Trinka and the Thousand Talismans, Page 2

  Chapter Two

  Dream Merchants

  Trinka went down one step, the sound of her shoes echoing through the empty corridors. She took one step more, then another, then another, and each step came faster than the last. She felt as if the weight of the entire tower were pressing down on her, pushing her out and casting her away. She pried open the impractically tall front door and made her way down the final steps that spiraled around the base of the building.

  She tripped, missed the last flight of six or seven steps, and spilled onto the streets of the City of Mirrors. Her long, fluttering white robes kept her from falling too hard, but she still felt the impact smash through her, vibrating her bones. She lay, hands pressed to the hard glass ground, nose a few fingers’ width away, her ragged breath fogging its unforgiving surface.

  You would think, Trinka mused, that living in a city of glass, you’d be able to see everything clearly.

  But she saw only billows of fog beneath her, swirling and changing with as much uncertainty as she felt churning inside her. She lifted her eyes and could see no more than a dozen arm-lengths ahead of her. Even the huge tower she knew stood only paces away was almost completely obscured from view. On Ellipsis, the teachers emphasized looking into one’s own mind for answers, but instead Trinka wished she could see more of the outside world around her.

  If only I could see where I was going as clearly as in Ophelie’s little model. To stand back far enough to see everything, and know where to go.

  At last, Trinka pushed herself up and made her way down the foggy streets, each step only reluctantly revealing the next step of her path. As she walked, the thick, life-sustaining mists that covered the city filled her, refreshing her lungs and easing the knots in her stomach, and she felt calmer and less empty with every breath.

  It was a simple enough concept, “home,” except that Trinka didn’t really have one. She lived in one of the smaller towers near the edge of the city with her older sister, Annelise, and grandmother, Elora, but it wasn’t a place Trinka felt she belonged.

  On her way through the clusters of towers, each more diminutive than the last, the white fogs gave way to deeper grays, and finally dusky black. The buildings, a little less obscured by cloud here, glowed with a white luminescence, their light standing out in stark contrast to the surrounding dark. The sight usually made Trinka feel hopeful, but tonight a sense of dread crept up inside of her. What would her grandmother do when she found out?

  Of course, she probably already knows, Trinka reminded herself.

  Deep down, Trinka had always known the day when she failed to get into the Elite Academy would come. She just hadn’t thought it would happen so suddenly, or that she would fail so spectacularly.

  She paused outside the door, took a deep breath, and went inside. As usual, the circular room sat empty. Trinka glanced up at the only object inside it. From a small mirror made of bits of broken fragments that covered the center of the ceiling, a chandelier hung suspended, and on its stems sat jars of Annelise’s past work. Each glass bottle that balanced there was beautifully curved and filled to the brim with thick, cloudy thoughts. All of the jars gave off a soft light that reflected in the mirror, filling the room with a gentle glow. As Trinka craned her neck to look at her sister’s work more closely, she suddenly noticed another face peering up into the mirror with her. A face with gray-blue eyes from which all signs of twinkling had faded.

  “So,” Elora said. She let the word fill the silence, as if she were handing Trinka an empty exam jar and expecting her to fill it with the answers to her unspoken questions.

  Trinka took one last glance at the ceiling. Keeping it inside wouldn’t help anything. She might as well get it over with.

  “The Star Chamber met today.”

  “And…?”

  “I didn’t get into the Elite Academy.” As the words left her mouth, she felt as if the air had been knocked out of her. There, she had said it.

  Elora nodded softly, stood there for a moment, and turned back toward the gossamer curtain that covered the doorway to her chamber.

  “Are you angry?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Elora reassured her, waving her hand vaguely. “I’m just disappointed.”

  The answer didn’t surprise her. It had been Elora’s dream to be accepted into the Elite Academy, but since that hadn’t happened, nothing thrilled her more than seeing Annelise do so well there. It would have made her twice as happy to have two of her granddaughters there, but there was nothing Trinka could do about that now.

  “They told me to go home,” Trinka added bravely. “Nobody wanted me.”

  “Your father wants you.”

  Trinka looked at her grandmother, feeling a tiny bit of hope glimmer inside her for the first time that day.

  “You mean I could go live with him?”

  “I think that might be best,” Elora sighed. “We’ll discuss it later. I need time to reflect.”

  Trinka was left alone.

  She couldn’t bear to stay in that empty room, so she crept outside to sit on the steps. It wasn’t long before she sensed something sliding silently alongside her, like a shadow, except that instead of a cast of darkness, its presence shone with a gentle light.

  Annelise sat down beside her.

  “Did Grandmother…?” Trinka stopped as she realized that of course Annelise already knew.

  “It’s not so bad,” Annelise said soothingly. “You never wanted to go to the Academy.”

