. He heard a scuffing sound and then a chuckle from Reala.

"Conscience does make cowards of us all."

He has him, thought NiGHTS: he has taken the boy. Now, now!

The upper part of Finestill's house had been cracked open by the fallen tree. NiGHTS stepped around a branch that partly blocked the corridor. He could see the tawny sky through half a dozen holes. With his toes he pushed up against the floor and rose silently, striving to disturb the wind as little as possible. Below him Reala was prowling through the deserted house.

"NiGHTS?" said the soft voice - half laughing, half suspicious.

He was clear of the house now. As far as he could see Spring Valley was empty of any other Nightmaren - and that which he had feared most was not in sight. The Wizeman had not followed him. But Reala was coming up the stairs. If he delayed any longer the djinn would find him here. But where was he to go? If he followed Asphodel and Finestill he would betray his friends' location. Reala too was tied to the wind. He could not fail to know where NiGHTS had flown.

The Wind Guardian, he thought with a flash of hope. Donovan might be able to shield him from Reala's sight. And Frozen Bell was his friend: it was a place of wind and water after all. He fled north towards the distant peaks.

 

 

~*~* THE MOUNTAINSIDE ~*~*

It was dark beneath a clear sky. NiGHTS had to rest if only for a little while. He laid the girl down gently on a snowy ledge and sat beside her, dangling his legs into empty space as he gazed down onto a shadowed land. There was no sign yet of Reala though a part of him was listening always for that tingle in the wind. He knew the djinn would come. It was a matter of time.

NiGHTS was exhausted and tight as a wound spring. His mind hummed with thoughts of the things he had done and seen today - things he knew that he would never be able to forget. He wondered if his deeds in the canyon had saved any of the Nightmaren who had been trapped there. He wondered what would happen to the dream realm now. The Guardians were gone. And the Wizeman's victory had been a rout: had crushed the bud of any resistance that might have been mustered against him. It was unequivocal. Nightopia had a new ruler now.

It had never been this bad, even in the old days of his captivity in the Ideya Palace. One thing had saved them all from this final destruction. No matter how many ideya were stolen by his minions the Wizeman could not leave the nightmare: he had been bound there by a covenant too great even for him to break.

NiGHTS closed his eyes and splayed his fingers over his face. He felt tired enough to lie down in the snow - but he could not, not while the dreamer needed him. He forced himself to stand and drifted onto the wind once more, ready to carry her onwards. She was a lifeless puppet in his arms - she weighed him down. For a while he tried slinging her over one shoulder but it only unbalanced him and made flight even harder. He reached a snowy plateau and let her slide down onto the ground again so that he could stand and stretch. Out of habit he glanced back but saw no golden light in the distance. Perhaps Reala had chosen to secure his captive dreamer before coming after NiGHTS. That thought gave him a little more heart.

He sat down in the snow beside the unconscious girl. Her straight brown hair was coated with a fine powder snow and ice was gathered on her lashes, dusted like glitter over her cheeks. As he watched a snowflake settled on one eyelid and did not melt. He flicked it away with his fingers.

Fatigue lay heavy on his eyes and reminded him that he could not go on like this forever. It was all very well carrying a dreamer for a short distance, but he had come many miles with her this night. And before that, of course, had been the battle. He was ready to drop here where he sat.

It would be easier, he thought, if he could merge with her - or at least if he could bring her round to the point where she was able to walk on her own. He knew that he could go on easily enough without that burden. But how to call back the spirit when the ideya had been taken? This girl was no red dreamer. No, she was a white. Her dream had been purity: the ancient fairytale of innocence and beauty. But Amy's dream had been stolen from her and her spirit had flown with it. She would drift forever in the nightmare unless awakened - a princess under a witch's curse. What was it she was waiting for?

A white dreamer... Perhaps there was a way to give her back her dream.

NiGHTS, kneeling, brushed a lock of hair from the girl's forehead. Ice cracked on the stiffened strands. He bent close and gazed intently at the white and deathly face. Then leaned...

Her lips froze his, and the cold crept down at once into his own body, his own heart. The chill of the enchantment made him shudder and draw back. But it was done. He felt dizzy and weak and put a hand to his face for one moment, reminding himself of what and who he was. Something had passed between them - he had given her a part of his own Nightmaren essence, and in exchange he had received something of hers. He wondered what the exchange would do to both of them.

The girl stirred. Her skin glistened wet with melted ice. She moved her head sleepily from side to side, then pulled her arms up against her chest and began to shiver violently. Her eyes cracked open.

She saw him, the demon that had attacked her in the forest. Shrieked! Scrabbled backwards on her elbows and came to her feet in a scatter of snow. NiGHTS stared up at her shocked by her reaction. The girl stumbled backwards away from him, her hands held out stiffly in front of her as if she would ward him off that way. He stood slowly.

"Keep away from me! Stay back!"

He watched her as she backed away. He did not quite understand her look, but it frightened him, the abject terror in her widened eyes. Suddenly he saw what she was about to blunder into.

"Be careful!" he said.

The girl's look changed momentarily to one of puzzlement - then her foot came down in air and she screamed and fell backwards. His grip on her wrist saved her. He held her dangling above the edge of the mountainside, unsure himself how he had managed to move so fast: she was still now as she stared up into his eyes. Carefully he glided back and lowered them both to solid ground. The girl's legs wobbled under her and folded and she slumped in the snow pulling great heaving breaths into her chest. He knelt opposite and watched her.

There was a long time when they sat thus in silence. At last she lifted her head and said, "Who are you?"

For a heartbeat he was surprised that she should ask. But of course she was a dreamer not a Nightmaren - there was no reason that she would know him.

"I'm NiGHTS," he said.

"NiGHTS?" She repeated it curiously, looking at him with her head tilted. "That's your name?" He nodded. "I'm Amy," the girl said, an automatic courtesy.

"I know."

She frowned. "How do you know?"

Questions, questions! They made him feel dizzy. "Phalanx told me," he said.

"Phalanx?"

"The unicorn."

Amy's mouth shaped an "Oh." She fell silent and looked thoughtful for a while. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?" she said. He nodded. The girl kept his gaze for another few heartbeats, then looked down. She was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt and her arms were bare. With one hand she reached across and pinched the skin of her forearm. Then she did it again, hard enough to leave a red patch when her fingers withdrew. She looked back at him with naked fear in her eyes. "Why can't I wake up?"

NiGHTS blinked at her.

"I want to wake up!" Rising panic.

He knelt and caught her hands in his to stop her hurting herself again. "Don't," he said.

"Who are you? What is this place? What's happening to me?"

Questions thrown at him in handfuls. His head spun. "Listen," he said, trying to still her with his eyes. "Please listen. Reala took your ideya. This is a bad time. You can't wake up yet."

"Then when can I?" Relentless.

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

What kind of question was THAT?

"What are you anyway?" the girl asked when he did not respond. The fear was almost gone from her voice now but she sounded tired - as tired as he felt. There was a to-hell-with-this in her tone.

"I'm NiGHTS," he said.

"Well, duh, I know that." She looked at him a moment more and then crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm so cold."

He was cold too. And that reminded him of the danger they were in every moment they remained here. He got to his feet and held his hand out to her. She looked at it and then up at him, her eyes confused and dull. He sighed. "Come."

