THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE

 

THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE

“All human thought, all science, all philosophy is but the holding of a candle to the night of the universe.”

- Darael

I have always thought that Elohim in His Dark Mercy forever masks the mind to full discernment and perception lest the revelations appall us to madness.

As when on mountain-heights, a glance behind betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall.

‘You think nonsense!’

‘That you express yourself so well in language, a concept foreign to you but moments before is ….’

‘Simplicity itself. I was crafted to adapt, to observe, to sail along new planes of existence of which I was formerly ignorant. Even now, I am plumbing the recesses of your primitive mind for what it has encountered.’

‘Welcome to my world.’

‘There is little cause for gratitude in which I see.’

‘I’m not much, but I’m all I have, Sentient.’

‘Why do you insist on calling me that?’

‘It is the name you asked to be called. Now, I begin to see why.’

A sad sigh filled my mind.

‘In essence, I named myself by insisting to be called by the appellation I first heard applied to myself. How very quaint.’

‘In a sense, the future has impinged upon the past.’

‘Bah! There is no Past, no Future, no Present. All is one.’

‘Time is a cube?’

‘Grasping to understand Reality, are you? Time has no more substance than a shad0w … for that it what it is: merely the shadow cast by existence. You can no more grasp Time than you can touch your own shadow.’

‘Well, that is as clear as an eclipse.’

‘I have repented of killing your so-called Spartan 3oo.’

‘Good … because you picked them in the future that you say does not exist.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I suspect you decided they would be useful in your designs.’

‘What designs?’

‘As with most things about you, I am unclear about them.’

‘Why have I kept you alive for so long? You are most maddening.’

“Right back at you.’

‘I suppose I must release you. The one you call Helen Mayfair is about to harm Darael to escape his restraint.’

‘I hardly think she could.’

‘His reluctance to harm her would allow her to harm him.’

Like the turning on of a light, I was suddenly on my feet, standing beside a bemused Sister Ameal.

Helen Mayfair, rushed towards me her flaming arms outstretched to embrace me.

Darael, snorting in disgust, yanked her back by her trailing fiery hair.

“Would you cremate the one you cannot have?”

“Oh, my!”

And in middle of her exclamation, she changed from fiery angel to her smaller human-seeming form. Darael smiled much too pleased with himself. I went cold inside.

He had had another reason for Helen to appear human.

The Voice that belonged to another Age echoed above me. I turned. The golden-toned voice more hollow than I remembered laughed.

I turned. A thirty-foot tall black-winged Mr. Morton towered above us. The prehistoric sun struck fire from his strange armor.

Slanted eyes without one flicker of recognition studied me, then turned to Darael who had grown equally as tall.

“Cousin, last, I recall, we fought on opposite sides. And here, you bring me these odd bipeds with which to play.”