Trielle stared at the equations for a few moments. “Are you saying the antenna can’t generate a high enough frequency to carry this particular signal without degradation?” she said at last.
“Basically,” signed Dyana. “I’ve been doing gravimetrics almost my entire adult life, and I can’t think of anything other than an explosively decomposing mass of neutronium that is energetic enough to create the carrier wave we need.”
“How much neutronium?” asked Trielle, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“It would depend on how close the explosion was to the sculptors,” said Dyana. “Gravity waves disperse fairly quickly.” She paused for a second and then added, “If you were thinking of detonating the antenna, stop right now. Not only does it have too many safeguards, it is simply too large. The radiation from the explosion would be almost as bad as Vai going supernova.”
“No,” said Trielle, here eyes distant, “I was thinking about something else entirely.” She paused for a moment, and then asked, “what if the explosion was in Vai’s photosphere?”
“That close?” said Dyana in surprise. “I don’t know how we could do it, but at that range it shouldn’t take much, a few tons at most.”
“About the same amount of neutronium in a transit class laridian ring,” said Trielle with a note of satisfaction.
Suddenly Gedron understood.
“You want to use our ether chariot, don’t you?” he asked.
“That was the idea,” Trielle admitted. “Mother, would it work?”
Dyana gestured above the infochryst, calling up another series of equations. Gedron watched as she scrutinized the scrolling rows of numbers.
“It should,” she said at last, a cautious smile forming on her face.
Hope surged within Gedron, but then a new concern surfaced in his mind and that hope quickly died.
“This may work in theory, Trielle,” he said, “but you have no idea how many safeguards are programmed into commercial grade laridian ring systems. I know how to circumvent most of them, but there is no way to destabilize the containment field without manual input. We can’t just program the ether chariot and then send it into Vai. Someone would have to ride it in and detonate it by hand.”
“I thought that might be the case,” admitted Trielle. She hesitated a few moments, and then said, “I’m ready to go. I don’t see that we have a choice.”
A throb of pain beat within Gedron’s chest, as if his heart were shriveling and dying within him. From the look on Dyana’s face he could tell that she felt much the same.
“No,” he said hoarsely, “This is my problem. I helped create it; I will solve it.”
“You can’t,” said Trielle. “You need to be on the bridge of the Gog overseeing the ignition. Without you the Entrope will suspect something. Remember, our goal is not just to stop the vacuum sculptors, it’s to buy Garin time. The Entrope and Chromatocron need to think that the vacuum sculptors are working. I’ve seen the space around Vai,” she added. “I know that the Etherreavers are already positioned for a gravitic bombardment in case it is needed. Once they realize the sculptors have failed they’ll simply start the bombardment early.”
Gedron slowly nodded. Though he would have given anything to change it, he knew her words were true.
“Then I’ll go,” said Dyana, her words thick with grief. “I am new to all this, and a part of me still doesn’t believe it, but I will not let my daughter go on a suicide mission!”
“Mother,” said Trielle with a smile. “I don’t think this is a suicide mission at all. You don’t know the power of the Anastasi, but I’ve seen what they can do and I have their word that they will protect me if they can. But even if there was no chance of rescue I am still prepared to go. I am sure Garin has already faced worse odds, and if I can do this for him then it is a gift I will give gladly.”
She paused for what seemed like an eternity, then looked straight at Gedron, the force of her gaze burning through him like a laser.
“The Sur Ekklesia taught me something,” she said in a low voice. “They taught me that no matter what the Axioms say the deepest truth in our cosmos is not the selfish desire to survive, but self-giving love. I’ve lived too long for myself, and if this sacrifice is what it takes to show my love for Garin then so be it. Now, let’s go make the changes we need to the ether chariot. You need to show me how to load the counter-wave into the ring and how to disengage the neutronium stabilizers when the time comes. Besides, I have the distinct feeling that I may make it through this yet.”
As Trielle rose, Gedron gazed at the face of his child and saw confidence mingled with doubt.
How much of this could have been stopped earlier if I had only swallowed my fear and voiced my true thoughts to the Hierophants?
Gedron sighed; it was too late now for regrets. Somehow, during her time on En-Ka-Re, Trielle had gained a faith in something beyond herself. For a moment he wished that he had that faith as well, but for now Trielle’s would have to be enough for both of them.
“Come on Dyana,” he said with resignation. “Let’s go help Trielle. The ignition attempt is in twelve hours and we have a lot to do.”
Interlude: The Harrowing of the Pit
Kyr dove downward like a shining spear, the shattered remnants of Leviathan dispersing about him in clouds of ash and cooling embers. Still, he knew that he had only destroyed his body. The true abyss still awaited.
Below him the deeps of Tehom churned with sickening slowness: endless waves of billowing darkness crashing amidst a sea of decaying gas and matter. The waves massed together as he drew nearer, transforming at last into a grinning visage of despair and chaos: the face of Daath. Its mouth opened wide, straining upward towards Kyr as if to swallow him. Then he was within the vast maw, and what light there was failed as the vast lips closed behind him. A few seconds later he hit the surface of the abyss.
