The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Ten: The City Where There Is No Death

Chapter Ten of my book, The Journey to Eternity, shared here chapter by chapter as I write it. Earlier chapters: Chapter One · Chapter Two · Chapter Three · Chapter Four · Chapter Five · Chapter Six · Chapter Seven · Chapter Eight · Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten: The City Where There Is No Death

The woman in the blue robe walked with a speed surprising for her age.

I tried to keep up with her steps, but every time I almost reached her, something else drew my attention.

The city was different from any place I had seen so far.

The streets were not straight, and yet they did not look confused. They wound between tall buildings, hanging gardens and wide squares, as if created around the wishes of those who lived in them.

Above us passed a flock of transparent birds. Their wings sounded delicate sounds, and when they turned together their color changed from blue to orange.

At the edge of one of the squares stood a huge tree whose leaves were made of thin glass. Every leaf reflected a different sight: a stormy sea, a desert, a room lit by candles, the face of a sleeping child.

I stopped before it.

"Is this tree real?" I asked.

The woman turned around.

"Of course."

"But its leaves display other places."

"That is what those who created it wanted them to display."

"Who created it?"

"Several consciousnesses together. One remembered a tree from her childhood, another wanted to see distant places, and a third loved the sound of glass in the wind."

A gust of wind passed through the branches.

The leaves gave a soft ringing.

"And did they agree on the result?" I asked.

The woman smiled.

"Not at all. One wanted green leaves, and another insisted there be no leaves at all."

"Then how did they reach this?"

"They began to create. In the course of the work they discovered something none of them had thought of alone."

I looked at the tree again.

In the world I knew, people often argued about the right way to do things. Here, it seemed, a disagreement could be turned into a creation.

"May I touch it?"

"Yes. Just don't pick a leaf."

"Why?"

"Because someone will have to decide which place it belongs to after you detach it."

I wasn't sure whether she was joking.

I extended a hand and touched one of the leaves.

It was cool and smooth. Within it I saw a wide wheat field, moving in the wind.

For a moment I felt the sun on my face.

I removed my hand.

"Is that a place that exists?"

"It existed. Perhaps still."

The woman continued walking.

I hurried after her.

"I didn't ask your name," I said.

"Liara."

"Have you lived here a long time?"

"A very long time."

"How long?"

She thought for a moment.

"I stopped counting after a few tens of thousands of years."

I looked at her.

"Tens of thousands of years?"

"Roughly."

"And you're still in a hurry?"

She laughed.

"I have a meeting I'm already late for since yesterday."

"What is yesterday in a place like this?"

"The same as everywhere. Something that happened and can no longer be reached on time."

We continued walking.

I liked her a little more.

We arrived at a wide square at whose center stood a low structure, made of pale stone arches. Beneath the arches sat dozens of consciousnesses around round surfaces, on which colorful forms were created.

Beside one of the tables stood a small girl trying to create a butterfly.

Every time the butterfly spread its wings, one of them became larger than the other and it spun in the air.

The girl laughed and tried again.

Beside her stood a tall creature with three arms. He extended one of them, and the butterfly stabilized.

"Like that," he said.

The girl looked at him.

"But now it flies like all the butterflies."

She touched the wing and shrank it again.

The butterfly spun.

"I like it this way."

The creature looked at the butterfly, then at the girl.

At last he shrugged and joined her laughter.

"Is that a real girl?" I asked Liara.

"She is a consciousness who chose to look that way."

"Why a girl specifically?"

"Perhaps because that is how she feels today."

I looked around me.

For the first time I noticed that not all the consciousnesses kept a fixed form. A woman sitting beside one of the tables changed her hair color every time she laughed. Another figure looked like white smoke within which small stars sparkled.

"Can one look here any way one wants?"

"Almost."

"Then why did you choose to look older?"

Liara raised an eyebrow.

"You think I'm older?"

"By your appearance, yes."

"Interesting. I actually think I look excellent."

I laughed.

"I didn't say you don't."

"Very good."

She led me across the square.

"But if you want to ask that question seriously, there is someone you should meet."

The man sat on a stone bench before a small garden.

His hair was gray, his face full of fine wrinkles, and his hands looked like the hands of a man who had worked many years in the earth.

He held a white flower between his fingers.

When we approached, he placed the flower on the bench and smiled.

"Liara. At last."

"I told you I would come."

"You said that three days ago."

"Two and a half days."

"Here we are precise."

He turned to me.

"And who is the guest?"

