'I'm worried,' Liana said. Her hair floated above her face like a cloud. It made Herago also feel worried, but he didn't know what he was worried about. This was not the first time Herago had felt like this with Liana.
They had taken a break from the practice for Megtwillow, which Herago had thought was going well. They had the broad outlines of what they were going to show. They just had to find a way to end it.
'Liana, you were worried about not having something to show. We've got something now, and I'm sure everyone will think it's really good. Well, maybe not everyone. But most people. What are you worried about now?'
'It's not the showing. It's something else.'
'What else?' Herago asked.
'Something is happening,' Liana said.
'Happening?'
'Yes. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's good.'
'Something to do with Megtwillow?' Herago asked. He wished Liana wouldn't bring up these puzzles.
'No, not Megtwillow. I don't think so. Maybe.' This, Herago thought, was no help.
'What is happening is that our showing is coming up in Twil weeks. No, less than Twil. Dak. Just over dak weeks. We've got to work on our showing. Everybody is looking forward to it. And we still have a lot to do. But we can do it. We can do something really special. That idea of yours about the "sag Impossible". I think I've found a way to make it work. But for this, I'll have to let you in on the secret, so...' Suddenly there was a loud sound from one of the mountains in the distance.
'There,' said Liana, 'I knew there was something wrong. That mountain.'
'Greblara? What about it?'
'I don't know,' said Liana.' There's something about the sound it's making. It's been sounding strange all week. Yesterday it sounded like it was in pain. Today it sounds like it's trying to... I don't know what... Speak to us about something.'
'Liana, mountains can't feel pain. And they don't speak to people.'
'I know it can't really feel pain. But it seems to be complaining about something. I feel sorry for it.'
'Liana, you can't feel sorry for a mountain. It's just rumbling, like it does every day. You shouldn't be worrying about it. We should get back to work on our showing.'
The mountain rumbled again, and Herago listened hard. Actually, there was something odd about the sound, but Herago couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. 'It's just...' Herago stopped as the mountain once again cried out, and this time there was definitely something pitiful about it.
'It's gurgling! It's never done that before,' Liana said.
It was true. There was a sort of a gurgle in the sound that Greblara was making. Herago tried to remember if he had heard it make that sound before. He was fairly sure he hadn't. It was unusual. But unusual things did happen occasionally, and sometimes you just had to live with them.
'It doesn't matter, Liana. We need to get on with the showing work.'
'Of course it matters. Greblara erupts every other day. Then yesterday, when it was supposed to erupt, it didn't. And today it did. And now it's just started gurgling. Something is happening,' Liana said.
'I suppose it's just slowing down a bit. That happens sometimes with volcanoes.'
'How would you know that?' Liana asked. 'How many volcanoes have you seen? When did you get time to study them?'
'I learnt about volcanoes from Piacho. He has read some of the old books. Volcanoes change their behaviour every so often. It just so happens that the ones around us have been very regular for the past, I don't know, deg-twilfti years.'
'And there's something else strange,' Liana said, quickly.
'What?' There was a serious tone in Liana's voice that he had never heard before.
'Can I tell you something that really is impossible?' Liana said.
'You can tell me about anything, Liana. But whatever it is, I don't think it can really be impossible.'
Liana thought. How could she tell Herago about this? She could hardly think about it herself.
There are things that happen that can't be explained. She knew that, probably better than anyone else in Seren-ila. Was it possible for Herago to understand that too? After all, he was asking people to look at things that everyone knew were impossible, so why not? Herago was the only person Liana knew who might, just possibly, understand what she was about to say.
'Well,' Liana began. She couldn't think how to continue. 'Well,' she tried again.
'Well, what?' said Herago. He was sounding a bit impatient, and Liana didn't really blame him.
'You know how it is, when you sleep, and you dream...'
'Are you going to tell me about one of your dreams, Liana?'
'Yes. Or no, not really. It's a control dream.'
'A what?'
'I have these special dreams. I call them "control dreams". Do you have them too?'
'I don't know. What are they like? Are they nightmares? I sometimes have those. Or I used to, when I was little.'
'No, not nightmares. Not at all frightening. Well, they didn't used to be frightening...'
'What are you talking about, Liana?'
'OK. When you have a dream, do you know you're dreaming?'
'No. I'm just, just there ... in the middle of things happening. Strange things sometimes. Things that don't really make sense. Well, they make sense while I'm dreaming, but when I think back later, it all slips away from sense,' Herago said.
'So what do you dream about?'
'About being...about how there would...I don't know how to describe it all. Sometimes there are pictures, sometimes there are numbers...'
'Numbers? You dream about numbers?' Liana said. Herago didn't like the sound of surprise in her voice.
'Yes, but anyway, what's this all got to do with your dreams?'
'OK. So I have the same sort of dreams. Ones that don't make sense. Though sometimes there are things in them from the real world. People. Places...'
'Do you dream about me?' Herago wasn't sure why he had asked this.
'Sometimes, yes. Or Silmoa. And... other people. Sometimes we're all looking at Seren Lake. And then we... I don't know. Something happens. Things change. The world becomes something new. And afterwards I wake up and I've forgotten what it was all about.'
There was another gurgling sound from the mountain. Louder this time.
'They're just dreams, Liana. You shouldn't worry about them.'
'Wait, I haven't told you yet about the control dreams.'
'Well, tell me!' Herago sounded almost annoyed, which was something Liana was not used to. As if echoing his mood, Greblara let out a loud, gurgling exclamation once again. Liana looked like she was going to say something about that sound, but then she seemed to decide not to. She carried on where she had left off.
