The Traveler

But now he was free of the jump plane and the inevitable descent back to earth. Gabriel closed his eyes for a while, then opened them again. He arched his back and spread his arms, controlling his movement through the air. Look for the passageway. That’s what Sophia had told him. There was a passageway that led across all four barriers and into the other realms. Leaning to the right, he began to spiral downward like a hawk looking for prey.

Time passed and then, in the distance, he saw a thin black line, like a shadow floating in space. Gabriel extended his arms, pulled out of the tight circle, and fell quickly to the left on a sharp diagonal. The shadow grew into an oval shape and he glided into its dark center.

***

ONCE AGAIN, HE felt a compression of light, a movement forward and the life-giving breath. Opening his eyes, he found himself standing in the middle of a desert, the red dirt cracked open as if it were gasping for air. Gabriel turned on one heel, surveying this new environment. The sky above him was a sapphire blue. Although the sun had disappeared, light glowed on every part of the horizon. No rocks or plants. No valleys or mountains. He was captive in the earth barrier, the only thing vertical in a flatland world.

Gabriel began walking. When he stopped and looked around, his perspective hadn’t changed. Kneeling down, he touched the red dirt with his fingers. He needed a second point on the landscape, some other feature that would confirm his own existence. He kicked and clawed at the earth until he scraped together a pile of dirt about ten inches high.

Like a small child who had thrown down a cup and thereby changed the world, he circled the pile several times just to make sure it was still there. Once again, he started walking and counted his steps. Fifty. Eighty. One hundred. But when he looked over his shoulder, the pile had disappeared.

Gabriel felt a surge of panic push through his heart. He sat down, closed his eyes and rested, then stood up again and resumed walking. As he looked for the passageway, he began to feel hopeless and lost. For a while, he kicked at the earth with the toe of his boot. Chips of dirt rose up into the air, fell down, and were instantly absorbed by this new reality.

He looked over his shoulder and saw a patch of darkness behind him. It was his own shadow, following him around on this aimless journey, but the image had an unusual depth and sharpness, as if someone had cut into the ground. Was this the way out? Had it always been there? Closing his eyes, he fell backward and was pulled down the passageway.

* * *

BREATHE, HE TOLD himself. Breathe again. And he was kneeling in a dirt street that ran through the middle of a town. Gabriel stood up cautiously, expecting the ground to collapse and drop him into air, water, or the bare desert world. He stomped his feet on the street like a man having a tantrum, but this new reality sustained itself and refused to vanish.

The town reminded him of a frontier outpost in an old-fashioned Western, the sort of place where you’d find cowboys, sheriffs, and dance-hall girls. The buildings were two and three stories high, built with flat boards and shingles. Wooden sidewalks ran on both sides of the street, as if the builders wanted to keep mud from splattering into the doorways. But there was no mud or rain or any water at all. The few trees on the street looked dead; their leaves were dry and brittle-brown.

Gabriel drew the jade sword and held it tightly as he stepped onto the wooden sidewalk. He tried a doorknob-unlocked-and stepped into a one-room barbershop with three chairs. Mirrors hung from the walls and Gabriel stared at his own face and the sword in his hand. He looked frightened, like a man who expected to be attacked at any moment. Leave this place. Hurry. And then he was back on the sidewalk with the clear sky and the lifeless trees.

All the doors were unlocked and he began to search each building. His shoes made a hollow sound on the wooden sidewalk. He discovered a fabric store filled with bolts of cloth. An apartment was upstairs. It had a sink with a hand pump and a cast-iron stove. Plates and cups had been set for three people, but the shelves and icebox were empty. In another building, he found a cooper’s shop with wooden barrels in different states of completion.

The town had only two streets and they intersected at a city square with park benches and a stone obelisk. There was no writing on this memorial, only a series of geometric symbols that included a circle, a triangle, and a pentagram. Gabriel kept following the street until the town disappeared and he reached a barrier of dead trees and thornbushes. He spent some time looking for a path, then gave up and returned to the square.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Is anyone here?” But nobody answered him. Now the sword made him feel like a coward and he slid it back into the scabbard.