Tilt: Dreams of Chaos, #2

By Ashley Chappell

Two years ago Trotter saved her world and the entire pantheon of Realm from a dark god. Unfortunately, gratitude didn't stop the gods from banning her from Realm when she refused to declare her dominion as a goddess. Now even her lonely refuge in Aevum is destroyed as something violently tilts the world away from the sun, plunging it into permanent night. Once again on her own to save her home, Trotter uncovers a hidden world forgotten by the gods that faces a similar fate.
Unable to turn to Realm for help, Trotter will be forced to finally choose a dominion that will let her save both worlds, even if it means losing one forever. However, throughout her journey she is unaware that the terrifying darkness growing within her means another dominion has already chosen her...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley Chappell
• Release date: Jan 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781540123732

Ashley Chappell

Ashley Chappell writes satire and young adult epic fantasy featuring expansive world-building and universes filled with magic, mayhem, and monsters. Upcoming releases include expansions of her YA Fantasy Dreams of Chaos series and Hawk of Hell: The Harrowers Book 1, a gritty adventure in which Hell is a job for life. Or rather, a job for the afterlife. Ms. Chappell currently resides in Huntsville, AL. When not writing, reviewing, or burying her nose in one of her well-worn Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman novels, she can be found sailing with her husband on their boat ‘Dupracity’ (fans of Kurt Vonnegut may recognize the root of the name).

Book preview

PART ONE

A Stranger Sky

A dream is born of sorrows sown

In dead and withered ground.

Of loss and pain and mercies shown

Where bones of cities drown.

From The Lost Canticle of Chaos

CHAPTER 1

Nothing will feed insomnia like accidently turning your own bed into a man-eating beast in your sleep.

To simply say that Trotter was experiencing ‘growing pains’ adjusting to her recently gained powers would be lazy story-telling. In simple terms, the magical growing pains she was experiencing were equivalent to an infant mouse growing into an elderly elephant in the course of a day. Or, to be more accurate, it was probably quite the reverse. She had suffered elephant-sized magic being poured into her mouse-sized body, and, in essence, now had elephant coming out of her ears.

It was for reasons like this that she lived in the loft above the abandoned doorknob factory. It was the only place she could find in the bustling seaport without neighbors and, since neighbors tend to be nosy when they hear screaming or see killer mattresses wandering around, that had become a pretty important factor in choosing real estate. Prowler, the enchanted cat who’d been her companion since she was a baby, and his mate Felicia lived downstairs in the factory itself. They had been her only real company for the last couple of years, but with Felicia expecting kittens any day they were both completely absorbed with setting up the ‘nursery,’ such as it was. Since no one knew what to expect of enchanted kittens, the nursery now contained everything from litter boxes to encyclopedias to chains.

She stood at her window watching the sunrise over beautiful Sarano Bay while trying to cope with her most recent magical accident. Behind her, the springs of her mattress squeaked complaints as it heaved against the chains she’d used to restrain it until she could figure out how to deal with a man-eating bed. It was a bit of minor luck that the powers she was still trying to master seemed to leak only while she slept. But if something like this was going to happen every time she had a nightmare she might give up sleep all together. Nightmares were not supposed to be seen by waking eyes, let alone leave bloody gashes on your arm.

She rubbed her forearm where she hadn’t been fast enough to escape the coils of teeth when the mattress tried to swallow her like a Charanian fly-trap with a plump fly. The gash had still been weeping blood only a moment ago, but, like all of her kind, she healed very quickly. She wiped the remaining blood away as her flesh knitted the wound closed and turned her thoughts toward ideas for killing a mattress. It snapped defiantly behind her as though recognizing the gleam of mattress-cide in her eyes. Bed bugs? Moths? The sea, she wondered? Is it possible to drown a bed? And then another thought crept into her head. There’s always magic...

Trotter sighed; this was dangerous thinking. She had the most powerful magic in all the universes at her fingertips. But chances were that if it couldn’t be done without magic, it was quite likely that it shouldn’t be done at all.

That was one lesson that the gods had actually learned. The only one.

