"So be it."
Kilton stood up, and with a renewed paradigm, faced the maligned Source oozing freely 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 plunged 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 finally reached the vast lake of Source stored below the Provider's extensive root system, the flow of healthy Source 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 was calmed by the presence of Steffor seconds before exploding his being into the negative energy destroying the Provider from within.
*****
Dazed and confused, his eyes still adjusting to the strange light permeating from everywhere yet originating from nowhere, Steffor got to his feet and studied the thorny hedge. The organic wall, adroitly pleached from a species of bush he could not identify, was about ten yards wide. He craned his neck and followed the wall over a hundred feet before it disappeared into a ceiling of dense gray clouds.
Steffor turned around and peered down a long trail with no end in sight. Carpeted by a spongy green, short turf and framed by sinister hedgerows extending from the sides of the dead end wall, the trail presented the only means of exit. I guess it is intended I go this way.
With peevish determination, Steffor started down the path. Moments into his walk, the amnesic residue coating his befuddled mind—a condition disconcertingly familiar to how he felt moments after he emerged from Calivera's table—dissipated and as it did, he became cognizant his staff’s absence. His confusion was compounded when, while frantically searching for the staff in the vain hope that it might be secretly stowed within his garments, he realized his Guardian garments had been replaced by a strange silver colored singlet. Skin tight but barely perceptible to the touch, the narrow v-neck suit exposed shoulders and legs just above the knees.
What is this place? Why am I so......slow on the uptake? The moment he stood up his senses would have normally logged the texture, smell and color of the weird lawn. By the first step, he could estimate the length of each blade within hundredths of inch. Why now, having traveled over a hundred yards did he struggle to register any of these basic senses, let alone just now realizing he was barefoot and no longer wearing the garments that had not left his body since becoming a Guardian.
On impulse, Steffor extended his right arm and tried to shift a pulse of the Source. Nothing. The Source surrounds this place but something blocks me from shifting it. He searched for the Deeds in the hope they might reveal some precedent to what he now experienced and could not locate the Mysticnet to access them. Steffor sat down, crossed his legs and closed his eyes. Reach past yourself, find the Provider, he told himself as he began to meditate. Clearing his mind as he had trained to do his entire life, he opened his heart. Due to altered sense of time, he could not decipher how long he meditated but certain it was well past the normal amount of time required to open a connection with the Provider.
For the first time in his life, Steffor panicked in earnest. It is all so......stale! Real but lifeless, as if the Source once flowed here and all that remains is an empty shell.
"Have I died?" Steffor asked aloud. No, he told himself, confused as I may be, I know this is not the afterlife.
"You are both right and wrong," said a voice in his head. Steffor jumped to his feet and spun around in search of the owner. "Who said that?"
"Come down the trail a little farther and find out for yourself." The voice had an ominous tone but Steffor knew it was something else about the voice that swirled trepidation in his gut. Steffor headed back down the trail, robbed of the compass that always showed him the direction to go at every crossroads, for the first time believing he had no other choice.
After what Steffor estimated to be a mile, the trail issued into a wide, gradually ascending glade. As Steffor scaled the hill, the grass field continued to expand to his left and right as the gray blanket above rose higher in the sky. Within thirty minutes of steady hiking, the hedgerow walls were but faint arboreal sides to a gray dome. Within the hour, Steffor reached the top of the hill and stopped at its peak to gaze upon a setting that was both strange and familiar.
Like a wave about to curl, the hill was the same height in either direction with a steep decline that fed into dense woodlands. Positioned a thousand feet over the highest tree, Steffor scanned the top of the forest for miles without finding a discernable end; the distant tops blending into the featureless gray backdrop. Despite his eyes not finding it, he innately sensed the mysterious hedgerow encompassing it all.
With just a quick survey of the front line, awed by the wide variety of species contained within the forest, Steffor soon lost count of all the different species. Strange as the forest appeared, he recognized characteristics in each species comparable to the many diverse regions within Provider.
Subtle movement caught in his periphery brought his attention to an area directly below, in a small, semi-circle opening within the tree line. A man stood in the middle of the clearing with hands on hips, blatantly watching him. Steffor took in the strange vista for another moment, released a long sigh and then proceeded down the steep incline. Forced to turn his body in a sharp oblique angle and skid awkwardly down the first third of the way down. As he reached the bottom and stood upright again, he looked back toward the clearing but could not locate the stranger anywhere.
Steffor reached the edge of the semi-circle a few minutes later and searched the expansive line of trees within the indent for the person he was both certain he saw moments ago and the owner of the voice that had invaded his mind. The dozens of trees lining the half ring were each different: from rangy, conical firs bristling with abundant evergreen pine needles to stout oaks with sprawling limbs and broad leaf hoods to towering redwoods with its fractals soaring above the rest. The diverse collection of trees had a weird calming effect on Steffor.
