As Related by His Most Sublime and Eminent Radiance, Ailann Tiarnan, Archon of Skarsia
No sooner has Manasseh let the genie out of the bottle than the world turns blue. When we can see again, Tielo is sitting on the floor next to the empty jar, his head between his knees.
« Mid-game substitution, » says Owen. « The ball is in our court. »
« Seriously, » says Davy. « With a name like Nash Ashton, he’s got to be hooked up. »
« He looks refreshingly competent, » says Balin. « I think we can trust him to handle business out there. Let’s take care of ours. »
Axel kneels by Tielo’s side. « Are you okay? »
Tielo looks up into Axel’s face. His eyes are watery and his hands shake. « I’m…getting it together, » he says slowly.
I can sense in his branch that the world is starting to shake itself back into place, but he’s still in no condition for a fight. I instruct Beat and Tarlach to stay with him, and if the weather eases, to try to get him to the monastery. The path is still intact leading upwards. I put my hand on his shoulder. « You did your best, » I tell him. « I couldn’t have protected Atlas like you did. »
Then we’re moving downward again, our path illuminated by the radiance from Lucius. It’s labyrinthine. Where is Molly going? Does she even know?
There’s a bone-chilling scream.
« That sounds like Molly, » says Mickey. « Maybe the auto-defense system took care of her. »
« We’d better find out, » says Balin, plunging ahead into the darkness. A second later, and all the unrecognized emanations drop to the ground, gasping and groaning.
« Auto-defense, » says Ari.
« Then it’s being a little too fucking enthusiastic, since it also affected Solomon and Aran back here at the pub, » snarls Lorcan.
« Rand is down, too, » says Tommy.
« And Malachi, » says Harsh.
I start to jog after Balin, with Lucius close at my heels. Our best action will probably be to eliminate Molly. Then the pleroma might ease off. If not, there has to be a mechanism causing the problem that the recognized ones can force to stop.
We squeeze through a narrow winding tunnel. We’re running on instinct now because Marius can’t locate Molly anymore.
« I can’t see you either, » he says, « but I can sense you by using your branch. Whatever is down there, it’s well-hidden. »
« I know what it is, » says Manan. « Buried in the Holy Mountain. It’s the spiritual center of the pleroma. »
What?
And then suddenly the tunnel opens into an enormous cavern. It’s bright all of a sudden, but the light is not real light. It’s a nul-glow.
Molly is sitting in a corner, giggling. Her eyes are wide with transcendent horror, a hysteria transformed into glee. There’s a skip of a heartbeat before she notices us. « But how? » she asks. « How, when I… »
« Look! » says Balin, pointing to a declivity in the center of the room. It’s a cenote – and much of the light is coming from beneath the water. There are sparks in the depths. It reminds me of my reflecting pool.
The surface of the water is covered with a blue-green flame. There’s some kind of a device floating on the water, and it seems to be disrupting the flame, sending the sparks whirling chaotically, destroying their synchronization.
They look familiar, especially that enormous…magenta one.
Aran.
I reach to snatch the device out of the water. « Fuck you! » Molly screams, suddenly on her feet. She’s a skinny woman, but her attack is so sudden that it bowls me over, and both of us go plunging into the cenote. She shrieks as though her soul were being torn from her, gasping and clawing as I try to keep us both from taking water.
« Filthy filthy filthy! » she screams, trying to gouge at my eyes.
I notice Davy enter the room. « Hey, we need Patrick to kill a bitch! » he yells into the tunnel.
But Patrick spared her last time, the time when Tara was going to bash out her brains. No, let me revise that. Patrick spared Tara.
The spirals weave erratically, brushing against our skins. When one touches Molly she shrieks, batting and batting at it, clawing, trying to tear off her own flesh.
« Fuck this, » I growl. It’s not like she’s going to die in the material world. I shove her under and hold her there. Now it’s a terrible battle for supremacy. Somehow, I know that she’s less afraid of dying than of drowning here, losing consciousness in the center of an alien mind.
