THE Kingdom of the Web

Chapter 3.

TO THE HERMITAGE

 

Shantu Ya' excitedly packed the chiptas he'd selected and the equipment

and supplies he would need. He relished this chance to leave, to escape.

Though the idea was fraught with "ifs" and "suppositions", the Prince had

accepted his plans to breed the chipta into superior creatures for war. Perhaps,

the Wizard mused sarcastically, his lordship was as ready for the Wizard's

absence as he was to leave.

With a mule ride of close to two weeks ahead of him, he was sure to take

all he needed. Four mules adequately carried the load and within days, with his

great enthusiasm, they were readied. With sighs of relief and prayers of

thanksgiving, Shantu Ya's caravan was on his pilgrimage, the 4 mules and the

one he rode, 16 chiptas in their woven basket cages, and, with glee, himself.

By the next afternoon they were out beyond the fertile lands of the

NiMali and began the endless days to cross the Desolates. Although he carried

provisions enough, along the way, when they neared a Citadel he knew of that

was friendly or one of the nomadic free-towns, he stopped to briefly visit. The

harsh barrenness of the burnt-out lands made him need a occasional taste of

human companionship.

Squashed down under the naked, fierce sun, every day he felt more

desiccated and depressed by the barren, parched landscape. He made sure to

force drink them all and avoided the spots that read dangerous levels of

radioactivity. The mules too suffered and grew listless, though they normally

spent most of their drudgerous lives working the Citadel's dense, rocky fields

and crossing the Desolates around NiMali. As always, the Wizard was assaulted

with loathing for humankind's wretched delusions, and felt grief for the

innocent lands they had mindlessly devastated.

At last, after 12 days from their start, Shantu Ya' sighted the green

haunches of the foot hills he'd been seeking. And far, far beyond them, in a mist

as if in another reality, towered the ragged peaks of the High Malias.

This area had been out of the path of the world ravaging holocaust.

Always sparsely populated, with little resources and industry, these far-off

mountain ranges hadn't been a worthy target of destruction. Therefore the

lineage of Teaching that had nurtured Shantu Ya', descending from ancient ages

past, had somehow managed to survive through that wall of flame.

And now he returned. He traveled upward, weaving up the stony

pathway into the foothills, leaving the desert's parching heat below and up into

a fresh atmosphere of Spring. Hours later, just as dusk was moistening the air,

Shantu Ya' led the mules to feed and rest and renew themselves on the carpet of

scrub-grass that swept up into the forests ahead.

The huge sky about them splashed full with the pale crimson sunset,

then darkened into cloudless night. He set up a simple shelter from a few of the

scattered gnarled tree limbs. With it at his back to break the cold winds, he sat

before his small fire very content as he watched the mesh of stars, close and

bright, come to sparkle in the black moonless sky. Soaking in the sense of

living nature around him, he felt more and more unburdened. Far from the

Citadels and the Desolates both, the Wizard gave thanks with every freeing

breath.

He slept some, curled in a deerskin and, just as the sky began to mist

into day, he gathered his caravan and they continued their ascent. The foothills

rose steadily into mountains. The mules carefully trod the ancient valley of

pathway twisting between them, it sides sharp with flakes of granite. Near the

day's end they came to Pallang, the village the Wizard had been looking for.

Now, even though more dilapidated then when he'd last seen it, it was

still the rambling, twisting lanes of stone huts that touched so many memories.

Over his many years as a student he had come down here for his needed contact

with the outer world. As a youngster, he'd come for the sweet and spicy treats.

As a youth, he'd come to sit in the teahouse and listen to the tails of travelers,

those who traveled for commerce, and those who traveled seeking. Then later,

he'd come to ceremony and journey with the village shaman, an old wizard of a

very different kind.

