Hidria know no fear. Hidria are fear and death.
You are still human.
His muscles tensed. His pace quickened without thought. It was devastating to have endured so much misery in the years since arriving on the mountain to begin his Duri studies only to be reminded that he had not yet transformed because of selfish human preoccupations. He was shaken, but he couldn’t show it. He couldn’t allow himself to feel the devastation because that very awareness of his human fears and insecurities was what held him back in the first place, anchoring him to a universe that could not possibly be the ultimate achievement of Creator God.
There is something more, he reminded himself firmly. There is a greater truth.
Colt’s face at last appeared before him. Yes, and it’s right here for you to see, she told him. All you must do is look. Follow your path and know where you are going.
He opened his mouth to reply but the apparition faded into the stone before he’d devised an adequate retort or settled on one of a dozen pressing questions. It didn’t matter, he decided. She wouldn’t have provided a definitive answer, anyway.
That’s not why she’s here, he thought. She’s here to make me question, not to make me see.
He buried himself in that harsh truth for a time, troubled by the apparent goodwill of the trickster being which had been painted so unflatteringly in his studies of the Called trials. In person, she seemed anything but evil. Maddeningly vague, perhaps, and eerie in her ubiquity, but otherwise helpful. More advocate than adversary.
Was it possible that the Duri Masters had radically misinterpreted her nature when they assembled their teachings on the trials?
Perhaps, but the Hidria would have known. Maybe she appears differently for each of the Called.
He’d never met a Hidria, of course, and therefore couldn’t say for certain one way or the other. If he’d met a Hidria, he would have been dead already.
The great paradox…
But if they’d killed him, he also would have found Prime, assuming those killed by Hidria wound up on Prime rather than Tscharia. And who knew if souls survived the Hidria cleansing at all?
Before he could ponder the issue any further, a shadow passed through the corridor ahead of him. The quiet presence reminded him of the ice-wraiths on Shehoora, and sent a shudder down his spine. He stopped abruptly and extinguished his blade, more out of reflex than a belief that he could possibly avoid detection in the ancient structure, where no living souls had ever passed except during the trials. The hair on his arms stood on end. He felt electricity in the air, although he guessed he could have been feeling leftover jolts from the Fronov’s weapon on Maberrya. The wound had been cauterized by the device, but it still stung. His skin felt too tight over his bones.
This was a different sensation, though. Familiar, but different.
The Evil One, he decided, scowling. Watchmen.
Careful not to draw any more attention than he already had, he crept slowly down the hall toward the shadow. He felt at least one additional presence stalking him nearby, and with each step, he grew more convinced there was another Watchman in the corridor and possibly a few of them. His instincts warned that the masked devils had laid a trap in the darkness to finish him off before he managed a retreat.
Footsteps shuffled loudly toward him. Evidently, they no longer cared to conceal their presence, which was especially troubling given how discreetly the Watchmen typically hunted. It meant that they knew he couldn’t escape and didn’t care if he was aware of it. They probably preferred he was, in fact, since agents of Tscharia sustained themselves on fear and suffering.
He had to act fast.
On impulse, he felt along the wall to his right until his hand found a doorknob. He didn’t bother puzzling over whether it would bring him any closer to Prime. He only knew that he needed to escape the corridor quickly no matter what awaited him. In the weakened state brought on by his marathon swim on Maberrya and subsequent confrontation with Fronov gangsters, he didn’t think he could overwhelm two Watchmen at once—let alone three or more—so his only hope lay through the doorway.
Put your trust in the Architect of All Things, his Duri Master told him. He will guide you true.
The footsteps closed in on both sides but he didn’t dare ignite his laser blade to get a fix on their exact positions. It was too late to matter, anyway, and he couldn’t spare the time it took to draw the weapon and point it toward the Watchmen.
His hand found the knob just as a warm, dead grip settled on his wrist.
Surrender, Colt said.
He slammed his shoulder into the door and fell into darkness, dragging the Watchman with him through the portal.
Too late, he thought as he fell. My mind is too muddled by doubt. My own consciousness is a distraction. I am my own adversary.
Unseen, the Watchman growled and thrashed above him as they hurtled through nothing-space.
Space, he thought. Nothing, containing everything.
Nuri kicked at the air rushing past them, trying to separate himself from the foul creature. He didn’t make much progress, though. The fall seemed to have no end.
What if it doesn’t? he wondered. What if I’ve opened a door into an unpopulated universe? What if I’ve opened the door to Tscharia?
Tscharia is its own universe, his Duri Master recited. Tscharia is complete separation from God, a universe the Divine Infinite created to fall beyond his sight. There is only one planet in that miserable infinity, and that planet is Tscharia.
Nuri stifled a scream as the Watchman’s grip seized on his ankle, burning through the protection of his layered armor. He forced himself to stop squirming long enough to descend into a meditation exercise.
If this fall is indeed forever, he reasoned, I can at least rid myself of fear. If no impact comes, what is there to fear?
