The Chasm Page 2

  I sobbed hopelessly, then finally ran out through the tinted-glass doors and down city blocks of gnawing emptiness, collapsing in a heap.

  I looked up to see Joshua. He stepped forward, smiling. “Come,” he said softly. “There’s much more to see.”

  Before I knew it, we were walking into a lush hotel hallway. Joshua hesitated, looking as if he’d intended for us to go elsewhere.

  Gilded elevator doors opened across the hall. Out stepped a well-dressed businessman accompanied by a woman with the face and figure of a man’s dreams. They walked side by side down the hallway, laughing lightly in obvious anticipation.

  I knew who they were and what was about to happen. I felt my stomach turn.

  They slipped into the room, not seeming to notice us as we stood observing them. Then I watched as the fool torched solemn vows made twenty-five years before and threw ashes to the wind.

  “Stop!” I cried. “Don’t you see what you’re doing?” He couldn’t hear me, or wouldn’t.

  Suddenly I saw the dropping blade of a guillotine, spilling my blood on the clean sheets of a luxury hotel bed. I saw the face of the woman of my dreams after a night of blind passion, when beauty faded and she became demanding and ugly, one more dried-up carcass in this great web, a revolting reminder of my own condition.

  Then I saw the worst of it, hidden from me until that moment. The drama, everything I’d just seen, was being acted out on a stage—and in the audience sat my wife. She stared at us, at me and the other woman. She silently watched my betrayal, watched me violate my vows, watched the ugly procession of the lies I had become. I saw her sobs, her grief, her anger, and then watched as her face hardened against me, against life itself.

  I called her name and cried out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you!” She couldn’t hear me. Too little, too late.

  Just when I thought nothing could be more horrible, I saw my two children seated beside their mother, witnessing the same ugliness, watching their father weave his own web of deceit. They saw me embrace this woman in our “secret” hotel room that was on center stage of the universe.

  The truth is, I was later instructed, there’s no such thing as a private moment; the whole cosmos is our audience for everything we do in the dark.

  I cried out to my son and daughter, “No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t as bad as it appears.” But everyone in that cosmic auditorium knew the truth was exactly as it appeared. My children could see right through me, right through the traitor they’d once loved and now despised. I saw the stunned looks on their faces, the disgust, the brooding anger. I felt the heart-stab of their hurt and confusion. I watched them turn from me.

  “I’m sorry!” I spoke the words I’d never said to them before.

  I watched them recklessly run away from the auditorium. I knew they were going to choose their own wrong roads—because the man they’d trusted was a turncoat and a liar and a cheat. Worse yet, what dwelt in their father had lodged itself deep within them as well.

  If there is a hell, was I there already?

  I turned away and ran, hearing the sound of clanging metal in my pocket, too frightened to reach in and discover what it was.

  I ran and ran, not knowing what direction I was going, my eyes blinded by tears and wind, trying to outrun my shame. Finally I collapsed beside the brackish water of a scum-covered pond.

  What I’d experienced on the gray roads had only left me more thirsty and more sick, as if I’d drunk salt water when I craved fresh.

  As I lay on the ground, I looked up to a plum tree, where a large gray owl perched on a low branch and studied me. He swiveled his head back and forth without blinking, as if scanning me curiously. His implied question seemed the same as mine—who was I anyway? Who was Nick Seagrave?

  The owl suddenly looked behind me, and I turned to see Joshua walking toward me. I rose to my feet, trying not to appear as weak as I felt.

  “If there’s nowhere else to go,” I told him, “I’ll return to the red road.” Though I’d told myself the other roads had more to offer, at least on the red road I’d sometimes sensed what couldn’t be found here—reason for hope.

  “There are other places,” Joshua said, his voice full of optimism. “Lots of them. Don’t give up.”

  He suggested I try “roads of religion.” No, I thought. Those aren’t for me. “What about roads of spirituality?” he asked. Yes, that sounded better. Before I realized what was happening, he’d led me to an overlook, and we gazed down onto a dusty plain with gulches here and there. Countless roads led out into the distance, as many roads as there were directions. Some fell into the gulches, others went farther toward the horizon.

