Polyhymnia knew perfectly well that she was dreaming. Her hair was in pigtails and she was wearing a smock, suggesting a dream age of perhaps twelve or thirteen. The dream itself was a distant memory of a history lesson with Lady Cimone, her teacher. She had been amused for a brief moment to find herself daydreaming during the lesson: dreaming, as it were, during a dream, while Lady Cimone pointed out the various flaws in Civet’s latest sally against Parras.

Oh, I remember this
, thought Poly suddenly.
Parras tossed over one of our outposts, and we walked right into an ambush trying to retaliate.

Pain, in her left ear. Poly clutched the injured member in surprise.

“Ow!” She hadn’t remembered
that
.

“Perhaps you could pay attention to your lesson, now that you’re awake?” suggested Lady Cimone. She always did prefer boxing ears to using a cane. Maybe it was her idea of the personal touch. “This is important, Poly.”

Poly let her younger dream-self murmur the appropriate response, her attention snatched away, because a gold-edged rift was beginning to form in the blue-painted wall behind Lady Cimone.

The lady caught the direction of her gaze and gave a sharp glance behind her.

“Bother!” she said. She seemed annoyed rather than taken aback.

Before long the perpendicular rift was tall enough to admit a human, and Poly wasn’t quite surprised when a young man stepped through. He was wearing a long, mud-splattered black coat that looked as though it had seen one too many days travelling, and he had an inquiring, dishevelled look. His forehead was wide and square, with dark hair springing upwards and sideways from it, and his mouth was both determined and wistful; though the triangular set of his chin spoke more to determination than wistfulness. Poly shut her mouth, which had dropped open, and took one involuntary step backwards as the man edged carefully into the room. He was glowing with residual magic, sparking a plethora of alarm bells in Poly’s head.

He stepped purposefully toward Poly and said: “Shoo,” at Lady Cimone.

The Lady smiled a little grimly and said: “I am no more a dream than you are, young man. Kindly be polite.”

Poly became her normal, older self in confusion, and the dream-memory of the younger her melted away, leaving Lady Cimone and the young man behind in the resulting void. The young man seemed almost as bemused as Poly felt, but Lady Cimone was looking, as usual, serene and omniscient.

“I tried my best, but I’m afraid he got you,” she said to Poly. “You’ll have to go with the wizard for now. Your parents said they’d try to find you somewhere along the way, but things might be a little more difficult than they expected. Try not to forget everything the minute you wake up, child.”

“But–” Poly began; but Lady Cimone was already gone. Poly put her hands on her hips and surveyed the young wizard, who was still standing where he was, disturbingly real for a dream figure.

“Huh,” he said. “Didn’t expect that. Come here, princess.”

Poly could have said: ‘I’m not the princess,’ but it didn’t seem worth arguing with a dream. Instead, she said: “I don’t think so,” and slipped up and out of the dream.

It should have woken her. For a moment, she thought it had. She was standing in her own small, rounded chamber, stranded aimlessly between her bookcases. Through her window-slit the outside world looked sunny and normal. Then she saw the translucent something coating her hands from fingers to elbow, and belatedly felt the odd, sideways pull that had brought her here.

“Bother,” she said aloud. The translucent something wasn’t quite magic, but it seemed to be the dream equivalent. In real life, Poly had no magic. It was the one consistent way to tell dream from reality when her dreams became too realistic.

Poly wriggled her fingers and the translucency shivered coolly across them with a sense of familiarity. When had she started dreaming about magic so often? In fact, when had she started dreaming for so long at a time? She felt as though she’d been dreaming for years.

Time to wake up, Poly decided. She let herself slip upwards and awake, and again found herself sliding sideways to the pull of something strong and unfamiliar.

Someone said: “No you don’t, darling. Back to sleep with you.”

Poly gave a little gasp of indignation and fought against the pull. It was ridiculous to allow her dreams to be hijacked by an unpleasant dream entity of her own creation. Where was it coming from?

She dragged herself around, seeking the owner of the voice, and felt the reality of her dream-chamber wobble around her. A nasty quiver of surprise shook her at the sight of the hooded, murky figure that was cobwebbed in the doorway, more shadow than substance.

To give herself time to become brave, Poly said: “Now, what are you? I know I didn’t dream you up.”

