Resonance 4th Edits - Bleeding Worlds Bk 3 (18 page)

Marduk reached out his hand.

“You’ll need to take my hand for a while,” he said. “Initially, we will have to travel part of the Veil sheltered within my own soul. Once we reach our first waypoint, we’ll be able to separate for a while. And then, the true test will begin.”

Gwynn took Marduk’s hand. Within seconds, he felt like he was drowning in an icy ocean. Cold surrounded him on all sides, pouring down his throat and seeping into his every pore. He struggled, trying to shake loose the invisible hands choking the air from him. Marduk’s grip tightened.

“It will be over soon,” he said.

Gwynn gasped.

He greedily gulped at the air, though he didn’t feel the same satisfaction as breaking the surface after being underwater too long. He couldn’t even be sure it was air filling his lungs and keeping him alive. Cold no longer choked him, but a permanent chill clung to his flesh.

They were in a room with featureless white walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Is this the Veil?” Gwynn asked.

“Not exactly. Right now, we are inside a bubble. My own soul is acting as a barrier, protecting us from the Veil. That is why we must maintain contact with one another—it is the only way for me to keep your own soul from claiming you. Those of us who have mastered this technique refer to this space as the White Room.”

“Not the most creative name.”

Marduk chuckled.

“Well, with the amount of work it takes to create and maintain, you will forgive us for not having more artistic impulses with naming. We leave it featureless because it is easier to maintain, even with the conflicting emotions and impulses of another person. Adrastia can make her room larger, revealing doors which lead to all possible worlds.”

“Will I learn to create this space?” Gwynn asked.

“Perhaps, but I doubt there is much practical use for you. There is enough for you to master already.”

Marduk turned and pulled Gwynn’s arm to make him follow.

“Before the truly difficult things, I would like to show you a unique place within the Veil. In the entire vastness of this space, it is the one place where any Anunnaki—should they be able to find it—can walk without fear. It is a sacred place, a repository of knowledge both old, current, and new. It is safe because every soul can, and at some point must, access it.”

“Is it far?” Gwynn asked.

“It could be two steps or a million. Distance holds no meaning in this place. It is infinite in size, yet smaller than a grain of sand. How big is all the space between physical existences? It is not a matter of distance, rather a matter of sensation and desire. We are beings rooted in physical space and time—we perceive time and distance in the Veil because we force our perspective on it. But in truth, there is no distance, no scale, no time. Everything is here, now, and no further than the spot you occupy. When we leave this space, we could feel a thousand years have passed, when in truth only a day has passed.”

Gwynn thought they’d been walking for some time. But as he reflected on Marduk’s words, he questioned if that was true. Hadn’t they just started walking? Or maybe they’d never walked at all. Perhaps they’d moved their legs, but remained in the same spot.

Ahead of them, a dark speck appeared in the wall. As they came closer, the features of a door shifted into focus—a single door, a Frankenstein thing, cobbled together from different materials. At some point, it might have been made of wood, but time had ravaged the original material, rotting it away, and necessitating replacement with pieces of metal, plastic, and others Gwynn couldn’t identify.

“Why not just replace the whole door?” he mused out loud.

Marduk smiled.

“Because the door, like the place beyond, represents doors of all times and places. Even the parts which appear all wood, if you look closer, are constructed of different woods, with varying grains. The materials have not been added over time, the door has been this way from the beginning. But then, there is no door here anyway, it is nothing but your mind’s interpretation.”

With his free hand, Marduk took hold of a cast iron ring on the door, twisted it, and pushed the door open.

Once they’d crossed the threshold, Marduk closed the door behind them and released Gwynn’s hand.

“Welcome to the Akashic Records,” Marduk said, sweeping his hand out to indicate the space.

