A minute spec of light floats in the nothingness of the void, gently it starts to move. Upwards it spirals, quickly descending it begins to fall gradually growing in intensity, darting awkwardly to one side then another, as if it were looking for something. Slowing down it rapidly glows, bursting forth incredibly bright filling everything with coruscating rays of white light. Voila, it was gone, replaced with ripples of grey mist seething forth boiling inordinately filling the void.
Hermes kneaded his palms into his eyes. Gradually the fog deliquesces, absorbing moisture from the air liquefying into tiny rain droplets. Leaving in its wake a stunning garden filled with strange and exotic plants. The sweet smell of cherry blossom with a touch of night blooming jasmine filled his nostrils. Athena leans over with her white robe shimmering vibrantly. She is cultivating a rose bush, picks a flower turns to Hermes and says. “Why are you here?”
Disoriented he answers. “Where am I?”
A familiar voice behind him answers. “You are dying in a tent outside of Dragon Pass.”
Hermes turns about-face to see Balthazar at his table in Anglia dress in white tinkering with some mechanical device. The ground beneath his feet begins to shake, he jerked straightaway at the sound of thunder behind him.
“I don’t understand.” Pirouetting back to Athena, she is gone along with the garden. All he can see is a whirlwind of phosphorescent clouds of Black, Green and Blue swirling about. A rider his face hidden behind a black and white Keffiyeh rides by him shouting in a foreign dialect vanishes in the brume.
Strange music bellows out of the black night. Suddenly he is standing on a platform. Thousands of eyes are peering through the blackness watching him shouting. Then he hears singing behind him ‘I’m so afraid of the way I feel ….agony …..slip and I fall and I die….’ The music changes from despair to an angelic surreal feeling of bliss. Instruments he’s never heard of (violins, tubas, cellos, guitars) and some he has (drums, horns and flutes) all of them envelops him. It rivals that of the ancient elves. Someone is singing from a far. ‘Time seems to stand quite still in a child's world it always will…’ Music rises. ‘Yesterday's dreams are tomorrow's sighs…’ He is terrorized for he cannot only hear the music he see it as well and it’s alive and its him.
Objects fly out in random directions clashing with the nothingness in the space between the Plexicon and the continuum. A child with a mysterious glower and a fey manner calls out “Help me, I must see Balthazar.” Then he fades away. A set of tracks lead off down to a valley of open grass nestled between several hills. Hoof prints of five or six men on horse intermingled with that of a pack of wolves. Bear prints that fade into prints of a much larger wolf follow the horses.
Hermes panics closing his eyes he cries out!
A celestial voice reverberating in his head antagonizes him. “No you can’t understand, because it’s beyond reason and logic.”
A preponderance of clouds steadily grows thicker moving towards him. A faint cry of someone in immense torment echoes. “Who is there?” No reply. Out of the edge of his eye, a light from a campfire burns intensely through the dark clouds. There are four blurred figures milling about. One is upright holding a torch the other three are animals. It’s a man walking to someone out of view. They are arguing about something he can’t make out. Now he sees its Ares stake out on the ground with his hands spiked to a fallen tree and his feet are fasten with leather straps to the ground. The man places the torch to Ares side. Ares screams out then goes into a convulsion. Hermes shouts out. “Stop it leave him be!” He runs towards them but the man and animals take no notice of Hermes. Now just a few yards away Ares stops his spasms and lays motionless. A dark apparition of evil drifts up from his body and surrounds him. Running faster and faster he is no closer to Ares. Everything is spinning and images of his past flash by changing to strange unrecognizable objects that float by. A great metal bird swallows up people by the hundreds flying thousands of miles away only to regurgitate them in a distant land. Armies are marching towards a battle arrows fly in all directions. One arrow grazes his elbow. He stares at the open wound. Clear fluid bubbles out falling to the ground turning yellow making tiny millponds all powering waterwheels.
The pain in his elbow is real. He knows this place but not really. Balthazar, Athena, people from the village some he knows others he never met. Not only people but also animals the fish in the sea even the plants. He knows what they are thinking no that’s not it he is all of them their lives experiences down to the smallest detail.. By an epiphany, he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation this is not a dream. All is clear to him. He knows things, circumstance, affairs, fact, figures and information that he should not know.
He is drawn towards the Plexicon the Extramundane. As if on thin ice he sliding ever so near. More information floods his mind. He knows the maximum number in the universe and it is oblivion. He experiences absolute nothing and everything at the same time. He is aware of the impossible now possible. This is wrong he must not go forward but he doesn’t want to stop. Standing on the precipice of reality, he hears “GET OUT NOW!” Exploding in his mind.
Another scream this time much louder rings out. He cups his hands to his ears as a sharp pain stabs his forehead down through his neck. The scream is deafening, he realizes it is coming from him. Instantly his legs give out and his knees hit on the ground. The pain is almost unbearable he hears someone call out to him.
“Hermes you must leave now else you will die.” Athena said with a sense of urgency and sadness in her voice.
“What is happening to me? Where am I?”
“You are at the Nexus of the Plexicon it is the Extramundane and the continuum; it is the antithesis of reality a place that your mind will not accept. Move back else you shall be swept up in the vortex and never return.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t want to leave I want to make sense of this. Ah the pain!!”
“Stop fighting it and leave before you go insane! Get up and pursue Ares voice back to your body.”
At the end he understands he is not ready to die there is much more that needs to be done. Fighting the urge for absolute knowledge, he acquiesces. Amongst the chaos of images and noise, his eyes spot a glimmer of hope. It is Ares crying over him in a tent.
Touch and go
“Out of the way I need to get him inside the tent!” Bellowed Ares to the crowd of people gathered around Hermes.
Inside the tent, Ares placed the limp body of his fallen brother on the bed. His pulse was low and erratic.
“Where the hell is Balthazar!” Tears flowed down his cheek. He felt powerless to help. Rocking back and forth, he whispers. “Hermes…Hermes come back. Please don’t die.”
Titus was the first to notice. “Ares look!”
