He straightened and brushed imagined dust off his pant legs. That was all in the past. But wasn’t he going through it all again? He thought to himself. Here he had fallen in love with another Linear, Brandy. Yindi had jumped in to intervene. Yindi had tried to kill her multiple times. Alexander had saved her and adjusted time. Yindi had inhabited one of Brandy’s best friends, spun him into madness and then used that host to push Brandy under a bus during the day so Alexander could not intervene.
It had only been a year that Alexander had known Brandy, but in that time, Yindi had stayed ever the vigilant Manipulator targeting his adjustments to time as personal attacks to Alexander and Brandy.
Alexander had tried multiple ways to kill the hosts Yindi had inhabited and to stall his efforts. Each attempt caused a worse timeline for Brandy and Alexander had witnessed an entanglement in time where she would die in the depths of a watery cave where he could not save her. The world had turned white, the whiteness, entangled time unable to change. It would. Not. Change.
He hurt so to think of Brandy dying again but he would not try to save her anymore. He had done that with Catha over one hundred times until both could not take the repeated tragedy any longer. With each death a part of his soul withered into dust.
He placed the jewelry box in the bedroom Brandy would first occupy when she would arrive at his home. The box gleamed.
Alexander stopped in the hallway, again returned to the portrait of Catha hanging in the hallway. A small shell and two polished rocks, encased in glass, sat atop a small square of bear fur. He briefly remembered being buried alive and touching two of those items with his dirt encrusted fingertips. Items left as a morbid tombstone. He tried to banish the memory and instead think of when those items were first exchanged as totems of love. The third—a stone engraved with a spiral and five dots.
“What do those mean?” she had asked.
It made him think of skipping stones across the water but instead with time. Now it made him think of time repeating itself over and over again.
***
Yindi had been quiet for a bit, not changing as many things in time. It was difficult at first for him, Aithagg guessed. There were not many things to change in this world where the world spun, animals migrated, tribes were hunting and gathering and some began farming. The most Yindi was able to harm were the Linears but was that enough to throw the time of the universe off track?
Perhaps. Aithagg was not sure.
Would moving one thing here cause a large chain reaction? If the Manipulators around the world all went unchecked, would they pull the timeline from its course? It was the teachings. It buzzed in Aithagg’s brain, especially when he tried to poke at the nagging thought of Manipulators around the universe or even multiple universes. He thought no more on the subject.
Aithagg had slipped into main-time, tempting Yindi to approach him, out of boredom perhaps. He sat at the waterfall, one of his favorite spots. Small fish swam in the cold water and lizards with long blue tails crawled on the rocks trying to find warmth anywhere, left over from the day’s sun, which had left the sky.
“I will not fall for that trick again. Drowning once in that waterfall is enough.” Yindi approached warily.
They had been on speaking terms for a thousand winters or more. Rage is not sustainable.
“It is helpful to trap you in the odd rabbit so I can have some peace around here. You can not deny your nature to destroy things long enough for any respite.” Aithagg smiled but watched his foe carefully.
“This host is new and strong.” Yindi held out his arms for inspection. “I found it alone on the high ridge at the end of the valley.”
“A lookout probably.” Aithagg stretched. “That tribe will probably get wiped out now. I will have to fix that.”
Yindi smiled a cruel smile. “Yes, I suppose you will.”
Neither moved from their spot. Both relaxed but ready to spring should the other strike.
“You are more cognizant than usual.” Aithagg poked at the ground with his toe. The leaves scattered and moved in circles. “The need will take you soon and you will not be able to hold a conversation.”
Yindi stared at his reflection in the water and for a long while did not answer. Eventually he did. “It is a burden constantly being trapped; to rail at the bars that hold you in. I can only find escape in the small rushes of joy received from adjusting time. It is all I have.” His eye twitched and his touched a hand to it. “The things call now. Those things promise ecstasy if I move them. Change them. The things.” Yindi stared unblinking at the water.
Aithagg stared into the water at Yindi’s reflection. “I wish that I could end your suffering, but see no way to release you from this mortal coil. Eterili knows I have tried.”
Something caught Aithagg’s eye in the water, a shape. Keeping a close eye on Yindi, who stared into space unaware of anything at the moment, Aithagg reached in to retrieve the item shimmering at the shallow end of the water. He ignored the searing pain in his hand.
Yindi stared in fascination at his reflection in the water; it rippled and changed shape.
The object was small and pitted but as familiar has the moon high above him. Aithagg knew it the moment he pulled it from the water.
A rock with a spiral and five dots. Catha. He had used these rocks to help her through time.
“Until next time, Yindi.” Aithagg smiled towards Yindi—already lost in the voices calling to him. He did not hear Aithagg nor blink when Aithagg disappeared back to his frozen-time.
***
Alexander stared at the portrait of Catha. He, at some point in his pseudo-eternity, had taken up painting and continued to keep his mind sharp, engaged to fight the madness. Even then, was he not at the brink of madness when he met Brandy?
He touched the glass case, the shell and rocks within. Did the universe not always put things back in his path? Tie things together in endless circles. He had often wondered about another level of Watchers.
