The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- a story of Mantra, Chapter 6

 The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 6

A story of Mantra and Black September

 

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

 

Posted 8-10-2022 

THE BAD PENNY

 

“By seeking and blundering, we learn."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

 “Are you sure that what you intend to do won’t get us both killed? Or at least me?”

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

“There is always that risk, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

"Please don’t quote cliches you probably don’t even understand. As reckless as you are, I don’t see how you’ve stayed alive this long. But if you think that you finally have the right questions to ask, how are we going to go about solving the central problem?”

“Elementary. The analysis of our data base should suggest a workable hypothesis!”

The redheaded alien got to work, creating readouts that a Dark Age warrior couldn’t hope to understand. Suddenly Gabriel gasped and exclaimed, “I now can see what caused the Nemesis Energy to downgrade to such a degree!”

“Are you going to say eureka?”

“I dare say I should!”

"So what did you spy with your little eye?"

"I spy -- I see -- that the X-Factor, the unknown quality -- is a woman."

"A woman? A human woman?" I asked.

"Her readings are distinctly human, but her power-ratings are astonishing. Her readings do not meet the parameters of a goddess, so she must be an ultra – and an ultra of almost unimaginable potency. The lady appeared suddenly in New York out of a time dilation field. But she didn’t arrive alone. She was carrying the temporal clones of both the Time Gem and Reality Gems.”

“What? How did she get her hands on two of the Infinity Gems – or even their clones?”

“It’s a paradox, I grant. I very much suspect that the two Gems must have assisted her in attacking the array of the seven!”

“What’s going on? Are Gem clones fighting with other Gem clones?”

“Apparently, but for the time being it is vital to find out who this X-Factor is."

A digital photo took form on a view screen. The mystery woman appeared to be young, human, and attractive -- three qualities that always make me well disposed toward any woman who has them.

He exclaimed: "Now!"

"Now, what?"  

“Now I will run the recognition software,” the Timekeeper said.

"Don’t bother," I said.  

Gabriel glanced up. “Why shouldn’t I?”

Taking a deep breath, I let it out: "Because I know her.”

“You do? Who is she?” Gabriel asked.

“That's Amber Hunt."

#

What were the chances? Out of the countless trillions of universe’s inhabitants, how was it that the “X-Factor” who miraculously intervened to stand in the way of Nemesis should turn out to be one of the finite people number of people whom I knew?

Well, to be more exact, I knew Amber Hunt from distant personal sightings and from that files that Aladdin had compiled concerning her.

Also, I was not forgetting that Amber Hunt's name had kept turning up in that alternate world. The young woman was a true bad penny. She had apparently been part of an ultra gang being sought as suspect in the destruction of twenty-five percent of New York City.

And my mind was filling with other information, too -- things that I didn’t even know I knew. They had to have come from my VIGOPS connection. I had become like a computer with a wireless card and the VIGOPS was acting like the the WIFI connection feeding me information.

I know knew that before Amber Hunt had a psychotic episode in which she came very close to destroying the Earth with gamma rays, she had been a college girl. I knew, too, that she was descended from an American POW who’d been held in a Nazi prison camp. At the same camp was a biological research station and the Reich was using prisoners of war as experimental subjects. It had been set up in that location in the hope that the Allied prisoners would serve as human shields for deterring the Allies’ aerial bombardment of the site. But the American high command bombed the Nazi research facility regardless. It didn’t seem to know or care that the air strike was going to release a disease culture stored there into the open air, infecting both camp personnel and prisoners. Decades later, an American research scientist named Dr. Rachel Deming would learn about the Axis wartime project and also discover the research that most of the rest of the world had been kept ignorant of. She called her discovery the Theta Virus.

The virus had originally come to Earth inside a UFO that had crashed in Germany. The virus culture displayed amazing properties and Nazi research believed that it had the properties that would create super-soldiers. The Nazis had already created a type of short-lived ultra by using the virus on human subjects. Because of the lab leak, hundreds of people were infected by the super-soldier virus. The virus did no lasting harm to normal humans exposed to it, but it altered their DNA. Their children born afterwards were subject to the full effect of the genetic alteration. Unfortunately, most of these young people died in early adulthood, before their ultra abilities developed.

Deming located a score of seriously ill young people and used a cure that she’d developed from a Nazi prototype. The remedy put the Theta Virus into remission and in remission the mutation didn’t kill the subjects, but instead stimulated the full development of the subject’s potential ultra powers. Deming recruited those subjects who displayed the most useful abilities into an ultra team she dubbed “the Exiles.” The very last Theta victim that she discovered and brought to her lab had been Amber Hunt.

Hunt’s grandfather had been an infected POW. His daughter, her mother, had died of a mysterious illness shortly after Amber was born. At this point, the information coming into my mind became speculative. Deming presumably informed Hunt that she had inherited a genetic condition that would prove fatal if she didn’t receive special treatment. But something went wrong inside Deming’s laboratory and an explosion wiped out the facility and killed and crippled most of the ultras that belonged to the Exiles team. The VIGOPS information speculated that Amber Hunt had personally survived that explosion only because she'd gained the ability to absorb destructive energy and change it into something that wouldn’t kill her. But the girl’s subsequent behavior gave indication that the disease, the treatment, or some collateral cause, had rendered her violently insane.

So now Amber Hunt, with her very strange and tragic life history, had somehow become the Factor X that Multiverse had to depend on for its survival.

Try to make sense out of that!

#

"This is inconceivable, Gabriel,” I said. “How could a human body -- even an ultra-human’s body -- absorb the kind of god-like power commanded of Nemesis?"

"I don’t know," the alien scientist replied gravely. "Possibly, the influence of the Time and Reality Gems enabled her to carry out her mission.”

"It all seems like a big coincidence, and I’m suspicious of coincidences. You don't suppose that she was…created…to do this very thing?" I asked.

"Created by whom?"

I swallowed a lump. "By something bigger and hopefully better than Nemesis."

He brightened. “Ah, you must be speaking of the One who was the Maker of the Demiurge. We know so little about that entity. If your hypothesis were true, it would be a very wonderful thing, don’t you think?”

"I suppose. I’m okay with having Somebody out there who’s looking out for us little people. But if that's so, even bringing in the big guns failed. I mean, if you’re right, the Multiverse is still doomed.”

“Such pessimism,” Gabriel said with a sigh. “Millions of years of data tell us that the most important component of success is always optimism.”

“If it is or isn’t, our big problem we're facing is finding this problem child before it’s too late."

He referred to his instruments again. "We'll trace Miss Hunt by following her data signature -- in retrograde through time and space.

"How easy is that going to be?"

"Fairly easy. The intrusive nature of her power has already broken so many of the rules of quantum dimensional physics that it has left the equivalent of a bloody trail through the fabric of reality."

"So, you’re sure that we can catch up with her?"

"Quite.”

“But how can we get her to do what we want her to do? It seems to me that anyone as powerful as she is doesn’t have to take orders from anyone.”

"Remember what I said about optimism?"

“And another thing -- what good will it do messing around with this version of Amber Hunt? Isn’t she just a temporal clone of the original? Don’t we have to get our hands on the real Amber Hunt-- the one who belongs in Zero Time-- to do any real good?”

“Excellent reasoning, Mantra!” he said. “But finding the location of this clone might put us on the precise track of the original.”

"So, our next step is what? A manhunt? A womanhunt?"

