I

The private jet landed in Exeter, England, shortly after noon, buffeted by the strong winds typical of the southern coast. Professor Maynard closed his laptop and put it in his messenger bag alongside neatly organized packets of notes—and sand. After all those years, he still hadn’t found a way to keep everything from being coated in that fine reddish dust. He had spent at least seven years in Senegal and, given the choice, would have stayed longer. He had come to love it, and watching that stunning beach disappear from the airplane window grew harder each time. But urgent matters awaited him.

It had all begun with his master’s degree when, for the first time, he left his apartment in Oxford to fly to Kaolack, a far-from-hospitable city along the Saloum River. He was studying the local ethnic music, deeply fascinated by its distinctive polyrhythms. His research focused on the effects of various constant and contrasting rhythms on the parietal lobe of the brain. He aimed to prove that the stimulation of the eardrum by asynchronous cadences could generate seemingly inexplicable brain activity.

He was alone in a foreign country, familiar only through books he had read. For months, he had studied the culture, history, and even the local dialect. His curious appeareance endeared him to the locals, who were more welcoming than he had thought. Unfortunately, they were of little help with his research—urban centers paid little attention to traditional music. Still, it was these same locals who directed him toward the river delta, to the archipelago where master craftsmen created the sabar and junjung, ancient percussion instruments capable of being heard over vast distances.

During his journey to Dangane, a tiny settlement a little over a hundred miles downstream, he learned how futile it was to layer himself in clothing to ward off the sand. Wearing long tunics alone was one of the first lessons he picked up from the locals.

Months passed quickly as he mostly conversed with Moussa, one of the few elders in the fishing village. The residents supplemented their income by organizing river tours for tourists—John had hoped that his work would bring him far from the masses of vacationer, but quickly realized it was impossible.

He and the old man communicated in the Wolof dialect, which the locals vastly preferred over the official French. Seeing a white man initiate conversations in their ancient tongue opened the Senegalese up completely, a sign of respect for someone who had taken the time to study their culture.

Thanks to this bond, Maynard learned of the ultimate purpose behind the musical tradition passed down by this civilization: achieving perfect harmony. One evening, as they sat around the old wooden table in the village’s dilapidated tavern, having drunk a bit too much, Moussa explained that Yoonir—a star-shaped symbol with five points representing the universe—embodied the mystical power of music. This fascinated Maynard; he had always believed the symbol, so important since antiquity, referred to Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. He had never considered this new perspective.

The elder tried repeatedly to explain that music contained a magical component. His ancestors believed that, with the right rhythms and tones, one could even alter the perception of reality. The young man, however, couldn’t fully grasp this concept. He had studied music extensively, and knew nearly everything about harmony, frequency, tone, resonance, and echo. But the idea of reaching a trance state purely through auditory means was entirely new to him.

Amused yet exasperated, Moussa finally exclaimed, “Go ahead, refuse to understand, but the dothie yougnou have always been used!” Immediately, he clammed up, as if he had said too much. His expression grew serious, and he fidgeted with the beer bottle in his hands. After nearly a minute of silence, during which John’s imagination had already begun to wander, the elder rose with feigned nonchalance, mumbled an excuse, and left, leaving John alone.

Maynard had noticed the change in Moussa’s expression after that remark. What did the term mean? He didn’t know it, but the reaction suggested it was either taboo or a subject the man didn’t want to discuss. The literal translation was “standing stones”. It only took a moment for John to realize the answer to one of the greatest questions of his life.

II

Jogoye was desperate: the pangool had vanished. What would he do? Everyone needed them! For centuries, the Sérèr people had relied on these benevolent spirits to identify the most auspicious locations for building new settlements.

Recently, however, every nearby altar dedicated to their honor had gone silent. Normally, the spirits would respond to prayers; their aura, or their song, could be felt. But over the past two days, there had been no sign of their presence.

Jogoye turned to the high priest Alioune, a laman tasked with watching over the people. Alioune was a powerful shaman responsible for predicting the royal family’s future, announcing storms, and, above all, preserving traditions—all this always in close communion with the spirits. His position also marked him as one of the very few chosen to understand the technique of dissonance.

