Will was staring at a savanna, at a
plain of waist-high brown grass baking under a tropical sun. Amidst the grasses, hunched figures
moved. Apes? Men?
The hair was thick upon their hides; they worked skillfully, crinkled
hands picking dexterously at seed-pods or grubbing in the soil. Their eyes were vacant, unmistakably animal.
Evolution
is powerful,
said the voice of Refi:Sül. Its power is so obvious that even human
scientists can recognize its workings.
Evolution, as you can see, laid the foundations for man. Yet, even so…a man is a thing of two parts,
mortal and immortal. And that which is
immortal cannot evolve, for immortality eliminates the need for adaptive
change.
A glowing mist descended, evidently
invisible to the creatures―and yet, working unmistakable changes within
them. As it lifted, there was something
in the eyes of the creatures that hadn’t been there before―and within each of
them a heartlight glowed.
In
the absence of the Seraphim, who can say what the future of these creatures
might have held? They would have grown
cleverer, certainly, for intelligence provides a survival advantage. Taller, certainly; larger, as their nutrition
improved; their posture more erect. They
might well have become physically similar to modern humans.
And
yet, they would not have been human. For
the seraphim have bestowed a great gift upon the human race, Will. A human is a body and a soul. And while
evolution is the author of intelligence, it is not the source of
consciousness. The ability to perceive
one’s environment, to change it, is one thing.
The ability to experience wonder, awe,
or ennui―and to
fully grasp the truth that one exists, and the possibility that at some future
point, one might NOT exist―these
are things of another order. They
produce no survival advantage, no evolutionary benefit. Yet they are present in human beings. They are present because we, the Seraphim,
seeded the first humans with them, long ago.
Will was staring into the eyes of
one of the creatures―no, one of the people. And what he saw in its eyes, he realized, was
more than just a spark. An animal could
experience terror, or contentment, even joy or sorrow. But the emotion spreading out across the face
of the creature in front of him was unique to human beings.
I
am a witness at the birth of despair.
Will watched as time passed. Physically modern humans emerged. Seraphim appeared to them and were worshipped
as gods. And almost without exception,
whenever and wherever a Seraph showed up, people died horribly. Will watched primitive cultures etch vast
designs upon the earth in the vain hope of warding them off. He saw human hearts torn out atop jungle
pyramids, and hills built out of human foreskins, in order to appease
them. Will watched the Seraphim trigger
plagues of frogs and locusts, watched them turn life-giving rivers to
blood. He watched them intervene in
human wars, urge the victors on towards genocide; then, generations later, turn
upon the winners. Will saw the Seraphim
descend upon a desert culture and, in a single night, slaughter every firstborn
male child.
Why?
As if in answer, the voice of Refi:Sül.
The people of the ten directions sowed a crop in
humanity. We planted a seed. We granted human beings an enhanced
perception of reality. But no crop
prospers unless tended. Ours was a crop
that had to be watered with blood…
Will watched the STYX descend on
Earth, saw the Seraphim dissolve beneath it, thousands of them wiped out in a
single instant. He breathed a brief sigh
of relief for humanity. But his relief
was short-lived. The violence, chaos,
and suffering, did not abate. If
anything, it intensified. The legends
and myths to which the Seraphim’s interventions had given rise required
justification and confirmation. Having
been exposed to the divine, the human race could not forget it. And so, even in their absence of the Seraphim,
men did their job for them. Purges and
purifications ensued. Crusaders waded
through blood up to their knees. It
would be a mistake, Will, to hold my people responsible for the suffering of
humanity. On the contrary; suffering is
intrinsic to life in the Cosmos. Life
has sprung up on a thousand thousand worlds, yet everywhere its nature is the
same. Life consumes life. No creature may survive without inflicting
the maximum suffering possible―death―upon
those lower on the food chain. And these
intrinsic hierarchies of biology replicate themselves within the social
structures of every sentient species. Humans are no exception.
