Chapter 35
I found a small antechamber in the palace next to my guards‘ bedroom near the barracks and armory and some thing because it was in such close proximity to hundreds of Guardsmen, they didn‘t constantly check on me. So, I was able to practice what I called stepping out without them being the wiser.
I found that if I clasped the coin, thought of the Tree and earth and pushed, I could feel my body moving through a space not unlike the gray corridors that the Druz had taken me through when they had caught me. I sensed the use of the coin‘s power but it was muted somehow, tempered with the Tree‘s flavor and did not ripple along the chords to warn anyone save me. Trouble was, I did not have the finesse to pinpoint any one particular plane, especially the one I wanted. I was a traveler on a world where women ruled with an iron fist; another where giant insects like butterflies waged war on flower faced miniature humanoids, elves if you will.
Another I swore was Prime Earth until the natives turned their backs and became hollow masks.
I wasn‘t able to stop and enter any of these realms but only passed through as a ghost figure.
When I came back to the little room, only minutes seemed to have passed and because I was alone, no one noticed my lack of attention. Finally, I simply cast myself out and let my mind drift with no thoughts of anything or anyone. Sensed a spark of interest and some thing reached out and poked me with a casualness that made me feel like an ant under a buffalo‘s hoof. I felt an immense presence, a power equal to that of God and it stunned me.
"What manner of being are you?" it asked.
Impertinent because I was scared, I came back with, "Who or what are you?"
Startled, it gaped and then laughed. "A flea! An insignificant flea barks at me! You are a man creature, a child I divine. Human. You carry the essence of Siohymn. Ah, so you are the Wielder of Chaos lines."
"If you mean I‘m the string bearer, you‘d be correct." A huge force seized me in its grip yet it was with a delicate touch as if it knew I was fragile and transported me through time and space to a dimension, a realm that I knew with sudden and gut wrenching certainty was the beginnings of all, an Entropy that existed before the Universe, before Creation, before everything.
An eye the size of a planet blinked tightened and shrank to the size of a whale. "Ah, that‘s better," a huge Volkswagen sized mouth exhaled and nearly blew me halfway across the wherever. He shrank further until I was staring at a human face that looked remarkably like my dentist only he had hair. Long, curly hair. He he ld me between two fingers and that part of him was still the size of a giant. "What is your name?"
I shut my mouth and swallowed. "You look like Doctor Jeff-"
"I know. I took the image from your string echo. You are called Jadewyn from the plane Celene. And Earth. Interesting, that you should have two echoes."
"If you know, why ask?"
"It‘s called conversation, little flea. Don‘t be rude, impertinence only gets you so far.
Besides, if I read your mind like you think, it would burn out your brain like...oatmeal." He closed his fingers and pinched; my lungs stopped and so did my breathing. I blanched and he lessened his grp.
"Okay, okay," I gasped, able to breathe again. "Yeah, my name is Jadewyn James. I was born on Celene but raised on Earth. The Druz killed my mom and dad.
"You know you sent them all to a very nasty place, almost unlivable. Worse than their home plane. Then, they are not a particularly attractive or beneficial race. I was just getting around to doing something drastic about them. What do you want?"
"Want?" I asked stupidly.
“You called me. You must want something. Don‘t sputter; it‘s all mixed up in your head.
Nasty place, that. How do you find anything? You are a seething mass of wants, how do you keep all those thoughts and emotions in check?" his face softened, an expression I did not recognize on my dentist‘s likeness. He was a hardass when it came to oral hygiene. "No, I cannot bring back your parents. Once a Chaos line is broken, it changes the fate of everything it touches, in ways both miniscule and finite. But you know this."
I swallowed. "I want to learn how to travel to Earth so that the Colonel/Druz can‘t track me. I want to bring Murphy back without any harm coming to him. I want my world to be the way it was before the Druz attacked it."
"The Siohymn, what you call the Seillach Pangorum in your blood makes you powerful; able to travel anywhere you desire but leave your essence behind. Many places have worshipped this as a god. Your blood has many powers, the least of which makes men addicted. You are the Chaos Reader, the Holder of the Strings; you have the ability to skate along any line forward or back and can find anything or any place. Use it to reach your plane. Step lightly; there are those that are sensitive enough to feel your touch upon the Strings.
"If I can go forward or back, why can‘t I go back and tweak my dad‘s string before so he doesn‘t die?"
"Jadewyn, you can observe but you can‘t change the past. You know how this works, a butterfly‘s wings flap in Boston, a typhoon is born in Asia," he spoke somberly.
Slowly, I nodded. It was the old adage, for want of a nail…He closed his fingers and the last thing I heard was, "Interesting little flea. I‘ll keep an eye on you." His giant eye was the last thing I saw.