Still over saturated with the recent busy, superficiality of the Citadel,

the Wizard wanted to savor the village life a bit, a style of life kept to utter

simplicity by the rough, inhospitable land side. The few hundred inhabitants

staved off starvation by shepherding goats and bare subsistence farming. Such

villages, tucked away in obscurity, had been refuges for some from below

during the Devastation, and the racial and cultural mixes had producing some

interesting companions for Shantu Ya'. So he stopped to purchase fresh

provisions, and inquired after the shaman and some of the other people he had

befriended there. But none of those he asked after still lived or had moved.

Though no one he spoke with knew for certain, as the monks kept their

isolation, the impression was that the Hermitage was deserted.

With a few hours more twisting back and forth on the narrow ascending

pathway, Shantu Ya' saw the jagged, mountain side ahead was snow dusted as

was the nest of stone buildings of the Hermitage yet further up. Some hours

later, with an innocent homecoming joy in his heart, Shantu Ya' reached the

encircling rough stone walls of the Hermitage.

This is where his soul had been nurtured and evolved. A twelve-year

old, when he came, still barely a child in many ways, NiMali's previous Wizard

had brought him here to advance his studies and, perhaps, for safety. Since

Shantu Ya' had always received visions and other knowings with ease, he was

considered a promising adept. The older Wizard, in leaving Shantu Ya' there,

had him vow to fulfill the office of Wizard in NiMali's Court when he was

needed.

As a safe haven, many things had managed to survive in the Hermitage

through that wall of flame across history. It had long been a center for high

metaphysical and spiritual studies in those days before history's death. Strands

of that tradition had continued and many seekers from different parts of the

world gathered here to study the Teachings. This lineage that had nurtured

Shantu Ya' descended from what survived of that past. With such diverse forms

of deep knowing and revelation, it was not a place for those who sought

dogmatic answers. But it was a haven for souls who had scoured the past with

honest desperation for what was worth saving for teaching and practicing. And

Shantu Ya' well honored those treasures that had remained unscathed within

those rough stone walls.

As the donkeys scaled the snowy pathway and passed through the Portal

in the Hermitage's surrounding wall, he beheld the desolation. The wooden

entry gate was open, one door hanging loose on its hinges. The flagstone inner

courtyard was in disrepair. The three storied tower-like stone building showed

no signs of life. The steep pitch of the slate roofs gave Shantu Ya' a familiar

lurch in his gut that now merged with the sense of desolation.

After he unloaded the goods and supplies and tied the mules next to a

bail of dried grass, he began to look about. With sad nostalgia, he fondly

reexplored along the wide corridors with walls of finely quarried stone,

passageways that crisscrossed through the tower. This place was in his bones,

entwined with him. He dearly knew the library cabinets of scrolls and books

and the warm dark wood that covered its walls. He especially delighted in the

laboratories that had remained unscathed, but very dusty.

And there was no one there, absolutely no one, as the villagers had

forewarned.

As he wandered the rooms, he found them all long deserted and unused.

The rugs and tapestries were mostly gone and the bare stone walls and floors

smelled of ancient dust and stale damp. The windows had been left ajar and

uncovered and snow flecked the layers of dense dust and cobwebs. All this

made him envision that the last of the monks had gone some while, perhaps not

long after he had left to claim his place in the world.

So, had something or someone forced them all to flee? There were no

signs of violence of an kind. It was as if they just all decided. Yet he felt the

tragedy of what ever had happened to force those dedicated monks to leave.

After the distress at those thoughts settled down, he recognized that, though he

would have enjoyed the like-minded company, it also suited his purposes and

needs to have the place to himself.

No matter. In any case, he was back home. He released a deep sigh, like

a swimmer reaching a rough crossing's far side. Of his few treasured hopes, this

was the place he'd always imagined returning to, hidden among these cliffs in

the snowcapped ranges, for solace and sanity. Now, in truth, he was here again.

He was pleased too, to be back where much of nature survived. A huge hawk

rode the cross-drafts from the peaks above him and furry rodents scurried in the

brush below.

He found his old cell. From its window, he welcomed the gentle winds

scented with the red and yellow blossoms peeking up around the outcroppings

as far as he could see up the steep, craggy mountainsides.