  Trinka had been telling herself that same thing, but somehow, even hearing Annelise say it didn’t make it sound any better.

  “I’m sure you’ll be much happier with Daddy,” her sister continued. “I know how much you miss him.”

  Trinka stared down at the glass street below her feet, which was too dark now to cast even a faint reflection back up to her. She hadn’t seen her father for some time. He visited as often as he could, whenever his ship brought the dream merchants glass and crystals from far away. She had longed for the day when she would be old enough to leave the City of Mirrors, leave all of Ellipsis and go with him on his journeys, but now that the day had come, she wasn’t looking forward to it as much as she had dreamed she would.

  “And just think, you can both come visit us every time his ship comes this way,” Annelise continued brightly. “All of us can be together again. At least you and me and Dad and Grandmother,” she added quickly.

  Trinka sighed heavily. While Annelise had meant it as a cheering thought, the part left unspoken only increased the aching feeling inside, for the members of their family that were still far away—and probably always would be. The two of them sat in silence for a moment.

  “Here. This is for you,” Annelise held out a small glass vial, about the size of a finger, with a tightly twisted top. Inside, a fine white mist swirled.

  “What’s this for?” Trinka asked, and immediately she felt more stupid than ever. Swallowing its contents would transport her to the watery world of Brace, to be with their father.

  “It is what you make of it,” Annelise emphasized, pressing it into her sister’s hand. “The academy might not see all that you have to offer, yet, but I believe in you Trinka.”

  She smiled, and for a moment, Trinka managed to smile back.

  “Do you want me to stay with you?” Annelise’s wide, glimmering blue eyes looked down at her in concern, and her thin hand rested on Trinka’s shoulder.

  Although she sensed her sister’s desire to comfort her, Trinka couldn’t help but notice how fragile Annelise’s touch felt compared to the strong, ready hands of their father.

  “No,” she said finally. “You go back to Elora. I’d rather do it alone.”

  Annelise’s eyes blinked in understanding, and she gave Trinka’s arm a squeeze. Her grip felt as if her fingers were made of glass, like the stems of a fine crystal candelabra.

  “See you soon,” she said, and Trinka nodded.

  Annelise slipped back inside. Tri
nka sat alone.

  Go on, she cajoled herself. This is what you’ve always wanted. To be free from that school. To be with Bram. Go on!

  Trinka lifted the vial toward her lips.

  Just as she was about to shut her eyes and drink it down, a tiny bright spot broke through the fog, and she caught a glimpse of a billowing, white sail floating above the tops of the towers. Another sail appeared and passed, then another, as a whole fleet came soaring in.

  “The airships,” she whispered aloud.

  For the first time that day, Trinka felt a tingle of excitement work its way through her. Without another thought, she tucked the vial into the folds of her robes and raced across the glass streets. The sails disappeared from view for a moment, eclipsed by the tops of the closely clustered towers, as she rushed through the outer circle of the city.

  As she came around the last curve, the ships reappeared—bigger, brighter, closer than ever before. Their wide, white arms stretched out as if inviting her onward. Each gracefully curving sail, gleaming like a beam of light reflected in a cloudy mirror, beckoned her to explore the expanse of blue beyond.

  The same sense of happy anticipation that filled her every time she came to meet her father filled her now. Only this time, she would be the one going to meet him. Ever since she could remember, Trinka had always wanted to know what it felt like to fly, and this was her chance. If the airships could bring Bram from Brace, surely they could take her to him.

  Trinka slowed to a careful walk as she made her way past the flurry of activity surrounding the airships. Lampposts covered in clusters of glowing white orbs made the work area even brighter than day, despite the darkening sky. Great collections of glass swept through the air as the dream merchants unloaded their wares, summoning them off the airships with the power of their thoughts. Clear crystals spun in formation, like disconnected chandeliers suspended from the air itself, as the dream merchants called them forward and collected them. A dazzling array of rainbows splashed every surface in sight as the spinning crystals refracted the white light, splitting it into its invisible wonders.

  She passed the airships that had just arrived and made her way toward a fleet that was powering up and preparing to take off. As Trinka came closer, the vessels became even more breathtaking. Each ship’s sleek, curved body tapered to a delicate tail that burst into an array of small, white sails, like hands spread open wide. A soaring, slightly bowed mast supported three huge, crescent-shaped sails, made from the same silky, shimmering fabric as her school robes—a delicate-looking material that was so much tougher than it appeared.

  Although the city had not been dark very long, tendrils of bright, extremely concentrated white mist were already threading their way from the tips of the city’s towers out toward the airships, shooting down their masts and powering their sails with the oneiric energy of dreamtime. The incoming energy from the citizens’ dreams made the sails sparkle as if they had just been splashed with a thousand handfuls of stardust. Trinka resisted the urge to climb up the airship’s wings and just stand on top of it, feeling the fresh air on her face and the caress of the sails on her hands.

