Khalos was reborn. He descended from the dreamscape, as though a delivering angel, into the body of a newborn child. Once more in existence on the chaotic earth. His memories of the time before faded as he fell through blackness. He saw a glowing dot of light on the horizon—life. It approached, or he approached it, with great speed.
Movement was difficult to discern in the darkness of non-existence.
The glowing light became more than a dot, expanding to fill his entire vision. The programs he had instilled at the command of Watcher were triggered at the light, and the mind-constructs completed their task of storing his memories away. They would return—when the physical form he would inhabit had aged more than a child in this world. None would listen to the words of a baby.
He had to wait.
Thousands of years melted into nothingness; the dreamscape, the millennium of time from the beginning of earth to now, faded away. His mind kept hold of only fragments and small glimpses of the vast wisdom he had accumulated.
The pure white light began to become marred with shadows; shapes that slowly solidified. People.
He awoke as a squalling newborn baby, and saw the sun's gleaming for the first and second time.
The light shone painfully into his eyes, still sensitive from the sudden change in environment. He drew a deep breath to scream. His cry was cut short, a hand clamping firmly around his mouth. He stared balefully up at his mother and she shook her head slowly. The warning effectively silenced him.
"Hush..." gentle amber eyes gazed down from above. His mother pulled him close to her chest, and with a strong voice she turned and spoke to the assembled. "My baby, the Keeper of Children; I name you."
"Keeper find us." A crowd of voices, unseen as he hid his face in the darkness of his mother's clothes, yet not unheard.
"So shall you be Keeper, this is the destiny and Will I place on your heart." His mother pulled him away from herself, holding him at arm’s length. She brushed his cheeks and brow as she spoke; and where once her eyes had been vibrant and full of life, they were now eerily vacant.
"Keeper guide us." The voices responded.
"Fulfil your purpose, Keeper. Kill and be killed. See the path before you and follow it to its end."
"Keeper lead us." This incantation was murmured, and an expectant hush fell over the gathering.
"Die, and in turn save your life and the life of all who shall be born from your death. Take the Children to their sanctuary!"
"Keeper save us!" the words rose to a shout from every throat, the assembly raising their hands as one in agreement.
*
She felt his unwavering gaze upon her, burning into her forehead as she wrote. She hunched over the small paper tablet, her pen scratching furiously, but it itched at the corner of her mind. With a sigh, she glanced beside her. Her son was staring up at her from his basinet, ruby-red eyes that, while now quite shocking, would fade to an amber tone in a few days. It would be as it always was, as had happened to her people over the centuries. The royal denizens of the dreamscape would send one of their own, the eldest, down from that alternate dimension to earth. Any one of her people could have been chosen to carry the baby—the honour was great—but when her child was born and she saw his eyes, she knew they’d chosen her.
She had heard tales from her grandmother of women who had believed they’d fallen pregnant to their husbands, only to give birth to a baby with a soul from the dreamscape. Always, the child would grow to adulthood without memories of its past, before the memories awakened and they did whatever their purpose was.
The denizens of the dreamscape watched over humankind from the beginning of time to the end, and saw when their powers and wisdom was needed. It seemed this time was one of those.
Her son returned her observing gaze, and she smiled at him. She knew his past, she knew where he came from, but for now? At this moment? He was simply her son. The knowledge of centuries he possessed were even now disappearing completely, and it was as it should be.
With a shake of her head, she broke out of her reverie. There wasn’t much time left. She placed the paper down beside her on the stone, weighing it down with her pen as she got up.
The baby wriggled in irritation, squirming in his cot. She leant down, her hair had slipping forward and tickling his face; like black silken spider-webs on his smooth brown skin, a sharp contrast to his own wispy silver hair.
She could already see the slight resemblance when he smiled as to what she saw in the mirror every morning, though he was still so young. Though he carried an alien soul, and this reflected in some of his appearance, he still came from her and the fathers.
But that is where our similarity ends, she admitted with a scowl. His other features come straight from his fathers, and they were many. Every year, the nubile women of her people visited the many fathers in the temple, and it was there that their tribes continued.
The colourless hair, red eyes...all from his fathers' side. One might call him albino, but were it for his darker skin. A strange combination; one that was becoming hidden even now. For in a few moments, he would truly enter the world. They would not accept one such as him if they knew who and what he was; her people knew, for they had lived like this since the earliest times they could recall. None of the rest of the world had experienced the children of the dreamscape being born to them; they only knew when the child reached adulthood and affected the world before disappearing again. They would not understand him as he was now.
He had arrived from nothingness, called back into existence, into the realm the Sisters resided in. A place below the dreamscape; yet not in the world entirely. Not yet.
A sudden sound in the brush jerked her out of her thoughts. She looked around quickly, and breathed a sigh of relief. They had not yet arrived. But it served as a good reminder; time was swiftly escaping her. Speed was of the essence; and she hurried.
The moment the gathering had ceased, and the celebrations begun, she had taken the opportunity to disappear. They had already noted the gathering's leader missing and had come to find her. Even now some were near. The final task, that which these acolytes could never have understood if she had told them, had to take place.
She recalled back to his beginning, to the angel who had delivered them, only to have left the pair before her child was even born. The last Keeper, the last denizen of the dreamscape to have been born on earth and disappeared thousands of years before her time; he had come back before her pregnancy and had saved her life and the lives of her people.
To be torn from us so suddenly and without purpose...her eyes stung at the memories. Her child should stay here, should grow up to know himself, to know his fathers…both the Keeper and the many fathers of the temple. But his Keeper father had had other instructions for her. Unlike every other mother before, she needed to not raise him with the Sisters, the ones who would teach him and guide him, help him dismantle his mental constructs and harness his powers when the time was right. She did not question this; Keepers knew best, and they heard directly from Watcher—after all, they were the only ones who could see Watcher and not die. Her people would not understand and would kill her for this, and even she could see the danger. After all, completely unknowing of his powers and how to control them, the child could easily cause a lot of death and destruction. But Keeper knew best.
With a mental shake, she cleared her mind of the Keeper and focused instead on her mission. This Keeper would not leave so prematurely.
She finished writing out the note; all of her son’s memories, the story of the lives he had lived before, and sealed it securely inside the watcher-stone. She passed the wedged rock to her son who gripped it tightly, knowing his part in these acts for but a second more. And then that moment passed, and he was completely an unknowing infant. She made sure he kept a tight grip on the stone. It would awaken him when it was time.
*
Even carrying him in his basket, plus her satchel, it did not take the pair long to leave the little forest clearing and reach their destination. The peaceful woodlands ended abruptly in a sharp drop-off. A rugged cliff-face swept miles down to meet the jagged rocks on the beach below, pummelled with the crashing waves. High tide. The perfect time, as the sun set and darkness overtook the land. It was ironic, in a way.
The woman walked over to the edge of the cliff and gazed down at the foreboding grey rocks so far beneath her. She set down her burden and lifted her son out of the basket, holding him in her slender arms. Now was the time. He stared up at his mother still, his ancient eyes--so incongruous in such a young innocent face--never leaving her. They understood each other. She looked back over her shoulder, the wind whipping her long hair into her face as she strained to listen. Yes, they were almost there. It was time. With no further thought, she held out her baby. Held him out over the cliff, the roiling grey clouds of the approaching storm mirroring the grey waves beneath. The sickly orange sun, now just above the horizon, created a perfect setting for this end--this beginning. She looked down at the jagged black rocks, so many miles below them. She held him out over the abyss for but a second more. Then she let go.