He chose an area for the chiptas that had been a large dining area. The

low stone ceiling, with few windows along the one wall, gave the feel of energy

concentration, of incubation that the Wizard wanted. He gathered and set up

mounds of dry grass in a corner and, once released from their woven cages, the

chiptas quickly scurried about to explore for suitable corners and crevices to

nest in. He hauled water from the well down in the courtyard, up and down the

steep stairway in two buckets on a pole across his shoulders. His hitched his

long robes up around his waist and washed his room's musty, cobblestone walls

and floors. Because of the utter simplicity of the lifestyle, there was little he

needed to repair or replace. By nightfall, he filled the lamps with oil with a

sense of a welcoming ceremony, laid out his bed roll, and soon felt quite at

home.

For a long week he enjoyed the utter solitude to inwardly prepare

himself. On long walks, he revisited many mind expanding views of distant

soaring peaks and plummeting valleys while the chiptas explored, gathered

straw and insulation and made themselves comfortable nests. With a

comfortable naturalness, he settled back into his daily practices of body and

mind. The experience of the bright mountain air made the breath work

deliciously pleasant and effective. His meditations went deep as he sat in the

absolute stillness, outside and in, and left him in blissful peace. He savored this

soul comforting to heal from the Citadel's busyness and pointless intrigues,

actions and gossip that so often expressed vicious suspicion and fear.

Shantu Ya' leisurely explored through the many alcoved laboratory to

preparing to carry out his experiments. These huge tables covered with basins,

bowls, flasks in wire supports, tiny ovens, huge stone mortar and pestles, casks

of prepared elixirs in racks along the wall, here's where he did his first Work.

Many of the supplies and implements he hoped for were still there. Once

refreshed and recentered, he gave himself wholly to his work in delicious

privacy. At last, he felt truly alone --but for his pleasant pet chipta-- resting in

the lap of these sky touching mountains. Many of the books and scrolls he'd

used in his studies that he felt related to his plan were still there in the archives

of the ancient library. Just perrusing through the musty stacks aligned him with

traditions and qualities of consciousness he's had no place for in his life these

last decades. A flavor of soul quenching he really savored.

While he pondered and prayed for guidance, he also sought through the

Library's shelves and cabinets for spells or magick techniques that might be

helpful. This was a fascination that had drawn him to spend many exhilarating

nights in the village below watching the shaman's practices and incantations

that often succeeded. But Shantu Ya' soon realized, with some disappointment,

that this approach could only offer a change in appearance, a superficial

manipulation of some denser realms of reality. No, he grew certain that deeper

transformation of the chiptas essence was called for, as radical, yet natural, as a

caterpillar becoming a butterfly. He needed to integrate his fascination with the

principle of this metamorphosis into this wizardly process. This called for a

transmutation of soul as well as form.

The aims and possibilites in the Work of Alchemy naturaly soon drew

his interest. He reflected on this as a possible means for the chiptas evolving

into that Imago that had been created when the owl's moonshadow merged with

the chipta in his lap. It did call for a transformation similar to the "lead into

gold" that primal science spoke of. The stages of that Work were familiar and

comfortable for him from his studies here at the Hermitage and the many years

trying to apply and perfect them while in NiMali.

He amused himself remembering how often he'd used Alchemical terms

there to describe some of the otherwise pointless, chaotic goings-on. "Solve et

Coagula", Dissolving and Congealing, was the Alchemical term he often used to

describe the Prince's moods in their continual indecipherable flux. At times,

sealed in his role there in NiMali, the Wizard was certain it was all

"Mortification" for him, Death and Putrefaction. The only hopeful side to this

was that, in the Alchemical Work, this stage is often preparation for

"Renaisscance", Rebirth.

But, of course, he couldn't use those same procedures with the chiptas

that involved extremes of temperature and various physical states. Alchemy

served well as the paradigm for this Work, but the actual techniques must let

the poor biological creatures survive them.

