Vrin: Ten Mortal Gods (37 page)

He let out an irritated sigh. “Your
sword
is in your mouth.”

My tongue rolled in response.

“
Words
are our sword.”

I gave him an uncomprehending look.

“In Dantra, even in the lost land,
truth
cannot be denied. If you speak truth, it must be obeyed.”

“And--” I looked at him sideways. “What
is
truth?”

“It is what sways the hand of God.
He
is our weapon.”

His reply did not answer my question, but I didn’t press the point, partly because of the towering angel watching me with fierce eyes, and partly because Humphrey was already walking toward the portal. I hurried to catch up. He passed through without hesitation, but I was not so comfortable with the idea. Although this was not my first trip to the lost land, it
was
my first time entering with the understanding of what it actually
was--
to an extent. The memory had not completely returned, but what I did remember made me realize that I did
not
miss this place.

I closed my eyes tightly, and pushed through.

On the other side, was darkness. And it was complete. My short nervous breaths sounded much louder than they should have, as if the sound was reflecting off a hard surface inches from my face. I reached out my hand. But there was nothing there.

“
Humphrey!”
I whispered.

“What?” His voice made me jump, like he was right next to my ear.

“Why is it so dark?”

Something flashed in my face. The sound, and subsequent reduction of flash, told me it was a match-- before my heart could fully leap from my chest. Humphrey’s face appeared in the orange glow, his wrinkles deepened by the harsh shadows.

My feet sloshed in water upon the hard obsidian surface we were standing on. I turned and squinted into the darkness, listening. There was no sign of life. Just me and Humphrey. In the middle of endless black. I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t.

“--That's
weird.”

“What?” The way he said the word, I realized he already knew what I was going to say.

“I didn’t expect to feel God's love here.”

He nodded. “His love fills Dantra, even in the lost land, but it is fainter here because the inhabitants cannot tolerate the light.”

--
Cannot tolerate the light.
The words echoed in my mind. The idea was so familiar, so...

Humphrey smacked my arm. “Come on!”

I shook my head, and followed closely behind him, unable to take my eyes off the match. As we walked it continued to burn, but did not get shorter. I was about to comment on it, when a tortured scream broke through the darkness. I stopped abruptly and peered around. “That was creepy,” I said in a low voice.

“And to think,” Humphrey said, half sympathetically, “you used to live here.”

A memory surfaced. Pride and selfishness brought me to this dark place. I would come here to try to work through my financial troubles, always carrying my burdens with me, never able to trust God with them.

As I explored the memory, our surroundings began to flicker and change. Light filled the darkness and objects took shape in the receding shadows. Soon we found ourselves walking through an enormous office space with cubical after cubical of men and women frantically trying to get work done. The dark obsidian chamber had completely dissolved. “Did
I
do that?” I asked, startled.

“Yes, and yes.”

“What?”

“Yes, you changed our surroundings, and yes, you used to be one of these people, struggling to make a name for yourself, never trusting God, only trusting in the talents God gave you.”

“How? How did I do that?” He looked as though his answer was going to be a smart one, so I cut him off. “I mean, how did I make all this appear?”

He looked disappointed I had ruined his fun. “Don’t get your undies in a bunch. It’ll come to you.”

I looked into one of the cubicles at a man in a business suit. He was staring at a screen filled with charts and graphs. In the corner of the screen, a stock ticker flashed red. He laced his fingers into his curly hair and gripped hard. His elbows dug into the desk.

Peering down at him, I suddenly realized,
I
had once been this man. In fact, I had shared this very office! I looked around at the other workers. They were all here because of the same lust, the same perceived
need
for something more. I was once one of them, constantly worrying about money, caught in a cycle of endless frustration.

I had not created this room. These were real people sharing the same reality, the same struggle. I had simply merged my reality with theirs-- but this was
not
a place I wanted to remember. The emotions were growing stronger,
painful
emotions, and I had
no
desire to revisit them. I turned toward Humphrey. “Can we leave?”

“Yes, you are in control,” he answered. “You need to search for Gaza's daughter. Her mother is dead and her father’s in a coma. Look for someone dealing with loss.”

Could I do that? Could I find her by searching for her own personal hell? Wherever she was, she was experiencing the loss of a loved one. I thought of my love for my family, and of how I would feel if I lost them.

My soul reached out into the maelstrom of realities. In this realm, as in Dantra, thought became reality. But here, the fears and lusts of its inhabitants generated horrific self-made prisons. It was difficult sifting through the realities of unstable minds, but I realized, much to my surprise, that I had been created for this task. I could walk this realm because I had lived this realm. It spoke to something deep within me. A core belief? An insecurity? Regardless, it was the part of me that caused mistrust in my Creator, but ironically, it was the same part that allowed me to connect with these wretched souls. It was
why
I was uniquely qualified to rescue Gaza's daughter.

I latched on to the feeling of loss, and the world changed again. It was night and we were walking across a bridge. Several hopeless souls stood poised on the railing, working up the courage to jump. A young man leaned out and I reached to grab him, but Humphrey held my arm. “We can't help him. He has to work through this on his own.”

I turned to Humphrey and studied his face. “We're helping Gaza's daughter, how is that different?”

“This trial is made for that man. He would not respond to you.”

I understood what he meant. God knew I would respond to the angels when they came for me. He knew I had come to the end of myself and was ready to receive their message. I turned from the suicides. It was pointless to try to help; I did not have the message they would hear.

The bridge dissolved and a new scene took form around us, this time, a busy city street. There was a flutter and a woman screamed. I searched for her amidst the sea of pedestrians shimmering into view across the street. She was standing over a body. A crowd was beginning to form.

