These Shadows Remain Read Online Free Page A

universe.”
    So images leapt, vaulting out of their limits.
    *
    But the mind in the smoke wondered. The last humans had found a castle that had once floated in dreams.
    They had taken possession of an illusion and turned it real on their plane.
    They had admitted the knight, and done so without questioning his identity.
    The smoke became a column of air. Every toon in the encampment felt a strange sensation of a breathing down their necks. The breath made a tingling sound that seemed more, to some who heard and felt it strongly, like a strangling gasp.
    He whipped into a whirlwind of dust, pondering his command, at the command of nothing else, and yet he couldn’t think deeply enough into the reversal he saw. Humans had made a toon castle theirs. The illusion realm was being turned around by their imagination and will. How could outmoded beings keep ahead of images? How could such creatures, trapped and inhibited by flesh, leap ahead?
    The whirlwind thundered.
    The thunder was so strong its violent vibration bent trees and cracked branches far away from the encampment.
    The thunder came to the castle walls and sputtered out like a wave against a tidal barrier.
    Then the thunder fell back to the whirlwind, its echo diminishing.
    He stirred around in thought, encircling himself.
    A few knights, who dared to observe him directly, considered this gusting inward. It was as if the wizard had turned his back. The cloud spun in a silence that stunned them.
    *
    â€œThe castle looks like the forest,” the knight said.
    Gabrielle gazed at what he saw.
    â€œThe towers are like trees.”
    â€œIt rises like trees,” she said, and nodded. “It gives shade and protection like a forest,” Santiago said.
    The two children didn’t want to venture far into this new enclosure without him. The other children had scattered towards the quarters of the adults.
    The castle appeared to be made out of wood and stone. So it stood with the auras of the earth and the forest. It was massive, and seemed to extend in many directions. There was no electricity, so the grounds were lit by torches and candles. Eerie firelight flickered everywhere.
    â€œIt belonged to the toons. It was a castle we imagined,” Cyrus explained. He wasn’t sure he should let Tomas walk around without his company. “They left these . . . dream places for their own camp. Somehow it’s become . . . real.”
    â€œTheir camp is a city of tents,” Tomas said. “The tent surfaces act as screens. It’s on the screens that you’ll find your people.”
    â€œYou’ve been there,” Cyrus said. 
    â€œI saw it.”
    â€œWhy did you leave?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Tomas said. “Sometimes I see clearly. Sometimes I don’t. When I don’t it’s all smoke. It’s as if the smoke becomes the world.”
    â€œThis is very strange.” Cyrus felt twinges of concern again.
    *
    Cyrus became bold.
    â€œYou must understand the code of flesh and blood. We’ve written it down. When we saw that nothing of ours would stop the toons – when we fought them, they simply reformed themselves into shadows and became their original forms again – we had to find a way to identify the human. We were fighting streams of air and mists and shades and illusions. Nothing worked against them. They came from the screens onto our level of existence and they mocked our weapons and strategies. They’d obviously come to know a lot through careful observation over the years. Who’d have known images could learn? Who’d have guessed the images had a life separate from us? It looked like a power had taken hold of them. They had a power we never knew existed. We’d come to believe that all there was in the universe was our perception of things. How we saw was everything. We were wrong. The images wanted revenge. Some came to believe we were being punished for not