The Footsteps of Cain
Page 38
When his head cleared a few seconds later, he was on his back, having no actual memory of falling back down. The side of his head was pulsing, kicking him with every beat of his heart. He thrashed his arms out, madly, looking to defend himself against the next attack...the one that would end his life.
Yet, all his hands found was air. The attack never came.
He opened his eyes and looked up.
Shaleer was standing over him. In his right hand was Ejelano’s hunting knife.
* * *
Chapter 54 – Ejelano
“I’m so tired, Ejelano,” Shaleer said. “So weary...of all of it. I swear by all that is good in this world, by all the things that I am not, that I can barely find the strength to move.”
Shaleer was scratched and bleeding, obviously unsteady on his feet. He was staring wistfully at the knife in his hand with an expression the likes of which Ejelano had rarely seen on another human face, but nevertheless understood well. Sadness, fathoms deep. Regret. And above all, self-hatred.
“I can’t forgive myself for what I’ve done,” he said. “I don’t deserve it. The only thing I deserve,” at this he ran a thumb along the blade, wincing slightly as he drew a trickle of blood, “is this.”
As Ejelano looked on him, he saw something that he hadn’t seen in what felt like an immeasurably long time. Quite unexpectedly, he didn’t feel the smoldering rod of hate in his spine that had fused his dreams of vengeance to Shaleer. He wanted to, but it had liquefied and drained away, and he was left only with a sentiment that he would never have dreamed could exist again in the same mental space as the man he’d loathed for so long.
Pity.
He pitied Shaleer, in spite of it all. For the boy who hadn’t really known the love of his mother and father, the older child who’d almost starved in the forest when tested with his first hunt. The young man whom the women had looked ever away from. He was the sprout that had come up under the wilting shade of the trunks of other, more fortunate, sun-stealing trees, and because of this he’d grown twisted and sickly. He’d never gotten the chance to unfurl himself in the golden warmth that Ejelano had taken so much for granted.
For eons he’d wished only to grind even the memory of the man into fine powder, to remove his very concept from the world.
Now Ejelano saw that Shaleer felt the same way about himself.
“Shaleer,” he said, panting. “Don’t. You won’t get what you want from it. That way isn’t the one to freedom.”
“Oh?” Shaleer replied, looking at him. His face sagged with melancholy and sarcasm. “And what do you know of it? Ejelano, the privileged. You don’t know how long I’ve desired the blade, how long I sought only the shadows of nothingness. I’ve walked a million miles, over an expanse of years that no man should ever see. I’ve placed a footprint on every square foot of earth, a thousand times over. What could you possibly know of it?”
“I know,” Ejelano said. “I’ve walked those miles, placed those same footprints. And I am here, also. Now, I can see the light. Now, I understand the machine behind this...all of this.” He got to his feet, his head hammering. He held out a hand. “Please...let me show it to you.”
“You see the light. How so typically...fortunate...for you. Well, Ejelano, let me say that, as one who came up in darkness, my eyes are unfit for your ‘light’, and my nature rejects it. You say that you’ve lived the same life as I? That the path that stretches out behind you rivals mine?”
Shaleer cocked his head.
“Well, then you, of all people, should understand this.”
In a swift motion, Shaleer brought up the knife to his own throat and slashed viciously across it. The blade bit deep, entering on one side, just under his jaw, and ripping his skin all the way clear to the other.
“No!” Ejelano screamed.
Shaleer’s blood cascaded down like a waterfall. It spread, covering his chest, eventually making its way down to the floor where it rapidly grew to a large pool. Ejelano had seen so much blood in his time on the planet, but seeing it gush out of the man he’d once cared so much for...it freshened and sharpened his dismay.
Shaleer’s face expressed a seemingly contradictory clash of pain and exultation. He began to sway on his feet, as the crimson cascade made its way down.
“Finally...free....” he coughed.
