The valley weaved the magic of existence into me.
As the guest of a god, bizarre, inexplicable events were routine.
Occasionally, I spotted Monkey Man and Fish Man. Although I tended to think of them as my brothers of the valley, we didn’t spend a lot of time together. I felt they were studying me, watching how I reacted within the reality mushrooms revealed. I didn’t believe them to be gods, like Pan, and wondered about their connection to the window box in New York. Sometimes I’d come across a smoldering cigar or see a spout of water jet up from some section of the pasture, so I knew the two of them were around but remaining cryptic.
No one—not Pan, Monkey Man, or Fish Man, nor the valley itself—would reveal the information they knew I sought.
The wall wouldn’t budge. My fingers once sunk into a section, but I couldn’t see the tips anymore and withdrew them quickly. I marked the spot by leaving my boots in the grass. Where my camera, drawings, and knapsack had gone off to, I had no idea. The photograph of Charlie and a pack of untouched cigarettes huddled together in my jacket pocket, a remembrance of another world.
Occasionally, the canyon would vibrate while brilliant bouts of light erased the night, but I only interacted directly with two events relating to the passage of sky travelers. They proved the earlier incidents had been tame introductions to the phenomena.
The first occurred after I had fallen asleep under my tree and awoken to voices cracking a quiet night. They rose in a harsh and guttural, chaotic chorus from the river crossing. Terrified by the sound, I shrunk between the roots and watched as a torch-bearing band of a dozen of the scariest-looking creatures I’d ever seen clanked and stomped by, the ground screaming where their clawed hooves raked and tore away dirt and grass. As the troop passed, their teeth gnashed with a destructive energy that had me tasting blood in my own mouth. Tongues rolled out between grotesque lips, spilling to their knees. Eyes weaved frantically. I knew if one of those searching orbs settled on me, the owner’s reaction would be to kill me. I understood it had no other reason to exist.
As I watched the arms churn and the legs pound, listened to the scrapes and rasps and curses, and as the stench of odorous globs of spit and bubbling filth reached me, I realized the dozen creatures were one thing, its parts sticking together uncontrollably at times, then splitting viciously a moment later.
The monster’s features folded in on one another—crumpling, stretching, tearing gristle, ripping bone. An iron-studded knee would raise and clunk and come back down in the form of the elbow of an outstretched arm. A head would spin to threaten another of its own faces and revolve back only to become the asshole of a hideous torso writhing nearby. Bloody flesh and fur patches surfaced as if regurgitated from prisoners that had been swallowed up into the beast.
I tried to will myself into dissolving. My eyelids rammed shut, and desperate wishes ran through me…
If I could just lose myself in the clouds and slip away to New York, I’d be gone from this terrible demon thing.
… but the ability to transport myself was a luxury I didn’t possess.
My eyes shot open. The farting, killing mass stalled.
Something slimy and wicked slithered out from it and stained the space between us. It crept towards me, low to the ground on a thousand spidery legs, snapping jaws, flailing heavily-spiked pincers, spitting razor-sharp syllables in a language designed to poison.
Sliced by fear and with limited choices, I leaped up, drove my feet into the valley floor. Responding to a signal somewhere so deep inside my soul as to be incomprehensible, my hand rose and began to weave symbols in the air. I was drawing my passage across the mountains, relaying how love steered dreams and sustained them for eons. My hand fluttered and spun, creating colorful shapes around me, drawn from some unfathomable place within myself. The color and movement of my hand swept me into a hypnotic trance. I became lost to a void where consciousness loosens itself to drift within a sacred silence. A purity of joy, flowing from the source of that quiet within me, unencumbered by my longings and failings and fears, pulsed as a palpable energy from my palm and fingertips into the valley.
I became aware of Pan’s flute trilling, responding to the threatening presence in his idyllic pasture. A crescendo of rapid fingering swelled with an authority to bring forth those who would hear his commands. At the river’s edge, the air rippled furiously with furrows and waves, distorting my perception of the jungle behind it. Someone else was entering the valley, summoned by Pan.
