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There was one inn he knew about, the last one before the haunted bamboo forest. It served a solid but plain mountain meal, enough to be worth your coins, and carry you through the rigours of the cold ahead.

He doubted the oiliphant would carry him further through the thickly planted bamboos, so he would have to let her go for now, let her return to one of the secret entrances to the Forest, and be one again with the wild and her own.
Already the little crowd following them was getting thinner and thinner. After a while, the spell of novelty wore off, and they would realise where the enormous beast was walking toward. Very few wanted to have anything to do with the place. Rukshan wasn’t sure how such legend had spread about the bamboo forest behind haunted, as he would as a youngling find the crackling and wooshing sounds in the large plants rather soothing. Of course, as of all places, it was dangerous to venture there mindlessly, but he’d found the spirits dwelling there usually rarely ill disposed towards visitors, unlike deeper and higher in the mountains were some evils would ride the wind to great distances.

Not without feeling a small pinch in his chest, he said a last goodbye to his oiliphant friend, and went in the direction of the inn as the sun was already low on the horizon. The distinct sound of the bamboos could be heard from miles away, and there was only a few people left looking at the beast. His goodbye seemed to have lifted the last of the trance, and they suddenly woke up to where they were, some with an instant recoil on their faces. After a few minutes, he was alone once more.

Strangely, the fence had continued for longer than he’d thought. It wasn’t very high, more like a little nuisance really, but the complete oddity of its presence was enough to grate his nerves. He was reminded of something his master had told him For every inside, there is an outside, and every outside, there is an inside. And though they are different, they go together. The secret of all insides and outsides is this – they look a different as possible, but underneath are the same, for you cannot find one without the other. It made him realise that he couldn’t tell where the people who’d built the fence were from – the city or the forest. He’d immediately assumed something, while it could have been easily the reverse.
Now he looked at the fence itself, it was quite an ingenious piece of work, trying as much as possible to reuse local and discarded materials. Maybe it was more a tentative of a connective tissue rather than a fence…

It was in this more peaceful mood that he reached the inn, just an hour before nightfall, as he could tell from the sun. Lanterns were already lit outside of the inn, and although he’d expected it to be empty of customers as often was the case, it seemed to have another guest. He wouldn’t mind a little company, maybe they could enlighten him about the nature of this new boundary.

“My name is Lhamom” the traveler said to him with an inviting grin and slim beaming face. She wore a deerskin hat, and a patchwork of tribal clothes from villages around the mountains in the manner of an explorer of old times. She was already drinking the local woolly goat butter milk tea, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy every mouthful.
Rukshan would only bear it with enough spices to soften the strong taste. Nonetheless, he took polite sips of the offered beverage, and listened to the pleasant stories of the nearby and faraway countries she would eagerly tell about.
Now, curled up near the burning woodstove, enjoying a simple meal and simple everyday stories, after a lovely day riding above troubles, he would already feel complete, and closer to the magic he sought.

After the Elders were gone back to the Capitol City of the Seven Hills, Rukshan was left pondering for awhile about his duties.
The visit had been pleasant enough, thanks to his deft organisation, and he had the skills to let just enough imponderables and improvising spots so that the whole thing didn’t look too artificially prepared.
The Sultan was pleased, and Rukshan was aware that some behind the curtains politics were are play, where he, somehow also was involved, although he couldn’t yet see how. It seemed his capacity for solving or clarifying complex matters was in high demand. One of the Elders of senior attainment had talked to him briefly, in a very amenable tone which was best suited when asking favours. “How odd” he’d thought, as the discussing dynamics would usually be the other way around.
“Rukshan, I wanted to talk to you about your future” — was how he introduced the conversation. After a few minutes, the intent was clear that there were other places where they had planned to send him.

The next few days had him struggle to appease his own feelings. As usual in the cities, people where dealing in abstractions, and abstractions had the inconvenient side-effect of stirring the sea of the mind in all sorts of directions, none of which related to what was happening in the present moment.

