Gate: Justice

I stepped through the vision gate and saw white boulders rolling down a steep hill.  I pulled my vision back from this scene and saw these weren’t boulders at all, but giant white pearls which dangled from the headdress of a veiled woman in silky, Saudi Arabian-style robes.

The veiled spirit was sitting upon a palanquin atop an enormous gray elephant and many more elephants followed behind, moving through a bleak and blasted landscape in a trailing line.  With flowing, ground consuming steps, the elephants plodded on, carrying the lady towards a distant oasis which sparkled on the horizon.

“I require a guide for this place,” I said and a whirling, sandstorm came from the dusty ground at my summons.  As the storm blew and twirled around me, I saw, within the tornadic sands, a face formed of the wind and desert itself.

“Goddess, I am here,” said the living sands. “What do you desire of me?”

“I am no goddess, but a seeker and messenger from another world,” I said. “Thank you for responding so quickly to my call. Who are you?”

“Some call me ‘Sand Demon,’ but I prefer ‘Desert Spirit’,” he said in a voice like sand shifting over rock. “Thou art a goddess or I would have never heard thee.”

“I will not spend my limited time in the other worlds arguing with you about my true nature,” I said. “But I promise, I am a woman embodied and a servant of a far greater power. Desert Spirit, where am I and who is in this caravan?”

“Thou art in the Desert of Knowledge,” said the sand storm. “Thou seest before thee the traveling household of the Desert Rose, a ruler of this realm and its keeper.  The Rose travels to the Palace of Justice for a wrong that was committed upon her.”

“Can I speak with this Desert Rose?” I asked. “I expect she’s much too busy to chat with everyone who shows up on the passing breezes.”

“I shall bring thee to her doorstep,” he said as the sand spirit whirled and plucked me off the ground with his winds.  “Know this, one from another world, her people consider her a living, embodied goddess. I do not know if she will consent to speak with thee. That is a decision that is hers alone.”

In the space of a few heartbeats, Desert Spirit whisked me over to the lead elephant and I knocked in what I hoped was a polite manner on the wooden support beams of the conveyance.  “Desert Rose,” I called above the winds of my guide. “I have come from another world seeking your true nature. May I have an audience with you?”

The silks of the palanquin were moved abruptly aside and I again beheld the veiled face of a spirit in the shape of a woman, covered with pearls.

“Who speaks?” she asked cautiously. “How did you bypass my guardians and where are your head coverings?  It is not seemly nor safe for a female spirit to be so dressed.”

“Please forgive my unorthodox appearance. My name is Heidi and, as I am a traveler to this place and many others, it is not a simple task to keep me from the beings I am destined to speak with,” I said.  “I understand you are a person of some importance and Desert Spirit shared with me your true name.  What is your nature, Desert Rose? If you tell me, I will carry the message back to my waking world and those who value this knowledge on earth will know of you and your majestic existence beneath the desert sun of this world.”

The goddess smiled beneath her pearls.  “You are the messenger named Heidi and you wish to know who I am?” she asked. I nodded in response. “I have been expecting you for some time. Enter and be welcome,” she said and swept aside the trailing silks of her personal travel space.

The royal compartment above the elephant was surprisingly spacious. In a far corner of this space, there was a tall basket with bindings all around it so that its lid was secure.  Otherwise, the palanquin contained only embroidered pillows, silk piled here and there, and the Rose herself.

“Messenger Heidi, I travel far from my seat of power to seek redress for this,” the Desert Rose announced and drew back her flowing sleeve to reveal her left hand.  The first finger was gone and the third finger had been cut at the middle knuckle. Many rings of precious stones and ivory decorated her thumb and other, whole fingers.