“Entrope, without the Neutronium Forges we cannot hope to sustain the ignition. Surely the best plan is to wait until we can begin a proper attempt.”
The Entrope strode towards Gedron, his face contorted in a sickly smile.
“And yet,” he hissed, “we will not take that path. We will instead take the route of action. Instruct the ships to fire a gravitic volley.”
“But surely you understand, the Etherreavers can only sustain fusion if the ships continue their barrage indefinitely,” said Gedron, still fighting to sound calm. “Such an action will almost certainly generate an entropy storm orders of magnitude greater than anything we have ever experienced.”
By now the Entrope was mere feet away from Gedron. His eyes burned with black fury, and his breath reeked with the fetid stench of decay.
“Of course I understand,” whispered the Entrope. “Do you understand, High Gravitist? Our universe began billennia ago as a meaningless fluctuation in a cold, dark void, and soon it will end in another cold, dark void. Our consciousness is only an illusion, a thin veneer painted over the primal darkness that is the only true reality. You profess to hold the axioms of the Conclave and yet seem to persist in the fixed false belief that our existence can somehow have meaning. All is void, High Gravitist, all is darkness, and it is time to pull away the veil. Therefore I will ask you one more time. Instruct the ships to fire!”
At that moment Gedron felt his entire life pivot around him. With terrible clarity he saw the decisions he had made laid out before him like a road, each mile taking him closer to the sterile abyss. He saw also the family he had neglected: his brilliant wife Dyana, Trielle with her incessant desire to know the truth, Garin with his relentless questioning of all he thought false. Then a soft whisper rose from his memory, a phrase spoken in anger by his dead daughter as he had argued his powerlessness to change his path.
Father, whatever you may think, you do have a choice…
And suddenly, he found that he believed her.
“I will not!”
The words rang out from Gedron’s mouth with an intensity he would not have thought possible.
“I will not acquiesce to this madness, Entrope. These ships are under my command, and I will not order them to fire.”
“Not anymore,” whispered the Entrope.
Stepping back, the Entrope spoke so that the whole bridge could hear.
“The High Gravitist has denied the axioms of the Conclave and has forfeited his right to be named a Heirophant. I hereby take command of this ship. Guards, please escort Gedron from the bridge!”
Three figures in black power armor strode forward, grasped Gedron’s arms and compelled him to step down from the control Dais. For a moment he considered resisting, but as if in response to his unspoken thoughts one of the guards drive his energy baton into Gedron’s gut. A surge of electrical energy crackled through him and he felt his muscles spasm and go limp.
“Now,” said the Entrope a final time, “prepare for the requested gravitic volley.”
For a split second the eyes of the gravitic engineers wavered and looked toward their former leader. Then, with a collective sigh, they complied. Commands rang forth from the Gog, broadcast to the fleet on wide-band radio laser. On the great infochrystic displays that ringed the bridge, Gedron could see the telltale glow of gravitic energy building around each Etherreaver like an aurora. Crackling azure lightning arced between the irregular spindles of the Magog, and a familiar shudder coursed through the deck beneath him.
“Begin the ignition sequence,” said the Entrope, and a million spears of blue fire stabbed toward the dead sun.
They never reached their target.
Gedron stared in shock at the display. He could clearly see the gravitic discharges, each a brilliant blue thread streaming from the ring of Etherreavers toward Vai. But, strangely, each thread seemed to terminate thousands of miles from the star’s surface. Gedron glanced at the Entrope. His brow was furrowed in confusion, and Gedron watched as he approached the holographic display and raised his hands in a command gesture, shifting and enlarging the area where a particular gravitic discharge terminated. In this view the beam was a torrent of cerulean flame that coursed through Vai’s outer corona before striking a translucent golden sphere and dissipating. Then Gedron’s eyes widened in surprise. Although his current position did not afford him the best view, he could just make out the glowing form of a man within the golden shell.
“Entrope! Who are they?”
