by Jesse Jordan
Then I see my world again, but it expands as I shrink, as I disappear into a particle of water in the ocean, and within it there is a massive realm of hundreds of planets circling a trio of suns. Next I see two realms tied to each other like a double helix, and when the life in one falls asleep it awakens in the other, and so on, so that each lives when the other dreams. From that one came my world—My home! Yes, I feel it again! That one is mine!—but I’m pulled away, and once again I float at the edge of space, but then up and out, too fast for even the imagination.
I float by the Sun and see the tendrils of fire leap off it, each one a world ender. But then away again. To the edge of the solar system, so that the perfect dance of matter around the Sun plays out before me.
“Who are you?” says Bahamut.
Pop! The galaxy exists all around me, and I can see plainly that our solar system is lost in the cluster of others—millions of stars like the Sun tumble like dust in a windstorm. Pop! Our galaxy roils in space. It is a beach, and every star is a grain of sand; and everywhere I look there are other beaches. Galaxies on top of galaxies on top of galaxies. I fly. I move faster than the idea of light, and past me rush the other galaxies, and I see that while each sun in our galaxy was a grain of sand on a beach, so each galaxy is a grain of sand on the beach of all this. I ache. This is too much. It’s all . . . crushing me. But I only speed up—faster and faster—until I reach the edge of the universe.
The light diffuses, the lines coalesce and tighten, and then I’m passing through it, the same passing-through-liquid as before, and then I’m free of it. It was so overwhelming, so massive and awful in its unknowable enormity—No! I look, and there, everywhere, are universes. More than there were stars or galaxies, there are universes, millions on top of billions. Then, all at once, the lights start. Little at first, then growing brighter, and I can see that each light is another realm, and within the billions of universes are billions of planes of existence—and I scream.
Again I hear Bahamut: “Who are you?”
“I’m nothing!” I scream. I howl. “I’m nothing! I’m nothing! I’m nothing!”
James opened his eyes to find himself kneeling in a dim, circular room. He wasn’t hurt or sweating or out of breath or anything. In fact, other than a slight tremor working his lower mandible, he felt fine. Except for that feeling dissipating in his head—an echo of terror, like waking up from a nightmare you can’t remember.
This room was much like the one he’d just left. He looked behind and saw Bahamut, black and vacant and silent.
“You have passed through, War Bringer,” a voice said.
James lifted his head and saw, sitting by a small, open window, the most perfect and beautiful man he’d ever seen. The man was bald, with large eyes and a pronounced triangle of a nose. He was larger than Gabrael, maybe ten feet tall, and as James looked at him, he suddenly understood how some people could look like royalty. This man felt as if he were owed your allegiance, just by virtue of his existence.
“What did he tell you?”
“What?” James said.
“Bahamut. What did he tell you?”
James searched his brain. For a second he couldn’t remember who Bahamut was or what he’d been told, so entranced was he with the powerful giant. “That I’m nothing.”
“Pay him no mind. You are everything.”
A pause ensued, and so James said, “Thanks.”
“For instance,” the giant added, returning his attention out the window, “I’ve been sitting here for quite some time, admiring your handiwork. The Moon, if I may say so, a grand improvement.”
“Thanks. It was kinda bugging me.”
“Oh, I understand. It has bugged, as you say, all of us for quite some time. It was Morning Star who placed it. Shoddy work. A difficult task, of course, but still.”
James pushed himself up to his feet. “You’re Mikhael.”
“I am!” The giant leapt from his seat and rushed across the floor to James. He took both of James’s hands in his own—an eclipse that made James seem like an amputee—and looked into James’s eyes as if they were more than just eyes. James could feel Mikhael pouring himself out, could feel the intended conversation, but if there were specifics, James wasn’t getting them. What he did get was the desperate hope and joy of Mikhael’s wild gaze. He knew a dam was about to burst, and all of Mikhael’s dreams and plans would come crashing out with the weight of the millennia he had waited. The hands, big as snowshoes, gripped tighter, as something like ecstasy passed over Mikhael’s face.
