by Aaron D. Key
“I always thought he was going to trick me and put you into a body destined to die young, but here you are, still alive, so there must have been some good in him in the end.”
This explained why my younger self had felt it necessary to save me so many times. Perhaps there had not been any good in Aeth at all and I would have died young without this interference. That is what I suspected, but I decided to keep it to myself.
“Thank you,” I said. It seemed an inadequate response, given my imagination of what those months must have been like. Of course, none of it made sense at all. To my life as it had been on earth, it was complete nonsense.
“So, do you know if there will be anything left worth returning to?” I asked tentatively.
“There will be more there than you would expect from your memories, and we need to talk about this. I have to talk to Rael first, though, and I have to leave it almost to the end just in case Aeth finds a way to upset everything. Rael was upset when I told him about my involvement in Aeth’s plan, but I didn’t know what else I could have done. I don’t want him imagining I have kept anything else from him, that I have told other people. When we have spoken and cleared things up, I will explain everything I can to you.”
This was patently an indication that she did not want to talk anymore and so I left, pondering whether I had brought as much comfort as Maone was expecting. Still, Elena seemed a little bit happier now. Perhaps any company was better than none.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Becoming Who I Should Have Been
It was night again. I had not yet had time for my normal evening swim. Although I had replaced it with a morning dip, I felt the need for it more than ever – to allow the events of the day and even more so the previous seventy years to slot into place. Fortunately there was a moon, not quite full but enough to light my way down to the lakeside. As I followed the natural path now enclosed by silver birches, it struck me how it was a peculiar recreation of the artificial woodland I had walked through with Koa on the other side of the desert. The moon shone on the lake, displaying the water like oil on milk. A welcome chill calmed the pumping of my feverish blood and soothed my overworked brain. I rolled gently in the water for a while like a seal and then began to swim.
I swam for a while and reached the comfortless island. Thanks to Elena, I assumed I had a shelter here in my own time, though it was doubtful what would be left when I returned. And even if it was there, how could I have obtain any pleasure from it knowing that everyone I had known was dead?
I would have been pleased to have got out of the wind, to have wrapped myself in a blanket and slept there all night sheltered from reality by the sound of the lapping water and the dancing fragments of moonlight. Tonight I would have to choose between facing reality or feeling cold and comfortless. It was still a hard choice, so I crouched for a while and then remembered.
* * *
I could see my body again. I envied the man the use of my body even more than I condemned his madness, I saw with shame. I remembered feeling young and strong; taut skin and toned muscles, walking and bending with no effort. Still, this walking puppet was not me. There was an expression in his face that was so alien, so odd that I could hardly believe I used to look anything like it and yet the expression itself looked familiar. It reminded me of the smell of bad coffee and cigarette smoke.
Monta was talking. I could hear his voice though I couldn’t see him. “I’m sorry but I have looked everywhere for Ann. She is nowhere to be found.”
“How can that be?” My own voice sounded petulant and then there was silence.
“I know where she is hiding,” Elena said. She had been sitting in the corner of the room in darkness. “Do you want me to get her for you?”
“Yes, I would like that,” Aeth said tersely.
Elena brushed past us and we turned to follow.
“You can stay here!” Aeth ordered, and so we stood still, waiting. Aeth ignored us completely, seeming more interested in the floor.
Elena returned with a subdued and bedraggled Ann trailing her. I couldn’t understand why Elena was helping Aeth when I thought she was Ann’s friend. I couldn’t imagine Elena enjoying watching her suffer, which I was afraid was about to happen. Was her whole motive just to save me?
Aeth stood close to Ann and his hand mockingly caressed her face and neck, lingered on a breast, and went across her stomach, downwards. On her face was an expression of calm disgust but her hand moved quickly to reclaim his.
“Was there something you wanted me for?” she said with evident distaste.
“You are expecting,” Aeth said in a tone of surprise. “Cailo’s child?”
“What of it?”
“Well now I have a dilemma. I intended to make you suffer, because I can think of nothing better than to make your brother squirm, but I see you are precious to Cailo and Cailo is useful to me. You are the perfect tool to make Cailo do what I want. Then again, I have Monta, who has proved his worth a hundred times. Perhaps I do not need Cailo as well. Then I could really make you suffer. I think, on the whole, that would give me more pleasure.”
“Life isn’t all about pleasure, you know,” Ann said lightly.
Even without physical form the fear in me mimicked the presence of a thudding heartbeat, the sweating brow and restless, twitching muscles.
“It is when you have lived as long as I have without a body to call your own, I can assure you.”
I missed what happened next. There was a sudden violent movement and Ann lay crumpled on the floor. Aeth posed like a statue with one hand held out, looking at the blood seeping from his chest. There was a look of frustrated fury on his face. “I am allowed to defend myself,” he muttered, as if talking to himself. He pulled out the knife, healed the wound and kicked Ann’s body lying before him with real venom.
