Mind Magic by Eileen Wilks Read Free Book Online

mouth spiked with teeth taller than she was, and there at the back of the mouth was the gaping hole of the throat. She was sitting on the tongue, which rolled beneath her, propelling her back toward the dark maw of the gullet—
    Obvious , a cold mental voice said, yet powerful.
    The mouth was gone. She was sitting on the sand again, with the black dragon coiled at the back of his cave. The candle was intact, but unlit. A wisp of smoke drifted from its wick. “What—what—”
    You have made progress. There was, for once, a hint of emotion connected to that crystalline voice, but it was so faint Lily couldn’t identify it.
    That was progress? Lily’s mouth was dry. Her hands shook, and her head was starting to throb. “The mouth—being swallowed—that was an illusion?”
    It was a hallucination elicited by an experience that your brain lacks the referents to process. You are now on a cusp. You will continue to experience such mental states intermittently until your brain is able to process the unfamiliar input it is now receiving. There is a small chance that your brain will be unable to adapt, in which case your nascent mindspeech will become permanently blocked. Human brains are quite elastic, however, within certain parameters. It is your minds that resist change, and your mind has now accepted this new input. I estimate the chance of a permanent block forming at less than five percent.
    Now she knew what that faint thread of emotion was. Satisfaction. “You were expecting this to happen. You wanted this to happen.”
    A goal is not an expectation. Today’s breakthrough was the goal of this stage of your lessons. You have frequently wondered what purpose was served by sitting in a dim cave staring at a candle. I will now explain. Human brains are heavily weighted towards visual processing. They also seek stimulation while preferencing the familiar. The candle provided a visual focus that engaged your visual processing center. Staring at it became familiar to the point of boredom, while repeated exposure to my mind gradually stimulated your nascent ability into what might be called wakefulness or openness. Both are imperfect metaphors for the process, but your language lacks a precise term. This combination of boredom plus awakening was necessary. On those few occasions when you have briefly accessed your ability, you were not sufficiently bored. Your brain shut off the unfamiliar stimulus before your ability could fully open. Or fully wake, if you prefer.
    She had no damn preference which word he used. She wanted it to go away. “And now it’s awake and I’m going nuts. And this is what you wanted?”
    You are not “going nuts.” Neither your brain nor your mind have been damaged, nor should they be as long we avoid contact during your period of acclimatization.
    “I didn’t hallucinate when I mindspoke with Drummond, and my alert brain didn’t shut that down.”
    He was a ghost. Your connection was largely spiritual. Spirit is exempt from logic, so I do not attempt to explain it.
    Lily scowled. Her head hurt, dammit. “How long will this go on?”
    Your experience of this period will be unique to you and is therefore unpredictable, though I would be very surprised if it were less than a week or more than a year. It is likely that most sensory distortions will be not be as disturbing as the one you experienced a few moments ago. My mind is exceedingly stimulating to a human mind. Such stimulation was necessary to wake your mindspeech, but is now dangerous and will remain so until your brain learns to process the input it is now receiving.
    Wait a minute. Her brain was receiving that input right now? She didn’t notice anything. Nothing but a damn headache.
    The headache is a product of your having established contact with my mind, however briefly. For now, I am suppressing certain paths. This is an emergency measure, as such suppression has a dampening effect on other brain functions.
    “Then once you