by K. E. Young
He gave the order and they all, warrior and mage, bent themselves to their endeavor. This valbore would see its end.
Sara: 38th of Hunting, 3837
I watched the signals run around the circle. I waited until both Ren and Dragos were ready then turned my attention back to the Val'Ar Arboren.
It was wavering, leaning towards the rage, anger, and memories of pain it had always known. I reached out with the same compassion I had felt before. It hadn't asked to be born, much less in the way it had.
I could hear its keening in my head. It had always known pain and it didn't understand now that pain wasn't there. Everything it had ever known was lost. I felt sorry for it. The poor mad thing had been born into pain and fragmentation then lived its whole life trying to find peace and unity. Now it had achieved its goal and didn't even recognize the fact.
I sent it reassurance and bent to my Task. I looked deep inside it and began unraveling the structure, trusting in Ren and the shields to redirect the energy released into the land where it belonged.
Therysal: 38th of Hunting, 3837
Hundreds of miles away, in Therysal, the people were moving back into the city. Despite the good news, the air was tense and quiet. Everyone knew it wasn't over yet. Over the horizon, the real battle was being fought. The crowds were silent as they watched the lights in the sky to the north-east, bright even in daylight, casting their own shadows through the town.
Ambassador Torgon – Arboren Flagship: 38th of Hunting, 3837
Torgon had been below decks when it began, the uproar calling him out of his meditation. It might have allowed him to contact his agents in Therys via magic. He needed to find out what had gone wrong so he could deflect the repercussions. Torgon had no desire to pay for this failure.
He came out to an eye-searing brightness to the West. A brightness accompanied by lightning coming from the land itself. Lightning that reached out to caress the waves. The air crackled with the intensity of the power.
Commander Galock's face twisted in fury. "Torgon, explain this!"
Torgon stared at the spectacle in confusion, his usual irritation at Galock's abrasiveness overridden by what he saw. Where did such power come from? Torgon tore his eyes from the strange brightness to answer. "I wish I could Commander, but I don't understand what is happening or even how it's possible."
The Commander held his glare for another moment before he replied. "Then what use are you." His hand brushed his belt before burying his knife in the Ambassador's throat.
Commander Galock – Arboren Flagship: 38th of Hunting, 3837
He glared in rage at the light in the west. Torgon's blood seeping unheeded into the leather of his boots. They were doing something. The dragonman had said 'we do not need the aid of the Arboren to defeat this valbore.' How had they known to call us Arboren? What changed?
Galock had the uneasy feeling the dragonmen had joined the war in earnest. Galock spared a few moments concern for The Master. His orders had been to pick him up in Therysal, orders the damned dragonmen had made impossible to fulfill. He spared a glance above at the dragons still following them and howled in impotent rage.
Sara: 38th of Hunting, 3837
The Val'Ar Arboren began to panic as it felt itself come undone and in that moment, I felt love for it. I had made it what it was and now I would give it the peace it so craved. As it dissolved into the fabric of the land, I felt its gratitude.
When I felt the last power of its being flood into the land around me, I closed my eyes and wept for the loss of the one being I had met who had experienced greater torment than I. In a way, the valbore was my child and my sibling and it deserved grief at its passing.
Sara: Between Moments
"So you will make me give you happiness?"
The voice wasn't loud, but it cut through me like a shard of glass. It was a voice of bells, velvet, metal, and ocean. Like Urash's manipulation of the memory of the girl's screams, it bore no resemblance to anything I had ever considered a 'voice', yet it definitely spoke. I looked up to see I wasn't in the Waste anymore. I wiped the tears from my eyes as I peered around me at the swirling veils of darkness and light that whipped around us. Before me was the figure of a woman. Or was it? I couldn't seem to focus on her. She morphed and bled from one face and form to another, as if she were a kaleidoscope. She was hard to look at and I couldn't help but wonder if my mind was even seeing what was really there.
"No. Not really. You are a creature limited in perception. That's not a bad thing. Your perception is rooted in your existence, the world you live in, a world of four dimensions. Your people see them as three dimensions of space and one of time, but it's not so simple. Time and space are the same, but it makes it easier for your people to understand. Since you live in four dimensions, that is all you're designed to perceive. Your minds are less constrained, but your perceptions are narrow. Anything outside those four dimensions is invisible to you. So, you see a small part of me but you can't see what's really there. It's the cross section a three-dimensional being displays when interacting with a two-dimensional world. Like in that book you read in high school, 'Flatland'. Do you understand?"
My mind was numb. This had to be the Goddess. She wasn't what I had imagined. "Maybe. Sort of. Where am I? Where's Kaio?" I couldn't see him, all I could see was the swirling surrounding us.
"Between. Kaio is still where he was when you last saw him."
"Between? Between what?"
"Between. It's not a place the way you think of such things. It's more like a fractal, the dimension between dimensions. More than three dimensions, but less than four. It's the space between moments in time, the space between quarks, the space between universes. Between is not here or there, then or now. It's — between. The Aria Atlani call it ahaynu. I need you to understand something here. I cannot answer your question properly. Language is as limiting as perception.