When Jogoye entered Alioune’s house in the Saloum River delta, built from interwoven palm leaves, he found him bowed toward the west. His head rested in his arms, pressed against the ground—a posture of mourning. His eyes were sunken and weary. “Something terrible has happened,” he said. “I can’t describe it precisely, but the other night, I felt an immense energy from over there, beyond the sea where the sun sets. There was a terrible commotion, and then, suddenly, absolute silence—especially from the pangool. The music stopped. Our ties to the invisible world have been severed!”

The idea of losing contact with the beings who had guided them for centuries was inconceivable, not just for the couple but for all the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Sine in West Africa. “Maybe we could try,” Jogoye suggested, “a sacrifice to the Creator.” The sage looked at him with a mix of surprise and reproach: it was forbidden to speak of Him or create images in His likeness. The only acceptable practice was to build sacrificial altars.

But the boy had a point: the situation was unprecedented and dire. There were no other spirits left to hear their prayers.

III

Cromlech. Of course! The famous stone circles aligned with the stars. Moussa had opened John’s eyes to a perspective he had never considered. Unfortunately, the old man refused to elaborate, even when offered compelling incentives like money. Still, he had planted the seed for a new line of research that consumed the next seven years of Professor Maynard’s life.

He restarted his studies on African music from scratch, searching for connections with the famous stone circles found across the world. He intentionally avoided accepted theories—cosmological or otherwise—and sought a fresh approach.

Maynard analyzed satellite photographs and personally visited every archaeological site he could find. He drained his family savings to hire a team that traveled from village to village seeking information about the dothie yougnou, but it was a dead end. Few gave satisfactory answers, and none confided in him as Moussa had in the Dangane tavern. It was impossible to know whether this stemmed from ignorance or deliberate secrecy.

Still, the results were intriguing: overlaying dozens of maps and satellite images of the archaeological sites revealed a recurring pattern. Each structure was built on a promontory. Though some stones had fallen or been displaced over time, many designs seemed to form a five-pointed star—the Yoonir.

He then began sound experiments, which yielded astonishing results in just a few months. At specific frequencies, if reproduced from precise angles, the sound waves canceled each other out at the center of the circle, rendering them inaudible. Moving even a few centimeters restored normal audibility. The most remarkable discovery, however, was that this effect could only be perceived by human ears; microphones failed to detect it.

Following this logic, he positioned speakers at the five points of the supposed star and attempted various patterns suggested by the satellite images. When these yielded no groundbreaking revelations, he shifted focus to the distance between the stones and the circle’s diameter. These dimensions were inconsistent, and some megalithic formations spanned dozens of yards. He realized he needed a larger structure to test different combinations.

For years, in a secluded hangar on the Maynard family estate in the Devon countryside, a massive circular machine operated undisturbed. It moved amplifiers to various distances in concentric circles, emitting constant sounds for five seconds at varying frequencies within the audible range of the human ear. The machine tested all possible combinations for eight hours a day.

John sat in the exact center of the circle, working on his computer. He trusted no one else with the task, and since microphones couldn’t capture the results, he believed his personal involvement and sacrifice were inevitable.

On August 18, at 4:27 PM, just hours after landing in Exeter, his laptop abruptly shook and disappeared in a flash. The hangar was gone. The machine, which had been emitting a low frequency moments earlier, had vanished. He found himself sitting—still in his chair, though he didn’t notice it—amid a vast, luminous purple expanse that enveloped him completely. Five seconds later, the vision vanished, and the familiar metallic structure reappeared before him.

Startled by a sudden wave of nausea and shaken by the unexpected vision, he sprang to his feet and rushed to stop the machine’s arms. The frequency display read sixty-seven hertz—a low, rather pleasant tone, far from grating. It was also the frequency produced by many percussion instruments.

IV

Jogoye led the finest sheep from his flock to the top of the hill, where the laman awaited him with a dozen other priests. They stood around the circumference of large, black, glossy stones that formed a sacrificial altar. Each held a junjung drum in their hands.

This was a sacred place, one of many pointed out by the pangool during their marches to claim new lands. These hills were said to guard the last remnants of the Great Tree, Mbos, buried beneath them. Building huts or digging in these areas was considered a sacrilege punishable by death. According to legend, the sacred Great Tree, a gardenia with radiant white blossoms, had been planted by the deity Roog—whose name was forbidden to utter—and it regulated the balance of all natural elements. For the Sérèr people, the remnants of Mbos radiated energy, or a musical harmony, that linked their world to the supreme deity. Only the laman, the shamans, were sensitive enough to perceive this symphony and the songs of other spirits.

