11 Perchance to Dream
He couldn’t think about Ophelia Goodfellow right now.
His father knew he was back in town and he expected a call soon. Adam decided to wait for the call. His father would wonder why he hadn’t “checked in” and that was fine. Adam had to keep him a little off balance. Perusing the company’s files and ledgers, he found that serious money flowed into projects that had obvious goals of uncovering the truth that Adam had failed to discover for his father.
But Adam had discovered “the truth” and it had captured him and turned his talents to actually hiding that same truth. So he made a catalog of his father’s projects. Most were pointless and would lead to nothing. Some he would have to find a very subtle way to misdirect.
However, even that would take a back seat to his most pressing problem: How to get Mahin out of his head.
Adam was unsure of the damage done. She prowled his REM sleep like a slinking cat in the jungle of his dreamscape, sometimes merely observing from the shadows, other times attacking with a manic glee. She had shattered his conditioning with those attacks and Pappi inferred that they knew enough about Abigail and such but how much did she really know? Everything? Or only ideas and vague impressions?
It really didn’t matter. Any information lost was dangerous so she had to go or at least be contained.
Pappi had offered his clue in the alley outside the jazz club. His dreams needed lucidity. Lucid dreaming is what he meant. Adam was sure of it.
He was aware of the concept of lucid dreaming. Waking up in your dream and taking control of the narrative was a fascinating possibility but his initial research had led him to believe that even with constant training and effort, actual lucidity within the dream would be an occasional occurrence, almost random even. He had experimented during his college years and may have had some success but when he achieved a lucid state, the shock of the reality of the dreamscape always awakened him. Back then, the experiment had waned with the pressures of daily living.
Now he needed it. He had to have control so he spent an entire morning checking for new research and ideas on the topic of lucid dreaming and found most of it to be the same. Mediation helped. Reality checks, constantly asking “Is this a dream”, were necessary. The need for deep restful sleep went without saying along with a dream journal to help with remembering. And maybe a trigger to look for in the dream, something to pull your awareness forward. Looking for your hands seemed popular.
There was also the matter of Monsieur Portier’s machine. The small contraption seemed to be the guts of a vintage music box, but with additions. A wire crank protruded from a mish mash of parts and gears, crowned with a miniature gramophone horn. Adam wound the mechanism up and released the stop. A subtle thrumming sound filled the room. It was like it was meant to be felt more than heard. Not unpleasant at all but how did this help?
Or more importantly, why would Monsieur Portier help? What did he gain?
Adam sat on that thought for a while and he came to the conclusion that it was Pappi. He still wanted to help. He had offered the clue in the alley and most likely asked Monsieur Portier to make something to assist. But why?
Unless Pappi had the information he wanted and now he needed Adam to play his part. Mahin had delivered the information but she threatened to drive him insane with nightly intrusions. Pappi still needed Adam for whatever reason so he offered assistance in ways that would not lead to a direct confrontation with Mahin.
It was an interesting play and Adam could not see a reason to refuse the help, ignoring, of course, the issue of Mr. Leeds. That situation would circle back around eventually but for now, it appeared stable. No need to make it unstable. No need to even think about it.
So what did the music box do?
Adam usually set aside a little bit of time each day to meditate, pursuing mindfulness but sometimes experimenting with other methods. It was actually a habit he picked up during his study of lucid dreaming in college, strangely enough, but it served to reset his mind and ease some anxiety. He had to surf through a hurricane of information every day and meditation was the eye of the storm.
What if he tried the music box during meditation? It seemed a safe way to test things.
He turned the crank and set the contraption on the floor in front of his meditation pillow. He sat in a simple half lotus pose and tested his reach. He could easily flick the stop switch and turn on the box from his position.
“Lights to twenty-five percent,” he said and the blinds fell gently over the windows and the interior lights dimmed. Adam rolled his shoulders and willed himself to relax. He should have spent some time on a yoga mat before trying this but this was just a test to see what, if anything, would happen. He settled into his pose, hands lightly on his knees, spine straight, chin slightly tucked, and he began to observe his breath. He focused on the sensation of air moving past his nostrils, the pull and push of his abdomen. Thoughts raced and competed for attention but he pulled himself away from the storm toward the center of his mind. The thoughts became a movie that played on the inside of his forehead and, with that separation, the movie began to stutter and fade.
