by Bolz, Stefan
“I’m not sure. But whatever it is that waits beyond the veil is not on our side.
After a while they came to the end of the flowing river of glass. It moved slightly slower than Joshua and the wolf had walked. The light reached about ten feet into the night ahead. There they could make out the dark silhouettes of creatures such as Joshua had never seen or dreamed of. They seemed to change their shapes constantly as they moved along the edge of the light. It was as if they were attracted by its brightness and, at the same time, repelled by it for they could not pass through to Joshua and the wolf inside.
“If we stay within the circle of the light we should be fine,” Grey thought.
“Let’s hope so,” Joshua thought back.
Grey, aware of the fear in Joshua’s thoughts, changed places with him, taking him in the middle between the night and the channel of glass next to them. And so, under the protection of the light, Joshua and the wolf traveled for what on the surface would have been close to two days. Once in a while the channel passed small streams where they could quench their thirst. Joshua found plenty of food and Grey was able to even catch a fish or two. When they rested here and there for a couple of hours, they held watch over each other. During the times when Joshua watched over his companion’s sleep, he thought back in horror to the time they spent in the labyrinth and how powerful the wolf’s ‘evil’ thoughts appeared to him. Now he couldn’t even conceive of them as being real and true. He decided then and there never to doubt the wolf again.
11. RUINS
Dawn came slowly and when they began to see beyond the light they realized that they had left the hills behind and had entered a forest. Large trees stood darkly against the still grey sky. Where before the channel of glass was embedded in the hills, it now followed a straight line deep into the forest. The further they went, the quieter it seemed to get. The sounds of the birds around them faded until all they heard was their own footsteps on the stone path. At one point the channel made a sudden sharp turn to the left disappearing into the trees. Without warning, the glow the liquid glass emitted suddenly stopped. For a moment, Joshua had the horrifying thought that the night creatures that had traveled with them would now come forward and take them. But they were gone. Joshua and Grey could only surmise that the emerging day light was enough to push them back to where they had come from.
A few feet away, another channel came out of the woods to the right. That one was empty. It made a sharp turn in front of them and continued straight ahead
“It seems as if the channel that leads into the woods somehow loops back on the other side,” Joshua thought. “It might take a while for the liquid to come full circle and continue on its path.”
“Should we follow it then?” Grey asked.
“I think we should go straight and see where it leads,” Joshua thought.
“Agreed,” the wolf thought back.
Now that they didn’t have to use the stone path, they walked on pine needles which softened their steps, so much so, that they almost didn’t hear anything at all. Joshua thought it eerie and strangely comforting at the same time.
They began to pass what looked like old stone foundations of buildings long since gone, crumbled and overgrown. Some of them had oddly shaped forms and some seemed to randomly connect to others. The further they went, the more they became certain that this must have been a city at some point in time. They realized that what they were passing by must have been buildings once—centuries, even millennia ago. Joshua had the distinct feeling that they walked on hallowed ground, on the sacred soil of an ancient civilization of which only remnants remained.
They came to a point where they could see what must have been the center of the city in the distance. The ruins formed a half circle on either side of the channel, leaving a large, round area in the middle open. At first Joshua couldn’t make out what it was but as they came closer they saw a large crater in the center. Approximately fifty yards in diameter, the crater had straight walls, very similar to those surrounding Hollow’s Gate. They disappeared into nothingness below. The channel here split up and continued on both sides of the crater, surrounding it and completing the loop on the other side.
Slowly, Joshua and Grey walked around the edge of the crater.
“This may sound strange,” Joshua thought to the wolf, “but is it possible that we are right now exactly in the center of Hollow’s Gate?”
“Why do you think that?” Grey replied.
“When we fell from the plateau, for a moment I saw those strange patterns toward the middle. It must have been the ruins of the old city we are in.”
“Joshua, I didn’t want to say anything but this, all of this, seems very familiar. It is as if I have walked these streets before in ancient times. It must have been one of the eagle’s memories while flying overhead, as I have never been here.”
“Or maybe you have,” Joshua thought, more to himself than to the wolf. The whole place had a strange quality to it. As if it were permeated with something that went beyond the limits of time and space. Something so ancient he couldn’t grasp it and only sense a miniscule fragment of the power it once possessed.
Across the crater, there stood the remnants of a large rectangular plate of stone. As they came closer they saw that it had signs and symbols engraved into it. Most of the upper part of the stone plate was missing, destroyed by the ages. The plate rested on a massive slab of black stone similar to the material of the path they had walked on. The symmetrical foundation of the building was in the shape of a large cathedral. This must have been some sort of place of worship. The side facing the crater was open. As they looked around, Joshua saw that all the foundations and ruins surrounding the crater were missing the wall facing it.
“What now?” He asked.
“Now we wait,” Grey replied.
