The wind hisses around him, warning of horrors worse than losing his hair. The disgusting splat on his stomach looks like common bird shit. A couple of shiny crows are circling in the sky, cawing like laughter, but that's not what grips Jonah's attention. He is on top of an immense hexagonal emerald, like a launch pad atop a pyramidal mountain of multiple emeralds, descending in a ziggurat pattern, down to a vast eggplant-purple plain.
If the sun is coursing in an east-west direction, across the plain on the far southern horizon are peaked mountains that appear to be amethyst. He is dazzled by purple firelights cast by the eye of the sun. Turning around, he gapes at the mountains to the north, glistening like diamonds. Westward—red, orange, and yellow crystal mountain peaks, possibly ruby, carnelian, and topaz. The bejeweled mountains to the east may be a mix of sapphire and the deeper blue of lapis lazuli. May be are the operative words—he may be hallucinating way beyond the wildest high of LSD.
Altogether the gemstone mountains present a scene of grandeur beyond anything on Earth. Jonah never imagined grandeur could evoke terror. It's the “otherness” of it all. It's not Earth.…
The hot winds ripple his purple suit, and keen, as if in agreement this is a sorry lot to befall an Earthman far from home.
He turns his attention to the only living creatures he can see, the crows circling above. Birds mean life, water, trees, maybe people, or least true on Earth. Don't crows hang around witches and sorcerers? Now we know where they come from….
Jonah laughs, almost crying, remembering Zedapeth. Zion's warrior father? They can plant anything in your mind…but Jonah is afraid Zedapeth was the real thing. Man/bird, a fearsome creature who did not utter a word about what this is all about, did not chastise him…. Didn't have to. Actions talk. He denuded him of his hair, stripped off his overalls and long johns, dressed him in silk purple, then dumped him on a foreign world. Probably a dangerous world. The wind alone could kill him. The message was clear: You think you had problems with aliens? Find your way home now, Smarty-Pants.
A pang of loneliness strikes his chest. Coral, Zion, and Aunt Triss are probably sick with worry. Probably called out the U.S. Army Reserves to conduct a four-state search. Dream on. Frame Swenson told them, “Don't waste your time, Ladies. Jonah won't be coming home” Men who disappear at Star Rock never return….
Jonah shakes off the thought and crawls on hands and knees to peer over the edge of the giant emerald. Maybe he shouldn't feel exhilarated, seeing signs of life far down the emerald terraces. He feels dizzy even thinking about standing up. The wind might blast him away like a feather. Carefully, he rises, one hand firm on the stone, the other resting on his knee. He studies the view below. A cluster of trees? Maybe he's still on the table inside the spaceship, deep into a virtual reality scenario.
He hears a voice, ducks his head. Directly below, a man is climbing. Dark-skinned, white-haired man, usingatall wooden cane.
Jonah backs up.
The man stops about three terraces down. Jonah can see him clearly from his knees upward. Black, Asian cat man! Like Zedapeth, there's a widow's peak, but this man's peak is real hair, not a cap—thick white hair streaming out from the peak and down to his shoulders. The faded black, hooded robe he wears is cinched with a green rope belt. Except for the cat eyes, he looks human, but definitely not any race on Earth. Though he appears to be very old, he looks robust.
He jerks the cane at Jonah, like Moses commanding the Egyptians to go to hell.
“Living waters not to you!” he shouts. “Life tree, not to you!”
Jonah holds up a friendly palm. “Hey, I'm sorry.” He practically has to scream to be heard over the wind. “I don't mean to trespass…I just lost my way.”
“No to Gaians! Bang! Shut! No go!”
One of the crows lands on the old man's shoulder. Old Man whips his head the other way, as if an intentional gesture of rejection. The crow is cawing in the old man's ear. Old Man shakes his head, stamps his foot, raps his cane on the emerald.
The old man is scowling, his disturbing catlike gaze fixed on Jonah. Jonah smiles and waves. Wrong move. Maybe a wave here is like a cuss word. The old man hisses at him. Raps his walking stick on the emerald again.
“No to Gaian!”
Gaian? Jonah remembers…in the lexicon of the granola crowd, Gaia is another name for Earth.
