The Cave of Time

  The Cave

  of Time

  Edward Packard

  You’ve hiked through Snake Canyon once before while visiting your Uncle Howard at Red Creek Ranch, but you never noticed any cave entrance. It looks as though a recent rock slide has uncovered it.

  Though the late afternoon sun is striking the opening of the cave, the interior remains in total darkness. You step inside a few feet, trying to get an idea of how big it is. As your eyes become used to the dark, you see what looks like a tunnel ahead, dimly lit by some kind of phosphorescent material on its walls. The tunnel walls are smooth, as if they were shaped by running water. After twenty feet or so, the tunnel curves. You wonder where it leads. You venture in a bit further, but you feel nervous being alone in such a strange place. You turn and hurry out.

  A thunderstorm may be coming, judging by how dark it looks outside. Suddenly you realize the sun has long since set, and the landscape is lit only by the pale light of the full moon. You must have fallen asleep and woken up hours later. But then you remember something even more strange. Just last evening, the moon was only a slim crescent in the sky.

  You wonder how long you’ve been in the cave. You are not hungry. You don’t feel you have been sleeping. You wonder whether to try to walk back home by moonlight or whether to wait for dawn, rather than risk losing your footing on the steep and rocky trail.

  Start back home

  Wait

  As you start walking back toward the ranch, you notice the trail seems very different than you remember it, though of course moonlight can play tricks on your eyes. But you suddenly realize you are not walking on the trail at all, but on what seems to be a dried-up river bed. You hurry back to the cave entrance. You look around you and realize the whole landscape has changed. While you were in the cave, torrents of water have washed out the trail; yet there is not so much as a puddle left. You shiver. It is cold, much colder than it should be at this time of year. You take a jacket out of your backpack and put it on, but you are still freezing.

  At least the world about you seems brighter. It’s getting light in the east. The sun will soon be up. You look at your watch. It has run down, though you wound it only a few hours ago. Nothing seems to make sense anymore.

  You know you should get back to the ranch as quickly as possible; yet somehow you feel the only way to change things back to the way they were is to re-enter the cave.

  Continue toward the ranch

  Go back to the cave

  You wait until morning, but, as the rosy wisps of dawn begin to light the eastern sky, a chill and forbidding wind begins to blow.

  Seek shelter

  Brave the freezing wind to see more of the world about you

  You step into a niche in the rocks to escape the merciless blast of wind and lean back against the rock wall. Suddenly it crumbles under your weight, causing you to fall backward down a muddy slope and into a pond.

  The sun shines brightly down on you as you pick yourself up, dripping wet, and wade to the grassy shore. You look back at the rock, rising out of the pond, but you can’t see where you fell through.

  While you are collecting your senses, a horse comes prancing up, its rider dressed in tin armor—a knight out of the history books—enough to make you laugh. The horseman lifts off his helmet and laughs himself.

  “What a place for a bath!” he calls out. “Well, it was worth it—you’re cleaner than a pig!” He almost falls off his horse, he is laughing so hard. “But climb on and I’ll take you back to the castle,” he says. “We’ll see if we can’t make a human out of you yet.”

  Accept the ride back to the castle

  Decline the invitation and try to find your way back to the Cave of Time

  As it gets lighter, you realize you can’t be on the right track. The canyon seems shallower than it was. The river bed is strewn with boulders that were never there before. The cold wind chills you to the bone; yet it’s the middle of summer. As you climb to higher ground to get a better view, you notice patches of snow. From the top of a ridge you survey a barren plain, frozen lakes, and, in the distance, a massive range of snow-covered mountains. You begin to realize you are not merely lost—you are lost in time, and you have somehow been transported to an Ice Age that occurred many thousands of years ago.

  You walk toward one of the cliffs that borders the canyon, seeking shelter from the wind, and notice an entrance to another cave. You are tempted to go inside, but you feel you should keep moving in hopes of somehow reaching familiar country.

  Enter the cave

  Continue on

  You walk into the interior of the strange cavern; then wait while your eyes become accustomed to the dim, amber light. Gradually you can make out the two tunnels. One curves downward to the right; the other leads upward to the left.

  It occurs to you that the one leading down may go to the past and the one leading up may go to the future.

  Take the tunnel leading to the left

  Take the tunnel leading to the right

  Walk outside the cave again

  “Off to the tower,” the King shouts. Two knights leap forward, drag you out of the chamber, and, with spears at your back, force you to climb forty-eight stone steps to the tower prison—a tiny cylindrical room with one small window looking out over the moat and pasture land beyond. The only furniture is a bed of straw.