Eterili was probably this. He was sure of it but thought no further on it. A mastermind, he thought. Then smiled slightly. An instigator.
Accepting the inevitability of it all; the fate of Catha, the fate of Brandy, the nature of Yindi, Eterili, himself; Alexander turned to go back to Brandy on the porch where he had left her falling. She would fall after tripping over a badly placed cat. He had to catch her and not let further trauma befall her. She was still healing from Yindi throwing her under a bus. He had disappeared from her time to better position himself to catch her. He needed to concentrate carefully to catch her without colliding with himself. He touched the missing piece of flesh on his pinky remembering the first time.
Catha’s words echoed in his memory, “Last one there.”
Hopefully he had prepared everything enough for the explanation Brandy deserved. With a determined smile he concentrated and slipped into time to catch a falling Linear.
***
She wore only his shirt. The cast on her leg shone brightly in the full moon night. The cat had vanished, his malevolence completed. Brandy’s arms had been about his neck and still were out in front of her. She stood frozen in mid-fall.
Alexander concentrated and carefully placed his arms out so she would fall a fraction of an inch through the air and then into his arms when he synced into time with her.
He knew she would die eventually, soon. He had seen the entangled white time. He knew more than most what it meant. This moment would be theirs and if she accepted him now or rejected him, he would bear the consequences. He loved her. It was his nature.
Alexander held his breath, though he did not need to breathe. He placed his feet and arms carefully and then synced into her time.<
br />
She fell into his arms. The weight and warmth of her hit his chest. The cast of her leg bit into his arm. He slowed her descent and took her weight into his body until she settled against his chest, which gave no evidence of being in a falling state. He stood solidly.
“Oof,” Brandy exhaled with the sudden stop. Though Alexander had cushioned it as much as possible, it had still been a shock when mere split seconds ago she had been on a crash trajectory with the floor.
Alexander held still.
She turned her face to him, eyes blazing. “What. The. F. Was. That?”
Alexander smiled.
APPENDIX
***
Many of the events, places, people in this book are based on archeological findings. I have the podcast “History of the World” to thank. The podcast helped me see the full story and put my weird fascination with archeological digs and bones found in caves into context.
Here are just a few of such historical truths:
Chapter Three
Eterili’s mother is based on a Denisova jawbone found in “a holy cave in Gansu Province, China” dated to 160,000 years ago.
“Tusked beasts shoulder-to shoulder” are Mastodons much like those whose bones were used as possible tools found in San Diego and dated as originating 130,000 years ago https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/science/prehistoric-humans-north-america-california-nature-study.html
The first man to respond to Eterili’s call is from Australia.
The small hominids that the Australian man comes across on an island are Homo floresiensis nicknamed “hobbits”.
Chapter Seven
Big-toothed creatures that grunted loudly: Castoroides, (huge beavers) which lived in North America during the Pleistocene age.
http://iceage.museum.state.il.us/mammals/giant-beaver-0
Chapter Eight
The word “Yindi” is Australian aborigine for “the sun”.
Chapter Twenty-two
The ritual takes pace at what we call the Topper site. This is a place in North Carolina near the Savannah River. Most artifacts date from the “pre-Clovis” time about 13,500 years ago. However, there is a controversial finding that dates artifacts also at that site 50,000 years ago. This is at a time before humans were believed to be on the continent.
The three circles represent the three stages of a Vechey’s life: youth (Linear), Vechey who watch time, Manipulators who destroy time. At the end of their three circles they return to the dust of the earth and become reformed upon the next incarnation of the universe.
The universe gets recreated when its brane (membrane) collides with another universe’s brane. You can look up Brian Greene’s thoughts on the multiverse if you wish to know more.
The symbols inside the circles are the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet from 1750 B.C.E., which we cannot confirm nor deny Eterili probably had a hand in creating. This is her universe after all.
Finally, the concept of eternal recurrence, which is alluded to in the quote at the beginning of this book, was first posed by Neitzsche in the late 1800s. This is something I came across while attending a lecture on cave-art after completing this book. I knew of Neitzsche but had never read his works. I think Alexander would have read Neitzsche. Indeed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tina O’Hailey is a professor in animation and game programming, caver and occasional mapper of grim, wet, twisty caves (if she owes a friend a favor or loses a bet), whose passion is to be secluded on a mountain and to write whilst surrounded by small, furry dogs and hot coffee. Tina was once struck by lightning.
She has served as an artistic trainer for Walt Disney Feature Animation, Dreamworks and Electronic Arts. Any movie credit she has is minimal and usually found in the special thanks section. The meager credits do not account for the great honor it was to teach talented artists who worked on numerous feature films and games.
She has authored animation textbooks “Rig it Right” and “Hybrid Animation” published by Focal Press and the Darkness Series “Absolute Darkness” and “When Darkness Begins” published by Black Rose Writing.
You can follow her adventures here at coffeediem.wordpress.com.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review online—anywhere you are able. Even if it’s just a sentence or two. It would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
…Tina
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