The shepherd stopped a few meters from the group, holding back the sheep with the rope tied around its neck. Alioune took a deep breath and recited: “Mighty Tree, father of us all, accept this offering. We ask for your Creator’s blessing to bring the pangool back into our world!”

The circle of Sérèr began playing their drums in an ancient technique: five different, syncopated rhythms clashed against each other. Instead of creating harmony, they intentionally produced the opposite—a powerful dissonance at the center of the altar. Once the instruments’ rhythm became steady and powerful enough, the high priest patted the sheep, which bolted toward the center of the megalithic circle.

V

Excitement surged through him. He couldn’t make his discovery public—not yet. He had finally found a combination of sounds that altered the perception of reality! Deep down, he suspected he had opened a portal to somewhere unknown, but he didn’t dare fully articulate the thought. He had no idea what he had seen just minutes ago.

Before repeating the experiment, he prepared thoroughly: he placed cameras and sensors at every angle around the machine, with some even set up outside the building. He planned to test various subjects—a tennis ball, a flower, and finally a rat in a cage. Most importantly, he had a custom spacesuit shipped from Russia, suitable for deep-space exploration. Determined to relive the experience safely, he fitted the suit with sensors and attached a steel quick-retract cable to his waist, ready to pull him out of the “hallucination”—if it could even be called that—in case of emergency.

He proceeded cautiously. He placed each subject at the circle’s center, stepped back ten yards, and activated the speakers. It was as though flipping a switch: first, the tennis ball was there; then it was gone.

Elated like a child, he tried the experiment with a GPS tracker, which reappeared in place but irreparably damaged. The device was intact externally, but its software was completely unusable. This wasn’t an illusion caused by intersecting sound waves—it was actual teleportation!

The flower returned to its original spot, completely unharmed. Tissue analysis showed no changes compared to a few hours earlier. As for the rat, he had serious doubts, expecting to lose it for good. But after five seconds, it reappeared, seemingly unfazed. After conducting the necessary tests, he ran additional experiments—ten seconds, thirty, then ninety seconds, which felt like over an hour.

When Jerry, as he had affectionately named the rat, returned unharmed, Maynard threw his hands in the air. The rat was alive and appeared perfectly normal! It was time to reenter the experience himself. He wore the sensor-filled suit, secured the cable, and stepped into the circle’s center.

The timer was set for ten seconds, after which the speakers would shut off, ceasing the sound. A fraction of a second after the vibrations began, the hangar disappeared, and he found himself immersed in violet light.

This time, however, it was different. The horizon wasn’t uniform; above him, he could make out slow-moving shadows, like clouds. It felt like being at the bottom of the ocean, wearing a diving suit, while immense figures moved on the surface. They resembled mountains more than whales. As he stared in awe at the “sky,” the metal structure rematerialized around him.

He wasn’t nauseous. On the contrary, adrenaline coursed through his veins as he eagerly prepared for more tests. Grabbing the tennis ball from a nearby table, he hesitated briefly as he noticed the inert retraction cable dangling behind him—proof his body had truly teleported. But he didn’t care. Resetting the timer to thirty seconds, he stepped back into position.

The metallic structure vanished again, and he found himself in yet another place. The light was dimmer, as though he were standing within one of the shadows he’d seen earlier. He tossed the tennis ball in a gentle arc. At first, it obeyed the laws of gravity, but as it began its descent, its image trembled, multiplied into countless quivering white globes, and scattered along various trajectories, disappearing into the void.

When he reappeared in his lab, he was ecstatic. Evidently, it was dangerous to stray from the arrival point on the other side, but he had no intention of doing so. Grabbing an entire tube of tennis balls, he set the timer for one minute and vanished again.

Maynard’s lab was a sturdy metal hangar powered by a diesel generator, capable of maintaining stable electricity even during outages. It was also designed as a Faraday cage to discharge any electrical surges or lightning strikes. On that warm, mildly humid afternoon, the sky was mostly clear, save for a few unthreatening clouds.

