Rainbow's End - Wizard (12 page)

She smiled at Thomas. ‘The hole it made is now t
he children’s favourite fishing spot.’

‘The
Fishing Pool?’ asked Thomas.

Ariana nodded.
‘The Fishing Pool.’

*

‘I spent almost a century with Joshi, learning the ways of the Magari,’ Ariana said.

‘
At the same time I was first mastering, and then strengthening my own powers.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘Today, I think of them as merely formidable, but back then, to Joshi and I - a gentle giant and a girl of only seven or eight, they were astonishing - at times terrifying.’

Thomas was fidgeting again and Ariana
said to him, ‘Bear with me Thomas. There will be plenty of time for questions later.’

She
continued. ‘Like I said - Joshi instructed me for almost a century before he went over. Rainbow’s End, or Magarius, as it was called then, suited my life force exactly. I stayed and made it my own. I changed it where I thought necessary, but most of it is exactly as it was when the Magari spoke and sang to the trees.

‘I had also -
with a bit of subtle nudging from Joshi - discovered a purpose, a reason for being. The Magari have been Travellers for millennia. The Earth’s endless forests, its seas, and especially its giant mountains - they loved them all; but stopped Travelling to them for two reasons.

‘The first was man’s love of war and violence and destruction; and his hate and fear of anything strange or alien. Several of the
Magari had been hunted down and killed while on the Earth. The people there called them “Yeti”.

‘
The second was the Magari’s belief that the virus, or whatever it was that caused first their women’s sterility and later their deaths, came from the air surrounding the Earth.’ Ariana paused, then interrupted her own story. She said, ‘I believe in the virus theory, but personally, I think their woman died of broken hearts. All woman love children and the Magari adored theirs. To not have any around must have been a terrible thing to bear…’

Her sigh carried the
Magari women’s pain and Ariana turned to look at Thomas.

‘The last two ways -
or disciplines - of the Magari Joshi instructed me in - initiated me in,’ she said, were the “Love of Children” and the use of the “Seven Crystals and the Rainbow”; the first of which is what Rainbow’s End is all about, and the second, the means to
bring
the first about.’

The
young goddess stopped talking and sat staring at the stars and the moon mirrored in the pool for a long time before Thomas gently cleared his throat. She didn’t move, but said, ‘Ask, Thomas.’

He did
. ‘If we are not on the Earth, then where
are
we?’

Her eyes lifted to the skies
and Ariana said, I have told you how Rainbow’s End came to be. Now let me tell you about where it is and what it’s all about.

*****

The moon seemed to touch the tops of the giant trees and turned their upper branches into ghost and witches fingers, the small stream below into molten silver. The forest floor was a gloamy place of loamy smells and secrets, where small animals scurried and rustled, and searched for food and their young and each other.

The lantern in the cottage had been turned very low, and inside, the two old Travellers lay sleeping in their recliners, locked in unconscious competition. Th
e
cacophony of sounds emitting from their wide-open mouths were a mixture of smacking lips and groans and hiccups and snores and coughs, and was too much for even the owls; who had made their nest in the chimney, but had fled for the night.

Tessie came
wobbling out of the open sliding door on unsteady feet. The dog felt like death warmed up and needed the fresh air; she went to the furthest end of the veranda and collapsed in a corner, folding her paws over floppy ears - trying to block out the horrendous duet coming from inside, but failing miserably.

9

‘The universe is immense, Thomas.
Immeasurable… Full of nooks and crannies and loops and curves and places even gods and demi-gods know very little, or nothing of.’ Ariana’s gaze traversed the glittering night-sky. ‘I should know,’ she said. ‘I have travelled through it for many, many years…’ She fell quiet and seemed to gather her thoughts for a long minute.

The
n said: ‘Rainbow’s End is one of those little nooks. It exists in a world that does not exist. To
most
people, anyway. A parallel world, Thomas. Parallel with where you came from - the Earth. It lies in a different dimension; a different time. A galaxy within a galaxy.

‘
We use the same sun and the same moon. Closer to one,’ Ariana pointed to the low-hanging moon, ‘and further away from the other. Some of our stars are the same, most are not.

‘
We
are always in the same place; Rainbow’s End is always in a different place. It is
not
where its name implies - at the end of the rainbow.
Rainbow’s End is where the rainbow
begins
. There are hundreds - sometimes thousands of secondary rainbows. But only one primary. It starts here,’ Ariana dropped her eyes - ‘in the Rainbow Pool.’ She looked at the boy and the moon and starlight showed her the puzzlement on his face.