A practiced calm fell over him.
Slowly, he reached out and tapped the switch. The deep thrum filled the room and he could feel it, instantly, at the edges of his mind. He kept his focus on the breath but the sound pressed in and Adam made no effort to resist it. His mode was observation and he tried to surrender to the experience.
When the vibration found the center of his skull, the place where he had tucked his awareness to pull away from his racing thoughts, he felt himself drop into a familiar state.
Hypnagogia. The transitional state between wakefulness and sleeping. He was familiar with it because his study and practice of lucid dreaming had taught him to look for it and to be very aware as the mind passed from awake to asleep. Only this time his mind did not pass. It hovered in the gray in-between, not awake and not asleep. There were many mental disciplines that worked within the hypnagogic state but the challenge was to stay in that state. But here he was. Floating. Barely aware of the room and the thrum. It was effortless.
Until, in the gray, a darkness bloomed. Adam’s mind worked with the writhing mass until it formed a tunnel. He knew it was his imagination working with what it saw. One was very prone to hallucinations of every sort within hypnagogia. However, he willed himself to the opening and accepted the idea that he traveled into a wide portal located between his eyebrows. His consciousness moved into the tunnel and then he saw colors. Vibrant colors from across the spectrum raced past him in bands and walls as he passed through the center of his mind and began to fall through floors of light.
Adam clung to his state of passive observation but it was hard. Excitement welled up within and if it bubbled to the top of his mind, the scene before him would flex and roll with static until he could imagine a long slow breath. Eventually, his motion slowed and the colors bled away. He realized he was still in his position, sitting on a pillow, hands lightly on his knees.
He sat on an infinite plane of black granite beneath a dark, unfamiliar sky filled with stars and swaths of light and colorful gas. His mind remained in neutral, coasting through the details, even as a slow realization surfaced through the observations. Some of this was his construct. It was his mind making sense of infinity.
Infinity and something else.
The contemplation of the possibilities began to weigh him down. He felt his apartment materializing around him and the pressure of the floor and his pillow.
Then, the space in front of him flexed and he found his breath again. Lines of prismatic light whirled and looped a few meters out and slowly formed a vortex. From within the swirling wormhole, the dark form of a man emerged but the moment his booted foot hit the granite, he grew and transformed, writhing into a new shape, pulling at the ropes of light, gathering energy into itself. The form settled into a serpent, long and sinuous, very much a dragon with flowing whiskers, draping tendrils, and silver scales, towering above Adam, looking down on him with glowing eyes. Its claws clenched and unclenched and the rumble that came from its throat seemed to match the timber of Monsieur Poitier’s machine.
Adam’s calm remained. Now he knew this was a dream. A magnificent dream, but a dream nonetheless. His mind made something from nothing to fill the void. So he sat without fear and the massive head of the creature loomed over him and he admired it. He basked in the power that it radiated.
“Your mind,” said a voice behind him, “is impressive.”
He wanted to turn to the oddly familiar voice but the cool touch of a hand to his shoulder stopped him.
“Not yet,” she said. “I don’t think you are ready for that.”
The dragon pulled away, hovering like a storm cloud with bouts of silver and crackling energy.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
“Meditation,” Adam said.
“And what’s that sound?”
“Monsieur Portier’s machine.”
“Monsieur Portier,” she said softly, as if thinking. “Monsieur Portier.” Then she laughed suddenly, a high pitched girlish giggle. “Oh my, how clever. And he gave it to you?”
“Yes.”
“That is so very interesting.”
“Why?” Adam asked. “Who is he? Why would he help me?”
“That remains to be seen and I will not interfere.”
“Why?” he began. His words felt thick and slow. “Why not?”
She ignored the question.
“The creature before you,” she said. “Do you know it?”
