Free Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox

found Tziga. I’d have come home sooner, except where I was they get five days’ worth of newspapers only every five days. When Tziga read about the riot and nightmare, he said, ‘It’s Laura.’ And I shouted at him.”
    A sharp gust of wind swept over the roofs around the quad and altered the air pressure in the enclosed space. The peach tree seemed to throw up its branches in surprise, and drops of water rained down on father and daughter.
    Chorley said, “Tziga has a head injury. He has fits. It doesn’t do to upset him.”
    Rose drew back and looked into his face. “How did he hurt his head?”
    Chorley looked away. He couldn’t meet his daughter’s eyes. He tried to control his face and his feelings.
    “Da?”
    “I don’t expect your mother back for several days yet.”
    “Da?”
    “No,” said Chorley. “I’ll tell you when I understand more.”
    “Uncle Tziga is hiding from the Body,” Rose said. “TheBody supplies the Department of Corrections with nightmares.”
    Chorley was startled. “How do you know that?”
    “Maze Plasir told Laura and me. We went to see him. That letter Laura tore up suggested she talk to Plasir. And it told her to do what she did—to catch a nightmare and overdream Ma at the Rainbow Opera. It was Uncle Tziga’s idea. But—Da—Laura
lied
to me.” Rose’s voice went high and tight. “She lied to me,” she said again. Her father could see she was fighting tears. “She didn’t trust me enough to tell me what she meant to do. She mixed Wakeful into my Farry’s musk creams so that I wouldn’t sleep. She thought she was doing me a big favor, but she kept me out of everything, and when I confronted her she lied.
To me!
And I can’t even talk about it properly till I have proof about what she’s hiding. It’s like I have to lie too, or look crazy.”
    “The Hames—” Chorley began, trying to organize his thoughts about the Hames, the three he knew anyway—morbid, dramatic, closemouthed, and apt at times to act like divinely appointed judges. “You can’t be too angry at Laura. Her father left her and wrote a letter saying do this and do that. It was as if he’d told her she’d failed him somehow and had to make it up to him. She can’t have wanted any of this.”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t have the nightmare. It made everyone crazy, but Uncle Tziga could always hold big, forceful, awesome dreams in his head without going out of his mind. For all we know, Laura might
not
have hated it.”
    “Rose, Tziga
did
go out of his mind.” Chorley touched her arm. He wanted to reassure her. And he didn’t want to tell her that her uncle had tried to kill himself. “Besides,” he said, “it wasn’t just that Laura’s father told her what to do; it was also a matter of her conscience. What the Regulatory Body and the Department of Corrections are doing is
wrong.
Withinthe letter of the law, but wrong. And there’s more to it. They must be up to illegal things as well—more than just forging Tziga’s signature in the Doorhandle intentions book. I’m hoping the Grand Patriarch will eventually trust me enough to let me know all he suspects.”
    Rose shuffled her feet and scowled at her father. “Those bloody pledge takers,” she said. She was talking about the swelling ranks of those who, inspired by the preaching of the Temple, had sworn off sharing dreams.
    “The Grand Patriarch calls them his Ark.”
    “So we’ll all be drowned and they’ll be saved?” Rose was exasperated. “The Grand Patriarch thinks sharing dreams is sinful and we’ll all be punished one day for doing it—struck down by a righteous God. The Regulatory Body may be up to no good, but there’s nothing wrong with Ma or Mr. Mason or the Rainbow Opera.
I’m
not throwing the baby out with the bathwater because I’m told to by some bearded, fasting ninny!”
    Chorley burst out laughing.
    Rose glared at him. “Truth and justice are scarcely
ever
the property of religion!” she