by Chris Walley
“The first message was the triumph of the Assembly. The second is this: the triumph of the King. The great battle is won; the last war is over! Now is the time long prepared! Now is the time for the Return, the Judging, and the Remaking!”
From above the windows came despairing cries and rattles of terror, and then six brief flares of lurid flame.
The baziliarchs are gone. Merral saw Nezhuala throw away the crown and scepter.
Looking up, Merral saw that light was growing as if day was breaking directly overhead. On the wall he saw that the gold had spread further down at the expense of the green.
Now the envoy took off his hat and threw it away. His face became radiant, and his coat opened. Light poured from him; Merral had to turn away from the brightness.
“Rise!” the envoy said, and Merral was abruptly aware of strange changes in his body. His shoulder moved back into place; his knee seemed to be manipulated by an unseen hand. He took a tentative step and then another; he realized to his astonishment that he felt fine. No, more than fine! In one glorious instant the tiredness, the sadness, and all the dirt and evil of war fled from him.
It seemed to him that the air itself thickened as though turning into solid light.
Anya rose tentatively, grunted in pleased surprise, and stretched her arms out. Merral reached to wipe the drying blood off her face, but it vanished before he could touch it.
Ape had collapsed, twitching, on the ground, but Nezhuala was dancing around madly. Merral saw that he was trying to stab himself with Lezaroth’s sword but the blade kept bouncing off him.
Seeing Merral, he ran over and offered him the sword. “Kill me, D’Avanos! As a favor. Please!” Merral had never seen such fear in a man.
The envoy shook his gleaming head. “You could not, even if you wished to. As of a few moments ago, death has ceased to operate. Here and everywhere.” He turned to Nezhuala. “You are beyond physical death now. You must endure the Lamb’s wrath, now and eternally.”
The man gave a wide-mouthed scream and fled to the edge of the chamber, where he attempted to hide in the shadows that were visibly ebbing away.
The envoy gazed after him. “He ran from death all his long life; now, when he needs it, he can’t find it.”
The light from above was growing ever brighter now, and Merral saw a movement nearby on the floor. Lloyd was stirring.
Almost speechless with joy and wonder Merral stared at the sight. “But . . . he was dead.”
The envoy smiled. “He was. But death is over. The dead are raised.”
“Of course,” Merral said, struck by the way a truth he had always seen as distant and incomprehensible was now actually taking form.
Lloyd groaned, stood up, and began to pat his chest. “What happened? I must have been knocked out.” He looked around, his eyes widening. “Did I miss something?”
Merral heard himself laugh. “Only the beginning of the end of the world.”
He heard voices and turned to see Ethan helping Andreas to his feet. Merral wondered if he had imagined their executions, but when he saw Andreas gingerly feel around his neck and then laugh with merriment, he decided he hadn’t.
“Jorgio!” Anya cried, and Merral turned to see the man stir, as if awakening from heavy sleep. He shook himself slowly and ran his cautious hands over his body. Then, beaming with incredulity, he stood up.
The air was now full of light, as if it were made up of billions of luminous particles. Merral saw that the light seemed to penetrate the floor around his feet, almost physically descending into the ground.
Merral heard an extraordinary laugh and saw Jorgio staring at his hands with wonderment and hilarity. He flexed his shoulder, and then his flesh straightened, and in an instant, the warping of his body was gone. The big man stood there, arms extended in perfect symmetry. “Well, praise his name!”
Merral ran over and hugged him, and joyful laughter echoed between them.
“I think there are other surprises,” the envoy added. “Look!”
They turned to see that the pile of fragments that had been Betafor was moving, sliding together, and coalescing. The restored creature stepped clear of the tunic, stood up on all fours and, rather shakily, stared around. “Core systems back online after total system damage,” she intoned. “Diagnostics indicate . . .” She flicked her tail in confusion.
The envoy walked over to her. “Betafor, I am to ask you a question. Do you acknowledge the supremacy of humans as the firstborn?”
Betafor looked up at him. “Yes,” she answered and bowed her head.
“Then my Master will have you become more than you were. Rise.”
Slowly, Betafor stood upright on two legs, and as she did, her form softened and something of her mechanical rigidity vanished. Eyes wide in delight, she turned to them with a lithe motion, and for the first time, Merral saw her as truly feminine.
“I have been given flesh!” she sang out with joy in her voice, and with a fluid elegance she began to dance.
