"An odyssey at dusk." The old man's voice was stretched thin with age, yet it boomed across the wide cavern still. "And there, in your arms. There it is—the God Seed."
The God Seed. Is he talking about the egg? thought Ion. It almost seemed to grow heavier in response to the thought.
"But..." the old man's voice was tinged with confusion. "This picture..." he gestured to the pair. "It's not quite right, is it? No, it's you who's meant to carry the Seed... and it's you who's meant to carry the Standard." The man pointed a bony finger toward Naim, and then to Ion. "Now how did that happen?"
Ion couldn't bear to hold the egg in his arms any longer. It was all he could do to let it down easy before resting his wearied arms on his knees and steadying his breath. "I'm sorry," said Ion between gasps of air, sweat dripping from his face, "but who are you? Who are you, and what is this... this picture you've drawn? How, just how?"
Ion felt the tip of a spear press into his lower back.
"Respect, boy." It was the woman who had led them there.
Naim dropped the cross and rushed over to lay a fearful hand on the spear. "Please, don't."
"Mauren." The old man's voice was stern.
The spear receded reluctantly. "Watch yourself," she spat.
The man let out an exasperated sigh. "Mauren, please. These are our guests of honor." He turned his head toward Ion. "It's only natural you'd have questions." He broke into a warm smile again. "My name is Simeon. I'm the leader of this little community. I've dreamed of you."
Naim's face turned from worried to beaming with curiosity. "A revelation?"
Simeon nodded. "That's the perfect word. A revelation. It came to me in a dream nearly two hundred years ago."
Two hundred years. Had the man really been alive for over two hundred years?
Naim was attentive. "Can you tell us about the revelation?" she asked.
"Of course," Simeon said. "It's as clear in my mind now as it was then. But first—" he motioned to two people politely stood a little ways from his side. "—let's get our guests something to eat."
The two people silently left the chamber and shortly returned bearing platters heaped to their edges with steaming strips of white meat and handed them to the starving pair.
"Come closer, take a seat." The man beckoned Naim, who sat at the man's feet.
Ion followed, studying the meal in his hands for a moment. He recognized the stuff as roasted élaf, something he hadn't experienced in years. Ion took a bite. An explosion of savory flavors filled his mouth as he chewed. It was a far cry from the raw, slimy substance he'd eaten every day for all his life, and it was a warming, caressing comfort to his enfeebled body.
Even Naim—normally so sickened by the taste of élaf—greedily ate her portion, likely unaware of what it was.
Just don't tell her where it came from, thought Ion.
The old man, Simeon, studied them, stroking his long, white beard. Finally, he spoke. "When I was fifty years old, fire consumed the earth. Not a surprise, not to anyone who was paying attention. People have always sought the most efficient way to kill each other. Eventually, we found it: the split atom. We spent decades building those bombs, all the while promising we wouldn't use them. But we knew it'd happen at some point. And it did. The whole world, baptized in fire on a Sunday afternoon." Simeon stared off into space, lost in his thoughts. "But it wasn't right, that war. There was no purpose in it, no passion. Not that any war is right, in truth... but at least when Cain killed Abel there was a reason. The act was human, conceived in hate, born in jealousy. When the world was killed, it was to no end. To kill as many as possible was the only aim, and to poison the rubble that remained. Not out of hate. Not out of fear. Not out of gain. That feeling of nothingness—that was society's last and final sickness. Apathy. The opposite of love. The bombs were dropped because it was time, I suppose. There was nothing left to do. The world wasn't murdered, really. It was a suicide." Simeon looked up. His soulful brown eyes stared into Ion's. "But look at us. The world died that day, yet somehow we're still here."
Ion looked away from the man. "Maybe we're all just ghosts, then. Ghosts wandering around on a corpse. Shadows haunt the day, but really it's we who haunt the world. The living." Ion glanced back at the man.
