2012 Part 19

'Well, it's not exactly a secret on Olympus, Zeus did make rather a song and dance about you and 2012. You were there for the announcement.'

'What about Hades, does he know?'

'Well he wouldn't know directly, and there's only me, Hecate and Persephone officially allowed to cross the barrier and we don't talk about the other side when we're down here. But I should think so. He's n.o.body's fool the old boy, even if it was none of us told him, he probably has other ways of getting to know things. He has links with a lot of mortal people on the other side, even though the G.o.ds don't communicate with him. But I wouldn't know about Yahweh, He goes on about his omniscience, as you know, and so is likely to be in touch with Hades or his agents.'

'And that's my problem,' Alexander hunched down against a rock opposite Hermes and put his head in his hands. He sat for a few seconds thinking deeply and rising slowly fixed his eyes at the drear landscape between the dark airless trees. 'I've been brought up by Mnemosyne and have an awareness of Remembrance but no real experience of it. Barboncito you mentioned is full of it, its meaning is in every pore of his being. My friend Marina has it too and...'

'You want to stick with her my friend, there's more to that one than meets the eye. I do believe our mutual father, has cast a glance in that direction, except Hera has seen his eye wander and she's not got over his dalliance with your mother for him to try his hand again so soon - and with all this going on, well - the timing's not altogether right - if you get my drift?'

Alexander was shocked and deflected in his thoughts by the idea of Marina caught in the sights of the lecherous old G.o.d.

'Good grief! You don't mean that everything I do is known by you all on Olympus or on the top floor of the JNO building!'

'Gossip is what we thrive on, especially about the doings of our favourites, what else is there to do in eternity? Isn't that what G.o.ds are for? After all we've done the creation thing and if you can't play with the things you've made, what else is there? The problem is we're getting a bit bored with you and it's time you all grew up and got on without us. But...if we abandon you, we leave Gaia to Hades and if you can't control him - but you know all about that from Themis and Lucina, you don't need me to spell out what you're here for.'

Alexander's thoughts were so confused and dejected that Hermes was forced to use his powers on the meld to lever them into a different mind-frame. He leapt nimbly down from his perch and grasped him by the elbows lifting him to his feet. He walked him gently but firmly to a small concealed rise to give them a vantage point over the road of the dead revealing the line of the horizon as a bright land beyond the gloomy mist in which they stood. Alexander felt his heart lift, the far, slim strip of light offered hope of something good in this drear world. Between him and it however lay the river Styx with its sole crossing at Charon Point. Hermes introduced a new dimension into the mind-meld which hinted at far countries of the past.

'You will find Barboncito in that far ribbon of brightness. He is there waiting for you and prepares for your coming.'

'How do you know?' asked Alexander feeling better now he could see somewhere to go beyond the shaking shades of the aspen wood by the thronging dead. He looked forward to reuniting with the attractive Navajo, despite his jealousy about Marina, Barboncito seemed to beckon him towards his goal. He would eventually be obliged to confront Hades here in his kingdom, but he was not yet ready. Barboncito held keys to his work in the Underworld and he was anxious to find him. First he had to negotiate the check-point without discovery. Responding within the meld Hermes continued the communication.

'Now will you listen! Stop doubting, all will be explained in due course. Keep faith in us and you will survive in this land. Now this visor, as I've been trying to tell you, will keep you out of trouble and get you across the Styx, if you use it correctly. It's a vast improvement on the invisibility helmet I used to have. According to Hephaestos it uses all the benefits of virtual reality and adds some new features which means it's more than just virtual. I don't understand the technology, but working it is simple enough. As you know there's a different Chronosphere down here, since n.o.body is material they can visit any part of the realm easily. However beings of substance stand out as mortal...'

'What about Barboncito? Doesn't he stand out?'

'Listen and stop contaminating the meld,' Alexander thought nothing - admonished.

'You also don't listen properly. A lot of what goes on here is in you already. Barboncito is known to you.' Alexander was full of questions which Hermes pointedly ignored, he distinctly felt his mind shoved aside.

'What the visor does is take the information in your mind and ties it in with the reality you experience externally. It synthesises both into new experience which you can control when you get the hang of it. It's a bit like driving a car, the secret of making it work well, is clutch-control. I can't explain it you'll have to try it out for yourself. I can't take you through it now, I'm needed elsewhere, ever since Zeus started this thing I've been rushed off my feet with messages. Strange how when the chips are down the 'sphere is too leaky to allow the most important messages to be sent down timelines and we resort to carrying them physically by messenger.' With that, as suddenly as he appeared, Hermes was gone.

Alexander lifted the helmet and visor from the ledge and placed it on his head. The helmet was extremely light, shaped a little like those used for cycling, but of much finer stuff. It needed no strap to fit perfectly and seemed to mould to his head like an old and comfortable hat. The opaque visor, hinged on either side, pulled down to cover the whole face. Immediately a skein of images and feelings began a kaleidoscopic whirl. His experience with the 'sphere made him less surprised than he would otherwise have been, but his inability to control the speed and fury of the pictures made him tear the instrument from his head before he lost his balance. Clearly, the thing worked, but it would take some getting used to. He remembered his driving lessons and the sheer complexity of the actions needed to feel in control, as well as to keep awareness of the world outside the car. He lifted the visor before replacing the helmet on his head. He looked southwards towards the bright strip on the horizon, checked out the foreground where the seething ma.s.s of shades continued pouring along the roadway below, and to a bearing on Checkpoint Charon in the middle distance.

