THE GRAVELON
1. Infinity in a Pane of Glass
Jake awoke very early and lay quietly.
Everyone was still asleep, the house was quiet, and he was warm. Virgil, his grandma’s ancient, battered, stuffed dog, lay on his chest. Light patterns were flickering and dancing on the wall from the morning sun which was slipping in through a slat in his curtains.
“Hey,” said Virgil, “if you like those patterns, just wait a few moments – that’s nothing.”
Grandma had told Jake that Virgil was very unusual, that he had traveled far and was magic. Jake was inclined to believe this, after all, Virgil could actually talk, and he was right about most everything. Virgil had once told Jake that he had decided not to grow up, and that was why he was still stuffed after all these years, but that one day he might change his mind. This worried Jake a little; he preferred it if Virgil was always pretty much where he left him, and he wondered if Virgil would still sleep on his chest if he became a real dog.
In any case, Virgil was right about the patterns, something was indeed going on. Tiny shadow shapes were shifting back and forth on the wall, appearing and disappearing, when there was suddenly an undulating pattern of red. Then, after it grew bold, a green appeared, and then a blue – and then there was a real rainbow shifting like magic on his wall. A beautiful sight – Jake could hardly believe his eyes. He looked at Virgil in amazement, and Virgil, while not looking exactly amazed, was looking uncommonly excited.
“It’s the crystal.”, he said, “The crystal that Mom hung in the window last night.”
And sure enough, when Jake looked at the crystal he could see tiny shards of rainbow light, like tiny brightly coloured fish, flickering in it.
“Watch.”, said Virgil.
And they watched together, enraptured and entranced, for a long long time as the rainbow ever so slowly progressed across the wall until it touched, and then disappeared into, the mirror on the wall opposite the window. It was gone, but where…. there! The rainbow had bounced off the mirror, ricocheting across the room onto another wall.
“Wow, ” said Jake, “very, very cool…”
Virgil was now becoming very very excited, his eyes as bright as Jake had ever seen them.
“Quick,” said Virgil, “the compass! the compass!”
“What?”, said Jake, remembering his Dad’s old beat compass as he said it. “Why?”
“Just get it!” said Virgil, “Trust me!”
Jake crawled out of bed and began rummaging to find his old compass.
“Hurry”, said Virgil, “there isn’t much time!”
“Alright, alright, but what’s the big hurry?”, grumbled Jake, but he had found it.
He pulled it out and popped it open. The needle swung round and round, this way, then that way; then Jake saw the sighting mirror in the compass.
“Virgil, my boy, you are a genius!”
Jake quickly moved the hand mirror to capture the rainbow, reflecting the beams streaming from the crystal in the window. The moment the compass mirror intersected with the beam the rainbow bounced wildly all over the wall, jerking and jiggling with Jake’s unsteady hand. He began to aim it, a laser, bouncing it off the walls, the ceiling, his toys. He was trying to aim it at Virgil when his rainbow laser crossed over the wall mirror and he was suddenly flashed right in the eyes.
“Whoa, what was that?”
He tried it again, aiming the rainbow into the mirror, and it flashed back at him again. The rainbow was now streaming from the crystal, bouncing off his hand-held compass mirror to the mirror on the wall, and then back to him.
Virgil was looking very intently at him with a mixture of expectation and urgency.
“Jake,” he said, as calmly as he could, “Do you want to make infinity?”
Jake was busy flashing the rainbow in his own eyes.
“Infinity? What do you mean Virgil?”
“Do you want to create an infinity?”
“Well, yeah, sure I do Virgil.”
“Then direct the rainbow beam from the compass mirror into the wall mirror so that it bounces right back into the compass mirror.”
“OK”, said Jake, not really thinking too much about it. He put the compass onto some books and then, very carefully, aimed the rainbow beam back to the wall mirror. He then gently moved the books over so that the rainbow bouncing from the wall mirror went straight back into the compass. The moment he had it lined up the rainbow disappeared.
Jake’s hand was over his mouth, wondering, and slowly seeing that the rainbow was now trapped in his prism prison, bouncing back and forth at the speed of light, in a perfect loop. He moved away from the compass, looking at the space between the two mirrors. There was nothing there.
“It’s strange, Virgil.” said Jake, “Infinity looks like nothing.”
“Indeed”, said Virgil. “Quick, pick me up, and let’s step right into Nothing.”
