Chapter 7
Outside life wasn’t as hard as Shen expected. If he came to the orchard, he was allowed to eat his fill of anything on the earth, as long as he filled a basket with good fruit first. If he ate something from the tree, the man or woman in charge ran him off. If he went to the circle just outside the entrance to West Midelay with precious stones, crystals, or bundles of feather, they would trade or offer him food. Fresh, warm bread was particularly nice. He usually chose trade to food. It was often cold, almost freezing, and so he wanted blankets and clothing over food. The guard sometimes tolerated him sitting close to the night watch fire, referring to him disparagingly as ‘fire hugger.’ The guards in the ‘dark’ made fun of him for being a ‘clicker.’ Unlike the others, he had not mastered seeing with his heart. He could, however, make a noise with his mouth, and that noise provided a detailed map of the world. Human echolocation. He had learned that skill in another world, another life, so long ago now it seemed forever away from him, but the skill had return to him pretty quick the first night alone in the dark.
His map was extremely limited, crude, and nowhere near to scale. He was not Lewis and Clark, though sometimes he imagined he was walking the wilderness with Sacagawea. He was trapped between West Midelay and a body of water. There was forest and orchard to the North and South, and the further in he went, the fewer the food bearing trees and the more Sleeping Trees he found, until eventually he was at the thick of Sleeping Forest. So, North and South led to sleeping forests. There was a small province by the lake, and small boats went across to somewhere, and maybe North and South along the shore. He was not allowed passage.
Going deep into the Sleeping Forest led to a darkness as pronounced as nighttime. From time to time he wondered if he had penetrated further than anyone, only to come upon signs that others had been there. Sides of the tree were painted. Following the painted sides led out of the forest. Once he had found a series of trees, six in all, tied with string. Either the person traveling inwards ran out of string and turned back or… He didn’t like thinking of the ‘or.’ He didn’t know how much was myth and how much was true. He had yet to see a walking bear, but he had seen flightless birds bigger than ostriches. Their feathers were almost as good as gold, and reasonably easy to collect if you followed the trail. The male feathers were as colorful as peacocks. The males were as deadly as velociraptors, but not as deadly as the females. The females hunted in groups. It was sophisticated hunting; they would catch fire snakes, drop them in a known rabbit hole, and wait for rabbits to come running out.
They would eat humans. Had he not been able to climb a tree, he might have died the day he discovered a nest. They were persistent, lingering, hitting the tree with backwards kicks that shook the tree. The whole tree shook, and it was wonder to him they didn’t bring the tree down just to eat him. They lingered around his tree, going off a little ways, as if pretending to leave, but one would invariably run back to spy on him, and they did this until almost dark before departing for their nest.
These particular birds were aliens. Or, more precisely, something he had never heard or seen on earth. That didn’t mean they hadn’t existed on earth, it just meant he wasn’t aware of them. They resembled the Elephant birds of Madagascar, and were certainly large enough to be. A human might even ride one, or several humans with the right harness, if they weren’t so damn unfriendly. They spit a nasty, tar like something which would turn a puddle of clean water black. He had found evidence of this by the lake, but until he had seen a bird wretch it up, he hadn’t known what it was. The tar made a nice pitch that could flame a torch for a good moment. They would chase a torch at night, even stamp out a camp fire, and then sit there and squawk until morning. If the others in the distance responded, they would slowly make their way back to a nest. They had zero ability to see in the dark. One male resided at the nest and watched the eggs. Competing males would fight, and the weaker usually ran away. Sometimes the fight was to the death, but rarely. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have doubted it; a competing nest of females convinced its male to leave the nest to challenge a rival, and while they fought, the females broke the eggs in the rival’s nest. They didn’t even bother to eat them. That was the incident in which he witnessed the male killed the other male, and on making quick work of the others, it managed to kill a female before chasing the rest away. When the hunting females returned to find their eggs destroyed, they killed their own male.
The feathers made good writing pens. One bird would feed all of Easterly for two days. One egg would provide an omelet for at least ten. Egg shells were valuable. Its poop was clearly good plant food. It’s bones could be used for tools, or ground for bone meal.
