Eternity's Edge (6 page)

Nathan pulled back on her sleeve. “Maybe we should—”

“Wait!” Kelly halted. “I hear something. Voices.”

Nathan held his breath, hoping his silence would help her figure out what was going on. Daryl's breaths also fell to a barely
perceptible buzz. Still, the ever-present symphony in the air played on, more beautiful than ever.

“The voices are coming from those swirls I told you about.” The sleeve jerked out of Nathan's hand. “Wait here,” she said, her voice fading. “Don't move a muscle.”

Nathan froze in place. “Don't worry. We won't.”

After a few seconds, Daryl whispered, “Can you see her eyes?”

He scanned the darkness. “No sign of them.”

The darkness felt heavy, as if the black air weighed down his shoulders and seeped into his mind. Yet, the beautiful sounds eased any fear that tried to bubble up. This was a place of stark contrasts — a symphony of angels in the midst of a black void.

After almost a full minute, Daryl's hand began to tremble. “Okay, Captain Cool,” she said, “I'm losing
my
cool. Say something to make me feel better.”

“Uh … this sure beats falling into a bottomless pit?”

“Wrong answer. Try again.”

“How about —”

“I'm coming!” Kelly's voice pierced the dark curtain. Seconds later, her eyes appeared, brighter than ever. A strong tug pulled Nathan's hand. “I think I figured something out. Come on!”

Nathan followed, shuffling his feet far more rapidly than his nerves would have allowed. Daryl stayed close, but her breaths came faster and heavier. As they walked, the music grew in volume, and the blended instruments seemed to break apart into distinct tones.

Finally slowing down, Kelly patted Nathan's hand. “We're walking alongside one of the swirls. I hear lots of voices coming out of the top, like a bunch of people talking at the same time.”

Nathan tried to penetrate the blackness with his vision, but it was no use. The music in the air continued to flood his ears. He could hear little else. “What are they saying?”

“It's so jumbled, it's hard to tell. I just pick up some of the louder words.” Kelly tightened her grip on his hand. “But get this. The swirls have different colors— one red, one blue, and one yellow. They kind of pop up out of rivers of color, like the colors are heading somewhere, and something boils from underneath, and words spew out through a swirl.”

Daryl released Nathan's shirt. “The three dimensions?”

“Maybe. There are other swirls, and they're all red, blue, or yellow. Maybe a swirl represents something in its dimension, like a city or a family.”

“Did voices come out of the other ones?” Nathan asked.

Kelly's bright eyes bobbed up and down. “Most of them.”

Nathan let go of her hand and drummed his fingers on the violin case. This hall of darkness was proving to be the weirdest place they had been yet. What could it all mean? Did those swirls really have something to do with the Earth dimensions they had visited? If so, the people at Interfinity Labs must have named them based on the colors here, but that would mean one of them had been to this misty world before.

As he thought, a new sound merged into the musical air. A feminine voice? An alto? Maybe. But it was too perfect, too precise to be human. Yet, something was missing. The voice was like a question without an answer, an expression of love unrequited. It needed … something.

Nathan set down the case and fumbled with the fasteners until they snapped open. When he raised the violin and bow, he looked into Kelly's blinking eyes. “I'm going to try something.”

Listening carefully to the simple aria, he waited for a phrase to end. Then, brushing his bow lightly across the strings, he answered in the same key, C Major, but altered the notes, composing an appropriate counterpoint.

The music in the air shifted to F Major, and the tempo slowed, still a wordless tune that seemed to beg for another answer. Closing his eyes, Nathan replied again, following the singer's key and
timing, yet with his own composition. He played a mellow harmony that seemed to capture and bring back echoes of the first musician's song. Then, the two played together— a perfect blend of melody and harmony — singer and musician in a rhapsodic ensemble that filled the air with a flowery scent. Roses, maybe? As he inhaled, something coated his throat and the back of his tongue with a sweet flavor, yet with a bitter aftertaste, like vanilla with a bite.

