Black (32 page)

The gathering that night washed away any fears and doubts lingering in Tom's mind. They swept up the path to the lake, silent during the last half of the fifteen-minute trek. Tom ran onto a patch of white sand on the right side of the lake. He absently realized that the red blotch was gone.

As far as memory permitted, this was his first Gathering.

A warm mist from the waterfall already floated across the group. Many of the people were already prone on the sand, their hands outstretched toward the thundering water.

Tom fell to his knees, heart pounding with anticipation. It had been too long, far too long. A warm mist suddenly hit his face. His vision exploded with a red fireball and he gasped, sucking more of the mist into his lungs.

Elyon.

He was aware of the wetness tickling his tongue. The sweetest taste of sugar laced with a hint of cherry flooded his mouth. He swallowed. The aroma of gardenia blossoms mushroomed in his nostrils.

Ever so gently, Elyon's water engulfed him, careful not to overpower his mind. But deliberately.

The red fireball suddenly melted into a river of deep blue that flowed into the base of Tom's skull and wound its way down his spine, caressing each nerve. Intense pleasure shot down every nerve path to Tom's extremities. He dropped to his belly, body shaking in earnest.

Elyon.

The waterfall's pounding increased in intensity, and the mist fell steadily on his back as he lay prostrate. His mind reeled under the power of this Creator, who spoke with sights and colors and smells and emotions.

Then the first note fell on his ears. Flew past his ears and bit into his mind. A low note, lower than the throaty roar of a million tons of fuel thundering from a rocket's base. The rumbling tone shot up an octave, rose to a forte, and began etching a melody in Tom's skull. He could hear no words, only music. A single melody at first, but then joined by another melody, entirely unique yet in harmony with the first. The first caressed his ears; the second laughed. And a third melody joined the first two, screaming in pleasure. And then a fourth and a fifth, until Tom heard a hundred melodies streaming through his mind, each one unique, each one distinct.

All together not more than a single note from Elyon.

A note that cried,
I love you.

Tom breathed in great gasps now. He stretched his arms out before him. His chest heaved on the warm sand. His skin tingled with each minute droplet of mist that touched him.

Elyon.

Me too! Me too!
he wanted to say.
I love you too.

He wanted to yell it. To scream it with as much passion as he felt from Elyon's water now. He opened his mouth and groaned. A dumb, stupid groan that said nothing at all, and yet it was him, talking to Elyon.

And then he formed the words screaming in his mind. “I love you, Elyon,” he breathed softly.

Immediately, a new burst of colors exploded in his mind. Gold and blue and green cascaded over his head, filling each fold of his brain with delight.

He rolled to one side. A hundred melodies swelled into a thousand—like a heavy, woven chord blasting down his spine. His nostrils flared with the pungent smell of lilac and rose and jasmine, and his eyes watered with their intensity. The mist soaked his body, and each inch of his skin buzzed with pleasure.

Tom shouted, “I love you!”

He felt as though he stood in an open doorway on the edge of a vast expanse, bursting with raw emotion that was fabricated in colors and sights and sounds and smells, blasting into his face like a gale. It was as though Elyon flowed like a bottomless ocean, but Tom could taste only a stray drop. As though he were a symphony orchestrated by a million instruments, and a single note threw him from his feet with its power.

“I love youuuu!” he cried.

He
opened his eyes. Long ribbons of color streamed through the mist above the lake. Light spilled from the waterfall, lighting the entire valley so it looked as though it might be midday. The entire company lay prone as the mist washed over their bodies. Most shook visibly but made no sound that could be heard above the waterfall. Tom let his head drop back to the sand.

And then Elyon's words echoed through his mind.

I love you.

You are precious to me.

You are my very own.

Look at me again, and smile.

Tom wanted to scream. Unable to contain himself, Tom let the words flow from his mouth like a flood.

