The Dreaming Dark--Ch. 03

Daedalus and the Nodder dodge the hunt and find themselves in the company of a strange little girl.

 

iii

 

                Our footfalls fell like a steady downpour, rattling against the sickly concrete. The surface was a little more treacherous than I was accustomed to; fraught with cracks and subtle shifts in the concrete that might have, in a world that made sense, been caused by the upheaval of tree-roots and other plant life. Daedalus didn’t slow, just settled into a quick jog that was only a sickly shade beneath a flat-out sprint.

                I did my best to keep up. It hurt. I went to school because I was good at analogies. I hadn’t intended to try out for track. The old familiar stitch had taken up residence, burrowing into my left side and making my breath come in ragged gasps. Under different circumstances, I might’ve been ready to slow down; to take those last stuttering steps before finally shifting into a resigned walk.

                But the patter of the clock-faced hounds feet echoing down the street like the hate-filled counterpoint to my own thundering heartbeat kept me running.

                Daedalus only looked back to make sure I was following the once, a quick jerk of his head over one shoulder. And I can’t be sure he wasn’t just checking to see how close the hounds were.

                We ran until I thought I’d die. And then we ran some more.

                My guide wasted no time in getting off the main street, turning down an improbably dark alley which sort of loomed from the mist like the maw of something black and terrible from the uniform faded brick façades which fronted the street. As if he didn’t need eyes to navigate, he dodged the upturned trashcan that I managed to stumble over, and as I fell to a knee in a slick of something undeniably unpleasant, he put on an extra burst of speed and I heard more than saw him scrambling over the wall at the end of the corridor between the crumbling brick buildings.

                “Come on, nodder. You can hurt later.”

                He wasn’t wrong. I’d done something terrible to my knee with the concrete as I’d skidded through the accumulated gutter-filth, but I knew that the hounds that would be whipping around the corner at any moment would be interested in doing things still more terrible to me. So I got up, and sprinted after my guide. My own leap was no doubt clumsier than his, and left me scrabbling against the bricks with my scuffed combat boots.

                I didn’t need to turn to know the hounds were already at the mouth of the alley. I heard the muted whuffing of their breath as they prowled closer, sluicing through the same filth that had slowed me. Smelled the rankness of their breath over the sickly tang of the alleyway. I felt the creaking of their whipcord bodies.

                It redoubled my efforts, lending strength to every muscle in my body even as they begged for me to simply stop fighting and wake up from this frightening lucid nightmare. I heaved, pulling myself up over the wall and dropping onto the other side, fully expecting my guide to be gone.

                To my surprise he was there waiting, arms folded and an impatient frown creasing his features.

                “Could you be any slower?”

                We weren’t running anymore. A little part of me did a joyous back-flip. Of course, there were questions. Why weren’t we running anymore, for instance. Wouldn’t the hounds just vault the wall as we had? Could we really afford to stand here looking insouciant and terrified, respectively? But I was winded and only managed a little inquisitive wheeze.

                “We’re in the clear. For now.” He turned on his heel, stuffing his hands into his pockets and making for the mouth of the alleyway in which we had alighted. I followed him, gripping my side and doing my best not to simper.

                When we reached the street, the pieces started to fit together. This place was much different than the street we had just left. For one, it wasn’t clogged with husks shuffling back and forth like a gaggle of ridiculously well-dressed Wal-Mart shoppers at four in the morning. For two, it was missing the washed out sodium glare that made everything look faded and worn beyond belief. So…another question for the pile. Where the hell were we now?

                “Another Ward. Friendly territory. Well…” He paused, drawing up short in his explanation and furrowing his brow in a troubling manner. He didn’t finish the sentence, even when I widened my eyes and stared. Instead he pointed in toward his right and began to lead the way down a road which was paved in cobbles and lit with honest to God gas-lamps. It wound to and fro, snaking into the distance until it vanished into the mist-laden horizon.

                The buildings were not as tall here; they were squat and smallish (quaint, I corrected myself) and by all rights I should’ve been able to see the towering edifices that had loomed over the streets of District 13. But I couldn’t. Of course I couldn’t. I was beginning to give up hope of reaching an easily rationalizable conclusion about this place. Everything seemed fluid enough to swim in. 

                He scratched idly at his jaw, never breaking stride as he picked up the conversation as though we had not just narrowly escaped the clock-faced dog-things for the second time that night. “Where were we?”

                I couldn’t really remember, what with the fleeing for my life. Something about… “Nightmares.” 

                “Right. They’re nuts, but not all of them are out to rip you apart.” He hooked a thumb back at the alleyway that was rapidly falling away behind our ground-eating strides. “Some of them are willing to barter. Some of them are looking for help.”

                “Help? With what?’

