Absolutes & Other Stories

by Robert Stanek

  My hands trembling just as violently as Martin Schwenne’s hands had been trembling hours earlier, I unclasped my briefcase. I emptied its contents, including the imagcam, into the nearest refuse receptacle. No immediate second thoughts, I strode off.

  Then I got to thinking. I never should have accepted payment from Galactic Project IV on such an issue yet could I let forty million credits slip away? The answer was right there before me. No, I couldn’t.

  I hurried back to the receptacle.

  I reached my hand into the trash and groped around. But it wasn’t there. I screamed, “Dear God, it’s gone, it’s gone,” then proceeded to tear the receptacle off the wall. Trash sprayed into the corridor. On hands and knees, I groped my way through it. But there was no imagcam. And forty million credits slipped away in an instant because I was going soft. Soft, could you imagine? Me, soft.

  I searched through that trash until EOS-7 Security carried me away. I never found the imagcam. I never received the final installment.

  “Mr. Steelbridge, you’ve told that story the same way every time, except this last time. What did you change this last time? What is it that you no longer wish to tell us?” The man sucked in a breath ominously. “What if I told you we recovered something of yours from the EOS-7 disposers, what then? I’ll ask one last time, what happened to the imagcam?”

  I offered an ugly smile. “I gave it to Margaret.”

  “And Dr. Schwenne?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean by that? And I’ll thank you to wipe that smile off your face.” The man waited for my expression to change, but it didn’t. Then he repeated, “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, no. No is what I mean.”

  The man’s spidery arm reached out for my shirt and wrenched me across the table.

  I maintained my grin. They would kill me, but I had already won. Margaret was safe by now and Martin’s dangerous thoughts were lost in corners of my mind that could never be freed. Then I said the words I had been waiting to say. “The future of space colonization is hardly dead, my dear man. It is dawning…”

  The man bunched his eyebrows together.

  “And you see, nothing you do to me matters. I’ve paid my debt. And even if you did recover the imagcam, I erased the parts worth your while and destroyed every digital record of Martin’s ideas that ever existed outside of his mind.”

  I pried the man’s hand from my shirt and shuttled across the table to my seat. The man followed, a syringe in his hand.

  Momentarily, I paraded my dignity while I waited for the end. Then I said proudly the last words I’d ever speak. “You see, Martin really did perfect cryoterraform and the cryodrive… It is only a matter of time now.”

  As the world faded to black, I heard Martin say in the back of my mind, “Instead of looking to go faster, we should have been looking to go slower, the final absolute, where matter is at once infinitely still and infinitely fast. The final absolute where matter becomes something new — something that will change space and become at once, the key and the coffer.”

  Bonus Excerpt From:

  In the Service of Dragons

  Amir, son of Ky’el, cast the orb at his feet and stepped into a spinning circle of light. “They’ve arrived in the high desert; the field is set. The others will come now. I only pray that all will not be lost.”

  “You lose faith,” the other replied without looking up. “You must be patient. In the end, the paths will come together. It is so written.”

  “Can nothing change the course we have set upon?”

  “You could no sooner catch the moon or the wind. Once set in motion, it will not stop. For now we must wait and watch. Our time will come soon enough.”

  “Would you have me follow them?”

  “Go to the clansman, Ashwar Tae. Tell him it is time.”

  Amir stepped back into the spinning circle of light, disappearing and reappearing on the windswept slopes of the Rift. He appeared alongside a man on horseback and asked, “Big enough for you?” The man had the disciplined look of a soldier. He had a wide mouth, a long, sharp nose and a head of wildly unkempt copper-colored curls. He was dressed in boiled leather padded with a thick fur lining and studded with many rows of sharp steel teeth. A great sword was slung on his back and a quartet of throwing knives hung from his studded leather belt.

  The man turned to grin at Amir, his few good teeth showing amongst the bad. “Indeed. It is just as you said,” he declared, reaching out to grip the other’s forearm. “You have kept your word, and I thank you for that.”

