I start off on the climb up the side of the banking, using various bushes to pull myself upwards. It becomes quite steep and soon I am on all fours pushing myself upwards. What is strange is how long this climb takes, as though the slope either increases in length or I am climbing on the spot. It is the same experience as before with greyness or the edge of this reality as I now think of it. I look down and up and both distances look as they had done from the road, yet no matter how I toil I seem to remain about halfway up the hill. After what seems like an age I roll over on my back and lie exhausted and realise as I look at the sky that it is slowly losing its colour and that night is beginning to fall.
I fall asleep almost without realisation awaking refreshed at first light. Beside me lies a flagon of wine and some bread and I take breakfast halfway up the banking looking curiously at the vast valley that lies beyond and the steep sided, almost sheer walls that form the far boundary. It looks like the valley has simply sunk to lower depth and I try to recall the name and nature of this geographical formation but all that floats into my mind are two words; terminal, moraine, and I know that is not connected in anyway to what I am looking at.
Think.
I try to think, I feel I ought to think. I ought to ponder. I should be curious. My brain feels stuck in neutral. I am in the moment and know I must climb again but beyond that I appear to have nothing going on inside and yet being aware of that I seem unable to progress beyond that point. I realise I have not even questioned the flagon of weak wine and the bread or why it was there. I know this is not like me but I don't know how I know this to be true. I cannot think, no reasoning is present only a vagueness of knowledge, a simple acceptance of what is around me, like a toddler without a question just an urge to move and explore and soak up what is around me without question. It feels so safe even though part of me is shouting from a great distance this is not normal or right or sensible but the need to climb, the sensation of a full stomach and the warmth of the sun rising in the sky drown out all other head noise.
*****
This morning it is easy to reach the outcrop of rock at the top of the banking. I shield my eye from the rising sun and look towards the valley that I can see, resisting the urge to look behind me. I realise that what I am experiencing is a bit like watching a three dimensional TV, I am involved in an interactive experience which is every sense is real but behind me I know will be nothing. As I think this I realise that my brain is working again and I can question and reason.
I spent a long time making sense of the scene before my eyes and also trying hard to reason out why I was here and what was going on and when my memory had become fragmented, but I don't feel the need to explore those issues here in this brief account. I am torn as I write this between relating events as they happened and trying to interpret what happened to me and feel there is a danger that I may impose after thoughts on to the reality of the experience. If I have time I will write about what I think happened and why if not the answers ought to be blindingly obvious if you are Adam reading this and have my memoirs to hand when you are finished reading this account. I beg to read on and not delay I know you will be having a hard time decoding these words but let that not distract you from the imperative nature of the task having started reading it is essential that you read to the end and only then will you know what to do. If these notes have fallen into other hands then read if you will without my memoir it will just be the ramblings of a madman and I wish you luck in working it out. I wish I could paint as it would be easier to that way to give an illustration of the wonderful sunken valley floor. It was obvious to me that I was high up and that the flat bottomed valley lay perhaps three hundred metres below. It looked idyllic with its meandering river and trees growing along its bank. It was flooded in sunshine and I noted only that there were no shadows at all but by now such strangeness only was noted rather than puzzled over. As for the road or the Roman soldier from this place there was no sign. I felt no need as yet to do anything although I did long to be in the valley as it looked familiar and homely and welcoming and above all it looked safe.
I sought for a way down but none was visible so descending the banking I crossed to the road and looked and was brought up sharply by the realisation that I was on the edge of a cliff and there was no gentle slope I could make progress down or even look over. I sat down cross legged and pondered.
I sensed rather than saw the change. Difficult to say what I sensed but I knew I had to turn round. I was this time startled, not only had the greyness gone but also the banking, the arch and the road and stretching behind rugged mountain heath rising to snow clad peaks. To my left there was a ragged looking forest and from that came the sound of hounds baying and the clanking of metal and with that an overwhelming sense of fear. I had to escape but where?
I looked around and there was no way out but down and that was surely only to fall to my death. I began to panic and in doing so I felt the gravel slip beneath my feet and I lost my balance as I saw a huge hound bound from the cover of the forest and so I fell.
Over the cliff I went and landed only metres below on a bed of soft moss laid out on a ledge and behind it a cave. I looked up but the shape of the cliff hid everything above from my sight. I lay there for a moment before rolling quietly into the cave. I listened and the sounds above faded into the distance and vanished.
When I was sure the noise had gone I had time then to take in the interior of the cave. A fire was burning in a hearth towards the back of the cave. There was a stone bench, rugs,furs and stores of food. I sat down by the fire and noticed that there was a coffee pot to hand and I could think of nothing I craved more than coffee.