It irked her for a moment that the thought made her feel smug. Being the daughter of the god of Truth had the drawback of catching yourself out over inconvenient thoughts even when a wallow in self-denial sounded so lovely. However, it also meant the smugness wasn’t because she had delusions of wisdom – which, of course, made her drastically different from all other 16 year-olds. It came from first-hand experience. To deal in person with the gods was to constantly feel like the only one in the room getting the joke.

Then again, it had been a long time since she’d seen any of the gods. Two years since Erov’s banishment. Two years since she’d set foot in Realm, and nearly one year since she had been able to see her mother or father at all. Realm, in all its orderly disarray and landscape like a plate of melted crayons, where her parents were still trying to bring her home.

Salt stung her eyes as she thought about Miro. All of those years without knowing that the beautiful and kind woman who watched over her was actually her mother, and then to lose her so soon after...

She blinked away the tear before it fell. There would be time to deal with those demons later. Right now she had to worry about the one behind her.

She turned to glare at the mattress. It was heaving rhythmically, slowly, and didn’t react to her at all as she edged toward it. The thing seemed to have fallen asleep while she’d been lost in thought; the magic was already wearing away. Thankfully, the leaks from her nightmares were always lacking in permanence. This one would probably be a regular mattress again by lunch.

Just the same, she made a mental note to order a new mattress from the market anyway. Her nightmares were bad enough these days without having to sleep on the same mattress that just tried to eat her.

THE FLORIST BLINKED twice at her, began to say something, and then closed his mouth again in defeat. Most of the vendors at the market were used to Trotter’s typically odd requests, but this was the first time she’d had reason to visit the florist. Being so close to the docks, his usual patrons were sailors, travelling merchants and fishermen on their way home to their wives from a long trip to sea. Sometimes they bought flowers because they were so glad to be home, and other times they were in case their wives had heard what they’d been up to while they were gone. For this reason, Oral Thaddeus stocked the city’s best supply of roses, orchids and other exotic blooms perfect for wooing or begging forgiveness. But Trotter’s request was one that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around.

Catnip with a ribbon? You really want a bouquet of catnip? He asked. His lips smacked as though even the word itself left him with a bitter taste.

Yes, I do. And I’d like it to be fresh, not dried.

Are you sure I can’t talk you into something a little more, well, flowery? And less weedy?

Mr. Thaddeus, I have a friend who is about to have kit – I mean, a baby – and she just happens to love the smell of catnip. Would you really stand between an expectant young mother and her favorite little indulgence? To add a little extra weight to her argument she laid another gold penda next to the first on the counter as she spoke. His eyes were glued to the coin as she pushed it across the counter.

In that case I’m sure I can manage to find something for you. With a nice, erm, pink ribbon?

The coin stopped just out of his reach. Yellow, she said. With a whole litter surely yellow was a safe enough color to choose.

"Of course! Yellow it will be. And for two pendas it will be the finest silk ribbon I have."

Trotter pushed the coin the rest of the way into his hand. Actually, yellow yarn would be better. I’ll be back before lunch.

But lunch was more than an hour ago. Did you mean supper? He wrung his hands as if this news might somehow make that shiny gold coin disappear.

He’s either working too hard or he drank his lunch early and forgot about it, she thought, wondering if there was a hint of wine among the floral-scented air. The sun had only risen two hours ago. Let’s just say one hour, then, she said.

She left the bemused florist and prepared to check off the last item on her list. She’d already stopped at the mercer and ordered four sets of sheets (see how fast you run through sheets when your nightmares start coming to life). That had caused a few raised eyebrows in itself, but having to explain that the new feather mattress (the old style, no springs this time thank you very much) she ordered was to be delivered to the loft above the abandoned door knob factory had caused a few eyebrows to rise even higher. All in all, it had been a pretty average shopping day for Trotter, albeit an expensive one. Sometimes it took more gold than usual to weigh those eyebrows back down in order to get what she needed with a minimum of fuss and nosy deliverymen.

As she rounded the corner from Dashery Square into the Curlew Quarter, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Something seemed off, but perhaps it was just that the breeze was coming from the sea today rather than from behind the fishmonger’s stalls. Curlew Quarter was always aromatic, to say the least. The air here was usually thick and sundry, like a sandwich layered with the leftover catch, the boiling pitch from the shipwrights’ shops, and peppered with the nicotine corona that surrounded the fishwives in between sales.

