“Stone… Pun intended?”
“Joni laughed. “It wasn’t, actually. But that’s worth considering. Are you sure you saw everything that sigil stone has to show you?”
“Well, no. I mean, I tried to make it work again.”
“Ready to try now?”
“What… you mean right now?”
“You have it with you, right?”
“Well yeah, but…”
“No one will notice.” She gestured across the room. A billow of smoke was pouring out of another student’s oven. Laughing and coughing at the same time is a difficult thing to do… but we managed a few chuckles through the heaving.
“I suppose they’re all pretty occupied at the moment.” I shrugged and retrieved the stone from my book bag, removing it from its lead-lined case. I placed it on the table and removed my inhibitor necklace.
I took a deep breath and focused on the stone. Nothing.
“Focus, Elijah. You can do it.” Joni grabbed each of my hands in hers.
I felt an extra surge of energy pass between our fingertips. A tingle spread across my brow—the same sensation I was accustomed to when I was about to perform some kind of Druidish shenanigans. This time, though, Joni squinted a bit, seeming to feel it too. Her smile and giggle confirmed it. Then the orange glow. First from the stone. Then from… Joni’s eyes? I was sure mine were glowing, too. The next thing I knew, all was black. I still sensed Joni’s connection to me. The blinding flash. The colors, emerging and coalescing into an image. But this time the colors faded to darkness.
8. The Druid's Dance
IT WAS NIGHT. I still felt Joni’s hands in mine. We were back in the village, the same one I had been to in my visions before. Yes, I said we. Both Joni and I were there. Joni released a nervous laugh, half-excited and half-terrified by the experience. It was an awkward combination of sensations, to which I could relate well.
“Elijah, it worked!”
“You’re here! I can’t believe it.”
“Look. That boy…” Joni pointed over my shoulder.
I turned to see Diarmid, my father as a child. He was hiding behind a bush. I followed his gaze and saw the man in white, looking just as I had remembered. He was sitting on a stone, staring resolutely into the dense forest which began just a few paces in front of his position.
“That’s him, Joni. It’s my dad. Diarmid. At least, that’s what they call him here.”
Joni nodded. “You realize what this means?”
“I think I do… sort of.”
“Time travel. Somehow your father… skipped time.”
“I know. But so far the visions haven’t explained how he did it.”
“All will be revealed, son,” my father’s booming adult voice echoed from all around us.
“Dad!” I exclaimed as Joni looked all around, trying to find the source of the voice.
“You brought a girl.”
“Yeah. Dad, this is Joni.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Joni added, shifting her gaze toward the darkened skies.
“Do you trust her, son?” my father asked, seemingly ignoring my attempt at an introduction. This was not my father. Not truly. It was a combination of his memories and a bit of his will. Still, it felt real. It felt like I was bringing Joni home to meet the parents on the first date. If you could call it that… We were still, technically, in Home Ec. Corporeally speaking, at least.
“Yeah, Dad. I do.”
“Very well,” my father continued. “I regret I cannot know her. This voice you hear is not my entire self. I am limited. So, young lady, I will trust my son’s judgment and welcome you. He could not have brought you here unless you held a special place in his heart.”
Joni blushed a bit at the suggestion. She parted her lips as if about to speak, but at that very moment we were both startled by a brisk breeze striking our faces. We turned and looked at one another.
The vision had been frozen, as it initially was in my previous memory. The darkness, however, made the “paused” status of the memory less obvious. Now the scene we were witness to was clearly underway. Sort of. We stood there watching Diarmid spy upon the man in white for what felt like an hour or more. Nothing was happening. An occasional noise from the woods would distract his attention, and ours, toward the trees. Other than that, Diarmid never moved an inch except to scratch an occasional itch, or to pick his nose.
Meanwhile, the man in white sat perfectly still. It was creepy how motionless the man remained. Combined with his near flawless appearance, one might mistake the man for a statue under other circumstances.
“Um, Elijah?”
