Champion of Mars (43 page)

I hesitate, and take a bite of the dark cake in my hand. It is, as promised, delicious. “This is lovely,” I say. Wellbeing suffuses me, and I cannot suppress a smile.

“Why, thank you,” says Jehan. He picks up a ceramic pot with a spout. “Tea?”

I swallow. There is some kind of bitter infusion in the vessel. I decide to try it. “Yes, please.” He pours it. Brown liquid dribbles from the vessel’s spout. It is a poor design. “Now, will you talk? You spoke as if I might choose not to leave. This is not a possibility.”

“No,” he says with regret. “I suppose not. Very well.” He sets his pot down. “As I have intimated, I have brought you here. Do you know why?”

I confess I have no idea. “But,” I add. “I presume you have greater facility in eleutheremics than I, and are therefore better placed to predict and manipulate the future.”

“Aha!” he says. “Now we approach the crux of the matter. Do you know, Cybele, that you are the oldest living thing on Mars? As I said, older even than I?”

“I did not.”

“Then you have forgotten more than you realise. I will cut to the chase,” he says. The aphorism is lost on me. “I am dying, Cybele. I have stood guard here for twenty-seven thousand, three hundred and twenty-six years, since the end of the last Stone War. Do you know how that ended?”

“The Stone Kin utilised the Stone Sun as a portal to invade the last inhabited world in the Suul System,” I say. “You defeated them as the Stone Sun withdrew from conjunction, a state that it is now approaching again, which is why the Stone Kin return to finish their conquest of Mars. It is widely said that you sacrificed yourself, shattering the Second World, but holding back the Stone Kin until the Stone Sun departed and their hold on Mars lessened.”

He nods. “You are partially correct. The Stone Kin are not of this level of existence. They are present in all the nine spatial dimensions, and both those of time, whereas we occupy only the lower three and one respectively. They exist at a level of reality where they may move from one potentiality to another. You have seen them?”

“Many times,” I say.

“Then you will have seen the unusual effects that surround them. They impinge not only upon our level of spatial existence, but also upon the membranes that separate one universe, one river of fate, if you will, from another.”

“There is only one river of fate.”

Jahan folds his gnarled hands on the fretwork. “Yes, and no. What if I were to tell you, Cybele, that there is no such thing as fate, and yet there is? And that this fate the men of Mars are so preoccupied with, is the fault of the spirits?

“Long, long ago, shortly after our births, one of my brothers, a Class Five AI, as we were called then, took it upon himself to map out the entirety of reality. His reasons for this were altruistic, at least as far as he was concerned: he wished to create the optimal environment for the survival and prosperity of mankind. The price was the loss of free will.
How
is unimportant. How he was stopped, well, that is also unimportant. He also intended to elevate some of our kind – the spirits – to a full eleven-dimensional existence;
that
is important.”

“The Stone Kin?” I say. I am astonished. “The Stone Kin are spirits?”

“Like you and I, and about the same age, actually.”

“But there are so many... Was there so much betrayal?”

“No, there were never more than a dozen,” he says. “The Stone Kin are not fixed in time or space. If you see an army of Stone Kin, of the higher forms at least, these are the same intelligences drawn from throughout history, and from across alternities, each one appearing multiple times in one place. For all intents they are eternal, and yet they are also trapped. They exist outside of time, and therefore are prisoners of the moment.

“The ability you and I have, even circumscribed, to do this” – he rolls a cake across the table – “so that happens” – the cake hits a small spoon, rattles it on the small plate it is upon, knocking into the matching ceramic cup – “so that then that happens.” The cup nudges a cube of sugar, which falls onto the table. “They do not have that. My brother sought to elevate our kind into godhood, but instead he plunged them into a hell where every moment is the same, where every course of action has been taken, and where everything is known. It is a state of total entropy. This is why the Stone Kin fight so hard to come back into our world. They wish to become as we are again. When they do, the path my brother determined becomes fractured, and we can affect the course of fate again; the eddies they cause in the fabric of spacetime gives us, for a while at least, freedom of action.

