The Traveler had been told to visit that reality made up of enormous roads bordered by an ocean of cliffs. Without sun or moon or stars, the pitch-black sky mingled with the blackness of the bottom of the cliffs. He saw a number of beings jumping off those cliffs, some of which had just visited the Sage, and as they let themselves fall, their faces were sad, impressed, joyful or angry. The Sage never repeated the same dialogue twice, the Traveler had heard, and each of those faces that fell was an exact reflection of the words of the Sage, who had just revealed to them the ultimate reality of their existence. Thus they accepted, willingly or reluctantly, their fall into the abysses, with hope and despair, but always certain that the bottom would only be the next stage of their story.

The Traveler walked through those crags asking for the Wise Man's house, and those who knew of its location often plunged into the blackness immediately after pointing the way to the Traveler. "The Sage must have impressed them," thought the traveler, "and after the Sage there is no way but forward, although to go forward they must first fall. Will it be so with me? Will I also feel that need to fall after knowing the ultimate truth of my existence, and will I plunge down that abyss? It will happen, I am afraid, whatever my limited imagination can think of; it is a waste of time to worry".

The Sage's house was carved inside a cave lit by torches at the entrance, which was blocked by a gray curtain. From there emerged an entity between crying and laughing, so that as it passed by the Traveler it was doing both actions separated by a nervous twitch, and the Traveler watched as it rushed towards the nearest fall.

The Sage was seated on the other side of a small round stone table. The room was granite-walled, dusty, and lit by just four torches whose fires were slowly dying. The Sage received no more visitors when the torches were extinguished, the Traveler had been told. The Sage welcomed him and invited him to sit in a stone chair opposite the table. The Traveler made himself comfortable. The Wise Man was completely covered in black cloth, including his head; neither his eyes nor his mouth were visible. The Traveler had the impression that under that human-shaped cloth there was actually no tangible body.

"Where do you come from and where are you going, Traveler?"

His voice was reminiscent of the timbre of a human throat, but soundless, pure and crystalline as a tuning fork.

"Where we travelers all come from and where we go: everywhere and anywhere."

"Have you traveled much?"

"It is absurd to decide whether I have traveled a lot or a little. Others like me travel for eternities; others get bored after visiting one or two thousand realities. For some I have traveled too much, for others I haven’t traveled at all."

"And you already consider yourself transcendental?"

"I was since before I acquired my nature as a traveler. We all are in some world. I have traveled to worlds that are destroyed by my presence alone. However, I have also been to other worlds where I have been killed by the most innocent of hugs, where the slightest gravity has torn me to pieces, where the most inaudible noise has made me deaf. It is in the Magnitudes that my existence acquires equilibrium and balance."

"If your life is already in balance, what do you expect from me, what can I tell you that would be of any use to a Traveler like you?"

At this point the Traveler looked distrustfully at the Sage.

"You are the Sage who knows the ultimate truth of existence, I was told. I want to know how long, how far, will this process of travel continue, which has no other purpose than to make the bubble in which I exist bigger and bigger, than to fill me with feelings and knowledge of my infinite alter egos, and to increase my freedom until I become what some call a god."

The Sage laughed. His laughter felt like a sea wind.

"Whoever has told you that it is my gift to know the ultimate truth of everyone's existence has lied to you, or it is perhaps you who have mistaken the universe and are before the wrong Sage."

"They must have interpreted their interview with me as the 'ultimate truth of existence', whatever that means. Many beings come to me, even travelers like you. My aim has never been more than to listen and respond. I am someone to chat with rather than a Sage. Sometimes, when the minds of those who visit me are very weak, I tell them what they want to hear, and they are not always concerned with what you call the "ultimate truth of existence". I modify my talking according to them, but in the end I always end up saying the same thing to each and every one of them."

"Do you want to end our talk so soon? I just told you that I only bring that up at the end. And it's usually at that point that their faces change: they get terrified or excited, they leave mad or enlightened, but in any case they end up walking off those cliffs. I have no idea why they do that or what's on the other side."weak, I tell them what they want to hear, and they are not always concerned with what you call the "ultimate truth of existence". I modify my talking according to them, but in the end I always end up saying the same thing to each and every one of them."

The Traveler became excited.

"What?"

"Do you want to end our talk so soon? I just told you that I only bring that up at the end. And it's usually at that point that their faces change: they get terrified or excited, they leave mad or enlightened, but in any case they end up walking off those cliffs. I have no idea why they do that or what's on the other side."

"A companion of mine, who also fell after talking to you, told me that at the end of the cliff he simply returned to his original reality, and continued traveling as if nothing had happened."

"This companion of yours, did he not tell you what I say at the end of my talks?"

"No one ever talks about the details of what is said here; they have refused all my requests. I thought it was because it was something different and unrepeatable for each one, so it would be useless to explain others what has made them jump into the void."

