Site Map                                                    Table of Contents                                                    Confused?

'Does the moon look bigger to you tonight?'

The Book of Ataniel

Mind�s Eye



Ebreth put his hand to the wallpaper, squinting at it. The patterns were made up of smaller patterns, and he couldn't get them to come completely into focus. Ebreth felt a little buzzed, actually. He had the strange sensation of flying in the pit of his stomach, but he could feel the carpet beneath his feet. "This must be what other people feel like when they're dreaming," he said aloud. "Sane people, I mean."

"Sanity's in the eye of the beholder, pet," Brett said. She was sitting on some kind of mushroom thing, wearing a minidress with black and white swirls splashed across it. "I take your point," said Ebreth. "What's all this about my destiny?"

"More like a choicepoint, actually," she said. "I am a moment of decision between two possible destiny paths. It might be a bit easier to think of me as a guide."

"Guide," said Ebreth, rubbing his eyes. "All right, guide away. What do you want me to decide?"

"If it were as easy as that, Tor, you wouldn't need to come all the way out here to do it, now, would you?" She fluffed her hair. There were tiny golden lights in it, like fireflies. "You've come to a fork in the road you haven't a chance of understanding on your own, much less articulating. This place is your destiny's way of discussing itself with you without driving you mad. What happens here is very real, Tor. The way in which you perceive it..." She waved her hand airily. "Less so."

"So this is all in my mind?" Ebreth tried to clarify.

"Close enough, pet." She glanced down at the mushroom she was sitting on with a dubious expression. "Most of it's quite subconscious, after all, so you don't have to be too embarrassed. But nothing here can exist in a form that you can interact with unless your own soul calls it into being. That's important."

"Boy, it's drafty in here," commented Jack, floating in a sea of nothingness.

Back to the Hotel Archives

'Does the moon look bigger to you tonight?'

Learning Native American languages * Michif * Beading patterns * Powhatan Pocahontas * Indian designs