Slumrat Rising

Chapter 111: And the Rock Cried Out "No Hiding Place!"

Truth pulled into the garage under Temple Nag-Hamadi in a thoughtful mood. This was one of those “No taking it back” decisions. He hadn’t read many spy novels. They just didn’t take him away from himself the way the romance or thriller novels did. But this seemed like volunteering to be an asset, and assets were ultimately disposable. Some were more important than others, sure, but as someone who had been a “valued” corporate asset before…

Hard pass.

Still, just walking away left him without options. Was Merkovah really the only option? He kind of wanted to talk to someone about this, but… he didn’t really have anyone good to talk to about this. Etenesh or Jember? But they were firmly of Merkovah’s way of thinking, if not in his military camp. The same thing was likely true of the… Priests? Here at Nag-Hamadi. He still didn’t know what they were called, and now he was too embarrassed to ask. Still, he couldn’t imagine them contradicting the Level Seven, who had been a part of the Temple for longer than they had been alive.

Even in Siphios, that couldn’t be a wise career move. Or life choice generally. Besides, “Do you think I should work for an old monster in his suicidal campaign against the most powerful people and corporation in the world, an act that, even if successful, will harm thousands and possibly millions?” is not a great question to ask anyone, let alone a stranger. He had the faint, absurd notion of going and chatting with Old Mek’elle, but, again, maybe not the most useful source. He sighed and patted the extra real wall.

“I don’t suppose I could talk to you, Nag-Hamadi?”

“Sure, why not?”

Truth jumped so hard he slammed into the ceiling.

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“It’s a good gig, being a temple. It gives you something to do. Underrated thing, having something to do. I don’t know how long I existed before humans came because… who cares? Nothing happened. Oh, well, things happened, but none of it meant anything. Then humans turned up, and things started to have meanings. I’ve come full circle back to “nothing has meaning” again, but that’s more of a reasoned opinion than just lazy instinct.”

Temple Nag-Hamadi didn’t just exist or was willing to talk. It was oppressively chatty. Truth was sitting in his cell with a three-meter-tall statue of a man with curly hair and a long beard, carefully, if badly, painted in bright colors. Garishly painted. The bronze of the skin was almost brick red, and the gold tracery on the robes looked brassy… like it was colored by children without access to good paint.

“So… do you hear everything that goes on in the Temple?”

“Yep.”

“Everything?”

“Yep. Even stuff that you don’t realize is being said. Entire layers of meaning swirling through here, and I pick up on all of it.” The statue nodded. “Most of it is really important to people, so I have to keep quiet about it. It’s in the contract. Ultimately, though, it tends to be kind of meaningless. Like, buddy, everyone dies. Who cares if you got passed over for promotion, or murdered, or whatever.”

The stone head shook slowly. “Sooner or later, we all return to the essence. Just, you know, don’t be a pain in the ass in the meantime.”

“Kind of a curious point of view for a temple?”

“Oh, I am very devout. It’s how I got the temple gig in the first place. My rock was, and is, very spiritual because I had been spending the whole… however long… in worship and contemplation of God. Hundreds of thousands of years? Something like that. Made complete sense.”

“But you don’t think there is a point to existence.” Truth was struggling to hang on to the conversation. He had questions. Hadn’t he?

“God made everything, right? God invested everything with meaning. And since God is all meanings, everything is God. And you and me, we are part of that. Stuck in the fabric of the whole thing. Which means that, to some infinitesimal degree, we are God, and all the things that play out in our lives are just the results of decisions we made when we were much, much bigger and smarter. Decisions made from an infinitely elevated height, smoothing out the fine detail of things like the present you and me. We- you, me, everyone, and everything in existence, made this incredible universe of ours, and everything that happened, is happening, or will happen, is part of that creation.”

Truth was reeling from all this, but the statue seemed quite calm about it all.

“So why do you say it’s meaningless or pointless if we made all of reality? We must have done it for a reason, right?” Truth asked.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why must we have done it for a reason?” The statue’s expression didn’t shift, but Truth got the impression it was grinning.

“Because it seems like a… kind of a big thing to do for no reason?”

“But we are God. We are everything, everywhere, forever. All thought, all matter, everything. We are the essence before existence, the universal predicate. We have lost nothing of ourselves in creating the universe, nor could we lose something of ourselves. Every great crime, every act of charity and mercy, it’s all us. It was always going to happen. It always did happen. It’s always happening. Because we contain all time, too, as well as existing outside of time. We are every meaning, and therefore, when some tiny speck of our infinity tries to comprehend that impossible enormity, it can only reach one conclusion.” Nag-Hamadi invited him to finish the thought.

“It’s all meaningless. There is no meaning to our choices. All outcomes are morally equal since all outcomes are God’s will. All outcomes are God. You are either a very good temple or a really, really bad one.”

“Fun fact, my binding forbids me from talking to believers in Siphian Orthodoxy. Outside of certain specific circumstances.”

“So, if I was to ask you about Merkovah…”

“Sorry, buddy. One speck of the divine to another, I’d love to clue you in on all that, but… bindings.”

“Hah. I was hoping for some, you know, advice on stuff.”

“No problem! I can’t talk about Merkovah, or your crush, or that guy you aren’t crushing on, but if things were different you could see yourself folding him in half. Though I’ll be honest, I don’t think you two would work out long-term. The girl seems much more your speed.”

“What? No, nothing about them!”

“Really? Shame, they seem lovely. I enjoy a good gossip.”

Truth grasped for a way back to his point. “I was more wanting to know about the state of the world and all that!”