Adam stared at the creation before him and it glared at him.
“Some of it,” he said. “Some of it, somehow.”
“It is Tiagasha. It is of two worlds and you can carry some Tiagashan energy. I think it is why you found your way here. I think that’s how he found you. Think on this.”
‘Tiagasha,” Adam said.
“I see in your mind that you want to dream. I will tell you that you can. But you must not fall. Stand firm when you find the Quick and you will dream.”
“The Quick?”
The dragon reached out and its claws gripped the air and pulled on reality until the ropes and bands of color showed like glowing cables clenched in his hands.
“The Quick,” she said. “Now go.”
“Wait-”
He fell upwards, into the starry sky and through a tunnel of light, slamming into his body with a force that knocked him off of his meditation pillow and sent him sprawling across the floor.
Adam sat at his kitchen table over a cup of cooling black coffee and tried to process the experience.
The Quick.
Tiagasha.
It was just a dream. It had to be but parts of the experience gripped his thoughts and wouldn’t let go. He could close his eyes and see details and wonder at the sight of the impossible all over again. It was like walking out of the movie theater after watching the most immersive movie ever made.
Or waking up from a very vivid dream.
The important thing was that Monsieur Portier’s machine worked. It took him into a hypnagogic state and from there he could ease into REM and most likely maintain control. How or what Mahin could do to stop him remained to be seen.
His implant buzzed and he blinked to call up the display only to realize he didn’t have his contacts in. He reached for his phone.
Ophelia. And he had missed a call from her an hour earlier. It was odd that the buzzing implant hadn’t interrupted his meditation.
His thoughts moved like cold oil through his mind. He could not talk to her right now.
No, he would finish some work and then go to bed. He had to sleep and he knew he wouldn’t dream. Not tonight. His mind was a pleasantly dull maze of mud. There would be no dreams for Mahin to torture tonight.
The next day, Adam kept his work load light. His sleep had been deep, restful and dreamless as he knew it would be. His mind felt better, almost good. He sailed through his “chores”, arranged for the wolves to be where they need to be for tomorrow night’s operation and briefed the team.
Next order of business was time on a yoga mat. An hour of yoga should clear the last of the sludge from his mind.
His implant buzzed. His father’s face rolled into view on his contacts. Adam sighed.
It was expected but the timing, as usual, was awkward.
He answered.
“Father.”
“So I have to hear from Frank that you’re back in town?”
“I was settling in. Figured you were busy and I was going to drop by and see you in a day or two.”
“So you're back to stay?”
Adam unconsciously nodded. “For a while. I can work on contracts remotely for the most part but one of the jobs paid to have me local and it happened to be in Perdition Falls. Thought it might be a sign.”
“A sign, huh?” His Father sounded skeptical. Which was normal. “So this consultant agency of yours is doing well?”
“Well enough.”
“So well that you don’t need your apartment?”
“That apartment is bugged.”
“Normal security measures.”
“I can afford my own place.”
Silence.
“Fine,” his father snapped, finally. “Can you manage lunch this week? Here at the office perhaps?”
“I’ll reach out to Charlotte and work something out.” Charlotte was his father’s personal assistant.
“Excellent,” he said. “I look forward to it.”
“As do I, Father.”
“I am glad to have you home, Adam.”
Bullshit.
“Glad to be home, Father.”
He could not make an enemy of Mahin so he would have to fashion a peace of sorts.
But how?
Even as he finished his before-bed routine, he processed the possibilities. He would have to talk to her. Engage her somehow. At the moment, she was predator, he was prey. If he tried to flip that relationship, nothing would be accomplished. No, he needed peace. Detente, at least.
Pappi expected him to work this out without further guidance, he was sure of it. It was a test. Pappi lost nothing if Adam failed. But Adam proved his potential if he succeeded. But how to succeed?
Adam stretched out on his bed. Monsieur Portier’s device sat on the night stand within easy reach. He felt a bit of trepidation tinged with excitement. The unknown and unknowable stretched out before him. A new frontier. A space for new ideas.
