Truth and warfare cannot exist in the same place at the same time. Truth is the first to be killed when the killing starts. Always the one who dies first, the Truth does not have to witness the liars prevail. All wars are fought over the lies that are told. Without lies, there could not be war. Conflict and battles yes, those are natural. War requires lies.
A golden grandfather clock was keeping the number of the hour with a golden pendulum. It was one of the few furnishings in the room. The lighting and quietness were depressing. But there was nowhere else to be right now.
In the gray room with red curtains, one of the last of the Believers sat alone. She had arrived here, dripping with something that was not water. Someone had once tried to explain to her that what she had waded into, something like water, was literally the absence of all things that were not water; rather than actually being water. This had sounded silly and not made any real sense at the time. But time was the problem.
"Svetlana?" a soft voice, familiar and full of love spoke to her from the shadows. The Believer tried to ignore the ghost but it emerged and stood to torment her.
"Mother?" she dared to look at the phantom and saw it was dressed as a Cyclist. Her own mother, a life-cycle cultist. Svetlana frowned and felt tears in her eyes attempting to spill out.
"My little girl...you are here" the ghost sounded happy to see her.
"Mother you were a Cyclist?" Svetlana tried to think of anything else to talk about and that is all she could think to say.
"Sweet one, it is not what you think." the ghost was defensive and gentle sounding. But then, before the conversation could be resolved, the opposite door of the room opened and a very young man in an ancient black suit entered holding an antique holo-tablet.
"You are Svetlana?" he asked. He didn't wait for her to answer before he took note of her attire and asked: "Are you a Believer?"
"I believe in some stuff." Svetlana lowered her own gaze. She had barely even spoken, almost muttering. The man nodded and his fingers touched the air above the very old holo-tablet as he took note of her response.
"Like what?" he asked.
"Well for starters I am a Believer. It is just that I have learned much more about Ruin, GAIA, Elsewhere and here. I know who I am, where I come from and what my purpose is. I am a living woman and I am an idea. I am a spirit, I am alive and I am human. And yet in a way I am nothing but a thought." Svetlana briefly outlined what she had learned sofar. "Most importantly I am the Apostate."
At this last word the blank and unchallenged expression and posture of the man suddenly and obviously changed. He took one whole step back from her on instinct and sorta held the holo-tablet like a shield as he flinched. Then he looked up and worry and anxiousness pained his face.
"Apostate?" He nearly stammered, trying to visualize the potential threat of a towering silver warrior with bloody calculations in its circuitry. "How can you be that? You must mean something else. You aren't talking about giant robots are you?"
"Why not?" Svetlana barely blinked as she gazed steadily and asked calmly.
"You are a young woman. A Machinekind? Here in this place?" he chuckled nervously.
"Perhaps if you took a closer look at me." Svetlana suggested.
His brow furrowed and he said nothing. A few seconds went by before he decided to do just that. He used his device to page two servos which hovered into view from cabinets hidden in the gray walls. Each held a different set of instruments to take measurements and readings from their subject. The two humans waited patiently for the results.
He examined the assessment and smiled and nodded in relief. He adjusted the hologram on his device so she could see it. An image of the wrecked carcass of her hero burned in blue flames. He said:
"Looks like the Apostate is dead. You are carrying a corpse." he nearly laughed at her, but she did not find this amusing or accurate.
"That is not how I feel about it." she said.
"Not how you feel? Dear, life and death is not a feeling. It is reality. Grim and natural reality."
"You are wrong. Life and death are illusions that make reality seem natural. Look where we are. Do you think that my feelings are truly irrelevant? Here?" Svetlana sounded mildly annoyed that he was slow to comprehend what she was saying.
"You came here on purpose..." he was slow on the uptake, but quickly made up for it. Svetlana tilted her head to show patience, but only felt like she was waiting to reveal her discovery.
"So you believe me?" she asked after he had stood staring at her for a very long minute.
"I don't know. But I don't intend to stop you. If you have come here just to go back with your Apostate, then do so. I have no reason to test you or bother you." his tone and demeanor had changed. He was afraid of her.
