(YA Fantasy, 83K words)
Since Mom went to prison, the Nevada foster system sent me to Minnesota to meet an Uncle Joe I never knew I had. Snow loses its charm after five days. Only music and the dreams make my life bearable.
The weird thing is that elements of the worlds are bleeding into each other. Someone is trying to kill me, and I’m not sure who: the criminal underworld, the elves, or the crazy wizard causing these freaky storms.
http://www.amazon.com/Messenger-Behind-Walls-Sleep-Scott-ebook/dp/B00JKT4FN0
SAMPLE of Messenger
Copyright 2014 Scott Rhine
Chapter 1 – Family and Other Strangers
Everything wrong in Daniel’s life rippled outward from that
one horrible moment.
Twice a week, Mom drove his brother
to therapy. At fourteen, a bored Daniel listened to music on his earbuds in the
front seat. The songs were all the same, but now the tempo changed. They left
the freeway at the usual off-ramp, heading down onto surface streets. Only this
time, instead of slowing, they accelerated. Mom frantically pumped the brakes.
Daniel looked up to see the red
light streak past.
Over a month of pain in the hospital
was nothing compared to the instant he knew exactly what was going to happen. When
Mom took her hands off the wheel to cover her face, his childhood ended.
****
The Nevada foster system stuck Daniel
on a plane to spend Thanksgiving week with his newly discovered Uncle Joe in
Minnesota. On Sunday night, a tall stranger greeted him at the airport baggage
claim. “Over here, boy.”
Daniel pointed to himself in the
universal sign for “Who me?” This guy
seems to recognize me, but he could be anybody.
The man tossed him an old varsity
jacket several sizes too big with the name ‘Larsen’ on the back.
I
guess that’s all the ID he’s going to offer.
Joe Larsen’s corn-silk hair was
thinning, and his hands were calloused. “You’re here on a trial basis.” Then he
led the way to the parking lot.
Almost a foot shorter, Daniel jogged
to keep pace. The sum total of his worldly possessions slapped against his leg.
When they stepped outside, his nose hairs froze at the first intake of breath. In
minutes, they were driving onto the freeway in frigid silence. Daniel squeezed
his eyes shut and turned up his iPod. He didn’t want to see what would happen
if a tire blew or they hit an ice patch going seventy miles an hour. He
clenched his bag with sweaty hands.
By song ten, he had relaxed enough
to play along on an invisible keyboard. Music and intense concentration insulated
him from the rest of the world. Around song twenty-two, they slowed for a
driveway. The Larsen farmhouse was a century old with a tin roof, wood stove,
and plenty of character. Daniel had never seen snow before.
By the fifth day, the novelty had
worn off.
On Thanksgiving morning, Daniel set
the dining-room table and filled the relish trays. In the kitchen, he asked his
Aunt Martha what else he could do. Her blue eyes had faded like jeans washed
too many times. Even though she always seemed tired, she didn’t want his help.
“Men only snitch food and get underfoot. Go spend time with your cousins,” she
insisted, adding milk to a massive bowl of mashed potatoes.
A man’s place was in the TV room. Tuned
in for the 10:30 a.m. pre-game show, his four older cousins had already filled
all available space on the furniture except the recliner reserved for his
uncle. I couldn’t fit in if I tried. He
was brown-eyed, with a suntan and wavy, black hair. By contrast, the Larsen
boys were tall, blond, corn-fed football players: Joe Junior, Jason Joe, Jimmy
Joe, and Joshua, the rebel who planned to letter in wrestling.
Home from the army, Junior took a
swig of his beer and discussed the deer hunt that morning. They were all decked
out in winter camouflaged fatigues. Daniel wore pajamas and sneakers. After a
car commercial, the conversation shifted to trucks. Jason painted custom vans
but still lived at home. He put in a plug of tobacco and spit into a paper cup
that once held coffee. Daniel shuddered at the thought of putting either in his
mouth. Jimmy rarely spoke, except about woodworking or tools. After sinking
several screws into a wall, he was known to say, “That’s not going anywhere.”
