City of IF

[Shady Stoat]

The majority vote was to follow Shakal's advice and flee the dream, heading toward the lights. Chapter 14 follows from that...

Chapter Fourteen

This one is different,” says the boy, softly.

That is what decides her. Suddenly, it seems very important that she gets out of this place. She has always been different, even Shakal has said that she is all-but unique. For some reason, the boy senses her, and she is ill-prepared for any meeting on his terms.

She tries to ignore the circling of the grubby lad as he attempts to pin her down. Instead, she focuses her fuzzy mind on the lights. The lantern’s brightness is a far cry from the soft patterns that she needs, but she makes herself see auras and colours there. It is her dream, she can control it.

If only the buzzing would leave her alone.

It grows louder. She concentrates until she thinks her head will explode with the effort. Is she seeing the lights or is she simply straining her eyes until they will see virtually anything? The answer comes as she begins to fade away from this place. The last thing she hears from the boy is a whispered:

“Who are you?”

The lights dance and blur in the darkness. Now that the whispering is not pressing in on her head, she feels like she could drift forever. There is peace and calm and the silence of the void. Something nags at her, vaguely, but she can ignore it. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the lights and their random movement. Nothing matters…

----------

There was a sharp, stinging pain. Keli’s consciousness slammed back into her body with a force that made her gasp. She raised a tentative hand to her stinging cheek as tears brimmed. Shakal was sitting opposite, her teeth bared and her hand still raised. She looked as frightening as anything Keli had ever seen.

“What were you thinking!” growled the Were, eyes blazing with obvious fury.

“I… I… what?” Keli retreated into confusion.

“When I give you instructions, I expect them to be obeyed. What is the point in me being your guide if you will not allow yourself to be guided by me? Oh, you stupid humans, you cannot co-operate with anyone! I should have ignored the Oracle, I should have gone home to face whatever the future brings, with my family! Why am I even here?”

Keli opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. She had never seen the wolf so wild. Her eyes darted to the door at the top of the cellar stairs, wondering whether she could reach them before…

No. Of course she couldn’t. Shakal was stronger and faster.

She sat, frozen, as the wolf continued to rant.

“Why did you go to that place, anyway? You could have been killed! You could have ruined us all!”

“I… didn’t know where I was going,” quavered Keli.

“I told you it was dangerous. I told you to follow the lights and come back to me, but you chose to ignore my warnings!”

A combination of fear and outrage pushed the words out of her.

“I didn’t choose to ignore you. I didn’t choose to go into another dream. Don’t you understand – I don’t know what I’m doing!” She heard her voice rising and fought to keep it to a pitch that wouldn’t bring Maurice charging down the cellar steps again. “You said you’d teach me, didn’t you? Well, I’m going to make mistakes, what else do you expect?”

“Mistakes are one thing,” Shakal shot back, “but endangering your own life is another entirely. You could have been hurt – or lost to us. Just because you dream, it does not make you immune to harm.”

She paused and some of the fire seemed to fade out of her. “If you fail, I fail also. We must be more careful. Promise me you will stay away from that place, until you are ready.”

Keli held back a retort to the effect that she had not meant to go there in the first place. It seemed Shakal had been so angry only because of her anxiety – and that very breakdown of inhibitions made the girl more inclined to trust her.

“I promise,” she said, hoping that she could live up to the pledge.

“Good.” The wolf took a deep breath. “Now – we should try again. This time, try to keep an image of where you want to be. Do not think about it, just let it drift through your mind as you observe the lights.”

Keli lay on the cold floor, trying to think and not think simultaneously. Whenever she relaxed her thoughts, the image of the beaten boy wandered into her head. For whatever reason, it was imperative that she didn’t go back there. Anywhere else would do.

In the end, she drifted back into the meditation/sleep world. Shakal was relentless, teaching her to control her surroundings, come back to the waking world at her own will and how to ‘smell’ whether one of her dreams was taking place in the past, present or future. This was something that Keli balked at.

Between training sessions, she complained:

“I don’t know what you mean. How am I supposed to smell the difference between past and present? What sort of smells? Which one is which?”

Shakal shrugged, almost helplessly. “I have no better way of explaining. The past is like… like the smell of fire gone cold. The future is… the scent you get on a hilltop, among the low clouds. The present is like dew on grass. It is just a matter of coming to recognize them.”

“I don’t think with my nose, like you do,” Keli objected, then faltered as she realized how tactless she might have been. “I mean… isn’t there a colour, or a feel to the different types of dreams?”

The wolf tilted her head. “If there is, you will have to find it by yourself. I can only teach you as I have been taught. Your nose may well be too pitiful for the job. We shall see.”

They saw indeed. Keli despaired of ever being able to scent what seemed to obvious to her guide. After exploring the dream-world for a while, though, she began to detect an echo in the sounds around her. Voices – and screams – doubled slightly in her ears. If she listened carefully, she could detect whether the doubling preceded the main sound or whether it followed.