Gedron turned toward the voice and saw Yithra-gor gesturing toward another infochrystic display, a look of terror on his face. His eyes on the display, Gedron watched as the blackness of interplanetary space was lit by a thousand bursts of brilliance. Each was a momentary rift into an impossible realm of perfect light, and through these rifts poured an army of winged creatures wreathed in fire and holding swords that gleamed like fragments of the sun.
“The Anastasi…” murmured Gedron with a sudden rush of hope.
The Entrope let out a snarl of rage.
“They have broken the siege,” he roared. “I will crush them!”
“No,” said a calm voice. “You have broken the truce, not the Sur Ekklesia, and I think you will find us a difficult foe.”
A mighty wind filled the bridge followed by a blinding flash as a golden sphere burst into existence. The surface of the sphere shifted into two translucent wings that opened to reveal the shining form of a man in golden armor. In his arms he held a young girl. Gedron’s heart leapt when he saw her face.
“Trielle!”
“I’m here father,” she said with a smile. “I told you Anacrysis would protect me.”
“Seize the Anastasi!”
The angry roar of the Entrope quelled the joy of their reunion and Gedron watched as five of the guards rushed Anacrysis, their energy batons extended. But Anacrysis simply folded his wings in front of him like a protective shield, and the batons had no effect. After several failed attempts to subdue the Anastasi the guards changed their approach, surrounding him and Trielle instead.
“Creature! Traitor to your race!” roared the Entrope, “You have no idea what you have unleashed by interfering here. For ages I have been content to let your kind dwell in peace within the vales of En-Ka-Re so long as you did not trouble the greater workings of the Conclave, but now you have changed that. Did you somehow think to take us by surprise and free your people? Did you imagine that mechanisms were not in place to raze En-Ka-Re if even one of you dared show your face? Even now the laridian rings that surround your vale are charging for the assault that will end the lives of the Alapsari under your care. Your actions this day have condemned them.”
Anacrysis laughed. “Condemned them more that your actions here? Do you think we are fools, that we have no way of knowing what is happening in the greater world? Your deeds this day condemn us all, Conclave and Ekklesia alike. No, Ronath, it is you who have broken the siege. Look around you and see that, even now, we do not attack. All we do it block the effect of your beams.”
At the mention of his name the Entrope cringed.
“What?” laughed Anacrysis. “Did you not think we knew who you were? You forget the origin of our name then: Anastasi, the Risen Ones. You have died a thousand deaths alone and afraid in your secret chambers, Ronath Larid, in an effort to bring the cosmos with you. We have only died once but now live in the power of Life Himself, and death has no more dominion over us. Even those of the Ekklesia that have yet to die do not fear it, for death has lost its sting for all who dwell within her. No, we are not the prisoners here, but rather the people of the Conclave, whom you are your fellow Heirophants have kept in darkness for millennia. Now come, cease the gravitic volley.”
“Oh, I think I will continue just a little while longer,” said the Entrope smoothly. “You are right about one thing, creature. The Conclave is ours! It is ours to give it life and, when the time is right, ours to usher it into the darkness of the void. And, in the nam
e of all those that do not wish to live in your insipid Dar Ekklesia, I declare that the time is now! Observe, creature, your blockade is irrelevant.”
Turning from Anacrysis, the Entrope gestured and the scope of the hologram changed, expanding outward until the whole of the Conclave of Worlds could be seen. Immediately Gedron understood.
“The entropy clouds…” he whispered.
The sheer force of the gravitic volley had profoundly destabilized the clouds, precipitating a storm far greater than anything Gedron had seen before. Their surfaces seethed with green flame, and sinuous prominences burst from their depths like hungry dragons, shredding planets to atoms in their wake. The storm’s fury continued to grow until at last the entropy clouds erupted in a hurricane of poisonous green light, a cyclone of annihilation that crashed down upon the worlds of the Conclave with relentless force.
