Gate: Eight of Swords
I passed through the vision gate and walked onto a black and white chessboard in a world wreathed in mists. A spirit in the form of a man who was driving a chariot with four horses pulled up beside me so swiftly that I was startled at his appearance. “Ride with me,” the chariot driver commanded. “For I have been sent here just for you.”
“Only if you speak your name,” I said. “Where I come from, ladies do not accept rides from complete strangers. It is not only foolish to do so but potentially dangerous.”
The driver flicked his whip at his utilitarian leather boots, knocking off a bit of earth they had carried from his world onto the chessboard. “I am Mercy and I was sent here from the land of the endless fountains,” he said. “I assure you, you would rather come with me than the one who walks in my shadow.”
“Is your home the Village of the Lost and Found? I enjoyed that place and became wise through its fountain,” I said. “My name is Heidi.”
“That village is one of a countless number of settlements in my world,” Mercy said. “The choice is upon you, Heidi. Ride with me or brave the one who follows. He is not known for his patience or willingness to bandy words with wise travelers.”
“I appreciate the offer of a ride, Mercy,” I said. “Please take me wherever it is that I am meant to go.”
Proper introductions completed, I climbed aboard the conveyance and Mercy encouraged the horses forward to the limit of their ability with a few encouraging words and the sounding of his whip over their heads but never upon their backs. Glancing behind us, I saw a dark figure approaching along the chessboard path Mercy and I traveled. The shape of the shadowed spirit was hard to make out through the clouds surrounding him but the horses pulling his chariot breathed fire and I shivered in fear at the sight.
Suddenly, Mercy’s chariot cleared the enormous chessboard and entered a new space, rolling to a halt beside an ancient and foreboding forest. Each tree had a grief-stricken human-like face with closed eyes on their trunks and their blood red leaves blew now and again in a breeze that occasionally danced through the place. Other than the breeze, all was silent and still beneath the forest eaves.
“Where are we?” I asked, wrenching my attention from the approaching darkness of the mystery driver as well as the dancing red leaves.
“This is the Forest of Woe,” Mercy said. “You must pass through here and quickly, lest the shadow catch you. I have given you a head start but the shadows are so fast, Heidi. Do not underestimate their ability to navigate the Inner Realms. I have personally seen their dark warriors move as swiftly as a thought.”
“Wisdom says that my Shadow walks with me always so I have given up trying to escape her, but the shadows of others in the worlds yet frighten me or command my attention when they appear. Thank you for helping me outrun your shadow to these woods,” I said as I scrambled down from the chariot.
“I never said he was my shadow. Run and do not look back on the peril of your life,” Mercy said and urged his horses onwards with a single backward glance towards me as I entered the forest. As for myself, my eyes were on the wooden faces beneath the trees and the difficulty of the path ahead.
“Wisdom!” I said as I started to race beneath the trees. “Are you with me?” No voice or light came from my heart in response. “Is there anyone here?”
The breeze I had observed upon Mercy’s chariot moved beneath the trees once more, causing the leaves about the sorrowful faces in the trunks to rattle and click more like bones or beetles than leaves. Out of the corner of my sight, I thought I saw some of the eyes begin to open in the tree trunks as I passed and a disquieted murmuring began to emerge from the trees.
“Heidi,” came a haunting whisper from the trees. “Heidi, wait for me. I want to drink from your fountain. I thirst for your blood. Wait for me.”
“It’s the other chariot driver,” I said, fear hastening my steps even more. “How does he know my name? Oh why didn’t I just jump on Mercy’s chariot the moment I arrived. Why am I always wasting time in conversation?”
Pushing aside reaching branches and cutting leaves in a growing panic, I stumbled into a clearing in the woods where an enormous red and white spotted mushroom grew. It had a door in the side and a chimney that emitted a thin stream of gray smoke. “Let me in, please,” I said, knocking frantically on the door. “I am in need of sanctuary!” The door opened under my touch as it was not locked against the terrors of the forest.
“Enter!” a voice called. I gratefully did so, locking the door behind me.
The interior of the mushroom contained a chemist’s workshop where bubbling vials of liquid smoked and pots boiled. A spirit in the shape of an elderly man with a pointed blue wizard’s cap on his head and a burning pipe in his hands moved among the chemistry equipment.
“Hello, my name is Heidi,” I said. “Forgive my intrusion. There is a predatory shadow following me and I need a moment to catch my breath.” The wizard serenely puffed on his pipe as he took a good, long look at me. For some reason, I found his attention unnerving. “Who are you?” I asked finally in order to break the silence of the room.
“I am Nobody,” he said with an air of resignation. “No need to apologize to me. Constant interruptions, that’s my life.” The wizard blew a single, perfectly formed smoke ring towards his chemistry table and then returned to his work, ignoring me completely.