He struck with the force of a thunderbolt and soon was miles beneath the dark waters, buried alive in the deeps of Tehom. The cold was like nothing he had ever felt before, a numbing suction more frigid than the void between the stars that seemed to bleed the very life from his body. Yet still he dove downward. This was an ocean with a depth measured in light years, and he still had far to go. He did not falter as the black waters congealed around him, growing thicker and thicker until the medium he traveled through was a trillion times denser than solid lead. All about him gaped the faces of the dead, an overwhelming flood of damned souls forever imprisoned in their own selfishness and pride. Their cries were almost a palpable thing, an endless aural tapestry of pain and rage, and above it all, just at the edge of hearing, he could hear Daath’s black laughter. Finally, after what seemed like aeons, he reached his destination, a featureless plain of infinite darkness at the bottom of all worlds.
Tohu wa-Bohu: the primal void from which the worlds were called in the time before times. Here, not even possibility existed.
Kyr knelt down and began to grope through the muck and slime that covered the black plain, his hands carefully searching for the precious thing that he had lost. At last he found it, a white jewel half buried in the ooze. He carefully lifted up the jewel and it began to shine feebly, a pale glimmer of light amidst the endless darkness. Kyr smiled, and suddenly it was no longer a jewel but a woman dressed in torn robes. Her body was bruised and cut and her heartbeat was faint and irregular, but she still lived. As Kyr gazed on her lovingly, she coughed and slowly opened her eyes.
“You came,” she croaked.
“Yes,” said Kyr tenderly. “How could I not, my Beloved?”
“But why?” she said in confusion. “After all I’ve done…”
“Because I am,” said Kyr. “Now rest. There is one more thing I must do here, and then I will carry you up to my Father.”
Kyr gently laid the woman down beside him and raised his right hand over his head in a fist.
“Spirit,” he whispered. “Pierce the void with wind and fire.”
&
nbsp; Kyr swung his fist downward, striking the black plain beneath with world-shattering force, and the deep convulsed. There was a noise like a thousand thunderclaps, followed by a deep grinding sound as a spiderweb of cracks shivered outward from the point of impact. Kyr watched as the centermost crack grew brighter and brighter until finally a slender ray of light shone through it, a brilliant beam from some realm of impossible radiance even more fundamental than the primal void.
It was enough.
From somewhere in the distance, he heard the voice of Daath bellow in anger. Quickly he gathered the woman in his arms.
“Come, my Beloved,” he said in a joyful whisper, “we rise.”
Kyr stepped into the beam and pushed off from the black plain. Buoyed by the light, they began their ascent.
Book Five: A Rose Wet With the Final Morning’s Dew…
Chapter 31: Dark Resurrection
The Entrope lay on a cold slab in the Chamber of Rebirth awaiting the Rite of Dissolution, and his death. He had known this day was coming soon, but nothing in all his remembered centuries could have prepared him for the morning’s events.
Less than an hour ago he had stood within the Chamber of the Pool, his body bathed in liquid flame as he awaited communion with the Presence. But when at last it emerged from the fires he knew immediately that something was deeply, profoundly wrong. Its human appearance forsaken, the Presence now was little more than a writhing mass of darkness and fire. The Entrope shuddered, remembering the Presence’s unearthly roar of pain and the sudden, terrifying movement of its black fingers as they reached into his brain and poured that pain into him. The agony had been unbearable, as if a river of white-hot magma was surging through his entrails, searing and ravaging his body from within. Over and over again he had begged for release, and when, in a brief moment of lucidity, the Presence had responded, his condemnation had been swift.
“So, you think that such relief is a gift? I grow tired of your cries. Proceed to the Chamber of Rebirth and join me in the darkness. Perhaps a new body will give you the endurance to complete this task. If I am to fall then all worlds fall with me.”
And then, without even a flicker, the column of fire had died, leaving the Entrope alone in the midst of the pool. Numb with shock at the abrupt dismissal, the Entrope had walked to the Chamber of Rebirth like an automaton, his actions barely registering in his conscious mind. Only after he had laid down within the memory extractor and commanded the Irkallan Infochryst to begin the rebirth process did he truly become aware of where he was and what was about to occur.
Despite having been reborn countless times over the past millennia, each death made him uneasy. Oh, he knew that in an hour’s time he, or at least someone sharing his thoughts and memories, would emerge from the bubbling biosuspension vat that stood next to the slab on which he lay. But what about this version of him? He wished that he could remember more from his past resurrections, but the memories all seemed to stop short of the exact moment of dissolusion.
It is easy to maintain that your consciousness is a lie until it is about to be extinguished.
Then he pushed the thought from his mind. It did not matter, and it was too late to stop things now.
The Entrope watched as a delicate filigree of amethyst threads grew down toward him from the chamber’s ceiling. Extensions of the Irkallan Infochryst, it was these threads that would access the deep neural tracts within which his thoughts, memories, and identity were stored. He lay motionless as the glassy filaments formed a cage around his head and soon felt the first unpleasant electric tingle of the extraction field as it penetrated his skull. Throughout the process he struggled to remain calm. After all, there was no point in awakening his new body in a distressed state. Still, one thing would not stop troubling him, a phrase the Presence had said when he stood within the pool.