His eyes adjusted to the unusual tapestry of intersecting branches, leaves and roots, allowing his sight to penetrate beyond the ring. To his left, his eyes detected a blur of activity followed by the familiar crack one makes when walking on a debris littered floor. In no mood for games, Steffor bound over to the spot in a few strides and halted before a squat, menacing looking tree. The trunk, a thirty foot wide sorbed mass of limbs, rose but ten feet before its six serpentine boughs coiled up and away from its top. An enveloping network of gnarled branches that sprouted from the main boughs accentuated its threatening appearance.
"This one is my favorite!" Steffor looked through the enclosure of tangled branches and found the stranger casually leaning against the trunk. Dressed in the exact same body suit, the man was observing Steffor's reaction to his sudden appearance with a coy smile.
"Who are you? Did you bring me to this place?"
The stranger pushed off the trunk and stepped forward with a theatrical air. "I am Raistan, God of Fury, Ruler of the Six. No, I did not bring you to this wonderful haven. But I have been expecting you."
"How is it that you have been expecting me?" Steffor asked cautiously. This man is dangerous! Do not let your guard down, Steffor thought despite Raistan's unassuming appearance. Just tall enough to be above average for a Citizen, Raistan could have been a
striking figure in his youth, but those days were long past. Aged and gray like Kilton but Raistan was paunchy and sallow.
"The same way you sense I am dangerous, despite me not being the physical specimen such as yourself or your friend, how do you pronounce it...Kill-tun." The smile on Raistan's grew as he appeared to relish Steffor's elevated confusion.
"We are the same, you and me. Did you realize that?" Raistan said before Steffor could compose a reply.
"I can honestly say I didn't. Please enlighten me." Figure it out Steffor, he will not string you along for much longer. The sudden ability to sense what the other was thinking and feeling disturbed Steffor more than the potential threat posed to his physical well-being.
"Alright, I think it only appropriate you understand from which you came so that you too can make an informed decision. But first, let’s get acquainted." Before Steffor could flinch, the web of branches nearest him shot out with ferocious speed and knocked him facedown against the turf. Like rangy fingers, the branches cocooned around his body, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to move. Once securely immobilized, the branches swiftly swung him around to face Raistan.
Raistan stepped close to Steffor's face. His chin quivered as he sneered, emoting a dangerous concoction of hostility and delight. With violent force, Raistan smacked him across the face then cupped his chin with a quick upper cut and squeezed his cheeks. "Oh, how I hate you brother!" his body shook as he sprayed Steffor's face with the acrid words. Worst of it all, Steffor experienced Raistan's hatred as if it were his own.
"Truly sickening...isn't it?" Raistan said, taking a step back as he shoved Steffor's head with a last second rake of his fingers. "To feel the energy of a soul that utterly repulses your core essence, as if it were your own." The gravel voice had regained its composure but anger still lurked on the fringes, ready to strike without warning.
A wave of painful dry heaves wracked Steffor’s body. Sickening does not give the sensation justice, Steffor thought with despair. "Indeed, the feeling is most unwelcome," he honestly replied once composed.
Raistan laughed, a laughter that brought tears to tender eyes that belied the evil within. "Yes, most unwelcome," he said.
He studied Steffor as the last few intermittent chuckles subsided. For a moment, Steffor sensed compassion in the man as sneer transformed into an amicable grin. Then, with no warning, Raistan lunged at Steffor, smashing right fist into his nose. A barrage of punches followed, snapping his defenseless head in every direction. After the first half dozen, audible "cracks", Steffor lost track of how many times he heard bones break in his face. Blood flowed freely from his nose and gashes, blurring his vision and causing him to gag with each breath.
"Wow, you are built solid," Raistan said as he turned away, out of breath and shaking the feeling back into his hands. "The pain is real here, more tolerable for some reason but real all the same." He was pacing now, moving from the trunk to Steffor. "For example, this women's ability to hold on to life is unprecedented in all my years of torture." He pointed at a section of branches behind the trunk with an upheld left hand, commanding them to do his bidding. Working as a whole they swept around the trunk to present Leanor.
"Fourteen punctures! Can you believe that? I once reached eleven with a spry juvenile but I prolonged that one on purpose, cautious not to pierce any major organs or arteries. But this one...well...this one started as an experiment and evolved into a curiosity." Elevated a few feet off the ground, needle tipped, barbed branches suspended Leanor’s body a few feet off the ground. The wicked branches pierced her body, torturously weaving in and out of flesh and bone to spread arms and legs taut.
The morbid scene threatened to consume Steffor's last shred of resolve. He searched Leonor's face for some sign of life and detected a slight rise in her chest. As if sensing his desperate probe, Leonor opened her eyes and stared hard at Steffor with surprising strength. "None of this is real Steffor! No matter what happens here, we will all live on through you."
"Shut up!" Raistan shouted, commanding a thick branch from above with a swift, downward swing of his fist, bludgeoning Leonor across the head. Death was instant as the blow caved in her skull. Yet he still raged at her, yelling, "This is all too real! You speak of which you do not understand!"
