I swooned at the depth-less darkness that lay beyond the brink, unable to discern up from down, down from up. We had descended to reach the end of this tunnel and yet it felt like we had climbed to the rim of a bowl.
The stale and dusty air moved, but scarcely enough to deserve being called a breeze. A nearly sub-audible drone hummed across the emptiness, threaded with the distant and muffled moans of a thousand Reapers.
“So what am I supposed to do? Climb down?”
“Climb?” said Luther. “Climbing will get you nowhere. You need to cross the void. A good running leap should do it.”
“You want me to jump?”
“Preposterous,” said Bern. “You can’t expect him to just leap into the darkness … just on faith.”
Luther frowned. “Then let us show him what is there.”
He took his wand and sliced a clump of roots free from the tunnel wall, balled them up, touched his wand again and they ignited, flaring as bright as magnesium. He tossed it over the rim into the emptiness.
The glow illuminated part of a perfectly round orb, smooth as polished obsidian, easily several miles in diameter. A void of about fifty meters separated it from a massive curving wall of roots pocked with the flared openings of hundreds of tunnels just like the one in which we stood. Water gushed from many, cascades spiraling down like threads looping into a loom, shaped by the bizarre gravity of this underworld.
“Bloody hell!” said Bern.
The orb seemed to hover in this socket, rotating ever so slowly. I stared, eyes pinned wide, jaw slack, bowels rippling; as the flare followed a spiral trajectory as it plummeted, snuffing out the instant it touched the glassy surface, plunging the void back into absolute darkness.
“What the fuck is that?”
“That … is your destination,” said Luther. “The destination of most souls in the Liminality ... apart from the lucky ones.”
“Bloody hell,” said Bern, his voice this time more subdued.
“Don’t forget this.” Luther reached into his cloak and removed the scroll he had written for his friend, Olivier. “I would be grateful for anything you can learn about his fate, however you manage to get word back to me. Remember, the Singularity spans existences. If you can access it, it might prove quite useful to you.”
“It’s not too late, James,” said Bern. “We can turn around and walk right back out of here.”
My brain wanted to listen to Bern. And my heart concurred, from the way it thudded against my ribs. But another part of me, a hidden corner of my soul, less accessible to the living and almost an organ in its own right, insisted on proceeding.
If I had learned anything about this universe, it was that no barrier was impenetrable. No transition irreversible. No law unbreakable. There were exceptions for everything, and so far, my experiences in two existences had both proven exceptional. Why should the third be any different? This gave me the hope and confidence I needed to proceed, despite the protests of my physical being.
I leaned over the edge and peered into the darkness. How bad could it be down there, anyhow?
“Cross your fingers, Bern. Keep that tea kettle ready. I’ll be back in a jiff.”
“Yeah, right,” said Luther, in a mocking tone. “In a jiff.”
“And if all goes well ... we’ll need an extra seat or two at the table.”
Bern’s eyes flickered, moist. He could hardly bear to watch.
I took a deep breath and inched my feet closer to the rim, struggling to stay braced and balanced between my vertigo and the weirdly changeable gravity. An unseen force alternately tugged me forward and nudged me back, like magnets sparring between repulsion and attraction, like the push of a wave and the suck of an undertow.
I leaned forward and tilted back. Leaned forward and....
“Good God! Enough already!” Luther lunged and shoved me with both hands. I hurtled into the blackness.
