Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (I am that I am) 24/34 Julio Cesar divad72@prodigy.net.mx Vi Moreau vmoreau@directvinternet.com Inside the Dream. His soul inside the Dream, Corazon Negro was not in time. It didn't surprise him to discover that his long black hair was badly tangled. Even a casual inspection told him that this was not a normal place for him to stay, but something considerably less dense, yet as primitive of life on earth. But again, he was thousands of years before his time. He was in the creation, the place that knew nothing of where God came from, or why, or how. No one knew this. However, this was the whole purpose of the Dream's realm. Maybe God thought that through watching the universe evolve, He was going to find out. What God had set in motion, was a giant Dream, a giant experiment, to see if the end resulted in producing beings like Himself, the Father, the Mother, the Essence. Maybe God had worked backwards from the blueprint of Himself. He had created a physical universe whose laws would result in the evolution of creatures that resembled Him. They would be made of Matter. Maybe God did originally find out what it would have been like had He been Matter. Maybe God had looked for a clue as to how He got where He was. Maybe in watching man evolve, He had hoped to understand His own evolution, if such a thing in fact had occurred. God's imagination had created Matter, foresaw it, longed for it. Maybe the longing had been the most important aspect of His mind. If God himself did originate in Matter... then the Dream was an experiment to see when Matter can evolve into God again. But if God had not originated Matter, if He had proceeded and it was something He had imagined and desired and longed for, the effects upon Him were basically the same. In the end, God wanted Matter. He wasn't satisfied without it. Or He wouldn't have made it. It had been no accident. The design of the Dream and the universe were immense, but the whole process of evolution was His calculated experiment, and they, Immortals, had been created long after it began. How had it been before Matter began? No one but God knew. One thing was true: when Matter had been created, so had time. Immortals existed to witness and be drawn into time. Matter and time had changed everything totally. They had obliterated not only the pure state that preceded them, they had upstaged it; they had overshadowed it. Matter and time had eclipsed the time before time. God had created Matter and energy, in an interchangeable state, and now Corazon Negro suspected that the key to God laid within the word energy. In the end, God was energy, and in making the universe, in making the Dream, He had caused some of that energy to be changed into Matter, to create a circular interchange independent of Himself. At that moment, Corazon Negro witnessed millions of explosions, sudden transformations. It was the beginning of the human world. Corazon Negro was aware of a rather cool breeze suddenly, and glanced over his shoulder. He witnessed complex processes; some spark of life animated these events; they had a crude form of purpose, and it was as if Corazon Negro could see that spark of life and recognize it as the Quickening! The world around him was full of commotion from a new kind of magic; and as the Dreamer watched the apes started to walk upright. They lumbered upon the earth, clubs in hands, brutal, savage, tearing the flesh of enemies with their teeth, beating, biting, stabbing to death all that resisted them. But then something changed. Corazon Negro saw the caring for the weak by the strong, the helping and the nourishing of the crippled by the whole, and finally the burial rituals with flowers. Flowers were laid from one end to the other of the body softly deposited in the earth. The meaning was clear: man had commenced to exist. The female of the human species had begun to look more distinctly different from the male. The female grew pretty and seductive; the hair left her face, and her limbs grew graceful; her manner transcended the necessities of survival; and she became beautiful, as flowers were beautiful. Out of the coupling of the hairy apes had risen a female tender-skinned and radiant of face. Mates mated with the loveliest of the females, and those who were most lithe, and smooth to touch, and tender of voice. And from those matings came males themselves who were as beautiful as the females. There came humans of different complexions; there came red, yellow, black hair and locks of brown and starling white; there came eyes of infinite variety-gray, brown, green, blue. Gone was the man's brooding brow and hairy face, apish gait, and he, too, shone with the beauty of an angel just as did his female mate. A long wail, followed by weeping came toward Corazon Negro. He listened; rising from the earth he heard the voices of those invisible spirits. Their crying reached toward the heavens