The Beginning After The End (TBATE)

I pulled back, retracting my presence from the Relictombs’ edge.
My systems flickered with the light and energy that formed and maintained this projection of my conscious mind. Crystal now replaced the soft gray matter that once held my thoughts, memories, and personality. And why? Why had those of us who would stay behind do so? All of djinn-kind had given everything of ourselves to build the Relictombs, but the others and I had literally given everything over to the maintenance of our eternal project.
This thought did not flicker through my consciousness bitterly. The question wasn’t asked in the act of second-guessing my own actions.

But I did answer myself.
To ensure our knowledge survived. To protect it. To find those who might wield it in ways we could not, even to save ourselves.
The entire reason for my existence was to ensure that the sum total learning of our species did not go extinct with us. Even if a single shining beacon of knowledge and hope were to take the information stored within our great encyclopedia and leave this world—to share the knowledge of aether with beings of different worlds, differing times—that would resemble the accomplishment of my task.

Resemble?
I hitched, catching on the word. I spent some time floating at the edge of nothing, circling the word “resemble.” I had meant to think of the word, “represent.” And yet I hadn’t. Such a mistake could foreshadow some failure of the complex mechanisms and magic that maintained my mind, but more likely, it was evidence of conflicting results of the many simultaneous and parallel thought processes happening inside the matrix of my brain. I examined those conflicts with care.
Arthur Leywin and his companions, meanwhile, moved to enact their plan. My sense of their actions was limited, as I needed time away from the prodding of Tessia Eralith to reach the culmination of these considerations. It was eerie, the way she could sense and connect with my consciousness when I fully manifested it into the space at the Relictombs’ edge to watch them. But then, she had met me as the Legacy and so was more aware of me. I should’ve expected it.

Their plan hinged on Varay Aurae’s ability to interrupt and withhold the mana’s constant pressure, giving Arthur Leywin the necessary leeway to draw on the river of aether and fold space out of the Relictombs to punch a hole back into the physical realm. Given the human woman’s recent Integration and the strength of the river’s pull, which limited Arthur Leywin’s capabilities, some light calculation suggested their chances of success were no higher than thirty percent.
This, of course, was related only to the creation of an exit. The ability to actually leave was a very different matter.
When I felt ready to focus again, my consciousness stepped back into the space between the aetheric river, the Relictombs, and nothing at all. I kept myself deep within the murky edge, where I knew they could not look without their minds rebelling at what they saw.

Tessia Eralith was crouched beside Varay Aurae, deep in conversation. The manifested lifeform, Regis, sat with the pair, his ears twitching as they turned toward every noise that manifested.
“No, cancellation alone doesn’t seem to do anything,” the human woman was saying. “This could be due to a lack of insight into the spell’s formation, or perhaps the raw power of the intent holding the mana in its current form. Mana rotation, as Arthur suggested, does seem to be helping me…connect to the spell, but it’s a slow process.”
Tessia Eralith squeezed the other woman’s forearm. “Sometimes insight comes slowly, other times in a sudden burst. Any luck with seeing the particles?”

“I’m mentally picturing them as my senses follow their movement, but I can’t actually see them.”
The young elf frowned thoughtfully and drew something in the sand with her fingers. “Regis? Can I show you something?”
Regis responded with an affirmative but careless shrug, then melted into incorporeality before joining his physical form with hers.

“Is that what you want, Ji-ae? The end of all life—all potential life—on this world?”
That had been this young woman’s question to me in the wake of the adolescent dragon’s vision. My answer had been simple and obvious, but I still struggled to grasp its meaning.
In the end, it came down to mathematics. I had a single purpose. Statistically, any given course of action made my success more or less likely, and one major benefit of my current situation was that being implanted within the housing matrix made me prodigious in the calculation of probability.
For a long time, Agrona’s work in the Relictombs, the central focus of our encyclopedia within the culture he built, represented the best—and generally, only—method likely to result in true understanding and dissemination of the knowledge we had stored. Sylvia Indrath had represented a potential branching network of possibility, and though I could not have foreseen the appearance of Arthur Leywin, I had since come to understand why I had felt such a tectonic shift in the nature of probability from Sylvia.

