The Sovereign Road

by Aaron Calhoun

  The Chromatocron raised his hand and, with a sweeping motion, banished the image of Vai. A crystal sphere coalesced in its place, its interior filled with shifting scenes from across the Conclave. From past gatherings Gedron knew these to be projections derived from sociometric data, raw numbers transformed into simulations of the broad future movements of society. Though each scene showed a different world, all predicted the same future. The populace, gripped by an exponentially growing fear of the coming night, would begin to abandon basic societal roles until the basic structures of society dissolved and the worlds descended into nihilistic stagnance.”

  “Unlike your simulations, High Gravitist, the predictions of the Nagmochron infochryst were unequivocal,” transmitted the Chromatocron grimly. “Though all know of our cosmos’ imminent demise, few think of it frequently. And why should they? We have told them repeatedly that it is both unavoidable and several generations away, and thus does not directly affect them as individuals. Yet the death of Vai has changed this. Now the idea insidiously grows among the populace that this may be the terminal generation. You speak of the death of worlds, High Gravitist, yet I ask you whether it is worse to die unexpectedly in the infinite dissolution of the entropy clouds, or to die of despair while yet alive?”

  Gedron was silent. He knew that in the end it would come to this. As he brooded, his halo thinned and darkened, seeming almost to vanish. “What of your considerations, Photocanth,” he transmitted at last. “Do the information flows on the primary communications channels support the Nagmochron’s prognostications?”

  “They do indeed,” replied the Photocanth. “Already there is a shift in the information content of most private transmissions away from the typical discussions of money and pleasure. More and more have taken a fearful and despairing tone. Even now I am receiving data from the Radithesia and Ionocaric infochrysts indicating that this trend is growing, and is projected to climb exponentially. No,” he added after a moment, “the Nagmochron’s predictions do not surprise me in the least.”

  Gedron sensed that the tide was moving swiftly toward a decision, one with which he was not entirely comfortable. Despite his high office Gedron was a scientist at heart, and thought he understood their arguments, even agreed with them on one level, the sheer uncertainty of the outcome stood in the way of his assent. He knew that, in the end, it would fall on him as High Gravitist both to implement the plan and to deal with the results, whatever they might be. He also knew that if the gravitic discharge failed to stably reignite Vai and restore its radiation pressure then even more worlds, and lives, would be lost. Still, he could not help but wonder if the Chromatocron was right. As his thoughts wandered his halo lost definition, expanding into a ring of murky shadow.

  “It appears that you remain unconvinced,” transmitted the Chromatocron.

  “Indeed I am,” replied Gedron, his halo snapping back into sharp definition as he refocused his thoughts. “You present your concerns as if they render the outcome of our deliberations certain, even obvious. But let us make no mistake, in neither case can the outcome be termed optimal. In the end, the substance of our decision devolves to which possible fate is worse, the near-certain degeneration of Conclave society if we do nothing or the near certain entropy storm that a failed ignition attempt will cause. And in all my projections,” he added grimly, “the chances of failure are far higher than the chances of success.”

  At this the room fell silent. Gedron watched as the light of each heirophant’s halo dimmed to a sullen red glow under the weight of his words and a strange mixture of satisfaction and despair filled him: satisfaction that his concern had prevailed, despair that his misgivings would be proved right. Then the Entrope raised his right hand in a gesture of command, and a thin, hissing voice filled Gedron’s mind.

  “You speak of fate and outcome, yet there is no possible outcome, no possible fate, but that which leads inexorably to chaos. You talk as if one or another choice were better, yet in the end all amount to nothing. Behold the reality of all outcomes, the fate of all fates.”

  With that the Entrope clenched his fist, and the chamber reeled. The suns shrank to the size of pebbles, a tiny trio of sparks whirling in the center of the thrones. Around them myriad worlds spun into view, each flying at breakneck speed toward the center of the chamber, and soon the entirety of the Conclave hung before them like some impossibly constructed armillary. Then a violent green glow erupted on all sides as the entropy clouds came into focus, the walls of their cosmic prison.

