by William Hawk
I arrive at my elderly friend. Without a body, he hasn’t bled out, but I sense that his life force has grown weaker.
“Cy, why did you come?” I say.
“We didn’t know what was happening. You didn’t send us any signs.”
“Roivas tricked both of us, and now we can’t get out.”
Cy just sits there, not saying anything. He looks around at the galaxy, at the disc beneath his feet.
“This is the place that my ancestors described. They told a story about a round plate that held souls of our people.”
“How did the story end?”
“When the people learned selflessness.”
I look directly at him. I don’t know what he means. How do you learn selflessness in a place without any other people? I have been trapped inside myself for what seems like forever.
Then I realize maybe that has been the problem. Maybe I’ve been too wrapped up in myself to notice anything else, and that Roivas hasn’t, in fact, imprisoned me. Maybe I imprisoned myself. After all, I broke out of that state only after I’d seen an injustice being done to Cy.
We stay there on the disc, each of us thinking about the next steps we can take. I know that Cy is growing significantly weaker because of his wounds. It is as though his life energy is leaking out of him. His comments are growing progressively muddier, more confused.
I realize that this is a glimpse into the mind of a person who is dying. It is ironic to be dying in the spiritual realm, but I can’t explain it any other way. He is simply less of a presence.
“Don’t go, Cy,” I say. “Stay here and be strong.”
“I’m trying.”
We both sense movement and as we turn our heads we see a very familiar sight.
Sonny is coming down the path, cupping a candle in his hands. Roivas again. A woman is trailing behind the evil creature, and I don’t have to see the image of the face that she is projecting to know who she is, because the strength of her presence can’t be mistaken for anybody else.
Grace presents herself the way that I had seen her the first time I checked into the spiritual realm, just for those few seconds—just her face, purely feminine, soft, the way that I knew it back home.
Grace sees me and Cy, and her face lights up. “William, you found Sonny too.”
“I was sending a warning. Grace—”
Then, Roivas sends a powerful ball of anger shooting toward me. I watch my message get encased in the ball and then swallowed into darkness. Grace will never receive it, because I’m muzzled. Cy tries to express the same, but Roivas sends another ball barreling toward him.
Then Sonny makes a motion, and I feel myself encased in the same weird plastic. I look over and see that Cy is encased just like me. We are just hanging there, as though frozen in ancient sap that has turned to amber, all because we represent something.
The truth.
Grace doesn’t know to whom she is talking. I feel myself growing more agitated. It is as horrific as watching a friend walk into a buzz saw.
Roivas reveals himself to her—the navy-blue pinstripe suit, shiny shoes, smooth egghead that morphs into the face with the unnatural grin. Once again, I try to scream, but once again I can’t make myself heard or known.
But I can see Grace’s face as the transformation occurs. I can see the horns sprouting through the suit. And I see the look of horror on her face as she realizes that, even here in the spiritual realm, her brother still has her by the throat.
Then their communication comes in loud and clear, as though I have been let into a private conference call. Presumably Roivas doesn’t see me as a threat anymore, not since he encased me in this special insulation.
“What are you doing to my friends?” she asks.
“You’ve changed,” says Roivas. I notice that he ignored the question.
“I’m the same.”
“So am I, Grace. I have been the same for all eternity. You knew me as child in the last iteration.”
“But you are part of me, Grace. We were twins. We share the same DNA. When you denounce me, you denounce yourself. These two came here to defeat me—your own brother. You can’t let them.”
His face grows sad, in a mockery of sensitivity. I hold my breath, expecting Grace’s answer. It doesn’t come. I expect a forceful denunciation of Roivas, instead there is only silence. I look at her. She’s wavering. She can’t see his deception.
I turn to Cy.
“We have to help her.”
“No. She has free will. Let her make her own decision.”
This doesn’t make any sense to me. If she is making the wrong decision, then she needs help. But Cy’s comment is interesting. What if this entire earthly world is a trial run to see how humans handle the question of free will?
I look back at her. She looks at me, and then at Cy. Then she looks back to Roivas.
“I don’t know, Roland.”
Roivas’s face twitches. It is either from hearing the birth name or from the strain of pretending to look sympathetic. Then his facial features disappear into a dark jumble of anger, and I remember what happened the last time I saw that.
“You are not to stand in my way. You are on my side.”
“Roland, I don’t know.”
I watch Roivas raise the horrible horned arm and bring it across Grace’s side. She emits a sound of great pain that pierces my soul. I find a flood of compassion rushing through me, mixed with an intense need for justice, but that plastic casing keeps me in place.
“You have Proof. Use it,” urges Cy.
I know what he means. I concentrate everything that I have upon breaking out of this strange spiritual prison that Roivas has put me in, twice. I dive into the deepest well of strength and compassion and scoop it up and hurl it with all my might—
And to my surprise, the plastic casing falls away.
I understand why it fell away. I did not break that casing with anger. Roivas knew how to defend against that. I broke out because the anger was mixed with compassion for someone being hurt.
