Episode 5: The Void

Episode Five: The VOID

I am surrounded by nothing.

I look about me. There is nothing. No sensation of any kind. I feel nothing on my skin – no wind, no air; not the subtlest sensations: neither hot nor cold, dry nor wet. I smell nothing – not even myself.

Is this... am I... dead?

The words – my thoughts – echo all around me, booming like shouts in the hollows of the earth.

A voice responds from the dark. “Not dead. Not dreaming, either.”

The voice is unknown to me. Female, grandmotherly and kind, it smiles on me from the dark.

I wheel around in a circle, searching for her. At least... that what I want to do. It's what I try to do. It's what I would like to do. But, if I do, there is no sensation of movement. There is no sensation of moving. I think to move my hand to touch my face. Even that I cannot feel. Not the sensation of the muscles of my arm, not the pressure on my face, nor my palm. I mean to look down, to regard my self, and find nothing. Just empty black.

I have no body. Likewise, I have no fear.

“That is correct. This is not a place of bodies. Only of mind. For you – for now.”

What is this place? Where am I?

“Those are different questions with different answers. It is a simple thing to say what this place is – another thing entirely to comprehend it. This place is Nothing. We call it Void. This place is a Realm between – between what Is and what Was and what Will Be Again – between the possible and the impossible – between Life and Death, Choice and Consequence. This place is no-place. It is neither life nor that which comes after it, and yet it is connected to them. If it can be called anything, it is a bridge between them. Yet even this is not its Truth.”

Protonoia. Forethought. Are you the Barbelo? There is a place after death?

“Ah, but your questions begin to tangle themselves. But! I am glad to see that you were listening to your lessons – we were beginning to wonder whether you were deaf.”

We? Were you trying to talk to me?

“We talk with you always, Child.

Are you toying with me?

“Are you a toy to be played with?” She laughs, a patient, playfound song of delight.

I don't know what to think about this... Not a disembodied voice. I hear my thought, reverberant. I am disembodied. Where am I? What am I?

As I think these, a pillar of light springs into being before me. It is wide enough that had I arms, I could not reach them around its diameter. It shines tall, indescribably as though it were coming from a hole in the “floor” of this place. This place has no floor. It has no... dimension.

“You asked me where you are. You wonder about your body, I presume? Look at what your Will has caused. Seek the answers to your questions. Or are you afraid, Child? Do you fear what you will find if you seek?”

Seek. Seeker. I've thought of myself as a Seeker. Peitho called me a Seeker. But I was too afraid to—

“To what, Child?” the Voice is gently urging.

I don't know. I was going to say – to think? – that I was afraid to help her – even though she needed me. But that wasn't what happened. I wasn't afraid to help her. I was afraid of—

“Yes? Were you afraid of what you might find if you went looking with her? Or do you fear failure?”

I do not fear death.

I don't know why this is my response. I hear it reverberate through the nothing around it and do not understand it. But I know that I stand by it as my answer.

“But you fear her. What she represents. Ah. You fear Life. You are afraid of what you might learn – what you might not know.”

I do not fear the inevitable.

“And yet you will not look within the door you have opened.” She laughs at me, but there is only delight in the sound. “You may not fear it, but you resist the inevitable.”

I do not fear failure. Life is failure. Even that we lose at eventually. Everything dies. Everyone fails.

“Then what do you fear, Child? What is it that stopped you? Why did you not give her what she asked for?”

She's lying to me about something.

“We are all liars, Child. That is still not what you were afraid of .”

No. It's not. I... Cycles – without beginning or end. Do I want to get trapped in a cycle? If I help her, I'm going to be helping her or people like her forever. If I go with her, I'm going to... I'm never going to get aware from her. I will be ensnared in whatever it is she's lying to me about. Do I want that? I'm afraid to—

“To give up your control to her? Are you in control of you now?”

Yes. No. I am in control! Are not.

“When does it end, you ask. This is the question you are afraid to answer. If you choose, when will the consequences be over?”

The Black becomes Genoa, the town decorated for Calendimaggio. The plaza. It's empty. I see the tavern. And before me, my back. I am walking with the tavernmaster. I hear myself speaking.