"I am not leaving without following all the rules. I am not going to release a giant robot on you, even if you deserve it. I prefer your respect and your blessing to a consignment based on fear." Svetlana told him. She was partially lying in two ways: first of all she had no way to summon or control her giant robot even if she wanted to and secondly she had no idea what she was supposed to do or where she was, exactly. She suspected she was in some kind of alternate reality, the sum of multiple universes colliding at a nexus of some kind. Physics were hard.
The man pondered this and then seemed to realize something about her and continued by saying: "Fair enough. All I need from you then is a little bit of information about how you got here."
"I don't know exactly how it works. It is called the Pool Of Time. I understand it is not really water but the...absence of everything else that isn't water...which doesn't make it water..." Svetlana spoke in a high tone that made the man smile slightly as he realized she found the explanation as ridiculous as it sounded, but offered it anyway.
"It is called a non-aggregate-liquid. When agitated it dissolves molecules into sub-dimensional concepts and allows them to filter into other kinds of reality." the man explained to her what she had just tried to explain to him.
"Like becoming a comic book character?" Svetlana glared.
"Sure. The possibilities are only limited by the imagination. Ideas and reality have little difference in your so-called Pool Of Time." he shrugged and nodded. "I must ask something else then."
"Okay."
"Why have you come here? Why GAIA?" he seemed confused by her presence still and at last asked the most obvious question he had for her.
"I did not know this is GAIA. You know about Ruin and about the Apostate. But this is GAIA?"
"Not your GAIA. More like The GAIA." he corrected what he guessed she was thinking.
Suddenly she brightened. He had not correctly guessed her thoughts at all, because she then asked:
"What about Arvil? Arvil the poet, you know?" she asked.
"Just published Argosy. Why? Are you a fan-girl?" he sounded very amused by the change of topic in their conversation.
"I am actually his...I mean...I would like to meet him." Svetlana looked flustered.
"Where did you think you were?" he asked after he realized she was lost.
"I presumed this was some kind of dreamy subreality. A nexus between multiple universes. I wasn't sure, really. I thought this might be a projection of my own mind. But you say this is GAIA. The GAIA." Svetlana didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave.
That brought him to his last inquiry. "You have no means of...leaving?"
"No, I arrived mostly by chance. I barely know how."
"You went where you wanted to go. Where you really wanted to go. It is often a very dangerous destination. I've only known a few people to ever do such a thing and none of them ended up where they thought they would. It almost always ends badly."
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"I don't understand."
"Imagine that the truest desires we have are beyond our own consciousness. Desires buried under careful plans, excuses and acceptable wording. We are no longer really aware of our deepest feelings, but those are the strongest and the most powerful when we travel into a realm of pure thought. A disaster for most people most of the time. Too dangerous and difficult to control."
"Is it the only way?"
"Of course not. Just the most profound way. Simple and less dramatic means exist, but only project into predictable realities. A return trip is a guarantee."
"I feel like I rode a tornado to Oz and now you're telling me that my red shoes would have got me here with a few clicks and a mantra."
"Well I am saying that...almost literally." he smiled.
"So now what? Am I processed? What will be my fate?" Svetlana wanted to know.
"You are free to do as you please and welcome to stay here at the Temple Administration facility you are in."
"I would like to go and see Arvil." she said convincingly.
"You may take one of our sedans. He is in this province, so a short range vehicle is all you will need."
"Thanks." she smiled for him and stood. A servo obediently led her to the promenade where several parked and colorful sedans sat waiting for use.
"Wait!" someone was stopping her as she climbed in, a young woman. Except it was only a moment before she realized she knew this woman:
"Kaira?"
"How do you know me?" Kaira asked, trying to recognize Svetlana and failing.
"I met you somewhere else. Another world." Svetlana shrugged. "You were different."
"Okay." Kaira took a few seconds to climb over the metaphysical obstacle she was imagining before she delivered her message:
"Jaisy wants you to take this with you. He says to keep it with you at all times. You left it behind." Kaira handed Svetlana a doll of Silver Swordsman, just like the one she had before. The younger version of Kaira seemed glad to be rid of it.
"He sent you and not a robot?" Svetlana asked, not knowing if it mattered or not.
"The servos record all of their activities and commands. I can keep a secret." Kaira winked.
"So you can. I want to tell you: this is the opposite of what happened between us before, just so you know." Svetlana offered Kaira a disapproving frown before she closed the door to the sedan and told it to take her to Arvil. Soon she was airborne.
