Seventeen Seconds to Eternity

3 - The Radiant Star

1073rd Year, 4th Month, Summer

They aimed arrows at her heart like bolts of lightning, thrust spears at her throat like rabid wolves, and rained spells on her gut like torture upon the damned. Their violated covenants left their souls torn asunder and their proven falsehoods saw their oblivion manifest. Directing their fury upon her were beings of the highest order, monstrous nuclei of primordial energy powerful enough to forge worlds of their own.

And yet, she remained unscathed. For the goddess of order was the mightiest of all.

Pinching the fabric of reality between her delicate fingers, Flitzegarde consigned the opposing elder gods to the terminus of fallen immortals. She eviscerated their concepts and cast them to the aether, weaving with their divine force the very tapestry that governed the world.

It was with their sacrifice that she assigned measurements and numbers to all of creation. From her grand order arose a stairway of progression to pair with the death god’s stages. With a single word, she birthed descriptors for all that would ever come to be. Be they ancient concepts long engraved across the realm, or the contemporary abstractions molded by her hand, everything was captured within the eternal record.

Never again would chaos reign, for with the system’s genesis had emerged the mortal age.

Scriptures of the Savage Gods, Verse 5-19

___

Something began to change as I resumed my trek. There was a strange, almost ticklish discomfort that assaulted my whole body at once. It was subtle enough that I barely noticed the effects until I’d covered about fifty metres, and even then, I presumed it was a lack of discipline that had led me to drag my feet. It wasn’t until I corrected my posture and advanced a little further that I finally understood.

My body grew heavier with every step I took. It was only the tiniest increase, barely noticeable even when I paid attention, but present it was, threatening to crush me underfoot in due course. Each increase was akin to shouldering another standard lance, a near-weightless five kilograms per step. Even with my stride length, I would be at least three tons heavier by the time I reached the end. It wasn’t an impossible weight to bear, but neither could it be simply ignored.

I scanned the room soon after I noticed, turning to the goddess only after noting the clenched fists, focused stares, and crossed arms that decorated her minions. She was the least calm of them all. Her lips were curled into an evident smile, her spidery parts were all fidgety, and her eyes were practically glowing. Though I wasn’t the best at reading expressions—I was still working on that particular ability—I could tell that she was bursting with excitement.

It almost looked like she wanted me to ask her about the bizarre phenomenon, but I shut my mouth and marched. I didn’t need an explanation. I only needed to press ahead.

Another few steps, and I found myself confronted again. A decrepit, goat-hooved humanoid forced himself into the space in front of me, lumbering forward with one hand on his cane and the other supporting his waist from behind. His once brown fur had turned the same silver as mine and his legs were so shaky that he looked to be on the verge of collapse. Still, he faced me with the air of a warrior, his eyes as cold and sharp as the edge of a knife.

“He is Grimm of Alstead, a heroic satyr from deep time whose journey was paramount to this world’s development. His name is forgotten amongst the mortal realm, but even tens of millions of years later, we, the gods, have always recalled it. Hailing from a small village ravaged by the first celestial of plagues, he realised his calling upon a hunt’s return. For it was upon entering the tent that he was forced to bear witness as the demigod’s minions feasted upon his beloved’s corpse.” The goddess chuckled. “He was too cowardly to intervene, too weak to make a difference. But with the deity’s death in mind, he set out on a journey across the realm. He travelled Mara’s forests, plains, and seas in turn, mastering all the martial arts whose masters he encountered. And blessed with the might of all the gods of chaos, he challenged the plague lord and slew him. They struck each other down. A mortal life traded for one that transcended beyond.” There was a loud crackling as she squeezed her armrests. “Even in death, he remains a symbol of love and perseverance, and it is to gauge yours that he volunteered himself.”

Dropping his cane, Grimm lowered his hips and raised one hand in front of him. The other was balled into a fist by his side, held in place as the winds began to dance. They gathered first around the tips of his fingers, their caress as gentle as a lover’s touch as they slowly enveloped his form and relieved his body of its weakness. His breath oozed with divinity. With every exhale, he whispered it into his zephyr, whipping it into a furious gale that spanned the temple’s interior.

