Rage and anger permeated his body and he threw himself against the ground. Sharp rock shards ripped into his muscles.
Trapped. Trapped. He had to get out of this being. He wanted to be free. He needed to be free.
The body weakened. He collapsed in a heap—panting, filled with hate—upon the uneven ground.
***
Aithagg finally crawled from his dirt entombment and lay upon the ground. His body bristled with energy in stark contrast to the emptiness of his soul. Main-time existed more clearly to him now. It moved on. The sun rose. It set. It rose again. Day after day marched on in main-time while the Linear tribes led their life. He mourned in silence. After many weeks had passed, he secreted the two items away into a niche in the rock wall.
Eventually his mind returned to his teachings. He had to protect time from the Manipulators. However, he had sensed nothing manipulated. The only manipulating had been of his own making, trying to save her.
In vain.
Brushing off his grief, Aithagg picked himself up off of the ground and walked out into the field in front of his cave. Here was his new home. It sat atop a limestone cap, which would one day be a false bottom for this valley. He saw in the coming thousands of winters to come the river would flood with glacial waters. Sediment would build up. He imagined as main-time marched on the waters would recede and the sediment would fill in the valley floor. It might even reach up to this cap where he stood.
For now he would climb down the rock mountainside and try to enjoy the peace and quiet. Nothing seemed to need his tending to. He suspected that would eventually change. He knew nothing more about the Manipulators than what Eterili had taught. Now he suspected she had not taught all there was to teach.
“You can not comprehend it all,” she had said in the whiteness.
Perhaps in time he would learn more if he avoided the madness. Aithagg walked towards the waterfall at the base of the mountain. He had stopped there to rest on his journey through. He suspected it would become a favorite place of his. He synced into main-time to see the water cascade.
Aithagg, distracted by his own thoughts, did not notice the Linear.
***
Yindi spotted him first. Not a full recollection, but a memory hit him like a bolt of lightning: Vechey. They had what he needed. Power. Not trapped in time, not trapped in these weak bodies.
Vechey.
Yindi’s vision swam and a literal red swatch covered his eyesight. A growing need erupted in him like a flame. Vechey. He would have the Vechey as a host.
Blind rage erupted from him, rage at having his freedom torn from him, rage at the things unremembered, things rending empty voids in his soul, rage at the weakness in these painful limbs. Rage. Filled with an illogical need he ran without thinking towards the Vechey. He would—
Aithagg stepped out of his way and turned. “You are a surprise,” he whispered and tilted his head.
Yindi fell to the ground, not having mastered the use of the host’s limbs yet. He growled and spun at Aithagg.
Again, Aithagg turned and then looked at the path the Linear had taken. He saw the misty ghosts of where the Linear had bashed at himself and thrown himself to the ground. Could this be? Aithagg fended off the intruder with a slight push sending him sprawling.
Yindi spat the leaves from his mouth and wiped the dirt from his cheek. He smeared blood on his face from his mangled arms.
They faced each other. One enraged. One curious.
“Where do you come from, Manipulator?”
Yindi sat unblinking and frowned. He croaked, “I floated. I had freedom from this place. I was there.” He pointed upwards to the clouds. “Rushing out into an expanse.”
Aithagg briefly looked up to the heavens. The full moon had a halo of clouds around it. A storm would come soon.
Yindi continued, “Then I was here. Trapped.” He held up his host’s bloody arms. “ARHHHHHHHHHH!” he shouted as he ran at Aithagg.
Aithagg shifted into his frozen-time and out of the way of the crazed Manipulator-inhabited-Linear. He watched as the ghost image of the Manipulator in the future from him rushed through where he was standing and fell headfirst into the deep pool.
The Linear thrashed and his head broke the surface of the water. Aithagg shifted back into main-time and heard the splashing.
The pounding waterfall pushed at the Linear. He went under the water, one hand reaching up grasping for anything nearby. The Linear resurfaced once more and then the pounding of the water pushed him down again. The thrashing stopped.
Aithagg came closer to the water but did not dare touch it; wary of the pain and distress it would cause him.
Aithagg held so still even while synced with time he observed the wildlife come to the water’s edge and drink. A small rabbit, thick furred, with large teeth, came near the edge and Aithagg grabbed it before the creature even realized he was there. It thrashed in his hands for a while then gave up and dangled, giving in to its captor. Aithagg did not harm the rabbit. He held it by its ears and watched the water. The teachings had been clear on a few points even if Eterili had hid many things from the young Vechey. Manipulators, driven by need, would go from host to host. Upon a host’s death, they would transfer to the closest living thing. Except in water. Water held them tight to the dead host, unable to transfer while in it. Aithagg shuddered at the thought of being trapped in a dead and decaying body. Would the decaying body cause the Manipulator to shrink until it trapped itself into a fossilized bit of skull like a deserted island?
He held the warm rabbit to his chest, and absently consoled it with a gentle hand. He gently wrapped a thorny vine around the furry body, taking care to not pull too tightly.
