Pez reached the entrance of the tunnels that would lead to Edward’s chambers. Deep in the innermost cave, where light glimmered through ragged holes from the cliffs above, was where the man had squirreled himself away. He’d not been down into the village in many years, many of the younger people had never even seen him - he was only a strange name sometimes spoken by their parents. As of late, Pez was the only one who made an effort to visit him, the only one left who cared.
Somewhere, Edward had lost himself inside his mind. Pez believed it was his own lack of understanding of what had happened on that day so long ago. He knew that this man could no longer walk among the people, knowing that they thought of him so highly, that they believed him capable of things that only their former gods were able to do. Edward had finally reached the point where he could no longer look into their eyes and know that he held none of those powers. That his great machine had performed a miracle that even he didn’t understand.
But Pez, in his own way, still held homage to the man, though in not the same way as the people had done. He was a great man, he’d been an unrecognized shaman among the white people. And the fact still remained, he had saved their world.
Pez stopped for a moment as he passed a passage that led off to the right, the one that led almost a mile down into the heart of the mountain. Down where a bulky beast of iron and moss lay dead and useless. Behind him, leading on down toward Edward’s chambers, a creek ran against the west wall, it’s passage a comforting babble as it echoed in the tunnel. He started into the right passage, but stopped to press his hands against the closest wall. The trembling was fierce here, the dim passage beyond gleamed in an unearthly smudge.
Still, he could remember those days so clearly, when this passage had been full of life, it’s halls lit by intermittently place torches along the walls to guide the people while they carried in the monster below, piece by piece....
Pez had found Edward along the banks of the raging river that had existed in the world before Chimera, before the Shalmoka raised it’s boundaries so that they could no longer cross. In those days he’d been the medicine man for the mountain people - the name Edward had given to them later on. He still was, he supposed, a medicine man. But sickness - at least physical sickness had become non-existent in Chimera. When the old people died, they would just slip away in their sleep one night or simply come up missing. Back then though, he’d traveled far and wide to find the herbs and roots he needed, and the banks of the mighty river had been a frequent hunting ground.
The day he’d found Edward, Pez had been searching for more that just healing medicines - he’d been wandering aimlessly, pondering the fact that his people were in danger and he didn’t know what to do. His only option, that he’d kept coming back to time and again was to move them, they would all die if they stayed in their homelands much longer.
He’d felt the ground beneath them heating up the last year before that, he’d felt the trembling in his feet and bones. He’d wandered the mountain side and caves and had seen the steam that was rolling from the fissures with more force than ever before. The warm springs that the children had loved to play in had become too hot, more than one of the children had come to him with scalded skin before he finally forbid anyone to go near the hot pools. But the day before he found Edward, the danger had made itself known to all with a bellowing roar that sounded like a thousands cracks of thunder all exploding at once. The wind had been blowing towards the east, so that it was still clear enough in the encampment of his people to see what was happening. A small portion of the mountain had opened high above and was sending great gushes of black smoke out. Pez stood there trembling with fear and from the very ground beneath him. There people were scared - but were they scared enough to leave their home? They had always kept to themselves, a peaceful nation unbothered by the tribes in the lower regions, and he wasn’t sure if they would be welcomed by the other bands. His people knew no violence, and if they had to fight to make a place for themselves than they would be lost. Besides, if the fires he felt brewing below made their way to the surface - how far away was safe enough?
This unsettled ground had told him many things the day he’d seen the first black smoke shoot out of the mountain, that hours later had left it’s snow covered cliffs blackened, it’s ice-caps raging in a river of fury down the eastern slopes. It had told him that his people lived above a monster that would soon raise it’s ugly head, that this beautiful land would be washed away with fire and that inhuman rage that rumbled beneath the ground.
These people looked to him, their medicine man for answers. And he had not known any.
So he’d been lost in his own worries when he’d practically stumbled across the white man. He’d heard of the white men before, and the stories had always made him weary of meeting them. But not as much as he grew to be after meeting Edward - though he wouldn’t know the man’s name for many months to come. The stories the white man had communicated later, through visions passed from mind to mind - were of lands and people that lived farther away from this one that he could hardly imagine it. Stories of people who would one day move in and change the ways of his people forever. But by that time, this man had saved them not only from those horrors but from the destruction of their home.
