The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
A story of Mantra and Black September
By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson
Chapter 2
The Tree of Eternity
Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirr'd
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.
By Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"Why do you say that?" I asked. "My old master saw the future and said I’d be living and active for centuries to come."
"Unfortunately," Gabriel said, "that prediction is not true anymore."
I blinked.
"I do not doubt Archimage’s talent for precognition, but what is so shocking with the menace upon us is that it changes established fate. What we are facing is Creation going mad and being weaponized with the aim of infinite destruction."
"Okay, I'll bite. How long do we have left?"
"If you and I are taken out of the equation, the thing will happen on September 15 at 7:11 p.m. That's Pacific Time, of course."
That was tomorrow! In the altered reality I'd just visited, the whole world had immediately gone made following a cosmic energy discharge that came upon the Earth a little after 7:00. The little man was definitely earning my undivided attention.
But he still had not won my trust.
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
“Anti-Creation is the enemy we face. My people call it the Nemesis Effect. I have gone up to the microsecond before it breaks free, when all the playing pieces are in place. I naturally had to flee that future before I was made a part of the anomalous event."
I frowned. "That's very interesting, but you must be leaving a lot out. Can you cut to the chase?"
"My people, the Ysgorans travel in time, and also in space. The vehicle I have has the capacity to journey to the outer edge of the galaxy and back again in less than a second of time, as you understand time. Even one like myself, who is not really involved with explorer duty, has seen this universe from a point of view billions of years in the future, and also gazed upon its primordial beginnings – up to instant of the Null Effect itself."
"What's that? The Big Bang?"
He shook his head. "The Big Bang never happened. One does not have to be a Ysgoran to see the impossible mental gymnastics required of a person to make him believe in it. The term Null Effect denotes what was before, prior to when Time itself began. Past that point, not even the Ysgorans can time travel.”
"That’s a relief. Up to now you were sounding like your people could do anything."
"We truly do have our limits. The technology of Ysgor was, in fact, not founded upon any miraculous discovery made by us. We were chosen for our role because we were technically inclined. The secret was passed on to our ancestors by those whom we call the Creators."
"Are you talking about gods of some kind?"
He shook his head. "I refer to the Creators of the Godwheel, not of the Multiverse."
"Were the Vahdalans the Creators?"
"No," he said. "The Creators surpassed the Vahdalans in every way conceivable. It was the Creators who established the Vahdalans at the Godwheel, giving them the humble task of being its caretakers. After many millennia, that stormy race succumbed to civil war and all but destroyed itself. But you already know something about that."
I nodded slowly. If these alleged Creators were much more potent than the Vahdalans – one of whom I’d personally met – they had to be a gang that I wouldn't have liked to meet in a dark alley. Or even in the light of the Godwheel's three suns.
"Are these Creators still around?" I asked. I think I was hoping he’d trip himself up if I let him talk, which would put me in a place to refute his con-game, whatever it was.
Gabriel’s eyebrows arched thoughtfully. "Whether the Creators have gone beyond recall or remain with us undetected, no one may say."
Well, then, are the Ysgoans something like the Vahdalans?"
"You would not find my people so impressive as the stormy and exciting race of the Vahdalans. We served under them, taking a role analogous to that of a royal watchmaker. Just as an earthly ruling family needed people of special expertise to operate their large estates, the Vahdalans depended on the Ysorgans to care for temporal matters, especially those which concerned the Tree of Eternity."
"What's that?"
"It is the living diagram that rationalizes the operation of time over the entirety of the Multiverse."
"It’s only a diagram?" I asked.
"It is very hard to use English words to convey precise meaning. Though I call it a diagram, the Tree of Eternity is in fact greater than the whole of the reality that it supports. A change in the diagram changes the existing reality."
"The concept is totally over my head, I'm afraid."
"Basically, the Tree of Eternity is self-operating, but when snarls in its weave appear, we monitor these anomalies and send agents to deal with them. For that role we have become known as the Timekeepers. I am a Timekeeper, in fact, even if only a minor one."
I frowned. No system like the one he was describing could be operated – or even maintained -- by mortal beings. So, was Gabriel a liar, or was he something other than a mortal being? His appearance, if it wasn’t an illusion, surely made him look like any short, redheaded man who had eaten too many donuts.
