The travelers observed a peculiar rainbow that spread from one part of the horizon to another. The rainbow shimmered with a fluid palette of colors flowing through it. It vibrated in the air, constantly changing its shape. Dark billows of clouds boiled angrily above. They looked strange with a backdrop of clear blue sky behind them. Stripes of sunlight moved across the plain, mirroring the swift motion of clouds above. The travelers stood in the middle of a vast plain, crisscrossed by multiple roads and paths, comprising a convoluted maze. On the crossroads stood road signs with writings in some bizarre language reminiscent of series of Rorschach blots. Part of the roads led toward small and neat groves of fruit trees. In a distance, in different directions from the spot where the travelers stood, sprawled several castles with a strange and exquisite design, including a multitude of tiny turrets and battlements. Overall, the castles looked impeccable with their beautiful pastel colors sparkling in a kaleidoscope of the sunlight. A gentle breeze ruffled the grass and leaves on the trees. It seemed like the breeze consistently changed its direction, vanishing and reappearing again. It animated everything around, producing a sensation that everything moved in a strange and anxious rhythm.
Still not fully realizing what happened to them, Gandalf, the Fox, and the Dwarf started along a path leading toward one of the castles. Clouds swirled nervously above their heads, forming whirlwinds and falling apart, like pieces of shabby fabric.
A magnificent princess sat by the castle window feeling bored, smoking weed and looking at the clouds, the surrounding landscape, spreading from the horizon to the horizon, and a strange movement below. Everything the princess saw produced in her mind a feeling of deja vu, as if she had seen all this before, maybe in her previous life or in a dream. Or rather it felt like a reflection of some alternative reality, different from the reality that should've been there. As if that everything she saw, like nervously rushing clouds or a field interspersed with moving shadows, represented a random branch of reality, in which she found herself by mistake. The princess was annoyed by the fact that she wasn't able to formulate this thought in a way that it would be understandable for anybody else. She passed unfinished blunt to her page, and while he dragged on, staring pensively before him and apparently thinking about something personal, she tried to organize her thoughts into a neat structure, gracefully gesticulating in rhythm with the flow of her ideas.
"Those shadows look strange," the Princess said eventually "It's their constant motion. I don't remember if they ever stopped,"
The page looked out the window thoughtfully and sniffed.
"How many times I've heard that already," he said "the shadows look strange. In fact, they look the way they always looked. And they move because the clouds casting them are moving in the sky."
The princess realized that she failed to convey her idea and resumed her ruminations, gesticulating in rhythm with her thoughts.
The page continued studying the landscape. Soon his eyes lit up with curiosity.
"I see travelers moving toward the castle," the page said animatedly "If there's something that looks strange, it's them. An old man in a weird hat, a dwarf, and some animal."
Gandalf, the Fox, and the Dwarf approached the castle, studying with curiosity its peculiar colors and architecture. Waves of light and shade danced on the castle walls and turrets, creating a lively mesmerizing sight.
The knight walked along the path, humming some obscure tune under his breath. Massive trees towered on both sides of the path, and sunrays streamed through their dense foliage, creating a strange mosaic of light spots below. All space along the path was covered with thick underbrush featuring a scattering of pink and white flowers emitting a sweet summer fragrance. At some point, the knight noticed among the trees on his left a flamboyant red bird perching on a branch. The bird had an air of thoughtful contemplation about it. At that moment, it stared before it reflectively, as if trying to figure out something inexplicable.
"Hello," the knight greeted.
"Hello," the bird said in surprise "I mean if you really mean it, starting a conversation with a random bird in the forest. It does seem strange."
"Yes," the knight agreed "but this is a strange place so,"
"I'm the Archivist," the bird explained "my brain is an encyclopedia, storing in chronological order all the events that ever happened or happen now in this world. But lately, everything is mixed up in my head."
"I guess," the knight agreed.
"Ok," the bird said, "if you can bring me to the castle, where the wizard who created my brain lives, we'll probably be able to figure out what's going on with this world and my memories."
"Sure, why not," the knight agreed.
The bird came out of its trance, sprung to the knight's shoulder, and they continued along the path, observing with curiosity the sunspots cavorting under their feet.