Selflessness.
That was all it took. Roivas doesn’t understand selflessness or charity. It is the chink in its terrible horned armor—the act of caring for another person.
Free from the cage, I swoop over to Roivas. The horrific spine turns to me, the hundreds of sprouted horns creating a garish décor on its back that looks a lot like a bed of nails. I gather up the same sensation as when gritting my teeth and bear down hard and find another enormous wellspring of energy and strength…and hurl it directly at the monster’s back.
This time, with Roivas caught off guard, it makes an impact. Roivas staggers, and I can sense that the creature is off balance, maybe even weakened. Then Roivas finds his footing again and turns to me.
I shrink back. His eye sockets are totally empty.
I would be frightened if there were flames leaping out, or vampire bats, or anything, really. But to see pure emptiness in someone’s eyes is the most frightening thing of all. It means that there is absolutely no regard for another life. It is like staring into the eyes of a dead snake. There is no there there.
“Die,” he says.
“You can’t kill me. I’m already in the spiritual realm.”
“I can make sure you never return to earth.”
“You can’t kill me.”
And then he changes tack: “I can give you what you want!”
“What do I want?”
“I know your thoughts, William. Girls, money, adventure. I can give you all of these. Just ask.”
He knows. He knows my weaknesses, my lusts and desires. I had been a shallow, self-absorbed little nobody, and he knows it. But I’m changed.
“You can’t give me what I want now.”
Then he screams and I watch Roivas lift that horned arm. A moment later I feel the full power of the nearly demonic presence upon me. It is a rending sensation, my clothing, skin, my soul itself tearing apart. I realize that Roivas is slashing me, over
and over.
I fall back, back, back—and Roivas keeps coming, coming, coming. His arm slashes me, over and over. If I weren’t already in the spiritual realm, I would prepare for death. The blue lights above my eyes on the helmet are almost totally dead.
“Die,” Roivas says again.
The arm goes up for a final time. I brace for it, knowing that it won’t be long before my life is finished. I will spend all eternity here, slave to this horrible entity, Little Horn, the embodiment of pure evil.
“Stop,” Grace says.
Roivas pauses, begins to turn. Before his movement can be completed, a massive burst of energy lights up the entire disc. An unearthly screech emits from Roivas’s mouth, a cacophony of pain, a voice carrying the agony of hundreds of centuries of death and destruction.
Grace. I realize that Grace has tapped into Proof, the same empathy, the same longing for justice that I felt. And I feel relieved. She has snapped out of Roivas’s gaslighting and directed all of the considerable power upon her own brother.
I look over at Cy. He’s still suspended in the plastic casing—but as I watch, it dissolves around him, enough for him to break out. Of course, I don’t know how those force fields were formed, not exactly, but I suspect that they depend upon the strength of the host.
This means that Roivas is weakened.
I see another opportunity to fight this demon of an entity. I look deep within myself for more rage, more anger, but I come up empty. I have very little of that left. I realize that those feelings are the opposite of what selfishness represents. Then it hits me: Grace is not feeding the hate and anger and the rage. That is Proof where the power is coming from. I know now that I must have compassion. There’s no way I can love something like Roivas. But I can choose not to hate him. Then the answer rains down on me like bricks falling from the sky. Hate from others is his fuel. Remove the fuel, diminish the flame. This might be the most dangerous thing of all for Roivas, and I tap into that, and then I speak to him of things I know he can’t understand or tolerate.
“I won’t hate you anymore,” I say. And with that the fire that is raging inside Roivas diminishes a bit. It is like an out-of-control campfire that’s just receiving its first splash of water.
Roivas looks at me with that dark mass of smudged facial features. I sense that he is confused, so I double down on my intent.
“I won’t hate you anymore. And you don’t have to hate either.”
I don’t know if it will work. Still, my intent is direct, and I know that he sees that my heart is true. He tries to shrink away, but Grace steps up.
“I don’t hate you, Roland. Let us show you how to stop hating.”
“We can show you,” I add.
Cy comes alongside us. “There’s always time to change. I won’t hate you anymore, Little Horn. Stop hating. Save yourself.”
Roivas’ face configures and reconfigures itself into a hundred different faces. I see an ancient Roman executioner, a blood-soaked Viking warrior, a Mongol horseman, a Mayan chief, a Nazi soldier. These and many others flash across the visage with startling rapidity. I realize that Roivas has been all of these people, and has created chaos and destruction in all these times and places. Roivas is the embodiment of the very impulse that prevents humanity from reaching Final Ignition.
“No!” thunders Roivas.
And then Roivas vanishes right before our eyes, no grin hanging in the air this time.
Only silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
What seemed like an instant later, I realized I had arrived back in my human body.
Everything was dark, and then I sensed that it was because I couldn’t open my eyes, no matter how hard I tried. So I wiggled the fingers of my left hand. I could feel them clenching and unclenching.
“He’s moving,” a voice says.
I felt hands on my body, and my head being lifted, and the helmet being slipped off, and then my head being set down.