Daniel couldn’t have had less in
common with these guys. With no video games permitted in this ‘Christian’ house,
his hobbies were limited to music, card tricks, and reading.
At sixteen, Joshua wasn’t too bad. When Daniel had helped him with
the farm chores or stacking wood, Josh had given him a ride to school.
Otherwise, he had to get up forty minutes earlier and brave the snow-packed
dirt roads on a bus with no seatbelts or reliable heat.
Daniel sat on the warped, living
room floor and tried to watch the endless stream of sports. However, that close
to the wood-burning stove, he kept nodding off. During a boat commercial,
Larsen men debated whether Native Americans should be allowed to practice spear
fishing when their neighbors could be fined for it.
When Daniel wandered into the
kitchen to escape, Aunt Martha said, “I’ll serve dinner at halftime. Go
upstairs and change.”
Score!
He was eager to hide in his room, even though ice crusted the window panes. First,
he borrowed Joshua’s jungle-camouflage jacket to stay warm. Next, he set his
iPod alarm for noon. Then, he crawled under a sleeping bag rated to minus
thirty degrees and slipped away into dreams.
****
In his nightmare, Daniel lived with
a family of frost giants who had not yet noticed he was dark-haired and human. Giants
hated people. However, he had learned months ago how to take control of dreams before
they turned bad. Rather than wait for the giants to attack, Daniel escaped
through a mountain pass. The narrow passage in the rocks transformed into a
crude staircase. The higher he climbed, the warmer the climate became. Unfortunately,
other giants spotted him and hurled rubble.
A huge boulder arced through the
sky toward him. He scrambled up the narrow pass. To his right, the truck-sized
rock shattered with the sound of thunder. He shut his eyes because tiny
fragments stung his face like shards of safety glass after a violent crash. He
ran blindly up the steps. The second near miss heaved him through the air. He
landed on his hands and knees. Again, he prayed to be anywhere else before the
next impact came.
After the last of the echoes of
thunder rolled away, Daniel’s jacket felt too loose in the breeze. Dreams
shifted that way sometimes. Glancing down, he now wore a green cloak held shut
by a Celtic knotwork clasp. He had seen similar designs in slides from The Book of Kells in art class. Art was
an oasis in an otherwise barren day.
The stairway now led to a plateau
at the edge of a cliff. Standing, he could make out some crude farm outbuildings
on the other three sides, but it was too overcast to tell more without
streetlights. The only aspects of the dreamscape that had remained the same
were the stairs and the storm.
Nearby, he spotted a well with a
round, stone wall and a sloped roof. When he tried to take a step to examine
the wooden bucket, however, someone grabbed him from behind, pulling him up
short. “Whoa! You don’t want to go through that again.” The voice sounded
high-pitched and Irish, like a leprechaun.
Daniel turned to see a short boy in
a black cloak and puffy sleeves. “What are you, ten?”
“Seventeen,” the boy protested. The
kid was pale, thin, and just the right size to get stuffed in a locker. “Hey,
you’re not Charlie anymore.”
“My name’s Daniel.”
“You must be Charlie’s replacement,”
the older-but-wiser boy noted. “Call me Astrofeld.” The boy stuck out his right
hand to shake, but his other hand went along for the ride.
Squinting at the shackles on Astrofeld’s
wrists, Daniel asked, “Why are you handcuffed?”
“A misunderstanding,” the short
teen insisted. “But we’re friends, right? I mean, I saved your life.”
“From what?” Daniel glanced down at
a shimmering puddle that reflected the purple-tinged lightning overhead. “And
who’s Charlie?”
Astrofeld snorted. “Observe.” He
dipped the chain connecting his shackles into the puddle. The metal link in the
center turned transparent, swelled like an iridescent soap bubble, and popped.
“That is what happened to Charlie. He
knew his defensive spells. His cloak protected him from just about everything, except an attack from below. He
vanished. A few seconds later, after a huge thunderclap, you showed up.”