"Where?" She did not move.

"Away," he said, beginning to lose patience. "It's not safe. Reala will come."

"Reala?" A shadow crossed her face: she pressed a hand to her chest as if it pained her. "Is that the one in the forest? You mean he's after us?"

He nodded, relieved that she was finally beginning to grasp the situation.

Amy said nothing more. She got to her feet and put her hand in his. They walked together across the snowy field. NiGHTS glanced up at the shadowed peaks to remind himself where he was. All the time he had been on his way here he had thought of nothing but the pursuit - but now he realised that he was not sure where to find the Wind Guardian. He would have asked a sylph if any had been near but here in the wind's home the unnatural calm was just as dense as it had been down in the valley. Had something happened to the dragon? Donovan had been in a horrible mess earlier.

"Are you hurt?" Amy said, breaking mercilessly into his private thoughts. He turned his head and looked at her: she pointed. "There's blood on your shirt."

NiGHTS brushed for a moment at the stain and then shrugged. It wasn't his.

They went on in silence after that.

Walking was a little easier than carrying her had been but even so he was not used to it. His back ached, his feet began to hurt, and he chafed at the slowness of their pace. He would have liked to have flown on ahead but every time he tried to pull away Amy's fingers tightened painfully on his.

They ascended a long narrow channel between stone cliffs, slogging through snow that was often thigh deep. He was lighter than she was - he barely had the strength to get through - and the rock pressed all about him and made it hard to breathe or think. At last his patience snapped. He jerked his hand free and kicked off the ground: soared up between the cliffs and burst into the clear sky beneath the stars feeling nothing but relief at the escape. From up here he could find his way much better. He found a current and sent his thoughts along it, tracing the breeze to a lofty summit some few miles away. In that place a dozen currents met and merged - it was a nexus in the wind. Yes, he thought. That was it, that was the place that they must go. It was not too far.

He glided down to the top end of the cleft through which they had been climbing. It opened out into another snow field, this one gnarled and rumpled, knobbed with fantastic twists of ice and the entrances to glittering caves. Amy would find it hard going.

NiGHTS glanced towards the black slit in the rock at the ice field's southern end. There was no sign of Amy yet. He flew a little closer - he would have gone down, but the there-ness of the stone dismayed him. He could not enter it again willingly.

It seemed a very long time before Amy emerged, and when she did she was crying. She saw him and stopped.

"I thought you'd left me," she said.

Suddenly he felt bad. "I'm sorry," he said. "The stone was too big."

"Too big?"

"Too heavy," he said, struggling to describe the indescribable. "Too... near."

Amy wiped at her eyes and came to him, kicking loose snow out of her sneakers with every step. "Are you claustrophobic?" He looked at her blankly. "Afraid of tight spaces," Amy said, taking his hand again. "You know: lifts. Small rooms. That kind of thing."

He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. To his surprise she smiled and squeezed his hand. "You should have said."

They were near the end of the snow field when he felt the tingle in the wind. He comes! NiGHTS stopped dead and looked back. Amy did the same. He could not see Reala yet but the djinn was close - half a mile, maybe less. The wind told him how Reala was coasting back and forth over the mountains, searching for traces like a hunting dog. There was very little time. He grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her with him: they ran floundering through deep snow. His instincts screamed at him to fly - leave her and fly! - but he could not do that. So clumsily he ran along the ground with her and listened for the final rush.

Amy saw him first sweeping over the dark cliffs like a falling star. She grabbed NiGHTS's arm and pulled him down with her - startled he fell and they tumbled together into a snowdrift and lay there. He struggled to rise but she held him with her. "Stay down," she said in an urgent hissing whisper.

"He'll catch us!"

"Ssh!"

The snow field was pale and dark together under the stars. Then not ten paces from where they were Reala laughed softly. "NiGHTS," he said. "Come to me, NiGHTS."

He tried to rise again but Amy gripped his arm and pointed silently. Reala was hovering a few inches above the snow with his back to them. His hands were planted on his hips as his head turned, surveying the snow field. Beneath his toes a sunken pool steamed.

Can it be, NiGHTS thought in wonder, that he does not know where I am? Dream delights, it was true - Reala seemed baffled now as he glanced from side to side. The djinn knew that NiGHTS was near but he could not tell exactly where. The snow, NiGHTS thought suddenly, of course. He and Amy were both caked in snow - the element water that was Reala's enemy. And as long as he stayed down and did not fly the wind cared nothing for his presence. It would not tell the djinn where he was.

"NiGHTS!" Reala called again, a challenge. He turned and drifted on, out of sight. NiGHTS listened to the wind and water as they told how the djinn prowled slowly across the snow field, turning now left, now right - hunting. He was moving away from them.

Amy shook his shoulder. "That way," she said, pointing to the low mouth of an ice cave. It was in the opposite direction to that taken by Reala. NiGHTS looked at her for a second and then nodded. They gripped each other's hands and broke from cover, running low across the snow. It creaked and crunched beneath them: Reala would hear. He listened for the wind's warning.

They dived in through an opening half masked by icicles and lay together on a thin crust of snow. Diffuse light through the ice made everything green as if they were underwater. That soothed him a little though his heart thundered. He tried to breathe as quietly as he could.

"I don't think he heard," Amy said in a low voice.

"He will see the marks in the snow," NiGHTS said.

"I know." She looked to the entrance. "He's coming back again."

"I know," he said, and then stared at her. How did SHE know?

"He doesn't like water, does he?" Amy said. "The snow melts whenever he gets too close to it. If we go further in, maybe he won't follow us."

It was a good plan. He nodded again. The snow cave was too low to stand up so they scrambled bent over and sometimes on hands and knees down a long twisting passageway. They forced their way through brittle hedges of ice. After a little while the cave began to open out and they could walk upright. They were somewhere below the snow field now. NiGHTS could no longer sense Reala. He stood and dusted snow from his hands.

"Are you all right?" Amy said. He nodded. Her look was slightly puzzled. "I mean, it's kind of close down here. I thought you didn't like close places."

"But it's water," he said, puzzled in his turn.

"And water's okay?" She raised her eyebrows and then smiled. "I get it. You're some sort of elemental, right?" He nodded. "Is he the same?"

NiGHTS shook his head. "He's a djinn."

"Right," Amy said after a moment. "Okay, bear with me. I know you must think I'm very stupid but I don't actually know what that is. I don't know what's going on or why that guy's after us either. I know you don't like me asking questions, but can you at least tell me the situation so I know what not to do?"

He paused and thought how best to answer. Then the water around him shuddered: Reala had found the entrance of the snow cave. He was coming in. NiGHTS could trace his every movement from the water. Above, on the snow field, the entrance of the cave hissed and melted and yawned wide open. The upper cave filled instantly with steam as the djinn ducked beneath the low opening. Icicles evaporated as he brushed past.

"Run," NiGHTS said. They ran together slipping and sliding on the slick ice. How deep did this place go? If they were caught here it would be bad: the water was warning him now that Reala's heat was melting more than icicles. The djinn's presence here was damaging the structure of the cave. A fight might bring it all down on their heads. That might kill Reala, but it might kill NiGHTS too despite his water element. It would certainly kill Amy. Passages branched out around them now. He felt out through the water. Reala had reached the place where they had stood together and was coming on fast.