The mortally wounded man fell heavily to his knees, and Ejelano’s knife fell from his weakening hand. Shaleer’s body carried forward and slumped against the sharpening stone, painting it red with blood as it had been before, countless times, in Ejelano’s waking dreams. Shaleer’s pallid face was turned in his direction, and so Ejelano could plainly see how the dying man’s eyes were losing their focus, or perhaps focusing on something that Ejelano could not see, himself.
“Finally...fr—”
Shaleer’s peaceful expression suddenly writhed and twisted, contorted into a mask of horror.
“No!” he moaned. “No...not again! Not...again!” His voice was losing the last of its strength. “Not....”
It was then that Shaleer’s life left his body...this body...and it sank down onto the rock as all his muscles slackened. The only part of his form that didn’t relax in death were his eyes. While all the rest of him settled, they remained open and staring, like there was something sinister in the corner of the hut that lay coiled in wait for him, and he’d only just glimpsed it before he’d been frozen by his demise. Ejelano looked upon his childhood friend’s face, and was disturbed to his core by the quiet terror he saw there.
Then, he remembered her.
Lena!
He rushed to her, and gingerly rolled her over. There was blood in her hair. He flashed back to the day he’d pushed her against the rock himself, and he started to panic, fearing the worst.
No, not again!
It was then that he realized...it wasn’t her blood. It was Shaleer’s, trickling down and staining her dark locks...not her own. Her head had been resting in a puddle of it.
He lifted her up and, unbelievably, saw her eyes flutter and open! Seeing her alive was like a deep breath after so many years of suffocating oxygen deprivation. His relief rushed through him and he brought her close and hugged her, rocking...weeping with joy. He felt her arms encircle him as well, and in the bosom of that moment, he knew the deepest happiness he’d ever experienced, after so long having forgotten the taste of it. He laughed and cried at the same time, and the past and future melted away...dissolved by the ecstasy of those precious few seconds.
“You...you did it,” she whispered. “You made the right choice. Oh, my love, you did it....”
“It took me so long to learn,” he returned. “I’ve been so stupid. So...lost.” He felt a surge of guilt wrack his body. “Oh, Lena...I’m so sorry...I know I don’t deserve you...not after what I did. I was so angry...so confused. You committed no crime. I forgot myself for only a blink, and then I’d lost you! I hated myself for it! I still...hate myself, for it....”
“None of it matters, now. We can go forward.”
“The spirit held you from me, for so long! It put you to the flames, and I could do nothing!”
“But now, I am free,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “It was you who paid the greater price.”
He cupped her cheek with a weathered palm.
“I’ve missed you, so much,” he whispered. “I can’t be without you...not ever again. You’re my life.”
She pulled back from him and looked into his eyes...into the deepest parts of him. Her deep brown irises were tender and joyful.
“We must part again...but only for a short while. Soon we won’t have to bear the thought of being apart, ever again.”
“No!” He clutched at her, and felt a twinge of that old, familiar panic. “I won’t let you go! Not ever again!”
“Ejelano, your task is over. No evil can touch you. You have nothing to fear. But now, your presence is required. You know where I will be...where I’ve always been waiting.”
And then, she was gone and he was only holding empty air. There was a cool breeze on his face, and his hands dropped to his lap. When he opened his eyes, the hut had vanished, and again he was outside, on the bare patch where the illfated Spire had once stood. The island of earth, the only solid ground in a seemingly infinite span of White, had shrunk even further to an alarming radius from him, maybe twenty paces or so in every direction.
“Are you there?” he asked the air.
YES I AM. AND MAY I SAY THAT, FOR A BIG, SCARY BAD-ASS, YOU SURE DO CRY A LOT.
* * *
Chapter 55 – Ejelano
Ejelano smiled despite himself, and shook his head.
HA! AFTER ALL THIS TIME, I FINALLY MADE YOU LAUGH. I TOLD YOU I WAS FUNNY.
He nodded, sighing. Then he grew serious.
“I’ve done this before.”
YES.
“How many times?”
