Chapter Thirty-One: The End of Sunlight.
“What?” Jude whispered, even as Obadiah Charon, surprised, shouted the same word.
“I’m serious,” said Niles. “Go ahead. Do it, if you can. Kill God.”
“You are not serious,” Charon said, on the hinge between fury and disbelief.
“No, I am,” said Niles. “You’ve got a big knife. So give Him a good whack. That kills almost everything. And He’s been dead before so I don’t suppose He’ll mind. The very universe was brought into existence as a place of deicide, after all.”
Charon did not respond, just stared with his mouth on the verge of opening. So Niles stretched out his hand to the Rockies, and, projecting his voice, declared:
“Do your worst, Obadiah Charon, Keeper of the Five Chalices, Protector of the sun and moon, and Destroyer of Planet Earth. You’ve ended the world—so this is the only way to top yourself. Kill the Creator, right here and now, before all of us.”
“All right!” Charon shouted. He had tipped from disbelief and settled into fury—had realized, Ellie thought, as she did—he was being mocked. And his solution was to mock back, mock along, mock more. “If you’re sure! Where should I strike?”
“How about that tree, over there?” Niles said, “It looks good and easy to hit.”
“What else?” Charon snarled. He lifted his blade, pointing it at the tree, at Niles.
“Well, there is always the dirt! Or the air,” plied Niles, acting jovial. Charon’s anger got the better of him for a moment, and he swiped the machete, as if he was imagining hacking away at Niles, who was unconcerned and said only, “Yes, just like that!”
“So many options,” Charon replied, swiping again, like a batter up to hit, limbering up.
“And you forgot the most important option of all,” said Niles.
“That would be?” Charon spoke through gritted teeth. The brim of his hat lowered; the horns of a bull, preparing to charge. Ellie felt as if her skin, knotting to goosebumps, was growing too tight. She wanted to yell that Niles should stop poking the bear, but she could not stop watching and listening as her mentor enticed like a rodeo clown.
“Yourself, of course,” said Niles. “God is there, too, remember. Even now.”
Something odd came over Charon’s face, which had been twisting tighter and tighter in rage—some kind of slackening, but whether from shock or realization or disbelief, Ellie could not tell. For a moment—just a moment—his grip on the machete wavered, and he almost dropped the blade. Then, with sudden calmness, he said, “You’ve gone too far.”
“How?” said Niles. He was no longer egging Charon on, but instead adopting the Socratic method, guiding with questions. “Because I reminded you of something you already know? That one of the attributes of God is being everywhere?”
“You know full well that isn’t what I meant, when I said I would kill God,” said Charon. There was a bit of anger in his voice, but weariness too, like he was beginning a climb back up a hill. Such anger was a great expenditure of energy and he was tired.
“So you are looking for the only part of Him that can die,” said Niles, sounding as though this was quite reasonable. “The part of Him that is also human; the Christ.”
“Of course,” said Charon. “I mean to hack the Bastard into pieces.”
“And yet, that would not kill Him,” said Niles. “It might kill His human self, but He would merely be back in three days—this is a story we all know, yes?”
“But this time He would stay dead!” shouted Charon, and Ellie almost wanted to ask, How do you know that, moron? Or is that just wishful thinking?
“No,” said Niles, answering Ellie’s unspoken question. “He would not.”
“And how do you know that?” demanded Charon. “Has anyone ever tried again?”
“Because He is God,” said Niles, calmly. “What you are proposing is a contradiction. That you can kill the thing which gives you life and breath and being. It’s like a man trying to strangle himself with his bare hands. Eventually in the process of dying his hands will not have the strength to continue, and he will take a breath. You can damage yourself by fighting the source of your life. But you cannot completely go to the end.”
Ellie tried to swallow at those words—and wasn’t that just her luck, she thought, that so many reminders have been cropping up lately. But that was the nature of being a reaper, she supposed. There were always reminders of her death in everything.