The crow flies off the old man's shoulder and spins around him several times. Old Man doesn't flinch. His green, feline eyes are still on Jonah. Then the impossible happens, but Jonah is becoming accustomed to impossibles….
The crow spins in front of the old man, creating a shower of electrical sparks. The sparks form a whirlwind, and out of the whirlwind steps a young man about fifteen years old. He shakes himself, as if his skin is hot, then with his hands he brushes himself, arms, torso, bending to stroke his muscled legs. His garb is also faded black, coarse material, but a short, belted robe, hem just above his knees, short sleeves and V-necked. He's the epitome of an Egyptian hieroglyphic, a dark-skinned, green-eyed King Tutankhamen. Widow-peaked, his hair is shoulder-length and a color deeper and richer than dark auburn—black fire. His eyes are large, piercing and intelligent, same color as the emerald mountain.
He raises a dark muscled arm. “Hail, Gaian!” he yells merrily. “I apologize for my father. He's from the old school, as you say, and not very hospitable. But he will impart wisdom to you.” He glares at the old man. The old man mutters something, pounds his cane once more.
“He is not fluent in Gaian dialects,” the boy yells above the wind. “We must use the translator stone.”
The old man rips his angry glare off Jonah, turns around, and proceeds down the green stone terraces. Waving his cane, he shouts, “Songatu!”
The boy's hands are on his hips. The wind is whipping his tunic and fiery black hair. He yells, “Are you hungry, angry, lonely, thirsty, hot, weary, shocked, sad, and afraid?”
“Not at all,” Jonah shouts. “I'm used to waking up in a completely foreign environment, my head shaved, wearing silk pajamas like Sinbad the Sailor, and crows turning into wise young men. Happens all the time.”
The boy's laugh is musical, revealing straight pearl-white teeth.
“Just for the record—where am I?”
“Emray!”
“Emray…Emray…” Jonah rubs his pate. “Isn't that in southern California?”
“Slightly high and south of California.”
“I've lost my mind.” Jonah nods emphatically. “Yup. My mind is gone.”
“Here you will find your mind.”
The boy beckons him to follow him down the emerald mountain. “Might as well…I'm not busy at the moment.”
The way down is long and slow, like school. Jonah learns a lot. The young man's name is Izn, pronounced Eye-zun. His father's name is Mehuki; and Jonah will soon meet Izn's mother, Sova; and his sister, Pyra—who was flying with him as a crow. For them, shapeshifting is a form of play.
This world is a “mental service plane,” he learns as they negotiate the slick stones downward. Gaia, Earth, is a world where human beings are “forging will through experience.” He feels a thrill when Izn says that Geshlama governs the evolution of human souls. Did Zedapeth bring him here to learn something about Zion's origins? He concentrates on what Izn is saying…Gaia, will; Emray, mind; Geshlama, soul; Zalos, spirit; and under all is a realm called Morlwurl.
“Wait'll X Files hears about this,” Jonah says under the wind.
“Forgive me for boring you with galactic esoterica,” Izn apologizes, pausing halfway down the mountain on a jutting emerald terrace.
A half-foot taller, Jonah feels a little less intimidated by the handsome young man, standing next to him. “It's not boring, but…”
“Too fantastic, I know. Let your mind rest. Look…” He instructs Jonah to stand just so on the stone terrace, and look where he points—see where the sun's rays converge in an eight-point starlight pattern in the center of the vast purple plain.<
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Jonah gawks at the sight. When he looks just right, he can see a great gleaming city of gold. A futuristic city with highways circling tall, spired structures, looping up to the heavens. In the center, a huge dome glitters. The city is under construction. The clans of Emray are building the city…in their minds. There are other clan families on Emerald Mountain, hidden from Jonah's view. All of the gemstone mountains are populated.
Situated in the path of the Gaian portal, Mehuki's family hosts a kind of visitors' center. The number of visitors from Gaia has increased lately, and Mehuki is weary and cantankerous of playing host. He's 317 years old. When Izn is a little older, he will assume command of this clan camp, relieving Mehuki so the old man can migrate to Zalos. He claims he is Mehuki's 432nd child.
