SLEEPWALKERS
Karigan saw the grove as it was meant to be seen, the
trunks of the trees grand columns of silver, not mottled by rot or
disease. The full moon shone through the canopy, glistening on the
tips of pine needles and casting shadows of interlaced tree limbs
on the forest floor. Pale flowers blossomed in the moonlight,
suffusing the air with a pleasant fragrance. Crickets chirruped and
the fluting song of the wood thrush rose and fell through the
grove.
Karigan had not felt
such tranquility since . . . She did not know when. She turned to
gaze at the castle and understood the legend of Laurelyn’s castle
of moonbeams, for the towers gleamed like the extension of moon
glow.
“It’s beautiful,”
Karigan murmured, and she realized with a start that her vision was
no longer doubled, no longer overlain by the darkness wrought by
Blackveil. She saw only this one shining world.
Yes, I preserved this piece of time and set it aside so it
would remain unmarred, Laurelyn said. From here I shall rouse the Sleepers. They will not be the
dark beings you witnessed in your present, but Eletian Sleepers as
they should be. You will lead them to safety.
“How am I supposed
to do that?”
Laurelyn gazed at
the moon, her face aglow in its silver light. I’ve enough strength left to create a temporary bridge.
There were once other bridges out of Argenthyne, but those were
destroyed long ago.
Karigan began to
grow suspicious about where such a bridge would take
her.
As though Laurelyn
perceived her thoughts, she said, The bridge
will take you to an island in a transitional place. I believe you
have been there before?
Her words confirmed
Karigan’s suspicions. The white world. She sighed, and
nodded.
Good. You will know not to become distracted there.
When Karigan nodded again, Laurelyn continued. The island is small, smaller than the castle chamber you
found me in. There you shall find a second bridge, a more permanent
bridge. You shall lead the Sleepers across it to Eletia’s
grove.
“Eletia?
Truly?”
Laurelyn smiled
again. Truly. However, I must warn you, I do
not know if Eletia’s time will correspond to this piece of time. If
you meet anyone there, it is difficult to know how they shall
receive you, for they are intolerant of intruders. Once they see
you’ve Argenthyne Sleepers with you, they should prove
accepting.
If they didn’t kill
her first. “Will the Sleepers follow me?”
Yes, you’ve the light of the silver moon on you. Some
would call you Laurelyn-touched. When I rouse the Sleepers, they
will not be fully awake, more akin to sleepwalkers, and they will
do as I command, which will be to follow you. When they reach the
grove in Eletia, some may awaken fully. Others will simply
gravitate to one tree or another and continue the long
sleep.
It sounded simple
enough. Deceptively simple. The white world was never
simple.
“Why can’t you lead
the Sleepers yourself?” Karigan asked.
I no longer exist beyond the grove. You, daughter of
Kariny, are the one who can cross thresholds.
Karigan
sighed.
You must maintain your ability the whole time,
Laurelyn instructed, or all will be lost. Once
you safely reach Eletia, you may let it go and you will be
propelled to your present time, but in Eletia. Or, you could hold
on to it until you return here. I can maintain the bridge for a
while.
“My companions . .
.” She swallowed hard. In this place, in this piece of time, she
had almost forgotten about them. She closed her eyes. Surely none
of them survived, but Laurelyn had said she could change outcomes .
. .
Then Karigan
suddenly understood. “By my doing this, there won’t be any
Sleepers—the tainted ones—to attack my companions in the present
because I will have taken the Sleepers away in the past.” It made
her head spin, but there was logic to it.
Laurelyn nodded.
Be aware, however, that I’ve not been able to
preserve the entire grove. My power has waned over these many years
while I awaited you, and the fringes of the grove have slipped from
my protection, so your companions will still be up against many
enemies.
“Still better odds
than against all of them,” Karigan murmured.
You should also know that I was unable to protect the
Sleepers in Argenthyne’s other groves. I fear one day they, too,
shall be a threat to your people.
“Mornhavon destroyed
the grove in Telavalieth,” Karigan told her.
Then pray it is so for the others. Now, daughter of
Kariny, we must get you on your way, because the more time that
passes, the more my strength ebbs. First the
bridge.
Laurelyn raised her
hands to the moon and her palms filled with light. She then cast
the light from her and it beamed in a glowing arc through the
woods.
Moonbeams? “That ...
that’s the bridge?” Karigan asked in incredulity.
Do not fear. It shall hold you, and the Sleepers,
too.
