The Dreamwalker's Path

2/ Eight’s Street, Sanctuary

It took all of Eight’s control not to glare at the men and women of Sanctuary as he surged passed them, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes lowered so that he could only look at the jumbled path a few feet ahead of him.

This was it. All of his planning was about to go down the thrice damned drain because somehow it had taken Time half the time he thought it would to find someone suitable for the position of her darling fucking Twelve. And there wasn’t a single damned thing that he could do about it because Time had gone out of her way to make sure that the three other people Eight would have never wanted to know were aware of that fact as well.

He had barely begun to build a foundation of support with Five and now he was going to have to drop the entire damn thing.

Unless…

He slowed to a less ground-eating pace and removed his hands from his pockets to run them through his hair.

Unless there was a way for him to get rid of the girl without making it obvious that she’d been gotten rid of.

He sat down on a pile of new bricks and rubbed one of his temples as he thought. It would be easy enough to do; she was in the Temple of the Lost, after all, and Time had made it no secret to her Hours that Lyriel’s realm was just as effected by the instability of the city as everyone else. The gods had rebelled against their prisons once already, she’d said. He just needed to make sure that the girl was caught in the middle.

And then what?

Would you have a child killed in cold blood, Eight? He ground the heel of his palm hard into his temple and then scratched at his scalp agitatedly. You’re a monster, not a demon. Besides, it’s been a long time since you let that side of you out…

But how many plans of conquest had been spoiled because of one oversight? One act of mercy? How many children had grown up to be the very undoing of the men that spared their lives?

Something white fluttered slowly passed him, interrupting his thoughts. He jerked his head up and looked down the alley the way he’d come, expecting to see someone there.

For a moment, all he saw was an empty street. Then, almost lazily, the form of a white butterfly floated into his line of sight.

Butterflies were creatures of change. They didn’t belong in Sanctuary any more than the rain or a natural sunset. The only butterfly he’d ever seen in Sanctuary had been in the clock tower.

“Wait!

It seemed stupid to shout after a butterfly. He could have cheerfully stabbed his own foot for how stupid he felt doing so. But he shouted anyway, and to his astonishment, the butterfly very slowly turned about in the air and meandered back down the alley to him.

It landed lightly on his knee.

The alp remembers you! It was a small, cheerful voice, but somehow, given that the butterfly had come back when he called to it, Eight was not surprised that it had spoken.

You let me out of the bottle that the evil one kept me in. I would thank you, but I must hurry. I must find milk and bread, and be gone to the other world again before the witchy witches wake.

It beat its wings to lift itself into the air, but Eight scooped the insect up between his palms and trapped it. “What do you mean ‘the other world’?” His words came out a harsh bark. “What other world?”

The butterfly fluttered anxiously between his hands. The other world! Through the crack just behind us! I would be there now, except I have no body there, and it’s frightfully dull to only exist in dreams. Please do not squish the alp. I’ll go back and I’ll never come back here!

Eight looked over his shoulder at the brick wall at the end of the alley. Sure enough, a crack ran from the bottom of the wall up. At the top it was barely a hairline in the bricks, but at the bottom it was just big enough for a little butterfly to pass through.

He stood up and circled around the pile of bricks he’d been sitting on, keeping his hands closed tight enough around the butterfly that she wouldn’t be able to slip away.

Carefully he transferred the butterfly to one hand, curling his fingers like a cage. With his free hand, he ran his fingers along the crack in the wall and then wriggled his fingers between the gap at the bottom. He felt warm air on the other side and knew it didn’t belong to Sanctuary.

Carefully, he removed his fingers and looked back at the butterfly. “You don’t have a body while you’re there?” His mind whirred. The butterfly had called itself an alp—one of the near forgotten fair folk, albeit a much lower order than he’d ever bothered to pay attention to. They were pretty simple creatures, with simple ambitions and a limited understanding of the world around them.

The butterfly made a tiny sound in his mind, timid, sad. I’ll go back and never come back; I will. Don’t squish me, please…

The final pieces of the puzzle pressed themselves into place, right in the foreground of Eight’s mind. The demon heaved a pleased sigh and smirked at the creature trapped in his hands.