And so Jake did. He picked Virgil up, and he stepped directly between the two mirrors. For a fraction of a second he saw himself holding Virgil, over and over and over again going on forever, farther and farther away, in mirror after mirror after mirror, into infinity – then there was a blinding explosion of colour, like a rainbow lightning bolt, and a tremendous crack of thunder, a feeling of rushing, of falling, not down, but forward, and then a moment of total black and silence.
2. The Great Chasm
When Jake opened his eyes he was standing in a strange field, wet with dew. A huge white raven was perched on a rock in front of him. Virgil, tail wagging wildly, his one eye gleaming in excitement and triumph, wind ruffling his fur, was standing in front of him.
“Roscoe!”, exclaimed Virgil, and bounded towards the raven without a moment’s hesitation. But the strange bird rose, swooped straight over Jake, and flew slowly, and very low, towards a dark wood at the edge of the field.
Jake was, to say the least, astonished at the sudden turn of events. A moment ago he had been playing with mirror games in his bedroom with his old stuffed dog. His stuffed dog was now bounding across a field after a white raven. Before he could really make sense of anything Jake began running after his dog, calling him to come back, and then to wait up, because the pooch was fairly racing away.
The white bird flitted, comfortably staying ahead, but not far ahead, of Virgil, disappearing abruptly into the forest. Virgil followed, with Jake not yet too far behind.
Jake ran headlong straight into the forest. He had already lost sight of both the bird called Roscoe, and Virgil, but he could hear his dog barking up ahead of him somewhere. He ran on through the dark spaciousness of a cathedral-like forest, its great tall trees having long abandoned their lower branches to stretch up high into the sky. Pine needles covered the ground which silenced his footsteps, and he could hear his breath which was becoming more and more laboured.
Virgil’s barking became more and more distant until eventually Jake became confused as to which direction it was coming from. He followed it this way, then that, and then he could hear it no longer. He stopped.
He was very winded, and now worried, and now frightened. He realized that he was truly truly lost. He had no idea how to return to the field where he had first entered the forest, let alone how to get back to his room. The great silent green forest seemed to close in around him as he stood, the towering trees arched over top of him, encircling him. He gave one last great cry, “Virgil!”
He was really very afraid, when suddenly there was a beating of wings through the forest, and white wings burst into the circle around him.
The white raven alighted on a branch high above him, looked down at him strangely reassuringly, and then flitted to another branch, leading him on. He followed the beautiful mysterious bird, feeling a comfort and a good will from it. And on they went, branch to branch, tree to tree, and if he lost sight of the white raven it would give a most marvelous call, like a delightful liquid ball of sound which effervesced up through the vast forest canopy above them, and beyond.
The forest became more sparse as they proceeded. Jake began to see wisps of white mist low down on the ground. And on they went, and the wisps turned into patches of vapour, deeper and heavier, and the trees disappeared, until he was following the beacon bird through a wasteland, without tree, or shrub, only stones.
Jake began to lose hope; to doubt the bird. Where was he? Where had he been led? Had he been tricked? Then he heard a barking up ahead – Virgil! – and he ran – “Virgil! Virgil!”
The white vapour was now pouring across the land, and Jake ran straight into it, because he could hear Virgil deep in the centre of it. Eventually he could see nothing. All was white smog, thick like smoke. He stumbled across barren ground which seemed to be rising, climbing, like a ridge. The bird was gone, he couldn’t hear his dog anymore, and he was now crawling because he could truly see nothing. Suddenly the vapour was rushing straight upwards in front of him, and his hands were resting on some kind of ledge, and he could hear Virgil again, but now below him. He seemed to be at the edge of a vast crater, a huge hole in the ground whose dimensions he could only guess at. He could not see the bottom, or the other side, for the thick white vapour which issued forth from deep below. But the ledge that his hands rested on seemed to lead down, into the hole, in the direction that he could vaguely hear Virgil’s barking.
He went forward, creeping carefully along the ledge, hand against the wall, knowing that it was the only way to find Virgil, who continued to bark, down below.
In no time at all the deep thick vapour had obscured Jake’s view of the opening above. The sunlight was now weak and diffuse. The vapour, rushing upwards past him, gave him the sensation that he was slowly falling. He felt as if the very earth that he stood on was falling, down, down, down… and maybe it was, he had no way of knowing. Yet he crept onwards, increasingly concerned by Virgil’s barking which, though distorted, began to sound urgent.
