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♫ Gazing Into the Crystal Skull ♫
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…I enter the corridor, just as I learned to do from the Spirit Masters as a young child, and descend into my “temple of fleeting images.” At first I hesitate—for weren’t the Spirit Masters the very ones who descended too deep into their inner temples, and with their hubris conjured up the demise of us all? But the imminent drowning and the unbearable pain in my shattered leg drive me to this place where everything is still and motionless.
My “temple,” however, is—an island.
No one was allowed to know about it, since invoking the image of an island in the mind’s eye instead of a temple building contradicts the spiritual law as it is taught to us. Yet, as much as I tried to fight this island, it simply wouldn’t disappear. I didn’t even tell my closest friends about it, so I am profoundly shocked when I see a group of strangers standing there on my little island. An old man, the left side of his face completely scarred, approaches me. Behind him stand eleven men and women.
“I am Ktephaim,” the old man says. What are these people doing in my mind? Or have they come to collect me and lead me to the realm of the dead?
“We are… Wanderers. And we would like to offer you the chance to become one of us.” I want to know what all of this means first, but he motions for me to be silent. “You can save yourself.” With that, he hands me a polished crystal in the shape of a human skull.
I know what I have to do. The other eleven standing behind Ktephaim watch me silently. One of the women smiles encouragingly. I look into the eyes of the crystal skull.
“Concentrate,” the old man says. “You have practiced for this a long time. Now is the moment.”
All at once, I am back in my body. Icy cold water surges around me, and I feel a burning throb in my shattered leg. I take one last breath before the sea swallows me whole. And I concentrate.
My homeland sinks back into the magma. When the sun breaks through the black clouds for the first time again, nothing will be left of it. A new humanity will rise from the mud, a new historiography will unfold, new ancient wars will ignite, and old new inventions and experiences will stir the human soul.
But these are things I will only learn later. Because I survive. With a final breath, using the crystal skull and an unknown will to live within me, I transport myself to another place, another time.
A cushion of moss, massive roots, a clearing.
Slowly, I come to. Enra’daí, the woman from the group of Wanderers who had smiled at me, sits beside me, examining my leg. “Where am I?” I ask her, but Enra’daí corrects me: “Better ask when you are. You are one of us now.”
She explains to me that there are twelve of us, and that we possess the ability to jump to the flipside of time, wandering from there to wherever we are needed. Some of the Wanderers manage to do this five, six, or even ten times. Then the power runs dry. A new Wanderer must be found to fill the gap. “And you are probably the youngest there has ever been,” she adds.
Over the next few days, she heals my leg with herbal poultices and roasts her wild game for us over a fire. I don’t know what is happening to me. Her movements, her touch, her quiet voice: all of it intoxicates me, bringing joy to my innermost self, touching my heart, and awakening entirely unfamiliar feelings—feelings that promise sweetness and pain, which I shamefully hide from her. She nurses me lovingly, but clearly with the care of a mother for her son. How I long to prove to her that I am already a man. I could fell trees and build a hut for us, I would learn to hunt and slay wild beasts for her—but my leg does not yet allow for any of it; I must rest it.
Leaping to the flipside of time saved my life. I doubt our Spirit Masters knew of this ability. Enra’daí hesitates when I ask her what becomes of a Wanderer who loses the strength to jump. Her voice sounds fragile: “They remain where the new Wanderer was taken from.” I want to ask her if Ktephaim was transferred to the Hall of Crystals in my place, but Enra’daí grimaces painfully and turns her gaze away. That makes me falter, and I leave the question unasked.
“I must move on,” she says finally, looking a little sad. “We Wanderers are loners.”
I want to protest, begging her to stay, claiming my leg hurts again. But Enra’daí cannot be swayed. To say goodbye, she only touches my arm briefly and then quickly looks away. I want to call out after her that I love her, but she has already vanished between the massive trunks of the trees. Tears well up, and I begin to weep bitterly.
It is a goodbye…
All the dead—an entire people! My friends! My mother! My little sister! Not until dawn breaks do my tears dry up, and I fall into a restless sleep.
…and a new beginning.