Raven opened her eyes and gazed about her mindscape.
The sky was a bit more red, the outlines of dying stars and eclipsed celestial bodies blurred and running into one another. The rocky ground floated serenely, granite burgs in a sea of eternity. Silence enveloped this place, the not-quite-present sounds of her other selves and the various creatures that populated this place-that-was-not-a-place strangely lacking.
Somewhere, Raven knew, was the bridge to Jon's mindscape. A wisp of smoke drifted past, strangely odorous in the otherwise neutral air. She lifted off and floated towards its source. As the smoke strengthened the landscape subtly shifted. The sky became more red, the ground more solid. Granite gave way to patches of sandy soil, with an occasional patch of dune grass. On the horizon, an ominous orange glow burnt the sky to a deeper red. Below, a path became discernible through the thickening vegetation, and Raven lowered to follow it.
Time passed as she traveled and she began to wonder if, evidence to the contrary, she was heading in the wrong direction. On the horizon she noted a figure, and she hurried to meet it. Drawing nearer, she saw that this person was cloaked and hooded. Landing, she approached warily.
"Greetings, Ms. Roth," said the figure.
Characteristically blunt, she replied, "Who are you?"
A chuckle drifted past the depths of the hood and Raven relaxed despite herself. The laugh was honest, and was not tinged with sadism the way Zarach's was. "I am nothing more than a mental projection, my dear, an aspect of Jon. For ease," and the figure slipped the hood off of his head, "you may call me Claus."
The figure was old and wore his gray hair in a tonsure. A wooden crucifix peeked from behind the cloak's closure. His eyes were blue, the colour of cornflower. His nose was crooked, as though it had been broken a few times and refused to set properly. An easy grin revealed teeth tinged the slightest yellow, the stain of tobacco or coffee light upon them. "You're Jon's mentor," Raven recalled.
Claus shook his head. "Merely an archetype in his form, child. I am no more that person than you are your father. Regardless," he continued before Raven could respond to this comparison, "I am here to lead you past the barriers of Jon's mind to the core of his self, where he has retreated. Will you accompany me, my dear?" He offered his arm and, hesitantly, Raven took it.
They began to walk, and as they traveled Claus spoke. The topic was fluid, yet always relevant. Conversation on philosophy blended seamlessly with discussions of science, lectures which touched upon sociology and theology melded into literature and popular culture. As they conversed, Raven noted the landscape blurring by, as though they stepped over leagues instead of mere feet. Noticing her distraction, Claus mentioned, "Part of the barrier to Jon's central mindscape is a nigh-endless river of sawgrass and mangroves, populated with ravenous fire ants and all manner of menacing creatures. Imagine the Everglades in Florida, but extending to the horizon's horizon in all directions, forever."
"Why so much focus on Florida?" Raven wondered aloud.
"Jon spent a few years of his life away from the tribe after my, or that is to say his mentor's, death. When he took on the mantle of Chronicler, his first assignment was to reopen communication with the Amazons of the Far Eastern Tribe, who had settled in China. He learned that this tribe's chief matriarch had recently taken a leave of absence to spend some time in Japan, and it was agreed that the discussions would take place on Japanese soil so that neither party had the advantage."
"Neutral ground," Raven pondered.
"Precisely," Claus replied. "The only problem was that for all that Jon is an accomplished polyglot-"
Raven snorted at the understatement.
"-he did not speak a word of Japanese." Claus's eyes danced. "My training focused more on the European and classical languages, with which I was most familiar, with a sprinkling of the native languages where Europe had some colonies in the centuries previous. Prior to the Great War, there was no reason for any in our tribe to know Japanese, at least from a political standpoint. However, one in our tribe had a son who had left the tribe as a young man and settled in Florida. This young man had grown and had a family, and it was he that reluctantly allowed Jon to stay with him while he studied near Boca Raton."
"But that doesn't explain the mindscape."
