Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Three
Verse Four: Walking the Witch
Road
Marion was out, not
unconscious, but certainly not lucid. He stared into the distance and
didn't react to anything Maia or Harley said or did. Maia poked his
cheek, pulled his ears and, even blew on his eyeballs during a
bathroom stop at a rest station. Marion mumbled occasionally, but responded to nothing either Maia or Harley attempted. Fitzroy was semi-lucid, but focusing
was clearly difficult for him and he spent most of the journey with
his head down and his hands over his ears trying to block out what he
could. Harley drove in silence and Maia fidgeted in her seat
uncomfortably until she finally couldn't hold her questions in
anymore.
"Mr. Walker."
"Call me
Harley, Maia."
"But aren't
you the Walker?"
"I don't know.
"
"But how can
you not know? You're supposed to save us from this stuff."
"I still don't
understand any of this. Marion's getting dragged off to fractured
version of Narnia, but stuff is still happening in this world like
we're in the Matrix and it's glitching."
"I've seen the
Narnia movies. But what's the Matrix?"
"Never mind, I
don't want to give fate ideas at this point. Fitzroy? How are you
doing?"
Fitzroy didn't look
up, "It hurts. I can't think, because it hurts."
"Okay, just hang in
there then. I won't bother you unless you need me. You hear me?"
Fitzroy nodded and Harley kept speaking, "Maia, I need you to
listen and then you need to help me understand. We are currently
running for our lives for magic secret agents much less amusing than
the ones on television, they have murdered your mother, seem to be
working for your father and have framed us for both the murder and
your kidnapping. In retrospect, I suppose we are kidnapping you- at
least legally. In any case, The big bad agent man has zapped Marion
and your brother. Marion is off further in la la land than normal, he
can't hear us even if he is conscious. And your brother is halfway
loopy. In other words, it's just us left navigating this insanity,
and I barely know anything. Marion had the visions. Marion met your
parents. Marion saw the agents way before I did. So, since you seem
to know more than I do, but I'm stuck being the adult here, I need
you to bring me up to speed as best you can so that I can keep us
alive and free. Agreed."
Maia looked at
Fitzroy and Marion and then nodded, "Okay. He said he had
to tell me a story and he said it was a true story and that I would
understand it when I heard it and I would feel it in my bones and
stuff and I really did and. I. I."
"let's keep
the sentences down to a reasonable length so you can breath. Don't
worry, I'm listening, and I am not going anywhere. I'm right here."
"Okay. We
talked to the Witchdoctor."
"And who is
the Witchdoctor? I keep hearing you mention him."
"He's in the
story and he said he's just like you only at a different point in the
story, and he told me the story and he said that the story is what
everything is about."
"I'm getting
lost Maia. I'm honestly not sure what I'm hearing. But I've heard
Marion talk about the idea that we're part of some story in a kind of
big mythology sense, so if this Witchdoctor fellow told you 'the
story', you should probably start there."
"Okay. He said
stories were magic, and they were spells. And every story started
with an incantation or something else. Like 'Once upon a time' and
stuff like that. he said his stories were older and newer than 'once
upon a time' stories and that his stories started with 'Long ago in
the future', and they did that because stories were timeless, and
they were wheels or circles and stuff like that."
"You're losing
me again Maia. Just tell me the story, and I'll listen."
"Okay. Long
ago in the future, time was a wheel that turned. No end and no
beginning. Then the rebel child broken the wheel and flattened it
into a line."
"He flattened
the wheel into a line? What does that mean?"
"The
witchdoctor didn't say."
"I'm sorry,
keep going, I'm listening."
"And he said
the line must last forever, just like the wheel had been forever. But
wheels are forever because they connect to themselves and roll. Lines
must end. And so the rebel child became the False King and maintained
the line by stealing from others to lengthen the line."
"Okay, that
sounds a lot like what Marion was talking about, keep going, this is
sounding similar."
"But the more
he stole, the less remained and it seemed the line would end anyway.
And now everyone was part of his line, because he had stolen and
beaten and taken from everyone and made them part of his line. And so
if the line ended, everything ended. And then storyteller told the
Princess of the False King a secret, that the wheel could still last
forever, and she needed to make the line back into a wheel if
everyone was going to be okay. And so the Princess told the Prince
and they ran away with the Storyteller and travelled the Witch Road
to the Shadowlands and they found the story of the wheel and they
rebuilt the wheel and the story rolled forever."
"So, If I'm
hearing you and Marion correctly, then you're the Princess and
Fitzroy is the Prince and your Dad is the Fake King."
"The False
King."
"Right, and
we're the Storytellers. What I don't understand is that Marion was
told that your mom was the Storyteller, and you said that the
Witchdoctor is the Storyteller. How can they all be the storyteller
and Marion and me all still somehow be the storyteller?"
"I don't know.
The Witchdoctor didn't say. But when I saw the other places like the
Dreamer," She nodded towards Marion, "I saw my dad like a
monster onion, all layers and he was only one part of the onion and
it was like he was one layer. So maybe it's like that stuff kind of
maybe?"
"Well that
still leaves a lot I didn't hear answers for, like who the Bone Man
is or who the Witchdoctor is or what it means when people call Marion
and Me the Dreamer and the Walker, but it's something. So if I heard
correctly, the False King- your Dad- broken the story somehow to make
it do what he wants, but the story doesn't work that way and so
everything will fall apart if somebody- you apparently- doesn't fix
it. Did I hear you correctly?"