She
laughed softly and said, ‘Don’t look so worried, Thomas. None of what I just told you really matters. All you need to know is that we are
not
on, or part of the Earth.’ He started asking another question and she put a finger on his lips. ‘Let me finish and then you can ask. All right?’

He nodded and
she continued.

‘Time as you know it does not exist here. We have no seasons, and no months or weeks; except as a measure of time past or present. It does, somehow, make more sense to say three weeks, instead of twenty-one days, doesn’t it? Or a month instead of thirty…

‘
Our days and nights never vary: the days fifteen hours, and the nights nine hours long.’ She glanced at the white line on Thomas’ wrist, from where he had removed his useless watch the night before. ‘Hours - like weeks and months, are used as a measure only, to determine where in the day or night we are. Here we don’t work from nine to five with lunch at one, and a doctor’s appointment at eleven…

‘P
eople here don’t age as they do on the Earth. It happens a lot slower - about half as slow, in fact. A person who has lived to be fifty years old over there, would live the same number of days here, and be about twenty-five, physically. For that reason, and other record purposes, a year on Rainbow’s End has seven hundred days. We call it a cycle, or a Rainbow year - whichever you prefer. As I said, it has no purpose, except for the keeping of records. For history. An example: Gwendolynne was Rainbow’s End’s Traveller from 778 until 796.’

‘Our weather is the same every day - warm, but not uncomfortably so - about twenty-seven degrees Celsius. The sun is further away from us and our ozone layer has not been damaged or depleted by pollution, so - no sunburn. It rains every morning between three and four - an hour before daylight. Simply because it is the best time.

‘
Anything that involves water, involves me. Rain, hail, mist… snow when Orson makes me angry. He hates it.’ Ariana smiled. ‘Or when the children request it for some special reason.

‘
There is always some wind in Rainbow’s End, but mostly soft breezes. The mountains and forest surrounding us, stops, or at least lessens its strength. So - even if I can’t
control
the sunlight, or the wind, I
can
put a cloud in front of it - a very large cloud…’

Ariana
kept quiet for a few seconds, then jabbed Thomas playfully in his ribs with one elbow. ‘That was supposed to be a joke, Thomas,’ she said, then muttered, ‘Way too serious…’ at his feeble smile.

‘There is no pollution at Rainbow’s End,’ she continued. ‘The colours here are deeper and brighter; the sounds are clearer; and in a few days, you will find your taste getting more acute, your smell and your touch more sensitive…

‘
There is no sickness, no disease…and because it is always summer, there is always fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers. The grass and leaves are always green and only turn brown and yellow once they reach the end of their life-cycle.’

‘There is no electricity on Rainbow’s End - except for the kitchen, the store and the smaller children’s dormitory, which are run by a generator.’  Ariana held up her hand to stop Thomas’ fresh protest.

‘No water-purification -
the water from the waterfall is the purest possible. Our waste goes to the sun…all waste. It incinerates before it gets there.’ Thomas thought about the wreck of the cherry-red lorry. It had gone when he left the cave after brunch.

‘Lorry
wreck’s too,’ said Ariana, and before Thomas could voice his surprise, she said, ‘Yes, Thomas, I can read your mind. But only if you open yourself to me; if you allow it. If you don’t want me to, I can’t.’ She waited a few seconds and when he said nothing, continued again.

‘There is no TV-reception on
Rainbow’s End… no radio-stations, no telephones, no cars…

‘All our needs - human needs - are supplied by Izzy.’ Ariana looked at Thomas and asked, ‘You’ve met Izzy?’ He nodded and she said, ‘Food, clothes, books, games, sports equipment…; you name it, everything is supplied by Izzadore. If you want something special, ask him and he will bring it with him the next time he comes. Normally every thirty days.’

They sat quietly for a minute or two, and then Ariana said, ‘Next, I
am going to tell you what Rainbow’s End is all about, but first I will answer some of your questions.’ She smiled at Thomas and said, simply - ‘Ask.’

*

‘I have electricity in my room,’ he said. ‘
And
I can listen to my radio.’

‘Not now, you don’t,’ said Ariana.
‘And right now your radio is as dead as a dormouse.’ Thomas frowned his incomprehension and she explained, ‘Thomas, do you remember your bathroom, and then the bath itself getting bigger? And last night your bed?’

Thomas gaped at
her. ‘How did you know about…?’

‘The same as with knowing what goes on in your mind, Thomas. It is not something I do consciously. It just happens. Everything that happens in
Rainbow’s End is seen by me, heard by me.
Everything
. But again, only if you permit it. If you close yourself to me - if you don’t allow me to, I can’t read you…or see you.’

