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- 9th of August, 1511 was a crisp and sunny morning in Villach Austria. The birds were singing and the smell of freshly cut grass permeated the air. I was perched with his my legs crossed on the bench in my garden reading one of my father’s alchemy books which I treasured as if it were my own. I had just finished cutting the grass and pulling weeds in the court yard which my father made me do. He said it was good for the constitution to do so, and that although burring one’s head in books was good for the mind, it was not for the body. Also the welding of a scythe for the making of a flat and even lawn was good for clearing the mind and bringing it into balance. But I understood this. I was a very interested in his father’s work as the local physician and hoped one day I would follow in my father’s footsteps.
- I also loved the smell of the freshly cut grass. It had become a ritual of sorts to sit on the bench and read alchemy books while savouring the smell of fresh lawn cuttings.
- I was a just a young man of slight build for my age of fourteen years. I was also quite feminine in appearance for which I was acutely aware of. At that age I had delicate pale skin and locks of curly blonde hair which I always requested be kept trim to emasculate me.
- I loved books and yearned for the knowledge they possessed. I would read any book I could get my hands on, but I especially liked books of ancient knowledge. Like the art of Alchemy, the secrets of the ancient Egyptians and the philosophies of antiquity. I had to learn Greek and Latin to read them and I put this knowledge to good use while working at a mine in Lead Mountain not far from where I lived. I helped with the analysis of ore for extracting metals and I fear that this is the reason for my sudden decline. As I have often said The poison is in the dosage and certainly much dosage I have consumed passively over my career as an Alchemist.
- I also loved to travel and would pursue any opportunity to do so, of which mostly came from my father who would often travel to Florence and Venice and because I could speak fluent Latin which helped in his travels as this was a widely spoken language throughout Europe, especially among the academics and artists of the time.
- I was reading a passage in a book in titled “The Distilling of Oyles from Flora” when I became aware of a strange sensation. I felt as though he and his court yard were turning. I steadied myself but found I did not need to. I unfolded my legs and carefully stand up to better gauge the situation. I looked down and realised that the ground was not turning, but shadows on the ground are turning. I looked up and to my surprise noticed a cloud above the court yard. It was not just a normal cloud, it was spiralling from the centre as if engulfed whirlwind.
- I had heard of tornados before but I never expected them to be like this. This tornado was gentle and beckoning and I was engrossed by the phenomenon to the extent that I could not look away. I felt as if I would be swallowed by the strange cloud. Yet I was not afraid, and even longed for its embrace; I would surrender to it; I waited frozen and transfixed; waiting for the moment of ascent with mounting excitement and anticipation.
- ‘Oh such a joyous moment you should appear to me my God. Take me to thy roost’ I shouted to the sky as he anticipated the miracle.
- Then I noticed something at the centre of the cloud. A dark figure getting larger and larger as if it were approaching the earth. I clasped my hands together in solute. I was certain that the figure would be God himself. What else could descend from the sky in such a fashion?
- I closed his eyes tightly and tried to fill my head with good thoughts and braced myself.
- Suddenly there was a heavy thud. I opened my eyes and could see the vortex was still churning above me but the dark figure had gone.
- I looked around the courtyard and quickly noticed I was not alone. An old man lay on the grass of the courtyard facing toward the back wall. He was partially buried in the ground by the force of his landing. I could see he had long grey hair and was tall in stature.
- I just stood there and stared at the motionless old man lying on the grass. Could he be dead? I thought to myself. The old man suddenly moved as if he had woken from unconsciousness. He pulled his shoulder from the ground and slowly struggled to his feet.
- I fell to his knees.
- ‘My gracious God I am not worthy.’ I said, astounded that God would appear to me in this fashion.
- The old man must have turned to reveal himself to me but I had closed my eyes as not to offend God by gazing upon him.
- ‘Phillip, I think you have mistaken me for someone else’ the old man spoke in Latin in a deep, rich voice.
- Phillip expected that God would speak in Latin but did not expect to hear those words. I fact the voice sounded somewhat familiar to me. I opened his eyes to behold the man standing before me.
- ‘Leonardo Da Vince?’
- ‘At your service!’ Leonardo bowed as he as he spoke.
- ‘What are you doing here? What just happened?’ I said.
- ‘That is indeed a long story which you would learn in good time but my time before you is limited as I must return to whence I came.’ He said with increasing enthusiasm.
- ‘Although I appear as Leonardo, I am in some way, not Leonardo.’
- ‘I do not understand. Are you God?’ I asked.
- ‘No’ Leonardo laughed.
- ‘I guess you could say, I had some of his attributes but you must not think of me as God, although I am honoured. I must ask of you a favour as you are partially responsible for a predicament I have got myself and others into.’
- ‘I must admit I am still very confused but I will do my best.’ I said.
- But just as I spoke I was startled by another thud, this time much softer than the last. Then another, I looked up and noticed little people were falling from the sky.
- ‘Gnomes?’ I said enquiringly.
- ‘You are correct.’
- Then I looked at the ground to see little Gnomes dropping from the sky, picking themselves up and brushing themselves off. I must admit, I was astounded.
- ‘They’re real!’ I shouted with excitement as they continued to rain upon the garden.
- ‘I only imagined they could be real but I did not hold any hope. I had read about them in ancient texts but thought them just folk law.’
- ‘They were until just recently. This is why you must help me.’
- At this point, the Gnomes had finished falling from the vortex and had gathered in the centre of the courtyard.
- ‘You must look after these creatures for me. I cannot stay here for reasons you will soon understand. You must find them a secret place where they can live in peace and they will gift you much knowledge you so profoundly seek. I am afraid their world has been destroyed, and they can never return. Would you help these little creatures?’
- I just listened while transfixed on the little creatures abound in my courtyard. They were all but two spans tall and could easily sit under a mushroom to shelter from rain.
- ‘Of course’ I finally said. ‘Anything you ask sire, I still cannot believe my eyes.’
- ‘Believe it my Son.’ Leonardo then looks up at the vortex with a distant and solemn look in his eyes. ‘It saddens me, but I must now say my goodbyes. Please look after this one especially.’ Leonardo crouches down and lifts one of the little creature holding it in his cupped palms.
- ‘Goodbye to you especially little one. We will meet again someday, but for now I cannot, as my original self is still of this realm and my presence would disrupt the balance. I hope you understand.’
- The little creature looked at Leonardo with sallow sad eyes with tears rolling out and I was so moved by the scene I could barely contain my own emotions and felt tears welling in my eyes.
- Then, Leonardo placed the Gnome gently on the ground before me, and looked up at the vortex. The little Gnome raised his little arms and look down at the ground beneath Leonardo.
- Suddenly Leonardo was turning on the spot and I noticed the actual ground beneath Leonardo is actually churning and twisting beneath him. I watched in horror at Leonardo was sucked into the ground. I tried to reach out to him but he was gone. The ground that was once churning had returned as if nothing had happed.
- So I just stood there amazed and bewildered. What has just happened? He thought to himself. He looked to the little Gnome that stood before him, and the other Gnomes. He crouched down on one knee and announced himself.
- ‘Greetings little ones. My Name is Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim but you can just call me “Paracelsus” which means “Greater than Celsus” because I will be one day. I will take you to the beautiful Lead Mountain where I work and there you can live in the beauty of nature and surely no ill will come of you there. However, you must keep to yourselves, as men can be cruel to strange creatures’
- The little Gnome looked up to Paracelsus and said in a warm voice. ‘And greeting to you Paracelsus, my name is Odelin but you can just call me “Lightning Gnome” for short.’
- And so we arrive at the end of this little tale. Maybe in some other existence, I will get around the others but this will have to do for now as I am about to surrender to my death and have not the energy to write anymore.
- So I will leave you with the first of many questions I would ask the little Gnome because I think the first one was most significant to this story.
- I leant down close to the small creature and asked him…
- ‘So tell me little one’
- ‘Why do they call you the…’
- “Lightning Gnome?”
- *The Beginning*
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- And so we come to the end of Paracelsus’s account of the Lightning Gnome but you may be wondering how I would come across such a manuscript from another universe. And the answer would be...
- I didn’t. I made it all up.
- But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
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- You see, that’s the funny thing about infinity.
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- TLG gets to his feet and brushes the dirt from his tunic. He looks around cave and everything is how he left it, except there are no bees, or Cosmo.
- Leonardo is sitting on the floor a few yards away, looking as bewildered as he could be. TLG turned to Leonardo who returned his glance.
- ‘Your cloud; it has gone.’ Leonardo said instantly noticing the change in TLG.
- ‘And that is not all. I have something for you.’ TLG remarked.
- ‘And what might that be little one.’ Leonardo said with a slight tremble as if he had not fully caught his wits.
- TLG walks up to Leonardo and extends a hand to him but Leonardo just looks puzzled.
- ‘You don’t expect to help me up little one. I am already greater than your height when I am sitting down.’
- TLG smiles. ‘Give me your hand.’ and Leonardo lifts his huge right hand up to meet TLG's little chubby hand but when their hands meet, they light up like a white fire. Suddenly Leonardo is infected utterly with a shining white fire that illuminates the cave. TLG could only just make out his expression of surprise before his face disappeared into a white fiery glare. But as soon as it had started it was over and Leonardo, still looking surprised started to smile broadly.
- ‘My little fellow! You are a true marvel. I had never realised all this time I had been caught up in destiny and you freed me.
- And this is the great secret that Odelin had for you?’
- ‘I am Odelin.’ TLG stated proudly.
- ‘And the secret knowledge you sort?’ Leonardo asked eagerly hungering for more revelation.
- But as he asked TLG had noticed all was not well in the cave. The cave walls were writhing with an all too familiar nemesis.
- ‘I will tell you later, but look now we have little time! The brittle star Nemis, and his minions are back to claim this realm. This metaphor has great power so we must make haste to rescue the villagers.’
- At that, they both scrambled towards the cave entrance where they had to get on the ground and crawl to fit in. And as TLG placed his hand on the writhing cave floor, they disappeared instantly at TLG's contact, restoring the immediate terrain and freeing it from the tentacles as they powderised and flew away in the wind that blew down the tunnel. Leonardo found the same effect as though their newly restored Free Will repelled the brittle star metaphor.
- The two creatures scramble along the edge of the cliff that was also writhing with brittle star. But luckily the brittle star could not tolerate the travellers, relinquishing the ground as they came upon it.
- They clambered back over mountains and crevasse, taking the exact path that brought TLG the bees cave, but they made good speed on account of the urgency of the situation of this realm. And while they sped along, TLG explained the best he could of his experience and revelation in the Odelin vortex and Leonardo was amazed and bewildered, all the while noticing the increasing unnatural effect of the brittle star metaphor on the landscape. Nothing was untouched. It was as if the brittle star metaphor was always a part of everything here but was only now beginning to reveal itself, as though reality were dissolving into its base constituents until nothing would remain. The reversal of the complex, to the simple. Order to chaos.
- *The Brittlescape*
- Finally TLG and Leonardo arrive at the village from the rear on old river road. They can sense the landscape is writhing more than ever now and the true horror of this decaying universe is profound and desperate.
- ‘The Nemis!’ said Leonardo. ‘The Nemis is now your home it would appear. This is the end and I fear we maybe too late or at most, just in the nick of time.’
- The whole landscape was writhing with red and black striped tentacles that engulfed everything. Beings that were once trees were now encrusted with brittle stars of all shapes and sizes entangled into each other writhing and squirming. As it they had become the trees themselves. TLG looks down and notices that the ground around them is moving and writhing with brittle star also. But strangely, not where TLG stood directly. It appeared as though the universe would return to normal, only in a few yards of circumference where TLG or Leonardo stood.
- TLG starts walking in the direction of Nimrods log and Leonardo follows. As they walk, red and black tentacles disappear into the earth as if disguising themselves with perfect camouflage, the effect was quite marvellous and TLG gets the feeling that the brittle star was always there, but only at this time revealing itself. He felt as though this universe was like a memory getting forgotten. Like a once well walked track being replaced by the undergrowth of reality itself and only when it was clearly beneath him he could remember what it once was.
- When they finally arrive at Nimrods log house, the whole house is encased in brittle stars and TLG struggle to find the door. But as TLG reaches for the door handle the brittle star fade into the background as he pulls the door open.
- TLG enters and Leonardo crawls in after him.
- Nimrod is sitting at his table just staring at the two visitors in desperate disbelief. There is a wariness on his face of which TLG has never seen on him before. The look of a condemned Gnome. ‘Nimrod, do not be frightened. He is our friend’
- ‘Leonardo, at your service.’ Leonardo introduces himself.
- ‘Lightning Gnome! What is happening to us?’ Nimrod finally speaks in a trembling voice.
- ‘We have no time to explain. This world will soon be no more so we must gather all the village folk in the square immediately. That is if we still have one, and get out of this forsaken universe’
- TLG looks to Leonardo who is now sitting on the floor of Nimrods house.
- ‘You are a giant and have a bellowous voice. Could you call you walk to the square and call to all the village folk along the way to follow you to the square.’
- ‘Of course’ Leonardo replies.
- Nimrod got to his feet. ‘Can I help?’
- ‘Yes Nimrod you go with Leonardo, show him the way to the square by the old road along the hedgerow and help gather the villagers. I will take the river road. We should get everybody that way. We will meet at the square’
- ‘Where are we going?’ Nimrod asks.
- ‘We are going another world in another universe. A universe that is hardy, and not at the frayed edge of existence.
- ‘I trust you old friend, let us go now’
- At that the three went on their way. TLG walked along the river and stopped at each house making sure all Gnomes were accounted for, fending off brittle star along the way and Leonardo and Nimrod did the same along the hedgerow. Eventually they all met again at the square. All of the Gnome villagers and the two intrepid rescuers stood in the village square. The stone wall of the square, and the ground all around them riddled with brittle stars. The Gnome villagers were all in various states of wonder and distress. There was an ambient sound of crying shouting and squealing as the villagers tried to come to terms with their predicament. No one could stand still as the brittle stars were constantly reaching from the writhing landscape attempting to claim everything in their midst and some clambered close to TLG and Leonardo, to escape the tentacles.
- TLG greets Leonardo.
- ‘Could you lift me onto the pavilion’ The pavilion stood in the centre of the square. TLG did not like the thought of crawling through the brittle stars to ascend the steps of the pavilion. At the Leonardo scopes up TLG and places him gently on the platform.
- ‘Hear yee!’ TLG shouts with all his might to the chaotic scene below.
- ‘My people! I have grave news for you all so please try to listen very carefully.
- This world will soon be no more. We must find a new home, far away from this dangerous place. I am sorry but we have no choice. Soon the Nemis will collapse this realm and the Gnome will exist no more if we do not go now. I have arranged with my friend Leonardo, a new home for us to live in peace for the rest of time. Do not feel frightened and please trust me. I will begin preparations immediately.’
- At that TLG raised his arms and looks up to the sky and yells ‘appear!’ and instantly, his storm cloud reappears over his head as if it had never left. But it is building up strong and fierce until if covers the whole pavilion. Dark and with a yellow tinge that gave it a foreboding appearance. Then TLG looks down at the villagers, his eyes darkened with determination.
- Then lightning bolts starts striking his hands and head travelling down over his body and TLG starts to appear lighter and his eyes start glowing with the white brilliance of the lightning and soon every part of his exposed skin is alight and dazzling. Then he casts his arms down in the direction of the village square around him.
- There is a roar of screams as the confused villagers are instantly engulfed in lightning and white fire. But as soon as it came it was gone and the villagers were silent and confused and all around them the brittle stars were gone. But only around where they stood. TLG knew that fixing the villages was the only way they could exist in the compliant universe they were destined for.
- Then TLG raised his arms again and this time, rings of lightning danced around the parameter of the village square and square started rotating. The brittle stars that encrusted everything started frantically dispersing in all directions from the square as if recoiling from intense heat. The villagers stared cheering as the brittle star dispersed as if in the throws of victory. Now the anguish was replaces with excitement. The air was full of it. Gnomes were cheering and jeering, yelling and shouting. TLG could not help but smile as he felt success was inevitable. He looked at Leonardo who was looking back at him, also with a giant grin on his face. Nimrod was running around the churning square laughing and hugging villagers.
- With TLG in the centre of the vortex, he is turning faster than the other gnomes around him. They are all now looking up to him and cheering. TLG looks to the horizon of this strange world and somewhere amongst the hail of cheering and shouting he looks up and sees plumes of smoke in the sky. Like smoke from the funeral pyres of a dying realm. Tears well in TLG’s eyes as he spins deeper into the vortex and his fellow travellers curl in on him.
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- Suddenly the inky black cold tube is gone and TLG finds himself freefalling now in an expansive sky. Still speeding down ahead of him, an ambiguous writhing cloud of ethereal gas and tentacles is falling through the air. TLG looks up behind him to see a hole in the blue sky close to a point in the distance. The exit of a vortex is now a known sequence of events to TLG so he expects to land hard somewhere in the near future, so he relaxes a bit and watches curiously as the brittle star speeds out of view. We will meet again I’m sure and our fate will be realised then my nemesis. TLG muses to himself.
- TLG orients himself so he is falling back first. He places his hands behind his head and gazes up at the blue sky and the clouds. There is a bright sunlight shining on his face now offsetting the cool air as it wisps past him as he falls. Now bolstered with a certainty that he is vulnerable only to his fate he just lets everything happen to him.
- Whatever will be will be. He thinks to himself as he falls. As he watches little fluffy white clouds steaming past him he suddenly gets the impression he has been here before. But that is not surprising. Nothing is surprising now. He distances himself from himself in his head, and resigns to be a spectator to his own performances. As if he were just an actor in a bizarre play in a bizarre theatre where the actors play their parts reading line by line, never knowing when the final scene will be played out.
- TLG muses about the freedom of death, but wonders if it is even possible for him to die.
- I am a strange creature indeed. He reminds himself as he falls.
- Suddenly he is roused from his daydreaming with a though.
- Odelin, could he have survived?
- Maybe this is not just an escape vortex for the ghost head. Maybe this is an escape vortex for Odelin. At this revelation he turns in the air, head first with his arms pinned to his side and speeds off. He pears down at the array of light clouds underneath him that obscure the surface of world he is falling to. The whole skyscape is filled with light clouds in all directions, breaking up the clean crisp air. The sun is now struggling to break through the clouds he has left behind along with his personal cloud, ever present now trailing behind him as he accelerates toward this world.
- Maybe Odelin is OK. Maybe he has landed safely.
- As he bursts though the crooked array of light clouds, a pristine landscape is revealed to him.
- Rolling planes of green grass stretch out forever. No mountains just a beautiful soft green grass plane. TLG now realises he has been here before. As the grassy ground approaches at speed his suspicions are confirmed as the cream coloured monolith and the mirror stream towards him. He turns himself in the air but and notices that his little storm cloud is now below him. Suddenly TLG's storm cloud slows and catches TLG. It is as if the storm cloud has gained substance and is cradling his fall. TLG puts his hands into it and it feels like the lining of Robin's ether scope, spongy and supportive.
- This time TLG does not land with a bang. Instead, he is gently placed upon the ground by his little storm cloud, which immediately afterwards, resumes its position above TLG where it has always been.
- He stands in exactly the same spot as he did the first time he visited this place when he fell into the whirlpool but a few day before. At least it felt like a few days.
- *The mirror and the perfect stage*
- TLG looks around. ‘Odelin!’
- He can feel the gentle warm breeze and senses the rustling of the tall grass. He cannot see very far as the grass is so tall. He glances up at the stage with the same though of climbing up so he can get a better view. There is no sign of the ghost head or a brittle star and certainly no Robin.
- He almost expects time will repeat itself. He feels stuck in a bizarre circle from which he has no escape. He struggles through the tall grass and stands in front of the mirror. Still beautiful and clear and clean, exactly as he remembered it from not so long ago.
- I wonder if you will take me home one day. TLG thinks to himself.
- He looks up at the monolith stage. It occurs to TLG that he could get a better perspective if he were elevated.
- He struggles over to the edge of the stage, reaches up and grabs the edge of the stage and pulls himself up.
- He pulls himself to his feet, and to his surprise, sees a old Gnome lying curled up on the gleaming surface of the monolithic stage. He is a giant. About the size of Robin, but old and lean with a long white beard and white hair and he was well dressed in exquisite clothing with shining buckled shoes and white thrilled collar. He appears to be sleeping. TLG slowly approaches the creature. TLG can see he is breathing and decides to wake him.
- He reached down and prods him on the cheek with his index finger.
- ‘Giant gnome, awaken!’ he shouts at the creature. The giant slowly opens eyes.
- He looks up at TLG who is standing over him with bolts of lightning flashing over the coiled figure. TLG stumbles back in horror when he realises he has seen this face before.
- ‘Ghost Head! Where is my Odelin?’
- ‘You fool, he is gone.’ The old gnome groans, as he turn is head away in anguish.
- ‘I killed him do you not see? Maybe your only chance to be a truly great creature of the Meta universe.’
- TLG collapses to his knees and hangs his head down in despair then raises it again this time with tears welling in his eyes.
- ‘Why?!’ He cries.
- The giant gnome sombrely pulls himself to his feet and stares down at TLG who is staring back at him.
- ‘I am afraid I was overcome by the metaphor creature Nemis. The one you thankfully expressed from me. The desolate one, the one with red and black tentacles. When one attempts to become purely abstract, one is left vulnerable to creatures of the abstract, to take possession of one’s spirit. This is why I could not fully form as I appeared to you as a ghost head.
- My soul was imprisoned and replaced by the creature Nemis. He controlled me and used my knowledge and wisdom to his own ends. Which was to prevent the union of the Odelin and The Lightning Gnome as this union would spell the end for the Nemis. But it appears he has completed his menacing work before you were able to stop him. I am sorry, I feel responsible. If I had not existed, the brittle star could not have possessed me, I could not have possessed Robin and you would not be in this predicament now.’
- TLG just gazes at the giant Gnome in disbelief. All this time, the ghost head was possessed, and trying to hunt down Odelin. Yet, it all rather made sense in this bizarre existence. The thought that Robin was possessed by two levels of entity was astounding to say the least, but the question of Odelin and Nemis was still burning in his mind.
- ‘What nature is the Nemis?’ asks TLG.
- ‘The Nemis is an abstract creature known as a Metaphor.’
- ‘A Metaphor?’ asks TLG.
- ‘A Metaphor is an ethereal entity that represents a system or process. Any system can be represented by a metaphor. In fact metaphors are all around us and make up much of the broken realms. Our Vortexes are Metaphors, this stage and the mirror are...’
- The giant gnome pauses when his gaze fell upon TLG's storm cloud which was ticking and sparking with apprehensions and confusion.
- ‘And I'm not so sure, but maybe even your storm cloud is --- But the Nemis represents something far darker. The Nemis is a Metaphor for the broken realms that we inhabit and make up our substance. The Nemis represents the outlaw realms, that do not adhere to the ethics of nature. It has much power in these strange places. You could say that the Nemis is the ambassador for the broken.’
- ‘That is insane. How can something be metaphor?’
- ‘There are many paths to existence in this infinity, especially for us abstract ones; this is just one path.’
- TLG paced around the platform with his hands clasped behind his back in thought, his mind is a mess with so many questions that he does not know where to begin, but eventually he asks.
- ‘You say Odelin has been destroyed, But I feel he is still about us. How do you know he is dead?’
- ‘Well little one, I do not really. I just could not imagine such a tiny creature could take such a blow from Robin and survive.’
- TLG thought for a moment and asked.
- ‘But it is ridiculous to think that he could die. I do not believe it! Did you say we are abstract. How can abstract things die?’