Simeon's eyes softened, empathetically aglow. "I used to think so, too, after the world died. I figured there was no point, no reason to go on. Even more so when reality started to fracture. The bombs broke more than the earth's crust. They were the final nail in a coffin that'd been long in the making. The world's sense of... well, sense collapsed. Shadowed corpses stalking the earth. Ghostly stags wandering at dusk. And hardly a living soul to witness it. It was no spectacle. Hardly a surprise, either. Husks of darkness that used to be people have walked the earth far longer than those daylight shadows. Now they simply match, inside and out. There used to be a place called Greece. The people there—a long, long time ago—believed that after death nearly all people would end up in a dark, sunless plain, wandering forever, slowly forgetting who they were in life. The world had been that way a long time, filled to the brim with people who didn't know who they were. Things are just more obvious now. You're not wrong, my friend—the living haunt the world. But we're not the ghosts. It's the world itself. And it needs healing. It needs..." the man waved his hands as he looked for the right word. "...resurrection."
"Resurrection," Naim echoed. "Vio."
"That's right," said Simeon. "Life. Life renewed. There's life in that Seed of yours. There's hope, hope for a better world. A world for those who live. I saw it, in my dream. A tower at the center of a lake, a young woman accompanied by a man bearing a cross. I was told to wait for you, right here, at the heart of this mountain. I had no idea it'd take so long—so much longer than most people are meant to live—but here you are! I never lost faith. We found you, we fed you, we have the privilege of aiding you on your journey to resurrect the world. Things are as they're meant to be. I've been preserved to see it. And when all things are set in place, when reality works again, my people—my family—will come down off this mountain to live in a world for the living."
Ion finished chewing his last bite of roasted élaf and swallowed it with a final, satisfying gulp. Naim was only half finished with hers. There were tears in her eyes.
"That's a beautiful thought," she said.
Simeon nodded slowly. "I've been waiting for this moment for so long. It's hardly a speech befitting the momentous nature of this meeting. But now, you must tell me, what are your names? And what is your story?"
Feeling a hundred eager pairs of eyes locked to him and Naim, Ion's tongue struggled to form words. Thankfully, Naim had syllables to spare. She told the man their names. She told them of her and Naim's chance meeting. About Vio. About their journey. And she intended to tell the people of what had happened at the church, but Ion interrupted.
"The road has been long, and the hour is late. Simeon, sir, we thank you for your generosity. But our... mission. Our quest. We'd like to get it back underway as soon as possible. I hate to ask more of you, but is there a place we could rest before we go?"
Naim cast an annoyed glance at Ion.
Simeon nodded. "You must both be exhausted. I can't imagine walking all the way through the valley in the snow like you did. It's a miracle you survived, especially with all your limbs intact. The cold is brutal this time of year. Of course we have a place where you can recuperate. Mauren will show you."
Mauren didn't seem pleased to be assigned the menial task, but obeyed nonetheless. "Come, people. Back to your business," she ordered the crowd. She led Ion and Naim down dark, twisting corridors bored into stone, too narrow for the company of élafim to follow, much to their silent dismay. Her black hair was as wild and woolen as Simeon's, her skin just as dark. Her mouth was perpetually downturned, her nostrils forever flared.
Ion took the opportunity to pose a question that had been brewing in his mind. "What were you doing out there when you found us?" he asked.
"Patrolling." It was clear that speaking was a chore she didn't enjoy. "Looking, it seems, for you."
"You people have really been waiting for us to arrive for two hundred years?"
"Grandfather has been waiting for you."
"Simeon is your grandfather?" asked Naim.
"My fifth great grandfather. He's old enough to have seen what the world was before. He's seen everything, even visions. Or so he says."
Ion was puzzled. "But you don't believe him?"
Mauren stopped dead in her tracks and turned around to face Ion. "I have nothing but respect for Grandfather. He's taught us everything we know. If he says it, it's reason enough to believe it." The conversation was over. That much was clear.
Down the long, stone-cold corridor, warm light spilled out from a small cube-shaped room. In its center was a crystal the color of the sun which radiated a comfortable heat throughout. At its side were two nests of sorts, comprised of pale-colored élaf skin blankets and pillows.
"Yours," Mauren said. "Sleep."