The thickness of the vapour increased as he descended, until it began to take on weird tumultuous semi-solid forms, which would suddenly shape shift into something completely different. The amorphous image parade would also change direction, one moment rushing upward past him, then coming straight at him, making him feel as though he were falling into it. A beautiful dragon emerged from the chaotic vapour, its soft yet infinite eyes gazing gently at Jake, its vast snout surging inches from Jake’s face, before it transformed into thousands of white mice scurrying away along white wires in the wind. A beautiful hooded woman turned into a skull, which sprouted great white wings, a swan, and swept away. And so it went, on and on, silent and unceasing, and Jake, dizzy and bewildered, having lost all sense of up or down, crept on, still following the sound of his dog, which came faintly and sporadically.
After a time the vapour was lightening just a little, and Jake saw a huge bat like creature, in the billows, flap past, disappear, like all the other shapes, and yet when it’s wing brushed past Jake’s face he felt wind. He had just convinced himself that it was his imagination, already run wild, when another identical creature, or the same one, burst from the cloud, sweeping towards him with talons outstretched. At the very last moment Jake instinctively jerked back, raising his arm, as the talons clutched. With a zipping sound they grazed his arm – he really felt it this time – and he looked down to see three clean rips on his sleeve.
Terrified he began to scurry forward – now he thought he might know what Virgil was barking about. The vapour continued to dissipate upwards, and he began to see more below him, the path curving down around the crater along the wall. Then he saw Virgil, barking furiously, almost directly across from him, but below. The vast bat-like bird had grabbed the edge of the ledge and, flapping its huge wings, was inching forward to grab the desperate dog. Jake, forgetting his fear, forgetting the precariousness of the ledge, jumped to his feet letting out a terrible roar, and ran as fast as he could towards the battle.
Jake was already half-way there when the creature, jerking its huge triangular head around, heard him. Then, as if in slow motion, it closed its wings, fell backwards , and, gaining speed, twisted in the air. Its wings burst back open and, tiny sharp eyes glued on Jake, it carved out of its dive in a perfect effortless arc. Jake had only enough time to dive headlong to the ground before the beast was upon him. This time it did not surge past, but landed directly on him, its talons searing his skin as it grasped the back of his shirt. With a blood curdling scree, and a rush of wings wind, the bird began to lift Jake up off the ledge. Then suddenly there was a terrible snarling, and the scree became a shriek. Jake was released. He rolled to the wall just in time to see Virgil, jaws firmly clamped on the leg of the beast, be pulled off the ledge, out over the abyss.
The great bird, shrieking repeatedly, shook its leg desperately to loosen Virgil’s hold, but Virgil wouldn’t let go. The it raised its great triangular skull and, with a single lunge of its huge beak, gave Virgil a terrible blow, and Jake’s dear courageous friend fell.
Jake screamed out, “NOOOOOOO!!”, as Virgil fell down down into a pit which seemed to have no bottom.
Then there was a streak of white straight down from above, a blur jetting past Jake, chasing the falling dog, who already seemed almost gone into the dark. But the blur went straight to the dog with unerring accuracy, and Virgil, far below, was plucked from the air. The white streak pulled instantly from its precipitous dive, its white wings flashing wide for a moment, before it disappeared, seemingly straight into the wall of the Great Hole.
The vapour had disappeared completely by now and there was, in fact, a sensation of clear air being sucked back down into the bowels of the hole from the air above. Jake noticed the freshness just as he noticed the terrible bird, as if spooked or repelled by the breath, winging down below him, descending in circles down, and out of sight.
3. The Opening
Jake, elated at Virgil’s sudden and dramatic rescue, and relieved at the departure of the terrifying bird, suddenly felt terribly weary. The path was steep, and though the phantasmic fog had cleared, it was getting dark. Jake didn’t like the dark, and it seemed to seep into him like the cold from the clammy walls of the deep cavern. After all his bold exertions he became afraid again, losing his surety in the descent. He felt that, with Roscoe, Virgil was safe, and he really began to dread going any deeper.
A clear breeze ruffled past him with a gently audible hissing sound, as if being sucked down, disappearing into the darkness below. He had come far and yet, so far as he could tell, so vast was the depth of the tunneled crater he was no nearer the bottom.
