Chapter 5934: Living The Dream! II

Noah appeared above an endless blue sea in one small corner of THE Infinite Carcosa, a place he had been before, so his existence still knew the coordinates and brought him straight there.

The rest of him was spread across existence, on Ruination’s terrace, in a snowy town, in a forest at the edge of a war, and in the Maze of Destiny, while this piece of him hung in the air over calm blue water under a pale pink sky. Somewhere past the horizon were countless Infinite Lifeforms of the Carcosa, but here there was only the sea, very deep and very quiet.

Snow fell even here in abundance as THE Long Night was pervasive.

He had come here for sentimental reasons, because infinity had been his first gift, the infinite mana held by a hunter who knew nothing. Every Infinity he had grown since had come from that first one, so if he was going to make existence his farmland, he wanted to start somewhere that held abundant Infinity. No place in existence held more kinds of infinity than the Carcosa, and that settled it.

He knelt in the air and put both hands on the water, and through it he felt a deep infinity, a sea that went down forever, with every depth opening onto a deeper one below it. There was life all through it, fish whose spines grew longer every time they were counted, jellyfish with bells inside bells inside bells, and leviathans so long their heads had forgoten their tails.

Many of them were mad, such as the leviathan that had been singing the same note for an Age because it could not find the end of it, and the fish that had been counting its own scales since before the Long Night. They had held infinity for too long, and slowly they had become part of the water.

They held arrogant Madness.

He let his authority flow into the sea the same way he had in the Gaps, giving it freely and asking for nothing back. The sea brightened, and that was all that happened.

|Your Authority has entered THE Infinite Carcosa.|

|This existence has been brightened by it.|

|It has not taken root.|

|Nothing returns.|

…!

The theory held, because THE Chrysalis had done the same thing, and these places were willing but simply had nothing in them that matched what he was. The Infinity was not enough. His authority came from the dreaming, from THE Dreaming Human Origin in its Nightmare state, which held every road, walked and unwalked, and the only places made of the same thing were the places the Fallow had touched.

The Fallow was the soil and everywhere else was rock, so he would bring the soil himself!

He gathered thousands of his unwalked roads, every Noah he had not become and every path he had not taken, and wove them into one long thread before turning his Infinite Quantum Dream downward, the same as he had over the Legacy. A door formed beneath the sea, and he broke it!

BOOM!

The sea split open toward the horizon, and grey light rose through the crack as THE Fallow of Existence came up into the Carcosa. Grey roads rose into the water, grey trees grew upside down from the underside of the waves, and the smell of old leaves spread over the salt, while across a few thousand light years the blue went grey at its edges, soft and half-real.

Only a few hundred Nightmares came with it this time. Noah hid his existence completely, and they drifted past beneath him without once looking up.

|You have broken a door to THE Fallow of Existence within THE Infinite Carcosa.|

|THE Fallow is mixing with this region of existence.|

|Nightmares have emerged: 317.|

|Profundity: Newly Risen.|

|They cannot perceive you.|

He knelt again above the place where blue met grey and gave his authority freely, and this time existence took it, drinking it in fast and deep.

Then Noah felt the sea getting ready to give back soil and forests and essence, the same as in the Gaps, and he held it back gently and spoke to it. He told it that he was not here to harvest it, that he was here to plant something in it, something that would belong to both of them, and that it could give afterward if it still wanted to.

This region of Existence went still, and then the whole region pulsed once and then again, while a low hum spread across the water from one horizon to the other.

|Your Authority has been received.|

|This existence is preparing to give back.|

|You have asked it to wait.|

|It is waiting.|

|It wishes to know what you will plant.|

…!

Noah smiled, because there was only one thing a farmer like him could plant first. He closed his eyes and went inward, down to the deepest place in his existence where his Root used to be, and found THE Budding Dreaming Human Origin Tree waiting there with its blue-gold trunk rising through the center of him. It had three Rings, two Boughs with the second half-white with frost from THE Long Night, one Branch holding the Unsealing of Doors, and Sap slowly rising toward a Third Bough that had not grown yet.

He asked it if it would go, and the Tree leaned toward him, and he knew that it would. He took hold of the Tree and the trunk, the Boughs, and the Rings down into his cupped hands until it was small enough to hold. What was left was a seed about the size of a plum stone, blue-gold with three faint rings around it, a thin line of obsidan where the Nightmare had joined the dream, and a small patch of frost on one side that was cold to the touch.

The seed beat against his palms, and for a moment he felt how much of him was inside it and how much was now gone from inside himself, and it frightened him a little to know he was giving away the thing his strength stood on. He opened his hands over the sea and said it quietly.

