I came to rest in the shade of a grove of trees in a large green meadow dotted with wildflowers. High above me, a waving canopy of foliage was so luxuriously dense that it blocked out the sky and the glow of a sun. A green-tinted natural light illuminated the woodlands, but I could not identify the source.
I raised myself into a sitting position, and my eyes fixed on the individual stems of grass where I sat. My senses had been miraculously enhanced; all previous notions of greenness, complexity, and texture meant nothing as the graceful fronds bent before the breeze in homage to a perpetual present. The world was not artificial or even nature-controlled and cultivated; it was wild, and it was alive. Beside me was a pool, and I trailed my fingers in the still water and lay back to rest my head on the soft grass in a state of contentment.
My thoughts stilled in this enchanted garden, allowing the voice of a woodland spirit to enter my mind. She told me of a goddess whose breath brought life to an Edenic paradise she had never seen with her own eyes. The goddess slept among the surface roots of a huge oak tree, in a dream, which was not a dream but another reality equal to this one.
She lived her waking life in a wood-built lodge, high in the snow-capped mountains of another world. It was a Spartan existence, and she tended the fields alongside her family, with little time for leisure. The soil was fertile and supported the modest needs of herself and her parents, and she was happy with her life, although the workdays were long.
As was the custom in those parts, she retired early each night and kneeled in prayer by the side of her familiar childhood bed before easing herself between the soft linen sheets. She always slept peacefully and knew nothing of the roots of the oak tree that made her couch in the real world.
The real world!
I laughed at the absurdity of it all and wanted to sleep forever, but something was nibbling at my ear. The sensation was pleasant at first, but then came a soft bite, and I raised a languid hand to brush away the small creature.
It bit hard again, and I yelped and forced myself into a sitting position, but it hung grimly on my ear and bit again. I was on my feet now, and the hamster-like animal dropped to the woodland floor before scuttling away to rest in the shade of a nearby tree. I could not concentrate in my lethargic state, and my attention wandered, but then I remembered the bite and touched my ear, but there was no blood.
The voice of Albert cut into my thoughts.
"Recognise this place, Peregrine?"
Startled, I shook my head, and it was a long moment before I could trust myself to speak.
"Albert, where are you? Why can't I see you?"
"I'm close; don't worry, Peregrine, I'm with you. Not in person, but inside your head."
"Where am I?"
"A place of safety tucked away in the border between two locations in an inter-dimensional space. The hunt is on, Peregrine, and you are the quarry. The agents of the evil armies know who you are and will stop at nothing to prevent you from reaching the end of your journey.
"This secret enclave is a paradise we christened Arcadia because of its pastoral beauty and harmony with nature, but you must not stay here too long, and if you succumb to its spell, you will never leave. But within the illusory beauty of Arcadia is a way of escape."
"Illusory? This is all an illusion."
"In part," he replied.
"Why can't you let me see this place as it is?"
"You couldn't take it, Peregrine. Not yet. There is nothing remotely like it in your experience that would provide a model for your brain. You might see nothing, or the horror of the alien imagery could send your neuron circuitry into overdrive and blow out the entire system. The shock would leave you dead or demented.
"Forget about it; we can look around this fortunate land together. See that rock over there? Before we go, just pop it into your rucksack, would you? I'll explain later."
The lush countryside now wore the delicate, golden hues of a summer afternoon, and the soft, springy ground beneath my feet had the texture of a silk carpet. I sensed the presence of Albert beside me and took comfort from his closeness. We walked at an easy pace, although I had no sensation of time passing, and ascended a steep hill without effort.
On reaching the summit, I gained a panoramic view of a huge prairie of green material that, apart from its colour, had no resemblance to grass. It stretched out to the horizon like a natural feature and not artificial, yet the prairie was as smooth as the nap of a pool table without a bump or crease. On the surface, parallel rows of bronze discs stretched out in precise lines to the horizon. The air was remarkably clear, but I knew that the narrow band of visible light rays that enabled me to observe the landscape only revealed a small proportion of what was out there.
