“I have to see Alia, it’s the only reason I’m here,” Darker says angrily.
He has been on Eel for over a rount and he lives in the same dōjō where Alia is in intense training. Or that’s what the Kazi tell him.
It was difficult to acclimate to the reality of Eel where large rodent people went about their business in colorful mountains like humans on Earth, but the Kazi are extremely easy to get along with and Darker understands why Maria suggested he come here. All of the Eeling are very hospitable and the view in the mountainous terrain is calming. But Darker feels that in their efforts to keep him calm and relaxed, the Kazi are keeping things from him and he doesn’t really trust the peace of the place. He has met only a few Eeling who are not Kazi and he hasn’t left the Tetah District, home to the Master Dōjō of the Kazi, since he arrived there. He doesn’t feel like a prisoner, he just wonders why they aren’t willing to explain things plainly. Like when he asks why he can’t see Alia.
“You can see her when she’s available, but the Alia is occupied,” Kazi Fandral says to him. Fandral’s feet never touch the ground, he always levitates, and Darker wasn’t satisfied with his explanation for that either. It seemed like they always spoke in riddles to him.
“Is she not on this planet? You can just tell me that.”
“Answer the question: What does it mean to be on a planet? And then you can begin to understand. She is here and she is so very far away.”
Darker sighs.
“Can we take jet bikes to the waterfalls today?” Darker asks, frustrated and unwilling to suffer the annoyance. He knows that Fandral isn’t lying to him, so he would rather swim and relax. Fandral was always more talkative when the two had fun together.
“I want you to come with me to the library. I’ve been thinking about the feelings you described, the pull you’ve been experiencing.”
“It’s in the Kazi holy books?” Darker asks jokingly.
“As a matter of fact, it is. You are not being drawn to death, not in the way we know. You are being drawn to our demise and our rebirth. To the Ife-Osu, the everything and the nothing.”
“No, no, no,” Darker says shaking his head. “Not right now. Let’s swim around and then you can spit more riddles at me after we have lunch. The food here is so much better than that IP stuff.”
“It’s not a puzzle. You described it. In your death, before your miraculous resurrection, you were everything you remember, and memories that were not yours, until you weren’t, when you didn’t want to be at all. You were aware in the everything and the nothing, able to experience either at your will. Is that not the experience you described? And now you feel it tugging you back, because you feel that you should never have left it. A return to it means the end of your existence as I have come to know you, and it will be sad to say goodbye, but a man in your situation is torn between the glory of the Creators and this life with your loved ones and I know it must be excruciating. I know that if you feel that you must return there, then it is a divine calling and I will help you. The books have knowledge that may be helpful.”
Darker smiles as Fandral. He looks like a fox man with reddish-brown fur over his fit body and he levitates like he is standing upright and his robes drape his body.
“Ok, but only because you listen to me.”
At the library, Fandral opens a book on the table in front of them and Darker is wowed by the way the written language looks on the page. Apparently there are many different languages on Eel and whichever the book is written in, looks nice to Darker.
“I showed this book to Alia shortly after she arrived here. It is the preeminent guide to the Dreamscape. It was written by Makazi Oviat, the master mind reader and manipulator, and he explains how his mental abilities allowed him to access a malleable realm of existence that felt like the realization of Ife-Osu, but it was not everything and nothing. It almost is, but it can take you there. I can help you to access the section of your consciousness that will allow you to access this Dreamscape and maybe it will get you closer to the end you seek. It won’t matter that your body does not expire. If you can take your spirit with your consciousness to the mental realm, you may attain a kind of death of your physical self.”
“The soul and the consciousness are different things?” Darker asks.
“Not practically, no. Your consciousness is a product of the formation of your spirit energies. They are hardly ever separated, but they can be, and when a being of the physical realm accesses the mental realm, they only inhabit it with their awareness because a body is not required to access the mental realm. One can consciously transport their spirit to the mental realm, but it is difficult for the living, much easier to accomplish for the spirits of the deceased, though they too can achieve the Dreamscape without their bodies, or the form of their spirit energy.”
It sounds like it makes sense. Darker can see some logic in it, and he had experienced the sensation of being free from a body. He is eager to experience the mental realm.
“If you can achieve the Dreamscape, you can see the Alia. That is where she is now. Her body is under constant guard, but her awareness is on the Dreamscape.”
Darker is eager to find this place where people can apparently experience the same dreams.
PRL Serials 