With a sigh, I pulled off my pants and threw them to Horace—who hung them over the back of the desk chair, along with my shirt—and slid between clean, crisp sheets.

I snuggled in. This was the good life. Soft pillows, a comfortable bed, a roof to keep out the rain… yes, for a soldier like me, even this weird, mixed-up world offered luxuries. All I needed was a beautiful woman beside me—preferably a lusty widow—and my life would be complete.

Horace went into the next room and returned with a three-legged stool. He set it down at the end of the bed and perched on top. With his elbows on his knees and his chin cupped in his hands, he proceeded to stare at me. This would be a long night for him. I saw him give a little sigh.

“Take heart,” I said. “I don't think we'll be here very long.” When our father found out the house had been searched in his absence, I had a feeling he would be angry enough to abandon the Courts of Chaos.

“Yes, Oberon. What should I do if something happens?” he asked. “Should I call Lord Aber, as he said?”

“Nothing will happen.”

I saw him sigh.

“But if it does,” I went on, “try your best to wake me first. Only call Aber as a last resort. After all, I don't want him to skin you alive.”

“Me either!” He looked relieved.

I closed my eyes. It had been a long, difficult day. Between my sickness, the lateness of the hour, and all the alcohol I had drunk, exhaustion overwhelmed me.

I slept.

I dreamed…

… and felt the dream slide away toward madness.

Chapter 8

Movement all around me.

Not a boat this time: a curious sense of drifting in all directions at once, as if I soared, birdlike, high above my body. This sensation had come upon me a number of times before, some distant part of me recalled. It was neither sleep nor dreaming, but a sort of vision… or a visitation… by my spirit to another place. Whatever I saw next would be real, I knew, but happening far away. And I would be powerless to interfere.

With a growing sense of foreboding, I opened my dream-eyes and looked down. I soared high above a land of ever-changing design and color. Large, rounded stones moved like sheep through high green grass. To the left, trees walked on their roots like men, gathering in circles to talk to one other. I saw no signs of human life.

Overhead, a dusky red sky seethed with movement. A dozen moons rolled like balls across the heavens. I saw no sign of a sun, and yet it was not dark.

On I flew, crossing over vast expanses of grass until I came to a tower made of skulls, some human and some clearly not. Here I slowed, drifting like a phantom cloud, unseen and untouchable.

I had been to this place before. Here, in several other such visions, I had witnessed my brothers Taine and Mattus being tortured and (at least in Mattus's case) killed. It hadn't been pleasant.

When I stretched out my hand to touch the tower, once more my fingers passed into the wall of bones as though through fog. It was exactly like the last time. I knew I could be nothing more than an observer here.

Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself to drift through the wall and into the tower. Shadows flickered within. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I made out a familiar looking stairway built from arm bones and leg bones. It circled the inside wall of the tower, climbing into a deeper darkness, descending into a murky, pulsating redness.

I drifted down, and the redness resolved itself into a circle of burning torches. A square slab of rock, shaped like a sacrificial altar, lay in the center of the room. Deep shadows lay before it, and I sensed an unseen presence there, watching and waiting.

My heart began to pound and the breath caught in my throat. Why had I been summoned here this time? What power had brought me to this place?

I tried to wake myself from this nightmare vision, tried to force my eyes open in the real world, but it didn't work. Stubbornly, I remained anchored to this place. Apparently I was not yet done here.

Then I heard the sounds of tramping boots to one side. Four hell-creatures in silvered armor entered through a small doorway. Unlike the ones who had searched our home, these did not have crowns blazed on their chests… but that seemed to be the only difference. Between them they dragged a human—a naked, filthy man with thick iron chains on his legs and arms. Only the slight shuffling movement of his feet as he tried to walk gave any indication of life.

Long, tangled hair and a matted beard obscured his face, and his head hung limp.

I tried to see who it was, but couldn't tell. He appeared half dead, and what I could see of his body through the dirt made my skin crawl. Festering sores and wounds, some old but many more that were recent, covered every inch of his arms, legs, chest, and stomach.

Without saying a word, the four hell-creatures flung him down on the slab of stone. I had to give this fellow credit—when they began to fasten his chains to huge iron rings, he still struggled despite his condition. Unfortunately, he no longer had enough strength to fight much. They shoved him down and finished their job, then stood back at attention.

From the shadows at the far side of the chamber, where I had sensed a presence before, came a huge serpentlike creature that must have been twenty feet long. Though it slithered on its belly, it held its front end erect. Its almost human torso had two scaled, vaguely human arms that ended in broad taloned hands, one of which held a silver-bladed knife.

“Tell me what I want to know,” the creature said softly, its body weaving left and right, left and right. “Spare yourself, son of Dworkin. Earn an easy death…”

The man on the table had the strength to lift his head a bit, but he made no reply. As his hair fell back, I saw sunken blue eyes and a familiar white dueling scar on his left cheek, and only then did I recognized him: my half brother Taine. I had dreamed of Taine twice before, and the last time had been less than a week ago as I reckoned time… but from his appearance, he had been here for months—maybe years.

I swallowed. No, these were not dreams, despite their nightmare quality. These were true visions. This was real. I remembered how Aber told me that time in different Shadow worlds moved at different speeds.

The serpent-creature writhed forward, beginning to chant, the words ancient and powerful. I only half understood them, but they set my skin crawling. Quickly I shut my mind to the sound.

Though I longed to do something to help poor Taine, I knew I had no form here, no arms to take up weapons nor muscles to swing them. I could be nothing more than a silent spectator to whatever horrors unfolded.

The silver blade flashed down, opening new cuts on Taine's arms and legs and chest. Thin blood began to flow, but instead of dripping toward the floor, the drops lifted into the air and hung there, spinning slowly, starting to form an intricate crimson pattern.

I knew that design. I recognized it at once: it matched the Pattern within me, the Pattern that was somehow imprinted on the very essence of my being. I summoned that Pattern to my mind now and compared it to what was being sketched in mid-air.

No, they were not the same. They were cousins. Close, but not quite a match… the Pattern in the air was flawed and broken, possessing several odd turns and twists that did not belong there. And a small section on the left simply fell apart, becoming a random series of drops.

And yet I sensed that, flawed thought it was, an immense power radiated from it. A power which made my whole body tingle with pins and needles.

“Show me the son of Dworkin!” the serpent-creature called again. “Reveal him!”

Taine lay still, probably unconscious. His blood no longer flowed. A thin line of drool fell from his mouth to the altar's stone.