We coalesce from nothing. And a day comes when our coalescences disperse to nothing again.

Alexios was lying in a tent when he woke to the cold sun shining through black canvas. Half the tent was open to the Domari camp outside. Isato was sitting beside him, a welcome sight.

Life is woman. Woman is life.

He asked for water, and she gave it to him, helping him sit up so he could drink. As soon as he finished, he tried to stand, mumbling about Basil, but Alexios was so weak he stumbled into the cloak stretched for him on the dirt. Then he passed out again.

“What a fool you are,” Isato said, startling him into consciousness. “You almost died.”

“Is Basil alright?” Alexios said. His body had tensed up.

“We warned you about this place. What kind of man doesn’t know about the danger of slinking about graveyards in the desert after dark?”

“Please tell me about Basil, Isato.”

“The boy is fine,” she grumbled, her blue eyes flashing.

Alexios fell back and gasped with relief. “Thank god.”

“You will address me properly,” Isato added.

He looked at her, squinting from his exhaustion. “Shall I call you ‘princess’? Or ‘your highness’? I thought you were trying to conceal your identity—even though you can’t. But you shouldn’t feel too bad. The greatest masters of disguise could never have pulled it off. Your true nature shines forth.” He took her hand, but she jerked it away.

“You’ve gone mad.”

“Lovely as the tents of Kedar,” he said, leaning back and staring up at the black canvas shining in the sunlight and fluttering in the cool dry desert wind.

“In private you will address me as ‘your highness,’” she said. “Touch me again without my permission, and I will have you dragged outside and beaten to death like a rabid dog.”

He winced. “Ouch.”

“It is the proper punishment for such a crime. You are a commoner, one who must learn his place.”

“How do you know I’m a commoner?” He cleared his throat. “Your highness?”

“Your true nature shines forth.”

He laughed. “You’re too funny to be royalty. Too adventurous, too interesting. I always thought royals were inbreds—like the Hapsburgs. The hapless Hapsburgs and their overgrown chinny-chin-chins. They must be around here somewhere in the eleventh century. They or their ancestors. You could spot those chins a mile away. They’re so big they can’t even lift their heads, they just have to drag their chins around on the ground all the time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but since you know who I am—”

“The mystery wasn’t exactly worthy of Sherlock Holmes, your highness.”

“—You should also know that I’m not just any princess. I was—and still am—heir to the throne of Aethiopia. I was set to rule as queen when the spirit sickness took me.”

“Forcing you to roll around in the mud with the rest of us lowly swine.”

“My family was so embarrassed they expelled me from the palace, ordering the debtera Za-Ilmaknun to guide me to foreign lands, to beg God in Jerusalem or in Rome—wherever He might be—to forgive the sins which had brought this upon me and the House of Zagwe.”

“Seems like the big fella has other plans for you,” Alexios said. “In some ways, you know, you’re not so different from me.”

“We could not be more different.”

“I was expelled from my homeland for arbitrary reasons, too. And I’m not even talking about Trebizond or Romanía. I’m talking about places you haven’t even heard of.”

She stared at him.

“They’re in the future,” he said. “That’s where I’m from. Although who knows, now that Herakleia and Gontran and even Dionysios and I have altered the past so much, maybe that future doesn’t exist anymore. Now everyone there just has donuts growing out of their heads.”

“You speak in riddles.”

“It’s so hard to explain this to people here.” Alexios sat up and drank some more water. “Everyone’s ideas are so different compared to where I come from—including the perception of time. People here view things as essentially changeless. I mean, they think one day Jesus is supposed to come back and end the world, so it’s not as cyclical as, like, the ancient Greek view of time, but until then, things will more or less continue the way they always have—”

“It sounds as though you have recovered your strength.” Isato stood and walked toward the edge of the tent floor, where she slipped on her shoes. “It is improper for me to remain alone with you, even if I am in full view of the others.”

“Please,” he said.

She turned to face him.

“I have no one else to talk with about this,” Alexios said. “My friends…the only ones who know about my home, they’re far away. I don’t even know if they’re alive anymore.”

She took a deep breath, then removed her shoes and sat back down on the tent floor.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now where was I? Cycles of history…people here assume that hundreds of years from now, the Romans will still be fighting the Turks.”

“I cannot believe you have the strength to talk about this, after that ghûl tried to take your life away.”

“But why should anyone think that one day, the Roman Empire won’t exist anymore?” Alexios still sounded groggy. “The way the world is, it’s all anyone around here’s ever known. Change is so slow in this day and age, you almost can’t even perceive it. So when I say I come from the future, people are like: ‘So what? What difference does that make? Isn’t the future the same as the present and the past?’ Well, I hate to break it to you, princess, but it’s pretty different.”

“Do you wish to return to this place you speak of, this ‘future’?”

