Dream of Change - Episode 5

Return to Dreams of Change Episode 4

Episode 5


I sat in the back of the skimmer, watching the traffic zoom by. Natalie was driving. It was an old model, before they put the noise reduction on the engines. I could hear the whine. It was my skimmer, or rather, my dad's. I looked up front.

Natalie was driving. Her bat-ears flicked back and forth.

"Where's mom and dad?" I asked.

"I guess it's just me. I don't see anyone else."

"This is the road. It happened right up ahead."

"What? I don't understand."

"Just stop here. It'll be fine."

Natalie brought the vehicle to a halt, and when we got out we were stuck in a traffic jam. I could smell smoke, bad smoke, smoke from burning plastic and leather and oil. We climbed over them to get to the blockage that was stopping everything.

A car just like the one we had been riding in sat in the middle of the road. Exactly the same, except that the front half had been flattened by a huge truck.

Natalie's eyes grew wide. "This is the accident."

Somehow my voice stayed calm. Too calm, in fact. Flat. "They were killed instantly. No one knew where the truck came from."

The long fingers of Natalie's hand snaked into mine and she gripped my hand tightly. I couldn't seem to return the gesture.

"That's me under there. Trapped. The paramedics will be here soon, cut me out, save my life." I looked around. There should have been sirens. There should have been all kinds of noise, but it was quiet. The only sound was the faint crackle of flames coming from the engine compartment.

"Come on," said Natalie. "We have to get you out."

"We do? But that's not how it happened."

"This is a dream, Ben. Not a replay of history. Come on, look." She gripped the metal frame of the car and bent it easily in her hands. "We've got power here. If you focus your mind, you can make anything happen."

"Anything?"

"Yes. This is lucid dreaming. Once you're aware you're dreaming, you can change anything."

I looked down at my body. I had two arms, two legs, no disfiguring scars. She was right. I could control anything. When I looked up, I had two legs of polished wood with bright brass fittings, and an arm to match it. Leather straps held them to my body.

Instead of being out on the street, we were in my dorm room. I lay naked on on my bed, and she stood nearby, wearing the human form that I had seen briefly when I had first arrived at the Belfry.

She waggled a finger at me, smiling. "Now now, it's not polite to change another person's appearance." Her features melted, and she returned to the half-bat form she was comfortable with. "Why do you look like this?" she asked.

"It's who I am," I said. "The real me."

I turned my head to see a twisting, gyrating worm with iridescent skin coming in the window. Flashes of multicolored light shone out from its body and wisps of dark vapor twisted around it. I knew from the rainbow colors that it was the being I had been pursuing in my earlier dream.

"Who are you?" I asked.

It laughed again, and then suddenly sped away, around a corner and out of sight.

"We have to catch it," I said, sprinting for the door, but there was no floor and I suddenly found myself falling. I screamed, until a hand found mine and pulled me up short.

It was Natalie. We were flying between the buildings, suspended on great bat wings sprouting from her back. "Thanks," I said, looking around for the flashing worm-thing.

"That thing isn't acting like a dream entity," she said.

"How do you know?"

"So what do we do now?"

We landed on a rooftop garden and Natalie's wings folded back down until they disappeared. "We stop the dream. You were right, of course. This isn't a psychological problem. You're possessed."

"Possessed? Are you sure?"

"You're in control of your dream now, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much." I turned a small decorative birch into an apple tree and picked a ripe red fruit.

"Good. Now make the flashy thing appear."

I paused, focusing. A light appeared, but it wasn't the same, and we both knew it. It said, "Sorry," and winked out of existence.

"See?" she said. "That thing's foreign. It's another mind, a mind from elsewhere. If it were part of you, you'd probably be able to summon it up."

"A monster from the id."

She chuckled. "No, but maybe something that doesn't mean you any good. We need to get you to a specialist, get rid of it."

"Miss Walters?" I said, taking several steps back, "You can dispel the ritual. Miss Walters? Now please!" I grabbed Natalie's hand and pulled her into a stairwell behind us. "I knew she was going to flake out on us!"

A clap of thunder. A lurch, swaying. The building was giving way. I held onto the railing. And then…

We fell.

It had been a long time since I had a dream of any kind, much less a falling dream, but isn't there a rule somewhere, that when that happens you're supposed to wake up with a start? I didn't wake up.

The building disintegrated around us, turning into a cascade of rubble. Natalie and I were left clinging to a hunk of concrete as it twisted in the rushing air.