The onboard communications requested she take a call from her destination and she agreed. Then she was looking at her father's face. He was alive and he looked...drunk.
"What do you want? I am busy?" he asked two questions, but only got one answer.
"I am." Svetlana looked directly into the lens. She hoped this made her hologram stare into his eyes on his end of the call. Then she hung up. Not long after that she had landed without permission on his driveway, an ornate pad with several expensive sleds parked nearby under an arbor.
Her father came staggering out onto the rooftop plaza wearing nothing except a thin open bathrobe and holding a bottle of spirits. He glared at her without recognition. To him she didn't even look like her mother. He hadn't even met her yet. It was possible her mother wasn't even born yet. Whenever this was supposed to be, this guy was a child compared to the legendary Arvil of her own world.
She was so flustered she just recited Argosy for him:
"See now this plain of spoil,
Where cowed all Mans' toil,
To sit bemused without,
Thoughts belabored in drought,
So forth she clings to East,
Or North she turns to least,
But never strays her heart,
Not fallen since the start,
And plants her seed of truth,
The sun rises as proof,
Sacred words she has kept,
How the mighty have wept."
There was a queer silence after that as their eyes locked in mutual disgust of the other. A breeze toyed with their long hair and flowing garments and then left to go find someone easier to amuse. Then Arvil dropped the bottle with a clinking sound and pretended to be clapping, but was doing it slowly and rudely.
"That's fuckin' great kid. Now get the hell out of here before I go get my carbine."
"It is about me. Isn't it?" Svetlana was losing her composure and a tear ran down her cheek.
"Awww don't do that. Come here, I'll do you." he was walking towards her all weird and with his robes open and exposed. Svetlana only acted on reflex and didn't mean to slap him.
"I am your daughter." she told him.
Suddenly his entire act was gone and he straightened up and closed his robe and stood looking much more dignified. She hoped this didn't dissolve into more of his facetiousness. She had gone from disgust to shame and now stood poised for outrage.
"I see." he said. "In that case, welcome home."
He seemed entirely genuine and so she accepted his composure and followed him inside. There was a great deal of strangely familiar art in his home. Like she had seen every painting and sculpture and tapestry a million times and then forgot them. But she started to feel like this was home.
"I apologize. I didn't know you were my daughter. I didn't know I have a daughter." Arvil had sat her down on a very comfortable chair and servos were attempting to guess her every need. While one massaged her shoulders another was fanning her and a third had brought her a cold fruit beverage. Arvil was still standing though, pacing actually.
"I am not technically yours, but rather it is more genetic." Svetlana offered.
"So you're a clone? I am gonna have to sue somebody, I never authorized anything like that." Arvil sounded slightly relieved.
"No, I am your daughter. It is just that you have not made me yet. But I am biologically your daughter. Just not chronologically your daughter. Not yet." Svetlana tried to explain something she herself did not really understand.
"Okay then you were right about the poem." Arvil brightened. "I wrote it for you, in a way."
"What does it all mean?" Svetlana sat up, excited to hear his explanation.
"Well it isn't literal. Not like the shadow over time having power over our minds. I mean it is poetry." Arvil sounded like he was apologizing.
"Shadow over time?" Svetlana heard the way he had said this. It was the excuse of his odd apology.
"Mmm hmmm." Arvil agreed.
"No, what is it?" Svetlana tilted her head, waiting.
"You mean, you don't know what Umbraeon is? The shadow over time that is mind controlling us right now?" Arvil grimaced. "No wonder you traveled through time to ask questions."
"What is Umbraeon?"
"Not fair. First you tell me where I am in your time. You barely recognized me if I am your dear old dad."
"I never met you. You are dead. Mom is too. In fact, most people are. The survivors call my world Ruin."
"Oh shit." Arvil finally sat down.
"Now tell me about Umbraeon." Svetlana demanded.
"A new god, to replace nature and death. A shadow..." Arvil mused.
The presence of the Apostate would tip the balance into chaos. Svetlana had seen this happen already when she visited Cryonicle. It wouldn't take very long because it was a chain-reaction.
"You did it again, didn't you?" Svetlana stood and looked outside. Indeed the sky was darkening like a nightmare apocalypse.
