Oracle--Mutant Wood Read online

  “Not bad, lover boy!” a familiar voice cried out from behind. Ret spun around.

  “Neo?!” Ret asked in amazement, seeing the Guardian sitting nearby on a wooden bench in the shade. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same question,” Neo smiled. “I take it you still haven’t found a way out of this place?”

  “Actually, I did find a way,” Ret explained, stepping towards him. Despite the frustration of their initial meeting, Ret’s attitude was now one of submissiveness, having since realized the Guardian had probably been right all along.

  “So you left and came back?” Neo tried to understand.

  “No, I never left,” Ret informed him, employing the kind of humility when you have to eat your own words.

  “You mean you’ve been here all this time?” Neo said with shock.

  “Yes, sir,” Ret responded somberly.

  “Now why’d you do a thing like that, I wonder?” Neo asked, as if pleased.

  “I don’t really know why, exactly,” Ret described, sitting next to the Guardian on the bench. “After I spoke with you the first time, I met this really nice person who brought me here.”

  “The gal who just blew you a kiss?” Neo poked.

  Ret laughed, “Yes, her.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “And, well,” Ret thought, “while I’ve been here, I’ve learned some things.”

  “Oh?” Neo inserted. “Like what?”

  “For starters, I never realized how judgmental I was of others until I came here,” Ret reflected with a bit of shame. “I always thought I would ‘cure the world’ by curing its people—fixing them and changing them until they fit some kind of mold. But really, I was the one who needed to change—change my approach. I needed to stop judging people and start loving them. It’s love that will ‘cure the world.’ So I guess that’s what I’ve learned here: how to love.”

  “And how, would you say, does one love?” Neo asked, helping Ret to draw some conclusions.

  “I’m still not sure,” Ret confessed with a heavy sigh.

  “Compare it to something,” Neo suggested encouragingly.

  “Okay, well…” Ret supposed. “I guess…I guess it’s kind of like…like…”—then it came to him—“going for a scenic drive.” A curious expression came over Neo’s face. “You know, in a car.” Ret wondered if Neo knew what a car was. “You do know what a car—”

  “Yes, yes,” Neo whispered, humored. This came as a surprise to Ret considering the Guardian had never left the site of his element, or so he assumed. “Carry on.”

  “So as I’m riding along,” Ret continued, “the window begins to collect all sorts of dust and dirt, bug splatters and raindrops—maybe even gets a nick in it. In the past, these were the objects of my focus. I stayed fixated on trivial flaws because that was all my short-sighted perspective allowed me to see, and I wasn’t going to change until the flaws were gone—a frustratingly miserable way to live since the flaws are on the other side of the window, completely out of my control. But then I came here and realized I had been missing the whole purpose of the drive. I was reminded that there was something better beyond the blemishes: the sky, the scenery, even the road. And so, like a camera lens narrowing its aperture, I was taught how to adjust my perception from the here-and-now to the big picture—how to see through the flaws. Of course, the imperfections are still present, but I’m no longer looking at them; I’m looking past them.”

  “I see,” Neo said.

  “So I guess that’s how one loves, sir,” Ret answered the Guardian’s question, based on his own experience. “He learns to look past the problems and, instead, at the person. He does not present his love as something that must be earned or that is awarded only if certain conditions are met. No, truly unconditional love comes without caveat or qualifier. It just exists—freely given, always available, no matter what. And that is the true test in life: to see if we will love our fellow man, regardless of who they are, how they look, or what they do. Like the trilithon, all other laws hang on the law of love.”

  “Well said, Ret,” Neo remarked, a broad smile forming on his grandfatherly face.

  “That reminds me,” Ret remembered, “how do you know my name?”

  “I know a great deal about you,” Neo replied. “I’ve been following you for a long time.”

  “What?” Ret asked. “How?”

  “You know that trilithon that Nika showed you?” Neo said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I built that,” Neo explained. “Within it is a portal—a doorway to another time and setting. It has allowed me to travel extensively and,” with a sly grin, “keep tabs on you. It is linked to several other similar structures that I have stationed in various parts of the world over the years—places like the Keep and Waters Deep.” Ret’s eyes widened. “The trilithon that Nika showed you actually belongs to Stonehenge, but I kept it here after Lye discovered it.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Ret held up his hand, his mind suddenly overflowing with questions. He wasn’t sure where to begin. “First of all, what do you mean ‘travel extensively’? I thought each Guardian had to stay and ‘guard’ his element?”

  “In many ways, it is the great tree that is the guardian of the wood element,” Neo pointed out. “After your First Father scattered the elements, the wood element concealed itself within the complex root structure of the vast forest that lies above us at ground level—the largest forest on earth. After I found the element, I planted a single tree above it using a seed that the First Father gave me when he called me to be a Guardian. I expedited and controlled the tree’s growth to make sure its roots grew around the element and then, as the roots expanded, completely enclosed the element, encapsulating it in a sort of air bubble within the roots. As a result of basically grafting the element into the tree, the element has transferred some of its power to the tree, making it indestructible. The tree cannot die, its root system is ever expanding, and its wood is impenetrable—as long as the element resides within it. So really, it is the tree that guards the element, which has permitted me to come and go as I please.”

