Search Results for 'himself'

Sanso was beginning to feel an urge to move. Waiting under the door in the ceiling in the cave tunnel, just watching India Louise and Illi fade in and out of view, and waiting for Dory and the parrot to return was getting boring. He was a wanderer by nature, and so he wandered off along the tunnel. He didn’t stop to wonder which tunnel to choose when he came to a junction, he just went with whatever one he happened to choose. He didn’t really mind where he ended up, that was the thing. This philosophy had always seemed to work well for him, because he ALWAYS ended up somewhere interesting; somewhere where he couldn’t imagine not being, once he was there, as if it was always the ‘right’ place to be, and at the ‘right’ time to be there.

The cave tunnel was becoming wider and less cramped. Sanso straightened his back and quickened his pace, and started to sing.

Hello Dolly, oh helloooo Dolly, do de dooo de do do dodedodedooooo……. chuckling to himself and wondering where on earth did THAT come from….. Oh helloooooo Dolly……

and walked right into a coatstand, of all things, getting splodged in the face with a rather smelly wet blue cape. The coatstand teetered and Sanso grabbed it to stop it falling over. There was a note pinned onto it:

Watch my shifting, Tell the time; Shape me wet, and Lose me dry; Colour me pink and grey and gold, and Find the secrets that I hold, What am I?

Sanso didn’t hesitate for a single moment. SAND!

Sanso grinned with delight at guessing the riddle so quickly, and then laughed out loud. How clever am I, he said, I guessed the answer to my own riddle! Still chortling, Sanso gave the wet cape a fond pat and set off again.

The tunnel was widening and eventually broadened into a cavern. Bright sparkling shafts of sunlight were beaming down from several holes in the cavern roof.

Sanso blinked a few times and squinted until his eyes became accustomed to the light. The cavern was huge, and everywhere he looked were paintings and markings on the walls, even the places impossible to reach. Some were creatures, some were symbols, in black and red and yellow and orange.

Sanso was entranced. He sank down to a sitting position, and then stretched out flat on his back, gazing at the markings on the walls. He stretched his arms out, filling his palms with sand and then letting it go, and trailing his fingers through the sand…sand…..

Sand! I may have got the riddle, thought Sanso, but I didn’t get the POINT of the riddle being there in the first place!

HHMM, I’m not so clever after all……

Jadra Iamamad stared intently at his left hand. He had been looking closely at it now for nigh on 2 hours since awakening that morning. He held it up and compared it with his right hand. He shook his head, a mixture of astonishment and disbelief, however there could be no doubt about it. A rather extraordinary thing had occurred whilst he had slept. It was truly momentous. He wanted to dance and shout and raise his voice to the heavens and praise the mighty Gods who had bestowed such an honor upon him.

Ha! They call Jadra Iamamad a fool, a madman, but it is the God’s who have spoken now. Who are the fools now? It is the God’s who have chosen!. And he fell prostrate upon the earth.

Not for long though, for Jadra knew what he had to do. He had been entrusted with this mighty honor and he must guard it carefully. He ripped off his shirt and tied it carefully around his left hand in order to protect it from spying, prying eyes. And there were many such eyes in Jadra’s world. He could feel them upon him even now. He knew full well there would be many who would wish to deprive him of the special privilege the Gods had bestowed upon him.

He had to take his hand to the cave.

Jadra could not restrain himself from doing a small dance.

Carefully, carefully now Jadra, he whispered gleefully.

As the parrot set off in search of Dory he came to a fork in the tunnels. Down one tunnel he would find Dory, and down another tunnel he wouldn’t. HHMM. Well, I’ll just do bother, he decided, (chuckling to himself that he’d said bother when really he meant both) and probability parrot one set off down the right tunnel and probability parrot two set off down the left. Probability parrot one (or PP1 for short) did indeed find Dory, and was heading back towards Sanso and the door in the ceiling with Dory tripping along behind him, when he came to another crossroads. PP1 went right, and PP3 went left, and so on, and before long the caves were full of parrots.

After Arona said she was hungry, the energy of Malvina disappeared, and once again Arona found herself alone in the cave.