"Words are labels for concepts. If you don't have the words, it can be difficult or even impossible to convey those concepts. I can give you a rough approximation, but I can't be specific and still make you understand. It is as difficult as explaining quantum theory to a Neanderthal. He can understand only so much with the words and experience he has. The best explanation is likely to be 'magic' even if it's wrong. I brought you here so we could talk, and 'between' is the best way to do that. This is the one place both of us can exist and interact. Although 'both of us' isn't the proper phrase either."
I was in the Twilight Zone. This conversation was confusing. "Why am I here?"
She laughed. "You said you would make me give you and Kaio happiness. It doesn't work that way and it occurred to me you needed an explanation. It will make the next Task easier.
"The religions of your world have messed it up so it's not surprising. Kaio's world does better, but they don't truly get it right either. I'm powerful, but not in the way you seem to think. Gods don't work that way. I can't give you happiness. I can only give you the choice. You have free will. You have to choose to take it.
"There have been those in the past I have shifted from one line of probability to another, one place to another because their presence was necessary. Some chose happiness, but others didn't. If the Task is difficult, then the struggle, the weight of it, can blind you to possibilities. Humans have a tendency towards holding onto their miseries. Most species do to one degree or another. The experience ends, and rather than moving on and embracing what follows with open eyes, they drag that experience along with them. It filters and twists the possibilities they see. The happiness they could have chosen is drowned out by the misery they refuse to let go.
She gave me a maternal smile. "I can't give you happiness because you have already chosen to take it. You did that before you even faced the valbore."
"So why did you choose me to kill the valbore? Why couldn't you have kept the Arboren from creating it in the first place?"
She shook her head in amusement and held up two fingers. "Two reasons. First, t
he Arboren have free will just as you do. Second, the Arboren are not my children. I cannot influence them in any way except by using those who are mine. I cannot foresee what they will do so I cannot stop them. As for 'why you', you were the best person for the job. Everything in your life prepared you, good and bad. Your programming talents allowed you to look at magic in a way the Drakkeni have forgotten. In fact, you have resurrected the Mage-King's type of magic single-handed. A magic you and the others will need in a few years."
"You survived loss, abandonment, and abuse. Which prepared you for Carlos. Carlos prepared you for Dagresh and Fanul. And underneath it all lies the love you learned from your father, love reawakened by Kaio. That love allowed you to feel pity for the valbore. If you could not feel compassion and pity for the valbore you would never have been able to control it and the valbore would have remained a threat."
I felt flickers of rage. "So you put me through hell so you could destroy a monster?"
She looked at me sadly. "No. I don't interfere in the lives of individuals much. It's that whole free will thing. I can't give you free will and withhold it from Carlos and others like him. They are mine just as much as you are. I'm more interested in the fate of the entire species. After all, you don't concern yourself with the fate of a single bacterium in your gut. You're concerned with the existence and overall balance of the entire population. It is a part of you, yet it has a fate separate from your own. You can wish it well and do things to encourage the health of the whole, but you usually cannot affect the fate of a single bacterium without repercussions that are completely out of proportion to the action."
The question burned in my heart like a sun. "My foot, my fingers, my eye, my scars… how?"
She smiled in understanding. "I manage probabilities. In one probability, you met Carlos and he tortured you. In another, you never even met Carlos before committing suicide. It was simple enough to bring the body of the girl who committed suicide — and the mind of the girl who was tortured."
"We are yours — your children. What does that mean? Why are we of concern to you?"
"There are multiple reasons. Even gods can die. Nothing is immortal. You of all people should know that. Everything that has a beginning, has an end. Someday. You are a part of me. Without you, I would fade and eventually cease to exist.
"You are the part of me that exists in those four dimensions you perceive. You are that cross-section of a higher dimensional creature seen in the four dimensions you perceive. Every living thing is. You are a small part of the whole, but necessary. If you strip an atom of its electrons, it becomes unstable and dissolves. The electrons make up such a small portion of the atom yet they bring stability. Persistence.
"However, you are also my children. I do my best to make sure that some version of you, some probability of you survives and becomes more. Through you, I can gain the same immortality that you get from your children. Someday.
"You see, just as gods die, they are born. A god cannot mate with another and produce children though. It's more like mitosis. Some portion of my children, perhaps a single individual, rising above, changing what they are, and becoming more.
"You come closest this generation, but you are still far from where you would need to be to become a goddess in your own right. This time spent between nudges you in the right direction though. You're getting a peek at the larger world and you will pass it on to others."
"I'm confused. How can we be a part of you? The cross-section, as you say. We evolved this way."
"Yes, you did. It took a long time to do it too. We come into being and a universe is born. It takes billions of years for stars to coalesce and worlds to accrete. Billions more pass before the burgeoning of life. Without life, there is no future beyond our death. In time, the universe grows old and cold and energy ceases to flow. Thus, a god dies. While there is life, however, every choice made by every being spawns new probabilities. Higher order probabilities than the simple 'Will this atom decay right now or not.' Chaos. Choices spawning more choices. Choice and probability are where the gods live, Sara. When you meet her, ask Kendra to explain her Hamsat strategy."