  You realize you are back in the early days of feudal Europe, where the only laws are the King’s whims. You have no idea how long he intends to keep you in the tower. There is one possibility of escape. The water in the moat, about twenty-five feet almost directly below your window, is quite deep. If you jump out far enough, you should land in the deep water and not be hurt.

  Jump

  Don’t jump

  You jump far out and fall faster and faster. You enter the water feet first and hit bottom, but the soft mud receives you gently. In a few seconds you reach the surface. You swim to the outer banks of the moat, shaken but unharmed. You scramble up the bank and run for the cover of the forest.

  You walk along the edge of the forest until well out of sight of the castle, then head across the open countryside. You stop a peasant to ask him where you might stay for the night.

  “Walk up that hill and you’ll see before you the waters of Loch Ness,” he says. “You’ll find a place there.”

  You follow his directions and, seeing some little houses near the lake, proceed toward them. Darkness is setting in, and you are glad when you meet a fisherman who says he will give you shelter for the night. He and his wife are kindly people; they invite you to stay and earn your keep by helping them fish.

  Accept

  Travel on

  You decide to wait, but soon regret it. A guard visits you twice a day and brings you only black bread and water. In a few days you feel almost too weak to escape even if you have the chance.

  But just as you are beginning to despair of ever regaining your freedom, the guard walks in, smiling.

  “The King has ordered you out of here,”
he says. “We have a much more important prisoner—a man who insulted the King’s horse.” He laughs in your face. You don’t know whether he is telling the truth or not, but he holds the door and waves you out. You walk down the long flight of stone steps to the main courtyard, free again—at least for the moment. The drawbridge is down and there seems to be nothing in the way of your leaving the castle.

  There is a splendid black horse tied up near you, probably owned by one of the knights. It occurs to you that you could cover a lot of ground on that horse before anyone realizes what happened.

  Mount the horse and ride off

  Ask the King for refuge

  In a moment you are across the bridge and galloping over the countryside, feeling a good deal smarter than the King and his knights. When you pass some shepherds and wave, they wave back.

  You stop to rest at the cottage of a friendly goatherd, who feeds you a good dinner. “Do not fear the King,” he says. “He is a fool who sits and drinks grog all day. His only concern is deciding who to put in the tower. His own knights laugh at him, and he is more likely to fall from his throne than you from your horse. Be off now and on to Merrie England, for great things await you there. God speed and good fortune!”

  Your energies are renewed by good food and drink, and your horse too is ready to ride. You thank your host warmly and ride off to new adventures and a new life—almost a thousand years before you are born.

  The End

  You gain entrance to the King and thank him for letting you out of the tower.

  “Think nothing of it,” the King replies. “We would do as much for any villain. We like your spirit and, though your story makes as much sense as a dancing mule, it brought laughter to our eyes. You have, without meaning it we are sure, performed a service for your King. We thank you.

  “We’ll see that you have a horse and some pieces of gold,” the King continues. “Go and make your fortune. We command you though—come once a year and tell us a story no less amusing than what we have heard from your lips.”

  “My lord,” you say.

  “My liege,” he replies.

  You ride off, somewhat apprehensive, but intent upon making as much of your life as is possible in the year 982.

  The End

  You resolutely trudge along a rocky ridge. It has been cleared of whirling snow by the fierce wind, which bites and blows against your body.

  The world seems transformed, and much for the worse. You must find a house or a cabin—people who can help you—or you will die.

  As you ponder your fate, you stumble and fall, plunging into a deep crevasse. You black out and later awaken, still shivering, but in a warmer place at least. By the dim amber light, you can see that somehow you have fallen back into one of the chambers in the Cave of Time. A passageway leads to the right, another to the left. Does one lead to the future and one to the past?

  Enter the left-hand passageway

  Enter the right-hand passageway

  As you enter the cave, you see a flickering light ahead and you smell smoke. You make your way along a winding passageway and enter a large chamber. Fires rise out of earthen vessels.

  Several short, stocky people with straight black hair and primitive faces are painting pictures on the walls of the cave. They are dressed in animal skins. In a corner of the cave are beds of straw.

  You stand, slightly afraid, as the cave people drop their work and run over and stare at you in disbelief. The largest man is carrying a long vine. He steps forward as though he might seize you and tie you up.

