Nightmare

coming?'

As one, Jeren, Kendi, and Kite backed away. Dorna’s power shopping trips were legend in the student community, and they all knew from experience that they would be drafted into bearer duty. Dorna laughed and lead Willa off. Kendi watched them thoughtfully.

'Something’s weird about Dorna,' he said. 'Seriously weird.'

'What do you mean?' Pitr asked.

'It’s hard to put my finger on it,' Kendi replied. 'It’s not weird in a bad way. Just weird.'

'Kite’s weird, too,' Jeren said. 'He talks funny. All the time.'

Kite, who had spent considerable time with a speech therapist and no longer tore through sentences like tissue paper, punched Jeren on the shoulder like Kendi had done. A friendly scuffle broke out between the two of them. Kendi and Pitr ignored it.

'Is it something we should talk to a Parent about?' Pitr asked.

'No,' Kendi said. 'It may be just the way her personality is. Let’s get some lunch.'

Ara pressed the tip of the dermospray to Kendi’s upper arm and pressed the release. There was a soft thump as it shoved the drug through his skin. Swiftly, with the ease of much practice, he slipped his red spear beneath his knee and assumed his meditation pose. Despite his careful breathing, a small knot of tension formed in his stomach.

'What if it doesn’t work?' he said.

'It will work eventually,' Ara told him patiently. 'We haven’t lost anyone yet. Ched-Hisak is the teacher on duty in the Dream right now, so if you get there, he’ll be waiting to catch you. And don’t worry so much, Kendi. There’s no pressure. I’m not worried. You shouldn’t be either.'

Kendi closed his eyes. His meditation skills had increased to the point where the only thing that could wake him was a double snap of Ara’s fingers or his conscious choice. He never lost his balance on the spear anymore, and at night his dreams were so vivid that he awoke confused about who and where he was. This, Ara told him, was a sign that he was moving closer to touching the Dream. Kendi had never again seen the Real People in any of his nocturnal dreaming, however.

Colors flickered behind his eyes. The dermospray was a cocktail of drugs mixed to react to his own physiology, a recipe refined over many centuries of experimentation. Very few people, Ara said, could reach the Dream without some kind of pharmaceutical aid.

Kendi concentrated as a hypnotic rainbow swirled in the darkness around him. The drugs induced a pleasant, floating feeling but were designed not to inhibit thought processes or become physically addictive. Kendi let himself float about at random for a while, then forced himself to concentrate. His body dropped away until he was no longer aware of the spear under his knee or of his breathing or his heartbeat. Ara had said he needed to create a personal place for himself, a place where he felt safe and happy. Kendi imagined the Australian Outback with its hot breezes and dry, rocky earth. He caught a whiff of desert air, but when he turned toward it, it disappeared. A flash of sunlight caught his attention, but it too vanished when he reached for it. A falcon cried on the high wind, but the sound faded when he tried to sense what direction it came from. Voices whispered all around him, just loud enough to hear but not loud enough to understand. Kendi ground his teeth in frustration. It was just like every other time. He couldn’t seem to-

Make a place for yourself, said the memory of Ara’s voice. A place where you feel safe and comfortable.

And then it came to him. The Outback had never felt safe and comfortable to him while he had been in it. He had hated it. Only recently had it had any kind of allure for him. Maybe he needed to try something else. Kendi cast his thoughts back to his childhood. When he and Utang had been little, they had played at pirates and convicts, people on the run. They had used an abandoned building just up the block as a hideout despite the fact that they had been forbidden to play there. Their imaginations had turned the basement into a cave, and Kendi had liked hiding in the cool, safe darkness. In the games he hadn’t seen cracked concrete walls and a collapsing staircase. He had seen smooth stone, an arched roof, and a clean, sandy floor. A hole in the roof let in dim light and provided an egress for smoke from the campfire he and Utang would have. Ancient cave art danced on the walls instead of graffiti. It was a place to stash treasure and hide from marauding bands of British convicts, broken chains still clanking at their wrists. They would never find the entrance. It was a safe place.

