time you left that detail out." Mokleb paused. "The interpretation is simple: your dream is an expression of your anger with Dybo for allowing your blinding."
Afsan’s tail moved in the air.
"Telling a dream twice is very instructive," said Mokleb. "In the dream world, we explore thoughts that we’d rather not openly face. The mind censors these thoughts completely when we’re awake, but while we sleep the censorship mechanism relaxes along with the rest of the body. Oh, in a healthy mind, even in dreams it won’t allow direct expression of an unpleasant thought, so it couches such things in symbols and metaphors. When you first put the story of your dream into words, part of your mind suddenly realized what you were really talking about. That’s why by the time you came to relate the dream a second time, the most important clues to what you were actually dreaming about were removed — the reference to the armorback being fat, and the reference to your eyes. The censorship mechanism was hard at work, keeping you from facing unpleasant thoughts.
"I see you’re not attempting to interrupt. Of course not; you see the correctness of what I’m saying. Now, for our therapy to work, you must understand this welclass="underline" everything is significant, every thought, every image, has at least one determining cause, and sometimes several. You must pledge to hold nothing back, to share every thought and picture that comes into your mind, no matter how embarrassing, unpleasant, or just plain irrelevant it may seem. The mind is just as complex, but also just as comprehensible, as the movements of the heavenly bodies you study. Together we will explore a new universe, the one that exists inside your head, and by so doing, we’ll rid you of the horrors that have been plaguing you."
"And restore my sight?" asked Afsan.
"Perhaps. Perhaps. How successful the therapy will be is entirely up to you."
"I want to succeed at this," said Afsan.
"Good. Our time is up for today. I will see you in two days." She paused. "Eventually, I hope, you’ll be able to say the same thing to me."
Novato wanted to know how deeply into the rocks of the cliff the blueness went. The cliff was more than a hundred vertical paces tall. At its base was a narrow expanse of sandy beach. At the top of the cliff, several gnarled trees precariously clung to the edge. Leading to the cliff’s edge were wide plains covered with tall grasses. And sitting in the middle of the plain were buildings made of stone blocks. In successive turns, the buildings were occupied by Packs Derrilo, Horbo, and Quebelmo, all of whose ranges overlapped this area. Currently, Pack Derrilo was making use of them.
Novato enlisted some of the Pack members to help with an experiment. She had them dig down through the loose topsoil near the edge of the cliff. She wanted to see which they’d come up against, solid rock or the blue material. Down a fair bit, they came to the blue stuff.
Fascinated, Novato had them back off to five paces from the edge of the cliff. They dug again, and again their shovels struck blue.
They tried again ten paces back. Blue.
Twenty paces. Blue again.
Novato asked them to try again from another ten paces farther back, but at this point, Gatabor, one of the Pack members doing the work, held up a hand. "Humor me," he said, and walked another hundred paces away from the edge of the cliff. Here he had to dig down a considerable distance before he reached the bottom of the soil, but finally his shovel rang in his hands. He crouched down and cleaned away the dirt.
Blue. Solid, unrelenting blue.
A total of a hundred and twenty paces back from the edge of the cliff. And the cliff face itself was now blue through almost its entire height of over a hundred paces.
Gatabor stood by the hole, hands on hips, shaking his head.
Novato walked to the other side of the hole, facing him, and, incidentally, facing the expanse behind him leading to the edge of the cliff. And so, she saw it happen…
Saw the blue mass poke out of the ground thirty paces closer to the cliff’s edge, grass and dirt erupting out of its way as if pushed aside by a shovelmouth’s prow.
Novato’s jaw dropped, and Gatabor’s claws slid out in response to the breach of protocol. But then she pointed and Gatabor swung around and he, too, saw it, whatever it was, rising out of the ground.
Jawn deposited a handful of copper disks on the table. Some of them had an engraving of an Other in profile; others had an engraved crest. He moved one of the disks to the center of the table. Pointing to it with palm closed, he said, "Bal." He then raised his hand with one finger extended. "Bal." Toroca repeated the word.
Next, Jawn picked up a second disk and placed it beside the first. Originally, the disk had been showing a crest; now, flipped over, it showed a profile. Toroca realized that all the disks were identical. "Lod," said Jawn, indicating both of the disks. He held up two fingers. "Lod."
Toroca found this easy, and soon Jawn had taught him the names of the numerals from one to ten. It was time for the next step. "Bal eb bal tar lod," said Jawn. One and one is two. Jawn demonstrated this by moving disks around.
Toroca nodded and repeated the sentence: "Bal eb bal tar lod."
Jawn then demonstrated two more constructions. "Bal eb bal eb bal tar ker." One and one and one is three. "Bal eb lod tar ker." One and two is three.
There was a little more practice with basic math, but then it seemed they were back at square one. "Bal eb bal tar lod," said Jawn: one and one is two. But then he added a new word: "Sek-tab."
Jawn next said two and two equals four, and again appended "Sek-tab." Toroca dutifully repeated each phrase.
Then Jawn said, "Bal eb bal tar ker." Toroca looked up. Had he misunderstood everything so far? "Bal eb bal tar ker," said Jawn again. One and one is three? Then, stressing the word, Jawn added, "Sek-na-tab." He then made the hand motion that meant he wanted Toroca to repeat what he’d said.
Toroca shook his head, trying to convey that something was wrong here. "Bal eb bal tar lod," he said. And then he repeated the answer: "Lod."
Jawn opened his mouth, exposing teeth. Toroca had come to understand that this was the Others’ way of showing amusement. Jawn’s expression indicated he wanted Toroca to bear with him. He said again, "Bal eb bal tar lod, sek-tab." Toroca repeated that. Then Jawn said, "Bal eb bal tar ker, sek-na-tab."
Toroca slowly repeated the phrase: "Bal eb bal tar … ker." Jawn’s eyelids blinked, an expression of astonishment shared by both Others and Quintaglios. "Sas lesh," he said, using words Toroca had learned in an earlier lesson. Your face.
Toroca was frustrated. "Well, of course my face is turning blue," he blurted in the Quintaglio language. "You’re making me say something that’s not true."
In that instant, Toroca realized what was going on. Sek-tab meant "correct" or "true" and sek-na-tab meant "incorrect" or "false"; the addition of the syllable "na" to the middle of the word implied negation, the first Other grammatical rule Toroca had been able to divine.