“Yeah, Joni?”
“What do you think is happening to us? Back in class, I mean.”
“Well, last time the visions seemed to take hours. But in real time, they only took seconds. I’m guessing, if this one is the same, no one will be the wiser to our absence.”
Joni nodded, seemingly satisfied by my scantily formed hypothesis. It felt good to be the one with the answers for a change. Of course, if I was wrong we could emerge from here in any number of embarrassing scenarios.
“Remember, doing this now was your idea, Joni.”
“I was feeling… adventurous,” Joni said with a wink.
“Hopefully something happens soon,” I said through a notable sigh, indicating my impatience.
“Tell me about it,” Joni concurred.
Suddenly the man in white stood.
Diarmid took immediate notice. Joni and I did, too. Finally something was happening.
With a curious smile on his face—the kind of smile someone makes when he’s privy to something that no one else is—the man in white set out into the forest. Diarmid quickly leapt to his feet and proceeded to the forest’s edge, hesitating only a moment before taking a deep breath and sneaking his way onto the same path that the man in white had taken before him.
Joni and I, now immediately behind him, could see why he’d hesitated. The forest was creepy. Dark beyond dark. It was thickly wooded and full of strange sounds. These were the sorts of sounds that could play tricks on the imaginations of a young boy. Whatever trepidation Diarmid had, however, was overcome by his obsession over the man in white. So he took off, gradually picking up his pace as he went deeper into the forest.
Following the strange man would have been less challenging if it weren’t for the unpredictable forest terrain. A little light from the moon and stars managed to occasionally pierce the leafy canopy above, giving us brief glimpses of the man in white as he made his way farther into the woods. The man in white moved gracefully, as if he could see in the dark. Diarmid stumbled over rocks and fallen branches, but somehow stayed on the man’s trail undetected. Joni and I followed without difficulty, experiencing little more than a subtle sensation of resistance as if pressing our limbs through water whenever encountering obstacles on the path.
Deeper and deeper into the woods we went. Diarmid stalked the man in white, even as Joni and I shadowed them all. Unimpeded by the terrain, we were able to sprint back and forth between the two figures, but the vision would never let us stray too far from Diarmid. The farther we’d run from his position, the more the world around us would blur out of focus. Run farther, and an invisible force would resist us as if we were attempting to run through sludge. The air thickened until it stopped us entirely, and we were compelled backward into Diarmid’s line of vision. We were not privy to anything that my father’s memories were unable to supply.
The chase went on for what seemed an hour or more. Diarmid’s sweaty brow, shortened breaths, and increasingly wobbly stature revealed his exhaustion. His tiredness manifested in a diminished range of vision, restraining Joni and me to a limited distance. All his energies were devoted to pursuing the man in white. As he became less aware of his surroundings, and devoted his energy reserves to the pursuit itself, the whole forest around us faded into a hazy blur, little more visible than the path immediately in front of Diarmid’s clumsi
ly scurrying feet and the man in white some fifty yards ahead.
It was an odd sensation. We perceived Diarmid’s exhaustion only according to what we saw and heard. Meanwhile, my body was not taxed at all. By appearance, Joni’s stamina was likewise preserved. My pulse slowed to a steady pace once the excitement of the unusual experience itself settled in. My breathing was normal. My feet did not ache even though I was navigating a rough terrain. No sweat dripped from either my brow or Joni’s. Everything around us seemed so real, but not. It was like navigating a fictitious but believable world through a virtual reality headset. Everything looked real, but what we felt did not accord at all with what we were experiencing.
I caught myself briefly wondering if Joni and I had sex here, whether she could get pregnant. Think about it: all the stamina in the world, but no risk. Fail-proof birth control. Of course, the sensations would be diminished, too. Or would they?
I forced myself to dismiss the fantasy. After all, my dad’s memory was here, somewhere… undoubtedly watching my every move.
Focus, Elijah! You’re here for a purpose.
I needed to get my head in the game.