  The clouds were at once sublime and horrifying: endless sheets of dancing green flame studded with gems of perfect blackness, boiling masses of plasma that churned and writhed in a sickening, almost biological, manner. There was a strange hypnotic quality to their movements, and several times Gedron found himself trying to trace the patterns that lay behind them only to fail as his understanding foundered against their inherent randomness.

  “Do not fear the clouds, my friends,” hissed the Entrope, “but instead gaze upon their glory. Here and nowhere else will all the plans made today end, for you know as well as I that at the final dissolution whatever is decided will be unmasked as meaningless no matter the choice. If all possible futures end in annihilation, how then can the sustenance of the Conclave for another year, another decade, or even another century truly matter? Indeed we must choose a course, but only by understanding the meaninglessness of the choice can it be appropriately made.”

  A palpable silence hung throughout the chamber as each hierophant contemplated the logic of the Entrope. Then the Chromatocron arose, his breastplate gleaming weirdly in the green light, his halo shining with clashing blues and yellows.

  “If the outcome means nothing,” he transmitted, “then this only affirms our need to attempt the reignition, for what else is left for us to value other than action itself, attempted for its own sake.”

  “Indeed,” transmitted the Entrope. “The imposition of our will, our meaning, upon the chaos without until it overtakes us is all that we have.”

  “Then we are agreed?” transmitted the Chromatocron.

  “Agreed,” replied the Photocanth and the Ouranos Radii.

  A few more moments passed before Gedron finally responded.

  “Agreed.”

  At that the Entrope lowered his hand, banishing the vision of the entropy clouds and returning the chamber to its usual position within the orbit of the three suns.

  “What resources will you need to attempt the reignition,” transmitted the Chromatochron.

  “The Worldship Gog,” replied Gedron, “as well as the entire etherreaver fleet. The ships must be positioned at equal intervals around Vai’s equator to generate the initial gravitic impulse. The Neutronium Forges alone can sustain the compression field, but I will need time to reconfigure their primary mass drivers and reorient them into polar orbits.”

  “How long will the reorientation take,” asked the Ouranos Radii.

  “Approximately eight days,” transmitted Gedron after performing a quick calculation. Then he paused for a moment, his halo pulsing with violet sparks as a new concern arose.

  “Even should the reignition succeed,” he transmitted, “the initial discharge is almost certain to provoke a response from the clouds. We should consider evacuating the most rimward worlds as a precaution.”

  “Indeed,” transmitted the Chromatocron, “and what do you propose to give those citizens as a reason? By revealing the margin for failure we will almost certainly incite panic.”

  Gedron thought deeply for a moment, his halo fading to a faint grey band.

  “The entropy clouds have been in turmoil since Vai’s demise,” he finally replied. “This is known by all, as is the ability of the Ramachrond Infochryst to predict the effects of radiation pressure on the clouds. If we were to deliver an immediate forecast from the device predicting a severe entropy storm, the connection to reignition could be sufficiently obscured.”

  The Entrope’s halo quivered wi
th a phosphorescent blue, and a ghostly cackling filled Gedron’s mind. “Foolishness… Vanity… It matters not when a world dies, whether today or tomorrow or the next day. Such a paltry move effects nothing.”

  Gedron’s halo flashed silver as he fought back a flush of anger. This was not the time to loose control.

  “If, as you say, it does not matter,” he transmitted smoothly, “then here is no reason not to do it. Did we not just agree that action is its own justification?”

  At this the Entrope grinned, his mouth an array of bone-white teeth.

  “Indeed,” he transmitted, apparently conceding the point.

  “So be it,” confirmed the Chromatocron, golden light streaming triumphantly from his halo. Then he raised both hands as if giving a benediction and the chamber’s point of view plunged downward into the darkness of interplanetary space, leaving the three suns far behind. A few moments later the spires of Scintillus rose up around them, the infographic surfaces darkened, and the walls of the Omegahedron again enclosed the throne room.

