Inside the den, Padma blinked in surprise. It was cool and dim; that much she had been expecting. She followed the Tiger dutifully, expecting to find herself looking at sun-dappled needles and breathing in pine fragrances. Indeed, for the first few feet, it was so. But as they plodded further in, she realized she should have long before spotted the back of the den, small as it looked from the outside. Moreover, there seemed to be doors leading left and right to greener, darker corridors, with doorways dotting them as well, leading into… what?
Padma gasped as she passed by the first doorway, inhaling the scent of wild roses. A beautiful moonlit rose garden sprawled over hills and valleys, a garden fit for gods. Through the next doorway, spurts of fire launched up from a distant mountain vomiting lava. Although the mountain was far away, Padma did not doubt for an instant that it was real enough, and could be reached by stepping through the doorway; the heat burned her face, the smoke made her horse tremble, and the light dyed the Tiger’s orange coat a fiery red. She looked down at her ragged sari, and found it was as blood-red as the rest of them. When she looked up again, they were passing by another doorway, where venomous cobras writhed in a snake pit, at level with the path the Tiger and his two guests trod on. One cobra raised its sinewy head, flicking its tongue out at them menacingly.
Padma bit back a cry and pushed against her horse, away from the snakes.
“They will not hurt you,” the Tiger said without turning his head, his voice a deep rumble. “Nothing can pass the doorways unless I allow it to.”
Padma breathed a little easier. She still hurried forward to catch up.
They finally stopped at the very last doorway. When Padma glanced back the way they had come, the green grass-carpeted corridor stretched far back, the entrance a tiny golden square blurred by shadowy shapes, probably her friends. Rectangles of glowing white, blue, red, yellow, violet, or green light burst from the open gaps of the doorways and cast blocks of color on the grassy corridor floor.
The Tiger growled, and she looked ahead again slowly, reluctantly. Through this doorway she followed him, and found herself on the top of a steep hill. Below stretched a wasteland; the ground was cracked and bleached, stripped of everything but withered shrubs and boulders. Tiny salamanders scuttled across the dust, splotched and streaked with brilliant colors, the only hues in the land other then brown, black, and gray.
“This is it,” announced the Tiger. “Oblivion, the Shadowlands, Grave of the Universe. And no,” he added, tail swishing at her crestfallen expression. “It isn’t all like this. It has woods, and mountains, and even seas, pretty much everything you’d find above. But there aren’t wars, romances, quests for adventure or glory. No emotion, no excitement. Oblivion is a grave land, and silent for the most part, although dangerous creatures--living creatures--sometimes slip in.”
The arid smell of the desert engulfed them in a breeze. Stars shone in the sky, and three moons were shaped into straight, not curved, slits. Some signs of movement were visible in the distance: vague forms gliding over the ground. She guessed they were the spirits. The Tiger warned her to have no dealings with them unless great need roused her, for spirits were the most unpredictable of beings. He had scuffed the dust with his paw until he’d uncovered a flat flaky plant, and sprinkled the herb on her arms, promising that it would keep ill-meaning ghosts away.
Padma was afraid to ask, but she steeled herself, gripping the horse’s mane tightly with both hands. “So is this is Heaven?” Her mouth tasted bitter, and the brittle wind burned her eyes. How can I not be disappointed?
The Tiger lowered his head and let out a rumbling purr. Serra wondered if he was laughing at her, then decided she didn‘t want to know. “This is Heaven or Hell only if you believe it is. Is this your imagining of Heaven?”
“No...” she replied hesitantly.
“Then it isn’t. It is my belief that this is a sort of middle road... a sort of crossroad, perhaps.” He clicked the skin over her heart with the tip of a claw. “Listen to that,” he growled. “I am not yet dead, so I cannot tell you my experiences. Maybe your God tests your faith and your courage that way, to see if you can sustain yourself even though you are clueless about the afterlife. When in doubt, you either cling to your faith or lose it.”
“What if there is no faith to cling to?” she asked desperately. “I mean--I don’t know--after all I’ve seen, so many unbelievable things have happened, I don’t even know what to think any more.”
“What you believe is real,” the Tiger told her. “You can breathe life into anything if you consider it real. But sometimes reality knocks into you, whether you’re ready to believe it or not. Keep an open mind and a steady heart, and remember there is a time to act as well as a time to philosophize.”
The horse interrupted their musings by stamping the ground. “And that time is now,” he snorted impatiently. “Are you two going to stand there and debate theology till Doomsday?”
Padma blinked. Strange, strange world. She wasn’t used to talking horses yet. “Yes, please,” she said, turning back to the Tiger. “We really must be going.”
The beast inclined his head at them. “Do not look back,” he warned them. And then he paced backwards, and faded into the dusty air, leaving only sandy footprints behind. The doorways, the corridor, any trace of the outside world, all gone.
Alone they were again. In Oblivion. Padma mounted and they took off, the horse’s black mane and tail fluttering, hooves muffled on the sandy ground, following a tiger’s paw-prints across the desert.
"Angreek87"
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