by Garon Whited
“I do not fully understand,” he admitted.
“Look, I blow up the Great Arch of Tamaril to do what the Orb did and go back to the day the Arch was made. Once there, I undo the work of the Orb and put everything back on track. Not because I want to, but because it needs doing. If I don’t catch it quickly, it may turn into a battle across timelines for several thousand years—and I despise the idea of that thing being my active nemesis for another hour, much less across a thousand worlds and generations! If I fail to stop it at the Zirafel gate, I don’t know anyone else who can do slug it out with the bastard sphere for eternity. But, even if I do succeed in catching it as it bounces through the Zirafel gate, it’s already forced me into this because it already did its dirty work and I’m stuck cleaning it up!
“With this as a foundation for why I’m a hundred thousand years in the past, I’m going to find I’m responsible for everything leading up to me coming here in the first place—a first-order predestination paradox, which means I’m going to find everything I’m about to do, every single thing, is the only reasonable course of action. My course will be predestined, fixed—I’ll be a slave to paradox, and, because the Orb started this chain of events, a slave to it!”
“But… if it is reasonable, should you not do it, whatever it is?” he asked, puzzled.
“Sometimes I like being unreasonable!”
“Clearly,” he agreed, mildly.
I got a grip on myself. I didn’t need to take such a tone with Seldar. He didn’t deserve it and I shouldn’t berate him simply because I’m upset. I was being—ha, ha, ha—unreasonable.
“I apologize. I’m a bit on edge.”
“Understood, O Lord of Anxiety.”
“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”
“I said nothing of whose anxiety,” he pointed out. “Yet, I am still uncertain why you are so distressed at having an assurance of your eventual success. You will carry on through the years to fulfill this destiny. Does this not comfort you?”
“No. Partly because I’m a stiff-necked, rebellious jerk who doesn’t like being coerced into anything, but also partly because I’m not certain I’m certain to succeed. There are multiple timelines and I’m not sure how all this works. Since I don’t know I’ll succeed and I suspect I’m on an irrevocable destiny track, I have the worst of both worlds to worry about and resent.”
“I see. So, why go through the Great Arch of Tamaril at all? Why not continue as you are and lead us to a new world?”
“Oh, there are lots of reasons for that. I don’t want the Orb out there doing whatever evil orbs do for thousands of years, for one. That’s enough, right there. I also don’t want to step out of this world and discover I stop existing—a possibility I haven’t tested, but is entirely too likely for my taste. Plus, if I can make the whole looped journey from the building of the Arch of Tamaril to the near-present day, I might be able to fix a mistake I made.”
“What mistake?”
“I want to tell myself to not nuke two and a half kingdoms. I think I woke up the dragons and the Heru, which started the end of the world. I’m not certain, but it seems a good idea to try something else besides stomping across their bedroom floor.”
“What other choice do you have but to destroy your enemies?” He frowned. “Will you have? What other choice could there be?” he finished.
“If I have a thousand years, do you think I can figure out a way to undo what the Boo—I mean, what the Lord of Light did to his followers?”
Seldar’s face lit up with a hopeful expression. It was all the brighter for the contrast. I didn’t have hope, only an intention. I doubted the universe—any universe—would cooperate.
I didn’t mention my other intention: To kill the Lord of Light. With a thousand-year head start on research and development, I might even find a way. I don’t presently know enough about energy-state being anatomy and physiology, but I might find out more on the way back.
“Your intent is to save them?” Seldar asked. “All of them? And us?”
“First off, I have no intention of saving the world. It’s too much. I’ll fold under that kind of pressure,” I admitted. “I’m planning to save you. And Kammen. And Torvil, Tianna, Tymara, and Lissette. I have some people to save, and I’m not even sure I can do that. I know I have to try. But saving the world? No. If I can save the people I care about, the world may get to come along for the ride. That’s how I have to think of it. Otherwise, it’s too big to face.”
“Can you do this?” Seldar asked, softly.
“Always with the tough questions,” I complained. “I don’t know if events can be changed in the history of Rethven. Obviously, the tracks of history can be manipulated in other worlds, but I’m still here in this one. I don’t know if this one is more stable or if it simply isn’t affected because it has no connection to the others.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “There are multiple theories of time travel and paradoxes and I’m not sure any of them account for the observations. I’m dealing with at least two different ones, I think, but I’m not precisely sure which theories are valid where or how.”
“My lord, forgive me for sounding as though I doubt you, but do people truly spend their time considering the hows and wherefores of traveling to another when?”
“Yes. For some, it’s an obsession. For others, it’s fun.”
“Fun.”
“The Demon King had worse hobbies,” I pointed out.
“Excellent point, Perspicacious One. Would it be of use for me to know these thoughts on time and paradox?”
“I doubt it, but it couldn’t hurt,” I admitted. “There are three major schools of thought: Mutable, Immutable, and Multiple.
“First, Mutable. You go back in time, make a change, and it affects you, the traveler. Maybe you cease to exist, maybe not, but everything following your change may be altered. You can make changes, even if it means you cease to exist. This can lead to a paradox, but at least you get to choose.