  “They all have something that will benefit you,” Joshua said.

  “Is it possible to find … the truth?” I asked him.

  “That’s a lifelong pursuit. You need to look far and wide to find bits of truth you can weave all together into something that satisfies you.”

  He smiled. “Forward,” he urged me.

  Forward. But to where? To which road? Was there such a thing as truth? Would one of these roads take me there? I felt a glimmer of hope. Was I right to hope? Or was I just a fool?

  Joshua led me to a deep canal and, beside it, a three-sided wooden building, open in the front, with candles, incense, books, altars, and offering boxes on display. Inside, a quiet group of worshipers stood or knelt.

  We approached a man in a red robe, meditating in the lovely silence.

  “Which religion is true?” I asked him, whispering as if I didn’t want to admit the question was mine. “And how can we know?”

  “We practice all religions here,” he said, “for we see truth in all of them.”

  “How do I know what to embrace and what to reject?”

  “Embrace what you wish and reject what you wish. It’s yours to choose.”

  “I understand it’s all my choice, but what I mean is, what should I choose?”

  “You should choose only what you wish. We won’t force anything on you.”

  “Yes, yes, I know you won’t force me, but … I’m looking for truth.”

  “Commendable,” the man said, nodding wisely. “There’s truth in all religions, in all spiritual traditions. You must choose your own truth.”

  I threw my hands up and walked away, wondering if I was insane or if the man in the red robe was. Shaking my head in frustration, I kicked the dust with my boot.

  Joshua had disappeared for the moment, but a man with a square jaw, a Middle Eastern complexion, and long, jet-black hair approached me and easily began a conversation. He seemed to sense my frustration. As we talked, I mentioned how lately, when walking the red road, I’d been able at times to observe what I never had before—“to see into other worlds. It’s as if I’ve been given eyes that see what isn’t there!”

  “Or is it that your eyes now see what was there all along?”

  “Seeing is believing,” I answered. “If you can’t sense it, it isn’t real.”

  “In a world where seeing is believing,” he responded, “men believe much that is not true. And they disbelieve much that is true.”

  His eyes scanned the great plain spread out before us, full of people walking on the various roads. His gaze pulled mine with it, and I saw a hundred red-winged blackbirds in sudden flight, appearing to flee from something I couldn’t see.

  The plain suddenly transformed into an immense battlefield. I quickly recognized two opposing forces. On one side were great gladiators with eyes of fire, warriors from the bright city of the west. Lifting swords against them were soldiers with cold shark eyes—dark warriors from the realms of gray.

  Some of the fighting took place on the ground and some above it, as if the air had an invisible floor. Sparks flew from clashing swords, and lightning bolts pierced the sky as thunderclaps exploded.

  Meanwhile, the people I’d seen earlier on the gray roads continued walking on the ground underneath the great
combatants. They appeared translucent now, almost invisible. Most of them stepped casually, unguardedly, utterly unaware of the battle raging above and around them—yet they, too, were being assaulted by the gray warriors.

  Behind and above me came a flapping sound. I turned to see a monstrous carrion fowl plunging at me. I ran as he circled again and came from behind. More beast than bird, he dived and pursued me, coming this way and that, as if he was herding me somewhere. Before I knew it, I found myself on the plain, in the thick of battle.

  Arrows shot past me. Then I heard a swoosh and felt something pierce my left shoulder. I saw the arrow just before I felt the pain, as lightning before thunder. I screamed in agony.

  I fell to the ground, looking for help but seeing none. I clasped both hands around the shaft and pulled, screaming as the arrowhead tore the flesh that had closed around it.

  I swooned, the pain threatening to sweep me into unconsciousness. I opened my eyes to see a powerful warrior standing over me, his face contorted. He raised a sword high, like an executioner. I froze, held by pain and fear. He brought down the sword, and I saw it glimmer in the sunlight only a moment before it sliced into my right arm, just above my elbow. Waves of convulsing agony ushered me into the darkness.

