“Goodbye, Father,” Soman said and turned away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Numa
All light had vanished from Skalja. Numa wiggled her fingers in front of her face, but saw nothing.
“Soman?” she whispered into the blackness.
Only silence surrounded her and Numa realized she was alone.
Then a single point of light pierced the blackness. It was a tiny, orange light, like the flame from a candle and Numa had no choice but to follow it.
As she moved towards it, she began to realize that it was actually not tiny, but very far away. She saw nothing on the ground in front of her and could only hope that each footfall met solid ground.
After what felt like days of walking, Numa began to see the outline of a dilapidated shack take shape before her. The point of light she’d been following came from an oil lamp hanging on the front door of the shack. A wooden sign hung below the lamp that read “Future Teller”.
Numa thought she would stand still and deliberate if she should enter the shack or steal the lamp and go in search of Soman and the others. But before she could do any of that, she saw her own hand push on the shack door and her own feet walk through it.
“Joyous day,” she heard herself say as she entered.
The inside of the shack was strangely familiar, though Numa was certain she had not been there before. The room was barren except for a small fire that burned in a pit dug into the middle of the dirt floor. Next to the fire an ancient, bent woman sat rocking slowly back and forth.
“You will be happy to know you’ve made it,” the old woman said.
Numa glanced over her shoulder to be sure the woman was not speaking to someone else. “I have made it?” Numa asked, feeling simultaneously confused and eerily reassured.
The old woman nodded and stopped her rocking. “Because you are here, Joy will be returned to you.”
“Are you the Future Teller?” Numa asked, recalling the sign on the door.
Again, the old woman nodded. “Sit with me and learn about time.” She pointed a single, bony finger at the floor across the fire.
Numa sat down as she was instructed and studied the woman. Her face was lined and etched so deeply that it appeared to have more shadows than skin. Her brows were thick and white; and long, wiry wisps of hair hung from her chin. But her eyes were sharp and youthful. In the firelight, they flashed varied shades of gold and, again, Numa was flooded with a sense of familiarity.
“Have we met before?” she asked.
“We did not meet before. This is our second meeting, but the first is yet to come.”
Numa sighed loudly. “You must be Empyrean.”
The old woman smiled, but her eyes remained serious. “We do not need to perceive time as a limitation,” the Future Teller explained. “Time is a product of form. You can move through it as easily as you move through space, simply by changing your perception of it.”
“But do I need to?” Numa asked, wrinkling her brow.
“You will.”
“My mothers and Radine are constantly teaching me by telling me things that make no sense, and then leaving me to figure out what they mean,” Numa said. “I am weary and yet there is still much to be done. If you can help me, will you please be straightforward about it?”
The old woman blinked at Numa then nodded slowly. “The Deis gifted you with a vision of your heart’s desire,” she said. “They showed you your Joy.”
“Yes, and that’s what I’ve been trying to create ever since.”
“You saw yourself with Gemynd and Soman at the top of Tolnick keep while the people below cheered.”
Numa nodded, knowing it was pointless to ask how the old woman knew the details of Numa’s vision.
“And you have thought this to be the end of the vision?” the woman asked. “You have thought that you would create this one moment in time and have eternal Joy thereafter?”
“I suppose I did,” Numa answered hesitantly. “Truthfully, I did not think beyond that point. I have completely focused on creating that one moment, because that is what the Deis showed me.”
“They showed you the beginning of your Joy, but every moment in time brings with it a choice. You will continue to create the Todor of your perception through every choice you make after that moment.”
“I can choose to sustain or disrupt the Oneness of Life,” Numa said, her voice sounding annoyed. “One choice will bring Joy, the other suffering.”
“You speak Truth now, dear one,” the old woman said. “As you know, there are some moments when the choice to sustain Oneness can feel like suffering.”
Numa had been around Empyreans enough to know when their vague words were actually pointing to something quite specific. “Tell me, Future Teller, what moments like these will I face?”
The old woman produced a wooden cup in her hand. “Drink this,” she said, handing the cup to Numa.
Numa sniffed the steam that rose from the cup as she took it. It smelled of flowers and earth, but with an underlying hint of something metallic. Something like blood. “What is it?”
“It is your pathway back to the Deis so that they may show you more moments in your vision.”
“It smells like blood,” Numa said, suddenly horrified of these moments she would have to face. “Am I to face more moments of death?”
“Blood is Life, not death, dear child,” the woman explained. “Now drink.”
Numa swallowed the contents of the cup, thankful that it didn’t taste like blood. Instantly, she felt a strong connection to her own Lifeforce, the way it vibrated and hummed; the way it flowed and came together to form what she perceived as her body. The tingling reached her brain and made her feel drowsy so she moved to lay down on her side, but her body never touched the floor. Instead, Numa found herself falling through darkness until she realized it wasn’t darkness at all. It was nothingness and she’d been there before. It was a place of no light, yet no dark. No time, no space, no form. No life and no death. Just nothing. And, yet, it was also somehow everything.
