Authors: Martin Ash

OrbSoul (Book 6) (29 page)

The two watched, spellbound, until the last scrap of cloth was removed and they could see for the first time what was hidden within. And
then Orbelon's voice told them, 'Remember, you hold the casket. The future of my world and yours is in your hands, just as it is also in mine. We have met and have saved one another. There exists a bond and a covenant between us which must never be broken, for to break it will be the end of all. Remember well, and pass such sacred knowledge to your children, that the Union between us may never be broken. We are one and the same, and we cannot exist without each other. Now I go.'

'Orbelon, wait!' Leth cried, starting forward. 'Tell me . . . of Orbia.'

'Of Orbia?'

'I was told I named it. I had a past there. Yet I know nothing of it. Is it true? Have I been in your world before?'

'Surely what you have witnessed and are witnessing now provides the answer to that?' said Orbelon.

'I . . .' Leth shrugged. 'I don't know.'

'Then learn to see, Leth. Learn to know what lies within, wanting to be known.'

Orbelon had begun to pass from sight. Issul called out, 'Will we meet again?'

He was gone, but his final words hung in the air. 'We may. It is if the need arises. I will be aware, and time will tell, but as I told Leth long ago, in time I will no longer be required for the telling. Perhaps that time has come, or perhaps not. Until then, remember, teach your children. Goodbye, my friends.'

'Did you see?' demanded Leth after some moments, turning back. 'Iss, did you see his face?'

Issul nodded, her pupils dilated. 'I saw.'

'Never - though I wondered many times what lies beneath his rags - never did I imagine that I would look there and see my own likeness. What does it mean?'

Issul met his gaze. 'You saw yourself?
Your own likeness?'

'My own, y
et it lay somehow upon that of others who I did not recognize, yet I felt I somehow knew. Did you recognize those other faces, Iss?'

Issul shook her head. 'That was not what I saw, Leth. No face, neither yours nor anybody else's. I saw something quite different.' She lowered her gaze, her expression thoughtful and enquiring.

Leth moved and took her hand. 'What did you see, Iss?'

'I witnessed our world
. Somehow I knew without question that it was ours, though it was suspended in infinite space where also dwelt stars and clouds of stars and other worlds, an inexplicable entity that is the universe. It was beautiful and strange. I saw every world, somehow in those brief moments, for there are many more than we are aware of. And each somehow contained the other. Though vast distances may separate them, they are yet connected. Worlds within worlds; universes within universes. I felt. . . I felt that I had touched everything that existed, has existed and is yet to exist. Don't ask me to explain, for how can one gaze upon the infinite? How can one be connected to all things? How can everything be contained within itself? I don't know. I know only that that is what I saw, and that is what I knew. It was miraculous, and we have already witnessed many miracles which we can produce no explanation for. I knew only that I looked into the mind of a god, and I am filled with wonder.'

In Orbelon's World a child was born to Lakewander; a boy, who she named Astar. The child was revered among his kind, for legend had it that he was the son of a great being, a god, who had come into the world at a time of tremendous upheaval.

That being was the Swordbearer, Leth, himself the essence of the Creator.

The legend told that it was through the Swordbearer that the world was saved, for he fought and slew the evil Kancanitrix who devoured the world, and also vanquished the wicked Noeticist who gave men false minds and made them his unwitting slaves. In so doing the Swordbearer banished evil from the world.

It was said that the Swordbearer was the true son of the Creator. A great book was written, detailing his exploits. He had been sent once before, long ago, so it was written, and had promised to return. And the Creator, caring so passionately for its Creation, and knowing the suffering of its peoples who believed themselves abandoned, sent its son for the second time to end their suffering and to establish a new relationship between the people and itself.

When the Swordbearer's task was done and the time was come for him to leave the world once more, he implanted his seed in a virgin, that she might bear his child, the child who was to be named Astar. Thus, through the union of human and divinity, the living spirit of the Creator was forever to be made manifest within the peoples of its world. The Creator entered the illusion of life and became part of the creation it had made. From this time on the Creator was at all times aware, witness - through Astar's eyes - to the world and its problems. Never again would evil arise with such force. Never again would the people of the world believe themselves abandoned.

So it was written in the Great Book, for all to see and understand.

There were others, though, who laid claim to a different knowledge. They declared that Astar was not the son of the Swordbearer. He had been conceived, so they said, not through the union of woman and man-god, but through the union of woman and sword. His true sire, their creed held, had been the sacred weapon wielded by the Swordbearer during his time in the world, and he had been conceived without the will of the Swordbearer. Hence Astar was not the true embodiment of the Creator, and his word and motives would always be held in doubt. Many sought to discover the whereabouts of the sacred weapon that had sired him, for they believed that it held the key to greater secrets and knowledge of the world of the gods.

Time clouded the truth, as is its nature, and none really knew how it had been at that time.

iii

On the far side of Enchantment an old woman attuned her thoughts with the coalescence of unusual energies known as the Well of Immaculate Vision. Before her, or perhaps within her, she realized a merging of possibilities which appeared as fleeting, sometimes interweaving, visions and impressions emerging within the flux. She sat there for many hours, in silence, never moving. Her entire being, from single unknowable motes of consciousness to individual cells, was still, concentrated fully upon the task of attunement, receptive, witnessing, seeking and experiencing meaningful conjunctions and revelations within the eddies and flows of potential that were presented to her.

And when she had done she rose heavily and stiffly, and moved away from the Well to join her companion, a man far older than she, who waited nearby.

'I see nothing now,' Arene said.

'Nothing?' her companion asked.

'Only that, whatever we witnessed before, which sent me forth into Enchantment's Reach, was less than we should have known. We did not
see it, not all of it. All the strands; the second Child. We did not see. We should learn a valuable lesson here, I think. The Well reveals, but it does so almost with an intention of concealing. As though many futures send their energies to meet us here, and yet our choices remain almost infinite. Even as Witnesses of the Unfolding we can never know all there is to know. Like any other, we can but choose to follow a particular path, in the hope that it is the right one, that it will lead us to a future we would desire.' Arene turned a final glance to the Well of Immaculate Vision. Her thoughts flew back vividly to that day beside the pool, when she had tried to kill Moscul, believing him to be the Legendary Child, and had been thwarted by the sudden appearance of Shenwolf.
If I had slain him then as I intended,
she thought to herself,
what would have been achieved? The effect would have been the opposite of that which we desired. All would have been lost.

Why? Why? What does this mean? It is as though we are moved by forces of which we know absolutely nothing. And were we to know of them, I fear we would be incapable of understanding.

She shifted and made to move away, shaking her old head, saying, 'All is Mystery, still, and always will be, so I must accept. That is the natural form, for as far as we mere mortals are concerned. Aah, but it is over, now. The tale of which we became a part. We played out our roles. It is done.'

'Can you be so sure?' the old man asked.

Arene hesitated. 'I can be sure of nothing - except that we live and we die. But Enchantment's Reach is saved, that much we know. The Child is gone, the enemies defeated - at least for this time. And the Union of god and humankind has been established. But who can say what it will mean? And who, truly, can predict what the future has in store? But yes, as far as we can say, it is done. The future is another story, waiting to unfold. For now there is nothing left to be told.'