CHAPTER 506

EDIFICE OF CREATION

She felt adrift, floating along the sea of non-existent stars. She could hardly tell how long she had been climbing the steep steps, surrounded by the eternity of nothing. Odd after an odd feeling swelled within her as the memories, some recent and some as old as time itself, began storming her mind. Her eyes were dull, lost in those terrible memories, her lips quivering ever so often as though grazed by the cold.

Though now she knew more than she ever expected she would, all that knowledge was crammed too quickly into her mind; her head hurt, yet hardly as much as her heart. It, in an odd, metaphysical way, bled, heralding her into silent tears.

Ella came to a stop at last, for she had reached the end -- one last step remained until she was at the top. What was there? She couldn’t tell. Void. The last step led straight into the void as far as she could see. She slumped, sitting down, cradling her knees with her arms, rocking back and forth as though she were a child in the midst of thundering skies.

She seemed to age -- not in the way she usually would, but actually age. Not in appearance, per se, but more so in the eyes, in the countenance, in the occasional gray swelling in her golden hair.

She had found out who she was, at last, after pondering on the question ever since her mind awoke two-thousand-something years ago. For twenty centuries she was at odds with what others spoke as truth since she seemed to have always instinctively know if something was the truth or not -- and more often than not it wasn't. Now she knew exactly why she felt that way, and why she could do the things she could. It wasn't some ethereal talent, or a peculiar, inborn gift; she wasn't the blessed in the land of the cursed... she was never growing stronger, just remembering. Remembering what she had forgotten a long, long, long time ago.

After what felt like months, she finally got up and straightened her back, facing the last step. She had come so far, she may as well cross to the other side. As she crossed it, her mind jolted, as though assailed by ten thousand bolts of heavenly lightning, causing her to cry out in pain as she held to her head. A flush of memories streamed into her mind, the last bit, the last piece of the puzzle she was missing, overwhelming her as she stumbled over the last step and fell off, adrift in the ripping of the void.

She had no mind to pay attention to it, however, as the last of the memories awoke within her, the moment of the past that could not be quantified.

She, among nine others, stood amidst the nothingness -- not the void, not the emptiness of the cosmos... but the nothingness. No light nor dark, no laws, no energies, no matter.

Their figures were eerily blurred, glitching in and out of existence, and all stood in a full circle, surrounding an edifice of boundless height. It seemed like an obelisk, yet was more; wide at the bottom, it sprung straight out in one dimension, then twice out in the second, then four times in the third, eight in the fourth, sixteen in the fifth, thirty-two in the sixth... it sprung and grew like the mythical Tree of Creation, its branches reaching everything, even if there was nothing.

It had no color, nor a particularly distinct shape; Ella concluded its appearance more so from a generic association rather than the actual observation. Along the thinly-carved crevices of its surface, gems lay embedded, fiercely alight. No, not gems -- stars. The scale shifted as her memory balanced out, with her growing beyond small, while the obelisk grew extensively eternal.

So many stars... so many differences among them... they lay embedded along the main body, along the splitting branches of the higher dimensions, along every edge of the brilliant surface. Ella realized, at that moment, this was the cosmos. No, not just the cosmos she knew. The everything.

The blurred figures of the others came into focus as they all looked toward her, their expressions of grace, yearning, and joy. Names, one by one, began to etch themselves into her soul. The names that were banished from her eons ago. The faces that she was forced to obliterate from her memory. The voices she was so keen on hearing again. She could see the desire in their eyes to rush over, yet they seemed incapable of movement. Of course, she mused. It’s just a memory. Yet, it felt like more.

Five men and four women seemed to outstretch their arms toward her, their voices, though silent, as loud as any she’d heard, calling out to her. Elanor. Elanor. Elanor.

“You -- have -- remembered --” instead of their voices, however, she heard another -- just as familiar, yet one far less warm, and far more commanding. She instinctively felt like collapsing onto her knees and bowing in reverence, yet a force greater than her own held her back from it.

The voice spoke directly into her mind, one so ancient it was even less quantifiable than the timeline of her life. A voice that outstripped the momentous timeline of everything.

Ella heaved her head up slowly and looked into the infinite above, where she saw a pair of eyes dazzle the ‘sky’. Colorless. Colorful. Full. Empty. Indescribable. She felt fire akindle within her when she met the pair, her strength crossing over into the realms she thought were even impossible.

“You -- have -- regained --,” the voice spoke again, the pair of eyes blinking, shuddering the nothingness. “And -- remembered. Forgive -- Us -- but -- We -- require -- Your -- Assistance -- after -- All.

“...” Ella remained mum, partly because she could not speak physically, and partly because she felt too ashamed to speak in such a grand presence.

“Our -- Paradox -- Awoke,” the voice continued. “Threatens -- Us. A Seed. Long. Inimical. A Foil. It Resides -- a Boy. Yours. Growing. Grows. As We Feared. As We anticipated. Enriched; Enlarged. Dangerous -- Worlds Adangered. Elanor. Elanor. Assist Us. As Expected. Unwritten. Our -- Engine -- of -- Creation. It Pains Us -- but -- You are Not -- to -- Create -- but -- Destroy. Elanor. Elanor. Our -- Engine of Creation -- Agent of Destruction. Obliterate. Awake.”

She was still adrift, now not in the empty void, but among the ceaseless stars. She could see them everywhere around her, burning, blazing, speeding through space. Her lips were parted, eyes widened, body limp and listless.

Then, like a tidal surge, tears streamed out of her eyes, freezing on her cheeks, building up like mountains. Her heart felt stabbed countless times over, throbbing, begging to cease beating.

“... no...” she muttered to no one but herself, for there was neither the living nor the dead to hear her. “Not that... no... no... please... no...”

She trembled softly, her heart the epicenter of quakes of pain, her mind a turbulent storm with no seeming end. It was too much; for all the things she had experienced, both in this and many other lives, none built up the wall that would have prevented the collapse of the moment.

She spun her head softly and slowly to her left, looking into the vast distance, beyond the membrane of the existing dimensions. To her home. To the place of her creation. If she tried going there now, using all her strength, she would fail to reach it before her death. And if she had another million lifetimes, she would still fail to reach it. It was too distant. Too far away.

On the other hand, Noterra was so close; barely a few weeks’ long journey, and she would be back. Back to the people she loved, back to the place she called home for so many years now. And back to the place she would have to ravage. The mere thought pained her, the mere idea terrified her; she couldn’t refuse, yet she couldn’t accept. And there was no other choice, she knew. All would end in similar outcomes -- fighting. Fighting. Fighting.

Even if she refused, someone else would be sent to complete what she had failed. Such were the ways of Creation; ineffable, undetermined, unabashed.

She whimpered softly, facing the wall of absolutes, a prong with no right choice. No proper choice. No choice that both her mind and heart were willing to make. She shouldn’t have climbed those stairs. She should have turned around when she realized what they represented. She shouldn’t have taken the last one, as there was still time to turn away. She would know nigh everything, yet not all. What now? she pondered.