“We forget, as humans, how long life is. It makes sense that we would do this, that we would focus on the day to day, the moment to moment. Most of us don't survive long enough to realize how long our lives are. And those that do don't want to discourage the young. Discouraging the young is the most vile sort of crime against your own kind. And yet... what happens after the Hero's Tale is told? What happens after the dragon is slain and the hero receives his riches? There is always another dragon to be slain. A never ending cycle of slaying dragons and nothing ever really changing. The same old response to the New is met with the same outcome every time. What kind of life is it to live thirty fears, fifty – 100! – never learning from the mistakes of the past?”

The Void is nothing once more. Except for the pillar of white light shining like a beacon to the known unknowns of the chaos of ignorance.

That didn't happen.

“Yes, it did.”

No. It didn't. I would remember. I have never taken that walk with the tavernmaster. Never said those words aloud to anyone. How could I? They are the words of a scared boy.

“What are you, then? A scared man? Do not fool yourself. I assure you, you did say those things. Whether you remember or not, whether in this Reality which you inhabit or another, so close to your own it is hardly distinguishable, it matters not.”

No. You made that happen. You showed me that to confuse me.

“Please, Child, stop this. I could, if I liked, show you fantastical things, things which you could not believe if you wanted to. Things which would make you question your ability to produce them. Things which could prove my veracity. I could break your mind, shatter it, with the infinite possibility which is contained in this place. But why would I do that? No. That … vision which you saw, your mind brought that to life in this place. Not I. I would have been much subtler about it. I would have made it easy for you to believe that you had invented it.”

That seems like Truths you should not have shared with me. Do I believe her? Why would she lie?

“What need have I to lie to you? You came to me, did you not?”

I'm not sure how I came here. Peitho. I do not know why. Your Guide. ASk your Guide.

“Will you not look for the answer you seek?”

Saying that I look at he pillar of light is inadequate. I focus on it, and suddenly it is all there is. Wordlessly, thoughtlessly, I decide that I will.

I am here for a reason. Show me.

At that very same moment of decision, I am just outside the column of light, looking down into it—

at my body as through the ceiling of my office. The candles have burnt themselves out, and yet I can see me as clearly as though it were bright as day. My body lies slumped over in my chair. There is a silver thread as fine as gossamer, thinner than any spider's thread, attached at my navel and ascending into the hole. Tethering whatever I am to that thing of meat and chemicals.

Is this – this thing I am now – Me?

“Is it?”

My Spirit? My Soul? My Mind? My Essence? What am I if not my body?

“Child. You must still your mind. It is unwise to have such... disordered thoughts in this place.”

Describing the sensation of a reassuring hand on your shoulder from a trusted elderly – and decidedly female – mentor is... problematic when you don't have a body to feel it with. But I was calmed. Stilled.

What are you?

“I cannot say.”

Can't or won't?

“Take your pick. One is the other.”

Will you show yourself to me?

“That I can do.”

An instant later, the column of light is gone. Or I just then realize it. I see before me a tiny green shape. Gently curving, the size of a small worm. It is undulating, wriggling, slowly. At first I think it is close by, close enough that if I knew how I could reach out and pick it up. Then I realize my error.

It begins to grow. I do not know how much time passes – or whether there even is anything resembling time in this place. Gradually, as though over a great distance, it grows. I understand, soon, when it is some three feet long, that it is a serpent, gliding along with its head held low. I feel no fear. If she, it – the Voice – wanted to hurt me, she would. Of that I am certain. Before long, the serpent is ten feet, then twenty, fifty, and still growing – until it is titanic. Immeasurably huge. The size of a galaxy and bigger. It lifts its head from the ground, rising, rising, until it is looking down at me from an inconceivable height. It flares a mighty hood and opens its mouth, revealing fangs as long and sharp and venomous as the Cosmos itself. Then it is coiling itself, as if getting comfortable. It shrinks as it does this It comes to rest in three stacked loops, laying its head down on its body to regard me. Its eyes are level with mine. Then enormous wings appears, wrapping around it like a bird in roost.

It's gone. Before me now is a human woman. She looks like the wall of an Egyptian temple come to life. She seems carved from the Void, raised in some incomprehensible ways out of it. She appears to be entirely of stone, facing me, and vibrantly painted. She wears a plain white robe with arms and feet exposed and naked. Her hands are empty. Her eyes are stylized Eyes of Horus. They shine with the light of the Pillar, but seem to contain it. Atop her shoulder-length black wig with the bangs straight-cut just above her eyebrows, she wears a simple golden circlet. A green cobra, hood flared, mouth open and fangs exposed, extends from the circlet, at her brow, a brilliant sundisk behind it.