Liara introduced me.

"Aren," he said and extended a hand.

I shook it.

It was warm.

"You look really human," I said.

"Thank you. I worked on it many years."

"I mean that your hand also feels real."

"It is real. At least as far as I'm concerned."

He invited us to sit.

"Aren," said Liara, "she was in the House of the Seven Chairs."

His smile faded.

He looked at me for a long time.

"Inside the house?"

I nodded.

"I spoke with the one who is there."

Aren placed his hands on his knees.

"I haven't heard of anyone entering there for a long time."

"He said he cannot get out."

"That is what I thought."

"Do you know him?"

"I knew those who sat there. I was not one of them."

I looked at him.

"Do you know what happened to them?"

"Part of it."

Liara sat down beside him.

"I thought you should come with us to the Hall of Voices."

Aren looked at her.

"Do they still keep the record there?"

"What was not erased."

He was silent.

Meanwhile something in his face drew my attention.

The wrinkles around his eyes deepened when he looked at the flower he had placed beside him.

"May I ask you something personal?" I said.

"One may ask. I don't promise to answer."

"Why do you choose to look this way?"

"This way how?"

"Older."

He smiled.

"You are the second person to ask me that today."

"And who was the first?"

"I, when I woke up."

I laughed.

Aren picked up the flower and turned it between his fingers.

"Once I tried to look young. I was able to return to any age I wanted. I chose the body I had when I was twenty-five. No pains, no wrinkles, not one white hair."

"And you didn't like it?"

"I liked it very much. For a while."

He looked at his hands.

"But every time I looked in the mirror I felt something was missing."

"What?"

"The years I lived."

He passed a finger over a deep wrinkle beside his eye.

"This one I got from laughter. This one from worry. Here I had a small cut when I was a child, and it remained even as I aged."

He showed me a thin mark beside his thumb.

"When I erased all those, I looked younger, but I did not feel I was looking at myself."

I looked at his face.

In it there was a whole life.

"So you brought the wrinkles back?"

"One by one."

"Do you remember where each one came from?"

"No. But I like to think I do."

He smiled.

"There are consciousnesses here who change their appearance every day. I prefer my face. It worked hard to get this far."

Liara placed a hand on his shoulder.

"And you still complain about your back."

"I miss my complaints."

This time all three of us laughed.

But when I looked at him again, I thought of my body, left beside the tree.

Of the hands, the face, the years that left marks in me.

Since I left it I had barely thought that perhaps there were things in the human body I would not want to forget.

Aren stood up from the bench.

"Come," he said. "If you two intend to open an old story, we had better do it in a place where it can still be heard."

We followed him.

The further we moved from the square, the more the city changed.

The streets became quieter. The buildings lower, and the colors softer.

On the way we passed a small house whose windows were open.

From within rose a scent of coffee.

I stopped.

It was such a familiar scent that for a moment I forgot where I am.

A woman stood beside the window holding a cup.

She blew on it gently.

"Is the coffee hot?" I asked.

She smiled.

"Exactly as I like it."

"But you don't need to drink, right?"

"No."

"Then why make coffee?"

The woman looked at the cup.

"Because once I would sit every morning beside such a window. I would hold the cup in both hands and wait for the house to wake."

She sipped.

"I manage to recreate the taste. Even the warmth. But there is something in those mornings that I still cannot create."

"What is missing?"

She thought for a moment.

"I'm not sure. Perhaps the fact that I did not know how the day would look."

I continued walking, but the scent accompanied me for a long time yet.

In a world where almost anything could be created, there were those who chose to recreate precisely the simplest things.

A window.

A cup.

A moment of quiet before the beginning of a day.

The Hall of Voices stood at the street's end.

From outside it looked like a simple stone structure, without windows, whose doors stood wide open.

Inside stretched a vast hall.

Thousands of thin threads of light hung from the ceiling and moved in the air, though I felt no wind.

Some were long, down to the floor.

Others ended at eye height.

Every thread sounded a faint sound of its own.

Together they created a deep, continuous murmur, like a sea located far behind the walls.

"What is this?" I whispered.

"Voices that were kept," said Liara.

"Whose?"

"Of those who wanted to be remembered. And also of those who had no one left to remember them."

Aren approached one of the threads.

He did not touch it.

"There are conversations here, songs, arguments, laughter. Even silences."

"How does one keep a silence?" I asked.

"Sometimes what was not said is no less important than what was said."

I looked around me.

