Bold talkers wish for a new war.
Maybe this mayhem is a treasure, they argue. They have been given a rare opportunity. What if the coronas were to rise up and batter their weakened foes? If every one of their species plunged through the barrier—a great wave of focused, purposeful flesh—perhaps they could kill every last monster. Then the Creation would be freed of this scourge, and the Count of Days and the beauty of the nights would be assured for all time.
This is what teases, this promise of a peace that never ends.
The council speaks about these matters, other matters, and they talk long about nothing at all.
Nothing is decided.
The coronas will never change.
The Father-of-all-fathers delivers the final verdict. He gathers the coronas into a dense sphere while he floats in the center. Their multitude is a world onto itself, and it has never been so huge and worried. His worries have made him appear older than ever. But he takes his obligations seriously, reminding the coronas that they never kill for the sake of killing, and the other world cannot touch them or hurt them in any significant way, and he refuses to hear or see any words about making this ugly fight their own.
“Our obligation is clear,” he says.
But despite the sounds that he makes, and the light and the stubborn scents—others can’t fail to notice that the old one is offering the expected words, and in ways, he is distinctly unconvinced by his own words.
“Our flight path is set,” he says. “Our world moves where it needs to move.”
This is odd, unexpected phrasing, likening the world to an object passing through air. Why would the world move? The Creation is rigid, invincible and immobile. Just the image of motion strikes a few as being senile.
“We must do our work,” he says.
Nobody doubts that the work is holy, and the Creation as well as both of its worlds depend on their unflagging devotion to the jungle and the food the jungle gives, and to the night that cools the world and lets the world rest before another day.
“Nothing can ever change,” he promises.
Yet the very next day—in the midst of the most ordinary bright morning—one event leads to a place that no one envisions.
The coronas’ world is rich with animals that float and that fly, and a thousand kinds of golden foliage gather as airborne jungles. Heat and endless moisture produce visible growth, moment-by-moment growth. The wooden forests in the other realm are sluggish, thin and impoverished. These jungles are far more productive. This is why so many giant coronas can live inside such a tiny place. Life is an explosion, magnificent and relentless, and on those rare days when the First mention the former Creation, they describe a paradise much like this one, only a thousand times larger, more wondrous and more magnificent than this.
Even when the world is crowded with coronas, like it is now, there are places where few go. The Creation is a sphere, and every sphere reaches its widest place. The demon floor rests against the world. Shadows rule. Wild creatures and weeds are the only inhabitants. A few children—odd, impulsive children as a general rule—like to investigate that useless terrain. They crawl into the tangles and crevices, and they hunt for the odd creatures that live nowhere else. The demon floor is close, slightly weaker than elsewhere, and that is an object of fascination too. But mostly, the odd children are there to make bright light in the darkness, be free of coronas and expectations, enjoying the company of souls just as peculiar as them.
The council of important souls was held yesterday.
Today, a trio of young coronas rise toward the sun with an unexpected claim. They found a creature unlike any other. What they describe is suitable for a dream, not for life. A few adults bother to listen. Then they dismiss the nonsense, offering candidates from among the known species. “No, no,” the children say. “None of those animals fit what we saw.” And not only did they see the beast, they spoke to it, and it spoke to them, after a fashion. Then they promised their new friend to tell no one about him, after which they hurried here with this fine new story.
The adults are too old and far too wise to accept any portion of this lie. But there are some curious details, and even the dullest adult can still enjoy a child’s fantasy. That’s why the stories spread. A corona day is exceptionally long, and everyone hears every story, and this is how the last of the Firsts eventually learn about this impossible business.
Three of them dismiss the whole matter without qualm.
But the Father-of-all-fathers turns silent, and against his usual nature, he turns contemplative.
The sun is shrouded and night arrives, and he leaves, presumably heading for his home. But he passes the cavity where he has slept for millions of days. In secret, the ancient one slips down to where darkness always rules, spending much of the long night throwing light into the crannies and calling out with words that he hasn’t used in an eternity.
Just before dawn, what he seeks allows itself to be found.
The creature is exactly as promised—too strange to be real and barely comfortable inside its body. Noises rise from its peculiar mouth, and the Father-of-all-Fathers replies in various ways. Then the strange creature rises out of its hiding place, drawing images on sheets of gossamer weed, and the corona draws pictures on his flesh, each trading notions and truths until one of them is without hope.
The broken one starts home again.
He is devastated by the physical tolls, and those miseries are nothing next to the emotions roiling his soul. But his soul is a great thing, built large and everlasting in the world. How can such a soul change in one night?
The new day is well underway. Only the babies sleep, and he pauses in a pocket of still air, inside the half-born jungle, listening for his own essence living in the world. But all he finds, echoing in the air and in his mind, is that long-ago man.
A human, he is.
Human in shape, human in voice.
“These days will end,” says the man. “But I will grant you a few more days, if you promise me one impossible, wondrous task, sacrificing everything for the slenderest chance to save All . . . ”
ONE
He wore his age well, with gray lurking in the beard and a deep dark gaze that had witnessed more than most. The body still held its easy grace and most of that trusted strength, but the man inside was learning the benefits of filling a comfortable pillow, worldly eyes staring at a bare wall or the polished face of the floor. He had become a thinker. He often thought about his wives and their many children. Each wife had had a lovely name that he couldn’t forget, and the older children had claimed proud names that he never bothered to remember. He had loved his family as well as any man could. He still cherished almost every portion of his former life. But that was long ago, in a very different place, and whenever he thought about his ladies and his babies, there always came that sorry moment when he remembered again that each of them was dead.
His type of women didn’t live in this part of the forest. He had looked for them after arriving but always came home lonely. Some of the others talked about finding a girlfriend for the lonely man, but she would have to be brought from distant trees—in a bad humor, most likely. An angry and frightened bride would probably try to murder him before love had its chance, and that’s why he said nothing positive about the idea, and maybe that’s why the matchmaking had never happened.
There was quite a lot of talk in this place. Every subject was discussed in his presence, and he always listened to those pieces that concerned him. Words were very important, and he always worked to understand what he was hearing. Yes, he was a very smart man. But even familiar words were confusing when they were strung together, which was why he concentrated on simpler, surer qualities: he studied postures and hands and the colors of the voices and who was angry and who was most scared. That was how a smart man learned the others were thinking.