“I, too, come from the real world,” Soren began.

  I stared at him in surprise. He seemed like such a part of this Dream. I glanced at Keegan. He was staring straight ahead, fists clenched in his lap. He already knew Soren was a Dreamer.

  Soren continued in a pained voice, “I was only eight years old when I began having incredibly realistic dreams. Most times, they were horrible, and I would wake up screaming or crying. My parents were so worried that they spoke to a doctor about me. They also had me talk to a therapist. He decided that I was having extremely vivid nightmares.”

  I shivered. It would be horrible for a child to go through this.

  “It went on for about two years, until I was ten years old. I learned to control my reactions to my dreams. My parents thought that I was getting better. I let them think so. Even at that age, I wondered if there was something wrong with me, if I was somehow wrong in the head.” He smiled wryly at us.

  “One night I was captured in another Dream, brought here, and sold to Cyrus, the king of this world. He was still studying Dreamwalkers then and always wanted every unique Dreamer he could get his hands on. I was the youngest Dreamer anyone had encountered in a long time, so he had to have me.” Soren’s shoulders trembled and he stared off into the distance.

  He was quiet for so long, I finally asked, “Soren, what happened? What did he want with you?”

  He looked back at us. Slowly he began again, “He took me to his castle far, far to the north of here, in the city of Berul. He was not as powerful then as he is now. He had only just started his conquest against Severak. Almost immediately, other Dreamwalkers began appearing, not just in this world, but within the stronghold itself, always in the same room that I was in. It didn’t take him long to realize that I was attracting them, pulling them to myself.” Soren’s face twisted into a grimace.

  “I brought Cyrus more Dreamwalkers than I care to remember and gave the tyrant exactly what he needed to take over all of Wendellia. I could see the plan forming in his mind. He would march against this world and use the Dreamers to crush anyone who stood against him. For weeks he argued with the Changelings, insisting a Dream Tether was the only sure way to keep me. They kept saying it had never been successful, but he was determined to try.”

  “What is a Dream Tether?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Usually, it keeps you in a Dream until you wake up. The way Cyrus does it, it’s a way to keep you from waking up at all,” Soren said, looking pointedly at Keegan.

  Keegan started, his eyes widening in disbelief.

  Soren drew a deep, ragged breath and continued, “I had already been in the dungeons under the castle, but now Cyrus took me even deeper. I was terrified. Even though I had heard Cyrus talking about the Tether, I didn’t really know what it meant. He hadn’t been unkind to me, but I had seen the cruelty and, worse, the obsession in his eyes.

  “We went deeper and deeper under the city until we came to an underground cave. It looked like a little cottage with no windows. There was a small bed against one wall, a wooden table and chair on the other side of the rock room. In the center of the room was a fire. The smoke from it drifted upwards through cracks in the roof of the cave.

  “Bent over the fire was a very old, very small woman, dressed in a black robe. Her hair was white and wild. Her pale face was full of wrinkles. As we walked in, she looked up at us, and her eyes were so dark, they looked black.

  “When she saw me, she shrieked. She shouted at Cyrus that she would not try to Tether one so young. Cyrus put his hand on her shoulder and spoke so softly, I could barely hear him. ‘You will do it,’ he said. She quieted immediately, shook her head sadly, then took my hand in hers and led me to the small bed and told me to lie down. I was trembling as I obeyed her. The woman bent over me and whispered that she was sorry, and that it would soon be over.”

  Soren stopped talking and put his head in his hands. I wondered if he had ever told this story before. He drew a couple of ragged breaths before he spoke again.

  “She and Cyrus touched their fingers to my forehead, and suddenly, it was like I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. I could see myself, back in the Waking World, asleep in bed. It was just beginning to get light outside my window.

  “The woman began singing words that I couldn’t understand, and suddenly I could see myself here in Wendellia as well. There were two of me lying there, with what looked like a thin dark space of nothingness in between. As she sang, thousands of strands of light reached from my real body through the darkness, connecting my two images together.