“Please allow me to welcome you to Taloon. In the Creator’s absence, I am the most appropriate, as I have the honor of being Taloon’s senior resident—along with Morning Star, of course.” Mikhael pulled James closer, leaning down and filling the gap between them with conspiratorial energy, a sense that something momentous was at hand.
There’s something else. This isn’t why you’re here, is it? Something . . .
“I have waited so long for this day,” Mikhael said. “And now that it is here, I feel—”
“Dorian!”
Mikhael’s brow darted down, his nose puckered, and his lips folded up, drawing all his features to the center of his face.
“I’m looking for Dor—for Ezra,” James said. “Asmodis.”
Mikhael released James’s hands and strode a few paces away. He considered James as one would an engine that’s just begun emitting blue smoke. “Why?”
“I need to find him.”
“So you say. But why? Surely you can’t believe he is your friend? Your ally? Look,” Mikhael said, leaping to the window and thrusting his arm out to the Moon. “Look what you can do. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone.”
James opened his mouth to speak, but Mikhael helicoptered his arms and continued, his voice rising, “This world has long been formed by impressions, by thoughts and perceptions and whims. When the Creator gave license to Morning Star and me, he gave us a blank canvas and said, ‘Here. Create. Do what you will.’ And we did. To the best of our ability, we strung this world together, painting with our minds until it breathed and ran with beasts and life and beauty. But surely you can tell it’s an unfinished world. It has none of the perfection of your world—that world which was obviously made by the deft hand of the one and true Creator. Your world speaks with such complexity and simplicity. It is billions of moving pieces but all moving according to those magical rules—physics.
“Oh, you’re surprised I know so much? Don’t be! As I said, I adore your world. It is an exquisite work of art, while Taloon, alas, is but the sketchings of an amateur. It was designed not in the stone that the Creator works in but instead carved in smoke upon the air.
“Just look at the Moon you found when you arrived. It had been one of our greatest triumphs to that point. Morning Star was so proud of it, but a fixed position was never truly determined. And of course, nothing as regal as the orbits governed by gravity that you see in your world.
“Morning Star always secretly blamed me, I think, for not truly believing in the spot in the sky we’d agreed upon. The accusation was that while intellectually I may have gone along, in that deep, honest place inside where all great creation comes from, I had reservations. The others, when they arrived, slowly at first and then all at once, they noticed the Moon’s lack of conviction as well, and it grated on them. They spoke of it, checking always to see where the Moon was now, where now. Morning Star was somewhere beyond upset, sure that now that so much consciousness believed the Moon to be unstable it would be impossible to right it. And, until you came, that seemed correct. But look. Look! Just like that you’ve set it to right. Amazing? Impossible? No, no I’ve long thought on this, wondering what you would be like. Who you would be. And then, sitting here looking at our new and majestic Moon, it occurred to me. You are what we made you.
“So you see, you don’t need Ezra, as you call him. I understand, he was there with you on the other side. I’m sure he filled your h
ead with all kinds of doggerel. Of course he did. Flimflam. Oh, if there’s one thing that really enrages me it is the way they have co-opted you, co-opted your image. They believe you are theirs. This is absurd. They believe you are on their side, the one who will free Morning Star, but they fail to see that freeing Morning Star completes the prophecy and begins the War, thereby bringing about the return of the Creator, which, of course, means you are actually on our side. Not only are you on our side—to use such crude terminology—you are our side. You are the culmination of us. And when the Creator sees what we’ve become, when It sees how we’ve crushed Its enemies—those who would doubt and offend—It will return to us. It will fold us all in Its loving embrace. And I, for one, cannot wait.”
“Wait,” James said, “wait, wait.” James rubbed his tight-shut eyes. He tried to slow everything down, quiet everything. But as he managed to quiet Mikhael and clear away his voice, it was not Ezra who filled the space but Bahamut. James heard the words again. He heard them again and again and again, like a staggered chorus.