- TLG watched the giant gnome’s face for a response but the giant gnomes face was frozen in confusion, as if he had had stumbled upon a paradox. He finally reanimated and said.
- ‘But I cannot feel his presence in the meta universe any more. This can only mean he is gone.’ The giant replied defensively.
- ‘But I can.’ said TLG with a sudden gleam in his eyes.
- ‘Really? Well I must admit, that is curious. Maybe he is someplace but I tell you, that place must be quite the ceiled realm. Yet, I would not be surprised that you are the only one who could sense him little one.’
- ‘I can sense him, but I can sense no direction, like you. I just feel his existence.’ TLG thought about Odelin then watched the giant for a reaction, but there was nothing but a curious look about him.’
- ‘So you sensed nothing?’ said TLG.
- ‘I'm afraid not.’
- ‘If he were somewhere, do you know where that might be?’
- ‘Maybe in a completely collapsed universe but I know of nothing that can exist there. Maybe a vortex? Encapsulated in a metaphor as if he possessed it.’ TLG thought for a bit but his searching for Odelin in his mind had led him to a dead end so his mind drifted back to the Nemis.
- ‘Do you know what the Nemis wanted of Odelin? Maybe this would be a clue to his whereabouts.’
- The giant Gnome though for moment and replied.
- ‘Not for sure, but I would hazard a guess that it is knowledge, as knowledge I a powerful thing in the meta universe. When one truly knows one’s own nature, anything can be realised. Maybe he possesses the knowledge to destroy the Nemis and remove your cloud. Or maybe you’re lightning.’ but as he said that TLG's storm cloud gave an angry crack that made TLG cringe as if in protest at his remark.
- TLG wanders to the edge of the platform and stares out over the grass planes of this unlikely realm. Suddenly he feels so isolated as though he did not belong anywhere. He felt as though he were not real. He raises his little right hand and examines it intently, expecting it to be transparent and ghostly, but it is opaque and solid. Just like a real think.
- By this time, the giant gnome had joined him and was gazing off into the distance. TLG looks up at him and his curious stature and asks the inevitable question.
- *Leonardo*
- ‘What type of a Gnome are you?’
- The giant gives out an ironic laugh and replies. ‘I am not a Gnome. I am a creature born to the Meta universe purely abstract, but I was once a Human so that is how I appear to you.’
- ‘A Human? I have not heard of such a creature’
- ‘I originate from a world called Earth in a good and starry universe not too far from this one. In a galaxy call The Milky Way’
- My name is Leonardo and I was a great artist and inventor of my time. It was when I was entering the twilight of my mortal life I accidentally discovered the method of immortality. So I stand before you as I am now.’
- Leonardo’s face displayed a shallow pride, as if he was not completely sure of the wisdom of his reincarnation. As if, he were beginning to regret his existence.
- TLG looked up at his cloud also regretful and resigned to the fact that it would always be with him. It reminded him of his life back home. This caused him to be gripped with homesickness. All he wished for was to return to Nimrod and Gnome Village and his cave.
- ‘Can I return to my home now? I am tired and wish very much for things to be back to normal.’ TLG asked Leonardo.
- But as TLG asked this, Leonardo’s expression of shallow pride was replace with a look of dread and almost panic. This startled TLG who reacted in kind as if infected by the panic. Leonardo looked away, back to the distance of the plains, then he hung his head as his was panic replaced with sorrow. ‘Little one, you cannot go home.’
- ‘What do you mean?’ TLG asked with wide eyes and a tremble in his voice.
- Leonardo sat himself down cross-legged on the stage and looked TLG in the eyes again with great pity. ‘Your home world is in grave danger little one, as you home universe is about to collapse.’
- ‘Collapse, it was fine when I left. Why should we not be warned of such events?’ TLG asks with increasing anxiety.
- ‘Have you not noticed the impossible nature of your world?’
- ‘Well... I must admit, things were starting to defy reason.’ TLG had flashes his visions of Odelin and the impossibly immense impasse and the flower and the bees.
- ‘Your home Xroud is broken. That is how you exist in the first place.’ said Leonardo.
- ‘Now you are confusing me more than ever.’
- ‘Can you explain your cloud? Your world. Where is it? Do you know of other lands on your world other than your village. You see little one. Your universe is collapsing and that is why cannot go home. Your visions of Odelin are but a symptom of your universe coming to an end. A distant beacon for your salvation. You should be thankful you escaped with your life.’
- ‘I do not believe you. Now I think you are fooling me. I must get back to my Village. That is where I belong.’ But even as TLG openly doubted Leonardo, internally, he knew Leonardo was right.
- TLG could not even remember being a child. But he knew he had to have been one. He thought of his contemporaries. None of them had children. How could there be no children?
- ‘Then how did we come to be?’ asked TLG.
- ‘Ah, now this is where it gets interesting. You see, you and your people were created accidentally and inadvertently when I pulled myself out of my mortality and into a broken universe. This is the only way a mortal can be resurrected after its death.’
- TLG just stared at Leonardo in astonishment. ‘You must be mad. Are you trying to tell me that you created me from a thought in your head? That is ridiculous!’ TLG said feeling anger building inside of him. Leonardo flinched as TLG's cloud flashed and cracked upon TLG's head causing him to blink with both eyes.
- ‘Well not exactly created. You could say discovered. This is a side effect of infinity. Because you and I are possible. We must exist. Even if this existence is tenuous and strange. You must accept this before we can move forward.’ Leonardo said with a grave expression.
- But the truth was instantly so obvious that it stabbed TLG though the heart, cutting him to his core, whatever that was. He could feel his gut churning with spasms at the acknowledgment of this desperate revelation. TLG then plonks himself down on the edge of the platform hanging his legs over the side and bangs his heals idly against its perfect edge staring down at the grass below shimmering in a gentle breeze.
- ‘I know you are right Leonardo. I have felt my existence to be precarious all of my life. I tried to tell this to my peers but they just laughed me down and encouraged me to accept my place. But I knew something was wrong. This is why I had to mission for Odelin. All along, I knew my days were numbered in that place.’
- TLG looked out over the plains again, but this time he could see things differently. Everything seemed to writhe as it did in the cave of bees back home. As if moving in the corners of his eyes. He hung his head and covered his eyes with his hands but the writhing persisted. He uncovered hid eyes and looked at Leonardo.
- TLG though about his future. ‘So we are just figments of your imagination. Desperate souls set to float for eternity among the universes.’
- ‘I cannot say for sure but I feel our journey is not over. Who knows what lies ahead. Although I know as much as I have told you, things still bewilder me, like your storm cloud for instance. I did not imagine Gnomes with clouds following them. And for Metaphore? I know what they are but I cannot say what role they play. There is much to discover in the meta universes.’
- TLG's thoughts returned to mortality. ‘You said you were resurrected from death, can you die again? Can I die?’
- Leonardo stood up and paced the stage stroking his beard as paced.
- ‘This is a good point you make my friend and I will try to answer it as best I can. There is no such thing as death, only change. Nothing really disappears; it just changes into something else. That is the right granted by natural ethics.
- You see, a mortal cannot live forever because that breaks the ethic of change, which is innate to all of existence. If you cannot come to a natural end, then that system cannot change and without change, no complexity can form and the meta universe would be an inconceivable infinite chaos.
- Creatures like us however where created without this right. In a realm where this law has been broken. We are the outlaws of nature and can only come to exist in universes that have been some disrupted and no longer abide by all natural ethics. We cannot die naturally, but we can be destroyed. You see little one, you are created complete and complex. A complex system such as yourself and I, normally creates its self over millennia via small changes that utilise the natural ethical laws of change. To become something other than it is. If you look at the stars and the planets of all lawful universes you can see this everywhere. Right from the most simplistic thing to the most complex. A star was once a gas cloud. Then when it changes it becomes the stuff of the planets, and when they grow and change, they develop creatures and they change still into intelligence which is the most complex system in the universes that I know of. I can only wonder at what beautiful and strange things are in existence that I do not even know of but I am sure one day we shall encounter.’
- Leonardo stopped pacing and turned to TLG to see his expression.
- ‘So how can we exist without this method?’ asked TLG.
- ‘We have cheated the ethical path to intelligence as we were created by intelligence itself. By already complex creatures that have dreams and thoughts. Using dreams and imagination is another way to be created. Remember, ethics are just guidelines, not laws set in stone.
- If an intelligent creature has discovered this method of creation. Then all that need is the intention, and if that intention is something complex and plausible, no matter how imaginary, then somewhere in an infinity of broken realms, this idea or dream or vision, will exist, and usually these creations have qualities that mortal creatures cannot posses. Outlawrish qualities afforded only to those of this unlikely but magical existence.
- This is what we are. But you little one shine so bright with all manner of wonder, I cannot even begin to know your potential, but I suspect it is great as I have experienced what you can do.
- But we must beware, as this existence is mostly precarious, as these broken realms are often unstable and may collapse with little warning.’
- Meanwhile, Leonardo’s face had lost it’s melancholy and now his eyes were burning with an intensity of the fire of revelation, as he ranted and TLG could hardly keep up. But somehow, it all made perfect sense. It was as if, he always knew and everything sounded so familiar. Like Leonardo’s revelations were his own. That this knowledge came from the ether to those of this unusual predicament.
- ‘But how do you know you are right?’ asked TLG.
- ‘I needed to know. This knowledge was the instrument my creation. Knowledge is power. If I did not know, then I could not have had the intention to resurrect myself in this fashion’.
- As Leonardo spoke TLG's head was burning with questions, the most prominent came to his mouth first.
- ‘Then why was I created?’
- ‘Now this is a good question and one that is most relevant to you and your people.
- When I had the original thought and intention that resurrected me as I am now. I was also working at the time. I was finishing a painting I had begun years earlier. I had finished the subject in the foreground, and had only to complete the background, but as it had been so long since I had worked on this piece, that I had forgotten the background of the subject. But not letting that get in my way, I decided to paint an imaginary background.
- So I painted mountains and streams and bridges and waterfalls. All from my own invention. But as I was painting furiously, my mind wandered as it normally does, in all manner of directions. It was in one of those wanderings that I stumbled upon my immortality. I was wondering about the absurdity of my existence and how I could come to be in the vastness infinity of the universe. I imagined that, if I exist then I am possible, so if the universe is infinite, then somewhere in infinity, I must exists somewhere else. So then, I reasoned that if I existed somewhere else I must exist infinitely in this infinite universe.
- So in that instance I was created. Well, sort of created. You see, I always existed in this form, all I have really done, is discovered my immortal self. But that was not all. I also thought that if I was possible and existed infinity, then maybe Gnomes do also. So in that instance you and your fellows were created. Oh, and incidentally, along with the landscape I just happened to be painting at the time.’
- Leonardo’s face gleamed with pride at his excellence conveyance of wisdom that he knew would so amaze even the most uninspired of souls, and TLG was amazed. In fact his head was spinning.
- ‘But how do you know about Gnomes’.
- ‘Ah my friend, that is what brings us to the story of your ultimate but indirect creator.
- A few days earlier, I was visited by a contemporary of mine, Wilhelm Bombast and his Son Philip.
- He was a physician and was visiting to help me with a medical complaint. But as they had both travelled very far, I offered them a bed.
- It was that evening while eating supper before retiring to bed, when Philip, who was very enthusiastic about the mysteries of nature, told me of the existence of wonderful creatures he called Gnomes.
- He explained to me how these creatures resided in the underground in little caves and came out on occasion to wreak havoc on the human civilisation with their magic. He also explained the appearance and culture in such detail that I knew every little thing about them.
- The next morning, they went on their way, but the idea of the Gnomes stayed in my mind. I found the notion, astonishing.
- I do not think Gnomes actually existed. I suspect he had been reading much folk stories and took too much heed in the tales of mad old women to formulated his own ideas based around the romantic notion these mythical fantasy creatures. But the vision upon which you Gnomes were designed came from he, then to me via the simple propagation of an idea.
- I must say, I was very surprised when you turned up on my doorstep.’
- ‘I was very surprised also.’ said TLG with a slightly ironic expression.
- Leonardo cleared his throat and then continued. ‘You and your people are but reflections of the thought of a boy from my home world.
- Your existence was only possible in a broken universe such as your own. Mislead from is true right and ethical nature by a Starmite’s inhibitor machine. But yours is a universe that burns with such a fleeting wonder that it cannot burn for much longer. It is soon that this candle will be extinguished and the brittle stars will reclaim your realm’.
- TLG's head was spinning as he realized his entire existence was the incidental creation of the thought of a completely random creature in another random universe.
- But of course, he knew this was possible as he had met the menacing Robin that was created from the unpleasant dream of a small child. Now he realised that he was made of the same potion; a mere thought, falling though infinity.
- Then TLG's mind wandered back to his doomed village Odelin. He could not shake them from his thoughts. They were what defined him and he could not ignore the feeling that he was falling toward them and that they would all be reunited someday.
- Eventually, he looked at Leonardo and asked.
- ‘Is there any way I can save my people? I feel this is not over, I must do something.’
- Leonardo got to his feet and paced around the monolith with his forehead clenched in one of his hands, but suddenly looked at TLG with sudden urgency.
- ‘Why did I not think of this before?
- We could rescue them!’
- ‘But where should we take them? What realms would accommodate us.’
- *Paracelsus*
- Leonardo looked thoughtful as he paced around some more.
- ‘I guess you could take them to meet your maker.’ He said with a wry ironic smile. ‘He is the young man Philip whom I mentioned earlier. (Or Paracelsus as he prefers to be called) He is destined to be a great Alchemist and your company will make him yet greater. As he created you in his thoughts, he is the obvious person to receive you and your fellows. He will be very surprised to see you as I was.’
- TLG walks to the edge of the strange stage and looks at the mirror. ‘Then we must go now before it is too late. I suspect this is the way to go.’
- ‘I think you know better than I, little one.’ The old man said now standing beside TLG, facing the mirror.
- TLG remembered how Robin had jumped into the mirror. TLG was not tall enough to jump at the mirror face. He looks up at Leonardo.
- ‘Could you jump through with me? As you possessed Robin to do so. Now you are whole again, surely you can do such a thing. My legs are too short.’ TLG said with a grin.
- ‘Of course, little one, at your service’. At that, Leonardo grabbed TLG under the armpits and elevated him to his shoulders minding not to be caught up in TLG's cloud. He then walked to the other end of the stage, turned and ran with all his might towards the mirror.
- ‘Hold on little one’. With that, the Lightning Gnome with Leonardo Jumped into their own reflections.
|
-
- The last time TLG had travelled through this mirror, he was thrown into a universe filled of trees and landscape. This was not that sort of vortex.
- TLG finds himself floating in a void. Leonardo is nowhere to be seen and he is once again, all alone and in the dark. His lightning flashes being swallowed completely by the inky darkness. Suddenly he perceives a familiar, tiny voice singing in the distance.
- ‘Odelin! Your alive!’
- TLG struggles through the inky blackness but he cannot move because there is nothing to struggle against. But he doesn’t need to because the singing is getting closer. TLG recognises the song as Odelin’s song and he sings it so sweetly. Eventually something appears from out of the darkness, dimly lit by TLG's lightning. TLG instantly recognises the small figure as Odelin.
- ‘Odelin, you are unharmed. I thought you were no more’.
- TLG can see him more clearly now but is horrified by what he sees. Odelin is emaciated and tiny and looks unlike any Gnome he has ever seen and completely unlike his vision. He is naked and has thin black skin clinging to his skeleton like the membrane of bats wings. He looked deteriorated and barely alive except for his large perfect green eyes that almost seem too big for his tiny skull. He just hovers there before TLG in the inky blackness rising and falling gently as if floating in gentle waves.
- ‘I have been waiting for you.’ He says in a child like voice sounding almost as if his grasp of the common language is challenged. ‘I cannot be broken as I am already as broken as can be.’
- ‘I do not understand. I found you in the dark broken universe. I saw you attacked by the menacing Nemis who had possessed the Ghost head who had in turn possessed Robin and it caused a vortex which the ghost head and I fell into. He saw you too and told me you were destroyed.’
- ‘Leonardo did thinked I was gone for ever. The Nemis and Leonardo do not know me truly. I am but a metaphor for you brokenness. The missing piece of the puzzle that is the lightning Gnome am I.
- You see, when you were created, you were destined to be unbrokened. But because you were created in the broken places, you could not be unbroken there. That is why you are here. The crash is about to happen and you brokenness will be unbrokened. You will be repaired to the magic of all ages. You and I must be the greatest of all!? You will see, you will see my Lightning Gnome. Us will see.’
- As Oldelin spoke his eyes were a fire with child like exuberance while his feeble body hung quivering in the void.
- ‘We I must be transformation to the real one. We must come together, and when we do, we will be truly an amazing creature of all existence. The real one in the unreal places. We will be able to travel many horizons in one vortex and exist in any realm we choose, and you will find peace from you lightning and I will be finally a native part of you once and for all.’
- ‘But if you are me, then why did I need to travel so far to find you?’
- ‘You have not travelled too far, only into yourself. Remember the honey pool in the bees cave?’ Odelin said his expression becoming more crazed.
- ‘Yes’
- ‘That was a metaphor vortex of an atom of your own broken mind. You have been falling into yourself on a course with destiny.
- Your friend Leonardo, although he is great, he does not understand that you cannot save your people unless you are unbrokened. Only then, you may go to return to your creator’s world.
- But in order for you to be unbrokened, you must see the ultimate truth of the universes. The core of everything. Then you will be one with the universes.’
- By this time, Odelin’s face was almost grimaced in ecstasy, which made TLG feel rather uncomfortable but Odelin was a compelling creature and TLG knew he must complete his destiny.
- Come, look into my eyes and you will see, and when you see, you will be changed forever.’
- But Odelin’s words washed over TLG as ghostly beings. Each word was like a like a spirit that seemed to bend the fabric of the meta universe as it passed and he knew there was only one place to go. Down again.
- *Reflections*
- TLG gazed into Odelin’s eyes but all he could see is a reflection of himself. He looks yet closer into the reflection of himself in Odelin’s eyes. Then he notices he can see Odelin’s reflection in the reflection of his own eyes reflected in Odelin’s eyes. Soon Odelin’s eyes completely engulfed TLG’s perception. He found himself falling into his own reflection in Odelin’s eyes then falling into Odelin’s reflection in his own reflection. Faster and faster until existence seemed to collapse into a tunnel of ever decreasing circles. He peers deep into this tunnel and perceives an object at the end. It gets closer. Could this be the revelation the Odelin had promised.
- *The Parabox*
- Eventually the object was before him and the tunnel faded into blackness. TLG's perception was completely disabled. The object did not appear to be an anything you could perceive with your eyes. It was like a symbol but it had no form. It had appendages but they were indescribable. It was like seeing a complex emotion. Indescribable as a three dimensional thing.
- Then he realises knows one of the appendages. It was time. And then another as space. Then another as the four elements, air, earth, water and fire. It was as if the substance of existence had been presented to him in a box. Then the appendages started to melt away. One by one he watched as time, then space, then the elements, until finally the object was nothing at all.
- TLG was completely lost. He realises that he has felt this was before. The nothingness was so profound it could not even be described as darkness, as the very concept of the light had did not exist. He felt no sense of time. Every moment of his consciousness was both no time and infinity. He had no body. For that matter could not even imagine what a body could be. He had no eyes so he could not see. All that TLG can perceive is the melancholy of an eternal nothingness paradoxically existing without existence. TLG cowers in a tiny crevice of his own mind. Completely dysfunctional and depleted with no grasp on any reality. He feels as though reality has disintegrated to the point where only his perception of himself exists and nothing else.
- At some point his mind explodes.
- Sudden everything both impossible and possible is crushing infinitely and filling infinity. Time and space and the elements along with infinity of dimensions pervade all existence.
- All substance existing without form and completely ubiquitous. TLG is suddenly gripped with the feeling of immense and desperate loneliness so profound that he can do nothing but scream with all his might. But the scream his silent and eternal to melt into the, chaos unheard and ineffective. A desperate cry to be something other than that which has no substance or structure.
- Then from somewhere out of the chaos, TLG starts to become conscious of his thoughts and emotions. He realises to his relief that he does exist, he must be, because he can think.
- *Revelations*
- TLG’s first revelation is that the eternal nothingness and the eternal chaos of complete existence are one in the same thing. He realises that absolutely nothing is absolutely everything. Without structure and without law. He perceives what can only be paradoxically described as “Completely nothing”.
- The simple notion echoes through his mind as it slowly crawls out of chaos. “Complete nothingness is everything?”
- Eventually TLG’s perception is restored. But now he feels separated from himself. As if he were the little storm cloud the floats above his own head. TLG can now see and feel the chaos of complete nothingness without being part of it. He sees the chaos like a thought. Just a part of his own imagination. TLG waits for something to happen. He feels as though he is dreaming and has become aware of his dreaming, within his dream, so he waits to wake up. He waits but still the chaos persists like and uncontrolled torrent flooding infinity.
- Then, from another corner of his mind appears a vision. He sees the white spiral symbol floating there, hanging in his mind’s eye like a ghostly apparition; a circle with two spiral arms curling in opposite direction. Slowly the symbol starts to morph and change. The spiral arms start reaching out and growing thinner. It grows more arms and the circle grows and eye. Its colour darkens to inky black and the tentacles adorn red stripes. The spiral symbol has changed into the brittle star known as Nemis. The Nemis just hangs there writhing as if trying anchor itself futilely to the complete nothingness.
- Without waning the image melts into the chaos as if it never existed. What could this mean? TLG thinks to himself trying desperately to think his way out of his predicament. TLG knows he must understand some profound truth before his journey though this very strange vortex can be completed. Suddenly TLG has a horrific thought. He thinks ‘What if my home universe has already collapsed and I am stuck here for eternity? Lost in the meta universe to drift forever in the glue of existence; or even worse. What if all existence had collapsed completely and now this is all that is left.’
- TLG reassures himself that these notions are too horrible to be true, and recoils from the unproductive thoughts. TLG strains his mind. He searches in the gray nothingness for another sign. Any clue to a way though.
- *Freedom*
- Then TLG remembers that how, that just moments ago, he had almost disappeared. He could not remember time passing, or having any perception of his self but he does remember one thing. One pervading desperate cry that pulled him back from oblivion. Suddenly TLG is engulfed in revelation. ‘Free will!’ TLG immediately realises that the core of existence is Free Will. The will to be something other than nothing. Not just the complex free will that all thinking things have that govern their decisions in waking life. That is but an echo of the simple true at the centre of all existence. ‘For something to be, it must have a choice and the right to change. To be something other than what it is. Nothing in the existence can be truly immutable except free will itself. We can all change or decide not to. From the most simplest atoms to the most complex abstract beings. Without free will, complete nothingness with pervade eternity. Only free will itself can disrupt the chaos of complete nothingness and permit the complexity of universes, space and the elements. Free will is the Meta universe.
- As TLG revels in his revelations, he becomes aware he if looking at his own face in front of him. As if once obscured from his perception he suddenly realises he is looking at himself and has been the whole time. It seems a whole eternity has flashed before his eyes in an instant.
- But as he looks into the eyes of his reflection he notices his reflection is not right. Something is missing. He studies his reflection closely and to his horror, he realises his reflection is writhing. He can see bubble moving under his skin and clothing. Then suddenly, black and red striped tentacles bust from his skin. In shock he raises his arms to look at his real self but he does not exist, only his writing tentacled self.
- He looks on in disbelieve as the tentacles twist and writhe, all grasping at each other, clinging desperately to form his writhing self. But as the tentacles held each other so tightly and formed that macabre sculpture, TLG realised that it was himself all along and that he was the refection and the horrible distorted creature that presented before him was his real self.