“You must have,” said the hooded figure, its voice soft and amused. “Here I am.”

Too smooth for words, Poly thought, sharp with fear. There was a prickle at her back that made her think the wizard from the previous level was making his way through to her again. A panicked, nightmare quality had settled over the dream like a wet blanket, weighing her down, and for a brief moment Poly found herself unable to think.

The same soft voice said: “Darling, you’re being difficult. There’s no need for things to become uncivilized. Be a good girl and go back to sleep.”

“I don’t like you,” Poly said experimentally.

“That’s hurtful, darling,” said the voice reproachfully. “As it happens, I’m really quite fond of you. However, needs must, and you really must
go to sleep
.”

The reasonable tone to the shadow’s voice was hard to resist. Her bed was somehow in the middle of the tower room where it didn’t belong, and Poly felt herself take one step toward it.

The sheets should have been cool and smooth when she slid between them. Instead, they were fuzzy and warm, and Poly felt her eyes gum together in the last warning of approaching slumber, the prickle at her back fading in the warmth.

“Huh,” said a second voice. “This is all very interesting. Who are you? No. Not who. What?”

“Undefined element,” said the hooded shadow thoughtfully. Poly could vaguely see it through her gummy eyes, outlined in the brilliant gold of the wizard’s magic. “You are not valid here. Retreat or assimilate.”

“Tosh,” said the wizard mildly. “You’re what? A remnant? Go away.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said the shadow.

It seemed to Poly, mired in sleep, that an impossibly strong magic was stirring in the room–no, in the very air–around her. It was bright, fiery, and entirely translucent.

The wizard said: “Yow!” and did something golden and magical with more haste than precision. Poly stirred, fighting against sleep, and saw his face briefly appear above her.

He said: “Well, better get on with it, then.”

Poly tried to say: ‘Get on with what?’ but found that she couldn’t move her lips. It took her a shocked moment to realise that she couldn’t move her lips because she was being kissed. It took another to realise that she was waking up–
really
waking up. Gold magic fizzed from her lips to her toes, and everything familiar...disappeared.

A dream retreated, scurrying away with important thoughts that wouldn’t stay to be remembered. Stale, stuffy air tickled Poly’s nose. Something inflexible held her head in place, cupping it through the strands of her hair, and something warm and equally inflexible pressed against her lips.

In between waking and sleeping, Poly came to the startling conclusion that she was being kissed. It was not a gentle kiss or a lover’s kiss, but a quick, hard, punctilious sort of kiss that suggested the kisser had better things to do and would like to get on with it, please.

She made herself lie still, heart pounding, until the pressure lessened. Then she vigorously jabbed her knee up into the kisser’s stomach. There was a pained huff of air in her face and the intruder curled defensively, groaning. Poly whipped herself away, ripping through bedclothes that tore like rotten wool as she half-fell, half-scrambled to the floor.

Her glasses weren’t on her nose where they ought to have been, leaving the world a confusing blur of grey and gold without sense or structure. Poly stumbled through the blur with her arms outstretched, feeling a whispy tickle of cobwebs–or was that hair?–across her fingers, and thought that the flagstones beneath her feet sank slightly.

There was a shuffling behind her, then someone’s arms grabbed for her waist. Poly stomped frantically in the general direction of her assailant’s feet, and felt the heel of her shoe crush his toes.

He shouted in agony and Poly tore herself away, stumbling towards a bulky blur that seemed to be the bed. Her skirts were confusingly voluminous and fine, catching at her ankles, and a silky curtain of what Poly was almost certain was hair swirled around her as she ran behind the bed. From the safety of the bed, she squinted hopelessly at the fuzzy outline of the intruder. He seemed to be clutching his foot.

“Who are you?” she demanded, skirts bunched in both hands and ready to run again if he moved.

“She told you not to forget,” he said, bitterly. By the movement of his foot, he was cautiously trying to ascertain if she had broken his toes. Poly felt an entirely vicious satisfaction.

“What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“I came to rescue you,” he said, gingerly setting the injured foot down. “And I didn’t expect to be lamed, either. I thought princesses were meant to be charming.”

“I don’t need rescuing from bed, thank you very much,” Poly said, her voice very slightly wobbling. It was discomposing to find that she had gone to bed fully dressed. It wasn’t even her dress, she thought briefly, finding that her fingers were nervously clutching fine, cool satin. Then it occurred to her that the wizard thought she was the princess.

