The seventh. Pathfinder masters overwhelmingly agree, whatever wonders lie in KRONOS will be tempered with forces of equal and opposite power. As above, so below; as below, so above. It is a belief long held that the seventh takes you to the darkest corners of your mind. Into the shadow.

The elder master, Mother, has written that the seventh will be whatever the mind craves. A dream. A nightmare. It will reflect what’s inside. If your spirit is light, it will be a paradise. If you have darkness in you, you will see only darkness; and it will be hellish, from first moment to last—an inescapable prison.

56

Black. In every direction—behind me, ahead of me, to either side—nothing but an absolute infinity of black. I look down and I see the ground is black, and above me, the sky is black. There is no sound. I spin around trying to see the vast room inside the pyramid, where I stepped into the hole. Nothing. It’s gone. Replaced by the profound dark. The soundlessness. I’m not puking and I don’t feel my teeth ache. I don’t feel anything. When I walk, there is no squeak of my shoes on the ground. I hear nothing. Not my breath, nor the beat of my heart. Black.

That is all.

I walk on through a world dipped in oil. Numb. Alone.

Then I feel it. A current at my feet.

I see now I’m walking through dark water, pooling at my hip. I look up and, as I watch, the sky moves through many shades from midnight black to brilliant cobalt blue. And now the water I’m wading through is clear and turquoise and the ground beneath my feet is sand. Shadows pass at my thigh and I get a tingling sensation up my spine. I’m not alone in the water, there’s a movement. A turtle finning away.

I follow.

Now, rising from the blue, a beach shimmers in the heat ahead. And strung between two palm trees, lying in a hammock, I see an old woman. In an instant, I find myself right in front of the hammock and the woman swings out easily and looks at me. She’s wearing a white kaftan robe and sandals. Eyes hooded, half-closed.

So, she says, straight into my head. It’s you.

“Mother! You’re here?”

Perhaps, she says. Or perhaps you’re imagining me. She looks at the foam-flecked sea. Now that I think about it, perhaps I’m the one dreaming you.

Mother walks to the water’s edge and I follow her. She sits down, elbows on her knees, and stares out over the blue. I sit next to her and dig my hands into the wet sand. Waves pound against the restless horizon.