His family was for that matter very dismissive of his way of life, living as he had for many years in the city. Fays used to live in the forests flanking the mountains, deep inside the sacred groves, where they were in accordance with old rites and the natural time, the breath of life in the trees. They argued that men cities were an insane world of abstractions, that made you forget were you came from, and what sustained you.
Ages ago, one of his ancestors, CJ Soliman had written after a visit of the first city (a mere hamlet at the time) “It is quite possible that the Forest is the real world, and that men live in a madhouse of abstractions. Life in the Forest has not yet withdrawn into the capsule of the head. It is still the whole body that lives. No wonder men feel dreamlike; the complete life of the Forest is something of which they merely dream. When you walk with naked feet, how can you ever forget the earth?”

He wouldn’t have disagreed actually. He’d found the pull of nature was strong, soft but steady and immovable. But as far as his life was going, he’d come to realise that cities were in need of a fine balancing act, otherwise, leaving them unchecked would probably hasten the pace at which they ate away acres of forests in their developments. Already, the sacred woods were threatened, and with them, his family and ancestors’ way of life.

After that discussion with the Elder, he’d found the need to clear up and make space for the new. He’d spent a whole day throwing away stuff, amazed at how much even himself would gather of unnecessary things. In the new space, he’d let the birds songs enter through the window, despite the biting cold and the grey fog.
A resolve was birthed in his mind and made clear at the time, as clear as the morning chirping in the thick air.
He would soon go back to the mountains, in the Dragon Heartwood, visit his family and look for the old Hermit for counsel.

Preparing the pages for the arrival of the Elders had taken him the best of the last two days. The younglings were rather immature and in need of training in the complex rituals and protocols. Most had come from good families, so they did possess the principles well enough. However, they often carried about them an indistinct arrogance that would be sure to irritate the Elders. Rukshan himself wasn’t good at being humble, but over the years had learned to dull his colours, and focus on his own centre.

He had hardly any time to think about the dreams, the book or the trees, although at times he could feel almost carried away, as though a swift and clear wind had swiped his head light, suddenly relieved from any burdening thought, almost ready to fly or disappear. Those moment rarely lasted, and quite frankly were a little unsettling.

And there was still his repressed memories about what he had discovered hidden under the Clock’s hatch. He wanted to believe there was nothing to worry about that, that the silent ghosts were part of the original design, but his intuition was fiercely against it.
In fact, his guts were telling him the same things as when he’d found out the pocket from his coat he’d just mended was originally wrongly attached inside the lining, (creating the rip at that exact spot, as if to catch his attention). Although he would usually have happily ignored it, this time he couldn’t let go, and felt almost forced to redo it, first unpick the seams he’d just sewn, then to finally detach the pocket from the inner lining and redo the mending —another indication that the living force that breathed through all wouldn’t let him eschew troubles this time.

Rukshan had hardly any time to think about the trees of his area of enchantment in the past days. Actually, he’d rushed to the Clock every morning at dawn, and was busy until dusk, after which he slept like a log, to start the cycle again.

As he looked into the mirror in the morning, observing the hints of fatigue under his green eyes dulling the glow of his dark olive skin, he realized that there was only so much that his morning yoga could do to help rejuvenate.
He sighed and tied his sleek dark hair into a top knot.

The trees and the profound wisdom of their calm silence was still here, at his fingertips, in such contrast to the daily activities, that he wondered if the workings of the heart completely eluded him. After all, he couldn’t say he loathed his overseeing and mending job, not could he say that he didn’t pour his heart in it. But still, something about it felt artificial in some ways.

When he arrived at the Clock Tower in the morning, the air was still fresh, and the stairs wouldn’t yet smell of the usual cat piss. The clock’s time was still a smidgen behind. Usually, he would just to the best he could, and just let things patch themselves up, but it seemed as though this time, the change of structure was more profound, requiring from him to go… for lack of better way to put it,… the heart of the matter.

From the top of the tower, he would usually hardly go lower than the first level where the 12 mannequins were stored and revolved around the central axis to appear at each hour, until noon and midnight were they would all play an elaborate dance.

Below that level laid the belly of the beast. An intricate assemblage of copper wires, brass mirrors, lanterns and scalipanders, accessible by simple steps coiled around the central axis, hiding below a round wooden hatch.

The day had been inordinately hectic.
He had been working on the Town’s Clock till dawn, and was still none the wiser about why it had stopped to work, and moved the whole town into disarray. A problem with a few redundant cogs, and some pipes apparently.

He wouldn’t know for sure such things, he wasn’t a master technician, just an Overseer. Chief Overseer, another word for Master Fuse, he used to say jokingly.
It wasn’t an usual job for Fays, who were usually using their gifts of faying for other purposes, but mending complex systems was quite possibly in the cards for him.

