His heart (wherever it was) cracked and crumbled. He wanted to reach out to her, but then his father appeared, striding into the Pharos vault at his back, where the door opened as it did that first time for Caleb and Phoebe.
Son, it’s time. You’ve won.
He ached, his every astral cell cried out in loss and denial, and now — liberty and joy. This was a reunion and more. A becoming, a merging.
Was this heaven, then, just by another name? A rejoining the infinite? Escaping the singular, and the separate?
His mother agreed. “Come,” she said from the entrance to the vine-shrouded temple in Belize, where his biggest mistake and overzealous curiosity led to Phoebe’s early paralysis. The loss of her childhood, and his never-ending guilt.
Caleb smelled freshly baked cookies, and they were back now at their lighthouse home, beside a cozy fireplace, preparing for their Morpheus friends to arrive…
Stay, they all said, standing and dropping their papers and pencils. The game was over, the need for the right questions — forever gone.
All the answers were coming. So fast, blindingly fast, that he couldn’t focus on anything, and now, arriving at the top of the stairs, the light of their beacon in the rain was right there, calling to him.
Only, it flickered, not broadcasting to its full strength.
Because other voices shouted above the din of all these long-lost friends, and so many others throughout the millennia.
Caleb, man… Brother…
Orlando?
Find something and get out of there. Come back to us…
But this is it, he thought. It’s why I’m here. Why I’ve done anything and everything in my whole life. Maybe in countless previous lives. All leading up to—
To bullshit, Orlando yelled back over the flood of conversations, the din of epic battles and cannon fire and laser blasts on some remote moon. Search your heart… your feelings. You know that’s not true.
Yes, it is. Caleb frowned inside. How could it not be?
And more importantly, he thought as he turned back and saw Orlando’s figure nearing the rift and holding the twin forms. How can you leave all this? Seeing what’s beyond, seeing the truth? This is the sin of the Tree and eating of the fruit. We will become as gods and have no place in the world of mortals.
So that’s what you want?
Of course. Who wouldn’t?
Not me, Orlando replied as he, along with the twins in his grasp, floated before the sword-shaped rift — the portal that from this side looked like a grainy old film. Not inviting, just dull and bleak compared to the vibrant world all around, and the promise of more beyond and through the Tree.
I’m leaving, he continued. Not going to miss out on the little things, like seeing these hellions grow up. Like kissing the hell out of your sister some more. Eternity can wait, big brother-in-law.
And with that he moved into the boring, fluttering tear in space — then stopped short.
Something — someone — else was in his path.
Someone glowing with a radiance that banished the black and white, dispelled the kaleidoscopic golden energy and wrapped it all up in an emerald haze.
Raiden absorbed it alclass="underline" every drop of wisdom, every gulp of experience, every draught of enlightenment. And it all kept flowing, an endless upload of non-stop truth. Time was irrelevant. Matter a nonsense construct, stars and planets just balls of hot air floating in some faux garden in a world of make-believe where the trees sagged, and the wallpaper-sky frayed and peeled, revealing…
This is what I need to see, he thought, except… It wasn’t him.
I don’t want to see beyond that.
Off-mission, he thought. Crowe maybe… he would care, but unless what was beyond there, beyond the sun and stars…
Somewhere, beyond the sea…
…lay power, then maybe Raiden cared. He didn’t come here for the truth. He came for the power that would elevate him, and these others, to become like the gods themselves. Or God, or whatever created this garden, this world, this Tree…
And then told us to stay away. Just go play like children.
He looked away, or tried to, even though a dazzling light speared toward him from beyond the peeling layers of this universe. With supreme effort, he turned his attention behind him, toward the rift to the world he had known. The world that had borne him for hundreds of lifetimes, that had carried him and pleasured him and tortured him, denied him and enhanced him, and then made him start all over again. And again.
First, he saw the two smaller forms — detaching from the vines, being unhooked by the larger one. The new arrival seemed infused with an extra aura, like a grace, and the snake-things deferred to him, even allowed him to exit with the little power conduits.
Maybe it didn’t matter. They were done. They had entered the rift first and had fed the Serpent.
A pang of jealousy coursed through Raiden’s form, riding along with the download of infinity. Then it turned to anger. He couldn’t let them leave.
That’s my world back there.
Mine!
He concentrated and reached out — and found he was now part of the tree. One and the same, through vines and branches, bark and roots. Under the stealthy, patiently constricting serpent farther up there, knowingly watching. He reached out, connected with the others, the followers of Horus, the companions. The others who had become One.
The rightful rulers of this world.
Eternity continued to flood his mind and soul, and with every passing moment, the world beyond the rift seemed to fade in significance. Although — he could still see out the tear, into a universe controlled by him alone. By Raiden and…
The others, now accepting and merging and becoming one, fueling their selves together into one… great… God.
Merging with the serpent body that slithered around and around the trunk, slowly, like the Caduceus. The acceptance of the other five souls did nothing to diminish his own, but only felt like dumping gallons of water into an already expanding ocean.
The power!
He reared up, twisting undulating and feeling the other vines, all a part of himself. One bird remained below, drinking heavily, consuming the nectar.
Caleb Crowe could wait, but he would join them shortly.
For now, the three fleeing souls had to stay. And stay they would, for none could taste of this gift and want for anything else.
What had I been seeking before?
An image flashed somewhere among the countless visions of past and future: a group of men and women lording over the world, high atop some mountain temple, like ancient gods.
It would/had come to pass, only in a different way.
This world would fall first. The rift would be widened and thrust open, and he would slide out, birthed into the corporeal only long enough to offer the truth to the poor, blind souls of this misguided realm of falseness.
He and his companions had chosen well.
The game was over. The game should end, and all should eat from the fruit and become one…
And then return beyond the sea.
He heard a hissing in his ears, the sound of a trillion souls crying out for salvation. An end to pain, grief, remorse and regret. An end to ignorance.
He coiled, ready to strike and devour the three fleeing figures, but something gave him pause.