Seeking the Dream

by Marcia J. Bennett

  “No,” he answered gently. “Nothing is wrong. I was just thinking about the rafts Theon is building, and how soon they’d be ready.”

  “It’s pure foolishness to build those rafts!” Kelsan sputtered. “We’ll never use them!”

  “Maybe not, but they might be all that will save you from the Wastelanders one day.”

  A worried look crossed Kelsan’s face. “Have Wastelanders been seen again?”

  “Not since the beginning of the cold season, but now that it’s warming up, you know they’ll start raiding again. They always do.”

  Kelsan’s face clouded with disgust. “They’ll never be content until they kill us all. Can’t they understand that we are men just like them?” He wiped at the spittle on his lips and looked into Bhaldavin’s eyes. “Ignorance is dangerous, my friend, and I fear it will be the death of us one day.”

  Only if you let it, Bhaldavin thought. Come with Lil-el and me and the children. Leave this place and help us find a way back home, to a place where you all can live happily for the rest of your lives.

  He would like to have spoken his thoughts aloud but knew that he could never make the citizens of Barl-gan such an offer because he had no way of knowing what kind of a life he himself would find if he ever managed to return to the place he had called home. Men had slaughtered his people and had driven them from their homes because the Ni were different and had special talents that men lacked. If men saw the Ni as abominations to be wiped from the face of their world, how would they look upon the mutated men who lived in Barl-gan? Surely not as long-lost brothers.

  Kelsan shook his head and slapped Bhaldavin lightly on the arm. “Well, never mind the Wastelanders right now. Gringers is waiting for you. Go along. We can discuss Theon’s rafts later tonight after supper.”

  Bhaldavin followed Gils past the stairway to the lower levels and took another stairway leading upward. As they climbed the seven flights of stairs to the wind tower, Gils pressed buttons on the walls, turning lights on before them and off behind. It was against the rules to be wasteful of the energy stored within the wind tower generators.

  When they reached the seventh floor, Bhaldavin followed Gils through several rooms littered with wooden boxes of various sizes. The contents of each box was labeled on one side. The boxes represented ten years of work. Grangers said that each box contained some portion of the Ral-jennob’s technology and notes he had taken on the function of each item. What Gringers intended doing with the boxes was something of a mystery, for if he and Lil-el had failed to find a way over or around the Draak’s Teeth in ten years, how did Gringers hope to ever convey all of the boxes of so-called treasures back to his people?

  They worked their way to a room situated below the northeast wind tower, climbed a final set of stairs that passed a landing for the roof, and continued on up into the wind tower. There Gringers awaited them, the soft rushing sound of wind, pushing at thin metal fans somewhere above, giving the room a sound all its own.

  Gringers was seated on the floor writing in a journal he held in his lap. He looked up and smiled as they climbed the last few steps. “That didn’t take you long, Gils,” he said, setting the journal down and rising to his feet. He turned to Bhaldavin. “Where did he find you?”

  “Near the gate. I was waiting for Lil-el.” Bhaldavin looked around the circular room. His glance took in tables littered with metal boxes, levers, buttons, and small piles of screws, bolts, and metal objects that Gringers had taken apart and had not been able to piece back together. Wires ran here and there. Several were connected to nearby light sockets.

  Bhaldavin shuddered, remembering a day just a year earlier when he had come to the tower to find Gringers lying on the floor barely breathing and a fountain of fire-like sparks shooting out from one of the Ral-jennob boxes attached to a light socket. Gils had had the presence of mind to cut off the power leading to the box. They had then carried Gringers down to the infirmary, where Kelsan had taken over. Gringers had survived, but since then he was extremely cautious when handling the power generated by the wind towers.

  Bhaldavin openly admitted that the light power frightened him. He wished that it frightened Gringers just a little more; perhaps then the man would not take such chances with it.

  Gringers was a tall, strong man of thirty-five, and his black hair was just beginning to show glints of gray at the temples. His red-bronzed skin, deep-set dark eyes, and long nose spoke of Kinsa bloodlines.