One other thing about them that he learned was they were immune to the Sleeper Tree effect. If a rabbit strayed too close to a Sleeper Tree, an Irk would back kick a tree with loud resounding thump, and the rabbit would pass out. One of them would eat a rabbit that day. One; because the rabbit would be swallowed whole by the first to get it.
Shen lingered near the broken nest until next morning; the females ate the remains of the other birds, ate the contents of the broken eggs, and then departed. He assumed they went to look for a new nest, because he would never see them again at this place. When they departed, he went into scavenge. In the process of collecting feathers and egg shells, he discovered an unbroken egg. He made this his priority and took it back to his campsite, a cave he had claimed for his own. He considered trading the egg, but instead half buried it near his fire pit, hoping it would be warm enough to remain viable. He returned for the pile of feathers and shells. It took three trips to really get all the good pieces. There was even enough meat remaining on the carcasses that he managed to get several day’s worth of food. He did have to cut through some viscous tar, and of course, you can never get it all, and on cooking it, those parts burned extra well, but he was certainly satisfied that night.
‘The cave’ was hardly a hovel, but had the promise of being more. The back wall of the cave was a lovely swirling of orange and pink colored salt. From taste alone, he suspected it was comparable the Himalayan Salt found in Pakistan, and initial probing with Remote Viewing suggested it was an anomalous vein that extended to the far side of the mountain range. After his initial view, though, he was overcome by flights of fancy of making fortune selling salt whole at the same time carving a temple into the mountain, a temple to rival the home of Midelay. After seeing images of salt bricks illuminated from underneath paving the inner sanctuary of his temple fortress, he was never able to better gauge the depth, height, or distance of this salt mass.
On his next trip to Midelay, he brought all the feathers, some of the better egg shells to trade, and 25 pounds of salt rock. It took almost all day to get there, because of all the breaks he took. West Midelay’s Light House was far grander than East Midelay’s and Easterly’s. It was prominent on the mountain, above the entrance to the mountain. Outside and below was large fire pit that he had never seen extinguished. It was not wood driven, but gas rising up through the sand and rocks. A prominent circle of rocks lay just on the far side of the fire. All visitors checked in here to have their presence acknowledged in the light. The guard knew him well enough she didn’t insist on ceremony, and he went first to a one armed man, Bento, who tarried every day by the fire. He was disparagingly referred to as ‘fire hugger;’ that anyone one who stole warmth without contributing.
Shen sat by him, gave him some dried Irk he had brought, and peeled some fruit for him, as his good hand only had a thumb and a partial finger. Shen had never heard Bento speak. He was sitting a little closer to the fire today. He also smelled worse than he normally did. A bizarre fact about the people of Tamor, they don’t usually have bad body odor. They might go a whole month before bathing, and still they don’t smell bad. Bento smell was that noticeably different. Here in Tamor, bad smells and tastes were usually associated with health problems. They suffered him, but were not likely going to address his illness. From Shen’s perspective, his underlying illness was likely poverty. His loss of arm and finger was due to fighting in the games.
“You alright?” Shen asked.
Bento accepted the food eagerly. Shen left him to this and approached the guard. Her name was Soella.
“Why do you always bring him food?” Soella said.
“I believe he needs help,” Shen said.
“All he has to do is go get it,” Soella said. “He can make it to the toilet, he can go collect.”
Shen didn’t want to argue with her. He knelt down and unpacked some of his trade. Her eyes were wide. He had the egg shells; each egg was filled with shell shards, and or crystals, and then there were the feathers.
“What would you like?”
“If it’s permissible, I would like a small piece of iron. It could be scrap, something removed from a larger work,” Shen said.
“Seriously? If you need a knife, I can get you a good one,” Soella said.
“No, just a piece of iron please,” Shen said.
She frowned and called someone to take her place and then had him follow her. She took them to the outside dome where they were smelting metal with magic. They were not making weapons. They were working with gold, bronze, iron, and copper, most of which came straight from the mines of Midelay. There was scrap piled where pieces would eventually go back into the melting pot. He found something promising and asked if he could have it. This drew the attention of blacksmith.
“Why would you want that?” Rena asked.
“It’s a good trade, does it matter?” Soella asked.