Slowly this time, he lowered the visor. Keeping his mind on what he had just observed, he allowed his feelings and knowledge of them suffuse the screen. Shocked at the intensity of his feeling, in contrast with the paucity of his knowledge, he sat on the ground staring hard at the images in the visor. As he concentrated, the sense of external image disappeared and he entered a fantastic new inside-out world. The edges of his body melted and the outside entered into him. At the same time his understanding of the world increased as in a dream when the known and the sensed become certainty. Steadying his mind with his memorised retinal image of his physical place, he found he could move bodily from the spot to follow the contours of the land. At first he seemed to ascend high above the landscape, like a bird, soaring on an up-draft of air, while he feet stayed rooted to the ground. Spread far below were vast tracts of the four territories of Hades.

He saw the route he and Pannie had taken and the place where the Sipapu must have exited and he saw the small shape of his mule grazing upstream on the banks of the Styx. The flows of other rivers wound their way through the fields of dank asphodels and groves of grey aspens. Far in the distance, due south, lay the bright land of Chronos' Elysium from where beckoned Barboncito. In the east, almost invisible in silver haze he made out the towers of Erebus, seat of Hades and Persephone, the centre of Hadean authority. Far to the north beyond the Lake of Memory and its greater sister Lethe the lake of Forgetfulness, beyond the forest of white cypresses rose the treacherous hills, mountains and gorges of Tartarus. The grey fields of asphodels lay below him on the other side of the Styx and the road of the dead pa.s.sed directly under him.

At Charon Crossing, crowds of the dead milled on its Western side, awaiting the formalities which would allow them to pa.s.s singly over the new bridge to a place where three roads met. There another bottle-neck occurred in their otherwise orderly pa.s.sage. In an attempt to get a closer view at what he a.s.sumed was the immigration control check of Rhadamanthys, he lost control and careered downwards in any and every direction, until in total alarm he found himself unable to stop colliding with the crowd of shades milling around checkpoint Charon.

Unable to halt, he braced his mind for a crash. Instead he pa.s.sed through the crowd, and soared again over the river on the other side. So, he thought, in this mode I am as incorporeal as they. This knowledge with that of the topography of Hades provided by Thea helped him steady his mind and soon he could soar anywhere, finding his way by the map in his head. Gradually he could direct his progression by adding new knowledge of external reality to his internal information.

If I think - 'flying' - he thought, and then think 'Lake of Memory' and of Mnemosyne and the times we spent remembering I should find myself directed to the lake which is just about due east of where I met Hermes. The effect was magical. He was at the lake-side in an instant. He focussed on the gla.s.sy surface. Staring fixedly he perceived movement stretching back and back, like facing mirrors, image upon image, down a timeline beginning with his consciousness as the fixed point. To join the movement he had only to enter the pool to be sucked ever downwards into timelessness - from now to the point of generation. In a moment of blind panic, feeling himself drawn irresistibly into the water and frightened at the possibility of again becoming lost in realms for which he was not prepared and not knowing how to prevent the inevitable, he tore off the helmet at the very brink, only to find himself, somewhat unsteady on his feet, at the same place where Hermes had left him.

Nevertheless he was relieved that it was possible to have ultimate control over the instrument, even if it meant a sudden return. It was like pushing the b.u.t.ton off and then on a computer when it starts to go haywire. Crude but effective. He also wondered if it damaged the helmet to treat it so. Donning it again momentarily, he was relieved to find no obvious defects. He would have to find a better way of controlling it. Sunk in thought he remembered the net of Zeus. He invoked the name of its creator in his mind and he felt it tighten familiarly around his shoulders. As with the 'sphere the net acted as an intermediary with the visor and smoothed out some of the more unpredictable quirks of its functioning. Hephaestos had made the helmet for Hermes whose facility with the 'sphere would be a.s.sumed. Zeus' net acted like automatic gears, effortlessly smoothing and linking.

Using the net by 'thinking through it' Alexander made several mind sorties to different parts of the country. He found he could travel instantly anywhere in his head; but he was seriously frustrated when he came to 'land' in any particular place. For as soon as he removed the helmet he found his body had remained where it started - on the wrong side of the Styx. He tried another experiment which at first left him bruised and battered but with a little practice he was able to manage tolerably. He found it was possible, by dint of great concentration, to walk while in mind mode. He had to keep two parts of his mind separated, a little like scratching his head with one hand while making circular motions on his belly with the other. His first attempt tumbled him unceremoniously down a bank of stones and brambles, close to the path of the shades progressing eerily and steadily. His second attempt threw him into a grove of trees where he tripped and landed awkwardly against a gnarled trunk, painfully grazing his hand. Several tries later, just as he thought he had the hang of it, he ploughed straight into a group of young soldiers on the road. Unable in his surprise to manage his sense of direction and expecting to be noticed, he stood stock-still, only to find they continued to march, making a detour round him, without seeming to be otherwise aware of his presence. Switching his attention to the visor he found he could see himself among the crowd but appeared unseen by them. He continued walking, watching himself from above. He at once realised he was using Hermes' new helmet, as it were, back to front. In his preoccupation with the technology of the visor together with his anxiety of being in an alien environment, he had quite forgotten the original helmet made the wearer invisible. In the same moment it came to him that Hermes had stolen the helmet from Hades and in all probability Hades would want it back. It was too late to worry about that now. Thanks to his half-brother he would able to pa.s.s the checkpoint as well as observe himself doing it. He had complete freedom of movement as well as the ability to see all around and visit places in his mind before encountering them in the flesh. The strong possibility of his invincibility in a strange land made him walk with a new confidence. Zeus' net controlled the visor function with minimum conscious effort. He could go anywhere, see anything and remain aloof from the reality of the place. Or so it seemed.

