Disclaimer: The wonderful verse of Obernewtyn all belongs to IC. None of this is mine.

Warning: Some very slight spoilers/speculation

My eyes drifted across the ceiling, waiting for the waves to rock, rock, rock me to sleep. Shifting uncomfortably on the bed, I tried to reach out, to hear the rapturous melodies of the Wavesong. My mind recoiled against static.

I winced, less at the pain then at yet another failure, knowing that the Wavesong would help me, if I could only reach it. Knowing I had to bear yet another night of the Dreams. Something happened to me here on Jakoby's ship, over the long weeks of voyaging to the Red Queen's land. As though my mind was trapped, like I was Talentless, and all my thoughts yearning to be free were locked in my mind and eating away my sleep. Instead of resting, I fell into an ocean of TrueDreams, the amber bubble of the Mindstream rising around me, popping, first one, then another, and another, and all of them, and I was awash in prophecies and pasts and things I could only pray were figments of my imagination. So drowned in them that even the Dreamtrails seemed they would be a welcome relief.

"You can't continue this. You're exhausted." Rushton had pulled me away from the rigging.

I shrugged his hand off my shoulder, looking out over the ocean rather than meeting his eyes. "I'm not your flower. I don't need you to tell me what I am or am not capable of."

He cupped my chin in his hand. "Please, Elspeth. Sleep. Maruman can help you fight the dreams."

As if he'd heard the voice in my memory, the cat shifted against my neck. I smiled, breathing in his scent.

I fell.

It wasn't dark, but it wasn't light either. The first bubble popped.

Cassy stood in a room filled with seats, her dark, unblinking gaze intent on a door. People milled around her, some of them carrying heavy suitcases or winter coats. Mentally, I start, as a voice from nowhere announces "Flight LQ 746 from Xianghai, Chinon, has arrived at Terminal 4." Cassy's fingers tighten as the door slides open and a crowd files out. Her eyes flick from person to person, and I see the eagerness in them fade to worry, then to desperation. She waits, for long moments after the last man has left and the door has stood empty. She watches, and I see the hope fading from her eyes. Suddenly she turns, and walks away, quickly, composed, as though nothing of consequence has happened but I've seen her too many times, I know her too well…

I gasped, in limbo, no longer able to tell if I was falling or floating. Another bubble popped.

Cassy is sitting across from a man with a dark glasses and a long, black ponytail. Around her, the room is bright, decorated with red paper lanterns and gold foil. Groups of people sit around round tables, and children run around the legs of women carrying trays. She lays down a folder filled with pictures of food, and behind her I see the words "Happy New Year." There's a dragon running across the banner.

The man looks at her. "That kind of thing is hardly easy to find out. There will be… expenses."

Some quality of Cassy's eyes reminds me of metal, the kind the Beforetimers used to build the city under Tor. The kind that lasts through catastrophe, decay, and eternity. "I'm aware of the costs."

He raises his eyebrows. The smile turns sad. "We're not well liked by the Chinon government, kid. I've lost my share of friends. But it's not worth my neck. There's every chance he's dead, and if he's not, I'd wish it on –"

"I can pay," she cuts him off. The man doesn't see the way her hands curl into fists.

His head tilts, so little it can hardly be perceived. "Where do you plan to get the money? Even a well-connected kid like you –"

"Not money." She shakes her head. "Information. That's what you trade in, is it not?"

Laughter. "You've got friends in high places, I'll give you that. But you don't know anything real."

"I found you, Ren Irie."

The man with the ponytail takes off his glasses and looks at her for the first time. "That you did, Cassy Duprey. That you did."

As her eyes contact his, she sends out a probe – unsubtle, unfocused, but expanding, regardless. Her mind moves out, touching but washing over the people around them, then it reaches mine. She recoils, starts, her eyes and widen as they meet mine…

Her unstable probe pushed me out of the Dream and into a cascade of nightmares. I saw a flash of light, so bright it should have been blinding, the smear of white dust spreading across the sky. I was standing amongst a crowd, but now the square was empty, devoid of human laughter or barking dogs or the soft green grass… I saw Cassy again, running, running, running down an empty metal corridor… I saw Rushton, with Domick and Ariel, and I screamed as I saw him screaming, tried to run toward him but the Dream faded into another… Dragon lying in the dust, under a tall statue of the beautiful ruler she should have grown to be but never would because blood was seeping from her sides and dying the sand crimson, crimson, crimson…

Maruman snarled somewhere in the distance, but the visions were ever more vivid. I saw Matthew crouching in a corner, a jagged cut running down his face, desperately looking for something, anything that could help him help Gilliane as she is hacked to pieces by blades wielded not by men but by some abominable computermachine, and through the glinting blades I saw an inscription, "NTINAL"… I saw Dameon, alone, stumbling through a swirling blizzard, coughing, falling to his knees… I saw Rushton, standing on a scaffold, Rushton kneeling, Rusthon's dark eyes as the sword whistles towards his neck, and I looked at the hands that wielded it, to the face, Ariel's face, his angel, golden hair and his sadistic smile…

I fled. In desperation, I tried to claw my way out of the Dreams, I ran, ran, ran, till my legs burned and I wondered if I was still asleep. Gasping for breath, I realized that green was spreading across the land. My panic, my horror, my fear for my loved ones faded as I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the fields surrounding Obernewtyn in springtime. Waves crashed, and as I opened my eyes, I stood instead before the Sadorian Earthtemple, the normally blistering heat welcome on my clammy skin. I could hear the rustle of the sand in the wind, smell the salt of the ocean.

