The Golden City

20

Give me the shotgun,” Gabriel said. When Maya hesitated, he turned and looked directly at her so she could feel power in his eyes. “It’s all right…” He reached out slowly-as if he were dismantling a bomb-and took the weapon out of her hands.

“They’re going to kill us,” she whispered.

“Who are you talking about?”

“See the man sitting on the bench and the two people over by the fountain? Tabula mercenaries.”

“You’re wrong, Maya. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Gabriel continued across the square, and Maya followed him. He had no idea if anyone had noticed the incident. Perhaps they looked like lovers having an argument. They reached the curb together, but Winston wasn’t there. Maya’s head was whipping back and forth as if they were surrounded by enemies. Finally the white van came around the corner and Gabriel waved frantically. Hurry up. Get us out of here.

“They’re going to follow us.”

The van pulled up to the curb and Gabriel yanked open the side door. “Get in, Maya. I promise you-we’re safe. Those people in the park are just ordinary citizens.”

They climbed into the back of the van. Maya looked dazed and unhappy-as if she’d just been awakened from a bad dream. When they reached Camden Market, Winston parked on the street. The drum shop owner knew that something had gone wrong, but he had become cautious after a few months of dealing with Linden and Mother Blessing. He waited for a few minutes, and then spoke softly while watching his two passengers in the rearview mirror.

“Perhaps we could go back to the shop and have a nice cup of tea?”

“Just leave us here, Winston. Maya and I are going to talk.”

Winston got out of the van, and Gabriel and Maya sat together, listening to the traffic noise. When he tried to take her hand, she pushed it away.

“Are you going to tell Linden what happened?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’m not a very good bodyguard if I go completely tonto in the middle of Russell Square.”

“It’s not easy to come back from the First Realm and act like nothing happened. It’s probably best if you just stay in the secret room and guard me. That won’t be difficult. I’ve decided to cross over again.”

“Now you’re the crazy one,” she said. “Everything will fall apart if you leave.”

“I have to go, Maya. I need to find my father. He’s the only person who can help me figure out what to do.”

“He might not have an answer.”

“I’m not even sure if I can find him. But that doesn’t make any difference. Almost every important choice in our lives is really just an expression of hope.”

“You need to know that…” A strange look passed across Maya’s face and then she stopped talking.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she answered with her cold Harlequin voice.

Gabriel took her hand and squeezed it tightly, then he got out of the van. By now, he knew the location of every surveillance camera in the area and followed a complicated route that avoided their scrutiny. A minute later, he was entering the catacombs. And a short time after that, he was lying on the bed inside the secret room.

Once he had passed through the four barriers of air, water, earth and fire, some essence of his Self had a consciousness of movement and direction. He knew the way back to the First Realm, and he deliberately moved away from this coldness. Like a miner trapped underground, he followed a narrow passageway toward warmth and sunlight.

When Gabriel opened his eyes, he saw that he was lying on a beach of pebbles and coarse sand. Waves collapsed on the shore in a constant rhythm, and he could smell clumps of dead seaweed rotting at the edge of the shoreline.

Is someone here? Are people watching me? He stood up, brushed the sand off his jeans and surveyed this new world. He was a few yards away from a shallow river that emptied into the sea. The sand and stone were dark red, like rusty iron, and the surrounding vegetation seemed to have absorbed some of this color. The seaweed and the big ferns near the river were reddish green, and the scrub bushes near the tidal line had bright scarlet berries that shivered with each gust of wind. It was like his world with subtle differences. Perhaps all life had started at the same point, and then some small occurrence-the fall of a leaf, the death of a butterfly-had pushed creation into a different direction.

The wavering shadow that marked the passageway back to the Fourth Realm was only a short distance away. Near that point, at the border between sand and shore, someone had built a cairn of rocks with chunks of red sandstone. A narrow pathway led away from the cairn and through the surrounding marshland. Far in the distance, the land rose up to a line of green hills.

A screeching sound startled him, and he stepped away from the cairn. Overhead, a flock of birds with large pointed wings and long necks were circling over the turbulent patch of water where the river current encountered the sea.

And then a revelation came to him. Although these birds were hundreds of yards away, he could enter into their consciousness. This wasn’t some allegory where lions appeared and talked to human beings about theology. The birds saw the world from their animal perspective. They were aware of the angle of their wings, the dark shapes moving beneath the waves, the sun and wind, the sense of rising higher while constant hunger made them look for food.

Turning away from the sea, he allowed his mind to enter into the ivy growing by the river. Unlike the birds, the ivy offered a simple, resonant message-as if someone was playing a single key on a cathedral organ. He was aware of the plant’s slowness and strength, the stubborn tenacity of its growth, its reaching search for water and light.

This new awareness felt like a moment out of time. It could have taken only a few seconds or several years. It was the presence of the cairn that pulled him out of the dream. This natural world, without roads or cities, was probably the Third Realm of the animals, but it looked like a Traveler had appeared on this beach and built this particular monument. If he looked toward the mountains, he could see another cairn in the distance that marked a route through a costal marsh.

Gabriel started up the pathway, his shoes sinking in the muddy ground. After awhile, the river opened up to a lagoon where two large birds-like reddish-brown swans-floated on the still water. The birds raised their heads, and he sensed their curiosity as he forced his way through a clump of reeds.

Eventually, he left the coastal area and began to pick his way across a rocky patch of ground. There was no path to follow, and he kept glancing over his shoulder to keep the cairn in view. He placed a pebble on top of each new stack of rocks to mark his progress.

