BEN
Scene 45
Denzari strode purposefully back to the heavy door. “Come help me. At least we can slow anyone coming through.” Selech and Ajina joined him to raise and slam the door back in place, closing the mound over the portal chamber. Together they heaped its original dirt and gravel over it again.
Piotras gasped with pain, doubled over, and Guinban grabbed him around the waist, lowering him gently beside the sleeping figure. Now two unconscious men lay in the shadowed, hissing forest. The travelers, confused, exchanged looks. Little Samantine still caroled softly in wordlike sounds as Tellina rocked her slowly.
Dizziness washed over Derizan. Inside him, Fiarsinhilh’s image blazed white, flickering faster and faster, spinning. Derizan sat down heavily by Guinban. Inner vision and sensations flooded into and over him.
"Ingailanai." A slow, deep-bass voice crooned syllables in him. "Ingailanai naialaiji suunim..." it continued, in what seemed a kind of song, polytonal and counterpointed in a range from from bass to alto, unrecognizable to him.
Little by little, the sounds changed, and Derizan seized meaning here and there as if a small window of awareness opened to bring gleams of sense. As if tuning itself to him, the voice simplified its utterances, and he heard words and phrases. Then, "You are in myself."
Derizan was on his feet now, in what seemed a dream. He became aware of other presences. Fiarsinhilh now stood by him, and Piotras, listening intently. None of the other travelers could be seen. “Who – what are you?” he breathed.
“To you my name is Ben. To your inner partner Fiarsinhilh, I am… kindred with many names. To that bright one,” and Piotras glowed now, designated, “I am Ben and kindred, with names you cannot hear.”
Ben paused, and then said, “Samantine.”
Derizan blurted out, “The baby! Tellina’s baby! She… I…” He fell silent.
“She is more than any of you,” Ben said. “She is the precious Word of the Creator, the Revealer. You cannot see this yet, in your narrow sliver of moving time. She has called you, as your silence tells me. She is here with you now. See?”
In that moment, a radiant presence of soft light grew from a gleam into a standing figure wrapped in shifting, gossamer veils. It was singing in tones that seemed to take the baby’s caroling into meaning.
Fiarsinhilh and Piotras listened raptly, without a word. Derizan asked the figure, “Samantine? Are you Samantine?”
Ben said, “It is not yet time for her to speak to you. Here you sense her in a greater aspect I have offered you, but I protect you from harm in this condition. You are not meant to abide here.”
The veiled figure raised its arms, still singing, and light spread from it like mist.
“Your kind is in the Creator’s embrace of love,” Ben went on. “Do you recall the name ‘Arcalio’?”
“Yes! He founded our coll, Arcus, not long after humanity came here to Tarnus. We revere him.”
“He was the second Revealer of a long succession here in your world. Each one of your colls received a Revealer: an Educator, a Master, an Authority that advanced you in character and action. The first was Dennasa, for the Fandarinn. After Arcalio came Kaiya, for the Astran Terxil. And so on. The last was Bibbiyan, for the Sinantro Coll.”
“Where does Samantine come into this?”
“She is universal – the Revealer for all colls, including one that is coming now. It is the Survivor Coll, the remnant of andros coming free from slavery.” The figure of Piotras glowed in Derizan’s vision. “And there will be others.”
“But I don’t understand. What kind of being are you? And what are the Zashinhalh – like Fiarsinhilh? Are there other kinds in this… place that isn’t a place?”
“I will tell you only this. I am one of the Time Beings, named the Aeben Teren, eternal servants of the Creator. The Zashinhalh live in loops of time – they are bound with beginning and ending in great cycles. There is also a Child here – an Observer of all things. And there are Shields among you, who move arcs of action and decision.” A long pause.
“Tell me more!”
“It is enough for now. You will learn more as you serve Samantine. You must return to wake now, or you will fade.” And Derizan opened his eyes to anxious faces.