Numa knew the Deis would join her there soon. As soon as she had the thought, the three whirlwinds of different colored flames appeared before her. They brushed across her eyelids and hummed melodies into her ears.
“I am Oneness,” she remembered as she always did in the presence of the Deis.
“You are Joy,” they replied in unison.
“How can I maintain Joy after I create the moment you showed me in the vision?” she asked, not sure if it was possible to waste the Deis time, but wanting to avoid it just in case.
“Choose Oneness,” they said.
Numa breathed slowly to release the frustration that was beginning to build. She knew the Deis wanted to help her, but first she must ask the correct question. “Can you show me the moments where it may be difficult for me to choose Oneness?”
“The future is not yet written,” the red flame answered.
“We know which moments will help you to see,” the gold flame said, apparently contradicting her brother.
The blue flame said nothing but moved down Numa’s face, hovering over her lips, placing the warmth of a thousand kisses there. It continued down her neck, over her breasts, and across the length of her abdomen, leaving a fiery trail of passion in its wake until Numa felt strangely on the verge of climax. The flame spread out, heating the tops of Numa’s thighs and then it converged into a single point between them and Numa felt her Lifeforce explode into the furthest reaches of Todor as she rode wave after wave of ecstasy. She was consumed by pleasure. She was One with it.
In the midst of her orgasm, Numa saw Gemynd and Soman appear above her, each holding a tiny whirlwind of flame in his hand. Gemynd held the red one and Soman the blue. They both smiled at Numa then gently blew into their hands, sending their flames towards Numa. At the exact sa
me moment, both of the flames entered her body through her navel.
Numa watched as her belly stretched and grew larger than was truly possible. She felt the need to bare down and clenched her teeth against the sensation. When she did, something hot and slippery forced its way out from between her legs.
Then both of her mothers were there, beaming with Joy, as they placed a blanketed bundle into Numa’s outstretched arms.
Numa clutched the baby against her chest and was engulfed in a feeling so pervasive, yet indescribable, that all she could do was sob. “I had not known I was incomplete,” she heard her own voice echo in the vision. “This is Oneness.”
Numa tilted the baby’s face so she could gaze upon its perfection. It was her own face and Gemynd’s and Soman’s all combined. Pure Love filled Numa’s being until it overflowed as tears that wet her cheeks and dropped gently onto the baby’s forehead.
The baby opened her eyes and grinned at Numa. Then a cascading vision of keys fitting into locks passed over Numa’s eyes as all the mysteries of the universe were solved before them and everything fell into its perfect place.
“For once, I understand,” she heard herself say as she smiled back at the baby. “You are Toa. My child.”
Numa’s head swam with recognition. Toa. Her child.
Then suddenly Numa was flying, but not through space. Instead, she moved quickly through time. First backward, then forward.
She saw herself go back three years and place her beloved child on a dirty street in Tolnick, next to a sleeping Tatparo. “Care for her as your own until we are reunited,” she whispered into his dreams.
Then she was with the Future Teller again. But Numa saw herself in two. The one, lying on the ground by the fire, having the vision. And the other, the future Numa who had given birth and then traveled to the past. This other knelt before the Future Teller, her eyes filled with desperation and rimmed with sorrow. “Make me forget,” she pleaded with the old woman. “Take away this perception of separation until it is no more.”
Then Numa saw the whirlwinds of flame spinning in front of her eyes again and she flew to the future. She watched Toa age before her eyes, moving through childhood and adolescence. When she became a young woman, Numa placed the crown of Todor upon her head. Then Numa spoke to the people of Todor. “At last,” she said, “you will be ruled by Oneness.”
All too quickly, the vision disappeared.
Numa sat up, gasping. “Toa,” she said, looking around the room as though she would somehow find her there.
“Be still, child,” the old woman said, reaching through the fire to gently squeeze Numa’s hand.
“I am a mother. Toa is my daughter?”
“Yours and Gemynd’s and Soman’s.”
“I don’t understand how that is possible.”
“You will.”
“I must see her,” Numa said, pushing herself to her feet.
“You will,” the old woman said again. “But first you have more questions.”
“Why did I give her to Tatparo?” Numa asked, a searing pain tearing through her heart. She thumped her chest with her fist. “Why would I do this to myself?”
“Why, indeed, child? Why would any mother ever break her own heart?”
Numa looked at the flames that danced in the firepit, but all she could see was the image of herself leaving Toa with Tatparo. “I must come to believe it is what’s best for her.”
The Future Teller squeezed Numa’s hand again. “You come to believe it is what’s best for all of Todor.”
Numa blinked and felt tears run down her cheeks. “It must be one of those moments where choosing Oneness feels like suffering.”
“More than that, it is a rare moment where choosing Oneness means separation.”
“Those moments are not nearly rare enough,” Numa said, thinking back on her life.
“Do you understand what Toa is?”
“She is everything. My daughter. The future queen of Todor.”
“Can you not see all that she truly is?” The Future Teller leaned forward, her eyes filled with raw passion. “My dear, Toa is the very embodiment of Oneness. She is Empyrean, Iturtian, and Zobanite combined. Her existence marks the beginning of a Todor that will never again know separation.”
