I tried hard not to panic. I must search for a clue as to how to get out of here. Even if it was an illusion, this world had a natural order, and I was happy to follow a path that threaded through the trees.
The way was pleasant; the branches above were heavy in leaves, and exotic flowers perfumed a soft wind that rustled through the leaves of the trees. I walked slowly, savouring the beauty of my surroundings before a long-drawn-out clamour shattered the tranquil silence.
It sounded like someone was hauling a heavy object over the ground, but when I listened more closely, the movement seemed too smooth and controlled; something was slithering through the undergrowth under its own power.
Something alive.
I stopped abruptly, and the movement stopped with me.
I stood motionless, straining to hear the sound again, but the creature had also stopped. I could see nothing of it, but a stench like sulphurous marsh gas rose from the thick vegetation where the beast hid. As the toxic mist drifted over, it left a sticky deposit like decaying fish roe on my skin and cloyed the air with a repellent, alien sweetness.
Arcadia itself reacted violently to this invasion from the other world, and the customary light breeze became a heavy wind that whipped through the treetops and scattered leaves in every direction. Dark forces had come into play, and the delicate green hues of the woodland transmuted into a murky yellow fog, and in the semi-darkness, my heart pumped madly.
I waited for a long time without hearing anything and tentatively moved forward, but the beast thing moved along with me.
Steeling myself against the horror to come, I turned to face my pursuer, but once again, it stopped with me, remaining hidden in the bush with its gaze upon me.
Surely, the guardians of this wonderful land would not tolerate the presence of the alien intruder and send it back from where it came?
The underpinning world that supported the illusion must be the home of the slitherer, and the creature had breached the security of whatever protection program the designers had installed. But in the end, it mattered little if this was an illusion or an alternative reality. The slithering beast could kill me as easily in one state as in the other.
For the first time, I experienced genuine fear and tried to run away from my pursuer, but like in a nightmare, my leaden limbs refused to quicken. On impulse, I swivelled around and managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of an enormous serpent covered with green scales glistening with slime.
The serpent let out a screech of anger and disappeared back into the undergrowth. Clouds of steam marked its path as the protective oil that coated its skin evaporated in the warmth.
I never saw it again, but I constantly heard it tracking me from a safe distance.
A whistling noise suddenly erupted in my head—a sound so high-pitched that it forced me to my knees in pain. Abruptly, the radio interference, for that is what it was, stopped, and I heard the distant but unmistakable sound of a human voice. The signal was faint and intermittent, and I strained to decipher the message.
I could barely make out the sound of my name, but I knew who it was.
"Albert!"
"You must get out of there," he said faintly.
Before I could reply, he was gone, and our communication channel had closed. Albert must have summoned every vestige of his strength to contact me, and I could expect no repeat of the message. I walked on with an increased sense of urgency, but I remained puzzled.
Why does he want me to leave Arcadia?
I had no way of knowing, but there could be no turning back now.
As I moved through the woodlands, the irrigating pools appeared at regular intervals, and I passed them without taking notice until I saw a pool that radiated an aura of pulsing red light, drawing me compulsively to its edge.
I looked down and saw a miniature red sea, its surging waves breaking on an unseen shore; the rhythm attuned to the regularity of my heartbeat, as if I were regulating the flow. The sea became part of me, and I watched entranced as a series of curious faces appeared on the crest of every wave, falling away when the trough plunged back into the deep.
The turbulent waters subsided, and the images faded away until only one remained, gently undulating on the surface like a developing photograph in a tank of fixer. It was the face of a beautiful woman, and when she locked her gaze on mine, her pupils widened, voracious black holes that fed on my life essence. I remained paralysed by the poolside as she gorged until replete and then watched in wonder as her sated form rose from the water like a genie from a lamp.
I was strangely undiminished by her feeding frenzy, but I was unable to take my eyes off her tall, commanding figure. Regally dressed in a flowing red robe, she was like a queen from the pages of a fairy tale, and astonishingly beautiful.
I was unable to look away, and she began to sing a haunting, repetitive melody that furthered the enchantment and dulled my senses. The words were meaningless, but her song compelled me to draw ever closer, and I saw that since leaving the pool, pain had consumed her body; those exquisite features had crumpled into a corrugated mass, and she seemed close to death.
Her lips moved, and I felt her soft breath as she murmured,
"This accursed wood is killing me; we must both leave, or you will die alongside me."
I was still under her spell and reached out and reverently stroked her face with my outstretched hand. Her cold flesh recoiled at my touch, and she instantly transformed herself into a vicious, spitting polecat, claws unsheathed and ready to pounce.
I stepped back in fear, and once at a safe distance, she rose again, once more in the form of the queen. Her coal-black eyes glittered with defiance, but she was in agony and screamed.
"There lies the way out," she said, pointing forward, "—do as I say, or rest here forever."
With a final moan of despair, she vanished. With her went the last traces of her enchantment, and that I had touched the corpse-like flesh of a soulless shapeshifter sickened me.
I was ashamed that the red queen had snared me so easily but confused that Albert had given me the same urgent advice as her to leave the wood. Nothing lay ahead but the endless wood with no visible means of escape, but I had no choice and continued on my way.
The wood existed in a perpetual twilight that repelled the approach of darkness, but it also denied the coming of dawn. Time here passed slowly or not at all, and while there was peace, there was melancholy too. I had no desire to endure life without end in this petrified Eden, but I was happy to linger for a while in the lazy warmth of an endless summer afternoon.
Knowledge of the sleeping goddess whose breath sustained this enchanted garden soothed my mind, but I had no intention of surrendering to the dreamy torpor of a half-life and a sleep from which I would never fully awaken.
