by Brad Ashlock
“Solomon?” Jacob asked.
Solomon looked around the strange forest of glass, back to the revolving door, and then to his audience.
“I know. I know so many things. We’re not dreaming. This is real. There’s a reason this is real.”
“What are you talking about?” Cal asked.
“It’s Quantum theory, but it’s beyond the hypothetical. For every possibility of existence there is a world. Nietzsche had had an inkling of this, but he lacked the science to prove it. He had said that since matter was finite and time infinite, the matter would recombine and recombine, blossom and die, be reborn, and repeat over and over. He called this Eternal Recurrence. The universe does recombine, does flower and die, in a repeated infinite pattern, but this is the key: it’s not just our universe, it’s every possibility, every infinite contingency of mater and energy recombining in a pattern, an infinite number of patterns all at once!” Solomon shouted.
“He’s gone insane,” Cal said.
Naumkin rested a palm on Solomon’s shoulder.
“Take a breath, sir. What do you mean?”
“There are infinite worlds repeating infinitely. And we’re going between them. Somehow, we are going between them, and when we do, we change. We intensify.”
“Why do you think that is?” Naumkin asked.
“It’s an initiation. Like a coming of age ritual. You go through the door, through the cave, through the birth canal—how could you not be more of what you already are on the other side? Initiation exposes who you truly are, and if it doesn’t break your back, well, that’s Nietzsche again.”
Cal said, “It doesn’t matter why or how. What matters is finding Meeko Russell and getting back home.”
“Finding who?” Jacob asked and curled the brim of his hat.
“Something from one of these other worlds,” Naumkin began, his voice gritty, “kidnapped a little girl. We’re trying to find her. We’re from what would be your future, Solomon. We left Michigan just after New Year’s, 2003.”
“How are you finding these portals?” Solomon asked. He was now Solomon the King, Solomon the Wise.
Naumkin said, “We think there are parallels between the connected world. Clues that point the way.”
“Which means we have to go in the pines where the river dies,” Cal intoned.
“I don’t care where we are,” Jacob said. “We’re free, Solomon. Free.”
“We’ll help you.” Solomon said.
Naumkin thanked them.
“Which way?” Jacob asked.
They looked about them. “One direction’s as good as another. We just have to have faith,” Naumkin said. With that, they started walking through the forest of glass, not realizing what a mistake the direction they had chosen was. The edges of the crystalline leaves cut through their clothes and left thin scratches. The going was slow and painful, but after a few hours, they came to a clearing. The ground was covered in a powder, some kind of glass dust that shimmered beneath the rainbow sky. The field stretched for about ten miles. Ahead loomed a giant, round-topped mountain of dark purple, its bottom lost in a translucent haze.
“What do you thing?” Cal asked Naumkin, looking out to the distant hill.
“I don’t know.”
“If we can’t climb it, we can always go around it,” Solomon said.
“Could get a better view of where we’re at,” Jacob suggested.
Beneath the powder at their feet, the ground was sponge. It seemed to make the trek to the mountain easier, cushioning their footsteps all the way.
“Judging by the mineral-based life of this place, if it is life, I wonder if there’s anything edible here,” Solomon said an hour into their march. The others shrugged off his musing, oblivious to the doom his words foreshadowed.
They were exhausted by the time they got to the base of the mountain. There was nowhere to lie down comfortably; the powder salting the ground scratched like fiberglass. They were shocked to find the mountain, which could have put Kanchenjunga to shame, was composed of the same sponge material as the terrain. It was like foam cushioning but incredibly pliable. Cal stuck his hand into it and after he pulled it out, the wound in the mountainside gradually closed over as if he’d never touched it. He was astonished.
“Let’s just go around it,” Solomon said.
Jacob was staring up the sheer face. “I don’t know,” he said, approaching the mountain, sticking in a finger. “It should be easy to climb.”
