by Mike DiCerto
"Quarkie, wake up."
"Two more hours,” Caffrey said amidst the drool that dribbled down his chin.
"Caffrey, up! I discovered something strange."
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes.
"Strange? I don't know if I could identify ‘strange’ anymore."
"Quark, love, this is strange in a good way. Real trees. I have discovered real trees."
His interest piqued just a bit, he sat up.
"And?"
"And ... they wind in a spiraling avenue through this forest of fakery. I calculated the angles and noticed a definite Fibonacci trend in the path. Come look."
Caffrey stood—or, to put it more accurately, floated—up. Like a leaf caught in a sudden updraft, he felt himself rise up along with the smoke of the fire.
"Ahh ... Angie ... something strange is going on..."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hidden Treasure
Take a walk down by the river.
There's a lot that you can learn.
If you've got a mind that's open,
If you've got a heart that yearns.
Traffic
Beneath Caffrey, lying beside the fire, was his body, along with the still figures of his sleeping mates. All grew suddenly brighter as the entire forest, every trunk of every tree, became illuminated not by some external light but apparently by a sudden improvement of Caffrey's vision. The forest began descending, and for a moment he thought he was rising still further into the sky. However, all of the artificial trees were telescoping into the ground—every tree but for a double row of thick, dark trunks held firmly in place by their roots.
A spiraling path awaited him through the avenue of the living trees. Willing himself forward, he flew on the wings of his consciousness above the path. His vision blurred around the peripheral, as if someone had smeared Vaseline onto the outer edges of his eyeballs. He was floating through a tube and found himself following a spinning golden star.
"Angie? Do you see that?"
There was no reply from the Revenant; but the question, escaped from his mind, remained poised in the air like a billboard. In fact, all of his thoughts, memories and fantasies seemed to be sprayed about like graffiti—physical graffiti, covering the walls of the tube with images that morphed into lattices of gold and liquid gems that could have only been created directly from the mind of some psychedelic god.
The images around him began to spin like one of those dizzying amusement park rides he had vomited on as a child. He closed his eyes to discover his lids had become glass. Something told him to launch himself into the star. He did.
All flashed teal and gold.
* * * *
Caffrey opened his eyes and smelled sweet grass. He looked around; and as his vision came into focus, he was able to read the large sign on the wall of the small stone church. The message was carved in the tongue of the ancients: Somo Lagra Metho Chofos.
He stood and felt the wetness from the dew that had soaked his clothing. He tried to understand the words, and somehow his mind's eye manipulated them dizzily. Suddenly, they were still again, but changed so that they made sense to him: The Place of the Method of Music.
The Chapel of Bombadillo sat within a circle of tall, majestic lavender pines. The night sky swirled like oil and water, and the breeze caressed his face like light-blue felt. A blackbird floated down from the treetop, landed on a tree stump and looked Caffrey straight in the eyes. It began singing in a clear and pleasant voice as a pair of minuscule troubadours danced out of the darkness and strummed tiny guitars.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly!
All your life you were only waiting
For this moment to arise.
Caffrey smiled softly as he touched the tip of the bird's extended wing. The bird morphed onto the chapel door, where it became a knocker carved of wood. He tapped three times. The door opened, and he entered.
He discovered the chapel's interior was nothing but four walls, its ceiling the night sky. A large boulder sat centered in the space, and from it protruded an object. Caffrey's smile broadened into a grin as he recognized it; he approached the stone like some crazed supplicant approaching an altar. He studied the shape of the object of his desire.
Its body, cherry-red and feminine in form, was half-exposed, its long neck extended towards him like the waiting hand of a temptress. Across the very end of its neck were scripted six letters forming one of Caffrey's favorite words in all of the infinite languages of the Cosmos: Fender.
He grasped the instrument, locked within the boulder's stony grip, and gave it a firm pull. Expecting an exercise in futility, he was delighted when the Stratocaster separated from the stone like a wooden stick from a melting ice cream pop. He gazed into the shining surface of the white pick guard, desperately trying to identify the countenance looking back at him.
