Dreamwalker by J.D. Oswald Page A

or the other.’
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Errol said, but there was water in his mouth and the warm protective darkness had turned to a cold, wet, clinging fear. Gasping and choking, he lunged upwards, his head breaking free of the surface of the pool in a short-lived ecstasy of relief. The night was almost total now, the looming shape of the rock a darker shade of black against the cloud. Thrashing this way and that, Errol tried to see where Martha had got to, but she was nowhere to be seen.
    Panic gripped him and he thrust his head under the surface in a useless attempt to see where she might have sunk. Even in the daylight he wouldn’t have been able to see more than a couple of inches in that dark stuff. With no moon or stars to light his way he stood no chance. She would drown, dragged down by that deceptive, lazy current. And it would be his fault.
    No. It would be Trell’s fault. Hot rage flushed through Errol at the memory of that leering face coming out of the darkness. Then the fall and the oddly fascinating beauty of the grym encompassing all living things, grasses, trees and shrubs set within their grid, insects and other animals bright sparks against the background glow.
    Martha would be a glow too, Errol realised. And there had been so much life in her. There was so much life in her still, surely, that she would stand out like a beacon atop a dark hill. Treading water, Errol tried to recapture the frame of mind that had allowed him to see so much of the grym before. A sense of terrible urgency and dread spread through him as he realised that time was slipping away from him. Martha could be underwater or merely trapped against rocks with her head immersed. Either way she would soon be dead.
    Trying to suppress the panic, he fixed his attention on the major lines. He knew they were there. He had seen them. He was sure of them. He believed in them. Even so, all he could conjure up was the faintest of trails. Frustrated and shivering, he swam swiftly towards the beach, standing up out of the water to get a better look. His clothes hung soaking from him and the wind did its best to get into his bones. Still he wouldn’t give up. She had to be here somewhere.
    ‘Dammit Martha! Where are you?’ He shouted at the night, but no reply came. Hurrying, Errol sprinted to the top of the rock. There was no sign of Trell anywhere; so like him to run off when he could have been useful. From his earlier vantage point, Errol could see down into the pool below, but it was as black as pitch, just the faintest of glimmerings showing where the lines deflected through the water to meet under his feet.
    ‘Dragon, help, please,’ Benfro said quietly, desperately. Almost instantly he could feel the presence in his mind like a blast of fire. He forgot the chill and the wet, forgot his panic. The grym appeared to him in all its multi-hued magnificence, the lines pulsing their slow cycle of plant life and the myriad small specks an uncountable mass of insects and small, nocturnal animals. He could see the solid life-glow of the old fish as they poked around at the base of the rock and there, unmoving amongst their slow spiral, pale and weakening, a shape at once utterly alien and deeply familiar.
    He didn’t wait to think about it, didn’t consider his own safety. Errol just jumped. This time he hit the water in no time, plunging beneath the surface with his lungs full. Swift strokes took him to the bottom of the pool and the cold, still form of Martha. He took her in his arms and pushed off, swimming as strongly as he could for the shallows and the beach.
    By the time he had dragged Martha’s motionless body up onto the dry sand, Errol’s anger-fuelled energy was beginning to wane. He could feel his arms and legs stiffening up with the cold and knew that he would collapse soon. But Martha was unmoving, pale in the darkness. Bending close, he tried to hear her breathing. There was something he should be doing; his mother had