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They kept themselves hidden, but it’d happen from time to time that they would appear to the local inhabitants. You see, their skin was what we call light adaptive... light would bend around their bodies (If you know about such things, their outer skin was a type of fibre optic cell layer. Only very recently have we figured out how to do it ourselves!)

   Well anyway, imagine sitting around a campfire, maybe one of the dozen Haidas on the beach, gazing into the smoke rising up. Tell yeh what: you’re not just one of them- you’re the SHAMAN! Welcome to our story, Shaman ‘Nightroot’!

The Stone Guardians

 SO many years ago, already. Though you rediscovered much of Grandfather’s knowledge, you never really thought about him that much. And today, out of the blue, he seemed to be sharing your mind. Of course, this WAS a major healing ceremony. A bad case of sniffily noses and stomach aches had been going around the clan for weeks already and this required a LOT of heavy cedar-bark smoke. (At least, that’s what Grandfather’d said once).

 And that was it, wasn’t it? You miss him- more than you ever thought. And maybe that tear rolling down your cheek wasn’t just from the smoke. Never mind.

 The entire assembly was rubbing their eyes now and a harmony of barking coughs echoed out across the bay. Good- that’d clear their lungs out. You stand aside out of the choking cloud so you can see better. And see, you did.

 The ‘raven’ shapes were back. They hovered in the dense cloud of smoke- as if a transparent window into the background danced amidst the smoke. “Whaaaattt?” you cry. “Look there!!” But the shapes are already swirls before your clan sees a thing.

You wipe your eyes once more, but these things can’t be your imagination. Grandfather’s words come to life as surely as a failing belief you had only minutes before. The Spirits LIVE!!

Now of course, the creatures themselves, who had come to do the actual healing on the poor, sick natives, noticed the gaping expression on the Shaman's face gazing in their direction! "Ahhh, NO! This was not supposed to be!" (Nightroot and his clan could never hear this shrill cry- it was pitched far above our normal range of hearing.) The smoke swirled and danced from their flight as the creatures made a quick exit. But, it would not keep their secret.

 LONG nights after the ceremony, you pondered. “Nightroot”, you say to yourself, “certainly these strange Spirits have great powers.” (And unlike other ‘spirits’ of the forest, no doubt these were real enough.) “Might it be possible to arrange some kind of magic with these creatures?” Meaning, of course, could he use them for his own cause?

“There must be some way,” you plot and thought. And thought and plot. And... that’s how it all happened.

  Sometimes it happens to even the most advanced of beings; an unforeseeable accident. Because the local inhabitants and the creatures had co-existed for a thousand years and time really had no meaning for the creatures ( they called themselves ‘the Y~innon’. Just try to say it!), it’d never really occurred to them that the people living around them were evolving.

   This foggy October night, water had somehow gotten into the Y~innon projection crystal and trashed the ‘holo’ into a blurry mess. Then, in a million-to-one chance, a bobcat had chased Nightroot right beside the very entrance of the cave. And so it was, that in the unusually heavy fog, the creatures once again became visible to the Shaman. He saw them enter the cave. He saw the flickering image of the bear disappear. And... he became very curious of this place which was so much to be feared, yet seemed no more than a mirage on a hot day. Finally, the last straw... the Y~innon had completely missed seeing him cowering behind the ancient tree nearby.

 A curious human is one thing, but having the Y~innon all upset about being seen by the Shaman, that did it. 'Breach of protocol' they called it. 'Contamination of the natural lifeforms', they worried. Their heated  discussion sounded much like all the crickets of the island had gathered in this one cave. And as every Y~innon left the cave to re-visit the location where it had happened, Shaman Nightroot went in.

 How do you describe an optical control center to eyes which have never seen a switch? All Nightroot saw was a wealth of the most tradable crystals he’d ever seen. This could make him the most respectable Shaman in the entire world! ( he knew there were at least 5 islands in it )

 And so, Nightroot reached out for the crystal with the most valuable and familiar hue to it- silver. In Y~innonese... this was the 'master homopolar generator switch'. (Never mind what it means... Our Shaman would only have heard the words as a nice little rhyme anyway.) As fingers clutched the crystal, immense electrical currents flowed and far out on the point, a massive machine started up. It gets a bit technical here. (after all, the Y~innon were a vastly knowledgeable race.) Right, I warned you. “Huge power pulsed through superconducting bars and squeezed the super-dense singularity sphere in the center of the machine far beyond critical mass. Instead of re-aligning the earth's crust to limit earthquake energy at a sensitive geological zone, the machine built a roiling wave of gravity”.  Yeah. Time... simply went crazy.

 As the crystal broke off in Nightroot's hands, three other crystals were triggered. The Y~innon knew then, of course... but there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. You can't go back in time when you can't get to the controls. The gravity wave swept over the forest and most Y~innon just ceased to be. The local people had never been born. Ancient trees were still ancient trees, just generations younger. Two of the oldest Y~innon sitting on a massive sandstone bank were spared the worst of the disaster. Spared, perhaps,  but doomed just the same- they literally became part of the rock they were sunning upon. (Re-integration, if you will, in Y~innonese.)

 And so it was, for thousands of years.

3500 years passing, ocean currents and storm waves have unceasingly etched the sandstone bluffs, leaving behind harder materials.

     What you see when you enter Mayne Island's Campbell Bay is incredible. A bizarre coastline of hollowed-out sandstone and rounded boulders sticking out of the rock. It makes you simply awe at the power of the water... (and wonder what else might be stuck in the rock)

    And so, after millennia of water blasting, a shape was gradually carved out of the rock... a prominence at the top, a sweeping ramp of rock, and a thin ridge trailing behind...

" All hands on deck... prepare to make anchor!"

4000 years ago, a race of dragon-like creatures were custodians of a wonderful paradise-ours.

 Only five nights after the ceremony, our Shaman Nightroot stumbled  perchance upon that very spot.

Back to start

   HAVEN’T  you ever seen rolls of smoke that look like creatures? All the time- you ARE the Shaman, after all. Dancing and chanting, you’d point out what you see to the others and smile. “Deer bounding! Rabbits jumping... spirits of the forest! Brothers of the island!” You’re so clever... Mmmm--you make a big show of concentration--can’t see exactly, but look! Wasn’t that a raven flying in the smoke? Errr, no. A hole in smoke that looked like a huge raven! A hole that was just as suddenly gone. You lower your hand and shake a feathered head. “It was nothing”, you mutter.

  Grandfather had once seen something very strange- it’d scared the life out of him. On his mossy bed one day, he’d grabbed his young grandson by the shoulders and shook him. “They are alive, Nightroot, young Shaman! Look upon them, but treat them with respect!”

  Grandfather died then, and took many secrets with him.

.

 It’d be a good 3500 years later, when what you started was finally undone by a curious crew of navigators.

Wait for iiittttt !!

 OK, OK. I’ll give you a little preview of what’s coming in the next chapter- After all, this IS what Captain Hood saw as they rounded the bend, narrowly escaping the reefs at the mouth of the bay. Let's face it, after such a stormy crossing, the fine crew of Hood’s ship was happy just to be in quiet waters. The Capt’n blinked his eyes at the sight, but gave it no further notice.

 He would dream this night...

 Now, these Y~innon had a most secret-of-secret places on the island. For years, they had been instilling rumors and fear in the locals about this place. If the cave entrance itself wasn’t creepy enough on sight, the holographic image of a ferocious bear kept people out for generations. This place was their control center- the place in which they communicated with their home world beyond the light we believed to be a star.

 THE STRANGE (and science fiction) TALES of CAPTAIN HOOD

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