“Nathan,” Kelly said. “What's happening?”

He opened his eyes. A stream of lively sparks flowed from his violin and through the darkness, eating away the black field and leaving light in its wake. When the stream swept past Nathan's ear, the music suddenly increased in volume, then faded again as the sparks painted the canopy with an ever-expanding brush of radiance. Music became light, as if someone had sung the words of old, “Let there be light,” and continued the refrain until the singer's eloquent vocal strokes finished his masterpiece — a world of vision and revelation.

When every spot of blackness had vanished, Nathan lowered his violin, but his brain continued constructing harmonizing notes. The surrounding fog pushed away, as if blown by the musical wind. Another voice joined the chorus, a contralto that picked up Nathan's harmony and added new measures the moment Nathan thought them.

He stood on a transparent walkway about two strides in width and looked all around — nothing but clear white sky above and a soupy blanket of multicolored mist surrounded the path. The glassy trail extended into emptiness in both directions — a long walk into a wall of fog.

Kelly's eyes, as clear as crystals, twinkled with pleasure, like two drops of starlight decorating the face of a radiant angel. “You can see now, can't you?” she asked.

He nodded but said nothing. What could he say? This new realm seemed to beg for silence, if only to allow for hearing
the blessed voice that graced the air. And hearing it made everything seem as beautiful as a master's painting— Kelly, the portrait of heavenly majesty; Daryl, an ivory-skinned icon; and the misty world, a palace of rainbows.

Daryl stuffed her hands into her sweatshirt's front pocket and inched toward the edge of the walkway, her knees shaking as she peered into the mist. Wide-eyed and mouth agape, she also seemed uncharacteristically mute.

As Nathan stared at the mesmerizing scene, the music slowly grew louder, adding to the hypnotic spell. An urgent tap on his shoulder broke him away. Kelly, her eyebrows arching up, pointed down the path with her thumb.

Far in the distance, a solitary figure walked toward them. With his eyes focused on a book, he seemed in no hurry, nor did he seem aware of their presence. Either that, or he simply didn't care.

Still feeling the need to stay quiet, Nathan silently repacked his violin, left it on the walkway, and stepped in front of the two girls. As the man continued his approach, the material in his loose-fitting trousers swished together, the same blue-trimmed pants Patar had worn in the mirror. Muscles in his forearms, extending from his flowing navy blue shirt, flexed as he turned a page, and tufts of white hair blew across his forehead, staying just out of his eyes. His clean-shaven face seemed without wrinkle or blemish, a youthful contrast to his hoary head, and his pale complexion gave him a ghostly pallor, raising memories of Mictar and Patar, though this man was clearly neither of them.

Nathan cleared his throat. The man looked up, his sparkling eyes widening as he slowed to a halt and scanned the trio. With white eyebrows lifting and mouth slowly opening, he seemed ready to speak, but he just kept staring, his expression giving away only surprise, no hint of pleasure or anger.

Extending his hand, Nathan took a step forward. Feeling a
need to honor the sanctity of this place, he kept his voice low. “I'm Nathan Shepherd.”

The man shifted his gaze to Nathan's hand, but he didn't grasp it. Instead, he took in a deep breath and, scanning them one by one, began to sing, yet, not with words, but with vowel sounds, long and short forms as well as diphthongs that rose and fell with the changing notes.

Kelly tapped Nathan's elbow. “He says, ‘Greetings, young supplicants from the misty mire. It has been a very long time since our land has been graced by the presence of new arrivals. Yet, no one notified me that replacements were coming.’”

4
SCARLET

 

The man paused his song, allowing Kelly to take a breath. He smiled as if realizing she was interpreting and needed him to slow down. After another brief second, he continued at a more deliberate pace, and Kelly resumed her echo.

