Steven Harper - Dreamer

“Calm, Grandfather Melthine,” Empress Kan maja Kalii said gently. She turned her brown eyes on Ara. “I understand more than you know, Mother. Shall I tell you how I spent my day? This morning I ordered emergency famine relief for a suffering planet. The planet is remote, and in order to ensure relief arrives in time to do any good, foodstuffs, medical supplies, and other materials must be shipped in from the closest two planets without delay. Although the Confederation subsidizes everything, it will take time for the subsidies to catch up. This means the relief effort will put a temporary drain on these planets’ economies and there is a good chance it will spark economic recessions that will change hundreds of thousands of lives. It took me over two hours to analyze the factors involved and order the implementation of this plan. In those two hours, five thousand, two hundred and twenty-four of my subjects died of hunger.

“Next, I received word that a minor conflict between a Confederation planet and one of its colonies has escalated into full-scale war because my nephew, who I sent as a mediator, was kidnapped and tortured to death by agitants.”

Ara suppressed a gasp at these words. Kalii continued without changing tone or inflection.

“Hundreds of people have so far died in this war. Now I must send troups to put down this uprising, meaning still more lives will be lost or irrevocably changed, many of them innocent civilians. This is how I spent my afternoon.

“This evening, I sit here discussing the fate of a single boy and a handful of Silent monks while the nephew I loved like a son lies in a bloody grave a thousand light-years away. And I must discuss these things because if I do not, the Unity will declare a war that will make my nephew’s conflict a playground scuffle by comparison.”

With a single swift gesture, Kalii snatched the little jewels that orbited her head into her palm and flung them away. They bounced and scattered like marbles across the white stone floor. “I am long weary of this, Mother Ara. I inherited this crown seventy-two years ago from my father Bolivar the First, and in that time the burden has become no easier to bear. Billions of people live and die by my words, and I sleep with their ghosts every night.

“I am not asking for your pity. I am, however, asking you to understand that you are not the only one who must make difficult decisions or watch the ones you love pay for your mistakes.”

Ara had not moved. Now she bowed her head low, her anger replaced by a shame that flamed her cheeks red and raw. “My deepest apologies, Imperial Majesty. I often berate my former student Brother Kendi for speaking without thinking. It seems I must learn to take my own advice.”

Kan maja Kalii nodded. “You and I are much alike, Mother Adept Araceil. People of our kind see what must be done, and we do it. Only afterward do we find time for tears.”

Ara flushed at the praise, even though she recognized the words as those of a leader trying to raise the morale of a subordinate. Interesting, she thought, at how psychology works even when the recipient is aware of it.

“Have the ships returned, Imperial Majesty?” Melthine asked. “The ones that were sent to investigate the Silent enveloped by the disturbance in the Dream?”

The Empress shook her head. “Not yet. They have no doubt arrived by now and are investigating, but then it will take them some time to get back.”

“Once they arrive, can’t the Silent on board the ships simply report back?” Ara said.

“We have been studying the disturbance, Ara, and we advised the Empress not to send Silent to those planets,” Melthine put in.

“What?” Ara said, wondering, since she had already flouted Imperial protocol and gotten away with it, if she could push a little further and sit cross-legged instead of kneeling. Kendi must be rubbing off on her. “Why not?”

“Dream mechanics,” Melthine said. “Space means nothing to Silent within the Dream, but it does to non-Silent minds outside of it. When we enter the Dream, remember, we build our world from the real-world minds closest to us before we can move on to other minds. We don’t know what would happen if Silent tried to reach the Dream using minds from within the disturbance. Better first to learn what happened to the Silent already there.”

A tickle at the base of Ara’s skull warned her that her drugs were beginning to wear off and she would have to leave soon. As before, it seemed as if the Empress could read Ara’s mind.

“Your time must be running short,” she said. “You have your instructions. I will expect to hear from you soon regarding these matters. Grandfather. Mother.”

“Imperial Majesty,” they replied together. Then Ara let go of her body.

A dark room, the same one she always encountered before possessing an Imperial Silent, popped into existence around her. The two bits of light that represented the Silent slaves they had possessed floated in front of her, and Grandfather Melthine, no longer young and muscular, stood to one side. The furry, rotund Seneschal, Imperial silver chain hanging around its neck, ushered them out and courteously bade them good-bye. Behind them, the Dream foyer slipped into nothingness and disappeared entirely, leaving them on the familiar empty plain. In the distance, ever-present and almost taken for granted now, was the red and black chaos.

Ara had said space meant nothing in the Dream, and this was normally true. Where she was depended on where she wanted to be. If Ara thought she and her garden were worlds away from, say, Gretchen’s ship, so it was. If Ara thought the ship was so close that the mast was visible over the garden wall, so it would be. If two Silent had contradictory ideas of what reality looked like, for example if Gretchen felt Ara was far away and Ara was sure Gretchen was near by, the strongest will won out.

All this meant nothing when it came to the distant darkness. No matter how hard Ara concentrated, it stubbornly loomed on the horizon, perhaps two kilometers away. She could get closer if she wanted, but not farther.

“Ara!” Melthine grabbed her arm and pointed. “Look!”

The dark chaos, pulsing with its scarlet anger, was growing. It moved like a thundercloud, engulfing the plain of the Dream. The whispers around Ara went silent for a moment, then leaped into hysterical babble.

“We should leave the Dream,” Ara urged. “Before-”

The ground rumbled beneath them. Lightning arced from the spreading darkness, stabbing the ground ahead of it like the antennae of a hungry insect. The darkness swirled like a red-cracked thundercloud. Melthine stared at it.

“Go!” Ara said, giving him a small push.

A scarlet lightning bolt smashed into Melthine’s chest. Thunder blasted Ara off her feet and knocked her several meters away. She landed hard and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Her ears rang and her nose was bleeding. The ground shook again. Stunned, Ara stared stupidly upward, unable to move or think. Then she remembered Melthine. Panic jigged in her mind like a frightened frog. Ara forced herself to roll over. Melthine lay in a boneless heap perhaps ten meters away. She got up and ran toward him, ignoring the pain in her ears and her head. This was the Dream. There would be no pain.

The pain remained with her as she knelt beside Melthine. His eyes were closed and his skin was clammy. He was still breathing, though the breaths came fast and shallow. A black hole had been burnt in his chest. Horrified, Ara felt for his pulse. But even as she did so, the breath hissed heavily from his lungs. He went still and vanished beneath Ara’s fingertips.

“No!” she cried. “Melthine!”

But the plain was empty.

Another bolt of lightning struck the ground and thunder crashed close enough to make Ara’s ears ring anew. The darkness was still expanding, rolling toward Ara like a juggernaut. Swiftly Ara quashed her grief and gathered together her concentration. At the last moment, the words of the Empress echoed in her mind.