Natalie was screaming.

"We have to get control!" I shouted over the crashing thunder of destruction.

"It's too strong! We have to end the dream!"

"That's not working! Come on! Help me! Change the scene! Make it… make it the Belfry! Concentrate!"

I gritted my teeth and wished with every fiber of my being for that bedroom.

And we were there. We had done it. I knew we were still dreaming, because none of the ritual items were there, and Miss Walters wasn't watching from her seat at the foot of the bed, but at least the nightmare had been banished.

"It's going to be back," said Natalie.

"I know. Think calmly. What do we do?"

She took a deep breath. "If it were an ordinary nightmare, one of the things you can do is confront it, ask it what it has to say to you. Sometimes that's enough to banish it. But Ben, this is no ordinary nightmare! This isn't some unresolved issue in your subconscious, this is some kind of foreign entity."

"Maybe it can be reasoned with."

I couldn't help backing up against the wall.

"Can you talk, Ben Stansfield?"

"Yes. Yes." I swallowed and gathered my wits. "What do you want?"

"It is not a want. It is my being. I am change. Flux. Transformation. Disorder."

"What do you need to change?"

"Change is all, change from all, change to all."

"Is that why you change me every few days?"

"Power must flow. It cannot be stopped, only diverted."

Natalie grabbed my arm. "Ben, it's a chaos elemental. A fundamental being of transformation."

I shuddered. Its rapidly changing appearance was unnerving. "How did you get here?"

"Memory is not an aspect of chaos."

"Then how are we communicating?"

"I borrow your perspective."

"Then you have seen my memories as well. Can you interpret them from your own point of view?"

"I am the power you think of as yours. You hold me back, but you fail."

"So you're the only reason I have magic? If you were removed, I would be powerless?"

"Predicting the future is not an aspect of chaos. I go where I will. This place is good."

This would take some thinking. "Are you the one keeping us from waking up?"

"Stasis is not an aspect of chaos."

"Good. Then I'd like to change from sleeping and dreaming to awake and thinking."

"I am not going."

"I hear you. Now wake me up, damn you!"

The dream faded, and I awoke. We were nestled together, her head on my chest, one leg crossing over my thighs. My body reacted with an uncomfortably rapid erection. As I tried to extricate myself, she gradually came awake. "Some dream," she said.

"Yeah, I'd say it was a complete success. The only question now is what to do about it." I raised on knee to hide the bulge I was making in the covers.

Natalie rolled away, yawned, and suddenly screamed and pointed.

I sat up and instantly saw why Miss Walters hadn't been able to dispel the ritual. She had never heard it. Sitting in the chair, holding a pair of dull grey knitting needles, was a statue of Miss Walters, perfect in every detail.

She had been turned to stone.

Harrison burst in at Natalie's scream and immediately summoned emergency services. They were there within minutes, and took Miss Walters away for delithification at the magical disorders clinic.

In the midst of the confusion, Mister Grace returned to the Belfry. He went straight to Natalie and pulled her into his gangly arms, heedless of the strange body she was wearing. "Are you alright, kit?"

"I'm fine. Ben says this will wear off after a few days."

"Good. But I was asking about your emotional state."

"A bit shook up, I guess. I'm fine."

"Good." He let her go and stepped back. "Can we both agree that this young man's dreams are dangerous?"

She nodded.

He turned to me. "Now then, Mister Stansfield. I have your cooperation in this? You're here because I allow it, not because of any influence on my daughter's part. If I'm unhappy, you're out on your ass. Got it?"

I couldn't help feeling like I was twelve years old, being scolded for being out past curfew. "Yes, sir."

My face throbbing with embarrassment, I returned to my room, cleared away the remains of the ritual, and slid under the covers.

Sleep, however, did not come easily. The truth of my condition burned in my mind. The magic wasn't me, exactly, it was something attached to me, something stuck in my dreams. It was content to stay there, as long as it had the opportunity to change things, including me.

The thought disturbed me, like I had some kind of parasite. My first instinct was to get to an expert and have the thing removed.

But what would that mean? Exorcised from my dreamworld, my source of power would be gone. I'd be a mundane, more than halfway through a manology degree that would suddenly have a lot less relevance to my life. I'd still be able to get a job, but it would be like a celibate giving sex and marriage advice. Without being able to truly experience that which I was studying, who would trust me? Changing majors wouldn't be an option, either. My scholarships and state aid would run out before I could get enough credits to get a degree in anything else. I was stuck.