And since then, every action by either Agrona or Arthur Leywin had brought them more into equilibrium. Two different routes to success. Ones that…resembled one another. And yet, were in reality quite different. The math had shifted.
Once Epheotus had been fully exhumed from the dimensional pocket in which it resided, Agrona would likely be the lone survivor of this world. There would be no civilization to continue the djinn’s research into aether. But my purpose did not require the people of this world. Together, Agrona and I could take the knowledge of djinn-kind and search for other people with other magic who might be better equipped to understand it. For, there was no doubt at all that when the aetheric pocket formed within the skin of this world eventually ruptured, aether would find its way to every corner of the universe, farther than even the eyes of my people had been able to see.
I could not appropriately calculate any kind of honest or realistic probability of success. The unknowns were as vast as the space between stars.

And then there was Arthur Leywin. If he proved successful, the new races of this world—elves, dwarves, and humans—would survive, along with the asuras. The aetheric realm would be released in concert with the needs of these people, instead of antagonistically to their very lives. The unknowns were fewer in this scenario, but the likelihood of success was equally difficult to calculate—or rather, they were low, and I was hesitating to admit it.
Why am I acting so…human? I asked myself, turning briefly away to examine the interior stability of my housing.
Physically and structurally, of course, I was fine. But emotionally, I found myself shaken. Calculating probability was very different from the vision of a lifeless world in flames. This was something I °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° could not remember since…

An image flashed through my thoughts all at once: a world on fire, but not the future. The past.
I began to dissociate, shutting off all thought and acting purely as a passive observer to what was happening.
Arthur Leywin had approached the two women. Their conversation had paused as they nervously watched Claire Bladeheart, pilot of the machine they called an exoform, face off against an aetheric apparition. She cut it down quickly, and their attention returned to their conversation.

A soft glow emanated from Arthur Leywin’s lower back, shining through his shirt. From the subtle realignment of his gaze, he was looking at the constantly flowing pressure of the mana pushing down on the aetheric river. Regis had transitioned from Tessia Eralith to Varay Aurae, whose own eyes charted the same path as Arthur Leywin’s. Her expression was uncertain at first, then her eyes widened in surprise and excitement.
Bairon Wykes returned from his watch. His jaw was set, his eyes moving nervously from Varay Aurae to Arthur Leywin. Their conversation heated up, and their progress built momentum. Like a stone rolling down a hill.
The likelihood of their success increased. They were on the right path and would reach the necessary conclusion even without my assistance. As I processed this, I returned to myself. If I’d had a physical body, a tremor would have run down my spine, and goosebumps would have roughened my skin.

As Varay began to cycle the mana through her, absorbing and expelling it simultaneously in a constant rotation, the others stepped back, the conversation settling. I took this moment to slip out of the space, retracting my senses back to Taegrin Caelum.
Agrona was waiting for me.
The reliquary had been relocated. The narrow halls and dozens upon dozens of small, locked rooms were now wide open, a huge, flat, empty expanse around my crystalline housing. It felt empty, even lonely, without all those small but constant blips of magic from the nearby artifacts and relics.

Agrona regarded me, obviously having sensed my attention. His features were sharp, identical to the flesh golem he’d carved of Khaernos Vritra’s body, which his mind had inhabited for so long. His mouth was currently turned down in a questioning frown. The red of his eyes, a bloody crimson, leaked beyond the edges of his pupils. He’d been pushing himself too hard, expending and absorbing mana in quantities even he was struggling to keep up with. At least he’d donned his armor: a full suit of white dragon scales, their edges tinted red.
“You need to collect yourself,” I said, knowing better than to pander to him. My voice was hollow and resounding in the wide open space. “They have bypassed the first obstacle. Those who were drawn into the portal with Arthur Leywin have complementary abilities beyond what he could have accomplished himself. There is no doubt he himself will prove capable of what lies ahead. They do not yet see the final barrier, but I calculate there is now a ninety-five percent chance they will free themselves before Epheotus fully emerges through the torn rift.”
He sighed dramatically and one hand went to a horn, but he hadn’t bothered to replace the ornaments that normally hung from them. The hand lowered to his face, and his fingers drummed along the edge of his jaw. “Well, no matter. I suppose disappearing him into an inescapable void wouldn’t have been the thrilling end our saga deserves, would it?” He chuckled, then turned away, appearing to look at nothing. “Everything is ready here. I was just about to go reward Seris’s victory by dropping a mountain on her and all her blood traitors, but I suppose she can wait a little bit longer.”