“Second, Immutable. You go back in time, make a change, and it turns out you had to make the change in order to bring about the future where you could go back and make the change. No matter what you do, it all comes out the same in the end. No paradox is possible because it all hangs together perfectly. It’s a locked-in, no-free-will type of system.
“Third, Multiple. You go back in time, make a change, and cause a new timeline—a new universe—to branch off from that point, altering from the original universe in its own fashion, independent of what happened in the so-called ‘original’ universe. If you can travel forward in time, you wind up in the future of the new timeline—you can never go home again. At least, not with time travel. You would have to move sideways, from one alternate reality to another.”
“I do not fully understand,” he admitted, “but I am trying. Which case does our present difficulty seem to follow?”
“That’s the trouble. I’m pretty sure we have a two-universe problem instead of a single-universe problem. I know, I know—you don’t get it. I’ll try to explain.
“The other worlds—Earth—is a Multiple. It has many timelines, constantly branching into more. Don’t ask me how it works. I didn’t set it up. According to theory, if one goes back in time to change something, it simply causes another branch in the tree, leaving all the original branches intact. It should be impossible to alter the past in such a way as to keep me from existing. If the Orb showed up at my parents’ wedding and shot them, it would simply start a new timeline while the original timeline continued undisturbed.
“Nevertheless, it seems the Orb found a way around the problem. My guess is it’s been angry for years about Tort capturing it, so it’s been planning and scheming to defeat me in some way, and it knew it couldn’t do it in a stand-up fight…” I trailed off.
Did the Orb have something to do with the Church of Light? Did it help the Lord of Light in the campaign against Karvalen? The Lord of Light couldn’t give his followers much guidance, b
ut would he need to with a demonic Orb of My Own Personal Evil acting as an advisor? The Lord of Light might designate it their Orb of Divine Wisdom, or something! And it would know—or be able to figure out—a way to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers. It wouldn’t have a problem manufacturing crazed pleasure-junkie worshippers. It would know how to hurt me by knowing who I care about. It would know many of the defenses of the Palace in Carrillon, for targeting the Queen and Liam.
It would even have the time and knowledge to build a theory on how to use a gate for time travel. When the nuclear footprints started marching eastward, destroying city after city, heading for the headquarters Temple in Kolammia, it would be a perfect time to cut losses and try plan B—eliminating me before I ever was.
Was it as upset as I was at the implications? Did it like being a plaything of Fate any better than I did? I doubt it. But, if it really was engineering my discomfort, it might not care. If it hates me enough to risk this sort of foolhardy, unpredictable scheme, it might not give a damn about anything else. Which would, in fact, fit in well with the self-centered, nasty nature of the beast.
“My lord?” Seldar asked, looking behind me. No doubt my shadow was as upset as I was. I didn’t turn to look.
“Sorry. Thinking about something else. My point is, even by going back and stopping me, it shouldn’t have been able to. By eliminating me, it should have merely caused a new world to form, one where I didn’t come to Rethven. Anything it did on Earth—everything it did on Earth—should have done nothing more than bud a new branch.”
“Yet, you refer to Rethven as something outside these… branches?”
“It’s an isolated point,” I agreed. “It doesn’t appear to follow the same rules of time.”
“Could he not have tried to kill you on many occasions, finally surrendering to the futility of his attempts, and come here, to Rethven, to intercept you when you first emerged from the Gate of Shadows? This would not cause a branching, because Rethven does not branch. Or do I misunderstand?”
Stunned, I stared at him for longer than was polite. Of course, I didn’t come through the Gate of Shadows—also known as the Great Arch of Zirafel—but through a portal in the Hand compound in Telen. The Orb would know that, though, even if no one else did. Still, in principle, it might work. It would account for two sets of paradoxical continuity rules and… yes, it might work! It would mean Rethven was immutable in some ways. The world as we knew it was still here, at least for the moment. Killing me didn’t change everything.
Or did it? Could the Orb’s interference have caused the chaos storm? Is the world disintegrating because of the whiplash of temporal paradox instead of nuclear Armageddon? Maybe this is the way the Rethven universe deals with paradox—it comes apart at the seams. Maybe… maybe I didn’t wake the Heru and start the end of the world!
Maybe. I might still be responsible. For the moment, it might be reasonable to put the guilt aside. I’ll find out for certain later and melt into a puddle of guilt afterward.
“Seldar, have I ever told you you’re smarter than I am?”
“I do not believe so, Master of Humility.”
“I should have.”
“If you say it, I have no choice but to accept it.”
“Take the damn compliment.”
“Thank you, Oversensitive One.”
“I have to think about this. In the mean… time… please get everyone into the city you can before the end of the world. I have to do everything I can to save you before I go back. If the past can be changed here, maybe I can keep all this from happening in the first place. If this is an Immutable timeline, I can’t change it, which means I have to do everything I can to save people here and now. Besides, I might fail. So, just in case, I have to build a better lifeboat first.”
“Would not any action you take in the past to change things actually be the thing to happen first?”
“Stop. Stop right now. I am not getting sucked into a discussion of grammar and tenses. Go. I’m going to be busy.”