Then he appeared to calm himself with a great effort and, turning towards us, addressed the floor again.
“Monta, I would like you to kill Cailo for me before he hears about this. He is no longer useful to me.”
Monta nodded and left. Aeth turned towards Elena with the look of a child who had scraped his knees, looking for comfort. I had time to see her take him in her arms with a patient and unreadable expression.
* * *
The sound of my heartbeat thudding deep inside the bones of my chest disturbed the night. I was no longer cold, just feverish and damp with sweat. I swam back slowly, feeling hot fear turn to icy terror, and stumbled out of the lake back up the slope to my room. My feet felt the cold of every stone step in a way I had never felt before. When I reached my room I undressed, dried myself quickly, and lay in the bed like an unwanted, expelled foetus, hugging myself for warmth and comfort until I fell asleep.
It was a night of bad dreams and I was unable to distinguish memory from dream anymore. I was learning to hate the body I had once called my own – as Elena had said. Herron was in ruins and bodies were lying over the grounds like statues. Elena was there, supporting the mad, childlike creature with more than motherly attention, and Monta’s body, which I had inhabited, had become a solid mass of fused muscle and frozen blood. I could no longer breathe while watching through those borrowed eyes, and even the eyes were rheumy and glazed, as if they had cataracts. I wondered, with a gory fascination, how Monta had killed so many – even people like Jack and Cailo. Large, strong men who would have fought back, especially when they realised Monta was Aeth’s servant, intent on destruction.
* * *
Then at the end, I saw Aeth sitting all alone with his head in his hands in the desolate landscape. Nothing had touched the original stones of Herron. They stood as a reminder of the impermanence of humankind, but all around him everything else was in ruin. It was impossible to believe he was sitting in what once had been a garden, my garden. He did not look sad or triumphant, just like a man waiting for a late train.
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* * *
As I looked at Aeth, I felt great pity in my heart for him – and not just because in this patient and isolated state he looked as much like me as he had ever done. No, my pity was because I could see a man who had the power to do anything and who had wasted it all just to spite another man. What limited imagination he had shown: even more perhaps than I had in simply following the example of my predecessors. At least Rael had tried hard to think of the best way he could use the power for the benefit of the most people and I had copied him out of respect. I wonder why Aeth hated Rael so much. Was there any justification for it? Or had he gone mad sharing his body with Elena?
Yes, it was pity I felt. I knew it should have been anger and contempt, for he had taken so much away from me and caused pain, suffering, and finally death to those I loved the most, but I could only feel pity for him and sorrow for myself.
Yesterday, I would have said those that Damon Ich had loved. Now I was talking about those I loved. Did this mean I was whole again? Had I gathered together all the experiences and considered them mine – instead of separating them into those that belonged to him and those that belonged to me? In a way, it was a relief. I began to sob as I thought again of watching Koa, Herai, and my sister die.
The night wore on and gave no quarter.
I finally gave up, drank tea, and tried to do crosswords until the morning sun peered over the edge of my windowsill. Knowing it was too early to turn up for breakfast, I went for a walk down by the lakeside and again ended up at the base of Rael’s Hill. I looked up at it, wishing I was brave enough to go there, but finally turned and headed back again. This time it was a more reasonable time and I headed for Rael’s living quarters. He was making toast as I arrived and Moyan was lying under a blanket on a sofa, whining and complaining in the tone of one not expecting an answer.
“Good morning,” I said.
Rael turned to look at me quizzically. “Is it?”
“Well, in one way,” I said apologetically. “I have come to say that I am ready to do whatever it is you think I should do.”
“I’m glad for you. I think it’s time you get back to your own life. It’s going to feel strange enough, without more complications arising from you being here. I will miss you, though. It’s been nice having you around.” Rael looked quite sad. I knew I would feel the same.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” I said. “It’s been like living in a dream where the real world couldn’t touch me. I needed that for a while but dreams can’t last forever and there’s work to be done. I would really value your advice as to what you think I should do.”
“Well, of course I will restore your power and we will help you deal with Aeth.”
“I am grateful, but I should deal with Aeth. It’s my fault this has happened,” I said firmly, suddenly feeling my age and the responsibility that came with it.
“We will fight as the family we should always have been,” Rael said, ignoring my attempts at bravado, and I was inclined to accept his proffered help.
“Let me restore your power now.”
I felt an unaccustomed tingling in my fingers and realised he had done it already. I felt the power like fresh, clean blood rushing through the veins of a dying man. I felt different: more like the person I had been, less like the person I had become, younger and lighter, as if on the verge of kicking off from the ground and flying.
“You will be like a marathon runner who hasn’t run anywhere for fifty years,” Rael said. “You might know the theory but your muscles will have lost shape. You’ll need to spend time getting your strength back. Time is something we have at our disposal. Take Maone, if she is willing, and go somewhere we will not interact.
