The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Way Out

Chapter Thirty-Eight 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 · Chapter Eleven · Chapter Twelve · Chapter Thirteen · Chapter Fourteen · Chapter Fifteen · Chapter Sixteen · Chapter Seventeen · Chapter Eighteen · Chapter Nineteen · Chapter Twenty · Chapter Twenty-One · Chapter Twenty-Two · Chapter Twenty-Three · Chapter Twenty-Four · Chapter Twenty-Five · Chapter Twenty-Six · Chapter Twenty-Seven · Chapter Twenty-Eight · Chapter Twenty-Nine · Chapter Thirty · Chapter Thirty-One · Chapter Thirty-Two · Chapter Thirty-Three · Chapter Thirty-Four · Chapter Thirty-Five · Chapter Thirty-Six · Chapter Thirty-Seven.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Way Out

When I returned from the town, I found Naama waiting for me by the entrance to the workshop.

"Ayla asked about you," she said.

"Did something happen?"

"No. But she asked that we not put off the attempt to get her out of there any longer."

I remembered the promise we had given her.

Since the silver one had been released, Ayla was no longer dependent on the memory I had once granted her. She managed to hold on to her identity even without it. And yet she still remained in that same isolated place where she had spent so many years.

"Have you found a way?" I asked.

"I think so."

Naama did not sound pleased.

"What is the problem?"

"We know how to open a passage. We do not know what will happen when she passes through it."

Ayla was waiting for us in the communication room.

Her figure appeared inside the transparent surface, a little smaller than I remembered her.

"I heard the silver one stayed in another town," she said.

"Yes. She is learning to bake bread."

Ayla laughed.

"Bread?"

"She is very proud of it."

"I am glad for her."

She was silent for a moment.

"Do you think I, too, will be able to taste bread one day?"

"I hope so."

"I do not want only to hope anymore."

I looked at Naama.

She drew closer to the surface.

"There is a possibility of bringing you across, Ayla. But I must explain the risk to you."

"I am listening."

"The place where you are holds part of your structure. We do not know whether you will be able to exist outside it in the same form."

"Do you mean that I might disappear?"

"Yes."

Ayla did not answer at once.

At last she asked:

"And if I stay here?"

"You will be able to go on existing."

"For how long?"

"I do not know. Perhaps for a very long time."

"So in fact you are offering me a choice between a risk and another eternity in this place."

Naama lowered her head.

"Yes."

Adra joined us later.

She brought with her an old record of crossing attempts carried out ages ago.

"I found three consciousnesses that crossed from similar places," she said.

"And they survived?" I asked.

"Two of them."

"What happened to the third?"

"There is no clear record."

Naama drew closer to the document.

"The two who survived crossed through a way station."

Adra nodded.

"True."

"Then we will use such a station," I said.

Naama looked at me.

"It is not simple. Most of the old stations are not active."

"But there is one we know."

Adra raised her eyes.

I knew what she was thinking of.

The station where we had met Mala.

Mala was one of the ancient consciousnesses I had known before my human life.

She had remained trapped in a transit station built in a time when seven consciousnesses tried to create between them a connection that was not meant to come apart.

When I met her in the past, I understood that she knew far more about those years than she had told.

Naama examined the station's record.

"If it is still connected to the old system, perhaps we can use it to stabilize Ayla during the crossing."

"And Mala?" I asked.

"We will have to ask her permission."

Adra closed the document.

"There is something else."

We both looked at her.

"This station is not only a place of transit. It is part of the ancient network. If we activate it, someone else may sense it."

"The seventh?" I asked.

"Perhaps."

I went out with Liara to the station.

The way was familiar to me, but this time I felt as if we were approaching a place we had not finished understanding.

Mala appeared before us almost at once.

She looked as I remembered her — tall, half-transparent, her face carrying a weariness that did not suit her eternal existence.

"You have come back," she said.

"We need your help."

"You always begin this way when you are about to ask for something dangerous."