Something was watching him. He could feel it. When he spun around, he saw a small animal-like a chipmunk-peering out from a crack in the rocks. When Gabriel laughed out loud, the animal squeaked a protest and disappeared into his hole.

As he gained elevation, a line of boulders appeared that resembled the broken pieces of an ancient wall. Gabriel’s shoes crunched on gravel as he found a gap between two stones and scrambled up the slope to the edge of a long plateau covered with grass. Mounds dotted the area; it looked as if a giant had fallen into an endless sleep near the base of the hills and now his body had been absorbed by the earth and covered with a green comforter.

The grass brushed against Gabriel’s legs as he began to search for the path. In the distance, dark shapes floated through the meadow and then vanished behind one of the mounds. A few minutes later, a herd of horses trotted over top of the rise.

The horses saw him and stopped, milling around in what looked like a haphazard manner until he realized that the mares and their colts had moved to the center of the herd. The horses had shaggy manes and tails and were smaller than the thoroughbreds of his world. Their clunky hooves were out of proportion to their bodies, and there was a pronounced ridge on their foreheads.

It felt as if his Light was entering into theirs and he sensed thoughts far more complicated than the hunger of the sea birds. These animals had a sense of themselves and each other. They could smell him, see him, and there was a memory of another vertical creature that walked on two legs.

The speed and power of the horses’ bodies gave them a certain pleasure, a kind of pagan joy. But something was wrong. His appearance had distracted the herd for a moment; they had ignored a more significant threat. The stallions snorted loudly as they kicked at the earth. Danger. Look around you.

Three lion-sized animals emerged from the grass and began to stalk the herd. Gabriel could see that they had large heads and massive jaws. Their fur was golden-brown, and they had distinctive red markings on their sides.

As these predators crept forward, Gabriel could feel them evaluating the herd. Which horse was old or small? Was there any sign of sickness or injury? For a brief moment they disappeared into a hollow, but the trembling grass marked their passage. When the animals reappeared, they had formed a crude triangle-with the largest predator in front and his companions on each side.

Fear passed through the herd like a wave of frantic energy, and the horses began running. A yearling horse galloped in one direction, stopped and realized it was alone, then tried to join the others. In that instant of confusion, it became the target, and the lead predator dashed forward with long, powerful strides.

When the creature leaped, the red markings emerged from its body and became stubby little wings that propelled it through the air and onto the back on its victim. Gabriel felt both the pain of the yearling horse and the exhilaration of its attacker. Down they went, the yearling screaming and kicking as it tried to break free. But the creature dug its claws into flesh, locked its jaws onto the horse’s mouth and nose, and held on tightly. Unable to breathe, the yearling made one last attempt to break free, then collapsed and died.

The horses stopped on a mound about a half mile away and looked back the fallen yearling. If the herd was a single living creature, then one part of the body had been sacrificed to save the rest.

One of the predators saw Gabriel and made a deep chuffing sound. Gabriel’s calm objectivity disappeared and he ran toward the next cairn, stumbling through the grass. In this world, at this moment, he was no longer the toolmaker who ruled all living things. It was humbling to realize how vulnerable humans were: a weak little primate with small teeth and useless fingernails.

When he reached the cairn, he gazed back across the meadow and saw the three predators feasting on their victim. A blood-red patch appeared in the middle of the green. And now he thought of the creature’s wings-wings of flesh, like a bat. With the addition of an eagle’s head, this creature would have looked like the legendary griffin. And what about the horses? The boney ridge on the forehead made them resemble unicorns.

Generations of Travelers had visited this Eden and then returned to the human world. Their stories had become transformed into myths and legends; the unicorn was a medieval symbol of purity, and images of the griffin decorated swords and palaces. But the power of such symbols had concealed the origin of the tales; the myths were a link to these parallel worlds.

The path reappeared at the edge of the plateau and followed a brook that meandered down from the hills. Huge trees with rough gray bark had thrust their roots into the soil and formed their own kingdom of green. Their branches were so heavy that they bent nearly to the ground, forming a canopy that sheltered the earth from the sunlight. The trees grew fruit that reminded Gabriel of dried figs, and this provided nourishment for song birds and small animals that resembled squirrels.

There was a flowery, sweet smell in the air. Gabriel sat beside the brook to gaze up at the trees. Entering into their slow sense of the world was like stepping into an enormous cathedral with dark spaces and light filtered through the panes of a stained-glass window. The trees were indifferent to time, but were aware of the squirrels scrambling through their branches, scratching the bark and squeaking in triumph when they found something to eat.

Gabriel knelt to drink and splash water on his face. When he opened his eyes, he noticed something for the first time. A stick about two feet high had been shoved into the dirt. Someone-or something-had marked this point.

He walked in a spiral around the stick and found a second stick about fifty yards away. Someone was leaving signposts to the passageway.

He was cautious now, moving quietly as he tried to stay hidden in the undergrowth. Following the stick markers, he headed up the slope to a line of red cliffs that looked out over the trees. The cliffs had cracked and eroded over time, and there was a pile of debris that looked as if an hourglass had shattered and all the sand had dribbled out onto the ground.

A trail cut through this pile of talus and then zigzagged up the cliff to the mouth of a cave. Something was hiding in the darkness. He could sense the creature’s consciousness-feel its cruelty and intelligence. Run away, he told himself. But then the creature in the cave felt his presence and stepped outside.

Gabriel looked up the slope at his brother.