The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Seventh

Chapter Thirty-Nine 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.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Seventh

The words still hovered above us.

The separation has been annulled.

Mala lay on the floor of the station. The lines of light that formed her figure scattered from time to time, and Naama tried to gather them back.

"Now they know where you are," Mala repeated in a whisper.

"Who knows?" I asked.

She tried to answer, but the light around her face flickered.

"Do not make her talk," Naama said. "I can barely stabilize her."

Ayla stood beside the wall. Only a moment ago she had managed to get out of the place where she had been imprisoned, and already she found herself in the heart of a danger she did not understand.

"Can I help?" she asked.

"For now we need you to move away from the passage," Naama said gently.

Ayla did not move.

"The man who spoke to me… did he do this?"

"We still do not know who spoke to you," I answered.

"He asked me about you."

I turned to her.

"What did he ask?"

"Whether I know who you were before you came here. I told him I do not know."

"And what did he answer?"

"That you too do not know the whole truth."

Mala opened her eyes.

"He wants you to come to him," she said with difficulty. "But do not let him choose the way for you."

Naama bent over her.

"Enough, Mala. Now let us take care of you."

We could not leave Mala in the center of the station.

Naama managed to isolate an inner room, and Adra stayed beside her to watch over her condition. Before I went out, I came close to Mala.

"I will come back," I said.

She gripped my hand.

"Do not promise anything you do not know whether you can keep."

"Then I will try to come back."

A faint smile appeared on her face.

"That already sounds more like you."

I wanted to ask what she meant, but she closed her eyes.

I went out after Liara and Ayla.

Outside stretched an open expanse, and at its edge a row of tall trees.

Ayla stopped at the entrance.

The wind moved the branches, and dry leaves rolled on the ground.

She raised her face.

"What is that?"

"Wind," I said.

"I know what wind is. But I did not know it feels like this."

She held out her hands and let the air pass between them.

Then she bent down and picked up a fallen leaf.

She examined it from both sides, passed a finger over the thin veins, and pressed it to her palm.

"It is real," she said.

"Yes."

"And am I?"

I looked at her.

"Yes, Ayla. You too."

She laughed, and suddenly tears began to fall down her face.

I did not try to stop them.

Liara sat down beside her on the low stone at the entrance. After a while I sat down too.

The three of us stayed there until Ayla asked to see where the path led.

When we returned to the workshop, Nora was already waiting for us.

On the table before her lay ancient records of the seven consciousnesses.

"Adra passed on to me what happened at the station," she said. "There is something you need to see."

She activated one of the records.

Before us appeared seven forms of light.

Six of them stood in a circle, and the seventh at its center.

Outside the circle stood another figure.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"In the records she is called the Witness."

The figure approached the seventh.

He turned to her.

She held out her hand to him, but he did not take it.

"What happened between them?"

"The record does not include the conversation," Nora said. "But I found a document signed by the Witness a short time afterward."

"Where is it?"

"In the Valley of Consent."

I looked again at the figure standing outside the circle.

I could not see her face, and yet something in the way she stood aroused discomfort in me.

"Do you think that is me?"

"There is a match between her signature and your structure. I think so."

Liara stood beside me quietly.

"If that is me," I said, "I want to know what I did there."

Nora closed the record.

"Then we will have to ask to open the document."

Tama greeted us at the entrance to the Valley of Consent.

She examined the marking Nora had brought, and her face grew serious.

"This is a testimony given under special conditions," she said.

"What conditions?"

"Only the one who gave it may open it. And it is not meant to prove anything to others."

"Then why was it kept?"

"So that the one who gave it could one day stand before the things she said."

We followed her into a small room whose walls were made of white stone.

At its center stood a low table, and on it a dark box.

Tama opened it.

Inside it was a smooth stone, almost colorless.

"Lay your hand on it," she said.

I did as she said.

The stone warmed, and words appeared on its surface.

The testimony was given willingly.

Beneath them another sentence appeared.

Opening it does not restore the past and does not absolve responsibility.

"The signature matches you," Tama said. "You are permitted to open it. But before that you must choose."

"What?"

"Whether you ask to hear the testimony in order to understand what happened, or in order to find justification for your deeds."

"How can one know in advance?"

"One cannot always. That is why I am asking you now."

I looked at the stone.

I would have liked to hear that everything had been done for a good reason. That I had been compelled to agree. That there was no other possibility.

But I understood that if I entered this room only to find absolution for myself, I would not be able to listen to what I would hear.

"I want to know what happened," I said. "Even if I have no way to justify it."

Tama nodded.

"Then you may open it."

The room darkened slightly.

From within the stone a voice rose.

My voice.

It sounded steadier than I felt in that moment.

"The six consciousnesses asked to separate from the seventh. They feared that the connection between them was steadily weakening their ability to choose for themselves. The seventh agreed to discuss a separation, but opposed the way in which they wished to carry it out."