The man was laying not far from the banks of the river, he was unconscious and burning up with fever, his life force slipping rapidly away. Beyond him, scattered far and wide was the wreckage of both men and splintered wood. The mess had washed up on the first embankment that followed the opening gorge, and Pez had picked his way through it curiously, cautious of what the wild storm had tossed from the river. He found five other bodies, all dead and cold along the bank.
He ended up staying with the white man for the next two days, afraid for his people on the precarious mountain miles away - but also filled with a great compulsion to save this dying man. Pez had always been that way, had always listened to that inner spirit that knew the ways of the world - and this time it was telling him to save this man. So he had nursed him back to health, their only communication were the strange visions that passed between them when they touched - a contact that had always come natural for Pez, but seemed to shock the white man as he became more coherent. But it was in this way that Pez learned what the strange words that came from the man meant, and by the time they reached the valley of his people he’d discovered the beast within the mind of the man - the beast that would soon create the world of Chimera and save his people.
This man had dreamed of Chimera for many years. The images that Pez had caught were of a land with mountains full of steam - mountains rich with power. But there’d been other things there too, visions that Pez would remember years later that were part of what convinced him that Edward hadn’t even known what his machine would do. Edward’s dreams were of creating some sort of energy that Pez couldn’t explain - but could see through the mind of the other - an energy of the gods that would take this man to other places, places that were bound by time. And though he didn’t understand the machine - he’d seen those circles for the first time in Edward. Circles within circles, a force spinning round and round so fiercely that they could rip reality.
Worlds within worlds.
Years later, when they could speak to each other with words, Edward would try to explain the power to Pez. How he’d known the force from the steam of volcanoes were the one things he’d searched long and wide for - the one thing that would power his marvelous machine with so much force that he’d finally create that magnetic field that had so far only been possible in theory. He’d tried to tell Pez of centrifugal force, of the power of the magnets within the machine - but all Pez could see were those circles.
Those worlds he’d seen the day the world had split apart.
Edward’s strength had come back fast, within a day of arriving in Pez’s world he’d already found the arteries of caves that he would one day seclude himself in. He’d found that one particular passage that led into the heart of the activity - where a fissure of steam rolled sporadically out from the bowels of the mountain. Words had not been easy then, but the white man had come to understand the fear they lay impregnated within Pez. Through touches, visions and crazy pantomimes of communication he had painted a picture of salvation on that afternoon. In it Pez had envisioned that beast he’d seen before, a long tube that looked like shiny leather was plunged into the hole of the steam. According to Edward’s vision - this machine would suck out the power, lessen the rage of the monster that lived below their mountain.
It seemed fantastical and crazy. But that inner guide he listened to had sat up straight within him. The next day he had led many of the young men down on the four day journey to the river and back. They’d carted strange shiny objects the strongest had plucked from the riverbed, made of materials Pez had never seen. Some were so heavy that it took over five men to hold them. By the time they’d returned, the people had reported that the mountain had coughed up more of her insides, there was a fine layer of silt covering the settlement from two days before. The men worked steadily, following Edward’s instructions through the help of Pez, they worked through the next two days and nights until Edward had finally stood back, a triumphant grin on his face. But it was as if the mountain had sensed this foreign beast within her belly and the shaking had grown suddenly worse within moments of it’s completion. A muffled roar had awoken, it’s bellow low inside the earth - mounting closer by the minute. Pez had hollered for everyone to get out - to run as far they could, but he’d known there wasn’t a chance, not with the speed in which the noise had suddenly mounted. They were too late, nothing could be done.
Pez turned to the white man, in those last minutes he offered him all his trust. The man’s eyes were wide, he too felt the power below, the roar of the fire that was coming towards the surface and tearing the earth away. The steam vent had already opened and within seconds would mount to a boiling fury. Then Edward was moving, he pushed Pez back towards the machine, there was still hope in that pale face and Pez had felt his spark. He nodded as the man showed him the long handle that sat flush against the side of the beast, and nodded again as he understood his instructions. Edward rushed to the end, avoiding the steam that a moment later would make the cave unbearable and lowered the cage to cover the vent. He began turning the wheel at the end of the cage, a wheel made of dark and polished wood with evenly spaced handles jutting from it’s edges.