Gwynn’s body went slack. Since his awakening as an Anunnaki, he’d been told of the Veil’s vastness. He thought he understood the concept—envisioning prairies where open space expanded in all directions. But a sense of empty, open, space couldn’t compare to seeing a library with shelves the height of skyscrapers, stairs twisting at differing angles in all directions and heights, and all along an endless hall. The entirety of the hall’s ceiling consisted of glass, showing a sky unlike anything Gwynn could’ve imagined. Night, day, and dusk all seemed to blend in a gradient across the space. Constellations shone with such intensity and uniformity, he imagined each star was a glowing orb he could capture in his palm.

“I’ve never seen a sky like this before,” he said.

“You couldn’t,” Marduk replied. “The stars over your head are those which have died, ones living now, and more yet to come. You’re looking at the dawn, dusk, and night of every sky our world has seen, and each we will see in the future.”

“What’s that?” Gwynn asked. He pointed his finger toward a single burning star, isolated from the others. Unlike the rest, it didn’t seem to be an orb placed in the sky—a tail of fire streaked behind it, a picture of a body in motion.

Marduk didn’t bother to look where Gwynn indicated, he just nodded his head knowingly.

“It is Lucifer falling from Heaven,” he said. “At least, that’s what Adrastia told me when I asked.”

“And you believed her?”

Marduk shrugged.

“When you have lived as long as I, it becomes easier to believe such things. You know the rule, I assume?”

Gwynn smiled, nodding his agreement.

“All myths have some basis in fact.”

“And so that ball of fire in the sky, regardless of what it truly is, forms the basis of Lucifer’s fall.”

“There’s that word again…truth.”

“Yes!” Marduk laughed. “I did say you would face it often in this place.”

Gwynn turned in a semi-circle, regarding the walls of books.

“So what is all this, every book ever written?”

“They comprise part of the records,” Marduk said. “But the more interesting books are the autobiographies.”

“Really? What, is there an extensive section of the world’s famous people?”

Marduk grinned.

“Oh, I suppose you could say that,” he said. “Though I guess it depends on your definition of famous. You see, every person in the world is represented.”

“Every person?”

Marduk nodded.

“It is a…large section. This is why we often refer to a person’s life as their
story
. Once you learn to enter this place and search its archives, you can find your own story, read about your exploits, reflect on who you are. The more interesting part is an index in the book, which links you to all the lives which have been connected to your soul aside from your current self.”

“How could you find anything in this place? It would take years just to walk from one end to the other.”

Marduk ran his finger along the spines on the shelf. They’d been blank before, but his fingers seemed to remove a layer of dust, revealing titles below. Gwynn noted this wasn’t accurate as the titles were far longer than the width of Marduk’s fingers.

“You don’t find the books,” Marduk said. “The books find you. An efficient system provided you know what you are looking for.”

Marduk sighed.

“There was a time when there were many hallways branching off this main one. The knowledge from just one world was incredible, but from billions…Since the cataclysm of seven years ago, most of those hallways have simply ceased to exist.”

“As if they
never
existed?”

Marduk placed his palm against a group of book spines. A rush of titles spread out, filling the spines of hundreds of books.

“Before, I could touch this shelf and the lives of a million Marduks would radiate for miles.” Marduk’s voice sounded thin and distant. “Now, there is only me. I’ve lost all those lessons others learned, all the possibilities they explored. I can only know who I have been and what paths I chose to follow.”

He pressed his forehead against the books and exhaled raggedly.

After a minute, he raised his head and stepped away from the shelf. As his fingers lifted from the books, the titles collapsed toward the final place of contact and disappeared from sight.

Marduk motioned toward the shelf.

“Give it a try,” he said.

Gwynn took hesitant steps toward the shelf. He reached out but stopped his hand an inch from touching the spines.

“How does it work?” he asked. “I mean, you said I had to know what to ask for.”

“You just need to think about what you want,” Marduk said. “Thoughts are energy, and in reality, this place is as well. But it helps if you have a certain familiarity with your question. Much like computers, garbage input will result in less than desirable output. Perhaps you should start by asking about yourself.”

Gwynn studied the blank spines just an inch away from his hovering fingers.

The story of my life?

