The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

"Thirty" (Draft 2)

Morpheus stared at his wrist. The vine, it was linking their arms. It sent more tendrils snaking down to Morpheus.

The ground is giving way!" Julien cried.

Morpheus could feel it, the whole tilted piece of ground he was laying on was tilting and slipping farther down into the crack, and Julien had his weight on it too. "Go back!"

"Fly! Get out of there!"

The ground was tilting. "River, run up my arm, get out of here!" The lizard ran quickly up their arms to Julien's shoulder. Morpheus lifted his wings and beat once. "It's falling! Get back!" he screamed.

Julien's eyes stared and showed terror as he crawled backward. The vine slipped from Julien's shoulder, and then it and Morpheus slid backward. Morpheus willed himself upward and beat his wings as swiftly as he could, and he went up. He heard Julien scream as the earth shook and the two pieces of land either side of the crevice shifted so that one went to the side while the other was suddenly pitched the opposite direction and up at once, so that the surface became all that farther away, the walls higher an obstacle. And then more wet ground gave way at the edge and Morpheus was hit.

He didn't fall all the way down, into the blackness. He fell to a ledge of rock, his left wing pinned by a boulder. He coughed, and with each cough his wing felt torn. He couldn't see Julien, he could barely tell where the surface was. Morpheus tried to shift shape, but all he got was an ache in his body. He felt the orchids falling against his cheeks, his tears. Opium had become insubstantial, and he could no longer shift shape.

"Morpheus! I can't see you, are you there?"

"I'm here."

"I can hardly hear you! Are you all right?"

"Leave me, I'm pinned down, and I can't shift shape anymore!"

"But if you're hurt, Morpheus, I could try to climb down to you."

"Look, I've got this really heavy bolder right on my wing, I'm hurt, and I'm really sick now. Just send Loren down to stay with me. They listen to you, Julien, send Loren down and take the other's and go!"

He didn't hear anything. He hoped Julien would just go. And then Loren came down, hovering over him in her mourning clothes. She lifted her veil to smile sadly at him. "Sofia, come sit with me," Morpheus said quietly, "Is Julien leaving?"

"He looks in the mirror now," the Djinn said.

Morpheus coughed. He could see his blood seeping from under the rock. "Get my mirror from my pocket, Sofia."

She got the mirror out and held it up for Morpheus. He touched his left had to it and focused it on Daniel. He saw they seemed to be close, they. Daniel Pearl was with him, talking rapidly. He said, "Are you a friend of Opium's?"

And the other Daniel said, "I thought you were about to say Dorothy," and the rain fell on his face as he looked up.

"Fraid not, but my grandfathers thought Judy Garland sinister lovely."

"I think I knew men who used sinister as an intensifier," Daniel said. "Opium sent me here."

"She sent me too. Do you know what your doing?"

"I'm looking for Joy."

Daniel looked about. "Well, we might as well try getting to that tower...for a start."