The fishwives... Ah, that was what was different today. Normally anyone walking into Fishmongers Row would be attacked with a barrage of wares hawking and a further salvo of fish selling. The fishwives labored under the philosophy that how loudly you could yell "freshest fish!" determined how fresh your fish actually were.

But today it was practically silent. The fishwives were normally the liveliest store of gossip in the city and a person could learn more about the back door workings of Sarano by lingering near and listening to the stories that were shared between stalls as the women worked. And work they did – most of them had grown up as fishermen’s daughters before becoming fishwives and could clean and filet a fish in their sleep.

But right now they were only whispering, keeping their nervous hands busy rolling cigarettes. Stoic and hardened by difficult lives, they’d cut their own tongues out before you’d hear them complain or give any indication that they were worried or afraid. Even the youngest fishwife worrying over her young husband in a storm wouldn’t dare mention it out of fear that one of the senior wives might hear. The senior wives were kind mentors for the most part, but they could stink-eye anyone into respectable silence.

So they certainly didn’t worry publicly, per se, but they did smoke. It was in this way that the fishwives were a sort of barometer for the city. And that was why a knowledgeable passerby could always get a fairly accurate weather report in Curlew Quarter. If there was only a small haze of smoke hanging over the stalls, then it was a safe bet to go home and pack a picnic. Judging from this cloud, Trotter was tempted to go home and latch the windows and barricade the doors.  

Trotter drifted closer, her eyes watering in the acrid haze, and pretended to inspect the morning catch. Or rather, the morning release. Where she would have expected to see piles of fish at this time of day, there wasn’t much more than the fragrant memory of recent fish lingering in the air. She sifted through a few sad fish that looked as though they might have already been floating when the nets came by.

S’not right, you ask me. Stars don’t just up ‘n move.

Stars moving? Trotter was close enough to hear the whispers now.

An’ what about the tide? Either the tide was three hours early or the day was three hours late!

Whichever it was, the tide done fooled the fish, too. My Carson said the beach was covered in ‘em this morning. Like they was eatin’ the crabs off the shoals and it snuck off and surprised ‘em, left ‘em all o’er the beach like. Can I help you with somethin’, missy?

Trotter dropped the fish she’d been prodding for a full minute and tried to pretend that she hadn’t just been caught obviously eavesdropping.

I – I’m sorry. I just needed, um, fish. When will the lunch catch come in?

The women looked at each other, rolling their respective cigarettes thoughtfully.

The lunch catch, eh? Said one. Oh, I’d say about lunch time tomorrow.

But what about today’s? A growing knot of suspicion was eating the lining right out of her stomach.

Aye, we had one about three hours ago. Weren’t much on it, though, the fishwife took a long drag from her freshly rolled cigarette. Supper catch’ll be here in another hour or so. If there’s any to be caught, that is.

But the sun has only been up for a few hours! Trotter protested.

Tell it to the tide, missy. In this city the day starts with the tide, and the tide came more’n eight hours ago. Ain’t our fault if the sun don’t catch it up.

CHAPTER 2

Chord shut and locked his office door behind his last visitor, completely unbothered that he’d inadvertently thudded the doo into the man’s backside in his impatience to have him gone. The day’s constant flood of engineers and scientists flowing through his office had finally abated, and he felt relief mingling with anticipation; he was utterly, blissfully alone.

His hands nearly trembled with excitement as he pulled a slender instrument from a hidden pocket in his cloak and, putting it to his lips, blew a piercingly pure and high note. The reed hummed between his teeth as his lungs started to burn. Finally, the mechanism designed to respond to the sound began to vibrate powerfully, forcing a decorative flower carved in the molding of the wall to extrude silently. The mechanism was his own design and its existence was a jealously guarded secret known only to him; had it been triggered by accident, the floral knob was designed to be unnoticed by anyone not looking specifically for it. Anxious, Chord placed his fingers against the petals and rotated the flower until he heard the all but inaudible click that meant the wall panel behind his desk was now unlocked.

The panel swung inward at his touch and he stepped through, wrapping himself in the soft glow that enveloped the room. As always, a tear of joy formed in his eye.

It won’t be long now, my dear, he whispered to his secret shrine as his finger drifted lightly along its edge. I promised I would make you mine, didn’t I?