Edging closer to Jude, Ellie tried not to draw attention to herself.
Charon was making this easy for her, throwing a tantrum. He disapproved of Niles’s claim—and he responded by restating his mission over and over—“I will kill God! I will! I will!”—and Niles replying back like a parent trying to reason with a child.
But he was not making much headway. Charon was merely repeating his desire, as if reassuring himself, and not interacting with Niles’s words at all. This was a contest of wills—but no matter how Charon might wish for something, that did not make it true.
It’s a soul, Ellie realized, as she reached Jude’s side. He was gazing at the spectacle, his face stony, as Charon became ever louder. Ellie was reminded of Keith Smithson: a soul is just an echo of the person’s will and choices while alive. When dead, he was just a robot following his programming, automaton, a recording playing back his nature.
Forever.
But if the soul lasts longer, isn’t it more important? came a whisper in Ellie’s mind. And as always, the same question: Am I in the highest circle of Hell, or—
I’m way too tired for this right now, Ellie thought. Obadiah Charon was yelling himself hoarse when she reached out and seized Jude by the wrist, pressing her free hand into her breast pocket and clicking the knob of her pocket-watch. They vanished.
* * *
They must have reappeared somewhere near Pueblo, because that was where Ellie’s pocket-watch had been programmed before Charon snatched it.
The surface was uneven. Jude landed off-balance, and dragged her down to sprawl by his side. Ellie glimpsed the red melting dome of the sky before gravity took over.
For a long moment, they both just breathed. The air was warm, heavy.
“I used to think the devil’s story should be considered sad,” said Jude, facedown on the rock, so that she could hardly hear him. “But now I see it’s sad and funny. The whole world is tragicomedy.” He lifted his head, looked out at the distance without seeing. “Who was it who said, ‘Those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad’?”
“Sorry,” said Ellie. The word came out of her mouth before she could think to stop it.
Jude turned his head, looked over to where she lay prone, her forearm under her chin. He propped himself up with an elbow, said, confused, “Sorry? For what?”
The words came in a rush. “For dragging you along like this,” she said. “For getting you into all this trouble.” She breathed in deep. “For reaping your mom.”
“Oh,” said Jude. He seemed oddly brightened. “You really mean it, this time.”
And, not letting go with their hands, they struggled to their feet to look about.
The first thing Ellie noticed was that the ground was no longer grassy. Indeed, there did not seem to be any soil left. As she gazed out over what should have been the plains, she could see none of the rolling hills that led up to the Rockies.
Instead there was a wasteland of stone. But it was not bland; there were many colors, stripes of red, white, brown, glittering mica, and the surface was carved and jagged, crests and divots, walls, stone eggs on precarious perches. Ellie had no doubt that if she wandered around there, the plains would feel like a prehistoric labyrinth.
Bedrock, she realized. They had reaped the topsoil and laid bare the earth.
Beside her, Jude inhaled noisily, a reverse gasp. She turned and saw—
The Rockies were there. But their tops were missing, as though strip min
ed, lopped off, trees beheaded by some brutal gardener. They had become plateaus, mesas—Ellie felt nauseous when she realized the uppermost flat surfaces were shiny like glass.
“They must be going top-down on them,” whispered Jude. He, too, looked like he was going to be sick. “The tallest go first. Look—Mt. Evans. It’s been... been...”
“Decapitated,” snarled Ellie, as rage clawed its way through her ribs.
“I was going to say desecrated,” said Jude. “But that works too.”
Glancing at the sky, he said, “The sun has to be nearly here. Look—it’s red. Like—”
Like blood, he was going to say, but he did not finish. He did not need to, because Ellie understood anyway. The Earth was dying.
Or, Ellie’s treacherous mind thought, as she sucked in a breath of heavy, oppressive air, Maybe the Earth is already dead. We’re just standing on the corpse.
“How,” whispered Jude. “How are we going to come back from this? Even if we fix the Spindle, what is left? They reaped all the people, the buildings, nature, even the dirt...”
