Bridge Between the Worlds Read online

  Demeron withdrew from the humans’ dreamzone and opened his eyes upon the cold dark room with the block orb in front of him. He laughed deeply at his little triumph. He quickly made his way up the stairs and then eventually back down the outside of the tower before heading straight for the throne room without hesitating or stopping, every stride filled with confidence. He did not expect great praise. That was not how Gorhoth worked but at least this information should satisfy him that Demeron was making good progress and avoid future hostilities, which Gorhoth had so clearly warned him about.

  The Citadel walls and pathways twisted and moved with alacrity before him, as if his determination created an authoritative aura that preceeded him. As a result, it was not long before he had reached the entrance to the throne room. However, unlike the rest of the Citadel so far, the archway simply would not open. In fact, as he stared at the wall he noticed that it wasn’t moving at all, not even in its usual smoky way. He placed a heavy hand upon it impatiently and concentrated. After a few moments the wall began to move again, though slowly and deftly as if the stone itself was trying to be silent. The full archway did not appear like it had before, only a small doorway, barely big enough for Demeron to fit through. It was almost like the Citadel had tried to warn him, yielding only at his forceful command. When he entered, he met with a sight that made him wish he had not pushed for entry.

  In the middle of the hall, in front of the throne’s dais, Gorhoth was standing unclothed, staring up at the ceiling. Demeron wasn’t sure he should believe what he was seeing.

  Gorhoth’s body, built of its bizarre cloud-like substance, still took the shape of a powerful human man. But now it was twice as large as Demeron. Gorhoth’s fingers had stretched out to a disproportionate length, ending in long, deadly claws. Wings sprouted from around his shoulder blades and stretched out towards the pillars on either side of the hall, nearly reaching them. Their shape was unmistakable and though Demeron had never seen Gorhoth take this form before, he was well acquainted with it. He realised that it was no coincidence that Gorhoth had taken the same dragon form as the throne from which he ruled.

  Demeron did not know where Gorhoth originated from and had never dared to ask but now his suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Gorhoth must have been some kind of dragon, whatever they truly were. He had never taken such creatures seriously before. The only indication that they existed lay in the myths and legends of humans, hardly a reliable source. Until now he had been convinced they were nothing more than a myth. Evidently, he had been mistaken. He rapidly considered what dragons could possibly want with the world. If total domination was Gorhoth’s objective it would be all too easy for him to achieve, Demeron realised.

  At this moment Gorhoth let out a terrible cry, somewhere between the bitter, hollow scream of a man’s despair and the rolling, powerful roar of an enormous, angry creature. The sound froze the blood in Demeron’s veins. He had never before in his life felt the compulsion to block his ears but now he understood why humans did this. Demeron’s own roar could cause humans to grovel on the ground, trying to block out the sound. Unlike the humans, Demeron resisted the urge.

  It was not just that the volume of the sound was painful, it was the primal fear it instilled. He wished it would stop. It was echoing painfully in his head and seemed to go on for an eternity. Even his stomach was filled with a bizarre sensation he couldn’t describe. Then suddenly, thankfully, it was over. The sound did not trail out or fade. It simply stopped as if something cut Gorhoth off.

  Gorhoth’s body quickly reduced back to its regular size, his wings shrinking back into his shoulders, his claws receding and his ghostly features becoming more human.

  He collapsed to his knees and had to place a hand on the ground to support himself. Then, slowly, he looked up and saw Demeron standing at the end of the room in silence. He got to his feet with evident effort and strode back to his throne where he seated himself before beckoning Demeron to come forward.

  Gorhoth’s normally fiery eyes dimmed, such that they looked like dying embers. He made absolutely no indication that he would talk to Demeron about what he had just witnessed and Demeron was not so stupid as to ask any questions about it, ever. It had never happened.

  “I trust you forced your way into the room because you have exceedingly good news Demeron.”

  The words were pointed but they lacked Gorhoth’s usual power. Nevertheless, they were still bitterly chilled in tone.

  “Not exceedingly good Lord, but certainly news of promising progress. I have discovered the basic function of these human communication devices and also discovered that they maintain extensive lists of identification numbers for the devices. They can be used to track down the user’s intended recipient. With this information I believe I can track down the elf easily. The human communication network is surprisingly extensive. It is like…” Demeron paused as he tried to think of a way to describe the incredible network and with this thought, a good description came to him, “like a vast spiders web with strands connecting and interlinking each other to form a comprehensive whole. You see, one human is connected to several others that they know closely and then those humans to others and so on. If I follow the strand of connections even a short distance I will already have a comprehensive view of the human’s network. It is a powerful surveillance tool!”

  There was no mistaking Gorhoth’s reaction upon hearing this. He was pleased. But as Demeron had expected, he was not forthcoming with any kind of praise.

