The City of Mirrors (The Passage 3)

—

She dreamed of many things. In one dream, she was a girl again, lost in a forest; in another, she was stuck inside a closet; in a third, she was carrying a heavy object of unknown type and could not put it down. These dreams were not pleasant, but neither were they nightmares. Each unfolded seamlessly into the next, depriving them of their full power—no climax was reached, no mortal moment of terror—and as sometimes occurred, she was also aware that she was dreaming, that the landscape she inhabited was harmlessly symbolic.

The final dream of Lore’s thirty-ninth night at sea was hardly a dream at all. She was standing in a field. All was quiet, yet she knew a danger was approaching. The color of the air began to change, first to yellow, then to green. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose, as if with a static charge; simultaneously, a great wind swirled up around her. She tilted her face to the sky. Clouds of black and silver had begun to form a whirlpool overhead. With a crackling explosion and a biting smell of ozone, a bolt of lightning jagged the ground in front of her, blinding her utterly.

She began to run. Sheets of rain commenced to fall as, above her, the furious, whirlpooling clouds congealed into a single, fingerlike cone. The ground was shaking, thunder crashing; trees were bursting into flames. The storm was pursuing her. It would sweep her into oblivion. As the finger touched down behind her, the air was rent by a deafening, animal roar. Its power seized her like a fist; suddenly the ground was gone. A voice, far away, was calling her name. She was lifting into the air, she was soaring higher and higher, she was being hurled off the face of the earth…

“Lore, wake up!”

Her head jerked from the table. Rand was staring at her. Why was he so wet? And why was everything moving?

“What the hell are you doing?” Rand barked. Rain and seawater were pelting against the windscreen. “We’re in real trouble here.”

As she attempted to rise from the bench, the deck heaved sideways. The door flew open with a bang, rain and wind blasting into the pilothouse. Another groan from deep within the hull and the deck began to heel in the opposite direction. Lore went tumbling, sliding down the deck and smacking into the bulkhead. For a moment it seemed that they would just keep going, but then the motion reversed. Gripping the edge of the table for balance, she fought her way upright.

“When the hell did this start?”

Rand was clutching the edge of the pilot’s seat. “About thirty minutes ago. It just whipped up from nowhere.”

They were taking the sea broadside. The lightning flashed, the heavens shook; huge waves were crashing over the rails.

“Get below and fire the engines,” she ordered.

“That’ll use the rest of our fuel.”

“No choice.” She strapped herself into the pilot seat; water was sloshing over the floor. “Without helm control, this is going to pound us to pieces. I just hope we have enough left to get through this. We’ll need all the thrust you’ve got.”

As Rand exited, Caleb appeared out of the storm. The man’s face was white as a ghost’s, whether with terror or seasickness, Lore couldn’t tell.

“Is everyone below?” she asked.

“Are you kidding me? It’s like a screaming contest down there.”

She yanked the straps tight. “This is going to be rough, Caleb. We need every hatch sealed. Tell people to tie themselves down however they can.”

He nodded grimly, turned to go.

“And shut that fucking door!”

The ship heeled into the next trough, listing at a perilous angle before rolling up the other side. With nearly all of their fuel gone, they had no ballast; it wouldn’t take much to capsize them. She looked at her watch; it was 0530. Dawn would soon be breaking.

“Goddamnit, Rand,” she muttered. “Come on, come on…”

The pressure gauges leapt; power flowed through the panel. Lore set the rudder, gripped the throttle control, and opened it wide. The compass was spinning like a top. With excruciating slowness, the bow began to turn into the wind.

“Come on, girl!”

The bow bit and held, plummeting into the next trough as if down a mountainside. Spray blasted over the deck. For a second, the front of the ship was almost fully submerged; then it ascended, the hull rearing upward like a great rising beast.

“That’s the way!” Lore shouted. “Do it for Mama!”

She drove into the howling darkness.

—

For twelve full hours, the storm raged. Many times, as giant waves crashed over the bow, Lore believed the end had come. Each time, the foredeck plunged into the abyss; each time, it rose again.