Thomas nodded his head and Ariana carried on, ‘
Let’s go back to the bed and the bath. You changed them with your will… with your mind, right?’

He nodded again. ‘That’s what Big John said.’

‘What Big John said is true,’ the goddess said, then asked, ‘You slept late this morning, didn’t you, Thomas?’

He frowned again. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Your heater was on?’ He nodded again.

‘All night?’ Again the nod.

‘And you were still tired when you woke?’ Another nod. ‘You used your mind to run your heater, Thomas.
And
your reading light.
And
your radio. It only plays your favourite songs, doesn’t it?’ He nodded again.

‘And the
hot water in your taps… do you remember how tired you were when you’d finished drawing your bath and were getting into it?’

Thomas croaked, ‘You saw that? You saw me in the bath
?
Naked
…?’ The last was barely audible and his tone said he hoped not; and when Ariana bit her bottom lip and looked away, a fiercely blushing Thomas felt sure he heard her soft laugh.

‘I want you to stop!
’ he blurted. ‘With the… the mind reading, the watching… with everything! Right now!’

Ariana looked at him
with eyebrows raised, but the shadows stopped him from seeing the mischief dancing in her eyes.

‘Are you sure
?’ she aske
d
gravely; receiving an exasperated ‘Yes!’, and bursting into peals of laughter again. It lasted a full minute and rang and echoed across the waters again, silencing the frogs and crickets and leaving Thomas blushing yet again.

When she
’d finished laughing, Ariana gave an unladylike hiccup and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She said, ‘You make these things work with your mind, Thomas. That’s why you slept in. Your body was rested, but your mind not. It worked all night to keep your heater going.’

Thomas
thought about what Ariana had said for a long minute or two. He understood the concept, but the very idea of performing such feats with your brain - by just thinking about it, was so alien to him, that he had trouble grasping its reality. A favourite saying of Grammy’s came to mind: “If you can think it, you can do it.”

He decided to go deeper into it later, skimm
ed the water’s surface with his toes, asked, ‘Why should we get anything from Izzy when we can just think it? Wish it? Dream it…’ He looked at the beautiful young woman next to him. ‘I dreamed of my room in Rockham; at Pine Cottage, and when I woke up, it was exactly as it was… as it used to be.’

Ariana
nodded. ‘You dreamt your room, Thomas,’ she said. ‘It was furnished by the little people while you slept, and it changed to what you wanted. The cave has a massive store, with almost everything a person could want, in it. The Little People do the rest.’

‘Little
People?’ Thomas asked, nonplussed.

‘Little
People, yes,’ said Ariana. ‘You will see some of them sometime; when they want you to, which is not often. They are Rainbow’s End’s workers. They live to serve and to work… Love to work, really. I will ask John to take you to the store sometime - you might just see one of them. But we’re getting off the subject…

‘The
Little People brought everything to your room and then you, subconsciously, changed it to what you wanted: to what you dreamed. You can make something bigger or smaller, Thomas. Or make it new. You can even change it into something else - like your posters. They were just blanks until your mind filled them in. But you have to have something to work from.’ Ariana thought for a few seconds. ‘Take your room’s wall. You put a window into it, right?’

‘Yes,’
Thomas nodded. ‘At least, I
think
so…’

‘B
ut would you be able to put a window into the wall if the wall was not there to begin with?’ Ariana asked; after a second shaking her head and answering her own question. ‘No. Not even
I
can do that.’

‘So
,’ Thomas said, ‘I took just any bed, any radio, any old desk… everything that’s in my room, and changed it to whatever I wanted it to be, to what it is now?’

Ariana ruffled his hair
again and Thomas could see her wink at him in the dark. She said, ‘That’s it exactly.’

‘
And I can change them again?’

She nodded, ‘
Uh-huh.’

‘Any time I want?’

‘Any time you want.’

*****

The bowl was a soup-plate really, and filled with ice cream made up of eight different flavours - half of that kept in Rainbow’s End’s very large freezers.

It lay surrounded by chunks and blobs of fresh white cream and sliced
strawberries that glistened red and sticky-wet.

It was striped
and splashed and dyed in green and brown and yellow-white, and orange and pink and blue - the colours of mint and chocolate and toffee, and vanilla and tutti-frutti and tangerine.

It was studded and strewn with chunks and bits of chocolate and marshmallow, and shone and dripped
with raspberry syrup and caramel cream, and more chocolate.