  Gedron watched the other heirophants as the great psychochryst deactivated, their once expressive halos freezing in place and then dissolving into the air like mist in sunlight. One by one each of the Heirophants rose and departed, until only Gedron was left behind. His last thought as he exited the chamber was of a world ripped apart by the entropy clouds, the blood of its inhabitants on his hands.

  Chapter 8: The Geometry of Creation

  Garin stood on a featureless plateau of gently curving crystal. Its glassy surface stretched several hundred yards in each direction before vanishing in a churning sea of azure mist.

  Kyr was nowhere to be seen.

  The strange calm of the scene was unsettling, a sharp contrast to the flaring green tumult he had just fled. He signed and walked toward the edge of the plateau. He had nowhere else to go.

  “Garin,” the voice sounded softly in his mind.

  “Kyr?” he asked. “Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

  “I am above you, at a point just above the Xaocosmic Border. This world is different that the one below, and travel here is more a matter of comprehension than physical motion. The space in which you find yourself is an abstract one, imbued with powerful symmetries.”

  Garin frowned at the thought, his forehead wrinkling in puzzlement.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “If you did,” said Kyr, “you would be at my side. I will wait for you at the border, for there is something there that you must see and understand. Seek the entities that call this plane home, one of whom is closer than you realize. But make haste, young one! We have not yet risen beyond the shadow.”

  A chill swept down Garin’s skin as Kyr’s voice faded from his mind. He thought for a moment about calling out to him again, but something in Kyr’s tone suggested that no further advice would be forthcoming.

  Travel by comprehension? The very idea seemed absurd. How could knowledge and motion be connected, whatever the nature of this place? Garin glanced about, trying in vain to find some sign of a path. But there was nothing, only the hard crystalline ground and the soft blueness beyond. Unsure even where to begin, he sat down in frustration. It was then that he noticed the patterns.

  He first caught a glimpse of them in the sky above, a strange shifting mixture of brilliant red and soft green hues. As Garin looked on, strange symmetries seemed to emerge in the swirling light only to vanish before he could gain a sense of their underlying order. But his attempts wre not entirely fruitless, for at those moments when he seemed closest to grasping the pattern Garin could see a faint outlines of a shimmering bridge coalescing in the air before him, as if the sheer force of his thought was forging a pathway further into this world.

  Travel by comprehension indeed.

  Garin smiled, and set about the task of understanding the symmetries above.

  He applied himself diligently for the better part of an hour, but despite his best efforts Garin could not get beyond those first shining glimpses of a deeper order. Eventually he was forced to admit that the patterns in the skies were simply too complex for him to grasp. Still, he refused to believe that Kyr would just leave him here with no hope of progress. There had to be something he was missing, some simpler pattern that was easier to understand. Somewhere that he could begin.

  Garin walked to the edge of the plateau and stared into the cerulean mists below. Perhaps the patterns he sought were here. Within the mists strange lights glinted and swirled, tiny streaks of blue and violet that crackled like miniature lightning bolts. For long moments he stared at them, trying to see the hidden order. But the mists were even more inscrutable than the skies. In fact, there appeared to be no pattern at all, but rather a blatant randomness that seemed the antithesis of order. Garin sighed in frustration.

  What am I missing?

  Then a strange thought occurred to him.

  Stepping back from the mists, Garin looked down and noticed for the first time that the crystal beneath him was not a plateau, but rather the outer layer of a vast glassy sphere. As he gazed into its depths, he saw that the crystalline bulk beneath him was aglow with a network of sparks that darted and wove about each other in a furtive dance. The sparks seemed to fly faster and faster as he watched, their movements tracing lines of fire that knotted and folded into a complex web of light that seemed almost alive. Suddenly he felt a strange sensation in his head, as if some invisible, incomprehensible force had reached inside and was gently shifting the contents of his brain. The feeling mounted, until finally it resolved into words that resounded in his mind.

  “Who are you, child of my scions?”

