From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MG] Long night's journey into day Keywords: from the many corners of my mind Date: 12 May 93 00:19:10 GMT "What is the use of a book", thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?" _Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland_ After Kardia went to bed 'Raelf and Jameson spoke quietly of symbols and maps and worlds until the fatigue of the last several days began to tell in Jameson's concentration. She didn't need much sleep, but full downtime in an environ she trusted was too much of a good opportunity to let pass by. Ar'Elya showed Jameson down the hall to her door. The door had WALKER written on it in plain lettering that flickered when Jameson wasn't looking directly at it. Jameson lifted a hand and the door slid to the left and revealed a gray expanse of nothing. Cocking her head, she lifted a questioning eyebrow at ar'Elya who smiled and shrugged in return. "Good luck," she said before she left the Walker gazing into the everything. Jameson stepped in and felt the sensors wrap around her as gently as gauze. Gradually, a chunk of blond wood floorboards coalesced beneath her feet, its edges fading into the gray. A shelf appeared at hip level and Jameson set her bag upon it. She removed her walking boots and hooked them onto part of a shoe tree hanging beside the shelf. Two more steps and she sat down. A thick futon was beneath her by the time she was seated. She stripped off her socks and looked at her feet for a while before standing again and slipping off all her clothes. Removing the rough string from her hair with her left, she extended her right hand. Another door appeared at her touch and slid aside. The wood floor followed beneath her feet until she stepped into the white tiled room on the other side of the door. A pair of shower heads grew from the walls and began pounding her gently with first very hot and steamy water, gradually tapering to lukewarm. Then one last minute of cold water before they stopped and slid back to become part of the wall again. The water smoothly became part of the tile. A rack holding a huge, thick towel appeared as the tiling faded and disppeared as soon as she was holding the towel. She dried herself slowly, easing small tensions as she discovered them. Hanging the towel on the everything, she watched it fade as she brushed her hair with the brush that appeared in her hand. Looking to her right, she parted her hair in the mirror suspended there. It slowly became one with the everything as she turned back toward her belongings. The wood floor quietly disappeared behind her as she moved forward. Walking slowly toward the futon, she brushed her long brown hair dry. Pausing, she stepped into the heavy cotton trous that were simply there in her hands and pulled on a sweatshirt with all the elastics trimmed off. After first emptying all the pockets, she reached out and opened a chute into which she dropped her discarded clothing, including all the grungy stuff in her pack. She pulled her hair back and tied it with the string, then held out her arms. Her clothes fell out of the everything, clean and folded, into a neat pile in her arms. She set them beside her pack then went to the futon and lay down. Closing her eyes she reached out and touched that which was the house. Opening her "eyes" she found the gray everything/nothing gone. She was now standing on a matrix grid pattern. Raising her right hand, she found a menu underneath her fingers. Pressing "guide" caused a little humanoid creature in a tiny tux to appear. He smiled at her and gestured. A full directory spanned her vision. She began skimming options that the creature would open and adjust for her. After managing to get the hang of it she smiled at the little man who bowed and vanished. Calling up a layout of the house, she touched one of the portions that was outlined with a solid line (versus the portions outlined with a dotted line; she guessed those were bits of reality in flux and chose not to play with them this evening). The house unfolded and explained itself to her patient ears. As she walked past the section that held music, she noticed out of the corner of her eye a large silver spider. The matrix flickered for a moment as this other's reality shimmered across her vision. A web, interconnecting the interior of the house. Jameson smiled and continued walking. Touching much, but staying to absorb little, she moved restlessly through the matrix until she could feel a gradual alpha state relaxing her busy mind. Finally, with a move that was between left and right, she left the matrix and returned her conscious attention to her body. Feeling quite good, she drifted into sleep... ...and woke abruptly three hours later. She had been slipping into a nightmare and her brain had chosen to awaken rather than sit through some distorted replay of memory. She grimaced, then paused. Not an older memory. Not a familiar fear. A more recent fragment of something... odd. An animal caught in fishing line and someone, someone familiar, leaning over it to cut it free but instead tightening the thread until... gone. She couldn't quite catch it, but the feeling echoed what had happened at the end of dinner, when she'd felt the pain and seen... no, gone again. She shrugged to herself and gave up. The dreams had been very nice, though. It had been a long time since she was relaxed enough not to lucid dream; it was soothing. She leaned back again, looked around the everything/nothing and began making pictures in the aether. First a stylized red dragon, then a white one of filigree the color of frost. Now a silver one, green eyes whirling. Now a black one, eyes glowing redly. She sat up slowly and began tracing patterns on the walls and asking them to stay rather than fade. Monsters, creatures, figures of other races, myths, friends, birds, skies foreign and familiar. Broken statues, lost gods, distant memories trapped in stone and lost to anyone who could not understand the language. The sweeping wings of singers, horns, hooves, trailing rainbows, fire, water, sea serpents, sailors. An old woman, a dying star, fishhooks linked together, a crying child. Feathers of gold, of silver, silk kites with diamond string, wings of white. Clouds, plants, dungeons, bomb scars in the land, the gold feathers of a clockwork nightengale. Two white wings, and a gold halo. Black eyes, blank eyes. Trapped in nothingness, uncaring, cold. Marbles awhirl with color. Visions. When 'Raelf came to wake her for breakfast, he found the room awash with color blending with no edges into what little remained as solid reality: a shelf, a wing chair, a damp towel, two hair ties and Jameson's things. He blinked and Jameson stepped out of the painting, out from among a cluster of wings, and returned to her normal pigments. She smiled at him, shouldered her pack with her shoes tied on and preceded him, padding barefoot out the door. The reality faded and left only her paintings. 'Raelf looked around the interior of the room and called after her, "Wow, nice pictures. Mind if we keep a copy?" There was a smile in Jameson's voice as she called back, "If you wish." "Way cool. <