As the darkness closed in a gentle and warm glow began to emanate out from the opening in the wall into which Roscoe had carried Virgil. It seemed very far below and, sitting down, Jake began to feel deeply sleepy. He was on the verge of laying his head down on the narrow ledge when he heard a strange sound. Though distant it sounded like a stream running through, and playing upon, quiet bells of all different sizes: a gentle, reassuring, and yet deeply compelling sonority.
Jake craned his head forward over the abyss to hear more clearly. The sound, even this far away, distorted and diffracted, was clearly a kind of music. In fact it seemed to be a kind of music, like a wind, in which distance and diffraction had little negative influence, and in no time he felt completely intoxicated by the beauty of it and desperately wished to find the source of it.
Climbing back to his feet he fared forward once again, this time called forth not by the urgency of his friend’s distress, but by the utterly entrancing delight of this otherworldly music. So profound was the influence of the music, and so completely absorbed was Jake in it, that he could never subsequently remember anything about his descent to the opening, only that he was suddenly standing on the threshold of the opening into which Roscoe and Virgil had disappeared.
He jerked out of his reverie like a bolt, thinking instantly that he had been fooled, somehow baited by the magical music, for before him stood a huge creature of hideous proportion and weaponry. Towering green above him it appeared to be reared back on a multitude of legs. Two dreadful disproportionately massive appendages, articulated, teethed and serrated – arms more vast than all its legs – seemed poised before it, coiled, ready for a lightning strike. Its grotesque head consisted of little more than two huge bulbous eyes and a mouth like scissors.
Jake froze, and between feinting flat out, and throwing himself out the opening and into the abyss, he remained still long enough to see that the gruesome beast’s eyes were closed. He remained frozen, dreaming that perhaps the beast was sleeping, and hadn’t seen him. And yet its enormously long antennae were already resting on his shoulders, and its paralysingly terrifying forelimbs were engaged in a strange kind of dance, as if it were weaving the air with knives and scissors. And then, through the shock, the music returned into Jake’s ears, and he saw, astonished, that, in masterfully striking and plucking together the jagged spikes and teeth of its deadly weaponry, the hideous Mantis was the creator of this angelic music.
The creatures antennae were surprisingly gentle, and he could feel the vibration of the music passing through them into his own body, which was exquisitely relaxing. The music had changed now, turninng into patterns of hums and clicks which felt like they were coursing straight down through his bones, radiating into the tensed muscles through his whole body. The patterns and clicks turned into slow, persistent pulses, and Jake could feel what felt like a ball of heat building up in his belly. The ball grew warmer and larger and then the mantis sent a last great powerful pulse, like a huge and gentle drumbeat, that reverberated down into his body, breaking the ball open, releasing the heat to run all through his body.
The last thing Jake remembered before he feel into a deep deep sleep was the Mantis very gently lifting him with the smooth backs of its arms.
4. Gravaland
Jake awoke, and for an instant he thought he saw the White Raven watching him intently, but he blinked, and it was gone. He was in a warmly lit windowless chamber with Virgil on his chest. He felt warm through and through, as if a sun was gently beaming inside him,
“Virgil,” murmured Jake, “You’re all right.”
“Indeed”, said Virgil, “quite all right.”
“Are you wounded? I saw the blow…”
“Yes, it gave me a terrible shot… thought I was done for.
Roscoe saved me from the fall, and Pria mended me.”
“Roscoe’s the White Raven?…”
“Yes, an old friend you might say.”
“And Pria?”
“Pria the wise. Pria the musical, the magical. Pria, tha Mantis who brought you in.”
“Virgil. How do you know these creatures? You speak of them as if you know them.”
“I do know them, Jake. I was here once before, searching for the Gravelon. But I failed to find it, and so I returned to Mundane just as I left – well, maybe a tiny bit wiser.”
“Gravelon? Mundane? What are you talking about Virgil?”, exclaimed jake, sitting up, and sounding more than a little alarmed. While he had known that Virgil was indeed a magical dog, he wasn’t quite prepared for his previous knowledge of other worlds.
“Virgil! Where are we?””
Virgil waited a moment, letting the great healing of Pria calm Jake again, before he responded.
“Jake, we are in Graveland, and I came here to find the Gravelon, a magical creature, a dragon, which knows all, and, if found can grant any wish.
Mundane is what the searchers call the world above.
Any creature, with a little knowledge, can leave Mundane, to search for the Gravelon; all you need to do is make an infinty, So here are many creatures, from all crawls, flies, swims and walks of life – all searching for the Gravelon. Some have been searching for thousands of years – but in Mundane – time – it is only a moment “
“So, no one will miss me? No one will even know I’m gone?” queried Jake.
