How could there be room for all these multitudes!
There were endless roads with metal boxes travelling along them at speeds so vast that she could not keep them fixed in her vision. Everywhere there were the signs of huge numbers of people in a great hurry, of things to do, of journeys that must be made.
It was too much. Despite being immersed in the visions she could feel the unknown implement resting on her head and so she took the thing off and slumped back in the chair.
Jon reached over and held her hands, ‘What’s wrong? You only had it on for a moment.’
She looked up at him in wonderment. His face seemed blurred.
‘A moment? That’s ridiculous!’
She told him of the things she had seen but it was obvious from his face that he did not understand. She gave up trying to describe huge flying things and said, ‘I must go back in.’
‘Why,’ said Jon, concern clearly marked in his expression and in his voice, ‘how do you know what you’re seeing means anything? It all sounds like some kind of dream.’
‘It means something,’ Shana replied firmly, ‘I must see more.’
And she did.
The scenes became more disturbing. There was a feeling of crisis in the way the ant-like communities were behaving. There was tumult in the streets beneath the tall buildings. Some groups were using violence against other groups. There were flames in the buildings, the boxes on the roads stopped moving, huge numbers of people were on the move, some coming into the great villages but more going out, in great waves of desperation. Huge encampments sprang up where displaced people lived in squalor. Some flying things fell from the sky and crashed into the ground in great billows of flame.
Shana saw all this as if she were a god. Sometimes she observed it from high above as if she were floating in the sky; sometimes she was there in the streets, seeing people running with fear and blood on their faces; sometimes great masses of stone fell on her from disintegrating buildings but left no mark. Like an all-seeing ghost, she walked among the terrified multitudes. Sometimes she would descend to a cellar where a frightened family huddled among the ruins of their possessions and the last of their bags of food, hearing the children cry and watching the adults hold each other. Then she would be watching hordes of men shaking what could only be weapons while behind them great metal boxes moved ominously forward, sending jets of flame and thunder to the left and to the right.
Something uniquely terrible was happening; some great overthrow of a peaceful society by forces that lusted for death and rejoiced in cruelty.
Then she heard a great voice that thundered from horizon to horizon and echoed and re-echoed around her.
‘Now behold the fate of the Degenerates!’
Then there was a great light, a terrible flash so bright it was beyond description, a light so bright that had she been flesh it would have reduced her to whirling black flakes of carbon to be swept aside by a great wind. A horrible cloud of flame-shot blackness climbed implacably into the sky.
She screamed in a voice that came from the innermost depths of her being.
And then unconsciousness took her.
She awoke to find Jon staring down at her with lines of worry etched deeply into his face.
She was on the bed covered in sweat even though it was not particularly hot. Somewhere inside her skull something was bringing a hammer down, again and again.
Her mouth was dry but eventually she was able to ask: ‘Have I been here long?’
Jon nodded. ‘I was beginning to worry that you’d never wake up. You screamed and I pulled the thing off but you just lay there, unmoving.’
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and forced herself upright. ‘Water. I must have water.’
As she sipped she began to feel better but the memory of what she had seen was like an invisible menacing presence in the room.
She related her visions even though it was quite clear that he wasn’t understanding (or maybe not believing?) all she was saying.
‘It’s a different world, Jon. They are scenes from some other form of existence.’
Jon shrugged. ‘What does that mean? How is it even possible? The world is the world. Where would this other one be?’
She began to pace up and down. ‘We both agree that what we experience here doesn’t make sense; as if it’s not properly formed. Maybe what I’m seeing is a world that is properly formed!’
He was silent. She carried on, feeling almost desperate in her need to convince him.
‘Look, this – this visualiser is important. Jarz said you were not ready for it which means it has some great significance in this village, some kind of truth that only people of a certain level are allowed to grasp. You upset this place’s rulers and so it has been denied you.’
‘Why didn’t they take it away like they took our swords?’
‘Because it seems that without the training it doesn’t show you very much.’
‘And you – who don’t have any training – you can see all these things? Things that don’t make any sense.’
She didn’t say anything for a moment and then: ‘It must be that I am some kind of person who is by chance attuned to it – some kind of natural user.’
She caught Jon raising an eyebrow.
‘What – you think it’s all make-believe? That I’m being fooled by some silly toy?’
He spread his hands in overt confusion. ‘Is that less likely than what you’ve described. White mountains in the sky? Flashes of light that somehow can kill thousands of people?’
She sat still, suddenly assailed by doubt. Jon’s objections had hit home– nothing she had described seemed at all likely, or even possible. And yet … and yet…
Then she made up her mind. ‘No, it means something. Something very important. Something that if we can only understand it will make sense of all this nonsense.
‘And I’m going to keep going in until I find it.’
Despite what she had said Shana could not face another immersion in the visualiser so soon after her previous experience. She had to get out, to see her green cloudless sky, to escape the narrow confines of a building that was becoming more and more like a prison.
Reluctantly Jon agreed, seeing how profoundly she had been shaken by the things she had seen. But he insisted that they must take their recently returned swords with them every time they ventured out into the village for it was obvious that the hostility towards them was increasing steadily.
So it was that they went outside, expecting to be faced with the usual blank stares and indifference. But no! the village was in turmoil again and everyone they met appeared to be rushing in the same direction as if some great event was about to unfold.
Jon managed to stop one of the men as he hurtled by and despite the latter’s clear reluctance to speak to him managed to get some information.
‘The Council Building,’ the man spluttered, ‘got to get to the Council Building! Got to see it!’
Jon glanced at Shana and she nodded in silent agreement.
They arrived at the building to find a great throng already assembled and were not surprised to find them in great excitement, having heard their babble from some distance away. Everyone assembled seemed anxious to avoid physical contact with them and so it was easy for them to find their way to the front of the crowd, as it parted instantly to allow them through. But when they reached the front they were shocked to see what was revealed.
It was Jon11 and he was tied to a tall pole directly in front of the steps. Despite his condition his head was held high and he stared defiantly at his audience who by now were jeering and mocking him.