Beside a distant wall stood a tall, thin consciousness, dressed in a dark garment. Her face was not clear, but her movements were precise and quiet.

She passed among the threads and touched one of them now and then.

"Is that the Keeper of the Voices?" I asked.

Liara nodded.

The figure approached us.

"Liara. Aren."

Her voice was low and soft.

"It has been a while."

"We need to hear an old record," said Aren.

"Which?"

"The House of the Seven Chairs."

The Keeper of the Voices stopped.

She looked at me.

"Why?"

"I was there," I said.

For a moment it seemed the murmur in the hall weakened.

"Inside the house?"

"Yes."

"And the seventh wall?"

"Still closed."

The Keeper of the Voices turned to Liara.

"You know what you are asking?"

"I ask to hear what was kept. Not to change anything."

She was silent for a moment.

And then she turned.

"Come."

We followed her to the hall's back part.

There the threads were fewer.

Some looked faded.

Others were torn.

The Keeper of the Voices stopped before seven threads that hung side by side.

Six of them were bright.

The seventh was almost completely dark.

"This is what remains of the record," she said.

"What happened to the rest?" I asked.

"Part was erased. Part was damaged when the house was closed."

"And who erased it?"

"That is one of the questions that never received an answer."

She extended a hand to the first thread.

A low sound filled the space.

And then a voice was heard.

"We cannot continue this way."

Another voice replied:

"You are afraid of an ability you have not yet learned to understand."

"We are afraid of what has already been done with it."

The Keeper of the Voices touched the second thread.

This time I heard a woman.

"If someone asks to forget pain, who are we to forbid him?"

Another voice replied:

"There is a difference between helping someone carry a memory and deciding in his place what he will remember."

I listened.

The argument sounded astonishingly close, as if the participants stood around us.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"The seven founders of the house," said Aren.

"What were they trying to do?"

"At first only to share experiences. One consciousness could experience the world through another's senses. Like reading a book, but being inside it."

I recalled the creature that lives in the sea's depths.

"I did that," I said. "In the house."

Aren looked at me.

"Then you know how wonderful it can be."

"Yes."

"And that was the problem. The ability was so wonderful that not everyone wanted to make do with what the others agreed to share."

The Keeper of the Voices touched the third thread.

This time a sharp voice was heard.

"You cannot take a memory from me and then return it to me different!"

The silence that prevailed after it was almost tangible.

Another voice said:

"I took nothing from you. I only removed what caused you to suffer."

"It was not yours to remove."

I felt a shiver.

"Could they truly change memories?" I asked.

Liara nodded.

"Not create a new past. But change the way someone experiences his past. Sometimes even without his noticing."

I thought of all the memories I carried with me.

Of moments I would want to forget.

And of others I would not be willing to lose, even if they hurt me.

"But if someone asks to forget something terrible," I said, "perhaps that is his right."

"Perhaps," replied Liara.

"And if his memory is tied also to someone else?" asked Aren. "If changing his memory changes what he believes that person did?"

I did not answer at once.

There was something in it more complex than I had thought.

"Then who decides?" I asked.

"That is exactly what they could not agree on," said Liara.

The Keeper of the Voices touched the fourth thread.

I heard a loud noise.

Something broke.

And then several voices spoke at once.

"Close the passage!"

"There is still someone in there!"

"If we don't close now, it will spread!"

The voices mixed.

The Keeper of the Voices raised her hand.

The threads fell silent.

"That is the last moment kept continuously," she said.

"What spread?" I asked.

"We don't know for certain."

"But someone remained inside."

"Yes."

"And the others got out?"

The Keeper of the Voices looked at the threads.

"So it is written in the record."

"What do you mean, written?"

"Not everything that happened was kept in voice. There is also a description written afterward."

"And who wrote it?"

"Those who were outside."

I looked at the seven threads.

Something did not add up for me.

"Can one hear them all together?" I asked.

The Keeper of the Voices hesitated.

"Why?"

"Because until now you played us segments separately. I want to hear what happened at that moment without separating them."

She looked at Liara.

Liara nodded.

The Keeper of the Voices extended both her hands.

The seven threads began to move.

For a moment only a murmur was heard.

And then the voices returned.

The argument.

The thud.

The call to close the passage.

I closed my eyes and listened.

I did not try to understand the words.

I listened to the voices themselves.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

I counted again.

And then I heard something I had not noticed before.

One of the voices sounded twice.

First inside the room.

And then, almost at the same moment, from farther away.