A voice seemed to tap him on the shoulder. He turned, to find Greppledick standing behind him.
"Caffrey."
"Uncle?"
"No."
"No?"
Greppledick ignored the implied question. “Come with me to the Jumping Joey."
"The Jumping Joey?"
The man who looked like Greppledick nodded, and the world dissolved like a watercolor painting in the rain.
A wooden sign, swaying in the gathering wind, laughed at Caffrey's expense, getting quite a kick out of his situation. He stared at the words on the sign as if they were ancient, unknown runes. The Jumping Joey Pub. Simple enough, and illustrated with the image of a colorful baby kangaroo leaping over a wooden fence. But there Caffrey stood, getting wetter and wetter in a soft rain while he tried to make sense of where he was.
The festive sound of simple percussion instruments, flutes and lyres mixed with the clinking of large pewter ale steins and was carried from the interior in the helping hands of laughter and singing. It was all rather stereotypical and would have been at home in a town named Dragonshire, Hobbitton or Bree.
"Do you plan on standing in the rain until you melt?” asked the Greppledick look-alike, peering out from behind the thick wooden door.
Caffrey shook his head and entered the pub, the cherry-red Fender strapped across his back like a broadsword. The warmth of the blazing hearth and the stale scent of beer embraced him like a warm hug. The Greppledick-ish person led him through the indifferent crowd and sat him at a corner table. Two large steins shaped like dragon's heads were placed before them by a round, rosy-faced woman. Caffrey glanced around the room. Every face, every reflected piece of firelight—everything—swirled and failed to focus.
"This place is giving me a headache."
"The ache you feel is the mud draining."
"Is this another head trip? Am I actually asleep by the fire?"
"No."
"Is this some lucid dream, then?"
"You are very close to Nefarious. And even closer to the Wise One."
"Where's Angie?"
"Here."
"How about my friends?"
Pseudo-Greppledick smiled and leaned across the table. “You are closer to everything. Especially to yourself."
"This is all getting pretty heavy."
Caffrey laid the Fender across the table and gazed into its sheen. His face stared back. A woman's reflection appeared behind his, and Caffrey turned to face a pretty blond maiden dressed in blue silken robes.
"Is that gold?” she asked.
"What?"
"That. What about that? Is that gold? Yes. I'm sure it is."
Her body remained calm, but her eyes were frantically darting about. “How about that? Or that? Or that? They all glitter! They must be gold!"
She was certainly insane.
"Play it,” suggested Angie's voice, startling him.
"Play what?"
"The song."
"I don't have an amp.” Caffrey's reply was surprisingly pragmatic.
"You won't need one."
His vision warped again, and he rubbed his palms on his forehead. The Greppledick man blurred away; and in his place sat Poe 33, smiling wide and warm.
"Take the stairway to heaven, Quark Caffrey. The L'Orange has showed how you. Tap into Its power. Its wisdom."
Caffrey stroked the guitar, and Poe 33 nodded and whispered, “Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow? And did you know, your stairway lies on the whispering wind?"
Caffrey rose and walked to a small wooden stage. Setting his fingers on the strings, he began to play. The opening notes of “Stairway to Heaven” silenced the crowd. Somehow, though the solid-bodied instrument wasn't plugged in, crisp and amplified music emerged, clean and rich.
The crowd moved in around Caffrey, and his world darkened until he felt he was standing in a pitch-black closet. An ebony oval case appeared, its surface holding billions of tiny stars deep within its sheen. A glow poured forth from the perfect cube of orange gelatin within. Caffrey continued the song, staring at the hallucination before him.
"Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow? And did you know, your stairway lies on the whispering wind..."