Laurelyn began to
sing, a melodious song without words, unearthly and unlike anything
Karigan had ever heard before. She shivered. Laurelyn’s voice rose
and expanded through the grove, flowing between the trees and up
into the canopy.
Figures emerged from
behind the trees and walked toward them, as though in a dream,
unaware of their surroundings. These were not the creatures that
had attacked Karigan and her companions. They were beautiful as all
Eletians were, and untainted by the dark. Gradually hundreds stood
arrayed before her and Laurelyn’s song faded. She spoke to them in
Eletian, but they showed no signs of comprehension or
wakefulness.
These are my people, Laurelyn told Karigan.
All that remains of them. Among them are
friends, confidants, and heroes of another age. Artists, poets,
smiths, and architects. Please help them reach Eletia so something
of Argenthyne lives on.
“I will,” Karigan
said, only now fully appreciating the responsibility she was taking
on.
Then cross the bridge. They will
follow.
Karigan turned to
leave.
Thank you, Laurelyn said. And
remember, do not tarry in Eletia if you wish to return and aid your
companions. My time is ending, and I shall not be able to hold the
bridge for long.
Karigan nodded, then
trotted down the terrace steps and walked between the Sleepers to
reach the bridge. The Sleepers fell in behind, following her in
silence. It was eerie.
When she reached the
bridge, she gazed skeptically at it, or rather through it, for the
moonbeams were translucent and she could see the ground beneath,
which was not at all reassuring. She shook her head and took one
step onto the bridge, and then another. It supported her just as
Laurelyn said it would.
She continued with
more assurance. It was as steady as walking on stone, but the
bridge was narrow, and being able to see through it continued to
disconcert her. She picked up her pace, and as she approached the
apex of the arch, the way ahead grew cloudy, indistinct. She took a
breath and plunged ahead.
The scents of the
grove, the gentle air and sounds, vanished. Karigan emerged into
the white world blinking. She’d begun calling it the “white world”
the first time she’d passed through it, for the sky and the ground
were both the same milky white color. She’d learned since that it
was the space between the layers of the world, a transitional place
just as Laurelyn had said. The two times she’d traversed its
plains, she’d been confronted with visions, some metaphorical, some
positively nightmarish. Once she had even seen the after-math of a
battle, the ground strewn with the corpses of her friends . . . and
the king.
At the moment she
was enveloped in the white of the sky. The white world had a
bleaching effect on her uniform as if color was not tolerated. And
down below? She swallowed hard. Her previous passages through the
white world had shown her a landscape of only featureless plains.
This time she walked above a chasm so deep she could not perceive
its bottom. She heard no water below, felt no updrafts or breezes,
just saw the plunging depths where shades of white turned to shades
of gray, and darkened beyond that.
Karigan had never
feared heights, but she hastened her steps until she felt the solid
white ground of the island beneath her feet. The Sleepers were
right behind her, crossing the bridge in an orderly file. She
thought them fortunate to be unaware of their
surroundings.
It was the chasm
that made the island an island; there was no milky sea or lake
surrounding it. As Laurelyn had told her, the island was not even
as large as the chamber that had housed the moondial. Karigan
spotted the bridge on the other side that was supposed to cross
into Eletia. It was a more ordinary looking bridge of stone and
mortar.
She paced, waiting
to ensure each and every Sleeper made it across the moonbeam bridge
onto the island before she set off again. As each Eletian stepped
off the bridge, she wondered if he or she were a poet or great
hero. What had motivated them to take the long sleep? What were
their names? What had they seen in their long lives? She cleared
her throat and said hello to several of them, but none replied.
They were entirely unaware of her, their eyes distant, filled with
stars that did not exist here.
A gap opened on the
bridge. A Sleeper hesitated on the arch, his posture different,
less erect. Had he awakened while crossing? If so, he was probably
startled to find himself on a translucent bridge spanning a strange
chasm in the white world. Shocked was more like it. She decided
she’d better help him.
She started back
across the bridge. When the Sleepers started to follow her, she
raised her hand and said, “No, stay.” For some reason, they obeyed
and remained on the island.
Her relief was
short-lived, for as she approached the arch, she realized it wasn’t
one of her Sleepers standing there, but
one of the tainted ones from Blackveil.
“Oh, no,” she
whispered.
A second appeared
through the haze behind him.
She started to back
away, her staff held before her. How was she going to get her
Sleepers across the second bridge to Eletia with these tainted ones
behind them? It would be a massacre.
The first tainted
one snarled and lunged.