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

“I hate when you do that,” Edda says. “So, what’s the holdup? Still didn’t work?”

“Still did not, Redeemed van Dolah. The human—”

“Elder Aaij,” Edda corrects.

“Elder Aaij does show remarkable resistance to your intrusion.”

“Our intrusion? You mean yours?”

“I do mean your intrusion, Redeemed van Dolah. I do experience no difficulty intruding into the hu— Elder Aaij’s dreamscape. Alas, when I meld your halos into his, the threading fails to materialize. I do admit this is beyond my experience.”

“But how can that be?” Edda asks. “You had no trouble melding dozens of humans together that time with Consul Levinsohn, yet now you cannot get us into a dream with a single man?”

“Maybe Elder Aaij is awake,” Aline says.

“He does sleep,” Rew says. “And does dream, as his halo conveys. The trouble lies elsewhere. There seems to be an incompatibility clash due to your intentions. I do know this, as I clearly sense the nature of the rejection of Elder Aaij’s psyche—it does react against your hostility, and thus rejects the Second Wake threading like an immune system rejects a preying germ. When we did meld with your Consul Levinsohn, there were no hostile intentions tainting your human halos. Now there are.”

“Come on,” Edda says, “that cannot be. We are not hostile. We only want him to get out of the Joyousday House at midnight during the Century Festival. What’s wrong with that?”

Aline nods, and adds, “We are just trying to motivate him to take a pause, or go to the Forum to join the celebrations, or whatever.”

“You are thus planning to deceive Elder Aaij into leaving the post he has been commissioned to guard, and so violate his duty. Deception coats your Second Wake halos like antigens coat an intruding virus.” Rew speaks now like she is thinking aloud. “This must be yet another human weakness. Human halos have never sustained the evolutive pressure to smooth its intent. Most remarkable indeed. And an unfortunate complication.”

“Complication? Pure sin!” Edda spreads her hands indignantly. “All that training, all that suffering, and for what? How in Goah’s Name are we going to get anything done with all this,” she moves her fingers in the air, “dream magic if we can’t even get into other people’s heads?!”

“You can intrude, Redeemed van Dolah. There lies not the problem. Your hostile intention is.”

“Pure sin! What are we going to do now, huh? Impose our oh so mighty will with caresses, cuddles and kisses?”

“They did indeed prove effective with Consul Levinsohn.”

Aline laughs out loud as Edda throws her hands up in the air in exasperation.

Rew raises her right arm in a very human gesture. “Do not disappoint me, Redeemed van Dolah, Woman Speese. Both of you do possess gifted brains—for a human. Stop using them to engage in futile bickering and do use them to readjust your perspective.”

Edda and Aline frown at Rew in confusion.

Rew continues, “I shall attempt to assist. Redeemed van Dolah,” Rew turns her white empty eyes at her, “do explain why Elder Aaij must evacuate the Joyousday House.”

Edda sighs the sigh of a Juf explaining a simple concept to a distracted student. “We are going to set fire to the goahdamn place.”

“With incendiary devices,” Aline adds. “I’ll attach hand clocks with automatic triggers so that at precisely midnight—”

Rew has raised her arm again. “I do not care for your plan, nor am I allowed to meddle in its conception or execution. But do allow me to suggest to you how to use your brain with a simple question: if you do fail to get Elder Aaij out of the building, shall you abort your plans?”

Edda and Aline blink and exchange a long glance.

Aline says, “We are not about to burn Elder Aaij alive, if that’s what you mean.”

“I mean nothing, Woman Speese. Do answer the question, please.”

“Of course we would cancel the plan, yeah?” Edda says. “But I’m sure—”

Rew interrupts her, “Do allow me a suggestion—not as a collaborator, but as your instructor in the way of the mind. Do rearrange your priorities, and your motivations shall rearrange themselves. Do make it your goal to destruct of the building.”

“But that’s already our top priority,” Aline says.

“No, sister,” Edda says, and wets her lips. “I think I know where Elder Rew is coming from. Our top priority is to keep Elder Aaij safe.”

“Hmm, yes, of course.”

“Therefore, we are trying to go into his dreams to trick him out of the building. Which doesn’t work because—”

“—deception and all that, yes. So what?”

Edda smiles and gives Rew a sidelong glance. “If we decide that we are going to set the building on fire, no matter what, even with Elder Aaij inside, then we’d go into his dreams not to trick him, but to—”

“—save his life, of course!” Aline smiles, eyes beaming. “Let’s try that!”

“It is not easy,” Rew says. “Far from it. You do need to truly accept your priorities, and not merely deceive yourself, as humans are so fond of. In this one instance you must commit to destroying the building, and thus collaterally terminate Elder Aaij.”

“So we kill him, right?” Edda looks at Aline, shrugs, and says, “This is bigger than us, sister, so yeah, I’m in. What about you?”

Aline shuts her eyes and draws a deep breath. “All right,” she finally says. “We are killing poor Elder Aaij. His family will be destroyed, and we will be responsible—criminally responsible—unless we find a way of saving his life. Is that better, Elder Rew?”

Rew nods in that slow, awkward way of hers.

Elder Aaij is sitting in the entrance hall of the Joyousday House. Usually empty, he has brought in a foldable table and a chair for guard duty. It is not a small room, but the large fiery eyes painted on the left and right walls make it eerily oppressive. Ximena feels the strong emotions that this place elicits in Edda. Aline’s expression is similarly tense.

By the light of two candles—the only sources of light in the room—Elder Aaij