The Seven Kingdoms (9)
The Sixth Kingdom - Part I
Reading time: 12 minutes
Image: girlwithredhat
“Hello?”
Andy’s voice found no resonance in silence as thick as the darkness that enclosed him.
“Hello? Sir? Anyone?”
The lack of sensory information created the remarkable illusion of being back in the safety of a mother’s womb. The difference was, however, that he was standing up, not surrounded by liquid, and, upon inspection, not tied to an umbilical cord. Yet he couldn’t recall having ever felt more safe, at least not as far as his memory went back. If this was the end, he’d never want to leave, for the ecstasy which accompanied his apparent divorce from fear was comparable with Tim Robbin’s successful escape from prison in Andy’s favourite movie The Shawshank Redemption.
There were no thoughts. It wasn’t that thinking didn’t happen. But where it was custom for his thoughts to leave a wake for miles and miles, now they all vanished as quickly as they emerged, like clouds drifting by, revealing the great tranquillity of a clear blue sky during moments when no thinking happened.
And yet, despite the seemingly blissful state he found himself in, a certain uneasiness crept up as stealthily as a lioness stalking her prey. Could it be that the absence of his most beloved and treasured faculty produced the ecstasy he was experiencing? That his ability to think, which had always been the one and only friend he could reliably turn to when in dire straits…
“No, that’s ridiculous,” he heard himself say aloud.
Thus, as the growing uneasiness made itself known through subtle yet undeniable cramps in various parts of his abdomen, the urge to move emerged like a jack in the box. Before he knew it, he carefully stretched out his arms, but besides pushing air around, no solidity was found. Subsequently he took a minor step forward and felt the floor slightly absorbing his foot in a sponge-like substance. With extended arms, he took another couple of careful steps before he bumped into something soft.
“Hey! What’s with the kicking?!”
Heavily startled and waving his arms around like a windmill, Andy had to put strenuous effort into preventing himself from falling backward.
“I…er…Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, yeah, too late, too late.”
As he regained equilibrium, Andy asked:
“Who are you? Where am I?”
“Who are you?” answered the unknown voice.
“I am…” but before he could speak out his name, a blow on the right side of his chest prevented his vocal cords from uttering it, and coughing and spluttering he fell down on one knee.
“Ah, good, so am I,” squealed the voice merrily.
Immediately a torch lit up, shining on a face older than Methusalem. Grooves covering the man’s face resembled Grand Canyon, and his eyes were so far in the back of their sockets that it felt as though a cat was looking from a hole in a wall. A turban the size of a watermelon graced his head and his skin-over-bones body was covered by nothing but a white, cotton mawashi.
“Well, what’s the waiting for? Come on!”
Barely catching his breath and struggling to get back on his feet, Andy tried to keep up with the old timer.
“Where are we going?”
Abruptly the man stopped and quickly turned around, with which he almost set his turban on fire.
“You don’t know? But you said you are!”
“I tried to say that I am Andy, before you blew the living breath out of me.”
“Ah, that, that was only a matter of polite reciprocity. But what is Andy?”
“That’s my name!”
“Bollocks...”
He sighed and stared Andy somewhat disappointed in the face. “Then you are not.”
“Are not what?” Andy almost desperately exclaimed, all the while realizing that his former ecstatic bliss had all but evaporated.
“Everything, my young fellow, and nothing, too. The path that you have chosen can be wandered in two directions which both lead to the same destination. But if you are not, that is to say, if you are Andy, then the path leads to different places altogether. It’s all a matter of choice in the end, really. When do you want to be? The game of not-being will forever be as enticing as it has always been, and the means of death are so sweet as to be practically irresistible. So there’s no blame, brother, for all move about in different stages of development, and only those who arrive at a point where it all becomes stale and boring eventually come to be, for then they wish to know and go out seeking – like you.”
The man smiled, turned around, and quickly gained speed because every time the torch turned around a corner, Andy had to run to keep the light in sight. Many turns were taken in what appeared to be some kind of underground maze, for he bumped incessantly with his head and shoulders into what felt like tree roots, and with every bump an earthen-like substance filled all the sense organs located on and in his head. When the man and the torch finally halted, they found themselves in front of a seemingly impenetrable hedge of undergrowth and brushwood.
“We need to go through here. Stay close as I need to extinguish the torch.”
