“We’re going to the home realm,” he says.
“But I have so much to do in this realm, and can humans even live in your home realm, and…”
He ignores my objections as he scoops me up into his arms. The way I fit against him feels so comfortable. He can hold me without effort. I could climb him like a tree if I wanted.
“How long has it been since you were last there?” I ask the question from somewhere near his shoulder as he shifts me in his arms.
“It depends,” he says.
Sometimes I find his comments annoyingly vague. This is one of those times. “What do you mean, it depends? You don’t know how long it’s been?”
“I was in the research facility for three years of your time. But my home exists out of the regular flow of existence. It may have been an hour since I was there, or a thousand years. Which one of those is true will depend on what is happening.”
I have a faint feeling of nausea, like seasickness, but it’s more about my brain being twisted in weird and uncomfortable ways.It’s like I understand what he’s saying, sort of, but I also know there are things about it I can’t understand because my brain literally can’t get there.
“So how do we get there? It’s a port somewhere?”
“We’re going to be getting off the ship at the next port of call, yes, but we won’t be disembarking the usual way.”
“Please, be harder to understand.”
“There’s a port we’re about to reach, but the ship won’t be docking because the ship doesn’t know it is there. It’s a moment in time that we will take advantage of.”
I think he’s actually trying to explain this to me. The fact that none of it makes any sense at all is not really his fault, I suppose.
“We are about to meet others of my kind. I need for you to stay close when we arrive. Do not go further from me than our hands can reach. Arm’s length only. Humans are a rarity in our world. Please don’t run off. I might not be able to find you if you do, and it’s possible you won’t be able to find yourself either.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“We do not live in the same space time concept as you do, to put it simply. If you stay with me, you will be safe enough. I will anchor you to me. But if you are out of my sight, reality might cease to undergo the formality of bothering to exist for you.”
“Sounds like I could go crazy.”
“You could go all sorts of things,” he says.
He snugs me closer, and I am glad he does. I don’t know exactly what I’m being threatened with, but it sounds like a bad time.
“What’s going to happen?”
I ask the question as the world around us shimmers. The ship stops being a ship, and starts being a big marble plane that stretches out for what feels like ever. Freak takes a step, the same way you do at the top of an escalator. There’s a pause and a sort of heft and then no motion at all. The ship is gone completely and we are standing beneath a bright blue sky covered in white puffy clouds strung out in line after line.
I see a marble platform surrounded by big buildings with domes and vaulted ceilings. They are all made to a stunning super scale, and many of them are covered in what looks to me like gold. This is a place of peace and riches. I can see the opulence, and I can sense the tranquility.
Freak said they were at war, but I don’t think anybody has ever so much as had an argument here. There is an overwhelming sense of calm that pervades the air. I expect bird song, but there is none. I don’t think there are animals here. I think this is a place reserved exclusively for Freak’s kind. It’s a little eerie, now that I think about it.
I think I am not supposed to be here. There’s a pressure around me, sort of like gravity, but oriented at every part of me. It’s pushing up on me, against me, around me, maybe even through me. It wants to expel me, like a human body tries to expel a splinter. I squirm in Freak’s arms and lean closer to him and it feels a little better.
“Tasin!”
A female voice rings out like a clear bell. Freak turns around with me in his arms, and I watch some of the buildings fade in and out, shifting and moving around. There’s an ancient Earth artistname Escher who used to draw buildings like these. I wonder now if he had been to this place, where great construction seems to morph and mold into impossible geometry every moment or two.
“Be good,” Freak says to me, snugging me even tighter. He seems worried for me. That makes me a little worried for me. It’s hard to be scared when I am so completely protected by him, though. I already know he would never let anything bad happen to me.
The female approaching is clearly a matriarch. I don’t know what she is a matriarch of, but there’s no doubt she’s in charge of whatever it is she wants to be in charge of. She has long silver hair and the kind of eyes that see everything and judge it in an instant, finding that which is wanting, and that which is worthy.
She looks to me like a blue goddess, wearing a golden dress that matches the color of her eyes. Her face is handsome, broad, and beautiful. She looks like a statue come to life. The link in this place between living worlds and ancient human art is too stark to be an accident. I wonder if old human artists came here somehow, or saw the place in their mind’s eye. It’s so familiar, and yet not.
“Tasin,” she says. “We have missed you.”