“We're looking for victims
inside
a car,” said Humphrey.

“I
know!”
I snapped at him. “This is all new to me!”

“I'm just saying...”

“If you think this is so easy,
you
try it!”

“Now you're just being disagreeable,” he said, folding his arms.

The environment shifted again and we found ourselves on a remote road. In the air, droplets of water hovered, like a million tiny tears-- as though time itself had frozen on the most tragic of moments, and nature could not contain its sorrow. I reached out and poked a drop. It left a hollow space, and ran down my finger.

Through the curtain of rain, I saw a woman kneeling by the side of the road. I approached her, creating a path through the droplets. At the bottom of the embankment was the object of her interest, a silver BMW, wrapped around a telephone pole.

I looked down upon the still and somber woman, then back at Humphrey. “She is too old.”

Humphrey’s brow furrowed. “She's not a little girl anymore, the accident happened over twenty years ago.”

“Twenty
years?
Wouldn't she be past the grief?”

“I'm sorry, what
was
your father's name?”

She stopped on the center line, and for a moment her eyes were uncertain. Then her face contorted in agony as she looked up into the darkness. “
HE'S
DEAD!”
The sky opened up and rain poured down in torrents so thick I had to shield my eyes to see her. She had collapsed to the pavement and was shivering in the downpour.

I knelt beside her. “Come with me, Constance!” I hollered over the roar of the rain. “I will bring you to him!”

“You lie! He's
dead!
You can't know him!”

I tangibly felt her sadness and guilt, and although she appeared as a woman, I sensed that inwardly she was a still little girl.
“Constance,
listen to me! When I saw your father, I saw him do this!” I held my pinky out and swooped it in a J shape, then tapped my knuckles together three times.

Her eyelids flicked at the rain as she looked up at me.

“I understand that it was a secret between the two of you! but
I
know about it! Please believe me when I say I
know
your father! He loves you very much, Constance. And I can bring you to him!

“But you don’t
understand!
I can't
leave!
If I
leave,
Mommy and Daddy won't wake up!” She looked up at the sky. “
I CAN’T LEAVE!”
The rain fell harder.

I leaned in closer and shielded my eyes from the deluge. “Come with me! The ambulance is here! They won't let anything happen to your mommy and daddy!”

The scene shifted forward in time and the car was swamped with activity. Lights flashed from the emergency vehicles, paramedics descended the embankment. Constance clutched my jacket and wept. “Please don't let anything happen to my mommy and daddy.”

I gave her a hug. “Everything is going to be all right, Constance. I promise I won’t let...”

A piercing screech filled the air and my head snapped around. A dark form descended onto the hood of the car. The metal gave way under the weight of its massive body.
“You do not belong here!”
It hissed.

Another creature, thin and humanoid, came out of the shadows.
“She cannot go with you.”
It droned.

Humphrey stepped between us and the creatures. “Take her back to the portal! I’ll meet you there!”

The creature on the car opened its deformed mouth and let out another screech.

Humphrey’s face snapped back. “
Go!
”

I pulled Constance by the arm and we headed down the opposite embankment.

Through the wind and rain I heard shouting behind me.
“I am a servant of the most high God!”
Humphrey declared with confidence.
“It is HE you do battle with!”

The air filled with a piercing shriek, but I did not hear what followed, we were in a corn field now, bursting through a flapping flurry of green. I looked over my shoulder. Through the cornstalks I caught a glimpse of a tall gray shape pursuing us. And it was gaining. If we did not get out of the field soon we would be overtaken.

I applied my will to the substance around us and the cornfield morphed into an open air field. Our footfalls echoed on the tarmac. I looked back again-- at an
army
of thin shadowy figures. My heart pounded in my chest as Constance pleaded with me to stop.

“We can't stop! It's just a little farther!”

If I had been alone I could have escaped easily because the memory of Dantra had fully returned. But Constance did not remember yet and shifting through thought quickly would be painful for her.

“
This way!”
I pulled her into an airplane hanger. It was large, hollow, and empty-- except for a tool table to the right. I snatched a large wrench off the table and pulled Constance toward the other side. Creatures poured into the hangar from every entrance. Constance screamed in wide-eyed terror as I pulled her toward the exit.
“This way!”

We burst out of the hanger and were now running across rooftops. The creatures were everywhere now. Constance let out a screech as something dove at her from the side. I twisted and pulled her out of the way.
“We're almost there!”

But it was too late. We skidded to a halt. We were completely surrounded. I swung the wrench wildly at the tall shadowy creatures. Their yellow eyes burned with hatred, their long thin fingers made clicking noises as they groped closer, and closer. Constance pressed against me. I held the wrench out menacingly, but it was no use. We were toast.

A large shadow passed over us and the creatures cowered back. I looked up to see a dark angel hovering overhead. The air from his mighty wings beat down on us.

“LET! THEM! GO!” His voice rattled the rooftops.

The creatures shrank back and I grabbed Constance by the arm and brought her to the edge of the building. She looked down and let out a shriek.

“Constance.
Constance!
Look at me! You can do this. I know it doesn't make sense to you, but you
can
do this!”

She was hysterical.

“
Trust me!
Everything will be okay!”

She looked down at the water far below, then clutched my jacket.

“I promise you, it’s okay. You
can
do this.”

She took my hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “I trust you.”

Together we leaped into the void.

The water was
frigid,
and a frenzy of bubbles surrounded us. I pulled up on Constance and kicked hard until we broke the surface. Then with great effort, and a lot of coughing, we made our way up onto the sandy shore. It was still dark, but God's love was stronger here. The portal was close.