In the pitch dark, the rustle of the hedge told Andy that the geezer went through it with ease. Therefore he followed by diving into it, yet sharp branches tore holes in his pants, shirt, and skin, and he cursed while trying to evade the menacing vegetation which attacked him from all sides as he tried to follow his guide.
The hedge ended even more sudden than it had appeared. While licking the blood from his lips that had been torn open by branches, he temporarily had to shut his eyes. The light on the other side of the hedge proved painfully bright and headache inducing, enabling him after a few minutes merely to squint.
Getting slowly adjusted to the light, Andy found himself on a small ridge halfway up a nearly vertical mountain slope, covered in heather, moss, and the odd gravity-defying pine tree. There were no paths and the man was nowhere to be found.
“Hello – o – o – o – o?”
The breeze carried his echoing voice into the valley below. There was no reply. As he gazed around, there seemed no way he would be able to move himself on the alpine vegetation covered slope, in any direction. Yet, going back was also no option, since he had no idea how he had turned up in the maze in the first place. And while he was contemplating his next move, he was suddenly overcome with a crippling fatigue. Seeing no way out, and no one to ask for help, he lay down in a fetal position, and almost immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
“Psssst! Mr. Hoover! Get up!”
As he was shaken more and more violently, slowly Andy opened his eyes to see who was trying to rob him from his first sleep since leaving Muladhara’s realm.
“Hmmmmm…wha…what is it?”
He shook his head and instantly backed away from his tormentor, who just in time grabbed his left arm before Andy almost threw himself off the little ridge and into a certain death. Subsequently his brain could not comprehend what his eyes were trying to tell him.
“Talu? Is that really you? What happened to you? Where have you been? How did you get here? Where are we?”
Andy yelled out loud and just before a deluge of words threatened to exit his mouth, the trusted sherpa with whom Andy had left Lawudo Gompa, placed his free index finger on his pursed lips, while pulling Andy back onto the ridge.
“No time to talk now, mister, and no time for sleeping. Need to move, quickly!” Talu said, as he tied a thick rope around Andy’s waist into a big knot right in front of the navel.
“But where are we aaaaaahhhhhhh!”
Andy descended with lightning speed down the slope, that being the result of Talu’s push which threw him backward over the edge of the small ridge.
Digging his heels into the alpine vegetation where he could, while attempting, sometimes with more and sometimes less success, to avoid overhanging branches of the off pine tree, and destroying a spider’s home with his face when he tried to look down, he nevertheless felt the rope gradually tighten, which clearly reduced his descending speed to manageable proportions.
And then he stopped. That is, there was evidently no more rope left for him to descend any farther, but any signs of Talu also making the descend were alarmingly lacking. Moreover, the heavily moss-covered rock wall right in front prevented finding grip for either his hands or feet. No ridges were in close range, nor trees or other useful footholds. Meanwhile the rope was only being held in place by virtue of the natural hooks that were his armpits, but at considerable cost of power, energy, and mood, for it rapidly turned towards one of desperate terror.
Anguish finally transformed into blind rage and he began to claw at the moss right in front of him, taking out large chunks that immediately fell into the open arms of gravity. Like a toddler in a swimming ring trying to thrust himself forward, Andy clawed away moss like there was no tomorrow. But while his clothes were being covered in dirt, all he found was an earthen layer that measured two feet and counting. Then, suddenly overcome by exasperation, exhaustion, and hopelessness, he held on to the rope around his chest, and began to sob.
Just as thoughts about giving up altogether gained momentum in his mind, the corner of his eyes perceived something that seemed out of place in this environment. A fragment of a straight line, too straight for it to be Nature’s handywork, appeared in the far right corner of the hole he had dug. And as he cautiously began to clear away the dirt, he appeared to have reached some kind of symbol on the rocks underneath the moss.
Below his wiping hands emerged a triangle with an eye inside. As an artist and art-lover, Andy immediately recognized the Eye of Providence: a symbol that speaks of the age-old quest for meaning like no other, even though it has been used by different groups for different purposes. Sheer excitement made his heart skip a few beats as he feverishly cleared more dirt off the rock, when all of a sudden he encountered a hole wide enough to put his arm inside. Leaning into his archaeological digging as far as he could, he stretched out his right arm to explore what was inside, when his fingers touched upon something hairy. A big yell escaped him as the hairy thing began to move and when he retracted his arm at lightning speed, out came a Tarantula almost twice the size of Andy’s fist. It looked terribly annoyed and would have latched on to Andy’s face, were it not for a moment of incredibly clear thinking and acting, which made him swing around his own axis, and, while turning back around to face the creature, hitting it so hard on the head that it lost its grip and fell down the steep slope.