The colors flowing from my hand ebbed, then ceased. I had become distracted when I recognized a dreaded, grating voice. The rusty gears of his throat spoke a broken and disheveled language, but I understood his commands to the demon thing. “Move. Move on from here. Obey our rules of existence.”
Doctor Steel came hustling past cow patties, pointing sternly at the creeping, slithery thing that had separated from the mob of destruction. “Assassin, return to your realm.” He stood emphatically between me and the monster, calling out harsh instructions to the mass of evil. “Be gone, Beelzebub, you damned intruder. You’re not welcome.”
We stood and watched as the demonic thing bit and clawed, strangled and stabbed at its menagerie of confused body parts, moving slowly up the valley, spewing fumes, shooting oily flames out from different orifices. The filth and stink and violence paused before the invisible wall, then disappeared.
I fought down a sudden, unwelcome feeling of camaraderie with my nemesis from New York and stood ready to face off with him.
Doctor Steel turned to me. Lighting a cigarette, his voice sounding tarnished and corrupt, he rasped, “I have to hand it to you, Deets, I wasn’t sure you had it in you.” He glanced back at the cottage, his face grimacing briefly with a sardonic smile. “You found Pan.” The pupils of his eyes flared green and became vertical slits. They radiated a clear message. You have moved into new territory. The ante has been raised. You are more capable now but are not my equal. Ha, ha, never. Beware, there are dangers that exist that should never have been conceived.
He licked his lips, and I flinched, expecting a ten-foot tongue to strike me. He laughed at my reaction, ridicule echoing around the valley as he ambled confidently across the pasture. A scattering arc of fire traced across the night as he flicked his cigarette near the invisible wall.
I scratched the top of my head, wondering about the commanding words he had spoken to the evil intruder. How strange it had felt to be rescued by his presence. Shaking with relief that he hadn’t destroyed me, I pondered whether the bullets I had shot at him on the other side of the mountains ever had a chance of killing him. He was a creature of magic, from another place, familiar with gods, ordering demonic manifestations around. It seemed my living in the Valley of the Monsters was the beginning of glimpsing who Doctor Steel might be.
What did he mean he wasn’t sure I had it in me? What—finding Pan? Or being able to access the magic within myself?
Pan had summoned Steel, trusted him to rid the valley of the murderous stink called Beelzebub. To help me. Odd.
Was I part of some game of the gods, like Monkey Man had hinted at?
A yellow glare followed by a dazzling array of red beams of light lit the canyon area. Steel was gone.
I hope he didn’t take that thing to New York.
Sometime later, another astounding incident with a sky traveler proved a revelation, providing answers to mysteries that had tantalized me for years. Core enigmas were finally, thankfully, revealed.
The unforgettable episode began one morning when I noticed stacks of semi-dry cow patties outside the invisible wall. There were a dozen piles about four feet tall. This being a valley of the bizarre, I wondered about the cow shit for a few minutes but continued on my way to the waterfall, anxious to experiment with another newly discovered oddity. I had found that when tapped, the rock I had smelted near the falls played different musical notes
that were usually accompanied by a spurt of rainbow color. Recently I had learned how to use my fingers to stretch chords and hold them while I played a lead with my other hand.
After playing some experimental tunes, I found myself bopping and slapping the burned heap of slag and singing along with a rendition of “Eight Days a Week.”
“Ooh, whenever I dream of you
It feels like it must be true
Love you, hug me
Four hundred and sixteen nights a year, girl
Bop a rock, yeah,
Whoo-hoo, hoo hoo”
My head exploding with the pleasure of still being in love with Teresa, of playing a song flawlessly that I had never played well on the guitar, I lay back on a mossy area whooping and laughing. Soaking wet from the constant spray of water, I stripped off my clothes.