He dully remembered Adrastia urging him as he lay dying, reaching a hand out to him and telling him to grab hold—to take his proper place in the story of his life. When she said those words to him, what part of his story did she want him to fulfill—to be her father? Even if events differed from her expected timeline, he’d still managed to have a daughter who demonstrated Adrastia’s powers, and certainly bore a striking resemblance to her as well. Or did she mean for him to face Cain—to finish the mission she considered herself incapable of? So many questions and too few answers. Could this place give him those? If he only knew the right questions to ask.

“Why are we here?” he asked Marduk. “I know Adrastia wants me to have the strength to defeat Cain, so why start with books? What are you hoping I learn?”

“Are you trying to formulate your question, or are you demonstrating your ignorance?”

“I’m trying to figure out the question.”
No.
He shook his head. “Not
the
question, actually, but
which
question. The more I think of it, I feel like I have nothing
but
questions. I don’t even know where to start.”

Marduk paced along the shelves to Gwynn’s left.

“It is an odd feeling, is it not?” he said. “Limitless options—you can ask any question. As long as you can wrap your head and heart around it, you can have your answer. So many choices. Do you ask if Jesus is real? Or perhaps you are more interested in the Loch Ness Monster.” Marduk chuckled. “But as you stand there, your fingers tingling with their proximity to boundless knowledge, you worry asking a trivial question will rob you of the opportunity to learn something useful. This is a burden we carry as creatures of linearity—we are prisoners to the sense of our impending doom—we worry about wasting our limited time.”

Marduk returned to Gwynn and rested his hand on his shoulder.

“We are here to learn if Cain knows something about your soul you do not. Why is Cain able to harness more of its power? Is it purely due to his advantage of time, or is there something more to it? What truth do you need to discover in order to unlock its full potential for yourself?”

“I’m not sure that helps,” Gwynn said.

“You need answers, and I have given you the greatest resource for answers in existence. But I will not find the answers for you. One of my titles was The God of Judgement. In judging you, I believe the only way for an answer to mean something is for you to find it yourself.”

Marduk took hold of Gwynn’s extended forearm and pushed it forward, splaying his fingers on the blank spines.

“Stop being so afraid of being wrong,” he said. “Just ask a question.”

Gwynn’s palms and fingers tingled where they touched the spines. There was the slightest bit of a tug, like the spines were magnetized and his fingers were an opposing pole.

I need to be Cain’s equal
, he thought.

The spines remained blank.

Stupid, stupid. That’s not a question.

Gwynn inhaled slowly, trying to chase any extraneous thoughts or doubts from his mind.

If Cain and I share a soul, why is he so much stronger than I am?

The tingling beneath his palm snapped off with a jolt. The spines vibrated and hummed. A swirling mass of gold and black churned beneath his hand and spun off, leaving hundreds, possibly thousands, of titles on the books.

“How do I read any of the books if I have to keep my hand here?” Gwynn asked.

Marduk laughed.

“I guess I should have given you a better primer. So long as you ask nothing more of the books, they will remain as they are. If you ask a new question, or tell the books you are finished, they will change.”

Gwynn eased his hand away from the spines—a pins-and-needles sensation still remained. He regarded the books in front of him. Most of the titles were names with a series of dates beneath them.

“Is this Cain’s history?” he asked.

“I would think so. What did you ask?”

“Why Cain was so much stronger than I am since we share a soul.”

Marduk stroked his bearded chin.

“We could try reading all these books, but I would surmise the simplest answer would be
experience.
”

“But that doesn’t help me,” Gwynn said. “I mean, I could’ve guessed that right from the start.”

Marduk walked along the line of books, moving his head up and down, side to side, as he moved.

“So ask something different.”

Gwynn pressed his palm against the spines in front of him.

How do I become as strong as Cain?

A wave of swirling words crashed in from all sides, evaporating as they struck the point where his hand touched. No further titles fanned out from his touch. After a minute, he lifted his hand to reveal a single book title which had been hidden beneath his palm.