An endless variety of birdcalls trill from high above. Chirruping solos and warbled duets. Soaring avian arias and pessimistic passerine blues ballads.

Something with me, above me, around me, keeping tabs on me as I move through the green jungle. A keenly intelligent gaze. Human eyes! Spooky. Ghoul-like. Egyptian mummy eyes, encased in a sand-dry face.

The face is ancient, but the eyes are alive. Childlike. Mischievous. The wisdom in that face! The humanity! It’s the face of someone who exists outside of time and place. An Einstein. A Gandhi. Then I hear something, above the chittering of the birds and the chattering of the monkeys …

Music! Flutes and drums. Rattles and tambourines.

Human voices. Chanting in a language I have never heard. A lullaby? No, more threatening. A war ballad?

That wise old face now closer. He’s right next to me, traveling down the same river. We’re in some sort of canoe. “Who are you?” I ask. “What are we doing here?”

The old lips open. One word. “Destiny.”

“Destiny what?” I press. “Whose? Yours? Mine?”

But he’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking out at the river and the trees.

Banks on both sides, pressing in on us. Trees linking branches to form a green canopy overhead. We’re not on the amazingly wide river anymore.

We’ve turned off, lost our way. We’re on a fast-moving stream, being squeezed tightly between cliff walls.

There’s a ferocious roaring up ahead. Lion? Jaguar?

No, it’s a river growl—the throaty roar of a watery torrent smashing down a steep, rock-ribbed mountainside.

“Destiny,” I hear whispered one last time.

We hang on the lip of the abyss, and I glimpse what lies before us, if we should make it through the rapids.

A wondrous diamond-shaped valley is surrounded by cliff walls. Four rivers spill into that sheltered valley in a succession of cataracts, hissing down into the same boiling cauldron.

A lush island floats serenely in the center of this wild whirlpool, a jungle Eden. I glimpse towering trees and pink flowers as big as umbrellas. Giant men are on the island, too—I see their shadowy faces. Frowning. Primordial. “Don’t come here!” they warn. “Stay away!”

We plunge over the lip of the abyss. Our canoe can’t take this battering. We spin and smash and frothing water blinds me, and I scream as we lose all control. I hold on desperately as we whirl down into certain death.

I’m in transit again, not my body but my essence—my mind, my consciousness, my spirit.

An endless dark passage. Someone is with me. That old mummy. His arms are upraised. He’s reaching out to me. Pleading for help. Summoning me to fight with him.

Yes, it’s a call to arms. A summons to duty from a great distance.

Fly to me, he’s saying without words. Come quickly, Jack. Time is running out.