It wasn't a large cave and felt more like a living room in a old fashioned house in size. The view from the back of the cave framed the cliff opposite where I saw a mirror image of this cave and could see someone looking out from the back towards me. I tried various movements but the distance was so great that I couldn't be sure but I got the sense I was looking at myself. Curiouser and curiouser as Alice once said. The cave behind narrowed but did not end but seemed to stretch on in darkness. I decided it might be worth exploring after I had rested.
Once again I felt safe and I recall clearly I felt no confusion even though what I was experiencing made no sense to me. Try as I might to reason at the time in the end all I could do was accept the reality I was living in as real. I stood up to stretch and hit my head on the roof with a stunning force. I sank to my knees losing focus for a moment and then feeling the warm flow of blood trickling over my head. Yes I thought it certainly is real and that was the last I remembered until I came too some time later.
I ached. I saw it was growing dark and placed some more wood on the fire and made more coffee and washed myself from the water bag hanging on the wall, I felt and saw the dried blood come off my face and head. I felt gingerly around the my scalp and found the gash which didn't feel too bad just tender and crusted with blood.
It was a strange feeling being in that cave. Not once did I suspect there had been another occupant or owner it always felt as though it were a place prepared specially for me, laid out and waiting. I felt that so strongly it was as real a knowledge as the heat from the fire when I sat back down to drink my coffee. Tiredness began to creep up on me and gathering up rugs and furs I made myself a warm and comfortable bed beside the fire as I felt a chill of night creep into the cave.
I dreamed a dream.
Into the Cave
I woke with the sun. It's light illuminating the cave but not entering it. I put more wood on the fire and ate bread and drank fresh water and felt refreshed.
It was time today I reckoned to explore this cave and find out what lay down the narrow opening. I hoped it might be a way down the valley floor although I had not as yet had the courage to venture beyond the cave entrance to see the valley as the sound of the baying hound still struck fear in my heart and in the cave I felt safe. Very safe.
I walked to the back of
the cave and wondered how best to prepare for this exploration. After some thought I decided I would simply explore and if as I hoped it looked as though it was a way out then I would come back and gather up some supplies.
Walking into the back of the cave I was able to remain upright although the walls narrowed creating a tunnel effect. Crossing what I regarded as the threshold the first thing I became aware of was a pool of water being constantly fed from a rivulet flowing from the wall about a metre above the rock pool. Having a source of water was essential and one of the mysteries of the cave was solved. I moved forward and noticed the incline steepen. Instead of growing darker as I entered as I expected the cave walls seemed to suffuse a bluish white light that made progress easy.
I was clearly now in a tunnel of some sort that felt like the tail of the cave reaching deep into the rock. I sensed and felt my downward motion but as it twisted and turned and occasionally rose upwards before falling back to a downward path it felt as though I was heading inwards all the time. There was no sense whatsoever of the tunnel turning outwards to perhaps reach the valley floor.
I walked on for long enough to begin to wish I had brought food and water with me and so it seemed to me I ought to go back to the cave itself and gather supplies for what was obviously going to be lengthy exploration. As I was about to turn and head back up to the cave I noticed that the sounds of the tunnel had changed and there was an echo from my footsteps. Moving forward the tunnel abruptly gave way to another domed cave. In the centre was a broken stone pillar and on top lay bread and water. I ate and drank and puzzled.
The cave was almost completely perfect as a dome with a flat floor and even walls. Was it a natural cave? I thought not but I also recalled that water, rock and time can create strange shapes hidden beneath our feet. Opposite the entrance I had used stood three more tunnels. Now I had a choice. Fortunately on closer inspection there was no choice. The tunnel on the left reached perhaps a hundred metres in length before ending abruptly in an impassable rock fall. The middle tunnel proved to be a false entrance that narrowed until it closed completely. So I had to take the remaining tunnel.
It continued as before suffusing light sufficient for my needs and descending all the time. I was not long in that tunnel however before I reached an end. It was closed and not in any natural fashion but rather a large circular rock appeared to have been rolled out of a slit in the side wall to block the passage and act as a door.
Try as I might nothing I could think of would move the stone which was easily two metres in height. I felt the surface of this door that blocked my way and found it covered in a thick sticky dust. I wiped it away in the hope that I find some lever or other device that would allow it to move and give me access.
I was startled though when it felt the rough shape of letters beneath my fingers. I cleared everything away around it and at last was able to make out six letters that simply said.
NotYet.
Water flowed like a little river down the middle of the passage and found its way around the edges of the stone door. I was aware of the luminosity beyond the door, a light bright and welcoming but something I was unable to reach, I was filled with a huge sense of longing for the light that seeped in to my bluish twilight world that had seemed so cosy and homely as I had wandered through the rock tunnels of the mountain side but not seemed unworthy of my admiration and emotions. I felt drawn inexorably towards the light that seeped through into my world. I could not reach it no matter how I tried and the words run together NotYet stung my eyes with tears when I looked upon them.
I sat down slumped against the side of the tunnel and let the water run over my feet and I wept by that little river.
Alone.
