Jumping (29 page)

It's not that we can't get truths from others or from our ‘higher’ sources. But I need to determine the validity and resonance of the information and not be hypnotized by it. That's the difference between the world I believe in and the one “they” created back there.

I'm still falling, but the air seems to be changing. It starts to feel denser. I shift my head to look down and get a jolt when I do. Far, far down I can see pinpoints of light, floating and moving. There must be a bottom! Uh-oh. I always thought it was bottomless. I can't think “bottom” when I think “Void.” If there's a bottom, will the fall kill me? No, because I still believe the Void isn't a place of death. It's a place of life. But what do those lights mean?

As I get closer, I see the moving lights are torches. They're held by people, all moving across the ground at the bottom. They're moving rapidly, single mindedly, in the same direction, and they don't seem to notice me. There are a lot of them. They're mainly men, but I see some women interspersed. They're sort of nondescript in their appearance, but they remind me of depictions I've seen of people in the Middle Ages, sort of roughhewn—clothes and matted hair and stocky builds. I wonder if I'm going to land on top of them.

Just then I feel the wind pick up, and I feel myself buffeted, as if a hand came under me and gently shifted me to the side of the Void. Not a real push, like last time. The wind deposits me on a ledge a little above the crowd. I land on my feet, up against the rock wall behind me. I lean there a moment, getting my bearings, savoring the ground beneath my feet, as the crowd with torches moves below me.

I'm closer to them but they don't seem able to see me. They're all looking forward intently. They're not talking. I just hear the sound of all those feet moving across the ground. But it doesn't feel good to me. It makes me think of the hillside. It's as if they've become mindless, or of one mind, without individual thought. I don't know what force could be moving them or where they could be going. I don't feel pulled to join them. In fact, I feel the opposite and stay next to my wall. Finally, they're past me.

As the last of them goes by, however, I see three people at the end of the crowd stop and turn towards me. I'm startled. One of them is Leonid. I look at my ledge, wanting to get down there. There are rocks I can step down, to the ground, and I do quickly.

“Leonid!” I call, waving wildly to him. I'm so glad to see him! Leonid is smiling as he limps to me, with arms open. The other two follow. He and I embrace. Leonid looks much like the people in the crowd, roughly dressed with thick chopped hair. His curved spine makes him a full head shorter than I am. His face is the liveliest thing about him. His dark eyes sparkle, his gap-toothed smile is constant, he projects a continuous warm welcome. He's the opposite of the five elders.

“God, it's good to see you!” I tell him. “How did you get out?”

“Oh, they weren't interested in me. And the projection just faded. Kind of like that one.” He points to the group that just passed. “They were a projection, too.”

“What do you mean? How could you tell? They seemed pretty real. But so did the hillside.” I'm a little alarmed.

“A projection is a temporary scene created in space, which is malleable energy with just the right flex to take on individual or group projections,” Leonid explains. “People project out into their immediate space as a kind of experiment, to work on emotional and psychological issues they want to master. Like in dreams. They create scenes that allow them to examine the issue and their own response to it. But make no mistake, Miles, they're as real as you want them to be. They have power, too. They provide direct experience of an issue, which can be transformative.”

“How can you tell when you're in it, that they're projections?” I ask. “I almost became a permanent part of the one on the hillside! Is it like mass hypnosis?”

“Yes! You could have stayed on that hillside. But it's a choice if you keep hold of your own consciousness,” Leonid says seriously. “You stay yourself wherever you go in the Universe, you know. Think about it. You were able to step out of it, as soon as you no longer thought of yourself as part of it. This one,” he says, referring to the torch bearers, “you didn't even think of stepping into. But you could have. You could have gone with them, for as long as you needed to. But you didn't. So you can trust yourself on that.”

“What do you mean, for as long as I needed to?”