“I have a lot of work to get done here, first. And in many ways I’ve grown pretty fond of this world, and a lot of people here. The future has flashier gadgets—some are more dangerous than you could imagine—but the people aren’t as interesting. Where I come from, it’s almost like a kingdom, in a way, maybe like the one you come from.”

“I doubt it.”

“Except instead of a small royal family, you have millions of royals, only they don’t really think of themselves that way, even if that’s what they actually are.” Alexios munched some mana which had been left for him on a cloth.

“It seems as though you are feeling better,” Isato said. “Now that you are speaking of things comprehended by no one.”

“I’d like to see Basil,” he said, standing. For a moment he was so dizzy he stumbled, and Isato caught and steadied him. His entire body felt as though ten or twenty years had been drained from it. His health was only back to 20/100, and his farr was at 1/100.

“So this is what it’s like to be old,” he said. “Every day you wake up and feel like you’ve been hit by a train, regardless of what you did the day before.”

“Such things are beyond my knowledge,” Isato said.

“I’m almost afraid to see my reflection.”

“Good,” Isato said. “You should be.”

He looked at her as he stepped outside. “You could be a little nicer.”

“I always speak the truth now,” she said. “For most of my life, the people around me did nothing but lie—both to me, and to themselves.”

“Bummer,” Alexios said.

It was afternoon outside the tent. Since the sun had already fallen behind the hills and cliffs that loomed over the camp, the Domari adults were relaxing with the pack animals around the black smoking remains of the campfires, while the children were running around, laughing and chasing each other, Basil and Kassia among them. Without even thinking about it, Alexios walked toward his two kids. Basil stopped and looked at Alexios, who fell to his knees, widened his arms, hugged the boy to his chest, and kissed his head.

“I thought you were dead,” Alexios said.

Basil was silent.

“I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise,” Alexios said. “All I want is for you to grow up strong and bright, and live a long, happy, healthy life. And I’ll do anything to make that happen.” He looked to Kassia, who was standing nearby and staring at them, and gestured for her to join. Soon they were all hugging each other.

“I love you both so much,” Alexios said. “You mean everything to me.”

The children were unable to say that they loved him back, but they took time to let go. Then for a moment they looked at him, and he said to have fun with their friends, and be safe. They nodded and ran off.

After the game voice announced that he had leveled up to Apprentice Parent (4/10), Alexios turned to Isato, who was still with him, and swallowed down the tears in his eyes.

“What about Miriai and Za-Ilmaknun?” he said. “Are they alright?”

Isato nodded. “They are fine.”

“Where’s Miriai?”

Isato looked up to one of the hills looming over the camp. “She is searching for this supposed god you have come hunting for, though it is sacrilege for me to say such things, for there is only one God.”

Alexios looked at the hill she had indicated, took one step, then stopped and turned back to Isato. “You’ll watch the children?”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Am I your nanny, now?”

“Will you please help me?” he said. “This is why we’ve come all this way. We’re so close to finding what we’ve been searching for.”

Her eyes flashed. “I will watch them”

“Thanks,” he said. “I mean—thank you, your highness.”

Strapping Gedara back on and packing some food and water, he trudged up the hillside, and soon found himself walking along stone steps hewn into the cliffs. Moving as quickly as he could manage—he was still limping a little—he came to the top. This overlooked the villages and camps in the canyon between the hills; several caravans had decided to water their animals and rest nearby.

Above Alexios, however—and out of sight of the camps and villages—was a round tower of brick topped with a dome. Seven evenly-spaced doors were built into it. Strange trenches had been carved into the rock underfoot.

He called out Miriai’s name. No answer. Glancing back and forth, keeping his hand on his sword hilt, he approached one of the seven dark doors and, after hesitating a moment, went inside. He found a chamber that was empty save for a stone altar in the center—smashed, presumably by treasure hunters—as well as a stairway in the floor leading down into darkness.

Descending the steps into a cramped tunnel, he stopped because he was unable to see anything. His farr was so low (still at 1/100) that igniting Gedara would leave him defenseless. Groaning and swearing and thinking that he would kill for a flashlight, he fumbled for his flint and steel, then struck them together to make sparks. The flashes allowed him to take a few steps forward. Then he struck sparks again, and stepped forward again, repeating this process many times. All else was silent save for the scraping flint and steel, his shuffling feet, and his swearing. The air was moist, musty, windless.

Rounding a corner, Alexios came to a dark corridor flickering with orange light. At the corridor’s end a hunched figure held a torch—Miriai. She was standing before a door which was carved with inscriptions.

“I knew you’d come without proper lighting, dear,” she said as he approached. “I was prepared for your lack of preparation. Ach, what a predictable fellow you are, Alexios.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Look, I wanted to thank you for saving Basil’s life.”

She waved her hand. “It was nothing. I do twenty such feats each day, but most people hardly ever notice! Now aren’t you happy I’ve found your little Sabians? Your precious little Hermes Trismegistos?”