- I am the Nemis He thought to himself.
- TLG suddenly realised another truth. That all along. He was made of that same broken fabric that was the nature of the Nemis metaphor. But then a question suddenly occurred to him as if out of the blue.
- What is broken?
- What needs to be unbroken?
- But as he asked the question he already knew the answer as he had found it just moments before.
- ‘Free will!’
- That was the missing piece. That is what the metaphor of the Nemis was. That’s what was broken about the realms which created them. There was no Free Will. The very core of existence was missing from these realms. He suddenly realises that until now he has been falling through destiny in some unlikely collision with a cure. He would be able to escape from the clutches of Destiny and now he understood so perfectly his power and course.
- TLG reaches out an invisible arm towards his writhing reflection and so his releflection responds in kind until the tips of their fingers meet.
- Then suddenly the black tentacles freeze. Starting from the tip of his fingers right down his entire form, the tentacles stop moving. Then they start changing colour. Slowly the black fades to grey and the red flecks turn pinker until suddenly and sporadically the brittle starts bust into light like so many little stars igniting for the first time. TLG can barely look at his reflection, as it is so bright and glared that it dazzles him. Eventually, every brittle start had transformed into bright starlets with the tentacles replaced with spiral arms burning so bright and turning so hypnotically and he could only recognise himself by a glowing silhouette now encompassed in shining spiral arm galaxies. Like a brilliant mosaic churning of light.
- At some time while staring at the light, TLG suddenly knew everything about what was happening to him as if the knowledge had been planted in his head. But that were because it was. This was the deficit that the reunification with Odelin had filled. Everything became clear and invigorating revelations filled his mind as he floated there in the void in front of his strange apparition.
- He knew now he was broken but that is the only way that creatures like himself, can exist. Nature does not bare them any other way. But just by some loophole in the ethics of nature, He was created as Odelin and The Lightning Gnome. Two separate broken entities but broken in differing ways. Odelin had Freewill but little substance, and The Lightning Gnome had the Substance but not the Free Will. At least the Free Will in his realms of broken Xrouds was collapsed and ineffectual. So TLG was a prisoner of destinty with out real freedom. All choices he made were just a torrent of atoms bounce around his universes like marbles cast from the box forever under the tyranny of causality to bounce into the oblivion of the ages. Luckily, Odelin was there to direct his path and bring him to his destinies final resting place. Here, where now his Xrouds were repaired and Free Will restored to his being, and from now on a truly magnificent and magical creature; the most complex in the Meta universe. No more ethereal and broken, now with all facets of natural ethics restored to his being, he was just like a real natural being of Free Will.
- He also realised that he had a lot of work to do. Leonardo was still quite incomplete, not knowing that his Free Will had been stripped from him during his inception into the abstract. Ironically, his direct creator had relinquished his own Free Will in order to become immortal, but in doing so, inadvertently created a very rare island of Free Will in the desolate broken realms of the brittle star that make up a ratio of the Meta universe. And now this Island was released on a rampage to free them all hopefully. Yet Leonardo was not the only one to be saved from destiny. He must also save his fellows back at the village.
- Another thing was also apparent to him now. His cloud. It was an abstract metaphor to guide him to Odelin. A causal facet to push him back to Odelin.
- And of course his name.
- What sort of a name was “The Lightning Gnome” anyway? Of course, his name was Odelin. Long forgotten in the barrage of lighting that afflicted his life. Pushed aside and suppressed because he could only know his own name when he was complete.
- But all the while caught up in such revelations, he hadn’t noticed that his perception of his reflection had changed.
- He was now in himself again and his reflection was gone. Now he could feel the presence of his lightning cloud over his head once again but this time it felt different. TLG felt he had control this time.
- He looks up at the cloud above its head, raises its hands and shouts ‘Vanish!’ In an instant, the cloud was disappeared in a puff of... cloud.
- Suddenly TLG finds himself in a tunnel of mirrors once again. He feels he is flying upwards at great speed, unstoppable and raging. Then, without warning, the tunnel is gone and TLG finds himself lying on the floor of the Bees cave where he had entered his first vortex.
|
-
- *The Darkness*
- TLG just lay on the ground face down but unscathed.
- He lay there for a moment to gather his thoughts. His lightning cloud was arcing lightning bolts to his head as he lay there on the ground with his face was pressed against the its cold surface. In fact, it was so cold it felt like ice. He could see the reflections of his lightning bolts in the cracked, icy surface, dancing like little fairies along its broken edges.
- As he pulled himself up, he noticed it was ice. The sky was completely black as was the ice, except for coarse fractures caused by TLG's impact.
- TLG studied the cracks radiating from his landing point. They stretched out like spiders legs, radiating in all directions connecting to the cold, darkness like cockroaches running to hide in the shadows.
- There was a dim ambient light that seemed to emanate from nothing as if the cold damp air itself was the its only source, occasionally overwhelmed by the sparks of TLG's storm.
- TLG took a step on the ice but as his boot came down upon the ice, the ice fractured effortlessly. The spokes of the fracture instantly reach the horizon. TLG froze in fear of the ice collapsing under his boots. Eventually, he gently shifts his weight from side to side to prove the ice can hold his weight.
- Realising that the ice had survived the impact of his fall, he reasoned to himself that the ice was safe to walk on.
- Suddenly there was a loud crash as Robin landed hard on the ice next to TLG. Robin's impact also radiated spokes of ice fracture from the point at which he landed.
- ‘Robin! Are you OK?’ TLG said as he lent his hand in assistance. Robin was lying on the ice looking stunned and bewildered but his huge eyes relaxed when they met TLG's.
- ‘Thank you little one for your offer of assistance but I'm OK.’ Robin clambers to his feet also noticing the ice fracturing in every direction as he moves.
- ‘We are here finally.’ Robin says scrutinising his surroundings.
- ‘Where are the stars?’ TLG asks Robin, half expecting what he answer will be.
- ‘There are none here. This is a starless realm. The natural laws here do not permit the formation of such heavenly bodies.’
- TLG stamps on the ice watching curiously as another series of fractures scuttle into the blackness.
- ‘What is this place? Are we on a planet?’ TLG inquires.
- Robin glares into the darkness as if trying to detect something hiding just out of view. He scratches his furry chin with a sharp claw in a display of contemplation.
- ‘I'm not sure this place works that way. This is a finite plane universe. There are no heavenly bodies. Just a single plane with no edge’.
- ‘How can it be finite if it has no edge?’ TLG asks reflectively.
- ‘Well, if you where to walk in one direction in a straight line you would end up in the same place.’
- ‘I'm am certain you mean a globe. We decided our realm was a globe from studying the heavens and plotting the courses of the planets. Although no Gnome has ventured far from the village, we would have expected to return to the place we begun if we travelled far enough.’
- ‘It is a kind of globe. But it is not the surface that is curved. It’s the universe itself. All universes are like this, but in this unusual universe, space has caved in, bringing this effect to closer to us. In fact, this universe is so malformed it is lucky we have space at all’
- TLG looks around in the darkness searching for Odelin.
- ‘Where is Odelin?’ TLG asks.
- ‘He is here somewhere.’
- ‘But what if I put him in my mind again, surely at this proximity, you can see his whereabouts quite clearly.’
- ‘I am afraid not, little one, this universe does not conduct such activity. It will not work this close.’ Robin did not look at TLG when he said this, making him appear insincere.
- ‘So what you are saying is: you can see Odelin across multiple universes, across many quantum horizons but you cannot see him when he is under you feet?’ TLG scoffed.
- Robin looked TLG in the eye. ‘If I could explain:
- Imagine you were in a ship at sea.
- You can see the light house from many leagues of distance.
- Now imagine you were inside the mantel.
- No, imagine you where inside the flame itself.
- Could you then see from where the light originates?
- I think not!’
- ‘But we are not inside Odelin.’ TLG states.
- ‘It just doesn’t work and it is too hard to explain. We must search in the darkness by foot.’
- TLG stares into the black wind. He shuddered at the thought of the tiny creature alone in such a miserable appalling realm. If there was any place in all existence, reserved only for the most retched and broken of all things, this must surely be that place he TLG thought to himself with horror at the prospect that Odelin may not be what he imagined. TLG turns to Robin and says
- ‘Shall we go looking him then?’
- ‘You lead the way?’
- TLG took another step and the ice cracks underfoot but he is no longer concerned so he just keeps walking.
- Robin follows, as they both walk off into the darkness, but soon Robin starts feeling self-conscious of this folly and finally asks
- ‘Where are you going?’ with a slightly mocking tone.
- TLG realised how it seemed but he turns back and glares at Robin.
- ‘It does not matter, as whichever way they chose to go they would eventually get back to the place they started.’
- TLG's face was void of expression as he turned it to the darkness and continued walking. He was determined to go somewhere, so he had just picked a random direction and started walking. The ice creaked and cracked under their feet as they walked in that lonely place. With the fractures from every step emanating in all directions, they crisscrossed each other forming an erratic lattice pattern in the ice as they walked. It was eerie how the fractures disappeared into the darkness as if they were evil messengers, running to alert their demonic master. TLG imagined that, by treading in this place, he was summoning that something or someone.
- It was cold and windy and dark. Robin just followed TLG as if Robin needed TLG to guide him. There was snow and rain in the air but the ground seemed to swallow it up and crystallise it instantly into its flat reflective surface. There were no land formations, just a cold and desolate nothing. It felt like they had entered the coldest and most desolate place in the universe of all universes. A place where nothing can grow and nothing can live and nothing can die. A very broken place indeed. But just when he thought he was absolutely sure there was noting here he heard singing.
- TLG gestured to Robin to stop. ‘Do you hear that?’
- ‘No.’
- ‘Surely with ears like that you can hear anything. Listen.’
- ‘I cannot hear anything. Let us get closer, I will follow you since you can hear it. Are you sure your mind is not playing trick on you? A universe like this can drive one quite insane.’ TLG turned to Robin, who just looked insane anyway. The irony of which made him laugh briefly but he regained his composure and a serious face and returns toward the singing sound.
- ‘I'm not even sure what my mind is anymore, let alone know what tricks it may play upon me.’
- Robin does not reply but keep following TLG towards the singing.
- *Odelin*
- The song was beautiful but he could not hear any words; Just the song. How could this be possible? The more he tried to listen the less sense the song made. Although TLG could hear every word, it was as if he were prevented from understanding them. What was being uttered was indescribable and esoteric.
- TLG persisted toward the soft music, peering into the inky black searching for the source of the song. It sounded like a female Gnome, softly singing to her offspring to lull them into sleep with some magic spell of becalming, but it was so compelling, is was as if the song was the universe, inseparable and infinite.
- Then in the distance he notices a silhouette disrupting the perfect icy floor. As TLG gingerly approaches, the inky blackness slowly revealed the form of a small Gnome partially buried in the ice softly singing to itself.
- The Gnome was Odelin.
- TLG knew instantly he had finally found what he was seeking. In that instance, it was as if he were complete, as if he were a parent, reunited with a lost child. Nothing else mattered in existence. Not the situation of the encounter not the place or the grave danger that was about to befall them all. Odelin had blackish grey skin and huge eyes that looked out of place for its tiny half-buried stature.
- Its face was haunted and horrific, starved and emaciated and moved unnaturally, as it sung its beautiful song. But its eyes were bright and glassy and shone with sorry and wisdom. But there was a warning in the eyes of that fragile creature. One of foreboding, of impending danger. Suddenly and inexplicably, TLG felt panic.
- ‘Odelin!’
- *The Unexpected*
- Just as TLG spoke, Robin leaps from behind TLG and comes crashing down on the ice placing himself before Odelin. TLG is instantly confused and horrified by this violent approach. It was in that instance that time froze for TLG. TLG watched helplessly in what seems an eternity as his whole world comes crashing down before him.
- He watches as Robin seams to swell and grimace with a fury he had never witnessed of any creature before. He watches as he raises his huge right paw and clenches it in a tight fist above Odelin’s head. As TLG realises what is about to happen, TLG can but watch no more. In that instance, TLG finds himself struggling against time itself in a fit of paternal protection. It was as if he were in a dream, as if he were walking in molasses and his arms and legs were casts of lead.
- But even though his body felt frozen and cumbersome, his storm cloud was not. TLG’s storm cloud instantly rises and inflates causing everything in existence to respond to the rapid expansion as if buffeted by massive sudden gust of wind. As TLG screams in horror, the ice landscape fractures and implodes around them and then seams to bulge as if be pulled upwards by the sky. Then suddenly, as if to meet the height of these calamitous events, a single bolt of lightning breaks out and bares down upon the terrifying Robin. And just as the lightning bolt strikes Robin’s skull TLG realises he was too late. Robin’s fist comes crashing down upon Odelin’s crown sending Odelin’s frail self, to oblivion. But just when TLG imagined it was all over, time seams to falter even more. TLG realises that his lightning bolt is now fixed on Robin’s head like a constant arc of fire joining Robin to TLG’s storm cloud, fixing Robin in his fateful and devastating pose.
- TLG just watches as Robin’s face starts losing its perfection. He notices a morbid deterioration in Robin’s perfect form, as if time was finally claiming its debt for a stolen immortality. TLG starts to notice a more Gnomely nature in Robin's appearance as he disintegrates. His huge eyes mellowing and yellowing, his fur defoliating and his teeth blunting. He painfully turns his gaze to TLG as if to say good bye. But his eyes just sink into the red glowing mass which has now become his head and deflates to the ground in a lifeless pile of ashes. All the remains it a shrunken skull lying in the ashes.
- Suddenly the lightning bolt has gone and TLG rushes toward the carnage. He looks down at the place where Odelin once was. There is just a hole in the ice with no bottom.
- TLG drops to his knees on the edge of the fissure in utter deflated disbelief. He puts his face in his hand and cries for his loss, his tears drop onto the ice and freeze instantly leaving no trace.
- ‘Why should this happen to me!? I wish I had never left Gnome Village.’
- TLG sobs and looks to the sky. He notices the sky looks smaller than it was. How a vast, black, miserable sky can look smaller seems impossible but he perceives it as if the sky had been pulled down like a half-closed shudder. TLG wipes his eyes and pears into the inky blackness searching for a ceiling but there is none. He looks back at the hole in the ground.
- Just as he did, he notices something to his left in his peripheral vision. He turns, and there is the Ghost head floating there staring at TLG with a terrified look on his face.
- ‘You are indeed a powerful creature and I must beg your forgiveness.’
- But as the ghost head spoke, TLG could perceive another motive under the deep tone of the ghost heads resonant voice. It was as if the ghost head once freed from the Robin's cocoon was unable to retain a single though. As if his mind and all intentions were leaking from this ghostly and porous structure. It was then all intentions became apparent to TLG.
- TLG grimaces and glares with all his might, at the ghost head floating before him who seems to cringe at the revelation that he can hide no thoughts.
- ‘You have been using me for your own ends. You did not want to help me find Odelin! You just wanted to destroy him! You knew that Odelin and I would be your end. You did not take me here. I took you. You needed me to take you to him, so you could destroy him therefore saving you own miserable existence. I despise you.’
- But just as he finished he noticed another intention.
- ‘Stay away from me!’ TLG shouts in horror at the now menacing ghost head.
- ‘You will not succeed because I am destined to be with Odelin and there is nothing you can do!’ TLG berates the ghost head.
- ‘Ah, but it would appear that destiny has already gone my way!’ the ghost head bellows and smiles arrogantly.
- ‘You wish to possess me...’ as TLG spoke a ghostly tentacle protruded from the ghost head’s mouth and stared to approach TLG. TLG’s storm cloud which had retreated after the commotion was now sparking and growing again. TLG started to run for his own protection but the ghost head did not get further away. TLG turned back to see the ghost head had effortlessly matched his speed and the red and black tentacle was still approaching. In his desperate struggle to escape the ghost head, he glances at the ground to notice the pile of ashes and the hole. He sidesteps the hole just in time before falling into it. He continues running but the hole and the Robin's ash pile keep reappearing as if he is running in a tight circle. TLG realises in that instance that this universe is about to collapse and there is no escape.
- As this thought entered his head, the ghost head suddenly stopped, and retracted his tentacle. TLG looks at the ghost head who has also noticed this odd condition of their surroundings.
- *The Hall Of Mirrors*
- TLG looks around him just about falls over in astonishment. He and the ghost head are repeated as if they were in a hall of mirrors. But the reflections do not behave like a mirrored reflection. The reflections are facing the same direction as TLG. TLG turns to face a reflection behind him but the reflection turns also. It feels as though he were looking into a mirror for which you could never see you own face, only the back of your head.
- Then he notices something else happening. The reflections a getting closer as if an infinity of himself and his cloud and the ghost head and a hole and a pile of ashes were caving in to a single point to be wiped from all possible existence. An infinity lost.
- Just then the ghost head glides to the hole and disappears down it like a wisp of smoke disappears into a chimney.
- Suddenly TLG realise that the ghost head has not finished. TLG dives down the hole after the ghost head. As he falls, the walls of the hole are lit only by the occasional flash from TLG's lightning that has now become quite active. It was as if he were flint, sparking against the edge of a cold metal shaft.
- *The Vortex*
- TLG peers down into the black pit below him to try to catch glimpse of the ghost head. But it’s too dark and the flashes are not sufficient to see very far. So he just resigns to his falling. He turns himself in the air to fall head first. He pins his arms to his side to pick up speed. As he increases speed his storm cloud has trouble keeping up and starts sliding over him until he has passed through it and it is trailing him from behind. He can feel his speed increasing and cold wind and ice scrape his face.
- Suddenly he notices a faint smoke lit by his lightning flashes. It’s the ghost head. He thought. As he fell faster he could feel himself gaining on the ethereal creature. He could feel anger and frustration building up like a static charge in his soul. The cloud that was trailing him was pulled before him and he felt powerful and invulnerable, but this time it would appear that he has discovered a new talent.
- TLG focuses all his intention on the ghost head who he is now almost immersed within, and lets lose a terrible fire upon him. The ghostly mass is suddenly a fiery mass of arcing and burning. TLG has to dodge the splinters of energy as they fling out uncontrollable from the ethereal heart of this creature.
- The mass does not resemble any form. Just a column of burning gas. Again TLG unleashes a fiery talon of lightning at the burning mass. This time the mass flares violently with blue and orange arcs that hit the wall of the hole and streak off behind them into the distance. Now he perceives something moving in the mass. As he approaches, he can see tentacles writhing inside the burning mass.
- The brittle star?
|
-
- *The Return*
- There was a load bang and TLG finds himself with Robin back in the Orange world from which there journey had began.
- TLG stands up and looks at Robin, who is just standing there, still with the little Etherscope between his claws. TLG Laughs loud and manic.
- ‘I cannot believe this but I must say, I grow more amused at the absurdity of my situation as time goes by, and maybe now I am just more enthralled than surprised by this event, but could you explain what just happened to us?’
- ‘Everything is fine, I now have Odelin and that is what we came for.’
- ‘But how did we get back here so quickly?’
- ‘What do you mean Back Here? We never left.’ Robin said with a wry grin.
- ‘Now I'm really confused. Are you trying to tell me that everything I have just experienced was a dream?’
- ‘Not at all, but an Etherscope is not for travelling in, it is for looking with. That is why it is called a Scope. Did you ever wonder why it is called an Etherscope?’
- ‘So what happened to us in the Etherscope?’
- ‘Ah, well you see…’ Robin pauses as he prepares himself for the explanation.
- ‘Imagine you are back at your Village in front of your pond. Imagine you have a telescope, used for looking at things far away and making them appear closer than they really are’
- ‘Yes alright, I have one myself’.
- ‘Now imagine putting the end of the telescope into the pond and looking into it. You would see fish and weed and whatever else resides in that place in your pond. Now imagine keeping you head still but moving the end of the telescope around the pond. You can look at different parts of you pond but still remain in the same place. You see, that is what an Etherscope is. I can move the Etherscope around the pond that is the universe without actually needing to go anywhere. What you experience in the scope is just an entangled projection of somewhere else. You did not think we could actually travel to the centre of a super star did you.’ Robin state proudly.
- ‘I think I understand… But if that is true, then how can we see and communicate with other beings? If we are merely witnessing something from a far, then how do we speak to Starmites?’
- ‘Well you see. When you use a scope it is a two way process. The elements flow through the entangled skin of the scope in both directions. Light and sound and flow through backwards and forth. So, to them, we are there. We appear to them as strange being floating in a bubble of glass, just as we see the universe as though, through a lens.’ Robin seemed to enjoy the amusement of TLG’s revelation as if a great secret has been released to him.
- ‘I see, but that does not explain how you can get Odelin from the Xroud Cloud. If we where not there, then how could we bring something back?’
- ‘Have you not been listening, little one. We are bringing things back constantly. That is fundamental to the Etherscope. When we see, we are bring back the element of light, when we hear, we are bringing back the element of air. Just in our short trip we have move countless Microverses from one part of this universe to another, here to be precise. You see even the element of light consists of Xrouds, which are universes. When we see, it is universes colliding with our minds eye. This is the nature of seeing.’
- TLG stares at the scope Robin is holding in his claws.
- ‘Does it hurt the universes to flow through the Etherscope?’
- ‘No at all. The universe is oblivious and its inhabitants will not perceive anything, no information is exchanged in the process. If it did, then the scope would not work either. There are few things that can break Xrouds as I explained earlier and mainly it is Starmites and their inhibitor machines.’
- TLG thinks for a moment and finally understands.
- ‘I see it all now, of course.’ TLG smiled with the pride of his full understanding. The more he learned, the more confident he felt.
- ‘Could I make an Etherscope, I should like one very much. I think I would find it useful. Maybe more useful than my telescope back home.’
- ‘Sure I will show you how.’ said Robin.
- Robin whispers something in TLG's ear that sends TLG in fits of laughter on the ground. TLG never told me what it was, he whispered in his ear, so unfortunately, I cannot divulge it to you, but it certainly was profound enough but so simple and so easy to convey that it left TLG did surprise and delight TLG. But maybe it was only for the ears of such creatures as they.
- TLG then got up and threw his hands up into the air and literally, threw an Etherscope into the sky. It was slightly smaller than the one they used for the Starmites but was certainly good for a first try.
- ‘Incredible!’ said TLG.
- ‘You see, I knew you would get the hang of it.’
- Robin waved at TLG's scope that had come to rest on the ground and it disappeared as instantly as it had materialised.
- ‘And you have used a scope to trap Odelin’s Xroud, I see now. This is how you did not need to harm the stabiliser. You just diffracted the Xroud clouding into another Etherscope rather than create a vortex that would endanger the machine.’
- ‘Exactly! We moved Xroud to safety so we can now create a vortex into it from here. We must now proceed to Odelin’ Robin says with enthusiasm.
- ‘I have another question… What were those Monkey Birds that attacked you in the scope, and how did they get in there?’
- ‘I do not know but you should as you brought them in with you. Should you be telling me something?’
- ‘They use to be Gnome skeletons I came across when I met the bee called Cosmo, and he looked exactly like the Starmite king. And how did the dead Gnomes change into living Monkey birds and why did they try to destroy you and what was the symbol I could see in the air and why did my lightning strike you and where did the Monkey birds go. I know nothing of the circumstances of how these things could take place. I am just a simple Gnome but you are the strangest thing in the universe.’
- TLG’s rant had taken his breath away, and his lightning struck him as if warning him to calm down.
- ‘You should look in the mirror, you are not so normal. I know this much about you. And those creatures in your pocket where not from any normal universe so it would appear you can attract quite the riff-wrath of the broken realms.’
