En Passant...Part 2

“You’ve certainly gone about making yourself at home here, haven’t you my friend?”

I couldn’t believe my ears, I looked up in surprise to see John Red Bear standing just outside the tangled roots of the Tree. I looked back from him to the image on the leaf that I was holding in my hands, and back up to him again, dumbfounded. “But...”

He snickered, glanced at his own image on the leaf and then looked back into my eyes, “Nice likeness, eh?”

“But I thought a fallen leaf meant that you had died!” I managed to stammer out.

“It does.” He had an impish look to his face, like he was holding back some humorous secret. “But in this case, it is foretelling my demise. I gave my permission for the leaf to be released while you were here.”

“What? You’re going to die soon? And you’re laughing about it?”

He laughed, a deep hearty laugh. “Consider it an occupational hazard of being a Shaman. I’ve known for quite a while that my time was growing very short. Indeed, when I met your former comrade, the Haitian, I thought my time was over at that point, since I had seen that face in a Dream since I was a youth. His face was always associated with my death. But when you and Herne rescued me, and the Frau healed me, I realized that I had just a little while longer. I must thank you very much for that, because this additional time has allowed me to set my earthly affairs in order and be better prepared for what is to come.”

“But how can you be so casual about this, about dying?”

He walked into the circle of roots, came up and put his arm around my shoulders. “Look, when much of your life is spent in exploring the majesty and the mysteries of the Three Worlds, you find that there is very little to fear in the passing from the One into the Three. Death is not only the end of one journey, but also the beginning of many others.”

We were now walking among the roots, his arm over my shoulders. We came to the trunk of the Tree and he took his arm off, reached out a tentative hand and touched the bark with his fingertips.

“I must say that I very impressed. I have never seen another Tree like this one. What happened here?”

In halting words, unsure of the reality of any of this, I explained what I could remember of my encounter with El Diablito and my fears at the time when I could not get into contact with anyone. I then told him about driving the baton into the ground and the emotion and energy that I had charged it with, hoping that it would serve as a beacon and warning to any who answered my impassioned Calls.

As I told the story, he had kept his fingers in contact with the metallic bark, had closed his eyes, and seemed to be only half listening to what I was saying. My voice kind of trailed off as I watched him and ended my story.

He remained there for a moment longer, then openned his eyes and pushed back from the Tree. “You have created something here that is both strange and wonderful. In all of my journeys throughout the Three Worlds, I have heard many tales of such Beings existing, but this is the first such one I have actually encountered. This is a very rare and special event.

“You have here a treasure beyond all measure, a resource that will help you to do much good with your remaining time in the One World. I am glad that you will have a true guide in the coming time when I will be unable to be here for you.” A tear trickled down his cheek.

It was hard to hear, to see this emotion from the man who had shown me how to take control of my own existence again, the one person who had reached out and prevented me from becoming the monster I was heading towards turning into. I looked down at my shoes, scuffed some dirt from a nearby root. “John, I can’t thank you enough for helping me when you did. If you hadn’t been there for me, I don’t know what I would have turned into.”

He reached out with both hands, gripped my shoulders with his talon-hard fingers, “Rusty, you are on a special kind of journey, a journey of redemption and salvation, for yourself and for others you have yet to meet. There are challenges coming to the One World that may change it forever. There are dangers that must be met and overcome if Balance is to be restored and maintained. You are not alone in facing these challenges, these dangers, but you are vitally important. Learn from the Tree, master your strengths, overcome your weaknesses, and you will have repaid my efforts a hundredfold.

“It was my role to find you and prepare you for the first steps on your Journey. The existence of this Tree here and now, tells me more than anything else, that you are now ready to begin that Journey.”

I couldn’t hold back anymore, “But what about the image I have seen of my daughter and ex? They are in danger, I can’t be worrying about saving the world when they are in such danger!”

“I understand your concern, and that is another reason I am here to see you now. The Professor has been able to locate where your former Director has established his headquarters, it is a place in the Everglades near Miami. Ravyn Fyre has asked me to seek you out and let you know this information, and that we have as an organization have found it to be a good time to prepare a strike against this enemy.

“Our plans are just now shaping up, but we wanted to get you involved as well, since we know how important it is to you.”

“I saw the image of that bastard taking my daughter and ex into a building in the a swamp, that was probably the place. It is pretty inaccessible from what I saw, he was gathering his own strength, I think he is expecting at least me!”

“Yes, but we will have some surprises of our own for him and his followers. I think he will have taken your family as bait and likely as insurance as well. But here is what we would like to do...”

En Passant...Part 1

The journey back to my body went by a different route. After disengaging from Kenny I found an openning down into the Spirit World and followed the path down to my usual entrance point. I quickly found myself on that now familiar path to the clearing where the Tree waited for me.

It was with more than a little smugness that I stepped into the clearing to face my....my what? Could I really call a tree a mentor?

