The Creators Ch. 16

I paged through Wisdom's tome until I found what I was looking for.

Chapter Five-hundred and Twenty-one, Section Fifty-nine

Petranumen and Joy used their Elemental power to gain autonomy over the astral plane, proving that the plane of thought can be mastered. During this brief thousand-year window, Vitanimus performed miracles that were even beyond his magnificent powerset. He created the continent of Balamora by stitching two subcontinents together along a mountain chain that is now the Gratoran Wall; he lowered the seas so that fertile land could be occupied by the sudden growth in population; he even created the gates of Fedar, allowing for the transit of people to and from the astral plane.

How did the original Life Giver perform these monumental feats? The answer is simple: he did not. Vitanimus did these, but not as the Life Giver. It was Petranumen who manipulated the astral plane for him, allowing his power to be changed at will. Her total mastery of the cognitive plane shaped the power that ran through it. It was even said that during a marital squabble, Petranumen temporarily stripped Vitanimus of his powers, rendering him impotent until he apologized to her satisfaction. The nature of this argument was said to be about the proper acid levels in volcanic soil, and how they affected the taste of fruit borne there. It is speculated that Petranumen quite enjoyed the sourness of tangerines, and was perturbed that Vitanimus had...

I closed the book and ran my hands through Xaya's serpentine hair.

Excerpt from Dr. Siam's thesis, The Broken Bridge, page three-hundred-fifty-seven:

Vitanimus discovered something amazing when he created his window. What he discovered was the transport of souls from the astral plane to the spiritual plane. You will remember earlier in this thesis that I discussed how love is a form of reverse transport across the broken bridge; death is the other known form, of course. What Vitanimus saw was that during a blood corona sliver, the transport of souls seemed to cease. What Vitanimus did not realize was why the transport ceased. What was it that caused the souls to stop where they were? Remember when I spoke to you about the conservation of energy? Well, energy is a product of mass and momentum, so clearly, something stopped the souls' momentum. An equal and opposite energy. Vitanimus observed that the astral sun split from the physical sun during a blood corona sliver, and I understand why he came to that observation. The astral sun is perpetually eclipsed by its physical counterpart... right? Why?

I have taken mushrooms that allowed my transport to the astral plane. When I went there, my astral body was not perpetually eclipsed by my physical form. The ideas that took shape there were not blocked by their literal components below. For that matter, how could something physical like the sun have permanence in the astral realm when nothing else does? The astral realm is abstract and bizarre, and there is no place for rationality there. Something can be as large or small as a person imagines. For that matter, something can be as dull or bright as a person imagines. So why then would the astral sun be eclipsed by the physical sun? When I went to the plane above, I puzzled upon that conundrum. I imagined that I was as large as a house, and so I was. I imagined that there was a great ocean of milk in front of me, and it came to be. I imagined that the astral sun was dimmer than the physical sun, and nothing happened. The astral sun remained brighter than the physical sun, and so remained eclipsed.

Then it came to me. The astral sun is not eclipsed. The astral sun is the eclipse. For the astral sun—no matter how we imagine it—cannot be brighter than the source of all energy in the universe. Reader, if you ever go to the astral plane, look up at the sky. Beyond the dark orb of the eclipse, you will see a brilliant ring of fire. That is the spiritual plane.

Every thousand years, the blood corona sliver sneaks our two planes of existence just a little akilter, and a fraction of the energy of that great fireball comes streaming down to us without obstruction. Is it any wonder the spirits cannot travel there from the astral plane when that happens? They must wait for the river to be dammed again. The true miracle that occurred in those fateful thousand years was not the conquering of death; it was that Vitanimus had unwittingly built a bridge to the spiritual plane.