Danny and Ben descended from the Sapient Realm heavens, at a rate of knots. They fell out of the sky with all the grace of a thousand bricks. Thinking Stone reached out and gently caught them within his powerful branches. The large oak branches did not actually move they just pulled the boy’s bodies inward like a magnet sweeping up iron filings. Once he got his breath back and his heart had stopped thumping wildly, Danny got the feeling that Thinking Stone had found the whole episode quite funny, but he kept that to himself. If Danny had seen his Sapient Realm body he would have understood Thinking Stone’s humour. They were both brown and white plumed flightless birds, a little dodo-like in appearance and size.
It had been strange enough for Danny and Ben to be whipped to the Sapient Realm, at a speed which would have left light standing. This was a very high mind-speed with which to enter. Usually it would take up to an hour to change realms, the spiritual equivalent of going through customs, boarding your inter-dimensional jet, taxiing, runway and take-off.
The experience of inter-dimensional transfer could be unnerving to the uninitiated. It was similar to dying - somewhat scary at the time but guaranteed to open new doors. To change realms in a split of a lightning strike was disorientating beyond belief.
Much later, once Danny and Ben had settled in and stretched their brown, white-tipped flightless wings. Thinking Stone, the elder tree, patiently explained their mission, ‘There is a substance so powerful, so desirable that it has its own dimension, its own realm to protect it. Well, perhaps that is not entirely true, the realm I speak of does other things too, but this substance is its power source.’
Danny and Ben perched a little hesitantly on a lower limb, ‘We need some of this substance. Not for our own good but to protect this world. And we need you both to retrieve it. No-one else is qualified for this mission,’ Thinking Stone explained.
What worried Danny the most, and he was a champion worrier at the best of times, was that he could tell that Thinking Stone was trying to play down the difficulty of this mission.
‘This substance my friends, is called ruro,’ Thinking Stone continued. ‘It lies within a unique realm called the Akashi. It is essential to us all and all the dimensions I’m afraid.’
‘And I guess that the psychic agency also wants it,’ added Danny.
‘Yes, and for much darker reasons. The agency can be dealt with. You should just play along with them for now.’
But Danny had his doubts about that. At what cost could they be kept at bay and for how long? They always seemed to find out about everything sooner or later as far as Danny could tell. Danny thought that Thinking Stone, living in this beautiful reality, untouched by the hand of war, might just be underestimating the agency. Perhaps he didn’t grasp the fear Danny had to live with every day back in that dense realm we call reality.
Danny, even though he felt scared at the prospect, did like to have a mission, although he never would have admitted as much. It made him feel needed, special even. It confirmed his place in the troubled world. This however went well beyond anything he had known before. It made him feel doubtful deep down in the pit of his stomach. He would have loved to have told Sarah too, just to see the reaction in her face but he knew that was impossible. To Sarah, beautiful as she was, reality worked in a certain way and no-one was going to persuade her otherwise, least of all him.
‘My special friends,’ Thinking Stone intoned. ‘The ruro essence must be retrieved both for your mission and mine. There is much at stake but there are great powers assisting you so do not be afraid. Yes, there are others who would stop at nothing to possess it but we will hinder them at every turn. I will return you to your home now. Are you ready to go?’
‘Now's good,’ said Danny.
Ben just looked a little less inscrutable than usual – he was not big on words, whether of the spoken or the telepathic variety. Danny and Ben curled up underneath Thinking Stone and fell soundly asleep. The next few hours were spent in the half-self bliss of semi-consciousness.