But it was a lightning bolt, seemingly out of nowhere, that struck the hangar. It tore through the roof, violently snaking to the ground, destroying the concentric machinery and severing Maynard’s only connection to his reality.

Sixty seconds had passed. He was sure of it. He had begun counting softly and had reached one hundred. He was sweating. By now, he should have returned to the cold metal of his lab. He had thrown all the tennis balls into the void; each had disintegrated into uncountable white globes after traveling a few yards. Time dragged on, and the suit grew heavier. Desperate, he sat on the intangible surface beneath him and tossed the empty tube into the void, watching it vanish in the same mesmerizing optical effect.

He waited for three hours, or perhaps longer—who could say? In the constant light that surrounded him, time in that alien place seemed frozen. For all he knew, only ten minutes had passed. After an unreasonable length of time, tears welled in his eyes as he concluded that his hangar wouldn’t reappear—not if he stayed in place. He forced himself to calm down, taking deep, steady breaths. Finally, he closed his eyes, held his breath, and, with what felt like superhuman effort, lifted his right foot from the invisible ground and took a step forward.

VI

The sole of his boot sank into the sand. The unexpected sensation made his eyes fly open, revealing a red beach stretching endlessly into the horizon. He stood about five hundred feet from the sea on a small hill dotted with dry shrubs. In front of him stood a dark-skinned man holding a percussion instrument under his arm.

Suddenly, something struck his left leg with such force that he lost his balance and went flying. He landed on his back, then awkwardly rolled over, his suit now full of sand. It had been none other than a sheep, charging at full speed. He thought he was losing his mind, still trapped in that violet limbo and dreaming absurd dreams. Yet, looking around, he saw other men, all wide-eyed and as frightened as he was.

They stood in a circle, curiously each holding a junjung drum. As Maynard noticed this detail, a puzzle piece clicked into place. With a closer look, he confirmed it: he was standing at the exact center of a cromlech.

The men muttered to one another, dumbfounded by his sudden appearance. They wore long tunics adorned with shells and small bones, possibly ceremonial attire. John was certain he had never met these people before, but their faces felt familiar. During his years in that beautiful country, he had seen dozens, perhaps hundreds, of similar features. He had no idea how, but he must have ended up in Senegal.

His suspicion was confirmed seconds later. As he slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off the others, he recognized a few words in Wolof: “demon”… “pangool"… “weapons.” The situation, already surreal, was quickly taking a dangerous turn. He needed to act before it spiraled out of control. So, he attempted to communicate in their dialect.

His words came out broken and shaky, still affected by the shock of the “journey” he had just endured. Yet he managed to explain to the locals that he meant no harm and had come in peace. Their eyes widened at hearing a man in such bizarre clothing speak their language, but they seemed to understand him and calmed down slightly. However, they continued to stare at him with a strange, unsettling curiosity. The heat was unbearable, and he asked them to remain calm as he removed his suit.

As he pulled off the Teflon pants, he finally understood the locals’ inquisitive looks.

They’ve never seen a white man before, he thought. The group pointed at his legs as if he had seven of them or extra joints. For a brief second, the thought amused him—he wondered where these people had been hiding for centuries—but then the truth hit him, simple, direct, and unbelievable: he had traveled back in time.

After several minutes of near-total silence, the professor gathered his courage and asked to be taken to the nearest village for water. The locals were cordial and granted his request. They walked along the coast for about two hundred yards, arriving at a small cluster of huts made from woven reeds and palm leaves.

John felt like in a dream. The atmosphere was eerily familiar—a beach similar to those where he had spent months of his life—yet completely different: no motor vehicles, no plastic waste, no modern objects. He had no idea when he was, but if this truly was Senegal, the people must have been Sérèr, as they spoke Wolof.

He never discovered the exact year of his arrival, but over the following weeks, he speculated it must have been before 1000 AD. He had traveled back over a thousand years! But… how? The flower, Jerry… they had all returned to the present. Why had he ended up in the past and thousands of miles away?

He thought long and hard about it, eventually arriving at a theory that seemed improbable. But having just accomplished the impossible, he decided to stick to it.

The sand. It could have been the sand that guided him to Senegal. Since his jet landed, he hadn’t had the chance to change, and there was likely sand still clinging to his clothes—even his underwear.

