Ross Rocklynne - People of the Darkness

He would sleep now. He would decay downward to that moment when the centripetal urge for life would grow too feeble. The last hounds of his defense would wander off. For now he could not be disturbed.

“Awake, Oldster.”

The serene yet lordly voice echoed through and through that immeasurably deep cavern of thoughtlessness where Oldster resided.

“Awake, and awake to the high moment of your long life.”

The field upon field of overlapping energies that was Oldster quivered with the beginning beat of the old torture. Forces that had all but nullified themselves trembled out of balance. The vast body heaved and turned and its portions writhed. Then it held rigid.

Awareness had come to Oldster: awareness, strong and lashing. He beheld the fact of his return to life with an icy horror he had never expected to endure again. His thoughts lashed about like those of a being in a trap of pain. For one moment of illusory freedom he felt his pain depart, as he plunged back along time’s trail to the gone days of his youth.

“Awake.”

The sweet years of youth, when he had no thought but for play. Let them come again! But no. He felt memory swept away, and he was returned to his future. And from outside the packet of canceling forces that was himself had come a… voice.

“No!” The word shouted within him. It filled the closed universe that he had fashioned for his awaited death. And he knew the muted denial was bursting in violence to him who so cruelly shattered his dream of night. “No, whoever you are, whatever, leave me! Leave me alone, not to think, not to live. Ah, you have made me live again, as Sun Destroyer and Vanguard, when I would have none of them.”

His thoughts spiraled away, thrown out in convulsive denial. The awful agonies of returning sensation spread crazily to the limits of his being. A vision trembled involuntarily…

“And it is of Vanguard that we would speak.” The thought vibrated in serene, lordly compassion against his thought swirls. “Now, you who were born as Devil Star, look upon us!”

Wave upon wave of horror engulfed Oldster as that command drove in. He would not! He was master of himself, of his environs. The rebel thought endured, however, only long enough to be swept away by the shattering failure of his life. His central resolve dissipated. Not to fight, not to reach — ah, there would have lain happiness!

Thinly at first his visions moved from him; then they fumed out in thick beams designed to bring full revelation of that energy creature whose unafraid thoughts pried into his.

And as he saw he lay silent in that emptiness, quiet in his congealed wonder.

Momentarily, his thoughts dwelt in that long-gone moment when Dark Fire moved in splendor toward him, with her destiny of creation and death. For here was splendor beyond imagination, with the promise of something wondrous, and something tormenting; but here also was destiny, in these ranks upon endless ranks of beings, hanging in somber immobility against that lightless sky.

He saw those thousands upon thousands of golden-lighted energy beings gazing down upon him in serene sublimity. Their formless thoughts flowed around and through him, without discord, with peace.

“Golden-lights,” he whispered, and as he spoke the words he was moved beyond thought.

How long?

How long!

And from that concourse came answer, from one of them, from all of them — he would never know.

“For longer than you can dream, Oldster. For longer than the life of a star. You have slept, slept ages beyond calculation. Yet here, in this pulseless emptiness, we have found you. And the time has come.”

“The time,” whispered Oldster.

“The time of glory.”

There was a rustling of thoughts flowing, thoughts unfettered by fear, nor chained to hope. And the golden central cores shone in beauty.

“The time of glory that comes to you, Oldster. For you are the last of your people. And we are of Vanguard, and those who came after Vanguard.”

Now that unlocated voice swelled, filling the darkness with its lordly sweetness.

“For see, Oldster! We are all that you dreamed of — and more. We stem from Vanguard! And Vanguard gave life more than he dreamed. Clearly and purely we see the answers to those ultimate questions Darkness himself asked. Sun Destroyer herself, in her ancient past, never dreamed that her vain quest would be reached in us — through her!”

The giant words drummed against Oldster; he strove to break through to their meanings, but shadows obtruded themselves. Fear came unbidden and uncontrolled. He quivered, searching amongst those serenely watching beings with their crystal-sparkling, golden-drenched bodies for some sign that would make meaning burst upon him. For a while, he reveled in the belief that soon he would understand. He waited, letting his visions rove from one to another of those untroubled golden ones. The answers did not come. In depraved ugliness came doubt, shouting at him.

“No,” he cried bitterly. “You speak of impossible things. There are no answers. You are mockeries. What is it to me who you are? I, Oldster, want none of you — I do not want hope! Now leave me, leave me alone in my sadness.”

He lashed out at them, feeling his old agonies, and knowing that they, in their serene perfection, could not understand that they had but doubled and redoubled his tortures. For they and their kind must die and vanish in the stampeding downgrade forces which led to universal quiet. They too were but atoms trampling over each other in that mad rush toward the bottom level of inertness. Even perfection must die, ruled by destiny.

He started to withdraw his visions, when they, far from retreating, whirled nearer, their bright golden centers glowing in upon him until he was trapped in a blaze of fire. The inbred contentment of their thoughts pulsed through him. He fought against that dominance. He quivered with the dread that in spite of himself they would fill him full of that anesthetic hope he had no use for.

Then, thundering through his thought swirls, came that lordly measured voice, sublime in the surety of its owner’s purpose:

“Oldster! You have not failed!”

“Not failed!”

Convulsively Oldster flung back the words, like a missile to be hurled.

“Not failed? You are mockeries, you golden-lights, and now you must go, and go forever, and leave me alone in this lightless emptiness. Not failed!” The words seemed to echo in their frenzied dreariness. He felt the outermost limits of his being expanding, and quivering with miniscule outflarings of yellow energy, as if he could drive them away by the pressure of his physical being. Failing that, he would drive them away with the whip of his contempt.

“I, Oldster, who used to be Devil Star, have failed in ways your blind minds would never perceive.”

His thoughts drummed, violent in their unthrottled hate. They did not retreat, but continued to surround him and smother him with that sense of peace which he must battle if he were to keep his sanity.

“You do not understand failure, you golden-lights, you who stemmed from Vanguard. Could you ever feel the tortures of Vanguard himself, or of those who went before him — of Sun Destroyer, of Darkness? Ah, I can see it. You have reached a perfection beyond such burrowings! And I shall not let you give me peace.

“For I have failed, and I will continue to be tortured with my failures. You would not understand.”

“We understand.”

That voice, in its merciless love of him, drove in.

“We understand, and we say you have not failed. For see! You have created, and has not that driving urge to create been the great pain of your life?”

His thoughts swept out in blind denial. “Leave me, golden-lights, leave me! I have not created.”