He fell into step with the group of soldiers who made s.p.a.ce for him, like water in a stream pa.s.sing an obstacle. Using the visor he lazily floated ahead to the checkpoint to see how difficult it would have been to have pa.s.sed undetected. A close scrutiny showed it to be similar to any other frontier checkpoint. There were two booths on either side of the bridge. In each was a figure in blue serge uniform, both with a good deal of silver and gold scrambled-egg on cuff and epaulettes, plus impressive looking badges on the breast pocket and cap-front.

Each traveller was taken through a lengthy questionnaire which the functionary laboriously keyed into a computer. The whole process lasted several minutes, which accounted for the numbers of shades milling around the checkpoint. No one was in any kind of hurry and in the dim light the whole procedure seemed to take place in slow-motion and under water. Alexander decided he would have had great difficulty pa.s.sing undetected between the two booths to join the shades on the far side making their way to the point where three roads meet. Invisible, it was easily accomplished. Increasing his pace he soon threaded his way unseen to the head of the queue and as instructed by Thea, he observed the computer questionnaire more closely. An easy task now but how to do so had hitherto been worrying him greatly. In the minutes it took the guards to take down all the particulars, Alexander was able to confirm the efficiency of Hadean bureaucracy. Each individual's file was highly detailed. The programme took superficial details from the traveller and automatically checked them against the life-strip of the Fates on the computer programme. If they matched, the shade was admitted as belonging to the life identified. Every detail of the life was imprinted on the life-strip and logged for ever in the Hadean data-bank. Alexander knew from Thea that this was used to simplify the next part of the process controlled by Rhadamanthys. Alexander left the bridge making sure he left s.p.a.ce between the knots of travellers before and after him, in case he lost control of the mental balancing act he was using to travel in two dimensions at once. He was trying to prevent a disturbance in the unhurried and orderly procession which might focus unwanted attention in his direction.

His other self hovered some fifty feet above the road, peering ahead. The road wound through high sided, dry wadis, adorned with yellow scrub and dusty, battered, ancient cacti growing as a hedge on the banking. There was no sky visible for a curiously dry mist masked everything more than ten paces ahead. From the ground it was impossible to have any sense of direction as the road was confused by invisible meanders. From above Alexander saw it emerge into fields of dim lilies and dark daffodils. Never before had he seen flowers which offered no cheer and he was dismayed to his soul by the paradox. Through these, trooped groups of shades clutching pa.s.ses provided by the border guards. Around a wide, curving bend, an extensive area of flat ground opened to reveal a cross-roads among the hills, at which three large tables were set. They were permanent to judge from their ma.s.siveness and the fact their legs were buried in the dry ground. Thick dust clogged their fine carvings.

Sitting one at each, were three personages themselves floured by the yellow dust, flanked by equally dusty security guards in what were once blue uniforms and a secretary working at a grimy computer, at which they flicked from time to time with feather dusters. A worn sign on each table written in several languages indicated Europeans were to address themselves to one table, Asiatics to another and 'others' to the third. The queue for 'others' was by far the longest. There was a certain amount of movement from table to table as major continental ident.i.ties were correctly established. The three men had plaques set before them with their names written, again in several scripts.

At the middle table the sign announced it was Rhadamanthys who judged the Asiatics. To his left Aeacus tried Europeans and Minos sorted out the 'others.' To help him with the increased numbers Minos' table had been extended by several feet and he had several a.s.sistants squeezed in along its length. Alexander was careful to give the tables a wide berth.

Thea had insisted that the judges were highly sensitive to aliens or the unallowed of every description and, however he might disguise himself, he was not to get too close. Despite his great care, he thought he was aware of a hesitation in the smooth movement of each judge as they scrutinised the stream of people pa.s.sing before them, directing them severally towards the road leading to the punishment fields of Tartarus for the high scorers, about a tenth of the numbers; the low scorers were despatched along the road to the bright land of Elysium, making about a fifth of the total; the vast majority - with average scores - were sent back whence they came; to await through eternity to be relocated only by the call from Hades. Alexander searched in vain for a fourth route to the heaven of Yhawhe.

He made a careful note of the way the judgements were made and watched as the clerk took from each shade, the pa.s.s given at the bridge and slotted it into a dusty box by the computer terminal. The entire life-strip history of each was scrutinised by the judge against a programme which scored them automatically by reference to a grid of virtues, vices, successes, failures, strength of character, levels of integrity, the comments of their fellow beings and several other more arcane criteria. There was no appeal, though each was asked by the judge if they thought the judgement fair. There were a few mistakes, queries were sent down the line to Erebus and replies were swift.

Each judgement to consign a shade to their allotted realm for eternity was a matter of a few seconds only as the damage had already been done in life. This manifestation of inevitability struck him hard. There were no reparations possible in the past, nothing was redeemable in this realm. The thought stayed with him, harboured in his mind, while he pondered more immediate matters.