“I’m not going to squish you,” he assured it, his voice an easy croon. “In fact, I’m going to do you a favor.”

3/ Temple of the Lost, Sanctuary

The search for a witchy who could help the alp find her body had not been going well. In fact, if the alp were forced to describe it, she would suggest that it was pretty stinky.

Normally the alp, being a resourceful creature as she was, would make do with what she had been given, but it was hard to see the bright side of not having a body to call her own in the most interesting place that ever existed. Especially, she thought sadly, when she had expected there to be an assortment of great and wonderful things for her to do now that she was out of her bottle and able to experience the wide world the way that she felt an alp should.

Now, however, there was a chance to change all of that!

At first, she thought the great big blood-fiend would squish her for the fun of it. Blood-fiends were notorious for that sort of thing, after all, and she wouldn’t put it passed anyone of his kind to squish her even if he did help her a few months before. But instead of squishing her, he made a deal with her—gave her the opportunity of a life time, really!

In the form of a white cat, the alp had left the blood-fiend and trotted toward the big grassy hill that one seemed to be able to see from almost anywhere in this strange little city.

There, the Hour had promised, was the perfect someone to have for a body. If she could talk the girl into going on the other side of the wall with her, talk the girl into being her friend…

The white cat slinked through the long, wet grass toward the ivory white building on the green hill. There, some sort of power stirred, like a pot on the edge of a rolling boil.

Through the large archway, down the stairs, into a wide chamber of ivory and gold.

As it crept, its body grew smaller, shorter, the hair grew into a different pattern, and whiskers became antennae. The butterfly flitted inches from the floor before meandering up to the high ceiling and then floating back down, searching.

This place...this place was brimming with unfulfilled promises and freshly awakened power. There was one in particular that it felt, a creature full of longing and sadness. Something with power, like itself, but different. Better.

This, she thought, this was the creature that the blood-fiend wanted her to take away.

The alp meandered to the other end of the temple, honing in on the creature that it felt; before it could reach her, however, a dark-haired figure emerged from a side room of the temple. Its large wings, black bespeckled brown and white, like an owl’s, gave it the appearance of a terribly fearsome creature, and fearing a confrontation, the alp changed course. Instead of rounding the last ionic pillar that separated it from the child-presence that it felt, the alp set itself adrift, floating upward toward the rafters of the high, sharply arched ceiling, resolving to wait.

Yes, this would do. This would do nicely.

“Chapel, sweetie, I know that I’m asking a lot from you. Believe me, I do understand, but I think that this will help the both of us.”

Chapel glared up at Caitell and did his best not to think horrible thoughts about her. She was, after all, one of the only people in the whole of Sanctuary that didn’t ever dismiss him because of his age or size. She always told him that great power came in all sorts of sizes, and it wasn’t anyone’s job to dictate whether or not someone who was small or young could or couldn’t do something. The only person who had that power was the person himself.

Chapel, barely twelve, and extremely small for his age, appreciate the sort of faith that Caitell put in things like that. But that didn’t really make up for the fact that, sometimes, she tried to be a replacement for his mother.

It wasn’t her fault, mostly. Caitell and his mom had been close, almost like sisters, from what he could tell, and Caitell felt responsible for his wellbeing after his mom and dad had been killed in an attack made by the Westies when he was seven. Even though she meant well, Chapel had a hard time not resenting her when she started talking about what was best for them.

“Look, I know you’re being real nice and all, Caitell, but I en’t gonna magically get over everything jus’ cause you decide you’re gonna take me to some old magic—holy cogs, en’t that somethin’?”

The boy paused, midstride, to gaze up at the high ceilings of the temple. “Looks like it just goes up and up forever.”

Caitell gripped his hand tighter and gave it a little wiggle.

“I told you; it’s a very impressive sort of place, isn’t it?”

Chapel shrugged. “Yeah, all right,” he agreed a little reluctantly. “Just don’t think that ah’m gonna be spendin’ all

of my time here, okay? Especially without Twix.”

