34.3

 

As the seal cracks and splits, the architecture of Creation begins to collapse. From her vantage point of microseconds, Roisin narrows her focus further. Microseconds become nanoseconds; nanoseconds become picoseconds, until she is at the very edge of time, where only darkness exists, because there is no interval left for which light to bounce off surfaces to reveal then optically. She can still turn, though the movements feel sluggish because she still has a physical body and can’t move freely trough time with it still attached.

She looks down at herself. The jumble of shards she first saw inside herself has shifted until her soul has also become a perfect tetrahedron, and she can touch it as if it was a physical object. The touch makes her physicality vibrate, a sensation she recognises as both the one referred to as ‘somebody walking over your grave’ and that exquisite ache as she is teetering on the brink of an orgasm. Something else to contemplate later. Is the act of perfect sex between two (or more) beings the actual connection of souls? And is Heaven simply the act of merging your soul with a collective of all the others?

Steva and Paul have disappeared entirely, but for sparks of light indicating their souls where they exist in the mortal plane, and a brighter spark indicating the connection Steve has with his imp. Astaroth is a spinning, glowing matrix of light, as is Linnea, though her matric is smaller, the fragments that comprise it less dense than the Fallen one’s.

The three Riders all appear as almost physical forms, each one a scintillating pyramid of energy like her own. Had she not previously been a Rider herself, she would not be able to tell one from the next, but she has an intimate connection with them and can discern the protectiveness of Pestilence from the goading energy of War, from the calm serenity of death. What does she expose to them? Tendrils of light reach out from each of the polyhedrons, and she accepts all three readily. As she joins with them, she feels each pyramid slip into place in a larger pyramidal tessellation, leaving only the space between the four; the centre of the enlarged pyramid, devoid of energy. Why is there a gap? It takes her a moment before she realises she knows why.

And then, into the static plane of interconnecting polyhedral forms enters another, this one a bloated octahedron. There are too many facets here for just one being, and she knows exactly who has arrived. Distorted though it is, even in this microplane she recognises the signature of the Mantle of Knowledge, bound and fragmented as it is within the greater bloat of Hasmed himself.

Hasmed is not glitching. He is no longer broken and confused. His energy gleams with resolve as he arrives and the void swirls around him like a crown of thorns. He heads directly towards her, the certainty within him almost as visible as the sparking souls of eight billion people and untold billions of other life forms on the planet.

He speaks softly. “You are revealing the world.”

Roisin swallows, even though the action is purely a sensation and not physical. Her physical self is frozen between the particles of time, far away in the physical world. She is showing more confidence than she feels as she faces the Angel of Annihilation. “Yes.”

Hasmed pauses but there is no confusion to him, only resignation. “You must stop.”

Astaroth, or the matrix that defines him, steps between them. “She can’t.”

Hasmed’s gaze never leaves Roisin. “Then I will stop her.”

The space between them tightens as the architecture trembles between Hasmed’s repairs and Roisin’s dismantling. The Sixth Seal pulses inside her like a heart still beating despite the absence of time, and she realises this is not a fight; this is the point at which Creation chooses between truth and certainty, revelation and obfuscation; repair or replacement. On the one side is Hasmed and the Host of Angelic Revelation and one the other herself, the Three Riders, Astaroth and all the legions of Fallen. This is not a fight they can win by battle. This is a fight that requires diplomacy and decisiveness

Hasmed steps forward. “Roisin. You must not break the Sixth Seal.”

Roisin lifts her head. Through the void she can feel the determination of War, the persistence of Pestilence, the absolute certainty of Death and the connection they have shared since the Fall. She smiles. “I already have.”