- ‘I guess your right Robin, but my friend, I know you are not right. Something tells me you know more about my predicament than you are willing to divulge at this point and I am hoping no harm will come to me before I find the answer.’
- ‘We are both looking for answers little one. You need your Odelin and I need myself. I just feel that you can help me get there. This is why I need to help you little one. You need me, and I need you and we should wait no further to find out what help this is.’ Robin smiled at TLG, baring his rows of shiny teeth, hydrangea breath washing over TLG.
- ‘Of course. Let us move on.’
- TLG resigned as he looks up at TLG. ‘What now?’
- *The Vortex*
- ‘We summon a vortex to Odelin’s Xroud’ Robin replies as he holds the tiny Etherscope out to TLG and waits there as if after a queue from TLG.
- ‘What are we waiting for?’ TLG asks after some time.
- ‘Could you please do that thing again and call your Odelin again as you have done in the past?’ Robin asks with an inexplicable embarrassment in his tone.
- ‘Certainly’ TLG closes his eyes and does the Odelin memory resurrection again.
- TLG waits for a while with his eyes closed, picturing the vision of Odelin in his head as he had done on previous occasions but he waits and waits but Robin says nothing.
- ‘Shall I open my eyes now?’
- ‘Sure’
- TLG notices something in Robin’s voice that was not as self assured as usual.
- ‘We are done, thank you little one’.
- TLG opens his eyes to see Robin staring at the ground, puzzled.
- ‘Come little one.’
- TLG wanders over to where Robin was standing and follows Robin’s gaze to the ground. To TLG’s surprise, the ground in the clearing was moving in a large whirlpool about three yards in diameter. The brown dirt and orange ground was rotating as if a whirlpool of quicksand. But the odd thing was that the ground still seemed solid, as if the image of the ground were being twisted and not the ground itself.
- Sitting in the centre was a Robin’s scope containing the Xroud cloud. TLG looks at Robin and asks.
- ‘Is this the vortex?’
- ‘Yes.’
- ‘Do we just step in?’
- ‘Yes, I'm sure we do.’
- TLG looks at Robin who is obviously avoiding his gaze.
- ‘Why do I get the impression you were not expecting this?’ TLG says still trying to catch Robin's gaze.
- Robin hesitates but then finally looks TLG in the eyes. ‘The Odelin Xroud is broken. Therefore complicating any vortex it may spawn. Come on, we must go now.’
- TLG cautiously accepts Robin's explanation and begs Robin to continue.
- Robin gingerly steps out onto the swirling ground. TLG was half expecting Robin to sink into loose quicksand, but he did not. He just stood there on top of the swirling pool of solid ground turning with the ground as if on a child’s turnplate and looking expectant for something to happen. He beckoned TLG to join him.
- TLG steps onto the vortex and positions himself to face Robin who is now grinning with a mixture of anticipation and embarrassment. As if he were in the uncomfortable position of presenting a show he had no control over. TLG looks up at Robin but realises that nothing is happening. But something IS happening. TLG looks down to the centre of the ground. He can feel the particles of earth beneath his boots jostling for position as they turn in the spiral with the ground closest to the centre moving faster than that of the perimeter.
- They are both now staring at the centre of the vortex which is now spinning faster and faster. TLG feels the now familiar sensation of hypnotic trance as finds his will drawn into the centre as if his very soul had already descended and was just waiting on him to follow.
- TLG finally motivates himself to look to Robin. TLG is not surprised to see that the world was gone but always feels thrilled when he travels like this. All around TLG and Robin who is also looking around in bewilderment are the churning walls of a vortex tunnel that has ascended around them adorned with orange and brown stripes as if the whole world with its colours and forms had been extruded around them.
- TLG catches Robin's eye, who is now looking decidedly more confident again. TLG looks down the centre of the vortex, which was now revealing a gaping hole in the centre about one yard wide. As the whole widened it starts to envelope them TLG finds himself standing on the walls of the vortex now as the ground has completely disappeared to be replaced with the striping extruded landscape.
- Suddenly TLG loses his footing and fall into the black whole. As he is falling he looks up to see Robin flailing around trying to catch a grip of the walls if the vortex. TLG noticed that he looked uncomfortable about falling helplessly but this was a feeling to which TLG has become accustomed. TLG struggles and flaps in an attempt to slow his descent in relation to Robin's and it works. TLG approaches Robin who still appears struggling.
- ‘What are you doing Robin? You are falling. You cannot do anything about it.’ TLG shouts to Robin with a slight jest in his voice.
- ‘It is not falling I am worried about. It is hitting the ground that concerns me.’ Robin shouts back noticing the jest in TLG's tone.
- ‘But surely a creature like you would not suffer the impact. You seam invulnerable to me.’
- ‘I guess I'm just not used to this form of travel. Normally my vortexes leave me firmly placed somewhere, during my journey. Even if that ‘Somewhere’ is not well defined.’
- They both look down into the abyss which has no sign of abating. TLG stares intently, looking for anything he could fix his eyes on below but nothing was apparent. Now all light has gone and they can no longer see each other. TLG shouts.
- ‘Robin! Can you hear me?’
- There is a distant acknowledgment but it was faint. It would appear to TLG, that they may be separated for the duration of there journey.
- As TLG falls he senses a change in the air rushing past him. It was getting colder and damper. But he was completely comfortable. As the progressively colder air rushed past him TLG felt encapsulated and somehow shielded from the elements. He felt cocooned a strange despair. It felt like melancholy, but it was a welcoming melancholy. As if where about to reach a welcomed death. A release from all the pain and woes of this complicated existence.
- As he fell deeper in his melancholy pit, his equilibrium became harder to manage. The air seemed to be getting irregular and colder forcing him into uncontrollable spins. He was also getting wet as rain drops and hail filled to void around him, as he struggled to maintain balance in his fall he realised it was not important so he just let himself spin helplessly out of control, and as soon as he did, he felt free once again. He was brought back to his vision back home. The sensation that originally drove him to this journey was now being realised. He suddenly felt exhilaration and inebriation of his all his senses. The wind blew and hail and snow were all around. But he loved every minute of it.
- He felt as if he could endure any elements, he revelled in the ice and hail as it battered his face. The coldness of which made him feel more alive than ever before.
- Just then he sees the ground approaching at speed but before he could think, he hit the ground with force.
|
-
- When TLG awoke with from his typically broken sleep, he found Robin floating over his head and gazing down at him. At least the impression was such but it was hard to tell these days which way was up or down or sideways for that matter.
- ‘Come on little one.’ Robin spoke gently.
- ‘The King awaits us’.
- TLG jumps up and finds he is floating across the interior of the sphere. He looks out and notices there is no more long straight black tunnel, he is in a ring shaped tunnel, a circular tunnel that looks as if it had no beginning or end. The walls are completely white with no floor or ceiling as the tunnel was also round. It was as if they were inside a large donut. There appears to be Starmites wandering about performing various technical duties. He can hear their thoughts but they are speaking of technical concepts the TLG cannot comprehend. They seem to be walking horizontally on the outer walls of the tunnels with their heads pointing to the inner walls. TLG cannot see all of the way down the corridors but he assumes they just go in a big circle and join up eventually.
- ‘Robin drifts to his steering position and starts manoeuvring the sphere down the round corridor. TLG looks behind him to see their entrance on the outside wall disappear behind automatically closing shudders. Several spidery vehicles creep along after them as they glide effortlessly down the round corridor, like a bubble floating on a gentle breeze.
- ‘Where is this King?’ TLG asks.
- ‘I think he must be in here.’ Robin replies gesturing to a large closed circular shudders in the inner wall of the round tunnel. Robin gently drifts the sphere towards the door and it opens before they collide.
- The interleaved shudders separate perfectly and silently revealing a large spherical room. They glide in.
- TLG looks curiously at his surroundings. The spider vehicle follows them through the shudders, then the shudders close behind it. This room is bright blue with blue light emanating from the outer wall. In the centre of the room is a gold tinted glass spherical hub about three yards in diameter supported by and array of blue glass spokes connected to the outer wall of the spherical room. TLG can see something going on in the golden glass ball but it is hard to see from where he is.
- As they drift closer to the centre, a single Starmite appears from behind the golden glass hub and buzzes towards them. TLG is frozen with anticipation as the Starmite approaches. But TLG recognizes this Starmite.
- ‘Cosmo!’ TLG shouts.
- The Starmite raises his bee hands to touch the outside of their scope but recoils as if felt heat from a hot surface. The Starmite just hovers before TLG and gazes at TLG with a curious eye. The Starmite studies TLG’s storm cloud. He was so close now that TLG feels he could reach out and touch him if it were not for the hermetically sealed Etherscope that envelopes them.
- ‘Cosmo do not you recognise me?’
- ‘I do not believe we have met, you must have me mistaken for someone else.’
- .TLG and the Starmite just float there, glaring at each other in disbelief. Then the Starmite slowly makes a smile.
- ‘Welcome, I am Paulus, the Starmite King.’ The Starmite finally speaks with his thoughts directly to TLG.
- ‘Thank you, I am The Lightning Gnome but you can just call me TLG.’
- TLG is amazed at his resemblance to Cosmo. ‘How could this be?’ he thought to himself.
- ‘Then I take it, we are not the only beings in existence. How far does the universe extend?’
- ‘Infinite, as far as I can tell.’ TLG replies remembering what Robin told him of the Starmites hermetic existence. Robin just hovers behind them with his ridiculous grin.
- ‘And you are Infinite also.’ TLG adds.
- ‘Are you a Starmite like us?’ asks Paulus.
- ‘No, I am a Gnome. I come from a place much colder than the centre of a star. You cannot exist in our world and we cannot exist in yours.’ TLG now feels very confident in his understanding of things and is proud to give his newly found knowledge to the Starmites.
- TLG talks for hours to the Starmite divulging everything he knows to this isolated creature. He talks about the other Starmites at the centre of every star, he talks about vortexes and travelling universes in the Meta universe, he talks about his storm cloud and Odelin who is lost in broken universe all the while Robin just stands silently grinning with enthusiasm, motionless and emotionless.
- The Starmite finally asks the inevitable question.
- ‘What is your companion?’
- ‘He is Robin and the Ghost Head’
- ‘Has he come to destroy us?’
- ‘No’ TLG says in a self-assuring tone. ‘But we do need to ask of you a grave service.’
- ‘I will do what I can.’ Paulus replies.
- ‘We are travelling universes to find my Odelin, but he resides in a universe contained in your Star Flux Inhibitor containment field. We need to enter the containment field to rescue my Odelin as his existence grows more tenuous as we speak.’
- Paulus’s rosy complexion drained from his face as he heard TLG’s request.
- *The Request*
- ‘I am afraid that it the one thing we cannot permit my friend’.
- ‘Please we beg you?’
- ‘You know why not’ Paulus asserts. ‘If you interrupt the Inhibitor, we all disappear forever. This machine ensures our existence and without it, our star will collapse into oblivion. I feel sadly for your loss but I'm afraid the answer is no.’
- TLG hangs his head in despair. ‘Is there no way at all?’
- ‘I'm afraid not.’
- Meanwhile, Robin who has just been listening to the conversation knowing that he is less acceptable and probably less influential than TLG finally reanimates in a last effort to soften the Starmite Kings position.
- ‘We mean your Inhibitor no harm. We just wish to take what is ours and we will be gone and no more favours will we ask.’
- ‘How is it yours?’ the King replies. ‘You cannot claim a realm that the Starmites created. We are the custodians of all that is contained within the confines of this Star.’
- Robin was starting to appear agitated as was the Starmite King.
- Robin hissed at the King. ‘You are ignorant and you know not, the damage you cause, the countless lives you destroy with your machine. The least you can do is give us this one Xroud!’
- The Starmite King hovers around in a circle and returns to face Robin. ‘You say we destroy, but you know that without us, you could not exist. You are also a product a machine like this one. Be gone! You are no longer welcome here.’
- TLG was starting to feel uncomfortable and his cloud was growing more active. He had never seen Robin this angry before and an angry Robin is not something you want angry around you.
- Suddenly Robin barks out those fateful words.
- ‘We are taking the Xroud, you cannot stop us.’ Robin starts moving the scope towards the Inhibitor and in desperation The King cries ‘No!’ and throws himself at the scope but the King just bounces off ineffectual.
- TLG looks at Robin whose face is locked in a determined grimace, with gleaming teeth and saliva dripping from the fur on his chin. The Scope moves closer to the Inhibitor.
- ‘What are you doing?!’ TLG shouts at Robin. ‘I do not need Odelin enough to destroy this place!’
- ‘He is mistaken!’ Robin gasps his reply.
- Suddenly time seemed falter as TLG witnessed the horrific events unfold before him as if in slow motion. TLG could see that more Starmites had joined their King and the King hovered there with two of his Bee eyes locked on the Scope. As TLG, Robin and the scope approached the Sphere in the middle of the room, the room seemed to pulsate and flux.
- TLG could see beams of light dancing around the outer edge of the golden glass hub and folding into its centre to focus on a point that did not exist. It was as if the beams were being consumed by an invisible point at centre of the star. But the point was not a thing, more of position.
- *The Entanglement*
- Suddenly TLG notices something moving in his left pocket. He looks down and is petrified to see, little skeleton wings griping the rim of his pocket. The Gnome skeletons have reanimated and were crawling from TLG’s pocket.
- TLG grabbed the bony wings and cast them to the bottom of the scope to watch in horror as they reconstituted themselves into living creatures. TLG could see the flesh and feather growing impossibly from the bones as the bones expanded. They had fully formed so fast and silently that Robin had not noticed.
- One of the creatures reared on his talonsous legs and glared at TLG with deep black eyes, TLG knew oh too well.
- Monkey birds!? TLG had met these Gnomesk creatures before when flying the Bee machine from the cave. The monkey bird applied his gaze to TLG’s cloud which had started glowing furiously in the commotion. The Monkey bird then cowered from the cloud as if responding to some instinctual, archetypal fear then recovered and turned to Robin who was still driving the scope to the hub. Meanwhile the other smaller Monkey bird had positioned itself, next to its contemporary and was loosely mimicking its movements, both Monkey birds now looking at Robin’s back and jumping and jostling on their talons as if preparing for a fight.
- Suddenly both Monkey birds pounced on Robin simultaneously. There was a hideous screech as Robin was administered with a powerful bite from the Monkey bird closest to TLG. Then Robin retaliated with an equally powerful swipe with his claws at the Monkey bird number one. But this attack was blocked by Monkey bird number two who then attempted to thrash Robin with his talons.
- TLG could do nothing except look on in horror along with the Starmites but TLG wished he was standing at more of a safe distance.
- The scope had now stopped moving as the three creatures seemed to be locked in some bizarre martial arts demonstration with a power of which never witnessed before. Monkey bird one or two would attach Robin who would always perfectly block the attack and retaliate at either one or the other Monkey bird. TLG had to huddle at the bottom of the Scope as the creatures danced around this furious battle, which seemed almost choreography in some bizarre fashion. Always attacking, always blocking. Surely, one of them would falter giving the other the upper hand but none did. It was as if each creature could perfectly anticipate the others moves therefore locking themselves in an infinite stalemate. All creatures seemed supernatural and impervious so there could be no winner.
- The fighting creature’s movements started to synchronise as if they had established a rhythm of attack and response. As they synchronised they hastened and where beginning to resemble a blur of creatures.
- TLG could feel the pressure of the wind created by the furore of the blurred mass before him. It was so strong he could barely retain his grip on the spongy inside of the scope. He imaged he would soon be swept into this entanglement and disintegrate in the mass of revolving talons and teeth. But then again, he did not feel vulnerable. He imagined the consequence but felt, in himself to be as impervious as the other creatures in this scope. He wondered if he should just let go and see what would happen.
- He gazed to the blurry mass, which by now was completely unrecognisable as three creatures locked in battle. It looked like brown windmill blades spinning so fast no individual blades were perceivable and the sound similar to the loud buzz of a Bee machines beating wings.
- As he gazed transfixed and wondering how much longer, he could prevent his inevitable introduction to claws and talons. He started to see shapes appearing in the blur. TLG blinked his eyes tightly and shook his head in an attempt to shake the image from his mind’s eye but when he opened them again the shapes were still there. The spiral shapes that he had seen in Cosmos cave were haunting him again. But what did it mean? He could perceive an oval border and within that, were two juxtaposed spiral shapes that slowly gyrated in opposite directions. Almost exactly the same as they appeared to him in the cave.
- Suddenly The King was standing outside the scope staring at TLG though the transparent perimeter of the Scope. A large golden tear running down his face as he addresses TLG with his thought.
- ‘I realise what you are now, and I know what you must do. There is no option for us now but please know this in your heart my friend. You are more powerful than you realises. If not, the most powerful of all. But you have a good soul and I know you will use it wisely. But do what you must do.’
- The King returned to his contemporaries who where all just watching in amazement. Now the whole chamber was filled with Starmites crawling and buzzing with anticipation.
- TLG looks his storm cloud which had now become smeared by the force of the gyrating blurred mass of beasts, with the symbol of the Oval and the spirals reflecting the light of the building cloud. The buzzing from the mass had been gradually increasing in pitch and was now a high-pitched monotone that was hypnotising and surreal.
- He looked around at the scenery outside and wondered how he had managed to get himself into this odd situation. He imaged himself back in his own village and tried to remember what it was like to be normal, but as he did he realised that things were always this strange. He was a Gnome with a lightning cloud over his head that lived on a ball that floated in space in a universe that was a mere atom of another universe that was yet infinitely large and yet infinitely small, all of which were governed by a natural ethics rather than natural laws. Yes things are indeed very strange and there is no escape from this strangeness.
- TLG felt as though he were falling into his mind. He suddenly felt disjointed from himself. He felt his eyes were not his, like an imposter in an empty vessel that was not his own and all he could do, was gaze from these windows in wonder at this bizarre theatre that performed only for him, on this bizarre stage of existence. But when he turned his gaze from the spirals to the entourage of Starmites all gazing in at him in the Scope, suddenly he felt as though he were the theatre and they were the audience.
- TLG was so enthralled by what was happening inside him and the perspectives and revelations that were raging through his mind that he started to laugh. He laughed and laughed so hard that he started to cry, and he cried and cried so hard that he started to laugh and all the while, his storm cloud was glowing brighter and brighter and the little faces of Starmites all gazing at his cloud and the little bubbles of thoughts that burst from their heads and all hell was suddenly released in a colossal flash of light that even dwarfed the light at the centre of this Super Star and in that instance the dancing mass was no more.
- TLG was stunned.
- Robin was the only one standing there on the bottom of the Scope looking completely unscathed as if nothing had taken place.
- ‘What took you so long little one? I knew you would see me in the end.’
- Robin returned to the invisible controls of the scope ignoring the Starmites that parted as he resumed his collision course with the golden sphere at the centre of this star.
- TLG just waited, feeling powerless along with the Starmites who all just hoped that they would not be destroyed by the intent of Robin. As the Scope finally reached the hub, it just seemed to fold into the hub as if the two spheres were merging into one. TLG found himself with Robin, inside the hub with Xroud beams all around them. Robin positioned the Scope, which happened to almost exactly the size of the hub. It was as though the scope had become the hub and vice versa. Right before them in the centre, there it was.
- The tiny black spec at the focus of the Inhibitor.
- ‘The Xroud Cloud’ Robin finally spoke. ‘That is where your Odelin is, somewhere in the tiny cluster of broken universes. I bet you they never even realised how much has been destroyed by their Inhibitor. But I guess their nature.’ Robin thinks loudly making sure the Starmites can hear him.
- ‘And the wonders it creates.’ TLG follows knowing full well, that he himself may well be a product of one of these accidental meta-universal antagonists. Robin just ignores him and continues. He looks out at the Starmites to address them.
- ‘I can get what we need without disturbing your stabiliser, so have no fear.’ Robin turns to TLG with a grin.
- ‘I will use a smaller Etherscope to remove the Odelin Xroud from the Xroud Cloud. Once entrapped, we will leave you in peace and intact.’
- The Starmites just stared at him in silence knowing they had no control over him anyway.
- ‘You will not be harmed.’ TLG speaks out addressing the Starmites.
- The King buzzes around to hover in position before TLG.
- ‘He will do what he must and I know that suits you Lightning Gnome.’
- TLG looks to Robin who has already started conjuring a new Etherscope and both the King and TLG just watch in hope the Robin knows what he is doing and will be careful with their existence.
- Robin has positioned himself directly in front of the Xroud Cloud and holds up a tiny marble sized glass ball, a precise miniature of their own Etherscope. Like a tiny lens that has does not reflect only diffracts. He takes the Scope between the his thumb claw and forefinger claw and ever so delicately, with much concentration, moves the tiny scope around the Xroud Cloud that surrounded the singularity.
- TLG and the Starmites wait anxiously for the end of the universe.
|
-
- ‘What are Starmites’ TLG asks as he attempts to steady himself against the inside of the Etherscope.
- ‘You will see little one, but first we must get going, we have a long way to go, so I will explain everything on the way.’
- *The Super Star*
- At that, the sphere started lifting higher into the air, but TLG felt no sensation of moving, as if there was no inertia in the sphere. Suddenly the sphere rocketed into the atmosphere. TLG looked down at the Orange landscape as it disappeared into the distance and revealed the circular diameter of an Orange and blue world. TLG was dumbfounded as he watched this worldview from space unfold before him. He could say nothing, only gaze with those large green eyes reflecting his celestial surroundings, as he existed in this strange and magical place.
- TLG pushed himself off the edge of the Etherscope and floated there, weightless, drifting around the scope with Robin who was clinging to the opposite side gazing toward their heading. Robin looked preoccupied as if he were somehow controlling the scope.
- TLG felt peaceful and relaxed I wonder what will become of me. He told himself gently as he drifted inside this cocoon of powerful protection. He felt safe and warm, floating around, happy and content, without knowing or caring about what to expect next.
- He looked out at a world that was now disappearing into a small orange dot in the vast expanse of this universe. His vision was filled with stars and galaxies clouds of brightly coloured dust that reflected the glow of massive star clusters cast with the shadows of giant dark orbs like the ghostly remains of dead stars.
- ‘Outstanding!’ TLG said, unable to contain his admiration of the spectacular panorama.
- Robin turned to TLG and smiled a grimacing smile, his huge eyes reflecting the starlight around him.
- ‘I gathered you would be impressed.’
- ‘I have always wondered what it would be like in the heavens, but I never realized it would be like this. Are all universes like this one?’ TLG inquired.
- ‘This is a starry universe, and most starry universes are like this. Because we are traversing Macro and Microverses, we will see very similar features because the laws of physics are almost identical and any differences are only trivial.’
- TLG marvelled at how such words of wisdom emanated from such a ridiculous looking creature. Robin’s teeth glistened in the starlight as he spoke and his thin lips never quite met which gave his voice an anxious, strained quality. A creature so perfect, with skin that did not fit, like it was not his own. But indeed this was true. He was possessed by the Ghost head. An outlaw of existence. As broken and desperate as TLG with his strange lightning cloud and lost Odelin.
- ‘Brace yourself little one. We are about to make haste.’
- ‘Where are we going?’ TLG quickly inquired before Robin had a chance to increase speed.
- Robin pushed himself from the side of the sphere and floated over to TLG grabbing him and pulling him to his furry cheek. ‘See that bright blue star next to that nebula?’ Robin pointed a claw and adjusts TLG to face the direction of his gesture.
- ‘Yes’
- ‘Look just to the right of that, there is a fuzzy blob of light that resembles a spiral?’