"Exactly," Gabriel affirmed. “When we find her, we will only need to ask her to do what she is willing to do anyway. But we'll ask her to do it in a different way; we’ll tweak the manner of her mission so she can do it more efficiently, thereby saving the Multiverse."

"I get it,” I said. “But if we’re going to be correcting her mistakes, won’t the two of us also have to make zero mistakes ourselves?”

“Obviously. But the two of us are just going to have to do the best we can,” he said.

That wasn’t much of an answer, but something else was bothering me. I had started to realize that Amber Hunt wasn’t just a soulless killing machine. She had started out as an ordinary girl who was born with a tragic illness. Wouldn’t Gabriel still sacrifice her ruthlessly if it meant saving all of Creation?

Of course he would! And, Hell, I was pretty sure that I would do the exact same thing if the problem were dumped in my lap.

#

Gabriel launched us on our trip through space and time. I expected that I’d have time for a nap, but even before I could find my personal cabin, I heard his voice through the comm system.

“We’re here,” the Timekeeper said.

I immediately went back to the control center and took a gander from the nearest port.   

What I saw outside wasn’t anything like I was expecting.

We were not hovering above some Planet Z in the Sagittarian Arm of the Galaxy. Instead, we were in my present home town -- Los Angeles, California.  

Had Amber Hunt had been hiding in Los Angeles all this time?   

Apparently.

But this version of that city was a Los Angeles from Hell.

It looked like a cityscape inspired by some drug addict’s apocalyptic nightmare.

The metropolis had an ash-gray cast under a dirty-looking sky. Everything about it was so ruined and ugly that I couldn’t help but wonder if the atmosphere wasn’t poisonous. I suddenly had a dread thought. Had I had temporal clones of my kids and my friends down there? Could any of them be still alive?

"What happened here?" I asked the Timekeeper. "It's Los Angeles, but it looks like it’s been through a war."

"Something terrible has occurred."

"Well, duh, I can see that much."

"I mean that this whole planet is under siege by the Nemesis energy."

"It's here already here? I thought we’d gone back in time!"

"No. Amber Hunt’s trail took us into the future, not the past. The probability is that when the Nemesis Wave was released, something shifted this whole universe into attenuated time, so as to prevent the first wave of destruction from striking.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is good, but it only amounts to a Band-Aid, not any permanent fix.”

"Are you saying that this universe has been under attack from Nemesis for seven years?

"No. But the equivalent of seven years has passed in this Earth’s attenuated time.”

“This is too crazy. I say, let’s get this dirty job done with and then get out of here.”

“We must not be hasty. This peculiar situation might have something to do with the fact that Amber Hunt will see fit to come here. If we can find out how the Nemesis Energy has been been held at bay up to this point, it may give us an entirely new approach for saving the Multiverse.”

“Didn’t we have a workable plan already?” I asked.

“We have one plan, but we may yet come up with a better one. I only know this much: There is a protective field safeguarding this solar system. The whole rest of the universe blinked out of existence long ago. To make matters worse, our sensors reveal that the field has been progressively weakening for seven years. Attenuated time cannot permanently stop the flow of time; it can only slow it down. I expect that the field saved this solar system when it was only nanoseconds from destruction. This unnatural state cannot be maintained for much longer. The estimated time of collapse is only two days away -- in attenuated time, I mean! But that’s only a very rough guess. I will have to work in haste to secure a more accurate measurement"

“If the dam breaks, are we going to be destroyed with everything else?” I asked.

“Our systems for self-defense are very efficient. As you know, we’ve avoided the Nemesis Energy once already today. But unless we can do what we came here to do, the Multiverse will eventually end and we cannot possibly survive that.

“Tell me, what source of power is strong enough to protect an entire solar system, even for a mere seven years?"

"Several things, I suppose. But in my personal knowledge, there is only one thing: the Infinity Gems. And we already have good reason to associate Amber Hunt with two such Gems. I must at once scan for any local traces of their presence."  

So far, the VIGOPS hadn’t taught me how to read his displays, so I just stood off and let him do his thing.

"I do see indications of the Time Gem down below," Gabriel finally said. "This scan confirms that neither Amber Hunt nor the Reality Gem have arrived yet. It is conceivable that she may already have possession of the Reality Gem and is now on her way here to seize the Time Gem.

If that Gem had been the key to Earth’s local survival, her theft of it would end the solar system even before its last two days passed. All this apocalyptic stuff was making a nervous wreck of me! "So, where is Amber Hunt now?" I asked.

“She isn’t here yet. We came early so we could lay in wait for her arrival. If she’s hostile, the two of us will have the element of surprise.”

"Then this hasn’t been her hideout all along? It’s just a stop along her way?" I inquired.

"Correct.

“I’m still worried that she won’t listen to us. In the past she’s acted like she’s psychotic and out of control.”

“That’s possible," he said, “so we will have to plan for that contingency.”

I had another question for him. "Was it the Nemesis Energy that’s made a wreck of Los Angeles? Or was it the Time Gem? Or a nuclear war?"

He shook his head. "None of them. The clue to what happened here is the anomalous local concentration of volcanic ash."

"Come again?"

"This city has had heavy rain from an ash cloud. It appears that this planet has suffered from a super volcanic explosion. That’s reasonable. Your Earth has lived in fear of such a disaster for decades.”

"Well, whatever is happened here, it looks like there's been looting, rioting, and street-fighting. The Los Angeles I knew had about nineteen million people, but this wreck of a city couldn’t support more than a few thousand. The looters must have taken what they wanted and everyone else starved to death."

Gabriel nodded. "Too true. Human violence often accompanies natural catastrophes."

I took another long look by way of the view-port. I started to wonder if something could be done to help the people still alive, even if those people were the icy-hearted looters who had added to the misery, but couldn’t think of anything. And what was the point in trying to save them? The Nemesis energy would break through and blink out the entire solar system in a couple days anyhow. We had to keep our focus on the mission. Capturing Amber Hunt was the only thing that mattered. As soon as we accomplished that, we had to take her away safe to somewhere better than this heart of devastation!

“What do we do if Hunt doesn’t arrive?” I asked.

"She will come," Gabriel said with professorial certainty.

I waited, but the little man didn't elaborate.

What a time for the annoyingly garrulous Gabriel to become a man of few words!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 7.

The Twilight of the Gods - a story of Mantra, Chapter 5

 

 The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS - Chap. 5

A story of Mantra and Black September

 

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

 

Posted 7-7-2022 

 

THE LIGHT SHOW

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

“Let me specify,” said the Timekeeper. “For us to accomplish what we must, we have no other option but to take you beyond the boundaries that you have believed up to now that were limiting you. In the course of doing this, it will be necessary to give you a new perspective on some of the secrets of Creation."

“Only some?”

“Yes, only some – unless you would wish to stay in attenuated time for many decades of study.”

“No, I don’t think so. Give me the condensed notes version.”

“By far the fastest way to teach you is to have you accept the same enhancements that other persons, including Diana, has accepted. You will be brought up to the capabilities of a time agent."

"Enhancements? I don’t like the sound of that. If I got these enhancements, what would be left of the real me?"

"I assure you, Mantra, your persona will not be overwritten. If I wanted to that, I could choose any man or woman off the street. The enhancement I speak of are necessary for you to gain the advantages of being in communication with VIGOPS uploads and downloads."

"So you say, but what’s to stop you from turning me into a mind-controlled tool? I once trusted a man too much and look where I ended up!"

“You are talking about Archimage, of course. But for all his faults, it was Archimage who set you on the course of becoming a consummate hero.”  

