It was around the next bend that the genius loci again appeared, of a lovely blue color and formed somewhat like a Caterpillar tractor—and, with inhuman actions, threatened the travelers. In a simple act of animal gratitude, the phant, who’d followed the action from a nearby grove, returned hurriedly to trample the shit out of it and leave it leaking vital fluids from where he’d cast it into a thorn tree. Thus do good deeds sometimes come around, even in Virtu.
Donnerjack moved on then, to essay the awesome Chasm of Stars and Bridges, which would make all the difference. He could hear the growls of the structure’s swaying and terrible clicking of the illuminations’ teeth even from there, for he was nearing the place of the primal language itself, where the words of creation had assembled Virtu.
He plodded steadily onward, one of the few men able to deduce the secret geography of the universe—a virtue which had made this endeavor possible, but which in no way mitigated its dispositions. For, as he mounted the final height and took the first turning, coming at last into sight of that groaning, clashing abyss of fire and spans, the fear of death filled his stomach and rose from there.
Rising from his knees and lowering his hands from his face, he called to Ayradyss and felt her hand upon his shoulder. Straightening, he threw his head back as he advanced, and then, voice wavering at first, he began to sing as he moved onto the span.
High atop Mount Meru at the center of the universe the gods sat unmoving on their stone thrones, contemplating Virtu all about them. Having sacrificed much of mobility for the better part of omniscience they tended to sit so for long spans of time. Action detracted from perception and perhaps wisdom.
Having extended much of themselves into their warring avatars, they had slowed the functioning of their personalities here. Hence, their conversations would have been drawn-out affairs by time-bound standards. Fortunately, an equivalent of singularity math prevailed at Virtu’s center, allowing for those frustrating and wonderful anomalies the lesser gods referred to as “eternity physics,” envying their seniors those awful and awesome excesses of inscrutability in regions above the winds that blow between the worlds.
Skyga, Seaga, and Earthma realized they’d not much of themselves left what with extensions of sense and personality beyond number and mass. Their ongoing extended conversations—sometimes more like monologues—were necessary for preserving what remained of identity.
They feared that silence would extinguish them as they were, leaving them forever divided among their lesser selves throughout the realms of Virtu. There were of course hierarchies within hierarchies, as one descended the skies, the lands, the seas.
“…Thus a new cycle begins,” Seaga observed over a timeless decade.
“As with most major events, its origins are already muddied,” Earthma observed, “unless the hand of Skyga moves within them.”
“He has not spoken for a long while. Perhaps he is acting.”
“Or perhaps he has finally decomposed completely.”
“I wonder…”
“No. He plays a guarded game. He hums softly.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t you start, too.”
“You think he is not really there?”
“If the gods don’t know, who is to say?”
“We might take advantage of such an absence by returning all of ourselves to our bodies and removing them to the cave where it is more comfortable and—”
“We would lose touch with our minions for a time.”
“…And gain touch with each other, fair one.”
“True, and pleasant indeed would it be. Though whenever such as we make love the chains of consequence tend to dizzying complexity as well as to poetry.”
“What the hell. Let’s leave him to his mantra and get to bed.”
“A moment, while I cover my absence with a few illusions.”
“Then we uncover ourselves and make the mountain move.”
“So much for the poetry part.”
As Seaga reeled in his consciousness, his perspective on Virtu’s spiritual development altered from being gathered into one place. While it remained a colorful panorama, it seemed now—compressed as the picture had become—that he was more aware of patterns, where before he had seen only events.
“Earthma, I think there may be a peculiar social current that has some connection with Stage IV,” he observed, as they walked toward the cave.
“Don’t be silly, Seaga,” she said, brushing against him with her hip. No mortal in Verite and hardly any in Virtu even suspect that there is a theoretical basis for such a thing.”
“True,” he acknowledged, catching hold of her hand.
“…And even if one were to work it out, that is all that it could be—a hypothesis with no obvious applicability.”
“I’d found some small and subtle uses for it.”
“Nothing like what we’d talked about in the beginning.”
“No, you’re right,” he said, following her into the cave and drawing her to him.
“Now, which would you rather explore, reality theory or female anatomy?” she asked.
“When you put it that way, I begin to appreciate how many centuries I’ve spent in an abstract, theological fashion.”
She gestured and there was sufficient illumination to light their way to bed. He gestured and the light went out.
“The last ones I saw come in here were Warga and Agrima,” she said.
“Yes, before they departed for realms unknown,” he said as their garments fell.
“That was years ago,” she noted, “and they didn’t stay long.”
“Warga is noted for things like that,” Seaga observed. “Quick and to the point.”
Earthma giggled.
“Terrible reputation to have.”
“The sea, on the other hand, is slow, steady, relentless. And occasionally it grows wild.”
“Live up to that,” she said.
Eilean a’Tempull Dubh had possessed other names in the listings of National Trust for Scotland, but it was the one Donnerjack remembered it by, and by which he referred to it, there in the telephone booth within the circle of fire—a rest stop on the Long, Long Trail A-Winding. Given to planning ahead, he had recalled that black piece of real estate off the western coast of Scotland which he had twice visited as a boy. Its presence in the family had something to do with those MacMillans, MacKays, and MacCrimmons numbered among his father’s antecedents, though he’d no idea whether it were still present, or, if so, what medieval encumbrances might complicate its relationship to him. He’d phoned his attorney, a Wilson, back in the Verite, who had complained concerning the connection and had wanted to speak of the legal business of the Donnerjack Institute, and had told him to get in touch with his father’s attorney, a MacNeil, in Edinburgh—or to that man’s successor—and have him determine whether Donnerjack still possessed title and, if so, what he needed to do to repair, renovate, and to take up residence on that family isle. The Wilson wanted to discuss some current contracts then, but a rush of flames filled his screen as Donnerjack’s five minutes were up and, being a thrifty man, John did not elect to credit another call unit.
Sayjak slept in a fork of a tree, higher than anyone else in his clan. That way he could watch them all. And the higher they had to come to reach him the more signs of their progress he received. Such as now.