222) The Salvation of Eden -- Chapter 48) What if the Universe is nothing but dead matter, and sentience is an illusion? And...what if it isn't?

About halfway to their destination, according to Dominic’s estimate, he and Gorb switched with Kohra and Lenny. Kohra staggered with the weight, but she gritted her teeth and tightened her grip; they HAD to get to this trading post, and fast; Melkorn’s life hung in the balance.

Dominic frowned as he handed over the litter, wanting to keep going, but sorely needing the respite. Still, it was obvious that Kohra wasn’t going to last very long. The wind was starting to pick up, driving snow straight into their faces.

“How much farther?” pleaded Reilly, for at least the sixth time.

“We DON’ KNOW!” Gorb barked. “It said ‘alf a mile!” He frowned, his voice trailing off. “An hourrr ago.”

It was slow going, trying to carry Melkorn over the slippery rocks and snowdrifts. Yet despite the direness of their predicament, Kohra found it impossible not to marvel. Mountains were magnificent! For her whole life, she had wanted to see mountains, and they exceeded even her most ambitious imaginings, soaring into the sky at a scale that she simply could not comprehend. And this was merely the outskirts. She wondered what the inner mountains were like, the deep Wild where civilized folks never dared to tread.

Ascending a loose skree slope, they found themselves clambering over the lip of a crater, to find the caldera filled with an inky black lake, its surface perfectly still, not a single ripple marring the dark mirror. Even the air seemed to practically congeal as they passed over the lip into the crater, as though the wind itself was forbidden to disturb the deathly solitude. There wasn’t an iota of life, not a single speck of green, not the tiniest indication that Life was acknowledged here as even a theoretical possibility. 

I could die here, slip beneath those dark waters, and nobody would know. Not for a million years. This place, it’s…indifferent. That’s what these mountains are. Beautiful, but indifferent. We don’t even exist, as far as this place is concerned. Even in Life, we already live in the Void. 

She felt anew that old spectre of futility, that sunken feeling in her chest and weakness in her limbs that told her, in the voice of her very own body, “You are nothing.” 

I could use up every single speck of my energy, for my entire lifetime, trying to “make a difference,” and this mountain wouldn’t be affected, not even the tiniest bit. 

It doesn’t matter what you do. Whether you succeed or fail, are “good” or “bad.” Life isn’t a chess game; it’s just a joke, and it’s not even funny, but nobody cares anyway. 

Finally, they walked out the other side of the crater and left the lake behind, its surface nothing but unchanging blackness. Kohra tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping Melkorn steady, but she felt the futility sapping her strength like it was sucking out her very soul.

I hope I never see this place again. 

They were switching again, Gorb and Dominic taking over the litter, when a shadow, a very large shadow, passed overhead. Looking up, Kohra saw something out of a nightmare, a gargantuan flying lizard, swooping toward them on huge, silent wings. She screamed. 

There was no time to think, no time to plan, no time to do anything but run, sprinting recklessly through the snow, tripping over hidden rocks, scrambling wildly for any kind of shelter. 

Melkorn bounced and jostled, crying out in pain as Gorb and Dominic beelined for nearby boulders. Barely in time, they slid partway under a rocky overhang, dragging Melkorn behind them. Kohra hid behind a boulder close by, crouching low, wedging herself under the rock as far as she could, scraping her body against the cold stone, imagining that at any moment, giant claws would grab her and…. 

She closed her eyes, then abruptly snapped them open again. Although it was terrifying to see the nightmare hunting them, it was even more terrifying not to.

If it landed, they were doomed, trapped in their hidey-holes. But apparently, it didn’t know that, or it was only interested in a quick snatch as it flew by. It glided overhead, silently, circled once, and then was gone. 

Kohra peered out from her semi-hiding place, watching the sky, scanning for any sign of movement. 

And suddenly, she felt something that she had never felt in her life.

It was like Shaping, only instead of causing it herself, this was more like she was being Shaped. The black lake flashed into her mind. Like it was calling for her. Like it wanted her in its depths, like she was being summoned to the Land of Death. 