The knight looked around in perplexion. He was in the forest and, above his head, he saw speedily passing clouds that twined into swirls from time to time. The stripes of light and shade quickly flowed across the plain, when the sun disappeared among the clouds and then reappeared again, flooding everything with streams of cheerful light. On the path, near the spot where he stood, the knight saw his spade. The spade lost its magical glow; apparently, the spell attached to it didn't work anymore.
Overcoming the chaos and confusion in his head, the knight recalled that the last thing he saw was a giant tornado moving toward him across a strange plain shrouded in mist. Knight remembered that before that particular moment, he spent a very long time on that plain. Anything that happened earlier slipped from his memory and dissolved inside a quickly condensing fog. The knight still remembered that all this had something to do with his quest and that the spade had something to do with that as well. He took a look around once again. Some birds chirped among the foliage. Leaves shimmered under the breeze, and spots of sunlight danced on tree-trunks, among leaves, and in the grass. The knight stood on the path that winded before him, quickly disappearing from sight among tall and dense vegetation. The knight picked up the spade absentmindedly and strode in a direction that looked to him as the right one for some reason.
Near the castle gates, the travelers were met by a massive crab clad in a blue livery with golden stripes. The crab acted nervously, casting furtive glances at the sky from time to time, and fussily rushing back and forth. Upon seeing the travelers, the crab tried his best to focus his attention on them, and now he just stood there, studying them intently. His eyes rolled, attached to long, flexible stems.
"Hi," Gandalf said.
The crab looked at him suspiciously.
"Hello, stranger," the crab said, "how can I help you, and what in particular brought you to our inhospitable place?"
"Oh, it's a long story," Gandalf said after a moment's thought "mainly we are looking for somebody who would be able to explain to us, what this place is, and how can we get to the cave with gold, one that's guarded by a dragon? It's our quest, but somehow we managed to end up in a situation, where we have no idea where we are."
The crab thought for a while; in fact, he remained in this state of contemplation for quite a long time, rolling his eyes and shuffling on the spot from time to time.
"I heard this story about the cave with gold," the crab admitted eventually "And literally a week ago I could show you the directions. But now I'm not certain. During the last week everything is constantly changing; for example, the trees, which stood here for centuries disappeared, and in their place, some huge stones emerged, and vice versa. Something strange is happening to reality, and I'm not sure that the path, that led to the cave before, does so now"
Gandalf nodded, indicating his agreement.
"And there's something strange with the clouds."
"Yes, there's something strange with the clouds," the crab agreed "with each passing day they move quicker and more chaotically."
The knight continued walking along the path, looking around with interest. Some mysterious sparkles emerged and vanished among the trees. The Archivist bird perching on knight's shoulder whistled some dull tune under her breath.
"What's that, I mean those sparkles, what are they?" the knight asked, nodding in the direction of flashes in the woods. The Archivist bird rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"This is Dzi," explained the bird curtly "Magic," she added, seeing an expression of incomprehension in knight's eyes.
"Ok, I get it," the knight said. He resumed gawking around, hoping to see more weird stuff.
The Archivist bird kept whistling, looking before her dully. Around them, huge oaks spread their massive boughs. Their thick emerald-green foliage shielded the path from the direct sunlight, and all the surroundings were submerged into a cool semi-darkness. Birds twittered somewhere deep in the forest. The bizarre acoustic of this place converted their tweets into series of echoes rebounding from tree-trunks and dissipating in the mysterious shadowy halls of the forest. Every now and then, an invisible wind pierced the foliage above, producing cascades of sparkles and rising whisper, reminiscent of the sound of ocean surf.
Soon the forest ended, and the knight saw a vast infinite plain with interchanging stripes of light and shade swiftly sliding across it. Somewhere far away, slightly blurred by a haze of distance, stood an exquisite and bizarre castle.
The knight looked at the castle with interest. The bird on his shoulder went quiet, casting furtive glances around.
"What's that?" The knight asked eventually, pointing to the castle.
"It's a castle," explained the bird, giving the knight a funny look.
"Yes, I see," the knight said "I mean, does this castle have some meaning in the context of everything else? Maybe it's like, a part of a bigger story or something," the knight looked at the sky, trying to find there the words that would allow him to express his idea better, but the words weren't there. All he saw were swiftly passing clouds.
"There's a princess living in that castle, but she's from a different story," the bird said, after considering the question for a bit.
The knight stared at the bird questioningly. The bird looked at the castle, then at the sky, then briefly looked around once again.