as the light of God shone on eternal, without change upon all. Then human cries distracted him. Human weeps mingled with the cries of the invisible. One young man lay dying, twisting in his last pain on the bed they'd made for him of grass and flowers. But the wailing of the invisible ones hovered over this dying victim. The lamentations of the human beings rose more terrible than anything Corazon Negro could endure. Corazon Negro gazed beyond the tiny camp, and saw in the air the spirit gathering and crying. With his soul eyes he saw these spirits once more. He saw them clustering and dispersing, wandering, rolling in and falling back, each retaining the vague shape in essence of a human being. Feeble, fuddled, lost, unsure of themselves, they swam in the atmosphere, opening their arms to the man who lay on the bier about to die. Hush. Stillness. A spirit rose from the dying man. The spark of life flared and did not go out, but became an invisible spirit with all the rest. The spirit of the man rose in the shape of the man and joined those spirits who had come to take it away. Corazon Negro let out a deep sigh and stood paralyzed. He waited. The air was thick with these spirits, for once having seen them, once having detected their faint outline and their ceaseless voices, he could never again not see them, and like a wreath they surrounded the earth. They were the spirits of the human dead. Souls. Souls had evolved from Matter. Again Corazon Negro waited in silence. Souls had come out of the human beings. They were whole and living, and hovered about the material bodies of the humans. But they could not see the Dream. They just could see but those who had buried them, those who had loved them in life, and were they progeny, and those who sprinkled the red ochre over their bodies before lying them carefully, to face the east, in graves filled with ornaments that had been their own. More important, those humans who believed in them, those who worshipped the ancestors, felt their presence. Corazon Negro was too absorbed to think anything else. Yet all he could sense and consider was the whirlwind, and the souls who had surrounded him in the whirlwind as though the air from earth to heaven was filled with human souls. Souls drifting forever and ever. Where do they go in such darkness? What do they seek? What can they know about the Dream? Corazon Negro was as curious about the dead as he was about the living-these wreath souls he could see and hear-gathered about the world. It seemed to him that the realm of these weeping souls was the realm of pure Dream. His vision changed. Men and women lived now in large groups, very unlike the other primates, they built shelters for themselves, they painted their bodies with various colors, women often lived separate from men, and they believed in something invisible. Humans believed now in the souls of their ancestors, but humans worshiped other entities as well. They imagined a God who had made the wild beasts and in his honor they made blood sacrifice on altars, thinking this aspect of almighty God to be a personality of very distinct limits and rather easy to please or displease. Corazon Negro drew near to these altars and he heard the specific prayer for the God of the wild animals; then he began to see the care and deliberation of the sacrifice-the slaying of a ram or a deer. Humans that not only had come to look like angels, but they had guessed at the truth! They had come upon it instinctively! There was a God. They knew. This instinctive knowledge seemed to spring from the same essence, as did their surviving spiritual souls. Self-consciousness, and the awareness of one's own death-this had created a sense of distinct individuality in humans, and this individuality feared death; feared annihilation. And that it was this very same tenacity-the tenacity of this individuality-that made a human soul stay alive after it left the body, imitating the shape of a body, holding itself together, clinging to life, as it were, perpetuating itself, by shaping itself according to the only world it had known. Man had invented or discovered God. Some tribes worshipped more than one such deity who was perceived to have created the world. Humans knew of the souls of the dead surviving; and they did reach out to these souls and make offerings to them. They brought offerings to their graves. They cried out to these dead souls. They begged for their help in the hunt, and in the birthing of a child, in all things. Corazon Negro realized these souls were strengthened in their survival by the attentions of those living on earth, by the love being sent to them by humans, by the thoughts of them in human minds. Some souls knew they were dead, and sought to respond to the prayers of their children, and actively attempted to advice, speaking with all the power they could muster in a spiritual voice. They struggled to appear to their children. Sometimes they