'All right.' Liana decided not to tell Herago about the very first control dream. That was too sad. 'So there was this time when I was dreaming, and I saw that I was in Fountain Square. There were other people around, but I can't remember who they were. Maybe they weren't even real people. I don't know.'
'So why is this a "control dream"?'
'I'm coming to that. So, I walked from Fountain Square, towards Seren-ila lake, through the woods, which is quite a long way...'
'You'd have to go through Middle Meadow.'
'Yes. So as I'm walking through the woods, a tree starts to talk to me.'
'A tree?'
'Yes.'
'How?'
'What do you mean?' Liana asked.
'How could a tree talk to you? Did it have a mouth? What sort of voice did it have?'
'I don't know,' Liana said. 'It had a sort of a woody voice. Like a tree, of course. And I don't know how it talked. Out of a knot-hole on its trunk, I think.'
'So did the hole open and close? Was it using air to form words, like people do? Could it...'
'I don't know, I don't know. The important thing is what it said.'
'And what was that?'
'It told me that I was dreaming.'
'Dreaming?'
'Yes, it said: "Liana, this is a dream". And I said: "But everything is so real". Then the tree said: "Yes, but actually, you have made all of this. The woods, the grass, the birds, the hares. Even me. All of this comes from your imagination"'.
'So you dreamed that you knew you were dreaming?' Herago looked puzzled.
'Well... not really. From that point on it wasn't exactly a dream. Because I knew it was a dream. I didn't feel confused or groggy. It was as though I was wide awake, but in a place that couldn't really be. An impossible place.'
'So really, you were awake and thinking about dreaming,' Herago said.
'No, because I could still see everything around me as though it was really there, even though I knew it was a dream.'
'When did you have this dream?' Herago asked.
'A long time ago. Before the last harvest. And I've had lots more control dreams since then.'
'So you have dreams where you know that you're dreaming. Why are you telling me about this now? Has it got anything to do with Greblara making strange noises?'
'I don't know if it has anything to do with what's happening to Greblara. All I know is that something strange has happened. And I haven't finished telling you about the control dreams yet!' Liana seemed irritated so Herago decided he had better not interrupt again. He just nodded.
'So after the tree spoke to me, I discovered that I could control everything that happened. I could make one thing turn into something else. Like a rabbit could turn into a dog. Or a tree could turn into an elephant.'
'There's no such thing as an elephant,' Herago said. 'That's just something in stories.'
'I know, but I've seen drawings of elephants, even though they don't exist, and I could imagine one waving its trunk and making a noise.'
'What sort of noise?'
'A sort of trumpeting noise,' Liana said.
'I've always imagined that if they existed, they would make a low, rough noise. Like a dog barking.'
'Well, that's your elephant. Mine made a trumpeting noise. But that's not important. Control dreams. They were wonderful. Mostly. In most of them I could make anything happen. Anything I wanted. I could fly above the mountains, and look at the world on the other side. Or even fly out into the stars, and find other planets.'
'What was the world like on the other side of the mountains?'
'It was so beautiful. There were seas, and there were places covered in ice. And there were strange looking people, dressed in shiny suits.'
'Did you talk to them?'
'No. They couldn't see me. But anyway, I didn't stay where the shiny suited people were. It didn't seem like a friendly place.'
'So where else did you go?'
'All over the world. Well, maybe not all over the world. But to places all over that I could imagine. And to places in Seren-ila that I'd never been to before. Places where the animals live. The hares and the foxes, the birds in their nests. And I could make myself into a rabbit, or a squirrel, or something that lived under the ground – I don't know what it's called. I learned a lot from all of that. And then I went up into space, where I could look down on a shiny blue world.'
Herago's eyes opened wide. 'It sounds great. But what's worrying you about the control dreams?'
'They've stopped. Or at least they've changed.'
'How?'
'OK. So I still have dreams, and I know that they're dreams. I can see that I'm not in the real world, and strange things can happen around me. But now I can't control what happens. Well, I can control some things, but not in the way I could before. I can't travel very far in the dream. Just around my nearest living place. And there's this thing which has appeared.'
'What thing?'
'I don't know what it is. I've never seen anything like it before. It can't be something from my imagination, because it's not something I could ever imagine. It's... a sort of box. A box made of hard, shiny stuff. With a... a snake with an eye on the end of it poking out, looking at me.'
'A snake?'
'Not a real snake,' Liana corrected herself. 'It was made of shiny stuff, like the box, but it moved like a real snake, but with one big eye in the middle of its head, and that moved around to look at me from all angles.'
Herago couldn't believe that Liana was making all of this up. People in Seren-ila didn't make things up. Well, that wasn't quite true, he suddenly realised. He and Liana were making stuff up to make the Impossibles. But that wasn't the same as making up stuff like this, and frightening people with stories about shiny boxes with snakes attached.
Liana started again. 'It feels like something is trying to push its way into my thoughts.'
Another loud gurgle from Greblara. Herago decided to ignore it.
'Liana, it was just a dream. I know it was a very strange and unusual dream, but you are a strange and unusual person. And do you know what has happened? Because we were thinking about that "sag impossible", where it looks as though you can see into somebody's mind, your brain has been thinking about that while you were asleep, so you've had a dream in which something has got into your brain. That's what happens in dreams. It doesn't mean anything.' Herago was pleased with himself, and spoke with the tone of somebody who had solved a particularly difficult puzzle. He smiled at Liana, expecting a smile in return. But Liana was looking past him. She was staring at Greblara. Her mouth was open wide. Herago turned around.
This was something he had never seen. Something nobody had ever seen. Greblara was sending stuff out into the air. That wasn't unusual. It had always done that. But now, instead of thick smoke and ash, what Liana and Herago saw rising into the sky was a fountain of water.