Which direction was he to take? Thea's instructions were unclear, most of the mind-melds with her had concentrated on his safety. Lucina's had been about his meeting with Hades and the importance of avoiding direct contact with Chronos. Thea had been distinct about the hazards a.s.sociated with Hecate and Persephone, the only other beings in Hades on the Olympian Chronosphere, and she thought he might meet them anywhere since it was likely they were on the look-out.

His mentors had given him general information and knowledge of the topography, but in the last a.n.a.lysis, he was on his own; able to go in any direction. He was not ready to go to Erebus and find Hades, that was for sure. In all probability it was in Erebus he would meet Persephone or Hecate, and he felt ill equipped for either of them, especially Hecate. He was however extremely uncomfortable where he was and felt distinctly unhappy near the three judges. They might sense the presence of an unallowed at any moment and he already suspected they had caught a whiff of mortality. Even as he thought, he saw Minos lift his great head and sniff the still air. Rhadamanthys and Aeacus, noticed the movement and Aeacus turned towards the general area where Alexander stood hesitating. He backed away from them and made his direction along the Southern route with the fewest of the divided ma.s.ses, towards the light of Elysium.

If he was not ready to meet any of the beings he was sent to examine, he thought as he followed a small group of pilgrims, what was his purpose here? The longer he meandered aimlessly, the shorter was the time for his fellow mortals. He had no idea of how time was pa.s.sing in the land of the living, since here linear time seemed not to exist. He might have been in Hades an hour or ten years for all he could tell. A glance at his watch showed it had stopped at the time he must have entered the Sipapu. If he were to hunt for Hades in Erebus, or anywhere else he was too unsure of himself to make a serious impact on another powerful being, who knew more of his own mind than he did and would consider him as no more than a shade come before his time. His job was to be more than a messenger, he had to persuade. To make an offer unable to be refused. Come what may he was not ready. He needed more time for more understanding than he had. But time was the problem. His anxiety was raised all the more as there was no way of knowing how much he wasted in indecision. Years might have pa.s.sed on the other side of the Sipapu and he might already be failing in his task as he stood wondering.

He considered his choices. He couldn't leave, he didn't know how. He could only think of one thing to do, to find Barboncito and find out his role in all of this. This at least had the merit of being his first starting point and might unravel enough understanding to take next steps. The time pa.s.sing problem would have to take care of itself since he had no way of controlling or influencing it. He sent his freed mind far out into the distance to enter Elysium in advance of the shades he was following. Expecting to soar effortlessly into the bright land he was astonished to find his mind was unable to penetrate the s.p.a.ce where the land began. His mind sheared away like a s.p.a.ce-craft missing its entry window to bounce off an invisible atmosphere. Whenever he made the attempt he was able to soar as far as the margin of the light and no further. His physical self continued to march behind the souls sent before him.

The length of the uneventful journey was impossible to reckon as there was nothing to punctuate the pa.s.sage of time. Ultimately the main route narrowed and suddenly, round another hairpin bend it plunged dangerously down a narrow defile to terminate at a tall iron gate. The supporting pillars and joining arch, hewn from the solid rock, were adorned with ma.s.sive effigies of three large-headed dogs in repose.

The shades approached the gate which opened and with the easy gait of Sunday afternoon ramblers, they disappeared into the light. Alexander, wary of blundering about in unknown territory thought better than to follow without information. Pannie's cautionary censure at the Sipapu was at last hitting home; he half expected the little man to appear and with the other half was surprised to find he was disappointed when he didn't - he actually waited for him. Realising he was alone, he cautiously approached the gates and to act with maximum efficiency removed his helmet. He scrutinised the gate from a distance of several yards and saw nothing untoward, other than feeling a growing reflex of fear about the very life-like statues of the dogs.

The fast approaching sound of barking made him wonder if he was dreaming. In mounting panic he put out his hand, touching the rock to confirm the too realistic dogs were truly made of stone. What he heard however, was real and definitely coming his way. He suddenly discovered one of the basic truths of life, that the most frightening thing to affect any sentient life-form, especially one like himself, was the irrevocable, and fast, approach of other powerful creatures h.e.l.l-bent on making them into a meal. He also knew with frightening certainty that the size of his brain in the last a.n.a.lysis would be of no help without the time and s.p.a.ce to engage it usefully. Fear of angry dogs was built into his species and the huge madly barking, cloud of dust which now hurtled round the hairpin at the top of the defile held him spell-bound as much by the noise it made, as the desperate scrabbling of twelve huge paws, which in their demonic eagerness to get to him, fought for maximum traction on the stony ground; clawing over and over each other in their frenzy. He had milli-seconds left to act and knew with sickening certainty there was nowhere to run.

His brain crashed like an overloaded computer as he turned to press his back hard against the closed gate and prepared for the onslaught. Dark, foam-flecked rottenness was flung hotly from within the rushing ma.s.s of teeth and hair, choking and blinding him. In an ensuing moment of pure horror he fell back, when the leading devil-hound, fractionally in advance of his foaming fellows crashed with all his might into the gate before him immediately followed by the other two. The hinges jarred in the rock and seemed likely to give-way. They were however made of stout stuff. Somehow, as he had fallen back, the gates into Elysium had opened enough to let him through and closed in time, the hounds of h.e.l.l remained inexplicably on the other side of the gate.

Alexander lay still as a wailing and baying, rose from the disappointed monsters, fit to waken all the dead and bring every Hadean guard down on his head; while they never ceased from flinging themselves in a mounting and thunderous fury at the strong pinions of the gate.

