Τώρα που ξαναδιαβάζω το Bloodstone καταλαβαίνω γιατί μου άρεσε τόσο πολύ τότε που το είχα πρωτοδιαβάσει.
Ένα πράγμα μόνο φτάνει να δεις το οποίο είναι λίγο μετά την αρχή του βιβλίου: το σημείο που ο Kane ξεκλειδώνει τη δύναμη του Αιματόλιθου. Είναι ίσως η πιο τρομερά γραμμένη ψυχεδελική εμπειρία που έχω διαβάσει σε βιβλίο φαντασίας. Τη διαβάζω και με κάνει να εύχομαι εγώ να την είχα γράψει – πράγμα που σπάνια μού συμβαίνει πλέον.
Αυτό που περιγράφει ο Wagner μοιάζει πραγματικό, ενώ πολύ συχνά στη φανταστική λογοτεχνία οι ψυχεδελικές καταστάσεις που περιγράφουν δεν μοιάζουν και τόσο πραγματικές – ή φαίνονται παρατραβηγμένες ή τελείως ψεύτικες. Ναι, ακόμα κι αυτά που γράφει ο Lovecraft δεν τα θεωρώ τόσο σπουδαίο για ψυχεδελικές εμπειρίες.
Αλλά ρίξτε μια ματιά σ’αυτό το απόσπασμα από το Bloodstone:
In that instant Kane felt his every cell explode with what was at once unbearable agony and intolerable ecstasy--and transcending both. His entire body snapped into convulsive rigidity as the lightning of the cosmos blasted through his being. A scream was stillborn, never reached his paralyzed throat.
Bloodstone burst into a coruscant nova of raw energy and incandesced into blinding light that for one dreadful instant fully illumined its infinite depths. And from the sentient soul of Bloodstone a bolt of green light veined with red shot out--leaped out to enfold Kane, to bathe Kane in its uncanny fire.
For a long time there was a mind-wrenching chaos of indescribable sensations, tumbling thought patterns not his own, infinite blackness broken by flashes of formless image. Adrift for an eternity in a kaleidoscopic vortex of alien dream, his mind totally intermingled into a cosmic consciousness so impossibly alien that its every whirling mote of thought was incomprehensible--riotous images inconceivable because they were projections of sensory impulses for which there existed no equivalent human receptor.
Dimly Kane retained some shredded gossamer pattern of identity, vestigial awareness of being apart... insight such as comes to a dreamer who is at once conscious that he moves within a dream but is powerless to break from its spell or even to direct its course. He sensed the fabric of his mind, his soul being spread out, probed, examined, inspected with a condescending curiosity, impersonal yet intense.
This psychic vivisection' of his consciousness angered Kane--or that ghost of his mind that now struggled toward coherent identity. He sought to group together his splintered consciousness, to repel the invading mind which relentlessly pored over the memories inscribed upon his soul. Resistance was encountered, fought against grimly as his enormous psychic vitality waxed strong. Decades devoted to occult studies had given Kane control of hidden resources, pathways of mentality unexplored by all but a few human minds. Startled by this unexpected sortie, the alien mind recoiled, and with a rush Kane reoccupied the strongholds of his consciousness. There followed a sense of baffled surprise at this unanticipated curtailment of its inspection, confidence that such defense could be overcome eventually.
Although the inquisitive dissection of his consciousness subsided, Kane still spun in a mental storm of alien thought. Fragments of image, splinters of sensation grew recognizable to him now, whether from the increasing familiarity of the new perspective, or because the enveloping sentience was shifting its sensory impulses to adapt to human perception, Kane could not tell. Inchoate phenomena were merging into a sequence, falling together like bright tiny bits of continuous mosaic. A picture began to unfold to which Kane's mind could conjecture interpretation from the recognizable fragments, although vast portions of the frieze remained formless patches of inhuman thought, tiles whose colors transcended the known spectrum.
Images coalesced...
Darkness. Indefinite period of waiting, longing. Movement. Progression through time? space? Danger. Energy. Danger narrowly averted. Interminable movement. Flight from danger? Danger in transit? Craving; anticipation. Ebb and flow of vast energies. Patience/despair/anticipation/hope. Termination of movement. Danger. Energy. Danger countered. Fulfillment. Hope.
Light. Transition.