A dozen questions clamored in
Daniel’s head, but he couldn’t decide which to ask first.
Astrofeld jerked as a raindrop seared
his puffy sleeve like acid. “Ack! Run for it.” He bolted for shelter, dodging
the puddles.
Daniel followed every step like a
game of ‘don’t step on the crack’ in a minefield. The damp grass soaked his
sneakers, yet he didn’t feel any burning. Some
of it must be plain water, but how do I tell which puddles are safe? They
hopped onto a split-rail fence and walked it like gymnasts on a balance beam
until they reached a dirt road. Water collected in the wheel ruts. Astrofeld
leapt to the high point
in the center. Then he repeated the feat to land on a wooden sidewalk on the
other side.
Out of breath, Daniel stood next to
Astrofeld against a set of swinging double doors from an old western movie. The
sign above the doors read ‘Goodforwhat Ales.’ Since the swinging doors were
barred, the saloon appeared to be closed.
Astrofeld said, “Be right back.”
Then the tiny boy wiggled under the doors as if they were for a pay-per-use bathroom
stall.
Moments later, the doors unlatched
and swung open. Daniel stared at the tavern interior as Astrofeld lit an oil
lamp. The ten round tables were all made from thick, rough-hewn oak, and the
décor was an odd mixture of late medieval and early Amish. The walls were
decorated with round, Highlander shields and dartboards.
The
bar reminded him of one in an adventure game where he went to get quests. Every
room in the children’s hospital had a game system hooked into the TV. With his
right leg immobilized, he couldn’t do much else. Soon the quests grew so boring
that he started hanging out in the tavern just to talk to people. Maybe I’m just inventing this because I’m
feeling alone again.
“We should be safe in here for a
while,” said Astrofeld, grabbing a mug from behind the bar. “In weather like
this, nobody in Sardeniston is going to set foot outside their hovels to
investigate.” Without his hood, his pointed ears stood out like a cat’s,
complete with black fur that matched his hair.
Daniel double-checked, but the fur
didn’t seem to cover any other part of Astrofeld’s body. He also had normal
teeth. As his bizarre friend poured something from the barroom tap, Daniel sat
at the closest table. “Am I dead?”
Astrofeld pointed his thumb to a
bucket in the corner. “Do you think they mop the floors in purgatory?”
Daniel shrugged. “People pay in
different ways. Folks do what they know, and some people may feel the need to
scrub a few stains.”
“No. You’re in what you might call
a different state of being.”
“Not Kansas ,” said Daniel. Both laughed.
After he tipped the excess foam off
his brew, Astrofeld said, “You’re in Astra, a place where our kind gathers.”
Daniel only echoed the last phrase.
“Our kind?”
The short boy took a deep drag on
the mug and coughed. “Hold the clasp on your cloak and tell me what you see.”
Daniel did as he asked. The clasp
wove together at least four brass snakes. As he stared, the serpent bodies
loosened and slid against each other like a puzzle. He liked puzzles. In his
head, he almost completed the solution to open the clasp when Astrofeld
interrupted. “Good. The cloak accepts you as its new owner and will protect
you. To learn the rules, you need to hire a magic teacher as soon as possible.”
Beneath the cloak, Daniel could see
his plaid, flannel pajama pants and nightshirt. The fabric of the cloak rippled
and reweaved like the snakes to fit the dimensions of his body. “This is some
dream.”
“Even dogs dream, you yokel. Astra isn’t simple rapid-eye movement—it’s an
energy level, a shared experience.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. “So
you’re real?”
“Define real. If you mean from the
same waking world, then yes.”
“Why is everything here so old-fashioned?”
“It takes the dreamlands a little
while to catch up because everyone has to agree to it or something. I’m not
good with theory.” Astrofeld swallowed more brew and stomped his foot till the
burning subsided. “Smooth.”
“That stuff is going to stunt your
growth.”
The kid made a rude gesture in
response as he wandered the main room of the tavern. “I have a defective
pituitary gland. My parents left it untreated… for religious reasons.” His
voice was beginning to slur. “They want my faith
to make me taller. Oops, I shouldn’t tell you that. Please don’t tell anyone,
and I won’t squawk about where you arrived.”