"Come on," Amy said tugging at his arm. "Come on, quick, he's coming!"

He shrugged her off and stood still, following the longest of the passages. It twisted down at crazy angles, now wide, now narrow, to the very core of Frozen Bell where - yes! - there was standing water! His eyes snapped open. "This way," he said, and ran with her into the passage he had chosen.

"NiGHTS!" came a shout from behind. Reala could sense them both now in the confined air. They were the only things to have disturbed the air in the snow cave for a long time. The wind had betrayed them: the djinn had their scent.

The passage was a very long one. At times it turned into an ice slide and they fell and slithered down it, on their fronts, on their backs - whichever way they could. Amy banged her head against the wall and cried out. Then the chute became almost vertical. NiGHTS grabbed at the walls but they were smooth and there was no way to slow down. He shot out of the far end into a large airy space, tried to fly, realised he was upside down and hit a snowdrift face first. A second later Amy drove all the air from his lungs.

"Oh my God," she said as she rolled off him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Are you all right?"

He nodded weakly and got up. The ice cave was the largest he had ever seen. They stood on a shore made of powdered crystals. Here and there great stalactites of ice rose up, matching the vast icicles fringing the ceiling. A fine lace of ice creaked on the sluggish lapping waves of a lake. Further out icebergs drifted and ground one against another. Their breath fogged and floated away in the still air.

NiGHTS looked up. Would Reala try to pass the ice slide? Would he be fool enough to do so? If he tried he would seal it off behind him - the passage would collapse without a doubt. NiGHTS had just reached the decision that no, Reala had more sense - when the water told him otherwise. Reala was coming. Was now sliding out of control, clawing frantically at walls that melted at his touch. Of course, NiGHTS thought - Reala was not tied to water. The ice had not warned him what would happen if he entered the slide. He had had no idea of the danger.

"Into the lake," he said.

Amy stared at him. "Are you out of your mind? It's FREEZING!"

"Reala is wind and fire. He can't follow us there." NiGHTS hoped that was still the case - he had not thought that Reala would follow them into the ice cave in the first place.

The ice cave groaned. A puff of wet steam burst out of the end of the ice slide ten feet up. Then a red and black blur exploded into the cavern, flailed at the air and flumped head first into the same snowdrift that had broken their fall. A tide of water and half melted icy lumps rushed down on top of him, drenching the startled djinn in a further indignity. There was a loud hiss and a swelling cloud of fog.

NiGHTS grabbed for Amy's hands and pulled her after him into the shallow water. Their feet cracked the delicate ice and plunged into water so cold that there was not a word for it. They sloshed out together hand in hand.

"NiGHTS!" Wild with fury Reala exploded out of the snow. Water vapour rolled off him in waves. NiGHTS knew that there would be no avoiding him now: he would follow them into the heart of the ocean if he had to, his wrath was so great. He stepped in front of Amy and lifted his hands to bar the way. Reala grinned at him, seeing at last his chance for the battle he had so long desired. He drifted forward over the water and it spat and bubbled and flinched back. "Nowhere left to run, NiGHTS," Reala said.

NiGHTS felt the disturbance in the water before the first ripples washed against his thighs. The water was angry. Wind it disliked on the whole, and fire it loathed - and the trespasser that had entered the home of water was a thing of wind and fire combined. The lake shuddered.

The siren, an elder spirit of water, had lain dreaming at the bottom of the lake since times untold. Now she received the rudest awakening of her life. She rose up out of the water as a vast whale green and gleaming as the ice cave. Icicles bearded her jaws and the ribbed lines of her swelling throat. A shell of ice cracked off and floated on the water as one great eye opened, rolled and fixed upon the djinn. The siren roared.

"Go!" NiGHTS said, pushing Amy out into the lake. "Now, quickly!" He dived after her and changed - swept past her, reached back to grab her hand and towed her down with him. The water stormed as the siren passed them both. She had no interest in a little sprite.

Dragging Amy with him he swam down through green and blue to a floor of ice marvellously wrought and twisted. Some other time he would have lingered here to marvel at the beauty of the water. Now there was no time. The current he had found led him on, deeper still, to a dark hole in the ice, a tunnel of stone tight and close and twisting into the bones of the earth. NO! He balked. But Amy's grip was tight on his fingers. She kicked clumsily, pulling him along with her now. Behind them the cavern trembled as battle raged.

He squeezed his eyes tight shut and plunged with her into the earth. His death.

 

 

~*~* THE COURT OF THE WIZEMAN ~*~*

In the room of black fire five were assembled. Each felt the anger of the Wizeman in the fire that swelled and surged like a tide.

The battle had turned into a rout: the nightmare had won a total victory. But the lord of nightmare was unsatisfied even with this. One thing there was that his generals had failed to gain. One by one each had crept back empty handed from the searching of the dream realm. Reala, the Wizeman's greatest hope, had not returned at all.

So they waited in silence, the five, and watched the Wizeman's rage as it built and banked to a white heat. Then it was that the stone hand snapped out and caught Jackle the gargoyle by the hem of his cape, and flung him as one might fling an objectionable book. Jackle's head cracked against the wall and he made a breathless squeak and slid in dizziness down it to the ground. He was not badly wounded - he was of wind and earth and the stone had little power to hurt him - but the others stiffened and shifted uneasily, each waiting his or her own turn to face the efreet's wrath. It did not come. The Wizeman played them all like salmon, reeling taut the line of tension - bringing them again and again to the brink of blind terror.

Then the fire rippled oddly and a frisson shivered through the dank hot air of the underground chamber. Every Nightmaren present felt it either in the wind, or the fire, or both - Reala was coming home. And his mood was bright.

The Wizeman's hands had been drawn in, spinning close in a tight fast circle. Now the tension eased off very slightly. The circle slowed and widened.

Reala entered the room. His flight was slow and laboured for he flew upright, bearing in his arms an insensible body. He had a dreamer. The Wizeman's sudden eagerness sent tongues of black fire reaching for the roof, and those Nightmaren who were not bound to the fire element - Puffy and Jackle - darted back in nervous fright.

"One," said the Wizeman contemptuous. "Of the six of you, one alone returns to me with his task completed."

"'Tis more I bring than this, my liege," said Reala. "Though my other charge is for the ear only."

"What is it? Speak on."

The djinn hefted the dreamer's body in his arms and then tossed it away careless - Jackle swept down in urgent haste to catch it and bear it from the fire. Ignoring this Reala rose, unencumbered now, and bowed before the stone hand that flew down to regard him.

"The other dreamers, lord," said Reala. "Your enemies have taken them to screen them from your eye. Alone found I this one, abandoned by those cowards who would have kept him from us."

"Where are the rest of them?" said the Wizeman.

"I know of only one, lord. Our mutual foe has her." The great fingers twitched dangerously, close to a violent explosion. Reala's gaze remained steady. Now there was a look of exasperation in his pale blue eyes. "I hunted, lord; I hunted and I trailed, your faithful hound, e'en to the summit of the mountain. But there he fled from me once more to water. Even there would I have followed, but he lured me to a vile trap and there eluded me." He raised his head and his eyes were bright. "A siren of the elder time have I fought this night, my liege. Hardly did I 'scape with breath enough to fly to you."