- ‘Yes, I see it.’ TLG replied edgily, uneasy about his proximity to Robin’s razor sharp teeth.
- ‘That is a galaxy with hundreds of billions of stars, very much like this one. And see the top spiral arm?’
- ‘Yes’
- ‘You cannot see it from here, but there is a star near the end of that spiral arm. That is out destination.’
- ‘Why is that our heading?’ TLG asked.
- ‘Because that is where your Odelin is.’
- ‘How do you know?’ TLG asks.
- ‘It is much to explain little one, but your Odelin shines with the power of a trillion stars in darkness of your dispossession. You are the one with the Meta universe. And as I also descend from this realm, I feel the resonance well. All that exists are but echoes. Minions of the core ethics that contrive the Meta universe. These shine to me like beacons, when you remember or think about Odelin. Like you are the focus of an emanation, and I see it clearly.’
- ‘How do you think he got so far away?’
- ‘If that were that case that he did leave you company long ago, I would certainly have no idea how he got there. But I suspect you were never together. I feel you and he, were brought to existence at once, but not in the same realm. Yet you connect to each other. This is a curious effect that I wish more, to comprehend.’
- ‘What else can you tell me about him?’ TLG inquires desperate to drum up more memories of his long lost friend.
- ‘I cannot. There is something certainly unusual about his echoes, but that is all I can perceive, patterns of resonance. But we shall find out soon enough.’
- TLG did not reply but he felt uncomfortable about his explanation. TLG felt as though Robin was not telling the whole truth. That he was concealing his real intentions. Echoes and beacons? But TLG knew he had no better chance of finding his Odelin. So he resigns once again to putting these feelings behind him.
- ‘Lets go then.’ TLG says with extra determination now more curious than ever.
- ‘You may feel a little odd but I am about take a shortcut.’
- Robin releases TLG and returns to his position to face the destination. TLG just gazes out at the stars and galaxies and waits expectantly.
- At some point in time TLG notices everything exists in just lines. There is nothing else. It’s as though the universe have been extruded infinitely and had been frozen in time. TLG could not move but things were changing around him. He notices the lines were starting to quiver like tightened ropes oscillating in a strong wind. Suddenly he was aware of a high-pitched whistling. Then everything melted away. No blackness, no whiteness, no substance, no ether, no anything at all.
- The lack of anything was so profound TLG’s mind started dreaming to fill the void. He dreamed of floating in space with a strange beast and the images in his mind grew stronger and stronger until he could swear they were real. TLG suddenly realised they actually were.
- ‘That was odd.’ TLG mumbled.
- ‘The mind can play tricks on you when the scope goes black.’ Robin remarked noticing TLG’s surprise after awakening from the void.
- ‘It felt like I was completely alone.’
- ‘When the scope goes black you cannot hear, see, or feel any sensation. Therefore, time seems to stand still as your brain disconnects from your senses until you start feeling again soon after the scope lights up. All experience the same effect.’
- *The Inhibitor*
- TLG looks around and everything has changed. All the stars are gone except a massive fiery orb covering nearly half the field of view.
- ‘What is that?’ TLG asks.
- ‘Behold! The Super Star’ Robin announces theatrically.
- ‘The Super Star?’ TLG echoes.
- ‘It has no Gnome name as there are a lot of stars in this universe. It would be impractical to name them all. But for your benefit I guess we could name this one.’
- ‘How about. “The Odelin Star”.’
- ‘I like that.’ TLG remarks.
- ‘I cannot wait until I tell him he has a star named after him.’ TLG added.
- ‘Done!’ Robin snared and then grinned in an almost condescending manner.
- TLG felt a little uncomfortable but was unable to reprimand an arrogant master of the universe of universes. TLG thought he would wait until he said something stupid and would make fun of him, but was not holding his breath.
- ‘Where have the other stars gone?’ TLG said noticing their absence.
- ‘They have not gone little one. You just cannot see them when you are this close to a star. I have tinted the Etherscope so we would not blind us. You did not think you could look directly at a Super Star from this distance and not be blinded let alone disintegrate into a puff of smoke in an instance. I need constantly, to adjust the brightness of the Etherscope for viewing comfort. I will need to do it again soon as you will see.’
- ‘Is Odelin inside the Star?’
- ‘Sort of; he is in a Microverse that inhabits a Xroud that was part of a the element of fire that was annihilated by a device called a Star Flux Inhibitor , a machine invented by a Starmite that once lived in this Star.’ Robin clears his throat and continues.
- ‘We need to go into this star and find this universe. The Starmites are very curious and they will want an explanation for our visit. We will be very strange to them as they believe that they are the only inhabitants of the universe. All Starmites do.’
- ‘What are Starmites?’ TLG re-instates the question he asked earlier before being diverted off the subject.
- ‘Starmites are the intelligent life forms at the centre of every star in every starry universe.’
- ‘Well, this is something to think about. How do they get there?’ TLG inquired.
- ‘
- ‘Natural Ethics permits all in existence to change and grow more complex over time. The process of Natural Transmutation is born of this ethic, and most sentient creatures come to be in this manner.
- At the centre of every new star exists a civilization of Starmites. These are creatures have transmuted into existence over a time and are much like yourself.
- The life forms must then transmute into sentient creatures, discover the disciplines Natural Ethics, realise they only have a few years left to live before their whole civilisation and world is wiped from existence, so to create a machine known throughout the universe as a Star Flux Inhibitor . This is at the heart of every star more than a million years old. Without the Star Flux Inhibitor (Inhibitor ) a star will become unstable and collapse into an un-escapable void, or go explode with a force that would rock the universe. Fortunately for us, almost all stars produce Starmites that invent a Inhibitor and therefore our universes keep powering along.
- Even when a universe (or Xroud) finally dies and the universe is lying still and cold in the ultimate natural ethics dilemma, and the last bastion of intelligent life huddle around the dim warmth of the last dying star; it is intelligent life that finds the ultimate destiny for its dying universe.
- To collapse the universe so it will re-ignite in colossal act of regeneration, extincting themselves in the ultimate act of self sacrifice to give way to a new universe, born again.’
- TLG was finding all this information too hard to contemplate all at once, so he pieced though lecture, mulling everything over with his sceptical eye then it occurred to him. ‘If the Starmites need to create an Inhibitor , then how do they know how to build one?’
- ‘Have you not been listening little one? They have to work it out for themselves. No one can communicate with a Starmite. They endure their entire history thinking that the confines of their star is the whole universe until finally, the star runs out of fuel and dies and they all become extinct. That is something the Starmites, are not capable of preventing. A Starmite and any material possessions it uses can only exist under such extreme heat and pressure that it is impossible for it to leave the prison of its star without disintegrating into star dust.’ Robin, who was gazing into the star along with TLG, pauses and turns to TLG.
- ‘If it wasn’t for them you would not exist, as all other forms of natural life in a universe including Gnomes, need at least a three hundred million, years of starlight to transmute into sentient beings. And without Sentient natural life, then dream creatures like us could never have been conceived and the universes would be stark places of black still heavy clouds of dark matter and the Meta universal would be flat and hollow.’
- TLG was suddenly distracted by something robin said and had to interrupt him. ‘What do you mean by “Dream Creatures like us.”?’
- ‘You did not think that you were the product of Natural Transmutation did you?’. Robin laughed.
- TLG was horrified by the notion.
- ‘How do you know I was not?’ TLG asked indignantly realising he was being accused of lacking substance.
- ‘Well I cannot tell for sure, but you certainly posses some unusual qualities I would not expect in a normal creature.’
- TLG chose not to believe Robin as the idea would raise too many questions that he did not have time or inclination to ask given his quest for Odelin.
- ‘I will beg to differ on this point, but you can believe what you will. But please continue’.
- Robin just snarls at TLG continues his lecture. ‘But thanks to the Starmites, it’s not like this. Universes are held afloat by devices invented in infinite number for the purpose of the self preservation of the intelligent life that invented them. It is as if the stars themselves can think, and therefore exist. Intelligence is the force that holds our universe together as the formation of intelligence is inevitable consequence of the Natural Ethics1 of existence. Gravity alone is no enough.’ Robin took a breath and looked back to the star.
- TLG also stared out at the star and there was silence for a minute or so as TLG thought about, and tried to avoid thinking about the ideas Robin was conveying.
- ‘That is remarkable!’ TLG finally remarked.
- ‘I know. Nature is far stranger than it appears to the naked eye.’
- *The Descent*
- At that, Robin started moving the Etherscope towards the star until they could see nothing except for the bright orange yellow flares of the star rushing past then. TLG looked around him in awe as massive arches spilled out of the star below them, rose above them and dissipated back into the star behind them. It was frightening and exhilarating. TLG could see arches in the distance that were larger than planets. Huge storms of fire rear up and collapse into smouldering tornados that spun and curled and hesitated finally being swallowed by even larger tornados that would be shattered by explosive gisers erupting from the everywhere all whooshing past them at great speed as they descended.
- As they sped down then scenery slowly changed, after a while there was no sign of the curvature of the star. They were being constantly battered by wave after wave fire and chaos, crashing past them like the raging sea of hell fire. TLG looked down as the sphere descended to toward the surface and waited expectantly for the landing. But it did not happen. They just kept on descending faster and faster. TLG turned to Robin and asked. ‘When will we be landing?’
- ‘We are a long way from landing. The solid surface of a star is near its centre so we have only just begun our descent. We have about one hundred thousand million, fathoms to dive’. Robin pauses. ‘But we are descending very fast and we have much to see on the way down. So while we are descending I may as well explain more about where we are going.’ Robin turns away from the outer Sphere to face TLG.
- ‘The centre of a Star consists of a world made mainly of fire gasses transmuted to metal by the unimaginable weight of the stars substance, which is what most of the universes consists of. This metal forms many structures depending on how the atoms hook themselves together. This forms the rich natural world for which the life inside the star inhabits eventually to transmute into Starmites. Starmites come in many varieties and forms depending on the nature of the star they were formed in but thanks to the manner of natural transmutation you can pretty much spot them anywhere. They usually grow four legs, two arms with hands and opposing thumbs and two or more forward facing eyes. Pretty much like a Gnome really except more legs and maybe wings. They can also feel the resonance of the star they inhabit so are quite in tune with their surroundings.’
- Robin pauses and looked forward into the fire of the star as they flashed past. The flames were now stretched out like orange, yellow, blue, and green stripes that decorated the sphere from the front to the back. Of course, being in a sphere, there was no front or back, but TLG considered their direction of motion, to be the front. The stripes where flashing like bizarre coloured neon lights that pulsed impossibly fast, as to make TLG feel dizzy.
- ‘I should like to meet one of these Starmites, they sound like fascinating creatures?’ TLG injected.
- ‘Believe me, they are not that fascinating. In fact they are quite the pragmatists. And very serious and they will take our presence very seriously’ Robin said with earnest. ‘We will be the biggest event in their history.’
- TLG looked at the side of Robins soft and furry head. The brown colour of his shiny fur was barely recognisable under the array of colours lit from the starlight. He looked beautiful, perfect but still strange and menacing. TLG was beginning to trust him a bit more now, although it was an uncomfortable trust. TLG imagined that this Robin would be very dangerous if possessed by an evil entity, and wondered if there were more like him. Wondered if he would always feel the unease of knowing that at any time there could be something like him waiting around the corner to destroy everything he loved. So dangerous, so powerful so perfect.
- Just then, TLG noticed that their surrounding suddenly brightened from the rich, relentless stripes of fire. The fire was getting softer and more transparent. TLG pulled himself to the front. He peered into the distant as the flames started to fade and then suddenly peeled away as he became aware a vast atmosphere unfolding before him It was as though they had broken into a desert summer evening.
- TLG looked up from where they were falling and the sky looked like a massive red sunset that was incredibly vast, as if the sky where unfeasibly distant. He looked toward his descent and could see nothing but a fade to a black point. In a way, it looked like they were inside the eyeball of a giant, and we were falling into its pupil. This was a very strange sensation but TLG was beginning to get used to Strange.
- As they fell TLG just stared at the black point below him, and tried to perceive to point getting bigger as they approached but the sense of speed was rapidly diminishing as they got further from the ceiling of fire. TLG thought about their destination.
- ‘Why do we have to meet the Starmites to get Odelin? If there is a vortex you need to make, could we just find the universe without bothering the Starmites. I do not wish to meet Starmites; I just want to find Odelin.
- You are very strong Robin. Why do not you just go to where Odelin is and take the vortex? Surely, nothing can stop you and you cannot be stopped by Starmites. Why do we even need to meet them?’
- Robin turned to TLG with his sly and enthusiastic grin.
- ‘We do not really. I need to tell you a bit about Odelin’s predicament. He, and I suspect you are the fortunate products of a broken Xroud or Universe whichever you prefer, they are the same thing.
- The most common way this situation occurs is when a Star Flux Inhibitor breaks a Xroud. This does not happen very often, Most Xrouds when they are broken just collapse destroying everything in its universe to reignite into a new Xroud all information is lost when the new realm is created, but this does not always occur this way. Sometimes the Xroud does not collapse fully and the very laws of nature governing this universe are distorted beyond the natural ethics of the meta universe, bringing it to the brink of its collapse but not enough to collapse it. This is a very strange place indeed and this is what gives creatures like yourself and I our strange existence. You see, the thing about “Ethics” is, that because they do not describe systems such as mathematical observations. They guide systems. Mathematical law cannot be broken as it states a truth. However, Ethical laws can as they are just guidelines, and when these ethical laws are broken, the consequences can be profound for the meta universe. For instance, Dark Xrouds, or broken Xrouds can propagate wildly and out of control, throwing the ratio of infinity in their favour and this is not good, there should be more light than darkness in existence for intelligence and complexity to prosper.’
- ‘But how it the balance maintained? What stops the Dark Xrouds from becoming overwhelming?’
- ‘This is a good question little one and one I am not sure I can answer. You see, even in these dark realms, occasionally remarkable things can happen in these dark places. Because the physics of these places are so tightly strung. They resonate well with other realms, making it possible for the creation of marvellous, complex creatures with remarkable qualities normally impossible in most other realms. These creatures are the Outlaws of Natural Ethics. Maybe it is they, who bring the balance back. I believe they may be we. You know for yourself that you are not exactly normal. I feel we are being blown on the breeze of destiny, to fall from one universe to another in search of something wonderful. But for what purpose? For what purpose am I compelled to help you find Odelin? I cannot answer all questions but it pains me not to know.
- Your Odelin resides in one of these dark Xrouds located in a chamber near the heart of this Star where the Inhibitor is located. We need to bring Odelin’s Xroud to us and quickly as this Xroud grows unstable. We must get Odelin out before it collapses.
- But we must also be careful. There is not much that can destroy me as you can see, but the Xroud beam of a Inhibitor is such that it will denature nature itself. It needs to burn a whole though to the Meta universe as to pin the star into relative permanence.
- Broken Xrouds are the inevitable bi-product these systems but these Xrouds are what affords, creatures like us, our existence.’
- TLG could not take his eyes off Robin while he was ranting. TLG was so shaken by the revalations suggested by Robin that he felt almost drunk with anxiety and his Storm cloud raged above his head. Every time he thought about being an outlaw of natural ethics his head would spin, he would get shivers down his spine and his lightning could would fire. Robin also had noticed TLG’s distress.
- ‘Are you OK?’
- ‘I guess I am feeling a be overwhelmed. How do you know such things?’
- ‘I know, because I must. Before I can be fully realised, I need to be at one with the meta universe, but this is a long road and there are many answers I must find. I am old and wise but I do not yet know the ethics of nature. This is what I long for the most. Maybe it is you that can help me find it.’
- TLG looks down to the centre of the star and notices that the black point that was so distant has now expanded into a brightly coloured globe, and expanding faster as they approached. TLG looks around and notices other celestial objects locked in orbit around the coloured ball along with other more complex mechanical satellites.
- As they descend, TLG studied these satellites intently. He could see tiny lit windows with brightly coloured lights adorning the satellites. Looking around he could see them everywhere. They all looked as though they were under construction, with what looked like scaffolds and antenna attached to the complex exteriors. The satellites where all coloured in yellow and black stripes like bees and TLG could feel little eyes burning him from the little windows.
- *Thoughts*
- ‘Can you feel them thinking about you?’ Robin broke his daydream like silence.’
- ‘Yes’ Robin replied.
- ‘They are very sensitive; there are no secrets here because every Starmite’s can here every other Starmites thoughts.’
- ‘Can they here ours?’ TLG asks rhetorically in a hollow tone already knowing what the answer is.
- ‘Very good little one, you have much innate wisdom.’ Robin says, complimenting TLG’s answer in silence.
- ‘Thank you’ TLG just then realises that they are conversing without talking to each other.
- Suddenly TLG became aware of a chattering sound in the distant. He listened closer but realises that that sounds are more like thoughts. Little bubbles of thoughts bubbling out of the ether likes thousands of little bubbles in a pot of boiling water with each little bubble, an eye that expressed a thought only to pop and disappear behind another bubble that expressed a different thought. TLG was fixated on the background hum of thoughts.
- ‘They are the Starmites’ Robin remarks.
- TLG thinks to himself and suddenly gets the impression that this ability has always existed for him.
- Robin turns to TLG and nods slightly in admiration as if to acknowledge his gift.
- ‘You have always had this ability. You can only do it when you know how to listen. When you are in a star, you have no choice. You will have to get used to it, as it will never leave you. Thought conversing is like listening to birds in the summer. The birds are always chirping. In fact, there is a constant noise but you cancel it out because you do not need to hear it. Only when you concentrate and listen do the birds sing for you and you suddenly become aware of hundreds of birds singing.’
- TLG tries to imaging Robin in a summer field listening to birds and suddenly recoils at the thought. Then realising that Robin can read his thoughts he says ‘Sorry for thinking that about you.’
- ‘Thinking what?’ Robin replies.
- ‘I thought you could read my thoughts.’
- ‘Can you read mine?’ Robin asks.
- ‘Only when you say something in your thoughts.’
- ‘Precisely, I can only read thought that are said in your head. You need to think as if you were talking. You could imagine the troubles if every being could read every thought. This is why Starmites are so serious. They do not have the luxury of choice when talking thoughts. ‘Anyway, what were you thinking about me that would so offend me?’
- ‘Sorry, it was nothing; it’s too hard to explain.’ TLG says avoiding the answer.
- ‘I understand. I am not the most acceptable creature I know this much.’ Robin resigns.
- TLG thinks back to village life and wonders what it would be like when he teaches everyone how to thought talk.
- ‘Can anyone talk in thoughts?’ TLG inquires.
- ‘No, only creatures like us have this talent. I guess we are special in this respect.’
- By now, the world below them was covering half of their view. TLG stared at its beautiful colours and intricate fractal like patterns of the surface. There were no oceans, just beautiful coloured fractal formations with crystal like lines of all the colours of the rainbow. It was not unlike any other world except, rather than being immersed in the inky black of space, it was as though it were hanging in an immense lit cavern made of a fiery desert sunset, surrounding it. So far did the atmosphere extend, it was as if it were a as large as a galaxy.
- *A Close Encounter*
- Suddenly TLG becomes aware of thought chatter of the Starmite’s. He looked behind him and noticed thousands of little specs following their Etherscope. As they drew closer TLG noticed they were like little gold nuggets in the distance and they were gaining on them. He looked below him and could see more approaching from underneath. Thousands of them.
- Large bumble bees. Thousand of them escorting their scope as they descended. TLG looks to Robin who is just grinning below him. He was concentrating on lowering the scope as carefully as possible. Suddenly one was right in front of the scope so close TLG felt like he could reach out and touch it.
- TLG studies the bee closest to him. It has brilliant golden yellow stripes and had little Gnome faces. Exactly like the bees from the cave where the honey was except they seemed a bit more golden and glowing.
- ‘I take it that is a Starmite.’ TLG thinks.
- ‘Correct little one.’ Robin answers.
- ‘I feel I have met these creatures once before. At my home world, at least very similar.’
- ‘Very curious, I would find that most unlikely.’ Robin replied thoughtfully.
- The little creature gazed very wondrously at TLG though the scope as it hovered outside the, his big eyes reflecting the scenery around them. Then the little creature raised a little leg with fuzzy little striped fingers and waved, his face expressionless and with wonder as if he were more closely waiting for a response from travellers than paying attention to facial expression. TLG felt welcome enough and in no danger.
- ‘Greetings travellers, and welcome to the World. You must follow us to the King. He awaits you address.’ TLG could clearly hear the thoughts of the Starmite over the background chatter that surrounded them.
- ‘We would be clad make his acquaintance Starmite.’ TLG thinks with excitement replacing the surprise of the first encounter. TLG could hardly see the planet now as there were so many Starmites surrounding the scope but the Starmites started clearing from under them as they approached for landing.
- *The Starmite Capital*
- TLG could now see massive cities with huge towers all made of gold and silver that. He could not see the surface; it was as if the city completely covered the surface. TLG was astonished at the architecture. There seemed to be buildings built on top of buildings and little saucers and golden Bees drifted around everywhere. It was a site to behold. TLG gazed down between the massive structures and could see only darkness. TLG wondered if there where layers of cities build on top of each other. As they descended further they sank below skyline and TLG could see though the little windows, as they drifted down past them. He could make out little faces pressed up against them; all gazing out in wonder with compound eyes and some were waving.
- This went on for what seemed a long time, just slowly drifting down into an abyss. TLG marvelled at the shiny gold of the buildings. They seemed to be endlessly tall. Some had balconies, crowded with Starmites all waving and jostling for position to catch the entourage of TLG and Robin as they descended. Still being followed by the little flying saucers and hovering Starmites, TLG could also see Bee machines in tow. They looked similar to his one but where longer and narrower with six little robot arms attached to either side with bright golden yellow stripes on black.
- There were also creepy red and black striped, spider like vehicles running down the side of the towers lumbering to keep up. They appeared like mechanical spiders with eight legs and the viewing bubble underneath at the front, inside of which TLG could see little Starmite controllers.
- *The Borehole*
- TLG then notices a circular tunnel entrance below them and before long they entered. They drifted past immense doors made of glassy gold into the tunnel that was black. The tunnel was sparsely decorated with little windows with the occasional scaffold that clung precariously to the edge. All but the spidery vehicles had stopped following them as they continued there descent into the tunnel.
- ‘Where are we going?’ TLG asks Robin.
- ‘To visit the King of course.’ Robin replies and continues. ‘We are on our way to the Inhibitor which is at the centre of the star. This is where the Starmite King resides. It is of him, we need to ask favour of entering the Inhibitor so we can get to your Odelin.’
- ‘How much longer to the centre?’ TLG asks as he feels a wave of tiredness falls upon him.
- ‘Several hours yet I'm afraid. Because of the tunnel we can only travel slowly, it is very fragile and high speed could cause a collapse. This would anger the Starmites as this tunnel has taken hundreds of years to build. You get some sleep little one, I will awake you when we arrive.’
- TLG agrees, and snuggles up to the spongy interior of the sphere. In no time he is dreaming of thunder clouds and lightning, Starmites and spiders, Odelin and of Home.
|
-
- Robin bent down towards TLG until his snout was almost touching TLG's node. TLG tried to move but was frozen with fear. Long gone was the feeling of comfort and security emitted by the Ghost head who had now been replace by an indescribable unearthly creature. Although the creature was neat in appearance, its perfection, and starkness were juxtaposed, giving Robin an incredulous existence. As if it’s very existence broke the eternal laws of nature.
- TLG was trapped against the edge of the perfect stage giving TLG nowhere to go but down. All TLG could think about was running away, but in his heart he knew there was nowhere to go.