There were quite a few guitar solos lauded in song and tale throughout the galaxy. Caffrey himself had his favorites, and had performed most of them during his years with Marmalade Skies—the works of Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Rolling Stones, Lynard Skynard and, of course, one James Marshall Hendrix. Yet, of all the musical breaks made famous from the annals of Rock & Roll, there was one that had taken on a religious significance. And though it had not the speed of a Van Halen solo, or the unique complexity of Hendrix, it was the one that felt more like a continuation of the lyrics than any other.
The guitar spoke. It continued the tale of the Lady who was sure all that glittered was gold, in its own language of beautiful notes. Caffrey had always felt his soul take flight while listening to Jimmy Page play the famed piece. Unlike every other aspiring guitar player or teen who received a cheap electric for Christmas, he'd never once attempted to play it himself.
It may have very well been Caffrey Quark who first noted that, should you ever need to hear a bad version of “Stairway,” take a stroll into any music store or teenager's bedroom. It had become a sub-cult of a vastly spread religion. Caffrey vowed a heart of purity—for him it was no different than expecting his feet to have aquaplaning abilities after speaking his own rendition of the Sermon on the Mount. Just as a priest reading the Gospels, a rabbi reciting from the Torah, an Islamic imam speaking from the Qu'ran or a Buddhist monk chanting “Om” are the icons of their respective religions, the electric six-string vibrating with these perfect frequencies was the sound of Rock's very soul.
Yet there he stood, his fingers traveling the frets like an adventuring pilgrim on virgin roads and every note—every interval—every chord—sounding not with just perfect clarity but sounding as it should. He felt his body lift. Melt. He rose above the surrounding forest world. Up above the Forest of Medieval Stereotypes. He saw the tiny flickering lights of Heddington. He rose up past the moon, the stars and the edges of eternity. He felt the anger of Nefarious, helpless to stop him from his ascent into the entity's dimension. Up he rose on the solo. He had become music. He'd literally entered the fabric of space-time. It was under his control. He understood for the first time that it really was all vibration. All energy. All music. He felt a powerful wisdom at his disposal. Unlike his past experiences with the L'Orange, where he was spoken to like teacher to student, Caffrey Quark felt one with it all.
A face appeared before him. She was perfect love yet had no discernible features. She smiled. Caffrey smiled back, and they embraced in a limitless dance amidst the infinite music. The dance seemed to last forever—yet at the same time was over before it began. He felt for the first time that the I of his being had no value. No meaning. His ego had been purged in purifying musical flames and washed away by waves of pure love.
But there was a hideous laugh. A feeling was leaking in. That distant anger was growing stronger, along with a sudden sense this would be a fleeting moment of bliss. The I of his being was returning; and, like a gray worm, he tasted fear, uncertainty and self-importance sprouting in his heart.
They streaked through a tunnel of endless color and finally came to rest in a place of infinite reflection. A chrome room. Seamless, it was impossible to discern ceiling from floor, wall from wall. He stood a moment, certain he would see his own reflection.
Yet he never did.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Another Morning
Time seems to stand quite still.
In a child's world it always will.
Moody Blues
"Where are we, my inter-dimensional love?"
"Right now, Angie, I'm not even sure what we are. How long have we been walking?"
"I believe we entered into this place a half-hour ago. My temporal records are in a bit of a mish-mash."
"Feels like we haven't moved an inch."
Caffrey took deliberate steps across the field of pure reflection. Far off, across the sea of nothing, there appeared what looked like a black rectangle. A vibration of cold tingled his stomach.
"I think we are being watched."
"Of course, you are,” scythed the ever-changing voice of Nefarious Wretch. “And when you pass through the door ahead you will bear witness to my power and realize how futile any attempt you can make to stop me is. Makes no difference who you are or how powerful your master is. For soon you will all be part of the Galaxy of I, Nefarious Wretch!"
"Cornball,” muttered Angie.
"And you, my disembodied nightingale! You shall speak with the lyrical qualities of a black-eared kopek!"
"Ignore him,” advised Caffrey.
