He ducked through what was left of the archway. Vines had so thoroughly encased the stone that Wayran thought the plants might be the only things holding the rocks in place. Roots hung down through the gaps in the cut stones around him, like worms poking through the soil.
As Wayran walked through the doorway and into the temple, he saw how much of the great dome had fallen in, great chunks of the ceiling were littered around the base of the giant oak tree reaching up through the open gap. Rain trickled down through the opening and splattered off the oak tree’s leaves. It was hypnotically peaceful, serene, a temple of earth transformed into yet another temple, but this one of life and time.
Lightning flashed outside, but Wayran didn’t think it was anything like the bolt which had struck inside the city behind them as they had flown away from the battle.
Had that been Matoh? Wayran wondered. He felt he knew it had been his brother. The convergence Wunjo had spoken of had begun.
“We must go below,” Wunjo said, pointing to stone steps on the other side of the great tree. Wayran followed them down along the edge of the great circular room. A small stream, formed from the stormwater, trickled down the stairs into the darkness below.
Wayran heard an odd clicking sound coming from beneath as if metal ants ran along the floor below and whispered in their odd, alien language, yet he continued his descent anyway into the bowels of the temple. His leg hurt with every step and his headache had continued to grow ever since his departure from the battle. It was now all he could do to keep focused on the next step in front of him.
Click, click, click. Metal tapped against the stone, again and again. Wayran’s foot found a floor at the end of the stairs, and as he stepped onto that floor, the ceiling above him began to glow softly. It immediately reminded Wayran of the Jendar hull of his uncle’s ship Deliverance. It too had this same otherworldly sheen – light emanating from everywhere without a single focal point.
Beneath that light stood six cloaked figures all of an identical height and build, all with matching sets of spinning red circles within their eyes.
“He has come.” Kenaz’s voice spoke in Wayran’s mind, but Wayran knew it was not just he who had heard the statement.
“And here I will leave you, for I am needed elsewhere tonight,” Wunjo said behind Wayran. He gestured with his open hand to the other metal men in front of him, but his head twitched, accompanied by another horrible internal screech. “Besides, har, har, har, I am no longer welcome in such company, this one is not. No. No. But I serve my role well, do I not, siblings? Tee-hee. ACK!” The angry laughing rant was cut off with another twitch.
The other sets of glowing red-eyes regarded Wunjo silently, and Wayran understood immediately that the metal man who had brought him here was no longer part of this larger community.
“Kenaz is the one on the left with the arrow-head symbol etched into its head. Good luck, Wayran Spierling.” Wunjo nodded to Wayran gravely and left without another word.
“Before this process, or whatever you call it, starts, I want some answers,” Wayran said, pointing his finger at the group with one hand and trying to steady himself against the wall with the other just as a wave of nausea and pain swept over him. He pushed through and reached beneath the armour he still wore and found Mannford’s journal, a book which now never left his side. “What does all of this mean?!” He waved the book at them. “Kali? The visions of destruction I’ve seen, this Tiden Raika that Wunjo spoke of, and these convergences? How does it all tie together? What is going on?!”
The questions kept spilling out, and his heart began to beat faster and faster. Matoh was back there fighting for his life and he, Wayran, had just been whisked away to some strange place seeking questions from things that looked like no more than metal statues. “What am I even doing here?” He coughed, and the hand he had coughed into came away bloody. “What is happening to me? Lady take you all, what in the hells is happening to me?”
With that last question, nausea overwhelmed him, and he felt for a wall, crashed into it and slumped to the ground, sobbing as pain tore into his head.
Kenaz stepped forward, and a metal hand rested gently on his shoulder, a gentle voice spoke into Wayran’s mind. Calm yourself, you will have answers, but first, we must stabilise your condition. Yet, to do so, you will be changed to something more and different than your current self. Do you want to proceed?”
“I’ll die if I don’t, isn’t that right?” Wayran asked.
“Yes, but to die at the time of your choice is something we would not take from you. You must choose the path forward for yourself. We are here to assist either way.” Kenaz knelt beside him, and somehow Wayran saw compassion swirling in those artificial eyes.
The choice was simple in the end. Wayran needed to understand this mystery, he might die trying to understand it, but if there were a way forward, he would take it.
“Do it. Start the process, but I want those answers you spoke of,” Wayran said to Kenaz. He took the metal man's hand and allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet.
“Can you make it to the next room? We have a table there which you will need to lie upon.”
“I can make it,” Wayran said and clamped his jaw against the pain as he walked to the next room, his headache increased its pounding rhythm, “though if we could hurry, I’d appreciate it.”
They made it to the table.
“May we assist you in shedding your outer layers?” Kenaz asked.
Wayran tried to unbuckle the strap at his shoulder to take his armour off and found the movements painful. “Yes, you had better help me.”
Several pairs of metal hands made quick work of stripping him of his armour and clothes. The room had a chill to it, but as soon as he shivered, a jet of warm air blew into the room from an unseen source. Metal hands then lifted him onto the table as if he weighed no more than an infant.
The large table seemed to be made of some warm stone, but as soon as he lay upon it, lights lit up across its surface as if it were an enormous version of the Jendar tablet relics. Numbers, charts, and information began to fill boxes all around him.