"I didn’t ask to be a consummate hero. My life was complex enough the way it was!”

"Providence rarely awards any of us what we ask for, but it has a way of providing exactly what we need."

I shook my head.  "Here’s the deal: I’m willing to play along for a little longer, making sure that you’re “playing straight” with me. But if I find out that you're up to no good, I'll set things right with the Sword of Fangs, and don’t expect any second warning after this one!"

"It's a bargain!" he said and reached out his hand. This time, I decided to take it.

"What happens next?" I asked.

“It's already happened.”

I frowned. “Nothing’s happened.”

“Something has happened, but it happened in attenuated time.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you have undergone an extensive modification process while you have been standing there.”

“I didn’t agree anything like that!”

“Oh, excuse me. I thought you did agree. Alas, languages are such inefficient modes of communication.”

I had the impulse to kill him then and there, but I was distracted by strange and disconcerting feelings inside myself. It was like everything about my perception had been sharpened, as if my mind had become a radio that had just been souped up to receive ten thousand new wavelengths.

“You will learn how to draw upon information provided by the VIGOPS as needed. It must be done in gradual steps. Allowing so much data to overflow your conscious mind would overwhelm you.”

“What am I supposed to do during my learning curve?” I asked.

“Your programming will handle it. Think of it yourself as a computer that has gotten an extensive upgrade. The programming will do all that needs to be done without you needing to think about it.”

 I supposed that he was saying that I’d just become his automated cyborg. Damn! I should have killed the little rat before ever letting him touch me!

Suddenly he asked, “What do you think we should do next?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Consider my question a test of your connection tot he VIGOPS. How do you think we should best address our problem?”

“Well, what's really coming through loud and clear is that we should kill that bitch Sersi before she hooks up with the Ego Gem. Wouldn’t that be a logical step?"

"It certainly should be but, unfortunately, in Zero Time, the Gem already controls Sersi. Events that have already transpired in Zero Time are, as you Earthers say, are set in stone. As you might say, we will have to play the cards that we’ve been dealt."

“If you want better questions, why don’t you try asking them yourself?”

“I do, constantly. But I have immense respect for your aptitude of problem-solving.”

"If neither of us knows what we have to do, shouldn’t we be trying to get more information? Wouldn't that be better than just standing here and jawing? I’m one of those people who doesn’t like having grass growing under his feet.”

“Very well, we shall apply ourselves at once to the gathering of more information,” the Timekeeper said.

#

In a flash, we were located in a place that looked blurry and unreal. The only thing I could distinctly see was a vehicle parked ahead of us, a vehicle that I somehow knew was Gabriel’s “Time Capsule.”  He went up to it ahead of me, opened a hatch, and invited me inside. I stepped in and, damn it, the damned thing was bigger on the inside than on the outside!  

He started going on about “Inter-dimensional engineering” while showing me room after room. I couldn’t believe the size of the contraption. I grew tired of the guided tour long before it was over, but one thing could appreciate was that I would never get claustrophobic while staying indoors!

I felt prompted to change the subject. “If everything in Zero Time is beyond changing, what’s already been established in Zero Time at this exact microsecond?"

To make a long story short, he told me that several other other heroes, ultra types hailing from the Scaffold Universe, had arrived on the Main Bough, and these included the god Thor, whom I had already met. But because the pack of them had failed to avoid detection by their long-time foe Loki, the trickster god opted to act like a Roman emperor and threw them into a kind of gladiatorial competition against ultras plucked away from my own Earth. And the ultras that he chose to pick on happened to be the UltraForce, most of whom I knew slightly. The one hopeful nuggst of information that I gleaned from him was that the Ego Gem – acting through Sersi – had not as yet gained possession of the other six gems.

“Can we stop her?” I asked.

“That is one of of the options we still have,” Gabriel replied, in a sober and tentative way. "Are you ready to launch our excursion in earnest?"

"Excursion to where?"

After he had answered my question, I found myself wishing that I could go almost anywhere else!

#

Maybe my VIGOPS connection was starting to work, because I thought that I understood that we would not be going back to the real world, but into a near-future timeline, one that Gabriel believed would a very accurately simulation of own Earth’s fate if we didn’t get involved and make things turn out differently.

Somewhat to my surprise, we didn’t arrive inside some glorious realm of the gods, and we didn’t even on the Godwheel, where Loki was, but we instead found ourselves looking down on New York City. Something – the VIGOPS, I think – was telling me that this scene was the onset of the decisive battle between the Scaffold Universe “Avengers” and the UltraForce. We were already past the point when they had fought one another for Loki’s entertainment and they'd become allies going head-on against the goddess named Nemesis. I intuitively realized that Mantra wasn't there and asked Gabriel why not.

“Remember how I said that this is a very accurate future timeline? Your alter-ego is not here because you are not going to be there. How can you be, since you are going to be with me while all this is occurring?”

“This is just too confusing.”

“Understanding it will become easier,” he assured me.

He continued to fill me in and I learned that by this point in time Nemesis had snatched the six gems from Loki and the God of Mischief, no more than a bug in comparison to Nemesis, had slunk away, leaving the saving of the Multiverse to the Avengers and the UltraForce. That was disheartening for, to my understanding, had all of them had been equal to the god Thor himself, up against Nemesis they would be no more than a swarm of buzzing flies.

I thought that I would at least get to watch a rousing good fight, but the the monitor in front of me wouldn’t let me see more than a free-for-all in midair. But suddenly the scene became a sort of light show, no more informative than a fireworks celebration.

Then all went dark.

“What happened?” I asked Gabriel.   

“Eureka!" he exclaimed.

"Eureka?  Does that mean you've found something good?"

"It's very good," he replied.

"What did you see?"

“I saw a mystery wrapped in an enigma.”

“If you're trying to sound smart by quoting Winston Churchill, it isn't working. Tell me straight, what did you find out?”

“We have discovered that the physics of what transpired in the course of the battle totally defies the Law of Conservation of Energy."

“So what? Since I've met you, you've been calling earth scientist a disaster area."

"Of course it is. But Émilie du Châtelet’s  basic concept was not wrong. It is only its ramifications that Earth’s physicists do not understand.”

“Whatever. I just want to know if we have gathered enough information to prevent the destruction of the Multiverse in Zero Time?”

“No, it is still doomed. Absolutely.”

“Oh, bugger!”

“But we have learned that the alignment of forces that were engaged in that battle are not at all what we formerly believed to be the case. Nemesis was there, yes, and the ultras, too, but there was also a third force engaged at the same time. Our monitoring equipment make it clear that it was not part of the attack upon Nemesis, but part of the defense. But, unfortunately, its intervention was not one hundred percent effective. Because of that, the Multiverse has not been rescued. In fact, that tiny particle of surviving Nemesis Energy caused that entire timeline to blink out of existence a microsecond after we left it. But if we can properly interpret the information gained, we may be able to return to the Main Bough and alter the conditions of the battle so as to utterly defeat Nemesis!”

"How easy will that be?” I asked.

“It will not be easy in the least, but now we know why the Nemesis Energy was only able to inflict a "slow kill" on the Main Bough."

“Maybe you know it, but I don’t know it!”

“It is like this: Due to some force that we do not yet know about, the great majority of the energy released by Nemesis was intercepted by what should be called an “energy-conversion field.” This field transformed the god-energy emanating from Nemesis into harmless types of electromagnetic wave energy. You were looking at a small part of that transformed energy when you were looking at those colored lights."