He wasn’t sure if Mahin would talk to him. It was worth a try though. If she remained hostile, then he would have to consider other strategies. She couldn’t be an enemy, though. He had to sleep and he had to have his mind.
After several deep breaths, he reached out and hit the switch on the device. He let the thrum soak into his skull and he settled into the gray. It was so easy with the machine. Sleep hovered like a cloud around him. If he moved, he would be asleep but for now, he hovered in the gray. Slowly he became aware of the ribbons of light and energy, subtle, but there on the edge of the in-between.
The Quick.
What was it? Could it be manipulated? The dragon, the Tiagasha, had gripped it like it was a real thing, as if he could have pulled and twisted the energetic fabric to his will.
The more he studied the colors and lines, the less prominent the gray became. Suddenly he realized he was floating. He could look down and could see paths through the energy. He felt like he stood on the tallest building with his toes on the edge.
Don’t fall.
It was tempting. To go explore. To try to understand. To see what else his mind could come up with to complement the Quick and the Tiagasha which were obviously some repressed something from somewhere deep in his consciousness. The Quick was the dreamscape. The Tiagasha was . . . power? The Unknown? It was such a perfect amalgamation of every dragon from myth and legend, with elements of eastern and western varieties. Could it represent mystery?
More research was in order.
Mahin arrived. The gray thickened and he could see her as a bit of darkness in the distance. Normally when he fell asleep, moving past hypnagogia, she would attack, twisting his mind to her whims. It wasn’t horrible every time but she did have a sadistic streak. For Adam though, the horror was in the lack of control. She could peel the layers of his mind away like an onion and make him relive past moments from his life or express a hidden fear and make him wallow in it. She had complete access. Complete control of his dreamscape.
Or did she?
He had an idea. He wished he could test it first but there wasn’t time.
Adam took a moment to bring up a memory. He focused his senses, sight, sound, smell and made them real in his dreamscape even as he walked toward her. With each step the memory became more real until the stage was set. And then he added details,
He wore khakis and a white silk shirt.
He stood in a villa next to a pool filled with the bluest water.
The sun blazed overhead in the cloudless sky but the heat remained moderate. Artful ceramic tile covered every surface and the west Mediterranean addiction to color showed everywhere. A breeze from the north smelled of the sea. Rolling foothills stretched to the west. To the east, yellow dunes marked the beginning of the desert.
On a vintage daybed beside the pool, lay Mahin, asleep, on her side, nestled into a plethora of white pillows. She looked younger and even more beautiful in an old Hollywood kind of way where glamor and effortless grace were the norm behind a soft focus lens. She wore a loose linen dress that was as white as the nest of her pillows.
Beside the bed, a table with a glass top held an array of foods from the region.
Mahin stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, then she jerked herself into an upright position and looked around frantically. She saw him finally. She glared, a sneer forming easily.
“What’s this,” she hissed.
“This,” he said with some authority. “Is my dream.”
“Is it?”
The light fell from the world as Mahin launched into the air above him like a wind swept banshee. Adam closed his eyes and spun in a tight circle, pulling the vision of the villa with him. When he opened his eyes, Mahin was asleep on the daybed. Her eyes fluttered open. She pushed herself to her knees and looked at him with wide sea green eyes. Then her features went dark and twisted and she fell through the ghost shell of his villa, growing as she fell until the palm of her hand was the ground beneath Adam’s feet. He closed his eyes and spun and the villa followed him. Mahin lay asleep on the daybed.
She opened her eyes slowly. She didn’t move. Only her eyes moved to look at him and her eyes slowly filled with fear.
He almost felt bad.
She moved cautiously, pushing herself up and away until she cowered in the corner of the daybed.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
Adam walked forward, his hands open. “I’ve done nothing,” he said. “It’s my dream.”
He sat on the edge of the bed as far away from her as he could but still within reach of the table.
“This specifically, is a villa in Morocco. It’s pretty close to my favorite place on the planet.”
“What will you do?” she said in a small voice.
Adam waved at the food. “I plan to drink wine and eat.”