“These projections are always opportunities for healing,” Leonid says, looking up at me earnestly. “If you needed the healing, you'd be drawn to the projection, to participate. You entered the hillside because you'd just fallen through a Void, and the hillside seemed the perfect place to collect yourself, to feel safe, to be welcomed. It was along the lines of what you expected to find—something warm that feels like home. Right? Think about it. It was what Duncan Robert found—his people. Those elders resonated with what you thought you'd find—wisdom personified.”

I have to agree with that. But then I look at him shrewdly. “Listen to you! You're the wise one.”

“Yes, and don't I look like it?” he says, mischievously, looking up at me.

“Well,” I say, feeling slightly embarrassed at where this conversation seems to be going. I don't want to talk about the fact that he's a mutant.

Leonid laughs. “It's a projection!”

“What?”

“It's a projection! I project this image of –what did you call it—a mutant. I carry this, as a tool for healing.”

“Explain that!” I say, confounded.

Leonid laughs again. “Think about it. Projections can be individual or group, any setting imaginable. Why not a projection onto the arena of ourselves? You can use space to do that.”

“But why would you?”

“As I said. For healing.” I look at him, still confused, and he says, “It can be healing for the person who carries it, because he may have mistreated deformed people before, and by wearing the deformity, he learns they are the same as he is. It can be healing for the people who witness it because they are reminded to hold onto their compassion, which they may not have done before, when confronted with a deformed person.

“I wear it because I inflicted this kind of deformity on someone else. Before the lesson can be completed, though, there has to be complete forgiveness. I have to forgive myself for doing such a thing, especially if I did it with intent, or with relish. Otherwise it becomes part of what gets carried down to other generations, other lifetimes, through bloodlines. But I can't forgive completely without fully knowing what I inflicted. It's completed when we come full circle and are made whole again, without anger or guilt or shame, by walking through the experience of it.” He looks at me seriously.

“Wait a minute. You inflicted this kind of harm on someone else? I find that hard to believe. You're one of the kindest people I've ever met. I know that, right down to my core.”

He looks up at me. “I did it to
you
. In another life. That's why I wanted you to see it. That's why I was the first cohort member you met. The healing is for you, too, so you can forgive me.”

I just look at him, stricken by what he has said. But I feel the truth of it, just as I felt his truth on the hillside.

“Wait a minute! I'm forgetting my manners!” He points to the two people we both seem to have forgotten, standing a few steps behind him. “I want you to meet two other members of our cohort!” He steps aside to signal them forward, and I stand there stunned and overjoyed. Now we're cooking! Cohort members!

One of them steps forward, hands extended, smiling broadly. It's a woman! She's a woman, I correct myself. Her height and her short hair and all this loose, non-descript clothing fooled me for a minute. She grips my hands, and I feel her strength. She's like an Amazon, exuding an energy of confidence and toughness and kindness. As we grip hands, I feel solidly connected to her, heart to heart. We look at each other, and I love her! This sensation overwhelms me, and it feels absolutely new to me. I don't think there's ever been a time when I felt this strongly this instantly for anyone.

She laughs uproariously, reading my thoughts. “Why do you think you jumped? Because you've always felt this! You've been our role model!”

I look confusedly at Leonid. “It's true, Miles. You're good at feeling things and allowing that to guide your behaviors.” He smiles and adds, “Jumping isn't a head decision, you know.”

I shake my head and look back at the woman. I still feel drawn to her.

“I'm Norwenna,” she says, “and we've known each other forever, practically. Mainly, we've fought together, over and over, because our cohort has done a lot of that. It's why we feel so close. Being shoulder-to-shoulder in life and death situations does bind you.” She laughs again. “It's why you're so anti-war now. You've had too much of it. You'll get there!” She punches my shoulder and steps aside to allow the other person to step forward.

This one is a man—I can tell by his short, well-trimmed beard. He's tall and thin and reminds me of the five elders back on the hillside, only younger. The man hesitates, sensing my thoughts, and Leonid says, “Miles, this is Keilor. He's an intergalactic being, yes, but he's also a very powerful healer. He's here to learn from us, as he helps us heal. He's always been a part of our cohort, and he's not our only intergalactic member.”

