The Sovereign Road

by Aaron Calhoun

  The path ended at the edge of a great chasm, descending into the depths of the crevasse via a narrow stairway carved into the cavern wall. He began the descent and soon was deep within the abyss, the sheer basalt walls rising on either side like geometric planes stretching upward to infinity. The stair seemed endless, twisting back and forth in sinuous curves. Only the light of an occasional plasma torch served to punctuate the growing darkness. Then the stairway leveled off, ending at a short bridge that crossed the chasm before disappearing into a deep cleft in the opposing rock wall. The cleft pulsed with a faint greenish glow. A small grunt escaped the Entrope’s lips. He was nearing his destination, the Chamber of the Pool.

  He traversed the bridge and entered the cleft, which quickly opened into a small cavern that seemed to have no floor, only a vast abyss that howled with winds from the inner earth. In the center of the chamber, a great monolith of obsidian rose from the void, its surface dancing with an obscene green light. It was there that the pathway ended, bridging the void in a last arch, and soon the Entrope stood atop the monolith facing a shallow depression filled with luminous fluid that sputtered and flared with viridian fire. Thin threads of crystal hung from the ceiling far above, their tips trailing off into the pool like the taproots of a glass tree. Along their lengths, faint blue sparks twinkled. The Entrope knew the pool was an artifact of Conclave science, a mass of seething nanotechnology into which realtime data from the entropy clouds was fed via the great infochrysts on the surface. Still, he always felt a tendency to regard the pool with an almost religious, awe, for a Presence dwelled, or seemed to dwell, within it. A Presence with which he would soon commune.

  Trembling slightly, he stepped into the pool. For a moment there was nothing. Then the fluid flared with nacreous light, sending up burning tentacles that wrapped the Entrope in their fire. His vision clouded, his thoughts momentarily froze, and then his perceptions exploded outward as the vastening process took hold.

  He hung in a great void, his body a representation of the worlds of the Conclave itself, and all around him burned and seethed the entropy clouds. Fixing his gaze forward he focused all his being on the clouds, drinking in their terrible might and letting their irregular surges define the rhythm of his thoughts as he sought the Presence that lay within them. He meditated for long moments, seeing and feeling nothing except the meaningless dance of dissolution that hung before him. Then there was a shifting, a parting of the veiling clouds, and a vague form began to take shape.

  Its body was vast, obscured by the seemingly infinite folds of a cloak the color of midnight. Vaguely human in form, a great cowl covered its head leaving only the eyes and the bottom portion of its face visible. Though what he could see of its features suggested a beautiful, even noble, countenance, its eyes betrayed that beauty. Burning with a bizarre, alien fire, they seemed to suggest that the appearance he saw was a mask covering some incomprehensible force. An appearance, nothing more. And even now, after seeking the counsel of this presence in this and countless other incarnations, he was still unsure exactly what it represented.

  His pre-conscious mind?

  The summed intelligence of the Conclave’s infochrysts?

  A bizarre manifestation of the existential hunger of the entropy clouds?

  As with so many other things, the inexorable conclusion was that its true identity was irrelevant. Still, reflected the Entrope as he painfully knelt down within the green pool, one thing about it had always been clear; the Presence responded best when he assumed a position of submission.

  The Presence smiled, and spoke to him in a rich, masculine voice.

  It has been long since we have communed, has it not?

  “Indeed it has master,” said the Entrope

  And why have you come, my son?

  “Master,” replied the Entrope, “in my meditations I have encountered a great sense of unease that does not seem amenable to typical psychomodulatory techniques. As always, I have regarded it as illusory, yet it persists. As I serve the Conclave I see no reason to be troubled. Indeed, we seem closer than ever to the Great Dissolution you promised us. But I am still troubled.”

  The Presence’s smile faded, replaced by a grim expression that sent a thrill a fear through the Entrope.

  This unease is not without cause, the Presence answered. Actions are afoot that would seek undo the great work, negating the dissolution altogether if it were possible.