James looked to Mikhael.
The giant leaned forward, askew, like a runner backing into the starting block. He eyed James. It was obvious that he wanted to continue, that he had so much more to say. But in that moment Mikhael’s speech felt like a wormed hook, and as he made to open his mouth again, James held up a hand and stifled him.
Breathe. The more he talks the further you get from the truth—your truth. Back to Stone Grove. Why are you here? Ezra. Right. Ezra. Find Ezra. Find Dorian. Bring Dorian home. What about Ezra? Get out of here. Get away from this, this . . . What is he? And before James knew it, he felt his inquisitiveness reaching out once again, splashing down in the mind of this giant. He felt Mikhael rebel, but James’s consciousness locked on like a mongoose. Relax. Breathe. James saw the Pit. He saw Mikhael alone in this tower, aflame with pain, screaming to the void. He saw Mikhael’s blind, jealous hatred for James’s realm, saw the way he tied it to his abandonment. Back, back, further—it was as if a balloon popped, and all of it came forth at once. James saw the two minds weaving this world; he saw fighting and denial; and then, beyond all that, there was a small kernel of shame baked hard as stone.
James and Mikhael disentangled, as if emerging from pools of each other, and each sucked a deep breath.
“That,” Mikhael said, “I did not expect.”
James shook. His belly went tight. “You’re the wizard.”
“Pardon me?” Mikhael said as he returned to his seat by the window.
“It was always just the two of you.” Mikhael’s massive face was as tight and blank as marble. “That’s what Morning Star was going to tell them.”
“No!” Mikhael seemed to use his arms and legs to crush the chair in which he’d been sitting, but upon its destruction it immediately disappeared and he was standing. “The Creator had been there. We both felt it. It was only later that Morning Star began to deny that. The belief used to run deep in us both.”
“Belief?”
“We felt the Creator! Do you think someone could mistake that? I assure you they could not. We felt It as we built, and It filled us with purpose and love and fearlessness. But then Morning Star changed—forgot—but the truth will be out. When the War is concluded, the Creator will return and we will all fall into the bosom of love.”
Oh my god. The realization filled James’s mind like a cave-in, and he wanted to drop to his knees and cry. “You made it all up.” It wasn’t an accusation or a question; James said it in the same tepid tone with which one repeats the news that a loved one is dead.
“I did no such thing!” Mikhael bellowed. “I felt the Creator come to me . . .”
But James wasn’t listening anymore.
“The, the prophecy, the War . . . all of it . . . it’s a lie?”
“No, it will bring about the return of the Creator! The Creator has promised me! We shall be reunited!”
It wasn’t a lie, he realized. Mikhael truly believed the story he’d invented. The narrative infected him, James thought, remembering what Ezra had said. To continue talking to this one was like arguing with the piss-smelling whisperer who was always at the train station. But then why is this all happening? If it’s not true, then how can this all be real?
One thought burned through the question: Dorian-Ezra . . . DorianEzra . . . DorianEzra . . .
Where are they? And then, with barely a thought, James’s consciousness reached out, searching for Ezra. Like sonar it spread and raced. James felt himself here in the tower and spreading over Taloon all at once, the sensation as natural as reaching out his arm. Why didn’t you think of this before? But James knew, somehow, he wouldn’t have been able to. The clutter of his mind upon arriving, the assault on all his senses—it was too much. But now . . . things were different. The questions receded, the fear softened. James turned and looked back at Bahamut. Passing through had changed him, somehow. He tried to diagnose himself, to search through the halls of his mind, but he could find nothing out of place. No, it was instead as if everything had been cleaned, as if the layers of dust and cobweb that he now realized were his own little fears and petty self-absorbed obsessions, had been cleared away. But there was something else there. An idea? A directive? Something he should know, but for some reason he couldn’t quite bring it up. It was close, though. He could tell he was close to uncovering it or remembering it or piecing it together. It didn’t matter how—he knew it was there—right there—just beyond the reach of his fingers, and so he stretched. And stretched.