  THREE

  arm blood from my shoulder wound awakened me—or maybe it was the deep cut above my elbow that screamed for attention. I tried to stop the bleeding, but my right arm hung limp and useless.

  Where was the enemy who’d cut me? Why hadn’t he finished me off?

  Twenty feet away stood the answer. Battling my attacker was another great warrior—I saw only his back and his jet-black hair dangling halfway down it.

  Surprisingly lucid considering my pain, I lay still, trying to bind my wounds with strips of my torn shirt. Clanging sounds of battle surrounded me.

  The shark-eyed monster slammed to the ground the black-haired warrior who’d defended me. Shark eyes, who’d sliced my arm, now raised his sword and laughed sadistically as he swung it down toward my head.

  My bodyguard, immediately back on his feet, stepped forward and swung his sword horizontally, deflecting the enemy’s blow so it missed my head, instead slicing a quarter inch of flesh off my left forearm. Howling at the white-hot pain, I tried to clutch the wound with my limp right hand.

  In a cloud of combat dust, I crawled to lower ground. Helpless, with no way to defend myself, I could only lie hurting and watch. The people on the ground, walking the roads, still seemed oblivious to the battle. Many of them fell beneath blows from the dark warriors—some screaming, yet others perishing with no more than a groan or whimper. How could they be oblivious to the cosmic battle with them at stake? How could I have been oblivious to it until now?

  Trembling at the fierce warfare around me, I lay low. As I looked from east to west, I became aware of two gigantic commanders at opposite ends of the valley. My gaze was drawn inescapably to the commander of the dark army, shark eyes set deep in his contorted face. Cruelty sprang from his eyes like smoke and fire from cannons. He gloated and taunted, cursing the air above and the ground beneath. He fired flaming arrows and poisoned darts into people who did nothing to protect themselves.

  My heart stopped when he turned and noticed me watching. He stared at me like a stalker. His eyes flashed, and for a moment my skin seemed to burn under the napalm of his hatred. Why was he looking at me when countless others filled the battlefield?

  He hoisted a gigantic harpoon and pointed it directly at me. Just as he threw it, I rolled and heard an explosive sound as it cut through the air with hideous fury. It passed only inches from me, then grazed the black-haired warrior by my side. My defender cried out and touched his left leg, but stood his ground seeking to position himself between me and my murderous enemy.

  Panicked, I got up and ran, stumbling, unsure where to go.

  Looking back, I saw the dark lord open his mouth in mocking laughter, a sound so thunderous it rose above the roar of battle. Then he swung bolas round and round in the air, keeping his eyes on me. When I could hardly stand the sight of one more circle of those metal balls, he released the weapon. It flew, freezing my blood at the sight of it coming. It hit my legs and wrapped itself around me. I lost balance and braced myself for the fall. I heard the sickening crunch of my own bones. The bola beat me to the ground, pummeling me even after I fell.

  I could hardly breathe. Broken and bleeding, I knew I would surely die.

  The mighty beast, Shark Eyes, glared at me and then marched across the valley, taking huge strides forward, carrying a battle-ax.

  I tried to crawl away but couldn’t. My head in the dirt, a flood of images raced through my mind, images of a broken life I would never have a chance to fix.

  Just then I heard a great voice speaking a language I couldn’t understand. I turned to see the bright commander also marching toward me, from the opposite end of the valley. His face was a rock, his chin set and resolute. He seemed far more human than the beast, yet not human at all—just not the fallen animal that was his counterpart. The powerful warrior of light kept returning his eyes to me. They were loyal and kind, yet burning with an unquenchable fire. He did not scream or gloat; he strode unflinchingly toward me, matching the movement of the beast.

  Somehow it dawned on me that these two beings were once of the same race, the greatest of their kind, before something dark and terrible had happened. The beast watched his ancient brother and foe come forward to take his meal from him—for I was nothing now but a meal. Outraged at the insolence of the warrior of light, the beast raised his fists to the sky. He hissed long and hard, then screamed,

  “Baal jezeb ashnar mordol nuhl—keez gimbus molech nargul dazg!”

