“Do you know what he told me?” Marcellus sat hunched over a small, poorly balanced table in the middle of the White House's main cafeteria. They had never eaten there, but Marcellus insisted. He thought it was the safest place for what he had to say. On the tray in front of him was a lasagna, some chunks of bread, and a plastic cup containing an artificial drink he had got from the Drink-O-Matic. It was supposed to be orange juice, but he doubted it very much. None it had been touched. Across from him sat Maya, picking from the items on her tray with a fork. People swarmed all around, low-level functionaries and bureaucrats mostly, people they had never seen before, or if they had, who weren't important enough to register.
Maya dabbed at the rice and vegetables. She wore long, loose-fitting brown pants, low-heeled, slip-on shoes, and a simple, dark-green blouse that – despite its best efforts – found it impossible to cling to her tall, thin frame. Her dirty-blond hair was gathered up in the back.
“He said that the War on Terror is a hoax.” Marcellus leaned back and washed his immediate surroundings with a careful glance.
Maya kept on eating.
“He said they set the whole thing up back at the beginning of his term.” Marcellus ran a hand quickly through his full head of hair and waited for a reaction.
“Are you saying they set the bombs off themselves?”
“Not at first, no. I think it was the Russian secret service. And Judas knew all about it! He didn't even try and stop them!”
“Yeah, there was a war on with Russia. I remember.” Maya put down her fork and retrieved the spoon, which hovered just above the surface of her lentil soup. Like the rice and vegetables, there wasn't much in it. “Until the Peace of Poland. Epstein traded the Baltic States and Finland for Poland. The Russians got to keep the rest of Eastern Europe and agreed to withdraw from Greece.”
“But the bombs kept going off!”
Maya frowned. “The Dutchman?”
“Who else!”
Carefully, Maya put the spoon down. “My mother and brother died in one of those bombs,” she said quietly.
“Exactly!”
Maya picked up the spoon again and, after a slight pause, dipped it in the soup. “What else did he tell you?”
“They blamed the bombs on unoccupied Turkey. The stand-off with the Med Union wasn't getting anywhere, but Judas said even without the Russians it was only a matter of time before we'd have to withdraw because their supply routes were shorter, and then the whole Mediterranean Sea would be off limits. So he turned Margolis loose. First he took over the sea coast between occupied Constantinople and Beirut and then he surprised everyone and turned inland. He and Margolis had planned it from the beginning!”
Maya nodded her head. “Well, Epstein's managed to carve out a whole set of new provinces. Mineral-rich provinces. If they are held, history will probably treat him with respect. However he managed to do it.”
Marcellus blinked at her. “You're not disgusted?”
Maya washed Marcellus with an intent look before she put her spoon decisively down and folded her hands neatly on the table in front of her. “Marcellus, you're in politics now. You make the tough decisions when you have to.”
“Even if it means bombing supermarkets?” Marcellus had nearly shouted. Some of the bureaucrats seated nearest were staring at him in a mix of shock and outrage.
“The bombs are going off again, Mark,” Maya warned softly. “People are little unnerved.”
Marcellus grimaced. “I wonder what he's trying to distract people from this time.”
Maya started nibbling at the rice and vegetables. “There's talk about an ostracism.”
Marcellus seemed startled. “I didn't think they did that anymore. How do you know?”
“I've heard rumblings in the sim.”
“You've been in recently?”
Maya nodded. “Setting off bombs in your own country may carry unintended consequences.” She chewed slowly and swallowed. “Did Epstein talk about the deal he and Margolis made when he became President?”
Marcellus shook his head. “Not really. All he said is he promised Margolis he'd be his successor in exchange for his support. You know, it's funny. I've heard a lot about the bloke, but I've never met him. Did he fall out of favor or something?”
“He's disappeared.”
“Disappeared? What does that mean? No one falls of the grid. They have eyes in the sky.”
Maya pursed her lips. “We did.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it's something to keep in mind. Famous generals don't disappear for no reason. I've heard rumors he's defected.”
