by K R Sanford
Devin showed Pawdell the table. “Set the box on the table so we can see what this year’s harvest looks like,” he said.
Pawdell cleared a place for the box and untied the hairy green twine. “Lots of food this year, Devin,” he said.
“Well, you know, got more workers this year,” said Devin with a smile. “They’ve been coming in and out, night and day, for the last three days. This will go on for three more days, maybe more on top of that.
Yes, very nice, those shrooms look healthy. She must have gathered them fresh today. I’m going to light the sacred candles and burn a few incense. Shanna, will you set that silver cake tray here in the center of the table, the one with the tall pedestal. Pawdell, take about a third of what’s in the box and make a mound high up, like a big platter of ice cream.”
“Want me to pour some chocolate syrup over the top?” said Pawdell.
“No,” replied Devin, “we’ll leave that with the side dishes. But now, you eat a couple more of those shrooms. I can see you’re not quite there yet.”
“Sure thing,” replied Pawdell. “I wanted to say, before I forget. There is a strong truth serum in this year’s batch.”
“Excellent,” replied Devin. “When did you first notice this?”
“After two,” said Pawdell, “just two and Shanna also noticed something.”
“Okay,” said Devin with a sudden tone of caution. “Can I get you some tea? I brewed a fine batch you will like.” Devin didn’t wait for an answer. He turned around to the buffet and set three royal tea cups and saucers on a serving tray. He filled them with tea from a matching tea kettle. He set the kettle back on its place holder with the elegance of a head butler. After setting out the tea, he motioned to the table and said, “Dig in, get it while it’s hot.” He smiled as he picked up a cup for himself. He steadied himself against the buffet while he sipped his tea. Devin watched his guests refresh themselves under the influence of the mushrooms. “Shanna, what did you notice with the shrooms?” he asked.
“They’re sensual,” she said without hesitation. “More than usual, I would go so far to say they make a potent aphrodisiac. Right now, I’m ready to butter that cucumber and give it a good rubbing.”
“Okay, expressive,” said Devin poker faced, “anything else?”
“No,” she replied without taking her eyes off the table.
“All right,” said Devin. “Take one of the rooms up stairs. Make sure you close the door and lock it. Shanna, if you and Pawdell are going to trip around the castle grounds: take your room keys with you. I don’t want you two wandering around by yourselves without a safe zone for privacy.”
“Okay,” said Pawdell. “We will stay close. Do you want to hear something strange?”
“What do you mean, strange?” asked Devin.
“Well,” said Pawdell. “When we were walking over here, Marty, I mean Colonel Stiller, walked with us. Then he turned back when we started to feel the shrooms start to peek. He just turned right around and said he has commitments. Isn’t that strange?”
“I wasn’t there, Paw,” replied Devin. “What’s this all about Shanna?”
Shanna, as if talking to the food replied. “Marty has to get up early to take a group to General Hodges flagship. He needs to place him under house arrest, the Emperor’s orders. The Amedans will be there, so will my dad and Grantham. They leave at eight bells.”
“Well, they have a lot on their minds, Paw. I suggest we stay back and let them do their job, don’t you?”
“Oh yeah for sure, Devin,” said Pawdell. “I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” said Devin. “It is considerate of you to be so inclusive, Paw. Bye the way, are those two shrooms kicking in yet?”
“Oh, not yet,” he replied. “What’s inclusive mean?”
“Well, that means, including me with the intelligence gathering process. Allowing me to be in the loop of what’s going on; I appreciate this very much. There is a lot going on out there. Along with putting on the biggest festival since coming here to Ameda, the tasks can be daunting. But I think we got her now, Paw.”
“That’s good to know, Your Majesty,” said Pawdell.
Shanna stood up from the table with chocolate syrup smeared on her lips. “That’s good to know,” she said feeling the sensation of an oily cucumber slip through her fingers. Her eyebrow twitched. One side of her mouth curled open to reveal the tip of her tongue dripping with saliva.