“No,” said Virgil. “Everything in Mundane is exacly the same, as if it’s frozen in time – but, you know, it’s not really quite like that. It’s just that in Graveland everything happens so fast – like when you have a whole dream just in the moment that your eyes flicker as you wake up, only much faster.”
“But, how do we go back?”, asked Jake, just a little timidly.
“Jake, there are many openings back to Mundane. In everything you do here, there are ways back. In every moment there are openings. You will find yourself back in Mundane just as quick as you sincerely wish you were there.
But…” and now Virgil looked quizzically, adventurously, even a little mischievously at Jake, ” do you really want to go back? Or”, and here Virgil’s voice took on all the adventure and urgency that had been in it when he first convinced Jake to step into the mirrored infinity, “would you like to join me in the search for the Gravelon!”
“Well,” thought Jake aloud, “Am I not an adventurer? Am I not an explorer?
Of course I am!”, he said aloud. “Let the quest begin!”
And so it began.
In Joy
After a few more hours of busy chattering, during which time Jake learned a good deal more about the new world that he had entered, Jake and Virgil fell into a deep, deep, sleep, no doubt aided by the delicious food and strange drinks that Pria, the wise Mantis, eventually brought them.
Jake awoke many hours later to Virgil who was gently shaking him.
“Come on Jake.”, said Virgil, “We have to embark. Our vessel is here and it’s waiting for us.”
“Embark? Where? What vessel? Where are we going?”
“Come on”, said Virgil, leading Jake by the hand, “I’ll tell you all that later. She’s waiting.”
Jake followed Virgil out of the chamber in which he had been sleeping and along a short corridor. They walked out a door at the end of the corridor and Jake was absolutely amazed to find himself at the edge of a subterannean lake. Jake now saw that he had been in one chamber of what looked like a beehive which opened onto the lake. Light from all the cells of the hive shone outwards into a huge cathedral like cave, flickering on the utterly still black water. Jake could not see the other end of the cave, nor the other side of the lake, as the lights of the hive only illumined a short distance; beyond it was pitch black.
Jake was so busy marvelling at, and also feeling a little frightened by, this strange world, that he jumped back when he saw their ‘vessel’. A jet black, surprisingly round, and marvelously friendly looking whale was resting it’s chin on the end of a short jetty. It’s sparkling eyes were watching Jake with great interest, as Virgil marched jauntily straight up to it.
“Jake,” exclaimed Virgil, “this is Joy. Joy, this is Jake”.
Joy winked a t Jake, and emitted a high pitched squeek. Moments later three shiny black porpoise leaped out of the water, landing in perfect unison, on their tails, which somehow flattened beneath them. They stood in a row, looking about them, their heads still in unison, appearing much like penguins.
“LeBabs!”, Virgil cried out. “The great translators of Gravaland: they speak the language of any creature. One of the very few creatures, besides the Gravelon itself, which dwells only in Gravaland.” While Virgil had been explaining this, Joy had been emitting another series of squeeks and clicks, to which one of the LeBabs responded with simliar sounds. And while this conversation was occurring the other LeBab’s head and face changed shape into an almost human form.
“We must leave right away,” it said, translating for Joy, “there’s no time to waste. Tyro may awake”
“Right then”, said Virgil, “ALl aboard.”
At this directive Joy opened up her mouth which seemed to be a cavern itself, and rolled out her tongue as a gangway. Virgil walked right up and into Joy’s mouth where he turned, just inside the teeth, to see if Jake was following.
Jake hadn’t budged.
“Come on Jake lad, let’s go!” exclaimed Virgil.
But Jake wouldn’t move. He was fixed to the spot, staring not at Virgil, but somewhere deep in Joy’s cavernous mouth.
“Jake, we can’t wait, there’s only certain times that we can make the passage, and now’s the time!”
“It’s dark in there”, Jake finally managed to utter.
This was instantly translated by the LeBabs and Joy’s squeeking response was duly translated back.
“It’s not for long,” said the LeBab translator. “It is dark, but its warm and cozy.”
“I can’t go in there, Virgil.” said Jake, now almost in tears “You know me, how scared I get.”
“Golly”, Virgil suddenly exclaimed. “I’m sorry jake, I forgot.