  The Entrope gasped in shock at the reply, and the smile returned to the Presence’s face.

  Ah, my son, said the Presence in soothing tones. Our hearts are so cleanly linked that our desires are the same. Do not fear. The dissolution will come. No one and nothing can stop it now. Still, interference can occur.

  “Master,” croaked the Entrope, “What must I do?

  Nothing that you have not already done and are not already doing, said the Presence softly. As you rightly said while in Conclave with the Heirophants, the planned attempt at reignition must occur, as should further attempts if the first should fail. You must focus all your efforts to assuring this comes to pass. The Presence paused for a few moments as if weighing its words, and then added, I will deal with the interference in my own way…

  The Entrope began to ask a final question, but the Presence was already receding into the veiling curtain of the entropy clouds. Soon the entire scene dissolved, leaving the Entrope alone in the Chamber of the Pool. As he rose painfully to leave, this last unasked question echoed disturbingly in his mind.

  Deal with the interference in its own way? How can the Presence…

  But suddenly his curiosity dissolved in mid-thought, overwhelmed by his sheer conviction in the central truth he had held onto throughout his countless lives.

  It does not matter… All is meaningless… All is vanity…

  Book Three: How With a Million Others Its Tale was Set for Nought…

  Chapter 15: The Hand of the Shadow

  The road mounted steadily upward across the face of the cosmic mountain, its course paved by points of deep crimson light. Garin climbed resolutely, Kyr’s hand grasped tightly in his own. Looking heavenward, Garin could see nothing but a seemingly endless incline of stars and folded blackness ending in a dim expanse of sky that was no color he had ever before seen. It was almost perfectly quiet, the stillness broken only by an occasional rumble of distant thunder. Time itself seemed almost suspended in this place.

  Then the road shifted, rounding a rugged spur brilliant with the trapped light of a thousand galaxies. Beyond the ridge, the road ended abruptly in an obscure, inky blackness. It was as if the very fabric of reality was torn away, leaving a lightless, infinite chasm in its place. Garin squeezed Kyr’s hand reflexively as a knot of fear formed in the pit of his stomach.

  “It is the Shadow,” said Kyr, his voice sounding strangely distant. “It has grown since I last trod this path. Come, we have far to go and we have no choice but to cross the gap.” Then he turned, his eyes fixed on Garin. “Keep hold of my hand, and remember, the Shadow can hide the road but not destroy it.” With that he turned and led Garin into the darkness.

  A blackness thicker than any night Garin had ever known enveloped him. There was no light, not even the possibility of light, and a cold deeper than a polar night settled into his bones. Then the winds began, a gale that assailed him with ever increasing ferocity until Garin felt as if he stood within a hurricane. The blasts tore at him like the hands of the dead: cold, unfeeling, and beyond mercy. So strong were they that, despite his best efforts, Garin’s grip on Kyr began to weaken. Suddenly the assault abated, and after a few long moments Garin permitted himself to hope that they had passed through the worst of it, but as if from nowhere the black gale returned, bearing down on him with such force that it tore Kyr’s fingers from his grasp and cast him screaming into the void.

  His last thoughts before the darkness overtook him were of failure.

  ***

  Garin awoke on a flat, cold expanse of ice, swathed in
great banks of clinging fog. His whole body ached.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” said a warm voice.

  Startled, Garin sat up and saw an apparition approaching him through the haze. The figure soon resolved into the form of a tall man wearing a robe of deepest grey, his body concealed within its folds. A cloak the color of night hung from his shoulders and trailed behind him on the glassy pavement. His face shone like alabaster in moonlight and had the proud, noble bearing of an ancient king. A diadem hung on his brow bearing a single jewel that burned with pale fire.

  Garin slowly rose to his feet, fighting off a wave of dizziness. “Where am I,” he said warily.

  “Khuliphoth, the Kingdom of Shells,” said the figure. “It is the end of your journey. I have been waiting for you. Come, there is much to see.”

  The figure smiled broadly, extending his hand in greeting.