It’s gaze betrayed a mix of immense rage and thorough perplexity, yet as soon as Andy had made sure that the spider wouldn’t return any time soon, he reached back into the hole in the wall. Just as his arm was outstretched the most, he could feel something like a notch. He hooked three fingers into it and pulled, but nothing happened. He pulled again, and again there was no sign of anything happening, anywhere, at all.
“That really was uncalled for!”
Andy looked around, but couldn’t see anyone to have uttered those words.
“Show yourself!”
“Oh, I’m not hiding from you. In fact, you can say that I was thrown at your feet.”
Sure enough, when Andy looked down, he saw the tarantula not more than six inches from his feet. Immediately he pulled up his legs and attempted to claw his way to nowhere. This visibly seemed to amuse the creature, judging from its shaking and clacking of its jaws.
“You know, it shows little courtesy when showing gratitude in this manner. Some work on your etiquette might not be a bad idea, I say.”
“Hells Bells! You can talk?” Andy’s perplexed voice uttered.
“What of it?”
“You’re a spider! You can’t speak!”
“Oh, but moths can? You think that just because I live out in the open instead of in some murky office, I am of lesser capacities than those rags who feed on rags, only because they dwell in a confined space? You surprise me, sir, you really do, and not in the most positive of ways, I should add.”
Short bolts of lightning exited from Andy’s ears due to the short circuiting of his brain.
“You know Phil?” while disbelief dripped like a viscous liquid from his words.
“Let’s just say that we have made each other’s acquaintance. How is the old rag doing these days? Still tricking people into quests?” followed by shaking and clacking of jaws.
“How…”
“Never mind, Mr. Hoover, yes, yes, I also know your name. You’re here, aren’t you? That answers my question right there. Furthermore, I resent my oath of carnivorous celibacy, because I much enjoy devouring meat that disturbs me, and you, after all, did not only disturb me, but you seem rather tasty as well. Alas, la vie n'est pas juste, donc je devrais y faire face, as they say. Now, if you please move aside a little, so I can do my job.”
Apprehensively Andy turned his back towards the opening in the moss and shivered as he felt the giant spider crawl upwards behind him. And right before it entered the hole, Andy had gained enough courage to ask for its name.
“Oh, I go by many names, but you can call me Bibi.”
“Bibi?” Andy snickered. Infuriated, the creature turned around.
“What of it? it snarled. “May I remind you that I am the wrath of the Gods, or, well, at least I was, before my oath, which, as you might have guessed, was not taken particularly voluntarily. Now shut up, because the temptation of breaking my oath and facing its consequences are growing by the second.”
It vanished in the hole like smoke, as if it was an apparition hoovering through walls at will. After a few minutes, a faint humming sound seemed to come from deep within the mountain. The humming turned into a buzzing, which quickly turned into a roaring thunder of cracking rocks.
Andy saw Bibi sitting in the hole and staring at him, almost expectantly, while between the hole and the Eye of Providence a small crack began to appear. Rapidly widening, the crack was too straight and vertical for it to be natural. Before Andy had time to gather his thoughts, a part of the wall – including the hole with Bibi in it – swung open inwards, leading into a tunnel that bathed in a vague, purple haze.
Andy hastily swung towards the fresh opening in the wall, not least encouraged by the lacerations in his major Pectoralis, Teres, and dorsal Latissimus muscles made by the cutting rope.
“Oh, so much better.” Andy uttered as he loosened the rope and cast it off him. When he threw it outside, though, it began falling down, and, to his horror, kept on falling until the other end of the rope flew past.
The clacking of jaws returned him to the present moment and position, and as he turned around, the hole, with Bibi in it, was merely five inches removed from his face. Yet, the feel of seemingly solid ground beneath his feet and the new opportunity this development promised, renewed his confidence.
“What is this place Bibi? Where does it lead?”
“It is not in my job description to provide you with that information. Adieu, repas à pied.”
Bibi turned around and while he disappeared in the hole, a vague muttering was still audible in which Andy was able to discern words like ‘shame’ and ‘tasty’ from less clear sounds.
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