                “There are things that they can’t do. Each of them’s different. Some of them can‘t leave their ward. Some of them aren‘t built for fighting. There‘s even one I hear can‘t move.”

                The silence reigned for a moment as a man in a blue knit sweater and faded jeans crossed the street to make room for our little duo. He didn’t lift his eyes from the street, as though afraid of what he might see should they break contact with the shifting cobbles. I waited for him to draw comfortably distant before I continued. Daedalus seemed to be just fine with the wait.

                “So is that what you do?”

                He drew a breath through his teeth and seemed to ponder. “Yeah, sometimes. It’s a way to go.”

                We lapsed into an uneasy silence, making tracks through the gas-lit darkness. Every so often another uneasy looking traveler would intersect our path, crossing the street and doing everything in their power to avoid eye contact. Very different from the husks of District 13. They reminded me less of faceless drones and more of the superstitious villagers from a bad horror movie; almost as if they were avoiding eye-contact in an effort to avoid the curse that was dogging our heels.

                Can’t say I really blamed them. I’d had nothing but bad luck since I laid eyes on Daedalus. What’s to say that they wouldn’t share my fate.

                “So who runs this place?” I ventured.

                My guide looked over his shoulder, fixing me with an approving little half-smile as I asked another one of those questions that showed that I had greater powers of retention than the standard goldfish. “Gaslight? Girl called Madelaine.”

                I frowned. The hounds were frightening. The husks were frightening. How terrifying could a girl called Madelaine be? “Doesn’t sound so bad.”

                Daedalus’ shoulders rose and fell in a tectonic shrug. “Eh, she’ll fool you.” He said it as though it was the very soundest of advice. It only sounded like a little more vague bullshit for the pile.

                But I let it rest for the moment. No use pursuing it. I was rapidly learning that Daedalus did not surrender information lightly. Nor did he do so at any point in which he was not yet ready to do so. All in good time, I assured myself. I’d learn the ins and outs of this odd place all in good time. He didn’t particularly seem to be in the talking mood anymore.

                We kept up the pace, a brisk walk. He led by a half-step, and I knew better than to do anything but follow. The road snaked onward.

                “So college, huh?”

                I’m sure I did a double take. “What?”

                “What was your major?”

                We were walking down the road in a realm of nightmare, and he was asking the same damn question I’d heard a thousand times at every pointless mixer and kegger that I’d ever had the displeasure of attending. It was quite possibly more surreal than anything I’d yet heard or seen in the Dreaming Dark. And that included drinking Angst.

                “English.”

                Daedalus did something I hadn’t heard him do yet. He laughed. Not a little chuckle, a deep, rolling belly laugh. It might’ve been a little more good natured if it hadn’t been directed at me.

                “English? Really?”

                “Yeah.”

                “How’s that working for you?” He gestured in such a way as to take in the enormity of our situation in one broad wave of his hand.

                “Just great, Daedalus, thanks.” I could’ve spat fire directly into those damned laughing eyes of his.

                We lapsed into silence again as Daedalus turned to lead me down a slender side-street which was only half-illuminated by the glare of gaslight. The houses were built right against each other, giants of stone, half-sunk into the cobbled road and rubbing shoulders in their slumber. Daedalus didn’t offer to explain our destination, though he walked with the determined gait of a man eager to get there.

                “Well, I guess it’ll do more good here than back in the City Slumbering.”

                I narrowed my eyes, turning to face Daedalus as best I could without breaking stride. The question didn’t need to be spoken. He must’ve picked up the unsteady pause. “I mean, out there everything’s pretty cut and dry. That’s a chair. This is an orange. That over there’s a bistro.” He motioned with one hand, pointing to the invisible items to punctuate each statement. “Here, things are a lot less solid. Some folks can’t get a grip on them. People who’ve got words on their side might have a better time of wrapping their head around it all.”

                Was that a word of confidence? An admonition? I wasn’t exactly sure how to take it. But it didn’t sit quite right. Daedalus drew up short, holding out an arm to block me.

                “But for right now, leave the words to me.”

                I didn’t see them at first, though when they melted out from the shadows, I was unsure how I’d managed to miss them. They were the saddest looking princesses I’d ever seen.

                Each of the three was tall and willowy, so slender that a heavy gale might bend them double or send them soaring like a clutch of dandelion fluff. They wore their hair (blonde, red, and raven-dark respectively) long, arrayed in styles which might’ve been lustrous and beautiful days ago but which had long since succumb to gravity and weariness. Their gowns, satin and taffeta and silk and brocade, were spotted here and there as though worn for days after the minstrels had been paid and the ball had turned its final dance. But the story that left clues scattered across their bodies was laid bare in the hollows of their cheeks, the bags beneath their sunken eyes. Every delicate plane and curve of their faces spoke of soul-deep weariness.