He could just imagine the fuss that the chameleon fairy would cause if he knew that Chapel was doing volunteer work in the Temple without him. Twix was the sort of creature who could be very jealous about that sort of thing if he wanted to be, and frankly, Chapel believed it when Twix said he didn’t particularly like Caitell very much. Of course, Chapel suspected that it had a lot more to do with Caitell’s inability to cook a decent breakfast than the sprite let on.

“Oh, I won’t tell Twix a single thing,” Caitell responded, and Chapel wasn’t sure if it was a promise, or if it was a hoity- toity adult way of saying that it wasn’t her responsibility to inform Twix of what they were doing throughout the day. Chapel would have asked—or at least he would have thought to ask—if a moment later he were not confronted by the sweeping, robed figure of the dark haired angel that guarded the Temple.

Chapel had seen Lyriel from afar on several occasions. The angel never ventured out of the temple, of course, but there wasn’t a soul in Sanctuary who hadn’t come to see the petrified figures of the divine trapped in the walls of the Temple of the Lost and Forgotten.

Like most boys his age, Chapel had never managed to get passed the atrium and under thegolden arch that created the entrance to the temple’s interior, but he had peaked into the temple enough to recognise the man who claimed to be an angel by his dark hair and his strange, wafty robes.

From afar, the Historian looked ethereal, the epitome of beautiful, though it was difficult to tell whether it was actually male or female. Dark hair that fell passed slender shoulders, and bright blue eyes that had seen the beginning of Sanctuary’s most revered Time. It moved with grace and confidence, and spoke with an air of command beneath velvet words.

Up close, however, the majesty and mystery of the angel was all but shattered. Though still beautiful in its own right, there was no denying that there was something distinctly inhuman about the figure. Its eyes were too big, its face too narrow. Hollow cheekbones spoke of being underfed, and the soft grace of its movements looked more like tired resignation—as though the angel were moving through water rather than air. The mystery of its gender remained only in appearance, as the voice that it used was deep enough to assess that it had chosen to be viewed as male.

“Good morning, Caitell,” Lyriel smiled as he greeted the witch. Bright eyes then turned to Chapel. “You must be Chapel,” the angel held out his hand to the boy. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you; it’s nice to put a face to a name that I so often hear.”

Chapel looked from the angel’s extended hand to Caitell. “Why you gotta tell everyone you know about me, Cait?” He wiped his nose on his long sleeve and looked back at the angel, expression a cross between a grimace and a sneer. “I don’t know what she said, mister, but you gotta believe me when I tell you it’s all lies.”

Lyriel, for a moment, looked genuinely surprised. He looked to Caitell who looked at him so apologetically that it was nearly cartoonish. A moment later his laughter reverberated throughout the temple.

“Somehow I doubt that, but I invite you to prove me wrong at every turn.” He cleared his throat and reached down to clasp the boy’s hand. “Now Chapel,” the angel’s tone was all seriousness now, “I have a very important job for you to do around the Temple with me, if you’re willing. It will require all your cleverness and know-how, so if you agree, you must promise me that you’ll be on your absolute best behavior the entire time that you’re here, and you must also promise to put forth nothing less than your absolute and most honest effort.”

Lyriel had knelt down so that he was eye level with Chapel. His expression was open and honest as such a face as his could be. “I know that the Temple might seem like a safe, fun place, and it’s always my goal to keep up that appearance, but the work that I do within the temple—the work that I hope you will agree to help me with—is very unsettling and often dangerous. It will require all the care that you possess, and all of your devotion. Do you think that you can give me that?”

Chapel carefully pulled his hand from the surprisingly strong grip of the angel. “Look, mister, ah’m only twelve. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right?”

Lyriel nodded. “All right, I think that’s fair.”

With a grand gesture, the angel stood, ran his hands over his robes and brushed his hair from his face. Large feathered wings extended slightly and then repositioned themselves, and Chapel wondered how he could have missed them when Lyriel had first greeted them.