“Is this it?” Alexios said.

She nodded. “Behind this door.”

“Can you open it?”

“First we must read.”

He glanced at the inscription. “Is it in the same language as before?”

“Syriac, yes. I was only waiting for you to join me.”

“Really? How long have you been standing here?”

“Time makes no difference to one endowed with the riches of mind, memory, and imagination—all a fertile soil for contemplation.”

Nothing more heroic than someone who sits around and meditates all the time.

Miriai turned back to the writing, and read it to him:

To know God is to know thyself.

To know thyself is to become God.

Man becoming God is God becoming man.

The changing of the world is God finding and knowing himself.

“Heavy,” Alexios said. “Poetic. Like Basho. Any idea what it means?”

“It appears as gibberish to the unworthy—to those who are too full of temporal nonsense to proceed into the realms of the eternal.”

“I guess that includes me. It just sounds like self-help mystical fluff.”

“Then you are indeed unworthy.”

He shrugged. “Well, what are you going to do?”

She stared at him.

“Alright, we’ve read the inscription, can we open the door now?”

“The quantity of change within yourself is insufficient to effect a qualitative change.”

“Miriai…”

“You know nothing of alchemy.” Miriai turned back to the inscription. “You know nothing of how love of knowing—philosophy—becomes knowing itself—science.”

“Guess not. Although I remember that Dionysios talked about something he called inner alchemy, I think—”

“Whom do you think Hermes Trismegistos was? What do you think he was doing?”

“No idea.”

“He was a man who became a god. An Egyptian man. A scribe from long ago, in the days when King Pharaoh’s workers built the Pyramids.”

“That’s really interesting, I’m really appreciating this guided tour, but do you think that we can keep going?” He glanced at the cramped tunnel. “It’s kind of uncomfortable here—”

“I can proceed,” Miriai said. “But you, lacking nous, cannot. As you have cultivated the divine farr, so you must now also cultivate gnosis and al-kīmiyā.”

“Once again, I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“One can grow so wrapped up in change that one is ignorant of that which is permanent—of how even change itself may change, or how that which is permanent may become temporary.”

“My friends are counting on me, Miriai. We don’t have time for this—”

“They are counting on you to learn and grow—to come back to them as something new. Is that not what you search for?”

Alexios watched her. Then he stepped forward and tried to push the stone door open. It was so heavy and immovable he might as well have been pushing the entire hill.

“Help me,” he groaned, as he kept pushing.

“I am helping you. There is no royal road to knowledge. The struggle to truly know is difficult, frustrating, confusing—and yet never would I trade it for ignorance, which is itself so often willful—a comfort, a self-deception.”

“This can’t be it,” he said. “I haven’t come all this way for just a few aphorisms carved into a door. I can’t go back to my friends like this.”

Miriai watched Alexios search for a secret handle or lever either in the door itself or the nearby walls, floor, and ceiling. Nothing worked. He sighed, so full of despair he was almost ready to cry.

“The world was created by the Great Living God,” Miriai said. “As the Great Living God was created by the world.” She poked his nose. “At the same exact instant.”

He came close to telling her to shut up. All that stopped him was the fact that she had saved Basil’s life.

She was still staring at him, waiting for him to react.

“That doesn’t really mesh with dialectical materialism,” he finally said, deciding to take her seriously. “God is created by the material conditions. He doesn’t exist without people to create him in the first place, depending on their mode of production. Ancient Greeks and Romans imagined a pantheon of muscular marble statues racing across the sky. Medieval peasants imagined a trinity—an old bearded grandfather, a young crucified man, plus a beautiful caring virgin mother, since no one understands the holy spirit. And finally, moderns think of God as an invisible marketplace which dominates the entire world. The god of merchants. None of this exists without people, yet these conceptions can take on a life of their own and dialectically influence the material conditions via—”

“God is real,” Miriai said. “The Great Life is real, as is the World of Light, and the Abode of Darkness.”

Alexios chuckled. “Alright, great. The universe couldn’t just create itself or come out of nowhere. So God created it. But then who or what created God? It’s such a simple question, yet religious people can’t answer. They’ve just pushed the question back because they can’t explain it, the same way they did when they couldn’t explain other things—why animals are different, why things fall to the ground. They just say it’s God and forget about it. It’s so intellectually lazy.”

“God is timeless. Without God, there is no time. Therefore there was nothing before God—not even for a moment. God is permanence, but just as change may become permanent, permanence may also change.”

“You already said that. You know, you sound just like astrophysicists trying to explain the Big Bang. They can’t talk about why it happened or what was there before. They don’t know because there’s no evidence—they don’t have the technology they need to see beyond the beginning of the universe because it’s too expensive, it’s not going to make any money before the next quarter.”