In any event, I was a little cocky when I stepped into that clearing, intent on proving the Tree that it had been all wrong about me and what I could do.

“Hey Tree, I did it, I saved my son from that bastard Drake!”

Silence.

“What, you can’t handle it when you are wrong? Cat got your tongue Tree?”

More silence.

“You know, you could be more helpful here. I was hoping to get an idea of what to do next, now that Kenny is safe.”

This was getting to be silly.

I walked up to the trunk of the Tree and touched it with my now fleshy fingertips. Nothing seemed any different than before. Still cool and metallic to the touch. The branches were shifting in the breeze as they had in the past, but there was no sense to the sounds. The damn thing was ignoring me.

I walked around the trunk towards the back, where the cave openning was. I was feeling drawn to the pool again.

Uh oh.

I entered the cave, bending down to fit inside it, following the stairwell down into the lightly illuminated chamber. The only sounds around me were the gentle breathing of the Tree and the drip drop of the water into the pool that filled the back half of the small chamber.

A cold pit formed in my stomach as I approached the pool and bent down to look into the water.

The ripples from the last drop were just fading away when the image of a large building surrounded by a lot of palm trees and an expanse of swampy marches. There was no visible road leading up to the building, but a couple of odd looking, flat bottomed boats were pulled up to a dock that stuck out into the water. Another such boat was pulling up, propelled by a huge fan on the back. Several people were in this rather large air boat, as I believe they are called.

I could make out the image of Drake’s smallish figure, as well as Papa Locks and the monster that he had made out of Greg. A few other men in suits were with them, as well as the ‘driver’ of the boat, a raffish looking man dressed more like Crocodile Dundee than anything else. Two other figures caught my attention though, my daughter Jasmine and my ex-wife.

Jasmine was looking scared and wide-eyed, especially as the Greg-monster got close to her, but Papa Locks seemed to be keeping a tight leash on the monster. It seemed to lick its lips in anticipation.

I sat there stunned as I saw this, knowing somehow that this was the end of the vision that I had interrupted in my haste to save Kenny. This time, I was unable to move as the vision played out.

The men in suits escorted my daughter and ex towards a set of double doors into the building. Someone openned the doors from the inside, I could see additional figures inside the well lit interior. The place was a veritable fortress.

I desperately wanted the vision to take me inside the building, but the image seemed to be withdrawing slightly, and falling closer to the level of the water, just as the water of the vision began to obscure the building itself, a fresh set of ripples caused by new drops from ceiling broke the vision up.

I sat there for a moment, determined not to interrupt any new images it wanted to show me, but nothing new materialized.

“Damn you Tree! How did this happen?!?”

The gentle breathing stopped, the familiar whispery voice of the Tree became audible again. “You are not the only resourceful, determined person. Just as you make plans and exert your Will, others of strength exert theirs as well.”

“Why didn’t you show me this before?”

“Had you but exercised patience, you would have seen these images.”

I knew in my heart that the Tree was telling the truth. I had been so determined to save Kenny from Drake that I didn’t stop to think what else might happen. “Can I possibly stop this from happening?”

“These events have already been set in motion, just as they were with your son.”

“But I saved him! Maybe I can save Jasmine and Katherine too?”

“Did you change what happened with your son? Did not the images happen as you saw them take place?”

“Yeah, but the result was different! I convinced him not to go!”

“Did the images show your son actually go anywhere?”

“No, but...”

“The images shown to you by the pool will occur as you have seen them. These events are already in motion. These images are previews of what you will experience at some point in the near future. With that foresight, you can more wisely plan for these events.”

“You mean what I have seen will happen no matter what, but that I can affect how prepared I am for that event?”

“Impressive, a first lesson learned. There are intersections in time. Places where multiple strands of possible futures intersect. If you know where the intersection-or Convergence- occurs, you may choose the path that is most advantageous to your cause, whatever that cause may be.”

“How do I know when this will take place though?”

“The ‘when’ of this event is dictated in part by the path that you and others who may know of the event choose.”

“Does Drake have access to this kind of knowledge?”

“I am your Yggsdrasil, not his. It is quite possible though that he may have access to such knowledge and use it accordingly.”

“Damn. Then how do I know which path to take, or even what paths there are to take?”

“The paths to a Convergence are numerous, both for you and for any others involved in the event.”

“Can you give me anything less cryptic to work with here? This is my family again!”

“Wisdom is earned, not given.” With that the damn Tree resumed it’s breathing, the branches sighing in the winds of the Spirit World.

I went up the stairs, stooping low to exit the cave through the bunch of roots that framed the entrance. As I stood up and stretched, I noticed a leaf that was falling.

I reached up and caught the leaf before it hit the ground. I turned it over and saw the image it revealed. I looked up at the Tree and cried out. “NOOO!!!”