She tried to expel the lake from her mind, to focus again on the snow and rocks around them, to feel again the wind in her face. 

But that had all disappeared. Even with her eyes open, or at least she thought her eyes were open, she saw nothing else, only the black lake, like it had expanded and covered the entire mountain range, and she was no longer outside of it, but under its waters. 

Am I drowning? Am I…dead? 

The questions made no sense, yet they sunk into her spine, until she could FEEL the passage of a billion years, could feel, viscerally, the ephemeral nature of her own existence. And she knew, somehow she just knew, she had always been that lake; she had never been, and would never be, anything more than that unchanging black liquid.

She opened her mouth to scream, her whole body convulsing to make sound. But no sound came out.  

Where IS everyone? Dom? DOM!!?? Where am I??

Her mind shifted, Connecting, but not to the Flux. It felt like she was touching other minds, Connecting to other beings. She heard whispers, everywhere, all around her, even inside her.

“Kohra…. Kohra….” 

She strained to hear it more clearly, realizing in a burst of skin-crawling horror that it wasn’t one voice; it was countless, synchronized, talking as One. 

Without warning, Eyes opened inside her chest, like they were her very heart. Ancient, deathless Eyes. They looked right through her, like she was nothing, like air, completely transparent to their transcendent gaze.  She felt horribly ashamed, disgusted with her tiny, pathetic self, knowing at once that the Eyes saw everything about her, every flaw, every mistake she’d ever made, every horrible, stupid thought she’d ever had. She wanted desperately to hide, to run away. But there was nowhere to hide from her own mind. 

She felt violated, desperately wanting to push them out of her mind, to regain her own individuality, to be Kohra again and not some immortal, impersonal Sentience. 

Her mind churned with questions.  Why? Why are you here? Why now? 

But she knew, these eyes had always been here.  From even before she was born, and through every moment of her entire life, they had been waiting for her to realize them, to wake up, to finally know Who She Really Was.  

And in the inescapable Truth of their All-Seeing, she knew there was nothing to be ashamed of. These eyes had seen everything. Everything that everyone had ever done, since the beginning of time. 

Who are you? What are you? Am I going crazy?

The Eyes Witnessed. 

“Stop trying to understand,” echoed in her mind.

She felt…weird, horrifyingly alien, like she didn’t even know her own mind anymore. But it was also familiar, the same mind she had known for her whole life.  It was her, but it also wasn’t.

Then she felt…Love. It was like meeting her own ancestors and feeling their kinship, back, far back, across stretches of time so incomprehensible that her imagination was paralyzed by the vastness. Countless generations. Even countless species. She felt, in her own body, the bodies of animals who had lived their own countless generations, and then gone extinct, dying out long before her kind ever was born.

A thought swam into her awareness, and she wondered if those ancient creatures — her forebears? — had survived giant predators by hiding under rocks, just like she was right now, their beady eyes peering fearfully at the sky to see if it was safe. 

Then the feeling passed; the Shaping faded; the Eyes closed and seemed to vanish. And once again, she was just herself, huddling, shivering against a boulder, squinting into the snow.  

Dominic was waving to her from his hiding spot. She waved back. “Melkorn’s turning blue!” he called, the panic in his voice unmistakable. 

Melkorn! 

Suddenly energized as their immediate predicament came rushing back into her awareness, she snuck out of her refuge, and sprinted over. A moment later, Lenny was there too. Then Reilly and Devona. 

Melkorn was awake, eyes fixed determinedly on Dominic, although his face was a sickly bluish-white, like snow at night. Teeth chattering, he managed “C-c-c-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-d-d!!” before closing his eyes again.

They started back down the path, hurrying against the wind, praying that this accursed trading post wasn’t much further. 

“Hey,” Lenny half-laughed suddenly, but an uncharacteristic note of uncertainty tinged her laughter. “Did anyone else feel like a rodent back there?”

Kohra stared at her. “That’s just, that’s what I was just, yes, I did!”

Without missing a beat, Dominic muttered from the front of the litter, “Funny, you don’t look like a rodent”. 

Lenny snickered; even Kohra cracked a smile.