“Defected? Who defects from the United States of America?”
Maya shrugged. “If he did, that's bad news for Epstein, and bad news for you. The man's talented. You don't want him at the head of a hostile army.”
“Why? Just because he feels cheated out of the Presidency?”
“Sure, why not. He's getting old. Maybe he thought Epstein would kick the bucket by now. And if what Epstein told you is true, he might have a personal grudge against you.” She tossed the fork disdainfully onto the tray. “This food is disgusting.”
Marcellus couldn't help but chuckle. “It's better than what we used to get on the outside.”
“Yes, well, we're not on the outside. Are you done, because if so – ” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I want some real food. Are you coming?”
Nine robed and hooded figures sat in the vast dimness of the central hall of the Great Library, forming a loose circle. In its center stood a solitary figure, robed and hooded like the others. The tomes of the law towered above them.
“Trained, you say?” The voice was Xiling's, but which figure it belonged to was unclear.
“Yes, master,” the Chief Acolyte replied. “I am certain of it.”
“By whom?”
The figure in the center of the circle shrugged. “I cannot say.” He paused before adding. “He didn't seem to be aware of it himself.”
Outside it was night. The long, imperial windows were open. The thick, velvet curtains which hid them waved gently in the occasional breeze.
“How do you mean?” The voice was Kaela's.
The Chief Acolyte did not answer.
“Xiling? Darling?” Kaela implored impatiently. “Let the formalities lie, will you?”
Xiling did not speak, but at length the Chief Acolyte replied. “He does not know he's being trained. But his mind is expanding. He is able to focus it. More so than most people ever achieve without the proper guidance.”
“I don't find this turn of events encouraging,” Murasaki murmured from somewhere under one of the hoods.
“Events are slipping out of our control!” warned another. It was Tizoc.
Xiling sighed impatiently. “It's only ever gloom and doom with you two.”
“It's clear, isn't it?” Frey spoke slowly but with the strength of conviction. “There is only a single explanation.”
Several of the Justices muttered darkly among themselves.
“Silence!” The voice was Ramuel's. The muttering abruptly ceased. “Let the Chief Justice speak.”
Xiling let out a great sigh. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Court, yes, it is true. There can be no doubt. If Gyges is being trained, there is only a single possible teacher.”
“You mean his angel?” Michael snorted with contempt.
Somebody laughed shrilly. “Really, darling.” It was Rhea. “Can we trust this acolyte of yours? The whole notion sounds preposterous to me.”
Xiling shrugged. “He has my confidence.” Turning to the figure in the center of the circle, he asked, “Did you implant the suggestion?”
“I did, master.”
“Excellent. Then we will proceed as planned. You all know where you will be agitating?”
The eight remaining Justices sent him thoughts in the affirmative.
“The day after tomorrow then. We link up at four in the morning universal time.” Xiling seemed ready to adjourn the meeting.
“May I, darling?” Frey's voice hung among them a few instants longer than it took to speak the words.
Xiling let out a sigh of displeasure. “What is it, Frey?”
“This training of Gyges. It worries me. Angels are not interested in power. Why should this one interfere?”
“It could be for any reason!” Talisman snapped. “Perhaps this Gyges is nearing enlightenment.”
Michael and Frey burst out laughing. “Really, darling,” Michael purred. “I think those potions you brew are clouding your mind.”
“Have you ever observed this Gyges?” Frey snapped.
Talisman shrugged. “I have scryed upon him, yes.”
“Then you know what kind of person he is. Certainly not one about to shed bodies any time soon.”
Xiling's teeth flashed in the darkness. Around them the curtains rustled violently. “We must conclude this angel is acting for a different reason.”
“Then we ought to discover what reason,” Murasaki stated definitively.
“If I may interject, master...” the Chief Acolyte ventured. Michael and Frey both let out an unconscious snarl, but the Chief Acolyte had his permission anyway. “Were it not for his enhanced awareness, I could have taken the ring from him yesterday.”
