Chapter 2

“Why are we in this place…?” I whispered, feeling my insides knot and twist like a serpent swallowing its own tail. “I don't… understand…”

“Dad's trying to figure out what's wrong with you,” he said softly, looking me in the eyes. “Don't go to sleep. It's important. He doesn't want to lose you.”

Lose me? What did that mean?

“Get me—out of—here!” I managed to gasp.

“It's more complicated than that,” he said. “We can't leave. Someone is trying to kill us, remember, and we have to find out why. And Dad's just been summoned before King Uthor. He has to go. You don't ignore the King of Chaos.”

“This place—hurts—”

His brow furrowed. “Maybe you just need to get used to it. You know, like on a ship.”

“Sea legs…” I whispered, thinking of boats, as the world moved around me.

“Yeah. Chaos legs.” He chuckled.

I tried to rise and found some leverage with my elbows, but couldn't keep my balance. I fell in the wrong direction. Aber grabbed my arm and helped pull me upright.

Why did everything want to go up instead of down? And why did up keep moving to the sides? If it would all stop for a minute, I thought I'd be able to get my bearings. My head began to pound.

“Steady.”

Without being asked, Aber rose, took my legs, and swung them around and over the side of the bed. Big mistake; I almost passed out as the room seemed to twist down and away, moving out from under me.

I gasped. This couldn't be happening, couldn't possibly be real. The room was strangely shaped. No corners met at right angles, walls curved and the ceiling sloped in an architect's nightmare. It was also sparsely furnished: a tall lookingglass, the bed on which I now sat, a table pushed up against the far wall, and two heavy wooden chairs whose high backs had been carved with the likenesses of dragons.

“Let's get you up,” Aber said.

“Wait—”

Reaching down with my feet, I touched the floor with the tips of my toes. Hard, bare, no carpet, just wood that had been polished smooth as glass. It seemed fine. I frowned. So why couldn't I get my balance? Why was everything moving?

Aber glanced over his shoulder at our father. “If you pass out again, Dad will skin you alive.”

“But—”

“Don't be a baby about it! Just get up!”

I glared, but shut up. He didn't understand. Well, I'd just have to show him. It wasn't possible for anyone to stand here with the floor moving so much.

“Stand up!” he said. “On your feet, Oberon!”

“Help me—”

With a sigh, Aber draped my right arm over his shoulder and heaved. He was stronger than he looked, like everyone in my family, and he got me up with little trouble considering I must have weighed a hundred pounds more than he did.

Leaning on him, I stood unsteadily. The room kept shifting. The corners moved. The floor kept trying to slide away from under me. Without Aber propping me up, I would have fallen.

“There you go,” he said, cheerful as always. “First things first. Chaos legs. See?”

He let go. For a second, it wasn't so bad. I steadied myself on his arm and actually thought about trying to walk. Maybe I could make it a few feet.

Then the walls spasmed with reds and yellows. The floor heaved. I felt myself falling and seized his arm hard enough to make him yelp.

“No—you—don't!” He staggered under my weight, bracing himself.

A fierce humming noise filled my ears. The room spun and slipped, and I felt myself going over backwards. Aber quickly caught my shoulders and lowered me back to the floor with a grunt.

I hugged the broad wooden boards, feeling the universe spin, praying that everything would stop moving soon. What sort of place was this? I couldn't even stand up here.

Pressing my eyes shut, I tried to block this place from my mind. I willed myself back to Ilerium. It had worked once before, after all.

But it didn't now.

“Want to try standing again?” Aber asked.

“No!”

“At least sit up,” he said. “You can do it. Try.”

“Maybe…”

Taking a deep breath, I eased myself up and braced my feet against the floor. The walls seemed to slide around me like they weren't fastened down. But at least I was sitting now.

“Better,” Aber said. I noticed he was rubbing his arm where I'd grabbed him. “We'll take it slowly.”

“I need sleep,” I growled. “Then I can wake up from this nightmare!”

“You'll get the hang of it. Give yourself time.”

Time? I had always been able to walk, even when I was so drunk I could barely see. But I could tell he wasn't going to let me rest.

“Give me a hand—I'll try again.”

“Are you sure?” Aber said, hesitating. He rubbed his arm again. I must have really hurt him.

“Sorry about your arm,” I said. Sighing, I looked up at his face. He flickered: horns, no horns, horns. I had never felt so dizzy and disoriented.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Accidents happen. I heal fast, and I'm happy to carry a grudge.” He chuckled. “I'll get even when you least expect it, dear brother. Maybe you ought to sit still for a while.”

Slowly I began to crawl toward the bed. It felt like a trip across a constantly moving sheet of ice—tipping first one way then another, with me hanging on desperately and trying not to slide away. Maybe I could use the bed to balance myself. Mostly I tried not to think about throwing up.

As I reached the bed and began to climb back onto it, Dworkin hurried over, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my head back. I felt my eyes roll in panic as colors and lights burst like fireworks around me.

“Let go!” I cried. It came out more like the howl of some haunted beast.

Shoving his face close to mine, he peered into my eyes like a physician studying a new patient. I smelled wine on his breath and knew he'd been drinking. That wasn't a good sign. He'd drunk himself into a stupor in Juniper when faced with overwhelming problems. With a comment of, “Interesting,” he let go.

I fell flat with an oomph of lost air. Then I curled up in a ball on the floor. My breath came in shudders. I wanted to pull the universe in on top of me.

“Do not go to sleep,” Dworkin told me firmly.

I peered up at him through a haze.

“Why?” I whispered

“Because you will die.”

I groaned. “I'm too stubborn to die.”

“Then you are a fool, my boy.”

“Send me back to Juniper!” I begged. “Or Ilerium. Anywhere but here!” I would rather face an army of hell-creatures alone and unarmed than put up with this Shadow of the Courts of Chaos for another minute.

“Quiet, Oberon,” he said. He began to pace. “I need to think.”

As the room began to steady once more, I forced myself to roll over toward the bed. I leaned back against it, watching him. As long as I remained motionless, barely breathing, the room seemed almost steady.

“Can I do anything to help?” Aber asked.

Dworkin said, “Try this.”

As I watched, he reached into the air and, seemingly from nothingness, pulled down a large reddish-brown clay pitcher. That was another one of those Logrus tricks. Wine? Something stronger, hopefully. I needed a drink right now. I needed it desperately. I wasn't sure I could keep it down, but I welcomed the chance to try.

Aber accepted the pitcher with his left hand, then reached down, grabbed my shirt, and hoisted all two hundred and forty pounds of me to my feet as though picking up a kitten. When he released me, I teetered unsteadily. Colors leaped and pulsed around me; my vision dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed again. The scream of wind in my ears grew wild and discordant.

“Whiskey?” I gasped. “Brandy?”

“Afraid not,” Aber said.

“What—?”

“See for yourself.”

Without warning, he raised the pitcher and dumped the contents over my head.