“As you have likely been told by whoever sent for you, this is the land above the worlds. I am Tsayad, one of the guardians, the chosen priests who watch over this realm and those beneath it. Since your interpreter is here, I assume that you have been fully informed and are ready to tell me what your mission is, though it seems clear, given your number and genders, that you have come to replace our supplicants.”

Pausing again, he pressed his thumb into his book, marking his page, and gave them a gentle smile. His snowy eyebrows arched as though he expected a reply.

Nathan glanced at Kelly, then at Daryl. Daryl gave him an “I have no idea” kind of look, while Kelly bobbed her head, glancing between him and the camera dangling at her chest.

Nathan squinted at her. What was she signaling? Was she asking if she should take a picture of this guy? He gave her a firm shake of his head. This was no time to guess what that camera might do.

Turning back to Tsayad, Nathan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Should he try to talk? His words had no effect before. Everything about this place seemed geared toward
communicating with music. The violin might work. But how could he translate his thoughts into notes?

He shrugged. Why not give it a try? He seemed able to compose something that cleared the darkness. Maybe he could communicate that way again.

Keeping his eye on Tsayad, Nathan stooped, pulled out the violin, and gave the empty case to Daryl. The guardian's eyes brightened, and his smile stretched wider.

As Nathan lifted his bow over the strings, the guardian drew close, angling his ear toward the violin. Excited expectation lit up his face, like a child surveying a room of wrapped presents on Christmas morning.

Nathan paused. What should he play? Classical? Baroque? Modern? He shook his head. No, none of those seemed right. Would any piece created by someone else really work to communicate his thoughts? Wouldn't the music have to be something new, something he composed based on the passions and moods running through his mind?

Taking a deep breath, Nathan concentrated on his thoughts and set his composing spirit in line with his emotions. Then, leading with a long A note and moving into a series of arpeggios, he recalled their story and poured out his feelings— his anguish over his parents' loss, his flight from Dr. Gordon of Earth Blue, his joy over finding a friend like Kelly — into his musical score. As he played, the story flowed from his hands more freely and fully than words could ever express. It seemed as though speech should always have been this way, so expressive, so pure, so pulsing with life.

When he finally reached the end, he let his arms dangle limply, exhausted by the effort.

Tsayad stared at him, his mouth agape. Then, ever so slowly, the white-haired man's lips spread out again into a wide smile. He clapped his hands twice, intertwining his fingers after the second clap. Then, swiveling toward Kelly, he sang again, this time in rapid bursts.

Kelly interpreted. “I am pleased to see that you are a virtuoso with my master's chosen instrument. This bodes well for your qualifications. And I am saddened over your losses, but I cannot help you find your loved ones. Perhaps your tragedies explain why you have been sent here. Our current supplicants always bear heart-wrenching sorrows, but that is their purpose, is it not?”

For a moment, he stopped singing. He raised one hand to his chin while the other held the book at his thigh with the pages facing out, his thumb still marking his place. Nathan peeked at the black marks within — a complex musical score, too far away to read.

After a few more seconds, Tsayad's eyes flashed with light. He sang once more, this time with even greater enthusiasm.

Kelly's voice spiked with energy, as if echoing the man's emotion. “It is clear from your musical gift that you are a qualified supplicant, so we should take you to your station immediately. With the brewing crisis in the triad, it is fitting that the travelers sent you to us.”

When he stopped singing again, he turned and gestured for them to follow, his smile warm and inviting.

Nathan glanced at Kelly and Daryl in turn. “Any clue what he's talking about?”

Both girls shook their heads. “I guess we can follow,” Kelly said. “What choice do we have?”

“I can't argue with that.” As Nathan advanced with Kelly and Daryl following close behind, the guardian nodded, opened his book, and marched away slowly, singing once again.

Kelly whispered the meaning, her words barely audible as their shoes squeaked on the glassy path.

To conquer wisdom's doom,
We lift the holy tower
With darkness fed by gloom
Absorbed by torment's power.

