Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe)

by Florian Armas

  IO DECENEUS

  JOURNAL OF A TIME TRAVELER

  Florian Armas

  ***~~~***

  Copyright © 2012 Florian Armas

  Second Edition May 2014

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ***~~~***

  For Maia

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Rite of passage

  Desert Brothers

  The road to Dava

  Dava

  Munti

  Fallen masks

  This is not the end

  Prologue

  “All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, besides which nothing exists. This mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.”

  Zen Teaching of Huang Po

  They have cast my life like dice, in a game that is not a game. The unusual erupted into my life like a storm; I mean unusual in my actual perception of things. Do not mistake me; I never desired things that are certainly harder to bear, and nobody asked me if I really wanted an extraordinary life. That is not entirely true; I was asked, in the way a child seeing a cake is asked if he really wants to eat it. Don’t be afraid when this happens to you, don’t try to resist, let it be.

  *

  The white wolf turned his head with animal leisure, until I met his eyes – black pits of charcoal in all that snow – so close, that shades appeared in their darkness, or so I thought. Don’t panic. Don't... I turned around … only me … and the wolf, his tongue hanging out. Where is everybody? A crystal twig cracked under the snow, and three times the raven cawed with human voice: “Wolf-man! Wolf-man! Wolf-man!” Shut up! It’s just a wolf. “Go away,” I whispered and slipped my knife from its sheath. Unimpressed, the wolf howled in my face, and I howled too, from fear at first, then to smother his howl, to smother my mind. A howl ... another one... In-between, silence flows, and the mind sees all that you are not searching for. Silent as death, the white fangs told my mind to shut.

  “Duras, no! Stay here.” The wind carried voices over the ridge. I blinked: the lone wolf was still there … backing off, his lips half writhed into a snarl. In the valley, a pack of gray wolves went out from the forest. A small voice, a girl... What is she doing in this wilderness? The wolves ... they are too many. With the deep instinct of seeing a prey, where there is one, the pack split in two wings – ready to hunt.

  “A few scared wolves.” A man’s voice, almost a man’s voice. How old are you? Sixteen, seventeen?

  “Listen to her,” I shouted. Frosted leaves whispered under small, uneasy steps. “You fool, stay there.” Now you will answer. I almost smiled. The leaves rustled again. “The gray wolves ... they split. You can't see them all.” Nothing...

  “The white wolf!” the girl suddenly shouted. “The white wolf is reborn. Don’t go. Please.” What’s wrong with the white wolf? It howls. “The passage will open again.”

  “The Hidden Passage to Nowhere … children’s story.”

  “The white wolf is here!” Higher in pitch, her voice was now more furious than scared. “And you are not much older than me.” She is right. I tried to count the wolves … ten … and the white one. Where is the white one?

  “I passed the rite of the cold fire, young girl; late in the night, when The Moon wedded The Black Companion and chased the shadows. That means luck: they dance together just once in twenty years; you know this. Armin, the Erin, searched the Lines of Time for me; they were all good. Well, almost... I am a warrior now, and this is my sword.” There was no arrogance in his tone, just youthful confidence trying to deny his worries; the wolves were slowly advancing. I could not stop to admire the subtle synchronization of their moves: Deadly beasts, cautious and silent, not even a growl. Cold, steel-reflected sunshine flashed my eyes; the sword passed over the ridge. What does being a warrior mean here? Someone carrying a sword. “Roasted meat!” He sniffed the cold. “Coming from nowhere... This is not from my own mind, it’s real; I am not hungry. Can evil hide behind such small pleasures?” The young man shook his head in disbelief, but stepped further. The Passage to Nowhere? A thin girl followed him. “Stay there, Delena.”

  “I told you,” the girl said with a deep breath, unsure if it was the right time to be right.

  “You told ... you told... Let me think!” Sliding forward with quiet steps, he stopped in doubt of mind; his sword cut the snow at my feet. “Here,” he whispered. “The scent comes from here.” The sword arched again.