"We are like gardeners," my visitor hurried on, "pulling the weeds and making sure that Time's course is cultivated and pruned. Typically, when a chaotic event confounds us, we reduplicate it under laboratory conditions and study its longer-term effects. If the effects are good, or at least harmless, we might allow it in Real Time. If they are destructive, we seek to intervene and prevent it from happening in Real Time.”
“What kind of ‘laboratory conditions’ are you talking about?” I asked.
“A timeline can be created to examine the anomaly. Before you ask what a timeline is, you should know that the concept is foundational to our mission. One reason I have come to you in preference to contacting any other ultra is that you are one of the few who knows firsthand about the existence of alternate timelines."
Yeah, that was for sure! In August, I'd fallen into an alternate timeline where I had never become Mantra. But what I had become was even worse! And my problems with alternate worlds didn’t stop there. There was also that horrible experience I'd just had.
"Each Main Bough of the Tree," Gabriel continued, "has many timelines."
Another incomprehensible term. "Main Bough?"
"It's easiest if you think of a natural tree. It has limbs, branches, and twigs that are directly or indirectly anchored by the tree trunk. Some Earth humans, by temporal accidents or employing means of crude technology, have visited other time-lines. In the Twenty-first Century, your science has finally been forced to accept their theoretical existence. But the human race understands very little about them and uses flawed terms like 'parallel universes' or 'alternate dimensions.'"
"But you haven’t said what a ‘main bough' is."
"Think of that tree I mentioned. Imagine that its trunk supports a few great limbs. The trunk is called the Bole, but the limbs issuing directly from the Bole, are referred to as the Main Boughs. Each Main Bough exists as a universe of its own. Each has its own limbs, branches, and twigs, but all Main Boughs depend on the Bole for support. As in a forest, if the trunk is cut, the limbs all fall down and die."
"Okaaaay," I said, "I'm not anywhere close to understanding where you're going. If it's necessary that I do understand, we're in a lot of trouble!”
"At the moment, I'm only seeking to help you understand the bigger picture. Think of each Main Branch as a separate house of many chambers; the chambers are the different time-lines. To enter another universe – a true universe -- one has to perform the difficult feat of crossing over into an entirely different Main Branch. Passage between local time-lines is actually easy, as you know."
"Is that a nice way of saying that I blundered into an alternate world?" I said, trying not to sound sarcastic.
“Think of Argus, the enemy you battled. He threw open a gate by which the god Thor entered our Main Bough from his own universe. By the way, the universe that spawned Thor was an inferior one – small in comparison to most Main Boughs. It was not a Bough, but more of a Burl. This Burl was thrown up quickly to serve a temporary purpose but, for illustrative purposes, Thor’s journey was rather analogous to traveling from one Main Bough to another. It took the power of a god who knew what he was doing to open a passage between separate universes.”
“Out of this whole universe, why did you choose to drop in on this particular planet to fix it?”
"Because the Nemesis Effect will soon be released in its skies. And I should also tell you that this Main Bough is different and more important than any other Main Bough. Without going into the physics of it, it serves as the keystone that supports everything above it. If the Bole loses its keystone, it cannot survive. The fact that this Main Bough is the keystone for the Multiverse, explains why the Creators paid so much attention to it.
"Yeah, that really explains a lot!” Okay, I was being out and out sarcastic just then.
“The Nemesis Effect didn’t arise out of this Main Bough, but the destructive elements were instead brought here unwittingly through the portal that Argus made. If they had remained in Thor’s world and were activated there, only that unimportant Burl universe would have been destroyed. The Multiverse would hardly have notices its passing. But if it happens here, in what is the keystone Main Bough, the whole of the Multiverse is doomed -- and doomed without recourse.
"So the worse possible thing is happening, huh?
"Indeed! If any of the other Main Boughs were loped off the Tree, the results would be vast and tragic, but the Tree as a whole would live and grow. Contrariwise, if the keystone is destroyed, the Bole is destabilized and everything collapses. All Creation from the beginning of Time into the infinite future comes tumbling down. It would, in effect, be the undoing of Creation."
"If what you’re telling me is something too big that I can't put my mind around, doesn't it diminish me as the best agent for your purposes?" I was hoping that he’d say "yes."
"That shouldn’t be a serious obstacle. Your role will be specifically crafted to enhance mine. The tasks you will carry out are only the basic physical and interpersonal ones. I will use my advanced knowledge to direct your activities toward our focused ends." Here he paused thoughtfully. "Mantra, if we're going to become colleagues, I cannot emphasize how much I will be depending on you in the near future and how much you will have to depend on me."
