Blood of War (10 page)

She sat across the table from him and gripped his hands roughly in hers. She glared into his eyes. Her hair fell in ebony waves to her shoulders; her lips, though pursed in perpetual irritation, appeared to him at that moment to be pursed in preparation for a kiss; her twilight eyes glared as though daring him. Only a man with ice in his veins would not think to try. Only a man with rocks between his ears
would
try.

“Now let go,” she commanded.

He sighed quietly, then closed his eyes.

He let his mind open and immediately felt Metana's dominating presence. She pushed her way in with all the subtlety of a raging bull; she was never gentle. She insisted it was a lesson of sorts. He had to learn to protect his mind from unwanted invasion. He wondered wryly on occasion what would happen if he resisted her entry.

As always, flickers of light emanated from her presence. Vague images winked in and out of existence like birds passing through a thick fog. She had explained that these were vagrant memories that leaked from her own subconscious...and they were to be ignored
at all costs.

“
There.”

Though they were merely mental presences inside his skull, there was still a feeling of physical presence; she seemed to point.

“
I know.”

Ahead in the vaulted distance, he saw a flickering pin-point of light. Slowly moving toward it, he evaded the vagrant memories and turmoils that passed his way. He silently thanked Andrus for his final lessons on avoiding these pitfalls. He ignored the voices that floated in as from a great distance though one always sent a thorn through his heart, always left him feeling as though he betrayed the memory of the man who had raised him. The pin-point light grew to the size of a melon, then a barn, and soon, he was facing a vast wall of blazing energy, as though if he reached out he truly would touch the surface of a star.

But, as always, it remained just out of reach.

Once again, with Metana's harsh urgings, he beat ineffectively at the invisible barrier that blocked him. With an urgency brought on by months of frustration, he beat at the barrier with every bit of strength he could muster and let out a mental howl of such power that even Metana's presence faded as she backed away. But the barrier did not so much as waver.

As his rage faded to defeat, he began to feel a distant discomfort; he had worked his body into a sweat with his exertions. He could feel strained muscles in his arms and chest. He felt his body draw in a long breath as he connected enough to loosen himself.

As he backed away from the light—Daved used to tell him that finding a solution to a problem sometimes entailed looking at it from a more distant perspective, to view it in its entirety; in this case, he followed that advice literally—a different flicker out of the corner of his awareness drew his attention.

Metana had drawn closer again and began berating him for his latest failure, but this new light far in the distance held him and he tuned her out. There was something about this new light; it was somehow familiar to him. Unable to curb his impulse, he drifted toward this new light at the back of his mind. Behind him, Metana's receding voice took on a tone of bewildered shock.

“
What do you think you're doing?”

“
I see...there's something...”
he sent the thought back.

“
Get back here. There's work to do.”

But he had already tuned her back out. He passed more buffeting memories and vagrant thoughts, ignored more voices from his past—even in his memories, Valik's viciousness and selfishness was nearly palpable. As he moved forward, he felt a tug from behind; Metana was trying to reel him back in. But he was relentless and he continued forward. The light expanded much as his source light did, though this one had a greenish tinge to it as of fresh grass.

“
Jurel! Come back here! Jurel!”

He drifted closer, unable to shake the sense of familiarity. He thought to stop himself short, or at least he thought that some sort of invisible barrier like the one around his source would stop him short, but he got closer to it, then closer, and it expanded more quickly as though he was riding a galloping horse at a breakneck pace. Then...

“
Jurel! Wait! Come ba-”

A brilliant light exploded, drowning out all his senses and he fell for what seemed an eternity.

* * *

He breathed the sent of fresh grass and jasmine and honeysuckle. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the velvetiest, bluest sky he had ever seen. He moved his head, feeling a springiness under his body as though he lay on a cushion. Instead, he saw a seemingly endless field of fresh grass.

Lifting himself off the ground, he shook his head like he was clearing the effects of a blow.

Could it be?

He spun on his heel, looking behind him. The verdant field continued in every direction. In the far distance, along the horizon, he spied a darker smudge ringing the field; he assumed it was some sort of mountain range or forest but it was too far away for him to know for sure.

How did I...?

He took a tottering step, suddenly wondering where Metana was. He closed his eyes and searched his mind but found no trace of her. He imagined she was back safe in her own head sitting in the classroom at the Abbey. He hoped so anyway.

“Ah, young brother. I see you have finally discovered how to get here without being unconscious first. Good for you.”

Jurel yelped and spun at the sound of the voice, a long, heavy sword appearing in his hands as he assumed a defensive stance.

A few paces away, a prim looking man stood facing him. He wore a bright white shirt and linen trousers under a simple robe that dangled loosely open. He had a massive tome under one arm, the title of which was in a language Jurel had never before seen and could not decipher though he somehow almost understood it. Middle-aged by the look of him, the man gazed through a pair of delicate golden spectacles that perched on the edge of his prominent nose. He had a scholarly air that Jurel recognized from the brothers and sisters at the Abbey, only more intense, almost tangible.

Then it came to him.

The man smiled knowingly and nodded. “Yes. I see you have figured me out.” He spoke in a clipped, precise tone.

“How could I not? You're supposed to be my brother.”

Maora, the God of Knowledge, extended a hand and gripped Jurel's in a firm shake. “Indeed. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Then a smile broke across his face. His eyes twinkled mischievously. “Though I feel I already know you.”

Jurel chuckled. “I hear you know a lot.”

The smile broadened. “Quite.”

As one, they turned to face out across the field. As they stood shoulder to shoulder, a silence fell, one so deep it passed beyond uneasy to as comfortable as a down filled comforter on a cold day. The air was warm but not uncomfortably so. There was no breeze; the grasses were a calm sea sparkling under the golden light that came from no known source but was everywhere.

