Eternity's Edge

  Nathan scrambled to his feet and matched Patar's pointing finger with one of his own. “If you would get off your high horse and tell me what to do, I wouldn't be searching for two needles in a galaxy-sized haystack. My father probably knows how to save the universe, so tell me where to find him, and we'll do it together.”

  A wry smile crossed Patar's face. “Your father is in no position to help, and even if you found him, you would become as incapacitated as he is. Just carry out what he began. Play the violin, and all will be made right.” He backed away and set his hand near the misty funnel, still frozen within the reflection. “Use the camera. It will cut through to a place you have never been, the realm that houses Sarah's Womb. There you will find the violin, the healing instrument. Once you do, follow the wisdom you gain each step along the way.”

  “Sarah's Womb? What's that?”

  “Allow words and places to define themselves, son of Solomon. All in good time.”

  As Patar touched the funnel, it jumped back into motion, spinning as before. He vaporized, and his own misty form joined the slowly turning cyclone.

  Kelly shook her head, blinking. “Did something weird happen? I just had a big-time déjà vu.”

  “Yeah,” Nathan said, “super weird.” He nodded at the camera hanging at her chest. “Go ahead and use it. It'll be all right.”

  “Who was the creepy cotton-top character?” Daryl asked. “He just disappeared.”

  “Patar. Don't worry about him. He's my problem.”

  The Nathan in the mirror packed the violin in its case while Kelly's reflected image lifted the camera to her eye and aimed it at the trio in the real bedroom.

  “Uh-oh,” Daryl said, reaching for Kelly. “Your twin's way ahead of us.”

  Nathan shoved the violin into its case. “It's showing what we're supposed to do. Let's just follow along.”

  As the real Kelly lifted the camera and pointed it at her duplicate, the funnel in the mirror enfolded their reflections in its cyclonic swirl. The mist veiled their bodies, and they slowly faded away.

  Nathan pulled them into a tight group. “Now, Kelly!”

  She pushed the shutter button. The camera flashed. A jagged bolt of light bounced off the mirror, but it bent away from the camera and knifed into the swirl. The lights on the perimeter brightened, seemingly absorbing the energy. As the vortex expanded toward them, Nathan kept one arm around Kelly and the other clutching the violin. Daryl latched on to his elbow and squeezed until it hurt.

  Within seconds, thick fog and sparkling lights drifted across their eyes. A floating sensation — weightlessness, or maybe air pushing them upward—gave Nathan an awkward, unbalanced feeling. Unable to see anything, he lost all sense of position. Were they flying? Upside-down? Zooming at a million miles per hour? The mist, swirling around them far more quickly now, gave him an awareness of motion, like a bullet spinning toward its target.

  Kelly and Daryl stayed quiet, their eyes wide and their bodies stiff. Daryl's grip tightened even more, but Nathan just endured the pain.

  Finally, the mist slowed its spin and thinned out, evaporating as if burned away by the sun. Yet, there was no sun. When the fog disappeared, only darkness met their eyes— complete, utter darkness.

  Nathan pressed his toes down. Whatever they were standing on seemed firm enough, but without even a hint of light, could they go anywhere? Might a single step plunge them into a void? Music filled the air, sweet and gentle. Was it a voice? Just the wind? It resembled no instrument he had ever heard. It was more like a thousand instruments blending their tones into a sound so perfectly balanced, they seemed to play as one.

  He breathed a sigh. Such richness! Such clarity! He could listen for hours and still beg for more.

  The sound of Daryl's wheezing breaths broke through the music. “You two sure know how to travel!” she said. “That made the bus in Speed look like a kiddie ride!”

  “Yeah,” he replied, “but it looks like the bus station needs better lighting. I can't see a thing.”

  Kelly's voice drifted by. “You can't? I see fine. Better than ever.”

  Nathan searched for the source of the voice. Two bright spots pierced the darkness — Kelly's eyes, shining through a black canopy. The glow spilled across her face and illuminated her cheeks and forehead. He let out a breathy whistle. “It's like there's a ten megawatt light bulb inside your head!”