  “Don’t thank me, Ashwar, thank him.”

  Ashwar turned back to the procession of giants, beasts, and men, thinking to himself that he’d sooner thank the Fourth himself than the King of Titans. The one was the devil he knew, the other the devil in his life—or so it seemed to him.

  For hours, the two watched the procession without speaking further. The giants of the six clans lumbered by—fire and ice, storm and mountain, stone and hill. The beastmen of the Lost Lands, atop mammoths, rode by six abreast, trumpets roaring. Behind them came the Dragon Men of the Ice. Some of the Dragon Men rode great bears—black, white or brown. Others rode great wolves, either gray or white. His clansmen, the men, women and children of Oshywon, came last. Some were afoot but most were ahorse like him.

  In the stories of old, Ashwar had heard of Gatherings, but he never imagined he would see one in his lifetime, let alone help to assemble it. He was excited and frightened at the same time. In the stories, Gatherings marked the end of an age and always finished badly. He wondered how this time could be any different, but he had hope. Hope was all his people clung to at times—hope for a better tomorrow, a better life, hope for a return to the plains and rivers they once knew, hope for justice and retribution, hope for their children or their children’s children if not for themselves.

  “Has it happened then?” he finally asked Amir.

  Amir turned and knelt beside the man on horseback, staring at him eye to eye. “It has.”

  Ashwar cinched his horse’s bridle in his hand and held him still. In the stories of old, Titans had ruled over men and elves, and Amir had the qualities of a ruler. Even with him ahorse and Amir kneeling, the Titan towered over him and it was hard to say how big he really was. Twelve feet tall maybe or fourteen, Ashwar thought, maybe taller. His broad chest and muscular arms made him seem bigger, much bigger, like some sort of towering oak that had been uprooted and transformed. But his face wasn’t brutish and square like a giant’s. It was refined and round, very manlike, just unusually proportioned, with a jutting chin, high cheekbones, and dark eyes so large and deep-set that they seemed high mountain caverns, or perhaps wells, whose depths swept to the Titan’s very soul.

  One of the giants guarding the van of the procession came upon them. He was larger than most of the others and the fire showed clearly in his features: the long auburn-colored hair and beard, the eerie red of his eyes. He was wearing the pelt of several great bears roughly sown together and was carrying a thick spear that looked like an uprooted evergreen trimmed and sharpened yet otherwise whole. He spoke to Amir in Giantspeak and the Titan responded in kind.

  “It is a good day, he says, as good a day as any,” Amir told Ashwar when the giant departed.

  Ashwar looked about uneasily. “A good day for what?”

  “Exactly what I asked him before he hurried off to rejoin the van. Giants may be lumbering and big, but they can be hasty as well.”

  “Lumbering and big is an understatement.”

  Amir laughed as he stood—the laughter like the deep rumbling of distant thunder. “I must return. You know what must be done now?”

  “I do, and I thank you for coming.”

  “Goodbye then, until we meet again,” and so saying, Amir cast the orb at his feet and stepped into the spinning circle of light.

  As he emerged from shadow, Amir found Noman playing at Destiny Sticks. He went to a window without saying
a word but it was not the view beyond that he was interested in—it was Noman. Seated with a hunch-backed posture, Noman seemed a small man; yet standing with his shoulders back and straight, he seemed regal. Amir didn’t know whether it was the veins of black that streaked otherwise pure white hair, the eyebrows with matching spikes of black mixed with gray or the beard that flowed to the middle of his chest in a sheet of pure silver that made Noman seem a king, but he seemed a king nonetheless—and a great king at that. But Noman was not a king; he was but a man who lived among Titans in the City of the Sky.

  “It seems so futile, this waiting,” Amir complained.

  Noman cast the sticks upon the table, looking up momentarily to regard the other. In girth, Amir’s shoulders spread from one side of the grand window to the other, filling its opening when he turned his back to the light. “And when the wait is over, what then?”