  “Finally, we stumble across something truly useful in this new human world. Who knew that humans could create such an intricate and well-formed tool. The only thing that is not surprising is the fact they built something that can so easily be turned into a weapon. It is a perfect example of human nature Demeron. Exceedingly creative, ambitious and naïve. We will use this to our advantage at every turn.”

  Gorhoth’s eyes had regained some of their normal fire. His mood was clearly improved by the news Demeron had brought him but the conversation was evidently over.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? You know what you must do next and I expect it to be done quickly. Use the network and hunt down the elf. If it is as easy as you say then I expect results to be equally easy to achieve. Now leave, you are dismissed to return to your work.”

  Demeron bowed and left without hesitation or question. There was no point in pressing the discussion further. He had achieved what he desired. Gorhoth’s anger at his previous setbacks had been postponed for now and he could afford to approach his next task with a little more time up his sleeve.

  He returned to his quarters to rest briefly before returning to the orb. Gorhoth would certainly expect him to carry on working as soon as possible but his energy was not limitless, he required some degree of rest, and he slept dreamlessly for a number of hours.

  Later that evening Demeron was in the circular room with the orb again. He stood before it with his hands placed firmly to either side of the floating ball of black on the table. He was thinking carefully about where to begin his search.

  He eventually decided to return to the area where the dream plane disturbances had emanated from.

  He bent low over the orb until wisp like tentacles of darkness, which swirled from it, were brushing past his face. He closed his eyes and let his mind open in the dream plane.

  The orb quickly applied its power to his mind and his control and his vision of the dream plane were tremendously enhanced, such that he could perceive thousands of dream zones at once.

  He made for the area where he had first begun weeks ago and sought out the nearest open dream zone.

  He passed over hundreds of dreams closely, which were held tightly together like a world in itself. But the dream plane was vast.

  If not for Gorhoth’s orb, Demeron would have had incredible difficulty navigating the plane stemming from this new world. The number of humans on the planet was astounding and their dreams were like floods of imagination. Not all of them were
suitable. The best dreams to enter were day dreams, whose creators were still half awake. That was what he was searching for.

  Soon enough he found one and broke through its walls with ease. Dominating a human mind was simple, minotaurs could do it by instinct. They buried their conscience into human minds like some kind of infestation.

  The physical experience for Demeron was nothing new. His physical vision slowly became clear again. In truth, he saw a split of the dream zone created by the human and the actual physical world all at the same time. For anyone else it would have been extremely disorienting, Demeron, on the other hand, had plenty of experience with the sensation and got to work immediately.

  The boy was surrounded by other human children in a room with an adult at a desk before them. Demeron had learned enough to know that the child was in a room for learning at a human school. A sense of annoyance rose inside him. Whilst some children seemed to have one of the communication devices, many of them didn’t. He made the boy search through his pockets and was disappointed to find that this particular boy fell into the latter group. Nevertheless, Demeron remained in the dream. Finding a daydreamer that was susceptible to his influence wasn’t so common that he would withdraw from the dream just yet. He waited patiently for the class to end before steering the boy to his home. It was not an easy task. Demeron needed to allow the boys own mind enough control to steer itself in the right direction whilst simultaneously manipulating his thoughts to keep him daydreaming. If something shocked the boy’s subconscious into waking up, he would lose control. But the boy made it to his home, still in a daze.

  Demeron made his way around the house until eventually he found what he was looking for. A small book filled with a list of names and identifying numbers. It was a good start.

  Demeron searched through the list carefully, checking off all of the names. It took him some time because he wanted to be thorough, but before he had even gotten halfway he realised there was a problem. This only included family names. They were so foreign to him that it had taken a while to realise. Now that he had, he was furious. The list was useless! Elves didn’t have family names. They lived for so long and had children so rarely that there was really no need to try and carry on family names.

  He withdrew angrily from the boy’s dream. It had all been a complete waste of time and time was very precious to him if he wanted to keep his master from becoming wrathful. He could not afford a pause now. He dove into another dream. And then another. Most of the dreamers did have the small communication devices, which themselves had long lists of people’s full names. But the Elf’s was nowhere to be seen.

  A dark thought crossed Demeron’s mind. What if they knew the Elf by another name in this world? He needed more information to go on before searching these lists further.

  Demeron spent the rest of the day and all of the night sweeping the area for signs of disturbances in the dream plane of the human world. A dreamwalker had definitely been active in this area before, which could only have been the Elf but now there was nothing, not a single leaf out of place anywhere. None of these dreams had been linked to a physical reality at all. Eventually he got desperate and resorted to his previous strategy of hunting for number lists.

  The Elf was impossible to find but just as he despaired of ever finding his next lead, he stumbled across another name of significance. It was a name that he knew was linked, albeit indirectly to the Elf.