  “Check it out!” Daryl said, laughing. “Kelly's got headlights!”

  Kelly blinked several times, casting their new world into blackness with each stroke of her lids. “That's not cool. You mean I have to lead you two around like a guide dog?”

  “Let's hope it's just temporary,” Nathan said. “What does this place look like?”

  As Kelly's eyes drifted back and forth, the beams followed her movements. “We're standing on an elevated walkway of some kind. It looks like it's made of glass. I can see through it, but there isn't anything holding it up, at least nothing I can see.”

  “What's down below, and how far?”

  “Just a blanket of colorful mist moving parallel to the walkway on both sides, kind of slow, slower than a walking pace. Some swirls are caught up in the flow, like whirlpools of fog, sort of like that thing in your bedroom.”

  “Where does the walkway go?”

  Kelly paused for a moment, blinking as her eyebeams penetrated a transparent floor. “Hard to tell. It's like we're out in the middle of a catwalk over a foggy swamp. We can go either way, but we'd just walk into another fog bank.”

  “Do you see any good reason to stay where we are?” Nathan asked.

  Her eyebeams waved back and forth. “Nothing but rainbow-colored fog up, down, and all around.”

  Nathan reached toward Kelly's glowing eyes. “Give me your sleeve, and we'll make a train.”

  “Here you go.”

  Her sleeve pushed into his palm. As soon as he tightened his grip on it, a tug pulled back his sweatshirt. “I'll be the caboose,” Daryl said. “Lead the way, Kelly-kins.”

  “But which way?” Again, Kelly's beams moved from side to side. “There are two ways to walk.”

  “You said the mist is moving,” Daryl said. “Let's just go with the flow.”

  “Makes sense to me.” Nathan tucked the violin case against his side. “I'm ready.”

  Kelly turned her head, blocking the twin lights. The sleeve pulled. Nathan hung on and shuffled his shoes against the smooth surface as he followed. Daryl added just a little weight to his slow progress, her body warmth and gentle breaths indicating her presence very close behind. She whispered, “It feels like we should chant, ‘Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.’”

  “If you do,” Nathan said, “you're going over the side.”

  “I see. That's a horse of a different color. No chanting.”

  “When I get close to the fog bank,” Kelly said, “it seems to get farther away. But when it does, I don't see anything except more walkway.”

  Nathan pulled back on her sleeve. “Maybe we should—”

  “Wait!” Kelly halted. “I hear something. Voices.”

  Nathan held his breath, hoping his silence would help her figure out what was going on. Daryl's breaths also fell to a barely perceptible buzz. Still, the ever-present symphony in the air played on, more beautiful than ever.

  “The voices are coming from those swirls I told you about.” The sleeve jerked out of Nathan's hand. “Wait here,” she said, her voice fading. “Don't move a muscle.”

  Nathan froze in place. “Don't worry. We won't.”

  After a few seconds, Daryl whispered, “Can you see her eyes?”

  He scanned the darkness. “No sign of them.”

  The darkness felt heavy, as if the black air weighed down his shoulders and seeped into his mind. Yet, the beautiful sounds eased any fear that tried to bubble up. This was a place of stark contrasts — a symphony of angels in the midst of a black void.

  After almost a full minute, Daryl's hand began to trem
ble. “Okay, Captain Cool,” she said, “I'm losing my cool. Say something to make me feel better.”

  “Uh … this sure beats falling into a bottomless pit?”

  “Wrong answer. Try again.”

  “How about —”

  “I'm coming!” Kelly's voice pierced the dark curtain. Seconds later, her eyes appeared, brighter than ever. A strong tug pulled Nathan's hand. “I think I figured something out. Come on!”

  Nathan followed, shuffling his feet far more rapidly than his nerves would have allowed. Daryl stayed close, but her breaths came faster and heavier. As they walked, the music grew in volume, and the blended instruments seemed to break apart into distinct tones.

  Finally slowing down, Kelly patted Nathan's hand. “We're walking alongside one of the swirls. I hear lots of voices coming out of the top, like a bunch of people talking at the same time.”