"ElspethInnlle must wake." Maruman's voice sounded distant. I didn't want to wake, anyway. Before opening my eyes I'd have to venture through the abyss. Instead, I walked towards the lapping shore but instead of sand I felt hard, cold stone under my feet. Cassy's intricately carved glass effigy shone in the moonlight, the glinting carved animals in the place of her son's cairn. Through the transparency of now, the future. Stonehill was beautiful at night, but terrible. A vague sense of foreboding came over me. Inexplicably, I was sure that I would face something – here, tonight – something terrifying, dangerous, and something I needed to know. Even as the thought washed over me, I understood.

I turned. He stood there, even more beautiful under the Moon's caressing touch than he had ever been in the snows of Obernewtyn, under the sun on the deck of a slaveship, taunting me in my dreams. Ariel smiled, relishing my tension and desperation. Maruman, I thought softly. Where are you?

With a shudder, I realized he may have been watching my dreams. Another wash of fear ran over my body, not for myself, but for the signs I may have revealed to him. How much had he learned? Calm, he walked towards me, and I wanted to turn, to run, to jump into the violent sea, to pray that I would be somewhere new before I hit the jagged rocks. I didn't. There was something I needed to ask.

"Why?" It was a soft whisper, but it stilled his approach.

"Whatever do you mean, Elspeth?" His smirk hadn't faltered.

I tilted my head. He can't kill me. Be calm. Don't let him feed on your fear. "Our world won't survive another Great White. Surely you and I, at least, know that." The air was still around us, growing colder.

"No," he answered simply. "It won't." Suddenly, he face was a mere inch from mine, breathtaking in its angelic, demonic beauty. I'd expected gloating laughter, but he merely looked intrigued.

Forcing myself to meet his eyes, I asked again. "So why?"

His eyebrows raised, silently.

"When we won Obernewtyn, you were the first one to flee. You ran to the Druids, but you defected to the Council before the Firestorm. You must have known it was coming. And then the rebellion gained ground, and you went to the Herders. But even they couldn't stand forever, so you went back to the Camp and sold them to Salamander. Once you'd befriended her – oh, yes, I know who she is – you could wait till Herder Isle was going to fall, and slip out just before we arrived. You took Domick to the West Coast, but you left there to, across the ocean on the black ship, before the disease could spread."

His eyes were narrowed, but I continued. "These are hardly the actions of someone who wants to die. Even if you want to take the whole world with you." Ariel's face darkened. "But you won't survive this. So, why? Why do it?"

I had expected him to laugh. I had hoped to see doubt, or perhaps even remorse in his shining eyes. I was surprised to see the sorrow. "Elspeth," he murmured, shaking his head. "Did you think either of us chose our course? You are Seeker, I am Destroyer. Everything was, is, preordained – everything, we just don't know how it ends up yet. You have Atthis and Kasanda," his smile was not mocking, but bitter, when I flinched at the names.

"And I have my own puppeteers. Neither of us chose this path – not you, not me."

I shook my head, refusing to hear my secret doubts in the voice of my enemy. "No. I do this because the consequences are too great. There is nothing for you on your quest."

"But can you bear the consequences of following it? You've seen them, you know, tonight. I can tell you more. I've seen Obernewtyn collapse in flames, turned to rubble. I've seen that cat of yours dying on the Dreamtrails, shielding you from forces far more powerful than me. I've seen everyone and everything you love, but I can't see you."

"You're lying." My voice was dry. I raised a hand towards the moon.

"You can never know, can you?"

"You don't see all of it, you know. The Moon sets every morning."

"And rises every night. Darkness, Elspeth. That's my domain." The sorrowful eyes had gone, replaced by the sadistic mocking. I saw a burning hunger in them. "That was always my domain. But I could change it, you know." His finger brushed my cheek.

I swallowed again, terror rushing back. "You can't hurt me. You need me."

He was shaking his head, smiling, even as I said it. "Is that what they told you? No – they need you, to blindly follow the road they laid you. And me, I suppose. But I could always break the pattern." There was a pause. "Maybe your death will set me free."

Ramming a probe into his mind, I turned and ran. He screamed, hit with all the pure, bludgeoning force I could muster without venturing towards the darkness at my core. Reaching the edge, I hesitated, then looked over my shoulder to see him rising, furious and grinning. I jumped, calling Maruman as I tumbled towards the violent seas. I saw him, larger than ever before, bounding from a cliff to seize me in his claws… I felt a gash of pain in my stomach where they caught me…

My eyelids flew open. There were jagged cuts in my dress, blood welling from identical cuts on my skin. Maruman growled at me. ElspethInnle must not seek the H'rayka on the Dreamtrails.

I nodded, too exhausted to answer. My head hit the pillow as I groaned, realizing I was even more tired than before.

A/N:

Kibou will probably be annoyed at me for not working on Blackbird Aria yet again. Oh, well, I really wanted to write something in OberChron-verse. Did anyone else see the released book jacket for the Sending?

Please review :D

Echo