  Instead, she stepped as quietly as she could up the dainty glass steps of the gangplank on the last airship. Her hands touched the door-less, solid wall of the airship in front of her. This would take concentration, but she wasn’t going to let any thought of failure defeat her now. She took a deep breath, and passed right through.

  She glanced quickly around the cabin, but with just three high-backed seats surrounding a central control pedestal, there was no place for her to hide. She descended the spiral staircase that led to the cargo hold suspended below the main body of the ship, the clink of her shoes echoing loudly in the cramped space despite her best efforts.

  The circular walls of the first level were lined from floor to ceiling with pockets of clear, slightly iridescent fabric that made the whole room look like it was covered in giant bubbles. Trinka could just picture Nikolay running around the room in circles, bouncing off all of them. Thinking about the antics of her (former?) friend made her swallow hard.

  She descended to the second level, which looked like a mirror image of the first, and finally to the lowest cargo space. Here a large decanter, sealed to a pipe running down the center of the staircase, sat partly filled with cloudy thoughts, but unlike the ones she had seen at school, these were a polluted gray so deep they actually stained the glass.

  She knew from peppering Bram with questions on one of her childhood port visits that this was the perisseia, or residue left over after the airships burned off the dream energy, and that the dream merchants considered it worthless yet used it to pay the sailors for the glass and crystals they traded for. What the sailors of Brace did with it, though, Bram had never divulged. Trinka wondered if any of her dreams ever made it into that beautiful, collective energy that helped power the airships, or if all of hers were dumped directly down here.

  That’s all I am on Ellipsis, anyway, she thought heavily, gray, leftover dross to be traded away. Maybe on Brace I’ll be worth something too.

  Thinking of Bram and his love for her made Trinka briefly raise the vial to her lips, but having come this far, she wasn’t going to give up now. Maybe soon, she’d even see what sailors did with the perisseia for herself. With a sigh, she replaced the vial, settled back against the residue decanter, and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Trinka’s head jumped from its dozing place and smacked the side of the decanter when, finally, the airship began to move.

  The sudden motion shook Trinka fully awake, and she felt a beat of excitement that started in her heart and quickly moved down to her middle as the airship lurched and lifted off. Her ears rang, she felt slightly sick, and she wondered for a moment if she would actually pop inside out. So far, she reflected, her first experience with flying had been very disillusioning.

  Instead of the free, floating feeling she had imagined, she found herself experiencing a sensation more like sitting in one of the cramped reflection rooms at school, on a day when she would rather be home sick. When the nausea finally subsided to be replaced by boredom, Trinka looked around at the mostly empty chamber, and noticed a small pile of colored crystals in one of the lowermost bubble pouches.

  More rejects, apparently. I really do fit in here.

  Trinka reached in and picked up one of the crystals. It felt smooth, hard, and cold like the glass that made up everything on Ellipsis, but instead of being white or a lightly frosted blue, these jewels were tinged with green, red, amber, violet, turquoise, and even some bright hues she had never seen before. As she set it down, her eyes rested on a jewel that stood out. Its murky green six-sided center was surrounded by a strange collection of loops that were not glass but something hard, flat, and dull.

  As she picked it up to look at it more closely, the loops grew hot in her hand, and the surface of the jewel began to ripple. Trinka quickly dropped it. The loops faded away, and the murky green center grew larger and larger, rippling and spreading, turning and twisting until it finally resolved into a form that looked almost like a very short person, about half Trinka’s height.

  His skin was the same drab green as the jewel she had been holding just a moment before. His two short legs ended in rounded mounds with no toes, while his hands finished with very long, thin fingers, flat and jagged. His eyes bobbled at the top of two long stems that rose from his head, so that they seemed to hang suspended. The rest of his face was filled by an enormous green mouth that, at the moment, was hanging wide open.

  “Who… what… who…?” Trinka began.

  “Grble,” the creature made a strange throaty noise that bubbled up from the back of his mouth. He looked at Trinka with the same surprise and inquisitiveness that she had looking at him.

  “My name is Grble. You are not one of them?” he asked.

  “Who? One of the dream merchants?”

  Grble nodded, his eyes bobbl
ing up and down as he did so.

  “No, I’m going to find my father.”

  Grble blinked, and his eyes rotated around, looking in all directions.

  “He is on this ship?”

  “No. He lives on Brace. I…”

  Trinka’s words were interrupted by the sound of voices coming nearer.

  “I’m telling you, Pellen, there’s someone here. I can sense it.”

  Trinka and Grble looked at each other.

  “I am not supposed to be here,” the creature told her.

  “I’m not supposed to be here either.”