Someone was laughing. It was Michael. He sounded cruel and effeminate. “Your Acolyte thinks rather highly of himself.” Then, taking a more serious tone, he demanded, “Who gave you permission to lay your filthy fingers on our ring?”
“No one.” The voice was Xiling's. He turned to his acolyte.
“You misunderstand,” the Chief Acolyte stammered. “I would never have laid hands on the ring. I merely meant to say, without the angel's interference...” His voice trailed away.
“You meant that one of us could easily have plucked it from his finger,” Rhea suggested.
The Chief Acolyte nodded.
“I thought we had agreed none of us should have sole possession of the ring!” Talisman shouted. He looked around the circle. “I don't trust any of you!”
“And you, darling?” Michael charged. “Should we entrust the ring to you?”
“Yes,” Talisman purred, gently stroking the backside of his shoulder.
“This is the reason we entrusted it to Margolis in the first place,” Tizoc spat.
Before the situation could get out of hand, Xiling interjected. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Court!” He paused, but no one challenged him. “Marcellus will bring us the ring himself. We need not occupy ourselves with suspicions and plots!” He glared at the other Justices.
“Do you have a plan to counter the machinations of this angel?” Murasaki asked.
“Yes!” Xiling hissed.
“What then?”
The Chief Justice bared his teeth. “I cannot imagine,” he began slowly, “that his angel or anyone else's for that matter is a match for my demon.”
“You will risk so much?” Murasaki seemed shocked.
“Risk?” Xiling looked around at the other Justices. “Do you not yet understand that nothing else is important besides the ring? In the hands of another, we must eventually fall.”
Marcellus was looking for a stalker. He wanted to venture into the Zone.
We were standing in a small, brown café at one of the few, round tables. Marcellus was smoking a cigarette, carefully eyeing up the pair standing near the bar. It was the Writer and the Professor. They were ignoring us.
“They've already found one,” Marcellus told me. “They made an appointment.” He sounded jealous.
The fat, bald bartender was wiping some glasses with a white cloth, smoking a cigarette of his own. Every once in a while he would glance apprehensively at the door.
“I don't see why he's wasting his time with them anyway.” Inside the Zone was a place – a room, a very special room.
“Yes, yes,” I muttered, “your wish will come true.” I knew this story.
“Not just any wish!” Marcellus hissed. “Your innermost wish.”
“Is that really what you want?”
Marcellus shrugged. “Those two are going into the Zone for nothing.” He sounded contemptuous.
“Are they?”
Marcellus glanced at me. “They risk all the dangers of travelling through the Zone and they reach the room and neither of them dares to go in!”
“Is that weakness?”
Marcellus' eyes widened. “I don't know what else to call it. I mean, I have this ring.” He showed it to me. In his dream, the ring was so big and thick he couldn't close his hand properly.
“So you've already been to the room.”
Marcellus shook his head. “The ring isn't really what I want.”
I smiled. “Is that so?”
“No one has control over what he really wants. His innermost wish. It's part of who he is.” The Writer and the Professor looked uncomfortable, as if they weren't sure their stalker would actually show up. Marcellus looked on for a moment. “Who are you?” he asked suddenly.
“I have had many names, but I cannot recall them now. In my last physical manifestation, I was what you call a truck driver.”
Marcellus chuckled. For a moment, he forgot about the Writer and the Professor. “You were driving a truck when you reached enlightenment?”
“You should not confuse me with any life I ever had on earth,” I told him seriously. “I have evolved such that I no longer need to manifest physically. And yet I am still here. I have not merged with consciousness. There are more bodies to shed.”
“What country were you from? Did you have a wife? Well?”
I couldn't answer. Slowly, I shook my head. “I cannot remember. It's hard to explain. I have no physical brain, you see, no place to store memories. All I have is the conditioning of my remaining bodies. If I try and look back on the experiences of my physical manifestations, they all seem to blend together into a great blur.” I shrugged.
Marcellus frowned. “Our lives on earth mean nothing once we've gone beyond?”
