A thick black power cable ran from the windmill’s electric generator to the missile silo. Sophia Briggs followed the cable across the concrete pad to a ramp that led down to a sheltered area with a steel floor.
“When they stored the missiles here, the main entrance was through a freight elevator. But the government took the elevator away when they sold the site to the county. The snakes get in a dozen different ways, but we have to use the emergency staircase.”
Sophia set her propane lantern on the ground and lit the wick with a wooden match. When the lantern was burning with a white-hot flame, she pulled up a hatch cover with two hands, exposing a steel staircase that led into darkness. Gabriel knew that the king snakes weren’t dangerous to humans, but it made him uneasy to see a large specimen gliding down the steps.
“Where’s he going?”
“One of many places. There are between three and four thousand splendida in the silo. It’s their breeding area.” Sophia went down two steps and stopped. “Do the snakes bother you?”
“No. But it does seem a little unusual.”
“Every new experience is unusual. The rest of life is just sleep and committee meetings. Now come along and shut the door behind you.”
Gabriel hesitated a few seconds, and then shut the hatch. He was standing on the first step of a metal staircase that spiraled around the outside of an elevator shaft protected by a chain-link cage. Two king snakes were on the stairs in front of him and several more were inside the cage, moving up and down the old conduit pipes as if they were branches of a snake highway. The reptiles slithered past each other as their little tongues darted in and out, tasting the air.
He followed Sophia down the staircase. “Have you ever guided a person who thought he was a Traveler?”
“I’ve had two students in the last thirty years: a young woman and an older man. Neither one of them could cross over, but maybe that was my fault.” Sophia glanced over her shoulder. “You can’t teach people to be Travelers. It’s more of an art than a science. All a Pathfinder can do is try to pick the right technique so that people can discover their own power.”
“And how do you do that?”
“Father Morrissey helped me memorize The 99 Paths. It’s a handwritten book of ninety-nine techniques and exercises developed over the years by visionaries from different religions. If you weren’t prepared for the book, you might think it was all magic and moonbeams-a lot of nonsense thought up by Christian saints, Jews who studied the Kabbalah, Buddhist monks, and so on. But The 99 Paths isn’t mystical at all. It’s a practical list of ideas with the same goaclass="underline" to break the Light free of your body.”
They reached the bottom of the elevator shaft and stopped in front of a massive safety door still hanging on one hinge. Sophia connected two parts of the electrical cable and a lightbulb went on near a discarded power generator. They pushed open the door, walked down a short corridor, and entered a tunnel that was wide enough for a pickup truck. Rusted girders lined the walls like the ribs of an enormous animal. The floor was constructed with flat steel plates. Ventilation ducts and water pipes hung above them. The old fluorescent fixtures had been disconnected, and the only light came from six ordinary bulbs attached to the power cable.
“This is the main tunnel,” Sophia said. “From end to end, it’s about a mile long. The whole area is like a giant lizard buried underground. We’re standing in the middle of the lizard’s body. Walk north to the head and you’ll reach missile silo one. The lizard’s front legs lead to silos two and three, and the two rear legs lead to the control center and the living quarters. Walk south to the end of the tail and you’ll find the radio antenna that was stored underground.”
“Where are all the snakes?”
“Beneath the floor or in the crawl space above you.” Sophia guided him down the tunnel. “It’s very dangerous to explore this place if you don’t know where you’re going. All the floors are hollow, set on steel springs that could take the shock of an explosion. There are levels built on levels and, in some places, you can fall a long way.”
They turned into a side corridor and entered a large round room. The outer walls were made of concrete blocks, painted white, and four half walls divided the room into sleeping areas. One of the areas had a folding cot with a sleeping bag, pillow, and foam-rubber mattress. A second propane lantern, a covered bucket, and three water bottles were placed a few feet from the cot.
“This used to be the staff dormitory. I stayed underground for a few weeks when I was doing my first population count of splendida.”
“And I’m supposed to live here?”
“Yes. For eight days.”
Gabriel looked around at the bare room. It reminded him of a prison. No complaints, he thought. Just do what she says. He dropped his knapsack on the floor and sat on the cot.
“All right. Let’s get going.”
Sophia moved restlessly around the room, picking up pieces of broken concrete and flicking them into a corner. “I’ll run through the basics first. All living things carry around a special kind of energy called the Light. You can call it a ‘soul’ if you want. I don’t worry too much about theology. When people die, their Light returns to the energy that surrounds us. But Travelers are different. Their Light can go away and then return to their living body.”
“Maya said that the Light travels to different realms.”
“Yes. People call them ‘realms’ or ‘parallel worlds.’ Once again, you can use any term that makes sense to you. The scripture of every major religion has described different aspects of these realms. They’re the source of all mystical visions. Many saints and prophets have written about the realms, but the Buddhist monks living in Tibet made the first attempt to understand them. Before the Chinese invaded, Tibet was a theocracy for more than a thousand years. The peasants supported monks and nuns who could examine the accounts of Travelers and organize the data into a system. The six realms aren’t a Buddhist or a Tibetan concept. The Tibetans are simply the first people who described the whole thing.”
“So how do I get there?”
“The Light breaks out of your body. You have to be moving slightly for the process to happen. The first time it’s surprising-even painful. Then your Light has to cross four barriers to reach each of the different realms. The barriers are composed of water, fire, earth, and air. There is no particular order to cross them. Once your Light finds the passageway through, you’ll always find it again.”
“And then you enter the six realms,” Gabriel said. “So what are they like?”
“We’re living in the Fourth Realm, Gabriel. That’s human reality. So what is our world like? Beautiful. Horrible. Painful. Exhilarating.” Sophia picked up a shard of concrete and tossed it across the room. “Any reality with king snakes and mint chocolate-chip ice cream has its good side.”
“But the other places?”
“Each person can find traces of the realms within their own heart. The realms are dominated by a particular quality. In the Sixth Realm of the gods, the sin is pride. In the Fifth Realm of the half gods, the sin is jealousy. You need to understand that we’re not talking about God, the power that created the universe. According to the Tibetans, the gods and half gods are like human beings from another reality.”
“And we’re living in the Fourth Realm…”
“Where the sin is desire.” Sophia turned and watched a king snake moving slowly down a conduit pipe. “The animals of the Third Realm are ignorant of all others. The Second Realm is inhabited by the hungry ghosts who can never be satisfied. The First Realm is a city of hate and anger, ruled by people without compassion. There are other names for this place: Sheol, Hades, Hell.”