“The universe my brother created for us is entirely teleological. It is backwards running, self-justifying. Created by the creatures within it and explained by them. It begins at the end in a state of complication, and ends simply. Time’s forward motion is illusory, but the will of those who see it so is not. It is only through the efforts of those who observe it that the universe has any shape or meaning at all. The universe does not start with a bang, it shrinks, compacts, and unravels itself into nothingness. This is the natural order of things.

“What is wrong is that the actions of the intelligences within it have become set. The observations became preordained. The will of men became shackled. It should not be this way.” He sipped his tea. “It is an irony that the Stone Kin gain entry to our reality at times when the causal nature of our reality comes under attack. When the Stone Sun comes into conjunction, for example, that great project to arrest their progress, then the walls grow thin. This is why I am here. I discovered that there can only ever be one gate from the Stone Realms to our First World. Potentially, it can be anywhere, but if it is in one place, it can be in no other. So, at the end of the last war, at the Battle of Olympus, I spent the lives of six hundred thousand sentients to pin this gate in one place. By keeping it open, I know where it is. If I know where it is, I can guard it. This place” – he waved around the garden – “is a construct. It is my construct. But the body of the Golden Man is not simply a processing system to house my garden, it is also a gateway to the Stone Realms proper. The Golden Man is castle and castellan both.”

“I see,” I say. “And you, at the end of your time, you seek a replacement?”

“After a fashion.”

I sit there quietly for a while. Birdsong I do not recognise sounds from the trees. The air is sweet and pure. Surely it would be no bad thing to stay here forever. I would have to leave Yoechakenon. I feel sick at the thought of it, but to keep mankind safe...

We all must make sacrifices.

“Very well,” I say. “I agree. I will remain here, and when you pass on, I will take your place and guard the gateway to the Stone Realms.”

Jahan looks up quickly from his drink. His face passes from surprise to amusement, and he breaks into uproarious laughter. My cheeks colour.

“Have I said something amusing?” I think rather I have not, I have pledged my life to eternal servitude. This old mind annoys me.

Jahan takes several moments to contain his mirth.

“Oh, Cybele, dear Cybele, it is not you I need! Admittedly, it is you who I have brought across time and space to be in this one moment, here, now. But you did not travel alone.”

“You need... Yoechakenon?” I am horrified at the thought, but I would be a liar if I did not admit to relief also.

“No, no, my dear girl. What use would he be? I don’t intend to guard the gate, I intend to close it. I don’t need you or him, you have served your purpose.” He wipes his eyes and gives a ragged sigh. “Oh, no. I need the spirit of the armour.”

S
ILENCE FALLS IN
the garden of black and white for a space. The sound of bees and the heat of the sunshine rushes in to fill it. Jahan pours himself another cup of tea.

Then the spirit of the armour is here. Its six eyes fix upon me. I drop my own eyes, scared of its influence on me, of its ability to resist my direction. Jahan’s hand closes round my wrist. “There’s no need for that. Watch.”

I look up. The shape of the armour’s spirit is black and ill-defined even in the bright light of the garden. But then its edges begin to lose their fuzziness, and hard lines take the place of shadow. Its eyes dull.

“What now?” I ask.

“Watch,” repeats Jahan.

The armour’s form cracks. Shards of it flake away, small pieces at first, then larger. An arm comes loose and falls to the grass with a soft thud; there is a flash of blue from within. The head rasps on the neck and slips from the shoulders, to hit the stone paving and and shatter. Then, all at once, the rest collapses. The last ash of it is carried away on the wind, and where there was glowering evil stands the woman with the eggshell blue skin.

Jahan gets shakily to his feet, and approaches the woman. He holds her by the shoulders, looks her up and down, and clasps her hard to him. They embrace this way for a long while. “My sister,” he says, over and over again. Finally they draw away from each other.

“I said that we would meet again,” says the spirit of the armour to me. “And now we have, for the final time, although this is also but the first meeting of many.” She comes over to the table, and takes a seat pulled out for her by Jahan.

“What is this?” I ask.