“It is beyond perception,” she said. “There comes a time when one must cease handling this earthly muck full of worms, beautiful as it may be, and instead turn one’s gaze up to the stars and constellations, the lion rearing in the zodiac, the seven planets flitting through the twelve signs.”

“Great. This is just what we need. I’m a Scorpio. I also love healing crystals, tarot cards, homeopathy, plastic shamans, pyramid power, dying of preventable illness, you name it.”

“To learn about the material world can take you far,” Miriai continued. “By experimenting upon the muck and the worms, one can unlock the forces of the universe. The mage can release the energy trapped inside substance, a power sufficient to bathe the world in fire, to level mountains and cities, to boil oceans. Ach, but that’s nothing to the power of the divine! To go all the way does not just require these.” She raised her wrinkled veiny hands. “It also requires this.” She tapped his head.

He looked away and shut his eyes, trying hard to keep himself from lashing out at her. Miriai was, after all, a cute little old lady who had risked her own life to help him several times.

“You like to lecture, dear,” she said, “but not to be lectured, hmm?”

Alexios groaned.

“The world of perception is not all that exists,” Miriai said. “God needs only to say that a thing should be, and it is. Man—who is God in miniature—can imagine objects, but must work to create them in the physical realm.”

“Alright. Moving along…”

“Because of the limits of our perception—our inability to see beyond the beginning—we can only discover the truth through logic. Everything in the universe is created by something else, dear. Therefore, once upon a time, in the far-distant past, something must have created the world.”

“Why can’t the world just be eternal?”

“Eternity, or the prime mover, they’re both the same thing—something which might seem, at first glance, as though it is beyond comprehension.”

“The way a two-dimensional consciousness could never comprehend a three-dimensional one,” Alexios said. “Like in that book, Flatland.”

“Yes.” Miriai nodded, though it was impossible for her to know what he was talking about. Weren’t those terms—two dimensions, three dimensions—an invention of Descartes, who had yet to be born?

“But why?” Alexios said. “If God is so perfect and amazing, why bother creating the universe in the first place? Doesn’t being perfect mean that you don’t lack anything? Why not just hang out and be God? Why take the trouble of making all this?” He gestured to the dark corridor flickering with Miriai’s torchlight.

“Yet we know that he did take the trouble,” Miriai said. “Hence there must have been something he needed. Change may change, permanence may become impermanence. God may be perfect, but what is God without a universe to adore him? The universe is like a mirror. Without it, God cannot exist—because there is nothing to compare him to.”

Alexios laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Ach, you cannot define anything without relating it to something else,” Miriai said. “What is an apple? It is a fruit. What is a fruit? It is a kind of food. What is food? And so on—to infinity. Every word is defined by other words. Everything in the universe is just a web of relationships. Nothing stands apart. And the same is true of God. Together with the universe, he is God; without the universe, he does not exist. Therefore he created it, for he cannot exist without it. He created time from timelessness, form from formlessness. Hence each of us has a part of him within ourselves. If we could find it, it would be like God finding himself.”

“Do we find it when we die?” Alexios’s tone was mocking.

“I think so, dear,” Miriai said. “I cannot tell you for certain. The trouble is, by that point our crude physical bodies have become useless. The quantitative change—age, let us say—has so built up as to effect a qualitative change: that which was once alive now ceases to live, just as dead matter can come together and create living beings like ourselves. Once we die, perhaps our immortal part passes on to the World of Light or to God—I’m not sure. Perhaps our personalities and memories pass on, too. I don’t know. But if we could find this divine spark within ourselves while our bodies are still healthy…”

“What would happen?”

“You remember what the serpent told Eve,” she said. “We could become as God.”

“You’ve really gone over the deep end.”

“Ach, you think it’s impossible to pass through this door. That I’m just a foolish old woman babbling about nothing.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that—”

“Your behavior has said enough. You have come a long way, Alexios. You are not the same person who first set foot in Romanía all those months ago—nor are you even the same man who fled Trebizond. But now the time has come to take the next step.” She nodded to the door. “Quite literally.”

Without waiting for his answer, she walked through the wall, taking her torch with her. This plunged him into darkness.

Alexios gasped. “Miriai?”

Swearing, he fumbled for his flint and steel, struck more sparks, and looked around. No one else was in the tunnel. Somehow Miriai had disappeared.

“Nice trick,” he said, feeling around the stone door again.

Then he stopped and looked at the door.

Weirder things have happened in this place, he thought. Maybe she really walked through solid rock. If she can do it…

Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath, and walked forward as casually as possible—bashing his face in the stone.

“Ow!” He grabbed his face; it was bleeding.

Suddenly the torchlight returned to the corridor. Miriai was poking her head through the stone.

“I almost forgot,” she said. “No one does anything alone. Not even God. So come on!”

Before Alexios could react, Miriai grabbed his wrist and pulled him through the stone.