The Linear did not resurface until the round moon had become fully obscured by clouds then sunk in the sky.
Aithagg picked a large branch up from the ground. Using it as a hook, he pulled the body to the shoreline. He waited, unsure if Linears could survive in water long, to see if the body was dead. It did not move. He used the branch to pull the limbs one by one from the water and rolled the body over onto its back.
The body, once removed from the water, twitched and spasmed unnaturally as if something from within was trying to escape, which was the case.
Aithagg placed the rabbit on the body’s chest. The furry beast, wrapped in thorny vines, struggled to be free. The vine slowed its progress. It struggled, kicked, wiggled. Then it stilled. The beast’s eyes turned back in its skull and it let out an unearthly screech. Then it began to spasm and convulse. The thorns bit into the rabbit’s white fur leaving a bloody trail.
Aithagg considered leaving but was curious what this transformation would look like. He squatted upon his haunches to get a better look.
The rabbit in an instant shook and thrummed then began tearing about in a blind rage. The thorns shredded the skin as the rabbit now driven by Yindi wiggled out of the vine’s hold. It bounded from the dead body and fell to the side as if disoriented and unable to drive its locomotion. The hind legs worked faster than the front ones and it fell over comically, pitifully.
Aithagg suffered for the rabbit he had sacrificed. Did it know it was being possessed? Could it still see out or was it gone? Gone like the Manipulator had been before? Dissipating into the above in blissful peace. Is that how the crazed Manipulator had described it?
The rabbit lay still on its side, breathing rapidly. If those small eyes could register hate, they glared at Aithagg with disdain.
Aithagg stood and slipped back into his frozen-time. He had met his Manipulator, who would continue to change time and try to defeat him. His duty of protecting time had officially begun. It was the way Eterili had described.
>
He looked at the body of the dead Linear in main-time. It was yellow tinged in his vision, something manipulated, but not a disastrous manipulation. How would he know the difference between ignorable changes and the ones needing correcting lest the time stream slip from its course? Eterili’s teaching had left it at, You will know.
Aithagg synced with main-time and grabbed the body. He would hide it in his cave so the tribe would not find it. He did not need them to become alarmed. He did not want them searching this area, giving his Manipulator easy access to hosts.
Resigned to his fate. Aithagg hoisted the dead body onto his shoulder and returned to his cave.
He found a sufficient room near the back of the cave. The entrance to it had collapsed thousands of winters before, much like the domed room he had chosen as his sleeping chambers. Future Linears would not find this area of the cave. He shifted through time until the room was open.
The dead body upon his shoulder shifted with him. Being inanimate, it shifted completely and did not tear apart into time.
It caused Aithagg pain to think of shifting with a person in your arms.
Her.
Aithagg made his way to a dark rock room at the back of the cave. He did not know what brought him there, instinct perhaps. He gently laid the body onto the hardened clay where it would decay and become buried behind a broken wall of rock which had crumbled through time. Below the rock, had he cared to look further back in time he would have seen hundreds, thousands of bones jumbled upon each other in a disintegrated gypsum-covered pyre.
25 102
Catha had died one hundred times and kept each memory of each attempt at trying to shift with him through time. Each time she either stayed behind becoming crushed by the meteor or held his hand and tried to sync with him.
As the whiteness enfolded them, she had ripped apart into nothingness. Aithagg kept trying and retrying. He did not care if Eterili saw them or not. She held on for the sake of his determination, but eventually she knew it would not work. She would not shift with him. They would not stay together. She would die as a Linear either here or if she left the impact zone—starving and alone in the woods.
For the last attempt, she stepped away from him. Aithagg turned to her, understanding. She smiled grimly and thought of the games they used to play as children. When they would race and try to beat each other to the finish line. They would shout encouragement to each other. She would race him to whatever finish line there was. Perhaps there would be another place after this. They never talked about it in the teachings. She smiled a tight, sad smile and said, “Last one there.”
Then, cool arms enfolded around her. Aithagg. But not the Aithagg of now who stepped into the whiteness to complete his ritual. An Aithagg of new. The Aithagg who had become, had synced into his time. He was different now. Stronger. Older. She looked up at him and smiled. She thought his embrace was a goodbye. She laid her head upon his shoulder, welcoming one last departure.
The whiteness hit. The meteor impacted, pushing Aithagg through time and his hold on her drug her along. For a moment she was with him, part of his time. The moon was full but did not reflect in his eyes: frozen-time. A fuzziness, like wet moss wrapped around her ears, changed to buzzing like a swarm of angry bees and then became the pinpricks she knew all too well. She began to dissipate and fall away. Nothingness pulled at her and she welcomed its cold embrace leaving behind everything.
***
Icaeph, newly synced with his frozen-time, stood at the waterfall in a moment of contemplation. He had recently paused at this waterfall while trudging those last few hundred feet to the cave, his soon to be home. Exhausted. Weary. Ready to find a safe place to sleep. This waterfall had been an oasis to him.
