"What do they want? Why are they there? Am I supposed to do something with them?"
"You must walk to the center of the circle of Akasha," the boy repeated. "The trial will be over if you do that."
I swallowed down a thick lump of fear. "I don't suppose there's an alternative to this trial?"
He didn't answer.
"There never is," I muttered to myself, taking a deep breath as I tried to calm my frazzled nerves. A quick glance overhead confused me—where was my friendly little cloud that rained down destruction on those who angered me?
"Your Gift has no power here," the boy answered, just as if I had asked the question out loud. "I should add that there is a time limit to this trial. You have exactly two minutes."
I opened my mouth to protest, but the sight of those three black figures standing next to the rocks dried up the complaint I was about to make. Dread and horror, sickening in their intensity, washed over me. It took some doing, but I managed to get my feet moving again.
"Let's reason this through," I told myself, my eyes fixed on the three still figures as I slowly approached them, my steps lagging noticeably as the seconds ticked by. "Given the premise that virtues exist, we must conclude that other people have passed these trials, thus they can't be lethal."
"Only mortals must pass the trials," the boy called after me. "Immortals simply apply, and are interviewed for the positions."
"Not helping!" I yelled back, my thoughts sour as I forced myself to take another step. The sense of dread increased with each footstep, swamping me with the knowledge that I was doomed, Theo was doomed, everyone I ever knew or loved was doomed. I wanted to sit down on the rocky ground and sob myself into insensitivity, that certain was I that it was all for nothing.
"Get a grip, Portia," I lectured myself, fighting with the bile that wanted to rise as I watched the three black figures getting closer. What I thought were three people standing in silhouette turned out to be partly correct—they were people-shaped silhouettes…but nothing more. They weren't people standing in shadow. They weren't darkened versions of people, with vaguely discernable features. No, the Hashmallim were just inky black voids, as if they were two-dimensional representations of people. They were all the more frightening for the impossibility of their appearance. "There are approximately twenty steps left. You can do it one step at a time."
I took another six steps forward, then froze into place at the sure knowledge that I was going to my death. "No," I told myself, fighting down the mass of emotions that roiled inside me. "This can't be lethal. It's just an illusion, like so many other things."
The things I'd believed to be illusions had turned out to be real, my mind argued with me, so why should this be any different?
"Time is passing."
"Yeah, yeah."
Ahead of me, the rocks with their three horrible figures loomed before me. The best offense is defense, right?
"You're not so bad," I yelled at the three presences. I wrapped my arms around my waist and made myself take several steps forward. "You may think you can frighten me to death, but I'm tougher than I look! So you can put that in your big, scary pipes and smoke it!"
The rocks loomed above me as I approached with dragging footsteps. I panted with the effort to keep from vomiting, my brain shrieking warnings about self-preservation. I ignored them, taking another couple of steps forward until just a few yards separated the rocks and the Hashmallim from me. They were vague, black shapes now, shifting in opacity and shape, occasional glimpses of haunted, pale faces flickering into view before melting into nothing.
I wanted to run as far away as possible. I wanted to cry and curl up into a fetal ball. I wanted it all to go away.
I wanted Theo.
The Hashmallim seemed to block the path through the stones.
"What do I do now?" I yelled to the boy.
"Simply go through them to the center."
"Simple, my ass," I grumbled to myself, desperately trying to keep my feet pointed toward the horrors in front of me. "There's nothing simple about this. I doubt if the word exists around here."
I took another step forward. The nearest Hashmallim seemed to swell up, looming over me, drenching me in fear, loathing, terror, and a hundred other emotions that had me seriously wishing for death.
"I may have neglected to mention that only the pure of being can pass by the Hashmallim," the boy called to me, his voice thin and reedy on the increasing wind. "Those who are not pure…"
"Sweet sanity, he couldn't have mentioned that earlier?" I took a deep breath, my body racked with trembling so great that my teeth chattered as I yelled back, "What happens to them?"
"They do not leave."
A thousand and one sins flashed before my eyes, things I'd done in my life of which I was not proud, starting with a favorite toy I refused to share with a childhood friend, and ending with the loss of Theo's soul. Was I now being called to account for them? The thought of remaining in that place for eternity was almost enough to bring me to my knees, but just as I was convinced I couldn't do it, that I couldn't pass by the three Hashmallim, an image of Theo came to my mind. Theo laughing at a silly joke, Theo's face tight with passion as he found his release, Theo sleepy and adorable and so endearing it made tears prick behind my eyes. If I failed, I'd never see him again.
Theo loved me. I knew he did; I felt it in the soft touches of his mind against mine. And what was more, at that moment I knew with the certainty that I knew the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit was 5 x 1019 electron volts that I loved Theo with every molecule in my body. Surely I couldn't love someone so deeply, so completely, so absolutely without having some redeeming qualities?
I lifted my chin and stiffened my back, holding my gaze firm on the nearest Hashmallim as I took the hardest step forward I'd ever taken. "I am not a bad person. I have done some things in my life that I regret, but I am not evil. I don't abuse animals or children. I don't steal, try not to lie, and only kill really nasty bugs that are attempting to sting me. In a world divided into shades of good and bad, I am a good."
The Hashmallim didn't move as I forced my legs to move, closing my eyes as I brushed up against the edge of one of them. I fought to hold onto the knowledge that I was myself, a person with flaws and errors in judgment, but fundamentally good at heart.
The ground slipped out from under my feet, and I felt myself falling. I opened my eyes to stare unbelievingly at the grassy lawn of the Petitioner's Park as it zoomed up to meet me. The stone benches, the people standing around watching, Theo crouching on the ground over an inert body—they all rushed up to me until I realized I was actually plummeting down to the earth.
"Aieeeeeeeee," I screamed, my arms and legs flailing wildly.
Theo leaped back from the body on the ground as it disappeared, looking up toward me. I had a moment to see stark astonishment on his face.
"Catch me!" I yelled.
He leaped forward, his arms out.
I hit the ground a foot away from him, my fall somewhat broken by the soft lawn. It wasn't so soft that it cushioned me entirely, though. I lay facedown, spitting out bits of lawn, my head spinning, my chest aching, all the air having been slammed out of my lungs.
"Portia! Salus invenitur! Tell me you're all right!"
I lifted my head to glare at him, spitting out another mouthful of grass. "Exactly what part of 'catch me' wasn't clear to you?"
"Woman, you will be the death of me yet," he said, pulling me up to an embrace that would have broken the ribs of a lesser woman.
"I'm going to be the death of you?" I looked pointedly at the Portia-shaped faint indentation made on the lawn.