As catapillar into butterfly on the metaphysical level followed the

dynamics of Solve et Coagula of Alchemy,

Premonition guided him to use hypnogogic consciousness to embody the

Imago in the chiptas DNA strands, gene clusters that would hold the key to this

transformation. The merging of those two realms --metaphysical and

biological-- would be the catalyst for this 'lead into gold'. This would be the

guiding matrix the chiptas' metamorphosis would evolve along towards the

consecrated potential these creatures were to embody.

As the species evolved, the inherited characteristics would not be

restrictions. They would be a means to manifest the Imago, the raw material for

each individual could draw on as appropiate. Thus, the Wizard foresaw, each

individual could more fully and uniquely incarnate the aspects of the Imago it

resonated with. Using this technique had served him well in his work as a

healer. In visionary awareness, he would visualize the wound or illness as

whole and healed. With this Imago held in meditation, it would shape the

beams of biomagnetic life energy he sent the patient to bring them healing. His

skills were well developed.

When he felt prepared, he used the sophisticated instruments he found

for the necessary microsurgery: solar powered optic magnifiers, and crystal

devices to focus and intensify his considerable psychic and biomagnetic

powers. He used these to study tissue and fluid samples from every part of the

chiptas' body.

In an intricate lattice ofdouble-helix DNA, within a chain of genes from

a chipta's Central Nervous System, he observed a recessive trait that caught his

intuition. He weakened the dominant traits that obscured it to perceive it more

clearly. It seemed to sense his interest. While the traits that had ruled now

faded, the recessive one he sought thrived and looked even more promising. As

he spent days in focalizing the Imago into this gene cluster, the Wizard knew

that it was the embodied potential, the vital key to the chiptas' mutations to its

fulfillment.

He placed the now DNA bonded Imago in an small ivory chalice and, as

an incubator, placed it in a wooden chest where he kept his medicine objects.

Daily, he radiated that intriguing obscure gene with prayerful biomagnetic

beams and a visualizations of the Imago coming to life. After some weeks, as he

observed its cell reproduction, Shantu Ya', with great relief and satisfaction,

found the trait bred true and stable.

Then he paid a visit to the chiptas' nesting room and searched through

the warren of straw and twig they'd built to choose a number of the brightest

females. In his laboratory, fairly dancing with anticipation, he impregnated

them with sperm cells empowered with the Imago in that recessive trait. Three

months later, in a nest prepared in a corner nook of his laboratory, the first

mutated batch hatched from their leathery green eggs. As they matured they

confirmed his hopes. They were not only vitally stronger, but far brighter and

quicker as they matured than their parents' strain.

In eight months the new siblings were mated and by the year's end,

Shantu Ya' was happily examining their Third Generation. By their looks and

movement alone, he could tell the genetic structure was shifting in a way he'd

anticipated. He tested and found the prodigy gene he'd unleashed, guided by the

Imago, had indeed opened a new destiny for the flourishing creatures.

In working with the Imago in meditation, now new depths were revealed

on the Wizard. Its core, its essence was an evolved, integrated being whose

instinctual needs and their expression where naturally in alignment with its

highest, subtle realms. Held in this potential, enabled by the phenomenal gene

the Wizard had awoken, the creatures could follow their own biological means

of fulfilling the Imago's potential.

Quickly, it seemed to the Wizard, over the next few generations, new

characteristics and capacities emerged, accelerated by their fuller maturation.

The species evolved and grew by bounds. By the Fifth Generation they were

four hands long and in varying hues of green, gold and mauve. The quality of

their attention deepened and their physical movement grew smoother, more

subtle. They were beginning to communicate with sounds like moans and

whistles. The Wizard knew they had some other means of communicating too,

beyond the physical senses, but, even with his telepathic gifts, he couldn't quite

pick it up.

So the years slid by for Shantu Ya' in the flow of this unfolding. And he

was free, for the time, from Jom NiMali, his court and their petty games at

personal prestige and politics, his endless, tasteless wenching. The Wizard

always sighed, sometimes moaned with relief when he thought of it.