“You see?” laughed the Entrope. “There is no possibility of stalemate here. Even if your army were to destroy our entire armada, the amount of virtual bosons already released by this last volley is enough to terminally destabilize the clouds. This cosmos is sick! Sick with the false delusion of its own existence! It is time to reject the lie of our own existence. The people of the Conclave came from nothing, travel to nothing, and today, will become nothing again!”
Though Anacrysis’ wings were still wrapped around Trielle like a shield, Gedron could see them droop slightly.
He knew the Entrope was right. Nothing less than a new source of solar wind could stop the storms now. He had taken his stand too late and now would lose everything. Everyone would lose everything.
“Garin is coming father… I know he is…”
Gedron heard the faint whisper of Trielle’s voice, but had no faith left to believe her.
Book Six: And the Morning Come One More Day…
Chapter 36: Brightness of Uncreated Light
All worlds far behind him, Garin climbed the upper slopes of the cosmic mountain. The road was steep now, a sheer incline of crimson stars and deep darkness that cut back and forth in a series of sharp switchbacks. Flashes of lightning and crescendos of deep thunder blasted continually from the summit above, and the face of the mountain rumbled beneath him in counterpoint. He was weary but climbed onward, propelled by the conviction that time was growing short.
As he drew nearer the summit, a strange light began to shine around him, as if all creation was slowly catching fire. Then, after a near-vertical ascent that taxed the limits of his strength, Garin pulled himself over the last ledge. He had arrived; from here all directions were down.
Before him stood the Temple Above all Worlds, a vast cube of gold easily taller than the Arx Scientia. Its smooth surface burned with barely concealed brilliance, as if a source of light so brilliant that even solid metal could not stand in its way lay within it. Two broad pillars stood in front of the structure, each carved in intricate relief with scenes from across the five worlds below. The Sovereign Road, now level, ran between these pillars to a tall gate set into the shining wall. The doors were ajar, and from within issued a music of such strength and majesty that he felt his bones would break beneath its force. As he listened, Garin realized that this was the source of the thunderings he had heard as he climbed.
A sudden fear welled up within his breast. Surely there were things within that man was not meant to see. Surely he would die beneath the weight of their glory. Yet still his resolve held. He had come this far and would not turn back now. Garin strode forward and, with trembling hands, opened the door and entered.
The glory within was blinding, a light so bright that it shone through Garin’s skin and bones as if they were glass. He stood upon a pavement of sapphire broken only by a great altar burning with seven flames that outshone the stars. At the end of the pavement was a throne of purest diamond, and the One that sat on the throne, the source of the radiance of that place, struck such terror into Garin’s heart that he thought it would burst. Language did not have words to describe what he saw…
The form of a man, seemingly chiseled from pure unadulterated brilliance. A cloud of darkness so deep that it burned with a radiant luminosity. A pillar of consuming fire so hot that it seemed it must reduce the rest of creation to ash.
Around the throne circled ten thousand times ten thousand living creatures, each bearing forms that made the appearance of Metatron and Sandalphon in the world beneath seem common. And as they flew they all cried aloud to the One who sat on the throne, their voices joining in the thunderous chorus Garin first heard outside the temple.
“HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE EVER-LIVING ONE; WHO WAS, AND IS, AND IS TO COME.”
Before the throne stood Kyr, the woman still held in his arms.
“Father, isn’t she beautiful…”
At once a voice sounded from the throne, a voice so pure and vast that Garin could no longer stand under its weight, and he fell down as one dead. For a long while he knew nothing, then he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Rise, my son.”
Garin opened his eyes and saw the luminous form of Kyr standing over him. As he stood, he noticed that the room seemed somehow darker. The burning presence still sat on the throne, but now a thick cloud was interposed between them, shielding him from the intolerable light. The woman was nowhere to be seen.
“My Father and I have veiled our glory so that you might stand and live,” said Kyr. “Now come, we have much to speak about.”