On his way down from the Clock Tower, late during the night, he had noticed the energy has started to flow again, not very regularly, in spurts of freshwater moving through rusted pipes, but it would have to do for now.
The Town Clock wasn’t completely repaired, and still prone to subtle and unexpected changes —it was still 2 and half minute behind, and some of the mannequins and automata behind the revolving doors were still askew or refusing to show up in time. But at least the large enchanted Silver Jute, emblem of the City, managed to sing its boockoockoos every hour. So, his job was done for today.

He put on his coat, noticing the wind chilling his bones under the large white moon. He was walking in long regular strides in the empty streets, vaguely lost in thoughts about how clockwork was just about showing the energy the way, and leaving it to do the rest, and how failures and breaking down would appear at the structural weakest places as opportunity to mend and strengthen them.

Before he knew, his feet had guided him back to the alley of golden ginkgos, and he was drawn from his thoughts by the wind chiming in the golden leaves.

The idea emerged at once in his head, fully formed, incomprehensible at first, and yet completely logical.
He had to assemble a team of talents, a crew of sorts. He wasn’t sure about the purpose, not how to find them, but some of them were being drawn to the light and made clearer.
Beside himself the Faying Fay, there was a Sage Sorceress, and a Teafing Tinkeress, and also a Gifted Gnome. There were others that the trees wouldn’t reveal.

It seemed there was a lot more they wouldn’t say about. He guessed he would have to be patient about how it would reveal itself. It was night after all, Glade Chi Trolls would be lurking in the shadows menacing to erase his revelations, so he would have to find shelter soon and recover his strengths for tomorrow’s new round of Clock repair.

After only one day, Felicity had managed to vex everybody, Liz’ was pleased to notice.
That would make her retaliation all the sweeter.

Even the rude but usually pliable maid had thrown her apron in disgust of the unequivocally condescending comments of her mother about the quality of her sardines muffins and anchovy cupcakes.

The traitor Godfrey was easy enough to bring back to the fold, with a vague promise of peanuts, and was already working on her first plan. Selloselfing everyone to frighten her mother who panicked at the idea of the zumba avocalisp. She’d seen some reportage from International Geogratis of indigenous populations dancing irresponsibly, and had been living in fear ever since.

As for Roberto, well, Liz’ still believed he was his best and secret weapon. She knew all to well her mother’s appetite for young and firm flesh.

It has been a few days he had felt this inexplicable urge to do something about the dullness of his everyday routine.

Overall, Edward had never complained about his simple life, and the System’s technical upgrades did keep him rather busy fixing things when boredom threatened to settle in.

Usually, browsing through social media, enjoying a few cute fluffy bunnies videos (all very safe for work, no need to worry about him) was all that he needed to fill the gaps of the long shift hours.

Of course, the largest part of his days was spent monitoring the Program, and the pods. He had developed quite surreptitiously a basic visual neuronal interface that let him connect with the Virtual Reality of the pod occupants, and somehow share the progress of their Enlightenment Mission.

For a while he had even created an avatar for himself. In the Great Simulation, he would then try to have some fun with the Ascended Masters, see what they would enlighten him about.
It was all quite ironic, considering, they were considering themselves free and evolved, where in truth they were the prisoners of their own bodies in the pods, hooked to the virtual reality REYE program.
But they were accurate in a way, that he was also trapped and a prisoner of his existence within the program.

In between cats and bunnies, a link attracted him. “Rich Sacks’ Online Master Program of Enlightenment”. The more he scrolled down, the more alumnis raved and extolled the Program. What was for him to lose, the first course was free.
On a whim, he decided to enroll.

“Barbara!” the Dr called her assistant early in the morning.
“There has been a breakthrough! I have tested version 2.2.1 of my new organic substrate, and it shows promising results.”

Barbara giggled “Well of course, Doctor. Shall we test it right away on your new patients of this morning appointment?”

“That’s tempting. I am not usually one to push for caution when science progress is called for, but… maybe, this time, not just now. There are still a few DNA kinks to work out for the solution to be perfect. We’ll see how our last subject reacts in the next days.”

dream lack hardly beginning human
situation making thought
usually team water during run
became suitcase under discussion
listen energy reality himself

Final nail in the coffin, indeed.