“Of course they do. But you see, angels like me don't need to draw upon them. We have a different sort of existence.”
“So what do you call yourself? Aren't you going to tell me?”
At that moment, the stalker entered the café. The Writer and the Professor stirred. Marcellus glanced over and tried to catch the stalker's attention as he shambled by.
“Knowing an angel's name is a special privilege,” I told him.
Marcellus didn't seem to be listening. He watched as the stalker joined the Writer and the Professor at their table. They offered him a drink, but he refused. The stalker looked nervous. His eyes darted everywhere. But even so, they never passed over either myself or Marcellus. “What kind of a privilege?” he asked distractedly.
“It confers power over me.”
Marcellus turned away from the stalker. “I already have power.”
“I imagine that's why you don't really want to go to the room after all.”
Marcellus shook his head. “No, I would like to go to the room. I'm not afraid. It's not power I need.”
I
peered inside him. After a moment, I laughed. “The room is a curse,
Marcellus. The Writer and the Professor are wiser than you give them
credit. They made the journey, but instead of their dreams made real,
they took back with them a realization, a very valuable realization.
It's all about the journey, Marcellus.”
Marcellus frowned at
me. “Are you saying my soul is black? The world would be ruined if
I went there?” He swallowed hard.
“No, Marcellus. What I'm saying is that a person lives many lives, and in each life he learns something new. He undoes the conditioning of previous lives and acquires new conditioning.”
“I don't understand.”
I paused. “The room would cause your innermost wish to manifest, yes, but the manifestation would never cease. You would be driven mad.”
“You're saying I don't really want what I want.” Marcellus chewed for a moment on his bottom lip. “But it's not a curse for everyone, is it?”
I nodded. “Only the meek, Marcellus, the very desperate, could ever hope to make good use of the room. Not the stubbornly frustrated, like yourself. The world would not suffer from such people visiting the room. It would not even notice. You see, they are no less meek after they have been to the room than before they went in. The room gives them hope.”
Marcellus thought he understood. His eyes dropped. Over at the bar, the Writer, the Professor, and the stalker were preparing to leave. Their journey was about to begin.
“Have I lived many lives?” Marcellus asked, dropping his cigarette to the floor and squashing it with the heel of a boot.
I nodded my head.
“And have you always been my angel?”
Again, I nodded my head.
Marcellus smiled at me. “But if mine is an old soul and you were a truck driver, how could you have been my angel all that time?”
“There is no such thing as time, Marcellus. I've told you that before. Only possibility and actuality. Just because time seems to go forward doesn't mean it is so. Manifestation to manifestation need not follow time as you recognize it.”
The Writer and the Professor were walking towards the exit. The Writer was dour and surly; the Professor serene and confident. Marcellus knew the Writer was wrestling with this soul and the Professor wanted to blow the room to bits. He could understand them both.
The stalker was exchanging words with the barman.
“Am I on the road to enlightenment?” Marcellus asked me.
“Do you know what that means?” I asked in return.
Marcellus thought for a moment. “No,” he said.
“Do you remember the glasses?”
“Yes.” Marcellus swallowed. He was thinking of how I looked then.
“Listen to me. Everything is consciousness. Everything is God. You, me, Epstein, Jango, his Chevy pickup truck. The air. If anything, remember that.”
“Sure,” he said, playing with a napkin. The stalker headed for the exit. The Writer and the Professor were nowhere to be seen, but the Writer's cigarettes were sitting on the bar.
“I am that,” I told him. “You are that. All is that.”
Marcellus shrugged. “That doesn't mean anything to me.”
“Because you are tied to your ego. Let it go.”
Marcellus frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Forget about you. Yourself, your desires. Your conditioned responses. Reach for consciousness. It is the power that binds us.”
Now the stalker was passing by. He was a meter away. It was Marcellus' last chance. He turned and watched as the stalker headed for the exit. He opened the door to leave. The petrochemical plant was briefly visible outside. It spewed poison into the river. The air was thick with pollution. Marcellus coughed. The door closed. They were alone. The barman was still there, of course.