Rena and Soella stepped aside to discuss it and when they returned, Rena was taking off her gloves. She then took off her leather hat and her hair fell. She sat down on a bench. Her clothing was heavier than most others, and there were scores of burn marks on sleeves and arms. She wore trousers and boots.
“Look, kid, I know you’re broken and ugly as fuck, and probably don’t have the common sense to bargain appropriately, so, take it from me, this is a bad deal,” Rena said. Soella frowned. She was going to get a cut and it was her opinion the best way to teach someone a bad deal is to accept it. “Tell me what your need is, and I would be willing to make you something.”
“I want this, and a bundle of copper wire if you will, please,” Shen said.
Rena got up and went fetched wire and came back. She held it to him. It was copper wire wound around a stick. He took it and examined it.
“Do you have any thinner gauge?” Shen asked.
“This is it, boy,” Rena snapped. She was evidently mad. Making copper wire was hard work. Being a metal smith was hard work. Her muscle reflected her dedication to the art. And it was clearly an art for her.
“Okay, I’ll take it,” Shen said. “Thank you.”
“Before you leave, go get yourself a meal from my cook,” Rena said. “Coella, walk with him, make sure no one beats him up prior to eating.”
“Okay,” Coella said. “Come on, boy. When’s the last time you ate, anyway?”
“I am okay, but I’ll take a warm meal,” Shen said. “Thank you.”
Rena decided to take a break, and then went to wash her face before going to sort the feathers. She stopped to examine the egg shells. Except for the hole on top, they were perfect specimens. She had a tang of guilt, but pushed on. They were sufficiently fire proof she could smelt metal in them, but mostly, people made pottery from them.
Candace was sitting by the water’s edge, lotus pose, meditating. There were two girls her age, sparring with bamboo. They stopped and blocked him from coming closer.
“What do you want, ghost,” the one said.
“I just wanted to talk to Candace. I am her brother,” Shen said.
“There’s no way you’re her brother,” the other said. “You’re not right. Did you fall in bleach?”
“Candace?” Shen asked.
“Don’t summon her,” the other said. “She is far walking.”
“She’s meditating,” Shen said.
“Go away,” the first said.
“May I wait till…”
Hitting him with bamboo encouraged him to go away. He departed. He proceeded along the water’s edge until the forest was so thick he had to swim or turn back. From there he proceeded up to his first campsite. He maintained it, hoping to provide the illusion that this was his only place. He didn’t believe he was being spied on. They didn’t seem to be curious about his life at all. First campsite held a crude tent on the ground, a blanket that had been soaked in Irk pitch and let dried. It was perfectly water proof. He went in and removed the empty jars he had been given to collect honey. There was a rather good size hive nearby which was another reason to maintain this camp. Lower tent was draped over a rope between two trees. One of the trees was near enough to another tree he could climb using one for feet one for his back, and second tent was far enough off the ground the Irk couldn’t get him if he overslept into morning. He had carried bamboo, fallen branches he had cleaned up, and made a platform across several living branches from both trees, reasonably secured with vines. A branch above supported a pitched blanket for a roof, simply draped. It was just big enough to sleep on, and slightly sloped.
From the sleeping space, he could walk branches to a number of trees. There was a couple of crude ramps bridging some of the further gaps, and vine rope, which was simply twisting three vines together, so he had a guide connecting his path. One place he used a vine to swing to the next tree, which always amused him enough he felt good about himself. At the end of the upper path, he climbed down the tree and proceeded on ground, carefully as there were exposed Sleeper Roots, and found his way to his cave. He called it a cave. It was hardly a hollow space. The ceiling did slop towards the exit, which helped carry the smoke from his fire out.
He dropped off his satchel, gathered wood from a pile, came in and got the fire going again, went out to his latrine, and came back. He had been successful enough at bringing gifts, which he had traded for a poncho. He had tried to make one with a pitch covered blanket. It was crude, it smelled bad, and the women had laughed. If he followed the outer rock face of the mountain North, and braced the Sleeping Forest through the darkness until the light returned, he would come to a river. It varied from creek, to full blown river. The water was always cold. During the times the river was shallow, he would explore the mud and invariably find crystals. He had kept some, traded some. He was not sure why no one else had explored this area, as it was reasonably accessible by the route he had taken. There was the stray Irk, but if you were paying attention, you could climb and secure yourself to a branch with a rope before it made you sleep. Fortunately, they didn’t go too far into the dark.
