So up he went. Exploring the foothills, at first, scouring the sparse forest lining the edge of the valley. He picked fruit only to throw it over his shoulder, not finding better use for the food; he splashed in the ponds that formed near the base of the mountain after periods of heavy rainfall, bathed and cooled off during what were exceptionally humid summers; he explored the terrain, steadily climbing the mountainside, mapping out the forests and rivers and caves and crannies, until his legs thickened and his chest puffed out and he could run all the way to the snow-crowned tops with only a single break for sleep.

When he became familiar with the mountain, he began to notice the nuggets. Chunks which shimmered with rainbows lay under the surface layer, sometimes underneath the green grass of a knoll, or under clods of burgundy river bank clay, other times tucked behind the bark of an old oak, or beneath the weight of a boulder. The first he found was stamped into the ground. A shiny stone, he thought, and only on closer inspection did he see the face pressed into the stone, what he later termed a death print, the ghost image of a time far away, the unique mark of the timestream of which the nugget had been part. He prised it free.

When he closed his fist on the stone a shiver ran through his body. Instinct awoke. It was so simple, what he had to do, like an itch calling to be scratched, and his body moved almost of its own accord, hurrying down the mountain to the arable land in front of his home. He buried the nugget there.

He took these odd stones whenever he stumbled upon them, stuffing his pockets, and the mountain hated him for it, sending rain and thunder after each plundered gem. He planted them in his soil, let them take root, and within days of each planting, a green stalk poked through the earth.

Before long, his garden was lush with life.

Within the fruit or on the leaves of the trees that grew out of the seeds of the mountain he could see whole stories playing out, scenes from worlds that held more than a mansion, a garden, and a mountain, richer planes of existence where life was plentiful and varied. Each glimpse into these worlds was a tease, so he roamed the mountain tirelessly, his thirst for stories growing insatiable. He learned to spot them, the way they radiated in the muck, his eyes trained in the hunt for chronological morsels.

*

Images in the crystal like trapped dreams, showing beauty and splendor and people, yes, other live beings, living out and reliving their lives before him, making it hard to look away.

These mirages from the past filled him with awe. With joy and excitement and curiosity and hope. Blinking innocently at him, the eyes of all the worlds long gone filled him with a sense of wholeness.

*

The hunter subsisted on borrowed time, in a world in which time had no place being. Nothing much changed, apart from the growth of the garden, which by now was becoming labyrinthine—the weather cycled through its predefined states, going round the mountain which imposed on the landscape, and his mansion never fell into disrepair, despite his never tending to it.

His eyes drank in the views-to-whenever depicted on his garden's ripened crystal, and his days, these moments that chased each other, tripping one after another, passed quickly.