Frieda had earlier
given her a long, luxury bubble bath (the second since she arrived the day before), and Maggie smelled of baby powder and shampoo and all the nice things a little girl should. Her unruly copper curls had been brushed, and they flashed and sparkled in the soft light, and when she looked up, first at Annie and then Frieda, her purple-blue eyes were wide with wonder.

‘For me?
’ she whispered. ‘Is all of it for me?’ Her tone said “surely not?” Frieda leaned over and put a spoon in the little hand. Her eyes were sad, they loved and laughed at the same time. She said, ‘Yes, Maggie, it’s all yours,’ and had to turn away then, for her eyes were suddenly wet as well.

*****

There is a certain magic about a moon and starlit night when you share it with a beautiful young woman: even if she
is
a goddess and you just an eleven-year old boy. Thomas and Ariana sat looking at the star-shot expanse and listened to the choir of frogs, serenading the night and all the wonders that made it wonderful. It felt right to just look, and to just listen, and they did so for a long time. Just looked. And just listened.

Overhead, shooting stars
criss-crossed the glittering skies with silver lines and Ariana said, ‘Rainbow’s End is about children Thomas. And dreams. About children and their dreams. And making them come true. And being all they were ever meant to be - just children.’

Ariana sat quietly staring at the pool for
a minute, stirring its water with her feet.

‘We bring children
: orphans, poor children, children living on the streets, abused children, unhappy children; children with little or no hope… And sometimes just children: children with dreams in their eyes and hope in their hearts… We bring them to Rainbow’s End and we help them: help them make their dreams come true; help them believe in themselves. We show them that anything is possible if you reach high enough… But again - most important: we allow them to be children - some of them for the first time in their lives.’

The a
quatic and cricket concert went into a crescendo and they listened in silence for a while; Ariana with an enchanted expression on her moon-lit face. A magical minute later, the sound died down, and she surprised Thomas by shouting “Bravo!” and clapping her hands and jostling him to do the same. She laughed with delight and said, ‘They really are getting very good,’ then fell happily silent and seemed to gather her thoughts for a minute.

*

‘The most important person at Rainbow’s End is its Traveller,’ she said then.

‘Orson?
’ asked Thomas.

‘Orson,’ Ariana affirmed
, nodding. ‘Orson is the single most important link in Rainbow’s End’s total setup. Without him, it will have no purpose. There would
be
no children to
give
it purpose.’

Thomas said hesitantly, ‘Big John said I am…he said…’ His voice tailed of
f.

‘He said you are a Traveller.’

Thomas nodded and Ariana looked at him. Her face and voice were serious and she said, simply, ‘You are.’ The look he gave her was blank and she continued. ‘Let me tell you what a Traveller is, Thomas.’

She followed the slow bright line of a comet trailing leisurely across the sky before saying: ‘A Traveller is a very special person. One in ten or twenty million, maybe more.’

Thomas glanced at Ariana and she smiled at him. ‘Literally.
No more than one person amongst millions is a Traveller in the sense I speak of. You are only the second in fifty Rainbow-years to come back with Orson.’

Ariana paused
, thinking, and then said, ‘You saw the little girl who came with Izzy yesterday?’

Thomas nodded.

‘She was sleeping.’ Ariana said. It was a statement, and Thomas nodded again.

‘Everybody sleeps when they get to
Rainbow’s End - when they ride the rainbow.’

‘I didn’t,’
Thomas said.

A sage nod from the goddess.
‘Because you are a Traveller. Staying awake is the most important part of Travelling, Thomas. You have to, to be able to control where you land. If you do not - you might end up in the ocean and drown, or land in a fire. Or the middle of a war. Or worse.’ Ariana smiled. ‘Centuries ago, a Traveller - luckily he was alone at the time, lost concentration for a few seconds and landed in a nest of rattlesnakes. He was bitten several times.’

Thomas’
eyes were big. ‘Did he die?’

‘No. But he had to come right back, or he would have.’ Ariana’s voice went very soft. ‘I lost a child to Kraylle that day.’ She fell quiet, lost in her own thoughts and only spoke again when Thomas
gave a small cough.

‘I’m sorry Thomas
,’ she said. ‘Some things stay with me forever…for centuries.’ She took a deep breath, and then continued.

‘Travellers can see things; do things and feel things that normal people can’t. Things other people think of as impossible. Their minds, once opened, perform on a higher level. They are more aware. Most importantly - they can “Push”’.

‘“Push”?’ Thomas
asked, puzzled.

‘“Push”,
yes. Do things with their minds - lift things, throw things, break things…control things.’