“Where is your Beloved?” asked Garin. “I saw you carry her to the throne?”
Kyr laughed. “You have traveled long, but still do not know what it is you have seen. Have you not looked at yourself since you entered the domain of the Uncreated One?”
Garin looked downward and realized that he was clothed in robes of purest white, the same robes worn by the Beloved.
“I… I don’t understand,” said Garin in confusion.
“I know, my child,” said Kyr gently. “But you soon will. You will see both who I am, and who you are. Now, are you ready for one last journey?”
Garin looked at Kyr’s face and saw a joy that he had only known before in brief glimpses. Confidence surged within him, and with newfound strength he said, “Yes, I am ready.”
“Then take my hand,” said Kyr.
Garin did so, and the world around them vanished.
***
He was swimming in a limitless ocean of fire. All around him, above and beneath, blazing currents rolled with unearthly force. Yet, curiously, he felt no fear. Though the flames enveloped him with all their raging fury he was not burned. Rather, they caressed him with inviting warmth, flowing into him and kindling new life within his body. It was as if he had been waiting to enter this sea his entire life.
Then he perceived two great shapes swimming in the sea with him: one ponderous and old as the mountains, one bright and new as the sunrise. Words of fire issued from the swimmers: blazing syllables that rolled from their tongues, their movements, their very beings. And though it was expressed a thousand different ways, in the end all the words said the same thing.
My life for yours…
As Garin listened in wonder he saw that the endless conversation between the swimmers was the source of the ocean in which he swam. Each current, each movement of the endless fiery deep was a synonym, a story, another way for them to pour out their life and love to each other. In the same moment of understanding he also perceived another presence within the waves, every bit as vast and powerful as the swimmers, yet somehow concealed behind and beneath the powerful currents. And between the three, at the very heart of their endless movement and outpoured life, stood a point of pure stillness that transcended all understanding, a tranquil eye in the midst of the infinite storm of love.
“Now you begin to understand,” whispered a voice. “But there us yet more to see. Come…”
Garin felt a rush of upward movement and in a flash of fiery spray broke through the surface of the waves. As he swam forward, he felt the sea bottom rise bene
ath him and soon was standing on a great shoal, the flaming waters ebbing and flowing around his feet. With him on the shoal was an old man. His hair was as white as snow and a long beard trailed from his face. He was clothed in a white robe, its hem streaked with red stains from the fiery water, and his eye burned with unquenchable fire.
Wading beside the old man was a white-robed boy not much older than Garin. His hair was a rich black, and his face wore a joyful smile. Something about him seemed familiar to Garin, though he could not say what. As Garin watched the pair stopped, faced each other, and embraced with such vehement affection that he thought his heart would break.
“My life for yours, my Son,” said the old man.
“And mine for yours, Father,” replied the boy.
As the boy spoke, Garin’s eyes widened in sudden recognition.
“Kyr?” he whispered.
The boy smiled at him briefly, then turned to the old man.
“Come Father, there is something I would show you.”
The boy took the old man by the hand and led him toward a dark ribbon that coursed along the shoal’s far edge. Garin followed, and the ribbon soon resolved into a swift current, its fiery waters laced with streaks of shadow. When the boy reached the edge of the shoal, he knelt down and pointed into the dark churning waters.
“My Son,” said the old man gravely. “All our desires are as one, for we both wish to breathe our being into the currents that surround us and give our love form and shape. But of all the currents in the infinite sea you have chosen the hardest.”
“I know Father,” said the boy. “But look within. Can you see her? I love her Father!”
Garin peered into the current and saw within the fire and darkness the face of the Beloved. Scars crossed her face and dirt soiled her skin, but a strange beauty still shone through.
“There is beauty in this world-current, but there is also pain,” said the old man. The one you love will hate you, despise you, reject you! In this world, my Son, you will be murdered by those you have made. Is this truly what you desire?”
The Sovereign Road Page 33