Beforelife

by Randal Graham

  “Then we must hurry,” said Norm, gravely. “We haven’t time to spare. Our port suppressors should be effective, but from what I’ve heard of Socrates —”

  He trailed off into silence, leaving a tangy whiff of tension where the remainder of his sentence ought to have been.

  It might be of interest to point out that some reviewers of Beforelife’s first edition hotly debated Ian’s behaviour during the recent chunk of narrative. Some argued that he ought to have put up more of a fuss about Zeus, Tonto, and Nappy, despite the latter’s limited role as an interesting piece of local colour. Others argued that he ought to have cross-examined Norm Stradamus before agreeing to follow him deeper into the cave. Still others thought that Ian ought to have hovered over Rhinnick, tending to his former roommate’s wounds and helping him cope with the loss of the recently mindwiped Zeus. But Ian did none of these things. Instead, he stood in downcast, shoulder-slumped silence and allowed himself to be pushed along by Carl, Llewellyn Llewellyn, and Norm Stradamus, three people who, when push came to shove, Ian had little reason to trust.

  What these reviewers failed to reckon with was the voice in Ian’s head — the one that had spoken to him eleven separate times up to this point in the story. Go back and check if you like. It had been helpful, encouraging, and insightful every time. And in this particular instance, the voice told Ian to put a lid on his objections, go with the flow, and follow along.

  “You’re almost at the end,” it said, reassuringly. “Follow along. You’ll be okay.”

  “Follow me,” said Norm, bringing the narrative back on track. “They’ll be waiting in the grotto.”

  The passage out of the small cave turned a corner beyond which Ian could hear the sound of flowing water at a volume that bisected the line between “babbling brook” and “thundering cauldron” — call it a quick-flowing underground stream augmented by the acoustic effects of a subterranean cavern, which is exactly what it was. And had Ian been listening very, very intently, he might have appreciated just how perfectly this sound paired with the chanting, singing, and general hubbub of several dozen people, whose collective vocal efforts challenged the volume of the stream.

  But he wasn’t listening intently, and so he didn’t. The principal thing he heard at present was the familiar noise of Rhinnick Feynman mid-complaint. He was saying something-or-other about caves and bats and the differences between stalagmites and stalactites, the details of which have been deleted in order to keep the plot in motion.

  They stepped onto a long, spiralling, and uncomfortably narrow ledge of rough red stone that had been cut out of a sheer cavern wall. The cavern itself was veiled in darkness, pierced only by the shimmering halo cast by the luminescent orb behind Norm’s shoulder.

  “We’ll be there soon,” said Norm. “The congregation is waiting.”

  “What are they waiting for?” said Ian.

  “For you,” said Norm, emphatically. “The Intercessor. They’ve waited patiently, watching for the signs of your arrival since the finding of the Omega Missive, some twenty years past. They’ve held their ceaseless vigil since my earliest foretellings that you would come and reveal the Great Omega; bridge the —”

  “— the chasm to the beforelife,” said Ian, flatly. “Right. Carl mentioned it.”

  Ian made a doubtful expression. It didn’t do him any good, what with the darkness and the fact that people were looking at their feet and not at him, but he made the expression anyway.

  “It’s true,” said Norm, picking his way slowly along the ledge. He shuffled his feet to secure his footing, sending a handful of grit and unlucky pebbles tumbling into the dark.

  “I’m just here to find my wife,” said Ian, clinging to the cavern wall and shuffling crabwise.

  “All that you seek lies in the grotto,” said Norm, egging him on.

  Ian stopped abruptly and caught hold of Norm’s sleeve, causing Norm to suddenly freeze in place and turn his head. This movement caused Norm’s levitating orb to do a whirly bit of topsy-turvy choreography, which in turn sent shadows spinning into an acid-trippish whirl around the cavern.

  Rhinnick threw up over the ledge. He managed to do this relatively quietly, without the addition of a single “I mean to say” or “Dash it all.” Everyone else tried to ignore him.