"An elder siren?" said the Wizeman. "But the Water Guardian is dead."

"It was another, lord," said Reala. "But it matters not; she sleeps once more. In truth she had but little taste for battle. 'Twas only her surprise that made her fierce."

"And the remaining dreamers?"

"One is with NiGHTS, the others most likely with the refugees. Find we their bolthole and we shall take them all."

"Then that is what you will do," the Wizeman said. "All of you. Go. Hunt. Seek out the Nightopian survivors. Bring me the dreamers."

One by one the generals bowed and left. Reala was the last and he did not leave but remained where he was, looking up to the vast cloak of the efreet.

"What is it?" said the Wizeman.

"My lord, there is one thing more. The dreamer that had fled with NiGHTS. Somehow he has freed her spirit from the nightmare. She is without ideya, lord, but her dream is returned to her." He paused uncomfortably. "I felt her in the wind, lord."

"That cannot be."

"My lord, it is," said the djinn. "I swear it. She is tied to the elements. As HE is."

The Wizeman was silent for a long time. At last he said, "I have a new task for you."

"Name it, lord. Anything." Reala bowed.

"You will not go to Nightopia with the others. You will remain here instead with the dreamer you have recovered. Seek to awaken him as NiGHTS has done."

"My lord?" Reala sounded disappointed and even hurt that he was not to play a part in the subjection of the dream realm.

"Do not imagine that this is a punishment, Reala. It is an honour, and more than that a chance of power far beyond your own. Awaken the dreamer. Befriend him. Bring him to our cause. Then perhaps you may learn to fly with him as the sprite did with the red dreamers. With ideya and a dreamer's spirit you will outshine him as the morning sun outshines a glowfly in the woods."

"I will try, lord," the djinn said reluctantly.

"You must do more than try. You must accomplish this before NiGHTS decides to do the same." The stone hand closed. "Go now and begin your task. Waste no time."

Reala bowed once more and retreated.

 

 

~*~* MYSTIC FOREST ~*~*

It was dark in the cave with the lid locked down tight. Those who had them had brought down lamps: glass spheres filled with the glowbugs that filled the woods above. The fairies gave off a little light of their own. But even so it was a chill and cheerless place, stone and earth: a subterranean river ran along a deep cleft in the bottom of it. The sylphs had refused to enter it at all, preferring to take their chances with the Wizeman.

Some survivors from the canyon massacre had managed to make their way here. Not many. Of those who had broken out behind NiGHTS a number had been picked off by the Wizeman's soldiers as they tried to return. The sylphs had brought back word that others were hiding in the canyon itself. A score or more had been taken in by the friendly trolls and goblins living there.

Phalanx was one of those who had returned. In the darkness he lay alone desiring no company and flinching from any friendly advance. He was only slightly wounded in the body, but his mind was a raw agony in comparison to which the gash upon his haunch was the bite of a fly. Now he blinked and stared into darkness and thought of blood and death.

He was not the only one to do so. The Nightmaren of hill and valley huddled in the dark and listened for scratching at one or other of the massive stone lids that closed the cave. Whispers ran about in the darkness. The Wizeman's minions had passed overhead many times but as yet they did not seem to know of this refuge. If they had they would doubtless have begun to dig.

In the middle of the cave a number of makeshift shelters had been erected so that the wounded could rest in relative comfort. Here also were the four dreamers who had been rescued from Finestill's house.

Four dreamers, thought Finestill as he sat beside the girl with the pale blonde hair. Only four. He and Asphodel had returned to Spring Valley to find it swarming with the minions of the Wizeman. His house was guarded by half a dozen grinning mephits. There was no sign of NiGHTS but both of them saw Reala emerge and speak to one of the guards before flying swiftly away in the direction of the mountains. The kobold and the unicorn had not tried to approach the house - they had crept away as quietly as they could, knowing that nothing good could be done in this place. Finestill's hope now was that NiGHTS and the Wind Guardian had taken the last two dreamers away somehow. But he thought it was unlikely. Donovan had been badly hurt though he hid it with a dragon's courage. Had they both been captured or killed? No. Surely not. If the last Guardian had fallen everyone would have known it. And NiGHTS was not one to vanish quietly without a fight - unless he was hiding somewhere. That was Finestill's hope.

In the dark hours of the early morning a sylph brought new tidings which plunged the cave into darkness blacker than before. Jackle, the Wizeman's second general, was roaming up and down the valley. On every hilltop he stopped and called a shrill proclamation. The Nightopian refugees were to show themselves. If they came out peacefully and gave up the four remaining dreamers (for the Wizeman knew their number), their lives would be spared. If they continued to resist they would be discovered, dragged out and executed as traitors to their sovereign lord.

"It's stupid," said Fulcrum the griffin, unofficial leader of the Mystic Cave Nightmaren. "How many times will they try the same thing? Lady Rowan refused them. Lord Donovan refused them. They cannot think that we will give in like cowards after that example." There were nods and murmurs of agreement.

But then a new sound cut through the hum of conversation. Phalanx came limping forward. He was not a white unicorn any more. His pelt was orange with the canyon dust and powdered deeper here and there with rusty streaks. His horn was stained brown with the same. He had not even bothered to wash after coming from the canyon. An awful gory figure he was as he stood before the assembly, his head low, his mane bedraggled and full of filth.

"Yes," he said in a low hateful voice. "The Earth Guardian refused the Wizeman's offer of mercy. She died. And the Wind Guardian did the same, and for that we endured far greater suffering. What do you think will happen the third time?"

They looked at him and were silenced.

"Give him the dreamers," Phalanx said. "The Wizeman has shown us what happens to those who oppose his will. Let's try doing what he wants. Whatever comes of it could hardly be worse than what has already happened." He turned and limped away into the darkness. For a long time there was silence and then the voices rose up in a babble of violent argument.

Asphodel had been in the audience. He listened for a while and then withdrew and went to find Finestill in the tent.

"We have to get the dreamers out of here," he said without ceremony.

"And where will we go with them?" said the kobold.

"Anywhere. It doesn't matter. If they stay here the Nightmaren will give them up to him."

"Perhaps that's for the best," Finestill said quietly.

Asphodel stared at him. "You can't mean that."

"How many more will die if we go on fighting, Asphodel? Phalanx is right. We've seen how the Wizeman deals with disobedience. Maybe it would be easier simply to accept him as our sovereign."

The unicorn gaped for a moment then struck the stone floor angrily. "If NiGHTS was here," he said, "he wouldn't allow this."

"But he isn't here," said the kobold. "And this is how things are."

 

 

~*~* FROZEN BELL ~*~*

At the foot of a peak there was a snow covered plateau. Here a pure mountain stream, cold as ice, ran out into the open from beneath a mound of snow and ice.

Now along this water course came drifting something large, floating first beneath the blue-green light of ice and then out into the brighter light of the early morning sun that gleamed low between two peaks of the encircling mountains.

They had their arms around each other. Amy was the first to find her feet. She lifted her head out of the water and flung back the wet and icy fronds of her hair. The river was only chest deep at its deepest point. They waded out together and fell into the snow upon the bank.

"Are you all right?" Amy said at length.