I opened my eyes.

"Stop."

The Keeper of the Voices lowered her hands.

"What happened?"

"I want to hear the last part again."

She played it.

This time I listened only to that voice.

"Close the passage!"

A moment later the same voice was heard:

"Wait!"

But this time it was muffled, as if it came from behind a thick wall.

"It is the same voice," I said.

Aren looked at me.

"Which one?"

"The one who asked to close the passage. A moment later he was heard from another place."

The Keeper of the Voices touched a thin thread and separated it from the others.

The two sentences were heard again.

Liara approached.

"You are right."

"How did he pass from one side to the other?" I asked.

The Keeper of the Voices did not reply.

"Perhaps he did not pass," said Aren.

I looked at him.

"Then how was he heard from two places?"

"Perhaps something of him remained on the other side."

Silence prevailed.

I recalled the seventh wall.

The pulses.

The dark movement I saw behind it.

"Do you think a consciousness can be divided?" I asked.

Liara looked at the Keeper of the Voices.

"There were attempts to understand whether an experience can be kept without separating it completely from the one who experienced it."

"And did it succeed?"

"Sometimes it was hard to know what exactly was kept."

I looked at the dark thread.

"Then it is possible the one in the house is not a whole consciousness?"

"Possibly," said Aren.

"And it is possible someone else is beyond the wall."

None of them replied.

I approached the seventh thread.

It was darker than the others, but it did not look dead.

Within it moved tiny points of light.

"Can one hear it alone?" I asked.

The Keeper of the Voices hesitated.

"It barely responds."

"Can we try?"

She extended a hand.

The thread trembled.

At first nothing was heard.

And then a faint sound arrived.

Three short sounds.

And after them one long.

I felt my heart skip a beat.

"That's it," I whispered.

Liara looked at me.

"What?"

"The sounds I heard in the forest. And in the house."

The Keeper of the Voices touched the thread again.

The sounds returned.

But this time a voice was heard after them.

Very faint.

"Do not open."

It was muffled, almost unintelligible.

"What did he say?" asked Aren.

The Keeper of the Voices repeated the segment.

"Do not open."

And then more words were heard.

"Not before…"

The voice was cut off.

The thread faded.

The Keeper of the Voices removed her hand.

I stood before her.

"Can the continuation be restored?"

"Not without the source."

"What source?"

"The place where the voice was recorded."

"The round house?"

"Yes."

I looked at Liara.

"Then we need to go back there."

"Not so fast," she said.

"Why?"

"Because now we know someone warned against opening the wall. We still don't know against what."

I turned to the seventh thread.

It moved slightly, as if a wind blew through it.

"And who said that sentence?"

The Keeper of the Voices looked at it for a long time.

"That is the most important question."

"You don't recognize the voice?"

"Not with certainty."

"But you suspect someone."

She was silent.

Aren approached her.

"Show her the written record."

The Keeper of the Voices looked at him.

"Are you sure?"

"She has already heard the voices. Better she also know what was written about them."

The Keeper of the Voices led us to a small room behind the hall.

On the walls hung transparent tablets, and within them rows of glowing signs.

She took one of them out and placed it on a table.

The signs arranged themselves into words I could read.

It was a short description of the closing of the House of the Seven Chairs.

It was written there that the founders stopped the house's activity after it became clear that it was possible to influence memories without the consent of their owners.

Six of the participants left.

The seventh remained inside.

The house was closed to prevent further use of the ability.

I read the words twice.

"Who was the seventh?" I asked.

The Keeper of the Voices pointed to a line at the tablet's bottom.

There was a name there.

But part of the letters were erased.

"Why can't it be read?"

"The record was damaged."

"And is there no other copy?"

"We have not found one."

I looked at the tablet again.

"Wait."

Something troubled me.

"It is written here that six left and the seventh remained. But in the recording I heard a voice that called to close the passage, and afterward was heard again from the other side."

"Correct," said Aren.

"Then how did they know who truly got out and who remained?"

Liara approached the table.

"They relied on those who reported after the closing."

"But if memories could be changed, how did they know their report was accurate?"

The room fell silent.

The Keeper of the Voices looked at me.

For the first time since I met her, I saw a change in her face.

"That is a question no one has asked me in a very long time."

"And what is the answer?"

She shook her head.

"I have no answer."

I looked at the tablet again.

I understood the problem was bigger than I had thought.

Not only did we not know what happened in the house.

It is possible those who left it did not know either.