  “So where exactly is the element?” Ret asked, well aware he would need to know that eventually.

  “Somewhere in the great tree’s root bulb,” Neo loosely replied.

  “Are you sure?” Ret interrogated.

  “Pretty sure,” Neo nodded.

  “When was the last time you saw it?” Ret pressed, worried by the Guardian’s uncertainty.

  “Oh, it was centuries ago,” Neo answered. “I wanted to make sure it was still within the root. It was easier then because, with each passing day, the root system grows larger and more complex, making it increasingly difficult to access the element chamber. But I did find it.”

  “Wonderful,” Ret mumbled sarcastically.

  “Don’t worry too much, Ret,” Neo reassured him. “The element wants to be collected. It wants to return to where it belongs inside the Oracle. This desire has been adopted by the tree, which is how it knows you are one with scars. You can expect it to help you when the time comes.”

  “Okay…” Ret said, not entirely convinced. He moved down his long list of questions: “So you’ve been to the Keep?”

  “Oh yes,” Neo returned. “I created the Keep.”

  “You did?!” Ret said incredulously.

  “Son, I’ve been around a long, long time,” Neo explained. “Early on, I needed a place where I could ‘keep’ a record of my doings—places I’d been, people I’d met, things I’d observed. That’s what the Keep started out as: my personal filing cabinet, each room a drawer. The entire compound functions on the idea of time, including the elevator, which I designed. The facility itself is somewhat of a time machine, capable of bringing some semblance of the past to the present.”

  “But how did Lye take over the Keep?” Ret asked.

  “Lye has forever been in relentless pursuit of the elements and their Guardians,” Neo said. “
He has eyes almost everywhere. It didn’t take him long to learn I could leave my element. He would follow me—chase me, lay traps for me, hunt me down. I don’t know how he learned about the Keep, but one day he took me by surprise and ambushed it. I had no choice but to flee. While under his control, Lye continued to use the Keep as an archival system, though for wicked purposes.”

  “Then you must be glad the Keep is no longer in Lye’s control,” Ret surmised.

  “Very glad,” Neo replied. “Lye may have found out about the Keep, but he has never detected some of my other secrets there, including the portal hidden in the cloven tree in the backyard bog, which has allowed me to visit there frequently. As soon as I learned the Stones had abandoned the property, I seized it and kept it from falling back into Lye’s hands. I’m happy to see Mr. Coy has relocated there.”

  “I’d invite you to come and live with us at the Keep,” Ret put forth, “but I know you will die once I collect the wood element.”

  “That may have been the case with other Guardians,” Neo countered, “but I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. I used to be able to stay away from my element for long periods of time without needing to return to it for rejuvenation. But as I began to grow old, my absences were cut shorter and shorter. Rather than give up traveling and stay confined down here, I set out to learn what I needed to do in order to extend my episodes away from the element. During these episodes, I had to rely on my physical body’s health instead of the wood element’s power in order to stay spry. Because it was an issue of time—lifetime—I wielded the element’s influence and figured out how to live as healthy a life as possible so as to prolong my time and survive my trips abroad. After a few centuries, however, time eventually began to catch up with me. That was when I started wondering how Lye was staying alive. I tracked him down and discovered the island of Waters Deep, where I learned the secret to Lye’s longevity and then made it my own.”

  “Which is…?” Ret asked in earnest.

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, now would it?” Neo joked.

  “Oh, fine,” Ret rolled his eyes.

  Neo chuckled. “Besides me, there has only been one other person who has figured out Lye’s secret. That person was Helen Coy.” Stunned, Ret made a mental connection, earning him an affirmative nod from Neo. Then Neo reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flask, whispering, “Lye doesn’t know that I know.” He shook the flask. “Hmm, getting a bit low. Looks like I’ll be making a visit to the Deep very soon for a refill.”

  “Is there a portal at the Deep?” Ret questioned.

  “There is,” Neo answered, still proud to have installed one right under Lye’s nose. “It is disguised as an archway of rocks. As far as I know, Lye is unaware of it. In fact, I don’t think he is aware of any of the portals. Well, except for the trilithon that Nika showed you.”

  “How did Lye find out about the trilithon?” Ret asked.

  “To answer that, I need to tell you how the trilithon came to be,” said Neo. “It was no easy task to find where my element had hidden itself. I first had to learn about time, which is a complex concept. Everything in this world is subject to time, and because the wood element grants some ability to manipulate time, it means everything, in limited ways, can become subject to you and to me by virtue of time. This was key to finding the element. You see, time has its own dimension, which is all around us but cannot be seen by the natural eye. The past belongs to this dimension; it is where time goes after it has been spent—like the scenes on a film reel that have already been viewed: they still exist but have gone somewhere else. The wood element allows one to see into this dimension—to unwind the reel and review past scenes, so to speak.”