broke through for fleeting seconds, gathering to themselves swirling particles of matter by the sheer force of their invisible essence. Other times they made themselves visible in dreams, when the soul of the sleeping human was opened to other souls. They told their children of the bitterness and darkness of death, and that they must be brave and strong in life. They gave their children advice. These souls seemed to know the belief and attention from their sons and daughters strengthened them. They requested offerings and prayers, they reminded the children of their duty. These souls were to some extent the least confused, except for one thing. They thought they had seen all there was to be seen. They have not seen a hint of the Dream. Some of these souls didn't know they were dead. They knew only they were lost and blind, miserable, and they cried all the time. They were so weak they didn't felt the presence of other souls. Other souls were clearly deluded. They thought they were still alive. They chased after their children, trying vainly to get the oblivious son or daughter to listen. Others simply drifted, seeing and hearing the sounds of other living beings but remote as if in a stupor. Some souls vanished away. The vanishing soul would last a few seconds after its separation from the human body, retaining its shape, and then begin to fade. The essence gradually dispersed, went into the whirlwinds, returning perhaps to the energy and essence of God. That was their agony. The hunger for life beyond death. However, there were some souls who understood things in a different way. They knew they weren't Gods. They knew they were dead humans. They knew they didn't really have the right to change the destiny of those who prayed to them; they knew that the libations were in essence symbolic. These souls understood the meaning of the symbolic concept. They knew. They were dead and they perceived themselves to be lost. They would have reentered the flesh if they could have. For there in the flesh was all the light and warmth and comfort that they had ever known and could still see. Sometimes these souls did managed to reenter flesh. Corazon Negro watched these souls deliberately descend and take possession of a stupefied mortal, take over his limbs and brain and live in him until the man gained the strength to throw off the soul. There were those living humans already who had become oracles. They would smoke of drink some potion to render their own minds passive, so that a dead soul might speak with their voice. Because these powerful spirits knew only what earth could teach them, they might urge human beings on to terrible mistakes. Corazon Negro saw them order men into battle; he saw them order executions. He saw them demand blood sacrifice of human beings. The new Dreamer saw the creation of religion out of man. At that instant, Corazon Negro's soul understood the very essence of Lilitu's plan. She desired to be a new Goddess, to put the world thousands of years back under her false hope, her corrupted religion in order to rule everlasting. "Are you going to let her win this time?" the voice of Quetzalcohuatl asked him. "I won't," Corazon Negro answered. "I won't." Then he moved forward. ======== At the barn. Finally Elena gasped her way back to life and lay on the floor, whimpering in pain, while her body finished healing. Duncan knelt beside her and spoke into her face. "The Voice," he said. "Can you hear?" he asked her, pointing to her ears. Elena shook her head, felt inside her ears. Connor could see her figure things out right away, just as Duncan had. They were both bright and quick. Good. Now to put his plan into action. Keeping one eye on the window, he used easy hand signals to outline his instructions. It was a simple plan: he and Elena, who knew this grove so well, would go out the secret entrance, come up into the trees among their enemies and shoot the mortals-and kill, but not yet decapitate, the woman who was using the Voice. That last part would be Elena's job, she would concentrate on that. Connor would fight the others. If there were other Immortals, they'd just have to deal with them. Meanwhile, Duncan would stay behind protecting Corazon Negro. "Elena should stay with Corazon Negro," Duncan objected. Connor shook his head. Duncan, gallant as always, was trying to protect the womenfolk, and this was a woman Duncan still loved. Connor knew Duncan never let go of someone he loved. But the time for sentiment was long gone. Elena knew the area best; plus, if their enemies got past him and Elena, Connor believed that Duncan would better be able to protect the Dreamer. Keeping the Aztec alive was their only priority-their own lives were expendable. He couldn't explain this to people who couldn't hear, so he merely said, "Trust me." Duncan nodded, and Elena went to the center of the large room, to where Corazon Negro stood. She kissed him on the lips. "Que Dios te