"I'm not sure," the bird said "It's somehow connected to an episode when somebody came to an Oracle and asked him to radically change his past. Alternative branch of reality and all that. Something went wrong, and different branches of reality got mixed up. And this castle emerged from one of those branches. Something like that."
The knight looked at the bird in astonishment.
"How do you know that?"
"I don't know," admitted the bird with regret "in any case, why don't we just go toward this castle? And from what I can see, there is the only road and it leads in its direction anyway, so"
The knight kept walking along the path, which kept snaking and zig-zagging teasingly through the field in the general direction of the castle. The Archivist bird sat on the knight's shoulder; it went quiet and somewhat shrunk as if the vast open space made her uncomfortable. After a while, when the knight cast another brief glance at her, he saw that the bird fell asleep, snoring furiously. Among grasses surrounding the path, something constantly rustled, whistled, buzzed, and squealed. Some tiny animals kept rushing across the path so swiftly that the knight wasn't able to take a good look at them. The castle's outlines loomed through the haze in the distance. Its flamboyant colors, various inconspicuous exquisite details, turrets and crenellations on the walls, all that produced in the knight a breezy mood, and he picked up pace, feeling light-headed, and whistling under his breath a song, the content of which is too obscene to include it in this story that is intended as a fairytale for children. Although, this tune supplied a good energetic rhythm. So the knight walked along the path, the mysterious bird snored on his shoulder, the surrounding grasslands teamed with life, and something constantly dashed back and forth across the path. Just as before, clouds swiftly flew in the sky, reflecting in bright and shadowy stripes that moved across the plain. The castle gradually approached, allowing to discern numerous tiny details of its design. Its hues now looked brighter and more pronounced.
The crab in blue livery suddenly started and without saying a word rushed inside the castle. Gandalf, the Fox, and the Dwarf exchanged glances but finally decided that this was probably something that should've been expected. Meanwhile, from the inside came bright flashes, rumbles, and loud screams.
"I remember a similar story," Gandalf started. He was immediately interrupted by the arrival of a huge sack that fell from the wall with a loud crash, barely missing the travelers. When the dust settled, they saw that it was, in fact, a weird creature with an expansive torso and massive bald head. The creature's neck was almost non-existent. The creature looked around wildly, trying to understand what was going on.
"Hi," Gandalf said friendly.
"Oh, No!" The creature exclaimed in distress and briskly hobbled toward the forest. The crab in blue livery re-appeared from the castle's entrance with an expression of concern on its face.
"It seems like we have a problem," the crab said, "another branch of reality started to connect to our branch of reality. As if we haven't enough of them already,"
With the approaching night, the forest became inundated by mysterious sounds, rustles, and screeches. Strange shadows skulked among trees, and from the dark treetops streamed an enigmatic song of night birds. Small, translucent lights lit up on clearings; they danced and shimmered in the grass, adding a feeling of some magical presence to the surrounding atmosphere; a presence of some inexplicable force. While the darkness was getting more and more solid and impenetrable, invisible magical streams gained strength, and a multitude of strange creatures sprang to life and started moving, gradually sliding toward the forest's center.
Gandalf looked at the crab in blue livery questioningly.
"As I said" the crab began "this is a place where different branches of reality connect. Somebody continues to produce new reality branches. You can see it in the patterns of cloud movement. Sometimes those cloud cascades appear out of nowhere, and then everything in the sky suddenly begins to twist into a gigantic whirlwind.
"Yes, I see," Gandalf admitted, "but what was this place at the beginning?"
The crab pondered the question.
"At the beginning, it was very simple. It was just a tiny fairytale world, and there was a cave with gold in it, guarded by a dragon. And a knight had to defeat the dragon, and all that. There actually is a song about that, although nobody really knows whether any of that really happened. Well, now everything has changed. Somebody is constantly manipulating the past, trying to create something new. And it's hard to tell whether this cave still exists. The problem is that the new branches of reality are overlaying previous branches."
"What about Oracle?" Gandalf asked.
"Oracle?"
"Yes, Oracle in the dragon's cave,"
"Never heard about it," the crab said in confusion.
The knight stopped, looking before him with incredulity. The Archivist bird on his shoulder stirred, waking up, then her eyes went wide. The road before them was blocked by a huge snail, waddling lazily from side to side.