But then he saw Ezra, and the hidden thought rushed off. He saw Ezra for only an instant—gathered with others, waiting—but he knew exactly where he was.
James turned his attention back to Mikhael, who was watching the young man, transfixed and cautious, as someone would look at a dog they didn’t trust.
“This won’t work,” James said.
“What won’t work?”
“You know where Ezra is, don’t you?”
“Know? No, I don’t know where he is. I could guess, though. And were I to, I would guess he awaits you at the Pit.”
“You’re all trying to get me there.”
“Of course we are. That is where you will fulfill your destiny. Surely you feel the urge—the need—to fulfill your destiny.”
“What if I say no?”
“No?”
“No.”
Mikhael brought his hands up and looked down at James, something like bemusement on his massive face. He almost smiled as he tilted his head. “But you would never do that. That’s not who you are.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Oh, but I think I do. I know you are not one who will drop his weight, knowing someone else will have to bear it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it, James. You are the product of all this belief. The belief is not a belief in the James of 323 Jackson Street of Stone Grove of Illinois of the United States of America of Earth. Right? Think about it. The belief is in the War Bringer, the One who will bring about a final reckoning. The belief is in the human who will release the Adversary and begin the War that will bring about the return of the Creator. In one guise or another, this is the belief. This is the belief which has resulted in your very existence and purpose—your destiny.
“No, if you fail to live out your destiny, what do you think will happen? I’ll tell you. Have you figured it out already? But, of course, it’s so simple. The War did not happen. Therefore, he was not the War Bringer. He was not the One, the Antichrist or whatever we—as believers—choose to call him. So the belief recycles, it builds, and soon another comes forth.
“You see? There’s no other way that it could be. So if you were to refuse to fulfill your destiny, you would be stopping nothing. You would only be throwing your yoke onto the shoulders of another. And then, of course, the question is what would become of you. Who would you be? Where would you go and what would you do? And until when? And when
the next One comes along, mightn’t they be a little upset with you? Who knows?”
“Have there been others?”
Mikhael waved a hand and pressed on. “And if you seek Ezra, as it seems, because you are cross with him and want vengeance, well . . . very well. You will have it. He is a mote of nothingness under your foot. Crush him. Crush him with us. Yes?”
James did not nod or speak or respond. Oddly, he actually felt rather calm at the moment. He was not sure what would happen when he arrived, but he knew that he must move forward, must go to the Pit. And since the decision was made, there was no point in worrying. It would be what it would be.
Within nothing, everything. It rang through his head like a favorite old song.
Mikhael smiled. “Rufa!” he called. “Raffi!”
James turned to see two beings stepping through Bahamut. They looked identical, with thin, birdlike legs that grew into mighty torsos, and arms wide and flat, as if they were both wings and arms at once. Their eyes were wide, their mouths small, and their hair and beards grew thick and long, down to their waists. The one on the left looked over his shoulder as he emerged, mumbling, “Yeah, yeah, Bahamut. Your mother’s an automaton propelled only by fear,” before he turned to his twin and grumbled, “Hate that stupid thing.”
“Warriors!”
They snapped to attention, looking from Mikhael to James and back again.
“War is at hand! Gather everyone; gather mounts and beasts! We ride to War!”
And with that they were gone, dashing off through Bahamut, and once again it was just James and Mikhael.
“We shall ride across the sky, as befits an army such as ours. You will ride at the front, with me, and when we—”
“Y’know,” James said, “I think I’ll just meet you there.”
“What?”
But James had no way of knowing what Mikhael said or did next. He knew where he had to be, and as that single syllable left Mikhael’s mouth, James simply saw Ezra, saw the Pit he’d feared so in his dreams, and he Pushed. There was no sensation. No anything. It was not a motion at all, James could see now. The sensation of passing through had probably been in his head as well.