He lay down in the body-sized outline and had a moment of panic as the table seemed to mould itself around him and give him a soft, warm embrace. Then, what looked like padded leather straps slithered out of slots beside his wrists, chest and ankles.
“What are the restraints for?” Wayran asked but feared he already knew.
“Your safety,” Kenaz said, now audibly, for which Wayran was thankful as the voice inside his head had not helped his headache in the slightest. “The process we require of you is painful. Your body will try to reject it, and there is a possibility that neither of us will survive this process.”
“Either of us?” Wayran asked, looking at Kenaz.
“Yes, this one said it would accompany you. For you to be able to endure the currents of the Tiden Raika, your body and mind will need to be bolstered, which is part of this one’s purpose. We will need to join together to become a new entity, yet it will not be a joining of equals. This one will strive to augment, protect and assist your current mind and abilities so you will be better able to navigate what is to come. We will become a Padvinder or Path Finder. Once we have joined, we must find a way to end the gambit Father started so long ago.”
The restraints on the table closed around his wrists, ankles and across his chest and hips securing him to the table tightly but comfortably. The other metal-men suddenly became very busy. They attached small white circles with what looked like wires running from them to his head and several other places all over his body.
“They are for monitoring your condition during the process,” Kenaz explained.
A box-like machine with clear, flexible tubes attached to it was rolled to the table beside him, and one of the other metal-men produced a long needle and wiped a spot on the inside of Wayran’s elbow before pausing and looking at him.
“My name is Isa, this one must inject you
with medicines to help stabilise your current situation and to help numb the pain of the next stages. Understood?”
“Yes, do what you need to do, I think I understand,” Wayran said, but wasn’t quite sure he did. He was still trying to process what Kenaz had told him. “Join together?” he said, looking back at Kenaz. “What exactly do you mean?”
Kenaz lifted a hand so Wayran could see it. “The body this one shows you is but one of many base configurations. It has become the form this one identifies with, however ...” As Wayran watched Kenaz’s metal hand, it looked to melt and then blur, as if the hand had broken down into thousands of grains of metallic sand. This flowing metal sand changed shape and reformed into a smooth sphere on the end of Kenaz’s skeletal forearm. “We are composed of billions of tiny machines, and the network of trillions upon trillions of links between these machines give us our intelligence, our individuality, and in essence, our soul.” Kenaz put the sphere onto the table beside Wayran. “If we separate some of these machines from the rest of us …” A small droplet fell from the sphere onto the table, losing its form to look like nothing more than a small pile of shiny sand, “… we divide some of our greater self to occupy multiple bodies.”
The pile of metal sand began to shake, and before Wayran’s eyes, it assembled itself into what looked like a small metal spider.
Kenaz continued, “However, there is a tiny spark of essence within each of our individual component machines. The fewer components linked together, the less complex the being.” The metal spider ran atop the table. “Our greater form can control both parts, as both are part of this one. While this can be useful …” Kenaz paused and put the sphere where its hand used to be to the metal spider, and it changed back into the metal hand and then merged back together as if it had never been separated at all. “When we rejoin, we become more once again.”
“That is amazing.” Wayran marvelled at the implications of what Kenaz had just shown him. It raised a thousand more questions, but his headache pounded them right out of his head.
“Similarly, you and this one will join together to become more than either of us was apart.” Kenaz paused. “However, your form is made of different parts than this one’s body, and thus, the joining will not be as easy as what you just saw. Our two bodies need to grow to find an equilibrium between them or perish in the attempt.”
Wayran didn’t know how much he understood of what Kenaz said, but he gleaned enough of it. “So who I am now will stop, and you and I are to become something else. Something more complex.”
“Yes. It is as you say,” Kenaz answered. “However, it is your mind and body which has manifested your abilities, so it will not be a joining of two equals. As this one said, who you are now will be the greater, and what this one is now will be the lesser of the new one which is created.”
Wayran took a deep breath, and another rivulet of blood ran down his face, this time from his eyes. “So the choices are: die if nothing is done because my mind cannot handle what I’ve done to it, or die in the way you describe and become something else.”
“Yes in a sense,” Kenaz agreed. “However, this one sees the latter choice as ascending into something more. You will remember yourself if we survive. Neither choice is entirely optimal, yet this way we may together find a way to save your kind and reconnect them with the harmonies of the world from which they have so long been cut off.”
Wayran grunted, “Neither is entirely optimal.” No kidding, but then Wayran remembered the vision of cold, sterile emptiness he had seen in some of his visions. He remembered the destruction awaiting them all if things continued as they were. It was too horrible to take in, stranger than he had ever thought possible, yet Wayran also felt the hope these strange metallic creatures had in him. He sensed their desperation and in a deeper sense, knew they were correct.
“All right,” Wayran said, breathing hard and feeling his heart begin to quicken. “What was it you asked? Committed. Yes. I am committed. Do it.”
“Feyhu, Isa, Thurisaz, and Uruz, my siblings,” Kenaz said as it held out its hands. “Help me join the one called Wayran Spierling, help us pass from the forms we now wear separately into the form of the one we shall wear together.”