When we returned to the large hall, the threads of light moved above us quietly.

I stood for a moment and looked at them.

Thousands of voices.

Thousands of stories.

Each of them kept because someone thought it important.

I wondered how many of them are accurate.

And how many changed every time they were told anew.

"What will you do now?" asked Aren.

"I want to understand who is on both sides of the wall."

"And afterward?"

"I will decide whether to open it."

Liara smiled slightly.

"You are not in a hurry to make decisions."

"I actually am, sometimes. But not when someone else might pay for them."

Aren nodded.

"That is a good reason to slow down."

The Keeper of the Voices approached us.

In her hand she held a small tablet.

"There is one more thing that might help you," she said.

She handed me the tablet.

Within it appeared a drawing of the round house.

I saw the table, the seven chairs and the wall.

But this time I noticed a detail I had not seen when I was there.

Behind the wall was another room.

Smaller.

And within it stood one chair.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The original building plan."

"So there was always a room there?"

"Yes."

"Why did no one tell me?"

Liara looked at the drawing.

"Because we did not know it still exists."

"What do you mean?"

The Keeper of the Voices pointed at the wall.

"After the closing, that room vanished from all the later plans."

"Did someone erase it?"

"Perhaps."

I looked at the single chair.

"Who was supposed to sit there?"

The Keeper of the Voices replied quietly:

"That is exactly why I kept the plan."

We left the hall into the city's afternoon light.

The streets were full of motion.

Someone played an instrument I had never seen, and its sounds moved in the air in the form of colored rings.

Children ran among the transparent trees.

In the nearby square consciousnesses gathered around a new creation that was growing out of the ground.

For a moment I wanted to join them.

To create something.

To forget the wall and the questions.

But the tablet in my hand reminded me why I had come.

"You don't have to solve everything today," said Aren, as if he had read my thoughts.

"I know."

"Then perhaps you'll stay a while in the city."

I looked around me.

"I want to."

"Good. Because there is much more here than old houses and mysteries."

Liara smiled.

"Even Aren knows how to enjoy himself now and then."

"Rarely," he replied.

They laughed.

And I felt for the first time since I entered the city that I am not only a passing guest.

There was a place here where one could learn, meet others, create, and perhaps even find friends.

And then the sound was heard.

Three short.

One long.

I stopped.

This time it did not come from within a wall or a thread of memory.

It came from the square.

I looked around me.

Among the many consciousnesses stood a small figure, wrapped in a pale robe.

She held in her hands a narrow, long musical instrument.

When she noticed me, she stopped playing.

For a moment we stood facing each other.

And then she turned and vanished among the passersby.

"What happened?" asked Liara.

"Someone played the four sounds."

"Where?"

I pointed toward the square.

But the figure was no longer there.

Aren looked in the direction I pointed.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He and Liara exchanged a look.

"Do you know the melody?" I asked.

Aren was silent for a moment.

"I heard it once," he said.

"Where?"

He looked at the street where the figure had vanished.

"Many years ago. When the House of the Seven Chairs was still open."

I approached the place where the figure had stood.

On the street stones rested a small object.

I bent down and picked it up.

It was a thin disc, almost completely transparent, in whose center were engraved four signs.

Three short lines.

And one long line.

I turned it over.

On its other side appeared a tiny drawing of seven chairs around a round table.

I felt my fingers tighten around it.

"Aren," I called.

He approached.

I handed him the disc.

The moment he saw it, his face changed.

"Where did you find this?"

"The figure who played stood here. It was on the floor."

Aren looked at the disc for a long time.

"Do you know it?" I asked.

He nodded slowly.

"It is the sign of one of the house's founders."

"Whose?"

He raised his gaze to me.

"I don't know if his name will help you. But I know one thing."

"What?"

Aren closed my fingers around the disc.

"The one who held this sign was supposed to be the last to leave the house."

I looked at him.

"Then perhaps he is the one who remained inside."

"Perhaps," said Aren.

"And perhaps he did leave," added Liara, "and someone else remained in his place."

I looked toward the street where the figure had vanished.

For the first time since I entered the round house, I held in my hand something that did not rest on someone else's memory.

An object.

A sign.

Evidence that can be examined.

I did not know who left it there, or whether he wanted me to find it.

But I knew where I would begin to look.

I closed my hand around the disc.

"I want to know to whom it belonged," I said.

Aren looked at me.

"Then we had better begin before someone else finds out you have it."

End of Chapter Ten

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