The focus of the demonstration
narrowed. A single soul―a woman, fair-haired
and beautiful, in a feudal society. Will
watched as she was born, watched her mature.
Will watched as she developed dreams and ambitions and was denied the
opportunities to pursue them. Will
watched as she was sold into marriage to a neighboring boy, and as she stoically
fulfilled what she saw as her marital obligations. Will watched her rejoice at the quickening of
new life within her. And Will watched as
she died, sweating and agonized, in childbirth.
Will saw her soul emerge, propelled
out of the STYX surrounding Earth, as his had been. Her soul discovered flight, as his had. She fled down the Axis of Eternity, towards
The Light.
Even
before we interceded, the ancestors of humans were social animals. There was that within them which sought union
with others. Loneliness, the fear of
disconnection―we did
not add these qualities to human beings, when we gave them souls. The
soul approached The Light, nearer and nearer. We merely gave human beings the means to
fulfill their ambitions. A route to
perfect union, and an end to suffering.
We gave them The Light.
It seemed to Will that he was
travelling as one with the woman’s soul as the light overwhelmed her, consumed
her, as she crossed the threshold. He
felt a sense of perfect peace, of perfect union, pervade her being.
It
was we, the Seraphim, who planted the seed of consciousness in human
beings. It was we who tended to the
crop.
And as the sense of peace and union
filled the woman’s soul, he saw it dissolve into extinction.
And
we are entitled to the harvest…
Her soul had been extinguished, but
where it had been, something remained.
It was a residue, granular and rich with potency, of what she had once
been. It existed not in the standard
dimensions of space, nor on the Axis of Eternity, but in another direction
entirely, one accessible only to the ten-dimensional Seraphim. And Will knew, somehow, that what he was
looking at was the physical residue of human pain. He knew that, through the dimensional door,
the suffering of thinking creatures becomes
tangible, takes on a form with unique properties, and unique value.
And Will saw a Seraph feeding that
residue, bit by bit, into the maw of one of their machines, an incomprehensible
web in which multicolored light ran down translucent strands. And he saw the pace of the glittering lights
quicken, and The Light itself glowed more brightly for a moment. And Will knew what enlightenment truly was, and that the promise it offered was, in a
sense, true. He knew that all human
beings were all intended, in the end, to be united as one―as fuel in the
machines of the Seraphim.
And the design of the Seraphim was
at last clear to him, and Will knew the answer to the philosopher’s question of
why God would permit evil and pain to exist on Earth. He knew that, from the perspective of their creators,
pain was humanity’s reason for being. And
Will knew that The Light was a refinery, designed by the Seraphim for the same
purpose that the psychovore’s light-on-a-strand had evolved―to draw in prey.
And Will knew that the Rel Dega had
been correct―that the Seraphim had grown utterly dependent upon their
technology, and that their imagination had withered away. And that as imagination dies, empathy dies
with it. The Seraphim did not, could not, put themselves in the shoes
of a human being. They could see human
beings only as a crop. Human beings were
a drug on which they had become dependent.
And Will knew, with desperate finality,
that the terror of his existence was not his alone. He was not the only one who had been brought
into existence to serve the purposes of others.
The whole human race was naught but grist for the mill.
We,
the Seraphim, are benevolent. No race
could be more so. We loan a piece of
ourselves to the human race. They profit
by it. They experience an existence that
would otherwise be beyond them. Our gift
enables them to perceive a greater part of the nature of reality than they ever
could on their own. And, in the fullness
of time, we grant their request for peace and union, for an end to suffering. Each and every soul is Enlightened. And, in
bringing these souls into the light, we recollect that part of us which was
initially given. And thus, we too profit
by the exchange.
And
yet, there is a flaw in the scheme. For
as time passed, with the STYX shielding us from Earth, the quality of the
product began to diminish.
Will heard only dimly, through a
miasma of horror. Of course. As the interference
of the Seraphim ended on Earth, human technology advanced. And slowly, over time, the comfort of our
lives increased, and the suffering of the average soul diminished.