“Well,” the angel said, an air of renewed purpose forming between the three of them. “As I’m sure that both of you know, this is the Temple of the Lost and Forgotten,” he swept his hand from floor to ceiling and then brought it back to fall over his heart, “and I am the Historian. Please, allow me to show you what I do.”

They made their way from one end of the hall to the other. Caitell had already heard most of the information that Lyriel had to offer on her first visit to the Temple with the rest of the volunteers. Then, Lyriel’s focus had been on the upkeep of the temple itself: making sure the stained glass was always in good repair, that the floor was spotless, that guests were always welcomed. A few of the volunteers were even in the temple, doing little bits and odd jobs which Lyriel had set them to doing before Caitell and Chapel had arrived.

The introduction that Chapel was getting this morning was immensely different from Caitell’s. Today, Lyriel’s focus seemed not so much on the temple or its occupants themselves, but on the history of its coming to Sanctuary, and how he became the Historian.

Caitell noticed too, that the angel’s usually smooth gestures were often cut short. Brief spasms of pain frequently crossed the angel’s face, and she was certain that, when Lyriel paused to let information settle in Chapel’s mind, she could hear a soft straining in the angel’s breath.

She wanted to ask him if he was ill, but with Chapel looking sourly about the temple, and with Lyriel intent on saying something that might interest the boy, Caitell wasn’t sure she could interrupt in a way that was polite.

“So you see,” he was saying softly, though the chamber made it loud enough that he could easily be heard, “I was a bit lost myself when I stumbled upon the temple, and when Time discovered me—” his expression changed. Caitell supposed that it might have been called a smile, “Well when Time discovered me, we had the most uproarious fight that Sanctuary had seen, and then she told me she didn’t mind my being here, but she really wasn’t going to tolerate me wandering aimlessly. So I had bits and pieces added on to the temple, and I discovered the Archives; since then, I’ve been the sole keeper of the past, present, and future of Sanctuary and each of its occupants—from the day of their birth to the moment of their parting.”

His faint smile turned into a definite grimace and he

closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his chest.

Caitell spared a glance at Chapel who looked bored out of his wits, and then back at the angel who was clearly experiencing some sort of pain. Concerned both for the wellbeing of the angel and that the boy’s attention would dissipate entirely, she finally spoke, “Lyriel, what exactly does this have to do with what you’re going to ask Chapel to do?”

Lyriel paused, looked thoughtful, but was saved from answering when a little girl with stunning brown locks and amber eyes appeared from one of the many side corridors holding the stuffed kitty that Caitell had found on the stairs several days before.

“Mister Historian,” she had a prim little voice with the neat, distinct accent of one of the Village girls from the Four’s Second circuit. “You said there would be scrambled eggs for breakfast.”

The angel, looking somewhat restored at the sight of the little girl, beamed. “Yes, and so there shall!” he reached down and touched the girl’s nose with a long finger. “I must speak to Ms. Caitell first, however, as it occurs to me that something important has slipped my mind until this very moment.” Gently, he used a wing to push the little girl toward Chapel who looked, for all the world, like the pretty child was going to bite him.

“Chapel, your first job in the Temple will be to always make sure guests are welcome,” he explained in a brief, distracted manner. “Pretend that Miss Emelye is a guest of the temple and tell her the story of how the temple became and what its purpose is. I must speak to Caitell briefly.”

Chapel looked at Lyriel like the angel had dumped him in cold water. Lyriel, with a slight flourish of his wings, winked at the pair of children and then reached out and guided Caitell a few feet away.

“About the Temple—” he murmured in a hushed tone.

That was all that Chapel heard before their voices became too soft to follow. He turned to the girl who hugged her toy kitty and looked up at him expectantly.

“Well?” she asked him.

“Well what?” Chapel crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to look too impressed with the girl’s bright eyes or her freckles.

“You’re supposed to tell me about the temple.”

“Oh.” That was all. Oh. Good job, Chapel. He could hear Twix’s jeering all ready. “And then you said, ‘oh.’ Bahaha! I bet you looked like you had a turd on your face!”

