Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) (27 page)

“I can’t believe Ned would sell it,” Cassidy said.

“Ned—” Brewster began, but a voice cut across his from out of the shadows.

“He did take some persuading,” Commodore Resta said as he stepped out from between some crates. “Not the bravest of men, but it should warm your heart that he wouldn’t even tell us where he saw you last. Shoved my sabre through his skull until he became rotten air.”

Brewster drew his Webley with a speed that surprised even Cassidy, but the Commodore’s sabre flashed a fraction faster and Brewster’s arm lay on the ground, the pistol still unfired. The Englishman fell back against a wall of crates, clutching at the space where his arm had been.

Cassidy moved for his Mauser, but the gleaming sabre was already at his throat. He backed his hand off as the Commodore removed the pistol with his empty hand and stepped back. “I saw you boys fly in. It’s not as if I’d ever forget that plane of yours.” He gestured to them with the tip of his sword. “I finally had to send everyone off the ship to get you cowards to show up.”

“We would have bought it,” Cassidy said.

The commodore gave a mock gentle bow. “Of course. That’s why you presented yourself from the very beginning. Best intentions, I’m sure,” he said, and fired several shots off with Cassidy’s Mauser. Brewster stumbled and fell, clutching his stomach.

Cassidy tried to grab for him, but the commodore’s sabre edged him back up.

“He won’t last long,” the commodore said. “At least Twilights have
some
substance. But you...you’re just an idea. You don’t last.”

Cassidy lunged. The sabre flashed again. A sting flared in his ribs. He slumped beside Brewster, holding his chest. Blood spilled from his shirt, a thin line of scarlet.

The Commodore stooped to meet Cassidy’s eyes. “You’re a brave son of a bitch,” he said, and slid the sabre into its scabbard. “I admire the way you tried to take us all on back in Arcadia, but bringing in that woman...” He shook his head. “In front of my men, no less.” He stood up and backed away.

Cassidy couldn’t feel his limbs. His chest should have been stinging, but it was no more than a dull ache.

“I thought I’d have to string you up and torture you in front of my boys, but your fighter is down at the runway.” He transferred the pistol to his right hand and examined the unique weapon. “And, I have your sidearm. Everyone will remember. It’s
real
,” he said, flexing his fingers around the brown handle, “you’re just a concept.” He squeezed the trigger three times.

Cassidy saw only muzzle flashes. Knew they’d passed through his chest and stomach, perhaps one through his head and into the crates behind him. But he felt nothing except the distant throb of prickling needles in his skin, as if his body had become a pile of clay. Brewster lay wounded beside him. Dying. A tear trickled down Cassidy’s cheek. It splatted against the floor looking bright and vibrant. Too vibrant. Too
real.
“If I’m just an idea,” said Cassidy, as blood bubbled out of his mouth, “then whose head am I in?”

The Commodore narrowed his eyes and looked annoyed. He squeezed off two more rounds into Cassidy’s chest.

“I’m not in the Everdream, so the concept must be in
my
head.” Cassidy forced himself to a higher sitting position, trying to concentrate on something
real
. If only...he dug his hand into his pocket and gripped the silver dollar. The last few drops of April’s pain seeped out, filling his veins with a kind of electric heat. “If I’m just a shadow,” Cassidy said, as rage built in his chest, “then how are you killing me?” Banner’s face rose up from his memory. Brewster’s dying eyes beside him. April. Her
green
eyes. Those eyes that recognized something in him from a simple momentary glance. Connected with him in a preternatural way. “Maybe I don’t want to die.”

The Commodore took another step back and emptied the pistol. The last empty shell hit the floor at his feet and bounced several times before rolling to a stop against the Commodore’s boot.

Cassidy worked his way to his feet. He touched his stomach where the sword had cut. The blood was gone. “Maybe I exist,” he said, staggering towards the Commodore, “because I
want
to exist.”