“Sure. Why would that matter?”
Astrofeld set the half-empty mug on
Daniel’s table. “Because if someone could track me down in the waking realm,
I’d be dead. I’ve robbed a lot of powerful people. To be safe, you should never
tell anyone else personal details. That’s why I use my favorite D&D character’s
name. In the other world, never let your picture appear in the newspaper or on
the news, or someone might recognize you.”
“I meant the stairs. Why would
anyone care?”
“That’s your rebirth spot.” The
thief staggered to the swinging doors and peeked outside through a crack. “The
next dream you have, reappearing at your last exit point is easiest. But if
anyone ever locks you in a jail cell, for instance, then you can head back to the
stone step where we met. When you return there, you’ll give up whatever you
were carrying, plus some accumulated energy, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Like a video game.”
“If someone knows your rebirth
spot, they can own you. Astra’s not a
game, so don’t tell anyone about it… or me.”
“Yeah. If I did that, my social
worker would make me attend therapy sessions twice a week.” The last time I saw a therapist, I told him
I felt invisible. The foster family forgot to pick me up from that session.
“So you’ve been to juvenile hall,
too? Cool—” Suddenly, the thief’s eyes darted to a door beside the bar.
A click sounded, and the oak door
creaked open. A burly man in a smock crept through holding a crossbow.
Daniel turned his head to ask his
friend what to do, but the thief was gone. All he could do was smile at the tip
of the crossbow pointing at his nose. “Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m Charlie’s
replacement.”
Chapter 2 – Magic Lesson
The crossbow aimed at Daniel’s head didn’t waver. Dressed in
a smock, the barrel-chested tavern owner rumbled, “Were you the one who left
those muddy tracks on my clean floor?” There were overtones of a Scottish brogue
in the accusation.
Daniel looked at his muddy,
slightly melted sneaker bottoms and then at the black smear on the hardwood
floor. “Yeah. Funny story about that. I . . . showed up on your doorstep, and
when I tried to leave, those swirly colored puddles started to dissolve my
shoes. I didn’t have any choice but to duck inside. Sorry.”
The heavy man trundled up to the
table, picked up the mug with his weaponless hand, and gave it a sniff. “And
you decided to help yourself to a tankard of my best brew?”
Daniel decided to keep his
cat-eared friend a secret, mostly because no one would believe him. “I can pay.”
He searched his pajama pants, hoping for a coin.
The barkeep raised the crossbow
again. “No sudden moves.”
His pajamas contained only a linty
tissue—an unlikely form of currency. Moving his hands around the cloak, he
found a pocket that held a hard lump. When his finger came in contact with a
stone, Daniel saw images flit by like someone else’s family album. Only, this
album had photos of big, ugly, ominous monsters lurking in it, wrapped in a
sense of unease and incompleteness. The lump was as much a puzzle as the Celtic
clasp. Pulling out the polished, dark-gray stone, he slid the treasure across
the table toward the tavern owner. “Will this cover it?”
The large man lowered his weapon
with a grunt. Picking up the stone, he sniffed the scorched-looking material.
“Mnem stone. Seems pretty full, too. I don’t use them, but Feldspar might. I’ll
call him and offer to trade it to him to cover your debt.”
“You have phones?”
“Don’t be daft.” The barkeep walked
behind the bar and grabbed a piece of rope looped over a metal hitch on his
ceiling. After giving the rope three quick jerks, the owner retied it to a
small bell labeled with an ‘F.’ There were four such bells scattered around the
bar.
“Clever,” said Daniel. “What do I
call you?”
“Do ye read?”
“Yeah.”
“Ma name is over the door you
burgled.”
“Goodforwhat?”
“Aye. While we’re waiting, you can
shine my floor.”
“Um… I thought the stone would
cover the inconvenience.”
The point of the arrow rose again.
“You’re not one of those rich gits who thinks he can buy his way out of trouble?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Good. This is about character.”