- What have I got myself into? He thought to himself.
- In a panic, he turned and jumped off the stage to the grass below. As he fell, he was swooped up before he could touch the ground.
- ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Robin inquired while he held TLG with both fury paws placed firmly under TLG's armpits. Robin’s eyes gleamed with manic curiosity. TLG could detect a strong smell if Hydrangea leaves in the creature’s breath. A smell that he only knew as a child and had long since forgotten about but the smell was so strong it brought back a flood of memories about exploring the garden as a young Gnome. He remembers breaking the leaves off the bush and smelling the aroma at the sap was freed from the stem. Suddenly he felt more reassured as he looked into those large glassy eyes.
- Robin smiled broadly exposing yet more shiny teeth and continued.
- ‘You can go two paths little one. With me, or back to where you came from. Either way, I must take you there. You cannot ascend the vortex without a Robin. So which will it be?’
- TLG resigned. ‘I guess we need to find Odelin.’
- ‘I knew you would make the right decision little one.’ replied Robin as he lifted TLG onto his back. ‘Hold on tight little one.’ He warned TLG as they set off.
- *The Mirror*
- Robin jumped down onto to grass and stood in front of the mirror, waiting for a signal from TLG.
- ‘What are you doing?’ TLG finally asked.
- ‘I do not know’ Robin admitted. ‘Could I get you to think of your Odelin? Please could you carefully think about where he is?’
- ‘Why?’
- ‘Please, trust me.’
- TLG put his mind back to the apparition, and just as the memory of Odelin emerged, Robin put his head down toward the centre of the mirror then suddenly launched himself with TLG in tow, at the glass.
- TLG closed his eyes and ducked down behind Robin’s ears expecting the impact but none came. TLG could feel the galloping force of Robin accelerating. The inertia was constant as Robin kept on accelerating. TLG dared to open his eyes. He looked around but could hardly see for the speed of the air flowing past him was like a hurricane battering his eyes. TLG pressed his head down against Robin’s fur until his head was in an air pocket. He opened his eyes this time and could see.
- To TLG’s amazement, they were both moving like a rocket through dense forest. He could hear trees and branches giving way under his torrential unearthly power. TLG could feel the occasional sting of particles of debris found their way to his air pocket. It was as if he were ripping a tear through reality itself. TLG looked behind him but all he could see was a roster tail reaching at least fifty yards into the air. The tail was made of debris cast off from Robin’s breaking force as he smashed impossibly through the dense forest. TLG just held on for his dear life as they smashed though trees, and anything that stood in their way. It felt like he was riding the wind again, as in his vision in the cave. He felt the now familiar invulnerable feeling. TLG threw his head back and closed his eyes tightly embracing the experience of this exhilaration.
- *The Hillside*
- This went on for about half an hour until Robin started his deceleration eventually coming to a halt in front of a cave in the side of a large out crop of rock protruding from the side of a hill.
- ‘There you go little one’ Robin said as he grabbed TLG from his back and lowered him to the ground.
- TLG looked around at the plants. They all looked very unfamiliar. They seemed to grow out of the ground and then grow back into the ground. All the trees where that same as they arched up and branched back to the ground with massive aerial roots. TLG could see other smaller shrubs with red leaves that sporadically sheltered under the u-shaped branches of the trees. There were also curious flowers, which grew from the branched of the aerial trees and seemed not to belong to the trees.
- ‘Where are we?’ TLG inquired.
- Robin was just standing there with complete composure as if he had never left the perfect stage.
- ‘We are back in your universe but we are on another planet in around another star to yours. Follow me’
- Robin trotted off into the cave and TLG stumbled after him. TLG followed Robin further into the cave until Robin stopped about twenty yards into the cave. Robin sniffed at the wall.
- ‘Your friend is in here.’ Robin said as he reached up to a small cup sized indention in the wall of the cave.
- Robin pushed his perfect machine-like, clawed paw into the indention and to TLG’s surprise and astonishment, effortlessly but violently ploughed through the wall of that cave of solid rock with one swift and powerful sweep. There was an explosion as a torrent of debris blew out of the cave as Robin kept ploughing and swiping at the cave wall digging deeper as if feverishly searching for some lost hidden treasure. TLG had to stand back to avoid the torrent of bedrock that gave way like butter under a hot knife to Robins assault.
- TLG retreated from the deluge and hid around the side of the cave entrance, to wait for Robin to finish. TLG watched as gusts pulverized rock sprayed out of the entrance to the cave.
- After a short time, there was a pause. TLG wondered if he should venture around the corner to see what Robin was doing but was afraid he would start the pulverizing again, so he decided to shout instead.
- ‘What are you doing?!’ TLG shouted to Robin.
- ‘I am getting your Odelin!’
- ‘But where is he?’ TLG could only imagine Odelin’s situation. Was he stuck in some tomb in the rock?
- ‘Is he trapped in here?’
- ‘You could say that.’ Robin bellowed in reply as he resumed his attack on the cave wall. TLG retreated around a corner again but just as he did, the barrage halted. TLG poked his head around the corner hoping to engage Robin again. Robin was bent down over the rubble, sniffing pawfuls of broken bedrock. He then picked up a small shard of bedrock about one inch in length and about one eighth of an inch wide and held it in front of TLG’s eyes.
- ‘There, see?’ Robin presents a large claw from his other paw and points it to a speck of dust perched on the end of the slither of rock.
- ‘Look closer.’ At that, a beam of light starts streaming from the end of his claw illuminating the speck, on the rock. TLG looks closer.
- ‘What am I looking at?’
- ‘You are looking at a grain of earth once part of this stone. It is not unlike any other speck of mineral in this world except for the fact that this particular speck of mineral contains you friend’.
- ‘Then how do we get him out?’
- ‘We do not. We need to go to him.’
- ‘But how?’
- ‘We need to cross the Quantum horizon’
- ‘Quantum horizon?’
- ‘It is the border between the Macroverse and Microverse. All universes are part of another universe and each parallel universe is a universe that shares the same Macroverse. A Microverse is a Xroud which is both the smallest largest thing in any universe.’ Robin paused for a moment as if to assemble his thoughts.
- *Xrouds*
- ‘You see little one. It is important for you to understand this because it will help you understand where you are, because one can easily get lost in these universes if one does not keep track of where one is.’
- ‘It goes a bit like this’
- ‘A Xroud is a universe’
- ‘A universe consists of galaxies’
- ‘Galaxies consist of stars and planets’
- ‘Planets consist of Mineral’
- ‘Mineral consist of atoms’
- ‘Atoms consist of Xrouds’
- ‘And a Xroud is a universe’
- ‘And it goes on like that infinitely folding in on itself and repeating, with every possibility being realised. This condensate is the result of the Meta universal ethic.’
- ‘There is an eternity of scale and of space and the laws of nature repeat themselves at the Quantum horizon.’
- ‘Your Odelin is in a Microverse of a Microverse of a Microverse of a single Xroud in this speck of mineral as far as I can smell.’
- TLG was astonished by this revelation and his head was starting to spin.
- ‘How do we get to Odelin?’
- ‘We will use a vortex. Vortexes are everywhere. You just need to expect one for one to appear, and I expect one will arrive for us shortly.’ TLG got the clear impression that the ghost head was speaking through Robin, as the voice did not befit this creature. The voice was wise and noble but the creature looked macabre and sinister. It was as if the ghost head was using him as a puppet to skip around the universes of eternity. TLG wondered to himself if Robin had a say in this possession. Certainly the two together seemed very powerful. Just like a God. A very strange God. TLG mused to himself.
- Robin leaned down to face TLG ‘Look here little one’ he said. ‘Here it is.’
- Robin extended a long claw from his paw and scraped the small speck of dust from the stone.
- ‘Watch’ Robin hissed.
- *The Vortex*
- Robin’s claw pointed at the speck of dust and the speck started expanding in size before TLG eyes. TLG looked around him and noticed that everything was expanding except Robin and Himself. TLG tried to move but was frozen on the spot. It was as though time had stopped but he was still aware.
- TLG tried to speak but could not and as he looked on in his frozen universe, he noticed that everything seemed to be racing and frozen at the same time. Then he noticed everything around him was expanding so fast that it was not recognizable. Matter seemed to be pouring out of itself as if in a constant explosion un-tethered and violent. He could still see Robin in front of him frozen with his extended claw, motionless and timeless.
- Suddenly all went black except for a perfect line across his vision and a constant perfect high-pitched tone that was uncomfortably loud. Then the line started bubbling in perfect intervals that stretched out of TLG’s peripheral vision. The line started separating into parallel, bubbled lines until TLG could see nothing else. Then the bubbles started distorting in unison as if tiny pincers had attached them to the top and bottom and where pulling in opposite directions, forming spiral arms on each one. Suddenly TLG realises he has seen these shapes before, in his visions.
- Then all was halted except for the constant ringing in his ears. TLG felt completely frozen. TLG felt his body did not exist. Like his mind was just floating in a void, unable to attach to anything. He started to panic. He desperately wanted to cling and grasp onto something, anything. Even himself, but he felt so empty, so desperately untouchable, that only desperation itself seemed to have substance. Then things started changing. TLG felt himself slowly emerging from the void. The perfect constant tone started changing pitch, getting lower and lower and the bubbled spiral lattice started getting bigger and bigger until just one spiral was all he could see. Eventually the sound disappeared and the bubble just turned into a foggy ambiguous mass that surrounded TLG.
- Eventually, from out of the fog, two large glistening eyes slowly emerged from the fog. This reminded TLG of the time Robin first appeared to him. Robin was still in the same position as frozen as TLG himself was. Frozen and still staring at a speck of dust.
- The fog started clearing and TLG found himself in exactly the same moment as he was moments before the world exploded.
- ‘I was expecting to go somewhere else.’ TLG said as he realised he could now speak and move once again.
- Robin turned and spoke to TLG ‘You are somewhere else.’
- ‘I do not feel like I'm in a different place.’
- ‘You are in a different universe’.
- TLG paused to contemplate his remark. ‘But everything looks the same.’
- ‘That is because most universes are parallel on the border of the Quantum horizon and that means they will be almost identical. We will not need this universe for long as it is just a bridge to where we need to go to find Odelin.’
- ‘How many universes do we need to go across?’ TLG inquired to the all-knowing Robin.
- ‘Three, so we had better keep moving. Hop on little one.’ At that, Robin scooped TLG up onto his back and off they went. Robin trotted back to the cave entrance.
- TLG surveyed the scenery a he had scrutinised earlier and could not see anything different. There were still the same trees with orange leaves that grew up long and tall and those strange flowers that moved like little upside down spiders filtering the air for little insects.
- ‘Is this universe exactly that same as the one we just came from?’
- ‘Not at all’ Robin replied.
- ‘But it looks the same.’ TLG proclaimed.
- ‘You only think it looks the same, but it is very different. One of the problems with travelling across the Quantum horizon into another universe is that changes from one universe to another can be very subtle and surprising ways.’
- Just then, Robin turns to TLG and exclaims
- ‘No time to waste! We must continue’ with that, he scoops TLG up onto his shoulders and trots out to the clearing in the orange forest out side the entrance of the cave and puts TLG back down.
- TLG plucks a blade of orange grass from the floor of the clearing and studies its closer as Robin wanders around chanting to himself some strange and unfamiliar language. It looks just like a normal blade of grass and he marvels at the thought of plucking the limb from this little flora, and wondered if it felt any pain as the sap dripped from its severed leaf.
- If this blade of grass could think, I’ll bet you it would never have imagined it would end its life like this. He mused to himself.
- Robin, who had also been staring at a patch of grass near the centre of the clearing approaches TLG and bends down to face him at his level. His eyes intensify as he searches TLG for some hidden thought or secret. Robin then lifts his head and looks stares into TLG’s lightning cloud with more curiosity than ever. TLG can see the lightning from his cloud flickering as a reflection in Robin’s huge eyes as grew ever glassier. The sparkling and flickering reflections, giving Robin an even more, menacing appearance. TLG felt as though his very soul were being drawn into those huge eyes.
- Suddenly Robin withdrew his gaze from TLG’s cloud as if snapping out of a trance and extends his huge grin to TLG.
- ‘Can I ask you to concentrate like you did before? Think of your Odelin again little one. It’s this only way we can find him.’ Robin looks anxious and, his confidence seems to wane.
- ‘Sure, if it helps.’ TLG replied slightly bewildered by Robin’s obvious emotional fluctuations.
- TLG closes his eyes to bring Odelin into his thoughts but just as his does, Robin launches into action.
- ‘Ahhhck! I knew it.’ Robin hisses. ‘This is unfortunate!’
- ‘What is wrong Robin?’ TLG asks. Seeing Robin concerned was not something TLG expected, or felt comfortable with for that matter. TLG wondered if this creature was not as powerful as he had come to believe.
- ‘It would appear that your Odelin is in a strange and remote place indeed.’
- ‘What do you mean?’
- Robin hangs his head and exhales as if he is about to deliver some bad news.
- *The Broken*
- ‘I'm afraid your Odelin resides in one of the most inaccessible universes a creature could exist in. But it all makes perfect sense to me now.’ Robin is pacing around the clearing with his paws clasped behind him.
- ‘At first I was very surprised to see you. It was hard for me to imagine a creature like you could exist let alone Odelin. I knew you were a fringe creature but now I see the complex and tenuous nature of you existence. Both you and Odelin.’ Robin glanced at TLG’s cloud again.
- ‘Where is he? Can we still get to him?’ TLG asks anxiously.
- ‘We must get to him, there is no question.’ Robin states solidly.
- ‘Why is he so unreachable?’
- Robin directs a reassuring gaze at TLG and explains with earnest.
- ‘The reason you and Odelin are here is because of a broken place. A universe afflicted with such absurd nature that it breaks the very ethics that constitute the Meta Universe. This place was created by a creature called a Starmite.’
- ‘A Starmite?’
- ‘Come little one!’ He exclaims with enthusiasm. The seriousness has gone from his face and his confidence has returned. It was as if he had suddenly stumbled upon a solution to their dilemma.
- ‘We’re off the visit the Starmites!’
- *The Scope*
- Robin outstretches his arms in front of him with his paws open with his shiny black claws extended. Robin lifts his arms into the air and makes wild circling gestures with his hands. Suddenly TLG feels a shock as the ground seams to shake and contract, then expand slightly. ‘Curious.’ he finally broke his silence.
- In front of Robin, at the centre of his circling gestures Robin seemed to be controlling a clear glass ball suspended before him.
- ‘Where did you find that?’ TLG asked, but Robin did not reply. He just kept entertaining the glass sphere suspended before him.
- TLG approached Robin and his sphere, to get a closer look. At closer inspection, it did not appear as familiar glass at all. It was as if the sphere was missing, but the lens effect of the light bending around a glass sphere remained. It also seemed to be growing.
- ‘What are you doing?’ TLG ask politely but Robin just continued to nurture his sphere.
- Robin continued mumbling to himself but also started looking around, as if he were searching for something in the forest. His gestures around the sphere grew wilder and more pronounced and his expression grew maniacal. TLG started to feel a little anxious about what would happen next. Eventually the sphere was twice his size, suspended there in mid air hovering above the ground like a giant glass ball without the glass. TLG had the impression that Robin had woven the elements of air and fire into a perfect elementary artefact that could only exist in another universe.
- Gradually Robin halts his mutterings, trots over to TLG leaving his ball floating in the air behind him.
- Before TLG could speak, Robin descends on TLG, casts him to his shoulders, turns, and leaps into the sphere he had manifested earlier. Suddenly they are weightless. As if, gravity had just disappeared. TLG floats off Robin’s shoulders and finds himself drifting away. TLG struggles to swim but it is no use. He just flounders uncontrollably. ‘What is happening?’ TLG shouts in exhilaration.
- ‘Do not worry, you will get used to it. You are in an Etherscope’.
- TLG’s hand then touches the inside of the ball. It was like touching an invisible sponge with and impossibly soft surface. TLG found he stuck gently to the surface as if by a gentle magnetism. He steadies himself and looks towards Robin. Robin was staring at him with that huge unearthly grin of his, showing off his impressive battery of teeth.
- ‘What is going on?’ TLG asks.
- ‘We are going on a voyage through the heavens, to visit the Starmites.’
|
-
- BANG!
- TLG was woken by the impact of colliding with solid ground but he was not hurt. His cloud was back in place above his head and he imaged it might have helped break his fall. But surly a cloud has not the substance.
- TLG sat up and rubbed his head.
- I wonder for how long I had been falling. He thought to himself.
- Where am I? TLG looked around. He was sitting on the ground in a field. He struggled to his feet and looked around him. The grass was almost as tall as he was and seemed to glow with bright green.
- A few yards away was an ornamental oval mirror with a beautiful polished brass frame that looked as though it had been cast with immaculate precision by a master craftsman. The mirror stood about one and a half yards high, supported by a ‘U’ shaped trestle that held the mirror in balance on both sides. The stand had beautiful ornate eagle claw legs that pierced the ground to stabilise its top-heavy form.
- Next to the mirror was a platform. It was a cream coloured platform about nine yards square and about a yard high. TLG walked past the mirror and approached the monolith. TLG touched the surface. It was perfectly smooth, without blemish and seemed completely out of place in its rich natural surroundings. It was so pristine he could clearly see his reflection and that of his arcing storm cloud in the side but it seemed also imperfect, as if it was missing substance.
- The object seemed very primitive in an aesthetic way. He reached up and grabbed the perfect edge of the monolith. It was so smooth he could barely get a grip. After a struggle, he managed to pull himself up onto the surface. He looked across at the mirror that stood about two yards away. From here, he could see more clearly, where he was.
- All around the grassland stretched into the distance in all directions. TLG marvelled at the stunning contrast of the green endless grassland and the crystal blue sky occasionally dotted with tiny white clouds. It looked so peaceful, but something did not feel right about this place. It felt even worse than when he was with the Bee. It felt as if its existence was impossible, even worse than his broken homeland or the place he had just fallen from. He felt he where falling into ever more broken realms where eventually he would break. Or maybe I am already broken. Maybe it’s I, who breaks this world.
- TLG imagined it must be broken because there was nowhere to go. No mountains, no hills, no forests. This was the central place of nowhere. He felt as if he could walk in any direction and always be walking toward this place. TLG felt as if he were getting further away from reality with every moment. But he also felt the presence of Odelin growing stronger.
- *The strange mirror and the perfect stage*
- He looked at the mirror and could see his own reflection as he stood there on the platform. Suddenly he noticed something else in the reflection in the mirror. As he looked more intently, he could make out two shapes appearing slowly from the transparency of the ether. He turned around to face what was manifesting behind him.
- *The Ghost Head*
- He looked on in amazement as the face of an old man with a beard slowly emerged in front of him. It was hovering about one yard above the platform but its beard touched the platform. It was about two yards tall and was about one and a half yards wide. The face was grey and as the apparition grew more substantial TLG could see deep age lines etched into the face as if calved by the waterways of the ages. His eyes were hollow and deep set but emitted the warm glow of kindness and nurturing.
- TLG was drawn in by this apparition and was not afraid. In a way, he felt glad that he was not alone in this strange place.
- *Robin*
- The giant floating head smiled a warm smile at TLG. Just then, TLG noticed another apparition materialising from the Ether just to the left of the giant head. TLG looked on in anticipation for what would emerge. Finally, the strangest creature stood before him.
- It was about two yards tall and looked like a large Lima or fox with great glistening eyes the size of dinner plates. It had a long snout nose and a mouth with two rows of teeth that were as sharp as needles, perfectly formed as if machined in a lathe. The creature presented the most ridiculous expression. An over enthusiastically, friendly grin that was held in such cold perfection, as cold as the ice of hell. This creature clung to the boundary of perfection and delirium. It appeared as if this creature was a giant child’s toy, the masterpiece of a genius toy maker, gone insane.
- TLG could not explain why he felt this way. It seemed so lifeless, but so wanting of life, that just being near it could suck the life out of you. TLG suddenly felt terrified by this creature. It was like the platform, too perfect. It was covered with yellowy brown fur that was so fine you barely noticed it apart from the fact it rippled and quivered in the gentle breeze of that grassland plane. How could something look so warm and cold at the same time? TLG thought to himself.
- It stood there in stark contrast to the rich intricate ethereal structure of the giant floating head.
- ‘Why have you summoned me?’ the voice boomed out from the floating head.
- ‘I did not summon you’ TLG replied.
- ‘I accidentally fell into a vortex when I was looking for my friend.’
- ‘No one accidentally falls into a vortex’ the big head pronounced.
- ‘Not that vortex! That vortex is only for summoning me’.
- ‘Well maybe it’s because you are the only one who can help me find who I'm looking for’ TLG said, seizing the opportunity to introduce his own agenda to find Odelin.
- ‘If anyone can help you find your friend I can, as I am the Ghost Head of the Meta Universe.’
- TLG contemplated this remark with awe and excitement, at the prospect of getting closer to his goal.
- ‘What is your name?’ TLG asked the giant head.
- ‘I do not know.’ replied the head.
- ‘How can you help me if you do not even know your own name?’ TLG replied puzzled.
- ‘I cannot say because that part of me is not in place yet. As you can see by my appearance, most of me is not, and I will only know my name when I am complete.’
- ‘What are you?’ TLG requested politely.
- ‘I was once a man that lived in another universe far from this one. I was getting old and did not want to die so I invented a way to live forever. As I knew that all men were just haunted skeletons, I conjectured that, if I were to present myself in the thoughts and memories of all men, then I would exist as long as the memory remained. As all we are, are just memories in a shell. The only thing left is to wait for these thoughts and memories to condense in across the quantum horizon and I would be whole once again. However, as you can see, I am still waiting to be complete. This is not an exact process’.
- ‘Then who is that?’ TLG gestured to the bizarre creature beside him.
- ‘That is Robin. Robin was created accidentally when a child in a summoned me in a dream. Robin was also in the dream. He helps me so I keep him around, he lets me posses him, so I can use his body to find traverse the Meta Universe. You see, he was created in a broken universe, a universe that does not adhere to the ethics of the Meta Universe, so as a side effect, can travel anywhere within the Meta Universe, moving between universes at will.’
- TLG stood there stunned at what he was hearing but also indifferent.
- ‘What is the Meta Universe?’ TLG inquires.
- The Ghost Head smiles looks up at the sky.
- ‘The Meta Universe is the ethics that describe all realms’
- ‘But how can ethics be a thing?’ TLG replies still very confused.
- ‘The Meta universe is not a thing, it is all things.’
- ‘But I do not really need to travel to other universes. I just need to find a friend of mine, that I have lost for a long time and was wondering if you could help me.’
- ‘But you already have travelled to another universe, have you noticed you are not in Gnome Village anymore. You do not usually fall into another universe unless you need to, even if you did not know it at the time.’
- The ghost head smiled at TLG with a warm adoring kindness that made TLG feel secure. As if he was in the protection of a mentor king that would make sure, he was kept from harm. Then, with a deep timbre voice, the ghost head said softly.
- ‘So I ask you again. Why have you summoned me?’
- TLG stared at the ghost head marvelling at the deep twisted sinews of his unrealised form. He could see a fire in his eyes, like a warm glow in the distance behind the frosted glass orbs of his eyes.
- The Ghost Head looked at TLG’s cloud and inquired.
- ‘Why does that little storm follow you?’
- ‘I was hoping you could tell me.’ TLG replied.
- TLG explained all he could to the ghost head, of his chronic lightning affliction and the story of how Odelin had appeared to him, and how he Odelin was the key, to finding his peace and how all memory of this past had been lost in distant blur of lighting and the corrosive effects of time.