It is not the girl, but the serpent who speaks:

“It has been a long time, Fulcrum, since I wore the form I did in life. Many, many millenia have passed between then and your time. I'm afraid I do not entirely remember that form. Can you recognize me like this?”

Her image shimmers. The head of the Egyptian girl becomes a lion, a vulture, a green cobra – all in profile – then again as it was.

Sekhmet. Nekhbet. Wadjet. The thoughts, the names, come unbidden – as though I know them more deeply than in the folds of my brain.

“Yes. Good. I am pleased. I was once called Wadjet. Or something like it. But that was... too long ago for you to comprehend – or for you to believe if you could.”

You are a goddess, then. I feel none of the myriad things which I am aware should come with this statement. It is simply a matter of fact.

“I suppose. Men and women have worshipped what little remains of my memory. If that is what it is to be a goddess, then I am as you say.”

I must be dreaming.

“Not dreaming, no. Although in sleep you can come close to this place. Touch it. If only lightly and briefly.”

I feel like I would need to sit down if I could.

Why am I here, Goddess? Wadjet?

“Did you not come seeking guidance?”

Did I? I didn't mean to.

Behind the Egyptian girl, I see Peitho, pointing her poisoned bolt at me, hear her words echo in my voice: Ask your Guide.

Then the Nothing returns.

Are you my Guide?

The Egyptian girl suddenly looks to my left as though she has heard something. The uraeus serpent – Wadjet – looks back at me.

“I should not have come. I am at great risk. I must go.”

Wait! Are you not supposed to help me?You can't just leave me here. What am I going to do?

“No! It is against the Rules. I – Oh, curse me, I could not help my curiosity. Fulcrum – Robert— Listen to me. The answers you seek are here. You have the ability – the means – to return. Do so when you have more time.”

And then she is gone.

“Seek, Child, and you shall find.”

Her voice is a whisper, and then it is gone, I know, for good.

What the Hell am I supposed to do now?

As if in answer, I hear voices speaking, too low to make out, to my left. Willing myself to turn, as I had approached the Pillar, I find....

Nine robed figures standing in a circle. Their robes are black. There is no light, but they stand out against the Void. The hoods of those I can see are faceless, empty and black like the Void. They are anxious. A small cauldron of light, less bright and columnal than my Pillar, but a hole all the same, is somehow elevated among them. They are, if not looking into it, all trained upon it. I fear getting close enough to see. Lest they sense me. I don't know why, but I don't want them to know I'm here.

“Things are not going according to plan,” one of them says.

Another adds, “Pepin the Great is proving more problematic—“

“Problematic? He's a murderer and a monster!”

“Yes. A madman. That's why we gave him the opportunity—“

The speakers are talking over one another – which is confusing for many reasons. They do not move, there is nothing by which to indicate which of them is speaking. And they all seem to have the same nondescript voice.

“We think we can control a madman? This is Chaos. His madness will lead the Fulcrum right to him—“

“Like a hound with a scent.”

“Not from Venice, he won't.”

“The Lamiya overplayed her hand. Peitho has failed.”

“Failed? How could she—?”

“She... accosted the Fulcrum, it would seem.”

“Accosted? Is he dead? This could be—“

“Not dead.”

“Silence!”

This voice booms with power in the Void. Loud as thunder, I can almost imagine it shaking the very foundations of this non-place. I recognize this voice as belonging to the ninth of their number – the unspoken, unquestionable leader.

“The plan is intact. Pepin is inconsequential. Even the Daughter is of no matter. It is the Fulcrum we want.”

“But—“ one begins. His defiance is smashed before it can form so much as a second syllable.

“Speak no more, fools. All of you. We are observed. Do you not sense it?”

Indistinct murmurs.

“The Fulcrum. He draws near. Speak no more! He must not learn of us. Trust in our God friends. The Metus will secure the fate we plan.”

They are gone. I am alone once more.

“But you endure not patiently, nor fulfil the commandments of the Lord; but you transgress and calumniate his greatness; and malignant are the words in your polluted mouths against his Majesty.”

I hear a voice, faint, barely distinct, as from an impossible distance away. It is a bone-dry monotone, almost chanting. I feel like I'm falling.

“Ye withered in heart, no peace shall be to you! Therefore your days shall you curse, and the years of your lives shall perish; perpetual execration shall be multiplied, and you shall not obtain mercy.”

I am falling. The voice is getting louder, more distinct, until—