'What did I say you wus ter do if'n yer heered dogs?' The voice in his head came from behind and he just made it out above the din. 'Down boys! Shut the h.e.l.l up yer big farts! Git yerself back ter the Styx. You ain't got no right of entry here and y'all knows it! Git! afore I calls Hecate ter give yer a hidin'!

There was steel in the voice and the hounds knew a master when they heard one. Growling and snarling they ceased their lunging. The leader, braver then the others, came right to the grill of the gate and bared awful dripping, fangs. It spotted Alexander's helmet and tossed it in the air for his colleagues to catch, rending it in pieces in seconds. Alexander was astonished to see Pannie leap down from his perch on an apple tree behind him and bare his own teeth to such effect that the dogs quietened and all three slunk back up the trail. When they were a little way up the defile they let out a howl to fill the world with dread, before rounding the bend and going from sight.

'Well boychick?' Pannie confronted Alexander.

'Well what?' Alexander still shaken from the trauma, was furious at this late apparition and his instinct told him before he realised consciously, that Pannie's late arrival was no accident.

'I expected you before this.' His voice shook mixed with anger and fear. 'Those hounds nearly had me! Look at me, I've never been so scared in my life! They stink and I'm covered in their filth!'

'Never satisfied are you? Don't listen neither! What did I say ter do if'n yer heered dogs? Show no emotion I said. But you was too busy wonderin' where yer was. So you gotta git scared out'er yer wits. That's just what they react to - fear. Show 'em fear an' they'll have yer as soon as look at yer. Still you got here boychick. Din't yer? S'a pity 'bout the 'elmit and all, I 'spec Hades'll be cut up about that, not ter mention Hermes. Fat's in the fire now an' no mistake. It wus Minos who set the dogs on ya. Thea said not ter creep about near them Judges, but like I keep sayin' yer don't listen. Hades'll know y'all here by now. You'll be okay in here fer a bit, 'cos he don't come inter Chronos's territory without an invite. Jes' watch out when yer leave - if'n yer leave!'

'I thought you'd be here sooner to help out!' Alexander ignored the last remark. He was getting to understand when the little man was trying to wind him up.

'Wasn't me boychick, I just keep an eye out. Wasn't me gotcha in 'ere, it wus her!' He pointed behind him to a woman, in a long white robe, her features hidden in a large elegant cowl. 'Gotta go now, Lucina's gotta meetin' I'm needed at. 'So long boychik!' Alexander, used by now to unexpected comings and goings let him go without comment his attention fixed on the woman in white. Unsure of what to expect he remained standing as she approached.

Chapter 9.

There are moments in the lives of some people when in an instant, their whole experience is compressed into a point of understanding which then bursts through the psyche like the expanding universe, to thereafter guide all future thought and action. Through the sun-dappled orchard, Alexander Conway was aware of the approach of a creature of ineffable beauty, made of pure light and soft-movement. Rooted to the ground he experienced a sublime second of time which he instantly regretted never having lived through before. For the longest possible fraction of a second he hung, balanced on the exact fulcrum of past and future and felt in this suspension of time great visions and wide possibilities.

The moment pa.s.sed.

Noting his disappointment, the creature gently led him by the hand.

On L2 she bore him through sloping apple glades to sunlit vineyards, and on to vast sweeps of corn fields, stands of verdant woods, glistening streams and bright meadows filled with grazing beasts of many kinds.

The creature received his delight into herself and returned it enhanced by Gaia's interest. In this meld he was at home. There was no anxiety here. Nothing nagged at his sanity. No unnamed demon from his psychic deeps flicked its tongue. Through the meld, a fount of goodwill, acceptance and concern seemed to cradle him in the gentlest of breezes. Their minds wound as one in silken skeins, harmonious and symmetrical. Together they soared and dived. Here was no difficult learning, no information for the memory, no shocks to the psyche. This was how dying would be, a release of pure spirit. If this was eternity he could welcome it. He was more alive than ever. His glimpse of the axis where past and future balanced, was shared in an almost painful counterpoint of delight not to be sustained. He must come to himself or implode into a black-hole of pure feeling for evermore. Using all his experience and aided by the net around his shoulders; he broke the meld.

Utterly disoriented he gazed at the creature standing before him, her face hidden in the depths of the voluminous cowl. Coming down to L1 he found this being knew the limits of his sensibility and would itself have ended the meld before he lost his mind.

'You mortals must keep mind and body intact. The dead here in Elysium are of stainless spirit and have purity of feeling unconstrained by the fragility of the body. I had to know of what you were capable if I am to guide you in this realm.'

Alexander, relieved at the lessening of intensity and exhausted by the experience allowed himself to be led by the hand, onwards at a human pace. His conscious self was full of questions for the apparition, but his emotions were still in harmony with her goodwill and he was loath to besmirch pure feeling with hard thought. They journeyed through ever more splendid country and he found it and his mood were bewitchingly matched. The slackened pace of communication and movement allowed him to a.s.sess the creature leading him. Had she discovered of what he was spiritually capable? How did he rate? The idea of spirituality as measurable was novel. He was unable to place the creature as a particular being. She reminded him now of Marina, now of Mnemosyne, now of his mother, and then Thea. The apparition was without definition but he felt an inexpressible safety in which to explore his thoughts.

