Known Afterlife (The Provider Trilogy: Volume I)

by Trey Copeland

Chapter 21

  Cloistered by his own thoughts, wistful doubt surrounded Kilton by the time he reached the outer limits of Sofelarus's dense canopy. Perched on the rogue stem jutting downward from the main canopy, he placated his apathetic mind on the dreadful lesion torn into the Provider's body a few thousand feet below.

  The final moments of his friend's battle with the Deagron Maker, his perch providing an ideal aerial vantage, temporarily abated the numbness in his soul. Like thousands of celebrated passages recorded in the Deeds and viewed countless times in his long life, the Guardian's orchestrated offensive was spectacular to behold.

  It is fitting the last deagron battle recorded by the Deeds be the most salient.

  Vejax, as usual, did not disappoint. Grimlock and Martna, their unique union of the Source, earned a respectful whistle from the old man. As Steffor landed before the wounded but far from defeated monster, instincts braced Kilton for what would come next. Akin to the experience prior to Steffor forging his staff, the Source around Kilton began to dissipate. Despite being far above the scene, Kilton squinted from the blue fury radiating around the man and held his breath as Steffor's invocation reached its peak. Just when he thought Steffor might be lost to his own power, he and his furious light pierced the Deagron Maker.

  The creature howled in pain, its limbs extending behind and convulsed in rigid agony. Steffor's invasive energy slowly elevated the deagron off the ground as the blue light seeped from a thousand crevices, warping it from the inside out. Rotated so that its belly faced the sky like an impaled bug specimen, the body rose past the cliff, halting high above the city in front of the hole it had emerged. A sickening crack filled the air as the shell bent opposite the hunched back. Kilton winced as the powerful light burst through and disintegrated the last deagron from the world.

  A wave of silence followed the blast of energy. Kilton existed in the quiet, contemplating the meaning of Steffor's disappearance.

  And so the road of trials begins. The time of reckoning has arrived.

  Foresight into what the future may bring did little to relieve a heart plagued with indifference. Reluctant to embrace the role bestowed upon him, hesitating to fulfill a promise made many lifetimes ago, Kilton pleaded to the Provider for insight one final time.

  "Ask me what you desire and I will reveal what you are prepared to see."

  "Why request this of me now?"

  "It is time. The need for your sacrifice is the irrevocable; the concordant ascension of all is predicated on your final choice."

  "But why remove the blissful blinders from my soul? Has not blind faith led me to make choices for the greater good in the past? Why must I make this choice with the outcome revealed?"

  "On the contrary, none of the decisions you have made to this point have required blind faith. Do the Deeds not reveal all the lessons learned from past lives? Does shifting the Source not provide you tangible evidence of my existence?"

  "Yes, but all of those gifts empowered me to make hard decision, content to leave that which I did not understand in your hands. Has this devout faith not been evident in all that you have asked me?"

  "Yes, and it has contributed to my growth, our growth."

  "Will I remember my life here, with you? Will I remember what it means to be loved?"

  "Your soul will remember me. Trust in this as you have from the beginning and know that I will always reside in your heart, no matter how dark it may become."

  "Can you not make an exception this one time and instill some shred of memory of this existence."

  "I am now. Have you ever known me to communicate in this manner to any Citizen?"

  "No. I just...the next level...I thought I would ascend, not descend."

  "Your next life will be your last in this world."

  "Is the place I go really of your world?"

  "Yes."

  "What purpose does it serve?"

  "A soul always has a choice, and it is his alone to make. The decision a soul makes affects the direction it will go, either toward me or away. To know the true impact of those decisions, a soul must experience the extreme of both. Every advance is complemented by a retreat."

  "What went wrong?"

  "We have been separated from the Divine Presence for too long. My ability to maintain balance has reached its limits."

  "What is our purpose?"

  "To show the wonders of Becoming, evolve spiritual greatness and promote life without strife or rivalry.

  "Have we not already reached that destination?"

  "Yes and now it is time to share it with the rest of the Universe. Your role and the choices you make in future events will directly influence us completing that final step."

  "Why did I—Sevorist—have to make the ultimate sacrifice so long ago? Why suppress the existence of the Deagron Maker and the origins of the Forging Tree?"

  "The deagron played a pivotal role in our early growth. They fostered the most painful step in our evolution that, without them, we would have never willingly embraced. By the time you, Triffor and Fregak discovered the Deagron Maker, the deagron's usefulness had ended."

  "The original intention was for you to return safely, apply what you learned about the Deagron Maker and how its offspring proliferated from my seed. The Forging Tree would soon after be born, providing man the final counter measure to defeat their requisite enemy, leading up to an epic and final battle led by the first generation of Teuton Guardians."

  "The final closure we never had."

  "Correct."

  "But why deviate from that destiny?"

  "It was a required measure of control. Our ability to survive has been threatened by inevitability, foreseen since the genesis. The solution was not revealed until that fateful day."

  "Which was?"

  "Force the Deagron Maker into hibernation, a feat accomplished by the combined actions of Sevorist destroying the last generation of deagrons before they were spawned and the birth of the Forging Tree."

  "Steffor's transformation of the Forging Tree....it released the Deagron Maker."

  "Yes."

  "But why wait till now?"

  "To ensure our survival required reaching our final destination sooner than what was originally accounted for."

  "We ran out of time?"

  "In the corporal sense of the word, yes. As it was always intended, the deagron forced us to grow when otherwise we would have not."

  "Why not reveal the outcome of Sevorist's sacrifice to me then?"

  "You are always given what you are prepared to receive. Search your heart and you will know Sevorist made an informed choice."

  "What of Steffor? What makes him so different from the rest of us?"

  "Steffor is the physical embodiment of me."

  "What do you mean? I thought you resided in all of us."

  "My spirit resides in all living creatures. As life grows, so do I. Citizens exemplify this process and contribute to my growth in ways no other life form can. In order that I may complete the growth intended by this vicarious existence, there must be an intermediary to experience the process first hand. Steffor, and all of his or her past incarnations, is that agent."

  "And what of the place you now send me? Do you grow in the same way?"

  "Yes Kilton. But you already know this, as it directly relates to your future mission. You are the balance that will restore harmony between the two."

  "So be it."

  Kilton stood up, and with a renewed paradigm, faced the maligned Source oozing from the Trunk's gaping wound. With a dramatic inhale, he released a final prayer: "Thank you father. I love you with all that I am. Please forgive my questioning mind and doubtful heart."

  Taking in a more efficacious breath, finding utile strength from the liturgical words, Kilton aimed his body and soul and dove head first into destiny.

  Garments, reinforced from energy once allocated to faculties no longer needed, encased in a Source sphere fortified by the reserve power of his staff, Kilton plung
ed into the loathsome crud and forced his way down the Provider's hollow core. The deeper he penetrated the more tainted the flow of Source became. As he approached the vast lake of Source stored below the Provider's extensive root system, the flow of healthy Source had diminished to a trickle. The ability to shift his protective sphere lost, the poisonous radiation began to tear into his garments and burn away skin, tendon, muscle and bone.

  "Not yet!" Kilton screamed, pressing forward with a determination born beyond the flesh.

  Pushed to the limits, he finally reached the Provider's heart. Puzzled by the temporal nature of his destination, repulsed by the invasive tumor consuming it, Kilton found the needed solace in his sacrifice.