The voice fell silent for a moment.

"I tried to find another solution. I did not succeed. When the moment came to decide, the seventh asked me to stop the process."

I felt the stone warming in my palm.

"I did not stop it."

I waited for the voice to continue.

"I feared that if we stopped, the six others would not be able to free themselves from him at all. So I let them continue."

I wanted to set the stone down.

I did not do so.

"Only after the separation did I discover that they had left part of the connection inside him. He could sense them, but could not reach them. They claimed that this way they would be able to know if he tried to return."

Liara shifted a little beside me.

"I demanded that the connection be removed. They refused."

The voice changed. For the first time a tremor was heard in it.

"From that moment I could no longer call what we had done protection."

The stone went dark.

I stood without moving.

I did not want to look at anyone.

"Can it be heard again?" I asked.

"Yes," Tama said.

I reached out my hand toward the stone, but stopped before I touched it.

What did I hope to find in another hearing?

A word that would change the meaning of the things? An explanation that would absolve me of responsibility?

I laid my hand at my side.

"Not now."

Liara came closer to me, but said nothing.

I thought about the seventh, about the possibility that for ages he had been able to sense the presence of the others, without being able to reach them.

"Was he imprisoned?" I asked.

"The testimony does not say that," Tama answered.

"But he was not free."

"Not entirely."

I sat down on the bench beside the wall.

"He asked me to stop."

The words sounded different when I said them myself.

"Yes," Tama said.

"And I did not stop."

She did not try to comfort me.

After a time I asked:

"Do you think it was right to stop the separation?"

"I do not know. It may be that then the other six would have been harmed. But there was a difference between separating him and leaving a connection in him against his will."

I nodded.

It was not hard for me to understand why the six consciousnesses wanted to free themselves from him.

It was harder for me to understand why no one stopped when it became clear that their freedom was built on the denial of his freedom.

And I was there.

On the way back we barely spoke.

Liara walked beside me, and Nora a little behind us.

At last I said:

"If he is the one who spoke to Ayla, perhaps he was not trying to harm her. Perhaps he only wanted to reach us."

"It could be," Liara answered. "But he went on using the passage even after Ayla refused."

"I know."

"We must not ignore that only because we understand what was done to him."

I looked at her.

She was right.

I could acknowledge the wrong done to the seventh without justifying another wrong.

"I want to hear his side too," I said.

"Then we will find a way," she answered. "But not a way that endangers someone else."

When we returned to the workshop, Ayla was waiting for us beside the window.

She still held the leaf she had found earlier.

"It is starting to dry," she said to me.

"Yes."

"Is that what happens to leaves after they fall?"

"Usually."

She examined it with a certain sadness.

"I thought I would be able to keep it as it is."

"You can keep it, but it will change."

Ayla passed a finger along the edge of the leaf.

"Then I will keep it just the same."

I smiled.

I wanted to stay with her a little longer, to hear what she had discovered while we were gone, but Naama appeared at the doorway.

"You need to come."

Her face was tense.

We followed her into the workroom.

On the central wall appeared the map of the ancient network.

The six points were visible again, but the lines that had connected them had vanished.

The seventh still stood at a distance.

"What has changed?" I asked.

Naama pointed at one of the points.

"We received a signal."

"From whom?"

"I do not know which of the consciousnesses sent it."

"What was said in it?"

"It is a request."

On the map words appeared:

We ask to speak with the Witness.

I looked at Naama.

"All of them?"

"The signal came from six different points. They all sent the same sentence."

"So they know who I am?"

"It seems so."

I looked at the six points.

Ages ago I stood before them and let them go on with the separation.

Now they were asking to speak with me.

"Can we answer?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Then write that I am willing to hear them. One at a time."

Naama sent my reply.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then one of the points lit up.

A woman's voice was heard in the room.

"It is good that you have returned."

I did not recognize it.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"One of those who were there."

"Why do you want to speak with me?"

The voice fell silent.

The other points began to move away from one another.

"Because something has changed among us," the woman said.

"What has changed?"

"Until today we held to the same decision. Now we no longer agree."

I looked at the map.

"About what?"

"About the seventh."

The voice suddenly sounded closer.

"One of us opened the way to him. The other five tried to stop her."

"Who opened it?" I asked.

"I do not know who will answer you on that question," the woman said. "But I know one thing."

I waited.

"Whoever did it knew that the way passes through a free consciousness. She knew that someone might be hurt."

I thought about Ayla, about the fear in her voice and the way she had refused the offer she received.

"And what do you want me to do?"

"That you not repeat the decision you made then."

"Which decision?"

"Not to stand aside while someone else decides for all of us."

I looked at the six separate points.

"Then this time," I said, "I will listen to each of you. And to the seventh as well."

The woman did not answer at once.

At last she said:

"Not all of them will agree to that."

"I am not asking their permission to listen."

End of Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty — Six Faces of Truth →

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