“Wait a minute! Are you saying that enough energy to destroy the Multiverse was changed into a few megawatts of visible light?”

“By no means. The vast majority of it was turned into invisible and yet non-lethal energy forms. Unfortunately, a tiny proportion of the original Nemesis Energy was left unconverted and that will be enough to put the Main Bough into its centuries-long death spiral. It is our paramount task to find out how that energy conversion field came to exist and how it can be made even more efficient at the moment when it engages with Nemesis on the Main Bough in Zero Time."

“That's crazy! I told you what would happen if I found out that you’re shucking me! How could the Nemesis Energy be converted into electromagnetic energy? Wasn’t it made of a totally different form of energy? – magical energy, I mean. We talking about the residual power of a dead god, aren't we?"

"Ironically, this was a topic that was better understood when you were born in the Fifth Century than it is now in the Twenty-First.”

“What was better understood?”

“The people of antiquity understood the principle of Ying and Yang. They understood that Magic and science are not different. The energy that empowers both states of energy are merely two phases of the same phenomenon. When the savants of contemporary decided on the basis of mere whim to stop believing in magic, its picture of the universe became less accurate than it had been in ancient days.”

"So, where does all this take us?  In fact, where in hell have you already taken us?"

He glanced at his monitor. “We're in another timeline, a timeline were the Nemesis Event never happened.”

“Say, I like the sound of that. Can people come here and be safe?” I asked.

“No. The Nemesis Energy that will poison the Main Bough is the Creation Energy. Nothing that exists is more powerful. The power of Creation overrides the past, present and future as if they had never been. Even the tiny amount of Nemesis Energy that escaped conversion is sufficient to wipe clean the entire slate of Realty.”

“So we’re all going to die?”

“Someday. But we will not die of the Nemesis Effect, not if we do what must be done to counter it. Of course, even if we give it our best efforts, we're still going to need a great deal of good luck.”

“So, it’s still a craps shoot. What are we supposed to do to set things right – specifically”

“We must order our thinking. We cannot solve a problem until first we ask the right questions.”

“What are the right questions?”

And so he told me.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly what I most wanted to hear!

 

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6

The Twilight of the Gods - a story of Mantra, Chapter 4

 

 The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS - Chap. 4

A story of Mantra and Black September

 

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

 

Posted 6-7-2022

Chapter 4


A Guillotine for a God

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I saw amusement in Diana’s eyes.  “You don't know what you're asking,” she said to me.  

“Oh, come on! This insanity must have had a beginning somewhere,” I replied.

“All right. In the beginning there was darkness....”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“If you don’t really want to hear the story from the beginning, let me ask you how much you know about the old Gnostics.”  

I didn’t know a lot. They were a persecuted Christian sect that had been stamped out by about 450 AD, the year I was born. Their books were seized and burned. That was how it was in those days. With the help of the Roman Caesars, bishops suppressed every religious movement that they chose to call heretical.

As far as I knew, only one sect of Gnostics had lingered on, the Manicheans. They survived in Asia, east of the Roman sway. But even the Manicheans had vanished before the end of the Middle Ages, outlawed by both the Islamists and the Chinese. I never had any reason to read up on Gnosticism; it had become a dead letter before I ever came upon the scene. Anyway, the only “god” I believed in had been Archimage.

"The Gnostics,” continued Diana, “understood the Beginning Times with such accuracy that their knowledge must have been otherworldly. They somehow knew that the god who had created the universe had himself been a created being, created by Another, a deity who had existed before time began and was much greater. The chief god he created was called the Demiurge. That one lived, did some amazing things, and then died.”

"The Creator God died?" I asked.  

"Oh, some might call him the Creator God,” she said, “but to whom does the house belong, the carpenter who built it, or the land owner who put him to his task? But you have to understand that the Demiurge did not die in the ordinary sense."

“Okay, he had a close escape. Did his own Creator try to take check him out?” I asked.

“No, he committed suicide.”

"Why? Who can have more to live for than a god?”

"Seemingly, a god can be lonely.  For eons the Demiurge had been seeking to create living beings worthy to be his companions. But every sentient race he called into being were inferior to him. Perfection was beyond his power to create, because he was himself created with flaws. Think of Adam and Eve.”

“Do you believe in Adam and Eve?” I asked.

“I have good reason to.”

I said nothing one that and Diana picked up on her tale. “The worst flaw in the Demiurge’s creations was their readiness to do evil.  No matter how well they started out, they soon grew disobedient and the god could not tolerate disobedience. Without perfect but yet obedient companions, he remained in effective isolation. He eventually grew fixated upon self-annihilation, but he had been constituted to be almost unslayable…"

“But he did pull it off, didn’t he?” I asked.

Gabriel now joined in.  "That's woefully correct, Eden.  If the Demiurge had cut himself into pieces, his parts would have come together again in the blink of an eye. Had he plunged himself into the heart of a super nova, it would have affected him no more than a warm bath.  But by applying his immense intellect to the problem of self-destruction and at last found a way – or at least thought he did."

"What did the idiot finally do?"

Diana rejoined the conversation. "He created a – a platform -- and occupied it.  He had created a small and rudimentary universe to serve for his place of death. Then he opened a portal to an existing universe and placed his head through. It grieves me to say it, but the reality that he was intruding upon was the Main Bough of the Tree of Life.”

“Do you mean our Main Bough?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That can’t be good,” I conjectured.

“It wasn’t.”

“It sounds like suicide by guillotine. Is it that head that’s now causing all our troubles?”

“I'm afraid so,” our hostess said.

“Why did he want to throw him bomb into the one place that was supposed to be holding up the whole Multiverse – if I admit just for argument’s sake that there really is a Multiverse?”

Gabriel chimed in again. “The intellect of a true god is beyond the ken of even the Timekeepers. But whenever I contemplate that question, the only thought that comes to me is that he perhaps wanted the last thing in his sight to be the paramount glory of his Creation -- the finest and most perfect universe he had ever created.”

Diana sighed.  “When he activated his guillotine, the dimensional door closed, shearing off his head and letting it fall into the Main Bough. His body remained in the 'Scaffold Universe.’ He knew that his body would become a toxic, a danger to any realm that it occupied. It was for that reason that he created a slap-dash scaffold universe. Its only intended purpose was to serve as a toxic waste dump."

"So what's the catch in all this?” I knew there had to be a catch, and a bad one.

"Indeed, there was a catch,” admitted Gabriel. His body in the Scaffold Universe crystallized into six gems, each embodying a part of the Demiurge's godly qualities -- control of Reality, Mind, Space, Power, Soul, and Time. They comprised most of the Creator god’s power, only lacking his unifying intelligence. That intelligence had been lodged inside his now-severed head. That head, having fallen to Earth, congealed into a seventh gem – the Ego Gem, the repository of what was left of the god's self-awareness.

“Unfortunately, the Ego Gem held only the intellect of the Demiurge, not his spirit, which, as far as we know, had been dissolved and lost.  Intellect without any moral spirit is a mad thing. In the words of your planet’s psychologists, it creates a psychotic personality. But the practical power still under control of the Ego Gem were slight and it could do little harm to the Main Bough. Likewise, existing without any directing intelligence, the other six Gems posed a great, but survivable, threat even when all of the six were combined. But…."

"But what?"

It was Diana who continued the story. "By the construction of his guillotine, the Demiurge had created a lasting link between the Scaffold Universe and the Main Bough. He had had enough foresight to establish a seal to keep them separate, but like all things he created, that seal had a flaw. It has been gradually weakening over the eons."