  According to rafter history, a man named Kinsa had been one of the First Men who had left Barl-gan a thousand years before and had taken up rafting with Ardenol, leader of one of five expeditions searching for new and safer territories to live in.

  The First Men had come to the world they called Ver-draak in a spaceship called Tappon’s Pride, and though the early history of Barl-gan was not complete by any means, the few life recorders found within the city had each given up certain facts that made it clear that the Ral-jennob had come from another world far advanced in technology and social and economic systems.

  The life recorders also confirmed the truth behind the legend of Nathan Ardenol, who had led an expedition up over the Draak’s Teeth over a thousand years before. Gringers believed that Nathan Ardenol and those who had followed him had reached the lakes of Amla-Bagor and had settled to become rafters. He also believed that two of the other expeditions were responsible for settling the Enzaar Sea territories. One expedition had been composed of a high majority of Utura, a dark-skinned race who had settled in the Semco Hills north of the sea. The other expeditionary force had settled at the southern edge of the sea. Their descendants called themselves the Sarissa. Both races claimed to have reached their homelands by boats.

  Little was known of the other two expeditions except the direction taken when they left: one had headed north across the desert, the other south into the mountains. Why no one from any of the expeditions had ever returned to Barl-gan was a mystery, unless the dissension among the people of the city had been much deeper than the one reference to it made it out to be.

  Gringers crossed the floor, stepping carefully over the remains of his last mechanical dissection. His glance came to rest on the small leather bag hanging from a cord around Bhaldavin’s neck. It looked empty.

  “Davin, do you have your crystal with you?” he asked.

  Bhaldavin noted the direction of Gringers’s glance. “It’s not in there. I have it here.” He held out his hand. The crystal was warm to his touch, and as he opened his hand, it glowed with an inner fire that pulsated much like a heartbeat. He sensed its hunger and eagerness to learn. He smiled inwardly, for it made him think of seven-year-old Finnar and his constant barrage of questions, jumping from one subject to the next with barely a breath’s pause, absorbing knowledge as if he feared to lose what he could not understand.

  “More experiments?” Bhaldavin asked.

  “Always,” Gringers replied, smiling. “I only need the crystal for a little while. I can’t get this large machine behind me to work properly. All I get is noise when I push the on button.” Gringers pointed to a black button on the side panel of a large machine standing waist high from the floor. “I think it needs more power than what I can tap from the wind tower. I thought your crystal might help.”

  Bhaldavin hesitated, as he did every time Gringers borrowed the fire stone. The crystal meant nothing more to Gringers than an energy source. But to Bhaldavin, it was much more—though no one seemed to understand him when he spoke about the spirit dwelling within the crystal. He considered telling Gringers no, remembering all the times he had argued with the man over the use of the crystal, and how many times Gringers had persuaded him to let him use it just once more. He shook his head, disgusted with himself. Just this one last time, he promised himself. “Where do you want it?” he asked.

  Gringers moved over to the machine and touched an open panel on the top of it. “Here, I think.”

  Bhaldavin looked down into the panel opening and saw minute
wires running back and forth, each set into pinprick holes that accessed the insides of the machine. He set the crystal down gently, ready to snatch it up at the first sign of something going wrong, as had happened on more than one occasion.

  Several seconds passed, then small lights began to flick on along the slanted panel at the front of the machine. Bhaldavin checked the crystal to make sure it was all right.

  “What’s the machine supposed to do?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gringers answered, his eyes wide with fascination as more lights turned on and the broken whirring sound issuing from the machine faded to a soft hum. “But I think this machine is directly linked to the star beacon.”

  A shiver of uneasiness darted up Bhaldavin’s spine as he remembered words spoken ten years before by a dying man. “The gods who brought men to this world will return one day, and the star beacon will guide them.”

  He had not thought much about the star beacon in a long time, because Lil-el had convinced him that if men’s gods had not answered the beacon’s summons in over a thousand years, either they were not listening, or the machine was not working properly.