  Nathan tried to penetrate the blackness with his vision, but it was no use. The music in the air continued to flood his ears. He could hear little else. “What are they saying?”

  “It's so jumbled, it's hard to tell. I just pick up some of the louder words.” Kelly tightened her grip on his hand. “But get this. The swirls have different colors— one red, one blue, and one yellow. They kind of pop up out of rivers of color, like the colors are heading somewhere, and something boils from underneath, and words spew out through a swirl.”

  Daryl released Nathan's shirt. “The three dimensions?”

  “Maybe. There are other swirls, and they're all red, blue, or yellow. Maybe a swirl represents something in its dimension, like a city or a family.”

  “Did voices come out of the other ones?” Nathan asked.

  Kelly's bright eyes bobbed up and down. “Most of them.”

  Nathan let go of her hand and drummed his fingers on the violin case. This hall of darkness was proving to be the weirdest place they had been yet. What could it all mean? Did those swirls really have something to do with the Earth dimensions they had visited? If so, the people at Interfinity Labs must have named them based on the colors here, but that would mean one of them had been to this misty world before.

  As he thought, a new sound merged into the musical air. A feminine voice? An alto? Maybe. But it was too perfect, too precise to be human. Yet, something was missing. The voice was like a question without an answer, an expression of love unrequited. It needed … something.

  Nathan set down the case and fumbled with the fasteners until they snapped open. When he raised the violin and bow, he looked into Kelly's blinking eyes. “I'm going to try something.”

  Listening carefully to the simple aria, he waited for a phrase to end. Then, brushing his bow lightly across the strings, he answered in the same key, C Major, but altered the notes, composing an appropriate counterpoint.

  The music in the air shifted to F Major, and the tempo slowed, still a wordless tune that seemed to beg for another answer. Closing his eyes, Nathan replied again, following the singer's key and timing, yet with his own composition. He played a mellow harmony that seemed to capture and bring back echoes of the first musician's song. Then, the two played together— a perfect blend of melody and harmony — singer and musician in a rhapsodic ensemble that filled the air with a flowery scent. Roses, maybe? As he inhaled, something coated his throat and the back of his tongue with a sweet flavor, yet with a bitter aftertaste, like vanilla with a bite.

  “Nathan,” Kelly said. “What's happening?”

  He opened his eyes. A stream of lively sparks flowed from his violin and through the darkness, eating away the black field and leaving light in its wake. When the stream swept past Nathan's ear, the music suddenly increased in volume, then faded again as the sparks painted the canopy with an ever-expanding brush of radiance. Music became light, as if someone had sung the words of old, “Let there be light,” and continued the refrain until the singer's eloquent vocal strokes finished his masterpiece — a world of vision and revelation.

  When every spot of blackness had vanished, Nathan lowered his violin, but his brain continued constructing harmonizing notes. The surrounding fog pushed away, as if blown by the musical wind. Another voice joined the chorus, a contralto that picked up Nathan's harmony and added new measures the moment Nathan thought them.

  He stood on a transparent walkway about two strides in width and looked all around — nothing but clear white sky above and a soupy blanket of multicolored mist surrounded the path. The glassy trail extended into emptiness in both directions — a long walk into a wall of fog.

  Kelly's eyes, as clear as crystals, twinkled with pleasure, like two drops of starlight decorating the face of a radiant angel. “You can see now, can't you?” she asked.

  He nodded but said nothing. What could he say? This new realm seemed to beg for silence, if only to allow for hearing the blessed voice that graced the air. And hearing it made everything seem as beautiful as a master's painting— Kelly, the portrait of heavenly majesty; Daryl, an ivory-skinned icon; and the misty world, a palace of rainbows.

  Daryl stuffed her hands into her sweatshirt's front pocket and inched toward the edge of the walkway, her knees shaking as she peered into the mist. Wide-eyed and mouth agape, she also seemed uncharacteristically mute.

  As Nathan stared at the mesmerizing scene, the music slowly grew louder, adding to the hypnotic spell. An urgent tap on his shoulder broke him away. Kelly, her eyebrows arching up, pointed down the path with her thumb.