I look at Keilor. His eyes are his most striking feature. They're large and they're a golden green. They seem to hold a deep knowing. He looks at me and smiles. I feel so warmed by his smile that I smile back, extending my hands to him. He takes them immediately in both of his, and I feel tears prickling my eyes. I discover that I love this man, too.

“I'm here to learn more about how and why you battle and to help you heal from it,” he says. “It can be hard to heal from, but your planet desperately needs to do this.”

His accent sounds faintly British to me. “How do you do that—help heal a planet?” I ask.

“I help through the energy I carry,” he says. “It's different than your energy, because I've never fought.”

I look at Leonid, perplexed by Keilor's statement. Leonid says, “It's true. His energy is more pure. It has the power to negate the energy generated by battles and wars. That energy has nothing to attach to with him. So he can heal by his very presence, if someone is ready to heal.”

I hardly know what to make of that, but I'm deeply moved by it. I feel as if I'm in the presence of a holy man. Leonid nods at me in agreement, so I know he's heard my thought.

“Come on. Let's walk,” he says and heads up the direction the torch group went. We follow him. I notice the bottom of the Void is vast and there are other seemingly endless passages off of it.

“Where are we going?” I ask him, not wanting to get too close to that torch-bearing projection.

“Let's go see if we can find Ethelred, then you can get the whole story.” He looks at me. “You have the opportunity to experience the story directly, for yourself, for your own healing. If you want.”

“Ethelred?” I vaguely remember that name. From medieval history. “Do you mean the Ethelred who was a king of England?”

“Yes, he was,” Norwenna says. “I remember him well—Ethelred the Unready, to some. His reign was marked by lots of military crises, for which he wasn't unready—in fact he was quite forceful. He was just so burdened by how his reign began.”

“Say more,” I say to her. “Wasn't there something about brother killing brother?”

“Yes, sort of. His half-brother, Edward, was murdered at sixteen, after being king only three years, which gave Ethelred the throne when he was only ten. Clearly these children were pawns for larger forces. It was all about possessing land, for power. That's what monarchies are still all about today. But they had no way to maintain real control of all that land back then. They just passed it around on paper—I mean parchment.”

She pauses a minute, looking off down the tunnel. “Ethelred's mother was believed to have orchestrated the murder. But they were brothers, who played together as children. So Ethelred could never forget that his rule was founded on the blood of his brother. He spent much of his life working to make his murdered brother a saint, which he did.”

“Why are we going to see him?” I ask.

“He's part of our cohort,” she says. She looks at me somberly. “Knowing your cohort is knowing your full self. Being in battle together makes you really identify with each other. It can be the foundation of a cohort. And often it keeps us choosing male lives, because the male experience is indelibly imprinted on our spirit.” She smiles. “That's what I'm trying to balance.”

“But I'm against war!” I protest, trying to imagine all of these fighting lives. I've always been against war.

Leonid laughs. “Well, you are now. Because you've learned a few things. Nothing makes a war a good thing, and you found that out. But we're talking about what happens to people within a war, and I suggest they can still find the good, even as they learn the bad. Or maybe because they learn the bad, together.” He looks at me and laughs. “Heck, this planet is all about war! There had to be more to war than just war, or you'd all be dead.”

Keilor, who has been quiet, nods. “I think the fact you're against war now is a good sign. It means you've experienced some healing.”

While I'm pondering that, Leonid stops at the opening to another passage. They all look at me, as if to make sure I want to do this. I nod, not really knowing what we're doing but trusting them all, and we head into the passage, which to me looks like all the others. We walk for a ways, without talking. Slowly the walls gain my attention. There are markings, hieroglyphs. They look like chicken scratch to me, but they're in color and some are repeated. I ask about them.

“They're war stories,” Leonid says. “That's what this tunnel is—the War Hall. Warriors have left the tales of heroic battles, whether won or lost. This is part of their healing, to tell the tale.”

“Say more about us choosing these lives of war and why we would,” I ask, troubled to be in a place that marks the events that meant death, often horrible death, for so many.