Just naked me in the Valley of the Monsters. Enjoying life, music, sunshine, breakfast on a cow patty. Ha, ha.
I felt a pair of eyes on me and swiveled my head to see the large sky-traveling Neanderthal in gold coveralls. He was making his way up the mysterious canyon trail, carrying a load of manure tucked under each arm, and looking back over his shoulder at me.
I decided to make another attempt to pass through the wall. Finding the spot I had marked with my boots, I placed my hands on the transparent surface. The solid air sucked at my fingers. My hands vibrated, and I found myself sinking quickly into the memory of the energy pouring forth when I had summoned colorful shapes to battle Beelzebub. This time, I watched as my hand weaved the familiar outline of a four-legged creature with feathers along its back. When I dotted the nose with a star, my hands were pulled forward, and I jumped to catch up with myself. I had passed through the air block and was in the canyon passageway.
So that’s it. That’s my key symbol. Of course, I should have guessed, it’s the only one that’s shown interest in me—the sniffing in Monster Alley, then bizarrely showing up outside Mai’s.
A path wove up the narrow, boulder-strewn gorge. I was nervous about what I would discover and unsure of how I would be received by denizens on this exclusive side of the valley, but with each step, I felt like my whole life had been an invitation to make that particular step, so I took another. Coming out from under the shade of a stand of pine trees, I approached a small cottage tucked against high cliffs that formed the end of the canyon. There were deep cuts in the mountain walls marking where torrents of water had cascaded for eons and then lay dry for just as long.
The house had a broad porch with a dozen chairs and two couches arranged around a few tables. Doors and windows were open as if welcoming my appearance. The massive Neanderthal appeared from along one side of the building and signaled for me to approach. He let himself down heavily into a cushioned chair, stretched and yawned, then smiled. He appeared to be doing his best to be non-threatening. I believed him.
As I walked towards him, I picked up on his thoughts. “Pure human. First timer.” He was sizing me up.
“Welcome. I’m Nando. What’s your name?”
“Deets.”
When I reached the porch, the dominance of Nando’s physicality was as astounding as any other uncommon sighting in Pan’s kingdom. He stood maybe seven feet tall, jaw twice the width of mine, eyes the size of jumbo jawbreakers, fists as thick as a catcher’s mitt.
Standing there naked, my body yelled out its frailties in comparison to the giant. After a morning of feeling care-free, suddenly I felt the need to make insecure excuses. I blurted apologetically in mushroom telepathy. “My pants are down at the falls...”
“Relax Deets. If you’re here, you belong here.”
Then we both laughed at the irony of a clothed caveman and an embarrassed, naked modern homo sapien meeting each other.
“A while ago I saw you arrive out of the sky with a group of people. I think they were people. Where are you from? I mean... is this a proper question?”
He waved my uncertainties away.
“Deets, we’re all into our own trip. From some of the comings and goings around here, you seem to be involved in some heavy-duty mystery. Quite a cast of characters.”
“It’s blowing me away, man. So what’s your bag then?”
“Pan’s plan.”
“He’s one magic cat. What’s he up to?”
“What’s he up to? Ha. He’s been around forever. Way back before my time, he had a run-in with some snob of a god who pissed him off. Well, once you get to know Pan, you’ll find a mischievous streak in him.” Nando smoothed out a wrinkle on his coveralls, brushed off a speck of dry manure.
“So what happened between that god and Pan?”
“It’s all beyond me, but this other god didn’t really care much for anyone who wasn’t as powerful as himself. Pushy and snotty, throwing lightning around, blowing up perfectly good real estate, making a mess of life forms Pan had grown fond of. That’s the gist of it. Pan figured the jerk needed to be cut down a notch, so he launches an ingenious, crazy plan.”
“This is freaking me out. How do you know this?”
“I’ve been around for awhile. Picked up a rumor here, some gossip there. You know how information just pops into your head sometimes. And besides, I’m helping to pull off the dastardly plot for him.”
“What?”