As they waited in silence, Joshua couldn’t help but think that somehow they were witnessing something far greater than themselves. He did not yet know how the individual pieces were connected to each other and to a greater whole but deep down he could sense that something completely out of the ordinary was about to happen and that he and Grey were somehow privy to it, even part of it. The stillness of the forest, together with the quiet understanding between him and the wolf brought Joshua a sense of peace he had rarely felt and if so only for moments. This was different. It was as if peace spread within him like wings, carrying him, allowing him to feel weightless and at the same time deeply connected to the earth. In fact, at that moment there was no distinction between him and the ground he rested on, or between him and the wolf who lay only a few feet from him.
How long they sat like this Joshua couldn’t tell but at some point Grey got up and looked beyond the crater into the woods.
“I can see it,” he thought to Joshua.
Both watched as the liquid glass slowly flowed toward the crater. When it reached it, the glass followed the channels on either side around it and toward the point where Joshua and the wolf stood. Eventually the circle closed where both channels met. Nothing happened at first. Joshua looked down into the crater. The thought occurred to him that something was about to rise up from deep inside, something horrifying and nightmarish, and come up to the surface to take them back down with it. But nothing happened other than the strange sensation that the air began to hum slightly—a very low vibration that Joshua could feel resonating within his body.
“Do you feel that?” He asked the wolf.
There was no answer and Joshua didn’t see Grey at first. Then he saw him standing in front of the broken plate of stone. They watched as the missing part of the stone plate began to rebuild itself. But not out of stone. It rebuilt itself out of light. The same happened with the walls of the building they stood in. As they looked around, they saw the walls beginning to rebuild themselves from the ground up. But where the material had been stone and wood, now it was light. Emitting a golden glow, the light took on the shape of each stone, each piece of wood, every finely c
rafted detail of the structure.
Joshua and Grey watched as the whole city began to rebuild itself. Doors, window sills, roof structures, even chimneys and passage ways all carved out of thin air and compressed light. Some buildings were flat and rectangular but most of them had strange shapes of half round or circular patterns. It was unlike anything Joshua had ever witnessed. There were round platforms on top of some of the roofs, the purpose of which completely eluded him.
“Joshua,” Grey’s thought reached him. It was barely more than a whisper, as if the wolf did not wish to disturb what was happening.
Joshua turned around facing the crater. The walls now had a slight glow to them and, as they walked toward the edge, Joshua could see far down into it. The light became brighter and brighter. Joshua and Grey, dwarfed before the large crater and only a silhouette before its immense light, stepped back to escape the blinding beam that reached far and high into the gray dawn sky. Still unable to comprehend anything they saw, they looked at each other, awed by the sheer beauty and power of what was happening. That’s when they saw them.
At first, all that was visible were spheres of clear glass gently rising from deep within the crater. Then Joshua could make out small strings attached to either side of them. Not far below, the strings ended in what looked like a narrow platform. On each of the platforms sat a figure. The figures looked human but were dressed in dark body suits and masks. Some of the shapes were bigger, others smaller like children. One of the smaller figures came fairly close to Joshua and the wolf. It lifted its hand briefly to greet them in passing.
“Can you hear me?” Joshua thought to the figure. But there was no answer. He felt the figure’s gaze on him until it disappeared behind another sphere that passed them. Joshua counted at least three dozen spheres, but as he looked down into the crater he saw that it must have been more than 200 spheres that ascended within the light beam into the sky. Then they were gone.
“What was that?” Joshua thought.
“I have not the slightest idea,” Grey answered.
As far as they were able to see into the woods, the light structures of the city were completed. Some reached high into the sky next to the trees with wide circular stairways on the outside. Others seemed to be mere entrances to structures below the surface. There were streets and walkways and square structures that looked as if their purpose had once been to hold water. Now in their light form they were no longer remnants of an ancient past but a representation of what was still here, existing outside of time and space and reaching far beyond. As Joshua’s gaze fell on the plate of stone and light within the high dome they stood closest to, they saw that there were engravings, strange markings covering the stone. When Joshua looked at them, he understood their meaning. It was as if the markings evoked images rather than mere symbols. It read:
A stream of stars forever calls you home
To where you will return
To where you still belong
The doors have long since opened
Unlocked the gates of time
The path to truth is open
The stars are now aligned
To start an ancient journey
To where you’ve always been
To follow your own yearning
To gather your own kin
Your fate is sealed
Your destiny is written in the sky
Your home at last revealed
You will not pass it by
And then one day the sands of time
Will vanish from your hearts
And leave no trace of them behind
Except a stream of stars.
Something stirred within Joshua. It was as if the images he saw triggered remnants of ancient memories buried deep inside, memories he could neither grasp nor put into any time frame. He realized that the meaning of what was written there could only be grasped within his heart, not with his rational mind. His rational mind, in fact, was dazzled by it. For a while longer they looked at the plate of stone. Then their eyes found each other.
“Grey?”
“Yes,” the wolf answered.
“I’m thirsty.” Joshua thought to him.
The wolf suddenly smiled in his thoughts.
“Then let us go and get some water. I’m ravenously hungry myself,” he replied.
