He woke right before she hit the ground.

Dawn, Southern Craglands . . .

"Not again," Asher groaned. "What is going on?"

He sat up and clapped a hand to his forehead. This was the third time! He pressed the heel of his hand into his eye, trying to push the images of that strange, dark, wet, and machine-filled world out of his mind. With his other eye, he blinked furiously at the headman's patched tent walls. Wild, fern-green pimki birds chattered as they explored the barrels and bamboo canteens propped in the coolest corner, their long tails kicking up fans of silver and gold sand. The oil lantern depending from the main pole was shuttered, though Asher could make out the hand-woven charms of protection hanging in concentric circles from the support poles. He scooted backward, toward the tent wall and the concealing sacks and tubes of supplies, his ears alert for any sound of distress outside.

Condensed sunlight shimmered inside the tent, prompting a drop of sweat to roll down his temple. Slowly, he relaxed. A morning in the Craglands was too hot and dry for blankets. The complete opposite of his dream.

Her dream. Whatever.

She must have survived the accident. Which meant she was an alien in this world, just like him. An alien, dreaming of the day she'd dropped into Ephemeros. Now he was sharing her dream.

He was damn sick of it.

"Firelord! How was your sleep?" the headman called in his sand-roughened voice. He ducked into the tent, shooing away the pimkies, who chirped at him and continued savaging the canteens with their small, curved beaks, seeking a drink.

The headman's sandals stopped at the edge of the threadbare sleeping rug, and then he burst into laughter. "Ha! Maybe you didn't get much sleep after all!"

Asher looked down. A linen sheet was bunched up over his left leg, which ached with the memory of that girl's dream. Then the sheet moved.

Appalled, he whipped it off. The empty jug of metheglin he'd swiped from supper the night before tipped over and sent two wooden cups tumbling into the sand. Keon-hee scrunched up her face in the sudden light and then wiggled closer, rubbing her cheek and one dimpled hand into his thigh.

"Mmm," she mumbled. She squeezed with her small fingers, which inched dangerously upward. Her brows furrowed. "Sang-eo, you lost weight."

Asher stared at her; she was still dead to the world. He should have known better than to let a kid of sixteen drink, but once she'd tasted the spiced, fermented honey, he hadn't been able to stop her. Moreover, judging by the shadows flitting across her sweaty face, the way she whimpered and hunched closer, he suspected this newest alien had gotten into Keon-hee's dreams, too. Which meant that, like he and his – for lack of a better word – partner, the other alien was a Card Master as well.

Still. He doubted Keon-hee had ever encountered morning wood before, and he didn't want to be the one to introduce her.

"I don't care if you are dreaming!" he balled up a fist and whacked her blue-haired head. "Watch where you put your hands!"

"Ouch!" Keon-hee rolled off him at once, clutching her pixie-short hair.

Asher leaped to his feet, fist raised, ready to whack her again if she tried to grab him, the proud bulge in his trousers on full display. Damned if he was going to apologize for it, though.

"Ah, I know how it is with young people," the headman wheezed, smirking all over his swarthy face so that his eyes closed to dark crescents. He leaned on his walking stick in the posture of one of the watch guards, which let them stand for hours without getting tired.

"Shut up, old man," Asher snapped, not in the mood to fend off the suppositions of a dirty-minded human.

The headman opened one eye a slit, his smile hardening as he studied Asher, his obvious alienness, his spiky, dark red hair, his long, pointed ears, the cracked and stained dragon's claw he wore on a thong around his neck. They sized each other up, and then the headman sighed through his smile, friendly again. "Well, we do owe you a great debt, Firelord. The two of you worked hard last night."

He hobbled over to the tent opening and held up the flap, gesturing for the taller man to precede him into camp. Asher glanced at Keon-hee, who had found her strange bag, the sandpaper-skinned fish she called Sang-eo, snuggled up with it like it was a pillow, and—

"I don't believe it," Asher muttered under his breath. "The kid went back to sleep."

Sang-eo gnashed its serrated teeth a little in its sleep. Keon-hee gave a slight snore. Her slumber seemed more peaceful than before. Asher shrugged, pleased that things were – ahem – settling down, and went out.

The smell hit him hard, but he made no sign of it except by stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets. He followed the headman past the pile of dead Nightmares, to which the night watch was beginning to set fire. The women of the caravan must have finished their looting of the carcasses, then. Good. Maybe they'd gathered enough to pay his and Keon-hee's fee for taking care of the problem in the first place.