The chandeliers banged against the ceiling. The door was thrown open. And the stained glass reliefs were shattered. The candles, the pillars, and even the walls were dismembered by the gathering storm and thrown into complete disorder. But even that was simply a side-effect, an unintended consequence that stemmed from the drawing of his breath.

It was in his clenched fist that the real danger lay.

For around it had formed the seed of a storm—an embodiment of pure elemental power. Were he to release it, he could have easily felled a nation, cleaved a continent in two without so much as a hint of exertion.

One moment, he was at rest. But in the next, he was right beside me.

His fist flew towards my flank, threatening to tear through my leg and obliterate my body outright. There was no blocking. If he so much as touched me, I was sure to be dead.

But I didn’t even look his way. Lazily extending a hand, I grabbed him by the face and gave him a solid squeeze. My fingers met no resistance. They sank right into his skull.

And again, the world was dyed in white.

When my visual functions were restored, I found myself standing in a long stone hall, pacing back and forth as I bit my nails. My ears were strained, held in their overhead position as I listened as keenly as I could. But despite my best efforts, I heard nothing of note, only the sound of my own trotting echoing through the hall.

Back and forth I went, pacing for so long that it almost felt like my hooves would soon be ground to dust. I couldn’t help but wonder where I was and what I was doing. I tried scanning my own mind for the memory in question, but I couldn’t dig it up. It didn’t make much sense in the first place. I was as tall as I was in the present day, maybe even taller, but the memory seemed to take place in my childhood home. Even though it had burned down so long ago.

I froze up as that last thought passed through my mind. It didn’t make sense. It was simply wrong.

Only a few years had passed since the fire; there was no reason for me to feel so nostalgic. Thinking that it was probably the result of my absent-mindedness, I shelved the thought and returned my attention to my surroundings.

The red, woolly carpet that sat atop the marble floor was exactly like that which had adorned my childhood home, and even the wallpapers had a near identical design. The first difference I noticed was the portrait hung up on the wall. At a glance, I thought it featured my father, but the subject’s hair was too long and wild and his expression far too cold. A look that Father could never master; it couldn’t have possibly been him.

With my brother out of the question, that left only one possibility.

It was me.

It was a version of me that I had yet to become.

But even more attention-grabbing than my future self was the map framed up beside it. I couldn’t tell if it was reality or fiction. But in either case, it showed Cadria not as the small country that it was at present, but a mighty power that spanned the length of a dozen nations. Only our vertical borders were unchanged. The northern frontier sat along the Langgbjern mountains, as it had since I conquered the thoraen lands just last month. Down south, it extended all the way to the great forest, stopping only at Kryddar, the allies to which we were long sworn. Out east, we reached the continent’s far edge. All the maritime nations along the way had been swallowed. Even Sthenia was gone. My greatest fear had manifested. And yet, I was incapable of digging through my future self’s mind and seeing the chain of effect.

We had expanded westward as well, taking a large chunk of the great plains for ourselves. And if I had to guess from the geography alone, it was likely the western front that was most active.

I couldn’t tell if it was because I was distracted, or if my future self was simply unguarded, but in either case, I didn’t notice the person sneaking up behind me until she smacked me in the back of the head.

“What the hell are you doing?”

When I finally turned my eyes upon the assailant, I found Allegra, tiny as ever with one hand on her hips and the other holding her weapon—a tube of rolled-up paper. The mage looked exactly as she always had, standing only a metre tall with her thick robes covering her fuzzy body. Her rabbit ears poked out from within her human-sized hat, through a pair of slits cut precisely to fit their shape.

Undoing her flight magic and returning to the ground, she thumped a foot against the carpet as she awaited my reaction. But even when addressed directly, I was slow to respond. I didn’t understand. My mind was filled with nothing. There was so much nothing that I wasn’t even sure why I felt the way I did. All I knew was that my hands were shaking.

“Allegra.”

She rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t a cue for you to start talking. Stop brooding and get in there already!”

The cottontail was behaving as usual, but for some odd reason, I refused to be anything but pathetic. Even when confronted with her encouragement, I held my position, moving only because she started pushing me from behind.