The Commodore swung his sabre, but it bounced off Cassidy’s side as if striking a stone column. He swung again and pulled the trigger on the empty Mauser. Cassidy yanked the sabre away and shoved the Commodore to the floor. Tears stung his eyes as he stood over the downed pirate.
Real
tears. He smelled salt in them. “Call for your men, Commodore,” Cassidy said. He raised the sabre in both hands and plunged it down, impaling its owner through the stomach and into the floor. “Tell them to man the guns. All the guns. And fly like the Devil himself is out to get them.”

He dropped to the floor beside Brewster. “Just believe,” he said, holding his friend by the shoulders. “You don’t have to die.”

Brewster gave a weak smile. “That may be the difference between you and me,” he said. “You
want
it so bad. I just wasn’t made like that. I’m in the moment. I want to accept this.” His eyes glazed and he stopped moving. Cassidy shook him by the shoulders, but seconds later he was shaking empty air.

Cassidy stood. He took back his empty Mauser and picked up Brewster’s Webley. He fired twice, blasting the Commodore’s knee caps out. Resta screamed in pain.

“Dammit, you bastard,” the Commodore managed, though his voice came out in thin rasps. “It was nothing personal. You’re still just air, dammit.”

Cassidy shoved the Webley in his belt and left the Commodore pinned to the floor, screaming as best he could with a sword through his middle. Cassidy re-loaded as he walked, pushing one shell at a time into the internal magazine. The gangplank extended off the main deck and down to the docks where the two guards stood facing the hotel. Cassidy shot them both in the back of the head. Several of the other crew ran down the steps of the hotel as he made his way to the runway. They were too far away to notice him.

Far above he heard engines engaging. He slapped a pile of bank notes into the dockworker’s hand, taxied out to the runway and was in the air before the airship had even lifted off.

Cassidy flew out several hundred feet and climbed high before looping back and aiming down on the rising airship. The Fokker dove like a plummeting falcon. As the pirate dirigible rose to meet him, Cassidy opened up both Spandaus, shredding the gas bladder, his
real
world bullets punching through to the gondola below.

The ship fell back towards the dock. Its bow caught one of the island’s steps and the stern continued to fall, flipping as Cassidy climbed again. By the time he’d made his ascent, the ship’s prow was aimed at the sky, standing on its stern against a layer of rock, its deflated gas bladder dangling off the edge of the small island.

Cassidy fired again. The chains rattled. Shell casings pelted his face and goggles as the downward thrust of the fighter blew them back at him. He continued his barrage down the length of the upturned ship, strafing through the decks until he struck the powder kegs in one of the gunrooms.

The Fokker continued its dive down past the edge of the island as a series of loud popping sounds came from behind. Cassidy pulled out of his dive and banked to see billows of fire blossom from the sides of the armoured airship. He depressed the levers to let loose another burst of hellfire as the vessel toppled from the island. The chains ran dry as one side of the ship exploded away.

Cassidy watched it fall. The ship tangled in its own airbladder as it fell end over end, down into the abyss. Cassidy waited for the fire inside him to cease. The rage to cool. It didn’t. He wanted to chase the Commodore’s burning body down into the abyss and empty another set of shell chains into the flaming hulk of the ship. No, ten chains. A hundred. A thousand.

Somewhere inside the airship’s wreckage lay the other
real
world Fokker, the
Valkyrie
, twisted and mangled now with whatever other
real
world objects had been stolen. They would probably continue to exist as the Twilight airship and crew burned off and faded away. They would probably fall forever. And where was Brewster now? Oblivion? Had any part of him returned to the Everdream?

Cassidy realized he was still diving. Still following the fireball of a ship as if Brewster was still on it. As if waiting for the Englishman to be released. Cassidy pulled out of the dive. Tears streamed down his face. Everyone was gone. All gone. Jayce and Franz in their far away pyramid. Ned, a man he’d undeservedly called a coward, sliced to ribbons. Banner and Karl still riding the elusive Aurora Borealis, forever imprisoned, the
Nubigena
providing their own personal stormcloud. And Brewster wasn’t coming back.