Usually. They would chase a torch. They would chase a glow beetle.
He sat by the fire, his back up against his egg, hoping it was still good. He entertained fantasies of being there at hatching, ‘imprinting’ himself as the parent, and one day riding into the village on the back of a fully grown Irk. He didn’t like killing rabbits, but he had made a rabbit pin and he now had a dozen rabbits in his care. They were angora rabbits and there fur was valuable, and he wished he had electric sheers. He would likely have to kill them to feed the newly hatched irk. He also had dried fish prepared. It was not great, but it was eatable. He had seen the Irks eat fruit. He suspected avocado seeds and sharp stones helped in digestion.
He sat by the fire, drawing in his book. His drawings were improving with practice, though never to the level of perfection that he wanted. He had drawn Loxy maybe a dozen times. Some of the drawings were so bad he burnt them. He didn’t want to remember her wrong. He stuck a ‘Wilson’ branch in the ground near the place he usually sat, and some of the picture were attached to the branch, literally pushing the branch through the paper so her pictures hung. No matter which way you came at the branch, you would see Loxy’s face at the top. Full body pictures were in the middle. He would talk to her, hence the name ‘Wilson’ branch. If he had a volley ball, he would have had a Loxy.
His journal was almost full. He tried to recreate anatomy from text books he had read. He thought N’Ma would find it helpful. He drew human shapes and placed points and lines representing energy flow, again, per texts he had seen. He drew crude maps of his present location. He was still trying to get at a world map from remote viewing. His memory imagination block kept making him draw circles and straight lines, and he would end up with the death star. He would tear this out and burn it. He spent a whole day drawing with a stick on the dirt floor trying to get at it. When he had sleep, he dreamed of a place with three mountains. Maybe mountain, three tops. A lake in the middle of the three mountains led to three water falls. The heart of Sinter was under the mountain. Outside the mountain, still apart of Sinter but perhaps different provinces or villages were established. The island or continent was huge. It was surrounded by a fresh water lake that surrounded Sinter perfectly. Then there was a mountain range that surrounded this space, encircling it. He woke and drew what he remembered, in pieces. He had another dream of planet being hit by an asteroid, and somehow the impact resulted in the fiery liquid, ripple that was fast frozen into the shape that became Tamor. He didn’t draw this. In the dream, lots of dinosaurs had died.
As he drew, talking nonsense to Loxy, he felt the egg stir and heard a loud ‘chirp.’ His heart sprang. He became quiet and still, waiting for another noise. Quiet. He spoke. A low oscillation emitted from the egg, not a growl. It felt like a cat purring. He nearly cried. He had forgotten about a cat’s purr. He sang. The egg purred louder. Chirps happened in sync with the song’s rhythm. It was responding!
Shen remained in the cave for several days, waiting for something to happen. He ate all his fruit. He started to eat his dried fish, but stopped himself, knowing the Irk would want this. He ranged far enough to gather wood to keep the fire steady. He eventually had to go to collect water. He went to first tent, ate honey. He went to the orchard, and harvested for the caretaker and got his fill of fallen fruit, and returned to first, where he spent the night because of just being tired. When he got to the cave the next day, he found the empty egg. Wilson branch was knocked over, Loxy drawing scattered. The fire was out, ashes and wood scattered. The rabbit pin was busted. There was evidence two rabbits had been eaten. There was feather evidence that what had had hatched was male. He followed a trail, but soon lost it.
Shen returned and began cleaning. He righted the ‘Wilson’ branch, reattached the drawings, but for one which was torn. He began to cry, and once it started there was nothing stopping it. He laid down. He lay his head on the drawing of Loxy hoping his tears would magically bring her to life. Even having her as just a head ghost, the way he had first known her would be better than the emptiness he felt inside.
He remembered her, the making of her, and wanted to make another tulpa Loxy, but talked himself out of it. There was no guarantee he would make her. Even if he got her close, she would be new, and when she became solid, and deviated- she might be something else, or mentally unstable due to not being what he had intended. When you live with an entity in your head and they can read your mind, they inevitably learn the truth. It doesn’t always lead to discord, but the tulpa personality is a fully formed person, they have feelings, and their responses to stimuli was unpredictable.