  What if men’s gods suddenly did return? How would it affect his own people? Men and Ni had gotten along fairly well for over a thousand years, until the Sarissa had gotten it in their minds to eliminate the Ni from their lands for reasons known only to them. Memories of running from Sarissa blades made his heartbeat quicken. If men’s gods were like the Sarissa, he wanted nothing to do with them.

  A strange noise began to issue from the machine; it sounded like garbled speech. Bhaldavin was suddenly filled with a premonition of disaster.

  “Gringers, I want my crystal back! Now!”

  Gringers snatched at Bhaldavin’s wrist as the Ni reached for his crystal. “Not yet!” he cried, turning Bhaldavin halfway around. “Leave it alone!”

  Bhaldavin tried to free himself. “Let me go!”

  Gringers pulled him back away from the machine and tightened his grip. Then he turned to Gils, who stood just behind them, watching the fight with startled eyes. “Go to the upper tower and see if the star beacon is doing anything different.”

  Gils bobbed his head and darted out of the room.

  “Gringers! Let me go!” Bhaldavin yelled.

  “Only if you’ll stand here quietly and not interfere.”

  Bhaldavin knew he was no match for Gringers’s strength. He nodded, and Gringers slowly released him.

  Gringers saw the anger on Bhaldavin’s face but could not fathom its cause. He knew that Bhaldavin was sensitive about how the crystal was used, but he had asked for—and received—permission. He cursed silently, realizing that it had been a mistake to have given Bhaldavin the crystal in the first place. He just doesn’t realize its worth, he thought.

  “What’s wrong, Davin? You said I could use it.”

  “I changed my mind!” Bhaldavin snapped.

  “But why?”

  Bhaldavin searched for the words to explain what he was feeling. “There’s a wrongness here, a danger…”

  “To whom? Us?” Gringers asked, his anger quickly forgotten. He was too wise a man to ignore a Ni warning. The rafters of Amla-Bagor would not have survived long in the swamplands if it had not been for the Ni-lach and their sensitivity to danger.

  Bhaldavin did not hear Gringers. The cadence of the unknown language had cast a spell over him, and he stood quietly listening as he stared at the crystal glowing brightly in its niche in the machine. A strange feeling came over him. Without consciously realizing what he was doing, he stepped past Gringers and set a finger to the crystal. It was done so quickly and smoothly that Gringers could not stop him.

  “Davin? What are you doing?” Gringers demanded. He looked from the crystal to Bhaldavin’s blank stare, his frown of annoyance slipping away. “Davin? Are you all right?”

  Bhaldavin was drifting in a black void where there was no up or down, no right or left. He felt something pulling him along. A tingling sensation ran from his fingertips up his arm to the base of his neck and exploded in his mind. It was a familiar touch.

  Mithdaar, he thought. I feel so strange. Where are we?

  As if in answer to his question, he became aware of movement in the dark void around him. The darkness began to fade and was replaced by shades of blue and gray. A large oval room suddenly appeared, and within it he counted three yellow spheres of light. Panels of red, green, and gold lights pulsated around the perimeter of the room, and the floor, if floor it was, seemed to heave and flow like fog shifting in currents of air.

  One of the yellow spheres suddenly bobbed upward and came toward him. In the blink of an eye a silver shaft of light appeared where once there had been a yellow globe. The shaft of silver wavered, solidified, and took on bulk. What looked like a face appeared within the upper fifth of the growing form: mouth, nose, eyes—eyes that had no white in them, amber-gold eyes that seemed to burn with intensity.

  Fear blossomed in Bhaldavin’s mind as Mithdaar drew him closer to the image of light and began to absorb the essence of the dreamlike being they confronted.

  Dream? Is that what it is? he wondered. All just a dream?

  The light creature produced two arms that seemed to beckon Bhaldavin closer. A sudden crackling sound erupted between himself and the light creature as it extended a fog-enshrouded hand. Amber eyes enlarged and shimmered in what Bhaldavin later would recall as a look of sheer amazement as Mithdaar sought information as it always did, gorging on whatever knowledge was available without regard for the one from whom it was taken.

