The Children of Hypnos

[Vol. 2] Chapter 26: War and Peace

Some dream-barrier blocked all noise from the outside, so even though Emery could see Temper fighting at the broken portcullis, even though she could make out the golden bolts of Moxie's ballista firing into the horde of nightmares, no noise reached them in the castle's entrance hall.

But the castle wasn't silent. A soft, plucking music came from one of the many open doorways off the main hall, perhaps up the main staircase, repaired where it had once been broken in Klaus's dream, or from the dark arches high above their heads.

They all looked around for the source as Marcia hurried them toward the staircase, but none of them said a word. Emery knew where it came from: it came from Morrigan, because it was just the kind of goofy pageantry she herself would have tried when Joel was still alive. Horsemen of the apocalypse, a castle in the desert, creeping music.

The light cut off behind them. Someone—probably Temper, hopefully Temper—had thrown up a dreamform wall over the broken front door. They stood in darkness on the stairs for one moment, until their eyes adjusted to flickering green light from the torches set on the walls. After another second of soft strings plucking in depths of the castle, Marcia led the way forward.

At the top of the stairs was another set of double doors, iron-banded like the front entrance, with large iron rings to open them. When Marcia set foot on the top step, torches flared to life on either side of the doors, bathing them in sickly green light.

Marcia paused, then tapped at one of the iron rings with three fingers.

"I don't like that there haven't been any traps," she said.

"What are you expecting?" Emery asked, a little wary herself. "Pressure switches in the floor? Poison darts?"

"Actually, yes." Marcia took hold of the ring and pulled.

The door burst open. Marcia fell backward into Emery as a sheen of metal sliced through the space where Marcia had been; an enormous axe head buried itself deep in the stone staircase. Klaus's dream-Marcia, the knight in black armor, yanked at her own axe, trying to dislodge it while green waste oozed from the stitched skin along the side of her head.

Wes's hammer slammed a dent in her black iron pauldron and rebounded off with a ringing clang, sending Wes stumbling. The dent was deep but not deep enough, and Dream-Marcia abandoned her axe and righted herself, focusing now on the only person left in her path.

Ridley stared at her, unmoving.

"Hey!"

Marcia shoved herself off the staircase. Dream-Marcia turned and got a fistful of her living self to the jaw, an uppercut that blew her into dream-cloud. The cloud was swallowed by her surroundings. Her axe followed her a moment later.

The real Marcia rubbed her knuckles and grimaced. "I won't be able to do that too many times. Klaus's dreams are stronger than before. He's deeper in his Prime." She picked up her own axe where it had clattered down the stairs and wiped at the curve of the blade.

Emery and Wes peered through the now-open door. Beyond was a hallway lined with tall windows, easily the length of three of four football fields, far too long to fit inside the outer dimensions of the castle. The door at the far end looked smaller than Emery's pinky nail.

"This might be your trap room, Marcia," Wes said. He scraped the doorframe with his fingers and was able to dreamform a little of the stone into his hand. He tossed it in the room; pebbles scattered over the worn red carpet runner. Nothing happened. "Or not."

"I'll go last this time," Marcia said. "Who's the most agile? The quickest?"

Wes looked at Emery, but Emery knew it was Ridley. She weighed the least, and she was lightning quick in a fight—assuming she wasn't paralyzed with fear.