Poor old Jake”, Virgil explained to all, “He’s afraid of the dark. There’s no explaining that will help him – it’s common in human children… they’re terrified… it’s their imagination; it’s overdeveloped”
Joy squeeked passionately – “We must go now! It’s more and more dangerous by the moment.”
“What are we to do?, exclaimed Virgil, despairing.
Just then, Pria emerged from the honeycomb. Everyone became quiet, and stood a little taller as she walked forward to Jake.
“You are afraid?”, Pria asked him, gently but insistently.
“Yes”, said Jake, his eyes cast down in shame.
“You are afraid of the dark?”
“Yes.”, said Jake, his voice now only a whisper.
“Indeed”, said Pria. “I knew it to be so.
I can quell your fears in this moment, but it will not last, and I cannot travel with
you. Ultimately, it is only you, and you alone, that can conquer your fear, as your fears are unique to you. But that is the quest of any lifetime, and much like the quest you yourself embark upon now, for the Gravelon. Indeed, you will not find the Gravelon, without finding your fears first.
But for now you must make haste, there is no time to waste, and so I have something that will help you in the moment, and that you will take with you.”
Pria took from a small sack a necklace on the chain of which was a very curious object. It looked like a pale seed out which sprouted an array of root like stems shaped like tiny hooks.
“Ayam”, she declared, “A creature like no other.
The Ayam’s only food is fear.
Wear the Ayam and, when faced with your fears, she will consume the fear itself, or she may materialise an antidote to your fears by using their powers in magical ways.
Depending on when or where you use it,
depending on with whom or why,
she will never react the same,
she will always emerge in a different way.
Maybe you’ll feel confidence,
where before you felt fear and shame;
maybe its a cloak of invisibility you need;
maybe it’s relief from pain;
maybe you receive the gift of speech;
or maybe you can change your shape;
Maybe it’s a coat of armour;
maybe it’s a crutch or a cane.
But beware of where and how you use it,
beware with whom and why.
It is not medecine, but a living thing.
It takes away your fear
because it feeds on your fear,
indeed, it needs your fear,
and so it grows your fears,
it tends your fears, and it reaps your fears.
Beware, for while it may help you in the moment, it is not your friend.
Beware, or you will want it more and more, you will want it again and again,
and this delicate necklace will grow and grow into a fear-forged chain.
[[The Ayam is powerful, perhaps one of the most powerful creatures in Graveland.
It attracts the darkness like flies to honey.
It attracts the fiersome beings, to inspire the fear on which it feeds.]
Jake marvelled at the tiny, odd creature, as he lifted the chain over his head and let it settle around his neck. Almost immediately he could feel its tendril tentacle-like roots moving against the skin of his throat and then, a moment later, the tiniest feeling of a pin-prick, like the moment whan a mosquito sticks its probiscis into your skin. A little itch, that was all, and then he could feel the fear being sucked out. The sense of relief, walls falling down, and the clarity that seemed to run into his mind , and the feeling of freedom, all accompanied by an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards Pria, and also for Virgil, and really, to all the creatures that were gathered about, and to this place, and the dark, which he now thought of as only a marvelous adventure, a mystery to be explored.
He looked at Pria, tears of gratitude in his eyes.
“It’s marvelous”, he said, “Thank you. Im not afraid anymore.”
“Of course it’s marvelous”, responded Pria. “Now take the Ayam off, and put it in its pouch.”
Jake obeyed, removing the necklace. He was surprised when he saw the Ayam now. It was a vivid dark purple, bloated and pulsing, the root stems pulsing with vigour
————————————-
And so, with a dose of the Ayam, he stepped forward, past the bright white teeth, through the wide open jaws, along the hot wet tongue, straight into the pitch black belly of the beast, called Joy.
Into the dark he went.
But now indeed, as promised, warm inside, full of good spirit, confidence, excitement at what was to before him, and what was to come.
——————————————-
He took the vial, and popped teh tiny lid with his finger, passing it instinctively under his nose to smel it.
That was all it took. The bright fiery vapour literally leaped up from the container, like a live thing, straight into his nostrils. He threw his head back with a start, for a moment feeling like sneezing, then coughing as it rushed, writhing, down his throat, spreading like a fire in dry leaves.
Then there was a burst of sun, and colour, delightful colour, glittering and dancing like a million flickering rainbow candles, lights dancing on a lake, suns bursting, comets, purple flamed rockes. Then it settled into a warm happy blaze, melting with total certainty, inevitability, the frozen walls of fear around his heart, his fear of the dark.