“Take a look around the side of the building.” He heaved himself up. “C’mon, this will help you in further understanding your great puzzle, even if it seems tangential to the hazards you went through to get here.”
Around the corner stood stacks and stacks of cow patties. Walking among them, I came across a sight that, even after almost two complete moon cycles digesting mushrooms, I had trouble believing. Tucked up next to the cabin’s wall sat a blue and white ceramic window box decorated with monkeys riding on the backs of fish flying above a mountain. I fell to my knees and looked closely at it. There was the tree, with one monkey on a limb. The flying teams were more randomly scattered and facing different directions than the way Teresa had discovered them to be on the box’s sister in Monster Alley.
“Seen one before, I take it.”
“What are they?”
“Guess. You know you figured it out. You just haven’t thought it through.”
I closed my eyes, and it seemed the nights spent listening to Pan’s flute spoke to me anew, each note transforming into a small detail of one long, comprehensible dream.
Once, in what might be considered the beginning, Chaos ruled. To move through this realm of contrary disturbance, the gods forged paths. Using tools that opposed the disorienting existence, tunnels were cut, holes blasted and shaped. Some routes jumped from one kingdom to another, others from familiar dimensions to the strange. All across the universe passages cut through the hazards interfering with time and space. Ages later, a God of Creation banished Chaos from the physical universe, but the paths remained, a benefit to divine communication and travel.
I breathed out my revelation. “The window boxes are portals. They’re used to enter the paths that connect one place to another.”
Nando knelt beside me. “You got it. But not just places on this planet, but to other planets, other times.” He paused, spread his arms to say look at me. “Other dimensions too. The travel tunnels have always been fluid in nature with elaborate tributaries branching from the main passages. It’s not so hard to understand.”
“How were you able to arrive out there?” I raised my head and nodded down the canyon, towards the pasture.
“Oh, there are many gradations of travel. This area is a web of tunnels. This portal box and others like it are focal points. Once you catch their gravitational wave in its immediate vicinity, you’re fine to disembark, so to speak. If you’re leaving on an off-planet, time, or dimensional hop, you need a good jolt from a portal.” He nodded at the window box. “Short jumps can be facilitated by use of a portal, but they aren�
��t necessary.”
I thought of leaning into the tree and being in New York for a minute or so. I traced my finger over the tree symbol.
Nando continued his explanation, “Tunnels are everywhere, especially so on Earth. Anywhere on this planet is a good launcher for short trips. I can’t explain the mechanics, it’s just always been that way. For a long distance trip, say a jump of a few thousand miles, or for a beginner, it’s not a bad idea to locate and use a portal. Though, like I said, it can be done without. Depends on traffic conditions, skill level, and mental readiness. From the rumor mill around here, Pan initiated your jump for you, steered you back.”
“Yeah, wow. I was really there. In body. It wasn’t just in my mind.” I hadn’t not believed it, but having the jump explained, helped clarify at least one of all the inexplicable things that had happened to me. “I wasn’t in two different places at the same time, was I?”
“Nope, you weren’t a spirit manifestation, hallucination, or dream. Don’t overthink it. You had a brief trip in one of the tunnels. They exist for those who have the ability to use them. Look, I’ve got something to show you, and you’re welcome to help. It’ll be a good story for your grandkids, plus you’ll enjoy it.”
He picked up a cow patty and placed it in the dirt of the window box. His fingers twitched out a pattern of circles and lines that I not only understood was his personal key past the wall but also activation of the portal’s power. The manure vanished with a surge of purple light.
“Try it.”
After placing a large dark plop in the window box, I weaved my creature symbol above it and watched fascinated as sparks of green blew into the air. My fingers tingled.
“The colored light are identifiers of the route being used. An interdimensional passage would cast a different color than a tunnel in your same physical universe.”
“How do you know where to go when you travel?”
“Hey, the gods made these tunnels. It’s all thought out. Never missed where I aimed.”
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 21
