by Zales, Dima
“Then I will go back with you,” she said simply. Blaise hadn’t voiced his thoughts, but she was answering them anyway. Blaise could also sense Gala’s feelings on this matter. She was much more ambivalent about returning. He understood her hesitation; she was a product of both realms and was nearly as at home here as she was in his world. In many ways, she preferred this serene, startlingly different place. There was no ugliness here, no injustice that she could not abide.
“Maybe we could do something about that,” Blaise thought, remembering his original intentions. He still wanted to help people, to eliminate the suffering that made Gala so uncomfortable.
For a short time, she appeared to muse about something that he could not discern. Then a pattern appeared in front of him. A strange, complex shape that didn’t contain the intelligent components he could see in Gala.
“This is part of the spell you wove before,” she explained, projecting her thoughts at him.
Blaise studied the shape curiously. All he saw, tasted, and smelled were unusual textures and things that had nothing in common with the arcane words he’d written on cards.
Gala, however, seemed to know what to do with it. He could see that she was altering the structure, changing it as she went along. Looking closer, Blaise could tell that there were flaws in the spell’s intricate mathematics—errors that he had inadvertently made—and he could see that Gala was fixing them. The changes started small, but with time they almost recreated the structure, giving it new life. With each tweak that Gala made, new tastes, smells, and associations occurred to Blaise, overwhelming his new senses.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the activity stopped.
“Are you ready?” her thought came.
“Yes. Take us home,” he thought back, and watched the colors in the spell structure flare brighter as they departed for the Physical Realm.
Epilogue: Dranel
This time, when lucidity came, Dranel knew himself instantly. The last thing he remembered was observing Gala. She had done something, and he had reacted. Whatever it was, it had brought him the deep calm he longed for. But now the lucidity he often cursed was back.
Dranel’s thoughts were clearer than he could ever recall, and he arrived at a decision. He strongly preferred the serenity of not thinking to this state of lucidity. Yes, lucidity had its moments, like when he was observing Gala, but as fascinating as those small moments were, on the whole they did not seem worth leaving the blissful state he so often found himself in.
Thinking of Gala distracted Dranel again. He felt something related to her. A sense of urgency. A sense of awe. She was here. And not in the ephemeral presence he had witnessed before, when he’d learned her name. No, she was here in the same way Dranel was here.
Quickly he brought his attention to her and saw that he was too late. She had just become interwoven in a spell. He examined the algorithm of the spell. What the mathematics implied was genius.
It was a way out of this realm—something Dranel had thought impossible to initiate from within the Spell Realm itself.
He reacted instantly. He didn’t want Gala to leave. He wanted to interact with her once more.
He tried to change the pattern responsible for her departure, to stop its unfolding, but it didn’t work. Still, Dranel knew he should be able to do something to that pattern, so he tried again. This time, he attempted to slow the spell down, and that seemed to have a small effect. Even so, he only had mere moments to observe her before she left. Fleetingly, he wondered if this slowdown would harm Gala somehow, but decided that it would not. In the worst case, as a side effect, it could tamper with the timeline of when she would appear in the Physical Realm.
With no time to lose, Dranel began examining Gala and her handiwork. As he marveled at her beauty, he became aware of something else. She was not the only strange pattern interwoven into this departure spell. There was another. Curious, Dranel took a closer look at this other being—and recoiled.
Something about this other pattern filled Dranel with dread—and it was only when he felt it that he realized what dread meant. It was an emotion, and emotions were the reason he preferred never to be lucid.
This pattern evoked a barrage of emotions in Dranel, each one worse than the one preceding it. It wasn’t the pattern itself—Dranel was certain he had never seen it before—but rather the way the pattern made Dranel feel. There was anger and a sense of loss, desperate longing and regret. He felt overwhelmed with feelings. And in the midst of all this turmoil, Dranel wished for one thing above all: for the silence of the Spell Realm to take all of these emotions away.
Before he could even start to contemplate how to regain his serenity, the spell he tried to slow down finished its execution, taking Gala and whatever accompanied her to the Physical Realm.
Dranel stayed behind, his thoughts in turmoil. He wanted to return to his former peaceful existence, but he didn’t know how. Something about what had just happened disturbed him deeply, and he didn’t understand what it was.
As he drifted, lucid, in the pattern-filled world surrounding him, he found himself resenting every bit of noise, every spell that felt like an intrusion. He tried to be someplace where there were no disruptions, no echoes from the Physical Realm, but such a place could not be found.
And as time went on, Dranel slowly came to the realization that nothing would ever be the same again—unless he did something to restore the peace and quiet he longed for.
Unless he silenced the source of his distress.
Sneak Peeks
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Excerpt from
The Thought Readers
Note: The Thought Readers is the first book in a new urban fantasy series, Mind Dimensions. The excerpt below is unedited and subject to change.