She found this quite irritating. They are really bit rude around here, she muttered.

Arona sat down on the floor of the cave and considered her options. She was tired of the cave and could barely remember what had drawn her here in the first place.

It had been the music of course. She had wanted to find the source of the music. However for the most part she decided her experience had been rather disappointing.

(Arona was never at her best when hungry and this was causing her to quickly forget some of the wonderful experiences with the music and the paintings, and take a rather negative view of events.)

All I have done is wander around dark passageways really.

And now, to top it all off, apparently things are shifting. In the name of heaven what does that mean?

AND if one more person tells me to use my magic I will probably scream or something!

Perish the thought, came a grumpy voice from a particularly dark corner. Your moaning is quite sufficiently bad enough.

And Mandrake the cat emerged from the shadows and made himself comfortable on Arona’s lap. This is great, much more comfortable than the ground he purred.

Oh cute, said Arona, a talking cat.

Cute yourself, responded Mandrake, love your cape by the way.

(Mandrake was prone to sarcasm, considering it a perfectly valid form of humour.)

Arona stroked Mandrake’s soft black coat and tried her hardest to work out what to do. It was all feeling a bit bleak at the moment, the ever changing cave, the half light, the heat and humidity… and especially her hunger.

Mandrake sighed in an impatiently eggsagerated sort of a way.

Heavens to murgatroyd^¹, how can I relax with your incessant thinking? Okay so here’s an easy one for you: what’s the most important thing about magic?

All of a sudden Arona felt a flash of lightness and a sense of new energy moving within her.

of course! She exclaimed delightedly, hugging the less than enthusiastic Mandrake, you have to believe in it!

—

[¹] Note from the editor: Mandrake being a very educate cat from noble ancestors, some of its speech may be difficult to grasp for the average reader, which was certainly not the case for the astute Arona.
Anyway, here is some complement on that ‘Murgatroyd’ .

Fiona wandered slowly along the road to the supermarket in the Village, deep in thought, pondering a recent dream. In her dream she had been talking to someone from the power company. He was very chatty. Eventually he asked her if she had any issues with her power service. In her dream she had started to focus on some electricity issues she was experiencing. Well as a matter of fact I do, she had replied. At which point the man from the power company had abruptly cut the call short.

In her dream she felt a little put out, although resolved to let the power company know later.

The message of the dream felt clear enough, it was her focusing on the difficulties which cut her connection. Yet this presented Fiona with some difficulty, because she dearly loved to analyse even when this did mean focusing on not so pleasant things, though she had been aware for some time how this mental work would deplete her energy.

Actually there was almost a feeling of grieving in her. To let go of this part of her felt like losing something warm and comforting in it’s familiarity, like a well worn and loved article of clothing. It left her wondering a bit about her own identity.

On the way back home, laden with bags of shopping, Fiona saw Jarrod.

Jarrod was lying on a park bench conversing loudly to himself. Well, Fiona mentally corrected herself, to someone I can’t see anyway.

They just don’t understand reality he was saying vehemently they just don’t get it.

Fiona smiled to herself, noticing Jarrod getting a few concerned looks from the well dressed locals. With his bare feet, unkempt hair and long beard he would stand out even if he wasn’t shouting at the top of his voice. She decided to try and sneak past herself, he looked like maybe today he would not recognise her anyway.

FIONA!

She turned back.

Hey Jarrod

Fiona, here’s the thing. Here’s the question okay. Should we swim up-stream or down? Fiona what do you think? Should we head for the Source or the Ocean? Up river or down? We’re on the edge of a new era Fiona. So what will it be, the shallows or the rapids?

Before she needed to come up with an answer Jarrod’s attention was diverted by the shopping bags.

FOOD! Great is that for me Fiona?

The life I lead is mere hours or less
I serve all my time by being consumed
I am quickest when thin, slowest when fat
And wind is the bane of the gift that I bring

Dragon, is that you?, Arona looked around, peering into the half light, but she could not see the crafty dragon, who had once again taken the form of a tiny weaszchilla. He had however retained his own voice, for a weaszchilla cannot be heard easily by human ears

Why should you care, do you want to see my stupid dragon face now?

