Jigsaw World (28 page)

He looks upon Kali, and he sees that she does
not pay for the lives she extinguishes. Yama also is not like him,
although he pays the cost in sorrow for his reaping. Those who are
Lords of War are also devoted to the Arts of the Kill, not the Kill
itself.

He looks over at the Karla of the vision, the
only other who might understand his position. She stands in her
beauty beneath a near Olive tree, and she has eyes only for him.
Tom feels the bridge of centuries, perhaps millennia of blood
stretching behind him, and forward into the future.

The blood was the debt, and the payment, and
the scales of balance for the freedom of the world. Without the
blood, those who dance the dances of life would be in the chains of
those who he destroys. It is in the blood that Life has value, the
innocent are honored as their blood runs, and the guilty are
eliminated from harming the innocent as their blood runs. It is
with sorrow or with outrage that Tom kills.

Tyr speaks. “You perform a great need.” The
others all nod beyond the vision, which is fading now. Tyr clasps
Tom shoulder as the vision fades away, and now the world is back to
normal for this place once again.

Cernunnos motioned Tom and Tyr away from the
front, and then he motioned for Karla and Heimdall to step
forward.

“
Come forth,
Karla, with your Second Heimdall of Asgard
.” Cernunnos said.
“
It is your time to be confessed
.” Karla
and Heimdall broke through the crowd, and moved forward toward
Cernunnos.

As Karla passed Tom on her way to the front,
He gave her a rueful smile of encouragement. The mountainous mass
of Heimdall at her back seemed adequate protection from all
possible danger to her.

As Tom reached the crowd, Karla reached the
place in front of Cernunnos. The air about her begins to shimmer,
and the vistas of hundreds of past scenes are flashing in and out
of existence, scenes of hundreds of battlefields, and also
thousands of places such as forests whose trees tower into the
heavens, waterfalls that seem to descend forever, the place of
bones in the valley of white rocks, the sea in another world where
monsters break the surface to stare at the not quite human crews of
sailing ships that ply between the ports.

An emotion drifts upon the winds in this
place, the waiting of Karla for Tom in whatever incarnation he
wears, to wait with folded hands and lonely heart until the
universe should grow old and cold, and still to wait until that
time that they can be together forever. Through Eons of blood she
is destined to wait, through life and death and life again, she
waits.

The vision drifts and fades and finally it is
gone. Karla stands weeping, but Heimdall stands at her back, and
has put his hand upon her shoulder to show compassion and comfort
her. They walk in silence back to the crowd.

Even though none of the four could put their
hands on what if anything had been clarified by this little
exercise, they all felt a little happier for having gone through
it. Tom for one had always hated tests, but at least this one
appeared to have been a pass/fail sort of thing. As far as he could
tell, they had all passed.

Everyone clustered around, and Tom and several
others lit up cigarettes as they took a few moments to relax before
the last phase of this project. He wasn’t sure if smoking here at
this particular spot in space-time was allowed, but nobody tried to
stop them, so he guessed it was okay. Finally, when everybody was
done with their smokes and getting anxious to conclude their
business in this place, it was time.

“
Bring forth the heart of the
dragon.” Cernunnos said. Veritasia and Arpad stepped forward, and
Veritasia carried the cask which held the heart of Unhcegila. She
walked up to Cernunnos and presented the cask to him as she bowed.
Cernunnos took the cask and he opened it, and from the cask could
be seen a light of blue and green.

“
This is the Place of Beginnings.”
He intoned. “Before me are the Pilgrims of the Healing that is to
come. I hold the heart of the Dragon, the heart of Desire. The
Pilgrims have been Shriven, and now shall they be bound by the vow,
and the blessing of the Heart shall aid them in their
mission.”

“
Pilgrims, stand forth.” The four
moved forward to stand once more in front of Cernunnos, and at his
signal they each knelt before him. “Repeat these words to make the
vow.”

“
I will use all my power, all my
skills and all my will to heal this world at this the place of
beginnings. In this place, we will bring the four artifacts of the
old ones, and we will use them to heal the world. Though the demons
of the Shadows attack, we will complete our task. So say we
all!”

“
I will use all my power, all my skills
and all my will to heal this world at this the place of beginnings.
In this place, we will bring the four artifacts of the old ones,
and we will use them to heal the world. Though the demons of the
Shadows attack, we will complete our task. So say we
all
!”

As soon as these words were said and repeated,
Cernunnos reached into the cask and took up the glowing heart of
the dragon. He held the heart above each of the Four, first Vera,
then Markus, then Tom and last Karla, and from the heart where he
held it above each of their heads, a shower of small dust like
sparkling specks of light fell upon each of them, and seemed to be
absorbed into them.

With this last bit the ceremony was done, and
the Seer led the assembly back to the parlor from which they had
come. As they came into the room, the double doors swung shut once
again, but it was obvious to all that this time the wormhole would
remain active until the entire task was done.

Soon they had settled outside at the courtyard
table to eat the pizza and drink the beer that the Herald’s man had
laid in for this celebratory feast. For an hour or so, the party
held sway, and then the attendees slowly began to float away to
their beds.

******

Karla woke up from her position spooned with
Tom on the couch. The whole group had been excited last night after
the Shriving, and the discussions of optimistic things had gone on
until the break of dawn, when everybody had either toddled off to
their beds, or bunked down where they were for the night. Tom,
Karla, Vera, Markus, Tyr, Veritasia and Arpad had all stayed in the
living room area and slept there for the last six hours or
so.

Tom woke up as she moved to get up, and after
a brief struggle, managed to position his body into a slumped
sitting position. At a nearby table, Markus, Tyr, Veritasia, Arpad
and Vera were playing a game of cards. Markus was
winning.