  “What do you mean ‘all that I seek’ lies in the grotto?” asked Ian, once he’d steadied himself, re-opened his eyes, and secured his footing. “All that I seek is Penelope. She’s why I’m here. And I know you’re not going to say ‘Yes, Penelope’s waiting in the grotto, we’ll be with her in a moment,’ because that’s not the sort of afterlife I’m having.”

  “But the path, Intercessor —” Norm began.

  “And before you say ‘The path to what you seek lies below,’ or something equally helpful, just give it a rest and listen. I’m not a religious icon. I’m not anyone’s intercessor. I’m just Ian Brown. Plain old Ian. I’m not here to reveal anything about any Great Omega. I don’t even know what a Great Omega is. I’m here because Vera sent me to the university, and because Carl said that I’d find my wife if I stuck with him. If you can’t help me find Penelope, I might as well just —”

  “My visions failed to foretell you’d be so whiny,” said Norm, puzzled.

  “He gets that way,” said Rhinnick.

  “No matter,” said Norm. “My visions are unclear where any spouse of the Intercessor is concerned. But I know the prophecies well; quite a lot of them having been mine. And what the prophecies clearly state is that the answers to all of the Intercessor’s questions — every one of them — will be found at the river’s edge, down in the grotto, once you’ve sundered the veil of shadow and laid bare the hidden truths.”

  Norm closed his eyes and did his best to achieve an eerie, sepulchral tone, which is difficult if you’ve never been to a sepulchre. What he said was this: “Once the Intercessor has plumbed the depths of perfect understanding, once He has learned The Rules that govern the world, then the answers to His questions will be revealed.” He dialled his voice back to its non-prophetic settings and carried on: “I imagine that the reference to ‘His questions’ includes the answer to your questions about your wife.”

  “You made that up,” said Ian, doubtfully.

  “He didn’t,” insisted Carl. “I’ve read the prophecies myself.”

  “And I’m not whiny,” Ian grumbled.

  “You tell him, chum,” said Rhinnick.

  “Let’s get a move on,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn, his eyes darting between the shadows. He withdrew a telescoping staff from somewhere in the depths of his pack, extended it to its full length, and used the staff to steady himself on the ledge.

  “The acolytes’ll be getting antsy,” he added, “and the sooner we’re off this ledge, the better.”

  And off they went, Norm Stradamus guiding them slowly down the path, Llewellyn Llewellyn bringing up the rear and intermittently prodding Rhinnick in the backside with his staff. The journey wasn’t long, but it was steep, which counted for something. Their trip down the spiralling ledge didn’t technically count as spelunking, but it was a close enough cousin to spelunking that any marriage between the two would have violated consanguinity laws in any state whose anthem wasn’t scored for banjo and jug.

  They made the descent, passed through an antechamber, and entered the grotto.

  The grotto was bigger than you’d imagine. More of a subterranean amphitheatre than an honest-to-goodness cave. It featured plenty of stone columns that stretched from floor to ceiling — the sort you get when stalactites and stalagmites settle their differences and meet each other halfway — as well as a larger collection of statuary, artwork, and wall hangings than you typically find in underground settings. The entire cavern was lit by a host of candles set into alcoves in the walls, as well as by tiki torches slotted into holes in the cavern floor. The light they shed rev
ealed a grotto large enough to accommodate two or three hundred people who don’t mind being underground — or, when it comes to that, two or three hundred people who do mind being underground, so long as you can put up with a good deal of acoustically amplified complaining.

  The far side of the grotto was bounded by the cavern’s most striking feature: a fast-moving, underground river that entered and exited the grotto through a pair of natural caves. The near side of the river featured an elevated stage that loomed out over the water, as though Norm and his crew had adopted platform diving as a way to pass the time.

  The second most striking feature of the grotto was the substantial crowd of robed and hooded people standing within. Not a crowd, really. More of a flock. And they weren’t just standing. They were singing, dancing, chanting, and more generally doing a passable remake of the Israelites at Sinai, except that in this version Norm stood in for Moses, and the part of the Ten Commandments was played by Ian. Another important difference was that Carl, who hadn’t made an appearance in either the Old or New Testament, bounded to the front of the congregation and shouted a greeting that Ian felt was rather surprising.