As I wandered about the room watching the wizard at work, I tapped the side of one of his glass vials upon the table with my fingertip and listened to it ring. “What are you doing, Nobody?” I asked when even that small distraction lost its charm.
“Watch, shadow prey,” he said. “And I shall reveal to you a great secret of the universe. This, my dear, is how you turn thoughts into things.” Reaching into his ear, the spirit drew forth a shining thread of light which, in that enchanted place, was a thought made manifest. The energy of the wizard’s powerful mind appeared quite delicate as he gently coaxed it into a chemical vial.
As the living light of the mind moved through the glass equipment on the table, it changed, growing brighter, then darker, coalescing and dissipating by turns. Then, as the light reached the final vial, the wizard’s mind energy turned into a piece of dessert.
“Oh my goodness, it’s chocolate cake, my favorite treat!” I exclaimed. “Looks delicious. How did you know?”
Nobody turned tired eyes in my direction. “Cake for you, is it? I expect the results might be different depending on who observes the final result. You see, my sweet-toothed friend, I am running experiments in consciousness,” he said. “Mortals really don’t know how powerful thoughts can be or what they can be changed into.” He took another pull of his pipe, his eyes shining brightly in the semi-darkness of the mushroom. “Just a note for future seekers, a manifest thought is definitively not ear wax.”
“Tell me, do you know what is at the center of the universe?” the wizard continued. I shook my head negatively. “The thoughts of God. They twist and turn and become everything and everyone in existence.”
“You believe thoughts alone form the basis of reality?” I said. “I don’t believe that. I believe the center of the universe contains the thoughts and emotions of God’s imagination.”
“Which is also a thought,” he said. “Why does no one ever listen to me? You’d think with my countless ages of experiments and scientific discoveries that the worlds would listen to my words but they never do. The shadows always take the day and fear owns the mind.” Nobody’s pipe was finished and he emptied the ashes into a ceramic dish shaped like a large golden fish that sat on the table beside his chemistry equipment. “If you’re quite recovered from your ordeal,” the wizard said. “I do have more work to do. That being said, if I ever see you again, perhaps I could explain to you the basis of my centrally-located thought-based universal theory. Whatever your name is, Heather was it? My door is open to you whenever you would like it to be, running from shadows or not.”
“My name is Heidi. Thank you for a moment of your time, Wizard of the Forest of Woe and Red Spotted Mushroom,” I said. “I have very much enjoyed observing your work and the respite from the blood-thirsty spirit who seeks me. Maybe next time I can even sample one of your thought form treats. Even though I may not entirely agree with your vision of reality, I still believe we may learn from each other’s experience and come to a greater understanding about the worlds and our place in them.”
“Wise words from someone who fears a shadow,” the wizard said. “I suppose there’s a first time for everything.” Nobody put his pipe into a pocket on the front of his garments. “The wight will not follow you deeper into these woods, Heidi. It is my home and I have some say over who passes here,” he said and turned back to his chemistry equipment. “Good luck to you and good fortune as well in all your thoughts and that which flows from them.”
I unlocked the door and crossed the threshold of the mushroom, puzzling over the wizard’s words. “What a kindly older spirit though he seems discouraged in his work,” I thought to myself. “I certainly hope I encounter him again. One can never have too many friends when moving through the Forest of Woe.”
As I continued through the trees, the faces upon the trunks began to weep, tears the color of blood coming from beneath their perpetually closed eyelids. “Don’t be sad, forest,” I said to the woods in general. “Shadows don’t walk here as per Nobody’s express command. Let’s find something happy to think about.” I searched my mind for something that might cheer the grieving spirits of the trees but came up empty. “How about a song? The autumn breeze caressed the trees…”
Singing quietly to myself, I soldiered on through the pathless forest. Though the sorrow did not completely disappear from the trees’ faces, the color of their tears changed from blood red to the clear color of water. After a time and many more songs, the trees began to thin and I came to a wall of water which went so far into the distance that it seemed to extend from one horizon to the other, an apparent boundary for the Forest of Woe.
“It looks like a river,” I said to the trees on the forest’s edge. “A river flowing above the ground. I wonder how the Spirits of Water managed that?” As I left the eaves of the woods and approached this new curiosity, I saw a reflection of myself moving within the water, weaving towards me as I moved towards her. My reflection was far taller and slimmer than me, more like a shadow being cast upon the ground than a true reflection in a mirror.
As I got closer to the river wall, I realized I was seeing an actual spirit contained within the water rather than a simple reflection of myself. She started to move in ways that I was not, gliding through the water like a current or ripple. While I observed the water spirit, her movements brought to mind a childhood memory of a fish serenely swimming in a mirrored tank. “Though this spirit has far more room to roam than a child’s fish because her river is as large as a world,” I thought to myself. “I wonder where she finds herself when she follows the river to its end.”
