Bones on Mars - A paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy romance

Revelations

Inside the cave, only the fire was moving. El, Mul, and Floyd stood rooted to the spot, silent. The orange flames spat out embers, billowed smoke, crackled and danced, their red sheen paling against the brightening sky and the sunlight reflecting from the cliff city. The cave walls reverberated with the happy echoes of laughter from the millipede made of people, still moving across bridges and up staircases, and then disappearing into the belly of the city.

Floyd cleared his throat. "You know, I've had it up to here with this mystery shit. Why don't you tell me what's going on, and I then decide what to do."

El pulled a wry smile. "That was my intention all along. Your skepticism doesn't make things easy."

"Of course, it's all my fault."

"I wasn't saying that at all. Tell me something. Do you believe in magic? I mean, do you do it now?"

Floyd stared first at the impossible city—were those glass panes? They couldn't be—and then at the high-heeled nuisance.

"Let's say I'm no longer ruling out the possibility that magic might exist."

El rolled her eyes. "You really are impossible."

"Hedging my bets, that's what I am."

Mul grunted something, and El flapped her hand. "Sure, sure. I was coming to the point."

"Good," said Floyd. "You can start with this." He pointed at the moving crowd where the last stragglers were hastening up the cliff face. "Are they leaving because it's so bloody cold?"

"No, they're leaving because of you."

"Me? Come on, that's unfair. I'm only here because of you."

El heaved a sigh. "Not you personally. Your people. What do you call yourselves? Homo sapiens? That's a good one. There's so much you don't know. Worse, you don't want to know. To compensate, you're as destructive as they come."

Floyd slammed through mental compartments in search of comebacks but found none. El wasn't wrong.

"Mh. So, what about this dream business? Is this something you created?"

For some odd reason, the comment drew hysterical laughter and much thigh-slapping from the two Neanderthals. Especially Mul had plenty of thigh to slap.

"Har, har. Very funny."

El wiped her streaming eyes. "I needed a good laugh."

"We can take and change what is there," Mul explained. "We cannot create what isn't there. We aren't gods."

"Just out of interest. Do they exist?"

Mul shrugged. "I do not know. I do not care. We have the dream, and we are content with it. "

Floyd stared at the city.

"This was there. We changed it, so our people could come and live in it."

"Some sort of parallel reality?"

El wagged her head. "That probably describes it best, though Wiseman Mul here is perhaps being a bit simplistic. I'd say the potential for this"—she stabbed her finger in the air roughly where the city towered over the abyss—"existed. But we had to make it happen. Actually that's not quite right either. We are making it happen. All the time. It's the dream, you see?"

"Hah," said Mul.

Floyd didn't get it, not fully. "Mh. Complicated."

"Very. The dreams of our people ensure that what could be becomes and stays reality. Unfortunately, there's something else we need, and that we didn't know when we set out."