  “Freeze!” I screamed. The sword stopped, still arched over my head; I dared not breathe. Somewhere in the valley a wolf howled, then another one; crows circled the blue sky waiting for something to happen. The wolves are not frozen. Why care? See the ‘warrior’; you are safe now. A stone-face and wide-open eyes, looking through me, his lips tightened together in barely suppressed anger. Searching for something? I mocked. On his chest, a strange symbol, a red, yellow and blue Draco, a dragon with open wolf-like jaws on a white shield: the ancient Dacian symbol.

  “The wolves are coming.” The whisper came with the wind, and I was suddenly tired; there were no hungry wolves, no warriors and certainly no Draco flags in my world – in my safe, boring, real world.

  “It’s only a dream,” I shrugged. The howls grew louder, speaking of death.

  “They will die.”

  Distant unknown laughter, sharp as the cold, scorned my fear, and drops of sweat glided down the petrified face. You are afraid... “Wolf-man!” the raven caved again. Where are you? I turned for the raven and saw the wolf, the black wolf, the silent wolf, leaping forward, and the pack followed like one single hunter, longing for the prey that was us. Time slowed, stretched in minute-long seconds of silence, snow splashed in idle motion, and foreign awareness invaded my mind. A flash revealed my body in colors I could not easily understand. Another flash … a running wolf. Images shifted in hiccups – me, the warrior, the running wolf – fighting for my attention. Feelings, wild scents never sensed before. Human scent. Fear! Leather. Roasted meat. Wolf stench. So strong. My face … white from fear. White face, black face … shifting again … silent faces. I ran on foreign legs, a freezing gust ruffled my fur. The cold moved my mind back; the wolf howled as relieved of demons; then we met again, clashing inside his mind. “Merge with the wolf,” the voice whispered. The wolf jumped with me, almost flying. I felt the wind and smelled the fear, my fear. “Kill the meeeeeen!” the wolf howled. I understand... “Kill!” “Kill!” Killllll … the men,” the pack answered. Stop! You, animal... You… Stop! I lost myself and growled from hunger and excitement. Flesh … good … easy… That’s not my mind. I growled again. Get out of my mind! Then time came back. The wolves can see me…

  “Unfreeze!” I screamed. The sword arched down as if it had never stopped, slicing the wolf. I covered my tightly shut eyes; the howling was no more. The wolf is dead… I was inside him. What if…? Snow touched my skin and melted. It’s cold ... it’s real. NO, it’s a dream. My fingers swiped the water away. When I found the courage to look again, bared fangs snarled at me from the red snow. Just bones, they can bite no longer. The young man leaned on his sword, and drew a deep breath, still trying to understand.

  “What happened?” the young girl asked. “I was caged in a stone, having the shape of my body … at first, when
the wolves... The wind set me free…”

  “Just fear,” he lied to her. “The wolf is dead. Look!” His leg pushed the carcass. “See? Nothing to fear.” Somewhere far off, a honking horn pierced through the silent cold. “We have to go.”

  “Do the Travelers really want to kill us?” Her voice was hesitant, as if talking about forbidden things.

  “Things from far away are stirring the winds of war, and Armin saw me there: a small leaf in all that storm. Maybe he is wrong. The last war was one thousand years ago, before the Great Drought. How can I know? He’s never wrong... He also said that help would come from the Other Side of the Mirror ... whatever that means.” He perceived the fear still gnawing at her and lowered his voice. “Don’t worry, I will protect you. I will always protect you,” he pointed to the dead wolf. For the first time the long sword trembled in his hand, from the cold, or perhaps from fear. The girl’s mind was already too lost inside her own fear to notice it. He acts like a desperate man. Maybe he is desperate ... little more than a child. I looked around: the wolves were patient.

  “Merge with the Field Dream, feel his inner reality, change the perspective, dance between the warrior and the wolves, fly around them, observe them,” the voice pushed me again. “He enjoys experimenting through you, and the rewards are great … if you dare.”