I
can’t even escape the Cinderella routine in my sleep. Daniel reluctantly
grabbed the mop and applied it to the mess. Although the mud in front of him
vanished, more dirt appeared behind him as he walked. He apologized, took off
his shoes, and cleaned the whole area.
When the owner inspected the job,
he growled, “The footprints are still here.” He pointed to smears of rubber on
the floor that looked like chewing gum spread on hot pavement. “You’ll need to
use the scrub brush and put a little elbow grease into it.”
“Ah, man,” Daniel grumbled as he
bent to the task.
As he scrubbed, a gray-haired man
in a brown, Japanese robe came into the bar and chatted with the owner. Daniel overhead
Goodforwhat call him Feldspar. The newcomer with spectacles could have been a
school teacher.
Once the final scuff was erased,
the teacher spoke to him in a New England
accent. “Follow me to my tower for your testing.”
“My what?” Daniel slid into his
half-melted shoes and had to hurry to keep up.
Feldspar stepped out the door and
onto the narrow, wooden sidewalk. He turned a corner and strode toward the rear
of the building. “I threw one lesson in as part of the trade. Since you were
able to subvert Goodforwhat’s wards, you’re clearly a powerful wizard. We need
to find out what sort and where your talents lie. Hence the testing.”
A large plank spanned the alley behind
the tavern. Once Daniel crossed, the teacher picked the plank up and carried it
under his arm. I guess he wants to avoid
the magic puddles, too. Next, they passed the short side of a barn. Beyond this
point, there weren’t many buildings in town.
Pointing behind them with his thumb,
Daniel asked, “What’s the drop-off back that way?”
“The chasm? We don’t talk about it.
If you discuss it or even look at it too long, it gets bigger. Sometimes it
sneaks up on people and swallows them.” Serious, the teacher put his finger to
his lips.
The older man dropped the plank across
the alley to reach a stone path on the other side. The path led up a small hill
to a tower about twenty feet wide and two stories tall. Daniel followed the man
up the path, avoiding the runoff.
“What is that swirly goo?” asked Daniel,
pointing to one of the dangerous puddles.
“Fallout. Someone’s been toying
with High Magic lately, and it’s really messed with the weather. Any idea who
it might be?”
Daniel shook his head.
Hefting the plank, the man carried it
with him to the turret, like a guard raising a drawbridge. When they reached
the massive, wooden door, the teacher sketched two curves on the doorway,
reciting the incantation, “Supply and demand.” The point where the two curves
intersected glowed. He touched the spot and said, “Fair market value.”
The door clicked open, and Daniel
rushed inside the tower, afraid the vile rain might start again.
The study was lined with books and
charts. A bay window, a writing desk with a stool, and a large, comfy, wingback
chair circled the fireplace. The teacher barred his front door from the inside.
“Can’t be too careful these days. Would you mind taking off those shoes? They
smell awful, and I don’t want my carpets ruined.”
Daniel slipped off his ragged
sneakers and left them on a mat by the door.
Pointing to a peg on the closet
door, the old man said, “Feel free to hang up your cloak and make yourself at
home.”
Daniel reached for the clasp but
reconsidered. The test might hurt, and the cloak had protections. Besides, it
was the only item he still had from the mysterious Charlie. “I’m good.”
Something about the floor plan still didn’t feel right. When
Daniel figured out what, he pointed to the thirty-foot-wide room and gasped.
“It’s too big for the outside dimensions.”
The teacher smiled. “This is my
memory palace. There are many rooms and two levels. In Astra, a home can be as
complex as the man who created it. Some people have mud huts, while the Great
Stephen has the Castle
of Smoke
Ducking through an archway, they walked
through a dining hall, a kitchen, and up dark, wooden, circular stairs. Daniel
was able to peek out a narrow slit in the curved wall—the clouds were gone, and
he saw hints of some sort of red nebula in the distance.
At the top, the teacher pulled out
a key to unlock the door. He gestured for Daniel to enter the stone chamber
first. “To begin with, are you aligned with the Protective Order or the Circle
of Deception?”