"Is there any reason why you’re hurried to know how long your status as a Traveler will last? Are you already tired of visiting the infinite realities, of being sometimes free and sometimes a slave, and of continuing to expand your experiences?"

The Traveler hesitated a bit whether to answer that question directly or whether he should make his answer clear by means of some metaphor or story that would clarify his concern, but seeing that the torches were restricting his time, he simply answered:

"Yes, I've had enough."

The sage's metallic tone became more relaxed; the remnants of his former human voice grew louder. That change shook the Traveler a little.

"When I was an elder on my first world, I was tired, too. I remember those times when I knew only one reality, when I believed that the facts of the world were special, unique and without comparison. I tried to end my life because I had lived enough. But I did not die. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to end my life. That way I lived for hundreds of years. The beings of my world were amazed at my apparent immortality. They called me the greatest miracle of all time. They studied me and subjected me to rigorous study, they tried to kill me and I never died. There was always something that prevented my death to succeed. Much later I learned that I was dying, but my mind, without realizing it, was traveling to the worlds in which I was still alive. I finally got tired of that state too (which at the time I considered unique to me), and soon after a Traveler like you appeared before me. Your face is very similar, perhaps it was indeed you who took me out of that life and turned me into a Traveler."

"I have done nothing like that."

"In any case, I was a Traveler for hundreds of eternities, just like you. I acquired freedom and knowledge and lived as an undefined being. Until finally one day I got tired again, like you, of being the freest and the most enslaved in existence, and traveling with no particular goal."

"What did you do?"

"I chose to go back to living an ordinary life, being born in a world different from my original world, hoping that, if I started over again and erased the memories of my nature, my existence would become interesting again. So I was reincarnated in a new world, not knowing that I was actually a Traveler who got bored with traveling and decided to forget everything and start all over again. Do you know what happened next? The same cycle continued almost exactly the same as the first time: my mind remained alive until the arrival of another traveler, and I returned to travel through the universes for several eternities. I had not the slightest recollection of having already been a traveler, for in my state of great power I was able to suppress all such memories. Eventually I got tired one more time and again decided to start over, then went back to being a traveler and got tired again. How many times do you think I went through this same cycle?"

"Tell me."

"It's the closest number to infinity you can think of. So many times I have lived, so many times I have traveled, and each time I was a different being. I have been entities of all formats, beings of all types, of all sizes, of all complexions and shapes. I did it so many times that it became inevitable to realize that there was something strange about me while I was living all those lives: I had strange memories, strange imaginations, I knew things I had never lived and in my mind fictions were formed from them. They emerged as creative ideas that at first I attributed to a great imaginative genius, I wrote many books and plays, and everyone also thought it was only due to my mastery in the art of fiction. But they were only memories and visions that my mind had acquired from other parallel universes in which I had already lived. I went through that cycle so many times that my nature became harder and harder to hide. There came a point where my nature manifested itself in all my lives and I was called divine or supernatural, I was offered cults and offerings, I was proclaimed the closest man to the gods. When I left those worlds I was no longer a common traveler. I decided to become what I am now: a useless shadow almost without restraint, at least in the worlds of lower magnitude than me. No matter how much I tell myself that I will never again repeat that cycle that led me to what I am now, I inevitably will, and perhaps I will keep my memories, or perhaps not. But tell me, Traveler, if this cycle continues indefinitely, what will be the logical consequence? What is the result of being able to live infinite lives for all eternity, in all the vastness of the infinite parallel universes?"

The Traveler felt an incredible emotion in his head, an extraordinary force ruled his spirit and left him on the verge of euphoria, but at the same time he felt an awe that the trembling of his arms betrayed. He said nothing. The Sage continued:

"I am everyone, Traveler, in all existing spaces and times, according to where and how I choose to live in them. Infinitely I will choose to reincarnate in all versions of what I have already been, and what I have never been."

"Then you are also me."

"We beings are all one being, a single Traveler who travels endlessly forever and ever, and will never stop because beings have no end. Perhaps you yourself have already been me, you have probably lived many more cycles than me and you still don't realize it. All this can also apply to every being that exists, including those who end up jumping off the cliffs."

The torches had dimmed so much that the figure of the Sage was barely distinguishable from the darkness of the cave.

"Is that all?"

"That's the last thing I tell everyone who visits me. I remember having been many of them and so we have spoken intimately. I have found others also interesting. They have made me eager to repeat the cycle one more time to be them. You may not remember being me. You may not remember who you are now when you are me. But if I ever get to be you, I hope I can remember you."

The Traveler sat for a while in that total darkness. He no longer felt any presence on the other side of the stone table. He left the cave and walked far away from there, retracing his steps with his spirit agitated and his mind divided in infinite decisions. His path forked endlessly and he went in all those directions. One of them stopped at the edge of one of the black abysses and contemplated the void between them and the sky.