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— Of course I will introduce you, said Phoebe calmly, Franiel, meet Vincentius.

— That’s funny you say that, said Franiel recovering his marbles after a bit of an aghast moment. This name sounds oddly familiar… Is… he a talking parrot?
— Oh, yes of course, said Phoebe Chesterhope, though that’s not the least of its particularities she added with an eerie smile on her thin wrinkled mouth.
The others, you said she snapped back, her gaze suddenly sharp as a sword. I suppose you’ll meet them, unless you’ve got already.
— I’m not sure to know what you’re talking about, Milady said Franiel slightly perplexed.
— Oh well, I can see from the clothes you are wearing that you’re coming from a place of peace and sainthood. This place is a haven too, in many ways. This place has been kept as such since a few centuries, and I intend it to stay that way. Though the Others are devising ploys always more clever to have a hand on this place. For that, I know how to keep a keen eye on what’s happening, she said with a troubling wink to her parrot.
— The valley is surely a nice place, said Franiel not sure of what he should say.
— To the contrary. It’s full of marauders if you ask me, but for good reason. Uleÿa’s valley is a place not easily reached, and there are not many portals around here. No official ones at least… So in a sense, it’s an exchange of good will between me and them.

Franiel was not sure he wanted to delve more into all this intricate political web of alliances and plots, no more than he wanted to be involved in religious beliefs and fanaticisms…

— I can see you are a little troubled, but you’ll find your place in all these events, assuredly, Phoebe said gently. But be certain that whenever you are wanting yourself out of them, you sure will find yourself right in the midst of them, without you even knowing it.
— I only want to be a good man, and do the least evil in this World, I suppose finally answered Franiel after an awkward moment.
— This, I am sure is true… You know, I’m a little bit of a witch, I mean, intuitive person, and I can pick up images from yourself. I’m not sure about some of them, but most of them are as clear as the waters of Uleÿa. Take your time to feel at home around here. Vincentius will answer you if you need anything, in any case better than Lydia or Derwent.
— But… I mean no offense here, dear Lady,… Vincentius is but a parrot, isn’t it?

Phoebe sighed for a moment then took Franiel by the arm, so quickly and firmly he didn’t see it coming, and couldn’t move, hypnotised by the firm grip of the woman.

— Listen carefully, my friend. I can see you can be trusted, as much as your mind is thirsty for the truth, so I will tell you. Vincentius is no mere creature. He’s the result of a little experiment I had once with a former guest of mine. Another divine being, as pure and innocent as you, going by the same very name of this creature. I captured a spark of his radiant aura, and mixed it with an egg I had kept for the occasion. And so it was born. A perfect spy, as well as a faithful friend.

Franiel recoiled in horror… What have you done?!

— Oh, don’t be so dramatic, my young friend Phoebe said with a little giggle. No one has been harmed, and even if at times, there seem to be some side-effect when my former guest seems to see or speak through my parrot, it all has gone very well… And no, I don’t intend to do it to you… Don’t give me silly ideas, ahahah.

— Arona, my dear?

The silky voice of Malvina resounded in Arona’s ear, while she was meditating on the implications of the story Vincentius had told her.

— Yes?
— May I borrow you Buckberry and your sabulmantium for a few moments?
— Oh sure, no need to ask… Though I don’t think you require my permission for Buckberry, isn’t he free as I am?
— Oh yes he is, exactly as you said, free as you are

Arona could have sworn she felt a winking energy rippling through her flesh, making some unfamiliar electrical currents crawl underneath her skin. She would have said she was thoroughly disliking it, though she wasn’t really sure if she was.

— Oh, Malvina added as if an innocent afterthought, we are moving by the way, perhaps you may find interesting to join us for the homationing ceremony. You may learn some more about your sabulmantium.
— Well, why not, answered Arona having no idea of what a homationing ceremony could be…
— Very well, please join us in the main entrance, where I am playing the harp. We will be waiting for you.
— I’ll be there in a second.

