[Original Novella] Mansionarium, Part 5

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As he led me to the far end of the room, I dwelled on the girl who’s life I’d accidentally destroyed. However vivid, all of this must still be a dream, so I felt torn between guilt and skepticism as to whether anybody had actually died.

I knew better than to say so in light of how they’d reacted. Whatever all of this really is, it’s under their control. I dare not provoke them under such conditions. Soon we arrived at a grand pair of wooden doors with polished brass knobs.

“This is who you’re looking for”. He handed me a photograph of a pale girl with long black hair, wearing a faded, frilly green dress. “She’s beautiful” I gasped. “Who is she?” Professor Travigan tucked the photo into my pocket with the glass orb. “Her name is Violet. At one time, a rising star in The Institute’s oneironautics division.”

I struggled to pronounce the term until he set me straight. “Oneironautics. The exploration and documentation of dreams. What you’ve been doing for many years now, with startling success for an amatuer. It’s why you were chosen. We saw your posts about the foundry. That barren, cursed place in which you’ve been trapped every night until recently.

We run a continuous automated search for mentions of keywords related to it, investigate those who post about it and delete all mentions of it thereafter. It was one of ours who tipped off your mother about the sleep study.”

I complained that it still wasn’t clear what I was meant to actually do. “Violet’s been taken hostage. Someplace even we cannot reach her. The man responsible isn’t one of ours, but he is accessible through the Manifold whenever he sleeps. Somewhere in the recesses of his unconscious mind are the coordinates and authorization codes we need to extract Violet. Her condition is stable for the time being but there’s no telling how long she’ll last.

Find Violet first. She’s under instruction to guide you to Dr. Bizen, your target. He is nowhere near as seasoned an oneironaut as either you or Violet, so between the two of you it should be possible to outsmart him. You already know how to locate orbs, and Violet will be in contact with you through your remote. Do try not to get her killed as well? Off you go.”

Over my objections, he opened the double doors, pushed me through, then shut and locked them behind me. Talk about sink or swim. The room before me was as incomprehensible as the last. The backstoppers were present here as well, though restrained within brass cages at the corners of the ceiling. I shuddered, but remembered their necessity. Without the correct movement of time, my task would be impossible to complete.

Overhead I watched as entire rooms shifted about on rails relative to one another. Something like a Rubik’s cube or sliding tile puzzle. The entire structure of the mansion dynamically mutable even as I inhabited it, making a low pitched groaning, grinding sound as it continuously rearranged itself. Through windows in the moving rooms I could see uniformed Institute officials milling about, talking with one another, doing paperwork and so on.

The remote pinged. So softly I wasn’t sure it really had until the second time. I navigated about bookshelves, couches and tables until I arrived at the next set of double doors. The ping was noticeably stronger here but not much. I proceeded through them into the next room. Incomplete as it turned out, the far end open to the outside. I didn’t realize that was possible.

A brisk wind whipped my hair about as I approached the edge of the floor. Wooden beams continued a little further above and below, but did not meaningfully obstruct my view of the landscape. The mansion seemed to be perched atop a very high, narrow mountain with a long, winding road spiraling down it.

The fields nearly out to the horizon looked to be subdivided for agriculture, with a mountain range just beyond. If I leaned out a bit, I could see the rooms of the mansion sliding, locking and rotating from the outside. It defied my understanding of what was possible in the Manifold, though admittedly I’d only seen the foundry until now.

A strong wind threatened to toss me out of the opening, so I hastily backed away and sought the next set of doors. The ping grew stronger and stronger as I continued, until I located a glass orb within a dresser drawer. I assumed it worked the same as the last one, and peered into it. As though it were a three dimensional hole, I could see something of the destination on the other side.

Amidst sparkling points that I took to be bubbles trapped in the glass, I glimpsed a row of bookshelves. As I looked, my surroundings began to blur and I felt myself drawn into the orb. The transition was as abrupt as before, and a moment later I found myself someplace else.

A grand library of some sort. I’d passed the occasional bookshelf to get here, but this room contained nearly nothing but shelf after shelf of dusty old books. Same wood, same polish and styling as the mansion I’d come from, so I concluded it must be another part of it. After some wandering, I came upon a truly stunning sight.

An entire wall consisting of windows, faceted like stained glass but all of them transparent with no coloration. Through them I could see that the library protruded off the side of the mountain a ways and included a modest gazebo like structure, suspended by a chain from an arched iron support. There it dangled precariously in the open air, accessible by a hanging walkway consisting of wrought iron and birch planks.

I found Violet there, curled up in a great leather seat, reading some thick esoteric tome about dreams. I didn’t expect finding her to be so easy. Then again, I had a great deal of help. If not for Professor Travigan I’d still be hopelessly stranded in the Foundry. “I wondered when you’d come.” She spoke as if she knew me, and some deeply nested part of my brain reacted strongly to it. Why?

“You’ve still got your remote. Good. Don’t let it out of your sight. You’ll also want to take this with you.” She handed me a glass orb. I explained that professor Travigan already told me to keep hold of the remote at all costs. “Did he tell you about...them?” I began to ask if she meant the backstoppers but she produced her own remote and muted me before I could say it. I continued trying to speak in my confusion, unable to make a sound until she un-muted me.

“Don’t ever say their name. Don’t read anything around here that you don’t know for certain is uncorrupted. They like to slip it in where you least expect. Bits and pieces won’t do you in but a dozen or so uninterrupted repetitions either spoken aloud or in your head, and….well, by now you’ve probably seen what happens.” I thought back to poor Julia and, now convinced of the reality of my situation, felt impaled by a surge of guilt.

“I bet he also told you that they’re just part of the machinery of the universe. That unfortunate fools who accidentally trigger them are like grasshoppers ground up in the chains of a combine harvester.” I nodded. “A pack of liars is what they are” she continued. “The Institute created those things to make time travel difficult and dangerous for anybody else, in order to monopolize time control. Not anticipating that it could be turned against them.”

I’m not the sort to take sides, though they did rope me into all this under the pretense that it was a “dream study”. Part of me wanted to split. The rest wouldn’t allow it. I’ve always been a sucker for a beautiful girl, and as Violet stood before me, try as I might I couldn’t conscion leaving her like this.

Something about the shape of her eyes. The color of her dress. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d met before, years ago. Perhaps when we were children. Some half-remembered glimmer of recognition floated to the surface of my mind the moment I’d seen her picture, and was only growing stronger by the minute.

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