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From their name, Magda had at first thought that they were able to steal into a person’s dreams while they slept, but Baraccus had explained that it was more sinister than that. They actually slipped into the infinitesimal empty spaces between thoughts, like water seeping into the voids of a sponge. It wasn’t that they used dreams to enter a person’s mind, it was more like they became the victim’s real-life nightmare.
Magda paced a few steps away, thinking, worrying. She hadn’t wanted to press her husband for details when he had returned. She had been so thankful that he had come back safely to her that she had just wanted to hold him.
She turned back. “Can a dream walker invade anyone’s mind?”
“Technically, yes, however entering a person’s mind is profoundly difficult, so, to help them, dream walkers use the victim’s gift. In essence, they seize control of a person’s own magic and turn it against them. Where dream walkers are concerned, having the gift is a dangerous liability.”
“What about the ungifted, like me?”
“It’s much more difficult for dream walkers to get into the mind of an ungifted person and even more difficult yet to control them. Not that it can’t be done, but it requires great effort. The real question is why would they want to? After all, dream walkers were created as weapons, so they would be expected to seek out high-value targets. That implies the gifted.”
“That makes sense,” Magda said as she tried to put the pieces of what she knew together with what she was learning. “But the person would be aware of it, wouldn’t they? They would know the dream walker had invaded their thoughts.”
“No, not necessarily. A dream walker can be in your mind, watching, listening, and unless they want you to know, you would be completely unaware of their presence. Once there, without you ever realizing it, the dream walker not only has access to all your thoughts, he can also overhear anything you hear—plans, defenses, names, anything that might be useful to the enemy.
“But if he wishes to, a dream walker can make his presence known and force you to do anything, or use you for any purpose he chooses. He can, for instance, use you to help him identify other important targets. You would be helpless to stop yourself.
“A dream walker often uses a seemingly harmless individual as an extension of himself, as a tool—in other words, as a surrogate assassin. People who are gentle or even timid offer a perfect cover. If he wants, a dream walker can force even such a person to assassinate their closest friend or a loved one.
“A dream walker’s control is absolute. He can remain hidden and you won’t even know he’s there, or be an insidious presence, whispering suggestions that you interpret as your own thoughts. If he wishes it he can make his presence all too clear by exerting complete control over your actions, or, as I’ve seen with my own eyes, give pain beyond imagining.”
Magda folded her arms as she paced, her alarm growing by the moment. As she walked past them, she cast a suspicious look at the two towering, silent guards standing with their broad backs to the doors. Their eyes rarely left her. For all she knew, a dream walker could be in their minds.
“Then they could be here in the Keep already. They could already know all our defenses, all our plans.” She tapped her temple. “For all we know, they could be in our minds right now, listening, watching, waiting to pounce.”
Lord Rahl’s brow twisted with doubt. “I don’t think so. Dream walkers are newly created weapons. They haven’t had those abilities for very long. Imagine how difficult it would be for someone newly turned into a dream walker to learn to accomplish anything useful.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you right now had the power to enter the mind of the enemy down in the Old World, how would you pick a useful person? Even if you knew the name of a target, if you weren’t looking right at them how would you find that one person out of all the millions of minds down there? How would you know who to look for, or where they might be? How would you search for the one mind you wanted? If you were trying to target enemy officials, how would you even know who they were? How would you identify them and then find them? Where would you look?”
He shook his head. “It can’t be easy to establish the right links. I have no doubt that they will soon enough be able to spread like a wildfire through our ranks—and through the Keep—but if we’re lucky we still have a bit of time.”
“Time? Time for what? Dear spirits,” Magda said as she lifted her arms in frustration, “we’re helpless against them. What good is a bit of time going to do us? We really do stand at the brink of annihilation.”
“Not entirely,” Lord Rahl said. “Baraccus’s task was to eliminate the source of the dream walkers. My part in this was to create a counter for the ones who already exist.”
“But without a dream walker how will you know how their power functions, or be sure what they’re capable of? For that matter, how can you know for certain that any counter you create really works?”