Devin, pulling his shoulder length gray hair from his forehead said. “I see you found the chocolate syrup. I wasn’t sure if they brought that out yet or not. Are you two going to be all right? I’m going to check out what’s happening in the kitchen.” He grabbed the pink shoe box. He held it tight with both hands and made a bee line through the double doors to the kitchen.
Pawdell followed Devin with his eyes as he disappeared behind the double doors. He turned his gaze toward Shanna. “We better find our rooms then we can go out back and see what’s going on.”
“Shanna pointed her cucumber in Pawdell’s face asserting, “That; is a good idea!” She covered the mound of mushrooms with the cake lid and walked out into the hallway with cucumber in hand. She marched up the white curved staircase to the third story bedrooms. Pawdell, like a curious cat, followed.
Pawdell caught his breath on the third floor. He walked to where Shanna spread eagle over the bedroom doorway. “This room’s mine,” she said. “I’ll see you out back in a few minutes.” She spun around closing the door behind her.
Pawdell raised an eyebrow while resuming his trek down the hallway. A small unclaimed room he used on many occasions was waiting for him as if expected. He remembered the four post bed as he had left it, comfortable, clean and nice to look at. Pleased with his surroundings, he stepped inside. He closed the door locking it behind him as his dear friend and king had instructed.
He sat in the chair next to his bed to collect his thoughts. He admired the weapons-of-war resting in their racks on the wall. He placed his head against the back of his chair. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts slip into the spell of the mushrooms.
Soon he was off in an abstract universe traveling on ribbons of multicolored lights. Stars surrounded him in a vault of black. His body felt the weight of fatigue from a full day’s work. Then at last, his universe grew dark and he fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Hours later he awoke to a soft white light. Outside, it was dark and it seemed quiet, too quiet. Just then, the soft white light began to move. Pawdell froze, not wanting to disturb the event. He took in all he could gather with his senses. The smells were the floral fragrance mixing from the gardens around the castle. There was the faint aroma of machine oil coming from the weapons mounted on the wall. Pawdell felt at ease. The temperature was perfect, warm and fresh. His taste buds stirred with each breath he took and his bones felt weightless as he sat in the chair beside his bed.
Pawdell tried to focus on the source of the soft white light but the light drew away. It lifted itself above him. He watched in astonishment. The light drew up tight about itself, forming into the brightness of a star.
The star had a familiarity, a composition that was compelling in its presence. The star had a life. He could not take his eyes off it and continued to watch as it moved still higher above him in his room.
The star radiated a soft golden glow. It draped a translucent silver veil around him in his chair. He sat fascinated with the beauty of its subtle salutation.
Pawdell studied the presence within the star, its comfort, and the ease of its unifying force. He felt spacetime slip away from his conscience thoughts. He felt his weightless body lift from the lap of his comfortable room. He felt the fatigue in his body begin to fade away. Then he saw the star move higher in his room. Its light opened through the ceiling above him. It rose still higher beyond the ceiling and beyond the castle roof. The star traveled up through the dark expanse of space.
As the star broke the womb o
f the Milky Way, he felt the ease of its truss. It moved him in unison through his body and mind. Pawdell acquiesced to the invocation of its guiding light. He moved upward through the silver veil toward the solitary star. As he traveled, the presence in the veil stood him upright. He was standing on both feet. He noticed the fatigue in his body had vanished.
He traveled beyond the upper atmospheres of Ameda. He could see below to the Flagship Mastodon. He could see its two battleships as escorts and its six bulk cruisers for backup. A train of Interstellar warships trailed out and around Planet Ameda. He saw they occupied the same orbital space as the command group.
They were thirty thousand miles above Shrine Lake Village. Pawdell surmised the convoy around Ameda made a formidable fleet. He watched as brown haze enveloped the outer bulkheads of the warships. The haze appeared as residue of cosmic dirt. It was the worthless value of an institution gone corrupt.
