The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong (25 page)

He turned around and faced his friends. He saw it in their eyes, saw in them what he could not see within himself. He saw the power and the strength and the grace of the lioness in each of them, reflected back at him. And through their reflection he could no longer deny it in himself. He welcomed her within him and she filled the void he left for her and he felt her strength arise in him. And suddenly he knew. Knew the purpose of his journey, knew where the feathers had lead him.

“Grey, my dear friend,” he thought to the wolf. “I want you to look over here. Tell me what you see.”

Joshua looked up and behind the sculpture of the lioness to her right. The ceiling showed deep green pastures intertwined with forests and aventurine threads of rivers. Grey looked at it for a while. And then he saw her. She stood on the edge of a creek drinking from it. Grey looked from her to Joshua as if he didn’t believe what he saw.

“Look,” Joshua thought to him. “Trust what you see.”

The wolf looked up again and when he did, she saw him. She looked down at him.

“You have found me,” her thoughts whispered. “You have found the ancient hunting grounds of our forefathers.”

“Yes,” Grey thought. “Yes I have.”

Grey looked at Joshua. He could see in the wolf’s eyes the gratitude he felt and, not far behind, the love that was between them.

“Go,” Joshua thought to him. “Go and be with her.”

Grey nodded ever so slightly. He looked from Wind to Krieg to Alda and the dragon and back to Joshua.

“Remember me,” the wolf thought.

“You will never be forgotten,” Joshua answered.

With that Grey laid down in front of him. Looking up onto the ceiling, he put his head down on the ground. His breathing began to slow down. And just before his eyes closed, the great gray wolf from the Ice Forest looked at Joshua one last time. And Joshua was sure he saw him smile. Then he left his earthly form and was gone. His body seemed small as it lay on the cold stone. It was but a remnant of a once great hunter, warrior, and friend. Joshua looked up at the ceiling. And he saw him. He saw as Grey charged full speed across the meadow, through underbrush and up a hill and toward the stream where she waited for him.

“Until we meet again,” the wolf thought to Joshua.

“Until we meet again,” Joshua thought back.

Then the wolf’s thoughts trailed off and Grey and his long lost companion together disappeared into the forest and into the ancient hunting grounds beyond.

* * *

Joshua felt a sting in his chest when his friend disappeared. But he could not help be content for him at the same time. This was not what he had thought the outcome would be. But then again, he hadn’t really known what to expect.

“He is at peace now,” Krieg thought to him. “A peace that had eluded him for a long time.”

“How about you, Krieg?” Joshua asked. He didn’t really know why he asked. “Are you at peace?”

“I think I am as close to it as I have ever been in my life,” he answered.

There was a moment of silence.

“You can go further,” Wind told him quietly. “Learning to fly was certainly not the end. Questioning your limitations was just the beginning. If you wish, I will show you how you can go further and then go further still.”

“I would very much like that,” Krieg answered. “But I know what you would like as well.”

“What’s that?” Wind asked.

“I want to accompany you to the place of your childhood and stand with you on the ground where you walked in ancient times.”

“And I shall meet you there,” Alda exclaimed.

“And I shall show you the way,” Dragon-Of-The-Stone added.

“That’s settled then,” Joshua added.

“What about you?” Wind asked. Her thoughts played in a breeze that lay on summer fields.

They all looked at him. “What will you do?” Wind asked again.

Joshua realized that he hadn’t thought of it. He had also completely forgotten all about the feathers.

“I’m not sure. But first things first,” he answered and flew up onto the stone pillar. When he landed, he was very surprised to see that there were only two feathers. He was certain in his dream he had seen three.

“There are only two. I don’t understand. Why are there only two feathers? Where is the third?” He must have looked very confused at that moment.

The dragon stepped forward slightly, lowering his head to Joshua’s level.