“There has to be a way,” Ellie said. In her breast pocket, her injured numb hand clutched at her pocket-watch like a lifeline. “There must be. We can’t give up.”
“I just...” Jude said. “I don’t know, Ellie... we haven’t exactly had any success here. We just seem to be running in circles. What exactly have we saved?”
“We found some shards,” said Ellie. “And you heard the demon, the Spindle is mostly completed. We just need to find the reminding pieces and re-start time.”
“But we don’t know where to find them,” said Jude. “We lost Charon... and we haven’t exactly been keeping good company, have we? We made a deal with demons, watched innocent people die, entered Hell, got Charon—who turned out to be a bad guy! People were hurt cause of us. Maybe that says something about what we’re trying to do.”
“Maybe it says something about everyone else,” said Ellie. “That they aren’t willing to get their hands dirty to do the important things, you know, like saving the earth.”
“That just sounds like an excuse,” said Jude. “Ends justifying means.”
Ellie was responding—she pulled her hand from his, though Jude seemed reluctant to forgo human contact, pulled out her pocket-watch—but was interrupted by two figures popping into view twenty paces away. John and Niles. She would have re-grabbed Jude’s hand and clicked the pocket-watch, but the fear of losing more time made her pause, just long enough for Niles to raise his hands in truce.
“Ellie,” he called. “I’m not going to stop you from leaving. Let’s just talk, okay?”
Ellie hesitated. Just as she breathed in. Niles sounded so reasonable—classic, obvious Niles. When he was not mocking men with machetes, that was—
Then she glanced over to Jude, who was looking at Niles, and saw how his face relaxed, just a fraction, at Niles’s words. The clawing rage rose inside her, that Jude would be relieved when Niles arrived, despite knowing that Niles wanted to stop them.
“You can’t stop me,” she yelled at her mentor, who approached slowly like a man observing a wild horse. “I’m re-starting time, I don’t care what you say!”
“All I’m doing is listening, now,” said Niles. He came to a halt two paces away, where his words would carry in easy conversation despite the heavy air. She could see the divots on either side of his nose, just below the corners of his green eyes, and as always wondered if he had once worn glasses. John stopped at Niles’s right hand.
“Are you?” she said. “Are you really?” And she felt around in her mind for something to throw in his face, found it: “Because you didn’t seem to listen to Charon.”
“Yes,” said Niles, unphased. “Because Charon is a dead soul who has been reaped and is incapable of change. He is in Hell, howling his revenge at God, forever. But you, Ellie, are a reaper. You are capable of change. Tell me—what is wrong?”
What is wrong? The question seemed remote, somehow. Ellie wanted to shout and yell, What do you think is wrong, Niles? The world is ending! My family is dead!
But he was not saying anything more, and his attention did not waver from her as she stared at him. There was something arresting at being so closely observed like this. Clearly whatever she said had him as an audience, even if he would not agree...
Her mind cast back to the last time they had truly conversed, when she had accused him of not listening, and he had responded in kind. Perhaps they both had been right.
And so she answered: “You wouldn’t help me.”
Niles blanched. As though the words were a slap, drawing blood. John frowned at her, the sort of ‘how dare you’ look that Ellie was familiar with, so Ellie ignored him. A beat, and Niles recovered. He said, “I see. And what should I be helping with?”
Ellie scuffed her boot against the stone underfoot, a rasping sound like sandpaper. She considered, finger twitching on her pocket-watch, then without fully thinking through she dug into her breast pocket to pull out the shard of the Spindle. “With this?”
John leaned back, suspicious at the faint glow that she held. His squinty eye transferred from his left to his right when he blinked. There was a drop of sweat on his nose.
Niles observed the shard with curiosity. He looked as if he wanted to come closer, but was afraid to spook Ellie away. He said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a piece of the Spindle of Necessity,” said Ellie, and Niles drew in a quick breath. “We,” she gestured to Jude, “have been collecting them to repair the Spindle. And we’re almost done.” She glared at Niles. “That’s why we needed Charon.”
