Capítulo 38: CHAPTER 38 - CACTUS LEMUR GARDEN ASTEROID

By this time Swordcarrier Alexa had experienced the transformation of her patron, being a cultess of he that was now Eleven-Twelfths Month. Alexa lived in the portion atop the anechoic plateau, and was an avid collector of historical items, her home being a cabinet of curiosities. Every two weeks she would return to meet up and socialize. As Alexa searched through the sublime landscape, she came upon ETM as he was walking along a beach of glass sand, moving about for an amenable place to regard the artificial fabric of that space. The delightful vitality of the waters tended to the sweltering ego of the collective dream, giving them pause. Indeed, an entire landscape had been overtaken by the beach overnight without the initiation of any agency within the cult. After a brief inspection of the variance, the woman took out of her satchel her newest acquisition, "Take a look at this will you, these chalices have been dated but the measurements put it even past the eighth age, and it's still in working condition". Handing him both the chalices, the patron felt the weight of their age. "Alexa, these must be from the seventh age, how did you get these?" he asked. "Well, I bought them at a yard sale off Pausica street in Grass-Loaf quarter a few years back, and I've taken them to one specialist after another, but with no luck" she said, placing the chalices back into her satchel. Telepathically Dreamer reached out to ETM and relayed to him that the chalices were those same vessels that Veles drank from and which the divine couple shared, sending the water through to Echo who cried, forming the sacred pond of Castle Rieuvi from which Leffel was manifested as the personification of a circular ripple. At his prompting Alexa retrieved the chalices again and the patron melted and formed them into a robe for himself. "You are full of surprises, Alexa. These were the very chalices from which my mother Veles brought me into this world. Today is certainly a day to talk of old times. Tell me, what else do you have hidden away? I'm beginning to think that we don't spend enough time …" the patron began when a wave from the beach ambushed the historian and dragged her in. Instructing the waters to release her became futile, as all trace of the woman had disappeared. ETM ran into the water waist deep, searching for oceanic currents of the sublime landscape that could have possibly transported the historian, but to no avail. In a distant region of the Zino sector Alexa found herself drifting through space. For some uncertain reason the water that had drenched her face had granted protection from the airlessness and cold. An immense asteroid lumbered past, and Alexa landed on its rocky surface. Searching for shelter the woman found a tunnel and came upon a cavern below with a forest of towering cacti as one would find in a lifegiving desert. Slowly, deliberately Alexa walked through the forest evading the spines that were feet in length. Craning her head to the heights of the garden she could see families of lemurs dancing with precision from one cactus to another. Farther into the heart of the garden there was greater diversity, from succulents to cultivars of various colors and shapes. She passed from a patch with rotten and half rotten cactus fruit lining the ground to another where broken succulents bled aloe down onto her from the heights. "The spaces between the cactus are getting much larger" the woman noted, as a giant lemur landed directly in front of her, hindering the path for a moment before rebounding up into the canopy again. The cacti in the heart of the garden were of much greater circumference, and their spines could actually be climbed quite easily. Families of giant lemurs stared down at Alexa with their yellow eyes, their tails hanging down like pendulums. "That is clearly the center" Alexa thought as she stared at the large green dome that was to her conception a building. A doorway ringed with desert flowers beckoned her within. "In this chamber there are thorns that point inward as well" she noticed, and walked towards the center of the dome. Resting in the body of the woman was the mirror sword used to strike down Githin during the battle of Rot. It arose from her body and reformed, then stretched and became a circular mirror that levitated in front. Curious, she joined hands with her reflection on the smooth surface. Then it was as if her point of view was channeled across a distance, a swift journey between walls of mirror. Insubstantial, her vision moved like a breeze through the maze. The walls were tall and cast no reflection of her presence. When it returned, Alexa noticed that she was looking simultaneously through four eyes, that of her own person and that of her reflection, each out at the other through the barrier. Blindness came, and then the assault of happiness as it rushed back into the chambers of her body, a seltzer heaving with the return of youthful emotion. Then there was darkness as the inner realm within her was reborn. Alexa opened her eyes from her original perspective and the barrier turned into a mirror sword yet again that vanished into her inner realm. Around the dome of the cactus chamber the thorns that lined the interior became mirror thorns that detached, transforming into new mirror swords which pointed towards her. The multitude of mirror swords shot towards her all at once, and at the moment that they were to pierce her they entered her inner realm. The thorns continued to grow, and they continued to transform into swords and fly towards