“They awaken usually either toward the end or at the beginning of each age. For on either of the two outermost points on the pendulum there is a searcher and one that will most likely swing it back in the other direction and toward the balance point. There have been two before you, Joshua. Two searchers. Two feathers. Two civilizations. The first came at the outset of one. He set things in motion. The second came at the end when the path became so clouded, so split up, divided and split up again that the right way was no longer easily distinguishable from the rest. She was the second searcher reversing the direction completely and by doing so ending what had been.”

“The sky people. Was she one of them?” Joshua had trouble following the dragon’s thoughts. The ideas were too vast for him to let them in completely.

“We do not know. I was very young when it happened and I have no recollection of what had occurred,” the dragon answered. “But I do know that you are the third. The searcher who stands at the dawn of a third civilization.”

Joshua was stunned. He had so many questions.

“How?” Was all he could ask.

“It is very simple, really. The dream is the beginning. Many have had it, Joshua. Few have answered it. But in the last thousand years you were the only one who came this far, who actually followed it through and all the way to the end.”

“But I didn’t do it myself,” Joshua thought. “I had… help.”

“Yes, you did and mighty it was. The companions the dreamer chooses says much about who he is. Think of the wolf and the war horse. Better friends no one can have.”

“Yes.” Joshua thought, looking at Krieg. “What about the lioness?”

“What about her?” The dragon answered.

“Who was she?”

All was quiet. Joshua saw his reflection in the green irises of the large dragon. Could it be? Was this even possible? No, probably not. But after he had thought it out, Joshua couldn’t help but realize the truth in what he had thought impossible at first.

“She was the second searcher.”

“In a way,” the dragon answered.

“The second searcher was a lioness?” Joshua asked.

“Yes and no. She spoke to you through her. That was the only way you could accept her help.”

Joshua thought about this for a moment.

“What happens now?” He asked.

“That is completely up to you. You decide where you wish to go from here,” the dragon answered.

“Can I meet her?” He asked.

“You have met her, Joshua. You have accepted her power and her strength within you. What else is there to meet?”

Joshua thought for a second that the wolf had spoken. The logic of it was so like him. He looked around the cave. He saw the sculpture of the lioness and from her he looked up at the ceiling. There was an opening right above where he stood on the stone pillar. The light was too bright and he couldn’t see where it was going.

“What’s up there?” He asked.

“Why don’t you find out,” the dragon answered. And with that, he stepped back again. Joshua looked at Wind and from her to Krieg and from him to Alda.

“Am I going to die?” He wasn’t really sure where this question came from.

For a moment all was quiet.

“You can’t,” Wind answered. “Not anymore.

“And what about my limitations?” He asked.

Wind smiled in her thoughts. “You left them behind when you flew out of the pen. And from then on you have gone far beyond them.”

Joshua looked at her, feeling her embrace and her warmth spilling out toward him and enveloping him completely. He felt the love he had felt when he first saw the feathers in his dream. Love for the Pegasus, Krieg, the turtle and the dragon. And for Grey who had not left his heart since he had gone to be with his companion. And he felt it for the vulture and the spiders and all the beasts of Hollow’s Gate and beyond it far up to the surface. He felt it for his hens and their chicks and even for the farmer. Hadn’t he given him the place from where he could begin his journey?

“I will never forget any of you,” he thought. “I wish everyone could experience, at least once in their lifetime, what it means to have friends like you.”

“The honor is all ours,” Krieg answered.

Joshua looked from one to the other, then up again toward the ceiling. For a moment he thought about what would come next. But as he didn’t know it, it didn’t make much sense to think about it further. He felt lighter suddenly. The pain that he’d had since the vulture dropped him was gone. But he also felt lighter in his heart. As if a burden was lifted from him. He felt suddenly that he could breathe deeply.

And with that thought he nodded slightly to the others and he opened his wings and flew up toward the light in the ceiling. And for a while the others still saw him, flying upward until he became just a silhouette that eventually disappeared into the light.

They stood in silence for a while. Then they saw a single feather float down from the ceiling and land on the stone pillar next to the other two. It was red.

