in a guise never seen before: from the height of heaven! Forests and ravines, mountains and plains, fields and steppes that surrounded the Great Volcano – everything was in full view here! The shaman looked around Her expanses with amazement and once again became convinced that this unity was not similar to any other units before.
The immense grove of araucaria that spread near the camp and beyond which the first people had not yet gone, still hid behind the horizon, and its edges could not be seen. The scope of the coniferous forest turned out to be much wider than its visible outlines from the ledges of the caves – the dwellings of the elders. And this could not but comfort Roshan. The green cover of araucaria was a real boon of Pangea, since predatory reptiles larger than Raptors were not noticed in these parts. And despite the fact that both Raptors and Vultures have bred in the forest, and the herbivorous Stripers have recently begun to leave these places, the rangers, guessing the lucky lot of the Great Hunt, have always rejoiced in the grove, like small children with the colored wings of swamp dragonflies. Harassing the Stripers among ravines and araucaria-tree-covered hills, even among Raptors, was much safer than stalking giants in liana forests or bennettite plains. And the lot, as was customary, made it possible for the leaders of the hunting parties to choose the side of the world of fishing first.
Directing his gaze to the southwest, the shaman focused his vision on the liana forest. The dense crowns of giant liana trees, like elevated hills, protruded above the surroundings. The tops of the leafy cover swayed fairly from the breath of the wind, and from the sky it seemed that the blowing gusts created abundant disturbances of the vegetative plateau, like wavy ripples on the water surface appear after strong flows of the windy element. Long contemplation of the peaks caused an illusion in Roshan’s gaze. The leader for a moment succumbed to the monotonous variability of the crowns, and it began to seem to him that the deciduous cover of the trees was hovering above the ground. Feeling the deceit in the vision, the shaman released his vision and looked again at the liana forest. He immediately noticed that above the crowns near the edges the lords of the heavens were swarming – powerful and ardent predators of Pterosaurs. But from the height of the flight of the incarnation of the soul, the heavenly hunters looked tiny. And all the greatness of the Pterosaurs became at that moment insignificant in comparison with the greatness of what was seen around.
The leader looked at the borders of the forest and the previous path traveled. The leader recognized the hunting trails and the last resting place in the wooded ridge. The memories of the lands along which the footprints of ancestors and Pangea itself led to the Great Volcano inspired Roshan with worries about the past…
The constant rise of soul essence opened up views of unfamiliar lands to the south, west, and east. The edge of the liana forest on the southwestern side grew scarcely into a plateau of bennettite fields. The fields mingled either with strings of conifers, or with lush cycads, or maybe even with palm trees – everything became similar from a height. The limits of the plateau approached the wooded hills, and behind the hills a wide river meandered in a dark blue stripe, like a lasso thrown by chance. In some places it broke off into ravines, and in these places its sharp and seething declines were visible. The winding shores of the water element abundantly enveloped the jungle, liana giants and other trees.
Bor in the west rested on a hill. But the gaze had already risen so high that the vegetation on these hills had also become illegible. But in the southeast, the edge of the araucaria grove suddenly appeared, and the soils that arose there clearly conveyed the fiery shades of the half-dead steppes. Crimson arid lands in some areas of unfamiliar distances were strewn with verdant tones of vegetation, and it seemed to Roshan that there, among the greenery, lonely hollows of lakes gleamed.
In the north-west, in the led regions behind the wooded ridges, a swamp valley was already visible. But if the shaman did not know about its existence, then it is unlikely that from such a height he could make out what kind of area it was.
The essence hastily rose up, and with every moment the creator’s abode moved away from the shaman’s gaze, hiding the details of the camp and growing in grandeur at the same time. Very soon She was so far away that it became impossible to see even the highest hills and trees in Her. The lands of Pangea now differed only in the pale hues of the colors of the vegetation that covered them, and the features of the areas growing into each other were not visible at all. Yes, and the Great Volcano from the height of heaven no longer seemed so majestic. But at its summit, the silhouettes of the undergrowth could still be seen: lone ginkgo trees, yucca trees, fern thickets, grass cover and hill borders – rocky ledges and sharp slopes.
The vast expanses of Pangea were enveloped on all sides by a continuous horizon, and the leader was struck by what he saw! For the first time he saw how the horizon closed in a ring, bordering only on the firmament. The rounded forms of the horizon became more expressive with every moment of distance and made it clear that the coherence of the world, like the Great Fire, like the Moon and stars, are similar in outline. And this idea destroyed a lot of conjectures and thoughts about the creator’s warehouse in the shaman’s head.
Higher and higher the leader rose to the sky, and Pangea became more and more immense and immeasurable. Her scope was so great that she lacked the ability to see to see the manifested distances at the edges of Her form. The appearance of the creator was gradually embodied in a rounded giant Earth. And the Earth was already so far from Roshan that the gaze was enough to cover its facets with a glance!
Suddenly, the shaman noticed how the heights of the firmament began to change color. Their visible features were gradually surrounded by a mysterious black haze, and a thick white veil formed over Pangea. And through it, covering the edges of the majestic plateau, raging waters began to be seen. The heavenly color of the water, from the northern shores of which, according to the legends of the ancestors, the light-skinned Zavrini took the first step towards the Great Volcano.
An unexpectedly powerful blast of the elements stirred up the essence of the soul. Roshan felt the breath of cold currents on his face and shuddered. It seemed to him that the elements had broken the flight. The essence seemed to have overcome an invisible line and, having weakened the impulses of aspiration, stopped. With his body, the shaman perceived a previously unknown lightness, as if his camp had lost its attraction. After a moment, the heights of the heavens, which a moment ago were shrouded in darkness, completely dissolved, and around the outlines of the creator, the starry abode of the night appeared.
***
Bright stars engulfed Roshan’s vision. The cold radiance of countless luminaries – both small and great – littered the valley of darkness. And that valley had neither borders nor horizons.
The shaman was stunned by what he saw – even at night, so many stars could not be seen from the ledges of the Great Volcano! And their leader was amazed at their multitude and open spaces, that they had no edges, not only from above, as usual, but also from below, where the warehouse of Her monastery allowed walking along the paths, and from all over the world, where the horizon bordered on something!
And then, at a distance from the camp of Pangea, the Great Fire rushed into the eyes of Roshan.
Like a lonely fire in the midnight wasteland, the Great Fire blazed in the endless desert of darkness. And there was no one around except the Earth and the dark stars. And the fiery shone that warmed each new day, which foreshadowed twilight by sunset, at that moment no longer blinded the shaman’s gaze. Her eyes returned to the leader and softened the brightness of the dazzling rays, allowing you to consider the coherence of the red-hot body.
The fiery mixture of glow and heat aroused clumps of fiery elements in the camp of the Great Fire! The warehouse of the Great Fire was seething like