  “Illusions … born out of nothing. I see no need to control ... ‘nothing’.”

  “Are you sure? A Field Dream is an inception point.” What should I change...? No wolves ... no warrior ... the girl ... yes, a few years older... “Your inception point.” Wake up, I shrugged, this dream is way too long. A dreamer can wake himself once he knows he is dreaming, but I never could, and it took me a lot of pain to learn why. “And a test,” the voice almost smiled. A pair of eyes, ice-like color, opened in the sky, filled with mockery, like the eyes of a predatory bird. Who is the prey here?

  “Are you afraid?” The voice was now soft, with just a hint of a smile. Later, awake, I realized that I never asked her name – the feminine voice. “It's not the dream, is it? You are afraid of change.” That was unexpected, and my lips tightened around my mouth; I had no answer. “Yet, you want that change. You dream, you hope. You dream to be a Traveler. The Field listens – he has been doing this from the beginning of Time – and sometimes he answers. It was not a conscious answer; a Dream Crawler found the mind of an ancient Traveler inside you. That makes you the right and wrong person, but I have no power to stop him. A whisper will change many things tomorrow, a single word. Look inside you and see the path; you have the ability, you still lack the will.” Her eyes had lashes – long and translucent, no eyelids, mere hypnotic glitters. “I have studied you for a long time already.” I want nothing from you, I tried to say, yet my mind betrayed me.

  “Traveler? It’s only a dream,” I whispered. I never wanted this; the dream had its way with me. You want a different life. Dreams are not life. ‘Do they really want to kill us?’ I remembered. I am not a killer. Nobody is really killed in dreams. It’s only a dream ... just a dream. Repeating a word or a phrase, as a talisman against evil, empowers and reinforces the will. That, and curiosity, reduced my discomfort to a more manageable level.

  “We shall see. The perspective,” she whispered, “is all yours.” The apparition’s predatory eyes sank deeply into mine, leaning closer. Her lashes grew longer, strong tentacles surrounding my head, halting me. My discomfort turned into fear, and while I knowingly remained in the dream, I knew that I would remember it when awake. I always remembered them; I always kept that fear with me, within me, and the thrill that accompanied it. Is that thrill what I really want? “Do it!” the voice suddenly snapped. In haste, I tried; in dreams, you can afford to dare, to be courageous. I left the warrior behind and observed the girl. Beautiful. Her eyes grew wide.

  “Can you see me?” I asked. “Who are the Travelers?” She stared ahead, mute; her left hand covered her mouth – long suppressed fear finally bursting out. Why are you so scared? “Don’t be afraid, I cannot harm you.” It’s only a dream.

  “Run Dele…!” The voice ended strangled, as if cut by a sharp blade. “Ru…” The last desperate attempt pushed the girl to run. A hidden rock hindered her footing, and she stumbled in the deep snow. Her head turned – a sad face and sparkling tears melting the snow. All noise stopped in the cold valley; even the wind faltered, afraid of something. The shadow of my body, lying down in the snow, changed, getting bigger, with a strange form in the top as if wearing a large hat. Why is it so cold?

  “Use your senses,” the voice snapped again. “The unknown shadow is in front of you.” While pondering an answer a hand gripped my shoulder. I tried to escape. Nooooo!

  “Be careful of your wine,” he said, releasing my shoulder. “Did you see a zombie?” I checked my glass, a white wolf was howling inside, then a pair of ice-like color eyes opened. They glanced at me in silence and vanished.

  It was a wolf, and a warrior, and a young girl, and... I said nothing aloud, the wolf was still howling in my mind, and white patches of snow were scattered in the green of my garden, but no one seemed to care. “I had a dream.” With a wave of my hand, I tried to send the stubborn snow back to where it belonged, and after a while, I won the fight with the unknown invading my inner world. Did I pass the test? There was no test, only a stupid dream.

  “Wake up, the steak is ready.”