I wanted to ask him if he was certain about his course but knew that would only reveal my own uncertainty in the process. Agrona never questioned himself or second-guessed his decisions. It was one of his greatest strengths. There would be no altering his course. But I didn’t want to, not really. That purity of vision was what made him so likely to succeed.
I pulsed light through the crystal housing and pushed back into my connection with the Relictombs, quickly navigating through several dozen chapters before reaching the very edge of Relictombs, a space that had formed but was not built.
Time had progressed quickly for Arthur Leywin and his companions.

I noticed the change in the flow of mana immediately. Varay Aurae floated twenty feet off the ground, just above where the river met the black sand. Her hands moved in a constant, weaving rhythm in front of her, and she mumbled a repeating sequence of focusing chants. Mana flowed into and pushed out of her in equal measure as the force of her will leaned into the pressure of the mana constricting the river.
Arthur stood below her, his back to the river. Each time it lapped at the shore, the aetheric waters caressed his bare feet, just touching him. With each touch, violet sparks shimmered over his skin like stars reflecting on water.
He was absorbing the aether, a touch at a time, siphoning off only a hint at each contact.

Tessia, Bairon, and Sylvie stood off to the side, exchanging nervous glances as their attention shifted between the two casters and their guardian, who was fighting three of the river’s apparitions. Regis seemed to have melded back into his master.
The aether was growing agitated, moving to defend itself. Not just hateful of their presence, but growing more desperate in its attempt to eliminate them. They would likely already be dead if not for the Relictombs rules leaking out into this space and inhibiting the aether, encouraging it to meet strength with strength.
Wrath, but not unleashed, I mused. Given enough time, the aether forming into these apparitions would likely realize it didn’t have to follow the rules written for the rest of the Relictombs’ creature.

Space began to fold within the spaceless, senseless wall as Arthur absorbed aether in small bursts from the river and used it to manipulate space itself. His light-colored hair floated up from his head, and djinn runes glowed from beneath his eyes.
I circled around to better watch what he was doing. Tessia saw me immediately.
‘You’re back,’ she thought, her mental voice soft. ‘I thought maybe you’d decided to leave us here.’

My purpose is only to monitor you, I answered, standing beside her. Tessia and her companions stood awkwardly, not fully able to watch Arthur due to the disorientation they would receive, not entirely willing to take their eyes off of the river, where Claire still battled on their behalf.
Varay’s push on the mana slowly strengthened, allowing Arthur to absorb more aether from the river. This increased the response from the apparitions, which threw themselves at Claire like rabid durns into a thresher. Sylvie stood with one foot in the water, her eyes closed but darting behind the lids. Bairon was motionless, but static electricity built on his skin and occasionally crackled across his armor.
“Arthur, the waters…” Sylvie’s voice was distant, nervous.

The river was now lapping at Arthur’s ankles on each shoreward lurch. The others stepped back nervously. There was a purple, aetheric glow shining under Arthur’s skin, highlighting his channels.
The shifting space, moving under Arthur’s application of aether like the strings of a violin under the bow of a master musician, began to harden. Something out of nothing. It crystallized, one bead at a time, like a curtain of black-purple glass. Each crystal was sharp and fragile. Despite his control, a simple pulse of mana or aether would likely bring the entire construct crashing down and expose him to the full weight of the incomprehensible space beyond.
Sylvie had both feet firmly in the water now, up to her shins. The river surged out and then back in, a tide created by the push and pull of mana and aether. With each swell, it rose higher up Arthur’s legs.

“It’s too much!” Sylvie said, an edge of desperation in her tone. “Arthur, you can’t control it!”
“I don't…exactly…have a choice,” he answered through gritted teeth.
‘Help him!’ Tessia’s voice sounded in my thoughts.

There is nothing I can do, I answered her truthfully.
Pressure was building around and within Arthur as he continued to siphon away energy from the river and output it through the runes on his back, shaping space. He gritted his teeth, and violet light gleamed in his eyes as a bright crown appeared atop his head.
His aetheric spell quaked, the crystalline curtain tinkling like glass. A few beads fell and cracked on the ground before dissolving into the black sand.

He’s losing too much aether back to the river. He can’t sustain his spell, I thought to Tessia.
Sylvie had moved behind him, her consciousness mingling with the aetheric waters. I could feel her trying to redirect its flow, to settle its rocking tide. “Varay! Help me push it down…”
The mana responded sluggishly as Varay shifted her focus away from allowing the river’s aether to flow outward, instead building a retaining wall to keep it from subsuming Arthur’s own purified aether. Even that still inside his core.