“I see,” said Niles. “So you wanted to ask him where the other pieces were?”
“No, the pieces are like weighing hearts. We hold up a reaper’s tool,” corrected Ellie, pantomiming the action with her own pocket-watch, “and it tells us where the neighboring pieces are. And Charon was the same; he could lead us to more shards.”
Niles frowned. “That’s what you’ve been up to? Ellie, where did you learn all this?”
Before Ellie could dodge the question, Jude broke in: “From demons.”
John snorted. Ellie turned and glared at Jude, who said, “What? It’s true.”
He left unspoken an accusation: I had to tell them the truth, because I’m not sure if you would. Pressing her lips tight over her teeth, Ellie turned back and declared:
“Don’t tell me that we were wrong. What choice did we have? Who else would help?”
Niles did not respond right away. He seemed reflective, eyes lowered, contemplative. Perhaps, Ellie thought, I’ve really done it, this time—I’ve made him seriously angry. She knew that Niles did not like demons any more than any other reaper. Certainly, John was staring at her now like she was a traitor. Maybe she was.
Finally, Niles said, “Do you truly think that we mentors would not have repaired the Spindle of Necessity ourselves, if it we could? And that demons would, if we wouldn’t? Who cares more about the fate of humanity—we who guide them to their afterlives, by the Commission, or they who seek only to eat souls and enjoy human suffering?”
The two ideas, juxtaposed, were ludicrous. Ellie scuffed her boot again, harder, to feel the reverberation in her bones. No, she told herself, don’t start doubting now. You’ll enter a maze of thoughts and never escape. She said, “Then why didn’t you help?”
“Ellie,” said Niles, and the word seemed to say: I want you to prepare yourself.
Squaring her shoulders, she looked straight into Niles’s face as he said, “When time stopped, the Jerusalem reapers checked the Spindle of Necessity. They found it broken and Charon present. Then they went back in time to see what happened.”
Leaning in, softening his voice, Niles said: “They saw the Spindle break. Some of the pieces were scattered across the world, in the force of the explosion. But most of them did not.” He paused, continued, “Most of the piec
es were destroyed.”
Ellie’s mind was stumbling over his words, as Niles drew to a conclusion: “The past cannot be changed. The pieces are gone forever. The Spindle cannot be repaired.”
In the corner of her eye, Ellie saw Jude shift, but she did not look away from Niles’s face. She kept observing him, waiting for some sign of deception. But Niles gave none. He only stood there watching her process this information. Her ears were stinging, a small ringing in the back of her head, the words echoing in her skull.
Destroyed. Most of the pieces of the Spindle, destroyed.
How could they repair something when the pieces were destroyed?
“You’re lying,” she said. It was the only possible outcome. The other was unthinkable.
Niles would have blanched again, she could see, but he must have been prepared for this, because he said, “Ellie. Have I ever lied to you? Why would I lie about this?”
“Because you want the world to end!” Ellie’s words rushed out as a hiss. She raised her hands, imagining she could beat and claw at Niles’s overly composed face.
“And why would I want that?” asked Niles. His voice sounded cautious.
“Because you—you—because—” she fumbled for words, “You want to stop working—”
“The Commission does not end because the world does,” said Niles. “We will have completed this job, yes, but there is always going to be work to be done.”
Ellie realized her sides were heaving. She gulped air. Three pairs of eyes were on her, and she was reminded of her dizzy spell in the library, when she had come to believe that maybe the observer could be observed, and that the past could be changed...
And Jude said, as though trying to soften her, “Ellie, maybe...”
But she was not listening. The world in her vision tunneled down to Niles, who was frowning and looking as though he might step forward and make a grab at her; what for, she did not know. The heat in the air seared her lips as she breathed through her mouth. The shard felt heavy, her pocket-watch weighed nothing. Her neck on fire.
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