75.

The city of snow leopards welcomed them,
its huge door grinning wide as they were
robbed at the gates by friendly guards
who were quick to recognize foreigners

and suggest that there might be a way
to skip ahead of the queue. Marco’s
small jewels were taken, and so their
weapons, as well as their good humour.

76.

At night, thanks to the charity of a
clear sky, they found refuge in a moon
illuminated cemetery. Setting their
fears aside, they slept on hard stone.

Twice robbed, they lost clarity at dawn,
once finding out that all that they had owned
had been taken from them while they rested.
Looking at the mountains, they stood alone.

77.

As they felt a great sadness, they were
approached by a street beggar. Her eyes
were sharp with lunacy, a mirror where
one might find measure to one’s misery.

She spoke with guttural tones, a series of
half-digested words, in a strange idiom.
Even if they could not always tell if she
was talking to them, they froze gorgonized.

40.

A dream never starts – just clicks on – being
in medias res. Dream-eater first saw a wall,
a mouldy grey barrier which was below ground.
A sense came upon her that all would die out soon.

Great excitement, a feeling of fear and hope.
An awareness that the world was reaching
an end, and yet infused with a sense of camaraderie,
she was not alone in the underground maze.

41.

‘Twas a narrow maze, or a sewer, nay an aqueduct.
Not sure, but clearly under a great city. How would
she know, never having seen a city in her life!
It was very much real, with crystalline clarity.

The room she was in (or they were in: friends,
companions still unknown to her, except for
being some people she loved deeply) the room
was very small, and breathing was difficult.

42.

The narrow passages of this underground lair
were endlessly going on; then occasionally
a large room with a water tank would appear,
a passage would rise up from the ceiling

shooting up into the above ground space,
she guessed that only a very small person
would be able to climb up and down. Pain,
she felt, trapped in a deadly world below.

43.

And yet she was not alone, and as they wandered
through the underground city in the great blind
she felt more alive then than many a day on the
endless steppe, the horizon forever expanding

to the Altai mountains, forever moving further
apart, escaping her freedom. For an instant she
thought she saw her father; she noticed a mark
on the wall, a double-axe, and then the dark.

44.

A large breathing creature, an entirely oily
mass of grease was blocking the passage. She
panicked, her companions felt a needle touch,
and from the corner of her eye she could see

some ungodly liquid seeping from this large
blob of rot, a grim fat-berg growing below,
a menace to the city, some karmic remnant of
human hubris: a living thing, most horrible.

16.

Upon his return to the Castle, the pilgrim
became melancholic, and then addicted
to the drink, and then overwhelmed by
family duties. Clearly he found life quite

unbearable. But wait, more about him later.
Now imagine skipping over the ocean across
many miles to a far-away land, to a steppe.
But first dip in waters in front of the Castle.

17.

Right now, back then, a whole armada is
blockading the harbour. That’s the people
following Memetis, here from across the sea.
Friendly neighbours holding siege to the Castle.

That’s one of the armies assembled here
(there). The fleet belongs to the Sultan of
Beştepe, a commander and a hungry ghost.
Definitions of the latter abound, but let us

18.

settle for “a person with control issues”.
Anyway, the Castle is now surrounded,
the trenches are filthy and deep, and the
horses are unstable (no pun intended).

It has been more than twenty years.
A poet called it “Troy’s rival”, as in
equally fantastical fiction. So that’s
at least double the trouble now, surely.

19.

So leap in the ocean in front of Castle,
dodge the ships, past the sunshine,
skip the clouds, beat the storms – reach
the coast, up above perhaps, toward Ilium

(another myth dear to unravished brides,
and school-children on the West side).
So now: that’s a tale of East and West,
as you rightly have guessed,  dear reader !

20.

So then, in the steppe, a very barren
land, full of dull muds and no hope,
where no thing grows, close to a large
and shallow salt-lake, not close enough!

A traveller, a business-man has lost
his path. He was on his way to Xanadu,
or so he thought. Coming from a city
surrounded by water and lies, he knew

21.

well next to naught. He was so young,
so eager. Find worthy love, hoard riches,
please his never-pleased ma and pa,
and so he journeyed to the steppe.