Suddenly, Numa understood. “In order for her to lead Todor to Oneness, she needed to have memories of suffering. She needed to live through the horrors of her childhood in Tolnick. She needed to witness for herself the separation of the races, and her own separation from her loved ones.”
“It is necessary that she perceive these things so she can always make choices that sustain Oneness. If she did not know suffering and separation, how could she choose otherwise?”
Numa pressed her lips together, a deep sadness filling her. “I do not look forward to the day when I must make that decision.”
“You are Empyrean. Take heart in knowing that you have already made it.”
Numa stepped from the Future Teller’s shack into the blackness. She could not see which way to go, and so she closed her eyes and felt for Toa’s Lifeforce. She found it immediately and allowed it to pull her. Numa pictured Toa’s sweet face, and her heart soared with Joy. She could not wait to hold her daughter in her arms.
The movement through blackness seemed to last an eternity. Numa felt certain that days, maybe weeks, had passed by. Then she reminded herself that time--like all aspects of form--was only a matter of perception.
Numa stopped walking and, even though there was nothing to see, she closed her eyes. She put all her concentration on feeling the Lifeforce within and around her. She knew that when she moved people from one location to another, she was actually not moving them at all, but shifting her own perception to see them in the new location. “This is what Radine’s been telling me all along. Everything for an Empyrean is just a matter of perception,” she said aloud, keeping her eyes closed. “I can shift my perception of time just as I do with location.”
Numa let herself feel the Lifeforce of Turiya and that of Toa all at once. She imagined in her mind the moment she would find Toa, then willed herself to the moment just before it. As eager as she was to hold Toa, she wanted to collect her thoughts first.
When Numa opened her eyes, the darkness was lifting. The sky was filled with a silvery light and Numa could now see the landscape of this place of the Skalja. The ground was covered with a grey powder that made small paths around rows and rows of what appeared to be garbage mounds.
Just ahead an outline of a man stood with his back to Numa. Although he was just a wispy, grey outline, Numa felt there was a familiarity to his posture. She took a few more steps towards him and everything about him began to look familiar. Her heart simultaneously surged with Joy and dread.
“Gemynd?” she whispered. She longed to see him, but if he was in Skalja this way, it could only mean he had died somewhere in Todor.
The man turned slowly and when their eyes met, Numa felt an ache through to her core. “Daughter,” Golath said, pressing his lips together in a sad smile.
“Golath!” Numa exclaimed and flung herself at him, her arms open wide. He was the only father she’d ever known and she had not realized until now how much she missed him. But her arms passed right through him with no more resistance than the air itself.
“To the living, there is never enough substance to an essence to be perceived through touch,” Golath explained. His voice was exactly as she’d remembered. “As much as I’d love to embrace you, daughter, I prefer knowing that you are still alive.”
For a brief moment, Numa thought about reminding him that she could not die, but it didn’t feel like the right time for that discussion. There was so much else she wanted to say. “I have missed you,” she said. “Todor is not the same without you. Gemynd is not the same.”
“Is he here with you?”
&
nbsp; “No.” Numa looked down at the ashy ground between them. “I don’t know where he is. He did something that I fear may have been his final destruction.”
“He is not here and therefore must still be alive. Where there is Life, there is always Hope.” Golath reached his arm out to take Numa’s hand, but then pulled it back when he remembered it would not make contact.
“He loves you more than he hates himself. I am certain of that,” another voice spoke and Numa looked up to see Molly step from behind Golath.
“Of course you are here,” Numa said and studied the other woman for several moments. So recently, she had felt such venomous anger towards Molly that she had hoped to never hear her name spoken again. But now Numa was in the presence of the woman and felt only sympathy and deep understanding.
“You passed through the Gate of Forgiveness,” Molly said, clearly reading Numa’s emotions. “As did I. Everything that needs it is forgiven when it passes through the gate. Golath forgave me for what I did to him, just as I forgave Gemynd and you for my death.”
“And I have apparently forgiven you,” Numa said. “It is a wonderful feeling.”
“The best part is that the gate gives us all the gift of forgiving ourselves.”
Numa smiled, true Joy filling her heart at the sight of Gemynd’s parents spending eternity in love together. “It seems only right that the two of you be the first to hear my news.”
“What news?”
“I have just discovered that I have a daughter. Well, I will have one. She came with me to Skalja only I didn’t know she was my daughter at the time. Now that I know, I am desperate to find her and hold her.”
Molly blinked at Numa. “Did you say that you will have a daughter, but she came with you to Skalja?”
“Toa,” Golath said, somehow understanding immediately.
Numa nodded as a tear fell down her cheek. “She is your granddaughter.”
“I won’t pretend to have any idea exactly what you mean, but I understand the word ‘granddaughter’.” Molly beamed and reached out to touch Numa’s cheek, though she didn’t feel it.
Unity: The Todor Trilogy, Book Three Page 19