  “Then Cyrus joined her song, and I saw several strands breaking away from my body in the real world. As soon as they snapped, they floated through the darkness and wrapped themselves around my body in this dream world.

  “Pain…pain shot through me. I cried out, begging them to stop. But the song continued, breaking more and more strands away from the real world. I screamed as each one attached itself to my body here.

  “I could see myself screaming in the real world as well and knew that my parents would rush to check on me. I begged them to hurry, hoping that they could save me.”

  Soren looked up at us and tears were streaming from his eyes. My own eyes pricked as I watched him.

  “They didn’t come in time. Soon only a single strand was left, connecting my mind from the dream world to my mind in the real world. I could see my mother rush in and try to wake me, but I didn’t stir. I tried to scream, to move, anything to let her know I was still there. After a few moments, my mother became frantic and called to my father. He couldn’t wake me up either. Soon, he called for help.

  “The old woman and Cyrus took their hands away from my forehead, and I opened my eyes in Wendellia. Cyrus was laughing in triumph as he strode from the room, bolting the door behind him. I screamed at the old woman to let me go, to undo whatever she had done. She told me that she didn’t know how to, and that even if she did, she couldn’t.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “After a while, she brought me a bowl of soup to eat, but I refused. She didn’t pressure me, just walked away and sat quietly at the table watching me. After a long time, I got hungry and started eating. Even though it had grown cold by that time, the soup made me feel better and I demanded to know what she had done.

  “She told me then that I would not wake up in the real world. I would still be alive, but it would be as if I was in a deep sleep. She told me that when I slept here, I would see myself in the real world, but that I would never be able to return. I screamed at her then, begging her to send me back, but she said she couldn’t. She just kept muttering, ‘Bound to him. Bound. Too many oaths. Too many secrets. Bound. Bound to the world. Bound to the piece.’ It was something I would hear hundreds of times in the days to come.

  “Hours later, I finally fell asleep. I could see myself in the Waking World in a hospital. Doctors swarmed around me, trying to discover what was wrong. I tried to wake up, to talk to them, to make them hear me somehow, but I couldn’t make myself move.

  “Cyrus let me stay with Marilain. She took care of me as best as she could, but her mind drifted more and more, especially after she formed a Dream Tether. I was pulling more and more Dreamers into Wendellia, and the Changelings were always waiting. Cyrus didn’t keep them all, but he kept enough that soon Marilain was existing in a perpetual state of madness. I never asked what happened to the Tethered Dreamers. I didn’t want to know.”

  Suddenly Soren’s face grew hard, and he glared at Keegan. Keegan lowered his eyes, refusing to look at Soren.

  Hatred burned in Soren’s eyes, and his voice grew steely as he said, “It was impossible, though, to ignore the fact that Cyrus was growing in power. We soon found out how powerful he was becoming when he ordered Marilain and I to come along on his next campaign. He had taken over the whole realm of Severak, where we were, and was moving south against Itharan. He wanted us near him so that he could make immediate use of any new Dreamwalkers that I would attract.

  “For the first time, both Marilain and I saw the destruction that Cyrus caused. The Dreamwalkers made him unstoppable. Although many of them served him unwillingly, they did their jobs well. Whole armies were annihilated in minutes. Cyrus had no pity. Anyone who stood against him was killed. He took no prisoners, even when men surrendered.

  “He pillaged every village that we came to, taking what he wanted or needed, then burned it to the ground. He allowed the women and children to live, but I knew many of them starved or froze to death because he had taken everything from them.

  “This continued for almost a year as Cyrus marched across the face of this world, destroying as he went. He was becoming an unstoppable force of evil. Marilain and I decided that somehow, I at least, must get away from him. I was bringing too many Dreamwalkers into his army. Even if some were killed in battle, or refused to work for Cyrus, there were always more.

  “It took many months, but I learned to hide myself from the Changelings with my mind. At the same time, we were planning for my escape. I begged Marilain to Untether me before I left, but she did not know how to do it.