It had been like being dead, being under the earth in the darkness. It had been worse than the battle yesterday. NiGHTS surfaced only slowly from the safe place where he had sent his mind. If it had not been for the water's constant reassurance he thought he might never have found his way back to his body again. He would have been as a dreamer whose ideya had been taken.

He got up and shook off snow and clinging ice, and then nodded. She stood with him and they both looked back along the course of the river, following it until it disappeared beneath the ice and snow.

"Do you think he's dead?" Amy said.

NiGHTS shook his head. In the moment before they entered the earth he had felt Reala drill at the siren, knocking her off balance, and then sweep upwards towards the roof of the ice cavern. No matter if there was a hundred feet of ice between the djinn and the surface - he could melt his way out. No, he was alive. But that was okay: there was no sense of him on the wind. For the time being they were safe.

He looked up at the mountains surrounding the snow field. On the highest peak there was a strange edifice: a kind of tower, or rather a thin scaffold that might be the ruins of a tower or a tower under construction. Amy looked up as well. "That's where we need to go," she said. "Isn't it?"

He nodded.

"Then let's go." She held out her hand. He gave her his and they began to walk again, together.

"I'm sorry, but we really need to talk," said Amy after a little while. "Can I ask you some questions?"

He nodded again, somewhat reluctantly. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to be silent and have the chance to think about all the things that had happened in the past day-cycle. But he supposed she was owed an explanation.

The girl smiled slightly. "Okay then. First question: who or what is that guy we left back there?"

"He's Reala," NiGHTS said and thought for a moment. "He's a servant of the Wizeman."

"And who or what is the Wizeman?"

This was why he didn't like talking. Sooner or later you got asked a question like this: a question that was too big to answer. There were not words enough in the world to explain the Wizeman - the ancient efreet, as old as dreams - the blighted spirit of primal fire - he who had once been a Guardian but had turned to evil - the black lord of the nightmare - he who was a focal point of darkness as the Guardians were loci of the four elements.

"He's fire," he said. "He's hungry. He wants to be the ruler of the world. But if he wins he'll just eat it up, and everything in it."

"Sounds like someone who's best avoided," Amy said with an attempt at bravado. NiGHTS nodded wordlessly and her smile faded. "Next question then. What did that guy - Reala - do to me?" Fear flickered in her eyes at the memory.

"He took your ideya to give to the Wizeman."

"And now you know what my next question is going to be..." she prompted him teasingly.

NiGHTS had to smile for a moment. "Ideya," he said to collect his thoughts. "It's a... power... of the dreamers. Every dreamer has it. It's what lets a dreamer come here from the dreamer's world."

"Is that why I can't wake up?" Amy said.

He shook his head. "The Guardians closed the dreamer's path. Now that the Wizeman is free it's too dangerous to let the dreamers come."

"So I'm trapped here, basically, until these guardians decide to open the path again?" She looked frightened and beneath that a little angry. "What happens to me in the real world? I mean, am I just going to be asleep forever?"

They were getting into a sticky area. NiGHTS knew very little about how things worked for the dreamers. All he knew was what he had picked up from being merged with Claris and Elliot. It was at least more than any other Nightmaren knew, save perhaps the Guardians and the Wizeman. "I think..." he said cautiously, "time doesn't pass in the dreamer world. When you go back it will be the same."

"No matter how long I'm stuck here?" she said. He nodded, and saw tension seep slowly from her face and frame. "That's a relief," she said. He had not realised how worried she had been until now when at last he saw her relax. But in a few seconds a new worry clouded her eyes. "What happens if I die?" she said. "I mean, will I just wake up in bed?"

It was not unknown for dreamers to see their death in a dream. Some malicious Nightmaren made a sport out of entering dreams and attempting to kill the dreamer. But the point was that the dreamer never actually died. At the instant of death they would vanish, returning to their own world. Even those without ideya would return although they never came back to the dream realm afterwards. But now the dreamer's path was closed. He had no idea what that would mean for Amy. "I don't know," he said at last.

"At least you're honest," she said. "Just a couple more questions, okay?" He nodded. "If Reala is on the Wizeman's side, why are YOU helping me?"

"I don't like the Wizeman," he said a little puzzled.

"Short and to the point. Fair enough. Next question. If the Wizeman has my... ideya, you said... why is he still after me? I mean he's got what he wanted, hasn't he?"

"He wants you the same way he wants everything," NiGHTS said. "He's fire. He wants to kill the world."

"What have I walked into?" she said. He looked down curiously and she made a wan smile. "No, that wasn't a question. I was just thinking." She heaved a sigh then looked up towards the peak. They were nearly at the end of the snow field now. "Okay. This is my absolutely last and final question, I promise. What's this place we're going to, and why are we going there?"

"It's the home of the Wind Guardian. He hates the Wizeman too." NiGHTS thought for a moment. "He's the last Guardian left," he added. "Reala and the Wizeman killed the Lady Rowan, and Barachois and Campanile died in the battle."

"Battle?" Amy repeated, and could not help but glance at his sleeve. The blood was gone now: the water had washed it clean. "God," she said quietly and looked away again.

The way up the mountain was steep, and Amy made it harder than it should have been. She seemed to have no awareness of how to move. She consistently walked in a way that meant the wind was working against her rather than allowing it to help her ascend. Sometimes he thought she was almost trying to do it right - those were the times when her eyes seemed to look inward as if she was listening to the wind's advice. But then she would go on as she had been, grimly fighting upwards with her hair whipping at her face.

Once he said, "Do it this way," and showed her, but she didn't seem to understand.

Finally there was a place where the stone was sheer and exposed. Amy stopped and looked about her, baffled. Hovering behind her NiGHTS nearly danced with frustration. Why did she cling so to the earth? She was relying on the wrong element - could she not see? The wind was strong and more than willing. One little push and she would be free. He watched her reach and grope at the indifferent stone.

At last he could bear it no longer. He touched her shoulder. "Will you trust me?" he said.

"What?" She turned round.

"Will you trust me?"

"To do what?" The face was blank and stupid. He sighed angrily and held out his hand. Amy stared at him then slowly reached out her own. Their fingers slid together, locked.

Ha!

Too easy. One swift jerk did it - he got her free of the earth. The wind had been waiting for just this moment and eagerly it caught her. For one moment, for one startled fraction of a heartbeat she had it. It showed in her eyes. Then she let the wind go and fell screaming. NiGHTS dived and caught her under the arms. He carried her up and over the stone ledge to deposit her onto the shallow snow at the mountain peak. She fell on hands and knees and looked up at him with a murderous face.

"What the hell did you do that for?"

"Why don't you fly?" he asked.

Amy got to her feet and flapped her arms wildly. "Do you see wings?" she yelled in his face. Then she stalked off across the snow.

NiGHTS frowned at her back. She had had the wind. She had HAD it. And then she had let it go again. Her grasp of the element had been as a weak and wasted muscle - but she had still grasped it for just a moment.

The Wind Guardian's home was a tower at the highest point of Frozen Bell. But it was a tower unlike any other. There were no walls to obstruct the wind. The whole was supported by a scaffolding that moved freely within the elements; above was a maze of catwalks, gantries and platforms. The thin metal ladder was a courtesy to those of other elements that might wish to visit - those of the wind element had no need of them. Amy was making for the ladder that led up. NiGHTS sighed, exasperated, and followed her. He hovered up with her and watched her progress.