A luminous smile spread across his face, even as tears of gratitude filled his eyes.
The blaze settled down, deepening into his bones, a warm lasting glow.
Pria stood before him, her huge eyes sad, curious, wise.
“How now?”, she eventually asked, gesturing towards Joy.
Joy had not moved, and everything about her looked the same but completely different. The great gaping jaws now seemed like a gateway, the teeth a pearl of necklace, and the dark like an adventure, a great game waiting to be played.
Joy’s mouth closed quickly, snapped shut; time was of the essence; and all went pitch black.
How was it inside the whale, Joy?
Dark beneath thought. The mind ran wild, and all one’s hopes and fears reared, and leaped and galloped away in there. There were no seats because all floated in the total dark. Bumping into one another, and the sides of the insides, of the sweet whale. You could not know whether you were awake or asleep, in the belly of the beautiful beast. And so they daydreamed, or nightdreamed, and saw their lives pass before theur eyes. Dreams, aspirations, cataclysms and catastrophes, panoramas without horizon.
What is it like in the belly of a whale?
Warm, even hot.
Soft.
A warm, warm and wet blabket.
A cuddling into a deep dream.,
a swaddling sleep.
Out of time they journeyd, drifting;
mother,
suckling,
chocolate,
dream.
——–
Tyro who sleeps in the deep deep deep
a gulf for a belly
and a gully of teeth…
Though normally he would sleep, early in th etide change, Tyro awoke.
Joy dove deep, then raced as fast as she could across the GAP where she was, for minutes only, exposed the the great predator of the Still Deeper.
And in teh Still Deeper Tyro waited, knowing Joy had waited too long, knowing she had to make the cross. He saw her then, above, silhouetted by the lights of the Hive, racing out over the deep, striving to cross the Gap.
—————–
He dreamed.
Dreamed of a mountainous island.
He travelled, like a ghost, emerging from the water, floating across a flat beach, straight into a deep and dark and dense and silent forest.
As Jake floated through the forest he saw that beneath the wild disarray, teeming with the vast leaves of enormous and fantastic plants, there was the clear pattern, symmetrical and deliberate, of an ancient city, long abandoned and overgrown. The mountains, he realised in wonder, were the ruins of colossal temples.
He floated, surely, and without hesitation, to the base of the largest of htese mountains, passing through a huge archway, it’s ornate grooves marked out by the leaves of the foliage that now made its home there.
Beyond the archway worn steps descended into dark chambers, barely lit by the green glow of leaf light. There he stopped.
For some time it was too dark to see anything. Gradually, as Jake’s eyes adjusted tothe darkness, the shapes of great and powerful root systems emerged.
The he saw, to his great surprise, two pairs of bright eyes staring at him from the gloo, only a few feet away.
“Welcome”, a voice said in a deep, but very gentle growl. “We’ve been expecting you.”
This voice, as Jake’s eyes grew still clearer, belonged to an enormous creature which towered over him.
A bear.
At his feet, indeed, on his feet, the other pair of eyes belonged to a mouse.
“You’ve come here to learn our secret.” said the bear.”I have not left this chamber since I was a cub. I am a huge and powerful beast, but believe in peace, and saw the damage that my raw power could wreak, no matter where I stepped or stayed.
So here I stay, for fear of causing innocent creatures harm or pain.”
“And your friend?”, inquired Jake, gesturing to the silent mouse.
“His situation is quite different, though the same.
He has not spoeken since he was a pup, because he too is a creature of peace.”
“But what harm could a mouse do?”, said Jake.
“Well, that is his secret, which he will now reveal.”
Jake looked down at the tiny mouse, whose sad eyes gazed up at him.
Then it’s tiny mouth opened, and from it’s tiny body, or through it’s tiny body, came a roar, a vast roar, a roar greater than the whole island, as if the anguish of the centre of the earth itself was channeling through it. A roar which threw Jake backwards, flying out of the chmaber, out of the forest, down into the sea, intothe belly of the whale…
…and Jake awoke, in the belly of Joy, as Tyro, with a vast roar, swallowed Joy whole.
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Who could imagine such a dark?
In the belly of a whale, which is in the belly of a whale, which dwells in a subterannean cave, in a subterannean world.
A dark within a dark within a dark within a dark.