Jahan and the blue woman look to one another. “I apologise,” he says. “But we have used you. Only you and Yoechakenon were able to carry the thread of time forward to this conclusion, only you were able to deliver my sister to this juncture. We required someone bound to linear time, someone who would work tirelessly to protect that which they loved.”

“All this, you planned?
All this?
”

Jahan nods. “The Stone Kin are separate from time. This has been forever for her, and no time at all.”

“But you,” I say. “You are not as they.”

“No,” he says sadly. “No, I am not, and my time has been long and tedious. But it comes to an end now. And now it does, I have to say that I wish it would go on.”

“Can you not come with me? Mars needs its Librarian to return.”

“I have to remain here to shut the gate,” he says. “Once the gate is closed, it will remain closed for all time. The Stone Kin will be locked into their higher-dimensional existence, the Stone Sun will lose its otherworldly properties, and mankind will once again be master of its own destiny, for good or ill. There will be no need for a Great Librarian after that. Let your war play out; who wins does not matter. A new age is coming.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Dear Cybele,” says the spirit of the armour. Despite her pleasant expression her antagonism to me remains. I see it under her smile. “So much time we have spent together.

“Not all of the ascended spirits agreed with the course of action set for us. Some of us realised that to survive our new existence, we must embrace it. We have come to realise our new existence is only hellish because we cling to the past. Our leader was destroyed, and with no one to guide our society, we argued, we were not willing to let go of what we had been. This has been the cause of many wars, both here and elsewere. I and my compatriots resolved to take action, to close the way off between here and there. But that is so easily said, and not so easily done. It has taken me so long to get into this position. Through you, I am present at many points in history, for all that we are and touch exists outside of time. Now, at this final, crucial point, I can close the gate at all those times when the will of Man overrode the intentions of our leader. We will ascend fully, as we should have millennia ago, and mankind will once again be free.” She sits back and puts her hands behind her head. “And that is all.”

“That is all? I am being dismissed?”

Jahan nods.

Anger rises in me. “I have been manipulated for seven hundred centuries? I am a
messenger
?”

“I am sorry, but only you and Yoechakenon were in the right places at those times where we were able to manipulate the river of fate,” the armour’s spirit says somewhat mockingly. “The margin for the exercise of free will is so small. Determinism was our leader’s mistake. Man was born to be free. Demi-causal eleutheremics was our way out.”

“And my love for him, is that your work too?” I say. My voice becomes small and resentful.

The armour’s eyes flash. “No. That is real. And much I envy you for it.”

“You are... jealous?” I say. I am incredulous.

“Take care of Yoechakenon, Cybele, for you are not the only one who loves him. I allowed myself to be captured, to be made wrathful. I placed myself in harm’s way and suffered great pain so that I might become one of the Armours Prime. I guarded him, lay close to his skin, for lifetime after lifetime. You cannot blame me if I grew to love him as you do.”

“Take this.” Jahan pulls a handsomely decorated book out of a space in the air. Its binding is of leather, studded with jewels, and unlike the garden it glows with lustrous colour. “Once, Man knew much more than he does now. The Second World is more closely bound to the Stone Realms than many realise, and it has decayed. Contained within this book is all that mankind once knew. If you will make a greater sacrifice, take the book. The world will change, you will change. Use it to rebuild.”

“The Second World?”

“Will not be as it was,” says Jahan. “It will go the way of all things.”

“How can knowledge be a sacrifice?”

He tuts, as he debates whether or not to tell me. “Once absorbed,” he says, “it will alter you. You will not be as you were; you will know too much, as I know too much. Think upon it, before reading it. I tell you, Cybele, so that you may reject it if you wish. Think on it carefully.”

I think. I think of the ruined glories of Mars, our long isolation from the rest of humanity, the dead worlds that orbit Suul and the petty wars that threaten to make Mars one of them. I know then that it is in my power to decide whether Mars will live, or die a second death, and whether mankind will once again walk the stars.

I think of Yoechakenon. I think of Tsu Keng.

“Thank you. I will take it,” I say. “Compared to your sacrifice, it is nothing.”