They travelled now through large savannahs, vast and majestic deserts, soaring mountain ranges, profound gorges, gleaming lakes, foaming rivers. Animal life teemed in every habitat. But there were no people nor any sign of their presence. Questions tumbled from him like disturbed scree, bouncing, unstoppably down a mountainside. He was afraid to give them voice even in the meld, for they seemed to him ba.n.a.l, stupid, self-evident, to which he should have answers. Such a creature as this would have no time for his ignorance, his naivety.

'You must ask them my child, it is in the Remembrance to ask them over and over again. Your race have stopped asking the straightforward questions and think the difficult ones are the ones which matter. You are deceived. The simple questions are the hardest to ask, for the answers are not found outside you but are within. Such questions need authentic humility and a genuine desire to search wherein lie the most formidable of demons. The dragons of the mind are more fierce, their serpent teeth more sharp, more poisonous than anything in the world itself. They alone will destroy your race. The Earth itself cannot hurt you - the reverse is all too true. So ask, ask my mortal of divine conception, ask.'

Thus entreated, Alexander asked the most obvious question.

'Who are you?'

'Whom do you wish me to be?'

'I don't know. I can't seem to define you, perhaps if you were to lower your cowl?'

'I think you would prefer I did not.' The voice in his head caressed his mind. 'I am what you wish and I am most of what you are. I am the yielding centre of your soul which you barely conceive. You cannot make me visible for you do not know me yet. I am human and I am clay. I am your life-force and exist concurrently within you and without. When and if you define me I will be all too visible and you will know all there is to know. You will recognise me everywhere in all that is male and female, in l.u.s.t and love, in pa.s.sion and relief, in experience and feeling, in taking and giving.'

'Why are you here, with me - now? Are you of here, are you a Mentor? Do you know Mnemosyne and are you of her remembrance? Why am I here in Elysium...?'

Alexander stumbled out question after question. The being allowed him to exhaust his mind and answered on L3 and drove deep into his psyche. He understood the creature would be with him while in Hades to guide him and in spite of any appearances to the contrary he was to trust implicitly any being appearing connected with her whom he would know instinctively. The meld ended and like all the others left Alexander tired and disoriented with an after-image in the retina of his mind. The creature, left her trace within him so that he was unsure whether she had implanted something of herself or activated a hitherto unawakened part of himself. He was however given no time to consider this latest extraordinary event, for no sooner had the apparition left the scene than he was suddenly aware of his physical circ.u.mstances. He had been led to the lip of a canyon, in country like the American Southwest he had left on the other side of the Sipapu. It was early morning a moment immediately before dawn. The exact second before the sun came over the edge of the horizon was preceded by a bead of light that lit his mind and again, he saw all it contained like an Aladdin's cave of enormous wealth, cluttered and tumbled, full of interest, chaotic and jumbled beyond order.

A noise to his left made him turn to see a horseman loom from the vivid white-eye of the sun, followed by several others breasting the rim of the canyon. Blinded, he could make out only vague outlines. Shading his eyes with his hand he was aware that the leading rider was coming towards him at speed. Unable to make out what was happening, his first instinct was to run, but he was aware there was no escape. He stood his ground, helpless. He felt the rush of air as the leading horse and rider brushed past him with inches to spare, followed in succession by several more. The effect was to spin him round and round as he was encircled. Ceasing to giddy him they faced their snorting steeds inwards, like markings on a clock of which he was the central point. One among them, sitting very upright, rode in towards him, his back to the sun, an ever growing shadow bathed in a golden halo.

'You stand your ground white boy!'came the even voice of Barboncito from the midst of the shadow. 'I see you made it through the Sipapu to find me beyond the river of forgetfulness. You are better than I supposed and continue to surprise me! Come, we go!'

He bent out of the glare and his strong arm lifted Alexander onto the pillion. Gripping the waist of his captor, Alexander held on as best he could as the troupe descended to the floor of the canyon at a speed to discomfort the unaccustomed. Alexander managed to notice how the dry barrenness of the landscape gave gradually to trees and cultivation the deeper they penetrated.

At length the company halted in a green clearing among peach orchards and gnarled, ancient pines among which grazed fat goats and sheep. A hotchpotch of mud covered hogans was scattered in and amongst the trees encircled by small gardens and menhir-like weathered boulders. The canyon floor was several hundred yards wide at this point and widened yet further into the distance. On either side, steep cliffs, studded with fallen rocks, some the size of houses, rose in tiers to the blue of the hanging sky.

The rest of the troupe dismounted, Barboncito with Alexander now more relaxed behind him, continued to ride through the peach grove and skirting a ma.s.sive boulder which dwarfed men and horses, they pa.s.sed between it and the wall of the canyon into a defile just wide enough for a horse and rider, widening after several yards into a hidden valley of such lush beauty that Alexander gasped aloud. Here were more sheep and goats, plantations of corn, cotton and several other staples. Here also was a small population of children in bright woven materials and buckskins, dotted with silver buckles sparkling in the morning.

All dead, all shades of what once was, this verisimilitude of life Alexander reminded himself, was chimera, without being, negative. How far the valley was real, he knew not. How much of it was constructed from within his own mind, and how much tangible; he had no idea. He found hard to bear the notion of the children as mere shades, as they ran so gaily after the horses shouting and laughing. From the village situated beyond a grove of apple and peach trees, women and men appeared to welcome their chief and his strange companion. Arriving at a particularly well stocked garden, Barboncito slid effortlessly from his horse and handed Alexander down. From the large hogan before which they halted several children emerged followed by two tall women.