Emerald green vines sprang up out of the sand, twisting into a barricade, but the waters oozed through the cracks or splashed over the top.
Bairon reached out for Arthur, seemingly intent on pulling him away.
“Stop!” Arthur commanded, and all of his companions froze. Something shifted within him, and I felt the flow of aether out of his body and back into the river pick up. He let out a pained gasp.

His core…
It felt as if I could see the light shining out through his sternum, from a core of three layers of hardened, condensed aether wrapped around the broken shell of a mana core. The light showed every line, every crack, as clearly as if it had been removed from his chest.
And it was cracking badly now. Breaking all over again. The amount of aether flowing through him was far too much.

Fascinated, I drifted closer, moving past Tessia, across the stormy waters, and into his body. I found myself looking at his core. Regis, a dark wisp of energy with bright eyes, swarmed around it, pushing and pulling at the aether, trying to reinforce the core.
‘Nothing’s working,’ the wisp thought desperately. I doubt Regis knew I could hear him.
‘We’ve done this before,’ Arthur answered, his mental voice just as strained as his physical body. ‘It’s just like when I formed the second layer, remember? We just have to—’

‘That wasn’t a whole bloody, universe-size river of pissed off aether-god that wants you dead, was it?!’
The push and pull of the aetheric current wavered, then surged. I withdrew, returning to my place beside Tessia.
Arthur’s skin began to burst, and jolts of white-purple lightning coiled out from the wounds, striking the river that was by now climbing to his knees. The others had backed well off by now, except for Sylvie and Varay. Strike after strike flashed, barely missing Sylvie. The vines had faded, Varay was shaking and dipping in her effort to fight back against the swell of mana.

And then…it turned inward. The wounds healed, broke open, and healed again. Instead of striking out, the light wrapped around him, no longer bolts of lightning but like a cloak of pure energy trailing down his back, sparking where it touched the waters, undulating as if tossed in a wind that only affected him. The light moved back into him, burning in his bones, condensing until all that light was contained in his chest. I could no longer see the shape of his core, the cracks, only the light.
The crystalline curtain swayed as if a breeze passed through it, and I suddenly breathed easier as my tether back to my housing grew closer in the presence of this doorway.
Arthur floated up out of the water, his hair standing on end, his eyes bright with power, crown gleaming, cloak of pure, brilliant energy trailing past his feet. Varay released her control and sagged, floating down to be at his level. Beneath them, the river receded.

“What just happened?” Claire asked in her tinny voice as she approached from the river. No more apparitions would come for them now.
“It’s…done,” Arthur said, his voice rough.
Regis manifested again, padding around in the black sand. “My man. Two months to forge a third layer for your core, two minutes to do a fourth.”

“What does that mean?” Tessia asked, her fingers pushing into her own sternum above her core, as if hers too had been cracking as she watched Arthur.
“It means we’re going to kick Agrona’s ass,” Regis answered for him, sides heaving from the exertion.
Arthur and Varay touched down. Sylvie passed between them, but she was not looking at her bond. Her eyes were on Tessia.

“Ask her what we can do,” Sylvie said, her voice barely a whisper. “Now that the portal has formed, how do we pass through?”
I felt empathy—a pang of pity—at the look of confusion on Tessia’s face. She asked Sylvie to repeat herself, clearly thinking she had misheard, then turned to me.
I only shook my head. “She already knows. She’s seen it. She just can’t accept it.”

She passed on my words, and the young dragon shook her head fiercely, glaring through me unseeingly.
“What is it?” Tessia asked, but Sylvie didn’t answer, and I kept my silence. It wasn’t my place to reveal the final cost of their escape.
The crystalline curtain hung in the air, something real in the unreal.

Sylvie gave the others an unreadable look. Unreadable to them. I knew exactly what she was feeling, as she’d already seen the result in the river of time.
“What are we waiting for?” Bairon asked as they all stood in an awkward silence. “Our forces may well still be fighting. We need to get back!”
“Sylvie will go first,” Arthur said in the same raw tone, like there was a forge fire in the back of his throat.