Though Jurel was loathe to break the silence, he had questions he wanted to ask.

“How did I get here?”

“It helps first to understand the nature of this place.” Maora shifted, assuming a lecturer's pose. He clasped his hands behind his back—an interesting feat with a massive tome under one arm—and swayed as he rolled his balance from the balls of his feet to his heels and back. “Do you know anything about where we are right now?”

Jurel looked around, searching. He had been here several times. But each time had been while he slept. He had thought it some sort of dream world but Gaorla had implied it was much more.
It is your place
. What did that mean? He thought about it for a moment but he had to admit he had no idea. He shook his head.

Maora squinted appraisingly at him. “Hmmm. Have you learned anything about interplanar or intraplanar physics?”

Jurel stared blankly.

“I'll take that as a 'no' then. The world as you know it is an infinite plane-”

“A what?”

“A plane. Think of it as a huge flat space-”

“But how can it be flat? I can see up and down.”

“I know. It's a difficult concept to grasp. It's flat only in comparison to the multiverse because it is made up of only four dimensions instead of-”

“Multiverse?”

“Yes. Think of the multiverse as a universe of universes. When you look up into the night sky, you see stars-”

“Unless it's cloudy.”

Now Maora turned and glared at Jurel. His tone went flat and he spoke through clenched teeth. “When you look up into the night sky
on a clear night
, you see stars, right?”

Jurel thought about that. It made sense—the only thing so far that did. He nodded.

“Well, if you could look into the multiverse, it would look similar except that each individual star would be a full universe.”

“What's a universe?”

“Oh father,” Maora muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, “please help your child.”

Jurel wondered which of them Maora was referring to.

“The universe is the world comprising everything you know: grass, trees, sky, stars, everything,” Maora continued. “It is infinitely large, containing countless stars and planets and myriad other breath-taking objects and phenomena.

“The multiverse is similar but infinitely bigger than the universe.”

“How can it be infinitely bigger when the universe is already infinite?”

“Well, though the concept of infinity is widely misunderstood, in this case it's a matter of dimensions. This universe is comprised of four dimensions: longitude, latitude, altitude, and time.”

“Huh?”

“Forward and backwards, side to side, up and down, and time. Can you please stop interrupting? This is taking much longer than it should.”

“Sorry.”

“The multiverse is comprised of twenty-one dimensions. In the multiverse then are infinite planes of universes of lesser dimension. Within each universe, an observer sees that it is infinite but an observer in the multiverse sees each universe as finite because he is seeing it from a position where there are twenty-one dimensions. Do you understand?”

“No.”

Maora stared helplessly at Jurel. He opened his mouth to speak but clamped it shut before saying anything. Jurel began to squirm as Maora's gaze turned speculative.

“All right then. Let's try this a different way. Close your eyes.”

Jurel did as he was told, feeling slightly foolish as he stared at the inside of his eyelids. Without warning, like a kick to the gut, he was bombarded with imagery. Sun-bright light seared his mind, shifting colors at blinding speed. Jurel cried out, lurched, fought to keep his balance. He thought he recognized some of the imagery but they came too hard, slamming into him like stampeding horses and disappearing so swiftly, he did not have time to decipher what he saw. Gritting his teeth, he clutched the sides of his head.

Then, as suddenly as they had started, the images vanished. He slumped bonelessly to his knees, as though cut from a noose, only barely managing to catch himself from pitching forward onto his face.

Dazed, he opened his eyes and blinked repeatedly to clear the last vestiges of his experience. The world, his world,
his place
, seemed dark to him. He wondered if he had somehow affected it or if it was because his eyesight seemed darkened, with an imprint like the after effect of seeing lightning.

It took him a moment to find his voice. He croaked, “What was that?”

“Your education was too sorely lacking for me to explain it well enough for you to understand. If we had continued to rely on words, it would have taken me weeks to give you all the information necessary to answer your question.”

“So you're saying I know the answers now? Why didn't you do that at the beginning?”

Maora chuckled softly. “As you may have noticed, it is not the most comfortable way to pass information. It is easier with a trained mind—Shomra or Valsa would not have been affected nearly so strongly—but with so much to assimilate in so short a time, the mind reels and must adjust. I hesitated at first to subject you to that experience since to join with a human mind is not only uncomfortable, it is dangerous. If you had not been sufficiently advanced in your progress toward divinity, that passing of information might very well have erased everything you ever knew, and perhaps killed you in the process.

“And, no, you do not have your answers yet. I have simply provided your mind with all the necessary tools to discover the answers on its own.”

“I don't understand.”

Again, Maora chuckled. This time it was accompanied by a rolling of his wise eyes. “You say that a lot. I think you are impatient. Give yourself time. You will understand.”

As he said this, Jurel was struck by the notion that Maora was not only referring to understanding the nature of this strange world that Jurel had created. A memory emerged, a memory of him speaking with Valsa in this same place not too long ago. She had likened him to a flower seeking sunlight to continue growing, to become what it needs to be while still remaining a flower. Had she been saying more than that? Had she been hinting at a deeper truth? The same deeper truth that Maora now seemed to be implying?

It seemed likely. But as Jurel thought of it, he still did not know what that deeper truth was. Maora had said to stop being so impatient and give himself time to understand.

The problem was that he did not seem to have time. The Abbey was riven, split in half by those who believed in him and those who did not, and if that rift was not soon healed, he feared it would spell the beginning of the end for the Salosian Order. Because certainly, the prelacy was not sitting still. Not after the massacre at the temple in Threimes the previous spring.

Thanking Maora, he tried to smile. He assured Maora that he would think deeply on all he had been taught. With a smile of his own Maora gave him one last piece of advice before departing.