- After TLG had finished explaining the best he could, he suddenly realised he may have stumbled on a shortcut to the solution of his problem.
- ‘Could you cure me of my storm?’ TLG asked the Ghost Head. The Ghost Head’s laughter boomed out across the grass planes.
- ‘I wish it were that simple, the Ghost Head replied’ I think you need to find Odelin. I certainly cannot conjure your freedom, but I will help you find you’re Odelin, if you are ready for the journey.’
- ‘What do you mean by, Journey?’ TLG asked trying to gather more information.
- ‘If you want me to help you find Odelin, we will need to travel distances and dimensions and scales you cannot even imagine, and I will need to come with you. You cannot traverse the Meta Universe alone. I cannot even do it without Robin. We need a lot of magic to find, your Odelin, little one’.
- The ghost head paused and faced TLG.
- ‘Are you ready for the journey?’
- ‘Well, I cannot live as I do now, so I guess I have no choice’ TLG replied carefully.
- *The Possession*
- At that, the ghost head rose slightly off the ground and looked at the inanimate Robin. The ghost head opened its mouth out of which a red and black striped serpent slithered and protruded towards Robin. TLG stumbled back in horror as the snake tongue slithered under one of Robin’s large mouse like ears and seemed to pierce into Robin’s brain. Robin just stood there motionless as the ghost head suddenly vanished in a cloud of smoke.
- There was silence as TLG stood there staring at Robin waiting for something to happen. Then Robin, in a cold and calculated swift movement turned his head and looked TLG square in the eyes, with his teeth glistening in the pale sunlight he opened his mouth and gasped slightly, then fully extended his preposterous grin.
- TLG shuddered and stepped back almost falling of the stage. Then the menacing Robin finally spoke.
- ‘Greetings! I am now Robin, climb onto my back and hold on tight, as we in for quite the ride.’
|
-
- When he awoke he opened his eyes but otherwise just lay there, motionless, gathering his thoughts as he tried to make sense of the previous day’s events.
- He thought to himself that, getting into such dangerous situations is something he should avoid in the future he.
- ‘I shall try being more careful today.’ He muttered as he clambered to his feet and climbed into his tunic. TLG looked out at the morning through the concave windows of the bee machine. The tranquillity of the night had been replaced with a bustling and busy morning. He could hear the birds singing and insects chirping. All manner of creatures set about their daily tasks, completely oblivious to the previous day’s events. TLG wished he could be like them. The simple creatures with simple needs, spending ones day foraging in the beautiful forest where ones only concern is finding ones next berry or nut or a rock to bask in the tranquil sunlight.
- He approached the forward controls, and set upon his way. As he rose higher, he looked down for any resemblance of danger, but all he could see was the muddy bay, the river and the waterfall with its beautiful big trees that lined the bank as the river descended from the forest.
- He lent on the lever and thrust forwards, toward the waterfall and the river to resume his quest. As he flew over the waterfall and up the valley, the trees got closer as the hilly forest gained altitude. He buzzed along through the tallest trees and relaxed, to let the drifting forest mesmerise him.
- He followed the river higher into the hills and mountains for hours. Ancient roads crisscrossed the landscape, connected with stone arch bridges that interrupted the river from time to time. He did not know where he was going so following a river seemed like the best idea at the time. As he got further inland, the beautiful landscape levelled and the river grew more complex. The river was getting smaller and shallower as he drew closer to its source. Weaving and branching, TLG always following the widest channel hoping he would spot the source of the river. The source of the river. This thought echoed through his head and bounced around, growing vaguer but more complex, until finally condensing into a revelation. I must get to the source of the river. That is the where he is.
- Just as this though entered his head, he spotted what appeared to be the source of the river. He pulled the Bee into a hover and looked on in awe at the incredible spectacle of nature before his eyes.
- Looking out from the concave compound windows of the Bee, he could see an impressive mountain with almost impossibly steep slopes that rose from the valley as if it had grown from a seed on the valley floor.
- From the bottom of the mountain, almost at the valley floor, torrents of luminous blue water poured from huge vents, which fed into the source of the river. There where sixteen in all. Evenly spaced with an eerie symmetry as if something foreboding had built it with the intention impress beholders with its power. The water pored out of the vents like giant white eels embraced in an eternal feeding frenzy, devouring each other and birthing each other, twisting and turning and boiling disappearing and reappearing with endless fury.
- *The Vortex*
- The vents were feeding into a swirling pool. As the luminous torrents flowed into the pool and melted into blue, the whole pool rotated in a clockwise vortex which spilled over the other side to feed the river, and at the centre of the vortex, was a gaping hole appeared to be consuming much of the water but also it appeared to be expelling it. As he gazed upon the eye of the vortex, he was drawn in. His thoughts were swirling and turning as if synchronised with the water, he felt this overwhelming desire to jump from his bee, into the vortex, to be devoured by it.
- After a short time, TLG pulled himself together, and managed to have a clear motive. He pulled his gaze from the vortex and retreated into the Bees middle away from the awesome sight.
- He thought he should land the Bee so he could rest think of what he should do next. He approached the controls and landed the Bee on the rocky rim of the pool. He climbed out of the hatch and stood there on the rock looking mesmerized by the vortex once again.
- Meanwhile TLG’s cloud had darkened. Usually when this happens it usually follows that TLG will experience his most unwelcome belts of lightning. TLG did not even notice, as he was so transfixed on the swirling water. The cloud started to glow as it gained power. Suddenly TLG felt a loud crack on his head as a lightning bolt surprised him, he lost balance and plummeted into the vortex.
- *The Swim*
- ‘Help?’ he cried as he swirled towards the eye of the vortex. But it was a feeble plea, with one part futility and the other part acceptance that he would end up in this predicament eventually anyway. So he stopped struggling. He felt his invulnerability return so he just let himself fall. Swilling around, he just lay floating on his back watching the sky and his cloud spin as he circum to this powerful natural force. He felt like he did in his vision back at Gnome village, falling with the elements, at one with the elements and impervious to them.
- He braced himself for the inevitable, as he disappeared down into the eye of the vortex.
- Round and round he went.
- Down and down he went.
- With his with his head above the water inside the spinning vortex. He perceived the vortex was widening. He looked up and indeed, the spinning wall of water that once surrounded him was growing and growing. Soon the vortex had swelled in width to the size of a cathedral. The water emitted a pail blue glow that allowed for a limited visibility. He looked up and down but as far as he could see, it was just water. He was in a massive tube of water spinning down and down endlessly. He wondered if I will ever see home again.
- He looked into the water around him as he was swirling down the vortex, he thought he could see shadows dancing around him under him under the surface just as he did in the honey pool but he wiped the thought from his head, as he did not care for it, sending it back to his subconscious.
- TLG decided to think ahead realising he was going somewhere marvellous indeed. TLG looked down and noticed that the vortex was narrowing and before he could think another thought, he found himself falling through the air.
- Free falling he looked up at the vortex as he descended at speed. It resembled retracting tornado. Eventually it was only a speck in the distance, finally disappearing completely.
- *The Fall*
- His mind raced as he fell but he dared not look to what he was falling to. It did not matter to him, as he felt invulnerable anyway. His tunic flapped and for a moment, he felt free. He imagined that he could fall forever. He enjoyed the sensation with the air rushing past him, as he plummeted to nowhere. Still looking up he watched as clouds rushed past him, clarify, and vanish in the distance. Meanwhile, TLG’s own cloud was missing. Although this was a welcome reprieve, he did not believe it would be very far away. He manipulated himself in the air to face the direction of his fall and found his lightning cloud. It was preceding him. Underneath him, leading him in his rush toward his destiny. TLG returned his position to facing the sky, and relaxed as the wind and the flapping sound grew more monotonous. Eventually he fell asleep.
|
-
- As TLG approached the muddy flat shoreline he eases the controls as the Bee slows to a hover and descends to the muddy floor. The legs of the Giant insect sink into the mud slightly as the wings slow to a stop.
- The trap door once jammed now opens easily and TLG clambers out. He surveys his surroundings, finding himself in a Cove. It all looks oddly familiar to him. Everywhere he looks, he has pangs of déjà vu. He looks up at the trees around him and the river running down the flat, winding its way through the mud to the sea. There were lots of Reeds and odd looking, mangled plants that grew in the mud.
- He looked up at the towards the source of the river and noticed a small waterfall with orange rocks from which beautiful ferns hung over like Huge sea anemones waiting to clasp an unwitting passersby. TLG looks to the ground down and kicks a small rock that lay on the firm mud. Just then, he feels a droplet, he looks up and notices his cloud was raining. Well just drizzling really, this was unusual for his cloud. ‘CLAP’ goes the sound familiar of the annoying lightning as it hits his head. He continues around the shore line for a while calling
- ‘Odelin? Odelin?’ However, there is no reply.
- TLG sits himself on a log under a fern tree to shelter from his cloud. Feeling depressed, hopeless, in utter despair at the thought that from now on, rain would follow him also, he gazes back to where he came from, wondering if he would ever be rid of his curse.
- Just then, he hears a distant cry for help. ‘Help me!’ He stares out over the mud, searching for the source of the plea. His eyes fall upon a stick poking out of the mud that seems to be moving. Suddenly his hair stands on end as a strong and menacing déjà vu hits him. ‘Odelin’ he gasps.
- TLG gets up and starts galloping toward the stake poking from the ground from which the voice was emanating. As he gets closer, the stick seems to change before his eyes, looking more and more like a bone or a bovine horn or tusk. He tries furiously free the object from it muddy tomb, but it will not budge. He tries to dig around the base but it is no use.
- ‘Help!’ said a voice, clearly coming from the ground.
- He leans against the horn, and it bends slightly.
- ‘Who is down there? Is that you Odelin?’ He frantically looks around for something to use. Just then, TLG notices a large rock sitting on the mud. He runs over, clasps the rock, and struggles with it, to an appropriate position and then hurls it at the protrusion. There is a sudden pop as the suction of the mud releases the device. TLG gives it a final push and the whole thing rolls to the surface revealing a large crater where it once lay buried. Thrown off balance, TLG landed yards away.
- He gets up, brushes the mud from his knees and studies object he has just liberated.
- ‘A skull’ he whispers to himself as he studies the exhumed body part carefully. The skull is about TLG’s size. Crabs and worms recoil from the light and bits of mud, loosely clinging to the bony object, randomly fall off as they succumb to gravity. It appears to be the skull of a huge bovine creature, but with teeth like a great cat and huge forward facing eye sockets.
- He peers closer looking into the eye sockets. Suddenly a squid like tentacle with red and black stripes, slithers out from the left eye socket. TLG watches in surprise as another and another and then another tentacle creep out of the left eye socket of the skull. Four tentacles clasp the rim the eye socked as if to brace something from within the skull, then slowly, a little face emerges from the centre of the tentacles.
- TLG jumps back as a small gnome like creature climbs out of the skull. The creature stared up at TLG who towered above the tiny creature of about one span in height.
- *Nemis*
- ‘You are not Odelin’ TLG remarked.
- ‘And you are most welcome?’ the small creature replied, humouring TLG for his impertinent non-introduction. The creature writhed their before TLG, on the tips of his two leg tentacles. He could not stand still as he had no feet. His little arm tentacles were writhing also, as if the small creature were battling to control them.
- ‘So who are you?’ TLG inquired.
- ‘I am Nemis the mud Gnome.’ The small creature stated with pride as he wiped some black mud from his face.
- ‘What a marvellous creature you are.’ TLG remarked.
- ‘And you should know’ the creature replied.
- The strange little creature looked like a Gnome but had four tentacles in the place of arms and legs.
- ‘How did you get down there?’ TLG asked with a humorous and slightly endearing manner.
- ‘I do not know.’ He replied.
- ‘In fact I think this dead thing used to be me.’ The little creature paused for a moment, and exclaims.
- ‘I had better go and find another me! I think I should go this is the way as the Sea is calling me. Can you hear it...?’
- The creature beckons TLG to come closer and looks TLG in the eyes and then at his cloud. TLG can see the reflection of his lightning flashes in the creature eyes. Nemis turned and looked out across the water of the cove, his face reflecting the sombre mood of the failing light.
- ‘There is a whirlpool waiting for me.’ The creature said as he stared out to sea.
- Nemis turned around to face TLG who is still kneeling before Nemis, but as Nemis looks at TLG, TLG notices the small creature complexion changing. TLG recoils in horror as he watched Nemis transform before his eyes. His once pale skin turned from light grey to black and the rims of his eyes turned blood red to match the stripes on his tentacles and his eyes blackened to match the glistening mud, still clinging to his face.
- Nemis then collapses onto his back and stares up at the sky. Then slowly as if being manipulated by some unseen magnetic force, Nemis starts to spin. TLG watches in amazement as Nemis spins faster and faster until he is just a blur. Then Nemis starts to drift across the muddy ground of the cove in the direction of the tidal river until he reaches its bank. Then, without warning, plummets into the mud, leaving behind an explosive giser of mud that eventually disperses on the muddy ground.
- ‘Wait!’ TLG cried.
- TLG was disappointed at the fact he did not get the chance to ask Nemis where he could find his Odelin. Then TLG hears a frail voice in his head like a thought but more pronounced. It was clear but unearthly, as sounds appear in dreams.
- ‘Something really bad is going to happen.’
- TLG felt a chill run down his spine as the words sunk in like a cold winter wind.
- TLG thrust his face into his hands as he tried to get the voice out of his memory.
- ‘May be I am going mad.’
- TLG turned to face the mouth of the river and stared at the orange face of the waterfall but as he does, he notices the muddy ground by the riverbank move slightly. Then a bit more as the ground heaved TLG was startled.
- *The Brittle Star*
- ‘An Earth Quake?’ though TLG. All of a sudden, the ground broke and a thin red and black striped tentacle lashed out from beneath the mud; TLG stumbles back in horror as more tentacles writhed from the mud. Time seemed to stand still for TLG as he watched frozen as the macabre seen played out before his eyes. Finally he could fully describe the creature that appeared before him. It looked to TLG like giant brittle starfish with red and black tentacles that measure three yards each in length from the centre to the tips. It had one huge eye in the centre that gleamed and blinked to wipe the mud from its shiny lens. It writhed on the spot and appeared to expand and contract with impossible physics. It was a remarkable sight to behold.
- TLG had the sudden urge to leave, as he gathered his composure and slowly walked backwards in the direction of his Bee machine being careful not to fall over while keeping his eyes fixed on the slithering beast.
- TLG was amazed as the creature started spawning new brittle stars of the ends of its tentacles. These smaller creatures grasped and clung to its parent, giving the appearance of uncontrolled infestation.
- As he receded, the creature seemed to notice him and started slithering toward him. TLG started walking backwards faster, but the thing or things approached faster still. TLG turned and ran with all of his might towards his Bee. He dived up the trap door and clambered in to the machine.
- ‘Let’s go!’ he shouted as he grabbed the lever at the front and the giant bee wings started beating furiously.
- The machine lunged into the air he wrenched the lever forward to full throttle as he gasped with panic. To his delight, the Bee ascended bravely, hovering higher and higher.
- Suddenly, without warning the Bee stopped in its tracks. TLG looked out of the Bee eyes at the scene below him. The creature that was once on the ground was now hanging onto one of the Bees legs. But it no longer resembled a starfish. The small creatures that had materialised from the stars tentacles had grown massively in number and were now changed together to form a new creature. The brittle star now took on the appearance of a dead tree with roots that was and was clinging on to TLG's bee with its branches and its roots fixed into the muddy floor of the bay.
- The tree starfish creature grabbed with more branches. TLG forced the lever backwards and forward and from side to side, attempting to free the Bee. But it was no use. The giant tree creature pulled the bee down, preparing to devour it. TLG could only look from the windows in hopeless horror.
- Gradually the Bee was pulled down to face the creature. There in front of the Bees eyes, on the trunk of the creature, a face appeared from the within the writhing braches. It was a hideously horned face with huge eyes and rows of razor sharp teeth. It gazed at TLG through the bees windows with sorrowful tears rolling down its massive cheeks and dripping down off the ends of its teeth.
- The face was covered with small brittles all slithering and tangled. New stars were appearing everywhere, some were crawling from within the creatures mouth and falling way with the tears. Smaller stars were attaching to the bee machine and clinging to the windows. TLG was so close he could even see yet smaller star creatures spawning from the tentacles of these stars. He imagined that soon, the bee along with himself, would be overcome.
- TLG looked into the creatures large black eyes and was instantly engrossed. It was as if he was looking into the face of a soul that was incarcerated in a vessel that is had no control over and was mourning for its victims as it devoured and consumed them eternally. Forever tortured by the guilt of its own destruction.
- The creature screamed like the concerted dying gasps of the population of eternity.
- TLG was drawn in as if to accept his fate, almost longing to be consumed as the massive mouth opened in hunger. He pulled himself together and released his gaze. He looked around his bee and noticed more levers on the floor. Surprised at not noticing them before, he grabbed one and heard a loud creaking sound. He looked out of the window again and noticed two large mandibles wedged between the bee and the creature before him. He pulled another lever and the mandibles slammed shut but the creature only flinched at the powerful event and as soon as the lesion opened, the brittle stars reformed and repaired themselves. TLG started pulling levers in all directions. The Bees swayed and snapped, mandibles snapping everywhere with the creature dividing and regrouping, but just as it appeared to TLG that the situation was utterly hopeless, tremendous event occurred from out of nowhere.
- Suddenly there was an enormous flash of light and then silence. TLG fell backwards to land on his back on the floor. He felt as though he had been struck by his lightning but with a hundred times the familiar force. He pulled himself to his feet and peered out the window. The once incredibly animated dark creature was now white and completely frozen along with all his minion brittle stars. No more writhing or twisting in fact nothing was moving at all except for a fine, white dust that slowly drifted earthbound past the concave windows. It was as if the creature had been turned to stone. TLG approached the window peered downward. He could see the grasping tentacles fixed and frozen on the bee machines legs.
- Suddenly there was a creaking sound from beneath him. He could see cracks appearing in the creatures limbs and white dust sprayed from the lesions like gusts of fine snow. The creature was falling apart. TLG watched as the white limbs that so tightly clasped the earth started exploding. TLG held on for his dear life and as the remaining trunk of the creature plummeted to the ground, taking the Bee with it. With a hollow thud, the Bee with TLG inside hit the ground and the bee came to rest on its belly with its legs spread out on both sites and its mandibles partly submerged in the mud .The remains of the creature lay on the top of the mud.
- All was silent. TLG lay still on the floor of his bee waiting for the next event. There was a strong smell of argon hanging in the air and the sky had turned yellow.
- It occurred to TLG that a sudden lightning bolt had bought down this creature. It was as if a large storm had suddenly gathered to strike down this beast only to disappear as fast at is gathered. TLG knew that his own storm cloud was very personal an only for him, he certainly could not control the lightning or had any inclination to.
- *The Aftermath*
- TLG could see the huge sad face of the creature from the windows as it lay on the ground, so cut down. As TLG watched, the beast decayed before his eyes. The branching tentacles turned into white dust that just blew away in the gentle breeze and those huge eyes started sinking, TLG could almost perceive a sigh of relief as the stony creatures face melted off its skull and bone finally to reveal a lonely horned skull lying empty on the muddy base.
- Serenity persisted like that of the aftermath of a battle. Although the atmosphere was probably the same as before, it seemed ghostly in contrast and after effects of the panic on TLG's constitution gave him a sense of unreality.
- He wandered over to the skull that lay on the mud. How could this be? TLG pondered at the unlikely situation in which he found himself. This is very wrong. TLG examined the skull and it was in the exact same position as when he had pulled it from the ground. The hole was still in the ground. The only outstanding difference was that the skull was clean like it had been polished by sand and tide. TLG imagined that he was stuck in a dream that was so real he could never awake, to be entombed in madness for eternity.
- He was not at all surprised when, Nemis climbed out of the river, with a begrudging look on his face, climbed into one of the eye sockets of the skull. With that, the skull sank into the mud until only a lonely horn just breaking the surface remained visible.
- *Starry Night*
- Luckily, the Bee machine did not sustain any damage in the skirmish and was standing there on the mud waiting. The sun had since just disappeared over the horizon and the air was thick with twilight. The tide had come in so far, that the water was only inches away from the Bee machine. TLG shuffled up to the water’s edge and watched as the water crept along the mud.
- The wind had died away completely now as the darkness set in. The sky was filled with stars and Galaxies and moons. TLG stared into the water, which was so flat that could see the whole universe, reflected in it. He could also see his own reflection occasionally lit up by the odd splinter of lightning, which also reflected on the underside of his little storm cloud. As he gazed down with his toes touching the water, he felt like he was standing on the edge of the world looking down into outer space. As he gazed deep into the perfect sky he felt as if something was not right with this place. With all its creatures and stars and galaxies there seemed to be something broken or distorted but he could not make sense of this feeling. Maybe it came from the way things happened here.
- Creatures do not just turn into other creatures.
- Lighting does not just come out of nowhere.
- I should not have a little cloud that shocks me eternally.
- He stared more intently down at the galaxies and the moons and the stars. He waited there and watched for something to change. He was half expecting a moon to explode or a galaxies spiral arms to suddenly animate and crawl off into the distance. Things did change, but only as one would have expected. The stars twinkled, the occasional shooting star streaked across the sky and there was soft undulating effect caused by ripples in the water that made the whole scene appear to move up and down in constant motion.
- Suddenly TLG felt very alone and a long way from home. He climbed back into his Bee and decided to sleep. He removed his tunic, placed it on the floor, and lay down using it as a pillow. He was soon asleep dreaming about very normal things.
|
-
- But he did not feel differently. He awoke before Nimrod and quickly but quietly drew together his possessions and sneaked out of Nimrods cabin.
- He stuffed his pocket with a small amount of bread started on his way.
- The stormy weather of the night had retreated but the weather was still damp and cloudy. TLG walked for days along the ridge of the Stony Mountains of which no Gnome had ever ventured. He walked up high and low, across hill and hollow, clambering when he needed. Occasionally he would stop and look out across the dark landscape hoping to catch a glimpse of the future or past. Being always mindful of the little Gnome Odelin he was searching for. He did not have a direction as he did not know where he was going. He just knew he had to go somewhere. Somewhere was better than nowhere when looking for little Gnomes. He thought a lot as he walked his lonely walk. He did not think as us normal folk think. He though in broken thoughts of confusion and b’muddlement, always interrupted by constant and relentless badgering from the storm that followed him. As he walked and thought and shocked and thought again not quite knowing if the thought he just had was a continuation of the thought he had prior to the last shock or a new thought with a memory from the past welded to it.
- After walking and thinking for a whole day he finally arrived at the base giant cliff. The cliff was so vastly high that he could not see the top. ‘This is strange’ he thought to himself not believing that such a land formation could exist. He looked from side to side and realised that there was no way around the cliff as it stretched for as far as the eye could see in both directions. He knew he would have to find his way over it some how. For hours he walked along the base of the cliff searching for a track or ridge he could climb to get to the top.
- Finally he found a narrow path that seemed to wind its way up as if chiselled from the cliff face in a way to avoid discovery. This was disconcerting as if a warning to whom ever found the path unwittingly, but he was determined to continue. So up he went very carefully up the narrow ledge hoping not to be knocked off by the lightning as it followed him up the face.
- *Cosmo*
- After climbing for hours he was becoming exhausted and new he would need to find a place to rest. He could still not see the top of the cliff of course the storm cloud that hovered over him did not help, but now he could also not see the bottom either.
- He took stock and rested on a rock perched tenuously on the ledge. Next to the rock was a large flower. A single mountain Violet growing from a crack in the granite cliff face. It looked so intricately delicate and so striking, contrasted to the colourless granite of the cliff.