‘Could that be it?’ she asked the guide within her head.

‘I was taught only the scent,” answered the wolf. Then, almost sounding excited: ‘But I can hear it too – if I try. Yes, use the echoes. Learn from them. Continue.”

And so it went. Together they explored the nuances of her dreams like weary pilgrims. They learned to travel a short distance from where the main events of the dream were ensuing and, with an almost physical presence, to move towards the heart of what she wanted to examine. With the wolf’s instructions, Keli learned to slow and hasten time within her visions. Shakal didn’t say much, but Keli got the vague impression that she was pleased with the progress made. However, it began to get harder with each new attempt to meditate.

Eventually, Keli looked away from the lights with heavy eyes.

“No more,” she said, simply. “I need sleep.”

For a moment, she thought the wolf would not agree. It certainly seemed as though she was about to argue. Then, she gave an abrupt nod of her head.

“Rest then,” she said. She watched as Keli rose with a groan, trudged to a pile of blankets and set about making them comfortable. She was still watching as the girl lay down and closed her eyes. Keli was too tired to care. Within a few minutes, she was asleep.

-----------

She smells fresh grass and the buttery aroma of gorse flowers. There are wide-trunked trees, lining a network of paths through this place. It is open and yet fenced, wild and yet tamed. A park with great open spaces, in the middle of a city where freedom is impossible.

She looks around, hearing bird-song, feeling the sunlight on her face. Much as she would like to stay in this pretty place, she knows that there is something she must do. A single voice chants its siren song at her, willing her closer.

She follows it – not because she must, but because she chooses to. Even as she marvels at the control she can exert over her dream-visions, a high stone wall comes into view. At least, it is stone at the base. The greenery of ivy clings and covers the rest from easy view.

Now she can put a name to this place. She is in the Imperial Gardens, and this is the enclosure that she must face, if she is to win the Stone of Oracles. She leans forward to touch the stone wall. Some force seems to push her away. She sets her will against it and tries harder.

She is winning. She can feel it – and then, she feels a sense of confusion. Why struggle so hard? There is no real victory in touching a wall. She should be concentrating on other things. Yes… other things…

Her mind drifts, trying to catch the fledgling thoughts as they scatter themselves like corn seeds on the wind. There was something about… something…

Shaking her head, she turns away – and she sees him. The ragged boy. He is standing against one of the nearby trees, watching her with steady eyes.

“Who are you?” he asks. “Please. I know you’re there. I know you’re not like the others. Who are you?”

Keli takes an uncertain step towards the boy. Her mind is beginning to clear now.

“I… you shouldn’t be here,” she says. Then stops. Is it the boy she should be avoiding, or the dark hole in which she found him at their last meeting.

“Who are you?”

She hesitates. Then:

“No.”

There is a rumbling from the stone wall behind her. She begins to turn…

-----------


A violent tremor awoke her. Dirt was running in tiny rivers from cracks in the ceiling. Keli coughed out dust as it rose in a cloud around her. The invasion of peculiar sound was back, battering itself against her thoughts. She pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. It didn’t help to drown out the noise or the needle-pains behind her skull. She screwed her eyes shut and waited for it to stop.

Nearly a minute later, both the rumbling and the pain went away as abruptly as they had started. The earth ceased to judder and the beams around them gradually stopped creaking and shifting. Keli opened her eyes, cautiously. She felt grey and gritty with dust. Standing up, she shook herself, trying not to breathe too hard. Shakal was doing the same, rather more vigorously, near the stairs.

“What is that?” asked Keli, when she could finally speak again. She uncorked one of the ceramic bottles and took a deep swig of water.

“The soul-stones,” said Shakal, shortly. “They lie beneath us, where some of the ruins of the Ancient city are still hidden away. At least, some of them lie beneath us. Others have already been taken by Itharien. You should not think too deeply of such things, otherwise your dreams will take you there again.”

“Again?” Keli repeated, startled. “You mean that’s where I went last night? That’s where the boy was? The one from my portr…”

“Enough. You have rested, your training should continue.” Shakal laid out a blanket and sat down again. “We have only half a day and a night left. There is no point in wasting what time we have on questions which will be answered all too soon.”

Reluctantly, Keli returned to her practice. The meditation came more easily now. Despite what Shakal had said, she found that she could direct herself to one vision over another, almost all the time. With the familiarity of repetition, even the horror of her nightmares seemed manageable now. She was no longer frozen, unable to do anything but watch. However limited her powers were at this point, they were a measure of control over what she was forced to witness.

“I cannot safely teach you any more dream control,” said Shakal, at last. “There are other things you can learn, but the risks of experimenting with them would be too great until you are more confident of your powers.”