  It was this:

  “Behold, my friends! I bring good tidings of great joy, for I have found the One Foretold!”

  There were three reasons that Ian found this surprising. First, he was surprised that anyone actually used the word “behold.” Second, Ian still wasn’t accustomed to being noticed, let alone being singled out as “One Foretold.” But most surprising of all was the reaction that Carl’s cry had drawn from the masses.

  The congregation unleashed a cave-shaking hurrah, and then started chanting hosannas. Their cheers drowned out the sound of the river.

  Ian’s eyes adjusted to the torchlight, allowing him to get a thorough look at his surroundings. He noticed a number of crossbow-wielding guards standing post in the twilight shadows. And at the cavern’s far end, on the elevated stage beside the river, he spied a separate group of a dozen or so acolytes dressed in brightly coloured, shimmering satin robes. They looked distressingly cheerful. If exuberance were a sport, this stage would have been the winner’s circle.

  Norm assisted matters by identifying the stage-dwelling acolytes as the Chorus.

  “ALL HAIL BROWN!” chorused the Chorus. “HAIL THE HERALD OF THE OMEGA!”

  The rest of the flock took up the chant.

  “I thought I was called the Intercessor,” said Ian, cupping a hand to Norm’s ear.

  “PRAISE THE INTERCESSOR!” chorused the Chorus.

  “I thought you said you were just plain Ian,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn. And if you wanted to tack the word “sardonically” on the end of that last sentence, you wouldn’t be far off the mark.

  “You are known by many names,” said Norm, shouting over the crowd. “It helps with the Psalms,” he added, shrugging apologetically. “It’s hard to come up with rhymes for Intercessor.”

  “Tongue depressor?” hazarded Rhinnick.

  Norm stretched an arm around Ian’s shoulder and nodded serially at a number of upturned faces. “Allow me to introduce your congregation,” he said, still shouting over the cheers. “Long have they waited for the time of your arrival, long have they sought to pierce the mysteries of the Missive, and share your knowledge of the Omega.”

  “Air compressor?” mused Rhinnick, still a paragraph behind.

  “Why are they hiding in a cave?” said Ian.

  “Not hiding,” shouted Norm. “Abiding. Attending. They wait upon your arrival at our most venerated site. For the river you see before you —”

  Rhinnick snapped his fingers and eureka’d. “Good folk hail the Intercessor, Feynmanesque, though somewhat lesser.”

  The flock’s cheering deflated to murmur status as parishioners tested out the Psalm of Feynman and found it wanting.

  Norm gave this the attention that it was due. “The river,” he said, carrying on with his explanation, “flows directly from the Styx. The underground branch shares the main river’s attributes. It carries the neural flows. It manifests new life. It carries those who cross the barrier from the beforelife. It is here, at the river’s edge, that we shall delve into your secrets.”

  “We built a stage and everything,” said Carl, beaming.

  “THE STAGE IS SET!” chorused the Chorus, which led to another bout of congregational cheering, shouting, clapping, and infectious hullaballoo. This lasted for a few uncomfortably loud minutes, until a sudden hush descended over the flock as one parishioner hip-checked a pathway through the crowd. It was a female acolyte, if Ian was any judge, although it was difficult to tell, what with the flowing robe and the face-concealing cowl. She approached Ian solemnly, curtsied deeply, and slowly drew back her hood.

  Ian goggled.

  He recognized her instantly. He wasn’t prepared for this.

  He was so tongue-tyingly shocked to see her that he mispronounced her name.

  Chapter 41

  Penelope stood on Platform Six at Union Station. She was there with Ian, waiting to catch the midnight train. She’d bought a magazine at the newsstand and was flipping through its pages while Ian chatted with someone or other about the train.

  The midnight train.

  Penny checked her watch. The train would arrive in minutes.

  Midnight, Penny reflected. As a kid, she’d once wondered whether it counted as the last tick of one day or the first tock of the next. And so she’d gone and looked it up. As this had all taken place in the days before googling, World Wide Webs, or social networks, this had necessitated a trip to the public library.

