AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm a dreamwalker. I'll go in on the astral."
Rhiannon shook her head. "No--it's too dangerous. You could be hurt."
"There's always that chance, but if the odds are with me, they won't notice me before I can get away. The key is, you guys have to be ready to run. You'll have to run fast and hard because they're stronger than we are. But if I can get in there without them knowing, I might be able to pinpoint how to actually enter the Barrow." He handed me his backpack. "Keep this for me, please. It has some important items in it . . . just in case."
"You aren't serious about this--" I began to say, then stopped. Of course he was serious. None of us would be here if we weren't. I'd been ready to stomp right in there and that would have been far more likely to get me caught than if Kaylin slipped in on the astral. "What do you need in order to go in?"
He glanced around. "We need to find a place to hide. I'm going to have to lie down to prepare for this."
Ask if you can go with him, Ulean prompted.
I blinked. Say what? I was no dreamwalker and while Kaylin had a century of experience, could he really take another person with him?
Just ask him. I can go with you.
Score one for scaring me shitless. But Ulean could see farther than I could and she apparently knew something I didn't. I tapped Kaylin on the arm. "Listen, do you know how to take somebody with you? Can you do that?"
He jerked around, giving me a hard look. "Why do you ask?"
I shrugged. "Ulean told me to ask if I could go with you."
When Kaylin spoke again, his voice was cold. "I won't risk your life, Cicely. There's no guarantee that they won't have some sort of anti-magic field that will negate the spell. What happens then?"
"Tell me exactly what it is that you do. Then let me make the decision." I sucked in a deep breath.
Rhiannon shook her head. "Bad idea. Don't let her talk you into it." She scuffed her feet. Neither she nor Leo looked happy at my request.
Kaylin let out a long sigh. "When I dreamwalk, I go into a deep trance--and yes, I can drag someone along with me. At some point--it's hard to explain how it happens--I see a door. When I go through it, my body turns to shadow. To the stuff dreams are made of. I can move around in shadow-form and so can whoever I have taken with me. I can spy on people, but I can't take action. I can't get in a fight, for example."
I thought about it for a moment. "Is there a time limit?"
He nodded, slowly. "Of sorts. If I stay out on the astral too long, I run the risk of not being able to come back. I could be trapped as a shadow entity."
"And how long is too long?"
"I don't know," he said. "I've never been out longer than an hour. I believe it depends on the power of the dreamwalker, whether someone else is in tow . . . a number of varying factors. And there's another little matter: There are creatures out there, and not all of them are nice."
Oh, this was just getting better and better. Ulean had really set me up. "So we go walking into the shadow and we might not come back. And there could be nasty critters. Can we fight them while we're there? You said we couldn't fight from the astral."
"We can't--not anything on the physical plane. But yes, we can defend ourselves against anything that's out on the Dreamtime. That is, if we're stronger than they are. Chances of that aren't very good." He gave me a quasi-grin. "You still want to come with?"
"Maybe . . ." Only I didn't. But Ulean thought it was a good idea and she'd never steered me wrong yet. "You mentioned something about if the spell is negated . . . what happens then?"
"Then we run like hell. If we can. If the spell's disrupted--whether by accident or design--we appear in body wherever we're at. In other words, if we're hiding out near the ceiling over a group of hungry Shadow Hunters and someone negates the spell, our bodies will resolidify and we'll fall right into the middle of the group. And probably land very, very hard. This isn't easy. Dreamwalking is dangerous." He lowered himself to a nearby windfall and leaned his elbows on his knees, whistling softly.
I glanced at the Twin Oaks. If we went through in body and there were Vampiric Fae on the other side, we were doomed. We'd never get away from them. And nothing Grieve--or anybody--could do, would save our butts.
"Okay, I'm in! Let's do this!" I sucked in a deep breath. "Rhiannon, Leo, you guys need to hide--and I mean hide but good. Whatever happens, don't come after us. If we don't come back--"
"Don't say that!" Rhiannon bit her lip, on the verge of tears.
"If we don't come back," I said again, with emphasis, "then get your butts out of this wood, tell the vamps what happened to me, and don't look back. Get out of town before nightfall."
Leo slid his arm around Rhiannon's shoulders. "Please rethink this. We can't afford to lose either of you."
"With a little luck and some common sense, you won't have to," Kaylin said. "But Cicely's right. This is our best chance to find out what's going on in there. We won't stay long, just get the lay of the land so we know what we're facing, and then come back. We won't take any unnecessary risks, will we?" He looked at me, pointedly.
I shrugged. "I wasn't planning on it, no. I'm not a lunatic. But Ulean thinks I should go with you, and she's usually spot-on. I've come to trust her over the years--she's saved my butt more than once."
