Even through the Convergence, Rosario could still see the tire marks her camper left in the clearing through the shape of the crushed vegetation. The rockfall blocking the tunnel, which had seemed impenetrable, now looked like a sheer curtain, and the tunnel behind it seemed as open as it would have been before the rocks blocked its entrance.

Like everything inorganic she had seen so far, the mountain itself was also transparent, but the behemoths growing over it were not. She could easily follow their long roots deep inside the mountain, going around large boulders, nesting inside small caves, and into the tunnel through cracks in the concrete. The monsters the siblings had told her about were also there; a large network of morsus, and a patch of dust roses.

She looked around and noticed the dark behemoth with the red crystals; it was a rather small tree, but had a large root system. A few other identical behemoths grew nearby, in the direction of the valley.

The mayor walked towards the tunnel, and Rosario followed him. When she passed by some behemoth roots, she attempted to touch them and, this time, succeeded.

“Go on, order them to move. You have done it before, after all.”

She gave him a puzzled look; just what on earth did he mean by that?

Bill Cornwell looked up at the tangle of roots in the mountain above them. “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth,” he said, solemnly.

“What?”

“You kids didn’t have to study the scriptures in school, didn’t you? I just thought it was a funny verse. God created men and gave them authority over all other species of its creation. Some say it’s an allegory for us humans having more developed reasoning and I used to think that made sense. But now… I’m not sure anymore.”

Rosario didn’t want to play along with this madman, but somehow felt that her safety depended on understanding what he was trying to tell her, and she needed to stay alive if she wanted to help her apprentices. She had no idea how she would do that last part, but that was a problem for later. Now, her thoughts were racing, trying to put the pieces together.

She thought about the words he had cited. “I mean, I… already understood you are controlling people using the parasites from the plant under the keep.”

The mayor looked disappointed.

“Yesterday, you moved these roots yourself. Don’t be confused by rules that don’t apply to us, beings of the Convergence.”

He moved his hands again, and a large orange root contorted and retracted, causing part of the tunnel to collapse.

“Okay, I get it. You… we… can command other beings that appear in the Convergence, but…” she bit her lips. “It doesn’t make sense: I’m in this Convergence too, but when you tried to control me before but only gave me a headache, same when I tried to reach Stefan.” She didn’t know how to continue, but didn’t want to stop. “You can only control people when it’s through the parasite. And I see you can control the behemoths as well. That means your control is only over mutated life forms.” The mayor didn’t answer, focused on making a blue root shrivel and die. “What about monsters? Can you control them as well?”

“It becomes a bit more complicated when the creatures have even a rudimentary nervous system, but I believe with some practice, it can be possible.”

That explained him not being able to control the workers from the power facility after they had set themselves to attack her. Perhaps this confusion had caused the nervous damage she heard the fishermen describe outside the tavern. She wanted to say something about him not being as powerful as he appeared to be, but decided against it. Meanwhile, the mayor continued forcing the roots of the behemoths to move back towards the top of the mountain. Some he could not move, so he touched them and made them shrivel and die.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I need to do some weeding today,” he pushed away another root; it seemed to require some effort. “I don’t hold it against you. I know you were only doing your job as a crystal hunter, but you seeing the cocoons in the forest and then telling the smiths wasn’t in the plans. I tried to contact you several times to warn you not to get closer.” He sighed. “If only you had come a week later, the creatures would have reached full development, but now I have to accelerate the process if I want this to work out.”

Rosario didn’t understand his words, but had a terrible feeling about it; she remembered this mountain bordered with the ravine, and began running inside the tunnel first, and then realized she could cross directly through the mountain. She also distinguished the emergency escape tunnel the children told her about, so she followed it to the edge of the cliff, from where she saw the behemoth forest.

She stood on the cliff for a moment, until she decide to try what the mayor had done, and took a step towards the trees. In an instant, she was standing at the bottom of the forest.

After getting over the disorientation, she realized that was what the mayor meant by rules not applying to them in the Convergence. The limitations of the material world did not apply here; there was no weight, or up, or down… she could fly if she wanted, and it seemed the only limit was her mind refusing to accept it.

She jumped up to a branch in the middle of the behemoth, where a cluster of cocoons hung, and saw the creature inside twisting and scratching, trying to get out. So were the others. Deeper inside the forest, some crawlers were already out, moving in the direction of the Highland. The swarm would be out soon, and she knew those monsters could run fast; she had to do something, warn the town, make sure people evacuated.

Rosario looked around in despair, noticing the behemoths on the mountains that surrounded the valley were slowly but steadily withering and dying. Was this the “weeding” the major meant? By removing the behemoths with their crystals, the monsters in the cocoons were now completing their development and hatching. She took a step towards the mayor and found herself by his side. He was just reaching for a dark root, the kind that grew the red crystals. “Stop!”

But the mayor ignored her, touched the root and made it shrivel all the way up to the tree, which began dying.

“Why are you don’t this? Don’t you see that crystal red could save humanity?”

“I am well aware of what it does. After all, I created the black behemoths.”

“What?”

“Did you seriously think this miraculous crystal that defeats all logic could just accidentally happen?”

Let them have dominion. The words echoed in Rosario’s head.

“It took me years to develop it, but I was naïve and thought I was doing everyone a favor. I even made the mistake of sharing some with the smiths, so they could begin working on it as I further refined my behemoths.”

“You gave the crystal to Old Man Fritz?”

He nodded. “He is an excellent asset. Perhaps losing his mind the first time he reached the Convergence was a blessing in disguise for him.”

Rosario couldn’t hold back anymore.

“I don’t understand a thing of what you’re saying! You helped rebuild the town. People consider you pretty much a hero! Then you made a miraculous crystal that could change everything for humanity, but now you’re destroying it and on top of that you let a swarm develop in secret so it can destroy the town you helped rebuild? What kind of sadistic monster are you? Just stop this insanity!”

“Did I overestimate you?” he looked at her with a hand on his chin, and suddenly they were again under the endlessly white sky, standing on the stone floor covered with ankle-deep water. “Tell me, where are you standing on right now?”

“A stone floor covered in water,” she answered dryly.

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see in the sky?”

“There is no sky, it’s just white for as far as I can see.”

The mayor seemed concerned. “Nothing? Even in that direction?” He pointed to a side, without looking in the direction himself.

Rosario looked, but everything seemed the same and she couldn’t tell if it was north or south, or west or east. “It just looks the same. I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“I see, I see… my bad, I apologize. Because you have a higher affinity with the Convergence, I assumed your sight would be better developed as well. I understand your confusion now. I pushed you too far. Still, I believe you will learn soon, and then you will understand and share my reasoning.”

Rosario was panting at this point. “You’re crazy. I will never think of you as anything but a monster!”

He stood in silence, looking at Rosario as if she were a toddler who needed a moment to calm down after a meltdown.

“We can continue with this conversation later, after I finish here. And don’t worry about your personal safety. I will make sure you and your apprentices are taken to safety before the swarm reaches. I don’t blame you for your behavior right now. After all, mercy killing is not an easy task to do or to witness.”

“Damn extinctionist!”

The mayor seemed offended. “Don’t be ridiculous, there is no such a thing. But I can see where myths like that come from.”

And after those last words, Rosario was back in the pitch-black cellar under the keep.

*****