"If you drop me off again I'll kill you," she said and then wrapped her arms around a rung as the wind tugged at her. It was trying to help, but she couldn't see it. She clung to the ladder as if it was her friend. He sighed again but said nothing. If she did not want his help he would not offer it.

It was a long time before she reached the platform at the top. Her face was white and her arms shook as she hauled herself onto the thin wooden boards. Then she lay there for a long time. He sat on the rail and watched. Amy pushed herself to hands and knees and the wind rushed eagerly to explore the strange new visitor. It fingered her hair, ruffled the back of her shirt. She made herself into a knot of resistance beneath it and then began to crawl across the boards. NiGHTS stared, then went after her.

"Stand up," he said.

"The wind's too strong!" Her voice shook with fear.

"But you're the one fighting it," he said, more puzzled than anything. "You're pushing at it all the time."

"I don't understand!"

She was going to cry again. He didn't think he could bear that. He knelt beside her and laid his hand on her hunched back. "Listen," he said. "Don't fight the wind. It wants to help you. Just stand up and you'll see."

"It'll blow me off the edge!"

"No it won't."

"Don't let go of me," she said.

"I won't."

"Don't let go."

"I won't."

Slowly she got to her feet. She was still fighting it: she pushed it away hard, leaning her whole body forward. It gusted at her in retaliation and she met it fiercely and was thrown back. NiGHTS caught her. "Listen," he said again. "You're pushing it, don't you see?"

"But if I don't push it it'll blow me off the edge."

"No. Look." And he showed her as clearly and carefully as he could. And she did it: stood up properly for the first time, her eyes growing wider and wider. Her awareness was tenuous at best and she was as clumsy as a day-old kirin, but she was doing it now at least. He smiled at her and flew on to the next ladder.

Amy found it easier now that she wasn't fighting the wind every step of the way. But she was still painfully slow. He watched her closely up the next ladder concerned that she would lose her new found concentration. Before they reached the top a new presence forced itself on his own awareness. Vendaval was above.

He didn't like Vendaval very much. The spirit of the tempest was fractious and aggressive, given to spiteful acts to demonstrate her strength. Normally he steered clear of her - and she for her part stayed away from Nightopia's lower lands preferring the wild bare places. But Vendaval did not seem to be here to play, as he had momentarily feared. She was coiled into herself tight and tense like a snail in its shell. Something had upset her. He reached out a little further and found another presence which he was shocked he had not already noticed. Donovan was here. But the Wind Guardian was drawn in even closer than Vendaval: NiGHTS would not have noticed him if he had not looked.

Amy was oblivious to either presence. She went on climbing as the wind streamed her hair out horizontally to one side. She turned her head and looked at him without a smile then reached up to the next rung.

Vendaval flurried at her the moment she hauled herself up onto the platform, and NiGHTS had to get between them. The tempest was the dark blue-gray of a thunderhead, her hair billowing out around her as a mass of stormclouds. Her eyes were the colour of lightning. She towered threateningly over the both of them, and NiGHTS glared at her until she shrank and became normal sized and looked at him resentfully.

"It's you," she said.

"Who's she?" Amy asked breathless, clutching at his arm. "Are you the Wind Guardian?"

Vendaval laughed at her and swept away towards the far end of the long platform. She sat on the rail and stared imperiously at them both.

"She's Vendaval," NiGHTS said. "She's just a sylph. Donovan is the Wind Guardian." Amy said something else but he did not hear. His attention was on the black shape lying below Vendaval's dangling feet. So this was why Vendaval was so disturbed. The dragon was huddled on the boards, hunched into himself. The wind hummed with his pain.

Amy shook his arm. He turned to her. "That's him?" she said. He nodded and she took his hand and dragged him up the length of the platform. She was feeling it herself a little now: she was tense.

There was blood all over the boards where the dragon lay. Most of it was old and brown now but some still glistened wet. He opened his eyes as they approached, and NiGHTS felt the dragon's snarl and tried to pull back. Amy wouldn't let him. As if the Wind Guardian was nothing but a lowly sylph she plumped herself down on the boards beside him. Touched his shoulder - TOUCHED HIM! - and then looked at the stain on the tips of her three fingers. "Jesus," she said in a shaky voice. "Who did this to you?"

The dragon's eyes blinked and focused on her: the pain mist cleared a little. He looked at her without comprehension for a moment and then beyond her. "NiGHTS?" he said. Hesitantly NiGHTS came forward. "Who is this?" Donovan asked. His voice was as strong as ever. Who knew what it cost him to sound so steady?

"I'm Amy," Amy said. She looked again at the blood on her hand, and then up at NiGHTS, and then to Vendaval sitting on the rail. "Why don't you help him?"

"Help him?" repeated Vendaval.

"Well... bandages, or... stitches, or something! God! How can you just leave him like this?"

"He is the Wind Guardian," the tempest said. "What can we do?"

"You're hopeless, you're both hopeless," Amy said angrily. She took hold of a black tatter of the dragon's robe. An ugly gash was laid bare. She flinched at the sight.

"Are you a healer?" Vendaval asked curiously.

"I... I did a first aid course once. But... oh my God. I don't know..." Her face was deathly pale: she was breathing too fast. She closed her eyes for a moment. "Have either of you got anything we can use for bandages? Some cloth or something?"

They looked at each other. NiGHTS shook his head and shrugged. Slowly Vendaval reached up and drew a long silk scarf out of her hair. It rippled out the colour of the pale clouds above.

The dragon snarled again as Amy began to lift away the remnant of the robe, but she did not seem to notice the silver twist in the wind. NiGHTS stood tense behind her fearing that the dragon might lose control. Vendaval too was nervous, taut as a wire as she perched on the rail and watched.

"NiGHTS?" Amy said. Her hands were shaking. "Can you help me? Please?" He came reluctantly and knelt opposite. The dragon looked up at him for a moment and then delicately gave himself over to them both: NiGHTS felt the change in the wind, how it smoothed and softened out. He looked to Amy and nodded. Together they shifted the Wind Guardian onto his back and laid him out upon the floor.

Underneath the robe were a black silk shirt and pants. They were rent to ribbons and dried blood had glued fragments into the wounds beneath. That was bad. But the worst was to come. The left side of the robe was crusted down its length with old blood and damp with new. When they peeled the sticky fabric away they found out why. There was a ragged tatter of raw torn flesh at the wrist, a white nub of bone. "Oh my God," Amy said and turned her head away, squeezing her eyes closed. Her mouth drew down in a tight little curve. "His hand. Oh my God he's lost his hand." She sucked in air and pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment before turning back to look again. "Jesus. I don't know what to do."

They waited silently. After a minute Amy breathed out a long sigh. "Okay," she said. "Can one of you tear that into strips? And the other one can... I'm going to need help. I'm not sure... I've only done basic first aid for God's sake!"

"Do you know what you're doing?" the dragon mumbled as she began to wrap the awful wound.

"No, not really." Amy's voice was high and brittle.

"Oh, good." He turned his head away.

