Mia's Optiscope. Natalie Rose

      Prologue

      The sound of his own heavy breathing finally convinced Joseph Haden he was alive. He’d been opening and closing his eyes, struggling to focus on a shape moving in front of him. His vision cleared revealing a plump but regal woman leaning over him. He recoiled at the sight of her, she was furryeared and snub-nosed, a half-cat, half-woman, but his head couldn’t press any further into the pillow.

      He shut his eyes, feigning sleep and resisting the urge to open them again. He heard voices but couldn’t understand what was being said – his head felt fuzzy. He tried moving his feet and felt the sheets against his toes, next, his hands, but there was no sensation there. Remember, I must try to remember, he urged himself. A mailbox, sorting through the junk mail. He struggled to recollect, and then... nothing. The voices stopped and he opened his eyes a little. Then seeing he was alone he looked around the room.

      Sunrays filtered through arched windows, casting light on a long silver table at his bedside. He could just make out the things on it: towels, tongs, scissors, dressings, before drifting out of consciousness.

      When he woke next his arms were hanging just off the bed suspended from cables. His hands were wrapped in bandages to the wrists. He tried to clench his fists at the memory of pain. Power lines, he suddenly remembered. I touched power lines, climbed a pole – but for what?

      The squeak of bed wheels told him someone was coming and he closed his eyes.

      ‘You’re through the worst of it, General, but we need you to rest. Please...’

      Joseph squinted to see the cat-woman and a lizard in a lab coat pleading with a tall man on a cot at the opposite side of the room. The patient was edging towards the side of the mattress, trying to sit up.

      ‘Dr Drefus, tell him to be still,’ came the woman’s pleading voice.

      ‘Leave me be, Maxine – Doc, tell her it’s only a flesh wound.’

      ‘General Falcon, you’ll disturb your dressings and do more damage!’ the cat warned.

      ‘Oh heck,’ the man squawked, curling up in agony.

      ‘She tried to tell you. Now please, lie down.’

      Joseph fluttered back, losing consciousness.

      When he awoke his neighbour was sitting upright sipping a thick liquid through a straw.

      ‘Ah, he lives,’ the General declared.

      Joseph stared at the strange man opposite, noting he was tall, almost double his own height, and his body was almost as wide as the bed. His nose spread across his face with a sharp ridge running down the centre and the tip pointing over a slit of a mouth. His ears were small and close to the side of his head. Feathers, not hair, covered his crown. He was, it appeared, a bird! A falcon, Joseph thought, remembering the carer had earlier called him General Falcon.

      Joseph’s hands ached again. The bird – that must be it. I rescued a bird from the overhead cables. This couldn’t possibly be the same one? Where am I?

      ‘You all right? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

      Joseph blinked. The General sat forward, revealing that what had looked like pillows were his wings folded behind him.

      ‘I suppose it is a bit like seeing a ghost. Look, don’t be frightened my man, I won’t hurt you. Why, actually, I owe you my life.’

      The weeks passed slowly for both patients, confined to the sterile environment of the clinic while their burns slowly healed. Every time Joseph tried to explore his unfamiliar surroundings, he was given a gnarled root to chew on that sent him to sleep. He stopped trying to escape and instead learned about the strange world he was in from General Falcon, who regaled him with tales of Nilimbia, the ‘Land of Dream Weavers, a sanctuary for the living.’ A land ruled by ‘our just and wise ruler, Madam Zolver.’

      ‘And when will I go home?’ he often asked Dr Dreyfus.

      ‘All being well, at the next full moon you will return to your world.’

      On the eve of the full moon Joseph was called to the Castle at Central Torni where Madam Zolver met him in her chambers. Though the ruler towered over him, he did not fear her. She spoke to him without words, speaking from her mind to his.

       There is more to Nilimbia and more to your world than you ever imagined. Follow me – I will show you just some of what you do not know.

      Joseph nodded and followed her to the balcony of a theatre of sorts. She showed him visions of Nilimbia and his own world through a star filled void called the Galaxy Viewer. Whenever a question came into his mind she answered it before it could form as words on his tongue. At the end, she asked Joseph if he would accept the honor and responsibility of helping the search for the next Dream Weaver, a human, pure of heart and mind. Joseph’s imagination went wild, momentarily forgetting that the Madam was reading his mind. He pictured himself greeted by all the dignified and important subjects of Nilimbia as he entered the Castle at Central Torni and imagined the reverence he would receive as he presented Madam Zolver with candidates for Dream Weaver. He smiled at the thought of the glory and pomp that would no doubt follow his discovery until he felt Madam Zolver in his head.

       You may never succeed in finding the Dream Weaver in your time as a Keeper of the Optiscope...

      Joseph stared at his bandaged hands and swallowed his shame.

       You may only live to pass the torch onto another worthy of continuing the search.

      A flash of pity overcame Joseph as it dawned on him that he might never use his hands to carve a piece of furniture out of wood again. My livelihood. If only I hadn’t tried to save that bird. What will I do? How will I live and eat.

      Madam Zolver lay a finger

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