I longed to perceive the landscape in its full alien glory, but even though Arcadia had bestowed me with enhanced sensitivity, my five meagre senses provided only a partial sketch of the original. It was a depressing thought that there existed superior beings with levels of perception so perfectly tuned to the external world that they could penetrate the dark curtain that shrouded reality with an accuracy beyond our understanding.
Albert broke into my thoughts, and my anxieties eased.
"We need to go down there, Peregrine. Follow the path cut into the hillside."
The path was of a white, chalk-like substance, again wonderfully easy to walk on, and I soon reached the plain beneath. The glittering bronze discs arrayed before me resembled a vast regiment awaiting inspection.
I approached the first disc in the front rank, and I saw that it was a shield, and I knew that it was the Aspis of the ancient Greek Hoplites. I had some knowledge about ancient Greek history, but as Arcadia had enhanced my senses, so had it expanded my mind, and I accepted the gift with gratitude.
The shield bore the emblem of a winged goddess with the head of the Gorgon Medusa, with her snake-like locks of hair, which could turn those who dared to gaze upon her into stone. Other shields had different emblems, but the one that captured my attention was the inverted V of the Greek letter lambda, the symbol of the elite Spartan Hoplites, one of the most fearsome infantry groups that ever existed.
The sheer magnificence of the world before me was breathtaking. The precision and beauty of the setting surpassed anything that I had ever seen before, but it was not just the size and scale of the enterprise; the designers had tailored the detail to match my experience.
All the images I saw related to the cultural history of my species.
The designers had customised the background to meet my expectations, and it must be the same for every observer, no matter how dissimilar they are. I wondered idly what a Martian would have seen when their civilisation was in its pomp.
I could only speculate on the identities of the creators of this world and their godlike abilities. This was more than the product of super-advanced technology—it was power on a supernatural level.
But what was the purpose of these shields? I absent-mindedly reached down toward the disc at my feet. The sound of Albert shouting out in warning broke my reverie, and I withdrew my hand.
"Sorry, Albert, you should have known better. What exactly are these things?"
Albert replied in an unusually sharp tone.
"There is no time for questions. My time here is extremely limited. What you see here are portals to other worlds."
I looked around in astonishment. I had underestimated them once again and was still unable to come to terms with the scale of the operation.
"Every one of those shields is a portal to a different living world—every single one?"
"Yes, except for those; look to your left."
I saw that in every row, there were several circles made from brown, gauze-like material set in the ground that glowed with a dim light.
"Dry holes, dead worlds. Civilisations lost forever, countless billions of sentient entities, all dreams of the future extinguished in a fraction of a second," murmured Albert.
"How did it happen?"
"How does anything happen?" He said dismissively, before adopting a more purposeful tone.
"I want to show you how the shields work. Would you take the rock from your rucksack?"
I did as he asked, curious to see what was coming next.
"Place the rock in the centre of the shield and then stand well back. Understand?"
"Yes, but…"
"No buts, Peregrine. Just do it."
Walking over to the shield, I tentatively lowered the rock until it rested on the surface and quickly stepped away as the disc shot down the circular shaft that instantly opened below it. The inner walls of the shaft were metallic grey, coated with oil, resembling the greased cylinder of an engine, the circular shield functioning like a piston without rings.
This was undoubtedly a well-engineered machine, and I waited confidently for the return of the disc like a commuter at a subway station. Sure enough, it reappeared and slammed to a halt, back in its starting position. The rock had disappeared, but the disc was completely unchanged.
"Where has the rock gone?" I asked, like a wide-eyed child witnessing a conjuring trick at a birthday party.
"At this very moment," Albert said, "it could be in the hands, or equivalent, of an exotic creature standing on the shore of an alien sea who might be scratching one of his three heads and wondering, now, where the heck did that come from?
"That's it for now, then, Peregrine; are you ready to go on?"
"Albert, you must give me some more time to assimilate all this."
But he was gone; I was alone.