So, they were moving? Speak about implications… Arona muttered, stroking dozing Mandrake, who had feasted on too many of the moorats crawling inside the moisteous cave tunnels.
I guess I’ll take this astounding elan as a hint that I’ll be going alone she said. A yawn for all answer.
Considering it was Mandrake, that was almost a mark of distinctive affection… or was it rather of affectionate distinction?

Moving? She didn’t want to move, not yet, not like that… And to be honest, with all the stuff in that cave, she sure didn’t want to help pack all of this, be it by magic. What an impossible task.

Vincentius the nanny was taking care of Yikes, so she was confident should anything happen, he would be alright.

On the outside of the cave, the dragons were all lined up, as if waiting for some unknown signal. Leormn first in shades of teal, and his spawns, Buckberry, with the most florid and baroque hues of purple that one could imagine, and the two facetious Heckle and Jeckle in shades of emerald, looking unusually calm.

Malvina, with Leo the little marmoset on her left shoulder, was playing her harp, while Irtak was accompanying her playing a mouth harp.
Some drums had been disposed around, and quite naturally, Arona felt like beating the measure on these, getting slowly and slowly relaxed by the music and guttural sounds produced by the throat singing dragons.
She almost laughed and broke the meditating pattern when she let the memory of Sanso come into her awareness. What a shame he’d missed that, that would have fitted him better than her.

Slowly the sounds stopped, and Malvina very gracefully rose from her stool, and greeted Arona with a loving hug. Her flowing robe was a tender orchid hue with laces of thistle pink, and her silvery peach long flowing hair were giving her the aura of a princess.

— Wait, where are Georges and Salome? She said, are they already gone?
— No, they are waiting for us at the new location, she said with a smile… Now, Leormn will start the ceremony.

Arona almost said Wait again, in anticipation of what was to come, and finally decided to let it flow. The serene look of Malvina and her motherly smile was of a nurturing reassurance.

Outside, in the grassy lands, the dragons had all grown wings and were apparently ready to take off. A pile of conic shaped dirty sand was standing in front of the entrance, that Arona had never seen before.

She could feel Buckberry answer her unspoken question without even a word being uttered. It is soil from the cave, and we will use it now.

Arona watched the dragons rise in the sky full of damp gray clouds, and wondered what they were doing.
They are doing two things, Arona answered Malvina (again that disagreeable habit of reading thoughts, couldn’t help but think Arona, wishing there would be some World around where such thing wouldn’t be so easy), first they are checking what kind of creature are staying with us and following the movement, continued Malvina, ignoring the remark, and second, they are drawing with that sand from the cave a circle to enclose the area we want to move

Arona didn’t dare say the explanations were making her even fuzzier, so she nodded as if abreast of what was going on.

Popping sounds of the dragons blinking in and out to get some more dirt almost made her dizzy, and she forgot the strangest feeling she had when she thought she heard “the area we want to move”.

— Now, continued Mavina, the sabulmantium.

The dragons were now all back, and the pile of sand had disappeared.
Arona’s attention snapped back to herself, and she handed the fine object to the lady. She couldn’t help but notice the glowing eyes of Irtak, who apparently was very eager to see what would happen.
So he will move too, she thought, hope his father won’t be too sad… Why did she felt it was a separation from this place she had found she was liking…

— If you look closely, said Malvina to no one in particular, but Arona took it for herself, you will see how easy it is to come back if you feel so inclined.

At her touch, the coloured sands in the sabulmantium’s transparent dragon shell globe started to move. And all could see the cave being formed, with all the little people, dragons, glukenitches and even Leo and Mandrake… They were all here, enclosed into a circle of sand.

— Now, if you will follow me… said Malvina who traced on the ground a curvy symbol.

And very slowly, as the whole sand scenery inside the sabulmantium was turning in a round, they all felt as though they were dissolving into the air. Yet, they were all solid, and the interior of the cave was still too.
The only thing that was moving was the exterior, twirling and changing, getting out of focus, and moving erratically at the beginning, and then getting close to a focal point. Some fine tuning was occurring.