YOU WANT THE EXACT NUMBER? I THINK THE COUNT WAS UP TO...LET ME SEE...THREE HUNDRED SIXTY SEVEN. NO...SIXTY EIGHT. THREE HUNDRED SIXTY EIGHT. TOOK YOU A WHILE TO FIGURE THINGS OUT.
“I killed the world, three hundred and sixty eight times. And each time, twenty thousand years.”
OR THEREABOUTS. IT VARIED A BIT, EACH TIME. NEED A CALCULATOR?
“But how? How can that be?”
The voice paused.
I THINK YOU KNOW.
Ejelano peered off into the distance, into the impenetrable depths of the White.
“This...isn’t my world.”
The spirit shrugged, inside his head.
“And the things I’ve seen...the things that I couldn’t explain to myself...after witnessing them for so long, I never stopped to wonder how they could come to be. I never questioned them.”
RIGHT. THAT’S AN ADVANTAGE OF PLUCKING YOU FROM SUCH A PRIMITIVE TIME; YOU KNUCKLE-DRAGGERS HAVE QUITE A MYTHOLOGY BUILT UP FOR YOURSELVES ALREADY. YOU’RE SUCKERS FOR THE SUPERNATURAL. AND IT’S A GOOD THING, TOO.
SEE, IN THIS PLACE, BELIEF IS PRETTY IMPORTANT. THE MOST IMPORTANT, ACTUALLY. WITHOUT IT, THERE’S NO GLUE TO KEEP IT STICKING TOGETHER. YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE JUST...BELIEVE...ALMOST BY INSTINCT. OF COURSE, THERE ARE LIMITS, EVEN FOR YOU.
Ejelano’s thoughts suddenly flashed back to the two people on the wall, the man and the woman. They’d vanished before his very eyes. It hadn’t been just a clever trick or illusion. One moment they’d been standing there, seemingly accepting their encroaching demise, and then they’d simply...ceased to be. He’d never seen anything like it, and it had perplexed him, greatly.
YEAH, THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE. IF YOU HADN’T BEEN BUSY, YOU MIGHT’VE FIGURED IT OUT TOO EARLY, AND THEN THE WHOLE EXERCISE WOULD HAVE BEEN FORFEIT. YOU’LL NEVER KNOW JUST HOW CLOSE YOU CAME TO BEING TRAPPED HERE...SPENDING AN ETERNITY ESSENTIALLY WATCHING PAINT DRY. BORING, WHITE PAINT.
“And so, the two on the wall...?”
SAM, AND KELLY. THOSE WERE THEIR NAMES.
“They were....”
WIPED AWAY, JUST LIKE MANY OF THEIR FRIENDS BEFORE THEM. THAT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. EVERY OTHER THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES YOU’VE DONE THIS, EVERYTHING HELD TOGETHER REAL NICE, ALL THE WAY TO THE END WHEN YOU’D TRAGICALLY FUCK IT UP AND REPEAT THE MISTAKE THAT GOT YOU HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, ULTIMATELY PROVING THAT YOU HADN’T LEARNED A DAMN THING.
BUT, THIS TIME, SOMETHING WENT WRONG BACK AT THE OFFICE. THE FABRIC...THE MATERIAL THAT THIS WHOLE THING IS MADE OF? THIS TIME, THERE WAS A FLAW IN IT. IT WAS SO SMALL THAT WE DIDN’T SEE IT...SO SMALL THAT TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS WENT BY UNTIL IT STARTED TO MANIFEST IN THE WORLD AND FUCK WITH ITS STABILITY. BUT, BY THEN, IT WAS WAY TOO LATE TO RESET THINGS WITHOUT RISKING YOU. YOU CAN BET WE’LL BE INVESTIGATING THAT, BY THE WAY.