“Can't wait to meet your mother,” Jonah says.
“She's Father's 93rd concubine.”
“Busy man!”
Izn's older brothers and sisters have joined other clans to work on completion of the golden city. Jonah is told that a Gaian's voyage to Emray constitutes initiation rites in a mystery called “the becoming.” He wants to ask if other Gaians came here as unprepared as he did—or did they have some inkling of the place? But the wind is driving him crazy; it's too hard too talk. He is quiet the remainder of the way down, Izn in the lead, whistling a melody that sounds both strange and familiar.
Jonah isn't sure which frightens him more—he's lost his mind, or it's all real. His fears are mollified when they arrive at the clan camp. It's an oasis of silence. The winds sound distant and almost musical now.
The camp is a virtual Garden of Eden. A colossal emerald cave shaped like an amphitheater is their home base. Something savory is simmering in a large copper-and-silver pot over coals in the center of the cave. Various curiosities hang from wooden pegs inserted into cracks in the emerald walls, and on the dirt floor along one wall are piles of black reeds and green stalks. He spots a loom, lanterns, crude gardening tools, stone pots and dishes, tree stumps. The black reeds and green stalks are from a plant Izn calls “the good necessity plant.” Every necessity here derives from minerals or vegetation. The black reeds are woven into garments or linens; the green stalks stripped and tightly woven to create sandals, belts, ropes.
“Izn—if you can create whatever you want, why do you live so simply?”
“Simple environment, complex minds. Creation is subtle power. Stewards of creation use power conservatively and skillfully.”
The mesa is split into two gardens, the one on the right for food, the left for trees, reeds, and flowers. Izn's mother, Sova, is working in the food garden with a wooden spade. Her skin is mocha-colored; she wears a black hooded robe, looks about forty years old. A long fiery-black braid trails her back. Izn calls to her. She turns and stares at Jonah with amber cat eyes, as if expecting him to meow and spit gumdrops. Without a word, she turns back to her spading.
“Mother is jaded. You Gaians are becoming pests. But it's all in the service of Q.”
“Say that again….”
“Qs and Ps—community and power. Ask Father later.”
The boy invites him down a stone path bordered by magnolia trees, through the gardens out to the mesa's ledge. Jonah is sweating profusely, but oddly he can smell no body odor. These dark-skinned cat people don't seem uncomfortably hot under their black habits; at least no one is complaining.
He sees and hears bees, birds, butterflies. The air is redolent with earthen aromas issuing from multiple varieties of flowers and trees, most displaying huge blossoms. His favorite, lilacs, flourish in bushes near the cave entrance. Roses the size of baseball mitts astound him, as do stalks of corn as tall as desert cedar trees, and cabbages as large as beach balls. From all appearances there are only four people in this camp, yet the garden's abundance suggests food enough for a sizeable tribe. Out at the edge of the mesa, Jonah views the shimmering golden city he saw up on the emerald terrace.
“It is where the best of our thoughts abide,” Izn says.
“A city of thoughts? No one lives there?”
“A place where minds convene.”
Jonah spots a speck of light floating over the amethyst mountain peaks. His perspective of its size enlarges as the object floats closer. Over the city, it's the size of a hot-air balloon—a clear crystal cube object. It's active, undergoing a change…dissolving into rain! The rain cube moves over the city like a huge watering can, then dissolves to mist. Now the air above the city dances in a symphony of soft rainbow lights.
“Are there trees and flowers there?”
“In the making,” Izn says mysteriously.
He tells Jonah that the diamond mountains to the north are the portal to Gaia, positioned “perpendicular” to Antarctica. On the other side of the amethyst mountains is Geshlama.
“So it really exists….”
As if reading his mind, Izn says, “Yes, but you cannot go there.”
“Could someone from Geshlama go to Gaia?”
“Only through the birth channels.”
“What if she were part Gaian and part Rose lineage?”
“Interesting question. Father may know the answer. Ask him later.”
Jonah is suddenly thirsty; his throat feels like sandpaper. Izn leading the way back through the gardens, Jonah sees citrus trees, other familiar fruit trees and trees he is sure do not exist on Earth—one with long leaves that loop to form circles, another with bright pink leaves. But the pearl tree is the mother of trees.
