Bridge Between the Worlds

by R. B. L. Gillmore

  “Good evening Amriel. It is good to see you here, and so in control of your dream zone I might add.”

  Amy’s heart pounded in her chest and adrenalin coursed through her veins. Well, in her dream at least.

  “You… you scared the hell out of me!” Amy exclaimed. Then, remembering Snipping’s advice about courtesy, added, “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting an owl to turn into a person.”

  A deep rumble emanated from the man, deep and penetrating, but filled with warmth. It might have been laughter.

  “My apologies. It is the easiest way for me to travel through the dream plane without attracting too much attention. Now young Amriel, what are we going to do with you? You have already progressed well beyond the abilities of a novice. This dream zone is the proof. I will not deny that I am… impressed. No one could have expected you to control your consciousness in the dream plane so quickly. You are remarkably like your mother. In hindsight, I should have known you would be an exception to the rules.”

  Amy said nothing. She already knew that her parents were meant to be famous in this other place, whatever it was called. She waited with baited breath to discover what she would be doing that night.

  “Let us see now. Hmmm. This is only the first time that you have retained consciousness in the dream plane but I would like to see how far we can push you. Let us see if you can start to alter your own dreams at will by the end of the night.”

  Amy smiled. This would be easy, she’d been getting good at directing her dreams to allow Snipping in and out of them. She assumed this would be similar. What she forgot however was that she achieved this through preparation whilst she was awake.

  “What exactly would you like me to do?” Amy asked with a nonchalant air.

  The arbiter shrugged his shoulders and responded with an equally carefree tone.

  “Turn the grass blue.”

  Amy couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. She felt like a child being asked to draw anything they wanted from their imagination with crayon in a scrapbook at school. There was nothing complex about it. It couldn’t possibly be a trick request. She looked down at the grass and tried to think about fields of blue. Nothing happened. She concentrated harder and harder, staring intently at the grass at first, as if her eyes themselves would bring about the change. When she still had no success, she closed them firmly to try and focus on her imagination. No luck.

  She opened her eyes again and stared up at what little sky she could see through the leaves, trying to use the blue colour as some kind of catalyst.

  She frowned, utterly frustrated after many minutes of trying, but unwilling to concede defeat in front of the Arbiter. Why couldn’t she do it? This was a dream, she knew that! Anything was possible in dreams! It wasn’t like in the real world where grass had to be green. The Arbiter’s eyes started to glow and a deep rumble came from somewhere inside him.

  “I can’t!” Amy finally cried out.

  “Why do you believe you cannot change its colour” the Arbiter asked quietly.

  “Because… because I’m not concentrating properly?” It was more of a question than a statement.

  “Not even close I’m afraid Amriel. Though not an ill-considered answer either. Do not feel ashamed. There is so much that you do not know. A whole world’s worth of information.

  Consider how little you know about everything on earth, your vast existing knowledge barely scratches the surface of what can be learned about it. Now you are entering a whole new world again and whilst it has its similarities with Earth, many of its qualities are very different.

  You cannot change the colour of the grass because in the back of your mind you BELIEVE that grass is green. You are too consciously linked to what you perceive as reality. Normally you are not restricted like this when you are dreaming. Can you imagine why?”

  “Because normally I don’t realise I’m dreaming, so I’m not comparing the dream to earth.”

  Amy knew the answer inherently. She had already realised that this dream was very different to her normal dreams.

  “Yes,” the Arbiter replied with a pleased tone, “very good. Let us try another question. Do you think you know why this dream is so different to normal?”

  Amy’s immediate thought was that she had just answered this by explaining that she realised she was dreaming. But assuming that the Arbiter wouldn’t overlook something like this, she decided that there must be something more to what he was asking.

  She had no idea why she had retained such a high level of self-awareness in this dream and not others. She hadn’t been trying to and she hadn’t really done anything different. Or maybe she had unwittingly? She sat in silence for a long time trying to work it out but decided, in the end, to be honest about what she thought, “Pure luck I guess?”

  “Certainly, luck has played a role here but saying it was like is just another way of saying that timing played an important role. The true reason this dream is different is because the elvish part of you, previously dormant, has woken up and is manipulating the function of your brain. This is, so to speak, therefore an elvish dream rather than a human dream.”

  Amy couldn’t hide her bewilderment. Something about the mixture of science and fantasy in the Arbiters explanation made it harder for the information to sink in and for her to believe it. The Arbiter continued.

  “Elves and humans have many similarities but in other aspects they are as different as cats and dogs.”

  The Arbiter let out the strange string of deep hums like he had earlier, which seemed to suggest laughter.

  “Ahhh, I do like human expressions.”

  Amy remained non-plussed in response to this strange outburst of humour.