Much too soon, the moment ended with an urgent knocking at his office door.

He resealed his beloved secret behind the panel with a groan. Haven’t I given them enough today?

He unlocked the door to find his assistant looking as twitchy as ever; the smaller man flinched away from his superior’s glare even before the door fully opened. Governor Chord, the man they called the Spawnless, made everyone nervous. Especially those close enough to him to have experienced the full depth of his darkest moods. Sir, I know you asked to not be disturbed, but I thought this was something you would want to hear.

Well?

Sarak just informed me that his latest calculations show that they now have enough fuel for a second firing. He also believes they should be able to gain an additional five degrees of arc with this test, sir.

Chord’s melancholy melted instantly. Excellent! Tell him to begin at once. And tell the guards to bring Crane to the test platform if he’s healed enough to walk. I want that coward to see this with his own eyes, he snarled.

The assistant started to mention that walking was less of an issue than seeing, considering that Chord’s guards had blackened both eyes, but one look at Chord choked the words off in this throat. His boss had a particularly toothy way of smiling that always unnerved him. If he’d ever seen a hyena up close, he’d have known exactly why.

TROTTER WAS TOO DEEP in thought to stop herself from colliding with Ms. Carrot when she rounded the corner at full speed. Fortunately, Ms. Carrot was broad enough to take quite a lot of collision.

I’m so sorry! Trotter apologized as she scrambled to help the woman pick up the scattered tomatoes she’d knocked out of her hands. I don’t know how I didn’t see you. Her hand flew to her mouth. I didn’t mean that you’re big or anything, I... I just meant that I’m a little absorbed, she finished lamely.

That’s alright, dearie. I know I’m a hard one to miss these days. She smiled as she patted her expansive backside. Trotter wasn’t sure she’d ever seen the woman not smiling. But don’t worry about the mess. I was just about to close up shop for the night, anyway.

Night?

Yes. That’s usually what happens at the end of the day, I do believe. Why else would the moon be rising?

Trotter gritted her teeth and turned her eyes to the sky. Sure enough, there it was – the white orb of the moon was already gaining in the sky. Ahead of her the sun was quickly settling below the horizon. She understood now why she hadn’t noticed before; this strange moon seemed so much larger and brighter than usual, almost rivaling the sun itself for prominence in the sky.

I don’t understand how that’s possible. The sun never even reached its peak today, she muttered, confusion creasing her brow.

Her eyes cast around the market as though trying to find some point of normality on which to anchor. But the rest of the vendors were, like Ms. Carrot, bemusedly closing shop for the evening with worry staining each of their faces. All but one, that is. The prayer market seemed as though business was just picking up. The corner stall was always manned by priests of the various gods and sold prayers, blessings, and absolution to the devout or just those down on their luck. These priests apparently had good enough business sense to realize that there was money to be made in religion on a day when the sun failed to rise and set on time. Already there were hastily scrawled signs on every edge of the booth.

IS THIS THE END? ½ OFF MAKING PEECE WITH GOD OF YUR CHOICE, TODAY ONLY and BLESSINGS, BY 1 GET 1  FREE, DON’T MEAT YOUR MAKUR WITHOWT ONE.

Trotter dropped the tomatoes she’d picked up on the cart. I need to go. I’m really sorry about the mess, Ms. Carrot. I’ll make it up to you next time.

She was less than five steps away when she heard Ms. Carrot call out to her, Don’t forget your catnip!

Trotter stopped dead and turned, but no one was there. How did she know about the catnip? She shrugged it off and got back up to speed. How these vendors must gossip...

Ms. Carrot drew the shade across her store window after Trotter disappeared around the corner. She’s a smart girl, she thought to herself as she locked the door. She’ll figure it out. She turned away with a sigh and added a grave last thought.

"I hope."

ACROSS THE CITY, A young engineer named Pratt was busily making calculations and talking to himself. And not in the figurative way, either. In addition to being a gifted engineer, Pratt was also a gifted mage who had spent his youth working with the Anomalous Energy Algorithms created by ancient mages in an effort to bridge the gap between science and magic. At some early point in his career he discovered a loophole in Scatcatter’s Infundibulum Dispersal that essentially let him cast a net in time and capture himself from one second in the future. Deciding that four heads were obviously better than two, he repeated the spell twice more until Pratt became Pratt, Pratt, Pratt and Pratt.