  The voice seemed clipped and impatient, as if Garin’s presence on this vast being’s surface (for he realized now that the sphere on which he stood was in some way alive) was both a novelty and an annoyance.

  “My name is Garin,” he said, a note of fear creeping into his tone.

  “Indeed,” boomed the voice in his mind. “Come closer, child of my scions, and we will speak of what brings you to this domain.”

  The surface on which Garin stood abruptly began to sink. Curving walls of glassy crystal rose around him on all sides, encapsulating him in a transparent bubble. There was an abrupt falling sensation as the bubble plunged into the heart of the sphere. Then the walls dissolved and Garin found himself standing before something that he could only describe as a pattern, as pattern itself, come alive.

  It seemed a multidimensional thing, an endless knot woven from strands of blinding golden light that looped and folded in ways that should not be possible, weaving in and out with an erratic, nervous energy. Each strand seemed to crackle with lambent force, sparks leaping along their lengths in brief, sharp arcs. Woven between these brilliant strands were threads of bluish darkness that gleamed dully like the night sky at dusk. Within its heart danced two spheres, one a large mass of pulsing golden brilliance, the other a small, orbiting satellite of deep blue. The spheres moved in an endless counterpoint, their motions driving the endless folding and unfolding of the outer strands, which in turn drove the movement of the entire figure as it spun about a hidden axis. Garin watched the shape make a complete revolution and was astonished to see that new features continued to be revealed. Only when two full revolutions were complete did the shape return to its original configuration. It was perhaps the most beautiful thing that he had seen.

  “Well, Child of my Scions. Speak! For what reason do you tread the domain of the symmetries?”

  The words resounded in Garin’s head as if the shape had somehow formed them out of the matter of his brain.

  Symmetry? Kyr also spoken of symmetries…

  Garin framed his reply carefully, knowing that a careless thought by this entity could erase his mind completely.

  “I came fleeing my world, the world beneath this one,” he began.

  “Yes, Yes, I know all of this,” snapped the voice impatiently, interrupting Garin in midsentence. “Do you not know
that I can feel the very fabric of the matter composing your body, Child of my Scions, creature of Phaneros? Or are you perhaps unaware of what you are made of?”

  As the entity spoke, a strange half-formed thought flickered through his mind. A sense that he knew what this being was. Garin paused for a moment, trying to bring the idea into focus, but in the end it proved too elusive to put into words.

  “I know, Great One, that I am a creature of matter,” he replied uncertainly.

  “Then you evidently know nothing, for even the simplest resonance of this domain can tell the difference between what they are and what they are made of,” snapped the voice. Then, before Garin could respond the voice added, “Do you even know whom you are addressing?”

  “No,” said Garin, though the half-formed thought continued to teasingly dance through his brain.

  “You begin to show understanding,” said the voice. “Know this, I am among the first to emerge from the blazing world-light of the origin-point. It is my scions that dance the cloud-dance about the innumerable hearts of the elements, bound by the symmetry of the two and one yet free to careen through Phaneros, the world beneath. Know that I, as the father and homeland of my scions, have been called by many names throughout the worlds beneath, but here, in my primal domain, I am known as the Perichorr, he whose dance defines the physical nature of material things.”

  Suddenly the strange half-thought crystallized in Garin’s mind like ice on the surface of a freezing lake, an insignt at once simple and impossible. His eyes widened in astonishment.

  Could it be?

  “Great One,” he began, not wishing to offend this creature further. “In my world below, the world you have called Phaneros, we have for millennia understood that the elements are composed of atoms, and that those atoms, in turn, are composed of both nuclei and the electron clouds that encircle them. Am I to understand...” here he paused for a moment, “are you an electron?”

  “Correction,” boomed the Perichorr, “The Electron, the repository of the central being of each particle that bears my name, the fixed point around which the symmetry of their fields, and of all the fields that intersect, reflects. Now that you know of me, I ask again, Child of my Scions, why are you here? Or do you not know the strain that your material presence causes here, it is as if I were bent in half when I see you, so distorted are the symmetries.”