Keli regarded her warily. “How much time do we have left here?”

“An evening. A night. You must get some more rest in that time, though. We will be hard-pressed soon enough.”

“I slept not long ago.” Keli took another roll of the biscuits and started chewing through the first one. “I’m not tired yet.”

“Then what would you have us do?”

“Teach me something else,” said the girl, eagerly. “You said I needed to know it all. We have time. Let’s use it.”

“I will not be able to do much more than give you a rough start in a new magical skill,” warned Shakal. “There is not enough time for full instruction.”

“We have to begin somewhere. Don’t we?”

Shakal bowed her head. “Very well, what would you learn next?”

Before Keli could answer, the cellar door opened. Again, it was Maurice.

“I thought you ought to know. There’s another guards’ run on the East side tonight. Some of the Watch are over the bridge already. I’ll be alright – though I can’t say the same for my whisky. I c’n just disappear ‘til they’ve had a poke around, then come back in a day or two. Don’t know whether you two’ll make it though. Mebbe you should get out of here while you still can?”

“A guards’ run?” blurted Keli.

“They raid this side of the city every so often,” remarked Maurice, seeming curiously unbothered. “Sometimes they’re after someone, sometimes, they’re just out on a general raid, picking up anyone interesting they see along the way. Sometimes, o’course, they just do it to take away what little we’ve got over on the East side. All I know is they’re coming and they’ll keep coming until they get bored or they get stung back by some o’the less pleasant types around here. You’re in hiding, so I’m guessing that you don’t want them to come across you – ‘specially the Were. She’d stand out a mile if they was looking for her type. That’s why I warned you. Still, run or stay, it’s all the same to me.”

Shakal looked quietly at Keli. “You are in more danger than I. Should we stay and learn more, or leave?”

Keli swallowed. If they stayed, they ran the risk of being discovered. She was with a Were and she had magic. It was unlikely that her boy’s disguise would help her much against a direct search. They would catch her and hand her over to the church and, in time, she would be burned at the altar. She didn’t want to die!

What if they were looking for someone else, though? What if they gave up before they got this far into the East side? She couldn’t learn everything she needed to know on the run – and she didn’t know if there was anywhere to run to.

The other two were waiting for her answer – and she had no idea what to do for the best…

[ethereal_fauna]

She had decided to stop running before, but this is different. They are searching now where she had decided to hide, and hiding further might not be possible. I'll have to think some more, search for an alternative to running. What she is learning is important, even if Shakal has limited knowledge to offer. She needs to move on her own time and terms, and this isn't the best time.

[Solomon Birch]

Nice progression chapter Stoat! :biggrin:

I think that running would not be a good idea. If the guards are looking for them, then if they try and get away thier chances of discovery are increased. If they stay where they are then at least they have a chance of remaining undiscovered. It is a supposed safe house after all, so they should hopefully be relatively safe. Hopefully... :(

Looking forward to the next chapter Shady, things are gaining momentum!

*holds breath* :shock:

[Suneila]

I agree. This is supposed to be a safe house. They should be reasonably safe(r) here than out on the streets. Stay put during the raid. And we should ask Maurice to disguise(and/or cover) the entrance before he leaves.

~sunny

[Chinaren]

Yes, how safe is this 'safe' house? If there is a good chance of them being found move, if you can find somewhere else to go. Maybe wolfy will know of a place, the weres must have some hidey holes.

[D-Lotus]

Why doesn't she use "dream power" to look into the future and see if the gaurds break into where they are hiding?

Then she can make her decision based on that.

[Suneila]

I don't think she can choose which dream to have (or at least not yet). She can just manipulate and understand the one she's having.

~sunny

[Shady Stoat]

chinaren wrote: Yes, how safe is this 'safe' house?

By 'safe house', Shakal and the other Weres meant somewhere that they could hide away while they got the job done - not somewhere that was mystically free of being raided. Maurice is just someone who is being paid to take a risk by giving these people space in his cellar. Nothing more.

Keeping such vilified creatures safe and hidden is a risk in itself at the moment. They can't count on many friends within the city - especially on the 'safer' West side.

Suneila wrote: I don't think she can choose which dream to have (or at least not yet). She can just manipulate and understand the one she's having.


The idea of looking into the future and attempting to dream about whether the guards will raid or not is an interesting one. Sunny's right - Keli is completely unschooled in that, but she has been able to direct the vision she experiences, by thinking about that subject while she goes into her trance. So far, she has only done that with visions she is familiar with, but it doesn't mean she couldn't give a new vision a try.

Is the future completely set though? Could you 100% trust the results of any such dream?

Thanks for the responses so far, guys. Good thoughts :)

[Smee]

Very interesting chapter - and it's got magical instruction in it - I always love those parts :D

I think the risk of hiding out needs to be taken in favour of more magical instruction (and not because I want to learn more magic..well not totally ;) ) - out in the open they are unlikely to be in a situation where they can both be in trances whilst teaching. All sleep is likely to be in shifts.