"So, what does is comedy of errors adding up to?" I asked.

Diana swallowed hard.  "The seal has diminished to the point where the Vahdalan Argus, the entity whom you and your allies did battle with on the Godwheel, was able to cross over into the Scaffold Universe, and later cross back. Each time the portal was penetrated, it grew weaker."

I frowned. “I suppose Thor and Rune, traipsing back and forth, didn’t make things any better.”

“No. And don’t forget Loki’s surreptitious passage, too,” said Gabriel. “Further, when Rune came back to our reality, he brought with him what he considered to be a precious treasure.”

Rune had returned? If he had, one of my worst fears had been realized! My family and I had become sitting ducks for that fiend’s malice.”

“What loot did he take?” I asked.

Diana shuddered: "He bought to our universe the six forbidden gems. If they are ever united with the Ego Gem, they will merge into the Infinity Array. It will be the veritable rebirth of the Demiurge. But in this form the Demiurge will be only a soulless, mechanistic reconstitution, lacking the redeeming qualities that the ancient Demiurge possessed."

I got it! These two were expecting me to go up against a mad god, one able to create universes as an afterthought! Well, their confidence in me was flattering.

But if they thought I was going to set myself up to be swatted like an insect, they were absolutely insane!

#

"The Mind Gem you fought Loki to possess was one of the seven, Eden," Gabriel informed me.  “In Zero Time, Loki has already won control of the Six.  But the existence of the Ego Gem has escaped his notice. It has taken possession a goddess from the Scaffold Universe, Sersi. Now, having access to her body and her powers, the Ego Gem is fixated on wresting the other Gems from Loki and recreating itself as the Demiurge."

"Are you saying that by losing to Loki, I set the universe -- the Multiverse – on the road to destruction?"

"Do not fault yourself. You could never have matched the Asgardian in terms of naked power. It would have taken many ultras assisting you to fend off the trickster god."

Did I dare believe him? In bygone days, I had been taken in by the duplicitous Archimage. The being now egging me on could be concocting a phony spiel to recruit me for some nefarious purpose. I didn’t want to be duped again.  

"So,” I said stiffly, “if the six Gems fall into the orbit of the Ego Gem, is it going to be even worse than if Loki keeps them?"

"Infinitely so," averred Gabriel.  "With the Six, Loki has attained the power to crush worlds and even whole galaxies, but up to this point in Real Time, he has only used the gems for playing pranks. As for what he will eventually decide to do, we have no idea."

“Can’t you time travel into the future and take a peak?”

“The Timekeepers have already done that. They have learned that Loki is about to lose the Gems to the Ego Gem.”

"That sucks. But let me understand. You’re saying that the Ego Gem intends to destroy the universe -- the entire Multiverse? Why?" I asked.

"Its motives and intention are not so simple to comprehend," Gabriel explained.  "We suspect that the reconstituted Demiurge hates the Multiverse for failing to live up to her vision of perfection and that imperfection is a source of anger and shame. In her dementia she will be driven to sweep the table clean.”

"She?  You've been calling the Demiurge a ‘he’ up to now.”

The little man shrugged.  "The indications are that the resurrected Demiurge will on take a goddess shape after attuning herself to the body of Sersi, a demi-goddess. In most future alternatives, the Ego Gem will choose to manifest inside a superficially female shape and call herself after a goddess of vengeance and destruction – Nemesis.  But the particulars of the revenant’s name and shape hardly matter."

"If you say so.  But if this -- Nemesis -- rises, what exactly will she do?"

“She will use her immense power within to let loose the forces of chaos, of anti-Creation. But we know that her active threat will be but short-lived. The future, at the farthest point that our time agents have been able to travel, reveals that the array of the Seven will be attacked and disrupted by an audacious warrior. That blow struck will cause the Seven to be scattered as separate entities."

"That's good, isn't it?" I asked.

“It’s good, but not good enough.  The victorious warrior will make the assault too late and Nemesis will have time to release a portion of her Nemesis Energy, the energy of destruction. The ancient Demiurge endowed the Tree of Eternity with the ability to heal itself, but it cannot stand against the Demiurge’s own power. Not for long. The leaked Energy will act as a cancer inside the system of the Tree of Eternity. It will repeatedly try to heal itself, but in the long term it will be unable to cope.  That will mean its eventual exhaustion and its collapse, unleashing a cascading breakdown that will bring about the collapse of the entire Multiverse. In the broader perspective, eons of Creation will vanish as if they had never been."

"What warrior gets to conk the bitch? Is it supposed to be me?"

"No. The warrior is one whom you’ve never met, Mantra.  But, even so, you have already heard of him.  The Black Knight."

I took that in. I had read about the Black Knight in Aladdin reports, a run of the mill adventurer who had shown up during the summer, seemingly from nowhere. From all reports, the fellow didn’t amount to much – an ultra of limited ability with some sort of glowing sword. For some unknown reason, he had been allowed to join the UltraForce.  

"He is, in fact, an intruder from the Scaffold Universe," Diana volunteered, "one who has come to reclaim his exiled lover, Sersi."

"Whew," I said.  "This dude has been shacking up with a goddess and he’s also the only guy who’ll be able to land a blow against Nemesis?"

Gabriel smiled woefully.  "We think he will just be ‘lucky.’ Our task is to rewrite future events so that at  more effective fighter than him strikes an earlier and more telling blow."

“How much do you know about this upcoming battle?” I asked.

“Not everything is clear as yet. From the hacked information in the central VIGOPS, we presently know that even a tiny particle of escaping Nemesis Energy will be enough to set the Multiverse on its career of doom. The aberrations you witnessed in that other reality represent just the earliest changes in reality forced upon the Tree of Eternity. Once the process has begun, there will be no saving the Multiverse."

"Do you have any idea how to stop the process?"

"We have a general idea, but no specifics,” said the Timekeeper. “A forensic reappraisal of the hero’s battle with Nemesis is an absolute necessity before a valid plan can be formulated.”

"There's something else I've been wondering about," I said.  "What, exactly, do you need me for? Isn’t the whole world of the Timekeepers with you on the front lines? And what about your army of time agents, like Diana here? What is everyone doing?"

Gabriel winced. “They are doing...nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?”

"They are in retreat. By now, the Timekeepers will have finished their evacuation of the Main Bough, even from their home on the Godwheel," he said with a face of disdain. “The time agents have been given no specific orders. They are being left behind to their fate.”

"Come again?" I asked incredulously.

"In plain words, our leadership has decided not to prevent catastrophe."

I couldn’t believe I’d heard that correctly. "Why not? Isn’t their own hides on the chopping block, too?”

"Yes, they are. But response is to merely make themselves the last bird eaten by the crocodile.  Or am I using that metaphor wrongly?”

"I get your idea, but you’d better explain this craziness."

“The Timekeepers have developed a very hands-off view of what their job is. The ruling ideology maintains that the solution is to let the problem work itself out. They are used to monitoring the trivial, but being confronted by something they have never dealt with before, has turned them into lost sheep. Their instinct is to run away.”

“You didn’t give me that impression before!” I accused.

“Sorry if I lent insufficiently forthcoming.”

“How could they have possibly decided to do nothing?”