After a moment, Marcellus snorted derisively. “Do you mean to say that retards and faggots and – ” He shook his head stubbornly. “People with two faces and Siamese twins and – ” He gestured violently in frustration. “I've heard of a cult and they have children and then they kill them and eat them. Are you saying those infants chose that? They wanted those lives?” He stared at me, each of his eyes an iron furnace.
They always ask that question.
“Yes,” I told him plainly, “and no. Remember: all is One. The cult would not exist if there were not souls to choose that life. Not all experiences to be had are wholesome and good.”
Marcellus walked over and retrieved the Writer's cigarettes. He studied them as he returned to our table. “Fucking Soviet fags,” he mumbled grumpily to himself. “Taste like shit.” Still, he pulled one out and lit it up. He coughed again. Throwing the pack on the table, he said, “I don't want to shed my body.”
“In time,” I told him, “you will. If you cling to it long enough, you will go down the other path and I won't be able to help you anymore.”
He smirked at me. “There is no time, remember?”
“For you, there is.”
Now he sneered. “What does that mean? I'm trapped.”
I shrugged. “If you are in a prison, it is of your own making. You can leave at any time. It's simply a choice you make.”
“But I don't see it!”
“That's why I am here. To help you when you ask. All you have to do, Marcellus,” I told him pointedly, “is make up your mind.”
Marcellus thought about that for a while. He put the cigarette out half finished and exhaled, unsatisfied. “How?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. He was staring at the floor. “How do I get out?”
And at that, I laid a hand on the back of his head. He acquiesced. He gave himself up to me. “That's a start,” I breathed. “You are making strides, Marcellus. I believe it will turn out well with you.”
“In this life?”
I shrugged. I wanted to tell him it would be so. “It all depends on you.”
“Well,” Marcellus said, straightening up. I withdrew my hand. He wouldn't look at me. “I wouldn't expect too much.”
“I did not tell you before, master. But you must know. He entered my mind.” The Chief Acolyte sat in the cushioned chair next to the Chief Justice's ornate, oaken desk, head raised high. Above them, the thick, heavy shadows slowly churned.
The Chief Justice did not stir beneath his heavy robes. “You couldn't have mentioned this earlier?” The voice was cold and disturbingly restrained.
The Chief Acolyte snorted. “We have not been alone until now. I thought you might be displeased if the others knew.”
“How considerate of you.” Despite the steeliness of his voice, the Chief Justice appreciated his acolyte's caution.
They sat together in a stifling silence. Finally, the Chief Justice said, “How long was he there?”
“Only an instant, master.”
“An instant is enough! Naturally you have no idea what he learned.” The Chief Justice hesitated. “Did he attempt any violence upon you?”
“He is growing more powerful, master. After his companion broke the link between us, he attacked me. I was protected, but the intensity was overwhelming.”
The Chief Justice waved the assertion away. “Emotion always enhances the intensity of magical effects. A master, on the other hand, can summon great power when he wishes it, not merely as the result of some uncontrollable outburst.”
“Master, you did not let me finish. He was seeking to return to my mind. He wanted to – ”
The Chief Justice's eyes narrowed. “You mean he knew how?”
The Chief Acolyte nodded.
Leaning back in his chair, the Chief Justice stared up at the ceiling. “Matters are progressing faster than even I had foreseen. How remarkable that this angel should take such an interest! I shall have to take steps sooner than I anticipated.”
“Your demon?”
The Chief Justice nodded. “This angel of his must learn to respect the balance of power.”
“When, master?”
Standing up, the Chief Justice gestured to his acolyte. “Come. You must help me prepare.”
Eagerly, the Chief Acolyte fell in by his master's side. “I have never commanded a demon before,” he breathed reverently. The excitement emanated from him in bright, burning rays like sunshine.
“You will learn, boy.” The Chief Justice smiled eerily. “You will learn.”