“We don’t know if it’s consistent the whole way up,” Solomon said. “It’s too risky. We’re exhausted already.”
Cal sighed. “It’s another twenty miles to go around it.”
“It’s up to you, Naumkin,” Jacob said.
Naumkin walked up to the mountainous sponge, pressed both hands into it, and pulled himself up. He kicked his boots in, and soon was about ten feet off the ground. “It really holds,” he called down.
“We could get a good look around at the top,” Jacob said to Solomon.
Cal began climbing and soon overtook his chess teacher. Solomon nodded, and then he and Jacob followed Naumkin and Cal up the steep face. The mountain turned out not to be as uniform or as dangerously smooth as it first appeared. There were deep ridges and pockets after the first thousand feet. It seemed impossible to fall from; the foam-like material not only sucked in their plunged fists and toes, it was tacky and stuck to their skin like scotch tape. No matter how high they climbed, the air pressure stayed consistent. Five hundred feet from the mountain’s peak, the climbers gathered together in a shallow cave. Strands of tinsel sprouted from pockmarked sections of the foam material here, and glinted from the soft multi-colored sky outside.
“This isn’t so bad,” Cal said.
“Let’s save judgment till we’ve reached the top,” Solomon warned.
“Do you think there’s any people here? Cities?” Jacob asked.
“I don’t know. The air is breathable. It’s quite possible, especially if there are parallels between closely connected worlds,” Solomon said.
They rested another forty-five minutes and then ventured out of the cave. Naumkin looked down. At the bottom swirled a light mist over the ground thousands of feet below. The others had resumed climbing; he followed behind them and recalled the time he fell from the building in New York and landed in a dumpster. To fall from this height, into a dumpster or the spongy ground, would definitely result in more than a broken leg.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at the summit. The very top of the peak was a rounded cone sprouting tinsel; encircling the cone was a flat area that allowed them to walk around and take in the view in every direction.
Ahead of them, toward the direction they had been walking, stretched what appeared to be a shimmering ocean that extended to the horizon and faded away into a multi-colored fog. The sea had a slivery shine to it; its waves, barely perceptible from their vantage point, did not ebb and flow smoothly. The water seemed mechanical, the hint of waves stuttering toward the shore like stop-motion photography. Down to their left, the flat powdery sponge field extended as far as they could see, an uninterrupted silver plane reflecting glimmers of the rainbow heaven. To their right, too, the field of powder extended as far as they could see until, just at the horizon, the silver plane met a range of silhouetted hills, rounded at the top and almost completely lost in haze. They looked back to the direction they had come. The glass forest they had emerged from looked like a white patch amid the silver field; beyond it stretched more nothingness.
“What’s that cloud?” Jacob pointed.
From the distance, just past where the glass forest lay, a large dark line of cloud was approaching, casting a shadow across the silver ground.
“A storm?” Solomon offered.
“What’s that noise?” Naumkin asked as the cloud got closer, bigger.
“Sounds like… breaking glass. Coming from the cloud?” Cal said.
Jacob wondered aloud if the noise was light
ning. Solomon didn’t think so. “We should find some shelter,” he said
“Let’s get back to the cave. It’s coming fast,” Naumkin advised.
They began to scramble back down the sponge mountain; it was more awkward to descend than ascend. They were going down in a straight line toward the cave’s narrow lip. Naumkin had gone down first, followed by Jacob, Solomon, and Cal. Naumkin was beside the mouth of the cave now. He swung a leg into the opening, and then, awkwardly, pulled himself inside. As Jacob followed him, the cloud had come to the mountain.
The storm was like ten hurricanes wrapped together and peppered with sheets of glass that shattered within its billowy vapor, roaring with the sound of a billion shards of colliding crystal. There was a high-pitched harmonic ring above the teeth-chattering clamor; the high tone issued from deep within the belly of the storm at its darkest center. Solomon fell into the cave as the wind hit the mountain. His back was lacerated, his new fine suit hung in tatters, and shards of glass stuck in his flesh like porcupine needles.