But the dream was over and Jake was wide awake, wide-eyed, in the dark of the belly of Joy, who was in teh dark of the belly of Tyro, who lived in teh dark subterannean Sea of Nis, which existed in the subterannean world calle dGraveland, whose full and whole universe fulfilled itself between any two moments of the world called Mundane, which was the shadow of the Gravelon.
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It was good that Tyro was so completely gluttonous and rapcious that she wouldn’t even take the time to chew. Joy, while now in the belly of the beast, was, for the time being, unscathed, if terrified. It is good too that Tyro was so completely insatiable, limitless in her appetite, because this, you’ll see, gave the opening for escape.
You’ll remember that Joy was not alone,that she was accompanied by the Lebabs, the great translators (no other creature, btw, could understand the language of the Lebabs).
No sooner had Tyro swallowed Joy, a meal which sould have satiated a creature twice her size, than Tyro began chasing the Lebabs. But the Lebabs were in no great danger of being caught. They were quick and agile, and Tyro was slowed by the girth and great weight of her belly. The Lebabs were also brave and clever, and they led Tyro, taunting her, and staying just out of her reach, on a chse towards the lost city, Daezaround, their ancestral home.
To the delight of the insatiable Tyro, there were still more Lebabs there, and she lunged wildly and blindly, left and right, at the littel creatures who were ever just beyond her reach.
Suddenly three Lebabs appeared just before her, so close she could almost taste them with ehr tongue. Furuiously she raced after them, faster and faster, and harder and harder she swam, coming closer and closer. Then she made one final blind lunge, and they were literally in her open mouth, when they flew straight through the grand ancient gateway of the lost city.
While it was indeed a grand gateway, it wasn’t quite grand enough for the girth of Tyro who, at the very moment that she was going to snap he r jaws tight over the Lebabs, was jolted to a shocking stop, suddenly finding herself securley wedged in the gateway, just beneath the letters ‘Daezaround’.
Tyro, caught in the gate of Daezaround, continued to lunge and snap her great jaws, as if so consumed by her desire for the Lebabs that she was unaware that she was now trapped.
A wall of water rushed into the cavern in Joy’s belly where they had sat dreaming, as if Joy had gulped water a moment before being swallowed, perhaps saving them from being smashed against the walls of her stomach.
Jay and Virgil splashed wildly for a moment in the water, but it rose no further than their waists.
“What the heck is going on”, Jay screamed, terrified, at Virgil.
The Ayam suddenly lit up.
It now pulsed and glowed, a live necklace casting a dim light into the gloom, by which Jay could see Virgil’s eyes, opening wide.
“That”, said Virgil, his voice quavering, “must be Tyro.”
The terrible roar of Tyro engulfed them inside Joy, the sound of it like the roar of a train in a tunnel, running over them.
NOTES
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A poem about the quest for The Gravelon, possibly spoken by Pria.
“Greater than the quest for gold by far, for she can transmute all to gold,:
from broken dreams, to the cruelest scars,
she can make them all into morning stars.
There are those,
generation upon generation,
who think they can find gold by digging in a pit,
or, by mixing matter and magic, fabricate it.
But those who know the Gravelon know
that it is the mind that needs to be mined;
true gold grows in the minds eye.
If the eye is gold,
all is gold.”
The first clue is that we need to find a Golden Eye,
for it is only through a Golden Eye
that you can see the GRAVELON
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Pria to be called Sophia.
Model after Dante'[s Inferno.
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The Ayam grows with each new encounter, feeding on fear, possibly spreading to others who are infected by the fear.
Grows into a kind of shield/casket around jay, whose personality changes, is no longer in control.
Eventually he is drawn to, or sees, the vast Ayam city.
AYAMAYA is a coffin/shielded/walled city/citadel, Matrix like, whose dwellers live in an endless circuitous illusion, a dream (cf. Samsara, the illusory castle in Romance lit, Maya). They are fed / domesticated by the Ayam who keep them pacified / afraid.
The only way out is to be still, and wait without hope, without fear, without desire or aversion. And to combine together with others, mutually arise.
To experience the fear, the black hole, the death…
The withering of AYAMAYA: Pria’s music…
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The captives of AYAMAYA are domesticated, dreaming dreams full of fears, dreaming a vast collective dream, dreaming in fact, MONDANE, the world Jay comes from.
Hence, freeing the captives would destroy the very world that Jay comes from…
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names for the cravens
The Cravens
Krokusts
Cravusts