"The same phenomenon has occurred many times, even on your own planet, Eden. How many great empires have collapsed when they were strong and vital enough to stand tall and triumph? Did not Rome’s leaders, as the end approached, fight one another with zeal while doing little to stop the advancing barbarians? And think how the French seemed to lose the will to fight during the opening rounds of World War II.  And look at what the overwhelming passivity of your American president in Afghanistan.”

"Where are your people evacuating to?” I asked. “Can it be a refuge for others, too?"

He shook his head.  "In the long term, there are no refuges. When the collapse comes, it will not come at every location at once.  Think of a building on fire. The fire takes time to overwhelm every particle of the structure. On the Main Bough, there shall exist remote twigs that will perish later than any of the rest. Those are the localities that the Timekeepers will install themselves. But those last remnants of the Main Bough will outlast the first collapse by mere centuries."

“I can only hope that you people don’t know what you’re talking about.”

"I cannot blame you for a lack of confidence in us. My people have behaved shamefully and I am even more exasperated with them than you are.”

“Recriminations can wait for later. Right now we need the heroes to step forward,” I declared.

“All is not lost, Mantra.  My section-chief, Michael, the former leader of the Timekeepers’ field division, managed to create a new technology that has been aided the remaining dissenters immensely.”

"Former leader?"

He was arrested and evacuated perforce.  The self-defense measures that Michael developed were also shut down by his higher-ups and his known allies have been neutralized. Fortunately, Michael had taken extraordinary measures to conceal my membership in his group, due to my crucially sensitive position as an insider.”  

"Where does that leave us?"

I thought I saw a glint of optimism in Gabriel's expression -- forced optimism, I supposed.  

"Though the Timekeepers ultimately refused to act,” he said, “they had studied the looming disaster, gathering much useful information.  Fortunately, by means of Michael’s secret tap into the most confidential VIGOPS data banks, he and a few others were able to form a defensive scheme. I still have access to that data."

"So, your leader was called Michael?  Do all you Timekeepers name yourselves after Archangels?"

"Of course not.  There are only twelve Archangels."

I shook my head.  “Look, I’ve done some of my best work in the company of renegades.  But I was hoping that there would be a super-civilization out there backing us up.”

Gabriel’s momentary optimism devolved into sheepishness.  “I didn’t want to emphasize the difficulty of our situation right at the outset, lest it discourage you.”

Disgusted, I turned toward Diane.  “How much did you know about this fiasco?”

She sighed. “I’ve been fully briefed only lately. It's grim, I admit, but I’m hopeful that Gabriel's confidence in you will be justified.”

“Don’t you dare put this on me!” I snared. Oh, brother! A whole civilization had copped out of its responsibilities and the diehards were expecting me to straighten things out!

"We have a promising plan to follow,” Gabriel declared. “Our first task is to monitor Nemesis being vanquished by the Black Knight. Our key to success should lie in discovering what variables existed during that encounter. If the presumed X-Factors can be identified and manipulated, ensuing events might be manipulated, thereby avoiding the collapse of the Multiverse."

I scowled.  "You make it sound so easy, Gabe.  What if your theory is cockeyed?”

"Give Gabriel a break!" exclaimed Diana.  "Michael was the Time Master we were all counting on.  Gabriel worked in the shadows, as an infiltrator gathering data. Because of Michael’s exposure, Gabriel was forced to step into that giant’s shoes at the last instant. Gabriel believes that recruiting you gives us the best odds of preventing the cataclysm. Are you willing to try or not?"

"Why me? Why can’t you be his ride-along assistant?” I asked.

Diana threw up her hands.  "I'm already helping all I can. I’d do more if I could.” She suddenly pushed her chair away from the table and stood.  "Lukasz -- the other Lukasz – has been waiting to speak to me.  On the off-chance that Creation survives, I still have a job to do.” She started to step away.

I glanced over at Lukasz and Thanasi, still quaffing ale.  “Say, Di, would it mess up history if I warned my old self about what kind of crap is coming at him down the pike?" I called.

She looked back. “It would only affect this timeline, not the Main Bough’s.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like anything worth doing,” I said dejectedly.

"Eden," said Gabriel over my shoulder, "the pressure of onrushing events is very great.  To go forward, you need to make a great leap of faith, perhaps the greatest you have ever allowed yourself to do. You must believe that success if possible, even though we currently lack all the data you need to be convinced."

"I’m keeping an open mind,” I said.  

He shook his head.  "I will do nothing to coerce you, warrior.  If you assist us, much will be asked of you. When thing look darkest, you will need to be positive and fully self-motivated, otherwise failure is certain.”

“Making a decision of this size would be easier if I knew what, precisely, you expect from me. And if I agree to do it, what happens to the kids back home? Forgive me for thinking that what you want me to do can easily get me killed.”

“If you become a casualty even thought we have been successful, the alternate Mantra now with the young people will treat them like her own, and even take over your ultra role in Canoga Park.”

“Oh, great. That’s one babe who doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. She seems too wounded to operate at peak capacity.”

Gabriel continued. “If you are slain and we fail, I promise to send the children into a remote time-line, one that should not collapse until well after the end of their natural lifespans.”

“Well, that’s something. But before I agree to anything, you’d better tell me everything, including every detail.”

Hell! Had I said that? Was I starting to believe in this nut stuff?

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5

The Twilight of the Gods - a story of Mantra, Chapter 3

 The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -Chap. 3

A story of Mantra and Black September

 

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

 

Posted 5-9-2022

Chapter 3

The Dark Shoppe

A young fig tree its form lifts high
Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by,
As if he were its warden.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Thanks for clearing that up,” I said sarcastically. “But you still haven't told me what you had to do with that crazy things happened to me today.”

Gabriel sighed and nodded.  "It’s complex.”

“Tell me or get out of my life!”  

“I did what I had to for the best of reasons.”

“I’ve already got the best of reasons to kill you!”

“I’ll try to explain.  Your people don't teach the concept of Zero Time, do they?"  

"What’s that and what does it have to do with anything?’"

"Zero Time is simply the eternal now. It’s a commonplace thing, really. You have lived in Zero Time all your life because Zero time is what moves each of us along through life at a natural progression.  But we can travel through time in other ways. When a person journeys to a previous point in past time, he enters into 'minus time.'  Similarly, a passage into the future places that man in what is called 'plus time.'"

"If you say so,” I said with a scowl.

"By exploring minus time, one discovers causation. Plus time is equally important because it allows us to anticipate probable outcomes. Because a crisis is almost upon us, it is absolutely necessary to scout out future hazards. By recruiting you as a scout and placing your point of view into plus time, I learned a great deal.”

“I didn’t volunteer for anything! Why didn’t you do your own scouting yourself?”

“Because to maintain a consciousness in such an unusual location, it required a great deal of support and maintenance.  That support could only come from the outside. I had to remain behind in natural time and anticipate the dangers you face so I could help you avoid them.”

“You did a lousy job. Every danger I ran into socked me right in the jaw!” I stated.

“No, no. Those were inconveniences you that so much distracted you were minor things you were well able to address on your own. My eyes were on those things happening behind the scenes. Your life – the one you’re living here and now -- was never at any risk. You were only a virtual participant in that other world. I digitized a copy of your conscientiousness and placed into a host bodies in that other time-reality.

“It seemed damned real to me!”

“To bring about that effect, I injected you with nanites at the restaurant, and those nanites were duplicated in the bodies of your other-worldly counterparts. You only believed that you traveled to another place and time because the other Mantras believed that they were you, but in reality they never were. You would remember nothing of that other time-line if I hadn’t taken the sum-data gathered by the third Mantra and brought it back to this world, to overwrite your mind. Their memories became your memories. You can see that, can’t you.”