"Jon considered Florida to be the most socially hostile and spiritually desolate place he ever had the misfortune to visit. Thus, he decided to protect his innermost self with this shield. Nothingness given form. Apathy given purpose."
Raven frowned. "That's not the impression that I received from him when we last talked about this."
"It's not the impression that he himself has of it. Like nearly everyone else, Jon is a master at self-deception. The closest he'll come to acknowledging the truth to himself is to say that he thinks Florida to be a 'unique' place with a 'novel' social climate, a place 'appropriately adapted' to its populace, location, and stresses. And that's about all that he'll say of it. Jon will speak at length on near any topic, but Florida and his time there is a topic expertly redirected and then forgotten."
"Then why are you telling me all this? You're simply a part of Jon, after all."
"Yes," and the man chuckled as he drew to a stop, "but I am the part of Jon that cannot fool itself. Claus was never fooled or redirected when he wanted to know the truth, and Jon for the life of him could never pull one over on him. That is why I came to meet you. Jon is severely hurt, hiding deep within himself. He's feverish, paranoid, terrified and desperate. Only myself and one other aspect of Jon will give you aid. All the others are in a frenzy, maddened and hostile. I have brought you as far as I can. Beyond this my hermitage ends, and I have no power or existence. Good luck and God-speed."
"Wait!" Raven cried out as the image of Claus turned to walk back into the undulating mass of greenery. When he paused, she asked desperately, "How will I know who to trust? Where do I go?"
A soft smile greeted her worries. "Follow your instincts," he said. "That is good advice for all your troubles. Your intelligence and empathy, coupled with your most gifted instincts, would never guide you wrong. Trust in yourself, and trust in God."
With those final words, Claus completed his disappearance into the Ocean of Grass.
Raven stood where she was for long moments. Although the land around her appeared to be a continuous eternity of sawgrass, she knew that to step forward was to enter another place. Her senses were confused here. Humid air, tinged with the natural scent of decaying plant matter was intermittently replaced with a sourceless, cloying marijuana-heavy smoke. The air was clear to the far horizon, yet blazing orange flames leaped in the corner of her vision. The raspy sussurance of wind through the grass was occasionally overpowered by phantom noises of gunshots, sirens, and screaming.
One thing was certain, though. A cacophony of emotions were assailing her empathic senses, with a single bright star of reserved worry burning clear against the foggy impressions of flooding paranoia. It was there that she would find help.
And maybe Jon.
She stepped forward.
=-=-=-=-=-
The mindscape Raven found herself in was horrific, nonsensical, wrong. Synæsthesia gripped her. The architecture rang discordant, the sounds tasted bad, and the air smelled like an ugly colour. Reeling, Raven faded, her mortal mind fleeing and breaking, confronted by...
=-=-=-=-=-
It was gritty and hot. Ash floated gently from scorched skies. The city around her was crumbling and melted, shored up with luminescent tubes and connected in a twisting non-Euclidean slop-work with some kind of fibrous fungi. Animals howled and people screamed, tortured sounds echoing and distorting off of the alley walls. Laughter-
(hideous, mad laughter)
-was a constant bass-line to this song of sorrow. It was difficult to move, hard to think. The girl-
(Rachel/Raven/Kate/Skuld)
-stumbled to her feet, one hand resting against the slimy brick to steady herself. One foot lead, another followed, and slowly she stumbled in the general direction of the alley's exit. There was no consistent frame of reference here. She began walking along the floor, but somehow ended up crawling backwards along the wall. Her stomach heaved, and she lost its contents. They buzzed with flies and smelled of posies. She rolled onto her back and landed on the number purple.
"I have to..." she began to think, but thought was difficult. She watched in detached fascination as her arm bubbled and warped, detaching and floating free before reintegrating itself.
She found herself floating and guided herself aimlessly to the sky, an ocean of rancid smoke that coated her suddenly exposed organs with ambergris and gold. The ground twisted, dipped and flipped beneath-
(through/behind/over)
-her. And then...
=-=-=-=-=-
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