  Amir didn’t answer. Instead he watched as Noman played at the game of Destiny, carefully picking out the black and white sticks representing the Path, avoiding the gray sticks of the Void. Lost in the rhythm of the game, his thoughts soon carried him into the distant past.

  “Are we then outside time?” a much younger Amir asked the figure in his mind’s eye.

  “Time affects all things, even those who consider themselves outside its grasp.”

  “But why me? Why me when there were so many others more deserving?”

  “It is as it must be.”

  “But I have done nothing to receive so great an honor.”

  “That is untrue. You were the most skilled of your kind ever to walk the earth.”

  “You talk in the past; am I not dead then?”

  Noman smiled. “Back to the same question. Your thoughts move in circles. You know you are not. The Father has true need of your skills when the time is right.”

  While in the waking world Noman’s hands busily worked the sticks, Amir’s thoughts slipped further into the past. To his right, Antwar Alder, the man who would be king, swept Truth Bringer from its sheath, the great blade seeming to outshine the moon with its own inner light and lending a pale shadow over the strong-faced Antwar.

  Ky’el touched his arm. “Ready yourself, son.”

  An adolescent Amir nodded. “I swore an oath, a holy oath I mean to keep.”

  “There are more,” whispered Etry. “Where are Aven and Riven?”

  Amir looked down the line. The city’s outer defenses had failed and the last of the defenders made their stand at the Greye, the very keep built by their enemy Dnyarr. Across Gregortonn’s High Square the first charge of the night began with the cracks of whips from the goblin lieutenants sending the dog packs into a frenzied, howling run. The lines of human slaves followed; and behind them came the chariots of the elves pulled by the black, wingless dragons of the Samguinne.

  Ky’el thundered toward the line, his silver cloak streaming from his shoulders. Amir tried to follow.

  Dust seemed to be blowing everywhere. Keeping up with the shadowy figure charging into the battle required his full attention.

  The besiegers began screaming and cheering as the packs set into the lines, their screams and cheers in stark contrast to the cries of pain from the defenders, the sound of it all very nearly blocking out the strange whistling from above. By the time Amir saw the first black-feathered arrow strike one of his fellows, it was too late.

  An arrow hit him full in the chest, piercing his breastplate. An instant later, he found himself on the other side. “Am I dead or am I dreaming?” he asked himself as he floated in the void.

  “Not dead,” said the voice from out of the void—the voice Amir would in later years come to know as Noman’s. “Your path continues far beyond this place.”

  “Where am I? Why am I here?”

  “Ky’el’s time comes to an end. Look, the arrow has pierced his heart, not yours.” It was the first use of the compelling voice Amir had encountered and it was in that moment that he realized he was cradling Ky’el—that the arrow had pierced Ky’el’s armor not his own.

  Hot tears streamed down his cheeks. The battle was all but over.

  “What am I to do?”

  “You shall find out soon. Now is not the time.”

  “What is this place?”

  “The world of dreams and reality are closely knit, very closely knit,” Noman said. “Ofttimes the two appear as one and the same, or perhaps another. Some exist in a state of perpetual dream, others in a state of eternal life, and a few in a state of the dream within their eternal life. You, my young friend, find the dream at a time when life’s need is at its greatest.”

  Amir was halfway through a response when he realized he was back in the present, sitting in the great window with the fading sun casting his shadow long upon the floor. Hours had passed. Noman had laid out the final path upon the table. “Is it—?” he started to ask but was interrupted.

  “Must you always dwell in the past?” Noman asked.

  “There, you see, even when I think, I cannot be alone.”

  “That is as it must be. Come, even you must eat. Ah, and before you complain, this is what you wanted. I know it is.”

  Amir looked at the food spread out in front of him like a feast. “Yes, but I changed my mind.”

  “No you didn’t. You shouldn’t fool with an old man’s mind.”

  “An old man? You are the one who taught me that appearance is meaningless.”