Kendi brought the image of the cave firmly into his mind. He could almost feel the sandy floor beneath his feet, feel the cool air, see the bright paintings, smell the campfire smoke. Whispering voices swirled around him in a strange wind. The arched roof, the entrance tunnel, the ring of stones around the fire.

A subtle shift came over the space around his body. There was a sense of vastness, an echoing space. Kendi’s eyes opened and he gasped in utter astonishment. He was standing in the cave. It was absolutely real. The cave was dim, just as he had imagined it, with a single beam of sunlight stabbing down from the hole in the high roof. A smoldering fire lay at the bottom of the sunbeam, and the sharp smell of wood smoke tanged the air. Kendi made a strangled noise, and it echoed about the cave. His bare feet whispered over dry sand as he staggered around the cave. It was big enough to park a dozen cars in, and at least five stories tall. And it felt safe.

Kendi whooped with glee and hugged himself as the sound caromed wildly off stone walls. He had done it! He had entered the Dream!

Something touched him. Kendi froze for a moment, then spun around. The touch hadn’t been a physical one. It was something else. Someone was walking toward him, and he could feel the footsteps on the ground as if the sand were his own skin. It frightened him at first, but then he knew, somehow he knew, that the touch was friendly, even familiar. A shadow moved in the tunnel that lead into the cave, and instantly Kendi knew who it was. He turned to the entrance and pressed fingertips to forehead.

'Father Ched-Hisak,' he said. 'I’m here.'

A Ched-Balaar stepped into the cave, his head low on his serpentine neck. His blond-brown fur gleamed in the castoff sunlight from the center of the cave, and his eyes were wide and happy. He opened his mouth to speak, and Kendi braced himself for a dizzying barrage of clattering teeth and strangely-toned hooting. He had been studying the Ched-Balaar language for a year, but his understanding was severely limited. Conversing without a translator would be difficult, but he would manage. They would-

'I congratulate you, Kendi Weaver,' Father Ched-Hisak said a in clear voice. 'You have made yourself a fine place in the Dream.'

Kendi stared, fingertips still on his forehead.

'You are surprised to understand me?' Father Ched-Hisak said, amused. 'But you know to speak in the Dream is a mere exchange of ideas. You read my thoughts but you hear them as words.'

'I forgot, Father,' Kendi admitted. 'So to you I’m chattering my teeth?'

'Indeed. You have a strange accent, but intelligible at every word. Come, then. I want to see the world you have created.'

He took Kendi’s hand. Father Ched-Hisak’s palm was firm and soft as suede. That was when Kendi noticed he was naked. He looked down at himself uncertainly. Father Ched-Hisak noticed.

'You may wear anything you like,' he said. 'Your clothing is unimportant to such as I, but if it is important to you, then only think of what you want to be wearing and it will be so.'

Instantly, Kendi was clothed in a knee-length shorts and a simple shirt. This, however, felt wrong, confining. He realized that in this place he didn’t want to wear clothing at all, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to continue appearing naked in front of Father Ched-Hisak. His clothing wavered, shrank, expanded, and shrank again until Kendi settled on a simple loincloth.

Father Ched-Hisak ducked his head in approval. 'Now. This is your safe place, the place in the Dream where no one may enter unless you allow such. The tunnel I entered led me inward from your public place, where you will eventually conduct business. Please. Here in this part of the Dream you must lead me. It is more polite.'

Heart beating with exultation and excitement, Kendi lead Father Ched-Hisak up the tunnel. It was just tall enough for him to stand upright, though it was pitch black. Kendi wished he had a torch or something, and in an instant he held one in his hand. He was so startled, he almost dropped it.

'You must take care,' Father Ched-Hisak warned. 'Here in the Dream, thoughts become reality.'

The tunnel formed a spiral that lead up and out. After a few moments of walking, the spiral ended and Kendi found himself standing on a flat, rocky plain that stretched before him from horizon to horizon. Scrubby plants and