                The first, clad in a shade only a hair more scarlet than cotton candy, her plaited dark hair hanging to her waist, curled her bloodless lips into a smile and dipped her head in greeting. “Daedalus.”

                “Princess. I come seeking an audience with your lady.”

                When the princesses turned toward each other to silently confer, I was glad that I’d silently agreed to let Daedalus do the talking. The plastic smiles which tugged at their lips were somewhat unsettling. They revealed too many teeth. When they turned back, toward us, they had resumed their placid air of weary disdain.

                “Are you expected?”

                “Am I ever?” Daedalus shot back, widening his eyes in question.

                “And who is your companion?”

                I opened my mouth to give my reply when Daedalus turned and fixed me with a stern look of warning. “A nodder. Nothing special.” I shut my mouth, nodding mutely. Right. No words.

                That seemed to get them. Nothing was said . Mexican standoff. The redhead tipped her head first one way, then the other, as though considering. The blonde stared through me, a faint smile quirking the left side of her mouth upward. A tense moment passed.

                “She’ll see you.”

                Daedalus smiled, dipping into a flourishing bow. “Lovely. We’re most gratified.”

                The princesses turned in unison and moved toward a nondescript townhouse where the side-street terminated. With a soft wave of her hand, the dark-haired princess broke reality. Or rather she broke it and rebuilt it.

                The house seemed to blur faintly before my eyes, as though they could not seem to capture the enormity of what they were seeing. The doors and windows were the first to go, slowly fading into unreality, leaving patches of bare stone in their wake. Finally, I had the impression that the walls shifted, collapsing in on themselves and rearranging. By the end, I was looking at the same house, only rather than standing out front, I was staring at the rear wall and the angled cellar doors which led to the space beneath.

                “How--”

                “Later.” Daedalus waved away the question and folded his arms as the princesses busied themselves about unlocking the doors, slipping an antique keep into a rusty padlock and unwinding the heavy chains which lashed the handles together. The blonde and the redhead each took a side, pulling the portal open and beckoning us forward. The brunette led the way.

                Daedalus didn’t seem to mind allowing the weary-looking women an uninterrupted view of his back, so I decided that if I continued to follow his lead I too might have nothing to fear. Or so the hope went. He took the steps into the darkness two at a time. I followed, stumbling once as the light of the street began to fail.

                So many steps. Easily fifty down into the space beneath the shifting townhouse. When the doors shut above us, it was almost like slowly descending into the gullet of an enormous monster, or drifting in a starless void. Only the steady metronome of our footsteps broke the silence.

                I was never so happy to see light as I was at the bottom of those stairs. We emerged in a chamber that looked as though it might’ve been ripped from the most impoverished fairytale kingdom ever told. The silver candelabra were tarnished. The red velvet rug was tattered. The tapestries against the bare stone walls were frayed and stained. And seated upon the chipped wooden throne was a young girl, no older than eight.

                “Hundred and eight.” Daedalus said it under his breath as we emerged into the flickering light, as though the number were somehow significant. No explanation. I’m fairly sure I wasn’t even supposed to hear it, though I was clinging close enough to the man to pretty much hear the steady rhythm of his heart. He walked forward, passing the lead princess and dipping into an elaborate bow in the direction of the girl on the throne which I took to be Madelaine.

                The little girl was thin, waifish, and arrayed in a moth-eaten ermine cloak that was far too large for her. It would no doubt swallow her if she were to stand. Her dark hair was straight and cropped to her chin at a harsh angle. Her eyes were a spritely shade of green, and they seemed to alight on Daedalus as if upon a cherished pet.

                “Daedalus!” Her voice was high enough to pass for a prepubescent girl, but there was something vaguely wrong about it. Something crawled beneath its surface like an ocean predator long starved.

                My guide rose slowly from his bow and adopted a courtly little half-smile. “My lady, it has been too long.”

                “Way too long!” She corrected him in the manner of a demanding child. “What have you brought me?”

                The princesses made their silent ways to the sides of Madelaine’s throne. Standing like a vaguely unsettling cross between sentinels and courtiers, they folded their hands before them and offered their little plastic smiles. My gaze strayed from the girl who kicked her legs on her overlarge throne toward the uncanny caricatures of regal women. In the very corner of my vision, Madelaine’s ermine mantle seemed to shift about her shoulders, as though possessed of a life of its own.

                Daedalus apparently had been silent a second too long, for Madelaine’s smile collapsed slowly in upon itself. “Nothing?” Her lips drew up into a new expression, not altogether pleasant. A sneer curled her child’s mouth. When she spoke again, her child’s voice had lost its exuberance and replaced it with haughty malice. “You’ve come before this throne without an offering?”

                Daedalus spared a glance back toward me, eyes appraising. I did not care for the way he looked at me, as though I were a piece of meat whose value was being silently measured. I crossed my arms and shifted my weight, ready to turn and bolt.