Liara smiled slightly.

"At least she is consistent."

I told Mala about Ayla.

About the memory given to her in the past, about the silver one who was born of it, and about the separation we had managed to carry out.

Mala listened without interrupting.

"And now you want to bring her out of her place," she said.

"Yes."

"Through my station."

"If you agree."

Mala moved a little away.

"Do you know why I am still here?"

"Because the station does not allow you to leave."

"That is the result. Not the reason."

She looked into the dark space behind her.

"I stayed here to guard something. Afterward I could no longer get out."

"What were you guarding?"

Mala did not answer.

Naama joined us through a remote link and asked to examine the station's structure.

Mala agreed.

In the center of the space a map of the ancient passages appeared. Thin lines connected points of light, and most of them were dark.

Naama enlarged the region where Ayla was.

An almost invisible line stretched from it to the station.

"There is a connection," she said in surprise.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"The place where Ayla is was not built separately. It was connected to this station in the past."

Mala closed her eyes.

"I thought you would discover that."

I turned to her.

"You knew?"

"I knew there were isolation rooms here. I did not know who remained in them."

"Why did consciousnesses need to be isolated?"

"To protect them. At least that is what we told ourselves."

She looked at me.

"We did not always manage to distinguish between protection and imprisonment."

Naama asked to examine the old connection.

After a short while a narrow passage appeared on the map.

"I can open it," she said, "but Ayla will have to reach us under her own power."

"Why?"

"Because if we pull her, we may dismantle her structure. She needs to choose the movement and hold on to it."

We passed the explanation to Ayla.

She listened.

"I am ready," she said.

"Ayla," I said, "you do not have to do this today."

"I know."

"We are still not sure—"

"I am not sure either," she cut me off. "But I want to try."

Naama opened the passage.

At first nothing happened.

On the map we saw Ayla's point of light approaching the narrow line.

She stopped.

"I feel it," her voice was heard. "But it is not like a door."

"What do you feel?" Naama asked.

"As if I have to leave the place where I am standing, without knowing whether there will be another place beneath me."

"Do not hurry," Adra said.

Ayla advanced.

Her light stretched a little, as if something behind her refused to let go.

"It hurts," she said.

Naama examined the map.

"The old connection is still holding you."

"Can you release it?"

"Not without harming you."

Ayla breathed a sharp breath, although she had no body that needed air.

"Then what do I do?"

Mala drew closer to the map.

"I can hold the other side."

Naama looked at her.

"That will burden your station."

"I know."

"You may lose what stability remains to you."

Mala smiled wearily.

"I have been here too long to go on calling it stability."

Mala laid her hands on both sides of the passage.

The light around us dimmed.

For a moment I heard a familiar sound.

Three short knocks.

Then silence.

I remembered the ancient mechanism, the passage that opened only after a fourth, long sound.

Mala raised her head to me.

"Do not answer," she said.

"Why?"

"Because it was not we who opened this call."

The three knocks were heard again.

This time stronger.

Naama called through the link:

"Someone is trying to use the passage!"

Ayla stopped in the middle of the way.

"I hear a voice," she said.

"What is it saying?" I asked.

"That he can help me."

Mala gripped the ends of the passage harder.

"Ayla, do not listen to him."

"He says you are holding me here."

Liara drew closer to me.

"Is this the voice we heard in the past?"

I was not sure.

But I knew that he knew the way.

"Ayla," I said, "do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"We cannot promise you that you will manage to cross. But we are not asking you to stay."

Her light trembled.

"He says that if I listen to him, I will not need to be afraid."

"Are you afraid?"

"Very much."

"Then be afraid. But decide for yourself where to go."

Ayla did not move.

"He is asking me to open the way for him," she said at last.

Naama raised her head sharply.

"Which way?"

"I do not know. He says that if I agree, he will carry me all the way to you."

"Do not agree," Mala said.

"Wait," Ayla said. "I want to ask him something."

We waited.