"I think so.
Do you know what we need to do? You're the Walker, you're the
storyteller."
"I don't know.
I hadn't heard any of this a week ago. This is all news to me. A week
ago, my life was normal except for my crazy best friend, but we've
known each other for so long that was part of my normal. This is not
part of my normal. Life is kind of like jazz music. There are
variations, everyone is kind of making it as they go along, but there
are rules. This is all new. Part of me wants to say that this has no
rules, but it does, and I can hear the patterns when they show up a
second time. I can hear the style and quirks and preferences. This is
still jazz, but it's a whole different set of rules. And unlike Jazz,
not knowing the rules could do more than ensure a bad performance. If
we don't figure out how to play this new music, it's going to kill
us, or worse."
"But the
Witchdoctor said you would know."
"He did, huh?
I guessed he forgot to tell us that."
"Then what do
we do?"
"Right now, we
run. And we pay attention, listen for every clue that people drop who
know more than us. I don't like this, but we have to trust the crazy,
because that's what all of this is going to sound like until we learn
how this jazz needs to be played."
"So you do
know what to do."
"No, I know
how to cope. I know how to survive. That's what I do. Other people
play. I endure."
"You mean,
people don't beat you?"
"I don't let
them beat me. The world try to beat you, every day. I don't let it.
Neither should you."
"You are the
Storyteller, aren't you?"
"I imagine I
have to be, don't I?"
Harley went back to
driving silently, and before too long he could tell Maia had fallen
asleep. Harley could here her breathing turn even and a quick look
into the rear view mirror confirmed what he had heard. Harley smiled
and continued to drive with his goblin load of passengers. Maia, for
her part, found herself standing in a deep expansive blackness. The
air felt impossibly cold and yet she didn't mind the cold. Spreading
out from her position was a vast spreading spider web, and Maia could
see vibration running along the strands of the web. And in the
darkness, a voice spoke to her.
"Little mother
has arrived. I greet you little mother. You are not all here yet. And
so I suspect that this is just an introduction and not your
initiation into this new cycle. It have been a long time since I have
been free to weave my web in the circles we once drew. It has been a
long time since the great Serpent arced across the sky to celebrate
the rain and danced with your hero. It has been too long since the
Storytellers coaxed the embers to life and told the story so that the
Phoenix might resurrect itself from the telling. We have waited for
you, little mother. We have missed you."
"Who are you?
This stuff is scary and big and I don't understand any of it."
Maia said to the voice in the darkness.
"I am the
weaver, the keeper of tales. As the Storytellers tells the tales
through their connection with the firebird, so too does the First
Mother use the stories to connect the people to the earth through her
understanding of my webs. This is what was written in The Infinity
Network and the Midnight Archives, this is what will be written. Long
Ago in the Future Mystery was. The Song began with the Birth Cries of
this universe and the heat and expansion that are the hallmarks of
birth. This was the Primal Time. The Song began to sing of lights in
the darkness and the Void was lit by the first fires of the first
stars. And so Fire and Void became companions. This was the Star
Time. Next the Stars began to age and die and the Song began to sing
of twilight and end times. This was the Elder Time. And then the
Stars went out and the greatest of the voids, black holes in the
night were all that remained. And the song began to sing of exits to
other places and hope for escape. This was the Void Time. And then
all went quiet and the Song rested and the song sang the only thing
left to sing, silence. This was the Quiet Time."
"Okay, this is
crazy and stuff and I'm not a mother. I'm just a kid who's got no
mom, and I don't understand this."
"You are not a
child. You are older than the road you travel upon, and older than
the city you have fled. And although you have lost a mother today,
you are a mother to all."
"I don't
understand any of that stuff. How can you be telling the truth?"
"None of this
is fact. All of this is true. This is story and story is the archive
of all knowledge, the network upon which we interact with the world,
the book from which we read our part. But I will make an offer of my
good faith. I am the weaver of stories and of webs, and there is a
web stretched across the path you travel, waiting to snare you. it is
not one of my webs, and you would do well to avoid this trap. Now
wake."
Maia snapped awake
and startled Harley as she blurted out her warning, " It's a
trap! I had a dream about a giant space spider, and he said there's a
trap on the road or something."
Harley nearly drove
the Goblin off the road as they came over a gentle crest and as the
van stood on the high ground the landscape of rolling grassy hills
spread out in all directions in ochre and brown and gold. He peered
out at the road meandering into the distance. A flash of white light,
like the flash of a camera caught Harley's attention and his
expression changed as he strained to look down the highway.
"That looks
like a road block. I course it does. I can practically hear the
sirens. Now what? Take a random dirt road and hope for the best
doesn't sound like a good option. I don't want to head deep into some
rural backwater."
"Yes,"
Fitzroy's voice rose weakly from the back seat, "There's a
little turn off on the right coming up right now. The cattle guard
and the open gate, take it. Now!"
Harley saw the
cattle guard just in time to hit the brakes and swerve across the
rattling grate into a farmer's field of some sort on a dirt road that
was probably used to deliver food to various pastures.
"Okay Fitzroy,
I've just charged off road. How did you know that was there? And do
you know where we should go next?"
"Yes, and Yes.
Because I can see the Witch Road. It hurts, because both worlds are
overlapping. But because they're overlapping, I can see the Witch
Road. I can get us to the Witchdoctor."
