Anamnesis 2:3
Chapter 2: sin sea man
Verse 3: man’s in sea
The ruin lies in the deep shadow of a canyon that bisects the island. The rocky hills to either side jut up into the open air, and from either peak, Vave can see most of the horizon all around, the stone titan’s vast lunging form just obscuring a portion of the east. Much better than when he stargazes from the titan’s leg and can only see the western sky.
By the time he reaches the peak, it is full dark. Above, the glittering canopy of the cosmos envelops him. This is a depth he does not fear, and he wishes he could swim or fall into it, away from the watery darkness that bore him. Before the moon rises and dulls his view, he takes in the tiniest pinpricks sparkling in the vast beyond.
Then he notices a bright star at the edge of the horizon that confuses him; it shouldn’t be there. It must be a planet, he thinks. But he doesn’t know how he knows what a planet is. Its being a planet is confirmed as he sees it slowly rising above the horizon, like a distant moon rather than a ponderous star.
The moon herself appears then as well, brightening the sky in her waxing crescent form. Though he misses the depth of detail among the stars, he never tires of gazing into the silver mirror of the moon. She begins to cross in front of the distant bright planet, and then something from the east catches Vave’s eye.
He doesn’t know what he’s seeing at first, but his eyes widen. A bright white light has flashed in the vicinity of the stone titan, but when he looks, it is gone. Instead, a strange dim glow emanates from the other side of the vast statue. The titan lunges away from the island, so Vave can only see his bare backside.
A few minutes later, though, a line of glowing light curves around his hips and spirals down his leg. It takes Vave only seconds to recognize that this thread of light traces the very path of the stairs.
He leaps to his feet, ignoring the call of the infinite mechanism of the cosmos above. Something roars within him, an infinite vibration of the cosmos below.
Abandoning material reason, he runs toward the glowing light.
Barely catching himself with each plunging stride, he half-falls down the rock slope, the fear of injury melting away. The storm approaches faster than he anticipated; he can feel its churning clouds closing in. No matter. He will reach the stone titan first. As he moves, he begins to flow, and his feet no longer slam into stone. He rushes down the slope like a river from a burst dam, but he is brine and sulfur and sand and…
…and he is water. He crashes into the shore and continues forward, a wave crested in effervescent sea-foam, churning toward the glow that calls him with a primal surge. Unfurling in silver and black under the glow of the moon, he races across the surface of the sea, unmindful of where he strays. He realizes, too late, that he flows over the dark depths.
In a terrifying instant, his momentum is killed by a force of total inertia, a will like a gauntleted fist reaching up from the deep to grab hold of him. Vave is strong though, stronger than he’s ever been. Resisting with newfound determination, he remains on the surface. But he cannot escape.
The will of the deep ceases its downward pull, and instead holds him in stasis. Confusion ripples his liquid surface, caught mid-swell, now motionless.
Then he feels it: the storm, gathering speed and power. It is upon him in moments, and he can no longer resist, assailed from above and below.
He relents, knowing he cannot win. Gently, he sinks into darkness.
Awaken. Awaken.
He does. A limitless deep void yawns before him, the barest intimation of an impossibly huge shape lurking beyond his perception. He tries to escape. He can’t.
I did not want this, the deep says.
“Then let me go.”
I cannot.
“You will not.”
No, my son. I cannot.
Vave is silent.
It is time.
“Time for what? I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what any of this is. I don’t know what I’m here for!”
I… am you, Vave. And I am dead. All I have left are these few thoughts, enough left to show you. To tell you. This is all part of the currents we must follow and the gates we must open. I am your mother. And I will be your child.
All at once, a flood of thoughts and images fills his mind. An ocean. Far too much to process at once. Flickering reminders of a past before the past.
Now go.
Ascend. Ascend.
Before Vave can begin to understand what the deep has said and done, he is launched upward. But he is not just himself anymore, not just the man who was born in the crashing of a wave against stone. He has been sheathed in the deep.
He ascends to the surface, wondering if his fear was mistaken all along.
The storm rages. The moon, planet, and stars are concealed behind the heaving gray smear of elemental confluence above. The stone titan looms above him, backlit by occasional flashes of lightning but obscured by the lashings of rain. The glowing thread still shines, wrapped around the titan’s form.
Ascend. She said it twice.
Back in the shape of his body, Vave stumbles back onto the titan’s right calf, these few miles of stone where he has spent most of his life—this life, at least. The violent storm has already battered his driftwood shelter into a sad heap.
In this rain, there is no way he can climb the stairs safely. But he is driven by something yet deeper than fear or reason. As he scrambles up the tendon, he slips and slides down twice before hauling himself up the third time. The bright white glow has covered the carved stairs and has created new steps made from ether and light. They are still narrow, still dangerous.
He tests a step with his foot, and it holds his weight, yet the rain passes right through it. Stepping fully on, balancing himself with his right hand against the smooth stone of the giant’s thigh, Vave begins his final ascent toward a destination he cannot imagine.