ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX: Dreams and Doors

166

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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?”

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.

“Stuart’s gone from testing the waters to cannonballing into the deep end. He’s going to be such a generous friend. And I don’t mean all the gifts or the trip to this place exactly when I needed it.”

When you let someone know the real you and they kept important information from you, even if you understood and didn’t blame them…

I’m closer to Boe than anyone else, but I’m still a little upset that he didn’t tell me he was an Avowed. And I didn’t know he would want someone to check on his parents if anything happened to him. I thought we didn’t talk about them because he didn’t care about them, or even hated them.

“It isn’t fair to either of us,” he said. “It can’t be fair to either of us. Because if I ever decide to be generous in the same way, to tell him who I really am and what I’m really struggling with, then I have to live with the fact that I’ve given up this thing you’ve made happen for me. This little bit of control over my life.”

She seemed content to let him say things aloud that both of them already knew. Which was great, because he couldn’t say them to anyone else.

Thank you for the profile, by the way. Thank you for that control.

“I wish that he could have promised not to summon me. I wish that the wellbeing of the Triplanets wasn’t a part of the equation. I wish that I could be honest with him without risking a future where I’m seen as a research subject, a threat to the status quo, or a rarer, more valuable resource.”

He inhaled. “Do you have an answer for that?”

“Only the one I’ve already given you, Quiet Rabbit.”

Live in hiding if I want. Try to keep my secrets.

Alden pulled up the two profiles with a thought and looked at them. “It still amazes me I have this. It’s something. A choice nobody else gets. I do know that.”

“You’ve spoken a lot about choices with your new friend,” she said.

“I don’t think I know enough to make all of the decisions I need to,” he replied. “The last time you and I talked, I was choosing to keep my authority sense. And then with my affixation…it was a lot, and afterward, I just wanted to get home.”

“You could ask me your questions now. I’ll answer many of them.”

Honestly, though?

She stuck her lower lip out in a pout.

“Sorry. I can’t stop suspicious thoughts from popping up.”

Earth said that lies to its Avowed incurred a cost. Alden imagined it was the same for Artona I and this part of it. But he was also walking proof that she was perfectly capable of being a big spender.

What should I ask first?

“I’ve understood the Mother privilege correctly, haven’t I? It’s only for knights. And it’s the same way Alis-art’h got you to pay attention to me and save me when I teleported here from her ship.”

“That’s right. My children can ask me to break a rule or take extraordinary action for them. Whether I agree or not depends on how much they’ve given, how much they’ve taken, and what the request is.”

“She hesitated to ask,” said Alden.

“The rules and ordinary actions of a Contract exist for reasons. My Alis may think some of those reasons are wrong, but she also knows that, on the whole, they are for the safety and survival of her people. So I knew when she asked that the person I’d be saving would be special. Just look at him!”

She reached out to tap the window in front of them, and the view of the siblinghold’s backyard disappeared. Another scene replaced it—a teenager in a bathrobe and yoga pants, standing on a rooftop with water rising toward his knees. An Artonan was clutched in his arms.

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Alden stood facing himself. “I look like shit.”

He looked scared.

“How…?” He swallowed. “How likely is it to happen again? Not this specific event, but something like it. A person targeting Matadero or Anesidora or Earth. A demon doing it. Me being in the middle of it.”

Is anywhere safe?

“It’s not likely,” she said. “But it’s more likely than it was the last time you were here. As far as known planets go, Earth is an excellent one to live on. Not the best, of course.”

She waited.

When he looked to see why she wasn’t saying anything, he found her watching him expectantly.

“Do you want me to say you’re the best?”

“Earlier today weren’t you thinking about how much you liked the forest?”

A mug—one that looked similar to a few he’d seen in Olorn-art’h’s studio—appeared in front of him, floating at chest height. It was empty.

“Earth hasn’t put you off hot chocolate, has it? I’m so disappointed in it. It’s capable of coming up with fun experiences and treats for Avowed on its own, but instead, it copycatted one of my little gestures.”

The cup rotated slowly. It was beige with a wide black stripe running vertically down the center. Alden looked past it, at the image of his past self.

That Alden’s lips were trembling, and his face was bloody.