No, the other head. The one on my shoulders.
As I managed to retrieve my mind from the gutter and get it back into my skull, I noticed a drumbeat resonating in the distance.
“Joni, you hear that?”
“Yeah. I thought I heard it a few minutes ago. Louder, now. We must be getting closer.”
I nodded.
As we proceeded toward the increasingly louder beat, shouting and singing began to accompany the rhythmic pounding.
Following Diarmid, we came upon a steep hill descending toward a clearing where several bizarrely clad people were dancing in concentric circles. This must have been one of the Druid dances that Ceridwen had described to Diarmid in my previous vision.
The dancers’ dress mimicked the appearance of a variety of animals—wolves, bears, and deer. A small troupe of drummers was assembled beyond the dance’s outer ring. Beyond them, a quartet of musicians on stringed instruments were engaged in a furious melody.
At the center of it all stood a solitary oak, around which an odd-looking woman danced alone. As her gyrations turned her body our direction, I recognized her immediately. It was Ceridwen. Her dance was different than the others, whose movements were smooth and choreographed. Her dance was feverish, with vigorous steps in keeping with the drummed beat. It was unrestrained but somehow graceful all at once. Her motions carried her around the oak, and the entire scene seemed to pivot around the girthy trunk.
Diarmid watched the dance in awe, enthralled by the goings on below. I almost forgot about the man in white, and it seemed that Diarmid had as well. It took a moment to locate him. Joni spotted him first and pointed to the center of the dance. The man in white emerged from the crowded circle of dancers and, managing to avoid disturbing their steps, slipped past Ceridwen and began scaling the central oak. He perched himself upon an extended branch. The limb supporting him seemed far too slight to bear the full weight of any man, much less one of his significant stature. It looked almost comical as his large body managed, somehow, to perch upon the thin branch without losing any sense of balance.
The dancers around the perimeter were little by little losing control, carelessly flinging their bodies as their voices sounded again—the same sounds we’d heard before, from a distance. At first, their shrill voices produced an ear-piercing cacophony. Eventually, their voices found a common pitch, blending their tones into a single, wordless voice. In one moment, the sound was hardly bearable; in the next, it was captivatingly beautiful.
I glanced over my left shoulder at Diarmid, still hiding behind the bushes at a safe distance. He was enthralled. Joni grabbed my hand. I could feel the warmth of her touch, as if we were truly in this mystical place.
I quickly found myself as captivated by the display before us as Diarmid. Joni, too, was spellbound by the sight. Only our shared touch seemed to keep me from losing touch with our surroundings. Hours of dance could have passed in what only seemed like minutes. Time was irrelevant.
All the while, the man in white remained curiously perched upon the oaken branch. None of the dancers paid him any mind. Only Ceridwen seemed to acknowledge him, gesturing his way from time to time as if they were in on some kind of cooperative plan. The man in white clearly enjoyed the dances and rhythms, holding a steady smile occasionally giving way to laughter. It was the sort of laughter that could only come from a place deep within one’s soul. It was a hearty, genuine laugh. In spite of the music and the waxing and waning of the many voices, the man’s deep belly laugh managed to rise above it all.
Diarmid never broke focus. It was as if he were a boy born blind, now healed and seeing the world for the first time. He took in every moment and each note of the song as if it were a whole new world, ripe to explore.
Diarmid’s expression shifted from wonder to curiosity. Following his gaze back to the circle’s center, I saw the man in white rise to his feet. Yes, upon the same, small limb on which he had taken a seat. He raised his staff in both arms. How he maintained his balance, I couldn’t say. There was a flash of green light. As I struggled to examine its source, I saw what I had suspected I might: the green glow was emanating from the man’s eyes, much like I had seen from my own before and in my father’s reflection in the first memory.
