What Dreams Shadows Cast by Barbara J. Webb

Author:Barbara J. Webb [Webb, Barbara J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frontiers
Published: 2016-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Vogg

The trouble was, who should I talk to?

Spark was busy doing important things. I didn’t want to disturb her. Especially when I didn’t have a clear idea of what was wrong. She liked facts and evidence and I didn’t have anything more than hunches and suspicions.

Ash was looking for shadows. We all were. But after what I’d just seen…I wasn’t sure Ash would listen to everything I told him. I wasn’t sure I could trust him not to listen only to what he wanted to hear.

Which left Dawn, who I didn’t know. But Iris trusted Dawn, and I trusted Iris.

I found Dawn in the camp, walking around alone with an unfocused look on his face. It was close enough to what I’d seen below to send a flash of worry through me, but my ears had no more than flapped open and closed when he looked up and back, and stopped, waiting for me to catch up. “Vogg,” he said in genial welcome.

“I apologize if I’m interrupting.”

“No. At least…well, no.” He gave me a rueful smile. “I find myself hoping for the strike of inspiration, or that this itchy feel of magic will suddenly snap into focus, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen in the next ten minutes. What’s on your mind?”

“There’s something not right here. Not right…even more than Priest Ash thinks.”

“Priest Ash doesn’t know everything,” Dawn said with a smile. “Walk with me?”

I followed him out of the camp, through the front gates and out into the desert. He didn’t say why, but my breathing eased once we were well out of range of Jansynian cameras and Jansynian microphones, and I suspected his did the same. It felt good to be able to talk without worrying about who might be listening.

We found a strip of sand, still burning hot from the afternoon sun. It felt good to sink my toes into it, to feel its rough texture against the scales of my feet. I dug my claws deep as we walked.

Dawn said, “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Something is wrong.” I was repeating myself, but Dawn only nodded patiently, encouraging.

People were missing. Jansynians were missing, and no one seemed to care. Maybe Treyvaan cared, but I couldn’t be sure. My friend—the man I thought was my friend—had been missing for two days.

These were my thoughts. What I said was, “Shadows—there may be something other than shadows. Or there may be shadows. I don’t know.”

My words were incoherent. I tried again. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

That was all I could say. When I tried to talk about bad dreams, about bad feelings, my brain squirmed sideways.

“It doesn’t feel right.”

And that was the end of the words I could form.

Dawn nodded. “I understand. There’s an atmosphere here—a…I don’t know. Maybe it’s the radiance. Maybe it’s something else. I haven’t figured it out yet.”

What was wrong with me? I nodded, but couldn’t force my tongue to any further words. The more I tried, the harder it became to think. The desert started to dim.

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