And in a snap,
The landscape
Was
In all its splendor…

— Greetings! a smiling couple at the entrance of the cave said to the people inside.

The rain started to pour down… Becky moaned and winced at each of the thunder strokes.

Don’t worry, as they say in the bayou, “mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux”. (rainy wedding, merry marriage) Al said with a wink.
Anyway, should be over for the vin d’honneur, he added hastily, hoping that the circus tent that was set up would be big enough to accommodate all the guests in case he’d be wrong…

He didn’t even want to imagine what the Russian fluorescent bacon they had planned to serve for the toasts would look like drenched in rain…

So you have requested audience… a deep voice, hoarse as a water’s torrent running and jumping on a river bed smothered with pebbles, asked from the darkness.

Midora was not afraid of the darkness. As best as she could explain it, it was the void of creation, where everything came from, and where all was stripped of intrinsic meaning. It was from this place that she could reach for the answers.

She knew this place, she felt memories swirling around, as uncatchable as a swarm of short-lived sparkles born from the reddish embers of a dying fire.
In this lifetime, she was only a eleven year old girl, but she was as old as this voice within her. There was a time where she was playing with that voice, a time where her being was not yet, and yet a time which was in her future.
She was pure consciousness in that dream time space, and yet, she was feeling more comfortable with physical symbols around herself. So she focused on one of the symbols that she knew would help her stabilize her vibration, and in doing so, all the small particles of golden light around her started to swirl and coalesced into a dream body.

She was in front of a cave, in a mountainous area. This body provided her a slowing down of the stream of information that came to her, and she could manipulate more efficiently the interaction with that huge presence she felt. The precipitous rocky environment was a symbol of that steadiness and slowing down and also, for her benefit of her beliefs in that acquiring such information might be a difficult task.
Now she had identified it, she could more easily dispel the obstacles on the path to the cave. The cave of course, was her symbol for reaching into her deep inner nature. And the darkness was only a fitting blank canvas for herself to project and translate the energy interactions.
All of that she knew, as it was knowledge embedded into herself that she could more easily access into this trance-like state, in her room in that location in space and time of 2112 in New Venice. And she knew that also for she was taught by her parents, Bart and Oscar, on how to access it.

The voice was inside the cave. And no sooner had she thought of it that she was finding the whole place morphing into a vast room built into the rock, in the middle of which a majestic golden dragon was slowly breathing.
She had translated the vast energy as that of a dragon, but she knew when she felt into it that it had possible variations, one of which being that of a she-phoenix, of various sizes, where sizes where symbolic of its age and wisdom.

— You may call me Naasir the dragon grinned at Midora. You are right, in a sense, you can consider yourself being born from me, though in your true form, you are equally august and splendid as I am. You will, in time, have access to that form, again. But for now, I can provide some answers to your questions. The only thing is… Are your questions up to the challenge? he added with the most benevolent smirk his wide toothed grin could convey.

Midora pondered for a moment, beholding the perfection of her translation of the energy. Each scale on the body of the dragon was a work of art. His half-closed eyes, with an amber shiny center, and teal border were equally mesmerizing.

— What is the significance of these books I have inherited from my parents?

— As you know, this place is the place were significance fades away, or radiates, depending on the direction in which you look, only to be replaced by fulfillment. Your… books hence, have no significance, I would say, for me at least. What do you want to know about them?

— They were passed from people to people, and as far as I understood, they started to be imprinted with these people’s stories, starting from my grand-parents Indy and Cuthbert. But there are still blank pages inside them, and no seeming order from one page to the other. I think that’s why my grand-parents grew tired of it.

— Continue…

— What I mean is… I feel attracted to them, and yet I don’t understand how they work…

— These… are not mere books as your ancestors understood them. In fact, they were crafted by a distant civilization, not denizens from this dimension in which you are presently focused, but travelers, with whom you can still interact by means of this device. When the “books” traveled into this dimension, they retained their initial properties and functioning, but their initial shapes were translated into something as close as you could understand so that you would allow them to appear into your reality. This knowing might help you unravel their true nature.