But that was all my experience with such phenomena had in common with what this man did next. The light from his eyes coalesced into a targeted beam, channeling itself from his eyes to his staff. The illuminated cords of light encircled the staff many times over until the staff itself appeared to glow as a solid-green, illuminated rod. It looked like a Star Wars lightsaber with no handle. The man in white held it in his grip. In a single pivot, he flung the staff around, braced himself in a more sure-footed stance upon his perch, and shot the entire charge of energy into the tree.
The tree absorbed the blast—whatever it was—and at first seemed to do nothing but return to its normal hue. Then suddenly, as if called from the dance itself, a green luminescence began to spiral out from the tree, expanding to the perimeter of the outer ring of dancers. In time with the dance, the glow continued to churn. Its luminescence grew brighter, fuller, and stronger with each drumbeat and shout from the dancers. After expanding outward, the green glow intensified back toward the center, then began to rise. A jade vortex ascended over the tree and over the entire dance, taking the form of a magnificent cone. It was a twirling mountain of energy, responding only to the whims of the dance. It was like a furious green tornado, only inverted. Its wide base originated with the dancers and pierced the sky above in a single apex of concentrated force.
I could barely tear my eyes from the scene. I managed, though, to look at Diarmid. He stared in open-jawed disbelief at the scene. Joni, however, was in a fit of joyous laughter. We were all awe-struck by the sight. It was the sort of beauty that could arrest one’s attention indefinitely. I’m not sure if I could have ever averted my eyes from the sight if it weren’t for the odd sensation of something passing directly through my body. It wasn’t unlike the strange sensations I had already experienced on our journey through the woods as my shin passed through fallen branches, or my feet through stones, which in the real world would have tripped me. But this sensation was stronger. It took my breath away, and my heart felt as though it had skipped a beat. Diagnosing the cause, however, took only a second.
The man in white had apparently left his place in the dance’s circle and walked through the very space I was occupying! He moved steadfastly toward Diarmid, then gently placed a hand upon his shoulder.
Diarmid nearly fell backward at the startling touch.
I tugged at Joni’s arm to direct her attention to these happenings. My touch surprised her no less.
The man bid Diarmid to follow him a few paces back into the forest. Diarmid obediently walked behind, countenance turned downward as if he were a deviant, busted in h
is mischief.
Joni and I lurked close behind.
“You see it, don’t you, Diarmid?” the man asked with a deep tenor and a strange, far-eastern accent I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Y-y-yes, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay,” the man interrupted with a consoling pat upon Diarmid’s left shoulder. “I meant for you to see it.”
“You knew I was following you?”
The man laughed. “I’ve known you’ve been following me since I first arrived in your village, Diarmid.”
Diarmid scrunched his brow and squinted in bewilderment. “Wait. How do you know my name?”
“You are the reason I came,” the man added with a warm grin. “My name is Michael.”
“Michael? That’s a weird name.”
A wide smile split Michael’s face, dispelling his stoic countenance. “I’m sure it sounds strange to you.”
“So… um… Michael? What’s happening? I saw you, I did. You did this.” Diarmid redirected his eyes back toward the ongoing dance and illuminated spectacle in the clearing below.
“I merely aided it along toward its natural progression. The dance. That’s what evoked the cone.”
“But your eyes,” Diarmid protested. “Then your staff… The tree. It all lit up green! How’d you do it?”
Michael turned his gaze back toward the cone, which now extended beyond the clouds, ending somewhere beyond our line of sight. “The colors you see—green, this time—come from another place. I would say they come from my home. In truth, it’s more your true home than mine. Annwn.”
Diarmid paused a moment, lifting a finger to his chin in thought. “Ceridwen told me about that place. She said there’s a gatekeeper there to keep people out. He sends blessings to the dancers, too. That’s you?”
“There is another who fills that role. Though he has less to do with these gifts than legend supposes. Annwn itself will yield whatever gifts it might. The gatekeeper is more concerned with guarding these breaches between worlds, preventing humans from entering Annwn. Perhaps I’ll introduce you to him someday!” Michael ruffled his fingers through Diarmid’s shaggy hair.
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 10