After a few terrible minutes, she stops flailing. I hold her longer still, making certain that it isn’t a feint. And then she vanishes.
Balin gives me his hand, pulls me out of the cenote. « I think I defiled the sacred water, » I mutter.
I grasp the device and wind my arm, preparing to smash it on the rocks. But Cüinn says, « Just deactivate it! Whatever it is, we’d better study it. »
One-by-one, the others are filing into the cavern. They stare down into the cenote. « Is that us? » asks Ross.
Lens shakes his head. « I can’t seem to find myself, » he says.
« Go ask Tarlach, » says Lorcan, and everybody laughs in relief. Then Lorcan says, « Solomon and Aran are back on their feet, but they look pretty disoriented. Then again, Solomon is on beer 34, so that’s probably not surprising. »
The same thing is happening with us. Some of the unrecognized ones are joining us in the cavern. « Look at that, » whispers Seth. He points to a purple spark, one that gives the impression of being a strange occult sigil. It’s a feeling, a vibration, a certain arcane angularity.
« Hey, there’s Stephen! » Manasseh cries delightedly.
« So this is what I and I was hiding, » says Dermot. « The physical location of the nul-energy at the root of our existence. »
« Yes, except that it’s not all here. I’m noticing a trend. The reason only the unrecognized ones were disrupted by Molly’s device is that they’re the only ones in the pool, inside of the blue flame of our being. What happened to the rest of us? »
« They’re hidden under the floor, » says Suibhne.
Under the floor? But the floor is solid rock. Perhaps he means that there’s yet another chamber below this one.
« No, under the floor, » says Suibhne, pointing up.
I suppose that makes as much sense as Suibhne ever makes.
« The temple floor, » he says, as I look upwards.
It’s a distance of about 50 meters to the ceiling above us. It’s flat, polished onyx, with a design burning in blue fire, a ten-petalled lotus. And in certain specific places there are spirals of energy turning in place. They’re in the position of the color space, but inverted.
« It’s because you’re looking at the temple floor, but from below, » says Manan. « Those sparks are exactly beneath the shields on the mosaic. »
“His Most Sublime and Eminent Radiance, Suibhne Ennis, 3rd Archon of Skarsia. 18th to emanate, 61 in the color scale, resonates to 283. 1.831 meters tall, cock size 16.53 cm when erect, apparent age 34. Madman. Totem is Larix decidua, the European larch, fixed star is Keid, the broken eggshell. Esoteric symbol is the Minchiate trump Il Matto, the madman. Dessert is Nau’gsh Tarte Tatin, an upside-down fruitcake. Function is creative stabilization, proto-conscious tendency is impulsiveness, designated Capricious. Blazon is argent, a chief ipsissimal purple, a ship of three masts in full sail, on deck is a penguin in its vigilance attired as an admiral.”
My eyes are drawn by the sudden intensification of the blue fire on the surface of the water. A wildly spinning purple spark suddenly freezes and levitates, sucked out of the water and sent flying high overhead, until it reaches its place in the mandala and begins to spin at its proper frequency.
« Whoa, » says Suibhne. « Suibhne feels better now. Not sane, but better. »
I stare at the loveliness of the lights flickering against the onyx. But they aren’t lights, and thus there’s no reflection from the stone, only sheer blackness. And I can see my own, the color of my own soul, flickering amongst the company of the others. It’s so strange to see it there and know it is me, and yet be here inside this imaginary body. But then is it any stranger to be inside a tree, a human body, a mothman?
And yet I feel like I’m not there, it’s not right, my heart hurts. Something’s missing.
Oh.
I stick my hand inside of my chest.
« Ailann, what the fuck? » cries Balin. But it’s all right, it’s fine. It’s not like it’s a real chest with ribs and lungs and arteries.
There you are. You’ve been hiding all along because you didn’t want to miss the action. You didn’t want me to face it alone, without strength.
I pull out my hand, and there’s a jet black spark spinning upon my palm.
« Cillian! » Callum cries, as the spark flies out of my hand and up into the lotus of the pleroma.