guarde, mi vida-May God save you, my live, " Connor heard her whisper to her lover. Then Connor and Elena went into the tunnel. ======== Inside the Dream. Lilitu's psyche felt it. She knew something had occurred inside the Dream. For the very first time in the eternity of her soul, her night, something new had happened. In her own mind there had been only two things in the beginning: her own soul and the Dream. The Dream had been that perpetual thing, that something as her soul, the vessel where the other world manifested itself. The place of shadows, of silence, of calm and storms. For thirteen millennia Lilitu had tried to conquer the Dream. Now her holy task was almost complete. Inside the mysterious world of Immortals, her Game was at the top of everything, ripping apart her former brother's souls with voluptuous fears, nightly beasts, against their will. Hers was a Game where the loser fell into an infinite abyss. Through millennia, Lilitu's soul had been a container of exquisite Quickenings, of everlasting powers, and now she existed inside a circle of awakening to feed and slumber to dream. Soon enough the Dream would become a place made in her image, and she would watch such a place from her eyes of hellish fires. But something new had occurred. Something unexpected. Corazon Negro. It had not been good enough that Lilitu had killed the first Dreamer, the Nahuatl priest known as Quetzalcohuatl. No, he had left an heir, a pupil, and a disciple. For the first time in Lilitu's existence, that part of her that dwelled inside the Dream felt pain. A great pain, howling regardless of her efforts. Even more astonishing, Lilitu's soul understood something: she was afraid. Right now the new Dreamer was coming toward her. The infidel dared to enter into the Dream, weaponless, hunting her. Infinite rage clouded her gaze. Of course she would kill the Dreamer-there was no doubt about that-but first, she decided to destroy him slowly, torturously, to make him pay for putting fear in her Goddess' soul. Come here, Dreamer, Lilitu's essence thought, hearing the steps of Corazon Negro's soul still far away. Come and enter night. The emotion that turned her gaze into a reddish glare left her, and cold speculation took control. Could she die? Could she lose everything at the last moment? Lilitu's soul started to tremble. She was not afraid of the Dreamer; she was afraid of losing this fight. The answer lay deep inside her pain. She would not lose. When Corazon Negro arrived, she would cast him away, deep inside her hellish gaze, where his soul would be lost, forever. Fear was her partner, her best ally. The Dreamer was about to meet dread as never before in his miserable life. ======== At the barn... When Elena and Connor came out the other end they quickly hid in the trees, peeking out to asses their situation. They were, as Connor hoped, behind their opponents, and he could see two men in the trees-on this side of the barn. Undoubtedly there were others, and he would find them. Connor felt at ease in this wild grove, and he hoped the Hunters were all urbanites. But nowhere could he see a woman, unless she was dressed in men's clothing. He pointed the two men out one by one to Elena, but she'd already seen them. "I don't see the Immortal woman. The one with the Voice," she whispered. "Find her and kill her," he enunciated. Then, taking a deep breath, he left his hiding place. Connor leapt straight at the Hunters. Two saw him coming and dove out of the way rolling and jumping to their feet, leaving Connor with only an armful of air as he grasped for a crushing blow at the space the Hunters had vacated. The other two Hunters ran, but Connor was agile and quick. He bounded ahead of them, cutting them off. Connor's katana flashed through the air like a long-starved viper. It lashed the Hunters cutting both bodies at the same time, pinning both heads to their side. Just then, Connor turned and his blade cut the air once more-but something wet struck his face. Burning, searing pain in his eyes. Darkness. Pain spreading deeper. He clawed at his face, at his eyes, not caring that his fingers were also burning. Blind, Connor attacked from one side to another, stabbing with is katana everything in his path. The ground crumbled beneath him, making footing that much trickier. Still his eyes burned. Acid, or something like it. Connor dug his fingernails into his own face and ripped away some of the surface flesh around his eyes. That helped only a little. He tried to force open his eyes, squinting and blinking. At that moment, his eyes started to heal. Connor lashed out with a sledgehammer blow and caught another Hunter solidly between the shoulders, propelling him into the air. The man landed hard on the ground several yards away and didn't get up. Despite his burning eyes and the blurred vision, Connor smiled as the fourth Hunter attacked him. Quickly, the head of the zealot rolled on the ground... ========