CHAPTER FIVE

  Exaltiture

  III

  “TOUKIE?” Wilburn called.

  “What are you waiting for, Creator?” Toukie’s crow was just as Wilburn had imagined: like a rooster’s, but more flutelike due to his long beak. Wilburn had no clue how toucans were supposed to sound; they weren’t native to the Kingdom of Argylon, and even Gramma Totkins had only seen paintings of them. Alive. Toukie was alive! With a whoop of delight, Wilburn threw himself from the mountain top. The wind caught him like familiar hands and lifted him on high. Boy and bird circled each other in the air, laughing and squawking. They were the same size here in Dreamspace, just as they had been on Wilburn’s zeroth birthday. Otherwise, Toukie’s appearance was nearly identical to Real Life. He was black with a yellow bib, blue feet, and a rainbow beak, and he had green-button eyes with smaller, black buttons for pupils. The only difference, apart from his size, was Toukie’s wing, his left, from which shone a golden light.

  “What’s up with that?” Wilburn asked, pointing.

  Toukie stopped flapping at once. Apparently he’d been doing it out of excitement, rather than necessity, for he continued to hover as he held out his wing for Wilburn to inspect. There were no patches or holes as was the case in Real Life; instead, a golden circle radiated from the spot that Wilburn always rubbed. The gold gleamed brightly at the center and faded to black at the circumference, blending seamlessly into the fabric of the wing. Wilburn leaned closer, and beheld, within the circle, a beautiful pattern that reminded him of music, and of plants, and, strangely, of mathematics… but in a good way. “Cool,” he said. “What is it?”

  “That is your fingerprint, Creator.” Toukie’s cartoonish voice managed to strike a tone of reverence. “That is the mark left by your ritual touch. That is exaltiture.” The stuffed bird appeared to be having a religious experience.

  “You okay?” Wilburn asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

  “Okay?” Toukie squawked. “Okay? I am ALIVE! Thank you, Creator! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

  “I didn’t create you,” Wilburn said. “That was Gramma Totkins. But she’s dead.”

  “No, Creator.” Actual tears trickled from Toukie’s button eyes, “I’m not the object your grandmother made. I’m me. I’m a real person. I exist. I feel. I am everything you imagined me to be, because you imagined me. And now I have my own imagination—because you gave me a portion of your soul!”

  There was a pause.

  “I don’t get it,” Wilburn said.

  “I know you don’t, Creator!” And with that Toukie broke down. Flinging his wings around Wilburn, he sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder. It was like being hugged by a large, and increasingly moist pillow.

  “It’s all right,” Wilburn said, hugging Toukie back.

  “Yes,” Toukie sobbed. “Yes… I love you, Creator.”

  “Oh, well, I love you too,” Wilburn mumbled, blushing.

  The two hung hugging in the air, hundreds of feet above the mountains. When at last Toukie’s sobbing subsided, and they broke apart, Wilburn said, “So... tell me again what this is?” He tapped the golden spot on Toukie’s wing. As he did, the pattern pulsed and Toukie shivered. “You are generous, Creator. I do not deserve so much exaltiture. But thank you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

  Toukie looked ready to cry again, so Wilburn quickly said, “Exaltiture? What’s that mean?”

  “It is a force, Creator, which bestows sentience—inner-life. It is the animating power of the universe. Exaltiture flows from the Great Creator through beings of the highest realms. It can only be given, never taken, only grown, never destroyed. The greatest gods exalt the lesser gods, who exalt lesser deities, on and on and on down the Astral Plane. Highly exalted mortals such as yourself, Creator, can grant sentience to thought-forms, such as me, through ritual magic. And that’s exactly what you did. You named me, you played with me, you spoke for me, you felt emotions for me, and every night you focused your attention on the point between your thumb and forefinger: the ritual touch. Whenever you rub that stuffed toy’s wing, you enter a state of trance, which you conceptually associate with me, this me. I know it was an accident, Creator, but I must say it was elegantly done. The toy functioned as a ritual object through which you channeled your exaltiture. Now that I’m sentient, the object is unnecessary. I’m not bound to it as you are to your body. You can throw it in the fire tomorrow, if you wish. I will remain.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “You see, Creator, by repeating the ritual, day after day, year after year, you created a thought-form, which existed here, on the Astral Plane, like a sketch that you traced over and over again, darkening lines, filling in ever greater detail. The thought-form contained all that I am now, but it was not alive. It wasn’t me yet, because exaltiture—I hope I’m getting this right, Creator, because I’ve only read the Introduction so far—exaltiture is an aspect of magic; and just as your magical power lay dormant, so did I, as mere potential, waiting to be realized. And then, when your power manifested, so did I. So did I, Creator. At that moment I knew and remembered everything you had ever imagined me to know—and nothing else. I dare say it was the most confusing moment of my life!” Toukie gave an awkward little chitter, which, Wilburn assumed, must be his version of a giggle. “But before long,” Toukie continued, “a nice elf from the ACTODD turned up and explained a few things, and then she gave me this.” Toukie reached into his pocket—apparently he had one, although he wasn’t wearing clothes—and withdrew a remarkably thick book. Its cover displayed more squirming silver runes like those on the signpost at the crossroads. Wilburn couldn’t read them, yet he somehow knew exactly what they said. The title of the book was, Oops, You Exist: A Handbook for Accidentally Created Tulpas. And beneath these words was written, Published by the Accidentally Created Tulpa Orientation and Development Department. “Like I said, I’ve only read the introduction,” Toukie said, his button eyes widening. “But it explains a lot, Creator. It explains a whole hell of a lot.”