Asher and the headman rounded another of the patched, red-walled tents. Caravanners sat around small fires, breakfasting on slightly sweet rolls of dark grain, tiny, salted lizard fillets, and tough-skinned fruit gathered at the last oasis. They drank mugs of hot but thin xocoatl, for which Keon-hee hadn't developed a taste, though Asher thought it acceptable. It was similar to a drink the dragon-kin brewed, a dark, muddy beverage they called qahwa. Keon-hee had admitted that the xocoatl's bitterness reminded her of the seaweed crackers her people, the sea-dwelling haenyeo, made, but she wouldn't drink anything but water. Usually. He made a mental note to keep her away from the booze.

"We just got word of another reap-site to the east," the headman said. His gray hair tufted from beneath his skullcap, from his ears, and from his jaw. He turned to Asher, worry etching the lines of his face deeper. "The Nightmares are gaining power. I fear for the future of Ephemeros."

A small breeze plucked at the headman's loose clothing and cloak, the rips and tears in Asher's blue denim jacket and khaki trousers. Two of the watch were arguing over a carcass that had flopped out of the burning pile of Nightmares. It looked like a lizard-headed human turned inside out, its bones forming a cage to contain bled-out muscle and sinew. Most Nightmares were animalistic, bipedal, and horrible, even when dead. Apparently, neither man wanted to touch it to put it back on the fire. Asher rolled his eyes.

"Save your breath, old man," he said. He ignored the headman's startled look. "I'm an alien, remember? I couldn't care less how many villages the Nightmares destroy."

Disappointment and anger darkened the headman's swarthy face. He turned away, eyes closed, unwilling to soil his gaze with an alien any longer. "Very well, then. Joree! Give him his pay."

A timid young man scampered up, the expected bag of coin in his hands. Asher took it and bared his fangs in a grin when Joree scampered away again, nervous as a desert rabbit. These people, the natives of Ephemeros, had made it very clear from the beginning that aliens didn't rate any better than Nightmares in Ephemeros. Best not let the natives forget that he had power they did not, not after they'd left him to die when he'd dropped into this world, injured, alone, confused, and frantic to get back home.

There was no way home. He'd accepted that. However, their world would never be home, not for him. No use getting attached.

"Fucking mercenary alien," one of the pair who had left the carcass lying where it was as if hoping the hard, white sun would take care of the job for them, loudly said. "I don't trust him to guard the caravan."

"Quiet, Soldeen," the headman snapped. Asher raised his eyebrows at his tone. "Anyone who has the ability to use Cards is worth every penny. These aliens have unique advantages over Nightmares."

He glared at Asher and then his men. "Keep your reservations to yourselves."

Well. Not every native was a waste of skin, Asher supposed.

The soldiers made faces at him with their silly blunt teeth. Bored, Asher turned away, the gold satisfyingly heavy in his hand, to collect his seabag and his partner. Time to move on.

Except one of the women screamed and dropped a jug of xocoatl on the rocky ground. It smashed, splashing hot liquid everywhere. More women screamed, frightening the children, who fled like sheep when the wyvern was loose. Small bodies bumped into Asher, spinning him around.

The untended carcass was moving.

The watch gave shouts of warning. "A Nightmare! Alive! Take cover, Headman!"

While the men tried to shuffle their resisting leader to safety, the Nightmare stood. It yanked the head of a spear out of its back and stretched to its full, nine-foot height, joints cracking. Gore-smeared horns winked wickedly in the dawn and firelight. The tooth-filled jaw dropped open, releasing bloody steam. The feral eyes narrowed, fixed with hate on Asher.

The jaws widened. A pointed, bird-like tongue thrashed in the cavity. The Nightmare screeched.

It sounded like the two machines colliding in the dream.

Asher shook off the chill of someone else's terror. Let Nightmares frighten the natives. He was dragon-kin. He kicked open a crate, snatched out a melon-sized grenade, and then wedged it in the monster's snarling mouth. Contemptuously, for the humans and for the monster, he said, "Go back to sleep, ugly."

The Nightmare convulsed like a housecat with its head stuck in a bag, as if it didn't know, or couldn't remember, that it had hands. Asher plucked the pin from the grenade, and then he and the caravanners sprinted for cover. Some got blown flat to the sand, all got splattered, when the grenade exploded.