“William, come back to us,” said the voice. I realized that it belonged to Julia.
The hands went all over my body, touching, stroking, massaging. It felt good—a welcome back to the world of nerve endings.
At last I was able to peel open my eyes slightly. I saw Julia and Arthur looking down at me.
“He’s back!” said Arthur.
“How are you feeling?” said Julia.
I tried to open my mouth to speak, but it wouldn’t move. Slowly, and with effort, I managed to make a sound like blarrrgh.
“Dude, I don’t speak helmet,” said Arthur. “Can you translate?” he guffawed.
I wanted to punch him out of happiness, but I couldn’t move my arms. It was so good to hear his smart-aleck comments again.
Soon I was able to move my head. I saw that I was still on the table in the underground room. My friends had apparently kept a watch by my body.
“You were gone for a long time,” said Julia.
Arthur was massaging my feet, which was pretty generous of him, when you think about it. “Three whole days!”
My eyes got wide, and I looked at the two of them. “Only three days?”
“Hey, look, his tongue is working again,” said Arthur. “Hey, say it again! Say blarrrgh.”
Julia glared at him, handing me a cup of water. “We thought we might have to carry you up to the cabin if you were going to be gone any longer.”
I took a drink, found my voice again. “Seriously, it feels like I’ve been gone a hundred years. No joke.”
Arthur shrugged. “Nope, just three days. We’ve been right here. I was teaching Julia how to play poker right next to your head.” He flashed a deck of cards to illustrate.
I said, “And Grace. She was there!”
“We’ve been worried about her,” said Julia.
“No, don’t. She is okay. And I know she will speak to me soon, and we’ll find her.” Then I thought of someone else. Alarmed, I looked around the room. “Where’s Cy?”
“Cy left earlier today to look for some food,” said Julia.
Now I shot up to a sitting position. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy now,” said Arthur.
“He didn’t look for food, you guys. He came to the spiritual realm. We fought Roivas together.”
The two of them looked around. “He took the other helmet when we went out,” said Julia. Then her eyes widened. “Hey, I get it! He was with you!”
“We have to find Cy!” Arthur said with genuine concern.
Julia sniffed the air. “There’s a storm coming.” She looked at Arthur. “We can’t just let him sit outside in the rain.”
Meanwhile, I was regaining movement in my arms. “Where would he have gone to protect his body while he was in the spiritual realm?”
Julia looked at us. “The graveyard. No doubt.”
“Let’s go,” said Arthur.
I tried to stand up but felt my legs start to give way beneath me. Julia went to grab me, but I caught myself on the edge of the table.
“I’m coming too,” I said. “I think.”
They had to help me climb out of the underground room. It was late afternoon, and the sky was turning a purplish gray. You could smell something big, weather-wise, on the horizon. Arthur put an arm around me as we went down the long slope back to the graveyard at the center of the valley. On the way, I explained everything that had happened in the spiritual realm.
He didn’t say anything for the longest time. “That’s the world’s best drug trip.”
“No drugs,” I said. “It’s all real. It’s on the other side. Roivas is still powerful, but with a much lesser advantage.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’d like to go back to confront Roivas again, but next time, with understanding. Of him, of human selflessness and human graciousness and Proof that love overcomes hate.”
“I don’t know,” said Julia. “You were lucky to get away from that once.”
By the time we reached the graveyard, I was able to w
alk on my own, though a bit unsteadily. I followed Julia and Arthur as they meandered their way through the sacred space.
“I see him,” said Julia. “There. The blue.”
I followed her hand and saw the blue helmet beneath a bush. We ran over to the location. Sure enough, it was Cy, his fists rolling and unrolling. He was moaning to himself.
For the next few minutes, I watched as they removed the helmet, sat him against a tree, massaged his body, and gave him water. Eventually his eyes opened and found me. He spoke in a raspy voice. “We almost had Little Horn.”
I sighed. “There were three of us, and we still couldn’t change him.”
“That doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
Arthur said, “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to use the helmet? We would’ve laid you next to William.”
Cy shook his head. “It’s better that we were far apart. I wanted it to be a sacred journey. For my people.” His finger made a small circle in the graveyard.
Julia was looking at the crowd with a questioning air. “The only other question—where is Grace?”
“No clue,” I said. “But she will come to me.”
Cy nodded. “Let’s get back to the cabin now.”
Cy struggled to get up, so the others helped him get to his feet. He was shakier than I was, and as we climbed the slope, Arthur had to carry the elderly Indian on his back.
“You’re killing me, Cy,” he said, gasping.
“I’ve been to the afterlife, and it’s not so bad,” Cy deadpanned in response.
After much struggle, we arrived at the top of the valley, then moved quietly through the pines, so as to approach Cy’s cabin the back way. As we drew closer, I held up my hand for the group to stop. We hunkered down in the shadows of the trees and listened.
I heard the low murmur of men’s voices from the front of the cabin.
“Someone’s there,” I whispered.