  Stay and try to make friends

  Try to run for it

  You continue on, following a trail leading up a steep incline. You hear loud, trumpeting sounds from a nearby ravine—the sounds of a large animal. You climb over some rocks and find yourself looking down on one of the largest land mammals that ever lived—the wooly mammoth. Huge as this creature is, its size is exaggerated even more by its thick coat of wool.

  You are cold, desperate, and tired. From your rock ledge, only a few feet over the mammoth, you could drop down on its back, burrow into its warm wool, and ride where it takes you!

  Jump down on the wooly mammoth

  Continue on foot

  The tunnel to the left winds around like a spiral, passing several more tunnels. You turn down one of them, then climb steeply. In a few moments you climb through a hole and emerge in a desert. The weather is extremely hot—certainly over 100 degrees, but the sun is just about to set, so it should be getting cooler. In the distance is a range of mountains, which look extremely high, yet are bare of snow. You have no idea whether you are in the past, the future, or the present. Then you see something that fascinates and disturbs you. The sand seems to be fused into yellowish glass as if heated in a furnace. As you examine the sand more closely, you feel the air getting even hotter. Suddenly you realize the sun is not setting, but rising! The noontime temperature must be more than life can stand. As the sun rises higher, you feel a blistering wave of heat. The light is almost blinding. Could it be that you are witnessing the end of the world?

  You dive down into the tunnel, hoping you can make it back to an earlier time. Gratefully, you feel cool, damp air coming up from the cave. You are curious to try the next tunnel you come to, thinking that it may show the state of the world just before it began to bum up from the intensifying heat of the dying sun, or that it might show what happened afterward! But you suspect that a tunnel further on might be more likely to lead you back to your own time.

  Take the first tunnel

  Take a tunnel further along the way

  You turn and walk back out of the cave. It should be dawn by now, but, as you grope your way toward the entrance, you can’t see any light coming into the cave. You press against the walls, feeling for an opening. Your hands pass across something cold, wet, and hard. Ice! The entrance is sealed by it. Blocks of ice protrude into the cave.

  You step back, feeling confused and helpless. You wish it were just a dream. You retrace your steps a way, trying to think clearly. You know that your only chance to get out of the cave is to follow one of the two branches before you.

  Follow the right branch

  Follow the left branch

  The laughing knight helps you up on his horse and you sit uncomfortably as it canters over the countryside. After traveling a mile or so, you come to a great, stone castle. The horse trots across the drawbridge and into the stable.

  “Jump,” the knight calls to you, and you slide off the rear of the horse. The knight escorts you into the grand chamber of the castle. All about you are stewards, attendants, and knights. A few minutes later you find yourself bowing before the King himself.

  After hearing your story, the King looks gravely at his advisors and knights and stewards. “Does anyone believe this tale?” he asks.

  Everyone cries back, “No, Your Majesty,” or “Certainly not, Your Majesty.”

  “Then tell us the truth!” the King roars at you.

  Insist you are telling the truth

  Try to make up a plausible story

  You follow the left passageway. It leads upward to the surface. Before you, a grassy meadow slopes down to a clear, fast-flowing stream; beyond it are pine-covered foothills stretching in the distance toward snow-covered
peaks. You might be in Wyoming in your own time, but, whatever time it is, the world you see appears to be a hospitable one.

  You notice a herd of buffalo grazing. But nowhere can you see a house, or fence, or road, or any sign of human presence. It is possible you are living hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago.

  You gaze upward. One of the puffy, white cumulus clouds is moving in a strange fashion. It is descending! A spaceship is landing right before your eyes, only a few hundred yards away!

  Hide from view

  Go up to the spaceship

  You walk along the right-hand passageway for a long distance, praying that you can find a tunnel that will lead to your own time. You choose one of the many tunnels you see and follow it. Instead of rising to the surface, you enter a brightly-lighted chamber, in the center of which is a bearded, old man seated in a chair.

  “Welcome,” he says, as if he has been expecting you.

  “Thank you,” you reply. “Can you help me find my way back to my own time?”

  The old man smiles. “First of all,” he says, “tell me why you want to return to your own time instead of another time.”

  Say “Because I want to be back with my family and friends.”

  Say “Because I don’t want to take a chance of being in a bad time.”

  Say “I would like to try another time, but only if you can assure me that I will eventually get back to my own time.”