In the beginning, there was loneliness. He imagined a friend. She was not perfect, but she was the ideal friend for him. She held aspects of Greek and Egyptian Goddesses. She was aligned with the tantric deities; the inner vision of her took charge, aligning itself with and claiming to be a Dakini Spirit. It came upon her with the fierceness of the first sexual impulse, blossomed and overwhelmed them both. They clicked together like magnets, and were forever inseparable. The sexual energy was meant for healing and communion. This energy could spark Kundalini in a person who was uninitiated, unprepared, as it did for Jon and Jon’s world changed. He traveled! He went to a magical place and began to sort past trauma. The initial exercise had been just to end loneliness, to create a friend- and yet, he had discovered so much more. They had discovered…
It occurred to him, he was not Jon anymore. He was, but wasn’t. He was more Shen, as Shen’s history was more recent, more dominant. In many ways, Shen’s life was preferable to his past life. These people weren’t bad, they just had their ways. In truth, it was he who was resisting. All he had to do was surrender, and he could go live with them. No. He liked his life alone. That was a clear thought. He wanted his alone life with Loxy in his head. Or, not alone, but with the people he had met on his inner journeys. He tried to will himself back to his Second Home. He tried to return to Safe Haven. He tried to be anywhere except here. Night fell and he had not lit his fire and he was too distraught to see with sound. He lay there wanting to die.
For the first time in a long time he heard her voice. A soothing hand on the back of his neck. “Maybe, we also need the loneliness to confront things within us. You’re safe. I have always been with you. I will always be with you. Be at peace.” He slept.
There was no tracking time. There were no stars. There was no moon. Seasons snuck up on a person. Being near the mountains was almost always cool, but sometimes damn cold. Summer had one obvious sign, glow beetles were more prominent, and the sound of glow cicadas was sometimes so loud, and so steady, he imagined it to be the life support of a spaceship. Shen couldn’t go more than a yard in any direction without finding the empty shells of cicada like creatures. Their eyes were like diamonds. He was reminded of the animae movie, ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,’ and watched it in his head. When it was damn cold, the lake misted over, but never froze. He had two new, empty books, compliments of N’Ma.
“Don’t tear pages out,” she had said. She provided him a satchel with writing supplies, loose papers, and wax. It was a letter making kit. “It weakens the binding and the life of the book. If you make a mistake, leave it. Don’t scratch it out. Write mistake on the mistake. Learn from it. Let others see it, and allow them to make their own assumptions. Sometimes what you think is a mistake isn’t.”
Shen knew this, but hearing it from her made it stick. Partly because it felt like an elder giving instructions, and it was something he missed. The women told him to do things every time they saw him, as they were particular bossy and expect boys to comply, but N’Ma’s instructions were recommendations. She wanted more philosophy. She wanted him to write a map of his other life’s language. He gave her the alphabet, but he had no intentions of giving her a dictionary. That could take forever and he had better things to do. He asked her why she wanted this and she seemed confused, but after questioning him if he was ridiculing her, she relaxed and pointed out he had written things in two languages. Whenever there was a concept he couldn’t explain, he inadvertently wrote a thing in English. He was irritated by the fact he hadn’t realized what he was doing. He inquired about the letter making kit and was invited to write his sister Tama; it was evident that N’Ma would be reading everything first, maybe even by others. How evident wasn’t abundantly clear until he had returned to his cave and examined the content of his new satchel, and the letter box.
Hidden inside were four letters, sealed with wax. Unlike most letters, it was unaddressed. He assumed for him, opened, and indeed found letters clearly intended for him, without salutations. N’Ma had written one of them.
“The quality and quantity of the gifts you have brought have surprised the best of us. We wish to continue this arrangement, but you have peaked our curiosity. We want to understand things. Please respond to the letters, seal them, and when you trade at West Midelay, you will leave the courier bag we have enclosed, and retrieve one that will be waiting for you. Thank you for your gifts. With love and gratitude, N’Ma.”