“Existence breathes, and epochs pass, leaving Civilizations that become monuments, then crumble to memory, and are long forgotten when that breath comes again. In all these epochs, Infinity reigns supreme. Let me see…just what definitions it can hold. I give what I hold to existence, and existence…always gives back.”

HUUM!

Then he let the seed fall.

It fell for a long time, down through the blue sky toward the center of the softened region, while the Nightmares below went still to watch it pass. When it touched the water, it took root at once.

HUUUUM!

One huge pulse went out across the sea and the sky, flattening the waves and tearing the clouds open, pressing every Nightmare against the water, and turning every leviathan and jellyfish in the depths toward the surface. The roots went down into the endless depths of the Carcosa, splitting again and again until there were more than he could count, and wherever they passed the blue turned obsidian with gold lines running through it.

Then the trunk rose, blue-gold and so wide its base covered light years of sea, climbing past the Nightmares and past Noah until its top was out of sight.

Rings lit along the trunk as it rose, one, two, and three, and the Boughs spread out from it, the First in blue-gold and the Second half-white with frost. Leaves opened by the thousands in blue-gold and obsidian, each marked with the faint shape of a road, and they caught the light and sent a slow rain of gold down onto the sea.

|You have planted THE Budding Dreaming Human Origin Tree in existence itself.|

|It has taken root where THE Infinite Carcosa and THE Fallow of Existence meet.|

|It remains yours.|

|It now also belongs to existence.|

|Its roots drink from the infinity of THE Infinite Carcosa and the unwalked roads of THE Fallow of Existence.|

|This existence has received what you planted.|

|It is giving back.|

…!

The Sap came through their bond as existence gave, and a slow golden flow began to climb the trunk, until the whole Tree shook from its deepest root to its highest leaf and the flow stopped climbing and spread out through the trunk instead. The bark went clear, turning from blue-gold into still glass with lines of gold and obsidian running through it, the same as the Shinjitsu over Noah’s skin.

HUUUUM!

|Your Tree is being restructured.|

|Fundamentally.|

|Your Authority as THE Dreaming Human Origin takes the lead.|

|Your Shinjitsu takes the lead.|

|Your Tree no longer only drinks what you devour.|

|Existence gives back.|

|Existence contributes.|

…!

Noah stared up at it, because his Tree had always been a predator’s tree, with every Bough paid for by something he consumed and every Ring lit by someone else’s end. Now it was changing into something that grew because he gave and because existence gave back, and while the hunger was still there, quiet in the trunk, it just wasn’t in charge anymore.

Then the Tree let go of its old shape, pulling its Boughs back into the trunk, sinking its Rings in after them, and drawing in the Branch of the Unsealing of Doors last, until the trunk stood bare and straight above the obsidian sea. For a moment Noah thought he had lost all of it, but then he felt every Ring, every Bough, every evolution, and every Order still there, kept safely inside the trunk.

Four new Branches grew out of it then, and the first was blue-gold, with leaves that were small panes of light that each held a scene from a dream, a field, a kitchen, and a boy on a dock with a fishing rod. The second was obsidian-gold, with leaves that were closed eyes veined with moth-wing patterns, and when the wind moved them a few of the eyes opened.

The third was clear glass, thin and perfectly straight, with leaves that showed only what was really there, and the fourth grew last, curving and bending to follow a current only it could feel while all its leaves turned together in time with the pulse.

HUUUUM!

|Restructuring complete.|

|THE Budding Dreaming Human Origin Tree has become THE Dreaming Human Origin Tree.|

|Tree Stage: Rooted.|

|Your Rings, Boughs, and Branch have been absorbed into the trunk. Nothing has been lost.|

|What existence gives back now rises as Sap into four Branches.|

|Branch of Dreams: Level 1.|

|Grows when you dream, and when you give your Dreams to existence.|

|Branch of Nightmares: Level 1.|

|Grows when you give your Nightmares to existence, and when Nightmares are answered.|

|Branch of Shinjitsu: Level 1.|

|Grows as your Shinjitsu holds more of what is true.|

|Branch of THE Unstriving Current: Level 1.|

|Grows when you move with existence instead of against it.|

…!

|Sap: Dreams 14%. Nightmares 9%. Shinjitsu 5%. Unstriving Current 3%.|

|Each Branch reaches its next Level at 100%.|

|When all four Branches reach Level 2, the Tree will flower.|

Noah read it twice and almost laughed, because it had been a long time since existence had shown him anything as simple as levels. Every one of those four Branches was him, the dreaming, the Nightmare, the truth, and the current, and all four of them were fed now by what he gave and by what existence gave back. He could work with that, and he put his palm on the bark and felt it warm against his hand, beating slowly in time with the pulse.

Below him, the sea had turned obsidian and gold as far as he could see, and the Nightmares floated on its surface staring up at a Tree beyond their understanding!