Panting with rage, Raistan wheeled around and rushed at Steffor. He braced himself for another beating but Raistan pulled up at the last second and chose to berate him with words instead. "Don't believe her, this is as real as it gets for you and me. Once it is done stringing us along and no longer has any use for us, what do you think will happen?"
"What are you talking about," Steffor gritted through tears and blood. Leonor was a good person, this I am sure. And what of Calivera? How were they separated? Why is she even here? The mystery behind the woman that was once Mystic only grew with her death.
"You really don't know, do you?" Raistan tilted his head to the side, looking at Steffor with renewed interest and a modicum of pity. He sensed pure joy well up inside the man, repulsed by the realization that the source was his pain and anguish. "I could become addicted to you," Raistan said in an impetuous whisper.
He broke his trance on Steffor, turning his back to him to resume his demented pacing. "I apologize for making some broad swooping assumptions. Let’s back up and connect the pieces, shall we?"
Steffor was no longer paying attention. Instead, he replayed Leonor's dying words in his head, finding strength in their repetition. This is not real. Life continues with me.
A branch pushed him under the chin, forcing him to look up. "Pay attention to me, this is important." Steffor looked at Raistan through slit eyelids. He stood next to Leonor, inspecting her body. "At first, the sudden appearance of this woman and..." with two swift motions of hands and arms, the branches swung back around the trunk while a new set came around carrying Calivera, "...this one was a mystery."
"Steffor," Calivera spoke his name with relief and the same palpable passion he heard at their last parting. The shock of seeing Calivera shattered all attempts to escape from this cruel and unwanted reality. Anger, an emotion laid dormant for countless lifetimes, erupted with primal force, restoring his will to fight.
"Release her!" Steffor roared with such ferocity Raistan flinched.
"That's the spirit! Fan those embers deep inside. Trust me, you are just getting started."
Regretful for the outburst, Steffor tried to calm himself as he studied Calivera's condition. Outside of few scratches, she appeared to be unharmed. Wicked branches wrapped around her arms and legs and suspended her in a spread eagle position similar to Leonor, only not as tight. Clearly frightened, the look of resolve in her eyes gave Steffor hope.
"My ability to resist the charms of this one has been very limited," Raistan said, looking up and down Calivera's body with a lustful leer. "She's got the entire package, the body, the face but it is her energy source that is driving me mad. So pure, it’s like a beacon to me, begging to be molested. If that other one had not been so peculiar, I would have started on her long ago."
Keep him away from Calivera that is all that matters now. He wants me or something from me. Give him what he wants.
"You are correct Steffor, I want something from you," Raistan said without taking his eyes off Calivera. He then pointed at Calivera with his left index finger and in doing so released a thin branch from the group coiled around her right arm. The branch snaked the length of her body, the razor sharp end randomly cutting along the surface of her tunic, leaving a trail of small lacerations as it moved before Calivera's trembling face.
"Stop! I will tell you whatever you want to know, just don't hurt her," Steffor pleaded. The branch stopped moving but it remained poised inches from Calivera's face.
"Good. Now we can make some progress before we run out of time," Raistan said, briefly looking up to the sky before he turned back to Steffor. Steffor followed his gaze and could have sworn, though the lighting remained the same artificial mid-day bright
ness, that the clouds had gotten several shades darker. "It will not tolerate my being here much longer. For that matter, neither of us belongs here anymore."
"What do you mean by it?"
"The inter-dimensional power that is connected to everything, the being that makes the laws we live by and can change them as it sees fit. The very creator of our world."
"Do you mean the Provider?"
"The what? Wait, you actually have a name for it....fascinating. Tell me, does this Provider communicate to you in any quantifiable way?"
"The Deeds record all life experiences and are available to all Citizens to learn from. Is this what you mean by quantifiable?"
"Yes. Yes! What about its energy, can you manipulate it to do your bidding?"
"Yes, we call it shifting."
"Can anyone shift?"
"Yes, but the skill and ability varies according to the person's race and life experience."
"Fascinating!"
From their shared connection, Steffor knew Raistan's fascination was real. How is it he knows nothing of the Provider? We are cut from the same cloth, him and me, this I cannot deny. But where does he hail from that is so similar but so foreign.
"I hail from the other side, from your Provider's twin." Steffor stared at Raistan in disbelief even as the explanation began to answer his soul's deepest questions.
"Just as I am your twin." A new type of smile crossed Raistan's face as he watched the undeniable reality sink into Steffor's heart.
"When I recently arrived here, instinct told me this was our birth place, where it, we, our father, our mother, first began to imagine our opposite worlds. It did not take long for the memories of those early lives to surface. Reliving those experiences was...exotic. It was then, as I emerged from the long flashback—forever changed—that the two women appeared atop the hill just as you did. They reeked with your energy. Well at least this one did. The other had traces of your signature, but it was as if she received it vicariously. Most peculiar. But this one, it’s almost as if she swam in the very depths of your soul. It was then that I expected your arrival..."
Known Afterlife (The Provider Trilogy, Volume One) Page 29