"I don't know yet if I want to be your colleague. I have a life to live here, and I'm pretty sure that getting involved in this cosmic thing comes packed with about a million ways to get me killed."
He wagged his finger at me. "But you will not be made safer by remaining at home. So very soon all that you know will pass away. In a microsecond, a sudden rewriting of past, present, and future will occur. That will be the literal end of this universe. Instantly a new universe will be created, but it will be a flawed structure, one that is like scar tissue, something to patch a wound. The Tree will not be able to maintain its wounded part in any normal way. The system will begin breaking down. Unfortunately, that particular system contains all that is, was, or ever will be."
"So you say! My problem is that so far nothing I’ve heard or seen tells me that I can trust a single word that comes out of your mouth."
"That is true. But haven't you just come back from an alternate reality where the Nemesis Effect has had its initial effect? This Effect places a false Main Bough where the natural one used to be. I mean, the old universe will be gone and a flawed copy will have taken its place. Then, as your people say, ‘It will be all downhill from there.'"
"Well, that place was pretty lousy, I'll give you that," I said with a shrug. “But it certainly wasn’t a null void.”
"That is because the self-preservation system of the Tree of Eternity can perform emergency repairs. Think of a damaged automobile. One may do roadside repairs and continue on, but the auto is carrying with it problems in every system. A little farther along the road, it will stop again. Then is is repaired again, but that will allow for only a short trip ahead. This process cannot continue indefinitely. The time will come when no additional repair is possible. When that point is reached, the keystone Main Bough will collapse, and with it, the Bole, too. If the Bole collapses, it collapses all the rest of the Multiverse."
"Oh, come on! You sound like one of those 'the sky is falling' guys," I said.
"This is the hardest part of my task – finding a person gifted with the simple ability to believe. This special kind of belief does not so much come from the head, but from the heart. A treasure without measure is a person will accept a transcendental truth on faith.”
"You’re also describing a nutcase who’s willing to buy into anything," I said. “You might be trying to deceive me. You might be setting me up to do something I really shouldn't do."
"Then why not give me a chance to prove myself? If I cannot win your trust, you can return to the life that you are comfortable with. But to give you fair warning, that idyllic life is going to end in less than 24 hours. The person you are now will be dead and a copy of you will take your place in the flawed universe that replaces this one. The same will be true of everything in that anomalous universe. You, your family, and all you care about will have passed into a special kind of death – state in which they had never existed at all."
"If this crisis is real, why did you show up so late in the game? You can travel over billions of years, supposedly, but you’ve come here to tell me this incredible story when there are only hours left."
"Why I have arrived so late is an involved story. I had to come to this place and time because any effective intervention I make must be performed in Real Time. In my life, as in your own, this moment is Real Time.”
“What, exactly, is Real Time?”
“The Real Time is the prime point of Now. From here, everything in the past and everything in the future is alternate Time. We cannot go from Real Time into another point of Real time by time travel. When we go into the past or future, our intrusion creates a new timeline. Whatever we do in that new timeline has no effect on what happens in Real Time.”
“So, why were you so slow to starting your mission?” I asked.
“I was prevented by the leadership of the Timekeepers from doing anything to prevent the catastrophe that is going to occur."
"What reason would other Timekeepers have for allowing the Multiverse to collapse?"
"My people share some traits with yours. The scientific mind is very inflexible. It is not so interested in finding truth as it is about making its own opinion about truth become accepted truth. If the scientific mind finds something that does not fit with its own opinion of what reality should be, it takes one of two courses. It denies that the contradiction of its own reality reality really exists. That is one reason why hundreds of amazing discoveries on Earth are being denied instead of being excitedly explored.
"Consider the many submerged cities that are being discovered from tens of thousands of years ago. Most scientists have joined with other interested parties to prevent research upon these sites. Or, alternately, when scientists find themselves unable defend their preconceived beliefs, they flee away. They close their ears to what the believers have already proven and seek some safe space where they only have to talk to each other -- such as a university. That is also the mentality that prevails within the leadership of the Timekeepers.”
I sighed. "If super scientists can be so stupid, what, exactly, do you expect me to do for you?"
"Haven’t I already told you? I seek your help in stopping the Annihilation of – well – Creation."
Well, I’ll give the little man a point one thing: he was nothing if not dramatic.
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3
