Iron Codex 2 - The Nightmare Garden by Caitlin Kittredge

to bring you clean clothes.” She tossed them onto the bed next to me.
    “Thank you,” I said, with a game smile. I really wanted to return her glare, but I was the prisoner, and I wanted theErlkin to think I was harmless. Well, less harmful than Conrad, anyway. At least until I figured out how much trouble we were actually in.
    “Half-breed,” the Erlkin spat at me, and then left, the hatch slamming shut behind her retreating back.
    I slumped on my bed next to the clothes, shoving them aside to give myself space. The hull vibrated gently, and I leaned into it. I was exhausted, and being in a place that wasn’t an abandoned farmhouse or the crook of a tree was lulling me to sleep.
    I tried to stay awake and think of more plans to get Conrad out of trouble, but sleep stole my senses, and soon I was deep under the waves of dreaming.

The Sea of Dreams
    I N MY DREAM , I was still alone. But this time, the skyline of Lovecraft had faded into the distance, and I saw it like a mirage on the horizon, shimmering. I stood in a room, the floor inlaid with silver, a star map of constellations I had never before laid eyes on. Alien stars, from an alien sky.
    Before me stood a figure twice as tall as I, only a shadow, smooth and without feature. I stayed still, unsure of my footing in the dream. I always felt only vaguely attached to my dream-body, as if my mind were floating free in the void of outer space and my body were waiting back on Earth.
    Behind the figure, a great gear rose, half of it above the platform on which we stood. Above us, a hundred skies turned by, sunrises and sunsets, skylines and the blackness of space. And in those skies things twisted and writhed, great tentacles of darkness coming down to merge and mingle with the shadow figure before me.
    I found I could speak, which wasn’t always the case inthese madness dreams—for that was surely what this was, brought on by the iron of Windhaven. “Where am I?”
    The figure stared back impassively. I knew he was staring, despite his lack of eyes or any features at all. I could feel his gaze, hot and penetrating. Beyond him, beyond the gear and the platform, the skies spun faster. They were more than skies now—it was as if we were inside a giant dome and lanternreels in the thousands and millions were projected onto the glass sides.
    “Where am I?” I asked again.
    The figure reached out a hand. It was fathomless, black smoke in the shape of a human thing, and I felt cold emanate from the shadow as it drew closer to me. The tentacles writhed faster, lashing, and from all around us came a great moaning, which vibrated the dome to its core and came up through my feet into my bones.
    Who are you?
the figure hissed.
Why did you come here?
    “You tell me,” I whispered, my lips barely able to move from the frozen air of the dream and my own fear. This felt too strong, too real, to be purely a result of the iron around me. The madness was getting worse. I was starting to believe my own dreams. I dug my fingers into my palms, but in this dream place, I felt no pain. That didn’t soothe my worries any.
    “I don’t know where
here
is,” I said. The great gear behind the figure began to turn, and as it did the tentacles retreated, the black figures floating in the skies shrinking away. In my ears, and through the dome, a thousand screams echoed.
    You shouldn’t be here
, the figure told me.
This isn’t your dream. This isn’t a dream at all
.
    Then, as if I’d fallen from a great height, I snapped awake.
    *  *  *
    My head was throbbing, and it was dark in the room when I opened my eyes. For a moment I didn’t know where I was, and then it all came back to me. I slumped against the pillow. My clothes, none too clean to start, were soaked with sweat. That had been a bad one. Usually my encroaching madness didn’t talk back to me in my dreams.
    I fumbled around until I found the aether lamp above the bed and turned the valve, the blue glow filling the tiny