Chapel cleared his throat and looked around. “Uh, well. It’s a temple. It’s really tall...” he motioned slightly with his hand. “An’ you know, it’s where dead gods hang out, so... there’s that.”

He looked back at Lyriel and Caitell, both discussing

something Chapel couldn’t guess at with deep looks of concentration.

He looked back at the girl. “So, uhm, I’m Chapel Tames, by the way. From East End.”

He was very pleased that she looked impressed by the fact before introducing herself. “Emelye Hornblower— don’t laugh, that’s my real name!”

Chapel chuckle-snorted once more before his conscience caught up with him and he was able to stifle the rest of his giggles. “Sorry,” he said. “I just en’t never heard of a name like that.”

“We used to be sailors a long time ago,” Emelye defended

herself to Chapel a little stiffly. “My Ma told me about it.”

Chapel decided it was best not to argue one way or the other about that. He had never thought about what his family might have done before they got to Sanctuary, and his parents were killed before he was old enough to even think to ask.

Instead, he said, “Where are your parents, then?”

Emelye looked very sad. “Oh, well, I’m not really sure, actually. See, when the riot happened on Carter Street, they were bringing their wares to a merchant, and then they disappeared.”

Now Chapel did feel guilty. He knew exactly what had happened to her parents. It was the same thing that had happened to three Eastlings and another handful of other merchants and bystanders. They’d gotten stuck in the fault that the Hour Twelve had shut.

“I’m sorry,” Chapel found himself saying. And he was sorry. He never thought about the other people who had been hurt because the gangs had been fighting with each other. It felt weird to be face to face with someone who had suffered and didn’t deserve to. His tummy bubbled and squelched unplesantly, and he had to look away from the girl and down at the floor between their feet to make the bubbling stop.

The girl shrugged, and her tiny pink toes flexed and curled at the top of his vision. “Lyriel is going to ask Time to help me find them, if Time can. If not, he said he would help me find a home of my own and find a job for me.”

That made Chapel feel a little better. He looked up at the girl, and opened his mouth to speak, but before anything useful could come out, hands burst from the walls.

It was not as Caitell had described to him when she told him of how she had rescued Lyriel. It was not a half dozen, lonely hands grasping at air while the voices of the gods they belonged to cried pitifully. This time it was hundreds, clawing at the air and pushing at the wall as if to free themselves. There was a hair raising shriek, from one of those trapped in the walls. This time her voice was joined by a chorus of equally high pitched wails. From the wall nearest them, the figure of a woman pulled herself from the wall, arms first, then shoulders, neck and head. There was no color in her face nor hair, and when she opened her mouth to join the choir, her skin cracked and crumbled.

“Let...meee...OUT!”

Chapel and Emelye screamed. Emelye was the first of the children to break fear’s hold, and out of the corner of his eye, Chapel saw her fling herself away from the wall and run.

Feeling not the least bit like a coward, Chapel ran too. So, it seemed, did everyone else who had been in the temple volunteering. In fact, although only a dozen and some had been lingering about the temple that day, the gods outburst sent each of them toward the archway, jostling each other roughly as they fought to get out.

Chapel ran to join them, seeing Emelye disappear into the clump of people, but something in him turned to ice when he heard Caitell’s high scream pierce the white noise of the chaos.

Chapel turned back to see Lyriel tugging hard on Caitell’s arm. The goddess that had launched itself at Chapel and Emelye was nearly out of the wall, reaching toward Lyriel and Caitell, but something had caught her around the waist before she could pull free, and kept her from breaching the wall completely. She pulled, struggled, snarling like a dog and grabbing wildly at the air again. She caught a hold of Caitell’s robe and yanked her hard toward the wall.

“LET ME OUT!”

The witch pulled herself free with another scream of her own. She locked eyes on Chapel and he had never seen her look so afraid. “Chapel!”

Before Chapel knew what had happened, she was at his side, throwing her arms around him and knocking him several paces closer to the center of the room. Chapel peeked under Caitell’s arm in time to see chalky hands grasping at the empty air where the his head had been.

“Lyriel, do something!”