SAM, KELLY, AND THEIR PEOPLE WERE ALL BORN WITH THIS INHERENT “FLAW”, BECAUSE THEY WERE MADE OF THE SAME STUFF AS EVERYTHING ELSE. EVEN IN THE WOMB, AS SOON AS THEY WERE ASSIGNED SENTIENCE, THEY GOT A GLIMPSE OF THE TRUE NATURE OF THEIR REALITY...AND THEREFORE THEIR EXISTENCE. AS A RESULT, THE FLAW WAS REPLICATED IN THEIR SUBCONSCIOUS BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN BORN.
“You mean...doubt. That’s what the flaw is; you’re talking about doubt.”
In his mind, a head nodded.
AT A HIGH LEVEL, THEY DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS THERE, BUT IT WAS...BURIED DEEP...AND OVER THE COURSE OF THEIR LIVES IT GREW AND FED THEIR SKEPTICISM, TO DIFFERING EXTENTS. IT EVEN GOT SO BAD THAT IT INVADED OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MATERIAL; IT COALESCED INSIDE A FUCKING COMPUTER, OF ALL THINGS. NATURALLY, THEY DISCOVERED IT, WHICH ONLY ADDED TO THE TUMBLING SNOWBALL OF THE PROBLEM.
“Couldn’t you just...get rid of them? Delete them?”
LIKE I SAID, ONCE THE MACHINE IS SET IN MOTION, IT HAS TO RUN ITS COURSE, OR ELSE THERE’S A RISK OF LOSING THE SUBJECT INSIDE IT.
Ejelano nodded, comprehending.
“If you’d tampered with it, I’d have known.”
THUS TAMPERING WITH YOUR BELIEF. BESIDES, THIS WOULDN’T BE MUCH OF A CONVINCING STAGE ON WHICH TO PERFORM (NOT TO MENTION A PRETTY PISS-POOR TEACHING MECHANISM FOR YOU SPECIFICALLY) IF THERE WEREN’T ANY FUCKING PEOPLE AROUND. BUT SEE, THAT’S THE PROBLEM. THAT’S WHAT MADE THE FLAW SO DANGEROUS. TO BE TRULY CONVINCING...FOR YOU, THE SUBJECT, TO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER IN THE SOLIDITY OF THE WORLD YOU INTERACT WITH, THE INHABITANTS MUST ALSO BE UTTERLY CONVINCING. THEY NEED TO THINK AND ACT EXACTLY LIKE YOU’D EXPECT.
“They need thoughts...feelings....”
A switch flipped in his brain, and the last piece fell into the puzzle he’d been trying to solve since the appearance of the White.
“They need their own capacity for belief.”
PRECISELY. THE MACHINE CAN’T KNOW IT’S A MACHINE. THINK OF IT AS A KIND OF ORGANIC, RECURSIVE TURING TEST.
Ejelano’s brow furrowed. Of course, the spirit sensed his confusion.
SORRY...THAT’S THE OTHER WORLD. WHAT I MEAN IS THAT THIS ARTIFICIAL THING HAS TO BE SO PERSUASIVE AS BEING “REAL” THAT THE MECHANISM ITSELF...POSSESSING THE CHARACTERISTIC OF FREE CHOICE (THE ABILITY TO BELIEVE OR NOT) AND THEREBY MORE GENUINELY MIMIC THE WORLD YOU KNEW IN ORDER FOR YOU TO CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN IT...MUST ALSO CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN ITSELF. IF IT DOES NOT, THEN IT CAN’T EXIST. EVERYTHING COMES UNGLUED.
THAT’S WHAT THE WHITE IS. THE RESULT OF A RUINED ILLUSION. IT’S THE STUFF BEHIND THE CURTAIN, BUT ALSO THE STUFF THE CURTAIN’S MADE OF. I KNOW, THE WHOLE THING IS A REAL, SNAKE-EATING-ITS-OWN-TAIL KIND OF MINDFUCK. BUT IT WORKS. I MEAN, USUALLY.
“So this ‘flaw’ wouldn’t have been a problem, by itself. In a vacuum, I mean. It needed self-awareness. Choice. The flaw attached to it...like a virus.”
