316) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 80 — The Secret of the Zhaalmohhrians

They were ready, poised in attack formation directly in front of the shimmering black rectangle at the top of the stairs, Melkorn in front, shield up.

It wasn’t a “door”, for there was nothing mechanical about it, no doorframe, hinges, handle or doorknob. Just shimmering blackness defining a rectangle of space, completely opaque.

Melkorn looked back at Dominic, uncertain what to do. Dominic gave the “go” signal, and as one, they stepped forward.

There was no sensation of movement beyond that one step, but suddenly they stood in a narrow, extremely dusty room, filled with cobwebs and a jumble of old pottery - vases, bowls, and urns.

A staircase of shining white quartz dominated the far end of the room, rising out of the dusty pottery like a stairway to the Heavens.

At the top of the stairs, carved out of glittering black, rose a flower, as though growing directly out of the quartz. The petals were paper-thin, comprised of nearly translucent sheets of the black stone, so delicate that they moved in response to the air currents in the room and the vibrations of their steps as they walked toward it.

Like it was sensing them.

The very centre of the flower held a pure white, triangular stone, possibly quartz as well but sparkling, diamond-like in the dim light.

Kohra had the strange thought that this delicate, sensitive (sensing?) statue was like the Flux itself. Sort of. It was both structured and fluid, impossibly complex and nuanced, responsive to the tiniest alterations in the world around it. She wondered if her mere thoughts gave off eddies and swirls that the flower could sense. She remembered Galen “hushing” her when they were walking through the forest, and she had wondered if her thinking was somehow too loud.

Along the outside edges of each of the quartz steps were carved symbols in what looked like the Whiteling script. Kohra copied the symbols into the back page of the “Book of Magic” she had received from Grok.

Beside her, Devona stared, transfixed by the sheer beauty of the flower. This felt important, sacred. She decided to Summon once again, calling upon the Entity to give her the meaning of the symbols on the stairs. She had done it with the Whiteling history scroll; surely this would be the same?

Instantaneously, faster than she possibly react, her mind was enslaved, prostrating itself to a much greater Power, while her body flushed with sheer, overwhelming, ecstatic pleasure, the Eternal avalanching right through her Being, shattering her mind, utterly outstripping her capacity to resist. Her eyes turned pure black, her face white and rigid, like it was carved from stone.

* * * * *

She Who Had Been Devona raised her hand as though commanding attention. And spoke, fracturing all of their minds, throwing each person’s awareness into kaleidoscopic disarray, while paralyzing their will with pure, untainted Awe.

It was beyond “beautiful,” beyond all words, all poetry, all songs, all friendship and family, loyalty and courage. It was beyond everything, more than everything, more than even Life and Death.

Devona’s body shook, every cell quivering, resonating, every single atom in harmony with the Presence that had crushed her consciousness out of existence.

And it was also beyond “horrific,” beyond all wailing and screaming, all meaninglessness, all emptiness and death and decay, all enemies and betrayal, all hate and violence. It was like swallowing a river of feces and corpses and filth, all the perversions and awfulness ever to be inflicted on sentient beings poured down her throat while her heart simultaneously shattered into bliss.

The Voice entered not only their ears, but vibrated into their chests, their bones, so that every molecule in their bodies spoke as One. Devona’s open mouth from which this Divine Ecstatic Horror emerged formed an unmoving black hole, a void where her mouth used to be, an empty blackness, joining her pure black eyes to form a triangle of dark emptiness.

* * * * *

“We are the All. Your suffering is ended. You are Reclaimed, to dwell in Truth.”

* * * * *

Devona’s body collapsed into a crumpled heap at the bottom of the steps. Gorb and Kohra leapt to her, feeling for a pulse, checking her breath.

She was alive.

“Heads up, folks.” Lenny caught their attention, pointing at the flower. It was shaking, humming, the central stone glowing brighter and brighter, the humming increasing in intensity, like a swarm of bees, then amplifying, amplifying, until it was like standing inside a tornado.

The light brightened in step with the sound, until it was so bright they had to shield their eyes. Then a hole...opened...right in the centre of the stone, like the Divine pupil of some Divine Eye, staring into the room.

A sudden explosion of flame blasted out of that tiny hole, the shock wave slamming their bodies to the floor as the flame swirled into a burning pillar, twice as tall as Melkorn, towering above them.

Before anyone could register what had happened, still prone on the floor, the pillar abruptly disappeared, the hole blinked out of existence, the howling and roaring silenced, and the room returned to normal, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

Except now they weren’t alone.

A woman, spectacularly garbed in a pure white suit of armour, three-foot-long machetes in each hand, stood on the bottom step of the quartz stairway, surveying them like a Queen considering some new amusement. Two small, sharp horns protruded out of her forehead, long, flaming-red hair flowing around her shoulders. But it was her eyes, possibly, that were the most surprising, their verdant green shining warmly, much like Kohra’s.  

To the great credit of the hopelessly outmatched party, every single person other than Devona who remained prone, immediately scrambled to their feet, raised weapons, and filled the air with battle cries as they launched into attack.

For perhaps one second.

The woman, looking amused, twisted her right hand, thrust her elegant fingers outward and….

Kohra's mind exploded in horror, flooded with thoughts that left her gasping in agony, desperate to turn them off, to get away, to stop, stop, stop somehow the torrent of absolute horror that desecrated her mind.

She saw herself holding a blade, dismembering and torturing people, gleefully, making them scream over and over while she laughed.

Then thoughts of standing victorious over a captive, her own slave, limbs broken and bent grotesquely, the skin of their face peeled off to reveal their skeleton.

Kohra gasped, blackness overtaking her mind, no longer even certain if she was standing or had already fallen down. She barely managed to whimper, “Stop, p-please….”

The woman gazed contemptuously down at her, green eyes glittering. “I cannot stop what is in your own soul, Kohra.” The voice was cold, timeless, beyond caring, like an immortal deigning to speak to a dying ant.

“No...” Kohra begged. More images flooded her mind, feelings assaulting her, urges surging in her body, urges to soil everything with her desire, to tear at her own flesh, to drown the world in her own blood and drink it in like a lover murdering and consuming their beloved.

Like a person suffocating, she thrashed, agonizing spasms wracking her twisted body, vomiting onto the floor, staggering, clutching randomly at anything her blind fingers could find, not realizing she was clawing at her own flesh as she fell to her knees.

She tried to marshal her Will, tried desperately to force these feelings, these desires, out of herself, but it was like pushing a tidal wave.

Her mind begged for more, her body quivered for more, and she wanted it, all of it, that feeling of Power so delicious, that feeling of Pleasure so intense, that burning certainty that YES, she could slay her enemies, YES, others would quake before her magnificence, YES, she could destroy all those who would stand against her. She could save the worlds. She was The One.

Suddenly, she was beyond all doubt, all pain, all resistance. She stood up, proud, looking the woman in the eye with fearless conviction. She was not at all aware that the others were also standing up, that they also were staring equally fearlessly ahead, that they also had just given their loyalty, unquestioningly, to this horned stranger in white.

Kohra could see The Truth. This was The Way.