She stiffly released the fabric, her stomach twisting, and grasped at the bedhead instead. It was soft beneath her clutching fingers, and when she staggered forward a little at the unexpectedness of it, it collapsed into soggy dust, bereaving her at once of both support and cover.

“Now you’ve done it,” said the fuzzy figure disagreeably. “The whole place’ll start, now. I wish you’d stop darting about: I’m not going to chase you over and under the furniture. Don’t you want your glasses?”

Poly did, badly. Standing in a pile of disintegrated bed with something hair-like whispering terrifyingly around her, she wanted them so earnestly that she was somehow not surprised to find them in her hand. And yet, disintegration and hair-like tickle blurrily threatening seemed better than the idea of seeing the threat in all its real danger, and Poly hesitated. It was only when she saw the intruder straighten and step toward her that she made herself shove her glasses back on her nose, smudges and all.

The world sprang into sharp focus, making it desperately hard to ignore the long black tendrils that danced and swayed in her peripheral. Poly focused her gaze somewhat tremulously on the wizard, her shoulders stiff with fear, and saw that he was looking distinctly offended.

“How did you do that?” he demanded.

A long black strand curled around Poly’s wrist softly, and she swallowed. In a little above a whisper, she said: “Do what?”

“Don’t do that, either,” he said; but Poly, who had already taken one step backwards, then another, found herself walking into a small mahogany table.

No:
through
it. The table collapsed softly in half and crumbled to dust, coating the hem of her satin dress. Poly, stumbling backwards with her arms desperately outstretched for balance, stepped on something that jerked her head backwards painfully, and tumbled into the dusty mess.

There was hair everywhere. She was sitting in it, surrounded by it, her palms resting against it when she pushed herself up from the flagstones. Poly whimpered, a necessary weakness to prevent the greater one of screaming, and raised shaking hands to comb through what should have been chin-length hair.

It was no longer chin-length. Her fingers, patting downwards from the pate of her head, met with hair strands to her shoulders, then her ribs, then her waist, until she lost the flow of it in the swirls of hair she was sitting on. She’d trodden on her own hair.

“My– hair–”

“Yes, yes, princess, very impressive; but we need to go now.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” said Poly, her eyes wide. Her hair was moving in gentle little undulations that stirred the dust and caught in the sharp edges of the flagstones. She looked down at her fingers, hoping to see translucent magic dripping from them, but they were frighteningly normal.

“Real, then,” she said. “Why is my hair moving?”

“Huh,” he said. “Interesting. What have you done to it?”

“What have
I
done to it? Nothing!
Why is it moving?
”

“You can’t sit there and play with your hair. The castle is falling down.”

“It’s double-blocked and reinforced with multiple layers of magic,” said Poly, breathing too fast. “It can’t be falling down.”

She knew the castle couldn’t be falling down. It was ridiculous to consider the thought. But the air was thrumming oddly–had been doing so for some time, she thought–and when Poly looked around, gathering her wits, she saw that the room was disintegrating. Wall hangings were dropping softly to the flagstones in soft, woolly pieces, dressers were making wood-scented piles of dust around the room, and great, sandy waterfalls tumbled from the top of each wall as the stones crumbled. Even the flagstones beneath her feet felt fragile. With the corrosion came a sense of strong, ancient magic, and Poly knew with certainty that she was no longer in the time she had been in yesterday. Years– no,
centuries
must have passed to make the castle collapse like this. She knew that everyone she had ever known was dead and gone; and that, strangely, the wizard had been telling the truth. He
had
come to rescue her.

Other books

Eagle's Redemption by Pape, Cindy Spencer

The Santa Mug by Patric Michael

Soul Siren by Aisha Duquesne

Aquatic Attraction by Charlie Richards

The Cats in the Doll Shop by Yona Zeldis McDonough

RUSH: A Vampire, A Witch, A Secret, A Rush. by Cassandra Webb

Prince Albert: A Billionaire Stepbrother Romance by Sabrina Paige

Tied in Knots: A Tied Together Novella by Z.B. Heller

Green City in the Sun by Wood, Barbara

Unleashed by Katie MacAlister