Pawdell compared his ascended view of Ameda to the ultra-dimension inside the veil. He drew near to the appearance of its force-field. Like a thin barrier to the cold outer darkness, the veil begged examination. He placed his hand close to the force-field to investigate its substance.
He pressed his hand even closer. He felt the warm soft substance. As he pressed his hand deeper into the veil, a cold resistance warned him of consequences. His reason bridled him from pushing through to the dark unknown. The more he pushed the more he felt the cold beyond the veil. He could imagine himself in panic trapped out in space. He pulled his hand back inside and surrendered to the logic of this present dimension.
At that instant, he watched the brilliance of the star lead to a place beyond the known universe. The star was traveling at a terrifying speed. He looked around and saw he was on a course through the outer cosmos. He was racing outside the parameters of light. He was moving in a direction leading far into the unknown.
His body grew frail, yet powerful. His mind became unencumbered. His thoughts began to economize and streamline in their substance. He was holding to his memories like a thread.
At that moment his clothes began to transform. His pants and coat evolved into material he had not seen before. His waiter uniform he had worn in the service of the pub transformed into a radiant blue coat and slacks. The fabric had no detection of seam or crease. It was as if fashioned by a tailor of infinite reason and knowing. He looked up within the veil to where the star had stopped.
The star had set itself in place, and was holding itself on high as if subsisting from a nest. Then with predestined care, it sent veils of soft white light upon a journey. The journey was the renewing concert for the evolution of its young. Pawdell's journey had been a correction for his new journey to come.
Pawdell began deceleration. He continued moving toward the great star. Indeed it was a great and wondrous star, as it had journeyed through the cosmos at an unfathomable speed. Pawdell was not at one with this greatness. Of its brilliance, he did not comprehend. Of its composition, strange as it may seem, he felt born within its power.
He moved closer and closer until finally, fear seized him at his core. He determined in his mind, and by the sheer might of his will, he turned from this something he was not. At that same moment, he slowed in his ascent until he stopped.
He was standing solid on a floor, secured in the veil of the soft white light. Pawdell took a breath. He looked to his left, and he looked to his right, where he saw a mirror. The mirror was set in a fourteenth century ornate gold frame from Earth. It was an odd mirror, thought Pawdell, for being so way out in the far-flung reaches of space. He tested the mirror to see if it gave a reflection, and if it was a good mirror or a run of the mill?
It was, in fact, a perfect reflection of a perfect face with perfect skin and the perfect features of a Vallian Lord. As he examined the eyes, on careful inspection, he discovered the reflection in the mirror was his own. What was stranger yet, he surmised, was that his hair had been perfectly combed. This required an answer beyond the obvious, that of, he must be dead.
He looked below the gold ornate framework of the mirror and saw a golden knob. He put his hand on the nob and gave it a turn. The mirror moved back and a door opened out from the veil. He looked through the doorway and saw a floor, a floor that he recognized. The same transparent gold floor he had seen in the Emperor Legion’s court. Pawdell was not shocked or surprised. He stood at the doorway mesmerized by the familiar immortal construction.
The flat open portal lay before him as a doorway to immortality. He stepped out of the veiled corridor and walked across its glass-like gold surface. He came to the edge.
Pawdell followed along the edge to where a rise of three steps formed at a corner outcrop. The steps; constructed of the same substance, was an unbroken continuous construction. It was the infinite expression of an untraceable builder. He mounted the first step, then the second, at the third step he waited.
He saw no moving objects in the distance to absorb his isolation. He saw no moving starships below him to witness his occurrence. He saw only the black abyss that lay below the golden floor and the tiny stars that were flickering far away. The stars, like all other stars, fixed themselves in the orbit of their own space.
He waited for a voice that would grant him an acquaintance, a voice that was familiar, but a voice that did not come. Pawdell did not so much expect the universe to launch into celebration of his arrival. Yet, as he turned to carry on with his exploration, he saw a ghost-like figure, an apparition. Still, he was not surprised, nor was he in fear of his life.
