Chapter 35
Present Aeon
Luc had outdone himself.
Heaven, but better. That had been his catchphrase, the heart of his pitch to the Council. The one some among them considered blasphemous. But it was true.
Air was sweeter than aether, sharper. He’d never felt color before, but Earth’s palette was so vivid, its features so replete with texture, with shades made possible only by variations in light and fluctuations in temperature, that it pressed into his skin, enveloping him.
And the span of it…
The world rolled on forever, endless to the horizon and stretching further into the cosmos beyond. In comparison, Heaven was an island, adrift in the sea of the Void.
Perhaps it was proper to say that the Creator had outdone Himself, but Luc didn’t bother with that. He hadn’t breathed Earth into being himself simply because he didn’t have the tools. The Creator was a means to an end; that didn’t make Him superior to Luc.
Hadri had always told Luc that he had the most power he could have as an angel, but he’d been wrong. Michael had the most power. If Luc wanted to be higher than Michael, he couldn’t remain an angel. No. He’d have the power of the Creator or none at all.
So even though Earth was everything Luc had imagined it would be, and more, he didn’t bother to sweep the entire length of Lila’s Garden before pausing by the trees Hadri had mentioned.
“Are you certain these are the correct trees?” he asked Braun, who had led him straight to the spot hidden in the grove.
“Yes, sir. I overheard the two humans discussing them, sir.” The boy shifted nervously, probably because Luc had told him what he wanted with the trees. Partially, at least. He’d made it sound as if the power within them could help the angels in general, not him alone.
“Hmm.” Luc frowned as he circled the two trees, inspecting their bark, then their leaves, then their fruit for any sign of what lay inside.
Frustratingly, the trees didn’t differ in any respect from the other trees in the Garden.
If not for the loose tongues of the Creator’s strange new creatures, and the fact that Luc knew, in theory, where every tree should have been placed, they might never have found the correct spot.
Truly, the Creator had hidden the trees in plain sight.
“Perhaps, sir…” Braun began, but cut himself off.
“Yes?”
Braun frowned, and Luc sighed in exasperation.
“Spit it out, warrior.”
“Yes, sir.” He scratched his head. “Uh, perhaps, sir, the power of the trees is inside the fruit. Perhaps one has to eat it.”
Luc considered the idea, then asked, “Are the humans nearby?”
“I can check for you, sir.” Braun hurried away, swiftly returning. “They’re over that way if you follow the stream, sir.” He pointed.
“Very good. Let’s test our hypothesis, shall we?” Luc plucked two fruits from one tree and handed them to Braun.
“What are we going to do, sir?”
“Offer them each one. Once they eat the fruit, we’ll watch to see what happens.”
“Sir?”
Luc shot him a glance.
“I mean…yes, sir.” Braun took off in the direction he’d come from, and Luc followed him at a leisurely pace.
He had no wish for the humans to gain the Creator’s knowledge, but neither did he wish to test the Creator’s protective measures himself. There had to be some trick to the trees. The Creator couldn’t have just left them in the open like that.
He’d let these unwanted creatures deal with any harmful effects of the fruit; if they became a problem later, he’d deal with them, weak as they were.
Hidden behind a giant maple, Luc watched Braun hand the fruit to the humans as a gesture of goodwill. Amiable, and naive to any ill intent, they devoured it quickly.
Suddenly, both humans had an epiphany, but it was not the one Luc had been seeking.
Naked! We are naked! they cried out.
Luc frowned.
Of course, they were naked; anyone could see that. Luc hadn’t known the Creator could make a creature dumber than Castor, but he stood corrected.
Unsatisfied with the result, and unimpressed with the Creator’s experiment—frankly, pissed that his magnificent world had been put in the hands of such idiots—Luc returned to the trees. He ate of the fruit himself but didn’t feel any different, perhaps because he was already a higher being.
Would the Creator’s power not affect angels? No. Luc had to be missing something.
Closing his eyes, he reviewed the tree’s design: its plump, mildly sweet, red fruit; its dark green foliage; its rough, mottled bark; its deep roots.
Its roots…its roots…
“We need to get to the roots. That’s the source of the tree. Whatever is in the fruit originates from there. We’ll have to dig.”
“Dig, sir?” Braun had returned; he now stood beside Luc. “Are you sure we’re allowed to disturb anything here? The humans were acting strange when I left them. I don’t know if we should have—”
“It’s my Garden, and I said dig. That’s an order.”