The sun was high in the sky by the time it was done - or rather, by the time Vendaval's silk scarf was all used up. NiGHTS had helped Amy cover up the worst injuries by wrapping the strips around them. At first he had wondered why, but then he guessed that it was to stop the blood from spilling. It was a remarkable idea. He had never known that you could do that. Patch up a person like a leaky bucket.

"We should get him inside," Amy said, and then looked about her and frowned.

"Inside what?" said Vendaval.

"Well... inside. Out of the wind."

"Why?" the tempest asked, amazed.

"What do you mean, why? He needs to rest!"

Donovan opened his eyes. "I'll rest here," he said, or rather growled.

Amy stared down at him. "But it's cold. And windy!"

"He is the Wind Guardian," Vendaval said, half laughing now.

The girl threw up her hands. "All right. Fine! You obviously know best." She looked back down at the dragon then. "Can't we do anything else for you? I'm... sorry... I did my best, but that's all I really know to do."

"It is a definite improvement," Donovan said with an effort. He closed his eyes. "Now go. Leave me. I will rest here. Alone."

"But..." Amy began again. NiGHTS reached out and touched her lips with his finger, shushing her. He took her hand and led her away: she went reluctantly, looking back to where the dragon lay. Vendaval waited for another few heartbeats and then let go of the rail and spun away into a gathering storm that was on its way southward.

 

 

They climbed another ladder and came to yet another smaller platform where wooden screens provided some shelter. Amy sat down where the wind couldn't get at her so much. "Are you really going to leave him there like that?" she asked. NiGHTS nodded. "You're not big on doctors here, are you?" He must have looked puzzled. "Doctors," she said. "You know. People who look after sick people."

"Healers?" he said, enlightened.

"Yeah, I guess."

He shook his head. "There aren't many healers. Healers aren't needed much."

"That guy down there is telling a different story," Amy said. "It looked like something chewed him up and spat him out. What happened, or don't you know?"

"It was yesterday," NiGHTS said. "He was fighting the Wizeman."

"Your Wizeman did that to him? Jesus."

"Not all of it was the Wizeman."

"That's reassuring," she said and leaned her head back against the creaking screen. "So that guy... he's the Wind Guardian? I thought he'd be like, some massive elemental thing or something."

"He's a dragon," NiGHTS said.

Amy sat up. "That old gray haired guy? You're telling me he's a DRAGON?" He nodded, trying not to smile at the description. Amy shook her head in disbelief. "Come on. Where's the wings? Where's the spiky horns and the long dragony tail? Where's the fire breath?"

"Dragons don't breathe fire. That's wyrms."

"That's what? No, hang on, of course dragons breathe fire. That is the POINT of dragons. Well, that and locking princesses up in castles, and... sleeping on top of mounds of gold and stuff. Oh, now you're laughing at me. Well that's great. Thanks a lot."

He rolled over and lay on the wind, still giggling at the image of the Wind Guardian lounging atop a mountainous pile of gold.

"I'm really hungry," Amy said. "Is there anything to eat?"

"Eat?"

"Oh God, tell me you people eat."

The sudden panic in her voice made him laugh again. He stood and stretched into the wind, feeling the currents and the drift until he knew exactly where he was in the world. "Wait," he said over his shoulder, and dived from the edge of the platform.

It was good to fly again at speed. He explored for a little while and let himself relax out of the spiky knot of determination and fear that had held him over the last day-cycle. This part of Frozen Bell was not well known to him and he spent some time getting to know the local wind before diving to the snow-free lower slopes of the mountains. It did not take long to find a suitable tree.

He had been away longer than he had thought: it was well into afternoon by the time he returned to the wind's tower. Amy was lying on her back with her arms and legs spread out, looking up at the sky. He landed lightly and handed her a branch with three apples and a few leaves still clinging to it.

"It must be great to be able to fly," she said as she accepted his gift.

"Why don't you?" he said.

She stared at him for a moment. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"What do you mean why not? I'm a human. I'm not a... whatever it is you are."

"But it doesn't make any difference," he said, puzzled.

"Trust me," said Amy, "it makes a lot." She polished a apple on the front of her t-shirt and bit into it with relish.

After a while NiGHTS drifted off and gave himself back into the wind. Amy was safe now, or as safe as she could be anywhere in the dream realm with the Wizeman loose. Nothing more could be done here until the Wind Guardian was stronger.

 

 

~*~* LATER ~*~*

She leaned on the rail and stared at the sunset. NiGHTS still hadn't come back. Amy wondered whether he was gone for good this time.

What a strange character he was. In fact, everyone she had seen had been strange. That awful grinning Reala who set fire to things just by being near them, the old guy who was supposed to be a dragon but looked like someone's grandfather in need of a haircut, a woman who was apparently made out of clouds... and a flying purple jester who might very possibly be insane.

The tower was so high that clouds were drifting by below. And that was another thing. What sort of person lived in a home without any walls on the top of the highest mountain in the world? If the thing had been just a little lower she knew she would have been too terrified to stand here like this, but it was so stupidly high it just felt unreal. The view was fantastic though.

Amy was still waiting to wake up. Sooner or later the alarm clock was going to go off and she'd sit up and put her clothes on and pick up her bag and go to school. At least that was what she hoped.

There was a soft sound behind her. She turned and saw the

(dragon?)

old guy stepping up painfully onto the platform, gripping the ladder support one handed. His other arm was held stiff at his side, carefully touching nothing. He had actually put back on the tattered old robe that was still gritty with his own blood. Bits of the makeshift bandages were visible through the holes. The silk appeared to have changed its colour and now matched the sunset.

"Um," she said. "I really don't think you should be moving around and stuff."

He raised his head and looked at her, and the back of her neck prickled. His eyes were dark brown or maybe black. He had the most intense stare she had ever seen. It made her feel as if he was looking straight through her eyes to the back of her skull.

"That's interesting," he said.

"Sorry?"

He came to her and looked hard at her. She dropped her eyes to the boards rather than meet that acute stare. But he put his hand under her chin and made her look at him until her head started to spin. Then abruptly he released her.

"I thought you were some sort of Nightmaren at first," he said. "I could feel you in the wind like a sprite or sylph. Now what has that idiotic sprite gone and done?" The question was not addressed to her: he had turned away thoughtfully as he spoke it.

"What's a Nightmaren?" Amy asked.

"A native of the dream realm. We are all of us Nightmaren - save for you, my dear." He glanced back at her with a faint thin smile.

"You're a Nightmaren? NiGHTS said you were a dragon."

"I am that too."

"You don't look much like one," she said.

His smile widened a little. "No, I imagine I am not looking my best right now. Despite your kind ministrations - for which, by the way, I am genuinely grateful."

"It's okay," she said. There was an awkward hesitation. "Look, you should really see a doctor or someone. I mean, your arm -"

"Will heal, given time."

"But you've -"

"I am well aware of that." He spoke with sharp authority and it silenced her where she stood. Dragon or not there was definitely something about him. He went to the edge now and stood there looking out towards the sunset, resting his hand on the flimsy wooden rail. Amy tried to keep her eyes off his other sleeve.

A minute later he said, "NiGHTS said I was a dragon?"

Amy rubbed one foot against the back of her other leg. "Well, yeah." Silence for a moment. "You sound kind of surprised by that."

"He talked to you?"