  The scent of the wild is slowly dissipating in my mind, the steak ... I salivate, caught once more in the net of domestic fragrances, and remember again how to breathe; the dream vanished with the party. The day-to-day mask is already painted on my face and nobody can guess what is hidden behind it, in the deep corners of my mind, not even me. That voice guiding me… What was that voice? What is an inception point? What is the Other Side of the Mirror? What is...?

  *

  “Layoffs!” The word crept into the office, and all chatter stopped, the keyboards stopped, our minds stopped; you could have heard a pin drop and smelled the fear. The whisper had no name, no face, no smell, no character, nothing, no one had recognized the voice; it was written on their morose faces, on my face. “Are you sure?” another whisper came. Who the hell are you? Whoever it was had no intention of passing this information to us, but the door was slightly open and the cat was let out of the bag. “I just talked with...” No name came; there was probably a gesture, like a thumb pointing up: you know who, up, up; I am the smart, well connected, guy in this town. “Finally, I can kick out some parasites.” The door closed. “Parasites!” one colleague exploded. Bastards! No ‘parasite’ could work again that day.

  There is no pleasure in dining alone with an absent mind, no fun when office concerns are invading your home and life is not balanced. I tried to see the food on my plate; I saw only layoff papers and red dancing letters. “Go away!” The plate did not answer. I stood up, and the chair fell. “Everything is falling down. If I lose my job ... I’ll lose my house... The banks are waiting, like the wolves in my dream. Jackals! Such a dependent life we have, a servitude driven by cleverly imposed financial constraints. Constraints for us, bonuses for them, layoffs for us, golden salaries for them. We are only liabilities, red lines in fancy reports. Who needs good working people anymore?”

  “Bravo! You are a good orator. Running in the elections?” My neighbor's head appeared over the small hedge separating our gardens. The sound of my glass falling on the stones was unnaturally clean. “Sorry,” he swiftly apologized.

  “Politician? Me? Do I look like a big mouth with large pockets?”

  *

  Hard to walk here. The hall was a ruin with stones scattered on the floor – from collapsed columns. In a corner, fingers of light peered out from a half-destroyed fireplace, dancing with the dust. And the old man… Ruins … old … fire. Is this a riddle? The old man ignored me. Before him, a skullcap and a long decrepit tunic of a dark color, untidily discarded on the table. What’s this? “Your future,” a whisper rose from the walls. What am
I doing here? There should be some reason in all this. It’s only a dream; there is no reason. I had the uncomfortable feeling of having known this man in a different time, a different place, so uncomfortable that I missed the woman’s arrival. She was sitting at the opposite end of the table, when I turned my head. One woman, one man ... again. Older… No wolves ... yet. I found some courage and took one step in their direction, then another... Once seated, I heard their voices.

  “Finally!” her voice mocked. I closed my eyes to end the dream. “Look at him,” she laughed, “like a child: close the eyes and the danger is no more.” Dreams are dreams; no need to fear. Tell that to the white wolf. “Now he is ashamed.” Does she read my mind? She IS the product of your mind. She is YOU. Are you sure?

  “He is just cautious,” the old man answered. “And this place doesn’t help too much.” Why this old ruin? Why not?

  “I don’t like the latest data clusters in The Field,” she cut him short. “There is a large jump in magnitude of the mining forecast, tension is building… Bad news, all the language markers are surpassed; the Mining Crawlers are overwhelmed, two storms are brewing.”

  “I may know what is wrong here. What do they see there?”

  “They see… I do not really know what they see; I am bound to that planet's past. The data cluster is somewhere later; I was only told that it exists, and many temporal ramifications are already erased. A lot of good choices are gone, mistakes are waiting to happen.”

  “Is the link reactivated in our timeline?”

  “No, what I really know is in the past of that past. There is an edge in that far past, not a real storm, just a temporal bifurcation, a simple yes/no choice ready to create its own future. The edge will play in a certain way; one of these ways will create the data cluster of bad news, the storm.”