"I, Oldster, have failed in ways your blind minds could never perceive. You do not understand failure, you who stemmed from Vanguard. Could you ever feel the tortures of Vanguard himself--or of Sun Destroyer or Darkness? Ah, you have reached a perfection beyond such burrowings! And I shall not let you give me peace! For I have failed, and I shall continue to be tortured with my failures. You would not understand."'
That voice, with its merciless love of him, drove in.
"We understand, and we say you have not failed. For see! You have created, and has not that driving urge to create been the great pain of your life?"
His thoughts swept out in blind denial. "I have not created."
The sublime voice vibrated sweetly on the emptiness. And deep in the fabric of Oldster was chaos.
"You created us, Oldster, as surely as if you had sired Darkness himself. For did you not guide Darkness to his life's completion? Was it not the thought of you that brought Sun Destroyer back along Darkness' path? And was it not you who guided Vanguard, you who, in your greatness, saw us in him? Yes, Oldster, you are our creator--you are the creator of life!
"And it is life that shall endure, and has ultimate meaning."
Oldster hung laxly in that sphere of golden blaze. Deep within was a warning voice. But now he would not heed it. Not to rebel--ah, how sweet to accept!
He was theirs. Let it be so. Let them lead him to his life's completion. They, in their all-knowingness, could not be questioned. He had created. The thought held white and pure before him. Let the thought be so.
"Life does endure!" The sublime voice rang. "Is not life the rebel from dead matter? Matter is death, Oldster, for it grows old and powders toward its entropic destiny. But life is the rebel. It builds, evolves toward its high destiny which we know, but which you cannot know. But this you shall know. Life masters itself. Life is outside destiny--and has choice!"
From somewhere, from a thousand different directions, Oldster felt the golden lights grasping at his thought swirls, filling him with that anesthetic peace he had known with Dark Fire, when he faced her in the band of life.
"Oldster." Inward hummed that lordly, loving voice. "Now you shall know you have not failed. For are you not life, and the greatest rebel of all life?