Lizzie was still trying to reconcile herself to the idea of being a pawn of this dream's weirdly distorted Zorlond when she was thrown from her feet again. This time, though, it wasn't just her, but the goblin too. In fact, the whole setting was shaking and quivering, fading in and out of insubstancibility. "What's going on?" she screached at the goblin, but he just looked at her, his eyes wide in fear and confusion. Obviously, he had no idea either....
D.J. had hardly even a moment to speculate on that quip about the school when a great thunderclap sounded in her ears and a torrential downpour began. It made no difference that they were inside. And everything the raindrops touched blurred and disolved, as if the whole setting was nothing more than a chalk painting on the sidewalk. She turned to Harry, but he too was disolving, a circumstance that looked like it was as surprising to him as it was to her. Only she herself and the phantom Zorlond were unaffected. "Hmm, interesting effect," Zorlond noted with seeming unconcern.
What's happening? D.J. thought fiercely, addressing whatever odd corner of her mind held Zorlond's virtual original. This is your memory! Tell me!
Um, yes, about that, the shadow-Author replied, with a note of embarassment. When I confirmed your notion about our current setting earlier, I wasn't being entirely candid.
What?!? Why not?
Because it was easier than the truth....
Unlike his dream-separated companions, Lesley Wu recognized what was going on immediately. Having mission-experience in the dream world can definitely be a plus sometimes. The dream was being disturbed. It might soon settle back into its previous state, or morph into something completely different, or even melt away into nothing as the sleeper awoke. What any of these things might mean for him or the others he didn't know. Nor was he certain what action it might be best to take. After all, he had no idea why the dream was being disturbed--
I would advise reinforcing the scenario, said a hitherto unsuspected voice in his head. The dreamer is on the verge of waking up.
"Really!" Lesley exclaimed. "And who are you and how do you know this?"
Surely I can't be that unfamiliar. It wasn't that long ago that I spoke with the whole lot of you, just before you entered this dream.
"By T! Zorlond's Original?"
The same, or rather a capsule-download therefrom into all your minds -- my actual presence and interaction with you here would be a bad idea, way too likely to drive my Avatar completely around the bend.
"All our minds, did you say? Can you put me through to the others?"
Nope, sorry, I'm a still, small voice, not an apparatus for telepathy. Put another way, I'm your version of me; I have no way of contacting the others' versions. But I know my own Avatar; at a guess I'd say one of your companions has shocked him into a more aware state of mind. He's on the verge of conscious now, and if he makes it all the way there and wakes up, T only knows what will happen.
"T may not, but I do," said Lesley grimly. "We would be cast adrift in the tides of Dream, our one anchor to the waking world sundered with the exit of the dreamer. All of us lost, and any hope of curing the patient gone. This 'shock,' I take it, isn't tantamount to a cure itself?"
I would presume not. If it was, I would expect my Avatar to be calming down. This doesn't look a lot like calm, does it?
"No." Leslie ducked behind a pillar; the crowd was coming back and just as agitated as ever.
You appear more up on the consequences of the opposite than I am. Would you really be lost?
"Without a doubt. Just because I have an in with the dreamlord doesn't mean he would necessarily be willing, or able, to retrieve us. Therefore, it would appear imperative that Zorlond settle back into what in his troubled mind passes for peaceful slumber."
Couldn't have said it better myself. Got a plan?
"You mean you don't?"
I'm a download, not a dream doctor.
"Swell." Lesley hesitated. "There's one thing that might do," he mused. "An as yet untested item in my arsenal. But if anything ought to work properly here, it should."
Better hurry, then. The drones are going into epileptic convulsions, and the palette of your surroundings is nearly down to black and white.
Leslie nodded, though the gesture was lost on the download -- being an aspect of his own mind, it saw from the inside out, as it were, not from the outside in. The Troubleshooter quickly brought forth a small bag or pouch from wherever it had been secreted, dipped in one hand, and cast its contents to now strongly-blowing dreamwinds. It shimmered silver in the overly powerful light, a rather odd property for what was otherwise for all the world like ordinary dust, or sand....
The drones stopped quivering, and color flowed back into the world, smoothly and richly, as if it had never left. Another moment and the drones were all picking themselves up and resuming their pre-programmed shopping motions like they had never been disturbed.
"Harry!" D.J. exclaimed. "You're back!"
The man she had accompanied to this place of refuge looked at her oddly. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I couldn't exactly have gone anwhere, it's not like there's anywhere to go....
"Whew!" breathed Lizzie. "It's stopped."
"What's stopped?" asked the incurious goblin.
Dabbler shook his head, wondering why everything had seemed to flicker so strongly for a few moments. Landis, who had stopped keening for the duration and begun looking more aware than ever, now appeared barely aware of their situation. And the Russells, who had frozen into statues, resumed their menacing advance.
"Zorlond!" Dabbler whispered urgently. "Snap out of it! I don't like the way these people are looking at u--"
"Who are you?" asked Landis vaguely. "And who are these? I think I dreamed some people like these once...."
Just out of virtual curiosity, said the Original download to Lesley, what was that stuff?
"Dream sand," Lesley replied. "A gift of Lord Morpheus himself, from his own boundless supply. And thanks be to him -- it worked."
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Thu Sep 23 23:55:32 2004
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