The other option was to leave it there, striking a devil's bargain in exchange for magical power. I would have to allow it to change me, at its whim, into whatever random form it chose. I would be at its mercy whenever it decided to do so. So far, it had been when I was dreaming, but how long would that last? I shuddered at the thought that this thing was inside me, waiting to ambush me, and there was nothing I could do to defend myself.

Either choice seemed fraught with trouble, but my first instinct was to get rid of the horrible creature. Now that we knew, more or less, what was wrong, I could find someone who could fix it. Not only could I live a somewhat more normal life, but I could spit in the face of all the people who thought my condition was under my control. I could show them they were wrong about me all along.

And then? I had figured out how to live my life with three missing limbs, I had figured out how to live my life with two or three new bodies a week, I would learn how to live without magic. Hells, the vast majority of humanity managed to get along without it. I would too.

When I woke up, nothing had changed from the night before. There was an hour before we had to leave for class, so I got dressed and went out to the desk to run some searches.

A cup of coffee appeared next to me, delivered by a dark-skinned hand. It smelled wonderful. Natalie stood there, still wearing the form the chaos elemental had given her, with a cup for herself.

"Sleep well?" she asked.

"Yes, and you?"

"Something of a nightmare, but not bad. Nothing like we experienced last night. What's going on? Making up homework?"

"Doctor Swallowtail isn't the only oneiromancer in Metamor City. I'm going to find one who can help me get rid of this thing in my head."

"Yes, I know, I know, but it feels that way, and I'm getting it out. Do you know any of these people?" I turned the monitor so she could see.

She scanned the names and shook her head. "The problem you've got isn't the kind of thing oneiromancers usually handle. They work with counselors and therapists. Most of them are psychologists. The kind of person you need is a scientist. They're not going to be listed in the usual directories."

"Alright, so what directories do I use?"

"Honestly? The leading oneiromancy research is being done at Empire University. That's why I'm going there."

I shook my head. "Which means dealing with Doctor Swallowtail, or one of her colleagues."

"Collaboration is how science is done, Ben. You know that."

"Okay." I narrowed my eyes. "Do your teachers gossip about other researchers, people looking into alternate angles that don't fit with what their pet theories say?"

"It's a good idea. Find a rival. Problem is, I'm not really part of that social circle, and I don't know who's shut out. Shouldn't be too hard to find out, though. If we go through the research journals we should come up with a name or two to try out."

"Can we get those on the 'net?"

"By subscription."

I grabbed my pack. "I guess we'll have to get to them at the library, then?"

"Ben. Sit." She took the keyboard, found the Journal of Oneiromancy, and bought the subscription.

"Natalie! You just spent two thousand marks! Won't your dad be angry?"

"Okay, so I blew my allowance. I should have gotten that subscription a long time ago. Don't worry about it." She pulled a chair over and sat down next to me. "Now let's find our rebel scientist, eh?"

Harrison provided some bagels with eggs, cheese, and bacon that were absolutely delicious, and just before we had to leave, we had our man: one Doctor Sean Pressman, working out of Brightleaf College. Natalie sent him a message from her personal account, asking to make an appointment to discuss, as she put it, an "interesting case."

Then we packed up our things and drove to the university. When we parted, she took my hand and looked into my eyes. "I'll call you immediately if I hear anything. Take care." And then she kissed me.

It was only a little peck, but it was more affection than anyone had shown me in years. I stood, stunned, one hand on my cheek and a smile on my face that must have looked completely idiotic to the people walking by.

The day's classes sped by. Luckily, I didn't have Transformation and didn't have to confront Doctor Swallowtail yet again. Folks mostly left me alone, though there was a good deal of hushed conversation, pointed fingers and suspicious glances. I may have been cleared by the police, but the gossips were still talking about me.

Just before lunch I got a text message from Natalie.

MEET ME @ SKIMR

I frowned at how little there was. I shrugged, assuming that she was busy with something, and started towards the parking area. When I got there, though, her skimmer was empty. I looked around. No sign of her.

I got out my phone and checked it again. The message definitely came from Natalie.

Something slammed into me from behind. I fell on my face, the phone clattering across the pavement. A weight dug into my back, hard and round, someone's knee I guessed. Another weight fell on my arm, pinning me to the ground. I heard the the unmistakable sound of a pistol's action working.

"Say one word and I blow your head off." Cold metal pressed against the back of my neck.

It was Matheson.

Dreams of Change Episode 6

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