  Noman’s eyes flashed. “Appearance is everything; you would do well to remember that.”

  Amir made no further comment and instead ate until he was content then walked back to his window to continue his watch. Time passed without change. As Noman stared at the Destiny Sticks and busily consulted his books, Amir waited in silence as the sun disappeared over the horizon.

  The next day brought more restlessness. Amir paced back and forth, occasionally glancing out the window. Both he and Noman could sense a change, a presence that could not be explained in words. Noman didn’t show his anxiety as much as Amir did although within he was indeed anxious. He could sense it just as much as Amir could.

  Seeking to ease the tension, Noman began to concentrate, focusing his thoughts, cycling the Magicks through his body discreetly. His hope was to catch Amir off guard; but after centuries of being with Noman, Amir responded to the attack with catlike grace, unsheathing his goliath, double-edged bastard sword, turning, lifting, and striking out at his invisible opponent in the time it took most to inhale a single breath.

  The resonant clang of metal striking metal soon filled the air. Amir knew his opposition well; after all, it was himself. He fought his own shadow as always and it knew his every move, his every trick. It remembered each time that Amir had overcome it in the past. It fed on those defeats so that each time Amir was forced to think differently or to act differently, thus improving his performance or making him stronger and faster so he could defeat it.

  He charged repeatedly, wielding his weapon with the ease and skill of a master, the generous weight of its mass carefully balanced in his hands. He attempted a simple combination, thrust, parry, thrust, followed quickly by a thrust, slice, and a feint. The shadow seemed to mock him as it followed his every move and counter.

  “Will I ever be able to fight this beast in reality?” Amir asked, gritting his teeth, circling left.

  “Concentrate,” Noman responded, “Concentrate or you will become the shadow.”

  Amir dropped, rolled and thrust upward with his blade. The shadow blocked and circled.

  “It seems so fruitless, all this training, all this waiting. What will happen then, afterward?”

  Noman raised his eyebrows, sensing the intent in the words. “Do not fret so. The day comes, revel in that, but trust me when I say you will wish it hadn’t.”

  Through the afternoon the assault continued. Amir’s blade broke the air about him wildly, pushing the shadow into a corner. He was nearly winded but he couldn’t let his fatigue show. The shadow had an advantage ov
er him. It never tired, it was relentless, it learned with every breath. So even as Amir moved in for the kill, the shadow countered and waited for the lunge that was meant to end its existence; then it cackled in delight.

  As Amir’s blade met empty air, he shouted, “This is going nowhere!”

  “Your mind is overly occupied elsewhere. You should not be thinking of Ashwar and the clansmen! Focus upon what is important!”

  “Concentrate, concentrate,” Amir exhorted himself. Nearing exhaustion, his only resource left was a gambit. He jumped into the air. Midway through a forward somersault, he struck down, only to slice empty air.

  He landed, recovered from the momentary surprise, dodged a well-timed blow from the shadow, spun, and then hurled his sword outward. This time his blade struck true and the creature roared its defeat. The shadow had done exactly what Amir expected it to do. It had dodged his first attack and tried to attack him from behind as he landed. The next sweep of the creature’s blade should have caught him except that Amir spun to the right instead of to the left where the shadow had been; and as it countered, Amir struck outward with the lethal blow, ending the match in victory as always.

  Sweat glistening from his muscular body, Amir sheathed his sword and wiped perspiration from his brow. He was tired, very tired, though he would not show it. He had learned from the shadow as much as it had learned from him and he would not forget the lesson. Steadying himself, he returned to the great window and his vigil.

  That evening the two supped in silence, lost in thought. As the last light of the day gave way to the darkness of the night, Noman looked up from his books. “You must be patient. Watch, but take no action.” His guarded expression said everything. The hour had come; the long wait was over. Amir cast the orb at his feet, but before he could step into the spinning circle of light, Noman spoke again. “Heed my warning, take no action. Watch, and when it is over, return to report.”