  “Humans have incredibly powerful imaginations but something inside of them inhibits their ability to control this imagination when they are unconscious. Human dreamwalkers needed to train their minds extensively to gain any kind of control at all. It can be truly incredible sometimes. Take the dullest human in the world, not a single creative thought during their waking hours, but when they dream, they can envision entire new worlds. It is truly fascinating. However, because most humans cannot control this imagination, they cannot stabilize their consciousness when dreaming. As a result, their dream becomes their only perceived reality. It is a reality which is easily manipulated and changed. You have experienced this all your life so far.

  Elves, on the other hand, are practically the reverse. They were born out of the dream state which created the first worlds and the Arbiters’ plane. They are intrinsically linked to dreams. I suppose you could say that the dream plane is their primary reality, and the physical world is secondary to them. This is where the word dreamwalker comes from. It is a loose translation of the word the elves used when describing themselves to humans. Anyway, for this reason elves perceive the dream plane in the same way that humans perceive the physical world. Now, how do you believe this would affect their abilities in the dream plane?”

  Amy thought she was starting to understand. It made its own sense in a crazy kind of way. As she considered her answer she was struck with a sudden realisation. Her mother had often told her, “If you want to achieve something you must first be able to dream of your achievement.” The deeper meaning this must have had for her mother had just become abundantly clear.

  “I guess,” Amy suggested, “their minds create boundaries around their dreams. So, they would have to change their dreams the way humans change things in the real world?”

  The Arbiter hummed with a pleased tone again.

  “A very good answer. It is not nearly so simple as that but that is a very good way to begin understanding elvish dreams. So, now we come back to the interesting part of our discussion. Why can’t you turn the grass blue.”

  He wasn’t questioning this time. “Perhaps your parents have already told you, perhaps they have not. The fact is Amriel, you are utterly unique. You are the first and only half elf. It should not have been possible for you to be conceiv
ed. And yet here you are. No one knows what you are capable of. You have already accomplished things which should have been impossible for both elves and humans, even if you were not in control of your actions.

  So far, it seems that you have had human dreams and the elvish part of your mind was only active enough recently to lend a little control, with which you created physical realities from your dreams. It is a dangerous way for you to dream walk. Tonight however, the elvish part of your brain is fully in control, meaning that it can define and control the reality of your dream zone. That is why you cannot easily turn the grass blue. Your mind has already decided that grass must be green and it recognises that this is a constant, not to be changed. It is not impossible, however.

  The safest method of dream walking would be to do it exactly as the elves have done; train your mind to manipulate your own perceived realities. However, you could not reach your full potential this way. The human side of your mind is far more powerful as a tool for creativity. Ideally the elven side of you would control and stabilise your dream zone whilst your human side did the rest. I do not know if this is possible, though I cannot see a reason why it should not be. What you have achieved so far suggests that the elven part of you has already provided a degree of control. If it can be achieved consistently then only time will tell us what your limitations really are.

  The combination of elven control and human power has been seen before of course. But not like this. Your mother drew on your father’s creative mind to make Earth a reality but this was only possible because they shared such a powerful bond, and it still nearly destroyed them. You require no bonds. The ability lies within you.

  Now I will give you a choice Amriel, and I want you to understand the impact your answer may have. Allowing your human side to manipulate your creations could attract attention from those who know what they are looking for. In fact, I believe they already have. I do not know what these people will do if they find you. Learning to do this, however, may be the only answer to the problems that you face. So, would you like to start exploring this possibility now, or would you prefer to learn how to dreamwalk by traditional methods first, drawing only on your elvish power?”

  Amy thought about how impossible it had seemed just to change the colour of the grass. If what the Arbiter said was true, and she suspected it was, then it would be much easier if she could let a little human creativity come through.

  She was also starting to feel a pang of fear when she thought about the shadowy enemy of her parents’ past but it still seemed remote. It was literally a world away. She wasn’t even sure if the world was in the same universe. In the end, excitement at being able to dreamwalk quickly overpowered her fear.

  “I want to try and use my human side straight away. This is the first time I’ve had control of my dream zone but I’m already getting used to creating things in a more human frame of mind.”

  A slight movement of the Arbiters hood and the distinct movement of his eyes showed that he had nodded in understanding.

  “Very well. What you need to remember now then is that an elf alters their dream zone in the same way that you manipulate reality on earth, that is to say, according to rules. To succeed without understanding these rules, you will need to find a way around them. That means that right now, you need to let go with your mind, rather like dreaming inside a dream.”

  Amy spent the rest of the dream trying to allow the human side of herself to take over, to convince herself that the grass really was meant to be blue. The concentration involved started to exhaust her. Amy didn’t know how long she had been in the dream but it felt like forever. Eventually the Arbiter raised a gloved hand as a sign for her to pause.

  “That is enough for tonight. We cannot expect this to be easy for you. It will take time and you should not strain yourself too much. We will try again in another dream.”

