Eighth Fire (26 page)

Instead of following the group to the upper
levels Chenoa stayed on the first level and went to the fiction
section. Romance was something she had zero experience with, knew
little about and had seen none of up close except for her parents’
relationship, and she only had her mother’s version of how that
happened. She intended to change what she knew and understood. She
knew that fiction was just that: fiction, but she figured it had to
be based on reality at least in part. She wanted some practical
ideas and tactics to use in order to make him notice her as more
than just a friend with pretty hair.

She figured she had an advantage over most other
budding relationships; she sometimes knew what he thought and most
often why he thought it. He never thought of girls as girls, or
boys as boys for that matter. When she could read his thoughts he
was always thinking in terms of what was needed in order to
accomplish something. He thought of people in terms of what their
strengths were, what they enjoyed and how that would relate to
whatever task or goal he was involved with. That was the only type
of relationship she ever saw when he transmitted his thoughts.

She was looking over the titles when she heard
Slone’s laughing voice behind her, “You’re pathetic. What? Are you
training to be a prostitute now?”

As much that he was infuriating her, she tried
to tune him out by keeping her back to them, gritting her teeth and
shutting her eyes.

“Oh, I get it. You’re after Mark.” His crew
joined in laughing. “That really is pathetic.”

One of them started the chant, “Mark and Chenoa
sitting in a tree...” Slone ended the chant still laughing, “Here
comes Mark with the baby carriage.”

Chenoa turned and said, “At least Mark has a
girl interested in him.”

Slone smiled and his eyes narrowed, “Hey
Salina.”

A girl that Chenoa hadn’t seen before walked
over. She had very blond hair done up in tight ringlets and was
smacking gum. She held her palm up at shoulder lever and said with
a squeaky northern accent, “Yeah?”

“Chenoa, this is Salina, Salina, Chenoa; one of
Mark’s rangers.”

Salina gave a little curtsey and chirped,
“Pleased, I’m sure.”

Slone said, “Kiss me.”

Salina squeaked, “Ooo, I thought you’d never
ask,” and planted one on him.

Chenoa thought if Salina was trying to pull off
a 1920s bimbo routine she had the voice all wrong, but she had the
bimbo part down pat.

Mark was finding it mentally difficult to adjust
to the early scheduling of classes; zero dark thirty wasn’t
anything he’d ever experienced on a regular basis. He felt that
being sleepy in class was just plain wrong.

Tim—Mr. Fairbanks began Wednesday morning’s
class by saying, “I trust everyone is good and sleepy.” He looked
around at the class. “Good. Now, I want you to find a spot on the
floor where you can lay in a group while touching the person next
to you.”

Everyone got up, formed into groups and found a
spot to lie down.

Mr. Fairbanks continued, “Now, I want you to go
to sleep.”

After a few minutes Mark didn’t realize that he
was asleep when he heard a voice say, “Look over here.” He turned
to look and saw a hooded figure standing against an indistinct
swirling background. The figure pulled his hood back revealing the
face of a man about his father’s age with blond hair cut into an
old style flat top. He had radiant cobalt blue eyes. “Hi there. My
name is Lester and I’m your instructor for this session. Look
around and tell me what you sense.”

Still looking at Lester, Mark said, “I see you
and a swirling background.” He looked from side to side then behind
him and said, “The swirling background is all around; it’s like
we’re in a cloud.” He thought he heard a voice. “I think I hear a
voice but I can’t make it out...wait, I think it’s Chenoa.”

The voice resolved in his mind; it was Chenoa
saying, “I think I hear Mark’s voice.” He looked to where her voice
was coming from and her image materialized into being. She was
walking and looking around as if searching.

“I’m here,” he said.

Chenoa looked at him and then ran to where he
was. She sat beside him and put her arms around him. “I love
you.”

Mark began to hear other voices: LeOmi, Nick and
Jamal. “I hear Nick, Jamal and LeOmi.” He called out, “I’m over
here.” All three materialized and ran over to him.

Nick knelt, hugged him and said, “As long as you
serve The Seventh Mountain my sword is yours to command and I will
do my best to keep harm from coming to you.”

When Nick moved out of the way and sat Jamal
knelt, hugged Mark and said, “I serve the destiny of The Seventh
Mountain by serving you.”

When Jamal sat LeOmi knelt, hugged him and
whispered in his ear, “I don’t want to have feelings for you, but I
do. I’m afraid that you’ll leave me like my mother did. I want you
to love me more than anything else.”

Mark heard Lester’s voice say, “You’re going to
find that your slightest emotions are very much on the surface and
vulnerable here until you get used to dream casting. You’ll need to
filter that with what you know about yourself and the other person.
In the beginning you’ll have to struggle to keep them in check.

“Now, Mark; I want you to try and pick a
location where you’d like for this session to take place. Think of
a place that is comfortable for you all to have a discussion within
this group.”

That was a no-brainer. Suddenly the whole group
was seated in an extra large booth in The Oasis. The table was laid
with breakfast items and the aromas were absolutely wonderful.