She set her jaw and stepped forward. Her hand reached out to part the curtain, and it wavered. When she stepped forward, though, something resisted her. Suddenly, she grimaced and stumbled back as motes of aether, visible to the naked eye for all to see, were pulled through her skin, ripped away, and absorbed into the river. I felt her control slam down around herself, cutting off the flow because the river drained her.
“What was that?” Varay asked, her fist of conjured ice clenching and giving off wafts of vapor.
“It’s the river’s pull on the aether,” Sylvie said, confirming that her visions aligned with my own calculations. “I believe passing through the portal destabilizes the aether inside our bodies when we go through, and the river then pulls it away from us.

There was a long pause. The others were looking at each other, but Tessia was staring at me.
“If Arthur and I work together to hold back the mana and aether, as we did to make the portal…” Varay began, but her thought trailed off into silent consideration.
“It’s worth a try,” Arthur said firmly.

And together, they attempted it, with Varay again destabilizing the crushing swell of mana while Arthur drew on the smallest part of the river’s aether to conjure a repellent barrier that pushed back against the river’s force.
Sylvie tried again, but with the same result. Bairon tried after her, reasoning that someone without control of aether may be affected less, but the results proved the opposite of his theory, and he collapsed to the ground and had to be revived by Tessia.
After a long, quiet moment, Arthur turned his attention to Sylvie. “What is it? You’ve seen something else, but you’re holding back.”

She bit her lip, then hung her head, a lock of wheat blonde hair falling over her face. “I’ve only seen one way forward.”
“What is it?” Tessia asked, nerves tightening her voice, wide eyes bouncing between Sylvie and me.
“But that doesn’t mean there is only one way forward. If I tell you, though, then it becomes a reality,” she continued.

What she said wasn’t entirely accurate. There was not some quantum state in which knowledge of a method guaranteed a result, but the odds were incredibly high that once the others were made to understand their situation and the potential key to their escape and survival, they would not be able to think past it to see another solution.
But then, I had picked this location for exactly this reason. Had Arthur been here alone, or even with just his Regis and Sylvie, this escape would have been much more difficult.
A part of me now examined the choices that had brought us all to this point. I explored my emotions, searching for regret or grief, but events were still proceeding in the way most likely to end in a positive result. Or so I told myself, perhaps to quell the phantom worms squirming in my nonexistent stomach.

“One of us has to stay behind,” Varay said, correctly reading Sylvie’s discomfort.
Sylvie’s lips pressed tightly together, her head cocking slightly, eyes still on the portal.
“But why? How does that help anything?” Tessia blurted out. She wheeled on me. ‘You said you’d help us!’

No, I answered. I simply agreed that the destruction we saw is not what I want.
Sylvie straightened, setting her jaw. She looked much older. “I can only tell you what I’ve seen. It doesn’t answer the question of why. While the rest of you have been working, I’ve spent much of my time reaching out to these aetheric apparitions that continue to attack us, attempting to communicate, to come to some understanding. But all that resides here is the rage of uncountable dead, their essence congealed into these monstrosities.”
A static of aetheric light rolled down Arthur’s arms. “The creatures manifesting here are resistant to the river’s pull. If they weren’t, they would be drawn downriver and never attack.”

“In the potential futures I saw, an aetheric apparition was able to shield our own aether from the river’s pull.”
Arthur feathered his fingers through his hair, his face falling. “Your aether was being pulled out of you when you tried to go through the portal…”
Sylvie nodded, and I saw full understanding cascade down Arthur’s features.

Bairon had been staring hard at the others’ faces as they spoke. The gears of his mind were clearly turning, struggling to keep up with a conversation in which only half of what was meant was said aloud. Then I saw as his understanding also clicked into place. He turned while the others were distracted, looking into the portal as if it were the jaws of death itself, the crystals teeth that would chew him up and spit out something else.
He began striding toward it.
“Bairon!” Varay snapped, grabbing his wrist.

He did not look at her, did not meet her eyes. His expression was hard, his jaw rigid, shoulders set. He’d made up his mind. “You’ve all done your part. It was quite neat and tidy, everyone needed, everyone playing a specific role. Fate, I think, is still toying with us. Clearly, this is mine.” When Varay didn’t release him, he pulled gently but firmly away from her. “I’m a soldier, Varay. A shield between those in my care and that which would do them harm.”
His arm pulled free. He held Varay’s gaze for a long moment, then scanned quickly across the rest of the faces.
Tessia covered her mouth with one hand, unshed tears gleaming in her eyes. Sylvie’s brow knit, but she made no move to interrupt. Claire, within the machination that protected her, nodded with firm understanding.

