Chapter 7
Tim fell...and fell...and fell. Tony disappeared, but Tim remained. He cradled his hand to his chest...or what remained of it. There was a hole in the center of his hand where his tattoo had been. ...and he noticed that the hole went right through him, through his chest.
Then, he hit the ground. It wasn't a floor. He wasn't inside. ...but it wasn't that matte black he'd seen before. He rolled over and got up...using his left hand. His right still wasn't functioning correctly. He was in a deep chasm. Rock walls stretching upward as far as he could see. The area around him was narrow, very little chance of escape.
"Hello?" he called. "Tony?"
"He is no longer here. His part is done. He is awake."
Tim heard the voice and knew who it was...but it seemed less eerie now, more human. He turned.
There was Greta. Her eyes were still white, but she had a human form. ...and Tim found that he felt no compunction to run from her.
"Why am I still here?"
"You have more to learn."
"Learn? What are you talking about?"
"You still fear...even though you understand."
"Fear what?"
"Who and what you are. What it means for you."
"Who are you to tell me who and what I am?"
Greta smiled.
"What am I?" she asked.
"Sleep."
"In a human perspective, yes. That is what I am. What am I really?"
Tim looked at her, looked at his hand, still with that disturbing hole burned through it.
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do. You are a knower. By your nature, you cannot help but know. You are not human. Do not force your thoughts into a human mindset."
"I am human. I just know."
Greta smiled and her eyes glowed. "Yes, you know. And you know as much as I. ...as much as he, that you are not a mere human. You tread the line between human and demon. You tread the line between life and death. You tread the line between..." Her smile widened. "Between life and dreams."
A line from a poem Tim didn't think he even remembered flashed in his mind. He repeated it aloud.
"'The Nightmare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.'"
"Yes."
"But that doesn't say what you are."
"Yes, it does. Life-in-death. Sleep is called the twin of Death."
The black spector appeared silently behind Greta. Making no move, offering no threat.
"Why are you coming after me?"
"Coming after you? To hurt? To pursue? We have not done that."
"What would you call it, then?" Tim demanded.
"What need have we to pursue? All men die. There is no stopping it. From the moment of birth, man heads toward death. In order to live, all men need sleep. I may enfold them in dreams of pleasure or dreams of horror, but they come to me...willingly. I have no need to pursue them."
Death said nothing. He simply stood. ...existing without need of justification.
"Then, what are you doing to me?"
Greta turned toward Death. He raised his black cloak flung it around him. A wave of darkness emanated from it. In midst of the darkness, Greta whirled in a circle, a white wind springing up, mingling with the blackness but not mixing with it. The two remained distinct, but the wave of white and black spun outward and engulfed Tim in its wake. He was sucked with them...
...to the top of a cliff, looking out on a spreading surface. Earth? No. It couldn't be.
A dream.
"Yes," Greta said as if he had spoken aloud. "A dream...that could become reality."
It was a barren wasteland. No life at all. Nothing but waste and rock.
"The destruction of Mongothsberd was well-done, but the chaos from it has upset the balance of the world...a necessary upset, but nonetheless... Your fight last year was a step in the direction of healing the balance. Demons are not of this world."
"And you are?" Tim asked.
"As much as you. Man cannot live without us. Death and dreams keep the world in balance. Man lives. Man dies. Man escapes briefly from the road he must travel through sleep and dreams. There will always be opposition...but not of this sort. You cannot sit back and pretend your part is done. It is not."
"Why you? ...and why me?"
Greta swirled around once and became transparent and white again.
"Greta," she said. "Often a shortened form of Margaret or Margarethe. Meaning...pearl. Pearls were once considered the most valuable jewel. To own a single flawless pearl was to hold the wealth of a lifetime in one's hand. That is why me."
"I don't understand."
"A pearl of wisdom," Greta said.
The air around her began to tremble. Her white eyes glowed brightly and she stared directly into Tim...into his soul, it seemed.
She began to speak.
We have a weight to carry
and a distance we must go.
We have a weight to carry
a destination we can't know.
We have a weight to carry
and can put it down nowhere.
We are the weight we carry
from there to here to there.
"But what does it mean?" Tim asked.
