When Darkness Begins

by Tina O’Hailey

  The other three eventually nudged each other to get their attention and pointed towards Ethasa. Eyebrows rose. Fingers pointed. Shoulders shrugged.

  Silence settled across all three until they were as still as Ethasa.

  They watched as the bloated toad of a moon sunk slowly until it was out of sight.

  No one spoke. The silence stretched out between them.

  The first glimmer of light threatened on the opposite horizon, eclipsed by a rock-face. The birth of the sun burned as if it were a hot, brisk wind on their faces. Ethasa would have to leave soon. Being older and able to see further back in time, he was unable to stand even the barest of sunlight. When the sun rose, he would experience all energy of sunlight that had ever existed in the time visible to him. It was too much to bear.

  The younger children, with limited sight through time, would experience a limited buildup of the sun permitting them to stay in the daylight for a few moments more. Most elders would suffer near intolerable pain if they stayed in the daylight.

  The game was to stay out in the sunlight as long as it was tolerable. Each one daring the others to stay as long as possible before the pain became unbearable.

  Though Aithagg was younger, he saw more of time than most; however, he tolerated the sun a little more than the others.

  The sun crept a little closer towards dawn and the surrounding night began to abate.

  Ethasa began to squirm and rub at his arms. Ygolz and Otski fidgeted. Aithagg and Catha sat still.

  The first rays of sunlight broke across the horizon. Somewhere a parent called, “Time to come in.”

  No one moved a muscle.

  Red blood sweat beaded on Ethasa’s forehead. Impatiently he wiped it from his eyes. A few more moments passed and he jumped up as if poked with a stick on fire.

  “Eterili,” he cursed and stomped back towards the cave, slipping into a darker time in the past to calm the pain from the sun.

  Ygolz and Otski nudged each other in the ribs as they taunted.

  “You go.”

  “You go.”

  “You first.”

  “You first.”

  They stared at each other; pink blood sweat beading on their forehead and cheeks. Otski blinked the stinging out of his eyes.

  Ygolz jumped up and pushed at Otski shouting, “Last one there.” He ran off, back into time, into darkness, towards the cave.

  Otski had not even stood up before he disappeared back into time. Aithagg and Catha watched the ghost images as the two boys ran through the night back towards the cave.

  Aithagg turned to the girl. “It does not bother you does it?”

  She looked at her hands and did not answer.

  Sweat, bright red, had broken out on his face and dripped down his sharp nose.

  “It is not the winner that can stay the longest. It is the loser,” she whispered. “It is the one who can not feel the sun.” Large wide-eyes filled with sorrow turned to Aithagg. “Please do not tell anyone,” she pleaded.

  “I will not,” Aithagg promised.

  “I can not see into time. I am not bothered by the sun.” Catha touched the dirt beside her. “I can not feel the earth call to me.”

  “You will. It just takes a little longer sometimes,” Aithagg explained.

  She cut him off with a small raised hand.

  He silenced.

  They sat a moment longer. Aithagg tried to not fidget, though the pain was crawling through his body as steadily as the sun was rising.

  Catha turned to him and reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He allowed it, not daring to look into her eyes.

  “Let us go.” She took his hand and led him towards the cave.

  They climbed up over rocks to a wide entrance, deep set into the hillside. The air was crisp and cool as the sun began to brighten the sky’s dark black with its pale warmth.

  Catha held his hand for a moment more as she paused at the entrance to watch the sunrise. Aithagg was desperately trying to hide the physical pain the sun was causing him. Pink patches spread on his loose clothing around his armpits, neck, and the small of his back. He held on to her hand and endured to wait. Eventually, he squeezed her hand and let go, having to retreat further into the darkness of the cave.

  “I have to,” he apologized. “I’m sorry.” His voice, a mournful whisper.

  She smiled and said, “I used to sneak out and watch the sun rise. Still do.”

  Aithagg looked behind him in the darkness. He had retreated past the incoming light. He worried, “Voices carry in here. Please. Be careful.”

  As if to make the point clear, the wind from the entrance rushed past her in a gust and caused her dark hair to obscure her face. She reached up with a trembling hand and pulled it away, then wiped away tears quickly, tilting her head down to hide the movement.

  Aithagg stepped forward, trying to get closer. The sun’s rays, even in this twilight, kept him back. All of light in all of time is too much energy for a Vechey to endure. The dim light lit the tops of the rocks on the floor at the entrance. Catha’s shadow rippled across the rocks like a translucent, shadowy stream. The sun began to highlight the bridge of her nose and eyes, the wet patches under her eyes and on her cheeks glistened. He stopped, unable to come closer. Instead, he offered his hand, avoiding the incoming rays of the sun.

  “Do you think you’ll go? Leave? Before the ritual.” His hand stayed outreached.

  She turned, scratching sounds as her feet kicked up pebbles and grit gave a backdrop to her words. “I should.” She stepped forward and joined Aithagg in the darkness, taking his hand.

