Gabriel felt a surge of panic push through his heart. He sat down, closed his eyes and rested, then stood up again and resumed walking. As he looked for the passageway, he began to feel hopeless and lost. For a while, he kicked at the earth with the toe of his boot. Chips of dirt rose up into the air, fell down, and were instantly absorbed by this new reality.
He looked over his shoulder and saw a patch of darkness behind him. It was his own shadow, following him around on this aimless journey, but the image had an unusual depth and sharpness, as if someone had cut into the ground. Was this the way out? Had it always been there? Closing his eyes, he fell backward and was pulled down the passageway.
BREATHE, HE TOLD himself. Breathe again. And he was kneeling in a dirt street that ran through the middle of a town. Gabriel stood up cautiously, expecting the ground to collapse and drop him into air, water, or the bare desert world. He stomped his feet on the street like a man having a tantrum, but this new reality sustained itself and refused to vanish.
The town reminded him of a frontier outpost in an old-fashioned Western, the sort of place where you’d find cowboys, sheriffs, and dance-hall girls. The buildings were two and three stories high, built with flat boards and shingles. Wooden sidewalks ran on both sides of the street, as if the builders wanted to keep mud from splattering into the doorways. But there was no mud or rain or any water at all. The few trees on the street looked dead; their leaves were dry and brittle-brown.
Gabriel drew the jade sword and held it tightly as he stepped onto the wooden sidewalk. He tried a doorknob-unlocked-and stepped into a one-room barbershop with three chairs. Mirrors hung from the walls and Gabriel stared at his own face and the sword in his hand. He looked frightened, like a man who expected to be attacked at any moment. Leave this place. Hurry. And then he was back on the sidewalk with the clear sky and the lifeless trees.
All the doors were unlocked and he began to search each building. His shoes made a hollow sound on the wooden sidewalk. He discovered a fabric store filled with bolts of cloth. An apartment was upstairs. It had a sink with a hand pump and a cast-iron stove. Plates and cups had been set for three people, but the shelves and icebox were empty. In another building, he found a cooper’s shop with wooden barrels in different states of completion.
The town had only two streets and they intersected at a city square with park benches and a stone obelisk. There was no writing on this memorial, only a series of geometric symbols that included a circle, a triangle, and a pentagram. Gabriel kept following the street until the town disappeared and he reached a barrier of dead trees and thornbushes. He spent some time looking for a path, then gave up and returned to the square.
“Hello!” he shouted. “Is anyone here?” But nobody answered him. Now the sword made him feel like a coward and he slid it back into the scabbard.
A building near the square had a rounded cupola roof, and the front door was made of a dark, heavy wood with iron hinges. Gabriel passed through the doorway and found himself in a church with pews and stained-glass windows that displayed complex geometric patterns. A wooden altar was at the front of the room.
The missing inhabitants of the town had decorated the altar with roses that were dead and faded, showing only a faint suggestion of their former color. A black candle burned at the center of this dry offering. The bright flame flickered back and forth. Other than himself, it was the only thing that was alive and moving in the entire town.
He stepped toward the altar and breathed deeply, like a sigh. The black candle fell out of its brass holder and the flame touched the dry petals and leaves. A rose was set on fire and an orange flame ran down the stem to another flower. Gabriel began searching the room for a bottle of water or a bucket of sand, anything that would extinguish the flame. Nothing. When he turned back, the altar itself was on fire. Flames curved around the posts and touched the edges of the scrollwork.
Gabriel ran outside and stood in the middle of the street. His mouth was open, but he stayed silent. Where could he hide? Was there any place of refuge? Trying to control his fear, he ran down the street that led past the barbershop and fabric store. When he reached the edge of the town, he stopped and looked out at the forest. All the trees were on fire and smoke rose up into the sky like a massive gray wall.
A particle of ash touched his cheek and he brushed it away. Gabriel knew there was no way out, but he ran back to the church building. Smoke leaked out of the crack around the heavy door. The stained-glass windows glowed from within. As he watched, a crack appeared in the center window and grew larger, like a jagged wound on someone’s skin. Air expanded inside the building and the window exploded, showering the street with broken glass. Flames reached out of the window frame and black smoke touched the side of the white cupola.
He sprinted down the street to the other side of town and watched a burning pine tree explode into flames. Turn back, he thought. Run away. But all the buildings were burning now. The intense heat caused a wind that made bits of ash swirl around like leaves in an autumn storm.
Somewhere in this destruction was a way out, the dark passageway that would guide him back to the human world. But the fire destroyed all shadows and the rising smoke turned day into night. Too hot, he thought. Can’t breathe. Returning to the square, he kneeled beside the stone obelisk. The park benches and the dry weeds were burning. Everything was touched by the flames. Gabriel covered his head with his arms and curled up in a tight ball. The fire surrounded him and pushed through his skin.
AND THEN IT passed. When Gabriel opened his eyes, he saw that he was surrounded by the charred ruins of the town and the forest. Large pieces of wood were still burning and wisps of smoke rose toward a slate-gray sky.
Gabriel left the square and walked slowly down the street. The church, the cooper’s shop, and the fabric store with the upstairs apartment had been destroyed. A moment later, he reached the edge of the town and the remains of the forest. Some of the trees had fallen to the ground, but a few of them were still standing like black stick figures with twisted arms.
He retraced his footsteps through the ash-covered streets and saw that a wooden awning post was still standing in the middle of the destruction. Gabriel touched the post, sliding his hand down its smooth surface. Was this possible? How did it survive? He lingered by the post, trying to understand its meaning, and saw a white plaster wall standing about twenty feet away from him. The wall hadn’t existed a few minutes ago-or perhaps he was too dazed to notice it. He kept walking and found a barbershop chair in the middle of the ashes. This object was completely real. He could touch it, feel the green leather and the wooden armrests.
He realized that the town was going to reappear in exactly the same form. It would become whole, only to burn again-the process repeating itself forever. This was the damnation of the fire barrier. If he couldn’t find the passageway, he was trapped within this endless cycle of rebirth and destruction.
Instead of searching for a shadow, he returned to the square and leaned against the obelisk. As he watched, a front door appeared, and then part of a wooden walkway. The town began to form and reassert itself, growing like a living creature. The smoke vanished and the sky was blue again. Everything was changed but the same, as ashes melted in the sunlight like flakes of dirty snow.
Finally the process was complete. A town with empty rooms and dead trees surrounded him. Only then did a degree of clarity return to his mind. Forget the convolutions of philosophy. There were only two states of being: equilibrium and motion. The Tabula worshipped the ideal of political and social control, the illusion that everything should remain the same. But this was the cold emptiness of space, not the energy of the Light.