But Lyriel was busy with his own figure who had managed to free himself almost completely. He grabbed the angel and raised him off of his feet. The figure’s voice boomed with the others. “Let me out!”

A flash blinded both the rioting figures and their victims.

Caitell had pulled Chapel into the center of the Temple, as

far from the walls as she could bring him, and threw a light- shield around him. The light had refracted off the white walls, causing the figures who breeched them to falter.

The man that held Lyriel aloft dropped him and shrank back, and Caitell put a shield around Lyriel as well. The light from the second conjuring was enough to push the remaining deities back into the walls.

The wails died slowly, their echoes lingering far longer than their sources.

Caitell rubbed her ears and looked at both boy and angel, not sure which she should address first, or even if she could with her ears ringing as loudly as they were.

At long length, the shields flickered and vanished, and Caitell found her voice. “I thought you said that the other day was a singular incident.”

Lyriel picked himself up from the ground, his normally pale skin paler still. “I...Well,” he cleared his throat, smoothed out his robe with trembling hands. “It is—was...” he huffed, “This is ...otherwise unprecedented,” he looked around the temple, bracing himself for a second attack. “I’ve never...They’ve never...” he looked at Caitell and Chapel, his expression broken and sorrowful. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”

Caitell opened her mouth to answer, but Chapel spoke first:

“That was the most awesomer thing ever!” the boy hopped to his feet, looking no worse off than if he’d taken a sudden tumble. “This is place is amazing! Caitell, I’m going to work here every day of my life!”

Now Caitell did speak. “Chapel, I don’t think that working here at present is a good idea,” she breathed, reaching out to him.

The boy withdrew, “That en’t fair, Cait! You dragged me all the way out here and I didn’t wanna, and now I do and you’re gonna drag me all the way back? That en’t fair!”

“That was before we got practically mauled by gods!” She pushed her curls out of her face. “Lyriel, I’m sorry, but if this is going to keep happening—”

“No, I quite understand!” the angel stepped forward.

“I’m terribly sorry.”

The adults apologized back and forth at each other for several minutes, and Chapel, who was never particularly keen on sitting still and being ignored when he had something to say, decided he would go find Emelye and tell her that the crisis was over.

He jogged to the archway and then wandered up the stone steps. “Hey Emelye, you missed the fun! Emelye, are you here?”

On the lawn outside of the temple those adults who had volunteered to help out were huddled together looking a bit like frightened sheep. Chapel waved at them as he approached. “Hey, it’s over now. Caitell fixed it.”

The group looked warily at the temple. Some shook their heads and walked down the grassy hill. Others hesitantly headed back toward the entrance. Emelye was nowhere among either group.

“Uh oh.” Chapel scratched his head and looked around.

“She prolly got so scared she’s still runnin’.”

Well, he better go tell Lyriel. Emelye didn’t look like the

sort of person who knew what she was doing when it came to going places around Sanctuary. She’d probably end up lost.

Feeling pretty crumby, because he had to be the one to tell Lyriel that the girl was gone, he headed back to the main chamber of the temple.

Caitell and Lyriel were still earnestly apologizing to one another.

“Uh,” he approached the pair cautiously, “hey, I don’t wanna get in the middle of your apology war, guys, but I think we got a problem.”

The pair continued talking.

“I SAID,” Chapel shouted across the chamber, frowning deeply, “I think we got a problem over here!”

Lyriel and Caitell turned, regarded the boy with a mixture of curiosity and worry.

Chapel pointed over his shoulder at the archway. “She’s missing.”

It was amazing how quickly the pair crossed the room at those words.

“Who?” Caitell asked, reaching out and pulling Chapel away from a nearby wall in precaution. “Who is missing?”

As Caitell wrapped her arms around Chapel protectively, Lyriel took one frantic look around the temple and then up the stairs. “It’s Emelye,” he bemoaned. “Oh, she must have fled in the chaos—she gets frightened so easily,” he looked at Caitell and Chapel, his expression one of devastation, “We have to find her. Caitell,” he reached out to Caitell with a sharp motion, “Caitell if we don’t find her, Sanctuary is going to fall apart.”