Dream thief

22

… THE GENTLE EVENING CLOSED around them like a soft and loving hand. The cool air brightened the fire as it crackled under Gita's deft fingers. The deep blue shadows darkened in the forest of green bamboo and the rustlings of monkeys and birds in the trees quieted. Kyr's spacecraft rested a few meters away in a clearing; it gave off a dim bluish glimmer now, its systems shut down for the present.

Gita hovered near the tall alien's shoulder-shyly, nervously, like a schoolboy in the presence of a high dignitary, a schoolboy who did not dream of contributing to the conversation of the adults, yet desired above anything to remain within the charmed circle of their words.

Adjani had not stopped asking questions since they entered the vimana. Ideas between the two were exchanged at such a rapid rate it made the head buzz to think of it. Spence lay back and smiled with a kind of dreamy indulgence as if to say: He is my friend, after all, but I gladly share him with you. It was enough for him to sit basking in the warm friendship of the group, a thing he had not grown overly used to in the course of his stoic life.

He reclined and let the high words and ideas roll over him like the warm breakers on a sunlit beach, rising to a swell and then lapping over him, filling him with happiness and good cheer. It seemed he had been waiting for many years for this special time.

There in the clearing on the mountainside, before the rustic campfire, Spence felt the approach of something he had longed for all his adult life. It was a thing that went by various names, depending upon his frame of mind at the time he felt the longing. Most often he called it certainty, and what he meant by that was the assurance of something absolute and unchangeable in a universe of change.

As a scientist he had long ago given up ever trying to find that immutable absolute; the only law of the universe he knew that could be counted on was change. Hot things lost their heat; cold things grew colder; solid objects became vapor and vice versa; speeding particles slowed; orbits decayed, matter decayed, flesh decayed. Entropy reigned. Nothing remained changeless and unchangeable.

That the immutable absolute he sought might be the Divine Being had never occurred to him. But it came to him now; what is more, he felt a distinct presence drawing inexorably closer. For some reason-perhaps because he was in India-he imagined it in the shape of a great tiger. He felt as if he was being stalked by the fiery ferocious creature; the hair at the base of his skull prickled. A chill wavered along his spine.

Then Kyr stood in the firelight, towering over the group huddled in the yellow circle of light. The conversation had stopped. All Spence heard was the snap of the fire and the evening sounds of the forest.

Kyr looked at each of them in turn, gazing with his great piercing eyes. What he was thinking could not be guessed-the look seemed filled with an emotion beyond Spence's stock catalog of responses.

Kyr began speaking slowly, quietly. "In my world of long ago it was our custom when meeting one another after a long absence, or when leaving for a time, to share a special meal, the Essila. On the evening of our first meeting, before we face what may soon overtake us, I would like to share it with you, my new friends."

With that Kyr went to his spacecraft and entered it, returning a moment later carrying a globe in each hand. These he sat down near the edge of the circle of light and settled his large frame beside them. The Earthmen crept closer.

Kyr took one of the globes and raised it. "In our leaving and arriving we are one. When apart and when together we are one. In the many there is One."

Spence recognized that last phrase as one Kyr had once used in referring to the All-Being.

The globe in Kyr's hands opened from a center seam and the top hemisphere parted to reveal the contents of the interior: a kind of whitish, fluffy, diaphanous substance that looked very much like clouds.

"A body is made of many cells, yet it is one body. A life is made of many days, and yet it is one life. Each man's body and each man's life is a reflection of the One who gave it. In the many there is One."

Kyr held his long hands before the fire and his eyes closed. His voice became almost a chant. Spence knew that if Kyr had been speaking his own tongue the litany would be a song. What Kyr must have been doing to translate it bordered on the miraculous.

"If we mount to the stars, Dal Elna is there. If we descend to the dust of death, Dal Elna is there. Dal Elna is in all things: the stars, the dust, the stones, the fire. Yet these things do not contain Dal Elna. In the many there is One.

"Stars are born and stars die, and Dal Elna knows their passing. In the deeps of space Dal Elna's ways are known. On created worlds and worlds yet to be created Dal Elna's name is sung. Dal Elna calls forth light out of darkness and sets the planets in their orbits. Nothing exists that does not exist in Dal Elna. In the many there is One.