At that moment, at seeing the look that came into his eyes, Magda for the first time fully understood why this man was so feared. There was terrible resolve there, and terrible conviction.
“Because,” he said, “we captured one.”
Magda was stunned into silence for a moment. “You actually captured a dream walker?” she finally asked. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“How do you know he’s really a dream walker?”
“There is no mistaking them. Looking into their eyes is like looking into a nightmare. Their eyes are entirely black, black like that evil thing you described that Baraccus showed you and then took with him to lock away in the underworld. When a dream walker looks at you, clouded shapes shift across the inky black surface of their eyes, eyes so black that they seem as if they might suck the sunlight out of the day and turn the world into everlasting night.”
“I remember well the black thing Baraccus showed me.” Magda rubbed her arms, unable to turn away from the look of bottled fury in Lord Rahl’s eyes. “Were you able to gain his cooperation, or learn anything useful from him?”
The knuckles of his fists were white. “He killed a lot of my people, people I loved, and he forced me to kill some of those innocent people he possessed lest he kill me by their hand. He caused us a great deal of trouble, but in the end I was able to use him to unlock the secrets of their power.”
Magda didn’t ask how he had gained the dream walker’s cooperation. It was wartime. They were in a struggle for their very existence. Every day lives were being lost in that struggle. Countless more innocent lives were at stake. From what she had heard, if there was one thing the D’Harans were good at, it was knowing how to make people tell what they knew.
“I had to devote a great many resources to the task,” he said, “but it was necessary and the results were worth it. I finally created a counter to block their ability.”
Magda wasn’t sure that she had heard him correctly. She took a step closer. “You mean you can actually stop them?”
Lord Rahl nodded. “I was able to construct a very complex spell that I actually propagated within myself. That magic is now part of who I am, a part of every fiber of my being. In a way, I, too, have become more than I was before, much like the weapons we create out of people. That new ability now completely shields my mind from the dream walkers.”
She gripped his forearm. “You’re certain?”
“Yes. I tested it on our dream walker.”
“But how can you be certain that he wasn’t pretending that he couldn’t enter your mind?”
He arched an eyebrow. “With what was being done to him at the time, and for as long as it was being done, I promise you, if he could have gotten into my mind to stop me, he would have.”
“So the magic you created is our salvation, then.”
“Yes and no.”
She felt her hopes yet again slipping away. “What do you mean?”
“I was able to create a counter to the dream wal
kers, and it works perfectly. The problem was that it only worked for me. I tried but I can’t re-create a similar ability in others. It’s a power specific to me, to my inherent nature.”
Magda’s heart sank. “So the rest of us are to remain at the mercy of the dream walkers.”
“Not exactly. I finally succeeded in creating a way to protect other people as well. Part of the ever-escalating balance of power I spoke of before. Those in the Old World may have gotten a temporary advantage with the dream walkers, but I created a counter for them—and I now have a way for that counter to protect others as well. I can check the enemy’s plans.”
Magda eyed him suspiciously. “What’s the problem, then?”
“The Central Council. Most of the D’Haran Lands have accepted the solution I’ve created and are now safe from the dream walkers. We need the council to help us implement the same protection here. That’s why I need you to speak with them. I’ve already tried to convince them of the danger we’re in and the necessity of my solution, but without Baraccus to lend his support they won’t listen to me.”
Magda pressed her fingers to her forehead, frustrated that he still thought she could somehow tell the council what to do. “If they won’t listen to the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D’Haran Lands, they certainly aren’t going to listen to me.”
“They’ve listened to your arguments for several years and know that your appeals are always important and well reasoned. They’re used to having you speak before them. They’ve often gone along with your proposals. On the other hand, they’ve always been suspicious of me and aren’t inclined to listen with a open mind to anything I say.”
“Lord Rahl, I wish it was otherwise, but I don’t think—”
“If they won’t listen to you now about something this important, and they don’t do what is needed, then the people of the Midlands will have no way to guard their minds.”