The thundering ground was rocking beneath them, Pez just barely kept his feet braced beside the lever as he fought the waves of motion. Inside the machine was coming alive, he could hear gasps of breath that slammed somewhere deep within. But the gasps couldn’t compare to the ones from below the mountain, there was no time - underfoot he felt something break loose, he felt the beginning of the end. He was tensing his body, preparing to be crushed as the fire finally ripped through below them when Edward shouted. Moving in a dream, he reached high and wrapped his hands around the long wooden handle, throwing all his weight to bring the pole down, his mind screaming silently out for the gods to intercede.
The lever slammed down, throwing Pez to the ground as the shiny beast suddenly rocked with a roar of it’s own. The noise was deafening in the confines of the cave, the vibrations were no longer just coming through the floor but through the air in rippling waves. He struggled to his feet, staggering toward the white man who was only a blur in the smeared breath of the cave. There was something there, something alive that he couldn’t touch but could feel building in the empty space between him and the white man. He kept trying to move forward, feeling as if he were walking under water.
And he was almost there when he heard the rip.
A sound that made Pez think the mountain itself had lost it’s mind, a sound like a thousand mighty trees ripping down the center at once. It mounted to a deafening crack, followed by a immeasurable surge of power that permeated the air. The power of the gods, Pez remembered thinking, a tingling of something so potent as it encompassed his body and raised the hair on his head.
Pez stopped, his feet planted wide for balance as his eyes found the source of the noise. There was a crisp blink inside his mind, an opening of sight far greater than he’d ever managed on his own - and that also washed away all conviction that he was in fact still alive. He could no longer see the pale man through the sinuous air that came in billows like fluid water. It was expanding, growing out from the machine in a round bubble. A bubble that was alive and breathing.
He looked higher still and his eyes at last found the source of the ripping. It was in the air, a long slit opening up and spilling brightness with so much intensity that it burned deep within his head. Yet, he couldn’t look away to stop the pain. The air-cut opened wider, it’s edges pealing back like skin on an old carcass as the split lengthened. The top stretched high around the outside of the powerful bubble the machine had created, the bottom suddenly split and roared down the center of the cave floor, splitting the real world right between his legs. He stood, motionless, with a foot on each side.
Then came the wind, yet it wasn’t like a breeze from a summer afternoon - or even the icy blast out of a cold blizzard - it was everything. It was so powerful that Pez let his head tip back instead of trying to resist the force, his hair flying straight out behind him. But his feet remained planted, rooted to the ground, as he realized that he had somehow left the cave. He could still feel his body, feel his feet firmly on either side of that unnatural rip - but he was somewhere else, thrown into sights beyond his imagination.
Just before he let it go, quit resisting the sights that were seeping through eyes and mind, he felt the last jolt that in all rights should have torn him apart.
On one side of the rip, where his left foot was rooted like an ancient tree, he felt the fires below let loose. He felt the world rip asunder, and half his mind saw the fire released from the mountain, it’s rage tearing it to pieces and sending miles of land and trees into the sky along with the fire and blackness. There the day turned into night, the air was suffused with ash, and breaths were no longer possible. The wind tore trees apart like blades of grass, pulverized rocks to dust and flattened everything in it’s path. It was the end of everything, it went beyond every nightmare.
Where his right foot was planted, there was only stillness. A sudden blankness of both peace and confusion. That half of his mind saw the world outside return to normal, saw the mountain rearing it’s mighty head in the sky as always. But there was something so different, as if everything he’d ever known had been duplicated. The fire there was gone, the rage beneath the mountain simply didn’t exist. There was a new world there, given birth from an old one and it was alive.
The two worlds battled for purchase inside his head, the conflict mounting as he tried desperately to hold his sanity. The contradiction was too much, and though the word paradox had no meaning at that time in Pez’s world - it came to life on it’s own. He brought his hands to his head, barely feeling the pressure as he fought to hold it together. A howl rose from his gut and let loose in a roar that echoed from one world to the next, mounting until the vision suddenly spit down the center and spiraled off into blackness.
In the blackness he could still feel, he was still aware and knew that an eternity away his feet were still firmly fixed on the ground. Yet, it was his mind that kept traveling, and then the blackness opened.
A blue sky blossomed to fill his vision, the intensity of the land around was full and alive, and the ground began to thump like an approaching heard of elk that were too close to avoid. Pez turned to see the largest creature imaginable, it’s head lifted high above the tallest tree, it’s body gray and formed in odd lumps around it’s trunk. It was only walking, yet it shook the entire land it covered.