Arthur stepped forward and extended a hand. His lips parted slightly, but he didn’t speak. A thousand unsaid words remained trapped within the golden cage of his eyes.
Bairon cracked, giving Arthur a wry grin as they clasped hands. “Take care of Virion for me. The old man has seen enough hardship.” He stepped back. “For Sapin. For Dicathen.”
Then he was striding into the portal.

It quaked, pushing back against him. The crystals vibrated, filling the shoreline with a tinkling sound like breaking glass. Streams of aether were emanating out behind him like lightning frozen in the sky. Then his body broke the surface and suddenly surged forward, the portal carrying it away.
But Bairon Wykes, Lance of Sapin and Dicathen, remained behind. Or rather, everything that made him him did so.
Already, the river was pulling him away. An indistinct, ghostly form in Bairon’s shape stretched, the lightning-like wings behind him expanding out. Instinctively, the others moved to avoid contacting the aetheric apparition.

His features, drawn in pure aether, were slack, his eyes closed.
“Bairon!” Sylvie snapped.
The Bairon-apparition’s eyes flared wide, and they were white orbs in a glowing amethyst face. The lightning wings flared, expanding out behind him, reaching into the sky and slamming down into the sand as they wrapped forward to completely enclose the others.

With my senses spread throughout the space, I felt how the river’s attention—the focus of its force, the press of the mana—turned entirely toward what remained of Bairon. The last vestiges of his consciousness, held together by tension alone. In doing so, the draw reduced everywhere else.
Sylvie did not look back as she plunged into the portal. Varay followed her, though she stopped at the curtain’s edge, staring stoically into the storm that was her compatriot. Then, she too was through. Tessia squeezed Arthur’s hand, then led Claire and her large exoform into the portal. Regis stood by the portal, waiting for Arthur.
Arthur gazed into the storm that was Bairon Wykes. “Thank you, Thunderlord.” Then he, too, was gone, and Regis with him.

Bairon’s wings were pulled behind him, into the water. He stretched, losing his form, and the aether that made him up drained away into the river.
The portal began to collapse, the crystals falling into the sand, where they broke down and became just another part of the shoreline, just as Bairon had become a part of the river.
I was not alone. Turning, I found myself looking at a man-shaped being of pure light. Limbs, torso, and featureless head of entangled golden threads, the light of which seemed to distort and push back the black-purple of the aetheric realm. Thousands—tens of thousands—of threads expanded into the distance behind it.

I knew the feeling of this presence; I had felt it before. Not just when it spoke to me, saved me from the backlash of Agrona’s simulacrum being destroyed, but in my connection to the wider magic of this world.
When it spoke, the light emanating from its body rippled and pulsed. “You stayed your hand. Did not intervene, either to hinder or aid. You have aligned yourself in a place of balance between the two forces, Agrona Vritra and Arthur Leywin.”
“The likelihood of either proving victorious rests on a knife’s edge,” I answered, knowing it would understand my meaning.

“Can you separate the part of yourself that has given over to hate for Kezess Indrath?” it asked. “Can you maintain this dedication to your task? Or will you prove little more than the aetheric ghosts who lash out here?”
I considered my answer carefully. “I can’t calculate the outcome of the coming conflict, so I gain nothing by involving myself in it. It must unfold as it will…but you know this, because you are withholding this information from me.” I startled with a sudden realization. “Or you yourself have no sight or understanding beyond this moment. Is the confluence of these powers really so great that the entirety of the future hinges on it?”
Fate didn’t answer. It didn’t need to.

A single thread extended out from my chest to connect with the being. I reached out an intangible hand that was really just a manifestation of my consciousness and strummed the string with my index finger.
Light pulsed out in both directions, and I felt a spark of understanding.
“You’ve used me since the beginning, but always by connecting your own needs with my goal. The destruction of this world makes a successful outcome less likely for me, even if it guarantees your own fulfillment and releases the constrained aether. But the threat of this destruction makes Arthur’s success in his goals more likely. The sides are brought into balance, nearly perfect equilibrium.”

“There is no single path to be navigated down the river of time, only those made more or less difficult by individual choice,” the voice answered. “Your choices will be instrumental in the achievement of your goals.”
And then, the figure began to fade away. I stayed there for a while, in the gloom, the whisper of the river and the pull of a wider universe letting me forget, for a moment, what I had become, and what I needed to do.