“And then.”
“Small talk.”
“Small talk?”
He shrugged. “Maybe not so small. You see, I have an passing interest in food history. I think I have some dishes here from cultures you would be familiar with. I was hoping for a little compare and contrast?”
Mahin relaxed slightly, out of shock if nothing else.
“You are serious?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “We have a selection of tagines that are mostly chicken so I was going to go with white wine unless you have a suggestion.”
“How could you-” she began. She looked around, taking in the details before turning her eyes back to him beneath furrowed brows. “How could you do this?”
“A revelation of sorts,” he said, plucking an olive from the table. “I studied lucid dreaming in college and it occurred to me that this is my dream.” He popped the olive into his mouth and chewed. The taste was unexpectedly amazing. The best olive he had ever tasted.
Mahin studied him as he went for another olive.
“How could you not desire revenge?” she asked at last.
“And what would that serve?”
She blinked.
Adam continued. “You had a mission. You completed the mission. And then came your nature.” He reached for a wine glass. “I’m not going to fault you for being you, but-”
“But?”
He smiled. “But it is my dream.” He selected a wine bottle and poured the wine. “Come try the food. I promise it’s delicious. To start we have hummus, babaganoush and couscous.”
“Couscous?” she said with a lifted eyebrow.
Adam nodded. “Not my favorite but I wanted your opinion.” He held out the glass of wine to her.
Her face was still a beautiful mask of worry. Still, she slowly unfolded herself from the corner and moved to the edge of the bed on her knees and then gracefully swung her legs down to sit on the edge. She looked over the food and then to Adam.
“This is ridiculous,” she growled but she took the wine. Adam pulled the pile of pita bread towards them, took one, tore it in half and offered it to her. She accepted. She tore it again and folded the bread to make a little scoop. She dipped into the couscous and took a delicate bite.
“Delicious,” she said flatly and took a sip of wine.
Mahin tried the hummus next. “This has peppers,” she said. “We did not have peppers.”
“Noted,” Adam said. He leaned back with his wine and watched her take testing bites of each dish. Her comments were sparse but informative. The addition of peppers seemed to be the most egregious culinary error. Then she returned for more of certain dishes.
Adam carefully noted her favorites.
As she slowed down, she held out her empty wine glass in a regal fashion and Adam filled it.
“It’s strange,” she said, swirling the wine in the glass. “I don’t remember much about the wine.”
“Perhaps wine is timeless?”
Mahin cut her eyes to him as she sipped. “Perhaps,” she said, gently placing the glass on the table. “So where does this go from here?”
“It doesn’t have to go anywhere,” Adam said. “It’s my dream. You are a guest. And you will be treated as such.”
“A guest?” She gave him a charming smile that could be easily taken as seductive.
“Exactly,” he said. “A guest.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Adam shrugged. “Test me, then.”
“And how would I test you? It's your dream.”
He smiled. “Tomorrow night, I was thinking Greek with Turkish coffee as a finish.”
Mahin studied him from beneath thick lashes, her cat green eyes glittering in the sharp light. She was beautiful and timeless and he could feel the weight of centuries bearing down on him with her scrutiny and endless experiences. His plan may have been a touch arrogant. What could he offer a goddess who had lived lifetimes? Except maybe a nice chicken tagine and good wine. Adam had seen the kitchen at the Asylum. He was certain her waking world choices were limited. This had been a gamble but maybe she forgot that she had her thousand lifetimes to dream with? Either way, it was his play and he wasn’t dead yet.
Mahin put a hand on the edge of the bed and leaned toward him. “So should I knock first,” she purred. “Or just come on in?”
Adam smiled. “I will say that you are always welcome. But it is my dream.”
Mahin laughed, picked up her wine glass and then relaxed into the pillows on her end of the bed. The sense of threat, of predation was gone. The Scourge of Dreams was a satiated woman in a mountain of pillows with a glass of wine.
“So what now?” she asked.
Adam reached for a new bottle of wine.
“So tell me about the time before peppers,” he said.
