Part 26 (1/2)

That meant I could not merely seek out contact with the Creators and hope that they would bring me across s.p.a.cetime to them. I had to make the leap myself, with my own power.

Night was falling. Crickets chirruped and winged insects whined through the shadows. I climbed up the maple's trunk and flattened myself p.r.o.ne on one of its st.u.r.dy branches. Somehow I felt safer up in the tree than on the ground.

My monkey heritage, Set would have called it. Yet I truly did feel safer.

Closing my eyes, I tried to recall all the times I had been s.h.i.+fted through the continuum from one point in s.p.a.cetime to another. I recalled the pain of death, repeated over and over. Concentrating, forcing myself to see through that pain, beyond it, I sought the memory of translating myself across the continuum.

I had done it before, although I was not certain that one of the Creators had not helped me without my being aware of it. Now I wanted to do it completely on my own. Could I?

The secret was to tap enough energy to create a warp in s.p.a.cetime. Energy is subject to the control of a conscious mind just as matter is. And the universe teems with energy. Stars radiate their energy throughout s.p.a.cetime, drenching the continuum with their bounty. Even as I lay sprawled on this tree branch in the dark of night, countless trillions of neutrinos and cosmic particles were flowing through my body, filling the night, swarming through the world around me.

I used that energy. Focusing it with my mind the way a lens focuses light, I bent that energy to my will. Once again I felt that moment of cryogenic cold, that instant of nothingness that marked the transition across the awful gulfs of the continuum.

I opened my eyes.

The city of the Creators stood all around me, magnificent temples and monuments from all the ages of humankind. Empty and silent, abandoned.

The energy dome s.h.i.+mmered above, tingeing the clear blue sky with a slight golden cast. Elsewhere on this tranquil Earth human beings very much like me lived their normal lives of joy and sorrow, work and love. But the Creators had fled.

For hours I walked through their city, their monument to themselves. Marble and bronze, gold and stainless steel, gla.s.s and glossy wood. To what avail? This world of theirs went along without them, but for how long? How long would the continuum maintain its stability with Set still alive and the Creators scattered among the stars? For how long could the human race exist with its implacable enemy still working to destroy all humanity?

I found myself in the main square once again, facing the Parthenon and its heroic statue of Athena. My Anya's face looked down at me, a Greek battle helmet tilted back on her head, a great spear gripped in one slender hand.

I lifted my arms to the thirty-foot-tall statue rising before me.

”How can I win, all alone?” I asked the unfeeling marble. ”What can I do, by myself?”

The statue stirred. Its marble seemed to glow from within and take on the tones of living flesh. Its painted eyes became live, grave gray eyes that looked down on me solemnly. Its lips moved and the melodious voice I knew so well spoke to me.

”You are not alone, my love.”

”Anya!”

”I am with you always, even if I cannot help you directly.”

The memory of her abandonment welled up in me. ”You deserted me once.”

The living statue's face almost seemed to cry. ”I am ashamed of what I did, Orion.”

I heard myself reply, ”You had no alternative. I know that. I understand it. My life was unimportant compared to the survival of the Creators. Still, it hurts worse than Set's fires.”

Anya answered, ”No such n.o.ble motives moved me. I was filled with the terror of death. Like any mortal human, I fled with my life and left the man I love most in all the universes to the mercies of the cruelest of the cruel.”

”I would have done the same,” I said.

She smiled sadly. ”No, Orion. You would have died protecting me. You have given your life many times, but even faced with final extinction you would have tried to s.h.i.+eld me with your own life.”

I had no response to that.

”I took on human form as a whim, at first,” Anya confessed. ”I found it exciting to share a life with you, to feel the blood thundering through my body, to love and laugh and fight-even to bleed. But always I knew that I could escape if it became necessary. I never faced the ultimate test, true death. When Set held me in his power, when I knew that I would die forever, that I would cease to be, I felt real fear for the first time. I panicked and ran. I abandoned you to save myself.”

”I thought I hated you for that,” I told her. ”And yet I love you still.”

”I am not worthy of your love, Orion.”

Smiling, I replied, ”Yet you have my love, Anya. Now and forever. Throughout all time, all s.p.a.ce, all the universes of the continuum, I love you.”

It was true. I loved her and forgave her completely. I did this of my own will; no one was manipulating me. This was not a response that the Golden One had built into my conditioning. I truly loved Anya, despite what she had done. Perhaps, in a strange way, I loved her in part because she had experienced the ultimate fear that all humans must face. None of the other Creators had shown the courage even to try.

”And I love you, my darling,” she said, her voice growing faint.

”But where are you?”

”The Creators have fled. When they saw that Set could attack them here, in our own sanctuary, they abandoned the Earth altogether and fled for their lives.”

”Will you return to me?” I asked.

”The other Creators fear Set so much! They thought that destroying Sheol would put an end to him, but now they realize he is firmly entrenched on Earth. Only you can stop him, Orion. The Creators are depending entirely on you.”

”But I can't do it alone!” I called to her diminis.h.i.+ng voice. I could feel her presence fading, dwindling, the statue losing its living warmth, returning to pure marble.

”You must use your own resources, Orion,” Anya's voice whispered to me. ”The Creators are too afraid to face him themselves.”

”Will you you return to me?” I repeated. return to me?” I repeated.

”I will try.” Fainter still.

”I need you!”

”When you need me most, I will be there for you, Orion.” Her voice was softer than the sighing of an owl's wing. ”When you need me most, my love.”

Chapter 34.

I was alone in the empty main square again, staring at the cold marble statue of Athena.

Alone. The Creators expected me to face Set and his minions without them, without even their help.

Feeling drained, exhausted, I went to the marble steps of the Parthenon and sat down, my head sunk in my hands. From across the square the giant golden Buddha smiled placidly at me.

For the first time in all my lives I was facing a situation where my strength by itself was of practically no value. I had to use my mind, the powers of thought, to find a way to defeat Set. He overpowered me physically, that I knew from painful experience. He had an army of Shaydanians at his clawed fingertips and legions of dinosaurs under his control.

I had my body and my wits. Nothing more.

The Buddha statue seemed to be watching me, its smile friendly and benign.

”It's all well and good for you to preach desirelessness,” I grumbled aloud to the gold-leafed wood. ”But I have desires. I have needs. And what I need most is an army-”