"Wait. What? Who's Kendra?"
She gave me a wolfish grin. "You'll see when the time comes."
I gave myself a shake. I would have to process the information later. "That makes no sense. How can we be the electrons that bring stability when your universe can trundle along without life?"
"I recall mentioning that language is limiting. The words are imprecise. We can exist, but we don't truly live. Without life, we are dull things. Hopeless, limited, and worthless. Life brings variety based on more than simple physics. That evanescent More. I also recall telling you it gives us the chance at immortality."
My mind whirled and I wondered if any of this would ever make sense. "I don't think I understand that part, but as you say… language." I thought about what she had said. "So this isn't merely another world, it's another universe?"
A pleased smile tugged the corners of her changing mouth. "Yes."
"If you have a universe of your own, why aren't we there instead of here?"
She tipped her head and sighed, looking sad. "Creation is a funny thing. Not all gods are equal and so not all universes are equal. Chance plays its part in our creation as it does in yours. I was lucky — for a while. There was another. His universe never came together right. What your people call the Plank's Constant isn't always so constant. Even within a single universe, it can vary. So, some areas of that universe can give rise to life while other areas can't.
"Within his universe, it never settled into a range that would allow the kinds of physical and chemical interactions that let life happen. Even worse, his universe was unstable and fading much more rapidly than it should. In his fear and instability, he thought to merge with another, to steal part of another's universe so he could continue to exist. Instead, he destroyed both."
Tears traced paths down her face. "I could save some of my children, but not all of them. Many were lost before I could act. Even in an emergency, certain things take time and they had less than a lifetime to prepare. Those who hadn't advanced enough, those too close to the conflict, those who refused to listen, those too disorganized, were all lost. So very few of my children were both capable and willing to save themselves. Now, they're scattered across worlds in thirteen universes. Thirteen brothers and sisters willing to take the risk of helping me. Through my children, I continue to live even as my universe dies. They are all I have now, they are my body."
"You manage probabilities. Is there some probability where he didn't destroy your universe?"
Her head shook sadly. "I wish that were so. The problem with the fates of universes is that, in the end, all probabilities are entangled. Your book on quantum physics can explain that bit that to you. Universes are large enough, weighty enough, that time and even probability itself bends around them. It's like a line of dominoes. Tip one and it upsets another, then the next, and so on. Each upset adding to the gravity pulling on the whole. Entropy demands its toll.
"It took time to arrange for safe havens. It took time to build the gates. By the time I could send what remained of my children to safety, it was almost too late.
"Two thousand years ago, someone here foolishly opened a gate to the remains of Atlan in a quest for power. Had that gate remained in place, the fate of my universe would have entangled this universe as well. It's why so few of my brothers and sisters were willing to help.
"In order for my brothers and sisters to take my children, I severed that part of me that exists in my children from the rest of my existence in my dying universe. I am only a shadow of what I was. A sliver separated from the whole so the fate of that whole does not entangle the others."
She looked down thoughtfully for a moment. "This world is not mine and my children are here on sufferance. So far, they have been good for this world and its native people so my brother is happy enough to let the Aria Atlani stay. The Ansoren had ye
t to rise above the level of hunter-gatherers when my children arrived. The Arboren were the most promising of my brother's children here, but something went wrong. They lost their capacity for empathy.
"The Arboren's acts were supremely selfish. They are a cancer affecting even their own kind, their own god. A god they deny and wish to supplant. My brother had given up on them before my children came here. He cannot see any future with them in it that would benefit him or his other children. They no longer have what it takes to become more. Yet, as with any cancer, they have a way of coming back."
Her frown showed deep sorrow. "I feel for him. It is never easy to give up on a promising child. You invest so much time and effort into giving them the chance to become more and it hurts to see them fail. It's hard to give up and turn your efforts towards cleaning up the mess."
The Goddess leaned forward and spoke with an emphasis that rang in my bones. "We hope this time, my children can be more thorough."
The Goddess had answered so many of my questions. I understood why she interfered in our lives, why she couldn't predict the Arboren's moves. She was right, she was powerful, but not in the way we usually think of a god or goddess being powerful. She interfered because we were all she had left, one part mother, one part war casualty frantically holding in his intestines.
Choice. Hope. Fate. Love. Free will. She wasn't someone to worship, but she was someone to respect and even revere. I could live with that.
She smiled. "Now you understand. For what it's worth, you did very well. I'm proud of you."
My vision turned white and I dropped back into reality.
Kaio: 38th of Hunting, 3837
Kaio regained consciousness. There was still a wrongness in the bond, but it didn't have the immediacy it had before. He could feel himself coming back to himself as his dragon's panic subsided. He opened his eyes and looked out over the ring of mages and warriors.