“Who are they?”
“Hmm. If you decide to declare for
either, I can notify them, and a representative will come claim you.” The
teacher motioned to a single grade-school desk in the center of the room. One
wall held a blackboard and the other a small window ten feet above his head.
“Have a seat.”
Great.
Homework in dreams. Daniel moaned to himself. He sat in the chair. “What if
I declare for neither?”
“You can homestead and petition the
town to accept you, but you’d need to have a useful talent. We have enough
farmers.”
“Why do I need someone to accept
me?”
The teacher shook his head and
tsked. “This isn’t a magic lesson. You have to pay for those.”
“I need the basics to survive.”
The teacher sighed. “In exchange
for one minor service lasting a full REM, I’ll give you a few minutes of
instruction.”
“What’s a REM?”
The old man in the robe held out
his hand to shake. “You can search the library yourself when you wake up… if
you wake up.”
Daniel sighed in exasperation.
“Deal.” He shook.
The old man posed at the blackboard
and lectured rapidly. “As the world sleeps, we few chosen can lucid-dream. How
much do you know about the sleep cycle?”
“Um… it takes about half an hour to
fall asleep enough to dream.”
“A Yogi trained in meditation can
do it in five minutes.” He drew a wiggly line on the board. “In this phase of
sleep, you are descending. This is the phase where you can experience night
terrors, bedwetting, and sleepwalking. This area here is where normal humans
dream. It is characterized by Rapid Eye Movement.” He wrote the abbreviation
REM on the graph. “Human dreams last an average of fifteen minutes and happen
once every ninety minutes. A person needs about four or five of these complete
cycles a night to stay healthy and sane.”
This
is sane?
Feldspar sketched mock water waves
underneath the lowest level. “What if, instead of splashing in your own private
bathtub, you could jump in the ocean at the mental beach? If we could all share
the same brainwaves?”
“We’d see the same thing?” Daniel
guessed.
“Exactly! The waves lift us all at
the same time. Every mage around the world has the opportunity to participate
in the same shared REM. They might be in slightly different points along the
shore, or have different perspectives, but we all see the same land.”
“So anyone can reach Astra?”
“No. Beach access is strictly
controlled. The lifeguard only lets a certain number in, and new people can’t swim
until someone else leaves—conservation of mental energy or some such.”
“Which is why I replaced Charlie?”
“Yes. He’s either a vegetable or deceased.”
“Whoa.” Daniel held up both hands
in a stop gesture. “You can die in these dreams?”
“Not normally, but magic or
experiences here can permanently alter your mind. In extreme situations, mages losing
duels have experienced strokes. Wounds here can manifest as phobias or
irrational habits in the waking world.”
“Wait. It’s been more than fifteen
minutes already since I hopped in here.”
“That’s subjective. The dream feels like it takes up the whole hour
and a half, six times longer than the absolute clock.”
This
is like math class, thought Daniel. “What happens at the end of the dream?”
“You blend seamlessly with the
next. The effect looks continuous—an illusion like the rapid flickering of a
fluorescent bulb. Now on with the test.”
“That’s it? That’s all I get?”
“The effects of magic depend
greatly on the personality of the individual. Some people grow angry and throw
fire. Goodforwhat bottles humors, whims, and emotions for the consumption of
others—in the real world, he’s some sort of musician, poet, or writer. Where
does your talent lie?”
“I don’t know. What do you do?”
“Could you explain television to a
caveman? Half my peers at the university don’t understand my specialization.
Let’s say I collect odd information and use it to predict things like elections
and the stock market.”
“You’re a professor?” guessed
Daniel.
The teacher seemed to run out of
chalk. He raised a finger and strode out toward the shelves in the hall. Once outside
the room, he slammed the heavy door behind him and locked the prison cell shut.
Through a tiny grating, he said, “I give tests. Before you can leave this
place, you must either declare your allegiance to an external organization or
reveal your magic ability to me.”
No comments:
Post a Comment