Chapter 1: One last time
As he one day came home from his quite boring work at the office, he went down in the basement of his house, because down there he had a great secret, only known to very few other persons. The secret he had was the Portal. This Portal was the thing, that made it possible for him to travel the worlds of Imagination. He had been so many places, and even now, almost twenty years after he one lucky day found the Portal, not one day had gone by without a visit in the Imagination. He started with the very simple travels, as he did not know how to change the destination, even though he did it. At that time it was not on purpose, but now he knows exactly how to change it. I will start out at the time in the story that is the very same day, as he wants to enter The Negative Dreamstate, as he himself had named it, once again. It is a world of magic and wonders unimaginable to the human mind. But even at that time, when he had been in it so many times before, he wanted to go in there just one more time, to make sure, there was no other things left for him to discover that he had not already discovered.
So, he walked through the Portal, and he found himself in a completely different place than he normally went to, when he entered The Negative Dreamstate. But even then he was able to see that it actually was The Negative Dreamstate. It was simply because he far, far away was able to see a chain of mountains called Maeichrantru, named by the natives of The Negative Dreamstate. "Then," he thought, "I must have made a little bit of disorder in the organic circuits in the Portal. I better go back and fix it." But as he turned around, he found himself standing on a hilltop, and as he looked around there was no Portal in sight. "What," he whispered to himself, "No Portal? Impossible. That have never happened before." As he tells himself this, he realizes, that he now have a problem. "How am I now going to get home?" He didn't hesitate for one moment more: He went directly to it, and left the hilltop. "I better try to find one of the native tribes' settlements."
This was the time he noticed his new clothes: Now, in stead of his new and expensive suit, he wore a simple, cheap looking and quite dirty peace of cloth, which was simply wrapped around his body and hold together by a rope made of the same kind of cloth. And now he felt something hurting his foot: He had stepped on a sharp stone, and had made a small bruise on his foot. Nothing on his feet. Then he thought: "What about underwear?". He checked and he was right: No underwear. That was quite comfortable, he thought, but not anything he would ever think of not wearing in the real world. "How can this be?", he asked himself. "At no time before I have changed clothes as I enter the Negative Dreamstate. I have always had to do that, when I get here. And these clothes is not anything from the tribes I normally visit. Maybe the Portal now have it's own will. It is after all organic. But if this is so, then I am in real big trouble."
As he stood there, wondering, an old woman came walking towards him up the hillside. "And now, my young friend, who are you?", she said. He answered that his name was Mongswai Nelúng, a name he had taken as his own in this world, as his real name was not of The Negative Dreamstate. She said then "Mongswai Nelúng. I have heard your name, and I have heard about your deeds, and I know from where you come!". He was frightened, because he had never told anyone of this world, where he came from. That was the reason he was so relieved when she said "You come from the Maeichrantru mountains, and I know too, that you are a magician." Partially, she was right. He did pretend to come from the Maeichrantru mountains, and he had made some quite extraordinary things when he was there the last time.
His line of thoughts was interrupted when she said: "We have been waiting for you a long time. There is especially two persons, who have been waiting for you with extra impatience. I think you know who." He did. Long time ago, he had saved the Shaman of this place from the most certain death.
It was so that on one of his very first travels in The Negative Dreamstate, he went through the forests at the root of the Maerchrantru mountains. These forests are known for their very rich animal life. The life ranges from very small creatures to a few VERY large. It was from one of these very large creatures that he saved the Shaman. The creature was a snake who was more than 15 metres long. Fortunately this snake is not poisonous. Even though it is so, the snake is still very dangerous, because it does not choke a man; no, it crushes every bone in his body! It can do this in a matter of very few minutes. A man would be happy to die from loss of air in stead of the way the snake does it, because one is alive, when the snake starts to eat you. And that is very painful.
The Shaman sat in the middle of a clearing and meditated, when, suddenly, the big snake came slipping through the grass towards him as Mongswai came out in the clearing from the other side. He didn't see the snake before it began crawling up to crush the Shaman. Then Mongswai ran to the Shaman and hacked his dagger deep into the head of the non-noticing reptile. It fell dead, and Mongswai had, luckily enough, been as fast as to kill the snake before it had made any life-threatening damages to the Shaman. He had got a broken rib from the crushing grip and broken leg from the fall of the snake.
Mongswai used his learned-up knowledge of medicine to repair the rib and the leg of the Shaman and then put a peace of wood on to support them. During the entire process the Shaman had been as well as unconscious. He had uttered an expression which was pointed directly at Mongswai, but it was the only thing he said: "The link... The link was broken. You must help..." He did not get to finish the line. Later on, Mongswai found out, that the person the Shaman wanted him to help was his daughter. The daughter who he was now going to visit.
