10.09.08
Technopath.
To say he couldn’t feel his body would be a lie, but it didn’t feel like his body. It felt like lead. He couldn’t even blink.
At least he was breathing on his own, now. That tube had not been pleasant.
He really wished he’d just fall asleep and stay asleep – being awake, alert, and utterly unable to move was torturous.
Oh God. He couldn’t even blink.
And the prickle, prickle, prickle of the electrical signals in the room was almost worse, niggling at the back of his brain even when he was sleeping. He was half-convinced he was developing some kind of synesthesia – every ping! of the EKG was literally causing him to see stars.
It was some time later – it’s hard to tell time when you can’t move – that he realized he could see through the security cameras, feel the signals from other patients’ medical devices.
A little time later, he managed to make the wires move…
10.08.08
Running.
She ran as fast as she could, stumbling a bit over the uneven terrain. The hot sun beat down; her breath came in ragged gasps. The muscles in her legs burned.
She kept running. If she could only make it to her house…
Her mother swung the door open just before she reached it, and she staggered to a halt, panting.
Lia raised one eyebrow. “Have a good workout?”
Teleika nodded, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and made a beeline for the kitchen.
10.07.08
A Bad Fall.
Crevasses are an ever-present danger on glaciers; yet somehow, despite growing up literally on the edge of the largest glacier for miles, Jetta hadn’t honestly expected to ever have a problem with them.
Until she stepped on seemingly-solid ground, and her foot plunged straight through the snow and out into nothingness.
The rest of her followed with some alacrity.
A few heartstopping seconds later, her rope caught, and Jetta jerked to a stop, her face pressed to the icy wall in front of her.
Funny, it looks red. She was developing an awful headache from all this.
Distantly, Jetta heard the frantic voices of her climbing partners. A sharp tug on her rope, and she was moving again, swinging a bit away from the wall of the crevasse.
Abruptly, she was jerked to a halt, twisting slightly to her left. A babble of confusion sounded above.
Something’s caught, Jetta thought, turning her head to see. She couldn’t see anything out of her left eye; the blood was thick on her face. Damn, that’s some cut…
Irne’s hand grabbed her by the chin and forcibly redirected her gaze. “Are you even hearing me?”
“Yes,” Jetta muttered irritably, but it didn’t sound quite right. She remembered something else important. “I think I’m stuck.”
That didn’t sound right at all, but apparently Irne understood, because she already had her knife out.
“This is going to hurt,” she said, but Jetta couldn’t figure out what she was talking about, not then, and not when she suddenly came free from the crevasse wall, and not even when she saw something suspiciously like bone sticking out from a fissure in the ice.
And later in the hospital, while trying to sit up without falling over and read without triggering a migraine, all Jetta could think was that shock exists for a reason.
10.05.08
Solving the Problem of Evil.
Either God is a Trickster, or Man is Morally Stupid.
(Hey, no one ever said that the Tree’s Knowledge was heritable.)
10.04.08
Into the Forest.
“Here’s your garlic, your stakes, and your flask of holy water, freshly blessed by the parish priest. Oh, and a map.” The shopkeeper, an eccentric woman who spoke with an accent only slightly less thick than most of her fellow locals, shoved the items into her customer’s arms, then turned back to her crossword puzzle.
A little irked, Keith Hunter stalked out the door, precariously holding onto the assorted items. Once outside, he set the objects down on a low wall and looked them over before stowing them in his pack. The garlic was firm and fresh; the stakes were of a startlingly high quality; the holy water was now emptied into someone’s garden. In Keith’s experience, it never worked that well anyway. The map Keith almost discarded; he already had one of his own. When he went to pick it up, though, it unfolded enough for him to see that, unlike any other map he’d found, it actually showed the interior of Central Forest.
Keith stared at it for a moment, then shrugged, refolded the map, and stowed it in a pocket of his pack. Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that the locals would have a better grasp of the terrain than others would.
Shouldering his pack, Keith strode off into the gray Forest afternoon.
10.03.08
Truth.
