“Tell us about it in your own words.”
I did. It took some time. Kendi got me some water, and I was glad for it. I was still nervous. Everyone listened carefully, and they didn’t interrupt. I got the feeling they’d heard the story before and mentally kicked myself for not realizing that Kendi and probably Mother Ara had already told it to them.
When I was done, Melthine nodded. “Is there anything else you can do?”
I hadn’t told them about my empathy talent. I was going to, but then I changed my mind. I can’t say why. Eventually I’d have to tell someone, probably Kendi, but then I could say I forgot about it or that it was new. So I shook my head.
One of the Ched-Balaar chattered something from where he (she?) was squatting on the floor.
“Father Adept Ched-Farask wants to know more about this ability to bring people into the Dream,” Melthine told me. “Can you do it with anyone? Including non-Silent?”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully.
“Have him try it with me,” said a new voice. Everyone’s head swung around and I twisted in my seat. Harenn was standing in the doorway. I wondered how she had known about the meeting and figured Kendi must have mentioned it to her.
“Harenn Mashib,” Grandfather Melthine said. “You weren’t invited here.”
Like that ever stopped Harenn. She walked straight up to the table as cool as an ice trader. “I volunteer to be a test subject,” she said, “to see if Sejal can take the non-Silent into the Dream.”
“Harenn-” Kendi said.
“I’ll try it,” I said suddenly. Until that moment, I hadn’t really liked Harenn. But now here she was, facing down a council of powerful people. And I also knew what she was going through. I had felt her panic and her pain for a few seconds. Harenn had told me how she was hoping to use the Dream to find her husband, the guy who’d kidnapped their kid and run off. I wanted to help.
“Sejal is too early in his training to enter the Dream unaccompanied,” Melthine pointed out. “He has been forbidden to do so.”
Harenn snorted behind her veil. “Do you honestly think that has stopped this boy? As good to leave an open box of sweets on a child’s bed and tell him he can only have one. He has entered the Dream often, you may be certain.”
Kendi turned to me. I couldn’t read his eyes. “Have you entered the Dream since I told you not to go there?”
And suddenly I was pissed. Sure, the Children of Irfan had gotten me off Rust, and sure, they were giving me an education and a place to live and some great clothes. It didn’t mean they owned me.
“Damn right I have,” I said. “It’s easy. I can get in and out like that.” I snapped my fingers. “Why shouldn’t I go?”
“Dammit, Sejal,” Kendi sputtered, “it’s dangerous. There’s something in the Dream that attacks Silent. You barely know how to create a body there. What if that thing in there hurt or killed you because you didn’t know what to do? What if you-”
I folded my arms, feeling stubborn. “You sound like my Mom.”
That shut Kendi up.
Anyway. There was more arguing and more people yelling at me, but I just sat there. Harenn talked a lot, too, and you can guess whose side she was arguing. Finally, they all decided that I should try to take Harenn into the Dream. Kendi and Grandfather Melthine would go with me.
We moved to another room with couches and more comfortable chairs. Only the human Silent and the caterpillar came with us-the others wouldn’t fit. I sat on a couch with my feet up and shut my eyes, not even waiting to see what Kendi and Melthine did. If I wanted to go into the Dream, I’d go. For a minute I wasn’t sure I could trance with all those people in the room and with me being so angry, but after a short while I was fine. Voices whispered just faintly around me. I breathed deep and reached for them.
I opened my eyes in the Dream.
I was in the apartment back on Rust. The place was dull and dingy compared to the monastery, and suddenly I didn’t want Kendi and Melthine there. But Kendi said each Silent creates a Dream environment. I thought a moment, then formed a picture in my head. I wanted to see it in front of me. I would see it in front of me.
And so it was. I was standing on a wide beach. White sand ran left and right as far as I could see. Reddish waves washed gently at the shore and a thick forest lay beyond the beach. Sea birds coasted by on the warm wind, and the sun shone overhead.
But not far off shore was that cracked chaos. It bubbled and boiled above the water, and just like last time, it called to me. I felt an overwhelming urge to jump into the ocean and swim toward it and even took a few steps toward the water.
I felt a ripple in the Dream, as if someone had thrown a rock into a pool I was standing in. I spun around and saw Kendi and Melthine on the sand.
“Nice beach,” Kendi commented.
I nodded without speaking. If he hadn’t shown up, I would have jumped into the ocean.
“It’s getting bigger.” Grandfather Melthine pointed at the darkness. “And it makes me feel nauseated.”
I felt the pain in the darkness. It also sounded sweet and wonderful, but I didn’t say anything.
“Can you feel Harenn?” Kendi asked. “Can you feel her the way you felt me that one time?”
I shut my eyes and felt around with my mind. With a start I saw that there were millions, billions, even trillions of minds everywhere. Every grain of sand, each drop of water, every leaf on every tree was a mind. Kendi had told me that the Dream was…what was the word? A gestalt. A combination of all the minds in the universe. But I hadn’t really known what he meant until that moment. Each mind went about its business, some happy, some sad, most a jumble of emotions. I could feel them skitter around me, but at the same time they weren’t moving. It was really weird.
Some of them I recognized. Gretchen, Ben, Mother Ara, Trish. And Harenn. She was around, too. I remembered how I’d called for Kendi when I got scared the first time I came into the Dream. I called for Harenn and reached for her. I touched her, and I pulled.
Something flickered in the air the beside me like a bad hologram. Harenn stood on the beach for a tiny moment. Then she vanished.
I was suddenly tired. All my energy left me, and my legs felt like rubber. I shut my eyes and let go of the Dream.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the couch room. Everyone was looking at me. Melthine was lying on a couch and Kendi was standing in the corner with a stick under his knee. That was really strange, but I was too tired to think much about it. Where had the stick come from, anyway? Harenn was blinking at me like she was dizzy. I still felt tired.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“I am…uncertain,” Harenn said. “I feel disoriented. One moment I was in this chair, then I was…on a beach? Then I was in my chair again.”
“I couldn’t hold you there,” I said. “You slipped through my fingers.”
“It failed, then,” Harenn said in a flat, disappointed voice.
“The fact that you were there at all is significant,” the blond Adept said from his own chair. He sounded awed. “This is astounding. A non-Silent in the Dream.”
I tried to stand up, but ended up falling back onto the couch from dizziness.
“I think my student needs rest,” Kendi said beside me. He must have come out of the Dream and pulled the strange stick out from under his knee. “I’ll take him back to his room. We can talk more about this later.”
Grandfather Melthine blinked his eyes open. He sat up in time to catch Kendi’s last remark. It seemed like he was going to object, then he looked at me.
“Take him home,” he said. “And we certainly will discuss this again.”
Kendi brought me back to the dormitory. We didn’t talk much. I think he was still a little angry at me for going into the Dream without his permission. Tough.
Not that it matters now.
Anyway. I wasn’t tired anymore when we got back to my room, but I wanted to be alone, so I let Kendi think I was exhausted. He left me sitting on my bed.