“I will look at you
always,
Elyon. I worship you. I worship the air you breathe. I worship the ground you walk on. Without you, there is nothing. Without you, I'll die a thousand deaths. Don't ever let me leave you.”

The sound of a child giggling. Then the voice again.

I love you, Thomas.
Do you want to climb up the cliff?

Cliff? He saw the pearl cliffs over which the water poured.

A voice called over the lake. “Who has made us?” Tanis was on his feet, crying out this challenge.

Tom struggled to his feet. The rest were scrambling to their feet. They yelled together above the thundering falls, “Elyon! Elyon is our Creator!”

Like a display of fireworks, the colors continued to expand in his mind. He gazed about, momentarily stunned. None of the others looked his way. Their display was simple abandonment to affection, foolish in any other context, but completely genuine here.

The voice of the child suddenly echoed through his mind again.

Do you want to climb the cliff?

Tom spun toward the forest that ended at the cliff. Climb the cliff? Behind him the others started running into the lake.

Giggling again.

Do you want to play with me?

Now inexplicably drawn, Tom ran up the shore toward the cliff. If the others noticed, they showed no sign. Soon only his own panting accompanied the thundering falls.

He cut into the forest and approached the cliffs with a sense of awe. How could he possibly climb this? He considered turning back and joining the others. But he had been called here. To climb the cliffs. To play. He ran on.

He reached its base, looked up. There was no way he could climb the smooth stone wall. But if he could find a tree that grew close to the cliff, and if the tree was tall enough, he might be able to reach the top along its branches. The tree right beside him, for example. Its glowing red trunk reached to the cliff 's lip a hundred meters up.

Tom swung himself up onto the first branch and began his ascent. It took him no more than a couple of minutes to reach the treetop and climb out to the cliff. He dropped from the branch to the stone surface below. To his left he could hear the thundering waterfall as it poured over the edge. He stood up and raised his eyes.

Before him, water lapped gently on a shore not more than twenty paces from the cliff 's edge. Another lake. A sea, much larger than the lake. Shimmering green waters stretched to the horizon, neatly bordered by a wide swath of white sand, which edged into a towering blue-and-gold forest topped by a green canopy.

Tom stepped back and drew a deep breath. The white sandy swath bordering the emerald waters was lined with strange beasts who stood or crouched at the water's edge. The animals were like the white lions below, but these seemed to glow with pastel colors. And they lined the beach in evenly spaced increments that continued as far as he could see.

He spun to the waterfall and saw at least a hundred creatures hovering above the water cascading down the cliff, like giant dragonflies. Tom eased back toward a rock behind him. Had they seen him? He studied the creatures hovering with translucent wings in a reverent formation. What could they possibly be doing?

So this was Elyon's water. A sea that extended as far as the eye could see. Maybe farther.

“Hello.”

Tom turned around. A little boy stood not five feet from him on the shore. Tom stumbled back two steps.

“Don't be afraid,” the boy said, smiling. “So, you're the one who's lost?”

The small boy stood to Tom's waist. His brilliant green eyes stared wide and round beneath a crop of very blond hair. His bony shoulders held thin arms that hung loosely at his sides. He wore only a small white loincloth.

Tom swallowed. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said.

“Well, I see you're quite adventurous. I believe you're the first of your kind to walk these cliffs.” The boy giggled.

Incredible. For so small and frail a boy, he held himself with the confidence of someone much older. Tom guessed he must be about ten. Although he certainly didn't talk like a ten-year-old.

“Your name is Thomas?” the boy asked.

He knows my name. Is he from another village? Maybe my own?
“Is this okay? I can be up here?”

“Yes. You're perfectly all right. But I don't think any of the others could get past the lake to bother climbing the cliff.”

“Are you from another village?” he asked.

The boy stared at him, amused. “Do I look like I'm from another village?”

“I don't know. No, not really. Am I from another village?”

“I suppose that's the question, isn't it?”

“Then do you know who called me?”