"It feels like I've already seen this somewhere," the thought passed in knight's mind.
"Same," thought the bird fidgeting on his shoulder.
"I'm trying to find my contacts," the snail muttered sheepishly, studying the ground before her, "without them, I cannot see where I should crawl next,"
"Definitely, it reminds me something," thought the knight.
"Yes," the archivist bird agreed, "it definitely has already happened before."
At that moment a huge shade swiftly swept in front of them, then something crashed into the ground with a loud squall, raising a cloud of dust, then it spread its huge wings and disappeared into the sky. The snail continued to look at the ground with a dumb expression in her eyes.
"What a twist," thought the knight.
"Agree," the bird sneered silently. The knight turned, looking at her in astonishment.
"Well, seriously," Gandalf insisted "according to the legend there's an Oracle, who sits in that cave, and he also has an ability to change the past. This is how this all started actually."
The crab shrugged, making it clear that he had no further comments on that.
"Anyway, is there any chance we can find that cave?"
The crab thought for a moment and pointed toward the forest.
"Last time I've been there, there was some sage bird that knew everything, including the location of that cave probably. But since then, many things have changed. As I said, the reality is constantly changing here, and what's located where now, as well as who knows what is absolutely unclear."
Gandalf turned his eyes to the clouds, which kept drifting through the sky. At that very moment, the clouds commenced a strange slow dance, spinning around an invisible axle, gradually gaining speed, scattering into myriads of infinitesimal shards that rimmed the boiling center of this motion. A strong gust of wind stirred tree crowns, producing a sound of ocean surf and a wild shimmering of the multitude of leaves. Shadows on the ground began to move faster in a more chaotic rhythm.
"Yes, it seems like we read each other's minds," the bird answered the silent question in the knight's eyes. "which is kinda strange, at least it never happened before. I might suggest that another branch of reality is connecting to this reality right now. Judging by the clouds."
The knight looked at the clouds, which spun with an increasing speed.
"Does it happen here often?"
"Cannot say that it's something frequent," the bird thought for a bit, studying the sky and the clouds, "well, now it happens more frequently than before. It gives me the impression that there's a crowd of people at Oracle's, trying to change their past. And each successful attempt adds something new to this place. It's like a point where different branches of reality intersect."
Some vague recollections flashed in the knight's mind.
"But this cave and Oracle, shouldn't they be guarded by a dragon? Theoretically, nobody should've been allowed to talk to Oracle, is it?"
The bird pondered that. A whirlwind of clouds in the sky continued to accelerate.
Gandalf continued to study the whirlwind of clouds in the sky. This giant merry-go-round continued to suck inside it everything that happened to pass nearby, getting larger and darker with every second. A strange noise came from inside the castle again, and the crab squinted his eyes suspiciously, listening to the sounds. The Dwarf noticed a strange shining that intermittently appeared and disappeared on the horizon, reminiscent of a blurred rainbow. A sharp gust of wind brought a bunch of dry leaves that scattered around with rustle. The noise from the castle got louder, and a second later, a strange creature that looked like a hippo with a couple of giant wings escaped through the window. The hippo produced an intimidating roar, spread its wings, and lunged into the sky toward the whirlwind of clouds. Gandalf looked at the crab questioningly.
A misty plain - interspersed with chaotically scattered fragments of rocks and boulders - spread toward the horizon, running into a wide river. On the other side of this turbulent river towered a stone wall, at the foot of which lurked the entrance into the cave - dark and spacious. It was assumed that the entrance was guarded by a magic dragon, but the latter was nowhere to be seen. The place looked abandoned, completely stripped from any signs of life. Not a single blade of grass anywhere. Neither near the cave nor across the whole stretch of the plain leading toward it. Gusts of wind created a sensation of the constant monotonous rhythm seeping through this place. At the same time, they created a feeling of something strange and unreal. The far edge of the plain dissolved in the mist that was getting thicker in the distance, swallowing reality, as if everything located beyond its edge belonged to the realm of dreams.
The knight walked along this empty plain, and one phrase kept playing in his head on repeat. "It will be an interesting story." He didn't remember anything else, after days, weeks, and months, during which he trudged along dusty roads toward a goal, the meaning of which evaded him now. Although it still had some meaning, the initial idea the knight attached to this goal changed to something else. It was somewhat related to the question, he had been asked in the magical forest, after which he spent a month inside an ice slab, trying simultaneously to find the answer to that question and stay sane.
