I ran, and I heard a soft voice in my head. It was calling for me, beckoning, pleading sweetly, and I really had no choice but to follow it. And I didn't know if I'd find what I was looking for in an hour or in a day or a week, or if I'd just run forever, and I didn't even know what I was looking for. I just ran.
I ran until I came to wild grove. My body urged me forward, and through the gaps in the crooked trees, I saw a corner of stone. It was very square and very artificial, and I thought that it wouldn't hurt to take a look. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? The Rush was flowing through my body, and I felt quite untouchable by mortal concerns.
I pressed through the trees the ruins of a temple, or what was once a temple. Now, it was little more than a circle of standing megaliths, with the rest of the temple in pieces around them. I stepped over a fallen column and around a decapitated stone head of a broken sculpture and weaved through the moss-covered debris until I stood at the within the circle. There was a small circular well at the center of the structure, which consisted of six stones arranged in a rough circle; five of them were about twice the height and width of a man, and the sixth was about three times the size of the others. Each of the stones had a slight indentation in the shape of a gateway carved into them, making the whole place seem some spiritual hub where dead people reincarnate or some stupid shit. Hey, maybe the Warden was here, eh? The voice in my head crescendoed to a hissing climax and then disappeared altogether. And I knew that there was something behind me.
I turned, and she was there. She might have been sitting there all along, who knows? Might have been there from the beginning. She was sitting there and looking at me, dressed in ethereal black cloths against which shone her silver hair and milky white skin. Her lips were red, and she had freckles. She was sitting on a piece of the collapsed temple and boring into me at me with a pair of large, golden eyes. I thought that she was very beautiful.
"Were you the one calling me?" I said. I then cursed myself for such a shitty beginning to the conversation.
She nodded and said, "What's your name? Mine is Iris."
I swallowed because her voice was also beautiful and because no one ever asked my name. "I'm Robert," I said.
She patted the space next to her with her slender hand, motioning for me to take a seat, so I did. The beauty increased exponentially as I got closer, and I was genuinely terrified. To be fair, I don't think I've ever been this close to a female before. Mother doesn't count! The girl said, "I was calling to you because need your help."
"My help?" Wonderful, wonderful.
She bored into me with her eyes and said plainly, "I'm going to destroy humanity. Won't you help me?"
I stared back at her, and I said, "What?" It was an odd request.
"I'm going to destroy humanity," she said.
And I looked into the eyes and felt a deep, deep power, and I believed her and said, "Why?"
"You know why," she said. "That's why I was calling to you. Why not? I'll clean the planet and create a new, sinless race."
And I did know, and that was a good point she made, I thought. If she could do it, it might not be so bad. No more of the boys, no more of the Grand Warden, no more father and mother, uncle and governess. Might not be so bad.
"Who are you?" I said.
She smiled sadly and took my hand and walked me toward one of the smaller upright stones with the gate carving, with the faded letters, "Door of the Past." She reached out and touched the gate with her fingers, and suddenly it became a window into quite a picturesque scene. There was a small cottage, and a man repairing the shingles of the roof, and a woman cooking inside, and a child picking flowers in the field. It was Iris.
"I used to be Iris Dunham," she said. "But now I'm just Iris."
"What happened?" I said. But I already had a rough idea of what might have happened. I've spent a lot of my time reading, fiction, nonfiction, alternative nonfiction, and it all turns out the same.
She waved her hand at the shining gate, and the scene changed. It was still the cottage, but it was overrun by armed men on horses, armed men with weapons and burning torches, armed men carrying royal standards and trumpets, men with the King's seal and the Prince's seal, men with mustaches and mutton chops. And the shingle man was suddenly hanging from a pole, and the cooking woman was, well, also hanging from another pole, and the cottage was burning, and Iris was running.
"I ran until I came here," she said. "And then I discovered the New Genesis, and I became a Herald."
"The New Genesis?"
She waved her hand again, and the gate dimmed and reverted back to stone. "The Gods knew that man was imperfect. It was intended for them to be destroyed so that a better race can rise," she smiled at me. "I've been waiting for you for five hundred years. And you came."
"Are you immortal?" I said. "Can't you die?"
"I'll die if someone kills me," Iris said glumly. "But not before."
And she led me around the rocks to the Door of the Past, the Door of the Present, the three Doors of the Future, skipping the big gate. She showed me all the wars and murder that's happened over the ages, and all the war and murder happening now, and all the newfangled machines used for war and murder in the future. She showed me how humans that killed each other and whipped their pets and cut their own skin for sadomasochistic joy. She shows me the smoke and the dying trees and the choking geese trying to fly through the smog. And we held each other and cried as we watched fetuses being ripped out of the wombs of their mothers and animals cut to pieces for the sake of science and soldiers shining with medals and shaking their leaders' hands and mothers trying to get them to hold and kiss their babies. She held my hand and pressed it against the Door of the Past, and I showed her mother and father and my past hemophilia and my tormentors and the Grand Warden, and she hugged me. She was slender but strong, and she had pretty lips. I really wanted to kiss those lips.
"Do you see?" she said.
I nodded. "Why me?"
"Because you're powerful, and because two Heralds to make it work. I was looking at you through the Door of the Present. There aren't many like you." She grinned at me, as if she were back in the fields picking flowers again, and I really wanted to kiss those lips. Maybe I'll take her home, to my town, and say that she's my girl and become the king of the boys' society.
"Mm," I managed.
"I saw you beat the boys," she said, her lips moving gracefully across her porcelain-white teeth. "But there's much more to it."
She took me through the orchard and pulled down the bright fruits with her mind; with her breath, she infused a withered plant with life and prompted a mad blooming in front of my eyes; she took me to a little stream and made it boil and freeze and stop flowing with a wave of her hand; she said, "Take a rest, you must be tired. I'll teach you everything when you're rested. You can bathe in the stream if you want, I won't peep."
Well maybe I want you to peep, I thought, but I said, "Okay, thanks." I stripped and went into the water and washed my clothes as well. I came out and put my wet clothes on my body, and Iris placed a hand on my chest, and the water lifted in a cloud of warm steam.
"Do you need a nap?" she said.
"No, I'm fine," I said. But I'd happily take one if you'll join me, I said in my head.
"Then come with me, and I'll show you what will happen on the Day of Judgement," she said.
"Sure," I said.
