The Land of Broken Roads

After eating another big glop of sap, the dryads sat down with him in the middle of his house, where he’d wanted to put a table. The four of them sat cross-legged, knees touching. Callius leaned back, but the two girls sat up straight. Dirt wasn’t sure which of them to copy, but after he stopped thinking about it, he later realized he was leaning back like Callius.

Dawn’s face brightened. She said, “Listen well, little friend. This body you are, little Dirt sitting here touching our knees, who breathes this air, and hears, and sees, and smells, is only one of the seven bodies.”

“Except I suppose some of us have eight now, don’t we?” said Callius with a wry grin.

“This body,” she continued, touching Dirt’s leg with her fingertips, “is the physical, and it lives in the world of the physical. It is a world we knew but never perceived in this way. We knew what soil was, and water, and air, and all things that compose them. But we knew it incompletely, until you appeared.”

Home said, “In the dream, you are the dream self. It is you and part of you. It sees the infinite world of possibility, where nothing is fixed and all potential states are present. That is the nature of dreaming—it is all real, but ephemeral and temporary,” said Home.

Dawn said, “That is your second self, little Dirt. Your physical body is one. Your dream body is two. The physical world is one, and the dream world is two. They are the same. Do you understand?”

Dirt considered that for a moment. The knowledge was new, but it felt familiar. He might have known this once, or had been on the cusp of understanding it already. “So my dream body goes into the dream world when I sleep? I guess my dream body is sleeping when my physical body is awake?”

Callius twitched his knee and said, “Nope! It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s right there, where you are, all the time. The only way to have a body go somewhere else is to make one of these.” He pointed at his own chest.

Dawn said, “The dream comes to you, dear Dirt. You don’t go to it. Without the physical to anchor it and hold it apart, the dream would collapse into nothing and all perception of it would be impossible. The dream and the physical are part of each other. All things that are, and all things that could be, forever linked.”

Home said, “Your other selves must be in the right state to fully perceive the dream. Your physical body must be asleep, for example.”

“Am I dreaming right now, then?” asked Dirt.

“Yes,” the three dryads said at once.

The knowledge sank into him like he’d just witnessed something sacred. It had power. Dirt’s eyes glazed over as he thought about what it meant that he was dreaming, right now. Part of him was still… asleep? Or was that even correct?

“Close your eyes,” said Callius. “Good. Now, hold out your hand. Palm up. Imagine that you are holding a rock. Imagine that it is red. Can you picture it in your mind?”

Dirt said, “Yeah, I think so. Yes. Yes, I can.”

“That image is the dream, friend.”

His eyes shot open. “What? Really? Anything I imagine, just, well, anything I picture at all, that’s the dream?”

“Of course, dear Dirt,” said Home, placing her hand on top of his. Her gray bark-skin was cool to the touch. “What else could it be? Everything you picture in your mind is the dream, and it is real. Present with you, surrounding you, part of you. Your will guides it.”

Dirt asked, “Is there… anything you can do with it?”

Callius said, “You can start fires, for one. And create food to eat, and fly in the air.”

“Really?”

“No. I am teasing you. But the wise can find hidden truth there, if they know how to look.”

Dawn grew serious for a moment and said, “Remember that the dream is real, and your dream self is always there even if you are not aware of it. The things you imagine affect you long after your physical mind has moved on to other thoughts. Do not imagine too much that is unpleasant, friend Dirt, or you will suffer in your heart for no reason.”

Home said, “The next body, the next world, is the mind. The great wolves, the fae, the elementals, and others, can see it as you do. It is not a world we perceive directly, but all living things exist there, and living things only. Nothing can be alive without it. All living things have a mind. All.”

Dawn said, “Thoughts and experiences are seen there, but the world of the mind is not their source. It is the place where they are manifested for the living. Nor is the body, or the dream, the source of thought, but thoughts can be found in them.”

Dirt asked, “So if I see something moving that doesn’t have a light in the mind world, it’s not alive?”

“That is correct. It might inhabit the world of magic or spirit or dream and be capable of something like thought, but if it has no presence in the mind, it is not alive. Magic may drive the wind, such that it moves, but the wind is not alive. Only that which is complete is alive.”

He thought of the tentacle monster from the water, how its mind had been mostly empty with only periodic thoughts coming across it, even though it seemed to move around just fine. “What if its mind is only partially there? Like, it’s not hiding it, it’s just mostly missing, even though it’s still moving?”

“Then I suppose it would be partially alive, and partially dead,” said Callius. “It would be an abomination. Unnatural.”

“Oh,” said Dirt, growing uncomfortable. No wonder Socks had hated it so much.

Home pinched his first, second, and third fingers. “Physical, dream, mind. Are you ready for the next?”

“Magic?”

“Nope,” said Callius.

Home pressed her fingertip into the middle of Dirt’s palm. “Next is the Self. At the center of all that you are is that which is truly eternal, always growing but never changing. It will always be you and has always been you.”

“Its place is firmly set in your spirit, which is the next body. We cannot explain one without the other,” said Dawn.

Home said, “Your Self can only be in one Spirit, which is what you are. Spirit without Self is like base matter. It has no will. It has no thought. It simply is.”

“Spirit with Self is that which acts upon all other things,” said Callius.

“The world of Spirit is like the Dream because all things are present there, which ever have been or ever will be. But unlike the Dream, it contains no unmet potential. Spirit is only that which is true. To peer into the Spirit now would be to see this forest as it now stands, or as it was at any time in the past,” said Home. “And to those who are properly constituted, as it will ever be in the future.”

Dirt said, “Socks can do that, can’t he? Is that what ghost sight is?”

