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his golden-maned head toward Ahriman's dark, imprisoned form "had survived the slaughter and
somehow gained powers almost equal to my own."
"So you created me," I realized.
"I created you to hunt down Ahriman before he found the way to destroy all that I had built. Yes, I
created you too well."
My head was spinning. "But if you knew all this, if you could examine all the pathways of the continuum
and foresaw what would happen..."
"Linear thinking, Orion," said Anya. "Events happen in parallel, not in sequence. What you experience as
time, as a progression from past through present into future, is really all happening simultaneously. Cause
and effect are interchangeable, Orion. Tomorrow and yesterday co-exist."
"I still don't understand..."
"It's not necessary for you to understand," Ormazd said. "In your own stumbling way, youhave done
what I wanted done. Ahriman is trapped here, forever. The continuum is safe."
"You are safe," Anya said to him.
"And you," he countered.
She turned to me again. "You still have not found out why he has done all this, Orion. He constantly
outwits you about the ultimate question."
I felt utterly helpless.
"Shall I tell him?" she asked Ormazd.
He folded his arms across his chest. "You will, no matter what I say."
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Anya's smile was bitter, rueful. "Orion, he created you he created what you call the human race and
used it to destroy the Neanderthals, because without the humans, we gods would never have come into
being."
I heard her words, but the meaning was just as opaque to me as if she had said nothing.
"Ormazd saw that the Neanderthals would eventually die away, leaving nothing. So he created the
Sapients to eliminate them, to scour the Earth clean and prepare the way for a new race..."
"Better than angels," I mumbled.
"But what actually has happened," she went on, "is that you humans learned how to manipulate your own
evolution, learned how to engineer the genes of your cells. You took control of your own destiny and
eventually, after many millennia, you metamorphosed into us."
"We became gods?"
"You evolved into creatures such as we are," Anya said. "Creatures of pure energy, who can control and
manipulate that energy to take whatever form we wish. Creatures who understand the innermost
workings of the continuum, who can move through time and space as easily as you walk through a
forest."
I turned back to Ormazd. "We became you."
He frowned at the two of us.
"Wecreated you!" I shouted.
"Now you understand why Ormazd determined to destroy the Neanderthals. If they lived, if you humans
had never been created, we ourselves would never have come into existence."
"But youdo exist!"
"Yes, and we are bound by the same inexorable rules that bind all the continuum. Ormazd had to do
what he did; otherwise, this continuum, this universe, would collapse and perish."
They could both see the utter confusion that had my mind reeling. Past and future, life and death it was
all a vast dizzying whirl, the entire universe spinning wildly, galaxies forming like eddies in a swift stream,
spawning stars and planets and creatures who struggle and die...
"It is the truth, Orion." Anya's calm voice cut through my agitation.
"You can see the necessity of it," said Ormazd.
"The Neanderthals had to die so that we could live, and evolve into you."
Ormazd nodded grimly. "That is not the way I had planned it, at first. But it worked out well enough."
I could not look at Ahriman, not now. Instead, I asked Ormazd, "And what is to become of me?"
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His expression lightened. He almost smiled at me, like a benign, generous creator. "I will grant you the
gift of life, Orion. A full, rich, human lifespan in any era you choose."
"And then death."
His brows arched. "If you choose the right era, a human lifespan can be very long indeed. Centuries."
"And you?" I asked Anya.
Before she could reply, Ormazd said, "We have evolved out of humankind, Orion. We are not human,
any more than you are a hominid ape."
"So I would live on Earth without you," I said to her.
"I can give you more than one lifetime," Ormazd said. "You can live for thousands of years, if you desire
to."
My heart felt like a stone sinking to the bottom of the deepest ocean trench. "One lifetime or
many without you, Anya, what good is it?"
She took a step toward me, held out her hand.
But I turned toward Ahriman, glowering helplessly in his eternal prison. "For this I helped to annihilate his
entire race. For this I've led him into this living hell."
"You saved your own race," Ormazd said.
"I savedyou , and your kind." Turning to Anya again, I said, "Free him! Use the power you have to set
him free."
She gaped at me.
"What are you saying?" Ormazd cried.
"Let Ahriman go free," I said. "Kill me if I've outlived my usefulness, but give him back his life, his
people."
"Never!" Ormazd snapped.
But I was pleading to Anya. "Even if it means the end of everything, do it! Free him! Let him and his
people have their time on Earth. Let him live."
"That would mean the destruction of us all!" Ormazd roared. "I won't allow it!"
"If we can't live together," I said to Anya, "then let us die together."
Her gray eyes struck sparks off my soul. She looked from me to Ormazd, and then turned to Ahriman.
"No! Don't!" Ormazd screamed. "Telepathy... he knows all that we know, now. He has seen what's in
our minds; he has taken in our knowledge of the continuum!"
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"Yes," Anya said. "He has."
"He'll use that knowledge to rip the continuum apart!" Ormazd's voice was a frenzied shriek. His image
was wavering, shimmering.
"Orion is right," Anya replied, as calmly as if she were discussing abstract philosophy. "Ahriman's people
deserve their moment of life. We have existed long enough."
"I won't let you!" Ormazd bellowed. He became a shining globe of golden radiance again, but Anya
remained in her human form and stretched her hands out toward Ahriman.
Lightning lashed blindingly. I heard Ormazd's voice roaring as I squeezed my eyes shut and felt my flesh
bubbling from the tremendous energy flow being released. The radiance burned through my closed lids,
boiled my eyes away, seared so deeply into my brain that I sensed nothing but flaming hot light as the
very atoms of my body exploded into showers of ephemeral bursts of energy.
Without eyes, without body, I could see the continuum collapsing in on itself, all the material and energy
of the whole universe rushing together in one titanic, dark whirlpool of space-time, a convoluted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]