* * *
Sometimes I think I’m crazy. Right now I am sitting at a casino table, and everyone around me is motionless, as though frozen. I call this the Quiet, as though giving it a name makes it seem more real—as though giving it a name changes the fact that all the players around me are sitting there like statues, and I am walking among them looking at the cards they have been dealt. Doesn’t that sound crazy?
The problem with the theory of my being crazy is that when I ‘unfreeze’ the world, as I just did, the cards the players turn over are the same ones I just saw in the Quiet. If I were crazy, wouldn’t these cards just be random? Unless I am so far gone that I am imagining the cards on the table.
But then I win also. If that’s a delusion—if the pile of chips on my side of the table is a delusion—then I might as well question everything. Maybe my name isn’t even Darren.
No. I can’t think that way. If I am truly that confused, then I don’t want to snap out of it—because if I do, I will probably wake up in a mental hospital.
Besides, I love my life, crazy and all.
My shrink thinks the Quiet is an inventive way
I describe ‘the inner workings of my genius.’ Now that sounds crazy to me. She also might want me, but that’s beside the point. Suffice it to say, she is as far as it gets from my datable age range. In any case, her explanation would not work, as it doesn’t account for the way I know things even a genius wouldn’t know—like the exact value and suit of the other players’ cards.
I watch as the dealer begins a new round. Besides me, there are three players at the table. The Cowboy, the Grandma, and the Professional, as I mentally call them. I feel that now-almost-imperceptible fear that accompanies the phasing—that’s what I call the process: phasing into the Quiet. Worrying about my sanity has always facilitated phasing; fear seems to be helpful in this process.
I phase in, and everything gets quiet. Hence the name for this state.
It is eerie to me even now. This casino is usually very loud. Drunk people talking, slot machines, ringing of wins, music—the only place louder is a club or a concert. And yet, right at this moment, I could probably hear a pin drop. It’s as though I’ve gone deaf to the chaos that surrounds me.
Having so many frozen people around adds to the strangeness of it. Here is a waitress stopped mid-step, carrying a tray with drinks. There is a woman about to pull a slot machine lever. At my own table, the dealer’s hand is raised, and the last card he dealt is hanging unnaturally in the air. I walk up to it from the side of the table and reach for it. It’s a king, meant for The Professional. Once I let the card go, it falls on the table rather than continuing to float as before—but I know full well that it will be back in the air, in the exact position it was when I grabbed it, when I phase out.
The Professional has the look I always pictured for people who make money by playing poker. Scruffy, shades on, and a bit odd-looking. He has been doing an excellent job with the ‘poker face’—basically not twitching a single muscle throughout the game. His face is so expressionless that I wonder if he might’ve gotten some Botox to aid in maintaining such a stony countenance. His hand is on the table, protectively covering the cards dealt to him.
I move his limp hand away. It feels normal. Well, in a manner of speaking. The hand is sweaty and hairy, so moving it aside is unpleasant and is an abnormal thing to do. The normal part is that the hand is warm, rather than cold. When I was a kid, I expected people to feel cold in the Quiet, like stone statues.
With the Professional’s hand moved away, I pick up his cards. Combined with the king that was hanging in the air, he has a nice high pair. Good to know.
I walk over to the Grandma. She’s already holding her cards, and she has fanned them nicely for me. I am able to avoid touching her wrinkled, spotted hands. This is a relief, as I have recently become conflicted about touching people—or, more specifically, women—in the Quiet. If I had to, I would rationalize touching the Grandma’s hand as harmless—or at least, not creepy—but it’s better to avoid it if possible.
In any case, she has a low pair. I feel bad for her. She’s been losing quite a bit tonight. Her chips are dwindling. Perhaps her losses are due, at least partially, to the fact that she’s not good at keeping a poker face. Even before looking at her cards, I knew they wouldn’t be good because I could tell she was disappointed with her hand as soon as it was dealt. I also caught a gleeful gleam in her eyes a few rounds ago when she had a winning three of a kind.
This whole game of poker is, to a large degree, an exercise in reading people—something I really want to get better at. I have been told I am great at reading people at my job. But I am not. I am just good at using the Quiet to make it seem like I am. I do want to learn how to do it for real, though.
What I don’t care that much about in this poker game is money. I do well enough financially to not have to depend on hitting it big gambling. I don’t care if I win or lose, though quintupling my money back at the blackjack table had been fun. This whole trip has been more about going gambling because I finally can, being twenty-one and all. I was never into fake IDs, so this is an actual milestone for me.
Leaving the Grandma alone, I move on to the next player—the Cowboy. I can’t resist taking off his straw hat and trying it on. I wonder if it’s possible for me to get lice this way. Since I have never been able to bring back any inanimate objects from the Quiet, nor otherwise affect the world in any lasting way, I figure I wouldn’t be able to get any living critters to come back with me either. Dropping the hat, I look at his cards. He has a pair of aces—a better hand than the Professional. The Cowboy may be a professional as well. He has a good poker face, as far as I can tell. It will be interesting to watch those two in this round.