And
they couldn’t have that…
The vision was back. Will was seeing distant heartlights,
departing the traffic into The Light―rejecting the slaughterhouse―seeing paths
of their own. What Rosemary had called
“rogue souls.” And
then, there were those who rejected enlightenment. More and more of them, as time went by.
But
we planned an alternative. A
world formed before Will’s eyes―coterminous with Earth in normal space, but
separated by the Axis of Eternity.
Perfectly terrestrial in climate and in biota. The ideal destination for rogue souls seeking
an alternative to oblivion. Elysium. A home to the homeless, a waystation for
wayward lambs who are not yet ready to return the gift they have been
given. Here, the Seraphim are prohibited
from interference not by the presence of the STYX, but by our own voluntary
design―by the Codex.
And
why would we interfere? Why kill the golden
goose? For here, on Elysium, the crop
ripens to its greatest extent. Here, we
mine the richest ore imaginable. A
single heartlight, emerging from Elysium’s atmosphere, rushing towards The
Light.
Here
are souls separated from the poisonous conditions of Earth. Separated from their memories, and hence,
from technological development. Here are souls which
ripen, not over the course of a single lifespan, but over centuries. Souls which suffer more, over a
greater length of time, than any human who ever lived. Souls which experience
the unique pain of separation from their past selves, whose entire existence is
spent in a continual crisis of identity. Here
are souls which, when they come to enlightenment at last, make up for the
deficiencies of the rest of the human race.
Here are souls to savor and to cherish.
Here is the greatest triumph of the people of the ten directions. Haven is Hell.
Will’s thoughts tumbled
anarchically, then settled, somehow on the memory of a woman he had never
met. On Madeleine. Smiling out at the citizens of Haven, whom
she’d loved for so long, and who had come to prize her for everything that made
her special―for her kind and generous nature, for her ability to entertain
them, to soothe them with her stories through the long, bleak winter nights.
Will thought of Madeleine. He thought of her sitting there at the town
meeting, her face lit by the bonfire and by her inner belief in the benevolence
of the universe. He thought of her
promise, to the souls assembled before her, that God would call them all to
himself, in the fullness of time. He
thought of her proud declaration that she was going home, of her fearlessly
imbibing from the yellow flask, of her heartlight rising proudly as the
gathered multitudes shouted her towards glory.
And he thought of what Madeleine had been, and what had been done to
her, and my insides roared and seethed.
But rage did not define him. Questions defined him. He had been created to ask them. And even as the horror and the shock and the fury
coursed through him, there was a question rattling around inside his head as
well. It was a question that the
Seraphim, their imaginations decayed, had lost the ability to ask.
The
Seraphim know that souls are going rogue.
They see it as a problem to be solved.
And, being Seraphim, they built a machine―an entire world―to fix
it. But…WHY do some souls, and not
others, go rogue?
Ben
called the residents of Haven “ungovernable”.
The Light draws in souls by appealing to their desire for community, for
union. It’s an appeal that’s intrinsic
to human beings―unless you count me as a human being, I suppose. But, even if every human being ever born
feels a need for others, not everyone is equally driven by that need. There have always been hermits, renegades,
and rogues. It’s not a question of good
vs. evil. It’s a question of “I” vs.
“we”.
What
makes a soul go rogue? The willingness
to break from the pack, and the unwillingness to surrender the self. An unquenchable independence of spirit.
The
Seraphim look at Haven―at all of Elysium―and they see a plantation from which
they can extract a commodity. But
they’ve lost their imaginations. They
have no idea what they’ve created. The
crop they’ve sown on Elysium will, in time, produce a harvest they’re not
expecting.
However
powerful the Seraphim may be, they will never be able to control Elysium. They’ve unified all of the most rebellious
spirits in human history under a single banner.
Of COURSE Haven is ungovernable―it’s a society built on the rejection of
union. A community of the uncommunal.
And
defiance is built into its bedrock...
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