I balled my fists.  "If I can believe you, you made me into a digital probe, something that you could sacrifice with no grief to anyone!"

His cheeks reddened.  "More or less.”

“Tell me this: After I left, what happened to those other Mantras?”

“Alas, they died only seconds after their downloads into my VIGOPS. The worst danger the probe faced was being caught in any of those universe reboots. The reboot is a disconcerting thing, but it is not a bad thing. It is the Main Branch fighting for its life. The time-lines you saw ceased to exist, though a very similar ones at once came into being. But a reboot can be very damaging and I had to rescue the data stored in your nanites before any of them struck.”

“You monster! Don’t you realize that you made all those versions of me think that their own families were strangers!”

“I realize that, but it was necessary. But considering that they were going to cease to exist so very soon, it did not seem to be an adequate reason not to carry on the surveillance."

"What else did you do?  Did you brainwash me so I’d be your enthusiastic lackey?"

"Not at all, my dear fel – Mantra. I would not wish to tamper with the optimum functioning of such a highly efficient problem-solver and fighting machine. I want you just the way you are – with clarity of thought, lightning reflexes, and battle readiness."

“Are all Timekeepers like you – taking incredible liberties with other people's lives?”

“I'm truly sorry, Golden Sorceress.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Pardon me. But often one must be cruel to achieve a beneficent end. Think of a doctor. His scalpel is a wicked instrument, but it is one that is necessary for the treatment of bodily infirmities.”

“Maybe you’re so alien you can’t understand simple right and wrong. I’d be crazy to get involved with a person like you.”

“But I need your willing assistance very much. What can I do to win your confidence?” he asked.

“After the way you’ve convicted yourself, I don’t think it’s possible anymore.”

“I told you the truth instead of telling you a lie that would put me into better lights because I respect you. Does that not count for something?”

“I don’t think it sweetens the pie very much.”

“But I have way to persuade you of the honorableness and importance of my mission. Would you be willing to take a journey with me.”

“No journeys,” I said. “I've got sleeping kids!  I have to watch over them.”

"What is the difference between stepping out briefly and going away to work, or to a meeting with friends? Do you not employ babysitters for such contingencies? I anticipated your familial needs and so have brought along a highly qualified babysitter. She is waiting outside your door at this moment."

“She’s there now?”

He nodded.

I regarded the man with incredulity.  "I’m pretty sure that whatever lackey you’ve got lined up to scare my kids, she won’t be acceptable to me."

"Oh, she has a frightening side, I grant, but if it is disqualifying quality you will have to decide for yourself.  I’ve already sent her a message to come to your portal. Go and have a look."

I glanced to the door and used my mystic scene to confirm that there really was a lifeform beyond it. "No thanks. You let her in. I don’t want to get myself into a crossfire between a pair of Godwheel scoundrels.”

Gabriel obligingly rose from the easy chair and went to the door.  When it opened, I saw Eden Blake standing there on the welcome mat.

Eden Blake?

The woman stepped past him, her glittering eyes fixed on me.   

"It’s like looking into a mirror,” my doppelganger remarked to Gabriel.  

The little man scurried up and place himself between us.  "Lukasz -- this is, ah, Lukasz.  She’s a temporal clone of yours from one of your possible future timelines."

“She's from the future?” I muttered. My double was dressed in “suburban casual” and didn't appear to be any older than I was.  I shifted toward the Timekeeper.  "So, you've had a copy of me in your hip pocket all this time!"

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.

“Its a bad thing if you’re planning to deep-six me and put a ringer in my place.”

"I have no such plan. I recruited Mrs. Blake just today -- as your people reckon calendar dates, I mean. She has all your qualities as a child-rearer.  I had to take a few precautions, however, so that her arrival into the Main Bough from a minor timeline would not split us all off into an alternate reality outside the Main Bough."

"If you already have a pet Mantra of your own, why do you need me?"

"Because the coming disaster aimed at the Main Bough can only be effectively dealt with by natural residents of this universe. I’m of this time and universe, and so are you.”

The other Lukasz shook her head, saying, “Look, bro, the little guy is weird, but he’s shown me things to make me a believer. He can do the same for you just as easily. I only wish that I could do the job he wants you to do, since your life hasn’t been already wrecked the way mine has. I’ve got little to lose, but my head is probably too messed up to bring off the kind of delicate operation he’s aiming at."

“What do you mean ‘messed up?’” I asked. “Does it have anything to do with her coming here instead of looking out for her own family?”

"Don’t talk over me as if I'm not here?" my double growled. "My kids -- my own Evie and Gus -- are dead. There! You made me say it. Are you happy?"

That set me back on my heels. "Dead? How?"

She paused long enough to gather strength enough to say the words. "Rune!" Her voice grated with bitterness. "He wanted the Sword of Fangs and took Gus and Evie hostage to coerce me into a trade. I didn't trust he’d play fair, so I gathered a gang of ultras to help me take him on. But he saw us coming and killed the children before giving us one hell of a fight."

I knew about Rune – an alien creature with incredible power and vampiric habits. I’d met him more than once and barely survived the encounters.

"I’m pretty sure you did the right thing,” I told my double, sensible of her pain. “Rune would have killed the kids no matter what you did. He relishes killing."

She looked away. "I know he would have. Or at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself every day since I made the losing move."

I knew how she felt. I’d seen a version of my son Gus dying right before my eyes because of my “losing choice.”

"When does Rune strike?" I asked through a tight throat.

"For me, it was October 17, two years from now,” she said. “It happened because of a stupid mistake I’d made on the Godwheel. I called Eden Blake by her own name in front of some 'friends.' But one of them was Rune. The devil was standing there along with us in disguise. With information enough to track me down once we returned to Earth, he was able to take me surprise.”

A shiver ran through me. I had made that exact same mistake. But in my reality Rune had flown through a gate into another universe – hopefully never to return.

Gabriel touched my sleeve. "It probably won't happen in this world, Mrs. Blake. That dreadful event occurs in only a very few of Mantra’s many possible futures."

I clenched my fists. "Well, I’m going to make sure it won’t occur in this future. One way or another, I'm going to kill that blood-sucking bastard – just as soon as I know that he’s shown up in this universe again!"

"I hope you can do that,” the other Lukasz said. “But if you want to live past tomorrow evening, take very seriously what Gabriel has to say."

This was too absurd! Now I was being told what to do by myself! The strangeness of this conversation was giving me a headache.

I threw a frown Gabriel’s way. “What, exactly, is this journey that you were talking about?” I demanded.

Suddenly, the world spun.

#

Everything went blank, but then quickly rematerialized around me. When it did, I wasn't in Canoga Park anymore.

I was flabbergasted to realize where I was.

It was a medieval-style alehouse, built from study timber and stone. Tart smoke filled the air, along with the bouquet of fermented beverages and repulsive odors that had part and parcel of the Middle Ages. When my daze wore off, I noticed that the people filling the chairs roundabout the plank tables were wearing costumes that hadn't been fashionable since the Tenth Century.

Incredible! I knew that this wasn't just any alehouse; it was the Dark Shoppe. Centuries ago, it had served as a clearing house for arcane information. In those days, it had been run by a prophetess.

And quite an effective prophetess.  

What had been her name? Diana.  

