The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

The Wall, part 2

Dedicated to @ayemerelydia for kicking my butt and asking me to post the next part.

I'm pretty excited about this part... Enjoy!

       

Liran

The gate itself was a small, perfectly round looping wrinkle in the wall that hardly resemble anything Imorah or Liran knew of a 'gate.' There was no break in the wall, it just looped back on itself, creating a perfectly circular space inside that was completely out of sight of the crowd.

But Liran could still hear the crowd. They were taking bets. He stepped over the threashold of the circle, and suddenly the noise disappeared.

He looked at Imorah.

"What?" she asked, and shook her head.

"There's no noise here."

"I can't hear you," she said.

Liran repeated himself, speaking loud and clear.

Imorah shook her head.

He walked back over the threshold and the noise from the crowd returned.

"There's no noise over there."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said!" He put his hand over the threshold to see if it felt strange, but he felt nothing.

Imorah walked over the threshold and Liran followed.

"It must be a way to protect people from hearing The Language, otherwise, everyone would be able to get inside."

Liran nodded. That made sense, although it was spooky. He looked around. "There's nothing in here. It's so clean. And there's no one here." He was feeling quite anxious. "How are we supposed to speak The Language if there is no one to speak The Language to?"

"I don't know." Imorah replied, defensively.

"You don't know?! Maybe you should have thought of that before charging ahead. That you don't know everything!" He was frustrated. The entire day had been too much already and now this on top of all of it. He wanted to crawl into a hole and fall asleep. He looked up through the cylinder created by the tall wall at the night sky and the stars above them.

Despite his mood, he couldn't help but be awed that he was finally here. How had he gotten here? Never in all of his life had he thought he would be at the gates of the City. So far, it was as horrible and majestic as it had been made out to be and he wasn't even inside yet.

Imorah was walking the perimeter of the circle, looking for something, presumably.

"Imorah, that guard will be more than happy to see us return from here."

"We're not going to return from here, Liran."

"Aaayaaahhh..." he breathed out softly. He closed his eyes and tried to centre himself. Imorah was so strange. Arrogant, emotional, and somehow annoying brilliant. She somehow knew things that she couldn't possibly know. She had surprised him many, many times on their voyage and hopefully she would surprise him again.

He sat down to wait for her. "Do what you need to. I'm just going to sit here and eat something."

Imorah continued searching, and got down on her hands in the dark. "I wish we could light a small fire."

"Here, take the light, but I don't think you're going to find anything." Liran dug through the bag and handed it to her.

Then he took out a meal bar and relaxed against the bag. He looked up at the stars, chewing and trying not to feel nervous. Trying not to think about the guard out there. He wondered if he had anything in his pack to help them get away. But there was a mob out there... it was unlikely they could evade everyone. Would the mob, hungry for blood, let them go? He doubted it.