  Soren smirked as he said, “Cyrus was not happy when he discovered I was gone. He mounted a massive search for me. The Changelings couldn’t find me, but I was still attracting Dreamwalkers and one, a woman, appeared only a few days after I had gotten away.

  “I was sure that we would be discovered. Even though I knew I could hide myself, I thought that I couldn’t stop the Changelings from sensing the other Dreamwalker. We both huddled on the ground terrified. But as I concentrated on Shielding myself from the Changeling, I realized that I could sense the other Dreamwalker’s ability. I concentrated with all of my might fighting the ability, pushing it back until it was buried deep inside the woman’s mind.

  “When the Changeling got close to us, I could see that he was confused. He was sure that there was a Dreamwalker in the area, but he couldn’t sense her anymore. He finally gave up and left, and the Dreamwalker woke up and escaped.

  “Over time, I have practiced blocking so much that now a Changeling can be standing next to a Dreamwalker I am shielding and not sense them. I can even block several Dreamwalkers at a time if they are not too powerful.”

  I looked at him in awe. He seemed so young, but according to his story, he had been honing his ability for a while.

  “Why are you telling us all of this now?” I asked.

  Soren smiled wryly, “Because I’m worried that Cyrus will find me soon, and I want someone to know before he has me for good.”

  “But, you’ve kept him away for… for how long exactly?” Keegan asked.

  “I escaped from Cyrus over ten years ago.”

  My eyes widened. “What?!?!” I exclaimed. “You’ve been here for ten years?”

  “Almost fifteen,” Soren sighed. “I’m technically twenty-five, if you count the years I’ve spent here.”

  “But, look at you,” I protested, waving my hand in his direction. “You look like you’re ten.”

  “Not much time has passed in the real world since I first came to this world. I will always look like I do in the Waking World.”

  Keegan asked the question that I had been too afraid to bring up, “What about the real world? What happened to you there?”

  Soren’s eyes clouded. “I am still asleep. It has been almost four months. My parents are still waiting for me to wake up. They haven’t lost hope yet. I still see them when I sleep.”

  I felt troubled, “Isn’t there any way for you to get back?

  “Marilain insisted that she had made it so that the Tether could be undone. She never wavered on that point, but she could never explain how. Every time I asked her she would just talk about strings and webs and spiders like it all made sense.”

  Soren stood up from the boulder he had been sitting on. “I think Cyrus has a Dreamwalker who is somehow able to see me. He’s never stopped looking for me, and now more than ever, Cyrus wants me, alive if possible, dead if necessary. I’ve helped too many of his Dreamwalkers escape him over the last ten years, and he is finding it increasingly difficult to purchase any more. If Cyrus captures me, more people will get stuck here, and I can’t let that happen. You have to get me away from him. Kill me if you must, if it is the only way to stop it, but Cyrus cannot be allowed to Tether more people here.”

  He turned to look at Keegan. “Now you know what you’ve done,” he said. “Promise me, Keegan. I want your word that you will do something about it if he captures me.”

  “I promise,” Keegan said quickly, before I could say anything. “I promise that I will do what must be done.” A faraway look filled his eyes, and after a moment he sighed.

  Soren looked at me, and I began to say that I would help, but Keegan interrupted. “Soren, do not make her promise that,” he said, his voice hard.

  “Keegan,” I began, but he interrupted me.

  “Ria, do you realize how dangerous that would be? What if you got stuck here too?”

  “He’s been here for fifteen years, Keegan,” I said urgently, gesturing towards Soren, who was watching our exchange in silence.

  “And I’ve promised to do what I can to help,” Keegan said. “You do not need to make that promise.”

  “He’s right, Maria,” Soren said, before I could protest. “It is enough that Keegan has given his word.”

  “But,” I said, “I want to do something to help too.”

  “I am sure that you will,” said Soren, looking sad once again.

  Keegan rose suddenly to his feet. “I think it’s time that we left now.”

  Before I could say anything, he had gripped my arm and had the world whirling away.