On the end wall the red zone had gone entirely and the expanse of gold had almost eliminated the green. Above-Space enters Normal-Space: the realms are united.
Then Merral turned back to look around the chamber. The growing light from above and also within the air made it hard to see things clearly, but everywhere other figures had appeared. Some were in ancient dress, and all were staring upward with joy.
Out of their midst Vero walked over.
“Is that really you?” Merral asked.
Vero gave him a look in which amusement and embarrassment were intermingled. “In person, my friend. I was very stupid. But grace saved me.” Then a joyful smile spread across his face. “Oh dear,” he said, “I really should have guessed that this was likely.”
And he and Merral hugged each other.
The light above was becoming dazzling. Any darkness was vanishing, dissolving into an awesome golden light.
“What happens now?” Merral asked Vero, but he knew.
“The Word says we go up to meet the King as he arrives. It’s going to be very interesting.” He hesitated. “That’s . . . well . . . a bit of an understatement. Actually, rather a lot of an understatement.”
From all around, music began, mysterious and wonderful, every molecule in the universe trumpeting out praise and joy and relief.
And at the sound, Merral felt a great surging wave of delight that he knew could never be taken away. He wept, not with sadness, but for the joy that all that had troubled him was behind him.
He looked down, realizing that he and the others were no longer in touch with the floor but were rising through the air to meet the descending light.
And as he rose he saw that, in the very focus of the light, was the figure of a man.
“The Lamb!” Merral cried with inextinguishable joy.
“The Lamb among the stars!”
Epilogue
Listen! No story really ends. It is we who tell, or hear, the story who call it “the end.” The characters, or the situations, continue without us. And, of all tales, that of Merral Stefan D’Avanos goes on.
Yet we can say little of this because in trying to describe the world beyond this world, all language fails. All is changed beyond our understanding—although not beyond our dreaming. Indeed, there are not even words in any mortal tongue for the nature of the reality that exists there. It is a state which surpasses reality as reality surpasses the dream; an existence where matter and physical laws serve human beings rather than bind them. Least of all can our words express the minds of those who dwell there, eternally beyond the touch of evil.
Imagine some moment when you felt truly alive. Perhaps on top of a cliff, the sun shining on the silver waters, the wind playing in your hair, the sound of waves and birds falling on your ears, the smell of the sea in your nostrils and every sense active. Now take that sort of moment and try to extend it infinitely, and you have the very slightest idea of what the redeemed feel.
Indeed, it mig
ht be wise not to try to continue this story. Yet those people exist who feel that if a thing cannot be described, it cannot be true. So for them, and because in this tale—as with the tale of our own lives— there are many loose ends, great and small, that are only tied up in eternity, some attempt will be made to speak of what happened next.
Yet even here, we can only speak of the fate of some of the characters in this tale. Of others, there must be silence. In some cases, that silence is because what befell them is, quite simply, so terrible that all words fail. In other cases, silence is invoked because they fell so far short of what they might have been that to talk of their eternal state is a miserable matter. And rather than end this tale in misery, let us briefly return to Merral D’Avanos.
After the judgment and the final separation, of which it would be folly indeed to try to write, Merral met with the King in that place which is both the great city and the garden that was lost in the beginning.
There amid the light, the music, and the singing of birds, Merral walked with the King down streets, between the trees, and past the edge of the great river. At length—and in this world neither time nor distance can be measured—they came to a walled garden. The doors flew open at the King’s presence—as all doors do—and inside was a garden that to Merral seemed both small and infinitely large.
They entered, and above the glimmering green grass a cloud of shining light hung in the air. They walked to it and Merral stared at it, noticing that it was made of an infinite number of points of brilliance.
“What is this, sir?” Merral asked.
“Child, it is the old creation. It is the universe you knew. Look closer and you may recognize worlds.”
Merral peered at the cloud and, as happens in this place that is both finite and infinite, it expanded about him so that he could see every detail. In the multitude of worlds that hung around him, he saw Farholme, Bannermene, and Earth, all frozen at that great climactic moment when Above-Space flooded all the dimensions. He was aware too that, if he wished, every least element of every world was available for him to see and handle.
He stepped back onto the gleaming grass.
“Sir, what will happen to this?”
“It had to be tested so that the good that came out of it would be pure and refined.”
“‘All must be tested,’” Merral quoted.
“Indeed, none escapes that rule,” the King said, and Merral saw his scars and understood a little more.
“Child, tell me: it is a thing too precious to be destroyed and yet too marred to mend. What must I do?”