“Cal!” Naumkin said, rushing to the mouth of the cave, putting an arm over his face as he attempted to look up toward his student. It was impossible to even approach the entrance of the cave—the air was alive with flying bits of glass like a swarm of hornets that stung and sliced through Naumkin’s clothes and skin. Jacob, head down, rushed to Naumkin and pulled him back. Jacob’s mouth was moving, but Naumkin couldn’t hear anything because the cacophony outside was too ferocious. Jacob pulled Naumkin back to the end of the shallow cave beside Solomon.
“Cal!” Naumkin repeated.
As if on cue, Cal dropped down into the mouth of the cave. He was almost completely naked. His black leotard hung in stringy rags about his bloody form. He was coughing glass dust, mucus, and blood. He crawled away from the whirlwind toward the others, his eyes wide and white in contrast to his bloody face.
“Are you OK?” Solomon shouted.
Cal put a hand to his sliced ear and winced.
Naumkin ripped free a strip of cloth from Solomon’s shredded double-breasted jacket and bandaged it around Cal’s head. Most of the cuts were superficial, but Cal looked as though he had been sealed into a barrel of tomcats and tossed down Niagara Falls. If he had been out of that hurricane a few seconds longer, he might have been slashed into hamburger; he was lucky to have only given up half an ear.
The storm of glass kept them in the cave for nearly two days, though they couldn’t know it. There was no sun, no day, no night to measure time. All they had was the symphony of breaking glass outside, and the gloom of the cloud. They gave up trying to speak to one another; the din was too obtrusive. They occasionally dozed, but most of the time stared blankly into the storm, their heads ringing with the inhuman sound. It was maddening. Thirst and hunger, in combination with the blare of the tempest, pulled them down into a groggy state of hypnogogic indifference. At last, the blast of the storm began to subside. The shadow passed the mountain. Cal and Jacob were the first to crawl to the mouth of the cave and watch the cloud of blowing glass head over the mechanical-looking waves of the silvery ocean.
“We’ve been trapped here too long, “ Solomon said. His lips looked cracked as a mummy’s.
“We’ve got to get down,” Naumkin said. “Head to the water.”
Solomon chuckled. “Water you say? There isn’t any water. It’s glass, Tigran. Out there is an ocean of glass.”
“But it’s moving. There are waves,” Cal said.
“Maybe you’re right,” Solomon conceded.
“Let’s worry about that later,” Jacob said. “We’ve got to get off this mountain of…whatever the hell this stuff is.”
“Are you well enough to climb?” Naumkin asked Cal.
“I’ll be all right.”
They descended the mountain; it was slow going. Jacob had slipped once, but fell onto a ridge and caught himself before plunging down the side. They were battered, thirsty, and exhausted, but they got down the hill. They collapsed into the white powder of the spongy ground, never mind if it itched or not.
“It’s a desert. No precipitation. Just glass,” Solomon said, looking up into the multi-hued sky.
“Things were growing in the forest. Those tree things,” Cal said.
“We don’t know that. You’re assuming. Maybe they were just crystals.”
“There’s no use in bickering,” Naumkin said. “We have to find water or find the door.”
“If there is a door. If there is water,” Solomon said.
“If there isn’t,” Cal said philosophically, “we’re all dead.”
“We should get going,” Jacob murmured.
They silently got to their feet. “Where to, Tigran?” Solomon asked.
“The ocean.”
Solomon raised his eyebrows and then followed behind the others. It looked like a full day’s walk to the shore judging by their view from the peak. They were spent. Each step was an effort. Cal, because of his wounds, kept tripping; each time he fell it took him longer to get up. Jacob put an arm around him and they walked together. Naumkin never fell, but he would stop for long periods and wipe at his brow, forcing the others to wait for him. Solomon dragged constantly behind them all, but he was steady, he never rested, he never dropped to his knees.