I felt the slightest twinge of fear as we closed in on the door. I couldn’t tell if it came from the present or the future. My future self was clearly more pathetic, but it was almost too clear for it to be a part of the vision.

I didn’t want to know what exactly it was that had put me in such a deplorable state. It had to have been something particularly horrible, something particularly traumatizing for me to have paced back and forth despite blotting its details from my mind.

I didn’t want to know.

I didn’t want to be forced to bear the burden of knowledge. Not until it became an absolute necessity.

But it wasn’t as if I had a choice. As was the case with my brother’s capture, I remained a nonparticipant. I could only watch, observe the world through my own corrupted lenses whilst my body followed the script. I was left with no option but to shake in my non-existent mooseshoes as Allegra pushed me along.

“You are going to be a father, Virillius. This is no time to show your cowardice.”

The words echoed through my ears, through my brain, through the core of my being before I finally understood them. For those six seconds of processing, my mind and body became as one.

I couldn’t believe my ears.

It wasn’t the sort of thing that I had ever really stopped to consider. It was only a few years ago that I had come to understand what it meant to have butterflies in my stomach. I had only ever looked at one lady that way, but she was far beyond my grasp. Though my blood was apt enough, our species were incompatible, incapable of interbreeding.

No matter how badly I pined for her, there was nothing to fix the reality of our flesh. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her.

Fear gripped me like a vice. I didn’t want to continue my advance. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to learn the face of the woman who would wrap me around her finger. Not if it was any other.

I hated how my heart soared as I drew closer to entry.

I hated the silly grin that spread across my face.

I hated that my stomach twisted itself into knots.

And most of all, I hated my lack of guilt.

I didn’t know how far in the future the event took place. For all I knew, it could have been a hundred years later—the fifth stage assured an immortal body, and the map was ridiculous enough to draw out the assumption—but even so, I couldn’t forgive my heart’s betrayal. Despite all the burning affection lit within my future self, I wanted nothing more than to vomit out my lungs.

All I felt was disgust.

Until I stepped through the door.

Everything clicked into place as I saw her sitting in a nest of blankets. It shouldn’t have been possible. It couldn’t have been possible. I didn’t understand.

At first, I thought it was just a mistake. Perhaps, I reasoned, she was simply present to bear witness to the event. My child would be of royal blood, and perhaps, as her people’s representative, she had simply come to mark the day.

But that was hardly the case.

Camellia—her ever-loyal maid—aside, she was the only person in the room. She giggled as she witnessed my awkward entrance before she looked upon me with a loving smile.

It was so bright that I felt my heart melting, present and future alike. It was so gentle, so calm and tender that my very soul was turned to mush. A look confined to the furthest reaches of my imagination.

After taking a moment to recover from the revelation, I offered myself an apology. I wasn’t a disgusting man-whore after all. It was a mystery as to how it all happened. But it was only the result that mattered.

I had managed to stay true. And at some point in the future, I had won over the woman who had stolen my heart.

As much as I wanted to keep staring, my foolish future self tore my eyes away from her face and focused on the egg in her lap. Her bright lavender scales gently held it in place while her upper body—her humanoid half—provided it with all the warmth it needed. The child inside the elongated, leathery shell was pushing against it, making an earnest effort to escape the prison’s confines.

I opened my mouth to speak, but almost as if on cue, a tiny hand erupted from the barrier, tearing through the exterior with a solid strike. The arm, much like my beloved’s, was adorned by the occasional scale.

The child flailed about, striking nothing but air with its fingers.

My breath was stuck in my throat when it suddenly stopped struggling and fell limp, but I soon found that my worry was needless. It soon regained its vigour and ripped another hole with his head.

Like most cervitaurian calves, he was born as a toddler, albeit one whose body was of a peculiar make. He was a tiny young buck with arctic blue scales adorning the sides of his face. The glimmering plates were the same colour as his hair, his ears, and his eyes. And they were all practically the same shade as mine.

We had really done it.

Though our species were entirely incompatible, Violet and I had borne a child. The only odd thing about him was the shape of his lower body. He was neither cervine nor serpentine. He had exactly two legs, both of which bore a remarkably elven shape. But it came as no surprise. Just like his sex, it was something our doctors had long determined.