He synced into main-time to watch the moonlight ripple across the water. The ripples crossing the water had always mesmerized him. The sound of an unsteady Linear approaching him caused him to lift his head.
She held a basket filled with berries in her arms. They spilled from the basket and she tromped upon them leaving black and red smeared footprints along the rock path. She was disheveled as if she had been wandering in the woods for a week.
“I was,” she stammered. “I was there.” Berries spilled. She pointed to the sky.
Icaeph stepped back slowly and said, “They told me of you. The Manipulator?” he guessed.
“The?” she questioned then dropped the basket. The rest of the contents spilled over her bare feet.
“Manipulator,” he repeated.
She tilted her head to the side as if she did not understand the word.
She had been there. Catha yearned for it. Above. Becoming. Floating. Free. Though she could not remember her name. She wanted to return to that freedom. She needed freedom from this Linear body.
Another realization tried to materialize in her mind. Linear. That meant something to her. Or once did. She stumbled as she tried to find the meaning of what this body was. Why would the limbs not work as they should? She weakened. Did this thing, this Vechey in front of her have something to do with this? Had he taken the eternity of freedom away from her? Anger began to seep into her consciousness and eradicate all logic, all thought. A need crept through her. She needed freedom from this flesh-prison and the Vechey standing in front of her may not free her but would be a better host than this one she had. How delicious.
She screamed and ran towards him.
Icaeph synced into his time and walked away from her. They would have thousands of winters to play this cat-and-mouse game. First, he needed to feed. In his frozen-time, he traveled toward the valley pass where a small tribe might wander through following the herd. They would be few—but they would come this way.
***
Thousands of years later, Icaeph sat at the opening of the cave firmly taken over by the madness.
Catha had inhabited as many hosts if not more in that time and had lost all sense of who she once was and what she once had been.
She stalked after another Vechey who was climbing toward the cave. Two Vechey in the same place; she wondered at this new development. Though she existed in main-time and the Vechey lived in another time, they would appear in hers when they fed on Linears.
The word conjured disgust to her, though she had forgotten why. The Vechey crawling his way into the cave’s entrance looked no different to her than the other Vechey she had warred with for this near eternity. She did not know, could not know—it had been too long, this Vechey in front of her had embraced her once and she had torn apart into nothingness in his arms.
She reached forward to grab his extended foot but grabbed nothing but air as the Vechey disappeared. She screamed in a rage. Her broken arms ached in response. She stopped at the entrance and leaned against the rock. Her host was at its last usefulness to her. She would have to wander into a tribe’s encampment. They would take her in and try to heal her. She would take over another host.
***
Eterili wrenched the soul of Icaeph from his eyes and he floated into nothingness before being hurled into a teenage boy hunting on his own. Down in the valley a boy stumbled, not knowing he had become an unwitting host.
***
Catha stood dazed and weak further up the side of the mountain. Something warm hit her host’s chest. She looked up to see Eterili standing over her. The end of a spear firmly held in her hand.
“Child. It is time for you to leave this plane,” she said. Her smile was broad and cracked.
A familiar prickliness started at the center of Catha’s chest and radiated out. It expanded and released into nothingness as she floated from the Linear’s cooling body. She looked down at Eterili who picked the Linear body up and placed it over her shoulder.<
br />
With a surprise Catha realized she saw through time, all of time, it was overpowering. Everything came back to her: the 101 deaths before the whiteness, Aithagg, the thousands of deaths as a Manipulator. She saw the connections of it all.
Freedom. Beautiful vastness. Everything. Nothing. One.
There is no nothingness, she thought. There is only oneness of everything.
Parts of her being stretched and tuned into the fabric of the cosmos and it welcomed her. Her last vision was seeing Aithagg come back to his cave with a dead Linear over his shoulder.
I wonder who his Manipulator is? she thought.
She wished it was her but was glad it was not. She could not imagine an eon of being pitted against him. That was not the promised time they had hoped for. Thoughts and identity were leaving her now. She grasped none of those things that had once been—so small compared to everything. She relaxed.
Warmth emblazoned every cell. She dissipated, with great relief, into oblivion.
26 ALEXANDER AND BRANDY
One last tidbit of carpentry work took Alexander’s time. He crafted a small wooden jewelry box. He slipped into main-time to smell the cedar wood, if only for a moment. It was a good smell. The smell evoked memories of working with wood when he was a child and learning to carve. Memories of working on this house and building a place to live, something beyond sleeping in a cave. He had needed to exist, to learn, to thrive. Else, Alexander believed, he would go mad. He did not welcome the madness Eterili spoke of. Instead, he wanted to study, to grasp the vastness Eterili hinted at all of those years ago when he had gone through his ritual. He had reinvented himself a hundred times over, taking on new names and new interests.
The ritual-time, when he had lost Catha, still hurt: that loss and the many others that have come since. But losing her in his arms was an emptiness he still recalled. How long had it been now? Thousands of years? Main-time was in a modern era now with an infinite amount of opportunities to learn more. He recalled her warmth against his chest and then she was no more.
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