Just then, a raucous male voice sounded off:

"'God's Blood, wench! From whence hast thou appeared in the wink of an eye? Were I elsewhere than in Ye Dark Shoppe, I would be damning myself for a drunken sot. But this e’er hath been place of miracles. Tell me, lass, hail ye from Faery or art thou of mortal kind?"

I turned to behold a large knight seated at a table and clutching a tankard in his oversized fist. I thought it was a face that I should know. Beside him sat a younger blade wearing an embroiled tabard over a mail shirt. This one, too, looked familiar.

"Your name, sir knight?" I asked cautiously, addressing him in the same dialect of Old French that he’d used.

"Sir Lukasz at thy service," he said cheerily. Then, nudging the youth, he added, "And this callow good-for-nothing be my squire, Thanasi."

I was staggered. But, yet, why should it surprise me to be confronting Lukasz and Thanasi centuries in the past? Hadn't I just come from interviewing Eden Blake about a babysitting job?

"Cry mercy! What costume be’eth that, milady?" my mail-clad doppelganger inquired. "Art thou pursued by villains and compelled to travel in male attire? Faith, madam. Not e’en the most cracked-brained varlet could e’re mistaketh thee for any sort of boy."

When I failed to reply, he persisted: "Fair one, tarriest a while. Thy beauty hath the vintage bouquet of Helen of Troy and I would fain know thee better."

I’s been taken off balance by being accosted by myself, but I wondered whether I shouldn’t in fact pause and speak to him. By pretending to be a prophet friend of Diana, I might alert my counterpart to bad things coming down the chute. I could even warn him about Thanasi. But should I? Wasn't it dangerous to meddle with history? By trying to help him, I might get him killed before his time, like I had not long before intervened to help Lauren Sherwood’s doppleganger with fatal results. If I simply let him go his own way, I could count on him surviving for another thousand years.

As I vacillated, Gabriel took me by the arm. "Come," he whispered.

"Lady!" the knight called after us -- but I didn’t look back. The Lukasz of this era would be immersed in his contemporary concerns. Those concerns meant little in perspective of the Twenty-first century.

"Gabriel," I said to the little man at my side, "this is nuts. What’s it all for? I’m impressed, but it’s more likely an illusion than anything real. Take home – now."

"Not yet. You need to learn more. The person whom I most wish you to meet in the Dark Shoppe is not Sir Lukasz. You remember Diana the Mystic, I presume?"

"Of course. Is she here?"  

I glanced from side to side, scanning for the woman. Through the lamp smoky lamplight, I saw her standing by a plank table, watching us attentively.

As we drew nearer, the Mystic addressed me."So, you are the Eden whom I've been hearing about." If she already knew my name, it had to mean that Gabriel had briefed her in advance.

"I suppose I am," I answered guardedly. "Tell me something I don't know."

The raven-haired beauty looked me over with what I took for mild amusement. That caused me to wonder if she knew that I was a future version of Lukasz – an embarrassing thought, one can imagine. But she sent her next words to Gabriel. "The bull-in-the-china-shop way you've come barging into my timeline tells me that I've just been cloned again," she said.

The little man smiled as one would to a friend. "It's all in a good cause. The creation of a new copy of yourself will in part make up for the two excellent clones of yours who died recently in Zero Time."

Our hostess reacted with only a flutter of her eyelids. "I hope they didn't suffer," she sighed, "at least not like some of the others have."

I looked askance. That was a very low-keyed reaction to the deaths of persons who were, essentially, her identical sisters.

The Timekeeper beside me clicked his tongue commiseratively. "Their attacker was a possessed demigoddess. Such power! Their suffering must have lasted less than a second. On the other hand, your original is still well and thriving."

Diana shook her head. “Wonderful! A few minutes ago, I was the original. I sometimes wonder what possessed me to agree to live this kind of life!” Then, with a grim smile, she asked, “Can I offer you two a platter with a tankard?"

I demurred. "I don't think my Twentieth Century body could survive the microbes of the Tenth Century. Anyway, I just ate at the mall."

She smiled slightly. "You'd probably be safe. I've trained my cook staff to prepare food according to Twentieth Century standards.”

For the first time, I had cause to wonder whether Diana had originally been a Twentieth or Twenty-first Century human. Of course! Her accent, which I had always found so unplaceable, had been Norman French spoken with the cadence of American English.

Suddenly, I saw the Mystic freeze in place with her glance fixed and staring right through me. I looked bemusedly toward Gabriel.

“She's fine,” said the man. “She's merely receiving her latest VIGOPS update, one I that set up for her just before bringing us here. All Timekeeper agents need to be kept well informed.”

"All this is as strange as hell,” I told him, “but it hasn’t made me believe in real gods and doomsdays."

The scientist shook his head. “It is strange that you should mention real gods. Our most dangerous foe will be a being whom even the Timekeepers would not hesitate to call a true god.”

Gabriel had conveyed that bit of information with uncharacteristic solemnity and gravity. A god? What in hell was he asking me to get involved in?

“If there’s a god in the woodpile,” I replied, “why not bring in another hundred ultras and give me a fighting chance against him?”

“I assure you, in a test of strength against strength, a hundred ultras, even if all had the power of Loki and Thor, could not prevail against such an adversary.”

I threw up my hands. "If that’s so, what in hell do you expect me to accomplish? Loki by himself was strong enough to eat me for supper. And I don’t think Thor would have been any less formidable.”

The Timekeeper grimaced. "There is much you do not know, and the story is neither short nor simple."

"Then be less stingy with the information you’re giving out!” I told him.

"That’s the Timekeepers for you," put in Diana. "Their control of Time’s flow tends to rob them of any sense of urgency.”

I looked at her and smiled. "I’m glad to see you again, Diana. Gabriel thought you’d be able to tell me something that would make me believe the wacky story he’s been feeding me. Is he right?”

Her expression became thoughtful and then seated herself. Her movements had always been notable for their grace. I now had caused to wonder if she hadn’t been a fashion model back in the States. If I hadn’t been haunted by the memory of my late wife, Marinna back in those days, I would have made a better effort to get to know her.

"Well, one thing I’ve been told,” Diana said, “is that you are, in spirit at least, the same person as that knight who is sitting across the room."

"You don’t seem surprised."

She gave a resigned smile. “I’ve been living with time paradoxes for so long that I don’t find very much that can still surprise me. But I understand that you’ve become an ultra and have a family. That's good."

"It’s not so great being an ultra."

"I mean having a family. I have never had time for one. After I was recruited by the Timekeepers, I realized that I couldn’t give a husband and children – well, time enough. The work I do is important, but all along I’ve been wondering whether it wouldn’t be even more fulfilling if it could directly benefit people that I love."

“I suppose it might, but love hurts, too.”

She nodded. "So I’ve heard. Many details about your current activities were in my latest download.”

I frowned. “Do you ever worry that these Timekeepers might be feeding you a pack of lies?”

"You really sound like someone from the early Twenty-first Century.”

“Where you come from?”

“Exactly.”

“Here’s something I always wondered about. You’ve always seemed to be the same age every time I’ve met you. How does that work?”

“Advanced science. I do age very slowly, but when I start slowing down a different technology is able to rejuvenate me, cell by cell. You'll have the option to gain similar longevity if you become a time agent for the long-term."

"My old master Archimage never aged as long as I knew him, and he told me that my magic was going to keep me young, too.”

"That may be, but to answer your main question is a tall order. It's hard to decide where to begin.”

“A person seldom goes wrong if he starts at the beginning,” I advised her.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4

The Twilight of the Gods - a story of Mantra, Chapter 2

 

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