Slowly, I stepped towards him, them. I sat down on the bed, next to my wife, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She leaned into my embrace, smiling gently as she did the same to our child. For a while, we stayed like that, with her slowly looking him over with eyes full of wonder.

“Congratulations.” Allegra, who had been standing in the doorway since I entered the room, spoke her felicitations with a shaky voice. It was as much of a moment for me as it had been for her; she had already agreed to look after our child, and to become his godmother and guardian.

“Congratulations,” echoed Camellia. She was peeking over Violet’s shoulders with her eyes sparkling. I almost laughed. It was rare for her to look anything but stern, not that I was one to talk.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you very much. Ms. Cedr. Thank you, Camellia.” Tears formed in the corners of Violet’s eyes as she hugged the child even tighter. “Thank you very much.”

Allegra smiled. “Have you decided on a name?”

Violet paused briefly as she looked the child over, spinning him around as she inspected him all over. I didn’t think that there was much wrong with that in particular, but for some strange reason or other, a shiver ran up my spine. Almost like I knew without having heard the words.

“I have,” she said. “How about Milky?”

“I would prefer anything else.” The words came out of my future self’s mouth before my present self was able to form a thought. Evidently, future me hadn’t neglected my training. “How about William, so that he might remain resolute, even in the face of fear?”

“No way.” Violet huffed. “What about Silver?”

“Absolutely not. I’d rather Victor, so he might remain undefeated.”

“Albus then?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Can you please stop trying to name him after the colour of his scales?” Waves of lament rang through my future self’s mind. I had tried—many times at that—to name our child far ahead of his birth, but it was precisely for this cultural quirk that my beloved had rebuffed my attempts.

“Why not!? That’s how my people have always done it!” said the lamia whose body was covered in shades of violet. She looked at Camellia, who immediately responded with an eager nod.

“It isn’t sufficiently symbolic. I don’t mind veering from Cadrian tradition, but I’d like something that embodies our hope for his future.”

“Either his name reflects his appearance, or he isn’t getting a name at all,” said the stubborn snake-woman. “End of story.”

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the ridiculous demand, but I racked my brain knowing that she was unlikely to yield. She had always been as stubborn as a rock.

My eyes moved to the boy. Carefully, hesitantly, I lowered my hand to his face. I was almost too scared to touch him. But hesitantly, I tickled his nose.

“How about Sirius?”

“Sirius?” Violent lightly set the boy down on the bed and brought a hand to her chin. “Sirius, after the brightest star?”

I nodded. “Precisely.”

She lightly tapped a finger against the tip of her tail. “That could work,” she said, “especially if we dress him in shining armour when he grows up.”

I sighed. “Armour like that would only get him killed. It’s no different from painting a target on his chest.”

“Then you’ll just have to raise him strong.” She flashed me a brilliant smile.

It was so bright that it burned itself right into the back of my mind, even as the future memory began to fade around me.

I could feel my heart jerking, wishing to return to the moment of bliss as I raked my hand through the satyr’s brain.

His body dissolved soon after, transforming into a thousand particles of light that reconvened around my neck and became a bright red scarf. Another piece of equipment. Born of another life.

Half stumbling forward, I pressed a hand to my chest and forcibly steadied my breathing. I twisted my face into the coldest, calmest facade I could manage and fought back the urge to turn my gaze to the goddess.

Even without looking, I could see the anticipation on her face, feel it shaking the hall, screaming for me to inquire, silently or otherwise, as to the vision’s veracity. She wanted me to beg her for guidance. She wanted to see me squirm as I sought the miraculous happily ever after that she had shown.

But there was no need.

I knew it was true.

I knew that I could reach it, so long as I extended my hand with it in mind. And she had shown it to me precisely because she understood that I would understand its truth and never refuse its temptation.

“Will you swear to follow my orders, Virillius?”

“Yes, Goddess.” It was the only answer I could have given. She had shown me the forbidden fruit and strung me up like a puppet.

So I stood back up and continued along the path. At her beck and call, I could only advance.