Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox Read Free Book Online Page A

All the government seemed to care about was that they got control .
     
    CHORLEY TIEBOLD STOOD on the beach, watching the dead shag floating a foot under the calm surface of the morning sea, slowly drawing away in the ebb tide. Chorley was thinking about the life of a dreamhunter. Not ‘the beauty of it’, as his wife had said to him about Tziga all those years before, but its dangers. His daughter and niece might congratulate themselves on having lived in a liberal, adventurous household, but really they’d led sheltered lives. Chorley had led a sheltered life too — and was very grateful for it. He wanted to see the girls grow up surrounded by pleasant, civilised people. Grace, in her fantasies about Rose’s future, couldn’t seem to see past that magical moment on the border, at a Try, where one child in a hundred walks out of the world everyone can see. Dreamhunting had brought Grace everything — fame, wealth, pride in her work. But the girls already had everything they could ever need. They were well off, and well informed and confident. They didn’t need a job that would see them limping home haunted and hollow-eyed, as Tziga often did. Increasingly often. If the girls went into thePlace they would be going where Chorley couldn’t walk after them, couldn’t look for them if they got lost. And he was the parent who’d done those things, who’d rounded them up at dusk from the safe little park a few streets from their house in Founderston, who’d called them in from the beach below Summerfort. He was the one who was always there at bedtime. Chorley didn’t want his daughter and niece to Try — especially not Laura, who was small for her age, and always had at least one serious cough every winter.
    He didn’t want it, he’d argued against it, but he hadn’t stood a chance against everyone else’s wishes. For a while it had seemed as though Tziga was in two minds about his daughter’s Try, but now he was in just as much hurry as everyone else.
    Chorley lost sight of the dead bird. The sea dazzled him. He trudged back up the beach to Summerfort, where he stood listening in the lower hall. There was no noise from upstairs; the girls had fallen asleep.

Seven
    The ranger thought he was finally safe, with the balding earth and pale, trampled vegetation of the border before him. But he still jogged on, his feet dragging and sweat dripping past his belt. He was gasping for breath, and making a lot of noise, but when it came, he still heard it. He heard the whisper of his mineral pursuer.
    The ranger put on a burst of speed. The nightmare that was chasing him must belong to the Place, he reasoned. Once he was across the border the monster would vanish.
    He felt the creature’s heavy, semi-solid hand drop upon his shoulder. He let out a raw scream.
    The hand solidified enough to grip, and jerk the ranger about. He faced the creature, its dry, lumpish face and the horrible swarming attention in its holes-for-eyes. The ranger felt the creature fumbling at him, andimagined that it was searching him. As he tried to tear the creature’s hands from him, the ranger’s own hand found the remnant of his letter of instruction. He took the paper and stuffed it in his own mouth and began to chew. At the same time he threw his weight backwards, and hauled himself away towards the border.
    The sandman’s muddy, fused-together fingers separated. He poked two into the ranger’s mouth.
    The ranger tried to swallow the letter and began to choke. He and the sandman rocked back and forth, fighting, but moving ever nearer to the border.
    The ranger bit down on the fingers. His mouth filled with loose sand. Sand packed down the partly chewed letter.
    The sandman released the ranger, who saw the monster’s bitten fingers reform, grow from a trickle of sand running like veins down the surface of its arm. He saw the fingers lengthen, till the hand was whole.
    The creature was holding a fragment of the letter.
    The ranger saw all