We were in a large, candle-lit hall. It must have been several stories high. A balcony overlooked the polished floor where the couples in fluffy, funny dresses and frilly, flaky wigs threw each other cavalierly about. A huge chandelier laden with candles descended to just above the balcony's level. The walls were inlaid with marble and there were large, ostentatious paintings of arrogant looking men and women, all dressed in similar outrageous and curiously historical outfits that must have taken hours to climb into or out of.
I was matched with a pale, smelly woman wearing a thick layer of makeup, a flare for beauty marks, and a preposterous wig stained an equally preposterous color of red which kept scratching my face. Nearby, Marcellus was dancing with an eyesore of his own.
The orchestra was moving among the crowd. Violins, oboes, trumpets, you name it: the rabid musicians pranced hither and thither like disciples of Bacchus, making merry and driving us to dance, ever onward, unrelenting. Each musician was playing his own tune. The result was an irritating, grating chaos that assaulted the ear. The couples, though, didn't seem to mind. The floor was crowded.
“Don't you find it difficult to have a conversation this way?” I complained as we swung by each other.
Marcellus, though, was thinking about something else. “Everything is the same thing,” he repeated to me.
“Yes, Marcellus. That single concept is the key to all understanding.”
“All is One.”
“Consciousness.”
Marcellus glanced at me as if annoyed that I had interrupted him. “Trees,” he suggested.
I nodded.
“And rocks, too!” His face tensed in thought. “You know, it's funny,” he told me on the next pass. “I feel like I already knew that.”
“You did!” I shouted over to him as he danced away. “You've reached this understanding before!”
“In a past life?”
“In a previous manifestation, yes. More than one, actually. I was hoping we could get beyond it this time.”
Marcellus pranced away. He avoided me for some time. Around and around we twirled. The musicians drove us onward. One of them bumped into me. The backside of an oboe stuck into my back.
“Sorry, mate!” she called, tipping her wig at me. She looked like a very large poodle manicured in poor taste.
Eventually Marcellus made his way back over to me. “So I'm God,” is what he said. I didn't like the look on his face. It was greedy.
I shook my head pointedly and said, “Yes. But the illusion of separation is real, Marcellus. Don't confuse your ego with God. It's the furthest thing from it.”
“How do I tell the difference?”
“Consciousness is the part of you that simply is. It's also the part where new things are born. All the rest is conditioning – from this life as well as lives you've already lived – and identifying with yourself. The more you identify with yourself – satisfying your bodily wants, your emotional needs – the more you reinforce the illusion, and the farther away you are from God.”
Marcellus laughed shrilly and pranced around me and my partner in ever-tighter circles. “You're not making sense, Nameless.” He found the name appropriate, and I didn't object. “If I'm God, how can I be farther away from God? Or closer?”
“I've just told you. Your ego is the barrier. Listen, Marcellus, there are two paths back to God: letting go of yourself or grabbing on. One is the path of joy and creation. The other is the path of pain and destruction. The choice is yours.”
“Oh.” For a moment Marcellus looked sad. “So one day we must all leave this world? Stop having new lives, I mean?”
“Yes.”
Marcellus wrinkled his nose. “That doesn't sound so great to me. I kind of like it here.”
“Don't worry, Marcellus. I don't think you'll be shedding your physical body any time soon.”
“How do you know?”
“As soon as you stop caring about the affairs of this world, you will cease to be a part of it.”
“Yes, well, I want to be President of the United States.”
“It sounds to me, then, like you still care.”
Marcellus slung his partner across the dance floor and lunged after her. I lost sight of him for some time. Sighing in resignation, I accidentally allowed my face to drop onto my own partner's neck. The thick, syrupy makeup latched onto my face. It felt cool and unpleasantly slimy. I tried to wipe it away with my sleeve. All the while we spun in endless circles as the musicians dodged through us, bumped into us, spewed us with their intolerable cacophony.
“Can't you do something about the music?” I complained to Marcellus when he returned.
“Do something?” He frowned. “What can I do?”