Lester looked around and said, “Good choice. I
like The Oasis too, but I don’t often get to eat there anymore.
It’s nice to have it in a dream.” He reached out and picked up a
cup of steaming coffee.

“I let Mark control this session because he
already broadcasts his thoughts, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t
realized it yet but he also broadcasts his dreams. His ability has
put this group ahead of the rest of the class.

“The reason each of you are a part of this dream
is: one, he expected to have you as a part of the dream; two, he
called you into it; three, each of you expected to be a part of a
group dream with him; and four, each of you trusted his call when
you heard his voice. That’s the way dream casting works at
first.

“When you get comfortable with your group you
won’t have to be lying next to each other and touching. Any one of
you will be able to initiate it. As you get more and more
comfortable with it your skills will improve to the point of being
able to invite anyone you care about into a dream. They won’t even
have to know you, but you will have to care about them.

“Another useful bit of information is that
classes, news and entertainment are dream cast every night. Most of
these you’ll be able to remember; others will be so normal feeling
that you won’t remember them and only your subconscious minds will
retain the information. For example: you all received three foreign
language classes last year that I’d bet you don’t remember. I know
you remember being told that you had those classes, but you most
likely don’t remember the actual classes. As a result you are now
practiced at speaking, understanding, reading and writing in
German, French and Spanish. Any dream that feels absolutely normal
to you will not be remembered in the conscious minds.”

Mark interrupted, “You’ve used the plural term
‘minds’ a couple of times—

Lester interrupted back, “Your brains are
composed of several minds, but you already know that. You think of
them as the front of your mind, the back of your mind, your mind’s
eye and so on. There are many more and they’re all related. You’ll
learn more about them later on.

“Well, now you have the basics. You can go ahead
and finish breakfast if you like, but remember it’s just a dream.
When you’re ready, wake up and sit up. When you’re all awake, lay
back down, go back to sleep and have another dream meeting or two.
After that you can leave. Your homework assignment is to locate one
of the dream casts about news or one of the entertainment casts and
write a paragraph or two about it in your notebooks.” He opened the
cardboard box on the table, removed a slice of scrambled egg pizza,
took a bite and faded into nothing.

Mark was in the last hour of Combat class when
Ms. Vanmie’s freshman class began coming up. A lot of the freshmen
were high stepping and rubbing their leg muscles from the forty
foot climb up into the classroom.

Ms. Vanmie stepped into the classroom from the
senior’s climbing walls, walked toward the freshmen and raised her
arm. “Freshmen, gather around.” When they were sufficiently close
she continued, “This is combat class. You will train here with a
variety of weapons in later years but your primary weapon will be
the sword and that is all you will train with this year. We will
begin with wooden practice swords which will be used in class for
the next three years because otherwise the floor would get quite
messy. Your third sophomore year is when you’ll start using real
practice swords if you were wondering. The term for the wooden
practice sword is riotous. That term comes from the wooden practice
swords that Roman gladiators trained with a couple of thousand
years ago.

“You will carry your riotous with you at all
times and you will even sleep with it. That won’t be much of a
problem when you learn Aaron’s Grasp.

“Outside of class, if you have a confrontation
with another student and it becomes violent your riotous is the
only weapon you are allowed to use for the first three years. My
suggestion is not to get into a confrontation with an
upperclassman. If you happen to find yourself in such a situation
it would be wise to concede whatever the matter of contention is
unless you are fond of pain and suffering.

“In the first chapter of your textbook you will
find instructions and diagrams for three sets of formal exercises.
You will practice these exercises daily. If in two weeks you’re not
proficient enough to satisfy me, then you will have to defend
yourself against the entire class...all at the same time. It has
never taken more than one such lesson to convince the student to
come to class well practiced. Every two weeks you will add the next
three exercises to your repertoire.

“Now, if there are no questions, we will begin
your first lesson in sword combat.”

A student raised her hand and Mark pretty much
knew what the question would be. “Ms. Vanmie, I know there has to
be a reason that swords are our main weapon, but wouldn’t it be
more practical to train with firearms?”

Ms. Vanmie smiled at her, “DeLisha, every year a
student asks that question, and every year I give the same answer.
Come with me please.”

Before she could turn around and start toward
the gun shelves Mark’s stepbrother, James raised his hand and
asked, “Ms. Vanmie, may I give the demonstration?”

She paused, looked back at James and grinned.
“So you think you might be able to succeed, do you?”

James shook his head, “Not really, but I’d like
to try.”

She chuckled under her breath, “Follow me;
DeLisha, you stay put.”

A few minutes later James and Ms. Vanmie
returned; James was carrying a submachine gun that looked like
something that gangsters used back in the time of prohibition. Ms.
Vanmie said, “Slone.”

Mark’s class scrambled to where the freshmen
were standing when they realized there was no other safe place to
stand.

Ms. Vanmie continued speaking to Slone, “James
has chosen a Thompson .45 caliber submachine gun with a two hundred
round drum. The rounds are pink wax squibs. When I step out of the
way advance and disarm him at your leisure.” She turned to James,
“One hundred points and the rest of today’s class off if you manage
to even nick him.” She took three quick steps back.