Colt’s voice suddenly shot through his brain with such intensity that his mind was thrown back into chaos.
The greatest fear of all, she warned. Her voice was loud, frantic, and soulless in the never-ending abyss. The absence of God.
The Watchman pulled itself up by Nuri’s leg. He could hear the creature wheezing with fury, desperate to reach his neck and choke the life out of him.
Distractions, Nuri told himself. Agents of the Evil One.
These are reality, not distractions, Colt said.
It only made the situation more confusing.
Surrender surrender surrender surrender.
The Divine Imperative. Surrender to the will of the Divine Infinite, but enact His will no matter the cost.
“It doesn’t make any sense!” Nuri shouted.
The Watchman’s grip released and the darkness was instantly replaced by a glowing rectangle of light ahead of him.
A new doorway, he thought.
He didn’t feel the Watchman’s presence anymore. Or Colt’s, for that matter. He wondered if his confusion had ended the trials prematurely, since confusion of any sort betrayed a dour lack of faith in the teachings of the Duri Masters. God was clarity, incomprehension came from the Evil One.
You’ve been abandoned in this godless universe because you failed to fully surrender yourself to your lack of understanding, his Duri Master told him sadly.
He stood where he had fallen until he realized that he wasn’t standing at all but lying flat on his back, and that the object in front of him wasn’t a doorway but a rounded rectangular object blocking a bright light from above.
He shifted and tried to identify the cold material at his back. It was soft and smooth. Clearly some type of cloth, though he couldn’t see it in the darkness aside from a purplish hue revealed by the faint traces of rectangular light.
Where am I? he wondered.
The more important question, he thought, was where had the Watchman gone? He couldn’t see the creature nearby, nor could he smell its foul stench or hear its rasping breath.
What are you waiting for? Colt asked. You’re wasting time and every
second lessens your chances of finding Prime.
Nuri tried to lift himself from the soft surface but found he only had about six inches of room above his head to work with. Worse, the object he’d initially mistaken for a door was too heavy for him to casually toss aside.
Push.
Grunting, he shifted his weight again and pressed his feet against the flat object above him.
Push.
He did, and managed to lift the stone slab a few inches from its resting place, revealing a dull green haze overhead and a buzz of wildlife before it settled back down. He wiped sweat from his brow, panting, and stretched out his legs for another attempt to break free.
Where am I? he wondered again. Now that he thought it through, it seemed impossible to be facing up after falling for so long, but the dull green haze he’d glimpsed while the stone slab was in the air was more disconcerting than the displaced gravity. Wherever he was and whatever planet he was on, it appeared to have a toxic atmosphere and his damaged suit didn’t have a sealed helmet to compensate for the environment. The moment the slab fell away, he would be breathing unfiltered toxins, assuming he’d be able to move it any further than he already had. Even from that brief exposure, the tight air around him seemed tainted by the fog on the other side of the stone.
You won’t be killed by such trivialities during the trials, his Duri Master reasoned. The trials are designed to discern your holiness as well as your worthiness to gaze upon the Divine Infinite, not to test the endurance of your human lungs.
But it could be a test of your true nature, Colt countered. If your human lungs require oxygen, you will die the moment the headstone of your crypt falls away. You, therefore, cannot be human if you wish to survive. You must be Hidria.
“Distractions,” Nuri growled, positioning his arms and legs for another push. “You’re all distractions.”
With a shout, he threw all his weight upward and to the right, driving the stone slab as far up and over as he could to keep it from dropping back down on him. It fell with a tremendous crash over the side of the rectangular box, though not as violently as he had expected.
Gripping the sides of the rectangle, Nuri pulled himself into the green haze and took a deep breath to test the atmosphere. After a few seconds of deep inhalation without any ill effects, his muscles relaxed and he quickly scanned the area.
“This figures,” he muttered with a deep frown, seeing the rows upon rows of monoliths in each direction.
There were graves everywhere he turned. All shapes, sizes, and colors of tombstones dotting the damp, moss-covered earth. Hills stretched off in the distance to his right and even they appeared to be covered in the mess of wood and stone comprising the graves of three-dozen alien cultures. He caught movement in his periphery every so often as he scanned his surroundings, but it was always either too far off to get a lock on or deliberately evaded close inspection.
Who are they? Nuri wondered. What planet is this?
You won’t catch them standing still or suddenly discover what planet you’re on simply because you will it, Colt told him. You could be on Prime right now, for all you know.
Grimacing, he pulled himself out from the crypt and dropped onto the soil, instinctively taking cover behind the stone rectangle in case the Watchman (and whoever was wandering the graveyard) searched for him. Not that he’d been particularly tactful in his arrival, of course. He was beginning to sense a pattern to the trials in at least one aspect: no matter where he went, he was exposed and almost always at a severe tactical disadvantage.
That’s the whole point though, he reminded himself. If it weren’t difficult, then none of the Called would fail. Everyone in the universe would be transformed into Hidria.