But eventually responsibility or guilt reminded him of his promise to

King Reba about his role in Jom's spiritual well being, he made telepathic

contact with Tamarat, his student in astral travel and distant viewing and

Ookma's Master-at-Arms.

In their practices together, they had developed a language of distant

communication of through imagery rather than words and the Wizard used that

now to call on Tamarat. What he got back was a powerful wave of joyful

confirmation. Tamarat was happy and grateful to "hear" from the Wizard and

awaited his need. Soon, with little effort in spite of the years, there was a flow

of query and response back and forth between them. The Wizard felt more

substantial through Temarat's knowing and relieved to have his concerns about

Jom answered.

After The Wizard had gone of his pilgrimage to the High Malias, Jom

did return to annex Ookma's Citadel. With little more than strong arguments,

Ookma, under pressure from his army, swore allegiance and tithing to Jom. A

welter of recalled people and incidents let the Wizard experience the flavor of

that time as Jom continued to follow his warrior's way, but mainly benefiting

those he conquered. The legacy of "weapons" and war tactics the Wizard had

left were serving him well.

Another current arose that startled, then pleased the Wizard. Jom had

fallen in love, courted, then married Ookma's sister, Wuuti. It had caused al lot

of turmoil in Ookma's life as well as Jom's. Tamarat's own involvement with all

this bubbled through and gave the Wizard a sense of Wuuti as Tamarat had

watched her growing up. A caring woman, but very clear and firm on her own

needs, it seemed a good match to the Wizard.

There was now a budding family. Tamarat was obviously not involved

with all that as his impressions were open but sketchy. Ookma himself seemed

to have benefited from his release from total responsibility in the Citadel and

returned to an interest in music. Tamarat intentionally held an image of Ookma

proudly playing a simple flute.

The Wizard invoked the prayer, "We seek only, You, Oh Great

Mystery", and asked to see Jom's soul. He was pleased to see that much of the

desperateness had been soothed. He was still greatly driven by that hunger for

power, but his political successes and his family were shaping Jom with healthy

caring responsibility. The Wizard was satisfied and relieved that, although he

wasn't there, he had left some helpful legacy for Jom's well being.

 

The gestation times and life-spans of the creatures continued to lengthen

over the generations, so it took them longer to mature and breed before he could

see the results of his choices and the mutations. But the Wizard's continued to

be intrigued as he waited and was gratified with pleasure as the reptiles

flourished.

By the Sixth Generation of leap frog evolution of Imago guided

mutations, several different strains developed simultaneously, released and

flourishing from what had been stored in that recessive gene. Shantu Ya' was

attentive to these new characteristics and capacities that emerged. Some

showed specific talents and callings. But he wasn't sure as yet how to define or

understand them. So he became an involved bystander in the self evolution of a

species he now called Chimeras, "creatures of golden hope", the name given to

him in a teaching dream.

The evolution of the race somehow also involved each individual

becoming more unique and specialized. The Wizard often found himself

amazed at the variety of their body shapes and colors. They were almost like

separate species. Their leather-like skin might be smooth or variously ruffled in

colors of a wide and striking spectrum, shades of wine, rose, emerald or some

whimsical pastel.

The Seventh Generation of Chimeras was born midwinter --nearly

fifteen years after the first inseminations. The previous generations' latent

wing-stubs had emerged and sprouted into amazing bat-like wings, large

enough to hold their weight aloft in the mountain air. No matter what other

individual gifts they displayed, their shared genius was in flight. With their

agile sensibilities and trim and finely tuned bodies --vast though they were--

the Chimeras could execute patterns and maneuvers of flight that Shantu Ya'

could only awe at. Far from the war-beasts he had promised the Prince, they

looked and moved through the air more like the soaring celestial dragons

painted along the walls of the Hermitage's Chapel.