"You are a knower. You have a responsibility to this world. It is your weight. None can take it from you. None can do it in your place. While you live you will carry this weight. This weight is your fate and if you shirk it, you will put your world on the edge of oblivion."
"I can't save the world! I can barely manage myself!"
Life without meaning
cannot be borne.
We find a mission
to which we're sworn
– or answer the call
of Death's dark horn.
Without a gleaming
of purpose in life,
we have no vision,
we live in strife,
– or let blood fall
on a suicide knife.
Tim turned away from Greta, intent on leaving her presence...but Death appeared. No threat, but no avenue for escape.
"Only one true knower lives in a generation. One to have the power. That is you. If you will refuse your task..."
Tim turned back. "What? I'll die? You'll kill me?"
"You will reject your purpose, your soul. You will kill yourself. Your power and your heart have been burned away. You are living on borrowed strength. If you will accept who you are and what may be required, they will be restored. If not...yes, you will die."
"But I don't know what to do!"
"We do not know where each road will take us. Not even a knower will see that end. But there is only one road for each of us. We choose to follow that road or reject it. The road is different for each...and to some degree we control its direction. ...but you are not as other men. You have a responsibility. It has been laid upon you and you cannot deny it and live."
"I can't do this alone!" Tim said. "I've never done it alone!"
"I am not alone. Death is not alone. None of us are alone. Why would you think that you should be?"
Tim couldn't answer that question.
To see what we have never seen,
to be what we have never been.
To shed the chrysalis and fly,
depart the earth, kiss the sky,
to be reborn, be someone new:
is this a dream or is it true.
"Why all this? Why this...playing on my fears?"
"Can you move beyond what you fear and embrace yourself?"
"I don't know what to do."
"That is not required. ...and you are not the only one who fights. Others fight in their own ways. The knowers are only one kind."
"What are the others?"
"If it becomes necessary for you to know, you will. Now, it is not. Now, we must have your answer."
Greta stepped back...into the folds of the cloak of Death. White and black.
Tim turned away from the two figures awaiting his decision. He looked out over the blasted wilderness which spread out below him. He looked up into the sky, wishing for some kind of inspiration, something that would tell him the right way to go.
...and then, after uncounted time had passed, he heard it, whispering in the air. It was not Greta. It was not Death. It was not the shadows.
It was the voice of someone he had known once. Once as a child...visiting a circus...when he had first been branded as a knower. And once after he had freed her from Mongothsberd, before her death.
On the road that I have taken,
one day, walking, I awaken,
amazed to see where I have come,
where I'm going, where I'm from.
He looked around.
"Rhian?" he whispered.
This is not the path I thought.
This is not the place I sought.
This is not the dream I bought,
just a fever of fate I've caught.
"Where are you?" he asked.
Out beyond his reach, a faint green glow appeared. Beside the green glow was a gray one. After a moment, two human shapes were formed out of the glow.
"Listen, knower. Listen and know."
Tim listened but heard nothing.
"Do not fear to know. What is there will be there whether you know it or not. By knowing, you have the power to change what is there."
Tim looked out over the wasteland, the remnants of his world. Could he really let this possibility become reality? Could he really sit back and ignore what he knew was there? His fears of inadequacy would be realized if he did nothing. Even were the threat of death not hanging over him. Yes, he had a choice...but he had made the choice long ago. He was not forced to do these things, but he was constrained by the choices he had made. Each choice led him in another direction.
"Yes."
Tim looked at the shapes of knowers past. Rhian and Sorin, the two people he had known only centuries after their supposed deaths.
Finally, he nodded.
"Finish," Rhian's voice whispered.
Tim took a breath and spoke the words he could hear.
"I'll change highways in a while,
at the crossroads, one more mile.
My path is lit by my own fire.
I'm going only where I desire."
Greta's indistinct form swirled in front of him as the green and gray auras faded away.
"This is your answer?" she asked.
Tim closed his eyes, clenched his right hand and pressed it over the center of his chest. He began to walk forward...toward the edge of the cliff. Walking without stopping, without looking, knowing the edge was there...and he finished the words.
"On the road that I have taken,
one day, walking, I awaken.
One day, walking, I awaken,
on the road that I have taken."
Then, he took one more step and began to fall.
...and fall...
...and fall...