                “Perhaps him?” She pointed a slim finger in my direction, the sneer becoming a little crueler. Daedalus opened his mouth to reply, but her she cut him off sharply. “I have been asking for that pony for a while now.” She turned toward her three silent attendants. “A queen should have a pony, shouldn’t she?”

                “Yes, milady.”

                “Of course, milady.”

                “Certainly, milady.”

                Madelaine turned back and beamed at Daedalus as though the canned agreement would sway him into handing me over. For a moment, I wondered if he would. What was I to him anyway? A tagalong? A little bit of extra weight for when he started running again.

                Daedalus reached over and into my left pocket, shaking his head sadly. “Afraid not, milady. Not this time, at any rate.” His hand groped about until he found my cellphone. I didn’t exactly have time to argue with him, or even to give a cry of protest before he brought the pitifully outdated flip-phone out into the light of the tarnished candelabra. “But see here! A wonder of light and sound, all the rage amongst the kings and queens of Europe. It’s certain to make you the envy of all.” He flourished it like a snake-oil salesman before sinking into a deferential bow, the techno-bauble presented before him like a rare treasure.

                The red-haired princess drifted forward idly to pluck the gadget from my guide’s hand and turned breezily upon her heel to return it to the child upon the throne. Madelaine snatched at it greedily, flipping it open and studying the lighted screen intently. She punched a button, listened to the short, staticky tone, and nodded sagely. “It will serve, Daedalus.” Her voice lost its icy tone of command and once more became the voice of a petulant child. “But next time, I expect a pony.”

                “I’ll see what can be done.”

                Madelaine closed the phone with a soft click and tucked it into a fold of her dark and weather-beaten mantle of office. She pursed her lips, steepled her fingers, and stared at Daedalus. She didn’t speak. Daedalus waited. I counted seconds, because that at least was less strange than the soft rustle of the occasional movement of the cloak which wrapped around the child seated on the throne. Or the gnawing sensation that the candelabra had gotten somewhat closer, for the light seemed to be getting better in the depths of this odd basement kingdom.

                Finally the subtle tension was broke. Madelaine pulled a face, sticking out her tongue and rolling her eyes in a slow circle. “Goof, this is where you tell me what you want.”

                Daedalus seemed to have been waiting for this. He sniffed as though somewhat affronted by the breech in protocol. “If it so please you, milady. It’s a small matter.” He doffed his top-hat and made a show of dusting the brim.

                “And I’m a small lady. Ask.”

                Daedalus bobbed his head as though he had not come to this particular corner of the Dreaming Dark to do precisely that. “My associate and I are on our way to the Bazaar, though we are having trouble finding it without being pursued by the watchdogs. As I understand it, you have a direct route there through Gaslight. We wish to pass through, nothing more.”

                Madelaine clapped her hands once and brought her folded hands to her little rosebud lips, smiling with the pleasure of a private joke. “Oh, Daedalus. As usual, you’re only half right.” She giggled. It was an obscene sound in the tattered little throne room. She cut off my guide‘s next question. “I’ve got a direct route there, but not through Gaslight.”

                I’m not sure what came over me. I’d been standing dumb as a post this entire time, as per Daedalus’ orders. Not a single word had passed my lips as he’d led me into this strange place, nor when he seemed to be considering bartering me off, nor when he offered the crazy little eight year old my Nokia. I’d been a good boy and shut the hell up. But he’d just called me his associate, so maybe that explains the head-trauma necessary for what I was about to blurt.

                “So then where does the passage lead, Madelaine?”

                The room went silent. Even the candles stopped sputtering, their flames held ramrod still. I’d never seen fire do that before. Nor had I seen an article of clothing cringe as the minute monarch’s stole managed to do. Nor had I felt such a strong sense of impending doom.

                “What did you call me?” The child on the throne stood, her eyes growing dark as she gained her feet.

                I thought back. Daedalus had called her Madelaine when we’d escaped from the hounds (watchdogs, I corrected…go figure). Everyone else seemed to call her “milady“. Was an eight year old really getting so upset about not being called a lady? Did kids really care?

                Not a kid, I reminded myself as she folded her arms and smoldered, waiting for my reply, a Nightmare. “Milady,” I managed to stutter.

                “Perhaps I’ll get my pony after all.”

                “Idiot.” Daedalus’ voice was hardly more than a sigh.

                Once more, I dipped into my memory, analyzing where I’d gone wrong. When it hit me, I felt my chest grow tight, even as the tiny tyrant’s lips split in a smile which should never be glimpsed upon an eight-year-old face. Daedalus had paused ever so slightly as he’d spoken her name.

                Not Madelaine, I realized as the smile split the flesh of her cheeks, widening into a sickening rictus which showed rows upon rows of vicious of cannibal teeth.

                Mad Elaine.