  That sort of thing used to stop people from getting answers. They’d think up a question along the lines of “What’s that song that goes ‘ta ta tee tum, on a steel horse I ride’?” or “What’s the Capital of Rhodesia?” and then they’d realize that getting an answer meant they’d have to put on pants, leave the house, and take a trip to the nearest library or school. Deterred by the general pain-in-the-assedness of this process, they shoved their questions into the mental corner that housed the sorts of things that could be put off until such time as you forgot them. That’s how people usually operate. Not Penny. She wasn’t like that. She was tenacious and resourceful, and practically always sweated the small stuff. She took this admittedly highish-maintenance approach to everything she did — figure out what you want, find out what you need, and go and get it.

  And thus it was that, despite the fact that midnight’s status as part of this day or the next didn’t matter one way or the other, an eight-year-old Penny had boarded a bus, arrived at the public library, found an armload of books, compared their answers, and reached her own conclusion. She wanted to know, so she found out.

  Midnight, Little Penny had concluded, was a beginning.

  Flash forward thirty-three years. The midnight train thundered its way along the track and into the station. Penny flipped another page of her magazine, scanning a piece entitled “Refreshing Your Style to Recharge Your Spirit.” She de-capped a felt tip pen and made a few notes in the margin, which is precisely the sort of thing that Penny would do.

  Someone screamed. A lot of someones screamed. And unless Penny was much mistaken, a recognizable voice had shouted “whoops.”

  It was a perfectly average voice.

  The sort of voice that didn’t make an impression.

  It made an impression on Penny. It was her favourite voice.

  It was a voice that Penny loved.

  Penny looked up. She saw him fall. She saw the train bearing down on Ian. She could see what was going to happen.

  Penny dropped her pen and ran for the tracks.

  * * *

  “Joan?” said Ian.

  “Oan,” said Rhinnick. “The J is silent, and invisible.”

  “Mr. Brown!” said Oan, flashing a grin that showed about sixty-seven teeth.

&n
bsp; Ian wasn’t in the mood to leap about or otherwise indicate surprise. He was too tired, for one thing, and also keen to get things moving. If Norm and Vera were right, his road to Penny passed directly through this “learning The Rules” ritual that Norm Stradamus and his underground crew had planned. So Ian cut to the chase.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “Waiting for you, Your Reverence,” said Oan, inclining her head slightly and performing one of those slow, serene, double-eyed winks she had perfected back at the hospice. She stepped closer and took hold of Ian’s hands, enfolding them between her own. “Together we are present, we are alive, and we are centred. Imagine my joy when Prophet Stradamus’s television revealed that you, one of my own Sharing Students, were the promised Intercessor. The quantum rippling of the world, harkening to my meditations, had already joined our paths! There you were, sharing my journey for all those weeks, our life paths intersecting in preparation for your moment of revelation. No doubt my unconscious inner eye sensed something resonant in your aura, something that drew you into my orbit. You were doubtless pulled toward my Sharing Room through my devoted application of the secret Laws of Attraction.”

  “IF YOU BELIEVE IT, YOU’LL RECEIVE IT!” chorused the Chorus.

  “For years I had yearned to find the Intercessor,” Oan continued, “I attuned my thoughts to the Universe, I created my Vision Board, assembled my crystals, and uttered my meditative incantations. I asked for the Intercessor, and I received,” she added, radiating the sort of perfect self-assurance you can only get from notions that aren’t subject to peer review. “See the proof of the laws that bind us,” she continued. “The universe is listening!”

  “YOUR THOUGHTS TAKE SHAPE!” chorused the Chorus.

  Ian pinched the bridge of his nose and flipped through a mental Rolodex of objections. There were plenty. For starters, there was the hypocrisy of Oan running a workshop in the hospice — where caring nurturers tried to cure him of “BD” — while also being a paid-up member of this Church — an organization that, according to Carl, worshipped some sort of god from the beforelife. It put the invisible, silent J into the word “hypocrite.” Come to that, Ian also objected to silent J’s, Laws of Attraction, and unnecessary references to “life paths” where a simpler word like “life” would have done quite nicely.