ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX: Dreams and Doors

ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX: Dreams and Doors

166

******

The lab coat had a hole in it, right over the center of Alden’s chest.

How did this happen? Did I make a mistake?

He covered the hole with his free hand as he chased the sound of Kibby’s whistle through the grass. His other hand held the bomb and the black glitter putty that she had entrusted him with.

It’s too soon. The coat’s supposed to last for longer. It can’t have holes. It has to help her months from now. She has to sleep under it in the vault until Alis-art’h comes.

The high tone of the whistle sounded again.

From my left? I’m running the wrong way!

His nose was full of the smell of rotting grass. Why was it rotting away so quickly? And the case with the bomb in it was heavy, but if he dropped it...

No. Wait. If I drop it, it’s fine. The explosion we make with it won’t help us draw in help, so I can just leave it.

He tossed it aside and ran. Faster. As fast as he could.

Holding the preserved putty was making it possible for him to move over ground that crumbled away. He gripped it harder and felt the fragment of bone inside.

Lucky wizard’s foot.

He wished Stuart was a knight already.

He’d come, wouldn’t he? Or would his duty to the Triplanets make him too busy?

Maybe Esh-erdi would be able to help. He had before. Back when—

The whistle sounded again, from the way he’d just come. Did I run past her? Why can’t I get it right?

“Kibby!” he shouted. “Keep whistling! I’m coming. I’ll be right there. Don’t stop! Please don’t stop!”

When he turned, there was a cruel wall of ocean blotting out the Thegundese sky.

He could hear her. She was under all of that water. Or on the other side of it.

He ran forward, his magically enhanced strides carrying him farther and farther with every leap, bringing him closer and closer to realizing that the wall wasn’t water. It was just a wall, lined with white doors.

I have to pick one. That’s how this works. Stuart says I can have my own choosing season.

But he didn’t understand where the doors led.

And if he got it wrong...

******

******

Alden woke with a gasp, fighting against soft sheets in a room lit by the flashing of zansees. He and Stuart had filled another jar before Alden went to bed.

He sat up, taking deep breaths and rubbing his eyes.

I’m all right. None of that was real.

Well, a lot of it was real. But none of it was now.

The nightmare had gotten more complicated since the last time he’d had it. His brain must have thought it would be helpful to drop all the crap it could find into the pot.

Why have two or three separate nightmares when you can have one super nightmare?

He hoped he hadn’t been making noise in his sleep. Stuart might be freaked.

I should check and make sure I didn’t wake him up.

As soon as he stood, he remembered that he was supposed to be careful about standing. He’d paid back the debt for the self-mastery wordchain after getting into bed. He felt normal, but a moment later, he realized that something else wasn’t normal.

The room...

The jar full of water bugs was where he’d placed it on the floor. The two learning cushions were side by side on the carpet near the window. But where the sheer curtain should have been, separating the bedroom from the other half of the cottage, there was a wall. With a door set into it.

Alden frowned. At least it’s not white.

The door was a sliding one in a shade of cold, dark brown that blended with the decor. As he watched, blue logograms appeared on it:

Can I come over for a chat?

He read the sign a few times, then looked down at himself.

He was wearing his favorite sweatpants and a clean North of North shirt—two clothing items he didn’t have with him on this little vacation. His auriad was prominently displayed on his wrist.

He absorbed all of that before nodding. “Yes. Come over. I’ve thought about talking to you a few times since I came here.”

But she already knows that.

The door opened, and an Artonan woman stepped through. Braided brown hair, pink eyes, a welcoming and calm smile.

“Hello, Alden,” she said, heading past him toward the window. “How have you been?”

“Oh, you know me. Ordinary. Nothing too stressful going on. That dream you interrupted was not rife with meaning. I promise.”

She stopped beside his learning cushion and looked down at it. “I’m glad you decided to follow my suggestion and talk to Stu-art’h that day. That relationship and recent events have brought you back here sooner than I anticipated.”

Alden went to stand beside her. He told himself it wasn’t because he was afraid she might sit on the mindspace version of his cushion.

Her smile widened. “What do you think of the Primary’s son, now that he’s decided to share so many of his truths with you?”T/his chapter is updat/ed by nov(ê(l)biin.c/o/m

So many of his truths.

Outside, the stream was aglow.

“I keep underestimating him,” said Alden, staring out at it. “He’s complicated. The first time we met, I thought he was a stubborn idiot with a really uncommon nobility thing going on. And then I met him again, and I saw that he was someone who’d been worrying over a mistake for months, trying to understand why he’d made it and make things right.”