 

Nathan grimaced. So dark and dismal. And this certainly wasn't the voice that had filled his mind with beauty, a beauty so rich he could smell it in the air. Even the tune seemed warped, dissonant, twisted.

As they continued, the fog bank enveloped them, leaving only the bare outline of the guardian visible in front. The vapor muffled his song and Kelly's translation, yet not enough to make them inaudible.

Travailing songs they raise
In desperation's throes.
Their sacrifice we praise
In cantabile prose.
O let the worlds below,
Forever locked in dread,
Send anguished cries of woe,
Our sustenance, our bread.

 

A sense of cold filtered through the air. Nathan shivered. Every verse sounded more and more ominous, matching the foreboding gloom that weighed him down with each step into the thickening mist. Yet, what could they do but follow? He had no idea how to go home.

Fortunately, Tsayad ended his song. A more textured surface below had silenced their shoes, leaving their uneasy breathing as the only discernible sounds. Kelly clutched his elbow from behind but said nothing. She didn't have to speak. Her fears came through her trembling fingers loud and clear.

After another minute or so, the mist thinned out, allowing a vague white light to shine through from above. The path widened until the edges disappeared from sight, the surface now a terrazzo floor with sparkling flecks of copper and silver blended into the polished stones.

When they finally broke into a clearing, Nathan blinked at the brighter light. The floor had become a vast circle of glittering
gemstones, so wide he could barely see the rainbow mist that lapped against the outer edges. Curved walls bordered the circle, sloping up to an apex that arched high overhead. Thousands of glass squares covered the surface, creating a huge dome of polished crystal.

On three of the surrounding walls, separated by equal distances, an image of an enormous rotating Earth seemed to float on the transparent mosaic— one with thin red mist swirling all around, another with blue mist, and the third with yellow. The mist that poured in from the walkway crept along the base of the boundary wall, making a river all the way around. When the multicolored stream passed one of the earth images, the mist of that earth's color crawled upward on the wall and joined the foggy portrait, as if feeding the planet's misty veil.

A loud crack sounded from one of the earth images. Tsayad spun toward it. A jagged line crawled along the wall. It stretched from the earth veiled in red toward the one in blue and struck its surface with a sizzling splash. Mist followed the crack from each side — red from one and blue from the other — and met in the middle, mixing together and turning purple. The purple mist bled into the crooked trail back toward each earth and began to spread slowly over the surface of the planets.

Nathan scanned the rest of the wall. Other lines carved jagged paths between the earths, some arching over the ceiling to reach their targets. Orange, green, and purple mist traversed the crooked highways and created islands of blended colors that spread slowly across the respective Earths.

The guardian turned back to the trio, a stoic countenance dressing his face. He sang a few quick vowels toward the center of the circular floor, where, maybe a hundred feet away, a group of twelve people stood. Dressed in garb similar to his own, they huddled around a glass dome, the apex of which rose a foot or so higher than their heads.

Kelly whispered the translation. “Another breach. Widen it while it is fresh.”

The twelve joined hands and sang toward the dome, a tune that carried a sharp cadence and a blend of tones: male and female; tenors, basses, sopranos, and altos; lovely, yet harsh; hypnotic, yet troubling.

Kelly's grip deepened. “Nathan. That song creeps me out.”

He turned toward her. “What are they saying?”

“Awful things.” Kelly gave him a quick “Shh!” and nodded ahead.

When Nathan swung back around, Tsayad stood only a couple of feet away, reaching out a hand as he began a new song.

“Come and see,” Kelly translated. “You are at the threshold of the altar where you will soon take your station.”

The guardian strode toward the center of the room, now quickening his pace. Nathan glanced back at Kelly again. “Maybe you'd better stay here.”

She tightened her grip on his elbow. “Not on your life. I'm not leaving you for a minute.”

“Me neither,” Daryl said. “This place makes
The Village
look friendly.”