Next, I walk up to the deck and look at the top cards, memorizing them. I’m not leaving anything to chance.
With my task in the Quiet complete, I walk back to myself. Oh, yes, did I mention that I see myself sitting there, frozen like the rest of them? That’s the weirdest part. It’s like having an out-of-body experience.
Approaching my frozen self, I look at him. I usually avoid doing this, as it’s too unsettling. No amount of looking in the mirror or seeing videos of yourself on YouTube can prepare you for viewing your own body in 3D. It’s not something anyone is meant to experience. Aside from identical twins, I guess.
It’s hard to believe that this person is me. He looks more like just some guy. Well, maybe a bit more than that. I do find this guy very interesting. Usually, I don’t consider other guys capable of looking interesting, but I am curious about how my frozen self looks. Or, more accurately, I like the way my frozen self looks. He looks cool. He looks smart.
I think women would probably consider him good-looking, though it’s not a modest thing to admit.
I am not good at rating the attractiveness of guys—never have been—but some things are common sense. I can tell when a dude is ugly, and this frozen me is not. I also know that generally, being good-looking requires a symmetrical face—and the statue of me has that. A strong jaw doesn’t hurt either. Check. Having broad shoulders is a positive, and being tall really helps. All covered. I have blue eyes—that seems to be a plus. Girls have told me that they like my eyes, though right now, on the frozen me, they look creepy—glassy and shiny. They look like the eyes of a wax figure. Lifeless.
Realizing that I’m dwelling on this subject too long, I shake my head. I can just picture my shrink analyzing this moment. Who would imagine admiring themselves like this as part of their mental illness? I can just picture her scribbling down words like ‘narcissistic.’
Enough. I need to leave the Quiet. Raising my hand, I touch my frozen self on the forehead, and I hear noise again as I phase out.
Everything is back to normal.
The king that I looked at a moment before—the king that I left on the table—is in the air again, and from there it follows the trajectory it was always meant to, landing near the Professional’s hands. The Grandma is still eyeing her fanned cards in disappointment, and the Cowboy has his hat on again, though I took it off in the Quiet. Everything is exactly as it was the moment I phased into the Quiet.
On some level, my brain never ceases to be surprised at the discontinuity of the experience in the Quiet and outside it. It’s almost hardwired into us to question reality when such things happen. When I was trying to outwit my shrink, early on in the therapy, I once read a whole psychology textbook during our session. She, of course, didn’t notice it, as I did it in the Quiet. The book talked about how babies, even as young as two months old, get surprised if they see something out of the ordinary, like gravity appearing to work backwards. It’s no wonder my brain has trouble adapting. Until I was ten, the world behaved normally, but since then, everything has been weird, to put it mildly.
Glancing down, I realize I am holding a three of a kind. Next time I will look at my cards before phasing. If I have something this strong, I might take my chances and play fair.
The game unfolds predictably because I know everybody’s cards. At the end, the Grandma gets up. She’s clearly lost enough
money.
And that’s when I see her for the first time.
She’s hot. My friend Bert at work claims that I have a ‘type.’ He even described to me what my type is, after he saw a few of the girls I dated. I reject the overall idea of a ‘type.’ I don’t like to think of myself as shallow or predictable. But I might actually be a bit of both because this girl fits Bert’s description of my type to a T. And my reaction is extreme interest, to say the least.
Large blue eyes. Well-defined cheekbones on a slender face, with a hint of something exotic. Long, extremely shapely legs, like those of a dancer. Dark wavy hair in a ponytail, which I like. And without bangs—even better. I hate bangs—not sure why girls do that to themselves. Though lack of bangs was not, strictly speaking, in Bert’s description of my type, it probably should have been.
I continue staring at her. With her high heels and tight skirt, she’s a bit overdressed for this place. Or maybe I’m a bit underdressed in my jeans and t-shirt. Either way, I don’t care. I have to try to talk to her.
I debate phasing into the Quiet and approaching her, so I can do something creepy, like staring at her up close or maybe even snooping in her pockets. Anything to help me when I talk to her.
I decide against it, which is probably the first time that has ever happened.
My reasoning for breaking my usual habit, if you can even call it that, is very strange. Talk about jumping the gun. I picture the following chain of events: she agrees to date me, we date for a time, we get serious, and because of the deep connection we have, I come clean about the Quiet. She learns I did something creepy and has a fit, then dumps me. It’s ridiculous to think this, of course, considering that we haven’t even spoken yet. She might have an IQ below 70 or have the personality of a piece of wood. There can be twenty different reasons I wouldn’t want to date her. And besides, it’s not all up to me. She might tell me to go fuck myself as soon as I try to talk to her.