As for the time travel… perhaps it was due to the extended time he had spent in the violet space, far longer than the other test subjects. Or maybe it was because he had moved from his original arrival point. Jerry had been confined to a cage, and the flower… well, it had stayed in its pot. He was the only one who had moved.

Once welcomed into the village, where everyone regarded him as if he were a ghost, he faced more immediate challenges, such as explaining his sudden appearance. Knowing the locals’ sensitivity to the supernatural, he claimed to be a messenger of the pangool. The moment he saw their eyes light up at the mention of the spirits, he knew he had struck a nerve.

They must have been in some sort of spiritual crisis, he surmised, making a mental note to investigate delicately in the coming days.

In truth, Maynard had no intention of helping them with their missing spirits. Over time, he devised a plan: since these people could open portals through their knowledge of polyrhythm, he would have them open another one to leap into the unknown.

As for his next destination, an idea struck him: if the sand had guided him to Senegal, perhaps a rock from the ocean would guide him elsewhere.

After days of pondering the risks, he realized this might be his only way to return home—or at least try. After about a month, he gathered his courage and went to the shoreline to find his “compass.” Not an expert geologist, he soon found a smooth stone that appeared to be shale mixed with granite—both common in Devon, southwest England.

Perhaps this new jump would take him back to his hangar.

He summoned Alioune, a priest he had bonded with—he reminded him of his old friend Moussa—and explained what needed to be done.

They donned ceremonial garments, except for John, who wore his suit, and walked to the cromlech. The locals offered many gifts for the pangool spirits, but John politely declined, hoping his diplomacy was well-received.

The men positioned themselves around the stone circle, while John stood at its center. As the drums began to play, he gripped the large stone with both hands, closed his eyes, and let the low frequency of the ancient instruments—so simple yet so powerful—wash over him.

When he reopened his eyes, he was once again enveloped by violet clouds. The drum vibrations were gone, but he saw grains of sand swirling in from the right, carried by an invisible wind to the left, where they disappeared into hundreds of glowing points, like the tennis balls he had thrown during his experiment.

A tear slipped down his cheek—out of awe and fear. He had made an extraordinary discovery, but now he needed to find a way to return to his own time and share it.

He clutched the rock even tighter, held his breath, and stepped forward into the unknown.

VII

He didn’t find himself in his hangar, nor anywhere in England. His plans had a logical foundation, but the theory and its execution proved vastly different. This second leap didn’t return him to his present, nor even close—it sent him even further away. Examining the somatic features and clothing of the people surrounding this new cromlech—whose megaliths were utterly different from those in Africa—he realized he must be in the Middle East, or perhaps Greece.

The shock on the faces of these people was as profound as that of the Sérèr, but Maynard was prepared and immediately worked to calm them. They wore simple linen garments, were fair-skinned but deeply tanned by the sun, and spoke a language that hinted at Greek, though he struggled to recognize it. Fortunately, his classical studies had equipped him with a basic grasp of essential terms, particularly religious and medical. With difficulty, he managed to make himself understood and was accepted by this new population as a sort of deity.

Two things surprised him more than the time travel itself: first, his remarkable luck in not yet encountering a warlike or violent tribe—a risk he’d considered likely given the sudden appearance of a stranger out of nowhere. Second, that this distant population also knew the technique—now far from secret—of opening a portal. Over time, he carefully inquired with his hosts, trying not to appear foolish, about how they had learned this method. Their response was simple: it was a technique for communicating with the gods, passed down through generations.

There’s little point in dwelling on the events in this pseudo-Mediterranean region: Maynard had no interest in staying. He found no answers, only more questions. After a couple of weeks, he wanted to leave, employing the same method as before—a ritual around the cromlech, with him at the center holding a stone carried by the sea. He wasn’t sure if this “compass” theory held any weight, but he was too afraid to venture into that inhospitable limbo without something connecting him to his world.

This leap, like the ones that followed, was successful… but it didn’t bring him closer to home. As his biological age advanced, his body continued to travel backward in time—or in some direction he couldn’t entirely understand but seemed to follow a pattern. He made five total journeys, each landing him among increasingly primitive civilizations. Yet, they were always advanced enough to practice agriculture and live in relatively organized settlements.