(From a great height) Clouds, sea, land. White blue green red flashes of black. Danger. Closer. Across endless azure ocean to verdant land cloaked in towering dark forest. Danger hidden in forest and sea. Awesome violence of incalculable energy. Steaming rush of sea into glowing wound carved from continent. Destination/haven achieved. Fulfillment. Settling to earth. Hope/ambition.
(Images clearer now, moving with a curiously collapsed flow of time, stylistic representation often merging into pure symbolism.)
An island of raw stone arising from inland sea. Across choppy black water the misty shoreline encompasses horizon. Walls rising, jutting forth from the island like rubrous crystals of hoarfrost. Walls, buildings of outré architecture, network of streets. Beyond, docks and stabbing piers, a great causeway lancing across the sea like a ray of light. A city bursting like some fantastic growth from the earth that was not its mother.
(There is a strange duality. A vantage point both fixed and transitory. Perception from shifting angles, the same instant viewed, projected from varying points. Simultaneous expression through lenses subtly differing.)
Moving forms through the rising city. The Krelran builders--dull-scaled creatures whose ancestry of their degenerate progeny, the Rillyti, was evident. Reptilian assurance, intelligence in their actions. Webbed hands molding the city, leaders directing its architecture to exacting detail. Immense machines crawling throughout, gleaming, tireless as ants busy in their hill. Metal arms lifting colossal blocks of stone. From curious instruments brilliant lances of flame fuse the joints to seamless strength, carve out the precise angles, etch intricate patterns in the faces. Giant vessels like water beetles scuttle across the sea; bronze centipedes hump-backed with loads tread ponderously along the causeway, disgorge mountains of crushed ore and rubble. Mounds of unguessable material unloaded from elsewhere/above/within. All fed into towering hulks of machine/furnace, transmuted through unimaginable energies, reborn as blocks of red mottled stone, sheets and cables of various metals, materials unidentifiable. Raw substance metabolized into living cells of Arellarti. Workers transport, lay down the skeleton, the structure--create the exact geometries of life/organism. Overhead the vast shadow, rising and falling, wavering. Guard/nourish.
(There is something more here, something veiled. Many doors are closed in blackness, locked, and often their presence obscured. There are two minds that are one, and yet not the same. Each has doors, barriers, has keys that may unlock/open to reveal beyond/secret. Their doors are not the same, nor are their keys--but there are doors sealed with no apparent lock, and keys for which no door is evident.)
Need. The city grows to completion/fulfillment. Urgency. The dome lifts to the sky, enclosing/protecting, nerves/arteries develop apace. Danger grows greater with each day, each day because the city draws closer to completion and defiance of all danger. Hunger for energy burns/craves. Power drained perilously low to give birth to Arellarti. Urgency. Preparations must be complete/matured before attack while energy low. I/We/Being must gamble/risk more energy to accelerate completion before attack/before can defend. Presence known, earlier thrusts just to test strength. They may understand, plan to attack when vulnerability greatest.
Arellarti nears completion. Walls, structures, every cell/nerve close to organic unity. Dome is ready, cupping/enclosing like a protective/sustaining shell, translucent to perception from within/without. Final moment is near. Ship has already transformed/incorporated all but fraction of energy/unity. Embryonic surges of power begin to flow through nascent gridwork. Transmission/transformation/ transmutation of life/awareness is beginning within new organism. The patterns are almost complete. I/We/Being come to life within new energy/ structure.
Life flows. Energy. Birth/emergence/renewal. Sense the triumph of fresh life/energy rush through infant organism.
(There are two--union of duality. Separate the consciousness, know two parts of the whole. One lies within the dome, the crystal monolith. One lies within the ring. Both are one, together Bloodstone, linked together, parallel structure, obey the laws of crystal sentience/symmetry life, to leech the flow of cosmic energy. Within the dome is Bloodstone's consciousness, harnesses the energy of the greater cosmos, coordinates/ governs the power/life. Within the ring lies its parallel self, independent/dependent parasite/symbiote, draws upon the energy of organic/[this plane] life of its bearer. The lord/priest/servant of Bloodstone--external power to manipulate that which cannot be controlled internally--extension of the power/life. Both incarnations are one and essential to the unity. Dichotomy of size/energy cosmic too miniscule illusion/limitation of perception--both equal/essential to laws of symmetry of life/energy being... )
(Block)
Αυτά...