  It was an old family name used by humans in Otthon. One of their descendants had fought alongside the elves, he recalled. It was a long shot. In Otthon at least it was not an uncommon name. Then again, it was all he had to go on. It was worth an attempt at the very least.

  He had been in a teacher’s dream at the school where the boy had been. A little digging had found a significant list, which his human subject found on one of the computer devices. It seemed to contain all the names of the students. It was a long list to work through and he feared that doing so might have raised suspicion. However, beyond the occasional murmur of “Good afternoon”, no one seemed to take notice of his human puppet at all. He had been nearing the end of the list when the name jumped out at him. Szekeres, listed against an identifying number.

  Demeron didn’t waste any time. He quickly memorised the location of this list in case he needed to come back to it. He also memorised the identifying number for the name Szekeres, then he began searching for a communication device.

  To his great aggravation, this human did not appear to have one. Only after rapidly trying other dreams did a device come easily to hand. He had seen these devices used enough now to work this one confidently. He selected the funny little picture with the word ‘Phone’ underneath it, which brought up a new picture filled with numbers.

  He started to press them carefully, the excitement welling inside of him as the numbers appeared at the top of the picture area in the sequence he had selected. He pressed the last number and lifted the device to the ear of the human he was controlling. Demeron felt an odd moment of disembodiment but was too busy to take much notice of it. The fleeting moment was gone and he could hear a man’s voice coming from the device with incredible clarity. It was as if the man was standing right next to his human puppet.

  “Hello, you have reached the Szekeres residence. We are currently on holiday and cannot take your call. If you would like to leave a short message including your name and number we will get back to you as soon as we can.”

  Demeron took his chance. He had not understood most of what Szekeres had said but he knew by now what information he needed and how to ask for it.

  “Hello Szekeres. I want to visit you. What is your address?” With an afterthought, as Demeron looked around, he quickly added, “I am from the school.”

  Controlling human speech was fiendishly difficult and he wasn’t sure he had achieved his desired message. He waited silently for an answer, completely overcome by the thrill of the moment. But his excitement was evaporating rapidly, replaced by a sense of confusion. Szekeres was not responding at all. The device was silent. After a while, a beeping like some kind of bizarre bird started to come from the device. He took it away from the human’s ear and looked at the pictures. For a moment it displayed the words, “call ended”. Then it transformed back into the panel of little numbers.

  Demeron was not going to give up that easily. He must have done something wrong. He decided to try again straight away and began pressing the numbers on the device quickly. The sequence formed at the top of the picture again and he pressed the device to the human’s ear a second time. There was a brief pause and then, “Hello, you have reached the Szekeres residence. We are currently on holiday and cannot take your call. If you would like to leave a short message including your name and number we will get back to you as soon as we can.”

  Demeron took the device away from the human’s ear a second time and stared at it. Szekeres had spoken again but it was exactly the same words. It was identical, and that was not a coincidence. He needed to translate what Szekeres was saying, that much was clear if he wanted to progress any further. There were many words he had understood but also many he didn’t. These words were of course, he thought to himself bitterly, the most important ones, which carried the real meaning of what was being said. To find out what the words meant though, he could not use this adult human. It would appear far too strange if a grown human was asking questions about a language they were supposed to be able to speak fluently. The solution could not have been more apparent in his current surroundings. It was so easy and so obvious. He hurriedly withdrew from the dream and started searching for young childrens’ dreams at the school.

  Plenty of young children daydreamed but it could be very difficult to pinpoint where they were in the physical world because their dreams were usually completely disconnected from their physical surroundings. As such, it took Demeron a long time before he had found what he needed and even longer still to discern the complete meaning of Szekeres’s words. Szekeres had gone on a jo
urney for pleasure and would return to his home later.

  The information had its positives and its negatives. On the one hand, it would be almost impossible to locate Szekeres while he was journeying and Demeron had no idea how long that would be. On the other hand, knowing that Szekeres was away meant it would be safe to break into his house and search for clues if only he could find out where the home was.

  He was certain this was the right man. His accent was the same as the majority of humans in Otthon. In many ways, Demeron thought, perhaps it was better that Szekeres was away. Now he could search for information without a struggle.

  He may not have been certain but it was at least worth checking the house that he guessed Szekeres lived in based on prior reconnaissance.

  His first step was to find a nearby dreamer who was suitable for breaking into a house. The second was to make his way to the location. His chosen puppet was a middle aged human man who was, for a human, incredibly strong and tall. Demeron thought he must have been skilled in some kind of physically demanding work for humans. A blacksmith perhaps. The thought did cross Demeron’s mind that there may not actually be any blacksmiths in this world. Armour and weapons were nowhere to be seen. Certainly, the world was full of metal work, but in mammoth proportions, not feasible for a blacksmith to make in such great quantity.