“Yes. Elyon called you. To meet me.”

There was something about the boy. Something about the way he stood with his feet barely pressing into the white sand. Something about the way his thin fingers curled gently at the end of his arms; about the way his chest rose and fell steadily and the way his wide eyes shone like two flawless emeralds. The boy blinked.

“Are you like a . . . Roush?”

“Am I like a Roush? Well, yes, in a way. But not really.” The boy raised an arm to the hovering dragonfly creatures without looking their way. “They are like Roush, but you may think of me however you want now.” He turned his head to the line of lionlike creatures lining the sea. “They are known as Roshuim.”

Tom eyed the boy. “You . . . you're greater, aren't you? You have greater knowledge?”

“I know as much as I've seen in my time.”

The boy definitely wasn't talking like a small boy. “And how long is that?” Tom asked.

The child looked at him quizzically for a moment. “How long is what?”

“How long have you lived?”

“A very long time. But far too short to even begin to experience what I will experience in my time.”

The boy scratched the top of his head with one hand. He spoke again, staring out to the sea. “What is it like to come to Elyon after ignoring him for so long?”

“You know that? How do you know that?”

The boy's eyes twinkled. “Do you want to walk?”

The boy turned to the white sandy shore and walked casually without looking back. Tom glanced around and then followed him.

It was as light as day, although Tom knew it was actually night.

“I saw you looking out over the water. Do you know how great this sea is?” the boy asked.

“It looks pretty big.”

“It extends forever,” the boy said. “Isn't that something?”

“Forever?”

“That's pretty clever, isn't it?”

“Elyon can do that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's . . . that's pretty clever.”

The boy stopped and walked to the water's edge. Tom followed him tentatively. “Scoop up some of the water,” the child said.

Tom stooped, gingerly placed his hand into the warm green water and felt its power run up his arm the moment his fingers touched its surface—like a low-voltage electric shock that hummed through his bones. He scooped the water out and watched it drain between his fingers.

“Pretty neat, huh? And there's no end to it. You could travel at many times the speed of light toward the center, and never reach it.”

It seemed incredible that anything could extend forever. Space, maybe. But a body of water? “That doesn't seem possible,” Tom said.

“It does when you understand who made it. It came from a single word. Elyon could open his mouth, and a hundred billion worlds like this would roll off his tongue. Maybe you underestimate him.”

Tom looked away, suddenly embarrassed by his own stupidity. Did he underestimate him? How could anyone ever
not
underestimate someone so great?

The child reached up his frail hand and placed it in Tom's . “Don't feel bad,” he said softly.

Tom wrapped his fingers around the small hand. The boy looked up at him with wide green eyes, and more than anything Tom had ever wanted to do, he desperately wanted to reach down and hold this child. They began walking again, hand in hand now. “Tell me,” Tom asked. “There's one thing that I've been wondering about.”

“Yes?”

“I've been having some dreams. I fell in the black forest and lost my memory, and ever since then I've been dreaming of the histories.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Word gets around.”

“But can you tell me why I'm having these dreams? Honestly, I know this sounds ridiculous, but sometimes I wonder if my dreams are really real. Or if
this
is a dream. It would help if I knew for certain which reality was real.”

“Maybe I could help with a question. Is the Creator a lamb or a lion?”

“I don't understand.”

“Some would say that the Creator is a lamb. Some would say he's a lion. Some would say both. The fact is, he is neither a lamb nor a lion. These are fiction. Metaphors. Yet the Creator is both a lamb and a lion. These are both truths.”

“Yes, I can see that. Metaphors.”

“Neither changes the Creator,” the boy said. “Only the way we think of him. Like me. Am I a boy?”

Tom felt the boy's small hand, and his heart began to melt because he knew what the boy was saying. He couldn't speak.

“A boy, a lion, a lamb. You should see me fight. You wouldn't see a boy, a lion,
or
a lamb.”