It was pleasing to see a being standing on the same immortal floor as he. Things were looking up, he thought. Then, as the apparition motioned with an outstretched arm, he saw four living spirits. The spirits were sitting behind a rectangular table. The table he did not see before the appearance of the figure. He gazed in veneration upon the audience of this new host.
Pawdell recognized the spirits as the archetypes of the ancients. These are spirits of the bodies of the four living creatures caged in the Emperor's court. The four living creatures confronted him. His performance got judged with a separate but equal perspective. One had the face of a lion. The other had the face of an eagle. The other had the face of an ox. And, the other had the face of a Vallian.
Each living creature possessed separate individual powers. Their unique mission was clear in the direction they faced. Pawdell was witness to the reservoir of their force. The four living creatures showed him the thread that bound the will of their purpose. He saw the unifying force of their minds.
Pawdell listened to the expressions of the four living creatures. He replied with a posture of receptive affirmation. The four living creatures acknowledged. Their purpose he saw in a single breath of telepathic utterance. They had opened themselves to Pawdell and shared their inner most thoughts. They transmitted their faculties and intentions, aspirations and desires. He experienced their message and its depth in his body, mind and spirit. He gathered and understood the fullness of their enlightened message. He knew them now, as clear and as real, as clear as they were from the moment of time.
He reflected on the totality of their significance. Then, he turned and gazed upon the figure beside him. The figure, infinite in its being, beckoned with a welcome hand. Pawdell stepped closer. He desired to know the clear purpose of the infinite.
The infinite held him back with a wave of compassion, a compassion so great he froze where he stood. In that same instant, Pawdell got a telepathic impression of the infinite. He was to hold steady where he stood. The distance he stood got established by the unifying spirit. And, in that moment he understood the guiding friendship of the infinite.
The infinite again impressed upon Pawdell that it was a fellow traveler. It could not embrace him at that moment in any closer proximation. Pawdell was aware of the reverent power of the limitations. He complied with the unifying spirit. As he did, he received a fuller quality of infinite value. He gladly accepted.
Pawdell experienced an invigor
ating essence emerging within him. He was conscience of the fact his experience gave a permanency to his life. He saw he could take in and be the quality of what he lived as it were a gift.
Pawdell was eager for his next lesson. He looked to the Infinite for a newer and still greater revelation. The Infinite, guided Pawdell’s eyes to the starry expanse of space. A star surged in its brightness above the others. The star dislodged itself and drew out on a course toward Pawdell and the Infinite. As the star drew closer it evolved from a single point of light to a massing of clouds.
The clouds rolled toward them like a storm. As the clouds charged in, Pawdell’s body began to tremble. He could hear the thunder roar and he could see the clouds abounding. The roaring thunder quickened every cell in his body. He welcomed the celestial drama unfolding before him. When the stormy clouds rolled up in front of them, they came to a halt in suffering to bring forward the dawn of a new day.
Pawdell could see within the billowing clouds the cobalt blue rows of rooftops. And he could see the spire-capped turrets. He could see the clouds surrounding the castle walls fade away. Inside the castle walls he could see a beautiful city. He could see enchanted courtyards and cobbled streets of gold.
Above the beautiful city, he could see stars appear that gave their light as bright as day. The beautiful city was great. It was a work of flawless majesty with the grace of days gone by. Inside the great and beautiful city were lands of rolling hills. Through the center of the city flowed a river. A castle was within the city walls and beside the flowing river.
Pawdell turned to inquire about the astronomic spectacle. The Infinite impressed within Pawdell that he was being offered an option. Pawdell felt sad for the choices he would make. He would experience ultimate contentment or return to Ameda with his own destiny. This choice would be the fundamental turning point for his infinite character. It would be his most important venture. He would live as a mortal once again. But, after his mission, he could return through the veil of soft white light and accept this place in the stars.