  He spit the words, as if he could not bear their weight on his tongue. I reeled backward at this dark language. My vision blackened; I groped for sight, gasping for breath, for the foulness of the ancient words had torn all goodness out of the sky.

  The great warrior, his eyes living and ablaze, the tendons of his great neck stretched, stared at the evil prince, then raised his right fist and cried to the sky, “Elyon miriel o aeron galad—chara domina beth charis o aleathes celebron!”

  His speech was loud as a deafening waterfall, yet the words pure as refined gold and sweet as honey. The raging beast covered his ears, wincing and shouting vile foreign slurs in a fruitless attempt to drown out the cascading echo of the golden words. I heard a multitude of unseen warriors above take up the words of their general, the commander of untold millions. The warrior’s glad shout became a mighty song.

  I felt he was coming to rescue me, and I longed for it. Yet I did not know whether, should he take hold of me, I would fare better in his holy hands than I would in the evil hands of his dark counterpart.

  But suddenly the Warrior stopped in his tracks, then looked up to the sky as if listening to someone’s voice. Was it his commander-in-chief? Who was so great that he could supervise such a one as this?

  Shark Eyes marched on, gloating and energized when he saw his enemy stop. Without the warrior of light to stop him, the dark beast would surely tear me to pieces and grind me into the dirt beneath his feet.

  My briefly enjoyed moments of hope had disappeared. My spirit felt trapped in frozen flesh. In what I felt certain would be my final seconds of life, in moments that would have seemed far too short to have done so, I became strangely contemplative about this ancient war I had witnessed for the first time.

  The conflicting missions of the two armies seemed to have no gray, only absolute black-and-white clarity. I had lived my life in compromise, rule bending, trade-offs, concessions, and bargaining. I had been a deal-striker, a finder of middle ground. But in these two great armies, embodied in their two champions, there was no such thing. Good was good; evil was evil. The warriors shared a common beginning, for a time a common history, but at one decisive point choices between light and darkness had been made, choices that meant they could never again share common ground. I had beheld n
o more tolerance for malice and evil in the eyes of the great shining warrior than I had seen tolerance for goodness and grace in the eyes of the dreadful beast.

  Though my body was racked with pain, my thoughts stayed clear and focused. I looked around again at the little people so pathetically oblivious to the battle. They seemed to fancy themselves neutral and at peace, hoping to maintain dual citizenship in the two warring kingdoms. I was shocked at their ignorance, stunned at their indifference to the gravity and stakes of this ferocious cosmic war. Above all, I felt crushed to realize that all my life I’d been just like them, every bit as blind as they. But now, in moments of perfect and frightening lucidity, I had seen reality just as it was. And that reality had shown not the slightest signs of subtlety. Not a hint of any nuances, tones, or shading. It was what it was. And what it was would never be altered by wishes or pleas or curses or popular vote.

  These settled thoughts crystallized within me in a period of but a few seconds. No sooner and no later had they done so, than I turned toward the hideous face of the dark commander, now but thirty feet from me. As I thrashed about, I was struck by the irony that the greatest moments of clarity I’d ever known would now culminate in my slaughter. I would have welcomed death, but I had a horrible feeling that what awaited me on the other side was something far worse than oblivion.

  The beast raised his fearsome battle-ax above my head. Trembling, I looked into the shark eyes of my gloating executioner.

  The ax fell. But just as it came upon me, Shark Eyes disappeared. The Shining Warrior disappeared. All the combatants from both sides disappeared. The people on the plain popped back into normal view, as solid as the warriors had been the moment before.

  Silence.

  I lifted my head from the dirt and looked side to side. It took me a moment to realize the pain in my shoulder and arms and chest had disappeared, replaced by an aching void within me, an internal pain not as excruciating as the external one I’d just been delivered of, but every bit as real.