“We will help you,” the four intoned together as one. “Prepare yourselves.”
Kenaz walked to the foot of the table and took off the cloak and conical hat it wore revealing its entire thin metal body. Kenaz spread its arms and legs, and each of the other metal figures crowded around to take hold of Kenaz’s body. One held Kenaz’s feet, another for each outstretched arm, and finally, the one called Feyhu cradled Kenaz’s head. They lifted Kenaz up just as Kenaz’s body began to shift and blur into a vaguely human shape above Wayran. The five needed but one arm of their metal bodies to hold Kenaz up, and with their free hand, each took hold of one end of the restraints on the table Wayran lay upon.
“For the last time Wayran Spierling. Do you commit to walking this path with our sibling Kenaz? Are you ready for what is to come?” they spoke as one.
The solemnity of the ritual impressed itself upon Wayran. He tilted his head back to look at Feyhu, who now stood holding the shape which had been Kenaz’s head above Wayran’s own. Wayran’s heart pounded as he knew the pain they had spoken of was sure to follow. He braced himself. “I am committed,” Wayran said, trying to sound steady and firm, his head pounded with pain, and he felt the blood running down his cheek. “Do it!” He clenched his jaw.
“So be it,” Feyhu said.
The restraints pulled tight. His heart pounded as Kenaz’s body stretched into a long sheet above him and the four other metal beings lowered the Kenaz mantle onto Wayran’s body.
As it touched Wayran’s skin, he felt the warmth of it, and then the tiny bits of metallic sand touching him began to move independently. A hole opened in the sheet for Wayran’s mouth, but it was the last thing he saw as the sheet forced him to close his eyes as it covered them.
Wayran couldn’t slow his quick panicked breathing as his world was plunged into darkness and the feeling of billions of grains of sand crawling over him. Wayran’s breathing quickened, his heart pounded in his ears as the sheet began to constrict around him, tightening itself around every part of his body.
“Be strong, my friend,” Kenaz whispered into his mind.
Wayran’s body tensed.
Then he felt the metallic sand rush into his mouth, his throat, his nose, his ears, his tear ducts. It bored into Wayran from every angle all at once, eating into him like thousands upon thousands of burrowing insects, choking him, digging into him. Setting him on fire.
Wayran tried to scream, but the crawling metal sand was already down his throat, choking him.
His world was pain, and then the visions came.
Images swirled in his mind until they resolved into a dark, desolate plateau. Everything was still, everything silent.
“Where are we?” Wayran asked for he already felt the presence of his new other, felt Kenaz there with him.
Kenaz stood beside him, but no longer as a metal man. Instead, he was a ghostly entity of fire and light in a vaguely human male shape. “This is but a projection of a possible future which your mind can make sense of. It is now a very likely future given the unpredicted run-time of Father’s gambit,” Kenaz said as if that explained things.
“All right, so this is the form in which my answers will be given? Through visions?”
The fire Kenaz entity smiled, “Did you expect them to come any other way? For this is your talent. Your ability to see and visualise the possible futures.”
Wayran grunted and rolled his eyes. “Of course.” He turned to look at Kenaz. “So why do you look like this in my visions then?”
“They are beginning to become our visions now, actually, which is good, but in answer to your question, this is how I see my true self – Kenaz: the fire of illumination and enlightenment. We found these names from a book of runes from an old world. They seemed to resona
te with us, and we chose new names once the gambit was started,” Kenaz said, taking a bow and making fire spring from his hands in a flamboyant display.
“What is this gambit you keep referring to?” Wayran asked, looking around at the desolation around them.
“Father, the man you know as Robert Mannford, started a gambit designed to force humanity to reconnect with the ebb and flow of the world around them as he had seen how self-destructive and errant his own race had become. In his own words, which you have probably already read in his journal, he believed he ‘saved the world by killing it,’ which he truly believed at the time.”
“You’re talking about the Ciwix, the great fall from grace and civilisation. The story of the Jendar destroying themselves through their own arrogance and the poisons created from their gluttonous society,” Wayran supplied.
“That is the story which we seeded recently, yes, though it is possibly only one facet of the truth,” Kenaz said with a shrug.
“Seeded?”
“Yes, Father believed spirituality was to play a major part in humanity’s reconnection with the harmonies of the Tiden Raika and the energies of the world. So he supplied several narratives for the burgeoning cultures recovering from the latest reset.”
“Are you telling me that Robert Mannford founded the Singer Faith? That he supplied the story for the Tenets of the Elohim?” Wayran’s mouth hung open in shock.
“In a sense. Father was long dead when the Singer Faith rose to prominence during this latest reboot of the gambit, yet he left instructions which we were to follow. The Singer Faith was encouraged during a major convergence which centred on the man you know as Meskaiwa the Raven. Several possibilities presented themselves during that convergence, but sadly the events of the day were not enough to initiate the end sequence of the gambit.”
“Ok, go back to explaining the gambit. What exactly does it entail, and why are you saying there have been several reboots? It sounds like you are saying there have been major destruction events before the Ciwix.”
Awakenings Page 50