“I don’t know what it will be like fighting someone like us.” He sounded thoughtful.
“Will he fight? He looked defeated to me,” I said, thinking of the last vision I’d had of Aeth.
“I don’t think we can trust anything we think we see, or anything he shows us of himself. Still, if you can get back to full strength there will be four of us and only one of him. It should be easy. That is the least I can arrange after causing this whole problem. Everything Aeth has done is because he hated me, I think. I don’t know what I did to cause such hate, but I still know I am responsible. The most difficult task will be the question of what to do to restore order to Herron in your time. Do you know that everyone is dead?”
I only nodded glumly, hope extinguished. Because Rael had said it, the true impact of the words hit me more. I wondered whether there was any point in going back at all, trying to start again.
“I think perhaps Monta may still be alive but even he might be gone by the time we get there. How can he be whole, knowing what he has done? Aeth has been very tricky. He has organised his reign of three months with one view in mind. He has created two or possibly three events that we would regret losing if we decided to go back in time to tackle him before he causes this devastation. The first thing I don’t think you have a choice about: you need this body. Your experiences on earth are part of who you are. He waited until the end of the three months to project you into the life you have just left. If we try to change the past then a large part of what you are now will disappear. You might be able to recreate this yourself. Elena may be able to help.
“The second event is that he was the man who pretended to love Maone and then abandoned her in a cruel and heartless way. Yet without this event, nothing would turn out right. I would be extremely reluctant to recreate an event of this nature, and I imagine you would be too. I’m not sure we should rely upon her giving up everything just because we tell her this is the way it is supposed to be, but this may be our best hope.
“And the third event, well, I am not sure that this exists, but Elena has hinted at it. You would have thought I would have known what it was after so long trying to find out the truth, and yet I confess I don’t. I know Elena did something before she came back to me. She will not tell me what it was. I know it is something she is deeply ashamed of and that’s why she will not tell me. I suspect it’s something that needs to happen or all will fail.”
“I can see it is complicated,” I said. I felt I needed to say something, but I didn’t know what to say. Everyone I knew from Herron was dead. Everyone I knew from earth I had left behind or they had left me.
“Perhaps if you get a chance, you would ask Elena what it is she did?”
“She said she needed to tell you, was going to tell you,” I said and remembered she hinted at hope, but the hint was too vague to be relied on.
“She must have changed her mind.” Rael shrugged like a defeated man. “Hopefully if you do find out, this could be something you could recreate or get her to recreate for you, however unpleasant, if you decide it’s needed for the true flow of our time. I imagine she will tell us in the end.”
“Sometimes it makes my head hurt just thinking about it,” I admitted. “Sometimes I think I would do anything to get back to a position where there will be no need to worry about the past or the future: so that everything can proceed as it should proceed and we can expect it to in a state of ignorance, thinking everything that came to pass was what was supposed to.”
“We have gone through so much to restore this order,” Rael seemed to agree. “I have asked so much of you, of Elena to ensure that my life was saved. I feel guilty sometimes thinking that so many sacrifices shouldn’t have been made for my life, and then I remember that I want to be saved, to preserve everything that went on after me as well, including the lives of my ancestors, you, and all the people we saved. I still worry that I’m being selfish and arrogant in thinking everything I did is of so much meaning.” Rael sighed and shook his head.
“People were not supposed to experience time in this way. Our brains are not designed in such a way that we can easily comprehend what needs to happen, and perhaps that is because we think our part in the grand pl
an is greater than it really is. Perhaps everything that we strive for is nothing, and yet we need to strive, if only for our own sanity. I don’t think we can break the grand plan. This is always what comforts me in my uncertainty.”
I liked this idea. It made me less afraid of doing the wrong thing.
“I think I understand,” I said, trying to sound more certain than I felt. Not to deceive Rael, just to reassure him. “I have to decide whether these two events can be recreated so I can go back to a time before everyone died. Perhaps I have to talk to Elena to see what the other event is before I can make the choice. The other option is to live in Herron as a bitter and lonely man and to try to start again with nothing.”
“I see you do understand and I’m sorry. I tried so hard to get us to a less distressing situation but I failed. No effort could achieve it.” Rael sighed again. “Why don’t you go with Maone now and return in a few minutes – but take however long you need to be ready.”
* * *
I knew what I had to do. As Maone ate her breakfast, I gradually tried to interest her in Rael’s suggestion. I needn’t have worried. She immediately looked excited at the prospect. I was not so sure that I was ready to be taught like a child, but I had endured it once so I assumed I could again. Once she had finished eating, we said goodbye to Rael and she took us to her special place, with the eight-sided pond in a white world. There, I impatiently relearned how to use the power.
“I think I’m ready,” I said eventually.