Now two of the  Pratts were sitting on the roof of their/his store –named Pratt’s, Pratter’s, Pott’s, and Potter’s to avoid any public confusion – taking measurements with the astrolabe and quadrant while the other two were making adjustments to the model between them and arguing that the measurements were obviously in error.

Two degrees, pah! It’s –

Completely impossible! That would put –

"The sun here, and – "

"The moon here, yes!"

That would mean –

But no. It can’t be –

Pratts put down the astronomical tools and walked over to the other Pratts at the model. This was a model in which Pratts took great pride. It was a perfectly to-scale rendering of the entire world of Aevum, from the Ice Plains at one edge of the world to the opposite edge where Sarano formed the last point of land before the sea. Above that, mounted upon a rod and fulcrum, balanced the sun and moon which in turn see-sawed back and forth across the sky. Sunward was the direction where the sun rose and set beyond Sarano, alternately boiling and cooling the sea, creating both the daily tides and the Eversquall, an impenetrable and constant storm of steam and winds. Moonward was the direction of the snow-covered mountains past the Ice Bowl of Drimbt and finally of the one place where the sun’s warmth could never reach: The Temporal Ice Plains - the one place in the universes cold enough to freeze even time. To the Scrollward and Kipward directions the land was hemmed in by the Revolving Seas, so named because every sailor who’d ever attempted to cross them looking for the fabled edge of the world somehow ended up pointing back in the direction from which he began. The flat world of Aevum, between those poles, was balanced in Chaos itself, the sentient god-universe of which everything was a part.

And it was at the world between the sun and moon which the Pratts now stared.

But it is, a Pratt answered sadly. Another Pratt reached across and adjusted the model of Aevum to match their calculations by placing his finger under the blue plaster sea and lifting.

All four of them stepped back and looked at the model of Aevum tipped Moonward, the sun sinking far beyond the base of the sea and the moon becoming the primary fixture in the center of the sky. As they watched, one of the flowers they’d placed to represent the jungles of Ostano tumbled over and landed on the Ice Plains.

I think we –

Are definitely –

In trouble.

PROWLER? FELICIA? Trotter called as she ran through the door of the old factory. Where are you? Prow?

Here, came a weak reply from the direction of what was to be the kittens’ nursery. The most fun part of getting the room ready had been watching Prowler try to paint the room, determined to prove that paws and claws were every bit as good as hands and fingers. He finally accepted help in the form of the harness designed by the Pratts that would both hold a paint brush strapped to his leg and keep the brush loaded with paint. There had been quite a learning curve while Prowler tried to get the hang of it, but eventually the blue streaks had grown out of his fur.

In the nursery Trotter found Felicia curled up on a cushion, her amber fur matted with sweat, and Prowler lying slumped against the wall with his mouth partly open.

He fainted, Felicia explained wearily at the look of worry on Trotter’s face. The kittens came.

But they’re almost a week early! Where are they?

They apparently changed their minds and decided to come on out. They’re exploring now, but I think you’ll see them soon enough. Say, is that catnip in your hand? She asked.

Oh! I almost forgot about it. I got this for you, she held out the bouquet which Felicia took in her mouth.

Thanks, you’re a lifesaver, she mumbled around the stems. The cat stretched her legs and walked unsteadily with the bouquet over to Prowler and rubbed the bundle under his chin until he began to stir. See? No better smelling salts in the world than catnip.

What? In the name of Bast... Oh gods, where are they? Prowler made it to his feet clumsily.

Calm down, Prow, Felicia soothed. Trotter’s back. Everything’s going to be fine.

Thank the gods, where have you been all day? It’s almost dark already.

That’s another problem all by itself, but I’ll get into that in a bit. Right now I want to hear all about the kittens, Trotter said, feeling guilty that she hadn’t been there when Felicia needed her. It must have been awful for her trying to give birth alone with Prowler swooning beside her.

The cats exchanged what could only be described as ‘a look.’ Cats might be famous for their ability to deliver a haughty stare for hours on end, but this look said something entirely different. Be worried, it said.