Unbelievably, the pearl tree is also a well. As high as Star Rock, it is topped with a gigantic crown of pearls. High up, there's foliage, like graceful palm fronds. The tree appears to have been gored out about five feet up the trunk, to create the well. A silver bucket on loops of black, crystal chain hangs below a pulley affair. Who ever heard of a tree-well combo?
“A well inside a tree?” Jonah remarks, as they approach the wonder. He cranes his head, marveling at the light show the sun is making of the pearl crown. Tear-shaped pearls clutter the grassy ground like almonds.
Jonah steps alongside Izn to peer down the well shaft. It's large enough, you could drop a bathtub down into the glistening darkness. Jonah can hear and feel the vibrations of water rumbling underground.
“Large enough for a man's body,” Izn says, grinning. He lowers the silver bucket; the chain knocks on the sides as the pulley whines and screeches, as if in pain. Izn hauls up the bucket.
“Uh, maybe I'm not so thirsty….”
Black water!
Izn laughs. “Gaians never like the looks of it, but I assure you it's as safe as spring water on your world.” He dips a silver ladle, drinks, and offers it to Jonah. He first tastes a drop on his finger, then swigs two ladles full of the sweet tasting water, slaking his thirst.
“How do you know so much about Ear—Gaia. By the way, we call home Earth.”
“We watch Gaia-Earth.”
“How?”
Izn smiles slyly. He taps his head.
“I'm trying to imagine….”
“That's the right direction. First you must build highways in your mind.”
He sits down on a velvety patch of the grass in a way that reminds Jonah of the Sphinx, back straight, hands resting on his knees.
“Join me, Jonah of Gaia-Earth.”
Jonah bends down, scoops up a handful of teardrop-shaped pearls. He rolls them around in his hand.
“Pearls. A pearl tree.”
“Zalos' thoughts. She's lonely. Her thoughts are sad. She cries a river deep into Morlwurl. She wants all of her bodies to share one mind and one heart. Until they do, Zalos shall weep pearls.”
“Pretty,” Jonah says, sitting down, cross-legged. “Like my pajamas.” He picks at the material, like a woman fiddling with her pantaloons.
“You feel humiliated.”
“It would be an insult on Gaia for a man to dress like this.”
“But you think you're royal.”
“Yeah, sure. What if I do?”
> “It translates here as purple silk.”
“Who do you think you are—black tunic outfit?”
“A student of the magical arts.”
“What if I had low self-esteem—hated myself?”
“We can imagine the manifestation, but no one who comes here hates himself. Hate doesn't cross. Hate would keep you grounded on Gaia.”
“This is all very interesting, Izn, but I don't like being gone from home.”
He tells the boy what happened to him at Star Rock. The boy keeps nodding and grinning, like it's all old hat to him. Jonah is emphasizing words, using his hands to dramatize, trying to impress Izn of the impact of such bizarre experiences on a hapless Earthling. Maybe he wants Izn to feel sorry for him or praise him for his courage. Especially the abduction by the archons was unnerving, he stresses.
“Archons? I don't think they abduct, but they would try to prevent travel through a vortex. They oppose all efforts to increase light on Gaia. I'm sure you were plucked by the Organic Mechanic Masters. Ormecs, we call them. Evolution technicians. Just doing their job.”
“Creating hybrids?”
Izn smiles curiously. “Perhaps your physical body is still on the ship. Your mental body is here, while your soul is attending school on Zalos.”
“Maybe I'm dreaming,” Jonah says.
“If you insist…”
A pesky hummingbird that reminds Jonah of Rufus keeps flying near him, whirring its wings. No cats around to frustrate the bird, and Jonah thinks it best he not even say the word cat.
“Leave him alone, Pyra.”
“Your sister?”
Izn makes a face.
Jonah's mouth falls open when he notices three children flying in the sky. Holding hands, they're clothed in white gowns, like angels.
“Fairchildren of Geshlama. They can't see us. All they see are stones and soil. We shield.”
Jonah rubs his arms to settle down the chills. “The woman I love, Zion Rose, said she was a fairchild on Geshlama.”
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