I'm assuming Maurice is being used because he, and his house are 'ordinary' enough to pass casual inspection. Unless the guards have managed to pick up a locale from Keli's dream actions before I think this is likely to be the safest place they can hide out.

Happy Writing :)

[Shady Stoat]

Solomon Birch wrote:
I understand this, but surely it is more 'safe' than just any old house. When choosing somewhere to hole up, I would assume they would look for something that does have a lower chance of being raided; maybe hidden away among a mass of tenements or on the outside appears to be a respectable establishment that wouldn't harbour fugitives.

I think that they'd try to find the safest option possible. The thing you have to understand about the East side of the city, though, is that it's very little better than a shanty town. The buildings are falling down around their ears, the people are poor and jammed together, the constant earth-shifts are constantly destroying any attempts to build a better place for themselves. This is where the refuse goes when there's nowhere else to go.

In other words, you're already squashed in among a mass of tenements and there are no respectable establishments that wouldn't harbour fugitives. Most of the people on this side of the bridge ARE fugitives - it's how they survive :)

The good news is that it's a heavily populated area of the city and the soldiers will have their work cut out searching all of it methodically. It's just luck of the draw whether they come close to Maurice's house or not.

Quote: Just an idea, tell me off if I'm overstepping my mark... ;) :biggrin:

Not in the least, mate. Nothing wrong with trying to get Keli the best deal you can ;) I'm just glad you're reading and enjoying :D

[Kalanna Rai]

The raid isn't happening just yet. I say Shakal gives her what lessons she can in that breif time and then they run for it...

[DukeReg]

She should stay. She couldn't keep herself hidden out in the streets before, why would she think she could in the middle of a raid?
The hiding place they are in is the only chance they have. They should stay, and if possible disguise their hiding place even better in case the building is one that is being raided.

[Solomon Birch]

I think that Shakal should get worried, then decides to take a quick look, and then is promptly discovered. Nice little dilemma for Keli.

She could then stumble across a grate set into the floor of the basement and make her escape into the sewers. Then she can try and formulate a plan to resuce Shakal, flee, or do what the Oracle told her.

Just a thought. ;) :D

[Mother Goose]

Can't add any new ideas, but venturing out of the hidden cellar while there's a sweep going on does seem unwise. We hope the old man has disguised the entrance well. Also that the searchers have no guides that can sense magic.

[Tazgirl180992]

Couldn't she ask shakal for her opinion? I mean she is 'the teacher' isn't she? Then make her mind up using shakals opinion. I mean, could the guards be searching for her? Or just being evil? mind you i like duke's idea... kind of! I can't decide!

[Shady Stoat]

Poll's going up later today. Any last thoughts, anyone?

[ethereal_fauna]

None here...poll already :P

[Shady Stoat]

Poll's up now. 3 days, as per :)

[ethereal_fauna]

OOooh, decisions. :? I shouldn't have been so vocal about the polling already stuff- I'll have to think about this one...difficult choice.

[Solomon Birch]

Hmmmm.... Lot's of choice here, but I went for trying to have a vision, as I think she would be eager to try and practice, show Shakal that she isn't useless and because it could mean the difference between horrible pain and death and survival.

*holds breath* :shock:

[ethereal_fauna]

Stay for as long as you can, get what instruction you can, and then move to another safe house. Either stay ahead of the guards, or try to get behind them in places they've already searched and are unlikely to search again.

[Mother Goose]

Trouble is, there's no way of knowing, down here in the cellar, where the guards are or have been. We could venture out just to run smack into them! I'm torn between asking Shakal to choose (she knows the city better) and trying for a vision.

*ponders more*

[ethereal_fauna]

This is a difficult choice. But I'd imagine that since there are other safe houses, other people in this network, then there is some way to observe and pass along information regarding the whereabouts of the ones searching the district.

Staying put for a few hours, packing in as much instruction and information as you can, and then strategically relocating when the opportunity is right, seems like the best approach.

[Smee]

I've gone for learning Astral Travelling.

It's a useful skill that would probably compliment her new dream control where as the item knowledge sounds completely different.

Also - if Shakal can teach that - then she can also ask her to determine if their are guards outside, or if they have passed.

Happy Writing. :)

[DukeReg]

I voted for Astral Travel for much the same reasons as Smee. It doesn't involve leaving and nearly getting caught like before, and it could let her know if they are going to search their hiding place.

[Mother Goose]

Smee and Duke, you've convinced me!

[ethereal_fauna]

Gah...astral travellers. :P

[Shady Stoat]

Astral travelling won. Jolly good. I'll start writing it now :D

[Shady Stoat]

New chapter up, everyone. Thanks for the comments - locking this topic now :)