I felt alone as I wept. Cut off. Not lonely but alone. The only living thing in my world.
Dismay and sorrow flooded my being as the water began to rise.
Part of my soul wanted to lie down and give up this hopeless situation and part began to panic at the rising of the water. The latter won the day and wiping my eyes with heels of my palms I stood up and began the long ascent back to the cave. As I walked the flow of water eased and disappeared and the ground became dry as my eyes also dried and I began to feel the flow of fresh and cool air reach my face from the cave. A wind blew gently around me and seemed to warm my soul and calm my emotions. The words Not Yet seemed now more like a promise to cherish than something to be reduced to tears by. There was hope. A little candle grew stronger in the darkness of my soul.
I emerged into the cave to find that darkness had fallen and the fire burning brightly in the hearth as fresh wood burned and caught. I was being cared for by the cave for who else could be doing this.
I was struck by the lunacy of the thought but realised as I sat and warmed myself as the night drew on that my whole situation while very definitely real yet nevertheless beyond reason. No theory could be made to fit my experience. It was not natural and the world I was in was as far from normal as I could imagine. Mulling all these things brought me eventually to sleep.
I dreamed a dream.
Towards the Valley
As morning dawned I stretched and welcomed the new day. Today I would venture to the front of the cave and see what was possible as obviously I was not destined to stay here for ever. Of course I thought to myself that maybe exactly what is meant to happen. If food and water and the essentials of life are being provided then perhaps that is exactly what is meant to happen. If that was the case then was I imprisoned here or simply on some kind of spiritual retreat? To be imprisoned would be to be held against my will and that didn't on reflection seem to be the case. I felt no problem in my own being about staying here and reflecting on life and meditating and thinking free from any worry. It was probably safer for me to stay here than try to make any progress from the cave. The Not Yet seemed possibly to indicate that I should stay here and wait until it was time.
I went and looked out of the cave mouth at the valley below.
It looked attractive, welcoming, but its openness seemed less tempting than staying in the cave. There was no way to climb back up where I had fallen and I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to go back up there where I had known fear and confusion. Here with this view I could stay and feel safe and hide away from everything, like being in a deep and dreamless sleep oblivious to the world outside. I felt no need to venture further. I moved to the very front of the ledge to look down and then stared across the valley where I realised I could no longer see a mirroring cave.
As I looked around I noticed clouds appearing over the mountains, dark and menacing clouds and felt that first chill wind that heralds impending change in the weather. I shivered.
Behind me I heard a noise, slight but audible and enough to make me turn and look.
The cave was no longer there. I looked down and there was no moss only rock. I stood on a ledge on mountainside. Where the entrance had been was only rock and no matter how frantically I searched with hand and eye there was no sign at all of the cave not even an indication it had ever existed. I shivered as the first of the rain hit me in the face, it was icy and I pressed myself back against the rock face in a vain effort to protect myself from the elements. Lightning cracked the sky, thunder shook the rocks and the wind howled and I pressed further and further back in fear and trembling at the great storm that was unleashed on the valley.
How long it lasted I have no idea. It seemed as I endured it to last for hours but time was becoming a stranger to me and I had no real idea, it was more about simply enduring. At times the wind was so fierce that I feared I would blown off the ledge and gripped whatever hand holds I could find until my fingers grew numb.
There was no safety to be found on this ledge and as the storm lashed me I knew that I had to find some way to get to the valley floor, at least there would be safety.
At last the storm abated and sky began to clear and the sun emerged and brought with it fresh perspectives.
What now?
Ho
w do I get away from here?
Questions like this flooded my mind and I was convinced that surely there was some way down, logic would have dictated that in any normal situation but then the cave had ceased to be and even now I wondered if it had been a dream and phantasm? After all if the cave existed there had to have been some way up but had it. I knew not what to do as nothing in my life had ever prepared me for what I was undergoing now. Was it a test of some sort? No matter how hard I tried I could not believe what I was experiencing was unreal or a dream. It was far too real to be anything other than reality albeit a reality that I did not recognise or understand.
A careful search of the edges of the ledge and the surrounding rock face appeared to reveal no way down. I could see many places where there would be handholds but I was no climber. I wondered if I was supposed to simply step off the edge and hope for the best. Fear had already driven me to jump off a cliff edge just to escape even though it meant death as far as I knew.
In the cave fear had for the most part left me alone but now it began to rear its head and swallow me from the inside out. Fear that had dominated my life. Fear of everything that challenged me. Fear a black presence that I could never deal with, fear that forced a withdrawal from so much of the world, fear that crippled.
I shook bodily as fear entered and held me in its grip and when I felt it could get no worse and I was close to blinding panic, fear turned to terror.
Over the mountain top it came, dark almost black with piercing yellow eyes. Wings wide enough to block out the sun, talons gleaming red against the blackness of its body. A creature of imagination, a dragon like entity.
Inner Legacy Page 4