'My Sipapu wife, her sister and my children,'explained Barboncito, handing the headstall to one of the older children.

Watching the sunrise, from a high promontory overlooking the secret valley, intoning with Barboncito their hymn to the sun and sprinkling corn pollen in remembrance of its benevolence, Alexanderander barely considered how often he and his companion had thus greeted the gold of the morning. He had no sense of time pa.s.sing since Barboncito brought him to his Elysian valley. If he had stopped to consider it at all he would have described himself as on an ocean of time. As a leaf on the bottom of a pool rises with its filling so his whole being had risen into an ocean of time where past, present and future were contained as a single element. No longer a linear commodity to be used, drawn from an everlasting supply on a reel somewhere ahead of him, time had changed into a rounded whole, into which he slipped as naturally as breathing.

There were no voices on the sphere in this realm to insist on his taking action and the pressure of his mission slipped away. He drifted imperceptibly into the perfect timelessness of the daily rhythm of cultivation and husbandry in the valley, punctuated by ritual remembrance of the land's gifts. He simply forgot his purpose in an ever deepening agelessness, with no mental noise to disturb the ebb and flow of the harmony of daily life. The immediacy with which he entered and accepted this world surprised him. He thought his Western mind would have rebelled against this unchanging beat of time. He basked in the pleasure of all needs met and forgot he was in a land of shades.

He worked hard in the hunt and found to his surprise he was soon able to keep up with Barboncito and his companions. He learned to recognise and track the spoor of the deer and learned the habits of the rabbit and other small mammals of the valley and desert above. He loved the rough camaraderie of the chase and learned to wrestle his companions for the sheer joy of testing his strength and afterwards to swim in the icy mountain pools to cool his hot body. His body hardened and he derived pleasure from its developing muscularity. He helped the women and children in the fields, although he had no need and was good naturedly teased by the young men of Barboncito's band. He argued that good eating required more than just the meat of the hunt and he must pay his way in the cultivation of the wherewithal for fry-bread and beans. But they ragged him unmercifully when they realised the woman he helped most was NightChant the sister of Barboncito's wife. It was the presence of NightChant which finally anch.o.r.ed him in Barboncito's Sipapu world. Suborned by its timelessness, elevated by its singing rituals, and its physical beauty he was at the last captivated by her. She who seemed to embody the wraith who had met him on his entry to Elysium.

He had reached a pinnacle of physical pleasure with Marina, few women he knew were capable of offering so much sheer presence and power to be shared. NightChant offered nothing of this. The moment she softly hid from him behind the presence of her sister when he entered the valley, he was entranced and instinct took control.

The bloom of the Kinaalda was upon her. The Blessingway rite over, just before he entered her world, had brought her into young maturity, and she had entered the life-way of the familial clan led by Barboncito. She was ready for her mate. But she was shy, proud and intelligent. This young newcomer to the group was an outsider. His acceptance by her clan leader gave him stature but he was not of them. She kept him at her distance but was flattered by the attention he paid. Her sister told her not to encourage him. He knew nothing of their ways, and was of interest merely by his strangeness. So she watched him askance.

The whole clan was surprised by the speed of his learning and the depth of knowledge he soon gained of their ways. Soon some of the younger unmarried men saw him as a rival. There was unspoken but incipient jealousy in his novelty value for the young women. To claim NightChant for himself meant public compet.i.tion. He was nearly ready, when he felt strong enough he would make his move.

One particularly bright morning, late in his second summer season in the valley, he rose, as did the rest of the clan before the sun to be ready to greet its rising. He made his offering of corn pollen then made his way in the clear, cold, morning air to see to the flock, accompanied by Flatfoot, his dog, a present from Barboncito's mother-in-law, Singing-Woman. He set off to corral Singing-Woman's sheep for the winter which on this particular morning would give him solitude and time to think. There were things at the back of this mind which he could not locate and which marred the almost perfect tranquillity of his existence in this place.

Unable to think clearly about any of this among his adopted clan, he set off alone with his dog. He felt part of the clan but alien. He wanted to unite completely, with no visible join, and just be. He would take NightChant in the manner of a Brave and become a complete clan member. But something held him back, was it just his foreignness? There was something else, a sense of task which he could not fully grasp. He felt a need to act, to do something that seemed important. He needed to think more clearly. The clan had taught him the value of thinking before acting. In the group, the unintended consequences of rash action might compromise their existence. Much thought was needed, much discussion and communication with the Holy People, much travel along the Chantways. Decisions reached thus were the responsibility of all, the consequences everyone's, including the Holy Ones.

Of all the clan he had no family. Was this the problem?

He lived alone in an unused hogan. Barboncito made him a blood brother of his clan in an elaborate ceremony attended by the entire group. Publicly he was an equal member and part of Barboncito's family, under the watchful eye of Singing-Woman. In practice he would always be a 'bilagaana'- an interloper. He was aware he was not the only young male to live outside a family group. Other young men from time to time left the overcrowded hogans to live singly or in small bands in open country until they finally settled down with wives, possessions and mothers-in-law. But, as they made him acutely aware, even for them, the herd animals remained a focus even for the most independently minded and they continued their familial duties of stock-rearing and hunting. They also developed their iron and silver-work. Most importantly they developed skills in the ritual Chantways and sand-painting. Periods of being alone were no barrier to acceptance if you maintained your duties to the clan, binding you to the web of mutual interrelations with it and the Holy People.