  Amy was disappointed but felt that she did indeed need to rest. There was just one problem.

  “Ummm, sorry for the stupid question but… how do I wake up from an elven kind of dream? I mean… It is kind of as if I am awake right now. Do I try to make myself fall asleep here?”

  The Arbiter laughed long and deeply. This time Amy recognised what the humming noises meant straight away.

  “I have never seen anyone with such a natural affinity for dreamwalking. Much of what must be done, you are already doing instinctively. It is, as you would say, in your blood.”

  Something about the warmth in the Arbiter’s tone and the glow of his eyes seemed odd to Amy. Nevertheless, she felt a powerful sense of familiarity. It was almost like the difference between the feeling she got talking to a stranger compared to talking to a close friend.

  “You are waking up already Amriel.”

  The Arbiter’s last words rang in her mind with an increasing sense of distance until the world disappeared, like a movie screen going blank.

  Amy opened her eyes without any hint of sleep left in them. Light filled her room and, given that it was practically winter, this was a reasonable indication that she had slept in quite late. She lay still for a while. She wasn’t at all tired but she did feel like she had just finished up a busy day of work and was now relaxing. It was when she realised that being awake felt like resting from her dreams that she got up in an attempt to shake off the bizarre sensation.

  She made her way down to the kitchen where Snipping was cooking breakfast and Martay was waiting for her patiently. He was keen to know how the night had gone.

  As they sat at the bench, enjoying their food, Amy filled them in on what had happened.

  Martay was fascinated by her every word. Snipping just nodded every so often to show he was following. Everything seemed to have gone as he had expected, and he openly said that he was pleased with Amy’s behaviour towards the Arbiter.

  The dream played on Amy’s emotions in a strange way. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with the day and was strangely forlorn. She felt overwhelmed, and yet at the same time, somehow empty because she wasn’t taking any action. Martay seemed to notice and decided it would be best to try and distract her for a while. Much to Snipping’s annoyance, since he couldn’t realistically join them, Martay suggested they visit the Széchenyi Baths on the other side of town. At a loss as to what else she should do that day, Amy agreed to go. She wasn’t entirely in the mood for it but then again, she knew that she wanted to do something.

  In the change rooms at the baths, Amy looked down at her body as if she was seeing herself for the first time. By and large, she resembled her mother. But Amy convinced herself that her body wasn’t quite as well balanced.

  “Typical,” she thought, “I get the day dreaming but not the body.”

  She was only half serious. She didn’t consider herself to be ugly by any means but she had often wished that she had inherited more of her mother’s unblemished appearance.

  Martay on the other hand had never even conceived of the idea that Amy could want to change anything about herself. Every time they came to the baths together and she appeared in her swimmers, his breath was taken away and he blushed deeply. In his eyes, she was perfect, so attractive that he felt embarrassed looking at her. They had been friends for so long that he had learnt not to give away his feelings. He still had butterflies in his stomach as she appeared today.

  Cold as it was, Amy always preferred the outdoor pools at Széchenyi so they made their way, with some shivering, outside where they practically dove into the hot water. Their bodies were surrounded by steam from the pool and Amy couldn’t help but smile. It was incredibly relaxing to float around in what felt like a giant spa with your head kept clear by the cold air.

  With Amy’s spirits significantly uplifted, the two of them eventually headed home after stopping in town to find a place for lunch.

  When they got back to Amy’s house however, their good mood was instantly replaced with anxiety. An old man was standing at Amy’s door, fumbling with the door knob. His eyes seemed to be glazed ove
r and his movements were noticeably stilted, as if he wasn’t comfortable using his own body. Martay looked over at Amy, his face lined with worry. He bent down a little and whispered in her ear.

  “Let me handle this. I don’t live here, no one would be looking for me.”

  Amy grabbed his arm for a moment as if she wanted to hold him back. Martay managed to give her a weak smile, freed his arm and proceeded to the house while Amy remained hidden.

  “Excuse me sir, can I help you? Have you lost your keys?”

  Martay spoke in Hungarian. The man stopped his attempt at the door and turned to face Martay. He hesitated before speaking just one word, formed as if it were a question.

  “Szekeres?”

  From her hiding place Amy shivered at the sound of her last name. Martay was not about to reveal anything and decided to play the fool.

  “Pardon me?” he replied with a voice that genuinely sounded confused.

  The man paused for a moment then asked again, his face twisted strangely, obviously straining to form the sounds.

  “Szekeres?”

  Martay was feeling nervous but stuck to his ploy with firm resolve.

  “Sorry, I don’t know what you want. Are you looking for someone? Maybe you should call them?”

  “Call?” came the simple response.

  “Don’t you have a mobile?”

  The many did seem old enough for it to be plausible that he wouldn’t have a mobile phone. Martay reached into his pocket and produced his own, which he held out to the man.