The End

May your heart sing with Alda

May it soar with the eagles high above

Take flight with Wind and Krieg

With the strength of the lioness

And may it be true like the wolfs’

May you dream deep and wide and vast like

Dragon-On-The-Stone

And may your dreams reach the stars and beyond

And may you have friends such as Joshua had

Always

25.
E
PILOGUE

Dear friend,

As it is with many stories, the end of one is but the beginning of another. Just like the pendulum that stops at its tipping point only to swing in the other direction once more. There was one moment in my story in particular that has significance for what is to come. It was the moment during the ordeal inside the Labyrinth of Mirrors when I realized the depth of the love I shared with my beloved wolf. That moment has, like a pebble starting a landslide, set in motion a series of events culminating in the re-activation of the beacon—the ancient means of transportation between the worlds. And that, in turn, has re-awakened a whole civilization on the other end of the galaxy. I did not know this at the time. But I do know it now. As it turns out, this—all of this—is much bigger than I had ever thought it would be. And what will happen next, I believe, will surprise you, will astound you, will make you realize that to leave one world and to enter another does not mean you lose the one you left. It will stay with you. And just as the lioness stayed with me, the friends you made on this journey will always be with you if you so wish. That much I know.

We have not reached the end of our journey together yet. Keep your eyes and ears open. And watch your dreams. Always watch your dreams.

For now and until we meet again I remain very truly yours,

–Joshua

T
HANK
Y
OU

Thank you, Layla Mosbacher, for being my first beta reader for a lot of the scenes. Thank you for your encouragement and your enthusiasm for the story. Now I know why your middle name is Hope. Thank you, Chloe Mosbacher, for filling the writing space with the smell of brownies, fudge, and almond extract. Because of you I might have a permanent association between cookies and the story. Thank you, Amy Mosbacher, for listening to countless hours of me talking about the story and you telling me each time—and however strange an idea was—that it was great.

Many thanks to Mrs. Kievit and her 4th grade class at Lenape Elementary School in New Paltz, NY, for having one of the manuscript copies read aloud in class. That was amazing. Thanks to Elke Kaeppner, Diane Silverberg (“I’m the rooster! I’m the rooster!”), Mercedes Calderon, Julie Rose, Gerald Sorin, Jed Sherman, Maxine & Marielle Rosola, Julie Nichols, Carla Aiston (a.k.a. frog princess), Lynn Masanotti (Lynn, I completely understand that you had to finish
50 Shades of Gray
first. No hard feelings), Jackie Dooley and Laura Putnam, for reading the first draft and giving invaluable feedback. Thank you, Maxi Spanheimer, for being who you are, always. Thank you (again) Jackie Dooley for editing the manuscript in your ‘free time’. Thanks, Matt Maley at Visualstuff in New Paltz, for an amazing and inspired cover.
Thanks to Donnie Light from 
eBook76.com
 for making the pages look beautiful.

Thanks to all my early Facebook page likers. Your out-pour of support was touching and bridged the gap over some chasms I had to cross in order to get to the other side. Thank you, Julie Lion Rose, for letting me play in the sand box at your therapy practice and thereby—and because of it—conceive Joshua’s story and everything that followed. Thank you Joyce Urritia for your understated brilliance in Astrology and your side statement of: “Oh, and, by the way, you should go back to therapy and please for God’s sake STOP EDITING YOURSELF!” Wow, that was a good one.

Thanks to my family and friends in Germany. You are with me far across the ocean. I am forgetting people to thank, I’m sure. Just know that you are not forgotten.

Finally, thank you so much, Joshua, for letting me be your scribe; for choosing me to write it all down. Thank you, Grey and Krieg, for your undying friendship. I feel honored for the privilege of being part of your journey. Thank you Alda, for your music; Wind for your wisdom and warmth; Dragon-of-the-Stone for sharing your magnificent dreams; Broga for your might & confidence; and you, lioness, for your stunning beauty and grace. I dare sometimes to summon you and you are there each time I do.