"It made promises." Arvil had a weak, traitorous smile.
Svetlana concentrated on her inner warrior, willing the being into existence. She held aloft the toy of it against the thundering and rolling darkness that was consuming this world rapidly before her very eyes.
"I promise that if we make it out of this: I am gonna make you sorry for all you have done." Svetlana had to shout as the rolling thunder noises increased and the building began to tremble. The rumbling was deep and could be felt in the bones.
"Arvil! Arvil! It is happening! We have got to get out of here!" another man was yelling through the house.
The noise of the world coming apart was interrupted by brief moments of deathly echoing silence.
"Aidan, I'd like you to meet my daughter. What did you say your name was, dear?" Arvil said with a stupid grin between loud explosions outside and a crash like the ground splitting open.
Suddenly it was as though they were in the eye of it and a deathly silence and darkness prevailed. In the gloom the three of them conspired to abandon GAIA:
"Svetlana." Aidan recognized her. So this is where she had gone to all those years before. He should have guessed.
"Oh good, you two know each other already. Don't tell me the details, I might throw up." Arvil grinned.
"We have got to go." Aidan told Arvil urgently. "To Elsewhere. This world is about to be destroyed."
"Again." Svetlana iterated.
"I know. He doesn't know that." Aidan nodded.
"I am going with you." Svetlana informed Aidan.
"No you are not. I won't allow you to come with us. I know who you are. I am the one who killed Silver Swordsman and I don't want to have to do it again." Aidan was blunt with her. "Straight-to-the-point Aidan, but somehow in the wrong direction." He thought to himself.
"She comes with us." Arvil insisted.
"Shut up and let's go. Now." Aidan tried to grab Arvil by the arm, but he struggled free.
"Nope. She comes or I stay." Arvil slurred.
"We don't have time for this. You don't know what is at stake. We only get one chance to fix this mess. It is your fault and this is your one chance to fix it." Aidan was angry now and was raising his voice in the sound-absorbing atmosphere.
"Why now, Aidan? She comes from your world too and she seems perfectly groovy. Right?" Arvil didn't exactly make as much sense as he thought he was making.
"Just shut up and let's go. That doesn't even make sense." Aidan tried to grab him again.
"No, it does make sense. Answer it." Svetlana had found her father's gun and now aimed it at the intruder. He slowly raised his hands.
"Because this is the same world. We are changing the timeline. If he stays it leaves a paradox. You know, a new Elsewhere, a tangency universe. Nothing will be resolved. It was all a huge waste of time and energy and lots of people died for no reason." Aidan tried to reason with her.
Suddenly Arvil fell over and started to vomit. This distracted Svetlana so she looked away. Aidan moved very fast and tried to take the carbine. He staggered back a step. She fired a shot accidentally and for a moment nobody realized what had happened as the carbine clattered to the floor.
Her father was lying face down in a puddle of vomit and blood. The bullet had gone into his armpit and bounced off the floor and into his heart. He was dead.
The roaring of the world ending sky-opening started up again.
"Wait!" Svetlana called out at the retreating man. She chased him down the hall until he entered an ornate stone temple. Here was a miniature pool, like the Pool Of Time except much smaller and weaker. Several small anima collectors were around it to temporarily boost its power. He just needed it to be at full power for a couple seconds to wormhole his way back home.
He knew he had arrived home. He'd gone from lightning torn skins of boiling clouds in void-black skies to blue tranquility.
White marble steps and carved stone pillars greeted him. A golden dish of rich dark grapes sat with droplets of dew on each one.
When he arrived he took a deep breath and looked around. Nothing seemed different. They had not changed anything here. Another failure and possibly the last. He wasn't sure if it could be done again. In frustration he kicked the grapes and their dish clattered loudly.
"How many worlds do I have to let fall to save just one?" he was squeezing his fists and growling this.
"You are no savior." Svetlana told him. She was standing behind him. She had jumped into the rift-between-worlds he had created.
Slowly he turned and beheld her. He could see the shimmering superimposition of the Apostate around her like a silver cloud. So now he had done it. He had brought her here.
Svetlana stared back at him, worried because of how horrified he looked. She suddenly wondered to herself:
"I guess I am no savior either."