Now she grinned as she thought back. "Yeah. Eventually. He made me work for every word I got, though."

"NiGHTS doesn't talk," Donovan said. "In fact he's known for it. With most wind Nightmaren the biggest problem is getting them to shut up. But NiGHTS... I don't think I've ever heard him speak."

"I don't know why that is," she said, mainly for something to fill the silence. Then she thought of something. "So. Um... NiGHTS didn't like me asking questions very much. I managed to pry some stuff out of him but I think I'm actually more confused now than I was before."

"What is it you wish to know?"

"Well, that's the thing," she said. "I don't really know anything. There's some sort of... war... going on, and you and NiGHTS are on one side and some guy called Wizeman is on the other. You're a dragon and a guardian, and that creepy looking guy is called Reala and took something off me called an ideya. And I'm not allowed to wake up yet. And at the same time all of this is actually a dream and I'm tucked up asleep in bed."

He laughed quietly: a series of soft huffing breaths. "From that I gather one thing. NiGHTS is somewhat out of practice."

"So can you help me straighten all this out?" Amy asked with a smile.

For a long while he was silent watching the sun go down. Then at last he said, "My dear, I hardly know where to begin. I suppose... what you must know is that the Wizeman is one of the elder Nightmaren - perhaps the eldest living now with the passing of Lady Rowan. He is an efreet, a spirit of elemental fire, and he desires to rule the world for no better reason than to destroy it. I and my fellows were sworn to protect this realm and the folk that live in it. For a very long time that oath bound him also, for he was once himself a Guardian and would not risk the doom of breaking covenant. But the oath has now been broken by another, and the Wizeman is freed of his vow, and I am the last living who may still keep it." He bowed his head for a moment before turning to look at her. "I am afraid you have come here at the worst possible time. We are at war. Or rather, we have just lost a war."

"Sit down," she said helplessly. "You shouldn't be... You shouldn't be walking about. You lost a lot of blood."

"I'll live."

"They weren't even going to help you. They were going to sit and watch you die!"

"Believe me," he said with a thin smile, "I do not die that easily. Thanks to you I will recover sooner than I would have done. But the sylph and sprite were afraid to approach me - I can have a nasty temper at times - and in any case there was little that they could have done for me."

"It doesn't take much to tie a few bandages, though, does it?" she said angrily.

"No, but it takes a lot more to go up to a wounded dragon."

"You don't look very scary to me."

"You had better hope that I never take it into my head to scare you, then," he said.

After a little while Amy sat down. She hugged her knees and watched him standing at the rail as the sun slid down beneath the horizon's curve.

"What will happen to me now?" she said.

"Why did NiGHTS bring you here?"

"Um... I'm not exactly sure. Because you're a Guardian, I think. At first we were just running away from that Reala guy."

"Hmm," he said. "Well, you are safe here for as long as you wish to remain. I would say make yourself comfortable but I am afraid the Tor is not a very comfortable place for your kind, on the whole." He turned to face her fully and gave her a mischievous smile. "I'll assure you that I have no intention of locking you up in a tower or blowing fire at you."

"Oh my God you heard me." She put her hands to her face.

"That is something else you should be aware of. All Nightmaren everywhere are tied to one or more of the four elements. Mine is wind. Anything you say in the wind's hearing may come to me."

"I'll remember that from now on," she mumbled.

"Then I will leave you now," Donovan said. "You are cold and tired and likely hungry. I'll see what I can do about that." He walked to the ladder, paused there and looked back at her. "NiGHTS will be back soon."

"He's coming back then?"

"My dear," said the dragon, "he's a sprite. Curiosity will lead him back if nothing else does. Frankly you can count on it." And he swung himself down onto the ladder and was gone.

 

 

~*~* THE NIGHTMARE ~*~*

An island floated in a cloudy infinity. The isle was flat and smooth on top, rugged and earthy on the bottom: it was perhaps ten paces wide from end to end.

Reala had laid the dreamer's body down in this place. He had chosen it because it was far from anywhere and he would not be disturbed. He had chosen it also because the other generals did not know of it and he did not want to face the embarrassment of them all watching him attempt this ridiculous errand. He floated now cross-legged a few feet above the surface of the island, glaring down at the dreamer's unconscious face.

How ugly they all were - the little eyes, the soft plump bodies. He despised them all, this one as much as any. What ridiculous thing was this he was to do? Befriend a dreamer! This vile thing?

The Wizeman had chosen him because he was the greatest of the generals. It was an honour. He told himself this repeatedly. It did not help much - it did not change the fact that Reala had no idea how to set about this task. He didn't know how NiGHTS had restored the girl dreamer's lost spirit. He didn't know how he would befriend the dreamer if he succeeded. He did not have friends.

He had been sitting here like this for hours, pondering and pondering. He wished with all his heart that he had been sent to Nightopia instead. Let Jackle fawn over a worthless dreamer! Reala wanted to be doing something useful.

He reached down and plucked a loose pebble from the edge of the island. With a flick of his wrist he sent it spinning into oblivion. So, he thought, glancing back to the dreamer, would I like to do unto you.

Aloud he said, "Wake up."

The dreamer did not stir.

Reala stretched himself out like a cat and then lay down full length on the ground so that his face was only a foot from the dreamer's. Sprawled thus on his side, one arm bent beneath his head, he gazed deep into the still and silent visage.

Ugly-looking thing, he thought at last, and pushed back off the ground. He returned to his hovering position above the island. Another pebble caught his eye. He picked it up and flicked it maliciously downwards. It bounced off the dreamer's forehead. Not a motion, not a sigh.

Words did not work. Pain did not work. And the Wizeman had forbidden him to damage the dreamer in any serious manner. Reala was out of ideas.

Because he could think of nothing else to do, he cast his mind back to the dream whence he had first taken this boy's ideya. Hope it had been, the same golden hope that he had plucked later from the Wizeman's hand. He felt the warmth of that ideya within him now, like and yet unlike his own fierce flame. The boy had dreamed of flying - that was the hope dream. So easy to turn that flight into a fall.

A flying dream, Reala thought again, and the idea reverberated in his mind as the tolling of a bell. Was that how NiGHTS had done it? Could that be the secret?

He reached down and grasped the front of the dreamer's shirt in his talons: he lifted the body roughly and held it up. Now the dreamer stirred and frowned faintly as Reala's heat burst over him in waves of searing pain. The djinn grinned into the unconscious face.

"Sweet fool, do you want to fly?"

His grip tightened.

"Then fly."

He flung the body up, and out, and into the void.

As the wind rushed against the boy's face and billowed the neck of his t-shirt, as clouds brushed along his spine, something that had broken was not made whole but mended. The dream had been returned to him, given his straying spirit a path to follow back to its centre. His eyes trembled and cracked open and all around him he saw the stars. He was flying! A huge grin of sheer joy split his face.

But then gravity reached up and locked its claws around his neck. He felt his flight peak and then in a horrible lurch began to fail. He fell. Screaming, struggling, plummeting down at horrible speed through a wild blue inferno of smoke and gaudy sparkles.

And the demon swept down in a rush of heat and caught him roughly under the arms, and flung him up again in another wild and awful curve, and as he began to fall all over again he heard its wild laughter rising up to meet him...