Another thing. Books are energy deposits, in your reality. There was a misunderstanding in that they were thought to be able to liber or to free your memory by imprinting it into the pages, but memories are alive and not separate from you. They live as you live and change them. So, the books are still being written, and that which you can read is the part of the book which is the most probable story in which you choose to insert yourself, so as to explore it. You can alter these probabilities, even if you might doubt it, but as you chose them, they are much a part of your design of your reality, that which you chose to explore. In short, a complete book means the end of your exploration, and prompts for a disengagement for you to continue other explorations, and on the contrary, a blank books means a boundless realm of probable explorations.

— Can you tell me why there are two of them?

— They are more than a couple. These ones are the only known ones that your ancestors happen to have found. Most of them have been destroyed over time in this dimension, as their possibilities were heavily cloaked. They are all linked together, as you will find out. You may gather some answers in finding Badul…

And with that, Midora was once again floating in an intermediate state hung between space and time, longing for her physical body. She woke up strangely energized…

Looking at the clearing, where there was seemingly only a little girl on the trunk of a cut down coconut tree, Akita found himself puzzled. A girl, alone, in that dangerous jungle… Might it be a trick from his old enemies? The giant spiders were vicious, and could play some tricks of mind on humans, he’d witnessed before he’d run into Kay, who was granting him some sort of protection. But as far as he knew, they couldn’t do anything that elaborate. They were rather primitive in their projections, and were more inclined to slimy nightmarish visions than cute little dark-skinned girls, however untidy were her clothes…
Besides, Kay seemed to trust her. And she could see him too. Usually, humans other than partners of spirit dogs couldn’t see them, but at times before they reached puberty, children were able to get glimpses of them, Kay had explained him.

Apparently either the girl was a simpleton, or she had an impossible chance not having yet encountered the spiders, being as she were, pretty oblivious to what was around her, and speaking to herself or imaginary friends, while fiddling with a small device the like of which Akita never had seen in his life. The thing was making beeping noises much like a radio emitter, and his heart leapt at the idea that she might break some god-sent transponder found in the wreckage from which she surely had been a miraculous survivor…
Kay, who had been observing and talking to the little girl, came back near Akita in a blink.

— Don’t worry for that device, it’s just a game…
— A game? It seems quite sophisticated for a game…
— It’s my Gamegirl Advanced, said the girl, without detaching her gaze from the tiny screen… But the batteries will soon be dead, she added with a lovely pouting face.
— Better the batteries than you, retorted Akita. So who are you? You can call me Akita… And I guess you’ve already met Kay.
— I’m Anita, but everybody calls me Anu.

She put the tiny thing at her side, and smiled broadly at Akita.

— Wow, you have such strange clothes, it’s like you’re out of one of those black and white war movies that my father used to watch…
— No wonder, little girl, we are at war.
— I’m not a little girl, and I don’t think you’re right. We’re not at war!
— That was probably well intended of your parents to hide you the truth, but thing is we are. I’ve been stranded on this island for months now with these loathsome creatures, and all I can suppose is that these spiders are secret weapons from the Nazis.
— Oh, Nazis? Like in Indiana Jones! Anu started to giggle…
— What do you mean? So you know of Nazis?
— Sure, my great granddad fought them on the beaches of Normandy, that was many years ago.
— I don’t understand… Do you have any idea of what’s going on? Akita asked Kay…
— Grwl… All of your human quandaries don’t usually make a great deal of sense to me, if you ask me, but I guess her friends would probably know more…
— Her friends? You mean, her imaginary friends?
— Oh they are not imaginary, Anu and Kay chorused.

— Let me try something, Kay said.

And the ghostly dog form contours started to wobble like a poked cube of jelly, becoming a single ball of phosphorescent ectoplastic energy that started to rotate around Akita. Akita’s vision, disturbed by the movements started to blink at a more rapid rate until his peripheral vision started to show some distinct coloured St Elmo’s fires. They were four he could count, at least for the closest ones. At time they overlapped, and when he was focusing on his peripheral vision, he could get more and more stability in these visions.