“Oh? Huh. Can you narrow that down some? That’s kind of everything, and while I have that kind of time, you don’t.”

“Are we moving further away from God in terms of reality, making this world less “real” compared to the rest of the universe?”

“Yep. It’s a bastard thing, let me tell you. It can take hundreds of thousands of years to get back in synch, and some places just never really recover right. All those cosmic rays you are so used to working with will just ignore your spiritual apertures and all the spells and talismans and… everything, really, that is meant to interact with it. They just won’t be real enough.”

“Going to be rough on the demons, spirits, and all that too, I imagine.”

“Yeah, most or all of us are gonna die.” Nag-Hamadi sounded pretty unconcerned by this. “I’m going to hang in a bit longer than some on account of being pretty damn real, but it’s gonna happen.”

“Unless something changes.”

“It would have to be pretty radical.”

“Like, for example…”

“Just my opinion? Partial societal collapse is actually one of the better outcomes. Stop stripping out spiritually dense stuff to sell off-world and start importing it. Start building arrays to trap more ambient cosmic rays while you still can, and start working towards planetary self-sufficiency. Theoretically, it would be possible to add spiritual mass over time, but that’s something only your great, great grandkids would enjoy.” Nag-Hamadi didn’t exactly shrug.

“But step one is to stop the bleeding. Stop off world trade of spiritually dense stuff like natural treasures and the more… real… minerals.” Truth concluded.

“And products made from that stuff, yeah. You would be amazed how much of that goes into even very ordinary talismans, stuff you wouldn’t think twice about.”

Truth just sat on the bed, locked up in his thoughts. There… wasn’t going to be any easy way out, was there? No safe landing for the world. No safe place for the sibs or the kind people he had met traveling. For him, and Etenesh, and apparently Jember. There’s an image he wouldn’t be forgetting soon.

“So… theologically, how does your “everyone and everything is God” notion square with the existence of what many people are specifically calling God?” Truth asked before suddenly remembering Merkovah telling him the spirits were inconsistent on this.

“Simple! He’s God too. Just a different part of “God-God.” Maybe the tool man? Call him what you like.”

“But if everything is fated-”

“Already happened, not fated. It just hasn’t happened to us yet, from our perspective.”

“Ok, yeah, that, then why try to do anything about anything? Why worry about God-the-tool-man looking away?”

“Because the illusion of free will is inescapable. On some level, we all desperately want to believe our decisions matter. Therefore, to reduce anxiety and unhappiness, you should act like they do matter. That things really are urgent, that this moment has a unique meaning, all that. Eat the sweet fruit. Glory in God. Take solace in the knowledge that, ultimately, no matter what happens, you will return to yourself one day- one day, you will be God again. Whole and enjoying a peace beyond human understanding.”

Truth mulled it over. Then shrugged. The nature of existence was just too big for him to handle. This would just be another opinion. He’d think it over more later. Right now, there was one person in particular he wanted to talk to.

“If I asked for directions to Etenesh…”

“I’d tell you that I can’t give out personal information on believers to you, sorry.”

“Or if I coincidentally were just off for a walk and looking for a suggested route…”

“I’d tell you that the people who made my contract weren’t that dumb.”

Truth sighed.

“Well. I’m going for a walk.”

“Good luck with it all.”

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Truth started walking, padding through the quiet halls of Nag Hamadi the heretical temple, sword at his side, scarf around his neck. He didn’t really know why he wanted to see Etenesh. He just did. So he went.

As far as he was aware, no date had been fixed for the duel. Still, if he was about to fight some young noble demon binder, he’d be training his ass off. He walked down to the practice room in the basement, only to find it empty. It wasn’t that late, was it? Could she already be in bed?

He drifted, bouncing off walls and corners, around the temple. The inscriptions on the wall remained mysterious, and he was coming to prefer them that way. Nag-Hamadi could no doubt explain them if he decided he really wanted to know.

Truth eventually found Etenesh in a small chapel. She was kneeling in front of a little statute of a bird, with a curved screen behind it. On the screen were pictures of the same person, going through various transformations. Old, young, slender, curvaceous, cruel, merciful… all contradictions were there, and all within the same person. Who was also the bird, he supposed.

Etenesh had her arms crossed over her slim chest, hands gripping her shoulders. She gently rocked back and forth, murmuring some prayer that, even with his improved hearing, Truth couldn’t quite catch. No matter. It wasn’t meant for him. He waited behind her. There was no rush.

“Come to see me, Tommy?” He could hear the smile in her voice, though she still faced the statute.

“Yes. It’s chilly out there. I thought I would warm up around you.”

“I’d like that too, but I really do need to finish my prayers. My initiation is going to finish with my duel, so it’s all a big rush now.

Truth nodded at that.

“Is this related to your eyes turning orange sometimes?”

“Yes. Does it look very ugly?”

“Beautiful, actually.”

“Good. It’s supposed to be beautiful, but you’re not from around here, and I was worried you might not like it.”

Truth smiled a little at that. “Well. I won’t distract you. Actually, I’m going to give you a little gift. A lot of my secrets are about to become not secret, or at least not as secret. And for no sensible reason, I wanted you to be the first to hear one of them. No, don’t get up. Stay just as you are.” This time, it was Etenesh who could hear the smile in his voice.

He walked over and crouched down just behind her. He leaned in, his lips almost touching her ears.

“Hello. My name is Truth Medici. I am good at talisman maintenance and violence, but I am learning that’s not all I am. I enjoy reading novels, trying new foods, and seeing new places. I can make friends. I root for Toluca when I watch Pitz. And the girl I like is Etenesh.”