Despite the overwhelmnity of the situation, Ed couldn’t fathom why nobody would take some time to stop and ponder on the incoherences, the gaps in the net, so to speak.

It behooved him to do so. The deranged cackler, like a mockery of the divine breath, ruling over the bizarro earth he had been sworn to protect — it had to be stopped.

But where was the elusive cackler hiding, he would seemed to appear anywhere and everywhere. And what to make of those cases of mistaken identities, or all the althreadnarrative-realities jumping. The occurrences were piling up. He couldn’t even seem to count on assembling his old fierce Surge Team. All gone bizarro too.

Pouring over his copious notes, he remembered how it all started. The strange case of Baked Bean Bea.
She seemed to have breached through, and quite frankly shattered in all likelihood some old reality limitation, and somehow, she now was able to unwittingly shape the world to new strange alternate realities at her every whims.

He painfully tried to recall, what he was, who he had been in the course of the last months. Blaze, his old genius inventor friend had left him some device, a transfocal whatever thingy. Usually it would change shapes as well, reconfigure itself with each realities. But its function was more or less the same. Reconnect him to his previous alternate realities. Which was handy, when you couldn’t even trust the notes you took. Obviously Bea wasn’t Baked Bean Bea before… or was she?

Now the Transfocal Thingy seemed to have relocated in the bathroom. The shower head with the wires seemed a bit of a giveaway.
Ed put on the water.

The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on July 01, 2010. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org

Dear FutureMe,
The Absinthe Cafe
Dawn and Mark had a bottle of Absinthe (the proper stuff with the WORMwood in
it, which is illegal in France) but forgot to bring it. Wandering around at
some point, we chanced upon a cafe called Absinthe. Sitting on the terrace, the
waitress came up and looked right at me and said “Oh you are booked to come here
tomorrow night!” and then said “Forget I said that”. Naturally that got our
attention. After we left Dawn spotted a kid with 2016 on the back of his T
shirt. We asked Arkandin about it and we have a concurrent group focus that does
meet in that cafe in 2016, including Britta. Dawn’s name is Isabelle Spencer,
Jib’s is Jennifer….
The Worm & The Suitcase
I borrowed Rachel’s big red suitcase for the trip and stuck a Time Bridgers
sticker on it, and joked before I left about the case disappearing to 2163. I
had an impulse to take a fig tree sapling for Eric and Jib, which did survive
the trip although it looked a little shocked at first. As Eric was repotting
it, we noticed a worm in the soil, and I said, Well, if the fig tree dies at
least you have the worm.
At Balzacs house on a bench in the garden there was a magazine lying there open
to an ad for Spain, which said “If you lose your suitcase it would be the best
thing because you would have to stay”.
Later we asked Arkandin and he said that there was something from the future
inserted into my suitcase. I went all through it wondering what it could be,
and then a couple of days ago Eric said that it was the WORM! because of the
WORMwood absinthe syncs, and worm hole etc. I just had a chat with Franci who
had a big worm sync a couple of days ago, she particularly noticed a very big
worm outside the second hand shop, and noted that she hadn’t seen a worm in ages
~ which is also a sync, because there was a big second hand clothes shop next to
Dawn and Mark’s hotel that I went into looking for a bowler hat.
Arkandin said, by the way, that Jane did forget to mention the bowler hats in
OS7, those two guys on the balcony were indeed wearing bowler hats, and that
they were the same guys that were in my bedroom in the dream I had prior to
finding the Seth stuff ~ Elias and Patel.
Eric replied:

And another Time Bridger thing; a while ago, Jib and I had fun planting some TB stickers at random places in Paris (and some on a wooden gate at Jib’s hometown).
Those in Paris I remember were one at the waiting room of a big tech department store, and another on the huge “Bateaux Mouches” sign on the Pont de l’Alma (bridge, the one of Lady D. where there is a gilded replica of Lady Liberty’s flame).
I think there are pics of that on Jib’s or my flickr account somewhere.
When we were walking past this spot, Jib suddenly remembered the TB sticker — meanwhile, the sign which was quite clean before had been written all over, and had other stickers everywhere. We wondered whether it was still here, and there it was! It’s been something like 2 years… Kind of amazing to think it’s still there, and imagine all the people that may have seen it since!
~~~~

The Flights

I wasn’t all that keen on flying and procrastinated for ages about the trip. I
flew with EASYjet, so it was nice to see the word EASY everywhere. I got on the
plane to find that they don’t allocate seats, and chose a seat right at the
front on the left. The head flight attendant was extremely playful for the
whole flight, constantly cracking up laughing and teasing the other flight
attendants, who would poke him and make him laugh during announcements so that
he kept having to put the phone down while he laughed. I spent the whole flight
laughing and catching his mischeivously twinking eye.
I asked Arkandin about him and he said his energy was superimposed. I got on
the flight to come home and was met on the plane by the same guy! I said
“HELLO! It’s YOU again! Can I sit in the same seat and are you going to make me
laugh again” and he actually moved the person that was in my seat and said I
could sit there. Then he asked me about my book (about magic and Napolean). He
also said that all his flights all week had been delayed except the two that I
was on. He wanted to give me a card for frequent flyers but I told him I
usually flew without planes ~ that cracked him up

The Dream Bean

Eric cracked open a special big African bean that is supposed to enhance
dreams/lucidity so we all had a bit of it. The second night I remembered a
dream and it was a wonderful one.
(Coincidentally, on the flight home I read a few pages of my book and it just
happened to be about the council of five dragons and misuse of magical beans)
In the dream I had a companion with magical powers, who I presumed was Jib but
it was myself actually. It was a long adventure dream of being chased and
various adventures across the countryside, but there was no stress, it was all
great fun. Everytime things got a bit too close in the dream, I’d hold onto my
friend with magical powers, and we would elevate above the “adventure” and drop
down in another location out of immediate danger ~ although we were never
outside of the adventure, so to speak. At one point I wondered why my magical
freind didn’t just elevate us right up high and out of it completely, and
realized that we were in the adventure game on purpose for the fun of it, so why
would we remove ourselves completely from the adventure game.
In the dream I remember we were heading for Holland at one point, and then the
last part we were safely heading for Turkey…..
The other dream snapshot was “we are all working together on roof tiles” and
Arkandin had some interesting stuff to say about that one.

There were alot of vampire imagery incidents starting with me asking Eric if he
slept in his garden tool box at night, and then the guy who shot out of a door
right next to Jib and Eric’s, in a bright orange T shirt, carrying a cardboard
coffin. He stopped for me to take a photo (and Arkandin said it was a Patel pop
in); then while walking through the outdoor food market someone was chopping a
crate up and a perfect wooden stake flew across the floor and landed at my feet.
The next vampire sync was a shop opposite Dawn and Mark’s hotel with 3 coffins
in the window (I went back to take a pic of the cello actually, didn’t even
notice the coffins). Inside the shop was an EAU DE NIL MOTOR SCOOTER Share, can
you beleive it, and a mummy, a stuffed raven, and a row of (Tardis) Red phone
boxes.
I had a nightmare last night that I couldn’t find any of my (nine) dogs; the
only ones I could find were the dead ones.
~~~~

Balzac’s House

The trip to Balzac’s house was interesting, although in somewhat unexpected
ways. (Arkandin was Balzac and I was the cook/housekeeper) The house didn’t
seem “right” somehow to Mark and I and we decided that was probably because
other than the desk there was no furniture in it. Mark saw a black cat that
nobody else saw that was an Arkandin pop in (panther essence animal), and Dawn
felt that he was sitting on a chair, and Mark sat on him. (Arkandin said yes he
did sit on him The kitchen was being used as an office. Jib felt the house
was too small, and picked up on a focus of his that rented the other part of the
house. (The house was one storey high on the side we entered, and two storeys
high from the road below). There were two pop ins there apparently, one with
long hair which is a connection to my friend Joy who was part of that group
focus, and I can’t recall anything about the other one. Dawn was picking up
that Balzac wasn’t too happy, and I was remembering the part in Cousin Bette
that infuriated me when I read it, where he goes on and on about how disgusting
it is for servants to expect their wages when their “betters” are in dire
straits. Arkandin confirmed that I didn’t get my wages.
The garden was enchanting and had a couple of sphinx statues and a dead pigeon ~
as well as the magazine with the suitcase and Spain imagery. Mark signed the
guest book “brought the cook back” and I replied “no cooking smells this time”.