  “Where is Kyr,” asked Garin?

  “He has gone onward,” said the figure smoothly. “His work was complete once he delivered you to me.”

  The soothing words were slowly wearing down Garin’s suspicion, yet the figure’s curiously distant gaze prevented him from feeling entirely at ease.

  “If I may ask,” he said, “What is your name.”

  “You may call me Daath,” the figure replied. “Now come!”

  Startled by the abrupt shift in tone, Garin mutely took Daath’s hand and followed him onward.

  As the walked, the fog parted around them to reveal a translucent plane of dull gray ice, the upper surface of an endless frozen abyss that stretched downward into obscurity. Great crystalline domes rose from the ice, their surfaces cracked and shattered like ruined glassware. Billows of glowing gas poured from the domes, rising in twisted spirals toward a hazy violet sky filled with tumbling shards of crystal. The entire scene had a surreal, unearthly quality to it.

  “You stand in the forges of creation,” said Daath. “Each dome is but the upper surface of a world-sphere like those that you have left behind. But these… these are different. The worlds you have left are consensus realities, formed from the massed belief of their inhabitants, but these are the creations of individual minds ensconced in the blissful contemplation of self. It is the ultimate destination of all thinking life, the final supremacy of consciousness over the material universe.”

  Garin could not put his finger on it, but Daath’s words reminded him of something he had heard before.

  Daath continued across the ice in long, confident strides that Garin, sore as he was, could barely keep up with. After a few moments it became clear that they were approaching the nearest of the domes, a wounded hemisphere of blood red crystal. Its sides were marred by gaping cracks, its topmost curve was shattered completely. The whole structure reminded Garin of nothing more than a broken egg, an egg the size of a moon. As they walked onward the dome filled more and more of Garin’s vision, until at last all sense of its curvature was lost and all he could see was the ice beneath and an infinite wall of fractured crimson. A few moments later they arrived at the wall near a point where one of the great fractures reached the surface of the ice. Daath turned and spoke, his eyes burning with a strange fire.

  “You wish to know why I have brought you here? You should. You see, I know much of the inhabitants of the worlds below, and I know much of you. Go ahead, approach the sphere. Peer inside. View the world being created within! There is no danger.”

  The strange invitation both intrigued and frightened Garin, and for a moment he hesitated, but then his curiosity won out and he entered the crevasse.

  The crevasse narrowed to a point just beneath his feet, leaving him little space to maneuver, and Garin was forced to brace himself against its walls and edge sideways to make progress. Smoldering embers seemed to dance just beneath the crystalline surface of the wall, and his hands felt as if they were on fire each time they touched it. A few more moments of struggle, and then he was through into the darkness beyond.

  Suddenly a barrage of images assaulted him. Memories of the sins of his childhood -friends he had wronged, promises he had broken- filled his mind with an uncontrollable flood of despair. Screaming, Garin shut his eyes, trying to block out the visions, but to no avail. The images were burned into his mind and there was no escape. He was caught in a universe of his own making, each memory of selfishness and betrayal an icy planet orbiting the black hole of his soul. Then a low rumbling sound like the clashing of icebergs grabbed his attention, and he opened his eyes and looked upward to see the great cracks in the crystalline dome above him begin to close. Dimly he understood that Daath was sealing him in, and he realized the true nature of this place.

  It was not a birthplace of worlds; it was a graveyard.

  And then, off in the distance, Garin heard the mocking voice of Daath.

  “What do you think of this world? I hope you like it. You see, it is of your own making. After all, does not matter give rise to consciousness, and consciousness meaning? See then the meaning you have wrought. Look below and gaze upon the glory of the Pit. It is Tehom, the Ancient Deep, source and end of all things.”

  Unable to disobey the words of Daath, Garin looked down and saw, far beneath him, an endless flood of black water that roiled and churned with sickening slowness.