"Ignore me?” questioned Nefarious, amused. A dark cloud materialized before them. It had an oily texture and reeked of vitriolic sludge. A face, apparently designed to disturb, formed within the shapeless mass. Angie and Caffrey screamed in unison, unable to hold back the horror the hideous countenance elicited.
They took off at full speed across the silvery plain. Caffrey, who hadn't, prior to his experience with Queen Kinkskin, screamed since the age of six, blushed with embarrassment, steeled himself and resolutely turned to the face in an attempt to redeem his manliness. To his utter disgust he screamed again.
They made it to the black door. It, too, was featureless, and painted such a deep black it teased the eyes into believing it was a window on some starless cosmos. There was no doorknob; and when Caffrey gave it a push, it squealed open. The pair peered in.
"My,” they gasped—to the great irritation of Nefarious, in perfect unison. “It's full of planets!"
Full of planets, indeed. Each astronomical sphere was shrunk to the size of an average beach ball. Thousands of worlds floated as if in a mini-universe, each silently rotating, each illuminated with a varying degree of brightness by some unseen source. Thankfully, the horrid countenance was gone.
"All the worlds, my stage!” Nefarious's formless voice chuckled at his wordplay. “Each extracted from its place in the galaxy to await its reintroduction into my re-creation of music-free existence. My universe will resonate with the frequency of my device. Listen..."
A devastingly horrible noise filled the room, and Caffrey threw his hands over his ears. It did no good. The clamor was pure vulgar intrusion. It offended not just the aural organ but all of his senses. It smelled like brimstone and the rotted, diseased corpses of bodybuilders with really bad B.O. Its taste was that of a toasted rodent stomach after the bugger had eaten its own feces and the organ had been ripped out and left to sit amidst urinating wagdragons for three eons and a day. It looked as horrid as a mutated orangophant in a meat grinder on a bad-hair day. It felt like aged hand cream that had solidified into a slimy, granule-infused paste.
And its sound was far, far worse than any other of its aspects. It was anti-music in its purest form.
The tumult ceased, and Nefarious laughed.
; "That is a mere sample."
"You must have been screwed by a record company,” Caffrey concluded.
"My motivations are not your concern."
Caffrey rubbed his ears and wished he could shower. As he strolled through the mini planetary system, additional worlds sprang into existence as they were stolen from around the Milky Way. Nefarious's horrid laughter bounded about the room as Caffrey studied a purplish-red planet ringed with beautiful concentric bands of ice.
"I've been on this world."
"Is this where you bagged that flock of green-winged bobaska terps?” suggested Angie.
"No, that was on the ringed world of Gaja. But I have memories of this place. Maybe not my memories exactly...” He glanced across to a yellow, cloudy planet. “And that planet, too. I'm sure I was there."
The laughter was fading.
Angie tried again. “The swamp! Where you were nearly eaten whole by the hairy-chinned tepa tepa?"
"No. Something ... else. I recall a palace. A battlefield ... and this place...” Caffrey strolled across to a brown world. “This is Ryno 4. The desert world ruled by the kind but powerful General Sei-nei. I was his guest."
The laughter from Nefarious Wretch had quite faded away, and Caffrey stood in silence amidst the balls of color. Were the residents even aware their worlds had been taken, shrunk and put in storage? Or were they simply going about their business with only a handful of dissenters, who were mocked as quacks, questioning the lack of stars in the night skies? Was apocalyptic chaos blowing like autumnal foliage across the worlds, the greatest eschatological minds gathered in candle-lit halls, perusing the ancient tomes for answers to their predicament?
Caffrey could ill-afford to waste time pondering that question—his own situation took precedence. And he was so confused.
"How did I get here?” he mumbled.
"Don't you remember the music?"
His face enlivened as fragments of memories elusively skittered past his consciousness.
"You were amazing. We were amazing,” Angie reminisced.
"We?” Caffrey asked. “What do you mean, ‘we?’”