  Together they walked further into the darkness, slowly, letting their eyes adjust.

  “There is time,” she said more to herself than Aithagg.

  ***

  At the fire ring, on the other side of the hill from Aithagg and Catha, Eterili spoke with a group of small children.

  “Time is a circle, but you will never know it.” Eterili sat on a rock near the fire. The children gathered around to hear her stories, a rare treat. They did not gather too closely, for it had been at least a millennium since she had bathed. “An ant walking on the mountain does not see the shape of the mountain.”

  A distant wolf howled and Eterili raised her head as if to listen then continued her story. She held a gnarled stick in one hand and drew in the dirt. The nearby fire flickered dancing shadows across her illustrations.

  She drew a line in the sand.

  “This is time. Here at the end, on the leading edge of time are the Linears. We call that edge main-time. Linears live in main-time day after day and cannot leave it. Trapped. Fortunate for them they live short lives.”

  The children, her rapt pupils not daring enough to interrupt the ancient Eterili, listened intently.

  She drew another line to the left of the first.

  “This is time long ago from where the edge of time is,” she said.

  A brave youngster interjected, “The edge of time is where the Linears live. Main-time. Where we’ll feed when we are older.” He looked around proudly.

  “Yes, yes. Where you feed,” she answered, then pointed with her stick to the line drawn on the left. “We are here 40,000 winters or so behind main-time. It is a safe time where Linears will not find us. They are not in these lands just yet.”

  Wolves interrupted her story again, and she paused to listen.

  “But we are living in time day after day like Linears now?” a small girl whispered with concern in her voice.

  “For now. While you are young and blossoming your
Vechey talents, you must live in time. After fifteen winters, you will go through the ritual. It is—” Eterili poked the stick far to the left of the two time lines. “—here. Many, many winters even before when we are now. I will help you get there it is a very long time ago.”

  The children all exclaimed, “Wow!” “So long ago.” “We can’t see back that far.”

  “What happens next?” Eterili quizzed her pupils.

  Wide eyes looked back at her.

  She answered by poking the stick in the sand a making a small dot between the line for where they were now and main-time. “The universe pushes you out of time. You will no longer live it day by day like a Linear. You will arrive into your own moment, one not even as long as a blink of a firefly. There you will walk in frozen time that is only yours.”

  Their eyes got wider, and they all started to babble, “My Father says the shadows do not move.” “My Mother says the flame stands still.” “My Mother says you do not get dirty there, the dirt does not stick.”

  Eterili smiled slightly, cracked teeth showing, and nodded. “Yes, yes. Nothing moves save you. And from there you will then be able to see forward into main-time and backwards to the beginning of time if you concentrate hard enough. You will be able to move in out and out of time at whim.”

  They were silent, the children, each one imagining what the ritual might hold. How does the universe push them out of time?

  Her voice interrupted their imaginations, “You will have a job to do.”

  “Protect time,” the children replied in unison.

  “Indeed,” she said. “Every Vechey is pushed out of time and into their own place. You will tie into the earth itself, a place that will be your new home. The earth of that place will sustain you, though; you will need to go to main-time to feed. You will be scattered across the lands. The place that becomes yours, that is your place to protect time from…” She leaned towards the children waiting for an answer.

  “The Manipulator.” Their frightened whispers were barely audible.

  “Every Vechey is placed to protect an area of land from the Manipulators who live in main-time among the Linears. Yes.” She nodded and her attention wandered as if she was listening to the wolves. Though the children heard no wolves’ call.

  “They wear the Linears like a shawl,” one child whispered to another.

  Eterili’s wet eyes looked at the children once more. “They inhabit a Linear’s body until it dies then they crawl into the next living body that is close. Take care that it is not—” She leaned forward and lunged at the children with her hands while shouting louder, “—you!”

  They squealed in delight and fell away from Eterili. She watched them run back towards their families then sat watching the fire dwindle. Eventually the sun threatened to rise. She rose and walked towards the large cave entrance where the Vechey lived. She cast one last look at the sky, a pink glow on the horizon, then walked into the cave’s darkness.

  9 FALL TO TRUTH

  Alexander stacked the beams of wood near the edge of his house. Silently and efficiently he began framing in the extension. The work went quickly, and he smiled as the bathroom and bedroom began to take shape.

  He enjoyed tasks such as these. It helped fill the eternity he lived in. Able to slip into any time and walk amongst Linears, he learned from them, gathered skills and honed talents while there. As much as he enjoyed sating his curiosity—he enjoyed even more returning to his home-time, in solitude, and creating things there.

  He had built his house, here upon the mountaintop. It overlooked the valley spread out endlessly below. The wooden home was constructed directly atop his cave.

  His favorite pastime was anything that worked with natural materials, woodworking and metalworking. Alexander ran his hand along the beams and considered his next steps. This extension would be like most of the house and have no electricity. This had not been his original home. For thousands of years he had lived in only a hut, since his sleep cycles were spent in the cave. The hut only served as a place for respite between feedings, fixing things Yindi (the Manipulator) had corrupted, and waiting for the sun to rise in main-time (which would necessitate returning to the cave for sleep and drawing energy from the soil found there).