Stuart was always trying to get things right.

“He named a ryeh-b’t after me. That was so, so odd.

“And he’s on the verge of making a huge sacrifice. Part of me worried that he wouldn’t choose it if he really understood. That he was just going at it recklessly, without enough consideration for himself, the way he did with the mishnen. I already respected him, so I didn’t mean to think that way. But the worry was there at the back of my mind. And I was just...wrong about that.

“He knows as well as he can, doesn’t he? He’s been weighing his options for years. And he’s picked a skill that means something to him. He’s not throwing himself away.”

Is he?

He waited.

“If he were sure to die, I would have told them so,” she answered. “But I don’t usually provide estimations when it comes to a person’s ability to endure affixation.”

“Why?”

“Your chance of surviving on Moon Thegund for as long as you did was estimated to be less than one percent. Would it have strengthened you to know that?”

It would have crushed me, he thought. It would have killed me. Maybe right at the end, when the chance felt like zero, I would have appreciated having any number no matter how low.

But in general knowing wouldn’t feel great.

“And an estimate is only that,” she said. “A single moment of doubt can end you. A single word of encouragement can save you. Everything can change in an instant. Not even stone is stone, as they say.”

That’s a very wizardy saying.

He liked it.

“I want Stuart to live.”

She didn’t reply. But Alden hadn’t said it in order to hear one.

“I wish that I could tell him everything without being afraid that it would cost me everything.” He looked from his learning cushion to the one beside it. The gold and silver embroidery glimmered. “He’s an awesome person. He’s so serious when it comes to important stuff.”

He shoved his hands into his sweatpants pockets and let them clench there.

“There was this distance between us on our calls that always felt a little unavoidable. He wasn’t telling me about knights and the cost. I wasn’t asking him about everything that wizards keep quiet from humans. And I wasn’t telling him all there is to know about me. But now he’s shifting it.

“Me getting into trouble again and Esh-erdi telling Stuart whatever he told him and the fight with his family about my friendworthiness—those have changed the situation. Accelerated it.

Clearly it thinks I need fixing.

And it wasn’t the only one.

“Can someone in my position ever safely use a mind healer? What if they bump into the wrong memory? What if it hurts unexpectedly and I start trying to slap them with my existence?”

“You have options,” she answered. “Avowed Healers of Mind on your planet don’t often have the ability to read thoughts, and you could avoid the services that required Sway helpers. But their talents are more limited than what you’ll find here. The healers Stu-art’h would introduce you to could offer you a much more diverse and personalized experience. They could also easily read your thoughts. But it’s very unlikely that any of them would do anything other than what they had discussed with you in advance.”

Yeah. I doubt the Primary would let people with crappy morals work on his son for years.

“Actually, some of them would be influenced to behave in the way you want by factors other than their morals. But they would still behave.”

He thought about that while he drained the rest of his mug.

“You’re considering it,” she said.

“Not being as steady as I want to be is tiresome. And I like the idea that I can make this period of my life my own kind of choosing season. But when I try to approach the choices, I’m either frozen in place from the pressure or the opposite. I have this urge sometimes to lunge at the decisions before they disappear. I know that’s not good.

“And I want to stop being...” He couldn’t quite put it into words. “Well, this trip helped. I don’t know where I’d be right now if Stuart hadn’t invited me over. Probably in my hospital room, trying to come up with an explanation that would fool Esh-erdi after I blew a hole in the wall with my auriad.”

“I like that you think you could blow a hole in one of Matadero’s walls,” she said. “Even the interior ones. So ambitious.”

He had an urge to stick his tongue out at her.

“Feel free. It wouldn’t be the first time in history, but it doesn’t happen often.”

He did.

She did it back.

“I’m pleased,” she said, “that you’ve decided not to be afraid of me.”

He looked away. “It’s not time yet. And I know you won’t push like Earth. Tonight is great. But no promises on my future mood. If...can I...?”

“You can affix on whichever planet you like.”

He had thought she would say that. And he had thought he would feel more relieved to hear it than he did.

“I can pick when?”

“Yes.”

His hands tightened on the mug. He stared at the ring of melted marshmallow stuck to the rim. “How long will it be before that changes? Before I can’t wait anymore?”

I did it. Asked the scary one.

It was the right thing to do. Solid choices started with good information.

Baby steps. Whatever the answer is, I’ll say, ‘Okay.’ Like I’m cool.