At last, after a full day’s journey, they could hear the ocean just beyond a dune of glass dust. They climbed the hill and looked out to the sea. How it gleamed, how it sparkled in the glow of the sunless rainbow sky. Naumkin licked his parched lips with a tongue that felt like shoe leather. Maybe the water wouldn’t be salty; maybe it was clear, cold and pure. They hobbled toward the breaking waves, rainbows in their eyes, their throats opening in painful expectation. Cal wanted to throw himself into the waters and gulp until he puked. Jacob was crawling now on his hands and knees. Solomon stopped. He looked out across the ocean and, somehow, began to laugh a laugh that sounded like tearing parchment. Naumkin looked away from the ocean to Solomon, then back again. Naumkin, Cal and Jacob were at the edge of the breaking waves now, Solomon a few yards behind them.
This was not an ocean of water; it was an ocean of broken mirror glass. The triangular pieces rolled toward the shore and then ebbed back like water, catching light like water, but its sound was that of the storm they had endured, the sound of shattering glass, scraping crystal, and splintering silicon. Solomon laughed again and now fell to his knees in the glass powder. He curled into a fetal position, chuckling or weeping, the others couldn’t tell. Naumkin walked to the flowing shards of glass and, as if he couldn’t believe this without touching it, reached down into the shards and withdrew a long hooking piece of mirror. Blood ran from his hand and he made a fist, snapping the shard. He dropped to his haunches, and then fell backward, the piece of mirror still in his grip. Jacob was facedown in the glassy powder, crying. Cal just stood before the glass ocean, dumbstruck.
Naumkin’s mind was unhinged. He collapsed and coughed an exhalation that puffed powder up around his mouth. They were all going to die here, he thought. White and brown had blurred into the mirrored silver of the impossible sea crashing before them. He could see their reflections in the moving shards: four dark forms sprawled on a sugary shore, their images like beached dolphins flailing in despair. He rolled over and looked up into the rainbow-sky. Naumkin wanted to die now; he wanted Jenny to descend with angel wings, pick him up and bring him to heaven to be with her.
He knew that if he just laid here they would perish; they were half-dead already. He reached his hand up to the rainbow, a dolphin’s flipper dreamily striking out toward sanctuary, toward water, toward heaven, toward things that weren’t there. Naumkin’s hand fell to his chest with a hollow thud. They would die here in the garden of glass; they would petrify and become glass, their sorrowful faces frozen in transparent agony, reflecting the rainbows back to the godless sky. He remembered chess, the weight of the pieces in his hand, their shine beneath the stage lights, the glossy board of sixty-four squares, the openings, the ta
ctics, the miracle wins, and the unforgettable blunders. Was this how it would end?
Naumkin, Master of Defense, the Medvedkin, the prophet of “Safety First”, the widower, the teacher, the lonely man. He was going to die alone. And it was all because of the Stalin hellmounth and that dark afternoon in the Ukrainian woods with his father and a rifle. He had pulled the trigger. That was it, really. His fate had been sealed. He had shattered his own life, and now he was at the place where all the pieces had gathered, where all the shards had collected into an ocean, and mocked him with his own pathetic reflection.
What do you do when the game is surely lost? You tip your king. You resign. He remembered how he used to save himself from lost positions, how he had shocked his attackers with subterfuge, hanging on, waiting, waiting for an exploitable weakness, setting traps, and then digging into his adversaries with his bear claws. He never admitted how many times he had simply been lucky, how many times his head was in the lion’s jaws and it was only due to sheer chance that he was able to escape, to win. He had enjoyed the mystique; it gave him a psychological edge. His losses were attributed to simple oversights and off-days. Deep down he knew many of his victories and miracle escapes into drawn positions were just luck aided by the opponent’s overconfidence. Now he had been called on this. There was no deep weakness to exploit in the glass garden, no hidden positional or tactical motif to explore: it was time to resign.