But without family, he was marked off as a stranger. To be of them, fully accepted, he needed a family of his own. A wife, Mother-in-law, land and animals. To bring disgrace on the family was hardly forgivable, but to have no family was equivalent to original sin, conceptually impossible and so beyond the ken of all the clan. Hence his public adoption which satisfied the conceptual difficulty but which still left the inexplicable mystery of his existence. He needed a Shima - a mother to anchor him to the clan, to provide pathways to the past, to give him substance. He had to marry. A blood brother, he had access to all the obligations and codes of conduct of the clan, so marriage was possible. He was ready, but for this nagging at the back of his mind. He was absorbed into the world of the Din. He felt himself so much of them he wanted no notion of himself as other. He strode as lightly as they through the scrub of the floor of the canyon. He understood how to maintain the fragile balance of the world in which each clan member was his or her own centre. The world flowed equally and separately through each person and came together, to enhance the group. All perceptions were shared to show a common face to the Holy People as they interceded with the earth on their behalf. He sensed the struggle each brought to combine life into wholeness - into Hozjo - balance and harmony.

Alexander struggled and at last lost consciousness of the self as separate from the sage-brush beneath his softly shod feet, or the towering rocks which thrust through him to his sky, his crystal air, their world, the clan's world. The lizard warming in the risen sun was in him as was the sheep grazing among the crags. He felt all this and was ready. But he could not let go altogether, though he wished with his whole heart that he could.

In this mood he came to tend Singing-Woman's herd of fat sheep, to bring them down from the far crevices and blind-canyons into the safety and relative warmth of the valley for the coming winter. He sniffed the air and felt Flatfoot's busy nose pick up the scent of sheep. The majority of the flock had stayed together, but counting them he found some twenty short. He sent the dog ahead of him to seek them out. He and the dog were a team, they scrambled about on ledges, rummaged in crevices, one by one nudging the missing animals into the open. Flatfoot skilfully urging them to merge with their brethren at the valley bottom. Between them they found the lost sheep with Singing-Woman's mark and a few goats belonging to other family groups, which he rounded up separately in a makeshift corral. The work finished, except for the drive home. Alexander and Flatfoot made their way to a convenient platform of rock where they commanded a view of the herd. They both squatted and Flatfoot gawped eagerly as Alexander brought from his belt-pouch a hunk of fry-bread, a piece of melon and a portion of dried mutton, enough for man and dog.

Perched above the valley floor, the unchanged land of centuries enterted him with the air he breathed. The view filled his gaze, the touch of the soft wind ruffled his hair and caressed his skin with its edge of winter cold, a notice of snows to come. The world flowed through him and he merged with it. Transported he remained motionless for a long while. Sounds formed in his throat and without conscious awareness he was chanting a Blessingway in tune with the beat of the universe. This was Hozjo, perfect equilibrium, complete harmony. Time past, present and future gathered in one place, endlessly in purity of being. Thus lost, he was disturbed from somewhere far into himself. Unbidden, there came an awareness of other feelings. His own self, his essential difference, a life-force from another place and time threatened to separate from the wholeness and endanger the equilibrium. It grew and fragmented his state of pure being like clouds give way to atmospheric winds. Silently and unseen these thoughts broke the idyll, turned it ragged and brought him to full consciousness. A battle with the self had recommenced. The full reality of his marginal place in this landscape and the life of the clan came back to him.

As his mind re-focussed, he saw NightChant below him at some distance running towards where he and Flatfoot were sitting. Her head was held high, he feet twinkled in the brush. In the profound stillness of the valley he heard the jingle of her ornaments, the flash of silver and turquoise at her waist, wrists and neck. Dressed in blue and aquamarine she darted like a kingfisher, as beautiful and as evasive. He knew she was not running to him, would that she were. He realised with a pang she was reliving her Kinaalda, running the timelines of her ancestors, following their footsteps, going as far as she was able to enter their world, to bring the best of the past into the present to pa.s.s on to the daughters she would bear. She ran hard, proudly, glad to be there, to do it, to be able. Watching, a long moan rose from his breast and he stood like a coyote baying at the sky. NightChant stopped, her keen ears located the sound, puzzled she saw him, and stood still, her dark head c.o.c.ked slightly on one side.

He thought she might become frightened and go, but she stood as if waiting for him to approach. He watched her for a long moment. She was not beautiful in the conventional sense, she was too stocky, the planes of her face too angular. But, flushed from her running, he saw in her the wisdom and pride of her people, a symbol of the centuries of her race, the emblem of harmony and mutual respect for the power of the human group in partnership and proper awe of the complexity of both people and the world given to them.

No perception of his mission remained available to his consciousness, his desire only was to become fully part of NightChant's world and for his nagging self to disappear absorbed by all she represented - if only his individuality would leave him alone.

He was fixed on his ledge unable to move in any direction. To go towards her was to set up a whole train of possibilities all of which would lead him further into the clan. He was held back by the persistent sensation of other possibilities. Tormented by indecision, he stayed put.

Flatfoot, for whom such things were unnecessary, seeing the girl, ran off down the canyon barking delightedly, his tail stirring up the dust like a propeller. His simple greeting had the effect of breaking the tension and thus forced to acknowledge the reality of the moment, Alexander followed Flatfoot to make his own greeting.

'I saw you running,' he said simply, embarra.s.sed, and awkward.

'You should have turned your head, Alex-Andre - Protector'