Dreamworms Book 1: The Advent of Dreamtech by Isaac Petrov (drm ebook reader TXT) 📕

a wooden door with a large Eye of Goah painted on it. Ximena knows what awaits on the other side—Edda herself will break into that room in three years’ time.

“I- I’m not ready.” Anika stands, sudden panic in her eyes. She takes a step back. “I can’t—”

“Now, now,” the Quaestor says calmly, “there’s only Bliss in front of you, my child. You are leaving your earthly pains behind.”

“No.” Anika takes another step back, and she bumps against the wall. “No!” She begins to weep in panic, staring at her brother with pleading eyes.

“Ani,” Willem stands, eyes wide with dread. “All is good. Please, believe.”

“I don’t. I can’t!”

The Quaestor throws a subtle glance at the two male acolytes, and says, “Now, now, nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.” The two men walk over to her and grab both her arms. “Rejoice, Van Dolah family, and feel aws impatient Eagerness to Embrace your Elder.”

“No, I changed my mind!” Anika shouts. “I renounce my Joyousday!” She tries to shake her arms free, but the men hold her firmly. They push her kindly but relentlessly towards the eye-marked door. “No, leave me alone! This is just a ritual to control the masses. There’s no Dem! There’s no Goah! Let me go! Will!”

“Q- Quaestor Menger…” Willem takes a tentative step towards his sister and the two men, Bram and Edda beginning to sob behind him.

“Mom!” Both are standing with stretched, trembling arms. “Mom, mom!” Ximena gasps as she tries to keep herself from crying, Edda’s dread and disbelief battering violently inside her.

Willem hesitates, turns around and takes Bram and Edda in his arms. He begins to weep himself, while futilely attempting to calm his kids.

“Don’t mind her words, children,” Quaestor Menger says, his tone practiced and unwavering. “This is her flesh speaking, not her soul. It happens occasionally and there is nothing to worry about.”

“No! I renounce, I renounce!” The men open the door and push Anika firmly through. “You can’t do this! Will, help!”

As the door shuts, her muted shouts continue, yelling her brother’s name in desperation.

“It’s okay, it’s all right,” Willem whispers over and over to his crying children, interlaced with his own sobs.

Marjolein, still standing by the entrance, is covering her mouth in dismay. Her eyes fill with tears as she watches Willem trying to console his children while his sister calls his name from behind the door, over and over again, drenched in desperation. And Willem keeps whispering words of comfort over the shaking bodies of his children, caressing, soothing them, ignoring what for many would be an irresistible compulsion to go, well, mad. Ximena can’t take her eyes off him. Such discipline, such strength of character; a man refusing to drown, because his kids need him. Marjolein is staring at him like she most certainly agrees.

“Mom’s fine,” Willem keeps repeating between sobs, “Mom’s okay.”

And then, from one instant to the next, Anika’s screams end.

Edda and the others stop crying at once and turn their heads at the sudden, eerie silence.

A silence that hangs in the Evocation Room like a blanket too thin to warm a soul in the dead of winter.

A silence that freezes Ximena’s blood with the horror of Edda’s irrevocable realization. She has seen—she has heard—her mother for the last time.

Her mother.

For the last time.

“Goah be praised,” Quaestor Menger finally says. “Rejoice, Elder van Dolah, for your sister’s soul is heeding aws Call, and is now on her way to aws Embrace.”

“I want to see her,” Willem jumps, reaches for the door and pulls, but it doesn’t budge.

“There’s nothing to see but a soulless body, Elder van Dolah,” the Quaestor says. “A carcass ripe for Dem. In two to three weeks, when her Dem-ridden body leaves us for good, I will send somebody with the ashes.”

Edda and Bram run to their father and hug him anew.

“You may stay as long as you need,” the Quaestor says in that annoyingly understanding tone of his. “Acolyte Mathus, please remain here with the family and attend their every need.”

It takes a long while for the children, and for Willem himself, to sit back around the table, sobbing quietly now. In the meantime, the Quaestor has called his two male acolytes from beyond the eye-marked door and left in respectful silence. Marjolein stands by the entrance, head sunk like she doesn’t belong there, which she obviously doesn’t.

Willem draws a deep breath, keeps his eyes down and says with broken voice, “Let’s go home.”

“Why didn’t you help Mom?” Edda says, her accusing eyes locked on her father’s.

Willem doesn’t raise his eyes. He sighs. “There’s nothing I could do.”

“You could…!” Edda doesn’t know what to say, but that doesn’t stop her from trying again. “You could’ve…!”

“We’re just teachers, girl,” Willem’s tone is subdued, infinitely tired. He finally meets her gaze. “We can’t change the world.”

“Why not? We are teachers!”

“We are powerless, Edda girl. We must take what we have and make the best of it.”

“Knowledge is power, Dad! You are always saying it. We are teachers, and we hold knowledge. We can change the world. I will!”

“Knowledge is necessary, yes, but not sufficient. There’s much more to power than reading books.”

“But… But…”

“We are powerless,” he says, a notch louder. He reaches out with both arms and takes Edda and Bram by the hand. “We still have each other, and it’ll have to suffice.” He sounds so infinitely sad, Ximena thinks. “It’ll have to.”

“And when you’re gone? What then, huh? What then?!”

“We still have a few years, don’t think about it now.”

“Three years! Just… three fucking years!”

“Edda!” Willem throws Marjolein a glimpse. “Language.”

“Don’t leave us!” She begins to sob again. “Don’t, please. I don’t want to be alone!”

“You’ll never be alone, girl.” He gently wipes a tear off her cheek. “You have each other,” he smiles at Bram, a very sad smile, “and your children, and your grandchildren afterwards if you don’t delay the dowry bonds. You still have so, so much to live for.”

“No!” Edda’s sobbing intensifies. “I need Mom! I need you!