The fire crackled and spat. Left and right, the caravanners, the watch, and the headman picked themselves up and brushed themselves off. Cursing under his breath, Asher flicked bits of gravel out of a cut on his elbow. Frightened sobs issued from the red tents.

"Wh-what do you think you're doing?" the fellow named Joree spluttered. "Y-you can't j-j-just –"

"Hmm?" Asher, intent on a particularly large bit of grit, wasn't paying attention.

"Those munitions are for repelling a full-scale attack!" Soldeen shouted. He shoved Joree aside, marched up to Asher, stood toe to toe with him, and puffed up his chest. Asher looked up at him coolly, which caused a large, purple vein to throb unpleasantly across his forehead. "They must be signed for – rationed – good gods, man, there are procedures! You can't waste them on a single enemy!"

"Use them. All of them. Now," Asher said. He drew his saber and pointed it at the burning mound, which bubbled like a pot of stew on the boil; the Nightmare corpses were reanimating. Their shiver-inducing screeches rose above the snapping of flames. "Nightmares feed on fear. This entire camp reeks of it. Blow up the whole pile, now, before you're adding the bodies of your family to the pyre."

As he spoke, one of the Nightmares, its back and shoulders bristling with broken arrow shafts, ripped a battle-ax out of a feebly-stirring neighbor and hurled it. Asher and the soldiers scattered.

Nightmares, stumbling and shambling like the walking dead they were, rushed out of the flames and made for the red tents and the helpless women and children hiding inside.

Asher readied his saber, but the Nightmare who had thrown the ax jumped over his head. In two large bounds, it reached the camp perimeter.

"Damn!" Asher snarled. If not stopped, it would seek out the nearest village and gather as many souls there as it could. Turning villages into reap-sites seemed to be the creatures' only purpose, and they were very, very good at it.

Not on my watch, pal. Asher ran after the Nightmare as fast as his long legs would take him, until—

"Move, Asher!"

Keon-hee! The ruckus must have finally awakened her. He turned, saw what she was doing, and dove for cover, swearing at the top of his lungs as his bleeding elbow scraped sand and rocks.

Keon-hee, who had probably pulled that morning star from Sang-eo's mysterious depths, had impaled an Ephemeral Card on one of its spikes. She swung it overhead by the chain until it hummed, and the Card began to glow. When she called its name— "Turbo Turtle!" —it responded with a burst of magic. The spiked ball transformed into a peridot-shelled turtle, spinning with a lethal whee! toward the fleeing Nightmare. Its eyes glowed within the blackness of its shell, blurring into streaks of white.

Guided by its Card Master's will, the flying turtle caught up to the Nightmare and sliced the monster in half. It spun around and caught up again, and the monster's torso dissolved in a spray of chunks. The legs, still trying to run, thudded to the ground.

The watching caravanners cheered, applauding in the native way by slapping their hands on their thighs. Encouraged, Keon-hee commanded Turbo Turtle to clean up the remaining Nightmares, which were losing strength due to the heartened cheering.

That should have been the end of it. Asher started to push himself up but he felt the vomit-reflex upsurge of elemental power. It ruffled his hair, making it stand on end the way static electricity did.

Abruptly, the cheering stopped. Turbo Turtle whizzed around with renewed fervor, bashing through covered wagons, unprotected tents, and the caravan's precious supplies. Pots shattered. Canvas tore. Wagons crashed onto their sides. Pimkies flocked into the sky, twittering madly amid a shower of fern-green feathers. The screaming resumed.

"Asher!" Keon-hee shrieked. The chain had morphed into a rope of water, trapping her arms and legs, sucking the magic from her body to fuel the renegade Ephemeral Card. "I can't make this stop!"

"What, are you stupid?" Asher tried to run to her but had to duck as the damn turtle tried to play Tag with his skull. "I told you to never use Cards you couldn't control!"

Keon-hee couldn't answer. She was crying too hard.

Hissing a choice curse, Asher readied himself to tackle the kid, hoping to break her connection to the Ephemeral Card. The whee! behind him was his only warning.

A white crack of lightning split the world in two.

A/N: Well, whatcha think? Please leave a review on your way out and let me know! I'm very friendly, I promise. ;3

Reviewer Thanks! To my dear reader, St4r Hunter, you made me really happy. Thank you!

Until next time,

Anne