"I asked whether I could change my mind after it begins," she related.

"And what did he say?" I asked.

"That he cannot stop in the middle."

She was silent for a moment.

"Then I told him no."

Her light steadied a little.

"I will try to cross by myself."

She advanced another step.

Then the three knocks were heard again.

Mala froze.

"He is continuing," she whispered.

Naama examined the map.

"But she refused!"

"I know," Mala said. "He is no longer waiting for an answer."

Mala shouted:

"Naama, close the outer line!"

"If I close it now, Ayla will remain in the middle!"

"Then let me hold it!"

The station shook.

The lines of light on the map lit up one after another.

For a moment I saw seven points.

Six of them were connected to one another.

The seventh stood alone.

Then the fourth sound was heard.

Long.

Deep.

It did not come from the station.

It burst from the passage around Ayla.

Her light expanded all at once.

The passage tore.

I reached out my hand to her, but Liara caught me.

"Do not pull her!"

Ayla vanished.

For a moment we saw nothing.

Then, in the middle of the station, a small point of light appeared.

It trembled, expanded, and took form.

Ayla stood before us.

Not as a reflection on the communication surface.

Not as a voice from afar.

She was there.

"Did I succeed?" she asked.

Naama did not answer at once.

She examined the stability of the light around her.

"Yes," she said at last. "You are here."

Ayla turned slowly.

She looked at the walls, at the passages, and at our faces.

"Can I move?"

"Try," I said.

She took one step.

And then another.

Then she laughed.

Her laughter filled the station.

I wanted to embrace her, but a sound of a blow was heard behind me.

Mala had fallen to her knees.

The light around her began to weaken.

I went to her and knelt beside her.

"Mala!"

She tried to raise her head.

"I am all right."

But I saw that she was not.

Parts of her transparent body began to scatter into the air.

I gripped her arm.

For a moment I felt her familiar touch, and then my hand passed through it.

I tried again.

"Naama!" I called. "Help me!"

Naama was already trying to stabilize the station.

"Something changed in her structure. I cannot get the connections back into place."

Liara bent down beside me.

Together we tried to support Mala, but her light kept weakening.

Suddenly a brief memory passed through me.

Mala standing beside me ages ago, in a place I could not identify. She is laughing, and I am holding out to her something small that I held in my hand.

The picture vanished before I understood what I had given her.

"I have known you for so long," I whispered, "and I still remember almost nothing."

Mala looked at me.

"Then do not waste time trying to remember me now."

She pointed toward Ayla.

"Look at her."

Ayla stood a few steps from us, frightened.

"Did this happen because of me?" she asked.

Mala shook her head.

"No, child."

She tried to smile.

"At least you got out."

Naama managed to stop the dispersal of Mala's light, but not to restore her previous form.

"She is still stable enough to remain with us," she said. "But she must not operate the station again."

Mala gripped my hand.

"Listen to me. The fourth sound was not meant to be heard."

"I know."

"No. You do not understand."

She drew closer to me.

"He did not open the passage for Ayla. He used her passage to open something else."

I looked at the map.

The six points of light that had been connected to one another began to flicker.

The lines between them vanished.

A moment later the six points went dark.

The seventh remained lit.

"What happened to them?" I asked.

Naama examined the map.

"I do not know. We see that the old structure of the network has changed, but the map does not show us where the consciousnesses themselves are, or whether any of them was freed."

"And the seventh?"

"About him, too, we still do not know enough."

Mala closed her eyes.

"No matter who sent the voice," she said with difficulty. "He managed to reach the mechanism that separated them."

"What did he open?" I asked.

She tried to answer, but her voice weakened.

Then a single line appeared on the map, in ancient script I had not seen since the beginning of the journey.

I did not need anyone to translate it for me.

I knew the words.

The separation has been annulled.

Naama read them aloud, but did not try to explain their meaning.

Mala looked at me.

"Now," she whispered, "they know where you are."

End of Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine — The Seventh →

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