There are two rules that are always true, and explain the universe:
1. All stories are true.
2. All writers are liars.
Nothing a writer writes is true. We omit things, alter things, rearrange things, rework things, and even when we speak plain, words themselves are never anything more than approximations. Every word is an untruth. Written intentionally, an untruth is a lie.
But everything written is true. Stories hold up lenses to the world, to the divine, to ourselves. Like mirrors, they are distorted; like mirrors, they reflect real things.
This is the paradox of writing, and not a paradox unique to writing.
It is also the paradox of religion.
What is religion, in essence, but a system of stories?
It Isn’t.
It isn’t faith, this intuition that guides your hand. It’s something deeper, something more primal, something instinctive. It draws you beyond yourself, pulling you into the larger universe, letting you see the cosmic motions at play. It requires no belief, no decision on your part. It simply is.
No, it isn’t simple faith.
It isn’t hope, this force that tugs at your feet. It’s something stronger, something more pragmatic, something truer. It draws you beyond yourself, pulling you to greater heights, catching you when you make your inevitable falls. It requires no dreams, no goals on your part. It simply is.
No, it isn’t simple hope.
It isn’t love, this bond that wraps itself around you. It’s something sharper, something more forceful, something tidal. It draws you beyond yourself, pulling you together with other people, making you see them as you see yourself. It requires no affection, no emotion on your part. It simply is.
No, it isn’t simple love.
And the greatest of these…
10.02.08
Weaving.
He slumped to the ground beneath the crooked pear tree, vaguely aware, through the haze that wrapped his thoughts of his hands trembling on his cane, of his father’s footsteps, of the reflexive hiss as the older man realized what was happening…
There were hands on his shoulders, drawing him into an embrace, smoothing a hand over his eyes.
A quiet whisper. “Sleep, son.”
And Adrian Reed did.
If this was death, it felt extremely strange. Was death supposed to tingle?
Adrian blinked, straightening. Did people retain their powers after death? They must — he was still seeing the pale threads that underwove the universe, those sharp, cold fibers that had bent so readily at his touch, allowing him to shape the universe to his will…
Of course, he’d paid in blood. Those threads were never meant to be held by mortal hands, and the webwork of fine scars covering his hands was mute testament to the price he’d paid for his ability.
Reflexively, Adrian glanced down at those hands, expecting to see the dulled, dead gray fog that the bloodless shades — one of which he now was — were largely composed of.
Instead, he saw pale threads.
It was then that Adrian really looked at his surroundings.
He wasn’t in the Underworld.
He wasn’t in any of the Upperworlds.
He was in the Bottomless Void, the place that looked empty to all but him.
He was standing inside the World-Tapestry.
…no.
He was the tapestry.
‘How…?’
The thought had barely entered Adrian’s mind when the answer came to him, shivering along the pale strands that surrounded/formed him.
‘Blood. My blood. Not spilled by any typical definition of the term — but paid to Fate anyway … through death …
‘And, of course, the price for wielding Fate’s strands is always blood. Paying the ultimate — the whole — price buys Fate itself…’
Adrian smirked. His father would flip out…
Grove of the Hesperides.
The tree would look like something from a horror film, if it weren’t for the fruit clinging to its branches. Tall, twisted, and dark gray, the woody giant is an awesome sight…
…But the fruit on its branches makes it even more so. These are the famed Golden Apples — but even a glance tells you that is something of a misnomer. Apples don’t glow like fallen stars. They don’t smell like a sort of sweet cinnamon. And, if there were anyone around who had eaten of the tree, he would tell you that they certainly don’t taste like apples — these fruit are all icy, sweet fire.
Or maybe that’s the immortality flowing through your veins…
The tree is so imposing that you fail to see the serpent coiled in its branches, but as he slithers down to you, you wonder how you could have overlooked him. He is, quite simply, massive. His gaze pins you to the spot, and you begin to feel like the child caught with one hand in the cookie jar — a thousand times over.
As you stand there, the pit of the stolen fruit falling from your numb fingers, you finally realize why no one has ever returned from the Garden…