Nathan gave them a nod and followed Tsayad, closing the gap as they neared the strange gathering. When the guardian came within several paces of the group, he sang a short burst of vowels that sounded more like an “ahem” than words.

The group turned toward them. The seven men and five women, all with short white hair, flashed eerie smiles that gave Nathan a new shiver. Three of them shifted to the right, leaving a gap that provided a view of the glass dome. As they parted, they revealed the rest of the chamber's central area. Two other domes abutted this one, making a triangle of domes, each one with white-haired people gazing into it.

Nathan took a step toward the closest dome. Resembling
the top half of a transparent sphere, the glass edges had been anchored to the floor with foot-long clasps and fist-sized bolts. Within the dim interior, a girl no more than fifteen years old sat at the center, shivering. With her head tucked between her knees, she pulled at the hem of her simple cloth skirt, trying unsuccessfully to cover her legs.

Kelly gasped. “Oh, Nathan!”

His heart pounding, Nathan crept closer. The girl looked so pitiful … so frightened. Why would she be in there?

Suddenly, the girl swiped at her shoulder, as if swatting a bug away. Her face stretched by terror, she slid on her bottom toward the outer wall, pumping her legs furiously. When she reached the glass, she pressed a hand against her chest, panting and swinging her head back and forth as if searching for something on the floor.

“Could she be having a nightmare?” Nathan asked Kelly. “I don't see anything in there with her.”

Then, closing her eyes, the girl raised her head and moved her lips, apparently in song, but as Nathan leaned toward her to listen, the men and women raised their hands and sang a warbling phrase that drowned out her voice.

Their song jolted Nathan's senses. This was nothing like the heavenly aria he had heard when he first arrived. It was an operatic train wreck. Every note clashed with the others, as if battling to see which one could most effectively sabotage the choir. Still, it seemed that the individual singers hit each note perfectly, as though twelve master artists had chosen to paint a different portrait on the same canvas.

As the singing continued, clouds of black mist rose to the top of the room and disappeared into a purplish haze above, as if there were a chimney drawing out and dispersing this solidified music.

A cracking sound returned. The purple breach stretching from the red planet to the blue widened, slowly, yet noticeably.

As the song continued, the girl inside the dome shook. Still singing, she wrapped her arms around herself, but she seemed unable to quell her shivers.

Nathan rushed to the dome and laid his palms on the glass. “She's terrified! Let her out of there!” He swung toward the other domes. They also enclosed human figures, but the interiors were too dim to discern any details.

Turning back, he gazed at the forlorn girl behind the crystal wall. Her features were all too clear — tear-streaked face, frazzled braids of red hair, and wringing hands. Her terror shook him to the bone. Suddenly, she looked straight at him. With her eyes wide again, she mouthed two silent words.
Help me.

A firm tug on his sweatshirt sent Nathan flying backwards. Holding his violin aloft, he fell on his side and slid at least twenty yards across the polished floor. He jumped to his feet and whirled back toward the dome. Tsayad scowled at him and sang a string of vowel sounds that resembled a strident scolding.

Kelly ran to Nathan's side. “He says it is forbidden to aid the supplicants. You will soon learn the rules that govern this sacred temple.”

As Daryl slowly backed toward them, she stretched out her words. “I think we should be going now.”

Nathan searched for an escape route. Two white-haired men guarded the sides of the narrow doorway they had entered.

Tsayad walked slowly toward them, extending his hand, his song now gentle and coaxing.

Kelly pressed close to Nathan. “He says, ‘Your fear is most exhilarating. You will make fine supplicants. Come and we will prepare you for your office.’”

Nathan swung the violin up and played a frenzied series of dissonant notes. When he stopped, the guardian's scowl returned, only deeper … perplexed.

Leaning next to his ear, Kelly whispered, “Uh-oh!”

“What?” Nathan asked. “What did I say?”

Daryl hugged the violin case close to her chest. “I think you cursed in the language of the lyrically limited.”