* * *
They decided to take one of the wider roads that lead through the city in the opposite direction from which they came. As they passed structure after structure, still stunned by the magnificent detail in the light carvings, they realized that it was no longer as quiet as it was in the center of the city. They now heard birds chirping in the distance, as if not only the city itself but its surroundings slowly awakened. The forest became lighter and the distance between the trees increased until they stood only sporadically here and there. The scenery itself changed and they entered a hilly landscape, similar to what they had traveled through during the night.
After they had been walking for a time, they suddenly saw that the road was blocked by a huge mound of earth in front of them. It was as if something had been pushed through the surface of the road and left there decades ago. The mound of earth was easily fifty feet in diameter and about twenty feet in height. Even though it was embedded into the hills it felt out of place somehow. The wolf jumped up on a ledge of rock and then walked on top of the small hill. Joshua, for some reason, stayed down. The shape of the hill reminded him of something. And before he could follow that thought further toward its origin, the mound suddenly stirred. Grey let out a howl and jumped down, joining again with Joshua.
Then the soil to the left and to the right of it was being pushed toward them revealing two massive, clawed, stump-like arms. The arms pushed themselves into the soil and then the whole hill rose up. Joshua flew back and Grey leaped away from whatever it was that began to rise. As its massive body gained about five more feet in height, earth and stones fell from its back exposing a large opening in front and a massive shell as its back. Then the head appeared. Its neck slowly extended outward toward Joshua and the wolf. It stopped only a few feet before them. They realized that they were looking at a huge turtle. Its head, waving slightly from side to side, was four times Grey’s size. Its yellow eyes looked straight at them.
As Joshua glanced at the wolf he thought that he heard singing, or perhaps a sound somewhere between whistling and singing. First he thought it must have come from a bird high up in a tree. But then he realized that the sound came from the turtle. It was repeating a certain sequence of a melody over and over.
“Who are you?” The question suddenly flooded Joshua’s mind and for an instant didn’t leave room for anything else. Grey barked at the turtle, his teeth bared and his neck coat standing up.
“So sorry,” the turtle’s thoughts, now much quieter, reached them. Grey shook himself and calmed down a bit, still not quite sure what to make of this.
“I am thinking too loud. When I slept, it… I remember now… it was hard to be heard by… the others so I had to yell. I think. My apologies.”
The turtle, whose massive head was still only two feet away from them, seemed to sniff them rather thoroughly.
“You could use a bath,” she thought to the wolf. “And you,” her head came down to Joshua’s level looking straight into his eyes, only inches away from him. “You smell like adventure… But wait. You must forgive me. I can’t seem to remember much of what happened, if anything. Ohhh..”
With that she slumped to the ground, creating a large dust cloud. Joshua had to turn away and for a few seconds he wasn’t able to breathe. Next to him he heard Grey sneeze several times.
“So sorry, my young fellows. I’m still a bit weak in the knees… It’s all somewhat hazy, you know. I must have slept… for a… very… long… time.” She yawned. As she breathed out with a sigh, the wind generated from it made Joshua’s feathers bend back. Grey’s coat got a good airing out. So much so that he shook himself several times, while sneezing again profuse
ly.
“I am Joshua. And this is my friend. His name is Grey. By circumstances we cannot explain we fell… from far up at the surface and somehow we ended up down here. Up there we got separated from another companion. His name is Krieg. He is possibly still there where we had freed a Pegasus from the stone before the plateau we stood on, broke off.”
There was a pause during which the turtle’s head swayed from left to right.
“What did you say?” The turtle asked. Joshua could sense her effort to control the volume of her thoughts.
“I said that I am Joshua. And this is my friend…”
“No. I meant… after… at the end…”
“Uhm… I mentioned my companion Krieg. He is a war horse and—”
“Pegasus. Did you say ‘Pegasus’?” The turtle’s thoughts were now just a whisper.
“Yes,” Joshua couldn’t help but whisper back to her.
“Ahh… I forgot most of what happened but it seemed to have some significance. I’m sorry. I’m not much help to you I guess. It will come to me. Give it a few years and I’ll be back to my old self. But for now…,” the turtle lifted her massive body off the ground again, which caused more loose earth and rocks to break off.
“…I may require some water and must make my way to the Lake of Tears. For nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, will you find better tasting water than there. And nowhere is it clearer and colder. And nowhere can you dive deeper and still never reach the bottom.”
While the turtle turned around, which wasn’t a small task given her size and weight and her massive shell getting stuck in the hills that surrounded her, the melody Joshua and Grey had heard before, continued in the background going from clear high notes to a deep, low humming and then back up again.
“Can we come with you?” Joshua asked suddenly, surprised over his own question.
“Certainly,” was her even more surprising answer. “It might take me a while though. Not sure how long you can wait. I don’t move very fast, as you may have noticed, as long as I’m on land. But give me water. Give me deep, fresh water. And you will see me move faster than anything in there. But you probably want to reach your destination sooner rather than later, am I right?”