Then it was gone.
The sky opened up again, the ground beneath him was solid rock. Flat and impossibly smooth, the rock stretched to cover the ground for as far as he could see. A low constant roar surged from above, he lifted his head to see a stiff, silver bird cut through the sky, it’s wings immobile as it moved past with incredible speed. Behind, it left a trail of it’s breath, with lines that looked like clouds.
He moved on.
Darkness came and he was standing on a hillside, a country like none other lay before him, it’s land full of strange people. He heard the sound of the strange bird again, then seconds later the night turned to day as the sky was lit by a fire the shape of a massive tree. The fire rolled up, billowing at the top like a mushroom and filled the entire panorama of the sky. There was immense pain, torture beyond -
And it was gone.
It was day, a deafening roar passed before him as his eyes opened to crowds of people running and screaming. Their faces were lined with fear, their eyes wide as if death himself were on their heels.
Then they too, were gone.
The flashes were coming faster, and though Pez could still feel the pressure of his hands against his head, it wasn’t enough to stop the visions.
He saw people, all shapes and sizes, mortal and immortal alike that he knew were different than the ones from his own world. He saw animals that his physical eyes had never seen. He saw great metal beasts, larger and more menacing than the one the white man had brought into their world - that belched billows of black smoke into a polluted sky. He saw a silver arrow, it’s staff wide and polished shoot straight up into the heavens leaving a trail a fire in it’s wake.
The quickness of the visions mounted until they were only a blur, the flashes were no longer distinguishable - one from another - until there was only a streak of chaotic color blinking in and out behind his eyes.
Finally there was stillness. The blackness came for only a second before it wasn’t just blackness, but the clear of a night sky. The black was sparkling with stars, hundreds filling the heavens. And Pez breathed deeply, feeling only an instant of peace before he realized he was still apart of the visions that played out in his mind’s eye.
A single star suddenly became brighter than all the others, it’s light grew to a piercing brilliance as if it were falling towards him with tremendous speed. But his mind told another story, it was Pez that was moving, his mind’s eye traveling on the wings of a tremendous wind toward the heavens beyond. Instantly lights were streaking past, lines of brightness carving through the darkness from the sides of his vision. The star grew bigger and bigger until he at last drew in a shuddering breath.
There it stopped and opened up like a flower, and Pez could see that this star was a world that lived and breathed as his.
It turned over with one smooth flip.
And his eyes took in the familiar scene of his homelands, but it wasn’t exactly right. There was a filmy haze here, a marked difference. Before him a light formed, a circular opening that was set into the fabric of the air. His sight went immediately forward, slipping through this opening that wasn’t only light, but the entrance to somewhere else. He went through and found himself on that star - that world he’d just traveled so far to see. The world with two doors, a front and a back.
It was gone and once again the stars filled every corner of his mind. To every star, he found a door, one inside the other. He moved forward from world to world, each inside the next. The motion speeded and he was flying - his mind traveling not out but in. It was as though he were seeing everything - all that existed at once, yet knowing that if he tried to understand he would be lost. Another comprehension took place in his mind as the worlds flew past, the sudden grasp of how small he was - of how irrelevant he was in the grand design. There were more worlds than dew on the morning grass. There were worlds within worlds that went on forever. There was no beginning, no end, just a continuous cycle of circles.
With that awareness there came a serene stillness. A gentle quietness as tranquillity laid it’s gentle weaving across his mind and washed away the dizzying lights. Pez felt warm hands on his shoulders and realized that the darkness this time was behind his own closed eyes.
He opened them to find the pale face of Edward, there was both relief and worry there, and there was also the beginning of a strange bond that the two would form. The machine was quiet, the cave was still and silent. The fire below was gone.
They left together to find the peaceful world of Chimera, a land named by the white man - a land founded by them all. In the days to follow, they were to learn the rules of a new world, one separate from the old - yet within it. There were boundaries here, giant walls of nothing that protected them and contained them. Though the sun would rise in the morning and the stars were there at night - the days changed with a mind of their own. Seasons rolled in and out in a matter of days, winters were short, rainstorms only lasted long enough to water the thirsty land. A new law governed this world, laws made from memory, yet wielded with no pattern at all.