On the ground, walking on all fours or on their hind legs, they moved

their bodies with graceful self-awareness. The aliveness of their instincts

showed in how serpentinely they moved, by themselves and especially in their

smooth synchronization in groups. He was moved by how they always stayed in

continuous gentle contact with one another with little need for outer

communication. He did what he could to learn their language of hisses,

whistling and clicks but was glad as they easily learned his language of words

and gestures.

He had noticed one of the Sixth Generation who was especially to the

caring of the Seventh Generation. Beside her own offspring, who seemed

especially bright and engaging, she was actively on call for all the rest. The

Chimera mother's were very attentive to their offspring, but the infants had

needs their own mothers couldn't seem to satisfy. Sometimes the Wizard noted

an infant getting irritated in frustrated with their own mother's capacities to

grasp their needs. Then this one mother creature from the Sixth, over 12 hands

tall with pale blue scales, would come to the other mother's side, and guide her

into fulfilling the infants need. Often as not, she would end up being the

caretaker while the infant's mother walked away, perhaps in relief.

Though she lacked many of the gifts and capacities of the Seventh, she

was obviously accepted and treasured by them all as a motherly caretaker. As

fraught as their own individual development might be with confusion and hurt,

because of their unique giftedness, she was always their to nurture them till

they found their way. Shantu Ya' finally spoke with her and found she was

named Kyxara. Based on his admiration for her, they soon developed a special

friendship.

Certain strains of Chimeras developed who were graced with a larynx

that, more than simply speaking, could produce the most pleasing and

enthralling sounds. Kyxara told him they were called Chanters.

Others had gifts of psyche that could project images and experience into

his mind beyond human conceiving or understanding. Even though the Wizard

was familiar such skills from his years of work with the shaman, these

Chimeras far surpassed him. Others had such special beauty and nobility of soul

in their manner and movement that caused the others, the Wizard included, to

treat them as a kind of nobility. Telepathic powers became generally evident

and certain of these gifted ones became the focalizers of the varied projects and

exercises the they created by way of self-discovery. There were seven of the

main focalizers that were called the Inner Circle.

The reptilian instinctual basis of their intelligence had blossomed into a

sharp objectivity towards the world around them. And they had what no

primitive lizard had --heart; emotional warmth and tenderness of feeling that

made the Wizard seem course-nerved to himself.

The Wizard took lengthy notes to help his understanding as he observed

the Chimeras develop a solid and compassionate social structure, an apparent

empathetic network that inclosed them all with sixth sense that permeated every

aspect of their lives. The chipta had been sensitive little lizard pets and as their

intelligence mushroomed this sensitivity unfolded into a strongly empathetic,

telepathic bonding. Their interactions with one another were elaborated with

little rituals and courtesies. They often touched or stroked each others' necks

and backs as they shared. Their long sinuous necks added to their often near

silent interchanges of signs and gestures, entwining as human friends would

hug. Now, as far along in development in the reptiles lineage as man was in the

primate's, Shantu Ya' knew them as equals, an alien species but of kindred

souls. They had come to a fulfillment.

Yet, while he felt no lack of gifts or insight on his own part, he was no

longer able to fully follows their interactions. He felt they now shared a

dimension, a higher sense that was beyond his grasp. Shantu Ya' found how far

this had evolved when he went to sit with a group of them one Autumn evening

in the old Chapel Room. He was struck by how much they did resemble the

frescos of the mythical dragons on the flagstone walls that the beehive dome

swallowed in darkness. All the benches had been removed --of course-- and the

space was even more vast than he'd remembered it. All of the Seventh and much

of the Sixth crouched together to stare out of a row of windows along the far

side of the curving wall that looked out over a distant rows of mauve,

snowcapped mountains. The sunset's grandeur held them in awed silence, till, as

a group, they gave long whistling sighs as the last wisp of sunset faded into

night.

Then they gathered into a number of concentric circles and motioned the

Wizard to join the Inner Circle. He sat next to Kyxara with pleased anticipation.