I came so close to the river that I could reach out and touch its surface with my fingertips. The undine who had appeared in the wall as I exited the forest had long flowing red hair that trailed behind her as she swam slowly in circles. In addition to her ease and grace in moving through the water, the undine appeared to be heavily pregnant.
Swimming to the boundary of the wall of water, she reached for me and I touched her shapely hand, finding it surprisingly dry though it was only out of the river for a brief moment. “Come through the wizard’s seal and swim with me,” she said. “Come, forest walker, and learn the song of the undines.”
“Is this river another of Nobody’s experiments?” I said. “He seems fixated on the importance of thought in creation which is as different from emotion as air differs from water.”
“The women of water are no one’s experiment or plaything,” the undine said. “We are guardians of life, emotion, and memory all. Our song could change the worlds if someone would take the time to learn it rather than fleeing from us in fear of what we evoke in their spirit.”
“I understand your meaning but just for the record, I would like it to be remembered that I said ‘Nobody’, not ‘No One’, Spirit of Water,” I said. “My name is Heidi and thank you very much for the invitation to your world. I would be honored to learn both your song and dance. Paralda the Fairy King trusts your sisterhood with some of his greatest treasures and his trust is not simple to garner. I am far more trusting than he and much more open-minded than the wizard of the woods. Emotion is just as powerful as thought and no one, I mean nobody, shall tell me otherwise.” So saying, I took undine’s welcoming hand and passed into the river wall.
The pregnant undine pulled me into a circle of water spirits, dancing clockwise through the water, chanting a song. I had trouble adjusting to their watery medium at first because I was accustomed to keeping my feet on solid ground and my head in the air. I didn’t even attempt their song as I floundered through the water, just listened to every note until I had the chorus captured in my memory. The spirits did not mind my occasional stumbles and guided me through their way of being by taking my hand and allowing me to trail in their wake for which I was grateful.
The dance began to get faster and the undines whipped through the water, pulling me with them as they formed a whirlpool with their increasingly manic motions. Then, someone gave me a gentle push and I fell into the whirlpool where my feet touched the dry earth at the center of their focused attention and song. I went to throw myself back into the river wall to resume the undine’s dance but my ankle was snagged by something and I found myself effectively trapped in the whirlpool’s eye.
“What has me in its grasp? I want to dance with the others,” I whispered to myself and saw, wrapped snuggly about my ankle, a chain made of water that went into the ground. “I am confined by chains to the earth,” I said in realization and started to dig, attempting to follow the water chain to its source as the undine’s song reached an apex and the whirlpool’s energy became almost tornadic in its expression around me. “I don’t want to rot in chains as everyone else dances. I’ll free myself and go back into the water, I liked it there.”
I dug as fast as I could, tossing aside dirt and small rocks in my hurry to return to the other spirits of water, until I reached the end of the chain to discover it was wrapped around someone’s wrist. Their form was made of water just like the chain and when I found their hand my mouth fell open in surprise. “I didn’t know I was tied to another spirit and not some inanimate object like a foundational stone,” I said, recovering my composure. “Whoever you are, hear me. The undines led me to you. Don’t give up on hope of rescue. I’m here to set both of us free and you can join us in the dance as soon as I get you out of the earth.” I increased my speed, excavating the spirit at the end of my chain as fast as I could manage.
Though I was fast, the spirits of water were even faster and as their song reached its conclusion, the whirlpool collapsed upon me and my furious efforts to free the spirit in the ground and myself from bondage. All was not lost for the remnants of the undine’s arcane ritual completed my excavation efforts in a moment, the energy of their whirlpool slipping into the ground like an unstoppable drill bit of water and swirling life force, and a male water spirit emerged from the soil, shaking the last bits of earth from his form and severing the chain that had attached his hand to my foot with a brief gesture of his fingers. I reveled in my freedom as I resumed my spot among the other dancing water spirits.
“My son, my son,” said the long red-haired undine who had pulled me into the river and was miraculously no longer pregnant. “You have returned to me. Thank all the gods of the seas and sky.”
The newly birthed male undine who had emerged from the ground fully grown did not speak, but he took his mother’s hand and joined in the dance, moving in perfect unison with the other water spirits as if he had been among the group from the very start. My skill at moving through the water slowly improved and I started to memorize the verses of the undines’ song in addition to its chorus. After an unmarked amount of time had passed, the water spirits began to disperse, traveling both up and down the river wall in both directions. The red haired undine returned to float before me with her son’s hand still clasped firmly in her own.
“Did we give you enough time among our folk for true understanding?” she said. “Some pass through our wall and never dance or sing with us again. I hope you are not one of those.”
“I can see she is not,” said the undine’s son. “The water tells me so.”
“I will never forget dancing with you and your sisters,” I tried to say in response but, in that watery place unlike the whirlpool’s eye, all that emerged from my mouth was a stream of noisy bubbles.
The red haired undine and her son laughed so hard at my inability to communicate that the vision broke apart and ended.
The Light Congress 
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