Join me in the darkness.
Despite the Entrope’s frequent misgivings the presence had been supportive, even encouraging, during the past rebirths. But not this time. There was a coldness and harshness in those words that left the Entrope with the unshakeable suspicion that the Presence had shared a deep truth that until now it had hidden from him.
Abruptly the electric tingle lessened and the slab beneath him began to warm. The last memory exchange was complete. Beyond this point, in all his myriad reincarnations, he could remember nothing. Who was he now? He knew that he was no longer the Entrope; that identity now lay in the miles of charged crystal that composed the Irkallan Infochryst. But he could not fully dispel the thought that in the past he had possessed another identity. Hadn’t he had a name once? It had been millennia since it had been spoken, and suddenly nothing seemed as precious as that lost bit of knowledge. In vain he struggled to remember.
A burning sensation rushed through him as wave after wave of molecular disassemblers surged into his body from the slab. The burning was quickly followed by a creeping numbness as his very cells were torn apart, presumably to be used in the creation of his next incarnation. Within seconds his body was half-dissolved into the material of the slab, yet in the final moments of his existence the long sought after name came to him at last and with his final breath he whispered it aloud.
“Larid, Ronath Larid…”
Then the last fragments of his physical form disintegrated, and he was falling downward toward an endless vortex of churning black water. A thousand faces stared back at him from beneath the surface, and with horror Ronath Larid realized that they were all his own.
***
The Entrope came awake suddenly, and fought to take a breath against the tidal surge of the ventilators that had pumped air into his developing body for so long. As if on cue, the biosuspensive fluids surrounding him drained away and the tubes and devices attached to his body withdrew. The Entrope sat up and spent a few moments testing his new body. It was young and strong, both physically and mentally, and he could already feel the misgivings of his previous incarnation evaporating like a bad dream at sunrise. The Entrope stepped out of the vat and walked to the memory retrieval device, where he gathered his crumpled robe from the now-empty slab. Donning the robe, he strode resolutely from the Chamber of Rebirth toward the transit tubes that would take him up into the Omegahedron.
The time had come to reignite Vai, or erase all living souls in the Conclave, or perhaps both. It did not matter.
Nothing mattered.
Chapter 32: The City Imperishable
He was surrounded vistas of supernal beauty: walls of alabaster and chalcedony topped by spires of unthinkably pure crystal, all crowned by a rosy brightness that blanketed the sky like a luminous cloud at sunset. But none of this beauty could compare to that of the being that had addressed him.
A towering figure stood before Garin. Its form was robed in purest white, and a breastplate of gold inlaid with pearls was upon its chest. Its noble face was as pure as a new snowfall and shone with a soft inner radiance. Atop its head was a towering miter crowned with the image of a full moon. The figure smiled at him, and reached out its hand in greeting.
“Welcome small one.”
Its voice was a husky treble, almost matronly in its tone, and thought Garin felt sure that a creature such as this could have no gender he could not help but think of her as a woman. There was something familiar about the voice.
“I thank you for your warm greeting,” he said with as much courtesy as he could muster. “Thought I have never been to this realm, I cannot help but think that we have met before.”
At this the figure laughed with a sound like chiming bells.
“Met?” she said with a hint of good-natured sarcasm. “Do you not remember traveling through my domain in the world beneath? It was I that welcomed you to Arethos.”
“Malkuth?” said Garin in bewilderment.
“Also called Kyriakos,” finished the figure, as if eager that her full title be said.
“But how?” asked Garin, “Haven’t I passed into another world?”
“Inde
ed,” said Malkuth. “You have passed from Arethos, the world created to be the expression of our deepest thoughts, into Numenos, where we live and move and have our conversation. It is here that we are enthroned, and it is from here that we govern and serve the worlds beneath.”
Garin marveled at this. Until now he had never met a being whose existence had spanned more than one world. No one, of course, except for Kyr. A sudden pang of sadness gripped Garin’s chest, and his growing joy evaporated.
“Why is your face downcast?” asked Malkuth. “This is a realm of gladness and joy.”
“I’m sorry,” said Garin. “I was just thinking about Kyr. He gave himself to save me from Daath and is even now in the Abyss.”
“He gave Himself for more than you,” said Malkuth, “though if you were the only creature made he would have done no less. You are right to mourn, child of the lowest world, for it is Holy Saturday. But the time of His sojourn in the darkness will soon enough draw to a close and when the morn dawns you must be ready to meet Him. Come! The council of the Arethoi would meet with you before your ascent to the petals of the Cosmic Rose.”
Malkuth turned and proceeded down the golden streets and Garin followed. Though Garin did not understand the meaning of Malkuth’s words, by now he had grown used to the cryptic utterances of inhabitants of the higher worlds, and Malkuth’s evident confidence in Kyr’s return buoyed his spirits. As they moved forward it quickly became clear to Garin that he had entered this city near its outmost precincts, for with each step he took the magnificence of the structures around him grew. Soon they reached a glorious colonnade that ran for miles between rows of crystal skyscrapers. The inhabitants of the city, beings of light like Malkuth, thronged about them as they processed onward.
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