"Before time began, Dal Elna was. When time is gone, Dal Elna will remain. Soon time will cease and the curtains of our minds will be parted and we will see Dal Elna. All living souls will know Dal Elna. In the many there is One."

Kyr lowered his hands and raised the bowl and offered it to each of the men sitting near him. Spence reached his hand in and took some of the wispy stuff; it tore away in a long shred, pink in the firelight.

Then Kyr took some and set the bowl aside, saying, "To eat of the Essila is to mingle souls, to know another as you are known. Therefore, let no one eat of it who does not love the other."

Spence looked at each of the others. He had not put it into words before but yes, he did love Adjani and Gita. They had risked their lives to follow him, to help him, and he loved them for it. He could think of no other friends he trusted more.

Kyr seemed to be waiting while each made up his own mind and then, seeing that all were of one accord, he said, "Taste the sweetness of your love for each other. In the many there is One."

Kyr raised his fingers to his lips and the others followed his example, their eyes shining in the dancing light.

Spence felt the Essila melt as it touched his tongue and suddenly his mouth was full of the sweetest tasting substance he could have imagined-a sweetness beyond simple description. But it did not cloy or sicken in its sweetness, though it overwhelmed all other senses.

He swallowed and felt a spreading warmth surge through his midsection, tingling even to his extremities. He suddenly felt a closeness, a warmth he had never felt among others before. He looked across at Adjani and the slim Indian seemed to shine, his face glowing with a kind of subtle radiance.

He glanced at Gita and saw a wide grin of undiluted happiness gleaming on his round face. Two big teardrops slid slowly down his cheeks as he looked from one to the other of those around him.

Spence felt his own heart swell inside him until he thought it must burst. He felt himself higher, nobler, and more true than he had ever known himself to be in his life. He, too, felt radiant, absolutely glowing with kindness and compassion.

Part of this he knew to be emanating from the others as much as from himself. It was true; their very hearts and souls were mingling like rare and precious oils, each one increasing the worth of the other, yet losing nothing of its own value.

Spence felt himself lifted out of himself and he knew each of his friends as he knew himself. In that moment he knew their weaknesses and failings, yet loved them in spite of any shortcomings, forgiving them, as he forgave them in himself.

There was another presence he could not describe; it was utterly foreign to his frame of human reference, though it shared many of the same basic essences. This presence inside him he knew to be Kyr, and he loved the Martian for his utter, alien uniqueness and his freely flowing compassion.

He drank in these impressions and savored them, treasured them, cherished them. He wanted the moment to last forever and to have that incredible, unutterable sweetness on his tongue.

But Kyr raised the second globe and it opened before him. He took the upper part of the globe and handed it to Adjani, and then handed one to Gita, and in turn to Spence. Spence saw that there were several of these bowls nestled inside one another and Kyr withdrew one for himself. Then he poured from the lower half of the globe a liquid that sparkled in the firelight.

When each bowl had been filled with the liquid Kyr raised his own bowl and began to speak once more. "All rivers run to the sea; all roads reach their destination. In every beginning lies the seed of the end. But in Dal Elna there is only Beginning. In the many there is One."

Kyr brought the bowl to his lips and drank. Spence and the others followed his example.

The strange liquid had no taste that Spence could describe not sweet, at least not as sweet as the first substance had been, but not bitter either. It touched his lips with a tingle like a mild current of electricity applied to his skin.

He rolled the effervescent drink on his tongue and felt as if he had tasted cool fire-the stuff seemed almost alive. He swallowed it and felt its playful sting all the way down. He drank again, more deeply this time and let the cool fire dance on his tongue. The effect made him want to laugh out loud or burst into song. He felt the inner fire seeping into his veins, quickening his heart. Suddenly he was more alert, more conscious than ever in his life.

He looked through new eyes at the world, and what a world he saw! Though it was night and dark he could see the tall slender ranks of bamboo all around, saw the firelight dancing on their thin shafts. He saw narrow, tapering shapes of the leaves with the delicate saw-toothed edge individually and precisely drawn and duplicated. Each was a thing of exquisite, inexplicable beauty.

Above the leaping flames of the fire he saw an insect. In his heightened vision it became suspended in motion, moving in slow, graceful sweeps as its tiny, transparent wings beat the air. He could see the glitter of light scatter across its multi-celled eyes, and the iridescent gleam of its carapace. He saw its legs dangling as fine threads beneath its sectioned body and the gentle curl of its antennae along its back.