When she didn’t answer, he pulled his attention away from the mug and found her eyes.

“You’re not going to appreciate hearing this,” she said, “but you want a more narrow and certain answer than I can give you.”

“You really don’t know?”

“Your course is less predictable than some. I will have a better estimate as you approach your limit. But so will you. If you neglect training your bound authority and focus on your wizardry it will be sooner. If you lock yourself away from the world, perform no magic, and search for inner peace and satisfaction—”

“Nobody told me that was an option.”

“There are other variables. But knights almost always progress very quickly in the times between their first several affixations. You’re growing that way, too.”

“Several?” Alden latched onto the word. “Does that mean it slows down?”

“Older knights tend to vary more. Most have pauses in their growth every now and then. Some almost come to a standstill for years at a time. Others race forward and never stop. Ask Stu-art’h. This is a subject he’ll be eager to explain.

“But, Alden, don’t count on your own pace being anything you would consider slow anytime soon.”

“I won’t.”

“Really.”

He clenched his jaw. “I know.”

“Eight to ten months,” she said calmly. “It’s the most likely window right now. That may change.”

It took him a while to say, “Okay.”

******

He wanted to spend a while exploring his options for improving his skill, and of course, she let him. While he wandered through a patch of Rapport I’s forest, she lounged behind him on a copy of the couch he’d bought for the apartment.

This was too overwhelming to take in last time, he thought. It still is, but there’s something comforting about the number of possibilities, too.

He reached up for one of the gray paper cranes that hovered just overhead, and when he touched it, it unfolded in his hand to reveal the thing he could become. Eventually. The gray cranes were ones he wouldn’t be able to select during his next affixation.

[Safe Object Relocation - Sensing]

[Gives Alden the ability to recognize places where an object-element burden he’s currently preserving won’t experience immediate damage upon cessation of preservation.]

“This one’s neat. Is there one of these for enchantments instead of objects? Could I use it to find places where they’d actually work well when I dropped them?”

Another gray crane was already flying toward him in answer.

He browsed some more, they talked for a while about metaphors for affixations, then she sent him to what he thought at first was the nightmare he’d left.

A long line of doors in a wall.

It took him a minute to realize all the signs on the doors listed things he could have done in the past—choices he could have made—but hadn’t.

“Go to Manon Barre’s apartment and confront her directly,” said one.

“Don’t keep trying to get to know Boe,” said another.

Tell the stray cat to get lost. Don’t answer Jeremy’s first text message. Apologize to Maisie for breaking her pencil instead of hiding the pieces under the playground slide.

Finally, he found a door that said, “Tell Neha you want to practice the hell out of your skill.”

I actually did do that. That was a good moment. I felt like I’d understood something about myself and committed to it.

He opened the door and went through to find another line of doors with choices written on them. He ignored the false ones and selected, “Go bother the NesiCard man until he gives you a new card.”

The process continued. He understood what the doors were getting at. It was simple, but he found the act of making his choices again, even the tiny ones and the bad ones, meaningful.

You haven’t been as stuck as you think. You haven’t decided what to do about being the only human wizard-Avowed, but that doesn’t mean you’re frozen. It doesn’t mean that the things you’ve already chosen aren’t worth appreciating.

He knew the last door when he saw it. It was sandwiched between one that read, “Leave Zeridee-und’h behind,” and another with the words, “Don’t go with Lute to Benjamin Velra’s birthday party.”

It said, “Be friends with Stu-art’h.”

Not the smartest choice for a quiet Rabbit, he thought as he pushed open the door. I’m happy to make it anyway.

******

******

Alden woke up, for real this time, and rolled over in bed.

Through the curtain, in the dim light, he saw that Stuart was squatting beside his suitcase. He had a wand in his hand and a square of something that might have been fabric in his mouth.

“What are you doing?” Alden asked, propping himself up on an elbow. “It’s really early. Did you sleep?”

Stuart let the square fall out of his mouth onto the bag. “I’m fixing all the holes Other Alden made in your suitcase. I couldn’t find your zippier, so I made you another one.”

That project is so not worth his time.

“You’re the best host ever.” Alden yawned. “That thing you suggested...the healers of mind you know?”

Stuart’s wand stopped mid-wave. He looked up. “Yes?”

“I think it might be a good idea for me. If you’re sure that arranging it wouldn’t be a problem. Would you tell me how it would be? And what I would have to do?”

“Of course.”

******