Braun shifted on his feet, his eyes clouded with uncertainty.
“If you don’t want to dig, stand guard then. But I have need of your sword. The new one.” Luc inclined his head, making sure Braun felt the weight of that phrase.
The new one. The one Luc had made for him.
It worked. After a moment, Braun handed the sword over without comment, and Luc thrust it into the ground at the base of the tree, knowing the deepest roots would descend vertically into the soil about twenty feet down.
Though the sword had been fashioned to repel dark matter, Luc found that it easily sliced through Earth’s crust.
In no time at all, he’d removed huge chunks of the soil and exposed the ends of the roots. Down in the pit he’d carved out, he cut the end off one root and tossed it up to Braun.
“There’s a mortar and pestle in my traveling pouch. You see it resting by the tree there? Grind up that root.”
“Um…” Braun swallowed, peering over the lip of the pit. The pitch of his voice rose. “Sir?”
“Either grind it up or go home,” Luc called up, covered in dirt. Moisture had formed on his skin, making it stick to his hair and his robes. Irritated, he swiped his hand over the back of his neck. His fingers came away damp.
He’d forgotten that effect of the sun’s heat. Or he’d miscalculated how sweat would actually feel. There would be no sun in his next world; he’d make sure of it.
“Make up your mind,” he ordered Braun. “If you’re not assisting me, you’re wasting my time.”
Braun turned the root over in his hands. For a silent, motionless moment, he stared past the root, past Luc, to some hidden place in his mind. His expression shifted in increments.
At last, he snapped his attention back to Luc.
“Right away, sir.” He straightened, then inclined his head and lowered his voice. “I will always assist you, sir.” With a brief smile, he hurried away, and Luc was left to dig up the roots of the second tree.
Soon, there were two massive holes in the ground that he didn’t yet know what to do with, but he’d come too close to his goal to be thwarted.
He had to access the trees’ powers. When Braun had ground up the root from the first tree, Luc sat down at the base of the tree, on the opposite side from the pit.
He retrieved Hadri’s goblet from his pouch, commanded it to fill with hot water, and brewed an elixir with the powder.
He sipped the dark, smoky liquid.
He waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Pain shot through his skull, doubling him over, and he heard Braun asking if he was okay until the ringing in his ears grew too loud for him to hear anything else.
Colors flashed behind Luc’s closed eyes. Light and dark. Sparks. Smoke. A thousand voices. Silence.
He saw everything that had been created and how it had been created and why.
He saw the events of the past and the future.
Infinite images flashed before his eyes, and he understood, but as soon as the knowledge came, it left him.
He tried to retrieve it, but it was too much, and he could only remember bits and pieces.
Perhaps his mind was limited in its capacity to understand. Perhaps the Creator was playing a cruel trick on whoever dared to access his secrets. He’d given Luc a maddening taste and nothing more.
Still, Luc knew he must drink from the second tree if it held even a small part of the Creator’s power.
He’d come too far. He would take anything he could.
His pain having subsided, Luc sat up, leaning heavily against the tree’s trunk.
With ragged breaths, he commanded Braun, “Brew a second elixir. For the other root.” He pointed at the root Braun had ground up while he had been preparing the first elixir.
The boy protested, fretting at Luc’s state, but Luc snapped at him, and he acquiesced.
Dizzy and faint, Luc stared at the cloudless blue sky. Occasionally, a jolt of pain lanced through him, sharper than the bite of os lucis, but nothing like he’d first experienced.
Finally, the second elixir was prepared. Luc gulped it down.
As soon as the bitter liquid hit the back of his throat, Luc felt a change in his constitution.
A cool wind coiled itself around Luc’s limbs and blew across his face.
The wind sparkled in the sun’s rays, then disappeared, leaving him with the gentle sensation of having been touched.
The whisper of a thousand fingers trailing along his skin.
Luc observed the back of his hand, then his palm. From what he could tell, his appearance hadn’t altered, but a foreign energy surged within him, and he knew instinctively what had happened. What he could do.
Stretching forth his hand, he rasped, “Ex nihilo aliquid.”
The cool wind returned, skimming the surface of his palm. And then, almost too easily, something came from nothing. In that same palm, a perfect green stem sprouted, followed by a white rose.
Braun gaped.
“H-how…”
“Creation.” Luc smoothed the word over his tongue. It settled there, a dark velvet. A molten gold. Pleasant and rich and reassuring.
He turned the rose over, inspecting it for defects. He found none.