“As you command, my lord.”
Rethven, End of the World
It’s hard to nail down the date when there’s no sun and no clocks. I could go by the time display in my Diogephone and convert across time zones, but what would be the point? It’s just a countdown to contact with the chaos.
So, I spent a while in my headspace, drawing up everything I could as a primer on how to run a space station. Water needs to be purified. Food needs to be grown. Air needs a proper balance of nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide. There’s a whole self-contained ecology involved. True, they have magic to help with the heavy lifting—spells can take the place of clunky machinery—but they also need some idea of what the spells do and why. If people start dying for no obvious reason, it would help to know why in order to fix it!
Once I had my notes in order in my headspace, I transferred the text to actual, physical paper. It was easier than I thought. The process only worked, I think, because I had everything organized and orderly beforehand. Words appeared on the paper as though photocopied. There was no way I was taking time to enchant a quill pen and have it scribble everything out.
I handed my micro-ecology primer to Dantos, since he was the ranking civil authority. He accepted it and asked if the Knights of Shadow could help the city guards keep order, since we were expecting a lot of immigrants. I told him it was fine by me and I got back to work.
I spent all of “yesterday” and most of “today” avoiding people and working like a slumlord desperate to pass a building inspection without bribes. New sewer lines had to be plotted out and routed correctly. Regulations about waste had to be established. All the waste from humans and animals had to go through the expanding processing chambers before being used as fertilizer, for example—nothing was to be dumped or drained into the reservoir of the moat! Waste water had to be filtered and purified before being returned to the drinking water system. Every day, tons of material had to be “digested” by the mountain to make it useful elsewhere.
The interior and underground spaces of the mountain have illumination partly based on storing natural light and redistributing it, rationing it. With changes in the sky—no sun!—and extensive farm tunnels, I had to improve the underground lighting by adding more light input. I sent a note down to Haran, Master of the Guild of Wizards, and had him take care of illumination enchantments. I made no mention of the spy. I got a note back about how the Guild was always honored to serve, blah, blah, blah. He may be a fool, but he’s not an idiot.
The Firmament spell also needed an upgrade—or, rather, it needed a secondary function. A dome over the city, just inside the Firmament, could glow and illuminate the whole city. It could even look like a blue sky. It wouldn’t have a sun, but a bright blue sky would be plenty of light.
Damn. I need to make sure the light piped into the farm tunnels is multispectral, not just visible light. Conversion panels under the arching roof? Probably.
I’m the vampire and I’m trying to simulate sunlight. This seems strange to me. Maybe I should be used to my life taking extremely strange turns.
Tianna called up Amber and had her move to the local Temple. That, at least, was simple. They set up a bed of coals and Amber simply appeared in it. Their branch of the family was easy to move. As for the rest of Mochara, people streamed out of the city at their best speed, some in canal boats, some on horseback, some in carts, most walking. Bronze volunteered to go haul canal boats back and forth much more quickly, which would free up horses for more carts. I called Nothar, explained to him, and he promised to see her put to good use. I think the idea is to have her haul all the canal boats down to Mochara, wait until they’re loaded, and haul them all right back.
It’ll be like one of those log rides at an amusement park. I suspect she’ll have time to make more than one trip.
Plains-port, however, didn’t have a whole lot of population to move in the first place. They started south in their canal boats in a fairly
orderly fashion. Children and the elderly, for the most part. Anyone who could make the journey on foot, in a cart, or on horseback was heading south at their best speed.
Off to the east, the cities at the end of that canal were too far for a canal trip. Even a light courier on a fast horse wouldn’t make it into Vios in time. I didn’t see any point in telling them, so I didn’t. I don’t know if anyone else did. The plains tribes were in the same situation. Only a few of them were close enough to make it in. Worse, they didn’t carry around communications mirrors and the like. If we could have called some, the closest might be able to ride hell-for-leather and be inside when the storm hit, but I wasn’t going to send anyone out and risk them not making it back.
Lissette, in Carrillon, had all the machinery of the kingdom to deal with. Kammen supervised much of the move while Torvil took charge of the younger royals. Even with a tent in Carrillon and one in Vios, it was a non-stop effort to relocate people, records, equipment, even furniture! The Crown Jewels came with her, of course, but she also brought most of the armory, the Court Magician, the whole of the council of advisors, most of their families, several nobles, dozens of priests, and company after company of guards.
Much to my dismay, quite a number of uninvited guests also arrived. Magicians from all over the kingdom showed up. Some flew in on cloud-ships, others on carpets, one in a flying chair. Others rode more unusual conveyances. One galloped up in what resembled a Viking longship, shrunk to about quarter-scale, and using wooden legs instead of oars. Several simply appeared next to the outer footings of the bridges and walked in. One self-important schmuck tried to appear inside the city, in a flash of lightning, but the city defenses wouldn’t let it in, so it flickered down to the moat and he appeared there with a flash and thunderclap. He also promptly sank, swore, and dog-paddled to the shore, sputtering the whole way. Bronze saw it and told me about it. It was the high point of my day. Night. It was a high point.