I heard the voice of a spirit entreating me to say something, but there was no malice in her invitation and no compulsion. I would leave soon, but there was no need for undue haste. My strength was returning, and I wandered further into the wooded grove. The spirit came with me as an invisible presence, although I felt her soft breath on my cheek and heard her voice.
The murmur of her honeyed words sheathed my mind in a silken robe of contentment, and the rustling leaves of the trees became the whispering voices of woodland creatures urging me to stay. I fought against my desire not to leave and quickened my pace until I reached the grassy banks of a large, emerald-green pool.
I stared at my wavering reflection and, on impulse, dove into the cool, clean water, hoping to cleanse myself of the enchantment. Afterwards, I lay on my back on the turf, allowing my clothes to dry in the warm air, and the voice of the spirit returned.
"Do not fear me, Peregrine; I am Aura, the emissary of the sleeping goddess who brings life to this glade. It is my voice that begged you to stay, but only that I might have a companion in my eternal life. The goddess to whom the Grove belongs commands me to bring you to her side. She lives as a mortal in another land, but I bid you to look upon her sleeping face."
Aura sent a wind ahead of me that weaved a path across the woodland floor and through the trees. I followed in its wake, cocooned in a green tunnel that bored its way through the thick undergrowth in a spinning progression of perfect circles that collapsed behind me as I passed through.
I began to float through the perfumed air and, with my arms outstretched, soared towards an ever-retreating sky, rising, and falling on the spiralling currents of warm air like a seabird above a green ocean. Perhaps I had died in the Grove, and the tunnel led to the light and my final judgment, but I was not afraid and felt a sense of peace. If this were to be the end, so be it.
I was not dead, and Aura laid me down gently before a huge oak tree. Its thick tubular roots had embedded themselves in the surface and snaked outward in every direction.
I stepped forward and saw the goddess on the ground between the roots, her head resting against the bole of the ancient tree. She wore a plain white robe and seemed to be fast asleep, with her red lips composed in a half-smile. A silver band around her forehead gleamed dully below her golden hair. Her unblemished face showed no signs of ageing, and her cheeks wore the blush of eternal youth.
I looked down at her in awe.
"Go forward," breathed Aura in my ear," and see what gift she bears for you."
I knelt by the sleeping body and saw a silver key lightly grasped in her hand.
In your quest, the key is the treasure, and its unknowing guardian sleeps forever.
The clue was now too obvious, but I did not know the goddess or the Grove where she slept when I first heard it. I reached for the key and took it gently from her hand.
What now?
I sat on the woodland floor, clasping the precious key, not knowing how to find the door it fitted. How long I sat there I shall never know, but I became aware that the light had dimmed, and the sleeping goddess was now only a pale white shadow among the roots of the oak tree.
The temperature here hardly varied, and it was like a warm night in a tropical forest, but as it darkened further, the shadows in the undergrowth became more mysterious, and I remembered the huge snake that had followed me through the wood.
The Slitherer.
Was it still here?
Aura had gone; there was no breeze, and the air was turgid and still. I had no idea of my exact location, but I turned around, and started to walk back the way I thought I had first come. Once I left the clearing, the overhead vegetation blocked out more of the light, and my path became dark and gloomy.
Then I heard it.
A heavy creature was dragging itself through the undergrowth, not behind me but to the side, and travelling a parallel route. I stopped, and as before, the beast stopped too. It had to be the snake, and it was remarkably close. If I turned to the right, it would be upon me before I had any chance to escape.
For a long time, there was absolute silence, and I concentrated fiercely, straining to hear the faintest sound until I became convinced that I could hear the gentle hiss of its smooth skin passing over the damp grass. I hoped it was my imagination, but the noise became clearer as the creature moved slowly towards me.
I could not outrun such a powerful reptile in its natural habitat, but I would not stand there passively and allow it to devour me; I would fight back to the end. I assembled a small pile of rocks, picked from the woodland floor, and made ready to hurl them at the beast when it attacked.
There came a huge clap of thunder, and a cloudburst of torrential rain poured down from above. I heard the terrified screech of the snake as it crashed through the undergrowth and desperately tried to escape from the deluge. I could hardly stand upright as the rain hit every inch of my body, and I crouched down under a bush to get shelter. As quickly as it started, the downpour stopped, and soon all that I could hear was the steady dripping of water from soaked leaves.
"Those scaly beasts never liked water; it always sends them running. Luckily, I can control the weather to an extent, very localized, of course, nothing extensive, but it comes in useful at times."
"Uncle Albert! I exclaimed, Where are you?"
"Just a voice in your head now, Peregrine, but I'm working on it. Glad to see you are still in one-piece, young feller."
"Uncle Albert, it is so good to hear from you. I have retrieved the key, but I don't know what to do next."
"Find the door, of course," said Uncle Albert.
"I know that, but how?"
"Rules and regulations prohibit me from leading you there. All I can say is that you are on the right path to leave this world. Keep on going to the very edge and then see what comes to mind to do next.
"Just follow your nose."
"Will you be with me?"
"Only at a distance, but I will be on hand in any emergency. Must go now. Montana sends her love."
I inhaled sharply.
"Does she? That's wonderful news, Uncle Albert. Send mine back to her and tell her I can't wait to see her again."
"Consider it done. Goodbye, old boy, take care of yourself."
"I will," I said.
"Uncle Albert, would you…"
But he had gone.
I was sad for a moment, and then I remembered, 'Montana sends her love.'
I had to finish this quest and get back to her as soon as I could.
I resumed my trek, and soon the vegetation began to thin out until I found myself walking on open ground and straight into a mist that materialized in front of me. I felt the ground shift beneath my feet, and then the world altered course with a gentle jolt. The sensation was exactly like a locomotive crossing a set of points, and I had experienced it many times before. It meant that I had entered another dimension.