“We do not know,” said Dawn.

“Well, I can ask him someday, then. So do I only have one spirit at a time? Could I ever be a wolf?”

Callius smiled. “Your physical might be shaped into a wolf with magic, but your spirit can only ever be what it is because only one spirit matches your Self. When you die, you lose your physical, your mind, and your dream, but not your spirit. If you are born again somewhere else, it can only be as this. As you. You can never be anything else.” The dryad patted him on the shoulder.

Dawn said, “Indeed, if you ever come into the world again, it can only be because another one of these, this very body, has come into being. Perhaps one deformed, perhaps one perfected; perhaps on this world, perhaps on another; but still this body. You are one Self, one spirit, one body, one dream, one mind that emanates from the connection between them all.”

Home pressed her fingertip into the center of his palm again. “We explained all that for the joy of giving you the knowledge we are about to share, which you can now understand. By way of your Spirit, your Self directs your physical body, your emanation in the world of the mind, and your dream body.” She pinched his first, second, and third fingers in turn for the physical, mind, and dream.

“It also directs your mana vessel, or the body of magic,” she said, pinching his fourth finger.

“So you do magic with your spirit?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Callius. “You do everything with your spirit. Dream. Run. Talk. Remember. Everything.”

“So what is magic, exactly? What is the magic world like?”

Home said, “It is the many powers by which all things are sustained. It shapes the physical to conform to the spirit and fastens the dream in place. It is power, energy, movement, and connection, but not raw and chaotic. It is all those things as they direct the world and as the world directs them.”

“What does it look like?”

Dawn traced her fingers down his arm, since Home was still holding his hand, and said, “It is not seen with the eyes. It is perceived with the mana vessel. But think of the dream, dear Dirt, and this world.” She gestured vaguely around her with her hand. “What does all of this look like? It looks like everything. There is as much beauty and variety there as here.”

Callius jiggled his knee to get Dirt to look at him instead and said, “Magic is part of how we shape the world. It’s how we make the fog come up every night, for one. We do tree magic. You do human magic. The wolves do wolf magic.”

“Wait, so it’s all different? Can you even teach me human magic, since you’re trees?” Dirt asked.

Callius grinned. “You have a human mana vessel, but the world is the world. You have feet and Socks has paws. Can you not both walk the same ground?”

“I’m still not sure what you mean. Do I use magic all the time without realizing, like the dream?”

Callius said, “It holds you together, so I suppose you could say that.”

“So… so what exactly can you do with it?”

Dawn squeezed his arm again to get him to look back at her. “The moment we answer that question is the moment we entice you to limit yourself. You will find many who circumscribe a portion and say, ‘This is the totality.’ Others will point and say, ‘This boundary cannot be crossed.’ Yet more will say, ‘What you think you have done, you have not.’ Some truths, once learned, cause one to stop believing more truth.”

Dirt nodded, his mind swirling to try and make sense of it all. Some of it seemed natural and right, like that the dream and his imagination were the same thing, and that he had a spirit and a Self. He’d seen that already when Mother pulled him apart, after all. But even though he was ready to learn all this, it was still taking its time sinking in.

“Wait…” he said. “You said there were seven selves. Physical, dream, mind, magic, spirit, Self. That’s six. What’s the last one?”

The three dryads smiled sagely, as if pleased he’d asked. Home was the one who answered. “Divinity, dear Dirt. Some call it Glory or Law. You have a tiny spark of it.”

“Oh,” he replied. “Just me?”

“Nope,” said Callius.

Dirt expected more explanation, but none came.

“You do not seem surprised,” said Dawn. “This is a great truth we have shared with you, one hidden from the world.”

“Oh. Well, thanks. It’s just that I don’t know what those words mean, that’s why.”

“Do you not know all the words, dear Dirt?” asked Home.

“I know a lot of words, and I can tell you other words about them. For example, I know that a cart goes on a road. I’ve seen a road, but not a cart. I don’t know what one is. It carries goods and people, but I don’t know what goods are, either. Carts are pulled by oxen or donkeys or horses and those are animals, but I don’t know what they look like. I know divinity is a thing gods have, but I don’t know what it is, or what gods are. I saw one, or a statue of one, but I still don’t understand it. You may as well be telling me that cats have scissors.”

The three dryads all went silent for a moment, forgetting to blink. It took a moment, long enough for Dirt to wonder what they were thinking about and look at Home’s mind. Unfortunately, other than the part that matched her dryad, her mind was too foreign to read. Except… it seemed like she was waiting for something, a particular burst of information from elsewhere.

Dawn was the first to reawaken, and she grinned widely and covered her mouth with one hand. Soon after, Callius and Home awoke and chuckled to each other.

“What’s so funny?”

Laughter dancing in his voice, Callius said, “Dawn asked a being you have not yet met, but who is a friend to us, what cats and scissors are. It turns out cats cannot operate scissors because they do not have thumbs.”

“I don’t know what cats and scissors are either.”

“Yes, we understand. All the same,” said Dawn, rising to her feet. “I think that is enough knowledge for you today.”

“Wait, you’re not going to tell me what cats and scissors are?”

Dawn pulled Home to her feet and said, “We do not want to overburden you with new knowledge.”

“Oh, come on!”

With uncharacteristic seriousness, Callius said, “You will learn what cats are when you are ready. Perhaps it is not yet time.” His eyes sparkled with mischief, though, giving him away.

“You’re teasing me again.”

Callius barked a short laugh and said, “You are right, my dear Home. He is indeed a fast learner. Now come, Dirt, let us play and wander and eat and enjoy the rest of the day.”