Two of the letters were kindly, almost respectful, but it was the sort of kindness one would find in a letter that assumed others might one day read it. It was professional. When he questioned it in his mind, he had an image of a copy of the letter written in a book, and the next page would be his response. One of the letters was more neutral, borderline rude. The other was flat out disparaging. The latter dealt with math. He had written down all the formulas he could remember. He was not great at math. He couldn’t do calculus. His physics were limited to theory, which he knew and could visualize, but if you asked him to the math or the proof, he’d be considered a fool at best, at worst a parrot. The other kindly letter bad been written by a person who loved bugs. She had extremely appreciated the detail of the glow cicada he had rendered, capturing its entire lifespan. She had questions about this. She didn’t believe a grub would become a cicada, but the life cycle so mirrored the silk worm, she instantly saw the truth of it. She wanted samples. She collected bugs and her home was full of displays of bugs she had caught and was trying to classify. She had bugs in glass. She had bugs in amber. She had scary unknowable things in jars of formaldehyde. She had aquariums with insects where she maintained the whole life cycle of colonies. She specialized in making bee hives and colonies. She bred fighting beetles, which was her most sought after commodity. She particularly wanted Shen to bring her a live glow beetle and a female, and offered to negotiate a price.
The other kindly one was someone who had seen his blue prints for making a toilet and crude plumbing. They were amused, and said his work was ‘primitive,’ and ‘just like a man to piece meal a thing together.’ It sounded worse than he interpreted, as he could almost imagine her laughing. “I don’t expect you to understand this. Homes, plumbing, gas lines, methane traps, must be elaborately plotted out, not on paper, but in the mind. When the material is brought together, the intent is transferred to the material through our esoteric training; it shaped by heart and love and song. The home isn’t a machine one constructs; it is a living thing, and solidifies into our desires the same way a turtle shell becomes a home for its host. The health of the home is dependent upon the people who live in it, the land around it. It not just a hole in the ground and a pipe bringing water. It becomes one with the earth, with the trees, with the other surrounding buildings. It breathes air, it drinks rain. It communes with its environment.”
The letter offered no insight on making his own toilet system, or how to make his own gas driven, steady fire. He would have to continue with collecting wood.
There were all sorts of beetles to be found here. There was the equivalent of lady bugs. Jeweled beetles, like scarabs, with real gold etched into their outer shells that could be smelted out; and their meat was pleasant as eating clam. There were hissing roaches that were scary little fucks- because they were practically invisible. They resembled leaves and if you got close they would unfold their wings and hiss, almost as loud as an angry cat. There was the equivalent of the dung beetle, which collected and rolled Irk poop and pitch. Seeing this helped him to understand some of the strange ‘formations’ of dirt up around the base of the trees. There were other insects, like honey bees, and the equivalent of army ants. The latter was easy enough to avoid- if you saw the scouts, you leave the area. To his amazement, they do not climb the sleeping trees, or, more precisely, they don’t climb trees marked by dung beetle egg balls. The former, honey bee, or near enough, could be found anywhere, and, like the earth bees, their honey varied in quality and taste based on the flowering plant of choice. He had found a nest in a sleeping tree where there was slow drip. This source sustained him for a while, until he found himself tired on eating the honey. The honey did make the gold beetle more palatable.
The first up close encounter with a glow beetle opened the first page of his new book. It had been right outside his cave home, on a tree. He came right up to it, put a jar over it, and using a paper, trapped it inside. He drew it looking down on it, from underneath it, from the side, from the back, from the front, and from an odd angle- and all in all, it looked like a blue-print drawing. It fluoresced with more colors than any artist could capture- not they could capture color with his crude pencils and ink. It rivaled any rumored vision of Egyptian lore. It was the scarab god of all scarabs.
Shen had considered keeping it for Tueine, He let it go and watched it take flight. It flew straight away to high branch. It would pulse flash in the presence of females that came towards its light. Different females appeared to be interested in different hues, and this was sorted out in the moments as females hovered and the hues changed, and takers would come even closer, but if it didn’t like who came closer, the hues would change and it would fall back and another might come forward. Eventually, mating was negotiated. Afterwards, the male was killed. She literally ate its head off, ate a hole into its back, and deposited the eggs. Had he known the male was going to die, he might have kept it in the jar. The beetle larvae that eventually departed the male fed on f