But now all that - lifeless plain strewn with boulders, which led to the dragon's cave, his recollections about the days spent inside the ice slab - all that now belonged to a different realm. Something that preceded some boundary. And all the thoughts that darted inside knight's head - about his goal and the question he needed to answer - in fact, were mere recollections of different thoughts from beyond that boundary. All this already happened before, but the knight didn't remember how it all ended. So he kept strolling across this dusty, rocky plain, worrying about what happened to his magical amulet.
The river was visible from far away. Its motion was barely perceptible and silent from such a distance. The rhythm of the river and the slow motion of endless layers of clouds interlacing and blending in the sky, comprised a single composition - a music that was impossible to hear. The ridge of rocks on the other side of the river added to this palette of motion a note of stillness, permanence. A hint at eternity, as if the rocks themselves symbolized eternity. Something that never changes, existing in a separate dimension, beyond time. Time couldn't affect this gray wall, a bas-relief of cracks and protrusions. It just flowed around this point, like streams of water flowed around stones in a creak.
The bird thought for a bit. The whirlwind of clouds kept accelerating.
"Probably there has emerged an alternative branch of history where the dragon doesn't exist," the bird said thoughtfully, "and now nobody guards the cave. And this branch spawns all the rest. Then it's a cyclical process, like, once somebody came to the cave and changed the past, and this event keeps repeating again and again in alternative branches, producing yet new branches. The only thing I don't understand: it means this happened long ago, involving events that took place many decades in the past. But if it's so, then all the anomalies here should've started many decades ago as well.
"Or maybe it happened twice," suggested the knight "somebody came to that cave back then and did something that switched on this mechanism. But the mechanism still remained dormant until somebody else came to the cave. And did something that triggered what's happening now"
The Crab shrugged in bemusement. The situation kept getting worse, and the clouds spun faster and faster. The Fox decided to break the silence.
"So if, as you said, the bird knows where this cave's located then how can we find the bird?"
"She's somewhere out there," the crab distractedly pointed to the forest.
Gandalf kept looking at the sky reflectively.
"I think we should find this bird, learn about the cave's location, and then do something. It looks like the situation is getting out of control."
"What do you mean, the situation is getting out of control?" The Fox asked nervously.
"Cannot tell for sure," Gandalf continued "but it looks like the alternative branches of reality continue to emerge, and the process is accelerating."
One of the cracks in this monumental wall was getting wider at the bottom, forming a dark entrance leading inside. Not far from the entrance laid something that looked like a massive stone, covered in a chaotic pattern of protrusions and outgrowths. On closer observation, one could notice that every now and then the stone stirred inconspicuously as if shifting its weight from one spot to another. The entrance into the cave was rimmed by remnants of withered ivy. Everything deeper inside was concealed by an impenetrable darkness. It looked like at this spot the rock was split by the strike of some monstrous lighting bolt.
The knight walked along the path toward the castle. The bird on his shoulder got quiet and seemed lost in her thoughts. At times, she cast distracted glances at the accelerating funnel of clouds in the sky. Meanwhile, the outlines of the castle were getting more distinct and pronounced, and a lot of small details, indiscernible from afar became visible, forming an exquisite picture. A few minutes later a hippo flew over the travelers' heads, noisily flapping its huge wings. The knight gave the bird another quizzical look. The bird quickly closed her eyes, pretending that she was sleeping. The knight sighed, trying to fit this new piece of the puzzle into an already quite convoluted mishmash in his head.
Upon getting closer to the ridge of rock, it was getting more obvious that the strange stone near the cave moved in a strange undulating rhythm. A blanket of clouds in the sky cast the surrounding space into dusk, shadows dissolved in a murky haze, and outlines of all objects became blurred and translucent. Gusts of cold wind coalesced into a constant monotonous stream.
The outlines of the castle were getting more and more pronounced. A multitude of previously invisible tiny details formed a quaint colorful mosaic. The path, bordered by blackberry shrubs here and there, snaked cheerfully across the field. Somewhere far away, a silvery serpentine of a creak twinkled enigmatically through the dense grass. The grass swished monotonously, swaying in the rhythm of the wind. The bands of light and shade swimming on the ground were getting more and more unpredictable and chaotic
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