Wolf Who Rules

"No, no, I have to be able to do this. I'm the only one that can do this."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Something moved in the darkness of the garden around them. Stormsong activated her shields and they enveloped both of them, brilliant pale blue that was nearly white. "Go away. You're not wanted here."

"Give her to us," Esme prowled the darkness. She was the color of old blood. Black stood weeping in the woods with her host of crows oddly silent - only a rustle of many wings in the night. "We need her. We murdered time and now it's always six o'clock."

"No. I won't let you have her."

"You're not stopping us." Esme pressed a dark hand to the gleaming shell of Stormsong's shield, the light shafting through her spread fingers like solid spears. "You might be able to keep them out, but not me."

"You're hurting her!" Fear filtered into Stormsong's voice. "Leave her alone."

Esme moved counter-clockwise around them, trailing her hand across the shield's radiant, a dark mote on pale brilliance. "There is too much to lose to worry about hurting her."

"Go away." Stormsong growled.

Esme had made a complete circle around them, testing the boundaries of Stormsong's protection. They stood as odd mirror reflections of each other - hair short and spiked - red dark to the point of almost black versus blue paled to nearly white.

"I won't let you in," Stormsong said.

"We don't have time for this!" Esme balled up her hand into a tight fist of blackness, and punched into the light.

Stormsong's shield failed like a candle snuffed. Tinker fell into darkness.

"… focusfocusfocus…, " she whispered into the black.

A world snapped into being around her, but she ignored it to focus on the control panel in front of her. She punched a set of keys, ones she practiced until her hands ached. Even as she entered the codes, and the world jerked hard to the right, alarms screamed to life.

She hit the intercom pad. "All hands suit up! Suit up!" She shouted, knowing what was coming. "Brace for impact!"

She looked up and found she hadn't seen the full truth. Instead of one colony ship looming in the great blackness of space, the feed from the front cameras showed several ships colliding together-heaving, twisting, and buckling. For a moment, she could only stare - stunned. Compartments of the ships were collapsing like crushed soda cans-their atmosphere spraying out in plumes of instantly freezing gushers.

She wasn't able to stop it. It was going to happen anyhow.

"We're going to hit! We're going to hit!" Alan Voecks screamed those hated words that had haunted her nightmares for months.

Something cartwheeled toward them, jetted on a haze of frozen oxygen. As it grew larger, she realized it was a human - without a spacesuit. There was time to recognize the face - Nicole Pinder of the Anhe Hao - before the body hit the camera. That front screen went to static…

***

Tinker bolted out of the dream. She was tight in Stormsong's arms, panting from the remnants of her terror. "Oh gods! Oh gods!"

"It is over," Stormsong rubbed her back soothingly. "You are safe with us."

"Something went wrong," Tinker cried. "That's what they've been trying to tell me. Something went wrong."

"Well?" Windwolf spoke from the foot of the bed.

Tinker sat up to discover the room was full of silent people, all watching her sleep. In addition to Windwolf and Pony, Wraith Arrow and Bladebite stood guard. "What the hell?"

"There are other dreamers," Stormsong said, as if answering a question Tinker had missed. "One seems to be domi's mother. The others might not be able to reach domi alone, but her mother's blood connection is giving them all access to domi. Domi's mother is quite strong but untrained and with the morals of snake; she does not care that what she's doing is hurting domi. They are crowding into domi's dreams, leaving her unable to cope with her own nightmares."

"Why now?" Windwolf asked. "It's been eighteen years."

"It might be that becoming an elf awakened latent abilities in domi," Stormsong said. "Or it might be something that happened when the dragon pulled magic through her at the edge of the Ghostlands. I can't stop them. United as they are, they are too strong. Something must be done or they will drive the domi mad."

"Will giving her sanjin help?" Windwolf asked.

"Please, not sanjin," Tinker whimpered. "I hate that stuff. The oni forced it on me."

Windwolf gave her a look full of raw grief.

"No, sanjin will only make things worse," Stormsong said. "Now she can wake up from the nightmare, breaking its hold on her. Drugged, she would be trapped in her dreams."

"Oh please," Tinker cried. "Not that."

"There are some drugs," Stormsong said, "that she can take for a limited time that will keep her from dreaming completely. Someone more trained and gifted in dreaming would know better what to do."

"I like the idea of not dreaming." Tinker crawled across the bed to Windwolf, who took her into his lap.