Raising his eyes he saw the heavens, at first dark, now almost bursting with the light of countless stars-each star shining with clear, crystalline light, hard-edged and fine with beams piercing as needles.

Everywhere he looked he saw some new wonder, some commonplace revealed in a way he had never seen it before. The ordinary had been transformed into the extraordinary, the normal into the supernormal.

His friends still sat in the same positions as before, but he saw them wholly changed. He saw not their outward appearance only, but now he saw their inner selves unmasked. And each was larger, more fair and strong in every way. They sat wrapped in shimmering auras of gold and violet, as if clothed in living fire. In their faces he glimpsed unfathomable tenderness, and something he could only call wisdom burned out from their eyes, but a wisdom purer and finer than any born of Earth.

Spence looked at Kyr and saw not the elongated Martian but a creature not unlike himself and the others, resembling them and yet slightly different in subtle ways he could not name.

And where before Spence had felt radiant, he felt now as if he were throwing off sparks. He caught fleeting glimpses of the colored rays as they streamed from him to blend with the light of the others.

Spence felt full to overflowing with the joyous, scintillating, reverberating love he felt for his friends. He felt the power of their love for him and for one another, and it was a mingling of deep strong water which flowed out in all directions from the center, like a fountain or a spring with an endless source.

But he sensed another subtle yet still distinct presence too. This presence interwove all the others and even his own, to hold them and to overlay them at the same time without losing its own distinction. In that heightened awareness he sent out the fingers of his mind to examine this presence. He extended his mind toward it and tentatively touched it. Instantly his mind recoiled, staggered as if by a blazing bolt of lightning.

He knew then that he had touched the Source itself.

He felt dizzy and intoxicated, completely shattered by that single brief encounter. Then his mind began to fill with thoughts strange and wonderful and terrifying in their clarity and force.

He saw galaxies swinging in the frozen deeps of space, flung like pebbles on an endless beach; he heard the roar of silence drowned by the music of the galactic movement. The song of the stars-all heaven was filled with it!

He saw worlds upon worlds springing into existence before nameless suns. On each world life leaped, up, sprung from the voice that had awakened it. Plants of every variety, animals of every description, human creatures as different as could be imagined, yet all possessing the divine inner spark that was the immutable stamp of the Maker.

He saw his own world as one minute fleck against the darkness, and knew that his life, and the lives of every man who had ever lived, was but a single faltering step in the Great Dance of Heaven.

The Dance flowed and ebbed according to the will of the Maker, and all moved with him as he moved. There was not a solitary figure in the Dance that was not in his plan-from the seemingly random shuttling of atoms colliding with one another through the limitless reaches of empty night, to the aimless scrabblings of an insect in the dust, to the directionless meandering of a river of molten iron on a world no human eye would ever see all was embraced, upheld, encompassed by the Great Dance.

In the many there is One. At last Spence understood.

One Dance, but it took all space and time to describe it. One life, but it took all living things to define it. One mind, but it took all thought to know it. And still it could not be described, defined, or known in its entirety. He knew why Kyr and his kind called it the All-Being, for it transcended all that it touched even as it stooped to create it.

And though it spawned a billion worlds, gave voice to a trillion celestial lights, directed the course of a quintillion lives, the All-Being was One: inseparable, indivisible, indissoluble, immutable. All-Wise, All-Merciful, All-Holy, All-Knowing. Infinite and eternal…

The rest went spinning by Spence in a dizzying flood of thoughts and feelings and images of power and grandeur untold. He was left gasping and breathless by his single fleeting contact with the God he had long denied, but could deny no longer.

Spence bowed down before the Presence in all humility and surrender, acknowledging it as the first spontaneous act of worship he had ever performed. As he did so he knew that it knew him as a friend and that he had nothing to fear from it now or ever. He felt loads of guilt and shame roll away from him and he heard a voice inside his mind say, "Hear me, son of dust. Why have you run so long and so hard? What were you trying to escape? Your running is over. Enter into my rest."

"Yes, yes, yes," Spence heard his heart reply. "Please tell me how."

"Trust me. Look for me, and then follow."

Spence felt a rushing tide rise within himself flowing out toward the Presence, but still he knew the choice to be his alone. One word would halt the surge and stay it, or it would be released to flow forever without end.

"Yes," said Spence. "I will follow. Lead on."