  Just then, Neo waved his hand, transforming the world into a sort of television screen. He began to slowly review the last few minutes that had just transpired. As if watching a recording that someone had filmed, Ret saw himself (in the past) get up from Neo’s bench and walk backwards to the center of the town square. Then Nika reappeared, blowing the kiss and returning to Ret’s side. Meanwhile, Ret and Neo (in the present) stood still, independent of the footage that was being replayed.

  “How did you do that?” Ret marveled as Neo forsook his hold on the past and resumed the present.

  “The dimension of time is related to the principles of energy,” Neo explained. “I ran into Rado years ago, and he helped me to understand this idea.” Ret recognized the name of the Guardian of the Wind Element. “Waves would not exist without the energy that they carry. Similarly, we cannot exist without time in which to do so. Wherever there is something happening, time will always be there not only allowing it to happen but also recording it. Think of the events of a day as bits and bytes of data—intangible like energy but still just as real. These are the data that occupy the dimension of time. To use an analogy, as the movie of life plays out, it is continuously being recorded onto the DVD of time, and the wood element is the remote control that permits you and me to go back and sift through the scenes.”

  “I might add,” Neo continued, “that the movie of life is not a single disc—oh no. Every setting on earth—every classroom, every ballpark, every grocery store aisle—has its own ‘disc,’ constantly recording the footage that takes place within it. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Neo snapped his fingers, overlaying the world around them with the crisscrossing lines of a grid. Ret watched Neo touch one of the squares—discs or “tiles,” as he called them—in front of them, as if it were a screen. When he swiped to the left, an unbroken stream of video played out, replaying the past, as if a camera had always been positioned there. Ret saw what had taken place in that particular spot all day—from that moment to first light that morning, through the night, then the comings and goings of the various villagers who happened to pass by the day before. The faster Neo swiped, the faster the past rolled by.

  “It’s a lot more efficient to review multiple tiles at the same time,” Neo said. With his finger, he outlined a large rectangle from his head down to his toes, three tiles wide and seven tall. Now when he swiped, all twenty-one tiles in the rectangle replayed at the same time, providing a much bigger picture. “Tiles can even be moved from their original spot,” Neo pointed out, “but their original settings still remain, meaning they continue to record the activities of their first location even when they reside somewhere totally different.” He placed his hand on the large rectangle and moved it an arm’s length to the right, like how moving an icon on the desktop of a computer screen does not affect the program to which it is linked. Then he moved the tiles back, having never let go. “This is what makes portals possible.”

  Ret was in awe. As he sat there marveling, a townsman walked across the town square, from right to left. It transpired just like normal, but Ret saw it as if he was wearing eyeglasses with grid-patterned lenses, watching the man move from block to block. He touched the tile in front of him and replayed it to review what he had just seen: the man moved backwards from left to right across the tile. Then Ret touched the tile to the right and replayed it, picking up where the man had left off in his reverse walk from left to right.

  “Keep in mind,” Neo advised, “if you choose to visit the past, you do so as your present self. You can only observe your past self; you do not become it. This is important to understand. Many people, if given the chance, would go back in time and change their past, but this is against the laws of the universe. You cannot change the past. What’s done is done.” Neo snapped his fingers again, and the grid disappeared, ending their glimpse into the dimension of time. “But,” Neo said with distinction, “you can learn from the past. That was how I learned the location of my element: by sifting through countless scenes of the past.” Neo let silence prevail for a few moments, as if he had just given Ret an important piece of advice.

  Neo resumed, “After securing the element within the tree, the tree began to take on a life of its own. Its roots stretched deep into the earth until they reac
hed the air pocket that is this land. This presented a problem for me: the element was now out of range, in a faraway land that was impossible to get to.”

  “Except for me,” Ret interjected.

  “And me,” Neo grinned. “It required intense searching of the dimension of time, but I eventually found the tiles that pertained to this land—a land lost in time. For ease of access, I bonded some of the tiles together in a rectangle like I showed you earlier, and moved them to an obscure spot where I could always find them: I chose an isolated plain out in the English countryside. Of course, tiles cannot be moved to a place where tiles already exist, so I had to switch the two sets: I removed tiles from England, placed this land’s tiles there instead, and then filled the gap in this land with the tiles that I had removed from England. In short, I made a portal—two separate gateways, linked to each other, both in a place where they technically do not belong, capable of transporting things in real-time at the speed of light. In order to remember where I had put the English tiles, I placed them inside an existing stone arch, which at the time was on the other side of this valley where the trilithon now sits. I didn’t have any stone arches to work with in the English countryside, however, so I built my own marker, consisting of two pillars with a lintel across the top. And with that, the trilithon was born.”

  “For a long time, this was how I traveled from the aboveground world to this one—trilithon to arch, and vice versa. Life was good. But then somehow Lye found out about my secret way of traveling. He did not yet know where the wood element was located but figured he would find out sooner or later if he followed me around enough. I feared the stand-alone trilithon was too obvious. I needed to disguise it somehow. I added five fake trilithons around the real one, then enclosed that inner circle with an outer circle—all patterned after the truths that I learned about how to optimize one’s health and maximize one’s time in life. Over time, I added other fake trilithons all over the English countryside to cause Lye further confusion.”