Kay had stopped, and was again crouched near Akita.
— That’s all? Akita asked in dismay…
— Now you know the trick, answered Kay, almost shrugging…

— It’s really easy, said Anita, beaming at a disoriented Akita. Also… Yuki told me that apparently time is considerably slowed down on this island. And while a month passes here, ten years pass in the world we come from…

Dale added: “…wasn’t there, then it was….then it wasn’t”

Yesterday I was taking photos of broken statues at a ceramica shop, fascinated with piles of head and arms…..just saw the sync with Jib’s photos

Member list tab

I just added a slight enhancement, a member list tab (visible to the members), so that we can have an idea of who’s who

Mavis had not yet received any news from her friends Sharon and Gloria. She’d hoped she could have some postcard from them before she goes and join them…

Nearly two months… Two months since they had all received the exciting email from that Dr. Bronklehampton and had decided to take a leap of faith.
As a matter of fact, they had taken that leap of faith just before, and it was just a… “synchronistic confirmation that they were heading in the right direction”, that’s what old Harry had said… Or was it Joe? No, that was surely Harry.
Fred wasn’t very pleased.

Bored by all the variations of dominoes and dices games at their third-age club, the three inseparable ladies had decided, in a bout of delightful unreasonableness, to embrace all that modern technology had to offer. Sharon and Gloria, being the devil-may-care as they were, got their computer first. Mavis had to convince Fred that he could make his horse-racing bets with that computer without having to go to the city, now that the last pub in the village wasn’t taking bets any longer… and even play poker! she’d said, bluffing so vehemently that she’d almost blushed in shame for fear of being wrong. But that last argument had convinced old Fred. And now, she was connected too. A second-hand computer, with a dusty old keyboard, but she’d let it soak a night in a soapy basin, and it was now shiny as a brand-new one. Except that it now kept behaving strangely…

In their club, they could boast that now they were connected all over the word, and all the old parakeets of the club had almost choked over their tea when they had heard all of what they had discovered.
Sharon had won most of the glaring bedazzlement. Wearing newly bought sunglasses, she’d said whispering like a conspirator that she had searched her name on a website and she had seen more than 7 million pages talking of her! Imagine! More than seven million people talking of her! And she had not known she was so famous… Hence the sunglasses, she’d added with a wink… there were probably a slew of paparazzi hidden somewhere to discover all that was to know about her… But you can’t fool dear ol’ Sharon Stone.
Gloria Fowles had been gathering almost 4,000 pages… But well, she had not the charismatic aura of Shah.
And Mavis Staples had got a hefty 470,000 pages!… Of course, she had not told Fred, who was already so paranoid about all of this stuff. When they had received the machine, he was convinced there were miniature cameras and transponders from the MI6 inside the PC and had spent hours disassembling and reassembling it.

Very soon after they had registered for their free email address (the reseller had explained patiently that she couldn’t electrocute herself while licking the envelop), the next day to be precise, at 5:33 —that was the hour when Mavis had finished her routine dusting and breakfast preparing for Fred, and just before taking Gulp, the dog for a news reading (that was what Sha was saying “butt sniffing for dogs, is like news reading for us”), she had granted herself a little peek into the emailbox— she had seen something in the recipe folder.
She wasn’t sure why they had called that folder “meat” or “ham”… no that wasn’t “ham”… “SPAM” more like it… Anyway, in the recipes folder, she’d received her first email. She’d called eagerly Sha and Glo, and they had received it too, and had even answered it already, as they had spent the all night “surfing” as they said — which was a bit difficult for Sharon with her sunglasses in the dark.

All three of them had received a free coupon for a massage and therapeutic rejuvenating treatments (and possibly some bonus organ enlargements free of charge) in Tikfijikoo Island!

Well, now Mavis was ready to go too, now that Fred had been mollified and she’d gathered the money for the trip.
In a sense, that was good she’d not received anything yet from Sha and Glo, it would allow her to imagine the wildest things!