He lost his way though he had followed
the stars. Suddenly, a prisoner to a great
warrior-princess in a very hot place.
Before all that, there was a lot of travel.

22.

Chiefly across endless heaps of mud,
and no grass. Nothing can be found in
the steppe of Kalmuks: not a living thing,
just miles and miles of unbroken clay.

So the prisoner captured by scouts
had time to reconsider his choices,
to beg for a little water, to ask politely
for an explanation. There came none.

10.

He cautiously went out in the rain.
The apple he had left as an offering
had been bitten. Surely, he assumed,
that must have been the evil spirit.

The purple light was glowing in a burn,
but the shadow, the flash in the window
had gone. He had been touched by God.
He went over what God must have meant.

11.

Surely, the light was a sign from above
meant to signal his induction in a world
of knowledge. Surely, he had come all
this way for a purpose. Surely, the spark

that brightly shone in his room was
witness to his hard journey, testimony
of his efforts, and reward for his literal
enlightenment. Surely, that was that.

12.

He stepped out in the open, fool that
he was, and felt the rain avoiding
his body. In the midst of a terrible
storm, he stood with arms outstretched

and claimed that not a single drop had
touched him. More proof, he thought, that
he had been chosen, that he had beaten
the test, and defeated the mocking shadow.

13.

The vision went on through the night,
and after the rain a great stillness
came over the monastery. The pilgrim
was standing motionless where the rain

had left his skin dry, yet looking over
the courtyard with great equanimity.
The moon was shining potently while all
the statues beneath seemed to breathe.

14.

Persistently he kept his addled mind
in a semi-medititative state, while
booming crickets raised several tones
in the air, and the puddle before him

gave reflections of the moon. The statues
were seemingly pointing at the puddle,
and the moon was knowingly bouncing off
stolen light. He felt robbed at heart.

15.

In the hallowed morning, upon rising
the pilgrim distinctly heard kind voices
of angels like children singing praise
in a foreign language. His next choice

had been set in stone. He would return
to the Castle, and work without rest
toward the purpose he had finally found.
He would now follow the inner instincts.

4.

In trying to understand the dream-symbols
of another person, we fill in the gaps with our
own interpretation, assuming our perceptions
to be comparable. Visions and ill-dreams are

gap-fillers in themselves. What is a dream, a vision?
A message from God, as the ancient Greeks intended?
A message from the unconscious? An electrical
phenomenon to be decoded by a quantum computer?

5.

Slowly, the pilgrim rose from the bed of wood,
he moved toward the door. From the other side
of the room, through the window overlooking
the swamp, there came a strong flash of light.

The light was blinding, and he felt confused.
Suddenly all the room lit up; a strange whirring
sound began to drone, like a machine had started.
A heavy undecipherable scent came and stayed.

6.

What the shadow on the wall wrote is subject
of much debate in his frayed mind. It so appeared
then to him, that the devil or a spirit took form
on the wall opposite to the window’s shining light.

The shadow was mocking him with an incredible
jig in a frenzy. As he looked on in amazement, he
saw the monster’s face distort in disgust. Then it
turned from running to a comedy of his artistry.

7.

At home in the Castle, the pilgrim was reknowned
for being a failed artist, and his folly had brought
him far abroad in mysterious lands to seek the light.
Now the spirit was mocking his efforts and talents.

It was all so very personal, as if in this cursed
night all the threads in his life had come together
in a knot, and the knot was being unravelled
before his eyes. His painting was exhausting.

8.

And the shadow on the wall was proving to
him the utter meaninglessness of his efforts,
and the purple light in the middle of the room
was shining all the brighter, and the sound

of mechanical humming was drilling in his ears,
and the scent of spice and moist dread was
filling his senses to the brim. Somewhere outside,
the damp skies hidden from view saw a lightning.

9.

Then a thunder broke the silence, a hard bell toll.
It was a wake-up call for the little foolish pilgrim
looking at the shadows in his monastery cell.
He believed he was being summoned by God.

He was being tested, or so he thought. All of his
life streamed in front of him, and he followed
the mocking dance of the black shadow on the
stained wall until a sharp rain burst his bubble.