I said silly, not stupid, and perhaps your face is not really so silly for a dragon, however your personality is certainly not that endearing, grumbled Arona

It doesn’t bark
It doesn’t bite
But still won’t let you in the house

Arona thought for a moment, a lock

Well I suggest you turn your attention to it then, because it is the only way out now.

Arona was alarmed, What do you mean?

The dragon laughed and as Arona turned around again in search of him, she discovered to her horror that the tunnel she had just traversed had disappeared, and was now a wall.

What’s the matter? Were you thinking of turning back? Leormn grinned to himself. He was enjoying this, but perhaps it was time to return to his other business and let the girl get on with her adventure.

Oh well, perhaps just time for one more for riddle before I go, the dragon thought, he was having so much fun.

The more that there is
The less that you see
Squint all you like
When surrounded by me

Oh that is too easy Dragon. The answer is darkness said Arona in a quiet voice.

The dragon had to hand it to her, she wasn’t stupid.

By the way, he called as he disappeared down a weaszchilla sized tunnel he had created for himself, aren’t you rather hot with that cape on?

The life I lead is mere hours or less … oh he means the candle said Arona to herself, and pulling her cloak around her, turned to face the door.

Sanso was used to travelling alone. He’d been exploring this cave on his own for several years now, and it suited him, on the whole. No need to confer, or compromise, or rush to keep up, or slow down to let others catch up. He could follow his own impulses without hindrance. He did meet others on his travels, but only at the cave entrances, or rather, the times and places that the cave entrances revealed. He never felt an urge to settle though at any of these places, always compelled to return to the caves mysterious and ever changing labyrinthine tunnels.

The disembodied voices and coloured wispies were always with him in the tunnels. Sometimes one would be louder than another for awhile, then another would assume prominence. The bleakest coldest times were when he wasn’t noticing them; that’s when he found himself going round and round in circles, lost in the maze.

The electric blue wispy had been around alot lately, comforting him with little explosions of pinprick blue lights, and a golden mustard yellow one. English, not French mustard, he reminded himself, although he didn’t think it mattered and wondered why he’d thought it.

Sanso had been almost crawling for some time in a particuarly cramped and difficult tunnel; bent double for most of the time, his back was aching and he longed to stretch out. The thought of going back, retracing his steps, was unbearable, so he continued, and tried not to be discouraged.
‘Find something to appreciate, Appreciation is the key’ the voice of the blue wispy sounded amused, but in a kindly and endearing sort of way. Harumph, muttered Sanso, easy to say! It would help if there was something to appreciate!

Just then Sanso heard another voice, muttering something over and over again. ‘… dragon egg dragon… egg dog egg … dragon dog egg…’ What the heck was that all about?

Yann had been having these strange dreams and impressions since he’d been in that cave during his last trip to Scotland. In the cave he had that strange impression of a dragon roaring, but he’d rationalized that with the noise of the falls, it was quite deafening. It’d been raining for so much time that the amount of water streaming through that cave was amazing… the visits had been suspended because they feared floods and they couldn’t really explore the cave then. All he could do then was picking up a pebble for Fiona, a pebble he had still to send her

After that, he’d had the weirdest impression to be observed by dragons… they felt quite big, and event though he tried to tell himself it was some effect of his imagination, he was still uneasy about that.

The imagery of dragons had continued with his discussion with Quintin, who told him he had drawn that very cave… in which there were dragon eggs and their keeper. A strange harper woman. When he’d been shown the painting, Yann had that feeling of déjà vu, and the kid attending the newborn dragon on the upper right of the picture had aroused an intense desire to do that very action.

“The tunnels had been changed again”, he thought first.

That weird thought made him laugh and he couldn’t tell to Quintin why… yet.

And last week there was his friend Anastasia who was coming back from a trip to Budapest where she had seen so many dragons in the hotel, in the museums, and there was that parade, they were calling that the dragon’s parade, and it was music and parties all the Saturday night. She enjoyed that tremendously. She even told him she had the impression of being a dragon when looking in the mirror right after that night.