  “Huh…” Wilburn scratched his ear. He almost asked what a tulpa was, but then he thought better of it. “Hey!” he said. “Let’s do something fun!”

  “What do you have in mind, Creator?”

  They began to drift aimlessly together through the sky.

  “I dunno,” Wilburn said. “Just something cool, you know?”

  “Like what, Creator?”

  “I dunno,” Wilburn said again restlessly.

  “Anything you can conceive is possible, Creator. This is your dream. Everything you see around us is a product of your mind.”

  “Nah,” Wilburn scoffed.

  “I believe I am correct about this, Creator.”

  “But I could never dream up something like that.” Wilburn again poked at the golden spot on Toukie’s wing.

  “You underestimate yourself,” Toukie replied. “You are the creator, Creator. Perhaps I haven’t made that clear enough.”

  Wilburn rubbed his chin. “So you’re saying I’m, like, somehow controlling all this, or something, without even meaning to?”

  “Precisely that, Creator.”

  Wilburn looked around. “ALL THE SNOW IS ICE CREAM!” he screamed. And suddenly—it was so. Suddenly, the mountain peaks glistened strawberry pink, chocolate brown, vanilla white… that one still looked like snow from Wilburn’s elevation, but he decided to take it on faith. “Last one there’s a stinky butthole!” he called as he dove toward the nearest chocolate pinnacle. Toukie was right behind him. And then Toukie was ahead of him, and in fact it was he, Wilburn, who turned out to be the stinky butthole, but it didn’t matter as the two of them plowed into what could easily be described as the most ice cream anyone had ever seen. “WE NEVER GET SICK!” Wilburn shouted, slamming a scoop the size of his face into his face. And it was so. Toukie cawed his approval, and plunged his whole head under the snow—ice cream—whichever.

  The pair flew from peak to peak, sampling every flavor of ice cream Wilburn could think of. This went on for some time, or perhaps no time at all, for that was how time worked in Dreamspace. They never got sick, and they never got full. But eventually they did grow tired of their gluttony and lay down side by side in the slick stickiness. Far out beyond the mountains, they could see an ocean, sparkling cheerfully in the sunlight. Some time, or perhaps no time at all later, Wilburn asked lazily, “Where’s my toboggan?” He sat up with a grunt—and there it was. “And now it’s twice as big,” he declared. And it was so. “And now it’s twice as fast, and now the mountain’s twice as steep! Come on, Toukie!”

  “Ah,” Toukie said. “Tobogganing. Are you… quite sure, Creator?”

  “What?”

  “Remember when you steered into that tree, Creator?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s probably because you hit your head after the part that you imagined me to be experiencing with you, which I now remember having experienced with you.”

  “Wait… say that again.”

  “Remember when you steered into the briar patch?”

  Wilburn thought about it. “I was only six then,” he said, laughing. “Besides, Mom patched you up.”

  “You’re only seven now,” Toukie said, his voice somewhat shriller than before. “If it’s all the same to you, Creator, I’d prefer—” he broke off abruptly.

  Wilburn felt it too. A pressure… A vibration… An irresistible… presence… It was all around him and within him, pushing him, pulling him toward… Deja vu… Cold dread crawled up Wilburn’s spine. The other dream. The first, forgotten dream—he must remember—it was vitally important. Think! Wilburn wracked his brain. People… lots of them… chanting, in a circle… and… a fire… and… a white ox? That section was still hazy in his memory but the next part…

  “She’s coming!” Wilburn hissed. “Toukie, it’s Her—” but Toukie was gone.

  Wilburn spun around in time to see him hop into the air. “Toukie, come back!”

  “I’m sorry, Creator,” Toukie squawked, “but you never imagined me to be brave!” And off he flew, diminishing to a dot in perhaps no time at all. If only Wilburn could have followed. If only he could have fled, as he had done the first time. For he remembered now how the first dream had ended. It had ended with the presence. With Her. With him barely escaping Her, racing back to the crossroads, down the road to Real Life with Her right behind him, and awaking in the cottage just as the hornets were landing on the roof. Her presence had been strong then, almost too strong to resist. But this time? This time it was crushing.