They were saved from answering by a racket erupting from outside the nursery. What began as a single small crash quickly escalated into a series of crashes mingled with screams. No, wait – she realized – not screams. Laughter!

Brothers, hark! This perambulating mechanism is far less limiting than the floating was!

Not to mention the ease with which the environment can be manipulated! Did you see the height we attained on that last try?

I daresay I did! Give me a rope long enough and a soft spot in which to claw and I could lift the world!

Trotter ducked out of the room and found four black kittens in a pile of buckets and ropes at the foot of the stairs. A sort of pulley had been rigged from the top of the banister and buckets were tied at either end of the rope. They seemed to be congratulating themselves on...something when Felicia came out of the nursery behind Trotter.

Boys? Stop experimenting and be polite for a minute. You have company.

Suddenly the pile of four kittens became two kittens. Then one kitten. Then no kittens. Trotter blinked her eyes, certain that she’d missed something. Where did they –

Hello.

The voice came from the floor beside her feet. She looked down and there beside Felicia, who wore a mixture of pride and confusion, was one of the kittens.

Ahem, he said. It was odd to hear the word actually used. It was as though someone had seen it in writing and not understood that it was symbolic of a sound. "I did say ‘hello.’ I believe some form of reciprocation is in order?"

Um, hello, said Trotter as she crouched down beside the kitten. And, because most living creatures are pre-programmed by generations of grandmothers to speak slowly and loudly when confronted with babies, she added, My name is Trot-ter. What is your name?

As we understand that some sort of appellation is required, we have chosen the name Erwin.

Huh? Trotter was at a loss.

Are you having difficulty articulating?

It might be some form of aphasia. Would you like for us to address the issue?

And just as suddenly as they had disappeared, Trotter was now surrounded by the kittens. Felicia, would you excuse me for just a minute? I think I need to have a word with Prowler.

She calmly backed into the nursery and closed the door. Not so calmly, she locked the door and spun around to find Prowler hiding under a blanket at the end of the row of cushions. She pulled the cover aside and he looked up at her, utterly defeated.

Alright, we need to talk. First of all, I’m not even sure this is the strangest thing that’s happened today. She gestured at the window where the sun had finally disappeared beneath the horizon. "The sun just set and I haven’t even had lunch yet. Secondly, what are they?"

Well, that’s a rather impertinent question. One of the kittens said, padding around from behind her. She checked the door; it was still locked.

‘What’ is a question you should ask of objects, of things, of nonbeings. Certainly not of advanced species. A second kitten had appeared on the toy shelf. He batted a ball of yarn to the floor as he spoke.

Indeed, brother, but since the question has been asked would it not be equally rude to not answer it?

Conceded, replied the third kitten who appeared in time to pounce on the ball of yarn as it hit the floor. "All impertinence aside, the answer to that question is quite obvious. We are a kitten. But the question that should have been asked were the child not so rude, is ‘who are we.’"

A fourth, and muffled, voice chimed in. And the answer to that question should be as obvious as the first since it has been answered previously. This kitten wrestled its way out from under the blanket beside Prowler. And the answer is: We are Erwin. Seriously, father, is this the best we can expect from humans?

Okay, all of you, just stop for a minute! Prowler, how many kittens are there? She ignored the mutter of here we go again, from the kitten on the shelf.

The answer to that might be a little more difficult than you think...

"For some people, perhaps," the kitten next to him piped in.

That’s it. I imagine you four brainiacs do know what the word ‘privacy’ means, don’t you? Trotter crossed her arms and looked sternly at each of them in turn.

Are you looking for a legal or psychological definition?

Neither. I’m looking for a demonstration. I want all of you out for a few minutes while I talk to your father in private. She waited while each of the kittens reluctantly disappeared with muttered complaints in their turn. I think I’m ready for that difficult answer now.

I’ll try. I’m still not so sure I understand. We knew that starting a family might be risky, what with the stray magical fields involved in enchantment. It’s never been tried before with two enchanted beings, especially with one being formerly human and the other not, so there was no guarantee what our offspring would be like, or what abilities they would have.

I know all of this. You know I know all of this. So I know you’re stalling. Out with it: what are they?

"The short answer is that there’s only one kitten and it chose the name Erwin. The not–so-short answer is that kitten can