After some silence he felt the Chimeras strengthen the bonds between

themselves and the circle merged and opened to another reality.

Their slow humming breaths became a toning and then a chant that

filled the room with enrapturing, reverberating overtones. This evolved into a

chord that blossomed and explored harmonics and contrapuntals that became

songs that easily brought Shantu Ya' to sweet aesthetic joy and tragic tears.

Their music soaked through his being, then faded into silence. He found his

inner seeing filled with pleasing curious images and perceptions. They were

starkly lucid but incomprehensible to him, beyond the ken of his and

humankind's limited four dimensional reality. The Wizard knew these

experiences were not, could not, be his own. They were being projected into his

psyche, perhaps part of a game or a teaching beyond his comprehension. This

was a glimpse of the Chimeras' abilities to share telepathically. And some slight

sense of what lie beyond it.

The wordless hymn embraced Kyxara and led her into a gentle

serpentine writhing. A power moved her. It flowed up and down her spine. Her

head rolled as it raised her to dance around their circle. To the Wizard, it was a

sinuous eruption of enthralling life-force.

It was well into the night when that radiance had spent itself. Kyxara

took her place next to the Wizard with a sense of deep release and fulfillment

that overflowed and bathed through him. They sat some long while in a blissful

silence then, one by one, they drifted from the Chapel for their night's rest.

 

In spite of the incredible differences between them, members of the

Sixth and Seventh generations lived together with respect and care of their huge

disparities. Shantu Ya' kept all but these last two generation sterile with herbal

potions. The earlier generations were experienced as other kinds of creatures

now and kept to themselves. Those who still survived from before the Seventh

were naturally honored as forebears and mourned as they went to extinction.

But it was among themselves that the full richness of the Seventh generation's

capacities were shown.

It was into their ninth year, far enough along into maturity for them to

mate, when the Inner Circle told the Wizard they now wished to stabilize their

own development and were taking measures to do so.

Kyxara confessed to the Wizard, with a flavor of humor that pleased

him, that she was often weary of trying to keep up with the ever-astounding

exploits of their offspring. She tried to give him insight into what a Chimera's

reality was like and, especially, what she could about this special bonding

among those twenty-seven creatures of the Seventh Generation.

They had came to call this soul and energetic grid work that they

merged in the Wholelife Energy Bond. They assured Kyxara and others not of

their generation that this W.E.B. eternally interconnected all living beings.

Their gifts at subtle sensing had simply revealed it. Merged with it, every one

was in constant interaction with all others. The Seventh had simply welcomed

the W.E.B. into their conscious awareness. As the Chimeras natures evolved,

this primal unifier, which had been hidden in the dark of unconsciousness, was

now brought to light. This intuitive knowing of each other became the basis for

all their relating and understanding.

Kyxara was very clear to the Wizard to understand that the W.E.B.,

therefore, was not their creation, but their discovery. It was not and could not

be created any more than it could be broken or destroyed. This was their

awakening to the intrinsic connectedness between all beings. The Wholelife

Energy Bond was simply the out flowing, interrelating aspect of being alive,

Kyxara explained to the Wizard with the patience she'd used in nursing an

infant.

To the siblings of the Seventh generation, Kyxara affirmed, the W.E.B.

was so tangibly present, they took it as part of their being.

"Is there a way for me to consciously enter the W.E.B.?" he asked her

with strong interest after some years. It was not the first time he'd voiced his

interest, but curiosity had turned more urgent.

He sat cross-legged on a pillow on the floor of his cozy cell. The

Chimera rested on her side, one claw and wing perched on a brace so that her

head faced his. He noticed how the age wrinkles in her blue-tinted hide had

deepened of late and how the mauve scales on her upper back had dulled.

"I have already asked the Inner Circle on your behalf," she answered,

"and volunteered to help guide you through preparation. Since you are the first

not of our species that we know to thus enter the W.E.B., we will all benefit

greatly from the experience."

 

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Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2010