  She looked around, but there was no place to hide. The stairs above them began clanging with footsteps, and as the faces that went with the voices appeared, Grble shrunk behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” a light-haired, clear-eyed man demanded. Two identical-looking young women appeared behind him. Trinka recognized them from her previous visits to the port: Pellen, Solange, and Delphine. She was sure they wouldn’t remember her, though.

  “We…” Trinka stammered.

  “Who’s we?” Pellen interrupted.

  Trinka looked behind her, but Grble, such as he had been a few moments before, had disappeared. Only the weird green ornament lay in his place. Trinka turned her eyes from it quickly, but Pellen spotted it immediately and picked it up.

  “How did that get there? Ugly, don’t you think?” He handed it to the women.

  “Extremely,” Solange and Delphine answered in unison.

  “I wonder if the sailors will exchange it for us, or if we should just throw it out now?” Pellen mused.

  “No, don’t do that! You might hurt him,” Trinka pleaded.

  “Him?” Pellen’s eyes turned on her.

  “Euuuh!” Delphine exclaimed as the jewel in her hand suddenly sprang to life, and once again, Grble was standing beside Trinka, his eyes swaying uncertainly.

  “Two stowaways,” Pellen exclaimed. “Extraordinary. You didn’t bring it with you, did you?”

  Trinka shook her head. “No, I… I wanted to go to Brace to be with my father, Bram.”

  “Your father?” Pellen repeated impatiently. “Don’t you realize he may not even be on the ship we’re going to meet?”

  Trinka had to admit she hadn’t thought of that.

  “Why do you think we’re called dream merchants?” Pellen persisted. “Because we get paid in dreams. Now, we don’t, as a rule, take passengers, but if we did, we would expect to be paid for it. Are you skilled in making dreams?”

  “I’ve done it a few times in school,” Trinka stammered, all too aware that her skills were as lacking in this area as in any other.

  “What school?”

  “The Predilect.”

  Pellen laughed out loud. “The Predilect,” he scoffed. “What possible use could we have for dreams from someone from there?”

  “Oh, Pellen, they might be interesting,” Solange chided him.

  “She might make very imaginative dreams,” Delphine added.

  “Well, they’d hardly be dreams powerful enough to fill the sails of this ship,” Pellen scoffed. “Let alone be payment for us.”

  “The fleet’s already been fully powered, by the collective energy of everyone in the city,” Solange reminded him.

  “And we are going to Brace already,” Delphine persisted. “I think we could set the price for her transport accordingly.”

  “Oh all right, we’ll get you a jar and see if they’re satisfactory,” Pellen relented. “But this had better be worth our time.”

  The thought of facing another empty glass jar made Trinka’s mouth go dry and her palms start to sweat. She’d never be able to fill it with dreams, especially not the sort of vivid, exhilarating dreams that would be sufficient payment for Pellen. Besides, if she couldn’t do it on one of her very best days, there was no way she’d be able to do it now.

  “I can’t,” she answered softly.

  “Then you’ll have to leave,” Pellen ordered. “And you may as well take that thing with you,” he gestured toward Grble, “or I’ll have to send it back where it came from.”

  Trinka looked at Grble.

  “Do you want to go with me?” she questioned.

  “Yes,” he affirmed instantly.

  “The question is how to send you back when we’ve already started flying. It’s too late to turn around now without disturbing the whole fleet.”

  “Relax. If she’s from the Predilect, she can send herself home,” Delphine consoled him.

  “We’re still in the outer clouds of the city,” Solange added. “Anybody can transport herself from here.”

  Relax, Trinka repeated to herself. Just focus and relax.

  Transporting herself was the one thing Trinka had been good at in school. So good, in fact, that the teachers had made her stop practicing. While the other students were still struggling with moving from one end of the room to the other, she found herself outside the school building entirely on the very first try. She hadn’t tried it for so long, though. She only hoped she remembered how.

  “Are you ready?”

  Grble nodded, so she took his hand, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

  For a moment, Trinka felt herself growing lighter, as if her weight were slipping away and she were moving freely.

  “She can send herself home.” The words echoed in Trinka’s mind. But home wasn’t on Ellipsis. She hesitated. Should she go back to the City of Mirrors, or should she try to transport herself directly to her father?

  Of course not, you’d never make it that far, Trinka thought. You can’t even… don’t think that!

  But it was too late.

  In that one instant, all the focus she had built around herself snapped, and she felt the air swirling and spiraling. The solid wall of the airship gave way, and as she opened her eyes, Trinka saw the entire fleet disappearing into the blue plumes of cloud above her.

  Trinka had longed to know what it would feel like to soar, but now she wasn’t flying—she was falling.

  &     Ampersand     &

  “You gain strength, courage, and confidence from every experience in which you really look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

  - Eleanor Roosevelt