  Eventually, he ventured to test his limits. He found by killing the Manipulator’s host he gained time for himself. Eterili had warned against this behavior, stating it would occur naturally as the Manipulator had to inhabit Linears—and Linears die.

  The first time he had killed the Manipulator’s host, Alexander had watched to see how the Manipulator had found its next host.

  Hundreds of murders had let Alexander explore his curiosity. He had traveled to far lands, even by boat. Eterili would have forbidden it. In her view of the way Vechey were to stay in their synced area—battle with the Manipulator, not kill the Manipulator—and exist. Battle to maintain time. Exist for nothing else.

  Alexander explored, learned, brought those ideas back to his home here and battled with the Manipulator.

  At first the Manipulator was just a foe to battle. They did not speak. He only thought of him as the Manipulator and for a thousand years the Manipulator never seemed more than a blind, need-driven being bent on destroying time, destroying Alexander, and otherwise showing no reason or thought besides mayhem.

  Eventually, Alexander had grown bored and had done just as Eterili asked. He had stayed. Battled. Existed. How close had he been to madness before a Linear had crawled into his cave and he, like a fool, had fallen in love with her? Brandy: the reason for his current home-improvement projects.

  Yindi had taken it as a personal quest to destroy Brandy once he had realized Alexander had feelings for her. Feelings for a Linear. Feelings for—his food.

  Alexander slumped with shame. It was a weakness of his, not following the way. Eterili would not approve of his behavior.

  Shame caused him to ignore the call to return to his home-time and find a mate. He found a mate once, promised himself to her. But that had been forever ago. Instead, he sat. Had that been the beginning of his darkness; the moment that he began to stop traveling, to stop exploring?

  Alexander bent to move a medium piece of mahogany. He would use the wood for his next project. It was weightless in his frozen-time.

  His parents would have probably been there at that moment waiting for their children to return home. All would have synced to that time, to that huge cave with its hundreds and hundreds of expansive passages and rooms. Father and Mother would have waited and it caused a pang in his nearly immortal heart to think of his mother worrying a stone in her pocket until it became as smooth as a river stone. Perhaps he should return anyway and explain to her his decision to part from the way, his sad affinity for Linears. It hurt him too much to consider what her reaction might be.

  He sighed, a Linear affectation.

  His mind pondered as he began splitting the logs to use as siding for the bathroom extension.

  Thousands of years old and he still worried what Eterili and his parents would think of his behavior? Alexander smiled at the thought.

  His smile faltered when a memory even furthered his shame of failing—when the Manipulator had inhabited his own body. It had been a horrifying matter of hours struggling to contain the beast until he spewed him out and locked him into the nearest creature: a toad, if memory served. Alexander had always been careful when he had killed the Manipulator except in a recent encounter when in anger, he had snapped the Manipulator’s neck. Alexander had been so shocked at the emptiness when the Manipulator had left his dead host, Alexander had almost forgotten to let go of the corpse until it was too late and the Manipulator had crawled into Alexander’s skin. It was an experience he did not wish to re
-live.

  He shook his head as if to rid himself of the memory and returned his thoughts to his task—considering how much longer this project would take him. He needed to complete this and then return to Brandy, his Linear love, after he rested first. It would take a great amount of concentration to slip into time exactly after he had left it. The thought of it set his teeth on edge. One mistake and he would hurt himself or Brandy. The thought of hurting her in such a way made his mood darken. Shame caused his cheeks to flush.

  He had stood on the porch with Brandy, in an embrace. She knew nothing of his true existence. He had been caring for her and helping her heal by hiding her here in time at his home. The cause of her pain had been Yindi, the Manipulator. He had hurled Brandy under a bus. Alexander had tried valiantly and uselessly to adjust time himself to keep her from having to go through this pain. It had been useless. His only solution was to bring her here to his home only moments after he had finished it, 10,000 years before her time. Here she would heal.

  Here she was temporarily hidden from Yindi. She would have to return to her time soon enough. Linears’ minds synced and relied on the progression of time. If kept from their time for long, their minds shattered. Alexander worked at the chinking between the exterior logs as he considered the inevitable death Brandy would experience. It slowed his pace. Inevitable.

  He would have to be careful. He had left her there on the porch. They had been intimate, their first time. The wood of the porch had been cool and hard to the touch. Her hair smelled of lavender. After months of caring for her and helping her heal, knowing he had limited time with her, every moment was a delight. This moment was the most sweet. There they had stood, ready to carry her back to her bedroom, then a random stray cat she had befriended had tripped him. He was falling with her in his arms. She was recuperating from a broken leg, arm, pelvis fracture, and skull fracture. She had been well enough to be with him on the porch—they had to work together to not cause her pain.