  Far in the distance, a solitary figure walked toward them. With his eyes focused on a book, he seemed in no hurry, nor did he seem aware of their presence. Either that, or he simply didn't care.

  Still feeling the need to stay quiet, Nathan silently repacked his violin, left it on the walkway, and stepped in front of the two girls. As the man continued his approach, the material in his loose-fitting trousers swished together, the same blue-trimmed pants Patar had worn in the mirror. Muscles in his forearms, extending from his flowing navy blue shirt, flexed as he turned a page, and tufts of white hair blew across his forehead, staying just out of his eyes. His clean-shaven face seemed without wrinkle or blemish, a youthful contrast to his hoary head, and his pale complexion gave him a ghostly pallor, raising memories of Mictar and Patar, though this man was clearly neither of them.

  Nathan cleared his throat. The man looked up, his sparkling eyes widening as he slowed to a halt and scanned the trio. With white eyebrows lifting and mouth slowly opening, he seemed ready to speak, but he just kept staring, his expression giving away only surprise, no hint of pleasure or anger.

  Extending his hand, Nathan took a step forward. Feeling a need to honor the sanctity of this place, he kept his voice low. “I'm Nathan Shepherd.”

  The man shifted his gaze to Nathan's hand, but he didn't grasp it. Instead, he took in a deep breath and, scanning them one by one, began to sing, yet, not with words, but with vowel sounds, long and short forms as well as diphthongs that rose and fell with the changing notes.

  Kelly tapped Nathan's elbow. “He says, ‘Greetings, young supplicants from the misty mire. It has been a very long time since our land has been graced by the presence of new arrivals. Yet, no one notified me that replacements were coming.’”

  4

  SCARLET

  The man paused his song, allowing Kelly to take a breath. He smiled as if realizing she was interpreting and needed him to slow down. After another brief second, he continued at a more deliberate pace, and Kelly resumed her echo.

  “As you have likely been told by whoever sent for you, this is the land above the worlds. I am Tsayad, one of the guardians, the chosen priests who watch over this realm and those beneath it. Since your interpreter is here, I assume that you have been fully informed and are ready to tell me what your mission is, though it seems clear, given your number and genders, that you have come to replace our supplicants.”

  Pausing again, he pressed his thumb into his book, marking his page, and gave them a gentle smile. His snowy eyebrows arched as th
ough he expected a reply.

  Nathan glanced at Kelly, then at Daryl. Daryl gave him an “I have no idea” kind of look, while Kelly bobbed her head, glancing between him and the camera dangling at her chest.

  Nathan squinted at her. What was she signaling? Was she asking if she should take a picture of this guy? He gave her a firm shake of his head. This was no time to guess what that camera might do.

  Turning back to Tsayad, Nathan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Should he try to talk? His words had no effect before. Everything about this place seemed geared toward communicating with music. The violin might work. But how could he translate his thoughts into notes?

  He shrugged. Why not give it a try? He seemed able to compose something that cleared the darkness. Maybe he could communicate that way again.

  Keeping his eye on Tsayad, Nathan stooped, pulled out the violin, and gave the empty case to Daryl. The guardian's eyes brightened, and his smile stretched wider.

  As Nathan lifted his bow over the strings, the guardian drew close, angling his ear toward the violin. Excited expectation lit up his face, like a child surveying a room of wrapped presents on Christmas morning.

  Nathan paused. What should he play? Classical? Baroque? Modern? He shook his head. No, none of those seemed right. Would any piece created by someone else really work to communicate his thoughts? Wouldn't the music have to be something new, something he composed based on the passions and moods running through his mind?

  Taking a deep breath, Nathan concentrated on his thoughts and set his composing spirit in line with his emotions. Then, leading with a long A note and moving into a series of arpeggios, he recalled their story and poured out his feelings— his anguish over his parents' loss, his flight from Dr. Gordon of Earth Blue, his joy over finding a friend like Kelly — into his musical score. As he played, the story flowed from his hands more freely and fully than words could ever express. It seemed as though speech should always have been this way, so expressive, so pure, so pulsing with life.

  When he finally reached the end, he let his arms dangle limply, exhausted by the effort.