WE DON’T KNOW FOR SURE, BUT THAT WOULD EXPLAIN IT. PERSONALLY, I WOULDN’T HAVE INCLUDED FREE WILL IN THE FIRST PLACE. IT WOULD HAVE AVOIDED A LOT OF ISSUES, THAT’S FOR DAMN SURE. BUT, THE DECISION WASN’T UP TO ME.
Ejelano cradled his head in his hands.
“This is almost too much to take in.”
I KNOW. YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO KNOW ANY OF THIS.
He dropped his hands to his lap. His thoughts went to his life before his mistake...the life in the simple village that he’d enjoyed, doing simple things and enjoying simple pleasures. Providing. Living. The sun coming down through the boughs of the forest to warm his face. The gulf of ignorance between the “then” he had known, and the “now” of what he’d discovered...the sheer vastness of it...made his head spin.
“There are still some things I don’t understand.”
WHAT THE FUCK? GO FOR IT. AT THIS POINT, KNOWING A LITTLE MORE WON’T HURT YOU.
“How did I get here? And why can’t I remember the other three hundred and sixty-seven times I’ve been through this?”
THE ANSWER TO THE LATTER, YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. I TOLD YOU; I HELP YOU FORGET. THAT
’S PART OF MY JOB. YOU’D GET TO THE END OF ONE, FUCK IT UP, AND I’D WIPE YOU CLEAN AND SET YOU BACK DOWN ON SQUARE ONE, ALL THE TIME WAITING FOR YOU TO GET IT RIGHT. THIS WAS, SADLY, A LESSON YOU HAD TO LEARN BY “DOING”.
AS FOR HOW YOU GOT HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? THAT’S EASY: YOU GOT HERE THE INSTANT YOU DIED.
Ejelano shook his head, stunned by the spirit’s answer.
“What do you mean? I never died.”
OH YEAH YOU DID. HARD. THE SECOND THEY CUT YOUR FUCKING HEART OUT. GO FIGURE, RIGHT?
It was something that Ejelano had thought about, often, over the last twenty thousand years (and probably, it stood to reason, over the previous three hundred and sixty-seven cycles)...the cold steel of Olhando’s blade biting into his flesh...the agony of having the organ excised from his body. And after...what?
His senses...dulling.
He gasped.
His first contact with....
WITH YOURS TRULY.
His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open at the revelation.
“If what you’re saying is true...if I was brought here after I died, then everything that I remember happening afterward....”
HAPPENED HERE.
“And that means...the village...it wasn’t destroyed!”
GIVE THE MAN A PRIZE. AFTER WE FLIPPED THE SWITCH AND BROUGHT YOU OVER, EVERY REPLICA WAS PREPARED FOR YOU. THE VILLAGE, YOUR PEOPLE...ALL ESSENTIAL FOR TWO SPECIFIC REASONS:
THE FIRST, FOR YOU TO ACCEPT YOUR NEW SURROUNDINGS, TO LUBRICATE YOUR TRANSITION INTO YOUR REHABILITATION AND PRESERVE YOUR BLISSFUL IGNORANCE.
THE SECOND?
YOU WERE TAKEN HERE TO SUFFER, EJELANO, AND THROUGH YOUR SUFFERING, SUBCONSCIOUSLY LEARN THE LESSON. PAIN IS THE BEST TEACHER THERE IS. FOR YOU, IT HAD TO START WITH A PERCEPTION THAT EVERYTHING YOU HELD DEAR HAD BEEN ANNIHILATED, AND THAT YOU WERE THE CAUSE OF THAT. LOSING WHAT YOU DID WOULD PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE ALL THE DEATHS YOU WOULD CAUSE AFTERWARD...MAKE THEM BITE A LITTLE BIT DEEPER. IS THAT SADISTIC? OF COURSE. BUT HAVE NO ILLUSIONS ABOUT THIS: YOU PUT YOURSELF HERE. NO ONE COMMITTED YOUR CRIME BUT YOU, AND SO YOU MUST BE THE ONE TO PAY THE PENALTY.