Parallel Dreams [1]

It was the TARDIS, within the same grey roundeled walls, but she could see it with different eyes--a many-faceted ever-shifting pattern moving through time and space. Within it were two things larger than the TARDIS itself, though far simpler. With human eyes she would have seen a blue-skinned man in a suit and a man dressed as a biker (somehow she knew what this was), but these were only masks or shadows of deeper realities. The first was a grid-like pattern, crystalline and rigid. The second was a thing in constant motion, made of globs that joined and separated and joined again--the word "lava lamp" came unbidden to her mind. Somehow it seemed to Fred that the TARDIS was a synthesis of what these two beings represented.

She could only catch snatches of their conversation [8228], about the history of a world like her own but different--a world caught in the crossfire of a war between two great powers--one, the Military, made up of men and machines that were like men and yet not, the other, who this world called the Enemy, made up of lizards like those who had walked the earth in ancient days. A world devastated by sky-fire. A world whose Fred had been transformed by the Dragonmage's spells into a man-fox, exiled with a Pack of others of his kind created by the experiments of his sister, the Dragon Moreau. But he'd embraced his new life and family--and found a wife, a woman-fox called Alicia, Princess of Aethiopia. And then...

The Dragon had tried to gain control of machines of ancient Atlantis, machines that could cross worlds, but they had backfired and somehow it had brought other Freds and Astras there. They'd lent their strength to the Pack and the other survivors, along with a few of the Military, to restore the broken world. They'd done so, and with the resources their world had lent the War had been brought to an end. They looked after their new world and a number of other Freds and Astras that had been deposited on this world by random events. But the troubles of the cosmos were only beginning.

There was a deep instability of the cosmos, with cracks and rifts spreading everywhere, because of damage done to the Dark Tower, the foundation-stone of existence, by a thing called the Brazen Man. And so they had called a traveler who had arrived on Terra Prime--the Doctor--and his companions to become Eternal Champions and take up the work of repairing the cosmos. They accepted. Fred knew that before long she would face the same choice.

And then the room slipped away and Fred found herself in another vision. This was a room in the palace of Aquilaria, beside a desk covered in maps and military plans. There were two people here. One was Astra, yet it was not Fred's Astra. She seemed sadder and more wary. The other was a man with shoulder-length dark hair and a slim, athletic form. But Fred knew this form concealed a dragon. This, she knew, was the world she had heard tell of, the world called Terra Prime.

Fred looked at the Astra and found, as one sometimes does in dreams, that she was her. Her thoughts were Fred's own.

"So," said Sigin 2--the dragon-man--"how goes the war against the Orcs?"

"Not bad at all," said Astra 8. "Not now that we've taken care of the traitor-spell Malin put on Queen Astra [8976] and rescued those captives [9547]. With the aid of the Elves, Dwarves and the Military it should be simple enough. The Orcs will have to learn to live with the rest of us, or they'll learn to fear us."

"And Anina?"

"I don't know. I've seen flashes of her true fighting spirit return, but the damage of curse Minestus placed upon her is still there, even if it's been undone. [9088] She was the one who taught me the ways of the sword and bow all those years ago, so I've tried teaching her as she taught me, hoping it would bring her back to herself. So far it hasn't."

Astra remembered Anina well. Besides her first teacher, she was the first woman she ever fell in love with, with all the white-hot intensity of a child knowing those passions for the first time. Her mother had consoled her in the depths of her childish heartbreak, telling her that Anina was too old for her, but some day she would find a warrior of her own who could stand beside her. A part of her had wondered if her knightly rescuer would turn out to be such a one. Unlike the other Freds and Astras drawn to this world, this hadn't turned out to be the case.

"This shall be a long work, Astra," said Sigin, pulling her from her thoughts, "and it may be many a year before it bears fruit. But from all I know, I have faith in her, and you." He'd been aiding her in the happier work of restoring Aquilaria's theater. He'd been a playwright once, taking his name from an assasin from Walants he vanquished--"Shake-spear."

"Perhaps the other Anina who came to this world may help," he added.

"I hadn't thought of that. It's amazing how complicated things get." Couldn't there be just one of anyone? It made everything so confusing. The other Astras and their Freds enjoyed the sense of family and community that their other selves provided. Astra 8 was different. Her Fred was not a noble hero and comrade in arms, but a Thoabath an Oathbreaker, who had made a deal with the forces of Hell to betray her. She didn't belong with these other Astras with their Freds and their many, many children. The other Astra she was closest to--Queen Astra of this world--was the one who had never married a Fred.

"Aye. Just when we think we know what's what, the world keeps throwing us another curveball. Like that Doctor..." That strange traveler who'd appeared out of nowhere at their diplomatic conference represented a whole other set of headaches, though at least those Betties traveling with him seemed sensible.

"You were teaching him in the ways of magic, weren't you?" said Astra 8.

"Indeed. I must confess I find him intriguing in a number of ways. There are many arts I could teach him."

Astra laughed. "I think Inquirer has her sensors locked on him, Sigin. You'd best hope she's willing to share."

"Wait," said Sigin. "Something is wrong."

"What?"

"I was going to travel with him. And in fact, I could have sworn I had. [8681] And yet here I am. [55154] Something is wrong, Astra, I can feel it. The time, as they say, is out of joint..."

1. And the vision changed again...

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