Cassidy pointed his fighter in the general direction of nothing and flew. The buzz and thrum of the engine sounded in his ears. The air rushed over his face. This plane was all that was left of his world now.

Potential windows opened around him as he imagined the
real
world. Giant squares of green energy, faded and ghost-like, stood out against the dark purple of the Twilight night. He focused on the thought of a
real
world storm. One of the potential frames solidified and crackled. It loomed before him as he steered towards it and on the other side he glimpsed raging clouds and blue forks of electricity through the green haze. It would be a good storm, he thought, and throttled forwards.

The green energy lit up his instruments as the tendrils reached out for the fighter. He felt Brewster’s Webley dig into his side where it lay nestled in his belt.

Cassidy cut the throttle, rolled and pulled back on the stick. For a moment, the Fokker skimmed the surface of the gate. The rolling currents of grey clouds juxtaposed in his vision over the Twilight purple. And he was back in the Twilight again. The gate faded behind him and he let go of the transient vision of the potential ones as well. Dammit!

Cassidy stared down at his instruments. He searched himself for the reason he hadn’t gone through and felt only shame. Brewster was dead and Cassidy didn’t deserve to enter the
real
world alone. He hadn’t protected his friend. Hadn’t protected anyone. They’d all fallen. What right did he have to carry on when he couldn’t bring anyone with him?

He had failed even Banner. What had his life, such as it was, been worth if he hadn’t actually done anything with it? His memories were still peppered with gaps and hazy pools of rippled clarity. Did he really exist, or was he just kidding himself with his thoughts of pure, solid,
will
?

Cassidy couldn’t feel himself. He turned to the direction of Arcadia. It was the only place he knew to go. Shea would be there. She would always be there. He could depend on her to...to what? What did he even feel for her? But he needed to be held. He was so cold. The blood in his veins had turned to ice and the wind had blown even the hot tears from his face.

He flew. The engine hummed. The props buzzed. His hand was glued to the control stick and Arcadia would soon be in sight. Miles? Feet? Time? Was there any time?

The upside-down mountain appeared and grew larger. It wasn’t home, but it was a place to go.

He landed on automatic. Skipped the bar and was in a room before he even noticed. His room, though. They always gave him the same one. The same vast cold openness. His bed in the centre with veils hanging down around it that vanished into the darkness of the ceiling.

He stripped off his shirt and jacket. Ran a hand over his flesh. Why did it feel different? He was still a dream, but his skin felt a little firmer. A little more elastic. The place the sabre had cut him felt soft and smooth.

Cassidy walked through the flowing curtains of the arched window and out onto the balcony. Moored airships drifted in the night breeze. He closed his eyes and for a moment it was his first night. It was one of the few memories that remained solid in his mind from those first days. His soft flesh goose pimpled in the breeze and his eyes watered again.

He opened them and turned back to the thin drapes that flowed towards him from his room. They parted as he stepped back in and saw Shea lay on his bed watching him. She was naked, though she didn’t look naked, but seemed instead a part of the bed. Her green leaf markings flowed down her spine and legs and melded into the emerald sheets. She propped her chin on her hands.

Cassidy walked to her. She drew herself to her knees and pressed herself to him. He wrapped his arms around her and her body formed to his. His grip became firmer and he cried into her hair.

She kissed his chest. He stiffened and his nerves flared. Her lips tingled like blue static against his skin. Her smell licked at his senses and he could all but taste it. Cassidy gripped Shea by the back of the neck and brought her lips to his. He kissed her deep and long, as if drinking her into him and then released her.

Shea’s closed eyes opened and he stared down into her bottomless pools of green. He laid down with his back to her and she snuggled up behind him, her arm wrapped around his side where he held her fingers clenched in his.

Cassidy closed his eyes.

He slept.

And dreamt.