“
Wa Sup, y’all?” Tom groused in
his best imitation nearly asleep Southern drawl.

“
Markus is winning a big part of
what is left of the Walmart cash.” Vera said. “Tyr is getting antsy
to do something heroic, Arpad is itching to go visit someone called
‘Zane’, and Charlie was in a few minutes ago to let us know that
the Sage will be here later today.”

“
Damn it, I collected that cash
because I am the frugal sort, not so all my friends can sponge off
of me!” Tom said. “And I guess if the Sage is coming in, I better
hide the Claymore and practice looking innocent.”

Karla made it back to Tom to hand him the tar
like substance in a cup that Tyr preferentially made and called
coffee. One could dip their finger into it and lick it, if all they
wanted to feel was an adrenaline surge, Goosebumps and restless leg
syndrome. Tom figured that he could use about two cups of the tarry
goo this morning. He held his breath as he took the first sip,
hoping that it didn’t have an overly caustic effect on his teeth,
or the cup itself.

The Sorcerer came into the room and poured
himself a cup of the coffee. It was a treat to see a shadow glide
across the room, resolve itself into the Sorcerer’s form, pour a
cup of coffee, and then make a face that expressed both repugnance
and pain as the bitter brew hit his taste buds. When he recovered
enough to turn around, the look of irritation on his face as he
noticed the group was all laughing at his reactions was a keeper.
He looked about ready to stalk out, but finally, he sat down in a
nearby chair with the current newspaper.

The group was rarely in agreement about the
correct procedure for any activity, but all of them could agree
that the proper response to seeing a man sit down with the
newspaper is to sit beside him while making sure that he has no
opportunity to concentrate on the reading of the paper. In honor of
this agreement, they all got up and pulled their chairs to surround
him where he was scan-laxing with the paper.

“
I have a question.” Said Markus.
“If time is not a dimension, how can we be stepping back
seventy-three years to the Place of Beginnings? Doesn’t it have to
be a dimension for us to traverse it?”

The Sorcerer reluctantly put down the
newspaper, and turned to face Markus. “In order to answer that, I
will have to explain quantum objects and dimensions.” He
said.

“
The characteristic of a dimension
that defines it, is that it is traversable. You can go in both
directions in the x, y and z directions, so you can call space
three dimensional. If one of those were not traversable, so that
you cannot travel in it, then it would be a two dimensional space.
While you are moving around in the three dimensions, you can create
events, let’s say taking a step, and you can record the duration of
time it takes, and peg each part of it to a particular second in
the sequence, but you cannot walk back through the seconds of time
like you can retrace your steps.” The Sorcerer tried to
explain.

“
You can pass by the same points
in space over and over, but you can only pass a particular instant
once.” He explained. “You can find worlds in shadow that appear to
exist in any time period you seek, but they are all actually in
whatever constitutes the present time in their world.”

“
Wormholes are the wild cards in
this.” He continues. “By definition, a wormhole can open up into
any world at all, even the ones that we see as impossible. They are
Quantum Objects, and there are no limitations to where they can
access. You can never walk to a past time, but neither can you ever
deny access to the past to a wormhole.”

“
I have a headache.” Markus
complained. “You might as well have said that time travel isn’t
possible, unless you use magic.”

“
Fair enough.” The Sorcerer said.
“Lucky we all have magic, then, isn’t it? Tom there is
pre-telekinetic, for instance.” He motioned languidly at
Tom.

“
You need to explain that one.”
Tom said. “I don’t feel like a television.”

“
Why don’t I show you, instead of
telling you?” The Sorcerer asked. “Close your eyes for a moment.
Visualize the Stone of Creation, and rotate it in your mind’s eye.
When you have it steady in your mind, feel a stiff breeze blowing
past you, the sound and the feeling, blowing through and blowing
doors open or closed.”

Tom closed his eyes as instructed, visualized
the stone and began to rotate it in his mind’s eye. It was much
easier than he imagined it would be. He felt a sense of a power
build up, almost like he was sitting in the middle of a puddle
composed of some odd form of electricity which made some mental
equivalent to the pre-shock electrical twinges of current
flow.

He began to imagine the sensation of a steady
pickup in the wind around him, and he thought he felt the air
moving on his skin, and even felt a very slight change in
temperature around him. In a couple of seconds, the sensation
seemed very real, maybe too real.

His eyes jerked open when he heard the sound
of a nearby set of interior doors slam shut just as the outer door
slammed back against the wall as it swung open. The small objects
in the room were being swept toward the outer door by the wind,
which rapidly dropped away to nothing after he opened his
eyes.

“
Told you.” The Sorcerer said. “I
laid on a suggestion, but you did all of the work of the
telekinesis.”

“
That will take some getting used
to.” Tom said. “It should come in handy, if Karla starts wearing a
dress.”

“
I agree completely.” Said
Heimdall, who had just walked into the room. “Telekinesis comes in
handy, but you also have a strong precognitive talent.”

“
Splain yourself, mister.” Tom
said. He enjoyed having silly conversations about silly subjects,
and he certainly did not think of himself as particularly talented
in the paranormal department. “I usually have a problem with what
happened yesterday, let alone tomorrow.”

“
You did mention that you had a
dream in which you talked to Tyr, before you ever met him, right?”
Heimdall asked. “That means you saw a god that you would meet in
the future, and found out things that were useful in future events,
right?”

“
Yeah, I met him in a dream.” Tom
said as he drew the Moonblade out into view. “In the dream, he gave
me this knife, and when I woke up, I had the blade.”

“
Interesting.” Heimdall remarked.
“You must have manifested the blade based on knowledge of future
events. Have you talked to Tyr about the blade?”