“You're
dreaming, Marcellus.”
“I am?” He looked around as if
expecting something wondrous to happen.
“Never mind. Let it play on, if it must.”
“I'm sorry,” he said sheepishly, “it's just... I was thinking....”
“Yes, yes, Marcellus,” I encouraged, still trying to scrape the horrid wad of makeup from my face. “That's what I'm here for. Go on.”
“How many bodies do we have?”
I threw a handful of the heavy, pasty material to the ground. It stuck there like wet cement. “We have four bodies that separate us from consciousness. One is the physical body, which is the one we look upon in the mirror, but there is also the vital body. This is the realm of emotion, but it also the realm of biology. Your organs and biochemisty, for example, are mere physical manifestations of features of your vital body. There is also your mental body. This is the realm of thought and the mind. Thoughts manifest physically in your brain, but their origin lies in your mental body. Finally, the most sublime of our bodies is the theme body. This is the body that bestows meaning – not just on words and thoughts, but on the sun, the moon, even common objects like chairs and lamps. The neat mathematical arrangements of the Universe are manifestations of the constructs of the theme world. A person's destiny is an expression of his theme body.”
“And consciousness?”
“Consciousness is God and therefore indivisible. There are some who say we have a fifth body, the body of consciousness, but if that is true then we all share the same one. Consciousness is alive in all of us, in everything, and it is consciousness that creates all the possibilities that we choose from. In each head an own Universe, and all One.”
I threw more of the muck to the ground. The heavy thud must have drawn the attention of my partner, because she turned to me in a rage. Part of her face was missing, I observed, and she was very angry about it. After slapping me twice across each cheek, she stomped off sobbing.
Marcellus, who normally was amused by such displays, ignored it. He set his partner aside, pat her heavily padded bottom, and told her to wait. But she was already twirling away with another figment of Marcellus' imagination. Now we stood together, eye-to-eye, in the middle of the chaotic dance floor. “Enlightenment comes when we have rejoined God, right?” he asked.
“Wrong,” I told him. “Enlightenment is something you will recognize only once you get there.”
Marcellus frowned. “What does that mean?”
I shrugged. “You'll find out. One day. But you must find out for yourself.”
At that moment, at the other end of the hall, there was an explosion of fire, light, and noise. A part of the wall crumbled and with it a section of the balcony. Marcellus cringed and shielded his eyes. “What the hell was that?” He knew that whatever it was, it was an invasion. It didn't come from him.
I sighed gravely. “A demon.”
“A what?” He looked again. At the other end of the hall, standing before a pile of rubble and a breach in the wall, a tall, burning figure with horns, a whip, and a tail had climbed from the great, gaping blackness and towered over the rest. Its eyes were bright holes of fire. They sought out myself.
“It's not important,” I told him quickly. Rushing over to Marcellus, I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Look at me,” I insisted.
But he stared, transfixed, until the demon caught sight of him. Flicking its whip, it open its massive jaws and roared, spewing fire. Terror flitted up Marcellus' spine. He shrieked.
“Marcellus!” I turned his head towards mine. “I'll take care of it. Don't worry.”
The demon started to cross the hall in huge strides. Its claws grated on the hardwood floor. The other dancers seemed oblivious to its presence, but as it passed among them, whip and tail leaving a path of destruction, anyone it touched blinked out of existence. Behind it, it left a trail of awful blackness. It was a heavy blackness, a powerful blackness, a very real blackness.
“You will?” He was breathing heavily.
“Listen,” I told him earnestly. “There's something more important for you to do.” I looked over his shoulder and glanced briefly out of the dream world. “You must wake up,” I told him simply.
The demon was drawing closer.
“But – ”
“I told you, leave it to me.” I smiled at him comfortingly even as the first of the searing heat made itself felt.
The demon roared again and moved to strike me with a burning fist.
I touched Marcellus on the forehead with a single fingertip. “Go on. Wake up.”
This site and all its contents are the result of the tumultuous workings of the mind of one Adam Wasserman.