her, entering her in a continuous stream. After five minutes the barrage ended, and the dome of the chamber rotted away, the buzzing of flies became swirls of motion as the time lapse chewed away at the cactus. In lieu of the garden, the landscape was instead replaced by the walls of the mirror maze. Above, wreathed in indescribable potent eccentricity where Four Eyes from which issued the shifting spatial landscape of the world of the mirror maze. The two sets of Eyes stared at one another. Alexa looked up and each set of Eyes combined into one eye. With vague understanding of what the object in question was, the woman only observed as one observes a strange happening in nature. The two Eyes of Linden Dream combined and became one Eye, and the two Eyes of Melina Dreamer combined and became one Eye. Fainting, the neophyte fell to sleep and came to lay upon a warm bed of sand. "What manner of desert is this? '' thought Alexa, thinking that the asteroid of the cactus garden may have returned to whatever delirium it had been conjured from. Scrambling to her feet, the castaway made tracks across the sands. Before her a green cactus sprang from the ground, and atop it grew a cactus flower. As the cactus flower emerged a gray bearded man sitting upon it was revealed. The man spoke to her saying, "That which you gave is now part of the seed of the Jellyfish Flower". "What does that mean?" replied the woman. The man looked down at her with his aged eyes, and shifted its position within the chair of the flower, "The Honfot-Gid that was your own, that you donated to the moon". Alexa was left speechless. She had known like everyone else that the moon had become the seed of the Jellyfish Flower, but she had never once considered her contribution, the organ transplant that was given to Leffel, and had returned in time to thinking only of simpler matters. Alexa now was filled with questions, and began accumulating them in her head. As she did the cactus grew high and the gray-bearded man atop it vanished from her sight from the level it had reached. Yearning for answers, the woman climbed atop the thorns of the cactus, like climbing a tree, to the top of the cactus. When she arrived at the top the man was gone, leaving only the wide and conspicuous petals. But suddenly she tumbled on through the flowerhead, onto another patch of desert, where she found herself walking along, dizzy for a while. The currents of the wind would at times disclose the night sky that lay underneath the soft terrain. Strange that she could feel her own footprints, even when her feet were far apart from the depressions. Inquisitive, she circled around an odd silvery cactus to examine it. Dut … dut … dut. The woman felt a tap on her back. "My name is Chaz Waterpasture" said a normal green cactus standing in a brown flower pot. From its body extended two long vegetative extensions with flower buds like arms at the tips. "Did you tap my back just now?" Alexa asked. "Yes, I just needed to get your attention for a moment, it's good to meet you then" the succulent mentioned. "Can you tell me what this place is, and what is going on?" the woman pleaded. Chaz waved his arms defensively and said, "Seems normal to me. You're not from around here, are you? Jump onto the edge of my pot and I'll show you around". Plopping her behind onto the rim, it glided across the sands that at the corners of her eyes proceeded like free-flowing liquid. Several of the other cactus lifted up and became ovals and then mirror droplets that vanished into the sky. The tearing of roots disturbed the soil. "That's something special to you, isn't it?" Chaz kidded as they watched one of the droplets disappear. "Can I shake your hand" Chaz asked, and Alexa took one of the bud hands into her own and shook it. The bud-hand bloomed into a cactus flower. She took the other bud-hand and shook it as well, and it flowered as well. "Let's go this way" Chaz suggested, and she jumped onto his pot once again until they came upon a charismatic mirror cactus deep in the desert. When she jumped down onto the ground again and approached it, the plant opened and unfurled its skin, revealing the red flesh of a prickly pear within. "I think this is where we part ways," Alexa said, and bid farewell to Chaz as she walked forward, and entered the flesh of the prickly pear fruit, and the flesh of the cactus retracted until the plant was whole again. Swordcarrier was back at the location where the Dome had been before the rotting in the heart of the garden, and evolved into War Alexa. "My flesh is cactus fruit" she thought. Upon her body formed a green metallic armor. Both hands became heavy as a mirror sword appeared in each. In truth, she could now summon at will mirror swords from her sword carrying inner realm. With both she ventured back into the thicket and came upon a red-eyed giant lemur. "Don't be shy" Alexa said, and returned the swords back into her inner realm, and stretched out her hand to rub the brown and white fur of its forehead. After befriending it, she rode upon its back as it leapt through the canopy and it took her back to its home in a hollow chamber where a family dined, and she joined them in their feast. When her belly was full Alexa left the asteroid, and returned through the void back towards the SOTA. Without the prominent occupant, the asteroid continued on its lonely journey through space, its ice-trail like a mark of chalk across a blackboard. In the world of the mirror maze a woman in a tan janitor's uniform whistled as she mopped a spot on the floor, where there was a puddle of cactus fruit juice.