Though the notion should have been reassuring, it vexed him instead. So far, none of the challenges had been particularly difficult. Taxing to a certain extent—especially the initial fight with the Watchman and the attack of the ice-wraiths on Shehoora—but nothing that rivaled the intensive training he’d completed in hostile environments while preparing for the trials. So far, he considered the challenge somewhat of a disappointment.
Only if you consider it solely a test of strength rather than spiritual fortitude, Colt said. But that is not the purpose of the trials, and you should not be overly confident in the ease of the journey. There are evils you’ve never dreamed of lying in wait behind the ancient doors. You never know what card you will draw next.
He drew his rifle anyway, amazed that the magnetic lock had kept it strapped in its holster during the long descent from the stone corridors of the ancient structure to the crypt. Scanning his immediate surroundings again to make sure nothing laid in wait for him, he rose and crossed the aisle to the next row of tombstones. He had to keep a close eye on the passing rows to spot additional hostiles, but his attention was mostly drawn to the sheer number of graves surrounding him. Any one of them could be the doorway to the next phase of the trials, and he couldn’t devise a manner of checking each one without activating the sensor equipment built into his battle armor. The Called were strictly forbidden from using technology beyond their two pieces of weaponry during the trials, just as it was forbidden to desecrate the grave sites of any creatures on a Rest Planet, as the dwarf-planet cemeteries like this one were called.
I could be anywhere in the galaxy right now, he thought.
At least with Shehoora and Maberrya, distant though they were, he’d been able to identify them quickly and orient to his relative placement in the universe. There were hundreds of moons and dwarf planets designated solely to apolitically honor the dead of dozens of alien species, however, perhaps extending even beyond Nuri’s quadrant of the galaxy. For all he knew, he could be in Andromeda.
Why does it matter? Colt prodded.
Nuri examined one of the gravestones, frowning, unable to decipher the alien script glowing across its surface. It matters because I need to reach Prime and I need a ship to get there.
Why do you think that you need a ship? You don’t even know where to go.
He sighed and shook his head, turning back toward the distant hilltop to see if there was any sign of a relay station or hangar. He couldn’t be too far off from some type of landing field considering the cemetery’s custodial crew needed an efficient method for transporting alien bodies across the terrain. Whoever the caretaker was, he or she likely had some sort of landspeeder or hovercar, but Nuri still didn’t think the outposts would be too far from the actual burial sites. Otherwise, it would be nearly impossible for visitors to pay respects to their loved ones. No space-faring ships larger than three meters in width could land between tombstones, and vessels of that ilk were extremely few and far between given that they were typically short-range shuttles.
I’ll just have to walk until I find a landing pad or outpost, Nuri decided, poking his head out from cover to examine the nearest aisle once again. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him, and though it didn’t necessarily feel as ominous a presence as the Watchmen or their dark lord, it was disconcerting nonetheless. Let’s hope nothing hunts me down in the meantime.
It wasn’t like him to avoid combat. Hiding simply wasn’t the way of the Called, who’d been trained to believe that anyone willing to raise a weapon against them was undoubtedly a steward of the Evil One and therefore demanded an agonizing death. But he recognized the importance of haste in his predicament. Already, he felt his mind tearing away at itself, desperately fighting to keep up with the constantly shifting realities and illusions projecting before him.
Be strong, he told himself as he angled toward the hilltop. He kept his rifle at the ready in case a welcoming party for the eerie dwarf planet jumped out from behind a tombstone. The green-yellow haze enveloping the rows tasted bitter and burned the back of his throat, but that was to be expected. The atmosphere drew from tens of thousands of decomposing bodies and the myriad preservation chemicals used by diverse alien cultures as a tribute to their honored dead.
“What is this place?” he asked aloud, wondering how his voice could be so hoarse and phlegm-blocked if he was truly on a spiritual plane outside his physical body.
Some things are better left unknown, his Duri Master told him.
“Another falsehood,” Nuri countered. His legs began to wobble beneath him and his steps wandered first to the right, then drunkenly over-corrected to the left. “To know the nature of God is to know all, therefore Hidria know everything. Every truth of the universe. If I’m not supposed to find God and look upon His face to know the prevailing Cosmic Truth, then what is the purpose of the trials? How do the Hidria know that their judgments of life and death and morality are just?”
You’re getting weaker, Colt stated.
She seemed detached from the philosophical argument between Nuri and the Duri Master. He couldn’t tell whether she was referring to his waning faith in the Duri teachings as he sank deeper and deeper into the trials, or the way the atmosphere of the cemetery planet seemed to suck the life from every part of him.
“I am Hidria,” Nuri responded, exhausting every ounce of mental energy at his disposal to keep his hands from trembling over the trigger of his assault rifle. “I have no weakness. I am fear and death.”
He wanted to believe the words.
Colt: The Cosmic Prayer (Hidria Book 1) Page 10