- Just then a he heard a buzzing sound and a huge bumble Bee the size of TLG himself landed next to the Violet and started to collect some nectar from the solitary flower. The Bee stuck its probe onto the flower and TLG watched, as the bee seemed to grow before his eyes as if being inflated by a volume of nectar being sapped from the tiny flower.
- Just then the flower snapped back into the rock as if being yanked through from the other side. The bee then dropped to the ridge, looked at TLG and asked. ‘Are you looking for someone?’ The bee was beautiful with soft downy fur covering a black and yellow striped body. Every part of that bee was clean and new and healthy and it’s eyes where the deep and glistening.
- Gathering his thoughts TLG answered the fat bee. ‘A small Gnome that goes by the name of Odelin, I am on a quest to find this Gnome. Do you know where I could find him?’
- The bee paused with reflection and replied.
- ‘No, but I know of two small creatures that have recently appeared in our cave, that once where but are not anymore. If you follow me I can show you and you may see more than from where you now stand.’
- Just then the bee struggled into the air and buzzed off. TLG watched as it disappeared into a large opening in the side of the cliff further up the path. Taking to his feet, TLG clambered up the narrow path until he could more clearly see the cave entrance. The cave positioned off the main path, off a side ledge that was even narrower than the main ledge. Carefully TLG edged his way along the path until he made it to the entrance of the cave.
- The cave was only just large enough for TLG to stand in.
- As TLG walked along the inside of the narrow cave, he noticed that the cave was illuminated by tiny orange mushrooms that grew along the inside of the cave wall. These mushrooms pulsated with a mallow glow that seemed to emit calm and happiness. As he walked yet further, the cave got wider and wider and occasionally, bees would buzz past not paying TLG any attention for which he was quite glad of as attention from bees is not always pleasant.
- *The Honey Pool*
- Finally he caught up with the bee that before had invited him to the cave. The bee stood on the edge of a recession in the cave floor. The recession was a glow with orange mushrooms and was half full of clear liquid honey which was hypnotically churning like a whirlpool that appeared to be constantly draining but never emptying. The smell was enchanting as it reeked of nourishment and security.
- ‘Welcome to my cave, Gnome! We are the Chasmites and my name is Cosmo’
- TLG looked curiously at Cosmo standing there before his strange whirling pool of honey draining into an abyss.
- ‘Greeting to you Cosmo I am The Lightning Gnome and may I ask you a question?’
- ‘Certainly’
- ‘Where does all that honey go?’
- ‘We know not.’ the Bee replied. ‘This whirlpool of honey has only recently appeared before us thus we behold it as a mystery. Yesterday morning we awoke, and there it was. Maybe it has something to do with you.’ The Bee said staring puzzled at TLG’s lightning cloud. The orange glow under TLGs features and the lightning flashes above must have been a sight to behold for the Bee.
- ‘A lot of strange things have been happening lately and you are one of the strangest.’
- ‘And you are quite strange to me.’ TLG replied.
- The bee gestured for TLG to look down into the recess. He peered into the whirlpool and noticed two Gnome skeletons immersed in the honey near the edge of the pool. TLG was shocked as had never seen a real Gnome skeleton before, at least he guessed they where Gnome skeletons.
- He studied the two artefacts carefully and noticed something was amiss. The two skeletons appeared to have bird wings in the place of arms. He could see the long bony stretched out fingers a bird needs to support its wing feathers for flight, he marvelled at the intricacy of the bones in the fingers. Fine bones were splayed out from the knuckles, so fine and delicate but somehow contrived in appearance. Out of place as if they had been invented by a clock maker and attached to the Gnome skeletons to in place of the real limbs.
- He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the Gnomes with wings soaring through the air like a bird, he imagined the wind blowing and the rain falling and suddenly the bird gnome lost all control and started falling into space. Again he felt that freedom had had experienced back at the village. TLG’s mind was falling free and he lost all awareness of his surroundings. His lightning cloud stirred into action and shocking him causing the image if the flying Gnomes to be cut from his mind only to be replaced by a strange symbol. It persisted in his mind’s eye, as if burnt in by the intensity of the flash lightning. It was the image of a white circle with two spiral arms elegantly balanced. The image was bright and warm. It seemed to beckon him, as if it were calling him home. Like the mother he never had, was just waiting inside with a broad and benevolent smile. He imagined the spiral arms would reach out to embrace him.
- But the sense warmth was soon followed by a familiar sense of loss and dispossession. Suddenly the bright welcoming arms had turned into dark tentacles.
- TLG snapped out of his daydream in horror. He looked around at the cave walls that seemed to be writhing. He panicked and almost fell over.
- ‘Lightning Gnome!’
- TLG found himself in the clutches of Cosmo’s spiny arms.
- ‘You almost fell into the pool.’
- ‘Forgive me Cosmo. I lost my composure momentarily; It’s has been happening to me a lot lately.’ TLG calmed down as he realised the wall were not moving. ‘But a trick of the light...’ he whispered to himself.
- ‘What do you search for Lightning Gnome?’ Cosmo asked TLG with earnest. TLG turned his gaze to Cosmo. Cosmos eyes were heavy and fixed on TLG, as if he too were searching. TLG marvelled at the Cosmo’s complexion. His face was similar to a Gnome’s with similar features as his own, but covered in beautiful soft downy black fur. His large compound eyes where black and glistening. TLG could see his reflection many times over in the honey cone parts, occasionally dazzled by the flashes from his lightning cloud.
- ‘I am searching for home my friend. Odelin is the only one who can show me the way. This is why I need to find him.’
- ‘You too have this sense Lightning Gnome?’ Affirmed Cosmo as though he found what he was searching for in TLG’s eyes.
- ‘You know of Odelin too?’
- Cosmo disengages from TLG’s close quarters and hovers down to the entrance to the tunnel to gaze out at the world below him.
- ‘I am afraid I do not know of Odelin. But I do sense that all is not well with our existence. I could see in your eyes that you feel this also. I sometimes look at the landscape and see it moving, shifting before my very eyes as if it were crawling with something menacing. We Bees all feel it. We try to come to terms with ourselves and our place, our destiny. We try to tell ourselves we are a natural part of the world but we fail to fool our conscience. So we just wait for some sign. This is why we find your arrival so intriguing. This Honey pool just appeared to us yesterday. We sensed it was a prelude to something, and then you arrived.’
- ‘Well, I assure you. I have nothing to do with that pool. I'm just looking for Odelin. But I draw comfort in the knowing that I am not the only one that feels this way. My own contemporaries back at Gnome Village assume I am insane.’
- TLG looked at the Skeletons under the honey.
- ‘Thank you kindly for your help my friend. But I really must get going. I need to keep going but I'm sure we will meet again. Do you know of a way though the impasse?’
- Cosmo chucked and replied.
- ‘I would not be an impasse if you could get though now would it.’
- TLG just shrugged.
- ‘Then how am I to continue?’
- ‘All of our existence we have never found a way over the wall. We have flown for days until utterly exhausted, but never have we reached the top. We think it must be the edge of this world. But then again. We have never had a whirlpool of honey mysteriously appear in our cave floor before. I wonder if this is your way through.’
- ‘You mean swim down into the honey pool. But I would surly die.’ TLG was feeling anxious, as the inevitable seemed to be encroaching upon him like a pack of wolves.
- Cosmo just glared at TLG with an obvious ironic look.
- ‘I believe that would be as unlikely as this pool. Have you seen anyone die before?’
- ‘No’ TLG replied glumly.
- ‘Although we are supposed to die. Right?’
- TLG though this was strange. ‘We know of death but we never die. This is exactly the kind of absurd paradox I have been fruitlessly trying to convey to my good friend back at the Village.’ TLG let out a sigh of resignation.
- ‘Well I guess I have no choice but to swim.’ TLG said as he turned to Cosmo.
- ‘But have you ever had a choice?’ as Cosmo spoke those words they sent a chill down TLGs spine.
- ‘You should take those skeletons with you. I have a feeling they are of significant value to you on your quest.’
- TLG lent down and gently reached into the honey pool. He gently picked up the skeletons and placed them into his right pocket.
- ‘Thank you Bee, I trust your good judgement as I dread this perilous descent into a whirling pool of honey. It’s forceful grip I fear I could not resist. So I may suffer the same fate as those Gnome Birds in my pocket.’
- ‘Just swim strong and do not look back Lightning Gnome!’ Cosmo replied.
- TLG braces himself, looking into the churning mass. But his fear melts away. He feels it is the right path. He leans over the rim and jumps in, head first, his lightning cloud disappearing after him.
- *The Swim*
- As TLG swam down and down into the centre of the whirlpool he feels strangely invulnerable again. Similar to the way he felt soon after the apparition of Odelin appeared to him. TLG did not need to swim with much ferocity as the current was strong. As he swam further down, he thought he could hear distant chanting as if some mob of Gnomes were celebrating. He struggled to adjust his eyes to the honey as he peered into the golden darkness. But the golden darkness was not void. He senses those cursed tentacle again, but this time, he felt he were in their domain. The very darkness itself seemed to be animated with thousands of dark tentacles reaching out for him, each other, themselves, knotted, tangled, helpless. He had to turn away and keep swimming.
- He looked down into the swirling centre and noticed a dim light in the distance. He hastened his swimming, slicing with his arms and kicking with his legs. He was suddenly startled by two tentacles grazing him on either side. He pulled his arms in to protect himself from the attack but to his horror, he realises that the two tentacles are his own arms. He tries to scream but just gurgles, nearly choking on honey.
- Suddenly he is engulfed in light as he falls from the honey, onto a hard floor onto his side. He quickly sits up and shakes his head violently, to release the honey coating from his eyes, to glare at his arms. They are just arms. How curious... he thought. TLG assumes his mind was playing tricks on him again, but somewhere in a dark culvert in his mind there is nagging scenario. Maybe Odelin is sending him a sign, a warning. But the idea is too dangerous. He would rather it just be his fantasy.
- Licking off the last of the honey, TLG looks around himself to discover where he was.
- There were two round windows on the opposite wall. TLG approached the windows and gazed out. The windows were made of honey cone shaped pieces which were made of smaller honey cone pieces. Each smaller piece was itself made of ever deceasing smaller pieces. It was an amazing window. Never before had he seen such an intricately crafted window, or anything for that matter. Between the two round windows was I yellow and black striped lever with a large red ball on the end. Above the lever was a sign that read ‘Control’.
- He peered from one of the windows and marvelled at the view beneath him. Such was the grandeur of the scenery it was breathtaking.
- There were mountains and grand arched bridges with rivers rolling down hill, and roads and trees and waterfalls, and there were silver lined clouds, it was fantastic. There were butter flies and strange birds and steam clouds poured out of valleys below. The sun shone brightly down on everything. This is where I must be, he thought to himself. But how will I get down? The lever was beckoning him like the giant delicious sweet.
- *The Bee Machine*
- TLG pulls himself away from the windows. He walks around the cave looking for a door. The walls of the cavern are also beautiful. In fact, the whole cavern was lined with yellow and black pinstriped velvet. He runs his hands along the velvet walls, attempting to perceive some hidden crease or texture that would suggest an opening or door in the velvet. He looks up to see where he fell in from but the ceiling of the cavern lined with the same velvet carpet.
- Then he found it. Right under his feet as if it appeared from nowhere. ‘A hatch!’ TLG reached down and grabbed a small handle near the edge of the hatch an pulled with all his might but it did not budge. As if it were locked from the other side. Then he remembers the control lever.
- But what does it control? TLG guessed it must be a lever to unlock the hatch so he grabbed the red knob of the yellow and black lever and gently pulled it back. TLG suddenly became aware of a beating sound getting louder and louder so he stopped pulling the lever and the sound stopped getting louder but it did not stop completely.
- He walked over to the hatch and tried to pull it again but it was still stuck fast. He pulled the lever again, the sound got louder and faster and suddenly the cave shook and groaned. ‘How can the cave be moving?’ Mustering courage from curiosity and thinking to himself ‘If you have a lever, then it must be for pulling’, he yanked the lever back completely.
- The sound escalated into an enormous buzzing the cave shook wildly and without warning, TLG found himself thrust against the ceiling of the cavern. The cave launched itself off the cliff face and started plummeting down to the valley below at enormous speed.
- TLG fell back to the floor with a thud. He grasped for the lever, instinctively pushing it forward to reverse the situation. The cave suddenly swooped upwards as if under its own power. The buzzing sound seemed to labour as the cave stopped falling. TLG, confused and frightened, just stood there, frozen with his hands on the lever, as if any move he made might break the equilibrium, sending him plummeting back to the earth.
- Eventually his composure was regained and he started to relax. He even started to enjoy this precarious experience.
- ‘Flying?’, ‘I'm flying!’ shouted TLG. His little cloud was bursting with little sparks that crackled on his head.
- ‘But how can a cave fly?’ He let go of the lever and it held in steady flight. He pushed his face into the concave the window and looked up. To his amazement, he discovered the source of the intense buzzing sound. Giant bee wings were beating up and down so fast you could he barely see them. Looking down he could see huge insect legs and mandibles large enough to chop a tree in half. The Lightning Gnome was flying inside a giant Bee.
- ‘Wow, I'm a Bee I'm a Bee Look at me!’ He pushed the lever forward and the Bee flew up. He pulled the lever back and the Bee flew down. If he pushed the lever right, the Bee would turn right. TLG was very satisfied with his new found flying machine. ‘This is just what I need to find my Odelin’.
- *The Monkey Birds*
- As he was flying he looked out of the window and noticed he had company. A flock of the strange looking birds he had seen earlier were following him and looking into the windows of his Bee with curiosity. There were about fifty. They were the strangest birds he had ever seen. They were about six spans long and had brightly coloured feathers and wings like a bird, but they had faces like monkeys. No real nose or beak to speak of. Their faces looked oddly Gnomesk, but were covered completely with feathers with big protruding blunt teeth and large black eyes which made their appearance very creepy. One pulled up close to TLG’s window, its huge wings beating strong and methodically as it peered in. He was so close that TLG could see stains on his feathers around his mouth. TLG imagined it to be the blood of its last meal and was hoping it did not intend for him to be his next.
- TLG presses the lever forward and the Bee speeds off leaving the strange creatures behind. He feels powerful and secure in his newly acquired transport.
- TLG tries to remember what Odelin was telling him. He also thinks about where Odelin could be. He peers from the compound eyes of the giant Bee. But as he does not know which way to fly, he decides to just follow the Sun.
- He follows the Sun for hours, keeping a close eye on the landscape beneath him. He imagined it would change, but oddly as it repeating, it seems always familiar. Bridges and rivers, roads and smoke stacks pouring from the valleys below him. Along with the ever present flocks of monkey birds.
- Hours had passed and TLG was starting to find this flight path monotonous. It felt like the Sun was just leading him around in circles. He scourers the landscape for unfamiliar features, notices a shoreline in the distance. He presses his nose against one of the windows and gazes in the direction of the shoreline.
- Suddenly a ghostly vision appears to him in his mind. It is of Odelin and a muddy flat shoreline. TLG is looking down at Odelin, who has a foreboding expression. TLG grabs his head and winces with emotional anguish as he recoils from the disturbing images. Those eyes haunted him. He turns the Bee heads towards the shoreline. Feeling that he may discover something he may not want to find.
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- *Gnome Village*
- Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a small creature called, Lightning Gnome, or ‘The Lightning Gnome’ (TLG hereafter). A descriptive title bestowed upon him by his contemporaries on account of his disposition which I will elaborate on shortly.
- He lived on the outskirts of Gnome Village in a small cave. He stood about one foot high (not including his hat) and had large sallow green eyes and a long greyish white beard. He wore green linen clothing including a tunic and britches that where held up by a belt with a large shiny silver buckle. On his feet, he wore big brown boots made of leather and on his head a scarlet red hat. In fact he looked much like one would expect a Gnome to look but for one very curious feature which brings us to his disposition; being:
- As long as he can remember he has been followed around by a small Storm cloud about eight inches round and six inches tall that hovered about six inches above his head from which an unsteady stream of lightning bolts continuously arced between him and the cloud. As if he were some very desirable lightning rod to this cloud.
- Most of the time the lightning is more like little sparks than bolts, so TLG gets used to it along with his contemporaries.
- It is considered rare to be hit by lightning. To be hit by lightning more than once in ones life time, is considered to be either miraculous or curse-ed which ever way you look at it.
- As you can imagine, this was rather annoying to the other Gnomes in his village although he was tolerated on account of his magical presence.
- TLG and the other Gnomes in the village went about their daily business as usual. Most days were spent cultivating and reaping grain to make bread and beer of which most nights were spent consuming it.
- *Nimrod*
- TLG had a very good friend called Nimrod. Nimrod lived in a hole in a log that lay not far from TLG’s cave. TLG and Nimrod would spend many hours arguing and philosophising while they drank beer and ate bread around TLG’s supper table. Although sometimes TLG could not concentrate for too long before being zapped by his lightning, he could still hold a good conversation. In fact it was often a source of amusement when TLG would muddle thoughts and concepts sometimes creating bizarre but delightful thought permutation.
- But it would also drive TLG to despair. TLG just wished he could find an escape from his relentless cloud. It was also one of the most popular topics were the incumbent cloud TLG carried with him and the stormy weather that dampened and lightened TLG’s existence.
- What purpose did it hide?
- But no matter what crazy ideas they came up with, nothing seemed to explain the strange adornment and its lightning.
- TLG was also convinced there was something wrong with himself and creatures that inhabited Gnome village. TLG had ideas and concepts for which he could not explain. He knew of children, but he cannot remember ever seeing them, or ever being one himself. He was constantly overwhelmed by a sense that he was broken somehow. Not by his melancholy but more by his unreasonable lightning cloud. Being a creature of much discipline of thought and reason, he could not reasonably explain this phenomenon. It seemed impossible.
- *The Vision*
- One stormy night when TLG was sitting alone in his cave after Nimrod had retired to his log, TLG noticed that his storm cloud appeared to be more vigorous than usual. This was strange to TLG because usually a flask of beer with his friend Nimrod tended to calm the cloud of lightning.
- TLG did not pay too much mind to this. Maybe it was to do with the terrible weather outside. It had been raining for days and the wind and rain sometimes exasperated his own little storm. He just sat their on in his chair and marvelled at the dancing light reflected on the wall of his cave, emitted from his lightning. As he watched with glazed eyes he started to notice forms and shapes in the shadows on the walls. TLG was amused by the patterns and forms at first but as he watched more intently he felt this sudden sense of urgency. The broken shapes in the shadows seemed to be attempting to gather, and form as if desperately try to be something. As if the shadows themselves were struggling into existence.
- Finally it was revealed to TLG as an apparition in the strobing flickering light that his lightning cast against the walls of his cave. It was the shattered image of a tiny frail Gnome. As he sat there, watching the image darting in and out of existence like a long lost memory attempting to surface but falling back into déjà vu. He felt a deep and profound sense of loss and dispossession. He could not explain this feeling as it seemed to come out of nowhere. It was as if the apparition was the memory of a long lost friend that he could no longer remember.
- Was something trying to communicate with him?
- He had never felt anything like this in his life. As he just sat there transfixed to this incarnation, the sound of distant thunder and rain made him feel disembodied and he suddenly longed to flying with the rain and blowing on the wind and free falling with the elements. Along with this he felt a strange sense of power and invulnerability. As if he were impervious to nature itself. As if he could tumble and fall into the elements without any consequence to his mortality, but only to invigorate him.
- TLG emerged from his trance as the images faded into broken thoughts, and he wondered if he had been dreaming. But he knew this was nothing like any dream he had before. The inspirational notions of freedom that had haunted him during this episode persisted so strongly that he was compelled to make a fateful decision.
- *The Fever*
- TLG ran to Nimrods log and banged on his door hard with his fist.
- ‘NIMROD, LET ME IN, I MUST SPEAK WITH YOU!’ he shouted from outside Nimrod’s door.
- Nimrod opens the door and ushers TLG into his log. ‘What is up my friend’ Nimrod asks with a concerned look on his face’.
- ‘I must find him!’ TLG gasps incoherently. ‘I saw him on the wall of my cave. He was cast in the shadow of my lightning and I need to find him.’ TLG pants.
- ‘Calm down my friend, here have a cup of tea’ Nimrod says trying to eek sense from his friend. ‘What are you saying? Find who?’
- ‘Odelin!’
- ‘Who is Odelin?’
- ‘Odelin, do not you remember? He was our friend, many years ago. At least I think he was.’
- ‘Come on TLG, I have known you all my life. I have never known of an “Odelin”. Are you going barmy?’
- TLG pauses for a minute as he tries to picture Odelin, all those years ago. ‘I can see him in my mind’ TLG mutters finally. ‘But I do not know how he got there’ TLG looks puzzled but then regains his conviction.
- ‘What is he TLG?’
- ‘He a little Gnome.’
- ‘What? A baby Gnome?’
- ‘No!’ TLG gasps, ‘He’s a small Gnome about three inches tall. And anyway. How do you know what a baby is if you have never seen one! I know there is something wrong with you too.’
- ‘You are speaking nonsense TLG. What is wrong? What are you talking about?’
- TLG sighs and hang his head. ‘I need to find him. He knows of a land far from this one where we would all be free of my storm, and I could lose my little cloud for good.’
- Nimrod was starting to imagine TLG had finally succumbed to the lighting strikes to his brain and he was in fact mad. ‘You’re not making sense I'm afraid. We have talked about this for years and we have never mentioned and small Gnome called Odelin. I do not even believe such a creature could exist, my friend. Your little rain cloud is part of you and you were destined to bear it.
- Everything has a reason and a cause. You cannot change that which has been set in motion. So you should remove this notion from your head at once and we will be the better for it.’
- TLG hesitates for a moment and then retorts.
- ‘But what if it is my destiny to find this place of peace. Why would I suffer this vision otherwise!?’
- Nimrod’s face softens to calm TLG.
- ‘Are you sure you did not just dream this?’ He asks in a slightly patronising fashion.
- TLG considers what his friend is saying. He understands, Nimrod’s scepticism but his heart knows Odelin was real. Everything in his perception screams it. It was as if he was experiencing an alternate existence, as though his past had suddenly been erased from history and replaced with another. His experience is so persistent that he could not imagine ever not knowing Odelin.
- ‘The light was just playing tricks on you TLG. There is no Odelin. You can go a bit barmy with your lightning sometimes. You know this. You must sleep here tonight, I will make you a nice bed and you will forget this in the morning.’
- ‘I cannot expect you to understand. I know it sounds crazy, and maybe I am going mad, but I need to tell you something.’
- ‘What is it?’ Nimrod enquires cautiously as if knowing he was not going to like the message. Nimrod just looks at TLG and waits for his announcement. Nimrod can see is the odd silhouette of a Gnome shrouded with a halo of white fire and where the smell of argon permeates the air in his log hut. TLG’s lightning always gets worse when he is exasperated.
- ‘I do not think very well with all this lightning I know, I do not even remember why I am as I am, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that we are all in grave danger. From what, I do not know, but I'm sure I remember Odelin and his place of freedom and happiness, free from this curs-ed Lightning and weather bane’ TLG cleared his throat as a series of little sparks arc from his little cloud to his head.
- ‘I shall go forth to find the little Gnome called Odelin. I do not really know what I will do when I find him or even If I will find him at all, but I know I have to go.’
- TLG retires to the bed that Nimrod laid for him in front of the fire. He pulls up his blanket and closes his eyes.
- ‘Just wait until the morning my friend. You may feel differently then.’
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