“Sir, I don’t know.” Above him in the light of the infinite day, birds circled and sang.
“I will show you. Follow me.” They walked a little way off and the King held up his hand. In between his fingers was something no larger than a kernel that glittered with a strangely brilliant light.
“Now look at this.”
Merral stared at it, thinking it was a crystal, then recognized that it was something like the universe he had just seen, but smaller and more compact.
“Is it another universe, sir?”
“Not yet. But it will be. When it flowers, what is good will be taken out from the old and put in this. Look at it and see what will be.”
As Merral bent toward it, he found himself drawn in. In moments, he was descending to a specific star and soon a specific world. He descended through clouds and landed lightly on grass. He was aware that the King was with him.
He looked up and gasped with joy.
Towering up from the endless grassy plain were not just one but dozens of lofty cylinders of trees rising high into the sky with vast outstretched branches.
“Castle trees!” he cried in astonished excitement.
He was wondering if it was a simulation when he realized that he could smell scented air, feel the grass under his feet, and hear birds calling.
“Are th-they real, sir?” he asked, the words tumbling over themselves.
“They can be real.”
“I thought they were lost,” Merral said. He was aware he was bouncing up and down with excitement and that he didn’t care. “I thought they were lost!” he murmured again.
The King spoke. “For my children, here is where all that is lost is found, where all that was broken is mended, and where all that might have been is. For those that are mine, nothing good is ever ultimately lost.”
Merral stared at the awesome scene in wonder and gratitude. “Sir, I had no idea.”
“I only said they can be real. If you will take on the task, this will be your world, Forester.”
Tears of joy—there are now no other sort—clouded Merral’s eyes. “I will do it for you, sir. To your honor and praise.”
The King bowed. “You will have help.”
“I will need it.” A thought struck Merral. “But, sir, it will take time.”
He heard a light laugh. “You may have all the years you need.”
Then in a moment that world had shrunk away and Merral was back in the garden. “Sir, what will happen with the old creation?”
“All that is good, all that was good, all that might be good will be transplanted.”
“And, sir, what will happen to that which remains?”
“It will be left to wither. To contract in on itself. Ultimately, it will become as nothing.”
“Sir, will that be hell?”
“There are those who wanted a universe without my presence. They will have what they wanted.”
“But, sir, without you, there can be no good thing. It will be terrible.”
“Indeed.” The word was followed by a sigh. “All that can be done has been done. But the past will not darken the future. Do you wish to know of the new creation?”
“I do, sir.”
“Child, it will be like—and yet unlike—the worlds you knew. No shadow of rebellion will fall there. Your old universe was limited because evil was there. In the new creation, the barriers of distance that I imposed to quarantine the fallen sons of humanity will be removed. A way will be opened for my children to travel instantly between the worlds. And in your old universe, you were the only truly sentient species. It had to be so—one fall was enough. The new universe will teem with life and diversity beyond your imagining. Your castle trees will be just one small feature.”
And as the King spoke, Merral was granted a series of visions. He glimpsed Anya joking with multicolored, segmented creatures that perched on towering cliffs of ice. He saw Vero teaching tentacled forms of pure silica that lived on lava flows, and laughing at their songs. He watched Perena exulting as she flew in great shoals of enormous winged forms between worlds on centuries-long voyages. He saw Jorgio singing hymns as he tended twenty types of rain forest on a single world. He glimpsed Lloyd giving shouts of joy as he shaped mountains and diverted rivers so that diversity might flourish. He caught sight of Luke working with towering static beings made of crystalline iron that sang and spoke between the stars. He watched Azeras, not just enjoying beaches, but making them in a limitless and varied splendor. He caught a glance of Betafor, the mother of all the secondborn, teaching her own kind. Merral understood that there were millions upon millions of others with an infinity of tasks. And despite their diverse worlds and tasks, all were linked with each other and with the Lamb.
“This,” said the King, “is what will be.” Then he held high his hand. “Now come, Child. The time draws near for the eternal Assembly.”
In an instant the walls of the garden vanished, and Merral was aware of an enormous crowd of all ages from all cultures and times. He joined as they gathered in a vast circle, silent in anticipation.
As they watched, the King opened his hand, and the seed in his palm glinted with promise.
“Let there be light!” the King commanded.
And there was light.
And as the new creation came into being, the crowd sang, and their words go on forever:
“. . . to the praise and glory of
the Messiah, the Lamb who was slain. Amen.”
S D G