He had no clear sense of what century it was, but he speculated, based on the climate and calm seas, that he remained within the Mediterranean basin. The ocean, by contrast, was far more turbulent, with crashing waves often unsettling stones on the seafloor. The Mediterranean’s waters, however, were relatively quiet.

Each civilization, curiously, seemed prepared for his sudden arrival, as though they half-expected an appearance from someone stepping out of a circle of stones. Language became an increasing challenge with each leap, but his semi-divine status helped him gain their understanding—and respect.

The sixth leap, however, was different.

As he entered the violet mist, his first step landed on solid ground—not soil, sand, or rock, but something else entirely. He was still in that silent limbo, completely alone, and for the first time, he managed to take a step forward without being ejected from it. Confused, a surge of panic and adrenaline coursed through him. What had changed? His “compass” should have guided him somewhere… but what if the theory was wrong?

Trying to stay calm, he took a deep breath and stepped forward again, then again. Nothing happened. The uniformity of the mist made it nearly impossible to tell if he was moving at all, except for the strain on his muscles.

Suddenly, a terrifying thought crossed his mind: what if no civilization before the one he had just left knew how to open a portal? Was he doomed to spend eternity in this nowhere, with no “door” to exit through?

Clutching his rock tightly, Professor Maynard kept walking for what felt like hours. He counted seconds and minutes, certain he had walked for over six hours. He’d felt this same sense of dread once before, a profound sense of loss in this accursed place, but had arrogantly believed he’d understood its workings.

Exhausted, he felt strange, as though his vision blurred and his arms disappeared before reappearing. Perhaps it was the strain of carrying the small stone, which now felt like the heaviest boulder in the universe, but he had a distinct sensation that both he and the rock occasionally trembled before stabilizing again.

Just as he was about to collapse, he thought he saw a white glow to his right. Turning toward it, his foot struck solid rock.

The sight before him was nothing like he had expected, though it was far more reassuring than where he had just been. There was no cromlech, no humans waiting for him. Just endless rock, punctuated by sparse vegetation. It was tundra—or perhaps taiga. The air was freezing—thankfully, his suit was well-insulated—and the terrain was covered not with grass but with mosses and lichens. It was night, and the sky was gray, like the moments preceding dawn.

Inhaling, he noticed the air felt subtly different, perhaps in its composition, but it wasn’t harmful. He didn’t feel ill,but indeed fatigued after his walk through the void.

The ground seemed fractured, with deep crevices stretching yards into the earth. Steam rose from some of the cracks, and the earth appeared to shift slightly, like parts of it were sinking. As he examined the area, a faint white light drew his attention to one particular crevice.

Descending into the fissure, he didn’t have to go far before seeing the light’s source. Partially buried in the rocky earth was a large, spherical object, glowing briefly at regular intervals before dimming. Though he couldn’t see all of it, the artifact—clearly not natural—was much larger than he was. He could have stand inside it with room to spare.

He sat on a rock, staring at the massive object for several minutes as the sky above slowly brightened. He counted the intervals between flashes of light: roughly fifteen seconds. The material seemed to be stone, yet oddly polished. Its surface was covered with intricate patterns, which at first glance resembled natural erosion.

As he examined it closer, the soil around the artifact, some three or four yards deep, appeared freshly disturbed—damp and cool. Perhaps an earthquake had unearthed it.

He cursed himself for not studying geology more thoroughly, but he vaguely recalled that shifts in the earth’s crust, like those from post-glacial rebound, could explain such phenomena. However, the most recent glaciation he knew of had ended over ten thousand years ago.

Stretching out his hand toward the sphere, he made an extraordinary discovery: whenever the object glowed, his hand and arm seemed to vanish momentarily, becoming unstable, much like the stone that had guided him out of the violet void. It reminded him of the static interference of an old rabbit-ear TV antenna. His body, for an instant, vibrated at what felt like the wrong frequency.

When he leaned closer, he noticed a worn circular engraving near the top of the artifact. It looked like… a serpent devouring its own tail: an uroboros. One of the most enduring symbols across cultures, it was found in Egyptian, Chinese, Norse, and Indian civilizations. Though heavily eroded, he could faintly discern the serpent’s mouth and tail.

Reaching out to clean the design, everything became bright in an instant: as his hand touched the cold serpent, the sphere lit up, and his hand fell into its center, dragging his body with it.