  His heart pounding, Garin struggled to turn and make his way out of the sphere, but it was like walking through molten lead. At each step the images tugged at him, dragging him downward into the boiling deep. Slowly his resolve wore down, until at last his strength failed. Gazing upward one last time, Garin saw the final cracks in the dome above him close, sealing him within himself forever, and despair rolled over him like a black wave. Then, as the images gathered around him for their final assault, a shred of memory drifted to the front of his mind. A memory of Kyr as they had left Sha-Ka-Ri, his weathered face downcast with profound sadness as he contemplated the wreckage of the world and the shadow that was its source.

  “If only he would come home…”

  Garin’s cold lips murmured the words almost unthinkingly, but the effect was instant. Suddenly the circling images became distant, dimmer, as if they had lost some of their power, and Garin felt the inexorable pull of the deep abate.

  “What did you say?” Daath’s words were quiet but filled with venom, like an adder poised to strike.

  Garin was puzzled. Why this effect?

  “I said, if only he would come home…”

  Was Kyr referring to Daath?

  “It’s you he meant, wasn’t it?” said Garin. Sudden boldness seized him, and he thrust the question back at Daath like a dagger.

  “Why won’t you come home?”

  There was sharp cracking sound, and the crystal shell that enclosed his private hell shattered like glass. Daath strode through the rubble, his eyes burning like perdition and his noble lips parted in a sneer. His cloak billowed behind him, and Garin could not shake the sense that its dark folds hid the coiling tail of a dragon.

  “Come home?” he mocked. “And why would I do that? To render myself a servant again? Enslaved to the life of the Cosmos? Enslaved to Him!”

  Garin was unsure what to make of Daath’s words. Still, this distraction had bought him time. He did not know if escape from Khuliphoth was possible, but he was not going to waste the opportunity.

  “What do you mean, servant?” asked Garin, attempting to keep the conversation going.

  Daath laughed, seeming to regain some of his composure.

  “How little you blind monkeys know of the nature of things, clinging to the surface of your precious worlds while the storm rages outside. You are the problem! It is you we were meant to serve! AND I WILL NOT DO IT!”

  At this Daath seemed to swell. A vortex of darkness swirled around his form, flickering with tongues of lurid violet flame, and his face blazed with a black light. Snarling in rage, Daath lifted his hands toward the skies, summoning all the forces of Khuliphoth and releasing them toward Garin in a black wind of pure, unbridled hatred.
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  Garin knew he had little time left. The shattered dome had already begun to reform, and the images, infused with new strength by the power of Daath, were circling him once more. If he was to escape and find the road again, he needed to do it now.

  Kyr said the Shadow could obscure the road but not destroy it. But how can I see through the Shadow when I don’t even know what it is?

  Even as he asked the question, his thoughts turned to the images circling around him and he finally understood. The Shadow was a reflection of his own self-centered choices, the central emptiness at the heart of a life that insisted on defining itself on its own terms.

  Even when he had begun to doubt the Axioms, he had avoided the question of what that doubt implied about who he was, but he could do this no longer. If the Axioms were true then he had no intrinsic nature, no real heart or soul to speak of, only a fragment of the primal void masked by the endless succession of his life choices, the myriad meanings he had tried to make for himself in a meaningless world. But in a world like that no choice, no meaning, could ever rise above the level of pure self-centeredness, and those self-centered choices accumulating over years and years could not help but collapse into that void like a dying star forming a black hole, an endless abyss cut off from the rest of the universe. That was the true nature of his choices and of this place. He had built his life around self, and the combined weight of those choices was the source of the crystal sphere imprisoning him.

  But if the axioms were wrong, what then? Garin drove his thoughts forward with all his might, straining to reach an answer before the fleeting moments left to him were gone. Then, in a flash of insight, he saw the alternative. If his heart was not a void then it had to be something solid, positive, and self-reinforcing instead, something that carried its own intrinsic meaning as a gift from a realm far above anything he currently knew or understood. And if this were true, then the shadow could no more destroy that meaning than an eclipse could extinguish the sun. No matter how deep the darkness the reality must still be there, buried beneath it.