  There followed an explosion of light so blinding that Mithdaar and Bhaldavin were driven back into the dark void. The taste of the light creature was firmly embedded in their minds and with it a feeling that they had stirred something extremely dangerous.

  Mithdaar and Bhaldavin had never been as close as they were in those few moments of existence in another reality. Bhaldavin could actually feel the crystal struggling to understand what had happened and to place the knowledge it had gained within a workable context that made sense. He wanted to help but had no idea how to explain what he, too, did not understand.

  A sudden thought came to him. It shattered the void surrounding them and brought them both back to their own reality.

  “The gods!” he hissed softly. “Mithdaar found the Ral-jennob!” He looked down at the crystal, his face blanching white.

  “No!” he yelled, snatching the crystal from its resting place. He turned and in one swift motion dodged past Gringers and headed for the stairs.

  Gringers started after him, then stopped as the machine behind him grumbled to a halt, its lights flickering out until the slanted panel went dark but for two lights. Gringers walked over and pushed the off button, then stood quietly looking at the machine as Bhaldavin’s footsteps faded down the stairs. He was disgusted by his own ignorance and inability to fully comprehend the machines that surrounded him and now this business with Bhaldavin and the crystal. A doubt flickered through his mind. Something had frightened Bhaldavin badly. He thought over the Ni’s few whispered words trying to make sense out of them. “The gods! Mithdaar found the Ral-jennob!”

  The only gods he knew of were those of legend, the Sun Travelers, who were either the ancestors of the First Men or those responsible for bringing men to Lach. Were the Ral-jennob really somewhere out among the stars waiting for a signal from the star beacon? Had Bhaldavin actually managed to reach them—if only for a few seconds? The thought was frightening, yet deep inside he felt elated. As he turned the room lights off and started back downstairs, his mind was filled with imaginary scenes of the first meeting between himself and the Ral-jennob. He had long dreamed of the Star Travelers and had always envisioned them as manlike. To think that he might soon know the truth! He hurried his footsteps, excitement pushing all fears aside. He had to find Bhaldavin and try to reestablish contact with whomever or whatever the crystal’s energy had summoned. If the Ral-jennob were out there, he damn w
ell meant to contact them again!

  Bhaldavin finally reached the ground floor and ran down the hall leading outside. Theon stepped out of the dining hall as Bhaldavin ran by. He caught him by his arm and swung him around.

  “Where’re you going, Little Fish? Why the hurry?”

  Bhaldavin wrenched from his grasp and continued on down the hall, Theon’s voice echoing in his mind. Little Fish. The name brought memories surging upward, memories of being a slave to Theon’s brother, Garv, of seeing the big man die, of months spent among the rafters of Amla-Bagor learning how to sing draak.

  He angrily pushed all those thoughts aside and fled out into the open. He had more important things to worry about.

  Theon cocked his head in puzzlement as he watched Bhaldavin disappear outside; then he turned and went upstairs, sure he would find Gringers where he always found him, puttering around with the strange tools and machines the First Men had used. Theon did not share Gringers’s fascination with the past. In fact, after ten years of being in the same place, he was growing restless and more than a little disgusted with Gringers’s stubbornness. Every year Gringers promised him that when the warm season came, they would get their things together and try to find a way back to civilization. That meant the Enzaar Sea territories and, as far as he was concerned, the Reaches, where he had grown up. If they did make it back home there would be a few people he would have to avoid in order to remain healthy, but he would willingly take the risk. Anything was better than remaining in Barl-gan.

  Bhaldavin ran down the path toward the main gate and ducked through the narrow opening. Moments later he was jogging down the path that led to a series of switchbacks that would take him down to the lake. He did not think about where he was going. He just wanted to get away from everyone for a little while, to sit and think quietly where no one would disturb him.

  Something moved in the shadows of one of the old deserted buildings as he passed by. It crept out toward the edge of the dirt roadway and watched his progress with unfriendly eyes.