He didn’t have time to comprehend what was happening. As he looked back in alarm, he thought he saw himself, dressed in a spacesuit, sitting on the rocky ground with a distant, contemplative gaze.

What was being drawn into the artifact was that intangible part of humanity often called the soul, spirit, psyche, or pneuma. That peculiar astronaut remained seated, leaning against an invisible wall, while Maynard’s essence was pulled deeper into a realm he could scarcely describe, despite all his academic knowledge.

VIII

Everything became immediately clear to him, because at that moment he realized that he already knew everything. Time no longer made sense; it was like a handkerchief that could be pulled from a pocket, folded in on itself, crumpled, or torn apart. Suddenly, he could see everything transparently, and the immense value of the scientific breakthrough he had made in his hangar became fully apparent.

The music of the spheres. That was what he had been thinking about during his flight to Exeter that day. He could now relive that moment at will and laughed at the thought he had mid-flight. Throughout history, the concept of musica universalis had been a cornerstone of the philosophies of various civilizations across the globe. Everything surrounding humanity emits its own melody, resonating in harmony to shape the world as humans perceive it. What Maynard had achieved with his amplifier-filled machine in his lab was the key to breaking this illusion.

The artifact unearthed by the earthquake on his last journey, however, was a true marvel—the key to this illusion we call reality. It was a sort of antenna, designed to resonate everything at the correct frequency. Countless such devices exist, scattered across the planet and the universe. Some have been destroyed or compromised, but they are essential for keeping our dimension separate from… whatever lies beyond. These devices guided his wanderings through the violet limbo, served as the foundation for the cromlech, and attracted his “compass rocks” with their power to hold this reality together.

Stone circles were built atop these sites because some humans had been sensitive enough to detect the energy emanating from them. However, the megaliths served only to mark the position for drummers to follow the Yoonir star’s points during rituals to open the portals. The power channeled was the one of the spheres.

As for polyrhythm, it became clear why so many civilizations, distant in both time and space, knew this technique—it was he who had unwittingly taught them during his travels. It was he, in his hangar, who had first discovered that combination of rhythms and frequencies, and it was he who had passed it on to past peoples through his journeys. As is often the case, humanity discovers an incomprehensible force, exploits a fraction of it, and immediately believes itself omnipotent.

John was fascinated by how many civilizations over the millennia had come close to understanding the truth without modern scientific knowledge. By attributing the inexplicable to the supernatural and religion, many peoples had assigned symbols or meanings to events based on well-known elements of their culture.

Curiously, the Sérèr he had encountered had come closer than anyone to understanding the current state of things: their theory of the Great Tree and its roots connecting our world to the supreme deity was astonishingly accurate. The roots were the buried spherical artifacts! Even the Norse Tree of Life was strikingly similar to what this new Maynard could perceive. The Tree existed, but it wasn’t a plant. It was simply the most comprehensible concept humans could grasp to describe its form and function.

However, John didn’t find only answers; he felt alone amidst the vastness of this newfound knowledge, yet he knew he wasn’t alone. There was something—or someone—aware of his presence and power. Moreover, it became clear that the various roots referenced a central structure, this fabled Tree, but he couldn’t perceive it clearly. He could only sense an immense energy flow connecting countless visible points across the cosmos to a single, vast basin of blurred form.

He felt it wasn’t impossible to reach it, but his being—or whatever he now was—couldn’t exist in both places simultaneously. He also felt a troubling sensation, as though certain facets of history he could now see clearly, from Beginning to End, had been altered in some way. This partial ignorance unsettled him, but his new, incomprehensible, and thrilling state of existence thrilled him too much to dwell on it.

As a final act before moving toward his next destination, climbing the Tree’s branches, he used his newfound powers to complete the circle of events. On a clear August day in the 21st century, he created a massive, unnatural electrical potential difference in the Devon countryside inside a hangar. The result: a powerful lightning bolt tore through the structure’s roof. Despite camera footage showing a man inside just moments earlier, his body was never found.

Finally, he flung his entire being toward the pool of knowledge he still didn’t fully understand—the one entity toward which he still had doubts. Yet his lingering human arrogance had not entirely faded: in his presumption, he failed to consider that his act of ascension might not have been anticipated—or perhaps even welcomed—by whatever was observing him and didn’t want to be seen.